10 tips for growing perennials

Exciting and romantic, perennials die back in winter and emerge anew in spring. A list of garden-worthy perennials would number in the hundreds, but many of the tips below can be used to help all perennials grow better.

Wherever you live, there are dozens of perennials that you can use to bring colour and fragrance to your garden year after year. They vary in winter hardiness and tolerance of humid heat.

• Peonies, for example, thrive where winters are cold and summers are mild.
• In warmer climates, some daylilies and daisies hold onto a little green growth through the coldest part of winter.

• Look for perennials that bear variety names, which often bloom longer and stronger than perennials that can be grown from seed.

Named varieties often cost a little more because they're propagated from cuttings or divisions rather than from seed, but they're worth it.

• If you do start perennials from seed, be prepared to wait a year, or maybe more, for the plants to bloom well.

Most perennials need to sit through a period of cold weather before they will develop lots of buds and flowers.

Because perennials bloom for a brief period, select plants with attractive foliage.

• Bergenia, plumbago and many sedums have waxy leaves.
• Bleeding heart, coral bells and cranesbills exhibit "cut" leaves.
• Hostas offer interesting variegation patterns, and perennials with grey foliage, such as Russian sage, go with everything.

Before installing perennials, plot your basic plan on a piece of paper.

• If you like, use tracing paper to make overlays for each month of the growing season.
• Note the bloom time for your perennials, then add annuals and bulbs to fill colour gaps.

• Perennials look best planted in groups of at least three plants, or you can set more plants together in drifts.
• Locate perennials that bloom early and then fade away behind those that are at their best in late summer.

Perennials often remain in one spot for several years.

• Turn the soil over to at least 30 centimetres (one foot), so the plants' long-lived roots will have a good home, and incorporate plenty of organic matter to ensure adequate water and air circulation.

Prevent drought stress the first season after planting a new perennial so it will develop plenty of strong roots that will help it get through winter.

Perennials make much of their new growth in spring, so that's when they most need nutrients.

• Your best choice is a balanced, timed-release fertilizer or an organic fertilizer, such as aged compost or thoroughly rotted manure.

• Mulch perennials throughout the entire growing season with an attractive organic mulch to suppress weeds, retain moisture and prevent frost heaving in winter.

In gardens where slugs or snails chew holes in plant leaves, rake up the mulch in spring and spread a fresh layer a few weeks later, after the soil has warmed.

Deadhead perennials religiously, snipping or snapping the spent flowers off the stems.