Common yarrow

The original black-eyed Susan - a bristly-stemmed, short-lived meadow daisy that behaves as an annual, biennial, or brief perennial depending on where it grows. It blooms hard and early from seed, then carries itself forward by reseeding rather than by spreading into a permanent clump.

A drought-hardy western-native subshrub (long known as Zauschneria) that lights up dry, rocky ground with scarlet tubular flowers from midsummer until frost - exactly when migrating and resident hummingbirds need a late-season nectar source. Slender, highly-branched stems carry small grey-green lance-shaped leaves; the whole plant thrives on full sun, lean soil, and very little water once established.

A spring-blooming native bulb of the moist meadows of the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, common camas sends up a 2-3 foot scape lined with dozens of star-shaped blue-violet florets that open from the bottom up over basal grass-like leaves. It is the camas whose bulb was a staple food of Indigenous peoples across its range - the genus name comes from the Native American "kamas"/"quamash". The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as a plant of special value to native bees.

A dry-country wildflower of the Intermountain West whose narrow, scarlet, tubular flowers line a slender stalk that rises about 3 feet above a low rosette of glaucous blue-green leaves. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center documents it blooming red from May into August on dry, gravelly soils, and it is one of the classic hummingbird-pollinated penstemons. Deeply drought-tolerant once established - best on lean, well-drained ground where it is not over-watered.

A native upright perennial with fragrant midsummer flower panicles in pink, white, lavender, or red - a classic border anchor and hummingbird-friendly choice for sunny beds.

A clump-forming native perennial of the carrot family that opens flat-topped, compound umbels of tiny golden-yellow flowers in late spring, when little else is blooming. The toothed, twice-divided-in-threes (biternate) foliage and the bare central flower stalk on each umbel set it apart from other umbellifers. A documented larval host for the black swallowtail and an early-season nectar and pollen source for short-tongued native bees.