Choosing flowers for Minnesota gardening can be challenging. The extreme differences in temperature and weather that occur throughout the gardening season make it planning a difficult task. If you’re planning a garden with long-term use in mind, you’ll definitely want to include perennials. Perennials guarantee beauty year after year and can be planted to bloom throughout the gardening season in Minnesota. Annual flowers only grow for one season. They can be added each year to your garden to brighten it up or for use in visually appealing flower baskets or window boxes.
What Are The Best Perennials for Minnesota Gardening?
Planting perennials in Minnesota means you need to purchase flowers that will grow in Zone 4. Zone 4 plants and vegetation can make it through minimum temperatures of -20 to -30 degrees. This is ideal for the Minnesota climate. Even though perennials return year after year, you still want to make sure you provide proper protection from the winter and summer elements. Remember to mulch your garden and take into consideration whether your plants need a certain amount of shade or sun to thrive.
Here Are The Best Perennials for Minnesota:
Asters: Asters are long-blooming flowers. They are vibrant in shade and very hardy. Asters make wonderful flowers for placing in a vase and provide strong growth. They bloom from mid-summer through the fall.
Chrysanthemums: Chrysanthemums flowers offer a beautiful variety of colors for your garden. In addition, they stand up well against extreme temperatures that tend to blossom all summer.
Coneflowers: Coneflowers provide your garden with gorgeous purple and lavender hues, as well as white. They are popular flowers for attracting butterflies and continue working long into the winter.
Day Lily: Ask nearly any gardener and they will likely list the day lily as one of their favorite perennial plants. Lilies are well-known for requiring minimal maintenance and for their ability to blossom in the sunniest or shadiest spots. Furthermore, these popular flowers also come in a vast array of colors. They make gorgeous additions to any sort of garden.
Hosta: Hosta’s are known for being a reliable flower that grows in shady areas. They also grow in direct sunlight. They are extremely hardy and require little maintenance.
Peonies: Peonies are possibly the most reliable flower for your garden. They provide incredibly fragrant blooms, as well as a visual appeal to your garden. They blossom in a host of colors in the spring for about a month.
Some popular annual flowers for Minnesota gardening:
Begonia: Begonia flowers thrive in the shade and provide a colorful boost to any garden. They blossom in white, red, pink, and varying shades or oranges and yellows. Consequently, Begonia are very popular among Minnesota gardens.
Dahlia: Dahlia flowers thrive in full sunlight and do require regular watering. In addition, they offer wonderful colorful options that are sure to make any flower pot or window box pop.
Geranium: These flowers blossom throughout the gardening season and are available in a wide range of colors. Furthermore, they thrive in the sun and do require that regular upkeep like deadheading and watering.
Marigold: These yellow or orange flowers tend to do well in both dry or moist soil and provide blooms throughout the gardening season, no matter what type of sunlight they are exposed to.
Petunia: The petunia is another annual flower that blooms from spring to fall. This colorful and fragrant flower attracts hummingbirds as well as butterflies and grows best in full sun.
➤ Dean Bjorkstrand offers garden design services. Click to learn more.