How Both Got Involved In Gardening
Eric would love to learn HOW BOTH GOT INVOLVED IN GARDENING, what sparked their passion. This place is amazing, you’ve put so much into it. In 2018, they built their house. It's a suburban rectangle lot, the house is actually 50 by 60. It's a very contemporary ranch. They walked outside after they installed the landscaping package that it came with, and thought, "Wow, this doesn't really do it for us.” Neither had ever actually gardened, thus turned to the internet. They watched YouTube and watched Gardener's World and fell in love with the thought of gardening.Click here
Division Of Labor
When Eric J. speaks with couples who garden he's always interested in seeing how the DIVISION OF LABOR works. Oftentimes, one is more the creative side, the other more like - I'm the pruner. How does that dynamic work for you? It's pretty equally split between the two. Eric thinks that he's a little pushier when it comes to the ideas and the design component, but he would never just go ahead and make a decision without running it by Christopher.Click here
Content Creators
Eric J. finds it really interesting that much of their education, if you will, in horticulture and gardening came through online videos and the like, that's a resource that is fairly new, yet becoming more popular. You both are great CONTENT CREATORS. Well, the content was a total accident. They had Instagram where Eric was posting pictures of the garden. He would post a few pictures in there, then as things grew, they eventually started the YouTube channel and it really has grown from there.Click here
Overview Of ’The Garden
Of course, there are a lot of lessons you've learned along the way. Eric J. would like for both to start by giving us an OVERVIEW OF THE GARDEN, kind of walk us through things like - where did it start, how did it evolve, and how do you want viewers to experience your garden? Eric explains the garden started back in 2018.Click here
View From Inside The House
One of the big things they wanted to do was to look at their yard FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE, importantly what will they see out of the window, what will soften the straight lines of their contemporary home? So they started with things like the tricolor beech. It will bring bright, interesting pink foliage to the front of the home. This is really an interesting feature, that even during the wintertime, will have visual interest. The columnar juniper also brings visual interest and softens the square edge. Then behind them is the royal frost birch, a tree they can see right from the great room. And they can enjoy it throughout the winter.Click here
Curvilinear Beds And Pathways
There's a great sense of motion and fluidity to this garden, and Eric J. thinks a lot of that is owing to the CURVILINEAR BEDS AND PATHWAYS. They lead you in a direction and when you come around a corner there's like an element of surprise. When looking at the property, we're on a rectangle in the suburb. The house is almost a perfect square and it's a ranch, so it's very much the square shape, with a lot of vinyl siding. So when they were placing plants along the way the idea was to kind of break that up. Thus have a columnar scotch pine that eventually will cover a big piece of that area. The curves almost developed naturally, because when you plant something in front of your beautiful columnar shrub, it's going to grow out around it. So over time the curves have gotten deeper.Click here
Plants Used For Breaking Up A Lot Of The More Rigid Lines
Eric J. recalls they mentioned that one of the things that was important was BREAKING UP A LOT OF THE MORE RIGID LINES, straight lines. As you said, you have a square house, then you've got a fence that goes around a square yard. So, there was a lot of thought that went into - how do we soften this? How do we make it flow more naturally? Eric J. thinks the mixed borders they’ve created along the fence lines are really, really beautiful, and exemplify that design technique really well. Talk us through the plants that you used and the way that you've thought about this design. Sure, this mixed border originated with creating or installing anchor plants. You’ll notice there's a pattern right now, of evergreens that repeat along the length of the fence, including the centerpiece evergreen, which is the Columnar Blue Spruce. Then between those evergreens, there's more repetition.Click here
Maintenance
Eric J. asks - One of the many questions we get from viewers, especially when they see a beautiful garden like this is - once you did all the work to have this, what do you do to MAINTAIN IT? You know, this is basically weed free, everything looks happy and healthy, how do you keep your garden looking this great? This is a weekend hobby for us.Click here
Great Soil And Irrigation
Eric thinks one thing they've definitely done really, really well is understanding the importance of GREAT SOIL AND IRRIGATION coupled with putting the right plant in the right place. And of course, that's the part that comes through experience and experimentation. Being willing to like, "Oh, this plant's not happy here, let's go put it somewhere and make it happy” is very important. A lot of gardeners in the Northeast when they started their gardens, used black bark mulch, because it's very popular in this area.Click here
Evolution Of The Garden
Eric J. notes they mentioned earlier the limelight hedge was one of the first plantings ever, now we’re seeing the EVOLUTION OF THE GARDEN, where the old has gone out and now they have this beautiful new garden. For this space in particular, it was a big decision because they loved that limelight hedge so much, but when they knew they were going to take it out that timing would be crucial. They wanted to re-home those hydrangeas thus thought they would prepare this new garden space by taking the limelight hedge out in the fall.Click here
Pond Waterfall Install
The first thing that happened in spring was the POND WATERFALL INSTALL. And this is the kind of thing where they really had to release a lot of control because when Decker's Pondscapes came in, they showed up with a lot of equipment and a huge truck of boulders. Although they did not know what to expect it turned out to be something that's really cool. Deckers dug out the area so all of a sudden they had topography. But the next thing that happened was the remarkable experience of trees arriving.Click here
Show #10/7910. Incredible Vegetable Production From Beautiful Containers.
Transcript of Show
In this episode GardenSMART visits Albany, New York, exploring an incredible private garden with YouTube creators Eric and Christopher. They took a blank canvas and turned it into something magical.
Garden Smart traveled to historic Albany, New York, where inspiration is blooming behind the scenes. Eric Johnson meets Eric and Christopher, two passionate YouTube creators of Grow for Me gardening, who have transformed their private back backyard into a breathtaking garden retreat. From bold design choices to clever planting combinations, their space is full of surprises and smart ideas for gardeners of every level. It's a visit filled with beauty, creativity, and practical tips for homeowners.
Eric J. our host meets Christopher and Eric. Thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the show. Eric J. has been looking forward to seeing their garden for awhile, it's wonderful to be here in Albany, New York, and finally get a chance to see it in person. Eric and Christopher, in turn, welcome Eric to their garden. Thank you for coming.
Eric would love to learn HOW BOTH GOT INVOLVED IN GARDENING, what sparked their passion. This place is amazing, you’ve put so much into it. In 2018, they built their house. It's a suburban rectangle lot, the house is actually 50 by 60. It's a very contemporary ranch. They walked outside after they installed the landscaping package that it came with, and thought, "Wow, this doesn't really do it for us.” Neither had ever actually gardened, thus turned to the internet. They watched YouTube and watched Gardener's World and fell in love with the thought of gardening. They wanted to create privacy. Because this was a brand new neighborhood and was just a flat, sandy lot, the first thing they thought about was how they were going to delineate their property line, not because they wanted to be unfriendly, but because they wanted privacy in their backyard. They knew that on the west side of the property there was going to be a long stretch of backyards all lined up, thus decided to find some shrubs that would get really big, plus thrive in full sun. That brought them to hydrangeas. The first big project back in 2018 was a giant hedge of limelight hydrangeas. There were about 15 of them, spanning about 75 feet, they're no longer here, but it was a great way to learn and experiment by bringing in big, beautiful hydrangea shrubs into the garden.
When Eric J. speaks with couples who garden he's always interested in seeing how the DIVISION OF LABOR works. Oftentimes, one is more the creative side, the other more like - I'm the pruner. How does that dynamic work for you? It's pretty equally split between the two. Eric thinks that he's a little pushier when it comes to the ideas and the design component, but he would never just go ahead and make a decision without running it by Christopher. Christopher is definitely more of the hustler in the morning. He gets out there and gets the Japanese beetles off the shrubs and does the pruning before it gets too hot, while Eric takes care of watering and irrigation. They've kind of figured out what their little jobs are. Eric loves creating the edges and making the shapes of the bed, but he then knows that Christopher is going to come in and going to know exactly how to place those five or seven perennials. Layering is really something that he excels at.
Eric J. finds it really interesting that much of their education, if you will, in horticulture and gardening came through online videos and the like, that's a resource that is fairly new, yet becoming more popular. You both are great CONTENT CREATORS. Well, the content was a total accident. They had Instagram where Eric was posting pictures of the garden. He would post a few pictures in there, then as things grew, they eventually started the YouTube channel and it really has grown from there. So it was all accidental? It was, but it's developed and is intentional now, they try to be content creators, actually they strive to create content they would have wanted to see as a newer gardeners. They were just talking about this yesterday when filming a video about the hydrangeas in the garden and discussing what to include with each hydrangea variety. Christopher was thinking, you know, as a new gardener, I would have wanted to know what size was that when when first planted? How many years has it been in the ground? How long did it take to get that big? So they're always trying to create content that's valuable, that's useful, educational, entertaining. They want to be gardeners first, but gardener’s that happen to create content.
One thing Eric J. would love to know is - in the process of thinking through the content that you are going to create, do you find that to be a process that presses you in the direction of composing things more thoughtfully to the end of generating content? Or for you, is it more, this is just what we're doing and this is the reality of this week in our life? Eric prefers the latter. He really wants it to be like, this is what we're doing. And because they both work full time jobs, and are not full time content creators, it's something that they just do literally on Sunday.
Their content for the spring was installing the west border. They had videos about planting around the pond-less waterfall, so it was focused in that direction. It was really what they were doing at that time. As they go into the summertime, when it’s more maintenance season, they may hold off on deadheading something. May be that week he won't go out every morning so they have something more focused to present on Sunday. Really, making content does have an impact, it makes you get like a week or two ahead of where you normally would be.
Eric J. comments, we're here to see the garden and have you talk about how these different beds came about, plus learn about your design philosophies and where you see it going in the future. Your garden's been an evolution over the last few years and like most gardeners, you started with some small areas and then as you became more and more passionate about it, as inspiration struck, it just became a work in progress. Of course, there are a lot of lessons you've learned along the way. Eric J. would like for both to start by giving us an OVERVIEW OF THE GARDEN, kind of walk us through things like - where did it start, how did it evolve, and how do you want viewers to experience your garden? Eric explains the garden started back in 2018. This is a new construction home. When they moved in that March, there was nothing here. It was a blank slate, just sand. After they had visited the local garden center and gotten inspired by their flower beds, they also had to consider privacy, because there were no fences, there were no trees in the neighborhood at all.
One of the big things they wanted to do was to look at their yard FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE, importantly what will they see out of the window, what will soften the straight lines of their contemporary home? So they started with things like the tricolor beech. It will bring bright, interesting pink foliage to the front of the home. This is really an interesting feature, that even during the wintertime, will have visual interest. The columnar juniper also brings visual interest and softens the square edge. Then behind them is the royal frost birch, a tree they can see right from the great room. And they can enjoy it throughout the winter. Then they thought, where do we want privacy, and that led to the hydrangea hedge on the west side. Once they got those things in the ground, they started to connect them all. And connected them by creating little vignettes throughout the garden. They have kind of design guidelines they created by incorporating blue foliage, reddish purple foliage, green foliage, plus a yellowish chartreuse foliage and with an evergreen in every vignette. Eric J. thinks that when you give yourselves those little guidelines and create vignettes throughout the garden, then connect them together it makes it all more cohesive.
There's a great sense of motion and fluidity to this garden, and Eric J. thinks a lot of that is owing to the CURVILINEAR BEDS AND PATHWAYS. They lead you in a direction and when you come around a corner there's like an element of surprise. When looking at the property, we're on a rectangle in the suburb. The house is almost a perfect square and it's a ranch, so it's very much the square shape, with a lot of vinyl siding. So when they were placing plants along the way the idea was to kind of break that up. Thus have a columnar scotch pine that eventually will cover a big piece of that area. The curves almost developed naturally, because when you plant something in front of your beautiful columnar shrub, it's going to grow out around it. So over time the curves have gotten deeper. They really cut their teeth on everything in this garden. The border from the red bud tree in the back was planted, along with the big structure things, before the fence. They were pretty close to straight lines because of being close to the property line. It's been an exercise in seeing how to create layers of texture and interest. Christopher shows us one of his favorite views, because at this spot you see one set of layers. If in the hydrangea room, there's another set of layers. Then there is the arch with the climbing rose with clematis planted on it. It smells beautiful and it looks beautiful, but it gives you this, not just visual, but physical separation from the backyard, then once you go back there, that's when you're greeted with some of the new stuff, including the terrace and the entire garden around it which Eric drew when he was home sick.
This all led to looking out last season at the limelight hydrangea hedge, 85 feet of beautiful, six year old mature limelights, and thinking, we're gonna tear them all out. All 15 of them are alive and well. But today, five of them are across the street next to their pool, and ten of them went to another friend's house. They all woke up and they're all safe. It’s wonderful whenever you can re-home a plan. That is a very, very happy day.
Eric J. recalls they mentioned that one of the things that was important was BREAKING UP A LOT OF THE MORE RIGID LINES, straight lines. As you said, you have a square house, then you've got a fence that goes around a square yard. So, there was a lot of thought that went into - how do we soften this? How do we make it flow more naturally? Eric J. thinks the mixed borders they’ve created along the fence lines are really, really beautiful, and exemplify that design technique really well. Talk us through the plants that you used and the way that you've thought about this design. Sure, this mixed border originated with creating or installing anchor plants. You’ll notice there's a pattern right now, of evergreens that repeat along the length of the fence, including the centerpiece evergreen, which is the Columnar Blue Spruce. Then between those evergreens, there's more repetition. There's a repetition of the little Quick-fire hydrangea with the pinky winky hydrangea and that's all well and good, but you wouldn’t want to leave your garden there because it would be perfectly symmetrical along a fence. So what that repetition allows them to do is kind of create this cacophony of color and texture in front of it. But it doesn't get overwhelming, it's kind of subliminal and it's very much that rhythm concept. There is this rhythm to the back, like a marching band, kind of rhythm. But then in front, you get all this new stuff, you get the different colors and textures, and yes, they're gonna get blooms from the little Quick fire and the pinky Winky, but seasonally they will have something from the anemone and the sedum. They have beautiful spring blooms come through. And, that's where they play. That's where they add in the different smaller stature of shrubs. They love Verbena, Verbena bonariensis. It reseeds itself throughout the garden. Although it hasn't made it all the way over to where they presently are -yet. Eric J. loves to see that, even at the front of the border, they provide a really open, different texture. But again, with that repetition in the back, it makes it feel purposeful, and then you can play. It's kind of like a skeleton that keeps it all somewhat structured, but all the plants in the foreground certainly make it feel whimsical and cottagey, yet it doesn't seem disorganized either. They agree, and one of the things they've learned over time is to make more of a visual impact don't be afraid to plant in bigger drifts. Planting three of something is nice, but planting seven of something is even nicer because it makes a bigger impact, just like the Easy peasy roses. They make a big impact when in full bloom and the color plays against the columnar spruce, it really is kind of show stopper when you come underneath the garden arch. And that's another thing, when you're thinking about these vignettes and you're pairing these plants next to each other, make sure they're different from each other. Whether the color intensity is different or the foliage is very different, you don't want to plant something super similar to something else. One thing Eric J. thinks they done a really, really thoughtful job of is bringing the garden to the home and allowing it to be an extension of their living space. And Eric J. thinks one of the wonderful treats in gardening is where living space is just, basically, a component of your garden. When they started gardening they wanted to see certain trees out the windows.
They decided to do something for a terrace; originally, it was going to be a deck. Because of material costs, it turns out that the stone, which they had never considered, because they thought the stone would be more, but it turns out it was cheaper. It feels so wonderful in the morning to walk out, you're really connecting with the garden immediately, not just because of the containers, but you're pulled in immediately by the sound of the waterfall.
The next area, they call a potager, the kitchen garden. They have learned a lot about what they like to eat, based on what they’re good at growing. They've recently planted a lot of blueberry bushes, plus they have a bush cherry and a blackberry. But they still wanted beautiful elements, so have included urns with Calibrachoa and a different kind of hydrangea. Thus it does feel like they're kind of nestled into the garden. Part of the original design was curvy beds around the very square hardscaping. So in this area, they paid special attention to what size plants they chose, always making sure the plants had a lot of fragrance. They have roses up close, the fire bowl area. It's wonderful that the pergola is metal, very squared. It's not wooden. It's a really nice space. They've definitely enjoyed bringing the garden in, while, kind of pushing their way back out at the same time.
Eric J. asks - One of the many questions we get from viewers, especially when they see a beautiful garden like this is - once you did all the work to have this, what do you do to MAINTAIN IT? You know, this is basically weed free, everything looks happy and healthy, how do you keep your garden looking this great? This is a weekend hobby for us. They do have a kind of rule when you're out in the garden, if you see a weed, you pick a weed, and of course, they knew GardenSMART was coming, so they did a little extra this morning.
There are definitely weeds. But one of their main tools against weeds is they plant thickly. People may say, wow, that stuff looks all squished together. But importantly, no sun on the soil means no weed seed germination. And, they have a drip irrigation system. So when they need to supplement water they run the drip irrigation and that automatically removes a huge chore. For things like Budworms and Japanese beetles, they do a weekly spray. That's a Sunday morning chore. With a lot of maintenance chores they find ways to make them easier. Some can be done once a week, some every couple mornings, deadheading roses, for instance. Getting out in the morning and not going out with the idea that, “Oh, I have to tend to the garden” but instead, "Oh, I get to take care of the garden, I'm gonna go out and I'll deadhead a little bit, and I'll do what I can and I'll do what I want," so none of it ever really becomes a chore, instead just focusing on enjoying the garden, getting those weeds under control, dead heading when you can, keeping an eye out for pests, really being a team when it comes to caring for the garden really makes it a lot easier.
Eric thinks one thing they've definitely done really, really well is understanding the importance of GREAT SOIL AND IRRIGATION coupled with putting the right plant in the right place. And of course, that's the part that comes through experience and experimentation. Being willing to like, "Oh, this plant's not happy here, let's go put it somewhere and make it happy” is very important. A lot of gardeners in the Northeast when they started their gardens, used black bark mulch, because it's very popular in this area. Instead of using the bark mulch they utilize compost. They put compost over the top of the mulch they currently have and it will work its way into the soil because they have sandy black soil. They thought that would be the best way to improve the overall health of the garden. Plus it takes care of improving the soil and fertilizing the plants at the same time.
They do have bunnies and do have deer. Coming up with solutions for those have been some game changers. They never thought that vinyl coated black chicken wire would be the difference between having roses, having yarrow, having Gomphrena, or not.
Eric J. notes they mentioned earlier the limelight hedge was one of the first plantings ever, now we’re seeing the EVOLUTION OF THE GARDEN, where the old has gone out and now they have this beautiful new garden. For this space in particular, it was a big decision because they loved that limelight hedge so much, but when they knew they were going to take it out that timing would be crucial. They wanted to re-home those hydrangeas thus thought they would prepare this new garden space by taking the limelight hedge out in the fall. Because those limelights had the best chance of transplanting well at that time. They took the time to carve out the shape of the bed they wanted. They walked it quite a bit, edged it out and made sure it was exactly what they wanted then removed the grass. Then to help prepare the soil for the spring it was just loaded with compost to sit all winter long so it would just sit there ready to wake up in the spring to plant.
The first thing that happened in spring was the POND WATERFALL INSTALL. And this is the kind of thing where they really had to release a lot of control because when Decker's Pondscapes came, in they showed up with a lot of equipment and a huge truck of boulders. Although they did not know what to expect it turned out to be something that's really cool. Deckers dug out the area so all of a sudden they had topography. But the next thing that happened was the remarkable experience of trees arriving. Anchor plants. They really wanted to anchor the space. And although some of them are very small right now the evergreens echo the evergreens on the other side of the yard. They went through and really thought about these as special moments in the garden that will anchor things in. From there, it was shrubs. There are a few things along the border that they then actually had to plan for their mature size. Thank goodness for annuals. That's what you do in between while your shrubs grow. Then comes the perennial layer. After they had everything in, came irrigation. They really took the time with each individual layer to determine how these play together? When you're gardening and putting in a new bed, you have to be kind to yourself. First of all understand that you're probably going to make some mistakes. You might plant some too close together, some too far apart. Things are gonna die. You might not like it but it doesn't have to be perfect. Knowing that your garden's always going to be changing, because even though this planting is done for this season right now, you know it's not done.
Eric J. totally agrees. It's been such a special day, and he's really, really happy that we were able to take a walk through your garden and learn from your triumphs and even, learn from your failures. To experience plant choices and design decisions that make your garden truly special has been most enjoyable. Thank you for your time. Eric and Christopher thank Eric J. and GardenSMART for visiting. They’ve enjoyed the time.
In our next episode, we’re going to take a closer look at the specific vignettes that Eric and Christopher have created plus look at the plants that make those vignettes. We’ll learn more about the plants they are really excited about and the plants that maybe they're not as enthusiastic about. We’ll talk more about design ideas and making the whole landscape come together. It will, again, be exciting. Be sure to tune in next week as we GardenSMART.
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