If you like starting perennials from seed, it looks like there are some winners in the seed catalogs to try this year. This is an inexpensive way to get perennial plants and have enough to fill out new borders.

The plant that’s really caught my eye in several seed catalogs is Knautia macedonia Melton Pastels. The crimson-red version of this flower, which likes a sunny spot in the garden, has been available from garden centers for a few years. Flowers that look like scabiosa blooms top wiry stems that get about 2 feet tall. It’s a summer bloomer here.

Park Seed says that Melton Pastels will get about 3 feet tall. The colors are yummy - purple, lilac, blue, rose and crimson - and it’s supposed to be easy to start from seed.

Both Parks and Burpee have some really pretty single hollyhocks, Country Garden and Country Romance, that are very easy to start from seed. The color mix of apricot, ivory, rose, pink and mahogany is a very nice one.

Hollyhocks won’t bloom until the second year from seed, so you won’t know what colors you’ve got until then. You may want to start them outdoors in a nursery bed and grow them on there till next year.

If you’ve got the space for more tall plants, Verbascum Southern Charm looks like a winner. The wild verbascum, or mullein, grows in hot, dry, sunny places in poor soil along roadsides. The cultivated variety should be just as undemanding, and Burpee says it will bloom the first year from seed if started indoors in February or March. Plants make a rosette of leaves at the base and shoot up flower stems that get about 3 feet tall. Colors in this mix are lavender, buff and rose, and it’s supposed to be a great flower for cutting. They also sell started plants.

Columbines are very easy to start from seed and both Burpee and Parks have new varieties. Burpee’s William Guiness is a very dark purple and white, a very striking mix. It’s a single flower and it looks like it has long spurs. It would look very well with Parks’ Irish Elegance, a very double ivory flower with a greenish blush on the tips. They look like camellias. Both will reach 2 to 2 1/2 feet tall and will grow in full sun or partial shade. These too will bloom the first year from seed if started soon indoors.

Thompson Morgan is reintroducing a fragrant columbine that dates back to 1839, Aquilegia fragrans. Single white flowers have outer petals that are tinged with blue and short spurs. T&M describes the fragrance as soft and says the foliage has a hint of apple when rubbed.

Parks has seed for a new variety of catmint or Nepeta, this one Nepeta nervosa Blue Carpet. The Nepeta mussini that I grow is very low-growing, with silvery foliage that has a pleasant smell when bruised and tiny lilac blue flowers that cover the plant in spring. If you cut it back after flowering, it will give you another flush of bloom in fall. Blue Carpet will bloom the first year from seed on 10-inch plants that spread out over the ground to form a mat. Nepeta likes full sun and a dry soil.

Too much moisture will rot out the plant.

I’ve always had luck starting perennial salvias from seed and I imagine Park’s Salvia x superba Rose Princess would be easy to get going. This rosy pink version of Blue Queen gets 20 inches tall and will bloom all summer long if you deadhead it. It’s best in full sun and can take a dry spot in the garden.

Penstemons are favorite perennial plants of mine. They bloom in late spring and early summer with little lipped bells up and down the stems. Parks is offering a new variety called Rondo that they say you can direct seed in the garden and still get to bloom this year. There aren’t many perennials that will do that. The plants will get 16 inches tall and the color mix is pink, red, lilac and purple. It’s supposed to be a good cutting flower. They grow well in full to part sun.

T&M is offering seed for a Penstemon that they can’t identify. Known in their catalog only as “Up-named species,” this lavender-blue flowered plant will get 18- to 24-inches tall and will flower in summer. If any of you can identify it, either from the photo in their catalog or by growing it from their seed, they want to hear from you.

Besides being a main exporter of palm oil in the global market, Malaysia can also become the main source of oil palm seeds, Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia (Porim) director-general Dr Yusof Basiron said.

High quality oil palm seeds are needed by the oil palm industry.

“In the future, Malaysia may export these seeds because the market for them is big,” he said at a seminar on oil palm cultivation in Bangi, Selangor yesterday.

Porim has the largest collection of high quality oil palm seeds in the world and is one of the main provider of high quality seedlings.

“We possess good mother palms, which can be leased out for further cultivation of oil palm seeds,” Yusof said.

He said there are now 12 agencies involved in producing these seeds in the country including Golden Hope Plantations, Guthrie dan United Plantations.

However, he added, that these agencies may not be able to meet all the demands.

There are plenty of opportunities for bumiputera entrepreneurs in the business of providing oil palm seeds for cultivation, he added.

He urged Bumiputera entrepreneurs, including members of the National Cooperative Organisation of Malaysia (Angkasa), to partake in oil palm seeds cultivation.

In his speech, Yusof said that the opening of the Advanced Technology Centre in May next year will see Porim shifting its focus towards research and development and the production of oleochemical-based products.

Economically, he said, oleochemical-based products fetch a much higher value in the marketplace. “For instance, a 600gm body lotion, which is an oleochemical-based product, costs RM8 compared with cooking oil, a palm olein product, which is priced at RM3.50 a kg.”

Another area which has tremendous potential is the use of bio-mass of oil palm.

Only few days until Christmas! In case you’re like me and haven’t started to think about gifts here are a few ideas for that green-thumb friend.

Now would be a good time to take inventory of your hand garden tools and get them ready for the weeks of hard work ahead.

Just look at the site hand-garden-tools.com

Quality is the name of the game when buying all garden tools and equipment. If secateurs are lightweight and top-of-the-range they will last a lifetime. Pruning saws should cut on the forward and backward strokes.

Add a spade, garden rake, long and short-armed loppers, a garden hoe, cultivating tools, edging shears, a leaf and gravel rake, mattock, digging and gardening fork, wheelbarrow, bucket, trowel, a garden weasel, broom, watering can and small hand-digging fork.

Really serious gardeners would be delighted with a shredder, electric hedge shears or lawn trimmer.

Winter is a good time to sharpen blades and change oil and filters, unless you did all this work before putting the equipment away for the winter.

Power equipment should get plenty of attention before the season starts. Follow owner’s manuals for getting lawn mowers, tillers and the like ready for spring use.

Give all lawn and gardening equipment a “once-over” before tilling the garden or mowing the lawn. Longer equipment life and a safe work environment will be your reward. Inspect for loose bolts and screws. Lubricate moving parts. Check for frayed electrical cords and broken insulation. Be sure that all extension cords have three prongs. Change the oil even if it looks clean and clean or replace the air filter. Sharpen the mower blade. Replace spark plugs if they are fouled. Hard-starting engines probably were stored with gas in the tanks, and a visit to the repair shop will be in order. Read the service manual. If you totaled the cost for all the power and hand garden tools you own, it would represent quite an investment. Protect that investment by spending one day of service this spring for hours of trouble-free performance.

Judith Siegel gave herself two presents when she turned the narrow yard behind her house into a hidden garden (above). One was an inviting outdoor room, cozy with color, fragrance, and the sound of water. The other was enough privacy to dine on the patio, or just relax with coffee and a newspaperfor a-while. Judith laughs. "I can’t stay there and read because I jump up and start gardening."

In the beginning, nine years ago, Judith had privacy and no reason to use it. "The backyard was an ugly, square patio, with a bent-grass lawn and a hedge on two sides." Why so spare? A previous owner was allergic to flowers. Judith wanted color, but nothing seemed to thrive at the foot of the hedge. She coped. "I grew lots of things in pots, and every year I took out a little more of the lawn."

Finally, Judith and her husband Howard agreed the yard need a big makeover. She had joined the Perennial Society of Northern Ohio and learned how perennial beds can offer color and fragrance from spring through fall. She hired David Bier, a landscape architect, and told him she wanted a place to live outdoors, complete with perennials, water, privacy, and a view of her Cleveland neighborhood.

To make room for plants and open the view, the hedge had to go. "That was a big step, taking out a mature hedge that some people would die for." Judith decided to leave the side of the hedge that ran along the property line, screening the neighbor’s house. David recommended making a mound of dirt, a berm, to replace the other side. "The berm clinched it," Judith says. Farewell, hedge. Now, a path from the sidewalk (above) leads across the yard and around the berm on its way to the hidden garden. small yard will look and feel roomier when it’s divided into several pieces, each with a different style and purpose. Judith’s hidden garden has three. The sweep of lawn in the center sets off the beds around it and lets Judith see the whole garden from inside the house. The path from the street flows into a patio that sits next to the house (bottom, far right). Across the lawn from the house, there’s a stone-paved alcove with a garden bench (right). All this in a yard that’s less than 30 feet wide and feels much bigger. In three words, the trick is: add by dividing.

The path and the lawn turn around the berm on the right to enter the hidden garden. On the left, a hedge of hemlocks, a perennial bed, and vine-covered arbors screen the neighbor’s house. A Mugho pine accents the end of the berm and pachysandra spreads a tidy, evergreen carpet beside the path. Mugho pine is slowgrowing and short, good for a tight spot.

A parade of arbors heightens the illusion of roominess. Built of pressure-treated posts topped with sturdy lath, they add a third dimension to the garden, rising high above the shrubs and perennials. (A small tree can also enliven a bed without crowding other plants.) On purpose, the tallest arbors are at the back of the yard. Judith says, "You look under the ones that are closer to the house and see the other ones going around the curve of the bed. That makes the yard feel wider."

Judith dedicated the bench to the memory of her mother. Placed in the shade and surrounded by bloom, the bench attracts visitors. "People like to sit in that enclosed little area."

Judith Siegel has discovered a way to help a clematis climb a post. The result is a beautiful column of leaves and flowers, wrapped neatly around the post from bottom to top.

A clematis needs help on a post because it dings and climbs in an unusual way. When the stem of a new leaf touches something, it curls, trying to wrap around it. (See illustration, above right). The stem is short, so it can’t grab anything thicker than about one-half inch, which rules out most lattices and all posts. In nature, clematis climbs on shrubs and trees.

Judith lees her vines climb on plastic bird netting. She fastens the netting around the post (right with a staple every foot or two and lets it stand away from the post so the leaves have room to wrap around the mesh. Judith’s trick will work in other places-on a tree trunk, a porch column, or a fence.

The pond nestles into the back of the berm. Pushed by a submerged pump, water circulates through a tube to the top of a broad, flat rock, then cascades into the pond, filling the garden with a pink-flowered variety.

Judith entertains on the patio (bottom left) hidden by the berm. For height, she grows a few big perennials, including Joe-Pye weed, which can reach 8 feet tall. "I can still see the neighborhood, but the patio is hidden from the street." The plan (below) shows how the lawn and the path climb the slope and broaden inside the hidden garden.

Clematis Jackmanii wraps o royal robe around the shoulders of an arbor. It’s a hardy, vigorous vine that comes back year oher year, blooming in late spring and early summer for almost two mons. Any garden has room for a clematis or two because the vine has a small footprint. It can fit between plants even in a crowded bed. And on eye catching exclamation point rising above the shorter plants makes any garden look more dramatic.

Even if you have expansive perennial gardens, yard work does not have to be hard work Just ask Kathleen Nelson, whose gardens now cover almost two acres. Kathe, like you and me, hates to weed-so she rarely does. Fact is, she rarely has to. She’s got her low-maintenance, anti-weed method down to a science. But it’s not rocket science. It’s simple stuff-stuff that saves her so much time that right now she is off planting more and more flowers.

Kathe fought tenacious invaders for two years. "Then a friend brought a truckload of mulch. That’s when the garden began," she says. "For me, mulch was the key. I couldn’t stop myself from having huge gardens. With mulch, I could keep weeds under control-so I could have even more gardens."

"When I first started gardening, I just kept weeding," says Kathe Nelson. "I had an incredible mess, and I struggled." Then she discovered the wonders of mulch.

Mulch keeps water from evaporating, deprives weed seeds of light, and prevents germination, Kathe says. She recommends at least an inch of mulch in flower beds, and as much as two.

But don’t overdo your mulching, she cautions: Huge piles will prevent deeply buried roots from receiving oxygen. Kathe uses several kinds of mulch: sawmill chips, shredded tree trimmings, bagged pine chips, buckwheat hulls, and on occasion, crushed rock. And if you’ve ever wondered about wood chips depleting the nitrogen in your beds, Kathe says, relax. "That hasn’t been a problem," she says. "My plants are so happy to not have weeds that they don’t notice any nitrogen problem." A

A blanket of plants prevents sun from reaching soil, so weed seeds can’t germinate between them. Drifts also reinforce themes and knit a garden together.

Kathe doesn’t believe in being able to see the dirt in her beds. She plants her flowers thc, covering every inch of soil with perennials in a kind of living mulch.

Kathe replenishes mukhes, such as these barkfree wood chips (left), every fall. While this tall switch grass covers a lot of territory by the end of the season, it starts in spring from ground zero.

A native bowman’sroot (in flower above) is skirted by two hostas, which in turn are surrounded by a ground cover. See any dirt? Of course not.

Many gardeners today are lured into the seductive world of perennials without anyone letting them in on gardening’s shameful little secret: Most perennial flowers don’t bloom all that longsometimes only two or three weeks, and then pfft. In the nation’s shift from annual bedding gardens to beds and borders landscaped in herbaceous perennials, some first-timers are caught short with transitional dead spots in their yard, sometimes for weeks on end. This, of course, does not have to be.

By planting such long-blooming perennials as the Butterfly Blue pincushion flower (see previas page), gardeners can have enduring plants that flower-as does this remarkable pincushion, or scabiosa-from spring until frost. While other long bloomers don’t bloom quite that long, you should be able to count on a minimum of six to eight weeks for each plant recommended here. The purpleflowering East Friesland salvia (near right) is another worthy subject. Do a little mixing-and-matching of the various high-performance perennials and you’ll have wall-to-wall flowers throughout the growing season.

Hybrid yarrow

The cream yellow Moonshine achillea, or yarrow (far left) and its yellow-yellow cousin Coronation Gold (near left) are middle- or backof-the-border plants. The grayish foliage is attractively fernlike; the flower heads stunning. Plant in full sun.

Bloom time Throughout summer

Plant heights Moonshine-2 feet Coronation Gold-3 feet Gaura

Angelic little flowers climb swaying wands which grow longer and longer during the season-producing more and more wee angels. Bonus: The white flowers fade to pink, and the gray-green leaves can turn brilliant red come fall. Full sun to part shade.

Bloom time Late spring to fall

Plant height 3 to 4 feet

Zagreb coreopsis You may already know the pale yellow Moonbeam variety of coreopsis/ Zagreb is its showier golder incarnation. Full sun to light shade.

Bloom time Summer to fall

Plant height 15 inches

Dropmore Scarlet honeysuckle

This handsome vine has a multitude of trumpet flowers-scentless, unfortunately-that attract hummingbirds. Bonus: berries. Full sun to part shade.

Bloom time summer through fall

Plant height 15 to 20 feet Red valerian

Bushy clumps of centranthus naturalize freely, so watch its spread. Full sun.

Bloom time Early summer to fall

Plant height 2 to 3 feet

Verbena bonariensis

This strikingly vertical tender perennial sows itself. Invasive where hardy. Sun

Bloom time Midsummer through fall

Plant height 3 to 4 feet Luxuriant bleeding-heart

this fringed dicentra is a ferny-looking wildflower. Unlike many other woodland bloomers, Luxuriant’s foliage does not die back in summer but remains gray-green and perky until frost Full to light shade.

Bloom time spring and fall

Plant height 15 inches

Hybrid Lenten rose

These hellebores need a little babying the first year or two as they settle in, but the results are more than rewarding elegant flowers just as winter wears out its welcomoe. Bonus: In most climates, the foliage is evergreen. Full to light shade.

Bloom time Late winter through spring

Plant height 18 inches

Carydalis lutea

Yellow is a tough color to find in a shade lover, but this lacy-leafed delight will brighten almost any darkened nook with its pastel blossoms. Corydalis is another vigorous grower, which makes it easy to use as cascading filler in a stone wall. Full to light shade.

Bloom time Spring through fall

Plant height 15 inches

The Mighty Sword may speak of dese to you, but they say perennial beds to number of advent gardeners. We like variegated forms such as Yucca filamentosa Golden Sword (right) and Bright Edge. They’re evergreen, with standing 25-below-zero temps and nasty winter winds. It’s quite striking to see a yucca’s warm your window on a day to venture out. Its strong spiky form integrates into a mixed border without overpowering its neighbors. Try it up front, with rudbeckias. Bonus: a mature plant will send up a spire of creamy white flowers.

New Garden Hose

Wind can push a young tree around if it’s top-heavy or bottom-light. Here’s support with no chafing. Drive two stakes in the ground outside the root ball, and loop a pair of nylons-twisted into figure eightfrom the tree to each stake. Staple the nylons to the stakes at about half the height of the tree. Remove stakes and straps in a year.

A Boy-or Twoand His Garden

Michael plants themed vegetable gardens in a massive 30×60 raised bed. Andrew landscapes a corner his mother reserved for him in their backyard. Two boys, two gardens, one passion.

Variegated yuccas can withstand the heat of the deep South and the cold of the deep show. They’re also drought-tolerant.

Using strechy nylons to support bare-root saplings and young conifers allows for some give.

Michael Maksem of Waukee, Iowa, went to Disneyworld and came back a gardener. Maybe it wasn’t the flowers so much at first as the fact that he devised plans to charge a nickel for tours of his garden-to-be. That first year he planted a rainbow garden with many multicolored fruits and vegetables. Then he planted a Wizard of Oz garden with a poppy "field" and a witch going up in dusty-miller "smoke." Naturally there was a scarecrow. For Michael’s Jack-in-the-Beanstalk garden, he grew a sunflower that topped out at 12 feet. "It’s, like, higher than your house," he says.

Andrew Skogrand of Portland, Oregon, started off in "just a ribbon of dirt" in the shade, says his mother, Pam Lamirande. But he grew more ambitious-and his vocabulary grew, too. "I wanted a sun garden because there was one plant I really wanted: the Euphorbia Characias wulfenii." Say what? "If you know the Latin name and someone asks you what it is, you don’t just say, ‘Oh, it’s a nice one, isn’t it?’ and look stupid."

Veggies on View

The Farmer Michael Maksem began gardening at age 42. His latest plans for a themed vegetable garden involve Cinderella and a large white pumpkin.

"Gardening just comes to him naturally, says his mom, Mary Kay Maksem. Michael’s plot is organized For growth (near right. To reach his sunflowers next year (far right), "I’ll need a bigger ladder." The Landscaper "I admired Mom’s Rowers, says Andrew Skogrand."The astilbe looked like feathers, and the variegated Japanese fern looked like it had been snowed on

There is certainly no shame in having a vegetable garden, so if you are lucky enough to have the space for one, don’t feel you have to hide it. Pat Collins of Portland, Oregon, lives on a corner lot, and the only place she could squeeze in her veggies was between the sidewalk and her driveway. Her food isn’t out front but it’s not out of view either. Pat has made these beds attractive and neighborly, proving once again that vegetable gardens are not inherently ugly. She even plants a window box with cucumbers and radishes. Her little streetside farm was so handsome that her neighbor encouraged Pat to put some herbs in the ground they share between their drives.

Rising to the Job

Bulbs act as transitional plantings, providing a burst of color in early spring, before most perennials make a show. But these February Gold narcissus (left) do this and a lot more. They echo the yellows in the bracts of the Euphorbia martin and in the needles of the Chamaecyparis pisifera Filifera Aurea (splendid plants in and of themselves, by the way). The narcissus’ spiky and erect silhouette complements the mounding fluff of purple foliage and the arching sprays of the evergreen. And the yellow-yellow flowers put bold color in the blank spaces where the euphorbia-a perennial sometimes called cushion spurge-has yet to fill out.