Tough Perennials
Youll see the old orange garden escapee growing on thin soil above rocks, clinging to life on cliffs, and hanging out in ditches everywhere.
Modern Tough Perennials
Modern hybrids bloom several times over the summer and theyll live in sun or medium shade. These tough perennials are not fussy about soil although they do tend to rot out if you put them in a bog.
Youll have to water this plant for the first month or two until it gets established but after that, it will bloom quite nicely all by itself with no more work or attention.
Easily available and modern plants come in a wide variety of colours and flower shapes.
Varieties
Perennial geraniums are another of the tough perennials for full sun or medium shade. Again, plant it water it for the first few months and then walk away. The taller varieties will give you a great show of bloom while the lower more ground cover varieties will simply keep expanding. Shear them back after the first bloom to promote a second bloom later in the early fall.
Our old friend beebalm or Monarda is another of the tough perennials that sun nor part shade, clay, nor open soil is going to deter.
Dry soils might slow down this tough perennials spread but assuming it isnt straight beach sand, this plant will live and flower in mid-summer from its 36-inch tall stalks. Do look for the more modern hybrids as they are powdery mildew resistant and flower in a wide range of colours.
Coreopsis verticillata is an old friend that Ive grown in a wide range of garden soils and that simply keeps on growing once established. The threadleaf coreopsis doesnt like a lot of shade but this only makes it more useful in a hot, sunny, clay garden. Once you get hooked on this long-blooming yellow daisy, youll be quite pleased that it is a survivor.
Interestingly enough, many of the herbaceous Anemone plants are tough perennials that will take sun and part shade as well as a full range of garden soil extremes.
In good soils, this plant quickly becomes a spreading nuisance but in really rotten soils, they behave (almost) as a great garden perennial. Use the taller varieties as theyll be the hardest to kill. Note that the bulbous anemone are not tough plants.
Shade Lovers
If youre looking for shade lovers, then look no further than Astilbe. This plant will thrive in soils ranging from clay to sand in the shade. If you insist on growing it in the sunshine, it wants a damper soil as sandier soils will not encourage blooms. Damp clay in the sunshine though is not a problem.
You also get a wide variety of plant heights and flower colours to pick from so feel free to go nuts on the plant shop aisles this spring.
One of my personal favourite plants is the Hosta and it too is a survivor. You can grow them in full hot sun or deep shade. You can grow them in light soils (sand is pushing the envelope) or clay soils and youll still get a great show of leaves.
The leaf colours will be different in the sun versus the shade, as those plants grown in the sun tend to be more washed-out looking than those in the friendlier shade.
It is a plant for shade rather than sun but you can abuse it if you want to and it will still come back year after year. Look for the fall blooming Hosta as they have flowers that are delightfully fragrant.
The "Shovel Breaker"
I once broke a favourite shovel on a monster plant of Aruncus. This old girl was about 3 feet across and wanted to stay in her spot out in a sandy, full sun garden. I wanted to move her and broke my best shovel in the process.
She moved eventually but those big tough roots proved once again why this plant will grow anywhere. Sun or shade, sand or clay, this plant will grow and throw huge flower spikes in early summer.
It resembles an Astilbe on steroids and will grow as big as a medium sized shrub. It takes approximately three years for this plant to reach its three-foot tall leafy maturity (it dies to the ground in the fall) but once it does mature, it will be the star of the early summer garden with its white flower spikes.
Finally, my list of tough perennials is going to include any member of the Campanula family. While some bluebells send rhizomes streaking across the garden, others self sow and produce tons of babies but they all bloom heavily and the better ones in blue and violet shades (you can find some pinks and white flowers) to give a super show.
They too bloom in sun or part shade. They have also been grown in heavy clay soils although the plants that do the best in clay tend to be the taller varieties and ones that spread by rhizomes.
There are other tough perennials as well but these are the cream of the crop in almost every garden across North America.
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