" Now, let's talk about all this plant material. Because here it is, late in the summer and some of it is looking a little bit off, but what were your choices in the background there?"

" We have daylilies back there, and I should also add it looks a little bit off because it was just planted."

" Right."

" And so this time next year, it should look much better and fuller."

" Sure, yeah."

" We have three different kinds of daylilies, which will spread out to bloom for a month."

" Uh huh."

" We have the tallest ones in the back that are yellow, and then we have some red in the front."

" And these will all fill in so that you won't really see the soil, right?"

" That's right."

" After a year or two, they will all be----"

" That's right."

" solid green back there, and then what about all these kind of gray-green fluffy stuff?"

" This silver mound will stay this way all season from early spring through fall and it will form a mat. You'll see no dirt here either."

" Uh huh."

" And it will not produce a flower. No, but they will be these fluffy gray-green."

" It's a beautiful color. And then a course over here, it's the succulents that we picked the other day."

" That's right. That's the sedum brilliant, and as we saw at the nursery, there was just one, there was a little bit pink and now we have a sea of pink here that should stay----"

" Yeah."

" well into September."

" So, if this becomes established, they too form a solid mass."

" That's right."

" Yeah. Marvelous."

" Right."

" And then we've got all the fellows working under the dogwood tree here. What have you chosen for a----"

" That's right."

" for a ground cover? "

" Here, we have Galium odoratum, which is commonly called----"

" Say it again?"

" Galium odoratum, which is the common name of sweet woodruff."

" Yeah."

" And it's a wonderful perennial. It will be, again, all these perennials are gonna fill in and form just solid planting, and this will have a beautiful white blossom in the spring that will just make it look like snow."

" And it will bloom at the same time that the dogwood is coming in?"

" A little bit earlier than the dogwood."

" So first the white and then the pink above it?"

" That's right."

" Gorgeous."

" Well, from here, you can appreciate the whole thinking of using low plantings up against the architecture,----"

" Right."

" So that you don't have big shrubs hiding things."

" What's that in the corner over there, is that a shrub? "

" That's what we call a blue holly. It has a traditional holly-shaped leaf. Some people say it has sort of blue cast to it, and it's a female holly, we will have a nice a red bearing."

" And it will get big?"

" Well, we can keep it. It takes pruning quite easily and it will still look natural, so we can keep it at about the height of the railing."

" Good. Well, let's talk about planting."

" Alright."

" I see that we've got some of our beautiful, well, these were enkianthus."

" Enkianthus, right."

" Yeah."

" With a red stems that will look nice against the house, and here we have Bob Marzilli."

" Hi Bob. Hi Bob."

" Nice to see you."

" Nice meeting you."

" You've got a head start on this. You've got 2 of these already in the holes and why do you always end up with 3 or 5? I noticed we're putting 3 up here under the gable end."

" Well, we're doing an informal planting here. The 3 will allow us to bring the middle one out and make a triangular shape."

" Uh huh."

" It will just look informal and attractive----"

" As supposed to----"

" and balance."

" Yes. Okay. As supposed to being----"

" Rigid."

" perfectly symmetrical----"

" Right."

" and ridid. Well, you've already made the hole. Any tips when you have something like this, it's in burlap and a ball. Any tips on the size of the hole?"

" Well generally, on a shrub, what you wanna do is you want to make the hole about 6 to 8 inches larger around the side, then the plant itself that will allow the proper root growth for the plant and allow the plant to grow in that space."

" Uh huh."

" And----"

" And what about the depth of the hole?"

" What we'll do is we plant it usually about 2 inches above the [unk] as far as the [unk] goes because you don't wanna bury it any higher than where it existed before. That would cover the cambium layer. The cambium layer is in the bark."

" The cambium layer breathes and you don't want to suffocate it, so you have to keep the dirt below that."

" Exactly. You will you kill the plant if you put it too deep."

" What about soil preparation? This looks pretty fancy here. What do we have?"

" Well, what we have here is a mix of top soil and peat. And generally, what we do is we mix 1/3 peat, whereas to 2/3 top soil."

" Uh huh."

" And the peat moss just increases the water retention capacity of the soil; therefore, giving the plant more of the ability to hold the water more around the plant."

" Right."

" So they won't dry out."

" Well, can we drag this within? Can I give you a hand?"

" You sure can."

" That's about 60 pounds of stuffs. And then there's a little bit of art involved here."

" That's right."

" [unk]in terms of positioning it."

" We wanna face it. That means we want to get this right side facing out. So let's twist it a little bit. Let's see. That way. That's good. That looks good."

" Alright. So, now what about the burlap that's covering the ball? What are you doing? Do you have to cut it all the way and get it out of there?"

" Yes. Well, we're cutting it away; we'll be leaving it in because the burlap will decompose naturally in here."

" Uh huh."

" So you have to make sure that they substitute enough real burlap with plastic burlap. If it's plastic burlap, you have to take it out. If it's real burlap, it will rot."

" Yeah. Now I've also heard that if some of the burlap is left exposed above grade, it will act as a wick and dry out the bottom roots. Is that true?"

" That is correct."

" Okay."

" So what you wanna do is you want to cut it away and stay in the hole. It will decompose."

" Uh huh."

" Alright."

" That looks good. Now we start back filling. And how important is it to really compact the soil in there and tramp it down."

" Well, actually, you don't want to compact it and you don't want to tramp it down."

" Oh really."

" What we wanna do is just back fill with the soil amendments. The natural way of the soil carries itself in, and then what we will do is water it down, saturate first."