Real Gardening

Soon I'll have to switch from the comfy indoor seed starting kind of gardening to the hard work- gardening.  I need to dig up and divide a lot of these grasses really soon.

The tall grasses are probably the most important.  They really need to be divided.  Granted, I don't know what I'm going to do with them after that.  We've got, like, 6, I think.  I'm not sure how much I need to divide them.  I could probably get away with dividing them in half, but quarters would be better.  I certainly don't want 24 separate ornamental grasses.  I guess I can just leave them in a box with a sign that says "Free Plants!"  They're great screening plants, they don't need a lot of water, they live forever.  When we dig them up, we'll need to be really careful not to destroy the Daffodils.  I think the way I planted them will help- I kept them in swaths, so they're not just randomly scattered everywhere.

This is not a project we can do next weekend.  We should at least wait until all the snow melts.  But then we need to wait for the soil to dry out.  Mike McGrath says you shouldn't work wet soil.  But I am thinking wouldn't we have a much easier time getting them out when the soil is wet?  It's not like these are disease prone plants.  It's probably best to do this when we start to see a little new growth.  The weekend of April 11th is probably best.

This coming weekend is going to be used for setting up the Gutter Garden with all the lettuces.

I also need to figure out what to do with all the Liriope.  By my count, there are 7 in the front bed and 7 in the sidewalk bed.  And they're all really big, they could definitely be divided into quarters.

I'm not really sure what I want to do with them.  I know some people use them to make a border, and a probably have enough to do that if I want to.  I kind of prefer a more natural look.  And I like having some annuals right up front in that front bed.  The vincas were amazing.  So, what I could do is just get all the Liriope dug up and divided, and then try to arrange them near the front of that bed, in a staggered pattern that will look nice and natural.

The Daylilies are about the same height as the Liriope.  I'd like to divide those, too, because I think it's about the time for that.  I don't know that they have to go in front of or behind the Liriope, necessarily.  I like having 3 swaths of space for annuals.  I can delineate those with some Liriope, and stagger the rest a little further back.  The Daylilies, I don't know, I guess I'll just kind of place them all around.

I am going to plant a Knock Out Rose right in the center.  It needs a big anchor, and that's a color that's easy to work with, and a plant that's guaranteed to do really well.  Once that's in, I shouldn't have to traipse around in there.