Rolling Up Annuals, Planting a Boxwood Hedge & Vine Crop Removal! 🥀🍂🌿

Hey guys, how's it going? Today we've got a couple of things going on. First off, we're going to be removing the Supertunia Bordeaux right here, which has been such a stunner this year. Just absolutely beautiful. Still a lot of color on it, but it is looking more tired, and next week it's supposed to get a lot colder. And I've got some boxwoods I want to plant in this area. Those are going to go right in front of this line of Limelight Prime Hydrangeas, so we'll have room, if I step in here, we'll have room to put our boxwood hedge in right here. And I don't want it to be an enormous hedge. We'll keep it, you know, like one and a half, 18 inches by 18 inch wide. And then we'll be able to come back in with annuals. So we're reducing the amount of annuals we'll be planting, which in the long term is sort of nice. And then we're also going to be doing two things with the boxwood hedge. One, we'll be providing more winter interest out here. When it's wintertime, like the annuals are gone, there's nothing on these hydrangeas, it's just sticks. Nothing on these shrubs here. There's some evergreens dotted around back in here, but there's nothing low in evergreen except for the one tater tot over there. So having a swoop of boxwood will look so pretty out here in the wintertime especially. It'll also hide the bottom of these hydrangeas. And that's actually the real reason why I'm planting them out here, because these just tend to, for me at least, for the most part, you can see the under parts of the shrub. Instead of it bringing like floor to ceiling blooms, we've got like mid-range and ceiling blooms here. So I'd love to have a boxwood hedge that just kind of covers that so I don't have to worry about looking at that. And it will be a nice kind of midway height in here, so it's not like short and super tall. And I really would like to get them in the ground before it gets too much colder. The other thing we're going to share with you today is the clean out of the vine crops in the dirtlands. Paul just got that done, and it looks like nothing ever happened out there. It's crazy, and it's satisfying to watch that sort of thing. So we'll put that at the end of the video. So first thing we're going to do, guys, is I'm going to put on gloves, and we're just going to start in removing these. Oh, see, this is the benefit of planting like ground covers and things that just cover your soil. Like, there are no weeds underneath it. So we roll, and we can just pull the root balls out as we go, as we find new ones. Oh, there is some bindweed under here. Of course there is. A little bit. Are these the same variety of mushroom? One's just younger? I don't know. Pretty. Oh, it's getting a little heavy. Oh my goodness, look at it. It does look nice and tidy, and it took about five minutes minus the lifting part. I got it to the end, and I thought, nope, there's no way I can lift this mass because it is dense, and they've got a lot of moisture in them. They're really super duper heavy. But rolling up annuals like that, especially when they're in smaller drifts, oh, it's just so easy to do. I love it. Almost instant gratification. So now we need to go unload and go pick up the boxwoods. We're going to be putting independence boxwoods in here, which are the same as the ones in the front entranceway, which is looking so nice. In fact, we should just pick our way through here and take a look. I mean, and just appreciate the layers this time of year. Look at the different colored foliage, because like this right here is a cinnamon curls birch. Almost looks like a two-tier topiary. It's not. I haven't pruned it that way. It's just growing that way. But it's got green leaves in the summertime, so you don't notice it quite as much as you do now when it's got that beautiful yellow. We've got the limelight blooms. You can still see some of the color on them. Black Lace Elderberry in its huge, massive state. We've got some, I think these are Lavender Haze, if I am not mistaken, Buddleia. I originally had planted a arc of Buddleia behind the limelights, and I'm kind of glad the whole thing didn't turn out, like a bunch of them died over the course of the winter, except for these two. I kind of like just having the two. And then now we can really see this shine, and I can put like a grass right here. That's a little bit shorter. I think that'd be a good idea. Anyway. Also, Blue Skies Serbian Spruce, one of my favorite evergreens. I'm just going to go through this little pathway. Gin Fizz Juniper, Gorgeous Snowball Bush by Burnham, putting on its, you know, random fall bloom. That's not supposed to do that. Weeping Alaskan Cedar. We've got our Royal Raindrops Crabapple Turning Color. It's full of crabapples. And then our entryway with the Gorgeous Boxwoods. So we're going to repeat this same variety. I've just been so enamored. Now, I don't have very much experience with these yet. We just got our hands on some of them this year. So anyway, we'll see, you know, over the course of several years how these things grow. But so far, so good. I mean, they're so gorgeous. Their leaves are so thick and waxy that the spider mites do not seem to be as attracted to these. Again, only a season's worth of growing experience with these, so time will tell on that. But if that is true and it maintains, so nice. Because we have spider mites very bad here. They like dry, hot climates, which is what we have. Anyway, so to find a boxwood that can handle or stand up to mites is awesome. And I also like the growth habit. I mean, these things are just strong and they don't want to lay over. Their stems are super stiff. They're just wonderful. Also while we're up here, side note, mail house has been primed. Look at that. Of course, they've got some film and stuff over the glass on the windows. The windows were installed. So we'll have window boxes, I think, down there. And they'll be painting it on Monday, which it'll basically look the same thing. But after they're done, they can peel all that stuff off and we can get our lights installed. I'm just so thrilled with how it's turned out. And our pathway, you guys, will have a curve. So it's going to start here quite wide and then kind of curve in to the house right there. And after the pathway's in, we can decide what we want to do. We might come in with more boxwoods that lead to the house. I don't know. I just really wanted to show you the boxwoods up there, how they were looking. And one other thing is kind of odd. Back over here by the hydrangeas, look at this one. It looks like somebody came over and just like, whoop, just knocked it over. But it's really tough. It's strong. It's not loose in its hole. So I don't know what on earth happened. I never recognized this as being a tipped over plant or saw that it had tipped over. I mean, I came and pruned these things this last late, I don't know, late winter, early spring. So like, maybe we should dig that up and turn it the right side. I'm not really sure. Let's focus on the boxwoods for now. So we've got to go dump the supertunias first. Set leaves on top of them. So these are the independents right here. Got them all loaded up, gave everything out here that's left a little bit of a drink. We are expecting a couple of days of rain, but everything that's undercover, you know, it's not going to get any of that rain. So I have to make sure that it's got some moisture. Low visibility. Hello. Okay. So I'm thinking of positioning these kind of in line with this daylily right here. I might even remove that daylily so that they can come out a little bit further than the hydrangeas. I don't really want them both starting at the same spot, if that makes sense. Because this side will end with a tater tot. Actually, so we have a tater tot here. I happen to have another tater tot in the high tunnel. We could put a tater tot on the other end and cap it. Tater tot right here and boxwoods in between. I like that idea. So now I need to figure out exactly how far I want them away from the grass. I'm not sure that I have the hydrangeas exactly the same distance from the grass or not. But I think having our evergreen element be consistent is the best thing because these will keep growing. These will get bigger. So I'm going to figure all of that out, which means that the swoop is probably going to come forward just a little bit. I need to go cut a spacing stick. I've got myself a dogwood branch. I'm going to cut it to size. Okay, so I've cut myself two sticks. One that will space me away from the grass edge and one that will space the pots apart. So I'm going to do that and see what it looks like because I feel like hydrangeas might be a little closer to the grass on this side and a little further on that side. So if it looks visually really weird, I might just adjust them back a little bit more. So it might not be exact, but I don't think in the end it's going to matter all that much. Don't those look beautiful though, all lined up like that? I'm so excited about this. And here comes my other tater tot arb. Thank you. You're welcome. I kind of wanted you to see it out here anyway. It looks great. Do you like it? Yeah, that looks really good. What's this? That's my space. Don't you laugh. It works really well. Those are my measuring sticks. So what I'm going to do, because there's a tater tot on that end, I'm going to take this daylily out and put it there. So we'll have a boxwood hedge capped by tater tots. This one's a little smaller than the other one, but it will grow. So it will be somewhere like right in here. These are going to be set forward a tiny bit more, I think. That'll help a lot. Don't you think? Yeah. It'll at least make us want to keep these hydrangeas. Yeah. And you can just do one row of annuals. Yeah. And I think it'll be really impactful because it's such a long row. And it reduces the amount of annuals that we have to repeat plant too. You'll have a hard time trimming these in the fall though. The boxwoods? Yeah. Nah. Because we can trim the, the hydrangeas can be trimmed. Oh, you mean with the annuals still there? Yeah. Well, I won't plant them too close, Aaron. Once, once it's a hedge though, I mean. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. You won't plant the annuals too close? Yeah. I never plant them too close to boxwoods. Whoop. All right, guys. So let's get these all measured out and take a look. Getting the squats in today. See, that's way closer. This is going to look weird. Oh. I think that gives everything room to grow. Probably no supertunia vistas though in here anymore. I'm thinking we keep the hedge about this wide. So not a whole lot wider than it is now. Gives these room to grow. And then we'll have two feet to plant an annual in front. Like one row. Okay, we are going to go with this, you guys. I really like how it looks. I just stood back for a few minutes after we got done spacing and kind of the initial thoughts and I think it's going to be great. And I love the tater tot caps on either end. And I did measure this one from the center of, like from the trunk of that tater tot out to the grass. And it sits front just a little bit, which kind of is nice. It makes it a little bit more separate from the boxwoods, a little bit more of an individual. And so I will be digging this daylily to make room for that, which is, you know, great. I mean, we've got plenty of daylilies in this space. And then we'll have room for one row of something small, which in a way would be kind of nice. There are certain pockets I want to leave for annuals, but, you know, as the garden expands and we keep adding things and all that business, I do want to start adding in wild winter interests, things that come back every year, things that don't require, you know, weekly fertilization. Although I think that they are so impactful in the garden and I do still want to keep planting them. We'll still have room for some, but I just don't think supertunias or superbinas are going to fit in this space anymore. So we're going to really have to think about our option here. Our options in this spot. Gosh, I would have to resist the urge to put lavender in. Ugh, resist. All right, guys. So I'm going to dig all of the holes with the nine-inch auger, and then we will set all of the things in the holes, and then I will plant them. All right, we've got them all in the holes. Haven't packed soil in around them yet because I like to stand back and make sure I don't need to shift anything to make it look nice and straight. But it is beautiful. I love it. Look at how gorgeous that is. And I mean, it's just perfect for this space. And knowing that's going to be here all winter, that we will not lose that in the wintertime, is so nice. Oh, I just love it. So you can see them there. I do plant these on the higher side because we will come back in with some mulch. We'll rerun drip because before we kind of had drip a little bit willy-nilly through here, and now we can have it a little bit more organized where, you know, we've got a row for the hydrangeas, a row for the boxwoods, and then we can run one row for the annuals. And as I was planting, I figured out that I think we reduced the amount of annuals we're going to need to plant in this area by two-thirds because I had three rows. There was a front, middle, and back row of annuals. So that's pretty incredible. And here's the daylily right here, which is just going to find a new home. And we've got the tater tot placed where it needs to go. I actually brought the shovel out and moved the hole over a little bit because I realized the one on the other side was a little bit further apart, but this is just absolutely perfect. I love it. And here's a look from this side. Oh, just the uniformity. It does my heart good. And so do areas like this that are a little bit more of a jumble. I love it all. Okay, so we're going to get these all packed in and watered. All done, and I love it. I love it so much. I wish we would have done this from the very beginning. When you're looking at it, especially from this angle, you can see how striking it is and how much of a difference it makes. And I love seeing the three lines here. The grass line, the boxwood line, the hydrangea line. It just brings, just, I don't know, when you look down both grass pathways to this end of the garden, there's the formality and kind of the structure to it. I love it so much. And the sun's trying to come out for us, but you guys, these grow three by three if you were to let them do their thing. And I think their 25-year size is even a little bit bigger than that, but they're a zone five through eight. And like I said, I'm not going to let them get massive. I think the ending height, I don't want them to be more than about like this. So what is that? Maybe 18 to 24 inches tall. That way the tater tot here will be the taller element. And the tater tot grows about three by three as well. So we'll let this do its thing and get to its full size, and then it'll start in with the more square-looking hedge right after that. But we've given this plenty of space to grow up bigger if it wants to get that way, but I do zero trimming on this. And that's one of the beauties of the tater tot arb is that it just grows in a ball shape and you just don't have to mess with it. And it brings that wonderful structure. So we'll just walk down the line here and just take it in. Oh my gosh. I do think I forgot to mention the zone of the arb is a zone three through eight. So we've got a three through eight and a five through eight. Goodness. I'm going to take a look down this way again. Look at that. Oh my word. My word. It's gorgeous. I honestly could not be happier with today's project. I absolutely love it. So one more area cleaned up of annuals, boxwoods planted. Now I want to leave you with the footage of Paul cleaning out the vine crops. And they all went out to feed Bethany's pigs. All the vine crops did. So anyway, thank you guys so much for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoy the rest of what you're about to see. Bye.