Designing Your Garden: Perennial Guide

Flowering shade perennials and hosta plants are popular types of plants for commercial landscapes and outdoor backyards. With so many different varieties, you can create a one-of-a-kind, beautiful garden that reflects your personal style and enhances your mood. Create a rainbow of color by planting Alcea and Agastache shade perennials. Adorn your backyard with vibrant and vivacious Paeonia flower blossoms as outdoor décor. Plant a garden of hosta plants with dynamic foliage for a serene and calm outdoor environment. You can mix a variety of species for a whimsical look or keep it simple and stick to a similar-looking plants. Design your garden the way that you want it to look with beautiful perennial blossoms and distinct foliage.

Perennials are categorized as cold-hardy plants that can live season after season for more than two years. Perennials bloom during the warm months and return every spring and summer. Keep this perennial guide in mind as you start designing your garden:

• Achillea: Fragrant, colorful small flowers grow in large clusters; needs full-sun exposure and drought tolerant

• Agastache: Upright and tall stems grow two-lipped flowers in tubular shapes; choose from lovely colors such as fuchsia, lavender and lemon yellow

• Delphinium: Long stems grow racemes with frilly flower blossoms in bright colors like mulberry, sky blue and deep-purple passion

• Dianthus: Linear foliage grow five-petal flowers with a frilled center; certain varieties have colored spots, double blooms or contrasting margins

• Echinacea: Coneflowers mimic the look of daisies and showy flower heads center around a central disk; available in a rainbow of colors

• Geranium: Cleft leaves and five-petal flowers provide an endearing and delightful appearance; requires some shade and moisture in climates that are hot and dry

• Hemerocallis: Round, over-flapping petals with ruffled edging bloom from arching and linear leaves; available in eye-catching colors such as scarlet Cherry Candy, ivory Blueberry Candy and stunning Buttered Popcorn

• Hosta: Resembling lilies, clusters of thick foliage stand out with distinct coloring such as neon yellow, olive and dark-green margins with cream-colored centers

• Paeonia: Large, fragrant double-blooming flowers with elegant ruffles grow amongst deep-lobed leaves; brightens gardens in colors apricot-pink, red lipstick and pale purple

• Viola: Heart-shaped leaves accented with blankets of fan-shaped flower petals boasting unique coloring in the center or around the edges; scented, heat tolerant and requires moderate soil moisture

Hundreds of perennial genus and species exist including Alstroemeria, Euphorbia, Heuchera, Lamium, Phlox and Sedum. Don’t be afraid to be bold and daring. Choose plants with flower blossoms in outrageous colors and unique foliage. Make your garden your very own!