Favorite Flowers

Below I list the flowers I have grown again and again. I describe the heights and colors as they have grown for me and not what the catalogs describe. Seldom have my actual results agreed with the catalog descriptions. Of course one person's description of mauve can easily mean ten different colors to ten different people. And who knows what fertilizers are used, if any, from garden to garden! The A-P-B in the third column refers to annual, perennial and biennial. In the final column P or S refers to whether I grew them from seed or purchased plants. Most of my flowers prefer full sun since the only shade I have is primarily provided by the house on the eastern side. My trees are too young to provide anything remotely shady.

My real favorites I have highlighted in bold. Ones I will try growing again from seed I highlighted in blue.

Flower	Variety	A-P-B	Color/Height	Comments
Achillea (yarrow)	millefolium, Summer Pastels	P	pinks, yellows, white, 3 ft	Easy to grow, drought tolerant	S
Alyssum, sweet	Carpet of Snow	A	white, 5 inches	self sowing	S
Aquilegia (columbine)	McKanna Hybrids	P	yellow and whites, 2 feet	have yet to succeed from seed	P
Artemesia	Silver Mound	P	silvery gray feathery foliage, 8 in	grew really well so I bought another	P
Aster	various	P	lavenders, 15 inches	never tried from seed	P
Cactus	indoor varieties	P	green short	fairly easy to start, harder to keep alive	S
Cardinal Climber Ipomea x multifida		A	twining climber, 8 feet	scarlett trumpets, deeply cut leaves, easy to collect seeds	S
Carnation	Dwarf Grenadin Mixed	P	white, pinks	so far unsuccesful from seed, nice cut flower	P
Centaurea (bachelor's button)	tall double mix	A	blue, white, pink, 2 ft	easy from seed drought tolerant	S
Celosia plumosa	Apricot Brandy	A	peach, 12 in	semi-easy from seed	S
	Century Fire	A	red, 12 in	package said low germination but mine was excellent	S
Chrysanthemum	various	P	many colors, 12-15 in	not as winter hardy as labels lead one to believe, have lost half to mild winters	P
	Merry Mix	A	variegated flowers, w,y,r,o	easy to start	S
Cleome (spider flower)	unknown	A	white, pink, lavender, 4-5 ft	collected seeds, easy to grow, self sowing	S
Coreopsis	Moonbeam	P	lemon yellow, frilly foliage, 15 in	lasting flowers, drought tolerant, easy	P
Cosmos	Sensation Mix	A	pink, red, white 3-4 ft	drought tolerant, self sowing	S
	Bright Lights	A	orange, yellow, white (scarlet now substituted for white)-30 in	drought tolerant, self sowing	S
	Pied Piper Red	A	dark red, tubular petals 2 ft	drought tolerant	S
Dianthus barbatus (Sweet William)	mix	B	white, pinks, reds, 18 in	still alive through 2 mild winters	S
Helichrysum (Strawflower)	?	A	bright yellow	drought killed them	P
Dusty Miller		A	silvery gray foliage, 12 in	nice change from flowers, some survived the mild winter	P

Gloriosa Daisy rudbeckia hirta	single mixed	P	yellows with brown/red centers	drought tolerant	S
Pelargonium	various	A	red, pinks, white	what used to be(and still is)called the geranium	P
Geranium, hardy	?	P	blue, pink	bushy flowering plant	P
Heuchera (coral bells)	Bressingham hybrids	P		planted in 98 still waiting for bloom	P
Hosta (plantain lily)	Gold drop, variegated,	P	10" to 18 in, spread varies	needs afternoon shade at a minimum, so they are planted in the east foundation bed	P
Impatiens	blueberry	A	5 in, closer to pink not blue	needs shade	S
Lobelia	Crystal Palace	A	deep blue/purple, 5 in	tiny lovely flowers, easy from seed	S
Lychnis coronaria	?		large bushy plant		S
Marigold, signet (tagetes tenuifolia)	starfire mix	A	golds, reds, 12 in	used in potato bed to repel potato bugs	S
Pansy	various	A	many colors, 6 in	cheap enough to buy plants	S
Penstemon barbatus		P	red flower spikes	takes work to grow seeds but doable	S
	Husker red	P	purpleish foliage white flower spikes, 18 in	easier to buy one speciman plant	P
Periwinkle	Little Bright Eyes	A	shiny dark green leaves whit flowers red centers	easy annual, start 3 months before last frost	S
Potentilla (cinquefoil)	Monarch's Velvet	P	scarlet with black eyes, 15 in		P
	Miss WIlmott	P	pink, 15 in		P
Purple Coneflower		P	pink	can bloom first year if started VERY early	S
Pyrethrum	James Kellway	P	dark pink, yellow center, 12 in	never could sprout seeds, bought 4 plants 2 died, no apparent reason	P
Sedum		P	yellow	succulent, very drought tolerant	P
Sunflower	Italian White	A	white small flowers, 3 ft	never reached the 7 ft height advertised	S
	Pacino	A	small pale yellow flowers, 4 ft		S
Shasta Diasy	Alaska	P	White	easy, starts blooming second year from seed	S
Tithonia (Mexican sunflower)	Sundance	A	orange petals, 30 in	drought and heat tolerant	S
Vinca, periwinkle	Parasol	A	white flowers red centers shiny green leaves, 12 in	easy to grow from seed	S
Johnnny Jump Ups (viola tricolor)		A	white purple yellow, 6 in	self sows so easily it acts like a perennial	S
ZInnia	bright jewels mix	A	ornage, white, yellow	easy from seed, often self sows	S
	whirligig	A	variegated petals

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