My last column didn't include much about my perennial border because I hoped it would take up a whole column. This was the year I decided the border needed real help, and all through the winter I contemplated what plants I could buy to improve it. This was a novel idea, as I've spent very little over the years on perennials, depending on "hand-me-downs" and "give-aways" from friends to create this 100-foot long flower bed.
I can still see Mother's lemon lilies, Henny's peonies, Jeanette's feverfew and phlox, Mosie's pink poppies, Liz's Chinese forget-me-knots, Molly's iris, Marty's artemisia, Lyn's flowering quince, Robin's obedience plants, someone's black-eyed Susans and someone else's Shasta daisies. About the only store-bought plants in the border are the lupines, the astilbes, the daffodils and the Alma Potchke asters.
It's taken me a very long time to get over the habit of pinching pennies. For close to fifty years I spent almost nothing on landscaping Locust Hill, even though it has been my favorite occupation. It may seem ridiculous but last year was the first time that I actually bought dozens of plants without worrying about their cost. And this year I not only spent freely on plants, but enjoyed anticipating my buying spree. Looking at photos from last summer I could see that in August what used to be a background of pink and white phlox and black-eyed Susans had become merely white phlox. The greedy artemisia needed reprimanding. Several astilbes were riddled with grass.
The Shasta daisies were doing just fine, but I'd decided they were not worth keeping, their yellow centers turning black and ugly all too soon. That little gray groundcover, Snow-in-summer, Celastium tomentosum, which looked so nice between the Chinese forget-me-nots each spring, had vanished for some reason and needed to be replaced. And just possibly it was time to be adventurous and try some unfamiliar perennials instead of just the "tried and true".
I spent many hours browsing through the catalogs and reading garden books, trying to decide what to buy. The catalogs have lovely photographs, but wouldn't dream of including negative information about a plant, just its virtues. Reading garden books can be helpful in learning about a plant's height and growth habits and time of bloom, but seeing the real thing is best. Look at the difference between a photograph of chocolate cake and eating a piece.
In the end I decided not to order a single plant, preferring to wait until I could browse through the nurseries and see some perennials in the flesh. So that's what I did, but like shopping in the grocery store nowadays, there are way too many choices. I waste more time at the market standing over the orange juice selections trying to locate "Calcium, No Pulp", or deciding which brand of dog food is cheapest. Cogitating over which flowers to buy is a lot more fun, but making up my mind takes three or four visits to the nurseries.
Besides too many choices, there's one more problem - plant nurseries may not have what you're looking for. I couldn't find that sweet little Snow-in-summer, and ended up buying a flat of lacy gray artemisia, which has none of its cousin's bad habits. I also was planning on getting some of the monarda whose blossoms are bubblegum pink, but all the nurseries just had the red variety. I really don't like red, but I definitely needed a tall perennial to put between all those clumps of white phlox.
Shall I get some yellow loosestrife? Will it be as troublesome as the other loosestrifes, the purple and the gooseneck? Maybe yellow yarrow would be a better choice. How about one of the lavender veronicas? In the end I bought some yellow yarrow, two plants of veronica in a soft blue, some moonbeam coreopsis, two new delphiniums, even though mine never last more than a year or two, and several flats of annuals -cleome or spider plant, those trailing white petunias that climb up other plants to display their white blooms, some cream-colored marigolds and several flats of snapdragons. To top it off I bought a large trumpet vine to plant in front of the propane tanks.
I didn't even think of the cost, just reveled in all that flower power, and got busy planting. The veronicas bloomed beautifully, but were pretty much over just as the phlox started to flower. The soft yellow of the new coreopsis seems to go on forever so I plan to buy more next year. The trumpet vine died, but Ward's replaced it at no charge with an even bigger one.
It was great fun picking and choosing and not worrying about whether I could find a better price for a plant at some other nursery. I had to laugh at myself, however, when I stopped at the Sharon Bargain Box one day and saw half a dozen perennials in quart containers for only $1.50 each. How could I resist? And there were actually two beebalm plants labeled Marshall's Delight whose flowers were as pink as bubblegum.
For all too many years my most important summer project was the vegetable garden. Vegetables may be the meat and potatoes of gardening, but there's no question that flowers are dessert.
