Talk:Perennial

Confusion between perennial and woody plant

There seems to be unnecessary confusion between a perennial and a woody plant-- which is of course of a perennial character;

I suggest the following:

A perennial plant or perennial (Latin per, "through", annus, "year") is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used as a noun, this term applies specifically to herbaceous plants, even though shrubs and trees are perennial in their habit, needless to say. Depending on the rigors of local cimate, a plant that is a perennial in its native habitat, or in a milder garden, may be treated as an annual and planted out every year, from seed, from cuttings or from divisions.

Thus perennials, especially small flowering plants, grow and bloom over the spring and summer and then die back every winter, growing back in the spring from their root-stock rather than seeding themselves as an annual does. These are known as herbaceous perennials. -User:Wetman 2:41, 22 October 2003 (UTC)

Removed a paragraph

I removed the following paragraph, which is relevant to a discussion of hardiness, rather than perennials.

Just because a plant is classified as a perennial doesn't mean the one you've planted in your garden will come back next year, depending on its climate ("zone") hardiness. Zones are geographic areas of climate where conditions are favorable for particular types of plants. In North America, the farther north you live the lower your zone number will be. If you live in Zone 4, for example, plant flowers, trees and shrubs that are zoned number 4 or lower. Plants hardy to Zone 5 or higher probably will not reappear in the spring. Imc 17:58, 5 November 2004 (UTC)

"Herbaceous plant" should redirect to "herb", not to "perennial plant" (a plant can be herbaceous without being perennial); I tried to edit the redirect but I must have goofed as it doesn't seem to be working. MrDarwin 01:17, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Tomato

I wish people would do some research before undoing obviously correct edits. The article on Tomato was linked to and clearly states that it is a perennial, the article on annuals also states that is a perennial. John Elson★3Dham★ WF6I A.P.O.I. 16:33, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Where are the sources for this article?

Why do articles like this get published? If it is because Wikipedia needs to have an article covering perennials, then I'd rather start with eight well-sourced sentences and build on it than have an almost completely unsourced article. I came here because I don't know the difference between perennials and annuals and biennials and was looking for information. (I just had to look back to see how to even spell biennials.) I encourage anyone with time and some knowledge of the subject to make this article their project. It is such an important subject. MarydaleEd (talk) 19:04, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

@MarydaleEd: Good question! I see your username has been retired, but I will leave a comment here for anyone who is interested. Wikipedia is what I would call an "encyclopedia in progress". It is editable by anyone and made better by anyone. There are people who watch articles they are interested in, which you can do by clicking the "watch" tab/button at the top of the article if you are viewing it in a browser. There are several ways to handle a statement in an article that is unsourced. One is to simply remove that statement and add an edit comment as to why you are doing that. Another is to find a source, check it, and make the citation yourself, adding it to the article to make it better. Another is to add the template call to Template:Citation needed which will add the article to a (very long) list of articles that need citations, but more importantly, will show someone interested in or watching the article that maintenance needs to be performed. Yet another way is to add a comment on the Talk page like you did with this one to bring up your concerns, possibly with specific statements from the article quoted. You could also even take an article "under your wing", so to speak, and work on making it better, keeping in mind that Wikipedia articles are not "owned" by any of us. Those are most of the ways I can think of to deal with unsourced articles or statements. Notice that this article has, at the top, a note that begins with "This article needs additional citations for verification." There is nobody who is designated to "fix" or update this article or any others. Wikipedia is a volunteer project. If you are interested in editing Wikipedia articles, there are quite a few good pages to help. To begin, you can go to Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia, Wikipedia:Editing policy, Help:Editing, Wikipedia:Questions, Wikipedia:Manual of Style, and other pages. I hope this helps! – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 14:01, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Two Year Definition

The two year definition for perennial is insufficient as there are three-year living biennials called triennials. They seed once and then die. Using that as a definition means that biennials that don't receive enough light and nutrients to fruit on the second year and instead do it on the third year would no longer be classified as biennials but would now be perennials. Unless you wish to say that biennials are also perennials. Then biennials would just be a monocarpic perennial that typically lives two years meaning it typically fruits and puts out seeds on its second year. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thewalkingcrow (talk • contribs) 00:57, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Lists of perennial plants

Is there any merit at all in the lists at the end of the article including "Perennial flowers" - isn't that just about every angiosperm ? Should we list them all perhaps? "Perennial fruits" ? - same arguments as for flowers. Even if this was a list of commonly edible fruits it would still be unhelpful. Perennial where? In the tropics? In temperate latitudes? Is this a list of all fruiting plants that may be produced from a perennial rootstock? Similar arguments apply to herbs and vegetables. These lists add no value are are spectacularly incomplete, however they are defined, and add nothing of encyclopaedic value. My very strong preference would be to TNT the whole lot - none are sourced . Views welcomed  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   23:33, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Sourcing could easily be found but the lists are generally meaningless because there are more than 100,000 perennial plants in the world. Even a list of commonly cultivated perennials could get very long but at least is more focused. Hardyplants (talk) 23:41, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Linster00.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:23, 17 January 2022 (UTC)