New help in the garden

Cheers everyone! It's a proper sipping stroll. Tonight's gin is The Botanist Fever Tree Tonic as usual. There's nothing fancy with this one. There was a gin drink I saw The Botanist actually post on Instagram that I wanted to try. It was sort of like a like a gin negroni sort of thing. It looked good. Anyway, I'm filming this if I haven't said that already. Literally this is the first sip I've had so I'm not like half in the bag or anything. I'm filming this on Saturday evening which was how these started and then I just kept getting busy on Saturday evening so I kept filming it on Sunday mornings. So we are going to do a little bit of a stroll. It's shocking how dark it gets though. I mean obviously the sun is not setting yet but it's so low in the sky that everything's in the shade. So we are going to go do a sipping stroll but first I wanted to tell you that you know I have this huge garden and it's always nice if I can like like help would be a really big help. So I have some new help and I want to introduce you to him. Hold on I'll go find him. Okay this is Magnus. Magnus is my new garden helper. This is he is not a baby gorilla. He is a Newfoundland puppy. He's 13 weeks old, probably about 30 pounds and we just got him on Tuesday. So Magnus say hi to everybody. He's super cute obviously and when you have a Newfoundland puppy you know that you take every advantage you can of holding them while you can because it lasts like just a couple of weeks basically. So anyway I just had him down trying to de-dirt him because he's been helping me in the garden today and he's in he's just covered in dirt. So we were downstairs brushing a little bit but he's this is my little cutie. So he will be hanging around. Dorothy was thrilled when he came home and I would say now she's like oh okay well could you bring him back when he's not so noisy. He doesn't really bug her at all but he he sings the song of his people at night and we're all kind of tired. Fergus and him are getting along great. Our other cat Fiona has decamped to the basement. She is not a happy camper and otherwise everybody's good. I mean Dorothy and him are getting along fine it's just that she was very excited about it when he came home and now she's like oh this wasn't as fun as I thought it was going to be. So that's where we're at with that situation. So this is our fifth Newfoundland and I'm not sure if all puppies are like this or if this is specific to Newfoundlands but they are so hot. They are always hot. They have to have a fan on them at all times. He's like on my lap right now and I'm like he is so hot. Okay let's put you down. Let's put you down so we can do viewer mail quick. There you go. Good job. So far he specializes in hose related items. Carrying the hose, checking the water that's coming out from the hose, etc. Oh okay here we go. This is from Terry. Terry has a postcard and a note here. Okay that's not something we're doing. Karen I went on a 13-day tour of Alaska this summer. I was amazed at the sheer vastness of our 49th state. Alaska is certainly as beautiful as one can imagine. We did not visit any formal gardens but the wildflowers were everywhere and they were spectacular. More than 1500 species bloomed from June to August. I thought you might enjoy this postcard and this is from Terry. It's beautiful. Who knew they have lupins in Alaska? Of course why wouldn't they? But beautiful, beautiful. Thank you for sharing. That sounds like an absolutely amazing trip. Would you believe that 22 years ago I missed the opportunity to go to Alaska? Could have gone. Mr. Muchmorepatient was a yacht captain at the time and so the boat he was working on was doing the inside passage and I could have gone for a part of the trip but we had just bought the house and I felt like I needed to like put my silverware away. That's like right up there with like my biggest regrets in life. So like you don't ever have to put your silverware away people. Go on the trip. Okay let's see if we can go on an effective stroll around the garden because I'm sure he's gonna follow. Well first off you can see that my lilac dazed rose has sent up a big arm and I gotta pin it down somewhere because it keeps flopping over the railing. It's been so windy here today. It's a big northeaster and normally it would be very cold but the lake is so warm that it's been a beautiful warm day. Okay so I have talked about this before. Today I went through again and cut pretty much all the dahlias because they are just decimated by the cucumber beetles. I have never seen cucumber beetles like this before. I keep hoping that I can save some blooms you know that are free but this is what they do. There's one right in the top there. This is what the cucumber beetles do. They just hide in there and they just eat it make these look absolutely terrible. I feel like going through the garden like every single flower has cucumber beetles in it. I feel like I should go through with like a dust buster and suck them up Hey come on come on. Okay we'll go this way. So I'm just so bummed because normally I would just have bouquet after bouquet after bouquet of dahlias and that has not happened yet. I think you can see that I've emptied out that container. We're going to start working on a couple of fall containers here tomorrow as soon as I gather all my bits. I'm sorry there's going to be pictures of this dog everywhere you know how that goes. The Bidens continues to amaze. I still can't believe that that plant which is now 30 inches across came out of a four inch pot. Pretty amazing. Does not need deadheading at all. Just keeps putting up new flowers that cover it. I think last week I mentioned this. Believe it or not well okay so a lot of these I did plant a bunch of stuff but then I went to Home Depot and their perennials were 50% off and so they had all these allium millennium alliums and they look so good and I could even divide those further if I wanted to and I can always use those somewhere so couldn't resist. I have started the process of starting to overwinter a couple of things not overwinter but dig things up to prepare it for overwintering. So this is the Sunshine Lagoostrum right here that I pulled out of the container with the banana in it. This is the Melianthus that I pulled out of that big pot. It keeps tipping over today because it's been so windy so I'm like we'll just have to stand it up straight once it stops being so windy. I do have a flower that has been mostly it's looking okay. This is Bloomquist Gene. This is a deli I've wanted for ages. It took forever to bloom which is a bummer and a lot of people told me they are late to bloom which is really a shame because there's a cucumber beetle right on it because hang on oh found him he's usually underneath my feet because I would fill I mean I would be happy to fill this whole back row here with you okay you okay to fill this whole back row with that with that dahlia but it's it's really too tall and I don't want them to bloom too late what's wrong um here's Thomas Edison which is actually looking good some of the few blooms that we've got around are you coming I don't know did I show you how I've been staking up the dahlias and various things in here with twine but you see how that twine has gotten so tight around the base of this banana this banana is definitely bigger than the other one thank you good boy see this is this is cucumber beetle damage it's they just oh it's terrible I'll stop complaining you things are not changing a lot here but you know I think it's nice to see how things are aging in the garden so here's a zinnia that should be dead-headed but the wild magic basil really filled in nicely here I think next year wild magic bagel is a must for a portion of this garden not necessarily this one but a portion of it because it looks so nice this is one of the begonia grandis perennial begonias that I ordered last year and uh-uh no no we don't go in there uh-uh come on good boy sorry you guys you're gonna have to be hearing that forever um anyway it's starting to flower this one is white flowered got a pink flowered one over there and you know the way these spread is mostly by they sort of seed themselves around I'm so hoping we can have that happen I did buy a bunch more which is optimistic because they're zone six plants and we are just newly minted zone six I think last week I showed you the toad lilies are in the sun right now which is either good or bad he has not discovered this water bowl yet and I'm really hoping he doesn't because I can see him plunging his whole body into that sorry we're going to be walking this is like follow the puppy oh where are you going come on um the mahogany splendor hibiscus boy what a great plant you guys all told me it was a great plant I'm so happy I planted it it just really is like even coming into its own right now keeps looking great that'll be uh I'll grow that from seed I will grow that again next year for sure the persicaria in this garden is looking really really good persicaria sort of tends to spread itself around a little bit or bulk up not like seed around but like bulk up and I hope that happens because I think it's looking great some of the dahlias over here sort of toppled over we actually had rain this week so that was like phenomenal some of the flocks are blooming maybe maybe again or for the first time I'm not sure you know these might be just they might be for the first time many of these were nipped by the deer as flocks are so um you know they'll bloom later I think I feel like those have bloomed already so kind of a second blooming there let's find something good to look at what is that gonna be he has not been on this side oh you okay he's not been on this side of the yard yet so it's a new adventure come on can you come across come on no no no no okay oh okay are you okay come on come on come on come on you can get up I guess that's one way to get across is through the creek you okay good thing we cleaned you up so you could walk through the creek there's a bridge there's a bridge there so this poor pagoda dogwood has really sustained some terrible deer damage this year I've said before that if you can just keep them from getting damaged early on they're they're fine they manage to just find the deer actually don't even seem interested in them once they get to a certain size it's not that they can't reach them it's just that they're not interested in them so I think maybe we should cage this one because we're having some success with some of the other ones that we've sort of temporarily caged hey uh-uh come here come on we don't go in gardens come on good boy all right making our way around here I have a couple of new shade plants did I mention that uh to pop in here which I'm looking forward to they'll be good hey come on good boy toad lilies over here are also blooming these were all planted from plugs a couple of years ago but so pretty you know they offer some height here in the shade garden which is a much needed thing I really struggle with height in shade gardens so it's quite nice to see that the calaminta montrose white is finally sort of starting to give up on the bloom but it still looks good you know there's still flowers here at the tips uh-uh come here good boy so that's looking good and I see we do have some bottle gentian here not a lot of it it doesn't seem to overwinter that well for me but they're such pretty little flowers and um if there was a bumblebee here I would show you the only bees that can pollinate these plants are bumblebees because you have they pry open the the flowers everything despite having some rain last week everything is still very much on the dry side be nice if we got rain before fall okay you're yeah this bridge is okay huh this one's not so scary okay um I love you know of course it's it's ornamental grass season this is when all the ornamental grasses are looking so good and I hope you can see this one I talk about it all the time millennia transparent but I hope you can see how the light kind of shines through it so you don't need to drink that water no you don't need to drink that water come on come on there you go uh here's another this is a big apple dogwood you can see I have caged it but I never moved the cage I left it I put it up there last winter left it there all year and now of course it's shot through so the deer are eating the tips are there but here's the fruit this is this is small compared to the fruit I saw on it but that's the whole point of this particular dogwood is that apparently it is meant to produce quite large fruit which is what I saw but the fruit on dogwood is is as good as the flowers I think here's the um where the sun is harsh sorry about that here's the begonia grandis the pink one I got those from plants from plants delights last year no don't do not come to me through there nope come on oh my god we're working on keeping you out of the garden aren't we um I just want these you know uh Marianne Wilburn who's a friend and an excellent author she's his own seven person she has this plant it has seeded itself all over her garden and I find it so incredibly charming so I would like that to happen for me as well hmm this looks like this is honorine jobert this makes it fancy if you say it with a french accent blooming right here which is nice this is the amazing um what is it jurassic what is the huge hosta anyway this is it this is what it looks like when it doesn't get a chance to grow because the deer eat it do I come with come on I don't know if you got a chance to actually see this from far away but I swear it's bigger than when I did the garden tour just what oh two weeks ago it is those leaves let's stand back here I mean those leaves now are almost to the top of the little portico roof there I I don't see you guys know that I don't love to repeat plants ah no no um I don't love to repeat containers but I don't see how anything else can ever be put in this pot other than a banana because that is truly astonishingly amazing as far as I'm concerned don't mean to go on about it but allow me to go on about it a little um here let's walk this way I think we did a little and then we got distracted imagine that my whole life is distraction right now oh little miss figgy fig is putting out figs and you know what they're delicious I gotta pick that one the you if you like this kind of loose look I have to say that um this flower ageratum is just amazing in the garden I mean just never stops flowering I haven't deadheaded it at all um I haven't deadheaded it oh hi I didn't know you were here hi yes Dorothy you're the best you're amazing um I haven't deadheaded at all it just keeps flowering away okay I think I'm sorry you guys obviously my brain is distracted this is um porcupine something porcupine something uh these are small the flowers are usually bigger than this but they're cute they're really cute flowers and a lot of them I was working in this area today you'll see a video on that soon we talked about vernonia uh I'm not sure which one this is but vernonia late summer late early fall flowering native very pretty some of them are quite big but there are varieties that are small this one is actually like flopped over from over there which is fine look at there's this moth just going at it there very pretty kind of looks like an aster sort of this plectranthus that's right here which is so pretty was just a cutting that I took out of the pot um over there and stuck in the ground and it takes that is how easily you can root plectranthus it can be a bit of a beast but I tell you what uh it is easy to propagate here this is an aster I don't know which one I'm sorry but it's huge and it's everywhere and it's you know starting to flower actually it's been flowering for a little bit but not like prolifically um what is there to show you over here well I'm looking back there and I see that little lime has put out a whole bunch of little flowers like recently that they're white that's very interesting to me I wonder if that got nibbled by deer and it was late to flower because of that this was a little I think I showed you this already but this is a little variegated impatience that I found on sale and I just stuck them in this pot which is totally falling apart by the way and why didn't I do that earlier in the year that is so good back there oh here's another plectranthus this is the green and gold those are literally cuttings cut from in front of the house they're stuck in the ground I don't think I ever even watered them they just took had I done that earlier in the season this would have filled in quite a bit beyond that by the way is um so I think that's is that celadon with linden poppy uh yeah came came in a pot and clearly something bloomed and they're seated all over so be wary uh that's kind of new there we'll talk about that in a video nice pink flower everything is pinked up quite nice well those are pinked up quite nicely you know the limelights have not pinked up and I don't think they're gonna they just kind of went brown because of the dryness so I think we're not going to get any pink blush on the limelights this year same with the big one over there because it just got too dry for them but we do have the pink of those so you know I think that's when you're thinking about sorry about the mess here when you're thinking about choosing hydrangeas these ones that are bred to turn pink early maybe there's something to that because at least you get to see pink even if it's dry um if you saw last week's garden stroll in the rain I talked about this but we have germination so it's a small victory another sort of victim of the dryness which won't be affected long term by it is a silver umbrella aurelia I was looking at pictures of this plant from last year and holy smokes did it look better last year it's already sort of this is what it does it's sort of crisps up the branches sort of start to fall off it's really in a in a bad in a bad way here now oh man I should get the camera look at how pretty oh here let's do this look at how pretty the flowerful hydrangeas look with the sun coming through them you know this the sun so low in the sky uh is something but it sure makes I mean look at this I don't know if you can I'm trying to keep the sun out of the shot because it really blows your eyeballs out but I mean everything just glows through the shade garden by the way have I mentioned aurelia sun king a lot of people ask me why I don't grow it I have two of them I do grow it okay that was a pretty rambly garden stroll sorry about that clearly I'm a little bit distracted one eye on the puppy one eye on everything else uh he wasn't he wasn't um terrible to work with in the garden today it's just that a he's always like underfoot and we I do try to train the dogs from the moment they come here that we don't walk into the garden beds it's a lot easier to just not allow that behavior to happen from the beginning than it is to try to fix it later on the other hand he's a tiny little baby so I don't spend a lot of time correcting him he has no idea what's going on I just try to keep everything light and fun and all the things you're supposed to do uh but it does mean that I have no brain and there has not been I'm going to be honest here there has not been a lot of sleep uh this week um he is not thrilled with nighttime routines so that's just the thing everyone deals with hope you guys are having a great week in your garden like I said hopefully gonna have a lot of videos for you um I will do my best to get them out in a timely fashion but there is things happening in the garden uh there's just a lot there's like a lot to get done okay all right all right have a great day in your garden everybody thanks for watching hang on we have to grab our cocktail hang on Magnus all right cheers