Plants are on the way!

Back in 2013!

A big order of new plants is on the way, and should arrive next week. Over 200 plants!

Along with all the plants we have propagated this year, we will have quite a number of plants to go in the ground this winter, allowing the winter rains to water them in. Planting is always my favorite part of gardening, so the next couple of workdays will be great fun.

Why do we need so many plants, you ask?

Well, we planted about 800 plants total at PRG when we started that garden in 2013. In the past 5 years, many of them have done splendidly, growing to fill their allotted spaces well. Others didn't fare so well for many reasons:

1. They were damaged by homeless encampments, theft or other damage. Sad.
2. They are short-lived "filler" plants that do need to be replaced every so often, so they don't look pristine anymore and no amount of pruning will improve them (Artemisias, I'm looking at you...)
3. They are still alive, but they're not as drought tolerant in that particular spot as we had hoped (Kniphofias, for example) so we will remove them and replace with something else.
4. They died for no known reason - we will move the remaining ones into groups and give them another shot.

That's pretty normal on the whole, and I'm pretty pleased with our plant selections overall. So we will replace the ones we expected to replace, remove the ones that don't really want to live at PRG, and bring in new plants to replace them. And as mentioned I've got lots of "free" plants we made from cuttings to add to the mix, so that will help.

A lot of the new plants will be types of Agaves we haven't grown before - small to medium sized ones which should be very happy at PRG, and super tough plants overall.

I also ordered a few new plants to put at PG too, while I was shopping. It's going to be an exciting winter!