Perennial or Annual: What's the Difference?

What’s the difference between a perennial plant and an annual? The quick answer is that perennial plants return every year while annuals need to be replanted.  But these different life cycles affect how they work in your landscape.

Perennials

While some perennial shrubs (like roses) keep blooming all summer, most perennial flowers bloom once a year.  Cutting the old flowers won’t make them bloom again. When planting perennials, it is a good idea to mix them up in your garden so that something different is in bloom at each time of the year (spring, summer, fall).  

Annuals

Annuals have a different strategy – they put all their energy into blooming and seeding over the course of the whole growing season – spring to frost.  That’s why they work well in decorative planters! Keep deadheading old flowers to prevent plants from putting energy into forming seeds.