Backyard jamboree
May. 16th, 2009 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lblanchardIt was a nice day to hack up a big hosta, one that's unlikely to die no matter how badly treated, so we did it.
My friend Sally gave me some pieces of this several years ago. The mother plant was right on her property line and she wasn't sure whether it was, properly speaking, hers or not, but her elderly neighbor really didn't care. So she went after the plant with a butcher knife, hacking off nine plantlets and barely making a dent in it. I potted them up, gave some away, planted some in the community garden, others around the neighborhood.
When the community garden was to be developed in 2005, I dug up a piece of one of them -- they had spread -- and planted it in one of my temporary planters, a milk crate lined with a contractor bag.
Now that we can plant anywhere in the yard, it seemed like a good idea to plant the hosta in the ground flanking the boardwalk path to the back house. It yielded three pieces easily, and probably could have yielded more, but three was plenty. We planted on on the side closest to the wall, and two on the other side. The plants are looking a little shocky but short of a direct nuclear hit are unlikely to die.
While I was at it, I heeled in all of my coleus in the various decommissioned windowboxes around the backyard. The rather pitiful variegated basil that overwintered but just barely went into another larger pot. If it catches hold I'll take some cuttings and start new plants.
The coleus are going to get culled this year. I have too many.
Roy and I walked down the building supply place and got two cups of builder's sand, gratis. Not knowing where it had been, I rinsed a cup of it several times and then boiled it for 10 min. I ran it through a Melitta filter to get out most of the water and am drying it in the upstairs oven, which the pilot light maintains at a steady 90-95F. Meanwhile, I sieved some potting soil to get out the larger bits. Nothing is too good for my hippeastrum seeds. Tomorrow will be planting day.
EDIT: We moved adolescent/adult hippeastrums from my office and from the sitting room down to a shady spot in the backyard; later I'll give them partial sun. My office looks awfully bright.
My friend Sally gave me some pieces of this several years ago. The mother plant was right on her property line and she wasn't sure whether it was, properly speaking, hers or not, but her elderly neighbor really didn't care. So she went after the plant with a butcher knife, hacking off nine plantlets and barely making a dent in it. I potted them up, gave some away, planted some in the community garden, others around the neighborhood.
When the community garden was to be developed in 2005, I dug up a piece of one of them -- they had spread -- and planted it in one of my temporary planters, a milk crate lined with a contractor bag.
Now that we can plant anywhere in the yard, it seemed like a good idea to plant the hosta in the ground flanking the boardwalk path to the back house. It yielded three pieces easily, and probably could have yielded more, but three was plenty. We planted on on the side closest to the wall, and two on the other side. The plants are looking a little shocky but short of a direct nuclear hit are unlikely to die.
While I was at it, I heeled in all of my coleus in the various decommissioned windowboxes around the backyard. The rather pitiful variegated basil that overwintered but just barely went into another larger pot. If it catches hold I'll take some cuttings and start new plants.
The coleus are going to get culled this year. I have too many.
Roy and I walked down the building supply place and got two cups of builder's sand, gratis. Not knowing where it had been, I rinsed a cup of it several times and then boiled it for 10 min. I ran it through a Melitta filter to get out most of the water and am drying it in the upstairs oven, which the pilot light maintains at a steady 90-95F. Meanwhile, I sieved some potting soil to get out the larger bits. Nothing is too good for my hippeastrum seeds. Tomorrow will be planting day.
EDIT: We moved adolescent/adult hippeastrums from my office and from the sitting room down to a shady spot in the backyard; later I'll give them partial sun. My office looks awfully bright.
