A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE PERENNIAL PLANT
Michalis 'BIG Mike' Kotzakolios


Defined Tag: Perennial.

"Don't hurry, don't worry. You're only here for a short visit. So be sure and stop to smell the flowers." --Walter Hagen

If you're new to gardening, you might have trouble differentiating all the flowers available on the market today. But with a little knowledge of the basic three classes of flowers, you can begin to make smart choices in regards to the type of garden you want to tend. Beginners will find these three classes helpful and can learn what they are through this article. But starting a garden without understanding these three classes may lead to failure, so you'll want to determine which class of flowers is suitable for your lifestyle. Not everyone has a green thumb - however some flowers and plants are strong enough to partner with even the most forgetful gardener!

We're not of course suggesting that there are only three kinds of flowers - in fact, there are probably hundreds of thousands of different kinds of plants. Lucky for the majority of us however, each and every one of them can be categorized by how long they live. A person who wants to enjoy gardening one year, for example, would do well with annual plants and flowers. A person who can garden for more than a year would appreciate working with biennial plants and flowers. Those of us who have determined to garden as a lifetime hobby, on the other hand, would definitely value perennial plants and flowers as a garden stock. Perennial plants are (by definition) some of the easiest to take care of.

As you've probably guessed, annuals are short-lived plants that start to grow in the spring and then later flower within the same year that they were planted before they die. Biennial plants grow a set of leaves in the first year that they are planted, but bloom one full year later before they die. Perennial plants on the other hand, live at least two years or more - some seem to live forever while others live for decades before they too, die. One example of a dying perennial is the American aloe plant (also known as the century plant). This perennial survives for decades, growing only stems and leaves. After about thirty or sixty years, it will bloom a forty-foot tall flowering stalk and then die after its flowers have matured and produced seeds.

It's easy to think of some other perennial plants - many of the plants and flowers that we see everyday are perennials. Some examples are trees, shrubs, herbs, and other plants that re-grow or re-bloom after winter passes over. Perennial plants and flowers are able to survive winter because they store food in their roots and stems. Outside of winter or cold climates, these plants just keep on growing!

BIG Mike is a well known author, developer and Adsense expert as well as the owner of Niche Maniacs - a unique Adsense Marketing System designed to build long-term passive income streams from Adsense, YPN, Chitika and other PPC services.