Show your patriotism by planting plumes of red, white and blue.

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You may fly an American flag over your home to demonstrate patriotism. However, have you considered planting your garden for the same purpose?

The Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) has a series of publications to help you do just that. In 2007, the VCE developed America’s Anniversary Garden to help individuals, groups and communities commemorate America’s 400th anniversary of the Jamestown landings with a signature landscape, garden or container planting.

Although that anniversary has passed, these suggestions and those in the VCE publications can still guide you in making plant selections for your own home this Independence Day.

Annuals

This summer, create a flag-inspired container or planting bed. For a sunny location, select red geraniums and pair them with white petunias and blue lobelia. (Remember that true blue is unusual in nature; most blues will have a purple tint.)

Angelonia has varieties in both blue and white and attracts pollinators as well. Nemesia ‘Bluebird’ has purplish blue blossoms with white eyes; pollinators also find it attractive.

Verbena selections include both a true red and a clear white. Annual vinca (Catharanthus roseus) is also easily found in both red and white.

Pentas sport appropriately star-shaped flowers in both red and white. A striking red burst of color comes from Celosia “Dragon’s Breath,” which has upright plumes of red.

For the garden or in a large container, lisianthus grows from one to three feet tall in both white and blue. Snapdragons are also tall annuals and can provide a snap of white.

White blooming sweet alyssum is a pretty and fragrant container plant. You can also plant salvia, which is available in red, white and blue. If you want a patriotic hanging basket filled with millions of blossoms, imagine calibrachoa (aka million bells) in red, white and blue.

For a shadier spot, you could use red-blooming begonias with either polka dot plants (Hypoestes spp.) that have white speckled foliage or white blooming impatiens, and Snowstorm “Blue Bubbles” Bacopa (Sutera hybrid). Bacopa, great in containers, is also commonly found in white. White caladium would also be beautiful in containers or the shade garden.

Perennials, shrubs and trees

For blooming plants in partial shade that will return year after year, red daylilies are striking. You could include blue mophead or lacecap hydrangeas (in acidic soil with a pH of 5.2-5.5) and a white magnolia tree nearby.

You don’t have to depend on blooms to create a patriotic planting though. Using perennials for partial shade, you could select heuchera with red leaves, hosta with blue-green leaves, and a lamb’s ear variety, Stachys Byzantine “Helen Von Stein,” with white leaves.

To create a sunny perennial border, you could include blue delphinium such as “Blue Mirror,” red penstemon or red yarrow, and white veronica (also called speedwell).

Obviously, these suggestions are not all inclusive. Check out the plants blooming at the garden center. If their water and light requirements as well as their bloom times are similar, they will probably work together well.

Online resources

The VCE has suggestions for native plants that you can find in the colors of liberty in “Patriotic Gardens: Red, White, and Blue Native Plants,” available online at https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/.

If you’re planning now for fall or winter, you can refer to its publication “Patriotic Gardens: Red, White, and Blue in Fall and Winter Gardens,” at the same website. Fall is a good time to find cool-season annuals, such as pansies, and to plant trees and shrubs.

Fall is also a smart time to plant spring-blooming bulbs. The VCE has also prepared suggestions for red, white and blue bulbs, such as red tulips, white daffodils and blue hyacinths, and other spring-blooming plants in the online publication “Patriotic Gardens: Bulbs for a Red, White, and Blue Spring Garden.”

A patriotic garden can be a way to create fireworks in your own backyard.

Lela Martin is a Master Gardener with the Chesterfield County office of the Virginia Cooperative Extension.