Echinacea are also known as ‘cone flowers’. They grow well in the home garden, when provided with the right conditions. Echinacea are great in any garden bed. You get to enjoy the gorgeous flowers, as well as the colorful wildlife they attract.
Asclepias is also known as ‘Milk Weed’. It is the main food source for the beloved monarch butterfly caterpillar. This tough perennial helps out monarchs, and the flowers are a great nectar source for many other pollinators. Milk weed is great for any butterfly garden and other areas that need to attract pollinators.
Used often as a groundcover or an edging plant, liriope is popular for good reason. It stays green year-round in many climates, produces pretty blue or white flowers, and is about as tough a plant as you’ll hope to meet. Its dense tufts of almost-evergreen, broadly grassy leaves are often striped. Stiff stems bear tight
The dianthus plant is the quintessential cottage flower. Dianthus is treasured for its grasslike, blue-green foliage and abundant starry flowers, which are often spicily fragrant. Dianthus plants range from tiny creeping groundcovers to 30-inch-tall cut flowers, which are a favorite with florists. Plants are often pink in color, and the petals have a fringed look
Clematis is one of the showiest vines you can grow. With many types of shapes and colors, these plants dress up any kind of structure they climb. Bloom time ranges from late spring to fall, depending on the type and variety. With proper planning, it’s possible to have clematis blooms throughout the growing season. You
A garden favorite for their brightly-colored flowers, marigolds are also easy to grow and care for. These heat-loving annuals last the entire growing season, blooming away until frost. Along with their ornamental attributes, marigolds are also edible and can be used to make a natural dye.
Neither a calla nor a lily, the calla lily—which grows 24 to 36 inches tall—is part of the Jack-in-the-pulpit family. Its trumpet-shape flowers and arrowhead-shape leaves rise directly from rhizomes—no stems needed. This plant helps stretch out the color show in your backyard. When early summer perennials begin to fade, these plants stand ready to
Daylilies are some of the easiest perennials to grow, filling almost any space in the garden with a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. The flowers last only one day for most plants (hence the name), you may want to grow lots of different varieties for a long-term display of color. Or look for reblooming
Lobularia is a wonderful cool-season annual that has been a long-time favorite because of its dainty blossoms on tidy mounds of foliage. These plants make excellent landscape edging plants in the garden and even in containers. Plant them in masses to create an abundance of its light honey fragrance. Lobularia also will draw all sorts
Irises are low-maintenance and easy to grow. Their flowers come almost every color and bloom times vary depending on the species. Some irises bloom in spring or summer, while others bloom in spring and again in fall.