Perennial Suggestions?

there are many varieties of daisies, black-eyed Susans, etc which love the sun! They're happy flowers & very hardy to boot!

My roses love the sun. & it seems that the Knockout Rose bushes thrive anywhere & seem to love neglect!

I love Salvia, they dont bloom all summer though. :(

Good mostly all summer bloomers for sun are shasta daisies, echinacea (coneflower), campanula blue chips, bachelor buttons, pink geranium, long blooming lilies like stella d'oro or variations there of, and now a days, long blooming roses. Hollyhocks and mallow come up a little later but they still have a long bloom season. Hydragena (which is a shrub that requires some shade at least until it gets established) doesn't generally bloom until the 4th of July but the blooms are big, beautiful and last through fall. I mix the long lasting blooms with early bloomers and late bloomers, it's fun to have something new coming up all the time. And I mix in some annuals, too, to provide long lasting color. Have fun gardening!

There is a form of sedum that is very hardy and produces dusty rose colored flowers in August & September - they last until the frost. They can be easily divided and they grow in full or partial son. They have thick leaves, kind of like a succulent, so they don't wilt easily. Mine grow along the curb despite the salt and gravel from the snowplows.

Another plant you can try is call ribbon grass - it has a striped leaf sort of like a spider plant (variegated along the edge) but it grows straight up in full sun and it never needs watering except right after planting or transplanting. It doesn't flower but it has a nice lighter green look that mixes well with other plants (particularly those with dark green foliage). It spreads and divides well, so you get a lot of bang for your buck.

Portulaca is a low-growing annual that sometimes reseeds if you don't have a lot of mulch, and it produces flowers (many colors available) all season long.

Bleeding heart flowers continuously and divides well. It comes in a variety of colors, from white through deep pink.

Go to the Better Homes and Gardens website and look at garden plans for your zone. They have plans for all zones and conditions and are a great way to get started. Perennials generally don't stay in bloom for entire seasons - they bloom for a few weeks at a time, so you have to plant a variety that will bloom in succession. Here's a sample of a small, simple perennial garden that I got from BHG.com when I was starting out and I had flowers from March - October:

Feb-Mar: Crocus, snow drops, grape hyacinth
Aprl-May: Daffodils, tulips, hyacinth, creeping phlox
June: Irises and day lilies
July: "Becky" daisies - gorgeous, full white blooms, lilies
August: Black-eyed Susans, lilies, hosta
September-October: Sedum, ornamental kale and cabbage - this is when I also added annual mums and salvia into the ground (which my be perennial but never comes back up for me).

Once you have a good foundation of perennials, you can fill in extra color with cheap annuals (new guinea impatiens, impatiens, pansies, petunias, geraniums, zinnias, etc.) for some extra pop.

Invest in a few of the biggest size varieties that your budget allows for (e.g. if there are gallon-size and quart-size plants and you can afford the larger one, go for it because it will look "real" sooner). Bulbs are cheap and can be planted in the fall. For color this year, I would definitely go with Becky dasies and Black Eyes Susans - if you get a couple of each in one-gallon containers, you will get some impressive flowers this year and then in a couple of years, you can divide them.

Do you have a local nursery? You can ask them what will work in your yard. You don't necessarily have to buy from them, but a plant or two would be nice. Get the rest from Wal Mart or K-Mart.

Your best bet is to go to a local plant nursery and ask the experts. Soil can have as much to do with planting as sun.

I like color, and I've planted delphinium, blue flax, coral bells, canterbury bells, and poppies. They'll bloom part of the time and be gorgeously green for the rest. Hosta is another very friendly perennial. mostly known for its leaves but which does flower for a while. There are also perennial daisies (as well as annual ones). I fill in around my perennials with annuals like petunias, alyssum, marigolds, and others that aren't too expensive to buy again each year.

(I should add that I've bought perhaps a couple of perennials each year, because the initial outlay can be pretty high. Then I add to them as the years go on.)

You probably know already, but in case you don't - find your plant hardiness zone.
I like this site for searching on your zip code:
http://www.plantmaps.com/index.php

This next site I like to search for ideas.
You don't have to buy from them (they can be expensive sometimes, but their plant quality is fantastic) but I really LOVE the way you can search on when it blooms, bloom color, sun vs shade, height, soil conditions, fragrance, grow zone and other things like does it attract butterflies or is it deer resistant:

http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/perennials-sun.html