Martha Stewart recently posted throwback photos on her Instagram, and the results were, predictably, flawless. Layers of hydrangeas, phlox, irises and ornamental grasses all flow together in a way that looks effortless but definitely isn’t. Basically, this is the very definition of Martha Stewart herself. The comments, as usual, were full of people asking the same question: how?
While it may be frustrating, the real answer is that it is not one thing. it is a system. The good thing is that once you understand the principles, you can apply them to any landscape, even your own garden, regardless of size. Here’s what the experts say Martha does so well.
Structure, color, texture – In that order
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McCauley Adams, Principal Designer and Owner at Ramble on Rose Garden Designcuts straight to the point: “The fundamentals behind a great perennial borders are structure, color and texture. When these three elements work together, you have something beautiful in every season, not just the peak of bloom.” That last bit may be the most important.
Anyone, even a novice gardener, can make a border look good in June. It takes a real expert to make it look good in February, October or in that awkward gap between spring bulbs and summer perennials when everything looks like they’re feeling a little sorry for themselves.
Adams is clear about what holds the border together when flowers aren’t doing the job: “Both evergreen and deciduous items that keep their shape over the winter make the biggest difference. You’re really planting for all four seasons, and structure is the foundation.”
Stop buying one of everything
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If you’ve ever come home from a garden center with seven different plants, one of the things that caught your eye, and arranged them in a border that somehow looked worse than when you started, this section is for you.
Adams recognizes this as the most common mistake gardeners make: “The most common mistake is to go to the garden center, buy whatever’s in bloom at the time, and only buy one of each. Without a succession plan and without repetition, the border is never consistent and usually looks pretty for about three weeks and then it’s gone.”
Martha Stewart’s approach is just the opposite. He works with a tight plant palette and repeats it, giving the borders rhythm and instead the chaotic energy of a plant collector who has lost the plot (no pun intended). As Adams puts it: “A tight floral palette, used with confidence, makes a border feel tailored and considered rather than collected.”
The practical package: choose three to five plants that you really love, buy several of each and plant in odd numbers.
The Succession Planting Plan
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The reason Martha’s borders always seem to have something going on is succession planting. What exactly is that, you may ask? It is the art of stacking flowers so that as one dies, another takes over. Adams maps out exactly how this relay race works:
“Early in the season, snowdrops, olives, and crocuses carry the border before many others wake up. As they fade, hyacinths, daffodils, and early flowering trees like bud and dogwood dominate. In early summer, hostas emerge along with astilbe and allium. Then hydrangeas begin their long their relay, after the big light can only bring a border from late spring to autumn.
“Late summer is when zinnias, peonies and dahlias hit their stride. As the season winds down, ornamental grasses like Karl Foerster and Pink Muhly bring movement and warmth. Then the evergreens hold the space through the winter and it starts again.” For shade gardens in particular, Adams recommends astilbe, ferns, brunnera and hosta. For sun: agastache, veronica, butterfly bush, gaura and iris.”
Planting so many bulbs can be frustrating, so try the long-handled Colwelt Bulb Planter (available on Amazon).
This is a border all year in a neat paragraph. Screenshot, print it, tattoo it somewhere visible.
Buy Perennial Border Classics
Proven Pugster Ameythst Buddleia Winners
Annabelle hydrangea bush
Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass
The place no one talks about: Drainage
Here is the thing about the beautiful layer perennial borders: die. Not always dramatically, not always immediately, but sometime in the second or third year, the patches turn brown, the plants don’t recover, and you stand there blaming the soil or the weather or your own ineptitude. And then go eat a tub of Ben & Jerry’s. it’s okay, we’ve all been there.
Emily Demirdonder, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Proximity Plumbinghe’s seen this pattern so many times that he can predict it: “The border held up well after the first year, but by the second or third year, the plants in the border were partially or completely dead. To me, this typical pattern can almost always be attributed to poor soil grading or lack of subsurface drainage.”
The culprit, almost every time, is invisible: “Water will collect just below the soil surface, causing the plant’s roots to rot before they can even form roots. It happens more in clay-heavy soil, but honestly, I’ve seen it in well-amended beds as well.”
Her repair isn’t exactly glamorous though it is effective: “By relocation or adding a french drain or the hole 30-40 cm below the plant bed can positively affect the performance of the plant border throughout the growing season, not just during spring planting.’
Martha Stewart gardens, notes Demirdonder, rely on proper grading and water management infrastructure that most gardeners never consider: “That’s not a gardening decision, it’s a water management decision. And it’s the part that homeowners miss.” To avoid too much water, try this Digital Soil Moisture Meter from Amazon.
So before you spend another penny on plants, get down on your hands and knees after a heavy rain and watch where the water pools. If it sits anywhere near your border for more than an hour, you’ve found your problem. If your knees hurt from this, try a kneeling pad like this one from Walmartthat folds up and has handy little pockets on the side for your tools.
The scale doesn’t matter as much as you think
One of the most reassuring things about this approach is that the recipe works no matter the size of the garden. Adams is clear on this: “A beautiful border can work three to four meters deep or ten or more meters wide. The recipe scales. The key is restraint: choose plants you’ll really love at different times of the year, mix those that maintain their architecture year-round with those that flow and change with the seasons, and plant whenever possible in odd numbers.”
And on the question of whether this maximalist, layered approach to planting is really coming back into fashion or just a thing for Martha: “I think there’s a growing appetite for borders that feel layered and generous, gardens that reward time and attention rather than staying away.” Which is just another way of saying: gardening takes effort, the results are worth it, and Martha Stewart has been right about that for decades. Annoying, but true.
