Meriel Bradley: What is your garden inspiration? Many of us have been led down the garden path by photographs over splendid English gardens with their abundant blooms. Sissinghurst is one of those famous English gardens that has taken the Elaine Martin on a path to a spring container garden that borrows from Sissinghurst theme of all white blossoms. Follow along and learn to create one of your own. This is Daily Web TV.
I am so glad you can join us today because I am in one of my favorite places with one of my favorite people and that is Elaine Martin from Vintage Gardener.
Now Elaine, you have so many amazing projects to share and I know today will be another splendid project, so what are we doing?
Elaine Martin: This has been inspired by one of my favorite gardens which is Sissinghurst and we’re going to put together a floral arrangement of potted plants in this beautiful cast iron urn but then to give it some height, we’re going to add in an obelisk and train some ivy to go all the way up the tower.
Meriel Bradley: So is this a seasonal urn?
Elaine Martin: It can be dense so that you can move from once season to the next.
Meriel Bradley: All right.
Elaine Martin: So we’re starting with spring, sort of Mother’s Day, early May and as the season goes, some of the plants will be tired and need to be replaced while you continue to replace them with other white flowers. The ivy will continue to grow up the tower throughout the season even into the winter.
Meriel Bradley: So how do we start?
Elaine Martin: We have to get some soil in here. It’s fairly deep so I tend to put something to fill in it the bottom and I usually use just the plastic pots that I’ve had, the pot that I put plants out off. That way I’m recycling them. Then we’re going to fill with soil up to here and then put the plants in and then refill around the plants but never as high as about the leap here because that gives it some room for when you’re watering it. It does not all flow over and make a big mess.
Meriel Bradley: Big puddle.
Elaine Martin: Exactly. Then we put in an obelisk. That is the surprise on this plant. Now is how a little surprise in things.
Meriel Bradley: You do.
Elaine Martin: It’s going to give it some height and we’re going to have an ivy plant crawling up, training up in the obelisk.
Meriel Bradley: Lovely.
Elaine Martin: So all of those elements stay throughout from season to season to season as you’re changing from spring plants, summer plants, fall plants, you know indoor winter plants.
Meriel Bradley: So how do you work with the ivy? How long will it take to grow up?
Elaine Martin: Well typically if you buy an ivy plant, you get one this size.
Meriel Bradley: Yup.
Elaine Martin: And if I want that to climb up 6 feet. I’m going to have to wait my grandchildren will enjoy it when I’m long gone. So I don’t start with one like this. I have to start with a bigger one. So what I do is I start with a really big pot. And it has long, long, long trailing things. It’s what we use when we’re doing weddings, floral for arrangements. But I don’t put this entire pot in here because there wouldn’t be enough room then.
Meriel Bradley: Yeah.
Elaine Martin: To put all in the plant, so I have to size this down and I could show you how to do that.
Meriel Bradley: Sure. So how do we do that?
Elaine Martin: All right. What we do is we take this off the plastic hanger. Give it a little squish.
Meriel Bradley: Yup.
Elaine Martin: And pull the ivy out. It’s always very root bound. It always has a plastic thing stocked on the bottom so just yank that out. We use this and if I go into the interior of the ivy, get it little personal look at here. It’s actually several plants.
Meriel Bradley: I see.
Elaine Martin: But because it’s so root bound, I can’t just pull it away. I actually have to sack like in the circus the lady in the box and her legs and her head.
Meriel Bradley: There’s no lady in there.
Elaine Martin: There is no lady in here though. Maybe a bug, I don’t know. And I just cut right through it. It does not hurt the ivy at all because the ivy even just a stem will root in water or soil and then I carefully pull that apart.
The other little trick of the tray that we do in order to get the seed, because now she’s the half of the round pot, it’s still in an awkward size for in here is to actually squish it. I might even stand on it to do this and it does not hurt the plant at all.
Meriel Bradley: No.
Elaine Martin: And now I covered with skinny thing I can put in. So then I tuck it in and start weaving it up at the top of the obelisk and well you’ll see it’s very pretty.
Meriel Bradley: So when you’ve got this established look. So then you just change up the plants for the season. So you go from daffodils—
Elaine Martin: Shout out like a rabbit out of the hat. Stick another one in and there we go.
Meriel Bradley: Beautiful. Thank you so much. Great inspirational advice as always. Now where can somebody find you Elaine?
Elaine Martin: We’re in Distillery Historic District in downtown Toronto or you can find us in the internet, Vintage Gardener. I would say that I forget the middle in .com and 416-364-6232. Call me with any questions about this. I love talking to gardeners.
Meriel Bradley: So thank you so much. Great inspirational advice as always. So if you want more information, be sure to contact Elaine. She does lots of classes and all that information is available on her website or as she says, she loves talking to gardeners, so give her a call. I am Meriel Bradley and you’ve been watching Daily Web TV.
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