Autumn – or fall – is the best time to plant trees, shrubs and perennials. So here are two ways to plant a plant. Plus ‘should you dig up your dahlias for winter?’ and I’m taking a risk with my lavender.
00:00 Welcome
00:23 Dahlia ‘Babylon Bronze’
00:49 Autumn or fall is often the best time to plant trees, shrubs and perennials
01:26 Gardeners Learn By Trowel and Error mug available from https://the-middlesized-garden.creator-spring.com/listing/gardening-mug
01:36 How to plant a plant the traditional way
02:08 How to plant a plant the no-dig/no-till way
02:18 No Dig For Flower Borders video with Charles Dowding: https://youtu.be/MqfFOdup8Wc
02:44 Keep your soil in good condition the no dig/no till way
03:27 Planting the dry shade area – video on how to choose plants for dry shade: https://youtu.be/Bk9cWVsAVYQ
04:38 When you buy plants, check their care and planting position online after buying
04:50 Oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) ‘Munchkin’
05:08 Heuchera ‘Southern Comfort’
05:29 Fuschia ‘Riccartoni’
06:10 Unknown fuschia doing much better now it has a little more light – probably Delta’s Sara (Deltas Sarah).
06:35 Experiment – if a plant is looking scrappy in shade, see if you can give it just a little more light
06:43 Should you dig up your dahlias for winter?
07:43 Dont Dig up Your Dahlias video: https://youtu.be/U4NdKJkic74
08:10 How to protect your dahlias in winter when you DON’T dig them up
09:22 Two jobs I should have done earlier!
09:45 The pros of cutting lavender back hard.
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23 Comments
I work at a garden centre here in zone 5 Denver metro. We lay out our perennials in alphabetical, shade, sun and water needs. Also, the no dig method might work for a bed that the soil has been amended and loosened over time, but not in the new communities that have had the basement subsoil piled in the planting areas. Adobe! I have a lovely lavender patch that has increased through seeding for years. I prune after flowering and in the spring I shear them back to about 2-3 inches above the ground. Have done this for years and they always come back beautifully. I only do this to the Lavandula angustifolia. I don't think that harsh pruning would work on the x intermedia varieties such as Provence, Grosso, Phenomenal, etc. I would love to know if anyone has tried that pruning on them. Thanks again for a great video. 💖
The color of you outfit is very becoming on you.
I agree. There is nothing more frustrating for me than a garden centre with no care tabs or even basic information on the plants. You see a load of people with their phones out trying to find information on Google.
Fantastic choice for the dry shade.
I also will give the oakleaf hydrangea a try.
Thank you.
Kind regards
Marcus
Those dahlias beside you in the vase are gorgeous. Good to know to deal with them as though they are annuals, especially since I live in a 3 to 4a zone, depending on the micro climate of my acreage. Thank you for sharing your expertise. One question for you, can you grow dahlias in a pot/container?
Have been meaning to share with you Alexandra, a new tip for positioning new/smaller plants in established borders with larger plants that would otherwise outcompete with them (thus killing them/leading to anaemic growth). It’s a variation on your pot trick for borders, but doesn’t rely upon a pot to ensure the plant is able to fill the gap in the border.
Firstly, I’ll work out spaces in the Border that need to be filled making a note of all the spaces, and how tall the plants around those spaces are. Once I’ve worked this out I’ll have a rough idea of how much growing medium (soil) I will need.
Using a mix of soil from my own backyard (heavy clays) I dig this up into a big bucket/pot, and then out in some thick chunks of bark/mulch/coconut chips to give structure to the mixture. The more bark/mulch/coconut chips, the better drainage this mix will have. If your soils are mainly sand, then you will need to buy some clay soil potting mix from the gardening centre, because the clay is what will hold the mixture together. This mix will be the base layer.
I will have a secondary layer, a ‘capping/feeding’ mix of soil, which will just be some well aged compost that ideally matches the colour of the soil in the rest rest of the border.
I return to the gap in the border, and will delicately scrape the earth in that gap to the plants around the gap. This will give me an idea of how much space I actually have to put the base layer mix, in.
Once I’ve done this minor earth readjusting/mounding I will place the base layer into the slight depression we’ve created via mounding, just to even the surface. I will take the plant I intend to go into this spot, and keeping it still in the pot, I will place the pot and plant onto the base layer and from there I can work out how proud the plant will sit, and hence how much more of the base layer I will need to use to build up around the plant so that it will get enough light and not have to compete too much with its neighbours.
We delicately remove the plant from its pot (if it’s rootbound/coiling the roots around the pot, we have to ensure we tease them out enough so the roots can easily grow through the base layer). Now with the plant and it’s root ball clearly exposed we just check again to see where the plant will sit in the mound, and add/remove the base layer as necessary (to keep the plant sitting proud amongst its neighbours, but not too proud). We move aside the base layer to create a slight depression within, in which we will position the plant and it’s roots, making sure we’ve enough space to add in a big helping of the ‘capping/feeding’ mix.
Then we take a generous helping of the capping/feeding layer and put that within the depression we created in the mound before. If we want to further secure the plant in position (out of worry that wind damage may be a risk; or that dogs or neighbours might accidentally step on it), then we add more of the base layer around the mound just to secure it. This will also help if we wish to steepen the incline of the mound and make it jut out more. The clay is absolutely essential here, because it’s so sticky it allows us to mould and shape the earth into the shape we want.
We then use the capping/feeding layer to cover over the mound, and because of the stickiness of the clay, the capping/feeding layer should stick to the outside of the mound. Make sure we pack enough on, so when it rains heavily we won’t be able to see the bark/chips/mulch.
We can then water the plant in (very delicately of course) to test if there’s enough capping/feeding layer to hide the ugly bits. Then voilà! All done!!!
I'm in a zone 10b and have overwintered my tomatoes. They did marvelously the second year. I just pruned it back to the first leaves above the trunk and left it in the sunshine. (it's in a pot) This is my first year growing dahlias and I will leave them in the ground this winter. Thank you for your lovely videos.
Little tid bit – dahlias can change as they are octoploid, meaning they have 8 sets of chromosomes, not just two. Like most things there are many things that can influence changes, ie weather : )
I have a large collection of dahlias and I dig them up at the moment because my collection isn't finished and I haven't yet found the perfect colour mix. Here's my question….Where I live zone 9a we don't get a really hard frost until after Januar so when is the latest time to dig up dahlias ?
I like to put mulch in my beds, my question is putting compost in the bed? Do I move the mulch and add compost, move the mulch only around the plant and add compost or put the compost on top of the mulch and re top it with new mulch (top dressing it)?
Many interesting points. Rather than listing plants alphabetically, one of the garden centre chains here has a designated section for shade and I think novice gardeners find it very helpful. Great advice to look up your plant purchases when you get home. It can greatly improve your chances of success. I hope you have better luck with your heuchera in dry shade than I did. I find this perennial really prefers consistent water.
I don't stuck to any traditions which my mother and grandmother apply in their gardens, I like to read and watch many sources and find out what is really the recommended, used, way .. So i guess I broke the rule of following the told-traditions 🤷 I would say I succeeded more than them in less time, but obviously used up more of my time to do research 😄 which I don't mind because it is part of the joy, which might not be for them 😊
Great video again Alexandra, I like your approach to 'how to do things' 🤗Greetings, Judit
I inherited a very woody overgrown lavender in my garden that was not terribly attractive and I cut it back super hard last year since I figured I had nothing to lose and it came back beautifully green. I did it carefully with secateurs, hunting for the farthest down signs of green leaf buds and didn't worry too much about the overall shape, which I think is the trick. I can reshape it this year, with the abundance of new soft growth.
I really appreciate this perspective. I think it’s useful to follow prescribed practices and just as useful to then break them. I like knowing the limits of my plants. Of course it’s never my intention to kill a plant & I don’t do things that are certain to lead to disaster. But I just don’t see the offense in trying something different. There’s rarely only one way to do a thing. It’s shocking how aggressively self righteous some people get about gardening. It’s my business what I do in my garden, which exists exclusively for my own enjoyment. As much as we all love them, they are just plants after all. I hardly think it justifies the vitriol with which some people express their rigidly held beliefs
Thank you!
Excellent tips and good Ideas
Excellent Idea super
Breaking the rules in 8b Central Texas means even plants that are supposed to be planted in full sun need some shade. Summers are brutally hot. We keep counts of how many days are above 100 degrees. We don't count days over 95 or over 90 because that's normal for 3 to 4 months. If I were paranoid, I would tell you that my plants make me feel guilty when I go into my air-conditioned house.
Garden Centres in Canada (and in the USA in my experience) sort their plants into shade loving vs sun loving, annual vs perennial etc. The very best native plant garden centres do one better and will group based not only on light requirements, but also soil type and moisture levels. I always bring a tape measure to help me visualize mature heights and widths etc as I set up little plant combination vignettes on my trolley. I get some odd looks, but 9/10 some other customer asks to borrow my tape measure. 😆
I have trouble storing tubers and so use as annuals .Here winters are worse than in UK but summers are real and constant
Alexandra – Do you fertilize your lavender?
I so, SO appreciate your videos. So full of good sense and dense with good information. Thank you from Sacramento, CA. On a side note. I planted Dahlias from seed 2 years ago. Left them in the ground and they came back this year. But the heat was not kind to them. Lol. My milkweeds, 4 different kinds are thriving! Learning to appreciate what does grow well here. Really love the layout of your garden. Thanks again.
I really want to know how your lavender comes out because mine is in the same condition!
It was left to grow on it’s own it looks very lavish now but much brown wood underneath! We are in zone 7b-8a North Georgia, USA
Thank you for your vlog