What are your five top performers this season?

This has been a strange season again weather wise around the area. Early hot temps, days of rain, cold temps late and droughts. Huge rain and wind storms with hail. So with all this adversity what plants have done well, new or old, annual or perennial, or flowering shrub, through everything that nature has thrown at them?
Here is my list of stand tall, bloom a lot and for a good length of time, resist disease and look good no matter what:
Balloon Flower
Roses 'Black Cherry' and 'Honey Perfume'
helenium 'Mardi Gras'
stokesia 'Peachy's Pick'
shasta daisy 'Becky'

All my coleus are doing great
Very impressed with viola Chantreyland(pic)
Caladiums(first year with them)
All my hostas are doing great even without much rain
Rudbeckia in my wildflower garden, only thing going on in there

'Rocky's Eye' always is my best DL performer. It has 32 blooms on Tuesday, 38 on Wed. and 37 on thursday. have had company so haven't been counting but did take this picture.......

I think I would have to cheat as we have a couple daylilies lined out--so if one stops blooming the others still are in bloom. 'Daylily 'Pumpkin Time' is in bloom,a single plant. Then you can't beat lily of the valley for performance. 2 intermediate plicata irises: 'Carriwitched' & 'Prince of Burgundy'. Goldenrod is coming: we have plants all over, will have to pull some.

Jen,I have that viola too but it is in full sun and resting right now because I let it go to seed, it is a nice one I think. I think Lovely DL pixie, so many blooms. Yours sounds nice too I-Ma. Did you get it locally? Can't bring myself to think of goldenrod as a garden plant, too many weedy ones about I guess.

African violets...always! ;-0

And....Sinningia. Capt Kirk made a mess of his gardens--cuts EVERYTHING to the ground after blooming, has no regard for plant culture/needs, and refuses to water anything in any weather. I fear the trees he had planted this spring will not be strong enough to make it through the winter. He never seeks information, and rejects any info offered, even that by professional growers. So my hopes to garden this year are gone. I've given him plants and seeds(many donated by Pixie), along with suggestions of where they might do well---he then does his own thing and nothing has survived. The seeds I planted, with his permission, he dug up within a week. How did I get off on this? Here's my sinningia--people grow these in their gardens in the tropical climes.






Mini Sinningia Flair

Wow...I really love that one! Sounds like fun, living with Capt. Kirk! Let's see...my top 5 performers would be the noid iris in the photo, the Conca d'Or lilies that made it through the beetle invasion....even my 95 yr old Mom commented on them today!.....DL that I thought was Egyptian Ibis, but isn't, clem Killian Donahue, and rose Carefree Celebration...always in bloom.

Mini roses, foxgloves, violets, hosta redbeckia, phlox (til the groundhog got'em), cat mint, bee balm, cone flowers, azelas and rhodies, peonies astrantia. Toad lilies and Joe Pye are just coming into season as is my clethra.

ngam Got the DL from the hybridizer some years ago. He introduced-es? through Tranquil Lake but it is old enough so I don't if they still have it. Our daughter uin Ohio also grows it (Jumper-2),

GR has to be a garden plant here as there are several forms. It was here as were the ferns which do well. Didn't mention them as they would have been #6. Nice iris robin.

Thanks....easy-sneezy to grow in that spot!

I thought it might be from Tranquil Lake. I have a few DLs from there. Used to go to the open house every year around this time. It is a dangerous place to go in the middle of DL season isn't it. Nice people.

Robin--golden rod doesn't cause sneezy. It is the ragweed which blooms at the same time. GR doesn't have wind distributed pollen. The dad of one of daughter's friends was allergic to it--he got a rash from the leaves, not pollen up the nose.

LOL....I wasn't talking about the goldenrod, Iris....I was talking about the iris I planted that did so well....I've been reading Laura Levine books....she was a sitcom writer for shows like Bob Newhart, & her latest phrase is "easy-sneezy".

oops!

"Easy Sneezy"....lol, Robin!

Neat thread, Pat! I just found it and enjoyed reading everyone's answers. I'd have to say my Egyptian Spice DL (bloomed again today - I think it could go on forever!), my Wild Mustang DL (tons of blooms), my Bright Eyes and David phlox; the scarlet monarda from Celeste and the Alaska shastas from Harper - all of these were long lasting and prolific. My new heucheras also did really well also.

Agastaches Apache Sunset,Apricot Sprite,Lilies Species Regale and Red Dutch,Ligularias Desdemona

has not been a good year here at all - guess it would have to be the lupins and foxglove from this spring.

We know of your past triumpths.It will be great again.

I have found the agastache to be very nice with the very dry summer this year. My 'Heat Wave' is not full and wide but it is five feet tall and has been blooming now for quite a long time. Also 'Black Adder' which the hummers can't get enough of this year. You are not alone Bill. My garden is surviving but not nice lush full plants like other years. You can only water so much by hand. Hoping for a fall revival. It is a good test to find the tough plants that will come through anything though.

I will check the agastaches out.I want more.

Hello from NE Maine!
I'm a vintage gardener, and love it all still.... Every slug war...drought, wind, FOG, fungus, saltwater air from the sea...
Top FIVE
1. Gorgeous dayliles from Beverly Hendricks (beverly@deerwoodgarden.com) They were grown in this enviroment, and they are all beautiful. I fought alot of slugs for them and they were worth it!

2. Schreiner's Iris these fellows in their 3rd year are BIG fellas! (fought with the slugs over them, but I sorta won)

3. Moonglow nasturtiums. Wow! Burpee seed. very vigorous in my window boxes. Humming birds love them so much.

4. Delphiniums-- the pacific giants 6 ft tall now . stayed in bloom for 2+ months, before they were eaten up by the slugs. I cut them back after they all bloom, because it becomes hand to hand combat with the slugs at that point.

5. Pink and Purple Victoria salvia. Sweet scent drew every bee from the area, so i couldn't save them all from the slugs, because the bees wouldn't let me in.....some of it is left still.

You need to get some slug bait out!!!

Ho ho ho...Thank you flowerjen! But ...now if you were a slug....living below the crowns of the sweetest flowers you ever munched on, why would you crawl a single inch to eat that slug bait. Oh, but those tender flowers are waiting for a feast tonight! You know, the atlantic ocean, and sandy rock beach helps grow the 5 different varieties of slugs in my garden to extraordinary number and size. (not to be confused with the small garden variety!) There's not a product, or action over 60 years that changes those slugs! ha ha ha... I might cut them down some. ... literally....with scissors..

Sharp rocks?or have you tried the copper strips? http://www.gardeners.com/Copper-Slug-Tape/SnailsSlugsGrubs_Cat,38-994,default,cp.html

Your flowers sound lovely, slugs & all!

Nice to hear from another Mainer (slugs and all). Is downeast as dry as the Augusta area.

Hello Frank
Nice to meet all of you.
I have watched the rain pass right over me too many times lately. Heavy fog most mornings (to the point I can not see 10 feet in front of me) in August?! I almost thought it was May. The sea has been rough, so the salt spray has been rough on the gardens as well. Wish I hadn't run out of Wilt Pruf. I'd be happy to relate my slug experiments in a different topic thread. I don't want to hold this one up.

Have at it. I am interested in "slugging slugs"

Joe Pye Weed's garden (siberian breeders) recommends (Sluggo)

I use a solution to spray the ones I see.
Earlier this spring someone posted a method of pouring the solution on emerging hostas.I did it and was pretty pleased with thr result.
I pour it on the ones I find on my early morning slug run.
1 part houshold amonia to 10 parts water.
Slugs melt.

We had a couple hosta which did very well this yr. Long bloom on hosta sanguinea which has medium sized leaves & an unknown large leaf one which I brought with us when we moved here over 30 years ago.

Top 5 for me
,not necessarily in fave order.
#1 Agastache Apricot Sprite
#2 Agastache Apache Sunset
#3 Coreopsis Sienna Sunset
#4 Salvia Coradonna
#5 Ligularia Desdemona

Oh I hate those slimy slugs. The no rain last half of the summer has made them retreat to the woods again. Last years continuous rain brought an enormous infestation to my garden. I smushed hundreds and hundreds of them all last season. The ones that remained this spring seemed to like the clems best but mostly left the hosta alone here thankfully. Had to cut back two of the clems because of the slug damage. Also have two sedum that are half as large as the others because of the slimers. Good info JoAnn on the ammonia solution. I am thankful that they are not an every year, all the time battle. Kudos to you for fighting the good fight.

JoAnn you posted while I was typing. I like your selection. Have you had either of those agastache come through the winter or are they both new? Have the salvia and coreopsis and like them both very much too.

Agastaches did winter. This was 2nd year for both. Apricot Sprite is shorter.
Apache Sunset is with Liliesand Cones .All like well drained soil.

Looks very nice JoAnn and good to hear they have a shot to come back.

i agree those are nice joann

The cloudy aspect of the thread leaves and small flowers makes a nice companion for any plant with dramatic characteristics.

And the hummers love them! I know they are in your area, JoAnn, because they were in Laurie's yard, & she has only a few pots of flowers on her deck.