The Flower We Should All Be Growing This Summer! (2024)

An article byTravis KeyfromLazy Dog Farm

When it comes to summer gardening, finding flowers that not only thrive in the heat but also support the local ecosystem can be a challenge. Ageratum, often known as floss flower, is an excellent choice that meets both criteria. This vibrant and hardy plant is perfect for adding a splash of color to your garden while providing numerous benefits for bees and other pollinators. Here’s why ageratum is a fantastic flower to grow in the middle of summer and how it benefits bees.

1. Heat Resilience

Ageratum is well-known for its ability to thrive in hot summer conditions. Native to tropical and subtropical regions, ageratum is exceptionally heat-tolerant, making it an ideal flower for mid-summer blooms. It can withstand high temperatures and full sun, ensuring a beautiful and vibrant garden even during the hottest months of the year. Its resilience means less worry about wilting or fading, providing consistent color and life to your outdoor space.

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2. Long Blooming Season

One of the standout features of ageratum is its long blooming season. These flowers start blooming in late spring and continue to produce vibrant blooms well into the fall. This extended period of flowering ensures that your garden remains colorful and lively for months, providing a constant source of nectar for bees and other pollinators throughout the growing season.

3. Attractive to Bees and Other Pollinators

Ageratum flowers are particularly attractive to bees due to their bright colors and the sweet nectar they produce. Bees are drawn to the vibrant blue, purple, pink, and white hues of ageratum flowers. These colors are highly visible to bees, which rely on their keen sense of color vision to locate nectar sources. By planting ageratum, you can create a bee-friendly garden that supports the local bee population, which is crucial for pollination and the health of your garden ecosystem.

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4. Nectar-Rich Blooms

The nectar-rich blooms of ageratum provide an abundant food source for bees. Bees need nectar for energy and to produce honey, and ageratum flowers offer a generous supply. The structure of ageratum blooms makes it easy for bees to access the nectar, ensuring they can feed efficiently. By supporting bees with ample nectar, you help sustain their populations, which is vital given the current challenges faced by bees, including habitat loss and pesticide exposure.

5. Low Maintenance

Ageratum is a low-maintenance plant, making it an excellent choice for gardeners of all experience levels. It requires minimal care once established, needing only regular watering and occasional deadheading to promote continued blooming. Its hardy nature means it can thrive in various soil conditions, though it prefers well-drained soil. This low maintenance requirement allows you to enjoy a beautiful, bee-friendly garden without a significant time investment.

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6. Pest Resistance

Ageratum is known for its pest-resistant qualities. It tends to repel common garden pests such as aphids and spider mites, reducing the need for chemical pesticides that can harm bees and other beneficial insects. This natural pest resistance helps maintain a healthy garden environment, making ageratum an eco-friendly choice for gardeners who want to avoid harsh chemicals.

Ageratum Growing Tips

Ageratum seeds are extremely tiny, so we don’t recommend direct seeding them in the garden. We plant our seeds in seed starting trays with individual cells and transplant once they’ve germinated and formed a nice, solid root ball.

There are several different varieties of ageratum that you’ll find online. We like a variety called “High Tide” that gets a little taller than most other varieties. Ageratum tends to grow lower to the ground than other flowers, but the High Tide variety can get 2-2.5 feet tall.
Plant ageratum transplants after the risk of frost has passed in the spring or anytime in the summer months. We love doing a mid-summer planting so that it continuously blooms into the fall months. Space transplants a few inches apart in your beds or containers. A thick planting like this will provide immense beauty once they start growing more.

Although ageratum is generally drought and heat tolerant, the transplants should be watered well initially. Once they get extensive roots formed in the soil, they won’t need as much water as most of the other plants in your garden.

Although not completely necessary, it’s not a bad idea to prune or remove the blooms once a month. This will keep your plants blooming all the way until your first frost date in the fall or winter months. You can be delicate with this and use hand pruners or grab your favorite pair of hedge shears and go to town.

Thousands of gardeners have been tuning in toThe Lazy Dog Farm YouTube channelwhere Travis covers a variety topics ranging from how to successfully start seedlings to how to make a flavorful hot sauce that packs a punch. Accompanied by his wife Brooklyn and their two boys, the gardens on their 2 acre homestead in southwest Georgia are always filled with a wide variety of vegetables that are enjoyed fresh or preserved for later.

The Flower We Should All Be Growing This Summer! (2024)

FAQs

What are the 7 things plants need to grow? ›

All plants need space to grow, the right temperature, light, water, air, nutrients, and time.

Who is Laura from garden answer? ›

Laura LeBoutillier is an internet sensation. And in the gardening world, that's saying something! In the five years since she and her videographer/husband Aaron started making Garden Answer advice videos, Laura has collected a social media following of more than 5 million people.

What would be missing from a flower that was not perfect and was a male flower? ›

Incomplete flowers are missing at least one of the four floral parts. An incomplete male flower has only a calyx, corolla, and androecium, whereas an incomplete female flower has gynoecium instead of the androecium, as well as a calyx and a corolla. Incomplete flowers should not be confused with imperfect flowers.

What must a flower possess to be considered a complete flower multiple choice question? ›

A flower having sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils is complete; lacking one or more of such structures, it is said to be incomplete.

What are the 5 major plant growth requirements? ›

Light, air, water, nutrients, and adequate space are the five things a plant needs to grow. Nutrients can come from fertilizers, soil and, in some cases, air.

Who is Laura Garden Answer's husband? ›

Learn more about Laura and videographer/husband Aaron, whose social media brand, Garden Answer, has a following of more than 3 million people.

How old is Laura in the garden party? ›

Sheridan to play matchmaker. Laura's attempts to look more “severe” and “even a little bit short-sighted” around the working-class men reveals her desire to be viewed as sophisticated and mature. At around the age of sixteen, Laura wants to be taken seriously, but she is still young.

Which flower has no petals? ›

Certain flowers, like the Willow Herb (Epilobium), often lack distinct petals and sepals. Instead, their reproductive structures, including stamens and pistils, are directly exposed. These types of flowers are referred to as "naked" or "apetalous" flowers.

What is the female part of a flower called? ›

The female part is the pistil. The pistil usually is located in the center of the flower and is made up of three parts: the stigma, style, and ovary. The stigma is the sticky knob at the top of the pistil. It is attached to the long, tubelike structure called the style.

Which flower has both male and female parts? ›

A flower that possesses both male and female reproductive parts are called bisexual flowers. The male part is called androecium and the female part is called gynoecium. Hibiscus and lily are two common examples of bisexual flowers.

Are petals male or female? ›

What flower part is neither male nor female? The outer whorls or parts of the flower are neither male nor female. They are the calyx (made of the sepals) and the corolla (made of the petals).

Is stigma male or female? ›

The male parts of the flower are called the stamens and are made up of the anther at the top and the stalk or filament that supports the anther. The female elements are collectively called the pistil. The top of the pistil is called the stigma, which is a sticky surface receptive to pollen.

What are two flowers each with joined and separated samples? ›

Periwinkle (Sadabahar), Datura, Cotton, and Hibiscus are examples of flowers having connected sepals. The rose, lotus, and magnolia are examples of flowers having split sepals.

What are the 7 nutrients that plants require in larger amounts? ›

Nutrients that plants require in larger amounts are called macronutrients. About half of the essential elements are considered macronutrients: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur.

What are the 9 major requirements for plant growth? ›

As shown below, the environment can be divided into 9 main parameters called the nine cardinal parameters: CO2, temperature, humidity, light, wind, oxygen in the roots system, nutrients, water, and root-zone temperature. If only one is neglected, it can have a huge impact on plant health.

What are the 10 needs of plants? ›

Trees, shrubs, grass, row crops, et cetera all need essentially the same key components for maximizing growth and maintaining a healthy plant. Essential needs for plant growth include: water availability, soil drainage, soil aeration, access to sunlight, temperature, soil pH, and availability of essential elements.

What is 7 7 7 plant food? ›

Technical Specification
Product7-7-7 Nutrigrow Growmore Fertiliser 20kg
Active Ingredient7% nitrogen, 7% phosphate & 7% potassium
Application MethodSpreader, Spread By Hand
Area of UseTrees, Ornamentals
Pack Size Coverage200m²
5 more rows

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