transplanting perennials
I'm new at gardening...is the fall a good time to transplant perennials or should I wait until spring?
I spent most of the day yesterday moving plants around and getting them settled in. Most things appreciate going in the ground now, where they have the winter to work on developing a root system, before spring and hot weather hits. It's supposed to be better for most plants to go in now, instead of mid to late Spring when they haven't had a chance to get used to their new surroundings before Summer's brutal heat hits them.
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opp2
- Senior Member
- Posts: 137
- Joined: Mon Jul 03, 2006 7:47 am
- Location: Greater Toronto Area-zone 4-5
I'm curious about this. I suspect when I put in my plants in the fall, (new juniper, rose of sharon) won't they stay dormant til spring in my zone?Grey wrote:I spent most of the day yesterday moving plants around and getting them settled in. Most things appreciate going in the ground now, where they have the winter to work on developing a root system, before spring and hot weather hits. It's supposed to be better for most plants to go in now, instead of mid to late Spring when they haven't had a chance to get used to their new surroundings before Summer's brutal heat hits them.
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opp2
- Senior Member
- Posts: 137
- Joined: Mon Jul 03, 2006 7:47 am
- Location: Greater Toronto Area-zone 4-5
Have you all had as much rain as we've had? I'm really starting to get concerned about my junipers and a spruce I planted. We've had a ton of rain here in southern Ontario in the past 4 weeks. So much that my lawn is squishy when I walk out there. My last juniper I planted up about 4 inches out of the ground and built up around it becuse the spot I was putting it was going to be wet anyway. The ground around the base of it (12 inches or so down) has been a virutal pond since 1st of October.
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opabinia51
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 4659
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- Location: Victoria, BC
My goodness, do you want to here about rain? We had 82 millimeters (254 millimeters to an inch) at my place in one day, elsewhere in the vicinity, they had up to 120 millimeters, in the Lower Mainland, they had up to 350 millimeters! In one day!
Lot's of flooding all over the Island and in the Lower Mainland.
My basement flooded, a colleage of mine had 16 inches of water in her basement! Two days before she was supposed to leave for a National Conference in Ottawa.
Crazy!
On the upside for my soil, I had gotten the first two layers of leaves in, each followed by a layer of a green. So, the leaves were able to sop up a lot of the water as apposed to having the rain wash all my soil away.
There was a Typhoon in the Philpines that hitched a ride on the so called Pinapple express, so the system came in and dumped all that rain on the West Coast of North America and We've been having hurricane force wind for the past few days.
Anyway, enough about my story:
In the future, a way to protect your plants from similar deluges that you had experienced, is to mulch in your plants with some sort of "Brown" mulch. I personally like leaves because they only cotain cellulose and no lignins and therefore breakdown much quicker than does a bark mulch and provide the soil with a myriad of nutrients. Leaves will hold up to 300 X their mass in water so, that is a major sink.
Also, you can take advantage of fall and winter precipitation (including snow because the land will store the melt water) by building swales acros the horizontal of any downslope on your property. I actually do pseudoswales by just digging trenches and filling them with leaves and perhaps a green like manure and topping off with soil.
You can also contour your property such that you have water catchment areas. The soil (including the swales) will hold onto the moisture for months and months to come and these structures will prevent topsoil from being washed away.
Furthermore, you will not need to water as much in the spring and summer because the water will be locked up in the soil.
You can further increase the water holding capacity of your soil by planting as many perennial plants as you can on your property (Juniper are good) to shade the soil. Also, perennial roots extend deep into the soil to mine the water and nutrients stored deep underground.
Lot's of flooding all over the Island and in the Lower Mainland.
My basement flooded, a colleage of mine had 16 inches of water in her basement! Two days before she was supposed to leave for a National Conference in Ottawa.
Crazy!
On the upside for my soil, I had gotten the first two layers of leaves in, each followed by a layer of a green. So, the leaves were able to sop up a lot of the water as apposed to having the rain wash all my soil away.
There was a Typhoon in the Philpines that hitched a ride on the so called Pinapple express, so the system came in and dumped all that rain on the West Coast of North America and We've been having hurricane force wind for the past few days.
Anyway, enough about my story:
In the future, a way to protect your plants from similar deluges that you had experienced, is to mulch in your plants with some sort of "Brown" mulch. I personally like leaves because they only cotain cellulose and no lignins and therefore breakdown much quicker than does a bark mulch and provide the soil with a myriad of nutrients. Leaves will hold up to 300 X their mass in water so, that is a major sink.
Also, you can take advantage of fall and winter precipitation (including snow because the land will store the melt water) by building swales acros the horizontal of any downslope on your property. I actually do pseudoswales by just digging trenches and filling them with leaves and perhaps a green like manure and topping off with soil.
You can also contour your property such that you have water catchment areas. The soil (including the swales) will hold onto the moisture for months and months to come and these structures will prevent topsoil from being washed away.
Furthermore, you will not need to water as much in the spring and summer because the water will be locked up in the soil.
You can further increase the water holding capacity of your soil by planting as many perennial plants as you can on your property (Juniper are good) to shade the soil. Also, perennial roots extend deep into the soil to mine the water and nutrients stored deep underground.
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Guest
I'm from southern ontario too and have junipers too the rain wont hurt them because its the roots need the water you could put leaves around them if your worried I worked at spring garden nursery in port burwell if you know where that is I know more about perennials than evergreens shrubs did work with them took cuttings off them in spring and fall I was more interested in perennials I know their latin and englis names nice chatting to a ontario person