Top 10 Perennials to add to your full sun or part sun garden!
By Jennifer Floyd, Perennial Manager
- Allium – Ornamental onion: This rabbit-resistant plant has a late season bloom and interest after bloom with its long-lasting seed head. Available in several varieties and sizes such as ‘Medusa’ 24″, ‘Blue Eddy’ 12″, ‘Summer Beauty’ 2-3′ and ‘Peek a Boo’ 12″
- Agastache – Anise Hyssop: Also rabbit resistant, this easy to grow perennial is a pollinator magnet and will bloom from summer into September. Available with blue flowers in ‘Blue Boa’ and ‘Blue Fortune’, purple in ‘Purple Haze’, and bright pink ‘Tutti Frutti’.
- Gaura – With a long bloom time and colorful foliage, this is a great filler in gardens or in pots with its airy flowers that dance on slender stems. Some of our favorite varieties are ‘Whirling Butterflies’, ‘Belleza Dark Pink’ and ‘Sparkle White’
- Echinacea – This easy to grow perennial is drought tolerant and has a long bloom time from July through October if deadheaded. It will also thrive in part sun, not just full sun. They also have a wide range of heights from 18” to 3 feet. The classic purple coneflower ‘Magnus’ is a favorite as well as ‘Purple Emperor’ and ‘Butterfly Kisses’. The ‘Sombrero’ series has shown to be a very good grower this year and is available in several colors – Lemon Yellow, Salsa Red, Hot Coral and Baja Burgundy.
- Asclepias tuberosa – Butterfly Weed and Asclepias incarnate – Swamp Milkweed are both important hosts to the Monarch Butterfly. Butterfly weed does best in full sun and poor soil while Swamp Milkweed prefers wet soil and boggy areas with full sun. We have ‘Cinderella’ which is pink and ‘Milkmaid’ which is white and both are fragrant, growing to 2-4’. Butterfly weed is orange and grows to be 1-2’ tall, though we do have a variety ‘Hello Yellow’ which is yellow.
- Scabiosa – Pincushion Flower: This is also a long blooming (from late spring to late summer) perennial that is great in containers and its landing-pad shaped bloom is perfect for butterflies. It likes well-drained soil and prefers full sun. Some of the favorite varieties are ‘Butterfly Blue’ 12-18”, ‘Flutter Deep Blue’ 12-14” and ‘Flutter Rose Pink’ 12-14”.
- Euphorbia – ‘Ascot Rainbow’: Another deer and rabbit resistant plant it prefers poor soil and has colorful foliage for interest all season. Its lime green leaves with yellow edging turn pinky-peach in cooler weather. It will get up to 2’ tall and wide.
- Digitalis – Foxglove: This deer and rabbit resistant perennial prefers part shade and moist soil. It blooms in late spring and early summer but cutting back the bloom once it is passed may help it bloom again later. It also seeds itself easily and is great for the back of the garden, getting 3-4’ tall.
- Geranium – Great as a border plant, the perennial geranium has a long bloom time and great fall foliage color. A great variety we have is called ‘Miss Heidi’.
- Hemerocallis – Daylilies are easy to grow and take sun to part sun. They have a long summer bloom and there are also reblooming varieties such as my favorite ‘When My Sweetheart Returns’. Sizes can range from 18” to 36”.
When do you plant the various milk weed plants?
We plant them in March, but they usually aren’t ready until June as they need some good heat to get them growing.