Caring for Perennials: What to Do and When to Do It

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A professional gardener's time-saving strategies for maintaining a beautiful perennial garden You can have a spectacular perennial garden with less work than you might imagine -- an average of one hour per month per 100 square feet. The secret, according to master gardener Janet Macunovich, is organization -- prioritizing, planning, and record-keeping. Her suggestions include: ON DESIGN: "Early summer is not the time to make design changes. Transplants and recruits cannot take hold and make much of a difference now that the season of most rapid growth is past. In addition, disturbances now can harm late-season bloomers." ON WEEDING: "Fall weeding is probably the biggest time-saving strategy in horticulture. My records indicate the first maintenance visit in spring can be shortened by as much as 75 percent if fall work is done thoroughly." ON DIVIDING PLANTS: "By the sixth or seventh year, most perennials need separate vacations or a soil pick-me-up. Do it before the spectacle actually becomes a worn-out memory of itself." ON TOOLS: "A five-gallon bucket may be a gardener's greatest labor-saving device. It can serve as a bucket for soaking transplants, a bag to hold small tools or debris, and a portable stool. The only drawback is that you become over-reliant on it and annoyed when your bucket disappears.