“The Well-Tended Perennial Garden”, now completely revised!
I was recently interviewed by Timber Press about the new and completely revised edition of The Well-Tended Perennial Garden. Visit the Timber Press blog for the full interview!
The Well-Tended Perennial Garden is one of the bestselling gardening books of all time. When you set out to write the first edition, did you have any idea the book would become as respected and widely used as it is?
As it is said, “not in my wildest dreams” did I think the book would be so popular. I’m very grateful for the support of my readers over the years. Writing is a very isolated and exposing practice, especially as a younger woman in a male dominated field and as a first-time author. Fighting doubt and fear of failure was an ongoing process that eventually made me stronger and more confident.
The new and completely revised edition includes new plants, new garden designs, up-to-date pruning and maintenance techniques, and a fresh new package featuring hundreds of lush photographs. Tell us more about the research you did to update the book.
The updates are based, as Well-Tended has always been, on practical hands-on experience. It was fun to add the many new plants and cultivars that I’ve been growing and pruning since the first edition. Also, it’s exciting to share some of my new design projects and the lessons of sound horticultural practices for bed prep, planting, staking, division, and pest control they inspired.
Read the rest of the interview here! or //www.timberpress.com/books/isbn.cfm/9780881928037/well_tended_perennial_garden/disabato-austclick here to purchase your copy of the new book!
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New to the plant scene at Hiddenhaven are exciting specialty cut flowers. This past season we grew 5,000 amazing sunflowers in our field. Ten different cultivars were tested. Two plantings occurred with the first on May 10 and the second on June 1, 2010. A light application of chicken manure was spread prior to planting and llama manure was placed between a few of the rows after planting. Seeds were hand planted 6 inches apart for non-branching varieties and 12 inches apart for the branching types. Harvesting started July 6th and continued until August 20th. These beauties touched so many lives bringing smiles and joy to all. Due to popular demand I’ll be growing them again this year but have upped the numbers to 6,000 and 12 different varieties—this could easily get out of hand!! Order you seeds now to bring some sunshine into your gardens.
OVERVIEW: Beautiful historic home built in 1895 in the charming German Village district of Columbus, Ohio. Client is an enthusiastic gardener but the overall design of the garden needed an update from the existing 20 year old plan. Key elements include: A keen sense of place. Heirloom, native, and fragrant, plants many which were available from local nurseries during the period in which the house was built. Mirrors placed in garage windows and gothic art piece reflect the space and increase its apparent size substantially. Custom made wooden window boxes scrolled with the same engraving that is above some of the windows on the home. Custom made trellis for utilization of the vertical space on the fence and for hiding the air conditioning units. Espalier fruit and ornament trees. Beautiful neat, and uniform, living walls for intimacy. Old Oak whisky barrel installed as rain barrel.
As plant nerds we all go through different plant fetishes. I’ve been through numerous “species obsessions” including the Geraniums, the lilies, and the Dianthus just to name a few. And currently I’m into Carex in a big way. But I’ve been in 
love with poppies (both annual and perennial) for about as long as I can remember. I even have a history of “smuggling” poppy seeds into the USA in my “unmentionables”J when returning from a year and a half of work/study abroad 28 years ago. The best germination success of annual species, for the home gardener in colder climates, seems to occur when the seeds are sown directly in February or March when the ground is free of snow. Also to ensure success I’ve learned to order fairly large quantities of seeds—one small 
packet just doesn’t cut it. I’m talking about getting ¼ lb. or even 1 lb. of seeds when available. I sow seeds of California poppy (Eschscholzia californica), Red Corn Poppy or Flanders Poppy (Papaver rhoeas), and Bread or Opium Poppy (Papaver somniferum) about the gardens in any available space. It is harder to find large quantities of opium poppy so it may require numerous smaller packets for best effect. A great source for seeds of poppies is Wildseed Farms www.wildseedfarms.com. Also remember to allow poppies to go to seed once you’ve got them established in the garden. You can even cut off the mature seed pods and spread them about in the desired location. Good luck with these gorgeous plants.
