12 great annual flowers that can take the heat | George Weigel
Updated May 13, 2021;
Posted May 13, 2021
Avoid this kind of wilting trouble in summer by picking flowers that can withstand our increasing heat.
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Pennsylvania keeps getting warmer in the summer, as you might have noticed by Harrisburg’s hottest month ever last July.
Climate forecasters say this is no fluke, that we’re on the road to a climate more akin to Arkansas than Harrisburg’s past norms.
If that’s the case, it makes sense when picking our annual flowers each spring to lean toward choices best equipped to handle increased heat.
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Move over impatiens and make way for begonias.
Impatience plants have been on a downward spiral for about a decade now. Prior to 2010, impatiens was the single most widely planted garden annual, but that all changed when downy mildew came to town and infected practically every impatiens. For the first few years of the Impatiens pandemic, gardeners were finding some success with their efforts. The Impatiens grew fine after planting, but by July the fungus took over, leaving plants flopped over and dead.
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Ray and Mary Ann’s Massachusetts Garden
A garden 40 years in the making
Welcome to Ray and Mary Ann Fontaine’s garden in Brimfield, Massachusetts.
We have been gardening for 43 years. We have hostas for our shady areas, grasses, astilbes, many shrubs, hydrangeas, and conifers. Begonias are our favorite annuals for color, as they are hardy and last until frost.
We have many birds in spring who occupy this birdhouse. We also have four more birdhouses around the property and three hummingbird feeders. ‘Alaska’, annual) in a container on the deck each year. In the center are white scaevola (Scaevola aemula