The Dreaded Onesie, Twosies!
I know, I know, it can be tempting…I’ve done it myself! A single perennial plant comes my way, looking for a home. Even after doing research and learning that I really don’t have the most preferred site for this plant, I tuck it somewhere anyway…hoping for the best. But I don’t put in a proper drift of them, because, well…it feels like a gamble…
Or maybe you’ve been out shopping—maybe even someplace great like a native plant sale rather than a box store—and you see something you just can’t resist. So charming in bloom! Or a leaf texture that is intriguing… and you opt to buy one or two as a trial experiment. “I just want to see how this does, first, before I make a big commitment.”
That’s not necessarily bad. But without a big-picture plan, over time this onesie-twosie approach to adding perennials can result in kind of a mess. A few of these here, one of those there…a whole yard full of that can feel a little discombobulated.
If you find that you have this kind of a situation going on, here are some strategies that can help. You don’t have to apply them all. Just pick one or two strategies to try this year, and maybe try another few in a future year.
Assess what’s simply not happy in your landscape, and re-home those first.
Regroup the plants that are left into drifts of 5 or 7 plants placed together, with shorter drifts generally in front of taller drifts.
If you have something doing very well, but you only have one or two of them, consider getting more of that plant and turning that into a drift (this is what you had planned to do, anyway, right?)
Select a good, low, mat-forming groundcover whose preferences closely match your site conditions, and plant a lot of it along the front of your beds and along pathways. This is a good trick that will visually pull your beds together and make things feel cohesive. Here are a few of my favorite low, mat-forming groundcovers for use in small to medium landscapes:
Chrysogonum virginianum in a broad sweep.
Chrysogonum virginianum/Green and Gold (shown in photo, yellow bloom)
Asarum canadensis/Wild Ginger
Sisyrinchium angustifolium/Little Blue-eyed grass
Iris cristata/Dwarf crested iris
Coreopsis auriculata/Mouse-ear coreopsis
Amsonia ‘Blue Ice’/Dwarf Amsonia
I hope some of these ideas will give you an inspiration!
Check out the spring sale for two of my very short but sweet online courses. People have said they find the courses chock full of useful info, yet they take very little of your time and you can print and save the resources for when you need them.
Lastly, late spring is still a great time to schedule a consult. Click here to learn more about what a consult is like, and/or get in touch with me.
Happy Spring!
Chris