a new planter

Last year at this time, the back-yard got all new pavers. The back-planter had to wait, because I was leaving for Puglia. When I got back, I decided to wait until next summer because by then, the blueberries would be all harvested. The guys come yesterday and ripped out the old wolmanized 6X6 and built a new planter out of rock-slabs.

The plants in the front got severely disrupted. Two of the oldest blueberry bushes got dislodged. When the old 6X6s were removed, the bushes just fell out into the trough the guys were digging for the foundation. The fact that the plants weren’t yanked out, should mean that the root-ball is intact. I wrapped the root-ball and its surrounding soil in a plastic bag to keep it moist and prevent further damage. I replanted them today.

In the smaller section on the left, I did an experiment – I cut all the lily-of-the-valley down to soil-level and then covered the entire bed with Peat Moss. Am hoping that since the lily is a rhizome, the Peat Moss should protect the disrupted underground stems and next spring the bed should be full of lilies. (I did the same thing a couple of years ago with the blueberries and within two years I had a bumper crop.)

The small bed has the fencing, because the dogs just want to climb into it. The attraction is the blueberries in the other section. (Jack hasn’t figured out that the berries are all done. He still goes up to the plants looking for berries. Jack has a great personality, but he is not the smartest dog we’ve had.)