Spring has finally arrived and, with it, the perennial question for gardeners: What to plant this year?

Garden centers and stores will be brimming with colorful, greenhouse-grown flowering plants – temptation reaching out and grabbing you, even if you only went in to buy a packet of seeds or a carton of milk. Many of these will be annuals, whose cheery bright blossom will lift your spirits after a long winter and worries about the future of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

But in among the annuals, look for perennials, plants that live for years and not just a season or two. They can dramatically reduce a gardener's work because they require less time and attention. Perennials, along with shrubs and trees, can form the mainstay of your garden.

Some people, including myself, would maintain that fall, at least eight weeks before frost is due, should be the best time to plant perennials. But this is true only for spring-flowering perennials. What you can plant now are late summer- and fall-flowering perennials, according to the University of Maryland Master Gardener Handbook.

(The handbook notes that you can even transplant perennials already in bloom, if you do it very carefully – say, if you acquire the plants from a friend's garden. But it's best to do it when they're dormant or starting to show just a little green.)

You may have read that most perennials have fairly short blooming periods, but compensate the gardener by producing spectacular flowers and interesting foliage. In our part of Maryland, however, almost two dozen perennials bloom for long periods, especially if you remove their spent flowers. At least half of them qualify as summer- to fall-flowering, so can be planted in spring.

Two of these, spike speedwell and clump speedwell (veronica spicata and veronica longifolia), produce six- to eight-inch spikes of tiny flowers atop stalks one to two feet tall. The blossom may be blue, pink or white, depending on the variety.

Another, Stokes' aster or cornflower aster (stokesia), started out as a wildflower and grows particularly well in gardens in the southeastern U.S. In height it resembles speedwell, but its flowers look something like a large aster. They measure three to four inches across and they may be blue, white, pink, purple or pale yellow, depending on type.

Speedwells and Stokes' asters make lovely cut flowers. They need full sun, well-drained soil, and their clumps should be divided every three or four years, in spring or fall, to prevent overcrowding.

Jupiter's beard or red valerian (centranthus rubus) is another medium tall plant, with two- to three-foot stems adorned with large clusters of tiny, fragrant, white, red or pink flowers. Easy to grow, even for an inexperienced gardener, it likes sun or light shade. And the more of its flowers you pick, the more appear.     

Tickseed or thread-leaved coreopsis (coreopsis verticillata), a native of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, can grow from half a foot to 3-1/2 feet tall and produces masses of yellow, daisy-like flowers which attract butterflies. The plant grows best in sun or part shade and has a tendency to form colonies, so it can make a good ground cover. It's not fussy about soil but doesn't like wet earth and can be started from seed or clump divisions in spring.

Another perennial which can be transplanted now is pincushion flower (scabiosa). The plant takes its name from dark gray stamens that protrude from the center of its flowers like pins from a pin cushion. The blossom, originally pale blue, may be mauve, lavender, violet, dark blue or blue and white, depending on the variety.

Pincushion flower stands two to 2-1/2 feet tall, prefers full sun and likes damp soil during its growing season, but well-drained earth in winter. Like most of the perennials described here, the plant can be grown from clump divisions – if you're lucky enough to have a friend who will give you some – or from seeds sown in summer for bloom next year.

Among the better known, long-blooming perennials that can be planted now and will grow well in our region, readers will recognize: purple coneflower (echinacea purpurea), blanket flower (gaillardia), rose mallow (hibiscus moschuetos), daylily (hemerocallis ‘Stella d'Oro’), catmint (nepeta), black-eyed Susan (rudbeckia hirta) and sedum ‘Autumn joy.’

Other popular perennials with outstanding flowers that can be planted for blossom in summer and fall, albeit flowering for a shorter period of time, include phlox, butterfly weed, goldenrod, asters and turtleheads.   

So, choose your temptation and, in the meantime, happy gardening!

Laetitia Sands is a master gardener in Dorchester County.