Let's face it, by August a lot of your annuals have gotten all leggy and are practically walking out of the garden themselves. If they are still alive.
Your perennials aren't fairing much better. Beautiful peonies are just a distant memory, your irises are long gone and even the daylilies are getting strappy and brown.
Your garden can be fairly colorless in the last days of summer, while you're waiting for fall mums to bloom.
Right about now it's nice to have a few tried and true standbys that can take the heat and are still colorful in late summer. Some even go well into fall.
Here's my list of favorite late summer beauties . . .
5 Favorite Late Summer Flowers
Coneflower
A Purple Coneflower was one of the first perennials I ever planted. I love them and they love me. Nothing as pretty as a bright pink coneflower to smack you upside the head and say "Happy freakin' summer, Girl"!
Tickseed
I normally buy the solid yellow varieties, but this one is a keeper. Unfortunately the tag on the plant is extremely vague (just says "Tickseed", thank you), but I believe it is the Lightning Bug variety. Regardless of its true name, I think the dark orange middles of this tickseed make it a good plant to slide right into the fall landscape with.
Yarrow
Yarrow is beautiful, but can become invasive, so be very careful to keep an eye on it! Remember . . pretty, but keep it on a short leash!
Black-eyed Susan
I love me some Black-eyed Susan. They tend to go a little wild in my garden and next thing I know I have 42 plants. That may be good if you're just starting out with them or bad if you don't have a lot of room allotted for them. Since I'm in the latter category, I've been deadheading them to keep the plants more manageable (they self seed and the seeds are in the heads, so if you deadhead them they don't produce as many baby plants).
Not sure what this has to do with the Grateful Dead, because I don't believe they lopped off people's heads . . .
Stonecrop
OK, nobody make fun of my photo of my stonecrop. It's not in full flower mode right now, but soon it will start to look like little balls of green broccoli are growing on it. And then they turn the prettiest shade of pink and then go into a copper color later in the fall.
It's a whole process that hasn't quite started yet, but it is one of my favorite plants this time of year so I wanted to include it! My list, my rules.
BTW, when I was editing the photo above I noticed that a) there's a spider on the plant and b) he's sitting on poison ivy.
Now either he's going to have a nasty rash on his butt tonight or they're not affected by the poison ivy. I just needed a snake to slither around my leg and I'd be all set! The trifecta of things I avoid in the summer.
Edited to add: Here's what is will look like in a few weeks!
What are some of you favorite late summer flowers? Late summer spiders?
If you liked this, you may also like:
How To Grow Peonies Your Neighbors Will Envy
Kathy
Are any of these deer resistant? We have so many deer, rabbits and chipmunks. It seems that they eat almost everything I plant.
Karen Morden
In Ontario Canada I also have phlox (David is whit and many pink varieties) and obedient plant this time of year.
Lea
What region is this for? I love me some pretty flowers
Tess
Thanks Pam for the great reminder of some awesome colors to add to the garden. My garden is really suffering this hot, dry summer. All my wave petunias are very leggy with few blooms. Even after deadheading they just aren't dealing with the heat very well. Do you start the plants you highlighted from seed and if so when do you sow them? Are these plants ok to plant this late in the summer?
Pam
I buy them as plants, I have terrible luck with starting plants as seeds. They make it through the seed stage, but can't handle the dog laying on them in the flower bed stage 🙂 You should be able to find these all at your local garden center this time of year and I have seen them all at both Lowes and Home Depot right now. You can go ahead and plant them, just make sure to keep them watered well for the first few weeks until they get established. As a matter of fact, I just bought another coneflower yesterday and am putting it in the ground this morning.
Sondra @ Sondra Lyn at Home
Such pretty late-summer blooms! And I think your spider might be a granddaddy long legs!! Never stopped to think about whether insects are affected by poison ivy... but I avoid them both too!
Thanks for sharing these heat-hardy plants!
Fonda Rush
We brought many plants to NC from Ohio over 10 years ago. I wish I brought my whole collection of (5 or 6) Coreopsis. I had tick seed (tiny thin but plentiful leaves), mouse ear (small plant that sends out tall flowers), and a couple of others. Here in NC, we have seen them grow wild along the side of the road...not that we have stopped our car to get any or anything... {whistling while looking toward the sky}. I'm not especially fond of the ones with the red center, so I collected the all-yellow ones. I'll continue to build my collection here if I can. We also brought our purple cone flowers. Ours have been fully opened for some time, and they are doing quite well. We just purchased some Rudbeckia, so hopefully it will show its blooms for awhile. Thank you for showing off your flowers! I love the Yarrow!
Naomi S.
I don't have a lot of perennials yet, Pam so I enjoyed your post. I'm always wanting to learn about more of them so I can increase their number in my flower beds. Thanks for sharing you knowledge and their beauty.
chris aka monkey
pam never hold back on a lovely post like this we do need some beauty in this nasty world xx
Kathy Grey
Thank you. I needed some color and beauty in my world today.
Florence
The "tickseed" looks just like what I call Gallardia. I have and love all the others you have. I might add Four O'clocks. Do you have them where you are? They are pretty, but another one that gets invasive. My yarrow is all white. Would love to have some pink ones, but they are all finished blooming around here.
I love the pink coneflowers and black-eyed susans though!
Carol
Thanks for the lovely photos. We need all the beauty we can get after all of the ugliness our country is going through now.
Linda @ Itsy Bits And Pieces
Beautiful, Pam! My beds are slowing down right now, but hopefully more will take off soon. I lost a lot of coneflowers over the winter this year, but still have a few at the lake. My Chineses lanterns went crazy this year, so I'll pull most of them this fall...they can be very invasive, too...
taryterre
i'm a BLACK-EYED SUSAN girl. LOVE them.
Lottie
Pam, your flowers look beautiful! Most of mine are dying due to 99+ temps these last two week and no rain in SC. My red geraniums in pots are really looking great right now! I walk out the back door and water them a little every evening.
melinda
My Geraniums and Coleus usually last quite a while.
Marigolds are good but the squirrels have taken a liking
to them this year for some crazy reason.
Happy Weekend!
M : )
Pam
Marigolds are another good one. I have a serious chipmunk problems this year. I think they made a burrow under my front porch and I'm not sure how to get them to leave me alone without being mean to them. They're so cute, but they're making a mess of my front flower beds 🙁
Pamalin Jarosz
Get them moving fast!!! Thy multiply like crazy we trapped 36 in one yr. There are humane traps for this. They know just when the lilly bulbs are the tastest. They cleaned me out of mine. If you have fruit bushes or berries say good by to those as they will eat every last one.
Chris K in Wisconsin
We use the live traps for those little dickens also. When we catch them, we put the trap in the van and drive it over the river from our house and let it go. We have contributed MANY to that end of town. We often wonder if they come marching back over the bridge, with little knapsacks and laugh at us. There never seems to be a shortage of them. ugh!!
Janice
I totally agree with your list but would also add a sixth, Gaillardia/Blanket Flower.
Pam
Oh, that's a good one! I don't have any right now, but I have been eyeing one at the garden center!