Hi everyone! I'm Kim at shiplap and shells. I'm a cut flower gardener in the pacific northwest,
about 60 miles southwest of Seattle, in gardening zone 8;
and today I'm going to take you around, show you what's going on in my garden.
We just had our last frost date of the season so there's a lot to show you. But first, make sure
you hit the subscribe button and the notification bell so anytime that Kellogg has a great video
to show you about your garden you'll be notified! April isn't always like this. So, we had a couple
days that were absolutely amazing, so I thought I'd just give you a little tour on the deck.
We planted our containers. I used the geraniums that I overwintered
in the greenhouse. I still have some annuals to add to them but this is a great start.
Still have my daffodils. A lot of people have been asking me, do I drill holes
at the bottom of my galvanized pots? And yes, absolutely because you need drainage!
The lavender and candy tuft is blooming,
and this is where I have some of my herbs in pots. I have some more violas, primroses and violas
are looking amazing right now! Daffodils are starting to die off a little bit, some of them.
And then, I have other varieties that are just starting to bloom.
My hydrangeas are starting to really take shape here.
Here are a few more of them. This one we just transplanted not too long ago, because it was in
the afternoon sun and it did not like that at all. Tulips are a little hit and miss for me. Some of
them can come up for years and still look just as good and other ones really don't look as good the
second year, so I kind of consider them an annual. Here are some tulips that remind me of peonies
actually and I planted those a few years ago as well. They're just gorgeous. Here's some more.
And then, we have more tulips coming up here.
So, I decided to test some tulips in the raised beds this spring, and I'm really glad I did. They
look so bright and beautiful, and you look at the rest of the raised beds and not so much. So,
I am definitely going to do this in all my raised beds for next year and do different colors.
I have been spraying with liquid fence so the deer don't get them, but they are so beautiful.
And I did this because I always feel really guilty
about cutting them and bringing them into the house,
because they look so beautiful in the garden, so I thought, "well, if I put them in raised beds,
basically a cutting flower garden." So, I went ahead and did it, and I'm really happy I did!
So, it's dahlia splitting day. So, along the picket fence here we dug them all out
to move the mulch over, and then put them on the tarp, and now I'm going to be splitting
them and putting them back in, and figuring out where I'm going to put the rest of the tubers.
Then we'll start over there in the front. And here's Lucy, in the midst of it all,
because this is the sunniest place in the yard for her right now.
But, I've done some splitting and now we're moving on.
I'm going to give you a little tour of the greenhouse, what's going on these days. So,
it's pretty full, as you can see. I have all my seed starts on this side, and then some of my seed
starts and geraniums on this side, and some flies and bees. So, everything has been sewn already.
These were also all planted about seven or eight days ago and it's just amazing.
I guess that's why they say that the cosmos and zinnias can be four to six weeks before
the last frost, because they came up so quickly. I think they were germinating after the second day.
So, these are different varieties of cosmos and zinnias, and then these are a little bit of both,
and they're doing great. My sweet peas are going to be pinched, I'm going to pinch those today.
My geraniums that overwintered in the greenhouse are doing absolutely wonderful!
So, I'm going to start probably hardening those next week. The temperatures are going to be
in the 60s! So, I'm going to start working on those.
All right, so I've already pinched some of my sweet peas, as you can see these are pinched,
but I have to do this little batch right here. And, the reason why we pinch
sweet peas is because we want the plant to focus more on the stems that were removed
rather than the height, how tall the plant's going to be. And so, that will make everything look
fuller and bushier, and it's just going to be better in the long run. So, it might be really
hard to watch because you've gotten to the point where you're so excited, look at all the growth
and you're going to transplant it outside, but in the long run it's going to be better. I also
do my zinnias, and cosmos, and dahlias, and it's just, that's kind of what I do. So, I take
kind of a mess here. I will take the third or the fourth set of leaves, so
this is the third set, this is the fourth. You know, I might go the fourth set, and I'm clipping
off just above the node. And, there you go, that's it. It is so easy, they call it pinching. It's
really basically pruning but a lot of times, I think this one I'm gonna take down a little bit, a
lot of people do it with their, they pinch it with their thumb. So, I would do this one right here,
so you can pinch it as well. I like to just kind of use my clippers and get it a little cleaner.
So, that's it! It's pretty easy. I should have done it earlier, I
procrastinated, but in the long run they're going to be so much better off. And here they are!
So, they're all pinched and ready to go, and I'll probably be transplanting them out in
another week. Okay so, I am cleaning up around the greenhouse, and here's a perfect example of what I
am doing right now, this time of year. I want my geraniums to look nice and full
for the window boxes and the containers, and this one is just not cutting it.
See how leggy it's getting here, here, here, and here. But, there's so much growth down below. So,
I am going to cut it and clean it up and, like for instance I'm going to take it above the node here,
here, here, and here; and then it has a chance to get really bushy down below. And then, these
I'm going to clean them up and I'm going to make um starts out of them. So, here's what it
looks like. I took them all down and now I have all of these that I can make cuttings out of.
So, I'd love to hear what you're doing in your garden this month, or if you have any
questions about anything that I talked about today, make sure you leave a comment for us.
And don't forget to hit the subscribe button in the notification bell.