Does anyone have a continuously-blooming flower garden?

[Sub Atomic]

I have a 3'x 75' area in front of a fence at my house where I would like to plant a continuously-blooming flower garden.

Have any of you guys planted one?

Do you have any pictures or can you detail what you've planted?

Thanks!

:hi:

[Kolesar]

1. I would plant native prarie flowers

Joe Pye Weed, sunflowers, blackeyed-susan

Note that I am never planted an ornamental garden. However, I have been perusing the topic for our landscape plan. You can select plants that bloom at different times throughout the season. Native wildflowers have low feeding requirements and are better adapted to deal with our countries' pests. That is why highway departments plant them. You will have a waist high flower garden. Put in some grasses that will waive in the wind and you will be in heaven.

[femmocrat]

2. I do, but it has taken years to achieve. I'm in PA.

It starts in March and April with spring bulbs-- crocus, hyacinth, daffodils and tulips.

Then early perennials-- candy tuft, forget-me-not, some later-flowering bulbs.

June-- daisies, feverfew, climbing roses, day lilies.

Right now I have pink coneflower, day lilies, butterfly bush and a lot of annuals.

Later in the summer it's glads, asters, black-eyed susans, and mums.

I also have a lot of flowering trees and bushes-- azaleas, rhododendrons, etc.

If you mix annuals in with your bulbs and perennials, you should be able to achieve what you want.

[noamnety]

3. Do you have a separate vegetable garden or no? (nt)

[Botany]

4. E.Z.

plant perennials and bulbs that bloom at different times through out the season ......
annuals are great because they bloom all season and should be added to the garden too.
Do not plant any invasive plants and as much as possible plant stuff that is native to your
area


http://www.frontrangeliving.com/garden/DanJohnson.htm


BTW try to use natural water as much possible (rain barrels and stuff)
BTW part ll ....... work as much organic matter into the soil as possible

[noamnety]

5. pictures

I took some (low quality) photos of what passes for a flower border at my house.

This is low cost stealth vegetable gardening using a lot of free plants that can be divided and shared at low cost to camouflage the food crops.

The back against the bricks blooms in spring and is a mass of these irises:


In summer the same area looks like this now:


It has black eyed susans, daisies, and daylilies. What you can't see in the photo is that the ground cover includes lots of strawberries, there's a patch of shallots, and the foliage plants includes several good sized clumps of rhubarb.

On the other side of the front door the back again is those irises. This is in spring, you can see the sage blooming and parsley is to the right of that. The hostas under the tree were a freebie from a friend.


And in July it looks like this:


Lots of coneflowers, some daylilies and coralbells, but also there's more rhubarb, several tomato plants, a squash plant, the sage & chives, parsley, oregano.

[randr]

6. We planted some around the garden last year

This year they have spread beautifully and have taken over one of our beds. Here are two quick shots for you.

[XemaSab]

7. Ours is very close to continuously blooming

The VERY long bloomers in our yard are Salvia "Pozo Blue," Salvia greggii, several different yarrows, Zauschneria, Coreopsis, and Centranthus.

The real kicker is that Mexican Marigold blooms in early winter, right when everything else is pretty checked out.

There are a few months in midwinter when NOTHING is going on, but many of the plants are evergreen so there's still something to look at outside.

And on edit: They're all drought tolerant. Redding is too damn hot to play around with things that wilt readily. I would also STRONGLY suggest putting bunchgrasses in. They're fun and they're good for providing structure when a lot of other things are... regrouping.