Location, location, location.
Sometimes when I'm out in the garden and someone asks me what I am doing, my best description of the moment is "rearranging the plants." And so it was this past weekend. As much as I like to try to push the edge of the shade - sun envelope, I have to admit most of my garden is dappled shade. Fortunately, there are so many native plants that thrive in these conditions. That does not stop me from trying a few sun lovers though! When I do this, there eventually comes the time when I look at the plant and say, ok, you don't love it here. Let's move. Do you do this in your garden?
Now is a great time to assess whether you have plants that aren't dead but aren't thriving either. Is it time to move them? The soil is fairly moist and still warm to encourage roots to establish but the temperatures are cooler so there is less stress on the plant. Here are a couple of relocates from my garden.
Eastern Red Cedar
This is an eastern red cedar 'Emerald Sentinel' (Juniperis virginiana 'Emerald Sentinel') This female cultivar always has blue berries. It's somewhat smaller than the straight species, growing to 25 feet tall and 8 feet wide. I initially grew it in a container in full sun where it did thrive and later planted it in the ground in part shade. Eastern red cedars do well in full sun but are said to be able to grow anywhere but full shade. I had really wanted to be able to see the evergreen tree and the berries from the window, particularly during winter.
Three years in, it's not thriving! It grew a tad taller but the foliage and berries have been sparser every year. I moved it to a location that gets twice as much sun so hopefully that will do the trick.
Mountain Mint
When I planted a few mountain mints (Pycanthemum muticum) grown from seed at the edge of a garden bed dominated by very mature eastern red cedar trees, my hope was the edge of the bed gets a good 6 hours of sun each day and that would be enough for the mountain mint to do its thing -- attract pollinators like crazy. Four years in, there has never been a bloom. They just don't get enough sun. The first year the plants were still filling out so I did not expect blooms. Each subsequent year, the eastern red cedar branches grew longer and the mountain mints grew out toward the sun, never quite getting enough light to bloom. Full sun will do these a world of good.
Sumac
I have a hard time saying no to a native plant. I would like to try them all. I have seen mature winged sumacs (Rhus copallinum) with their brilliant fall color and clusters of red berries and thought that was too good to pass up. I knew in my urban smaller garden, it was going to be a challenge. My idea was to prune the sumac as a small tree so that it would look appropriate to the space. What was I thinking?! Here it is in its second location. The first location tucked toward the rear of a garden bed in full sun made it too hard to keep track of the suckers the sumac was producing. I moved it here, to the edge of the driveway, in front of a hemlock tree, where I could keep a close eye on it. It looks so sadly out of place. This one isn't getting a new home in my garden. It needs a larger space. Right plant, right place...!
Blue Flag Iris
Early, this past spring, I removed all the plants surrounding my small pond so as to have some work done to it. I thought these blue flag iris (Iris versicolor) would be interesting near the front path in dappled sun (or shade...!). After flowering in June, the sword like foliage would add height all summer. While it's true the first year a plant is planted, it sleeps, it was oh so obvious these were not going to be happy in dappled shade. I moved them back to their original sunnier, moister location.
There are lots of reasons a plant might not do well but one of the most common reasons is getting the plant in the right place. If something isn't thriving, maybe it's time for a relocate?
Happy Gardening.
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