What are your favorite perennial flowers and where do you recommend planting them?
Perennials are flowers that don’t need to be repotted every year. Most perennial flowers have a shorter flowering period than annuals. The flowering period he is 3-6 weeks is common. A typical perennial flower border includes cultivars with overlapping flowering periods and blooms in succession. The most attractive border usually has three or more of his plants of each variety arranged according to height. However, my plantings often include a single plant of a new variety under evaluation.
I use fall-planted bulbs for the earliest flowering in perennial flowerbeds. Where the later flowering perennials begin to grow in the spring, there is space for the bulbs to grow.
Bulbs pass through the ground cover. I plant the bulbs first and cover them with ground or make holes for individual bulbs between the ground cover plants.
Two types of rock cress are my favourites, which bloom in early spring. Arabis has pink or white flowers and Aubrieta has pink or lavender his blue flowers. Both grow to about 3 to 5 inches tall. They go well with perennial alyssums that grow at about the same height and have yellow flowers.
I always have a few plants that I put my heart into for early summer color. Lupines and delphiniums are also solid early-summer options in the depths of the border.
My favorite perennial flowers are the ones with the longest flowering period. Four of my favorites that keep blooming all summer are Lily of Peru (Alstroemeria), Roseanne’s Perennial Geranium, Moonbeam Thread Leaf His Coreopsis, and Ground Beetle (Nettle).
Peruvian lilies come in many different colors. Roseanne geranium is a sky blue flower. Moonbeam Coreopsis has lemon-yellow daisy flowers. Lilies of Peru grow about 10 inches. Both Rozanne and Moonbeam grow to about 16 inches tall. They are often planted next to each other because of their good color compatibility. All three begin blooming in late May to early June. Gaillardia is another long flower that is almost as tall as the red and yellow daisy flowers. Roseanne, Moonbeam and Gaillardia need at least half a day of direct sunlight. Lamium is a lowland cover with variegated leaves and white, pink, lavender, or crimson flower colors. Blooms from early spring to autumn. Lamium prefers morning sun or partial shade.
My three late summer favorites are black-eyed Susan (rudbeckia), cornflower (echinaceae), and hosta. Black-eyed Susans are yellow daisies with black centers that grow to about two feet tall. Cornflowers were once just purple daisies about three feet tall. Today, there are varieties that range from white to several shades of red to purple, and are only 12 inches tall. Black-eyed Susans and Cornflowers prefer sunny locations. Hosta is grown for its beautiful variegated foliage and needs full shade.
Finally, my favorite fall-blooming perennials are chrysanthemums and New England asters, which have multicolored flowers. Chrysanthemums grow from 1 to 2 feet and asters can be 3 feet or more.
