April Garden Tour + Sowing Cosmos, Gladiolus & Summer Flowers | Perennial Garden

After a really dry start to spring we've had days and days of rain and the garden has responded beautifully. It's looking really lush, really green and we thought even though it's a little misty why not take you guys out in the garden for a garden tour and look at what's coming here in April. That's true and we actually want to take you right here first which is gonna have a big showstopper now is all the tulips. And we planted these or added these bulbs last late autumn-winter. It's like a mix of four different tulips called Hidden Gem and they are just really starting to pop in these pots here. So those are super excited to have here and they are in plastic pots so they are super easy to move around. Later when they finish we just hide them up in the back and then we can take them out in the autumn again. But let's go further back here and actually what we want to show you first is look at the soil we just added here. Isn't it pretty all dark? So it's actually soil that we we just added a little layer of yeah this mulch here around five centimeters we are it's actually the first time in six years we added this soil here and it's willow and cow compost that's three years old so it's not really in Danish we say it's not easy so it means like it's not really too strong for the for the perennials for the plants here so it won't kill the roots anything. And it's great to do here in early spring when they're all starting to get up and it keeps the moisture and also keeps away like when you have this a little thick layer here it also keeps down on the all the weeds actually and it's just pretty. Yeah but just to be clear it's cow manure yes cow manure. Not just cow that's been composted. So cow manure and willow tree bark that's been composted from the local Danish company here and wow it's really pretty and it's ecologically friendly so you can and nice Danish company you can trace all the ingredients and pea tree which I also really like so it's gonna do really well here in the garden and it just you can almost hear the perennials just being super happy for that. So it's the first year as I said but it's really good we did it now because all the perennials now with the water came so it's really starting to get strong and here's some of the like we have one of the the ones that really starting to come here the crudene lebløs will have blue flowers just in a minute we have some further up in the garden that's coming. The folies actually tend to be a bit more dark further up actually depending on how much they the sun they get but that one is really doing well and then in clumps like we actually just yeah planted tulips in autumn just a little bit random to have a pop of color before all the perennials come but as you can see we also do a lot it's I know it's not in flower yet but there are almost popping up with thousands but also the foliage like dark leaf foliage which is really nice and the the sedum here really like the contrast of just otherwise you tend to get just green or like a lime green foliage so it's really important also have when it's not in flower I always think about that having that as a contrast which is really great as well. If we go a little bit further up here we have things really coming the phlox here and it's just rain so we actually they kind of close them and we don't have a bunch of bees just pollinators right now in general but they're super clever they hide when it rains but they're starting to be they'll be just a blanket great for like a border here we have also looks a little bit sad now but the copula but look at that one that's really like fluffy feathery foliage as well really a great one also a lot of these ones that flower now it's really great for the early pollinators so those are really doing well we have a palico here that I can see really great at spreading here with underground runners here so it's in between those I just dig up with a root here and then I can place them let's just take the moxa over here to the I know we talk we we have a lot of them because it's so self-seeding the Brunnera here but it really gives a nice pop of color here early on and look at that and we also have them in the different foliage the Jack Frost but that one is really nice we also have them you can have them in whites but it's a great combination actually here with the Brunnera then we have the Daupragstjerne here the Red Campion look at that one so pretty and then with a mix with the Plated Twittern here that really gives a nice little contrast here great combination so the middle flower bed is really doing well we actually this one is a new one we added some huge bulb it's a white Allium which I'm really excited I did a group of five here so they are gonna be yeah I'm expecting high expectations for this but a white big ball so that's doing really well and we have our if also this one is coming the Ninebark here later on we'll have white flowers but also again as I mentioned I really like dark foliage it gives such a nice contrast and this one we kind of keep down in this height around here 150 centimeters tall but you can grow it bigger but we like to have it a little bit low so we can still kind of see through so it doesn't take out the whole space here but that one is really doing well and if we jump to the back to the big flower bed we have these Yellow Knobwort here which is getting in buds and just look at the pattern of the flower buds here I really like that one too this one has white flowers we also have them in like purple bluish and we moved this one if you realize it was more and this is really you can keep this guy flowering for a long time if you deadhead it but it was so far in the middle of the flower bed that one we couldn't see it because it's quite low and two I couldn't really get to it to deadhead so we moved it end of summer I think we did yeah but we actually I still see some of the partly or maybe some baby ones still in its original place over here so it's like a little bit of the root was left I guess so it's still coming here and this one we also moved the Vabena Bampton the little sister to the the big Vabena it was out here and it gets really later on really quite big so we moved it in but it's really still close to the border so we can enjoy it not that close to the border it was on the border it was right actually whether I would say yeah here it kind of covered some of the other ones so it's still close enough I think maybe we actually I want to show how much we trim back I think people will get shocked when they see how much we pruned down there we have like a butterfly bush like butterfly candy variety very like a dwarf one gets around like 80 centimeters tall so it was quite tall so and it it flowers on the new buds and you can already see it starting to it looks just dead but I'll promise you this will just come back and be really full of this has really pink ones and we have a purple one which we always also pruned actually up we have some Franskerne Måne here looks a little bit sad here in the rain but just look at those colors and these ones we actually normally in other climates you would have to it's quite protected here in our garden but normally where you would have to dig them up because they don't like to sit in really wet wintery and hard frosty grounds but these ones I don't really honestly us because I forget to dig them up and and they just come back every year I don't really do anything to it so that's great it it keeps coming back also here we have some these ones actually were like a tulip mix we had last year in the other pots we tied to change them in those pots up there so these ones we just dug up and then planted here put all those bulbs down and it's really a nice pop of color I like that one yeah from inside the house looking out here you can really see all these little pups in amongst all the green and actually maybe also show them here we had like tall tall butterfly bushes I made from a cutting and they just kept growing and breaking in a big storm so we actually placed two hydrangeas like a limelight and vanilla phrase one here and one further down there so we really hope and they already nice and green so we hope they don't get a bunch of flower yeah we bought them in flower last year from local nursery so hopefully yeah we hope it's gonna do well actually but everything is just really coming nicely after we really needed the water I haven't we were talking like I should we should we not water but we haven't for weeks on it has just been really dry but because these flowerbeds are really established so we haven't watered because then the the perennials say they're super clever they will go down with it with this where the water is so once it's established the flowerbeds yeah we haven't watered them so the rain came when we needed it because we didn't want to yeah water too much so but now they're happy I actually also want to show them this one over here the dark one it's kind of this year this first year it's starting to spread but it's the final is it's called fire fire cracker but I love the foliage and then it gets yellow flowers which is really nice so this one we also have it in a wide variety that also spreads but I can kind of see now it's starting to spread but it's easy with a spade or shovel and get these up here when it's in in new growth and then I can yeah plant them other way in the garden but we haven't kind of in a group so it can repeat throughout the garden so those are nice and then further up here we have tada lots of tulips coming just like random colors and this is one of my favorite here look at that looks like a fire almost look at that it's not pretty we have had some tulips that didn't really came back we just talked about the other day some have just green foliage and we might have cut it down a little bit too early so it's really good to let it when it's finished flowering not even though it made me not look really pretty let the like it soak all the energy down so it can really grow for next year so that's why we had some that just had green foliage so those are the best thing we have to do is like pick them up and then save them for winter and then add them again then they should flower again well I don't think I know we actually cut them down too early yeah so and I don't think we're gonna have to dig them up well the ones that yes we had a bunch that came up with only green foliage yeah we should have if this happens to you leave them up let them photosynthesize and the bulb will get stronger for next year but we already cut that foliage down because it was only foliage so those bulbs we're gonna have to and the thing is if we had left it here because it's last year we had so many tulips here then if you could say there was a minus about having tulips in a big spot the foliage kind of killed some of the here up here we have the the view from this and we had a bunch that just had green foliage here and it kind of like she gave so much shadow so we had empty spots here after the tulips were done so we we have to be careful not to have too many tulips it's a nice mix but we have to be a little bit careful when you are also have the perennials coming and they're not competing for sunshine but their amount here I think it's it's pretty good I agree and these yellow ones we inherited these or not the fiery no those like normal tulips but look at them just rain drops on can you see it I actually like them when they're also closed when there's no Sun I think they're very pretty but those were yeah that's really the only thing besides a bit of chameleon plant that came with the garden so there how we kept so Alan thinks about the lady we bought the house from when see he sees those yellow ones but I would actually have to comment on the chameleon was from the neighbor I was I got it gifted from the neighbor and hadn't read up on okay maybe we shouldn't but very nice and the white Dicentra oh and look at before you go there look at this one we've really pruned down how it's coming the butterfly bush yeah here's a great example so this one was cut down just as much as the pink one see how I cut how it's and we really want to keep it low so Justin you don't have that huge bush here and then so we kind of have this more there's more shade here so we have some different perennials here coming but sorry back to your no I was just I kept seeing it in in the camera I thought that you had to mention it well it's beautiful I'd look at it right and even those little hearts there yeah it's a good day for filming right when it's not too sunny yeah I mean the raindrops are so pretty especially on the lupins I love that just in general just everything is so pretty with a with the raindrops on and notice we have all the furniture we're starting we as quick as it's a nice weather we have the furnit garden furniture house who you're ready to be able to sit out here and we have them out in the front on the terrace so we are ready to enjoy the sunshine and the summer as soon as it comes back yeah our flagpole cherry tree is enjoying its first spring here in the garden it just started blooming here the past couple of days in the rain so no bees yet I'm sure they are eyeing it from there from wherever they're hanging out and they're ready to get to it as soon as the Sun what a title it had the tree what a great title and we actually also want to show we we did a lot of when we were in here in there in the early spring it's also a great time when we do the starting doing heavy weeding we also like see what's of the perennials have self sowed and those we have two local plant markets we will attend to here in May which is always super hugely very cozy it means and so we have a bunch that I divided somewhere close to the border and so it has to go and especially this like a bunch of Bonera both the Jack Frost one but also the normal one we also had last summer we had a project with the with the government here in Fredericia and some neighbors we were 15 neighbors that we got some of the pavers away and then we planted native to Denmark and the bonds also added a little bit more pop of color in spring and some tulips are in front of the houses we removed a bit of yeah that's what I wanted to say is on the sidewalk and planted flowers out in front of the houses here on our street yeah and some hadn't really come back so I added a few yeah Bonera and some other things that's really going to be pretty and Agalya as well which is going to be nice we have some flumos here that also just divided that I'm gonna come to new homes we have some lupins also here sown from seeds we have Jakob's tea I just love the look at the foliage here stay it's called like also stairways to heaven look it looks like a little ladder there we have some the address coming also really nicely and we have some the Bascom and some this one is also great I don't think we have it everywhere which we do the Tosca moon but flowers late summer great for in for pollinators as well all the insects like it we have some hellebores that I've just picked up from the mother plant around it's a great self see there as well and we have actually we have a little we have changed a little bit here we had a lot of this elephant grass in a big area we want a little bit more actually color also late summer so we have the lupins that will come first then we have some some dow oil here that will come we have some the old first Jana and some a still that will also give some color here and some Agalya so little bit lower here and then this will be a little bit higher here and some yellow would bake here so this is really gonna be a great just mix of different perennials but give a lot of you'll get all the colors in this flower bed as well as they if you look over to the I'll come over there the middle flower bed really has done well it's almost hard to to remember that we we had a trampoline here just what two years ago we moved it last winter yeah when when my last he didn't want to jump anymore so it's crazy we had a trampoline here we had some perennials like low ground cover under but now we just yeah took that away and when we just added some perennials since he didn't want to jump anymore and yeah different spring bulbs we have a still but and just also some ground cover and here again we have a criminal a bliss but in white look at that color and that will quickly spread but easily to move I've let it also move out to the stone so it gives that natural look because I think that's really important as well this one is also almost the geranium here look at the just again the markings on the foliage here is really really pretty I think and again a little bit of I like this really those two lips here give so much color to the to this flower bed as well there's those water droplets it's really pretty and the water just sits on here for well it won't stop raining pause there for a minute again here also the alum all here I like the different foliage on this one really dark and then it gets like poop some stems of also and what it's great here about some of the for example the alum or that's also really one of my favorite that it has its mainly evergreen and you can have it full Sun shade semi shade so it's really great to have these perennials that you can have depending if you are in full Sun or if your shade if your ground is stony or sandy then these ones are really great as well so this one is actually a quite new one to the garden it's called Judas penny and again dark foliage which I really love and it's a great contrast just the flower to the to the foliage it's actually biennial so you need to sow them and then they will flower the second year and then they will die do you remember to collect seeds of that one and I definitely need to have a bit more here I also want to say here when since we put this soil and you can really see how we plant in in the flower beds here how closely we plant like a lot of them I use my hand as measuring so I have like a kind of a hand space in between so you would think that okay isn't it too close but you rather not have any soil showing throughout the summer because that means weeds any empty spots they'll come some kind of plants weeds or whatever that will come so and you could say okay if it's too close after a season then I'll just divide it and then I'll plant it somewhere else or you could you could give it away but it's better to have it all covered up and I do have as if we go a little bit more up here I have to do have some empty spots here and this one you would think oh why is it nothing in here I do have mainly perennials but we also sow some like sinews we have a salvia viridae which is like annual flowers that only come flower this year and then they will disappear but they'll give so much color to the perennials as well and here we actually have one the salvia viridae is a great great self seeder so all these ones I'll try and pull one up if I can oh I can plant it but these ones actually leave here we don't remove them away from the path so when it starts to have the second set of leaves it will actually be clear to see that it's a salvia viridae so we'll do a clump also I collected some seeds so I'll also sow some in and this one is actually better just be sown directly in the ground or move those baby ones because it's in the in the end it's actually just free plants just growing here so it's just I take my time to move these ones before and might come in like pick it away I think it's weeds because it lives in the path I know and to his defense he doesn't always you know know the baby the baby plants in my defense and he's like paths should be clean yeah but look at all these you have all this is not weeds please excuse us while we fight oh you have all this garden to work in and I would love to have a clean path but I can't look at here here's a dumb one and this for sure I look at that that's a salvia viridae like in Danish called dusk salviae but it's so pretty it'll have pink flowers called pink Sunday so in goes there and then we'll just be full here and that one if you don't have it I highly recommend you run check online and get it you can still have time to sow directly and it will flower all summer all the way to the first frost it'll flower from the late summer yeah yeah sorry late summer and then but and it's edible you can get it in white blue purple and then this pink really really pretty but it's a self-seeder but an annual we mentioned and an animal yeah but because I met a lot like ooh great self-seeder like also the verbena have a bunch that's I just love they are self-seeding because I can just move them away if you get too many I think it's great it's actually also great time now because the ground is getting warmer to put these gladiolus down which is one of Allen's favorite flowers but they need to be dug up every year because they can't stay in the winter I found some really pretty ones so I'm gonna show you we're gonna do two different ways because I want a trick for more flowering so first I'm gonna add a few handful of soil and then I'm gonna place some maybe like three in this pot depending on the size but around three add some soil keep the water and then I'll add it in the greenhouse some of them for the reason why I do in two different ways two different methods then the rest will go directly in the ground the bulbs and I planted three times the the size of the bulb in the ground because then some the ones in the greenhouse will come up first because it's warmer it will flower first and then the ones in the ground will take over so once these ones starts to come up germinate and be a little bit higher they get these kind of sword looking leaves and I'll plant it in a group because then it looks a bit more so around three to five in a group would be really nice uneven is really pretty then these ones when they start to come up I'll plant those out in the garden so they will flower first and then the ones in the ground will flower later on late summer into the into the autumn so I'm really happy for that so I'm actually gonna take a group of this really pretty mix once thank you long as I'm happy for that yeah good plan it was so a stunt that I got I didn't even have a comment or did you just think like not or like shake and all more plants but actually these I've always liked and we haven't had them have we had them in in first we'll have them one year and then I forgot to we had them at our house before we moved here to finish and that was way before we we even met our son so that's been a long time ago but I think they're so pretty I know they're a little grandmother perhaps but there's a lot in our garden that's sort of quite grandmother I think they're beautiful I'm gonna put these ones a little bit sequels are going crazy today about to nest on the neighbor's roof I think not our favorite but it's here yeah we like the neighbor yeah we do that's true okay let's put a bit more here so it's actually also time to show some of my annuals my summer flowers like cosmos which is a must have in the garden together with seniors and these ones I collected from the mother plant last year and collected here and then just kept in our unheated shed and it's those little tiny worms looking like brown ones which is the seed so what I do I just have some rich soil you could also I saw them in the greenhouse because then I have a bit better control over you could also directly so out in the garden about now or in May but as long as that the soil is a little bit warmer so just make it a little wet here the soil and then what I do I just take a handful I don't really sit and put one and one in I take just like a handful because they can it doesn't hurt to have them together in a little group add them in here and then add a little soil on top and then again keep it watered with my spray and then I keep water when I see the surface being dry and and add them in I'll check you in the greenhouse in a minute but I'll add it in there place a name tag so I know it's the cosmos and then once they have the second set of leaves I can start to plant it out in the garden and once if you have like they get really if you also so you can show them inside also if you don't have a greenhouse if it gets really ready looking really stemming you can cut the top off like this and then you add the the top instead of throwing out because once you take the after the second set of leaf if you cut the top place that in the in the soil just next to it it will also make roots that little top and that the stem that you cut will then create new side shoots and then you'll get a bushier cosmos which I really like so because they can tend to get a little bit too bushy yeah too leggy and you want more bushy I'm quite excited this year since we added soil because the only the thing about cosmos is it doesn't need rich soil then you'll get a beautiful green bush and no flowers so it actually doesn't like too rich soil so I'm excited to see I hope that's why when we plant it in these less rich soil and then add them out later that hopefully we'll get a nice flower and not like just explode and be a bush instead of creating flowers otherwise maybe add them in some containers if you have rich soil but let's take them to the greenhouse okay so I'll add it out here and that whole row here will be full it looks empty now but that whole row will be cosmos and also here some different cuttings I had like a Dicentor here actually that also I need to see if it created roots because it fell off the Dicentor so I actually want to see if created some roots I'm going to loosen it and then see if I'm lucky if it got some roots already I'm gonna take it upside down no this one doesn't have yet maybe let's see no roots on that one yet I gotta put it leave it there I got too excited but this one I saw clear sign of a cutting that had come you can see it's rooted there I put it on the side because then it's easy getting out of the pot I have to give the Dicentor a little bit more a few more weeks see if I can get it out or there you can see look at the roots yeah so this is actually just a new this is going to be compared to instead of you doing from seeds this is going to be a true copy of the mother plant will have the same color so if you had a white lupine this baby one will also have white colors while you do that this chirping it's not seagulls are they still hiding I think they over here let them I think they if you sit still they come here now behind you super still see how big the little babies have gotten and they just love to be in here like sunbathing in the sand and they like like the heat here and we have windows we open they get a bunch of fresh air we do have all the plants up high so they don't might look at the hollyhocks just coming up here and we have some have to show them look at that the bainer here but this one actually just take a clump of and then plant out that does need to be repotted one by one but a bunch of this one we have the flu everything is actually I've been checking things that have been winter soon in January we have the echinacea really coming along now and we also have that I have to show them this one the flummox here look at that one really coming to now so that's a nice one as well but those from Klaus Dalby and Weibulls if you don't know Klaus Dalby you really should get to know him yeah he doesn't post so much here on YouTube anymore or on Instagram no because he is an absolute icon yeah and he can do whatever he wants so but if you ever get a chance if you do come to Denmark please stop by and say hi to us on your way to visit Klaus's garden it is a masterpiece yeah and we went to see his garden and it was yeah it was and he's the kindest man and he sent us seeds last year and again this year we're very glad that Klaus even knows anything about us so and I by the way I felt so starstruck just sitting on his chairs having a cup of coffee and having a chat with him I couldn't I was so nervous to meet him he's an absolute legend here and a very kind man yeah and a true artist in the garden so good okay back to sowing back to business so this one I'm gonna just show you how the seeds look like they look a little bit fussy very clear sometimes it's teeny tiny but these ones will give so much pop of color and the pollinators really like the anemones as well and it's just this dark color will be pretty in-between so what I do I just take a few these are quite big so it's easy to handle so in this pot here I would put around five space them out a bit like that and then I'll just so this one here and then I'll add a little just a little handful just cover them generally I have my indicator I would if it's a big seed I would add always soil and if it's like a small seed like the veena the teeny tiny ones like poppy seed looking they most of them they like to germinate or just give them gently a little bit of soil on top otherwise they don't need to be covered so the bigger seeds more soil on top so I just keep it watered here and need to have a name tag and then that will go in the greenhouse I think I will put this here so I remember and then I actually have this one the lilac here asters and a lot a lot of these ones you can also use for cutting I'm really bad at taking flowers in sometimes I just enjoy having them outside but then they will produce more flowers if you take them in so this one a same that's a little bit smaller seats here and what also some often do also with the with the cosmos you can collect your seats and then you have them they look like this a little bit lighter I'll also just add a few in and once they have the second set of leaves I'm actually from this pot directly you can show them inside or actually in the greenhouse so once they have the second set of leaves I'll plant them out in the garden because then I have to do less watering only in the beginning when they are establishing roots outside then I have to order otherwise they will do be totally found out and about in there in between the perennials water that one and that goes in the greenhouse too so I'm actually gonna plant some out of the gladiolus now out in the garden I have a group of five I'm gonna place and they're gonna get a height around 100 centimeters love the full Sun and they're just gonna be nice here or even with a with a foal is here coming sword looking it's gonna be a nice view here in between all the perennials so dig down so we'll let Lars get back to that and I will say thank you guys so much for hanging out with us this afternoon here in the mist we hope you've had a great Easter this past weekend and a wonderful start to spring and until next time thanks so much for watching thank you mine