This summer, I traded a lot of trail time for garden work. It’s been a wild season. I lost my dog in June, my partner got a firefighter job 24 days later, and we’re both splitting time close to his academy that’s over 2 hours away. Buying 32 new plants was a nice hit of dopamine while I wasn’t making much of my own. The routine weeding and watering feels both mindless and meditative. And with the new “bilocational” lifestyle, it’s nice to get some outdoor time at home.
I thought it’d be fun to do a ranking of the new plants I added this year. For context, I’m in Zone 6b, high desert area with lots of sun, heat, and wind, and a short growing season.
- Delosperma Ice Plant: Constantly in bloom, thrives on neglect, zero maintenance outside of a little water. (Zero deadheading or pruning).
- State Fair Zinnias: Huge, geometric blooms. Tall. Flowers aggressively. They make a huge visual impact, even from a distance. Would be my #1, but the branches split easily in the wind. (Any stems on the ground somehow continue to flower, even if they’re barely connected). More staking next year.
- Coreopsis: One Moonswirl variety where I love the blooms and an Uptick variety that hosted a praying mantis for most of the summer.
- Shasta Daisy: It’s the ones that almost die that make you feel like a skilled gardener. My daisies caught a leaf fungus, but an aggressive prune helped it recover and start blooming again.
- Coleus: Fantastic colors. Planning to test some mixed pots with flowering companion plants next year.
- Foxglove: Another one that boosted my ego. Not great east of the Cascades, but my partner really likes them. Accidentally planted it in a spot with too much sunlight, in a heat wave around the solstice. Constantly found them “passed out” flat on the ground. But a few weeks of setting up shade structures and heavy watering and they seem well established.
- Impatiens & Creeping Jenny: Second year doing this combo in our grillzebo and obsessed with the vivid color combo.
- Trailing Petunias: New choice for some hanging baskets since they’re further from the house compared to my old place. Could’ve added more plants to get even more overflow effect. And they gave me a bit of trouble with overwatering and tobacco hornworms.
- Russian Sage
- Black Eyed Susan
- Rosemary
- Penstemon
- Blazing Star
- New Guinea Impatiens
- Lantana
- Basil
- Spearmint
- Marigolds
- Spanish Lavender
- Veronica
- Blue Fescue
- Feather Reed Grass
- Creeping Phlox
- Pink Impact Dahlia: Very pretty, but the packaging suggested the colors would vivid.
- Park Princess Dahlia: Another one where the package photography was oversaturated. I also don’t like the cactus quill petals. They look really scraggly the minute they start to fade compared to fuller varieties where the first withering petals kind of “hide” behind the others.
- Echinacea: Apparently the first year is always underwhelming while the roots establish. Most flowers were under its own foliage.
- Paprika Yarrow: Makes tons of “drought-friendly” lists, but the blooms quickly fade to pale pink and white in dry climates.
- Thrift: Accidentally dried it out mid-bloom. Recovered, but hasn’t grown or changed in months.
- Lemongrass: Stems never got thick enough to harvest. Had a lot of big Thai food dreams for the summer that never came true.
- Celosia: I need to start pinching these off. Every year, I let the main plume get too big, skip watering for a day, and the whole thing flops over.
- Blanket Flower: Google swore blanket flowers would reach 12-24in wide at maturity. Mine spans 30 inches and is eating all of its neighbors. They only last a few seasons, so I’m not sure if it’s worth rearranging and transplanting. They flower aggressively, but the blooms don’t last long. Needs deadheading all the time.
- Chives: Died 😦
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