Herbaceous perennials, winter to spring

This was the post I think may be helpful

 

Thankyou, @Plantminded, @Liriodendron, @Thevictorian, very helpful comments.

Re the honey fungus, I do have woody shrubs that seem fine (sorbus, buddleia, ceanothus, salix). However, after recent rain, I saw yesterday, a clump of 20 light brown coloured toadstools in a potted rose shrub (not in the problem area). I often find toadstools/fungi near that area.

The other thing I would say is that many of my perennials seemed to be visible in January, which made me wonder, could they just be on a different time zone?! Maybe they will come up late?

I have been throwing bits of bird seed on the problem area, since March and some seeds have sprouted, so I think the problem must be deeper in the soil. Drainage seems fine.

I will do some digging asap. I have not seen any vine weevils. I have seen a few tiny black beetles (1/20 size of a ladybird) on clematis and rose leaves. Hardly any slugs or snails compared to most years.

 

Hello again. My update is that quite a few of the seeds I threw down are still growing. The herbaceous perennials have not appeared.

I think possibly I buried my dear cat and then planted a remembrance garden too soon afterwards. The vet euthanised my cat using pentobarbital sodium injection, after chemotherapy treatment failed.

Part of the chemotherapy treatment involved vinca alkaloids, made from vinca/periwinkle, but I think perhaps it was the pentobarbital/euthanasia drug that had the biggest impact on the soil.

 

I'm very sorry to hear that. I don't know enough about the drug to say that it's a problem or not but we planted over our dog who was put to sleep and didn't have any problems.

 

Good news re the seedlings, @ClematisDbee. Hopefully they will continue to thrive.

 

Thank you so much, @Thevictorian, that is very kind of you. I planted the perennial plants around the grave, rather than over, and possibly the grave was not positioned deep enough. I hope to try planting again in a while. It adds to the sadness when plants won't grow in a situation like this.