When creating a garden, it is important to not only design based on beauty and bloom time but also to include pollinator-friendly plants that will bring the butterflies and bees to your garden. There are a few plants that really stand out to me as my Top 5 must-have plants for a garden that is a pollinator’s dream come true.
2018 Perennial of the year is..PRIMO™ Black Pearl Heuchera! The deep black foliage is amazing, especially when mixed with other perennials to show off its color.
Perennial Plant of The Year- Asclepias tuberosa, what a great choice! With all the hype these days over the Monarch Butterfly this orange Milkweed is a perfect selection to be named Perennial Plant of the Year 2017.
My new favorite Chick Charm is Chick Charm Golden Nugget. This tiny beauty has found a home in my perennial rock garden. I have had so much fun watching the color change as the winter weather arrived in Michigan. When I purchased this Chick Charm from Garden Crossings this summer it was a bright green color with red picoted tips. Now it is a beautiful golden color with red tips. The baby “chicks”, will begin to sprout when the weather breaks.
Why plant drought-tolerant plants even if your region isn’t experiencing a drought? They’re easy-care perennials that keep growing, blooming, and performing even if you forget to water them (after they’re established), even if it doesn’t rain, and even when you leave for a week on vacation in the middle of summer. You don’t have to be in the middle of a drought to appreciate the utility of these plants.
But, before we recommend plants for you, we need to set a couple of things straight.
Where do you find that unusual clematis vine for your mailbox or arbor garden? At Garden Crossings! We have dozens of Clematis varieties, including many that you can’t find anywhere else. Don’t settle for common clematis, when you can enjoy exquisite climbing vines with bell-shaped, fringed, or double-flowering blooms. While vines with flowers in shades of purple are common, we also have pink, burgundy, white, and even yellow flowered clematis. Keep clematis color in your garden all year with spring and fall flowering varieties. Don’t have a lot of room for a clematis vine? Enjoy a compact clematis anywhere in the perennial garden.
Looking for a climbing clematis vine to add upward color to your garden? You have come to the right online supplier of clematis vines! Garden Crossings has over 60 varieties of clematis in colors ranging from white, pink, purple, red & yellow. Clematis is a climbing vine that grows anywhere from 2 feet to 20 plus feet.
Do you garden large, or in miniature? Whichever your preference, Garden Crossings has hosta varieties that fit the bill. Our favorite of the giant hosta varieties is almost a shrub, it’s so huge. Empress Wu has large deep green leaves, a foot or more in length. The whole plant has a spread of between 5-6 feet and gets up to four feet tall. It’s truly a showstopper.
Are you more of a mini gardener? We have small hosta varieties for you, too. ‘Fireworks’ is a variegated variety with green edges and white centers. This hosta reaches a mature height of 8-10 inches and a spread of 6-8 inches. The leaves grow in an upright pattern, giving it a unique habit.
Can you grow a colorful, long-blooming garden without adding annuals? You certainly can! With a little bit of planning and organization, you can plant a garden that blooms and has flashy, splashy color all summer long without the labor of adding annuals.
Of course, we love our various annual flower offerings for the enormous explosions of color they provide. However, if your goal is more beauty with less work and you want to expand your garden without replanting it every year, perennials are your answer.
You love the idea of perennials and not having to plant your plants every year, but you also want a perennial that will bloom all summer. That should be easy to find, right? Actually it is a little tricky to find a long blooming perennial that will give you color for most of the season, most perennials have a couple weeks to maybe a month of bloom time.
I have come up with a few varieties that I will feature that are a long blooming perennial flowers. Most will give you color from May- September with a little dead heading between blooms.
On days when I am working in the retail garden center at Garden Crossings, I will often get asked “What is your favorite perennial?”. To that my response is “Every week something different is flowering so it is hard to choose a favorite.’ But with that being said I do have one that reminds me of hope for each new season.
Do you ever find yourself saying “I love my garden, but I feel like I could do so much more? All the color is at the ground level, I need more height. But, I don’t want a big shrub or something that will take up so much room…” I know I have areas in my garden where this is my thought exactly, I want height but not width. Well let me introduce to you Clematis, Flowering vines. Clematis is an upright growing vine that can reach anywhere from 3 foot upwards to 20 plus foot and like to climb fences, trellis, ladders, and arbors. Give Clematis a fence and it may spread to around 5 foot, give it a trellis or arbor and the spread will be just as wide as you accent.