Perennials

Gardening enthusiasts enjoy vibrant flowering plants that turn their property into a masterpiece. But planting flower beds from scratch each year can become tedious and too labor-intensive to relax and peacefully enjoy the landscape. Home gardeners quickly discover that perennials form a base to integrate a few annuals each year. This balanced approach allows everyday people to enjoy green-thumb activities while watching perennials flourish without excessive work.

While homeowners enjoy the results of their flower beds, perennials also deliver a wide range of benefits that few realize. By understanding the role perennials play and some popular choices, we hope you can make informed decisions about planting perennials this season.

Benefits of Planting Perennials in Home Gardens

Experienced gardeners typically prefer perennials because they produce beautiful flowers. Some bloom for relatively short periods of up to three weeks. Other perennials can hold their color or re-bloom throughout the warm weather. Even when they are not in full bloom, homeowners can anticipate lush greenery from spring through early fall. These rank among the benefits that tend to fly under the gardening radar.

• Soil Composition: The root system developed by perennials helps improve soil structure and resists erosion from heavy rains and flooding. The roots of perennials also include spaces for water to filter through, percolate, and promote aeration. This process increases soil health for other plants to thrive as well.
• Soil Nutrients: Perennials enjoy a deeper root system than annuals. As roots dive, they access nutrients and retrieve them to the surface.
• Ground Cover: When cold weather creeps in, perennials die back. During this period, they form a cover crop that helps protect the land from erratic weather patterns.

Perennials also present as a tremendous asset because they propagate year-over-year. Some varieties can fill out a designated garden after purchasing only a few starter plants. Many home gardeners discover they can transplant new perennials and develop other areas of their property. In essence, cost-effectiveness remains a crucial benefit.

Popular Perennials for Home Gardens

Property owners, typically like perennials, do not necessarily require mulching, composting, and remain among the low-maintenance assets. That being said, the following rank among the more popular perennials.

• Black-Eyed Susan: This native wildflower thrives in full sun and reasonably handles even average soil conditions and drought. Showcasing yellow-orange petals with dark brown centers, it blooms from June through September in many areas and reaches three feet.
• Daisy: Producing lovely white petals with golden centers, the Daisy typically requires full sun and well-drained soil conditions. This perennial makes an excellent companion to many others. However, the 3-foot perennial can overtake gardens unless thinned.
• Daylily: Reaching heights of four feet, the Daylily infuses bold colors into any home garden. This tall perennial can be employed to line fences or as a standalone. It prefers rich, well-drained soil conditions.

These popular flowering plants highlight the reasons why home gardeners select healthy and hardy perennials to complete gardens and landscapes. We offer a complete inventory of perennials. Contact our nursery to place an order or answer any questions about perennials.

Perennials, Unlike Annual plants, return every spring. They also live for decades and multiply often.

Imagine you are driving along a country road and look out over a field flush with amazing wildflowers. The varying petals pepper tall grass, and it reminds you of nature’s inherent beauty. It may also lead you to pick some or run an online search to discover if these native perennial plants make sense for your property.

Many of the flowering perennials everyday people enjoy in their gardens started as wildflowers. The only difference involves professional plant nurseries and gardening enthusiasts providing nutrient-rich soil, precision watering, and little care. If you feel inspired by randomly growing wildflowers, you may love having them enhance your grounds.

7 Nursery-Grown Perennials Plants That Are Wildflowers

It may surprise avid gardeners to learn that mainstay flowering perennials such as the Black-Eyed Susan and Daisy grew wild until nurseries invested in their cultivation. As a wildflower, these and others typically struggled to compete with tall grass and unsteady elements. They rarely achieved the whole potential home and commercial property owners enjoy today. That being said, these rank among the less known wildflowers plant nurseries now offer.

• Trillium: These somewhat rare woodland plants flourish in partial or complete shade spaces. Identified by their deep green leaves, these low-growing assets enjoy a wide range of colorful blooms. These include white, pink, purple, red, and yellow, among others. Home gardeners may require patience with Trillium because it takes upwards of seven years to bloom. Trillium can be deployed under shade trees along a property’s perimeter to increase the aesthetic value and privacy.
• Red Cardinal Flower: Also called the Red Lobelia, this North American native perennial multiplies in zones 1-10 and matured to four feet tall. It earned a reputation for attracting hummingbirds, butterflies and typically bloomed toward summer’s end. Because it has reportedly been over-picked in the wild, an increased number of gardening enthusiasts rely on nurseries for healthy plants. It requires moist soil and thrives in partial to full shade.
• Bluets Flower: Quaker Ladies, this slender, subtle wildflower ranks among the more lovely low-growers. They mature to 3-8 inches. Its delicate light blue petals are not necessarily prevalent across North America. Several regions may not see them flourish in shady spaces. Bluets make an excellent addition to shade and rock gardens in places other wildflowers might not thrive.
• Touch Me Not: Also commonly called the Jewel Weed, this wildflower produces a magnificent orange flower from early summer through late fall. It enjoys full to partial sun and can mature to upwards of 60 inches. It can cover 10-20 square feet, making it a standalone asset in front yards and along with hardscapes. The Touch Me Not earned its name from its seed pod, bursting when inquisitive fingers make contact.
• Leatherwood Fern: Many ferns grow abundantly in deep forests and along with water sources. But transplanting them from natural habitats to suburban landscapes can be challenging. That’s why homeowners typically rely on professional nurseries to grow Leatherwood Ferns that are prepared for healthy transplanting.
• Rue Anemone: This perennial presents with a delicate white or blue flower and grows in small clusters. The deep woods wildflower blooms during spring and is widely regarded as an asset alongside taller perennials, such as Black-Eyed Susan or Daylilies, among others. Family gardeners often strategically plant the bulbs in areas they want to deter rabbits and other nuisances.
• Cherokee Sedge: It’s not uncommon to think that exotic grasses come from other regions. But Contrary to popular belief, Cherokee Sedge ranks among the more eye-catching native grasses available to property owners. Sedge grass prefers partial to full-shade areas and provides layered support for flowering perennials. Landscaping professionals routinely place these ornamental grasses directly behind flowers. One of the beautiful aspects of native sedge is that it spreads and thickens year over year.

It’s essential to resist pulling over and plucking wildflowers out of their natural habitat for many reasons. They support wildlife in the immediate area, and others have become increasingly rare. Wildflowers from a professional nursery are grown for landscaping purposes and add to a sustainable environment. In practical terms, cultivated wildflowers come ready to prosper.

If you are considering new gardens or enhancing existing ones, wildflowers rank among the least labor-intensive solutions. They deliver reliable blooms, greenery and remain a cost-effective way to invest in residential and commercial landscapes. Our TN nursery offers a complete inventory of wildflowers. If you have any gardening questions or would like to place an order, contact us today.