Medical Procedure: Adding More Native Plants to the Gardens

Holes in the Garden

Last year we planted native plants in both the Parking Lot Garden and the Road Garden. The plants have done very well, but a couple of things have become apparent. As you can see in the above picture, some areas were under planted, others suffered abuse from over weeding, rabbits and vehicles parking on them. Time to fill in the holes.

We purchased plugs of Prairie Dropseed, Heart Leafed Alexander, Dotted Blazing Star, Black-eyed Susan, Wild Bergamot, Blue Vervain and Meadow Blazing Star.

Below are plugs of Heart Leafed Alexander about to be inserted in the Road Garden. 

Plugs for the Road Garden

And I do mean inserted. 

Instead of ripping open the soil with a trowel and disturbing the fungus and bacteria that promote good soil structure and plant growth, the best way is just to slit open the earth (a hori hori knife works best), insert the plug. and push the mulch back around the opening. After you get the hang of this, planting proceeds quickly - we planted two hundred plugs in just under two hours.

I relate this process to an angioplasty - no need to rip open the patient's chest just to insert a 2 mm cardiac stent.

hori hori knife