Great day, starting with yoga at 6 a.m. Then non-stop, until 6 p.m. I didn’t think about breathing again all day! (at 6 p.m. I carried my scared-of-thunder, 40 pound dog across the farm). In between, worked on the garden with the new guy, Erik Healy. He’s just out of Clemson but great experience under his belt: Erik has years of experience running his own business, has seen lots of gardens across the United States and was a horticulture intern with Moore Farms last year.

Leadership, horticulture skills and a real love of gardening in the PeeDee of South Carolina brought him to a full-time job as Curator of cultivated plants. (look for his articles and photos in Carolina Gardener magazine)

40 Man-Hours in the Garden

A full day, 8 hour day with about five helpers. 40 man-hours in an intensive perennial/shrub garden that covers about 300 feet square. Took out over 10 trailer loads of weeds, prunings and dying winter plants, got lots of splinters, a few saw cuts and a nice tan line.

We also:

Pulled lots of golden rod
Pulled perennials we are sick of, like Sedum
Divided bananas that have made agressive clumps that shade out other shrubs.
Liquid fed Verbena Imagination which hasnt really started flowering yet.
Found a rat that had collected lots of fruits from the Prunus mume and buried them in his next.
Divided and replanted Habranthus robustus
Planted lots of gomphrena Fireworks, Talinum, Alternanthera
Cut back Tradescantia that finished flowering
Pulled out a bunch of Salvia Henry Duelburge which is a great purple (see my facebook pic from Monday) but does get some reversion to white.

Once again, I get to write this from the quiet front porch, Isagreens and rum, thunderstorm blowing in and tractors making dust clouds in the distant field.

What Looks Great

Absolute Favorite of the Day: Angelica pachycarpa winter green leaves like a giant parsley spread to 6 across
Crinum Claude Davis
Echinacea Kims Knee High really isn’t Kims anymore, has seeded in for years so now we have tons of variation
Allium Hair Crazy plant. Google it.
Cryptomeria Sekkan-sugi pruned as a 5 tall bush, fantastic golden highlighs