why i have a cottage garden

I think that the biggest frustration that I have with gardening here at Casa Coniglio is the lack of reliability or predictability of the plant material. The plant material in question is particularly the perennials, but also to some degree the subshrubs or shrubs.

 

If I have clones of plants growing side-by-side with the same irrigation, each plant can grow differently - to a different size, width or habit. Panicum 'Heavy Metal' comes to mind, where I planted a row of them, and each plant looked very different. One grew to 5 feet tall, another only grew a foot and a half. One plant flopped while others were more upright. They otherwise looked the same, so I knew they were clones and not some mistake. In this case, the reason for this is microclimate. The contrast between sun and shade is so great here, that the plants respond dramatically to small differences. A little difference in water supply makes a big difference as well. But even allowing for this, plants growing next to each other in what seems (to me) to be identical conditions can grow very differently. There isn't a gradation between plants in a row.

Another issue is the tendency of plants to die suddenly from wilt. Many of my perennials and subshrubs can be growing lustily for months or years, then suddenly wilt and die for seemingly no reason. This seems to occur randomly, and with one branch of a plant in a group suddenly wilting, and soon the whole plant is dead. The others seem fine. It doesn't matter if the plants are clones or not. This occurs with native plants as well as exotics. Plants vary in their susceptibility. Salvia pachyphylla, garden Sage (Salvia officinalis), all of the Agastache, and all of the Penstemon seem particularly susceptible. Some plants have moderate susceptibility, such as Euphorbia characias, lavender and other Salvias. When this happens, it leaves a hole in the planting plan, and I'm left with either replanting the whole shebang and waiting years for plants to get to size, or having plants of various sizes, or having a hodgepodge type of garden ("one of this, one of that"). It ruins the plan.

This happened with my Ballota pseudodictamnus recently. I took a division of the plant (original plant, second photo), and the division grew fine (above). I was just starting to get a grouping when the original plant, which I've had for years, suddenly wilted (top photo). It's very frustrating.

Some plants (so far) seem relatively immune such as rosemary, stachys, veronica, origanum, yucca, chocolate flower (Berlandiera lyrata). In the meantime, I'll have to be satisfied with a cottage-style garden. Apparently that's the way the garden wants to be.