Planting (Finally!) Complete

Garden Journal note: 2007 planting completed at 12:13am on Thursday, December 13.

Yes, you read that correctly... I finished this year's planting after midnight last night. My boyfriend pulled up after his fencing lessons (he gives them) and found the dog and I working in the backyard. She was sniffing random tufts of grass--investigating who had been in the backyard leaving her messages, no doubt--and I was digging in the dirt with my favorite, broken old shovel.

(Side note: I know that it's pretty sad-looking, with its shrunken wood handle and broken tip. But it works so well and has so much character that I adore this shovel. The matching hard rake is the only thing I regret leaving with my former husband, because I don't think he'll appreciate it nearly as much as I did.)

Whenever I'm out digging at an absurd time of the year, I always think about those "Fall is for Planting!" proclamations that decorate garden centers at the end of the summer. I chuckle to myself and think, "No, December is for Planting!"

It really isn't, of course, but there were extenuating circumstances that led to today's shenanigans. First, some clearance trout lilies jumped into my basket while I was in a local garden center the other day. They were the last ones left, and I couldn't resist them even though I have never had luck with any bulbs that come in a "Biltmore" package. (And I swear that if these don't grow, no more "Biltmore" for me!)

I had two silene maritima that I had dug up but never replanted, and two pots of a low-growing blue sedum that were in the same boat. And when I recently visited the garden center where I worked this spring, I was gifted some free pots of perennials. Sure, they were frozen and felt like chunks of ice so they might not make it through the winter... but then again, they just might. I sunk them all into the ground, pots and all, to insulate their roots and wished them well over the coming winter.

Having a small garden, I am pretty choosy about the plants that I bring home--free or otherwise. So when offered a few plants, I sifted through what was left on the tables and picked only those plants that I had considered buying this year anyway: A yellow spiderwort (for container planting), a silver lungwort, 2 hostas, and 3 small pots of bearberry.

Besides being a pretty, low-growing, tough little plant, bearberry has an interesting history. First noted in a 13th century Welsh herbal--which appeals to my Welsh heritage--it was also used by the Native Americans as a smudge and for various herbal remedies.

It gets its other common name from its use in a Native American tobacco mix... and it's already set as that in my head because it's so much fun to say that you have "Kinnikinnick" planted in your garden!

Trout lilies, cool foliage plants, and a tiny little plant with lots of history. If those aren't good enough reasons for me to be out planting in 30 degree weather, consider this: The pictures accompanying this post were taken early this morning, as freezing rain started to coat NE Ohio. (Doesn't it look like some kind of pretty, modern, glass mulch?) Temperatures are supposed to plummet into the low 20s and upper teens during the overnights starting tomorrow, so it really was a now-or-never issue of getting them dug in before the ground froze.

And now that I'm finally finished with my outdoor planting for the season, just a week or so before the solstice... well, winter can finally head our way!