Sparkling perennials Add dazzle to your cool-season containers

Sparkling perennials

Add dazzle to your cool-season containers

by Norman Winter, Horticulturist, Author and Speaker

Perennials for cool season containers may seem like the proverbial horticultural oxymoron but that is exactly what I have been planting in

my zone 8a landscape. My favorite pansy pals are Goldilocks lysimachia, Lemon Coral sedum, Ogon Japanese sweet flag and Burgundy Glow ajuga. The kicker to all of that is I’m not planting pansies yet but fresh crops of Supertunia petunias and Superbells calibrachoas. Last year the fall-planted petunias and calibrachoas lasted until mid-summer. You have to admit nine plus months of blooms is incredible. Believe me though, I’ll add pansies and violas this fall.

Goldilocks creeping jenny

Goldilocks lysimachia, or creeping jenny, is simply amazing with its tenacity of performance and dazzling color in the garden. I love how it plumets over the rims of containers stopping only when it hits the ground then still keeps growing. What I may treasure most about it in the West Georgia area, though, is the colorful transformation from summer into winter. That kiss of cold is like magic. In the summer it provides chartreuse or lime green wherever you want it. But in winter it gives the closest color to a 24K gold bar that you can find in a plant. Put that in boxes or basket with blue violet-colored pansies and it will remind of you of sapphires and gold. This award-winning plant gets taken for granted but it shouldn’t as it is perennial in zones 3-10.

Lemon Coral sedum

Lemon Coral sedum is a succulent that is perennial from zones 7-10, giving a soft needle-like texture. There will be at least once or twice each year that I look at its beauty and simply can’t believe it is a perennial, thrilling not only with its foliage but later with a billowy cloud of bright yellow blooms. It, too, spreads but is more like a slow lava flow of lime gently tolling over the rims of containers and baskets. In the landscape it forms a groundcover carpet of succulent lime. In my groundcover application, I have it partnered with Surefire Red begonias. Oddly, I am also in year three with these begonias.

Ogon Japanese sweet flag

Ogon means gold in Japanese and this variety of Japanese sweet flag gives an unbeatable fine grassy element or texture to the garden and mixed containers. This is the plant that acts as the finishing touch (or icing on the cake if you will) to mixed containers. As beautiful as your mixed container design may be, it is this little filler plant that says “TA DA.” The Japanese sweet flag spreads from the tip of rhizomes similar to that of an iris. They can reach about 10 to14inches tall which gives you the opportunity to use it as a groundcover. It is perennial from zones 5-11. Never underestimate the power of just one small grass to a mixed container.

Burgundy Glow ajuga

Lastly, I find most gardeners simply don’t think of ajuga as a container filler or soft spiller. It’s funny we call it bugleweed and we plant it in tough places in the landscape where nothing else grows. We love it when it blooms but we just don’t think about it in the cool-season mixed container.

Burgundy Glow is an award-winning cold-hardy variety recommended for zones 4-11 and offering multicolored foliage, usually showing a healthy dose of pink. The foliage is the perfect foil or contrast for the fine-textured Ogon sweet flag and even Goldilocks lysimachia or creeping jenny. All of these perennials offer among the easiest opportunities to propagate and use elsewhere in the landscape. I urge you to incorporate these four perennials into your designs.

About the author Norman Winter is an author and speaker on horticultural topics.

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This cool-season container offers a variety of textures and colors with pansies, Ogon Japanese sweet flag, Goldilocks creeping jenny and Burgundy Glow ajuga.

Goldilocks creeping jenny hangs down like 24-K gold in this planter box with violet-colored pansies. Goldilocks creeping jenny partners in this box with yellow and white pansies for the long cool season ahead.

Lemon Coral sedum gently tumbles over the edge of this mixed container with pansies, tall dianthus and Evergold carex grass.