Moving into a new home brings with it many challenges in the yard. The previous owners did little to take care of the yard, though I could tell, the property was loved at one time. I have been gradually changing some of the landscape to meet me, instead of leaving it the way it was. Most of the time, I am content with just about everything, but having hostas in full sun doesn’t work for me.
My garden bed along the south side of the house needed to be redone, and I decided this was the spring to begin the process. The hostas, which burned last year when the heat finally hit, had been there so long, they were in massive clumps that it took an entire day to extract.
I finally got them out of the below holes and was planning on moving them all under the tree, but there were too many. I gave away a huge clump, as well as planted them in clumps, and still had enough to plant hostas about 15 feet along the retaining wall. I didn’t expect to have so many, but it turned into quite a blessing.
The next project was to thin out the plants to the left and split the Chinese lantern plants and strawberries. I wanted the lantern plants to go where the hosts were, and then build a strawberry bowl tower to give the strawberries more room to grow. I had originally planned to move all the strawberries around, but they were growing so healthy and had blossoms to produce berries. I left many of them where they were.
The first objective was to move the Chinese lantern plants. Once that was done, a nice area was cleared for the strawberry tower. I used pots that had been turned in at the garden center for recycling, cutting the bottom off the pots for better watering and root development. The largest pot provided the base, above left. I filled it half full of soil, and then placed three medium pots at angles to create more planting surfaces, above right.
I filled those pots with dirt, along with filling up the base pot, and then added a pot on the top center. I had to cut notches for the top pot to fit more securely, and then filled it with soil.
I planted about three strawberry plants in each of the medium pots and then planted two in the spaces between them. On the right is the small strawberry tower after it was planted.
It has been a few days and the plants are perking up. The strawberries in the top pot are struggling a little, but I hope their roots catch, and they eventually produce strawberries.
The project took longer than anticipated, but I am happy with the results.