Confessions of a plant mover.

Sometimes when I look around my gardens I think, "how many places has that poor plant been?"  Then I start looking at just  how many of my plants, shrubs and trees have been moved.  I'm sure most gardeners do this as well.  I have all sorts of reasons why I do, and they all seem right to me.  My husband, though, just doesn't get it.  Occasionally, I have to be a bit sneaky and surprise him with the moves.  He'll say, "wasn't this tree in the front?" or "what happened to that shrub I planted there?"  I always have a great explanation though, at least I think it is.

For example, the dogwood, which has had 3 homes, and now is in it's final growing place.  Originally it was planted beside our driveway where it received protection from the afternoon sun from our neighbor's large cedar.  By the end of the summer that the cedar was cut down, that poor dogwood was a dried up mess.  Now, it happily blooms in the back yard where we can enjoy it and it gets the proper amount of shade.

The blueberry bushes were planted on an impulse originally, and I didn't realize how much shade they were getting.  Once they were moved to the raised beds in our side yard they grew and started to produce delicious berries.

Perennials, have been moved for various reasons.  They got too big, stayed too small, didn't get enough sun or shade.  Maybe, it was too dry and I wasn't following through on my promise to them to give them the extra water I knew they would need.  Sometimes the color combinations didn't look pleasing to me.

Most of my plants new homes have made them, and me much happier.  After almost 10 years of working in these gardens I now really understand and accept how sunny or dry an area is.  I've  

 also learned to put my faith into certain plants.  Like the tree peony that took 5 years to put out it's first bloom, and now gives me more each year.  Or the camellia in the back yard that always looked yellow and had 2 blooms every spring.  After several years of  doting on it, it now has shiny leaves and is full of buds.

My yard is small and if my plants aren't growing or blooming after a few years they, sadly, must go.  I usually find a sister or friend that has a better place, and they pack their roots and go. Occasionally though, a plant has to make his final resting place the compost bin.