There are very few plants that thrive in low light conditions. Who among us hasn't accidentally killed a garden or houseplant by putting it in a too dark or shady place? I certainly have, and I'll probably do it again - accidentally, of course.
There are some plants though that go way beyond wanting some light; they crave the heat of the sun for six or more hours a day. These sun lovers are the party girls of the garden, flaunting their bright colors and beauty for all to see.
How much sun a plant receives may depend on the time of year, your garden's elevations or whether you live in the northern or southern half of the country. Naturally, the sun's rays will be hottest when it is directly overhead. In the fall, winter and spring, in the northern part of the country, the sun's rays are less direct than in the summer. Gardens at sea level get less intense rays than those high in the Rocky Mountains (6,000 feet or above) where the air is thinner. The southern part of the U.S. gets more direct rays in summer than the northern part.
So what, you ask? Well, your garden's location is something to consider when choosing plants. If the catalog description for a plant you are interested in says it needs full sun and you live in Texas, the plant may need some shade for a few hours around midday (when the sun is higher) and additional water. If you live in Minnesota, you should probably make sure your full sun plants get little or no shade, because even at midday, the sun's rays are a little less direct than in the south.
Choosing plants for full sun is really fun because there are so many excellent choices. Whether the plants will go permanently into the ground: perennials, shrubs or hardy vines, for example, or in seasonal containers: annuals, tender perennials, and tropicals, the choices are wide and wonderful. And of course, you can use those "permanent" plants in containers and the tender plants in the ground if you want to.
But when we say, Some Like It Hot, what we're really talking about are the plants that sit and pout when you try to plant them outside too early in the spring. When the soil is cold and wet and the air is below about 60 degrees F at night, they act like sulky teenagers, refusing to grow, bloom or, in some cases, even survive. These plants like it HOT and they simply won't do well until they get the heat they need!
Some of my favorites are the coneflowers, Echinacea purpurea, an American native flower that is now being cultivated in Europe for medicinal purposes. New cultivars have made it an extremely popular garden plant here in America where it looks right at home in almost any garden. Coneflowers prefer well-drained soil in full sun and reach 24-36 inches tall. Bees and butterflies visit their open, daisy-like flowers with their distinctive, cone-shaped centers for their abundant nectar; in the fall, migrating birds eat their seeds. 'Magnus', named the 1998 Perennial of the Year by the Perennial Plant Association, has bigger, brighter rose-red flowers than the species, and 'White Swan' has large white flowers. Two of the newest introductions are rose-scented: 'Sunrise', with reflexed petals in citron yellow with a green center that gradually widens and turns to gold as the season progresses, and 'Sunset', with overlapping vibrant orange petals and a brownish orange center. 'Double Decker' is, without a doubt, a most unusual coneflower. It has the usual layer of petals but the cone is topped with another layer for a striking, double-decker effect. It grows 25-30 inches tall.
A recently introduced improvement on the beloved Shasta daisy is Leucanthemum 'Becky'. This widely praised plant grows 36 inches tall and will make a substantial show in your garden. The large white daisy flowers sparkle in the sun, topping sturdy green foliage that refuses to be beaten down by the heavy rains of summer. Deadheading spent blossoms keeps 'Becky' blooming from June through October in zones 4-9.
Equally sturdy but much more petite is an excellent black eyed Susan, Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm', the Perennial Plant of the Year for 1998. With bright golden yellow rays and a smaller dark brown cone, these cheerful flowers are hybridized from the old-fashioned sun-loving black-eyed Susans known and cultivated for generations.
The daisy-like blanket flowers, Gaillardia sp., are summer bloomers that come in hot, hot colors. 'Goblin' has fiery red orange ray petals edged in bright golden yellow. 'Burgundy' has wine-red ray petals that darken close to the bright yellow center of each flower. The newly introduced 'Fanfare' is trumpet shaped with scarlet petals edged with bright yellow. Gaillardias grow 12-24 inches tall and do well even in poor, dry soil.
Coreopsis, a native North American plant, will bloom all summer when deadheaded and is reliably perennial, standing up gallantly to all the heat summer can provide. Coreopsis 'Moonbeam' is probably one of the most popular cultivars and was honored as the Perennial Plant of the Year in 1992. It blossoms heavily with daisy-like lemon yellow flowers that are perfectly set off by fern-like green foliage and will grow 10- 18 inches tall. 'Tequila Sunrise' is brand new and highly touted. It has large, golden yellow flowers with red markings in the center and grows 10-24 inches tall. Attractive variegated foliage makes this one a winner! Slightly taller at 18-24 inches tall, 'Heaven's Gate' has pink petals with a rose-red eyezone around gold centers. It is an excellent companion for 'Sweet Dreams', with dark pink petals that fade to pale pink toward their tips. How beautiful!
Flowers come in many different shapes; artfully mixing shapes and colors can make a good garden outstanding. Yellow foxtail lily, Eremurus bungei, makes an excellent accent plant, with fluffy bottlebrush-shaped flowers that grow 24-36 inches tall. Mixed Shelford hybrids include yellow, pink and orange colors and are lovely at 24-36 inches tall. Foxtail lilies start blooming at the bottom and work their way upward to the tips of the stems. Given a sunny, well-drained site, these carefree flowers need dividing only once in 10-15 years and make long lasting cut flowers too.
Though the ornamental succulents in the genus Sedum can tolerate a little shade, they do so much better in hot, dry places. Several outstanding cultivars are true border plants in zones 3-9 that are extremely adaptable, sometimes even tolerating quite moist conditions. Probably the best known is 'Autumn Joy'. Green flowers that resemble a very ornamental broccoli turn pink, then dark red and finally bronze as its very long season of bloom progresses. At 15-20 inches tall, 'Autumn Joy' is a joy indeed! 'Starburst' has thick foliage covered with dainty white flowers from July-September. It grows 15-18 inches tall. S. spurium 'Dragon's Blood' is the perfect groundcover for hot, dry and sunny areas. It has star-shaped, wine red flowers that bloom from June-August and green foliage that turns bronze in the fall. New this year is 'Red Cauli', with attractive red foliage and bright red ball-shaped flowers from August-September. This compact form is 15-20 inches tall and has showy seed heads for winter interest.
Yarrow, Achillea sp., is an old-fashioned flower that is just as popular now as it was in your grandmother's time, but she would be amazed to see the new colors that are available today. Sun loving and drought-tolerant once established, yarrow is an easy care perennial with fern-like green foliage. It will reach 18-24 inches tall in zones 3-9.
Perovskia 'Little Spire' is a small Russian sage. It has all the charm of its larger cousin but is only 25 inches tall. It has blue-green foliage and airy blue flowers that are fragrant as well as drought tolerant. Plant a fragrant swathe of Hidcote lavender (Lavendula angustifolia 'Hidcote') and recall images of the French countryside when it blooms in July-August. The foliage is evergreen in zones 6-9. Lavender can be used as a specimen plant in a perennial or mixed border, and it is especially nice as a 12 inches tall hedge to edge a herb or knot garden. The showy flowers are traditionally used to scent linens, in perfume and in potpourri.
I remember cosmos as a pink or white annual that is quite pretty, but boring. Enter a new cosmos that is named after my favorite flavor! Cosmos atrosanguineus 'Chocolate' is even lightly scented with a sweet chocolate fragrance. It has velvety deep maroon flowers and looks absolutely fabulous when paired with silver-leafed plants. It is hardy in zones 7-10 and will reach 24-36 inches tall.
There is a weed named mullein that is a pest in many gardens. Over the last several decades, plant breeders have transformed the common weed into well-behaved border plants. For exciting vertical accents at 15-36 inches tall, Verbascum cultivars are just right. Pretty flowers unfold from the bottom of each stalk upwards to the very tips for a stunning show. Plant them in well-drained soil. 'Buttercup' has lovely yellow flowers with white markings; 'Pink Domino' is prettily ruffled in raspberry pink; 'White Domino' has bright white flowers with red centers; and 'Jackie' is pale cantaloupe washed with rose-pink and has fuzzy plum-rose stamens. All have large basal green leaves.
Hardy only in zones 8-10, dahlias definitely like it hot. They start blooming in July in most areas and continue until frost. Northern gardeners as well as those in the upper south may have to treat dahlias as annuals. Or the tubers can be lifted and stored over the winter, to be replanted next spring. Dahlias come in a dizzying array of colors and shapes and there are so many to choose from that it would be impossible not to find one you will fall in love with.
Imagine a flower as large as a dinner plate! Yes, there are some spectacular dinner plate sized dahlias that grow 36-48 inches tall. How about 'The Big Wow' (wouldn't you buy this for the name alone?), with enormous bright red flowers? Or how about 'Cafe au Lait', delicious in creamy mocha; 'Kenora Macob', gorgeous in an almost black maroon; 'Babylon Beauty', fabulous in a golden orange; or 'Lilac Time', lovely in violet purple? Still not sold? Try 'Bristol Stripe' festive in white with magenta and purple striping; 'Kidd's Climax' cheerful in salmon-rose with a bright yellow heart; or 'Holland's Festival' delectable in dark pumpkin edged with dazzling white.
There are more demure dahlias that come in powder puff shapes and grow 24-40 inches tall. Most of these large flowers have a petticoat of regular petals with a puff of smaller, ruffled petals in the middle. Try 'Blue Bayou' in lavender-blue; 'Boogie Woogie' lilac with a yellow heart; 'Riverdance' a deep, passionate red; or 'Lambada' exquisite, with soft rose petals and a creamy white puff accented with deep rose in the center.
If you are looking for an unusual dahlia color, try 'Blue Bell', a purple-blue dahlia in the Decorative class. It grows 24-36 inches tall and is the best purple-blue dahlia so far! Another winner is 'Pink Attraction', which is white with deep pink tips. It grows 16-40 inches tall and is a very good cut flower. 'Kalinka' is named for a popular Russian folksong and is new this year. It has rose-purple petals lit by a golden center; the flowers are 4 inches wide and are outstanding in a vase. It grows 36-48 inches tall. Another new introduction is 'El Paso', a gorgeous ball shaped dahlia with white petals tipped with fuchsia and highlighted with gold. It grows to 36 inches tall is also a great cut flower.
You can mix it up with Karma dahlias for an array of different shapes and vibrant, iridescent colors. These tall dahlias (36-44 inches) were developed for the Dutch cut flower market and have long, very sturdy stems. The colors are truly magnificent and must be seen to be appreciated. For an amazing effect in your garden, try 'Karma Fuchsiana' in fuchsia pink with golden highlights; 'Karma Bon Bini' in flame red bursting with golden centers; 'Karma Yin Yang' in violet purple tipped with white; or 'Karma Sangria' with a rose center, and golden yellow petals tipped in salmon rose. Single colored flowers include 'Karma Naomi', a lovely dark red; 'Karma Lagoon', an iridescent violet; or 'Karma Ventura', a dazzling lemon yellow.
Even if you have only limited room, there is a dahlia for you. 'Fire & Ice' grows only 20 inches tall, but will never be overlooked. It has an unusual color pattern with bright red feathering out from the yellow centers to stain the sparkling white petals. The very floriferous border dahlias are even smaller, at 15 inches tall with 4 inch wide flowers. 'Berliner Kleene' is pink; 'Margareth Kleene' is salmon; and 'Bluesette' is lilac. They blend together beautifully for a lovely show. If you only have room for dahlias in a windowbox, try the 8 inches tall dwarf dahlias . They come in several different colors to mix and match.
There are so many sun lovers we didn't even get to talk about this time. So, even if it gets too hot in the garden for your comfort, you can have the most amazing display of plants that really do love the heat. As you can see, more than just some plants like it HOT!
