What is your favorite perennial?

[dziomek]

One of my favorites is the Bleeding Heart. I used to have one that was planted on the south side of my garage, and it grew beautifully. I had planted Baby's Breath alongside it, and would take cuttings of both and put them in a vase on the table. They still grow nicely there, but I have since moved on (divorce does that). I now have a Bleeding Heart in a small flower bed on the north side of my house, but it doesn't get near as big as the other one did.

Do you like Bleeding Hearts, or do you have other favorites?

 

[dim]

Hakonechloa macra Aureola (japanese forest grass) (every garden should have at least 12 of these on a bordr edge in semi shade (they do ok in full sun aswell but keep watered):

http://www.sugarcreekgardens.com/Grasses Images&Files/2009PerPlantofYearFlyerHakone.pdf
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and Heuchera Georgia peach (does well in sun aswell but keep watered during dry spells)

http://www.terranovanurseries.com/gardeners/heucherageorgiapeach-p-131.html

planted together with heucherella solar power (does well in full sun but keep watered during the dry):
http://www.terranovanurseries.com/gardeners/heucherellasolarpower-p-267.html

plant the heuchera/heucherella in mass (one red one, one yellow one, one red one, one yellow one etc

the heuchera /heucherella are evergreen, and the leaf colours change as the seasons change ....

 

[Babble64]

We have several bleeding hearts here as well. My Mom was given two many years ago. We planted them in the same bed, within four feet of each other. One grows so fast in the spring that I believe you could literally see it grow. Each year it grows into a big busy thing and is just lovely. The other never grew nearly as well. I transplanted it one year (I can't just toss out a living plant, even if it's not doing what I hoped it would do in my garden.) Since then the smaller one has grown a few "babies", some of which I've transplanted to other areas. At any rate, I love bleeding hearts, too. They are just so graceful.

I have several columbine that I brought home from a community gardening project. (They were going to be thrown away...I can't let that happen to OTHER people's plants, either! LOL) They have also self propagated. The flowers aren't as showy as many I've seen, but I love the way the leaves look before they flower. The only trouble is the chipmunks love the way the leaves TASTE.....by the time the plants start to flower the plants have been stripped clean of leaves!

Hens and chicks! I have to say I just love the way mine have filled in, in the corner of my flower bed. I just transplanted a few to the rocks surrounding our bird bath. Looking forward to seeing how they fill out there, too!

 

[ACSAPA]

I like crocuses. I think it's cool how they go dormant for a while and then suddenly they all open at once and you get instant color.
My current hated apartment that I'm always bitching about has crocuses aplenty, so I might plant a couple of bulbs in pots to take with me to the next apartment.

Here's a pic I found that looks like the crocuses around here.

 

[veg11]

One of mine is the Lupine, (inspired by: "the Lupine Lady") Its a great book!

 

[scotkat]

I like Verbascum phoeniceum and Rudbeckias

 

[Babble64]

I like Verbascum phoeniceum and Rudbeckias

I came home with a Rudbeckia last night! I don't even know where it's going yet, but that's part of the fun!!

 

[claudine]

I love many perennials so it's really hard to pick a favorite, but currently I'm in love with tulips:

I also adore daffodils, they always look so cheerful, I smile when I look at them:

 

[Trellum]

My favorite one is the Kalanchoe, I used to have all the colors you can imagine! It's such a missfortune that they are a pest magnet, you have to keep checking them during the hot months!

 

[Jed]

You beat me to them claudine. I adore daffodils. They are just about to bloom now.
25 years ago, a friend and I picked a couple of buckets each of them from vacant rural land bundled them up into bunches of ten and walked down either sides of street in the city and entered businesses offering them for sale at $2 a bunch .Quite a lot more in today's value. We sold the lot and made about $80 each.

 

[claudine]

Wow, it's great. It must be a nice thing to do, to walk, selling daffodils, it sounds pretty romantic. I love the flowers, they're beautiful, just looking at the pictures feels like spring:

 

[JennyRose]

Great pictures. Very eye candy. I have quite a few favourite but i do not know their names =(

 

[claudine]

Great pictures. Very eye candy. I have quite a few favourite but i do not know their names =(

Hello! Take a few pictures of your favorite perennials and we will tell you the names. Or try to describe them, maybe somebody here will be able to guess

 

[JennyRose]

I love tulips but I dis like how they bloom for less then a month ( please correct me if im wrong) . but Im in ottawa right now and i love going to the tulip festival.

 

[gata montes]

I don't have any particular favorite, when it comes to perennials, but do have a long list of ones that I like a lot.

Dim, you mention Hakonechloa Macra and Heuchera which are two of the plants that I like a lot, and often use, as accent plants in semi shady conditions
.
Hakonechloa Macra with its purple stems and arching green striped, bright yellow leaves, aging to reddish brown in the autumn and winter, is such a versatile plant, that seems to compliment just about any plant combination. Something I have noticed with this plant, is how everyone who sees it, always wants to stroke it or run their fingers through its leaves.

Heuchera is a plant that I sometimes put with Hakonechola Macra, as they make a lovely combination, but my favorite Heuchera combination, for either a container, gravel bed or border, is Heuchera ' Plum Pudding ' or ' Palace Purple ' with
Violas particularly limey yellow ones, which look stunning against the deep wine colored leaves of the Heuchera.

 

[firelily99]

Its had to pick just one as a favorite with so many beautiful perennials to choose from. I love Iris and wish that it had a much longer growing season than it does. It has such a sensual elegance to it, intricate and yet simplistically beautiful. Lilies of all kinds are high on my list and they do last for a long time. Lavender is another, large growths of it are spectacular. I can grow it for a season but have difficulty getting it to come back year after year and end up having to replant it.

 

[scotkat]

Mine have to be without a doubt Heucheras and lavenders

 

[claudine]

Firelily99, I completely forgot about irises, I love them too, we have always had many of them growing here, in my parent's garden. To me, the flowers always look like they weren't real, like they were only painted. But it's a good thing, I find them very romantic and artistic. Here are some lovely pictures that I found:

 

[cmckinney01]

I'm definitely a daffodil girl. I love their bright yellow colors. Daffodils tend to be hardy and can survive a cold Northeast winter like the ones we get here in Upstate New York. They also protect other plants against deer and other pests. If you plant a row of daffodils in front of other flowers such as tulips, your daffodils will serve as guard flowers.