Subscriber Garden Questions – New Exciting Plants, Butterfly Bush Cut Back, Fertilizer on Mulch

Subscriber Garden Questions – New Exciting Plants, Butterfly Bush Cut Back, Fertilizer on Mulch – In this video I answer gardening questions that were asked in last week’s question and answer video.

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Welcome to Hort tube my name is Jim putnum this is the Sunday Garden question and answer video that I do pretty much every Sunday you can ask gardening questions down in the comments section below the video and that’s where I pick from them each week I think I got

Like 24 or something written down from this past week there always a ton of great questions Holly’s back here exploring back here behind me there’s always a ton of great questions so thank you guys very much for participating and uh you know continue to continue to ask

Them um and uh I’ll continue to do these videos each week at some point I’ll do a live one I’ve been thinking about I think maybe she’ll pop in and out of the screen uh back there but she’s she’s exploring okay let’s see uh there’s still a $25 uh discount code for the

Learn the garden video series down below uh this video and most every video on the channel uh thank you all to who took advantage of the uh of the other the larger discount during the month of December was quite a few of you that signed up for it so I really appreciate

That and there’ll continue to be content added uh those of you who have it will have gotten an email this week about the tree video that um that went up on there um for this week and um I’ve already shot something else for it for next week and I don’t

Remember what it is right now of course I should have probably written that down uh in the little in the little blue book um let’s see uh videos that went up this week one about the entry Garden out at the road which I just took out a lot of

The kind of weeder things not weedy but you know trying to make it a little more a little more uh the same all the time um out there by the road and then when you come into the garden you know more herbaceous things inside the garden but outside

Have it be the same you know when you see it uh so that it’s um you know it was it was too changeable that’s what I’ll say uh there’s a bulb video that should have gone up um planting some bulbs out here that we didn’t have in

The landscape ape we have a lot of bulbs in this landscape and they are unfortunately all up um and many of them you know three and 4 Ines at this point cuz it’s just it’s it’s pretty abnormally warm uh let’s see and then a neighborhood walk around tour so if you

Like those neighborhood walk around tour videos let me know um you know below that video if you watched it yesterday uh as you’re watching this one uh my neighborhood offers a lot of opportunity there there comes Holly U offers a lot of opportunity to uh shoot some interesting plants okay so let’s jump

Into some questions uh one thing make sure you include your zones uh your zones you live in if you’re asking specific plant questions uh because some you know that that can be helpful because sometimes I don’t necessarily know how to answer it unless I know kind

Of where you live uh or what area of the country you live in let’s see uh the first question uh is somebody asked about leaving the leaves in the trench Edge so I have some there’s a couple edging videos on the channel uh and I I

Do trench edging where I basically cut a sharp line around the turf or a path or something like that and just fade The Mulch up into the bed you if you watch the entry garden video I took my shovel and made a little what is a little

Trench Edge so that when I mulch that bed the mulch just Falls up against the curb and doesn’t go over top of the curb and out into the street some will but uh but that that trenches they were asking about you know should you leave your leaves in the trench through the winter

Yes because that is definitely an exposed space normally especially if you’ve done any fre you know if you’re working on it pretty frequently you know that’s any soil you’re bringing up to the top is going to be a place for weeds uh to germinate so yes I would you know if

You’ve got the opportunity I would leave leaves in that trench Edge during the winter time when you don’t care as much about how crispy it looks or whatever uh or something uh make sure that uh after you trench Edge or refresh your trench there needs to be some REM mulching or

Leaves or something going in there otherwise you are going to have you know weed related issues um so somebody asked about uh uh feeding the dogs from the garden I you I don’t even remember what the question was uh it was a it was a joke but

Griffin loves broccoli and I mean really loves broccoli he likes green beans too for some reason but broccoli is high on the list and you can give him the stock of a broccoli plant and he’ll turn it into a toy and he’ll chew on it for days um

Absolutely uh crazy about broccoli I think I’m going to go and put Holly inside Holly had been out here for like an hour and a half so I went ahead and put her inside yes Griffin will eat vegetables out of the vegetable garden Holly will not look at them a second

Time she’ll you know look at you like what are you talking about and drop it and move on with her day somebody asked about a few plants that I’m excited about for next year and I talked about last week I’m uh at a nursery trade show

Next week and talking about uh some some upcoming you know new plants while I’m there for sure and they wanted to know a few that I was excited about I happen to have a few things that probably have no availability yet or you know um limited availability and one of the things they

Had said in their question is they were excited about Autumn Moon struck this is the variegated Encore iselia and man does this thing look just absolutely fantastic great varation uh great flowers it had flowers on it up until this past week finally got a night you know that was cold

Enough to knock the rest of the flowers back but it’s butted up for for next spring um and I’ve seen a couple of the other Encore coming after this one man there’s some there’s some good stuff coming uh down the pipe there uh and then uh this is a Mahoney it called

Silver caress and so um if you’ve seen soft caress on the channel this one has a silvery Hue to it uh great flowering really goodlooking plant the one I have in my hand right now is I’ve got two in the garden over there that actually look

Um better than this one uh or bigger bigger than that one this um dwarf abilia right here uh this is a suntastic pink and it is the it’s extremely compact much more compact than uh Miss lemon uh back here and just really I can tell you can tell by the size of the

Leaves are smaller just how compact this thing’s actually going to be and you can see how bright and showy it is right here in uh January let’s see uh I think that one’s that Mahone is going to be a little while before you see it at retail I think you’ll you can

Find this Autumn Moonstruck uh on corelia this spring probably it’s been uh out there in the world of Growers for a while and then this Misty River Osman this which is still which is flowering right now fragrant flowers on it going to be a while before you see this one uh

At Garden Centers and stuff but this one going to be a big seller uh fragrant flowers most of the winter incredible variegated foliage a limited growing area it’s definitely a southern you know a southern plant uh The Encore is I think I don’t think that one zone six

Maybe it’s 6B I can’t remember uh seven the ailia is definitely zone six they that Mahonia is probably only Zone Seven to n but that Marvel Mahonia that that’s yellow I don’t think you could see it through the tree but it’s full bloom right now that one’s actually zone six

So there are zone six Mahonia uh and um so there’s a few things that um Tokyo Skies cast iron plant that’s another one that I think is going to just sell like crazy beautiful striking Cast Iron Plant so there’s another one but there’s a lot and uh uh

Kind of fun that you know new and new and interesting plants and continuing to make improvements in what were already great plants like dwarf variegated ailia great plants already but we’re seeing some come now that are really compact um really can be kept small um for those of

You who have low foundations or need you know Evergreen plants that are only going to get a foot and a half tall but you know wider than that of course they bloom all summer as well as a bonus uh so somebody ask why no lenisa simp virn

Uh in the garden uh you know honey um honey trumpet honeysuckle no particular reason I other than I don’t do a whole lot of vines there’s three there’s three clus out front there’s a fourth one going in um I have a grand total of maybe six Vines uh out here um any more

Than that it’s a you know they can be some there can be some maintenance on them when I was doing the neighborhood walk around video we walked past one that was blooming it was just really wild on a church you know five or six blocks from here which was kind of which

Was kind of wild for January uh but no particular reason I’m I like trumpet honeysuckle uh just there’s a Li there’s probably a maximum number of vines I would have because they do require some maintenance and I’ve done landscape jobs taking out really aggressive vines that

Were just left you know to just grow and grow and grow over the years and really kind of regretted accepting those jobs because they’re hard they can be hard to get back under control if you ever lose control over them let’s see um so somebody asked about types of plants

Above gas and water lines um I you know most people I mean most Gardens that you go to the gas I mean I don’t even know where the gas line is running at this house so do we have natural gas here I have no idea where it’s running that gas

Line’s probably pretty deep down in the ground and so I don’t really think about it the cable line unfortunately frequently is really shallow it’s like they’re almost you know so you need to get the lines marked when you come into the when you come into the house but

Then after that I don’t think about it I don’t really think about it all that much I’m not encouraging anybody to plant over anything I don’t want to be the responsible for any damage that’s caused or anything else but I’ve just never really put a lot of thought uh

Into it other than I don’t want to cut you know the lines but my cable line I know right where it runs out there and uh one of the garden paths in the front it runs right down the middle of it and it’s barely covered at all because you

Know I don’t know why I don’t think they want to cut anybody else’s lines that’s why they put them in so shallow uh but I know the angle that it runs and so I can frequently I can I know which way to use my shovel to define the line instead of

Cutting the line you know uh so I taught my guys that because frequ sometimes we would have to dig in an area no matter what so we would need to find the cable line and and then we you know kind of know exactly where even after we gotten

It marked sometimes the marks aren’t exact you know um so anyway I’m not telling you what to plant or not to plant but most people have something planted above a gas line or cable line or you know any of these buried lines um out in their Gardens and people put

Stuff right around the electric box you know to hide the electric box which actually makes the electric box stand out more you know in my in my opinion I would make those beds bigger so it draws the eye away from the electric box when you put five plants right around it in a

Circle frequently I go oh there’s the electric box you know it’s like same thing with a mailbox you know mailbox plantings are like there’s the mailbox uh where when I would do design and installation on those things if I was going to put a bed around the mailbox I

Would make the bed stretch out into the garden a bit so that it took your eye away from the mailbox um and not right to the mailbox anyway just just random thoughts on a question about planting over gas and water lines I did it forever the things to avoid though if

You have any concerns about roots and lines and you know damage from things I mean don’t plant weeping willows and you know my uh quanon Cherry at the old house was one of the more aggressive things that I had planted out there River Birches super super aggressive uh

Red butt red Maples are super super aggressive rooting um what you know what else would Pop um pop in my mind I had a Dawn Redwood oh my gosh The Roots were this big around on it running all over the garden uh so you know there there

Are plants to avoid for sure you know that can do um do some damage to those things but again I never put a whole lot of thought into it other than you definitely need to get them marked so you don’t you’re not cutting them and you’re not responsible for you know uh

Those types of damages to them initially but it’s really hard on a small lot with all those lines coming in if your Electric’s buried and your gas is buried and your cables buried to not Garden around them and your water’s buried you know um so I just I just keep gardening

But I know where they are so I don’t cut them okay um so why so somebody asked why don’t I have ornamental grasses this is the why don’t I have uh video uh why aren’t there any ornamental grasses uh here in the garden this Garden somebody

Answered it and was the you know the perfect answer cuz this is I I think gra ornamental grasses look best in large groupings so if I go over to the um in that walk around video for the neighborhood the White Cloud M mully grass over at the uh at the Rose Garden

Absolutely beautiful planted in mass and I think that’s where grasses really really shine uh is when they’re planted in Mass on a 0.19 acre lot where the house is sitting in the middle of it and the driveway I got this building back here um you know there’s not a lot of

Planting space here and I didn’t want to dedicate it to large groupings of of ornamental grasses I love ornamental grasses I absolutely do I admire and I have a video that I haven’t put up where I took I’ve taken photos of lots and lots and lots of them across the whole

Country actually uh and I want to put that video together at some point and show some love for ornamental grasses but here in this Garden you probably won’t see that just because you know sometimes just like one ornamental grass standing up big and tall doesn’t really

Give the effect of the of the wind moving them about and that kind of thing again in my opinion so uh but I recommend it all the time if you have you know I get consult St somebody has a 2 acre lot um and it’s a full sun space

And it’s on some sort of little bit of slope where it’s a little tricky to landscape perfect opportunity for large swast of um beautiful ornamental grasses uh for sure but that’s the main reason just space required to show them off uh in this Garden just doesn’t exist so somebody asked um

Recommendations for new landscape after construction so they’ve got what they know is going to be super super compacted soil there’s a house being built there’s two right now going on in here and they’ve covered the whole front uh area and gravel you know while and they’ve parked their vehicles on it the

Whole time the construction of the house is going on they’ll scrape a little space off get it back down to the clay and do whatever soting or planting or whatever they’re going to do out there but it’s old super super super compact uh you know for me you know I know the

Way some of these Landscapes work I was able because the last house I was in I bought it while it was under construction and I was able to do the Landscaping myself and so basically when I moved into that house the county required seven shrubs

Uh and one tree to be planted but the property already had trees so I didn’t have to do that I just had to put seven plants in the ground uh and to get the CO to be in the house and that’s you know that’s kind of what I want to do I

Don’t really want a 5,000 6,000 $20,000 Budget on the house for landscaping uh if I’m going to be doing a lot of it on my own uh I I would rather get the minimum amount done to get into the house and then I can work on it myself because I’d like to compost

Those beds at a minimum uh before you know before they’re done uh if I can use wood chips or something like to really improve the space uh I would rather do that and so my my strategy my strategy would be to have the landscaper do as

Little as possible the Builder to do as little as possible so I can come in and do corrective things before they just slap plants in the ground again I don’t know who the landscaper is it could be great work so I’m generalizing but a lot of times the builders landscapers are

The lowest bidder you know for a job and I’ve done new construction Landscaping so I’m very familiar with the process of getting an entire neighborhood to build a landscape I did a bunch of them in carry North Carolina for another company and you know we SED the front yard we

SED the front yard put seven shrubs one tree seated the back made sure the drainage was okay and we left so it didn’t matter what compaction or anything else that was done there and it was you know the Builder’s giving you $1600 for all that or whatever it was at

That time 30 years ago wasn’t it it was you know it was very little money you had to have three or four of them in a day you know to be able to actually make any money you know doing that type of uh Landscaping but it was that’s the way

That’s the way it was done your Builder maybe a high you know higher level with a better landscaper I don’t know um you so one but I I would prefer to get in there and do it myself and be able to compost those beds and

Get maybe I till it the first time you know I always talk about tilling is killing but I tilled my vegetable garden over here the first time and I got I broke broke it up pretty deep with some compost there and got it started since

Then I don’t uh you know I don’t tell it anymore but just throw throwing those things out that they won’t do anything to really relieve that compaction it’s just going to take time you know soil will come back uh but it take it takes a

Minute and I if you could do it with wood chips that’s the best way to do it um so somebody’s using free leaves uh they’re basically just grinding up leaves from Neighbors or you know from their local municipality whatever uh is it advisable to change

Mulch type year to year I think you’d be fine using leaves over and over and over my uh buddy around the corner who was in the leave the leaves video uh cutting up his leaves on the driveway with his electric lawn mower you know blowing it

Out there on the driveway and cutting it up and putting it back in the beds he always uses leaves he goes to Raleigh dump and gets them you know after they suck them up off the roads everywhere he has great success with them uh over there I don’t think you’d need to change

Um up mulches if you were using them you but they did say they were mulching once a year and it’d be difficult to probably have leaves break down pretty quickly once the process starts they’re a little slow to get started if they’re especially if they’re not ground up but

Then they go away pretty quick so I’m wondering if you’re you know it’s pretty bare probably by the time you know by the time you’re the end of an entire year and the leaves start dropping again I I really don’t know but I think you could probably just use that same mulch

Without any problem and I I use the uh double or triple shredded hardwood over and over and over again the only time I’ll switch is a couple times over the 23 years I was at the old house I noticed my mulch really starting to build up it wasn’t breaking down as well

And so I Pine strawed you know you know just a decorative thin layer of pine straw over the top of it and I let it break down a little bit more before I added some more cuz there is a point where you can the mulch get so thick

That you end up with dry sockets in there and it won’t break down it just just just sitting there and kind of a stasis um so I I let it break down a little bit more I don’t think you’ll have that problem with leaves unless you’re you know dumping them you know a

Foot deep or something okay so somebody says they’re using they use pine straw to mulch is it okay to compost under it yeah absolutely and you probably need to more so than you would with any other mulch cuz I’ve talked about pine straw it just takes

Forever for pine straw to build soil I mean most of your pine straw just shrinks as soon as you put it down uh you know you’ll see it gets smaller almost immediately because water evaporates out of it it doesn’t add a whole lot to the soil it’s good for

Protecting the roots from heat and holding in soil moisture and hopefully reducing some weeds and all the other things that mulches do but it’s not necessarily as good at building soil so I would almost encourage you if you are going to be using pine straw to start

Off with some sort of compost layer underneath it um that will that will help as well um so somebody said where did I finally find the shovel if you go there’s a video on the channel from about two weeks ago about my favorite Tool uh and the whole explanation of the

Shovel I had somebody email me a photo of the uh of the shovel uh that I uh is it right here um it’s I think it’s in the front of the house actually oh NOP these just stay right here okay very interesting video where I just walk away occasionally so here’s the old

Shovel right there uh let me set this book down real quick uh look at the difference in the length of these two look how much that thing’s been used over time the other thing is it’s got this little lip uh right here uh I’ll drop that one right

There to step on uh which is helpful mine is just completely gone so now I just put holes in the bottom of my shoes uh right there it’s also super super thick which is interesting I I didn’t remember it being uh you know as thick but anyway somebody sent me photo of it

Then I found it uh online I’ve got them uh linked down below that other video and I’ll link it down below this video as well but there’s the trenching you know there’s the the amount I’ve used that shovel over it’s lasted a long time um the fiberglass though the handle I

Don’t know if you can see it but it does have some cracks in it and if you’ve ever broken one of these fiberglass handles while you’re using it it’s not a fun experience but that’s 20 some years um of that they changed the the top handle is now improved uh but

They’re not it’s not inexpensive it’s not an inexpensive shovel but if you get 30 years out of something you know not bad not too bad let’s see next up um can I throw out organic fertilizer now or throw or throw it over my mulch so they’re about to

Mulch should they go ahead and throw the organic fertilizer out now underneath it you could if you wanted to it won’t do anything because you know the beneficial microbes and bacteria are not active and that’s what it feeds I’ve talked about this a bunch of times I throw mine right

Over the mulch later the bag will tell you to pull back your mulch and put it around the base of the plant I ain’t about to do that because for all I might gain by having the fertilizer work a little better around the base of the

Plant uh I’m going to lose all that time and the amount of weeding I’m going to have to do because pulling that mulch back is just going to expose all those weed seeds uh that are buried down in the ground and I just saw study I think

It was Michigan state did a study uh some seeds um that are over a hundred years old that they had buried uh somewhere they had done something with to you know put them down in the soil for some length of time and it’s over hundred years and some percentage of the

Seeds were viable of some things their seeds will have you know their viability their percent their germination percentage you know if you have a hundred seeds and and you and you and you try to start them and 96 of them come up out of 100 you have a 96%

Germination rate obviously ma math as years go on that germination rate on any any group of seeds will drop so if you have a packet of seed that’s three years old it might have dropped to 78% or something like that some of those seeds by some crazy you know some crazy number

Of them you know Will Survive for decades and decades and decades depending on what it is some seeds are lot let shorter live than others but there are seeds down in your soil for sure if you take a tablespoon of soil out of your garden some percentage of

That is is seeds you know from old weed so if you pull that mulch back you’re exposing those things some of them are going to come up and then you’re going to spend the summer you know weeding up under your plants to say that my mulch

Was was 12% more effective or you know I’m just throwing out some random silly number there but you know what I mean so I’m always going to throw it over the top and uh worry about it all that much okay um so somebody says they’re in zone

7 B Atlanta um a day on the new map I’m sure um and is it too late to plant Agave or should they wait I actually answered that in the entry uh redesign video out at the street I have an Agave I would not put it in in the winter time

In the southeast United States just because it’s wet soil right now and it would not like to go into that so I would wait until spring spring and then make sure you’re mounding it up make sure you’re using some like expanded slate uh in the soil whatever you’re

Doing just make sure I I would probably wouldn’t put it in uh in the winter time it couldn’t use any of the water it’d be sitting in and it would likely rot um and of course we don’t know what kind of temperatures we have coming

Either uh you know the rest of the uh rest of the winter and I don’t know if that Agave came out of a greenhouse or you know how where where it’s been sitting mine’s just outside it’s 20 8° it’s in the container but I have it

Under the shelter so that the uh rain can’t get into it um so somebody asked if Sun needed for the root collar um all the way up to the can canopy so you know do the stems and everything on the plant um you know require require sun or utilize Sun I’m

Sure there are there are plants that can photosynthesize through stems and it’s incredible it’s a desert like lot of desert plants are that way you’ll see green stems you know so so there is some Evolution there for for plants that can photosynthesize through Limbs and stems and Trunks and

All kinds of things um out in you know out in the desert but you know cuz they’ll they’ll have limited amount of leaves because they’re trying to prevent rabbits and other things from eating them you know everything out in the desert is trying to prevent itself from

Being eaten because if it gets eaten it’s impossible to recover you know desert desert environments are actually more sensitive than uh like Woodland environments environments in the East I can cut every tree down and every single thing back there behind me and in 20 years you won’t know I did it okay you

Do that in a desert environment and who knows when or if you know things come back because it just you know they have to have all the right conditions in order for seeds to germinate and for things to happen uh in a desert so there you know we look at them and think

They’re tough rugged places but the plants that are there are very in they’re in a tough spot you know in a tough pickle but there are so there yes there are plants that utilize the stems um to you know to photosynthesize but most plants in your garden don’t need

Sun all the way down to the bottom and um you’ll see they do most of the plants though um larger growing plants you almost all see them growing in some sort of Christmas tree shape and that’s to get the sunlight down to the branches and the leaves and the or the needles

All the way down to the bottom of the plant a lot of times I see people pruning uh boxing off plants and they leave them completely angled up and down okay and now the sun can’t actually get to the bottom of the plant and you’re likely get thinning uh down at the

Bottom of it if you are pruning a hedge step it back just a bit that’s how the plant would naturally grow and then you you can get sunlight down to the bottom and more likely keep those leaves down at the bottom of the plant happy if it decides it doesn’t need them because

There’s no light down there anyway it’ll shed them so but any anyway that answer is all over the place I went we went from we went from deserts to cutting all the trees down behind me next up somebody is moving from one place to another they’re moving to a little more

Uh acreage on to do a little more gardening um and they’re talking about um when to dig out some of the plants they’re going to be taking with them you know strategies uh and you know priorities if you’re moving going to be moving larger trees and shrubs you know

The sooner you go out there and root prune them the better so if if I was moving you know as an example if I was moving this weeping red bud you I’d want to come out here and just kind of cut the roots right around that drip Zone

Sooner than later even if it was going to be 6 months before I took it out of the ground so I could kind of containerize it in the ground uh and it’ll be much easier to get it out later may not be easier to get it out but it

Will certainly be the plant will be a little healthier because it will regenerate some Roots back into the middle um of the of what will be the root ball uh make sure that if you’re listing your house that the plants that you’re taking with you are in the

Listing I Pro I need to throw that out there right now cuz if you you know once you’ve listed the house you know kind of as is um you know they’re they they’ll own those plants you know if they you know if if you CL you know just

Depending on how the deal is I know that Jeremy included a list of plants that he was taking when they listed their house uh down um uh you know we that we we’ve seen this his St that stone garden he has but I think there was a list of

Plants he was going to take with them and it was in the you know in the in the contract so that that’s that’s important um you know again uh priority wise most perennials you know when they’re dormant you know I took out all those perennials along the street out by the road you

Know as most of those perennials start to break dormy in the spring that would be a good time to lift them go ahead and get them in containers I would not want to be lifting them out of the ground in July or August In the Heat of the summer

So the herbaceous things as they start to wake up in the spring get them containerized Woody shrubs trees that you’re going to take with you go ahead and cut the roots on them now sooner than later and that way when you’re ready to take them you can um and then

Of course you know then they asked me about good techniques for starting over and I think you could probably watch the beginning of the series of videos here for this new house about us you know composting and um using wood chips and those kinds of things and the path I’m

Standing on right now is just you wouldn’t believe it if you were walking on it right now and it was one thing I pointed out on a few garden tours here this year is if you walk around on this path you can actually feel the sponginess underneath you everywhere in

This Garden whether I’m in a bed or on the I try not to walk in the beds a whole lot but you you you have to some obviously but all of these paths all that life you know that sponginess underneath um and so getting that soil alive you know and using organic

Material to do that is the way to go uh so um so somebody they they have an exposed spot at the top of a retaining wall and they want something that’s structurally uh interesting at the top of it they had said they might think about using a deciduous Magnolia and

That would certainly work and they you know in the winter time even without leaves you know they’re usually structurally interesting uh but something like a Hollywood Juniper I really like I’m really drawn to if you want something that’s just kind of you know interesting and all over the place

If you had a hundred Hollywood junipers you’d have a hundred different looking plants uh it’s an it’s an interesting one um but uh the T my suggestion would be if you’re looking for something that’s structurally interesting is to go to a garden in your area and see you know I

Could go over to the Roston right now and probably find 20 different conifers and other structurally interesting trees like this weeping Red Bud um this time of year especially important in the winter time you know how it looks you know um but I think this would be a good

Time of year to be out looking in your area for things for things like that it’s up at the top of the hill so it may have some wind I don’t know where they were but if it has some wind related issues you may want to think about

Having something that’s a little more cold hearty than your area if it’s really exposed okay um somebody wants to have a witch hazel in zone 8B in South Carolina um you know that that that should be that should be fine they’re going to bloom really really early uh that’s uh

That’s one thing you know about witch hazel and then uh I think they asked you know why I don’t have um a witch hazel so hold on just a second I actually love witch hazel and as warm as it’s been it wouldn’t be surprising if there’s a few blooming uh

In the area right now but I do have a lot of things from the witch hazel family and I was doing some videos on plant families I think early last year or the end of the year before and I kind of got away from it but it is

Interesting to see the things that are related uh in our Gardens you know down here below uh right down here on the ground um I’ve got a distill which is an an evergreen shrub that gets those little little fril red flowers along the stems it’s in that same family in that witch hazel

Family uh not fragrant unfortunately like you know a lot of our our witch hazel are uh this Laura petalum up here you’ll notice anytime I show flowers on a Laura petalum same little frilly flowers that witch Hazels have so this is another witch hazel relative you know

In that same plant family I’ve shown parodia on the channel or Ironwood ironwood’s just an you know absolutely amazing tree but if you ever see it Bloom it’s a little red frilly uh flowers on them typically um and with some variability and them uh R Lea has

Been on the channel before uh father Gilla great native to the southeast United States um four or five species of uh father gella also FR Little Flower that one is fragrant um the uh uh but anyway I I have I have witch hazel relatives but not an actual uh witch

Hazel I think down um when I did some tour videos down at Breeze uh house she has she has several um probably show up in her uh videos and it maybe again they may be blooming um maybe blooming right now actually but I just don’t have room

For everything uh in this Garden but you should be fine down in 8B but they may they’ll probably Bloom right at Christmas almost every year if they get a little cold on them beforehand uh let’s see so somebody has uh they’re in Phoenix Arizona in zone 9B and they got hydrangea

Serata uh and some dalas and they’re not fully dormant should they cut back the dalas no I wouldn’t cut back the dalas as long as they’re growing hydrange CA I don’t have any idea the I get a lot of questions from Phoenix and I I struggle

With them because I just I don’t I know that you’re Zone 9B like somebody would be in the middle of um you know Florida somewhere but they have humidity and rainfall you know and you have very seasonal rainfall if any you know very little but you know this time of year I

Guess is when it would be uh raining I don’t know if that hydrangea will ever go dormant I don’t know if um you know I see saratas listed for up to Zone 9B from you know like zone five or 6A to you know to 9B uh but I have no idea if

That would include Phoenix a desert environment without you know without a lot of um without a lot of moisture um in the air it seems like you just have to water it and water it and it may not have it’s going to need some dormy and

So I just don’t know I have no idea if some Winters it won’t go dormant it’ll be an interesting experiment uh to find that out but the word hydrangea um Hydra or Hydro means water and uh uh it’s it it actually translates to water vessel that is the that’s what

Hydrangea means water vessel and so that’s what we see all of our hydranges you know so wimpy in the in in the middle of summer sometimes you know so thirsty you know they’re uh they like their water and so I don’t know I have no idea about growing you know so that

Was I wrote that down just out of more curiosity I’d love you know keep us updated on you know how the if this hydrange serot doesn’t go to sleep this winter will it actually uh Bloom you know the following spring does it need some dormy I would think it does um I

Have no idea I have no idea so somebody has a forest pansy Red Bud they wanted to know if they should stake up a liter on it so I guess the what looked like the leader broke out of it uh my far as painy red bud at the old house did not

Have a leader uh about this high up off the ground if you go back and look at my farest pansy redbud video about this high up off the ground it split into three branches that kind of went out maybe at a 45° angle up and away from

The tree and then branches came off of those back into the interior and it looked fine if you think yours is too low where it’s broken off you could stake one and get it up to a certain point but at some point it mainly grows

As kind of a layered uh tree and the natural ones typically will do about the same thing you’ll see them kind of multi- trunk from about 3 ft up so um um if that helps at all I probably wouldn’t worry about it all that much uh unless

Again it was so low that the branches were all going to be in my in my face and then maybe stake up a lader okay so somebody asked if the Chinese privet that had been cut down can be used as uh mulch yes that would be awesome to use the non-native

Invasive plants uh toh chip up and mulch your other plants and then they asked how to kill the privet stump I think you’re going to have to get them stump ground out or you’re going to have to cover them for some period of time there’re you cut off a privet to the

Ground it’s coming right back you know it doesn’t matter anything in that lustrum family you cut it to the ground you know this um non-invasive Chinese privet right here uh the sunshine lustrum uh if I cut it to the ground tomorrow it’s coming back from the stump

For sure so keep you know uh you know keep that in mind it needs to be it’s going to have to be ground uh in all likelihood or dug out in some way or at least at a minimum you can try to cover them and see if you can rot them out uh

That way let’s see um so somebody asked if dwarf butterfly bush uh should be cut back uh when and how much yeah I cut back all butterfly bushes uh no matter if they ones that get 12 feet tall which I have out in the front garden you know

Then I’ve got one over here that’s 6 feet tall and then I have the dwarf ones over there in the garden uh I’ll cut them back to about a third of the height where they went to sleep if I was given some sort of rough math if if it’s a a

Twot tall you know um dwarf butterfly bush I might cut it back to about 8 in but I do it late winter right before the new growth starts on it so sometime in March you’ll see me cutting back the butterfly bushes here in Raleigh be bit later to the

North the main reason I’m cut always cutting them back is cuz they only bloom on New Growth so that thing has to get bigger in order to bloom number one number two they become structurally uh they’re not structurally sound plants normally and the bigger they get the more vulnerable they are to splitting

And cracking and and destroying themselves some people don’t prune theirs and have no problem with it but I I’ve seen many where they’ve been allowed to get 10 or 12 feet tall you know really really thicken up and then the first ice storm that comes along Windstorm comes along you know either

Uproot them or crack them or uh destroy them uh so that’s there a couple different reasons to cut them back and again mainly because it doesn’t Bloom on anything but new growth and it has to grow it has to get bigger in order to bloom okay

Um so somebody planted a bunch of green giant Arbor amongst their hardwood trees will they live once the trees leaf out um yeah but they’ll probably end up thin I I don’t know how thick your trees are of course I’m answering questions and I I don’t know how you know how thick the

Canopy of trees is if you have good bright light they’ll probably be okay but they’re just going to be a little thin uh if you have real dark spaces I doubt they’re going to perform very well at all so you know that there I I just don’t know what your trees look like

I’ve got this Oak back here and I talk about it dominating the space but I had it limed up uh right out of the gate here I didn’t show any content about it but I had this thing limed way way up so I’m getting good bright light under here

And so I have some full sun things including a butterfly bush that’s doing fine because I got really great bright light but initially there were limbs way down below that and it was super dark back in that corner and I don’t think a lot of the things I have back there

Would have performed very well so again I don’t know what kind of trees you got around them um so how far from the foundation should plants be planted uh thinking about planting some encor zelas and um uh you know I you know if a plant says it gets 3 to

Four feet wide you’re going to need it to be at least 2 feet off the foundation I’d probably be a hair more than that off the foundation cuz I’d like a little air flow between my plants and the foundation because you get Plants like um uous that get uous scale or you

Get Chamas that get t- scale or you get aelas that can get lace bugs or you get you know all of these plant a lot of these plants come with an insect you know kind of built in uh to them if they’re under stress you know they’re

More vulnerable to if you start packing things up against the foundation with no air movement behind them I find that they’re more vulnerable to those kinds of things so you know um whatever the width says on the tag divide that in half uh and then add a little extra uh

To that so if it says it gets 4T wide put it at least 2 feet from the house and then go a little another another 6 in or so that you so you can keep it cut away from the house and keep some air movement around it that probably would

Be um would be a good idea they also said they have clay soil so make sure you’re mounting everything up I’ve got that clay planting video that I have on the channel that’s probably way too long and um I need to probably update at some point um I saw somebody updated it for

Me recently uh almost identical to my original video uh but that uh uh you do need to Mound things up a bit in the clay soil especially near a foundation cuz frequently foundation around our foundations can stay a little more moist than more open areas away from the house

Uh let’s see um so somebody has um a pink Chamilia and then out of the blue you know it just turned all you know it’s all white it’s about 6 years old and and when they bought it it was white and now it’s been when they bought

It it was pink and now it’s been white um Chamilia is freely sport so they’ll get branches on them that are you know just completely different in fact I have a chamia over here that’s a sport from another one that I found um not that

Long ago that I’m working on so it’s a completely different flower than the one the the plant that it was on I would imagine this was some sort of sport that just kind of took over the plant um would be the reason that it would just completely change color is that it’s it

Just it’s just a sport um you know in in they will volunteer you know things like that they’re just completely different um and it may have been that it was a white chamelea sometime way in the past and somebody found a pink sport off of

It and then they took cuting on it and then named the variety and have sold it for years and then occasionally you’ll get a branch on it that’s white um and it’s probably just taking over more of the plant over time somebody has some gardinas and they’ve dropped some leaves

Uh and you know you know they’re down in the Atlanta area uh so I don’t know so gardinas can be finicky things in our in our Landscapes especially in our clay soil so the pedmont area you know Atlanta is included included in that up to you know through Greenville

South Carolina and up to Raleigh and includes Greensboro and up to Richmond Virginia that can be a little tricky uh in our clay soils and so we can see some um typically that type of damage where it’s being over watered we’ll see yellowing in the new leaves initially uh

And you know there’s some root rot issues going on if you’re seeing that interior Leaf thinning where the leaves turn bright yellow and then drop off they’ll always do that a little bit in the spring because when they’re about to flow they’ll put all of their energy

Into flowering and they’ll shed a few leaves if that shedding is excessive they’re kind of dry I’m wondering if down here in Atlanta we’ve been extremely dry this fall if they if that’s what it was was just some sort of cycle of them being dry and if it’s

Excessive and they’re really super thin it may take a little while for them to uh recover from that you can let them bloom in they’ll bloom in May June and then you can cut a little bit off the top and see if you can get them to

Regenerate a little bit but I would imagine that if it was in the interior of the plant thinning you know that it was like it was likely dry okay um so somebody asked the difference between silver caress and soft caress and that’s was kind of funny

I had that qu you know I pointed that out as one of my um upcoming interesting new ones it has a slightly broader leaf and it has a really silver um silver caress um has a very silver undertone uh to it and weirdly hold on let’s do

This unbelievably I had both of them so there you go you can see the broader leaf on the silver carass uh flower buds on both of them um but this soft caress is a little more delicate foliage this one has a slightly broader foliage but that blue green coloration so uh both of

Them um very very useful so that’s it for this week again you can ask arding questions down in the comment section below this video and I’ll pick from those each week I do have the shovel linked down below the video if you’re interested in that and uh thank you to

Ever again for everybody who has bought the learn to garden video series they’ll continue to be content all year and there’s a $25 discount code down below this video and you can find that over on my website Hort tube.com thanks for watching