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Plan Ahead for Spring: Choosing The Right Perennials

Plan Ahead for Spring: Choosing The Right Perennials

Nature Hills Nursery |

Nature Hills is shipping dormant potted Perennials and Perennial bareroot bulbs, rhizomes, and tubers as long as the weather is safe this autumn! So now is the perfect time to order all your favorites and start preparing for the spring season!

Budget-conscious Perennial plants come back year after year. You’ll be amazed at the new growth that jumps out of the ground each spring! Because reliable Perennials are also so easy to grow, fast-growing, and have so much variety, they make it possible to establish your dream garden quickly!

Plus they like to be divided every few years, giving you free plants to fill in the gaps and expand your landscape with their beauty!

Collect all your favorites for a personalized landscape that makes you, your neighbors, and your wildlife happy!

  • Choosing The Right Perennial For Your Site
    • Sun
    • Location
    • Planning
    • Soil & Moisture
  • Perennial Care, Maintenance & Pruning
  • Why Choose Nature Hills For Perennials?

So Many Choices!

Let's get started on how to select the perfect Perennial for your needs because there is a Perennial plant for every niche area of your landscape!

Nature Hills has small perennials for container gardeners and tall perennials for high impact. Spreading perennials for groundcover, and tidy mounded shrub-like Perennials! You’ll want to check out some of our more Unusual Perennial selections too!

Need plants that thrive in wet or dry soil, and sun or shade? Or native plants, and perennials for wildlife! Perennials are nectar and pollen-rich plants that support a vast array of bees, butterflies, and beneficial insects! Many are even highly attractive to Hummingbirds!

Many perennials have long stems and bountiful blooms for all your bouquet and floral design needs! Create gorgeous floral arrangements with the armloads of blossoms you’ll cut from your very own cutting garden full of perennial flowers!

Select spring flowering, summer flowering, fall flowering, reblooming, and long-lasting flowering times to ensure something blooming throughout every stage of the growing season! There are even perennials that provide winter interest too!

Need shade or sun, or something in between? There’s a wide range of cold and heat-hardy perennial plants, plus specific plants for every environmental situation! Maybe you just want a garden that the deer won’t treat as their personal dining room. Honestly, the sky’s the limit and your choices are vast.

Whatever nook and cranny you are trying to fill … Nature Hills has you covered! You’ll find whatever your heart (and garden) desires in our stunning collection of Perennial plants for sale!

How to Choose the Best Flowering Perennials for You

Hold onto those garden dreams for a moment… First, we need to know about your garden!

Every plant page has a Plant Highlights section for specifics on care. Enjoy the fun process of looking, considering, and choosing our lovely plants!

1. Sun Availability

Perennials are adaptable! Will you be selecting perennials for full sun? Or is your new perennial design going to be partially shaded? Or are you working in a completely shaded location? Some thrive in either, doing great in dappled sun, part sun/part shade. Maybe it’s morning sun and afternoon shade, or the other way around?

Study your landscape to see how much sun you have on an average day. Track how many hours of direct sun or shade your preferred planting area receives. Then use our Sun Exposure toggle to select the right plants for your location.

Too little sun and you’ll not get any flowers if the plant is a full sun plant. Too much sun for a shade-loving plant and your leaves will burn and the plant will dry out fast.

Remember to account for young trees - they will eventually grow and cast shade on locations around your yard that they don’t right now! This includes neighbors' plants and trees too!

Situate larger perennials so they won’t shade out smaller ones, or tuck shade-loving plants in their shade instead.

2. Growing Zone & Location Needs

You'll also need to know your Growing Zone. Type your zip code into the Zone Finder above the Plant Highlights on the product pages.

Too hot and a plant will suffer, too cold for its roots and it won’t survive the winter. Planting the right Perennial for your growing zone and climate (taking elevation into account) is imperative! When in doubt… go native!

Most perennials are not as fussy as some trees and shrubs, but air circulation is still important to prevent many foliar diseases such as Powdery mildew.

3. Planning For The Mature Height & Width

Next, understand your available space by measuring your garden to get the length, width, and height limitations. Even if it's just one empty hole in the garden - measure it! This is an important consideration because these showy flowering plants come in various sizes when mature! Filter by Mature Height and Mature Spread.

A plant that spreads wide can become a hard-working mass planting for garden filler and privacy - or it can become an overwhelming troublemaker in the wrong setting.

Plan out if you want individual plants to show off on their own, or do you want the plants to grow together and touch. Create a solid fill by planting them closer than the smallest number listed on their Mature Spread.

Planting too densely can also create a competition situation where plants fight for moisture and fertilizer

4. Soil & Moisture Needs

Next, you need to know your soil's drainage and soil type.

  • Maybe you have Clay soil that drains slowly.
  • Is it alkaline or acidic?
  • If your soil is soggy all the time, is located by the gutters or HVAC unit, or is near a water source - Create a Rain Garden!
  • Rocky, sandy, or grave-filled soil that drains fast? Is it sunny, hot, dry, parched, and barren? Start a Rock Garden! Maybe you need a Xeric garden or live in an arid climate?
  • There are hard-to-kill plants for that hell strip along the sidewalk, street, or driveway!

Some plants can handle these specific situations and others like clay soil, higher soil salinity if you’re by the ocean, or alkaline or acidic conditions. Other Perennials thrive in rich, organic soil, and others practically grow in the cracks of the sidewalk in urban areas!

If you can’t work in your soil - work around it! Creating raised gardens, planting in raised garden beds and planters, or creating a berm by hauling in the soil to mound up 18-24 inches higher than your native soil and planting into those mounds. This improves drainage and helps with soil compaction and poor soil.

If there is an underground pipe, septic tank, or utility line situation that you can’t dig through working against the garden of your dreams, check with your local Diggers Hotline before picking up a shovel, then berm the area or choose another location.

Container gardens are another option for gardeners short on space!

Once planted, add a 3-4 inch layer of arborist wood chips over the top of the soil and around the plants and maintain that mulch layer for incredible results. You can also work in some compost to improve moisture retention.

Check the Plant Highlights and each plant's needs for the right perennial for you!

The Basics of Perennial Care

Read everything you need to know about planting Perennials and Perennial care here. Perennial plants are among the easiest to grow and often the most low-maintenance!

With the exception of some water-loving and some very drought-tolerant plants, Perennials generally thrive in moderate, yet consistent moisture, well-drained fertile soil, and appreciate a mulched bed.

Check on the Plant Page and the Plant Highlights section for pruning information geared toward each specific type of Perennial too!

Why Buy Plants Online from NatureHills.com?

Our whole team adores Nature...that's why we choose to grow and sell plants! NatureHills.com wants to do the right thing to protect our beautiful planet as much as you do! Plus we’re here to help you every step of the way! Check out our #ProPlantTips Garden Blog for additional help and resources!

Some plants behave wonderfully in many areas of the country. However, it can do too well in other areas. Nature Hills is the first company to use Plant Sentry™ which seamlessly helps us block shipments of regulated plant material into sensitive ecosystems.

Plant Sentry™ will alert you if we aren't able to send a plant to you that may be harmful to your area. We strictly adhere to all Federal and State agricultural regulations. Get in touch with our knowledgeable customer service team to find the perfect alternative should this happen.

Once you’ve ordered your Perennial plants from NatureHills.com, you’ll no doubt be waiting on the edge of your seat for your new garden gems to arrive! Track your boxes right to your house. Open them up right away and water them very well. 

Nature Hills Nursery makes it convenient and easy to get the plants you want! You can also be proud of your responsible choice.

Fill your garden with the wondrous variety of incredible Perennial flowering ornamental plant options at Nature Hills Nursery today!

Warning, growing Perennials can be addictive! So leave some space for all the new arrivals hitting the website too!

Happy Planting!

 

Find Your Garden's Growing Zone!

Error, Unable to locate a growing zone for that ZIP code.

When ordering a tree or plant, make sure to know your planting zone.

You can determine your garden’s USDA hardiness zone by entering your Zip Code below.

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