✂️🍃✂️ My Top Garden Design Tip for New Gardeners‼️ || Linda Vater

[Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] well i am so glad to see the sun aren't you stuart we have not had reliable sun this spring and i don't know what that's all about but i hear you guys are having crazy weather all over the world so if your weather has been especially wonky put where you are and what your weather has been like in the comments below i'm really finding it fascinating a lot of you down under have been telling me about it and i just think it's very interesting so today is a topic that i've wanted to talk about for a long time and it's about the value of negative space in your garden and i'm going to show you how i achieve it now i think that creating negative space is the most valuable thing that you can do and it it is one of the things that gives my garden i think it's very distinct signature look the way i prune things the way i open up canopies to shrubs and trees and basically how i let the landscape kind of breathe by creating more negative space and i'll show you some more examples of that as we go through the landscape but i'm going to start out with a couple of things number one this is a blatant sales pitch but nevertheless it's it's very sincere you guys i love my baskets that i've been selling on qvc more than i can tell you they they're wonderful so i keep the small one by my back door with my garden gloves and my pruners and stuff and then i keep another one here just for weeding it's great i wash my greens in it before i even bring them inside it's really valuable i'll put links to those below so now let's come over here and i want to show you um some examples of negative space and i'm sorry that the light is is going to be kind of kind of harsh on some occasions but nevertheless we're so glad to see it that i'm not going to complain now you'll notice that i have on a back brace because interestingly for me i find that pruning and kind of crawling around in awkward situations where my body is at strange angles is more uh deleterious to my back than lifting something really heavy so i am going to wear one of these back braces and i'll put the link below now i started out and we're going to try to find uh the youtube that i did i believe it was last year on pruning up my viburnum to open up the canopy below you know this is one of my favorite things to do and i've started to do it here you can see my pile of debris i'm going to finish this up later you can see all of those suckers down in there that need to be removed let me go back in there i might clip a couple of them and you can kind of see the impact that it makes as soon as they're removed i get more definition to this plant to the viburnum it also helps i think with mosquito control because it's not quite so lush and there's just not quite as many places for them to hide but you can see how by just pruning out some of these lower branches that aren't necessary and opening up and exposing all of these trunks to the viburnum it uncovers the beauty of the trunks and the limbs themselves in addition to really opening up not only the space of the viburnum but what you see surrounding the viburnum so once i remove all of this debris you'll be able to see this pot so much better you'll be able to see the other specimen plantings the use and things that i have planted around them so i will continue with this pruning i kind of like the way that arches over the bird bath so i'm going to leave that one there and i've also found i think that anecdotally i think it also improves bloom the next year so i am creating negative space in here by some very what i think of as artistic pruning and i'm going to complete that later but that gives you an idea of how it opens up this space again we're going to try to find the video that i did last year where i did this in its entirety from top to bottom now here's another example i'm not doing a lot of pruning on my redbud trees right now because it needs to have as much foliage to photosynthesize as possible to feed the tree nevertheless you can see hanging low or a couple of branches that are hanging right on my fence now those i am going to remove once i have a ladder or someone taller than myself to help me but those that are hanging down low and projecting downward i'm going to remove those when i remove that weight it will elevate this branch take less stress or take a reduce the amount of stress due to weight on this branch it will elevate and it will open up that area in between so i'll get a little bit more sky and a little bit more room and again a little bit more negative space that will be really really valuable in this area especially as i remove all of this debris afterwards so let me give you another idea because it's not just pruning up shrubs alone you may recall that last year hi stuart's mom um or last year last week i opened up the canopy of this gold dust this akuba japonica in here i still need to clean that up a little bit but you can see the tremendous difference it makes and it also makes i think the garden feel more tailored and less jungle like and when there is really aggressive growth after a rain or um oh a very wet rainy period i think that's very helpful especially when things start getting buggy okay so let's come this way it is saturday so they'll be in a pretty day so there'll be lots of people out doing lots of things now here is here is a perfect example of something that needs to be done i do love this all that glitters viburnum but notice how so many of the branches have started hanging low and i can't see the beautiful spherical form of the box went underneath you can see that from both directions so what i'm going to do is slowly expose that form by clipping off parts of this viburnum and i start out rather conservatively and then i've got lots of larkspur by the way this is larkspur you guys that self seeds here every year ever so beautifully but i want to expose the form because one thing i love about my garden is all the clipped boxwood balls but if you can't see them it kind of defeats the purpose of having them and so slowly but surely i am in fact this one i'm going to take off all the way i probably needed my bigger pruners for this but where there's a will there's a way i want to show you what it looks like and i am one willful gardener you can already see stuart can you see that how i'm immediately starting to really uncover the beautiful form of this boxwood and now i've really missed being able to see it from my kitchen window especially since i lost some of my boxwood topiaries so i'm creating negative space empty space around this boxwood so that you can see it and it will give so much more of a tailored look to my garden so there is another example of this and i'm also going to remove and i will certainly do more of this later i won't make you guys hang in there with me for the entire process but i'm also going to cut away some of the deutscia that is encroaching on it from the other side so this is not only to beautify this space but it's also to ensure that my boxwood continues to remain healthy and doesn't suffer from light competition from things that are also growing in the area so all of this over here is dutsia then i'm not once my lark spur is finished blooming i'm really not too sad to see it go because it will then expose this form that much more not only the big guy here but also the little boxwood ball next to it that also kind of needs a little bit of exposure because who wants to live in the dark and it will also create nice pretty shadows over time that i will find really compelling so that's another example of creating negative space around a form so that you can appreciate the value of that plant in all of its architectural glory now this is free you guys i think some of the most statement making things that i do in my garden is just by removing stuff it's by what i'm editing out not what i'm adding back in when i first started to do consulting i think generally the first thing i would do when i would help someone with their landscape and i only really worked on small garden spaces is i would look to see what could be removed to ex to expose really showcase the beauty of what remained and i think that's true in our gardens it's true in our homes for that matter it's probably true in life so look how much more beautiful that is especially if you look at it from this angle because this is what i will see looking out my kitchen window i now can see how beautiful that boxwood ball looks in contrast to all the billowy blousiness of the hydrangeas and even the viburnum and the larkspur so i'll do a little bit more on this branch here to remove some of its density but i'll do that later so now let's move on to another example again i can't say it enough all i am doing is removing things to improve the appearance of the garden so this is an interesting observation i made the other day stewart if you don't mind showing back into the protege and how beautiful it looks right now and i was my husband and i were talking about this yesterday i used to have an arbor some of you probably recall there was an arbor covered in roses that went in between those posts and into the protege now it gave me a great quality of verticality there i enjoyed it for years but now i love the open expansiveness of the space and how by again removing it and creating more negative space the perception of my garden is that it is so much larger so much more open with so much better air circulation and it's also exp has exposed really beautiful sight lines that prior to the removal of that arbor you couldn't appreciate so now i can look directly back there at the dove coat i can look at all of those uh whimsical allium ambassadors in there i can really appreciate the entirety of the protege in a way i couldn't before okay here is another area that every year i work on so this is a potted space i typically always have containers over here in this this little tiny patio that i laid myself years ago that's right in front of the studio so i've got a pot here this is one of my favorite pots it's a latticework concrete container but you can't see it because so much of this has grown around the base a lot of these things went to seed and they come up through the gravel now some of it i want to keep i love the larkspur i love this veronica here but i'm not really fond of whatever this sedum is i like it in some places but i don't necessarily like it here so let's get kind of a very good before picture of what this looks like now and it's very pretty i'm not denying that it's it's it's not pretty but look at how much tidier and more beautiful this space looks in my opinion anyway remember gardening is a subjective art form and it's all about what trips your own personal trigger so if you like these here then by all means you keep it me i really want to expose that pot and help this area breathe a little bit better literally by creating space more air circulation will get in here but also breathe in from a design standpoint by giving everything more room to be appreciated then i'll just remove everything underneath i might even remove a little bit of the low hanging geranium and i can tidy this up much more tailored i think the lines are much more crisp and eventually after all of this veronica has bloomed and all of the larkspur has bloomed i will pull the larkspur out let some of it go to seed then i will pull it out eventually i will also cut back and really reduce the size and the the visual weight of all of veronica around the pot but can you see stuart do you see what i mean how that really opened it up i can appreciate the pot that much more it gives more air circulation it gets more room for this geranium to grow and i think it just makes the whole this this whole vignette look a little bit better again i'll probably do that on the back side you can see that there is more of this sedum growing on the back side of this pot and i'll probably cut it all the way back as well to expose that boxwood ball that's behind there the other thing is i can really cut back this sedum i need to check on what variety it is but i can cut it back very hard and it will not kill it and anybody who would want any of these starts happily can take it stick it in the ground and it will turn into new plants for them so i can create gifts for other stewart you might want to take some and take some to your mom and i've opened up this space dramatically i think okay here's one last example and i am going to get my long-handled pruners if you guys find this helpful please let me know because i consider it very much one of the most important signature touches in my garden again it's completely free and if you do this in your own garden send me a picture as an example of a before and after because some of these are really great before and after examples okay this white ditzia here bloomed ever so prettily with tiny white blossoms in the spring and then this fabulous oak leaf hydrangea is growing in the background now prune after bloom so i'm going to prune the deutscia after it has bloomed now is the perfect time to do that why because i want to reduce its size this can get huge and i also want to give some room around all of these hydrangeas these are white wedding hydrangeas all through here there is an incredible blush right there and there's a whole space in the back that's got more white wedding hydrangeas and i want to just make this look tidier so what i'm going to do is come in here with my long handled pruners and being careful not to cut any of the oak leaf hydrangea because i want it to stay there i'm just going to cut back lots of this deutscia now there have been times when i've cut this this deutscia back by oh gosh as much as two-thirds in the spring because it just got so large and i anticipate that it's going to continue to get very very large after all of the rain we've had and this cool spring i'm going to do that to this entire plant and i know that right now it will kind of expose look there's some of that virginia creeper that has kind of insinuated its way into that plant and i don't like it so this is going to make some cuts that are going to be a little bit woody at the outset but i don't mind that because within a matter of days all of this is going to kind of regrow put out some pretty new green foliage that doesn't have any of this brown on it from where the flowers have faded so you can see here that by removing all of this it improves not only the appearance of the white wedding hydrangeas and this spice bush which will also bloom in white eventually in the foreground but it will also expose and improve the appearance of all of those oak leaf hydrangeas in the background plus it's extremely cathartic and if you really feel like your life is out of control then you can come out here and you can do some really aggressive pruning and create some negative space so hopefully that was instructed that you guys can see the value of it the common sense of it and the fact that you can get really extreme and dramatic results by doing something and not adding one penny to your landscape other than just a little bit of sweat labor so i'm going to finish this you guys have a great weekend well as promised here is your fashion epilogue for today my boots are hunter boots i got them off of ebay years ago and i've worn them for years my jeans are calvin klein's high-waisted jeans i got these at nordstrom rack not too long ago the first pair of jeans i've bought in 100 years i think and my shirt is club monaco that i got at goodwill i really like starched pressed cotton shirts and linen shirts and i usually wear them with the collar popped up partly to protect my son my neck from getting too much sun and from the back of my neck getting sunburned plus i just like the look and my earrings came from a store in salida colorado called currants and sadly i don't think that store's open anymore another accessory that i'm going to tell you about today because i'm getting ready to put it on is my back brace and i will put a link below to this one or one that is similar this is by mueller and i believe i told you a while ago that i kind of hurt my back and so today i'm gonna do some pruning for me uh i actually hurt my back more pruning than i do lifting so this is my last accessory for you guys and there's your little fashion epilogue for today

Channel: Linda Vater

Views: 84,640

Rating: 4.91995 out of 5

Keywords: potagerblog, Linda Vader, garden life, garden designer, garden landscape design, garden design, garden media, gardening, Linda Vater, southern gardening, thrifting, Garden Answer, boxwood, topiary, garden tour, evergreens, favorite plants, garden center, Oklahoma gardening, garden, lifestyle tips, garden lifestyle, Garden design, Pruning, Pruning tips, Negative space in gardens, Viburnum

Id: KGhLCY2T-TY

Length: 24min 23sec (1463 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021