Native perennials are an essential part of our ecosystem and support wildlife. Some are more likely to thrive in our region than others. In the early spring, celandine poppy is perfect, growing in part to full shade with sweet yellow four-petaled flowers, and later on, fuzzy seed capsules that, when mature, help this plant move around the garden in a well-mannered fashion.
Spiderwort grows taller and blooms later but is very easy to grow. The blue flowers close at noon and the two-to-three-foot plants can look scraggly, but just cut them to the ground when they do that, and they easily regenerate.
Summer bloomers with huge flowers are swamp mallows. They’re members of the Hibiscus family, and hummingbirds and bees adore them. I collect their seeds so that I can spread them around my garden in the fall, as they're so showy with their huge pink, wine-colored, and white blossoms.
Gayfeather, with the botanical name of Liatris, is also a good native perennial for zones 4 through 8, as are the foxglove penstemon which clumps and blooms for a long time with sparse watering. Blue mistflower, bee balm, and the late-blooming wood aster are also very tough natives.
This is Moya Andrews, and today we focused on tough natives.
