Moving the Big Leafy Weeds, Planting Bubls, Logrolling

  This Hidden Lily (tumeric) plant is not the same as willd ginger. Most of the season, large green leaves grow up and multiply with the water supply. The stalks of flowers came up in the spring when I put the plants in the sunniest location.

When people order bulbs, they are looking at colorful, glossy photos of the flowers, not at shovels to be employed in digging them in.

I ordered some for us, Ranger Bob, and our lawn crew. So Bob showed up with bags of additional bulbs - oh, my aching back.

But first we had fun digging up a double stand of Wild Ginger Hidden Lily, which I call Big Leafy Weeds. They have a lot of appeal, because I got them on sale for almost nothing, and they multiply like Canna. The best part - they are cold hardy. I gave some to the lawn crew, some to the dentist's wife, and I still had more than I first planted. I am using them for green fencing now.

Earlier, I brought the Cinnabon shrub (Summersweet - Clethra) to the rose garden, leaving gaps in the bird feeding area. We adopted the two craters for the BLWs. The tall plants will thrive and multiply with watering. Another bonus - they were easy to dig up. They also seem useful along the western fence, where I would like more growth but not a lot of bending, stooping, weeding, etc.

After stalling with the BLWs, we attacked a promising spot in the front of the rose garden. Promised rain had not arrived - twice, but we had a fairly damp clay area to dig up. We dug and cleared a wide hole about six inches deep.

I opened the box for various bulbs:

1. Daffodils - colorful, yukky to animals, multiplying in time.
2. Iris - interesting, but I do not buy them myself.
3. Hyacinth - expensive and good for one year of good blooms. Why? They are fragrant so I planted them.
4. Crocus - I gave up on them because squirrels love them, dig them and replant them. They come up in the strangest places.

We ran out of back muscle but not bulbs. I get to select and soften a spot for our next attempt. Blooming bulbs are great fun and represent an investment in time and muscles. Several times people have stopped to tell me how much they enjoyed the spring display.

Our helper laughed with me about the dead Chaste Tree that is currently leafing out like it is spring.

Ranger Bob had me come over and give his roses Milky Spore, to kill off Japanese Beetles. That natural cure increases in value as the grubs die and spread the disease, which only hurts white grubs.

I was happy to receive some giant Alium (garlic) bulbs from Bob. His brother Mike came over to help load logs into the truck. I have conceded that the lumber got in the way in the garden. I noticed the soil creatures really ate into them, so I harvested bark to use as mulch. Bark also serves as potential toad shade.