Let’s Share Some Great Gardening Tips And Tricks

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In this episode, Linda shares her favorite tried-and-true gardening tips and clever tricks to make your garden more beautiful, efficient, and enjoyable. Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned gardener, you’re sure to find something helpful and inspiring!

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uh today I’m going to do a workabout rather than a walkabout in the garden And I want to encourage all of you to stay to the very end and answer a question that you have been asking me over and over again And that is what kind of mulch I am using now that I can’t get that soil conditioner anymore And at the end of the video make sure that you stay tuned because I’m going to show you what I’m using now Okay here’s my first tip for today First of all I’m so excited to have nothing to do today but work out in the in the garden I have a little bit a few obligations later in the afternoon but for the most part I can indulge my gardening passion this morning So here and this is just I’m just going to do my work you guys I’m just going to garden And you all are going to kind of follow me around If there’s something I think that I you guys would appreciate me sharing some kind of special tip or trick or how I do it um then I will starting with this trick right now From now on I think instead of just regular gloves if I don’t have on long sleeves I am always going to wear these Rose Garden gloves because no matter what I do right now as I’m cutting things back whether they’re scratchy or not or if I’m reaching into a tub of tools or something your arms just are so vulnerable to different kinds of scratches and things So I thought from now on these are my gardening gloves of choice Whether I am working on roses or I’m just pruning trees or I am just doing doing anything I am going to use these uh long sleeved gloves Um sometimes I wear farmer sleeves sometimes I’ll wear long sleeves but when I don’t these are my my gloves of choice So there we go Now let’s just get started And they’re stylish too Uh you can kind of do some stuff if you want Stuart Just kind of show everybody the the yard how it looks Right now I’ve cut back a lot of things pretty hard and now I need to go get my trash can from the back because yes I wish I had a huge compost pile and a place to have a huge compost pile so I could compost everything but that’s a luxury I don’t have So yes sadly some of it does have to go into my trash can [Music] [Music] Thought we catch her coming down Let’s see [Music] guys Hi Well I talk a lot on my channel about my walking life and most of the time I’m walking to a local shop or a restaurant or something of that nature but obviously the weather doesn’t always cooperate Well that’s where Avon comes in and this remarkable treadmill that really makes exercising interesting and not boring You can really basically do anything through this little monitor right here If I want to walk right now I think I am walking through an alpine village but if I want to change it out I can exit out of that If I like to read on the treadmill which I often do I can upload my Kindle I can watch Netflix I can watch Disney Paramount any of those kinds of things Probably my favorite is just to take certain kind of coached classes It’s how I like to do the rower and it’s also now how I like to do the treadmill And I can basically do it on any level I can do it easy medium for whatever time frame I want to use And I think it’s really really wonderful The other thing that I like is how easy it is to negotiate and navigate both the speed and the incline So on this one it’s just a thumb control On my old my old clunky treadmill it was really kind of a hassle Here I can just press it up I can just press it up Aerobic base power improve the details of today’s walk Let’s go ahead and make sure that you’re set up safe and secure on the I’m going to pause it right there so you can you can hear me Um but the the controls are just really really easy For years my son was trying to get me to get rid of my old clunky treadmill that had none of these fun features And finally thanks to Avon I have one that will keep my workout from being boring It will keep me engaged but more importantly I will stay on my healthy path to better living So if you’re like me and you want to make sure that your walking life continues even in inclement weather whether you’re a walker or you’re a runner whether you do it competitively or you just compete against yourself I highly recommend that you guys check out Avon use the special QR code here and see what Avon has to offer you as you kind of navigate through your own walking life So right there is one of those Oakland holls that is covering up the beautiful terra hydrangea And I had said on a previous video that I probably wouldn’t move it until this fall but we have had so much rain and I’ve got we’ve got more I think on the horizon that Victor’s going to come later because that’s just way too big of a specimen for me to dig up Way too difficult Um but when he does transplant it hopefully today it’s going to be at the very end here So I’ve got two babies that are still waiting to grow up but it’ll it’ll take some time but they will And that last one I’m going to plant right in here cuz I want all three of them to be kind of spaced along in here and I want something Yeah like right here to punctuate the corner And at first I thought well I’m definitely not going to do that till fall But then we’ve had all this rain And I also realized that I’ve got drip irrigation up in the back that goes into my raised beds And this area out here isn’t easily accessible to any kind of water except that I can take one of those drip lines just run it underneath the fence and while it’s getting established in the long run it’s not going to be an issue but while it’s getting established uh I want to make sure it gets enough water So I since that one’s large I’ll put a big tree well around it So this Bermuda grass doesn’t compete with it we’ll make sure that it stands up straight Um and then hopefully pretty soon as the heat arrives this Bermuda grass will really start to fill in Yes I do do my most of my own gardening Not all of it but a good bit of it I need to dead head these roses Autumn’s edge is looking beautiful It is Speaking of and one of the reasons gardening is such good exercise is because you get in a lot of steps I especially do because here I’m always going up and down from the bottom level to the top level But that’s okay Gets me lots of exercise and I don’t mind it So I’m coming up here to get my long-handled pruners Doing some pruning and clipping today By the way they will come and mow an edge later today So a lot of this messy work I’m doing right before they come so that when they’re here they’ll be they’ll be uh help they will help me clean up the mess that I make I haven’t Chelsea chopped these mums before I think maybe I was trying to decide whether or not I wanted to let them bloom once and then chop chop them back after they bloomed again because I do want them to bloom in the fall But I decided to go ahead and chop them back Unfortunately these are longhandled pruners so I can get way to the back And I’ll probably come in with maybe a little rake or something later Don’t judge me on my inelegance and how I move from one place to another Uh so I’ll probably get a small rake so I can rake that out and put it in the trash I’ve got some little baby versions here This yarao really took a hit with all that rain but it looks pretty And from a distance that’s the other thing From a distance a lot of times you just don’t know Now these may be small little toughs but even these small little toughs get a Chelsea chop Okay So even these little guys are getting a Chelsea chop And in the process if I see any of the leaves that look they might have like they might have some pests on them or something that I will take note of that and come back and maybe give them a spritz of insecticidal soap But thank you Stuart Okay Now I’ve got another little tuft We’ve got another little tuft of this uh these white mums You can see there’s another big tuft up there that I still need Actually I think I’ll do that right now And if I cut some of the yarao it’s okay I’m not going to worry about it too much The other thing I’m going to do is it’s almost time for me to start pulling out some of this lark spur And I’ve got a tip that I’m going to share with you on that Now some of you may wondering be wondering oh could I root any of these cutings yeah maybe I could but I’m not going to cuz it’s just a little bit too much of a hassle Okay so I’ll come back and when I clean up that other stuff I will clean that up Meanwhile I’m going to check in here Look here Okay So meanwhile I’m going to check in here And look it started out tiny and it’s still not very big but I’ve got some green milkweed in here that I got from a local gardener who has a small garden And I’m going to pinch this See a little bit of clover coming up in here I think once I remove lots of this lark spur then I’m going to have more room for some cone flour that I’ve got that’s congested up in there and I’ll probably transplant it in there Now here is something that I am definitely going to do and I want to show you that this is the time to do it Okay look here These are lark spur seed heads See yeah they’re they are starting to dry Now once they begin to dry like this I don’t necessarily need to wait for all of these to dry while they’re still on the stem I can go ahead and start cutting some of these and I’ll show you how I’m going to process them But there’s just too much of this in here From a distance it looks okay But now I’m wanting to make room for some of the other stuff um to have a little bit more light to put out more color And even though some of these are still in bloom I’m nevertheless going to go ahead and take some of them out because I want to give time for the other things underneath to really come into their own And even though these are still kind of pretty look under here This baptisia there is a fire chief herbivorita in there Yeah All of this stuff that’s hiding underneath there is being shaded out and it wants some sun So I am going to work on that Okay So this is a Bermuda grass grower’s best friend It is my tool of choice to dig out By the way make sure you guys hydrate And I am lthered up with sunscreen Here’s another little tip Uh so common sense but it took somebody to tell me about it for me to start practicing it And that is that I got some sunglasses that are bif focals So that when I’ve got my contacts in and I need to read the back of some something then I can do so because I’ve got bif focal sunglasses on These are eyeballs Uh so this is what I’m talking about You can see I’ve already been doing lots of work And that’s a hy hory right this is a Hory knife And by the way I have been admittedly miserable about putting up some of the links uh to some of the different products especially this weekend when we were entertaining some of the different products that I use and uh whether they’re tools or some of the pretties And to remedy that this weekend we’re going to try to put up a video that’s just nothing but products and some of the links that you guys have asked about because I’ve been bad Okay so over here you all out there here’s my question of the day Do any of you especially if you garden in the south do you too have Bermuda grass and if you do when it runs a muck see right there I can get all the way down into the surface Now I can do that or beyond the surface And I can do that because the ground It’s wet Is very wet I mean this just it’s like butter baby It’s very very gratifying Now I could spray this You know some of you may spray it with Roundup or whatever I try not to use Roundup I could spray it with some of my vinegar solution which I’m going to show you a little bit later but that is only on Bermuda grass which is pretty tough I find that only to be moderately effective and you do have to spray it more than once versus this if I get most of the roots it is just a oneandone kind of deal Then when the guys come later to mow and edge and everything all that will already be it will be out of there So I’m looking at what else is going on in here Okay here’s a little bit And boy is this just delightful kind of weeding when it comes out that easily Okay as always I got interrupted stopped and now I don’t have my trash can I need my trash can Somebody save that dog That dog’s barking at somebody A lot of times you guys ask me if HubS helps out in the garden that much and he really doesn’t It’s just woo got to be better about rounding that corner That’s just kind of not his thing and I respect that He enjoys being out in the garden But what he prefers more is to be fishing It’s kind of your thing Yeah it’s kind of my thing So when I am doing this I do not be careful not to throw away your tool Um I don’t bring the trash cans typically up to the upper level Why because by doing so I might chip the concrete veneer on the steps and I don’t want to do that Plus these are typically not prohibitively heavy And again I’m not just wanting to be productive in the garden I’m wanting to be productive productive in terms of my gardening lifestyle So I get in lots of steps You can hear me I’m just slightly winded So that’s a good thing That is a very good thing Mhm Yeah The reason that gardening is such great exercise is because of all of the bending and lifting you do It’s weightbearing exercise It helps with mobility and flexibility and it’s great immediate gratification I’m finally wearing my Apple Watch so I can tell when I get steps and things in now Finally It’s It is just so validating It is so validating Okay So over here I’m going to do a little bit of weeding But am I pulling any weeds no What I’m pulling and digging up are things like verbina bonarians that’s growing where I don’t want it Some salvia that has seated in here And yes these are real These are real plants that I want to grow in my garden But any plant that is growing in an area you don’t want it to grow well it might as well be a weed So I’m pulling that out Okay here’s a little tuft I don’t want any of my friends to ever buy salvia cuz I have tons of it Now the other thing that I’m starting to clean up a little bit more some of it I left in place to kind of just mulch the garden but I’m starting to clean up more of that kind of debris because it’s attracting roly polies And lordy do I have roly polies Okay All of these little things these little trees and such See if I can’t get a little closer Yeah all these little guys right here These are everywhere And I just keep pulling them And I pull them when they’re little again It gets me bending exercise Here’s some more of that verbina And every once in a while y’all I come across something very very happy And right here look that is some purple dome basil I may have showed it to you the other day But look it’s starting to be happy now And it’s Yeah And it’s partly happy because I’ve exposed it to light and air I’m going to have a wet rear end here I can tell That’s okay It’s also a gardener’s thing right it’s also a gardener’s thing It’s also a gardener’s thing Um I’ll come back It also has a serrated edge It’s the coolest knife you own Yeah Yeah It’s pretty cool And I And I own a couple of them If I am and I’m not necessarily right here but if I were It also gets you a little bit of length if you have to reach in someplace Okay Right here Got some salvia I’m just going to leave that there Maybe I want it to stay there and bloom Maybe I don’t Um but a horih hory knife or your garden tools Again they’re not only practical and do what you want them to do but they give you some additional length So you don’t have to go into the flower bed and walk on your on your wet soil because that’s another tip You don’t want to compress your wet soil The other thing whenever I have my Hory Hory knife with me if I think oh I might want to seed some stuff in here then I do this and I rough up the soil a little bit Or if something might be going to seed then I rough up the soil a little bit Or if I am going to feed something like these guys I think I’m going to give them some granular bloom fertilizer And when I do that it will penetrate more if the soil is kind of roughed up and it also makes it a little bit easier to work into the soil Now you may notice that I have ADD when I garden I just kind of move from one place to another Part of that is because I want to keep moving because I have found that when I injure myself when I injure my back or I do something it’s because I am in one awkward position for too long a period of time So to kind of mitigate that problem I just keep moving I keep moving from one area to another Now sometimes I might want to dedicate an entire you know entire segment of my gardening day to a specific area and I do that too But I have found it to be helpful to just keep moving around And yes I probably could have gotten my little garden bench or whatever but you know I don’t need it all the time I am still somebody who can get down on the ground and get up off the ground and that in and of itself is great exercise Here we go And three two Okay After lots of rain this is something to really look out for Whether or not you’ve got a nice clean border like I do they will come in here They will uh edge along here and cut the length of these Bermuda runners But periodically it does this kind of thing I can try to dig it out but sometimes with limited success and the other thing is is sometimes it then dislocates my bricks So when I get my spray bottle of vinegar I will come back and that will be an area that I spray Meanwhile I’m just going to work the [Music] edge dig as deeply as I can to get out the runners on this Bermuda grass because once it takes hold especially if it takes hold in happy conditions like this moist soil after a rain with more rain on the way then I am in trouble because it will really be difficult to remove later when the ground isn’t this supple and when it’s had a chance to establish itself Little tus no matter how small will grow up to be big boy boys So that’s another tip Get them when they’re young and you’re able to remove them pretty easily Now I did give this a chop now and I’ll probably give these crosanthemums one more chop before the 4th of July And that will just make them continue to grow in a more bushy manner Now the other thing is one of you commented and I so appreciated it Uh yes go ahead and cut them back because they’re probably not going to bloom because crosanthemums in some cases not all respond to the length of day and the amount of sunlight to encourage bloom which means that they probably want shorter days um in the fall But these and some others I have seen I’ve seen lots of of particularly yellow mums already in bloom So it’s not true of all varieties but these I decided I’ve got enough going on I’m just going to postpone their bloom Now I have to be very careful right here because I am walking on soil and I don’t want to step on my little butterfly plant A little butterfly weed in there Okay all of you out there here’s another question of the day Should it stay or should it go i got a pumpkin right here I’m pretty pretty happy so far In fact I’ve seen pumpkins coming up in a number of different areas So let’s say you should it stay or should it go decide fast cuz it’s blowing You do you I’ll do me By the way I also have some in the back that are growing and I am not pulling those Plus it would be kind of ugly for a big old pumpkin vine which then will in invariably attract squash bugs and things like that to be growing out over the lawn And I like my nice thick green Bermuda lawn anyway [Music] So there we go on to the next thing Three two Okay so every time I transition from one area to another I do try to take a drink of something because I am bad about hydrating Um I did a video actually that was on Tamron Hall a long time ago on the Tamron Hall show with James Clear and we talked about habit formation And so whenever I do take a drink and this is some peppermint green tea It’s delicious I got to make more tea I try not to just take one sip but several big gulps If I’m going to do it then take several big gulps We also paused for a moment so Stuart could uh put on his mosquito spray cuz that’s that’s a problem There’s the cityscape guys There’s the yard crew Okay so why do I have these paper sacks you might ask well here’s why I’m going to show you I got two And each one is going to get their respective seed heads in it So I’m to the point right now where I’m kind of tired of seeing these falling over starting to droop seed heads and I want to cut them back But some of the seeds in them are not completely dry So here’s the rule on that Once some of them start doing this start doing papery this papery thing like this Okay which tells me see these are drying See those tiny little seeds okay they’ll drop in place But I want to go ahead and cut this because this seed stock will continue to mature And these seed pods will continue to dry even after I cut them I do want to I’ll probably cut the ones that look a little bit more dry And after I cut them I take the entire [Music] stock In this case I’m just going to pull out the whole plant because it’s starting to get buggy probably would be a spider might attractor Sorry for that noise And then I’m going to take the seed heads right [Music] here I’m going to get my pruners and then this will be my fox glove bag And what I’ll do is [Music] this Now some say sorry for the noise Some say you know to hang these up with a paper bag attached to them but I’m not going to do that It’s just as easy to do this They’ll continue to dry I’ll make sure to bring them in so they’re nowhere in uh exposed to the elements so that they get wet because again I want the seeds to dry So sometimes what I do is I’ll just hang them on a hook of sorts someplace where they’re exposed to sunlight and then when they’re sufficiently dried I’ll bring them Okay Well we can take a break Okay Now you’ll notice that I’m just cutting stalks Most of them are pink fox glove but if some of them are white in this batch I don’t care If I wanted to separate the white from the pink then obviously I would do that and I would put them in separate bags usually a smaller bag and I would write that on the side But for these I don’t really care And remember fox glove are biianials They put on foliage the first year and then they bloom the second year Some of them will invariably drop in place and that’s great If they drop in place and selfseed and they actually germinate and begin to grow even better But I have found that’s a very iffy proposition I prefer to save the seed and then I’ll show you what I do it By the way normally the guys come on Thursday but I’m I’m having a group come tomorrow for an impromptu little tea party Some ladies uh that are friends of mine that wanted to see the garden And so I wanted to get all of this done today so that we wouldn’t have all of this noise tomorrow Okay [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Y in the way Sorry [Music] I used to be nervous about pulling going ahead and pulling out the entire plant of the fox glove You know I used to think oh maybe they’ll bloom again They’ll do something But I found in Oklahoma that’s not necessarily the case All they do is turn out to be spidermite magnets Um and that’s where reading helps And I remember reading a book by Tasha Tudtor when she said the same thing Once they’re done they’re done And she just pulls them out [Music] [Music] Heat [Music] Heat Wow Wow [Applause] [Music] [Applause] This coline right here I’m letting it going go ahead and dry in place because I want to make sure that I have more seed to save Once I do then I’ll probably cut back the plant a little bit more But for treasured seeds like these this is uh was a purple coline So for treasured seeds like these and also like my fox glove which I consider to be treasured seed here is also what I do So I may take one of these stalks right here I’ll cut it short Sorry Stuart Quiet getting bus dizzy Yeah And then I will lay them just at the base of one of my topiaries And this is what then happens especially if they’re mulched in gravel So I just you can see here see how I’ve laid some of these here they’re already starting to dry And I will get some tiny tiny seeds out of this They will germinate here in place And then this fall I will take them and I will plant them very specifically in the garden where I want them to grow They’ll also be putting on growth uh leafiness and all sorts of things just size in general while they’re growing in this pot So you may say “Well Linda why will they grow in the pot but they won’t grow in the ground?” Well because in the pot they are more protected They’re protected by the overhang of the topiary They’re protected by the fact that it’s just pot culture and they are protected typically from a rotting squirrels and things So I will just leave these in place You can see here here’s a salvia that went to seed And look here Here’s a baby little little red bub Maybe I’ll dig it up and plant it somewhere Here’s another example of that If you look in that box of pot box of potwood pot of boxwood look at all those plants underneath there That was a particularly fun Yeah Yeah All of those are fox glove And I will dig them up They’ll be of good size then and I’ll plant them elsewhere in the garden [Music] [Music] I had some mums planted at the base of this pot They’re not getting enough light back here They’re not going to do anything So I’m going to transplant them over by the other [Music] ones And yes I will need to amend that a little [Music] bit Okay hopefully you guys can hear me But some of these white mums I think’ll be beautiful down here this fall because by fall this white lantana will be huge as will this white lantana By then these white mums will be beautiful and larger and hopefully the white lantana and the white makopa in here will also be beautiful as will the pink pentas Now why I really want care about all of this is because I’m having a garden tour in October for breast cancer awareness month and I’m having a big garden tour to uh to help raise funds So obviously my color palette is going to be pink and white then So I’m thinking about the future So boy this is beautiful Really wonderful soil over here So I put a tuft of this these white mums on the other side I’m going to put a tuft of them right here to do the same thing I don’t look for perfect symmetry in my design on both berms I just look for approximate symmetry Okay right here I see a leaf that has some leaf minor damage So I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to tear that off And then I’ll come back and I will give even these small toughs a Chelsea chop We Oh look at that worm there Happy happy worm Um I’ll do a Chelsea chop on those because um in addition starting to put Yeah he’s running out Okay In in addition to making them bigger and bushier they’ll just get fuller And by cutting back some of the foliage it will help them adapt as I’ve transplanted them Boy your yard got even nicer looking Yes it did didn’t it and it will continue to get nicer looking That was quick Because all of that ryrass is now going dormant or dying out We gave it a feed before that last rain And so now all of the Bermuda will come out It will be very happy in the heat and it will continue to improve over time It looks nice right now but it will look even nicer later Okay so now I’ve got a sack for my lark spur Do I need to write lark spur on the outside of the sack no because that’s one of the advantages of being I guess an experienced gardener is I don’t need to do that Now if I really wanted to isolate again some of this lark spur let’s say some of it is just a really beautiful dark purple or some of it was pink or some of it was white then I would be very selective about that And in fact I would even put some kind of hang tag on the stem to denote that this indeed was purple or was indeed white or something so that then it could continue to dry on the plant itself and I could harvest it later Making sure that I had gotten exactly what I wanted But these and I know this from experience see these these are already starting to dry I could probably take my gloves off for this one So I’m going to get lots This is one of the reasons I have lark spur everywhere in my garden because it does that Okay Now so when I put that in there then all I have to do after I’m finished harvesting these seeds is I can just run this through a sieve and the seeds will fall out and the other debris will be isolated from it So I’m going to do that with all of these seeds seed heads And this is why sometimes when people come by the garden I have seeds to share They will live in this bag for quite a while till they dry And then when I have a free moment I will package them up in real seed packets that I can then gift to other people By the way I don’t save all of the seed because obviously I have so much of it that that’s not really necessary In some cases if I were getting ready to entertain or it was just my weekly flower arrangement on my island I would separate out and I would save the blooms But I’m not going to do that right now because I’m not going to be home to enjoy them Now you may say Linda why are you pulling this out when they still have blooms on them it seems premature Well I’m doing that for a couple of different reasons One because right now they pull out so easily Once this soil begins to dry and it gets hot this is going to be difficult tugging and not so pleasant work Plus I’m just getting kind of tired of this corner looking messy And here look here See here’s a perfect example of something under here that is literally waiting for its time in the sun So this is a little gar plant under here that is not getting nearly enough sun So I’m going to give it a little clip a little dead head little Chelsea chop So it will start thickening up And by removing a lot of this lark spur By the way sometimes what I’ll do is I’ll save these and I might just do kind of a thank you gentlemen Take care I’ll do kind of a Mayday surprise even if it’s not officially Mayday And I will just drop a little bouquet off in front of somebody’s house or one at a kiddos’s house Um these questions Okay I probably know the answer to this but I don’t remember Okay explain the Chelsea chop to me Okay the Chelsea chop is when you cut something back hard around this time of year which is about the same time as the Chelsea Flower Show Okay so it’s whether or not it’s exactly at that time doesn’t matter It’s the premise that it’s a gardening term Thank you for asking because I’m sure lots of new gardeners would not know what this is and I’ll ask that as a question of the day Um for years I didn’t know what a Chelsea chop was uh before we used the term here Did you guys know what it was by the way lark spur is not so delicate but it needs the kind of treatment that I did with a fox glove by putting it at the base of a pot This stuff is just it’s just so happy anywhere it goes that I don’t need to worry about that because it will once it gets established in your garden it will come up See that came up relatively easily Can you imagine how difficult that would have been if it were 95 and the ground were dry as a rock Okay here’s another tip Some of this I’m noticing even though we’ve had record-breaking rains I am noticing that as I go up the burm it gets drier and drier And that’s because it’s underneath the canopy the dense canopy of this maple tree So what that tells me is even when you think something is getting adequate water it may not be because it’s not penetrating the canopy of the tree So pay attention Here’s another thing Should I give the baptisia some kind of Chelsea chop well I’m not sure So that’s one of those kinds of things that I will ask technology to solve for me Hey Siri should I cut back my baptisia or indigo blue hard after it blooms it is not necessary to cut back baptisia but it can be done to maintain a manicured landscape Cutting back the stalks after flowering is also a good way to prevent seed pods from remaining on the plant Well I guess I don’t care about the seed pods So but there’s the answer to that question I might cut it back a little bit to thicken it up some Uh we’ll just see what the effect is once I remove all the rest of this lark spur So this is a perfect scenario where I should have done a before and after We might still be able to do one Um but this whole corner is going to be completely transformed Some of you may not like it as well and I won’t like it as well probably initially but I promise you I will like it better later Um because all this stuff will fill out Here’s another tip When you do this kind of work sometimes it’s good to do it right before you go on vacation if possible after a rain and before vacation That way it begins to recover and a lot of times by the time you get back home it will already be flushed out looking good and ready to bloom again I think that’s really good advice You’ve you’ve said that before Yeah that’s just a gardening You wouldn’t think about it Something to have in your toolbox Now is it always possible well no it’s not always possible because you’re in a frenzy to get out of town or to go on vacation But when it is indulge like I am indulging today in just being able to work in the yard Sometimes I’ll just deadhead it and leave a little bit of it to stay Okay here’s something else I’m noticing right here I talk about this shading out plants Look at this gorgeous orange rocket barberry But look at how green it is underneath Oh yeah it’s green because it hasn’t been exposed to any sun Part of that’s because it’s underneath the canopy of this shade tree but the other part is because and primarily it’s because it’s been shaded out by all of this lark spur So here is another observation Shade doesn’t just come from trees and large shrubs It comes from even things like your annuals and your perennials who might live with you just for a little while I got one of those Linda views It’s pretty Okay before too long What I’m going to want to do is I’m going to want to cut back this gar pretty hard to make it bloom again and to really rejuvenate the foliage which has been shaded out quite a bit by the lark spur I might or might not make a note in my garden journal Linda don’t let so much lark spur take over this east mound on Autumn’s Edge Um but then again I may not You guys just need to stay tuned and find out We got some lookers Okay let’s do let’s get a snapshot here of the classic Aaron a flower fuette You know where she does this thing except for mine aren’t fresh They look pretty good Mine aren’t fresh Mine are past their prime But you know what it’s a fun thing to do anyway It’s cool Okay In my estimation that looks considerably tidier considerably more thought out It’s a little bit stronger design I’m going to leave a little bit of this here but I will dead head it Some of these blooms are still fresh and it makes me feel like well done me So the other thing is that how do I decide what area I’m going to tackle next or whatever Well typically I’ll kind of designate an area like this Then I’ll move I’ll get a drink of water do a little something something up there But then I’m going to want to continue this I can tell pretty quickly because this batch right here is really hiding some lovely things like how fun is this cuz I’m just now seeing this all that lucanthemum back there I’m telling you you’d have the strange thing where you can pull plants out and there’s just cool plants and there’s just Yeah there’s just Well it’s it is called that classic progression of bloom and it is one of the hardest things to do now Right here I’m cutting back these aliums But here’s another tip Where at oh right here Right here I cut these back But I’m going to know where they are because why i put a little golf tea Can you see the golf tea i can see with my eyes right there So when I come out to plant bulbs and plant other things in the future I will know to be careful of that spot because there’s something there helped by my little golf tees something else that I’ve been keeping just to show you and that is while I’ve been successful with fox glove and lark spur and vermita manariansis and some other things I’ve not been very successful with my bread seed poppies with just a few exceptions well maybe just one exception I do have some of them coming up in the alley in one of the forgotten places but I had one that went to seed right here Oh wow There it is And look there’s still one baby little bloom It is red with a black center It is a pepper box bread seed poppy And it was a beautiful bloom albeit short-lived But I am really going to let these dry in place And then I’m going to save these poppy seed heads because I will sprinkle some of those seeds in the garden I typically don’t like red in my garden but I have found that a bit of red at a certain point in spring Really it creates great synergy in the garden and it makes all the blues and the whites pop Really beautiful Now you have to be careful because it can be a little bit overly aggressive kind of like lark spur and verbina benariansis but once you get it established that’s what you want to do you want to get it established and go to seed itself So I’m still working on that Um another question of the day What say you should I try to really get some poppies started here by now they too would have been past their bloom and I would be getting ready to pull them out uh because they’re an annual They go to seed and then they come back or they go to seed and then they put on growth and they bloom the next year You tell me Should they stay or should they go or should I introduce them well I wasn’t going to do a lot of talking and then I keep seeing things that I want to show you Um I noticed I Yeah sorry Sorry you guys Uh I I intended to just cut back the the nepida Not very hard And by the way do you say nepida nepata How do you say it but then I decided once I came out here after that big rain and a lot of it still had spidermite and I thought “No I’m really going to whack it back hard.” Whack it back being the official term So you can see just how hard I whacked it back And not just that one but pretty much every clump I’m whacking back hard And I am also whacking back the pin cushion flowers because everything right now just wants a fresh start including me Now I’m so glad that I whacked back these roses because look at all of the new bloom or new buds new foliage it’s putting on Now that I am secure in the knowledge that it is not rose rosette but look at how much new growth is coming on And for every something you kind of can see there’s all sorts of buds coming out And it is loving all of the rainfall It’s loving the feed I gave it of rose tone It’s loving the increased exposure to the sun and light The other thing I like is the fact that now it doesn’t look ugly and the hydrangeas are looking spectacular So if you want to plant a hydrangea and by the way all of these are dear Dolores even though they’re coloring a bit different differently Some of these and and I also like the fact that some of these are going to get even taller These were planted just last year those in the back You can see that they’re a lot taller They’re in a little bit more shade so not blooming as quickly But I like the fact that these will get taller I also like the fact that look I just saw this A happy little surprise I have two blooms on this agapanthus that was in here And I forgot it was even in here And I wasn’t sure it would even live But apparently it’s tucked in here It did live and it’s even going to bloom And I wouldn’t have known that if this big shrub weren’t cut back really hard So if you in any way are hesitating to cut back something then I would say watch your weather but air on the side of giving it a hard prune because it will really reward you later And Stuart if we can let’s turn around right here and look at the top terrace Look at all the things that I’ve cut back really hard But there’s plenty of stuff coming up including some little boxwood basil in here that I’ve exposed I’m going to pull that guy out Um and I cut back this hard And I’m cutting back more of the salvia hard but I also exposed this uh touch of gold holly So that that was green That will start yellowing up in a good way because now it’s exposed to the light because why I gave this a hard prune too Okay look at this stuff I mean it’s absolutely gorgeous And I’m not exactly sure how much it is because like I say Kelly picked me up a couple of bags but I will find out Info to come Yes info to come and I will let you know But this is gorgeous It’s back to nature I should I I I rem I I used to use this years ago and then I used that other stuff for so long I kind of forgot about it But I mean this stuff is just Well it’s black gold baby And now I am answering the question Linda what are you going to use now that you don’t have that that soil conditioner that you have anymore um and this is what I am using It’s cotton burr compost Um it consists of 100% cotton burrs So it I think it will be just what I need It really improves the the quality of the soil as as it amends the garden in addition to mulching And thank you to Kelly my buddy Um she and Adrienne are part of or Andrea excuse me are part of Soil Sisters and she was the one who recommended this And this is one of those things that I knew about a while ago and then I forgot And so because I’d used my own soil conditioner for so long So as gardeners we sometimes need to relearn things As gardeners we also need to reward our plants for a job well done Consequently now that I’ve cut this back I’m going to come back in here with some of this back to nature compost and I’m going to mulch this area and it will be so so happy for it So there you go Thanks for hanging out with me Um I’m sorry I Every time I move from one part of the garden to the other I just came across something that I wanted to to share with you So forgive me It wasn’t the quiet workabout Wednesday workabout I don’t think anyone will mind that I expected But nevertheless hopefully you got a few you got a few tips and I so enjoyed working in the garden Even though it looks a little scraggly right now I think it’s still beautiful and I am making sure that I enjoy absolutely every season And also subtle little things like how pretty those purple lark spur flowers look glittering my turf There you go Thanks for hanging out you guys Take care [Music]