Perennial Problem

So I decided to pick up some perennials for the front garden to fill in the holes where we pulled out some grasses that were growing too big.  We transplanted the grasses in the back where they can go nuts if they want.  In case you’re not garden literate, perennials come back every year and annuals die at season’s end and must be replaced.

At the garden centre, I found a section where every plant had a little ID stick in it marked “Perennial”.  The plants looked healthy and lush and not anything like the spindly little annual flowers that are everywhere right now.  I filled my buggy.

At the counter, I asked the girl to take a peek and make sure everything I had was perennial.  “Nope,” she said.  “They’re all annuals.”

“But they all say perennial,” I reasoned.

“Oh that’s just the name of the company that grows the annuals.” She said it flatly, without the sense of irony the information obviously required.

Back I went to return all of my Perennial to their shelves.   A polite young man directed me to the small selection of perennials in back of the centre.  Not one of them was marked “perennial”.  Let’s see – annuals require replacing every year while perennials are guaranteed to “take” and are purchased only once.  Methinks the company founders were quite canny when they named their annual company Perennial.  Sigh.