With family obligations, it took Cohen five years to add a two-year horticulture degree to a resume that already included a B.A. from Temple University and five years teaching junior high school English and geography in Camden. She would soon earn a master's degree in environmental studies from Beaver College.
Now, Cohen is a nationally known author, speaker and horticulturist with special expertise in perennial plants.
Until she retired from the classroom in 2001, she had a long association (21 years) with Temple Ambler, teaching advanced perennial design, ecology and, occasionally, entomology and soils. She also was instrumental in establishing the school's Landscape Arboretum in 2000, serving as its unpaid director for the first five years.
"In many respects, Stephanie has been the face of the arboretum," says Phil Albright, cochair of the arboretum advisory committee and another key player in its development.
But it's perennials that have stoked Cohen's career. "When I hit herbaceous perennials in class, it was a meeting of the minds," she says.
Obtuse-sounding though their name may be, herbaceous perennials are simply plants that are all green and soft, unlike trees and shrubs, which have wood. Coneflowers, asters and black-eyed Susans are some common ones, much loved because they die down to the ground in winter and sprout again in spring.
Reliable and easy, herbaceous perennials are the mainstays of many gardens.
Cohen is so enamored of these plants, she's known as the "Perennial Diva" or "the Dr. Root of Perennials," a nod to Dr. Ruth Westheimer and their similarly short statures.
At 4 feet 7 inches, Dr. Ruth is a veritable sprout compared to Cohen, who's 4 feet 11 inches. So there. Still, the height thing seems to have lent a discomfiting definition to Cohen's identity in gardening circles.
