Ideas for Long Blooms in Small Spaces

I have a smallish garden space, but I’d like lots of flowers and colour. What plants could I use that bloom for a long time, so I can always have things flowering?

I don’t know whether your garden space is sunny or shady, but some suggestions are listed below. The hydrangeas, bleeding heart, corydalis, and hellebore will take some shade, but most of the others prefer sun.

Some other ideas for season-long colour: You could add some extra colour to your garden by choosing plants with foliage that adds colours other than green; many perennials and shrubs have purple, lime to gold, blue-green, or variegated options. Grow some flowering vines, such as clematis, up a trellis or fence. Plant some spring bulbs for early blooms in the garden, and add some annuals, which often bloom all season.

If you have room for a shrub, panicle hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata) bloom from midsummer on, and the blooms often change colour over time, from cream to pink. Shrub potentillas (Dasiphora fruticosa) also have a long bloom season, and come in several colours. A number of rose cultivars, particularly some new ones, will continue blooming for months.

A few possibilities for perennials:

• Some daylily hybrids such as ‘Stella De Oro’, rebloom after the first flush.
• Perennial geraniums. The blue-purple geranium cultivar ‘Rozanne’ will often keep going until well into fall. Bloody cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum) also blooms for a long time.
• Catmints (Nepeta faassenii and N. mussinii) rebloom well if you cut them back after the first flush of bloom. Other perennials will often rebloom if cut back or deadheaded after blooming, such as perennial salvias, coreopsis, and gaillardia.
• Fernleaf bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa ‘Luxuriant’) is a small plant which will start blooming in spring and keep on well into summer.
• Cheddar pink (Dianthus gratianopolitanus) ‘Firewitch’ is long-flowering and scented.
• Yellow corydalis (Corydalis lutea) is a less commonly seen short-lived perennial, but it blooms early and long, and self-seeds at a reasonable level.
• Sea holly (Eryngium spp.) and globe thistle (Echinops ritro) have long-lasting colour in the flower head, even if they don’t have showy petals.
• ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum (Sedum or Hylotelephium spectabile) is one of the classics. It starts to bloom in late summer, but the heads are attractive both before and after blooming, and also look good over winter.
• Callirhoe or poppy-mallow (Callirhoe involucrata) is a trailing plant, not exactly tidy of habit, but will keep blooming with magenta-pink flowers for weeks in hot, dry conditions.
• Hellebores (Helleborus niger, H. orientalis and hybrids) are early flowering, but their blooms can last a surprising amount of time, well into summer, and the foliage stays attractive all year.