The difference between yard work and gardening

Jill Severn in one of her gardens.

Photo by Anna Schlecht

Some garden promoters claim that growing perennials (they mean flowering plants that come back year after year) is an easy, low-maintenance alternative to planting annuals.  As former President George W. Bush might say, they misunderestimate what perennials require.

Perennials often grow into large clumps that have to be dug up and divided every few years. Some are rampant growers that have to be controlled to keep them from overwhelming their neighbors – and sometimes your neighbors, too, if they spread seeds or grow through a fence. Some peter out in a few years, or die when there’s a sudden hard winter freeze. Most have special needs of one kind or another.

Still, I wouldn’t want to be without them. I am enjoying the perennial geraniums that thrive in both sun and shade. I having a growing fondness for perennial asters that do the same, in spite of the usual recommendation that they need full sun. I enjoyed the irises and columbine that have already bloomed.

But what I like most about perennials is that they are sharable. I put out a free box with excess lily of the valley starts earlier this spring, and had pleasant chats with a couple of neighbors who took them. I have perennials in my garden given to me by various friends. One is now a sizable planting of shade-loving Solomon’s Seal, given to me by a former colleague. Just looking at it always makes me think of her.

Some, like a clump of calla lilies, are plants I have taken with me every time I moved. My clump of calla lilies came from a house where I lived in my mid-twenties. For the first several years I lived in that house, the calla lily was dormant, hidden under a woodpile. One spring when the wood ran out, it appeared. I moved it to a more congenial location, and we’ve been together ever since, through sickness and health, for richer and poorer. I still wonder who first planted it, and when. That clump of calla lilies might be older than I am, and that’s saying quite a lot.

Along the way, I continue to learn how to care for my ever-evolving perennial garden. For instance, I’ve learned to give my asters a good haircut about this time every year, which makes them bushier and prevents them from getting so tall they have to be staked to keep them from falling over.

I’ve learned that for most perennials (but not, for instance, irises), picking the fading flowers prolongs their season of bloom, often by a couple of months. And for some plants, like phlox, cutting off the first big flowers when they fade will stimulate the plants to take a brief break and then bloom again.

Others, most notably perennial bachelor’s button, do better when I cut spent flowers right down to the ground. Within weeks, the plants send up new shoots and flowers. They can do this several times in a single growing season.

Japanese anemones, which have the rare capacity to thrive under a cedar tree, have taught me that they need to be outfitted with stakes and string to stay upright.

All these little chores do not, in my book, add up to being low-maintenance.

But here’s the thing: the difference between yard work and gardening is attitude. If you want low maintenance, get (ironically named) beauty bark.  If you like hanging out with flowering plants and look forward to a lifetime of relationships with both the plants and the people you share them with, perennials are for you. The chores of taking care of them will cease to be chores, and become pleasure.

Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at jill@theJOLTnews.com