Gardening Tip: Mark Your Perennials

Winter-dormant perennials, like this Wild Mint, are dying back in October.

Herbaceous perennials die back (often to the ground) at some time of the year.  In hot, dry climates like S. California or Arizona, one encounters summer/drought-dormant perennials.  But cold-dormant perennials are common in climates with cold (or even cool) winters.  A cold snap often signals the end of the season for these winter-dormant perennials.

Many cold-dormant perennials (including those from bulbs) disappear entirely in winter. Unless you have a small garden – or a very good memory – it’s easy to forget the exact placement of dormant plants. This is particularly true if you’ve planted new perennials in the past year.  And you may not know what these newly-emergent perennials will look like in the spring.

The emerging stems of Dunn's Lobelia (Lobelia dunnii)

 look very different from mature foliage

In fact, emerging stems and leaves can look very different from the mature ones. An additional challenge is that perennials emerge at different times, depending on the species and weather.  To ensure you don’t mistake emerging perennials for weeds, you need to know exactly where you planted them.  An easy solution is to mark them.

Flags are a good way to temporarily mark plants.

Marking perennials with sturdy, winter-proof markers is a good idea.  And October is a great time to do this, before the plants die back to indistinguishable masses.  If you don’t have appropriate markers, at least temporarily mark the locations/names with marking flags (found at your local hardware or home improvement store).  You can replace these with more permanent markers once you have them.  

Write-on metal markers will survive the winter.

We like permanent, write-on metal markers with long prongs that insert into the ground.  These can withstand the rain, snow and high winds of winter and still be readable in spring.  We just ordered some good ones from Gemplers: https://gemplers.com/collections/landscape-nursery-marking-supplies-plant-markers-tree-tags     If you don’t know about Gemplers, this is a great mail order source for many items useful to the home gardener.

Why mark perennials?  This photo says it all!

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