As spring wears off and summer heat picks up, most gardeners find it rather tiring to work in the garden.
That’s why you need to look for flowering plants––both annuals and perennials––that bloom profusely throughout the season without much pampering from you.
Fortunately, you have a wide selection of summer bloomers to choose from.
The Best Plants that Bloom All Summer
Summer flowering plants are essential for any garden as they add color, attract pollinators, and fill your yard with fragrant scents. Read on to find out the best plants that have flowers that last all summer.
Garden Phlox (Phlox paniculata)
Phlox are perennial favorite among wildflowers. They are compact, low-maintenance, and long-blooming. They are known for their spicy vanilla-clove fragrance and purple-pink flowers that bloom in summer. Phlox are dense and clump-forming with attractive, strong yellowish-green foliage. At full bloom, they can reach up to 16 inches tall and 18 inches wide. They establish quickly with full sun and well-draining soils.
Zinnia
Zinnias love warmth, so they are reliable summer bloomers, filling the garden with long lasting flowers in jewel colors. You have the choice of small, single-flowered daisy-type zinnias and large pom-pom types, with everything in between.
Grow these annuals in a sunny location. They flourish in hot weather but appreciate regular watering and feeding.
Petunia
Petunias grown as annuals have one of the longest flowering seasons, right from mid-spring to late fall.
Hydrangeas
Nothing can beat these perennials when it comes to filling up your garden with a profusion of long-lasting blooms starting from spring. The large flower heads keep coming all through summer and continue to adorn the plants long after the blooming season is over.
Coneflower (Echinacea)
Flowering all through summer and into fall, its flowers can be harvested for making an herbal tea. In fact, all parts of the plant have medicinal properties.
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
They can add color and variety to your summer garden with their long blooming season. The fern-like leaves also are an asset, not to mention the medicinal value of the herb.
Grow yarrow in full sun, but make sure that it stays within limits. The flat-topped flower heads look good in flower arrangements, so keep cutting them off to reduce self-seeding.
Ornamental Onions (Allium)
Ornamental onions produce purple globe-shaped flowers on the end of long straight stems. The pretty flowers are excellent for growing in clumps or along borders in cottage gardens. These purple flowering perennials are bulbs that can be planted every fall. They start producing flowers at the end of spring, and they last until the end of summer.
Ornamental onions are also excellent for cut flower displays or to use in dried flower arrangements.
Marigold (Tagetes)
Often grown in vegetable gardens to keep off pests, French Marigolds are well known to gardeners. They are compact in size, with a bushy, slightly spreading habit.
Marigolds are easily grown from seeds, but the seeds collected from hybrids may not give the expected results. Use them as bedding plants in sunny areas. Regular watering is a must.
Lavender
Lavender is a wonderful perennial shrub that flowers from spring until late summer every year. The attraction of growing lavender is more than just its pretty purple flowers.
Dahlia
Depending on the cultivar, dahlias produce a variety of flowers in all shapes and sizes. Dahlias generally bloom profusely throughout the summer until frost. Some of the flowers can be like small daisies, and other huge, showy double flowers can be as large as 6” to 8” (15 – 20 cm) in diameter. Dahlia plants are perennials that are generally grown as annuals.
Coreopsis
Coreopsis flowers throughout the summer and is a perennial plant that blooms every year. Growing in full sun, coreopsis plants have a bushy growth habit and produce a horde of dazzling yellow flowers.
Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia)
Black-eyed Susan produces stunning golden yellow daisy-like flowers throughout the summer months and well into the fall. Spectacular flowers grow on the end of long stems, making the plant excellent for creating a colorful accent. The flowers are prolific bloomers that don’t stop until the frost arrives. These sun-loving plants are grown as tender perennials or annuals.
Stonecrop (Sedum)
Stonecrop flowers are some of the easiest summer-blooming plants to grow in your garden if you want months of pretty flowers. These low-growing flowering perennials will bloom for six months or more.
Catmint (Nepeta racemosa)
Catmint is a small shrubby perennial that blooms from spring through summer and into the fall. The flowering plant produces dainty blue flowers that give off a heavenly fragrance. These flower spikes stand erect above silver-gray foliage that combines to make catmint an excellent border, container, or ground cover plant.
Daylilies (Hemerocallis)
Daylilies are some of the easiest perennial plants to care for if you want all summer-long flowers in your yard. The showy flowers grow in a wide array of colors and don’t need much care. The plants are drought-tolerant and thrive in full sun conditions. Although the single blooms don’t last long, each plant continues producing flowers throughout the summer and fall season.