Annuals & perennials Ideas, Tips & Guides

This native North American woodlander, also called black cohosh or bugbane or snakeroot, is slow to establish, and closely related to baneberry (Actaea rubra), which grows nearby it at my place like kissing cousins. My three black cohosh plants of a decade ago didn’t do much for years…and then they did. Now I have a glade of them, their astilbe-like foliage crowned with these sweet-smelling towering ivory wands throughout July here.When in flower, black cohosh (not to be confused with blue cohosh, a spring native) is 4 to 6 feet tall. Depending on the amount of light that filters through the canopy the spires are all wild (like the ones up top) or formally vertical (in a bit more sun, left). And as for needing maintenance: none.It will ask your patience, however, as I say. B

Just to be clear: I love herbaceous peonies, or P. lactiflora, the blowsy, fragrant lovelies of most late-spring gardens. But I don’t grow them in my mixed borders; I relegate them to a cutting area, where I have enough for many, many vases-full (but not even one-twentieth of the number Martha has!). I might have 25 plants, all of them from our old friends the Klehms in Illinois, and they’ll bloom in another couple of weeks. But what I am loving at the moment in the garden (not the vase) are peonies the way nature made them.Paeonia mlokosewitschii, more easily referred to as Molly the Witch, is a beautiful pale yellow, and enjoys a spot in a shady, woodland garden. My very big, old plant of nearly a decade ago, purchased at an auction at a bot

COME AND JUST TAKE A WALK with me. No big plant lesson, nothing to prune or weed or sow.

Truth be told, I cannot even usually recall its name at those moments, an embarrassing thing when you are hosting garden tours. Nor did I know that it had a “common” name, let along two (the other being pink cow parsnip, apparently).I’d never gotten up close and personal enough with this lovely plant all these years to notice if it’s really apple-scented the way the references all say it is. (I just went out and took a whiff, and I say no. Smells to this nose like parsley, or something else green; no apples here.)What this little umbellifer of about 2 feet tall in bloom does have is good ferny foliage (not unlike its namesake chervil

As I mentioned last year about this time, I have rules for everything, including how to grow violas and pansies (as if just being stubborn isn’t enough, I’m also sometimes rigid). The pansy-and-viola rules involve the scale of the containers I like them in (low, preferably bowl-shaped, as you can see in this other post as they awaited planting) and the number of varieties per bowl (one, and only one, period).By now I hope you know that when I say “rules” I do it to poke fun at myself; do as you wish in your own garden, and have fun doing so. But if it’s rules you want, well, then, here are mine. This year’s elements in A Way to Garden’s pansy-and-viola palette (top) are four: a solid-orange pansy called ‘Delta Series Pure Deep Orange’; an intermediate-sized pansy with a reddish-and-gold bloom called ‘Panola Series XP Fire,’ plus two violas: ‘Sorbet Series Black Delight,’ which I have grown for many years, and cheery yellow ‘Sorbert Series Baby Face Primrose,’ whose blotch is darkest purple.

E. palustris, as its species name reveals, is a marsh-type plant, so wet and heavy soils are no problem for it (though it doesn’t seem to require them). Most spurges are finicky about such conditions. Not this one. It gets to between 2 and 3 feet tall and at least as wide.I grow seven or eight other Euphorbias, including the basic polychroma, its newer, red-foliage variant called ‘Bonfire,’ and the fiery-colored one called E. griffithii ‘Dixter’ [above]. In California, mail-order Digging Dog Nursery has a good list of spurges, but not palustris. I swore I got my most recent generation of plants at Forestfarm, but I don’t see it in their current list. Hmmm….how about Annie’s Annuals?The hardest thing about growing spurges is cutting them back,

I found ‘Will’ (along with many other good things over the years) at the now-closed Seneca Hill Perennials. Former owner Ellen Hornig dubbed the plant ‘Will’s Wonderful’ because it was given to her by someone named Will, not because either of them knows its actual name. (Update September 2011: As of fall 2009, Ellen was no longer selling it, so for awhile I suggested to readers that another pink, maybe ‘Cambodian Queen,’ from the selection at Lazy S’s might be one to consider. ‘Sheffield Pink,’ which they also have, is lovely, too, but not bawdy at all. In 2010, Lazy S’s added ‘Will’ to its collection–meaning ‘Will’ found a new retail home. Update 2019: Though Lazy S’s went out of business, Avant Gardens also started selling Will.)What Ellen and I and Lazy S’s and Kathy Tracey of Avant Gardens all like about ‘Will’ is that he shows up extra-late, just when you have given up on anything daring to flower, and also the indescribable way he colors up and then fades: a sequence of shocking hues, one nicer than the next. Like I said, I can’t describe it, exactly, but it starts with red buds, opens to wha

SOMETIME AGO, I overheard visitors to one of the country’s finest public gardens recounting their experience. “I liked it,” said one woman, who called herself a professional gardener, “but I didn’t like that all the plants touched.” I think perhaps she missed the point: That’s the best part, the making of botanical mosaics, the weaving-together of things; the part when the mulch disappears.

I’m casting my vote for chipmunks, who seem intent on redesigning the garden, morsel by morsel. They especially like to move things like small bulbs (crocus, for instance, which I now have in one-sies in the oddest and most remote places) or little tubers like those of Corydalis solida (ditto). The photo shows it where it bloomed last year withPulmonaria rubra (red) and Hylomecon japonicum (the yellow blurs at the back).This rock-garden treasure jumps up out of the ground, blooms, and disappears in a month or so each spring, and never gave me any trouble in semi-shaded spots (by which in this case I mean sunny in early spring but somewhat shaded in the hot months). Besides the lavender one I grow (grew?) there’s also a blush-colored version appropriately called ‘Blushing Girl’ available through Seneca Hill, and a pink one named ‘Beth Evans’ at White Flower Farm, and I have read about but

THE GARDEN HAS AWAKENED, and I thought you might want to meet the early risers. Somebody new’s showing up every day now (almost every hour). Enjoy.

IT HAS BEEN MONTHS SINCE I uploaded a photo gallery, and right now it’s definitely carpe diem…or carpe not at all, with the last bits fading fast. Here, then, are some of the final stars, the stalwarts of recent weeks, who despite harsh times gave (and give) mightily.

When it first came into mass production less than 10 years ago, I was working at Martha Stewart Living, and the folks at Ball Horticultural who were touting the plant to wholesalers and the press send me some babies to try. Baby they did not remain for very long, since ‘Dragon Wing’ is a lusty creature: One plant will easily fill a 10-inch pot all by itself, and gets to about 2 feet tall. It grows in semi-shade or even pretty substantial sun in my experience, and wants regular watering (but never to be sodden) and a dose of fish-emulsion and seaweed solution pretty regularly. A hungry thing.‘Dragon Wing,’ which also comes in a pink-flowered form, blooms and blooms all season, with pendulous trusses of hot-red blossoms. When it came on the market, cooperative extension agents from many of the Southern states raved about it for its heat tolera

THE LAST OF THE FEMALE HUMMINGBIRDS have just departed for points south, following the males who left well ahead of time as if to set up camp. But onward bloom three of my favorite hummingbird plants, three red-flowered salvias I always include in the garden somewhere, year to year.

Recalcitrant, to the max, apparently. Just plain uncooperative, and following a beat of their own.Seven months after they arrived, on nearly the shortest day of the year with months of low light and cold ahead, they have risen.Oh, perfect. Of course I have any number of ideal conditions to offer these late-sleeper: Will it be a radiator, my sleepyhead darlings, or a drafty windowsill? (Kidding. Both are certain death.)The description on my friend Tony Avent’s Plant Delight Nursery web

Rule No. 1: I like pansies and violas best when they are used in low bowls like the ones pictured here, and I have made a practice of buying terra cotta bowls large and small over the years to accommodate this propensity.Rule No. 2: I like one variety of pansy or viola per bowl, thank you.Rule No. 3: I will happily make an occasional exception to Rule No. 2 if we are talking about combining two solid-color pansies or two solid-color violas that look good together. (I am in charge of all the rules, including what I deem looks good together; see Rule No. 4.)Rule

LESPEDEZA THUNBERGII: A 6-by-6 fountain of late-summer into fall purple glory. Easy, too.HAKONECHLOA ‘ALL GOLD’: The Japanese forest grass turns my shady garden areas golden tones from May into winter.HELLEBORE HYBRIDS: Dry shade? No problem. Forgiving, beautiful, extra-early blooming perennials with evergreen foliage to boot.SEDUM ‘MATRONA’: Maybe my favorite of the taller sedums, all blue-green and pinkish in that sedum-y way.GERANIUM PHAEUM ‘SAMOBOR’: Perennial geraniums are a must; this one’s perhaps the mustest, showy and cooperative.LATHYRUS VERNUS: A little perennial pea of early spring (above) that’s delicate and durable; one of my sprin

Lathyrus vernus plays well with others, and doesn’t ask for any attention. It even tolerates rather dry spots in the woodland garden, hallelujah, though I grow it in sunnier areas, too. Sold?In my garden, Lathyrus vernus coincides with the mid-season to late Narcissus, and is in full color with the acid-yellow early euphorbias, hellebores and pulmonarias, among other

LET’S HEAR IT FOR the little guys: It’s their moment. Click and meet them.

I was already thinking about succulents, after writing a story about succulent-wreath how-to with Katherine Tracey of Avant Gardens. Remember? (That’s another of her creations up top: a box of succulents, meant to be hung vertically, like a framed mini wall garden. Here’s Katherine’s how-to on making a mini-wall garden.) Then during spring garden cleanup, I noticed that some Sedum ‘Angelina’ (a gold-colored, ferny-textured groundcover type) had fallen out of a big pot I’d placed on the terrace last summer, and planted itself in the gravel surface, and the surrounding stone wall. (Again, those succulent voices: “Hint. Hint.”)The next nudge came when I spontaneously pulled into a garden center last month—one I’d never been to—only to find an irresistibly low price on overstuffed pots of hens and chicks. I brought home a bunch.And then the final push: At Trade Secrets, the big annual benefit garden show held in nearby Sharon, Connecticut, it was as if someone had announced a theme: Every vendor seemed to be featuring succulents in one way or another.Dave Burdick (remember him?) of Daffodils and More in Dalton, Massachusetts, whose specialties include not just rare

Her names derives from the German for “lady of well-rounded form,” but I grow her a little on the lean and wiry side, which if you’ve ever seen me will come as no surprise.  I grow several plants weaving up and out through the perimeter of an old winterhazel, or Corylopsis spicata, whose foliage (like that of ‘Matrona’) has a pinkish-purple cast in places (in the winterhazel, it’s on new growth). You can see a Corylopsis leaf with this characteristic in the upper right of the photo above.These two same-but-different plants have become good friends, and the Corylopsis shades the Sedum just enough to make it stretch to 30 inches or thereabouts (24 would be more the norm in full sun). It also

I ALMOST LOST MY COLONY of Angelica gigas this last non-winter and dry spring/summer, but various species of bees and wasps and other insects are very glad I didn’t. The Korean angelica, a biennial with unearthly wine-colored flowerheads, is just one of the primary pit stops abuzz right now in the late-summer garden–and many of them are in the family that’s variously called Umbelliferae or Apiaceae.

BETWEEN WEEDING, WATERING, EDGING, MULCHING, I noticed there are some new things blooming…like several dozen.

WHAT CAN I SAY? I’m shacked up over here with a whole lot of plants, I admit it. Click the photos to get to the third (largest) view for best effects. Enjoy.

I HAVE ALREADY SPOUTED OFF ABOUT HOW I AM NO FLOWER GIRL. Foliage rules here. Month 3, and it still looks good. What flower can say that? Oh, really?

1. Target earliest bloomers like Euphorbia for immediate cutbacks. Don’t try letting them re-grow from up above; it’s too strenuous for their good. Ask them to push anew from the base by giving an end-of-winter severe haircut, down near the base. Even later-bloomers that grow from those dense, cushion-like crowns (Sedum spectabile, such as ‘Autumn Joy,’ comes to mind) will be easier to clean up now than once they start to push.2. Evergreen or otherwise-persistent perennial foliage (European ginger or Asarum europaeum, Helleborus, Epimedium) that will soon be replaced with a fresh flush of leaves needs to go, too. Yes, the plant will do just fine even if you leave it on…bu

Flowers or not, I grow one pineapple sage plant each year because of its Jack-in-the-Beanstalk quality. A 3-inch pot containing a rooted cutting in May forms a shrubby 3-by-4-foot creature by high summer, and oh, the fragrance of those leaves—scenes of a sunny Hawaiian pineapple plantation in every stroke of the hand. In areas where it does bloom before this anti-climactic moment (which it’s doing even with much of its foliage battered by the intermittent cold), pineapple sage and other late salvias are appreciated by migrating hummingbirds. (For summering ruby-throated hummingbirds here, Salvia van houttii, S. coccinea and some of the other reds are more to the point, along with many other tender things like verbena and nicotiana, and keep going long after the little bird

Apparently it will grow to be quite a large and spectacular creature, though I don’t have my own photo of that stage yet. Like most of the begonias I grow, ‘Bonfire’ has beautiful foliage, and even its stems are showy, with flushes of bronzy-pink to them. Also in true begonia fashion, it doesn’t want to be soggy but prefers well-drained conditions, and should be allowed to dry between waterings and will stand up to dry periods.The Australian company that developed it, Anthony Tesselaar (who also brought us showy ‘Tropicanna’ canna and ‘Flower Carpet’ roses), says it can take sun or part shade, but doesn’t offer any “bringing it indoors in winter” instructions. I guess I will be coming up with my own protocol on that score. Anybody grown it and have any advice?Categoriesannuals & perennials shade gardeningTagsbegonias

What it is, in the photo above? It is Angelica gigas, blooming in August for weeks. To succeed with Angelica gigas, you need to get it started in a spot that’s at least part shade, and where the soil isn’t too dry. And you need something more: You need t

Out of the leaf litter they ascend.When I purchased this native of woodsy streambanks in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon for my New York garden, it was still called Peltiphyllum peltatum. I have a thing for big-leaved plants (likeAstilboides, its cousinRodgersia, and even thuggishPetasites). I had to tryDarmera, whose leaves can reach 18 in

I think they are easy to grow, and don’t feel as if I did much but plant them and keep them watered till they settled in.It’s not that simple, I suppose, but almost, since hellebores seem to be about as tough as any perennial. If you avoid an area that’s sodden, or too baking-hot in full summer sunshine (especially in more Southern gardens than mine), you’re in. At least that’s my observation after maybe 15 years of growing

Geranium macrorrhizum, the big-root geranium: I wonder how many square miles of this plant I have grown. The bigroot geranium is so named because instead of a clumping habit, it grows from a ropelike rhizome that seems to barely need to touch the ground to thrive. Its attractive foliage has an aromatic, spicy scent, and is nearly evergreen even in my Zone 5B garden.It will survive, I think, except in the wet; sun or shade, and even dry shade. All I give it is an annual haircut, and I do that when spring is turning to summer, the flowers have gone by and the leaves are stretching upward. Deadheading would be another option, but just shearing the whole plant is faster in masses, and also keeps it tighter and denser.The straight species is pink (but not pastel); if Pepto Bismol isn’t going to

Neither one asks much of the gardener for nonstop April or May through December appeal, and the Hakonechloa even likes a semi-shaded spot.Profiles:Categories ..

‘Angelina’ is basically bright yellow-green in summer, particularly in sun, with needlelike foliage rising to 3 or 4 inches high, and spreading about 18 to 24 inches in a season.I even have ‘Angelina’ growing in an old concrete birdbath, high on a pedestal, in perhaps an inch of nasty old soil, where you’d think it would die from exposure but doesn’t even miss a beat. It has been happy there for a few years.If I didn’t have ‘Angelina,’ I’d get it now (it’s widely available in local garden centers). It’s touted as a drought-tolerant groundcover for hot, dry areas, but I grow ‘Angelina’ in sun and in semi-shade, in pots, and just about anywhere that a broken-off bit I dropped in transit made contact with even a teaspoon of soil in some crevice somewhere. ‘Angelina’ (Zones 3-8) doesn’t seem to be aware that its patent has been

That unearthly thing below is another outcropping from the pancake-like ‘Bonfire’ tuber, an even-later riser waking up across the pot from the livelier eyes above. I think a key is not to overwater, and to let them show you when they want what, and when they want to get going. I never let them go so dry for prolonged periods that they shriveled, but I never really watered much, either, except then they were in active growth, so the tubers stayed firm and healthy. I just kept checking each month through the winter with my finger: Were the tubers still firm? Yes. And like I said, tada!I look forward to ‘Bonfire’ returning to its glory state (top) as the season heats up here. And one more thought: You have to love a plant that resurrects in a recession; so thrifty, such an

T HERE IS SO MUCH GOING ON it’s hard to know where to focus the eye, or the camera. And then I remembered: mid-May is when the indescribably beautiful, subtle “other” peonies bloom: the species peonies, real spring shade-garden treasures. So up the hill I went, up into one of the shrub borders above the house, to say hello to Molly the Witch,Paeonia mlokosewitschii.

Read its full plant portrait for more luscious details. You know I can’t get enough Sedum (I love the little guys, too). Read about groundcover types of Sedum in this slideshow.Others among my favorite perennials you might like: They’re all here (along with some good-looking annuals, admittedly). Enjoy.Categoriesannuals & perennialsTagssedum