I have not had great luck with snapdragons living through the summer heat although I had several instances where they did come back in the fall. They have always been a favorite of mine. Last year I tried the Angelonia that is being touted as the summer snapdragon. They were lovely, performed well in full sun but don't remind me of true snaps.

I tried to find the blue angelonia this year at one nursery and they had only the purple, but bought two and will still look for the other colours.

Here is a link that might be useful: Summer Snapdragon at Proven Winners Web Site

Snapdragons are lovers of cooler weather, which means they usually stagger through our summers if they survive at all. Seems to me that the dwarf varieties ('Floral Carpet', etc) do better than the tall ones ('Rocket', 'Solstice', 'Mme Butterfly', etc) but they all suffer. They often make it through the winter, though, if it's not too cold. Best time to plant snaps is late Feb-early March, if you can find them. Then they have a longer season of bloom and you can enjoy them for months. I used to custom grow them for savvy landscape designers for installation at that time of year.

I wish they hadn't billed Angelonia as the summer snapdragon. It's not like a snapdragon at all, and it's a mighty fine plant in its own right and shouldn't be saddled with a borrowed bogus name like that. Marketers (Proven Winners, Blooms of Bressingham and so forth) think we gardeners are basically stupid and won't try anything new. So they slap a known name on a new plant and mislead everybody. And I won't even start about how they lie about plant hardiness and stuff.

Not that it bothers me or anything. :)

Marty

I have one red snapdragon that has lived through two winters (and summers). It's getting ready to bloom right now. :-)

I have better luck with snapdragons when I plant them where they do not get mid-day sun, and I keep them deadheaded. Also, when I plant them, I take off the first blooms to encourage them to grow bushier.

The rocket series does not last as long, but oh do they produce lovely flowers!

I was misled. I've been living under the assumption that snapdragons were a vigorous summer plant. I should have known better...one pot I've put out is not happy in the afternoon sun. But, did I let that stop me? Noooooo.....I added another HUGE pot on the patio that gets even MORE sun! Oddly, that pot is doing better than the first. Oh well...I'll enjoy them while they last and put something else there when they give up the ghost. I'm glad I read this. I would have assumed I had done something wrong.