King's Day: 5 Plants with Orange Flowers
A color you really don't see nearly often enough in the garden:
Orange
Orange is a gorgeous, eye-catching, cheerful, and lovely warm color. Yet for many people, this color is just a bit too much. However, orange is a wonderful color to use in your flower bed. It adds just that little bit of extra sparkle to your flower bed.
In any case, we wouldn't want to be without this color anymore!
Today, we’re using King’s Day as a great excuse to put perennials with orange flowers in the spotlight!
Hemerocallis (daylily)
One of our favorite plants with orange flowers is Hemerocallis. Daylilies produce flowers in warm hues that look almost exotic. In addition to yellow and red, orange is another color in which this plant is often available. The color also contrasts beautifully with its grass-like foliage. After flowering, it resembles an ornamental grass and blends beautifully into the planting in your border.
Some orange varieties include Frans Hals (with yellow), Holiday Delight, Norton Orange, Golden Prize, Mrs. J. Tigert, and Burning Daylight.
- Flowering season: June–August
- Height: 30–120 cm
Helenium (sunflower)
Sunflowers are a whole genus of plants with mostly orange, brown, and red flowers. They’re wonderful for adding a warm orange hue to your border in late summer. An added bonus is that they bloom for a nice long time. To many people, Helenium might seem like a somewhat old-fashioned plant, but for us, it’s an absolute favorite that we wouldn’t want to miss in our fall border.
Well-known varieties include Waltraut, Moerheim Beauty, Sahin’s Early Flowerer, Rauchtopas, and Mardi Grass.
- Flowering season: July–October
- Height: 70–120 cm
Crocosmia (montbretia)
The best-known variety of Crocosmia has red flowers (Lucifer), but there are also some very beautiful orange-flowering Crocosmia varieties. The characteristic sword-shaped leaves (similar to those of a yellow iris, for example) are often slightly narrower in the orange varieties, but still beautiful.
Well-known orange varieties include Emily McKenzie and Carmine Brilliant.
- Flowering season: July–September
- Height: 50–70 cm
Fritillaria imperialis (Imperial Crown)
Imperial Crown is a striking flower bulb. When the first tulips begin to bloom, the Imperial Crown also makes its appearance. It quickly grows taller than the tulips and has beautifully graceful, light green foliage. As you walk by, you’re sure to recognize its distinctive scent. Once it reaches the right height, the spectacular bell-shaped or tubular flowers appear. They’re usually yellow or orange, like the cultivars Rubra, Aurora, and Maxima.
- Flowering season: April–May
- Height: 80–100 cm
Achillea millefolium (yarrow)
Yarrow is also available in orange these days. This color complements these long-blooming perennials very well; they are best known as yellow garden plants. The upright stems quickly tower above the somewhat shorter plants, and the flower heads provide a veritable platform for countless insects and bees. Indispensable in our ornamental grass border. Achillea blooms for quite a long time, and even after the flowering period, this plant retains much of its ornamental value.
Some varieties with orange flowers include Feuerland, Terracotta, Safran, Walther Funcke,
- Flowering season: June–September
- Height: 80–100 cm
