Garden Layout & Perennials

Gabe and Rebecca discuss how to start planning your garden layout and they go deep on what, exactly, is a perennial.

Episode Transcript

Rebecca (00:05):
Welcome to the first ever episode of leafing out a
podcast about gardening. I'mRebecca. And I'm Gabe. And we
are not at all experts. We areamateur gardeners. And we just
really like to learn about andtalk about gardening. So much so
that our friends were like,Guys, you should really start a

(00:25):
podcast about gardening, akastop lecturing us about what we
should do in our own gardens. Sohere we are.

Gabe Long (00:32):
Today, we're going to be talking about garden layout
beginning at the beginning, andperennials.

Rebecca (00:38):
So we thought we would provide sort of a general
framework for how to think aboutcreating a garden where there
isn't one.

Gabe Long (00:45):
Garden layout. This is not you know, like home and
garden horticulture. I thinkwhen we talk about garden layout
we're talking about you movedinto a house and it has a lawn
and you're like, how do I start?
Or you maybe you have a patioand you're like, I want to do
some plants and pots just likeif you're a beginner the way we
were beginners A few years ago,we're pretty much still
beginner, what's the first step?
How do you do it,

Rebecca (01:05):
you really want to follow the rationale of thinking
first about how you want to usethe space? Do you want to have
your garden be a respite fromthe outside world where you can
find solace and read a book. Andso maybe you want a hammock? Or
do you want to throw bigbarbecues every weekend and have

(01:27):
your kids have their friendsover and have room for like 12
people to eat, what's yourlifestyle, and sort of the
layout can follow that. So thefirst step that you want to take
is looking at your hardscaping,you kind of want to go big to
small. And the biggest elementsthat you're going to deal with
is what's already there, or whatyou want to add in terms of

(01:47):
permanent things like a patio,any paths that might be there,
including like your sidewalkssomewhat borders, your property
hardscaping could also mean thefoundation of your house, if you
might be looking to put aperennial border in front of the
foundation. So should we talkabout how what we did?

Gabe Long (02:06):
I think so yeah, we moved into this house that has a
roughly 40 by 40 foot backyard,it was all gravel, or I should
say it was mostly mud and somegravel. It was like a gravel,
mud pit. Yeah, you know, in ourspacious,

Rebecca (02:21):
so we thought we want to make this whole thing green
space, let's pull out all thegravel and make a patio.

Gabe Long (02:27):
And we wanted the feeling of sort of an oasis.
Being in a city, you know, likesomething that felt like really,
you walk into it. And it's kindof this magical garden that
where you're enclosed ingreenery. So what that led us to
was a patio with a fire pitboard or gardens around all the
fence so that you in a fewyears, when things are a little

(02:48):
taller, you won't really see thefence, you'll just be surrounded
by plants, a few vegetable bedsbecause I wanted to grow
vegetables. And then sort of, wecall it a lawn. It's not a
traditional lawn, but it's likea flat green space where you can
kind of, you know, we could runaround with the kids. But those
were sort of like, I would saythat the big elements that we

(03:08):
were that we worked out and theneverything else was sort of like
okay, well, when we have thatthere, let's start a little bit
of time figure out what plantsgo where,

Rebecca (03:17):
right. And this is what we mean when you go big to
small. Figure out your big stufffirst, starting with what do I
want to do in the space? How doI want to feel? And then you do
all your hardscaping stuff. Andonce you kind of have a plan of
what you know where the patiogoes where your grill goes, if
you're going to grill in yourspace. paths, if you have a
compost bin, where are youputting all that stuff? Where

(03:39):
does your hose setup go? Do youwant to have a bench setup for
potting plants? All of thosethings, then you start figuring
out okay, where do I where am Iputting my big shrubs, what big
shrubs go where how much sunversus shade, you know, start
selecting the big plants

Gabe Long (03:59):
just working big to small so the biggest stuff being
like a patio. Then next, a largeshrub or tree than you know a
smaller shrub just kind ofworking your way down moving
from things that are extremelydifficult to move to things that
are very easy to move.

Rebecca (04:13):
Right right. So for us it was putting in a pretty fast
growing shrub called ninebark.
And we have one that's that'scalled d A bolo. ninebark that
it has really dark purpleleaves, it's beautiful and it's
going to grow, I think 10 feettall within six years or
something where we live. So weput that in the ground. We put a
Rhododendron back in the back ofthe garden in the shade, and

(04:36):
kind of worked our way out fromthere saying okay, what might
look good next to these thingsand started shaping from there,
what the beds would look like.
And once some of those were inthen we started looking at Okay,
smaller perennials, you know,what do we love? What do we want
to plant where? What's parts onwhat's full shade? How much how

(04:57):
much moisture do we get andwhere and this is where you
start? to really have funbecause you start to find out
the tiny little details of themicroclimates that exist within
your garden, even if it is likeours, just kind of the back
parking lot area of a house, youknow, we've learned, okay, this
area's a lot more moist, becauseit gets a drip line from the

(05:17):
garage that it faces. So firmsgrow really happily over there.
And this area gets like a littlemore sun and heat than we
thought it did. So some thingsare really happy there that we
didn't think would be happy.
That's when you start gettinginto the like, painting with
colors of flowers and matchingthings and using contrast and
all of that fun stuff that youkind of think of as being what

(05:40):
gardening will be like, it kindof has taken us a few steps to
get to that really fun, creativepoint. But it's so worth it to
do it in this order. So that youkind of establish things in line
with your vision,

Gabe Long (05:56):
and you're not having to move trees. It's a pain.
Don't move a tree. It's sorough, Gabe did it. I did it
once. You can do it. I don'twant to I don't you know, I
think that it's important tosort of like, be encouraging or
whatever. But I think that like,Yeah, but another thought that
came to mind, just as a way ofsort of conceptualizing it as
maybe thinking about it in termsof like, what are your anchor

(06:18):
plants, you wouldn't plant likea whole bunch of two foot tall
plants, and then be like, wheredoes the 10 foot tall plant fit
amongst these, of course, itmakes sense to work the other
way where you're like, Okay,this, you know, we have a really
beautiful witchhazel that sortof anchors one corner of our
garden. So we thought for a longtime about like, what, okay, we
definitely want a plant therethat is going to, when you're

(06:39):
sitting by the fire, obscureyour view of this alley that's
between our house and the nexthouse, kind of make you feel
enclosed. So we went throughmaking a bunch of lists of like,
what would grow there, what youknow, would look pretty what
would be really, you know,bushy, so that it wouldn't just
be like a tree that sort of isup and over the fence. But
actually something that wouldhave leaves from almost ground

(07:01):
level up to 10 feet tall, andsettled on the witchhazel, which
I think was a which is a greatchoice, and then built that
whole corner around thatwitchhazel. Okay, we've got the
big one. Now, what little oneswe want put in there. Oh, that
one didn't do too well, let'smove that over here. Maybe it'll
be happier over there. Let's trythis, that color would be fun.
Once you get down into those,you know, lavender or Sage are

(07:25):
those other like sub shrubs,some people call them, those are
so easy to move that you likeyou're saying you can just kind
of play with them a little bitand kind of move them around and
have a little more fun. Lessthinking more gardening. So what
are what are our takeaways? Allright, big, big to small. Don't
move trees. Yeah, and I guessthe other I'll do a little

(07:51):
devil's advocate as our as ourfinisher here. I will say that,
like the point of gardening isto have fun. So you know, it
should be a fun process. Itdoesn't have to be a perfect
process. It can be somethingwhere there are mistakes, you
can you can move a tree, you cancut down a tree, you know, do it
in a way that is fun. Just kindof imagine there's a balance

(08:15):
between just like having fun andbeing at the garden center and
being like, Oh, this plant looksgreat. I'm gonna buy it. And the
frustration of not having yourplant thrive. I do love an
impulse buy though. You got todo some

Rebecca (08:26):
I love it. I definitely have come home with so many.
Here's these three, three,here's three of this plant that
I have nowhere to put it butwe'll figure it out. So cool.
And that's, you know, you can'ttake the joy out of that.

Gabe Long (08:39):
Yeah, yeah, keep your impulse buys below five feet
mushy. Now we're gonna move intoa segment called stuff. I
googled. That's right, myfavorite segment, give what is
this segment? Why are we doingthis? That is a fair question.
If you made it here, you haveaccess to the internet and

(09:01):
YouTube and Google things. Butwhat we want to do was take a
topic that we spent a fairamount of time googling fair
amount of time researching, andgive you the sparknotes the key
things that are helpful to knowabout a certain topic.

Rebecca (09:15):
So today we're going to talk about the word perennial.
You hear it all the time ingardening. What does it actually
mean scientifically? What doesit mean in common usage gave
what is a perennial,

Gabe Long (09:26):
the scientific definition of a perennial is any
plant that lives for more thantwo years.

Rebecca (09:30):
Okay, so that's interesting. I totally didn't
understand it. That way. Iusually think about perennials
versus annuals, you know,something that lives versus
something that's just gonna lastthis summer. But you're saying
that even if a plant laststhrough one winter and comes
back the next summer, it's notnecessarily a perennial?

Gabe Long (09:51):
That is right. So we're talking about what is a
perennial, but that reallyrequires us to define the three
broad lifecycle categories ofplants. Which are annuals,
biennials, and perennials. Soanimals grow flower, create seed
and die all in one year.
biennials grow roots stems andleaves in their first year and
then grow flowers and seeds anddie in their second year. And

(10:11):
perennials come back for morethan two years. So you can have
a short lived perennial likeColumbine that might only
survive for three years. Orscientifically speaking, the red
oak that we have in our backyardis a perennial, and that can
live for 400 years.

Rebecca (10:26):
Okay, so I guess that brings us to the question of
like common usage, because if Igo to the perennial section of
the garden center, if I go toLowe's, usually there's like
annuals over here and perennialsover here. They're not selling
oak trees in the perennialsection, right,

Gabe Long (10:43):
right. If you go to Lowe's, I don't know that they
sell oak trees, but certainlythey would be selling peach
trees, and those would be in youknow, the tree section, the
rhododendrons would be in theshrub section. The common usage
definition is the importantdefinition. If you're getting
started gardening, you want tounderstand what the perennial
section is, you want tounderstand what somebody is
talking about when they say theyplanted a perennial border

(11:04):
garden. They're saying that theflowers, grasses and ferns and
other non woody plants that theyplanted are perennial, which,
like we just said, means thatthey come back every year. So
given that definition, what aresome of your favorite perennials
in our garden?

Rebecca (11:19):
Oh, my gosh. So perennials and our garden right
now. I'm sure there's a millionthat come in the spring that
I've already kind of forgottenabout. This is the fun to me as
of gardening, as I'm alwayslike, Oh, my gosh, it's June.
It's suddenly there's that thingI forgot that was here. Yeah.
That's kind of what the fun is aperennials in general, too.

Gabe Long (11:42):
There's a magic to it.

Rebecca (11:43):
Yeah, seeing things come back that you forgot that
you planted and they died backto all the way to the ground.
And then like, what is thatpoking up again?

Gabe Long (11:50):
Oh, my gosh, that's that thing, just like a phoenix.

Rebecca (11:52):
Yeah, Phoenix Rising from the mulch. Um, I think that
my favorites right at thismoment are definitely the
akinesia that we have, which isvery common here in New England.
akinesia, also known asconeflower. The ones we have in
the garden are purple, pink,they're dramatic. They kind of

(12:15):
make nice cut flowers I lovelike chopping a few and bringing
them inside native, their nativeeaters, the pollinators are
going crazy for them. And then,alongside the coneflower, we
have a lot of this thing calledleatrice blazing star. So I'm
using the scientific namefollowed by the common name
here, but it's typically calledblazing star, and it's about a

(12:38):
flower for us. And it's likethese big tall towers of sort of
furry looking purple flowers.
And I don't know, I really likeplants that look like Muppets.
And they these are these are anexample of that. And they're
also native and the pollinatorslove them and they look really
great with coneflowers. They'renice contrast to each other both

(13:00):
in sort of like the growinghabit and the color, they just
look good next to each otherthat you can like kind of mix
them all together, and they lookgood. I'm also really loving
this year Penstemon, which iscommonly called beard tongue, we
have pencil and growing up, Ithink, is a varietal called dark
towers, the leaves and stock ofthe plant are like a dark purple

(13:22):
and dark green color. Andthere's really cool and kind of
witchy looking, and then theflowers are sort of a lighter
purple and white, and it's justdramatic, and a little bit
strange looking, which issomething that I like, not
everyone goes for that but wekind of have like a witchy
woodland vibe going in ourgarden. So I'm really enjoying

(13:45):
that and maybe an opportunityfor illustration. If

Gabe Long (13:50):
you went out into our garden in January, and you
looked at our Penstemon, whatwould you see

Rebecca (13:55):
nothing? Well, in January, you'd probably see some
desiccated you know, remains ofthe foliage that died off once
frost hit in fall, because wedon't really do a lot of yard
cleanup until well into spring.
But it would look like there's abunch of dead shit sitting
there. There's nothing to seeand why don't we do much yard

(14:19):
cleanup until

Gabe Long (14:21):
well into spring?

Rebecca (14:22):
Well, I'll tell you why. Because there might be some
insects that might be makingtheir home in some of that
desiccated stuff and also belowthe ground. Sometimes the dead
foliage and plant matter that'ssitting on the ground is kind of
providing protection andinsulation for insects that are

(14:44):
I don't actually know if it'sright to say that they're
hibernating or they're pleadinga portion of their

Gabe Long (14:49):
lifecycle. Yeah, they're

Rebecca (14:51):
like gestating, sort of as pupa or, you know, whatever.
They're living in the groundunderneath. And so you want to
give them that portion. actionby just leaving your leaf matter
and plant matter until thefollowing spring. And I'll

Gabe Long (15:07):
take a you know, you're talking about sort of
ecological reason a, you know,garden ecosystem reason to leave
it. I'll give a stylistic reasonI think, get older, the
landscape designer talks aboutleaving up your grasses and your
other perennials to give thesnow something to land on. I
think it's his phrase, which Ialways like,

Rebecca (15:27):
yeah, there's something kind of weird and beautiful
about seeing snowfall all overyour dead remains of the garden.
We have a friend who always islike, Oh, I love it New England
and the winter, the fellow feeyou think of that what I'm
looking out over are like,totally messy winter garden that

(15:50):
we didn't clean up. Because theother reason we don't clean it
up is laziness. laziness,

Gabe Long (15:54):
laziness. I will say though, that that to kind of
gives you this real sense of thecyclical nature of the garden.
And when, you know, if you wentout and like, clean up all the
leaves and did like, you know,superpro fall cleanup, you just
wind up with like a blank.
Nothing. To me, one of thethings that I love so much about

(16:16):
gardening is watching theuniqueness of every cycle
unfold, and to see all of thatplant matter that is tied back,
you know where the pencil is,you know where the Acacia is,
you know where the ferns are,because you see those totally
dried out pieces of them. And tome, it's sort of like this
reminder of like, the amazingfact that there's a rhizome or a

(16:38):
tuber under there that's holdingall this life that's going to
kind of spring I guess, punintended to life. It's pretty
cool. So I guess that'sperennials. Did we sum it up? I
think we did it. I think we didperennials. That's our episode.
Thanks for coming.

(17:03):
So that's our first episode. Wehope you've enjoyed leafing out
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