Perennials can form the foundation of a flower garden and range in height from under 12 inches to as much as 12 feet. When looking to include one or more of the taller varieties in your garden, you may wonder which to select for the visual look you’re hoping to achieve.
Twelve Tall Perennials
Included below are twelve of the best tall perennial flowers. Some are unabashedly bold, others more subtly interesting. But all are worth trying in your own garden and are available from local garden centers or through mail order.
- Delphinium (delphinium) These majestic ladies are finicky, often susceptible to disease and wind damage, but worth all your efforts if you can get conditions right for them. Their dazzling star-shaped blossoms, often with dark eyes, range in color from white through darkest blue and are arranged on lovely spires with whimsical drooping tips. Carefully placed clumps of these beauties – which can tower nearly eight feet – add spectacular beauty and an established look to your garden.
- Foxglove (digitalis) An old-fashioned cottage garden favorite, these stately spires of elongated bells with speckled throats can reach over six feet tall. The flowers droop toward one side in a most charming manner and a drift of these meandering through a garden creates the look of a fairyland.
- Globe Thistle (echinops) An unusual multi-branched plant, this is one that garden admirers will notice because of its distinctive round and spikey steel-blue flowers. Standing about four feet tall, it’s best placed mid-garden or farther back because of its wide bushy shape and rough artichoke-like foliage. Globe Thistle makes a good cut flower and is also attractive when dried.
- Golden Glow (rudbeckia) These six foot-tall wild-looking plants are covered with double bright yellow blossoms from late summer into fall. They make cheerful bouquets at a time of year when many plants have ended their blooming season. Golden Glows are excellent for filling in areas where you can let them go with reckless abandon as they are prolific and spread quickly.
- Hollyhock (althea) These beloved flowers are sometimes difficult to get established, but once they are settled in, colonies of these tall stately specimens add an old-fashioned air to your garden. Hollyhocks can reach towering heights of nine feet. The single-flowered specimens are the most charming, their delightful saucer-shaped blossoms ranging in shades from pastel to dark. Originally all hollyhocks were biennials but perennial strains have been developed.
- Joe Pye-Weed (eupatorium) This handsome plant has large coarsely toothed leaves and bears attractive pinkish purple flower clusters in late summer and early fall. The flower heads, which can reach heights of eight feet, have the extra bonus of attracting butterflies to your garden. This plant is not commonly used but adds an interesting element to areas difficult in which to get less robust plants established.
- Lily (lilium) Lilies have a definite place in every perennial garden. The plants can achieve heights of six feet and the gorgeous exotic flowers range in all colors and shapes, from pendant to upright. They are fragrant and excellent for cutting as well as strikingly beautiful as they lazily nod over their shorter garden companions.
- Lupine (lupinus) These are among the most beautiful perennials grown. Picture flowering candle-like spikes rising four to six feet from bushy clumps of attractive dark green foliage. The color range of the blossoms is extensive, from creamy white to dark red to navy blue, including many bicolor combinations. Blooming from early to mid-summer, lupines can provide a stunning sight in either full sun or partial shade.
- Meadowsweet (filipendula) Also known as Queen of the Prairie, its feathery plumes of sweetly fragrant white or pinkish flowers reach up to six feet in mid-summer. The vigorous plants are ideal for moist or boggy areas of the garden; in an otherwise darkened shady area, the blossoms add a light and airy touch.
- Mullein (verbascum) Related to the common mulleins, or fairy candles found along many country roads, the beautiful hybrids send up giant flowering stalks from rosettes of velvet-leaved foliage. They’re a bit coarse looking and are a pleasant contrast to other more prim and tidy perennials.
- Obedient Plant (physostegia) Blooming after most perennials have faded, these plants offer a refreshing splash of white or pink in the late summer and fall seasons. They produce interesting spikes of white or pink flowers that resemble tiny snapdragon blossoms. The flowers will hold which ever position you bend them into, and thus the descriptive common name for the plant. Despite its innocent appearance, some gardeners refer to this as the “disobedient plant” as it is very invasive.
- Snakeroot (cimicifuga) This is the plant with the very tall and narrow wavy creamy-white spires that you see in dreamy garden book photographs. The pearl-like blooms on the lower end open first , thus the spires narrow towards the top and appear to be undulating in the breeze as they point skyward. This plant is wonderful for shade and moist soil and creates an exquisite effect when woven in amongst other garden plantings.
Placement of Tall Perennials
A solitary tall flower can look lost in the garden landscape, so clumps or drifts of these perennials are usually more pleasing to the eye. Wherever you situate them, you’ll surely appreciate the eye-catching impact of one or more of these tall perennials.