Does your garden receive a lot of sun? If so, you are lucky since the showiest perennials flower best in full sun. With a sunny garden, you have a choice of hundreds of different perennials that are wonderful for combining in a border. But how do you go about creating a sunny border using perennials?
Enjoying perennials in full sun
What is the meaning of ‘full sun’? If a garden receives at least five hours of sun a day, it is considered a garden with full sun. Most of the perennials you find in a garden centre prefer a sunny location. These are the profusely flowering varieties perfect for filling larger and smaller beds or for planting as groundcovers over a large surface. But perennials will also thrive in pots and containers or in borders that receive full sun. When you create a composition of spring, summer and autumn-flowering plants, you can enjoy a gorgeous display of colour in your garden from spring until the first ground frost. Most flowers produced by perennials located in a sunny location are also very attractive to butterflies, bees and other beneficial insects.
Designing a composition of perennials for full sun
A border is based on its combination of various perennials. If what you want is a border with both variation and plenty of colour, create a plan – a design – for it first. During the design process, consider not only lovely combinations of perennials that prefer sun but also their flowering period, colour and height. Compose a border in three rows of plants. Arrange the low-growing varieties along the front, the medium-tall ones behind them, and the tall perennials at the back. This way, you know that all of their flowers will be easily visible. To create a lively play of colours in the border, choose perennials with flowers in a limited number of contrasting hues. And don’t forget to add some attractive foliage plants since they will provide an effective backdrop for your plant composition.
Varieties of perennials for the sun
There are so many varieties of perennials that prefer full sun that it would be impossible to list them all here! Click on ‘Find your perennial’ to discover which perennials will produce masses of flowers in full sun. Favourites among sun-loving perennials include:
