When you plant perennials in your garden, you are rewarded with masses of changing color and interest from April to November, virtually year after year and can be considered relatively low maintenance for those gardeners that can only spend a few hours a week in their garden! Perennials are numerous and diverse; most are easy to grow and some require some spadework, but many will tolerate considerable neglect and still flower abundantly and multiply.
Another great feature of perennials is that since many tend to multiply, you can divide and spread them around your property creating new garden beds which is a great return on your initial investment. If you may be moving and hate the thought of leaving your favourite blooms behind, again divide the plants, temporarily stick them in a pot, and take them with you! You can even share them with friends, or sell them at your local swap meet.
When the daffodils and tulips have faded away, and the summer annuals are still seedlings, the plush peony, grandiflora Iris, and eyecatching Oriental poppy take center stage. When the frosty fall settles in and wilts the summer show, the chysanthemums and asters set off the grand finale before the winter shuts it down.
Perennials are characterized by having a life span of three years or more. Although this includes anything from the lowly weed, like dandelions, to the giant sicora trees, to gardeners perennials are thought of as the flowering kind that dies down with the roots alive but dormant beneath the soil during the winter, and then regrows in the spring. Biennials like sweet William, foxglove, Canterbury Bells and wallflowers all start from seed and spend the first year growing, then flowers, seeds, and dies the second year.
The goal of the perennial garden is to display a continuous riot of color and interest from early spring to late fall. The key to this challenge is to select complimentary plants that bloom at different times, and to strategically place them so they don't overshadow each other. Perennials can also be grown in containers, raised beds, rock gardens and wall cracks.
It's a good idea to plan your perennial garden on paper first to identify it's location, size, shape, and suitable plants. Try to think of plants as masses of colors and shapes from which to paint an everchanging garden picture, from one season to the next, instead of as an individual plant. Colors look best in groups, not spotted here and there but bright colors, like oranges and reds, on the contrary do best as accents and should be used more sparingly. Place groups of the same plant in patterns; for example select one tall plant at the left rear, then the same plant in the center rear, and of course again in the right rear.
Spacing between plants and any surrounding stuctures and hedges are important for many reasons. Where the backdrop is a hedge, leaving about a 3 foot gap will prevent competition of the plants roots for growth, and for nutrients in the soil. It also allows for good air circulation and gives the gardener some room to work. Additionally, it will preserve the condition of evergreen shrubs whereas too close a tall summer perennial may shade the lower branches causing them to die and turn brown which will be quite noticeable and unattractive during the winter months.
Generally speaking, the placement strategy for the perennial garden calls for taller plants over 3 feet at the back of the bed, medium sized plants between 2 to 3 feet tall in the middle, and shorter plants under 2 feet in front of those. Use a sheet of tracing paper for each season when mapping the placement of the plants. Divide each sheet into 3 sections for the front, middle and back sections of the garden. With the help of our Plant Selector Tool and any other plant reference resources, select plants starting with the fall plants and working from the front of the bed to the back, sketch the plant placements with irregular shaped circles. Repeat for each season so that when all sheets are layed on top of each other you will have a master plan where you can easily tell if there are any major gaps. Annuals can be used as substitutes to fill in any gaps if you can't buy your plants all at once, or for variety, you can plan gaps specifically for them and bulbs as well.
This process of experimenting with different combinations of colors and textures until you have found your perfect perennial garden is half the fun of being a gardener! The other half is enjoying it...so have fun with it!
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