Plan a bed

Plants with orange flowers

Plants with orange flowers, the hottest colour in the garden, and the purple and blue that make it sing.

Orange is the hottest colour in a garden and the rarest among the warm ones: there are fewer orange flowers than red or yellow, and very few of them grow in shade. Many are lilies, tulips, heleniums, geums and crocosmias, plants of sun and summer.

Orange is the opposite of blue, and the classic way to use it is against blue and purple: orange lilies above a sea of catmint, or heleniums beside asters. With purple or bronze leaves and the tawny heads of grasses it makes a hot border that glows in the low evening sun. Keep it away from cool pinks, which it makes look sickly.

Every plant here has orange flowers, or comes in orange.

67 plants: 37 perennials, 20 bulbs and 10 shrubs.

The dozen to start with

  • Garden chrysanthemum

    Garden chrysanthemum

    24 in · mid September to late October · also in yellow, red, pink, purple and white

    The florist's mum: dense domes of daisies, pompoms or buttons in every autumn colour.

  • Daffodil

    Daffodil

    16 in · mid April to early May · also in yellow and white

    The most reliable spring bulb: it comes back and multiplies for decades, and deer and rodents leave it alone.

  • Oriental poppy

    Oriental poppy

    2½ ft · late May to late June · also in red, pink and white

    Enormous, crepe-paper flowers in scarlet, orange, pink or white, usually with a black blotch at the base, in early summer.

  • Bearded iris

    Bearded iris

    2½ ft · late May to mid June · also in purple, blue, white, yellow, pink and red

    Ruffled, often scented flowers in almost every colour stand above fans of grey, sword-shaped leaves in late spring.

  • Tulip

    Tulip

    18 in · late April to mid May · also in red, pink, yellow, white and purple

    Clean, saturated colour on upright stems in mid to late spring.

  • Canna

    Canna

    5 ft · early July to early October · also in red, yellow and pink · host plant

    Huge, paddle-shaped leaves, green, bronze or striped, topped with bright flowers in red, orange, yellow or pink from midsummer to frost.

  • Daylily

    Daylily

    2½ ft · late June to early August · also in yellow and red

    Nearly indestructible, with each flower lasting a single day but many buds opening over several weeks.

  • Tiger lily

    Tiger lily

    4 ft · late July to late August

    Orange, black-spotted flowers with petals curled right back, up to twenty on a stem, in late summer.

  • Hybrid tea rose

    Hybrid tea rose

    4 ft · early June to early October · also in red, pink, yellow and white

    The florist's rose: large, high-centred, often fragrant flowers, one to a long stem, on an upright, rather stiff bush.

  • Northern Lights azalea

    5 ft · mid May to early June · also in pink, yellow and white

    Deciduous azaleas bred in Minnesota, with flower buds that survive -35 C.

  • Vernal witch hazel

    Vernal witch hazel

    8 ft · mid January to early March · with yellow and red

    Small, spidery flowers of yellow to rusty red, with a strong, spicy scent, open on mild days from January to March.

  • Shrubby cinquefoil

    Shrubby cinquefoil

    3 ft · early June to mid September · also in yellow, white and pink

    A small, twiggy, very hardy shrub with fine leaves and buttercup-like flowers in yellow, white, pink or orange from June to frost.

A bed planned only from these plants

The planner was given only the plants on this page that suit zone 6 and full sun, and designed this 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) bed from them when the page was made.

A 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) bed at eye level in late June: Rock rose, Pineleaf penstemon, Sneezeweed, Red hot poker, Shrubby cinquefoil, Gloriosa daisy, Butterfly weed, Daylily, Tulip, Daffodil.
A 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) contemporary bed in zone 6, full sun, seen from the path in late June.
3. Sneezeweed33. Sneezeweed33. Sneezeweed34. Red hot poker44. Red hot poker44. Red hot poker45. Shrubby cinquefoil52. Pineleaf penstemon22. Pineleaf penstemon22. Pineleaf penstemon21. Rock rose11. Rock rose11. Rock rose12. Pineleaf penstemon22. Pineleaf penstemon22. Pineleaf penstemon22. Pineleaf penstemon22. Pineleaf penstemon28. Daylily88. Daylily88. Daylily83. Sneezeweed36. Gloriosa daisy66. Gloriosa daisy66. Gloriosa daisy67. Butterfly weed77. Butterfly weed77. Butterfly weed77. Butterfly weed77. Butterfly weed76. Gloriosa daisy66. Gloriosa daisy66. Gloriosa daisy66. Gloriosa daisy66. Gloriosa daisy69. Tulip9. Tulip9. Tulip10. Daffodil10. Daffodil10. Daffodil
From above, to scale. Each circle is one plant, as wide as the room it needs.

The plants

  1. 1 Rock rose × 3, yellow
  2. 2 Pineleaf penstemon × 8, orange
  3. 3 Sneezeweed × 4, red
  4. 4 Red hot poker × 3, orange
  5. 5 Shrubby cinquefoil × 1, white
  6. 6 Gloriosa daisy × 8, yellow
  7. 7 Butterfly weed × 5, orange
  8. 8 Daylily × 3, orange
  9. 9 Tulip × 3, pink
  10. 10 Daffodil × 3, yellow

Planned as a contemporary bed: 39 of the 39 plants that stand in groups (100%) are set out in a pattern with their neighbours: a straight row, a triangle, or five like the five on a dice. The scheme leans hot (yellow, orange and red) and uses pink for relief, with white to calm things between them. The flowering is at its height from late June, with 7 kinds out together.

The planner's own design check: 6 Excellent, 11 Good.

Open this bed in the planner Change its size, the sun or the style, move plants about, or swap one for another.

All 67 plants

Show all 67, by where they go in a bed

Front of a bed 14

Middle of a bed 29

Back of a bed 24

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