Garden Cleanup | New Rock Path | Cutting Back Salvia

Well it's early morning here at the Orchard Heights house. We've had a couple weeks of really really intense design work at the Crowley house and so we've just been plugging away at what we do best and that's wedding design and floral design. So I've kind of neglected the the projects here, the gardens here at the Orchard Heights project house. So I'm getting back at it. We've got weeds growing everywhere. We we need to cut back some of the selvia and we need to kind of get some fertilizer and just get control of the gardens again. So that's what we're going to be doing in this video. Not all of the gardens will I get to today but we're going to start here by the little greenhouse with the one that we planted a while ago together. It's filling out nicely but it's time to whip it back into shape. The Orchard Heights house has been the gardens itself have been neglected for many years so a lot of weeds have come up and it's going to be a battle probably for the next seven years plus. Well weeds are always a problem but for the most part you know it's going to be just kind of staying on it. It's never going to look pristine yet and especially when you're trying to do it as naturally as you possibly can it's really hard to control weeds. So anyways you just have to keep at it and I think it can get a little overwhelming a little discouraging at times when you have all these little you know grasses and all kinds of stuff coming up but I know from experience over at the Crowley house that you know just by plugging away and doing and doing that eventually it tends to get better and better over time. So I'm going to get some weeding tools together and I'm going to just start tackling one section at a time. I think when you're doing something like this at least for me I have to just pick a spot and do it and then not think about the rest of the gardens and just think about this one little spot. All right I'm gonna go get my tools. We have a bit of a windy day today so I'm hoping it doesn't bug us too much but I wanted to go through the tools I'm using today. This is just one that kind of scrapes along the edge and kind of helps lift them a little bit and my hands aren't super great over the years of weeding and cutting and designing and stuff like that so I have to use tools and be really good about like how I'm using them. So I use them right but you can kind of tell the very edge here is very straight and it kind of scrapes along the top. This one also it kind of gets down deep which is kind of edged. What I like about these two tools is that you're actually standing up so kind of going between hand weeding, down load, getting your squats in, to actually using something like this where you're standing you know kind of alternating different ways of going. Usually I'll use something like this to kind of go through and it's almost like you know big farming. We till or do different things like that or come along and we'll do the no-till method a lot at the Crowley house but every once in a while we have to kind of get in there and really kind of get the soil because it is clay and so we're working on it some. Anyways long story there we're doing miniature gardening today is what I call it. So I like to use something like this just to kind of break up some of the harder things if it's a harder ground. As far as hand tools go I love to use a Hori Hori. Normally I don't have one here on the farm or at the Orchard Heights house. I have them all back at our farm because we love them. They're one of our favorite tools but maybe I can pop a picture up here to show you kind of what that looks like. But today I'm going to be using this little one here. This was my mom's favorite and I just love that it's now mine so I get to go in and get like some of the weeds that are a little bit harder that have a longer taproot get down and get those out. I also am going to be using a trowel. This one was made by a gentleman which I did a video not too long ago about them but they're hand forged tools. I love the black handle very very nice to hold in the hand. This one would be maybe for something a little bit bigger like if I was getting blackberry root out or things like that and then I have the big guy as well which is a little bit heavy for me but this one is really good for like shoveling out like if I was going to replant a pot or something like that. Eventually I'm going to get these on our website we just don't have we need to put in an order and haven't done that yet because my life's been really busy. So anyways today I'm gonna I love this one. This one's my favorite out of everything I think he gave us to try out. There was one more tool that I loved too and I'm not sure where it ended up. I hope it's not in one of my gardens. I don't know if you've ever done that before but leave a hand tool somewhere and then you find it next spring. I'll have to look. Okay last but not least which if you're a fantastic gardener this is Garden Answers. You can see it right here. Garden Answers new kneeling pad I think she put out on her website. I love it. It's absolutely my favorite genius idea to do that but so I have one of her kneeling pads Laura's kneeling pads and I'm going to use that today as I'm going along getting all the weeds out doing the hard things the jobs that aren't so pretty but make things pretty. So anyways all right so here I go I'm uh all ready to tackle the garden and again I'm just gonna focus on one garden and then move to the next not the whole picture. All right here I go. So what I'm doing is just kind of loosening um the under part of the root I guess basically. It's hard to explain. Loosening up just a little bit so that it's just not so hard to pull the weed. Now this one is one that tends to kind of leave a little bit of a runner so you kind of have to really get after it but it's going to come back and I know that and so just mentally preparing for when it shows up again. It's not like once and done kind of thing but the key is to catch things before they set seed. So even if you're in your garden and you see something you don't have time to necessarily pull the weed you can also just grab the seed heads that's what I do out in the uh at the Crowley house in the in the big especially in the greenhouse. I'll grab the tops of the seed heads and then take a bucket with me and just grab it really quick because it's a big chore to weed and just get the seed heads controlled and then I can come back in with the team and just make a mental note that we're gonna go ahead and clean this bed out but when you're in your garden you just you know want to just take the time to kind of be aware of those things that's when the morning walk with coffee or the evening walk with wine is a great thing to do. So here I have a little rock garden that has a lot of sedum in it that's cascaded down over the years and seeded itself everywhere. So what I'm gonna do is just do my best to pull out but obviously I'm gonna pull some of the sedum and I do not care about that it just kind of rambles everywhere. It's really hard to weed stuff like this without pulling something up. When you have a ground cover it's just best to kind of get in and get what you can and just keep at it because over the years it's just going to keep weakening and weakening. The one thing I do know is just planting more things helps with weed suppression so I'm giving you permission to plant more things. Filling in space so you don't have this open area and that's I mean I love the cottage garden style the Orchard Heights house is a little bit more formal or traditional style and so mixing the two has been kind of fun for me. We do have like a long garden that's very cottagey or starting to be it's new but we have more of these like a little bit more formal areas or woodland areas and things like that that has been stretching my garden just knowledge and just how to garden how to put things together it's been kind of fun. So anyways I don't even know what I'm talking oh I'm talking about planting more things. So if you actually plant more perennials and perennials are one of the things that I absolutely love. I do love annuals as well but perennials are kind of my thing my you know you pay a little bit more for them but every year they reward you bigger and bigger they are harder to take out when you need to move something but in the end you know putting some rutabecchias in here I think might be the trick. I have some that were left over that didn't die that I did not kill there's a few that I did but I'm going to stick some in here I think that would look really nice they're kind of the traditional looking ones we'll see I don't know. Braden and I are going to go shopping so we'll we'll probably find something there too I haven't decided yet. So throughout this little garden I do have some comfrey and some russian sage that loves the spot and so especially the comfrey I like using it a lot of times for a garden fertilizer so I'll make actually just like a tea compost with it and put it on the gardens and it works really really well you can do that with a jug of just take a five gallon bucket throw some in the bottom of it cover it with some water and put it in a you know a place that you don't smell it because it starts to stink really bad um but then in a couple weeks you can pour it out and it will actually it's longer than that but anyways you get the gist of it it does great in this case I'm just gonna rip it out because it's just a weed and sometimes I think that you just have to make those decisions if you don't like a plant or if it self-seeds pretty readily in your area or whatever it is you know you treat it like a weed and you just kind of pull it out when you can and it comes back every year and you know it is what it is you enjoy it for the time that it's blooming and then you cut it back right away so it doesn't go everywhere throughout your garden gardening is all about discipline and I think that in your head you just have to really um put a mind towards what you're gonna do for the day do something every single day then it doesn't get so overwhelming and or you can hire someone to come do it for you the parts that you don't like weeding though and cleaning up at it can be so satisfying I think it's because you know in a household you you clean the kitchen and then if you have a lot of people around or you know little ones in the house or medium-sized teenagers or young adults like I have you know the kitchen stays fairly clean but generally it will become a little cluttered pretty quickly so nobody cleans like you do right or you know so weeding is is funny because I get out here and I do it and it's it's like it stays clean nobody touches it until it rains and weeds come back so I do really thoroughly there is something so rewarding about getting into your gardens and cleaning out a bed and then just instant gratification so I'm enjoying this for sure because weeding is not one of those chores that a lot of people like but when you can kind of find the joy in it then or the positive then it makes it much more rewarding so along this grass path no the path has grass yes but along this gravel pathway or it used to have gravel Braden and I are going to order some gravel I think today and get it here but we need to get it all cleaned up to be able to lay it down again so it's just got all this grass in here I'm just loosening it up with one of the tools and then I'm going to hand pull it all anyways it's going to look great when it's done I might not having a little bucket of tools will make you not lose them as much but sticking them in there this is the other tool I really like I've seen or shown you this before you just got this at the local hardware but it gets in around some of the the things that are already established and doesn't pull them out but kind of loosens the soil around them so it actually works really really well and then you can kind of come in and pull the weeds who this is a workout I tell you didn't go to the gym this morning on purpose because I knew I would get my heart rate up and get so now I just need to go get some water and take a break but then I'm gonna tackle this I'm gonna get it done so I ran and got some water and then I stopped for a little cup of coffee but isn't this just the cutest little cup I just love finding little things like this I also got myself a little pastry so this is kind of fun my husband we were doing an event and he found this little Russian bakery and this is like a fluffy little pastry with a little bit of cream and lemon curd in it so I just stopped for a little bite coffee in the morning breeze is just lovely out and I'm just having so much fun weeding are you taking it over here taking it to your watch it there's a pocket by your foot and then there's oh wow you can see now got everything kind of under control as far as all the little weeds and stuff there's always something that you miss but now I'm just gonna come through and rake it clean and then get ready to cut back the we have some like cat mint that needs to cut back and some salvia that needs cut back so this is the time of year that you'll do that and you're gonna get a beautiful flush shortly it's really hard to cut things back like my dad said earlier in the here helping me for a little bit so funny anyways it's hard to cut things back sometimes but when you do it just rejuvenates the plant or you kill it I'm kidding you just rejuvenate it that's it so Braden and I are heading down to go take a look at the rock and get some stuff ordered uh also some bark dust what there you go all right so Braden and I got some rock ordered it wasn't exactly the rock that I wanted but uh financially we ended up going with just a three quarter not three quarter minus a pea gravel which I really like pea gravel but my husband doesn't so I it'll be fine it'll it'll be and I'm only just going to put a little bit down just to kind of hold the dirt in place this is obviously the rock has been washed away many years ago and or is underneath this dirt so I'm just going to rake up everything I just have my handy dandy garden rake and I'm just going to rake up the little bits and then call it good for today and then tomorrow the rock and bark dust are supposed to be here we just need to finish up some bark dust areas uh here at the house here and so I just ended up getting both at the same time just easier that way all right cleaning up finishing up here today good morning again this is day three of this project so what my plan is today is to go ahead and get all of the salvias and things like that kind of cut back because the bees aren't out yet and that's the best time to do that and then I'm going to start on my gravel well it's nice and cool we've had just lovely weather here in Oregon I mean I'm not gonna lie it's pretty cool so um we have probably in the next two weeks just 80 degrees just smooth sailing for two weeks no rain that's the hard part we never get rain until probably October so everything gets kind of dry and crusty and you really have to watch all your plants but so I'm gonna go get some clippers some gloves just in case there is bees I really don't want to be stung today and then start working on the gravel before the sun gets too hot and it'll make for a much lovelier job I think in the end I'm just here at the Orchard Heights house and we just don't have a lot of tools so this is what I'm using today and so I'm just giving all the catmint a little haircut and then I'm also just kind of going through some of the salvia and kind of clipping out some of the bad ones that are spent blooms and that will rejuvenate the plant to make it look a lot better I am being careful to do sections I guess sometimes if you want your salvias you can go in and like if you want some of the bloom still you can go and just clip out just the sections that are spent and then you're going to get a new flush that way or you can just give it a full haircut like the Nepeta I gave a full haircut and that's gonna bounce back it doesn't look very good right now but the pollinators are loving the lavender that we left here from last year and so I don't feel so bad that I'm taking away some other food but so now I'm just gonna clean up a little bit and then start working with the rock it's a big job it was a little chilly so I went and got a little jacket this is a first in a long time we've had really warm mornings here but I can tell today is just gonna be lovely so while I was cutting the Nepeta or the catmint I found this little bumblebee it's sweet just sleeping on one of the little catmints just hanging on to the flower there so I'm just gonna leave it here to just wake up in this morning sun here shortly just a bed of flowers for it to wake up in super sweet so I just have my garden rake and I'm gonna be raking out this pea gravel now I noticed this pea gravel is a little bit larger which I kind of like I feel like sometimes pea gravel can be a little slick underfoot so my job today is to get this all covered and I'm up early before the sun gets too hot makes the job much more enjoyable but it's gonna go just down this pathway here and then we're gonna go that way down to the little studio that eventually will be the studio another studio so anyways yeah this is my job today so well I am loving how this rock is looking it's just kind of refreshed it's like I don't know it's bringing it back to what it originally looked like and that's kind of fun for me to see we're slowly chipping away at all these little gardens and trying to get them rejuvenated I wanted to give you just a quick look before and after to kind of show the progress because sometimes like this has taken me about a week to do you know you kind of forget where you started from so I thought it'd be fun to take a peek well I think it's looking fantastic and I'm excited to go on with more projects we still have a huge pile of rocks so we've got to do a couple little areas and also enough to restore this little greenhouse behind me which we are working on and trying to get all the materials put together so that we can start on finishing this before the rain set in and fall well thank you so much for joining me again this week here at the Orchard Heights project if you have somebody a friend or someone that would enjoy tagging along with us please share with them also if you haven't yet please like and subscribe leave me a comment what do you think of the rock what would you have done differently I don't know I love hearing everybody's thoughts anyways until next time much success in all you do and grow and we'll be seeing you shortly at another project very very soon bye