Rita, the woman who popularized wintersowing is from Long Island. It's perfect for your zone. Store bought plants are often shipped at their peak and start to fade the moment they go on the racks at the stores. If you buy perennials, buy young, before they bloom. If you want to do like Carrie, others, and myself, you can wintersow perennials in the fall or winter and perhaps have blooms next summer. Vernalization is the key to blooms within a year of planting. That means living through a cold winter after germination.

Check it out, www.wintersown.org.

Last year, I spent a lot of money on things that died shortly after planting. This year, all my plants grown from seed were planted out young, got well established with cooler temperatures, and are blooming like crazy. They may wilt in the heat and sun, but by evening, they look good as new.

Still, my philosophy is - if it needs to be babied, coddled, or watched over like a hawk, it's not for me. So I stick to the garden variety perennials, rudbeckias, shastas, coneflowers, buddleia, hibiscus, etc. A few random things are scattered around to give me some variety. Annuals are also heavily used in areas where they might reseed.

We all garden differently. If I had your touch with roses, I'd probably spend less time with perennials too.

Name 4 perennials that you really need, Rita.

My 4 for your zone would be Iberis (candytuft), Dianthus (Cheddar Pinks to tumble over some of your walls), Perennial Phlox to bloom with the Oriental lilies, and Stokesia or Salvia farinacea because they're blue/purple as a foil for the daylilies and roses and they don't mind humidity.

Some of the perennials you see in zones 5 and 6 elsewhere may have failed to thrive because of the humidity of LI. I was there once in July and the heat and humidity was as bad as Atlanta where I'd just left.

I was just out watering and thinking on these things before I came in and read your post.

Nell

token- I have been on the wintersowing forum. Not lately though but I have read enough to get the general idea of it if not the exact things to do.

But I can tell you that I am not a seed starting type of person. I hate starting seeds. I buy everything possible prestarted and just pop in plants. Of course, thats not always possible and I do start sunflowers and mexican sunflowers each year. Many years I start zinnias, cosmos, 4 o'clocks and whatnot.

Many years ago when I had no money to spend I used to start lots and lots of perenials from seed. I would look at the nursery at plants I wanted and could not afford and then find packets of seeds for that plant. I had a little nursery area in the garden were I started the seeds and grew out the plants until large enough to plant out in the regular garden. I had all sorts of shasta daiseys, painted daiseys, yarrow, coneflowers, black eyed susans and many other plants all over the yard that I had grown myself. Those plants lasted many, many years around here and grew well and thrived.

Gradually I lost them with my garden redos.

So did you lose perennials because you just didn't want them? Cause that's an entirely different thing. I can understand that. Some things in my yard are already on the death list even with only one year under my belt.

Things got moved around and things got redone. Somehow things ended up dissapearing. I have tried many other things since then that stayed for awhile and then died out too.

What is now the rose garden that runs along the south side of the house I tried to make into a cottage type perrenial garden when I first started my gardening here. What a disaster. Things died out and other things spread out of control. What I had tried to do was a butterfly and hummer attracting garden. I found out I was terrible at mixing plants and getting pleasing combos. Then I would try something new and the next spring it either did not come up or swallowed its neightbor. Mostly, it just did not look pretty.

I seem to be able to mix shrubs with no problems, I have a great looking shrub border, at least it looks great to me.

So when I got the rose crazies, I made it all into a rose garden. I moved the butterfly garden into the area in back of were those large shrub roses were moved from. I had planted lots of tall coneflowers, black eyed susans, and butterfly weeds. Almost all my butterfly weeds died thru the years (not all at once) and the tall coneflowers and blackeyed susans there dwindled for years and this year were totally gone here. I was able to transplant the leftover butterfly weeds. No wonder I plant roses and daylilies. They thrive for me.

Last year I tried to make a mixed daylily perrenial garden. The catmints, tickseeds, coneflowers, a sedum, and blanket flowers died over the winter. Its rather embarrasing to admit to :-(( The daylilies thrived.

Nell - At least I have one of the ones on your list. Last year I bought four different types of phlox because the year before I redid the garden that ran along the side of my garage. I took out lots and lots of old overgrown azealeas and weeds. One of the things growing in there were old, old phlox. Phlox to me brings back memories of summer gardens when I was a child. So I brought back the phlox. Not the same plants but newer prettier ones I bought from Song Sparrow nursery. They are growing well this year. I bought four kinds.

I did try Stokesia years ago and it was one of the plants died out. I didn't miss it as I didn't much care for it. Managed to buy and kill a lovely patch of pinks too afew years ago so no more of those either.

Long Island summer weather for late July and August is hot and very humid. Our hot humid summer just doesn't last as long as summer down south, thats all.

I'm just getting started with roses, but I can see/smell their appeal. I was looking at the old rose across the street today. It's dark green and glossy. Not even my knockouts look that good.

Just for your notebook, in case anybody asks, Stokesia is one of those native perennials that dies out if it isn't divided and replanted every 2-3 years. Maybe we need to make a list of those fleshy rooted perennials that will crowd themselves out.

I'm thinking my Gerbera daisies might enjoy dividing, and I know the Shastas are crowded.

Pinks are not easy for me, but I thought it was because of the heat. Little patches die out, but I can keep them going by rooting replacements. They don't rebloom here, but I love the glaucous foliage.

Rita, I remember the pics of your newly planted annuals. I'm thinking you get fresh bedding plants from a really good nursery from the appearance.

Nell

It just seems that if a put alot of one thing together it does fine. If I try to mix things up, it never seems to work for me the way it seems to work in the pictures I see of other cottage looking gardens. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of mixed heavily mulched garden here, and lots and lots of different plants. I DO have lots and lots of sedums and catmint which does well. I have a very nice row of Kims Knee High Coneflowers that I really love. I just don't have what most people would think of as a mixed perrenial border or bed.

I get my bedding annuals both from a really great local nursery around here and some I buy at Home Depot. I plant tons of impatients, lots of zinnias and snapdragons, some marigolds, verbena, cosmos and whatever else I want to try. I usually do just fine with them.

{{gwi:697854}}

Heres a daylily bed with snapdragons planted between the daylilies this year. I like the way it looks.

Well I for one like the way your gardens look. ;-) I think that a lot of people do find a certain type of plant that just works for them and that they understand. It seems to me that you have found yours and have used it to your advantage. You do have cottagy things in there so it isn't only a rose garden. I just figure that's where you shine, just as others shine in other areas. I know I will never be able to have the gardens you have there so I will admire and envy them from here while I continue to look for my can't beat it best plant.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I like the way they look too. If I didn't I would tear them up and start again. As it is, most areas you see here have been done over many times until I found what worked for me.

I can relate to what you're saying Rita. I think yarrow might be that plant for me.

Rereading this thread, I think you could have titled it, "I don't Need many herbaceous perennials."

You mentioned your shrubs. Many articles I'm reading now about English mixed borders say that gardeners there are putting in more shrubs and not adhering to borders of strictly perennials.

Given the terrain and your preferences, I think your choices are just perfect, Rita.

Nell

I didn't realize it was common to place only perennials in mixed borders. I don't want a garden that dies down flat each fall. I want winter interest and shrubs mixed with the perennials give me that. Grasses too.

Do you have any ornamental grasses Rita?

I like grasses. I have two Miscanthus and one smaller growing type of switchgrass. I had a really tall big clump of another switchgrass which I dug out and discarded because it just did not look good in my garden. Bad placement but I had no other place for it. I had some other grasses (prairie dropseed and little bluestem) but those died out and I have not replaced them.

Honestly now that I have all these shrubs, I could not immagine the yard with out them. I wanted them to attract the backyard songbirds with fruit and cover and also for screening to block my neighbors driveway.

The Catbirds and House Wrens moved in after the shrubs started getting some size on them so my plan worked out well.

Also, after I started reading what I wrote for this thread, I realize I have more different types of perrenials than I thought I did. I think my problem is that unless I have a massive amount of it, I don't seem to think it counts.

You have a lovely garden, Rita. Don't change a thing.

Rewording my poorly constructed sentence:
Some articles I'm reading now say that some English gardeners are planting mixed borders rather than adhering to perennials-only borders in the manner of Sissinghurst.