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