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Moving a Garden

(Continued from Page 2)
I had lived in a townhouse for about 12 years and had built my own garden by hand, so when we purchased our first house in 1999 there was no way I was leaving my hollyhocks, baby's breath and roses behind.

So without really knowing what I was doing, I took it with me. First I figured out where in the new yard I'd put the hollyhocks and baby's breath. Both have thrived. Hollyhocks, for me, are really foolproof and since I put them in, they've reseeded so I have a long row of them, all in different colors. The baby's breath was touch-and-go at first; it came back the next year and didn't really flower, but the second year it was right back to a big ball of white flowers.

I had mixed results with the roses. I dug up hybrid teas, some beautiful old Victorian cottage-type roses, and prayed that they'd survive and a few did--a climbing rose flourished, but a 'Princess Diana' bloomed once and then went away. I soaked them before transplanting them and think that the ones that soaked longer had a better survival rate.

I am really happy I moved those treasured plants with me.

--Marlene B. Colangelo

For over four years I lived in a half-plex with so much rock in the ground it was impossible to dig for planting. So I became a container gardener. I used old buckets, old metal cooking pots, terra-cotta chimney pipes and sewer pipes. Sewer pipes are great for herbs. I finally sold that half-plex and moved to a small home on 1/4 acre. I moved every one of those plants in the back of Old Yeller, a 1969 pickup, and it took two trips [to do it]. Looked like a garden moving down the road. I am slowly planting after moving [my plants] around the yard several times to see where they are the happiest. That method seems to work the best. Now the only problem is I have all these planters just begging to be filled, but I am trying to resist the urge.

--Jean Radcliffe
Folsom, CA

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