Perennial Plants - Care and Maintenance of Flowering Perennials

Many perennial flowers will bloom more profusely if you make it a habit to cut off the fading flowers. As shown here, some can be pinched off, others require pruning.

Although perennial plants can live for many years, often they start to die out in the center of the plant. When that happens, you will need to divide the plant. Follow these steps and you'll wind up with several new, vigorous plants.

How to Know When it's Time to Divide Your Perennial 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.

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.

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...

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 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.

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...

Peonies can live and thrive for decades, with minimal care. Peonies bloom in the late spring, but they do best when planted or transplanted in the fall. For the most part, planting peonies is pretty straight forward. However there are a few special needs peonies have, that are best accommodated at planting time.

Clematis wilt. One day your clematis vine is thriving and ready to flower. The next day itÂ’s withering before your eyes. What happened? Chances are itÂ’s a fairly common fungus that affects clematis plants, called clematis wilt. Here are some tips for preventing and controlling clematis wilt.