Choosing and Planting Perennials
Flower gardens can be much more beautiful than vegetable or fruit gardens. So even if you don't have a flower garden you might possibly want to add some flowers to beautify your garden. Perennial flowers will improve the look of any garden with almost no additional work for the gardener. You will certainly find a place in your garden to plant some perennials.
Unlike annual plants perennial flowers survive the winter and grow and bloom every year. In fall you can cut the stems and next spring the flowers grow new from the tubers or from their roots. Perennials are robust and usually only need very little care. Depending on your local climate different plants can be considered perennial.
Before starting to plant perennials you should run a test to see wheter the drainage of your soil is good enough or not. Dig a small hole with a shovel and fill it with water. On the next day fill it with water again and ten hours after that all traces of the water should be vanished. If the hole is still wet after that time you should use a raised bed for your perennials because it has better drainage.
You should invest some time to research what kinds of plants are perennial for your area and find out at what time of the year they are blooming. If you choose perennials with different times of blooming you can have a colorful garden most time of the year. Getting the right mixture of seeds may require some work but you only have to do to it once. There are chances that your local tree nursery or florist has a customized seed mixture optimized for your area. This could save you some research time.
Arrange the seeds in small groups when planting them. They will spread out and the result will not be satisfying if you place too many of them too close together. You can use some fertilizer but do it very sparingly. It is favorable to cover the soil with some mulch. This will reduce weeds and water evaporation and thus reduce your work load. Bark works best for this purpose. If you do everything right you will soon see the first flowers blooming.
