Perennials for Cold Climates Zone 3

Hi again, it's Jason from Fraser Valley Rose Farm and today I have some picks for you of perennials that are great for colder climates. Just catching up for those people who want the perennials but can't grow them in a zone 8 like I am. That's okay, there's plenty of perennials that are great for colder climates and I'm focusing on this video on those that would even go down so far as zone 3, at least nominally. There may be a little bit of variation there based on where the information sources come from, but zone 3 is what I've selected here. First one on the list, you actually can look over my left shoulder to see Trollius ercuticus or the orange globe flower. I'll get you some close-ups of that. Now I have 18 plants here, so I'm going to go relatively quickly here but I'll get you some close-ups and I'll also put the name in the upper right hand corner or left hand corner depending on where it fits on the screen of the botanical name and common name of the plant. Now the Trollius here is growing up to about 18 to 20 inches. It's a gorgeous globe flower and the globe flowers in general actually do great in cold climates. This one particularly has orange highlights in the blooms and a darker center which makes it very charming in the garden. You can snip off the flower heads for a re-bloom later in the season or you can let it go to seed because it will re-seed even in cooler climates. Next up on my list, number two, is Echinops bonaticus blue glow or the common name is globe thistle. Now thistle, no, not quite. It's not troublesome in the garden. It's not spiny but it does have those strap-shaped leaves on the base and then a long spike, a blue globe flower across the top. That's where it gets its name. That perfectly steel blue geometric flower across the top is worth its price of admission in the garden for sure, so I hope you look that one up. Third one on the list is Achillea and I've chosen a cultivar named heartthrob here. It has perfect red flowers with yellow centers. Gorgeous. More commonly you'll think of yarrow, that's the common name, as being kind of yellow or in mixes of yellow and pink and white but there are some more vibrant colors on the market now so totally worth looking for one of the brand new Achilleas for a spot in your garden. Number four comes from my silver themed garden here. This is Artemisia ludovicana out Valerie Finnis is the cultivar name and you aren't going to get a great picture of it in the pot here but you do get an idea of the look of the foliage. Very silvery, very spiky and upright. I'll get you a picture of it in the garden as well but it's not really grown for the flowers in this case. It's grown for that foliage effect and all of the Artemisia's tend to be fairly hardy but I'm just a little tired of the silver mound so this is a better choice for me. Next I want to give it up for the delphiniums which you all know for those tall formal spikes in blue, pink or white but actually one of the cool things about looking for interesting plants for a cooler climate is that within the same genus delphinium you're going to find all sorts of variability. A lot of them are larkspur flowers that are held a little bit looser. I'm going to show you the belladonna delphiniums and I've chosen one powdery blue called cliveden beauty which I've grown in my garden a lot but also some with just really intense deep blue but held a single kind of hummingbird looking flowers that I like a lot so explore the the delphinium group for sure. Next up is aquilegia or columbine and the cool thing about columbine again is about its diversity. You can go from these deep purples and blues to pale pink to almost white. Some of the flowers are in singles some of the flowers are very double and frilly so really there's no excuse not to find a place for columbines in your garden because they just have so much diversity within the group. Next up I'm going to feature heliopsis. Heliopsis being a perennial sunflower or a false sunflower. I've featured that recently in my video of unusual plants and I featured one called bleeding hearts which has these gorgeous orange through red tipped flowers and dark foliage but it comes in a wide variety of colors some of them with variegated foliage many of them in great shades of yellow and again perennials so you're not replanting these sunflowers every year they'll come back for you. Next one up I want to talk about and I know bearded irises classic pick for colder climates but in this case I'm going to talk about a couple of other groups the Siberian irises which don't have those bearded they're not quite as large and they just have clean sharp coloration to the flowers so wonderful and also the Japanese iris which isn't quite as hardy I think it's probably more zone four or zone five for the Japanese irises iris and sada but again some wonderful picks in there so don't just stick with the standard old bearded german irises but explore the other irises as well and I'm also going to talk about a bee balm monarda which monardas are fairly hardy but the one I'm picking out is a spotted bee balm it's a native plant that I've grown in my garden for quite some time a native North American that is and what it's characterized by is these mauve bracts to the flowers and it is also fairly resistant to powdery mildew which we know can be a problem for monardas so I'm picking that one but certainly you can feel free to explore the whole group of monardas because there are many of those that are good for zones four and zone five well I don't mind going with some of the classic recommendations and in this case I'm going to talk about sempervivum or chicks and hens now this literally is the first plant I knew from my grandmother's garden and she had it in basic green and basic red and that's all I knew about it then later on I come to find that it has a whole bunch of variety things that are silver or bluish almost lavender and old lace is a variety that's more in that mauve area and then there's other ones that have newer patterns and newer colorations from a breeding program in the states chick charms is the name of it have a look at that there's gold nugget and a bunch of other ones that have cool new colorations on them so I would give a fresh look at the chicks and hens for sure next up I want to talk about the primula auricula group which almost looks like it should be too dainty to live in such cold climates the flowers have these very intricate patterns on them I'll fill the screen with some pictures of those that should light you up at least enough to look and see if you can find some of the primula auricula group in your area next I'm going to talk about galardia a classic prairie plant and you know again kind of known for its basic yellow flowers but breeding advancements have brought in a whole ton of shades and more complex flowers more double flowers I like the one called galardia arizona apricot is one of my favorites but there's some of the mesa group that I like a lot as well and so much easier to grow now it is one that is fairly short-lived in my area because we have these wet winters and mild winters and fluctuating above and below zero I wonder if you could give me some feedback on how they survive in a more in their more I guess native habitat of the prairies let me know speaking of the classic prairie plants let's talk about echinacea which is another one that has just taken a real renaissance in special breeding that has brought in much more double flowers and a whole wider range of colors I want to mention a few by name I like lemon drop which is just has that feathery look to it now have a look if you can find a green twister which is I've got some close-up pictures here but it'll it'll stun you and I don't think this one is actually as heavily bred as the others but I just came across some seeds for one called hula dancer which has again the classic drooping petals of the echinacea which I think will look neat in the garden once I get it to germinate next up I want to talk about a plant called a comfrey now comfrey it can get a really bad reputation as a roadside weed or something that takes over areas so wise to think of one like I featured in a previous video that is a sterile comfrey in this case bocking 14 comfrey which still has the flowers still has the foliage still has all the benefits of comfrey but it doesn't actually set seeds the bees enjoy it has lots of nectar for them but it never sets seed in the garden and so it's a it's a good choice and again you get into that sort of pink through blue flowers and I like the look of it and the practicality of it an awful lot I'm going to go handheld for these last three plants here to show you some that are coming up garden right now this is clematis recta serious black it is not a climbing clematis but a herbaceous clematis that has these intensely purple foliage love it a lot and I'll see if I can get you a more mature picture of it but definitely worth seeking out next up brunnera jackfrost that's the one with a little forget-me-not flowers here and again star of the show is the foliage here look at those markings gorgeous plant in that same family with comfrey or borage and just in those beautiful blue sprays of flowers and I'm only going to take a small step to the right here to see dicentra and that's a bleeding heart and bleeding hearts as a group tend to be fairly hardy this one is a native dicentra here I believe it's dicentra eximia and you can see it has these sort of soft pastel pink flowers now while I'm looking at those I'm going to transition over to see one with a slightly stronger color and interesting foliage look and I think you can see that the dicentra king of hearts here has a far more silvery foliage and then those more intense pink flowers now the breeder of this shows it as a zone five but other conflicting sites give it down to about zone three so I'm not sure exactly what to trust on that but certainly for some of those colder climates this would be a good alternative all right that's it for my choices and I hope you've enjoyed my selections however I have to assure you you do not have to content yourself to what I've curated for you I want to show you that on the gelido website you can do a search for zone three seeds and it comes up with something like 1300 different results for perennials that grow well in zone three or are hardy to that climate so even though I've gone through some of the highlights here there's definitely some gems in there that you can pick out seed for yourself and that is really one of the best ways in a remote area that you can obtain a whole bunch of interesting perennials that will be good for zone three is to go through the seed websites and pick out those things that you can start for yourself all right thanks for watching and if you have any questions about oh say perennials about about roses about plants in general please drop those into the comments below the video I'll see what I can do to help