Keith Ramsey: How are we doing? We're here today to talk about what's going on in the fall. I'm Keith Ramsey with garden supply company. Fall's a great time of year to, be in the garden. It's the season that really never ends. Once it's temperature starts cooling off, you can start planting
[00:01:23] and you can plant all the way into the wintertime. It's a nice time of year to work on a landscape project because you're not pressured. You can do one section at a time and you can work all the way through the winter. Plants establish really well during the winter months. They're going to grow roots every day through the wintertime.
[00:01:39] So it's a time of the year that you can work outside and it's not too hot for plants. Aren't going to need a lot of water. This time of year, we're starting to get pansies and mums, that kind of seasonal color, and pansies are an amazing plant. They'll hold up to the cold weather.
[00:01:54]They're out there underneath the snow, as the snow melts, they come back to life and then they're usually flowering heavier than they were before snowfall. Pansies are something that is easy to put in and just give you huge rewards.
[00:02:06]Joe Woolworth: When's the ideal time to put in your pansies?
[00:02:09] .
[00:02:09]Keith Ramsey: month of October really is probably the ideal time. We start bringing pansies at the end of September. But all throughout the month of October, and then we bring in larger flowers in November so that people can continue to plant them.
[00:02:22] Joe Woolworth: What does the process looks like if I want to put in some pansies, I head on down to garden supply, and then what?
[00:02:26] Keith Ramsey: . We can walk you through that. I think the key to an annual bed is really just building a great bed. It's building up the soil, putting in soil conditioner, putting in potting soil. And when you see commercial beds around town, that's the way it's done. , it makes planting an
[00:02:40] an annual bed, just super easy. You can pull a flat of pansies and plant them in less than an hour. And that's, having the bed prepped and then the right soil is also what gives you the professional results too? That's, what's going to give you flowers all winter long getting the fertility, applying something, that's got a high phosphate fertilizer that, you can pick up at any local garden center, like garden supply company.
[00:03:01]Joe Woolworth: So that's not like a complicated to get my soil tested kind of stuff. I'm just buying some products from the garden supply.
[00:03:07] Keith Ramsey: That's it's really just a simple recipe.
[00:03:09] I'll put down a bag of soil conditioner on the bottom and then I'll top dress it with a bag of potting soil and then use half a bag of soil conditioner mixed into the potting soil and I'll dig that into the clay. So you're opening up the clay and you're giving it a deeper root base place for the plant roots to root down into the existing soil.
[00:03:29] But then you can plant directly in that mix. And then I use the other half of the bag of soil conditioner just to mulch the top of the bed. You don't want to mulch with heavy bark soil because it just, takes all the nitrogen out of the soil. And then we'll use an annual perennial fertilizer and it's a granular product.
[00:03:46] You can just, you broadcasted across the bed and water a man, and it's really. Pretty simple process.
[00:03:52] Joe Woolworth: If there were a formula for it and to make it easy, let's say you buy a hundred dollars worth of plants. How much are you planning on investing in the soil so that you really make sure you get the most out
[00:04:03] Keith Ramsey: of it?
[00:04:03] An average annual bed would be a flat of annuals. And so garden centers really have the best pricing on annual flats. None of the box stores anymore carry flats of annuals. They carry different types of packs or bigger pots. But we carry a 36 pack flat.
[00:04:20] That's $25. It's less than a dollar, a plant. And then, you basically need two bags of soil conditioner and a bag of potting soil. So, with the fertilizer and the plants, it's probably, it probably doubles the cost. So for $50, you've got a six-foot by two-foot bed of color that lasts from October until April.
[00:04:40] Oh, it's really a deal and it's super easy to put in if you prep the bed that way, it's all about knowing how to plant like a professional landscape team would on a commercial.
[00:04:49] Joe Woolworth: So you mentioned that this is also a great time of year for landscaping. The weather's not so crazy.
[00:04:53] What are some of the common things that people are putting in the fall when it comes to landscaping in their yard?
[00:04:57] Keith Ramsey: So really, you can plant just about anything. There are a few perennial plants that really like to be planted in the early spring as it warms up. But 95% of the perennials can go in this time of year pansies all kinds of heuchera.
[00:05:11] There's a whole range of cool-season things that you can plant with pansies violas will handle a little bit more shade than pansies. It's a pansy-like plant. But then trees and shrubs when it cools off the top of the plant's not going through any stress and the soil temperatures are still warm enough through the entire winter that plants will grow roots.
[00:05:29] The idea is that it's just a fading season. It gets a little worse every day but it's never a bad time to plant in the wintertime. Once you get the plant in. You're going to start growing roots. And you're basically trying to establish as many roots as you can.
[00:05:42] Before we get into that July timeframe where it's really hot and the plants stressed. It's losing moisture.
[00:05:48]Joe Woolworth: When I think of fall, right when I first got to the width of it, I know a lot of people think pumpkin spice, lattes, and stuff like that, but I think bonfires. Absolutely. I think it's time to start a fire in the backyard.
[00:05:59]Keith Ramsey: The other day we had a seafood boil for some employees and friends. A bunch of people got together. It was that. Perfect fall temperature. We had the pizza oven at the store cranked up and we, we had gotten all the fixings from salvias pizza to make pizzas.
[00:06:14] We had we're putting fresh Bazell on it and just. Absolute perfect evening, but we had four fire pits that have been sitting there for, I don't know, probably six months towards the back of the store. It's been summertime it's hot and it hadn't really been the time. We sold all four. Fire pits to friends and family that were there.
[00:06:35] Yeah. We fired one of them up. Everybody's standing around it. , you're seeing the fire in the fire pit. It really is just a perfect time of year. And it's also, you can't have an open fire and Cary and most of the cities around here, but you can have a fire pit going.
[00:06:51] It's also a nice way when you're working in the yard. To pick up a few sticks, get a little fire going in your fire pit. And then, just ease into a Saturday evening, with marshmallows or drinks arou...
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