It seems as if spring gently unfolds during the month of April and then suddenly, on a non-descript day in May, the perennial flowers—and the weeds—have grown to surprising heights (this epiphany occurred to me this past weekend while rooting through my own mixed border at home, pictured above); this is the time when I start questioning, “When do I start cutting the phlox and asters back?”
Rather than keeping all of this information in my head I reach for my copy of The Well-Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy DiSabato-Aust. I reference this often through the growing year as it is a collective resource of all the questions that I tend to have about perennials: how and when to divide, maintaining height, dead-heading, delaying flower, etc. For those of you who struggle with botanical Latin, it does have an index of common names. If pictures are an essential part of your learning process, you may want to pair this book up with a good perennial flower reference or the internet to help you distinguish a Gaura from a Gaillardia. The photos in Tracy’s book tend to be less for identification and more to illustrate “before and after.” In addition to retail stores, this and other gardening and design books book can be found in our Winterthur bookstore.
