Re: top dressing Hosta
- To:
- Subject: Re: top dressing Hosta
- From: B*@aol.com
- Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 17:10:28 EDT
The soils do vary, for sure. Your clay comments remind me of a time when my mother oversold plantaginea and needed some for dividing. She knew a lady who had a huge row of them in the side yard, so we drove over and negotiated a price to buy her whole row, for stock plants. They were old huge clumps, 4+ feet in diameter, centers died out long ago. I think the price was $0.15 per eye, back in the late 1960's. The old lady and my mom were very satisfied with the agreed upon price.
What we forgot to check was the soil - you guessed it solid clay. When I went back a couple of days later to dig them, I broke two shovels: this was before the stainless steel one I use today. We then asked the lady when was the last time she divided/moved them and she said never, she couldn't dig them!!!!!! I can still see my mom laughing, as she realized what we had.
We eventually got my younger brothers and their friends out there with a pickax and prybar and popped the huge clayroot balls out. I guess you could say we lost money on that deal. One of the reasons we washed the soil ( better word than clay slime, which is what it was) from the roots prior to dividing it.
As I think about it, those plants in clay never really dried out in the Detroit summer heat. And now I can understand why.
Banyai's Dancing Girl. I need to post the story on how Mom came up with that name. Remind me.
bruce
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