August and September is a great time to plant perennials. Many garden centers have good discounts on full size plants that would otherwise cost your 20-50% more. As night cools down there is less stress on perennials to establish themselves. As with trees, a good time to plant a tree is in the fall. Many perennials that you find in a garden center now are usually almost growing out of their pots. You may be able to divide them now and get two or three plants from one pot for the price of one. You might also collect seeds from the plant and germinate more plants in the spring. Look at it this way, you get a full size plant, maybe divide it 1-2-3 times, and collect the seed. Why not maximize your dollar.? This is a good time to talk to your neighbors and offer to swap this for that. Not only do you increase good communication skills with your neighbors but you create a interest level that may enhance other neighbors to create a perennial network. Some diehard gardeners may have old favorites that are sitting in gardens that are begging to be split.
Garden centers often carry the main line perennials, but the oldie goldies tend to fall by the wayside. Dare to be different and introduce not so common perennials. You might just find some eager neighbors wanting to trade their special goldies as well. I have found when it comes to talking about flowers in general some one knows something you don’t know. Be open and learn from them and when the opportunity arises share a blurb of information with them.
When customers come out to the Garden Center I ask a lot of questions. Usually the amateur gardener knows something that I don’t know.
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