The Perennial Gardener

Description

Perennial gardening includes perennial flowers, herbs, perennial bulbs, grasses and perennial shrubs. Some woody plants, such as trees are also “perennial” in their growing habit. There is a maze of information available about perennial plants, but in the simplest terms, a perennial plant is a plant that lives for more than two years, or a plant that comes back year after year. In the flower garden, perennials are permanent (like most shrubs) but have the color and variety of flowering annuals. Perennial plants grow and bloom over the spring and summer and die back each winter, growing back again the next year from their root stock (rather than reseeding themselves as annuals do.) However, depending on the severity of local winter weather, a plant that is a perennial in its native habitat may be treated as an annual in some areas and planted every year from seeds, cuttings or divisions. Perennial plants can be short-lived or long-lived. They also vary greatly in size, from small flowering groundcovers to large trees that over 3,000 years old. Perennial plants come in a wide assortment that includes ferns and grasses and exotic perennial flowers like Orchids.