The long hot, dry, smoky spell has taken its toll on many of our annuals.
Some varieties simply don’t look so good, appearing somewhat hard and burnt, instead of being soft and vegetative.
Heat and water stress are the major causes of this decline. Unfortunately, these stressed-out annuals can leave your garden looking a little blah at this time of year, which may be awkward when we have so many friends and relatives visiting.
Late-flowering summer perennials, however, can give your garden some needed fresh colour, and a few very special plants do more than their share to keep the colour going.
Yellow is always an important colour to give a lift to late summer gardens and some excellent perennials immediately come to mind.
The longest and strongest flowering variety has got to be the lacy leafed coreopsis verticulata Zagreb. It just never quits. Its cousins, the softer yellow C. Moonbeam and coreopsis grandiflora, are also non-stop flowering, more spreading varieties. All three always look good without any care or attention and defy the concept of perennials needing a lot of work.
My other favourite yellow perennial is a rudbeckia called Goldsturm. This European introduction is just out of this world! It’s hardy, relatively short (about 24 inches tall) and its large, single, yellow daisy-like flowers just keep on blooming right up until October. Goldsturm is such an improvement over the other varieties — they’re not even in the same league.
A new shorter variety called Little Gold Star is also stealing the show. It grows only 12 to14 inches tall and produces an abundance of colour. It’s a hottie. This year’s new introduction, R. American Gold Rush, is a great performer and looks to be both shorter and more spreading.
In spite of the weather we may experience from year to year and how it impacts on our annuals, these perennials, and many more like them, are the workhorses of any garden and will add wonderful colour to a late summer garden, carrying it into fall.
