Garden Diary/Plant Relocation

The Star Anise is at the far left  corner of the house and the empty space between the dogwood tree and the anise is where I planted the azalea baby whose parent is right behind the dogwood.

Yesterday, Saturday was an absolutely perfect day for getting chores done in the garden.  It was dry and warm,with a high of 80.  Since I won't have a full weekend at home again for a couple of weeks, I thought I should do part of "the great plant relocation " chores.  First I watered in all new plantings and the vegetable garden because it has been so dry here. We were expecting rain for today but only a 30% chance.  ( it is raining this morning and I am very grateful)

First , we marked and cut a path through the city land so that we could hit the trail to the school and walk to vote on Tuesday.  I did the marking and initial chopping, then Allen came through with the lawn mower.  Our original trail is no longer usable due to tornado debris, and the new trail is in the area that was cleared an planted with grass.

Then, Allen and I headed up to St. Clair county to check on the family home we have for sale and pay the yard man who helps us with the chores.  I collected a few stray paving rocks and landscaping stones from the back of the property. They had been tossed into the woods in a pile, leftovers from a building  project.
               
When we got home,we unloaded stones and then  I really went to work.  I dug up a Christmas fern from the front of the house, and divided it into 3 plants, then planted it at the base of our remaining oak tree, where I plan to have a natural area with lots of native ground covers.  I may add a non-native as well.  I don't think I could have too many Hellebores (Lenten roses).  I love that they start blooming in February, and then the flowers look good for months following the bloom.

After I moved the ferns, I separated part of an azalea from it's parent plant (a part that had rooted in the soil) and then planted it where the Christmas fern had been.  We need to continue the shrubs across the front of the house, so this will look much better. Because of the tornado, we had lost a camellia from that space that our friend, Eleanor , had given us in memory of my sister, Joan. 

Following that relocation, I separated a small star anise (Illicium parviflorum) from its parent plant at the front of the house, and moved it to the side of our house where I had dug up a white bottle brush buckeye to pass on to my friend, Chris, for her new shade garden.  The buckeye is now sitting in a pot waiting to be taken to its new home, and the star anise looks happy in its new place.  Star anise has wonderfully aromatic leaves if you brush up against it , or pick them, and it is an evergreen shrub that will tolerate fairly dry soil.  It can grow  to about 12 feet, and has small white star shaped flowers.  I plan to keep propagating by layering so I can add some to the back hedge as well.  Layering means to  bring a lower branch down to the soil, cover part of it with soil, then put a rock or brick over the area to keep the branch down , and wait for it to establish a good  root system. When you want to transplant all you have to do is dig down between it and the parent plant , cut the branch from the parent and lift up your new plant.  I have done this a lot with hydrangeas and the azaleas.


The oak leaves are starting to turn color and drop, so we will soon have a nice carpet of oak leaves in the natural area.  We will go over them with the lawn mower a little bit and use them for mulch around the shrubs.  I plan to collect some bags of leaves from the neighbors when they put them out and start reestablishing our layers of leaf mulch on the hillside in the back as well. Good cheap mulch!  As much as I love the look of pine straw and pine bark mulch, it can really blow the budget and our garden expenditures for this year are already way over the top.  I will be begging, borrowing , propagating from existing plants, and scavenging for quite a while!
Happy planting,

bottle brush buckeye (blooming last spring)

Gma Susie