Choose Long-blooming Plants for Color All Season

A garden just coming into bloom is an exciting experience.

If you plan properly, you can have wonderful new blooms each month of the growing season. 

Although most perennials bloom for a month or two, adding variety and enjoyment, you may wish to add some longer blooming perennials which span the seasons.

Long-blooming Perennials for Sun

Some excellent perennials for the sun garden which will bloom for three to four months or more include: 

• Agastache - great for attracting butterflies
• Coreopsis verticillata - Thread-leaf Coreopsis
• Delosperma - Ice Plant
• Dianthus - many of the low growing varieties
• Gaillardia - large, showy flowers
• Gaura lindheimeri - great for attracting butterflies
• Geranium sanguineum spp. - low-growing geraniums
• Heliopsis - drought tolerant, good cut flowers
• Lavandula angustifolius - Lavender, fragrant
• Leucanthemum - Shasta Daisies
• Monarda spp. - attracts butterflies and hummingbirds 
• Perovskia - Russian Sage 
• Rudbeckia spp. - Brown-eyed Susan
• Salvia nemorosa - great for attracting butterflies
• Scabiosa columbaria 'Butterfly Blue' and 'Pink Mist'
• Verbena 'Homestead Purple'
• Veronica spp.  

A few long-blooming shrubs for the sun are:

• Buddleia - Butterfly Bush, attracts butterflies and hummingbirds, fragrant
• Hypericum patulum 'Hidcote' - small, low shrub
• Potentilla fruiticosa - small shrub  

The shade garden can be also be enhanced by some long-blooming, shade-loving perennials:

• Chrysogonum virginianum - Green & Gold, U.S. native
• Dicentra eximia - everblooming bleeding heart 
• Gillenia trifoliata - Bowman's root, native to the U.S.
• Helleborus spp. - Very early blooming, deer resistant

Many shade garden perennials have interesting foliage with large, bold leaves.

These perennials provide all season interest in the garden not with their flowers, but through their foliage which has interesting colors or textures. For these plants, the flowers are mostly just an added bonus.

• Astilbe - Beautiful fern-like foliage in various shades of green and a diversity of leaf textures
• Bergenia - bold evergreen leathery foliage
• Cimicifuga - layers of attractive foliage including a beautiful purple-leaved variety, most are tall
• Darmera peltata - Big, bold flat topped leaves
• Hosta - huge diversity of size, color, and texture
• Kirengeshoma - large plant with maple-shaped leaves
• Ligularia - a variety of leaf shapes, sizes, and colors
• Polygonatum - Solomon's Seal
• Rodgersia - exotic perennial with bold leaves of various shapes and sizes

There are also many sun-loving perennials with colorful and unique foliage.

• Artemisia spp. - many have beautiful silvery foliage
• Heuchera spp. - a huge diversity of foliage colors
• Sedum spp. - great diversity in foliage color and height