shrubs aplenty!

Yesterday I dispatched mom to the Happy Plants going out of business sale where she was able to pick up a bunch of shrubs from 60% off. All in 3 gallon pots and looking great!

Loropetalum chinensis ‘Pizzazz’
Nandina domestica 'Gulf Stream'
Viburnum obovatum 'Mrs. Schiller's Delight' – dwarf Walter's viburnum
Weigela florida 'Tango'
Cailicarpa dichotoma- 'Issai' (Japanese Beautyberry)

That was all good. Unfortunately, today was not such a rip roaring success. We did get about 1/2" of rain overnight, so I decided to only water the shrubs that get watered twice a week, to make sure they got a nice deep watering. When I was out doing a little watering, I noticed that the Wax Myrtle was looking HORRIBLE. The tips of the plant are still looking good, but back along the branches many of the leaves have gone brown and others are drying up and come off if you just brush against them. I am planning on calling the nursery tomorrow, as I've only had the plant a week and now it looks awful.

When my mom was getting the shurbs out of the car, part of a branch broke off the weigela, so we are trying to root it in water. I did dip it in rooting hormone before putting it in the water. I also took my hydrangea cutting and dipped them in rooting hormone a few days ago. I think they have been in water about 3 weeks now. I did read online that one lady who roots in soil said it takes about 8 weeks to know if she rooted successfully or not, so maybe they will still root. Hoping for the weigela too as it sounds like it will be quite pretty when it blooms.

Then, I made a BIG mistake. I have wanted to remove the old laundry post from my yard for quite some time. The one cut down post was fairly easy to dig out of the ground when I got a shovel under it and there was only about 4" of cement that it had been sunk into. So, I decided to dig down and try to remove the big post. Well, to make a long and painful story short, I have now dug down well over a foot, I'd say I've exposed maybe 14-16" of cement and the post is STILL IN THE GROUND. My hands are totally torn up from all the digging today and I'm exhausted. And the post is still in the ground. I put some plastic bags down in the hole and filled it in with several bags of yard waste. It will probably be next weekend before my hands have recovered enough to want to start digging again. I'm also going to get an entrenching tool to try to make digger down easier. If that still doesn't get the post out, I'm going to see about hiring Tom to dig it the rest of the way out. I've done too much work just to leave it in place and fill the hole back in with dirt.

One positive out of all this is that I did get a bunch of privet dug out from around the post, so I guess in that respect it is looking better. I did say that considering the size of the hole I'll have once I get it dug out, it is going to be hard not to plant something. But, the whole point was to open up the center of the yard even more for the dogs to be able to run. So... OUCH.