Heat-Tolerant Varieties

Beat the heat with these recommended heat-tolerant Proven Winners varieties.

When the weather turns hot and muggy, I can sit in my air-conditioned living room, put my feet up, and drink a glass of lemonade until the sun goes down, but my plants can't. While making sure that your plants have plenty of moisture will certainly help to keep them performing their best, you should also make sure you are including heat tolerant varieties in your garden.

You probably wouldn't want to restrict your planting to only the most heat tolerant varieties for several reasons. First, it will limit your plant selection to a small percentage of the great plants available. Second, many plants that love the heat do not perform as well in early spring. Third, extreme heat won't kill (at least not quickly) most plants and the color they provide early in the season is phenomenal. Also, once night temperatures start cooling down again, many annual plants will come back into flower so you get a second show of color.

What you really want to do is plant your garden to include some varieties that are at their peak early and others that are at their peak during the dog days of summer. This way no matter what the weather does, something in your garden will look fantastic. What are some Proven Winners^® plants that not only tolerate heat but thrive in it?

For starters there is one of my favorite new plants, 'Angelface^™ Angelonia.' Angelonia are closely related to snapdragons but unlike snapdragons they are extremely heat tolerant. In fact, the hotter it is, the happier they are. The plants are 18 to 36" tall with spikes of blue-purple, white, or bi-colored flowers. They do not like the cold so if you plant them early they probably won't really grow until the temperatures start to rise. They will bloom from spring into fall. They make a great cut flower too.

If you are looking for bright yellows and oranges try the Sundaze^™ Bracteantha (Strawflower). These are upright plants that will bloom spring through fall. They are great in combination planters and landscapes too. Two more yellow plants that are very heat tolerant are bidens and sanvitalia. There are two varieties of bidens and both have spreading habits. 'Peters Gold Carpet' is very vigorous and 'Solaire^™ Yellow' is more compact. 'Sunbini' Sanvitalia is more upright mounded in habit and is great in both combinations and the landscape.

Scaevola, also called Fan Flower, is an Australian native that is very heat tolerant. The variety 'New Wonder' has blue flowers and in Spring 2004 it was joined by a new variety 'Whirlwind^™ White' with white flowers. Both have a spreading type habit. 'New Wonder' is currently spilling out of one of the hanging baskets on my front porch and taking the extreme heat with aplomb.

My other hanging basket features another of my favorite plants, Torenia 'Summer Wave^™ Blue.' Summer Wave Torenia is one of the rare plants that loves both the shade and the heat. It makes a great groundcover or you can use it in a mixed combination as I have.

The Patirot^™ series of Lantana are also extremely heat and drought tolerant and come in a range of colors, from yellow to red to soft pink. These upright or spreading plants are semi woody and will keep on going no matter how hot or dry it gets.

We also have a selection of plants that are in a program called Athens Select. These plants were trialed at the University of Georgia and were found to have extremely good heat tolerance. Any of the plants in this program will be great in the heat and a number of them are sold as Proven Selections varieties. Proven Selections is a sister brand to the Proven Winners you know so well. Some of the plants in this program include Alternanthera 'Gails Choice,' Cleome 'Linde Armstrong,' Cuphea 'Firefly,' Heliotrope 'Azure Skies', Strobilanthes "Persian Sheild," and Turnera 'Eldorado.'

The plants above are just a sampling of the heat tolerant varieties you can find from Proven Winners. From Agastache and Acalypha to Salvia and 'Safron' Oxalis there are other great plants out there that can help you beat the heat!