Perennial Appeal

Perennial Appeal by Misty Johns, VP, Coastal Greenery, Inc.

If given the choice between annual and perennial plant material for my landscape, I would choose perennial plant material all day, every day! This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t have some annuals here and there, but 95% of the plants in my design would be perennials. Annuals live for only one season whereas a perennial will return and bloom for many years. Perennials save you time and money and, when well grouped, perennials can provide color in your landscape all year round.

Understanding perennials can be confusing a little basic knowledge can help. Perennials are plants that flower once a year in a particular season: spring, summer, or fall. They go dormant in winter, but the root system continues to thrive underground so the plant will grow back the following year. Perennial plants grow fast, and it is said that when they grow back, they will be bigger. Most perennials are flowering plants, but there are also “woody perennials” that include trees and shrubs that do not go into dormancy in the winter. Perennials put energy into developing a strong root system instead of growing a lot of flowers. That’s not to say perennials won’t produce beautiful blooms, but simply that their main goal is to grow a strong root system so they can return year after year. An August Moon Hosta will flower in summer or fall and will go dormant after the first frost. The plant will not lose its leaves, but will flatten out and get mushy. It needs to be cut back and will regrow the following spring to bloom in the spring or fall, and so on. Irises, one of the easiest perennials to grow, will bloom early in the spring. Some that are repeat-blooming include the Miniature Dwarf Bearded Iris and the Siberian Iris. Repeat-blooming means that they will bloom more than once in a year from the same bloom stalk. Combining several different types of Irises in an area will ensure there are flowers blooming there from early spring to mid-summer. Good companion perennials to plant alongside your Irises are the Daylilies, Peonies, Salvia, and Delphinium. An extra bonus provided by perennials is that they protect soil against wind and water erosion.

Any landscape options that require less time and money are a “Win-Win” in my book and that’s exactly what perennials are. A perennial may cost more upon initial purchase than an annual, but because a perennial will live and bloom 2+ years you don’t have to keep buying new plant material for this area every season. Perennials also require less work to maintain, because most perennials don’t need fertilizer if planted in fertile soil. According to some master gardeners, over-fertilizing perennials can cause them to flop over and become too leggy. Deadheading perennials doesn’t take long and isn’t needed daily during the blooming season. Deadheading will add a few days and sometimes weeks of blooms to your flowering perennials. For example, Daylilies don’t require deadheading to bloom but removing the spent blooms will make your plant look clean and neat. Once established, Daylilies need minimal care to grow and produce large, colorful flowers in midsummer and every summer thereafter. This low maintenance plant will also bloom and spread in drought conditions, because they have an underground root system that allows them to multiply. It is a good idea to divide the plant material at the end of the growing season when the area becomes overcrowded.

Daylilies come in many varieties. Some early season bloomers include Bright Sunset, Happy Returns (reblooming plant) and Ruby Spider. Mid-season bloomers include All American Chief (reblooming plant), Country Melody and Charles Johnston (reblooming plant). Some late season bloomers are Autumn Pride, Pink Playmate (reblooming plant) and Sammy Russell. By combining several different varieties with different blooming seasons in an area, you’ll have flowers from late spring to the beginning of fall. Good companion plants are the African Lily (Agapanthus), Salvia, and Yarrow. All of these perennials have the added bonus of attracting pollinators from bees and butterflies to hummingbirds and being very environmentally friendly.

Who wouldn’t love a yard or garden where different perennials bloom throughout the seasons? If you make wise choices with the placement of the perennials and know when they will bloom, you can have a colorful landscape year round. Hydrangea shrubs will bloom from spring to the fall, Trumpet Vines show off their colors in the late spring through

summer, Pink Muhly grasses offer beautiful plumes from late summer throughout winter, and Camellia shrubs display flowers from mid-winter through April. This combination will give you color from perennials all year long! For these results, you must know the plant material and the blooming seasons. It’s important to remember that plant material must complement each other, so one plant isn’t getting all the nutrients and leaving the others without.

When considering placement of plant material, one of the biggest disadvantages of a perennial may be what it looks like when it is has gone dormant. Once a perennial has finished blooming for the year, it may leave an unattractive heap of bare stems, limp, mushy leaves, or wiry branches baring nothing at all. DO NOT run to your snips or power trimmers and mow the perennial down! In this case, we have to take the good with the bad and leave the perennial alone, especially if you live in an area with temperatures that dip below freezing. Understanding the maintenance for a perennial is essential, because you don’t want to unintentionally kill the plant or hamper it from blooming the following year. For example, the Nikko Blue Hydrangea grows buds on old branches, so if you cut it back when it is barren you would be removing the dormant branches along with the buds that have already started growing for the following spring. Not all Hydrangeas grow buds the same way, so you need to know your plant material. Dormant Lanatana, on the other hand, can cut back to the ground and its roots insulated with extra mulch. If the roots survive any freezing temperatures, the Lantana will grow back in the spring and flower in the next blooming season. If you choose to leave the dreary plant intact throughout the winter, its branches act as an insulation for the root system. Because some people find dormant perennials unattractive when they lose all their leaves and blooms, and this may be an important factor to think about when deciding the placement of your perennials. Maybe try pairing a summer blooming perennial in the same area as a winter blooming perennial. The focus in each season will be on the color from the plant that is blooming, and less likely on the nonblooming or dormant perennial. For an extra treat during the blooming season, bring some of the flowers from your perennials into your home or office. Perennials make great fresh cut flower bouquets or standalone flowers!

If you have perennials in your landscape design, take a good look at them to find out whether they are complemented with the correct plant material, if they are saving you time and money by not requiring new plants seasonally, and to determine whether their placement is a eyesore during their dormant lifecycle. If any of these things are an issue, then let’s do something about it! Perennials are not meant to cause you any trouble, they are meant for enjoyment. If you don’t have any perennials in your landscape, try a few here and there and see what you think. Remember, it takes time for a plant to get established so give any new perennials some time before you cross them off your list of plant material that you like. Perennials are awesome for an added pops of color throughout your landscape. They are low maintenance, don’t have to be dug up after their blooming season ends, and because there are so many types of perennials, you have a world of endless options! Hello Spring and Happy Planting!

Coastal Greenery, Inc. has been providing professional landscape maintenance and management services for commercial, industrial, county and city, historic, and residential properties in the Golden Isles since 1994. They create a custom landscape program personalized to each client to suit their property and budget requirements. Visit coastalgreenery.com or call 912.261.8171 to schedule a consultation

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