Next-to-last "Walk in the Garden" Post

You might think we'd be done by now, but we still have two groups of pots to go.

Here's pot 13, which contains a Japanese Pieris, the sibling of the one in Pot 1.  This one isn't quite as big, but it too has a lot of new red growth.  I need to prune those empty twigs, though!

Pot 14 contains a boxwood, purchased in summer 2018 from Brighter Blooms after I managed to achieve the almost impossible task of killing my previous boxwood.  Also two hostas: Rainforest Sunrise, on the left, and Mighty Mouse, on the right - both purchased in Connecticut in summer 2018.

Pot 15 is an old favorite of mine.  It contains the Jim Dandy winterberry holly, who leans severely to one side and has had several dead branches pruned off over the years - but it's a survivor.  Purchased from Forestfarm in 2016, it's the biggest tree in my garden.

Also in the pot:the American Halo hosta (what is eating its leaves?), the Touch of Class hosta (supposed to be tricolor, but some of the leaves now come up monocolor, a phenomenon I hope to explore in a later post), and the hosta known as "Whee!" (in the second photo below).  Plus lots of ivy.  This has always been a busy pot!

Pot 16 is a Bleeding Heart that I bought last summer, and it's doing very, very well - putting the lie to my frequent claim that nothing blooms in my garden.

Pot 17 contains my other winterberry holly.  I bought these hollies for the red berries.  I got three the first season and none since then - because you don't get fruit without blossoms, and these hollies don't blossom in the shade.

Pot 17A is a new one.  This lovely red tree is the Spring Coral maple, new this season from Forestfarm, and I predict that it will never be this red again.  But I really love the color. 

 

Also in the pot: a new Dancing Queen hosta, and another hosta I'd like to tell you a bit about.  These little shoots were an accident.  I was trying to split the Touch of Class hosta from Pot 15, but the roots in that pot are so entangled that I couldn't do it.  I just ended up breaking off a couple of stems with leaves.  Now, normally a split hosta has to have a bit of root to grow, and there didn't seem to be any root here, but I'm an optimist, so I shoved the broken stems and leaves in Pot 17A - and they're growing!

Pot 18 is the Upright Japanese Yew, new last year.  It still hasn't quite settled in, but it's putting out a little new growth, so there's hope.  Also a Japanese Ghost Lady fern, and some ivy from the Greenmarket that is unstoppable.

And here's a pot without a number.  I bought two pots online last fall, and when they arrived, the enclosed documentation said they were uninsulated and should be brought in during the winter, which makes them unsuitable for perennials.  That would have been nice to know before I bought them.  Still, I can plant annuals in them, since they will die before winter no matter what.  My plan was to go out to the plant store or the Greenmarket to fill the two annual pots, but the plant store is closed.  So I got this little pansy at the Greenmarket, and it's practicing social distancing.

We'll look at the final group of pots next week