Perennial Designs
The one thing you need to do is start dreaming about the garden you want to create. Here's a slide show with some great pictures of gardens built for dreaming. Click to move forward and close the window when finished.
Garden Dreaming
You have to click to move this slide show forward but if you want to see some interesting gardens, Click here for garden design dreaming
Free Ebook to Help You Pick Plants
Here's a free ebook I wrote about the Perennial Plants of the Year.
Garden Benches
Ever notice that great perennial gardens invariably have a garden bench or two. Here's a video on garden benches and why you really need one in your garden
Garden Design Thoughts
Another thought - there is a design principle called the "golden mean" that is essentially a 3:1 ratio. Your garden beds should be roughly 1 foot wide for every 3 feet in length to make them look their best. The practical maximum width is approximately 12 to 15 feet for larger borders. This means that if you have a perennial garden that is 45 feet long along one edge of your garden, it should be at least 12-15 feet wide. A 20 foot long border will be in the 6-7 foot width range.
Narrow perennial designs are not as effective as wider ones.
Use plants in clumps.
The advice to always plant 3 of any particular plant comes from this design principle. A garden composed of one plant of many varieties isn't a garden, it is a collection. Now, I have some gardens that are collections (I admit to collecting perennial plants) :-) but I also have some gardens that are designed to be good looking gardens and use more than a single plant of each variety.
Cottage Garden
A classic example of this is the cottage garden and if you want some ideas about design and cottage garden plants, here's a page.
Cottage garden design - note that this isn't what designers want you to think about.
Garden Viewpoint
Plant so that wherever you see the garden from (the "view point") the shorter plants are in the front of the garden. This ensures that the short plants are not "eaten" by larger plants in front of them.
Now, I regularly break this rule if I have a wonderful specimen plant I want to see or take advantage of in the design. I usually do this for a year or two and then move it backwards to its proper place in the garden.
Move Plants Around
This is another great thing about perennial designs. You can easily move plants around if you get tired of them in one spot or they might look better somewhere else. Do not be afraid to experiment.
Other Design Tips
There are a lot of perennial designs tips in the articles listed below. I'm also working at including some perennial garden plans on this site.
There's some other garden design information here.
Plant Lists
If you're interested in planting for specific purposes, you could check out the plant lists for hummingbird gardens or even the one on butterfly gardening.
Three season gardens are gardens that are in bloom through spring, summer and fall. Here's the basics of how to do this; note that I also wrote a book on this subject you can check out here.
And if you like the idea of fragrant perennials in your garden, click here
Something that has been a major gardening movement in Europe is slowly coming to North America and green roofs will shortly be in a neighborhood near you Check out the differences between the three systems here.
For a few flower garden design tips, you may want to click on the link.
And for a few more flower garden design tips, you might want to click here
Questions and Answers
Folks, I do my best to answer as many questions as I can every week (I get hundreds) but there's (sadly) no way I can get to them all. I do my best and if you fill out the form, I'll do my best but I can't make promises.
Meadow gardens and is there a "faster" way to establish them?
Ask a Perennial Design Gardening Question
If you have a question about perennial design, then feel free to ask it using this form.
Please note that the advice is by nature a general one - I can't design your garden for you but I may be able to point you to resources that will help you.
If you have a picture of the problem or situation, feel free to upload it here as well. Please keep the pic under 100K to speed uploading
What Other Visitors Have Asked about Perennial Design
Click below to see questions from other visitors to this page...
placing sun-loving perennials in shade A friend bought these wonderful flowers for me. I have no idea where best to put them. The 3 areas where I have flower-beds are mostly shaded with a ...
Gardening landscape help for beginner I have a 4x6 foot, with a little here and there spot that I want to put FULL SUN Perennials. I don't know were to begin. I don't know what plants to choose ...
More on Designing I have purchased your book - but I am looking now for more of your advice strictly on design, with pictures and diagrams. ( pointing out names of plants ...
Flowering Spikes: Perennials versus Annuals Hi. I live in Queens, New York. So that's the Eastern part of the nation. I'm thinking about ordering Lupines Russell Hybrid Mix to use in two containers ...
Black eye susans and daffodils The house we bought has an area on the side of the house that has daffodils and black eye susans. What can I plant that blooms between those? Seems there ...
If you want to ask a question about the plant lists, click here
