Low-growing perennials serve as living fences
I recently offered some ideas for hedges as property line borders, separation of the garden/home landscape into “rooms,” and as useful dividing lines between veggie or ornamental gardens.
Tall hedges were the point, for their efficiency in maintaining privacy is a “must” for some. You can, however, achieve the same separation of areas — if privacy is not an issue — with lower-growing borders that offer more options for floral/leafy beauty and other considerations such as fragrance, variety and ease of removal (transplanting) if you change your mind after time.
As suggested before, begin with a paper plan, laying out your border lines where you want separation of spaces. Be creative, and use your imagination. For instance, if you’re separating the lawn from the vegetable garden, say, why not go with perennial ornamental veggies and herbs? Rhubarb is beautiful; so is sage, which boasts a variety of leaf colors. “Tophat” and other mounded low-growing blueberries are gorgeous and bear prolifically, offering bright autumn-red leaves in the fall as a bonus.
For still lower growth, alternate clumps of chives — both the purple and white flowering types, and parsley (biennial, but easily replaced every other year). Edible Calendula, the only perennial marigold, offers orange/golden beauty amongst either of these. True violets and Johnny Jump-ups (Viola tri-color) also add sweet beauty to your border and become tasty surprises when served sugared on frosted cakes.
For a more formal look, or perhaps to border your patio or secluded garden area, try a border of daylilies. Their color range — once orange-only — now offers yellows, reds, pinks, and stunning bi-colors, and once they’ve bloomed, their pretty green strappy leaves look good all the way into the fall. These, of course, want sun. So does lavender (Lavandula Angustifolia), another solid choice for beauty and hardiness. Just be sure to purchase either Munstead or Hidcote, the two that are hardy for our climate. Blanket roses, or smaller shrub-type roses, offer the beauty that only they hold, and fragrance. Stay with one color/species for a unified look and plant a bit closer together than recommended. Be sure to select roses hardy to our Zone 3-4-5 and remember the nasty early-season freezes we often get before snow cover comes.
Shady border site? The hardiest choices for shade do not include the larger shrubs but allow close planting for a solid border. My personal favorites are Hosta (pictured), Heuchera (coral bells), Astilbe, Brunnera, and Pulmonaria (lungwort). With the fabulous leaf colors available in Hosta, Heuchera, and Brunnera, the lacy flower variety of Astilbe, and the beauty and hardiness of the Pulmonaria, a planting of any single species would guarantee a glorious border — a combination of any or all of them is a fairyland! (I know, since I have a shady nook bearing all of them together). These all have the knack of laughing at tough winters, lots of snow, lack of snow, freezes — whatever. You can’t go wrong with my “Big Five.” Make that Six, and add hardy ferns. Our own native Sword, Maidenhair, and Lady ferns will delight you for decades.
Standing alone as a glorious border plant is the Peony. I guess when all’s said and done if I could have only one floriferous plant it would have to be the Peony. Always hardy, always beautiful, and available in a plethora of types from single-petaled Japanese varieties to the multi-petaled, “bombshell” centered show-stoppers, these are dependable through whatever nature throws at them. Buy a variety of early-to-late bloomers for continuous color into early fall, and don’t forget to bow to their one failing — drooping in the rain — by providing sturdy, tall surround fences. These do not deter from the flowers’ beauty but actually enhance them by holding them upright through inclement weather. If you seriously want a Peony border, I’d suggest building or purchasing a long 3-4-foot high fence along the full length of it, on both sides, to nicely contain them. Use whatever material enhances your landscape decor, from white lathe to wrought iron.
Our prior column suggested two native plants for hedges, and they could actually serve as low borders, too. Pachistima (Mountain Lover), while growing to three or four feet high, is easily pruned to manageable heights. Evergreen, provides pretty tiny pink blooms early in the season, and shiny serrated green leaves year-round.
Oregon Grape (Berberis/Mahonia) has glossy, holly-like leaves, clusters of fragrant yellow flowers, and blue grapelike berries (great for jelly), and the leaves turn red and gold in the fall. Oregon Grape comes in two growth styles, creeping (Reptans) and tall (aquifolium) and the lower choice would be great for border planting.
Today’s suggestions are only a small part of what could serve as border plants. Pretty, small mounding flowering shrubs abound — Potentilla, Santolina (Lavender cotton), Perovskia (Russian sage) — not to mention any number of non-flowering evergreens like Pinus or Juniperus. Go through those numberless catalogs that arrive daily in the mail, have a look (checking the Zones) and then talk to your favorite area nursery person and plan your new borders!
(Editor’s note: For many years, Valle Novak wrote gardening and cooking columns for the Daily Bee. “Weekend Gardener” and “Country Chef” became renowned for their humor, information, and common sense advice on how to do everything from planting to cooking. While she recently passed away, she has left behind a number of columns to share with and delight her many fans. This is one such column and was originally published on March 2010.)
