Out
On A Limb / April 2007
Simply Gorgeous Gardening
Gardening is one of the Mid Ohio Valley’s favorite avocations. Preparing for spring can mean placing a few well-planned pots, planting vegetables or planning an extensive landscape. The 2007 Old Farmer’s Almanac All-Seasons Garden Guide offers a simple solution to planning an almost effortless, adaptable garden with constant color.
By choosing specific perennials, gardeners are assured of an ever changing palette of color and near maintenance-free impact for at least five years. Small shrubs with color-saturated foliage all season long will provide a backdrop for smaller plants. Spring flowers and foliage in burgundy, pink, and blue give way to yellow, orange, blue, and ebony for summer and autumn. The bed size can be reduced or expanded to suit any gardener’s space or time limits. With perennials that bloom year after year, staking, dividing and pruning won’t be necessary for several seasons, only the addition of a little fertilizer and a bit of weeding.
According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, for an easy care, three season garden, first choose among Elderberry, Weigela, Ox Eye, Aster and Delphinium. Then, select from Black-eyed Susan, Bleeding Heart, Sneezeweed, an aster like flower or Monkshood (from the Buttercup family). Third, add Salvia, Cranesbill or Heuchera, like Coral Bells.
When creating any new bed, be sure to consider sunlight. Six hours is good. Eight to ten is even better. The three season garden will keep the landscape in vibrant color from early spring to the first frost in autumn.
Another suggestion from the almanac’s garden guide is to add impact to any garden by cultivating elegant ornamental grasses like Japanese blood grass and blue fescue. These thrive in any spot with average, well-drained soil. To entice birds to the garden, the garden guide offers a list of sixteen perennials, shrubs, conifers and trees, including Sumac, which attracts more than 95 species of birds.
Because of its height and dense foliage, Sumac makes an excellent nesting site.
One way to spruce up typical borders is by adding a living fence, created out of several types of small trees and shrubs. Using a variety of plantings ensures that the living fence will not be at the mercy of insects and disease.
And, naturally, the Old Farmer’s Almanac encourages gardeners to grow their own greens. Not only are they lovely additions to the garden, collards, kale, turnip greens and bok choy are filled with essential vitamins and nutrients, and rumored to be aphrodisiacs as well as possible cures for a hangover.
For more information or a copy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, visit Almanac.com or call 800-256-2622 (800-ALMANAC).
Copyright © 2007 A Woman's View. All rights reserved.
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