How to make good choices for a healthy, economical garden

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Thursday, April 7, 2005

How to make good choices for a healthy, economical garden

By MARTY WINGATE
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is an excerpt from Marty Wingate's new book, "The Big Book of Northwest Perennials" (Sasquatch, 338 pages, $24.95).

COMING UP

GARDENERS' QUESTION TIME

WHAT: Come armed with your questions for gardening authors Marty Wingate ("The Big Book of Northwest Perennials"), Ed Hume ("Gardening With Ed Hume"), Cass Turnbull ("Cass Turnbull's Guide to Pruning"), and Veronica D'Orazio ("Fleurish"), all presented by Sasquatch Books. A book signing and prize drawing will follow.
WHEN: April 14, 7 p.m.
WHERE: Kane Hall, University of Washington
TICKETS: $5, available at door

This is from "Chapter 2: Designing With Perennials -- How to choose the right plant for each location, how to design a garden, how to design a mixed garden using non-perennial companions, how to adjust the design of a maturing garden.

"What are the fundamentals of design when it comes to using perennials in the garden?

There are tangible components of garden design, such as hardscape and water features, and there are intangible features, changeable components such as the quality of the light and the shape of a plant because of weather conditions or growing aspects.

The first consideration in your garden design should be you. How do you move about the garden? This determines pathways and patios -- the so-called hardscape of the garden. Once you know where the plants won't be, you can think about how to use them where they will be.

Gardens -- other than their hard surfaces of stone and brick -- are alive, and therefore we can't design them as we can a living room or bathroom. Not that we don't try, of course. Books and magazines are full of garden plans that you can copy. But even in the most well-laid garden plans, plants happen.

How to choose the right plant for each location

The overriding factor in designing with perennials is where to put the plants so they will be healthy, because healthy plants are good-looking plants.

Not only is a healthy garden a beautiful garden, but when you make good choices of plants and placement, your garden will result in less work and fewer problems. And if you have to spend less money on water and controls for pests and diseases, you will have more money for buying plants. Works out well, don't you think?

Get to know the specific characteristics of the different areas in your garden so you can create a design that pleases you. This is not difficult. Rather than focusing on which colors to combine, begin with reading the cultural notes for each plant!

For instance, you love hardy geraniums but think they grow only in full sun. However, the mourning widow (Geranium phaeum) appreciates part shade, and the evergreen Geranium macrorrhizum takes even dry shade. Or, say you love agaves, but your garden is mostly shady. Then you'd better love agaves in pots, so you can set them on the driveway against the south-facing garage door.

Avoid combining plants with contrasting cultural needs, because this leads to stressed plants that are susceptible to problems--and then there goes your perfect design. For example, if you can't do without a water-loving astilbe in a shady location, combine it with Rodgersia -- another shade plant that needs regular water -- rather than Epimedium or hardy cyclamen.

Perennials and hardscape

Whether your garden came with existing hardscape -- fences, walls, patios and paths -- or you are designing your own placement, you can use perennials to accentuate, soften and integrate the structures.

Take, for example, the intersection of two concrete paths. For a formal look, plant a small catmint (Nepeta 'Little Titch') in each of the four 90-degree angles of soil. If these seem too blousy, fill in the corners with small, compact mounds of thrift (Armeria). At the base of an arbor, plant a Geranium renardii to hide any necessary fixtures for the structure.

Call attention to a piece of stained glass set into a gate by planting a perennial that blooms in the same color. Perennials are much easier to move than a concrete patio, so use plants to help maintain or change a look -- before resorting to the sledgehammer.

Plant Profile

Here's a profile of Armeria (thrift) Plumbaginaceae:

Look: Small clumps of plants with narrow foliage. Lollipop flowers, usually pink.

Cultivation: Full sun and well-drained soil; deadhead to prolong flowering.

Garden use: Can easily be lost but so cute that you should accommodate its small stature. Grow in rockeries, cracks in patio pavement, along edge of a path. Grow at base of tall ornamental onions or spiky Veronica or alongside ornamental oregano at top of a retaining wall.

Species and cultivars:

A. juniperifolia (syn. A. caespitosa) -- Miniature stature (3 by 6 inches); pink flowers. Blooms early summer. 'Bevan's Variety' rose-pink.

A. maritime -- Tight, grassy clumps of foliage (8 by 12 inches); pink flowers. Blooms early summer. 'Alba' white; 'Bloodstone' dark red-pink; 'Dusseldorf Pride' rose pink; 'Rubrifolia' dark foliage.

Marty Wingate is a Seattle-based author and Master Gardener with a master's degree in urban horticulture. Visit her Web site: www.martywingate.com">www.martywingate.com She can be contacted by mail in care of the P-I, 101 Elliott Ave. W., Seattle, WA 98119, or via e-mail at: martywin@earthlink.net.

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