Focus on Full Sun

Our display bed for full sun—looking prime in 2016

It’s one of the most common light situations we face so let’s focus on a bed that’s in full sun. This garden looked good throughout the best and worst of 2016’s crazy season—it was easily the best one we built this year. Here’s the lowdown on the components in case you plan to build a similar bed:

Coral SunPatiens^® remained vibrant throughout the season

In the distance we had a group of SunPatiens^®; as you can see, this shade of coral is quite vibrant and the plants are very floriferous. Even at their lowest they remained in very good color.

‘Uproar Rose’ zinnia makes a great background for large beds

You’ll notice some sizable zinnias here—these are ‘Uproar Rose’. They get up to about 3-½ feet. We like this plant because it provides a rose look—not just the rosy color but the actual look of a rose—without the headache of having a rose, plus it blooms when roses don’t. It makes a great background, especially for large beds because it gets massive; this is a big plant that really fills a space.

‘Fireworks’ gomphrena 

Along the back some ‘Fireworks’ gomphrena was constantly hosting a butterfly or two. Down in front we planted ‘Beth’s Blue’ laurentia—the common name is star flower. We hadn’t grown this out before; it ended up working nicely as a low border for this colorful bed.

‘Archangel Cherry Red’ angelonia

To the left we have a brand new color of angelonia—‘Cherry Red’. It’s from the Archangel series so it’s got a little bit larger bloom and a woodier stalk. These plants reach up to around 2 feet tall. You’d recognize ‘Cherry Red’ as an angelonia by the snapdragon-like quality of the flower, but we don’t normally associate a red like this with angelonia; it’s an interesting new color for the series.

‘High Tide®’ Ageratum

Ageratum is the last component we’ll talk about in this bed; this is ‘High Tide®’ so it ended up reaching about two feet tall. It’s a little wispier than the ‘Blue Danube’ and ‘Blue Hawaii’ that we’re used to seeing. ‘High Tide®’ is a tall ageratum, so it’s suitable for cutting, or for a bed like this where we’re trying to stagger the height all the way down from the zinnia to the laurentia. It’s a useful mid-height plant.