ISLAND BED REVAMP DAY 1. PLANTING DAPPLED WILLOW TREE.

Morning guys, so what's happening today is I am going to make some changes to this island bed. Not to the front edge, I'm going to do the back edge, where back in July when we had to cut back all of my daylilies and yarrow because of the heat, they dried up faster than what I've ever seen them in the last, we've been on this property 32 years. So it's a time for a change. It looks beautiful today which always makes these decisions, makes me go back and forth. It looks so pretty, but it's time for a change. So I'm going to be, you can see the dappled willow sitting right there. It's been in this big pot for I think three years now and I'm thinking about it's going to be where the pretty arbor is right now. I don't know if you call that an arbor, a metal design ornament and that's a cypress vine on it which I like, but I'm going to place it there. It's going to sit a little lower than it looks outside of the garden because of its nice thick root system, but I'm going to plant it. That's the first thing I'm going to do is get the tree planted. I'm going to be moving all of the plants that you see on the front edge of the garden. All the daylilies will come out. Sedum will stay. My echinacea will stay and we'll just see how it looks. If I don't like it, the worst that happens is I take the tree out. It goes back in a specimen pot and then I go ahead with, I have three shrubs that I want to put down here. Still keep the daylilies out and let's just try to refresh this island bed. It's always nervous when it's been that way for 32 years. The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to get the whole dug. I'm going to get plants dug, put in pots. I have someone who's going to take the plants. I just text them saying I'm going to be digging them today. You can come get them. I'll take care of them until it's ready. If you notice the anxiety in my voice, I am a little anxious because change is good but never easy. Reggie's shaking his head. It's a plant. It's a plant, people, and that's what I'm going to do. So I'll show you what I'm going to do first to the tree. Well, I've got you and my producer. I want to show you how nice this root system looks. This is a dappled willow. I love it and look at this root system. You can see where it's been in the pot. The roots have grown into the bottom of the pot. So I'm just going to cut some of these roots out. It won't hurt it. At least I don't think it will. And get that tied up root base off of it. Look at that. It's like a carpet. I'll hold that up a little bit. And please comment, anybody who has a dappled willow that's tree forming theirs, how well yours is doing. But I'm pleased. I think I'm going to love it when it's done. I'm going to continue on. I'll cut this off. I'll show you what it looks like. We'll just get started. I'm getting ready to take the ajuga that is covering the area. Very nice. It's a nice ground cover. I'm taking it up, setting it to the side. Any of my garden gyro, I will dig that out and put it to the side and temporarily till we can pot and plant that all back into the garden. Just making room to dig the hole. It'll be a sizable hole for the dappled willow. In the hole, there will be compost, there will be root starter, and we will just pack that all back in there and get this watered today, too. What I found digging this hole, the soil is really good. We had amended it years ago, but we always add compost and add our mulch, and so it has made that soil really nice. I was impressed with how it hadn't really all dried out. It looked good, and I'm excited to see how well the tree will do in this spot. Very little clay, so we've got the tree. We've measured it, and the hole needs to be a little bit bigger. At this point, the tree looks good in the hole. Maybe that left side needed to be dug down just a little bit, but you walk around the tree, you assess how it looks, and what's left to do is to add some compost, add the biotone, and start filling it in. It looks good. Always look at all angles before you plant it. All right, this is just my compost. Put that in the bottom. Before I add the biotone, I'm going to do a little test run again of the tree in the hole. Yeah, I'm going to let it sit above the hole an inch or two, add more compost, mulch. Yeah. All right, I will add the biotone. I'm not going to drag the tree out again. Yeah, I will. Come on. Drag it out of the hole. Put the root stimulator in there. Yes. Drag it out. These daylilies are going to come out today, too. Huh. Yay. So, this is just to get those roots. There we are. And, oh, all righty. You want to look at it from all sides. Making me happy. All right. All that's left now is just to fill in the hole, pack it in around that root ball, and then get it watered in. Pleased with how it looks. So, it's planted. I just have to get it watered, and I'm really pleased. Particularly, I think the view looking at the birdbath behind it is just soft and airy. I'm very pleased. All I have to do is get it watered. The next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to start moving daylilies, and that's not a hard job. It's just real simple. All I'm going to be doing is I will move the mulch away, and like I said, I have a friend who is, I let them know I'm digging these today, and my thoughts are I'm going to remove these daylilies through here, and my thoughts are I found a shrub, and I'll show you that, but not right now. The shrubs will get two by two. I don't want them touching. They are really pretty. They're called Mr. Bowling Ball Arborvitae, and they get two by two. They stay evergreen, and that'll give me that color in the summer when I have to cut back daylilies, because I plan to keep daylilies in here. I plan to let my yarrow, my yarrow that's covered up with dirt right now, it'll still be there, but I just wanted something that for a change that when everything is gone, it won't look so sad. I said that in July. It looks sad, so that was the scariest part of this whole thing for me, and I love it. The rest is just doing this kind of stuff. We're going to dig up the daylilies, and I have pots. They come out of the ground fairly easily, and the one thing about these daylilies, and I told Neil, he'll be coming by, I said, I'll keep them watered, but you know, you can put these daylilies in a bag. Look at that big clump. Yeah, and my friend has several acres of ground, but these are coming out. I have markers. I'll mark them. This is the fun part. Yay! Struthers Ball. I'll keep that tag. It'll go with it when it goes. So I'm going to keep on doing this, and that's probably going to be the end of my day today. I have a meeting at three. I'll get these dug out, tagged, cleaned up, and we'll finish this, and I'll bring you along for that whenever I get around to getting those other shrubs in the garden. When I get it finished, I'll bring you along for the day I get the shrubs planted, but for now, even though you're scared, do it anyway like I did today. So thanks for watching Gardening on the Westwork Zone 6B, West and West Virginia. We're making some changes after 32 years. Thanks for watching. You can see already how much cleaner it looks with digging out the daylilies and clearing that border out, the back of the border, so that when we get back to finish this project, it's just a project in progress. So we don't know really what the end result will be. I just know taking things out is the way to do it so that you know what you don't want, and then you can always put back what you do.