Are you dreaming of a low maintenance garden that delivers plenty of colorful flowers, aromatic fragrance, textural appeal, and multi-season interest?
Then planting a perennial garden can quickly make your floral dreams come true!
Perennials are plants that come back every year, some are herbaceous and die back for winter, while others are woody or semi-woody plants that can be evergreen or deciduous.
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Planning your own garden doesn’t require professional skills, and learning how to mix and match perennials can be quickly mastered with knowledge of a few key concepts.
After the initial labor of preparing your beds and selecting the plants best suited for your garden, you can enjoy the beautiful, low maintenance results, no need to replant year after year!
Are you ready to bring your colorful vision to life? Then let’s discuss how to design a perennial garden.
Here’s a quick look at what’s ahead:
Get the Design on Paper
For any new garden to really flourish, some basic planning is crucial for the best chances of success.
Use your garden journal to create layouts and to help familiarize yourself with the area you’d like to plant.
Note elements such as lighting, soil moisture, hardscape and topographical features, then pencil in your plant ideas.
Check to see if their mature sizes and growing needs are suitable for your desired location – if not, adjust as needed.
Your sketches don’t need to be artistic, but jotting down ideas helps you achieve the outcomes you want in minimal time and with the least amount of effort.
It’s also helpful to test your soil before prepping it or planting.
Collect samples from a few different sites and send them off to your local university extension program for testing.
Or you can do basic tests at home with a soil test kit to determine pH levels as well as amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
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If you want to purchase a test kit, you can find Rapitest from Luster Leaf available at Arbico Organics.
When you have your results, you can amend accordingly.
Growing Zones and Climates
Thanks to the global market and plant breeders worldwide, a vast array of perennials are now available to the home gardener.
However, that doesn’t mean that all plants will flourish in your particular garden.
Your local climate and hardiness zone rating plays a large part in the types of plants that can thrive in your locale.
Along with temperature requirements, plant selection also depends on your localized climate and summer’s length, so be sure to account for elements such as dry air or high humidity.
To find your Hardiness Zone, check the USDA Map or the Map for Canadian growers.
Hardscape Elements
Hardscape elements are the non-organic features that add function, structure, and visual interest in the forms of arbors, benches, decks, fences, fire pits, pathways, pergolas, planters, raised beds, retaining walls, trellises, and water features to name a few.
They’re typically constructed from materials such as bricks, concrete, metal, pavers, blast stone, or wood and can be used to compliment the softscape elements of flowers, ground covers, lawns, shrubs, soil, and trees.
When planning hardscape elements, be sure to take their size and style into account so that they enhance the garden rather than detract from it.
Plant Selection
Now for one of the most exciting parts – selecting the plants that give life to your vision!
In horticulture, perennials are defined as any plant that has a life cycle that lasts more than two years.
When drawing up your layouts, you can choose from long- or short-lived perennials and herbaceous or woody types. Many short-lived perennials are herbaceous.
Short-lived varieties have a brief lifetime of three to five years but many develop long-lasting colonies through the process of self-seeding.
A few popular examples that self-seed include bee balm (Monarda), columbine (Aquilegia), coneflower (Echinacea), lupin (Lupinus), and yarrow (Achillea).
Long-lived types generally thrive for five to 10 years, but many make it into their teens and even longer, staying viable for decades.
Examples of long-lived varieties include black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia), daylily (Hemerocallis), hosta (Hosta), liatris (Liatris), and peony (Paeonia).
Herbaceous types have soft, green, non-woody flower and leaf stems and typically die back to the ground in winter’s cold.
A few popular herbaceous species include astilbe (Astilbe), beardtongue (Penstemon), phlox (Phlox), and salvia (Salvia), plus spring and summer flowering bulbs.
Woody or semi-woody types may or may not lose their foliage in winter, with the woody stems and root systems going dormant.
Woody plants include a range of shrubs and vines such as forsythia (Forsythia), honeysuckle (Lonicera), lavender (Lavandula), spirea (Spiraea), and wisteria (Wisteria).
And don’t forget about foliage plants.
Although we usually think of flowers for providing color, many perennial foliage plants offer a striking range of greens, silvery shades, and red-based tones that are used as background players, fillers, and even focal points.
Interesting foliage plants include artemisia (Artemisia), caladium (Caladium), coleus (Coleus), coral bells (Heuchera), cordyline (Cordyline), and ferns.
Choose a selection of plants that suit your vision and make sure you choose species with a variety of bloom times to maintain color throughout the season.
Before planting, physically arrange your plants while they’re still in nursery pots – this is a good way to visualize a big picture perspective and make any adjustments before they go in the ground.
For pleasing arrangements with a cohesive sightline, place larger plants at the back of beds, medium sized in the middle ground, and smaller ones in the front, arranging them in staggered tiers to skillfully guide the eye through the garden.
Combine early-season bloomers with mid- and late-season flowers for a long-lasting display, and don’t be afraid to add in some annuals where you need a punch of color.
To further refine your vision, learn how to use color for glorious garden schemes.
Lighting
Lighting is another crucial element to consider because how much sunlight your location receives determines in large part the types of plants to use.
Locations with full sun gives a larger array of plants to choose from, but there are plenty of attractive options for shady sites as well.
If you’re not sure how to classify the lighting for your chosen site, use the following outline as a helpful rule of thumb.
- Full sun receives a minimum of six hours of sunlight each day
- Part sun or part shade locations have daily sunlight exposure of three to six hours
- Shade gardens receive three hours or less of direct sunlight every day
Track the path of the sun from dawn to dusk to determine the amount of daily sun exposure your chosen site receives, then make your selections accordingly.
Bed Preparation
After the planning phase is complete, the next step is to physically create your new beds, borders, or terraces.
Demarcate your garden beds using stakes and string for straight edges and a soft hose to outline curved or undulating edges.
Check out our guide to preparing your garden for spring for how to prepare the soil to create healthy, nutrient-rich beds.
Irrigation Needs
Watering is another key element to producing vibrant growth, even if you’re planning a xeriscape.
Part of the advantage of growing perennials is that they are typically low-maintenance.
But even water-wise plants require regular irrigation in the first year or two while they become established and develop a strong root system.
And many species need regular water applications or enjoy moist soil, so easy access to a hose bib is important.
If you’re installing an automatic sprinkler system, bury the irrigation lines for a more pleasing aesthetic – which is easiest to do before the plants go in.
To explore different irrigation methods, our guide to hydrating your landscape has several smart watering ideas.
Spacing Plants
The correct spacing of plants is also important for creating harmonious arrangements and to ensure their good health.
When planning, map out the placement of your plant choices, ensuring they have adequate space for proper air flow and room to grow to their mature size.
The descriptive tags that come with nursery plants typically have the information about the expected mature size and their spacing requirements.
Planting Out
To give your perennials the best possible start, be generous when digging the planting sites, making holes twice as wide and slightly deeper than the root ball of each plant.
An ample planting site with loosely friable, enriched soil makes it easy for the roots to spread out and become established.
I always like to enrich each planting site with one or two parts of nutrient-rich materials such as compost, well-rotted manure, or worm castings to give plants a good start, even those that prefer to grow in lean soils.
Mix in additional amendments such as blood meal, bone meal, or slow release fertilizers, depending on the species you have chosen.
Set plants in place at the same depth as in their nursery pots, or as outlined on the information tag.
As a final touch, and one that saves a lot of work, lay down a generous, two-inch layer of mulch around your plants.
Mulching has many benefits, and is used to suppress weeds, retain soil moisture, keep roots cool, and adds a professional, finished look to your composition.
Both organic and inorganic substances make effective and attractive mulches, including materials such as shredded bark, gravel, lava nuggets, smooth pebbles, pine needles, untreated sawdust, straw, or wood chips.
Our guide to using mulch for low maintenance gardening has the details about how to achieve that tidy, well-kept look.
Care and Maintenance
For the most part, perennials are easy to maintain, requiring just a few regular chores to keep them looking their best.
Division
Most long-lived types benefit from division every three to five years, which helps to rejuvenate older plants, improves vigor, and controls size.
It’s also a great way to propagate new specimens!
If you’re not sure how to do this, our guide to dividing perennials has step-by-step details.
Deadheading
Many flowering perennials benefit from the regular removal of spent flowers.
Deadheading is useful with many species for encouraging more blooms and is helpful for maintaining a clean, tidy appearance after flowering has finished.
Learn more about deadheading here.
Pruning
Woody and semi-woody plants may need pruning to maintain a manageable size or to encourage branching for more flowers.
Pruning woody perennials is generally done in winter when they’re dormant, but that isn’t always the case.
Some, like spring-flowering bridalwreath spirea should be pruned back after flowering because winter trimming would result in flower loss.
Before taking your loppers to any woody shrub or vine, check the growing requirements of the species for the best timing and pruning methods.
Learn more about the basics of pruning shrubs and woody plants here.
Fertilizing
Most perennials require regular applications of fertilizer during the growing season, but how often to fertilize and quantities to use varies depending on the species.
Some are happy with only a top dressing of compost, well-rotted manure, or worm castings in early spring.
Others may require more frequent applications in the form of slow-release granules, liquid, or water soluble feeds.
And container-grown plants often require frequent fertilizing, although it is often applied at half-strength.
If your plans include potted plants, be sure to read up on how to keep your containers looking great.
Overwintering
Before winter sets in, take some time to cut back dead vegetative materials, tidy beds, or lay down protective mulches.
Our guide to 11 things to do in the garden before winter provides a good outline about how to prepare for the cold months.
Lovely and Long Lived
Perennials are appreciated for their beautiful flowers, handsome or aromatic foliage, and long-lived nature that returns each spring with little effort from the gardener!
And designing perennial gardens to suit your vision is the perfect way to create your own little piece of Eden.
Start with a plan that incorporates plants well-suited for your climate and temperature range and takes into account existing hardscape features.
Ensure the site is well-draining then create new beds with plenty of fresh, humusy soil to give your plants the best possible start.
Fertilize in spring and throughout the growing season as needed and be sure to water new plantings well in their first year to help them become established.
Then deadhead, prune, and provide winter protection. With just a little regular maintenance, your perennial garden will shine for years to come!
Are you growing a perennial garden? Let us know in the comments section below and feel free to share a picture!
And for more ideas about how to use perennial flowers in your garden, add these guides to your reading list next.