Petunia
The cheerful petunia, a staple of old-fashioned gardens, planters, and hanging pots, is more vivid than ever with red, yellow, pink, purple, lavender, white, multicolored, or striped blossoms. They are reliable flowers that will bloom from spring through autumn if grown in the sun and deadheaded consistently. Many of them feel sticky to the touch due to sap that is exuded from the plant tissues to protect them from insect pests. Petunias are native to South America and are related to tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and tobacco.
Ranunculus
Ranunculus flowers are varieties of the big, showy, Persian buttercups that grow from claw-shaped corms and come in a variety of bright colors. Their layers of paper-thin, glossy petals give the blossoms a rose-like appearance that is appealing for wedding bouquets or long-lasting cut flowers. Ranunculus are not commonly grown in home gardens, but they could be. Southern gardeners can plant the corms in the fall for spring blooms, and northern gardeners can plant in the early spring for summer blossoms.
Snapdragon
Snapdragon flowers, shaped like little dragon snouts, are native to the United States, North Africa, and Europe, and have been widespread posies for centuries. Their flowers bloom from the bottom to the top of tall stalks in the summer and fall and come in yellow, peach, pink, orange, purple, red, white, and bicolor. Snapdragons are picky about their pollinators! Large bumblebees are the only insects that are strong enough to open the upper and lower lips of the snapdragon flower to crawl inside to drink the nectar and inadvertently cover themselves in pollen.
Violet
There are over 500 species of these merry little wildflowers mostly in the temperate northern hemisphere, popping up in lawns, woodlands, streambanks, and hillsides. True violets are annual, perennial, or even small shrubs with white, yellow, lavender, or purple flowers. Our garden pansies are also violets but are larger, multicolored cultivars of the European flower known as heartsease. The violet is February’s birth flower, and the state flower of Illinois, New Jersey, and Wisconsin.
Zinnia
Colorful, easy-to-grow zinnias are a beginner gardener’s dream. They can be seeded from the last frost to early summer and will consistently produce blooms all season if dying blooms are deadheaded — truly a “cut and come again” flower. They are herbaceous annuals, native to Mexico, South America, and the southwestern U.S. that are of varying heights, with bright 1” to 7” diameter flowers that are single, semi-double, or double. Zinnias are perfect for a butterfly garden, with their red, pink, purple, yellow, white, or orange blossoms that attract pollinators of all kinds including hummingbirds.
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