Table Of ContentPlantiful
PLANTIFUL
start small,
grow big with 150
plants that spread,
self-sow, and
overwinter
kristin green
timber press
portland • london
for zeke
Contents
Preface ......................................................................... 7
Gardening with a Generous Nature: Some Ground Rules ....... 11
How Plants Grow ............................................................ 15
Opportunistic or Invasive? .............................................. 19
Making the Most of Your Garden. ...................................... 22
Self-Sowers: The Price Is Right ........................................ 27
Guide to Serendipity: Taking Editorial Control ................... 35
Start a Seed Collection ................................................... 39
Propagation: Sow It Grows .............................................. 45
50 Faithful Volunteers ................................................... 53
Plants That Spread: When a Little Goes a Long Way ............. 85
Guide to Abundance: Reuse, Replant, Repeat ....................... 92
Propagation: Easy Pieces ................................................. 96
50 Thrilling Fillers ....................................................... 107
Frost-Tender Plants: Push the Zone .................................. 141
Guide to Optimism: Plan Ahead and Save for Later ............... 147
Propagation: Beg a Cutting .............................................. 148
Overwintering: In From the Cold. ...................................... 155
50 Come-Back Keepers ..................................................... 173
In Sum .......................................................................... 205
References and Resources ............................................... 207
Metric Conversions ........................................................ 210
Plant Hardiness Zones .................................................... 211
Acknowledgments. .......................................................... 212
Photography Credits ....................................................... 213
Index ............................................................................ 215
preface
“It is the spectrum, not the color, that makes color worth having, and it is
the cycle, not the instant, that makes the day worth living.”
—Henry Mitchell
F
or whatever reason any of us are compelled and with different expectations, I don’t want to wait
to start growing a garden—and the reasons that long. I expect my garden to grow.
are at least as varied as our dirt-encrusted Six years ago, when I first set foot in my yard,
fingerprints—eventually or instantly, plants win us I was so impatient to see a garden grow there that
over. Captivated by the infinite variety in the shades my friends gave me as many extra annual seedlings,
of green, shapes, textures, and personalities, and perennial divisions, tender-perennial cuttings, and
spurred by the thrill of any plant’s survival under our dahlia tubers as I could stuff in hastily made beds.
care, we inevitably develop a craving for more. In part, Those starts filled in around the few precious speci-
this book is about building a collection to satisfy that men trees, shrubs, and perennials I scrimped for, and
hunger. loaded my garden’s first and subsequent seasons with
It’s also about gardening with plants. Some say it color, and bird and insect activity. To me, it is estab-
takes at least twelve years to create a garden, time for lished already, and it’s a work in progress that gets bet-
shrubs and trees to mature and for the garden to come ter all the time. I have been chasing my dream garden
into its own. While I understand that every gardener long enough to know that it’s the chase that keeps me
participates in nature’s processes in varying degrees gardening. After all, no garden is ever done.
I know that’s true because I make my living
tending a mature one. The family that purchased
Dark-leaved Dahlia ‘Moonfire’ planted among airy puffs seventy acres on the Narragansett Bay shore in 1895
of self-sowing foxtail barley (Hordeum jubatum) and began planting gardens there immediately and never
feathertop grass (Pennisetum villosum) create a richly stopped fine-tuning their dream. Some of the trees
textured autumn spectacle. at Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum, now
7
a thirty-three-acre nonprofit public garden, are over year in new and surprising combinations. Let
one hundred years old, others over one hundred feet self-sowers, also known as volunteers, work for you
tall, but the gardens change all the time as gardens do. as ephemeral screens and formal focal points. Allow
Plants grow from seed and out from the roots every them to weave through borders and drift into crevices,
day of the week. Stems lengthen, leaves unfurl, flowers and press some into service as early-summer ground-
open, bees visit, hummingbirds bicker, seedheads covers and weed barriers.
form, leaves fall, plants die, and the garden staff and You’ll discover fifty spreaders that make it possi-
volunteers take advantage of every opportunity to ble to grow more garden than you ever thought your
help effect transformation. schedule or budget would allow. Plants that spread
The stumbling block for a lot of gardeners, me from their roots and shoots will function as place-
included, is that time keeps changing along with the holders and fillers that outcompete weeds and give
garden. We have so much to do inside that some of us heft to skimpy borders. They can be used to establish a
are spending less time outside. The days feel shorter rhythm and to knit one-of-thises-and-thats together.
than ever and 99 percent of us feel pinched financially Save for a rainy day by borrowing extra suckers and
too. So we all look for shortcuts along the garden’s runners from shrubs and perennials to use as cheap
path to maturity. My shortcut, described in this book, thrillers, spillers, and fillers in containers.
involves dirty knees, compost heaps, and propagation. And you’ll find out why plants that can’t survive
I take the route paved with old-fashioned resourceful- our winters don’t have to be thrown on the compost
ness and engagement with plants that grow, some of at the end of the season. If you have the space—on
them by leaps and bounds, and a hands-on approach windowsills, in an enclosed porch, under the cover
to garden design. of a cold frame, or in your cellar—why shouldn’t the
Aside from some full days in spring preparing garden, or at least part of it, follow you in from the cold
for the season, I spend only as much time as I have— every year? Treat yourself to richly ornamental bee
stolen minutes to a couple of hours on Saturday— magnets and hummingbird feeders that are worth the
transforming my own garden because the plants do a investment because they can survive the winter with
lot of the work for me. It might be the momentum of some protection, indoors or out. The fifty season-
obsession that propels me to wander through it when extending frost-tender plants profiled in this book are
I do, snips and trowel in hand, determined to make sure to keep your garden active right up until a killing
the adjustments that could turn dream into reality, frost, you engaged through the winter, and your wallet
ephemeral as it may be, but it’s also how I mark the stowed the following spring.
passage of time, decompress after long work days, and
reconnect with my very own patch of the planet. The GARDENERS ARE USUALLY described as generous but
more time I spend in it, the more time I want to, and I think evangelistic hits closer to the mark. Most of us
days lengthen like magic. cheerleaders would give everything we have and know
to anyone who so much as glances in our garden’s
IN THIS BOOK you’ll learn how to use, edit, propagate, direction, wanting nothing more in return than to
and choose fifty self-sowers that emerge year after see another dream garden started and the love of the
chase passed on to someone else in turn. I would share
every plant in my garden with you if I could. Instead, I
Mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) spreads to help wrote this. Pass it on.
fill an extravagantly planted mixed border.
preface 9
