Last I wrote, I was potting up perennial seedlings in advance of fall planting season.
By late October, I had about 300 baby plants grown from seed, mostly perennial filler plants to cover the soil and provide habitat and food for pollinators, plus some herbs for humans.
Rain was forecast for early November. I hustled to get most everything planted by then, to have the rain settle the plants in.
Here was the big planting push on Halloween:
Kind of chaotic! But so liberating to have sooooo many plants that, instead of being stingy and trying to make the most of them, I was working hard to find places to put them all!
A week after planting, we got the season's first real drenching rain to settle these babies in.
Then we received a HUGE load of mulch, just in time to hold in that moisture and keep down weed competition for the new baby perennials.
That's me for scale. It was a LOT of mulch! :)
And here are some of the baby yarrows and chamomiles tucked into their cozy mulch bed to develop strong roots through late fall and winter:
If you look at date I'm publishing this post, you'll see that it's actually February already. (How did that happen??). The perennials are thriving for the most part, growing significantly and beginning to knit together. But the real effects won't be apparent until next summer, and really 2-3 years from now as the beds mature.
The next phase is going to be to choose some showier plants to add both height and drama for aesthetics, plus diversity of food sources for wildlife. It's such an empowering project to grow so many valuable plants just from a few packets of seed.
If you'd like to hear from me more often than every few months (yikes - sorry that's a long time between blog posts), I write a very reliable weekly email newsletter sharing seasonal seed-starting inspiration, plus it's where I announce all our sales. :)
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