Tough and Easy

Can something be “tough and easy” at the same time?  I say “yes!” when it comes to gardening with perennials.  Plants are said to be tough when they tolerate poor soil, drought, insect pests, and the other perils Mother Nature periodically reigns down.  They’re easy if you don’t have to spend a lot of time staking, dividing, restraining, or otherwise futzing over them.  At North Greenbush’s Robert C. Parker School, where we have our Master Gardener Demonstration Garden, the wide-open, full sun site and compacted, clay-and-rock growing stratum have provided excellent proving grounds for what grows in a tough place.  We don’t have delphiniums, for example, because, while stunningly beautiful, delphiniums need the same constant nurturing as a preemie.  But we do have some attractive plants which can allow you to have (is it possible?) a life in addition to the garden.

Nothing is easier, for example, than ornamental grasses.  Some have incredible foliage, such as Blue Dune Lyme grass (Elymus arenarius ‘Blue Dune’), with its pale blue leaves and rather unkempt habit.  Also colorful is spiky blue fescue (Festuca ovina), which actually demands well-drained, poor soil and will languish if given too much love (see photo on right).  The main point of interest for feather reed grass, (Calamagrostis acutiflora), is the soft plumes of flowers and seeds which reach five feet or so above a clump of green foliage.  Many grasses, such as the switchgrasses (Panicum sp.), provide increased interest as the season progresses, as they flower and produce ornamental seedheads in late summer, and look snazzy well into fall.  Sedges are also easy to grow but often overlooked.  One of the most handsome (in my mind at least) is Carex siderosticha ‘Variegata,’ a low-grower and slow-spreader with green leaves edged in white.  Flashier ‘Banana Boat’ has yellow leaves edged in green.

The 1980’s wasn’t just the decade of big hair, glasnost and The Yugo, but also marked the widespread appearance of three perennial biggies:  Stella D’Oro daylily, Goldsturm rudbeckia and Autumn Joy sedum.  This trio is still extremely popular, almost to the point of redundancy, because they are so long blooming, tough and easy.  Stella was one of the first compact daylilies to re-bloom, and it is a rather vivid shade of yellow-orange (think processed American cheese).  For some reason, it is often planted with pink flowers, with mind-bending results.  Fortunately, newer, similar daylilies, such as ‘Happy Returns,’ ‘Purple de Oro’ and ‘Little Business’ have widened the possible color spectrum.  Goldsturm (in English “gold storm”) has golden daisy-like flowers with dark centers and a sunny black-eyed Susan look.  And while there is an entire wonderful world of sedums to explore, nothing compares to the joy of Autumn Joy’s pink flowers in, you guessed it, the fall (see photo on left).

 

Would you like something more exotic?  How about Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum) with its white flower spikes, pointy leaves and architectural stance.  Or wine cups (Callirhoe involucrata), magenta flowers on a sprawly, geranium-like plant which combines well with lady’s mantle (Alchemilla mollis) (photo on right) and lambs’s ear (Stachys byzantine).  All are tough, yet easy.