Top 4 Guaranteed Low-Maintenance Hardy Perennials for Months of Colourful Flowers in Your Garden
Do you wish that your garden looked more vibrant and colourful with minimum effort ? Do you wonder how you could attract more bees and make your very own thriving nature sanctuary?
Hardy perennials are brilliant at providing you with weeks and weeks of bright flowers, from spring right through until autumn. The following top recommendations are super easy to grow; they will rejuvenate your outdoor space and boost your enjoyment of your precious low-maintenance garden. Bees will quickly find your pollinator-friendly plants and will feast happily for hours.
1. Agastache
Charmingly fluffy bottle brush flower heads grow tall and proud from late spring onwards. Agastache is a stunning and valuable plant for adding height to your low-maintenance garden. Most varieties are along the blue/purple end of the spectrum, although I have seen white and pink too.
Gently rub the soft green foliage between your fingers and you’re rewarded with the subtle scent of lemon and licorice. Plants which offer beautiful flowers and fragrant foliage are especially valuable in a tiny garden.
Agastache is loved by many types of bees. I’ve seen huge bumble bees bob and weave drunkenly around my garden after gorging themselves on agastache nectar. Honey bees are also big fans of the softly spiky flower heads.
Agastache will flower abundantly in a sheltered and sunny spot. It keeps going until severe frosts strike in Somerset, England. Even then, the tall spires look magnificent when frosted, and add great architectural interest all through the colder months.
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2. Japanese Anemones
Elegant and graceful, Japanese anemones are a fabulous sight. Starting to flower during late summer, as many other plants have passed their best, they are hugely valuable when you want to extend the flowering season in your low-maintenance garden.
Ranging from glistening white, through palest pink, to richly rosy magenta, there will be one suitable for your tastes. The white flowered varieties look like they have been dipped in sugar; they sparkle gently in the light — quite magical.
Japanese anemones can grow to over 1.5m tall, so along with agastache, they’re incredibly useful when you’re looking for ideas to add height to your garden.
They can start to flower anytime from July and will carry on going until severe frosts stop them. You can still enjoy their statuesque beauty though, as they look fantastic when the seed head pompoms are glittering with frost.
Hoverflies especially seem to enjoy Japanese anemones. Hoverflies are very useful insects to encourage into your garden as they eat pesky aphids.
3. Hardy Geraniums
Yes! Another of my articles featuring hardy geraniums, and I make no apology for that. They are simply the easiest plants that you are likely to grow. Bees love them and they are very long flowering plants. They’re an essential part of most excellent low-maintenance garden design. Why would you not grow geraniums?
I must emphasise that I mean hardy geraniums here, not pelargoniums. Hardy geraniums will die back in winter, but they will emerge in the springtime and start flowering and delighting you afresh.
Pelargoniums are completely different and will need to spend the winter on a windowsill or in a greenhouse, as low temperatures will kill them.
Choose from fresh whites, pastel pinks, lavenders and blues, or go wild with vibrant cerise, magenta or indigo. Some geranium flowers are finely veined with a contrasting colour. There will be a geranium that speaks to you.
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And the bees will love you for growing them in your low-maintenance garden. Geraniums flower profusely and keep going and going…and going, so bees have a plentiful supply of nectar.
Depending on the variety you choose, geraniums will thrive in conditions ranging from damp shade to hot and dry. So maybe think about where you might like to plant one before you choose?
4. Nepeta
Nepetas are fabulous and frothy, with delicate trumpets of flowers. These are set off beautifully by soft and fragrant foliage, which smells of lemon and mint.
There are different forms of nepeta. Some are low and sprawling, some are upright and taller. Which type would suit your low-maintenance garden needs?
Most varieties have gentle lavender or lilac flowers, but there are blues and whites to be found too.
Nepetas will start to grow in spring. Often their fragrant foliage appears long before the flowers, but these soft jade, scented leaves are pretty enough by themselves.
They’re another very long flowering perennial and often continue to generate new blooms until the first frosts.
They’re absolute bee magnets too, so you’ll know that you’re giving nature a helping hand, as well as having a beautiful low-maintenance garden.
Just think of the satisfaction that you’ll feel when you admire your strong hardy perennials ablaze with colour, and supporting valuable pollinators. And it’s so easy to accomplish this too.
Why not plan to include one of these budget-friendly fantastic plants on your next trip to the garden centre?
The Nitty Gritty
Hardy perennials are defined as -
‘a plant that lasts three seasons or more and that can withstand freezing temperatures’
— Collins English Dictionary
So your plants will die back and some may even disappear altogether in winter, but they are merely resting. They will grow again when the warmer weather begins.
All these stunning plants grow in containers in my tiny low-maintenance garden. You can do the same, or you could plant them in a flower bed or border. Planting in a flower bed will allow them to clump up and spread for maximum flower power, but I don’t have enough space.
If you are planting in a container, use good quality compost and water frequently during dry weather.
