What are your ten top choices for perennial plantings?

Only 10 Plants?

If I was reduced to ten plants around which to plan the gardening season, which would I choose?
That is a difficult choice given that there are lots of them I haven’t even tried. For instance, I always wanted a dictamnus, gas plant, but never managed to purchase it.

To answer the question…
Those I would choose now, for this garden on the plain, are these old stalwarts.  I have greatly appreciated them.

Top Ten Perennials For A Home Garden

Smaller flowers are sometimes overlooked, but I have included some of these in my must-have plant list.

1. Roses are always in the list of top ten perennials.
2. Peonies have been a stalwart choice for centuries. They make the May/June garden.
3. Lilies are something I would plant more of, they fill June/July with bright color and fragrance.
4. Rudbeckias, like ‘Guldsturm’ tend to be overdone, but their easy growth and golden daisies provide color in even the hottest summer heat ( for the north, anyway), so I would always like some of them in the garden.
5. Hostas, everyone needs some hostas, and they have beautiful flowers on graceful stems. Rise to #1 in the top ten perennials list for many modern gardeners; especially if you have lots of shady spots.
6. Campanula carpatica is a useful, sturdy, blue flowering cushion.
7. I have come to really appreciate Scabiosas. Another blue, graceful and free-flowering.
8. Daylilies are in a class by themselves for usefulness. Many are fragrant, and free-flowering, they come in lots of colors, but the yellows are always wonderful.
9. Siberian Iris replaces all the German types in my opinion. Not as showy, but far more graceful and lots less work.
10. Chrysanthemums have to end the season. Nothing else gives as much hardy color in the fall garden. But I would be tempted to say Flowering Kale…. it simply is not as versatile or colorful as the mums…. but it lasts through frosts and freeze. But, no, Chrysanthemums stand. They are easy to grow and propagate. They have all sorts of interesting forms, but the cushion types are most useful.

So. There is my list. Of course, it is only imaginary, since I don’t think I could have only those in a garden… I would fill in with whatever little plants I could tuck into corners and niches. Things like Campanula cochlearfolia, Adenophora, Alchemilla, Violas, …….. I better grow to be a really nice old lady, so that grandkids will gladly work in the garden for. me….

…or perhaps I will take the advice on taking up growing orchids? One of my grandmothers who became invalid, after having grown prize iris and peonies in her younger days, took up African violets. She grew the most beautiful violets.

Flowers are a lifetime of joy, I think.

What if the list were not just personal choice, but some of the strongest and best performers in most any garden?

The group would be quite different, and I put together the top ten best for most gardens: