Mission: Save the Hydrangeas

calico20hill

Mission "Save the hydranges" well underway this morning. I hope I am in time. There is water on the surface of the weed block and its looks like an old industrial pond .II guess that is the high iron content in the soil? I think the plants at the higher end will survive and can stay but there are 4 of them, including my oldest one that are going to need new places. Pretty amazing how far Bobo puts down its roots since i Moved it there 3 years ago. Going to have to redesign that part of the garden ...cranberries maybe?!

calico20hill

Update. And no, this is not a dahlia issue but it could be one if I had planted in the same area, so this is really about water management. We had a local retired engineer come over and look at our flooded garden. He was impressed! We talked about digging s drainage ditch to the creek which is maybe 35-30' away. Then he realized that the whole garden was super wet and shouldn't be according to the lay of the land...technically it is a long slope from the street down to the bottom of our 2 acres. with the house located about the middle. Eventually we remembered the wet spot in the bank from the farm just north of us...the one who owned all the property in the nieghborhood for many years as a working diary farm. There is a road along our north edge that goes back to another property way back. up the hill and under that road there is what we figured was a spring that runs during the wet season and runs down the other side of our driveway. to create a boggy spot back by the garage. NOt sure whether it is a natural spring or a drainage ditch and apparently there was a pipe that goes under. our driveway. So that run off from the old farm is draining down into our pretty field but it sinks into a low spot and doesn't make it to the creek, So if we can open up the drains that were there 20-30 years ago and get the system working like it was designed to. it should all work again. At the very least we can dig a 30' ditch and drain the low spot. But with a culvert under the driveway AND draining the low spot we can get rid of the boggy ground under my orchard/gardena nd hydrangeas. We are moving the plants now to prevent root rot form killing them in the meantime. And I took cuttings of them all as a back up method to try and save them.

calico20hill

THe new hydrangea planting holes were dug today, in the midst of a( now) 44 degree rain storm. The landscape crew earned their pay! What is interesting is that the soil along the creek is the best soil I have seen here. It is not solid clay. I t appears to be a nice loamy mix. I am sure it is quite acid from the fir and needles dropped on it. It should make an excellent soil for my blue hydrangeas! The work crew will be back tomorrow to dig and move the plants into the holes. It is not supposed to be raining tomorrow and that will help. I am still cold from supervising this morning.

I have taken my hydrangea cuttings in and potted them up in hopes of replicating some of them. It takes years to get them up to nice bloom size.

calico20hill

And when we went out the next morning to plant those holes had filled up with water over night, anywhere from 4" to about 12". I could not beleive it! So 5 of the holes got abandoned until some land draining is done. I am learning some new lessons here I did not think about needing!

Krista

calico20hill oh darn, I’m so sorry to hear this, Noni. I can’t believe the holes filled overnight!

blown_dry

calico20hill I'm so sorry! Sounds like where I live. I don't trust anything in the ground!

Darce

Noni - I have had success keeping some hydrangeas in large pots- if the pot is large enough they sailed thru zone 6 winter splendidly. Could you do that with the hydrangeas while you put in drainage tiles etc? They make fabric grow bags that are quite large which might be better for a temporary placement than a pot

calico20hill

I think we have them moved now, Darce. AND...when we get the drainage corrected, guess what? THere will be room for more😁. NowI have a big ugly spot where we moved them out of. Wondering if Mr Islander would totally have a fit if I asked for some raised dahlia beds there! Hmmm, probably too deep an afternoon shade for them. I might experiment with Grow Bags there this year. Or maybe move some of my veggie grow bags there. TOo much shade for the Squash and Tomatoes, but maybe some beds for salad greens?