Horticultural Education is best pursued in a garden with trial & error, an adventure in art & science over successive seasons. Plant variables are confusing; one learns from mistakes. “One of the darker joys of gardening,” Allen Lacy wrote in Home Ground (1984), “is that once you’ve got started it’s not at all hard to find someone who knows a little bit less than you.” I now teach garden design and plant selection -- preaching “Suit the Site” and “Fit the Space” before making aesthetic choices -- but I only knew a little bit 30 years ago. Selecting plants at a garden center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was simpler than in Eastern Mass. Fewer plants. All were tougher, for more neutral-to-alkaline soils, and cold-hardy enough for colder USDA zones 3 & 4 (Boston is now 7a). No broadleaf evergreens. Fewer variables. Selecting plants for a Macroclimate’s cold-hardiness in full sun or full shade is simpler than suiting the bright shade between. Microclimates are another variable, mini-environments for plants that can vary throughout a site... more exposed at the top of a slope, for example, or less exposed when sheltered against a south-facing wall. Microclimates can differ in sun and soil, thus different plant choices. More complex. And soil! Preparing the soil is certainly important, but fertility, tilth and moisture can be greatly amended; pH cannot, and reverts to natural levels without retreatment. Acidic New England lawns often need lime (moss is telltale sign). Soil tests are useful; mail a small sample to state agricultural labs such as UMass/Amherst in Massachusetts. (Midwestern bedrock is largely limestone, thus soils are more alkaline, and lawns do well, except there is less water, so lawns should be reduced. Acid-loving plants such as Azalea, holly & Rhododendron do not do well, even if winters were milder. Hydrangeas rarely bloom blue, mostly white to pinks, but hopeful Minnesotans throw peat in the planting hole and treat often with HollyTone, Mir-Acid or sulfur, to increase the color of blue flowers, and) I learned to first suit the site’s cold-hardiness and sun exposure, perhaps getting a soil test but usually just amending soil with peat and composted manure. I measure the site so mature plants fit spaces... so they don’t have to be continually pruned. To help myself and customers, I drew lines on 3x5 cards (now my HortLists) to create a small matrix (see item 2 below) of PLANT SIZE versus: SEASON OF BLOOM. Finally, I seek beauty. HortLists © for Trees, Shrubs & Herbaceous Perennials provide short lists of plants of specific sizes (low, medium, tall) & season of bloom (spring, summer, fall plus a 4th category of non-bloomers). Only botanical genus & common name are listed with an evergreen code (EG) and the cold-hardiness zone (z#). Three sun exposures (sun, bright shade, shade) for each of 3 types of plants (trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials) = 9 sheets. FURTHER RESEARCH The lists are useful in a layered approach to all-season interest, with lower plants in front of taller plants. Short lists of specific plants can researched. Google the genus & common name, or use the on-line plant library at: WestonNurseries.com You can visit arboreta or botanical gardens, or display gardens at garden centers, to see mature plants. Select at a nursery or garden center (even a bigbox discounter early in spring for small sizes which have not yet suffered poor care). 1. Suit the Site COLDER ZONE (USDA 2,3,4) and WARMER ZONE (5,6,7) plants are on the REVERSE SIDES of each physical sheet of paper. (I have not yet loaded the lists here; contact me for the set of nine sheets that I use in adult education classes) You can usually use colder-zone plants in warmer zones of New England; a plant hardy in colder Maine easily survives Boston’s milder winter; but a plant marginally hardy in warm coastal Boston won’t survive colder inland Maine or higher elevations. All sheets are COLOR-CODED for direct SUN EXPOSURE: YELLOW Sun (6-8 hours) PINK Bright Shade (3-5) GREEN Shade (0-2) 2. Fit the Space... then the Aesthetic The Size/Bloom Matrix matches the size of plant you want to fit a space (as under a window sill) to the season you want it to bloom: A Size/Bloom Matrix: LOW MEDIUM TALL SPRING List of low Medium Etc... plants blooming plants... in spring SUMMER FALL Also a 4th row for Low plants Etc... FOLIAGE plants without without showy bloom flower

Horticultural Education is best pursued in a garden with trial & error, an adventure in art & science over successive seasons. Plant variables are confusing; one learns from mistakes.

“One of the darker joys of gardening,” Allen Lacy wrote in Home Ground (1984), “is that once you’ve got started it’s not at all hard to find someone who knows a little bit less than you.”

I now teach garden design and plant selection -- preaching “Suit the Site” and “Fit the Space” before making aesthetic choices -- but I only knew a little bit 30 years ago. Selecting plants at a garden center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was simpler than in Eastern Mass. Fewer plants. All were tougher, for more neutral-to-alkaline soils, and cold-hardy enough for colder USDA zones 3 & 4 (Boston is now 7a). No broadleaf evergreens. Fewer variables.

Selecting plants for a Macroclimate’s cold-hardiness in full sun or full shade is simpler than suiting the bright shade between.

Microclimates are another variable, mini-environments for plants that can vary throughout a site... more exposed at the top of a slope, for example, or less exposed when sheltered against a south-facing wall. Microclimates can differ in sun and soil, thus different plant choices. More complex.

And soil! Preparing the soil is certainly important, but fertility, tilth and moisture can be greatly amended; pH cannot, and reverts to natural levels without retreatment. Acidic New England lawns often need lime (moss is telltale sign). Soil tests are useful; mail a small sample to state agricultural labs such as UMass/Amherst in Massachusetts.

(Midwestern bedrock is largely limestone, thus soils are more alkaline, and lawns do well, except there is less water, so lawns should be reduced. Acid-loving plants such as Azalea, holly & Rhododendron do not do well, even if winters were milder. Hydrangeas rarely bloom blue, mostly white to pinks, but hopeful Minnesotans throw peat in the planting hole and treat often with HollyTone, Mir-Acid or sulfur, to increase the color of blue flowers, and)

I learned to first suit the site’s cold-hardiness and sun exposure, perhaps getting a soil test but usually just amending soil with peat and composted manure. I measure the site so mature plants fit spaces... so they don’t have to be continually pruned.

To help myself and customers, I drew lines on 3x5 cards (now my HortLists) to create a small matrix (see item 2 below) of PLANT SIZE versus: SEASON OF BLOOM. Finally, I seek beauty.

HortLists © for Trees, Shrubs & Herbaceous Perennials

provide short lists of plants of specific sizes (low, medium, tall) & season of bloom (spring, summer, fall plus a 4th category of non-bloomers). Only botanical genus & common name are listed with an evergreen code (EG) and the cold-hardiness zone (z#). Three sun exposures (sun, bright shade, shade) for each of 3 types of plants (trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials) = 9 sheets.

FURTHER RESEARCH The lists are useful in a layered approach to all-season interest, with lower plants in front of taller plants. Short lists of specific plants can researched. Google the genus & common name, or use the on-line plant library at:

WestonNurseries.com

You can visit arboreta or botanical gardens, or display gardens at garden centers, to see mature plants. Select at a nursery or garden center (even a bigbox discounter early in spring for small sizes which have not yet suffered poor care).

1. Suit the Site

COLDER ZONE (USDA 2,3,4) and WARMER ZONE (5,6,7) plants are on the REVERSE SIDES of each physical sheet of paper.

(I have not yet loaded the lists here; contact me for the set of nine sheets that I use in adult education classes)

You can usually use colder-zone plants in warmer zones of New England; a plant hardy in colder Maine easily survives Boston’s milder winter; but a plant marginally hardy in warm coastal Boston won’t survive colder inland Maine or higher elevations.

All sheets are COLOR-CODED for direct SUN EXPOSURE:

YELLOW Sun (6-8 hours)

PINK Bright Shade (3-5)

GREEN Shade (0-2)

2. Fit the Space... then the Aesthetic The Size/Bloom Matrix matches the size of plant you want to fit a space (as under a window sill) to the season you want it to bloom:

A Size/Bloom Matrix:

LOW MEDIUM TALL

SPRING List of low Medium Etc...

plants blooming plants...

in spring

SUMMER

FALL

Also a 4th row for Low plants Etc...

FOLIAGE plants without

without showy bloom

flower