Cheerful tulips and burst-of-sun daffodils are a bright welcome to spring after a long Wisconsin winter.

With June come our most nostalgic scents and the soft, pastel colors of coral bells, irises, and baptistas. Peonies are the old-fashioned showstoppers that top off the month.

July brings annual flowers that burst into a riot of colors: snapdragons, sweet peas, larkspurs, Canterbury bells, and sweet-smelling matthiolas. In addition, fantastic perennials like lilies, astilbes, and hydrangeas come into bloom.

Sunflowers! Dahlias! This month is a party! Gladiolus, lisianthus, foxgloves, cosmos, zinnias, and asters all bring unique shapes and patterns to August bouquets.

September bouquets are a rich palette of reds, oranges, and golds, with the fuzzy texture of a cozy polar fleece. Plumes of celosias, frilly marigolds, pillowy zinnias, and coarse sunflowers. Radiant and above the rest are dahlias, the queens of September!

Autumn is in the air, the days shorten, and Jack Frost’s visit is reluctantly anticipated… but perhaps another week of growing! The risk is rewarded richly: dahlias, sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, and foxgloves glow in the season’s final bouquets.