Success with Full Sun Perennials
Luckily, full sun perennials for the garden are usually easy plants to grow if a few simple conditions are met:
Soils, Sunlight and 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.
Aconitum, monkshood
Monkshood is a blue-flowering plant resembling Dephinium. All parts of this plant are poisonous.
Alcea/Hollyhock
One of the tallest and easiest of perennials to grow but there's a problem with all hollyhocks
Bellis perennis
Bellis or English Daisy for your early spring wakeup - maybe a bit weedy but charming
Caryopteris
While Caryopteris is a woody shrub, I cut it to the ground in the fall and call it a perennial
Iris japonica
Japanese iris are special plants for damp spots in full sun - here are full instructions
Ask a Full Sun Perennial Gardening Question
If you have a question about full sun perennials, then feel free to ask it using this form.
Please note - questions without email addresses will not be answered - these are entered on the page you'll see right after you ask your question. (Hey, if I can't email you the answer, how do I know you're going to read it. Note I do not use these in any way other than sending you answers and comments about this question)
Secondly, I suggest you run a search (see bottom of page) because if a question has already been asked, I tend not to answer them over and over again.
Please have patience, there's one of me and a ton of you - I can't promise to answer your question. (I'm semi-retired and do other non-gardening things)
If you have a picture to illustrate your question - that really helps (you can add up to 4 pics)
Here's What Others Have Asked
Click below to see questions from other visitors to this page...
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Doug says that they shouldn't have ...
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Can delphinium flowers be grown in flower pots.
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We found some old hollyhock plants around an old farm house and we are wondering when we can dig them up and transplant them into our garden.
Doug says ...
Pruning Perennial Flowers
Pruning perennial flowers Q&A with garden author Doug Green
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Goblin Gaillardia
How do I dead head this flower?
Thank you!
Doug says you deadhead this perennial flower by following the stem as far down as you can with your ...
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I live in northern CT In the winter I bring in my hibiscus when can I bring my hibiscus outside? What temperature range?
Doug says that this isn't ...
Hibiscus
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Doug ...
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How to handle Liatris after blooming?
Doug says that he assumes you mean the flower is finished - so it gets cut off down as far as you can cut the ...
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when & how do I move my Hollyhock to a different area?
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Thank you for your help
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White spit like stuff on my Helenium My Helenium has a milky substance pooling at the site where a few of the leaves and stems meet. It is white and feels like spit. The plant is located ...
Bordering with Perennials
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My old Perennial Border
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