Help! I'm Digging Up Plants And I Can't Stop!

Formerly a hedge:
Photobucket

Out:  Rosa 'Louise Estes', 'Coral Seas', 'The Wife Of Bath', 'Lemon Spice', 'Helen Naude', 'Purple Passion', 'Easy Going', 'Andre le Notre',  'Francois Rabelais', plus about 50 feet (15 m) of boxwood hedge.  And still my hungry shovel prowls about...

Many of the roses were excellent roses.  Some had a fatal case of Downy Mildew, which expresses itself as purple and black lesions on the canes, and yellow and black areas, usually not circular (like Black Spot) on the foliage.  A few were poor specimens to begin with, and therefore fairly hopeless. And one or two I just plain didn't love.  I must love them, because water here is just too valuable to waste.  Like is not good enough. 
Is that...could it be...room for more plants!?!
Photobucket
Something did make it into the ground instead of out:  Aloe ellenbeckii got planted today.  It was 50% off, and therefore irresistable.  A bit beat-up, but many pups, a few of which came loose in the planting.  I'll let them callus and then try to get them rooted.  The flower is rather prim, which balances the every-which-way-but-upright pup-jumble quite well.  

Aloe ellenbeckii, a little beat-up, better off in the ground:
Photobucket

The flower, rather prim:
Photobucket

You wonder why the flower stalk is no longer attached to the plant:  the Santa Anas have been howling, and the pot got knocked about and then  knocked over.  I lost the flower stem and one leaf--modest damage for a Santa Ana event--at least the plant remained in the pot, and the pot remained in the yard instead of halfway down the hill.

Also dug up, but this time to save it's little life, not destroy it, was Aloe microstigma, which was suffering badly due to the encroachment of Agave augustifolia marginata, which has proven to be a rampant spreader.  Not that this Agave isn't pretty:
Photobucket

But pups are appearing everywhere.  Not Good.

Photobucket

The little Aloe needed saving from it.  It will go in a pot to recover.

Help!  I'm pretty too!  And better behaved!
Photobucket

Oscularia deltoides is also endangered, so I took some some cuttings to root as a safety measure.   This is a lovely little iceplant type succulent with magenta stems and paler pink flowers.  The flowers are brief, but the magenta stems are year-round.  This plant will drape gracefully from a pot, froth around other plants, or be a good small ground cover.  No bad things to say about Oscularia deltoides:
Photobucket

The Agave has twenty pups visible, but I'm sure more are growing.  Yikes.  I see a need to continue digging for a while longer. 

Photobucket

Comments

  1. But isn't digging fun? And criminy, look at all that space. I don't know that agave, but what a ringer for a yucca. It's very brave of you to let go of your roses, I know how it hurts. You have my profound admiration. But it looks like interesting and wonderful things are afoot in your garden.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks like you are having a lot of fun!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your shovel looks so happy! You are much braver than I. I will still keep a plant until it is undeniably destined to die, (or in some desperate cases, when my husband's back is turned!).

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Always interested in your thoughts.

Any comments containing a link to a commercial site with the intent to promote that site will be deleted. Thank you for your understanding on this matter.