Sunday, July 19, 2009

8 Hours of Moving Plants and A loosestrife that does not run rampant


Nothing is safe when I start digging up plants. I have dug up at least 30 of them in the past two days.


I can just see the poor dears shaking in fear wondering if the mad woman stomping the shovel into the ground will be chopping into them next!

I planted Lysimachia punctata 'Alexander' (Yellow Loosestrife ) in the rockwall garden in 2005. It has been perfectly well behaved staying quite short and flowering in golden spikes atop that lovely sage green and cream variegated foliage. I really liked where it was planted.

It makes no difference to me if it looks good where it's at. When the mood to move strikes, nothing stops me from yanking it out and moving it to an unproven area where it may not do nearly as well. At that moment all that mattered was that I needed a plant to fill a bare spot and I thought the loosestrife would work. So I moved it.


Here it is in its new home.

I like it.
This year I am paying a lot of attention to watering this area, so hopefully it will learn to love its new home as much as I love having it here.

Here's a little loosestrife trivia for you:

Legend has it that this herb soothes anger, or loosens strife. Hence, it's name - -loosestrife. So if you know someone who is always angry, maybe you should send them a bouquet with loosestrife in it.


To the left of the loosestrife is another bare area where I have been killing off invasive plants. I decided to put a big wave of lychnis coronaria in this area because it's easy to grow and the bare area is not in a prime location. This area gets little sun and it's difficult to grow anything here.


So I went around all the different gardens and dug up lychnis plants that were not where I wanted them. I had a couple wheelbarrow loads of lychnis coronaria.

I did my usual - dug holes, filled the holes with water, let the water get absorbed, then plopped the plant in and watered again.
I love lychnis coronaria with blue spiderwort, so I moved a bunch of spiderwort in the same area. Right now it looks a bit messy, but it should improve (at least for next year).

We finally brought out my garden bistro table today. We put it in its usual spot out in the woodland grassy area.
Now the new path we put in a few weeks ago leads right to it. I just can't tell you how much I have been enjoying that new path. It has totally transformed this area (well with a ton of work from me moving plants).
I cut some daisies and put them in a watering can for a centerpiece.


I also moved some yellow daylilies next to the bird bath.

I removed the daylily plants from this driveway garden and then filled the whole area full of Sedum Autumn Joy that I removed from my yew hedge garden. The yews have grown so big there is not enough space left for the Sedum.

I think they will look nice in late August when they form a mass of pink flowers around the Alberta Spruce. After looking at this pic, I realized I needed one more Sedum Autumn Joy in that bare spot, so I went right back out and dug up another one and stuck it in. Can you imagine how much it would have cost me if I had to buy all those sedumn? I think they are around $9 to $12 a plant in my area and I used about 10 in this garden. It's great to be able to completely change this little garden at no cost to me (other than my labor)!

5 comments:

  1. I'm getting ready to move lots of Rudbeckia. They have taken over much of my garden and even though I love them, enough is enough!

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  2. I just love the way it all looks right now! I would so love to have a big area like you do to plant flowers, I'm so limited with my little faerie garden and narrow flowerbeds at the front and back of the house. Hmmmm maybe I can replace the veggie garden with flowers??? lol I've thought of it but we love our fresh homegrown veggies too much:-) xoxo

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  3. I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed taking this "walk" in your garden today.I am resting after doing about the same thing in my yard this morning. Your things look so healthy and pretty.
    Balisha

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  4. Ahhh Zoey your garden is a feast for the eyes! I love it! Hope you take time to sit down in the garden and enjoy it all.

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  5. Beautiful, Zoey.

    I miss my Michigan daisies. I'll just have to enjoy yours!

    ReplyDelete

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