Perennial plants give years of flowering pleasure

Perennial plants are the long term garden plant of choice, for the years of flowering pleasure they provide.

Typically a perennial plant lives for more than two years. This is in contrast to annuals that live for one year and then die. The life-span of perennial plants varies enormously. There are some perennials that are short-lived, lasting only 3-4 years, while others can live much longer. Peonies, for example, have been known to last 100 years!

The main attraction of perennials is that you only have to plant them once and then they return, bigger, better and stronger each year. For a perennial plant to become established, it usually takes about three years. The first year they sleep, the second they creep and the third year they leap!

Huge variety

Perennial plants come in all shapes, sizes and colours and there are thousands of varieties to choose from. You can add towers of colour to your garden with pretty foxgloves or echinacea. Other perennials, such as hostas and ferns, are grown for their beautifully decorative foliage, rather than flowers.

Many gardeners mix annuals, perennials and woody plants together. This ensures continual blooms and explosions of colour through spring into summer. The majority of perennials bloom once per season, but a few re-bloom again in late summer or autumn. To ensure that perennials bloom each year they need to be ‘vernalized’, which means exposing them to cold temperatures for a prolonged period of time.

Planting

Perennials have long been a popular choice amongst gardeners, especially those with less time. With the addition of a few carefully chosen perennial plants you can transform a garden. The best way to add impact to a garden is with large blocks of colour. It is easy to do this with long blooming perennial flowers such as red valerian. Decorative planters filled with a mix of annuals and perennials are increasingly common in modern landscapes.

There is a perennial available to suit every growing environment. Whether your plot is sunny, shaded, hot, cold, dry or wet, there will be a suitable perennial plant. You could begin with a few simple and hardy perennials such as Siberian iris, lilies and geraniums. These are widely adaptive and should grow in most sunny gardens. If you’re unsure about where to start then get some advice from other local gardeners or from the staff at your local garden centre.

Perennial care

Even though perennials are typically low-maintenance, you need to spend some time and effort if you want continually bright and healthy plants. Newly planted perennials need to be monitored, watered and weeded. Staking, pruning, deadheading, dividing and pest control are a few of the gardening tasks you’ll need to do once your perennials have established themselves.

Perennial plants will continue to bloom year after year and are widely considered the most versatile plants around.

Download this free Easy Guide to Growing Perennials and unearth some top tips on how you can grow your own poppies, cranesbills and many other seasonal plants.

Perennial plants are those that will flower year after year to decorate your garden with colour. This guide explains everything, telling you when to plant, how to plant and what you can do to care for perennials.

Click here to download The Easy Guide to Growing Perennials (PDF)