What Are Perennials?

Perennial plamts live more than two years. They may reproduce from seed or from vegetative structures such as roots, rhizomes, stolons, tubers, corms or bulbs. This ability to reproduce vegetatively makes perennial weeds more difficult to control. Some perennials (such as dandelion, curly dock and wild garlic) actively grow during cool weather, while others (such as dallisgrass and yellow nutsedge) grow rapidly during the summer.

Perennials may be further classified as simple perennials or creeping perennials.

Simple perennials (such as common plantain and dandelion) overwinter by means of a vegetative structure (such as a perennial root with a crown), but reproduce almost entirely by seed.

Creeping perennials can both overwinter and produce new, independent plants from vegetative reproductive structures. Vegetative reproductive structures include stolons (creeping woodsorrel), rhizomes (wild violet), tubers (nutsedge), corms (spring beauty) and bulbs (wild garlic). Most perennials can also reproduce from seeds.