What perennials should I plant in the sunny side of my garden?

1. 91

   Chantelle Porterposted 8 years ago

   What perennials should I plant in the sunny side of my garden?
   
   I am designing a memorial garden for my Grandmother. Half in shade, half in sun. The shade side will have violets, lilies of the valley, trilliums, lady's slippers, forget me not and bleeding hearts. What would go with these in style but be in full sun?

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2. 84

   Billie Kelpinposted 8 years ago

   
   
   Beautiful idea - lovely choices, Chantelle.  I'm assuming you still live in NY from your profile.  Don't forget delphiniums - they're perenniel and spectacular (in MN in cooler months - June is the best).  Be sure to plant lots of one KIND of plant in an area rather than a little here and there. I had lots and lots of delphinium plants in one section of the garden.  June was spectacular. (I don't have a picture right now of the delphiums, but they were beautiful.)  And of course, thinking about the season from May to September is important. To have things blooming alternately will make your garden beautiful.  I called up our local nursery and they put me in touch with a landscape designer who for $20 (back in the 90s) came to the house and simply drew a figure 8-shape and wrote on a simple yellow sheet of tablet paper, the names of what to to plant where so that the middle of the "8" would be tall and then cascade down.  I had several of these different shapes on the front lawn.  A nice shrub rose bush that grows tall would be perfect somewhere as well. I wanted only only the blue, pink, and white family, so that made it a bit harder.  The picture shows a Spring garden with magenta a peoney bush plunked right in that figure "8" some iris bulbs and Shasta daisies.  For hotter weather I chose annuals like cosmos and then I had the cone flower.  By mistake, I added purple loosestrife from a ditch until I found out those are kind of prohibited in MN (they dry up the lakes). 
   The sun-loving flowers in pinks are a challenge.  Pink and magenta geraniums are great though and to make them higher up in the garden, I always put a large potted full geranium in the middle of the garden on a bird bath.  Sometimes I'd put a little old table in the garden to raise up the color of low growing annuals.
   But you might want to find someone who would come out just for an hour for a reasonable fee and sketch out a design for you.  I modified the design I had as I added to the garden, but that landscape designer was MOST helpful and created the base from which I worked.  (Now I live in an RV and have no garden, but I have the ocean to walk to

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3. 74

   cathylynn99posted 8 years ago

   roses - you can pick varieties of color to go with your shade-loving plants.

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   1. 84

      Billie Kelpinposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      I agree.  I once bought a shrub rose on sale after the season and that bush grew to be about as tall as I am.  Thank goodness I'm not as wide

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4. 68

   connorjposted 8 years ago

   
   
   Great answers so far; I love plumbago auriculata in full - sun. It maximizes blooms....

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   1. 84

      Billie Kelpinposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      oh wow!

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5. 91

   Chantelle Porterposted 8 years ago

   Thank you everyone for the great suggestions. I've got a lot to think about.

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