Big project gets small

Of the many projects that are on "my list" this spring, there's one that I've been putting off because it just seemed like it was going to be such a lot of work. On Friday though I had a little free time and a burst of energy in the chilly sunshine made me jump in.

It's this planter box under the deck. I redid it a few years back but the arrow bamboo Pseudosasa japonica never did what I wanted it to here. It's been flowering and not looking great, but I keep giving it "one more year" -- until now. Well last fall actually, which is when I made the decision on what to do here.

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The main problem though is getting a bamboo out of a planter box is a lot of work. I've done this a couple of times before albeit with larger plants, but both times it was not fun.

This ugly thing really needed to go though.

After looking at it for a few minutes, I decided to give it a good hard tug before going for the digging tools.

To my great surprise...

...it came out of the soil!

So a task that I thought was going to take 30 minutes or more of awkward digging work took literally 10 seconds! Hooray!

So I quickly and easily had a clean planting area...

...which I filled with Ligularia 'The Rocket':

I bought two of these last year, only thinking about this as a potential planting spot after the first Ligularia I planted at the edge of the pond did not do well (and did not survive). This should be a great spot, although I'll have to work to keep this box watered -- it stays drier than I'd like because of the deck.

I'm hoping to tap into the downspout here, but that's another project.

I love it when a difficult project turns easy!

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