Clever Plant Swaps for Southern Gardens

If you’ve moved to the Lowcountry from a cooler climate, chances are there are a few plants from your former garden that you’d love to grow here. Lilacs, peonies, lavender, and blue spruce are longtime favorites in Northern landscapes, but Charleston’s hot summers, high humidity, and mild winters can make some of these plants challenging - or downright disappointing.

The good news is that you don’t have to give up the garden style you love. The trick is to think about what you loved most about a particular plant - its fragrance, flowers, foliage, color, or structure - and find an alternative that delivers a similar effect while being better suited to our Southern climate.

​Here are six clever plant swaps to consider for your Lowcountry landscape.

Instead of Lilac, Try Butterfly Bush

A NORTHERN CLASSIC

Beautiful, fragrant lilacs prefer colder winters than the Lowcountry can provide.

LOWCOUNTRY SWAP

Bring on the blooms - and the butterflies! Butterfly Bush delivers fragrant, colorful flower clusters all summer long.

Few plants evoke a Northern spring quite like lilacs. Their fragrant clusters of purple, pink, and white flowers are hard to forget, but traditional lilacs generally need more winter chill than the Charleston area can provide.

For a similar burst of fragrant, colorful blooms, Butterfly Bush is a great Southern alternative. Its long flower clusters bloom throughout the warmer months in shades of purple, pink, white, and more. The blooms perfume the landscape with sweet fragrance and attract butterflies and other pollinators, bringing plenty of activity to sunny garden beds and borders.

Butterfly Bush works beautifully in cottage-style gardens, pollinator plantings, and mixed borders where its loose, flowering habit can shine.

WHY IT WORKS: Butterfly Bush captures the colorful, fragrant flower clusters and romantic garden feel people love about lilacs while offering a long bloom season and excellent pollinator appeal in Southern landscapes.

Instead of Peonies, Try Camellias

A NORTHERN CLASSIC

Those lush, romantic blooms are happiest where winters are considerably colder.

LOWCOUNTRY SWAP

Big, beautiful blooms with Southern staying power - plus handsome evergreen foliage year-round.

Those enormous, ruffled peony blooms are a garden classic, but peonies generally perform best where winters provide a significant period of cold dormancy.

For Southern gardeners looking for that same sense of romance, Camellias are a natural choice. Many varieties produce large, beautifully layered flowers in shades of white, blush, pink, red, and variegated combinations. Depending on the type and variety, camellias can provide flowers from fall through early spring - a time when relatively few other shrubs are blooming.

Their glossy evergreen foliage also means they continue adding structure to the landscape long after the flowers have faded. Use them as specimens, foundation shrubs, screens, or as part of a layered woodland garden.

WHY IT WORKS: Camellias bring the large, elegant, multi-petaled flowers people love about peonies while adding evergreen structure and thriving in Southern gardens.

Instead of English Lavender, Try Salvia

A NORTHERN CLASSIC

English Lavender prefers cooler, less humid growing conditions.

LOWCOUNTRY SWAP

Colorful flower spikes, loads of pollinator appeal, and a much better match for Southern summers.

It’s easy to understand the appeal of English lavender: silvery foliage, purple flower spikes, fragrance, and a steady stream of visiting bees. Unfortunately, our combination of heat, humidity, and summer rainfall can make traditional English lavender difficult to keep happy.

Salvia offers many of the same visual qualities with selections that are much more comfortable in Southern growing conditions. Upright flower spikes bring color and movement to sunny beds, while nectar-rich blooms attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.

Salvias work especially well in cottage-style gardens, pollinator plantings, mixed perennial beds, and sunny borders. Pair them with ornamental grasses and other flowering perennials for a loose, natural look reminiscent of a lavender-filled garden.

WHY IT WORKS: Salvia provides colorful flower spikes, an airy cottage-garden feel, and outstanding pollinator value with better tolerance for Southern heat and humidity.

Instead of Blue Spruce, Try Carolina Sapphire Arizona Cypress

A NORTHERN CLASSIC

Its signature blue foliage shines in cooler climates but struggles with Lowcountry heat and humidity.

LOWCOUNTRY SWAP

Get that striking blue-green color and evergreen structure in a conifer made for Southern landscapes.

Blue spruce makes a dramatic statement in Northern landscapes with its cool blue foliage and distinctive evergreen form. Unfortunately, the hot, humid conditions of the Lowcountry are very different from the cool climates where blue spruce is most at home.

For a similar splash of blue-green evergreen color, consider Carolina Sapphire Arizona Cypress. Its soft, silvery blue-green foliage stands out beautifully against darker green shrubs and trees, while its upright form can provide height and year-round structure.

Carolina Sapphire can work as a specimen, backdrop, screen, or vertical accent. Just be sure to give it enough room to develop into its mature form rather than trying to maintain it as a small foundation shrub.

WHY IT WORKS: Carolina Sapphire provides the cool blue-green color and strong evergreen presence that makes blue spruce so appealing, in a conifer much better suited to Southern landscapes.

Instead of Rhodendron, Try Southern Indica Azaleas

A NORTHERN CLASSIC

Rhododendrons put on an incredible show where cooler growing conditions suit them best.

LOWCOUNTRY SWAP

Big, bold, and covered in color - Southern Indica Azaleas know how to do spring in the South.

Gardeners coming from cooler climates often ask about rhododendrons - and it’s easy to see why. A mature rhododendron covered in large clusters of spring flowers can be spectacular.

In the Lowcountry, Southern Indica Azaleas can create that same kind of spring impact. These classic Southern shrubs are known for vigorous growth and masses of colorful flowers. Mature plants can develop into substantial shrubs, making them especially useful where you want more presence than a small azalea can provide.

Use them beneath high tree canopies, along woodland edges, around foundations, or massed together for an unforgettable spring display.

WHY IT WORKS: Southern Indica Azaleas provide the large-scale shrub presence and masses of spring color that make rhododendrons such a favorite, with a long history of use in Southern gardens.

Instead of English Boxwood, Try Dwarf Yaupon Holly

LOWCOUNTRY SWAP

English Boxwood creates beautiful formal structure but can find our hot, humid climate challenging.

A NORTHERN CLASSIC

Small leaves, dense evergreen growth, and plenty of versatility for hedges, borders, and formal designs.

English boxwood is synonymous with formal gardens. Its small evergreen leaves and dense growth make it ideal for clipped hedges, borders, and geometric shapes. But Charleston’s heat and humidity can make English boxwood more challenging than it is in cooler climates.

For a Southern take on that classic look, consider Dwarf Yaupon Holly. Its small evergreen leaves and naturally dense growth make it an excellent choice for low hedges, foundation plantings, borders, and mass plantings. It responds well to pruning when a more formal appearance is desired but can also be allowed to maintain a softer, more natural shape.

As an added bonus, yaupon holly is native to the Southeast, making it an especially fitting choice for Lowcountry landscapes.

WHY IT WORKS: Dwarf Yaupon Holly delivers the compact evergreen structure and clipped, formal appearance associated with English boxwood while being well adapted to Southern growing conditions.

Our Advice? Don't Fight Your Climate - Work With It

A beautiful Southern garden doesn’t have to look completely different from the garden you loved up North. Instead of trying to force a favorite plant to grow where it isn’t naturally comfortable, identify what made you love that plant in the first place.

Was it the fragrance? The flower shape? The blue foliage? The formal evergreen structure?

Once you know what you’re trying to recreate, there’s often a plant better suited to the Lowcountry that can accomplish the same design goal - and frequently give you better performance with less frustration.

Not sure what to substitute for an old favorite?
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​Visit Brownswood Nursery and talk with one of our knowledgeable team members. Tell us what you loved about the plant, where you’d like to use it, and the conditions in your yard. We can help you find a Southern-friendly alternative that gives you the look you love while feeling right at home in the Lowcountry.