Make some room!

Two little projects today in which I needed a little more space. The first is this pathway:

With the bigger-than-expected dark-leaved ninebark on the right, and some clipped-to-the-ground butterfly bushes emerging on the left, this access gets much more restricted later in the summer.

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Here's the big problem though:

The Buddleia seems to have migrated right next to the path over the last couple of years -- I guess the new growth comes up on the same side every year. This summer it will be blocking the path completely!

There's plenty of space on this other side though:

So let's move it about 30" (76cm) to the left:

That's much better! I added some Mycorrhizae to the hole to help stimulate root growth -- I hope I didn't set this plant back too much. (The poles are hose guides in case you were wondering)


The second project involves a pot:

This Mexican petunia has spent the winter in the garage exactly how you see it. It's been in this pot for two years now and it's completely out of space:

This plant is more vigorous than I expected, and spreads quite quickly. Therefore, I want to take some divisions and give it more room in this container. It's just starting to wake up...

...so I'm not too worried about being rough with it.

The spade worked well to chop through the stems and roots, but it did take a little effort to pry the first chunk out as there were several connections deeper in the pot.

To get more room for the section of plant that is staying behind though, I need to take out another chunk (from the bottom in this photo):

And now I have room to rotate the plant in the pot:

Then replace the soil:

There's some extra room for growth now:

I chopped the bottom of the rootball from these divisions (because they were too tall) and potted them up:

These divisions are pretty big, but this plant roots super-easily from cuttings placed in water, so I can make lots more smaller plants once the stems grow -- if I need smaller plants that is.

I was dreading this repotting task, but it went surprisingly well! Now I just have a few big potted papyrus to tackle... not today though.

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