• Asters are one of many perennial flowering plants available.Medioimages/Photodisc/Photodisc/Getty Images
  
  Perennial flowers bloom year after year in the garden and are a good choice for landscaping, especially if you do not have time to spend replacing spent annual plants every season. Plant height, flower color, blooming season and care requirements vary widely, but with thousands of perennials available to the home gardener, finding one to suit a garden's layout and style is easy when you enlist the help and expertise of a plant nursery.
  
  

Springhill Nurseries

• Native columbine is perfect for shady and semi-shady gardens.columbine image by Andrew Orlemann from Fotolia.com
  
  Springhill offers a large variety of perennials you can order online or from a catalog. Choose plants or seeds. The company offers a newsletter, online tools such as hardiness zone maps and an interactive plant finder. Perennial listings include shade-loving and sun-loving plants; flowering bulbs like lillies and tulips; ground covers such as phlox, sedum and primrose; shrubs lilke hydrangea, butterfly bush and hibiscus; and flowering vines like clematis, trumpet and spicy wisteria. The catalog and online store offer gardening supplies and the website has a library of free how-to videos.
  
  

Burpee

• Moss verbena is a spreading plant naturalized from Georgia to Florida.Moss Verbena image by mpetr37349 from Fotolia.com
  
  While casual gardeners may think of Burpee as primarily a seed provider, the company also offers a variety of live plants for sale online and through its paper catalog. The online site has a detailed search engine with choices for light requirements, color, form, zone, height, spread and disease resistance. You can also search for perennials according to use -- whether you want the plant for ground cover, hedge, border, container or ornamental planting.
  
  Burpee offers flowering grasses like pampas, sun-lovers like shasta daisies and coreopsis, shade plants such as coral forest and hydrangea, bulbs like crocus, coreopsis and allium and shrubs such as butterfly bush.
  
  

Local Sources

• Fragrant and beautiful, lavender is hardy in Zones 5-9.lavender image by Lytse from Fotolia.com
  
  Lowe's, Home Depot, WalMart and K-Mart are some of the well-known department and home improvement "big box" stores that carry a variety of perennials in their gardening departments. The stores change plant inventories as each planting season changes, which helps novice gardeners locate perennials appropriate for their specific hardiness zone. Locally-owned nurseries often have at least one seasoned gardener who can offer advice on each perennial's growing requirements and flowering habit.
  
  County Extension Service offices often have zone-specific information pamphlets and lists of local nurseries. Many offices offer gardening classes which include instruction on choosing and growing perennials.