Gardening with Allen: Perennials deliver color from spring to fall

I created a long bed for flowers that is 6 feet wide I would like to plant mostly perennial flowers. Could you give me suggestions of flower varieties so I can have color from spring through fall?

If this were my bed, the first thing I would do is to add a generous amount of compost or bark dust and some lime and mix it into the soil with a tiller or spade. Your flowers will grow so much better for you if you give them some good soil conditions before you even begin planting. You can add as much as 3 inches of mulch and 5 pounds of lime per 100 square feet. The lime reduces the acidity of our native soils.

Your planting will be more visually attractive if you plant multiple plants of the varieties you choose rather than just planting one plant of each. You may even want to repeat varieties along the bed. You will have two or three layers, depending on how wide the plants grow.

Your earliest color will come from spring-blooming bulbs planted in the fall. After bulbs, the earliest perennials are low-growing, ground-cover types like gold alyssum, white candytuft, and rock cress and false rock cress which come in white, pink, blue and purple shades. These four flowers retain their leaves in the winter, which is an added advantage. My favorite ground cover perennial is lamium or spotted nettle, which not only blooms early but continues to produce flowers all summer. Lamium comes in white, crimson, lavender and pink.

Late spring bloomers include creeping phlox, which blooms white, pink, blue and rose red; doronicum, a tall yellow daisy; and spike-flowered lupine and penstemon. Lupine and penstemon come in multiple shades.