These days, when time seems so limited, many gardeners believe that starting and caring for a perennial garden is just about impossible.
They look upon the perennial garden as something belonging to large estates of the past and heave a nostalgic sigh—perennials, with all their glorious colors, are not for them!
However, it takes no more time nor effort to care for a perennial garden than a garden of annuals.
The initial cost of perennial plants may seem high, but they, like annuals, can be raised easily from seed.
Once you have established a perennial plant in the border, you’ll be supplied each year with additional plants, for most perennials can be divided repeatedly.
Two Important Points For A Perennial Border
There are two important points to remember when laying out a perennial border.
Proper Border Spacing
First, if the border is to be a success, it must be at least 6′ feet wide, and a width of 12′ feet is better if you have the space to devote to it.
See that you have access to it from the back and the front so you can cultivate it easily.
The border should have a definite front edging and a background wall of stone or brick, a fence, or an evergreen hedge.
You’ll be surprised at the unity your garden will have when the colors of the border are seen against a green background.
A narrow edging of a low-growing perennial will also give your garden unity.
Plan The Bloom Succession
Have you labored on a garden only to be appalled later by the notable absence of color, or worse, by the jarring lack of harmony in the color scheme?
If this has happened to you, it may have been because you didn’t carefully plan the bloom succession or, perhaps, in a weak moment, you deviated from your plans and stuck in some fillers.
If the color scheme of the border was jarring, it was probably because the bluish pinks and the oranges were side by side.
Much has been written condemning magenta, but I find nothing wrong with it if it is combined with other colors wisely.
Follow A Color Scheme
In planning your garden color, you will never go wrong if you do not plant pink-to-purple perennials that bloom simultaneously as the orange-to-russet ones.
Following this rule, you still have a wide color range from which to choose:
- White and the grays found in the foliage of some perennials
- The cool lemon yellows
- All pinks, the bluish ones as well as the salmon
- All reds except bricks and russets
- All blues from the palest sky to the most intense shades
- All the purples
That is quite an array.
If you particularly like the orange shades, you could use the following hues:
- White
- The lemon and gold tones
- Salmon
- Apricot
- Orange
- Vermilion
- Henna
- Maroon
And with these, you can use all the blues and the purples, unless they are on the reddish-purple side.
Be sure to plant a sufficiently large mass of each color to be effective even if, as in the small border, you do not have space for a wide variety of colors.
Do not just scatter color through the border.
The mainstay of my garden is a wide perennial border bisected by a path.
Outside of thinning the crowded plants, I haven’t had to change it radically in the last 5 years, and it has given lots of colors throughout the season.
No annuals are needed as fillers for this border, which cuts down enormously on labor.
Plan Gardening Like An Orchestra Leader
Most people compare gardeners to painters in selecting colors, but it has always seemed that the gardener is more like an orchestra leader since it is timing the all-important color.
Nothing is static in a garden, and colors constantly come and go.
The color of a flower that was enchanting in May may be a perfect horror in August when the plant next to it comes into bloom.
The solution that I’ve found to this problem is to plan a definite color combination for a given season, having each picture last about 3 weeks.
How I Achieved A Successful Garden
I think that part of the success of my garden is due to my having learned, after many years of gardening, not to fight with my garden, but to grow what seems to do best.
Then I play it for all it is worth, collecting all possible varieties from the earliest to the latest blooming ones.
In my earlier garden years, I grew many more different kinds of flowers on this border, but I have learned to limit myself to fewer numbers.
I had to decide against growing some of my favorite perennials on the borders.
The framework for these borders was planted years ago.
Yews and boxwood were put in for an evergreen background, and accent plantings were put in strategically.
The fully-grown specimens of the early purple azalea, Yodogawa, Kousa dogwood, large clumps of the single blue Althaea coelestis, white spireas, and Belle Etoile mock orange are important in my garden because they supply background color, filling in during those short periods of transition between one color picture in the perennial border and the next.
Blooming Perennials In May
Massive color begins to show in my garden about May 10, and from then on, the picture changes every 2 to 3 weeks.
It is fascinating to see the garden burst into a harmony of pale blues, yellow, white, and deep sapphire, and a few weeks later, see the exact spot clothed in all shades of pink and lavender.
Two weeks later, there will be an entirely different picture, composed of lemon yellows, bright vermilion, white and deep blue, with no pinks in sight.
In May, my garden—a solid carpet of Myosotis alpestris or forget-me-not. This is a rampant self-sower and forms a fine carpet for bulbs.
A word of caution about planting the bulbs: the tiny ones go in the front, of course, but all daffodils and tulips arc much better towards the back of the border, where they will be hidden by tall perennials when the bulb foliage begins to yellow.
If your border is still young or in the making, tulips would be a good filler since they are good for only 2 or 3 years, and in that time, the perennials will have filled the extra space.
When you buy your tulips, do not buy the bargain of mixed colors. Instead, buy one color and plant a minimum of 7 to 12 in a sizable clump.
They’ll take up just enough room to allow your perennial clumps to spread.
When the forget-me-nots are blooming, a huge clump of the large-flowered, early azalea, Yodogawa, makes an accent way off at the end of the border, and there is a foamy white background of Spiraea arguta.
There is nothing else in the border that blooms now, but I love the effect of misty blues, clouds of white, and intense purple.
Meanwhile, tufts of greenish and reddish foliage become larger every day, and as they develop, they gradually hide the low forget-me-nots and bulb foliage.
Blooming Perennials In June
Then one morning in early June, I suddenly realized that the entire border had changed color.
Along the front, there is a solid band of the pale yellow Oenothera missouriesis or evening primrose.
Between and behind them are some old-fashioned lilies, L. elegans, and L. amubile. Off to one end of the border is scarlet oriental poppies.
They are there because I have found it impossible to get rid of them. Their flamboyant beauty lasts only a week to 10 days, but they would look better if surrounded by tall clumps of foliage, for they die down after a while, and they don’t do it beautifully.
Several kinds of campanulas have now bloomed all a soft blue. They are between and behind the delicate pale yellow, and in the background are masses of white Spiraea Vanhouttei.
This picture persists for about 2 or 3 weeks, but the snow-white Kousa dogwood bursts into bloom towards the end of this period.
By June 15, the picture on the border has again changed. Large clumps of astilbe have burst into a foamy mass of color through the garden, starting with white and cream, then shell pink, deep pink, and crimson.
The deep red astilbe, Fanal, is in bloom in the front of the border.
The yellow edging of evening primrose has made way for Veronica amethystia, which has deep sapphire-blue flowers, and Veronica incana, with its velvety gray foliage.
Now, the entire border is a picture of pinks and blues. At this time, along the back of the border, 5 large specimens of Azalea macranthum burst forth into a fanfare of deep rose pink.
If watered well, they will bloom for 2 weeks.
Blooming Perennials In July
As the pinks fade and July 15 comes around, another complete color change occurs.
Rather abruptly, the entire border turns pale yellow and lavender-blue. Early daylilies, funkias (hosta), and the earliest white phlox have gradually taken over, while the white mock-orange, Belle Etoile, blooms at the rear of the border.
For all-summer performance, I depend upon three perennials:
- Cool, lemon-yellow day-lilies
- Funkias
- Phlox in all colors
Had I deviated in my choice of daylilies from the cool, greenish yellows, it would be impossible to grow all the beautiful colors of phlox.
I started to collect both varieties, from the earliest to the latest blooming, but while I grow daylilies of all colors, only the lemon and greenish-yellow ones are admitted to the borders.
Like the light yellows, Blues are another excellent neutral color for the border.
It is supplied by vast clumps of platycodons, another dependable, which, like daylilies, prefer to be left alone for years on end.
I carefully remove all the spent blooms as each picture fades, leaving only the fine clumps of foliage.
Blooming Perennials In August
In August, although the pale yellow of the daylilies is still holding forth, the phlox come into bloom in all their lovely colors.
The early snow whites are now joined by delicate and eyed pinks, salmon and rose, scarlet and crimson, shocking pinks and magenta, orchid and fuchsia, and lavender and deepest purple.
All are harmonious with the pale yellow daylilies and the tall, blue platycodon.
The background is now formed by a huge mass of Althaea coelestis, whose large single saucers of mauve open every morning.
A row of 5 Domotoi hydrangeas is off to one side, supplying large masses of cobalt blue.
Blooming Perennials In September
As August fades into September, the lovely blooms of Lilium speciosum, which have formed a ribbon all along the border, are joined by the fragrant white hostas.
September arrives, and still, the color continues. Dwarf, tall asters, and Aconitum Wilsoni are the last to bloom.
Along with phlox, hemerocallis and platycodons, they sometimes bloom way into October.
In early fall, chrysanthemums, growing elsewhere in the garden, may be placed on the border.