Hello friends welcome to Gardening with Creekside  today we are going to take a little garden tour of  

this fantastic gorgeous uh bank behind me I will  say too we are hitting about noon in the afternoon  

Jenny's got her sunglasses so I'm not trying  to be rude but I'm gonna put my sunglasses on  

because it's good for your eyes um so we'll give  you ideas background on this flower bed this is  

a pretty steep Bank between the retail greenhouse  and the barn we installed this flower bed gosh uh  

this is its fourth year I want to say that we have  had it planted and it was quite a problematic area  

because it is so steep we didn't have anything  planted on here so you know what that means we  

had lots of weeds God's grass right grown on here  it was very unsightly and when our customers come  

you can see that we have our parking signs here so  they were pulling up and looking at a bank of weed  

well that is not inspirational whatsoever Jerry  and I installed this bed it was about this time  

of year it was probably not the most ideal time  to plant it but things were slow we had time and  

we did it it has done fantastic and it is an  eye catcher it is an inspiration piece because  

it solves a host of problems it is on a bank it  gets lots and lots of morning midday sun and then  

it is in the shade it is not on irrigation so in  the summertime it tends to be more dry but there  

are natural springs and we get water that comes  off the hill in the wintertime so in the winter  

it's quite wet remember we have a French drain  running at the base of this flower bed that goes  

all around the barn and the greenhouse because  it is so wet in the winter if we didn't have this  

French drain like it would be really hard to park  right here so we've got dry we've got wet we've  

got a little bit of everything we planted this  bed to have really of course the most interest  

in the summertime because that's the height of the  growing season so we're just going to walk through  

this bed there is a handful of shrubs that we use  and we just repeat them all the way down through  

the bank so that is an idea if you've got a big  space pick maybe five plants that you really love  

and just use that same plant in a pattern for the  whole length of that bed it makes a huge impact  

from a distance so one of the first things you're  going to notice of course are the supertunia Vista  

bubble gums if you remember back to the video I  showed you where we took hanging baskets and I  

took it out of the hanging basket and planted it  directly in the ground we do this every year I  

think a couple years we haven't done the bubble  gums but I just am a sucker for the bubble gums  

because they are the most vigorous and they  they are huge massive impact so this is the  

one annual that is in this flower bed next we  have the kaleidoscope abelia and kaleidoscopes  

are in Evergreen so that is wonderful they have  Kaleidoscope has multiple colors on it and it  

will change throughout the growing season so this  is kind of the chameleon of a plant where as the  

season changes so does the color you can tell  that it's wider than it is tall and I don't know  

if Jerry can get in here I see a little friend do  you see that big huge praying mantis right there  

we love that little guy because he is going  to eat any kind of bad harmful insects that  

may be chewing on my plant but abelia's are  typically wider than they are tall and this  

is the time of year where the little blooms  begin to pop out at the going into the end  

of summer into fall lots of blooms on it  pollinators go nuts so kaleidoscope abelia  

next we have vintage Jade distillium vintage Jade  distillium is going to be an evergreen again it  

is wider than it is tall gorgeous glossy green  leaves I have never pruned these distilliums  

because with this bed I want that full coverage I  want it to be nice and big it will kind of have a  

little bit I don't want to say weeping but you  understand what I'm saying right so it's that  

wide low kind of open Habit to it distilliums will  in late winter going we're really late winter they  

will put Little Burgundy blooms on directly on the  stem but it is not something that you see from a  

big distance it's something you'd have to get up  close but again in the winter time this gives me  

wonderful structure between the distillium and the  abelias I've got a nice green presence year-round  

beautiful low maintenance nothing in this bed do  the Japanese beetles like praise the Lord so you  

can see like this abelia look how healthy and  happy this baby is it is quite and I say large  

right for an abelia this is a good size healthy  plant just really bulks up and I love it now  

the hydrangeas where you notice the petunias you  also notice the hydrangeas these are little limes  

little limes of course are Pinnacle hydrangeas  that means you know they're panicles because  

they have that kind of upside down ice cream cone  look to them as far as their blooms panicles love  

the Sun so nice you need a minimum of I would say  five to six hours of direct sunlight they bloom on  

New Growth every year and so in late winter going  into spring we prune this let me show you how much  

they grow because I think this is really important  um the cut from the spring is here so this whole  

thing is new see if I don't know if we can get in  there there's the cut right there and we have at  

least I would say two feet if not closer to three  feet of New Growth so they love to be pruned you  

only want to prune them though back by one third  of the total size because if you do any more than  

that one-third then your blooms will get very  floppy even though they've got nice big blooms  

on them we'll get rain they're not going to splay  open and be on the ground that's because down in  

there my stems are really really strong so no more  than one-third of your total hydrangea size next  

the big the beautiful this is Grand Cascade budlia  butterfly bush hummingbirds are tweaking above me  

because they're probably mad that I'm over here  Grand Cascade and this is not living up to its  

biggest its fullest potential because of the  Tree Line If This Were to get sun on all sides  

of it it would be huge Grand Cascade given its  name is a more of a weeping habit of a butterfly  

bush it is a beautiful nice soft lilac purple  color beautiful huge blooms on it pollinators  

go nuts over it every you know summer you have  lots of not only butterflies but honeybees and  

bumblebees and pollinators of all size and it's  still going strong in late summer when we have  

a lot of monarchs so the monarchs for us that we  see at the nursery tend to be later in the season  

and they love this Grand Cascade so we have that  all of these plants going down through this area  

and then there is one more they look a little bit  better over here so come down here let me show you  

one of the other shrubs that we have in here  the evergreen shrub are these fantastic Sunshine  

ligustrums we love Sunshine ligustrums because  they have this beautiful yellow chartreuse color  

to them they are an evergreen they have a soft  texture if you would think that they would be  

deciduous they're not and they just do wonderful  this is definitely a full sun plant if you get  

more shade it'll just turn green which is fine but  that's why they're called Sunshine ligustrums is  

because just that really bright pop of color and  up here it just looks fantastic from the sunshine  

ligustrum little lime your grand Cascade all of  this goes together so we have got a beautiful  

mix in this bed of Evergreens deciduous um some  you know the annuals in here different types as  

far as like interest in the season different  habits upright weeping more upright low wide  

so you're going for that mix and then the other  plants that we do have in here is taking them a  

little while to get going I think it's because  well I don't know why it is but these are quick  

fire hydrangeas so quick fires are this is the  Big Daddy right another panicle but you can tell  

that they have a much different Bloom on them than  say a limelight or that little lime they will turn  

that beautiful mauvy rose color for us they will  get nice and huge and this one is showing that  

have it as far as getting like nice and big so  I'm five two-ish and um it's about as tall as I am  

this is the biggest one but then the other two you  will see are smaller again it's not on irrigation  

to say that this bed is quote neglected is is an  understatement because we never water it we do  

try obviously we do prune and then in the late  winter we do try to fertilize we're not always  

the best about it so this whole fantastic flower  bed is just extremely low maintenance but gorgeous  

color lots of interest of course the more you  cut on your butterfly bushes and your hydrangeas  

because they bloom on New Growth you're going  to get more flowers on them so this is a really  

just a fun bed lots of Interest people love it  we love it because it's so easy to take care  

of they just gives you big bold colors for not  only the growing season and the summer but also  

has interest in the fall so hope you have found  this fun interesting and informative as always  

thanks so much for guarding this Creekside you  all have a great day we'll see in the next video