7 Perennial Flower Bed Design Ideas To Beautify Your Garden (2024)

So you want a low maintenance garden that doesn’t need a lot of replanting or weeding while offering a perk-me-up view for everyone. You want something that adds more splendor to your rather dry and drab surroundings. If this is what you want then, it can be presumed that you want perennials.

Before we dive into the meat of the matter, first let’s clear a doubt some people have regarding annual and perennial plants.

Difference between Annuals and Perennials

Annual plants are those with a life cycle that lasts one year only. There whole life cycle that is grown from seed, to bloom, seed production and death happen in one growing season. That’s why then need to be replanted each spring. Some of the common Annual plants are Petunias and Geraniums

Perennials, as the name implies, bloom over and over again allowing you to enjoy them all year round. Year after year, these garden blooms bring about mesmerizing color and form to your home. Some of the common perennial flower plants are Daffodils, Lilies, Chrysanthemum, Coral bells and the likes.

So if you want to have a flower garden which blooms over the year, again and again, it’s best to plant perennial flowers. To get you started, here are some perennial flower bed design ideas to begin with:

1. Tree Ringlet. Got trees in your lawn or yard? Highlight its beauty by adding a ringlet flower bed filled with clusters of perennials, annuals, and evergreens. Perennials thrive in environments where both sun and shade go together. You have the option to add pavers as edges or natural stones. Or if you may place potted succulents or evergreens as edge on a tree ringlet to give it more charm.

2. Window Boxes. Though not literally a “flower bed”, apartments, townhouses, and other high rise abodes that allow container gardening will make do by adding window boxes to house blooming perennials. Not only do these boxes prettify your home, but it also helps visitors and potential buyers (in case you’re planning to sell) to draw their eyes into your home and enhance its “face value” even more.

3. Cottage Style Wheelbarrow. Another great flower bed design idea is the use of an old wheelbarrow. This shabby chic design will help complement country or cottage style homes. Consider complementary perennials and annuals of varying color and growing style. No wheelbarrow? Use an old bicycle instead.

4. Upcycled Chair or Bench. Got an old chair or bench waiting to be collected? Why not convert it into a perennial planter slash bed. Another shabby chic flower bed design idea to hold your lovely perennials, this can prettify corners and wall in your yard. Hang a rustic sign “Secret Garden” and you have a mesmerizing area that draws an observer’s eye.

5. Tree Stump-Beds. Ditch the added expense of removing a tree stump in your yard. Instead, convert such an ugly eyesore into a flower “bed” slash planter. Simply carve a hollow in it and rest your perennials. Tree stumps are great in terms of maintaining soil moisture allowing more nutrients to seep into your blooms. No tree stumps? Have a landscape artist create one for you. Makes a great addition to rustic style homes and gardens.

6. Potted Borders. For a newbie in gardening, creating a border for a garden bed can be quite taxing. Whether perennials or annuals, borders can be hard to maintain. Luckily, you can simply buy huge pots and choose perennials to plant in them then, arranged them as border to your balcony, patio or premises where you want them to bloom. This idea also gives you freedom to move your beloved perennials, particularly during stormy weather or wintertime.

7. Tiered Flower Beds. Add more levels of charm to your garden with sturdy and functional flower beds filled with perennials and evergreens. An awesome idea for sloped lawns and yards, it allows you to add a creative structural element on your garden design. Feel free to use natural stone, brick or concrete as walls to encase those flowery blooms.

It’s high time to see your home in a whole new light. With these perennial flower bed design ideas, you can finally upgrade your abode’s landscape to highlight its architectural features as well as the natural elements therein. One key ingredient in making perennials bloom even in the heat of summer is to use a premium potting mix that helps retain water on whatever flower bed design they’re in. When done accordingly, you are not only enhancing perennials bloom factor but also improve your home’s overall curve appeal and its ambiance for the whole family to enjoy.

Easy to Grow Perennials

It can be a challenge to choose the easy to grow plants from the hundreds of perennials, especially if you’re a newbie gardener.

So here’s a list of ten easy-to-grow perennials to help you get started!

Coneflower

It is one of the hardy perennials that are able to withstand dry summers and coldest winter. You will enjoy the color it brings to your summer garden with its rosy purple petals surrounding a cone-shaped central seed head from which it derives its common name. It also has a yellow variant called Echinacea paradoxa which is not the common variety.

However with the hybrids that have been produced by plant breeders successfully over the years, one can choose from many that now have more colors, shapes, and sizes.

Hostas

These foliage plants come in varieties of shapes, sizes, and colors and can be used to brighten up shady spots in your garden. Their heights can vary from ground-hugging 4-inch dwarfs to 4-foot-tall giants. Although these plants are mainly known for their attractive foliage, they also produce lovely fragrant pink, lavender, or white flowers during the summer, which attracts the Hummingbirds.

One thing to be aware of is that deer love hosta. So to discourage deer, use fencing. Also, you can have a talk with your local garden center about odor-based sprays that will act as deer repellents.

Black-Eyed Susan

This daisy like flowers – black-eyed Susans will illuminate your flower garden like bright rays of sunshine. This brightly colored flower can grow up to 24-36 inches tall, and blooms in its lemon-yellow, orange, and gold color for weeks with minimal care.

To encourage the plant to keep blooming clip off old blooms. In winter you can leave the seed heads for the birds to help in pollination and to provide some interesting color in the winter landscape.

Note that the black-eyed Susan doesn’t like water lingering on their foliage, so be careful about watering as lingering water can result in powdery mildew.

Coreopsis

This easy to grow flower is one that a beginner gardener can try as her first plant as Coreopsis grows equally well in a container as well as in garden soil.

This plant can grow to be as tall as 4 feet and spread anywhere from 12 to 36 inches. However, there are many varieties that grow to shorter height as well.

Birds like Goldfinches like to snack on the seeds of this flower. It will also attract bees and butterflies to your garden.

Coral Bells

The main appeal of coral bells is its foliage varying from a deep purple or burgundy, to red and lime green. They grow well in containers even mixed with other plants and hardy enough to go without water even in summer.

The flower panicles make fine additions to cut flower arrangements. They are deer resistant and like Coreopsis will attract butterflies and hummingbirds into your garden.

Care should be taken so that the plant does not get fungus in hot and humid season. In case fungus spot is detected, it should be treated by this copper fungicide

Siberian Iris

This tall graceful plant is a great choice to grow in landscape borders as well as corners. Being another plant that is easy to grow and mature Siberian Iris plant can put out more than 20 stems of flowers at once, in a blooming season that lasts from late April to early summer.

This plant expands outwards each year by itself until eventually, the centers stop blooming. So it should be divided by carefully digging up the rhizomes with a garden fork after they finish blooming. Next cut them and replant the outermost, young rhizomes and discard the older center ones.

Daylily

This carefree perennial plant can thrive even with minimum attention and hence another good plant for a beginner to start a project.

Daylilies tend to grow in large clumps, and each individual clump can produce as many as two to four hundred blooms over the period of a month in the best conditions but will last for only a single day.

You should divide the daylilies every two to four years depending on how fast they are spreading.

Garden Phlox

This two feet tall, eye-catching Garden Phlox is great to grow for sunny borders. The large clusters of pink, purple, lavender or white flowers bloom for several weeks in summer and is an excellent choice for cut flowers.

They release noticeable fragrance especially during the night and are known to attract butterflies and birds.

In the beginning, Garden Phlox should be watered weekly for the first few weeks and then in a frequency to keep the soil lightly moist. After the flower fades it is best to clip the flower stems to keep the plants looking tidy, and also prevents the flowers from dropping seeds

Peony

This hardy long-living perennial plant (known to live even for hundred years ) offers big, fluffy, fragrant flowers in a wide range of colors, forms and sizes.

With its fluff of thin ribbon petals and majestic look, even a single stem in a floral arrangement will make people believe that it has been done by a professional florist.
Unlike roses, peony bushes do not require precise pruning to thrive. Often pruning is only necessary for the event of damage or disease.

Aster

Asters will produce a carpet of daisy-like flowers on from the moth of August through October, depending on the variety which ranges from five hundred to six hundred.

Asters need very little maintenance. Caring mainly includes deadheading for more blooms and occasionally controlling the powdery mildew. This disease can be most easily prevented by autumn or spring division of aster flowers, with its middle clump removed and discarded.

As these flowers are a rich source of nectar, and they flower at the height of the Monarch butterfly migration season, they are a great way to attract these beautiful butterflies. Aster also attracts lots of bees so if you are bee sensitivities plant the Asters away from the garden path.

Combining Perennial Plants for Great Design

While designing a perennial garden it is best to put pair the flowers and shrubs to get that desired look.

For example, you can pair Hosta with Allium as they both thrive well in a shady environment and complement each other’s shape.

Similarly, you can pair Asters with Miscanthus which can give a dramatic statement to your garden with blue and purple Asters blooming in Autumn mixed with creamy plumes of Miscanthus.

Another combination could be Coneflowers with Black eyed Susan. Both are hardy drought-resistant types and can form a great bouquet to enjoy in the summertime. Similarly, you can combine black eyed susan with Daylilies and Coneflowers.

Also remember that besides their colorful flowers, shrubs add architectural interest to your garden during the winter when perennials are dormant and out of view.

Hopefully, this info will provide you with a great perennial garden design idea and will provide you many years of enjoyment since perennials come back each year, with no replanting requirement.