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Colourful perennials for your garden border
7 minute read Saturday, Mar. 16, 2024When I became a serious gardener, I also became a more demanding gardener. I am always wondering how I can improve the layout of my garden borders to make them look more interesting. Garden borders are more than just spaces that we encounter briefly. The goal should be to linger awhile and be inspired by the beauty of the different textures and colours. It’s not simply a matter of popping in plants here and there. I’m still trying to get it right but if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that creating impact depends on a succession of bloom, architectural form that stands up to the elements, interesting foliage and overall plant performance.
Recently, I had a conversation with John Leperre who gardens in Winnipeg and works for Bylands Nurseries, which grows plants for garden centres in Canada and the United States. “I used to think that breeders came up with new plant varieties to generate buzz,” he said, “but new or recent introductions are improved plants. They typically have better disease resistance, a more compact habit, and basically, they have been bred to make life easier in the garden.”
Here, Leperre shares some of his favourite flowering perennials to look for this spring at your garden centre. Any of these can be grown in garden beds or containers.
Lungwort puts on a beautiful flower show in late spring and is a useful plant in the shade border because it provides early nectar for pollinators and is deer and rabbit resistant. Pink-a-Blue lungwort is a pulmonaria hybrid from Proven Winners. “It has cool-looking deep green foliage that is more vividly mottled with silver spots than I’ve seen on other lungworts,” said Leperre. “The pink flowers transition to blue so it is a very interesting show.”
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