Planting and Dumping and Cleaning. Oh, my!

A couple weekends ago I bought a bag of Quinault strawberry roots at the Calallen Home Depot. Little did I know that when I went out to plant them this morning it would start a long over-due ball rolling.

I had planned to put the strawberry roots in the trough Ernest built me a couple years ago. Unfortunately between the blue and red heelers I had rescued and the backyard squirrels, the soil level was way low. Since I had several soil-filled gallon containers with no plants living in them (heelers again...) I decided they were perfect for bringing the soil level up. Once the trough was filled I mixed in a couple quarts of swollen water crystals and planted the roots.


But the seed of finding, dumping and stacking filled, but 'empty' pots had germinated. With the neighbor finally putting up their privacy fence I can now, once again, go about my gardening unmolested and that is exactly what I did! It had been over a year since I had been able to feel free to work my plants and I feared the tangled mess of pots, plants and weeds I was now diving into.

With pot after empty pot being discovered my heart sank in direct relation to my anger rising. Every last azalea I bought in Houston on my 50th birthday, almost 2 years ago, were dead. And so were more Kings' mums than I care to figure out having lost. The good news is that quite a few mums survived as did numerous rose and oleander cuttings.

As I began dumping this new batch of pots I was shocked and delighted at the number of earthworms living in the soil I had mixed up. Huge, iridescent beauties! And gobs of babies,as well!

When I saw that my Willowleaf Angelonia had died and the pedestal container it was planted in was now 'empty' I filled it with the 'Gold Rush' shasta daisy I bought at Lowes' several weeks ago. I'm hoping it will 'spill' down over the edges.

Finally, with most of the 'empty' pots dumped, I got my clippers and went after all the volunteers that had sprang up (mulberry and hackberry trees, sprue and !ruellia!).