So last year i began gardening, and I successfully planted a bunch of shrubs that lasted through the summer and winter, and have bloomed again this spring. Yay me!

Now I am looking at planting more flowers. However, I have made one discovery about myself in the past year: I'm a bigger control freak than I thought, and I don't like it when my plants spread without my express permission!

Case in point: I also put down some Sweet Woodruff under a larger shrub just to fill in the space and cover the bottom a bit. I knew that it was a groundcover and would spread, but I never expected that i would react so negatively to it. I see how the centers get so kind of ragged and will need to be uprooted and divided, which is a turn off for me. It's also growing at all sorts of points though the mulch and so I'm really unsure how the mulch should be arranged to handle a spreading plant like this while still providing cover for nearby shrubs.

So basically what i am looking for is this: nice, colorful flowers that can grow for a few years and not worry about them spreading all over the place. Ones that either bloom for a long time or can be easily deadheaded to get some reblooms. Oh, and that won't need digging out and dividing.

Are there perennials that fit this bill, or should I be looking at annuals instead? I would think annuals fit more of what I need, but I would prefer to have to replant only every couple of years instead of every year.

Thanks!