January 2024

The Real Reason Most Perennial Borders Look Bare by August The border looks incredible in June. By August it’s tatty foliage, bare patches, and a few stragglers clinging on. I’ve watched this happen in garden after garden — including my own, in the early years — and it almost always…

You put $75 worth of petunias, impatiens, and wave petunias in the ground in late May. By mid-July, the impatiens collapsed. The petunias stopped blooming without deadheading every five days. The wave petunias held on — but only barely, demanding water daily through a three-week dry stretch. That’s a plant…