Transplanting Pachysandra

Thank goodness for good neighbors (and we have lots of them!)  One couple, Sally and Mark, aside from being great people are a wealth of knowledge in the garden.  She's a landscape architect and he is a landscaper (sorry Mark-not sure of your exact title.)  Basically, she designs the landscape, and he gets the plants in the ground and maintains them.

Several weeks ago, I emailed them and asked if I could have more pachysandra from their yard.  Until two years ago, I was unaware that pachysandra existed or of its laudable qualities.  Pachysandra is an ever-green ground cover much like ivy, but, as my neighbors tell me, it is better.  It's lush and dense, yet soft.  It does spread like crazy, but unlike ivy or Vinca, it is easy to pull up. It likes shade but can take sun.  (Click here for more information on pachysandra.)  Being the kind people they are, they told me to come down at any point and clip some pachysandra.  So my three-year-old son and I took his red wagon, a trash bag and some clippers--oh yeah, and a plastic lawnmower--to their yard and went to work--I on the pachysandra; he on the grass.

Their pachysandra is well-established, so thinning it a bit actually helps it, so I'm told.  If you know someone with an established bed of pachysandra, you are in luck!

Here is how to transplant it.  The great thing is that you don't need to get the plants' roots.  Just snip off a long shoot and throw it in a bag.  After bringing your bag home, tie the stems into knots like so:

Dip a small hole with your trowel and pop the knot in the hole.  Cover it thoroughly and firmly, and you are done.  Our neighbors even gave us some extra Holly Tone to put on the plants.

After planting the pachysandra, I just scattered liberal portions of the fertilizer over the plants.  It will rain tonight, so I don't even need to water the pachysandra.

I hope we'll have nice, lush bed of pachysandra in a few years!

Thank you Sally and Mark since you taught me everything I wrote in this post!  And thanks for the plants and fertilizer too!

xo-
Carson

Spring Table Decorations

 A few months ago, I saw this article in Better Homes and Gardens and thought it would be a lovely project for Spring:  http://www.bhg-digital.com/bhg/201104?pg=93#pg93
 
This past Friday--in preparation for Easter--I attempted to re-created this simple project.  Believe it or not, I already had everything I needed for supplies except the three pots.

First, I purchased the terracotta pots for about $1.50 at Walmart.

Then, I filled each pot with potting soil.  I used a trowel to dig up thin layers of moss from our backyard and gently pressed them onto the soil in each pot.

A few years ago, my mother had given me the "nest" filled with soaps.  I had saved it thinking that I might decorate with it one day.  Last spring, I had seen these real eggs at a home store and purchased them.  I image you can find these supplies at Ben Franklin or other craft stores.  I already had the Pussy willow which I had purchased at Ben Franklin several years ago. 

Using pruning shears, I trimmed the Pussy willow making it shorter and stuck it into the soil mimicking the picture in the magazine. 
 

Next, I attached wreath picks (not sure if that is the proper name) to the bottom of the nest and stuck the picks into the soil of another pot then laid the eggs in the nest.

 

As the final step, I cut some flowers from a dogwood tree in the backyard and stuck them, at varying heights, into the soil of the third pot.  These flowers wilted after a day or two, so on Easter morning, I cut some azalea blooms and replace the dogwood blossoms.

Voila!  I simple project that can easily be complete in under an hour.

 xo-
Carson