So, it’s been a pretty crazy couple of weeks in the Baareman household, which is pretty much par for the course I guess. But we still always have time for some easy improvements around the house and since the little flower bed around the mailbox in the front yard was being engulfed by weeds (which we pulled), Laura and I felt that we could spruce up that area a little bit. by giving our little bush some companions. And we did just that. So here’s how it went down. First, we needed some color so thank goodness there are many different kind of flowers that like full sun in the summer time. So we decided on some petunias or something like that. Fortunately, we didn’t even pay much for the flowers because Laura got a Wal-Mart gift card through Quibids. It was her one success on that money sucking site, so we put it to good use.
- Flowers (we got red, white, and deep purple because it’s midsummer and it just felt right)
- Shovel
- Potting Soil (help offset some of the crazy hard clay)
- Buckets (one for removed dirt and one for Miracle-Grow mixing)
- Miracle-Grow (vitamin water for plants)
After that, we dug the holes. We had to dig pretty deep because we wanted to make sure that we could get the entire root clump of the plant right at or below the regular surface level for maximum growing potential. By the way, It’s amazing how close to the surface think, hard, Georgia clay lies. Sometimes it felt like breaking up concrete and I would think to myself, “Man, these little roots can actually grow in this stuff?” Thank goodness for potting soil.
With the holes dug we just placed the flowers in them according to the placement plan, broke up the root clump a little bit to expose more roots, and then filled in a soil mixture of fresh potting soil and the natural soil around the plant making sure to pack the dirt in around the root clump firmly to hold the plant in place nicely.
After that, it was time for drinks all around. First each little plant got a health dose of Miracle Grow plant food water which should help give them extra nutrients to grow big and strong and produce many patriotic colored flowers by the 4th of July. Then after that soaked in, we watered them with a little extra water. After the watering, we had to place a little more soil around the sides and ground surfaces of the plant as dirt settled. But I’d say these flowers were transplanted successfully in a fairly short time period (~30 min) and I think they will look great in about another month or so! Tell us what you think and let us know of any good fallish type flowers to put in when that season rolls around so weeds to re-infiltrate our mailbox bed. Adios!
