Butterfly "Weed" couldn't be more garden-worthy. Heat&cold impervious, drought-proof, immortal, flop-free, and guaranteed to bloom if only you give it sun and any (truly, any) soil, lean or rich, as long as it's well-drained in the Winter. Butterflies really do love it too. An excellent perennial, truly in the top twenty for sunny gardens from Zone 4 - 9. That's Minneapolis to Maine, Madison to Los Angeles: Most of the country!
Here's the species, with the typical uncompromising-orange flowers.
Yes, the picture is fuzzy; it's just a still from today's video on GardenShorts.com.
The plant, at least, is lovely without a doubt. But there's no getting around it: those flowers are orange. There's a natural variation in color, so watchful gardeners and growers have so far identified two named cultivars of different shades. 'Hello Yellow' is indeed just that.
This is probably far more versatile than the orange, coordinating happily but not loudly with blue, white, burgundy, grey, and any other yellow you have around the garden. Widely available—this picture is from the White Flower Farm site. But yellow isn't what I need more of in my Red Gardens. Neither is orange. Red, please. We want more red. And hooray! Here's 'Deep Orange Red' from the late (sob, heave) Seneca Hill.
It's so seriously redder than the species that the the name is too modest. I vote for "Yup, I'm Red All Right. Wadda YOU Gonna Do About It?" But with Seneca Hill in hiatus, where are YOU gonna get it? Perhaps you need to make friends with this great gardener guy I know all about in Rhode Island. Follow his blog even.

It's bee-balm season, finally. I say "finally" because I only (at the moment) have one bee-balm, Jacob Cline, and it's the early star of my Red Garden.
(OK, more honestly, the Red Garden isn't very red, at least broadly, until August, when the dahlias and the trumpet vines really get going. I'm working on this, trust me. Bee-balm, late in June, is the "early" indicator that this is, in fact a "red" garden.)
Jacob Cline is the best bee-balm to start with, because unlike so many of the tribe, it never, never, never gets powdery mildew. How's this for a disgusting Wiki-image of P-M on a gourd leaf? Powdery, slippery, slippery in the rainy: When a plant has powdery mildew, it's Pretty Much Slimed-up.
Yuck. Even "mildew-resistant" bee-balms can get PMS: They ain't mildew-proof. But Jacob Cline? Even though I do nothing to prepare for or fight off PMS—no thinning out of the stems to increase air flow, no spraying of anything to kill of an early outbreak, no extra watering in case there's a drought and the famously water-friendly bee-balm would become stressed and therefore more mildew-susceptible—Jacob is free and clear the entire season. So, I say: Grow this bee-balm! Then there won't be any PMS in your Red Garden either. Jacob Cline lets you enjoy what you're supposed to about bee-balms: the long long season of perky big-impact flowers.
My colony has started into bloom just this week, so the display is still young. But it's intense anyway. No staking, no pinching, no dead-heading either. No nothing, just week after week after week of eager cooperative bloom, and month after month of disease-free (but, true, like all bee-balms, boring) green foliage beneath.
The other thrill of bee-balm can be, if you're of the thinking sort, inferred right from the flowers.

Can you see that the perky "You called, boss? Anything I can do for you sir?" flower clusters are made up of individual prong-shaped flowers, one prong up, one prong down? A bit closer look, and with better light to show you how red Jacob really is:

Each flower is like a narrow jaw flung wide open, with the black nostrils (the pollen actually) at the top, and the deep deep throat opened up in the center.
So: Red flowers in warm weather. Red flowers that are deep and tubular (work with me here: throaty is "tubular"). Yup: Bee-balm should really be called Hummer-heaven: the little guys just go wild for it.
Bullet-proof culture, six week, or is it two months or more? of great flowers, guaranteed visits by hummingbirds: Jacob Cline is a Summer star.

Yes, it's true: On a hot day this elegant perennial releases enough oil directly into the air that you can flare a match near it.
Darn that this is no help as a sustainable energy solution. It ain't fuel, just fun.
But this is an essential perennial regardless.
Those spikes of white flowers couldn't be more reliable or more self-supporting. (Take that, you floppy delphinium!) And while the plant is famously slow to establish—and impossible to transplant thereafter—once it's settled in, you'll need to include it in your will, and your kids in theirs. Like peonies, it's as immortal as a perennial can be. (Take that, you short-lived delphinium!)
Why why why isn't it in my garden? Even on my plan for my garden? An unaccountable lapse. Yesterday I was thrilled to visit two legendary gardens in Little Compton, Rhode Island, not usually open to the public. This picture is one of several from the first highlighting plants that I now understand can't be planted too soon, by me or by you.
Just provide sun, decent soil and drainage, and your sense that for years to come, it will get the respect it so clearly deserves.