big planting day

Today I got A LOT planted!

I started out by watering everything and doing a little weeding. I also rearranged the porch plants slightly, putting the two pots that STILL have paperwhite foilage with pansies peeking through down in the foundation bed on the ajuga side. Then I switched to doing some more weeding in the camellia bed. I am ready to add more mulch, but I want to put down a layer of newspaper first and I don't have enough newspaper. I'm planning on buying the Sunday paper tomorrow!

At that point, I decided it was finally time to tackle the yews. I spent quite a while with mom helping me measure out where exactly I wanted them to be on the corner of the bed. It took quite a while to get the hole for the yew dug, due in part to A LOT of tree roots. Of course, the whole perennial bed thing only came about because of how disturbed the soil was from me cutting down the two little trees and trying to pull all their roots out. After all the work planting the yew, I was quite hot (it was 82 today) and tired and it was definately lunch time. I did take the 6 coral bells I had and set them around the yew. The original plan was that I would use three on each side, but to really get the look I wanted, 6 is what is really took to go the distance. While mom was making lunch, I went ahead and potted up the marigolds in one of my blue pots I bought on sale last fall. I also finally planted the clematis, planting it deep in a hole near the fence. We shall see if it even comes up. I did have some leftover dirt from that and thought maybe I could find a few plants to plant right up along the fence.

After lunch, we decided it was too hot to work in the yard for a while and took a break and went shopping. I got some terra cotta pots for very cheap at Old Tyme Pottery. Then we went to Underwoods to see what they had and ask about a fatsia japonica. They were out of fatsias, but did say that they grew well (and we finally saw one in person as they have one growing along their fenceline). They didn't have very many spring things in yet, so we left without buying anything.

After that it was off to the farmer's market. I was very excited as they had a 6 back of colues! I also found two other large pots of coleus that I had to buy as well. I found some coral bells that I really liked, which were $3 or 12 for 30. Since I needed 6 at that point I decided that I just had to get 12 perennials. I had quite a hard time deciding what else to buy. I ended up getting a mallow to go in the little piece of the border that is right up against the water heater (hope there is enough sun when everything leafs out), 2 salvia to plant by the clematis and 3 balloon flowers to plant somewhere!

When I got back home, I got straight back to work. First up I planted the 2 salvia by the clematis, then I decided to finally plant the large Dale's Strain coral bell I had gotten a while ago. I planted it in the shade border, kind of in front and between two hostas. Finally I planted the mallow, but not before digging out A LOT of tree roots, including a big knot of a tree stump about the size of a baseball that I had figured I'd never get dug out. After planting the mallow, I realized the next step would be to plant the coral bells around the area, as that was all that was left to be done in that area. But, the area where some of the coral bells are to go was basically I wild onion field. So, I spent the rest of the daylight digging out wild onions and more tree roots. I got the area done just as the light was fading and then tossed some mushroom compost on top and mixed it in, then covered the whole lot with pine needles. I still need to do a little plant removal on the other side of the yew and then I can plant the coral bells and be done with that corner!

Today I planted:

1 Yew
clematis
Dale's Strain coral bells
2 Salvia (in the corner)
mallow