Hello friends welcome to Gardening with Creekside today we are going to come back to the flower bed that
is right here alongside the driveway that we have got some fantastic annuals in we were here uh
I don't know four to six weeks ago and today we're going to be adding more caladiums
if you've been around me for a hot second you know how much i love caladiums they do fantastic
here in our North Carolina zone 7b climate and I've got two holes on the end of this bed that
need to be filled in jerry and i were sitting on the front porch i believe it was yesterday
morning i was like you know what hon i think i'm gonna add caladiums to those corners because
um even though it is the middle of july these things thrive in the heat and the humidity
and they love it so they will fill in and give us gorgeous color i have gone ahead and placed
the bigger containers here on this corner so let's just give a little perspective here of
where we are so obviously there's the house there's the driveway um there is the field
in front of the house okay so this is going to be the first bed that you're going to come to
and i have this whole section here on the end that needs some love it just was empty
perfect place to fill in with these caladiums it's a gorgeous color this is radiance and radiance has
enough pink in here to go with my jazz berries but it also has some white with that beautiful
green aging and some green veining to it these are the eight inch containers i believe it's called
of course these are the proven winners let me show you the tags i know y'all love
tags um this is the heart to heart radiance sun or shade which is fantastic 14 to 16 inches
tall and then will fill in right now this bed is in the shade that is why we're going to try to
move with purpose this morning and get them in the ground before the sun hits because as you can tell
it's creeping our way now to give you a little bit of a refresher on what we have in this bed
i have got two on each side of the new perennial hibiscus from walters gardens this is angel eyes
you can see that she is about to open up with some buds beautiful white with a deep dark hot
pink center we've got purple fountain grass we've got the jazz berries coming along here
as is the purple queen all the way down i will say too that this bed we just recently like last week
a week ago got this on some great compost mulch on it because it it had been a little neglected
so that's why the plants are not as big as they really should be at this time of year they will
come along they've already grown so much since we got them mulched and we've gotten beautiful rain
got the irrigation all squared away on them so i know we're going to have some rapid growth here
pretty soon so we've got the jazz berries going down through the front which is those supertunias
it's the new vista for this year and then we have a beautiful pocket of the true full of pink gum
freena in there and then up at the top we go back to the purple fountain grasses this is the center
stage pink crepe myrtle from proven winters it will be a tree but it will be more of a petite
tree you can see it's going to start putting on some buds here or has buds we'll start to put on
some blooms beautiful dark black foliage will be really fun as it grows obviously we will change
our plantings around it but that works for now and then this is the other pocket from between two of
the hibiscus more of the angel eyes there's one here there's one over there and then you can see
where brenna is up to the green electrical box so we're going to come in and fill in with the quartz
of the radiance through here we're actually going to start on this end because i have i think this
space is actually a smaller space and i have more quartz than i do the um the eight inch pots
so we're going to fill in up from the green box up to this second hibiscus right here with this
radiance now remember i told you the radiance can do sun or shade when you have different growing
conditions you're going to get a bit of a color variation and this is perfectly shown right here
so there's two separate trays of radiance can you see that there is that color variation
one is deeper more intense one's a little bit more white i honestly don't remember which one was
which so we're going to find out as we go through there and plant these and and then watch them grow
in and develop but man again if you are looking for a fantastic pop of color not necessarily
flowers you don't have to have flowers to have color and interest and texture in your garden
caladiums if you're in a hot humid environment in the summer caladiums man are the way to go
they are just easy and fuss free i do want to show you we're going to walk up here
because i have french vanilla hibiscus that are blooming and they are doing the flowers are really
pretty um let me show you we planted this last year look at that beautiful french vanilla it is
a very very very soft yellow will age it through the day to a little bit of a white hot pink center
we have these here with some of just the old-timey azaleas that are doing well but i do think my
hibiscus do not get enough sun because if you'll notice this tree line um yeah here it is almost
oh one o'clock 12 30 in the afternoon and they're still in the shade they should be a lot
larger than this so they're very much on the small side i think i'm going to move them this
fall where exactly that will be to be determined but they're just they're they're just not getting
enough attention right here as far as the sun goes and they are on irrigation just not sun
so it's my job now to find out a perfect place for them to go so that they can just thrive and
do wonderfully now without further ado let's go over here and get some palladiums in the ground
i'm gonna come through here and i'm gonna grab a caladium from each tray and i'm going to mix
the darker and the lighter colors that way i don't have too much of a color block in the flower bed
once i once they're in the ground now these are the quart size containers
so we can plant them a little bit closer together i do have more of these than say you know those
those eight inches and we're just going to kind of come in here i am not looking for solid coverage
the june bugs i don't know where y'all are if you have june bugs or not we have june
bugs they're those big huge beetle-like bugs and brenna just thinks it's the funnest thing ever
to try to catch them i don't think she's ever caught one yet but man she sure does try these
are not gonna stay up and that's okay so we're just gonna come in here and kind of tuck them
this is just a great filler as i'm waiting for my hibiscus to fill in i can come with these annuals
and fill them in fill in the gaps and just make a beautiful color block display of plants
so we're making sure brenna come so we see some yellow jackets and we're just going to
say a little prayer that the yellow jackets are just out foraging and there's not a nest nearby
i think every place wherever you live has critters that are out to kill you in late
summer and for us that would definitely include um yellow jackets they are some of the meanest
mean main mean mean wasp i guess in that category it doesn't matter if you mess with them or not
they just are going to be mean and come after you so lots of fun so we're going to come in here and
just kind of spread them out give them a little bit of a fill in through this area and then like i
said these extras that i have can go down and fill in that bigger space with on the other end so i'm
going to start and get these guys in the ground because they're not going to stand up for me
and we are on quite a hill so we're going to get these in the ground start with those
and then see if i need to fill in with some areas but i'm going to be using my power planter auger
i'm using the five inch it's the perfect size for these quart size containers and i will
going to use the proven winter's time release fertilizer i don't use
typically biotone with my annuals they do just great with the time release from proven winters
that's that slow release so i'll aug the holes and then you can either put the slow release
in the hole directly or you can sprinkle it around the plant who knows what i'll do
but we're going to get these in and then we will move on down to the other end
all righty my friends so we got the first section of caladiums all planted and they look great we
started here at the green electrical box and then just worked our way around until we got
to that last hibiscus and we went ahead and put some kind of in front of that hibiscus
i did have to work around irrigation lines i was trying to do a little bit of a staggered
planting on them but this second one i went down and i was like why is this auger not going down
well i was literally on top of the irrigation line praise the lord it did not puncture it so
they're in here the plan the hope the prayer is that they will fill in and get nice and
thick i can imagine that purple fountain grass get nice and big and full and everything just
kind of flowing into each other and over each other so we have the one angel eyes here in the
back then we kind of went up into them and then tapered down again here at the other angel eyes
now we're just going to work our way on down the bed and i have got i think it was five of the um
courts left over so i have a section right here in front really kind of between those angel
eyes again between this one i can fill in right here and will be really nice if i have any left
over i don't know that i will i have that little corner right here that i can plop those into so
what i'm going to do is just the same thing i did before augma holes put in my slow release
fertilizer put the caladiums in bring the native soil back there you go and it is all done so
love the color that this is bringing to the bed already it's going to look great when it's done
okay my people the project for today is complete it was a pretty simple one just throwing some
caladiums in the ground uh but man don't they look good back there so so happy and praise the lord
the clouds came back so it's been actually you know kind of halfway pleasant out here i'm not
sweat it's not dripping off my nose and oh goodness so let me just show you i digress
a little bit there okay so here we have the whole bed um that you can really just get that
perspective down here on the bottom when i had those uh quart sized caladiums i went ahead and
put two of them together in a hole that way for the most part they look all about the same size
i did have since i had five one was an odd man out but he was a pretty good sizeman by himself
so i thought that that was okay but this radius is really fun because you get that variation of
color you get the red the pink there's some red into it but it's mostly pink the pink
the white the green and it just blends really well i cannot wait for the hibiscus to start blooming
it will look really nice and then as you come down you will begin to see the other pop
of caladiums up here at the top so it really just filled in that hole on both ends of the
flower bed gives it a nice cohesive filled in look and that would be one thing that i just um
recommend to you as far as when you're doing your flower beds
you don't have to get it perfect the right time there is no such thing as perfect first of all
but don't worry about you know if you don't get every single little corner filled in that you
want to it's okay to plant it in stages this bed absolutely was planted in stages and that's okay
don't feel don't put that pressure on yourself that you have to get it just right the first time
and then you know move on if you do awesome great but don't put that on yourself if you've got holes
it's okay as time and as resources allow you can go back to there and fill that in but it's
going to be a really fun area to watch and grow and develop yeah i just i can't wait we will of
course give you updates on this area but caladiums man if you're not having them in your garden you
really need to folks they are just such an easy fantastic way to get color into your garden low
maintenance easy peasy japanese beetles don't like them so i'm just saying you know we're
battling the heck out of them right now but that they don't touch the caladiums i hope you found it
fun interesting inspiring today as always thanks so much we'll see the next video bye friends
you