The 10 Best Plants For A Rain Garden

Do you have an area in your yard where water pools after a storm? Or do you want to create a garden that attracts pollinators and helps keep pollutants out of local streams? You may want to create a rain garden. “Rain gardens are a working landscape feature that provide benefits to both you and your neighbors,” says Eve Brantley, PhD, extension specialist and professor, director of Auburn University Water Resources Center. “It’s a speed bump that slows water down and allows it to soak into plants, instead of running off into our streams.”

What Is a Rain Garden?

Typically, after a rain event, water runs into storm drains which empty directly into nearby waterways.  Rain gardens can improve water quality because they filter this runoff.  “A rain garden allows soil microbes to clean the water of any pollutants, such as excess fertilizer or pesticides or oil and gas spills in the driveway, before it drains into streams and rivers,” says Brantley.  

How To Design a Rain Garden

When designing a rain garden, you need to site it correctly and ensure the area will drain properly, says Brantley. Look for low areas in your yard, and make sure these areas infiltrate, or drain, at a rate of 1” per hour. That means after a hard rain, standing water should not remain in an area for more than 48 hours. This prevents mosquito larvae (which need a few days of standing water) from developing in your rain garden.

Building a rain garden does require a few steps to ensure it functions well, so you may find it helpful to attend a local workshop to learn more about the finer points, says Brantley. Check with your local university Extension service (find yours here) for upcoming events.

Tips for Choosing the Best Plants for a Rain Garden

When choosing plants for your rain garden, you can include a variety of perennials, trees, and shrubs. Native plants are preferred because they’re great for attracting pollinators and are tough and adapted to extremes, including too much water or drought conditions, says Brantley. 

The Best Plants for a Rain Garden

Ahead, our list of the toughest rain garden plants for helping manage stormwater runoff and keeping local streams and rivers cleaner:

Virginia Sweetspire

• Botanical Name: Itea virginica
• Sun Exposure: Sun or part shade
• Soil Type: Any, especially acidic

This semi-evergreen shrub grows along stream banks, so it’s ideal for a rain garden. It can grow up to 8 feet tall and has arching branches and showy white flowers in early summer. Bees love it!

Mist Flower

• Botanical Name: Conoclinium coelestinum
• Sun Exposure: Sun to part shade
• Soil Type: Any

Mist flower, also called wild ageratum, grows 3 feet high and has short-stemmed clusters of bright blue flowers. Bees and butterflies like this perennial, and it can spread rapidly as a groundcover.

Coneflower

• Botanical Name: Echinacea purpurea
• Sun Exposure: Sun to part shade
• Soil Type: Any soil type

Coneflower has long-lasting purple-lavender flowers with domed centers. This perennial, which grows up to 4 feet tall, is easy to grow, and it attracts butterflies and hummingbirds.

Stoke’s Aster

• Botanical Name: Stokesia laevis
• Sun Exposure: Sun to part shade
• Soil Type: Well-drained sandy soil

Stoke’s aster reaches 2 feet tall and has bluish-purple, white, or pink flowers from spring to fall. Deadhead when the blooms fade to keep the flowers coming all summer long.

Muhly Grass

• Botanical Name: Muhlenbergia capillaris
• Sun Exposure: Sun to part shade
• Soil Type: Sandy or sandy-loam

The pink plumes of muhly grass add splashes of gorgeous late season color to the garden. It grows up to 4 feet tall and looks best when planted in masses. It’s also long-lived and has few pests. 

Winterberry

• Botanical Name: Ilex verticillata
• Sun Exposure: Sun or part shade
• Soil Type: Any, especially acidic

This slow-growing shrub or small tree has pretty red berries in the fall, which offers winter interest to your garden. It’s a food source for butterflies and other pollinators, mammals, birds, and bees. Make sure you have a male and female plant (ask your nursery or read the descriptions carefully if buying online) for cross-pollination so berries will be produced.

Summersweet

• Botanical Name: Clethra alnifolia
• Sun Exposure: Part shade
• Soil Type: Any, especially sandy

This shrub reaches 2 to 3 feet tall and loves moist soil. Summersweet tolerates sun but prefers part shade. The sweetly-fragrant white flowers attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.

Cardinal Flower

• Botanical Name: Lobelia cardinalis
• Sun Exposure: Sun to part shade
• Soil Type: Any

The beautiful bright red flowers of this handsome perennial are hummingbird and butterfly magnets when it blooms in late summer. Cardinal flower can reach up to 4 feet tall and blooms more profusely if the soil is consistently moist and it receives afternoon shade in hot climates.

Inkberry

• Botanical Name: Ilex glabra
• Sun Exposure: Sun to part shade
• Soil Type: Any, especially acidic

This rounded evergreen shrub is part of the holly family. Inkberry grows 5 to 10 feet tall and suckers to form colonies. Its tiny white springtime flowers, which attract bees and butterflies, become pretty black berries. Both male and female plants are necessary for the shrub to produce berries.

Buttonbush

• Botanical Name: Cephalanthus occidentalis
• Sun Exposure: Full sun to part shade
• Soil Type: Any

This deciduous shrub has the most adorable flowers that appear in clusters in a round, pincushion-like shape in summer. Many types of pollinators and birds love this plant. Buttonbush reaches heights of about 12 feet tall and spreads about 8 feet wide.