My husband always laughs about the way I say 'bye bye' at the end of each video. When I listened to your 'good bye' I had to smile and I was thinking that everybody has ones own style of saying good bye 🌝💛
I love how you share your mistakes and surprises so we can all learn from them. Much of my garden is in containers, so it's easier to shift them from place to place, but they still need to be taken out of the pots and the soil refurbished after a few years. It's always interesting which plants do great with little effort, while others wither under serious coddling. I had some "Naked Ladies" (pink lilies) that had been on the north side of our bedroom for years (planted by the previous owner). Three years ago I dug them up, and planted half by the front fence, and the rest in a big ring under a tree. First year, about 6 by the fence, nothing under the tree. Last year ONE lily came up. This year I had about 25 under the tree, and none by the fence (yet). Patience is a virtue, lol. And one of these years I will plant some of those purple asters. I'm in San Diego, but love seeing comments from Canada, Colorado, New England, and all over. Lovely to share common ground with everyone. :)
Recently, I've been working on my ever-frustrating, ever-experimenting dry shade area. After 20 years with this section, I have finally had a breakthrough with a heuchera that I have navigated all over this area, hoping it would thrive. Finally found a sweet spot that dang plant was happy in! For me, even after decades of gardening, I still find figuring out the best soil conditions for each plant the most challenging. The soil chemistry is so important.
Oh Wow! I have that soil also and SO want Heuchera back in my garden at this place! There are so many varieties now and a lime green would look smashing under the Flame Thrower redbud. Sigh, hope it works for both of us.
I call it the autumn shuffle 😊 pulling out and relocating plants. Buying new ones and planting them. Busy busy here in my garden Northern California Humboldt county by the Sea and Redwoods. Love your videos so much 💚🙌🌲💚🌿
I love how you are so honest about your mistakes and how to learn from them. I really need to do this now and not wait till spring. Thanks Alexandra. 💚
Thank you! I think it's important to be honest about mistakes, because our mistakes are how we learn. When I first started working, one of my bosses told me 'the person who doesn't make mistakes doesn't make anything.' It was great advice.
Thank you for this! Lovely way to start my weekend. I had tons of echinops in my previous garden, but had zero success finding any to plant in my new garden - that and comfrey. I have no idea where my summer went - and then my husband says, "look in the backyard." I really did accomplish A LOT. Busy getting some more plants into the ground now before the ice and snow (Quebec Canada). Spring can't come soon enough. So excited to see everything come up. But then I start skiing and pray for snow. lol Blessings to all.
Thank you! At least you can cheer up your winter with ski-ing. We get roughly the same weather in winter as we do in summer, just a bit colder, wetter and grey-er!
I so love your videos and I don't want to criticize...but please! Can you make our visits a bit longer as I find it difficult to escape reality over here in just 9 minutes!😂 Great compliments to you and Rosy. Thanks for the smiles and flawless information.❤
That chrysanthemum is incredible when in bloom! I need to add some… I’ve also had to move things around here, and I’m struggling to find plants for the front garden due to odd light angles and increasingly dry summers. There’s always something to learn…
Oh my goodness. That Dahilia is gorgeous! and look how it works with the bush behind (smoke bush?) and how it plays off the color of the grass. And not to mention that it is on the oposite color wheel of the verbena. I love it!
Agreed, Lovely Dahlia and you may have something nobody else has, don't get rid of it. I'm here in the south of Ireland and my Dahlia's didn't really flower at all for me this year. Its been too cold and very dry. I am jealous
You are giving me the incentive to tackle a job that needs doing for my sake and the sake of the plants. Planted five pugster blues to take the place of roses which required too much protection from deer, and also needed lots of feeding and spraying. They were supposed to be 2.5 x 2.5 or so. Put them in the front of the border for this reason and planted double doozie spirea and allium behind. They are now about 4 feet by 3 feet, touch each other and hide everything behind. I am going to take out every other one and move them further down in the same bed. At two years old, I am hopeful they will transplant without too much damage. We have relatively mild winters here in Williamsburg, VA and fall is really the best time to plant almost anything. We have very hot, humid summers and the early fall start helps most plants to put down decent roots before that. They have done so well, I hate to disturb them, but this is not the look I hoped for and the plants behind are too crowded. Thanks for all the wonderful information.
I usually move plants in spring but this year I am determined to take advantage of all October and November weekends (when the weather is fine) and relocate perennials and shrubs here and there. They have now reached their peak in terms of growth/size and this means there is no risk of planting them too close to each other, which is something I always do in the spring, because I forget how big they get. I have moved some big hostas today and if I had done the same operation in March next year, I would have probably put six of them in an area where there's actually only room for three, but when their foliage is not out yet, you wouldn't tell hiw big they get. Thank you Alxandra, great video as always, greetings from Italy
Ah, nothing quite like a game of "musical plants." We play it autumn and spring, although the spring routine is mainly for discovery seedlings that get potted up to fill a gap when the weeding and trimming is complete. Correction close to complete 😏
I had all of those problems. I worked on them for the last three days. We´ll see if I was succesfull and it turns out as I imgaine. Happy gardening! 🍁🍂🍁
Yes, I have been avoiding it with one lilac bush because it means filling the gap. Yes, you have convinced me, but I will have to wait until springtime since I am in a high desert plateau (Zone 4b) so we are already reaching close to 0ºC at night. Thank you, Alexandra, for being a consistently conscientious gardener. I rely on your wisdom!
Ozzie seems to genuinely enjoy the garden. He’s very subtle about asking for attention.😎 I’ve never been a big plant mover but I’ve gotten brave this year. One bonus is separating a couple of huge calla lilies and having enough to line a narrow east facing driveway. I also planted some outside of my hedge so that the neighborhood could enjoy them. Can I use a hori-hori to cut 1/3 of a deer fern out and replant? It’s massive and I’m concerned I’ll lose the entire plant if I attempt to dig it all out. Thank you Alexandra❤
Very timely. I have been studying my overcrowded borders and trying to make decisions about what to remove. I love the crocosmia but there are now too many and they are not happy.
I'd never heard of reverting. That's so interesting and explains the slow transformation of a former plant of mine. As always, thanks for these videos. I learn so much from them!
Thanks! I appreciate the information. It gives me confidence to change the arrangements. Rearranging plants now allows me to see the overall picture while they are still above ground. Before I had to guess and it didn’t work out. I look forward to next year’s growth.
Interesting video! I think I’ve had every one of these problems at some point. I’m a great fan of moving plants. Sometimes I even deliberately place a plant somewhere temporarily whilst another small plant gets larger, fully aware that this plant will have to get moved eventually…. You just have to be careful coz some plants really don’t like root disturbance - I’ve found this to be particularly true of magnolias and daphnes. Moving = tragedy! 😩
So well timed! I’ve been considering whether I should move several of my larger perennials and this is incredibly helpful in making that decision. Thank you!
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden I have some peonies that probably ought to have been divided last year, so that definitely has to happen this season. I’m a little nervous because I’ve never done it before (and they’re my favorite spring/early summer flower out here in US zone 5A), so fingers crossed I don’t muck it up! I suppose even if I do, I will have learned something, right? You’ve also given me the courage to move a hydrangea macrophylla that I placed in a less than ideal spot two years ago. I know the garden better now, so I’m cautiously optimistic about the new spot for him. Thanks for your all your videos, Alexandra; they’re a calm moment that I always look forward to!
@@prophetessoftroyI hope to see more peonies here as we struggle to get them to flower and we tried everything. Had One flower last year 🎉. I just moved one that was here before us and it’s never flowered-🤞🏻. And we have a large shrub we need to move back closer so I can water it. I need a garden helper 😂. I love her vids also! “Goodbye”🎶🎶😊
I have tgat ussue with my rose plant. I relocated it to be in a mire sunnier location and it has been kinda kame. I moved it to another spot that will get more shade, but I will see if it likes it there next year.
😂I was laughing through most of the video. I have so many of these observations I don’t know where to start. The leaners, the crowders and the plain ole not happy. I don’t have a lot of shade and there are no moist areas here and I would love to have a few plants that like those conditions but they wouldn’t like our dry soil. I do have a shrub that was beautiful by the house, but farther away I can’t water it and it will be a job to move indeed. It’s a 9 bark I think and it really needs a foothold to survive full sun as a smaller one left behind is not doing well. Then there are places I would like to move a perennial and at the moment an annual is still doing fine and need to wait. The annual is Gomphrena and my new favorite and those are weighing down a couple of boxwoods that I propagated and hope they are still under there somewhere. Then the redbud-not much I can do to give it a bit of shade until the maple grows unless it’s a structure of some sort. The Flame Thrower is doing great and Really Love it, but the Forest Pansy ? I think could use shade. Thank you for the laugh and I need to find some energy and get moving 😂. Oh, when you said in spring you won’t know where you’re digging-I always seem to find the spring bulbs now😂. I really need to mark them. And get rid of voles that appeared out of nowhere😏.
So, do I transplant/divide my roses, hibiscus, autumn joy, lilies and dahlias (mine stay out all year zone 8 BC west coast) right now, or when they stop flowering, or when they stop flowering and the leaves start to fall? Thank you as always 🇨🇦
Question: I have wild asters popping up everywhere. The bees absolutely LOVE THEM! But they are very gangly and invasive and don't grow in a compact mound like store-bought asters. Is there a way to prune "wild" plants to get them to grow the way we want? I prefer the wild asters because they are a much better fit with my wild garden. Thank you.
I brutally chelsey chop mine because I garden on a dairy farm, which means lots of rich mulch. Any I miss just lay on the ground and have murdered plants beside them in the past. So ya, take them to the ground in May I say.
Thank you Alexandra. It all makes sense. However, is Autumn a good time to move sedums or other plants that like dry conditions? I know that it's is not advised to plant them in Autumn and that it's better to wait till Spring (I do want to add 2 to my collection but decided to wait) so I assumed that it would be a similar situation for transplanting.
It should be fine if you think it's at least six weeks before a freeze, to give them time to become established. Some people do plant them in the autumn if they live in places with relatively dry winters.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden thank you. That does make sense. I live in North East England and winters here are quite wet, so it's probably higher risk here than the South 🙂
Alexandra, Jamain is a scraggy, disease-prone plant that will always look awful when not in full bloom (May/June). You can move it all over the garden but I doubt it will look great.
@TheMiddlesizedGarden So sorry. It's not the first time I noticed but the first time I asked. My little doggo passed away at the beginning of this year. 💖
The best part is always hearing you singing “goodbye” at the end. 😀
Thank you!
😂😂😂I just mentioned that to my husband 😂😂😂
I say it along with you every time x
My husband always laughs about the way I say 'bye bye' at the end of each video. When I listened to your 'good bye' I had to smile and I was thinking that everybody has ones own style of saying good bye 🌝💛
I say it along out loud every time 😂❤️
I love how you share your mistakes and surprises so we can all learn from them. Much of my garden is in containers, so it's easier to shift them from place to place, but they still need to be taken out of the pots and the soil refurbished after a few years. It's always interesting which plants do great with little effort, while others wither under serious coddling. I had some "Naked Ladies" (pink lilies) that had been on the north side of our bedroom for years (planted by the previous owner). Three years ago I dug them up, and planted half by the front fence, and the rest in a big ring under a tree. First year, about 6 by the fence, nothing under the tree. Last year ONE lily came up. This year I had about 25 under the tree, and none by the fence (yet). Patience is a virtue, lol. And one of these years I will plant some of those purple asters. I'm in San Diego, but love seeing comments from Canada, Colorado, New England, and all over. Lovely to share common ground with everyone. :)
Thank you, yes, I love how the comments come from all over the world too.
Recently, I've been working on my ever-frustrating, ever-experimenting dry shade area. After 20 years with this section, I have finally had a breakthrough with a heuchera that I have navigated all over this area, hoping it would thrive. Finally found a sweet spot that dang plant was happy in! For me, even after decades of gardening, I still find figuring out the best soil conditions for each plant the most challenging. The soil chemistry is so important.
I agree, it is just not simple!
Oh Wow! I have that soil also and SO want Heuchera back in my garden at this place! There are so many varieties now and a lime green would look smashing under the Flame Thrower redbud. Sigh, hope it works for both of us.
I call it the autumn shuffle 😊 pulling out and relocating plants. Buying new ones and planting them. Busy busy here in my garden Northern California Humboldt county by the Sea and Redwoods. Love your videos so much 💚🙌🌲💚🌿
Love that!
I love how you are so honest about your mistakes and how to learn from them. I really need to do this now and not wait till spring. Thanks Alexandra. 💚
Thank you! I think it's important to be honest about mistakes, because our mistakes are how we learn. When I first started working, one of my bosses told me 'the person who doesn't make mistakes doesn't make anything.' It was great advice.
Thank you for this! Lovely way to start my weekend. I had tons of echinops in my previous garden, but had zero success finding any to plant in my new garden - that and comfrey. I have no idea where my summer went - and then my husband says, "look in the backyard." I really did accomplish A LOT. Busy getting some more plants into the ground now before the ice and snow (Quebec Canada). Spring can't come soon enough. So excited to see everything come up. But then I start skiing and pray for snow. lol Blessings to all.
Thank you! At least you can cheer up your winter with ski-ing. We get roughly the same weather in winter as we do in summer, just a bit colder, wetter and grey-er!
I so love your videos and I don't want to criticize...but please! Can you make our visits a bit longer as I find it difficult to escape reality over here in just 9 minutes!😂 Great compliments to you and Rosy. Thanks for the smiles and flawless information.❤
Thank you! Will try!
That chrysanthemum is incredible when in bloom! I need to add some…
I’ve also had to move things around here, and I’m struggling to find plants for the front garden due to odd light angles and increasingly dry summers. There’s always something to learn…
Thank you!
This channel never misses. Another great video!
Glad you enjoy it!
Thanks for the reminder to fix planting mistakes before it’s too late! 😅
Oh my goodness. That Dahilia is gorgeous! and look how it works with the bush behind (smoke bush?) and how it plays off the color of the grass. And not to mention that it is on the oposite color wheel of the verbena. I love it!
I think you're right!
Looks like a smoke bush to our left and a redbud to our left.
But my eyes are not the best.
@@Dan-440yep, I believe your right. Just passed your eye test😊.
Agreed, Lovely Dahlia and you may have something nobody else has, don't get rid of it. I'm here in the south of Ireland and my Dahlia's didn't really flower at all for me this year. Its been too cold and very dry. I am jealous
How timely! This is my garden activity today.
Happy plant moving!
Your videos are always so informative and so practical. I love your wonderful attitude . Thanks
Thank you!
Another brilliant post! Thanks Alexandra ❤
Thank you!
Thank you so much for the lesson. I do have a few plants that are separating in the middle, so now I know I must dig them up and replant them.
You are giving me the incentive to tackle a job that needs doing for my sake and the sake of the plants. Planted five pugster blues to take the place of roses which required too much protection from deer, and also needed lots of feeding and spraying. They were supposed to be 2.5 x 2.5 or so. Put them in the front of the border for this reason and planted double doozie spirea and allium behind. They are now about 4 feet by 3 feet, touch each other and hide everything behind. I am going to take out every other one and move them further down in the same bed. At two years old, I am hopeful they will transplant without too much damage. We have relatively mild winters here in Williamsburg, VA and fall is really the best time to plant almost anything. We have very hot, humid summers and the early fall start helps most plants to put down decent roots before that. They have done so well, I hate to disturb them, but this is not the look I hoped for and the plants behind are too crowded. Thanks for all the wonderful information.
Thank you!
I usually move plants in spring but this year I am determined to take advantage of all October and November weekends (when the weather is fine) and relocate perennials and shrubs here and there. They have now reached their peak in terms of growth/size and this means there is no risk of planting them too close to each other, which is something I always do in the spring, because I forget how big they get. I have moved some big hostas today and if I had done the same operation in March next year, I would have probably put six of them in an area where there's actually only room for three, but when their foliage is not out yet, you wouldn't tell hiw big they get.
Thank you Alxandra, great video as always, greetings from Italy
Thank you!
Ah, nothing quite like a game of "musical plants." We play it autumn and spring, although the spring routine is mainly for discovery seedlings that get potted up to fill a gap when the weeding and trimming is complete. Correction close to complete 😏
I always learn so much from this channel. Thankyou Alexandra 🌹
I'm so glad!
I had all of those problems. I worked on them for the last three days. We´ll see if I was succesfull and it turns out as I imgaine. Happy gardening! 🍁🍂🍁
Fingers crossed!
Yes, I have been avoiding it with one lilac bush because it means filling the gap. Yes, you have convinced me, but I will have to wait until springtime since I am in a high desert plateau (Zone 4b) so we are already reaching close to 0ºC at night. Thank you, Alexandra, for being a consistently conscientious gardener. I rely on your wisdom!
Glad it was helpful!
Ozzie seems to genuinely enjoy the garden. He’s very subtle about asking for attention.😎 I’ve never been a big plant mover but I’ve gotten brave this year. One bonus is separating a couple of huge calla lilies and having enough to line a narrow east facing driveway. I also planted some outside of my hedge so that the neighborhood could enjoy them. Can I use a hori-hori to cut 1/3 of a deer fern out and replant? It’s massive and I’m concerned I’ll lose the entire plant if I attempt to dig it all out. Thank you Alexandra❤
Thank you. I'm not sure about the fern. I'd give it a try if I were you, but I've never done it myself.
Very timely. I have been studying my overcrowded borders and trying to make decisions about what to remove. I love the crocosmia but there are now too many and they are not happy.
I'd never heard of reverting. That's so interesting and explains the slow transformation of a former plant of mine. As always, thanks for these videos. I learn so much from them!
Thank you!
I never new plants could revert!!Interesting. Thanks😊
Thank you! - you gave me an idea for a rose for a not-so-sunny position and I have ordered Dr Jarmain
I hope he comes up trumps.
Thanks! I appreciate the information. It gives me confidence to change the arrangements. Rearranging plants now allows me to see the overall picture while they are still above ground. Before I had to guess and it didn’t work out. I look forward to next year’s growth.
Glad you enjoyed it.
Thank you so much! such a very helpful tips
Thank you, I always learn so much from your lovely video's!
Thank you!
Great, timely video. I am in the middle of doing that right now. All great tips.
Glad it was helpful!
This is where my garden is at, thanks for all the info! Love Ozzie 🐕🐾💞
Thank you! And we love Ozzie, too, he is a poppet.
Informative as always. Thank you very much for sharing 🌼🌝👍
You are so welcome
Interesting video! I think I’ve had every one of these problems at some point. I’m a great fan of moving plants. Sometimes I even deliberately place a plant somewhere temporarily whilst another small plant gets larger, fully aware that this plant will have to get moved eventually….
You just have to be careful coz some plants really don’t like root disturbance - I’ve found this to be particularly true of magnolias and daphnes. Moving = tragedy! 😩
I agree, definitely lost all my daphnes.
Thank you.
A pleasure!
So well timed! I’ve been considering whether I should move several of my larger perennials and this is incredibly helpful in making that decision. Thank you!
I definitely left the persicaria a year too long.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden I have some peonies that probably ought to have been divided last year, so that definitely has to happen this season. I’m a little nervous because I’ve never done it before (and they’re my favorite spring/early summer flower out here in US zone 5A), so fingers crossed I don’t muck it up! I suppose even if I do, I will have learned something, right?
You’ve also given me the courage to move a hydrangea macrophylla that I placed in a less than ideal spot two years ago. I know the garden better now, so I’m cautiously optimistic about the new spot for him.
Thanks for your all your videos, Alexandra; they’re a calm moment that I always look forward to!
@@prophetessoftroyI hope to see more peonies here as we struggle to get them to flower and we tried everything. Had One flower last year 🎉. I just moved one that was here before us and it’s never flowered-🤞🏻. And we have a large shrub we need to move back closer so I can water it. I need a garden helper 😂.
I love her vids also! “Goodbye”🎶🎶😊
I have tgat ussue with my rose plant. I relocated it to be in a mire sunnier location and it has been kinda kame. I moved it to another spot that will get more shade, but I will see if it likes it there next year.
Not quite the best part - but yes such fun! 🤩
Did I spot a new puppy? BTW, I am currently moving plants in my tiny upstate NY garden, so your video is beautifully timely!
Yes, Ozzie joined us in June last year, sadly Lottie passed away in January of that year. Ozzie likes to be in on the filming, and he's a real poppet.
😂I was laughing through most of the video. I have so many of these observations I don’t know where to start. The leaners, the crowders and the plain ole not happy.
I don’t have a lot of shade and there are no moist areas here and I would love to have a few plants that like those conditions but they wouldn’t like our dry soil. I do have a shrub that was beautiful by the house, but farther away I can’t water it and it will be a job to move indeed. It’s a 9 bark I think and it really needs a foothold to survive full sun as a smaller one left behind is not doing well.
Then there are places I would like to move a perennial and at the moment an annual is still doing fine and need to wait. The annual is Gomphrena and my new favorite and those are weighing down a couple of boxwoods that I propagated and hope they are still under there somewhere. Then the redbud-not much I can do to give it a bit of shade until the maple grows unless it’s a structure of some sort. The Flame Thrower is doing great and Really Love it, but the Forest Pansy ? I think could use shade.
Thank you for the laugh and I need to find some energy and get moving 😂.
Oh, when you said in spring you won’t know where you’re digging-I always seem to find the spring bulbs now😂. I really need to mark them. And get rid of voles that appeared out of nowhere😏.
I agree, spring bulbs are always popping up when I dig up in autumn.
So, do I transplant/divide my roses, hibiscus, autumn joy, lilies and dahlias (mine stay out all year zone 8 BC west coast) right now, or when they stop flowering,
or when they stop flowering and the leaves start to fall?
Thank you as always 🇨🇦
I'm glad you're still young!
I don't think I could describe myself as 'young'!
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden The way I see it you're only old if somebody is trying to dig you up and move you.
Question: I have wild asters popping up everywhere. The bees absolutely LOVE THEM! But they are very gangly and invasive and don't grow in a compact mound like store-bought asters. Is there a way to prune "wild" plants to get them to grow the way we want? I prefer the wild asters because they are a much better fit with my wild garden. Thank you.
I believe the plant growers pinch or cut them back around June to help them get bushy and keep a better shape!
I brutally chelsey chop mine because I garden on a dairy farm, which means lots of rich mulch. Any I miss just lay on the ground and have murdered plants beside them in the past. So ya, take them to the ground in May I say.
TH🌳NKS‼️
I have a few plants that are complaining. Sigh… I have been avoiding this project, but I suppose it’s time. If you can do it, then I will too.
Perfect timing. I have a sick camellia
Hope it goes well.
Thank you Alexandra. It all makes sense. However, is Autumn a good time to move sedums or other plants that like dry conditions? I know that it's is not advised to plant them in Autumn and that it's better to wait till Spring (I do want to add 2 to my collection but decided to wait) so I assumed that it would be a similar situation for transplanting.
It should be fine if you think it's at least six weeks before a freeze, to give them time to become established. Some people do plant them in the autumn if they live in places with relatively dry winters.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden thank you. That does make sense. I live in North East England and winters here are quite wet, so it's probably higher risk here than the South 🙂
Alexandra, Jamain is a scraggy, disease-prone plant that will always look awful when not in full bloom (May/June). You can move it all over the garden but I doubt it will look great.
Oh, dear! It certainly does look awful most of the time, I'll see if it likes the shade any better, if not, it'll have to go!
This was a helpful video, Alexandra! Ozzie is very handsome.
Thank you! And we think he is handsome, too!
What happened to your white dog?
Sadly she passed away at the beginning of 2023
My Geums were non existent this year and they are in exactly the same place. I think it’s due to lack of sunlight.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden I'm sorry for your loss, she was beautiful,
@TheMiddlesizedGarden So sorry. It's not the first time I noticed but the first time I asked. My little doggo passed away at the beginning of this year. 💖