Book Review: An Essential for Tending Perennials

Posted in Shop/Book Reviews on July 23 2008, by Plant Talk

John Suskewich is Book Manager for Shop in the Garden.

It happens every year. It happened again this year. In June everything looks fresh and vibrant; the parade of tulips has ended in a triumph of roses, and you are smug. Even the delphiniums look as if they might flower a two-foot-long tower, like you are Lawrence Johnston and this is Hidcote or something, and you are smug.

And then by mid-July the garden starts to sag; the color looks washed out, leaves are wilting and turning brown, stems start to tilt, and so you pray for rain. And then it rains. Torrentially. It rains and rains. The Amazon doesn’t see such downpours. And then it stops and you go out on the deck and survey the damage. And you are no longer smug. The garden looks flattened; the plants lean against each other, like partygoers after their seventh mojito, and too late you begin to stake.

But there is a book, The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques, by Tracy DiSabato-Aust, that has the cure for this perennial problem, and it is easier than a 12-step. The simple insight that she presents so elegantly is to prune plants for better maintenance. Genus by genus she tells you when and how and she tells you with such clarity and such conviction that your garden will almost immediately look a thousand times better. You must overcome your initial hesitation caused by the thought “but I will be cutting off all the flowers!” What will result is a better behaved and much more floriferous garden.

To see the benefits of this technique walk through the Jane Watson Irwin Perennial Garden here at The New York Botanical Garden. Designed by Lynden B. Miller and curated by Bruce Dryden, this is a classic example of the mixed herbaceous border, with each element showing its uniqueness but each playing its role in the overall arrangement. Following the tactics of DiSabato-Aust, every plant has been pruned and deadheaded and divided with an almost annoying exactness—I should be so focused!—and the end result is a work of art right here in the heart of the Bronx.

On any gardener’s bookshelf, The Well-Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy DiSabato-Aust is one of the essentials.