American Spikenard (Aralia racemosa)

I planted 5 of these in Spring 2020 along my back property line, which is next to a nasty bunch of vines and honeysuckle. They are all doing pretty good, but 1 of them is several times larger than the rest, and my guess is that it gets a lot more light through the trees than the others do. I keep the vines and honeysuckle away from them to provide as much light as possible. As with all my plants, I put a plastic plant guard around each one of them. With these, I also put cardboard around them to keep the ground ivy and weeds away from them. No insects seem to have bothered them.

I planted the spikenard plants I had ordered in between 4 pines trees on the (south east I believe?) of my house. I dug pretty big holes for all three of them. However, I dug one bigger than all the rest. They grew very well, and are still doing so. I rarely ever water them, I have only watered them a few times so far. One thing that striked me however is that one mysteriously dissapeared. I had no idea how it happened, but it was no problem since missouri natives gave me another. The plants that the nursery gave me did not look great at first, but they recovered quickly. They are one of the successes in the garden this year! I would definitely order more plants. Note: I mixed only a bit of the original soil with garden soil I bought from Costco, and planted the spikenard in the mix. I reccomend planting a hole both deep and wide, but that is just me.