Garden-related lectures and classes are not a big thing with me. I work full-time, so I’d rather muddle through on my own and have my weekends and evenings free. This is probably why I’ve never done master gardener training. But as it happens, I volunteered to drive Stephanie Cohen from her hotel to a all-day perennial seminar held at local favorite Lockwoods nursery Saturday—both the drive and the talks I stayed to hear were well worth
the loss of a weekend morning.

When we arrived, my friend Sally Cunningham had just started her discussion of perennials, which included some of her favorites: vernonia, rodgersia, rudbeckia “Herbstsonne,” melittis melissophyllum, leucanthemum “Phyllis Smith,” and others. She mixes this in with maintenance and cultivation advice. There is no one better able to talk me into a plant than Sally. Then Stephanie Cohen discussed perennial garden design—which kind of depresses me—but there are a couple beds I can envision ripping up completely, at which time I will surely implement her excellent and easy-to-follow advice.

I also talked to Cohen, the author of The Perennial Gardener’s Design Primer and (new, with Jennifer Benner) The Nonstop Garden, before her lecture. This is a horticulturalist who got her start when she collected 200 houseplants in the 70s, and was forced to move outside, eventually gaining a degree from Temple U and years of experience teaching, writing, lecturing, and designing gardens. During our conversation, I asked her about:

Turfgrass: “In the burbs, they cut their lawns every week, every week, every week. I think someone who really has the public ear should say—this is wrong. So much pollution is called by all these stupid lawnmowers. In my former house, I had lirope in the front lawn and I cut my lawn once a year. That was it.  I also like these carex lawns where they look like mini-meadows.”

Native plants: “I’m not a purist; I’m not even close. Why would I plant a straight native when it’s full of mildew? People spray it and put all that crap in the air and the ground water. I’d rather they use a cultivar that’s
resistant. I like the word nativar. And I don’t care if a thug is from India, Europe, or the U.S.; if they’re thugs, I don’t want them.”

On garden books and writing them: “The market for vegetable gardening books will be saturated in one year. Every publisher you know asks, “Do you write about vegetables?” I would love to see a good herb book, that explains how to design an herb garden, how to landscape with them. A lot of people would like a plant encyclopedia that not just explains the plants, but also says ‘this is good,’ ‘this is bad.'”

On English gardens and English garden books: “The light is different, the soil is different, the climate
is different. That’s a very small country. That’s Pennsylvania. People read these books, they see a picture, decide that’s what they want, and then drive everybody crazy. Buy a book written by and for Americans. We have heat,
humidity—our sun, come summer, is so strong that some of the plants they talk about would crisp in one minute.”

Three things you’ve hoped to get across with your books and talks?

“I’ve killed plants. I think that’s important. A lot of books make it sound like everything’s perfect, then a new gardener reads them, uses them, and has a couple plants die, and they quit. That’s it. People get discouraged. The guy who comes up from the minors and hits a home run is the exception, not the rule; most of us just muddle through.  I say to people when a plant dies, that’s an opportunity.

“A lot of people almost everywhere in the country who live in suburban developments do not realize that their topsoil was sold and that they are trying to garden on subsoil. They’ve got to start there. They have to do
something with their soil; it’s horrible. Planting in it is making coffins for the plants. I don’t think people in the garden press talk enough about how to cure that basic problem.

“I don’t mean that everything’s got to be double-dug, I just mean basic amendments. And you have to know if something will survive where you’ve put it, especially shrubs or trees, once they get past the soil you’ve
amended.

“The third thing is be aware that shrub tags and tree tags are not necessarily right. I have a plant in front of my house that was supposed to be 8-12’ tall; it’s now approaching 20. Then people go to prune these shrubs that are too tall and they don’t know how to prune. Too often, gardeners think the guy with the pick-up truck knows something and they don’t. That’s how we get all these meatballs. You need to think about what the shape is supposed to be.”

When the morning was done, I had met a fascinating personality in the world of plant culture and learned about at least 5 new plants I had to have in my garden yesterday.