Rejuvenation Prune on a Forsythia Planting Some Beautiful Things Garden Answer

Hey guys, how's it going? So today we've got several things to plant in the back of the gator, most of which we picked up down at the garden center when we were down there yesterday taking a look around. We got a tremendous amount of rain yesterday. We got some last night, we got some this morning, and then it hailed and snowed on us just a little bit ago. I'm in my winter coat right now because the breeze that's coming through is so chilly. It's supposed to get down to 29 tonight. It was supposed to get down below freezing last night and it didn't, so we'll see how things fare. But these plants have already been exposed to temperatures cooler than 29, so we should be okay. So you can see we've got the Siberian iris. This is the peacock tipped in blue Siberian iris, the beautiful blue and yellow color there. It looks like an Easter basket. They grow three by three, zones three through nine. We've got the extra blue limber pine, which this one gets, I know, 15 feet wide, but 25 by 15, already down to negative 30. I absolutely love the color and the texture of this tree. It is so beautiful. We've also got the claim jumper katsura tree, which grows 20 feet tall by 15 foot spread, hardy down to negative 30 degrees. But the really fun, well, there's a couple of fun things about this one. First of all, I love the chartreuse foliage. I love the new color, or the new foliage, the color that the new foliage is, that orange. And then it says in the fall, the whole tree canopy turns bronze. And then as the leaves are falling, they emit a cotton candy-like fragrance. Oh, I hope that's true, because I would love that. And the other two things we are gonna plant today. We've got one type of hydrangea. These are the fire lights. You can see, I carried these over from last year and have not pruned them yet. And I waited to prune them so I could show you what they look like, what a hydrangea looks like if you leave last year's blooms. It'll make it very easy to come in here and we'll just pop off the bloom, the blooms. We're not gonna trim them down any further. But these are gonna go up front. So over there by our entryway, gate. Entry, gate. Gate at the entry. And then I have one more of the Celtic Pride Siberian Cypress. We just planted one of these behind the Dreamstream. I absolutely love them. And I planted one, it's over there. Yeah, this is a Montana moss juniper. So, another kind of ground cover sort of situation, which this one's doing beautifully. But yeah, I can see the, I don't know if you guys can see its way over there, the Celtic Pride, and it's really short. They grow one to three feet tall and usually about four to six feet wide. So I figured we could pop that one out here. I really like the texture of these and I'm working on getting some lower evergreen interest into our flower beds throughout our garden. So that's the lineup of planting projects for today and I'm so incredibly thankful for the sun. Oh, I don't think we're gonna have it for very long, but it's making it feel a lot more pleasant out here. Before we take after the planting, we are gonna take after one of our show-off recipients. But you can see they're just now kind of done with their bloom show, which lasted for a couple of months, it felt like. They were just balls of yellow out here. So pretty, but that one, that one struggled. You can see it's a little bit more sparse. There's not a lot going on in this shrub. It's trying to leaf out a little bit. And I don't know, I think what I want to do is a rejuvenation prune on this one. I don't wanna try keeping these straggly branches. So what we're gonna do is just take the plant back quite far. And it started to do this last year. I noticed it starting to look a little bit more scant than the others. The others were full, full of green leaves, looked very healthy and happy, while that one was kind of looking a little bit puny. And it was set back from the others. So I just left it alone. I checked the water to make sure that the water system was good, and everything seemed to be the same as the others. And then this spring, when it just like barely bloomed, I had like 10 blooms on it, and the other ones were, you know, bottom to top full of blooms. I just thought, you know what? We either need to replace it with a fresh one, or rejuvenate prune it and see what happens. And when we do a rejuvenation prune, we take the plant down really far. And this is a perfect time to do it on a forsythia because the new growth that it hopefully produces, because the root system will then have a lot of energy to, you know, send toward new growth. It will have enough time to set buds for next year's bloom time. Because that's how these work. They bloom on old wood. So forsythias, lilacs, you kind of treat them the same way. The only time you want to prune them is immediately after they're done blooming. And you can see that we're right at that time period. I did bring our battery-operated pruners out here for this job because I just, I think I'm gonna take it down pretty close to the base here. All right, I'm gonna get you a closeup view with this camera so you can see exactly where I'm making the cut. But also backed up view can kind of be helpful at times too. I'm such a visual learner. I like to see it from multiple different angles. All right, you can see it? Yep. I'm just inspecting it just to see, like what if we started with just the clearly dead branches and then we can take a look at the plant overall and decide if we still want to take it down as far as I'm thinking of taking it down. So in that case, you can see right here, this one is dead. Take that out. This one right here is dead. As is that one and this one. Yeah, those have no growth on them at all. They're dead, dead. That one's dead, that one's dead. Yeah, you know what? One of these main branches, this one right here, it's got some growth on it, but it's got a lot of dead branches too. So I think it's just a good idea to take it back down. So I'm just gonna take it down like right above where there's like a little bump or a little node, growth point. Same on this one. Goodness. Looking at the other ones to see if there are any branches I need to take out of the others, but they look really good. They've also, I'm noticing, like if we get close up on this one, you can see a bunch of new growth at the bottom. Same with that one, same with that one. This one had nothing. So we're just gonna have to wait to see what this one does. See if that one starts to push new growth. And if it does, it'll most likely, well, hopefully come out from down here and then these will be abandoned completely eventually. That was easy. Okay, so there we go. That is done. And we're just gonna have to wait and see what it does. It used to make me really nervous to do something like that. And now I just kind of have the mindset where I don't really wanna look at a plant suffering and struggling. Like I will for a certain amount of time trying to give it a chance. So like last year, kind of waiting it out, seeing if it kind of pushed through whatever it was. And then we'll do this. This is kind of the next step, see how it rebounds. And if it does great, if it doesn't, then we'll replace. So it's kind of a two year trial process. Like you have two years to get yourself out of whatever funk you're in. And if you don't do it, then we can put a new one in. And I enjoy these so much out here that I really would like to add more. We've got two bunches of them on this side of the dirtlands. I love to add a couple more bunches on the other side because boy, they are just such a bright, cheerful thing out here in the early, early part of the gardening season. Okay, so I think the next thing we're gonna do is just take after these hydrangeas. Just gonna pop the old blooms off. We don't even need to use pruners for this part. And they'll look so nice and tidy when we're all done. And then we can get these planted because I know exactly where these are going. Oh, there we go. Look at that one. Gorgeous. Okay, now we're done. We need to grab a bag of biotone at the pole barn and then we can head up. It does not look chilly out here, but it is. It is very chilly right now. Open the gate. Oh, I just missed the line. Perfect. I think we can just park right in here. So these two, you guys are going right in the spot where we were gonna put some sort of architectural tree. But I think it's gonna be better just to have this all the hydrangeas on both sides. It would be an easy thing to do to wanna add something else in there, but I think sometimes less varieties is more. It simplifies things as you're looking at it. So it doesn't look like too much of a jumbled up mess. So on this side where this little opening is, right there. You can see if you're looking at it from, you know, backed up a little bit. If we had another type of tree in here, it would be a lot. I mean, these autumn blaze maples are going to get huge. I don't know what is going on with the top of that one. The tops of the branches don't look like they're leafing out very well. How weird. And this one looks like it's full of seeds. Extra weird. Maybe they won't grow very big, I don't know. And this one looks phenomenal. Anyway, this whole area is just completely full of firelight hydrangeas. And I think just having it be that with the boxwood hedge and then the evergreens and all the other stuff behind them, it's just going to be a lot more of a impactful, clean sort of look. And I absolutely love, I even hate to say it, but I love that that spruce tree is gone. I think even if it would have lived right there and would have been nice and green, I probably, I would have liked it, but it does kind of open the area up a little bit. And sometimes when you lose something, I mean, it's always a bummer when you lose something, but sometimes it can really make a little bit of a positive difference to an area that you didn't even realize. So we have yet to find a spring grove arborvitae. We would love to find one that's a little bit, we won't find one that big that will match that one, but something that's like big-ish that we can repeat plant so that it will look very balanced in the bone structure plants. But everything else behind this area is so beautiful. The Weeping Alaskan Cedar, that's a Royal Raindrops Crabapple. The Vanderwolf Pine, Snowball Bush Viburnums in here, there's a Gin Fizz Juniper. You can see the Blue Merengue Lilac Tree right there. And our Blue Sky Servian Spruce. It's just like a beautiful area to walk around and look at specimen evergreens and shrubs. It's just so pretty. Black Leafs Elderberry, absolutely massive. And then that is a Red Fox Katsura Tree. So in the same family as the one we're planting today, the Claim Jumper. Cinnamon Curls Birch. And you pop out here and you can start seeing the loop. I just remember when this whole area was nothing. Like nothingness, white powder dirt, wild. Okay, let's get these planted. They look so good. Oh, I love the uniform look on both sides. So let me count really quick because I can't quite remember, but we've got 229 Firelight Hydrangeas on this side. Oh my goodness. And nine on this side, which I think I want to put one more at least. So one about where that drip tube ends, like right in here. And then we'll have the Arborvitae here, so it's possible we could do one more kind of closer to the male house here. But I am thinking of putting window boxes on both sides of the male house, now that it's opened up and you can actually see it. Now that this tree is gone, I think that would be really, really fun. But they've been watered in, they're good to go. And I'm thinking of putting the Katsura Tree right on the other side of this whole thing. That's what happens when I get started planting, I start looking around and really thinking about stuff. I think if we could put it right in here and it would be beautiful. We can't drive on this pathway because Aaron has it all seeded. In fact, if you look, you can see like the golden color, those are the seeds. Just need a little bit of heat. We've had plenty of moisture to get the grass up. It's just heat at this point. But if you look in this area, we've got a, I want to say that's a Prairie Fire Crabapple. There's a European White Bark Birch. Lots of gorgeous evergreens. There's the Autumn Blaze Maple and another Crabapple that has a darker red leaf. So if we pop this one here and only gets 15 feet wide, I think it would look really nice. Let's set it there and see how it looks. There was another spot just down the way I thought I could tuck it into. There's a lot of spots I feel like it would look pretty. Like right here, it would look gorgeous right here. We've got quite a lot of empty space here and it would be beautiful, except there's a lot of green, another great big green tree. So maybe something with purple leaves in here. Okay, we're going to use the nine inch auger. We're just going to dig three holes right in the same location. So it's big enough for this tree. Look at how that shines right there. That is so pretty. Oh, but we've also got some burning bushes in this area. There's a little trio kind of around this blue spruce tree. Oh, it's just gorgeous. We've got our Angel White Lilac that we recently planted. Just got to give it one of those every once in a while. Oh my gosh, I'm seeing snowflakes. I knew we were in for something. Do you see them? Oh, oh my gosh. Well, that is a beautiful tree and it's just lighting up this area so much. Hmm, I don't know guys. I don't know if we're going to be run out or not. We'll see how this goes. We only have a few things left to plant. We've got our Siberian Iris, our Celtic Pride Cypress, and our Pine. I want to go up to the area where Hebe is to see if we have a place for that. I don't recall any blue evergreen interest in that space and that might be a fun thing to add. Come on, mercy. Did I already mention it's supposed to get really windy this afternoon too? What a weird couple of days. Okay, so here we are. I was thinking, what if we put something right in here? Because I don't really want another deciduous super close to the red point. I kind of want it broken up. So like evergreen and then maybe another deciduous that matches something that we put on the other side possibly. I don't know, let's try it there. All right, I'm gonna pop all of these down in their holes before I tuck everything in. Make sure we like the positioning of the Pine. Definitely the calm before the storm. Oh my goodness, but this is so pretty. Look at how beautiful that is. So I was mentioning maybe putting in a red twig dogwood right in here for some bright winter interest and dogwoods transition really well from a sunny area to a shady area. Red point maple will continue to grow but this is Western exposure right here. So the spot will still get quite a lot of sun right in here. And then Aaron and I, he came over here right before I planted the Pine. I kind of wanted a second opinion. I'm thinking of planting something that's the same to flank these. Nothing formal like a cone boxwood or anything that has to be shorn but maybe two very columnar type trees or something to kind of, I don't know, signal the opening. I don't know, we'll see how that goes. But I do feel like putting in a red twig dogwood, maybe another nine bark in this area or smoke, we've got a smoke bush kind of underneath the willow but I don't think it ever gets quite enough light. We did have a lot of the willow trimmed out last year though so we'll see, we'll see what happens. But I feel like this is such a great start on filling in this area, working on that. Okay, we've got one more plant to get in the ground. I think we have just enough time. It's possible that whole system could skirt around us a little bit. I'm not taking my chances after it snowed this morning, huh? Okay, you guys might remember we planted one of the Celtic prides right here. It'll look great. I wanna look for a spot over here on the north farm. We've got a lot of tall evergreen interests but not a lot of short evergreen interests over there. Beautiful sky though, okie dokie. So we've got lots of stuff going on over here with shrubs and that sort of thing but I'm thinking we can pop the Celtic pride in somewhere sort of in between a couple of the shrubs. I'll look at the whole thing before we, oh, real quick, there's some pretty tulips. So Proven Winter sent out a couple of their packages of like pre-mixed, they're a mix that are done for you. Anyway, they come in like packets of 10 or something like that. This came from one of them and they are so pretty. If you look in there, they haven't opened all the way yet but they've got a deep pink and then that apricot and then look at this big fluffy yellow one, so pretty. Always have to drive the area once and now I'm gonna go back here. I think I know exactly where I want it, right here. So we've got a black lice elderberry right here. It's leaping out beautifully and then we have a Mr. Smooth seedless silverthorn right here, which is also pushing a bunch of brand new growth. I think it would be nice to just plunk that right in between. So that'll take up, you know, four, what was the spread on that one? Four to five feet, four to six, something like that. Three to five, four to six feet wide, perfect. Black lice elderberries get enormous and I can't remember the size on the silverthorn. Something maybe four to six feet, mid-range size shrub, perhaps. Okay, let's get that in the ground. Hopefully while it still stays sunny out. Mine's looking pretty good, a little thin. Do you hear that? Is that a hawk? Yep. Red-tailed hawk, you think? Something in that blue spruce. Because European starlings, the sound only when she is sleeping. Really? Is this starting to move up a little bit too? Yeah. But I'm getting there. Yeah, sometimes it takes a while. Depends on how soft the wood is. Different types of trees produce different types of wood. Some are really soft and some are really hard. I think this kind of is gonna be a hard one. Yeah. What do you suppose that is? That's a duck. What? Remember, what is that? That's a duck. Oh. Remember, they talk different languages. Okay. Sorry, I thought you were saying that earlier about something else. You think our chickens are now, huh? That hawk would be honing in for some lunch. You're not a hawk, it's an European starling, remember. No, the hawk I keep hearing, screeching up in the sky. The European starling, remember? The European starling's making a hawk noise? The hawk sounds way more louder and intense than the European starling does. I probably was not getting any of that, was I? Oh, duh. Oh, burn. To the fire. Totally. Oh, I forgot there's no water over here right now. Dang it. Ah. It'll get water, it'll be great. Oh my goodness, you guys, I have to say, that looks really pretty right there. I don't know if just the lighting or what, but seeing that little poof of green, it's just beautiful. And because it's on a little bit of a slope, I kind of try to, I plant the root ball straight and then try to make a little well around the front, especially in the beginning when we're watering. I don't want a bunch of the water to run off. I want it to kind of pool around the root ball just for a bit. And I strung the hose out over here to water it and I completely forgot. We're right in the middle of swapping something out in this section of the water system. I'm not really sure what they're doing, but they're waiting for the glue to dry. So anyway, I'm gonna have to go get a watering can for this, but that is gonna do it for our projects for today. And we beat the storm, so whatever is coming our way can just do its thing. And it probably, like Benjamin was saying, you probably don't even need to water it. The storm will do it for you, which is probably true. And even though the day was cut a little bit short because of the weather, I was just trying to kind of squeeze it in, you know, when it wasn't doing something weird, hailing or snowing or whatever, I'm really happy with everything we got done. I'm happy that we got the whole forsythia thing taken care of. And I hope that if you guys are dealing with something like that, it gives you a little bit of encouragement on some of the things that you can do to maybe help your shrub and or call it and put something in that you enjoy looking at. It's hard to look at struggling plants in your garden. And everything we planted is so, so pretty. I just love it. Every new addition this spring, it feels like there's so many areas that are just kind of starting to feel a little bit more mature, a little bit more filled in. And that's a fun thing, especially when we started with blank slates, almost everywhere. Anyway, guys, thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope you enjoyed it. And we will see you in the next one. Bye.