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The following article appeared in the March April 1993 edition. Ruby Lee Norris, still an ongoing contributor to PL, is available to answer your gardening questions at
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A Perennial Garden of Flowers, Vegetables, and Herbs:
A Practiced Gardener Tells How Hers Grew and How to Make Yours Thrive
By Ruby Lee Norris
Roses, asparagus, strawberries, peonies, day lilies, iris, chrysanthemums—all growing together in a perennial garden. This is our garden. Like Topsy, it and our knowledge of gardening “just grew.” Beginning as a usual vegetable garden, it eventually evolved into a perennial garden. We have no training in gardening except having grown up on a farm. As if by osmosis, we have always known certain things about planting, hoeing, weeding and feeding. Not until we were grandparents did we decide to plant some vegetables. We wanted our city-bred grandsons to plant some potato “eyes” and have the thrill of digging the matured new potatoes, to watch while cucumbers swelled overnight into green oblongs and to wait for days to see tomatoes ripen from green to red.
We were amazed to find that during the years between childhood and grandparenthood our “mental computer” had safely stored much of what we absorbed as youngsters. As we planned our garden, we welcomed suggestions from the local Southern States store personnel, from gardening columns, leaflets and neighbors. Let us suggest that the best of all these sources is a neighbor.
There are two tremendous benefits in establishing rapport with such a person. First, she/he has knowledge and wisdom about conditions of the area that can’t be found in print. We refer to such things as varieties of plants, methods and care, feeding, spraying and planting times. If you are advised to time your planting of root vegetables on the dark of the moon in March and April or your corn on the “fulling” of the moon in the first quarter until the moon is full in May, don’t discount the advice. These are the days when spring temperatures allow seedlings and plants to “take hold.” Night temperatures are beginning to rise and that makes vegetables sweet, our neighbor says. Secondly, she/he becomes an ally and friend who supports your efforts as you discover what procedures are best for your garden, your time and energy.
There’s a partnership between Mother Nature and the gardener, too. One learns patience and flexibility when there are long hot spells, too many short cool nights, long rainy spells, early hot June days or early fall frosts. Season after season and year after year, the gardener determines how he/she can cope most successfully with growing things on the special piece of earth that is hers/his.
Our garden began as a plowed, raked and furrowed vegetable garden that produced chiefly in the early spring and summer. Now it is a no-till vegetable-flower-herb garden that we enjoy from early spring until the first killing frost. After about ten years of annually planting, harvesting, freezing and pickling and preserving, we decided that these activities required more time and energy than we were willing to give.
Gradually we began the transition from annual to perennial gardening. As if by design, a neighbor who was moving dug up her wonderfully healthy day lilies and offered us enough for two rows at a premium price. For the sake of expediency, we cleared off the old vegetable plants and weeds in two rows at the southeast end. Having no one around who could find out why the roto-tiller would not start, we hand raked some bone meal and peat moss into the top soil to prepare for planting the lily divisions. This was the beginning of our no-tilling. Afterwards, as the seasons allowed, we expanded the flower section by planting iris, chrysanthemums and daffodils, always using our newly discovered no-till method.
2. No-Till Mulching Method
No-till is a natural for our garden because it had been plowed and turned many times during its life as a vegetable garden. We enhanced it by mulching three inches with rotten hay. Along with retaining moisture, hay provides nutrients and humus as it decomposes. (Straw, such as mulch, insulates and retains moisture, but it does not add food to the soil. We object to it, also, because it blows out of the garden area onto the adjoining lawn.)
Our mulching plan includes spreading pine tags also. During the dormant (fall and winter) season we supplement the hay mulch with the pine tags. Our schedule is much like this. Early in June, we obtain the rotten hay from a nearby farmer friend, who brings a load equivalent to seven or eight bales and dumps it beside the garden. We then spread it with a pitchfork over all, more heavily in the alleys between the rows of plants. In the late fall after most of the plants’ foliage has turned brown and pine tags have fallen, we add them. Pine tags are a natural for mulch in this area since they are so abundant. They deepen the mulch to protect the dormant plants against the cold and sudden temperature changes. This combination hay and pine tags mulch works well on our perennials.
As much as this mulching is touted as a way to discourage weed growth, it is still necessary to weed by hand periodically. In this kind of garden where some plants tolerate light mulching and others grow well with more, a happy medium needs to be established. We say that we weed periodically because rain or lack of it, along with sunshine, warm or cool temperatures determine the extent of weed growth. During the growing season, warm rainy weather encourages growth of vegetables, flowers and weeds alike, making weeding necessary every two weeks. At other times, when there is hot, dry weather, such a garden can be left without weeding as long as a month.
For the most part, we keep weeds under control by pulling them by hand or with the help of a trowel. This ritual usually takes place during our early morning visit to the garden. It is at this time of day that the gardener can derive the greatest delight and pleasure. Early morning daylight is soft and kind; the sun hasn’t heated our Eastern coast. Consequently, both flowers and foliage are at their best—straight, crisp and displaying their truest hues.
3. Improving Soil Composition and Condition
Whether you are developing a new garden or maintaining an established one, modifying the soil composition and condition is important. You strive to build a light humus-like composition so that vegetables, flowers and herbs thrive. Since our soil is sandy, we constantly work to build the humus content. At one time we had a compost pile, and we recommend a simple one based in a low spot (dig a hole a few feet deep) out of sight in the backyard. We dispensed with ours when we went to our current no-till method. Instead we have relied on the rotten hay and sterilized manure. Soil composition varies in our area and gardeners with predominately clay soil can lighten it by adding sand and peat moss or rotten hay.
Another factor, soil conditioning, requires watching for acidic levels. This can be discovered by soil testing, which is conducted through local county extension agents. We obtained a kit from our agent’s office. It has several tiny cardboard boxes for samples of soil to be sent along with $6.00 to:
Virginia Tech Soil Testing Laboratory
P.O. Box 196164
Blacksburg, VA 24062-0664
Our feeding is based on a soil test report. We spread lime and 5-10-5 fertilizer in February, July and October because our soil is too acidic. In addition, we spread bone meal on the lilies and super manure (sterilized) on the asparagus in February or early March. We spread manure again on the seven rows of Mary Washington asparagus before we mulch it for the summer.
At this time we often throw rock salt in the alleys as a gesture to the mystique that surrounds asparagus and salt. With full knowledge that someone, probably from the Eastern Shore, will take some issue, we do not find that the salt helps the growth and productivity of asparagus. We noticed after using it several years that the weeds died wherever the salt fell. In case there’s some factor we can’t detect, we spread some rock salt in the alleys because, as we said earlier, we don’t discount the advice of experienced gardener friends.
By continuing to maintain such conditions and by yearly soil testing, we support our no-till mulching methods. Always we hope for a good season that brings lovely fruit, flowers and herbs to reward our efforts.
4. Location of Plants
The accompanying diagram shows the location of plants in our garden, which is about 55 feet by 75 feet and in full sun most of the day. The asparagus patch, placed at the rear furnishes a light fern-like background for our flowering perennials. There are two varieties of strawberries—one from a neighbor’s garden and the other, Breck’s Maxim. We’ll know this spring if they will grow as big as peaches as advertised. This is their second year’s growth when they are supposed to produce well. Strawberry plants shoot out runners that can be planted to begin another patch or can be cut back to allow the parent plant to further develop. Beside the row of large berries there’s room for several clumps of golden yarrow that our garden club friends use in dried arrangements.
In the flower section that we began describing earlier, the day lilies were proving so satisfying that we planted iris, another perennial next to them. They, too, came from a neighbor. We allowed enough room at the ends of these rows to begin an herb section—sage, two varieties of thyme and parsley. We plant parsley, rue, lavender, mint and lemon verbena in our flower borders too.
5. Day Lilies
Day lily names are as intriguing as their blooms are glorious. Among our 30 varieties, we have Etched in Gold, Woods Violet, Moon Dancers, Sudie, Apple Tart, Buttered Popcorn, the lovely pink Geraldine Dean and fragrant fragile white Ice Carnival. They are named day lilies because a bloom lasts only one day. Although one stalk may have many buds, only one blooms at a time. Their color reaches its height around 11 a.m. and thereafter begins to fade. To keep the border fresh, we de-bud every morning allowing each bloom its place in the sun for that day.
In our area we are fortunate to have a day lily hybridizer in Gloucester County. You can order his catalog from:
Dickerson Day Lily Garden
General Delivery
Woods Cross Road, VA 23190
His garden is on Route 612 just off Route 610. He has thousands of seedlings and continuously breeds new varieties. He welcomes visitors to his garden.
Next to the iris rows are several clumps of pink and white peonies allowing room for other herbs. One hardy rosemary bush sits beside French tarragon; two varieties of chives and several rhubarb plants complete this row. Chrysanthemums of mauve, gold, bronze and yellow at one end and daffodils at the other end complete the next row. Here we cheat a little on perennials because we sow dill and basil that matures after the daffodil foliage dies.
6. A Parallel Rose Bed
At the northwestern corner and parallel to the garden we have a small bed of 25 rose bushes. It is a Jackson and Perkins garden of bushes ordered bare-rooted and planted in early spring or bought rooted from Southern States to replace older or dead bushes. Among our bushes are Arizona, Headliner, American Spirit, Queen Elizabeth, Graceland, Tropicana, Peace, Pristine, Sterling Silver and Summer Dream Jaccofur.
We try to use as few chemicals as possible on the garden to control insects and fungi. In general we use Sevin dust or liquid for bugs, aphids, etc. However, roses require a persistent feeding and spraying program. We feed a systemic rose food (Ortho or Dragon) every six weeks beginning in April. We mix a fungicide (Ortho Funginex) and an insecticide (Isotex Insect Killer, Formula IV) according to directions and spray every seven days or more frequently if there are summer rains. Benomyl sometimes supplements the insecticide when damp days and nights encourage black spot.
7. Sources
In order to obtain plants for your garden, we recommend getting specimens from neighboring areas because the plants are better conditioned to survive in our climate. Several with whom we’ve dealt are:
Jackson & Perkins, P.O. Box 1028
Medford, OR 97501
Wayside Gardens
Hodges, SC 29695-0001
Breck’s 6523 North Galena Road
Peoria, IL 61656-1757
Park Seed Co., Cokesbury Road
Greenwood, SC 29647-0001
W. Atlee Burpee, Warminster, PA 18974
If you like to visit the Washington, DC area to pick up some herbs, you would enjoy both of these gardens:
Washington National Cathedral
Greenhouse
Washington, D.C.
T. De Baggio Herbs, 923 N. Ivy Street
Arlington, VA 22201
Always we visit the local nurseries to find new or replacement plants.
In this limited manner, we enjoy many varieties of flowers, strawberries, and herbs. Enjoy them because we aren’t “breaking our backs” to maintain them. Finally, we enjoy them because they add their beauty to the tiny bit of plant earth of which we are custodians.
8. Bloom/Produce Schedule
Asparagus—late April to mid-June
Chrysanthemums—September-November
Day lilies—mid-June for four weeks
Herbs—all summer until frosts
Iris—early May for a month
Peonies—May, for three weeks
Roses—May until frost
Strawberries—May for three weeks
Yarrow—mid-June for a month
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