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Petunia

Petunias are quintessential warm season annuals.

There are too many varieties of petunia to be familiar with nowadays. The species name is Petunia X hybrida because almost all are hybrids of two primary species, as well as a few others to complicate the situation. The color range of the bloom of these hybrids now lacks only a few colors. (GMO orange petunias are only beginning to become available.) 

Besides an impressively extensive color range, bloom can be spotted, speckled, striped, blotched, haloed or variegated by too many means to list. Flowers can be rather small or as wide as four inches. Some are surprisingly fragrant. Some have frilled double flowers. Stems of cascading types may sprawl wider than three feet while only a few inches high. 

Petunias are warm season annuals that perform from spring until frost. They can survive as perennials for a few years if cut low for winter. Cool season annuals can obscure and shelter them until they resume grown in spring. They prefer rich soil, systematic watering and sunny exposure. Although mostly sterile, some appreciate occasional deadheading. Trimming during summer may promote fluffier growth for lanky stems.

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Coleus

No flowers needed with this foliage!

Out in the garden, coleus, Plectranthus scutellarioides, prefers partial shade where the foliage is less likely to get roasted during arid and warm summer weather. It is grown as a warm season annual instead of as a perennial, because it gets so tired through winter, and can be killed by even a very mild frost. Its sensitivity to exposure in the garden is probably why it is more familiar as a houseplant.

The flashy and sometimes deeply lobed foliage is variegated with any combination of green, chartreuse, yellow, orange, red, burgundy, pink, white, brown and almost black. Flower spikes should be snipped as they develop to keep foliage dense. The tiny purple flowers are not much to brag about anyway. Large plants can get to two feet tall and broad. Cuttings root easily in rich and regularly moist potting soil or just plain water. Seeds need sunlight to germinate, so should only be pressed onto the surface of damp potting soil without getting covered, and misted daily.

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Star Jasmine

Star jasmine blooms with fragrant profusion.

This jasmine is quite a star. However, this star is technically not a jasmine. Star jasmine, Trachelospermum jasminoides, is instead related to mandevilla and oleander. For many years, it has been one of the most popular vines for home gardens as well as large scale landscapes. It works well either as a ground cover, or as a relatively docile climbing vine. 

As ground cover, star jasmine gets about two feet deep. It will be lower and more refined with shearing, but will likely bloom less. It tries to climb shrubbery and trees, so will need exclusionary pruning. However, on a chain link fence, star jasmine works splendidly as a shorn faux hedge. It grows fast to more than ten feet high, but can get significantly higher. 

The richly fragrant bloom is most profuse about now, and can continue sporadically until autumn. The inch wide and bright white flowers are shaped like stars, and hang in small clusters. After bloom, the distinctly glossy and dark green evergreen foliage is handsome alone. Individual leaves are a bit longer than two inches and a bit broader than one inch. 

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‘Angelina’ Stonecrop

‘Angelina’ is a bright chartreuse stonecrop.

Until the patent expires, unauthorized vegetative propagation (cloning) of ‘Angelina’ stonecrop, Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’, is still illegal. However, it regularly flaunts its own unlawful proliferation wherever dislodged bits of stem can find anything to take root into. It can be just as happy to root into cracked concrete as in bare soil. Yet, it is a surprisingly complaisant small scale ground cover that cascades only several inches over stones, low retaining walls or the edges of planters.

Without getting more than four inches deep, stems root as they creep indefinitely but slowly along the ground. The bright yellowish evergreen foliage and bright yellow flowers that bloom about now contrast nicely with darker green or bronze foliage. Exposed foliage can get blushed with orange in winter. Shabby plants regenerate vigorously after getting pruned back. Pruning scraps sprinkled over bare soil and lightly mulched with finely textured compost will happily but illegally grow into more of the same. ‘Angelina’ stonecrop likes somewhat regular watering, but can survive with less.

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Oleander

Oleander, although pretty, is famously toxic.

Prior to the appearance of oleander scorch disease in the early 1990s, oleander, Nerium oleander, was almost too popular, and for good reason. It is remarkably resilient to harsh conditions. It had been one of the more common plants within freeway landscapes since freeways were invented. Now, new plants are rarely available. Only older plants remain.

White, pink or red bloom is most abundant through warm summer weather, with sporadic bloom continuing through most of the year. Some dwarf cultivars bloom with peachy pink double flowers. Plants with enough room to grow wild without much pruning bloom best. Frequent shearing deprives the healthiest oleander of its blooming stems prior to bloom.

The biggest oleander get as tall as fifteen feet, so can be pruned up as small trees, either on single trunks or multiple trunks. However, because their limber trunks can not support much weight, occasional pruning is necessary while trunks develop. Such pruning limits bloom, so should happen mostly at the end of winter. Straight single trunks need staking. Oleander wants warm and sunny exposure, but is quite undemanding.

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Fern Pine

Narrow leaves resemble pine needles.

It is neither a fern nor a pine. Fern pine, Podocarpus gracilior, can be a tree taller than fifty feet, and half as broad, but is often a shorn shrub or hedge that can be kept less than eight feet tall. Stems are limber enough while  young to be espaliered. The finely textured evergreen foliage is somewhat yellowish out in full sun, and darker green in partial shade. Individual leaves are as long as two and a half inches, and less than a quarter inch wide, and hang almost like fat pine needles. Some but not all mature trees can drop a bit of messy fruit with hard pits that are a bit larger than those of cherries. Bark gets distinctively blotched as it ages. The deep roots can be remarkably complaisant with concrete. Outer growth can get damaged by the harshest frosts every few winters or so, or roasted by hot dry heat every few summers.

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Nasturtium

Nasturtium bloom is sensitive to aridity.

Whether feral or planted intentionally, nasturtium, Trapaeolum majus (which is actually a hybrid with two other species) is a delightful flower that just about everyone appreciates. Its eagerness to self sow and possibly naturalize in riparian situations attest to how easy it is to grow. Seed for many varieties is readily available. Feral plants provide feral seed.

Bloom of domestic nasturtium can be various shades, tints and hues of yellow, orange or red. Flowers can be striped or blotched with colors of the same range. Some are double. The palest yellow is almost creamy white. The darkest red is almost brown. Feral plants, after a few generations, generally revert to blooming with simple bright orange or yellow.

Plants are more or less annual, but can replace themselves almost as readily as they die out. Those that perform through spring and summer succumb to cooling autumn weather, as their (feral) seedlings begin to replace them for autumn and winter. Those that perform through winter may succumb to frost where winters get cool, but also self sow feral seed for next spring.

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Perennial Pea

Perennial pea has potential to naturalize.

Although rarely planted intentionally in home gardens, perennial pea, Lathyrus latifolius, is somewhat common near rural roadside ditches and in riparian situations. It naturalizes to a minor degree, generally where the soil retains a bit of moisture after the rain finishes. It can eventually become somewhat overwhelming in unrefined but irrigated landscapes.

Bloom is typically rich purplish pink during late spring or early summer. A few specimens might bloom white or pale pink. Seed for varieties that bloom in any of these three colors, as well as red, is available online. Flowers resemble those of annual sweet pea, but are more abundant, and lack fragrance. Their delicate foliage might be slightly bluish green.

Vines might be lean through their first season from seed, but can get six feet long. By the middle of summer, they begin to die back to their plump perennial roots. They last longer with watering. Without watering, they may finish before July. Vines that grow from mature roots as winter ends after the first season should be bigger, fuller and perhaps voracious.

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Daylily

These flashy blooms are remarkably easy.

As the name implies, each individual flower of daylily, Hemerocallis, lasts only about a day. They open just after dawn, and wither by dusk. However, bloom last from a week to a month because there are several flowers on several stalks. These flowers take turns blooming, so that a flower that blooms today will likely be replaced by a new flower tomorrow, until bloom finishes. Some daylilies bloom early in spring. Others wait until summer. A few bloom again, as late as early autumn.

Flowers can be almost any color except for blue or white, and typically have a a different color in the throat. The most popular varieties are bright yellow, pastel yellow, orange, pink or rusty red. Purple flowers are not quite as flashy as the color implies. Each flower has six petals, (which are actually three petals and three sepals). Bare stems hold the flowers about two feet high, well above the clumping grassy foliage. Some stay only a foot tall. A few get considerably taller. Plants should be groomed of finished flower stems, and may sometimes want to be groomed of deteriorating foliage. Daylilies known as ‘deciduous’ daylilies shed all foliage by autumn.

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Weigela

Weigela can be bronze or variegated.

Stylish modern cultivars have been restoring the popularity of formerly common weigela, Weigela florida. Traditional sorts can reach first floor eaves, with delightfully open branch structure and rosy pink spring bloom. The foliage of most is variegated with white. Newer cultivars are more compact, with more variety of form, as well as of foliar and floral color.

Bloom can be pink, red, rosy red, white, white with yellow centers, or the the familiar rosy pink. Foliage can be green, bronze, deep purply bronze, or variegated with white or pale yellow. As it develops in spring, variegated foliage might be blushed with pink. Shrubbier modern cultivars may get no taller than five feet. Some are lower and densely mounding. 

Although deciduous, weigela are popular as short informal hedges. Formal or excessive shearing compromises both bloom and form. After primary spring bloom, several modern cultivars bloom sporadically later in summer. Weigela enjoys a bit of winter chill, so may not appreciate the mildest coastal climates. Partial shade is tolerable, but inhibits bloom.