May: Local flowers at work

Over the years, my acre has become a working landscape, just as productive as a corn field or a peach orchard.  The former yard is now divided into two separate flower growing areas.  There are large spaces devoted to perennials.  The tops of such plants die back each fall and re-sprout in the spring from roots that winter over.  Reliable and hardy, perennials include such familiar flowers as peonies, roses, and lilies.  I also grow less familiar flowers such as speedwell, Joe Pye weed, liatris and Russian sage.

I have not really counted but I estimate I grow 
50 different varieties of perennials.  They thrive in mixed decorative borders along the driveway, in front of the barn, in two tiers that curve around the main house, and in a lazy semi-circle around a terrace partially shaded by a wild cherry tree.  These beds produce flowers for bouquets in late May, June and July.  If rain fall dwindles later in the season, as it frequently does, flower production falls, since there is no irrigation here.

I restrain my annual flowers in raised beds four feet wide and 15 feet long. Since annuals grow from seed each season, they have fewer resources to survive a dry summer.  I equip each bed with plastic irrigation pipes just in case the summer lacks rain.  Years of added compost has improved the capacity of the soil to hold moisture and dry spells are seldom a worry. 

This season there are 27 beds in production. Here I plant zinnias, snapdragons, Queen Anne’s lace, along with calla lilies, canna and dahlias. I rely on my annual beds to produce late-season flowers for August, September and October.