August usually represents the lowest point in the pictorial success of perennial borders. Still, it begins in July and runs through to the middle of September, mainly if the weather has been unfavorable.
Anyone who has established a collection of perennials knows what the ideal border should be. It should start the spring with low-growing bulbs and bloom through late October and even into November with a series of picturesque masses of beautiful flowers.
As one dominating type goes through its parade and retires, another takes its place. Each day of the blossoming year, a charming and vivid display testifies to the gardener’s efficiency, good taste, and sound judgment. There are no pests, no diseases, no failures.
Dry Heat Causes Trouble
But, this is not what happens. By the middle of July (in the hotter parts of the country, the dry heat begins earlier), the temperature usually rises, and the blooms dwindle. Instead of filling out in luscious masses, the taller plants become thinner and rangier by the day.
Then, it is too late to transplant annuals to the bare spaces. Annuals are a confession of weakness; that is, annuals to more than five percent of the total area.
Phlox, the mainstay of many gardens in midsummer, develops an unpleasant tendency to lose leaves at the base, exhibiting bare stalks for a distance of 18” inches or better.
When local authorities declare a water ration, the gardener finds some of his best plants dead, preparing to admire his early New England asters and bright, hardy chrysanthemums.
Leafhoppers, Aphids and Slugs
Leafhoppers or aphis in a variety of ravage leaves that have never before been attacked. Alas, the best part of a year’s work was wrecked.
Or, conversely, a cold, bleak spring followed by a wet summer may have brought out dozens of giant brown slugs to eat all the most desirable of his flowers.
Phlox, bee balm, and globe thistles vie with the bright coloring of the annual calliopsis. Note the large clump of rudbeckia (at left), which will produce an abundance of yellow flowers until frost.
There is a method of forestalling disappointment that is seen in occasional use and has a great deal to recommend it. It is that of employing foliage plants as background, intermediate fillers, and foreground positions in the border.
Thus you bypass the practically hopeless attempt to produce a continuous blaze of color. Instead, why not be content with a sparse grouping thrown into sharp relief against gray and grayish-green or pastel shades blending into it in remarkable harmony.
Ideal for Summer
The last few years have brought a surprising quantity of reliable perennials to ease the July and August stringencies. A succession of hemerocallis is a good color range from pale yellow to deep red, blooming through August. Delphiniums of several types, anchusas, and late-blooming lilies are worth considering.
Bee Balm
Bergamot (bee balm) in white, lavender, crimson, scarlet, and shocking pink fit the picture. Late iris, the yellow and bronze heleniums, and the brilliant dark blue aconites (persisting into late autumn) are also available.
But the foliage plants will be found to have a singular beauty that makes them worth attention for their own sake. Of such are the globe thistles with sharply cut leaves and flower-heads of a warm steel blue, tall and heavy and suitable for the rear ranks of a wide border. Among the artemisias or wormwoods, Silver King is the best known.
Artemisia Absinthium
Artemisia absinthium grows to 4’ feet, with small yellow flowers and aromatic leaves that are almost white. Lads-love (A. pontica) is 10” to 12” inches, silver-gray and delicate. A. frigid, not always quite hardy though practically so, is low-growing and fluffy along horizontal stems.
Beach Wormwood
Beach wormwood (A. stelleriana), impartially called dusty miller, together with Senecio martini and Centaurea cineraria, is hardy where the two last are not. It occurs along the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to Delaware, is 8” inches high or more, and is handsome when adequately placed. The three are most often seen in the geometric designs of public gardens.
Veronicas
Some of the veronicas, such as V. incana, of a deep blue (also an excellent pink variety), have decorative gray leaves, growing 8” inches or more in height. Lambs’ ears (Stachys lanata), the flower of which is inconspicuous and some of the less usual themes, are excellent for foreground use. Catmint (Arepela mussini), low-.growing and gray, is equally pleasant.
Other plants are of particular value in this treatment — those whose flowers and leaves soften the outlines of the bolder groups. Among these are the perennial baby’s breath or gypsophila, which grows in feathery clumps of grayish-white to a height of several feet.
Sea Lavender
Sea lavender (Slatice latifolia) to 2’ feet, and several kinds of lady’s bedstraw, including Gatium sylvaticum to 3’ feet with small white flowers, are suitable as fillers.
The Delightful Meadowrues
All of the meadowrues— white, yellow, and pale lavender — have foliage of a soft, fresh green suggesting the shape and character of maidenhair ferns, but they prefer partial shade. However, they can be grown in a fairly sunny location. They bloom into July and sometimes later.
Top-flight perennial borders are comparatively rare. Most gardeners who are successful with them find it advisable to maintain a reserve of suitable plants to be drawn on in case of unexpected shortages. These also serve the double purpose of providing cut flowers to supplement annual and summer-flowering bulbs.
It is to be hoped that three-year field-grown perennials will be obtainable again in quantity shortly. There is still a scarcity, and the results from the offered younger supply are not satisfactory.
Although a slow process, growing one’s stock is worthwhile if the space can be spared. Most perennials bloom the second year from seed, and if one-year plants are purchased from a nursery, it is usually two more years before a good showing can be expected.
Thus, in many instances, a balance can be reached by buying whatever is good of its kind and raising what is challenging to procure. A certain number of companies in this country originate their seed. In addition, some reliable English and French houses sell through American firms.
44659 by E. S. Harrold