I did a bad, bad thing

Last fall I bought a Mahonia x media 'Underway' from Cistus at their "tough love" sale. It was gorgeous. I tucked it, still in its nursery pot, into one of the beds so we could mow the lawn. Unfortunately I tucked it too far under the eaves of the house and it got totally dried out. And then the poor thing lost most of its branches.

Now it's the Charlie Brown Mahonia. Uggggggghhhh. This is why we can't have nice things.

Eventually it will put out new growth from the top and fill out that way but I don't think it will produce any new shoots below. Am I wrong? Should I cut my losses and buy a new one?

Just FYI

Melianthus major 'Antonow's Blue' doesn't appreciate being moved.

Oh, baby girl.

Garden oopses

Some of the garden bloggers out there talk about GOOPs. No, not the newsletters from a delusional celebrity suggesting you purchase a $2600 purse for "your summer leisure time." These are gardening oopses. I had a couple of noteworthy ones this summer.

First, I planted this cucumber in the corner of the bed, hoping it would, I don't know, grow obediently along the ground or something? Levitate in the air?

Instead the cucumber sprawled like an insolent drunk, belligerently growing wherever it wanted. Into the pathway . . .

. . . onto the tomato cages . . .

. . . through the herbs, trampling the chard . . .

. . . and clinging to the retaining wall.

 

And then it got powdery mildew and died but the tendrils stayed strong, making it almost impossible to remove them until the tomato cages came out this weekend. Also, we had to wire the tomato cages together because I planted them too closely together and the plants got too big and started to fall over. Cleaning that all up was super fun.

Remember when I planted fennel in a victory barrel so it would do something like this? 

Yeah, fennel likes sun, so when I planted it on the north side of my garage, which lies in shade all day, it grew sideways. 

That's just sad. Weeds took over this summer and the old lady annuals died and it looked awful. But I left it alone to feed the pollinators, not because I was lazy!

Also dead? A flowering currant that I moved 600 times, relegated to a pot, then forgot to water.

I'm going to give this bamboo a try instead. It should top out at eight feet and it doesn't mind shade.

And then I shall never make a gardening mistake again! [Cue the Internet to inform me that bamboo kills children and pollinators.]