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Six Shorter Perennial Flower Varieties To Fill Out Your Garden Beds

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Replanting garden beds each spring is a hassle. Thus, it's best to work with your landscape designer to choose perennial flower varieties for your flower beds. Perennials come back season after season, so you don't have to rip them out and replant as often. A lot of perennial flowers are very tall, making them more suited for planting along a fence or building than in a low flower bed. However, the following six flowers are a more manageable height and are well-suited for garden bed planting.

Dwarf Blanket Flowers

Dwarf blanket flowers grow to between 10 and 12 inches in height. They have daisy-like flowers with many petals that are a light yellow on the outside and rusty orange on the inside. While very appealing to butterflies, they do not attract any other insects, making them a good choice for a flower bed near your patio or porch. These flowers bloom all season -- from early spring to late fall.

Caradonna Meadow Sage

The foliage of caradonna meadow sage tends to stay quite short, though the flowers themselves may shoot up to 18 inches. Their striking, purple spikes are sure to stand out against the rest of your landscape. You can even use the leaves of this plant to season your cooking. Once established, caradonna sage has low water requirements, making it a good choice in dry areas. It begins blooming in early summer and blooms into fall.

Little Lanterns

Little lantern plants reach about 10 inches tall and boast stunning red and yellow flowers. The foliage has a blue-green color. These flowers attract butterflies and hummingbirds, so place them in a garden bed you can see from your window. They are tolerant of shade, resistant to rabbits and deer, and stay looking fresh all season long.

King of Hearts

King of hearts is a variety of bleeding heart flowers that reaches about 8 to 10 inches in height. The flowers themselves are a reddish pink in color and hang from thin stems. They are named for their heart-like appearance. King of hearts plants prefer full sun or partial shade, and they are tolerant of a range of soil types from acidic to alkaline, making them a good choice if you're having trouble adjusting your soil pH.

Jacob's Ladder

Not all species of Jacob's ladder are short. Some grow to over three feet tall. However, the species P. reptans maxes out at a height of about 1 foot, making it a good choice for a garden bed. The flowers of this plant are light blue in color, and the foliage tends to be sprawling, taking up a lot of space. The two-toned color of Jacob's ladder leaves, which are a lighter color on the outside and a darker color inside, is sure to attract attention in your landscape.

Iron Butterflies

These fluffy, white flowers appear on bases of forked, green leaves. They reach 1 1/2 feet in height at the most, and are often shorter. Iron butterflies are a good choice if you have a garden bed in the shade, as they prefer partial to full shade. if you pluck the flowers off after they bloom, the foliage will become more plentiful. They are not known for attracting any insects and are tolerant of deer.

If you want to create neat garden beds, one of the secrets is choosing plants on the shorter side. Work with a landscape designer like those at Design Scapes of Manasota Inc to determine which of the flowers above are best suited to your landscape. You can mix and match as you please to create garden beds that are the talk of the town and easy to maintain.


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