As revealed in my last blog (via a you tube video) I am moving! This means I want to take all my exotic plants with me to create a much bigger garden in the future. The good news is that I've sold my house, the not so good news is that I don't have a new house to go to..... The timing of the move is not ideal for exotic and tropical plants as it will be the middle of winter (January) and therefore snow/frost and rain could be a major headache. Digging plants up in winter may be fine for standard trees and shrubs but not exotics!
The good thing is that 80-90% of my plants are already growing in containers so I only have around 30-40 plants to actually dig up.
Here is a large Yucca that is bone hardy and had been growing really well in my front arid bed.
The first stage was to cut away the lower leaves so I could get in there and dig it up. I also chopped the tips off to stop me getting stabbed.
The next stage was to dig around the plant with a spade then sever all the roots in order to lift it out of the ground.
The roots were very easy to chop through as they were not woody but very fleshy, like cutting through Dahlia tubers.
Finally the plant was lifted out and loosly potted into a suitable container and left outside without watering as the ground was moist and rain was expected.
I also cleared my main exotic bed (as show in the last few seconds of this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkxFPP1yErc&feature=autoplay&list=UUFa7yNZ1pfVM1IZrt0ERSIA&playnext=1 )
Other arids in the front bed included a Dasyliron, Aloe polyphylla, opuntia and echeveria.
The Musa basjoo were simply dug up and rather awkwardly plonked into a large tub and dragged into the garage for protection.
For the large T rex I had to chop off all its large leaves and sever the extensive root system. Which will cause it to pup profusely next year....
Finally an almost unrecognisable selection of plants, cut back and dug up. Below we have Thalia dealbata, Arundo donax, Melianthus amongst other things.
