Garden rescues are starting to become a specialty of mine; tell me that some place will be sold, or some area is about to become the next section of a long-planned development, and I’m immediately thinking of how I can gather some seeds, take a cutting, grab a shovel….
Will those roses survive bare-root? The Rose-Rustlers seem to have good luck with that — let’s give it a try! That Blue Bunny hydrangea from Avant Gardens? Sure — pot it up! Rhody cuttings go to Van Veen‘s; ferns are dormant and therefore eminently portable; hey, that iris tuber looks mighty healthy and the ground is still soft enough around it to pry some out….
My father gives me a tall container filled with shredded documents and beloved dahlias. And more gardening tools. Okay, I’ll do my best with them all.
Here you see my grandmother’s gardening tools, my great-great-great aunt’s currant bush, and a section of where the mint had been growing in my yard [see various posts about how much I hate lawns/lawnmowing].
The currant bush is especially interesting because of its resurgence: a neighbor’s maple tree shaded it out, and the bush pretty much vanished for 25 years. I thought it had died. But then the maple was taken down… and to everyone’s surprise, the currant bush sprouted up again. Sprouted, thrived, produced tart, delicious berries — jelly was once again made and savored on home-made corn muffins and toast.
It was a further delight a few days ago when I discovered that a new bush had formed from a runner, with thick, healthy roots and many-budded branches. That’s what you see in the picture above, next to its new home in our side garden.
One of its tap roots went downwards for about a foot, and then bent to the left. As I was digging out a space for it to fit, I started hitting coal fragments, and I was especially happy — the currant’s original home had been near one of the old coal/coke piles. “Look!” I said to it, crushing some of the coals and mixing them in to the soil mix I was preparing [which included dirt from the old location, Leafgro, peat moss, etc..] “It’s like home. You’ll like it here….”
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