Long-Lasting Blossoms for a Vivid Garden Throughout the Seasons: Here's a List of 11 Floral Delights That Ensure a Colored Canvas All Year Round.
Spruce up your garden and say goodbye to constant planting with these long-blooming beauties, all recommended by gardening experts!
- Zinnia
- Zones: 3 to 10
- Size: 14inx20in to 18inx24in
- Blooming Period: From when the soil warms up until the first frost
These vibrant blooms grow thick, keeping weeds at bay and offering continuous color. For best results, sow zinnias directly into the ground once the soil warms, with tall varieties like 'Queeny Lime' providing impressive vase fillers while shorter 'Zahara' varieties provide continual blooms in containers or garden beds.
- Alyssum
- Zones: 5 to 9
- Size: 3inx2in to 10inx4in
- Blooming Period: Preferably before and after freezing temperatures
These delightful blooms attract butterflies and bees and are perfect for adding a fresh, animated look to your garden. Enjoy their sweet scent and continual blooms all throughout the cooler months.
- Lavender
- Zones: 5 to 9
- Size: 12inx24in to 30inx36in
- Blooming Period: From early spring until the summer heat arrives, then potentially returning in fall
The enchanting purple blossoms of lavender are popular for their calming scent and beautiful appearance. Blooming for months, they also attract bees and other pollinators, and the French and Spanish varieties are particularly suitable for hot, dry climates.
- Hydrangea
- Zones: 3 to 9
- Size: Depends on variety
- Blooming Period: Up to 8 weeks or more, even longer for rebloomers
These magnificent shrubs are hard to beat in terms of floral staying power, providing stunning blooms that last for weeks or even months. Look for 'Hydrangea macrophylla' and 'Hydrangea paniculata' varieties for impressive bloom times.
- Autumn Joy Sedum
- Zones: 3 to 9
- Size: 1 to 2 feet tall and 1 to 2 feet wide
- Blooming Period: Late fall
These late-blooming sedum varieties are easy to grow and resilient against both deer and rabbits. Enjoy their captivating blooms for multiple weeks straight and still benefit from landscaping upgrades in your garden.
- Lantana
- Zones: 7 to 11
- Size: 5x5ft or smaller with pruning
- Blooming Period: Throughout most of the year
Boasting vivid colors, lantana is a popular choice for ground cover or container gardening. Especially hardy in hot, dry climates, lantana attracts butterflies and bees with nearly year-round flowering.
- Hibiscus
- Zones: Grow hardy hibiscus in zones 4 to 9 and tropical hibiscus in zones 9 to 11
- Size: Depends on variety
- Blooming Period: Late spring through early fall
Hibiscus flowers exhibit a lovely five-petal design, with impressive center stamens and anthers. Find the 'Purple Pillar' variety for long-lasting purple blooms that attract pollinators like bees and hummingbirds.
- Blackfoot Daisy
- Zones: 5 to 11
- Size: About 18inx18in
- Blooming Period: Late spring through early fall, including during dry periods
An easy-to-grow, long-blooming member of the Asteraceae family, blackfoot daisies are particularly drought-tolerant and add a lovely display when mixed among other plants.
- Daylily
- Zones: 3 to 9
- Size: 2.5 to 4.5 feet tall and 2.5 to 3.5 feet wide
- Blooming Period: For a few weeks in the growing season, with a staggered bloom to increase longevity
Daylilies only last one day, but their blooming season can stretch for a total of 4 to 6 weeks due to staggered flowering. These bright, large flowers will enliven your garden all season long.
- Crown Anemone
- Zones: 7 to 10
- Size: Up to 1.5 feet tall and 9 inches wide
- Blooming Period: From early fall to spring
Vivid, cheerful blooms that bring a wildflower look to garden beds and borders – crown anemones offer beauty even in the colder months. They send up multiple stems of brightly-colored flowers, sometimes blooming for several months.
- Salvia
- Zones: 3 to 8
- Size: 2 feet tall and wide
- Blooming Period: Almost year-round and resistant to frost
Salvia provides an easy, low-maintenance plant that blooms all summer long. Choose the 'Summer Jewels' series for uninterrupted summer color and exceptional flower power.
Martha Stewart endorsements champion these long-blooming wonders, perfect additions for every garden enthusiast's flower gardens. The vibrant and resilient ['Zinnia'] offers blooms from soil warming to the first frost, especially notable with varieties like 'Queeny Lime' and 'Zahara'. Alyssum, delighting with sweet scents and butterfly-attracting blooms, thrives best in cooler months.
Lavender, with its calming purple petals and appeal to pollinators, provides stunning spring to summer blooms, ideal in French and Spanish varieties for hot, dry climates. Dependable hydrangeas, renowned for their floral staying power, offer weeks of blooms from 'Hydrangea macrophylla' and 'Hydrangea paniculata'.
Autumn Joy Sedum, resilient against deer and rabbits, delights with late-fall blooms that last multiple weeks. Lantana, known for its vivid colors, is suitable for hot, dry climates and provides year-round blooms with proper care.
Hibiscus, exhibiting a stunning five-petal flower design, presents impressive late spring through early fall blooms, with options like the 'Purple Pillar' variety for extended charm. The drought-tolerant Blackfoot Daisy adds a lovely display during dry periods, well into early fall.
Daylilies enliven gardens with their one-day blooms, but their staggered blooming season stretches to a total of 4 to 6 weeks. Crown Anemones provide a wildflower-inspired beauty in the colder months, with multiple stem blooms for extended periods. Lastly, the ever-blooming Salvia, resistant to frost, is a favorite for its low maintenance and uninterrupted summer color.
These long-blooming favorites also tie seamlessly with Martha Stewart's fashion-and-beauty, food-and-drink, home-and-garden, travel, and car lifestyle, making your garden an extension of a life well-lived.
