Plants with a long flowering season

I thought that it might be good to get a discussion going about plants that have a long flowering season.

Try to give a description for each plant, including approximate blooming period, special requirements if it has any, an idea of hardiness, and if possible a photo.

I'll start the bidding off with Salvia discolor...................


It is very tender (dead at a whiff of a frost) yet can bloom all year round. For me it tends to start around mid May and finish early to mid October. However, this year it is still blooming in the unheated greenhouse. Full sun to part shade.

There are a lot of climbers that will bloom for a long period and Eccromocarpus scaber is one of the best.........................


It can get a bit woody, so it's ideal for growing into other plants that have a finite flowering period. I have mine growing into next doors Clematis........................


It will start long before (early to mid April) and continue long after (until the first proper frost) the Clem in the photo. As far as care goes dig a hole, plant it and give it something to grow up - that easy! Ignore the books, if you buy the pure species it is fully hardy.

Sollya heterophylla is another climber that will bloom for five or six months outdoors................


Available in blue or white, here are my three from a couple of years ago................


It can take a few degrees below if dry, so best in a large pot so that it can be moved under cover for the worst of winter.

 

lonk the Eccromocarpus scaber in just a flower machine mine still in flowering since April a must have plant , also it should have died last winter but passed all winter untouched ....I just hope that will not become an infestant .

 

That Bluebell creeper is a really lovely plant . I have just been looking at it on the RHS . It's classed as half hardy .You say it must be moved into a cold greenhouse in winter?
Now would I forget
Long flowering plants is a good idea for a post
I think I will grow Eccremocarpus Scaber again next season it is a nice climber.

 

Certainly move it under cover for the worst excesses of winter.

I have seed for E.scaber if you want some.

Fully hardy in my experience Sal.

No probs there - it is well behaved.

 

Good thread LongK. When I started gardening 12 years ago, I decided this was a key aspect and for several years I kept records of exactly how long every plant flowered, by going round once a week and recording if it was in bud, part flower, full flower, or with seed heads.

It sounds a bit geeky, but I can thoroughly recommend it as its a marvelous way to get to know your plants. And when you tabulate the results you realise that some plants are very much better than others. These are a few of my favorites - all fully hardy. The numbers quoted are the weeks in flower in 2004 and 2005.

Centranthus ruber. 27 weeks in 2004, 17 weeks in 2005. This is a wild flower. Some people don't like it because its often seen growing wild, but I love it because of its long season. When the blooms are over around July, you cut it back and in 3 or 4 weeks it will be back in bloom again. It has a tap root, which means its drought resistant. But it also means that you can't move a mature plant (you will break the very long tap root). You can't divide it or take cuttings but it seeds freely.


Geranium 'Patricia' (the pink dome). 24 weeks in 2005. This is fabulous, and is continually being voted the best hardy Geranium (along with Rozanne - a blue version). The reason its flowers for so long is because its a sterile hybrid. Plants usually stop flowering when they start to produce seed (which is their entire purpose in life). But as this is sterile, as hybrids sometimes are, it can never produce seed, so it just doesn't stop flowering. It doesn't need dead heading of course. You can't grow it from seed so you must buy it as a named cultivar, or you can easily divide an existing plant - early spring or late summer. Hardy Geraniums are woodland plants so like moisture, but this does well for me in full sun.


Geranium 'Ann Folkard'. 22 and 18. This is another sterile hardy Geranium, and so is just like 'Patricia'. However this one doesn't form a dome, but is low growing and will weave through other plants. It can reach up to 10 or 12 feet across this way.


Astrantia 'Hadspen Blood'. 22 and 16. This is another sterile hybrid, which explains its long season. Its another woodland plant that likes moisture. It flowers quite early in the year, but after flowering you can cut it back and it will come again. Two others I have are 'Roma' pale red and 'Buckland' which is white. 'Roma' seems to flower a bit shorter and Buckland a bit longer, but that could be because 'Buckland' is in a more shady spot. This is easy to divide.


Verbena 'Bonariensis'- the tall wispy plant. 17 and 18. This is a lovely 'see through' plant. This was an early picture of my garden. Ideally you want it more heavily underplanted with Echinacea (as above) or any other suitable plant. Verbena is so 'see through' that it won't deprive the underplanting of any light. Its quoted as a biennial or a short lived perennial. It seeds itself so freely that its difficult to know which.


Aster fricatii 'Monch'. 16 and 15. This picture is from the internet as I can't find a good picture from my own garden. It starts flowering in July and flowers for twice as long as any other Aster that I know of. It can flop a bit, but it doesn't suffer from the dreaded mildew that affects so many Asters. It can go on till November, so there is no question of cutting it back to get a second crop of flowers. Asters generally don't come true from seed, so you multiply this by division - if that makes sense .

 

Additional thoughts.

Longk. I have never grown Sollya heterophylla - I will try that - thanks.

The record for long flowering must go to Erysimum bowles mauve. I have heard of one plant that was in continuous flower for 10 years . Can anyone beat that?

For myself, I have had two types of plant in continuous flower for 12 months. The first was a species Salvia splendens. Splendens is the little dumpy red salvia that you see so often - but the species can grow up to 9 feet tall. 5 feet was about my highest. I took cuttings in the autumn from a plant that was in flower. Even as the cuttings were trying to root they were also producing buds and flowers. I cut the flowers off at first, but so many grew so quickly that in the end I gave up. Having started in flower as a cutting they remained in flower for the next 12 months, until I took more cuttings from them - as although Salvia splendens is a perennial, it doesn't overwinter well for me.

I then did exactly the same thing with Salvia coccinea - also 12 months in flower. Normally Salvia cuttings don't do that, but I suspect that as the cutting material was in flower it contained chemicals that told it to continue flowering. And as long as it was in a heated lightbox over the winter, then in the garden over the summer, it must have decided that the summer was 12 months long .

 

I am new to all this gardening lark, and tried to choose my plants with bees in mind.

One plant that has impressed me is Erysimum 'Bowles's planted 2 of them in April, and they flowered non-stop, and are still in flower now. Only another 9 years and 3 months to claim the record :P

 

I can strike some cuttings for you if you want.

A bit geeky, but what it does is remove the blinkers. By that I mean that we (for we read me) have plants that we really like which tends to stop us being objective about their performance.

That can be a problem with some of the strong bloomers!

Regarding long flowering Salvia, is it me or do they tend to be (more often than not) the more tender species? For example S.patens, S.glutinosa and "Black and Blue" flower strongly and for a good while, but they really need the ground to warm up early in the year if they are to have a properly long flowering season.


Fuchsia can bloom for a long time, although some can be adversely affected by warm weather. One group that seems to bloom forever over the summer no matter what are the Triphylla group. Although tender, a small plug bought in late March will be in bloom from mid May through to the frosts. Here's F.Koralle Fulgens.....................


Back to climbers. Asarina scandens is easily raised from seed to be grown as an annual. Prolifically fast growing it will be flowering its heart out by June and going on until the frosts arrive........................

 

My fuschias Koralle and Thalia are still flowering away happily inside my greenhouse thanks to the mild December (so far).

 

This is interesting, PeterS, not sure if I'd have the persistence to keep such records but they are very revealing. Who'd have thought of the ubiquitous valerian as good performer - but it is. I was wondering why you have such big discrepancies between the two years, with 2004 usually, but not always, being significantly better? Did anything happen to account for it?

 

It's gorgeous....love the foliage as well as the flowers.

 

Me neither! I start sometimes, but then it fall by the wayside.

Very easy indeed to grow from seed. It also produces mountains of seed.

 

I was looking at my lists again - I did them for about 5 years. There was quite a bit of variability in the numbers, and I am sure that the climate had a big part to play. Centranthus likes it hot and doesn't mind it dry, whilst Sidalcea will flower for twice as long in a dull wet summer. But Centranthus is always between 15 and 25 weeks, whilst Sidalcea varies between 2 and 4 weeks. So inspite of the variability Centranthus always beats Sidalcea - though Sidalcea is really lovely when it does flower.

Keith - that would be brilliant - yes please.

I am sure that tender perennials flower longer. Its my understanding that Salvias split into two quite separate groups - New World and Old World. The New World group come from the south of the USA and from tropical parts of S America, whilst the Old World ones come from the rest of the world. The Old World ones are very often hardy such as the nemerosa/superba/sylvestris group, as well as sclarea and our two natives pratensis and verbenaca. However their colours are often muted.

By contrast the New World group are nearly all tender, coming from much warmer parts, and they also come in really bright reds and blues. This includes splendens (the dumpy one), microphylla/gregii/xjamensis group, your discolor (though thats an exception in being muted colours), patens, elegans (pineapple sage), guaranitica, involucrata etc. They are almost two different genuses.

However you have put your finger on an important point. In general, I believe, tender perennials as a group tend to be very long flowering. Things such as Geraniums (ie Pelargoniums), Fuchsias, Argyranthemums, Osteopermums etc. I am sure that a large part of the reason is that hardy perennials have to spend a lot of energy regrowing all that top growth before they can start to flower, as opposed to tender perennials that don't.

I think another important factor with tender perennials is the temperature. Fuchsia arborescens only flowers 3 or 4 weeks for me, but it comes from Central America where it can flower for virtually 12 months a year. In a hot summer tender perennials and tender annuals such as Cosmos and Cleome will perform brilliantly.

 

Thanks for the generous offer Longk I'll PM you me address.
Lots of good performing plant types in this post , very useful ! Its like the GC version of the RHS AGM

 

Apart from flowering duration, I like to record what-flowers-when in order to, later on, move things around to be next to Good Companions - e.g. that flower at the same time, and complement / contrast.

I have tried written/Spreadsheet records, but never kept it up. My preference is to just photograph things in flower once a week, although flicking through the photos, rather than checking a List, is a bit slower to look up when something flowered - - however, I rename photos, once downloaded, to suffix them with the plant name - so IMG1234.JPG becomes IMG1234_SomeName.JPG (I like to keep the original IMG Number as part of the name, as that allows me to consider them in chronological order - even if uploaded to internet, or processed through Photoshop such that the file gets re-dated.)