Hot Coloured Flowers
Hot coloured flowers fit in with the bright sunshine of July and August. Here is a trio of red, yellow and orange, all radiating in bright, sunny colours.
Hemerocallis red closup
This pretty daylily volunteer chose to grow against my house foundation, squeezed between the sidewalk and the block for my hose. Despite the unfortunate positioning, I enjoy the flower. The blooms are a deep, velvety red, with a golden centre, and golden lines radiating out from the centre. Where the petals curl, they flash a little of the golden underside.
Hemerocallis red volunteer
This photo shows the plant squeezed in the narrow spot it chose about 5 years ago. For now, I get a blast of dark red whenever I go to the tap at the side of my house.
Hemerocallis red closup pollen
In the above photo, you can see some of the golden pollen sprinkled on the petals. It reminds me of when a child eats a sugar donut and ends up with the white powder all over their face.
Hemerocallis 'Stella de Oro' golden flower
Here is a golden yellow flower of Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’. With the back lighting through the petals, it couldn’t be any more cheery. This is a sunshine, happy yellow.
orange lily flowers
The hot orange lilies don’t mind the shade. Where the light hits the petals, the reflection is exactly the colour of a hot sun. If I had a blog called Southern Sun, this would be the header picture.
Most of my garden consists of serene shades of green, with cool blue and purple flowers, some crisp whites, and a few pastels. These hot colours have mostly snuck in, and I can’t help admiring their determination to heat up the garden, “Northern Shade, you’ve got to put on your sunglasses, play some Salsa music, and get into the spirit of summer sun.”
These blooms ARE hot! Orange and yellow are not my favorite colors, but like you said – they snucked in and they show off very well. Most of the plants that are good companions for vegetables are orange and yellow: calendula, nasturtium, marigold… Also, I noticed that a majority of yellow and orange flowers are prertty reliable,don’t you think so?
Southern Sun, eh? I like it! Those bunch of flowers are sizzling enough to fit right into a tropical garden. Very, very exotically stunning!
Tatyana, yes, these plants are all very easy and reliable to grow.The red daylily makes me smile when I see how it squeezed itself in between the cement blocks. The orange flowers would probably make the blues really stand out and the yellow flowers would make the purple flowers pop, but I don’t have most of them paired like that. I do have a low growing bellflower next to the golden daylily flowers.
Sunita, I debated with myself about moving all of these to their own bed. It could be my tropical coloured garden bed. :)
What a lovely volunteer!! The gloden underside is a very fancy detail. My favorite daylily is ‘Bonanza’, huge yellow blooms with burgundy centres.
I am planning a bed around a young crimson king norway maple with bonanza, a blue sibirian iris, some yellow globe flowers and tickseed and a blue dwarf dephinium. I’ve been wondering if all of the bright coulours would be too busy, but the thought of a colourful tropical bed makes it seem ok. :)
Rebecca, I fixed the comment for you.
A blue and yellow bed can be very cheery. I used to grow Delphiniums, and I love the pretty blue flowers. They really catch your eye in a garden bed.
The red and gold daylily is really lovely. With all this flashing around of beautiful lillies by blotanists, I am getting very impatient and very green with envy. I am looking for a daylily seedling that can survive in my hot and humid garden.
Autumn Belle, I quite like the deep red of that daylily too, and the gold centre with gold lines coming out really emphasize how velvety it is. I hope you find a daylily, or similar flower, that is suitable for your climate.
How amazing — I had the same volunteer pop up in my garden and wondered how it came to be. It’s a lovely one, whatever it is.
Helen, I have another one in my backyard that also volunteered. When I noticed it flowering a few years back, I thought perhaps it was from the previous owners, and that it had just not bloomed until then. However, when I looked back to photos, it was not there originally. This one must have been very hopeful, as it chose a site by the water tap.
Volunteers are fun, aren’t they? My hubby recently found a Collinsia (Chinese Houses) in the veggie garden…a volunteer from seed sown back in ’06. That was quite a surprise!
Your hot coloured lilies are very cheery in your summer garden.
I had an orange asiatic show up next to the pinkish red ones in my driveway garden this year, and I certainly didn’t plant it there (the oranges are in a couple of other beds). I actually didn’t mind it too much.
I like your bright, sunny photos :)
Kerri, I had a volunteer purple iris this year in a combination of colours that I adored. I was surprised when I saw it blooming so beautifully one morning. The orange asiatic lilies grow on the other side of my house next to the raspberries. They don’t ask for anything, and I forget about them until they actually bloom. I was appreciating the sunny colours this week.
How lucky you are to have such special volunteers!! I love lilies and irises, purple irises are especially lovely.
Do you think the red daylily might be a ‘ruby spider’? I was just looking around online for fun, and they appear quite similar.
Rebecca, it’s delightful to have a pretty flower show up unexpectedly. It’s a nice change from the usual suspects that show up between the spaces in the walkway blocks. It might be ruby spider, but it’s always hard to tell the specific ID of a volunteer plant with so many cultivars and variations. That name is very descriptive of the plant.