Perennials are a rewarding investment

At this time of year, the vivid rush of spring bulbs is long gone, the sen­ti­men­tal aroma of lilac has faded, and the last peony blooms are with­er­ing in the sun. While all of those are obvi­ous favorites, they do leave a dilemma: What is going to bloom from now until fall? Re-blooming peren­ni­als are an impor­tant back­bone of any gar­den. With a solid peren­nial plant­ing, the amount of time spent on annu­als can be dimin­ished as well as hours spent labor­ing in the gar­den. Peren­ni­als may not always pro­vide instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion like annu­als, but once mature many are true showstoppers.

My friend and fel­low Mas­ter Gar­dener, Dianne, tells me I am a bro­ken record when it comes to shar­ing my love for End­less Sum­mer hydrangeas (Hydrangea macro­phylla End­less Sum­mer) — which might be true. How­ever, in my opin­ion they are almost the per­fect peren­nial. End­less Sum­mer hydrangeas pro­vide a pro­fu­sion of color through­out the entire sea­son and are quite easy to main­tain. What makes End­less Sum­mers so appeal­ing is their abil­ity to bloom on new wood. Tra­di­tional hydrangeas (Hydrangea macro­phylla) do not bloom their first year, and after that only bloom on wood that is at least one year old. Not only is this dif­fi­cult for an impa­tient gar­dener like myself, but if the wood is dam­aged over the win­ter, or there is early spring warmth fol­lowed by frost like this year, the hydrangea will likely have no blooms that year. With an End­less Sum­mer none of that is a con­cern. End­less Sum­mer hydrangeas are avail­able in light pink, white, and pink-blue depend­ing on the acid­ity of the soil. For blue blooms, the soil needs to be acidic. I add both alu­minum sul­fate and cit­rus peels to my soil to increase the acid­ity. For pink blooms, soil needs to be more basic — this can be achieved by adding hydrated lime (it took me a long time to accept that “lime” was not acidic like … limes) or cof­fee grounds. Because I cut so many blooms to bring inside, I never have to prune mine. Hydrangeas are only fussy in one regard: water. It is fit­ting that hydra (Greek for water) makes up this plant’s name. For that rea­son, it is best that hydrangeas be planted in an area with morn­ing sun and after­noon shade where they can get plenty of water.

Another spec­tac­u­lar bloom­ing peren­nial is Russ­ian Sage (Per­ovskia atrip­li­ci­fo­lia), with its attrac­tive silver-green foliage, and wealth of lavender-colored blooms this plant can eas­ily be con­fused for the herb laven­der. Inter­est­ingly enough, Russ­ian Sage is not in the sage (Salvias) fam­ily at all. It is thought that it earned its name for the fra­grance of the blooms which is sim­i­lar to that of sage. Russ­ian Sage excels in areas of the gar­den where many other plants fail. It prefers full sun and tol­er­ates dry soil very well. Once it blooms, it adds beau­ti­ful color to the gar­den until the end of the sea­son. It grows quickly and is insen­si­tive to being cut back at the end of the sea­son. I love Russ­ian Sage because it has such soft lines. In bloom, it soft­ens any area with feath­ery light purple.

Finally, for unpar­al­leled color, beauty and sat­is­fac­tion I think shrub roses are the win­ner. Often pro­vid­ing early color in mid-May when other peren­ni­als are just wak­ing up, shrub roses pro­vide an entire sea­son of gor­geous bloom. Avail­able in a vari­ety of col­ors — from white to hot pink to yel­low, there is cer­tainly a shade of shrub rose for any gar­den. Many peo­ple shy away from roses because of the mis­con­cep­tion that all roses are finicky and demand­ing. Mod­ern shrub roses have been mas­ter­fully hybridized and require far less care than their ances­tors. One of the great­est fac­tors in the suc­cess of grow­ing a shrub rose is that it have enough space for air to cir­cu­late. Shrub roses pre­fer full sun and con­ser­v­a­tive, even water­ing. There are also now vari­eties of climb­ing rose that have been hybridized to bloom all sum­mer as well, which would be a gor­geous way to improve an inex­pen­sive pri­vacy fence.

Peren­ni­als are an invest­ment that will reward you every sea­son. Often the older they get, the more beau­ti­ful and hardy they become requir­ing less effort every year with more beauty.

Stephen Jones is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on Jun 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.