Making a Garden of Perennials

Making a Garden of Perennials is a book by W. C. Egan, one of a series of little volumes of handbooks for the home-maker and amateur gardener. The book defines perennials as plants that live on year after year if the conditions surrounding them are congenial. The book considers only herbaceous perennials, having stems of a more or less soft texture that, with the exception of a few evergreen species, die back each fall, new ones appearing the following spring.

Rudbeckia triloba, one of the Black-eyed Susan type, is called a good example of this class and a very accommodating plant, doing splendidly in semi-shady places. The book says that, with few exceptions, peonies and the gas plant for instance, perennials need dividing and resetting every two or three years, which should be done in the early fall or early spring, but never when the soil is very wet. The book says the tall-growing hardy phlox should be in all gardens and is permanent if taken up every three years and divided.