每日家庭整修技巧

In Part 22, we started the planting of our two fall additions, namely the Fireglow Japanese Maple and the pair of Sedum Autumn Fire perennials.

However, after digging and preparing the hole to receive the Japanese Maple water remained at the bottom.

 Here is why. Where we live there is a layer of clay about 3 feet beneath the soil. It’s everywhere. So, if you need to dig a hole for planting sufficiently deep that you hit the layer of clay, you should dig (at least this is what I do) another 6 inches or so to mix the clay with the triple mix.

Not only does this give an expanded area for the tree’s vertical roots to go but also prevents water from collecting and causing the new roots to rot. At least that’s my theory.

So, having done that, the tree was planted and covered with the garden soil. Are we done?

 Nope. We still have to put the supporting stake in the ground. How far should you place the stake? Well, to me it should go down all the way down into the bottom of the hole. So, that is what I did.

As you can see we were provided with very nice bamboo stakes from the garden center. The taller bamboo stake in the picture above is to simply illustrate how far down the lower stake has been placed.

Once this was done and the tree tied not once but twice to the stake, I then proceeded to plant the two Sedum perennial plants, one on either side of the Maple tree.

Our plan is in a few weeks to plant a collection of Tulip in front of the tree in between the Sedum plants. More on that later.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about what we did to the right side of our front garden in our fall planting efforts.

In Part 21 of this series of articles on our garden makeover, we talked about the progress that the Sella D’Or Day Lilies had made throughout the summer.

Today we start to talk about purchases we have made with the fall sales on trees, bushes, etc., if you pardon our pun, now in full bloom.

The garden plan we have been using to guide us in our quest called for an Emperor Japanese Maple to be placed in the front of the part of the garden protruding out on the left; specifically in the large circle with the letter E in the left of the garden plan picture below.

 While fall garden sales are a great time to get great deals on all typs of trees, bushes, etc., the down side is that your selection will likely be more limited than if you made your purchase in the spring. That is what happened to us.

We looked and looked but could not find an Emperor Japanese Maple. So, we decided to alter the plan, slightly. We were tired of having all of the garden plants up against the wall. We needed to bring the garden out away from the house. We also needed to add colour. Below is a picture of the current state of our garden.

 What we did find was a Fireglow Japanese Maple (acer palmatum fireglow). It is similar to an Emperor variety. The information from the garden indicated that it will grow to a maximum height of 4 meters / 12 feed and will spread to a maximum of 3 meters / 9 feet. It has large (although size is relative ) reddish leaves, similar in tone to a red maple’s leaves, that will turn a reddish purple in the summer to a brilliant red in the fall. Both of these colours will be complementary to the reddish brick of the garage wall.

The one concern that we have is that the information from the tag on the tree indicates it needs to be sheltered location. I don’t consider the location in our garden to be ’sheltered’. However, we’ll give it a go … together with of course the 12 month return policy from the garden center.

Now, we also purchased for the left side of the garden two annual plants, specifically Sedum Autumn Fire, also known as Autumn Fire Stonecrop. This plant has a very nice complementary rosy-pink flowers  which deepen to a coppery-red in the fall. The packaging indicates that this plant also attracts butterflies, which are a favorite of mine.

Now, in the picture above you can see our plans, specifically to have the two Sedum plants on either side of the Fireglow Japanese Maple. I always take this approach before digging the holes for the planting of plants, i.e. place them on top of the garden before planting and then stand back to see if the placement is what you really want visually. Once you have planted them it’s a little harder to replant if you change your mind.

Now, there were a couple of minor issues with the planting. Sure, we took our usual approach being (A) did the hole about 2 to 3 inches in diameter larger than that of the plastic pot containing the tree, (B) use the Vigora plant starter fertilizer at the bottom of the new hole, (C) cover the fertilizer with a small covering of triple mix and then (D) some water on top so the new roots of the new plant will immediately have a very moist starter home.

However, look at the picture above once these above 4 steps. This was about 3 minutes after I had slightly watered the new hole for the tree.

What gives? I said slightly watered.

I’ll explain why the water remains tomorrow. To continue to the next article in this series, simply select this link to Part 23.