Perfect allies for the low-maintenance gardener

The Grass is Always Greener - In his latest book, A Sandbox of a Different Kind, garden writer Mark Cullen describes garden grunts as 'tough perennial customers that take root quickly and get going, bloom their heads off and never quit."

Garden grunts are a true ally of the low-maintenance gardener, and some common perennials that could be considered great grunts include hosta, daylilies, perennial geraniums and purple coneflowers.

The king of the garden grunts is the hosta. These versatile and robust perennials are grown primarily for their stunning foliage, which comes in a vast array of sizes, textures and colours. With literally thousands of different cultivars available, there is a hosta to suit every gardener.

Common foliage colours and combinations include shades of blue-green, gold, chartreuse, emerald and cream. Some leaves are a solid colour, while others are variegated. Although hostas thrive in a shaded spot, most will also do well in the sun making them ideal for most garden situations.

Daylilies are perhaps the perfect perennial. They thrive in ordinary garden soil, are very hardy, bloom in sun or partial shade and produce magnificent trumpet shaped flowers in a large array of colours, such as tangerine, lavender and chartreuse.

There are currently more than 46,000 registered cultivars with many more being released each season. Found in every conceivable shade except blue, daylilies range from compact plants that grow less than a foot tall, to eye-catching giants that reach heights of up to six feet. Flower size will also vary, with some having dainty one-inch blooms and others sporting enormous ten-inch spidery flowers.

Although individual flowers last for just one day, hence the name 'daylily', each plant produces a succession of flowers allowing for a very long show of colour.

Different varieties bloom at different times during the season and if properly selected, you can enjoy a continual display of daylilies from June through October.

Lucky for the gardener, the foliage of the daylily is almost as attractive as its blooms. Reaching a mature height of about two feet, the arching spikes create a very attractive mound of greenery that may be used as a garden edging or groundcover.

Perennial geraniums are hardy, gorgeous and very low maintenance, making them another great garden grunt. Their pretty foliage forms an attractive mound, while their flowers are held above the leaves in striking shades of deep burgundy, iridescent mauve, soft pink and creamy white.

Their mellow growth habit ensures that they blend well with their neighbouring perennials, often intertwining with and sprawling around them. "Johnson's Blue" is a garden standard with pretty shimmering blue-mauve flowers that are produced on and off all summer long. After the initial flowering, any leggy foliage may be sheared back to encourage another heavy bloom.

"Phaeum" is an intriguing perennial geranium with small dark burgundy flowers held on two-foot stems. It begins flowering in early summer and the subtle show lasts for months.

A rugged and tough garden grunt, the purple coneflower is hardy, drought tolerant and long-lived. It bears tall and sturdy daisy-like blooms with soft purple petals and a large reddish-orange centre cone. A butterfly magnet, the purple coneflower blooms from mid-summer until the hard frost of late autumn.

nikijabbour@ hotmail.com

Niki Jabbour is a horticulturist and a writer from Halifax.