Life at Creekside Nursery: Q&A + Gardening Tips

Come along with us at Creekside Nursery in this special Gardening with Creekside video, where we give you a behind-the-scenes look at what’s happening at our garden center and answer your gardening questions. From growing the plants we sell to sharing seasonal tips and practical advice, we love helping gardeners create thriving, beautiful spaces. In this Q&A, you’ll get expert insight, inspiration, and a more personal look into our journey as nursery owners and passionate gardeners, all while connecting with the Gardening with Creekside community.

Hello friends and welcome to Gardening with 
Creekside. Today we are going to do a little greenhouse chat. We are getting some lovely rain. 
The sun might be trying to pop out right now, but we’re going to do a little greenhouse chat 
and answer some questions and kind of give you an update on what’s going on in the life here at 
Creekide Nursery. Yeah, we just jumped inside. It was thundering. It was. And it was pouring down 
rain and now the sun’s trying to come out. Yep. Bless its heart. Yep. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, it 
is uh mid August here in North Carolina and we’re gearing up for a delicious, beautiful fall 
with all sorts of projects here at the house and um all sorts of fun things going on. Yeah, we’ve 
had a couple of videos that went out um with a new project at the house. If you haven’t seen 
those, it’ be a good time to go back and check those out. Yeah. And we’re going to talk a lot 
of a lot of questions about that today. Okay. Very cool. a lot of questions about that today. 
Anything you want to update the people on? Um, not really. I mean, we’re just getting ready for 
fall here for those of you that are coming through um visiting. I mean, towards the middle part of 
August and the towards the end, it’s going to be a good time to come, you know, have lots of cool 
stuff here shrubwise, that kind of thing. Then we’ll move into the fall season. It’s crazy. We 
were thinking about that and talking about that and Cece and I were just talking the other 
day about, you know, when are we going to, you know, think about the orders and the pansies 
and the violas and all that stuff, you know. So, we’ve got a nice crop of annuals here that we’ve 
chosen to try to uh use over for fall plantings instead of mums. So, we’ll have a few mums, you 
know, stuff. Yeah, absolutely. But uh Yeah. It’s just just same as business right now. Um just the 
big things that are going on those that project at the house. Yep. So speaking of the project, 
we are redesigning our landscape in the front of our house. So along the front porch and then 
wrapping around the side along the driveway kind of where the garage is. We’re going to completely 
redesign that. We have started that process. We have two videos out so far. One that gives you 
kind of the overview and then two where we are actually doing some demo. And so if you have not 
seen those, you can check those out for sure. So we had tons y’all are just about as excited this 
project as we are. And y’all had tons of comments and tons of questions. Uh so we’re going to first 
kind of spend the most of our time on that because you had some great questions about that. So, um, 
we’re just going to kind of talk that through because we know that in the fall, this is a great 
time here in the southsoutheast if you have those big projects to take care of those um to go ahead 
the sun comes out and the bugs come out. Um, to go ahead and get those projects underway. Um, 
because if you’re like us where you’re doing major renovation, it takes a little bit of time. So, 
that’s why we’re starting as early as we are. Uh, so Sally uh asked, she says, “How are you going 
to take out the grass?” Because we do have a good portion of the grass that’s coming out or no 
longer going to be grass. So, it’s going to be flower beds. So, I defer that to the landscape 
expert, Mr. Jerry Simpson. So, we’ll probably, you know, get our design on that side of the 
sidewalk. We’ll spray that out. Then we’ll bring in the edger and get a nice edge. So that way 
we’ll have that grass separated out from the lawn that we want to keep. It’s not going to be more 
than five feet wide probably in that section. Um so that grass is we’ll likely just kind of remove 
some of it with one of our machines and just scoop it right out. Yep. On both sides. Both on that 
side and along the driveway. Yeah. Yeah. We could um we could spray some of that grass out and just 
weedy it down and leave it because we’re going to be probably putting in a couple feet of soil. 
Yeah. Right. And even on the other side, too, we could probably do that. Yeah. So, you could 
physically remove it. Um, of course, we’re blessed to have the the machines like the small Bobcat 
with a flat blade and kind of scrape it or I mean, if you wanted to shovel it out, which we don’t 
want to shovel it out. Yeah. And I don’t really think we’re going to do much of that to be honest 
with you because we’re bringing the grade up. So if I take it out, that means I have to put more 
soil, put even more in. So there’s really no need to do it. We just need to get the grass down so 
that the soil going in has something to bite onto, right? And we don’t have the type of grass that 
we have once we kind of cut it down a lot. Like it’s not like a a creeping grass that’s going to 
find its way up. So if you had Bermuda or joyer or something like that, you would not be that would 
not be advisable because it’s going to find its way up in your flower. Yeah, you would want to try 
to get that one out. Yeah. So then Allison said, um, did you decide not to put in the red barberry? 
I thought it would look great with the gray and really make your front door pop because initially 
we thought we were going to put the Sunjoin Neos in the front of the house with some other 
evergreen shrubs, but we kind of backed away from putting them in the front, but they’re still going 
in the landscape. Yeah. I was always thinking that they were going to go around the tree that we’re 
going to plant on the corner. You got the blue red scheme. Yes. The door is red for now. It’s 
going to get painted. But we got a question about that. Yeah. Yeah. So there we are going to use 
the Sunjoin Neos just not in the front of the house. It’s going to be an accent underneath the 
Electra blue cedar which will be right off to the side. Yeah. So it’ll still definitely make it pop. 
So we didn’t want to do Sunjoy Neo with blue like that. I mean fireite tibbit would be really cool. 
You know some sort of smaller hydrangea or tiny quickfire. Tiny quickfire. uh pinker butterfly 
bush, you know, would be really pretty. Um Yeah, anything with a pop of color that would go 
with blue and we just thought the red would look really nice. Yeah, and we like barberries. 
Yeah, we like that color. And then GKM69 says, “Why not stain your sidewalk gray?” Because 
what we’re going to do is put gray stone, like a cobblestone down. Um, so why not why 
don’t we just forget the cobblestone and just let’s just stain the sidewalk gray. Why do we not 
want to do that? Well, two reasons. Number one, I want to have a cobblestone sidewalk with some 
accent edging to that with cobblestone. Um, the biggest reason we’re actually going to raise 
the grade up. So the sidewalk either has to go or we’re going to use a technique of raising it right 
on top of that base. Probably going to leave the sidewalk and then we’re going to put in about 2 
to 3 in of number 78 stone which is a screen wash stone which gives you a firm base. Mhm. Right. And 
then we’re going to build the cobblestone on top of that all the way back to our gravel driveway 
which then it will be raised up. So, next question is, Jerry, what are you going to do? People are 
going to trip when they come into your house. So, point there is that we’re going to take some 
more gravel from that edge and grade it back to the drain that is right there across the driveway 
and push. We’re trying to push all this water that wants to come that way to the drain. So, we’re 
going to update the drains to be able to handle more water and get rid of it faster. Yeah. We need 
it to drain and go. Drain and go. Like, you don’t want to see it hanging out. So, we’re going to 
put in bigger pipe. Bigger pipe if we can. We’re going to see. That’s the goal. That’s the goal. 
That’s the goal. And then, um, Helen was asking, “What are the grills on the red bricks?” Because 
once we removed those established mature boxwoods, then you were able to see these rectangular 
grills grates on along the front of our house along our foundation. And so it’s so interesting 
to us like when we travel the country how or even if you just watch like the home improvement shows 
where they’re building houses all different parts of the country, how so here in the southeast, 
I don’t know why, but it just is what you do. So our the vast majority of our houses don’t sit 
flat on the ground. We have a crawl space. So there’s a brick or cinder block firm foundation. 
It’s not wood. A stone foundation that your house sits on that makes it level. So as you could see 
in that video, our land is not level at all. So by the driveway you had three courses of brick and 
on the other side you had 10 courses of brick. So underneath the house is a crawl space. 
Literally they call it a crawl space because normally it’s not tall enough for you to be 
able to stand up. So you have to crawl. So a lot of like our hot water heaters under there. 
Uh some HVAC stuff. Um all those kinds of things you can keep underneath there and they’re not 
in your the living space of your house. You have to ventilate that, right? Because you don’t 
want all that air to get trapped in there. So, you have these um air vents and they’re all around 
the perimeter of the house that allows air flow to come in and out and that normally is a good thing, 
but what did we have to do a couple years ago? So, yeah, we had to totally encapsulate underneath our 
crawl space. So, what does that mean encapsulate? Totally sealed off. Foam board insulated all the 
way around on the walls. There’s a six mill eight mil poly white on the floor and going up the wall. 
It’s all taped in insulated so no air or you know it’s coming from the outside inside the crawl 
space cuz it it what happened was it just with our I guess it’s the humid and then the moisture 
cool and the moisture and it just caused the mildew and mold and stuff to go on the joist. So 
we had to do this instead. So almost here in the south it’s becoming very close to that’s going to 
become a code I believe cuz my parents had to do it. Yes. Yes. Right. So it’s different. And then 
but so there is air that circulates in there. They put a dump from the HVAC system inside there. Then 
there’s a dehumidifier also that keeps it’s really cool underneath the house. Yeah. So like year 
round it’s kind of like the same temperature. is um year round, which is really neat. So, some 
people who understand about like the vents and how they work, they they get all up in arms cuz 
they’re afraid that we’re doing something wrong and preventing air flow. Well, at this point, 
they’re just they serve no purpose. I mean, we could like they they don’t even need to be there, 
right? Because we don’t need them at all. Um so, that was a very long answer to a simple question. 
All right. Uh, Bobby says, “Jenny, have you all thought about putting a large rain barrel in the 
front or side yard?” And Bobby, no, that honestly never caught. And you’re not the only person that 
asked this. We had quite a few people ask about the rain barrel because we do have such kind of 
like water flow issues right there. Um, you know, we are incredibly blessed to have tons of rain 
and water is not an issue for us and other than we have too much of it in I think the rain barrel 
would create more issue for us. It would and I don’t we really don’t want the look aesthetically. 
We don’t want the look of it. I have one up at the chicken coop um just because it would be it’s 
cute and it’s fun and and whatever but I still have a hose right there so it’s not an absolute 
necessity. Um, my parents have rain barrels. Like mama has rain barrels at her house underneath 
her gutters, but she has zero irrigation and their well is much more shallow. So, she likes to 
trap a lot of her water throughout all parts of the yard. So, that way she can makes it easy for 
her to water her plants. Um, but that’s just not something of an issue. So, we’re happy to let 
it return to the earth and go back to the aers because I really think like especially on that 
spot there that you the roof is so big that it would fill up that rain barrel. It would already 
be full today, right? And then we’d be overflowing and causing a bigger problem and so then we 
would have to have massive underground storage for water. Right. Exactly. Uh Claudette says, “I 
like the clean look. Are you sure you want pink in front with your red door? Looking forward to trans 
watching the transformation. Yeah, good question. Good question. So, we and Jerry alluded to this 
earlier. Um, we are going to paint the door. Um, so we’re thinking of when we built the house, it 
was a natural wood color and so we’re thinking of returning to that color. Um, I don’t know, we 
just got a wild hair years ago and we’re like, let’s paint it red. Yeah. which has been fun, you 
know, and but we are going to return to our roots and go back to a more natural wood color with 
the door. So, there you go. But I still say pink and red. Hello, Valentine’s Day. Yeah, I don’t 
think that that color of pink carpet would look good with that red. Yeah, it is kind of has an 
orange undertone to it. I think that red door. And then Christine says, “Yes, I love the idea 
of pink aelas. Would a short retaining wall be advisable on the right side?” So, I think I 
understand what you’re saying. Yep. But we’re not going to do the retaining wall because we’re going 
to have the the tall I think she may be talking about all the way over to the right where the 
Horseman is because it starts to slope down. Oh, I see over there. Yeah. And we are going to do the 
edggers inside the bed in between the sidewalk and the bed to keep the mulch out of the sidewalk. But 
over on the right, you could tie a small retaining wall looping around. You could cuz we know we 
talked about that when we were building the house. It would give it a different little look 
to it. Yeah, it would might be on something there. Interesting. Don’t think it’s going to happen on 
this project. I think somebody’s bitten off more. Not more than he can chew, but yeah, he’s dreamed 
up a really good project right as it is. And then uh Linda says, “Are the new boxwoods going to 
be English boxwoods or Japanese boxwoods?” Yeah, they’re not either one of those. No. What are 
they? It’s a good question. So, we are going to go with the new gen independence boxwood, which 
is a a great it has a stronger resistance to the boxwood blight and the leaf miner and it is 
actually we looked it up in microillaus microilla similar to green beauty. Um yeah, and it was 
a chance seedling found in the Williamsburg, Virginia area. So, it’s one to kind of come in and 
substitute for English boxwoods. It is. It is. And it is going to be um hardy in zones 5B to 8 and 
anywhere from full sun to shade. And in 15 years, it’ll be 3 ft tall, 3 ft wide, 25 years, 4 and 1/2 
by 4 and 1/2. So, yeah, we’re going to go with the new Gen Independence. Yeah, we’ve been selling a 
lot of those. the new gen. We sold a lot of the that one and the other one too. Um just because 
of that right there. It’s a slow nice pace grower, right? And I know and I I didn’t, you know, take 
a copy of this, but somebody was asking about, you know, with all the different problems 
that boxwoods are having across the country, why did we why are we choosing to go back with 
boxwoods and not do an alternative to boxwoods? And so the two main issues with boxwoods are the 
boxwood blight and then um the boxwood moth. And so the boxwood moth might be a new thing to some 
people, but that’s I think primarily like the northeast Midwest Midwest somewhere. So it’s not 
anywhere close to coming to us. But of course, if you’re concerned about that, then there’s 
there’s a lot of great options that you could use instead of a boxwood. Um, like I said in earlier 
in the videos, I just love boxwoods and they have been great for us. And so, we want to go back with 
some sort of boxwood back in that area. So, that’s what we’re going to do. And then, uh, any more 
comments or anything on the the project? We were just going to go into some general questions now. 
Yeah, I’m good. You good? Yep. Um, Rebecca asks, “When do you close the garden center for the 
season?” It’s usually like middle of December. Mhm. Yeah. Yep. Right before Christmas we do. Yep. 
So, if you’re planning on coming and seeing us, come see us. We will be closed for Thanksgiving. 
So, just know that for Thanksgiving, we’re going to be closed. Uh cuz that’s a great holiday, 
of course, right there. Kind of in the middle of our work week. So, we will be closed for that. 
But other than that, the good Lord willing, we’re not going to be closed until mid December. Yeah. 
It’s the Saturday before usually before Christmas, something like that. Yeah. We’ll have to look 
exactly at the calendar and how everything falls. But the first week or two of December, it’s just 
a natural kind of slowdown. It go to Christmas week and then after that it’s New Year and then we 
get into beginning of January, not much going on. Then we start planting. So yeah. Yes. So come out 
the fall and being, you know, it’s a great time to plant. So Tweenird asked Jenny, will you have a 
restock for the nursery of Stormproof in the fall? So, right now we only had Stormroof available 
online because we could only get it in the quartz. Um, and we had sold out of that. Yeah, probably 
the case. Yeah. And it’s still going to be sold out. I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and 
see if we can get it from Spring Meadow. So, that is to to be determined. I very seriously doubt we 
will have it at the garden center because you have to keep in mind um that those new introductions 
of the shrubs, it takes about a good two years, 3 years once a shrub has been introduced to really 
become readily available at your local garden center simply for the fact of it takes shrubs grow 
slower than an annual does. So it takes longer for them to be widely available. Um, Storm Proof. I 
don’t know if they were just caught off guard with how popular it was, but I know that Spring Meadow 
had a supply issue. So, if you’re interested in Stormroof, if you will go to the website, I’ll 
try to remember to directly link that page and you can click notify me when available. It’ll ask 
for your email. Do that and then as immediately as we restock that online, you will get an email 
that says, “Hey, Stormfroof is now back in stock. Order now.” And so if you get you sign up and 
you get that email, you would want to move with purpose um and go ahead and order what you want 
because if we get them, I don’t know, you know, what the quantities would be for us to be able to 
get those. So if you’re interested with any plant on the website and that happens, go ahead and 
do that and then you’ll be notified immediately. And then the last question of the day was one that 
kind of took me by surprise and there was quite a few of y’all that asked this question. This comes 
um from Christy M. Are those bag worms on your tree? Are they just a pest or are they something 
to worry about? So, in the the two videos that we were doing with the project at the front of the 
house and we have a wild cherry tree on the wood line and so all of those trees are, you know, I 
say native, they we didn’t plant them, they just came up by themselves. We have a cherry tree and 
it has all these webs in it. And for us, I mean, we just grew up here. So, for us, it’s common. It 
just happens. I mean, it’s just And they like the cherry trees. But, uh, I looked it up exactly. So, 
it’s a fall web worm. And while it looks weird, um it doesn’t do anything. I mean, it doesn’t 
like come and attack the native like our shrubs, the garden. Um it’s only almost always on that 
tree on the cherry tree. Yeah. So, I’m actually looking at one in the woods right here um at the 
garden center. And I mean, they eat the leaves, but those trees are so big that it doesn’t affect 
them. So, it’s just an eyes sore and it’s nothing to be concerned about. Uh, I do remember, maybe 
I shouldn’t say this, but you know, statute of limitations. So, when I was growing up, my 
daddy would take like a torch, like a big stick, and had a torch on the end and he would light it 
and he would go around and like burn the the webs, the caterpillars, which explains a lot 
cuz my daddy is a little he’s a fire bug, so he enjoys a good fire. But yeah. No, it’s just 
it’s just one of those things running like Oh, yeah. Okay. But a lot of y’all did notice that. 
So, anyway. Okay. Very good. Anything else? I don’t think so. I think so. This was kind of 
a short and sweet little chat. Um, of course, you have any questions, just put them in the 
comments below. We’ll save them for next go around. Uh, but yeah, y’all have an amazing day. 
We’ll see you in the next video. Bye, friends.