Painting Perennial Pictures in Your Garden

   Perennials, by nature, return year after year. They require some attention but return a reliable show regularly. They offer a huge range of colour, bloom time, size, shape and texture. 

   But the challenge of creating a long blooming, continuously beautiful perennial garden is that each has a fairly short bloom time. Luckily, many perennials also offer interesting textures or colourful foliage to extend the season of interest.

   Getting to know the habits, requirements, and bloom times of the plants you choose equips you for success. Don't be afraid to move your plants around if they aren't happy where they are. Gardening is always an experiment. That's the fun of it!
 
   Learning about your plants can make you more engaged with them. This creates a greater appreciation of the processes taking place before your eyes. Anticipation builds as perennials return like old friends, back for another year of beauty.
 
   Everyone gardens in a different climate and micro-climate. Our garden is in zone 5. It provides perennials and bulbs in a steady succession from mid-March to late November. I love to inter-plant spring blooming bulbs with my perennials. I have a special affection for tulips. I love them in clusters and clumps aplenty. I always want to have enough that I can continue to pick them from April to June and not affect the look in the landscape. This is one of the reasons that I plant early, mid-season, and late tulips. To my eye, they add so much to the spring garden. This is a partial list of how things bloom in our 5b garden in early March.
 
Snowdrops

Hellebores

 
Crocuses

 
 
   This is an exciting month to walk carefully in your beds to find many perennials & bulbs beginning to emerge. I love the first red buds of my peonies, always a bigger clump than last year. From the start of March to the end, the perennial garden really comes to life. I have deer that enjoy my yard in the winter and early spring. By May they seem to find food elsewhere. I need to keep vigilant to keep my tulips from their menu. Yesterday I walked my front and back yard with Bobbex in hand. I sprayed each tulip clump emerging. Bobbex is a deterrent spray that deer do not like. I hope you are getting excited about your yard and garden.

   This is a first of a series of articles about what perennials are blooming in my garden each month. I hope you will enjoy and follow along through the seasons!
 
Happy Gardening – Wendy Salvail