Calum Memorial Garden is planted

The sun came out today for just a little bit and allowed the temperature to reach 72 degrees, so my wife and I got out and worked on the memorial garden for our son and planted the plants that we purchased yesterday.

I started out by digging up the phlox and transplanting it to the front yard. My options for where to put it were limited, but I snuck it in near the hydrangea tree:

Phlox transplanted to the front yard.

It will hopefully be more happy there. However, prior to moving it I noticed that the lower leaves of about half the plant had some dark speckles on the leaves.

Dark speckles on lower leaves of Phlox.

I thought that it might be the powdery mildew disease that Phlox are prone to getting and it might be, however, upon looking at photos of the disease online, it doesn't look very similar, being not white and all. In any case I pruned off every leaf that had it. The really interesting thing is that those speckles weren't present yesterday. I looked at a zoomed in photo taken yesterday and they don't appear to be there:

Photo of the same plant just yesterday with no speckles present.

I did a quick online search and found a forum post with pictures that look similar (yes, quite the scientific diagnosis). According to the responses it's leaf spot fungal disease / septoria divaricata fungus and is spread from the soil. This would make sense since we were digging up plants there and soil was flying everywhere and I know some landed on and near the phlox plant. We also had rain last night that could have splashed it up onto the leaves. I'll be keeping a close eye on the other plants we just put in in that area. I need to get some mulch ASAP to help prevent it from getting on the plant leaves. I can't believe how quickly that infected the plant. I hope it survives because I really like it, and of course all of the new plants that we just labored over.

Anyway, I also transplanted the other hosta that was behind the phlox to the north side of the house along with the other hosta I transplanted over there yesterday. Boy are there a lot of roots over there. I could barely find a spot to plant them (oh and I almost cut our cable line...). Here's a shot of what that area looks like now:

North side of the house with hosta transplants.

There'll be a stone pathway through there soon someday.

And after deciding how to arrange the plants (which was borderline random), my wife and I got to planting them and this is how it ended up:

Calum Memorial Garden

To finish it off we are going to get an engraved stone to put in it.

Here is the list of plants that we planted:

Wild Sweet William, Woodlan Phlox
'Blue Moon'
(Phlox divaricata)

Jacob's Ladder (Polemonium reptans)

Tiarella 'Jeepers Creepers'
Creeping Foam Flower

'Praying Hands' Hosta

Dwarf Goatsbeard
(Aruncus aethusifolius)

Bleeding Heart
(Dicentra spectabilis 'Alba')

Golden Bleeding Heart
(Dicentra spectabilis 'Gold Heart')

White-flowered Epimedium
(Epimedium x youngianum 'Niveum')

New Guinea Impatiens
(Impatiens hawkeri)

Who names these things?? Woodland Phlox - hey that sounds nice; Jacob's ladder - sure, I can buy that; but Jeepers Creepers? Dwarf Goatsbeard? Huh??

Anyway, in addition to the garden, my wife put together the pot of Begonias for the patio:

Pot of Begonias.

Brigitte & Nadine Rhine Begonia

They look lovely! My parents gave us a pot of yellow begonias as a house warming gift in 2007 and they bloom beautifully all summer long! That is why I bought them.

And finally to wrap this long post up, I planted another pretty hosta that we purchased next to some other hostas in the backyard:

It's the lighter colored green one in between the two large ones
toward the left center.

Hosta 'Orange Marmaloade'

Good luck, plants.