Hello friends welcome to Gardening with Creekside I am Jenny and today we are going to give you
um a little bit of an overall update with how things are going kind of in our backyard
and my mama and I placed all of the plants that are going to go into the two new flower beds
we've got them created so much to show you so stay tuned for a little bit of a very early
spring garden tour here in our backyard one of the first things you'll probably notice
is this magnificent forest pansy redbud we have had this forest pansy
in this bed i distinctly remember when we bought it was because i was pregnant with jackson so that
would have been 12 years ago so we have had this tree in the landscape for 12 years and just like
all redbuds man this is the time of year where she is just shining covered in those gorgeous blooms
making a statement forest pansy will have big heart-shaped burgundy leaves on it but right now
man it is just absolutely gorgeous and stunning super excited to show that to you if you have
a space for a redbud i would encourage you to get one because they're so beautiful
this one does really well because it gets morning sun and a break from the hot afternoon sun because
of the house now the bigger it's getting the more after noon sun it gets but it is doing really well
and then the phlox again is just showing off and doing really well there's actually two different
colors in here you can probably see the best right here where we have the creeping flocks this
is from proven winners um i don't remember the name i'll throw it up on the screen for you but
you know kind of in the winter you think man are these going to do anything do they look nice and
i told jerry is like if these things don't perform i'm getting rid of them well they live for another
year because they have just been doing so nicely here very excited about those and then of course
the generous gardener from david alston they have been in the ground for exactly one year now have
one on each side beautiful soft pink blooms on this doing wonderful just doing really really well
the new david austins that i planted i don't know a couple weeks ago was that a month ago
they are popping out new growth we still don't have mulch on this bed because anyway it's a
whole story coming soon we'll run irrigation through here but all the new david alston's
are showing new growth they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do now that they have new
growth on them i will go ahead and add them to the monthly regimen of protecting them from funguses
and pests this is susan williams ellis you can tell nice new growth on it doing really well all
of the new david alston's are just showing new growth and doing very happy very exciting today
i added this flagstone because i noticed that we were cutting through this bed a lot so i've been
working out in the yard we're going to get to all those details but i told you it's like we
need some more flagstone so we had flagstone left over from our other projects so jackson
drove the bobcat for me and i unloaded it and did a little pathway through here it may look a little
odd where i have it placed but i'm going to have some summerific hibiscus on either side right here
so this will be a nice little narrow walkway that we can actually access the backyard without having
to cut through a flower bed don't follow me yet because we're going to go over here
so i want to give you an update on the proven winners bulbs that we planted um because somebody
was asking about that how they were doing super excited to share those with you so the ones in the
landscape the tulips have nice pretty flower buds on them one of them did get destroyed by brenna's
big old fat feet running through here and then the daffodils are coming up as well so you can see
those tulips i mean just look at that nice pretty flower buds on them so they should be blooming
i would think relatively soon here and then the ones in the urns are doing equally as well
remember these are all red gorgeous foliage and again we've got some some nice little flower buds
they're going to open up and just be really pretty here um our our temperatures here are still
in the low 30s 40s and during the night and then during the day like today i've
had a sweatshirt on all day of the t-shirt and then very comfortable haven't sweated so
that's nice for us here in north carolina and so this one is doing just as well
really nice now moving on down to you can probably see behind me
that poor magnolia tree she just can't stay standing up we got the flower beds
made we kind of came out here and attacked them as a family this weekend and we of course we use
the machinery because i mean that's what we have so use what you have there was two ways
really that you could approach making new beds if you have new beds if you have the equipment
or great shovel you can physically remove the sod right so that's what we did we first edged jerry
took the edger and he went around the beds and he edged really well so we have a nice defined edge
then took the bobcat and just kind of pulled um the sod up just like if it was a sod cutter and
that's the way we did it then we hauled it away what you can do of course if you don't
have equipment like you know most normal people don't have the kind of equipment that we have
then you could first kill your grass and that's what jerry and i were talking in years past
that's how we did it so you make your bed define it right like with the spray paint
go through and kill your grass with a spray whether it's an organic solution or a synthetic
you spray it and then you can come back and you can till it and chop up all of the dead grass so i
now have a friend who is getting ready to make her beds and that's what she and her husband are going
to do they're going to go through they're going to edge it they're going to till it pull out some
you know the clumps of grass and move on from there so we did that got all that um nice bare
dirt and you can see down here kind of on the edge what a nice sharp edge that that bed edger makes
it is just it is just the neatest little machine but it makes a really nice clean hard edge
so we were able to get all of that sod out you can still see where the spray paint
the colors are so jerry did a great job just kissing that line and making a really defined edge
and then of course we came back through and we added this is just called the murray mix which
is a great mix it's got compost and it's got leaf litter and it's got aged pine bark finds
because as you can see from those videos this was like red clay and it needs some amendment because
it's a brand new bed we're putting in the trees and the shrubs and the perennials therefore just
go ahead and mend the whole bed when we dig our holes all that gets mixed in it will be great now
let me go pick up this this magnolia tree because it's driving me crazy that way you
can get the full effect of what this bed is going to look like so my mom and i were over here today
having fun brainstorming on how we were going to place the plants and i'm just going to go
ahead and tell you that we up near the patio i kind of follow traditional gardening rules
here we just had fun and we kind of didn't follow gardening rules per se we did and we didn't
in the fact of not everything is symmetrical not everything is perfectly balanced we did
a little whimsies here and there but yet there are repeating seams throughout the bed
remember we talked about the vast majority of the plants that were going in here so if you
missed that video check out the link above and in the video description that way you can get all
the details so i'm just going to give you kind of the basics and walk through real quick this
is not an in-depth plant video this is more like i'm showing you and kind of explaining
how we came up with our landscape design and why we did what we did
probably one of the first things you're going to notice is those show-off forsythias beautiful
they'll get five to six feet um tall and wide but you'll notice we did one here
and we did two over there so that's what i'm saying is that maybe we you would think
well you'd have one here and one here um right brenna brenna's playing with her with her toy
and um so the reason that we only have one here is because there's not really enough room to do
another one on this side where those peonies are because of the way the bed is shaped this first
first forsythia can get nice and big um but we still have three in the bed odd number so we have
the forsythia we have this is climax blueberry so i've got a blueberry here and then i've got the
idaclara blueberry here we did repeat that on the other side so that does bring balance to the bed
you could do remember blueberries do the best when you have different varieties together so they can
cross-pollinate they don't neither one of these have to have i know that i declare does not have
to have another blueberry but you get the most bang for your buck when you have two so we've got
blueberries in here um i forgot to talk tell you about this we have a little pocket of the cheyenne
sky perennial grass now and everything's not perfectly placed i've got to still
do the exact measurements and and everything on here but this is a beautiful more upright grass
lots of fall color summer color gives movement to the bed we've got those
the peonies are dotted throughout this bed along with the ultraviolet flocks so here
we have an a pocket of ultraviolet flocks get nice and tall big huge
bold colors on it so it's in the back along with another pocket of peonies because if whether
you're walking through the front of the bed or if you're behind the bed you'll get interest
on both sides then of course this is the little gem magnolia in front of little gem we have
fairy trail bride hydrangea that is the new cascading hydrangea for improving winters these
kind of set off and border the little gem and then we have back here again the other two blueberries
your forsythias back here then we have this really fun pocket of white muhly grass now if you're not
familiar with muhly grass it is in the fall it is really a showstopper in the fall a lot of
times you'll see the purple the pink one and it looks like cotton candy well this is the white
so this will be beautiful plumes of white in the late summer early fall stunning they're two feet
apart so basically it looks like one huge mass really fun another pocket of peonies right here
then we have my harry louder walking stick the hairy louder walking stick
will get nice and wide over time so we've got plenty of room here for it to spread out
be gorgeous more peonies and then that other pocket of the ultraviolet flocks
so we have ultraviolet flocks in the front of the bed then we have it in the back of the bed
and then you'll notice that we left big open spaces here this is where we're going to put
in some annuals i think this year we're going to use the citron the luscious citron lantana
from proven winters this will be a new plant this year we trialed it last year and loved
it it was stunning so we're going to do a nice pocket here and then moving on to the other bed
we'll start back here because this is where i am we have the three ito peonies i wanted
to keep the ito's somewhat together and you'll notice that one of them bless it had gotten a
little damaged we had some really cold nights and i had to cover them and the blanket was a
little too heavy but that's all right so if you notice that your peonies get a little damaged
they'll bounce back no worries so the e toes are right here with the slender hinoki in front of it
this will be a nice upright skinny evergreen tree and then i've repeated the cheyenne sky
again here in a nice group of three they'll be a nice mimic to the other bed fairy trail bride
yet again here we go and this was really fun this is where we did things a little different because
if you'll notice we only have two of the fairy trails and then we're moving into some spireas
and the pink and the white muli grass again but if you'll notice it's a little bit of kind of
like a ribbon so it kind of the whole thing flows through the back this is double play doozy spirea
which is the same that is immediately in front of me so we're pulling plants
that are in the existing landscape into this bed so we've got doozy here and then we have again the
white muli grass so again repeating some of the same plants in this bed that was in the first bed
and that's in the existing bed so it all kind of flows in together here we have the um maidenhair
bush the ginkgo it only gets two to three feet tall but it gets nice and wide so the
spireas and this all will play off very nicely with one another and then back here i do have
this is the americana agave that my mom gave me if you remember when we were back in her garden
i believe it was in the fall and she has a huge americana agave this is what they call a pup
like a little like a puppy but it's a pup so that's what you call the little
offsprings of an agave and so she potted it up it's here in the landscape it will be able
to stay here all year round i don't have to worry about it in the wintertime but this is
lots of sun and it will do fantastic right here and of course it's that beautiful blue
color so it will just be a wonderful pop and a different texture to this bed now you may have
noticed also through the bed i do have um some pots of day lilies we have some precious friends
jim and wanda who have magnificent gardens full of these rare day lilies just gorgeous colors so
last fall she was they were both kind of purging some of their garden and she had put it out there
you know if anybody wants day lilies just let me know well of course i was like maybe me so i
went and spent an hour or so with her and she had picked out 12 that she thought that i would like
so i have 12 of miss wanda's daylilies in these beds they are all different they are
all different sizes different colors different bloom times so i really used those day lilies
as kind of fillers throughout the flower beds so wherever i needed a little pocket
i grabbed those and stuck them in i will go ahead and make sure when i plant them that if
i have shorter varieties of course that they're up front if they're bigger ones in the middle
or towards the back that way it all is nice and balanced but even in this bed we have the okami
right here on the far end but we still have lots of room here where there is nothing planted again
we plan on putting that citron that luscious citron right here in just a mass planting and
i have a nice big pocket of room all back in here that i told jerry would be perfect for sunflowers
whether we do the sun credible saturn or just sun credible it will be perfect back here so
i still have lots of room to put in annuals big bold pops of color because like i said
earlier in the fro in the patio beds i'm trying to be refined cool colors down here it's not an
anything goes there is a method to my madness but um it's a lot of fun where i can use those
hot colors that i really enjoy and that i get four seasons of interest that's really important for me
in these beds that even in the dead of winter we have something that is interesting to look at now
i'd still have room as i find new plants that interest me that peak my interest that i can
put in here these are not completely full by any means but it's just going to be a really fun bed
to do we are going to go ahead and try to put it on some drip irrigation so before we the next step
is to plant then we will lay down the irrigation and then we will mulch it and hopefully that will
happen within the next week possibly we might be able to get them planted tomorrow morning so that
would be great because we're going to get some rain so let's get them in the ground so they can
get really adjusted to their new home when the rain comes um but yeah so things are waking up
doing great brenna is over there playing with her toy behind me um being a five-month-old puppy as
as they are uh but yeah so um lots of fun things happening it is definitely go time here in north
carolina i have spent uh a lot of time outside this week and it has been absolutely wonderful
just to be outside and to plant plant plant and to get projects done but as always thank you so
much for garniers creekside y'all have a great day and we'll see in the next video bye friends