Rosefiend Cordell - Perennial Classics

Perennial Classics:

Planting & Growing

Great Perennial Gardens

Easy-Growing Gardening Guide, Vol. 4

Rosefiend Cordell

Rosefiend Publishing

Copyright 2017 Melinda R. Rosefiend Cordell

Although the author has made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from space aliens, evil imps, your kids, somebody elses kids, man-eating Venus flytraps, running out of coffee in the morning, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, that thing when you walk into a room and you cant remember what you came in there for, ticks, outraged mallards, or any other cause.

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INTRODUCTION

WHY ARE PERENNIALS HARD TO BEAT?

W hen I was in college , I hit a rough patch and had to drop out. I was working two part-time jobs while taking full-time classes, paying for rent, food, and college (I had no financial aid), while living on ramen and hot dogs. (Fun fact: Due to my poverty diet, the iron levels in my blood were so low that I was not allowed to give blood.) Also, I kept wanting to change majors I wanted to be an English major, but I kept being told that I needed to get a major that I could earn money in. You cant make a living out of writing books. So I came back home and started living in my old hometown of Nodaway, and I got a job at a garden center.

I had a great boss and co-workers at the garden center. We worked with the annuals, perennials, and herbs. We would sing while grooming the plants (when I say grooming the plants, I mean picking the dead leaves and old flowers off the plants we werent brushing the plants hair or anything). We had a lot of good stuff to talk about, and we helped customers find what they wanted, and when they had gardening questions and we didnt know the answers, wed do everything we could to find the answer. It was a great deal.

The nice thing about working at a garden center is that you get a lot of free plants. Every day youd work through the flats and pots, and if you saw any plants that were dying or droopy or looked bad, youd take them out. Some of them just needed a little tender loving care, so those would go to the plant hospital, as we called it, where they would get a little attention and to perk up. Some of these would recover enough to go back on the tables, but some just sat there looking mopey, so we got to take these home.

I had a bit of a garden where I lived, but now I had a lot of garden. I wasnt very interested in annuals, because they were there for a season and that was it for them. But I loved the perennials. After all these years, Im trying to put my finger on why they appealed so much to me. I think it was because everybody grew the same annuals over and over marigolds, geraniums, petunias but perennials werent as common. I always go for stuff thats a little uncommon.

Another part of it was that some of these perennials could be true heirlooms in the garden, growing for years and years. I really wanted to grow a Gas Plant ( Dictamnus albus ) because they could stay alive for decades. Alas, the ones we had were just not in very good shape, and I didnt have much luck getting them started in my garden.

At the time, too, I was a little tired of the sameness of all the annuals. Granted, I would change my mind later, when I was working as a city horticulturist, because annuals were such a help in coloring up my flower beds fast. But give me a break, I was in college, and at that time I was just a teeny bit pretentious. Okay, more than a teeny bit.

I also loved the variety of perennials. I had some Connecticut Blue delphiniums that bloomed in the most gorgeous shades of blue Id ever seen in a plant. I had a Japanese anemone that was a whirligig of white flowers until a bunch of blister beetles ate it up. The jerks. Sea thrift, with its little powderpuff flowers growing out of a tuft of grass; Nepeta, or catmint, with its purple flowers. My cat was nuts about catnip, but she had no interest whatsoever in catmint. I planted some dahlia tubers and got some fascinating, gigantic flowers. A perennial hibiscus startled me with magenta flowers as big as dinner plates. Grandma Mary wanted to know what these plants were! And she is wise in all things plant, so thats saying something.

Now, bringing home a bunch of random plants from the nursery doesnt exactly make for an orderly garden. But I didnt care. I loved most the anticipation of putting this sad, sickly little plant in the ground and giving it good soil and watering it regularly, and generally the plant would perk up and start growing, and the next year it would start flowering, and whoa! So thats what the flowers look like in real life! And it all started with a sad-looking little droopy twig.

Thats one of the really cool things about perennials. They can fill a number of roles in the garden. You can get them in a variety of shapes, forms, and colors whether theyre chunky or elegant, variegated or colorful leaves, sprawling stems or upright, billowing and carefree or architecturally perfect. Perennials grow in all kinds of conditions, whether its shade, desert, heat, or cold, and build the background of beautiful borders. Perennials can provide four-season beauty, and they grow stronger by the season. Perennials promise all these things and they deliver.