PGJ_WillYouStillLoveThem

A Prairie Garden Journal by Dick Meyer

Will you Still
Love them in the Morning?

Autumn Joy Sedum

In some respects, your neighborhood garden center in the springtime is a lot like the local singles hot spot—a lot of folks looking for the perfect mate. At the local night club you’ll find a lot of young single people looking for their, uh, perfect “soul mate”, and at your neighborhood garden center you’ll find a lot of gardeners looking for that perfect perennial for their garden or landscape. Unfortunately, in both locales, the prospects that tend to catch one’s eye are not necessarily the ones that will lead to a blissful, long-term relationship.

Let me say right now that I claim no expertise on the local singles scene. But I do know something about the local garden center scene, and have watched a lot of gardeners pick up beautiful blooming perennials that will not look nearly so good the next morning—in a gardening sense, that is. These “one night stand perennials” will be the life of the party in the garden for a few days, and then, sadly, lose their good looks and seductive personality, leaving their jilted gardener or homeowner with little recourse but to head back to the garden center in search of other Mr. (or Ms.) Right Perennials.

Feather Reed Grass

It may help you to know that most of the best soul mate perennials for Wyobraska aren’t wearing much make-up in the spring, so to speak. Which is to say that most of them are just ordinary stems with plain-looking leafy green foliage in their garden center pots. That’s because most of the best perennials for Wyobraska gardens and landscapes don’t bloom until late spring or summer. In addition, many become relatively large garden flowers—2-3 feet tall and 1-3 feet wide, and so don’t really show off their ample virtues until they are planted in your garden or landscape. It takes a real self-confident gardener to walk out of a garden center with one of these plain-looking perennials under each arm.

Many gardeners have begun to use the internet to find compatible perennials for long term relationships in their gardens. There are now many good internet sites with in depth profiles (complete with those all-important pictures) of many well-known and not-so-well-known perennials. Gardening books, gardening magazines, and the region’s several annual garden walks and tours are also excellent methods of find out more about prospective perennials before picking them up at the garden center. A few hours of research can significantly improve the chances that a gardener or homeowner will find those ideal perennials that they will still love--the morning after they bloom.

Previous Articles

Fractions March 15
Yardner March 8
Urban Legends of Trees March 22
Que Serra, Serra March 29
Grocery Store or Garbage Dumpster Plants April 5
Planning Your Landscape Project April 12
Planting Cool Trees April 19
Keeping Trees Alive April 26
Thrillers, Chillers, Spillers May 03

2006 Articles

Long term relationships with perennials have to be based on more than just their appearance during that short period when they are in bloom. All perennials are attractive during that period of their annual growth cycle. But you may be surprised to discover that there are a number of perennials that have attractive foliage before they bloom, and which retain a certain garden charm after they bloom and on through the rest of the growing season, right into fall and winter.

And equally as important as their year-around staying power, many of these “special” perennials also are well-behaved—they don’t spread and take over your garden, they don’t leave a lot of seeds laying around that turn into a lot of new little perennials, and they don’t need a lot of pampering. They’re sort of like a good-looking Mr. (or Ms.) Right who is “attentive”, but who also cooks, cleans, does laundry, and also makes the bed in the morning—before he (or she) goes off to work (at a high-paying job, I might add). What more could a perennially single gardener or homeowner ask for.

Now some of you may be trying to pinch yourself back awake, but it’s true. The perennials of your dreams are out there, just waiting for you to discover them and take them home to your garden or landscape for a long term, committed relationship. To find these “soul mate” perennials, it helps not to become intoxicated with the first pot of hot pink flowers that smiles at you from across the garden center perennial bench. Many of these eye-candy flowers turn out to be real heart breakers if you take them home.

With plants, as with people, I have found that beauty remains in the eye of the beholder, so following is a list of beauties—in the eye of this beholder, anyway.

Feather Reed Grass