Winter is almost over, and aren’t we all thinking about what grew really well last year and whether we want to repeat some of these all-star flowers again this year? 2019 was a great year in our garden. We made a huge, new flowerbed across half of our front yard (the other half is coming this year!), grew some freakishly tall zinnias, had more tomatoes that we could possibly consume, got some perennials and shrubs established, grew herbs for the first time, and really got some peace and joy out of working in the garden. So, without further ado, here are some photos and descriptions of my 2019 all-star flowers (plus an ornamental grass). I may do another post about veggies and other plants.

The 2019 all-star flowers

Trailing Verbena ‘Tapien’

This low groundcover flowers forever (well, OK, not in the winter) and spreads at a moderately quick pace. It roots as it goes, but it doesn’t seem to send out viable seeds. The challenge is deciding to cut it back when it crowds out something else we love (like the Erigeron Santa Barbara daisy next to it). If you can give it some room, it’s a sweet addition to the front of a flowerbed.

Zinnias (several varieties)

At first, we decided zinnias would just be useful to fill in some blank spaces this first year until some perennials grew in a bit. But we absolutely loved these, and we’ll be growing them again this year. For some reason, maybe too much water and really rich, compost-enhanced soil, they reached 5-6 feet tall (I’m standing straight up in that 3rd photo, with some at or above my eye level), even though they were labeled as 2-3 feet on the seed packets. The varieties we planted were Northern Lights, Whirligig, and Envy (the green ones). Santia has long loved green zinnias, and I admit I was not a fan and planted them just for her. But I’ve come to really enjoy their unusual color and how gracefully they fit into the flowerbed. I like the surprise they create in the color palette. They all got pretty ragged in the fall, but we let them stand for a while so the seeds would be fully ripe when we harvested them. We’ll plant the seeds this year, not knowing what varieties we’ll get, maybe even with some natural hybridization going on. It’ll be an interesting surprise!

Indian Blanket Flower (Gaillardia grandiflora)

Sometimes these are now just called blanket flower, perhaps out of recognition that “Indian” was not a great name to place on Native Americans. But the reference is to “Indian blankets” with their bold, contrasting colors, and I usually use that name, even though it’s a bit anachronistic. These plants are tough, can handle drought conditions or ample water (which is pretty amazing adaptability), and flower pretty much 12 months a year here in NorCal. They spread by seed (but not a thug), and the offspring will have variable color. One of my favorite variations in a previous garden had all-yellow petals with a red center. These are from seed I brought with me from my Utah garden, and they grew quickly and flowered within a few months (so rare for seed-grown perennials!). They’re about 2-3 feet tall.

Blue Grama Grass

OK, not a flower, but a darn cool ornamental grass! Santia likes to call these “eyelash grass.” This is the ‘Blonde Ambition’ variety. We have loved them ever since having a single specimen plant at our Utah house. Planting them for mass effect here has been a wonderful addition to the front garden. The seed heads appear mid-summer and continue to be beautiful until you cut the clumps back in winter. We placed them in front of an undulating row of taller grasses (‘Red Bunnytails’ fountain grass), with existing taller shrubs behind all of them. It worked quite well. These are between two and three feet tall (at the tips of the seed pods).

Agastache rupestris (hyssop)

This is another great perennial that blooms the first year from seed. The clumps were still a little wispy and narrow this past year, but they’ll thicken up this year. I believe this is the species and not a named variety. It’s from seeds I brought from the Utah house. The flowers have both a orange-salmon color and a purple-lavender calyx that makes for an interesting color combination. The orange seems to fade to lavender over time, too. They get about three feet tall.

Lavatera tauricensis

If you’ve browsed this blog, you may have seen me write about this little beauty before. It’s a rare plant that I’ve now planted at four homes over the past 20+ years. These are serious all-star flowers! I originally bought the seeds from the Thompson and Morgan catalog in the 1990s, and I’ve grown it in the Sacramento Valley, Utah Valley (about 4500 ft) and way up high on Utah’s Traverse Ridge at 6200 ft. It’s proven quite versatile! It flowers nearly constantly from spring through late fall, only slowing down a little when making seeds. The seeds have often been challenging to germinate, but it wasn’t that hard last year (even though my collected seeds were several years old). I don’t know of any place you can buy this anymore, but I’ll keep saving seeds and spreading the joy to friends who are interested. It’s about two feet tall.

Honorable mentions

These are great flowers, too, but perhaps just not quite as awesome as the all-stars. In order from top left, row by row, here are my comments:

• ‘Black and Blue’ salvia is beautiful but finicky about water. One of them may not have made it through the winter.
• Tropical hibiscus is not quite hardy in zone 9, so they’re in pots that allow me to keep them sheltered by the house in winter, but they struggle with drying out or roots getting too warm in the summer heat.
• Santa Barbara daisy (erigeron) almost made the all-star list. It’s pretty darn elegant, but I’ve seen it become an absolute thug in other gardens and I’m waiting to see how well-behaved it is here.
• Calendula is pretty and flowers through winter, but gets ragged in the summer heat.
• Gazania (copper and white ones are shown) are common, but lovely in the spring. They disappoint in summer, though, not flowering long enough.
• Euryops daisy shrubs have great yellow flowers in late winter and early spring. Mine were just planted last spring and actually flowered all the way through fall, but I’m not sure they’ll repeat that performance this year. If left unmanaged, they get leggy and flop.
• Hollyhocks are nice and add some great height to the the flowerbed, but I’m not a fan of these with the frilly petal edges (haha, but Santia is!). I’ll let them continue in the flowerbed — they’ve spread some seeds and the original clump is alive with new growth for spring. BTW, so many sites say they are biennials that won’t flower the first year, but these did, and did it quite well!
• Gold coin (astericus maritimus) are great when in bloom, but it doesn’t last long, and they’re a bit dry and leggy-looking the rest of the year.
• These lantanas are great when in bloom, and it lasts much of the growing season. But they’re not as hardy as expected in the winter. They are supposed to be evergreen, but here they lose their leaves and need to be cut back hard in late winter.
• Black-eyed Susans (rudbeckia) are pretty awesome. They should have been on the all-star list. But they’re quite common. Still, I’m a huge fan.
• Nicotiana were good performers in my backyard flowerbed, but this particular variety has been so hybridized that they’ve lost the fragrance that they’re known for, and that’s a real shame.

Well, how about you? What are your all-star flowers of 2019, and are you gonna repeat them again this year? Or try a bunch of new things? Post in the comments, and let’s talk about it!