I understand your choice of Thalictrum 'Splendide'(I have it too)

This year my top performers were:

1 Heliopsis Asahi
2 Phlox Herbstwalzer
3 Helenium Rauchtopas
4 Aster glehnii Aglehnii
5 Echinacea Champagne Bubbles

The duds were several varieties of Aster novi-belgii.

My Five Best Performers:
Salvia greggii navajo
Agastache apricot sprite
Dicliptera
Salvia mystic spires
Clematis viticella purpurea elegans

Biggest Dud:
Calla Lilies - not one bloom this year

I will differentiate between "best performers" (i.e. colourful, useful over an extended period)...

Geranium 'Rozanne'
Heuchera 'Beaujolais'
Penstemon 'Sweet Joanne'
Echinacea 'Hot Papaya'
Helenium 'Sahin's Early Flowerer'

Between "wow" factor, but perhaps only for a relatively short time...

Paeonia 'Flame'
Arisaema sikokianum
Arisaema 'Jack Frost'
Lilium 'Orania'
Angelica gigas

My WOW to Peonia Flame was filled with a lot of sarcazm. The whole clump bloomed for 2 days( two, in case you think you read it wrongly). I slammed my garbage bin really loudly after it.

Ha,
I don't think I have that many perennials. Some of them like False Indigo are too new to evaluate. So far:

1. Day Lillies - Never fails to perform.
2. Butterfly weed - it's taken only one year to get established. It came back several times the size and requires no watering. The flowers managed to Bloom a few days.
3. Sedium Autumn Joy - also never seemed to be affected by weather or neglect. Grows underneath beech tree.
4. sweet Woodruff - comes back every year to cover up the bulbs foilage underneath the tree giving the tree a nice green carpet underneath look.

5. Canna (unknown variety) - not hardy in my zone but the previous owner planted it next to the foundation. as a result, it comes back every year.

That's too bad...

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Yes, it WAS beautiful, but 2 days? Just because of that little rain and wind? I have only 800 sq meters garden, so I can't waste space on such short bloomers. I have the same situation with yellow Paeonia Mlokosewitchi. I've just kept them because it took me so long to get them blooming from seed. But I do not know how long ....

(This is the first *summer* for all of these perennials)

Coreopsis "Cosmic Eye"
Echinacea "PowWow Wildberry"
Shasta Daisy "Becky"
Phlox "Peppermint Twist"
"Yellow Loosestrife"

Paulsiu, I noticed that you wrote re your butterfly weed:

"The flowers managed to Bloom a few days."

I planted two butterfly weeds this past summer after seeing these beautiful flowers on a garden tour. Mine grew but gave just a few of those fabulous orange flowers. I was wondering if this was due to the newness of my plants or maybe not quite enough sun. I am hoping to see a greater mass of flowers next summer.

1.) Penstemon 'Sweet Joanne'
2.) Russian Sage 'Lacey Blue'
3.) Nepeta 'Walker's Low'
4.) Clematis 'Rosemoor'
5.) Rose 'Dick Clark' and Rose 'Easy Does It'

My bad. I meant to say that my butterfly weed bloom more than once, not just a few days. It's more like a few weeks.

When you first plant them, they won't bloom for the first year but should bloom well when they come back next year.

Paul

I'm going to have to look some of these up! I saw someone's pic of Penstemon "Sweet Joanne" a while back and thought it looked fantastic!
Coolplantsguy, that is absolutely a "wow" peony - it's gorgeous! !! I'm in the same boat as wieslaw, though (actually, a smaller boat;) I have a teeny city apt. garden with a lot of containers added to the concrete part, so now basically for every plant I buy, I have to purchase dirt and a container to put it I, so I try to make sure I get a lot of bloom out of a plant to justify the expense :)

lilium Invasion
lilum Arabesque
daylily Flight of the Buttercup
eupatorium Chocolate
peony Coral Charm thoug it only bloomed for 3 days this year. It's not it's fault that we hit 105 degrees with 50 mph winf gusts just as it was coming into bloom

My top performers this year,

Baptisia, 'Twilight Prarie Blues'
Geranium 'Rozanne'
Shasta Daisy 'Becky'
Coreopsis 'Redshift'
Tricytis 'Tojen'

Teresa

All but the turtlehead were grown from seed via winter sowing:

Rudbeckia hirta 'Double Gold'
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Chelone lyonii/Turtlehead
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Lobelia cardinalis/cardinal flower
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Penstemon/beardtongue 'Mystica'
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Lupine
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Wow, nice!!! Thanks for pics, gardenweed! I love those lupines, but for 3 years only ever got leaves, so I gave up, but just am enamored by their fantastic look! I had been looking at p. Mystica in Bluestone's catalog and thinking it had a unique look!
hostaholic, I looked up your Lilium Invasion and that is a great color! I just "invested" in Graffity and some others despite warnings of lily beetles on east coast. I'm hoping the fact that I'm surrounded by such an urban environment will keep it at bay
Teresa, I've never seen a baptisia in real life, but loved other peoples pictures so much that I planted a few plants and a bunch of seeds this fall.:)

ctc - I grew more P. Mystica via winter sowing from traded seed this year and got excellent germination. I planted several more groups of seedlings in various beds and am really looking forward to having larger clumps of blooms next year in late May/June. It's a bee magnet early in the season.

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The lupines were winter sown last year and I planted several groups of them in my neighbor's south foundation bed where the soil is just sand and rocks. Judging by that picture, I'd say they really do like lousy soil!

I tend to think in combinations, not limited to individual perennials, and including trees and shrubs. Here are five of my favorites from this year:

This one is my top pick - I love the vivid reds of the viburnum berries and Lord Baltimore hardy hibiscus with the cool white of the veronicastrum:
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Veronicastrum is a fabulous plant that makes striking combinations with many things. It looks great with Russian Sage and hardy hibiscuses but also makes lovely monochrome combinations, as in this pairing with 'White Moth' hydrangeas:
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This combination of 'Carol Mackie' daphne and forget-me-nots made a nice combination in spring:
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I'm gradually turning the 'herb bed' on the south side of the driveway into bed focussed on warmer colors. Various red and orange daylilies, peachy roses, Summer Wine ninebark and culinary sage are the key plants. It's difficult to capture it in one picture so here are a couple of shots of parts of it from various angles:
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(The roses have bright red hips for fall and winter interest so don't get deadheaded...)
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If you have a damp spot, I highly recommend Astilboides tabularis. It has astile-like flowers in July but you really grow it for the leaves. This shot is from the third week of May, so it's a star early and remains so all summer whether it is in bloom or not (in fact, I often cut off the flowers as they are a distraction from its appearance I think!):
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My top 5 this year were:

Lagerstroemia "Little Chief" (a hot pink-flowered form of this dwarf seed strain of crepe myrtle, a reliable die-back perennial here
Helianthus maximiliani "Santa Fe" (Maximilian sunflower, currently 8 feet tall and just now bursting into bloom)
Lobelia "Fan Scarlet"
Silene regia "Prairie Fire"
Rudbeckia triloba

I love looking at these lists. :)

My favorites (listed for long, impressive performance):

Salvia Caradonna
Coreopsis Early Sunrise
Rose Morden Sunrise
Rose White Knockout
Hydrangea Limelight

Well, not all perennials, technically - three shrubs. I'm just thinking of what has bloomed best and longest.

Agastache cana 'Purple Pygmy'
Coreopsis 'Dreamcatcher'
Helenium 'Red Jewel�
Lespedeza bicolor 'Yakushima'
Veronicastrum virginicum 'Rosea'

geum - bright red one (name escapes me, Lady Bradshaw or the other one?)Love geums but many have fleeting blooms but this common chiloense flowered all summer with a luminous red.
Salvia greggii - another red and a lilac, both from cuttings so NOID. Fabulous with grasses such as Stipa tenuissima and various sedges.Propagated zillions for friends too.
Tulipa sprengeri(a long, long wait from seed and much delving in pots for the minuscule deep bulbs - but so fabulous)
Dahlia -Bishop of Aukland (I think, a clear orange single which has gleamed with mimulus auriantica and red hemerocallis)
Callirhoe involucrata - never stops.

I had seen Red Jewel Helenium in a catalog yesterday and thought they were a great shade of red, but it was a seller that touches up photos, so wasn't sure how real it was. Good to hear it's a neat one.

Eric, I had been looking at dwarf crape myrtles for containers, but am waiting as I don't think they love a cold winter, especially just planted in fall.

woodyoak, I especially like the Veronicastrum and hibiscus as well
as forget-me-not and Daphne - really nice!!
Thank for the other additions garcan and connietn, I'll have to look up some of those :)