Martha Stewart magazines are great in showing you stunning perennial gardens.  Christie’s create those magazine cover gardens too.  What Martha doesn’t tell you is what the quintessential perennial garden looks right after it goes in and what it will need until it is “magazine worthy.”

Here is the reality check.

• Plants will not cover all the beds space immediately.
• Weeds will pop up until the desirable plants fill up the empty spaces.
• Some of the perennials will not like where they are placed.
• Some will be moved.
• Some will die.
• Some will be ugly.
• The majority of plant clumps that do thrive will one day be split.
• There will be the whacking back in midsummer for a rebloom,
• And a cut back and clean up after the first freeze.

So why does this enthusiastic client, who asked me to put only blooming plants in her front beds, do it?

Ask Martha. Or better yet check out the June 2013 issue of her magazine and  guess who you’ll see!

Christie lives in Manakin Sabot , Virginia where she manages a 3 acre garden. Her blogs are written from her 35 years as a personal and professional gardener.