Sandy Parrill: Side dishes and dressings

I swore I wouldn’t buy any more plants that needed potting. I had officially run out of empty pots with only one to go: a huge hen and chicks destined, appropriately, to fill a pottery chicken pot.

I only needed impatiens, rose moss, periwinkles and one six-pack of blue salvia, but garden vows hastily spoken are easiest broken. All it took was a trip to the Missouri Wildflower and Ozark Soul sale at Wildcat Park to meet a friend and hopefully find a couple of plants I’d been wanting: a couple of fame flowers, or rock pinks (Talinum rugospermum), for the rock garden and a native Carolina spider lily (hymenocallis).

With a bit of luck, I found what I was looking for. Breaking my vow came with going for coffee afterward at Joplin Greenhouse, which was my next stop. It would have not resulted in any plants not on my list had I been alone, maybe. However, I have to blame it on someone else (besides my own weak will), and plant shopping with an enabler friend led me across the bridge into the land of botanical delights and straight down the petaled path into temptation. I, of course, followed like a willing lamb — though I may have even done a bit of leading, as I am as much an enabler as my friend. I’ll only admit to so much.

First thing I knew, I was trundling a full cart of plants to my truck loaded with not only my wanted annuals, but also a petunia with a delicious double blossom like a dip of raspberry swirl ice cream and another in a nearly black red and crimson. To go with it, there was a velvety wine-red coleus I kept denying I needed, even after it stuck itself to my hand and refused to be put down until I had paid for it.

But now I am truly done. I didn’t even look for that golden heuchera, and I’m not going to. I refuse to enter another greenhouse or go to another plant sale for at least — well, until another of those troublemaking friends drags me into one.

It’s amazing how many pots I didn’t have appeared on my potting bench, as if the universe conjured them up for me on demand. Everything is now somehow miraculously potted and blooming happily on our deck or in recovery in the greenhouse: Rock garden plants ensconced with others of their kind and my long-coveted spider lily set to hold court in the stumpery garden where the trolls and fairies live, across from the little pond by the edge of the woods with trilliums, lilies and other rare woodland treasures.

Planting those annuals was another thing. The impatiens went into fixed garden containers for summer color as they do every year, so were technically “potted.” That was simple. Rose moss filled in around nasturtiums. I considered getting another six-pack or two of periwinkles just to “fill in” a couple of containers where the garden itself has taken over and planted columbines and violets. See, there I go already, and I’m determined not to step into the arms of temptation again. Zinnia seeds I haven’t yet planted or an extra rose moss or two will have to do.

Perennial borders are fully (and most, overly) packed with scarcely room for another plant, but like many a main dish, they still need “sides” (often known as companion plants) to make their presentation fully satisfying. The front of a long border on the south lawn is reserved for a rainbow of periwinkles in mixed colors, with rudbeckias, four-o’clocks and phlox behind them — and one tall native meadow rue now in full bloom and a glorious New Dawn rose on the wall in the back.

Late summer has this border filled with surprise lilies and garden mums; a tall Foster holly fills the wall corner for winter color. Daffodils and bluebells bloom there in April, with deep yellow irises in May, and it is anchored by a grandfather smoke tree. Ruggedly aged and twisted, covered with lichens and missing much of its bark, it has never failed to cover itself in a smoky mist of plumes. A huge acanthus blooms at its feet amid a swarm of daylilies. It’s one of my favorite borders.

I love making “side dressings” in the garden: lacy Japanese ferns flouncing under hostas like petticoats under dancer’s skirts, rivers of purple oxalis swirling around lilies and astilbe, golden moneywort spilling into paths and dripping off the pond’s edge. Leadwort (plumbago) covers the feet of hydrangeas and irises with blue flowers and scarlet leaves in fall; hardy geraniums edge daylilies and coreopsis with deep pink.

Blue and white violets skirt bleeding hearts, and a mix of mini hostas tacks a ruffle on hems of a group of bigger companions. Big potted brugmansia trees have a froth of oxalis like surf at their toes, and purple heart (setcresea) will spill out from under the pergola on the path to my studio. A new revelation has struck me: I’m going to save seeds of native columbine and toss them around yellow irises for a bit of extra spice.

An Empress Wu hosta division, already a good 4 feet across and come to live at Chaos, had to have a space cleared and now begs for a petticoat of her own. I have a vision of her surrounded by impatiens for her first year.

Sigh. One more trip to the garden center. While I’m there, that golden heuchera might be lurking. So much for another broken vow.