Blooming for months, from spring to fall, Snapdragons are eye-catching bedding plants loved for their large, snout-shaped flowers atop their bright green foliage. Fragrant, the flowers come in a wide array of attractive shades. Old garden favorites, Snapdragons are short-lived perennial plants that can withstand short periods of frost but are generally grown as annuals. Extremely easy to grow, they make excellent cut flowers and are wonderful when massed. Snapdragons attract butterflies, bees, and other pollinators and beneficial insects but they appear to be deer resistant.

Winner of the Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society, Verbena bonariensis is a tall and slender-stemmed perennial that displays rich lilac flowers in tight clusters atop long stems that sway gracefully in the summer breeze. They rise well above rosettes of lance-shaped, dark green leaves that hug the ground. A superior nectar plant, hummingbirds and butterflies love it, and so will you!

Resembling lavender with its rich violet-blue flower spikes, Mealy Cup Sage 'Victoria Blue' (Salvia farinacea) is a compact, multi-branched variety which blooms profusely from late spring to frost. Densely packed with small flowers that peek from the calyces, the abundant flowering spikes rise above the foliage of narrow, fresh green leaves. Easy to grow and low maintenance, it requires little deadheading and attracts butterflies. Grows in thick, round clumps, up to 18-20 in. tall (45-50 cm) and 12 in. wide (30 cm)

Proven to be a workhorse in the garden, award-winning Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii 'Goldsturm' is a highly popular choice. This perennial plant is long-lived and reliably produces masses of rich golden yellow, 3-4 in. flowers (7-10 cm) from midsummer through early fall, no matter what the weather is like. Each flower has many ray-like petals surrounding a dark brown cone in the center, providing fantastic warm color in the late summer garden.

Everblooming from early summer to frost, Salvia 'Mystic Spires Blue' is an excellent compact selection from the highly popular Salvia 'Indigo Spires'. Well-branched and very free-flowering, 'Mystic Spires Blue' produces masses of sturdy, purple-blue flower stalks that are of great aesthetic appeal in beds, borders, or containers and attract scores of butterflies, hummingbirds, and beneficial insects. Reliable, this erect herbaceous perennial forms a mound of shiny, deep green leaves less than 12 in. high (30 cm), topped by 12-18 in. (30-45 cm) long flowering stems of dark purple-blue flowers in violet-purple calyces. Grows up to 24-30 in. high and wide (60-75 cm).