🔫🌻🔫 7 EASY PERENNIALS ANYONE CAN GROW || Linda Vater

[Music] [Applause] [Music] well this is a heads up to any of you who are first-time gardeners or any of you who garden in clay like i do and across the south a lot of us do garden in clay this is my number one bullet proof perennial these perennials can really take almost anything that weather or really bad growing situations can throw at them these are hail resistant they are heat resistant they're cold resistant they're wind resistant and part of that is probably because they originated on the prairie they're native prairie plants and even though a number of them i'm going to show you have been hybridized nevertheless they have that really good dna in there in their veins so the number one is echinacea purpurea if that name is familiar to you as a cold remedy then that would be this same plant again there are lots of new varieties of this that are in different hues some of them in kind of a oh there are some in white there are some in kind of a gold orange color but i have found that just the regular old echinacea purpurea or purple coneflower is the one that performs the best it's a pollinator magnet it has wonderful cone head seed pods once it finishes blooming i love the fact that the seed can be harvested and gifted to others you can scatter it around in different places in your garden it makes a wonderful cut flower with or without petals and there are some varieties that where the petals kind of radiate out and some that were they kind of oh they kind of grow down towards the ground look for a form that is pleasing to you now i don't have these in bloom right now to show you and that's intentional because you can probably find these in your nursery and garden centers right now you can get them in the ground and they'll be blooming in your own garden like i say these are tough as nails they're drought tolerant and once you get them established they really are pretty carefree so now let's move on to the now number two on my list maybe the easiest to grow plant ever and that's rudbeckia it is oh you probably know it as a black-eyed susan some people call it a brown eyed susan the variety that you see fairly commonly that is probably the most vigorous variety out there is rudbeckia gold sturm i'll put some pictures of it in bloom where it was very rambunctious in my garden southern living came out once to do nothing but just film the rudbeckia and it's absolutely beautiful again it can handle any kind of weather condition poor soil it's drought tolerant i also like it because it can handle part shade now that said this can sometimes i have found to be a little bit invasive so when it goes to seed and after the flowers are finished if you don't want it to really propagate itself and proliferate around the garden then you might want to deadhead it it's really beautiful it's a very perky flower it has that quintessential color that we associate with mid to late summer kind of gold now another variety that i really like of rudbeckia is called rubeckia maxima and i love it because it has these wonderful large blue green leaves i got this at bustani farm in in stillwater oklahoma this is also extremely tough you can see here it's getting ready to put on a flower this is a softer yellow what i think of more is maybe a springy yellow it's not got it doesn't have quite so much gold in it i've got it growing here in tandem with some lilies and these beautiful allium i love it in any kind of gray montage where i'm growing other gray plants along with it and one of those other gray plants is the next plant my next tough as nails bulletproof plant and that would be sedum autumn joy i love it this time of year and when it first comes out in the spring it's got these wonderful blue green tufts you can literally just break off a stem stick this right in the dirt and it will make a whole nother plant now later in the season i would say probably depending on your light conditions in late july sometime in august it will put out these beautiful umbral-shaped kind of flat head pale pink flowers that are absolutely beautiful and i would say in my own garden it gets the prize for being absolutely the most efficacious pollinator magnet it will attract just every kind of pollinator out there it's absolutely beautiful the flowers are great as cut flowers they are beautiful when they are dried it's just really a really wonderful plant you can grow it in containers you can grow it in the ground it makes a wonderful border plant and i have seen oh my friend brenton in australia we just did a garden tour at his home he uses it in an absolutely magnificent way in huge swaths of a flower bed could not be easier is another plant that you can readily share with others and spread around your garden and that would be sedum autumn joy now a cousin of sedum autumn joy is another variety that i really really like we're going to come into the sun here and this one is called pure joy i believe this is a proven winter plant i started this a number of years ago i like the fact that it's got kind of ribbed edges to the leaf it's got an interesting leaf form it is very very easy to grow it grows a little bit more compactly and i really like it more for its growth performance and its growth form than i do really for the flower itself but if you want to mix this with the sedum autumn joy it makes a wonderful counterpoint to the large leaf of the sedum autumn joy and you can see there that it's really really a pretty combo now there are so many different kinds of sedum that you can get that have purple leaves variegated leaves i would say that practically all of them are going to be wonderful in your garden so if there's ever a category of plants that you want to experiment with i would say go after the sedums now one thing that they demand may be unlike the other two plants and i shouldn't even say demand they're not that finicky but they do appreciate a little bit better drainage so if you can you might want to mix a little bit of grit into your plot your uh planting medium for me that's builder sand but they will reward you with great beautiful growth that is not overly aggressive and i think looks beautiful absolutely everywhere and anywhere in your garden i've got it growing both in the front and in the back now let's go on to another selection now i wish i could tell you exactly what variety this was because it performs absolutely brilliantly in my garden and if you're ever in the area and you would like me to share some of it with you i would happily do so but as a broad category it's veronica there used to be a variety called sunny border blue i believe that was a gorgeous blue color this is more of a lavender a lavender shade that has elongated blooms that are really really beautiful i like the way they look when the blooms are fresh and also after they are a little bit more mature and you can see here that it's got deep green glossy foliage that's kind of a long slender leaf leaf you can see here that it's getting ready to put out a lot of buds it looks beautiful in tandem with blue larkspur that's in a different shade and i let this pretty much just run a muck in my garden it's it's a big spreader but it's not overly aggressive and it's not difficult to relocate or move but seldom do i do that because i love the way it looks it looks great with pale pinks with really vibrant or oranges and yellows and obviously it looks very very pretty with this kind of coral colored geranium now another plant that i think is much maligned and has been maligned by me in the past and that is just your basic chrysanthemum a lot of times after i do my fall display in the front i will take some of those chrysanthemums and actually plant them in the ground as a long-term perennial and right here i've got a tuft that looks beautiful with the veronica and this is a white chrysanthemum and i'm going to let it go ahead and bloom and then i will cut it back give it a really good feed and then it will bloom again in the fall now if i wanted to completely delay its bloom i would cut this back by about half until the 4th of july keeping it sheared back and that way i would have that many more flowers in the fall i kind of like having some now some later but as a plant that does great in almost any kind of soil under almost any kind of conditions consider the common chrysanthemum there are different varieties that are really more of a gardening type chrysanthemum but don't be a plant snob like i was if they've got a roll in your garden then by all means plant them now another fairly common plant that does brilliantly is just tall flocks there are a lot of different varieties i have the plain old common version that's kind of a purpley pink that blooms in late summer that's extremely prone to powdery mildew but nevertheless i think it's a really beautiful plant and it does and it does really well i would advise you however if you're just starting out to look for one of the cultivars that is a little bit more better behaved and has some disease resistance this is i believe phlox david i can't remember exactly it was gifted to me by a friend david is a beautiful white variety that you might want to look for but any of the newer varieties proven winners puts out some i believe monrovia puts out some any kind of tall phlox that has been bred to be disease resistant is definitely an option these look beautiful planted with pinstemons with lilies with day lilies and i think would be a great option for you guys to look for when you go to your nursery for another tough as nails plant now you may ask me so what makes a plant hail resistant this is a perfect example it's got these long slender leaves and when the hail comes down it literally just brushes against the slender foliage and falls to the ground unlike a really broad expansive leaf like a hosta not so much so look for some tall flocks to add to your perennial border let's go on to one more now truth be told i don't have nearly as many flowering perennials as i once did when i started to garden we think of perennials as maybe being a low maintenance type of plant that since you don't have to plant them annually then we think that they might be a little bit less labor intensive i don't think so partly because they need to be deadheaded they need to be divided sometimes they don't make it they can be either overly aggressive or they don't spread fast enough now are they beautiful absolutely but as i get older i prefer the blooms to come from flowering shrubs and bulbs far more than perennials partly because perennials aren't in bloom for a very long period of time at least in my oklahoma garden before the heat gets them i often say there's two seasons there's before the heat and after the heat and many blooming perennials will bloom and then immediately succumb to those intense temperatures but another one that i i can't imagine any garden without that's very easy especially if you give it good drainage and that is just your classic daisy these are just regular old shasta daisies that were gifted to me by a friend so they have special meaning they couldn't be any easier they do bloom for a pretty long period of time i love the fact that they bloom in white they look especially pretty with other white blooming annuals i think and of course at night because they're white they really have the capacity to illuminate the garden they also provide a great contrast against anything that's got really dark foliage like this dark purple crimson pygmy barberry that's hard for me to say but i really think that you ought to consider growing some daisies if you haven't already incorporated them into your flower beds because they are after all i think the sweetest of all flowers i've got one more to show you well so many of you asked me about this beautiful lavender blooming plant that really is magnificent in my spring garden when the tulips are in bloom and that is just the common thrift or creeping flocks the variety that i grow is emerald blue but you can get it in other colors including white and kind of a deep oh a deep purpley pink i really like that lavender color you can see there's just a few hangers on that are still in bloom it's really really lovely now if you have it in enough sun it does want full sun and if you give it enough full sun then it makes a really beautiful just kind of like a ground cover in the summertime you don't it doesn't continually bloom but that's okay because it kind of takes up real estate i really like the way it looks when it intermingles with other types of ground covers or other types of plants in this case i've also got some vinca minor growing through it some golden fever few and other things that kind of insinuate themselves into its really delicate ferny foliage now sometimes in the past after it blooms i come in with i've come in with a weed eater and i just shear off the top i'm not having to do that this year i don't think because since i had that terrible ice storm and i have so much more sun it's already thickening up it's still this vibrant green and i may not have to prune it back and shear it back for it to get really bushy and thick again so i'll keep you posted on that but that is another very very easy low growing ground cover type perennial to grow that has magnificent spring color but also is presentable for the rest of the year so there you go there is a list of some absolutely bulletproof plants for new gardeners for experienced gardeners and for really any gardeners that don't want to work too hard

Channel: Linda Vater

Views: 291,991

Keywords: potagerblog, Linda Vader, garden life, garden designer, garden landscape design, garden design, garden media, gardening, Linda Vater, southern gardening, thrifting, Garden Answer, boxwood, topiary, garden tour, evergreens, favorite plants, garden center, Oklahoma gardening, garden, lifestyle tips, garden lifestyle, hard to kill plants, bulletproof plants, strong plants, weatherproof plants, Perennials

Id: -L3XJbclTOI

Length: 17min 17sec (1037 seconds)

Published: Sat May 15 2021