Exclamation point flowers steal the garden show

Gardens are bursting with flowers at this time of year. Coneflowers, phlox, roses, yarrow and more are spilling out of borders with exuberance. And yet, the plants stealing the show are busy offering something else — an exclamation point.

Tall spires of flowers that often reach higher than their garden brethren are probably the first thing you notice in a beautiful full garden. They simply demand attention, in part because they are so different from everything around them, but also because even though they may be thin, they are bold.

Right now, the purple spires of Liatris spicata, often called blazing star or gayfeather, are demanding attention in gardens. Rising up like fluffy purple totems, these long-flowering native perennials not only attract human eyes but are butterfly and bee magnets.

They are also incredibly easy to grow. Corms can be planted directly in a full to part-sun location in the garden in spring or started earlier in pots, and plants are readily available at garden centers. They can also be grown from seed.

A white cultivar called ‘Alba’ is a nice change of pace but suffers from the bane of most white flowers, which eventually turn a rather unsightly brown.

Rough blazing star (Liatris aspera) grows well in dry, sandy soils with round buttons of flower clusters along its stem.

All varieties have grasslike basal foliage that is nondescript, leaving space for the flowers to shine. And that’s something that the best spire-shaped flowers have in common.

The very poisonous but very beautiful foxglove is another plant that rises above the rest. Typically a biennial, foxglove sends up spires of stacked flowers. The quick-to-flower Dalmation series of Digitalis purpurea, however, will bloom in the first year if seeds are started early inside.

And while I’m enjoying those peach beauties around the garden, the foxglove that outshines all others in my garden is the rusty foxglove (Digitalis ferrunginea ‘Gigantea’), which sends up 5-foot-tall spires of small, apricot to rusty brown flowers. Most foxgloves will reseed, although I wish they did it more prolifically, because all are worth growing.

Delphiniums are the poster children for gorgeous, spiky flowers and one of the few plants that can serve up a truly blue flower. If you’re willing to spend some time coddling them — they want rich soil, fertilizer and water and careful staking  — they are worth the effort.

Other tall, spiky stars include cardinal flower (Lobelia), which can be found in excellent cultivars that are frustratingly only borderline hardy here, but also the native great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphlitica), which can be an accomplished reseeder that may need to be kept in check.

And no such list would be complete without including the cottage favorite hollyhocks (Alcea), which seems to have fallen out of favor recently but certainly delivers on the tall spire of flowers despite its challenges with disease and Japanese beetles.

There’s no shortage of easy-to-grow exclamation point flowers to add to a garden. Plant them, stand back and watch them steal the show.