Van Dycks

What most of us would really like to accomplish in our garden designs is big waves of color from spring through fall – and longer if we can manage it.

Trouble is – most of the plant world refuses to cooperate. If you can find a perennial that will obligingly emerge in spring and then bloom its head off until late fall, let me know – we could probably sell millions. While many perennials do have long bloom seasons – sometimes up to three months – there aren't a lot of them – and they may not come in the colors or shapes that fit our garden designs – and so getting the look we really want – full of color and interest – can be tricky. But it can be done.

The first thing you need to do is decide whether you want constant color throughout the garden, or whether you can be happy with blooming vignettes – highlights in the garden.

Vignettes

Vignettes are easier to deal with that trying to keep an entire garden in bloom all season. You can concentrate on grouping several plants that look good together and have similar bloom times. These will form the vignette – and as long as the foliage of the plants surrounding this vignette fit into the overall look, the garden as a whole will still have interest.

It's choosing good foliage that can be tricky.

As an example, the massively blooming portion of my own garden right now is full of blue Veronica, deep blue salvia, masses of purple and white coneflowers, and yellow coreopsis. This happens to be almost dead center in my long border – and at the ends of the border I have a few daylilies and mallows that bloom in similar colors – but nothing like the floral display at the middle.

So how do I make the rest of the border look good?

First, I made sure that the plants next to these, even if not blooming had complimentary foliage. Purple sage and a sedum that has blue-green leaves shaded with purple pick up the flower colors, and Chocolate Eupatorium intensifies it. It may not have flowers but it's nearly as colorful as the places that do.

Check out plants that have interesting foliage – especially those with colored or variegated leaves. Make sure you choose a few with fine-cut foliage, and others with a broader leaf to give the non-flowering portion of the yard a nice texture. Silvery Artemisia (with somewhat feathery foliage), pewter and purple-leafed Heuchera with leaves shaped somewhat like those of the maple leaf, the variegated Camassia Blue Melody (grasslike leaves)' will all add spots of color to the bed even without flowers. Combine large-leafed hostas with feathery ferns and you have textural interest.

Second, I also made sure that there would be a few complimentary flowers in other areas of the bed. This is when those long-blooming perennials like veronicas and coreopsis and the reblooming daylilies come in handy.

Next turn to the areas that have some bloom now and decide whether you want their peak to follow the first vignette, or to precede it. Choose flowers that have similar bloom times and coordinating colors for this spot – still paying attention to foliage.

In a typical garden you can achieve a consistently great look simply by planting in four or five carefully chosen vignettes.

A whole garden of color all season long

This may sound like heresy coming from the bulb lady – but the best way to accomplish an entire, ever-blooming garden is to make plentiful use of annuals. This is also a good way to spot color through the garden when planting in vignettes – but it's about the only way to achieve constant color in the entire border.

Perennials take time to reach their peak, and will not fill their allotted spaces of three or more years from planting time. They may or may not bloom the first season (although most bulbs will) – and so you need a way to keep the garden from looking spotty.

You can either plant "temperennials" – plants that you know will eventually be moved to another area of the yard – or you can fill those spaces with annuals. Annuals often do bloom for the whole season if they are deadheaded. So season-long color is simple.

You can also prolong the season of color for many of your perennials by deadheading. The secondary bloom that deadheading will evoke from a delphinium or veronica may not be as large and exciting as the first – but it can keep those colors and forms going for weeks longer than if you simply left them to their own devices.

The larger percentage of perennials that you use should be those that have the longest possible blooming season. You will still need to plant vignette-style so that other plants will come into flower and create peaks of bloom all over – but with a combination of long-blooming perennials and annuals (not to mention bulbs!) you can achieve –if not the massed splendor if a single vignette – at least a garden where there is something going on all season long.

Here are lists of long blooming perennials and those with great colored foliage to help you plan your garden.