http://www.lewisgardens.com/

http://www.helpfulgardener.com/perennials/03/care.html

http://www.almanac.com/content/perennial-garden-care

lots of advice out there
google: perennial garden care

Post pics. Distance and close ups would help.
Remy

You may want to contact your county extension office or Master Gardener group. Someone there can likely answer your questions and there may even be a Master Gardener willing to come out and help you id plants and give you care tips. The Well Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy DiSabato-Aust is a fabulous book to guide you through the learning experience. Just an FYI you don't want to cut back plants that grow from bulbs until the foliage has yellowed. This includes tulips, daffodils, and lilies. As long as the foliage is green it is feeding the bulb so it can produce next year's flowers.

Ditto about bulb foliage. Start by getting the weeds out and putting down mulch. Perennial poppies are, in my opinion, not worth it. One week of bloom for all that messy foliage that, like bulb foliage, you have to leave alone and then you have a big hole in the bed.

Yes, and all the other advice is good too.

Ditto on the Master Gardener idea. They are willing to offer advice as part of their commitment to volunteer.

Another vote for Master Gardeners. I went through the program (though I don't volunteer anymore), and my mom is still an active member. Either of us would be absolutely thrilled to help you with this!

I applaud you - no, I give you a standing ovation - for letting the gardens be this year and just seeing what comes up. Oh, how I hope someone like you buys our house if we sell someday. :) It may be that you live with it for this year and decide you don't care for some of what's going on, in which case you shouldn't feel bad about removing it. But it is good to give it all a shot, because there may be something there you love!

When we moved into our current house it was the dead of winter, right after Christmas. No one had ever done much in the way of gardening (which was fine with me - blank canvas and all), but there were a few shrubs. One of the first things we did was build a fence. As it worked out, there was a shrub (completely dormant) right on the new fence line. The fence guys asked if I wanted it removed, or if they should try to save it. I had no idea what it was, but opted to keep it to see what it did.

The following spring it flushed out in the most gorgeous tiny pale yellow rosebuds. Oh! A climbing rose! It turned out to be a very mature Lady Banks rose, which I'm now training to drape over the fence. It is a showstopper for a month every spring, and I just love it. I'm so glad we waited to see what it would do!

Can you get in touch with the previous owner? Recalling all the past posts and mourning my own left behind gardens... Someone put a lot of effort into your (new to you) landscape. Even if they hired professionals to create and maintain the gardens; finding whomever did the work could be your most valuable resource.

When I closed on my home, I mentioned that the south facing front porch and large, sunny backyard sold me on the house. The wife had planted a few "family heirlooms" in the yard over the years. And, she was overjoyed to tell me the history and placement of most of the plants - along with the people and pets they memorialized. Without a doubt, gardeners are great people. Someone loved enough to do the planting and will care that it lives on.
DD

I'm going to take an entirely different approach. And this is based on many years as both a professional design/landscape consultant and garden coach.

Extensive perennial plantings are high maintenance. Not sure how large your assorted perennial beds are but maintaining 8 of them, 3 of which are very visible, is going to take a lot of time. Based on your screen name, I assume you work for a living? And no doubt, so does your spouse. Do you want to spend limited free time doing a lot of gardening or would you rather have more time to just enjoy your outdoor space? And if you are new to gardening, there is a high learning curve involved with an extensive, existing garden,

I'd suggest that you slowly convert the perennial beds to lower maintenance plantings, focusing on small trees and shrubs. These will not be maintenance-free but will require less attention than a heavily herbaceous perennial bed. You can certainly keep whatever perennials you find very appealing, but include them as only a portion of the plant selection, not the focus. There is a horticultural rule of thumb - the larger and longer lived a plant, the less ongoing maintenance it will require......a sliding scale with annuals and perennials at the high end and shrubs and trees at the lower end. Also, the more evergreen, the less maintenance required (generally).

You may want to hire someone to help with this. Garden coaching/consultation is a pretty active business segment in many parts of the country. They can help you both identify the plants you have, determine which might be appropriate to keep and help to select others to replace and offer lower maintenance and a longer season of interest. At a modest hourly rate, this may be an excellent investment.

FWIW, most Master Gardener organizations do not provide for this type of onsite, individual/personal attention, at least under the auspices of the program. Their mission is community outreach via plant clinics, community gardens, answer lines, etc., not a one-on-one approach. Checking with your local program office or county extension should clarify.

Above is a really good point. It will take a lot of time to maintain these, and shrubs/trees/groundcovers would be lower maintenance and an easier start for a beginner.

That's right, the Master Gardeners do not formally, as part of their program, offer consultations to homeowners. But as I said, if you got either my mom or I on the phone when you called or emailed we would be more than happy to help. :) I think most of them would feel the same - gardeners *are* good people! I think it would tickle them to know that you were trying to work with the plants rather than mowing them all down - I'd do it for that reason alone. But true, you cannot absolutely count on that they will volunteer to help.

Even if they didn't offer to personally help you, I'm sure they would be a great resource to point you in the direction of someone who could. Many of the upper-end nurseries here offer landscape design services. I'm sure for a consultation fee you could get their landscape designer out to take a look at what you've got and offer some tips.

Good luck with your gardens, if you decide to take up gardening as your new hobby! It is a great hobby. But if you decide to remove some of the garden beds, don't just bulldoze it, offer to share the plants with family/friends, or give them away on Freecycle or Craigslist. You can even sell them and make money!

Another thought, if this is a typical residential neighborhood, have you had reason to meet or introduce yourself to any neighbors?

There may very well be one or two who know as much about what you have growing as the previous owner did, and be willing to give you pointers. Or, even take some of the plants off your hands should you decide to go with a less high maintenance theme to the yard. If you were new in my neighborhood and I were your neighbor, I'd be happy to help you - surely I'm not that unique ;-)

Most of the things I wanted to say after reading your post have been answered well. I just wanted to add that you should take pictures at least once a month so next year you will know what is coming back up. When you put the pictures on your computer, you can use a program like paint to "write on them" so you don't have to consult notes. It's all written on the picture. If you don't have room, you can do numbers and have a list of what the numbers mean. You don't want to do all of this research again next spring. Over the years, I've collected many pictures of my plants from the time they emerge in the spring and they are very helpful reference points each year. You'll know what the plants are, and where they are.

One point you can make to your hubby if you decide you want to keep the flower beds is that more grass = more time spent mowing.