Bag in the Pot in the Pot Planting The Basics and 2 New Hydrangeas

Hi everyone, it's great to see you. Today we are planting up two beautiful planters and I'm so glad that you've joined me for this project. If you've been following me for a while you know that I love Mal Condon's process of planting a bag, a grow bag, in a pot, a nursery pot, in a larger pot, the bag in the pot in the pot method. And I'm going to go through that again with you in case you haven't had a chance yet to try this method. It works so well. So what we want to do is create a big planter like you see over here where you have a stunning thriller in the center with some beautiful draping plants around the edge. And today we are going to be planting two gorgeous new hydrangea and hydrangea are perfect for this because, well, these are new hydrangea and the first year they might be a little tender. I'm going to take these into the shed to overwinter them and when I have them planted in a grow bag it is so easy for me to lift them up and carry them in the shed. I only use five gallon grow bags because this is all the lifting that I want to do. The other thing that's really important to me is you know that a planter like this can get really really heavy once it's filled with dirt. And this method allows me to do this in parts. I don't have to fill up the whole big pot because I'm going to use a pot riser and I have part of it separate so it makes it possible for me to move these big planters around and that is fabulous especially don't tell anyone I'm going to be 50 soon and I'm finding that as I get a little older I'm thinking yes I need to make sure that as I'm taking on these projects I plan for the future I know I'm going to want to keep gardening. What can I do to make life easier? So let me tell you what I have here. If you're going to try the bag in the pot in the pot method you need a grow bag. This is a five gallon grow bag it has handles and they're also called a root pouch. I went on Amazon you can just google them find a whole bunch. I'll put this particular link there down below for you but something with handles is really really nice. I really like this one because it's brown too. To me with a brown pot the dirt this just sort of blends in if any of it is peeking out. I want a cheap nursery pot that is the same size as my grow bag so that my grow bag can just nestle right down in here and you really want one that's about the same height so that your grow bag doesn't stick up too high. Although if your grow bag sticks up too high just fold it back it's not really a problem. You're going to want well at least I want an Upsa Daisy pot riser. So Upsa Daisy is this particular brand there are probably other brands that are made. It has drainage holes in here so my big pot has drainage holes too but I want to make sure that I have good drainage throughout this whole setup so this has nice holes in it. This is a 15 inch pot riser which goes really well to sit in the center of my I believe this is a 20 inch pot from Home Depot and this is light this is resin too so you can lift these up. I love how those nice fancy ceramic pots look and the terracotta but they are too heavy. I will link the pot riser and the big pot and the nursery pots all below for you also but you know I find really good deals at Home Depot for my big pots and that's where I got this one here. Okay so I put my pot riser in here because I don't want to fill this whole thing with dirt and make it super heavy. This lets the bottom part just be empty and then I have my pot riser. Now I'm going to say okay this nursery pot and bag are going to set right in the center here. Now if you remember when I planted the mandevilla up front I put that in a bag in the center and that was really handy because it doesn't didn't take as much watering it didn't like as much water as what I planted around the edge so I almost had two watering zones there. What I'm planting today all likes water so I'm not really worried about that. I'm really doing this for the mobility part of being able to bring my hydrangeas inside. So let's see I find that it's easiest to plant the because it's going to hold this in place while I add the potting mix around. So let me put on some gloves here and tell you about the beautiful hydrangea we are first going to pot up. This is one of the new hydrangeas from Monrovia this year from the seaside serenade series. That's quite a mouthful which I have had great success with and this is the new one Pebble Beach. It is gorgeous look at these red stems it's going to get three to five feet tall and wide and eventually I'm going to move this to the ground probably but you know it's not that big yet and truthfully I haven't seen it bloom yet. I want to keep it up here on the deck so I can sit by it and admire my beautiful new hydrangea. So that's another nice thing of having hydrangeas in planters getting to move them wherever your visitors are going to be wherever you're going to be sitting it's just so nice and then you can also take that out if it's not in bloom at the moment and put something else in so that deck area always looks fabulous. This is pretty much going to fill up my center bag but I do need a little bit of potting mix in here and you want to use a potting mix not soil from your garden a potting mix. This is the organic Coast of Maine potting mix but you know what you can use any and of course this is not a sponsored video these are just my recommendations to you. You use whatever you find works best for you. I'm going to begin by just taking the handles and tucking them in and then I'm going to put some of the potting mix in the bottom to fill it up a little bit. Okay now this of course settles as you water it a few times so it's worth you might think you don't need to put some of this in but you really usually do and then around the edge however say you started this and your plant sinks down in the bag don't worry you can always add a little. So here is Seaside Serenade Pebble Beach and this is going to have blue to purple flowers those beautiful macrophylla blossoms that we love so much and it blooms on new and old wood so that is great for New England. You never know with our weather we hope that we have a mild winter and that we have beautiful hydrangea every year no matter what but knowing that it will bloom on both old wood and new wood gives me the assurance it's going to have blossoms every year. Now I'm going to take some of my potting mix and in the bag I'm going to just put some around the edge and this looks like such a great hydrangea. So some of you if you are in Rhode Island might be familiar with the nursery Hattoy's. I don't know if I said that right or not it's h-a-t-t-o-y-s and they have some of the newer and more unique hydrangeas at their nursery I have found over the past couple years and I was able to get there last week and this was their last Pebble Beach but they said they were getting another shipment in of them in the next week or so so if you are interested in Pebble Beach in particular that's the only place I've seen it so far this year at least right around here in Rhode Island. Okay so Hattoy's shout out to you for carrying great hydrangea you know that I am always looking for great hydrangea. Okay that looks good maybe a little bit more just sort of packing it in so you want your your new baby to be comfortable in its new pot here. Okay I'm not going above the planting line of where it was planted in the other pot but this looks good. Okay oh yes now the one of the other benefits of your planting in a bag is that the roots are going to air prune they're not going to get all root bound and spiral around the edge they're going to grow out towards the edge and then we hit plastic pot and so there is no other dirt there and there's no plastic there there's a space in between just you know you don't really feel it but there is that that space in between the bag and the nursery pot that allows it to know okay this is when the roots stop and in fact I was able to cut one open on one of the last videos to show you how cool that was. So let's take a peek in here see it's right there it's nice and heavy it's going to stay in the center and this pot is going to be I don't know if it's going to be up against a wall or not so I want to keep this in the center and I'm going to plant all the way around it so that it looks really really beautiful. I'm going to take this we're going to call this the rim gap and that's one of Malcondon's terminologies there the rim gap that has this space I'm going to fill up the rim gap so that it has this fresh potting mix now if I'm not starting from scratch like I am here say this is the second or third year for this I often will just pull the annuals that I've planted around the edge at the end of the season put this larger pot wherever I want to store it often I just put it over by our fence leave it outside the hydrangea has come in and I will reuse this potting mix I'll put in some Osmocote maybe but I have no problem reusing your potting mix if you want to replace the whole thing you certainly can but I've had great luck not even switching out that potting mix okay and if I didn't have such a giant bag of potting mix I would lift it up and dump it in here but it was cheaper to get the big bag so I got that bag now I can't lift it okay we are getting there it feels like there's a thunderstorm rolling in with this breeze it is lovely but I half expect that we will have a downpour before we finish we shall see I am waterproof okay now I want this potting mix to come up maybe to about an inch under where the nursery pot is maybe that's once I get the plants in it so I'm going to stop a couple inches below the rim of that nursery pot so that I have space to put my annuals in as I plan what to put around the edge I love to put something that drapes and I have had great success with Creeping Jenny it comes back every year so if you're looking for something that you can just leave in your rim gap I'll put in a picture of how my Creeping Jenny looked this year and this was not protected for the winter left out and we're 6b slash 7a it was absolutely fine don't wear white pants if you're going to do this that was not the best fashion decision for today but that's okay okay if you take a look there we have our potting mix it's just a couple inches below our rim gap I can always add more so you're going to have decided probably on a beautiful spiller that will just overflow and give that lush feeling to your planter and I also like to do some type of flower too because we know the hydrangeas I mean they have long lasting blooms but I want something in there right now to catch the eye of everyone who walks by so I'm going to start with some sweet potato vine right now I'm starting to use up any plants that I have sitting around that haven't gotten planted yet so this is one of them and this is the Sweetheart Sweet Caroline lime potato vine from Proven Winners that's my personal favorite potato vine because it isn't as wild as say the Medusa sweet potato vine but you're still going to get that nice trailing habit but it's not going to overtake everything as much I take three spillers and I put them just about a third of the way around doesn't have to be perfectly measured but if you sort of eyeball that it makes for a nice I like things to look symmetric what can I say and I love the color that this gives with this bright lime and this is a gorgeous gorgeous hydrangea look at how deep green these leaves are they're kind of thick and shiny and then they have the red stems there so you're getting a really nice contrast which is fabulous and then oh I have exactly three of some very very tangled petunias it's okay we're gonna cut them apart this is the Proven Winner tiara blue which looks purple but they do great too you can tell everything's starting to look a little bit like it's been sitting in pots too long so it's going to be very happy here and just like with the sweet potato vine I am putting these in about of a third a third a third all the way around we go okay now as I pop these in I can tell oh they really need a little bit more potting mix to nestle them down so I'm going to add a little and I do lightly press this down you don't want any air bubbles around your roots because the roots would not like that air bubbles around them doesn't help them get to the nice moist soil that you're going to have there we go I always get questions on fertilizer and I have to say you know we're very lucky hydrangea are not super heavy feeders I do that little sprinkle of osmocote in the spring and then maybe once again but I gotta tell you usually I'm more of a little osmocote in the spring once is about all they get and they do great the most important thing with your hydrangea especially is to make sure that you water it oh my goodness take a look at that I mean and this is just planted so give it a couple weeks this is going to fill in it is going to be fabulous oh I'm so excited okay we have another one to do too that is also going to be gorgeous let's go on to the next bag in a pot in a pot that I'm planting up today and oh right away isn't this just eye-catching with the variegated foliage so last year you know that I purchased this hydrangea well not this particular one but this variety and I put it in a bag it did beautifully I ordered it from hydrangeas plus which is an online hydrangea nursery that I get great hydrangeas from so if you don't have a nursery that has these in stock I highly recommend hydrangeas plus unfortunately for me I didn't realize I left it out all winter in the bag in the pot in the pot the bag was supposed to go into the shed and it did not make it through the winter and that's because when you have a perennial in one of these bags in the pot in the pots I mean it's in the bag so you can put it inside and protect it because it is raised up you're going to have all that extra winter cold air around it instead of the warm insulation of being in the ground you need to make sure that that hydrangea then is hardy two zones below where you are living and this one isn't would have been fine in the ground but not in a pot all winter so that was my fault and it was so sad and then I went to Hattoy's and they had it in stock so I would have ordered it again from hydrangeas plus but I was thrilled so this is another hydrangea macrophylla it's a variegated lace cap actually and it's called mariasai variegata and you're really growing this one in my opinion for the foliage you know to me this is the centerpiece even without the blossoms when it bloomed for me last year the blossoms were not as dynamic as some of they were very light colored but I didn't mind because this is so unique for a hydrangea so I'm going to take my big outer pot I'm going to put in my pot riser here I'm going to grab another root pouch in my nursery pot and you know sometimes if I know where I'm going to be putting this you can actually adjust the placement of this I could slide this to the back and then just plant the front and sides with those that are draping around because nobody would see the back here and have the tall plant here or you can keep it in the center and because I move things around so much I do tend to keep it in the center because who knows where it's going to end up but once again this method gives you a lot of options as you're planting which is really really good I'm going to try to lift this and pour this in which also if you've seen me in other videos you know usually does not go smoothly okay everybody hold your breath here we go oh not too bad feeling very proud at the moment okay we have our potting mix in the bottom we're going to take our hydrangea here we go that doesn't want to come out come on baby sometimes if they don't want to come out you take it and you roll it and press on the pot it sort of loosens it up let's hope that works yep beautiful okay oh yes a little high I'm still back here okay get that to the side there we go what was that what was I doing I'm just making sure that the top of it doesn't go above the bag here and I'd put in so much wonderful potting mix when I had dumped that in I had to sort of scooch some around so I could make sure it fits and this pot was a little skinnier than this root bag even than the other one so I have to add some potting mix around the edge and that will make this nice and happy it has a little extra space now some people they ask how long can you keep a hydrangea in a pot or in this bag years don't worry about it they will be fine remember they're being root pruned the air pruned so it's not like it is going to be root bound in here that's the the wonderful thing here I've had some that this is year four they're doing fabulous no problems at all except one that I left out over winter don't forget them that's the only thing but those that come in for the winter and you can look on my playlist to see exactly what I do over winter it's easy to keep some in your shed and overwinter them I would recommend that you start with a couple of these at a time you know you don't need to do 20 bags in a pot in a pot the first year save that for the second year don't tell your significant other that's the ultimate plan okay this is looking good oh I'm so happy that I found another one like this you know the availability of hydrangeas changes pretty quickly of course your nurseries want to carry the newest hydrangeas well you know like look at how I wanted the new seaside serenade but because of that they can't carry every hydrangea and some of them do fall out of being available so that's when you want to take good care of the ones that you really like so you can keep them or hope that somebody has a cutting that they will share with you in the future okay we're looking good we are potted up for the center here and now we're going to do our fancy rim gap okay let's see not my neatest but not bad okay we're gonna need a little bit more soil I'll be back okay let's see if this will be enough oh yes that looks much better I'm gonna just tamp that down a little bit we've got a lot of dirt over on the other side that's okay tucking and there we go so in this one I know I told you I'm using what was sitting at the side that is the most pathetic looking oh my goodness this is a Supertunia bubble gum we love Supertunia bubble gum I think this will pull through but it is dry and straggly so let's get it in the ground oh it's saying thank goodness when people tell you that you should trim your Petunias back to keep them growing full it's because they don't want something like this so after I finish here I am going to just go through trim this short and then it'll come back nice and full but you know when you get towards the end of our spring planting time sometimes I'm sure you have one or two things sitting around that look a little worse for wear I also have some of the Broalia this is the endless um illumination this is the purple Broalia Broalia just does great usually I use more of a trailer but as I looked through what I have left the trailers are all accounted for for the upcoming window boxes I need to plant still so we're doing two different types of flowers here and that's the great thing with these rim gaps you can change things up every year or you can put in perennial sedum works great along the edge here too um I use Heuchera Heuchera has been fabulous for me oh and it just looks so good year after year so it's up to you what you want to do do you want to go low maintenance with some perennials do you want to go annuals do you want to do all of them because that's what I want to do okay so we're looking straggly but I will give you an update in a couple weeks and this is going to be amazing so a big thank you to Mal Condon on Cape Cod he is the hydrangea whisperer and so knowledgeable and so good about sharing his knowledge with others I have learned so much from him over the years and it has really translated to the garden here so I now get to enjoy these pots and share with you I hope that you get to try this too thanks so much for joining me and I'll see you in the next video