Summer Favorites

This summer, we asked our experts (YOU!) to tell us their summer favorite plants.

Pride of Barbados won hands-down with votes from Shirley Fox, Linda Goodale, Robin Mayfield, Matt Boring, Tracy Simons and Stephanie Skarren.

Plumbago was another winner with votes from Linda Goodale, Ovaltene Jones, Velia Sanchez-Ruiz and Robin Mayfield.

Mexican honeysuckle received a ringing endorsement from Bob Beyer and Pamela King Malone. And Pamela also likes purple hyacinth bean for late summer color.

Morgan Goldberg and Lori Garven Horton went for lantana, as do the butterflies. Lori especially likes a mix of white and purple flowering varieties.

Lisa Louden Rhoden picked Texas bluebells, Chet Gresham went for Maximilian sunflower, and Yael Abraham is keen on tropical butterfly milkweed.

Sherry Cordry likes succulents, including squid agave, which works well in part shade.

Also in part shade, go for Ceci Burklow’s pick: native American beautyberry.

And trees were not left out: Cindy McClimans likes retama and Eva Van Dyke went for another native, Texas Torchwood.

Our Viewer Picture comes with a super great story! Gail Standley’s husband Mike built a beautiful pond for her this year as a wedding gift.  Shortly after they added the water, they noticed they had frog eggs, then tadpoles, and now lots of healthy frogs, along with lovely water lilies!