Summer flowering perennials
There are plenty of summer flowering perennials to brighten your beds and borders from June to August. A thriving summer garden can make you the envy of your friends and neighbours at the summer party, or simply act as a rewarding place to relax during the longer, warmer days. Summer flowering perennials continue to sustain beneficial insects and birds with essential nectar, attracting a hive of wildlife activity to your garden. Some of the best summer perennials include poppies with their distinctive, symbolic, papery flowers and phlox with their beautiful clouds of billowy star-shaped blooms. Salvia are another mainstay of the mid-summer flower garden, producing beautiful, tightly packed tubular flowers, while red hot poker flowers provide architectural, long-lived flower spikes from spring through to late autumn. Don’t forget to deadhead faded flowers to encourage a fresh flush of blooms, apply a potassium-rich tomato feed and water well during dry spells.