Add Colour to Your Summer Garden

Credit: Phoenix Perennials

Echinacea ‘Coral Reef’ brings major wattage to a peaked garden

Q: I had a lovely spring garden, but once summer rolls around there is very little colour left. What can I do?

Once your spring garden begins to fade, inject new, colourful life with summer perennials

Most of us do our garden shopping in the spring, so we have beautiful spring gardens that become pale versions of themselves by summer.

There are three ways to avoid the summer doldrums. First, visit nurseries in the summer to see what’s blooming when you need colour most.

Then, include new perennials that have been bred to give as much flower power as annuals. Geranium Rozanne will bloom from June until fall. Also try ‘Havana Blues’, ‘Orkney Cherry’ and ‘Cheryl’s Shadow’.

The new not-so-purple coneflowers (Echinacea) will bloom all summer in hot dry spots with poor soils (once established) while red-and-white sage, Salvia ‘Hot Lips’, will produce hundreds of flowers.

Originally published in BC Home & Garden magazine. For regular updates, subscribe to our free Home and Garden e-newsletters, or purchase a subscription to the magazine.