| White Wagon Farm Perennials |
Perennials are the favorite guests of the gardener -- the ones that come back to the garden party year after year.
The ones you remember from your grandmother's garden: bleeding hearts, foxgloves, black-eyed susans, purple
coneflowers, iris, daylilies, columbines, and balloon flowers.
Perennials beg to be shared. They multiply and invite you to figure out how to split them up. Dig them up and
look at the roots -- can you separate them into multiple plants?
Perennials generally bloom a shorter time than annuals, so you look for seasons of bloom with perennials.
Hellebores lead off, then phlox shows off her brilliant pink or blue blossoms, and fades away for the succession of
bloom that last until heavy frost.
We love perennials for many reasons, including those shared by Sharyn McCrumb in her wonderful book set in
Eastern Tennessee, She Walks these Hills:
The ones you remember from your grandmother's garden: bleeding hearts, foxgloves, black-eyed susans, purple
coneflowers, iris, daylilies, columbines, and balloon flowers.
Perennials beg to be shared. They multiply and invite you to figure out how to split them up. Dig them up and
look at the roots -- can you separate them into multiple plants?
Perennials generally bloom a shorter time than annuals, so you look for seasons of bloom with perennials.
Hellebores lead off, then phlox shows off her brilliant pink or blue blossoms, and fades away for the succession of
bloom that last until heavy frost.
We love perennials for many reasons, including those shared by Sharyn McCrumb in her wonderful book set in
Eastern Tennessee, She Walks these Hills:
“It was only as she got older that she began to find comfort in tending garden flowers. Flowers didn’t
scratch up your house and then go off somewheres to die the way cats did. And they didn’t sit back and
judge you the way people did, on how you looked or what you had, or whether you gave them what they
wanted. You always knew where you stood with flowers. They didn’t pretend. Too much water, and
they made their leaves turn yellow to let you know about it. To little water, they’d wilt so as to tell you
they needed help. Not like people, who pretended all the time, and maybe didn’t even know themselves
what it was they really wanted. Flowers were safe to love. They’d even give you little warning symbols
before they died, so you’d be prepared for it…. And no matter how loud their colors were – blaze orange
marigolds, deep purple petunias, red-and-gold Joker pansies – no one thought bright flowers were in bad
taste. You didn’t have to be careful with them like you did with clothes. It was all right not to have
beige ones. Flowers were comforting.”
For the lighter side of gardening, CLICK HERE to read "Why Did My Plant Die?" by Geoffrey Charlesworth.