13 Colorful Perennials for Big Impact

If you need something to make your landscape really stand out, this list will help. These high-impact perennials offer bold textures, bountiful color and rugged durability. They will make a splash to wake up the neighborhood while addressing those mundane spaces in your garden.

Castor bean, for instance offers huge, lobed leaves, interesting ornamental fruits and somewhat showy flowers. Its lush foliage adds a tropical look to temperate gardens. Hardy in zones 9-11, and grown as a warm season annual in cooler regions, it may grow to 10' tall in a single season.

Mallow, also known as French Hollyhock, forms an upright mound: 3-4 feet tall and 1.5-2 feet wide. This perennial is a fantastic addition to a sunny border. It puts on a big show of satiny flowers from mid summer through fall, attracting a constant flow of butterflies and hummingbirds.

Rose campion offers silvery, felted foliage and a two month profusion of flowers from late spring through early summer. Their biggest impact is from the multitudes of intensely colored flowers that invite a wide variety of pollinators to the garden.

The many colors and sizes of Asiatic lilies have one thing in common: their fantastic displays of color in early summer. Add them to a perennial or shrub border, or let them upstage your foundation landscape.