I know this will vary widely. Just wondering what YOUR opinion is.

As some of you may know, I put in a new perennial garden this fall. Have some shrubs, a few different types of lilies, few different types of alliums, a poppy, peony, some echinacea, an ornamental grass, baptisia, some other things. I'm finding there are some areas in which I could add some taller, plainer, denser, and long-lived flowers (like the echinacea Kim's Mop Head that I have in one spot). I'd love to have kind of a cottage gardeney feel. Any suggestions? My colors now are lots of chocolates, whites, lilies (orangey ones and yellow ones), purple and dark purple alliums (schurbertii and gigantum and white fireworks). What am I missing?

Full-sun, clay soil (amended greatly with compost!)

For me a perennial garden MUST have peonies and spring bulbs and mums for fall. I almost always have iris and lilies in any perennial bed.

Poppies are great and daisies too. If I can get anything beyond those things to grow, I count myself lucky.

Azaleas, Forsythia, Hostas, Heuchera, Astilbe (likes it a little shady though), Columbine, Hollyhocks, Asters and Lavender...

A perennial garden should have some kind of interest throughout the season and not depend on colorful blooms. Incorporate more varieties, shapes, textures, sizes and shades of foliage. Before I became so enmeshed in perennials, I never realized just how many shades of "green" there really were! And don't forget the purples and grays, too. Foliage plants serve as a backdrop or a framework for the more blatant blossoms of other plants. Learn also to appreciate plants that provide movement. Anything that will catch the eye and force it to move around your garden and never hone in on or stay in one place.

Create nooks or vignettes throughout your garden, incorporating hardscapes that make you (or a visitor) pause and smile or question or just divert the attention. That's the part of the garden, I think, that really displays your true personal creativity. Place benches in strategic places where you can enjoy your garden from all angles. It helps to see your garden from different vantage points. You'll notice things you might not have noticed otherwise. Keep note of what's in sun or shade at what part of the day and how the sun's angle affects those areas and those plants throughout the season.

Then after all is said and done, affix wheels to all your perennials because if it's one thing a perennial knows once it's found a home in a perennial-lover's garden is not to get too comfortable in one spot.

The same holds true for the perennial gardener, too: While there may be some things in life written in stone... perennial placement isn't one of them. Don't agonize over what goes where. It'll only get moved next year. It's also quite humbling to know that you're not the only designer of your garden. Just "ask" the squirrels, chipmunks, and birds who make their "deposits" clear on the other side of a border or in an entirely different bed.

Sorry to go on so philosophically about it, but it reminded me of a story I once wrote about the subject. Brought back some er..."perennial" memories.

Oh, and to specifically answer your question: "What does a perennial garden HAVE to have"?
....A perennial garden HAS to have a perennial gardener with a handy charge card, a knack for dividing, starting your own and propagating, and the ability to spot what appears to be a dead plant on a sale rack and know that you can bring it back to life for 75% off!

Very well said, gardenz!

Well said gardenz. Oh and you need a freind who already has a perennial garden who is willing to share. Add bee balm (monarda) to the list. It looks like raggedy anne heads and comes in red, pink, white and purple. Smells nice and the hummingbirds love it.-LJB

Excellent advice everyone!! Thanks so much! Gardenz, I was so happy when I read your first paragraph b/c after every sentence I was like, "check" "check" "check".

I think I'm going to be resistant when it comes to moving. I wouldn't say I'm a rigid person, but I just like things kinda planned out and organized. I guess naturally, when I see new things and get bored with how it looks, I'll just want to move things, right? I did move and divide my old Lirope plants and put them back in in different places in my new garden. That whole concept is soooo cool! It looks great too! I took one plant and divided it in over 4 pieces!!

one more quick question. At this point, is it too late to order bulbs and plant them? (assuming it will take a couple weeks to get here!) I'm in MD.

My opinion is: I don't think it's too late. Long as you can get them in before December and/or frozen ground (which is anyone's guess). Crocus, snowdrops, chionodoxa, squills, muscari and some other small bulbs should be tossed a couple or three inches in the ground first since they bloom first in late winter.

Daffs next and then tulips, in order of their bloom times as well. If you can, get a variety of daffs and tulips that will bloom at different times thoughout the spring. That way you can have bulb color from as early as late January (if you're lucky) right on through the last of the late tulips in May.

Go for it!

Greenish thumb… like Top, I cannot imagine my garden without spring bulbs – masses of crocuses, daffs, and tulips is the only way to start the year after a cold grey winter. Of course, these [I]must[\I] be followed by peonies, my favorite flowers. Once peony season is over, I find myself far too busy with the veggie garden, neglecting the poor flower beds. The one stand-out summer flower for me is lavender. I love its grey foliage and bluish flower, adore the scent, and could spend hours watching the bees which cover them. And of course fall would not be the same without my collection of sedums – it is a sickness really – I must add a new variety to my collection every year.

Gardenz,
I read your response and suddenly felt very inept. The task of designing the garden beds at my new home suddenly feels very daunting. I’d love to have my garden beds turn out as beautiful as the ones you have pictured, but I know that will never, ever happen. Hardscaping is my personal weakness – and with the large canvas I now have to work with, I’m sure that attribute is going to be more important than in my previous garden.

Does anyone have any favorite sources on designing a garden? I suddenly feel the need to edumacate myself before I pull out the spade next spring.

Greenish thumb, I should think you'd be ok with planting bulbs yet. I just put some tulip bulbs in the ground yesterday and I've put them in even when there's snow on the ground. As long as they've got a couple weeks to root before the ground freezes solid.

One other thing I think a perennial garden needs is some self seeding annuals like cosmos and small marigolds or other things that just self seed and pop up in places that surprise and delight you.

Does self-seeding mean that they'll go crazy though?

Greenacres - I saw some sedums on a trip to Rhode Island recently. They were gigantic. The flowers looked a deep mauve (but maybe they were just dead!). The only ones I've seen in catalogs say they get 18". Any idea which ones I may be talking about? I love peonies too. Never grown them though. I put on one Green Halo. Can't wait for that to bloom. It will be gorgeous!

quote:

Originally posted by GreenAcres:
Gardenz,
I read your response and suddenly felt very inept. The task of designing the garden beds at my new home suddenly feels very daunting. I’d love to have my garden beds turn out as beautiful as the ones you have pictured, but I know that will never, ever happen. Hardscaping is my personal weakness – and with the large canvas I now have to work with, I’m sure that attribute is going to be more important than in my previous garden.

Does anyone have any favorite sources on designing a garden? I suddenly feel the need to edumacate myself before I pull out the spade next spring.

GreenAcres, I meant what I wrote more as inspiring rather than intimidating. Really it was just automatic writing of what a perennial garden means to me.

I started 'gardening' by helping my brother grow morning glories for my mother in the backyard of our tenement in Brooklyn. Then thirty years ago all I had was some pots and window boxes on the terrace of DH's and my first apartment. 26 years ago I planted my first azaleas, a couple of primroses and a rose bush in the totally sandy soil of our very first (still only) house. That was the first small step into full-scale perennial gardening and I still had the bulk of another 2 acres then filled w/50 foot oaks and pines in which to make a garden. To this day (this very day actually as I was moving two penstemons and three veronicas this afternoon) I'm still rethinking, redoing and redigging. Like farmhound's signature line: "Welcome to the show that never ends."

I remember beiing pretty daunted too, especially when I looked across the road at my (then) neighbor's front garden. Like every other gardener with a new blank canvas I wanted to learn everything and do everything immediately or at least the first season or two and get it "right". Which is a patently ridiculous term in gardening, because nothing is 100% "right". Hah!

I don't think a perennial garden can be designed overnight. Or over a season or even over many seasons. And "design" is a bit of a snotty word IMO. To me "design" implies something Martha Stewarty. My gardening is more like Jimmy Stewarty: I mumble and stumble along as I go. Happy if I can only grow flowers with Zuzu's petals. It won't ever be "completed". Where else would I play if it were? And for someone who enjoys being in creative control of something so personal as my garden, I couldn't bear to have someone else call the "designing" shots. Everytime I read or hear some "garden designer" say you have to plant this there and don't mix that with that or this color clashes with this...I want to throttle them! "It's my garden and I'll plant how I want to...plant how I want to...plant how I want to." ***With apologies to Lesley Gore.*** "Hardscapes" are things you'll stumble on when you least expect them. At a tag sale, a dollar store or a garden center or by the side of the curb as someone's trash.

I think one of the best things that comes out of... er...."designing" your own garden is the realization that you have more creativity inside you... more vision... and more ingenuity than you ever dreamed you had. Not to mention more confidence to take chances.

Of course there's always some basic precepts to learn, but the rest...the fruit of your labor and imagination... just comes with time. Oh, and as far as your garden
never ever becoming as you want it"? One term a gardener should completely remove from their vocabulary is ...."NEVER EVER".

Sorry, I've rambled again. I do that (me? ) when something (like perennial gardening in this case) is so dear to me as well as the prospect of welcoming another perennial gardener to the fold.

greenish I stay a way from more common varieties of plants. You want to find plants varieties that new and not well known varieties since you do not really want you perennial garden to look like everyone elses.

I would suggest the following new varieties and heirlooms. Stay away from peonies,primrose and hosta since everyone has them.
As for fall thats any easy one get some the new mum varieties listed in the fall issue of og.
Stay way from any mum variety you see sold at hd,lowes and the super market.

Boy, Linda, I wish you could be at the condo bord special meeting this Thursday to explain to these people that you can't just put green stuff in the ground and call it done! I've been creating and cultivating our building's perennial bed over time and with very little money. Apparently, they want to see the results NOW! I may try quoting you at the meeting, if you don't mind.

quote:

Originally posted by gardenz
I don't think a perennial garden can be designed overnight. Or over a season or even over many seasons. And "design" is a bit of a snotty word IMO. To me "design" implies something Martha Stewarty. My gardening is more like Jimmy Stewarty: I mumble and stumble along as I go. Happy if I can only grow flowers with Zuzu's petals.