Stepping Stones to Perennial Garden Design
Perennial Selection
Creating Your Plant List
Review your overall garden goals. Review your color scheme. Review your garden site assessment. All these steps now become important as you start your plant list and transfer this information to a scaled drawing.
Remember from session one, when gardening with perennials the ultimate goal is a personally pleasing flow of plant material from season to season. This flow can consist of flower color, foliage color, plant texture, plant shape, plant size, or any other desirable ornamental feature. For many beginning perennial gardeners, it is often easiest to plan for flower color, with two to three peak seasons. This is a great place from which to start and mature. In a garden based on continuous blooming, expect to see a fair amount of green foliage intermittent with flowers. Plan on keeping a garden journal listing what is blooming when. Some gardener’s video their gardens monthly and then review them later. Over the long winter, you can further research and add to the garden next year.
Determine your seasons of interest and then select plants that will offer an ornamental characteristic at that time. Call it your Wish List. A simple place to start is with spring, summer, fall and winter seasons. Your wish list should look something like this:
Wish List
Spring |
Summer |
Fall |
Winter |
|---|---|---|---|
Daffodils |
Daylily |
Fall Mums |
Porcupine Grass |
Tulips |
Purple Coneflower |
Purple Dome Aster |
Showy Stonecrop Sedum |
Virginia Blue Bells |
Tall Garden Phlox |
Monch Aster |
Black-eyed Susan |
Candytuft |
Black-eyed Susan |
Porcupine Grass |
Blue Fescue |
Peony |
Moonbeam Coreopsis |
Showy Stonecrop Sedum |
|
Blue Fescue |
Coral Bells |
Blue Fescue |
|
Oriental Poppy |
Shasta Daisy |
Silver Mound |
|
False Indigo |
Small Globe Thistle |
||
Siberian Iris |
Silver Mound |
||
Creeping Phlox |
|||
Bleeding Heart |
Seasonal wish lists don't have to be equal in length at this point. If one season is lacking, you can always continue your research later. Also, notice that some plants have more than one season of interest. Blue Fescue is a cool season ornamental grass that flowers in spring, is dormant in the heat of the summer, starts growing again in fall and may remain evergreen all winter depending on cultivar chosen. Silver Mound is another foliage plant that offers a long season of interest.
Once you have your wish lists, you need to create more detailed, specific seasonal plant lists. For proper placement in your garden, further information is needed. It is very easy to place perennials when drawing your garden to scale, if you have all the information in front of you in a concise, easy to read format.
Spring
Name |
Cultural requirements |
Bloom time |
Mature size/ |
Flower color/ |
Foliage color/ texture |
Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mt. Hood Daffodils |
Sun |
May |
15-17" tall |
White |
green/course grass-like |
Dies down after flowering |
Angelique Tulips |
Sun |
May |
14-16" tall |
Pink/double |
green |
Dies down after flowering |
Virginia Blue Bells |
Partial Shade/rich organic soil |
April-May |
12-24" tall/ |
Blue/ nodding bell shape |
green/ medium |
Dies down after flowering |
Candytuft Iberis sempervirens |
Full Sun/ well drained soil |
April - May |
10" tall X 24" wide/ mounding |
White/head-like |
green/ evergreen |
|
Peony |
Full Sun/ well drained soil |
May |
3' tall X 3' wide |
many colors- prefer rose red |
green |
Cut back foliage in late winter |
Blue Fescue |
Full Sun/ well drained soil |
spring - summer |
foliage is 10" tall and 12" wide - Flowers are 15-18" tall/ mounding |
Silver |
Blue |
Attractive spring, summer and fall |
Oriental Poppy |
Full Sun/ partial shade/ well drained soil |
May- June |
3' tall X 1' wide/ oval habit |
Scarlet red/ solitary |
green/ medium coarse |
Foliage dies after flowering |
False Indigo |
Full Sun/ partial shade/ well drained soil |
May |
3-4' tall X 3-4' wide/ erect habit |
Indigo Blue/ spike |
blue green/ medium |
Attractive foliage all season - good background plant |
Siberian Iris |
Full Sun/ partial shade/ Slightly moist soil |
May |
3' tall X 2' wide/ upright |
Blue & purple shades |
green/ strap-like |
Good looking foliage the rest of the growing season |
Creeping Phlox |
Full Sun/ well drained soil |
April-May |
6" tall X 2' wide/ creeping |
Rose pink |
bright green |
|
Bleeding Heart |
Shade/ Moist, well drained soil |
May |
2-3' tall X 2-3' wide |
Pink |
Blue green/ medium |
Dies back in summer |
Your detailed plant list should reveal specific information. Looking over the example, what do you notice? First of all, five of the plants will die to the ground after blooming. You will need to place these plants near wide arching plants that will cover up the resulting hole, but won't invade into the space. Or, plan on planting summer blooming annuals in that area. Also notice sun requirements. If your garden is full sun, you can eliminate Bleeding Hearts and Virginia Blue Bells. What about the colors? It appears to be a pink & blue spring garden. Is that your goal? If so is a scarlet red poppy going to appear out of place? Perhaps you would want to select a softer shade. What about flower shape, plant size and texture? Is there variety?
Suggested Perennials for Beginners
Yarrow (Achillea sp.)
Rock Cress (Arabis sp.)
Siberian Bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla)
Coreopsis (Coreopsis sp.)
Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis)
Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
False Sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides var. scabra)
Daylily (Hemorocallis sp.)
Hosta (Hosta sp.)
Chinese Silver Grass (Miscanthus sinensis)
Catmint (Nepeta sp.)
Creeping Phlox (Phlox subulata)
False Dragonhead (Phystostegia virginiana)
Orange Coneflower (Rubdeckia fulgida)
Autumn Joy Sedum (Sedum spectabilis 'Autumn Joy')
Seasonal Plant Lists
For a "wish list" of perennials with seasonal interest, select a season below:
