I think we outdid ourselves. In the last couple of weeks Gail, Betsy, the volunteers, and I planted about 700 perennials and a handful of shrubs. Going into our planning season this past winter, Gail and I both thought that we wouldn’t place big perennial orders this year. Then the catalogs arrived and we couldn’t help ourselves. Our excuse is that we want these gardens to be wow-full and inspire visitors. We want to stay au courant, plant what the kids are planting now, try new things to see if they really are as great as their write-ups, and retry old favorites that might deserve a comeback. So we didn’t hold back when we went to nurseries and plant sales either.

I’m pretty excited to finally try bowman’s root (Gillenia trifoliata a.k.a Porteranthus), a native described as “tough” with delicate gaura-like flowers and red fall foliage. We placed it both in the pollinator garden and the Rock Garden where seriously tough conditions will give it the true test. I can’t wait to see if the ‘Blonde Ambition’ blue grama grass (Bouteloua gracilis) is the stunner I think it might be, and I have wanted blackberry lily (Belamcanda chinensis) for ages but had trouble finding it. Here’s hoping it takes off like this regular old passalong plant is supposed to.

Our new “foliage bed” was too much fun to shop for. Of course we have to try new heucheras and were assured that ‘Citronelle’ (both Gail and I are suckers for chartreuse foliage), ‘Encore’, and ‘Dark Secret’ are as awesome as they come. We finally have the perfect spot to try shredded umbrella plant (Syneilesis aconitifolia) but we still haven’t found the exactly right place for sycamore-leaf false nettle (Boehmeria platanifolia), which by all accounts is one of the coolest, hippest foliage plants for partial shade. (Why didn’t we have that yet? It doesn’t matter. We have it now. ) Catchfly (Silene latifolia ‘Rollie’s Favorite’) is already earning its keep in the Rock Garden. Even if it doesn’t survive (and why wouldn’t it? — drought maybe?) I’d use it like an annual especially if it continues to bloom all season like the description says it will (after a shearing).

Even though it seemed last year like our gardens were getting saturated perennial-wise, somehow, miraculously, there’s always room for newbies in May. (It’s not so miraculous actually. Removing giant patches of place-holding rudbeckia and Shasta daisy is my favorite way to open up new plant slots, especially at home.)

Have you been planting perennials too? Any you’re especially excited about?

I have bad news and good news. The bad news is there’s a fungus among us. Impatiens downy mildew (Plasmopara obducens), the mysterious ailment that denuded and killed almost every busy Lizzie (Impatiens walleriana) back in July or August of last year, is here to stay. It’s in our soil now and unlike other downy mildews that attack other species of plants, this one is happy to overwinter here in the soil. Add to that, our native woodland wildflower and poison ivy remedy, jewelweed (Impatiens capensis), obligingly harbors it without dying or even becoming particularly disfigured by it.

This coming summer impatiens downy mildew will spread by spores that germinate in humid conditions, just as it did last year. Four hours of standing water (a sprinkler system or a good soaking rain) is all it needs to move from soil to plant where it then becomes airborne. And there is no fungicide that will control it once lesions form on the leaves. Despite that, some growers are determined to keep selling the species that has been their bread and butter ever since petunias fell from favor. But their impatiens will have to be pumped full of expensive systemic fungicide in order to ensure a mere six weeks of immunity in your garden. It’s a heavy price to pay for what has been one of the least expensive and longest blooming bedding plants. Expect that cost to be passed along. Other growers are boldly refusing to propagate an ill-fated best seller and will be offering healthy and more sustainable alternatives instead. And meanwhile, breeders are working to create downy-mildew-resistant impatiens. But don’t hold your breath. They’re still years away.

The good news is it’s time for a change. Monocultures of impatiens have been planted in industrial parks, corporate and private landscapes, urban and suburban yards for quite long enough. In fact, being planted so exclusively and densely sped their demise, first in the UK back in 2003, then in greenhouses, Florida, up the Eastern Seaboard, and all the way across the more humid portions of the country in the last couple of years. And I, for one, am looking forward to seeing a little more variety in yards, gardens, and landscapes in the years to come. But then, I have never been impatiens’ biggest fan.

I understand that a flat of Impatiens walleriana was wicked cheap to buy. But didn’t those starts need water and fertilizer all summer long? I understand that, if given those things, impatiens bloomed non-stop, and in the shade no less. But did you ever see a bee work the blossoms? And didn’t you get a little bored with them by August? I have never planted them in my own garden and we don’t use them at Blithewold because—and this, really, is the good news—there are so many other gorgeous plants in the world. Some are just as, if not more, colorful; a few might bring out the gardener in non-gardeners; others will be much easier to care for. That’s the truth.

My advice to hardcore impatiens devotees: If you can’t live without them, try them in hanging baskets. And for your garden beds, rather than choosing one alternative stand-in from a long list of shade-loving bedding annuals that includes (and is by no means limited to) New Guinea impatiens (those noisy cousins are immune), begonias, torenia, lobelia, coleus, browallia, oxalis, and nicotiana, plant a kaleidoscope. Variety isn’t just the spice of life, it’s more sustainable. Celebrate all the months of summer — and treat yourself to late season surprises too — by planting tender perennials like spurflower (Plectranthus ciliatus) and fuchsias that bloom into fall and can even be overwintered indoors. And then why not add in a few perennials with fabulous foliage like heuchera, hosta, lady’s mantle, brunnera, pulmonaria, and lamium? Nowadays they don’t cost much more than annuals and, more often than not, live to brighten your beds and borders for years. Please don’t just take my word for it. Ask at your favorite local nursery for suggestions. (No doubt, they will be more sympathetic than I.) And take the good news over the bad.

Apologies to any of you who might have already read this. — It was first published last week by East Bay, RI and South Coast, MA newspapers for my column, Down to Earth.

A comment from Kira on my last post echoes a sentiment I read recently in an article by Tovah Martin in Horticulture Magazine and something I’m feeling the crush of too: we’ve had a long enough break from the garden. Isn’t a month or two around the holidays plenty of time before we start feeling the pull of plants again? That’s why Tovah so smartly forces spring bloomers inside. And that’s why Kira (one of our volunteers, incidentally), Gail and I and probably the entire population of gardeners exiled indoors devour every word in every seed catalog. Starting about now, we cannot wait for spring.

I suspect I’d be more interested in winter – because I usually love it – if last week’s snowfall hadn’t parked on the garden like a Mack truck. My hopes of seedheads poking prettily up through winter snows were laid flat. Now I can almost see now the virtue in cutting everything back in fall because why not? if it isn’t going to add loveliness to our winter view. But I  have to remember it isn’t just for us. The birds don’t care what it looks like, so we’ll keep keeping as much standing for them as we can.

As gloomy as I’m suddenly feeling about winter, if spring really was right around the corner, I’d probably say I wasn’t ready after all. Gail and I still need the time to go through catalogs and attend classes (maybe bee school for me this year) and even though I’m no good at waiting (a whole week between Downton Abbey episodes makes me crazy) I know that anticipation will sweeten spring’s arrival. Meanwhile there’s nothing to do for it but to go out and find the pretty in winter and practice Zen-like patience. I’m glad to report that it was easier than I thought it would be to enjoy winter this morning as the fog lifted off the snow. Even tipped over and smashed, the garden was as pretty as I could ever hope it would be.

Is the wait of winter weighing heavily on you – or your garden – too?

The plants in the greenhouse are more ambitious than I am. If I possibly could, I would spend the short, dark days of December curled up on the couch. But our plants are making use of what little sunlight is on offer, along with the eternal-spring (relative) warmth of supplemental radiant heat, and actually growing. Go figure. The cuttings we took in September are well-branched and blooming. The ones we took in October and potted up last month have produced three or more sets of leaves. And now they all need pinching to keep their focus on growing more than flowering. And there’s no way I can cut these plants back without turning those beautiful tips into more cuttings. They get full credit for keeping me off the couch.

Taking cuttings of our cuttings is on the list of to-dos every December despite the fact that low light and lower temperatures will make them take longer to root. Some of them might not make it. But from the ones that do, we’ll take more cuttings in the spring. That way, as the plants we already made grow and become pot stressed and unhappy, we’ll have a rotation of fresh plants to take their place if need be. (Though we do often plant even the oldest, woodiest, worst looking plants because they take off like the picture of health once they go in the ground.)

But I can’t let myself go crazy propagating because space is tight in the greenhouse and we don’t need more of everything. We also don’t altogether know what we’ll need because we only have ideas about next year’s gardens so far, not actual plans. That’s for January. I’m confident that we will always plant as many African blue basils as we have, whether it’s a tray-full or 10 trays-full, and Gail and I are both smitten with a new-to-us Salvia called ‘Wendy’s Wish’. (More about that one when I do top 12 for 2012 post.) We also always make a few more heliotrope and assorted cuphea over the course of the winter, but I had to restrain myself from sticking every perfect cutting I pinched. A tray-full will do until we know where we’ll use them next season and how many we’ll ultimately need.

Are you feeling as ambitious as I am this December? Did you take cuttings this fall? Have you been taking cuttings of those cuttings or will you wait until spring?

As soon as I published about Stephen Orr speaking at our Garden Design Luncheon, I found out that he couldn’t get out of NYC. We know he would have been here if he possibly could and our thoughts are with him and everyone else whose plans – and lives – have been wrecked by Sandy. We are really counting our blessings, one of which is that at practically the last minute, Tovah Martin very graciously agreed to speak in Stephen’s stead.

Tovah came to our rescue not only by braving a scary, snowy nor’easter herself to get here, but by speaking about infusing the garden with personality, and giving us a reminder that I’d like to have engraved on my hori-hori: don’t worry so much about what other people think about your garden. And then she made a quick and gorgeous terrarium because, “if everybody in the world grew a terrarium, there would be no war.” (It was kismet that we had already made terrariums — temporaryums, actually — for table centerpieces. We’re that much closer to peace.)

Intermixed with practical design advice regarding repetition, textures, and shapes (“You’ve got to have balls. –I do.”) Tovah also told us to “be happy in the garden.” Know who you are and what you love. If, “in your heart of hearts,” you love open spaces and gazing at the horizon, make your garden so. If enclosure is comforting, create it. When speaking about garden art and tsotchkes, she says, “if a miniature golf course moves you, go for it!” Plant orange and pink flowers together if those colors resonate for you (as they do for me) and then don’t worry over what anyone might say about it. All of this advice hits home for me because (at home) I garden with wild abandon in an otherwise well-manicured neighborhood. I do worry a little about getting the hairy eyeball from my neighbors but in actuality, I have noticed returned smiles and what could be interpreted as nods of approval. Perhaps, as different as our gardens are from each other’s, we recognize a kindred passion, just as Tovah does when she visits other gardens. And that’s it right there. Tovah told me she’s never been to a garden that she didn’t think was amazing, just by virtue of it having been created. And the inspiring slides she showed reflected exactly that.

Tovah’s latest book, The Unexpected Houseplant: 220 Extraordinary Choices for Every Spot in Your Home is already one of my faves, as is The New Terrarium (for obvious reasons). Read them and any of her dozens of others and be inspired to be you. And most of all – have fun.