Gorgeous Plants From Great Garden Plants

Oh, is that comfortable? Okay, that's better. He was laying with his butt up on the bottom cuz it didn't look right. Hey, what's up gardening friends? Jeff here. How's everybody? Hope you're doing well. I'm great. It is a beautiful morning. Happy to have been able to say that in my last several videos. It's just so nice out. We've reached that time of year where the mornings are they're not crisp by any means, but you know, you don't step outside and just immediately feel like you're swamped in sweat. Anyways, I got some new plants here. I unpackaged them. They showed up last night and I wanted to get some out of the box, but it was a little bit too dark to film. Um, and then somebody who was well-meaning grabbed the box and took it to recycling. I was going to show everything, but it's I can't cuz it's gone now. Great garden plants. I've ordered from them before. I did a video this spring, I believe. And I love their packaging. I'll just describe it to you. Everything there's five plants here. Four perennials. One house plant right there. That one. This beautiful little guy hiding behind the tag. And they were in cardboard sleeves with the little indents that keeps them from moving around and they just slid right out from each end. Easiest unboxing ever. I love getting things from Great Garden Plants. I think this is only the second time. But anyway, so you missed the part where I cut open the box and showed you what was inside. It was packaged well. That's that's the that's the best I can do there. I'm sorry. You thought I had something for you. I don't. I'm sorry, Turbo. I wish I did. I should have brought some cookies out here. Let's start with the one that's right in front of us, right? Y'all can already see it. This is one of the Art and Soul Mongavees. And this one is called Thunderbird. It's a smaller mongave that takes on a nice reddish freckling. You see that? Look at that. The reddish freckling. Uh, but that's with more sunlight. I believe this goes 8 to 10 in high. Let's double check on that, though. It's been a minute since I did this order. Smaller sized succulent has thick flat leaves that are almost completely covered with dark red spots for eye-catching appeal. The leaves form an upright refined rosette. Is there a size? Oh, it's all the way down here. 8 to 12 in 10 to 12 in wide. So, it's 8 to 12 in tall. I didn't really clarify that. Full sun mongave like a lot of light. Zones 9 to 11. So, not hardy for a lot of people. I do recommend if you're a zone 8, give a lot of mangavees a try. you know, I mean, obviously there's like budgetary things to think about there, but if you're trying to experiment, give them a lot of them a try. Um, if you can track down the bloodline of your mongave, that is helpful, then you can really have a better guess at how cold hearty they are. You the manfreetas are pretty dang cold hearty. It's a virginica or virginana, virginica, whatever. It's a native. I have some out here in the garden. They're very cold hearty. So you mix that blood in with some different ang that are pretty cold hearty. We just don't necessarily know it yet. Uh but there are several that are good into 7B. So this isn't one of them though. That's beyond the point. Besides the point, I like the stature of this one. It's going to stay smaller. So this is going to be more suited for just indoor culture. That's what I was thinking. And I just love that red color. This doesn't have much of that yet, but you can see some hints of it in there. Mongave, I just love them. So, here's the deal. Agave, you got to be really careful if they're watering. That's not an agave. Why am I looking at it? There's an agave right up there past the welted rose that's next to the dried up waterfall. That's a death metiana. So, not the best example, but a lot of the agave you really have to be careful if they're watering. Wet feet will kill them. Temperature depending, right? You know, if it's really hot out, they can handle some more moisture, but they shouldn't be sitting in water logged conditions. Neither should a mangave. But a mangave is a cyclon that you can water with much more frequency, and you get a lot more growth out of them. These things grow so much faster. Agave tend to be uh slow. Not necessarily slow. Some of them are pretty slow. Some of them are faster. But when you get the mangave hybrid right here, it's just so much faster because that feels more rewarding. And this is going to be more suitable for house plant size things. I have some other mangavees out here like these catcha wave art and souls. They get pretty big which is okay for in the house but you know this is something I could actually set up in a window sill on the counter something like that. The Thunderbird and there's another called Lavender Lady that I really enjoy for that. So thought I'd share that. That's what this one is. Hopefully we'll get it some more sun here. I'm going to get it repotted and get some of that color to come out on it. This is a good size. This one has some growth in it. Some offsets I should say already. There's looks like maybe the start of one down in there. Another one right there. Another right there. It just has at least three offsets right here. Not all the Mongave. In fact, a lot of the Mgave don't offset so readily. So, that's pretty cool. Good to know. There's some more in there that might make for a fun looking clump as that grows up. This showed up just in time. I'm getting ready to do a bunch of mangave repotting. I have those two right there and I have some night owls I need to dig from their summer containers and get those potted up and I have two more in the mail coming from plant delights. Yeah, apparently I got really into mgave this year. I've always liked them. Just I don't know. Haven't wanted to devote the space to them, but they're just so easy and they grow so quickly. I've decided to jump back into the mave and start getting them going again. There's so many more to choose from than there were several years ago, too. Right. So when maggave first became a thing, there were several uh but it wasn't as vast and some of them had more of a wild growth habit to them. When I have the praying hands, you can't even see it. We'll talk about mongave in another video. Decided to share that one. I like the size on it. This is a better option to like I said, keep in a window sill, something like that. Okay, moving on. The rest of these are perennials, so you know, not maybe not as exciting if you're here for the tropicals. I don't know. They're just plants that I enjoy. Look at the leaves on that. Isn't it pretty? There's something nice and refreshing about it. Not that one. This one over here. Light and refreshing. Proven Winners Dolce Spearmint. Look at the flowers. Look at them. Aren't those beautiful? So, I've grown the spearmint. It's a suner shade hooka. There we go. Probably should have specified that. These are usually good 4 to 9, I believe. Zones 4 to 9. Could be off on that. Let's see here. Minus 30. And these go 16 in tall. No, 16 in wide, 8 to 10 in tall. Jeez, dyslexia is rearing his head today. I love the spearmint and that's because of the flowers. So, hookeras, you usually get, I think, a very nice flower display display from a lot of hookeras. And uh with the hooker's kind of like it's okay. But this one right here, there's just such a nice contrast. It's really airy, almost a cereal, and it's one that I think the pollinators enjoy, too. I had some Dolce spearmints a couple of years ago. They planted out for somebody else, and they have just thrives. They're in a spot that gets morning sun until, well, until early afternoon, and then they're shaded for the rest of the day. They're bordering the garden. And the flower display that they put up is just magnificent. So, I thought I would just get one to give it a try cuz my yard doesn't really have the same conditions it used to. There's deer as well, I should say. I have deer now. So, I've been planting out smaller, cheaper hookeras this year to see if the deer are going to go for them. So far, they really only have been eating my hostas, but that's also because most my front yard is, you know, use barberries and roses, things with thorns or are toxic. So, I don't know. We're going to give it a try and see how it goes. I have a spot where I just think that these would look so good. Oh, I have some legular in the front yard. Um, they haven't been touching those. This is legular-ish, but smaller kind of shapewise. I don't know. They'll probably eat it. But I wanted to give it a shot. I also thought that, you know, if it does look like they're chewing it down, then I can lift it up and put it in a container because they're so incredibly hearty. Minus 30. That is zone 4, right? - 20 is zone 5. So minus. Yeah, that would be zone four on that. That you can keep them in a container where I am. I'm 6B, 7A. So, you know, you want to go one to two zones below where you are for potted things you keep outside all year. And that should be just fine in a container if I need to do that. Might be nice in a fall arrangements. And the hookas tend to be semi evergreen to evergreen here. Just depends on the winters. Usually by uh late winter, they're looking pretty shabby and need to be cut back. And they flush back out and they look really good again. I'm sorry. You want attention. Everybody loves you. You get lots of attention here, Turbo. You should read the comments sometime. Everybody loves Turbo. Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Poor Turbo. We're going to talk about the plants some more and then we'll have Turbo Time. Can you give me some space? I need some space. Turbo, you're up in my business. Get Get back a little bit. Come on, back up. All right, we're going to pause. I need to give Turbo some turbo time. We'll come back and do some more plant things. Okay, time to move on. I realize I need to take the plastic off of these. might look nicer without the plastic on the containers. There is one thing I love. Great garden plants, but just one thing, and it's the hog rings, if that's even what these things are. It's a bit much. I understand it probably makes packaging a lot faster, but uh you need wire cutters to get the plastic off of these pots or just take a pair of scissors and really cut away the plastic until you can get it out from that metal ring that's holding everything on there. I can't find my wire cutters. So, it's been about 15 minutes and I've gotten two of the plastics off. Just trying to slowly cut the plastic out without damaging the plants. That's that's you know, I mean, I It's a lot. I'll take it over tape, that's for sure. Rubber bands always be my preference. Something just jumped in my pool. What was that sound? We got some big frogs out here, but I don't think there's anything big enough to make that kind of a splash. Oh, you know what? There were some ducks out here earlier. I bet the ducks came in and did their thing and then took off. That's probably what it was. Maybe some pliers. Maybe I can ply it off. I wish I could find my wire cutters. Hey, pumpkin. You want to say hi? Hi, pumpkin. And you know what gets me is I just bought some wire cutters. I can't find them. I always like the one thing I always lose are wire cutters. Nope. Pliers didn't work. I just went ahead and I cut the pot around the ring to get it off. Next plant. It's a vine. And look at the foliage. It's so dainty. Long leaves. So pretty. Not when you go for the foliage though. I mean you can because it has nice foliage. This is a cross vine. One of the big nonas. This is called dress to thrill. So they say the dress to thrill crossvine creates more and brighter blooms than any other cross vine. These are evergreen. They bloom spring through summer. Loved by hummingbirds. I love a bigonia. I should finish the stats before I go off on that, shouldn't I? Let's get back get back to the stats. That's important. People need to know these things. Fold apart sun. They are native. Again, evergreen seasons of interest. It's basically all of them, which is very nice. They're a zone 6 through 9, 12 to 30 in tall, 6 to 9 ft wide if it's a vine, right? You know, they get big. Well drained soil. Best to prune these right after they're done flowering. The big note, oh, you can't really see it. That's a shame. Well, left a little bit of stuff in there, but you can see it. They have that bright yellowy orange throat that fades into a pink and then it has that pinkish red orange coral color I should say on the outside. Crossvines are fantastic to the pollinators. Pollinators, especially hummingbirds, love these. I have kept cross vines in the pots with my more cold hearty palms and just allowed them to trail over the last few years and that has worked wonderfully because those palms uh like the windmill palm for example this might end up underneath the windmill palm but I keep them outside they're in a container right so they got to go inside around 15° F is when I like to move them inside but these cross vines because of that because they never go below 15 when they're in the containers they do stay nice and green and they for some reason usually give me some flowers during the winter time, too. I guess it's from going from the cold outside to going, "Oh, no. I have to go inside and it's nice and warm." I don't know. But they put on a huge show. Very, very colorful. These are great on trelluses. These are easier to control than say something that's much more aggressive and even invasive in a lot of places like the just the regular trumpet vines, right? Which get huge. They get really thick wood on them. Bigas have a more fine tendril. See the tendril? The tendrils cute. Oh, the curly little tendrils. A more fine and delicate growth habit to them, but it's still a vine. They will still grow over structures and, you know, smother out other plants, but they just they do it more elegantly, if that makes sense. So, it's not something like a wisteria or the trumpet vines that they get that big heavy wood on them. I just find them easier to prune and maintain and you can manage their size better and they still put on a really nice show of flowers. Haven't grown the dress to throw before. I've grown other bigonia just never the dress to thrill. So I'm really looking forward to seeing those bright vibrant flowers that they have. There are a lot of bignonas that have a nice vibrant flower. But when you get more into the pinkish shades, there are various colors within the flowers. They are sometimes more pale. So that should it should be cool. I'm looking forward to that. Probably won't be seeing any blooms on this until next year. Maybe even the year after. Just depends on how much growth I can get out of it next year really. this year. Not I don't expect much of anything to happen with it. Okay, moving on. Hold on. I need 15 minutes to get the plastic off the pot first. It's a grass. I love a grass. This one right here, it's a little blue stem with a name that I always struggle with. I'm going to say skisa kyum skis skisium whatever the variety is free spirit exclamation point. It's a blue stem grass. These are natives. They're zone 3 through 10. And these will go about 30 in high. They form a nice ball. They have a nice shape to them. Just these really nice upright, somewhat thick blades of grass. And this one has a nice cool blue tone to it when it's getting the proper light. Right. Right now it's it's little so you can't tell that much. And they have fantastic fall color. That's that. There's not much to say about this one other than I just really like it. I like a blue grass. The size is manageable. the little blue stem grasses, whatever the heck that word is. They're very tolerant of a lot of different soils. These do need sun, but they can go down to part sun. You wouldn't want them to stay too wet, I don't believe. I think that I remember the little blue stems being more difficult in the winter time if they're not getting the right amount of light and they're too exposed. But regardless, they're pretty sturdy. You shouldn't have many troubles with them. And zones three through 10, that's fantastic. There aren't a lot of plants that are that broad with their zoning and it's going to have very nice color. I just like to have grasses around for some of my smaller containers. I think they look nice during the winter time and in the spring. They just they add some life and some texture and some movement to the garden. And just like the hooker being that's a zone four, but this guy over here being a zone three, it'll be fine in a pot, right? You want to water every couple weeks. Make sure they're not drying out if you have a dry winter, dry spells during the winter. But still pretty easy and reliable if you just want to keep them containerized, which is what I probably will be doing with this this year. Probably going to get worked into some fall planters, fall planters that will transition into winter and then spring planters. It'll be a nice filler with some texture. Okay, and the last one. Look at that foliage. Isn't it beautiful? The texture, all the speckles. I love the speckles. You can you can feel them too. Got a nice bumpy habit to it. That doesn't sound great. I think bumpy is a texture people really into. You know what I mean though? It feels nice on the fingers. This is an ellenus which is from Proven Winners called Mr. Smooth Seedless Thornless Silverthorn. Ellie. They're a nice group of plants. There's one that I have tried multiple times called olive martini. I'm sure you've seen it. Well, I'm not sure, but maybe you have. looks like this as far as the texture growth habit goes, but they it's just variegated. They have a yellow margin on them. And uh when we have really wet winters, they don't do so well for me. So, I'm going to be sure to put this in a spot that drains really really well. The Mr. Smooth seedless silverthorn goes from full sun. Oh, they can usually take shade. Ellie and guess are usually good in the shade. So, you got a broad range there with these. Four to six feet tall. Bonus is zones 6 through 9. It says these are good for hedges, screening, foundations, or just as a specimen plant. Uh, their deer resistance is high. So, this will be going in my front yard. I really like the Ellieas for taking clippings off of during the winter time and having them in different arrangements and things like that. They just they have that frosty appearance to them and they just they look really cool. There's not a lot else than it's just a nice shrub. It can be hard to find evergreens sometimes that aren't just your, you know, pines, conifers, those sorts of things. That's why I really, you know, I like to try the laurels and you have rodendrrons and aelas and holl and those things. But getting into something like this, you just get a nice shape to them. They have a beautiful silvery appearance to them because of the speckles that are raised up on the leaves there. Makes the light bounce and look silvery. I also like that the wood has that nice warm tone to it, so you get some contrast in there. And these are a plant that, like I said, they're pretty dang versatile, right? I wet feet in the winter. That's the main thing I've had experience with with any elenus. They don't really like that. So, I generally plant them higher like I would with a lavender, say, cuz I'm 6B 7A. Even though I'm zone 6B, 7A, it's only been a few years since we were like -14, which would make us 6A, right? So, by planting them up higher, I don't have to worry about root collecting right around the base of the plant as much. And then we're having a bad weather. I just make sure to mulch it really, really well. Sometimes some protection, frost claws, those sorts of things can go a long way with a broadleaf evergreen to keep the moisture from being blown out of the plant and the plant getting wind burnt. But look at just look at it. Isn't that beautiful? It has a stiff leaf, yet it still has a fine, soft appearance to it. I really like these. It gives me the vibes of a ficus, like if a ficus, just, you know, a Benjamin ficus and maybe a eucalyptus had a baby or an olive, right? It's an oliveus, right? So, something like that. I think they're beautiful. I would actually be interested in trying one of these as a house plant sometime. Not this one. This one's going to go into the garden. It needs some water. It's kind of thirsty, but that's to be expected. They were in a package and got jumbled around some. Really, the roughest thing these have gone through is me trying to get the plastic and the metal rings off of them. I pretty sure I mentioned I resorted to just you just cut the pot around the ring. Makes it a lot easier, but I did have to, you know, tug and pull a lot. But doesn't matter. They look good. Uh I believe these have more of a medium growth rate. At least the olive martini that always grew fairly medium for me. It wasn't really fast. Wasn't terribly slow. They don't get terribly big either. So when plants don't get terribly big, I don't usually expect them to grow all that fast. At least not with an evergreen type shrub, right? But I will give an alienus points on that one. Am I even saying that right? I just realized that I've never really heard anybody else say the word. I've only ever read it. Ha. Oh, probably not. I've been saying Elangus. This is probably more like Elanus. Silverthorn. We'll just stick with that. Elagnus. Who knows? You get what I'm talking about. You can't really see the picture here all that well. One, because there's a there's a weed stuck where the adhesive used to be, but you get the picture. It's a really nice, pretty shrub. I like them. I haven't noticed them to be like some things like the aelas and roodendrrons where I have to be more on top of the acidity with the soil with them which is really really good. I don't know how they would fare in you know a high pH soil. My soil I have you know lots of diverse soil in my garden from areas where I've amended for a lot of years and areas where it's more like construction fill from years past. So it generally ranges from like oh I think the most acidic is like 62 and I've seen areas as high as 74. I know very very very broad and unusual but that's like I said I've spent years amending some areas that's where the pH is lower and then other areas where there's some more clay and things are higher but I don't really imagine that's going to be an issue for this shrub. You can probably put it in any one of those situations. It'll be just fine. Great plant. I love things with year round interest in evergreen. Like I said, I do I kind of want to get one of these and try them out as a house plant. I just want to see how it would do. I think that they would do well indoors. Basing that off of nothing. Maybe a spider might magnet. I'm not sure though. I don't know. I think that it's more I would always think that it has spidermitites cuz you know it kind of looks like it's covered in bugs when you get up close from far behind. far behind from standing back. From a distance, you don't really notice that. You just get more of that silvery hue. But it's when I get up close and I go, "Uhoh. Uhoh. I need to clean those leaves off. This isn't good. It's not good." When it is, it's fine. Everything's fine. These are beautiful plants. I really enjoy ordering things from Great Garden Plants. They have a really nice selection. I don't actually know if this one or the Dress to Thrill Bignonia are going to be fully out from Proven Winners until next year. I'm pretty sure this is a new for 2026, but they had it on the site. I didn't have to do anything special to get it. Sometimes Proven Winners, particularly this year, they've been releasing some of their plants that are meant for next year at the end of the growing season to people, which I think is nice. you know, been able to try some of the newer ipomia and the Vista Cool Jazz. I want to get my hands on one of those this season, see if I like it for next year. That's really nifty, particularly with the annuals, the perennials. Uh especially something like this where I do have to be more cognizant of winter survival. I would prefer to plant this in the spring, right? because that way it has all growing season to put its roots down and establish itself before taking on the harsh reality of what our winters are here. I guess I'm thinking about like that. Maybe I could pot it up and just keep it as a house plant this year. Oh, a laurel. It kind of looks like a bay plant, too, doesn't it? It has stiff leaves with a silvery tone. So, that's where I'm drawing all my associations from. Not that bayoral has a silvery tone, but those stiff leaves, you know, you get it. All right, that's all fun plants here. just the four of them, but they're four plants that I think are pretty exciting. I guess the grass maybe isn't. I don't know. I love grasses. It's a to each their own kind of situation, right? Comment down below. What are some fun plants you've been trying? Have you tried this particular silverthorn, the Mr. Smooth or any of the others that olive martini? Like I said, that's a pretty common one. And uh the mave. Do you love the mingavees, the nonas, hookas, all of them. Just let let me know what's going on in your gardens. Hope everybody's doing well and a great day, a great life, and everything's going absolutely beautiful for you. And of course, as always, and most importantly, everybody, keep on growing. Bye bye.