Re: Perennial garden reonovation?
- To:
- Subject: Re: Perennial garden reonovation?
- From: B*
- Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 18:36:44 -0400
Last year I needed to move the contents of a large perennial bed because we
were building an addition. I created a new bed in late August (very sandy
soil, amended the soil with purchased bulk compost - 9 cu. yds of the stuff
!), and then moved all the plants by first week of Sept. None of the plants
were out of the ground very long... I did also divide many of them, and cut
back the top foliage. EVERYTHING survived the winter - zone 5 northern
Michigan... (shasta daisy, coreopsis Moonbeam, peony, oriental lily, salvia,
campanula, geranium, physostegia, aster, daylily, sedum, siberian iris,
malva, ...). But - although the new soil is great and the area is irrigated,
this first year many still seem to be settling in and/or blooming later than
usual. Am expecting them to really do much better the second year.
I'm a firm believer that the better the soil, the better chance for the
plant...And if you have the energy now to do some serious soil amendment and
then keep things well watered, I'd go for it....
Beth
zone 5
NW Michigan
-----Original Message-----
From: Sharon Guzik <sguzik@lynx.dac.neu.edu>
To: perennials@mallorn.com <perennials@mallorn.com>
Date: Friday, August 13, 1999 10:11 AM
Subject: Perennial garden reonovation?
>Hi -
>
> I have a perennial bed that I'd like to renovate - I had my
>"garden assistant" dig it up for me a year ago spring and although he added
>some chopped up leaves nothing else was done to improve the soil. I
>promptly planted it with perennials and some annuals but nothing did
>very well the first season. This year I've been putting things in rather
>haphazardly just to fill up space and again nothing is doing very well
>(except the weeds, of course!).
> I've decided that the soil needs major ammending with organics and want to
>dig the whole bed up and start again. I hoped to do it this fall. I
>read the chapter in "The Well-Tended Perennial Garden" and she says its
>best to do this in the spring. My specific question - should I really
>wait, will pulling out the plants and replanting them before the winter
>disturb them too much? (Plants include Buddleia, white cone flowers
>(which never bloomed),MOnarda (again no blooms), Penstemon, daylilies,
>etc.) T he soil seems to be mostly sand.
> General question - any other suggestions or tips for this
>endeavor?
>
>Sharon
>Medford, MA
>Zone 5/6
>
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