Summer Vertical Garden

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Hi everybody. I'm Bri the Plant Lady and today I'm going to replant my wall for the summer season.

[00:00:07]Now, I had high expectations that I would already be harvesting broccoli and it's nowhere near getting to the flowering stage, but I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to transplant it from here and put it out into the garden. More than likely, it'll get eaten by deer because, let's face it, that's my fate. But I went plant shopping this week and I picked up quite a few colas and I'd really like to have it replanted for Saturday's open garden so people can see up close and personal what it's going to look like for the summer. So I hope you'll enjoy this quick video of getting my live screen from livewall.com replanted.

[00:00:49]So I don't really have one area where all these broccoli really fit. So, I'm just looking for areas with open ground plane, kind of underutilized area. And here at the fire pit bed, um, you know, again, these are probably only going to be in the ground a month at the most.

[00:01:08]And I have very low expectations for getting them to actually go to flower.

[00:01:14]Once they get planted in the ground, they are just get mowed down by deer.

[00:01:20]But I don't want to throw them out. So, this just seems like the best solution.

[00:01:24]So, I'm just going to go ahead and pop these in.

[00:01:28]And maybe in the meantime, I'll also get some of the nut sge out, which is all starting to grow.

[00:01:37]It's unbelievable how weeds are unaffected by droughts. Plants that you do want to grow totally struggle.

[00:01:47]And of course, this broccoli is paired with some um uh spinach that I seeded in. And well, there you have it. It's not very complicated. I just don't want to waste the plants. And again, filling an open space temporarily is always a good decision.

[00:02:09]Well, as you can see, I got a lot of those broccoli planted here. an area that really just had this sedum encroaching. So, I just pulled some of it away. The problem is, and I think the reason that these haven't grown better is I found root meie bugs on them. And I should have taken a picture and I didn't. I'm not going to dig them up to show you. They look just like regular meie bugs just covering the root ball.

[00:02:34]So, I've gone ahead and treated all those containers with bleach in an effort to absolutely kill their life cycle.

[00:02:43]So, root meie bugs are slightly different from folure millie bugs because root meie bugs only live on like under the ground on the roots. And if I was treating the plants, which I'm not.

[00:02:56]I just went ahead and planted them in the ground. Um, because they're not going to live much longer anyway. uh you would want to do an insecttoidal soap drench or hot water drench or more effectively not better for the environment but treat the plants with a metropid which is a systemic insecticide.

[00:03:16]Um I've just treated the containers that were infected with a 10% bleach solution and then I'm going to basically power wash them out to make sure that there's no residue left. Um, I've only had root mealie bugs a handful of times and it's typically something that you buy from a nursery that doesn't have a proper IPM practice. Um, so I'm always really conscientious and like I'm about to plant all these colas and I haven't actually looked at the roots. So let's check them out, see if they're clean. So these are clean. So you can see little white specks. That's perlite.

[00:03:58]That's not root meie bugs. Um, the Millie bugs are are fluffy just like they are when they're on the foliage.

[00:04:05]So, they they look pretty obvious. Um, shout out to Big Bloomers, which is where I got all the Kolas this year. Uh, fantastic nursery if you live in central North Carolina or even further away.

[00:04:17]It's well worth a visit. Not only they have amazing selection, but really great prices. Um, but anyhow, I've never had a root millie bug issue when I've purchased plants from big bloomers. And that was part of my motivation for buying these from there because last year I had a huge millie bug problem.

[00:04:35]Foler meie bugs. Um, and it came in on trial plants from not not a nursery anywhere near here. Um, and so this year I'm I'm like really being diligent to make sure that that doesn't happen again because honestly once you have them they're really difficult to eradicate and I don't want to have another summer of dealing with that gross pest.

[00:04:59]And just to show you guys root me bugs.

[00:05:01]This is not as severe of a case as some of the others, but you see how they look cobwebby?

[00:05:08]Almost looks like mildew, but that's actually root meie bugs. So kind of see when you get in there population keeps the soil dry because they're absorbing all the water. They're sucking nutrients from the plants causing everything to grow with a lot less vigor. It's taken me all day long, but I've gotten a lot of other stuff done, but I'm finally at the stage where I can get the wall replanted with all of the kolas. Now, unfortunately, they didn't have enough of every variety to do exactly what I was aiming for, but I saw some places at the farmers market in Raleigh that do have more colus. So, I'm going to plant what I can and then I'm going to see if I need to go up to the market tomorrow to finish this project because I really like when it's one variety all the way across. Uh, it looks super uniform and then they grow really densely and you never you don't even see that there's a frame and that's what I really want it to look like this year. So, I'm going to use what I have and then see if I need to buy more. I think I need to buy more.

[00:06:19]Also, I'm just like on a roll going plant shopping. So, that's part of it.

[00:06:30]So, I've gotten all but the the bottom row of one side planted because I had gotten enough culivars with six of each.

[00:06:39]And now I have three of each.

[00:06:44]And the problem with that, and this is totally just a breathing, maybe not. I'm sure there's others out there who visualize things the same way.

[00:06:55]But I can't do three and three because it won't be even.

[00:07:02]And if I had done four of each, I could have done like two and then two more and that maybe would have made sense. But instead, and I don't know what I was thinking.

[00:07:16]Um, I think part of it was that just they were getting low on colas, but like I have I have three of these. That's not enough to do a row. And it's not enough to like I guess I could do three and then two of something, but it's just it's it's not because I usually do two in each tray, so there's six across. And it's like if I don't make it even, I'll notice it all summer long. I'll be bothered by it every day when I walk into the greenhouse. So, I just can't figure out how to And like the thing is this one is going to be shorter, bushier. This is a really tall one. I think this is religious radish. So, mixing them, it'll look really uneven in the row.

[00:08:15]This is just a plant buying fail. That's all. That just means I have to go to the market and buy buy more.

[00:08:24][snorts] These will totally get absorbed into the garden, but I don't think they're destined for the wall.

[00:08:32]Well, you would have thought that I was coming up with the equation to solve world hunger with the amount of effort it took to get these combinations made.

[00:08:40]This side makes sense. Every row is a different variety of kolas. There's six kolas per row. I think that is the side I'm gonna see and it's the side that makes the most sense and that's great.

[00:08:55]This side took some more effort and it's not straight lines which is what I love but I think it's going to look cool and if it doesn't I can always just replant it. I just didn't really want to have to go shopping again. Trying to get rid of plants by having the open garden, not buy more. And I bought a lot over the weekend. So, I've got a mixed batch of kolas across the top and then kolus and carax in the next layer. Bad hair day mangave across the middle. And then more colus carex and then the bottom row is plectranthus. The reason I did bottom row plectranthus on both sides is because the deer don't like the flavor of plectranthus. And so I'm hoping that that helps deter them from nibbling on this because well, like everything, it's right out here in the open, super accessible for the deer to access.

[00:09:51]Well, everybody, I hope you'll be inspired by this quick replanting of my vertical system. I'm going to drop the link in the description because it's a really, really great thing. I've had it for more than a decade. I keep it planted year round and it self- irrigates. This is the live screen because it's actually on wheels and I can just move it around. Uh, but if you're interested in growing vertically, this for me has been the easiest system to use and so I highly recommend it.

[00:10:19]Well, I do hope that you will subscribe and plan to continue to tune in so that you can see how this grows out for the summer of 2026. As always, thanks for watching and happy gardening, everybody.

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