5 Top Flowering Perennials for Bringing Color to your Cortlandt Manor Landscape Design

Flowering perennials are ideal for bringing color to your yard year after year and with a spectrum of blooming times, you can ensure that your landscape remains cheerful year round. Here we’ve selected some of our favorite perennials perfect for Cortlandt Manor and surrounding areas falling under plant hardiness zone 6a.

'Georgia Blue' Speedwell (Veronica Umbrosa)

The Georgia blue speedwell is a low maintenance perennial with a high tolerance to both heavy rain and drought. The beauty of this tough little plant is its abundance of tiny blue flowers that blossom at sporadic intervals from season to season. The density of the flowers and foliage make this little plant an excellent protective covering for bulbs, and a low lying filler for plant beds that acts to suppress the growth of weeds. The covering provided by the Georgia blue is less than 6 inches high, but spreads outwards to create a dense covering 4-6 feet across.

Black Scallop Bugleweed (Ajuga Reptans)

The black scallop provides visual interest with its large crinkly, almost black, scallop-shaped leaves and bright blue flowers. The peculiar leaves of the black scallop range in color from dark green to dark red and can maintain their color all year round in the right conditions. Perfect as a ground cover, or planter filler, the black scallop maintains a low 6 inch height and a spread of up to 3 feet. The small but attractive blue flowers appear from May-June to offset the dark flowers in late spring/summer.

Tickseed (Coreopsis Verticillata)

Easy to grow and low maintenance, the tickseed is perfect for transforming your yard with its sunny color. The tickseed’s foliage is delicate with a fine texture. During mid-summer, all the way through to the first winter frost, the tickseed erupts into bright yellow blossoms, each about the size of a nickel. The plant can grow up to 24 inches tall with a spread of around 18 inches. However, the plant can be grown in clusters, contributing to a full, colorful mass.

Echinacea AKA Purple Coneflower

The echinacea is a native beauty, growing only in the eastern and central United States, and is perfect for attracting insects to your yard, particularly butterflies and bees. With its bright purple flowers and tall stems, echinacea is a bold and attractive plant, growing up to 4 feet in height with a 2 foot spread. The flowers bloom from around July up until September. Echinacea is popular in alternative medicine for its purported therapeutic benefits including boosting the immune system and alleviating pain, and can be made into a tea with a strong herbal/floral flavor.

Garden Phlox (Phlox Paniculata)

Another native wildflower, the garden phlox is perfectly suited to the region, although it can be sensitive to fungus in humid conditions. The phlox produces tight clusters of brightly colored flowers with variations offering pink, red, white, purple and blue blossoms. The plant can grow up to 4 feet tall with a 3 foot spread. The brightly colored flowers last for several weeks during the summer.