Colorful Summer Plantings

Bring your home’s landscaping to life with these beautiful and vibrant summer plantings!

Here in the Midwest, it seems like spring is over in the blink of an eye. If you didn’t get a chance to have your landscaping upgraded in the spring, don’t worry! There are still plenty of annuals, perennials, and shrubs that thrive when planted in early summer!

Installing new plantings in the summer requires a few extra steps to ensure their success. Envision’s landscape specialists will help you select the right varieties for your home based on soil type, sun exposure, and the level of required maintenance you are comfortable with.

Before planting, the team prepares the area, making sure there will be enough nutrients in the soil and that it drains well. Proper planting techniques come first, such as using the correct depth and spacing for each specific planting so strong roots can develop. They will inform you of what your new landscaping’s watering needs will be and help you adjust your irrigation system to account for the new plants. (If you are interested in installing an automatic sprinkler system to keep your landscaping well hydrated, check out Envision’s irrigation services!)

With Envision on your side, you can still make the eye-catching landscape changes you desire this summer. Check out the following popular plantings, all of which are sun-loving options for incorporating color into your landscape’s design!

Summer Plantings

Annuals

Begonias

Begonias are a top choice among landscapers and homeowners because they come in eye-catching colors and bloom continuously, adding vibrant color to your landscaping all season! They thrive in the heat and can be planted in full sun or partial shade without requiring much maintenance. Popular varieties are Dragon Wings, Whoppers, and Bronze-Leaf varieties, which add even more color to your garden!

SunPatiens & New Guinea Impatiens

These gorgeous heart-shaped blooms come in various colors, ranging from bright pinks and purples to red, orange, and white. SunPatiens are a hybrid variety of impatiens and, as you can guess from the name, do well in full sun, while impatiens prefer shadier spots. Besides bringing lots of color to your outdoor areas, they are bushy and leafy, filling out landscapes nicely. New Guinea Impatiens have pointy leaves that range from dark green to burgundy, adding some variety to the greenery within your garden beds.

Flowering Vinca

Summer is a great time to plant flowering vinca because they detest wet, cold soil and establish themselves better in drier soil. They love the sun, but can still thrive in partial shade and only require weekly watering. These are a fantastic low-maintenance choice, too, because they are self-cleaning! That means you won’t have to remove dead flowers from the plants, they have adapted to handle this themselves!

Sweet Potato Vines

This ornamental foliage planting is the perfect tropical-like addition to summer landscapes! These come in a range of different hues from bright chartreuse to gold, bronze, brown, red, purple – even black, so you can be creative with your landscape’s color palate. For the fullest expression of color, put them right in the sun. As an added bonus, these can work as ground coverage plants or they can grow vertically on trellises.

 

 

Perrenials

Lilacs

Lilac blooms bring great color, fragrance, and texture to your landscaping. These can grow fairly large, are known for being especially hardy and can live for upwards of 100+ years! Because of their size and shape, they are excellent for creating natural privacy around your home when placed strategically. Plus, they help support the ecosystem around your home since pollinators are big fans of their blooms.

Catmint

These spiky, yet delicate plants are a great choice for edgings or running along pathways and produce hundreds of tiny colorful blooms in pink, purple, or white. Their dual heat and drought tolerance makes them easy to maintain all summer and they even produce a mint-like scent!

Penstemon (Beardtongue)

There are many different varieties of penstemon, nicknamed beardtongue for their similar appearance to bearded iris. Planting in the summer allows them time to develop strong root systems and they will continue to come back each year. These grow tall and have lovely, tubular blooms. They come in nearly every color of the rainbow and blooms stick around for a long time.

Butterfly Bushes

If you are looking for a real showstopper to round out your landscaping, butterfly bushes are the choice for you. These have large, arching blooms that, as the name suggests, attract butterflies to your yard. These bushes are tough, even against storms, and do well in full sun without much maintenance required.

 

 

The hot months of summer can be a challenging time to transplant new landscape elements, which is why you should work with the Envision team to ensure your new plants are properly installed and cared for! Call the team or send them a message online to start planning your summer landscape projects and create the backyard oasis you’ve been dreaming of!