May Diagram 2016.5.2

Garden Diagram for 5/15/16

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This diagram has two main points to notice.
First ... the spike for Empress Wu has failed.  At this time I have to suspect that the critter below has effected the plant.
Second ... I have tried to show how the hosta will begin to overlap each other this year.  The loss of Empress Wu prevents the overlap between Dancing Queen, Liberty and Sum nnd Substance which may well prevent the connection to the Northeast corner.

Overlap or the Micro-canopy

So why is this overlap so important?  The answer is simple ... it holds water in the garden!  To understand this you need to understand how plants behave.

Humans are not plants ... but both have some of the similar biological processes.  Human's perspire; we take water in and release it by perspiration.  Plants, and hosta, expire; they take water in from their roots, and expel it through the BACKS of their leaves.  The gardener will note individual hosta grow in what we call 'mounds'.  This growth habit attempts to hold water as when the hosta expires it sends the water back to the space between the leaf and the ground.  This mounding effect holds some of the water there and thus eventually returns some of it back to the ground for re-use.

When the hosta begin to build a 'canopy' more and more of the water can be held in one area - naturally.  When the plant does that less rain or human watering is needed to keep the plants alive.  Readers must now remember that Hosta come from China, Korea, and Japan.  The growing zones for these plants have rain falls that exceed 80 in. / 203.20 cm. of rain a year so holding that water in gets to be very important when that hosta is put in the Minnesota garden where it only rains about 20 in. / 50.80 cm. a year.  Both the canopy of the garden, and the mound shape of the hosta aide in the water control for that space.

Before we leave this subject there's one last point to all of this.  Full sized forests (and jungles) have canopy systems.  In fact these ecosystems might have up to 8 layers of different canopy's.  Each canopy may have a different purpose in the ecological balance of the growing area.  Light control to precipitation control, to water management, to animal control.  Larger scale canopy's work in a very similar way as the micro-canopy of the small scale garden you might have!

That is why I am so excited about this evolution change for my hosta garden!  I get to keep the water!

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