Setting Perennials at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

Flowering shrubs can be used to provide a permanent framework in the border and a setting perennials for perennials, annuals and bulbs with their more flamboyant flowers. Many will also create year-round interest with fruits following flowers, silver or evergreen foliage and fiery color in the fall. The choice of perennials is almost without bounds but once you have selected your favorites, and once they are established, they will go on growing and flowering for several seasons, giving pleasure year after year.

Hardy perennials are very valuable in the garden and play a major role, as most of them are relatively cheap, grow quickly, and can readily be increased in several ways, including by seed, division, or cuttings. Most of them, like trees and shrubs, live for many years. In addition, most of them, unlike trees and < shrubs, are herbaceous as they have soft stems which die down in the fall and grow again the following spring. A number of them have evergreen leaves, and one or two grow in the winter and die down in the summer. Not all herbaceous perennials are in fact hardy, but here we are concerned only with those that are. Herbaceous perennials may be used in a variety of ways in the backyard.

Even if summer color is desired, it is still possible to underplant and interplant for other times of the year using bulbs and annuals. Bulbs and annuals are invaluable for spring and early summer color, while herbaceous perennials are the most colorful summer contributors. In many places herbaceous perennials can be found in flower for most of the year, and by planting a good cross section it is possible to get a long flowering season.