Tempted

Monday 21 July 2008 - Filed under Gardens + Nurseries + Plants

I had to do my best to resist buying this huge Cryptomeria japonica ’sekkan suji’ at Portland Nursery this weekend. I’m officially not buying any new plants until the weather turns cool and cloudy and drizzly so I can transplant at will, but this one was tempting. It’s evergreen, like most conifers, but unlike most conifers, it has golden hued foliage, can take part shade (which is all I have to offer), it’s already 5′ tall, 3′+ wide for instant impact, but it only gets eventually 25′ tall so it won’t outgrow the space I have, and it’s not a million dollars ($125 I think). It is just perfect for the bald spot I have, left by a huge elderberry I removed this spring from between my stand of bamboo and a red leafed japanese maple, and ineffectively tried to replace with some small evergreens which need years to grow in, and some quicker growing deciduous perennials which aren’t filling in as quick as I hoped because I was optimistic about the amount of sun they would receive. But buying the cryptomeria means hauling it in, with its huge heavy root ball, and making a home for it. That requires rehoming an already once transplanted and stressed canna, a small red-leafed banana, a little evergreen guy with small holly type leaves and fragrant white winter flowers with name I forget (but the plant tag did say it was forgiving of punishing situations), and the least replaceable of the bunch, a seedling rhododendron sinogrande who stands less than a foot tall but with leaves already a foot long. Rehoming those would surely cause a chain reaction, and I’d be out in the hot sun digging up half the garden, and not everything would survive the move. Countdown to fall begins now. Another 6 weeks or so of patience I don’t have, and then I can get out there and get moving.

2008-07-21  »  megan