The City Gardener: Endless summer

Дата публикации: 24-07-2026 12:57:59

Gardens, like people, generally prefer to take it easy in the heat. But there are some plants that actually thrive when the temperature soars.

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What a long, hot summer this is turning out to be! I’ve been doing my best to help my garden make it through the heat, with lots of morning watering, trying to keep ahead of the weeds and tending to light garden chores when it’s not too sizzling.

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But I won’t deny that now and then, a backyard hammock doesn’t quite compare to air-conditioned comfort on the living room sofa.

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The following are some plants I’ve grown over the years that don’t seem to mind the heat, and a lot of them bloom right through the summer, when other, flashier perennials are done for the year. Not coincidentally, the list includes a few of my personal favourites — and, I hope, yours too.

Purple Coneflower (Echinacea).

Purple coneflowers are the domesticated relative of black-eyed Susans, but with some important differences. For one thing, they’re taller, capable of reaching two or even three feet in height. And they come in a variety of colours, including pink, red and white as well as yellow.

Coneflowers are very easy to grow and spread by both seed and root, though not quite as rampantly as their wild cousins. And while bees and other pollinators love them, they are generally deer- and pest-resistant.

Blanket Flower (Gaillardia).

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Blanket flowers are sometimes called painted daisies, since they look like daisies whose petals someone has come along and decorated in concentric circles of brown, red, orange and white. Like many of the flowers mentioned here, they’re native to

Canada. Blanket flowers prefer slightly acidic, dryish soil in full sun, and tend to be short-lived; go easy on the fertilizer to prolong bloom.

Yarrow (Achillea)

Wild yarrow is a familiar roadside plant, blooming alongside chicory, aster and Queen Anne’s lace to form pretty blue-and-white clouds from July on. Both the wild and tame versions feature tight-set clusters of tiny flowers on the tops of sturdy, branching stalks. In addition to white, the garden-grown variety also comes in yellow, pink, and even red.

Catmint (Nepeta)

Catmint is closely related to catnip, but it’s actually much better-looking in the garden (and less attractive to Mittens). A drought-tolerant perennial with bottle-brush-like lavender spikes — in fact, it does slightly resemble lavender, especially when in bloom — it’s great for attracting bees, butterflies and other pollinators.

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Catmint prefers full sun; it tolerates light shade, but may get leggy and less attractive. A bit of afternoon shade, either from trees or an umbrella set out when the sun is at its highest, helps extend bloom time.

Butterfly Weed (Asclepius tuberosa)

Butterfly weed is a member of the milkweed family, but without the milky sap (which can be caustic) or furry leaves of its wild cousin. Instead, it features clusters of small orange or yellow star-shaped blossoms and long, straplike leaves.

As its name implies, it’s a butterfly magnet, and an excellent environmental choice, since it’s beneficial to monarchs and many other butterfly populations that are currently under threat.

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’

Children tend to call sedum the “broccoli plant,” because that’s exactly what it looks like. I like them because, apart from being another tough customer that will last for years in your garden, they go through three distinct and equally striking phases over the course of the season.

Sedum first emerges as a tightly packed clump of little balls resembling living stone cacti (and actually, it is a member of the succulent family; another name for it is stonecrop). Its light greyish-green colour contrasts nicely with bulbs and other spring plants.

In summer, it begins to stretch its legs and takes on the shape of broccoli or tiny trees. Finally, starting in late August or early September, the plant comes into bloom, and the broccoli heads turn bright pink.

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