Prepping The Garden For Winter With Mimi

I am prepping the cottage garden for winter with Mimi in today’s video. This garden is in desperate need of attention so we are cutting back perennials, removing old annuals, planting violas, and trimming our panicle hydrangeas to make this space attractive and ready for spring.

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Hey friends welcome to garding with Creekside  today Mimi and I are going to spend the day   here in The Cottage Garden the garden boxes and  hydrangea Hill yes it is mid December have not   touched this entire space since probably uh late  summer and let’s just be honest it is absolutely  

Driving me crazy so uh Mimi is my uh partner in  crime in the garden and she loves this kind of   stuff just like I do so we are going to tackle  this area and get it nice and neat and tidy  

Because it’s just a mess y’all and hot mess  Express is going on right here in this garden   and I can’t take it anymore because this space is  highly visible we right here this is our driveway  

Right so we pass this spot all the time plus the  house of course is right here and I look out my   kitchen window uh I see this and it’s like so what  we’re going to do today is um a little little bit  

Of everything Mimi has already gotten started  I’m going to kind of put her in charge of the   whole Cottage Garden um which encompasses these  two lower flower beds the vast majority of this   Garden is going to be perennials and so you can  see because we have had multiple hard freezes  

We’ve had 19 degree nights 25 degree nights 26  you know and then in the 30s of course so all   the perennials um are going dormant and then my  annuals such as the Salvia right here uh is has  

Been fried and toasted and it’s ready to come  out so Mimi is starting on the far corner and   just cutting everything back so when you’re going  through and you’re cleaning up your perennials   like this is the ultraviolet luminary flocks  all of this foliage up top is dead right so  

The freeze has gotten it it is that foliage is  dead you can see there’s a little bit of green   down at the bottom looks like maybe I have some  ants trying to form a little Colony around here  

Um the green at the bottom can absolutely stay  but what she’s going to do is just Shear it back   and take all of that foliage off the um dayes  have gone dormant as well you can see where I  

Had come in and cut back the dead stalks and  um now all the foliage is dying as well your   stalks should just come right out of the ground  so because they are completely dormant they will  

Easily pull out so we’ll get all that cleaned up  and then any once the foliage dyes it too will   come out relatively easily you can just pull it  um so Mimi will either pull it and then if there  

Is a little bit of green still left on it we’re  just going to trim it back so all of these are   going to get completely trimmed back as is um  like the baptisia so the baptisia we have lemon  

Mering on each side those will get completely  cut down to the ground my amsonia is um toasty   so it too shall get cut all the way back we do  have some perennials right that will basically  

Stay what I call like a semi Evergreen this is  a penamon this is uh Beyond no Blackbeard it’s   a penamon I can’t remember now exactly which one  it basically will keep that lovely green mat all  

Winter and we’ll leave it alone not a problem it  can stay right there and hang out and it will be   just fine I do have one um butterfly bush in here  it too will be left alone I will trim my butterfly  

Bush in late winter early spring once I start to  see a little bit of growth popping out then I can   give it a nice little shape up because of course  butterfly bushes bloom on New Growth now see that  

Those lovely garden boxes right there y’all um  The Box on the right that is or was sunflowers   they were stunning right so clearly they have  been fried and then next door is the um zenas   so I’m I’m going to come through there and just  pull everybody out right we’re just going to get  

Them all cleaned up get them out of there that is  going to be uh quite quite the chore the middle   box that here is more of herbs and then I have  a Claus that is growing there this Claus blooms  

On New Growth so what I’m going to do is go ahead  and shape it up I’m going to really print it hard   and then like I may have some you know some of my  other perennials like my per herbs I think that’s  

A sage that’s a little rusty looking so we’ll just  get all that kind of cleaned up in here and then   the last two boxes had U mirror Golds I’ve got  some flat leaf parsley probably going to leave  

That because it’s still nice and green and I do  enjoy flat leaf parsley in my um when I cook so   get everything cleaned up get The Spar box cleaned  up put away my little support for my cucumbers get  

That tidied up and then hopefully we’ll have  time to get the urns planted I’m just telling you this has been neglected and it looks rough  I’m showing it to you anyway um we’ll go ahead   and get the ears they had that’s the cadium  left over get those out fresh soil start brand  

New scratch and put some really pretty violas in  there and then hydrangea hill now hydrangea hill   we have little lime hydrangeas and we have Fire  Light hydrangeas they are both panicle hydranges   now I am going to go ahead and prune mine for the  season we’ve talked about this many times before  

That uh we are going to be hosting a wedding  here at the house and the nursery at the end   of May um Alyssa who works for us precious we  adore her she is like one of our own she is  

Going to get married and so we’re going to have a  ton of work to do in you know late winter spring   with the nursery with shipping with retail than  the wedding so I have time now I’m going to go  

Ahead and prune these I will show you how to do  it we we’ve talked about this many times before   but essentially we’re taking we’re going to take  those hydragas back I’m probably going to take   them back by close to half because these are  very mature they have strong sturdy stems down  

There at the bottom so I may go a half anywhere  from like a third to a half get them all cleaned   up um I’m just ready to get all of this nice and  neat and tidy so we’re just going to come in here  

And a lot of cleanup and make this space look  presentable and attractive for the winter um as   I do things I may stop and just kind of explain  but right now we’re just going to do like pretty  

Much what I just told you Mimi’s working in the  Cottage Garden cutting things back we’re going   to throw all the debris in the back of Johnny  and then we’ll take it to our um area it’s not   really an official compost pile because we don’t  recycle like we don’t do the official composting  

We just let it naturally Decay and just return to  the Earth so I’ll clean up the sunflowers and the   zenyas and these garden boxes and then we’ll kind  of work our way up so that’s what we’re going to  

Do it is a beautiful cool crisp morning here  in December supposed to get up to like mid-60s   today so it’s going to be a great fun day out in  the garden with Mimi so it’s what we’re going to do  

All right my friends so Mimi and I are making  very quick work of this it’s great so she has   gotten the Cottage Garden all cleaned up I have  gotten the garden boxes all cleaned up she’s  

Already cut back the little limes and now uh she  is getting ready to start on the fire lights but   I wanted to stop and show you um how I’m going to  plant these ears we’re going to do something kind  

Of fun and uh hopefully very pretty in the spring  each of these ears is on irrigation so we’ve got   these Rings Jerry got them for me a couple of  years ago and it’s called net bow and in it you  

Obviously you hook your irrigation to it but then  there’s emitters around the ring so then you kind   of nestle it in your hanging baskets or your  pots whatever it is and then it drips all the   way around I found this to be highly effective  instead of just having a dripper that hits one  

Spot because then the plants get water all the  way around if you can’t find this then you can   also use the um thin little thin little brown  tubing um the yellow jackets are out um the  

Thin little brown tubing that has the emitters in  it um I have used those in my hanging baskets and   other things so if you have irrigation just know  that sometimes one little dripper is not enough   that you may need more what we’re going to do  whenever I do containers I always layer the  

Bottom with land and sea compost now the thing  about having the nursery is that sometimes bags   of land and sea get damaged and they get holes in  them so again I sacrific Mimi just said oh shush  

Because I sacrifice and I will take the damaged  bags of land and sea for my garden mama just said   bless your heart that’s right bless my heart um  so I always take my land and see good quality  

Compost and you put it in the bottom third of the  container it helps retain moisture it helps give   the plants food it’s just a great way um it’s  a great little trick that I learned a couple of  

Years ago from a gardening magazine I think it  was like I think it was spine gardening that I   learned that trick from so I do that with all my  hanging baskets my hay racks my everything right  

So we’ve got that compost down in there next  we’re going to go with your great potting soil   we’ve used freen winners for years I really like  it it drains well um and just does a really good  

Job in our containers hanging baskets and so forth  so we’re going to open that up now I am not going   to fill my container up all the way because I have  a plan so we’re going to put just a little bit in here

All right so now I’ve got a little bit of potting  soil in there I have about probably 7 in below the   lip of the container because what we’re going to  do is we’re going to put some tulip bulbs in here  

And then we’re going to come back and put some  pansies violas rather on top yesterday we spent   time doing um planting our spring tulips both  here at the house and at the signature garden   and I still have some tulips left over so why  not you know use them this is M confection it  

Is a blend from color Blends the past this is my  second year getting my tulips from color blend   last year they just performed magnificently  well and so of course this year then I went   back to color Blends and got all of mine for  this year so I am just layering them in here  

So that way the idea is that in the spring these  violas that I have which are lovely blue will be   nice and full and then the Tulips will pop up  amongst the um the violas now miss confection  

Is a really pretty blend of it starts there’s two  different colors starts out as a soft yellow that   then turns to a pure white and then we have um  another one that is a reddish Pink So Beautiful

With look at those pretty aren’t they pretty  so sweet so these violas I like violas maybe   sometimes a little bit more than um pansies  because they they bloom more reliably for me in   the colder months so this is part of the color Max  series and I’m pulling my irrigation line because  

It’s a little it’s a little tall right here here  we go all right so all I did did was just Nestle   my ring down in there and because these violas  are so very very happy and vigorous I’m just  

Tucking them down and then what we’re going to  do is we’re going to come back with soil I don’t   know if I should do three I might just do three  I’m going to go a little bit more conservative  

On this um since I do have the tulips in there  there we go see Tada then all I’m going to do   is come back with some potting soil and then some  more land and sea kind of layering that in there  

I like putting the irrigation ring in first that  way we can hide it so the idea of course then is   that come probably early to mid-march those tulips  will come up amongst these blue violas gorgeous   whites yellows pinks will be stunning absolutely  stunning later on probably in the next week or  

So I’m going to plant the garden boxes with  ricula and an eny cuz we’ve got those as well   so it’s going to be a beautiful spring go ahead  make a little fault and get ready for spring as  

You’re in your fall Garden so I’m going to go  ahead and do the rest of these and then we’re   going to clean up the rest of the fire lights and  uh just continue on this beautiful day out in the 

All right my friends today’s project is complete  and oh my gosh it just looks so amazing just a   couple of hours with four hands and uh some very  determined women and it makes a huge difference so  

Neat and tidy and clean let me show you now it is  a windy day and uh but my gosh y’all so stinking   happy about with how everything turned out Mimi  did an amazing job getting all of the Cottage  

Garden cleaned up so you can see right we’ve got  amsonia cut back day’s cut back baptisia and y’all   you do not have to be specific and very careful  and you know very particular on how you cut right  

It is called These are perennials they come back  from brand new growth so just cut them down to   the ground I mean roughly you know 6 Ines some  of them are six some of them are eight it’s all  

Right you can see how everything is just nice and  neat and tidy now neopia for me stay is a semi-   Evergreen so even in the winter time it’ll keep a  nice green Habit to it as does the ailia the Yaro  

So we just left that uh I have a little clump of  the Lamb’s Ear my daisies the uh spider wart right   all of that will stay a little bit green for me so  we leave that along with the little sweet little  

Clumps of some agaki in there and so this other  bed mirrors that as well so everything just got   cleaned up trimmed back nice and neat and then the  biggest transformation I dare say is the garden  

Boxes just just like you can see the chicken coop  you can see the chicken coop because Mimi got the   panicle hydranges cut back so we can see up there  you can actually see the sweet little violas that  

Are up there we can see the girls it is quite  nice and then I do love the urns with the blue   violas typically I do yellow because they stand  out more but this blue with the silver um silver  

Gray right on the ears just is so pretty and  so striking I did go ahead and water them in   the ears have already dried but everybody got  um a nice good drink of water so they will be  

Fine we’re not running the irrigation right now  just because um it is winter time we don’t need   to to run it as much but when I do if I do need to  turn it on I can or I can just come up here with a  

Watering can like I just did and give them a nice  little drink of water and then it’ll be fun to see   those tulips pop up out of out from amongst the  violas in in the springtime now garden boxes they  

Are tidy they’re not finished and put to bed for  the winter and this we we talked about possibly   doing it this fall obviously that’s not going to  happen but we need to come back in here and remake  

Our beds we need to we want to redo our steps  um we’ve had these in here for gosh five years   maybe and uh it’s Just sh some wear and tear and  so we want to come back in here and kind of not  

Necessarily redesign it because I like the design  I we just need to kind of rebuild some of this so   this summer we’re going to kind of limp along and  it will be just fine some of you that you’ve been  

There with us for a while you will remember that  this second garden box has the daughter weed d o   d d e r and it can be invasive and it’s like  a parasitic weed when you put plants uh so I  

Had zenas in there it did not affect the zenas  at all but also because I did lay down some PR   a pre-emergent so it kept it from germinating and  then the zenas I put in there obviously as a plant  

Not as a seed because if I put the pre-emergent  then the Zenus seeds wouldn’t germinate so as a   plantwise it did fine so we’re going to limp  along probably for one more season before we  

Really come back in here and address some of those  issues with the boxes my plan is is because as you   know Alyssa is getting married we’ve talked  about this before I’m going to come back in  

Here and plant ricula and um an enemies in here  and we’ll see how that goes I don’t know if I’m   going to put them in this box with the daughter  we’ll see anyway um they’re just neat and tidy  

They’re not finished for the season but Mimi got  the panicle hydrangeas all pruned back you can   see um not anything like crazy severe right we  can’t came in there and got them trimmed back so  

You can see for example um because I like to show  you this right so this is where it was pruned last   year and then when you prune it here then you get  two more shoots out of each one so then this year  

She came and pruned it here now I don’t know if  the camera is going to pick up on this but right   right here there are little leaf nodes right  here so then this season we’re going to have  

A stem come here and a stem come there so that’s  how you get really strong strong sturdy stems um   because if you can look on some of those down in  there I mean they are really thick I mean they’re  

Thicker than my thumb so that’s why we you know  as the every year it kind of comes up we trim a   little bit because we want our main stems to stay  nice and nice and strong we don’t want to cut them  

Straight to the ground and then the same thing  with the fire lights back here um the exact same   type of deal on that there are tons of leaves in  here because we have some beautiful Hardwoods a  

Lot of oak trees right here so these are massive  leaves we will come back later and because we need   to mulch this whole bed it did this bed did not  get mulched at all this year and we’re going to  

Probably come back with our compost pine bark  fines mixture because it’s a such a great soil   amendment and top dress and helps feed the plants  so we’ll do that um on another day when I have  

Jerry and Andrew and Jackson and the whole crew  um so what we will do is um get some fresh mulch   in here neat and tidy and then come in the spring  late winter early spring that’s when we come back  

And we fertilize I fertilize my shrubs once a year  and that is coming out of winter and going in to   Spring we’ll cover all that when we get to it so  just know that if you want to go ahead and trim  

Your panicle hydranges your smooth hydranges you  absolutely can do that because they bloom on New   Growth if you have macril hydranges or sarata  hydranges Mountain hydranges you don’t want to   prune them now because you’re going to be cutting  off next year’s flowers so just don’t do that if  

You have questions I have we did one of our one  of our earliest videos we did like a hydrange   101 wildly popular I’ll try to uh link that in  the video description so if you have questions  

About hydranges and how to take care of them  we go step by step by the different kinds of   by the different hydrangeas and you can uh look  at that and get some ideas on how to take care  

Of your hydrangeas but looks so nice it just  looks so neat and so tidy and so clean and I   am a very very happy Gardener for sure could not  do it without Mimi she’s just a little Workhorse  

I tell you she works me into the ground but man  it looks great as always my sweet friends we hope   you have have had uh a great day with us here  at Garden of Creek Side and that you have found  

It fun informative and inspirational y’all have  a great day we’ll see you in the next video bye friends