Lots of Planting Projects- In Containers & In the Landscape!

Hey guys, how's it going? So today we have a bunch of fun stuff to work on. Sort of random, it's gonna take us all around the garden, but I'm excited to check these projects off the list. And you know, yesterday we got our load of annuals in and I'm so excited about it. I woke up feeling that, oh, that super excited feeling and I love that, but a lot of our larger annual areas are not ready for annuals yet because they still have bulbs blooming in them. So I wanna make sure the bulbs are done before we go in with our summer annuals, but we have plenty of other things to work on in the meantime. So check out this load right here. We've got five different things in here and I intend on going back and loading up again. We've got some surefire rose begonias that are gonna go in some containers that are ready for them. We've got some iris, which I ordered magical and I don't know if that picture is just a bad picture and this is what it actually is, or if it's mislabeled, I don't even care. They're gorgeous. I love the peachy colored iris and they smell so good. So we've got how many here? One, two, three, four. Four of those we're gonna plant out. We've got some super bells lemon slice, which has been one that's been probably one of the better performers for us and they're going in a container that needs to stay a little bit on the dry side, which will be perfect for. Super tunia mini vista white are going in the ground out in the South garden. We planted some of these last year and it was sort of random where I put them and I ended up loving them so much. Like we would go on our evening drives and I would see that big pop of white and it just looked so refreshing. It wasn't that I didn't expect to love it, but I just absolutely loved it. It just hit just the right way. So I thought, you know, we've got to plant more of this in maybe more of an organized fashion. So we're gonna do that. And then one of you guys sent out some purring tiger Siberian iris. There are four of them here and the box got tossed before I could confirm who sent them. Thank you to the person who sent these. As you know, I'm a huge fan of iris. I mean, these are a different kind in that the blooms are a little bit smaller. The leaves are, you know, clearly not as wide, but the Siberian iris stay nicer the whole season. Like they don't get brown on the tips. Look at the color of the blooms here, yellow and purple. 18 to 20 inches tall. This one spreads out two feet. I'm just excited about it. Excited to add this new variety. So that's where we're gonna start today. I might also grab, we've got 10 independence boxwoods back by the high tunnel. And I think I know where I want to put them. We may not plant them today, but I just want to set them in the spot, get your guys' opinion, live with it for a couple of days before I like actually do it because that project will snowball into a larger one. And I'll explain that later. But anyway, let's head to where the surefire roast we're gonna use are gonna go. We'll start there. I love our urns, you guys. The ones we planted yesterday. They're so pretty. You can see our drips are running. At this point, we have temperatures in the high 70s to mid 80s. And like last night, it got down to 55. That was our low. So we've got our drip system running twice a week at this point. And we'll maintain that until we notice that maybe the plants need a little bit more than we typically up to three times a week. Oh, what a glorious time of day. Ooh, that drip is kind of spraying. Look at that. Oh, oh my. Look at that. That's too much. We're gonna have to replace that. That one's spraying out. Oh my word. This looks like it should. Little drips. I figured the surefire roast begonias would be perfect for this location because you can see first thing in the morning, they are in full sun. And, but they get into the shade pretty quickly. And then they're in the shade until the very end of the day. And then just one side of one pot is in full, like the hottest sun of the day. So this one, once it gets to be in shade, it stays in the shade. But this one, this half is shaded in the late part of the day, but this part gets full, full hot sun. And these plants can do sun or shade. So they're a really great one. If I was to try, you know, any full sun loving annual, like supertunias or super bells, they would not thrive as much as something that could do either or. And I do feel that the begonias and the boxwood are a very compatible blend in terms of water. So I think we're gonna just, I don't know, I think this is gonna be good. It's gonna be very simple. We're just going to ring around the boxwoods with one plant and it's just gonna be, I think, very striking and nice and easy. So we did recharge the soil with some biotone, but I'm gonna top just the top layer around the boxwood with our slow release fertilizer for the begonias. They don't really need a ton of food. So this is probably gonna be sufficient. So just a light sprinkle around the edges here. Almost forgot, we need to do a quick drip exchange here. I'm glad that we came out here when we did to see how that was functioning. And there they are all done. You know, I did seven in each pot, but I think you could do five easily. They will get good size, but I think seven will create a nice, a huge full display a little earlier in the season. But I think that's just a nice, simple, clean look. And our neat ball boxwoods are doing fantastic. Also, the, what are these called again? Independents. These over here did so much better than the ones up in our front entryway and the ones that I'm gonna show you here in just a little bit. So right there and on the end, and right here, like this one has no winter damage. It looks beautiful. That one looks great. Those both look great. The ones we planted at the entryway and at the end of the loop look rough, like really rough. I don't know what the deal is, what the difference is. So anyway, I'm really thrilled with these. Okay, we're gonna head to the super bells container next. I forgot my auger, so I can't do our mini Vista white project until I grab that. Okay, here we are. So we've got these beautiful dragon slayer yuccas in these containers. And I have to be really careful about what annuals, if any, I pair with these, because these do not want a lot of water. It would be detrimental to them. So you can see the violas are starting to peter out. The soil is a little bit on the dry side, but we're ready for something else. And I think the super bells are gonna do great in here. I grew the double grapefruits in here last year with the yuccas, and it was a beautiful combination, and they both did great because super bells want to dry out a little bit in between watering. It seems like a match made in heaven. So I think lemon slice will be a fun one to try in here. And you know, I have struggled through the years with super bells, putting them in other mixed arrangements and things because they just don't require as much water as the other things I'm putting in the pot. So I either have to pair them with something like this, or what did I do? I think I did a mix of those in around our pine trees, and that worked out pretty well because the pines also don't want a tremendous amount of water. So the pines at each end of the Hartley. Right now we still have pansies in there, which look good. But anyway, we're just gonna pull these violas and get our super bells in there. Again, another very simple container. I actually planted these violas in here last fall, and they were amazing last fall and amazing again this spring, so nice. I'm pulling off any crummy looking leaves off the base of the plant too. Be very careful when working with something like this not to go in with your eyes open, like move the leaves out of your working space. Hey Russell, how you doing buddy? See how pretty those are gonna be? They're gonna just look so fresh and bright and summery. And I think they'll be very, very happy. I did try to level up the pot. I might have to work on that a little bit more. And you can see that we do have drip run up into these containers, just in case we wanted to tap it into the system that runs here. But I just wasn't sure how much water this would exactly need. And we'd probably get away with tapping it in so we don't have to hand water. But we just hand watered these last year. It was just a couple of those that we kept on our radar so that we didn't over water on accident. And that worked out real well. Anyway, super happy with these. All right, you guys. So here we are at the end of the south garden loop. We planted these in, I want to say incredible. Every single time we come to these boxwoods, they're independence, oh my gosh. I'm gonna probably struggle with that forever. Anyway, independence boxwoods. So look at these, what? I mean, there's nice leaves underneath. And I, you know, I want to blame that 129 degree night that we had, but these actually came through winter looking like this. So we're wondering if it was a water issue because I did plant these late in the season. We didn't do any supplemental water this winter and that's probably where we screwed it up. Because given the fact that the ones over by the flower shed look so good, I mean, they are a little bit more protected over there. I didn't plant those late too and I didn't water those either, but I'm wondering if like maybe they got a little bit of extra runoff from the roof or who knows, maybe that being more protected, they retain more water in that space. Maybe the soil composition's different there, but I can't really blame the plant exactly because of how good some of them look while others don't. And the ones along our driveway, like the entry driveway area, they look just like this. And I think we'll be okay because I can see some new growth coming out, but they're so short that I feel like I can't really even trim them at this point. If I trimmed them, they'd be so darn flat. So I'm just gonna kind of leave them. Look at this one. My goodness, I'll do one of these and that does clean off some of the dead. So anyway, I think we'll be fine. I mean, they're all still alive. They're all pushing new growth around the crummy stuff, but oh man, that just makes me sad and a little bit mad at myself because I just didn't even think. And here I am always saying, you need to remember if you have long, cold, dry spells in the winter, you need to, on newly planted stuff or for containers, you need to go out and give it a little bit of supplemental water. Practice what I preach maybe. Anyway, I think we'll be okay and hopefully they just push enough growth to cover up some of the damage that they sustained. Still really like the growth habit of these. So I'm very hopeful that they come out of this and that next year, should we plant any late in the season to where they don't have a chance to establish really well, I'll just have to make a reminder in my calendar, go water the boxwoods. But this space right over here is where I put a bunch of the mini Vista Whites last year. I started them kind of right in this area. So fun to see the red start to fill in, but I put a bunch of them right in here. I think I made it almost all the way over here and it was glorious. So anyway, we're just kind of shifting the location. Usually I'm able to do like a double or triple row in this area, but with the boxwoods, we have room for one and we couldn't put like a, the mini vistas are really great for landscape, but they don't grow like the Supertunia Vista, like the larger ones. Those would get way too big for this area. So I chose these on purpose because they will produce tons of flowers, but they won't be as aggressive and as huge. I always take the tags out first before I place them, but here's kind of what I'm thinking. I'll probably start it here. No, no, no, let's start it here. I'm gonna go about that far apart. And I think that's gonna be perfect. Maybe almost lining them up with the middle section of each one of these boxes, I don't know. We'll see how it works out. All right, you guys, 20 plants. And I spaced them exactly two of my size, seven and a half foot shoe apart from each other. Super scientific, very precise in my measurements. I think that's gonna be perfect. Okay, I did stop and grab my augers. So we're gonna use our three inch auger here and some Biotone Starter Fertilizer and we'll get them in the ground. This is the quick part. Placing is always the longest for me. Look at that. I don't know what it is, but there's something about having hedges or rows of things among all of the other kind of more jumbled up plantings that really helps my eye at least. It gives it something to rest on that's got some consistency. Because if you look at really any other area out here, it's just kind of a overflowing chaos sort of situation. I mean, lots of different things in these flower beds, which is really fun too. I like to have both. Look at this peony. This is a coral charm, I think. It's either coral charm or Hawaiian coral. These are the three that we moved from the back north garden when we were getting ready for the pond to go in. And this one in particular wilted down so bad because peonies don't like to be transplanted anyway all that much. And I had to transplant them at a weird time. And look at them. Oh my word. And the Camatia is looking beautiful as well. Highly recommend this one. It's a bulb that you plant in the fall and it comes up and does this in the spring. Anyway, I just love having a little touch of formality out here. And I think the white is just gonna light it up. I'm not sure I've ever done like a pure white here. Usually I've done like sparkling amethyst supervena, which is a purple and white. I've done lots of pinks, lots of purples. So this will be fun. Okay, I've got bold iris. The bearded iris and the Siberian iris left in the gator. Let's go find spots for those. Be a really nice texture to have right here. Okay, we're still in the south garden here. I didn't make it very far, but I came across this area and there are some perfect spots to pop these in. They don't need to all be in one big group because they will turn into a big group. In fact, I think I'm gonna split these two up. I think I'm gonna move this one, maybe like right in here. We've got a Caryopteris that needs to come out. Yeah, I think that'll be really pretty. Just having them sort of dotted through this area, providing that really strappy grassy texture and some earlier color. Because as you can see, the only thing we have in here at the moment are some Nepeta that have just started to bloom. And then earlier than that, we've got daffodils on the other side, but not a lot of color at this point of the year. It is crazy to me how fast though, these flowerbeds fill up. So I think having them just individually popped in is a good idea instead of trying to do anything in mass. I wonder if I can just pop this one out. Any grubs? I'm hypersensitive to grubs right now since I found some in our strawberry beds. Nope. All right, those are in. And it's kind of nice too that they're separated so they can just work on filling out their own area. Iris spread pretty quickly. I love the color in here though. I mean, look at that. That is just beautiful. And I'm going to pick up some more of the Autumn Joy Sedum because I like this whole area to be full of it. And I think I've got what, six in here right now? Few of them are looking a little puny. Couple of them look really good. But anyway, and the other things we've got in here that I really, really like and just wanted to point out was, well, primarily this. This is a Bit of Honey Heliopsis. And it's got heavily variegated foliage except for a few branches it pushes. It's like trying to revert right here. But this has been the toughest one to come back for me every year. I planted a newer variety that came out, oh, maybe in the last year or two. I think it's at Solar Flare. I can't remember. I planted it right over there. I only had one of them come back. You know, I will try that one again because it's very pretty and I really like this variegated foliage. But yeah, the Bit of Honey has just been a really good performer for us. And when all of this stuff is all filled in for the summer, it looks so pretty with our Cat's Pajamas Nepeta, the Serendipity Allium, and then the Bit of Honey is a Yellow Bloom. It's just a really pretty pocket out here. This is actually the first time, like I recall, ever having to pop out any green foliage. Not that it's hurting the plant at all. It just makes it look like it's two plants growing there. Okay, so now we've got the Siberian Iris and then we'll go pick up the Independence Boxwoods back by the high tunnel. Okay, guys, we are behind the dream stream and I'm thinking we plant these maybe right in here. We don't have anything for spring color over in this area. We've got, you know, an evergreen and soil that needs to be mulched over terribly bad. Some things that'll give summer color, but I think this would be really nice. So it is 18 to 20 inches. So I'm gonna pop them back just a little bit so we have enough room for a ground cover up front. Oh yeah, that texture looks beautiful right there. It's at a two foot spread, so I'm wondering like maybe something like that. I think that's great. All right, you guys, we are gonna tackle this pot and the one on the other side of the juniper today because those tulips are a little bit of color still, but they're dwindling. And these two pots just came up kind of sad compared to our others, look at that. So I'm ready just to pull them and get some nice stuff planted. But here's what I was thinking. When Erin and I were out here the other day, we were talking about what to put in this spot when we were deciding whether or not to use the urns here. I'm so glad we did that, such a good choice. They're so beautiful. But I still think I would like to have some kind of a something in here that's a little bit more permanent that provides some structure because right now we've got nothing. Eventually we'll have everything lined with bricks, but you know, who knows? And that will happen. We did have some pink cashmere supervena planted in the ground. And I do think it was mild enough for it to winter over. But again, we did not water it. So that experiment, yeah, didn't work out. So what I thought was with these foxwoods that we carried over, what if we just laid them out just to see what it would look like and did a little hedge with these. And they can go either right behind the urn or they could stop here. That's kind of what I want to experiment with. And then what I was thinking is on the other side here, we need kind of the same thing. We don't really have any distinct line. And I don't necessarily want the line to be a mix of perennials because perennials are in and out of season. And this is right along the main part. I mean, you can see it's very visible and I want something structural here to where we can back it or put some things in front of it that provide that color, but something that will provide that structure. So what we were thinking is if we ended up doing boxwoods there, we could start boxwoods here. We'll take out this dogwood and keep going with boxwoods to the end and do like a cone or another urn or something like that on the other end. I think that would provide a visual border right here, which would be really, really nice. And a tremendous amount of winter structure out here because all of these things, like the dogwood right now is filling up the space, but in the wintertime, it does have red stems. So it is pretty, but everything else, you know, loses its leaves and there's not a lot here in the way of structure. We do have a little spruce here. I don't think this is an avatar. I think it's a different variety. I can't remember, but it's one that only grows like eight by six. It's doing well. Lots of growth candles on it, which I'm thankful for because we have a hard time with evergreens in this space. Spruces, specifically. Junipers, boxwoods, all those other things seem to grow really well. All right, so I'm just going to lay the boxwoods out again. I don't plan on planting them today. I just want to think about it a little bit, but I think it'll help just to see in here. Turns out that's about the right amount of boxwoods we need too. And look at how good these look. So these we wintered over in the high tunnel, of course. So they're going to look a lot better than anything that we've had out here. But I'm just thrilled with the appearance of these. And I can't decide, like, do we want them to be backed up enough to where we can plant like a little row of annuals for some color and then have the bricks? Or do we bounce them forward? Or, I mean, just leave them where they are, I guess. And bring the bricks in, let the hedge kind of grow and get a little bit wider, and then do just tall stuff behind them. See, that's what I kind of want to live with for a day or two before we commit, I guess. But in the meantime, this is what we're going to put in these big pots. It's going to be so pretty. So as a centerpiece, we're going to use a blue suede shoe salvia, which attracts hummingbirds better than any plant that I've ever grown ever in my whole life. They love this plant. And I love the color. I think they're so pretty. And the calyx that holds the bloom in place, they maintain this deep color. So even when they're done blooming, it kind of looks like a bloom still. It doesn't look spent or like you need to trim them off. So I really like that about that plant. And then I am going to use three of the vibrant violet dahlias in here because we use those in the urns. And I sort of want them to have a little bit of a consistent like at least one consistent element because these pots are so close. And then around the outside, we're going to just load it up with more color. We're going to do three of the saffron finch supertunias and three of the sparkling amethyst supervena. It's just going to be a ball of color. I can't wait. So I'm just going to clear the tulips out. I'll add more biotune starter fertilizer just to kind of charge up the soil. And then we can plant. These are coming up beautifully out of these pots. So if you wanted to replant them, you'd leave the leaves intact at this point still because they haven't died back quite enough. You just replant it just like that, watered in, let the leaves die back and then you can cut them back at that point. Or you can find them a new home, which is what I'm going to do. Also, you could leave them in the pot if you wanted just to cut the foliage off and just have them come back from year to year. But I find that, especially with tulips, it depends on the variety. Mentons are usually pretty strong at coming back, but sometimes with tulips, they don't come back as strong. And I sort of want to do different colors in these pots every year. We're also going to replace the drip because this is drip from last year, from last spring. And most of the time it doesn't work properly the next year because it gets too loaded up with hard water deposits. I start with quite a lot of drip in here and then we can always amend and take some out. But these containers only run every other day, even through the heat of the summer. So if they get a little bit more water on that schedule, they'll more than likely hold. And we do have the Aquapot insert in here, which does hold a little bit of water too. We meant to do a little bit more of a controlled test on them last year and it just didn't happen. But it's nice to have that in there. Let's charge the soil up. Big worms in the soil. Okay, centerpiece first. Then we're going to go in with our three dahlias. This will be kind of like a second layer down from our centerpiece. Now I'm going to go in with the sparkling amethyst in between each one of our dahlias. And now the yellow supertunias will go right in front of the dahlias. And it's going to look a little bit spread apart today, but these plants in particular get absolutely huge. So you've got to give them some space. Okay, first container is done. I love the look of these boxwoods too. Ah, so fun. Anyway, this is going to be gorgeous. It already is, but boy, just give it a month. And I bet you we've got full soil coverage and probably some spillage over the edge. But I think that's a really pretty blend of bright color. It's going to be a spectacular show. And I think it'll coordinate nicely with that arrangement. Okay, one left. And the second one is done. Looks so pretty. I was just noticing too, when we were working on that container, that our iris has started to bloom over here. These we transplanted from another spot of our garden. I think these were, were these back by the pond area? I think so. I can't remember quite, but I didn't buy these. They were here when we moved in. They were somewhere in our garden, and I think they were back in that area by the pond. Anyway, we moved a massive amount of them out here one year and they transplanted successfully, I would say. I really like the color of these. We get that same kind of apricot, a little bit lighter than the ones we planted earlier, but I like the little lavender here. They're just so soft and just, I love it. And we're just beginning with that show. So there's one other container I think I'd like to plant today, and it's over by our grape trellis. It's the exact same size and style pot as these right here. So I need to go grab some plants and then we'll get that one done. Yes. And there's the last container. This is gonna be a fun one. I used some warm colors in here because this whole side of the flower bed has some more warm tones in it. So I think it's a perfect place to kind of play with those colors. And I might pop some lantana in here, just maybe like three. When I do get them, they'll be part of our second load of annuals, but I don't think it's necessary because the suncredible, suncredible yellow sunflower gets quite large. So it'll fill in really nicely, and it'll probably have branches down low too. And then I did a ring around the sunflower with the cobalt superbena and persimmon supertunias. Those are really pretty together. And then the bright centerpiece. I'm not sure. Have I ever used this as a centerpiece? Maybe when we did our container competitions, I used one at one point in time. I can't remember. It's been a while. So I think that'll be a really fun look over here. And I think that's gonna be it for our planting projects for today. What a great start on our annual planting. I love getting containers here and there done. We've got the three at the end of the berry beds here that match the same pot, same size, same pot, but the tulips are still looking pretty decent in these. Like these are starting to fade a little bit, but we still have lots of color and they're really full. These did way better than the three we just planted up. And we've got two more full of tulips out there that look just like these. So we'll let them go until they're a little bit more tired. And I love the boxwood placement over there. I think that's the biggest thing I learned today, that that's gonna look awesome. And I counted how many more boxes we're going to need to finish that project. So we will work on possibly getting those sourced so we can get those in because I think that will be a huge addition, especially to the winter interest portion of our landscape. So anyway, thank you guys so much for watching today's video. I hope you enjoyed it. And we will see you in the next one.