do you have an area in your shade garden that you find it really difficult to
have gorgeous flowers well come with me as I give you some gardening tips to
create a beautiful garden in your shady area
hey friends welcome to Gardening with Creekside I am Jenny and today I have a
fun project for you we are going to create a container that does gorgeous
work in your shade garden so there's a couple of reasons why it is a really
good idea to do a container in a shady area we're here at our nursery Creekside
Nursery in the area that we call The Pines and you can see that we are
surrounded by pine trees I want to have a gorgeous display of flowers and plants
in this area but because I'm surrounded by all these pine trees it's gonna make
it really hard to actually make a bed right here because of the tree roots
pine trees for those of you that don't know have a very extensive shallow root
system and so to plant right here would be just a pain another reason that it is
a great way to do another reason to do a container in a shade garden is maybe you
have those little pests that come voles and moles that will come and burrow and
eat the roots of your plants so that's a great reason to put them in containers
because they can't get to it this is like a self-contained garden right here
and that I can control and I can put it anywhere that I want to and have a
beautiful garden display so that's what we're going to do we're going to create
a shade container with both perennials and annuals when you're doing your
container you always want to get the biggest size pot that you have available
because we want to start with a fresh dirt fresh potting soil you want to get
a really premium potting soil fill your container with brand-new soil every
season because that way this gives the roots a great place to grow and be happy
so I have already filled up my pot with this great soil I am going to go ahead
and add a slow-release fertilizer to this pot slow release
is a great thing to add to your containers because it is going to give
your plants a continuous feeding where you're not going to have to be watering
with liquid soluble fertilizer from the very beginning now the thing is with
containers is that obviously you're going to be watering it's going to be
raining and when you when that happens some of your fertilizer is going to
leach out of your pot so even though this is a six month supply of fertilizer
it may not last me that long because I am doing a container also we are in
North Carolina so we are in blessed to have a very extensive growing season
here and we could easily have seven months worth of growing season here so
six months is not going to last me once that time period is over then we'll come
back with a liquid soluble fertilizer all right so let's get planting so what
I decided to do is we are going to do perennials in the back so this is Gold
Heart it is an old-fashioned bleeding-heart but what's so neat about
it is the color on it it is this gorgeous lime green color just really
pretty and it's got a lot of good height to it so I'm going to put this in the
back of my pot so I'm moving my dirt away I'm going to nestle this beauty in
here you can see that it's already blooming that's the thing about bleeding
hearts is they have such sweet sweet pretty blooms they are a spring bloomer
so I'm gonna have blooms get this guy in the center here I'm gonna have blooms in
the spring and then for the rest of the season I'm gonna have that gorgeous lime
green color now on each side of that I'm gonna do a heuchera this is Grape
Expectations and Grape Expectations is a heuchera that is native to the Southeast
United States it is part of the villosa species of
heuchera so it does really really well with our heat and high humidity there
are some heucheras that just do not do well here in the South because we are so
hot and humid the humidity is what can kill us sometimes here in the south so
I'm gonna squeeze this guy in and it's okay when you have your containers to
like squeeze them in if you need to squeeze the roots we are just making a
beautiful mess over here it's not gardening until you get dirty right it's
fun so and we go I love Grape Expectations because it has such a
really pretty purple color in the veins and another reason that we love this
Grape Expectations is that it can do Sun or shade isn't that
great Sun or shade and it is Hardy in zones 4 to 9 so you want to talk about a
range of adaptability I mean just about anybody in the country
can grow this so it doesn't matter if you're a lot more north than we are here
in North Carolina or if you're even more southern than we are these beauties are
gonna do great wherever you are so clearly this pot is gonna be full and
it's gonna be gorgeous so I had too much dirt here and that's okay sometimes you
have too much dirt sometimes you don't have enough dirt so that's why you have
your containers just bring a little extra dirt and then we can reuse this in
another pot alright so I don't know if I told you but the bleeding heart is cold
hardy in zones 3 to 9 so even more cold tolerant than the Grape
Expectations all right we're coming along here folks
now I got my perennials in remember perennials will last you more than one
season so to add a really nice pop of color with some flowers we're going to
go with some of proven winners shade annuals so this one is really fun as a
browallia it is endless flirtation and it has just
gorgeous white blooms on it it will get 10 to 20 inches tall so it is really
gonna fill in this area we're gonna stick this in and I chose these colors
because it really mimics the blooms of the bleeding-heart so I'm gonna make a
room over here you just kind of have to judge you know I've got a lot of plants
right here so you just kind of have to judge once you get in here
to see how many you're actually gonna need so these will get 16 to 20 inches
tall we are making a hot mess I said that's gardening lots of fun okay so we
got the white blooms in there now so 16 to 20 inches tall it's just going to
fill in it's going to intermingle with the heuchera and the color off of the
bleeding-heart now we're going to go with an even more fun pop of color this
is the rockapulco double impatiens so the double impatiens just have such a
great bloom on them a lot of times our customers will think that they're roses
they're not roses they're double impatiens and of course impatiens love
the shade so they are just going to absolutely thrive in these shady
conditions here with this container you can really do it's stuck
you can really do morning sun a couple of hours so when it says shade to part
shade really that means no more than four hours of direct sunlight here in
our southern climate we have really hot afternoon sun and so this would not do
well and if you got that late afternoon sun you really can do morning sun that's
fine of course you just have to make sure that it's well watered your double
impatiens will let you know right away if they're dry because they will get
very limpy and just look sad and once you give them a shot of water then they
will come and bounce right back all right I think
really gonna need one more I brought four I think three is going to do this
so these double impatiens are going to fill in the front they only get to be
about maybe ten inches tall especially when we're putting them in a container
like this and we're really filling them in here just kind of jujj everybody
in squeeze everybody tuck it down in there so they're gonna fill in and spill
over some all right so I chose the rose and the white browallia to really mimic
the blooms on this bleeding heart so we're dirty all right now the last thing
you're going to do for your container is you always want to finish it off with a
nice layer of mulch mulch is really important to finish out your containers
whether it's a hanging basket that you're making window boxes mix
containers like this that mulch really insulates the roots it helps retain your
moisture so you're not going to have to water as often it dresses it up it makes
it look really pretty so anywhere that you see some potting soil you're going
to come in and you're gonna pop it in there you will be absolutely amazed in
the difference if you've never put mulch around your containers your plants in
your containers you're gonna be amazed at the difference that it makes you you
really don't think it makes that much of a difference but it does
it really does so I'm just going to tuck it in here in the center and we are
almost done now so we are in the end of March here in North Carolina it is warm
and it is toasty our typical last frost date is not until April 15th but go
ahead and looking at the calendar we are good we have got no frost or freezes in
the forecast so I feel really confident and putting these out if we did have a
frost or freeze all I would need to do is you
this is the big container so I'm not going to be bringing it in and out of
the house but you can cover it with something to keep the frost off of it we
are underneath the trees so it's going to be a little bit more protective from
those cold temperatures so here we go we have got a gorgeous shade container that
will bring you months of enjoyment again it is the perfect thing to do in areas
that are difficult to garden with whether it's because of existing trees
or if you have pests in the ground this is a great container to do I hope you
have been inspired I hope I have given you some great ideas and some tips on
how to create a container for the shade please make sure that you subscribe to
our channel and we so appreciate you Gardening with Creekside we'll see you
next time guys bye