Hey friends today on Gardening with Creekside I am excited to share two beautiful flower beds
that Jerry and I installed and have been managing for the last year and a half here at our church
I came this morning to do a little routine maintenance and I thought you know what this
would be a great opportunity to share this space with you because we have not talked about this yet
and because this is a really unique situation as far from a Gardener's perspective because these
two flower beds have everything you could ever imagine in in a garden and I thought it would
be a really great opportunity for me to share how we designed this space and then how we're
maintaining it and then the fun things that we're going to do this summer spring with this space so
they give you a perspective of where we are this is one of the main entrances to the church
a year and a half ago two years ago this whole thing was under construction and these two flower
beds while they have always been here during the construction process of course they just
got completely destroyed and when the construction was over one of our pastors came to us who is also
obviously a dear friend he is also a customer of ours and he said hey we've got the space it needs
to be planted before Sunday can y'all come help and we're like of course and basically we said hey
the church has its budget but we would like to just kind of take over the project and
do what we want to do and he was like go for it so that is what we did we installed
it probably the absolute worst time of year you'd ever want to install a landscape it was
July it was so incredibly hot it was awful this space is not on irrigation but man the plants have
done great so I'm sharing them with you today here we have um you can see there is a massive
brick wall so this is a very hot spot it is a cloudy day today so there's no sun but this area
absolutely fries I mean it is hot the Japanese maple was already here so that was there and
then down here there are three small crepe myrtles they were there along with some Camellias in the
ground all of that was there that was our only working structure so basically what we have done
is because this is a big open space right here tons of heat is on this wall so what does good
in hot spaces that's right summerific hibiscus to show you how hot it is it is the end of
March and holy grail has already sprouted that much look at that is that not crazy
that just shows you how hot the space is so we've got a Holy Grail we've got one
two and then three and y'all I promise you it was not my plan to plant Holy Grail at the
church it's just a fantastic plant and so there you go a little pun for you so in here those of
course those holy Grails will take over this past January you know me I had to come in here and add
some daffodils clearly these are on the way out but they were spectacular just gorgeous so as all
this foliage dies away our hibiscus are going to be coming up I will plant annuals in here I
don't know what last year I did the super [ __ ] whiteout which was really beautiful and then we've
got a desert Plains grass so again you can see how that desert Plains is coming up the Japanese
maple is Flushing out quite nicely and then look at these beautiful pugster blue butterfly bushes
it's part of my goal today is to get these kind of trimmed back a little bit get them cleaned up
they have done really well um the fire chiefs look how beautiful and nice and big and this is not on
irrigation y'all and doing Grace we've got Fire Chiefs in here and then up against the back wall
these are Limelight primes because I did not want obviously to cover up or I wanted it right below
the writing on that beautiful white Pinnacle hydrangea did really well we did have some
issue last year with them kind of tipping over and growing sideways so you can see this was the main
problem right here but I'm really encouraged with how they're flushing out I was afraid maybe I was
going to have to come in here and replace them but they are flushing out really nicely and I think as
long as I kind of keep them pruned they will be okay and then we have in here three distillium
so the distillium gives me my year-round structure I came Sunday to church and I
was like oh my word now somebody took it off but there's a giant dandelion weed in here so
that's part of the goal today is get in here and get things nice and neat and tidy and so this is
that flower bed right so a lot of sun right there really hot intense heat because of the brick wall
then you come on the other side of the causeway right and we have this space now this space was
more challenging because this whole building was brand new so they built this and if you've ever
had construction you know how terrible the soil will be and they just throw stuff in there well
that was the case in this bed clearly is a very defined flower bed it's interesting though because
the sun will come up behind me and then it sets more this way so everything in the back will get
lots of good shade tons of sun up front and then we have almost complete shade in the back gets a
couple hours of Morning Sun and then it is in the shade so what do we have in here we have yin and
yang viburnum so that is right through here you can see all of that beautiful new growth I mean
just bright green foliage brand new I may come in here and just very lightly trim them like a rogue
limb I'm just going to go back just a little bit nothing severe and then I've got guara planted
through here so it's the Carolee petite pink you can see how nicely it is doing it's dotted through
here um and then these hydrangeas are all the Fire Light tidbits all right through here I tell people
how tough this plant is because obviously this is one of the main entrances to the church really
high traffic and we are blessed to have tons and tons and tons of kids here at the church
I don't know what happened I'm just going to assume that one day a kid was playing and they
fell and how what they were doing in this flower bed I don't know but they were way back here in
the back and this poor hydrangea I came to check on something and half the plant was gone I mean
it was broken and smushed and just a disaster and I told you I was like oh no we're gonna have to
replace it you can kind of see where this is the part that stayed and then back there is where what
happened then it got gone well life happened and I never got here to switch it out it flushed back
out it didn't miss a beat it was like I can take a kid no problem flush back out beautiful flowers
last year nice and petite we like that tidbit because it is nice and petite and it does really
nicely here in front of our dwarf Horseman this is that blue Atlas Cedar we thought it would be
a really fun color contrast a nice specimen tree we've got nice growth on it it did wonderful last
year you can see here where we've got that new growth already popping out just a beautiful blue
color and then in the back is the Florida Sunshine the Anis the Elysium and does really well here
beautiful foliage on it it's a little bit washed out right now just because it's getting a little
bit more of the winter sun but doing just great so that beautiful evergreen shrub for the shade love
this plant so last year what I did in this flower bed I used a lot of coleus I used wicked witch
because the wicked witch against that Florida Sunshine was spectacular so I used wicked witch
I had Surefire begonias in here then I had double up begonias more up towards the front because they
were shorter so I come in and I fill it in my empty spaces with those beautiful flowering
annuals that are extremely low maintenance that do not require a lot of feeding because
as I told one of the pastors I was like this is my bed I want to take ownership
please don't let anybody touch it and he was like it's yours honey take it
so I am not up here every week fertilizing and pinching back I don't have time for that most
people do not so I needed plants to be very self-sufficient and take care of themselves
it worked great we're still kind of thinking about what we want to do this year in the flower bed but
again what I'm here to do today is a little bit of Maintenance a little bit of pruning weeding
tidying up what we will do is when we come and plant the annuals we will fertilize all
of our shrubs we did I did that last year when I planted the annuals so everybody's going to
either get plant toned or Holly tone Rose tone whatever it requires will come back in and do a
nice fresh layer of mulch if we need to add some compost to some areas we can do that but I have
just been so excited and every time we come to church it's just been such a wonderful blessing
for me to see how well these beds are thriving I just could not be happier with how they have
performed so we're going to do a little bit of maintenance I'm going to go through I'm probably
just going to set up the camera because I'm flying solo today set up the camera do a little bit of
Maintenance and then I'll tell you um what I did once we're all done and we'll wrap it up here
my friends and like that we are done not a whole lot of work had to be done here today I spent like
a total of 45 minutes here doing a little pruning and weeding and honestly it probably took that
long because I was filming so I had to move the camera around a few times but just doing that
little bit of Maintenance making sure that it's neat and tidy um goes a long way is it in like oh
that's Prime right now no it's not that is going to come in the summer but I'm all I'm a huge fan
of being neat and tidy and getting those weeds out because you know people walk by this and I
want to make sure that it is warm and welcoming and inviting to people and that it shows that we
care about our how our church is here so what I did the only thing that I did in this flower
bed was to trim those Ian and yang viburnums and if you look at it hopefully you will not be able
to go oh my gosh somebody just pruned this plant I was very kind of methodical with how I came in
so like right here I went ahead and pruned that I pruned it right above where there is that new
growth that is coming and because I don't want these plants to come out over the sidewalk right I
need to keep them contained so while they're small we're going to prune them and keep them shaped up
but beautiful foliage on these plants you can see it's got little flower buds right there
so yin and yang just got some nice trims haircuts again not anything major you don't you know if
you didn't know any better if you didn't see a before and after you would probably not even
know that these plants had been pruned which is exactly what I want again when we come back
to put the annuals in everybody's going to get fertilizer everybody's going to be taken
care of but right now this bed is good to go it is the end of March beginning of April is
Saturday I think and so our last raw State here is April the 15th I will go more on the little bit
of the cautious side just because I can't run up here and cover the plants you know in five minutes
because we do live a little bit away from here so I want to make sure that the plants that I put in
here either or can handle the cooler temperatures and or I've passed that last frost date and I feel
good with putting things in here and this flower bed it was mostly weeding what I had to do I see
I missed one underneath the distillium so I'm going to go grab that here in a minute but no
pruning as far as this section goes everybody the hydrangeas had already pruned those back
quite a while ago so they have been pruned I don't touch the fire chiefs they're in good shape I'm
going to leave them alone clearly I had already done my grasses and they are coming back with
a nice Vigor I love to see the really the only thing I pruned in here were the butterfly bushes
and I may have given some of you a heart attack um because I was a little aggressive especially
on this one right here because butterfly bushes bloom on New Growth and I wanted to get them nice
and cleaned up and get that dead foliage like the dead blooms off of here I really probably
should have come and pruned these earlier to get at least the dead foliage off but that's
okay it's all right so I was cutting the blooms off the old blooms I had to trim off some of the
new growth and that's okay they will handle it they love this spot you can see how um there's
still a lot of good growth on there but yeah you can probably tell that these have been pruned and
that's okay as far as my junkles down here yes I'm going to leave these These are daffodils most
people know them as daffodils I grew up calling them junkles because here in the South the um this
line of daffodils that we grow is the John quillas junk wool for short because they can handle our
heat and humidity and they naturalize really well these are John quillas from color blends
gorgeous display but I need to let this foliage die back and that way they will store up lots of
energy for next spring and be another beautiful display of color here as well so we're just going
to kind of let them hang out once they turn yellow then I can cut them back down to the ground and
they will quote disappear for the season and then come early next spring late winter they
will pop up and be quite happy I think I'll bring you back if you if you want me to I will bring you
back when I do the um plantings of the annuals and show you how I fertilize what plants I choose to
put in here all of those good things but I just wanted to share this a space with you because
again it has a little bit of everything it has hot blazing sun it has shade it has no irrigation it
is completely neglected high traffic area right off of a big parking lot close to cement I mean
it just it has not the prime conditions and yet it is a thriving and so very excited to share it with
you as always I hope you have found this fun and informative gotten a couple of ideas on maybe some
plant solutions for a tough Garden Spot in your garden and anyway it's been fun as always thanks
so much for going with Creekside y'all have a great day we'll see in the next video bye friends