-Ralph Waldo Emerson
I love flowers. I’m sure you all enjoy a beautiful flower so I thought I’d share some throughout my garden this year. Minus the weeds, because anyone who has been to my house might notice that my flower beds have pretty things in them, but don’t necessarily look pretty as a whole.
Unfortunately, where I live the soil is dreaded clay. The stuff has to be amended every year and if it isn’t, many plants struggle. If anyone else has this same problem with a similar climate to Utah, will you please let me know what plants you’ve found that do well? I’d love to add some to my list!
I am by no means a garden pro and I might mess up the names of some of these plants, so feel free to correct me if you see that I’m wrong!
Salvia: I LOVE these plants because they are pretty, and a perennial. Yay! I got this and the next plant pictured from family—they just dug a portion of theirs out and I re-planted it at this house when we moved here. 
Perennial Geranium:
Bleeding Heart:
This one is a perennial and native to Utah, but I can’t remember the name:
I think these are Pink Marguerite Daisies (on their way being done blooming):
The beautiful Peony: it has done it’s best so far this year. My mom gave me this one that started to grow randomly in her garden and every year I’ve had it, it’s been attacked by some type of mite and killed, but it always comes back the next spring. I’m hoping to protect it better from that this year):
Poor zinnia. I absolutely LOVE zinnias, but they have never survived in my yard. This one had FOUR slugs on it at night-fall one night last week, even with slug poison down. 
Columbine:
Lobelia: in my porch planters. I love this annual!
It’s starting to creep down over the sides, which is what I love about it. They will be so beautiful in a couple weeks! 
Dahlia’s: I love them because they do well in shade also. 
My butterfly bush is normally very pretty but it didn’t come back very well after this winter.
Mums are so pretty and they do great here.
Cosmos always die.
I’ve planted at least 4 poppy perennial plants and they’ve never come back. ORANGE flowers are my favorite but they never do very well, even marigolds have a hard time.
So I don’t have a green thumb by any means! And I know the answer is to keep the bugs under control and amend the soil.
So, what garden tips can you give me? Any suggestions on flowers that would do well in clay soil in Utah? Or tips on helping my garden grow better? Tips on bug and slug control? (we have indeed tried beer and that has helped some years).
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They are great pics, I’m jealous of your peony! I live in Georgia, the land of red clay. I amend my soil with different mixtures. Sometimes peat moss, natures helper (cheap). I keep all our Fall leaves to compost and throw them in the bottom when I’m cleaning up and also compost food scraps whole along with them. No critters have tried to dig it out yet. thanks for sharing!
Here in South Florida it’s too hot for most flowering plants, so we resort to growing tomatoes! At least, we did, until my then-2-yr old daughter came to us one day with a handful of “pretty yellow flowers” from the tomato plants! No tomatoes for us that year!!
Unfortunately I don’t have any tips for your part of the country, but everything looks beautiful. I’m jealous that you can have Dahlias! I can’t grow them here unless I did them up every winter, and I’m much too lazy a gardener to do that! :)
Great photos! Your salvia looks great, such a deep purple color! Have you ever tried container gardening? You could probably get some great zinnias and others that way. With container gardening you could purchase potting soil to be sure they’ve got a good start and your kids would probably have a lot of fun helping you plant and water them. I talk a lot about gardening (both container and other) on my blog, drop by sometime! : )
2 things we have found, work pretty well for slugs, are, sawdust around the base of the plants, they can’t navigate it and it sticks to them. We use this in our vegetable garden, because it doesn’t look so pretty. But for flower gardens we take tuna or cat food cans, put them near the plants and fill with a little beer, slugs crawl in and can get out, or get out and are sliced open by the sharp edges of the can. Much better alternatives to poison AND cheaply eco-friendly :)
I live in West Valley, UT.. also much clay here, but have found that Iris’ do VERY well, virtually no maintenance, and you can find tons of color variations. Also, Red Hot Pokers, Lavender, Fox glove, Hollyhocks, Buttercups, Grape Hyacinths, and Feverfew do well in my yard. (I have tons more, but can’t remember all the names either). Your blooms are looking awesome! Oh… and just about every butterfly bush in Utah died back this year. I cut all the old wood off of mine and have tons of new green growth coming out of the base. It’s been an odd spring/summer here!
Growing up in WVC, we had iris like Steffanie suggested. There are a couple of houses around here that have a ton, so they must do pretty well.
And pfft. Your flower beds look great in real life. Mine, however. Oh, dear.
Your plants look wonderful! If the beer can suggestion doesn’t work, there’s a product called ‘Slugo’ that works for around plants with slug issues. For some hardy, low-maintence orange plants, have you tried Butterfly Weed? They are a brilliant orange flower that attracts monarchs and other butterflies. They like dry, well drained soil and once established bloom year after year!
Your peony is beautiful! Great pictures Christie.
So, I am actually not sure what amending the soil means. But if it means mixing sand into the soil, then fertilizer, then feeding your plants plant food every 3 or so weeks and almost over watering everyday…then that is great for clay soil. At least it works for us and our vegetable garden. I have gotten small artichokes to grow, large broccoli plants, corn,…the list goes on…to grow because of that. My friend who minored in horticulture gave me the great advice.
As for slugs. I hear putting a #10 can on a stick and planting it in the ground can attract slugs away from your plants and into the can. I haven’t tried it but I also haven’t had a big slug problem.
So I’m not sure if you even wanted any advice. You can ignore it if you want to of course. :)
Beautiful flowers! I also love the Dahlias and Peonies.. and the Columbines and the Pink Marguerites and the Bleeding Hearts… heck, let’s just say I love them all!
Oh, and I have no gardening tips since 90% of my yard is weeds. I’m hoping all our house “disasters” will stop happening so we can actually spend time (and money) on plants!
Awesome pictures! The colors really pop. :)