Plant moving time means hard work, tough decisions

Well, the gardening vacation was nice while it lasted, but strap on your boots and  dig out the pruners because the clock is now ticking and there’s much to be done in the garden.

I’m not talking about the traditional task of planting spring-blooming bulbs, which is always one of the last jobs I do.

Right now I have plants in pots taunting me at every turn. Perennials and shrubs that have been used in container plantings need to be put in their permanent in-ground homes. It’s a bittersweet job because it means dismantling container designs that are still looking pretty good, but the two-for-one aspect of using plants that will live on in the garden instead of one-season annuals is a bonus.

The Lemony Lace elderberry (Sambucus racemosa), which looks a bit like a slightly contorted lace leaf Japanese maple, made an excellent centerpiece in a large urn all summer, although I won’t miss it’s water-hogging tendencies.

It will find a home in the garden and be equally as interesting for years to come, assuming it avoids the fate of previous elderberries I’ve grown, which have succumbed to verticilium wilt.

In another planter, lady ferns (Athyrium filix-femina) spent the summer as the perfect textural foil for impatiens and caladiums and will be excellent additions to a shade garden in need of some new plants.

I’m also eyeing up a growing collection of tropical plants that need to earn their spot indoors. Lacking appropriate space for a large number of plants in my house, as well as a general disinterest in working too hard to keep them alive, means that only the really special plants are invited in.

The red banana (Ensete maurelli), which in its second year in the garden has again topped 10 feet tall, this time grown in the ground instead of in a container like last year, certainly has a spot. That’s made easier by the method of storage, which involves chopping off the foliage and leaving the thick stem that’s stored in the coldest and darkest corner of the basement.

A few elephant ears (Colocasia) will get a similar treatment, although they would probably be happier in a cool but bright window where they’d go into semi-dormancy. Bringing them out of full dormancy takes longer than I would hope, and the ones that overwintered in the dark with the banana last year are just now hitting their stride.

The cannas, however, won’t get such coddling. Even the fanciest varieties can be repurchased next year, so this year’s will head to the compost.

And a large bird of paradise (Strelitzia ) that overwintered last year as a houseplant is headed for a better life. Rather than be crammed into the corner of a room with less light than it would like, it has found a new home with a fellow gardener who has something that makes this whole fall routine much easier — a greenhouse.

It’s a good thing plants can’t talk. That bird of paradise would probably brag about its cozy new home to all my other plants that are about to get some very harsh treatment, and I’m not telling them, especially the cannas.