Daily Home Renovation Tips

In Part 7 the triple mix had arrived and we had spread it over the reshaped, front garden as well the two small gardens on either side of our front door. We were now ready to start transplanting the hostas we were keeping and planting the first of our new bushes (is a Pyramidal Yew a tree or a bush or a shrub? If you know, please drop us a line, would ya? My wife, Cath, thinks they are shrubs but I think they are trees. But, I digress. ).

The property’s former owners really liked hostas, and we can see why. They are low / no maintenance, grow in shaded areas which is the case for our two small gardens on either side of the front door as well as in the main garden near the garage wall.

So, the first planting we did was to actually transplant one of the hostas over to the left side garden making two of them at that location. The next transplanting was to move one of the hostas in the right side garden from it’s back to it’s front. Simple enough.

Then it was the task of planting a pair of the new Pyramidal Yew’s in each of the side gardens. Each Pyramidal Yew was in a pot just a bit taller than the blade of the spade I was using to dig the holes; this left an easy reference point for me to use to determine how deep the hole for each Pyramidal Yew should be dug.

Once each hole was dug, I then used a transplant fertilizer to help promote root growth. I’m not sure if this did anything like bonemeal to lessen the ’shock’ the roots would  encounter during the transplant but these evergreens are a hardy plant so I thought we woule be OK with the transplant fertilizer as well as the fresh triple mix. So, I placed a little of the fertilizer at the bottom of each hole, followed by a thin layer of the triple mix, followed by a 10 seconds or so of the hose to water the hole so the roots of the new Yew’s had something to drink.

This was followed by removing each Yew from it’s pot, placing in the dug hole, filling the spaces around the root of the plant with more triple mix and then stepping back. Why? Well, I wanted to make sure that each plant was in fact placed fully vertical and not leaning to one side or the other. Yes, I had to adjust a couple :-)  Below is the final right side garden followed by the final left side garden, each with a pair of Pyramidal Yews and one or two pairs of hostas.

The last steps of course were to step around the base of each newly planted Yew to have the ground hold it in place and the use the hose again to both water the newly planted shrub but to also see where the excess water would run off. I wanted to ensure that I left the soil such that the excess water ran away from the house.

In the next article, the front garden begins to make it’s appearance…..plant wise.

To continue with the next article in this series, simply select this link to Part 9.