You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

No more bare root.  Ever.

Last weekend I received the 12 Lavender Astilbe plants I had ordered in a moment of weakness -- or perhaps excessive cheapness.  I foreswore bare root plants last year -- because a) it's always a crapshoot whether they'll really survive the indignities of shipping and b) I may have mentioned that I'm a bit impatient, and prefer plants that did their bare root thing a year or two ago. But I just couldn't resist a "buy 6, get 6 free" offer which brought the price down to where they were basically paying me to take the plants.  So I caved, thinking about all that empty space at the top of the hill to the right of the last seating area which would be the ideal location for a flock of feathery purple plumes.

There were two things wrong with this vision.

First, when the plants arrived, they looked like a collection of hairy twigs.  The instructions said to bury them to the level of the crown.  There was no discernible crown -- no tiara, no beret, no headgear of any sort.  Nor was there any hint that there was an "up" or "down."  They simply looked as though an axe murderer had uprooted a mature plant and dismembered it's nether parts.  And then let them grow beards. 

Small stones litter the surface, looking innocent
enough -- and not too daunting

Second, the empty space at the top of the hill may have been empty of plants, but it was not empty of stones.  Our hill was probably carved by the ice age; it's all glacial rock with a couple hundred years of topsoil deposits covering the stone.  Digging anywhere on the hill requires a pickaxe and a crowbar.  Each time I stab a shovel into the unyielding ground, the vibrations travel seismically up my arms and out my scalp.  I suppose I should find it stimulating to have my bell rung over and over and over.  Alas, I do not.

Here's what lies beneath!

And every so often the shovel hits one of these big nasties --
 a crowbar and herniated disk number

Two hours of chain gang work, many swear words, and several fervent wishes that I had only bought 6 plants later, and I had 12 holes dug, filled with compost and fertilized.  If you've ever gardened at all, you know that the hard part is preparing to plant.  The actual planting itself is a breeze.  

Unless.  

Unless you're not entirely sure which is the top, and which is the bottom, of whatever fauna you're planting.  In this case, twigs with hair sprouting every which way, with no apparent crown.  Sure would have been nice if they had itty bitty labels indicating "this way up."  After studying on this dilemma for a bit -- plus uttering a few more choice invectives -- I decided that I would leave this up to the forces of nature.  Plants are, after all, remarkably determined -- taking root in cracks and crevices where nothing should grow, splitting the still-frozen ground with shoots so fragile they shouldn't be able to pierce fog.  If these astilbe have the will to grow, then as long as the roots can get a grip, they'll fuel the plants' drive to reach for the sun.  I'll do what I can, but really, it seems to me that they need to take some responsibility for themselves, don't you agree?

So I tucked them all into their hard-won, well composted holes, covered them up, left markers so I could distinguish them from the mulch, and left them to their fate.  I must confess, I wasn't entirely optimistic about their prospects. Five days and two rainstorms later, I ventured up the hill with extremely low expectations.  

To my great surprise, relief, and reward for all those damned holes, all of them were showing signs of life!  In almost every case, the beginnings of the bushy fronds that form the backdrop for astilbes'  feathery blooms were pushing up through the soil, wiggling past whatever small stones were left behind.  Maybe all that rain really sped the process up, because I've never seen bare roots come this far back from apparent rigor mortis so quickly.  I know it doesn't look like much yet, but trust me -- anything coming to life in soil this rocky REALLY wants to grow!

Despite this triumph for Mother Nature, I have indeed learned my lesson about bare root plants.  There's a saying that you should "... Dig a $50 hole for a $5 plant."  And I'm all for that.  But if I'm going to herniate a disk preparing new beds around the top of the hill, then I want the instant gratification of plants large enough to be seen without setting my camera to "macro" mode.  Only potted plants from now on.

It's a good thing I was feeling good about dedicating myself to that approach as I made my way down from the top of the hill.  Because when I reached the bottom, I saw that the FedEx man had made a delivery while I was out of sight above. 

I opened the carton to find a  partial shipment -- about half of those 27 hummingbird magnet plants I ordered in a fit of horticultural delusion.  All carefully packaged for the journey, clearly labeled, and begging to be planted...

Guess I'll go uproot some more stones and dig me some holes...




PS: For those wondering, the title of this post is taken from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene I.