Planting Rudbeckia & Petunias Before The Heat Returns

Hey, hi, how's it going? We just had some crazy rainstorm here happen, which was super shocking because it didn't say that there was going to be a crazy rainstorm, and it said that we only got like 0.15 inch of rain, which we got way more rain than that. The garden was flooded, the streets were flooded, and so we know that we got a ton more rain, but it also made some things fall down. See the vitex right here? See how low that is to the ground? It's not great. Brent just went and picked up some paracord so that way we can tie it up because it needs some help. So, I mean, you can see this is what it's done because it is so heavy. It's heavy with blooms, it's heavy with the foliar growth, and then it was heavy from the rain, but you literally can't even walk. It is just inches from the ground right now. So we're going to go ahead and tie that up so that way that doesn't snap. Oh, that's better. That was hanging down so low, and so was the other branch. So we took that one that was hanging down to here, got that one limbed up, well, good, lift it up, and then this one lifted up. So now you can actually walk through here without smacking your entire body on it, which is great. And here's the view. Isn't that crazy how much it was hanging down? I still have one more branch. You can see this one right here that we need to tie up a little bit. We're out of rope, so Brent's going to go back to the hardware store later today and get some more rope, and we'll be able to tie that up because that shouldn't be like that at all. Now that is done, I do think it's time for me to cut back my foxglove. So they're kind of at the end of their bloom cycle here, so they're done. They've been blooming non-stop. Each one of these little points here was a bloom, and so while they're getting ready to seed, I want some of the seed, but these are just a little too much. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to come back and cut these back and just leave some of the seed pods on these, and then ideally these may give me some side shoots. You can see like there's a side shoot forming there, there is one forming down there, so it's giving me some side shoots already, but I don't want these to continue to do what they're doing. Like look how long this is, and then look at this. Isn't that kind of funny? Um, so what's happened is some of these foxgloves have gotten so top heavy, and so they've like kind of toppled over, and then I've come through and I've staked them up. So like this one toppled over and it laid sideways, and then I staked it up, and so it started to grow upwards again, and then it toppled over again, so now it's like doing whatever this is right here. Um, but it's time for me to cut these back, and I can see some of these have already let out a good amount of their seeds. Let's see, I don't know, there's still seeds growing in there. Um, well that is what it is. There's the seeds right there. Those are all foxglove seeds. Um, so I do want it to self-seed some, but I don't need this much. So each one of these seed pods has hundreds and hundreds, if not, you know, a thousand seeds in it. Look how many seeds there are just right there. So I don't need that many, so what we're going to do is we're just going to kind of cut these guys back, and then they should be able to force energy into some side shoots, and force some energy into a little bit of seed production. And I should always note, foxglove is poisonous. I don't know, it's poisonous to dogs, animals, peoples, the entire thing. Every inch of that plant is bad for you. So if you're out there eating your plants, or you have children that go out there and take bites of your plants, or your dogs take bites of your plants, foxglove might be one that you want to stay away from. Um, we don't eat our plants. My dog doesn't eat our plants, so it's not something I worry about with having poisonous or toxic plants in my garden. We have a lot of poisonous and toxic plants in our garden. If we're being honest, most plants are poisonous and toxic to animals. So if that is a worry of yours, stay clear, foxglove. Let's get these cut back. They're also covered in aphids right now. Let me show you that. So yesterday, actually, I was out here and these were covered in aphids, but I think the rain knocked a ton of them off. But see all those yellow dots in there? Those are all aphids right there. So that's what aphids look like on foxgloves. They're yellow. Sometimes aphids are green, sometimes aphids are brown. Um, these foxglove ones are obviously a yellow color. They kind of look like aphids that end up on oleander. Oleander gets aphids really bad. They get, they're called oleander aphids because they very specifically target oleander. Um, but I've never really dealt with foxgloves having aphids before. This is the first year of that. Anyways, let's get these cut back, and I am going to just dump these guys in the compost bin. Okay, we're gonna do one more thing today. I'm somewhat quick because my mom is in town, um, which is great. I've only got a couple more days left while my mom is in town, so I'm trying to still get out here in the garden and do some things because things need to happen right now because the weather is so cool. I'm literally wearing like a long sleeve, which is crazy. So while it's cool, I want to get out here in the garden because my forecast is that it's going to be like high 90s up to 100 degrees the day my mom leaves, and I don't want to have to film while it's that hot. So if I can get out here while it's nice and cool and I can enjoy the garden, that's what I'm going to do. So I've got one more task that we're going to do today, and that's it. So we're going to do some work in this bed. The lighting is really harsh right now, so I do apologize for that, but we're going to take this agastache out. This is the meant to be, um, I think this is the queen nectarine is what I think it is. Agastache is great. I have it in a few other locations. I've got the meant to be royal raspberry, and then I have other of the queen nectarine. I just don't want this one here. Um, it's a great plant. I have it in another spot, and I don't want it over here. This is the other one that I've got, and it is so pretty in this location. I love it. I love this view right here with it. It's it's a really, really great plant. The bees love it. The hummingbirds love it. Oh, there's literally a hummingbird. There's literally a hummingbird on it as I'm speaking. There was literally a hummingbird as I was speaking about it. Um, the hummingbirds love it. The bees love it. The bees always want to get into it, but I think that they have a hard time because the flowers are so tubular shaped, which is a hummingbird's favorite shaped flower because a lot of other pollinators have a really hard time getting in there, and so it leaves all of the nectar for the hummingbirds. Um, there's always bees on it, and there's always hummingbirds on it. I just don't need it in multiple spots of this variety, and I think that this is two plants of the nectarine one, and oh, there's a bee on it over there, too, and then over this way, I have some of the, um, raspberry ones. They're meant to be raspberry. They're tucked in back here. They get a little bit more shade, so I think they're taking their sweet time, but there's two of them tucked in back there. Oh, also, look. These are the allium called bobblehead. They've started to open, so they're more of like a white color, like a kind of like a dusty lavender-y white color, and they're really, really pretty alliums, kind of like a tall bloom for alliums, very different than the serendipity alliums, which I've also got. Let me show you guys those first. Right here, these are the serendipity alliums, so you can see these are much more purple and much, much shorter, and they get a ton more blooms, and they are very, uh, like, tightly knit. I don't know. Is that the right word? There's just a ton more of these blooms, but they're more striking with their bloom color, but they're more of like a front-of-border bed. For those ones, you can see them right under the magnolia there. You can see how tall those are, so they're kind of a mid-border bed, so if you've got some space that you want something kind of airy, those are really good ones to kind of, like, tuck into, like, a back-of-bed area or a middle-of-bed area. They're a really, really fun one. Anyways, I'm going to take out the agastache, and then I'm going to put in two treasure trove rebecchia right here. I think this bed really needs some yellow. There's no yellow in this bed, so that will be good for this area, and then I'm going to go in with something low-growing down here. So let's go ahead and get this removed and start filling this bed out. I also need to come in and cut back some of the growth on this honeysuckle. This one cane right here comes all the way down here, all the way out here, and it's all the way over here. That's insane. So we're gonna do a little cut back on this honeysuckle also. Oh, there she is. That is her favorite spot to lay, full sun. I think this is what we're gonna do, and this fills this spot out too much, which is perfect. You know, we're living for a little bit of psychotic moments in the garden. I want things to look full and voluptuous yesterday, so I'm going to go in with two of the treasure trove rebecchia right here. It says that they get about 36 inches tall and wide, so these are going to be too much for this area, which is the moments that I'm living for in the garden. So these will really fill out this entire area, and if we're being completely honest, I probably don't need to put any petunias down here, but I do want the petunias here, so that's what we're going to do. So two treasure troves. They're hardy in zones four through nine, and these ones are highly resistant to septoria leaf spot, which is something that I guess rebecca deals with quite often. So these ones have been bred to not deal with that. I've never really grown rebecca in my garden, so I mean, I love it, and I see it all the time, and I always think it's so pretty, but the yellow kind of throws me off, so I've never really tried growing it. I saw these ones when I was at Walter's Gardens at their trial gardens, and I fell madly, madly in love with them, and so I'm going to be growing them here, which makes me very, very excited, and I actually have a lot of rebecca in the garden this year, which also makes me really excited. And then below that, I'm going to go in with some petunias. These are the Bermuda Beach, and it says that these get about, it says height 4 to 12 inches, and spacing is 12 to 24 inches. For me, these usually get like close to the two feet, so these honestly are going to just completely spill down and fill out this entire area right here. That's fine with me. We don't really sit over here, and if we're being honest, the fire pit may be something that we get rid of, and I might go with like a propane style fire pit that is kind of movable. We thought that we would use this more, but it just takes so long to like start a fire, and so we're not 100% certain that we're going to keep it. We'll see what happens. Anyways, the Bermuda Beach is really pretty. That's actually what this drift of petunias is right here, so Bermuda Beach is a really, really fun one. I love the drift of this. I love how this comes over here, and then it goes here, and then it actually wraps around to the other side here, so it's a really nice flow, and I think that'll make it so it's cool because it'll continue this way. I did also come through, and I took out one of the Nepeta that's right here. This is the Lemon Perfection Nepeta. I think it's out this year. It's a really, really pretty Nepeta. This chartreuse green with the purple blooms is insane. This one here, I haven't noticed any flopping on it compared to other Nepetas, and it grows so well. This is five plants. Total overkill. I totally could have gotten away with three of them, and what I have noticed about this one is it self-seeds a lot, so there's a ton of Nepeta. There's one there. There's one there, and I already pulled some of them. It self-seeds a lot, so if you want Nepeta and you want Nepeta to self-seed, this is probably one to grow, but I just love the chartreuse green on it. It's really pretty. I don't like the smell of any Nepetas, and this has a really strong Nepeta smell, so let's get these planted. I'm gonna go in with a little bit of fertilizer for these because I think all of these will be pretty happy with some fertilizer, and then the Rebecca should be pretty much hands-off. They'll get a little extra fertilizer because these petunias here will go in, and they will get weekly water-soluble fertilizer, and then they're gonna get sprayed for BT. The Rebecca, I'm sure, will get a little bit of overspray from the fertilizer. Perfect, and that'll kind of continue that pink drift. It'll kind of be a nice little flow. This bed is pretty much planted. I have a little bit of space. I do want to put something in over in that hole there, and I was just kind of waiting for things to grow up. Like, I've got the Gombrina there. It would be really nice if that would fill out. I have a little hole over there, but for the most part, this bed is buttoned up and ready to, like, just start taking off. These are planted extremely close together. I'm okay with that. Realistically, I kind of thought that I was gonna start planting it over here on this side, but I didn't want to, like, hurt the honeysuckle too much, so I just decided, you know what? Fight for your life here. Good luck. These Bermuda Beech down here will, in a couple weeks, start looking like those ones, which is just fabulous. I like the Bermuda Beech because they don't have the, like, vigor of Bubblegum, which is kind of a psychotic petunia. These ones are more well-behaved, so I do like these ones, and it still kind of gives that, like, really nice pink effect. It's a little bit more of a warm pink, where the Bubblegum is a very cool pink. Let me show you the Bubblegum over here, actually. So you can see this is Bubblegum, and then over there is the Bermuda Beech. So that's Bermuda Beech versus Bubblegum. They're close, but they are different. This is, if you really need something to just be absolutely psychotic, this is the perfect petunia for that. These petunias will just go, go, go, go, go, and they will get absolutely massive, where, like I said, Bermuda Beech is slightly more well-behaved. Anyways, I think that this is going to be where we say goodbye. Mom and I are gonna go do a little A&T shopping, have dinner with one of my sisters, and just kind of mellow out the rest of the day. So, thank you so much for visiting today. We got the vitex tied up, we got some plants planted, we cut back the foxgloves. Mellow day. Very mellow day in the garden. I hope that you enjoyed it. I am a super muddy mess. I'm a super muddy, muddy, muddy, muddy, muddy mess. Jeez Louise. I'm a super muddy mess. It was totally pouring down rain. I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you so much for visiting our garden. We'll see you in the next one. Bye, guys.