Back Then…

Back when I started to garden years ago, in my younger days, gardening was more trial and error. The gardening bug hit me at a time when my boys were older and I didn’t need to watch their every move. I had more time for myself.

I remember buying my first gardening book about perennials. I read it, loved the pictures, and loved the idea of planting once and enjoying flowers for years afterward. And over time I came up with the thought that I would love to have flowers to bring inside all season. I started visiting a nursery not far and bought a few plants at a time. One purchase was for two pots of black eyed Susans (Rudbeckia ‘Goldsurm’). I can remember taking each one and cutting it in half. My first of MANY ‘divisions.’ These plants were so prolific they almost regenerated to their initial size in a matter of days (was it really days?). Over the years those two pots of rudbeckia were divided, and divided, and divided until I had thousands all around my property in mass plantings. If the deer liked them at all they didn’t make a dent in the sheer number! AND they thrived in the hard clay soil (if that’s what you could call it).

A dear friend gave me the most gorgeous, deep, dark magenta peony I have ever seen. Over the years I multiplied that many times as well. And I took one with me when we moved. I cherish it as much as that dear friend of who it always reminds me.

I got the standard red Bee Balm (Monarda) and since it’s in the mint family, it too was easy to multiply. Someone gave me ‘ditch’ lilies (Hemerocallis fulva – who knew a ditch lily had a Latin name???) and if you know anything about ‘ditch‘ lilies, they multiply nicely on their own (some call that invasive). And they did. I learned about ornamental grasses. They come in many sizes and colors and put on a great show in the autumn.

As time went by I worked on planning areas where I had plants that bloomed in spring, near plants that took over for summer, then on to plants that bloomed or had interest for Autumn.

I learned to plant rudbeckia (summer blooming) near daffodils and irises (spring blooming), near various kinds of ornamental grasses (filling out in summer but taking center stage in the autumn). And I repeated this practice all around my house to give my garden beds cohesiveness. I added accent plants and ‘drifts’ of other flowers as I went along. We planted shrubs and trees in select locations. Over time my garden beds and borders got wider and wider. I was hooked.

As time went by I joined a garden club, co-founded a close knit group of garden obsessed people like myself, became a Master Gardener volunteer, taught garden classes to garden clubs and area nurseries, and designed, installed, and maintained private gardens. And if you don’t know it – gardeners are a very generous group of people. We swapped plants between us. I learned a lot as I went along.

And I loved it all!

Soon I realized I needed to tweak my garden a bit because I needed it to be more self-sufficient as I spent lots of hours in other peoples’ gardens. Like the ‘shoemaker whose kids have no shoes,’ I looked for easy care, more drought tolerant plants that took better care of themselves and needed less from me and still looked good.

We had extensive flower beds and borders, including mature trees and shrubs. Out of necessity I learned all these things that lead me to writing this book.