Perennial flowers

This webpage lists 20 favorite perennials, unfussy and long-lived.

What is your experience with them?

I've never had much luck with keeping lavender going. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong.
I buy pinapple sage every spring, but I consider it an annual.

I'm gonna go hunting for that "Mango Punch" Coreopsis. - Yum!
And I just replaced a Gaura that didn't make it through this past harsh winter. I still had the receipt from late last year, and all they asked for was that and the dead plant, and replaced it free. Not that it was recognizable as such.

My favorite of those you have listed is pineapple sage. Although mine does die each year, I love to plant it because it's such a late-flowering herb. It grows easily with no fuss. It provides such beautiful crimson red flowers late in the fall. Plus you can use the leaves, if you want.

My asters bloom reliably each year as a perennial.

Try various lavenders. They vary a lot in what they can take. My favourite is not winterhard, so it goes under cover with my orange trees. But I have several that do fine, and have had others that didn't. I had a lovely white one, but it didn't survive.

I don't know what your winters are like, but even in fairly warm winters, my soil can get very waterlogged, which is worse for most perennials than the cold. I've done a lot better since I raised the beds a bit and worked sand and compost into the clay I started with.

And in general I buy a lot of things this time of year that I like, and plant them without too much attention to whether they are annuals or perennials. It's fun. It's also fun each year to see what comes back up, and what doesn't. This year we hardly had winter at all. It never got really cold, although there was a frost late January that finished off my lettuce. We also had very little rain. The result? Three herbs that had started to invade the flower bed took over so completely that nothing else had a chance. So I've had to replace a lot.

BTW, also some annuals self seed, and replace themselves that way. I usually have a lot of pot marigold that way.

I have a lavender, originally Munstead, I think, that survives my zone 3 winters and has even seeded itself. It's located in a very sunny, sheltered spot which is fairly dry. I think probably the microclimate makes that spot at least zone 4. I'm going to start taking cuttings to propagate it and experiment with different locations, because I LOVE lavender. I'd like to have it along the sidewalk in the back.

Of the others on that list, I find catmint, heuchera, sea holly, coneflower, and gaillardia are very successful. Geum is iffy. I get leaves but hardly any bloom. It looks fab in my mom's zone 7 garden, though. Love it.

Haven't really tried any of the others that I remember.

Coneflower grows as a wildflower in Kentucky.

I've got both pink and purple fall asters, both wildly successful; and a small stand of Penstemon that seems to be dwindling after 10 years or so.

I like that Moonshine Yarrow too, but someone gave me 'The Pearl' variety a long time ago, and that's what I've always had.
I'm the kind of gardener that will put something into a bed and leave it to its own devices.

I've also got strong stands of medium pink Hollyhocks and Yellow Loosestrife. Most yards in KY have a deep deep deep pink Hollyhock, and I lust after it.

>1 2wonderY: I've never had much luck with keeping lavender going

Mediterranean plants like lavender, sage, thyme are all short-lived perennials for me, because I am contending with a hot humid climate and acidic soil--pretty much the opposite of their natural habitat. I end up periodically replanting.

The lavenders that do best for me are the Spanish and Provencal varieties, and they grow only where there is a steady breeze or circulation. They are one of the few things I can reliably grown in containers that won't mind the high summer heat.

The English versions like "Munstead" just give up in my high-humidity climate.

Talk about lusting after a plant. Most white lilac is creamy white. I think they have gotten rid of it now, but the French embassy in Vienna used to have a lilac that was just barely blue - the way bluing makes a white shirt look even whiter. Not a trace of cream. I first saw that 40 years ago when I didn't even have a garden. I've never seen another like it. And I have no idea where I would put it. But oh, I want it!

My sage plants are doing a lot better in this garden than they did in a previous one, but I think a lot of that is that with the boys grown up, they are rarely called on to provide leaves for tea these days. They even learned to go get their own sage when they had sore throats. And without them to bring the bugs home, I don't even have as much call for it personally. They loved the past winter, and I have just dead-headed them and cut them back to let the smaller herbs around them get some sun. But the display was wonderful while it lasted.

I can't grow lavender -I usually can only keep the plant for 2, maybe 3 years. I actually end up with an abundance of perennial herbs such as oregano, thyme, and sage. I planted 4 tiny sage plants last year (I only paid 25 cents each for them) and I have dried enough from what I picked this year to last me till next summer and it's still growing so I'll end up with a ton of fresh to use and to give away. I also have 1 oregano plant I've cut and dried 2 "harvestings" so far this year-it's doubling in size every 3 weeks!

>1 2wonderY: I have Rudbeckia, Coreopsis and Sedum growing, spreading and doing great in my perennial garden. The Gaillardia I have to replace every couple of years.

Not mentioned is Shasta Daisy, which is doing well, here. I also have Primroses that are pretty tough to kill.

And Day Lilies...don't forget them They like my zone 7 hot and humid summers.

I hadn't realized that the California Poppy had so much bloom last year:



Poppies color a hillside at Walker Canyon in Lake Elsinore, Calif. Sunday March 17, 2019.

Gorgeous!!!!

>10 2wonderY: lovely!

My milkweed is up!