If you live in Oregon, then you already know that the weather can be fickle, and raising a great looking yard can be difficult.
Those with a busy lifestyle that cannot spend hours tending their yard find it even more difficult.
Some perennials grow great in Oregon, and they will make your landscaping beautiful with very little care. They will come back every year. It is easier to care for perennials in most cases, and you also will not have to plant them again next year, which can be a great way to save money.
Oregon homeowners may want to consider these 10 perennials.
Eriophyllum: Oregon Sunshine
The contrast between the grayish hue of the foliage and the bright yellow, daisy-like flowers on this plant make a beautiful contrast. This sun-loving plant can withstand almost anything Oregon weather throws at it, except for standing in water. This late-spring or early-summer blooming plant can grow up to 24-inches tall.
Showy Milkweed
This milkweed can grow up to 5-feet tall in the summer, and it produces loose clusters of rose-purple flowers in the spring that turn golden with age. If you carefully examine the flowers on this plant, they look like tiny crowns surrounding a center. After this plant stops blooming in about September, it will put on seed pods that will eventually bust open if not picked off the plant.
Western Bleeding Heart
Pink heart-shaped flowers appear on long, thin stems above fern-like foliage in early spring. This herbaceous perennial grows up to 12-inches tall, and it loves a moist environment and prefers shade. Originally growing naturally in heavily shaded woods, making a great addition to a woodland garden. It spreads slowly through rhizomes.
Sweet Woodruff
If you are looking for a beautiful low-growing groundcover, put sweet woodruff on your list to consider. Creeping roots allow this plant that needs to be watered if the weather stays too dry to spread quickly. This plant that puts on dainty white flowers in mid-to-late spring does well when planted under trees.
Cow Parsnip
This plant that can grow up to 10-feet tall puts on clusters of flowers that can be up to 8-inches across. Up to 30 white flowers make up each cluster. Under each flower spike grows three-to-five green bracts that can be longer than the flower cluster. This plant bears hairy leaves with teeth around their edges that can be up to 18-inches long.
Seep Monkeyflower
These bright yellow flowers speckled with red are a beautiful sight in a spring garden. If the weather does not water them for you, give them a little bit, and they will keep blooming throughout the summer. This flower loves damp environments. This plant that grows to be about 30-inches tall will die back during droughts, but it usually comes back the next year.
Heartleaf Bergenia
This clump-forming, evergreen perennial can grow to be about 18-inches tall in the sun or the shade if it does not get too hot. It has leathery, dark green leaves that can be up to 12-inches long that turn purplish-bronze in the winter. This flower produces clusters of deep-pink flowers in the early spring on red stems.
Asarum Caudatum: Wild Ginger
The flowers on this shade-loving plant almost hide under a canopy of heart-shaped leaves. The flower on this plant lays on the ground next to the plant’s base. This unusual flower is about the color of decomposing flesh, and its location is designed to attract insects that will pollinate it. After these perennial flower, plants produce seeds that the insects carry to their nest and eat. Then, the eaten seeds grow into new plants.
Aquilegia flavescens Columbine
This plant loves well-drained soil where it will grow to be about 2.5-feet tall. It puts on nodding pale yellow flowers on long stems mid-summer. In the center of each flower are five long sepals that are yellow or pale pink. The whole flowering structure is covered in minuscular hairs. While each columbine lives only about two-to-three years, these plants are prolific seed producers who will grow back new without any intervention from you.
Sidalcea: Checker Mallow
Hollyhock-like, white-to-rosy-pink blossoms appear on this plant. There are several different varieties of this plant, with some preferring sunnier conditions than others. Additionally, some withstand colder conditions better than other choices. Many varieties put on numerous pink-to-purple flowers along a long stalk.
