We've planted in the Spring, the middle of Summer and August/September. If you plant during the hotter times of year, you just have to really commit to watering your new plants daily.
Many garden centers are clearing out their inventory and drastically reducing prices this time of year. This means you can get way more for your money and really stock up on hearty plants that will come back year after year. We've done this for several years in a row to really build up our landscaping. It's the perfect way to garden on a budget as long as you are able to devote time to watering.
Our home had two box woods out front and one rose bush and ZERO landscaping everywhere else when we moved in 3 years ago. There were also hundreds of stones buried in the spots where we wanted to landscape. The plus side to that was that we had a completely blank slate and could plant whatever we wanted. The down side was we had to figure out how to landscape, figure out what we wanted to plant and relocate all those rocks. Every rock or stone that we have used in our landscaping was buried somewhere in our yard. Crazy! We have not purchased any.
It's taken years of layering in plants and shrubs and we are so pleased with how things are coming together. I mentioned last week that friends and neighbors have all started sending compliments our way for how our house and landscaping are looking. We were on a family bike ride last night and a neighbor stopped us to talk about our cute house. What a fun treat after so much hard work!
Gardening has required lots of trial and error. We've lost so many daisy, cone flower and other random plants because they just didn't to well in our soil/sun combo. Keep plugging away and learn each time you lose a plant.
Let's start the tour:
I'll do my best to recommend the perennials that have done really well in our very sunny front yard and very shady backyard in case you're looking for specific plants to plant at your home.
I love this area around our light pole. Lantana (the yellow and pink/yellow clusters of flowers) are an annual that love it in our front yard. We love all the sedum/stone crop/succulent plants and we've had good luck with lavender, veronica, salvia and yarrow plants here.
This littel lime limelight hydrangea loves full sun.
The first plants we ever bought were these three tiny shrubs three years ago. We got two box woods and one euonymus (yellow and green plant in the middle). They were tiny at the time because that's all we could afford. They've tripled in size since we bought them and look great.
We love butterfly bushes! We currently have three - white, magenta and dark purple. We have also had a navajo blue one. We are about as far north as possible to have this be a perennial. If we get a really harsh winter, they likely won't survive. But they are really affordable, love the sun, grow pretty large and bloom ALL SUMMER LONG! They attract so many butterflies. I'll plant them again and again!
We have this black cherry crepe myrtle that blooms tiny pink blooms. Again, we're pushing our luck this far north with this plant, but so far it's come back every year. We have two red prince weigela plants in the back. They're kind of wild and bloom hot pink blooms many times throughout the season.
These Rose of Sharon Lil' Kim Violet plants are so pretty! They bloom such a lovely tropical looking bloom. These have done so well at our house. We have two of them and they're gorgeous up close and from the street.
We have a variety of things planted on this corner - phlox of a couple varieties, 3 pieris bushes, hydrangea, euonymous, stone crop and some fun shrubs.
This will be my one plug for annuals - LANTANA!! this was one tiny plant that has gotten HUGE. It loves the sun and blooms and blooms all season long. I planted 8 of these in our shrubs and you really get a lot for your money. Some people plant these in pots and some plant them in landscaping. We've had great luck with this plant.
We're trying to grow cone flowers in the middle, but they don't seem super happy.
Magenta butterfly bush.
We have lavender in a couple different spots.
This sedum succulent plant comes in green and purple. Both bloom flowers and come back bigger every year.
BACKYARD.
I just love this paver patio next to our deck. It turned out exactly like I hoped it would with the grass growing in between the pavers. We planted a variety of hostas and astilbe all around the backyard since they both thrive in the shade. They've come back year after year.
We had pink hydrangeas here last year and they both died. I think they didn't get enough so so we switched to shade loving plants for this spot.
This area still needs a lot of work, but it's very rooty. That means is so hard to dig holes to plant. We'll keep working on it, but it takes forever to plant anything.
Our next project is to update the mulch! It's probably too late in the season to order a truck load so I'm guessing we'll buy bags and bags of it to spread out in the front and back. I'd also like to pick up some clearance hostas and flowering perennials to fill in some open spots. Wish us luck!
What questions do you have for me about perennials??
Your flower beds look beautiful. I don't know what happened to my plants this year, but I got very few blooms overall. Ho hum! Hoping for better color next year!
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