time-tested perennials, with kathy tracey of avant gardens

WHAT ARE YOUR time-tested perennials—and would you like expert help selecting others that rate that status? It’s time to talk standout plants, and on that score: Maybe the only thing I miss about my former city life and an office setting is having colleagues. I used to work on a team that included other very keen gardeners, and especially around catalog-shopping time, we talked plants, plants, plants.

Now as a rural dweller I mostly talk to the birds outside, so Skype and phone sessions have to substitute. My friend Katherine Tracey and I got into it the other day–lots of, “Have you ever grown (fill in the blank)?” or, “Did you see the new color of (insert Latin plant name)?” and then wondering aloud if each one is really a good performer or not, and worth trying.

I thought it would be fun to bring all of you into the conversation, too, so once you listen to our chat, tell us your own powerhouse plants, in the comments.

Read along as you listen to the Feb. 15, 2016 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).

Background on Kathy: When she and her husband, Chris, a master dry-stone artisan, aren’t manning Avant Gardens, their longtime retail and mail-order nursery in Dartmouth, Massachusetts—they are out helping others make, and refine, their landscapes. The nursery (which is also their home), as Katherine describes it is: “Intimate, but not fussy, with a wide variety of plants, but not one of this and one of that everywhere.”my time-tested perennial q&a with kathy tracey

Q. Part of your “job”–or really a lot of your job, both as a nursery owner and garden designer–is to identify great plants that

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