The Secret to Continuous Blooms

By Richard Zondag

( SPONSORED CONTENT)— Plants in the landscape bring enjoyment and pride if you do it right. Color and foliage variants can add beauty to your landscape. Let’ s discuss some plants that will provide you with hues, and by combining different types of plants, you can have color throughout the growing season.

Shrubs

Many shrubs can be used to create borders or direct how you want people to enter and enjoy your landscape. Foliage shrubs create texture while adding color and contrast in the garden. Ninebark and smoke bush are a few examples of foliage shrubs with unique and vibrant colors. Tall shrubs like red leaf plum can be used to create a background for the landscape border to provide privacy.

Flowering shrubs create long-lasting color and seasonal interest with various colors and textures. Many flowering shrubs offer pollinator-friendly benefits. Popular flowering shrubs include butterfly bush, hydrangea and spirea.

Perennials

Perennials are plants that come back year after year and provide the backbone of a flower border. However, they typically bloom only once per season, from late spring to early summer or late summer to fall. If you are looking for an entire season of color, you should pick complementary plants that give you color when others are just foliage.

Some perennials that provide spring and early summer color are creeping phlox, peonies, iris, English daisies, forget-me-nots and primroses. All these bloom in late May or June. Some that bloom in the summer are rudbeckia, hemerocallis, echinacea and yarrow.

Fall bloomers include chrysanthemums, fall asters and hibiscus. These perennials give you nice, variable colors and heights of plants, and you can count on them coming

back every year as the backbone of your landscape. Because perennials mainly provide color in spring and fall, you must look elsewhere for summer blooms.

Annuals

Annuals are perfect to help fill the void of color during the summer. Because annuals are plants that go from seed to seed in one season, you have to replant them yearly. Some popular annuals to add color to your summer garden are petunias, calibrachoas and

geraniums for sunny areas, and lobelias, impatiens, vinca, torenia and coleus( colorful foliage) for shady areas. By leaving spaces in your perennial borders where annuals can be planted, you can make a lovely palette for your enjoyment all season long.

Bulbs

Do you want to add even more color to your landscape? In that case, fall-planted bulbs such as tulips, daffodils, alliums and fritillarias can be used for early spring color when planted in the middle to background of your borders. Crocus, snowdrops and other small bulbs can be planted for early spring blossoming.

By thoughtfully combining shrubs, perennials, annuals and bulbs, you can create a vibrant landscape that provides beauty throughout the growing season. Whether adding structure with colorful shrubs, enjoying the seasonal blooms of perennials, filling in gaps with bright annuals or welcoming spring with early bulbs, each plant brings your garden to life. With careful planning, you can enjoy a landscape that is not only visually stunning but also rewarding year after year. Happy planting!

About the Author:

Richard Zondag is a horticulturist, master gardener and the owner of Jung Seed Co.