Plants That Have Thrived and Plants That Have Flopped

 As I get into the busiest season of the year in the garden, it's always a good time to reflect on plants I have that I've really grown to love and others that I regret planting.  I'm definitely still learning how to grow things, and I've made many mistakes over the years.  Before I get into my top picks (see what I did there?), I always appreciate it when gardeners share their location and gardening zone.  I am in western North Carolina, where we enjoy a quite mild climate, with a lot of rain.  Sounds like a good problem to have, right?  But we also battle mildew badly here because of our rain and humidity.  My garden sits in zone 7a.

My favorites:  These plants will always have a home in my garden for a variety of reasons.  Some, because they are just so easy to grow and maintenance-free, while others were chosen for their beautiful or unique flowers.

1.  Hollyhock.  I rarely have any difficulty growing hollyhock.  Yes, this gorgeous flower is a biennial, so you have to have patience to see the beautiful blooms, but they are very easy to grow from seed.  Also, aside from some minor issues with Japanese beetles, there isn't much that bothers my hollyhocks.  Bees absolutely love them.  My favorite variety is called "Indian Springs."  This year, I am trying a variety called "Apricot Halo."  Why else do I love hollyhock?  This cottage style flower holds a special place in my heart because it was my mom's favorite flower.  I actually don't remember ever seeing her grow it in her garden, but that was likely because she didn't get enough sun on my parents' property.  Hollyhocks do best in full sun.

I'm only 5'1" so these "Indian Springs" hollyhocks tower over me, standing 5-6 feet tall.  

2.  Foxglove.  Again, this was a favorite of my mom's and I do have photos of her garden with foxglove.  Foxglove is so easy to grow.  I could probably just toss some seeds into the yard, forget about them, and have huge, gorgeous plants a few months later.  That's how easy they are to grow.  When I want to try a new variety, though, I usually do start them indoors or winter sow them.  If you've never tried winter sowing, foxglove is the perfect flower to try it with.  The tall stalks of foxglove are the quintessential cottage flower.  One of my favorite things about foxglove is that although they are usually biennial or a short lived perennial, they reseed like crazy!  I make a point to help them reseed by letting a few stalks go to seed, cutting them down, and gently shake them over the area where I'd like them to grow.  This year, I'm hoping to see some blooms from my new "Apricot Beauty" foxglove.  

One of my patches of foxglove sits beside the front of the house.  

2.  Autumn Joy Sedum.  This plant also holds a special place in my heart because my first plant was given to me from a good friend's garden, who lives in Raleigh.  Every time I visit her (which I wish was more often), I bring cuttings from my garden and she gives me some from hers.  Anyway, Autumn Joy Sedum is super easy to grow.  Nothing seems to eat or bother it.  The extent of its maintenance is that you occasionally need to divide it.  My favorite thing about this sedum is how popular it is with the local pollinators.  When it's in bloom, I call it "Bee City."  You can literally walk by the plant and hear the united buzz coming from all of the insects on it.  

3.  Phlox.  Again, such an easy plant to grow.  I love both the creeping variety that blooms in the spring (I am currently enjoy several patches of it right now) as it blooms in carpets of violet and fuchsia.  I also love the taller varieties of phlox, often called "garden phlox."  Phlox smells heavenly when it is in bloom. I love that it can grow just about anywhere.  It loves full sun, but does just as well in some of my partly shaded areas.  

Garden phlox spreads easily, yet not too aggressively.

Ahhh, I was going to stop at my top three, but I think I'm going to have to add a few more.  I'll probably need to do a part 2 for this blog post where I can post about the plants I've tried that I regretted.  

4.  Zinnias.  Zinnias are so easy to grow.  You can start them indoors like I do, or you can direct sow them right into your garden when the soil temperature warms up.  Zinnia seeds are usually fairly cheap, easy to find, and come in so many varieties.  One of my newest favorites is called "Zahara Double Raspberry Ripple."  That's a very long name for a zinnia that is very compact and only grows to be maybe 12 inches tall.  There is one type of zinnia I tried last year that was a huge disappointment.  I'll be sure to cover that in my post about flower fails.

Zahara Double Raspberry Ripple Zinnia

5.  Milkweed.  I have two varieties of milkweed.  One is called Butterfly Weed and the other is called Swamp Milkweed.  To be honest, these flowers won't be winning any prizes for their beauty.  Butterfly weed has very bright orange blooms and orange is probably my least favorite color in the garden.  Strangely, I don't think my swamp milkweed has ever produced any flowers.  I don't know why.  The reason I love milkweed is purely because it's a host for monarch butterflies.  Every garden should have a patch of this ugly, but very important plant.

Butterfly Weed:  If you want to help monarch butterflies, this plant is for you.

That wraps of up my top 5 favorite garden flowers.  Next up will be some of my garden's greatest disappointments...flowers that I couldn't wait to tear out and give away.  Anyone want some of my crocosmia?