In the next couple of weeks, I'll be buying some plants to fill in bare spots in my garden and around the perimeter of the house. I brought some of my favorites from the old place with me: Tiger lilies, asiatic, oriental and turks-cap lilies, bleeding hearts, lilies-of-the-valley, phlox, hydrangeas and rose-of-sharons all came along and are doing well as transplants. Well, the rose-of-sharons are kind of iffy, but I think they're gonna pull through.
Some things I had to leave behind because they were simply too big or too root-bound to move: Lilacs, ferns, azaleas and rhododendrons all stayed behind. I didn't bring the poppies or the columbine, either, because they had died back for the summer at the time of the move and I was afraid they wouldn't transplant well.
When the trees and bushes at the edge of the new place started to leaf out this spring, I was surprised to find that I had lilacs! The white kind, though, not the purple which I prefer, so I did a lilac exchange with one of the guys at work: White lilacs bushes for purple ones, which he had at his place. It'll take a few years for the new plants to get established, but I've got time.
Oh! And I relocated some bluebells and ferns from the creek to the new place, and ordered some hibiscuses and a butterfly bush and a weeping cherry from mail-order, all of which have arrived and been planted. I'm still waiting on the magnolia - get on that, Michigan Bulb, would ya?
So! Back to the point. I'm going to be buying some more plants. Columbine, I think, to replace the one I had to leave behind. Maybe a trumpet vine, although I never had any luck getting them to bloom at the old place. Maybe wisteria, which I've never tried before. I was at Agway today and they had dutchman's pipe vines, which I remember my mom telling me was one of her favorite plants as a kid. I bought a heliotrope the other day, because the name sounded familiar to me, and then I learned that they're also called cherry pie plant because the blooms smell like cherry pie! So I gave mine a great big whiff, and yep, cherry pie it is. It's only an annual, though, so I'll have to dig it up and bring it inside this fall if I want to keep it around.
The point, the point, here it is: What's your favorite perennial plant? Preferably one with fragrant blossoms, that can make it through a Zone 5 winter (hardy to -20 degrees). Do you have a flower or plant or bush you remember fondly from your childhood?
What should I plant in my garden?
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Favorites - the old fashioned irises with the big well-rounded flowers, in a pale blue-purple, hyacinths, and cyclamen. Cyclamen (sp?) has beautiful flowers in spring and summer, and the seed heads are interesting in late summer, fall, and all winter . Hyacinths smell wonderful planted near the front door.
BTW - rhododendron will root from cuttings in a jar of water. Maybe your old place will let you take some cuttings from this year's growth. (The best way to root a rhodie cutting is to scratch the bark a little, pin the branch, while it's still attached to the bush, to the ground in spring with a "U"-shaped staple made of wire, and it will root over the summer, then you cut it loose and dig it up in the fall.)
I love hydrangea. Can't grow it, but I love it. My yard is so swampy we are actually planting bamboo.
~~Silk, my neighbors tell me that the deer here will eat rhododendrons and azaleas right down to the ground, so maybe I'd best leave them at the old place. I'll give cyclamen a try if I can find it!
And Libby, I've got a couple of spots in my backyard so soupy I'm scrounging the roadsides for cattails to import.
Oops! I got the name wrong! NOT CYCLAMEN! That's a house plant. I mean clemantis. See here: http://www.homeofclematis.net/
Oh, my neighbors have clematis! Evidently the deer won't eat that.
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