Friday, March 14, 2003

In Praise of Perennials

A few days ago the wind finally blew most of the snow from the big circular garden in our front yard, revealing a stubble of perennials that was the ghostly shadow of last summer’s flowering. When I walked out there yesterday and pushed aside a few of the rusty leaves I had put down for winter mulch, I could see the yellow-green shoots of the bulbs my wife planted and the soggy new leaves of the more daring perennials. I checked a dead-looking little bush near the house. When I scraped a fingernail against one of its brown stems, it showed green. The season of rebirth is upon us.

I have to admit that most people in our part of town don’t have a garden in the front yard, but our back yard is completely shaded by the neighbor’s giant elm tree. And so for several years my visionary wife wanted to tear up a big piece of the front yard and plant a garden. I saw it as a challenge – how to make a front yard garden that would interest rather than horrify the neighbors, that would satisfy my wife’s playful visionary sense, and at the same time not strain my dabbling ways as a groundskeeper. Suspecting that perennials were the answer, two years ago, in the spring, I launched in.

I took detailed measurements of the sunny part of the yard, between the driveway, the front window, the sidewalk, and the street. I sketched an accurate map of the space, drew a large circle in the flattest, sunniest part, and then I got to work. I drove a spike at the center, and on a hunch I attached our dog’s six-foot leash to the spike, and with that contraption I marked out the circumference of the new garden. I dug up all the grass and turned over the soil to a depth of about 8 inches. I shoveled in gallons and gallons of the city’s free compost. I went to a couple of garden centers in town and picked out lots of herbs and perennials – short ones for the outside of the circle, taller ones for the middle. I knew the children would want to walk in the garden, so I bought some coarse stepping-stones big enough for a child’s foot. I arranged the stones in a wandering path through the middle of the garden, planted the herbs and perennials, watered them in, and waited.

The stepping stones were an immediate hit – the children not only wanted to walk through the garden, they wanted to run through it, they wanted to pause and pick herbs, they wanted to play fairy games among the flowers, so the stones helped them avoid the tender new plants. That first summer was very satisfying. While a few things died, many of the plants bloomed for weeks. But if you are a bit of a gardener yourself you know that the real pleasure of a new garden comes the second year, when the plants come back on their own in the spring, bigger than before, and they mature enough to show their real character. That first year the bronze fennel was a delicate, feathery masterpiece, waist-high. The second year, it was taller than a man, it was the monarch of the garden. Perennials are like compound interest, only much better, since without any additional labor they pay off more than 100% the second year.

And this will be the garden’s third year. By now I know most of the plants by name; I have a pretty good idea when they will flower; I’m getting better at keeping everything tidy so the neighbors won’t mind; and now I wish I had torn up a bigger piece of lawn and planted even more. Maybe we’ll colonize the tree lawn this year – I think some short, bushy flowers might look good out there. If my daughters ever ask me why we have a garden in the front yard, when hardly anyone else does, I’ll tell them we needed a place where we could build something that would please us perennially, where our good work today will reward us and all the neighborhood walkers next year and the year after. That round garden is for learning how to make something that endures.

Broadcast by Ken Smith on March 14, 2003
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