Short in duration, long on beauty, perennials are the flower-garden classics. These dependable plants have beautiful foliage and stunning blooms. While perennials are more expensive than annuals, they pay big dividends as well as provide great design possibilities. Because perennials bloom at different times, you can literally change the look of your garden throughout the seasons. This room in Putting Down Roots is devoted to those plants that return each year to grace our gardens, perennials and bulbs. Photos of your gardens are welcomed. Below, you will find a brief intro to each posting.
~ Brief Intros to Current Postings ~
Butterfly Gardening by Jane Lake
Butterfly gardening is not only a joy, it is one way that you can help
restore declining butterfly populations. Simply adding a few new plants to
your backyard may attract dozens of different butterflies, according to
landscape designers at the University of Guelph. Butterflies, like honeybees, are excellent pollinators and will help
increase your flower, fruit and vegetable production if you provide them
with a variety of flowers and shrubs. Read More ...
Letting Nature Grow Your Garden (Dancing with the Fairies) by Susun Weed
Your garden. What fun—and frustration—await you there! The best mentor you can choose, as far as I'm concerned, is Nature herself. Nature likes life everywhere. Have an open field and plants magically appear! This is the way plants grow when left to themselves. We don't have to struggle so much.
It is wisest to let Nature have Her way. Nature has her own agenda, and your life as a gardener will be easier if you bow to Her desires. Read More ...
Mulch Your Spring Bulbs in the Fall for a
Beautiful Spring Display by Michael J. McGroarty
Flower bulbs need a good, long, winter's sleep. Like some people we know, if they wake up before they are fully rested, they get kind of cranky, and then they don't bloom well at all.
Actually what happens is during a mild winter, the soil stays too warm, and the bulbs begin to come out of dormancy early. They start to grow, and once the tips emerge above the soil line, they are subject to freezing if the temperatures dip back down below freezing. Read More ...
Become a Convert to Ornamental Grasses by Mary Ann Walz
Photographs, especially black-and-white ones, are a great way to see exactly what we have in our garden. They divulge differences in height, reveal luminosity, depth of foliage color, and serve as a gentle reminder that flower color is not the most
important factor in garden design. Don't get me wrong. I don't dislike beautifully colored blooms; I just like to make sure I take other design features into consideration also. What I'm finding lately is that the ornamental grasses are one of my favorite plants that help round out my garden. Read More ...
Planting Wildflowers by Michael J. McGroarty
In the past few years I've read about, and have seen more interest in wildflowers, so I figure it's about time I jump in and add my two cents.
I have watched in despair as some of my friends have created a wildflower bed in their yard, and have ended with the biggest, ugliest patch of weeds I have ever seen. Why did they get weeds instead of wildflowers? Read More ...
Planting and Caring for Flower Bulbs by Michael J. McGroarty
There is nothing quite as welcome as those beautiful spring flowers that seem to emerge from nowhere to welcome the arrival of spring. Bulb-type flowers are really unique plants because they spend most of their days resting quitely beneath the
surface of the soil. Then right on schedule, up they come, full of bloom and vigor, and then almost as fast as they came, they go. Read More ...
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