Colour Perennials

While Greens and Violets are my favourites, colour in your garden is stimulating and calming. Annuals are great for bare spots, by perennials will reward you year after year.

Once established, these thrive with just a little water and still provide you with colour. Each grouping is listed by height to help you place them in your border.

Pink and pink-purple:
1. Arabis caucasica (rose rockcress) - groundcover that blooms late April until early June.
2. Liatris spicata (gayfeather) - two-foot spikes that begin blooming mid-August.
3. Achillea millefolium ‘Cerise Queen’ (yarrow) - two feet tall with bloom clusters that begin late July and keep going. Deadhead or it will be the only plant you have!
4. Echinacea purpurea (coneflower) - rosy blooms begin early August on thirty-inch plants. Spiky seed heads look delightful all winter.
5. Monarda didyma ‘Marshall’s Delight’ or ‘Prairie Night’ (bee balm)- three feet tall with mop-head blooms beginning mid-June. The leaves are nicely scented and the flowers attract butterflies and bees.

Yellow and salmon:
1. Papaver nudicaule (Iceland poppy) - twelve to fifteen inches tall, it starts blooming in April and can still be in bloom in August - wow! Comes in mixed colours of salmon, yellow, and orange. It is short-lived, so let it reseed.
2. Hemorocallis ‘Stella de Oro’ (daylily) - a dwarf yellow reblooming daylily, ten to fifteen inches tall. Blooms begin at the start of summer.
3. Coreopsis verticillata (threadleaf tickseed) - approximately eighteen inches tall, it appears in late spring. Blooms begin mid-July.
4. Gaillardia aristata ‘Goblin’ (blanket flower)- gold-edged, burnt-red blooms in July and August to eighteen inches.
5. Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’ (black-eyed Susan) - at thirty inches, it has yellow daisy-like flowers during August and September.
6. Achillea millefolium ‘Paprika’ or ‘Salmon’ (yarrow) - two-feet tall with flat-topped bloom clusters that start late July. Deadhead!
7. Lonicera x brownii ‘Dropmore Scarlet Trumpet’ (honeysuckle vine) - a vine with orange flowers that begin blooming in early summer.

Blue and purple flowers:
1. Campanula cochlearifolia (creeping bellflower) - a groundcover with foliage hidden by tiny blue bells in June and July. Nice between rocks.
2. Thymus spp. (thyme) - ground cover that comes with purple or pink flowers.
Veronica pectinata (comb speedwell) - forms a lovely, soft grey mat with clear blue, white-centred flowers beginning in May.
3. Linum perenne (blue flax) - delicate blue flowers in June and July top eighteen-inch ferny stems. Salvia x superba (blue sage) - a twelve to eighteen- inch tall plant with deep purple flowers that begin in late June and keep on going.
4. Eryngium planum (sea holly) - metallic steel-blue flowers resembling a head of pins atop 3-foot sturdy stems in the same tones. Deep tap root; do not move. Begins providing interest mid-July.

Silver-leaved plants (tone down a hot border and give eyes a resting spot) – blends well with pinks and purples.
1. Antennaria rosea (pussy toes)- groundcover. Great between stepping stones.
2. Artemisia stelleriana ‘Silver Brocade’ (perennial dusty miller) - a tough groundcover like a luxuriant silver carpet that can overwinter in containers.
3. Festuca ovina glauca (blue fescue) - a blue-grey ornamental grass that does not spread. Contrasting beige seed heads are attractive.
4. Artemisia schmidtiana ‘Silver Mound’ compact, yet airy twelve-inch mound of delicate, lacy leaves.