Category: Outdoors

You don’t need a van, just a wheelbarrow

Once, a long time ago, I was sitting on a porch overlooking a landscape with an acquaintance. I commented that if she removed or thinned a line of tall pine trees, she would have a lovely long view.

“Great idea! I’ll have them moved,” she said. Even though she was a woman of means, I explained that it wouldn’t be possible to move 60-foot white pines. She should either live with them or cut some down.

On the other hand, I move shrubs and perennial flowers regularly. When it’s done right, a plant barely knows it’s been moved. I have a number of reasons for moving a plant.

First, if the plant is not growing well. Perhaps the tag on it said, “sun or part shade.” Well, what is part shade? I define full sun as five or six hours of afternoon sun. Morning sun is less hot, and a sun-lover might want some afternoon sun in addition to the morning sun.

Why else move a plant? We all change our minds. Or plants grow and start to crowd out their neighbors. We get new plants and decide to plant one where something else is already growing. Moving plants is a normal part of gardening.

I have a lovely shrub called Carolina sweetshrub or Calycanthus floridus. My reference book by Michael Dirr, Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, suggests planting it in sun or shade in deep moist loam. I planted it in full sun in deep, moist loam and the leaves burned that first summer. I assumed it had been grown in a shady place at the nursery, so figured it would be fine in Year 2. It was not. Its leaves burned again. So that fall I moved it to a shady spot.

For the next three years or more my sweetshrub did not burn up in summer, but neither did it flower much. I wanted those deep burgundy wine-colored blossoms, each more than an inch across. So I finally moved it again, this time under a pear tree that allowed filtered sunshine. Perfect! It has bloomed magnificently ever since.

My technique for moving a shrub is simple. I decide where it should go, and get the area ready by removing grass or plants and loosening the top layers of soil. Then I go to the plant in question with a drain spade that has a blade 16 inches long and only 5 inches wide. I slide it under the shrub on all four sides by thrusting the blade into the soil at a 45-degree angle. On each side I give the spade a gentle downward push to lift and loosen the shrub a little. By the fourth thrust it should be ready to lift out by sliding my two hands under the root ball.

I move the shrub into a waiting wheelbarrow and bring it to its new home. I measure the depth of the root ball and dig out a hole deep enough so that it will sit at the same depth it was at originally. I dig a wide hole so that the area around the shrub will be nicely loosened and ready for roots to grow in it once I backfill the hole. I water well that day and regularly all summer.

When I water a plant I have moved, I add something to the water: a capful (half a teaspoon) of something called “Superthrive” in a watering can of water. It was developed some 70 years ago and uses seaweed extracts and plant hormones to lessen transplant shock. I find it really helps. A small blurt of Neptune’s Harvest Fish and Seaweed fertilizer in the water adds some quick nutrition. I use both liquids on all my vegetables as I plant them, too.

Any plant that you planted this year can be moved now without damaging it. It takes several weeks before roots move far from their root ball. I don’t bother with a spade when moving new things. I use my CobraHead weeder, which is shaped like a long curved finger. It gets under the root ball easily, and by wiggling it around I can loosen the plant and gently lift it out, pulling from below with my CobraHead.

When I am moving an established perennial, I am more careful. Over the years, from experience and readings, I have learned much about the root systems of common perennials. You probably have, too. Some have roots near the surface while others are more like tubers that go deep.

Peony roots go deep and are not easy to move without breaking their fleshy tubers. Peony experts say to move them in the fall, when they are going dormant. But I once moved a hedge of peonies in June with about 50 plants, and not one showed ill effects.

It is best to move established perennials in the early evening, or on a cool or drizzly day. Some plants go into shock if disturbed in the heat of the day, so avoid doing so if you can. Others, like daylilies, don’t care at all about being moved on a hot dry day.

I recently was planting my front walkway garden and noticed a rudbeckia called ‘Prairie Sun’ that was too close to another plant, so I moved it at 11 a.m. on a hot day. After lunch the leaves were limp and it was in distress. My solution? I gave it another drink of Superthrive and placed an umbrella over it to provide shade. By the next morning it looked like it had never been moved!

So go ahead, move plants. Other than big trees, there are very few you can’t move.

Featured photo: Calycanthus or sweetshrub is a shade-loving shrub that I moved twice to find it a happy home. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Gather ideas from great green spaces

One of the best ways to learn how to create a lovely garden is to see others. Visit good gardens of neighbors, great gardens near and far. I recently visited three great gardens and, as always when viewing other gardens, they gave me much to consider. The gardens I visited were Bedrock Gardens in Lee, N.H., Chanticleer Gardens in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

All these gardens had significant areas of lawn or meadow. I realize that lawns are not in favor, generally, among the pro-pollinator and bird crowd. But if you provide plenty of plants that support pollinators, I do not see lawns as bad. Each of these gardens has plenty of flowering trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals. Something is always in bloom, including both native plants and exotic ones.

So what does lawn accomplish? It provides contrast — a simple green palette — to show off the plants. Expanses of green are soothing to the eye. I can only focus on so many amazing plants before I get visually fatigued, much as I do when I visit an art museum.

Lawn also allows you to stand back to see the landscape from a distance. For trees, that is important. In a forested area, and all three of these gardens have them, individual trees are sometimes hard to see. They blend in with the others. But I need to stand back to look at a majestic beech or oak that towers 100 feet above me.

Bedrock Gardens only recently was deeded over from the original owners, Jill Nooney and Bob Munger, to the nonprofit that manages the property. Jill is an amazing sculptor who for over 30 years has created art to surprise and delight visitors to this 20-acre garden. Much of her art is painted welded steel that will delight visitors for the century ahead. She is the modern Alexander Calder of gardens.

Although I am not an artist, I do purchase and create art and whimsy for my own gardens, and you can, too. Look around at what you can use: a brass headboard from an abandoned bed; the rim of an old wagon wheel, a collection of stacked stones or a single tall standing stone buried in the ground. Stone always enhances a garden. Walls are expensive but almost worth their weight in gold.

Pathways are important to a great garden, too. They lead the visitor from one area to another. Placing art or even a bench at a distance pulls viewers forward, luring them to see what is ahead. Chanticleer has wonderful pathways through the woods that appear to be wood chips embedded in rubber. Very soothing to knees and feet.

My late sister, Ruth Anne Mitchell, taught me long ago when viewing art or gardens, “If you see a place to sit down, sit down.” So I do, and I find it enhances the experience of the garden. Not only am I less tired; often gardens surprise us with something special near a resting point. Perhaps you can design a special feature near a bench: rare and dainty plants or a small water feature.

All three of the gardens I visited made much use of water in the landscape. I am lucky enough to have a small stream that runs by my gardens. I built a bench near it, so I can listen to the burble of the water. And you can tune your brook: Place stones that hold back water, allowing it to cascade over them. Different drops create different sounds.

Years ago, for a New York Times article, I interviewed by phone the designer of the gardens at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Robert Irwin. He created a recirculating stream that crossed a path through a woodland area seven times. He told me he tuned it so that at each little bridge visitors would hear a different aquatic tune. Think of that if you have a stream on your property.

Color is very important in designing good or great gardens. I only got the eight-color box of crayons as a boy; my sister Ruth Anne got the 64-crayon box. But I have learned to appreciate all the nuances of color and how they go together. The best explanation of how colors go together — or don’t — is a book by garden writer Sydney Eddison: The Gardener’s Palette: Creating Color in the Garden (Contemporary Books, 2003, $30 in hardback). Get it if you can find a copy.

Great gardens like those at Longwood, an old DuPont family residence originally, recognize that color is important all year. But most shrubs and perennials only bloom for a few weeks. So they choose trees and shrubs that are not only sculptural in form but also have nuanced colors in their leaves. Green is not one color but many. Choose wisely.

Lastly, another way to present color all spring, summer and fall is to use annual flowers liberally. Many of these will keep on blooming in an effort to create seeds. Pots of annual flowers are used frequently in these great gardens. Pots place flowers closer to the viewer’s eye and can also be replaced with other pots if the flowers finish their displays or look a bit bedraggled.

So do visit other gardens this summer, whether at a local garden club tour or one of the fine gardens I mentioned here today.

Henry is a garden consultant and the author of four gardening books. He speaks often to garden clubs and library groups. Reach him at [email protected] or PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.

Featured photo: Formal use of lawns and water at Longwood. Photo by Henry Homeyer.