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Monday - March 09, 2009

From: Johnson City, TN
Region: Southeast
Topic: Wildflowers
Title: Native flowers for a wedding in June in Tennessee
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

I am planning a June 6th wedding on our farm. The wedding is in our backyard. I have lots of containers and several beds. Our daughter wants pink, purple, white and blue flowers. I have a greenhouse and can start seedlings now. Can you help me with kinds of flowers to put in the garden for a beautiful garden?

ANSWER:

Since you have a greenhouse, we're sure you're already aware of the time crunch. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center recommends only plants native not only to North America but to the area in which they are being grown. If you plant from seeds, they will all have to be annuals, as perennials seldom bloom until the second year. Even annuals may not be able to bloom by June 6th. You might find it necessary to purchase bedding plants and encourage them to grow as fast as possible. For either scenario, we are going to go to our Native Plant Database, specify Tennessee in the Combination Search, select on annual herbaceous plants, and select in separate searches on the colors and the bloom time. That is about the best we can do for you, and still can't guarantee you will have blooms on the specified date.

A couple of cautions: When we specify June as the bloom date, the search will pick up any flower that blooms in June. This may include March to July or June to October, depending on the flower. However, those date ranges are from south to north in the plants native locations, so a plant that grows in both Florida and Tennessee and blooms from June to September might bloom in June in Florida and in August in Tennessee. Follow each plant link to the webpage on that individual plant, and try to determine which plants will work best for your purposes. We found no flowers we thought satisfactory for a wedding in the color blue, but several of the ones we have chosen have blue or blue-purple versions.

WHITE

Erigeron annuus (eastern daisy fleabane)

Geranium carolinianum (Carolina geranium)

Heliotropium tenellum (pasture heliotrope)

PINK

Monarda citriodora (lemon beebalm)

Phlox drummondii (annual phlox)

PURPLE

Campanulastrum americanum (American bellflower)

Viola sororia (common blue violet)