Plant some bulbs

        Having lived on Locust Hill for close to fifty years, I've planted a great many bulbs on the property.   No gardener should let the fall slip by without planting a few bulbs so there will be something new and exciting to look forward to come spring. What other flower can you plant that is more rewarding than a daffodil , a few crocuses or those first harbingers of spring, the snowdrops pictured above?  They go on and on forever, free of diseases, increasing in size and beauty each year?

        Plant a single narcissus and in a few years it has turned into two or three.  In five years they can be dug up, separated and the results replanted.  This endless cycle can be endlessly repeated, provided you've marked the clumps that need dividing before their foliage disappears so they can be easily located when it's time to dig them up come fall.

Do you know the difference between a narcissus, a daffodil and a jonquil?  Not even the botanists do any more, using the terms indiscriminately.  Narcissus is actually a genus of the amaryllis family and includes both jonquils and daffodils.  Jonquils are a single species with rush-like leaves and sweet-smelling, short-cupped flowers in clusters.  There are many species of daffodils, all hardy and having trumpet flowers like those found in the handsome white Mt. Hood variety.

I have daffodils with pink trumpets in my perennial border,  a mix of white and yellow  in the sheep pasture, and although it took many year, I now have a cloud of golden daffodils up on the knoll.  Several years ago I had so many divided clumps of different daffodil varieties that I couldn’t think where to plant them. It was Hank who finally offered  the solution.  We have a large Carpathian walnut tree that we mow under so we can find the nuts each fall.  I planted a border of bulbs at the edge of the mowed grass circle.

Tulip bulbs are the one exception, a different story altogether.  Unfortunately tulips don't last for years and years. You’re lucky if they last more than one.  That’s because unlike narcissus bulbs, which are poisonous, tulip bulbs are edible, and field mice consider them a tasty treat. Many gardeners have the mistaken idea that moles are the culprits when they see tunnels bumping along under the soil and no tulips gracing the garden the following spring. But moles are carnivores.  They're only interested in bugs.  It's the vegetarian field mice who dine on tulip bulbs.  They use the mole tunnels to get underground.

       
        Because tulips rarely last for more than a season
or two, even when planted with moth balls or buried in

wire baskets, I stopped bothering to grow tulips many
years ago as it didn't seem to be worth the effort. The
one planting that turned out to be the exception was the
tulips daughter Bridget and I planted the fall before her
wedding.   That wedding was in the spring of 1987,
almost twenty years ago.

        The following year I planted that area with pach-
ysandra, not wanting to care for another flower bed. I
guess both mice and moles just aren't interested in tun-
neling through a vast maze of pachysandra roots.  The
tulips in today's photograph are some of those planted
for Bridget's wedding, still popping up each spring sev-
enteen years later.  I don't particularly want tulips in my
pachysandra beds, but I think I’ll try putting a few in the
bed of periwinkle up by the barn.

A New and Different Perennial

        I just looked up the word perennial in the dictionary to see if it fit the plants in my perennial border.  "Appearing again and again; continually recurring." Hmm. I guess that's a fair definition, provided your plants aren't killed by winter frost or summer drought, aren't attacked by insects or crippled by disease and are divided periodically.  I'm lucky if my hybrid lupines last three years, and my delphiniums only last one if we have a dry summer.

        There's one perennial, however, that requires no care at all and literally lasts forever.  It needs no watering, fertilizing or dividing, and can add interest and even grandeur to the garden.

        Rockus perennialis is more commonly known as a boulder.  The Asians are the experts in using rociks in a garden. To them a stone is a pure piece of nature, unaltered by man.  Silent, unmovable and permanent, stones suggest eternity.  Not just any old boulder will do, however.  It should be picked for its color, texture, surface, grain and sometimes the sound it produces when struck.

        According to the Chinese, a flower brings butterflies, a willow brings the oriole, a pine the wind, a pond the croaking of frogs, while the rock promises the cheerful chirp of the cricket and invites cloud formations. A rock's natural line and composition can be as beautiful as a winding river or a sailing cloud.  One with cracks, veins of white or pink marble, or perforations which allow wildflower seeds to nestle and grow, is particularly desirable.

        Back when Hank and I lived in Fairfield, I had a wild garden, a most appropriate place to plant a few good-looking rocks.  Hank made a drag cart for Pipsissewa, our burro, which enabled Pippy and  me to bring home several spectacular boulders covered in moss and lichens, and one that actually had a wild columbine growing in a crack. 

        Locust Hill, surrounded by 40 acres of open meadow, had no shady  place for a wild garden or handsome rocks. As a consequence, we planted none until  1990.  Elihu Carlson, our favorite bulldozer man, was coming to do some landscaping.  The day before he arrived with his backhoe, I mentioned to Hank that I'd found a special stone in the woods I wanted to bring home and use as a seat beside the sauna, the little round building at the end of the lawn.

        Before I could describe the rock or its location Hank said "It's that great flat stone by the brush pile at the edge of the heifer pasture, right?  Soft, reddish color, about two feet high, smooth as glass on top?"
        Well, no question but great minds think alike.  We'd never discussed this natural stone seat, but had obviously both been eyeing it for years.  Elihu scooped it up with his backhoe, carried it across the meadow and "planted" it.  There's something very nice about sitting on this sun-warmed seat after a summer night's skinny dip, and since we planted the weeping hemlock behind it, the rock looks as it had been born there.

        When I started writing this column I had in mind using an old photograph of Bigger, our Collie-Shepherd, sitting on the rock, but when I got it out of the album I realized that you couldn't see the rock at all. I decided to use it anyway and convinced Clover and Rumple to take their turn on the rock for a new photo.

        Stones with strange shapes, irregular surfaces or striking veins of color can be an excellent focal point in the garden.  Our rock seat is a little boring, except for the fact that it makes a fine place to sit. We have far more interesting boulders in our woods, craggy and mossy, but so far I haven't found an appropriate place to put one. 

        I realize that not everybody has a backhoe or a woodland filled with interesting stones, but did you know that garden nurseries sell landscaping rocks? I have a friend in West Hartford who purchased  a red rock from Cassio's Nursery that is shaped just like an old man's head.

        Think about these easy-care perennials.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a perennial that really was perennial?

The Children of Perennials

 

        Regular readers of Weeds and Wisdom all know what a parsimonious old Yankee I am, and since opposites attract they've probably guessed that Hank is a charmingly generous fellow.  By the time our three daughters reached their teens they'd come to their own conclusions about managing money.   One handled her finances conservatively, but not as tightfistedly as her mom.  Another was a free-spender, generous beyond her means.  The third saved and hoarded her money for months, then suddenly would splurge to the point of being stone-broke. Of course now that all three are married their spending habits are not my concern.
        Having just come in from dead-heading iris and dozens of spent daffodils in the flower border, I've decided that perennials are like children in how they handle their lives.  Despite the fact that they're raised in the same bed with the same love and care and basic rules to live by, they all have different ideas about how to get on in life. Some are overly generous with their seeds, squandering them all over the place while others don't bother producing any seeds worth counting. 
        Chinese forget-me-nots are real profligates.  Each year these heavenly patches of blue that dot the border in early May throw away their seeds like rich American tourists scattering dollar bills.  They end up so destitute that they wither away.  The next spring their children are so numerous they form a new sea of blue in the border.
        The little daisy called feverfew is not quite so extravagant.  It, too, scatters seeds that soon grow into new plants, popping up in all sorts of unexpected places.  But unlike forget-me-nots, feverfew parents keep hanging on tenaciously the following year.  I uproot these old plants and let the children take their places.  If the parents are allowed to stay a second year their tough old stems must be cut down with a clipper to make them look respectable.
        Phlox is a pretty conservative perennial, rarely self-seeding.  Its clumps get a little larger each year and needs some thinning in late spring but otherwise take care of themselves.  Once in a while though, a weed like bedstraw or vetch will sneak into a clump and establish itself so firmly that there's no removing it.  At first it just looks ugly, but after a few years it may dominate the clump.  Then it's time to dig up the phlox and throw it away.  Replace it by dividing another clump that's weed-free.

        Iris propagates itself by adding offshoots to the end of its rhizome each year.  Eventually these extensions crowd each other and need replanting or they'll get root rot, a very unattractive disease.  Less crowding will occur if you plant the rhizomes in a circle so new growth forms away from the center. Do this in July when bloom is past but there's still time for the new planting to get re-established. The self-centered peony just gets bigger and better without investing in anything but itself. The tree peony in my photo gets even more spectacular each year and has the additional advantage of having sturdy stems that don't require staking.  Unlike many perennials which offer the gardener new plants if allowed to self-seed, the peonies don't seem to care about producing offspring.  Deadheading these handsome perennials is merely for looks.

              I've never minded the job of deadheading.  I love walking down the border on a dewy spring morning, breaking off the dried-up fleur-de-lis of iris  that have finished blooming, or removing the spent spires of lobelia as dusk settles on the October garden. What I don't like is the name - deadheading. I just looked it up in the dictionary and was surprised to find the first definition was "A person who uses a free ticket for admittance."  Three more definitions preceded the one about pulling dead or dying blossoms from a flower.
        Well, whatever it's called, it varies from one perennial to the next. Some plants such as Shasta daisies look brown and ugly if their tired blooms aren't removed; others like astilbes can be left all summer long. Removing the finished blooms of delphiniums has its own reward, as this perennial will often produce a second bloom. 
        Then there are greedy perennials that may not produce lots of seeds but can take over areas of the garden as their roots expand.  Artemisia is a prime example.  Evening primrose and beebalm are two more.  All three need to be kept in check by pulling up their roots as they become too invasive.
        Oh, I almost forgot one of the easiest flowers in the garden - daylilies.  These perennials have almost no faults. They are so hardy and grow so thickly that they are hardly ever attacked by weeds.  They carry on for years and years, just getting more attractive each year.  Yes, one has to cut off the old dead stalks in late fall or pull them (much easier) in early spring, but that's it until you decide to divide one and get two. 
        And that's one of the greatest things about perennials.  What a mathematical miracle - divide and you're multiplying. For this old penny pincher all those "freebies" are a treat.  After dividing and multiplying I feel just like Lady Bountiful as I give away the extras. 

A Crocus Conversation

                                    
        "Oh, doesn't that sun feel great!" exclaimed the lavender crocus, opening her petals luxuriously.
        "I'll say," replied the deep yellow one, stretching his stubby stem a little higher.
        "And that south breeze is better than a massage."
        "A massage is just what I need! Getting out of the ground was exhausting this year."
        "Yes, I know," the lavender lady sympathized.  "Fighting all those dead leaves and that layer of road sand."
        "Why do you suppose Mrs. T. planted us in this spot anyway? I loved our old home."
        "But that bed  was getting awfully crowded with so many children."
        "Yeah, but a flower bed's a lot more pleasant than living here among a bunch of flagstones."
        "I wouldn't complain if I were you.  Most of our friends are over there by the woodpile.  The mess of old bark that accumulated over the winter is a lot harder to get through than road sand.  The few who've managed to do it still look battered and bruised from the experience.  The rest haven't even gotten up far enough to feel this great sunshine."
        "Guess you're right.  And once we're all up and blooming, we'll look pretty cute right here in front.  No one even saw us way out there in-"
        "Woe!" the yellow crocus interrupted.  "Here comes Mrs. T."
        "Uh-oh, we may be in for a bit of a squash.  I  think she's forgotten that she put us here last fall."
        "She's obviously planning to do some spring cleaning.  Got a broom and a bunch of buckets.  Sure wish she'd gotten around to it earlier.  Then we wouldn't have had to fight all this debris."
        "Just listen to her," a pale yellow crocus chortled, "she's spotted my cousin coming up there where she's working."
        "Oh, you dear little thing!  Where'd you come from? I'm so sorry.  Did I hurt you?
        "She's sort of batty, isn't she! Do you suppose other humans think they can communicate with the plant world?"
        "Oh, I think gardeners do.  Don't be so hard on her.  After all, she saved almost all our children last fall when she dug up our bed."
        "Well, I sure hope she wakes up and remembers where she put us pretty soon.  She's going crazy with that broom!"
        ""Whew, what an effort!" groaned a deep purple crocus, emerging from around the edge of a flagstone.  "Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.  I didn't think I'd ever see blue sky again."
        "Howdy, friend," said the yellow crocus.  "Glad you made it. Mrs. T hasn't cottoned onto the fact that this is where she put us to bed last October.  She's going at the clean-up with a vengeance."
        "She really gets excited, doesn't she?  Remember when she dug us all us? You'd think she'd found a pot of gold coins."
        "Yeah," added a tiny baby who'd managed to rise above the grit further along the terrace.  What's she-"
        "Oh, you cute things! I do believe I actually planted you here!  I'm so sorry.  Didn't mean to hurt.  I'll be very careful from now on."
        "She's cleaning the ivy.  Those leaves always winterkill along the edge of the porch."
        "Well, you would, too, if you had to sit right out here all winter, one minute freezing to death, the next minute burning up with sunshine."
        "Yes, but look at the ivy climbing up the maple tree over there.  It looks great."
        "That's fancy 198th Street ivy.  It's not supposed to winterkill."
"Get your numbers straight," said the deep purple blossom.  "It's 238th Street ivy.  Somebody from the Brooklyn Botanical Garden found it in the Bronx.  One of Mrs. T's readers brought it to her."
        "Watch it!" the yellow crocus warned suddenly.  "She's headed this way with the broom."
        "She knows we're here though," a small white crocus who'd emerged a few minutes before  pointed out. "See, she's only stepping on the flagstones now, and being very gentle with the broom.  We'll be alright."