Care & Guidance
Whilst you enjoy your perennials for their fantastic foliage or beautiful blooms, it's really the roots you're buying - because the roots allow the plants to come back every year. Use these tips to make sure your perennials get off to the right start.
Container grown perennials are easy to plant and commonly available. Start digging a hole that's a little wider but no deeper than the pot your new perennial came in. Loosen the roots, and spread them out if the plant has become rootbound* (*when roots start to grow in circles around the edge of the pot). Then firm the soil in around the roots and water well.
Planting Tips: water your perennials well after you plant them. Then lay a 2-3 inch deep layer of mulch over the soil around your new plants. The mulch will help the soil hold moisture and prevent weeds from growing. Give taller perennials such as delphiniums, holihocks and peonies support by staking them. Anchor single stems by inserting a rod or sturdy stick into the ground and tying the stem to it. Keep clump forming plants with multiple stems standing, by growing through a hoop. Regularly deadhead and divide your perennials to keep them healthy and looking beautiful.
Deadheading: simply means cutting the faded flowers off your plants. It makes your plants look better and it prevents them from setting seed so you don't have a mass of seedlings popping up in your garden.
Dividing: One of the best things about perennials is that they grow bigger and better each year. But many start to crowd themselves out if they get too big. Keep them performing well by digging them out of the ground and splitting them into smaller chunks every 3 or 4 years. Early spring and autumn are the best times to divide most perennials. A couple of exceptions include bearded iris and hosta: split these perennials in summer.
Watering: There's no one-size fits all rule for watering perennials. Some varieties stand up to drought and others need to be kept moist all the time. Keep your plants healthier and make watering a breeze by grouping plants in acccordance with their watering needs. No matter what perennials you're growing, be sure to keep them all well watered in the first year - that allows them to become well established.
Feeding: If you have rich soil or improve it with garden compost or other forms of organic matter on a regular basis, you probably won't need to feed your plants, But if you're burdened with poor soil, fertilising can be helpful. Take care not to over fertilise - this may make your plants flower less, suffer root injury, or even kill your perennials.
Winter Care: Perennials that are reliably cold hardy in your region shouldn't need any special winter care. But spreading a layer of mulch over them after the soil freezes can help prevent winter damage during an especially cold season. Many gardeners like to leave the dead stems of their perennials standing all winter, providing food for birds. Perennials can help to catch snow, which is one of the best winter mulches.
A compact neat, clump-forming perennial with greyish green leaves and mauve-pink flowers with purple on the reverse and a purple eye. Height 20cm. Spread 60cm. Flowers from May to September. Evergreen. The hardiest of the osteospermums. Sheltered Site.
A compact, spreading evergreen perennial with toothed, dark green leaves, tiny clusters of white flowers. Height 15cm. Spread 60cm. Flowers from June to July. Evergreen.
Flower colour from pink to pale pink, Shorter flower stems, but produces many stems. Flowers are nice and sweet smelling.
An upright and bushy herbaceous perennial with attractive, dissected dark green foliage tinged red in spring. Erect stems holding showy, spicily scented, saucer-shaped pale pink to cream flowers with a large tufted centre of petaloids in the same tones appear late spring and early summer.
A clump-forming herbaceous perennial, to around 90cm high, with divided deep green leaves. Flowers in early summer, producing fragrant, double creamy white flowers that can reach up to 25cm across.
Peony. A clump-forming perennial with deep green foliage and pretty large double rose-pink flowers fading to white. Height 80cm. Spread 80cm. Flowers from May to June. Herbaceous. Hardy. Sheltered Site.
Clump-forming, bushy perennial to 90cm tall with deep green, glossy, divided leaves. Lightly-scented, large, pink, double flowers up to 17cm in diameter are borne on sturdy stems from late spring into early summer.
Peony. Clump forming perennial with salmon pink flowers May-June. Height 100cm. Hardy. Sheltered Site
Wonderful blowsy blooms of creamy white with a large pale yellow centre with additional cream petals which grow out of the yellow centre forming a top layer. This form of flower is known as a "triple decker". The blooms are very sweetly scented and are good for cutting on strong stems, they have a prolonged life in water, a particularly robust cultivar which rarely needs staking.
A vigorous Peony with long-lasting flowers that are ideal for flower arrangements and never fail to create a dramatic sight in the spring garden. Blooming heavily in late spring to early summer, this early midseason peony will flower for approximately 7-10 days.
Classic double light rose-pink flower with in-curved lighter pink central petals on light green foliage. Excellent cut flower. Any fertile, free draining soil in full sun or part shade in any sheltered position. Height 90cm. Spread 50cm. Easy to grow if in good soil.
Peony. A clump-forming perennial with mid-green, deeply cut foliage and pretty, double, white and pink flowers. Height 100cm. Flowers from May to June. Herbaceous. Hardy. Sheltered Site.
Peony. A clump-forming perennial with deep green foliage and pretty, large double, rose-pink flowers fading to white. Height 80cm. Spread 80cm. Flowers from May to June. Herbaceous. Hardy. Sheltered Site.
Tree peony, double-flowered deep incised leaves. The size after 10 years is 125cm. Yellow flowers. Hardy. The flowering period is June - August.
Tree Peony. A clump-forming deciduous sparsely branched shrub. Large bright coloured flowers. Flowers from May to June. Mature Height 150 cm. Mature Spread 150 cm. Hardy.
Crisp red flower offset perfectly with a white throat on the flower Flowers June to November Fertile and well drained soil. Height 75cm. Spread 40cm
A large-leaved bushy perennial with large, pretty tubular-shaped, wine-red flowers with a lighter red throat. Height 90cm. Spread 45cm. Flowers from July to September. Semi-evergreen. Protect from frost. Sheltered Site.
A narrow-leaved bushy perennial with small, pretty, tubular shaped, rose-pink flowers, paler pink inside with pink veins. Height 45-70cm. Spread 30cm. Flowers from July to September. Semi-evergreen.
Husker Red is a bushy perennial to 75cm tall, with lance-shaped, wine-red young leaves and stems, panicles of bell-shaped, pure white flowers 2.5cm long in late spring and early summer.
Sophisticated elegance with real staying power! Bursting into bloom in summer, this semi evergreen perennial produces masses of tubular pink flowers with broad satiny white throats. Blooming all summer long and well into autumn, Penstemon Laura perseveres through rain or drought, and is slug resistant too.
A bushy clump forming perennial with large tubular shaped purple flowers with a white throat. Flowers from July to September. Protect from frost. Sheltered site.
'Wedding Day' is a long-flowering herbaceous perennial, producing elegant creamy white flowers above fresh green oval leaves from mid-summer into autumn. It grows in sun or partial shade, and looks lovely dotted through a border.
Dark Plum trumpets with white speckled throats.
Semi-evergreen perennial with green leafy stems. From mid summer to late autumn, it bears racemes of large, creamy-white, bell-shaped flowers with deep pink markings.
Flowers of glowing light pink over a white base. The throat is white with pink streaks. Prefers full sun, or partial shade with free-draining soil or compost.
A large-leaved perennial with large tubular-shaped. pretty greyish blue flowers. suffused purple and green. Height 60cm. Spread 45cm. Flowers from July to September. Semi-Evergreen.Protect from frost. Sheltered Site.
Silvery green foliage contrasts w/tiny blue flowers. Also known as Russian Sage, this is a perennial staple, and now there are seed produced varieties! Sky blue flower spikes beautifully set off slivery green foliage.
Bistort. A clump-forming, semi-evergreen perennial with mid-green leaves and slender spikes of black tipped, red flowers. Height 1.2m. Spread 1.2m. Flowers from July to September. Semi-evergreen. Hardy.
Long red bottlebrush like flowers produced from summer onwards on relatively compact plants. Sunny well drained spot. Height 60-80cm. Hardy.
Bistort. A clump-forming semi-evergreen perennial with dark green leaves and short spikes of pink flowers. Height 1.2m. Spread 1.2m. Flower colour Red. Flowers from July to September. Hardy.
Vibrant amber and orange foliage, making it a visually outstanding plant. It is a hardy, evergreen perennial that thrives in partial shade and well-drained soil, and is known for its long-lasting foliage and relatively low maintenance.
Bistort. A clump-forming, semi-evergreen perennial with handsome mid-green leaves and short dense spikes of soft pink flowers. Height 90cm. Spread 90cm. Flowers from June to October. Semi-evergreen. Hardy.
Red Dragon' is a vigorous, spreading perennial with lance-shaped, purplish-green leaves with a bold central splash of purple bordered by a silver chevron marking and rounded clusters of tiny white flowers in late summer and autumn.
'Purple Fantasy' is a perennial plant with low mounds of upright stems, creeping vigorously from stout rhizomes. Triangular leaves emerge maroon-purple in spring, turning green and developing purple markings, with leaf undersides tinged pink; these are held on short winged stalks. Tiny pink or white flowers in 1cm pompoms bloom in profusion and are borne on stem tips of slender stems to 60cm high from midsummer to autumn.
Jerusalem Sage. A mound-forming, shrub with grey-green leaves, woolly beneath and dark golden yellow flowers in early and mid-summer. Height 1m. Spread 1.5m. Flowers from June to July. Evergreen. Hardy. Sheltered Site.
Phlomis russeliana is a hairy perennial to 90cm in height, with large, ovate, rough-textured grey-green leaves. Stout stems bear whorls of hooded, soft yellow flowers 3cm in length.
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