Takoma Gardener’s been gardening her ass off lately and thinking a lot about telling you about it but too damn busy to sit down and write. But today it’s raining - sometimes a blessing for the gardening addict - and I have a chance to catch up a bit.
Now moving a plant doesn’t seem complicated but jeez, I’ve seen some pretty bad technique used by beginners and nonbeginners alike, so I offer a tip or two. A 10-year-old rhodo planted in solid clay just can’t be pulled up; it has to be released from underneath and that takes shovels and picks and trowels and an hour or two of back-breaking labor. And in this case when digging was getting me nowhere I resorted to the hosing-down technique seen in this photo - fill hole with water, wait while it soaks in, dig some more. It took THREE hosings to finally release this plant and after it was finally ready to be lifted it was too fricking heavy. Help from a passing (unsuspecting) neighbor taught me it was too heavy for us ladies and a husband had to be called in on the job - and I hate it when that happens, ya know.
Now a word about the "soil" this shrub had the misfortune to be planted in. Because this area was terraced and earth-moving equipment used, there’s no topsoil anywhere in sight. It’s all clay, baby. Now I’ve read that after topsoil removal by developers it takes a generation for the earth to heal itself but hey, this damage was done in 1925 and the soil’s as bad as ever. Why? Probably because it hasn’t been fed with gardeners’ favorite cure-all - organic matter. Instead, compost had been spread across the surface once or twice over the last 10 years and I swear to God it only made things worse. Not only has it not been incorporated into the hardplan clay beneath it; it also raised the grade by an inch or two with each application, leaving the rhodo planted too shallow. And most plants hate that, ya know, including this one, and it’s just another reason the rhodo was so hard to extricate.
All of which speaks volumes about the difference between compost and mulch. Compost is a growing medium, like soil. Weeds love the stuff! Mulch, like good old leaf mold, is organic matter that hasn’t broken down yet but gradually will, improving the soil as it does. Earthworms love it and will reproduce enthusiastically in its presence.* It’ll prevent weeds because it stands between weed seeds and the soil they need to germinate. This all seems pretty basic but a nearby town sells their compost as "mulch," so it’s no wonder people are confused.
*I have Amy Stewart’s wonderful book The Earth Moved to thank for this useful information. Now when I spread mulch every spring I know I’m not just preventing weeds, retaining moisture and improving the soil; I’m feeding the worms and increasing their numbers.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Pam 10.17.06 at 10:21 pm
I am totally addicted to leaf mulch. I pick up bags by the side of the road all of the time - here in South Carolina it’s best in the spring, when the live oaks drop their leaves. Live oak leaves are wonderful! I even snag my graduate students sometime (hey, they need breaks every now and then) and we canvas neighborhoods near the lab for bags of leaves. They think I’m nuts, but they go with me anyway. Now the Director of the lab is a leaf mulch nut (his truck every morning is filled with bags he snags during the morning drive in), so I’m suddenly very hip (hip being relative here).
Jack O 10.17.06 at 11:15 pm
As you say compost is a great growing medium, but I use compost as mulch with great success, it smothers the weed seeds that are already on the ground. In my soil which has some clay but doesn’t sound as bad as yours the earthworms get to work on mixing it up, after about 6 months I can see and more important feel the difference when I dig a new hole for that plant I didn’t have room for… Of course compost doesn’t last long as mulch I have to keep adding it, so I like to add a “real” mulch in late fall.
Ginger 10.18.06 at 12:16 pm
Mulch doesn’t have to be ‘organic matter which hasn’t broken down yet’. Mulch is any substance, including small rocks, ugh, or even worse, plastic sheeting, which will help control erosion, water evaporation and weeds. Weed seed free compost is a great mulch! Better than mulch, which should be used until plants cover the ground, is the layered planting of ground cover, shrubs and then trees. The earth (soil) is rarely bare in nature! Just another gardener’s humble opinion.
firefly 10.19.06 at 6:40 pm
You just reminded me why I’m so reluctant to move any of the rhododendrons in front of my house.
Heave, ho, ouch.
Heavy Petal 10.20.06 at 3:04 pm
Thanks for that, Susan. I’ve never tried the hosing-down technique (as I will henceforth describe it) to move plants. I’ll keep that in mind next time I meet with root resistance!
Kasmira 10.23.06 at 1:37 pm
Thanks for the moving tips. I plan on moving my enormous, and at least 10 years old, Terese Bugnet in late winter/early spring. I hope it can stand the root pruning that will inevitably accompany the move!
Pam J. 10.24.06 at 4:17 pm
I know this will tag me as a schoolmarm type but I can’t resist commenting that I just realized why I was having trouble with this very interesting and informative posting on mulch vs. compost. It was the use of the word “instead.” And also this phrase “because it hasn’t been fed with gardeners’ favorite cure-all - organic matter.” The garden WAS fed organic matter, just not the right kind. Right? Wrong? sorta right?
All Seasons Gardener 06.05.07 at 12:12 pm
Moving big plants is one of those jobs that i just put off and put off. For exactly all the reasosn you mention. Still, it sometimes has to be done in pursuit of the perfect (sort of, anyway) garden!