Preparing the Shade Garden for Winter // Gardening with Creekside

as November comes to a close it is time to  revisit this beloved shade garden of mine   one more time for the year join me as I put  this bed to rest for the winter stay tuned hello friends welcome to Gardening with Creekside  I am jenny and today we are going to take one last   visit to my beloved shade bed shade garden for  the last time this year and we're going to go   ahead and put her to bed put her to sleep for the  wintertime we have been in this space really all   year-long from the early spring to summer to early  fall so forth and so on there are a few things   that I need to do really to prep this bed in order  that it will have a great winter and it will have   a great start to the next season come springtime  so I'm going to go through and just show you some   basic things that you can do to your flower beds  right now to really prep them and do get them off   to the best start for next spring here in North  Carolina remember we are in North Carolina zone 7b   it is towards the end of November and we have  had a couple of really heavy frost light freezes   that you can see have really zapped some of the  perennials and yet some of the shrubs are still   doing just fine like Frannie's hydrangea  back there still has green leaves on it   may not be until we get a really hard freeze  that she will start to lose all of her leaves   but we're going to go ahead I have the time today  and we're going to go ahead and get in here and   get started and get cleaning it up I'm going to  show you how do you deal with perennials that have   gotten too big and you need to remove them from  your space what are some things that you can do   to prevent bugs and insects from wintering over in  your garden and talk about composting and mulching   and how to prune back perennials all of those  great things that I think are some basics that   you can't overlook when going for your flower bed  and preparing them for the next growing season so   let's get started one of the first things you want  to do to prep your beds for winter is to get rid   of any summer annuals that you had whether they  were planted in the landscape or in a container   you remember we have been to these window  boxes this will be the third time now and this   particular window box I told you when I planted  it a couple of weeks ago a month ago whatever   it was for the fall that this was going to be  a really an experiment because I have no idea   how much sun this gets in the wintertime i knew  that it was probably going to be not as much as   it needed and sure enough, it doesn't get nearly  the amount of sun that it does in the summertime   what I'm going to do is some of y'all may fuss  at me and go what are you doing that for well I'm   doing it anyway it's my garden and I'm going  to do it so be the expert of your own garden   I'm going to go ahead and pull these plants  out of this window box and replace them with   something that's truly a shade loving and it's  a little tip for you a little hack I know this   doesn't get enough sun because one the red kale  has turned green so that's side number one if   it had enough sun it would still be that nice  vibrant burgundy-purple color but it's now green   and my violas which are more shape tolerant than  pansies are just not blooming like they should be   the window box that's above the kitchen sink  is doing much better because it does get   more sun so we are just going to go ahead and rip  these out now they really haven't even grown very   much root systems yet so it's not hard at all just  to go ahead and pull this out now you can see here   that the kale they were gallons anyway to  begin with yep not really any new growth at all   and I am going to with my ivy I think I'm going  to leave it in there because it is definitely   one that can really do a lot of shade so I'm just  going to leave it in there I'm going to take out the dusty miller it's actually one that's  been rooted really well and but it's going   to come out too it got really leggy on me so  this just kind of goes to show and prove that   you know garden by experimenting if you've  never done something before don't be scared   about doing it just doing it just go for  it and don't worry if i wanted to take   these plants and put them somewhere else   could obviously I would need to be much more   gentle than I am with them right now I'm not  going to save them I'm just going to go ahead and   remove them and move on from there now the hack  that I'm going to do is that I am going to use some perennials that are truly shade loving  and they are evergreens and we're going to put   them in here now you may say well you know  that's not really a hack well the hack is   I'm not going to officially plant them what i'm going to do is there are three  evergreen grasses these are from southern living   and I might actually have to move my ivy  around just a little bit we'll see so a one   we're gonna move this ivy out of the way a two and three on the end so what I'm gonna do  is I'm gonna go ahead and pull my iv   out and then I can replant it because it's not in the exact  spot that i want it to be in so   we're just gonna put it off to the side  for right now and get these guys replanted   and then so we've got the three grasses on the side that we're going to place in here like such and then I have these two gorgeous  they're called arborvitae ferns they're   not technically a fern but they certainly  look like it they have multiplied and grown   and are extremely happy they will be here all  winter long they're evergreens so pop that in   between the two grasses like such and we're just  going to bury the pots themselves we are not going   to take them out of the pots and plant them  into the ground, we are just going to leave the   pots in here bury the pots within the dirt so it  looks like they're planted but they're really not see ta-da there you go great little hack you  have evergreens that are in here come springtime   late winter when I am ready to redo this bed or i  want to use these perennials I can just plop them   right out of this window box they're still in  their containers they're insulated for the winter   they're very happy and it just gives me a nice  different greenery texture right here they truly   are shade-loving plants so it's a win-win  now come two weeks from now when it's time   to decorate for Christmas what I can do is come  back through here add some more greenery add some   red berries different things and then voila  you have a Christmas into winter new year's   possibly valentine's day who knows kind of display  simple little hack looks nice it looks better   then just having a bare window box right here um  that everybody can keep growing and be happy and   fantastic now again if you have any annuals  rather that are in your bed you need to take   that out remember I did that several weeks ago i  do have the blue container down here on the end   that I'll take the wheelbarrow down to we will  empty that and remove the pot for the winter   if you have ceramic glazed containers that are  not freeze frost resistant what you need to do   is empty them and you can take them and just  turn them upside down and store them somewhere   whether it's the back side of your house a shed  your garage under your deck wherever you have   a space that they can just kind of be out of  the way here in the south of course we never   get super super cold for extended amounts of  time so we don't really have to worry about   them like putting them in a kind of a heated  space as long as they're turned upside down   water doesn't hold into the bottom of them  then they're fine just out of sight out of   mind then come spring when you're ready for them  you can come grab them this is my beautiful blue   pot that did really well here this summer this  was a first addition for me I had not put in a   tall blue pot within the bed but I really really  loved it and I plan on doing it again next year oh jerry's coming home we have in here was the  oh gosh what was in here white browallia and then   white alyssum and this was - see this  is why you put your tags in here Jerry's home from work so we had the silver  falls dichondra which is in here but it really   got smothered by the white knight so white knight  is that beautiful alyssum and then the endless   flirtation browallia really super pretty loved  it but you can tell that the frost has gotten it   it is zapped and so it is  time to go well look at that one root system took out the whole entire  plant the silver falls though I have noticed   it will I guess which is a good thing and  a bad thing depending on how you look at it   but it will root on the ground if it's left on  the ground for an extended amount of time it's   a good thing because it'll make a great ground  cover but also you have to look at it as to make   sure you get the roots so that it doesn't decide  to become pesky and spread itself everywhere so make sure you get all of your  roots out then we're just going to   heft we'll see how heavy this thing is  out of here, it's not too terribly bad oh my goodness it just won't  come out oh my word y'all okay good night folks so it is important to make  sure that you get all of your dirt soil out   of your containers, I always tell y'all to always  always always make sure you empty your containers   completely because even though the original plants  came out easily there were roots all the way down   this was at the very bottom of the pot and there  were roots all the way down there you don't want   to try to recycle your soil from year to year it  is just not worth it, your plants will not do as   well because there are roots all throughout there  if you've had a great long vigorous growing season   there could be pests hanging out in  there they could have laid their eggs   if you had any sort of you know disease or virus  issue that is in the soil so clean out your soil   take it another one step further go ahead and  wash out your pots put them away for the winter   it just makes your life easier and better in the  long-run and you're going to get better healthier   happier plants clean out your pots my next big  main focus of what I'm going to do in this bed   is that I'm going to cut back all of the  perennials that have already been zapped   or are close to being finished for the season as  far as their foliage these sticks were gorgeous   hostas so they have already of course been zapped  but I do have some hostas that still have some   green to them but the tips have been gone ahead  and hit by the frost freeze I'm going to go ahead   and just cut all those back this is my gorgeous  holly fern I say it's Annette's holly fern because   it came from my friend Annette in Texas we were  visiting and I took a clump of her holly fern home   with me so that I could have a little a little bit  of Annette with me here in North Carolina she is   great she's an evergreen she will be beautiful I'm  going to leave her all of the perennials hostas   the sun king spikenard back there that looks like  these brown sticks all of that is going to get cut   back to the ground that's what I'm going to focus  on now and then we'll move on to the next thing in this bed, I have two lenten roses or hellebore  people is the technical term here in the south   we just call them lenten roses this sweet thing  is probably just a little confused with you know   it's 2020 so whatever but she is blooming now  typically they do not bloom until after Christmas   like January February so it is November she's a  little confused care for lenten roses one we love   them because they are deer resistant nice really  tough hard leaves they are evergreen so even when   it's not blooming all winter long you will still  have this great foliage on it they are low growing   so they do great kind of in the front middle of  the bed depending on how you have it organized   the old varieties will naturalize meaning that  they will naturally spread the newer hybrids like   the two that i have do not spread nearly as much  as the old timey ones this is a gorgeous color   i want to say this is i think i have my tag yes  i do see this is why another little tip for you   when you're planting your perennials go-ahead  and take your tag and plant it near like right at   the base of the plant so this is Helleborus  mahogany snow sometimes I lose the tags like   they're in there but they get buried and lost but  I found this one I do this with all my hostas my   any kind of perennial i plant i'll always stick  my tag deep down in the hole with just the little   tip sticking out so because I don't remember all  the time what they are, now care for lenten roses   they are super super easy to take care of what  I'm going to do right now is just go around the   outside of it and get rid of the old foliage  that way it just cleans it up i can get under   there and pull all the leaves out when i want to  come back and re-mulch in a little while the new   mulch can come up next to it and this is where  all the - this is where the action is happening so   we're going to clean up around the edges and just  take your good pair of clippers and clip your stem   as far back as you can don't just take the  tip off because then you'll have a stalk there   go as far back as you can for example like take  all of that off that's what you want to have off   and then just go around the plant cleaning it up  you'll be amazed at the difference that it makes see easy as that clean it up you'll  notice that I did take some stalks   out of the center that was because they were just  looking really ratty and looking like ugly again   just go back as far down to the crown of the plant  that you can and it's as easy as that easy peasy also when you're going through your beds make sure  that if you spot any weeds go ahead and pull those   if you spot plants that maybe are volunteers and  they shouldn't be there go ahead and take those   out I'm not sure right here this possibly could  be a baby lenten rose I don't know I didn't plan   it there but it's going to come out because  I don't want it in this spot so if you find   something doesn't belong there now's the perfect  time and of course this could just be a nice fancy   weed but we're gonna go ahead and get rid of it  you will see that there are three heucheras down   through this side of the bed, this is dale strain  my eucharist will be semi-evergreen so I'm going   to leave them alone there's not much cleaning up  that I have to do with them if there are some old   spent leaves you can you know clean those up a  little bit and pull them off but really their   cleanup will come in the spring once all this  foliage dies back and their new foliage emerges   right here I have two pockets of these sticks this  is Solomon seal this is a variegated Solomon seal   a fantastic perennial that spreads by rhizomes so  we're just going to come in here the frost   freeze really has already gotten this and I'm just  going to go ahead I mean that's how hard it is I'm   just pulling them off if you want to go ahead and  divide these now and send them somewhere else in   your garden this would be a great time to do it  you just dig them up again they literally are on   top of the ground if you can see there are these  brown sticks right here those are the roots so   if you want to put some Solomon seal in some  different areas just take those up again they're   very shallow take them up plant them where you  want them don't plant them too deep just put   them on the top of the ground put a little bit  of soil on top mulch pine needles, boom come next   spring you'll have beautiful Salomon seal there  I will probably do that if I have time I'll do   some now and if not I'll just push it to the  spring and wait to the spring I always think   oh I don't have time now but I'll have time  later yeah right but oh well do as you wish and then if you do have some green just take your  clippers and go ahead and just cut it all the way back have finished cleaning up cutting back  all of the perennials that needed a little   haircut for the season you'll notice I have a  nice big huge wheelbarrow full of the potting soil   the old plants the cuttings leaves all of that  kind of stuff we've had people ask us in the past   you know what do what do we do with it what do you  do with it all those kinds of things so I'm just   going to share what we do with this leftover old  foliage i would like to say that it is a compost   pile but that implies that we're actually doing  it the correct way and we reuse it but we don't   again we're out in the country a little one  eight and a half acres we've always got lots   of extra room so we have an area close by right  here at the house and we call it the dump pile   so we just take whether it is yard waste like this  or just food scraps whatever we put it in the dump   pile it is a nice natural area I am sure over  time there will be some great compost in there   we don't ever have plans on reusing that it is  just a place for us to go and dump this and get it   out of the way and just let it decay naturally so  forth and so on I suppose if you don't have a dump   plow and you're a city person so this is hard for  me to talk to because I'm not a city person y'all   can chime in in the comments and tell other people  what you do with your yard waste but I suppose   that would be where you would bag it up mulch it  up put it into your trash cans and then let your   city waste management take care of it from there  so if you have any good tips stick them in the   comments below because sharing is caring and y'all  can figure that out for my city folks what we're   going to do now is i'm going to go back through  those perennials i have a couple of them that need   they need to be moved i'm not going to get rid  of them but they have just outgrown this bed and   I want to do some things different we're going  to dig them up and I'm going to show you how   to if you need to pull perennials  out exactly how to do that   if you'll remember back to the summer garden tour  that we did right here you will remember that i   have three really nice lady in red perennial ferns  they have died back i've cut them back but they   love this spot which is a great thing but the bad  thing is that they loved it so much that they were   I mean they were easily this tall and they  were really crowding out my zebra hydrangea   what i'm going to do is go ahead and dig them  up i do not have an exact plan on where they are   going to go so I'm going to put them I'm going  to repot them into just some old nursery pots   that I've put just a little bit of soil into the  bottom because these are probably going to have a   pretty good root system to them when i planted  them they were in one gallon containers this   container that I have right now is a two or three  gallon container it is a three-gallon container   so I want to have as much room for them to go into  as possible when you are digging up a perennial   a shrub anything the goal is to get the  absolute most root system that you can get   this will ensure that your plant has a nice  smooth transition so the best way to do that is to start back further than what you  think so this is where i see the sticks   of the stalks of the fern if I were to cut right  there and shovel right there I'm cutting off a ton   of my root system and i do not want to do  that so i'm going to come out further now   i know this is probably way too much but that's  okay so i'm going to stop right here and go in once you come all the way down just pull  your shovel and you should see your plant   move just a little bit if you  do that's great and then we're   just going to work ourselves  in a circle all the way around all right so you can see that i have a  i have a huge hunk of dirt right here   I do not want to take all of this with me into the  container so just come around and you're going to   jhuzz off it's a very technical term jhuzz off  all the extra soil until you start to see your   roots and then once you hit your main root ball  you're not going to be able to pull a whole lot   of soil out again remember we're blessed with this  red clay so it's nice and thick this area stays   especially wet in the winter that's why these have  done so well here so things are going to get messy all right we're going to see if this thing fits  in here I don't think it's going to but we'll see I think it's a little too big  what do you think oh my word y'all okay we're just going to go for it I do have  some soil in here just a great regular potting   soil would do wonderful this root ball is  definitely wider than it is deeper so the   issue is trying to get it into this size pot yes  I was taking off some roots when i was doing this   that's okay clearly we still have a ton of roots  right there what i did was just the technical   term of root pruning simply meaning you're pruning  back the roots encourages new growth so you know   it all works out great I am going to go ahead  and put some bio tone into my pot to encourage   that great root to growth so if you have some root  fertilizer go ahead and add that to your container oh my gosh y'all all right take two so  instead of a three-gallon container, I have a   seven-gallon container this I  know it will fit so once again put some soil down in the bottom for the  roots to grow on give it a little shaky shake a little bio tone for the roots here we go success there we go now you will notice though  that this is down further in the pot it's okay   I don't care it's not staying here permanently  it's fine but I do have some empty space because   I had to take so much of the sides off  that I'll come back with my potting soil   and make sure that it's nice and snug down in  there again it does not have to be perfectly   level with the top because it's going to be moved  in the spring and put back in the ground it's fine   but you do want to take care of any roots that are  exposed you don't want any holes on the sides so so yes there is dirt on top of the  plant so what I do a little shake make sure there's not a lot of soil  sitting on top of the root ball itself   so I'll tuck down in there, there you go now if  you did want to go ahead and divide your ferns   at this point you totally could you so same thing  with ferns hostas most perennials like this this   would be a great time to do it you would just of  course dig it up just like we did then take your   nice and sharp shovel and just you're cutting  off massive huge hunks of that root system   with this kind of fern on this side if I had  wanted to cut it in half easily cut it in half   I probably could have cut it into fourths so again  that I like these, I like these are nice and big so   we're just going to leave them we'll get them well  watered in and then these ferns are extremely cold   tolerant all of them I've been doing ferns  and the steel bees very very cold tolerant   I don't have to worry about putting them somewhere  else to overwinter they can just sit outside let   the good Lord give them rain and water and I don't  have to worry about them so just make sure that   they are somewhere though that they can get rain  you don't want to put them in a shed or under you   know some enclosed space unless you're going to  be willing to go out there and water them all   the time now that I have figured out these need  to go in 7-gallon containers instead of    three-gallon containers the rest of this should move  pretty quickly so we're gonna get those dug up the next step that we're going to  do to get this bed ready for winter   is we're going to go ahead and top dress the whole  entire bed with the espoma land and sea compost   this is a great way to amend your soil over  time by adding this wonderful compost to the top   of the bed it's a great time to do it because all  the mulch is pretty much gone and we're going to   re-mulch after this compost is a great way to  add natural nutrients and vitamins and minerals   to your soil without having to do a whole lot of  digging and amending because this is an existing   bed with full of perennials their roots are all  down there of course now you can't see any of   the foliage up top but the roots are what's  so important with these shrubs and perennials   because a happy root system means a happy  plant up top come spring summer and fall   go ahead and get those out and just do a nice  layer over the whole bed it's as easy as that so we've put out about 15 bags or so of the land  and sea you can already tell it just makes a huge   difference in the bed as far as giving it a nice  blanket for the winter you will notice though i'm   sure I'll go ahead and address it because  I know some people are going to be asking   there is a difference in color there is kind of  a lighter brown and then there's almost a black   don't really know why that is unless that the  bags were manufactured at different plants   I don't know that would be a great question  for a sponge to figure out why they are two   different colors because you can clearly see a  brown and a black either way they're hopefully   they're going to provide lots of great nutrition  for this bed and the next thing we're going to   do is just do a final layer nice thick layer of  mulch and then we'll be all done with this project the mulch is laid down and man what a difference  a couple of hours of some work does for a bed   before it was just the hot nest bed and now it  is a nice neat and tidy ready for winter bed   some simple little things to do now late  fall early winter that will ensure that you   have a great start to your spring season come  spring if you need to move some things around   feel free to do that but this is just some  easy tips for you on how to put your bed   to rest for the winter i hope that you have found  this informative i hope that you have enjoyed it   if you are not already a subscriber to Gardening  with Creekside, we would love to have you join   the family as always thank you for Gardening with  Creekside we'll see in the next video bye friends

Channel: Gardening with Creekside

Views: 23,271

Rating: 4.9590645 out of 5

Keywords: garden tour, spring, shade garden, hosta, shrubs, gardening 101, cottage garden, gardening with creekside, creekside nursery, jenny, Nursery Tour, Garden Tour, North Carolina, Proven Winners, Plant Nursery, Southern Gardens, perennial flowers, proven winners 2020, proven winners plants, Gardening, Nursery, Plants, Jenny, gardening in the south, garden, gardener, gardening, plant, plants, sun, shade, flower, diy, proven, winners, growing, planting, nursery, dirt, update, hydrangeas, summer garden, winter

Id: bGPE02hxzuo

Length: 38min 51sec (2331 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020