Full Sun Perennials

The backbone of the traditional perennial border is made up of full sun perennials. They spring from the ground to give us the textures and shapes (not to mention the colours and fragrances) that make our gardens and dreams reality. It is these plants that are most often featured in garden photography and those to-die for pictures in books and magazines. You might want to download this free ebook I wrote about the Perennial Plant Winners. Luckily, full sun perennials for the garden are usually easy plants to grow if a few simple conditions are met:

Soils & Sunlight & Care

They generally do not like heavy clay soils. The excessive winter moisture in these garden soils leads to rotting and winter death.

Full sun perennials prefer (obviously) full sun although many will tolerate shade in the morning or late afternoon.

Getting them the sun between 9 am and 3 pm is considered crucial to success.

Like all things though, the plants are more flexible than the written word and I encourage you to experiment with new settings. If the plant thrives, you win. If it struggles, then you can simply follow the directions elsewhere on this site and move it again.
Full sun perennials really appreciate soils with high organic matter content.

In my garden, I mulch the soil and this decomposing mulch adds organic matter. I also throw compost over the top of the plants each fall and spring (right on top of the mulch - it sinks down pretty quickly) to feed and nourish the soil.

High organic content in soils is a key to building a great perennial garden.

Full sun perennials appreciate regular maintenance. Tasks such as deadheading, perennial pruning and division are part of the skills of the perennial gardener and there are articles on the site dealing with these tasks. I hope the articles here help your garden; they come from my own garden experiences over the past 25 years gardening with full sun perennials.

Here's what you need to win with full sun perennials

Some Popular Plants (full list below)

Ornamental Onions or Alliums are one of the easiest full sun perennials to grow and even though they are technically a bulb, they deserve a place in the early summer perennial border.

Monkshood or Aconitum is a wonderful plant for full sun or light shade and I particularly like the old-fashioned bicolor form. The fall blooming varieties bring fantastic blue shades to the fall garden.

Coneflower or Echinacea. is a sun loving beauty!

Peonies are one of the superb classic perennial flowers and I'll tell you how to quickly and easily stake them so you can't see the stakes.
Hollyhocks are one of the stateliest and easiest of self-sowing perennials. Here's how to grow and enjoy those blooms.

Coreopsis or Butter Daisy is one of the longest blooming plants in our garden

Beebalm or Monarda is on my easy-to-grow list. A favourite tea of mine - Earl Grey - is flavoured with this garden plant.

Lavender is an aphrodisiac- that this is entirely true as this article points out.

Lavatera is a tall, shrubby perennial that produces scads of pink flowers and is a good plant for the back of the border. It will take a bit of shade too so that makes it even more versatile.

Mountain Bluet, Bachelor Buttons or Centaurea produces an early summer show of magnificently blue flowers.

Shasta Daisy is the perfect long-blooming plant for beginners to start growing. This plant is easy to grow and if deadheaded, it will bloom for a long time.

Poppiesare a visually exciting garden perennial. Their bright colours scream across the garden and here's how to grow them.

Russian Sage or Perovskia. Here's the secret to keeping this interesting plant alive.

Black Eyed Susan or Rudbeckia family of plants. These are North American natives and fill our fall gardens with those wonderful yellows we associate with fall.

Baby's Breath would come very close to being the most essential plant for every garden .

Bellis or English Daisy is a charmer. This dainty flowering plant is considered a mixed blessing. In cold climates, it flowers as a biennial giving us scads of spring daisies. In warmer climates, it can escape from the garden into lawns and other areas.

Perennial Hibiscus It is a show-stopping plant.

Perennial geraniums will quickly win your heart.

Full Sun Perennial Plant List

Achillea or yarrow is a superb plant for sunny hot spots.

Aconitum or Monkshood

Agastache has been in every one of my gardens but here's a warning about the newer ones.

Alchemilla or Lady's Mantle is a love it or hate it chartreuse flower with wonderful foliage.

Allium or ornamental onions

Anemone have lovely flowers but they are mostly heartless spreading thugs. Love 'em but control 'em.

Aquilegia or Columbine is an excellent self-sowing perennial for sun or very light shade.

Asters or Michaelmas Daisies are the stars of the fall, full sun perennials lineup (in more ways than one as this page points out).

Belamcanda or Leopard Lily or even Blackberry Lily is a short-lived but lovely iris- lookalike.

Buddleia or Butterfly Bush is one of the most fragrant of garden plants. And it really does attract butterflies!

Campanula or Bellflower are delightful bloomers but come with a spreading plant warning.

Caryopteris is a woody plant but it can be grown like a perennial in colder areas.

Centaurea, Bachelor Buttons, or Mountain Bluet are one and the same.

Chrysanthemums are one of the easiest of plants to grow. Here's a recipe for growing fall mums successfully to get you started.

Coreopsis or Butter Daisy" is a garden stalwart and long-blooming.

Delphinium flowers are one of the loveliest of mid-summer tall flowers.

Eschscholzia californica or California Poppy is an annual in my garden but a self-sowing perennial in many slightly warmer gardens.

Helenium is a superb bloomer if you keep it damp. If you don't keep it damp, it simply dies. One of the showiest of full sun perennials for the damp garden!

Hemerocallis or daylilies are stalwarts in the perennial border.

Iberis or Candytuft is an excellent rock garden plant in the full sun or light shade.

Iris and their sweet fragrance are one of the joys of early full sun perennials in the flower garden.

If you want some design hints for your own Iris Garden you could go there.

Here's a page on bearded iris and controlling iris borer.

One of the specialty iris - the Japanese Iris growing instructions can be found here.

And just to make your day, here are the different plants all known as butterfly iris

Another delightful and easily-grown member of the Iris family is the Siberian Iris Here's how to grow it.

Arctic Iris are delightful dwarf iris that can't be killed by cold temperatures.

Lathyrus or perennial sweet pea is a good vine, ground cover or perennial border plant.

Lavander is among the most favourite of full sun perennials and belongs in every garden.

Lavatera

Madonna Lilies are one of the finest white lilies you can have in your garden.

Lupines are easy to grow if you give this plant exactly what it wants.

Lysimachia is good for sun or part shade.

Monarda or Beebalm is a garden backbone plant. Excellent but a bit of a spreader.

Nepeta or Perennial Catnip is a delightful perennial for full sun. One of my favorite plants and I collected almost every variety available.

Paeonia or peonies are classic perennials for the sun.

Papaver, what can you say about poppies other than they are spectacular.

Phlox paniculata or tall garden phlox is a backbone plant in the perennial cottage garden. Here's how to grow this must-have plant.

Scabiosa or Pincushion flowers blooms all summer if kept deadheaded. It doesnt' like clay but if you feed it - it blooms like mad. Here's the rest of the growing instructions.

Trollius or Globeflower are bright yellow relatives of the buttercup (but far better garden plants) and can be grown and propagated with instructions here.

Veronica is one of the great blue flowers of the sunny perennial border and you should grow it for this reason alone. Here's a few other reasons.

Questions and Answers

Folks, as much as I want to help everybody, there's no way I can answer every question (I get hundreds every week) I do my best and if you put your email into the box, you'll be notified of when I get to it. I do my best but no promises of when I can answer your question.

My rudbeckia instantly get black spots in the spring. What to do?

My Sweet William won't come back - what do I do about them dying?

I have aphids on the lupins in my garden. What can I do?

My butterfly bushes don't bloom for a long time, what can I do?

Saving poppy seed - any tricks to learn?

There are ants on peonies in my garden. How do I get rid of them?

Ask a Full Sun Perennial Gardening Question

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What Other Visitors Have Asked about Full Sun Perennials

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