Garden Activities: December 23, 2025

I wasn’t expecting to have an update today, but the Tuesday Crew had an ad hoc work day for those whose schedule allowed them to volunteer at the garden on one of their “days off.” Steve Davis had arranged to have an order of ~33 plants delivered Monday, and given the projected rain, hoped they could be planted before we got 4-6 inches starting Tuesday afternoon. Long story short, we were able to get all the plants in the ground.  It helped that we didn’t need to worry about watering them. Nature will take care of it, and the pots had been well-watered in advance.

Contributing to the effort were, Steve, Dale Harshberger, Katie Shank, Daryl Stutley, Anna Wiktor-Becker, Ann Wright, and myself. Most of the plants were planted in the Native Gardens with some planted in the Australian, S. African, Desert, Lillian’s Meadow and Salvia Gardens.

While I was in the Australian section, I found a low-growing banksia blooming. I didn’t see a label so don’t know the species.

Also, while I was at Goebel a couple of weeks ago, I got rid of a stump of a S. American plant, Cantua buxifolia“hot pants” from the Andes, which had died a few years ago. When I examined it, noticed it had a root that had grown around the subterranean part of the trunk and was visibly strangling it.

It’s not easy to see from the picture, but the cross root was visibly constricting the area it was crossing. I mention this as I have to confess I rarely do the recommended examination of the roots when planting and don’t do it when buying. This is the first time I have seen hard evidence that this recommendation is valuable — especially for woody shrubs and trees. Just a cautionary tale. It also helps to dig the hole in the shape of a square so that roots are encouraged to venture into the native soil rather than growing in a circle around a round hole.

Thanks to Richard Jimenez for taking the picture of me with the specimen.

Enjoy the rain and best wishes for happy holidays and a happy and healthy new year. KMM