Perennials to fill your Garden

 Long-blooming perennials 

Perennials come back on their own every year, unlike annuals that need to be replaced after winter. Disadvantage of perennials: shorter flowering time than annuals. However, you can achieve nearly continuous color with these long-blooming perennials that bloom all summer (and some produce flowers from spring to fall).

1. Black-Eyed Susan

These popular, long-blooming perennials should be at the top of your list. Black-eyed Susan daisies bloom for weeks and weeks in summer, lighting up gardens with their bright yellow petals. Additionally, deer tend to avoid this drought-tolerant plant. Get extra blooms, prevent unwanted self-seeding, and prevent spent blooms.

2. Blanket flower

If you are planting a cut garden, add blanket flowers. This hardy but beautiful native perennial has red and yellow flowers from early summer through fall. It doesn't mind heat, drought, or poor soil, and pollinators like bumblebees love it.

3. Garden phlox

Bloom in pink, purple, red, orange and white and leave to flower garden phlox. This fragrant beauty displays its colorful flowers from July to September. Phlox is essential to a butterfly garden and makes an excellent cut flower for bouquets.

4. Perennial geranium

With more than 300 species and varieties of perennial geraniums, you'll find the perfect shape, color and size for your yard. Make sure you don't confuse them with the annual geranium (from the pelargonium genus) popular for pots—they're not related! Perennial geraniums bloom from early summer to fall and are commonly called cranesbills because their seed pods resemble crane cranes.

5. Pincushion flower

For a non-stop flower show all summer long, plant a pincushion flower. Its long-stemmed flowers sway gently on low mounds of grey-green leaves. Butterflies love its lavender-blue flowers. Keep this spring-blooming perennial in bloom and keep the plant tidy.

6. Hibiscus

Give your yard some tropical flair with native hardy hibiscus. These beautiful flowers look like their cousins from the tropics, but survive the winter in colder climates. Hardy hibiscus has large, showy flowers in white, pink, red and rose that will practically stop traffic all summer long.

7. Clematis

Known as one of the most beautiful flowering vines, clematis displays large blooms that last all summer. These vertical plants are available in many shapes and colors. Clematis look stunning climbing any type of structure.

8. Dianthus

Small but abundant, brightly colored flowers cover dianthus from early spring until frost. Elegant, grass-like, silvery gray-green foliage remains in the dull months of winter.

9. Threadleaf coreopsis

The cheery yellow flowers of Threadleaf Coreopsis bloom almost non-stop from late June through fall. These perennials should be deadened by cutting back the old flowers, which will encourage new blooms. For a beautiful flower border, plant it with purple or blue flowers such as perennial salvia or balloon flower.

10. False sunflower

This vibrant perennial starts blooming in mid-summer and stretches its produce until frost. False sunflowers are also known as oxeye sunflowers because each flower has a single row of golden petals surrounding a dark yellow central eye.