Fiery Plant Selections for a Hot Summer Garden!

If you like things hot (or if you are in the south its just going to be hot) why not try some of these fiery colored plants in your garden! The colors of red, orange, and yellow can truly set the garden ablaze visually! The plants I’m talking about are also very easy to grow and just need a little maintenance along the way to blaze with blooms throughout the summer heat. Let’s take a look at some of those fiery plant selections that I think could light your garden on fire!

Red Flowering Echinacea

There are a number of red varieties of Echinacea purpurea these days. In my garden I have a Cheyenne Spirit but a number of other varieties like ‘Kismet’, ‘Sombrero Salsa’, and ‘Tomato Soup’ also display bright red colors. These flower colors are a result of varying combination of hybrids of Purple Coneflower (E. purpurea), Tennessee coneflower (E. tennesseensis), and Ozark Coneflowers (E. paradoxa). If red isn’t what you are looking for you can certainly find a white, orange, or yellow coneflower to fit.

Or go to the species original purple coneflowers – you can’t go wrong with that!

Coreopsis

I have always been a huge fan of coreopsis in the garden. Coreopsis is also known as tickseed and actually DOES NOT ATTRACT TICKS! That’s good news. It’s only called that due to the size and shape of the seeds – they look tickish – is that even a word? I guess you can add “ish” to anything. Coreopsis attracts tons of tiny native bees and butterflies. It’s an easy to care for perennial and needs very little maintenance or supplemental watering once established. Coreopsis can be deadheaded after blooming to get repeat blooms from summer to fall.

Coral Red Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle is a vining plant that has quite the reputation. However you can choose a native version of honeysuckle like Lonicera sempervirens and know that you aren’t unleashing a a fiery beast in your garden! L. sempervirens is also known as coral red honeysuckle and is much more behaved than it’s Asian cousins. The red coned flowers attract hummingbirds like magnets. It needs place to grow vertically so trellis it in some fashion. A nice arbor or a fence would be perfect. This honeysuckle does best in full sun and will repeat bloom all summer long.

‘Primal Scream’ Daylily

This is my favorite daylily. I know it’s not an uncommon one at all but ‘Primal Scream’ is huge and orange. It is a show stopper! I need to find a counterpart to it in white so we can have our Tennessee Vols daylily garden. This daylily is a tetraploid which means it has 4 sets of chromosomes. In order to hybridize it you would have to match it up with another tetraploid daylily. It was introduced in 1994 and won the 2003 Stout Silver Medal. This daylily simply screams fire in the garden!

Red Lantana

Lantana can look amazing when planted in the garden. There are reds, yellows, and orange colored lantanas you can choose. Or better yet don’t choose, just plant them all and create a mass planting that will have your neighbors call 911 when they first bloom because they think your garden is on fire!

There are many options to add that fiery look to the garden. These just happen to be the hot picks right now in the beginning of June here in Tennessee. They are looking amazing! I have no issues with planting these plants in my garden every year, in fact they persist year over year (except for the Lantana it isn’t cold hardy here most years).

building a simple A Frame trellis for tomato plants

How to Build a Tomato Trellis (A Frame Style)

There are many ways to grow tomatoes. In the past I generally used tomato cages to hold up my plants. One method I’ve been trying lately in my garden is trellising. When you trellis a tomato plant you create a structure that allows the tomato…

Read More

The Scene Around the Arbor

A couple years ago I was fortunate to participate in the Better Homes and Gardens 48 Hour Blog Challenge. Three other blogs and myself competed with projects subject to online voting to see who would win. The winner took home $5000, unfortunately it wasn’t me…

Read More

Propagation Update: Asiatic Lily and Viburnum

In late May I wrote a post about how to propagate Asiatic lilies from leaves. I figured it was time to show you how things are coming along. After small little bulbs began to form on the base of the leaves I planted the bulbs…

Read More

2018 Nashville Lawn and Garden Show

Nashville Lawn and Garden Show Welcomes Brie Arthur as Featured Speaker Author of The Foodscape Revolution Will Speak on March 3 & 4 Nashville, TN – The 2018 Nashville Lawn and Garden Show welcomes nationally recognized author, PBS correspondent and gardening expert Brie Arthur as…

Read More

Guide to Planting and Growing Marigolds

Marigolds are beautiful annual flowers that are great to plant in the garden for a number of reasons. They attract pollinators and beneficial insects while at the same time providing benefits for companion planting. Marigolds are extremely easy to grow and you can save the…

Read More

Discover more from Growing The Home Garden

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Discover more from Growing The Home Garden

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading