PERENNIALS - PLANTS THAT KEEP ON GIVING by Ruth S. Foster Why are they called perennials? Because they come back each year. What's more, they bring with them memories of the folks who gave them to us. Somehow flowers cheer us. The colors. The fleeting beauty. The passage of time. And the memories. Part of the reason this website is named "Mothers Garden" is because I have flowers from my mother's garden. Some are just from memories. But others are the actual saved plants that once actually grew there. And others, gifts, from family and friends. I have my mothers bearded iris, old fashioned, but never failing. They bloom with my cousin Ethel's coral bells, and Adla's phlox, which has crowded out Diane's more delicate white phlox. The pink peony are left-overs from a garden I designed. Most welcome are Serena's blue columbine which re-seed all over, and change color as recessive gene stock emerges. Welcome blue campanula usually re-seeds, more some years, less in others. Foxglove and rose mallow too. Fragile freckled violets are from a little old man who gave me this unusual root stock just after we built our house. They have a "jumping gene" I was told, which gives them their purple spots on white petals. One always cherishes the fragile and the rare. Why I do not know. The yellow flowers of his barren strawberry grow next to a friend's edible strawberry plants that appear everywhere, though totally neglected. The chipmunks always ruin the fruit so I don't maintain a proper bed for them any more. Unfortunately the gourmet wild French fraise des bois have disappeared. As the dogwoods and crabapples bloom, so the perennials burst out from the ground with brave new leaflets checking out the weather. Old faithful ones return....with their cherished memories. However many other perennials never return, especially, it seems, the most expensive esoteric ones. One secret to preserving genetic stock is to transplant the little side rooted offshoots to make new plants. Another is to collect seeds and sow them here and there, as needed, to keep the desirable varieties alive. Also to recognize their little seedlings when weeding in summer. But the main secret of why the gift plants live while other perennials die is simple. It's because people only give away plants that reappear and spread. With gift plants, one builds a genetic pool of hardy survivors. Because most perennials bloom for only a few weeks, getting flowers all summer takes a bit of planning. It's called a Succession of Bloom. Not too difficult if one accepts the fact that different plants do well in different years. Climate, rainfall, sun, fertilizer, neglect, insects. They all affect how the plants grow and perform. In northern areas, May and June are the best flowering months for perennials. (However, different regions use different plants and have different best blooming months.) If you buy a plant in springtime with a bud or a flower on it, chances are it will bloom in spring, May and June in northern areas. June has roses as well. (A fairly new shrub rose, called Knockout, is quite amazing and flowers all summer. A double red and a double pink have been developed so far.) There are many summer blooming perennials, including phlox and reliable yellow daylilies and rudbeckia. Yellow and pink are usually hardier, but real gardeners prefer blue and white. One easy way to fill in the mid-summer blahs, plus get fall color is with annuals. Early in spring, scratch in some seeds of cosmos, cleome and blue bachelor's buttons. For fall enjoy sedum spectabilis and the second bloom of the most roses. Bought chrysanthemums are great, but don't bother to save them for they have been forced to bloom early. Next year's returns will be tall, lanky and flower around Thanksgiving. If gifts from friends don't come your way, then local Garden Club sales are the very best way to collect reliable perennials with tough genetic stock. They are more likely to come back each year and keep giving, like gift plants, because Garden Club members only give away excess plants, ones that have survived and spread. The only problem is they don't come with the happy or bittersweet memories of those whose gardens they came from.