The Garden at Moorfield Journal: 4
Pondering Perennials and Pollination. 03.02.2023
The air is cool, and the light is soft, it is the middle of the day in the middle of summer when I begin writing this, and I can’t quite believe it. This is not what I was expecting. As I weed the Long Border, I can’t believe I’m contemplating planting out a number of perennials hanging around in pots in our little nursery area, protected by the giant Crow Ash it sits beneath. I would’ve expected by now to only be doing the bare minimum in the early morning, the heat becoming stifling before 10am but this has been such a mild summer, so far. I am hesitant to count my chickens in these parts and have heard the fire siren of our two nearest townships, sound off in the distance a few times already in the weeks we’ve been home from our holiday up north, where once I lived with cyclone warnings instead.
I pull the peas that have popped out of the pea straw and lay them back down. It reveals just how much perennial growth there has been in this area, masked before by the masses of said pea shoots, the new plantings now seem to be an instant semi-established garden. My heart leaps. This space will be a corridor of blooms, of colour and texture, and I suspect, robust growth. The soil here is like chocolate, rich and beautifully structured that we need only minimal organic matter when planting, conscious that most of what is planted here are cultivars of what are known as American prairie plants; such as Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Eryngium, Asters and numerous grasses, and they are tough plants. They don’t need incredibly rich soil, but they do need full sun and to not be competing with weeds for optimum spread and effect.
As promised below, see the plant list arranged in the colour palette for this area of two long beds, hence the name, that run parallel to eachother for 40m each side, at a bed depth of 1.5 metres:
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