Perennials Take Garden Spotlight

Growing perennial flowers from seed is easy and satisfying and it is surprising that more amateur gardeners don't try it. It is a lot easier to grow perennials in July than it is to start annuals or vegetable plants with protection in the spring. That is true because perennials will grow in the open, without artificial heat, from the time the seeds are sown until they bloom. All you need do is sow the seeds in a flat or seed bed, and give them the same attention you would a vegetable crop.

For beginner, a seed flat is probably the easiest. A shallow wooden box about 15 by 14 inches will grow the seeds in an average packet. The list of perennials is long.

Potting Soil

Here are a few that are rated among the easiest to grow of the perennials or biennials: Columbine, carnation, sweet William, dianthus, Shasta Daisy, hollyhock, pyrethrum, gaillardia and delphinium.

It is best to fill the flat with a good potting soil (1/3 each of sand, peat moss or humus and sifted top soil). A thin layer of sphagnum moss sifted over the top will protect seed from fungi.

Broadcast the seeds evenly over the flat. Cover lightly with soil or sift sphagnum. Water thoroughly and place in a shady spot until the seeds germinate. When the seeds sprout, place the box where it can get at

least six hours of sun a day, plus the rain that falls on other garden plants. By fall, some of the plants should be large enough to set in their permanent location.

If your soil is heavy and likely to become oversaturated during the winter, let the plants remain in the seed flat until spring. A light mulching of straw or other material will protect the plants through the winter. If you have a cold frame they can winter there. Some plants remain green all winter; others will die back and send up new growth in the spring.

The following gives some valuable suggestions for those looking for an old-fashioned touch of green:

Milkweed - are edible in the spring when they first appear. The milkweed have no hard tips and taste sweeter if picked before they get more than 8 or 10 inches tall.

Cowslip - (marsh marigold) and mustard are also fine greens, along with a piece of good brine-cured salt pork.

Joe Pyeweed - is also edible when you use the young shoots. Do not use the roots. A mixture of curly dock, dandelions and wild leeks makes a fine spring salad.

Cattail - roots may be used in several ways as a substitute for potatoes, peeled and eaten raw or cooked or dried and ground into flour. Wild yellow lily roots when eaten raw have a taste similar to corn.

So, there is your guide to wilderness gastronomy. There are many other plants that grow wild that are edible. A fruit that enjoys great popularity is the tomato, and it was once called poisonous. But there are edible plants and poisonous plants so it is well to know them apart.

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