A gravel path curving through a border of white and lilac phlox, blue catmint and strappy daylily leaves under tall trees

What a year with perennials looks like

Plant once, tend for years

Gardeners sum up a new perennial in three words: sleep, creep, leap. The first year it mostly grows roots and looks small. The second year it fills out. The third year it reaches full size and flowers the way the tag promised. The yearly round is short. In early spring you cut down last year's dead stems and spread compost. In late spring you plant, stake the floppy ones and top up the mulch. Summer is watering new plants, pulling the odd weed and snipping off faded flowers. Fall is the second planting season and the time to split clumps that have outgrown their spot. In winter the bed looks like bare ground and needs nothing.

Five ways to start

Open one to see where to start. Hosta growing, daylily growing, iris growing and peony growing can each add their own lines to the kit.

Mixed sun borderA bed of dependable sun lovers (coneflower, salvia, black-eyed Susan, catmint) chosen so that something is in bloom from late spring to fall. This is the default start, and the base kit covers it.

Start here

Look up your hardiness zone, then watch one spot in your yard for a day and count its hours of direct sun. Six or more means you can follow the steps below with sun lovers such as coneflower, salvia and black-eyed Susan.

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map

Hosta growingGrown for leaves, not flowers: blue, gold, white-edged, from teacup size to 5 feet across. Hostas are the answer to the shady corner where nothing else thrives. Slugs and deer are the two things that eat them.

Start here

Find the spot under a tree or along a north wall that gets less than four hours of sun. Add the hosta gear to your kit and plant three roots there, 2 to 3 feet apart.

American Hosta Society

Daylily growingThe hardest perennial to kill. Each flower lasts a single day, but a mature clump opens new ones for three to four weeks, and reblooming types repeat until frost. There are more than 100,000 registered varieties to collect.

Start here

Add the daylily roots to your kit and plant them in your sunniest spot, 18 to 24 inches apart, with the crown (where roots meet leaves) one inch below the soil.

American Daylily Society

Iris growingBearded irises flower for two or three weeks in late spring in nearly every color. They grow from a rhizome (a fat root that sits at the soil surface) and want sun, sharp drainage and very little fuss.

Start here

Add the iris gear to your kit and plan to plant between July and September, when rhizomes ship. Pick a spot with full sun where water never stands after rain.

American Iris Society

Peony growingHuge, scented flowers in late spring from a plant that can outlive its gardener. It asks for patience: expect a few blooms in year two and a full show from year three.

Start here

Add the peony gear to your kit and choose the spot carefully, because a peony resents being moved and can stay put for 50 years. It needs full sun and 3 feet of room on every side. Plant the root in fall.

American Peony Society

Overlapping hosta leaves, dark green with wide yellow edges and deep ribs, filling the frame — A variegated hosta clump

The plant societies

Plant your first border

Tick each job off as the bed takes shape

Two hands, one in a striped gardening glove, loosening a planting hole with a hand fork beside a yellow-flowered plant in a black nursery pot on mulched soil — Opening a planting hole beside the pot

Look these up before you dig

What you can grow in your first month

A planted border

One bed of about 4 by 8 feet, cleared, topped with compost and set out with seven to nine plants in groups of three.

A mulched and labeled bed

Two inches of mulch between the plants and a label beside each one, so you know what is where when everything disappears in winter.

First flowers from potted plants

A coneflower or salvia bought in bud usually opens within two or three weeks of planting.

Bare roots breaking ground

Hosta and daylily roots planted in spring push up their first leaves in two to four weeks.

A bloom calendar

A one page chart of what flowers in which month in your bed, with the gaps circled. It becomes next year's shopping list.

How to pick a good plant

Read the tag first

Zone range, sun needs, mature height and mature width. Those four numbers decide whether the plant will live in your bed and how many you need to fill it.

Buy green, not in bloom

A bushy plant with several stems and buds settles in faster than a tall one already in full flower.

Check the roots

Tip the pot and look underneath. A few white roots at the drainage holes is right. A thick mat circling the pot means it has sat too long.

Potted or bare root

Potted plants cost more and can go in the ground any time from spring to fall. Bare roots arrive dormant in a bag, cost about half as much and must be planted within a few days.

Skip the tiny pots

A one gallon plant flowers the year you plant it. A 3 inch plug is cheaper and usually takes an extra year to catch up.

A clump of pink coneflowers with orange centers on tall stems above green leaves — Coneflowers, a dependable sun perennial

Four skills that carry a border

Orange daylilies in bloom and in bud on tall stems in a sunny border — Daylilies in bloom and bud

Planting at the right depth

Most perennials die of being buried, not of being dry. The crown, where the stems meet the roots, sits level with the soil unless the plant's own instructions say otherwise.

Deep watering

One long soak sends roots down. A daily sprinkle keeps them at the surface, where they dry out.

Deadheading and cutting back

Snipping off faded flowers keeps many perennials blooming for weeks longer. In late fall or early spring, cut the dead stems to a few inches above the ground.

Dividing

Every three to five years, lift a crowded clump, split it into fist-sized pieces and replant them. It restores flowering and is how a border of nine plants becomes thirty.

What trips beginners up

The quiet first year

New plants look small and flower lightly. Do not move them or feed them harder. They are growing roots.

Short bloom windows

Most perennials flower for two to four weeks, not all summer. A border that peaks in June and then goes green was planned in one trip to the nursery in June.

Losses over winter

Expect to lose a plant or two. Wet soil in winter kills more perennials than cold does.

Planting too close

Spacing by how the pots look today means digging half of them out in year three. Trust the width on the tag.

Ignoring sun and zone

A shade plant in full sun scorches, and a sun plant in shade flops and never flowers. No amount of care fixes the wrong spot.

Weeding out your own plants

Many perennials come up late in spring, and bare ground gets dug over by mistake. Labels prevent it.

Pets and kids

Daylilies are highly toxic to cats, even in small amounts. Hostas, irises and peonies can make dogs and cats sick if chewed. Plant them where pets do not graze.

How much time it takes

Making and planting a first bed takes one weekend. After that, plan on an hour or two a week from April to October for weeding, deadheading and watering, and less once the mulch is down and the plants have closed the gaps. Two bigger sessions frame the year: a spring cleanup of about two hours per bed, and a fall afternoon for dividing and planting.

A mulched path with a wooden bench between beds of blue catmint and pink-flowered shrubs, with tall conifers behind — A mulched path through summer beds

Where to learn more

A violet bearded iris in sharp focus in front of a bed of blurred purple irises — Bearded irises in late spring

A plant finder database answers most questions about a specific plant before you buy it: how big it gets, when it flowers and what goes wrong with it. Your state's Cooperative Extension office publishes perennial lists tested in your climate and runs a Master Gardener help line. The plant societies for hostas, daylilies, irises and peonies all have local clubs, and their annual sales are where members sell divisions of named varieties for a few dollars each. Public gardens are worth a visit in every month of the growing season with a notebook: write down what is in bloom and you have a planting plan.

Free plant advice

Why the kit looks like this

Plants are where most of the money goes, and it is worth it: they are a one-time cost that multiplies. The tools are few because the work is simple. A shovel makes the bed, a trowel plants it, pruners keep it tidy and a watering wand gets new plants through their first summer. Compost, mulch and a slow fertilizer are the recommended lines because they do most of the long-term work of feeding the soil and keeping weeds down. Each of the four specialties adds its own roots plus the one supply that plant is known to need. A local nursery often beats shipping for potted plants and bagged mulch.

White and blush double peonies open above glossy dark green leaves — Double peonies in bloom

Load the garden cart

Compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the cart. Clicking a card selects it there, and clicking the selected card again takes that line out. The hosta growing, daylily growing, iris growing and peony growing lines and the optional digging fork start out of the kit.

EssentialPlants

Starter perennial plants

The border itself. Sun-loving, long-blooming perennials such as coneflower forgive beginner mistakes and flower the year you plant them.

budget

Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm' (Black Eyed Susan) Perennial, yellow flowers, 1 - Size Container

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$17.99

Perennial Gardening

What a year with perennials looks like

Five ways to start

Plant your first border

How to pick a good plant

Four skills that carry a border

What trips beginners up

How much time it takes

Where to learn more

Why the kit looks like this

Load the garden cart

Starter perennial plants

Round point digging shovel

Hand trowel

Gardening gloves

Bypass pruners

Watering wand

Bagged compost

Bagged wood mulch

Slow-release flower fertilizer

Plant labels

Hosta plants

Slug and snail bait

Daylily plants

Bearded iris rhizomes

Bone meal fertilizer

Peony bare roots

Peony support cage

Digging fork