Common poppy

The California state flower - a drought-tolerant southwestern native perennial (grown as annual outside zones 8-10) producing iconic vibrant orange (sometimes yellow, pink, red, or white in cultivars) cup-shaped flowers that open in sun and close at night or in cloudy weather. Naturalizes readily via self-seeding; among the most reliable hot-dry-site wildflowers for borders, meadow plantings, and rock gardens. Family Papaveraceae but unrelated to the opium poppy (different chemistry, no narcotic alkaloids).

A fast, sun-loving member of the aster family grown as a warm-season annual, Gaillardia pulchella throws a long succession of 2-inch daisy-like flowers from early summer until frost. The ray florets blaze in bands of red and gold around a darker domed center - the firecracker coloring that gives it its name - on a wiry, branching 12-24 inch clump. It is built for hot, dry, sunny ground where richer-fed bedding plants sulk, blooming hardest exactly when summer heat peaks.

Globe amaranth is a warm-season annual in the amaranth family (Amaranthaceae), grown for its round, clover-like flower heads of papery, long-lasting bracts: bright magenta in the species (Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder), with cultivars in purple, pink, red, lilac, violet, and white. The true flowers are tiny white to yellow trumpets tucked among the bracts. Kew's WCVP gives its native range as Mexico, Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama), and tropical South America (Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Bolivia, and Brazil). NC State Extension and Missouri Botanical Garden describe a compact, upright plant 6 to 24 inches tall and 6 to 12 inches wide that flowers from June until frost, takes heat and drought once established, and makes a classic everlasting: the heads keep their color when cut and dried. It is frost-tender. NC State Extension rates it winter hardy only in USDA zones 9 to 11, where it can be grown as a perennial; everywhere else it is sown or planted after the last frost and grown for a single summer, which is why both sources list it as an annual for zones 2 to 11. It is a Gomphrena, not an Amaranthus: the amaranth in its name is the family it shares with love-lies-bleeding and the grain amaranths. It also shares the name bachelor's button with the cornflower (Centaurea cyanus), a different plant.

An old garden-favorite annual native to Mexico, grown for showy daisy-like flowers in nearly every color but true blue - red, yellow, orange, pink, rose, lavender, green, and white. Bushy, leafy plants rise on upright, hairy, branching stems and bloom continuously from early summer to frost. A magnet for butterflies and hummingbirds, and one of the most reliable cut-and-come-again cutting-garden flowers.

The iconic cornfield cornflower or bachelor's button - a slender, grey-green hardy annual carrying intense-blue (also pink, white, or purple in cultivars), fringed, thistle-like flowerheads from early to mid summer. POWO (Kew) places it native to southeastern Europe, the Balkans, and the eastern Mediterranean, naturalised across much of the temperate world as a cornfield archaeophyte. Honesty matters here: once a common cereal-field weed, the wild cornflower has DECLINED sharply across northern Europe under modern farming and is a genuine conservation concern there, even as it remains a beloved, easy, self-seeding cottage and meadow annual. Its blue florets are edible - a traditional garnish for salads, cakes, and teas. RHS gives several selections the Award of Garden Merit and rates the species fully hardy (H7). A strong nectar plant for bees and butterflies, it also bears extrafloral nectaries that feed ants and other insects.

A fast, low-maintenance warm-weather annual from Mexico and the southern United States, grown for saucer-shaped, daisy-like flowers (2 to 4 inches across) with red, pink or white rays around a yellow center. The lacy, threadlike bipinnate foliage gives an airy texture, and the long bloom run from early summer to frost makes it a workhorse for cutting and cottage gardens. It flowers best in lean soil - overly rich, fertile ground produces leafy plants with fewer blooms.