Flowers for Constant Color All Season

Expert Advice for Constant Color

If you live in the South, favorite (and easy to maintain) perennials include:

• Lantana,
• Mexican petunia (Ruellia brittoniana), and
• Salvias, such as Salvia carnea.

Felder Rushing, a garden writer and lecturer who lives in Mississippi, calls these plants “absolutely unkillable” and shares that “they all happen to be fantastic butterfly and hummingbird plants.” He suggests planting alongside small-flower shrubs for continuous color.

Image: Lantana

Gardeners of the Northeast should consider:

• A new variety of Peruvian lily (Alstroemeria) called ‘Sweet Laura’ that is hardy enough to make it through cold spells and blooms nonstop from mid- to late June until frost.
• Mixing long-blooming perennials such as ‘Sweet Laura’ with a few nontraditional annuals such as salvia or agastache.

Image: Agastache

For those who live in the Midwest, Ed Lyon, director of Allen Centennial Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin, suggests planting:

• Yellow corydalis (Corydalis lutea). He says that it “blooms from spring until the snow crushes it, tolerates our dry shade, has lovely foliage, and brightens up dark areas.”
• Lesser calamint (Calamintha nepeta ssp. nepeta) and hardy varieties of lavender.

Image: Yellow Corydalis

Finally, our friends in the West can liven up their gardens with:

• Texas sage (Salvia greggii).
• ‘The Third Harmonic’ Peruvian lily and
• Little Miss series of dwarf Peruvian lilies.
• To draw beautiful butterflies into your yard, include the bright flowers of Mexican butterfly weed (Asclepias curassavica).

Credit: Mexican Butterfly Weed

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