New Raised Bed Garden | Creating Space for Cut Flowers | Vego Garden Raised Beds

✨ The raised bed garden is complete! Today I’m sharing a full reveal of my brand new garden space featuring Vego Garden beds. This area will be dedicated to growing cut flowers in the seasons ahead. Come along for the tour and see how I transformed this space into the foundation for a future flower haven. 🌸

Link for Vego Products: https://glnk.io/vzw5/5e4
$10 discount code: MAINSTGARDENER10OFF

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Video 2 of series: https://youtu.be/UhYYIr_aOtw

Hi friends. My new raised garden space is almost finished and I cannot wait to show it to you today. So, we’ve been really working really hard the past week to button up this space and to get it actually built. We have gotten this space transformed in less than a week and I am so excited about it. So, if you haven’t seen videos one and two about this garden, I talk about my reasons for creating this space and I show you what it looked like before and talk about what I was going to do with all the plants that used to be back here. So, you may want to catch those. So, um I’m going to give you some behind the scenes of what we did to create this space and then I want you to join me to finish it up. We are going to get it all dressed up for fall. I’ve got some roses, climbing roses that I want to get back in their homes and growing on the trellis. I’ve got some lettucees to plant for fall. And I want to dress up and plant these gorgeous containers. Now, these containers I am actually putting in two of them almost 100% perennials. And I found some really beautiful, interesting perennials at one of my local garden centers. So, I thought you might enjoy seeing and hearing about those plants. I’m also going to do a fall container because why not? And I want to go ahead and get this space beautiful for fall. So, we’re going to do some decorating, too. So, that will be after I give you the behind the scenes of what it takes to create this raised bed garden. So before we jump into the before of this project, if you are considering a raised bed garden of any kind, a standup garden, a low raised bed, go to voguarden.com. They have got every possible solution for raised bed gardening. They also now have other products, green houses, seed starting materials. They are just a one-stop shop for those things that you might need to bring really beauty into your garden space. So, the containers that I have here are VGO, and I’m going to tell you all about them. They are beautiful, but I love their products. Every type of color, style to fit any garden space. So, I’ll include their links in the description. All right, let’s talk about the before of this project and how we got it to where it is today. All right, so to get started with this space, the first thing I had to do was actually get a bunch of plants removed. I had a ton of different plants that were pretty large, hefty shrubs. One was a gorgeous viburnum and then I had a um black lace elderberry and some smaller grasses and plants. And luckily my neighbor next door is wanting to start a garden space and she was so excited to have these larger plants. So we had the guys take them out and move them over to her garden and all but one is doing okay. I’m not sure about one of the plants, but the viburnum, which is huge, um is actually doing great. And so I’m really excited for her to have those plants and I get to enjoy them as I look out my space. So that was the first step. Then I had the guys clean it up and level it out. So the space, our property slopes down. Actually, all of our town kind of slopes down. Um, it’s a it’s a hill that just gently slopes down. And we’re kind of at the end of it. So, we naturally needed to keep that. I didn’t want this to become a soggy soggy space, but we did need to get it kind of leveled across and just cleaned up. So, they helped me do that. Then, we laid landscape fabric. So, I did not want weeds in here. There’s no nothing I’m going to grow in the ground. We did line it with bricks. And the reason we chose bricks is I got them for $10. um 60 bricks. They were used from someone’s patio and I was going to use them for another project, but decided to use them here as the edging. Now, in the front of the bed, I’m probably going to get an edge metal edging, just enough for the strip to kind of help keep the rock from going into the driveway. So, um I’m going to add that. I’m I’m pretty sure I’m going to do that. So once we did all of that, we were really ready to place the beds. And that’s where you guys, it was fun, but it was really, really tricky. So I originally had a gardener supply garden big tall box that I was going to keep, but I had the guys empty it for me because all the soil had a fungus in it. The plants weren’t doing well, and it had really been four years since I’d emptied it. So, they took all the soil out and when they did, I realized it was completely rotted. That gardener supply box is amazing, but it does not have a liner and the wood is not super thick and so it had started deteriorating. So, we decided I just wasn’t going to use it. And instead, I already had this large VGO planter. This planter is part of their modern collection. And that’s the collection that I personally really like. I love the sleek, clean look. I love the height. Now, up here, it’s a little sloped, so I do have my garden bench out that I can easily sit on and work. And this is going to just be the perfect height. Um, and so I already had this down on my patio and I already had planned I was going to move it. I just didn’t know where I was going to use it. So, it worked perfect in this space. We originally were going to put it in the back, but it’s just too crowded. So, I think it ended up being such a perfect spot for this box. So, this is the 83in long VGO planter. And I purchased this one myself a year ago, and I grew veggies in it um all last year. Now, one benefit of this box is you can also get it with a shelf liner. And that shelf liner allows you to not have to fill the entire box with soil. Now, I tried it last year. The plants did amazing. Now, you would only want to use that shelf liner if you’re not going to plant permanent plants in this spot that need to reach the ground with their roots. So, my plan is to just do cut flowers, um, a variety of them, just kind of summer, and then maybe some autumn veggies, that kind of thing. So, the shelf liner worked perfect. So, then we were able to fill it halfway and we filled it with brand new soil. So, I used a mix of mushroom compost and a spo raised bed mix. You really do want to use a raised bed mix. There’s all different brands because it’s a loftier, it’s a lighter soil and it’s best for drainage. If you use potting soil, it’s going to get compact and it’s going to become kind of a mucky mess when it rains or when you water. So, you do want to invest in raised bed soil. All right, so that was kind of the design here. Now, I do want to tell you right off the bat that this arch is not from VGO. Again, the arch is not from VGO. VGO does have a beautiful trellis that you can add to this container. And originally, that’s what I was going to do. I was going to order the trellis to put on the front and then cover it. So, it kind of made this a secret garden. Well, when they took apart my other box, this was on it. This is from Gardener Supply. And the guys said, “I think it’ll fit on your new box.” And it did. So, they did drill holes because again, this box is metal and it’s pretty sturdy. I may need to have them drill one more. Um, but I’m excited to be able to repurpose and reuse it. Now, I know you can purchase arbors like this on a variety of sites. So, you would just need to measure. Again, the box is 83 in, but you could find an arch that you could use to work with it. So, as I was designing the beds, I decided I really liked this layout. I love this box being right here where it’s going to get full sun and everything can get really tall. I am going to get a trellis for this bed because I do want to grow some dalas in here. I love dalas. I usually overdo the dalas, but this is going to help me keep it simple and just grow some of my favorites in the pika summer. So, this planter is the one that BGO sent out to me and I absolutely love the size. I think it’s perfect. I’ll put all the dimensions on the screen for you. And I think it’s just going to be a really nice space. Now, a couple things we had to do because our space is not level, we had to level the garden boxes. So, we use some small pavers to come in and just level the boxes up. So, that’s one thing. If you’re not putting it on a flat patio, you would want to think about making sure you get everything level so that um you know, it helps with making sure it looks beautiful, but also all your drainage and the care and um and longevity of your containers. So, as I laid these spaces out, I thought, “Oh my gosh, it’s so open here.” And at first, I wanted to fill this open space. I put a table here, and I was like, “Why am I doing that?” I love it. It gives me room. I can store my little bench right here. So, I can just slide this guy. It fits perfect right there out of the way. I can use a big basket for deadheading. I can bring buckets out for cut flowers. And I just love that it’s so open and fresh. So, I added some stepping stones. And then I really wanted to put a bench on the side of the garden space. And so, what I decided to do is I had this wood bench down under our breezeway at our back door and it just collected yuck all day long. And so, I do need to waterproof it, which I’m going to do this week. We don’t have any rain in the forecast. Um, but I love bringing the natural element to this space. I just think it looks like an old garden bench and it’s exactly what I wanted and it was the perfect size. So, after we got all the garden boxes in place and all the gravel laid, which I did have the guys help with that, my husband and I did the drip, or rather my husband did the drip. So, I needed to run fresh a fresh drip line. We have a main line that comes up through this garden. And so we needed to reconnect the trees to drip because they’re still babies. Um, and then we needed to do drip to the boxes. Now, one mistake we made is we should have laid all the drip before we put the rock down. It would have made it so much easier. But because I had someone helping me, I went ahead and had them bring in a truckload of gravel and spread it. Um, and then we just had to work through the gravel in order to lay the drip irrigation. So, if you’re going to do a box with drip irrigation and you’re going to be on the ground, you may want to lay that irrigation before you put your rock in. So, once we got the irrigation all done, my husband made sure the boxes were really leveled. Um, the space is almost done. So, we were able to place the pots where I want them. All the containers have drip attached. And this space is just ready for planting. So, I I love it. I do want to trim this guy up just a little bit today. Um, but I’m really happy with it. It feels so good to sit here. I can see my floral studio. I can see the shade garden. So, I can cut flowers, take them right in the floral studio. So, today I want to go ahead and get the containers done. I want to kind of dress up this space. I have some little Annisb arbor vites to plant up in some pots, some moss, just some beautiful plants to really dress the space up. Now, you may be wondering, what am I going to do with this space this winter? Well, today I want to put some lettucees in the small garden box so that we can grow those and some spinach. We’ve still got plenty of growing time left before winter. And then in the large garden box, I’m going to be sewing some cool season flowers. Some they’ll bloom in the spring, but things like snapdragons and um loving a miss, nigella, um sweet William, you can cool season sew those. And if you’re not familiar with that method, there are tons of videos out there, but I’m going to walk you through my seed sewing in another video. Okay, I think it’s time to get this place dressed up, everything in its spot, and ready to go for the winter season and fall. So, I’m going to turn around. We’re going to get set up and we’re going to start planting. I want to tell you about all these gorgeous perennials I found at a local garden center. I just happened to go in and they had gotten in a nice shipment of perennials. So, let’s turn around and look at that. So, when I knew I was going to do this space, I started looking at images on Pinterest and Instagram to get some ideas of the layout. And one thing that I noticed throughout was that in a rock garden like this, there was lots of containers. And I love container gardening. And I just think containers bring a space to life. I think it dresses it up and makes it look finished. So, these are plants that I’ll probably leave in the container at least for one season and then next fall I can transplant them. So, this first one is little red head Indian pink. And I’ll show you the tag and it is going to have late summer. Look at those red and yellow kind of spikes. And you can see it is getting ready to bloom. I’m so excited about this one. So, it’s 24 to 30 in um high and about 18 in wide. And um it is a North American native. And I think it um really brings some life to the space. Now, this guy you’ve probably seen before. This is a coral bell and it is southern comfort. And this one is one of my absolute favorites. It can do um shade to part shade. So, what I’m going to do with this, it gets 13 to 15 inches high um late summer, but look at these colors. Absolutely beautiful. So, I’m going to plant it on the backside of the container. Now, this is one that in the spring I’ll probably pop into the shade garden and put some type of annual there, but for fall and into the winter, it will do just fine where it is. So that is Southern Comfort. I picked up some beautiful um this is called Goldie, but it is a type of um creeping jenny. So this one is Goldie. Now one that I am super excited about. I got a couple of these. So, if you’re looking for a lower growing lamb’s ear, it’s um Humello, if I’m saying that right, HMO. But look at the little the little leaves. I love it. They’re not, you know, they don’t have the texture of the regular lamb’s ear, but they’re going to have these gorgeous spikes, and I think it’s going to be so fun in this container. Now, the next one is an old favorite for me, and that is balloon flower. Now, they had balloon flowers at my nursery in every color, purple, lavender, blue, white, and I decided to add the white. What I love about balloon flower now, it will grow and get larger. I have some from a pot that was my mother’s, and it just continues to grow. It is such a reliable plant. It comes back for me every year. It just blooms, and then the blooms just kind of they don’t look ugly when they die off. They just die off and kind of fade away. and then they relum. And I thought this pop of white up here would be beautiful. So, we’re going to add that one. And in this container, I’m gonna do one more um coral bell. And this one is obsiden. I’m probably not obsidian. Maybe may not be saying that right. This is the dark one. Now, this one can do sun to shade. It’s the really dark. And again, I will be able to pop that out in the spring or even this winter if I wanted to. Um, but in the spring, I can pop in some other things and put this one in the garden. All right. So, that’s the first collection of plants. And I wanted to try to use my black arch. Now, you see I do have drip line coming up, but I was thinking that I might want to try to squeeze these plants around this because then it would give some winter interest. So, I want to put this in first. Hopefully, we can plant around it. We’ll see. I picked this up at a garden center and I don’t love the design of these. They do make it hard to plant, but I thought since this container was so large, um, it maybe it can work. I do think it’s better to put it in first because otherwise you damage your plants. So, I think we’re going to give it a try. Now, I am going to add a little biotone today because these are perennials and I don’t know um I want them to get some good root development. I don’t know if they’ve been fertilized recently. And I’ll just mix that in as we go. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] [Music] Okay, so this container is just going to be full of fall beauty. And then I’m gonna take all this out and put in my tulips this winter. But these were all on sale and I just couldn’t resist. And I thought, well, it’s a great filler until um look at those berries. until I get ready for tulip season. And I am reusing all my soil. So you may see some thin roots um but I’m using soil that was only a season old. And I cleaned out all the plants. those roots will just deteriorate this winter. So, I’m not I’m not worried about it. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Well, the sun is shining and it is just a gorgeous fall day. So, so thankful to be out in the garden. So, this little um cart, it’s a metal cart. I got this in an antique store, vintage store a long time ago for almost nothing. And I’ve never really had a great spot to put it. I need to get a brick or something to hold that down. It doesn’t stay down very easily, but I was thinking it might be really cute up here and fill it with these pumpkins. [Music] [Music] So, here’s a look at all these containers, the little pumpkins, and I can just imagine this space all filled with gorgeous summer and spring blooms. So, stay tuned. I’m going to be fall um sewing some seeds for next year in just about a week using the cool flower method. That solosia is just such a bright light. So beautiful. Some cut sedum. The little arborites with moss. And I love this little container. I just kind of threw this together with extra stuff. I had cut the grasses back a few weeks ago and um dried some of the cutings, some dried sedum. This is my cutting basket. I’ll include a link. It’s in my Amazon shop. These come in a set of three. You can see I have that one. They are lined so you can plant in them. But I use this one for all my cutings and I love it. I can carry it around and I know that when it’s full then I need to take and dump it. And it is it’s when it’s full I can usually carry it myself. And then as you come around, this is the new garden box from VGO. It is just the perfect size for a small garden space. But you can see how deep it is. I still have room in the bag to add some more things. I think I’m going to pick up some chard and some kale. My husband loves chard. All right, friends. That’s going to do it for today. Thanks so much for watching. I want to give you a final tour of this space and let me know what you think about it. I am loving it and enjoying it already. It was so fun to plant just the little veggies. And this border of containers is my probably my favorite actually. I know that’s silly, but I’ve had containers all over this driveway space. and to now have kind of a set spot. The pots are here. They’re on pot feed. They’ve got drip. And I can just change this area out seasonally. So, I really love it in front of the container. I can still reach the container. Um right now, I’ve got all these pumpkins, but um it’s really fun. I’ve got my potting um bench that just fits perfect in the space. And then for right now, I went ahead and kind of just decorated this area with some gorgeous um fall cut things from the garden, the pumpkin. This will be a working kind of bench. So, it’ll be a great place for me to store a container, kind of a waterproof container with my clippers in it. I’m going to get some baskets for some of my um fertilizer and neem oil, those kind of things. So, I think it’s going to be really useful. It’s also a great place to just take a rest and enjoy looking at the garden. So, I want to turn around and just give you a tour of everything. And I do want to thank VGO so much for working with me and for sending me this beautiful smaller container. I love it and I love the large one. So, be sure to visit vogarden.com and I’ll have my discount code right below or above on the screen that you can use. So again, um, thanks for watching and, um, let me know your comments if you have any questions about creating a small garden space like this. If you have questions about raised bed gardening, I have done raised bed gardening now for guess about eight years. I’ve had cedar boxes. I’ve had um, you know, large standup containers. I’ve had different raised bed options in all different surroundings. So, if you have questions, let me know. All right, let’s do a final tour. And the sun is out, blue skies. It is a gorgeous day. And I want to go relax a little and enjoy it. [Music] [Music]