5 Tips For Success With Perennials
After growing vegetables in the backyard for a while, you feel something is missing. Everything seems perfect, but you know in heart something is missing. After a while you realize that Vegetable Gardens have not much color and look uninteresting. When I told the same to a friend, he suggested to spread some perennial flowers among the vegetables. I thought it was a good idea. For the same work, we get to grow vegetables and also make the garden look beautiful.
Perennial flowers have a life of one year but they do come back alive year after year, without replanting. During the off-season, stems look dry and frail as if there is no life in the plant, but they magically seem to bloom again when the season comes again. Nature works in mysterious ways !
Below are few tips for success with Perennials:
#1. Perennials herbs and flowers require proper drainage in the soil. You should build a raised bed, if the water is getting stagnated. To find out, if the soil is OK or not for perennials, dig a hole, fill it with water and give it a day. Next day, fill again. If the drainage is good, water will have been gone in half a day. And if it is not dry, you must raise the bed.
#2. Picking up perennials for your garden requires a little planning. Because, not all plants have the same bloom season and wither season. The idea is to select different perennials, study the time lines, so that you have blooming flowers all round the year.
#3. Most often, the local Nursery will have the seeds suitable for that area. So, we don’t to bang our heads on selecting seeds. The blends are optimized to flower in your garden for your area. If blends are not available take the nursery’s suggestion for a what could be a good mixture. They will help you out to blend in something for you.
#4. Mulch or protective covers is a must for planting perennials. This reduces the amount of weeds and increases water retention. Pine needles and bark do a wonderful job. Depending on the other parts of your garden, you can have them on hand. Fertilizers should be used sparingly once the plants start coming to life.
#5. Perennial seed should be put in small clumps based on the directions. This is necessary because if you have too many too close, the tend to spread out and choke other plants. Sprinkle little bit of fertilizer that is not so strong while you plant the seeds. You will see flowers blooming in no time