If you have a garden bed or area that gets a full day of sun, combine gaillardia, verbascum and lavender for a long-blooming, richly-colored display that delights the eyes and is easy on the water bill. Bees, butterflies, and other garden-friendly pollinators will thank you for adding to their food supply. Plant one of each in a large pot (18 inches or larger), or multiples of each flower in a garden bed. This trio provides varying yet complimentary color, height and texture to add dimension to your garden.
Gaillardia has a soft, rounded appearance, fuzzy bright green foliage, and masses of daisy-like flowers in fiery reds, yellows and oranges.
Verbascum is tall and stately, with large, grey-green felt-like foliage and flower spikes in pastel to bright yellows, pinks and purples. Some are perennials, some are biennials like Banana Custard pictured here.
Lavender echoes the rounded shape of gaillardia, yet has smaller-scale spikes of flowers which enhance the vertical towers of verbascum flowers. Lavender brings another quality to the planting; a delicious fragrance.
All three flowers have varieties that bloom the first year from seed if sown indoors in late winter/early spring. Otherwise, you can sow any of the seeds in late summer/early fall for blooms the following season. Be sure to transplant your seedlings into the garden at least 6 weeks or so before you expect to get your first hard frost, so they have enough time to get established before winter sets in.
In addition to enjoying gaillardia, verbascum and lavender in the garden, all three make excellent cut flowers to bring beauty indoors. Of course, many other flowers can join this party of three; what are your favorite heat-loving perennials? Some other complimentary perennials to gaillardia, verbascum and lavender that come to my mind are: Yarrow, Agastache, Echinacea, Globe Thistle, and Jupiter's Beard.
