Welcome to my perennial garden list ... this is a list of the perennials I grow, or have grown in my own gardens. They are divided according to light preference, but sometimes will take either sun or part sun, etc. I probably have more that I can't think of at the moment. Actually, in the shrub category there are many more- I will try to update the lists.
Sometimes it seems that more plants have been lost than have been grown well in my gardens, but that is one of the lessons of a garden. Plants are living things, they thrive and they pass back into the earth. The garden is a changing place requiring the labor and vision of the gardener to make it a blooming and beautiful place.
Certain plants have proven their ability to survive the vagary of both weather and the efforts of the gardener. The hostas, peonies, hellbores, and candytuft thrive and look better every year. The phlox are resilient, but need more cultivation and attention to give their best. Coreopsis, lamium maculatum, ajuga, all prove their worth year after year. These become a backbone of each year's garden.
When the ground is newly cultivated, it is loose and friable and plants grow well in it. The process of digging and dividing perennials gives not only new plants, but keeps the ones that have outlived their youth and bloom a new strength. I made two mistakes when creating perennial gardens, one was to turn under the grass instead of removing the sods (creating persistent weed problems in the years ahead) and the other was using mulch on the flower beds. Mulch is best for shrubs, trees and places where one does not need or want to cultivate.
You can choose an important perennial flowering plant to be the focal point of each part of the growing season. Peonies, Irises, Lilies, Phlox, and Chrysanthemums can carry the garden throughout the entire season with companions to create beautiful and colorful garden pictures.
The word 'perennial' is a loose one. In the garden some are plants that will outlive the gardener, but many are plants that tend to run out and disappear after only a few seasons. Much will depend on the efforts and knowledge of the one doing the growing. When I listed the top plants choices I would make for a garden border, they were choices that would live longest with the least work.
Ten Best Perennials
5 Best Perennials for August
12 Midsummer Bloomers
Ten Top Perennials
Early on, I found that a mixed border ( one with shrubs,perennials, bulbs, and biennials together) is the most satisfactory way to achieve design and all season bloom.
Most perennial plants are long lived, but they do need to to be divided and maintained to keep them from running out, and losing strength. I've lost many plants during times when other demands in life required that I be elsewhere than in the garden. I'm always sad when losing plants, but also amazed at the many that are quite resilient.
[Sunny Border]
Best time to Divide Perennials
easy print-out reference from Garden Gate Magazine. [pdf file]
coronaria,millefolium,ptarmica -also known as yarrows
pink, blue, purple, white "Michaelmas daisies"
poscharskyana, persifolia, cochlearfolia, carpatica
spurred (Aquilegia canadensis) and bonnet types
verticillata, sunny yellow + long-lived stalwart
prairie plant with pink flowers and medicinal properties
not hardy in zone 5 and kept losing it
Johnson's Blue, lancastriense (white variety)
sky blue flower,short-lived perennial
German, Siberian, Reticulata, Dutch
Asiatic, Oriental, Platte, L. lancifolium,Tiger-lily, L. candidum, Madonna, L. longiflorum,Easter lily
blue and white varieties, very long lived in the garden
red and pinks are hummingbird magnets
crowded out, but the red and yellow flowers are one of my favorites
'Goldsturm' is one of the best landscape plants with golden flowers
[Shade/Part Sun]
lavender blue campanula-like flowers
useful foliage plant with yellow green flowers
'Jack Frost'
'Caramel', 'Purple Sails'
'Frances Williams', 'Francee', tardiflora, 'Royal Standard', Albo-marginata-undulata
Male,
[Ground Cover]
[Vines]
[Shrubs]
Rosa rugosa, R.glauca, R.alba, R.gallica, Hybrid Teas
[Herbs]
Nothing puts on the type of show that the big flowered clematis vines do. They are big, like flat stars of the most beautiful blues, pinks, purples, and shades ranging between these colors. Some solid, some striped, they can also be doubled, and in their season fully cover their supports with an overflow of generous bloom.
Although they have a reputation for being trickly, I have always found them easy to grow. They do require a feeding and regular moisture. The rule is that clematis like their faces in the sun, and their feet in the shade.
The smaller flowered clematis are also quite showy and have a fragrance that carries on the air, to boot.
Repeated, and emphasized over again, is the advice to prepare and improve the soil in a garden. This is even more important when growing long lived plants that will demand much of their environment to produce lots of blooms. The old advice was to "double dig", and that is probably still good advice, although you rarely find it offered anymore. At the very least, regularly add amendments and compost to boost the soil.
AMAZON
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