Hello friends welcome to Gardening with Creekside I am Jenny and today we are going to have a little
bit of a project we are going to take out one hydrangea and put in another I always tell you
that gardening is about experiments right we we try something we think something's going to work
really great in our brain and maybe it doesn't always work out that way gardening is always
evolving and changing so behind me here on the bank we're at the at the nursery obviously on the
edge of the pines and right behind me i have an invincible ruby hydrangea that i planted here this
will be would be its third year in the ground here and it is just not performing the way that i know
that ruby can and should be performing it is not the plant's problem it is a gardener's problem a
location problem so today we are going to fix that we have learned over the past couple of years that
the invincibelle rubies do really really their best performance here in north carolina zone 7b
when they get morning sun and afternoon shade i want to try and experiment this is morning
shade but hot afternoon sun it doesn't work not for this spot not for where i am it's not on
irrigation the plant is just not performing like it should i don't get my nice big huge blooms on
a continuous basis so ruby is going to um yeah she's going to move and we're going to put her
in a spot that will be perfect for her what we are going to do is we are going to put in um
a new hydrangea here at the nursery it's not new on the market but this is let's dance can do so i
want to show you the tags so that because i do know how much y'all enjoy seeing the tag
um jerry and i first found this plant when we did our visit at spring meadow nursery in michigan
last summer remember spring meadow is the nursery that is responsible for all of the fantastic
proven winter's shrubs so we were in michigan in august and they had a row of can-do hydrangeas
along between their parking lot and their sidewalk in front of the nursery and it was just this hedge
they were stunning and trust me it was just as hot in michigan in august as it was here
at the same time and they were performing their heads off fantastic now what makes can do
different than other hydrangeas is it is considered a serrata so it's a lace cap hydrangea
usually lace caps can be a little bit finicky but they have bred this beautiful plant
so that it blooms of course on old growth and new growth so you really shouldn't have to prune it
but if you do or you get a late frost in the season you're still going to get gorgeous
blooms because can do produces flowers not just on the tip of the stalk but all along the whole
stem so you're going to get a gorgeous display of flowers really no matter what your spring
season is like and even if it does you know you get a late frost that takes some of them off
they re-bloom a lot faster so you're going to get this continuous display of beautiful flowers
it is rated as sun to part shade zones four to nine which us being a 7b is perfect for us
and it's gonna be three to four feet tall three feet wide so i am going to like i said put her
here i think this is going to be a great option to have can do right here be gorgeous now it is
the color will be ph dependent so for us because we have very acidic soil it will be in that blue
to purple family again it'll be gorgeous it is a lace cap but the flower petals on them
are so large that eventually they will take over and it looks a lot like a mop head
it's gonna be a lot of fun so what i'm gonna do is really basic i am gonna pull back the pine needles
i'm going to get my shovel i am going to dig as much of the root ball of the ruby out put her off
to the side and then i'll come back here and we'll chit chat about how i am going to plant the candy
so
all right so rudy is out and you will notice that i went ahead and got some land and sea
to throw in the hole and then i used my power planter auger not that i needed to dig a hole
because i already have a hole where ruby was but the one thing we've talked about before how much
i love this power planter auger is because we have really compacted clay soil right and so here i was
using my auger to aerate fluff break up those clods of that thick red clay because the soil
here is awful that spot it is terrible but if you will see see if i can show it to you can you see
how nice and fine now yes there are some little clumps but when i'm talking about red clay can
really get um really thick and clotty like i mean like big shoes hunks of red clay so
this is fantastic go ahead and amend that soil with that land and sea now my hole is nice and
fluffy and pretty i mean look at that can you just see how pretty that soil is right there
it would not look that way if i was not using the compost and i have been using the compost here
for the past couple of years every fall i would come back and top dress
incredible invincible ruby with the land and sea so now hopefully can do will have
a little bit more hospitable environment to grow in so all i'm going to do is throw some biotone
in the bottom of the hole and then plop her in the ground and i want to show you a couple of things
that you may want to consider when you're pruning a hydrangea such as can do
so i've got candu in the ground and i'm top dressing she's all planted i went ahead and
got some more of the land and sea and i'm top dressing that just simply means that we're going
to take the land and see put it around basically the drip line of the plant and you can just kind
of work it in just a little bit remember this soil here is terrible so i want to amend it as much as
i possibly can you might have noticed when i was planting it and i put it in the ground that the
front side seemed to be sticking out of the ground too high well this is on a slope so when you're
planting on a sloping you have a shrub especially when you have red like clay soil that holds water
you want the back end of the shrub to be even with the native soil because you're on a slope it goes
down so your front end is going to be sticking up higher you don't want you want the back end
to be even the front end will be sticking up so what you do is then you bring the soil
compost up to that root ball so you don't have a massive amount of root ball sticking out it's
okay to have you know an inch half an inch of that root ball above this soil line that's not
a problem so you want to build up the front not bury the back because we don't want this to be
sitting and soaking wet soil for long periods of time you still want the plant to drain
so yeah so that's how you plant on a slope and we're working this in now i think you can see
right here that on the plant it obviously has flushed out really well right it's got gorgeous
foliage on it there are flower buds on this thing already but you can see that we do have some
you know some stalks that are showing and if you want to clean those up it's
really easy so let me just show you let me grab my clippers and show you how to do it
so you can see this stem right here it's got great foliage all the way up but we have about
i don't know what is that two to three inches of bare stalk with nothing on it now some people
that you're fine you're like okay that doesn't bother me some people want to clean up the plant
and make it look nice so what i'm going to do is just come in above that green foliage clip
and there you go so anywhere that you have foliage already we can go in there and go ahead and clean
up the plant a little bit and you know that you're not hurting the plant because
the growth has already popped out and we're just simply taking off those little tippy tops um
so that we don't see really any of those stalks showing as this plant flushes out more and more
of course the leaves get bigger and eventually it would cover all of that it would be perfectly fine
here you can see that we have a bloom an old balloon from last year those can be a little
unsightly right here i have a flower bud i'll show it to you you can see this cute little flower bud
sitting right here so i'm going to take off this stalk so that no energy is being sent to there
and then there you go and again it just cleans up the plant and makes it look really nice this time
of year winter into spring when it's flushing out naturally some branches are going to die it's just
right it's a living creature living thing living plant whatever some pieces are just going to
pass away right so you can go ahead and cut those off so for example i have a branch back here
that there is no green growth on it whatsoever so i'm going to come down and i am just going to
snip it off so see there was nothing on it we can go ahead and snip that out makes the plant look a
little neater a little tidier and there you go one last thing that i am going to do before i
bring back the pine needles and put her to rest for good is i'm going to go ahead
and do a dose of rose tone now y'all maybe i know you're probably thinking jenny oh my gosh you're
going to over fertilize this plant i'm not this is the perfect time of year coming out of winter
going into spring where the plants naturally this is the time where they're in their active growth
period so rose tone is perfect for hydrangeas because it is that woody ornamental so you can
see all i'm doing is sprinkling some around again the drip line of the plant so let's talk about why
i am using three basically three different kinds of amendments okay
first we have the biotone biotone is specifically for root growth if you have strong healthy roots
then you have a strong healthy plant up top we want a very strong root system on our plants
that's what biotone is for the land and sea is a compost it is for amending my soil i want to
make this whole environment more hospitable more healthy bring different nutrients it has some some
bark in there some aeration to it so the compost the ultimate goal is for building up the soil
environment bringing in those earthworms right the earthworms really love nice composted healthy soil
so that is what that is and over time of course it will break down and feed the plant some nutrients
the rose tone even though it is a slow release fertilizer is a faster food for the plant than
the compost is and only do this one time of year out of winter into spring when they're putting
on their active growth my rose tone is the food that will give me the top foliage and my beautiful
flowers so that the plant has the resources it needs to produce the beautiful display that we
want from our shrubs so hopefully that clears up that whole kind of question of well why are you
using so many amendments and fertilizer you know are you over feeding the plant i'm not i'm just
feeding the plant which is very important so all i'm doing right now is i am bringing back my pine
needles that we are blessed with here because we have all these gorgeous pine trees bringing
it back up and i use pine needles here because that's what the lord has given us with these trees
you know in other areas of course that i use mulch but for this environment we are going to use the
pine needles because it just makes the absolute most sense grab some fresh ones we don't have to
add any pine needles because of these great trees they give us lots of gorgeous pine needles every
really every season like every fall fall into winter you know when the pine needles are falling
it is fantastic all right so can do is in the ground ruby is going to move down a little bit
so she can be in a better spot um but yeah so if something's not working in your garden and
something's not thriving like you know it should be move it do something change whatever needs
to be changed do that if you don't know what to do do something do some research
talk to some friends go to visit your local garden center and ask them about that plant what can
i do differently what do i need to do to help this plant thrive so that is my tip for the day
another little tip for the day today is clearly a very cloudy day we have a little bit of a mist
falling today and you may think well i don't want to be out in the garden you know working
on a day like that i'm going to be out when it's nice and sunny and warm which obviously we
enjoy those times as well i was yeah that was me yesterday but today is actually a great day to be
out moving plants like this because we got a good rain last night it's cloudy um it is misty ruby
is not going to go into shock if it were a really warm sunny day and i move her because i'm cutting
her roots and then i'm moving her she could kind of go into a little bit of a shock but on a cloudy
day when it's misty or a very light rain it's a perfect time to transplant existing perennials
and shrubs and trees so don't be afraid to get out there even though the conditions
may seem less than desirable for you for the plant it may just be perfect as always thanks so much
for guarding the creekside y'all have a fantastic day and we'll see in the next video bye friends