Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
ispahan

Yellow flowers for late spring/early summer

What do you all have blooming now that is yellow? My garden right now is dominated by too many purples and blues and needs some more yellow to liven things up. Any recommendations for something reliable, beautiful and yellow? Full sun to part shade. Well-drained sandy soil.

I already grow Ranunculus acris 'Flore Pleno' which is putting on a gorgeous show right now but I am not sure what other yellow options I should consider.

Thanks,
Ispahan

Comments (22)

  • User
    10 years ago

    well the obvious welsh poppies are doing their yellow thing, and the final wallflowers(Primrose something) are still pushing out blooms. Earlier, yellow was everywhere but right now, I am having a bit of a pink moment (roses) mainly mitigated by the early asian yellow roses (hugonis, primula, cantabridgiensis, xanthina). One of the chiloense geums (the common one) is blooming away and the early daylilies, asphodelus, are about ready to open (I particularly like these fragrant yellows).

    I quite like the way certain colours predominate at particular times through the season and have never really attempted to have balanced colour schemes throughout the year - I only tend to get a bit fed up with the dominant yellows of late summer and work hard to introduce something different.

  • docmom_gw
    10 years ago

    My yellow coreopsis are blooming now. They are quite small, but a really bright, sunny yellow. I have mostly shade, so I don't get much yellow at all.

    Martha

  • Laura twixanddud - SE MI - 5b
    10 years ago

    Right now I have a yellow tall bearded iris just wrapping up blooming and my yarrow 'Moonshine' has been starting to bloom over the last week or so.

  • gazania_gw
    10 years ago

    A great low trailing plant with lemon yellow poppy sized flowers is Oenothera missouriensis ozark sundrops. In full bloom now with sporadic flushes of bloom into fall.

  • diggerdee zone 6 CT
    10 years ago

    Perennial foxglove - digitalis grandiflora. I just pulled into my driveway and noticed how it sprang into bloom overnight.

    It's shorter than biennial foxgloves, and not as spectacular, but a beautiful, soft, kind of butter yellow, really quite long-blooming, and I have some in full shade, part shade and some in more-sun-than-shade-but-not-quite-full-sun spots and they all do well. The ones in the latter spot (I'm not typing THAT again, lol) are in bloom now whereas the ones in full shade aren't quite there yet, but IMO that staggered bloom is a bonus.

    If you let it go to seed it will reseed a lot, but not invasively or aggressively, and you can just cut it back beforehand if you don't want it to spread.

    This is really one of the mainstays of my garden, in it's quiet way.

    Dee

  • diggerdee zone 6 CT
    10 years ago

    One more photo of the foxglove...

  • User
    10 years ago

    ah that is so lovely - been having a huge foxglove moment myself and had forgotten about grandiflora (I do have lutea ready to sow) - I seem to remember sowing some of the Foxy types a few years ago which was a primrose yellow. You have got me all excited again, Digger.

  • ghoghunter
    10 years ago

    I have bright yellow coreopsis blooming now along with Heliopsis and sundrops...lots of bright yellow!!
    Joann

  • wieslaw59
    10 years ago

    Yellow azaleas, Laburnum vossi, Lilium pyrenaicum, paeonia High Noon, paeonia Mlokosiewiczii

    This post was edited by wieslaw59 on Wed, Jun 12, 13 at 14:02

  • NHBabs z4b-5a NH
    10 years ago

    The earliest yellow daylilies are blooming here. I have a yellow tree peony and a yellow Baptisia 'Carolina Moonlight' which is a soft buttery yellow, rather nicer than this photo shows.

  • eclecticcottage
    10 years ago

    Blanket flower, coreopsis, daylilies are sending up scapes, lupine (although mine are purple, there are yellow ones-I just happened to only have purple ones grow from the mixed lot I got) and something that was given to me that the giver called sundrops. I believe it is primrose. Also a pale yellow iris, which was also a freebie so I don't know it's name.

  • rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a)
    10 years ago

    I know that yellow loosestrife is is often not held in very high regard given its plain jane foliage and its tendency to spread. But even so I keep one patch of it as this mass of yellow flowers at just this time of year are so spectacular. I took these 2 shots just today.

    {{gwi:233485}}

  • donna_in_sask
    10 years ago

    Not a huge fan of yellow, but I used to grow Leopard's Bane, aka Doronicum...it has daisy-like flowers. The ubiquitous Stella D'Oro daylily is long blooming, and yellow.

    This post was edited by Donna.in.Sask on Wed, Jun 12, 13 at 19:14

  • NHBabs z4b-5a NH
    10 years ago

    My Yellow Meadow Rue (Thalictrum flavum subsp. glaucum) is also just starting to bloom.

  • User
    10 years ago

    Mmmm, I had 2 customers who insisted on having yellow-free gardens although one of them at least allowed yellow(y) foliage. My garden is, right now, in danger of becoming overwhelmingly pink (with orange coming on strong).

  • wieslaw59
    10 years ago

    The persecution of the yellow color was started some years ago here in Denmark by some magazines for women. They stated that in a tasteful garden everything must be either pink or white. And some people TOOK IT LITERALLY!!! There is a lady further down the road who is a "no-yellow-snob", and I often tease her with suggesting something dazzling yellow for her. And then she rolls her eyes.
    I love yellow , the brighter the better(as well as red and orange) and I call her attention to my extremely yellow plants, pretending to wait for her admiration. Am I bad?

  • docmom_gw
    10 years ago

    I have two halves in my garden, one on either side of the drive. One is my purple-pink-white-blue garden, and the other is yellow-red-orange. I can enjoy both, one or the other, depending on my mood. They are both in their early developmental stage. I should have quite a few perennials blooming for the first time this year. I'm hoping they will all drop seeds and help to fill in spaces that are still bare.

    Martha

  • eclecticcottage
    10 years ago

    Well, looks like my "sundrops" are actually yellow loostrife. They do spread, but not uncontrollably so, at least in my garden.

    I was thinking about it, there are also the banana cream daisies, although I don't know bloom times for them. There's some sort of yellow daisy like flower I keep seeing along the road mixed in with the wild daisies-I am fighting the urge to snag one. I don't know if they are related or not.

    Last night I saw my white yarrow is coming into bloom, perhaps there are yellow cultivars that would also be?

  • rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a)
    10 years ago

    there are also the banana cream daisies, although I don't know bloom times for them.

    A few years ago I got caught up in the hype of the "Banana Cream" Shasta Daisies. I have had them in my garden for 2 full seasons and there is not much to like about this plant. The bloom period is surprisingly short (dead heading makes no difference) and the spent flowers look so ratty. I will replace them this season.

  • aseedisapromise
    10 years ago

    Last year I put in a Lil Miss Sunshine caryopteris. It is very yellow and bright, about the only yellow thing I have going right now. It is shockingly right next to the Firewitch dianthus, so it's pretty loud over there. But I like loud colors. I have some yellow iris, too. When my Kinztley's Ghost honeysuckle gets bigger, it might provide some yellow.

  • diggerdee zone 6 CT
    10 years ago

    Martha, I do the same thing - have my pinks and purples on one side of the yard and my yellows, oranges, and reds on the other.

    I've never been big on red (except for lobelia cardinalis which is an absolutely gorgeous red) and if you had told me five years ago that I'd have orange flowers in my garden I would have told you that you were crazy (well, except for the marigolds in the veggie garden.)

    Then came the free nasturtium seeds, and some free cosmos Bright Lights seeds, and then I discovered tithonia, and then saw a Chicago Apache daylily and decided I needed to have a spot in the yard for these hotter colors.

    The nice thing about yellow, of course, is that depending on the shade of yellow, it will go in either garden!

    Dee

  • perennialfan273
    10 years ago

    I have a whole list of yellow flowers for you, but I've forgotten when many of them bloom. I'm sure most of them will love your sandy soil. They should all be hardy in zone 6. Some of these are specific plant species, while others are specific cultivars. They all bloom yellow though and I plan to acquire them sometime in the future if I don't already have them!

    -Verbascum nigrum
    -Gentiana lutea
    -Lysimachia punctata
    -Solidago (goldenrod; most species and cultivars yellow)
    -Berlandiera lyrata (smells like chocolate!)
    -Echinacea paradoxa (there are also many cultivars, like 'sombrero yellow' for instance)
    -Aurinia saxatilis
    -Achillea (yarrow; most species and cultivars)
    -Coreopsis (most species and cultivars)
    -Kirengeshoma palmata (needs lots of shade)
    -Hollyhock "Chater's Double yellow" (technically a biennial but reseeds like a perennial)
    -Helianthus multiflorus 'Flore pleno'
    -Heliopsis helianthoides
    -Frittilaria imperialis 'Lutea' (also available in orange)
    -Ligularia (most species and cultivars; needs lots of shade)
    -Penstemon pinnifolius 'Mersea Yellow'
    -Thalictrum Flavum 'Glaucum'
    -Daylily 'Stella D'Oro' (I'm sure there are other yellow cultivars but can't think of them at the moment)

    I'm sure there are many more that I'm forgetting but this is what I can think of at the moment. I actually didn't mind researching this for you. I was meaning to compile a list of yellow perennials for myself anyways. Hope this helped you out.

    P.S.-How is your aglaia odorata doing (you grow this, correct?)?? I got one last year but it has unfortunately died (left it outside for ONE night below freezing by mistake, and that was all it took...).