Elephant Ear Experiment (part 2)

The elephant ears I planted in gallon milk jugs have sprouted, well, two out of four anyway.  One was overwatered and turned to mush, the other one I'm waiting to see, while it wasn't mush, it was soft.  So I will give it some more time.  As soon as the shade garden is built, I will plant the two that have sprouted.  Remember not to overwater planted bulbs!

Shade garden in ruins

On March 29, we had a tornado storm come through, thankfully we just got rain, but we got so much rain our yard was flooded.  My shade garden, that I had just started planting was in ruins.  The soil I added was washed away, along with several plants.  It is now almost a month later, and nothing has been done.  I repotted the plants I could salvage, and they continue to sit on my deck.  I have bought landscape timbers to build raised beds, but I'm stuck until Greg can cut the sides for me.  Mother nature can be cruel.

Continuing Work on shade bed

Yesterday I went out to work on the shade garden bed, as I plan to start planting in it this weekend.  We have below freezing nighttime temps for the next few days, but I'm crossing my fingers this is winters last hurrah.  My astilbes have to go into the ground, and I also received my iris plants and they are sitting here wrapped in plastic.  So, first I used all those rocks I have dug up to make a border, then I used my stand up tiller to turn the soil.  There is still a lot of clay.  I started just pulling out chunks and throwing them to the side.  I feel pretty frustrated with it.  Hoping it will improve the more I work with it.

Astilbes

A new plant (for me) I'm putting in my shade garden is Astilbe.  I bought a box of six bulbs and started them in pots in the house.  They have grown quite well and I can't wait to move them outside.

Astilbe grows well in shady locations where other plants often fail to thrive. The plant's height ranges from 1 to 5 feet, depending on the variety. Flowers appear in the summer in large, feathery plumes that are red, white, pink, bronze or yellow. The plant produces an upright, clump that spreads up to 2 feet in width

Elephant Ear Experiment

I'm going to plant Elephant Ears in my shade garden.  However, they cannot go into the ground until it is warmer, probably sometime in April.  I don't want to wait that long to have them come up, so I'm starting them indoors in pots.  I found plenty of internet sites saying go ahead and start them indoors, but nothing about how big of a pot to start them in.  So, yesterday I bought four elephant ear bulbs, and decided to try starting them in gallon milk jugs.  I have a constant supply of them, and it's a good way to recycle.  So, I cut the tops off, mixed potting soil with some peat moss and threw in some bulb food and planted my bulbs.  We will see if this work outs.  Hence, my elephant ear experiment.

Gardening

So, my yard is one big, open slate.  All we have is dirt and trees on 1/3 acre.  The problem is I do not have full sun anywhere in my yard, so my first love, roses, isn't really happening here. Now I find myself in the new world of shade gardening, which I never had in Texas or really California either. I have just started a full shade garden project in my lower yard along the back fence.  In the summer when the trees leaf out, there will be little sun in the area.  The ground is bad, full of rocks and clay soil.  So, I took a 25ft long x 3 ft wide patch and have dug it out, removed all the rocks, and started ammending the soil.  So far I have added gypsum to break up the clay, compost and manure, and regular garden soil.

Here is the future garden

 Here are the rocks I pulled out.