Front Landscape Box Update

Some of the Caladium bulbs are emerging. Yay!

One is even opening the first leaf.



But I don't think I will try to save the bulbs each Fall. It seems like a lot of work and I am definitely a low-maintenance kind of person. So I am going to try to correct one bad decision happily in my theory of landscaping.

You see, I used to have another landscaping box (the OTHER side of the front steps) filled with Snow-On-The-Mountain. But I made the mistake of planting some other stuff (temporarily, hah, hah) there. That box seriously overgrew, and when I cleared it out last Fall (a seriously hard project), there were only 3 individual surviving "Snows". I carefully set them aside while emptying out the other plants.

I decided to replant 2 Nandinas in the back corners with 2 salvaged azaleas in between. The entire rest of the bed became a hosta and japanese painted fern bed. And because I had the 3 surviving "Snows", I stuck them in.

Bad move!

The Snows thrived and spread several feet. Among the hostas and ferns, the place just looks way too "busy" with different foliage. The hostas look great individually, but with all the Snows intermingling and filling up the spaces, it is just plain ugly!



So there I was with the very nice low-maintenance Snows not working with the equally nice low maintenance hosta in one bed, and the high-maintenance caladiums in the other bed...

You can guess where I'm going with this, I hope. I dug up a dozen individual Snows and moved them to the Caladium bed. I will enjoy the caladiums for this season and maybe even save a few dozen in the Fall for use elsewhere (but don't bet any money on that). The new landscape box will become a permanent "Snows" box, the older box will be just hostas and ferns (I'll dig out the Snows there) and neither will require much maintenance (a litle weeding, and good mulch will take care of most of that).

The remaining caladiums will become indoor hanging houseplants (out of reach of the cats - the caladiums are toxic) where they will brighten up dark corners (they love deep shade).

When I am sure the transplanted Snows are taking root in the new landscaping box, I will rip them out of the old one.

Win-win!