When you start out on your first attempts at gardening, you really need to be rewarded with success. Here we’ve picked 10 perennials (they’ll come back up every year) that aren’t demanding and that should encourage a beginner by the joy they give for the little input required.
We’ve included ones that flower earlier and later in the year, as well as high summer…
Hellebores are easy to grow and offer huge value for very little input. Importantly they provide beauty, sophistication and colour when you need them most - very early spring.
Formerly recommended for shade, they are in fact, happy in almost any location.
Their finely shaped heads are an absolute joy and these pretty colours bring warmth in even the coldest spring.
This collection would be a great choice.
Cut back the leaves in early March so you can get the full glory of their blooms
- They have an almost architectural quality
- They require very little maintenance
- Bloom very early in the year
A spectacular quick-growing climber for a beginner gardener. Clematis montana 'Grandiflora' rewards its grower with a show-stopping display of single white flowers in just a year or two from planting. It will grow almost anywhere including a north wall and flowers reliably from late April to June.
- It quickly clothes a fence or outbuilding; it has
- pretty foliage and flowers and is very hardy and tolerant of most soil types
You might remember catmint from your grandparents' gardens and it's still a real winner two generations later.
Lovely silvery-green, aromatic foliage from which rise blue flower spikes that last all summer, delighting bees and pollinators of every description. Wherever you put this plant - you're likely to hear a happy hum!
It's uber-dependable, content in almost any location other than a soggy one, and doesn't need rich soil
- Catmint is great for softening the edges of path
- It bulks up every year
- It divides easily and the divisions get going quickly
All hardy geraniums are winners for a beginner gardener. They'll grow in almost any location, flower freely and are very easy to propagate by division so you can get a lot of plants from one plant!
This one grows to a good height (over two feet) and becomes a blaze of bright magenta right through the summer months, finishing up with lovely crimson foliage in the autumn
- This geranium has a knock-out colour - the image doesn't do it justice.
- It's as easy as wink to grow
A wonderfully reliable herbaceous perennial with an exceptionally long flowering period. This geum produces soft orange flowers on tall 2 to 3 foot stems from late May to early Autumn. It will provide style and substance to any border in sun or partial shade.
- Its striking colour
- It flowers for ages
- Hardy and long-lived
Astrantias are as dependable as your best friend. Hardy to well below minus 20, they'll pop back up through most soils every spring and flower their socks off right through the summer.
They are loved by pollinators and make great cut flowers. Honestly - just plant them and walk away, astrantias have your back!
They are mid-height but don't need staking and are well-behaved. They might throw out the odd seedling, but that's a good thing.
They are generally white, pink or red and this one is a wonderfully ballsy claret
- Astrantias are generally happy to grow in shade as well as sun
This is a beautifully well-behaved rose for a beginner. Standing neatly and compactly at 3 to 4 foot high it repeat flowers from July to September in pretty, pink, scented trusses. A real mood-lifter, its almost bomb-proof in regards to soil type and location, as long as it's not in the deepest shade all day.
- compact size makes it ideal for a smaller garden
This plant's name has changed from sedum to hylotelephium but let's be old school and stick with 'sedum'.
Another solid, dependable doer, you'd add this one to your garden for colour in late summer and autumn. It has plump, fleshy leaves and great heads of pink flowers that literally have pollinators passed out with ecstasy.
It's very easy to grow - pick a dry-ish spot for it and marvel at its activity year after year
.
- If you cut it back a bit in May its enthusiastic stems will stay pert come the autumn
This is really an essential for every garden in the late summer, early autumn.
It likes a sunny spot and fertile soil but it won't go on strike in partial shade, and in late summer throws up proper solid, egg-yolk yellow flowers with satisfyingly dark centres.
It's enthusiastic so you can divide it and have it in several areas of your garden. Very hardy and requires little upkeep
- This dependable plant complements the hues of its flowering season really well
A fiery giant of a crocosmia that can be relied upon to bring structure and drama to a new flower bed. 'Lucifer' produces tall arching spikes of blood-red flowers in midsummer, rising out from vigorous sword shaped clumps of leaves.
3 to 4 foot tall, this characterful plant will be a magnificent focal point in just a year or two from planting.
It may come to dominate your beds a bit over time but you'll be an expert gardener by then and can control it by splitting it up
- taller and more vigorous than other crocosmias
- vivid colour
- sword-like leaves produce bulk in a new border
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