🪴🌷🪴 BEFORE & AFTER Container Garden || Linda Vater

[Music] well you guys it is a brisk and chilly morning we've still got a breeze and i'll apologize in advance because lots of chainsaw activity is still going on this weekend because of all the storm damage so back to the topic at hand i'm getting ready to do a makeover on this corner and all of these container plantings it looks a little bit different every year based on kind of what my color palette is how many plants i may have lost over the winter or what plants i want to highlight so primarily this year i'm really into geraniums both centered geraniums and pellergoniums and then i did lose as you guys know i did lose some evergreens in these big pots so i'm going to tell you what my strategy is for a couple of things in terms of what plants i'm going to be putting in these planters but also let's start out with a big question that i think a lot of new gardeners have and even experienced gardeners have and that is the question of do you use all new soil when you're planting new things or can you reuse some of the old soil so number one this pot was filled all the way to the bottom and as always you guys i put debris at the bottom okay now but it also had some old dirt in it so what i did was take that old dirt out that had been in there for a while and stuart you will if you will very carefully turn around and show people that what i do is i just throw that old dirt and this this previously used dirt is really not a very bad quality nevertheless i put the old dirt of whatever quality onto a tarp like this and then what i do is i separate and by the way you never want to reuse any kind of soil that had a diseased plant in it so if there was a plant in it that was very diseased or just riddled with spider mite or something of that nature then discard that soil in its entirety but what we're going to do here is kind of amend and supplement the old soil to get it looking good again so i'm going to remove any sections that are just really root bound in here i've got some old bulbs that i had planted that rotted in our very very bad winter i'm going to kind of just separate that any other kinds of well let's just say organic material that doesn't look of good quality like that i'm going to separate that out now if it's not diseased what i could do is put this at the bottom very bottom of another pot as part of my theory of just using garden debris to fill up volume at the bottom of the container but this here i separate out this stuff and it doesn't look too bad and i've already done this on the soil i already have in this big grounding pot and stewart if you'll show it's one of two there's another one over there so this area is very kind of disrupted right now so what do i do then well i'm going to mix about 50 the old dirt with 50 new potting soil and this is all brand new stuff i have in here and this is why it's good to work on one of these tarps or shower curtains i use it as a tarp that you get at the dollar store so i'm going to kind of mix this i might do it a little bit less than 50 50 because the quality of what i took out was still pretty good there's some more of that so see how good nice and fluffy that is and by the way it's helpful when you're getting out the compressed soil in a container i find one of these hand picks really handy you can kind of just chop it up and then remove it and put it on the tarp okay so at this point i'm going to change my philosophy of what i normally do over the years i have had a number of different things in here but primarily the one that had the most longevity was i had two huge boxwoods in here they were in here for probably a dozen years 15 years and finally they just kind of started to show their wear and tear they kind of lost their form and so what i did was remove those and then you guys probably saw me planting some beautiful southern living southern living oakland hollies in here which were in here for two to three years they would have done just fine if we hadn't had that minus 13 arctic blast now as a rule when you're planting something in a container you want it to be cold hardy to two zones below what you are so i'm in 7b so ideally i would plant things in containers that were hardy down to zone five now do i kind of cheat on that a little bit of course i do and most of the time i have good success but this year because it was just so harsh i'm going to do something that's a little bit different i'm not going to come in here with fully mature specimens like i have before that were already oh three to four to five feet tall which came in really large container size definitely three four gallon or more i'm going to start out with smaller varieties this time because they'll have a better chance of really growing in place and maturing in place and adapting a little bit better so i've got some baby gem boxwoods from southern living i'm going to put those in here and as always i want to make sure that i really break up that root ball so it doesn't grow in a circle this is something i've shown you guys before and what this does is encourage this root ball to not only not grow in a circle but it will encourage the generation of new tinier feeder roots that will then easily expand out into the soil and i'm pretty aggressive about doing this you guys it's still spring i would not do this in the dead of summer because that would probably traumatize this plant too much but in the spring it will have time to recover and in the long run it's definitely going to be better for it the other thing is i can afford to get by with a smaller plant because everything around it is pretty mature so i don't think it will look out of scale so i'm going to plant this so that the where it meets the root ball is about level with the pot and i'm going to add a little bit of osmocote this is a slow release fertilizer i'll put a link below i'm just going to add some of that and in pots i am not nearly so particular about using an organic fertilizer or not okay so then what i'm going to do is add a little bit of this osmocote to my new soil now i'm going to just take some of this soil this is very much a how-to you guys how to reuse previously used soil how to think about what you're going to put in your containers and how to beautifully make over an existing space and typically of course you want to make sure that good morning mr bird you want to make sure that you have the profile the best looking profile and then over time if it looks like it's starting to not grow evenly then i will torque this pot it's heavy but that's it's not that difficult to rotate it so that it gets even light on all sides okay so there's that pot that didn't take any time at all and i will do the other one a little bit later okay now stuart i'm going to ask you to step back and i'm going to we're working in tight quarters here you guys now i'm going to replant this pot now this is one of my favorite ways to explain an assembly and a good looking grouping of container plantings and that's what i call my kind of fairy tale uh method of pot congregation number one i've got my papa bear pot then i have a mama bear pot and then i may have more or less of baby bear pots that way you know that they will pretty much all go together in terms of height which will create good layering they are all in the same family for the most part in terms of material and style and that way you can easily put together a grouping of pots that will be very visually appealing overall and harmonious with the garden okay so i've done the same thing here with this pot i already had some soil in it that i had done in a 50 50 blend i'm going to add a little bit of osmocote to this and now this year since it helps me when i'm designing my containers to think about kind of what my thematic is and since my thematic this year is going to be geraniums then that kind of helps me think through what i want to put into the containers probably one of my favorite summer colors to work with is this wonderful dark pink dark and light pink combo these are angel wing begonias and they just really look beautiful and i love this color so that's going to be kind of my color inspiration now i already did one of geraniums yesterday now right now this looks lanky and kind of scruffy but i promise you with some feeding and some warmer temperatures this is going to get huge these are all pellergoniums or geraniums that i over wintered in the greenhouse brought them back out they're very much alive it's that beautiful color that i like and then i've added some scented geraniums at the base so i will continue to kind of keep this pinched so it fills out and it really will be beautiful in very short order on the other side i've got some golden oregano let's do it if you can show right there i've got some golden oregano that will spill out over this side it looks a little scruffy now but with some feeding and some warm temperatures it'll be just fine i can't wait to show it to you after it's already matured okay so back to this pot so i'm going to put in some really gorgeous scented geraniums now some of these are very tall and kind of lanky and i'm going to show you what i'm going to do to address that so and i'm going to have to go back my friend monica is my source for scented geraniums i'm going to put a link to her website below if you're local in the area she would be a good source you often ask me where you can get scented geraniums and she is my source so this is in a container of just a gallon size and what i'm wanting to do is get some verticality to this container so i'm going to plant this one and i believe that one and then i'll show you how i'm going to support them so i'm going to take this out of its container now i could leave it in its container this is just this is what you want you guys this is perfectly grown but see how it's not root bound i don't even have to break up that root ball because it will just adapt to this soil just beautifully without me doing anything to it okay now you stay there for a minute behave yourself i've got another one over here that is also very tall okay i'm loving the way this looks already now this one is in a larger container and take it out of its pot i'm sorry this is taking so long you guys but hopefully you always want to know the details of how things come together okay so i'm going to put this one in here as well make this guy cooperate let's see do i want this i think that's what i want to do these guys are going to have to get and grow in place for them to do exactly what i want them to do but i have a feeling that they will cooperate because here's going to be my trick now i really what i really wanted was another metal two tour like that one because i've got one there and i've got one here over here stuart but i didn't have any and i wanted to go ahead and get these planted so what i'm going to do my philosophy of just using what i already have is i cut three since i had to cut back so many nandina canes i cut three nandina canes and these are gonna be my support so i'm gonna put those in place to make these guys stand up and fly right and what i do is i kind of get them in place and then later i'll torque them i'll torture them a little bit to get them exactly where i want them to be now that is supporting them at least temporarily like that until i get my soil in again this is my 50 50 blend it's always helpful to have what i call a measle plus strategy where you have everything that you need right at hand now do i always do that heck no stewart's laughing because he knows how i rock and roll heck no but i said ideally so we're going to pretend like this is ideal okay so i'm going to get this in place oh my gosh i wish you guys could smell these geranians and i'll find out what type they are from monica and i will mark them and let you know i am ignorant about all of my different varieties i know i love them i know they all smell incredible but i'm working on becoming a connoisseur of scented geraniums let's put it that way okay i think that is going to be fabulous stewart if you could show people what it looks like i've broken off a couple of pieces and i do try to always save any of those pieces a lot of times i just give them back to monica and wherever i cut it's going to come out and be a lot bushier and these are kind of just a little bit lanky too because they've been in her greenhouse so i love the way this gives me height so now here's one other flourish i'm going to take this one out for right now that i'm going to do that i think will be really beautiful and then you guys i will finish finish planting the other pots in this congregation which is just a little bit more of the same and then tomorrow when i do my thrifting video i'll show you what it looks like and i'll also put lots of stills in the community tab if you're a facebook or if you're a youtube member i'll definitely do that for you guys now if you would use these scented geraniums in a different way if you grow them if you are really infatuated by geraniums this year like i am please let me know in the comments below i am going to do i'm hoping to do anyway time permitting something of what i call a geranium theater where i'm going to put lots of geraniums all together in one place now this is a beautiful pucarella from southern living i believe this one let's see which variety it is it's alabama sunrise i thought that's what it was so i'm going to take some of the soil off of this again this is just beautiful not compressed roots i'm only taking this dirt off so i can get it to fit in here and then i'm going to have this spill out over the edge and i think that is going to be gorgeous and that will hide some of the lankiness at the bottom i think i'm going to put a couple of these in you guys and you'll notice stewart if you don't mind panning over in that direction i showed you yesterday i believe one of my winners from the winter of of uh last year's that golden barberry stewart was looking at me like what are you gonna talk about where where am i supposed to go to the golden barberry and this as i look out my kitchen window this golden hookerella will be in the foreground of that golden barberry so i'll have a wonderful color echo and color repetition which i think will be spectacular do what oh yeah show them the viburnum you can't ever get enough of the viburnum stuart will tell you that is the most asked about plant in my garden i believe okay you guys i'm going to put my third pot of this in but first i want to tell you what else is i'm going to do here and then i'll close this out and then show you the end result of the makeover tomorrow so you're going to want to make sure to stay tuned so what else am i going to do i'm going to plant all of these angel wing begonias in this saucer planter in the front i've got a small cone baby gem southern living boxwood that i'm going to plant in here and that will repeat the glossiness of all of this and then something else i'm going to do which will be a whole different video and i'll show you how i do it you may recall from last year's videos that i had hanging baskets right here i think i'm going to do that again with one exception and that's that this year i'm going to use hanging baskets that are from my own qvc line so i will let you know exactly when my show will be on qvc where you can get all of the products but this is something else that's in the product line i've never been able to find hanging baskets this large in any of my regular places that i shop so and also in line with my mama bear papa bear baby bear they'll come in threes in different finishes these are large these are massive and they'll come in threes and i'm going to hang some of them from this tree and then you guys it gets this wonderful little what's called a romance card a little card from me to you that talks about my signature touches garden line so more deets to come thank you for helping me plant and do my work this morning um i can't wait to show you what it looks like when it's when it's all finished so i'm gonna finish up here and you guys have a great saturday

Channel: Linda Vater

Views: 225,061

Rating: 4.9029083 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, Geraniums, Pelargoniums, Container plantings

Id: 6U3zF0vTuY0

Length: 24min 8sec (1448 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 10 2021