I received my fall bulbs on Thursday. October 27. What the? I thought the supplier was supposed to have a schedule of when to send these things out so we get them in time for planting?
See, here in "the north", we have six seasons: spring, summer, fall, freeze-up, winter, break-up. Fall bulbs have to be planted in the fall. October 27 is not fall, it's freeze-up. Fall bulbs needed planting a month ago. And in any case, I winterized the summer garden on October 23, and I'm not taking it all down again for some bulbs.
So, bulbs.
Mind you, not all "bulbs" are bulbs. Some are roots, others are rhizomes. I'm not sure how a root or bulb is different from a rhizome, but a bulb is certainly different from a root. So in my shipment of "bulbs" I had one bare root (of a peony), eight bulbs (of tulip), and three...
What in the world is this thing, anyway? A bulb? A rhizome? A spore that will turn into some hideous alien creature that will eat me and the dog from the inside out?
Be that as it may, these things were marked as "plant right away, don't allow it to dry."
Anything you say, boss. Except I didn't have a planter ready for them, as I wasn't expecting them, or anything else, on that day.
I soaked the peony root, because I remember reading that it's good for bare roots to be soaked. Then I filled Planter #20, which is a 12" self-draining planter, with soil, manure and perlite. Then I planted the root, which is a rather stressful operation because first I wasn't sure which side was up, and second, peonies have to be planted quite accurately, with the crown (where the roots and stems meet) 1 1/2 to 2 inches below the surface of the soil. So now I'm haunted by the thought that my peony is not exactly 1 3/4 inch below the surface and will never flower.
The whatever-it-is, on the other hand, is fairly easy to plant. It's an Asiatic lily, by the way. Or some repugnant flesh-eating alien. In any case, you plant it 6" below the surface. Aye, there is the rub... I didn't have any planters with 6" available. Almost all my planters are only 6" deep, and that only in the centre. So I had to bring in Planter #21, where the pansies were, bizarrely, still alive. I hadn't been watering them, so they were drooping, but the leaves were still green and there were still some open flowers. October 27. I kid you not. And the other thing about pansies, they're really shallow-rooted, so it's easy to reclaim the planter for something else.
Still, I had to wait overnight for the planter to thaw. Because pansies are so badass, they can bloom in frozen soil. I kid you not. So while waiting for that, I did some maintenance that was overdue on the rest of the winter garden, namely, pears and Deng Xiaoping. I had mentioned, I believe, that they needed repotting, and that I figured it would be easy because the pears make taproots and Deng makes wide, shallow roots.
Ha.
Outsmarted by a plant again. Sigh...
The pears had indeed made taproots. And mind you, there were five pear trees, not four. Somehow one of them had escaped my eagle eye so far. I may be eagle-eyed, but apparently I'm also eagle-brained. So anyway, these five little trees had made taproots, dug down to the bottom of the planter, and wrapped themselves around and around. "Pot bound", or "root bound", as it's called. A very nasty condition that one is supposed to prevent. On the other hand, if you're making bonsais, as I am to some extent, they do need to get pot bound, otherwise they don't get stunted.
But that's not the worst! The worst part is that Deng Xiaoping had made not only wide shallow roots that had tangled into the pears, but also some long deep roots that were winding around the bottom of the pot. Woe!
Fortunately, I clued in soon enough when I couldn't lift Deng out with the potting trowel, and got smart and dumped the whole pot out, so I could shake out the dirt and detangle the roots with a minimum of damage. Like I've said a few times, I've never lost a plant to repotting yet, and so far it looks promising. 36 hours after repotting, none of the four pear trees I kept are even drooping. I threw out the spindliest one. The other four are two in Planter #13 and two in Planter #10. I know, I know... I should have culled them down to two, but I want to see which two of the four do the best, and also maximize my chances of having any live pear trees left come spring.
Deng meanwhile moved to Planter #19, formerly inhabited by English daisies. Trying to kill and uproot English daisies is a considerable endeavour, so there are still roots throughout the soil in that planter, but hopefully they'll just decay and become "organic matter" for Deng to eat. Plant cannibalism. Ew.
The next day, Planter #21 being thawed out, I dug down 6", added some bone meal and manure, and planted the three alleged Asiatic lilies.
So in all that, the eight tulip bulbs are still in the fridge, and I'm wondering what to do with them. Tulips, allegedly, can winter in the fridge quite safely, but since I've never done it before, I'm inclined to plant four, leave four in the fridge, and see which group does best. But since tulips also need 6 to 8" planting depth, I'd need to set up another deep planter, and I'm not sure how I want to approach that. If it was spring and I was just waiting for the soil to warm up, I could bury them quite shallow and then replant them in a few weeks, but it's six months until summer gardening season, which seems like a rather long time to be in "temporary" planting.
One thing I like about gardening is, you never run out of life-or-death decisions that you're hopelessly unqualified to make.
See, here in "the north", we have six seasons: spring, summer, fall, freeze-up, winter, break-up. Fall bulbs have to be planted in the fall. October 27 is not fall, it's freeze-up. Fall bulbs needed planting a month ago. And in any case, I winterized the summer garden on October 23, and I'm not taking it all down again for some bulbs.
So, bulbs.
Mind you, not all "bulbs" are bulbs. Some are roots, others are rhizomes. I'm not sure how a root or bulb is different from a rhizome, but a bulb is certainly different from a root. So in my shipment of "bulbs" I had one bare root (of a peony), eight bulbs (of tulip), and three...
What in the world is this thing, anyway? A bulb? A rhizome? A spore that will turn into some hideous alien creature that will eat me and the dog from the inside out?
Be that as it may, these things were marked as "plant right away, don't allow it to dry."
Anything you say, boss. Except I didn't have a planter ready for them, as I wasn't expecting them, or anything else, on that day.
I soaked the peony root, because I remember reading that it's good for bare roots to be soaked. Then I filled Planter #20, which is a 12" self-draining planter, with soil, manure and perlite. Then I planted the root, which is a rather stressful operation because first I wasn't sure which side was up, and second, peonies have to be planted quite accurately, with the crown (where the roots and stems meet) 1 1/2 to 2 inches below the surface of the soil. So now I'm haunted by the thought that my peony is not exactly 1 3/4 inch below the surface and will never flower.
The whatever-it-is, on the other hand, is fairly easy to plant. It's an Asiatic lily, by the way. Or some repugnant flesh-eating alien. In any case, you plant it 6" below the surface. Aye, there is the rub... I didn't have any planters with 6" available. Almost all my planters are only 6" deep, and that only in the centre. So I had to bring in Planter #21, where the pansies were, bizarrely, still alive. I hadn't been watering them, so they were drooping, but the leaves were still green and there were still some open flowers. October 27. I kid you not. And the other thing about pansies, they're really shallow-rooted, so it's easy to reclaim the planter for something else.
Still, I had to wait overnight for the planter to thaw. Because pansies are so badass, they can bloom in frozen soil. I kid you not. So while waiting for that, I did some maintenance that was overdue on the rest of the winter garden, namely, pears and Deng Xiaoping. I had mentioned, I believe, that they needed repotting, and that I figured it would be easy because the pears make taproots and Deng makes wide, shallow roots.
Ha.
Outsmarted by a plant again. Sigh...
The pears had indeed made taproots. And mind you, there were five pear trees, not four. Somehow one of them had escaped my eagle eye so far. I may be eagle-eyed, but apparently I'm also eagle-brained. So anyway, these five little trees had made taproots, dug down to the bottom of the planter, and wrapped themselves around and around. "Pot bound", or "root bound", as it's called. A very nasty condition that one is supposed to prevent. On the other hand, if you're making bonsais, as I am to some extent, they do need to get pot bound, otherwise they don't get stunted.
But that's not the worst! The worst part is that Deng Xiaoping had made not only wide shallow roots that had tangled into the pears, but also some long deep roots that were winding around the bottom of the pot. Woe!
Fortunately, I clued in soon enough when I couldn't lift Deng out with the potting trowel, and got smart and dumped the whole pot out, so I could shake out the dirt and detangle the roots with a minimum of damage. Like I've said a few times, I've never lost a plant to repotting yet, and so far it looks promising. 36 hours after repotting, none of the four pear trees I kept are even drooping. I threw out the spindliest one. The other four are two in Planter #13 and two in Planter #10. I know, I know... I should have culled them down to two, but I want to see which two of the four do the best, and also maximize my chances of having any live pear trees left come spring.
Deng meanwhile moved to Planter #19, formerly inhabited by English daisies. Trying to kill and uproot English daisies is a considerable endeavour, so there are still roots throughout the soil in that planter, but hopefully they'll just decay and become "organic matter" for Deng to eat. Plant cannibalism. Ew.
The next day, Planter #21 being thawed out, I dug down 6", added some bone meal and manure, and planted the three alleged Asiatic lilies.
So in all that, the eight tulip bulbs are still in the fridge, and I'm wondering what to do with them. Tulips, allegedly, can winter in the fridge quite safely, but since I've never done it before, I'm inclined to plant four, leave four in the fridge, and see which group does best. But since tulips also need 6 to 8" planting depth, I'd need to set up another deep planter, and I'm not sure how I want to approach that. If it was spring and I was just waiting for the soil to warm up, I could bury them quite shallow and then replant them in a few weeks, but it's six months until summer gardening season, which seems like a rather long time to be in "temporary" planting.
One thing I like about gardening is, you never run out of life-or-death decisions that you're hopelessly unqualified to make.
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