 Welcome to Alabama Smart Yards, we're creating beautiful yards that help protect natural environments. Why? Because it's a smart thing to do. Today David Kuhn will show us the proper techniques when planting woody ornamental shrubs. We spend a lot of time and resources on our landscapes. One thing we always need to remember is planting the right plant in the right place. By doing a little research ahead of time we put a plant in a place that's happy. A happy plant requires much less maintenance. Today we're going to plant some native azaleas in an understory environment with Park Sun. One of the biggest problems we see with landscape plantings is improper planting depth. Once we have a good idea that our hole is dug, we want to place the plant in the hole to get a general idea that we've got the right depth and the right width. We want to try to be about two times the size of the pot and about the same depth it is in the pot. We can go ahead and remove that plant from the container, inspect the root ball to make sure it's not root bound. If it is, we want to massage that root ball, place it in the ground, measure to make sure that I'm at no deeper than it was originally planted in the container. At this point I'm going to backfill with a mixture of pine bark and native soil about half way up the hole. I'm going to settle that soil and what I'm trying to do is remove any airspace from that soil that was filled in. Airspace is dry out roots and stress the plant. Once I've backfilled and tapped it, I'm going to water that in a little. Remember, you newly planted ornamental will need supplemental watering the first year of its life. Check it weekly and add water as needed.