The Way I See It . . .: Gardening in August

August 17, 2014:
Subtitle: Celebrating with More Gardening Space Than I Know What to Do With!

Some of the most treasured items I brought upstate with me were my plants! Weeks before our move, I dug up many of the lovely Hostas and other perennials I had been growing in my tiny front yard, and put them in large containers, to make them easier to move, eventually.

The day of the move, the 14-foot truck we had reserved to move the rest of our belongings was not available (boo! U-Haul!!). We couldn't even fit all our furniture into the 10-foot truck they gave us, let alone fit all my plants in pots! We finally ended up with a trailer, in addition to the truck, so my plants got to go with us! Whew! I was a very unhappy camper for a while when I thought I might have to leave them behind!

Most of them survived being in the trailer all night, and then the 8-hour drive upstate the next day! Only two got a bit "beaten up" (and have since recovered nicely).

The plants were the first things out of the trailer after we arrived. All the rest of our stuff waited until the following morning. I lined the pots up along the west side of the house as they emerged from the trailer. They patiently sat there waiting until I had the time to dig a new home for them.

Finally, after about two weeks of unpacking and organizing inside the house, I decided to forge ahead with my plantings. I wanted to get them into the ground as soon as possible to give them an opportunity to get established before the winter. I knew they would have a tough enough time surviving a winter that was two hardiness zones colder than what they were used to, and would not survive at all, if still in pots!!

My original plan involved getting a rototiller to dig up the sod, but there was not one available to borrow, and the rental places had machines that were either waaay too big for a job like this, or not big (powerful) enough to handle the job of cutting up "virgin sod". So yours truly did some internet research on the best way to remove sod, and then set to work the old fashioned way - with a shovel!

The back of my Dad's house has a handicap-accessible ramp, and my plan was to put a 3-4 foot wide garden strip along the length of the ramp, (leaving a bit of room at the far end for propane deliveries to the large tank there)

This is what it looked like as I started...

My tools:

shovels, rake, gardening gloves, vinyl kneeling pad, and a wheelbarrow!

I didn't get very far the first day of digging.

The second day I made more progress, and I got into a rhythm

of cutting and removing the sod:

I finally finished this plot on the third day! In the meantime, I'd been having fun repotting the Rudbeckias (Black-Eyed Susans), the Coneflowers, the Salvia, the Dianthus and the Peony Bush I'd brought with me, into the newly dug plot.

On the third day, I also transplanted all my Hostas into another smaller plot I dug on the west side of the house (where the pots had been waiting).

Happy Hostas!

But the most fun of all was shopping for some new plants to "fill in" the gaps in the larger bed. Most of the perennials I was seeing in the garden centers were looking pretty straggly this late in the season, but one nice young man at Home Depot was good enough to give me a tip that a new shipment of perennials was coming in at the end of the week, so I waited, and scored well with a load of healthy-looking plants, which I promptly re-planted into my garden.

I've moved various clumps of plants around a bit over the past few days to get the effect I wanted (my main theme is yellow-gold and shades of purple) and so far I'm pretty happy with the way it's turning out. I still have some gaps to fill...perhaps with some spring-flowering bulbs or other perennials that are best planted in the spring. By next summer, I'm hoping it will look as good as I'm anticipating...

I also have some annual herbs growing in containers on the steps

Bottom step is Basil; middle step is Catnip; top step is Lavender, which actually may be a perennial and, if so, will need to go into the larger garden soon.