“What I try to do is get a mix of plants in my garden, for spring, summer, and fall/winter interest,” says garden writer and lecturer Stephanie Cohen, adjunct professor of horticulture at Temple University and education director at Waterloo Gardens in Pennsylvania. For spring, Cohen uses a combination of bulbs and the earliest-flowering perennials, such as helle-bore (Helleborus), basket of gold (Aurinia saxatilis), and perennial candytuft (Iberis semperuirens). She tucks the bulbs in between perennials that are going to be fairly large later in the season so the yellow foliage of the bulbs won’t be evident then.
The summer plants Cohen chooses tend to flower from summer into early fall. Where spring bloomers
have finished and there are bare spots, especially in the front of the garden, she fills in with low-growing annuals like purple wave petunias and floss flower (Ageratum houstonianum). If you don’t want to spend a lot of money on plants,you can also sprinkle fast-germinating seeds in places that you know will soon
be bare—love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena), for instance, or larkspur (Consolida ambigua).
For fall, Cohen tries to avoid what she calls “mumitis”—indiscriminate planting of chrysanthemums in reaction to a fading garden. Cohen tends to use more asters for late season because some will bloom into October and even November.
Her late fall and winter garden features ornamental grasses that are left standing and sedums allowed to dry on the stalk, as well as evergreen perennials.
Tags: four season garden, gardening tips