Do you have a sunny garden? If so, you’re in luck! For most perennials, a sunny garden is perfect. Choose from countless varieties to create absolutely gorgeous combinations. Would you like to design your own garden brimming with dazzling sun-worshippers? To be well prepared, look around for inspiration and expert advice about perennials for full sun first.
The sunny garden
Does your garden receive at least five hours of sun a day during the summer? If so, you have a garden in full sun. This is nice for you, but your plants will love it as well. After all, many perennials prefer sun and easily tolerate dry, warm conditions. Good examples of perennials for full sun are Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber), sea hollies (Eryngium), catmints (Nepeta), Bloody Cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum), sages (Salvia), Oregano (Origanum laevigatum) and redhot pokers (Kniphofia).
Getting started with perennials for full sun
As long as temperatures are above freezing, either spring or autumn is a perfect time to give perennials for full sun a spot in your garden. Make a list of plants you like that also have shapes and heights suitable for your garden. Other factors to consider are whether their leaf shapes and colours look attractive together and whether they give you successive flowering periods. Perennials with various flowering periods supply your garden with colour and make it inviting from early spring to far into autumn. When designing the location of plants, arrange them from taller in the back to shorter in the front so they can all be easily seen.
Must-have sun-worshippers
When selecting several kinds of perennials for full sun, certain varieties are so beautiful that they can’t be excluded. Yarrow (Achillea) is one of these. A vigorous plant, it is available in many colours. Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) is another such gem. Its large flowers have a beautiful shape and will attract a host of butterflies, bees and bumblebees. The tall, densely flowered spikes of Delphinium make it a real eye-catcher and provide lots of colour. Sneezeweed (Helenium) has sunny, golden-yellow flowers with a prominent cone. And a list of sun-worshippers would be incomplete without phloxes, bellflowers (Campanula) and shasta daisies (Leucanthemum).
Tip
Don’t forget to include a number of ornamental foliage plants in your selection. These are masters at tying together the various flower colours into a harmonious whole. Some of these foliage plants are ornamental in themselves, good examples being ones with grey-green leaves such as the mugworts (Artemisia).
