Selecting Full Sun Flowering Plants
With all the options available from online nurseries, specialty growers and local offerings, it can be difficult to choose which flowers are right for your garden. Full sun flowering plants for zone 9 are one of the easiest to find and the choices are rampant. Whether you want native plants for their superior adaptability or exotic flora, zone 9 gardeners are fortunate to have sunny climes and warm temperatures that encourage blooming. You still need to consider your soil type, maintenance levels, size, and many other factors, but the common perennials and annuals available are legion. Zone 9 gardeners may have certain challenges such as arid climate, coastal sea spray, or deep humidity. In each case, the gardener has to decide which plants can tolerate those specialized conditions. Zone 9 sun tolerant flowers should provide easy color that can withstand any unique conditions that occur in the region. Perennials are one of the better values, as they return year after year and don’t require replanting or seeding. Once established, most perennials are tolerant of less than perfect conditions, although additional watering may be required. With perennials, you can also choose from huge blooms to tiny starry flowers, plants that get taller than an adult or sweet, ground hugging blossoms. Annuals add more choices and may self-seed, which perpetuates the plant and provides another display the following season. The options are definitely there for a zone 9 gardener.
Native Perennial Flowers for Sunny Zone 9
Shade loving flowers can be harder to select, but full sun flowers abound. Native plants offer low maintenance beauty. Yarrow, with its feathery leaves and bright umbels is a showstopper, while coral honeysuckle attracts hummingbirds and twines around anything that needs to be hidden. Other native plants to try are:
Passionflower Vine Butterfly Pea Scarlet Sage Spider Lily Purple Coneflower Blanket Flower Blue Porterweed Railroad Vine St. Andrew’s Cross False Goldenrod Columbine
Some of these are stand-alone plants, while others will gradually spread and create a great water conserving groundcover. Most vines require some sort of support as they establish, and all will benefit from regular watering while young.
Annuals for Zone 9
Annuals may only last a year, but they may provide a different dimension to the garden or to containers. The classic petunia has time honored excellence and is inexpensive and prolific. African daisy has charming form and whimsical colors combined with drought tolerance. Who can do without the marigold? Many sizes and colors exist in this annual plant, and they bring along some ability to repel garden pests. Angel’s trumpet is a large plant that has monstrous dangling trumpet-shaped flowers. Annual phlox and sweet bachelor’s buttons make excellent wildflower garden species with uncomplicated maintenance. Cosmos will reseed itself readily, but it is really an annual with bright flowers. More annual flowers for sunny zone 9 include:
Cypress Vine Nierembergia Firecracker Plant Strawflower Lantana Bacopa Alyssum
