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Gardening With Perennials - Beautiful Splendor Year After Year by Bonnie P Carrier
A perennial is generally a plant, which has showy flowers unlike ornamental grasses grown mainly for their foliage. Two terms you’ll find are herbaceous which are plants with soft green stems that die back in colder climates another is woody-stemmed meaning trees or shrubs.
The advantage to growing perennials is their repeat performance year after year, however they do require regular maintenance - staking - pruning - deadheading and dividing.
Perennial flowers are sold both in containers and bare-root. Not all plants with the ability to be perennial are hardy in all areas.
This is why planting zones are so important, knowing what zone you garden is in will allow you to determine what plants will survive in your area.
The National Arboretum web site has a very good map to help you determine your planting zone.
Large blocks of color add impact to a garden and the best way to achieve that is with long blooming perennial flowers, which become the backbone to any garden design.
Some perennials bloom longer that others so when planning your garden be sure to include several types that are long bloomers which will keep a continuous show of color going all season.
When buying Perennials - or any plant for that matter - another consideration is what type of sun exposure it needs. This is important as it helps to determine where it will grow to it’s potential.
Below is a brief description of the three types of sun exposures.
- Full Sun : This means that the plant thrives with 8 or more hours of direct sunlight exposure.
- Part Sun / Part Shade: Gardens that receive 4 to 8 hours of sunlight per day are considered part sun or part shade. This simply means that if the garden is not sunny all day, and it’s not shady most of the day, it’s ‘part sun’.
- Mostly Shade: Plants that are marked Full Shade can thrive with only 2 to 4 hours of sunlight per day. Densely shaded areas may do best with ferns or ground cover.
By planting an odd number of plants, 3 – 5 - 7- in a group you will greatly increase their effect. Repeat groups several times within the space.
Determining where to place plant groups largely depends on your gardens backdrop.
For example: If the garden is to be planted in front of a fence, stonewall or building the tallest plants should be placed in the very back. In an open space – round or oval – place tallest plants in the center. Once the tallest plants have been placed begin working outward gradually decreasing plant size.
Create interest by using various colors and textured plants. However, a perennial garden using a variation of a single color can also be quite striking.
Add several natural rocks in interesting shapes, possibly some stepping-stones a mulch of your choice a bench and you’ve got a pleasing, relaxing place to sit and admire during the warm days of summer.
When planning your perennial garden, instead of placing your plants in a line – like solders at attention – try planting each group of plants in a triangle or diamond shape, this will help blend plants together which gives a more natural look.
Just remember to leave room for the plants growth. This typically breaks down to 18-36in apart for tall plants, 12-18in for medium and 6-12in for small plants.
No-Fail Perennials:
Better Homes & Gardens has some wonderful slideshows on no-fail perennials broken down into each part of the country. Below I’d like to give you some examples of perennials for my area - The Northeast.
From the above I’ve grown the Astilbe, Bleeding Heart and Bee Balm. Without a doubt the Astible is my absolute favorite. It comes in a variety of color and the feathery plums are so beautiful. As long as it’s home is in a shady area that does not get overly wet it is an easy plant to grown. I’ve found planting several grouping give a dramatic impact.
Second on my list is the Bleeding Heart. This delicate beauty is also a shade lover, the only draw back for me is the fact that it blooms only in the early spring. Never the less it’s worth having. Color choices are pink or white.
Bee Balm is the third from the list. It also comes in several colors and likes full sun. The only problem I’ve ever had it it can spread rather quickly, so my advice it to plant it by itself.
Below are Better Homes & Gardens slideshows for the other parts of the country.
Go ahead and plant a garden, big or small watch it grow and enjoy.
About the author: Bonnie P. Carrier is the creator of Savvy Home Decorating. She is the mother to two grown daughters and two very spoiled Shelties - Sebastian & Oliver. www.savvy-home-decorating.com
This is a share ware article. Give this article away for free on your site, or include it as part of any paid package as long as the entire article is left intact including this notice. Copyright © 2010 Bonnie Carrier.
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