living in the south is wonderful and it has massive benefits but it can prove to
be a little bit challenging when you try to garden stay tuned as I share my top 5
favorite proven winners perennials with you
hey friends welcome to gardening with Creekside I am Jenny and today we're
doing a little something special a little something different we are doing
our top five favorite perennials and they're all proven winners now there is
some criteria for these guys they had to be really great performers for us in the
south that means they can handle our heat they can handle our oppressive
humidity at times they have to be resistant to the Japanese beetles which
if you've ever gardened in the South you know that a Japanese beetle can
absolutely destroy your garden in just a couple of matters of days also they are
going to be not be prone to having caterpillars or worms eat on them so
basically overall they are going to be very resistant to common pests here in
the south also disease resistant so let's not wait any longer let's just get
started my and this is not in any kind of order
so it's not like my absolute favorite and my number five favorite these are
just in random order so my first perennial that is one of my top five
favorites is banana cream shasta daisy this if you were looking for a prolific
bloomer all season long then you cannot go wrong with banana cream banana cream
produces these gorgeous classic shaped shasta daisy blooms but with a little
bit of a twist so your new blooms emerge this beautiful light creamy yellow color
and then as they age they will turn to a creamy white so on the same plant you
will have different variations of a beautiful yellow to a white so it is
just like a banana cream pie some requirements for banana cream how
does she grow where does she want to be she has to have full Sun must have full
Sun remember full Sun is at least 6 hours if you don't get your 6 hours of
Sun you are not going to get your blooms also she needs to have nice well-drained
soil not too wet not too dry just right she will get to be about 18 inches tall
and twenty-four inches wide and she is Hardy
in five through nine now with what makes banana cream so special other than her
colors is that like your traditional shasta daisy they would get this nice
big flush of blooms do great for a little bit and then you
would have to cut the plant completely down to get another flush of blooms not
so with banana cream she is a continuous bloomer so you can just go in and
individually deadhead the plant remember deadheading just simply means you're
cutting off the old blooms making way for new growth they make fantastic cut
flowers so go out there cut your bouquet and
bring it inside and they last for a long time so make sure that you look for
banana creme shasta daisy the second one on my list is for you shade gardeners
this is just a fun name you got to get it just for the name wu la la
wu la la is wonderful it is a bluegreen foliage with a gorgeous kind of a lime green
edging on it so I love hostas I love to put different kinds of hostas in a bed
and wha-la la will be a fabulous addition to your shade garden shade
shade means less than four hours or less of Sun now with hostas they really do
prefer to have Morning Sun over late afternoon Sun especially here in the
south because it just gets so hot and intense in the afternoon and because
wu la la is a Bluegreen hosta that darker foliage she's got to have more shade so
it's going to be a shade to a part Sun so at less than 4 hours of Sun she will
get to be 4 feet tall and 6 feet wide now it will take you about five years to
get your mature maximum size of wu la la but once she is that size you will not
be sorry she is absolutely gorgeous and stunning
she's Hardy in zones 3 through 9 I mean that's practically the whole country so
not only is she great for a southern gardeners but she's great for every
body but especially here in the South you cannot go wrong with wu la la hosta
next this is a series this is not just one plant this is the paint the town
dianthus absolutely gorgeous I love this whole series of dianthus because one is
extremely low maintenance - nobody likes to chew on it or bother it and then
three it is one of the earliest bloomers in my garden this dianthus is a much
earlier bloomer than other dianthus it is a single bloom so you can get
different petal flowers of dianthus this is a single one but it is absolutely
prolific it will cover the entire plant it only gets to be about 8 inches tall
and then over time it will spread to be about 14 inches wide it's not invasive
but just like with all perennials it just gets a little bit wider it is Hardy
and zones 4 through 9 and it will do part Sun to full Sun if you are in those
8 and 9 climate zones you may want to give it just a little bit of shade in
the afternoon but here in North Carolina with us being a zone 7 B it does great
it sits out in full Sun for us and it's just an absolutely prolific bloomer and
it smells fantastic it has this great light scent almost a little reminiscent
of a honeysuckle so paint the town dianthus it comes in three colors
fuchsia magenta red and then coming next year is fancy which is a bicolor and
she's gorgeous so put that on your shopping list next
doing another whole series because I can't just choose one it is the rainbow
rhythm day lilies from proven winners absolutely low-maintenance massive
flowers high-performing plant again day lilies are synonymous with the south
they do a great job here in the South basically you put them in the ground
they like the full Sun they have to have at least those 6 hours otherwise they'll
get leggy and floppy but the whole rainbow rhythm series has just a whole
boo haha a rainbow range of colors and sizes basically they will go from
anywhere it's depending on the variety that you choose for your garden anywhere
from about three feet tall to about four feet tall including the blooms most of
them will get about 24 inches wide they are Hardy in zones 3 through 9 so again
very very Hardy we don't have to worry about it getting too cold for us with
those day lilies and day lilies love the Sun they love the heat just comes in
massive colors I love this series because they have just really vibrant
colors and they have massive blooms a lot of their blooms are like seven
inches across just a real showstopper and you can see several of them behind
me right now and they bloom for a really long time as far as day lilies are
concerned so check it out there are a ton of different varieties in the
rainbow rhythm series of day lilies so make sure you find one that is the
perfect color for your garden and add it as soon as you can and then finally
rounding out the top five of my five southern favorites is black pearl heuchera
this is another wonderful perennial I love it because it is very
versatile it can do Sun or shade really does well if it does getting Sun that it
gets a little break in the afternoon that it can do great in the landscape
you can put it in containers it is a semi evergreen for us here in the South
that means that even in the winter time you're going to have foliage now it
would not be in a all glory but you will still have a nice mound of
the black pearl there that you can see all winter long black pearl is really
neat because of that great color just set dark rich purple hints black color
so the more shade you get the deeper and the darker that it will be as far as the
size it's going to be about 10 inches tall and 20 inches wide again these are
mature sizes and they are Hardy in zones 4 through 9 what makes black pearls so
fantastic dick for the south is because there are
so many different types of heucheras out there on the market but black pearl is
part of the villosa species of heucheras the villosa species is native to the
Southeast United States meaning it thrives in our heat and humidity it does
not miss a beat with our hot humid nights because unlike
other parts of the country that are really hot during the day a lot of times
they will cool off at the night if you've lived in the south for any amount
of time you know that our nights can be just as sticky or stickier than the
daytime so that is one of our environmental conditions that can make
growing things a little bit more challenging here in the south but those
are my top five perennials that I absolutely love from proven winners that
are high performers for us southern gardeners I hope this has been
informative I hope this is giving you some ideas that you were able to take
some notes and put them on your shopping list go to your local nursery and ask if
these they have these available because you need to get them in your garden
right away thank you so much for watching make sure you like this video
and subscribe to Gardening with Creekside we will see you next time
bye friends
I don't like that I don't like that that was like little bit okay