Permanent Perennials
Unlike annuals, perennials don’t require the time and expense of yearly replanting. Most will grow and bloom for many years without pampering. They come early, stay late and are there in between, when nothing else is in flower. Planted as a background of a mixed flower border, taller perennials lend vertical dimension and mass, against which plantings of spring-flowering bulbs and summer annuals display colorful blooms. Native plants and wildflowers, previously found growing in wild areas, provide some of the hardiest, low-maintenance blooms for a more unconventional perennial border. Biennials also play an important, though brief, role in bringing continuity to a flower garden. Large or small, formal or informal, high-maintenance or low, no flower garden is complete without perennials to lead it through the garden season. Year after year, perennials offer an ever-changing framework of color, filling borders with flowers and a variety of foliage, textures and shades of green. Perennial vegetables such as thorny asparagus and Jerusalem artichokes are planted just once, but harvested for years to come.