Perennials Short and Tall: A Seasonal Progression of Flowers for Your Garden
160
Perennials Short and Tall: A Seasonal Progression of Flowers for Your Garden
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Overview
Designed for accessibility, this book offers tried-and-true advice on how to keep a yard in bloom. Presented in the sequence in which they bloom, with a chapter devoted to each of the three major growing seasons, 25 varieties of flowers are profiled with accompanying color illustrations. Additionally, Moya L. Andrews provides information about such basic topics as bed preparation, planting locations, weed control, and landscape principles. Andrews also offers practical tips on propagating, transplanting, and dividing perennials, as well as aesthetic considerations such as the use of color outdoors and flower arranging with cut blossoms. Suggestions for flower arrangement and producing indoor blooms in the winter months are also included.
“The text descriptions for each of the flowers mentioned, and illustrations of most of the flowers by bloom sequence through the seasons, fills a vacancy in the gardening book market.” —Ezra Haggard, author of Trees, Shrubs, and Roses for Midwest Gardens
“Writing in an informative, yet casual style, Moya Andrews gives advice on growing flowering perennials in this guide for both novice and experienced gardeners, passing along her broad knowledge of the subject.” —Chicago Botanic Garden Journal
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253020598 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 12/22/2021 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Sales rank: | 393,261 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Moya L. Andrews is Dean of the Faculties Emerita at Indiana University. A Master Gardener and author of numerous books, Andrews hosts "Focus on Flowers," a weekly radio show on WFIU, an NPR-affiliate, and writes gardening articles for Bloom Magazine. She lives in Bloomington, Indiana.
Gillian Harris is a natural science illustrator. She is an Indiana Master Naturalist and recently served as president of the South-Central chapter of the Indiana Native Plant and Wildflower Society (INPAWS). She lives in Bloomington, Indiana.
Read an Excerpt
Perennials Short and Tall
A Seasonal Progression of Flowers for Your Garden
By Moya L. Andrews, Gillian Harris
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 2008 Moya L. Andrews and Gillian HarrisAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-02059-8
CHAPTER 1
An Inviting Garden
Won't you come into my garden? I want my roses to see you.
— Richard Sheridan
Those of us who love flowers, to an extent that other people might find hard to understand, have an intimate relationship with them. This relationship deepens as we ourselves mature and learn more about their distinctive features and how they impact us. We may start out responding to their colors, shapes, and forms, sensing that we feel something quite special in their presence. Perhaps we then begin to recognize the other attributes that particularly delight us, and yearn for flowers that have special perfumes, or ones that evoke memories of people or of places that were meaningful to us in our childhood or times past. At some point in our evolving understanding of the significant part that flowers play in our existence, we realize that flowers really are an essential aspect of our identity, and they can affect how we actually feel day by day.
We realize that they serve as our symbols of the seasons. We wait to see the first spring flowers each year and we feel a deep need to mark each event by savoring the flowers that are associated with special times. We look for the daffodils in the spring, Easter lilies at Easter, poinsettias at Christmas, and so on. Also, instead of just waiting hopefully for someone to give us flowers, we come to the understanding that they are essential to our well-being. So we become more proactive in seeking out opportunities to have flowers. At this point we usually give ourselves permission to buy flowers for ourselves. Fortunately, nowadays flowers are available year-round, and it is a happy thing for us since we can so easily pick up our favorites and pop them into our grocery carts as we shop for food. Flowers, we have come to understand, are indeed food for our souls.
Flower growing has become a huge forty-billion-dollar industry worldwide. Greenhouse growers have perfected techniques that precisely adjust the timing of when plants bloom to meet market demands. Air transport of flowers grown outdoors in the Southern Hemisphere ensures their availability for Northern Hemisphere consumers all through our winters. Scientific advances and both horticultural and aeronautical practices allow us to indulge ourselves year-round. There is no time of the year nowadays when we don't have access to cut flowers.
However, no flowers we purchase seem to evoke exactly the same feelings as those we grow in our own gardens. The process of gardening, and the contexts we create, make our home-grown flowers more personal. So, inevitably for many of us, as we deepen our connection with flowers, we become more interested in gardening. It is a logical next step in the development of self-reliance in understanding and meeting our own needs. Sometimes this is deferred because of circumstances. We may have to wait until we have a house with a yard or until the children are older and we have more discretionary time and money. However, as time and opportunity allow, we eventually begin to grow more of our own flowers.
Those of us who have a passion for flowers always want to grow as many as possible. However, in the beginning of our evolution as gardeners, we may plant only annuals. These plants, which flower continuously across one growing season and then die when the first killing frost occurs, provide a wealth of exuberant color and can be tucked into beds or pots and nooks and crannies near our homes. However, in time, most flower lovers realize the benefits of expanding their plant repertoire to include perennials. These plants do not bloom continuously all season as annuals do, it is true; however, by planting a number of different perennials we can always have some flowers in bloom throughout the entire growing season.
MORE THAN ONE NAME
Perennials Are Herbaceous
Herbaceous perennials have soft top growth that dies to the ground each winter. In this way they are different from shrubs, which have woody stems that stay bare of leaves but erect above ground. When herbaceous perennials, shrubs, and perennial bulbs are planted together in a garden it is possible to orchestrate an uninterrupted display of flowers. It starts with the first spring bulbs, progresses through the abundance of summer, and ends the growing season with a glorious fall finale. The attainment of perfect continuity is similar to the experience of finding the Holy Grail for perennial gardeners. Each plant blooms briefly at its appointed time, and many overlap, but all are an integral part of the serendipity of well-executed perennial gardens.
Pass-Along Plants
One of the traditions of perennial gardening is the ancient practice of passing plants along from one garden to another. Although plants have roots, they are also nomads. When we start our perennial gardens, most of us, if we are fortunate, inherit some of these pass-along plants. As all gardeners learn, you first have no perennials, and then suddenly, because some are so prolific, you have lots. Gardeners cannot bear to waste treasured plants, and so as they divide those that grow vigorously, they pass them along to others. It is an endearing habit, and a habit that is an inextricable part of a committed gardener's identity. Gardeners are among the world's most generous and sharing people. They believe deeply in recycling and sustainability. They share a reverence for, and a profound bond with, their environment.
After a while, however, new gardeners start to look beyond plants they have inherited from others. It is then that they become serious customers of local garden centers and mail order catalogs. More unusual plants beckon as the quest to have something always in bloom intensifies. In order to be selective shoppers, however, we need to understand more about the names of plants.
Plant Nomenclature
Plants often have many common names, and it is not unusual for the same plant to have different names in different regions. So, informal common names, while frequently picturesque and fun, are not necessarily reliable when a gardener is searching for a specific plant. We need to know the formal names. This is analogous to knowing people's given names in addition to their nicknames. When we delve into the formal botanical system of naming plants, we find that, like people, plants have more than one name. People have given names as well as surnames, and surnames denote their lineage — that is, who their parents were. It is somewhat similar with plants. Each plant has a pedigree name (a genus) and each has a specific name that distinguishes it from other family members (a species name). Plants' names differ from many people's names, though, in that their genus name comes first and the individual name comes second. A Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), designed the classification system that is still used today.
Prior to Linnaeus, plants had been organized in large groups according to their structural characteristics. Then they were each assigned to a smaller group called a genus (plural genera). Linnaeus broke each of the genera into smaller entities called species, and he used Latin but also some Greek and other names to describe each plant's characteristics. Botanical Latin is somewhat different from classical Latin, though of course knowledge of classical Latin is extremely helpful in understanding the names of plants we encounter today. However, it is not essential and most of us can manage fairly well if we understand just a few basic guidelines to help us decipher what plant names really mean. Basically Linnaeus designed botanical shorthand, and in giving each plant both a genus name and a species name, Linnaeus developed a binomial (two-word) system. The genus name is capitalized and is a singular noun, and the lowercase species name is a descriptive adjective which agrees with the noun in terms of case and number. Thus Iris siberica is an iris from Siberia, and when it is written the genus will be denoted by the capital letter and the species will be written out in lowercase in full (e.g., I. siberica). Sometimes there is a third Latin name if there is a subspecies or naturally occurring variety. But usually we are more likely to see a cultivar name following the species name. Cultivars and hybrids are the result of human intervention in the reproductive activity of plants.
Hybridizers have developed many new cultivars which they usually name in English, and these names are written capitalized in single quotation marks. For example, I. siberica 'Caesar's Brother' is an old award-winning variety of Siberian iris which many of us have in our gardens and cherish for its rich purple coloring and exceptional vigor in zones 3–8. White Flower Farm Catalog (www.whiteflowerfarm.com) also advertises what is referred to as "an important color breakthrough in Siberian Iris breeding, due to a Currier McEwan cross." It is an iris with bright yellow falls (petals that droop) and white standards (upright petals). This hybrid has been aptly named I. siberica 'Butter and Sugar', and so we know the genus and species (with origin) and that human intervention was involved, as well as the fact that it is a bi-color since the flower colors are yellow and white. This example illustrates how well the system Linnaeus devised so brilliantly actually works. It is brief, concise, and descriptive. In this particular example, the cultivar name told us a great deal, but that is not always the case. More frequently it is the species name that provides the most information. The species can tell us such things as whether the plant is very tall (giganteus), tall (altus), large (macro), small (ITLµITL), or dwarf (nanus; humilis). It tells us if it creeps (repens or reptans), and if it has recurved petals (recurvus) or if the leaves are like the palm of a hand (palmatum). The species name presents descriptive information based on the plant's essential and distinctive features, and that information is useful in providing identification of the plant because those characteristics will continue to persist across successive generations. There are very exact rules provided by the International Code of Nomenclature concerning the way species are named.
When I have a question about plant names, I refer to Hortus Third (1976) to help me understand the meaning and classification. For example, in that volume I find that cultivar is a word that evolved from "cultivated variety." When cultivars seed, their offspring will not be true to their parents. You may have noticed this in your garden. For example, Brunnera macrophylla(perennial forgetme-not or Siberian bugloss) has a cultivar, 'Jack Frost', which has silver leaves, but its self-seeded offspring will all revert to the species' green leaves. Cultivar names are chosen names, and so are obviously different from the Latin botanical names. The cultivar's name, while always capitalized, may also be preceded by the abbreviation cv. The names of hybrid plants, which are crosses, are preceded by the multiplication sign (×). When this sign is read aloud, however, it is not pronounced as the symbol would be in other contexts. Rather the phrase "the hybrid species" is substituted. Thus, to describe a hypothetical cross of New York and New England asters the following could be written: "A. novi-belgii × novae-angliae 'Evening'"; this could be spoken aloud as: "'Evening' is a late-blooming hybrid aster resulting from a cross between the New York and New England asters species."
Endings of Botanical Names
Within genera there are distinct plant families and these can often be recognized by the ending -aceae attached to the stem of the name of the genus. Consider Violaceae, which is the family name for violets. Viol is the genus name and the suffix aceae is added to it. In the profiles of individual perennials that appear later in this book, beginning on page 61, you will see the family name of each of the perennials pictured. Genus names are primarily Latin or Greek words but may be words borrowed from other languages. However, generic names are always treated as if they are Latin, regardless of their linguistic origin. So the ending of the word for the genus dictates the ending of the word for the species. For example, the endings for both genus and species are masculine in Lupinus albus, and because the noun indicating the Lupin genus ends in -us, the adjective indicating it is white must end in a similar way. If the noun signifying the genus was feminine it would, as would the species name, end in -a. In the case of a neuter genus name, such as Sedum album, the species name acquires a neuter (-um) ending. When a species is named after a person, however, and the name ends in a vowel, an -i is added at the end of that word. If the name ends in a consonant, two (-ii) are added. So the purple clematis developed by the Jackman family is C. Jackmanii (pronounced JACK-man-eye). If a name ends in an a, however, an -e is added; thus, the name Balansa becomes Balansae.
Common names are an important part of our horticultural heritage and some are whimsical, as in the case of Lycoris squamigera, which is a summer-blooming bulb with pink flowers borne aloft on leafless stems. It is commonly referred to as a "naked lady." However, there are also some common names that have merely been adopted from the name of the genus, most notably iris and narcissus.
Many of the plants and herbs used in ancient times for medicinal purposes ended in the suffix -wort. This comes from the old English word for root, which was wyrt. Herbalists in medieval times developed a theory known as the doctrine of signatures. This theory described how the external forms of herbs and plants provided clues concerning which part of a diseased human body could be cured using medicines made from the plants' roots, flowers, or leaves. Hepatica (liverwort) has leaves that look like human livers, and so was used for liver conditions. Pulmonaria (lungwort) has spotted leaves thought to resemble diseased lungs. Some plants were thought to belong to the sun and some to the moon, and others belonged to planets. Flowers of the sun were used for headaches. Culinary herbs have always been used to flavor food, and sage (Salvia officinalis) was also used as a drink, a gargle, and a hair wash, and the Romans were especially devoted to its use and carried it with them to distant lands. Many plants were named because of their resemblance to birds and animals (lamb's ears, for instance). Columba means dove and Aquilegia means eagle in Latin, and the columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) has petals with spurred tips like an eagle while the flower petals themselves look like five doves sitting in a circle. "Granny's bonnet" is a very descriptive common name also given to columbine.
Plants that turn to follow the movement of the sun are described as heliotropic, from the Greek word helios, meaning the sun. Thus one finds the word helianthus in the names of many of these types of plants. The loveliest common names are the evocative ones such as "love-in-a-mist," which was one of Gertrude Jekyll's favorite flowers. While it is an annual for us, it self-seeds and thus often persists well in our gardens.
While Shakespeare wrote, "that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet," names are important for correct identification of plants. Not only do we want to find exactly what we want to buy, but we want to ensure that the plant's pedigree and habits will match our own garden's needs. Thus, some knowledge of plant classifications, and the meanings embodied in their names, helps us read plant catalogs and labels more effectively so that we can make informed selections. Fortunately, when we shop at nurseries in our own region, we can often obtain help from trained personnel who can provide additional information.
LIGHT AND TEMPERATURE
Plants need light, and different species of plants have differing requirements about the type of light they need. The length of each day and how this changes during the year also dramatically impacts plants. The amount of daylight a region experiences determines the pattern of vegetative growth, initiation and development of flowering, and enticement to dormancy. Plants survive in a region of the country, or specifically in a certain zone, only if the day-length promotes their growth to maturity and also prepares them for the approaching seasonal changes. Plants also grow best within the range of temperatures that is optimal for their species. While some species can adapt and thrive within a wide range of temperatures, other species require a temperature range that is quite narrow. Plants must be able to metabolize, and their species determines the range of temperatures necessary for them to accomplish this important task.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Perennials Short and Tall by Moya L. Andrews, Gillian Harris. Copyright © 2008 Moya L. Andrews and Gillian Harris. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. An Inviting Garden
2. Work in Progress
3. Flowers across Three Seasons
4. Displaying Flowers
5. Spring
6. Summer
7. Autumn
Appendices
Bibliography
Index
What People are Saying About This
"Moya Andrews gives advice on growing . . . perennials in this guide for both novice and experienced gardeners, passing along her broad knowledge on the subject."--(Marilyn K. Alaimo, garden writer and volunteer, Chicago Botanic Garden)