Perennial Plants Make Your Space Standout

One of my favorite things to do is to go to our camp and spend time in our spectacular perennial plants and gardens in small spaces. Of course, the season is always too short, so to make the most of the gardens and my time, I have planted mainly perennial plants.

Perennial plants last a long time, do not require the maintenance that annuals do and can give quite a show throughout the season. Some will even grow in poor soil, but for the most part, just till the soil and mulch. Feed once or twice a year. For more on this topic please visit Plants Free for Life

One of the easiest with the most abundant of the perennial plants is the Shasta daisy. With large white daisy blooms, it grows to about knee high and from year to year, expands beyond its original planting site. The plants can be uprooted and re-planted elsewhere, adding more to the garden. Shastas also make great cut flowers.

Other easy perennial plants are the hosta, and with over 600 varieties from which to choose, you will never have a hard time filling in spaces, just a difficult time deciding which ones to choose. Our favorite is the white lily hosta, also known as the August lily. It can grow to the size of a medium shrub and produce many large stalks with beautiful white fragrant flowers.

Hydrangea is another wonderful perennial plant, blooming prolifically from July to frost. With large clusters of beautiful flowers that form a "ball" and dark green foliage, the bushes can add a striking accent to the landscape. Be patient, for it took five years for ours to bloom, given the spot that we chose. It may have taken less time, but we planted it in a large garden that was full of very tall pine trees. Once we felled the trees, the hydrangea burst into blue blooms.

Sweet Williams and Dianthus are two more long blooming perennial plants, growing to heights of about 12-18 inches and in clumps. Try purchasing these in seed packets, and you will get a variety of colors lending to great borders or large blankets of color all summer. These re-seed themselves or you can help them by harvesting the seed and spreading where you will want them the next year.

Wildflower seed packets are also the way to get some lasting low to medium growing plants and these can contain Sweet Williams, Columbine (which will grow profusely) and Wild Daisies.

Wild Daisies are clumpers with small white, yellow, or blue flowers. They tend to grow to two feet and will "flop over" if planted too shallowly.

All of these and other perennial plants not even mentioned, stand alone just fine, but when added to garden ponds will "kick it up a notch". Some, such as daisies and dianthus can even be in a container garden for bursts of color in selected locations around a pond. If container gardening in the pond, be sure to choose plants that will survive and thrive in water, such as Lotus and Water Lillies. For more information and some "killer" pics, please visit Your Garden Ponds Center

For even more added interest, you can add a garden arbor and a garden bench, or try adding a pergola. In any garden setting, whether large or small, adding these elements will make your garden a true focal point and encourage one to just sit a while and "drink in" the oasis that you have created. Who knows how much stress is relieved just by gardening and then sitting in your garden.

Happy gardening and planning your outdoor space, for summer is literally around the corner.

It is now summer, I have retired and am working even harder than when I was gainfully employed!

My perennial gardens in small spaces are expanding. I brought home some divided hostas from our camp, left two of them in pots due to space constraints and they are thriving. Once winter comes, they will survive very well in the pots, but come next spring will need dividing once again.

Plant division serves to revitalize perennial plants making them bloom prolifically the next season. I share some of the divided tubers and young plants with friends and place others in another part-shade location.

One other of the perennial plants that I have discovered will grow in a pot is Sweet William after having brought some of it home from camp as well. We shall see if it will re-seed come fall for blooms next June.

Our latest addition to our patio gardens and patio water features was a gift and wow! what a gift it has become. The picture above is of a Yucca plant that was about one half of the current size when planted in April, 2009. Little did we know that it would produce such a lovely stalk of blooms in June. I just hope that it winters well, as stated on the tag because it is such a wonderful plant even without the flowers. The foliage ranges from yellow to medium green and looks so tropical, a welcome sight in the Northeast.