Week 16 - Smart Girl What?

What do normal people do when it's 99 degrees out?  I have no idea!  I didn't see any of them while I was outside gardening all day in the sweltering heat!!  My guess would be sitting inside somewhere with air conditioning.  Or swimming in a cool refreshing body of water.  Or at the very least, a normal person would be hanging out in the shade. 

It started off normal enough... I went outside to water the very hot plants, but ended up doing some trimming, dragging stuff to the curb, pulling weeds.  Then I decided I should plant one of the Knock Out Roses I got yesterday at Home Depot.  All roses 50% off!  Well, that led to me digging other stuff up and the rest, as they say, is history.  I did run inside to put on my wide brimmed hat, grab some iced tea and get my camera.  No cute pics of me {try to contain your disappointment}because my trusty assistant is at sleep away camp this week.  :(

I bought the roses because I have issues I wanted to plant them in here with my other roses.  I used to have Silver Sword Azalea planted in between the roses because there was so much bare space.  But the roses are huge in only two years so I took most of the azaleas out.  Well now it bothers me that there's too much of a gap on one end near the stairs.  So I want to dig up one of the existing roses, move it over a foot, and plant an extra one by the stairs.

Too bare

Too tight without moving one over

Hubby and my assistant tell me I am going to kill the rose if I dig it up.  Really!?!  Is this not the same man who helped me dig up two massive trees from a friend's house and plant them in our yard.  Oh, you didn't read about that one, check it out here.  BTW - those trees are doing fine two months later. I am smart enough to not dig up the rose bush today, but mark my words, that sucker is moving over a foot one of these days. 

Two of the roses went in the front planter bed (garden #2 on the map).  It needed some color and those Knock Out Roses bloom till freakin' Christmas!  I love them!!  Can you even see them?  One on the left and one on the right.  I know, they look really hot and thirsty.  As you can see I had to dig out a couple of other plants to make room.  Still haven't decided where that Blue Star Juniper (in the turquoise bucket) will go.  The coral bell (in the green pot) was split and  is now happily living in the back yard.  It's an easy plant to split. 

You can see from this angle that I added two more liriope (lily turf) next to the 3 established ones. 

I also dug up some of the vinca (dwarf periwinkle) from the backyard and 

planted a bunch up here.  That's what's sitting in the faux terracotta pot.  

One of my favorite transplants of the day... tucking some sedum in around the rock.  Sedum is the easiest thing to split and transplant.  Even easier than the vinca, which is super easy too.  Gee, maybe I should write a post on that.  :)  That's another coral bell that got transferred today too.

 Here's a picture of the Knock Out Roses from the front.

The third (and final) Knock Out Rose is going to go near my mail box.  

My neighbors have a similar look, which I really like.  

 But first, of course, I had to dig up some of the Hakone Grass. No problem, I added it over hear, where I already had some Hakone Grass.  I always wanted Hakone grass, and was stoked when I saw some at Home Depot last year.  And yes, I had to dig something else up to put the Hakone Grass here.

There you have it... what NOT to do in a heat wave!  What do you do when it's brutally hot out?