Yellow is a particularly striking color in a flower bed or booming edge, adding bright spots of colour and mixing nicely with other contrasting colours. Many plants provide flowers in various hues of yellow, but some have especially long petals, adding to the graceful look of the flowers. Some are annuals but many develop as perennials and can persist for quite a few seasons.
Sunflowers
Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are familiar plants using exceptionally large yellow-petaled flowers, responsible for your plant’s name. Frequent kinds are tall, around 15 feet, and also have flower heads composed of a central brownish disc surrounded by long, bright yellow cones. Many hybridized cultivars are available, with increase habits and flowers differing from the indigenous plant. Examples include “Lemon Aura,” a naturally branching plant using lemon-yellow flowers, “Baby Bear,” a dwarf plant with yellowish, fuzzy-petaled flowers, and “Sunrich” and “ProCut,” two yellow varieties developed because of their worth since long-lasting cut flowers. Sunflowers grow as annuals in all U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones.
Daylilies
Daylilies (Hemerocallis) are perennials appropriate for USDA zones 2 through 10. Clump-forming plants with thin, strap-like leaves, daylily flowers have six long petals and last just 1 day, although one plant can bloom for many weeks. Many varieties include various shades of yellowish flowers. “Buttered Popcorn” has deep purple flowers, while “Brocaded Gown” bears decorated ivory yellow blooms and “El Desperado” offers mustard yellow petals with purple borders and purple patches close to the flower’s center. Some exceptional daylily varieties are called “spiders” because of the long, extremely thin petals. “Kindly Light” is an example of the type, using bright yellow petals which are provided that they often twist and curl.
Tropical Hibiscus
The tropical hibiscus plant (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis) is an Asian native which can be grown outdoors year round in USDA zones 9 through 11. Elsewhere, it rises well as an annual or potted houseplant. The plant is well-known for its showy, long-petaled flowers which can reach 8 inches broad. Several yellow varieties are available, many with contrasting colours combined with yellow. The cultivar “Clown Gown” displays bright yellow, red-centered flowers. “Concorde” flowers have highly-ruffled yellow cones shading into rose at the flower’s center, while “Ruth Watson” has flowers which are pure yellow and partly doubled.
Lilies
Lilies (Lilium sp.) Grow from bulbs as reputable outdoor perennials at USDA zones 3 through 8. In other locations, they can be grown as annuals or as indoor potted plants. Hundreds of different lily hybrids are readily available from garden centers or catalogs. Generally speaking, they have flowers with six long petals forming a variety of shapes, from funnels to curved bows or flattened, open shapes. “Yellow Whoppers” is a 4-foot-tall plant with bright yellow flowers, while “Giraffe” has deep purple flowers with red-edged petals, and “Last Dance” bears lemon yellow petals that curve backwards on abundant, nodding flowers.