Beginner Gardening: What flowers bloom all or most of the summer???, 1 by nathalyn

nathalyn wrote:
Jody,
All of these that I am suggesting are easily grown, not fussy about soil or water, and don't require a super long growing season.

For medium height for all summer blooms, I like Lady in Red Salvia and Victoria (blue) Salvia. These both will bloom until hard frost and don't require a lot of deadheading. Also the "dwarf" cosmos - "Sonata" (which is 36 inches for me) is a nice bloomer - - but does need to be deadheaded to prolong blooming. The taller snapdragons are also nice - - but need to be staked. I prefer the "Rocket" varieties.

Another good choice are dwarf sunflowers - - "Tebby Bear" and "Sunspot" are favorites of mine.

For low growers with a long bloom time, I like ageratum, tiftonia, dwarf zinnias (Dreamland series and Profusion series).

There are also lots of poppies that would do well in your zone with the cooler temps.

You may want to think about adding some other perennials that have a longer bloom season. My shasta daisies and daylilies bloom for over 2 months.

Here you can see ageratum peaking out from other plants, with my Shastas in front. The red is Lucifer crocosmia.

I recommend that you go to some of the major seed suppliers and sign up to receive their catalogs. Even when you don't buy, you get lots of good ideas. A couple that have great variety with pictures are Parkseed and Thompson & Morgan.

Nat



This message was edited Dec 10, 2004 2:42 PM