Five Low-Work Perennials

by Doug
(Somewhere in his garden)

Let’s look at some great low-work perennial plants. The main criteria for getting onto this list is that the plant is rock-hardy, flowers for a long time, doesn’t need a lot of effort to grow it, really doesn’t require pruning, training or any other care than weeding. And fragrance, if possible, delivers bonus points.

So how am I doing so far? The following plants are sunlovers; we’ll get to shade loving no-work perennials in another column.

Daylilies

Heading up the list has to be daylilies. But not just any old daylily but the modern new hybrids bred for extended blooming.

This plant lives in full to part sun and thrives in almost any kind of soil you can deliver to it.

You can’t give it too much heat or cold and it will bounce back like the true champion it is.

The amazing thing about this plant is that it now comes in a bewildering array of flower shapes, sizes and even fragrances. You can get tall varieties, short varieties and you really need to look for the reblooming varieties. Just stay away from anything listed as “evergreen” because those are Southern varieties and really not hardy enough here.

Luckily the only place you’ll find those is via mail order but just watch those. And yes, I know the modern reblooming hybrids are more expensive than the old-fashioned or short blooming plants but you get to pick here.

Both are no-work and no-brainer choices for the no-work garden but one gives you three times the amount of blooms.

Geraniums

A second plant that really deserves a place in any garden is the Geranium. I’m not talking about the annual plant (really a Pelargonium),

I’m talking about the true, bone-tough perennial Geranium.

Again, this plant will thrive in the part to full sunshine garden, is rock-hardy and will, if you pick a modern hybrid, bloom literally all summer.

While I note that old varieties will often rebloom if you shear them back after the first bloom, modern plants such as the award-winning Rozanne, will bloom all summer with no pruning, no deadheading and no disease.

This is the real definition of a no-work plant for my garden. It is so easy to grow that you can also plant it in almost any soil in any light condition other than full shade and it will thrive.

There’s not as much as a price differential in Geraniums as there is in other modern plants so either look for this variety or pick ones that have extended or long-blooming on their label. The only real drawback is that the flowers aren’t fragrant; the leaves have a mint-fragrance if crushed though.

Echninacea

A third plant that fits almost all of our criteria is the coneflower or Echinacea.

This plant for the back of the border really prefers full hot sun but will grow almost equally well in a light-shade garden.

It prefers a soil that is well-drained because too much water around the roots in the late fall and early spring are going to rot it out. My apologies to those of you with heavy clay soils, this plant isn’t going to really like your garden. Light clay? It's worth a try.

For the rest of us, it blooms nicely from mid-summer to mid-fall and again with no work. Plant it and forget it. ‘Fragrant angel’ a white flowering variety advertises itself with fragrance but you have to stick your nose into it (or darn close) to get a whiff.

The wonderful thing about this plant is of course all the new colours the breeders are giving us. And by using the entire colour range, you can create a garden of multiple colours that is magnificent from mid-summer through mid-fall.

I’ve experimented with simply leaving the seedpods in place rather than pruning them down. The birds get most of the seeds and the odd seedling that pops up can be quickly removed in the spring. So this plant qualifies as a no-work perennial as well.

Peonies

What about peonies? I include them here because once properly planted by making sure the growing points are a single centimeter below the soil surface, this plant is good for decades in one spot of the garden.

While other plants require a digging and dividing every 3 years or so, this one simply sits and blooms with no attention.

It’s fragrant as all get out and you can lose yourself in this full sun charmer’s delight. It will take a light shade and keep on blooming but you might find a tad more leaf fungal problems in shade.

I can hear you complaining that you have to stake peonies and that’s work. I never do. I either grow the singles with their much-lighter blooms or I grow them next to plants such as Coneflower that are stiff enough and upright enough to support them so they don’t flop over.

And I only feed them compost so they don’t get tall and lanky and floppy. Again, those single blossoms come in a wide colour range and will blow your mind with the fragrance in early to mid-summer.

Veronica

Try one of the new Veronica plants. The long-blooming, no-work style of this plant started with the old ‘Sunny Border Blue’ and has continued to the much newer hybrids.

Look for those that advertise themselves as “upright” and “long blooming”. These plants love full hot sun but also do well enough in part shade that I grow them there as well.

They throw blooms in a range of blue-violets, pinks and whites from mid-summer to late-fall and have been pretty much insect and disease resistant in my garden.

If you can bear to cut them, they make great cut-flowers but that never happens in my own garden.

There are five no-work and no-hassle perennials that will make a perennial garden bloom most of the summer. What more do you want?