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Perennial Flowers for Wyoming Gardens Also, be sure to look at the "Sunny Garden Perennials" section. The following perennials were picked for their true durability. These are the ones you want for those really tough locations where you want a bit of color whether it be poor soil, high wind or that sunny dry spot. These will survive without additional water but with occasional deep watering they will thrive.
At 36-42” tall with 3-4’ wide golden-yellow flower heads from later June through autumn above silvered green fern-like foliage, this reliable old standard fills a great place at the back of the border or as an accent near caryopteris or Russian Sage. This one does not run about through the flower bed and will stay around for years. Enjoy it as a cut or dried flower, too!
Zone 3
 Little Trudy Catmint (Nepeta x Little Trudy)
Plant Select® 2008 This selection was made from one of our growers for its low spreading and long blooming habit. Well branched stems of rippled, soft gray foliage hug the ground for an 18” to 24” wide mound when this plant matures. Profuse lavender flower stalks 8” to 12” tall cover the plant from early to late summer. Deer resistant.
Zone 4
Walker’s Low Catmint (Nepeta faassinii x ‘Walker’s Low’) Perennial Plant Association Plant of the Year for 2007 and is no stranger to Wyoming conditions! Compact mounding gray green leaves topped by lavender blue flowers recurring from late spring through autumn. This 10-14 inch tall sterile hybrid won’t reseed around the garden. Full sun to part sun and like it’s bigger brother, deer resistant!
Zone 3
We have enjoyed early summer patches of diminutive, blue blooms of this native iris along the roadside while driving through the windblown Shirley Basin. Individual plants will mature intoclusters of strap-like foliage and blooms. Grow in sun to partial shade in soil with moisture in the spring, but like most iris they tolerate drier conditions the rest of the year. Consider these for border front, rockery or for a “rain garden.” Height: 6" Width: 8"
Zone 3
Fully color saturated brick red flowers with golden centers in flat clusters top 24” tall stems. Very feathery foliage in medium green forms basal clumps 18” to 24” wide. This millefolium is a well-behaved clump former and does not run across the garden. You can trust us on this, we have years of experience with this one.
Zone 3
Plant Select® 2009 Iridescent lavender flowers with dark eyes bloom on 2-3” tallmats of green foliage that spread from 1-2’wide. This sport of Table Mountain tolerates a wide range of soil conditions. Height: 2-3” tall Width: 1-2'
Zone 4 S Full Sun to Partial Sun
Weed control is the gardeners bane in a new garden or one gifted with a yearly supply of windblown seeds! Hand digging does not need to be your only strategy. Glyphosate herbicide, at label dilution, spot applied to weeds with a small sponge paintbrush is effective on most young weeds. Attached the paintbrush handle to a dowel and you’ve eliminated bending over! This direct application means no possibility of herbicide drift to garden plants via our Wyoming breezes. Applying pre-emergent herbicides is a choice for many people to prevent germination of those weed seeds. Apply in early spring before germination begins and repeated per label directions throughout the season to be most effective.
Prairie Zinnia is another name for this easy to grow little perennial zinnia. From midsummer to fall 6-8” tall by 8-12” wide dense mounds of slender stems with narrow leaves are covered in papery golden yellow single flowers with red-brown centers. This highly xeric plant makes a great companion for hardy cacti and other very drought tolerant sun-lovers in a range of soil types. This species stays dormant until the weather is warm and settled. Do not clip them out of existence in an early spring clean-up. Also it is important to plant these in the first half of the growing season because the roots only grow in warm soil to get successful establishment -- don’t wait until Farmer’s Market to ask for these. Height: 6-8” Width: 8-12”
This vase shaped 3 to 4 foot accent plant makes a vivid statement behind xeric perennials or in the middle of a stand of plants! Blue-violet flower spikes top silvery gray foliage in late summer through hard freeze. This high desert native of Afghanistan thrives in lean soil on hot windy sites and has proven itself reliable on Wyoming’s high plains as well. Deer don’t touch it!
Zone 4
Very large yellow flowers mature to apricot for most of summer on this Gt. Plains native sub-shrub. 15”-18” tall narrow gray-green foliage gives it the species name and the 18” width gives it a very noticeable presence in the landscape. Keep this one dry on clay soil and lightly watered in sands—it is not as picky as its little cousin. Height: 15”-18” Width: 18"
Zone 4
Penstemons are wonderful natives and hybrids of all sizes with a wide range of bloom times for the water-wise garden or your patch of prairie! From white thru purple and from pale pastel to fully saturated hues, flowers are usually borne along stalks above basal foliage. Size ranges from tiny rock garden gems with grass-like foliage thru wild snapdragons with pink blooms on the top 3 feet of 5 foot tall stems! Keep yourself and hummingbirds happy and plant many species of penstemon! The key to Penstemon success is two-fold, do not over water or they will grow floppy or die and second do not over fertilize. Most will live more years in our mineral soils than in a tended garden bed! You will be rewarded for your restraint. The hands on gardener can dead-head to prolong some species blossoming and add years to the plant’s life.
These Casper tested long-lived perennials covered in scarlet tubular flowers for nearly two months in the summer will be a hit with you and the hummingbirds! Later in the season this somewhat xeric plant will be a dark green mound looking a lot like a miniature evergreen, 8 inches tall.
Zone 4
Plant Select Mexicale hybrid penstemons! hardier Zone 4 Full Sun or Part Sun
Blooms in bright rose all summer. Introduced in 1999 and grow 12-15” H mounding 8-12”W
Zone 4 ********************
Blooms in violet purple with intense veining in the throat area. Introduced in 1999 and grow 12-15” H mounding 8-12”W
Zone 4 ********************
Introduced in 2007, blooms in a softer luminous lavender-blue with red-purple veining in the white throat. It is a larger presence in the garden at 18-24”H by 18”W and a hardier Zone 4 that is adaptable and easy to grow.
Zone 4
This looks like a big bold pink snapdragon but it is really a xeric perennial that only thrives where grown as if only 15” or less of precipitation provide its moisture. Do not place where moisture will gather by pooling or from runoff. It may be a central accent to a xeric island planting, in the back row of a sunny xeric border, or as a foundation plant beside the south side of a house (reflected heat is tolerated). Oblong leaves form basal rosettes giving rise to 2-4’ tall bloom stocks that form clumps 18-24” wide at maturity. Bloom season is late spring through summer. This one is big enough to be a companion to xeric shrubs like Western or Pawnee Buttes Sand Cherry, Fernbush, or Curl Leaf Mountain Mahogany, but is equally at home with Russian Sage or other xeric perennials.
Silverton Bluemat Penstemon (P. linaroides var. colordoensis ‘Silverton’) Plant Select® 2005 Spikes of lavender blue flowers top a 12-15 inch mound of silvery green foliage in early summer. The evergreen foliage of this plant gives it a year round presence in the garden! Removal of spent blooms help prolong the plant’s lifespan. Plant in well drained loam or sandy soil.
Zone 4
Powis Castle Artemisia(A. arborescens “Powis Castle”) Another great deer deterrent accent in the garden and at 24 “tall by 24”wide it works as a windbreak within a planting area as well! This silvery foliaged sterile hybrid (can’t seed) looks delicate, seldom blooms, hales from a limestone-based area of England and is perfectly at home here! Rabbit and Deer resistant. Height: 24" Width: 24"
Zone 4
Mongolian Bells Clematis (Clematis integrifolia (‘psharlan’)) Plant Select® 2008 This very compact bush clematis hails from inner Mongolia. Blossom color is wide-ranging from white, pink, and lavender through blue with a Maythrough September bloom season. Best uses are as a mounding clump in a xeriscape or border or as an edging in those settings. Fluffy seed heads add interest in late summer and fall. Size: 10-14” Tall by 12-15” Wide.
Zone 3
Native Pasque Flower (Pulastilla patens) GreatPlants Perennial of the Year ’06 This delicate lavender cup shaped flower, the state flower of South Dakota, is such a harbinger of early spring and is equally at home in a dry garden bed as it is on the prairie. Height: 6 “ Width: 18 “ Shape: Rounded
Zone 3/4
"What if we had a drought and our garden plants didn't even know it?"
Seafoam Artemisia (Artemisia versicolor) Plant Select® 2004 Finely filigreed silver-gray foliage gives a frothy appearance on a mound that will spread to nearly 3 feet wide and up to 18 inches tall. Never floppy due to the plants’ woody underpinnings. Wonderful year-round textural accent plant for xeric gardens. Rabbit and Deer resistant.
Zone 4
Fremont’s Evening Primrose (Oenothera macrocarpa subsp. ‘fremontii) Large light yellow flowers from May on cover this very narrow leaved Nebraska and Kansas native. These drought tolerant plants mature into 10” tall by 18” wide mounds requiring little water.
Zone 4
Jupiter’s Beard (Centranthus ruber) This durable plant stands up to wind and handles dry clay but will also thrive in more moisture as long as the soil drains well. The rose-red blooms last from late spring through summer. Give it room as it will grow to 24” tall and 30” wide and will reseed a bit for a natural look. Also this charmer can go around the corner from heat into partial shade successfully to help tie different parts of the landscape together! Butterflies love it but rabbits don't. Height: 24" Width: 30" Zone 4
Prairie Gayfeather (Liatris punctata) The Butterfly attracting pink flower stalks, 12-36”H of this Western dry Sunny prairie native become numerous in mid-late summer, especially on mature plants that can become 18”W. During the recent drought years none of the plants on the Coates Road school section near Casper have been that tall or wide but due to their long taproot for food and moisture storage they have survived. Other Liatris tend to be near surface bulb forming plants that lack survivability in our dry winter landscape. Height: 12-36" Width: 18" Zone 3
Bush Morning Glory (Ipomoea leptophylla) Also called ‘Old Man of the Prairie’, this native of Sunny Nebraska prairies in sandy soil forms a large bush-like plant covered with dark-throated pink flowers from June through August. If trialed in clay soils—grow on the dry side! Height: 3’ Width: 3’ Zone 4
Poppy Mallow 'Prairie Wine Cups' (Callirhoe involucrata) Plant Select® 1999 This low growing native prairie plant blooms repeatedly during summer in bright burgundy cup-shaped flowers with white eyes on low arching stems with dark green deeply cut leaves. Flowers and foliage are reminiscent of Cranesbill Geraniums on this Poppy Mallow but at less than 1’ tall and up to 3’ in diameter, the form is not. The only drawback to keeping this darling besides drowning in wet clay is that rabbits munch too much during those years of cottontail population explosions. Plant in soil that drains or in clay kept on the dry side taking care to seat the plant at grade and not in a low spot.
Zone 4
Anatolian Tanacetum (Tanacetum albipannosum) A mat of feathery silver-toned foliage 18” wide is topped at 18” tall by big white daisies with yellow centers suitable for cutting and attractive to butterflies. Tolerant of wide ranging conditions including different soils, Panayoti Kelaidis of the Denver Botanic Garden recommends it as a great plant from Anatolia (Asia Minor, on the Turkish part of the Asian Steppe). Height: 18" Width: 18" Zone 4
The best gardens seem to have an element of serendipity and the happiest Wyoming gardeners allow themselves to be pleasantly surprised by chance pairings: a fuchsia blossom beside a plant with chartreuse foliage, volunteer groundcover helping a new bed to get established. Given our intense sun, wind, and alkaline soil it is easier to be successful at English Cottage, Mediterranean, and Western Prairie Styles than it is with more formal French or Italianate Gardens. Gravel mulched rock gardens are also a good choice. Create garden windbreaks with shrubs, fences, durable perennials, and grasses so that your "Sunny Garden" perennials can thrive through the intensity of summer. Many are tall grass prairie derived and are accustomed to natural shelter from the brunt of wind and continual beating of summer sun. Just match plants by water need and sun level. That is the way to long life and vigor in the garden. Plan the basics now and if need be tweak it next year. Perennials are forgiving!
Rain Gauge Throughout this site, the following are used as guidelines for watering established plants:
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Full sun
Full sun to part sun
Dwarf Blue Flag Iris (Iris cristata)
‘Lavender Ice’ Ice Plant (Delosperma ‘Psfave’ x Lavender Ice) 
Paper Flower Zinnia (Zinnia grandiflora)
Red Rocks Penstemon (P. x mexicale ‘Red Rocks’)
Pikes Peak Purple (P. x mexicale ‘Pikes Peak Purple’)
Shadow Mountain Penstemon (P. x mexicale ‘Shadow Mountain’)
These plants need regular watering somewhat like a bluegrass lawn so that they never dry to depth in the root system during the active growing season and need occasional winter watering to prevent root dessication and resultant plant death.
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