These Long-Blooming Perennials Will Keep Your Garden Colorful All Summer Long.

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Every summer I grow beds of annual cut flowers: sunflower, poet’s flower, zinnia, rootstock. I gradually added more and more perennials to my beds so that the beds were mostly colorful and didn’t require new seedlings every year. Now I just plant perennials with annual flowers around. Having laid out the beds, I now try to ensure that the flowering spans as long a season as possible, both early and late. Here are the long-blooming perennials I trust.

Flowering perennials from spring to mid-summer.

I’m drawn to astilbe because it has the same plume shape as one of my favorite annuals: celosia . There are many varieties (and colors) of astilbe, but if you choose the right ones, you can have those fluffy, colorful buds from spring through fall.

Astilbe Photo: Tanya_Terehina/Shutterstock

  • Zones: 4 to 8

  • Growing conditions: prefers partial shade; rich, moist, well-drained soil

If I have any garden-related regrets, it would be not growing perennial salvias sooner (there are annual salvias, too). These colorful spines are the hummingbird’s hardy gold. Plant them in groups.

  • USDA hardiness zones : 5 to 10.

  • Growing conditions: full sun to partial shade; prefers well-drained soil

Yarrow wasn’t in my bag for a long time – it was mostly yellow or white and looked a lot like bouquet filler. Shades of the red, pink and orange spectrum are now available, making this filler ideal. Yarrow will spread out soon, so you’ll want to keep it under control, but it’s great at attracting pollinators to your yard, and it’s one of the first flowers in my yard to bloom and the last to fly away.

Yarrow. Photo: Dajra/Shutterstock.

  • USDA Hardiness Zones: 3 to 8.

  • Growing conditions: Dry or moderately moist, well-drained soil; drought-resistant

One of the few original plants left from the garden I took 15 years ago is rue . Each year, this shrubby plant reliably produces a crown of yellow flowers that persist until late autumn. Like a cut flower, they complete a bouquet; left alone, they repel mosquitoes.

  • USDA Hardiness Zones: 4 to 10.

  • Growing conditions: Well-drained soil; drought-resistant

You just can’t beat roses. They will definitely begin to bloom in early summer and will remain so until autumn. They now come in all colors, shapes and types, from trees to rock climbers to miniatures. If you haven’t seen any greenhouse grown varieties lately, you should check out a rose grower like Jackson & Perkins – the variety is amazing.

  • USDA hardiness zones: 3 to 10.

  • Growing conditions: Well-drained soil; high content of organic substances

Flowering perennials from mid-summer to autumn.

Aster , especially Douglas aster , is a fast-growing perennial that retains its color very reliably well into the late season. They’re the last thing to succumb to winter weather in my garden, and while the flowers aren’t as vibrant as, say, zinnias, they help keep the garden from looking dour in the fall.

  • Zones: 3 to 9

  • Growing conditions: full sun to partial shade; moist, well-drained soil

Coneflowers, daisies, rudbeckias and black-eyed susans all have roughly the same shape and season. They all come in a wide variety of colors and can grow to a fantastic shrub size each summer, filling the garden. It is a haven for bees and other pollinators.

Echinacea, also known as coneflower. Photo: Kabar/Shutterstock.

  • Zones: 3 to 9

  • Growing conditions: full sun; well drained soil

If you’re up for the challenge, the blanket flower is difficult to germinate from seed. However, once you do this, it will return year after year with tall and surprisingly long-lasting flowers. Every year I’m sure they don’t come back and then at the end of June they appear overnight as if by magic.

  • Zones: 3-10

  • Growing conditions: full sun and well-drained soil.

I think of scabiosa as Beetlejuice’s garden flower. I love the twisty stems and the beautiful dark colors the flower comes in, from black to deep burgundy and purple. A popular haven for pollinators, pincushion flower (as it is more commonly called) makes an excellent understory for coneflowers and rudbeckias.

Scabiosa Credits: EQRoy/Shutterstock

  • Zones: 3-7

  • Growing conditions: full sun and well-drained soil.

While there are other long-blooming perennials (depending on your zone), these are the ones I trust in my garden. Most plants will rebloom if you prune them (cut off spent flowers before they go to seed). Of course, you can buy perennials, but you can also grow them from seeds and, in some cases, from cuttings from established plants.

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