webesemps said:So , Tim with a little time spent solving soil aeration problems, back to the real time killer, pickleball?
Three hours a day and 5-7 days a week on the pickleball court does reduce time available for garden maintenance. Worse yet is the physical exhaustion. Last year I did let my semp garden get overrun with spurge, lambs ears, daisy and foxglove seeds by the millions. Under control now.
OK...time for a first glance. This is after 3 weeks I'm estimating.
Let's take a look at my rework of my NOID calcareum.
This one's a no-brainer. These offsets were transferred from a separate colony and are clearly establishing and growing and looking healthy. Previous attempts without rework failed miserably. I pretty much expected this result.
The second rework is of 'Pepito'. Not as obvious but the offsets were in pretty bad shape when I did this, and one of them even croaked. I'd say it's coming along slowly and I'm hopeful for a recovery. I can see improvement but more is needed.
Here is 'Starshine' that received a soil "lifting" by just pushing my trowel down in various places and popping the soil up, allowing air pockets. This is before and after. I'm gonna say there's some good improvement. Three weeks of spring weather and a dose of Quickstart might have helped, so I can't be too sure, but I am hopeful. I'll have to wait and see if a full recovery follows.
'Silverine' was another stubborn performer. It also received a soil lift and seems to have benefited nicely. It could be for the other reasons I mentioned but at least I can say that it's headed in the right direction and I'm not destroying its root system too badly.
Here is 'Silver Song' and 'Purple Dazzler' which both received a soil lift. I forgot to take the "before" pictures but here's what they look like today. 'Silver Song' has been a slow performer but now has (I believe) added a bit of growth and definitely looks better than last year.
I can't tell if 'Purple Dazzler' has grown any bit it seems healthy and is throwing a solid set offsets.
Seems like these two are at least headed in the right direction.
Very soon I will be fertilizing the whole semp garden. I will give each and every semp a soil lifting. I'll take large group pictures for general comparison. Then wait and see.
This has me considering cultivars that I have given up in the past. I figured they were just wimpy so why bother with them. Maybe my wimpy maintenance efforts were the real problem. I recall the fabulous 'Lavender and Old Lace' which grew wonderfully but tanked badly in later years. Similarly 'Pacific Blue Ice'. I think I'll give them both another try but with a little more TLC.
Atonement has begun... resurrection to follow.
