Heeling in Hanging Planter Perennials: How-To

These are my side-door hanging Ikea planters, which I’ve had for two summers. They are planted with what I think of as a “bulletproof” (ie idiotproof) combination: Golden Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia aurea) and Ribbon Grass (Phalaris arundinacea). They’re not at their best right now, but this is how they looked earlier in the season.

The plants may be bulletproof, but I don’t think they’d survive the harsheties of a Canadian winter just hanging from the side of the house. So this is my second time heeling them in to survive the winter.

“Heeling in” is a process of temporary planting to keep a plant or tree alive longer and healthier than it would stay in a pot. You can do it if you’ve bought a new plant and don’t have space for it yet, or a tree that can’t go into its permanent home… or a planter of sturdy perennials that need a safe home for the winter.

First, take down the planters and set them on the ground.

Pull out the plant and assess its health. After a season in the sun, these plants are somewhat potbound (ie most of the underground space is taken up by roots) – with some unhealthy root circling at the bottom of the pot.

So I just pulled off the bottom “clump” of the roots. It came off easily, leaving lots of healthy root that should do just fine in the garden soil.

The rest is a lot like planting a perennial, except the site doesn’t have to be as ideal as it would be for a permanent planting. First, dig a hole:

Stick the plant inside.

Replace any earth you’ve moved aside and press it down firmly around the roots.

Done!

Repeat for all six of these little hanging planters.

Can you spot the six little clumps of heeled-in perennials in this picture…?

Comments

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page. As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah : the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science : Plants, Animals, Human Body Math Ambleside : Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature Science General Poems for Elemental Science . Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful. Three pages are included: one page with two po

Are Jews an "underrepresented community" in children’s publishing?

I applied for a writing award yesterday. I'm not going to get it, but that's not what I wanted to share with you. Here's what I wanted to share. This box: I stared at this box for a long, long time. And then I decided not to check it. Even though I believe people like me truly are underrepresented, we probably wouldn’t fit the definition in other people's minds. Why? Well, because we're European. Because we are white. Because as everybody knows, Jews control the media. (do we???) If anything, some people say, Jews are over -represented in publishing. And yet. Some definitions are careful not to include people like me. Like this random definition from the State of California which defines underrepresented for some very specific business purposes as: "an individual who self-identifies as Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native, or who self-identi

Adventures in Mama-Land

Search This Blog