Depends on your zone I guess...

While you poor z4 folks get snowed in and grind to a halt you can watch how the posts from z 5 to 7 turn dry and yellow

Unless you have an evergreen topic

Bye, Lin (while waiting for my last Dahlia to open)

Technically, any plant that has a lifespan in excess of 2 years is considered a perennial. :-)) Although the term is usually applied to herbaceous flowering material that does often die to the ground for long periods of time, it is not at all unreasonable to expand the term to include any sort of groundcover, tree, shrub, vine or ornamental grass that lives longer than just a couple of years.

I often find the off-season or winter discussions on this form just as interesting as the inseason ones as it often involves the compilation of helpful lists, planning for ideas and the often under utilized winter perennials.

Personally and generally speaking, I'd rather this forum be for "Herbaceous Perennials".

There are shrub and tree forums for those who like to focus on woody perennials.

I would also rather participate in a herbaceous perennial forum limited to our own, plus perhaps adjacent, plant hardiness zones.

Having a forum which covers so many possibilities promotes people just talking past each other.

There are many inactive forums on GW due to overly specific subjects and there are already plenty of regionally specific forums as well where people don't talk past each other, when they talk at all that is, which is often the problem. This came up once before quite recently.

I don't expect to be included or interested in all of the threads, regional tidbits or comments I read but there are a few I do have an interest in. I don't expect there are very many people interested in my own garden or where I live either. I don't really care if someone lives in a different region or country for that matter and don't expect to get advice or help in many instances from such places, none the less, it is often interesting to read about what other areas and gardens are like.

I also like reading certain people's posts just because of how they write although I will not gush on and on about it, its enough to just get a good laugh sometimes even if the plants are not particularly of interest to me. The general nature of the subject and various personalities is what makes the perennials forum so active, interesting and versatile but sometimes its contentious too.

Just ignore the stuff that gets under your skin SB if that is the case, that would be my advice to anyone who thinks we should stay focused 100% of the time on a narrower, specific subject. I'd find that quite boring, monotonous and repetitious myself. Besides, there are only so many times you can say (or read) "Ooh thats pretty, let my show you my cultivar that is just like it only a slightly different color and flower form". That stuff is often boring to me but not to others. Who cares? There is something for everyone, isn't there?

If I had a plant that bloomed for only 2 weeks, I would put it out of its misery to make room for a real flowering perennial. Seriously, aside from plants that I grow for foliage (Lamb's Ear, Ecomis) everything in my garden blooms for at least 4 weeks.

A very easy way to fix the zone problem is to be able to filter by zone (4) or a range of zones (3-5). Of course it would require that anyone wishing to be in that filter to actually place their zone in the system.

I would go as far as saying that I most especially like to hear from people who are gardening in vastly different circumstances to my own.....I come here to learn about stuff I might never come across if I stuck to a narrower definition of appropriate gardening. After 20 years, I know lots about gardening in the UK with perennials....but hardly anything about US natives, gardening in drought, in cold climates, houseplants, cactii and succulents or trees.....but it is all absolutely fascinating to me even if I personally will never grow such things. I hate to put limits to sharing information....but I do also understand your frustration, SB, in having to filter stuff you personally find irrelevant or unhelpful. Thankfully, hardly anyone else rambles on as much as I do and I find most posts to be concise and to the point (I personally would not bother to read any post which had hostas anywhere in the title (unless prefaced with 'why I hate..... ).

Hahahaha! I got it! Very funny Emerogork! However, most perennials have a fairly long season, showing up anywhere from early to late spring and then lasting through late fall, unless of course, it is an evergreen and you are in the right zone. Therefore, you have until November to post, and then be sure to come back in the spring. :) Happy Fall!

Here is a link that might be useful: Perennials :)

Emerogork,

funny!

I monitor this forum a few times every day. I enjoy reading the various posts and can't begin to assess how much I've learned about perennials as a result, even those not hardy in my zone or in which I have no interest. I'm interested in other gardeners' thoughts, viewpoints, concerns and happy to answer newbie questions when I can.

I designed my garden beds with three objectives in mind: (1) to provide sustenance for pollinators; (2) to have something in bloom for as much of the year as possible; and (3) to provide "curb appeal." The Lenten roses start blooming in March and continue through May/June; toad lilies start blooming in October. Even during the coldest months, I still learn something each time I access the forum.

Gardening may slow during the cold months but that doesn't mean gardeners aren't still paying attention.

Campanula, if you rambled, it was on topic.

Therefore, I'd never call that rambling.

I agree with texasranger and campanula 100%. Campanula, why do you hate hostas? Or should I post a new thread to ask? I also enjoy reading others gardeners experiences especially from across the atlantic, possibly because I am from that side of the world myself but I did start gardening here in the US and still have so much to learn. Many thanks to gardenwebs members for alot of my knowledge so far.

I have not been around here more than a year so I guess I am still an annual poster and I will be a perennial irritant with my late Texas bloomers while all the far northerners are covered in snow.. I will hear your complaints about the never-ending snow with concideration as you have had to listen to me complain about the ungodly heat. Our differences are our strengths.

Funny, certainly true of some perennials, but there are plenty with short flowering seasons that have other features -- foliage, seedheads -- that extend their interest for a greater part of the year.

At this point I'm interested in very little that isn't native to the tallgrass prairie region where I live, but this is the forum I come to most often. Like Campanula, I'm not going to read anything about hostas, but I find that I've learned a lot about perennial gardening in general even when the specific plants discussed aren't ones I'm going to use (i.e. when to do cleanup, whether to plant in fall, etc.).

I suppose I also have the advantage that, living in the middle of the country, my zone and the ones on either side cover a huge area. I might be more inclined to seek out a regional forum if I lived farther north or south.

I suppose I should be considered a perennial weed on the forum, I often feel that way among all the fancy plants I see but a perennial is a perennial is a.....

Same here woodstea except I am more shortgrass prairie oriented, however there are a lot of native perennials involved with either situation. Maybe you are a weed too but I like that I can meet a few people every now and then with similar interests and goals.

Flowers are rather lower down on my list of interest when I am choosing plants, I am more inclined to choose plants with foliage color or texture based on how they look out of bloom because my space is limited & it gives interest in all seasons, including winter which is always a factor. If I had an acreage it would be different. I also tend to choose plants that have a long bloom time, a second bloom time or those that will bloom opportunistically with rain but which still look good out of bloom which includes several along with lots of grasses which always look good. As a result, I have some short lived perennials, annuals and biennials among the long lived perennials that I let naturalize here which keeps them going year after year. Evergreen or 'Eversilver' often makes a plant desirable to me, no matter the bloom.

Our regional forum is devoted mostly to vegetables. Thats all fine and well but I don't find much to read or post about.