Outdoor Plants

Australian outdoor conditions are famously unforgiving: 40 degree summers, surprise frosts, drying winds and rain that arrives all at once or not at all. Every plant in this collection is grown to live outside year round in those conditions, which makes this the page to browse when you want garden plants that survive on resilience rather than pampering.

The single biggest factor in outdoor success is matching the plant to your regional climate. Gardeners in Melbourne, Adelaide and the southern tablelands should prioritise frost tolerance, as one cold snap can undo a season of growth in tender species. Brisbane and coastal New South Wales gardeners face the opposite problem, where humidity encourages fungal disease in plants bred for dry Mediterranean conditions. Inland, water efficiency rules, and species with grey or narrow foliage generally cope best because those leaves lose less moisture. Wherever you garden, plant into soil improved with compost, water deeply twice a week for the first eight to twelve weeks, and then taper off so roots learn to forage. A plant hardened off this way in autumn will typically sail through its first summer, while the same plant coddled daily often collapses in the first heatwave.

• Check the frost rating for your area before ordering marginal species
• Group plants with similar water needs so irrigation suits everyone in the bed
• Mulch to 75mm every spring to buffer roots against heat and evaporation

Because this range spans every purpose from hedging to feature colour, the quickest route to a shortlist is the plant finder, which filters by climate and position. Gardeners within a few kilometres of the surf should head to plants for coastal areas for salt hardened options, while anyone growing on a balcony or terrace will do better in plants for balconies. Two brilliantly tough performers worth knowing are profiled in our callistemon care guide and viburnum care guide.