21 Best Low Maintenance Plants for Commercial Landscapes in Washington, DC, Virginia and Maryland

Ask a few knowledgeable plant lovers for their favorite low-maintenance plants and get ready for the floodgates to open.

There are so many amazing plants that don’t need much fuss, from shrubs that look great in your commercial property’s foundation plantings to easy-care perennials to anchor your planting beds.

Why should you care? 

There are lots of benefits to a low-maintenance commercial landscape: reduced water usage, less pruning, fewer fertilizers, and less time-consuming maintenance.

Level Green team members have some great suggestions for low-maintenance plants, so let’s get right to it.

 
Get ready to read more about Level Green team members’ favorite plants for a low-maintenance commercial landscape, including:

Low-maintenance Groundcovers

Low-maintenance Perennials

Low-maintenance Shrubs

Low-maintenance Trees 

First, Why Go Low Maintenance?

Landscaping for commercial properties has its challenges, from parking lot islands that get stepped on, blasted with car exhaust and piled with snow to properties that don’t have irrigation systems. 

Customers often have tight budgets, and appreciate plants that need less pruning, watering and fertilizing. 

Not all low-maintenance plants are native plants, but many are. Native plants are hardy and less susceptible to pests and diseases. Once they’re established, native plants typically need less water than non-natives.

Municipalities often require that landscaping for commercial properties incorporate native plant rain gardens in new developments to help with stormwater management. 

Much of the Level Green service area is in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which needs to be protected from runoff. 

A few Level Green team members share their favorite low-maintenance plants for commercial properties:

The Best Low-maintenance Groundcover

Liriope

Liriope is a favorite of Level Green co-founder and managing member Doug Delano. 

This pretty, grass-like plant is hardy, inexpensive, and stands up to foot traffic. 

“There are several different varieties and they’re good for filling in spaces,” Delano says. “They need to be cut back in the early spring and they’re fairly drought tolerant.”

Low-maintenance Perennials

Daylilies

You can’t go wrong with daylilies, Delano says. 

“There are a lot of ever-blooming varieties out there,” he says. “Most of these require little maintenance, other than cutting them back in the fall, and they usually have a good first flush of blooms in early summer and will bloom again until frost. And they’re fairly drought tolerant.”

Hellebores

Also called “Lenten rose,” these low-lying clumps of bold green foliage boast colorful rose-like blossoms. 

 “They take full shade and need little to no water in the summer,” Delano says. “They only need to be cut back in the winter before they bloom, and they provide a lot of color when few other plants are blooming.”

Red Switchgrass ‘Shenandoah’

This ornamental grass is a top low-maintenance plant pick for Level Green branch manager James Kole. 

Its upright foliage becomes red tinted during the growing season, culminating in a dazzling fall show. 

“This is a great native that’s drought tolerant once established,” Kole says. “It gets a nice reddish-purple seed head.”

Butterfly Milkweed

Another Kole favorite, this bushy low-maintenance perennial is prized for its large, flat-topped clusters of bright-orange flowers.

“It doesn’t bloom its first year but provides 4-6 weeks of color in the landscape and helps native pollinators,” Kole says, “including monarchs.” It’s a host plant of the monarch caterpillars. 

Mexican Feather Grass

Senior account manager Josh Burton loves this ornamental grass, with wispy, flowing, lime-green foliage, and wheat-colored seed heads that emerge in the spring. 

Drought tolerant once established, it combines beautifully with a wide variety of perennials and annuals, Burton says. He loves it with annual angelonia and perennial rudbeckia for a beautiful meadow vibe.

“Or plant it in large drifts,” he suggests, “to appreciate how it glows in the morning and evening light.”

Pennisetum ‘Dark Towers’ or ‘Onyx and Pearls’

Another Burton favorite for a low-maintenance commercial landscape, these dark ornamental grasses are disease resistant, very drought tolerant “and have foliage that hummingbirds and pollinators love,” he says. 

Low-maintenance Shrubs

Summersweet

A top pick from Delano, summersweet provides great four-season interest with its lustrous green leaves in the spring, spiky white or pink fragrant summer flowers, golden yellow autumn leaves, and delicate dried seed pods in winter.

Hydrangea Paniculata

Another Delano favorite for a low-maintenance commercial landscape, this showy hydrangea has large cone-shaped blooms of creamy white flowers that bloom during the summer and into fall and measure 6 to 8 inches long. The blooms change color as autumn nears from pink to brown. 

“There are some dwarf varieties which are very good at staying low,” Delano says. “They look great in a hedge and will only require pruning once a year to keep them in check.”

Winterberry

Winterberry holly is known for its dark green leaves and bright red berries that brighten the winter landscape.

 “A native plant, they add an accent in the fall and winter when color is at a premium in the garden,” Delano says. 

Japanese Spirea 

This dense, mounded, low-maintenance shrub has oval, sharply toothed leaves and clusters of tiny pink flowers that cover the foliage from late spring to mid-summer and attract butterflies.

“There are some good varieties that have a heavy flush of flowers in the spring and then continue to flower throughout the summer,” Delano says. Plan to cut it back in the winter. 

Yew

This sturdy multitasker for a low-maintenance commercial landscape is a great evergreen foundation plant, with its soft, flattened needles that look more like tiny leaves. 

Fun fact: yews have been around for more than 200 million years, actually existing with dinosaurs. 

“This is a great evergreen plant that can be used as a hedge,” Delano says. 

Once established, he says, yews can take drought and really only need to be pruned once a year to keep them in shape. 

Korean Spice Viburnum 

This great viburnum has scented spring flowers and nice fall berries, Delano says. 

It needs to be pruned just once a year to keep its shape, which makes it a great addition to a low-maintenance commercial landscape. 

Virginia Sweetspire

Kole loves this native shrub that’s adaptable to a wide range of growing conditions, including drought.

It produces arching white floral sprays from late spring to mid-summer. In autumn, the leaves turn red, orange, and gold. 

‘Gro Low’ Sumac

This low-maintenance shrub boasts glossy foliage and beautiful red fall color that’s striking in the landscape. A great plant for mass planting, it’s a Burton favorite for fall color for the low-maintenance commercial landscape. 

Dwarf Buddleia ‘Pugster Blue’

Commonly known as butterfly bush, this new dwarf variety is a Burton favorite. 

It offers full-sized flowers on a compact dwarf plant, blooming non-stop from early summer through frost with true-blue flowers.

In the past, dwarf buddleia didn’t survive winters well, he says, but this one boasts winter hardiness. He loves the blue, but notes it also comes in pink or white. 

Holly ‘Gem Box’

A great native alternative to boxwood, this new dwarf, broadleaf evergreen is a holly, but looks more like a boxwood. 

It’s great as a small evergreen hedge in a low-maintenance commercial landscape. 

Burton likes this variety because it’s not susceptible to the pests and diseases that often plague boxwood. It’s less expensive than boxwood, he says, and drought tolerant.

Low-maintenance Trees 

Serviceberry

Delano likes this native tree, also called shadbush or juneberry.

They offer impressive four-season interest, with beautiful white blossoms in the spring, fruits in the summer, colorful foliage in the fall, and attractive bark color in the winter. 

Eastern Redbud

The redbud’s delicate blossoms and buds are one of the season’s most dramatic displays.

“What a great tree,” Delano says. “This easy-care native has great early spring color, wonderful heart shaped leaves, and good fall color.”

Bald Cypress

Another Delano favorite for a low-maintenance commercial landscape, this native large evergreen tree is legendary in the Deep South, known for its moss-draped crown. 

It can grow 100-150 feet tall and three to six or more feet in diameter, living up to 600 years.

Red Maple 

Red maple is a Kole favorite for a low-maintenance commercial landscape. 

“It’s one of the first trees to bloom in the spring, is a moderate grower, and has good fall color,” he says. If you need a rain garden tree, he says, this is a good one. 

Ready for a Low-Maintenance Commercial Landscape? Trust Level Green

That’s a lot of low-maintenance plants. You want all of them, right? No room? No worries. 

We’ll help you plan your low-maintenance commercial landscape with the varieties perfect for your property. 

Level Green Landscaping provides commercial landscaping maintenance services in Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland, including low-maintenance landscaping that help you save money and help the environment. 

If you’re not already a Level Green Landscaping client, we’d love to add you to our growing list of happy customers. Our focus is on commercial properties like offices, mixed-use sites, HOAs, municipalities and institutions in Maryland, Washington DC and parts of Virginia.

Contact us at 202-544-0968. You can also request a free consultation online to meet with us one-on-one.

We’d love to hear from you.

Image sources: summersweet – by Sesamehoneytart [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], switchgrass, mexican feather grass – by David J. Stang [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], Virginia sweetspire, eastern redbud, winterberry holly,