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Today in my garden we are taking out a problem.
It is an awful, disgusting, horrible problem.
It is an invasive plant called mint.
What a disaster!
This is what a mint root looks like.
As you can tell, it is all bunched together.
The whole thing spreads beneath the ground.
So it is not just seed that is spreading.
It is the roots that are *** and go under there and really invade.
All of these bags full of mint, dandelions, and grass.
Blah!
We do not want that.
Once the plants have been pulled out of the ground,
you can see here we have a big bare area,
we are trying to get rid of the last of the grass stringing grass roots that are all through here.
And we are saving as much soil as we can.
So we will take this whole thing and dump it back in there
and it will be all ready for the next stage of planting.
The first company that helped me out is Plants Nouveau.
Plants Nouveau is spectacular!
And they sent out these amazing Campanula Freya.
And we are going to mix them in with all the other plants.
They also provided this.
Plants Nouveau has this amazing new variety of Lobelia.
It is called "Fried Green Tomatoes" and as you can see the bottom looks burgundy.
It is beautiful!
And the top is going to have this amazing bright red flower.
Next we have Echinacea and lots of them.
And the Echinacea comes from Terra Nova Nurseries.
Right here we have "Mama Mia" and "Phoenix".
And here we have Heuchera and Nepeta.
And these are obviously not native plants.
But they are going to do fabulous in the rest of the garden,
which is all drought-tolerant perennials.
All right.
There is a secret to watering.
When you water brand new perennials freshly planted in the ground.
You soak them until you think they are drowned.
All right.
You soak these perennials until you think they are drowned.
And then you do not have to water every day shallowly.
You can water a couple times a week
and really water well and not have to come back out and do it again.
So watering heavily is a really important key to get those roots really lodged in the soil
and absorbing all of the water.
My helpers have gone home.
I am exhausted.
But what we have is a newly planted drought-tolerant and native plant garden.
It is going to be beautiful.
And just a few weeks, you see, we are going to have all kinds of flowers and gorgeousness.
I can't wait!