Refresh your garden with mid-season color
By early August, some annual flowers have lost their luster and you may also find a gap in perennials that are in bloom. Now is a prime time to refresh garden areas with perennial blooms that will have staying power to tolerate hot days still ahead and bring colorful flowers to your garden for the rest of the growing season.
Gardens are where plant science and art come together. Start by selecting plants that will grow in Colorado's harsh hot and cold climate and that need very little water. Then select the ones you will plant based on their aesthetic value--color, texture, size, shape.
Some plants have colorful blooms while others offer interesting texture or foliage. Because they grow to different heights, taller plants will be best as a backdrop to other plants while short ones should be placed along borders and mid-sized ones should be placed between the two extremes.
The plants listed below will all add blooms and late-season interest to flower and shrub beds. They are all low-water requiring plants and most are pollinator friendly.
- Dwarf butterfly bush and larger butterfly bushas the name suggests, attract butterflies. Use them to increase your garden's appeal for pollinators. The dwarf variety is well-suited for small areas.
- Penstemoncomes in many varieties and sizes. Its availability in colors ranging from from yellow and orange to blue, lavender, pink and white, make it a versatile plant choice.
- Althea (Rose of Sharon)is a medium to large sized shrub with large showy blossoms from July through September.
- Smoke bushoffers distinctive interest in the yard with flower stalks that by midsummer are covered with fuzzy purple or pink hairs that look like puffs of smoke.
- Red hot pokeror torch lily is well named for its red/orange/yellow flowering spikes which add dramatic vertical interest to bed areas.
Enjoy perennials for the variety they offer in phases throughout the growing season.