Annual flowers will never lose their place in home landscapes; simply plant them in spring for all-summer color. But observant homeowners and gardeners soon perceive the value of perennial flowers.

Returning year after year, perennials greet you at their appointed season, increasingly robust and prolific, rewarding your wise choice to plant them years ago. But achieving seasonlong color with perennials is not a simple task, and an upcoming class at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City will help aspiring homeowners learn perennials’ secrets.

Mandy Self, former education director at Red Butte Garden and long-time gardener who will be teaching the class, appreciates perennials’ contribution to the landscape.

“Trees and shrubs shape a landscape’s form and structure, but perennials really make the garden pop. These plants add color, texture, smells and the sensual things that are so pleasing,” she says. “They come back year after year and many of them can be divided so you can share them with friends and neighbors.

“The trick to gardening with perennials,” Self adds, “is combining them in a collection that adds color and interest all season long.”

Most perennials flower only once per year, and the duration of their bloom varies by species, cultivar and climate. In her upcoming class, Self will discuss at least 45 perennial plants, “good standard perennials that give the most bang for your buck,” she says. “We’ll start with the spring-blooming perennials, then progress to mid-summer and fall.”

Red Butte Garden, along with several other public gardens and garden centers along the Wasatch Front, provide outdoor classrooms to learn when and how perennials grow and bloom. Too often, people shop for their perennials in early spring, and wind up buying plants that are flowering then. The resulting landscape looks great in spring but bland and boring the rest of the year. Visit gardens throughout the year and notice plants that add color or interest in each season. Many perennials are just as delightful whether flowering or not.

“I really love the buds [of a peony] just as much as the flowers,” Self says. Seedheads of grasses, fruit of blackberry lily, variegated iris leaves and groundcover sedums that turn red in fall are all examples of perennials that offer more than flowers.

Perennials may be short-lived or long-lived. Scotch broom is a popular perennial that may suddenly die after three or four years of vigorous growth and bloom. Most perennials live longer than that, but may not perform as well or maintain their shape.

Coronation gold yarrow, for example, is a popular perennial that can overgrow its site after two or three years. To keep the plant attractive, it must be dug up and divided every second or third year.

Peonies, on the other hand, prefer to be left alone. Although the plant may grow larger every year, it seldom needs to be divided.
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* MAGGIE WOLF is an assistant professor for Utah State University Extension in Salt Lake County. E-mail her at maggiew@ext.usu.edu.

Perennials with pizzazz
Learn more about growing perennials as part of your landscape at Red Butte Garden’s class, “Perennials with Pizzazz,” taught by Mandy Self. Class starts Tuesday, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., and continues each Tuesday until May 29. Register by calling Red Butte Garden at 801-581-8454 or visiting www.redbuttegarden.org.

source : www.sltrib.com