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What To Expect With Perennial Flowers

By James Ellison

Perennial flowers are a fantastic investment for anybody who desires to have blooms and greenery for several years in a row. Since annuals only live for one season, perennials will return on their own for many years in a row.

Perennials often take longer to mature and bloom, but as soon as they have popped out they are terrific since all that is needed is water and keep them weeded then. You don't need to go purchase and plant anew every year.

Because of its very nature though, perennial flowers and plants can be a bit baffling, unclear and disheartening to new gardening hobbyist. If you place new seeds in the ground for example, and dedicate a lot of time watering, fertilizing and caring for them, only to see zero happens that first year, you may question if you did something incorrect, or got a bad package of seeds.

However the next year, and often the year after that, you might see yourself with loads of beautiful plants and flowers.

Because of this, I suggest you plant a blend of annuals and perennials in the same area. This lets you get beautiful color and greenery from the beginning, and by the time the annuals begin dying, you may have the debuts of your perennials.

Select your perennial plants and flowers carefully though, and where you put them. If you set out a creeping ground cover vine in the center of your lawn one year on account of you like the idea of getting a carpet of dark glossy green leaves with small flowers, you may be set with that situation for a while.

Changing your mind the following year and figuring you want normal old green grass instead is all right, but you may end up fighting to rid the perennial vines you planted in the previous years.

Numerous perennials are rather sturdy once they have taken root and are established. And some, especially ground covers and vines, are very hard to get rid of in the future.

Some annual plants and flowers will behave like perennials. This happens because they shed new seeds when their blooming season is over, and those seeds pop up the next year. This can be a problem too. To show you what I mean, I set out four o'clock flowers in the wrong spot many years ago. They were expected to bloom near 4 pm in the afternoon, but because of the location they actually bloomed about 4 am instead. Since they drop hundreds of seeds every year, I am stuck with them popping up in that area, and pulling them as soon as I see them begin coming up again.

I'm happy with my morning glory flowers doing this though. In the beginning I planted seeds in a pot, and I put that pot in a good spot next to a bush in the front of my house. This permitted the morning glory vines to move up the bush as they grew. These vines then discharged new seeds under the bush yearly since, and I have had both a carpet of beautiful flowers under the bush as well as gorgeous flowering vines climbing the bush.

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Copyright by James Ellison

Jim's articles are from extensive research on each of his topics. You can learn more of what to expect of perennials by visiting: http://www.basic-info-4-organic-fertilizers.com/perennials.html

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