Dreaming of Summer

Unless you are lucky enough to live where it’s warm year round, when winter starts to drag on, it may feel as if the garden is awash in dreary, monochromatic browns and grays. Time to close your eyes and dream of summer—a colorful season when foliage is vibrant, fl owers are blooming and pollinators are active. If you need a bit of summer inspiration, here are three colorful low-maintenance combos that will also attract wildlife. Who wouldn’t dream of that?

- Jennifer Howell

Rooting for Butterflies

Even if you aren’t a Denver Broncos fan, you’ll cheer for this eye-popping color combination. And butterflies will applaud it too. Heat-tolerant ‘Blue Butterfly’ Siberian larkspur will draw in many pollinators until late summer. Cut the bloom stalks to the ground when they are finished to keep plants neat. Deadhead spent coneflower and bachelor’s button blossoms to extend flowering until fall, but leave a few to produce seeds that will grow the next year. ‘Karl Foerster’ feather reed grass is sterile and won’t reseed, but the dried seedheads provide winter interest and cover for birds. This drought-tolerant combo appreciates a midsummer boost of water-soluble general-purpose fertilizer.

A Siberian larkspur  Delphinium grandiflorum ‘Blue Butterfly’ Perennial; royal blue flower spikes from early to late summer; full sun; 12 to 15 in. tall and wide; cold hardy in USDA zones 3 to 7

B Coneflower Echinacea ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ Perennial; daisylike flowers in shades of orange, cream, yellow, red or purple from summer through fall; full sun to part shade; 22 to 30 in. tall, 12 to 24 in. wide; cold hardy in USDA zones 4 to 9