Cut and Paste

One of the things we have resolved to do more this year is to use as much of the existing plants we have already for planting out rather than buy more. Easier said than done as resistance can be difficult when visiting nurseries. But doing so frees up storage space and efforts when preparing the garden for the winter months.

There are several areas in the garden that will need some replanting and plant editing, which includes the first raised bed in the koi pond area. In this bed was a rather sprawling Kniphofia caulescens. It's a good looking poker with blue leaves but they tend to only look good for a couple of months or so. The rest of the year it looks scruffy as it accumulates dead leaves which takes a long time to tidy up, plus the dead leaves seems to harbor aphids in our garden. With time being a premium enough as it is for us, it was time to let it go and be replaced with an equally good looking and much less maintenance plant. And that plant was going to be one of our existing potted Yucca rostrata.

I didn't get the chance to take a photo of the Kniphofia clump before I dug it up but to give you an idea on what it looked like pre-removal is this clump of the same plant on the third raised bed:

The plant that was dug up was a much bigger clump so took awhile to be removed, but finally after all that a suitable hole was prepared:

Ready to home this little beauty:

As it was going on a raised bed with good drainage already I didn't add extra grit on the planting hole. And based on our experience Yucca rostrata does very well on ordinary garden soil with no extra modification as long as the area doesn't get waterlogged. Also it's best not to tease out the roots when planting as they are brittle, breaking very easily if prodded too much which can set back the plant.

And voila!

A new Yucca for a predominantly blue leafed and yucca bed! A relatively quick cut and paste job.

Mark :-)

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