If you’re looking for the best flowers that offer vibrant color all summer long, check out these dozen no-fail, flowering plants.

No doubt you’ve heard that a well-designed garden should include plants prized for their striking foliage, as well as some that produce fall color or berries, and others that provide good structure in winter. But let’s face it: most of us want flowers. Lots of them. All the time.

That’s where the summer flowering plants below come in. They’ll churn out blooms for weeks on end this summer. In most cases, you can harvest armloads to fill vases or give away, and still have plenty left to enjoy in your garden beds long past Labor Day.

The Best Plants that Bloom All Summer

Summer flowering plants are essential for any garden as they add color, attract pollinators, and fill your yard with fragrant scents. Read on to find out the best plants that have flowers that last all summer.

Garden Phlox (Phlox paniculata)

Phlox are perennial favorite among wildflowers. They are compact, low-maintenance, and long-blooming. They are known for their spicy vanilla-clove fragrance and purple-pink flowers that bloom in summer. Phlox are dense and clump-forming with attractive, strong yellowish-green foliage. At full bloom, they can reach up to 16 inches tall and 18 inches wide. They establish quickly with full sun and well-draining soils.

Zinnia

Zinnias love warmth, so they are reliable summer bloomers, filling the garden with long lasting flowers in jewel colors. You have the choice of small, single-flowered daisy-type zinnias and large pom-pom types, with everything in between.

Grow these annuals in a sunny location. They flourish in hot weather but appreciate regular watering and feeding.

Petunia

Petunias grown as annuals have one of the longest flowering seasons, right from mid-spring to late fall.

Hydrangeas

Nothing can beat these perennials when it comes to filling up your garden with a profusion of long-lasting blooms starting from spring. The large flower heads keep coming all through summer and continue to adorn the plants long after the blooming season is over.

Coneflower (Echinacea)

Flowering all through summer and into fall, its flowers can be harvested for making an herbal tea. In fact, all parts of the plant have medicinal properties.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

They can add color and variety to your summer garden with their long blooming season. The fern-like leaves also are an asset, not to mention the medicinal value of the herb.

Grow yarrow in full sun, but make sure that it stays within limits. The flat-topped flower heads look good in flower arrangements, so keep cutting them off to reduce self-seeding.

Ornamental Onions (Allium)

Ornamental onions produce purple globe-shaped flowers on the end of long straight stems. The pretty flowers are excellent for growing in clumps or along borders in cottage gardens. These purple flowering perennials are bulbs that can be planted every fall. They start producing flowers at the end of spring, and they last until the end of summer.

Ornamental onions are also excellent for cut flower displays or to use in dried flower arrangements.

Marigold (Tagetes)

Often grown in vegetable gardens to keep off pests, French Marigolds are well known to gardeners. They are compact in size, with a bushy, slightly spreading habit.

Marigolds are easily grown from seeds, but the seeds collected from hybrids may not give the expected results. Use them as bedding plants in sunny areas. Regular watering is a must.

Lavender

Lavender is a wonderful perennial shrub that flowers from spring until late summer every year. The attraction of growing lavender is more than just its pretty purple flowers.

Dahlia

Depending on the cultivar, dahlias produce a variety of flowers in all shapes and sizes. Dahlias generally bloom profusely throughout the summer until frost. Some of the flowers can be like small daisies, and other huge, showy double flowers can be as large as 6” to 8” (15 – 20 cm) in diameter. Dahlia plants are perennials that are generally grown as annuals.