The garden is looking ... GREAT-

Hey everyone, good morning. Welcome to another casual garden stroll You know I thought about filming this yesterday So I could have this up nice and early and then it was such a beautiful summer day that I kind of took the afternoon off and I went to the beach and I went swimming in Lake, Michigan and Had a really nice summer day. So here we are back at kind of a later Sunday morning video I don't have any mail this week if you sent mail, it's Might just be because I don't think anyone's gotten to the post office this week The yard is a little bit There's some piles of stuff around normally I try to pick up at the end of the day on Saturday So when I'm filming this video, there isn't stuff like everywhere, but I didn't do that yesterday So you'll see some piles of stuff and I don't know. Let's just get on with it. Let's go for a stroll Oh, by the way, I did anticipate having the final video from the new garden series up yesterday But I wanted to just take a little bit extra time to film a couple of extra bits of that which I hope to film this morning yet before Before it starts to rain we are gonna get a good chunk of rain today, which is You know good in some way I? Struggle there's so many things I should be doing in the rain. I should be giving at least one dog a bath I should definitely be dealing with a laundry situation. I should definitely be like just doing some general cleaning in the house But also I really want to run to a garden So, I don't know a couple of three years ago Maybe I did this video where I went to it was Bayside Garden Center in Fox Point And I got this amazing hall of plants. They had a cartload sale I don't know if you guys remember this, but I think it was everything you could fit on a cart for 60 bucks It was insane I don't think they've ever done that again because I think that kind of backfired on them Because I think a lot of people waited for that sale But I do have some holes developing in the garden And I'd love to have a few things to pop in there a lot of things are on sale so Raining rainy days are my favorite days to go to garden centers because well this time you're not a lot of people are at Them anyway, but no one's at garden centers on those days, so What will win housework garden center place your bets all right? Let's go for a stroll. I'll just start up here on the deck Because the sweet peas are starting to fade now like they're at the point where I can't cut them fast enough But we still have a few here. It still smells delightful I do have a purple hyacinth bean that I planted down there because I knew the sweet peas would be gone at some point But it's starting to come up through this and this is kind of a mess up here But listen you know sweet peas get a little messy at the end of their their Their time here, and that's okay with me because it still smells amazing still just looking great Really having issues with drip irrigation this year I just the other day I accidentally cut this drip line in this pot, and I kept meaning to fix it Yeah, well the drip is running right now. Do you see water coming out of there? So I don't know what how that guy's been getting water I don't know what's going on with that You think the thing with these drip irrigation lines is that I don't think the like the DIY type I don't think they last that long and I think Well, I personally forget that And I really think like next year. I need to spend a little bit of time just Like redoing all the drip probably I think the drip in the vegetable garden is is probably not doing great Yeah, so you can see this is this is the drip that comes out of the Bottom of the window box falls on these leaves This is looking nice still we talked about this last week, but I fertilized the ladder comes out So what when I fertilize and I fertilized yesterday I am absolutely still just loving the Castor bean it's it's good now. I do wish these Dahlia's this yellow dahlia would kind of or but ever got everything got planted late, so okay Let's look over here. I don't think a lot of this looks different than it did the last time you see it Just trying to think if I've done anything in here obviously just like You know there's little bits of weeding that happened I have started leaving these buckets around seems to be a better system for me And then the idea is I run around with a wheelbarrow and empty the buckets instead of just having to pick the stuff up off The ground which is what I've done in the past We've looked at these dahlias already, but still this is Pam Howard. She's a beaut Water lily form this is I think this is rock run Ashley, which makes in a reappearance in the yard this year I didn't like it for a while, and now I'm like oh, why didn't I like you? Because she's I love a ball dahlia can't go wrong with them Creighton honey has been usually I mean came started quickly, but we're kind of in a lull for flowers right now You know this garden Usually looks pretty good start in terms of the dahlias usually looks pretty good starting in about early early August and this is a late year for everything this year, so Hopefully in a couple of weeks. This will be looking really good Hopefully we get a late frost because I think things are gonna be have lots of blooming left in them later in the year one of the spots I would like to fill in is Obviously over here. I've been telling you I've obviously pulled out a lot of the poppies I saved oodles and oodles and oodles of seeds last week And then I pulled out because they were just starting to look really ratty Once those seed heads start going very brown You know like this this this is the only reason this plant is still here is because I want to collect This is one of the Shirley poppies. I want to collect some of the seeds from these guys before I pull that out Unfortunately my big bowling ball Bowl yeah bowling ball poppy once again the damn chipmunks got it So oh hey, I am if I think of it. Maybe I'll show you guys a Picture if I can think about popping it in my mom texted me a picture of some animal in Small live trap that she caught yesterday trying to catch a chipmunk It was a stoat which is also known as a short-tailed weasel which is also known as an ermine cutest little bugger And they ended up just releasing it because they actually eat mice and bulls But they said it was very nasty Okay, this tree right here Look look at we've got elba luxurians just kind of Dangling out. Oh boy the petals are dropping here. I'm just kind of dangling out of this tree So you know this is this tree that just dies from the bottom up And some people have told me like get rid of it but I tell you as long as I have something tall enough planted below it and Like there are some dahlias that I thought would get taller whatever And that's easy to fix, but I do love these clementis coming out through these branches. I think it's I think it's beautiful Oh some of my foxglove Dalmatian peach foxglove is starting to bloom these are ones that I Started this year. I think I grew some most of these from seed this year So that is one that will flower in the same season if you get them in early enough And it will flower later than foxglove normally would This banana is looking good. Although. I think did I show you that the Japanese beetles really got this one This is all Japanese beetle damage here the other one not so much this one. They really have been feasting on This is a coleus that I put in here that was a trial actually hang on I need to confirm that these are not these are the same plant because I don't understand how this Maybe these aren't they are the same plant you guys that is coming off the same plant, okay? So this is and somewhere in here is a tag and like I don't know if you want me to spend my time with you Here looking for that tag, but something is amiss here because there's no way This is the coleus that is supposed to be here. This looks a lot like gaze the light to me Or there's another one, but I think This is a Reversion or something anyway, I don't know that this is the best way to market a new coleus I can't remember what company sent me that by the way Oh hang on hold on I see some tags back there. Let's just see if I can solve this issue Yeah, this is this is charged up coleus prismatic charged up coleus I Catching colors and palettes. I don't know but to me if I'm buying that That's what I want. This is Significantly different, so I don't know what's going on there, but anyway It's why it's kind of nice to try these things And be able to tell you guys my experience with them because that's sort of a weird experience I don't mind the look, but you know I'm just saying if I'm buying that I'm buying it for one thing and not the other Listen I'm still trying to grow grass guys. I still don't see any germination gosh I've been so good about watering to The ladies mantle has pretty much reflush now We're pretty much back to really nice foliage on most of these yes, there's some weeds in there. We're gonna deal with it But that has pretty much reflushed the alliums that are up here you guys this is just Like bee heaven up here right now. I don't know if you can see all the bees just everywhere all over these it's bananas They're also Flowering so much better than they have the past couple years I think it's cuz I divided this huge clump that had been here to create You know these two different planting areas so a little mental note your alliums really probably want to be divided Look at all these dahlias here. I'm pretty sure Someone needs to get in there and stake some I've been terrible about staking this year. Here's the bananas growing. This is this ever red There's a trio of them here, which is too many, but I sort of expect not expecting all of them to make it anyway They're looking good, and they're finally getting some size on them. It's been slow. I Think I've talked about this plant But I just want to point it out again. I think I've actually talked about it last weekend, but just in case This is this iron cross Axalis which I grew from bulbs look at the flowers on it. I mean I I Just think pop a couple of bulbs in somewhere it seems like a total no-brainer. I I'm really enjoying that Okay Move around this way. Oh Did you see the rabbit jump out everywhere you walk in this garden something is constantly jumping out at me It's a squirrel a rabbit lots of rabbits a snake something is always jumping out at me in this garden like could we just Stop scaring me Anyway alliums over here looking Very pretty the ones in the back here are bobble heads these in the front are Millennium pretty sure millennium and serendipity are so similar to me. That's hard for me to tell the difference I am gonna have some flocks. There's start starting to be some flocks blooming back here Presumably I will have more flocks blooming because there will be no deer here to eat them Which is pretty exciting? I still have not done anything with this ginkgo although some of the comments from you guys last week There's one comment that kind of resonated with me, which is like yeah, but they survived the dinosaurs You know yeah, they survived the dinosaurs. They can probably survive a little bit of pruning offseason This is all lemon perfection Nepeta This one is keeping its color very nicely Really keeping that nice. I would say it is well named It is more on the yellow side of chartreuse for sure last week. I showed you the oh Boy, holy mackerel That's like a like six foot tall jewel weed right there I Told you I showed you a flowerful right after it rained last weekend And I wanted and they did stand back up there was a couple that were kind of flopped a little bit But they did stand back up, and they are looking really really good So I want to show you that update because like I said I feel like this is the first even though. I've had these now for planted in September of 2024 so this is their second Full growing season they finally got their you know definitely approaching. You know full height or close to it So this is where I think we need to start paying attention to what's happening with them in terms of judging this plant compared to an Annabelle which is Whatever what these are meant to be compared to so sort of limey or green Flowers, and then we've got some white flowers I'm here for all of those the Kalamata Montrose white is Starting to bloom and it's so pretty and the bees love it of course I think this is actually I'm the Let's stand sky view hydrangeas that I planted back here those flowers were all on those plants when I planted them So you know don't well except for some of these you can see like that one's got a couple of new flowers on it But other than that So you know don't get too excited about what they've done so far because they came that way But when these get a little bit height on them. I actually think this is gonna be Really really beautiful right here. Just kind of a simple planting. It's basically three plants in the front here It's this Kalamata Montrose white, Sesleria autumnalis, and then some Alliums mixed in there There are a few Liatris that are throughout this bed that kind of pop up But I think that's just in this sort of center section. I think it's gonna look really nice There's more Kalamata over here obviously as well now if I really wanted to balance this bed I would stick another flower full over here, but I've got this beautiful Wine and Roses Weigela over here, so I don't need symmetry that bad and plus that Weigela does a great job of hiding that you know the ugly power box situation over there Sorry, I hope I didn't like Totally make your head spin with that turn Okay Shade garden I haven't really you know we got the snake issue over here You see the cake can you see these cages let me zoom in so you can see that is I can take those off now because that's where the deer were eating the Dianella the sort of hydrangea cousin, and there's a flower under there. I'm gonna have I need my leaf blower Accompaniment if you hadn't seen that several people suggested that if you use a leaf blower You can usually scare the snakes away before you step into an area Again if you're not familiar with my snake issue. It's a personal problem. They're garter snakes. They are harmless in terms of Hurting a human they are not harmless in terms of scaring the ever-living crap out of a person who doesn't like snakes And I don't care for Running upon them they may live here, and they do I just don't want to see it, okay? yesterday One of the things I did do yesterday was recut this edge There is no garden job that I find more satisfying than edging a bed. It's So satisfying now that was just with my edger. I have not come in I usually like to come in with my Baco long handled shears lawn shears and Trim that as well, and then once that's done, then you can maintain that with Like a oh look who came outside. Did you let yourself out sir? Did you let yourself out well hi come on over? You can maintain that with a string trimmer You know after that, but I like to get it really nicely cut from the get-go my begonia hi my begonia grandis Are finally starting to bloom, but you guys all these little seedlings that are here Which I'm delighted to see I am trying to establish a patch of these What are they gonna start like? growing because It's not very helpful if I don't have them till like October, so I'm hoping they Kind of move on get going. I think I talked to you about this plants. Oh, we're where are you going? Where's I don't know why am I? Broke a lot. I've lost control of the camera. Oh, I see we're tracking something accidentally. That's why Here we go. Let's let's get you on the on the level here This is this I Appear from Brigadoon that I saw on Jim Putnam's channel This one in particular is doing good. I bought several of them off of eBay But I hope that plant does well that's such a cool-looking plant to me It's one of those plants that I hadn't heard of till I saw it on Jim's channel and now all of a sudden it keeps Popping up turns out. There's a local place that actually that our local wholesale place. They could have bought it from I Just never knew to look for it before okay. We'll talk Cobra lily here briefly Aracema here's the flower down here on this guy. It's just wild So cool-looking Hopefully that plant over winters well certainly was late to emerge The white liatris this is liatris. I think it's is it spicata I'm not sure but Alba is the cultivar name on this one Cultivar variety name whatever is starting to flower here, and I love it coming up through this I've not seen this white one too much. It's Significantly taller than any other liatris I have here Mm-hmm, and then these are seedlings from Mojito Nicosiana that I grew last year that The flowers are big on these this is a very good Nicosiana Very good, it's tall though. I mean pretty tall and but it seems to be standing up pretty well Sorry I think I got like a little pollen ingestion there, but you can see like they do mix around so in here Can you see this guy? We've got some flowers that are sort of this a reddish color mix right in there with all them totally fine But you know something no this cracks me up I've got a Dalmatian peach emerging from Hekla Koa All gold I did want to show you that the bottlebrush buckeyes have started blooming well this one is anyway the others are just starting oh My god. I love this plant so much. I just think this is Just look at these flowers. I mean they are the these flowers are the most gorgeous delicate Intriguing looking things there was I have a picture from the other day big swallowtail butterfly just going nuts on them My god, this is it's the most interesting looking flower. I think I really really really love love this plant And obviously there's be like there's one down at my feet here, and these are not that you need to see That but bees down there anyway That's all looking great interesting the forever Goldie the perpetually tortured forever Goldie Which took a real hit from the deer this year before the fence went in is starting to rebound so If that thing comes back, that'll be like That'll be like the the deer fences like shining moment Just kind of glancing around see what's good here, okay, let's go this way Couple of notes I showed you Roy's garden last week, and I mentioned that You know the slope was looking really bad and That I had lost Much of the dyschamphia gold towel there Somebody It it doesn't look bad on this side. Let me walk over to the other side so you can kind of talk see what I was talking about Somebody suggested Could it be jumping worm damage, and I think there's a lot of That that could be I have not dug in there to really look around in that soil But this was just this garden right over here was the garden that a few years ago. I had to completely Basically completely redo because I lost like 75% of the plants there to jumping worm damage, but this is the hillside hillside The slope that I'm talking about Also, there is something happening here, which is that this whole slope has been degrading because of the water so I Am considering. I think something's got to get done. I think I have to do something to shore up this slope here I mean this one too. You can see that On this side you can see that like there's a lot of the soil is it's not good that it goes into the creek Either by the way because that doesn't help that situation. Oh There So there's something about you know the way the water is traveling through here so Certainly on this side. I think I need to I need to come up with a plan to shore up this slope I want that to be because like that is that's a millennia transparent that Roy planted and you see how it's like in in the Creek now That either slid down or the whole thing has been degraded here So I need to come up with a plan for what we're gonna do here and I don't know what that's gonna be what I know I don't want it to be is I don't really want it to involve rock Because I really don't I would like to do this without having to do too much Excavation a lot of times when you're terracing something there's a lot of destruction before you get to fixing something I personally really really really don't want to I really don't want to move rocks I really really don't want to move rocks, but I don't know so I'm gonna This is gonna be this is on the list for 2027 to Sorry, I saw it looked down like oh my god if I'm not recording. I'm gonna die um Okay, that was a little dramatic. I don't know what I'm gonna Do perhaps there's something to be done with like large court and steel panels Honestly, I'm looking for an easy an easy solution that doesn't cost of time That's usually not a thing that happens. That's you know that Venn diagram of fast easy and cheap you know you have to pick a few and they don't all work, but Ideally you know our neighbors who have this same situation Previous owners. They're all lined them all they have really nice like stone walls. We never had that done here We never thought about doing it. We didn't realize what the situation was going to be So there's that and also I'm gonna have to combine that with planting some like erosion control type plants Because the more I look at this this is this is actually like a real. This is not just a gardening problem This is like a structural issue so anyway I don't know where I don't know where this is gonna. Go, but I've got something to look into for For fall I mean for winter I was saying fall I just kind of noticed the other day that Asked this old house is coming to the area in September, and they're looking for projects I'm like hey, maybe I should send him a thing and say hey you want to fix a Fix a slope and the answer is gonna be no they don't because they want to come and like fix a door that squeaks or something These three containers are probably my favorite containers of this whole year I Think they are looking so so so good The Rex begonias are obviously just like stars of the show here But you know these ferns are no slouches in here the fuchsia is great. I'll show you the one in the other pot next I'm just and I mean they're great individually. They're even better as a trio here Just remembered I'd forgot to fertilize these But they're so and then this guy down here, I mean this guy is great, but here's this great fuchsia This is this new fuchsia that's coming out next year from Proven Winners It's supposed to be more Sun tolerant, but this is not testing that at all We are pretty much full shade here this farfujum here is So good so worth bringing that in my suitcase home from Florida Just really interesting interesting things in here interesting texture and the trio together is You know I didn't think I would like it because it was actually selling the last ones I planted and I generally like to do brighter colors here And pink wasn't really on my radar, but I'm you know I guess sometimes these things happen for a reason And I'm so happy it did because I love how they turned out They are starting to get the hanging baskets are getting lower Which is probably both the line that they're on stretching and the branch Hanging down with it because they're quite heavy. I did plant In here I did plant at the base of this tree a bunch more Solidago Flexicalis, I think it is it's zigzag It's zigzag goldenrod, which is also right here. It's like a native little ground cover And it's really funny because I bought a whole tree of it, and I started looking around like well I guess this would be a good spot since it's already growing here So because I'm trying to this is a really good opportunity in this garden to plant There's really good shady Woodland type natives that we have here, so this is a really good opportunity to put in and I need to cover some area here So this is a very good opportunity for Things that might get a little spready And manage themselves well Okay, let's just go into the vegetable garden here And see what's happening there this Pulbis clematis has been blooming for weeks now. I feel very happy about that choice I have started harvesting most of my onions Here's the squash bed Which is actually looking great so far like knock on wood. There's no sign of powdery mildew yet that could all change But there's I don't fully know what's all in here in the other day I'm like well. I need a squash, and I found some patty pan thing It was not that good, but I think I harvested too late, but I do have a lot of Honey nuts in here and baby butternuts. This is these round ones are Sweet jade that's another sweet jade right there. These are mostly winter squashes There is a zucchini in here, but I don't know if it stands a chance in this In this mass here, there's like I think six plants in here That's probably quite a few for a bed this size, but here's another this guy's beauty hello Yeah, so I'm just crossing my fingers that we can avoid avoid vine borers and powdery mildew and all those things because this bed is Looking just so good right now in here. You can see that the Again, the sweet peas are on their way out in fact. I cut quite a bit This is one of the reason I want to get to a garden center because these beds once the sweet peas are gone these beds look pretty sad Here's the water bowl I am in the middle of training the fish Who all it worked did you see that can you see them in there? Yeah, so I give up just a tiny little wrap on the side every time before I throw a little food in there And then they come up these are Once again, I could not find mosquito fish. They're very difficult to find here for some reason these are mostly comet goldfish in here little little ones There's a few little like minnow II things in here too, but the ones you can see usually are the comments And I do not keep them at the end of the year I give them I've been giving I found somebody on Facebook marketplace a few years ago who wanted them at the end of the season And I give them to that person every year which works out great Peppers, oh we do. Oh, look at this though. Come on. That's a nice-looking one Those are not bad. This guy's like jammed in there cucumbers The cute few cucumbers I've had so far have been very tasty. It's always a It's always a challenge to keep these guys Headed in the right direction up there up there trellis here But I don't see a lot on right now It feels like we're in a little bit of a lull in terms of production and the tomatoes. I Mean a there's not a ton on B. What is on is as green as you can possibly imagine so See what's over here. Yeah, I mean, they're just little and green but again, it's just but it was so cold here So late that Everything is just behind. I need to get over here and do another tier of tying these guys up This is this Arctic Rose Fox glove Which just keeps blooming all year Yeah, there's some weeding that needs to be done, but I'm telling you guys it's way better than it was I'm every time I come in here. I do I just Putts around and do a little bit of weeding and then I'll bring the torch in Shortly once I get the big ones out. The torch will not take care of big weeds. It just makes them they just come back, but once I get the big stuff pulled out we'll Do that here. Oh, hey, I'll just here. I'll just quickly Pop in here here avert your eyes for a second Because I want you guys to see this in this other video. Okay? This camera a lot of people have been asking about this camera, so this is a I'll put a link to it below I just you can I think I bought this one maybe directly from the company you can pick them up on Amazon, too I'll put the link and you can decide where you want to buy from this is just this solar powered camera and all I have it on here is a plant stake and I've wire tied it on to on to here and then I just move it around the garden wherever I need to I'm using this I call this my critter cam So I'm using this to keep an eye on The critter situation right now. I'm using it to make sure that deer aren't getting in Which knock on wood they have not been we've been good for a while here, but I found out about neighborhood cats who are coming in it's been interesting, but This way I can move it around the yard. You can see if you can see the lens But it took a face plant a couple weeks ago. I was like why it's wrong with the camera It was facedown in the garden anyway, so it works on Wi-Fi so You just have to be within Wi-Fi distance of your house And then it has an SD card in it so you do not have to hook up to the cloud which is important for me I am NOT interested in cameras that go out into the broader Internet in any way shape or form so that one is all a self-enclosed system I mean it is on Wi-Fi, so I suppose someone's gonna Tell me somebody could hack in whatever, but it's not like a ring camera where you subscribe to the cloud And then it it's connected with other things so And it's got a micro SD card in it, so if you need to get it off of there you can you've got that The Liatris is looking great. No. It's not Liatris. It's Ligularia. Sorry looking great here I mean it seeds around like a beast but It sure is been the right move for to line this stream bank here and keep other weedy things at bay All right Let's stop okay, that's it you guys I'm going to get this video up and then run around the yard and pick up all my piles to prepare for rain, and then I will either do responsible adult things or I will go plant shopping and We'll find out which is which hope you guys are having a great day in your garden. We'll see you soon. Bye. Bye