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To plant or not to plant

brooklynbonnie
9 years ago

So that's my question. I have a Red Lion that survived after it bloomed in December. I've managed to stave off the rot that got my Minerva from over watering. Both were store bought at the holidays of course.

Now I've got it with lots of healthy roots in the small plastic pot it came with. The soil it came with seems to stay damp forever in there. It had more leaves but they had been cut by the grower/packager and never grew bigger it seems and I think one withered when I was having trouble keep the plant dry so technically it should have about 6 leaves instead of the 4 it has now. It produced two scapes with four blooms each this winter.

Now that it is past the threat of snow and freezes, I wanted to get it outside for the warmth and sun. It's been going out for the days for a couple weeks now and coming in at night. But on rainy or cold days it only has a North facing window to sit in which gets about 45min of sun in the morning. It's leaves are about 2ft long.

I have a yard, BUT the part with soil is under trees and is basically full shade with only some speckled sun during the summer. The part in full sun is a concrete patio with planters.

Question 1) I have a lot of large planters I could put it in but I wanted to know if that is recommended given these plants do not like to stay wet. I've got three planter choices it could go in:
1 large plastic which will also hold a clematis
2 large wood barrel which is very old and a bit rotted but seems to dry out faster than the other choices
3 a concrete type planter which is so heavy I can't easily move it and seems to hold moisture for a long time but not as long as the plastic ones (three moon flowers are also going in this one)

The plastic and concrete planters will stay near a 6ft fence so shaded from morning sun but get full afternoon sun until about 4pm. The wood barrel planters get full sun from about 7am until maybe 3pm.

Question 2) Should it stay in it's small plastic pot and just be buried, or should I free it and let its roots spread for the summer?

Thank you for any suggestions!

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