Help me name the flowers in this bed...

[DixieDreamer]

<center>http://www.lyonfamilywdw.com/Butchart1.jpg </center>

Okay all my expert gardening friends. Help me to identify these plants in this bed! What do you think they are?

[Mamu]

Dixie are you talking about the purple-blue ones. They look like Scabiosa-Pincushion Flower.

Once very popular in perennial gardens.

[shep]

the red ones sorta look like geraniums, and the white look like snowflakes

[Mamu]

Can we have a close up of the red flowers. Maybe verbena????? I agree with shep they look like geraniums, but if they are growing in a perennial garden I would think they would be a perennial.

[amid chaos]

I see Alyssum, geraniums, pin cushion flower and coreopsis.

[DixieDreamer]

I agree with the red geranium, the yellow coreopsis, and the alyssum... the blue does not look like the pincushion flowers that I grow - but it may be just the variety. Are you sure the blue/purple is a pincushion flower?

[Boo'sMom]

That the blue flowers looked like Lantana. Is there any scent to them? I agree with the geraniums, and coreopsis. Depending on the climate it is possible that the geraniums come back as a perennial.

[amid chaos]

Bachelor buttons?

[Mamu]

Scabiosa (http://www.jdsgardens.com/scab.htm)

Bachelor Button (http://www.swallowtailgardenseeds.com/annuals/bachelor_button.html)

[DixieDreamer]

I wish I could go smell them to confirm the scent question... unfortunately, this is a picture of a bed I really liked at a formal garden. (not mine!) I want to recreate it in one of my new beds and am struggling with "what" the purple/blue plant is. I know it was not the pincushion plant I am growing elsewhere in my garden it was more of an overall ball than that. If you look closely at the picture it is more of a globe shape and more uniform in petals - where as the pincushion plant has the larger exterior petals and the inner "cushion" portion.

I suspicion this is an annual - since the remaining plants are basically annuals.

Any other ideas? (I think we have all the other plants identified!)

[amid chaos]

After comparing the picture to thelink mamu posted I think it's definatly bachelor buttons.

[Mamu]

I also agree I think think they are Bachelor Button.

[Rajah]

I'm not so sure. I've seen those purply flowers, or some like them, mixed among the bluebonnets and red paintbrush along the sides of the road when we've gone wildflower hunting recently. No idea what they are, though. If these are the same thing, they don't look like Buttons to me.

[Rajah]

Could they be Verbena? Follow this link, go to the bottom of the page, and Verbena is third up on the right.

http://www.lone-star.net/wildflowers/flowers.htm

[DixieDreamer]

I think you are on to something there Rajah! It looks like a close match!