Wyoming Plant Company

Sunny Garden Perennials

These perennials are suited to Wyoming, but need regular watering, so use them in traditionally tended gardens. to

‘First Love’ Dianthus (Dianthus ‘First Love’)

‘01 Plant Select Intensely fragrant clustered flowers change from white to deep rose (the opposite of fading!) while blooming from spring to frost (with dead heading). This selection is perennial and so much more graceful than a sweet William because the flower clusters are not in tight stiff helmets. 15-18” height allows cut flower use while the 12” wide clump forming basal foliage is pleasing in the winter garden. Zone 3 rated, Casper Mountain tested!

Height: 15-18" Width: 12"

Zone 3

Hopflower Oregano (Origanum libanoticum)

Plant Select® 2004 Lovely trailing herb 18-24 inches wide by 10-15 inches tall. Lavender and chartreuse bi-color lantern-shaped bracts form throughout the summer months drying to brown in fall. Best suited to raised beds, rock gardens or containers. Plant in well-drained garden loam, clay or sandy soil. We tried this 2 years ago and it even over-wintered in bigger pots, an eye catcher for all who saw it! Oh and the smell of oregano! Attracts bees to help pollinate your garden. Full sun to part shade. Avoid too much reflected heat.

Zone 4b Full sun to part shade

Spanish Peaks Foxglove (Digitalis thapsi)

Plant Select 1999! Raspberry- rose flowers in early summer are carried over a trim mat of fury leaves with a Height and Width of 12”. This cousin of the familiar foxglove is perennial, hails from Spain and is adaptable to various soil types.

Height: 12" Width: 12"

Zone 4 to Sun to Part Shade

Echinacea: The Coneflowers

Echinacea—Developed from Tall Grass Prairie and Mixed Grass Prairie native species, the Coneflowers grow best in Sun in Semi-dry to Semi-moist but never soggy soil. With their background in prairie settings, mulch on the root zone or the soil-shading effect of other plants like grass does in a meadow will provide the right conditions for them to thrive. The genus Edhinacea was named 2003 GreatPlants Perennial of the Year! Turn to the coneflowers for more color, form and bloom time than you could ever hope to get from a Shasta daisy. All have cut flower potential, butterfly attraction and winter food for small songbirds if you leave flower stalks with seed heads standing in the winter garden.

Full Sun to Part Sun Shape: Upright clustered stems to

Mexican Hat Coneflower

Summer Sky Coneflower

This is a prolific bloomer of huge, 5”, very fragrant bicolor flowers of light orange with a rose halo around an orange cone on 48” tall stalks in 18-24”wide clusters of stems.

Height: 48" Width: 18-24"

Zone 4

Big Sky Sunrise Coneflower

Sturdy, basal branching plants produce a profusion of flower stems, each of which carries a large, bright lemon-yellow 3-4” fragrant, drooping petaled bloom.

Height: 30” Width: 18”

Zone 4

Recent crosses of the various native Echinacea have led to the development of some vibrant new blossom colors, and heights. Some even have wonderfully fragrant blooms. As a group though they do not break dormancy as quickly in the spring as some of their ancestors. The selections that follow will probably not arrive from our grower as soon as most of our plants. We believe that their beauty makes them worth the wait.

Crane’s Bill Geraniums

These hardy perennials remind us of mountain meadows and woodland edge gardens. With average garden watering and draining soils they are long-lived joys in Sunny to Partial Sun beds and borders. Garden Salvia, Echinacea , Alpine Willow Herb, Golden Jubilee Hyssop, Aster and Golden Rods make good companion plants with geraniums as they all need the same growing conditions and give a great garden look, with pleasing colors and forms all season long!

Bloody Crane’s Bill (Geranium sanguineum)

2002 Great Plants Perennial of the Year! Bowl-shaped, magenta flowers cover the plants in late spring and early summer, shearing may reward you with a later rebloom. Deeply cut foliage is mounding in habit turning blood red in autumn.

Height: 12-15” Width: 12-18”

Zone 3

Daylily (Hemerocallis)

Wide, straplike leaves, large trumpet flowers in a range of colors, great planted en mass or as clusters to hide maturing daffodil foliage, relatively low water needs except when flowering. Most blooms when planted in Sun to part Sun but forms attractive foliage in less light. Fall foliage color is usually a clear yellow. What’s not to love about daylilies? to (A word to the northern plains gardener: Avoid evergreen and semi-evergreen daylilies as they go into decline here. Our selections are deciduous as well as amply hardy.)

Daylily Suggestions:

Plant daffodils and other spring bulbs inside daylily clusters allowing the bulb foliage to mature unobtrusively while developing spring flowers for next year. This combination gives two bloom seasons in one space and also adds a pleasing fall display when the strap-like leaves of the become a sea of golden yellow.

Tequila Sunrise Coreopsis (Coreopsis ‘Tequila Sunrise’)

Coreopsis, the Golden Darlings of the Summer Garden! 18-24” tall golden-yellow classic coreopsis daisy-like blooms are carried above 12-15” Width clumps of Dark olive-green foliage variegated with cream and yellow. If you think that is striking wait until fall when the foliage turns deep rich mahogany to really accent a Full Sun garden. Deadhead to encourage reblooming.

Height: 18-24" Width 12-15"

Zone 4 to Full sun

First Love Dianthus (Dianthus ‘First Love’)

Plant Select® 2001 Intensely fragrant rounded cluster flowers change from white to deep rose rather than starting dark and fading and attract butterflies, hummingbirds and gardeners with floral shears (great cut flower!). Flower stalks are 15-18” tall above 12” diameter clump s of moderately fine foliage. The overall effect is akin to Sweet Williams but perennial and much more graceful even maintaining a nice mounded foliar presence in winter. Full sun. Average flower garden watering.

Zone 3 Full sun

Chocolate Mist Flower (Eupatorium rugosum ‘Chocolate’)

Joe Pye Weed has a striking cousin in this creamy white cluster-flowered late summer-early fall bloomer. The bronze-purple foliage looks like chocolate in Part Sun-Part Shade and grows to 3-4’ Height, (shorter when grown dry) by 2-3’ Width.Ruth’s personal backyard garden includes a cluster of dry grown Chocolate Mist Flower.

Height: 3-4" Width: 2-3'

Zone 4 Partial sun to partial shade

Orange Carpet Hummingbird Trumpet Orange Carpet Hummingbird Trumpet (Zauschneria garretti ‘Orange Carpet’)

Plant Select® 2001 A real eye catcher! It’s vivid green foliage is topped with glowing orange-scarlet flowers from July to frost! Hummingbirds will be drawn to tubular flowers. Cascading in growth habit it stands 4-6”H andspreads 18-24”W so place it to the front of the garden bed and watch the show. A bit of afternoon shade makes this plant thrive and bloom the most. Natively found on the far west side of Wyoming

Zone 4 Full sun to part sun

LaVeta Lace Geranium

Geranium ‘Rozanne’

Perennial Plant Association Plant of 2008! Very large violet blue, white centered flowers from e. summer to frost top mounds of slightly marbled deep green foliage. This Blooms of Bressingham selection is special because the flowers are larger, the blue deeper and the plant more heat tolerant than similar varieties. More added perks: reddish-brown fall foliage color, rejuvenation by shearing to 3” and butterfly attraction. Add compost to the soil for best performance.

Height: 20” Width: 24”

Zone 5 Sun to partial shade

Wichita Mountains Goldenrod (Solidago ‘Wichita Mountains’)

Great Plants ’05 This outstanding, long standing specimen with tall rods of bright gold blooming in late summer will cheer you every time you look at their blooms in your prairie planting. Butterflies will stay in your late summer garden and the bees that we need to pollinate our garden crops will have a good source of pollen for winter food in the hive.

Zone 3 to Sun to Partial Sun

Denver Gold Columbine

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:

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.

These plants are adapted to intermittent deep watering with soil drying to a depth of a few inches between waterings. Watering frequency may be every couple of weeks during the active growing season and maybe only one winter watering for optimal care.

These truly xeric plants can live with our 12 inches of natural precipitation and only need a winter watering during a multi-year drought but they will thrive with a monthly watering. Overwatering will kill some of these.

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Wyoming Plant Company, LLC