Propagation: Plant Propagation: The Basics Summer 2016, 1 by oxdriftgardener

oxdriftgardener wrote:
More photos.
#1. Repeat of my favorite coleus pot from last year. It spent 2 cold nights in the landing in the house.
#2. The latest curse we are living with. Forest Tent caterpillar ( army worms to the locals) are defoliating rampantly.
#3. A perennial heuchera that is probably pushing the zones for here. I bought 2 on my Winnipeg trip with the intention of planting them in a pair of matching pots that were another retirement gift. I decided that one would look better behind this moose antler that I stuck in a newly created rock garden. For years I just had this pile of rubble that consisted of a pile of brick from a failed brick planter that my daughter and I built when she was still in school(she is now 38), discarded fire brick from the wood furnace etc, last fall I covered it with top soil and took my granddaughter on a couple of road trips to collect some black blasted rock and voila we have an awesome new rock garden complete with moose antler. As the rock garden plants get established there will be more photos to follow. Starting to look pretty good.
#4. Thunbergia vine, another find from my Winnipeg trip with 2 daughters in April. Again there is a story. That is the trunk of a very unhappy blue spruce in the background. My yard has been evolving for many years and there have been successes and there have been failures. Many years ago I had this very rectangular bed out front that was just too REGULAR for my evolving taste so I decided to turf it. At the time I had 3 trees in relatively close proximity in the front yard so I replaced the bland rectangular bed with a large irregular shaped bed which contained the three trees; a silver maple, a Manitoba Maple and a Blue Spruce. Well it was a much more aesthetically pleasing bed and still is however tilling around the trees wasn\'t a very good idea as you are constantly damaging the roots. The silver maple gave up the ghost long time ago (and it was a 40th birthday gift. The Manitoba Maple still thrives but Hostas underneath it seem to starve. The Blue Spruce\'s lower branches have all died and you have to look WAY up to see any beauty. 2016 was going to be the year to put the Blue Spruce out of its misery until I got a vision. I got out a tall ladder and pruned off all the dead branches and wrapped the trunk with chicken wire. Hopefully this Winnipeg find will help to beautify the bare trunk.