Goodbye Lilac bring on the Laurels #smallgardendesign #gardenmakeover #pottedplants

Hi guys and welcome back to Chip's Green World. Today you join me on a hot glorious sunny summer day here in Yorkshire. Bit of a heat wave again. What's going on with the weather? Here we are in the courtyard and while we're here let me show you a little sneak peek of the pots we're going to be filling today. More on that later. Let's have a little sneak peek around the other side of the courtyard. Lovely lush and green. Beautiful. Let's go out back because that's where the plants are that are going in them pots. So let's have a look at them. Also let's have a look at our rusty trough pond. See how that's doing. Lovely to see that the clover and the lavender are merging together as one. The bees are loving it. Let's quickly move on to our rusty steel trough. The oxygenating plants have been added. The pump has been ordered. It's on its way. We'll get round to that maybe in the next vlog. All right so on to today's job which involves these four Portuguese laurel. These four Portuguese laurel have had about four years. They're due for a repot and they were earmarked to go in the courtyard at the end of the decking once the decking had been fitted. But unfortunately there's been a disaster in the front town garden where something huge has to come out. So these are going to replace that. And also you'll notice a little pond plant there. That's because something else has happened in the town garden. So before we get on to the town garden let's have a quick recap of how the town garden was created. It's hard to believe two years have passed since we did the town garden. And guess what the big thing is that needs replacing today? Any ideas? I probably gave it away with a thumbnail. It's not my home oaks. It's not my box. It's not my Japanese maple. There is a pond missing. Oops a daisy. So now we have one lonesome pond. And if you remember the larger one got frost damage so that's been removed. I tried to repair it but it wasn't having none of it. And finally we come across the culprit of today's vlog. It's the Californian lilac. It's diseased. Unfortunately I have been pruning bits away hoping that I could rescue it. This has been going on for a year but it's just getting worse. It's coming up to 15 years old. So I did some research and they have a lifespan of around 10 to 15 years. I hoped that I could take maybe one side away and then train the other side through it. But unfortunately it's not looking good and today is the day it has to go. Very sad day indeed. So with a sad heart it's time to be brave here I'm just cutting the cable ties where I've trained the right hand side through the left hand side because I was prepared for this knowing that I could lose the left hand side but now the right hand side has started to go so sadly it all has to go. And the worst thing is it was just looking its most beautiful and the neighbours were all complimenting how magnificent it was looking. A truly sad day. Right that's enough of that sadness. Let's look onwards and upwards. I've still got to get the trunk out and all this sadness needs to be cleared all cleaned up let's get the trunk out and then we can start rebuilding. Bit of brute force and determination. And just in case I was having any doubts that's going to prove I'm doing exactly the right thing. It's a lot worse than I originally thought. And always remember folks it's always a good thing to leave a decent amount of trunk when taking a tree or a shrub out. This will give you the leverage needed to break the roots, expose the roots and then saw the roots. cheer ourselves up with a little happy dance. laurels ready to be taken out of their pots and So I've measured the root ball, the height and now I know how far I need to fill each pot up with compost. So they're all sitting an inch from the top allowing for watering. And a lot of you will be thinking are you adding anything in the pots to help with drainage? The answer is no. I've never had a problem with drainage using this multi-purpose compost so I'm not adding anything to the bottom of the pot. But if I were to be adding something to the bottom of the pot for drainage it would be an inch of gravel. It wouldn't be terracotta. I find terracotta pieces block the hole. Terracotta is best used when you have oversized holes in your pot to stop the compost falling through. For drainage an inch of gravel is your best option from my experience. And I know this can be a very controversial subject so this is just my way of doing things. Pots all ready. Now let's loosen up all the roots. Take the corners off as they're going into round pots. These corners are going to be in the way. And we can start repotting. And there we go. Four Portuguese laurel standards in their new pots. Let's get them tucked in. And there we go. Gypsy boy's had a good cleanup and now he's giving them a good water. And we'll keep these watered regularly until they settle in. So what do you think guys? Is it an improvement? There's a good question. Could possibly be. They do look good. I will be letting them grow even bigger now they're in bigger pots. So that's something to look forward to. The pots look extremely good in this area. Good choice of pots. We have more to come on the town garden in the next couple of weeks. I've already surrounded the box balls with some of the recycled slate that we took up from the bottom half. It's nice that you can see the home oaks from the front now. So we'll see how these settle in. It's been a sad day. Hard work. Big decisions. Work's been done. Accomplished. Big achievement. A big shout out to the patrons of the channel. Thank you for your support. Thanks to the subscribers and welcome to all the new subscribers. But for now that's it guys. Hope you've enjoyed. Hope you all have a great week and I will see you very soon. All the best. Bye now.