Plant for Summer


While weather is warming, temperatures are still temperate enough to plant. This month it's easy to be tempted by seasonal color brightening nurseries, but experienced gardeners set their sights on summer and purchase plants accordingly. Avoid planting spring blooming annuals like ranunculus, stocks, snapdragons, pansies and poppies now; they will soon fade. Instead choose six-packs and four-inch pots of summer flowering plants that, if planted now, will be ready for the hot, dry conditions ahead. Some to consider are petunias, zinnias, rudbeckia, coreopsis, asters, annual salvias, cosmos, yarrow, gazania, marigolds, sunflowers and nicotiana.