🍃🌳🍃Garden Design Tips for New Gardeners // Linda Vater

[Music] [Applause] [Music] do well i told stuart that this is the time of year where you can probably expect me to whine at the beginning of every video about how hot and humid it is because definitely summer has arrived in the south if you're in the south please let me know if it's arrived there because it is steamy out here and probably half the time my sunglasses kind of steam up so i'll probably i'll probably take those off okay my question for you today is the one i'm going to answer myself in this video if you could do something different in your own garden what would it be if you were starting all over again how would you do things differently so that's my question of the day make sure to answer below make sure to put your zone so other people can respond and you guys recently have given me so much valuable information i need to do one video on just uh of follower responses and great tips that you guys have given me that i'm executing in my own garden somebody today gave a great tip on mosquitoes that i'll share later so today it's about if i did things differently what what i do differently in my own garden so this is going to be kind of a stream of consciousness video i'm going to just walk around in the backyard today maybe i'll do the front yard on another day it's a little bit breezy today and the light is a little bit harsh so just bear with stuart and myself um i think in some respects i don't i can't say i want to be kind to my former new gardening ignorant self because when i started gardening i really didn't know anything and so i think to a certain extent we have to go through the learning process both in design and in horticulture to get to where we ultimately want to be so i'm going to be kind to my former self my 30 some years ago self and saying she did the best she could uh but i i read a lot but not only have certain things changed in terms of my aesthetics and my preferences but also because i've learned a lot of things over time and also because there's been climactic changes weather changes and weather extremes now that we have that we didn't for probably the first 25 years i gardened so that influences some of the changes that i would make so i'm going to start out with i think referencing probably what i talked about in one of my previous videos where i talk about my gravel deck area i probably would have done that at the very beginning last in that video i discussed how originally i had just a redwood deck surface area and how that began to read more suburbia to me than than really what was the vintage of my home so i probably just would have sidestepped that and i would have immediately gone to the gravel deck and using gravel extensively my love affair with gravel didn't begin till a little bit a little bit later in my gardening pilgrimage but obviously if i could flatten that curve a little bit i would have started using it earlier i think in some respects i i i would have done both more and less if that makes if that makes any sense i think the the biggest dissatisfaction i have with my garden right now and which is by the way something over which i have control and i am continually working towards and that is that i think my garden is too cluttered now sometimes i think that's okay because it is a hobby garden after all it's where i work on a lot of projects a lot of which are filmed so i i attribute lots of that clutter excess clutter to the fact that i'm always in the middle of a project but overall as an entire aesthetic harmonious aesthetic for example if i was getting ready to do a garden tour i would remove a lot of the clutter because i think it detracts from the beauty of of the hole one tip i would give any new gardener is do uh more of less i think sometimes we try to get maybe a little bit too much variety though definitely if you want to try something you just go for it but i think maybe i i think you can get better structure and a more unified feel if you use more of less plants that you know really perform for you both from a blooming perspective but also from an evergreen perspective so that would be kind of another another difference i would probably make i probably would have bumped what i call the bistro area out even further which means i would have i would have selected a tree so let me back up a little bit all of the redbuds in this area stuart if you don't mind just kind of doing a circle all of these redbuds that form a ceiling to my garden deck area and this japanese maple well i take that back not the japanese maple but all of the redbuds these were not these were not planted from the nursery these all were redbud trees that came up and i just started to really nurture them give them a lot of water and before i knew it i would say within four years they had really good structure and were beginning to assume the role that i wanted them to play which was as a ceiling and a canopy and to circumscribe this place because what they do is they kind of define this decking area so what would i do differently i would have probably selected at least this one another seedling that came up more in this direction so further to the north so that this bistro area could have been even larger right now i think it feels a little bit cramped so that is that is one difference that i probably would have made now in my defense i didn't do that at the time because stuart if you'll show that stump and accolades to stuart whose camerawork is always brilliant that was the only thing growing in my backyard when i started the garden so that was a full grown mature rather large tree and at that time i didn't see i didn't i couldn't look forward into time to know what would happen so that's one change i would make i would make this area larger less cramped and probably have a little bit more room for that type of hobby gardening that i like and and what i mean by hobby gardening is i like i have my my boxwood theater and i have um my topiary theater where they all congregate together that's a great design tip to congregate like with like instead of in some cases spreading them all around your garden that is a great way to have impact and to also make your garden look a little less cluttered so i love my little geranium theater here this year and i would have given myself a little bit more room i think for those types of of container gardens i'm getting ready to to talk in an igtv chat with my friend klaus dalby by the time you see this we will have already done so and i hope you can join us because that's something that i find scandinavian garners and klaus in particular do brilliantly is their congregation of container uh container plantings that just really are it's almost like painting the way they do it impressionist painting the gradations of color how they do it is just amazing and i might i might like a little bit more room to play with that kind of thing so that said that's kind of one change i would make i didn't add lots of evergreen structure until later on in terms of boxwood balls and things and i would have done that immediately at the outset and i probably would have added a little bit more evergreen structure with hollies and maybe even some arborvitaes initially so that it didn't look like an add-on that it looked like it was part of the original design some of you have asked did i start out with a design and then execute the design and no i didn't it just kind of happened organically over time i i would say this uh because it's it's definitely been alert been a learning curve and i still don't really consider myself a real gardener just kind of a i'm just a learn as i go gardener but i would say that i kind of intuitively had an eye for composition to begin with and what should go where maybe scale i used to in in college and in high school i worked in a gift shop where i did lots of display design and i think i learned about composition at that point and i think that compositional education in a different form helped me in that respect when i started to design my garden so i could kind of intuit something a visual weight needed to go here something a visual weight needed to go there that type of thing another thing that i might have changed is some of the plants that i used originally i started out with some rather large multi-trunk river birch trees and over time i thought they were good plants for oklahoma over time i realized that no they really they really weren't they got decimated and i was continually having to replace things and i still have to which tells me that no matter how vigilant and and how mindful you are at the beginning of your design you never know how things are going to change because gardeners are very dynamic things and i think i need to be less resistant to change and more accepting of things that i need to do over time so that that would be something something else i would do i would have and i would have initially a lot of you i showed in my video yesterday what this looks like inside this is servants quarters that we later kind of recreated to be an office slash studio i use it for lots of shooting now it's wonderful i kind of office out of it to a certain degree it's got a wood-burning fireplace in it i love it and i probably would have at the very beginning i would have i i have would have really arm wrestled with my husband to see who could get this garden who could get this space because we both wanted it and then my boys grew up and they wanted it to as kind of a teenage hangout so uh ideally if i had been able to monopolize it at the very beginning i would have made it very much more gardeny from the outset but that wasn't an option because other people do do live at my house a lot of you have asked has this always been lots of garden where did my kids play when they were small well they played back here and it was not there used to be a lot more grass back here and a lot less flower bed and in fact stuart if you will show that garden bench over by all of the hydrangeas that used to be the the garden bench that hubs and i sat on when we would watch our kids play and do their power ranger moves and and just watch them play in the evening so that has great that spot has great sentimental value to me and i'm looking at it now and because the tree behind it has died in its entirety i'm thinking that spot is getting overgrown it needs to be changed in some fashion and i'm really having a hard time as i just talked about how i need to be less resistant to change i'm having a hard time rethinking that spot because it has such great sentimental value to me so give me your ideas of how i could retain that sentimental value and nevertheless it used to be far shadier than it is now so that kind of needs to be transformed but in the past yes there was a lot more grass here i would have initially done more soft scaping than i did now i think there's a good balance between what i call soft hardscape and lush landscape most of everything you see here in terms of the brick and the gravel all of that was added over time i would have probably added more of it initially and but i what i i i did better when i knew better and i finally knew better and i think for me it's turned out to be a really good a really good solution and i'm thrilled when i see how many of you in your gardens are using it to solve your own problems one thing that was really important to me that i didn't learn until years later and and you might see if this applies to your own gardens or not because i think it's really key to whether or not your garden looks unified and whether or not it looks cluttered and that is you'll notice that every one thing relates to every other thing and the bed line i i'm going to make stuart stewart would you do like a pirouette and do a complete 360 maybe starting starting at any point and show that the entire bed line is connected it doesn't start and stop anywhere it's completely connected from the north side coming through to the hydra what i think of as the hydrangea border all the way around in front of the garden bench south to the gravel dining deck and then it doesn't stop it continues it's one smooth line that continues in front of the studio continues all the way around and then it meets up and connects back in front of the viburnum and the wajila so it's one continuous line that doesn't look truncated like it's been just cut off every one space relates to every other space and you'll notice that the border here then comes back and connects into the pathway that comes into the protege now this is right now um i guess where i'm having kind of an existential crisis because some real changes need to come to the protege because as glorious as it is and as beautiful as it is the boxwood hedge is just really getting too large to do uh to do the type of vegetable gardening that i want to do and i'm going to have to modify it and you guys have given me some great recommendations i would prefer even more recommendations um and it's actually a question that i'm tackling right now in the book that i'm writing is how i can stay true to my vision of it and my love of it and the history of it be respectful to the history of it but make some changes over time if i had known i was going to be here gardening in the same spot for 30 years and and if i knew back then 30 years ago that i was going to get older and that with getting older would come some physical limitations then i would definitely have given myself more room to navigate i would have made paths wider i would have probably used less boxwood and more organic but different kinds of framing for the hedge itself and to circumscribe the four quadrants i would have just overall given myself more space i think because when you are working in cramped quarters and you're having to contort yourself in all sorts of different ways and twist in all sorts of different ways that's when you hurt your back or that's when you throw your shoulder out and that's not a consideration when you're in your early 30s but when you're my age it becomes a consideration and i really i i would have done that at the outset so if you're in your 30s and you're just starting a garden uh don't be a denier of reality like i was don't live in denial you too believe it or not are going to get old and you're going to wish you had more space to navigate so that is one thing i probably would have done differently uh a lot of things that i wanted to change i've changed i talked earlier this is one change i would have made but again i didn't know so i did the best i could now i would have put this viburnum over there in the corner so it would ground that space and fill that corner i didn't because there used to be a blue atlas cedar over there that died but if i could tweak my nose and make magic happen i would reposition that over into that corner because i think even though it's a brilliant focal point to me from a design standpoint it would look much better over in the corner than it does now one thing i would definitely do is i i would have added at the beginning a lot more blooming shrubs and less perennials i've learned that over time and that is not just informed by the fact that they're lower maintenance but it's also that i find them more beautiful and they give more of that kind of even when i cut flowers and things i can get cut flowers even perennials i can get those at my florist or at my grocery store even what i can't get is the stuff that makes my arrangements look gardeny and those are things like the shrubs where you can force branches you can cut hydrangea branches you can cut really pretty much any kind of loose gardeny looking foliage so that it so that your arrangements don't have that kind of formulaic look that ftd look they just look more natural so from the outset i would have planted more blooming shrubs and i definitely i can't say this emphatically enough if i start a new garden and believe it or not i'm i am contemplating it i am i am really contemplating leaving this garden and starting another one if i did that i would have yeah stewart's going no um but if i did that i would have i would definitely have more natives i would definitely have more native doppelgangers that give the look that i want but that are natives sadly as much as i love my boxwood i would rely less heavily on boxwood because i live in constant fear of boxwood blight and caterpillar moth and i would look for different plants that could serve as evergreen doppelgangers and not rely so heavily on boxwood um what things would i repeat would i definitely do again i definitely would do again the concept of garden rooms that is something i don't often pat myself on the back but i will about that i knew instinctively that i kind of wanted garden rooms from the very beginning and this was the very it's kind of a no-brainer because it's behind the studio but intuitively i thought i want this to be a garden room and i would definitely continue with that i would have i would divide spaces into garden rooms according to function and thinking about how they could morph and transform and evolve over time to meet my changing needs so as my garden changed from when my boys were little there was lots of grassy room for them to play and things um i would have thought at the beginning of how that could evolve over time as it happens it happened naturally but now i would have thought about that i would have thought about that at the beginning um and probably also i would have at the beginning i would have been a lot more intentional with incorporating edibles into my landscapes as as ornamentals even in and of themselves i would have done i definitely would have done that i would have planted more of those and i would have figured out a way to incorporate more vegetables trees i would love love to have some fruit trees my sister has an orchard and keeps bees i'm probably i'm always going to probably be a city dweller i'm never going to probably have the space to do that kind of gardening but there are ways i think i could incorporate it into my garden lifestyle and definitely i'll end on this note the biggest change i would have made is i would have figured out a way even if i had to have sold my mother or one of my children i would have figured out a way to have a greenhouse in my beginning landscape and i didn't realize how important that would be to me both personally and and professionally and aesthetically [Music] as i do now so if i knew if i my younger self knew what my older wiser self knows now i definitely would have made that a priority and figured out a way to incorporate it at the very beginning because you can't just drop in a greenhouse anywhere without ruining or completely removing a good bit of your landscape so that is definitely something that i would change from i would change at the very beginning i would have made it a centerpiece of my design so those are just a few things that i would have done differently you guys might have some comments too some of you have known how my garden has evolved over time if you were me what things would you have done differently i really value your input you guys i it's very selfish that i ask you these questions because i get so much good feedback as does everybody else when you respond so thank you for kind of going down this um traveling throughout my garden's history i i enjoyed it and it helps me build new neural pathways as i think about the possibility of maybe starting a new garden in my future so for those of you who hung in there this is my little fashion epilogue for today my sunglasses are my favorite aviator ray-bans i'll put a link below here are those marvelous earrings i've got them on again today i love them so much and i again i promise i'm doing a whole video about that here before too long my shirt is talbots and it was a thrift store find i always when i go to thrift stores i look for short sleeve shirts with a great collar because i like to put the collar up and especially in neutral colors so there's a tip i especially love sleeveless that's hard for me to say sleeveless shirts because i can wear them under jackets under sweaters and they don't have all the bulkiness of long-sleeved shirts so there's just something that i have learned through time a secret of adulthood my britches are the same ones i had on yesterday these are those made well pants that remind me of i dream of jeannie they are so so comfortable and my boots are two-tone hunters and i get hunter boots from a variety of different places these i got off of ebay but i will get them off of amazon all sorts of different places and yes i have a ton i have a ton of boots in fact sometimes i'm going to do a video just on my just on my inventory of boots but i will say this in my defense uh i wear every single pair of them and i wear them a lot and i wear them year-round stewart is nodding his head so they're not something that just takes up space in my closet i really do wear them so there are my tips for today if you guys haven't watched yesterday's video you might want to watch it because there i talk about other questions you have related to my lipstick and things like that that most people are not interested but if you're interested in those little tidbits then watch my faq video from yesterday

Channel: Linda Vater

Views: 94,620

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

Id: o3RcrBjPYco

Length: 27min 2sec (1622 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 12 2021