Hello friends welcome to Gardening with Creekside I am Jenny and today have a little bit of fun we
are going to plant the Michael Carr strawberry planter slash succulent planter with our fun
chick charms today now this is the first time that i have planted any of the chick charms
hen and chicks simper vims semper volumes you all know what i'm talking about we did a nursery tour
on these last week and before we get too far into this as i said in the video last week the hen and
chicks are perennials so they are cold hardy from zones three to eight so the only thing that i have
to worry about is that they can survive my reddish winters which we are going to take care of that so
these are perennials now when i was in the video i was talking about these great little containers
these are called the living canvas and they're uh they have some simple vms in there and then
some other succulents in there as well and i said that they were also cold hardy well i was wrong
the hen and chicks are cold hardy but not some of the other ones so the string of pearls the jades
those are not cold hardy when i was looking on their website i just did it in a real glance
in a real hurry and it did say that they were cold hardy they were referring to the hidden chicks and
not the other things so i believe it's important when you make a mistake you own up to it and i
appreciate your grace and understanding and my misspeaking did not intend to give misinformation
whatsoever so with that being said we are going to go ahead and get this planted my goal is to take
these little containers and break them apart and then plant them so all the way around i believe
we have two four six eight we have eight holes in the out outer rim of the container and then
one large one in the center this is where i'm going to put probably will end up being
all of the ones that will be annuals for us because they are the taller ones not a problem
now as i mentioned the big thing that you need to be concerned about when you're planting your
hidden chicks is that you're using a very well draining medium so i'm going to use a combination
of three different types of potting medium so in the blue bucket i have some pine bark finds
also known as soil conditioner age pine bark fines which you can see is just literally pine bark that
has been aged super super chunky there are lots of nurseries that will plant their perennials
shrubs trees and just the pine bark vines it does do really well because it drains so we're
going to use that i'm going to use some cactus mixture you can tell this is an old bag it's
nice and dusty so we're gonna throw some of that in there and then we're gonna use some of the um
a good quality potting soil like proven winters i was talking to um oh my gosh she is just amazing
she's a customer of ours a friend of ours her miss kathy and so miss kathy is an absolutely amazing
gardener and has tons of experience and so i was talking with her last weekend telling her what i
was going to do she was doing the same thing and she said the key jenny is to make sure that you
use different mediums and that you mix them all up do not layer them so don't put the pine bark finds
then the proven winter's potting soil then the catness mix she said mix it all up together so
that the entire container has the same consistency so when it does rain or you water it it drains
completely and it doesn't settle in one level so with the cactus mix we do love that because
it is just a very very well draining soil i'm going to do my best we're just going to mix
it up in the pot here to do kind of equal parts of everybody i know i'll probably have too much
mixture here i'd rather have too much than not enough and then have to try to
remake it but what i have left over i can just use in another container it's fine
something that i need to have you know well draining soil in so i'm just mixing it up
just channel your inner baker shelf all right chef nut shelf we're gonna get potting soil
then i'm just going to kind of it's not mixed completely well but as i put it in the container
i can mix it up i'm going to fill this up pretty full all the way to the bottom of these because
you know that these guys don't have massive root systems it's not like i'm planting a
i don't know a grass or something right so get that get that mixed in
okay i think i am just about there of course i didn't have enough in my bucket that i
wanted to so we're mixing it up in here all right get everybody nice and incorporated
and then smooth out i am making a glorious wonderful mess right here and that's all right
it's not gardening until you get dirty now we're going to move this off to the side so that i can
have my faithful companion here i can get these babies separated i'm going to
do this ever so gently because obviously i don't want to break anybody here we go
and then turn them up all right i do have my hori hori i'm going to try to get in here and
just divide everybody so that that way i can then place them this entire container
was nothing but the hidden chicks so my idea is to put the hidden chicks
around the outside tall things in the center so i will go ahead and get everybody divided
and then we can start planting them into the holes
all right so it was not as hard as i thought it was going to be
i was able to basically just take the long oval and just slice it like a cake so it worked out
um i think i'm gonna have two hidden chicks per hole i've got my bucket here so that i can
put any extra soil in like i said this is my first time doing this so we're going to learn
together uh yeah we're just going to stick them in there the spacing on it it did say like a minimum
of two inches now obviously they had them a lot closer than that and in their container
so i don't think that's going to be a huge issue trying to get my chicks here so that they don't
don't want them to break off
i do find it interesting to when you're planting this you've got to kind of make sure everybody's
tucked in there so let's see and of course these will spread out the chicks will will spread they
will keep going the hens themselves will grow i just want to get in there nice and tight and
get everybody kind of jammed in there these were two that were part of um their little root balls
were smaller they were a part of just a little trio okay so in that let's try this one the ones
that were in the oval like you can see they had a bigger root system in there um which will probably
help and don't be afraid to just squeeze your roots like make them fit pull some of that out
gently snug everybody in there
here we go and then just backfill so just make sure that you're going in
and pushing everybody in we want them to have plenty of soil that they're touching
you always want your roots to be covered in potting soil not to be exposed there's
a little gap here in the middle in the front rather and so i will just kind of come back in
make a mess it's about the only way you can do it really and just tuck it in there so that's what
i'm going to do is i'm just going to keep going around the container spin it around and put two
hidden chicks in each hole and then we'll come back and we'll plant the top
all right so the outer rim is completely planted
each hole got two hidden chicks tried to alternate some of the colors a little bit
so far i think it's going to be beautiful yeah so we're going to do now is i'm going to take apart
the two living canvases and really just use everything that's in here but just spread it apart
just a little bit i'll put some of the shorter things up front and then we'll
put the taller things in the back here so we've got this cute little guy can come right here
and then we've got they really do pull apart quite nicely
so and of course i had them nice and well watered so that way i can kind of gently coax apart the
all of the roots so we're going to kind of make our holes back here i'm not
going to separate these too because they'll have plenty of room to grow
in here and get them all separated go ahead and get the tall guys up here let's see
this is the top is going to be nice and jam-packed which i think will work out quite
nicely it is um it is a gorgeous mid-april day i don't know if you can tell from my pants they are
if you stand still for more than two seconds you will be covered in pollen because
it is that time of year here in north carolina where the pollen is falling like crazy every
you know we want the rain because the rain will wash the pollen away but man everything is covered
picked up the bag of the potting soil it was just absolutely covered my pants are covered
yeah drive down the road and you can actually see the haze of pollen in the air it is
springtime in the south all right let's see
i might actually have to take a little bit of this potting soil out for a moment
and like i said i know that these up top some of these are going to be
annuals and that's okay that just gives me you know ideas and space for things next year
to add to it get those in there i have always wanted string of pearls so now
i have a little string of pearls right here make sure and put this guy here maybe
i am not used to planting containers so full it's a new thing for me oh here we go
there we go
get my pearls to hang over i should have worn my pearls today while i was planting
that would have been fun now wouldn't it
can honestly say i've never gardened in pearls i suppose i could
there we go and then we're going to add this little sweet thing
right here on the edge it reminds me of um lemon coral sedum obviously it's not but it just kind
of reminds me of that so put that right there get y'all separated get my soil back that i took out
and kind of tuck in here now maintenance on this little baby it will sit out in
right here off to my side of where the patio is so it will sit on one of the little short walls
at the patio that way it can get lots of sun it is nice and warm there so they can get lots of sun
i can have a hose nearby that i can shoot it with a sprinkle of water when it needs it um
my mama did kind of the same thing last year with some succulents hen and chicks and she had hers
out and because she you know has mostly shade and so she had hers out on the edge of her field and
she just relied on the rain to water and she was like yeah probably need a little bit more water
than that especially in the heat of the summer so this way i can kind of keep an eyeball on it you
want your soil to dry out between waterings so you don't obviously like i said you don't want
to keep it soaking wet you want it to kind of dry out shoot it with a little bit of water
because these in their native habits are habitats rather are obviously on the dry side
hence why they are these great little plants that we love to have in the sun so here you go i am
not going to water it right now i am here on the edge of the field in fact can you see behind me um
the phantom hydrangeas remember we planted that nice row of phantom hydrangeas
uh into summer early fall and they have all flushed out and they are very happy cannot
wait to see those babies in bloom so they are right here behind me and doing great
i will probably have somebody help me carry this because since it's planted can be a little awkward
so we will go ahead and put it when i get some more mussels we will put it on the patio wall
and i will give it a light drink of water because we are not expecting any rain here in the next few
days but again super happy with how it turned out i love all the different colors and textures it's
going to fill in be very happy it's got plenty of room for these roots to grow so that i can have
several years of enjoyment before i need to start dividing or separating but anyway gardening is
full of fun and adventure all sorts of different kinds of plants out there as always thanks so much
for joining with creekside you all have a great day and we'll see in the next video bye friends
so
you