1. Home
  2. Home & Garden
  3. Gardening

Perennial Plants - Care and Maintenance of Flowering Perennials

It's misleading to think that once you plant a perennial flower you are done with it. To have great looking perennials, there is a good bit of maintenance involved. This includes dividing, deadheading, staking, cutting back and other chores, depending on the perennial plant. Here are some tips.
Lady’s Mantle - Growing Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis)…
Lady’s Mantle is an old-fashioned flower still popular today for it’s fuzzy, cupped leaves that hold water droplets after a rain and the frothy sprays of dainty yellow flowers that bloom in late spring and early summer. Lady’s Mantle is also used in making lotions and soaps. Lady’s Mantle is a long-lived perennial flower that is fairly low maintenance.
How Do You Know It’s Time?to Divide Perennial Plants
How to Know When it's Time to Divide Your Perennial Plants.
Dividing Perennials - An Easier Way to Untangle Roots before Dividing Plants
Dividing perennials is a necessary chore. You'll want to stress the plant as little as possible, so if your perennial plant is a mass of tangled roots when you lift it, here's a method of untangling the roots that's less stressful on the plant as well as you.
Deadheading, Pinching and Cutting Back - Garden Maintenance
Flower gardens require constant maintenance to look their best. Common garden chores like pruning, pinching and deadheading are easy to master, as show here in this step-by-step photo tutorial.
Dividing Bearded Iris
Bearded Iris are tall, elegant additions to the flower border, but they are also relatively high maintenance. You can help cut down on the incidence of soft rot and borer damage through regular division of the iris rhizomes, every 2-3 years. This will also keep bearded iris performing and blooming at its best. Start by carefully digging and lifting the rhizomes, as shown here.
Dividing Perennial Plants
Most perennial flowers will need to be divided to remain vigorous and continue blooming season after season. Division of perennials is an easily mastered gardening technique that is good for the plants and your garden.
Mums. How to Make them Hardy.
Many gardeners do not realize mums are hardy perennials. Maybe you’ve purchased mums labeled ‘hardy’ only to be disappointed the following spring when they didn’t survive. The key to a truly hardy mum is selecting the right variety and giving it time to establish itself in your garden, before winter. Here’s a quick tip to helping your garden mums survive the winter.
Pruning: Perennial Plants to Prune in the Fall
It can be nice to leave some perennials standing for winter interest. But many perennial plants don’t survive rough weather well. Many plants have recurrent problems with pests and diseases, which will over winter in their fallen foliage and surface in the spring. The following list of perennial flowers survive and thrive better if pruned or cut down in the fall.
Pruning: Perennial Plants to Prune in the Spring
Four season interest in the garden is nice. Dried flowers hold onto snow like frosting. Seed heads feed the birds. But some perennials don’t handle cold weather well. The following list is a recommendation of plants that are best pruned in the spring.
Staking Perennial Flower Plants
Staking is no one's favorite thing to do in the garden, but staking early in the season can make things a whole lot easier as the plants grow.

Explore Gardening

About.com Special Features

Home Allergy Center

Banish mess, reduce allergens, and maintain a clean, healthy home. More >

Home Improvements Made Easy

Inspirational ideas and expert tips to help you pull off your next DIY project. More >

  1. Home
  2. Home & Garden
  3. Gardening
  4. Flower Gardening
  5. Perennials
  6. Maintenance

©2009 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company.

All rights reserved.