Moving Plants

It doesn't matter what the calendar says or whether daylight saving time is here or what the weather forecast tells us. It's spring, and I know it is because I've been outside moving plants. 

A cool, windy, but sunny day in March and the shovel was practically knocking at the door begging me to come out and play.

The shovel and I worked together and put this redtwig dogwood in the garden by the kitchen door. You can see why it's called "redtwig". The stems are bright red.

It is 'Arctic Fire', a dwarf form of redtwig dogwood that gets about 3 feet wide and tall, and doesn't form thickets the way the larger ones do. It's awfully near the fence, but it is sitting 18 inches on center from the fence, so it has room to spread three feet. Just.

And it wants pruning each year by 1/3 to encourage new stems to grow, which are reddest. That will keep it small enough for the space I think.

It's a dogwood, although a shrub one, and surprisingly these are common around northern New Mexico, mostly planted in large groupings in drainage swales where they can get a good soaking every once in a while. Mine will be irrigated here.

I love seeing the red stems as I come and go from kitchen to gate to garage.

I had it previously in a big blue pot behind the deck. It's not much to see in summer, just green leaves. And the white spring flowers aren't much to look at. It's grown for the bare winter stems.

And it's grown for fall color. It gets very nice red foliage, which looked great with the turquoise container I thought.

But it wasn't very noticeable behind the deck. It filled an empty corner, and I thought the stems would be eye catching with our red chairs, looking down the length of the yard in winter or backing up the red chairs in fall with its rich foliage.  But it wasn't. I never really saw it.

So it was unpotted (no small task, that thing was big and had to have half its root ball pruned away just to get it out of the container). After cutting away what I could, I hauled it to a spot where it adds a little oomph to a garden I have struggled to fill, and where I can see it all the time. 

In this garden there is a cascading rose climbing the spiral tower to the left, and a honeysuckle vine on the fence on the right, but nothing but clumpy low perennials in front. The dogwood is a full, shrubby mid-level form to fill the spot between two climbers. 

I'll show you how it looks this summer all green and leafy, with everything else filled out surrounding it. But for right now in my brown March garden, before my struggling perennials appear, I'm liking it much better than hidden away in the pot behind the deck.

And I liked being outside clanging shovel against rocks and moving plants around.