Date: Fri 10-Nov-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: LIBRAR

Illustration: C

Location: A-14

Quick Words:

perennial-border-bulbs-Bleach

Full Text:

SUBURBAN GARDENER: Renovating The Perennial Border

"Dry leaves upon the wall,

Which flap like rusting wings & seek escape,

A single frosted cluster on the grape,

Still hangs - and that's all."

-Susan Coolidge,

"November"

By Anthony C. Bleach

The first year, every border looks empty but promising great things for the

future. The second year is more ample and more satisfactory. From the third

year on, the clumps are growing into the Jekyll-like drifts you have always

yearned for.

But then nature begins to assert its principal of return to chaos. The garden

design is distorted as aggressive perennials crowd out their weaker neighbors.

Plants look leggy or begin to die out in the middle of the clump. Flowering is

restricted due to the mass of competing roots that are strangling themselves.

To forestall this crisis, you need to adopt a yearly program of thinning and

dividing. Not all perennials reach the rampaging stage at the same time.

Beading Iris, for example, needs dividing in two, certainly three, years.

Siberian Iris can wait for three, and Daylilies can sometimes be left for

about eight years but most would benefit by division at five years. Peonies,

those elephants of the border, can remain undisturbed for decades.

There are many reasons for replanting the perennial border, the most common

one being that conditions change over the years. Trees and shrubs you have

planted over the years increase the area they shade over the years

dramatically, and perennials will respond by flowering less and less every

year.

We all have to reorganize a part of the garden sometimes because we change our

minds or make bad decisions. In Lesotho, southern Africa, we loved seeing

acres and acres of sunflowers and so in Watertown tried to recapture the

memory of our salad days by sowing them in front of the house facing south. We

never saw the flowers, as they turned to face the sun. We replaced flowers

with faces with spikes and round-headed blooms like Physostegia, Phlox and

Lupins.

Spring bulbs can be another mixed blessing in the perennial bed. Although they

are irreplaceable, the presence of bulbs does limit your choices in that

space. It may be better to remove them completely from the perennial bed and

put them in naturalized settings, where their ripening leaves do not take up

valuable space.

Again, some bulbs will remain demure and considerate, like crocuses, and so

can be relied upon spring after spring to be the herald for the later flowers.

But others like the star hyacinth (Scilia) has a bad reputation in the formal

bed because it spreads rapidly in some years and in others cannot be found.

Tulips are good in the perennial bed, as their leaves die back faster than

daffodils and so do not show as ghosts at the wedding. They do lose vigor in

just a year or two and need to be replaced, not thinned. If you want to move

or divide bulbs, the best time is early July when the foliage is nearly mature

but not yet dry.

Dissatisfaction with the sequence of bloom can provoke you to make

adjustments. Some gardeners prefer planting flowers that bloom at the same

time so that you have a most spectacular display.

Fred McGourty's garden in Norfolk is designed to peak around the Fourth of

July and it is a wonderful celebration. Wes Rouse's gardens in Southbury are

designed for the four seasons. Most of us have more modest ambitions and

settle for combining plants with different blooming times to create a more

sedate progress through the seasons.

You can have the best of both worlds if you choose long-blooming perennials.

Some are in flower for two weeks, but some are in flower for as long as six.

The following are hardy, trouble-free and prolific in bloom: Bethlehem Sage,

rock cress (Arabis caucasia), fringed bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia), purple

coneflower, black-eyed Susan, wood geranium (Geranium sanguineum), catmint

(Nepeta mussinii), coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata) and flax (Linum perenne).

If the garden you are renovating is small, you can easily dig up everything in

a single day. When you divide perennials it is a good idea to know where

everything is going to go so that you can immediately replant it. If you are

redesigning a large border, you should plan a long-range timetable.

Iris should be divided in July and August, a time when most others are left

alone. Early summer bloomers are usually thinned in spring. Plants can be

moved when they are full grown and flowering, but then it is even more

essential to keep them well-watered until they are established and to provide

shading if it is hot and sunny.

Late autumn is the ideal time to prepare soil in vegetable gardens and empty

flower beds for spring. Acid levels tend to increase during the growing

season, so to return soils to pH near neutral (6.5 to 7.0), apply some ground

limestone. A soil test will determine the precise amount of lime needed, but a

good rule of thumb is four to five pounds per 100 square feet of planting bed.

Do not wait until spring to condition soil with fresh manure. Added now, it

will decompose by planting time. Peat moss or compost can also be dug in. Use

a rotary tiller or spading fork to mix additive in at least six inches deep.

Anthony C. Bleach organizes and teaches the horticulture program at Naugatuck

Valley Community-Technical College in Waterbury.