Many of us are so excited to get out and start gardening in the spring and early summer that we tend to plant a lot of perennials and annuals that thrive during the cooler part of summer and then fade as July sets in. Here at Ashland Greenhouses we plant a summer crop of tough summer plants that bloom and thrive during our hot summer days.
For annuals you just can’t beat calibrachoa and verbena. They look great all summer long and well into the fall. Both prefer full sun, but the calibrachoa will also do well in part shade. If you’ve had something like bacopa or lobelia stop blooming, it’s usually due to “heat stall.” It isn’t anything you’ve done wrong, it’s just that the plant most likely prefers cooler temperatures and has dropped blooms when the day and night temperatures became too high. Calibrachoa and verbena are great replacements for plants suffering from heat stall. EnduraScape verbena is a fairly new variety of verbena that we’re growing this summer. It’s similar to the Homestead Purple verbena in that it is very hardy and considered a perennial.
Perennials for mid-late summer are typically overlooked when people are choosing plants in the spring. The perennials we grow for our summer season happen to be some of my favorites, primarily because they are the plants I notice in my own landscape that perform beautifully all summer long and require little to no maintenance: Russian Sage, Coreopsis, Erysimum, Salvia greggii, Agastache, Sedums, and Japanese Anemones.
We will be closed in celebration of Independence Day, July 4th, otherwise we are open for summer hours M-F 9-4, Sat-Sun 9-3.
Happy Gardening,
Kelly Brainard
