At Venture Out Nursery we strive to educate and guide our customers as well as our community with high quality information. Come to our channel for short, easy to follow videos regarding plant care and nursery products. We hope these will help gardeners and landscape artists in the PNW to hone their skills and build their confidence. If you're in the greater Seattle area and want to visit our nursery, please see our website for hours, location and more. Thanks for stopping by!
Hi! This is super helpful. We have a large patio with very big pots (about 2 ft diameter, 3 feet deep). We're looking for something that provides some privacy, can withstand a ton of direct sunlight in summer (we get a LOT of direct sunlight in summer), and doesn't have super strong water demands (we have no spigot outside so it's cumbersome to do a lot of watering every day). Which of these do you think would be good for this application? The pots have some old soil in them we just removed all the dead plants from - do we need to totally replace this old soil or is there a way we can rejuvenate it? Sorry for the obvious questions, I am a total beginner at this.
You did an excellent job explaining, I've been googling every where to find what you just explained. I had two catalpas pruned and of course here come the water sprouts. I guess there is no way to stop their filling in spaces. I've eliminated branches only to have them become thicker. Great job and thank you
Do you have a recommendation for converting a grass covered drain field to these plantings, since you can't add soil? Normally I'd get rid of grass by putting down cardboard and let some top soil. Wish I'd known about your videos when I lived on Whidbey - loved the nursery!
Thanks for watching! You could still use cardboard to smother the grass but I would be conservative about how much organic material you put on top. I would also recommend a lighter, more porous mix than topsoil. Maybe a bioretention mix? I also would recommend doing parts of the system at a time. Some systems need to be able to “breathe” and covering them with cardboard could inhibit that. Perhaps a third of the drain line run at a time. Finally, my strongest recommendation would be to consult a local septic system professional to make sure your approach is a fit for your particular system design and site conditions! Good luck & happy gardening!
Great question! Yes and No. Summer stone fruits need a different style of pruning since they fruit on younger wood and don’t form fruiting spurs like pears and apples. Summer is a great time for pruning stone fruits since their vigor response is not triggered so hard by pruning at this time of year (which means they are less likely to “sucker” so heavily after pruning). The best answer to your question is too complicated to answer in a comment, but thanks for the great idea for another video!! Thanks for watchin!
The "huckleberry" you showed is actually a Blueberry. It's DNA has been run and studied and it is a member of the blueberry family. The only huckleberry is one that grows in the northern east coast. It's not related, nor does it grow like our blueberries.
Thanks for watching! The latin name of the Evergreen Huckleberry we showed is Vaccinium ovatum. It is also less commonly referred to as Evergreen Blueberry. Common names can be variable. We use “huckleberry” instead of “blueberry” because most of the native plant organizations also use that name. Both are as accurate as any common name can ever be. Latin names are always the most specific and accurate but we try to include common names because many gardeners are intimidated by Latin!
The food chain concept is so critical, and I don’t hear many people talking about that aspect of promoting native plant use. Feeding the insects IS feeding the birds! (Bonus: much less likely to attract bears than a classic bird feeder full of sunflower seeds or suet, lol) Thanks for the great video!
I allows my rose shrubs to get out of control. Is it ok to reduce the height of the bush during the summer months? It’s late June in northeast Greatly appreciate your advice Fantastic video. I was at a loss as to how to keep the shrub tight and pretty w o hurting or outright killing the shrub.
It's really ideal to do it in winter when they're dormant. You'll prune off your flowers and/or hips for the year if you prune now, and the plant may be prompted to put on a lot of new growth at a time when it's not really good for it.
Biology major here. Making sure most of your garden is native is super important in supporting native wildlife and ecosystems that way species of fauna and flora can continue to thrive. There’s nothing wrong with having a little bit of non native plants as long as they are not invasive. Prioritizing native over non native should be essential and it’s sad how much habitat has been destroyed because of humans.
Wax myrtle is my favorite too. I have it combined in a hedgerow with other natives like twinberry, Oregon grape and currants and underplanted with salal. I have ceanothus also but they have a short life expectancy. Mine are looking pretty sad (16 years) with lots of dead wood underneath and will need replacing. They cannot be rejuvenated with pruning.
I think this was a test run for something bigger! 😁 🤣 🤣 To be in their lair as they scratched for hours and whooping in delight for the winning cards. Laughing and dancing like braincell-less morons. 😂😂 we're rich. We've hit the big time. ....on the way to do big time! We applaud you all. 👏 👏 👏
Thanks for the tip- I’m going to prune mine today. But holy crap, is that a bear or a dog you have behind you? 🤣🤣🤣 I’ve got 2 Daniffs and they say hello to your moose!
I'm in zone 9 and desperate for a privacy hedge. Which ceanothus would be the fastest growing? Currently looking at Ray Hartman. I may give the CA wax myrtle a try too!
Since we're in a colder zone here we often recommend the Ceanothus 'Victoria' as our larger, faster growing Ceanothus. In your zone it looks like Ray Hartman is a good choice as well!
I’ve seen a swainson’s thrush eating red elderberry berries in my yard about once every three years. They are such shy birds, I’ve never seen one except feeding on the elderberries. (I hear their beautiful song daily, but they are excellent at hiding.). So I tend to let the elderberries impose themselves wherever they volunteer to grow, just to keep those thrushes around!
@@Alluvial. oh, good. I think our wild elderberry are pretty. Likewise, this year, I’ve seen robins go wild for the cascara berries, so I wonder if the swainson’s thrushes like them as well.
@@bethmartof1262 I only have a couple cascara saplings, too young to bear fruit. Good to know the robins will enjoy them in the future, and maybe the swainsons thrushes will too!
Thanks for watching our video! The issue with pruning too far above a node is that the plant cannot “seal off” the stem to prevent disease. On any cane, it is best to prune at a node. Sometimes nodes are hard to see. In that case, look for a sort of line on the stem and prune there. Alternately, make a cut and then watch a few weeks to see what nodes are stimulated (hopefully one will be). Then you can make a better-placed cut close to the node that emerged. I hope that helps!
What if you have some older thicker canes, but they are still green, and don't see any nodes. If you clip too far above a node, will that node not grow ?
It's hard for me to say without seeing the canes in question, but it sounds like the plant is living, it may have hard to see nodes. Cutting too high above a node is not a problem for the new growth, you'll just end up with a dead bit of cane sticking out above it that you can prune off later if you prefer.
Can you prune the Pacific Wax Myrtle to a formal hedge? I've read some conflicting views on it. I have a space about 4 feet by 30 feet, and I'd like it to be about 6-8 feet tall, but I'm worried the Pacific Wax Myrtle wants more space than that.
Hi Abbygail! It is always best to choose a plant that grows to the size you have to offer. That said, many plants will tolerate being hedged, but I’m not sure Myrica would be happy in the long term being kept to just 6-8’ tall. I would recommend a Schipke Laurel instead! Thanks for watching our videos.
Thank you for the information, I am a landscape engineer and I just started my internship. Any of this plants will do just perfect for my first project! Please keep these videos coming, they are very useful!
Excellent instruction, thank you! Question; I have a 2 year old Santa Rosa plum (So Cal - Zone 9 B). The growth is dense and vertical. How to best train the tree to grow branches con a more horizontal plane?
Yes, evergreen huckleberry, red huckleberry, salal and many more have edible berries, however be sure to do your own research about identification because there are also toxic berries such as red elderberry that can look similar to edible berries.
Yes! Some really good ones: serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia), salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis), thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus), red huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium), evergreen huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum), osoberry (Oemleria cerasiformis), and whitebark raspberry (Rubus leucodermis). Not sure what area you're in, but these are native to western WA State. Try searching "native plant nursery" on google maps, or contact your county's conservation district about plant sales :)
I usse either grass clippers or large hevy duty scissors to prune my lavender. I use a technique i got from hair cutting called a pull cut. I pull out a few stem bunches and cut them perpendicular to the rounded edge of the bush. I do that all the way around to the same length. That gives me a nice, even rounded shape. I started doing it this way because I have joint problems that make it terribly painful to use hedge trimmers while pulling the handles inward toward my chest.
This is a great instruction because I live in i Sequim and we have the same season and weather conditions. It is the middle of October. I just started taking care of a mophead that is super happy with an abundance of blooms. But it is getting to large for its space and I need to reduce its height and width. The owner is very happy and proud of it and I am agonizing over making sure I dont prune it incorrectly and lose blooms for next year. I wish the decreasing had been done sooner to go over the three thinnig process but I'm stuck with the problem now. The owner is a little 93 year old lady that I'm afraid won't live long enough to see it through a three year cycle. I want her to hopefully see it one more year with a bush full of big flowers.😢
