MAKING PERENNIALS A CAREFREE
PART OF YOUR GARDEN

Many or even most of your planting decisions have been made for this summer. You should now take time to review current successes and start planning your next season’s garden. In particular, review your expenditure of time and effort.

Perennials are among the most diverse and carefree plant types you can have in your garden, and this is good news. However, they do require you to make wise selections and provide appropriate care. Given this, you need to understand what perennials are and how to choose and care for them. Then, I’d like to share with you a few of my garden favorites. With any luck, you’ll find some of them worthy of a place in your landscape now or the immediate future.

In any case, perennials may be planted in spring, summer or autumn and will continue to reward us with a complete flowering cycle before winter sets in and ends the top growth. The crown and other underground parts, though, will over winter and produce new top growth the next year. This regenerative property means a favorite plant properly placed and cared for can be with you for many years to come, thus saving some time.

The most important thing to consider with perennials is proper plant selection. Any mistakes will have to be dealt with in future years, and your goal is not to have to re-plant perennials too frequently. Therefore, you need to give careful consideration to the plant’s cultural requirements such as water, sunlight or shade, and pay close attention to potential size and initial spacing. The best thing to do is read the plant’s tag, or get a book from the library or garden center, and ask if you have questions.

Most perennials have a two to five week bloom period. For this reason, it may take up to 50 varieties of perennials to achieve color from early spring through autumn; whereas five varieties of annuals would suffice. However, perennials offer rich textures and foliage that serve different purposes in the garden; and it’s important to dwell as much on that as on bloom time and color. By choosing plants with different bloom times, it is possible to use perennials along with a few annuals to give an ever-changing, colorful look to your landscape.

Perennials are fairly carefree, but they do require appropriate maintenance as any plant will. Each year you need to remulch perennials in autumn after cutting them down, and in the spring for protection against summer drying. Also, you will periodically need to dig and divide your perennials to keep the plants from getting too dense and starting to die out in the center. Finally, to insure the plants will be around for years to come, it’s important to take appropriate steps to avoid problems with insects or diseases.

These things said, I’d like to share a few of my favorite stand bys that can get anyone started on perennials. For early spring color, the obvious choice is spring-flowering bulbs such as tulips, daffodils, and others that are planted in autumn. Also candy tuft and creeping phlox are good choices for early spring bloom. For mid-spring and early summer; irises, peonies, carnations, armerias and daisy types offer color variety. Day lilies and dahlias are outstanding choices for a mid-summer bloom; as is tall phlox. And finally, for late summer and autumn, nothing beats the display and color of mums and asters.

I hope that these general guidelines and the sampling of a few of my favorite perennials will encourage you to use these plants as a versatile, stable and relativity care free part of your garden in the season to come.