Daily Home Renovation Tips

In Part 14 we talked about the climbing hydrangea we purchased according to the garden plan from the professional planner. These plants are climbers and will attach themselves to the brick of a house. They will also provide nice white (so we are told) flowers.

Here is the garden plan for our front garden. See if you can spot on the plan where the climbing hydrangea are supposed to go. They are represented on the plan below by the letter A.

Yes, one climbing hydrangea is supposed to go at either end of the garage wall to give some height to the front garden.

As well, we mentioned previously that we are having an extra down spout added when are gutters are replaced. So we waited until the eves-troughs were replaced on the garage wall against which our front garden resides.

Now, was there anything special about planing these two climbing hydrangea plants compared to the others? A couple of things (at least special to us).

We did the usual steps as we’ve described before about planting any of the shrubs and plants in our made over front garage:

• dig the hole a little past the depth of the plant’s container
• sprinkle some starter fertilizer in the hole
• sprinkle some loose garden soil on top
• water the hole so the roots have a nice moist soil to great them
• if a plastic container, remove the plant from the container, place in the hole
• use the garden soil to fill the holes around the plant and step (gently) on the dirt around the plant to provide a solid base
• water

Now, what was special?

This plant is supposed to be a climber that does not need a trelic; that is, we are told it will grow and climb up the brick wall very nicely. So, we tried to make sure that we planted the climbing hydrangea as close to the wall as possible to make it easy for the plant to find it’s support. Notice in the picture below with the starter fertilizer how close the hole is to the wall that the plant will (hopefully) use to climb.

Second, the plant container had a stick inside for the climbing hydrangea to use to start climbing.

What I didn’t expect was that the stick would be stapled to the plastic container. I thought it would have simply been placed in the dirt. So, this made getting the stick out with the plant more difficult. I had to separate the staples from the stick (by simply forcing from the inside the plastic away from the stick) before I removed the plant (with the stick) from the container and placed it in the hole in the garden. Here’s a picture of the staples still in the plastic container after I had removed the plant, stick and all.

Here are some last pictures of how the Climbing Hydrangea look planted and snuggled into their new home. You will notice that one of the plants seem to be hidden by the Pyramidal Yews (look for the brown stick and you will find the pant). The garden plan did not call for this. If you go back up to the top of this article and look closely at the garden plan picture you will see that the letter A at either end of the garage wall is not supposed to be behind the Pyramidal Yews.

However, the actual position of the Yews was not quite according to plan. We will see if this has any impact on their growth.

The last picture above is with the two new small additions to our garden in place. Yes, we will have to wait until they grow some to see them from the front of the house. All in good time, all in good time.

To continue with the next article in this series, simply select this link to Part 16.