I'm Eric with Landscaped Garden Centers, and today I'm going to talk about some of my favorite flowering perennials.
The first one we're going to talk about is a Hardy Hibiscus, it's a great plant, and it looks very, very similar to the Tropical Hibiscus. The unique traits of this one are the flowers are much, much bigger. The flowers will be, in some cases, the size of dinner plates, and they are beautiful plants to use around your landscape. The amount of sunlight is critical for these. These can do partial shade, but do not expect as many blooms. So full-sun, morning sun basically, would be the best for this plant. It wants to have moist soil. You'll notice on these is that they'll have great, awesome buds that are showing up. And these will be one of those plants that the more fertilizer, the more buds, the more flowers, and the more impressive foliage. Some things to consider are these can be anywhere from two to four feet tall. If you want to kind of control them as they're growing, before they start putting their buds on, you can kind of nip them back and keep them closer together. As long as you are also providing extra fertilizer, that will give you more buds and blossoms. These are going to be blossoming this time into probably the end of August. And then their blooms will fall apart, and then they will be putting their energy back into the root system. Once we get a good, hard freeze, you'll notice that the foliage will shrink down to nothing, leaving some of these sticks and these stocks. Just leave those up in the wintertime. And I think the best time to trim these back is probably more in the early spring. They like to sleep a little bit longer into the spring than your typical plants. So you may not see them starting to wake up as early as the other plants they're next to, so don't worry. But once they begin to show, they show they like warmth. As we've discussed in other segments, they need that soil warm, but they need some good, well-drained soil. Again, put some mulch around the base of the plant to help keep the roots moist, and we keep them cool. But then you should have a very successful Hardy Hibiscus.
Now, the next one we're going to talk about is the Phlox. So there are quite a few different varieties of the Phlox. The one down here, this is a- they call it a Creeping Phlox, and it's almost prickly like an evergreen. And sometimes they call it Moss Phlox. But these are impressive to use around rock beds and boulder walls because they'll create a carpet. And the unique thing about that is they come in different colors, purples, pinks, and whites. These will bloom in the spring, but they will remain similar to Hardy Evergreen throughout winter and the following spring. They'll hold their place, their shape, and they don't curl back like a typical perennial would be. There's another Phlox that is blooming right now. And that's the Tall Phlox or the Garden Phlox. This Phlox right now is exceptionally fragrant. And it is doing very, very well. These will also get, for that, two to three feet tall. They bloom later, but these plants, these taller Garden Phlox, you'll see these wild. Maybe along- when you're driving along a highway, that's right along a grove of trees. And these like to have, again, East exposure. And then they are allowed to cool off in the afternoon. They come in lots of different colors, very fragrant. It's one of those plants definitely to use in your landscape at this time of the year. I'm Eric with Landscape Garden Centers, and keep it growing.