What Will Next Summer’s Garden Be?

The flower and seed catalogs are strewn across my coffee table in the living room and stacked on top my desk in the office.  I’ve already ordered three perennials from American Meadows.

Gaillardia comes in bright, cheerful yellows and red, happily blooms all summer and is hardy here.  Its only detriment is the stems flop a bit.  The Gaillardia Goblin we had before was shorter and kept its flowers upright better than the taller Arizona series.  We will see how it does here as I ordered one plant.

Gaillardia Goblin Linked from American Meadows

I love phlox for their big heads of pink flowers, their long bloom and their lovely fragrance.  Last year a couple of mine did well but a few suffered from the heat.  I particularly enjoyed a short pink that anchored the front of my right hand bed and decided to order another to complement it in the middle bed.  We will welcome phlox Flamingo this summer.

Phlox Flamingo Linked from American Meadows

Red Super phlox doesn’t look to have the same full, huge heads that Flamingo does.  The color is wonderful, red with a hint of fuchsia and it is also a shorter variety for the front of the bed.  The photos look like the center eyes of Flamingo pick up the red in Red Super so I will plant them together, both right in front of the taller Bright Eyes phlox.

Red Super Phlox Linked from American Meadows

There are three older varieties of phlox I want to add, Eva Cullum, Dodo Hanbury Forbes and Orange Perfection.  I admit the names of the first two are half their appeal!  Eva and Dodo are pink with darker pink, huge flower heads and tall varieties.  Orange Perfection is a salmon pinky orange that should slide in between the Butterfly Weed and later delphiniums.

One nursery has all three phlox plus the tall Coronation Gold achillea with plate-shaped flowers that seems less commonly available than a few years ago.  This particular nursery has good quality perennials they ship in coir pots that were critter magnets last summer so I’m hesitating.  We would need to take the plants out of the pots before planting which seems backwards.

I need to decide soon whether to order as it’s already late January and there are many other gardeners out there wanting my same flowers!