Hey friends today on Gardening with Creekside we are going to be working in the hydrangea
flower bed back here on the back of our property and we are going to be planting
a load of beautiful native plants that are sure to attract the pollinators to your garden by the
hundreds if not thousands in the summertime so we've got a lot of fun plants these are
all what we call non-branded plants that means they don't belong to a specific Plant Company
I also hopefully means that they are going to be more readily available that you can find
them from a lot of different sources so they're all going to be in Black pots because they are
non-branded but these are wonderful tried and true native plants that will like I said bring
in the pollinators they are most of them I think if not all of them are really nice and drought
tolerant beautiful summer interest into fall they support the pollinators they support the
birds all sorts of great things and they're all going to naturalize naturalize of course
means that they're just going to naturally spread not be invasive they're just going to naturally
spread and kind of fill in as the years go on so here I am I've got Johnny with me right here
and Johnny is loaded down we have got all sorts of fun things because you know um plants that
are at the nursery if they stay around too long then Jenny's going to grab them so let's just
go through the plants that we're going to talk about today that we're going to plant
here I have a nice tall they're also right here in the back this is a hyssop or an agastaki this is a
blue Fortune blue Fortune I first read about and a pollinator article in one a gardening magazine
full sun gorgeous plant let me clean off my tag here for you it is going to be about 24
to 36 inches tall we're going to space them at a minimum two feet apart we're going to
spread ours a little bit further at least six hours or more of sun a day zones four to nine
it will bloom in mid-summer to early fall and it just does beautiful really upright Habit to it I
think that you can tell from just the habit of this plant already right here I mean just look
at that nice and tall and upright we planted these last year so they have over wintered doing really
well and are probably really ready to get out of the pot so we've got blue Fortune back there
then we're going to do some purple coneflowers this is a classic plant this is Magnus and Magnus
will do full sun to part shade it is an Echinacea and it is going to be about three feet tall that
does include the bloom the same spacing as far as the blue Fortune zones three to eight same time of
Bloom midsummer's early fall and will be just a great great plant now you notice that this one's
a little bit smaller so I'm probably going to go ahead and group them in like groups of two and
kind of plant them together just so they kind of make a nice little statement right away then here
we have another beautiful upright plant this is a solid doggo this is fireworks and I went ahead
because the for whatever reason there's no tag on this so I did pull up the information on my phone
because solidago typically can get a bad wrap that people think it's this noxious weed that it's just
yucky it is not this is fireworks and fireworks is a really well behaved Golden Rod that's the common
name for it and it brings in the pollinators massively it's called fireworks because of the way
that the stems and the blooms their habit is very arching and so it looks like fireworks exploding
this is going to be three to four feet tall when it's in flower it will spread three to four feet
in about three to four years so lots of threes and fours there it's gonna be Hardy in zones at five
to nine and this is going to be a late bloomer so in the fall it's gonna be perfect like for us
like roughly September and it'll Bloom for about a month it is a nice Evergreen so all of these
may be except for the hyssop the blue Fortune I believe all of these are going to have some like
you're going to be able to see them in the winter time it'll just be like a little matte of green
but the solidago is really fun it's great for your pollinators in the end of the summer when maybe
other things are not blooming then the fireworks does a great job and then back here you might be
able to see those nice big huge massive leaves right there that is rude beckia and that is Gold
Stream and so um blackout Susan right we all know and adore black-eyed Susans so goldstrum
is a great cultivar of a black-eyed Susan it has nice sturdy habit on it Golden Daisy light flowers
now have a nice dark brown Center so we're having a lot of the yellows we've got the yellows and we
have purples and we have pinks in here this is going to be Hardy in zones four to ten so
extremely extremely adaptable and it is a full sun to part sun and low to average water needs
because that's going to be the thing about this space right here is that this has zero irrigation
right this is called y'all better live or you're on your own right and so what we have in here
currently is just two different plants we have the Phantom hydrangeas Phantoms are extremely similar
to Limelight hydrangeas so nice big presence this will be the third summer I believe that these are
in here when we planted these um we planted them in the summer and then last year they were here
they did okay it was the first year again not on irrigation we had some blooms not a huge
massive show I expect we'll have a good show this year we've had beautiful growth on them
so they are here and then you can see we do have a nice healthy weed population in here as well
oh it is the season y'all um but all of these little clumps right here are daffodils junkles
and I planted Randy Kelly and I planted these um in January December of this year and they
were absolutely spectacular they were the most beautiful jonquils you have ever seen in your
life daffodils here in the South we grow junkles because they're more they're heat tolerant but a
jungle is it in the daffodil family so all this foliage is going to go away right so it will die
back right now I'm just leaving it alone let it do all of its wonderful photosynthesis work so that
it is storing up energy for next year's flower so I'll have another gorgeous display next year
so we're going to place all of these plants these natives within this bed and you're just
gonna have to use your imagination that the junk wool foliage is not here because it will be gone
when these plants are blooming so I too have to use my imagination to pretend that it's not here
because they'll just die back the good thing about planting it now while I can see where my bulbs are
is that I don't hit my bulbs and I don't dig them up so I'm going to get these placed we're going to
get them in the ground while we're in this space I'm going to try to get the big weeds out and I
am going to fertilize my hydrangeas with the rose tone Rose tone is a great way to fertilize your
hydrangeas because it is a flowering Woody ornamental shrub and they have very similar
nutritional needs as roses so those are from our friends at Proven Winners and Spring Meadow
Nursery which is the home of the color choice shrubs even though these are not proven Winters
these are still panicle hydrangea and if it works for one panic little hydrangea or any hydrangea
it's going to work for another so what I'm going to do is first I'm going to come through here
and get the big weeds out and place these plants and then I'll meet you back here in just a second
okay so I have all of the plants spaced out in place where I want them there is not a huge like
exact science here on putting these plants out because this bed this flower bed is literally
at the back of our property yes we see it from the patio The Dahlia Garden is just right here
beside of me but I really want this to be kind of a free-form more natural looking area yes
the hydrangeas are in rows and we've got the jonquils and things are somewhat in rows but
this is definitely going to be a free-form not formal whatsoever type of garden filled
with just beautiful plants that will bring us seasons of Interest starting with the daffodils
in the spring then the probably the hydrangeas will be next maybe the blue Fortune will kind
of pop in the same time that the hydrangeas do and then it will carry us through all the way
through the fall as I find more fun perennials that are native dry loving that can handle
this because I seriously doubt we would ever put this bed on the irrigation so this is just a fun
area to attract butterflies pollinators hummingbirds all the good things in our
garden and just to really have more of that kind of a not even like a Cottage Garden it's more
like a woodland kind of like a nice Meadow type Garden so that is where they are I did group The
um purple clone flowers they are in groups of two or three just because they are small
everybody else is singles all the way through out there so what I'm going to do is I have my
black gold the ultra outdoor planting mix this is a great one for when you're amending the soil
because this soil is flat out straight red clay there is nothing there is nothing good or really
does not have a lot of good organic material in it so I want to help these plants out just
a little bit so they have a good start because we are going into you know the warm season and
I want them to have as much nutrition and and the food as possible so what I'm going to do is I have
four bags I'm just going to kind of spread these bags out for those plants so I'm going to leave
before I even plant the plants I'm going to go through and shake some of this around where each
pot is that moment I have my auger and I drill my holes then that will get mixed in with that soil
later on in the season hopefully within the next couple of weeks we will come back through here
and mulch this flower bed we may wait until the daffodils start to turn yellow and go down then
we can just cover them with the mulch that would probably be the easiest thing because this bed
does need to be mulched it was not mulch last year and then when we came through and installed and
planted all of the daffodils it brought up a lot of the natural soil so it needs to be mulched that
will help in the weeds a ton when you have a nice thick layer of mulch it helps retain moisture and
it helps control the weeds so we're going to put that down then I'm going to use my biotone with
every single plant my power planter I have my I think it's the nine inch it's for the three
gallons yes these are only one gallon containers but by doing a nice big hole it aerates the soil
all around that where the pot is going to go into the ground the plant's going to go in
the ground and so that way my roots can really get going and get established and get very very
happy so that's what I'm gonna do this is going to be the grunt work of the day is getting this
spread getting those in the ground and it'll feel good I am racing against the sun the sun
comes up behind me and it's going to come over really quickly so we're going to try to get this
done as fast as we can because it's going to be like 86 today yep there you go 86 today and then
I think the low on Monday so today is Thursday the low like on Monday or Sunday is like 38 so
Gotta Love Springtime folks so we're gonna get it done
today's a project is complete we've got lots of beautiful natives in this space it's going to
give us beautiful flowers in the summer and all the way into fall and I got my Pinnacle
hydrangeas fertilized so that is an excellent thing you will see that I you saw how precise
I was when I was fertilizing those I simply just got the bag of Rose tone and shook a good amount
of fertilizer directly on top of the hydrangeas then went through and kind of get in the little
judge so all of that fertilizer just falls off of them you can do that when the plant is dry because
the fertilizer is not going to stick to the plant just make sure and kind of brush it off because if
it left on there you know for a long time it could burn the leaves and so we don't want that so just
kind of shake it down and then there you go now I did go ahead I've started to learn that I need to
label my plants at least like in this area where there's multiples of the same kind I just came
in and just there's a group of everybody right in here together so everybody got a name tag
so when I come up here or I have a visitor in the garden they can see what they are I got
these nice little copper tags from my beloved Kinsman Garden they have several different ones
and then I use a plant marker it's kind of like a Sharpie but it's not a Sharpie it's UV protected
and all the things and so that way everybody has a nice name on it so that can stay here
I'm going to try to do that every time I plant some flowers so that either well not like I said
when I'm in here I can remember exactly what the plants are because after a while some of
these start to run together a little bit now I am fully aware that this planting this project
today is not a massive transformation in fact it may be kind of hard to even see that I did
anything in here but I did add lots of beautiful like I said native plants that are going to give
me gorgeous flowers for my pollinators summer color late summer color fall color
so you may look at it and go well gosh Jenny you know it's not not real impressive here today but
this is the thing about gardening right so you have to be able to Envision things Envision what
it's going to look like I am planting this for a long term I am planting this for a completely
different season than we currently are right now I am planning ahead so that way when it is
hotter than Hades out here this Garden is going to be beautiful and full of flowers flowers and
just do really nice so that's why we say plant for Four Seasons I know we're in early spring
and we are all about the massive flower power with annuals and I love them right I use them
tons it's just that today's project we're looking ahead and looking towards the dog days of summer
and fall where I want to have beautiful color here so be thinking of that when you visit your
local Garden Center and you should be able to find these pretty readily available because
like I said they are non-branded and they are widely out there on the market and just great
proven successful native plants that you can add to your full sun Garden as always I hope you have
found this fun informative and inspiring as always we so appreciate you thank you
for going to the Creekside you all have a great day and we'll see in the next video bye friends