While many want to enjoy the benefits of a garden, the regular maintenance and grooming required can often be an unwelcome uphill battle. To combat this common problem, we recommend a low-maintenance perennial garden.
So, why are perennials such a perfect choice for a flower garden? I love how they return each year to deliver healthy doses of color and texture. Some perennials will even bloom in the winter. Also, the multiple possible color combinations allow you to activate your imagination and look at landscaping in a new, creative way.
How to Build the Perfect Perennial Flower Garden
The best piece of advice I can give when designing your new garden is to start small. The best way to display your perennials is in plant clumps of at least three to five plants of your favorite, most coveted species. Growing perennials together is the most practical option — it allows for easy planting, soil preparation, and care.
To create a manageable sweep, plan one that is between five and eight feet deep and twenty feet long. To define the boundaries of your garden, boxwoods or other evergreens anchor the ends and provide great edge definition. Taller-growing plants should be positioned in the back, or even at the center of an island bed, with the lower-growing plants centered in front or around the larger ones.
Nature likes to keep things interesting, so don’t be afraid to play along! I love Lychnis varieties, Stick Verbena, and Queen Anne’s Lace popping up in my beds. The variety is visually appealing and keeps the eye moving. Color blending your garden works well if you follow the color wheel and place complementary colors next to each other. For example, a splash of yellow is a stunning addition to a garden filled with reds and lavenders. Lighter flowers really make nearby dark flowers pop. When you choose perennials, look for full and colorful foliage with new growth appearing.
Do you feel inspired to add a perennial garden to your landscape? Browse through our photos for inspiration, and when you’re ready, contact us at Dargan Landscape Architects to schedule a consultation.
I think that it would be really nice to be able to have a perennial garden in my yard. This definitely seems like it would be a great way to be able to add some color and uniqueness to my front yard. This definitely would be unlike anything that I have had before. However, I think that it would be beautiful and a lot easier to maintain.
I have been looking for ways to make my backyard look great without a major landscaping project. Planting a perennial flower garden seems like an excellent way to spruce up my backyard. I didn’t realize that perennial gardens require less maintenance and grooming. I will definitely follow your advice to start small at first and then expand from there.
I thought that you made a good point about starting small when planting a perennial garden. That’s what I need to do with my own garden. I always try to take on a large project to plant a bunch of new flowers in my yard, and I would start feeling overwhelmed halfway through. Starting off by defining the boundaries of my garden will help to improve the overall definition in my yard to make planting my flowers easier. Thanks for the tips!
I absolutely love flowers. I have been really wanting to do a flower garden, as opposed to the traditional grass lawn. Perennials seem like a good choice. Thank you for the great post!
I would have one stellar garden if I could reproduce this in my backyard. I couldn’t imagine a garden any more beautiful than this. My goal is to one day have a garden that is a work of art or is considered a work of art.
Excellent post, Mary! I’m glad that I stumbled upon it because I’ve been thinking about landscaping my backyard. I would love to have a garden, so I’ll be sure to follow your garden-building guide. I’ve never had Stick Verbena in my garden beds, so I’ll be sure to get some. Thanks for sharing this information with us; it’s been very helpful. Hopefully my garden is successful!
I love these tips on how to build a perennial flower garden. My wife and I are looking into some landscape designs, and this has been a great resource. I’m going to send this article to her and see what she thinks. Thanks again Mary!
That picture was so beautiful that my wife and I decided to read more about what you had to say. I am currently a landscape management major at a university, and was hoping to gain some good insights. I liked the advice you gave about starting small, as I have already made the mistake several times of going too over-the-top. It sounds like you do a great job, so thanks for sharing this post with us!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on perennial gardens. I too love that they come back every year! It frees up time from planting so I can spend some extra time working on my large pots that sit next to our front door. People are always impressed by my beautiful garden but they don’t realize that I don’t have to spend the time planting the flowers every year!
Well, I agree with what you had said above. It is really important to maintain the proper grooming of our garden. Landscape provides a wide range of opportunities to enjoy the outdoors.
I like how you said, “To define the boundaries of your garden, boxwoods or other evergreens anchor the ends and provide great edge definition”. I’m planting some new trees in my garden today. I always plant new trees during the fall. Also, I plant new bushes around this time too. Are boxwoods rather bushy?
This looks beautiful. My wife and I are in the process of planning out our first garden. I am glad you reminded us to start small. We definitely don’t want to jump in over our heads at the very beginning. I can’t wait to see the color blending, as you mentioned, that we can come up with.
I love having perennials in my garden. My dad always had them while growing up and I think that they remind me of him. I think that I will go buy some perennials and add them to my garden. It will be like having a piece of my childhood with me.
Great post! The perennial is definitely the go to choice for a low maintenance plant. I like your suggestions about “grouping clumps of 3-5 plants together”. This will allow for easy planting and overall care. Thanks for sharing this excellent resource!
I think a landscape with a lot of flowers would be nice. I know that my wife is really wanting to build a flower garden and I think it would be nice as well to make her a garden of her own. This picture would be ideal because then she can tend a lot of plants and also mix up the different plants so each part is really organized and nice.
Great Info. Would love to here your thoughts on xeriscaping..
Thanks for the tip about starting small when it comes to landscape design. A friend of mine is looking to start a garden on their back patio. I’ll have to show her some of these tips. Thanks for sharing!
My wife would love to put a perennial flower garden in. She’s big into landscape design and she wants this to be her next project. I like your idea about starting small. It makes sense and seems like it’ll help it turn out well in the long run. Thanks for sharing this.
I definitely agree that it’s good advice to start small when designing your new garden. That being said, you also advise to grow perennials together because it’s the most practical and allows for easy planing and soil separation. This is really good to know so that I can plan accordingly and be able to manage this project in the best way possible. I’ll definitely use this insight! Thank you for sharing!
I liked the point that you made about why perennials are nice to plant in a flower garden. My wife and I have been planning our garden for the past year, and we’re looking for the right flowers to plant in one corner of the yard. Having a flower bed that will bloom every year seems like a good choice for our garden. Thanks for the post!
Thanks for the tips on how to design a perennial garden. What a great landscaping touch they make! I like your comment about starting small. For me, that would give me a chance to figure out how to help the flowers grow and flourish before investing in a whole garden full of them. I’ll have to show this post to my wife. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for all of the tips! I never knew that making a Perennial Garden could be so easy. I liked how you said that,”The best piece of advice I can give when designing your new garden is to start small. The best way to display your perennials is in plant clumps of at least three to five plants of your favorite, most coveted species. Growing perennials together is the most practical option — it allows for easy planting, soil preparation, and care.”. I was able to have my garden turned into a Perennial Garden thanks to a local contractor that hired.
The photography that you have of your garden, is beautiful. Hiring a landscaper seems like a good way to make the most of the space that you have. I really like how landscaping, gives you the chance to be creative with your yard.
I’ve been trying to make a nice garden for my new home, but I have no idea where to start. I’ll make sure I put some consideration into soil preparation! I didn’t even think about having taller-growing plants be in the back. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Mary,
Love the suggestion of a perennial flower garden. Low maintenance, relatively cheap to do, and looks amazing!
Cheers
David
It is amazing to see what a good landscaping job can do for a yard and home. Last summer my parents and I worked really hard to remodel our whole backyard to make way for a deck that my parents were building. Though the main focus was the deck, we ended making room for a flower and vegetable garden that resembles the beauty of the garden shown here.
I have friends with beautiful gardens and I want to have one too. I’m thinking of hiring a landscape architect to help me design a garden for my backyard. I really like the perennial garden in the picture and the advice you give to plant them close together. Thanks for sharing!
I really appreciate the suggestion to start small. My family plants flowers every year and each year we plant more than we can handle. We have a few flower pots that haven’t suffered yet. Hopefully, these flowers will be able to stay beautiful.
Thank you for the help. My wife and I are hoping to focus on landscape design more for our yard. I think we should start small, as you discussed. How easy is to add onto an existing flower garden?
My wife is in the process of doing a small garden of these. It’ll look good once they really start to take off more.
I want to build a nice garden in my back yard. It makes sense that I would want to have it in a manageable area. That way I can easily take care of it!
I agree that when you are designing a flower garden you would want to start small. It would be good to do this so that you can get a feel for it and learn the basics. If that is too complicated for you or you are too busy I would imagine that a landscape designer would also give you ideas for where to start.
I want to make the right garden. It makes sense that I would want to get a nice perennial flower garden! I’ll make sure that I choose the right plants. It’s definitely a good idea to find three to five different species!