Spring Container Garden Q&A: Fertilizing, Overfilling My Space & Roses For Shade?

When is the right time to start fertilizing plants in spring? How I restrain myslef from overfilling my space with plants? Can roses really be grown in the shade? In today’s video I will answer these and many other questions you have recently asked!
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▶️ What To Do With Spring Bulbs When They Are Done Blooming
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▶️March Container Garden Tour
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Good morning guys! Welcome to this new video. Today we are going to chat about all kinds of gardening topics. I asked you here on YouTube and on Instagram if you had any questions, is there anything in particular that you’d like to chat about in a video. So that’s what we’re going to do in today’s video, we’re going to answer some of those questions. So perhaps grab yourself some tea or coffee cause this video is surely going to be longer than usual. Okay so you guys had a lot of like technical gardening questions but there was also a lot of questions directly for me, which was very sweet. So why don’t we start with with those first, we have a couple of questions, and then we’ll move to those more technical gardening questions. So I’m going to start with the first question and I would love for you guys to answer it as well! I’m very curious of your answers, how would you answer this question? So I’m going to read you the question and it would be lovely if you could let me know in the comment section. So here it goes: "Things you wish you could grow, but you can’t because of the weather or space?". So for me personally it’s not neither the weather nor the space, because I garden in zone 8 it’s a pretty decent climate, I can’t complain. I can grow pretty much anything here and then the space is not the problem either cause I’m all about small space gardening and just doing the best you can with the space you have. But for me the limiting factor is the sun or rather the lack of it! Cause I garden in the shade and as long as I love my shady garden and as long as I learned what I can grow in the shade I wish I could grow more edibles. And I do grow some edibles, I even made a video recently on 10 fruits and vegetables that you can grow in the shade, but yeah I wish I could grow stuff like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, so yeah I think that’s my that’s my biggest regret that I can grow more edibles in the shade. Okay the second question "how do you restrain yourself from overfilling your space"? I can totally understand where this question comes from and I can totally relate to that, I don’t always restrain myself, like most of the time I grow more than I can fit in my garden. But what works for me is um, I focused a lot on creating a perennial garden cause I really wanted my garden you know to be four seasons garden not just seasonal planters and annual flowers. So I focused first on that perennial part and creating that perennial garden that will be the structure of my garden, so I have a lot of trees and shrubs and evergreen plants, herbaceous perennials, you know, plants that come back every year, but then I left myself the possibility to also be able to try new things, to grow some seasonal plants, to grow some annual flowers and to create some lovely seasonal compositions. So at this point I think my garden is like 80% perennial and a 20% part that’s maybe like I’m guessing 15 containers on the floor for example this galvanized buckets up front as you can see I have tulips in them right now these are my seasonal planters and this way I can kind of experiment and to try new plants every year. Ao that’s what works for me having that big perennial part that creates the structure of my garden and then having that smaller part reserved for experiments and trying new things. Okay third question, it’s actually a group of questions, there was a lot of questions about my favorite plants, my favorite spring bulbs, and my favorite genus of plants. I don’t think I have a favorite I love all plants and I think that all plants have something unique and beautiful about them. But um if I were to pick a favorite maybe group of plants, if I can say so, that would be bulbs. Like I’m obsessed with bulbs, all kinds of bulbs, but particularly spring flowering bulbs. These are my like favorite category of plants, so if I were to pick a favorite among spring bulbs, I think that would be daffodil. Just because they are such reliable bloomers, they come back beautifully every year they naturalize well even in containers and I don’t know if you guys knew that but there’s like three 3,200 daffodil varieties, like can you even imagine 3200 daffodil varieties and they are also different, you have those teeny tiny Pipit daffodils or those really big and beautiful double bloom Ice Kings. They are all so different and they are all so beautiful. So I think yeah definitely if I were to pick one of my favorite flowers that would be daffodil, so therefore one of my favorite genus of plants would be Narcissus. All right so now let’s move to those more technical questions and I sort of grouped them together into topics so that it’s easier for us to address more questions and so that it all kind of makes sense. So the first topic is fertilizing, we have some questions about fertilizing, so we have a question "when is the ideal time to fertilize spring plants", "can a poted garden be fertilized earlier than a regular one" and "when I accidentally over fertilize a plant is there a way to reverse it without harming the plant". Let’s start with those two first questions because they are kind of connected, when is the ideal time to fertilize and can a potted garden garden be fertilized before a regular garden. So it doesn’t really matter if you have plants in the ground or in containers, what matters is – is that plant actively growing? Because if the plant is actively growing and the weather is warm you can start to fertilize your plants. So when is the ideal time to fertilize? When the weather is warm and your plants are actively growing! And the only difference between container garden and real garden is that usually in real gardens we apply slow release fertilizers twice a year, we apply one dose in the spring and then one those sometime midsummer. With container gardens I always say it’s a better idea to use liquid organic fertilizers, because potting soil doesn’t hold water and nutrients as well as garden soil and then obviously because you water more often those nutrients are being leeched out so it’s a good idea to reapply them and to apply them on a regular basis for example once a week so to make sure that your plants have all the nutrients they need to grow healthy. And then the next question "when I accidentally over fertilize a plant is there a way to reverse it?" and you see that’s exactly the reason why I say that liquid organic fertilizers are a better option for container gardens. Cause you are very unlikely to over fertilize with a liquid organic fertilizer and and that’s because the difference between organic and mineral is that mineral fertilizers are absorbed directly by your plant, so if you apply too much you can scorch your plants’ roots and then over time when you keep applying those mineral fertilizers you will have a buildup of salts and chemicals in the soil and that can also be very harmful to your plants and on top of all of that, mineral fertilizers they kill the soil life, so all of those beneficial microorganisms, beneficial bacteria protozoa and beneficial fungi that help your plant, that protect your plant, they are being killed by mineral fertilizers. And on the contrary, organic fertilizers they feed the soil life, so they support all of those beneficial microorganisms and it’s then those microorganisms that deliver those nutrients to your plant, so it’s more of a slow release form of feeding your plants, so it’s always a better idea to use organic fertilizer. But so come back to your question "what to do when you accidentally over fertilize with a mineral fertilizer" well you have to flush. You have to wash those nutrients from the soil so you need to take your plant keep pouring water until you see water coming out of the drainage hole, you stop for a moment, let that water drain, then you do it again, you pour water let it evacuate through the drainage hole you stop and you do it again and do it like three four times to make sure that all that excess of nutrients is leeched out of the soil. And you will not harm your plant doing that cause it’s not the amount of water that overwaters the plant, it’s the frequency of watering, so if you do it just one time it’s totally fine, but obviously then you want to leave that plant alone, you want to give that soil possibility to dry out obviously before you water again. So if you do that it should be totally fine but then again as I said it’s a better idea to use organic fertilizers to avoid that problem. Okay the next topic we are going to talk about are spring bulbs. We have two questions about spring bulbs the first question is a little bit tricky but we’ll try to find the solution so "why can’t I get my daffodils to bloom" and it sounds simple but at the same time it’s a little bit tricky because we don’t know anything else. The only thing that we know is that the daffodils are not blooming, but it would be nice to provide a little bit more information, for example what’s your growing zone? Are those daffodils planted in the ground or in containers? Where did you keep them – indoors, outdoors? When did you plant them? Did you water them at all ? Cause you know all of those little things they matter and they could make it easier for me to kind of determine what’s the problem? But without knowing anything my guess would be either you planted them too late or you kept them too warm. We plant spring bulbs in the fall so that they can have a cold dormancy period over winter, they need a cold dormancy period of about 8 to 12 weeks with temperatures below 4° C in order to bloom in the spring. So say you planted them too late, maybe you planted them late winter and they didn’t have enough of that cold dormancy that could be the reason or maybe you planted them at the right time but maybe you were afraid that it was too cold outside and you maybe brought them indoors where it stayed too warm and here again they didn’t have that proper cold dormancy over winter this would be my first guess. But if you tell me that you did everything right you planted them in the fall you kept them outside they had their cold dormancy and they’re still not blooming, then my second guess will be that maybe they were not the best quality bulbs. What can happen is when we keep bulbs from year to year you know when the bulb is done blooming we cut the spent blooms off and we leave the foliage for at least 6 weeks for that bulb to recharge to reaccumulate energy to be able to bloom next year, so if the bulb was not given the chance to recharge during those six weeks maybe the foliage was cut off before this could also affect next year’s flowers. So my guess would be either one of those two things, either they didn’t have a proper dormancy over winter or they were not the best quality bulbs. And now the second question is "in my staircase it’s between zero and 10 degrees Celsius in winter and enough light, do you think I can leave the bulbs there in pots and not store them like you do?" So as I said, me I store my bulbs outdoors for them to have that cold dormancy but if you live in a very cold climate and you’re afraid that those bulbs will freeze um you can totally keep them indoors over winter as long as it stays cold, as I said under 4C. You said that it stays between 0 and 10, I think that if it stays on the cooler side you can totally keep them indoors and they’ll be perfectly fine, just give them a splash of water every now and then so that they are not completely dry ,but I think yeah that would be good conditions as long as it stays on the cooler side you’re good to go. Okay now we have a couple of questions about clematis: do you never cut down your Clematis in winter and when do you prune your clematis? So on my balcony I have two clematises, I have Clematis montana ‘Mayleen’ which is a spring flowering Clematis group 1 and then I have Clematis jackmanii group 3, late summer flowering clematis. So I assume that these questions are about montana, because I always say I don’t prune it. It blooms on old wood, so it blooms on the branches It produced in the previous season, so if I were to prune it in winter I’ll be cutting off those branches on which it is supposed to bloom in the spring. So I don’t prune Clematis montana ‘mayleen’ at all. If I were to prune it the good moment will be right after it’s done blooming, so that’s late spring early summer and then jackmanii being group three as you can see it produces fresh new growth and on this fresh new growth it’s going to bloom late summer. So prunin gClematis depends on which group, which pruning group this Clematis belongs to. So always make sure that you know that because it’s very important! And it will determine how you will prune your Clematis, so just type in Google you know the name of your Clematis and then add "which group" and it will surely tell you to which group that Clematis belongs and what is the best way and time to prune it. All right so now we will have a couple of questions about roses How to protect roses from fungal diseases and could you share your thoughts on roses for shady gardens? So I’m going to start with the first one – how to protect roses from fungal diseases. Roses are not the easiest plants to grow, they are quite demanding and there’s a lot of things that need to be met in order to grow healthy and happy roses. First of all you need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight, roses need plenty of sunlight in order to grow healthy and to produce flowers beautifully, then they need a really good air flow, that’s very crucial in prevention of fungal diseases, you need to provide a good air flow around your rose you don’t want to have that Rose kind of squeezed in the corner or overcrowded, overshaded by larger plants, make sure that the rose has really good air circulation around it, then annual pruning is also very very important. Keeping that Rose in a good shape, well pruned will also prevent fungal diseases from appearing and then you will you need to fertilize that Rose. Roses are heavy feeders so they need a lot of nutrients to stay healthy and to grow beautifully. With roses it’s all about maintenance and trying to to complete those four tasks if you do complete those four tasks and if you can provide those conditions you will grow healthy and happy Rose and this Rose will be less prone to any Pest and disease attacks and even if that happens the rose will be healthy enough to overcome those infestations. So that’s that, and now I’m going to jump directly to the first, to the second question sorry. Share your thoughts about roses for shady gardens. Now we need to be very careful with that statement to not confuse anyone cause there is no such a thing as Rose for shady gardens. Roses do not grow in the shade. As I said roses need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight in order to grow healthy and to produce abundantly but in the second part of your question you mentioned the selection, the David Austin selection. And indeed, if you check David Austin website they have a selection of roses that they call "roses for shady areas", and I think that’s a little bit misleading because as I said roses need 6 hours of direct sunlight in order to stay healthy but David Austin says we have a selection of roses that can grow with a little bit less than 6 hours, but if you read carefully, they say that you still need 4 to 5 hours of direct sunlight for those roses. And now 4- 5 hours of sunlight that’s a pretty decent amount of sunlight, that’s not shade at all. We usually talk about shade when we have between 0 and 3 hours of direct sunlight so if you have less than four hours of sunlight I don’t think it’s a good idea to grow roses, I mean obviously you can give a try but I think that Rose will be very unhappy and will be more prone to pest and diseases and then if you have four or five hours of sunlight that David Austin selection will be will be a good idea. And I actually picked one Rosee of that David Austin selection for my garden this year but the spot where I placed it receives 4 hours of sunlight morning sunlight but still 4 hours of sunlight so it’s a limit you know I know that it’s a limit but I wanted to give it a try but it’s too soon to speak because I just planted it this spring so I still can’t really tell you whether that works or not. I will probably need two three years before I can tell if that Rose is happy or is it even worth to plant roses when you have only four hours of sunlight, but yeah as I said four five hours of sunlight go ahead give it a try less than four hours of sunlight I wouldn’t recommend that. Okay and the last question for today is about houseplants "do we have to immediately repot houseplants when we buy them, how long can they live in their nursery pots"? there’s really no rule for that, some people like to repot immediately, some people like to wait. I’m with those people who like to wait because you know when you bring plant from the nursery you are changing their whole environment, the humidity levels, light levels, temperature is different at your place than at the nursery, so I like to leave my plants alone just give them some time couple of weeks for them to acclimate to their new conditions and I’ve kept plants in their nursery pots for months and it was perfectly fine. The only reason why I would repot immediately is when I notice that the plant is pot bound so when I see that the roots are coming out of the drainage hole that the pot is clearly too small then I would repot immediately or for example when I notice that the poting mix either doesn’t hold any moisture or it holds on to too much moisture and the plant is kind of sitting in that wet soil. So these would be two reasons why I would repot immediately but other than that there’s really no rule for that you can repot immediately or you can wait a couple of weeks if you want to. Allrighty guys, so this is going to be it for today’s Q&A video, thank you so much for all of your questions, I’m sorry if I didn’t get to answer, every single one but there was just simply too many of them this time. But I hope that you found some answers to your questions in today’s video hope that you learned something new or interesting thanks so much for joining me and we will see each other in the next video!