Brian Minter: Appreciating the diversity of perennials

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Are you frustrated because there are dandelions and other weeds in your lawn? Did you know that dandelion flowers provide one of the first springtime sources of pollen for bees, butterflies, and other pollinating insects?

WHEN I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT SOMETHING, it’s hard to shut me up. I love plants, and frogs, so I blog about gardening; I love being a sister (well, most days I do), so I blog about that, too.

MY GARDENING LIFE STARTED with a hedge—cutting one back hard, specifically. It was the threadbare, tall old privet surrounding my childhood home, and I was determined to “rejuvenate” it, after reading about the process in a book. No artful hedge has ever been created by my hands, though—a fact that feels all the more lamentable after watching Sean Conway’s video tour (above) of designer and nurseryman Piet Oudolf’s garden in the Netherlands. What magic.

If I count my blessings from 2009, I’d count Andre right up there, along with starting A Way to Garden (and now The Sister Project), getting a book contract of my own (more on that someday) and letting Jack the Demon Cat in the house to sit at my feet while I work each day.Andre’s memoir is brutal and charming and uproarious all at once, sharing as he does in his words (sometimes starting with “F”) and pictures (sometimes involving turgid body parts) the journey through life’s inconvenient truths and low tides, as the book depicts:A line drawing of a bucket labeled “Happy Pills” and beside it the caption “Hard to Swallow.”

Now as a rural dweller I mostly talk to the birds outside, so Skype and phone sessions have to substitute. My friend Katherine Tracey and I got into it the other day–lots of, “Have you ever grown (fill in the blank)?” or, “Did you see the new color of (insert Latin plant name)?” and then wondering aloud if each one is really a good performer or not, and worth trying.I thought it would be fun to bring all of you into the conversation, too, so once you listen to our chat, tell us your own powerhouse plants, in the comments. Read along as you listen to the Feb. 15, 2016 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).Background on

These may remind you of my popular vegetarian baked heirloom beans, but lentils cook much more quickly, and I don’t use molasses or the same spices in these as I do in the beans. That said, you could alternate either flavor with either “pulse,” and simply vary the cooking time.barbecue lentils, minus the grillingredients:1¾ cups lentils, rinsed (I use the basic greenish kind; black “caviar” ones are fine, too) Water to cover the lentils to twice their depth (about 4 cups) 1 medium onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 Tablespoon oliv

“We would be sad if people shied away from such an iconic garden vegetable,” says Brian, who with Crystine Goldberg farms organic seed, including for beets, in Bellingham, Washington–seed they sell in their online and print Uprising catalog. “What is more beautiful than a bunch of voluptuous bright red beetroots in a harvest basket en route from the garden to the kitchen?”All too often, our only experience with beets means the usual suspects—ubiquitous varieties like ‘Detroit Dark Red’ or ‘Early Wonder,’ or produce sold without their greens and even pre-packaged or canned. Brian confesses he doesn’t have much experience with those, and for a good reason: There are better beets to be had, and grown.my beet-growing q&a with brian campbellQ. When can I

“They’re our biggest unpaid staff workers,” says Brian. “They’re the pollinators that we depend on, so we really pay attention.”We discussed why building up your pollinator palette of extra-early bloomers in particular is important; which families of plants have the most impact, and how certain flowering things like Alyssum and Phacelia may help attract aphid-fighting helpers–and even a bigger role for cilantro!Read along as you listen to the Feb. 4, 2019 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of po

Kathy, of Avant Gardens retail and mail order nursery in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, also helps clients design and refine their landscapes, creating spaces she describes as intimate but not fussy, like her home garden. She relies on a wide palette of plants—including lots of dramatic perennials.We talked about best practices for proactive cutbacks starting in June, and continuing now. About perennial mums to invest in (and how to care for them). About all the really tall guys of late summer—lots of sunflower relatives, and also the ironweeds or Vernonia, among others. That’sVernonia letermannii blooming above around a variegated yucca in her garden top of page.Read along as you listen to the Aug.

Toshi is in his third year as director of horticulture at the former estate called Wethersfield garden in Dutchess County, New York, with its 3-acre formal gardens plus 7 acres of wilderness garden and commanding views of the Catskills and Berkshire Mountains.Toshi and his team are bringing the gardens back to life, and he told me about the place, and specifically about the tasks of editing and dividing that every perennial gardener needs to do, whatever their garden scale. (Above, a tangle in one of the Wethersfleid cutting garden’s annual beds, with Gladiolus ‘Wine and Roses,’ Zinnia ‘Benary’s Giant Lime,’ Rudbeckia hirta ‘Indian Summer,’

Radicchio, with its long heritage in Northern Italy, isn’t the only crop with Italian roots that the Uprising team is crazy about, so today we’re going to meet leaf broccoli and cardoon, and some traditional Italian beans and beets, too, that would be just as at home in your vegetable garden.Brian Campbell, with his partner Crystine Goldberg, owns Uprising Seeds just north of Bellingham, Washington, which was the state’s first certified organic seed company and features an assortment of exceptional vege