There are perennials for pretty much every kind of garden you could want, from shade gardens to vegetable beds to herb containers to cutting gardens. No matter what kind of garden you’re growing, it will benefit from the addition of a few (or a whole lot more!) perennials. Here’s what you need to know to grow your own perennial garden.
Herbaceous perennial plants are wonderful because they return year after year, and for those of us who experience distinct seasons, they bloom throughout the year (as opposed to annuals, which mainly bloom in the summer months).
My introduction to perennial gardening was like jumping off a high cliff into a very deep pond. During my crash course in perennial gardening, I learned so much about how to plant, care for, water, divide, and maintain perennials. But first, I had to learn what they were!
Let me tell you about my introduction to perennials and provide some tips and tricks for growing your own.
Designing a Perennial Garden
It started when I was doing my self-directed gardening rehabilitation program. I was looking for ways that I could get involved in the community and garden at the same time, and I met a gardener who had a backyard nursery full of perennials that he had divided as part of his garden maintenance work.
The nursery was part of a community program that was set up to help people living with addiction gain dignity and purpose through employment working with plants. What his organization really needed was a host to grow the perennials so his employees could divide the perennials and sell them in the nursery.
I was fairly new to gardening at the time, and I thought this would be a great way for me to learn about plants while donating my relatively unused sunny front garden to a good cause. I went to work designing garden beds and dug out the lawn from more than half of the front yard space.
Here are a few tips for getting your space ready for perennials:
Choosing Your Perennials
I was then given 300 unmarked pots of perennials to plant and grow for the year. Each year, I would dig up and divide the plants, pot up the divisions for sale, and replace part of the perennials back into my garden. It was a huge job, but it was one that I was committed to taking on.
The day the plants arrived, I sat on my freshly dug-up front lawn and went into a complete panic! I had absolutely no idea what each of the little green leaves popping out of 1-gallon pots was. There were no labels, no flowers, and no instructions.
I’m not one to back away from a challenge, and I love to learn through experimentation. So I dusted myself off and planted those 300 pots of perennials.
Choosing your perennials is probably the most fun part of getting your garden started. Here are a few types of perennials to consider for your garden:
Caring for Your Perennial Garden
I cared for them for the remainder of the spring and summer and watched them bloom into daylilies, Echinacea, black-eyed Susans, irises, Joe Pye weed, hostas, Solomon’s seal, Bergenia, Crocosmia, Lychnis, lamb’s ear, Centaurea, bleeding hearts, Astrantia, Japanese windflower, Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ and many more flowering plants.
Some grew small and flowered early, some grew tall and flowered throughout the season, and some grew like crazy and took over the entire garden!
And I wouldn’t change any part of that experience.
As the season continued, I was able to see how each plant performed, and I wasn’t afraid to dig them up and move them if they weren’t in the right spot. I continued to grow my front yard perennial garden until I moved from that house seven years later. When it was time to plant the garden at my new house, I knew that perennials would be a large part of the garden design.
Here are some of the basics to know about caring for your perennial garden:
For Year 2 of Your Perennial Garden
While that first year was daunting, it turned into a lifelong passion for creating gardens that thrive all on their own. A perennial garden is one of the most beautiful, easy-to-care-for, and least disruptive ways of gardening.
Once you’ve mastered the basics in your first year, you can move on to enhance and tweak your garden. I hope you develop a love for perennial gardening just like I did.
More Tips for Perennial Gardening
A city girl who learned to garden and it changed everything. Author, artist, Master Gardener. Better living through plants.
