Perennial Gardeners! What are you loving this year? What's causing grief?

[Soliloquy]

We bought a new house last summer (hopefully our last) and the landscaping was mostly non-existent. I've been having fun scouring the bargain rack and getting perennials in!

I think my favorite this year is crocosmia. I have lucifer and carmine brilliant. There's another orange and a yellow that I want, too. I also am in love with gaura and echibeckia (a cross of echinacea and rudbeckia).

I'm planting astilbe and torenia (wishbone). I put in some hardy fushia, bleeding heart, hardy mums, rudbeckia, red rooster sedge, oat grass, agastache (anise hyssop), and lots of carnations.

For shrubs I bought a gorgeous weigela (sonic bloom), rose of sharon, and I'm going to get a hydrangea or two. I also put in two azaleas but I don't know if they'll survive or not (we have LOTS of deer).

[Hannah Elise]

I want to put innsome edible perennials next year.. white raspberries, blueberry bushes, maybe an additional apple tree.. and possibly a rhododendron. Because they're gorgeous. But I'm not sure they grow well in our area.

[MrsHutch]

We moved into a new house with no landscaping last spring! I have LOOOOVED planting things all over it.

Our house is pretty unusual in that it's a parsonage and visible from all four sides of the house. Our fenced in yard where J plays is in the front of the house, the church faces the left and back of the house, and the cemetery faces the right side. It's taking a LOT of work (and money) to make it pretty on all four sides, but I'm getting there slowly!

A friend gave me some rudbekia seeds, and I've just never figured out a good place to put them.

I've planted quite a few knockout rose bushes, I think 11 azaleas (with plans for more), a rhododendron, 3 plum trees, 2 dwarf evergreen trees, a crepe myrtle, 2 peonies (which I'm not sure have survived), 2 bleeding hearts (which the dogs destroyed), a lilac bush, lots of hostas, ivy for the chain link fence, and my most recent deal was getting 6 montauk daisy bushes at lowe's for only $1 each!

[believer]

I want to do more perrenial things too. This year dh built me a raised bed vegetable garden. We also have some existing gardens and I planted herbs in some of them. I planted a couple of strawberry plants - one from a friend of mine and it was doing great at her place, but not so great at mine. Something keeps eating the berries before they can fully form. I moved the strawberries into the back garden which has a bit more shade - have no idea if they will do better or worse there. I planted a blackberry plant/bush this year and hope it will do well and make berries next year and we planted two grapevines and hope they will do well - not sure how many years they take to be productive or how well they will do. We have talked about fruit trees, but those do take a while.

[Soliloquy]

Fun!!!

I planted two blueberry bushes, 3 apple trees, 1 cherry tree, 1 crabapple, more raspberries, and more strawberries.

I just bought a lady fern, heuchera (coral bells), and sneezeweed. I'm going to put tickseed in the meadow area.