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Keith Ramsey talks about prepping annual beds, the difference between annuals and perennials, and more in this special episode.
Show Notes
Keith Ramsey: [00:00:15] Today, we're going to talk about prepping annual beds or prepping pots for planting annuals.
Joe Woolworth: [00:00:20] what is an annual bed?
Keith Ramsey: [00:00:22] Every year, people plant annual flowers.
An annual is something you're going to replace in the spring, and you're going to replace it in the fall. So, you end up with really good color spots in your yard. I always like to tell people to pick three good spots and an area in their yard so that they're focal points. Put one or two types of color in there so that they really draw your eye to that space, and they kind of hold space as perennials come in and out of bloom.
Joe Woolworth: [00:00:48] What's the difference between an annual and a perennial?
Keith Ramsey: [00:00:49] So an annual you're going to replace every year. It's, it's an annual event. It is something you've got to change. It makes it easy to remember. Perennials are going to come back year after year. But both of them provide you with a lot of colors, the downside to a perennial.
[00:01:04] people get all excited about them because they come back year after year, but the downside to them is they go into a big wave of blooms, and then they come out of bloom, or they bloom at one time a year, and then they. They don't bloom until the following year. Where annuals, you put them in and they're going to, they're going to hold that space.
[00:01:20] 90% of the time, if you prep the soil right, you're going to have really, good quality annual beds, and they're going to, they're going to perform well. There's always a downside or a weather-related event where annuals don't really do it that well, but typically you put an annual, and it's kind of, it's going to bloom from the time you put it in.
[00:01:37] planting time would be, kind of an April 15th to June 15th, and that's going to bloom around until frost. So, you're going to have blooms until, pretty much the end of October, November 1st. I usually recommend that people pull their annuals out a little bit ahead of that and replace them with pansies or vials, cool-season annuals that will bloom from the October timeframe all the way around until spring.
Joe Woolworth: [00:02:02] when you're getting ready, and you're deciding, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to make this pot here is going to be an annual Potter. This bed is going to be an annual pot. What? What sizes do you need? when it comes to choosing a pot or choosing a bed, is it dependent on the plant, or do you
Keith Ramsey: [00:02:16] know it's in relationship to the space that's around it, and what I usually tell people when they're making an annual bed is to do something that they can plant in.
[00:02:24] 1520 minutes, some, you know, half an hour at best. Something they can plan with a cup of coffee or a cocktail. You don't want it to be a really large, you know, a lot of work. But the prep and the bed and getting there, getting the soil right, and getting the fertilizer right is the key.
[00:02:39] To really have him professional results.
Joe Woolworth: [00:02:42] It's a recipe. What's the, what's the elements of the
Keith Ramsey: [00:02:44] recipe? So, the recipe, we usually start with soil conditioner, which is the cheapest soil amendment you can buy, but it's probably one of the better soil amendments. It's a pine bark-based product.
We'll add that to the base.
[00:02:55], you know, an annual bed that's maybe—two foot by four foot. You had a bag of soil conditioner to the, to the base, to the bottom, and then we come back through with potting soil on top of that. And then we use soil conditioner to mulch the bed instead of mulch, because mulch takes a lot of nitrogen out of the soil.
[00:03:13], but once we get all that out, we put the, we, we add fertilizer to the top of the bed, at the recommended rate. And then dig that into the clay because clay is a really good soil amendment. Or it's a good, good soil base. It holds nutrients really well and, and holds,
Joe Woolworth: [00:03:26] Oh, really? My art is mostly clay, and I thought that I couldn't grow anything.
Keith Ramsey: [00:03:30] cause that's our home run.
[00:03:31] Yeah. So, clay holds nutrients well, it is full of mineral-rich, and it holds water really well. The downside to clay is that it's dense, it's hard to work with. And then it holds too much water. So, when you, when you add soil conditioner doing it, you're lightening. You're lightening up the clay.
[00:03:47]but you never want to remove the clay and add a bunch of, you know, if you take, if you dug a hole and remove all the clay and you add your really good soil to it, it's basically like a bowl of cereal, you know, it's just, it turns to mush. And plants are sitting in too much water. They don't have enough oxygen, and they've died from drought, basically.
[00:04:05], but once you get all that done, you dig it in. You can plan an annual bed, and you know, five, 10 minutes, you can because it's just fluffy.
Joe Woolworth: [00:04:13] Do you recommend people, like do the pre-ground kind of seedlings or you start with seeds?
Keith Ramsey: [00:04:18] typically, you're starting with a pre-ground, seedling. If you start with seeds, I always recommend doing it.
[00:04:23]in the, in the house, under lights, and getting the seedlings hardened off and ready to go, which is, which is a good possibility too.
Joe Woolworth: [00:04:32], remind me again, you said the best time of year to plant.
Keith Ramsey: [00:04:35] it's April 15th through about June 15th, probably ideally April 15th through May 15th. For getting annuals in, and it gives them the ability to get started before the hot part of the summer, even though they're hot weather plants, they get a chance to get rooted in and get established before it gets hot.
[00:04:52] On the flip side and in the fall, you want to plan them between October, which basically is ideal. Yeah. When you're putting it, you know, you're putting an annual bed together. If you do all the prep work, you're going to have professional looking annual beds. When you drive around town, you see these beds that landscapers have put in.
[00:05:08] that's what they're doing. They're prepping the bed. Growing up, I heard people say, you know, dig a $10 hole for a $5 plant. Which I always thought was absurd. It's, you know, it's a lot of soil, and it's a big expense. And that's not really even the case. It's more like dig a $5 hole for a $5 plant when you do that prep; you're really going to get the results out of it.
[00:05:27]. And then when it comes to—putting, annuals and pots. We do, we do something very similar. If it's a very large pot, we'll take a small nursery pot, turn it upside down in that pot, so we're not using so much soil. And so that it drains well and it's light, and you can move it around.
[00:05:42] So you're basically just creating a cavity of air in the bottom, in the bottom of the
Joe Woolworth: [00:05:45] pond. Those giant pots. I even move in it.
Keith Ramsey: [00:05:48] Yeah. Yeah. So, it's just a space taker. And then, you add soil conditioner about halfway up the pot, which is again, it drains, well, it's a good soil to grow in, but it's cheap.
[00:05:59] So you fill it up with the cheap soil, and then you take. Potting soil, and you top it off the top half of the pot with potting soil. You are putting the plants in a really rich, fertilizer rich soil. And then, as the roots grow down, they'll grow right into that soil conditioner.
[00:06:11] But your pot is always going to drain, and it's going to be a little bit lighter, and it's a little bit cheaper. And if you've got to empty it, we recommend changing pots out on a yearly basis, at least the top part of the soil. But if you have to change out the entire, in the entire pot, it's a little less soil.
[00:06:25] They have to compost and get rid of.
Joe Woolworth: [00:06:27] So if I planted an annual bed right now, cause we're in the window right now, right? Would I need to redo the soil in October?
Keith Ramsey: [00:06:33] Yep. when you're planning an annual bed, you're never going to remove the soil and an annual bed or typically not unless it just builds that much.
[00:06:40] But you always want to add some fresh soil. an annual, taking all the nutrients out of the soil and
Joe Woolworth: [00:06:45] not the conditioner. You don't need that. You would
Keith Ramsey: [00:06:47] still use the conditioner, you'd add fresh potting soil, and then you
would use a conditioner. Well, they use that to finish it off and mulch it in.
[00:06:55] So we'll use the soil conditioner as a mulch.
Joe Woolworth: [00:06:57] Gotcha.
Keith Ramsey: [00:06:58] if you can run through that program, you'll, you'll definitely be successful with annuals.
Joe Woolworth: [00:07:02] So you recommend, find a couple of spots in your yard that look like they need some color,
Keith Ramsey: [00:07:06] right? Just focal points, you know, in three, three spots in the front yard.
[00:07:10] a lot of times people won't, they won't plant annuals the whole time they live there, and they'll come, and they want to do something to sell a house. And I'm like, three annual beds. They'll typically come back by, and they're in a new house, and they're excited because the annual bed sold the house supposedly.
Joe Woolworth: [00:07:27] That's awesome. If you had to put a skill level on it to plan a really good annual bed, like I'm not a gardener, right? My thumbs, like what's the opposite of
Keith Ramsey: [00:07:35] green, red,
Joe Woolworth: [00:07:37] candid. I kill everything that I bring in my house because I neglect everything. But if I wanted to do this weekend project, I think it sounds fantastic, doing it with a.
[00:07:45] With a drink or a cocktail.
Keith Ramsey: [00:07:46] Yeah, exactly.
Joe Woolworth: [00:07:47] Put into this and put in one of these beds. What kind of skill level do you need to do it? Right?
Keith Ramsey: [00:07:51] You don't need it. You don't need any skill at all. It's a one, two, and three followed follow directions. The one thing that I would say is, you know, stop by garden supply or stop by a small local nursery that can give you advice on what plants do you use, you want to pick in the plants. It is a key is key with anything that you do in landscaping.
Joe Woolworth: [00:08:11] and you can head on down to the garden supplying company.
Keith Ramsey: [00:08:13] Exactly.
Joe Woolworth: [00:08:14] That sounds like a fun weekend project right there.
Keith Ramsey: [00:08:16] Absolutely.
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What is In The Garden?
In the Garden with Keith Ramsey is a podcast aimed at helping you grow and maintain a beautiful and healthy garden and landscape.
Each podcast will focus on a new specific topic. Check back every two weeks for the latest episode!