'Mighty Chestnut' daylily is a mighty fine addition to summer garden beds with other colorful perennials.
How to grow strawberries and asparagus in the same bed and double your yields without chemicals. A well-managed perennial bed will continue to produce for 20 or even 30 years. The sooner you plant them, the sooner you’ll realize a harvest. Here’s what you need to know to get the most from these easy to grow perennials.
Learn how to create everblooming flower gardens that are colorful all year round with this detailed how-to guide for perennials made easy!
Planting perennials in the fall is a simple way to enjoy a larger, more stunning garden for longer. Benefit from a colorful and vibrant garden all year.
If you are a New Jersey gardener, you probably already know how important it is to know which gardening zones your garden is in. New Jersey encompasses two
Considered "the most influential garden designer of the past 25 years," Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf has done for perennial gardening what artist Leonard Ko
Create an effortless flower garden with these long-blooming perennials to achieve perfection. With a growth guide for each flower.
Some perennials can quickly take over your flowerbed and crawl into your lawn. Here are the flowers, vines, shrubs, and grasses beginner gardeners should avoid.
The site: A medieval nobleman's summer retreat, a palace in ruins, in the Piedmontese hills of northern Italy. The challenge: Create a modern garden to com
I am excited to share that The National Garden Bureau has chosen the allium as the bulb of the year! They pick one annual, one perennial, one bulb crop and one…
This prairie-inspired border is specifically designed for sun-soaked, dry areas and is incredibly low-maintenance.
If you long for your flower garden to bloom year after year with minimal effort, try planting a few low-maintenance perennials! Not only are they stunning and easy to care for, but they're also cost-effective
Discover the best perennial garden plans to create a beautiful, low-maintenance garden that blooms year after year.
If you long for your flower garden to bloom year after year with minimal effort, try planting a few low-maintenance perennials! Not only are they stunning and easy to care for, but they're also cost-effective
Considered "the most influential garden designer of the past 25 years," Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf has done for perennial gardening what artist Leonard Ko
Since moving my family to Colorado earlier this year, I have found that growing perennials in the mountainous region can be difficult.
Here are my top tips for creating a low maintenance perennial garden design! Put in a new flower bed to increase curb appeal and add interest all year long
This guide is packed with information about popular perennials to help you choose the best perennial cut flowers for your garden.
If you're looking for more straightforward methods to retain the beauty in your garden or landscape for as long as possible, consider planting a collection of
The practice of “Companion Planting”, a centuries-old gardening tradition, follows the theory that different plant species, planted close together, assist each other with nutrient production and ab…
These hardy perennials can thrive in part sun, full sun or shade, high heat or freezing temperatures, and still bloom beautifully every year.
This article will show you how to divide your primulas (primroses and polyanthus) to get lot sof new plants for free. Gardening on a budget!
Three months ago I started a seemingly innocuous project. "How hard can it be to make a flowerbed?", I said. Well I learned along the way and so I am now going to share what I learned and the steps to make your project easier. The major milestones are: Design the Area Excavate the Area Construct a Border Refill with Good Soil Plant the Flowers Cover with Mulch Required Tools Work Shoes - At several points it stormed and flooded my half-dug bed. After working for just 15 minutes I would have 2 inches of mud on the bottom. Be prepared to throw away your shoes or be stuck with permanent junk shoes. Work Gloves - This pair is actually the 2nd that I used. The first pair is in the trash. I wore through all 10 fingers on the first set. Large Spade - This is the best way to get soil up. I tried a shovel and had no luck. This worked especially well with the black clay that we have. Whatever This Is - Yup, I have no idea what to call it, but it is the best tool for clearing out defined areas. I used it dig out the outline for the bed before I started. Spreader - I used this to spread out the new soil evenly throughout the bed. Small Spade - Most people have this already. You dig holes for the bulbs and flowers with it. Heavy Duty Cart - Now I did not have this wonderful contraption for most of the project. For the first 40 or so bags, I just manually carried them to their locations. This will save your back when hauling a lot of soil. Now you may ask why I am going to all this trouble. Well that is because I have lots of Black Texas Clay underneath my yard. It has the nickname of "Black Gumbo". It soaks up water and swells. This is one of the reasons that so many people have foundation problems in our area of North Texas. Most plants need "Well Drained Soil" which is pretty much the opposite of what I have. So I replaced it. I ended up digging up only about 1 - 1.5 feet down. Others have done more, but I frankly got tired of digging. Here is what I replaced it with: Peat Moss - 10 Bags Top Soil - 20 Bags Manure - 10 Bags of the cheap stuff. They have premium manure... but I can't imagine what that means. Compost - 10 Bags Top Soil - 20 Bags Mulch - 12 Bags So let's take a look at those milestones again. Design the Area - This is probably the most important step. This allows you to put in a lot of effort without having to redo things. My wife gave in to my pleadings and helped measure the back yard space beforehand. The map came out like this: I went online and printed off a grid and then with help of a ruler hand drew the dimensions. Next, we did an initial master plan, or how we want it to look in the end. Our friends, Karson and Sharon, helped in this process. This keeps each sub-project from being vastly different and looking odd in the end. Next, we prioritized the sub-projects and focused on our first bed, outside of our bedroom. We found a plan in a landscaping book tailored to our area and used it as our base: This plan came from Creative Homeowner's Texas Home Landscaping book. I would highly recommend it. We then took our master plan for the backyard and fit the plants that we wanted into it. The end result looks like this: Sp now that you have a good plan, digging in the right spot and building a border is not a game of chance. Excavate the Area - This where all the oomph comes into play. At least 50% of my time on this project was spent digging. I am estimating that I dug out about 3,000 lbs of dirt. So be prepared for this phase to go slower than you thought. The first thing to do is to dig out the border a little bit. This allows you to be reckless inside that border with your spade. I used our hose and snaked it around into the shape that I wanted the bed to be. I then used the yet-to-be-named tool from above to strip the grass along the hose. I then removed the hose and dug a little trench and shaped the border a bit. The rest is just good ole-fashioned hard labor. One thing that I did not consider before starting this phase was where on earth all of this dug up dirt was going to go. Luckily, the lot next door to me is empty right now.Now lifting all of that dirt over the fence was no fun, but at least it is out of my yard. Construct a Border - I used two different kinds of border. We have leftover brick from the house construction and so I turned that into a decorative border: I had enough brick to go vertical and it looks good from the grass side. You can also see that famous black clay with the brick there. The fence did not need anything fancy, so I bought the cheap pliable plastic border from Lowes:Before going to the next step of refilling the area, it is a good idea to consider drainage and watering levels. I have a downspout that was pouring right into the middle of the new bed and would erode my hard work. I got a very cheap solid black tube and extended the drain out of the flower bed:I also had four different sprinkler heads that were designed for a lawn and not a flower bed. I found replacement heads that are gentler and used a simple female-female connector to attach them to the main line: Refill with Good Soil - Now is when all of those bags of 'the good stuff' comes into play. I put the good stuff in quotes because frankly anything was better than my black clay. So when I see a $20 miracle bag and a $1.85 pretty good bag, I choose the cheaper. With the number of bags that I bought, this added up to a lot of savings. I layered Peat Moss, Top Soil, Manure, Compost, and Top Soil. I had a friend recommend a combination similar to this and so far I like it. I used my spreader to evenly mix the dirt around the entire bed. Make sure at this point re-check your drainage. Make sure that it slopes away from the house for instance.In the end, my nasty soil was transformed into this: Plant the Flowers - This is the part that you actually planned for. This is the easiest stage. We planted a bunch of bulbs and using our nifty plan, I knew exactly where to go. This stage is fairly anti-climactic. Cover with Mulch - Protect your plant from moisture, bugs, and weeds with a good mulch. This last step also adds a colorful layer to the top Hopefully this guide can help you. Feel free to post and questions or suggestions. I will be following up in the Spring and beyond with how the plants grow in and look.
Here’s how to grow a perennial garden that doesn’t need pampering
Don't have time for high maintenance plants? These 10 low maintenance perennials will give you a beautiful garden without all the fuss.
Planting perennials in the fall is a simple way to enjoy a larger, more stunning garden for longer. Benefit from a colorful and vibrant garden all year.
These full sun perennials are all low maintenance plants with beautiful flowers that will thrive in full sun (even in the South!)
These hardy perennials can thrive in part sun, full sun or shade, high heat or freezing temperatures, and still bloom beautifully every year.
Coreopsis is a native flowering perennial that provides bright bursts of color from spring to fall. Learn how to grow coreopsis now on Gardener's Path.
Need some landscaping ideas for your shady flower bed, front yard, or backyard? Here are 17 beautiful shade-loving perennials that thrive in Zone 3!
In this video guide, Monty Don shows how to make supports to stop perennials flopping.
Looking for an affordable way to start a garden? Try these 14 perennial flower seeds for the best blooms possible in any space!
What’s the difference between annuals and perennials? In general, annuals need to be replanted every year, and perennials come back year after year. But, when shopping for plants, it's more complicated because hardiness depends on your growing zone. Get all your questions about annuals vs perennials answered here.
Blanket flowers, or gaillardia, are beautiful perennials that grow & bloom all summer long! Enjoy their bright, sunny colors with these tips!
If you love the cottage garden look, you'll want to get to know penstemons (aka beardtongue). Learn all about this flower here.
