For the past several weeks we have been fluffing beds and borders like there was not only no tomorrow but perhaps not even this afternoon, as this month is always a moment in the garden when some housekeeping is clearly of the essence. Our largest effort went into the perennial borders, where the first job to be done was some copious deadheading and cutting back of the spring and early summer blooming perennials. Among these were the early astilbes and shasta daisies, the wonderful shrub rose “The Fairy”, the lamb’s ears (stachys byzantina), baptisias, astrantias, and mountain bluets (centaurea montana), and the lady’s mantle (alchemilla mollis). The there was the corralling and shoring up of some the larger, late bloomers, like the lythrum and lysimachia and later shastas, which have the tendency to flop and sprawl come August. All this housekeeping accomplishes two things: certainly a far more orderly garden, but one, as well, that has revealed some clear pockets of want, to wit: blank soil where a stand of something once stood or lounged.
The answer? Popping in. “Popping in” is a twofold idea. First, it entails “popping in” to your local perennial supplier and loosening up your wallet a tad. Then it entails “popping in” what you have just purchased into the spots in your garden that are currently displaying a paucity of bloom and foliage. This is really an extremely enjoyable activity on a number of fronts. For one thing, it’s an excellent time to be shopping for plants not only because prices are excellent as growers look to unload a bit of their stock as fall approaches, but, also, because the gratification is absolutely instant. Unlike spring buying when you’re purchasing a fluff of green in a pot that might aspire to something tall and colorful in the future but is making only a nascent showing at the moment, August perennial shopping allows you to see exactly what you’re buying in all its glory, and have it give your garden an immediate boost.
We make it a point to always “pop in” in increments of three or five plants: one or two is never enough to make a good showing and it seems to me that an odd number will always give you the right “cloudy”, slightly freeform planting effect for which we gardeners strive. We’ll start, then, with the mid-border. There we added some of the prettiest of the blue delphiniums, in mixed clusters of five, specifically the deep purple-y blue “King Arthur”, the lovely, clear, medium blue “Blue Bride”, and the paler, very aptly named “Summer Skies”. In between, with, again, artful randomness, we added stands of white, highly fragrant Casablanca lilies, some of echinacea purpurea “Magnus”, the handsome, pinky-purple cone flower with the yellow eye, and a few of the really stunning phlox “Norah Leigh” with its variegated foliage and pale pink blossom with darker eye.
Of slightly more compact but no less winsome demeanor was the addition of two or three clusters each of physostegia virginiana “Crown Rose” with its pale pink spikes, the veronica “Sunny Border Blue”, which is spiked with blossoms of a true, deep blue, and the achillea ptarmica “The Pearl”, a very pretty white yarrow with tiny, almost daisy-like flowers. At the front of the border, for some nice, low jolts of authentic silver, we added some clusters of the artemesia “Silver Mound” and cerastium tomentosum, the poetically named “Snow In Summer”. For spectacular deep purple foliage, we added two varieties of heuchera, the beautifully veined “Cathedral Windows” and the new, strikingly ruffled “Stormy Seas”, which adds just a hint of green underbelly to the leaf. For further visual upholstery at the edges of the borders, we also added a couple of drifts each of the pink flowering baby’s breath, gypsophyla paniculata “Festival Pink”, and the lavender-hued pincushion flower, scabiosa columbaria “Butterfly Blue”. All in all, it added up to a veritable “border makeover”: from frowzy to fabulous in just a few days.
