The Allure of Orange Flowers

Orange flowers. They’re like popcorn for the garden, aren’t they? Whether it’s their sunset glow, or the way they straddle the heat of red with the cheer of yellow, I don’t know what it is, but I’m an orange fan. But, beyond looking good, native orange plants are fantastic for feeding pollinators, fending off deer, and overall just being sturdy and cooperative if you pick the right ones. Looking for a butterfly garden? Native garden? Fall garden? Wildflower meadow? TN Nursery’s native orange plants are a fun way to make a statement without a lot of fuss or muss.

Bold Native Orange Flowers for Tennessee Gardens 

Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa). A very Tennessee native, this orange milkweed is just as striking as its name sounds, with neon-orange umbels of firecracker blooms that provide both food and larval fodder for monarchs and other butterflies. You can incorporate these into sunny perennial beds, wildflower borders, or even use them as accents along an ornamental grass planting for a nice textural contrast. It’s also drought tolerant, deeply rooted, and comes back year after year without fail.

This native variety of coneflower is frequently overshadowed by its more common yellow relatives, but don’t let that stop you from adding a clump to your garden. Orange Coneflowers make a rich, orangey-gold show all season long, with petals that deepen and darken toward the end of the season. They also last a long time and draw in bees, butterflies, and songbirds that will come back to dine on their seed heads all winter long. A clumping and compact plant, Orange Coneflower works well in borders or pollinator patches.

If your garden has areas that are only partially sunny or are on damper soils, Jewelweed is the plant for you. It has delicate orange trumpets that actually seem to glow in dappled shade, and hummingbirds can’t get enough of it. It also self-seeds readily, so you’ll have a nice patch to look at next year. This one is a customer favorite at TN Nursery, especially for woodland and streamside planting.

Why Native Orange Plants are Good and Your Garden Will Benefit

Native plants understand the land—they know the rainfall cycles, the soil types, and the native animals that need it. That’s why, when you choose orange native plants, you’ll get a dual benefit. These are flowers that will dazzle your eyes, but they’ll also cut down on the work you have to do to maintain them.

Take, for example, the Orange Daylily (Hemerocallis fulva). You’ve probably seen this one popping up in ditches, old homestead sites, or country roads. It’s not truly native to Tennessee (or the mid-Atlantic region, for that matter) but is often found growing wild as a naturalized species that fits right in with native-inspired landscapes. Their long-lasting trumpet blooms return year after year and will even grow in a variety of soil types. They’re easy to grow, practically bulletproof in Zones 4 to 9, and are a must for people who want low maintenance with a big payoff.

Spotted Touch-Me-Not is another name for Jewelweed, so it’s on this list twice. But it’s worth another mention because, in addition to its beauty, this native orange flower also has medicinal uses. People have long used the juice from the plant’s stems as a home remedy for poison ivy rash. That’s native orange beauty you can also put to work.

I’d also suggest you add Native Orange Milkweed in with Goldenrod at TN Nursery. Goldenrod makes a late-summer explosion of color that’s complementary to orange in both hue and bloom time. You’ll get great color from midsummer through fall with these two.

Designing with Orange: Finding Harmony and Seasonal Interest 

Bold as orange is, it can still be balanced with other colors. Think cooler tones to offset the heat or perhaps more yellow and red flowers nearby to echo the warmer spectrum of the rainbow. A time-tested combo is Butterfly Weed mixed with Purple Coneflower and Blazing Star. Both of the latter are TN Nursery customer favorites and have lavender and violet spikes that contrast gorgeously against orange. The resulting effect is meadow-like and irresistible to pollinators from all over the yard.

If you have a shady area in your garden, try grouping Jewelweed with native ferns and Wild Ginger. Orange and dark green together give your understory planting a moody, forest feel that you just can’t get with lighter-colored plants. If your beds are sunny, try edging them with Orange Coneflower and Coreopsis. You’ll get a splashy, long-blooming effect that’s akin to a prairie wildfire at its peak.

Orange Fringed Orchid (Platanthera ciliaris) is another native flower that will give your native wildflower bed a little something extra if you’re the adventurous type and have some moist, acidic soil. This one is a bit more high maintenance than some of the others, but no one ever said gardening should be easy. The rare and exquisite reward is frilly orange petals that will attract butterflies by the dozens.

Another rare beauty that TN Nursery carries is Indian Pink (Spigelia marilandica). While it’s more known for its red blooms, it also has orange cultivars that can bring a fun, unexpected twist to a shade garden. Their tubular flowers shoot straight up like little Fourth of July fireworks—just what you need to break up visual monotony and add some vertical interest to your planting.

The Pollinators (and People) Who Love Orange Flowers

If you needed another reason to add native orange flowers to your planting palette, consider all the life they can bring into your garden. Monarchs need Butterfly Weed. Hummers love Jewelweed. Bees, hoverflies, and all manner of beneficial bugs make these blooms their feeding stations, and in the process, they help out with pollinating your vegetables and fruit trees nearby.

Birds get in on the fun too, especially in fall when the seedheads from Coneflowers and Sunflowers are ready to harvest. And the show isn’t over when the blooms are gone, either. That lasting reward of supporting wildlife all year round is why native orange flowers are so much more than just garden eye candy.

Oh, and for the human part of the equation, orange is a happy color. It energizes a blah border, brightens a shady spot, and lets your neighbors know you mean business—that this is a garden full of life and love. Whether you’re building a pollinator garden, a native garden, or just want to add seasonal pops of color, native orange plants let you do it all with pizzazz.

Native Orange Flowers are a salute to the power of pigment and a celebration of ecological gardening. These beauties are here to stay—they thrive in our climate, nourish our native pollinators, and ask very little of the gardener in return. Whether you’re overhauling an entire landscape or just tucking in a few new perennials, let orange be your guiding light. Your garden, and your regional pollinators, will thank you for it.