Rooted floor This principle is the foundation of successful gardening. However, the process is not always as simple or straightforward as it seems.
Take, for example, the rooted plants that we buy and remain on nursery shelves for a long time. A plant often needs a boost and some softness from a thick taproot to survive a transplant in the garden. But again, if the root system of other plants is disturbed, it will not do well at all. We discover we were wrong when the plant doesn't produce any more shoots the following season. When we remove this dry debris from the garden, the root ball never grows beyond the root knot, no growth, no new life.
The effort to keep our small garden pond alive was a variation on this theme. The first summer we started so late that we relied on floating artificial water lilies to protect the salmon. When a predatory ferret or raccoon takes a few huge bites out of one of those many plastic sheets, it's humiliating. When we sent fish to a friend's indoor tank during the fall vacation, one of them was unceremoniously eaten and the other managed to get stuck in the pump.
In the second summer we managed to keep one of the two papyrus species alive. It overwintered in Arizona and now grows in one of our large apricot container ponds in the summer.
Fast forward to the third arch. Soon after, two dwarf papyrus vessels began to make excellent weapons for little Moses. Although we knew that a 40 liter pond was too small for growing plants, we planted a lily at that moment. After a month, we are usually satisfied with any signs of life.
Technically we did everything right: pond soil, lily fertilizer and just a moderate water cycle to keep the fish happy without disturbing the lilies. And after all this there is no sign of life. So when our daughter got into her own personal pond, we desperately picked out some arrowhead plants, as well as some nameless lilies that we added to fabric containers with perforated spots where our original commercial lilies had run out.
And then a miracle happened. The stock continues to rise. But now three bundles of young lilies were scattered on the surface of the water, among which were the leaves of the original lily. The 4 fish we put in the pond in June are still going strong.
All in all, what it takes to domesticate a plant or any form of life anywhere can be very complex. In the end, we will never know what made this change successful
Mary Agria, author of the 2006 regional book Time in the Garden, has won six consecutive Michigan Garden Club Trials since 2017. Her Days of the Wandering Gardener, gardening novels, and books on gardening and spirituality are available online. and from the local library.
This article originally appeared in the Petoskey News-Review: Time in the Garden: Picking Roots.
