Texan Magazine
By Marc Hess
Editor of “Gardening South Texas”
“The secret to successful flower gardening in Texas lies in knowing two things: What flowers to grow here, and where to plant them. Once you have answered these questions, you should be able to grow beautiful flowers here.”
Summer gardeners have found that perennials – plants that come back year after year—provide a dependable background for colorful seasonal annuals that must be replaced every year. If chosen carefully, the hardiest perennials will give you waves of reliable color throughout spring and well into fall. While perennially blooming plants may need tending to show their best value, buying and planting a plant only once makes them a great investment.
Many perennials favored by gardeners in our part of Texas are heat and drought tolerant and many gardeners are not likely to spend time and effort on finicky plants requiring extra work. Experienced gardeners have learned the lesson of putting the right plant in the right place to keep their garden beds looking their best. May is a good time to plant the heat-tolerant, summer-blooming perennials.
Summer color may not be your first priority. Perhaps you will be away on vacation for part of the summer, or you just want something that will get through the heat without raising your water bill astronomically. Planting for summer color alone could have the drawback of empty beds throughout the cold months of the year when most of these hot season perennials go completely dormant. A combination of evergreens (for winter), annual blooming plants, and colorful summer perennials will add balance to your landscape and still cut down on the number of times that you have to drag your hose out to your flower garden on those 100° plus days.
You can count on you heat-loving perennials to bloom when nothing else will.
Most perennials are easily propagated by division, seed or cuttings. Division is particularly successful since it not only provides new plants but is often necessary for the continued vigor of plants.
Perennials can be highly useful and attractive in the home landscape. They often persist for many years and usually require less maintenance than annuals. They can provide long seasons of color and cut flowers while enhancing overall landscape development. If a perennial border is more than you care to attempt as your initial experience with perennials, try adding a few to existing plantings. Many perennials have attractive foliage and are an asset even when not in flower.
Division is an important cultural requirement of many perennials. Without an occasional thinning, most of these plants will slowly lose their vigor. Most perennials will tolerate relatively poor growing conditions but respond very favorably to well-prepared planting areas containing high percentages of organic materials and moderately high fertility rates.
Perennials encompass a wide variety of hardy, beautiful and visually interesting plants. Dependable when it comes to planting and transplanting, they’re a perfect choice if you’re new to gardening or are simply looking for a landscape with year-round interest.
Consider some of these heat tolerant perennial plants for reliable summer color in your landscape.
PRIDE OF BARBADOS, OR POINCIANA
This very drought tolerant perennial has a layered airy look that produces glow-in-the-dark orange and yellow clusters of blooms. Butterflies and hummingbirds like Poinciana, but unfortunately, so do deer. Grow Poinciana in full sun. Once established, it does not require irrigation. Poinciana is often used as a parking lot shrub because of its heat tolerance.
GOLD STAR ESPERANZA
They have begun blooming and will bloom until Thanksgiving. The Gold Star selection boasts of superior blooming characteristics. Esperanza is very drought tolerant and pest free. Deer do not eat Esperanza but hummingbirds like the blooms as a source of nectar.
FIREBUSH
Small red flowers will cover the shrub after mid-June. Before the flowers begin blooming, the foliage is an attractive maroon green. Firebush works well as a sunny parking lot shrub, along with Esperanza and Poinciana, but also is an outstanding container plant. In a 10- to 15-gallon container, it grows to 3 feet tall in a disciplined round shape. In addition to the colorful foliage and blooms, Firebush is one of hummingbirds’ favorite plants for nectar. Put Firebush in a container on your patio, and the hummingbirds will find it. In the ground, Firebush grows back to 6 feet tall after freezing back each winter. Deer will eat Firebush.
DURANTA
Also known as Brazilian sky flower. It grows to 6 feet tall each summer, often dying back in the winter. The weeping branches are covered with purple or white crinkly blooms across their length.
Sometimes butterflies will be so thick on the flowers that it will be hard to recognize the plant. Duranta is eaten by the deer, but it is not one of their favorite foods.
Remember, knowing what to plant and when and where to plant it will keep your summer garden bursting with color. It can be at its best even under the intense conditions of the inevitable Texas summer heat.
