2 minute read
Long Blooming Perennials
Creating a Continual Flowering Shade Garden
By Abby Lapides
Shade perennials bring wonderful blossoms to the garden. But many bloom for a limited time, making it a little tricky keeping flowers continually coming. However, with a bit of preplanning you will enjoy a shade garden blooming from early spring to frost. Use the easy-to-read bloom chart on the opposite page to select plants to keep flowers in your garden all season long. Though most plants follow the bloom times laid out below, some outliers with exceptionally ornate displays bust the chart. See a few of these blooming powerhouses below. Looking at the shade chart you’ll see that coral bells only bloom
for about 6 weeks. The Timeless series of coral bells bloom for 3 times as long! Beginning late May they start to push out flowers and don’t stop until fall. While each variety is fabulous and warrants a home in the garden, my personal favorite is ‘Timeless Night’, as its glossy black Walters Gardens Heuchera ‘Timeless Night’ foliage and bright pink flowers create a gorgeous combo. Bigleaf Hydrangeas are known as the divas of the hydrangea world. In fact, they’re so finicky I didn’t bother putting them on the bloom chart. The one exception is the Game Changer® series. Game Changer Hydrangeas bloom exclusively on new wood, creating new flowers all season long. If they’re kept watered and fertilized, they will exhibit a showy display that can’t be beat. ‘Burning Hearts’ fern leaf bleeding hearts bloom the longest of all the bleeding hearts. If kept well watered, ‘Burning
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Growing Colors
Hydrangea ‘Game Changer® Blue’
Hearts’ lipstick pink blossoms will grace the garden spring to frost nonstop. This diminutive plant makes a perfect choice for the front of the border or lining a shady walkway. Adding a couple powerhouse bloomers along with others from the bloom chart will keep your shade garden flowering all season long.
Ball Seed
Bleediing Hearts ‘Burning Hearts’
Abby Lapides is owner and a speaker at Sugar Creek Gardens Nursery. She has degrees from the University of Missouri, and is a member of the Landscape and Nursery Association of Greater St. Louis. You can reach her at (314) 965-3070. ADD BLOOMS & ATTRACT POLLINATORS WITH
