Too late to transplant perrenials? (flowers, growing, grass, Ornamental Grasses)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have some nice xeriscaping plants and flowers that I put in at a rental property (I planned to live there for a while). However, the landlord has unexpectedly given me 30 days notice and since I was never supposed to take care of the yard in the first place (just did it since I love to garden) AND I paid for every single plant and shrub out of my own pocket AND once I'm no longer here to care for them, those plants will die anyway, I'd like to dig them up and transplant them either to my own new place or to the garden belonging to a friend. My area of Colorado can usually expect the first killing frost from mid to late October. Will this be enough time for perrenials to re-establish themselves? I've done this with Mums, but they're hardy in the first place. Any special "babying along" or extra care you might suggest?
I also have an aspen and a birch - saplings planted just at the beginning of the summer and a nice little fitzer planted last year that has been growing like a champ. These must go, as well.
You paid for that stuff, dig them up and find them a new home where they'll be happy and cared for. The alternative is to leave them behind to guaranteed neglect and likely demise.
If you lose a couple of them in the process of transplanting, well it happens. Most of them should survive being moved. Go for it.
Over a period of almost 18 months I dug up and put into nursery pots hundred of perennials, iris, daylilies and literally thousands of bulbs. No way was I going to leave such a huge investment behind, especially since we were moving to a brand new home with only foundation planting and sodded lawns.
I heeled them in at the new house by using a huge load of top soil and placing the pots up to their rims. We could not get to make our plan and plant everything for many months. I am in N.C. but heeling in is done all over the country. Get in touch with freecycle or craigslist to find nursery pots and you can do the same thing. or it might be worth it to you to buy some cheap so you don't end up moving your plants twice. or contact several garden clubs in your area and they probably have members who would love to get rid of nursery pots.
Good luck. You are a man/woman after my own heart.
ETA: make sure you don't get in trouble with the landlord for digging up his yard. I know you planted and paid for these plants but there may be some sort of obscure sentence in your lease. You might offer to sell him everything and then you can start off fresh at your new place. Just a thought.
Over a period of almost 18 months I dug up and put into nursery pots hundred of perennials, iris, daylilies and literally thousands of bulbs. No way was I going to leave such a huge investment behind, especially since we were moving to a brand new home with only foundation planting and sodded lawns.
I heeled them in at the new house by using a huge load of top soil and placing the pots up to their rims. We could not get to make our plan and plant everything for many months. I am in N.C. but heeling in is done all over the country. Get in touch with freecycle or craigslist to find nursery pots and you can do the same thing. or it might be worth it to you to buy some cheap so you don't end up moving your plants twice. or contact several garden clubs in your area and they probably have members who would love to get rid of nursery pots.
Good luck. You are a man/woman after my own heart.
ETA: make sure you don't get in trouble with the landlord for digging up his yard. I know you planted and paid for these plants but there may be some sort of obscure sentence in your lease. You might offer to sell him everything and then you can start off fresh at your new place. Just a thought.
LOL! The landlords HATE flowers and plants due to the water bill. I offered to pay for the extra water, etc.,etc., etc. But they simply dug their heels in. No water what-so-ever for a SINGLE green thing in his yard. The place was a neighborhood eyesore with a yard of hard pack dried earth when I moved in here. The surrounding neighbors all have nice middle-class homes with well tended yards. I feel sorry for them.
I offered the landlord a way to have a very nice yard at almost no cost, with professional xeriscaping installed, etc. In all due modesty, every single neighbor complimented me on the botanical miricle I'd wrought on that wasteland, and even people driving by in their cars would stop to admire my groupings of Gallardia sp and other native Colorado flowers and ornamental grasses. I'm the former director of the Denver Botanical Garden Library - not just some old bat who likes to try to plant petunias (nothing wrong with them either, of course).
What landlord could resist such a combination?
Mine. I think he's gone around the bend, so you can bet every last living green thing in the yard will be removed.
The heeling in thing would probably work in this climate too (mild Southwest). Thanks for the reminder!
But I lived 25 years in Texas and water was our most expensive utility. The water bill cost me almost as much as the mortgage during the summer. My water was turned off more than once because I couldn't pay the bill.
And I felt lucky, because the previous owner had made a handshake deal with local officials to hook up to the local public water utility. Previous to that deal that house had depended on trucked in water deliveries.
-I just recently visited relatives in central Kansas. They have been legally prohibited from ANY outdoor watering for the last two entire years. No car washing, no hoses, no sprinklers, no nothing. Local people were saving and carrying out used bath water in buckets to keep their poor little veggie patches alive.
So yeah, water costs can be a real expense and a real live three dimensional issue.
Water costs can vary a lot just depending on where you live. I live in the northwest where we get snow and plenty of rain and water costs are pretty cheap and there are no restrictions at all on water usage.
OP, you already paid for the plants, the owner or new renter will probably just let them die, so bring them with you or give them to your friend. If you lose a few it is no big deal, at least you did your best to save them.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
