Clean slate!

My garden-blogging friend Annemarie came over a few Saturdays ago to try to dig up my gigantic Caesalpinia mexicana to replant in her garden, and it was just impossible. We dug all around it and under it and could not budge the multi-trunked beast. It's a gorgeous drought-tolerant bee magnet that blooms all spring and summer, but it wants to be a thicket of full-grown trees and I thought I was planting a shrub.

The "beast"

 

So, we dug up a few seedlings for Annemarie to take home instead. Fingers crossed they make it. They really don't like having their roots disturbed.

Caesalpinia mexicana seedling

Vicki came over, too, to dig up the clumps of Engelmann's daisy. I dug up the Salvias and Tecoma stans and got them into pots; a nice young man in the neighborhood happily took them all to his house, hooray!

Engelmann's daisy surrounded by blue mistflower

I spent the rest of the weekend digging out the Narcissus 'Erlicheer,' white Zephryantes, oxblood lilies and Sternbergia lutea bulbs, and digging up seedlings of the perennials I really wanted to keep, like the fall asters, just winding down from their annual flush. (Lori says we can replant the asters in the backyard and sprinkle the bulbs in and around the sedge we're installing in front, which sounds magical!)

Adios, limestone path with weedy joints

The following Monday, Cande from Salazar Builders came over with his crew and in a matter of hours, wiped the slate clean. That full grown C. mexicana that Annemarie and I couldn't budge? Gone, along with everything else, including the old stone path that Jack and I installed way back in 2009.

Two days later, they had a new mortared, level, smooth path built, with new mortared stone edging, that will NEVER need weeding - NEVER - and mulched the planting beds. Everything's ready for new plants!

Clean slate!

 

I had a few well-established (OK, *huge*) plants flagged to keep, and maybe plant in the backyard or give away - the Phlomis near the driveway, the cenizo on the corner - and bit by bit, I Marie Kondo'd every bit of it.  Cande helped. He kept coming up to me, pointing to these various "Keep" plants and asking - "Does this go?" and I kept saying "No, I'm keeping that one," to which he'd answer, "OK," and he and his crew would work around the plant being discussed. Then he'd come back 10 minutes later and ask about the same plant, "This one? You're keeping this one?" He repeated the process with every plant on my "Keep" list. Finally I gave in and said "Take it all out!" and he and his crew quickly obliged. 

One of many sun-starved Salvias that has left my shady garden for a new home.

I'm an incorrigible plant plunker, and in the minutes between Cande's first and last ask on each plant I'd hoped to save, I reminded myself that one, Lori's plan for the back yard includes none of these plants. Two, all of these plants have suffered from lack of sunlight and abusive pruning for many years, having long outgrown their allotted space in our small, increasingly tree-shaded front yard. And three, these are very common plants to the area, so if I decide in the future I want to plant a Salvia elsewhere (on the west side of the house, perhaps), I can go buy a gallon pot at a local nursery. 

Forlorn, drought-stricken Phlomis that went to the city compost bin

.

Next up, a look at the newly-replanted front garden with plants that are largely evergreen, drought-resistant, and easy to maintain.

Words and photos © 2005-2020 Caroline Homer for "The Shovel-Ready Garden". Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.