The Sooner You Plant These 8 Perennial Plants This Fall, the Better They’ll Come Back Next Year

It happens to us all: maybe you spent hours landscaping your yard for the year, enjoyed a season of blooms, but you sadly watched all of your plants die back and never return.

Chances are, you probably misplanned your garden and didn’t plant enough perennials, or plants that come back every year.

The Difference Between Annuals and Perennials

There are two main categories of plants you’ll find at your local nursery: annuals and perennials. While both offer many incredible varieties with beautiful blooms, greenery, and lush foliage, annuals will only live for the duration of one growing season and then die off.

Perennials, on the other hand, still have a blooming season when they put out flowers, as long as they’re suited to your climate and given the proper care. Their above-ground portions may die back in winter, but they’ll revive in the spring.

When the next blooming season comes around, these reliable species will pop back up with new blossoms, just as lively as the year before.

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Choosing Perennials or Annuals for the Garden

There are plenty of good reasons to choose annuals, and many of your favorite flower varieties may be annuals. But if you want to landscape your garden space once and have a happy, blooming garden every year to come, perennials are a much more cost- and time-efficient choice in the long run.

Here are 8 of our top picks for gorgeous perennials to landscape your yard with.

Black-Eyed Susan

With their iconic look and bright yellow palette, these flowers are instantly recognizable and bring a perfect, summery feel to your landscaping. Very resistant to heat and drought, they’re a hearty hot-weather plant that puts out a surprisingly steady supply of flowers.

They’re also a great addition to a pollinator-friendly garden, as these yellow-orange blooms attract birds and other pollinators.

• Name: Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
• USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-11
• Light: Full sun
• Soil: well-drained

Chrysanthemum

Springing up in a huge variety of bright, eye-catching colors, chrysanthemums are a gardeners’ delight, blooming in the autumn and providing that late-season color that can be hard to come by as summer-blooming plants die back.

Considered perennials because they can and will come back for several years, it’s worth noting that these bushy blooms do tend to stop popping back up after a few years in the garden, so eventually they may need to be replaced with nee chrysanthemums, or something new.

• Name: Chrysanthemum
• USDA Hardiness Zones: 5-9
• Light: Full sun or part shade
• Soil: well-drained, moist

Daylily

Another beautiful and easily recognizable flower, daylilies come in a wide range of colors and styles, all of them perennial and happily springing up year after year. These plants love sun more than anything, and will thrive if they have tons of direct light, though they’ll still produce some blooms in a shadier spot. These low-maintenance flowers are also drought resistant, and you can select between varieties that produce flowers throughout the year or ones that put out tons of flowers in one short go.

• Name: Daylily (Hemerocallis)
• USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-10
• Light: Full sun for best blooms
• Soil: well-drained

Hosta

If you’re looking to fill in your landscaping with some gorgeous and lush greenery, hostas are a lovely and versatile perennial that loves shade, provides great ground cover, and has a variety of looks and colors.

These leafy plants do well in the ground and in containers, especially in your shady corners where other plants won’t thrive. And though they’re great for greenery, they also shoot up flowers too, in shades of pink and white that attract a host of pollinators to your home.

• Name: Hosta (Hosta plantaginea)
• USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-9
• Light: Shady to full sun
• Soil: Consistently moist

Peony

These huge, dreamy flowers often go hand in hand with a lovely scent, and they’re among the best cutting flower options for your garden, perfect for adding to a bouquet and sprucing up your mantel or table. Long-living and low-maintenance, these are an ideal perennial to add to your landscape.

• Name: Hosta (Paeonia lactiflora)
• USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-8
• Light: Part shade to full sun
• Soil: Well-drained

Perennial Sage

Part of the salvia family, which includes both annuals and perennials, there are some varieties of sage that are perennials and make a lovely blooming addition to gardens, perfect for attracting pollinators and adding some fresh, vibrant scent. Blooming tall spikes of purple, white, or blue flowers in late spring, these are easy to care for plants to add to your space.

• Name: Hybrid perennial sage (Salvia x sylvestris)
• USDA Hardiness Zones: 4-9
• Light: full sun
• Soil: Well-drained

Siberian Iris

Perfect for adding some height to your beds, irises bring beautiful color in early summer and are great in wetter climates. They feature grass-like foliage with multi-colored flowers popping up amidst them, perfect for cutting and adding to arrangements. These sun-loving plants will do best with plenty of direct light.

• Name: Siberian Iris (Iris sibirica)
• USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-9
• Light: Full sun
• Soil: Well-drained, moist

Veronica

Long-blooming from early summer through fall, Veronica has different growing preferences depending on its location. In northern areas, it prefers sun. But in the hotter southern zones, it needs a bit more shade. Producing lovely flowering spikes, up to 7 inches tall, it’s a lovely addition to garden beds that can tolerate dry soil and adds beauty all season.

• Name: Veronica (Veronica officinalis)
• USDA Hardiness Zones: 3-11
• Light: Full sun or part shade depending on location
• Soil: Well-drained, can tolerate dry