Perennials

There are two basic types of gardeners:

• Those that love it
• Those that don't

For the former type, they love to tinker with their plants and don't mind at all putting forth the effort to care for difficult plants. In fact, they even enjoy the challenge of growing something that shouldn't be growable. You usually find these types of people in their gardens several times a week, and sometimes every day for the overly obsessed.

For the latter, they might do it because they enjoy plants, but not so much the work that goes with it. They may also garden to improve the look of their home and increase curb appeal. It is for this latter group of gardeners that perennials were developed. Perennials are wonderfully robust and low maintenance plants.

Most people don't have the time or money to continually invest in expensive, exotic flowers that only bloom once before then need to be replaced. This makes perennials one of the best budget-friendly options. Perennials are known as the "backbone" of the flower garden because of their unmatched staying power. A perennial is, quite simply, a plant that lives for more than two years. Though their leaves die back during the winter months, they generally will bloom again the following year. Because of their longevity, perennials are among the less expensive varieties of flowering plants, making them ideal for long-term use in a home flower bed. Perennials such as daylilies, hostas, and peonies can last for decades... literally.

Just starting a garden can require a good amount of work. Many amateur gardeners wan to be able to enjoy the fruits of their work without having to put forth a lot of additional effort to maintain the result of their initial work. A bed of perennial flowers are perfect for the gardener that wants to spend more time enjoying the flowers than caring for them.

The perennial plants you choose for your own garden will depend largely on your own tastes, the level of effort you are willing to put into a plant's care, whether your garden receives lots of sun or spends more time in the shade, how cold your winters are and how hot your summers are, and many other factors.

Plant stores often have perennials for sale that are hardy and known for their resistance to drought, heat, cold, and other stresses. These harty plants are let people successfully grow them with little effort. Perennials meant to be in the sun are often of this hardy variety, specifically developed for high heat and drought-like conditions, requiring little care.

Ask for perennials for sun if your garden has high exposure to sunlight most of the day. These kinds of plants will do well in desert states such as Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Most plants typically require plenty of sun, so if you will be planting in an area that is shaded most of the time you'll want to be sure and pick plants that will be able to handle life in the shade. Ask for perennials for shade.

Take into consideration whether the area will be fully shaded at all times, partially shaded, or shaded for part of the day only. A lot of this depends on where you flower garden is in relation to the sun and whether it is in the sun to to its proximity to your house. Plants that thrive in the shade are less likely to be drought resistant. So if you need a drought resistant, shade deweling plant, be sure to check on that.

Unless you already have a strong familiarity with perennials, be sure to always check with a salesman the conditions under which your chosen plants will thrive, and the amount and type of care they require. Choose wisely, and your garden will provide you with several years of joy!

By buying plants that are known to grow well under harsh conditions, you should be able to successfully grow them with little effort, even if your thumb isn't quite as green as you'd like it to be.

Check with a salesman at your favorite gardening store to ensure that the plants and flowers you look at have been bred specifically for durability under a wide variety of harsh conditions. It's better to go with a plant that is "over durable" since paying more attention to your plants than is required is unlikely to hurt them.

Choose your perennials, flowers, and other plants wisely, and you'll be able to derive years of enjoyment from your garden.

One of the warm and charming characteristics of having a flower garden is its dynamic pattern of changing throughout the season - or even month to month, as new flowers bloom as the spring moves into summer and then into autumn.

Beginning a flower garden is not as simple as planting your garden one, then maintain it by weeding, watering and cutting back your plants each season. It is also not necessarily as difficult as some might make it out to be either - depending, of course, on the quantity and variety of the plants you choose.

Perennial plants will drastically decrease the difficulty of your garden's upkeep, but because they live so long, they can become more difficult to manage overtime. In the first year in the life of perennials flowers, the plants may be underwhelming, leaving an undesirable sparseness in your flower garden.

Do not fret about this. If you give them time, they will fill out in the second year!

By the second year of your flower garden the perennial flowers will be blooming better and your flower garden will be more filled out.

The third year is the year that your perennial will begin to look like it is on steroids, as it becomes the proverbial monster in your front yard... Well not exactly. Many perennial plants send out runners and grow out to fill more space. In about the third year there will definitely be a cause to get the trimmers out to keep things from getting out of hand.

After that, many perennials get bigger with each season. Every so often one will die, or occasionally just disappear. That's just part of the fun of a flower garden, they are dynamic and always changing. I guess that's why veteran gardens often say that "no flower garden is ever really finished".