It's fall, May the forest be with you. Coming to you from Studio
AA at proven Winner's color Choice Shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show
with Stacy, Hervella me, Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna
Robinson. Stacy, we received a note from a listener and a viewer that
well, it kind of sparked a conversation. The note was, I've made
so many mistakes through the years, and i always find that I'm never satisfied
with the placement of my perennials and shrubs. I'm wondering what mistakes the two
of you have made, if any. I mean, this is only an
hour show, and let me tell this person that you are not alone.
And by the way, placement is a challenge for almost everyone, and mistakes
happen, and Stacy, everyone's made a placement mistake with a plant, oh
literally everybody. And you know, I, before I worked as a rooftop
gardener, I thought that the designer I worked for had it all figured out,
and he had everything worked out within a fraction of an inch, and
we would show up on the job site and it would just, you know,
go like clockwork, and that was not the case at all. You
know, first we go to the nursery and it's like, oh, wait,
no, I want this instead. Oh I'm gonna switch this out and
I'm gonna get these, and they don't have this, so now we're gonna
do these. So already the plan is not scrapped, but you know,
so then we get on the job site and then it's all you know,
like by feel, and it's like changing things around and moving things around.
Even people with plans aren't locked into their plans. They don't follow them to
a tee because it's just Gardening is an art and a science. Yeah,
I agree. I operate by the seed of my plants. That's what I
do, and a lot of people do it. I think it was Ben
Franklin too who said, eh, do it tomorrow. You've made enough mistakes
for today now. Actually he didn't say that, and the historians in our
audience would correct me. But it does make sense. I mean, when
life shuts a door open it again, that's how doors work, and that's
how we work in the garden, and we make mistakes. So we'll take
a few minutes here to talk about some of the mistakes that we've made,
and I learned very early running a garden center. There was a day when
I asked a young man to go out front and plant the annuals in the
flower beds, and I was aghast when I got out there. He was
working quickly, had half the job done, but he had planted all the
annuals roots off. Oh dear me. It never occurred to me to tell
him the roots go in the soil and the flowers face the sun. Ah
that is yep. When I was in horticulture school, I know, one
of my first days on rotation at the display gardens at New York Botanical Garden,
one of the gardeners took me on the little golf cart, put me
in front of this massive container at a couple of flats of like pa was
springtimes. It was like a bunch of random spring stuff. And she said,
okay, now plant it. I'll be back in you know, thirty
minutes or whatever. And she came back and I had planted like, you
know, six pansies in it, and she said, what the heck are
you doing? I said, well, I was following the spacing instruction.
She's like, na, nah, let me show you how it's done.
And so we pulled those things out and she smashing the root balls and jam
and stuff in. And you know, that wasn't really a mistake, but
that was a similar thing. You learn, You learn by doing, Yeah,
exactly, You learn and you learn from experience. You know. I
was also thinking working in the industry, and this probably explains a lot.
Okay, I have a true story. I have fallen off the roof of
a barn ouch, I have fallen off a greenhouse. Are you okay?
And I have fallen out of a tree with a running chainsaw and walked away
from all three episodes. Oh my gosh, it's terrifying. I did well.
I mean, it's crazy. And so then I sit here and I
think about you know, I'm getting to my mid sixties, and I think
about it as a kid. I was a kid in the sixties. Okay,
In the morning, my mom would kick me out of the house,
and you spent the day trying to figure out what you were going to do
that day. We didn't wear seat belts, we didn't wear sunscreen, we
didn't wear bike helmets. We drank from the garden hose all day. And
we survived it. So far, so amazing. So far. Thank you,
just say it. I've made mistakes with clay soil, being out in
the garden way too early and then actually seeing landscape timbers and boots and other
material just sucked up by that soupy place. You know, you get anxious
and you get out there too early in spring. I've been out there way
too ear oh yeah. And I think a lot of people, and we
talked about this. I think last spring people get really excited about starting their
seeds, and now I'm going to start the lettuce indoors. I'm not going
to read those instructions that say direct so parsley seed, I'm just going to
do it. Now. How bad can it be? And you know,
you do find out there's no harm in it, really, but you do
find out that those things are definitely going to be much happier if you follow
those directions. They were almost certainly written by someone who knows what they're talking
about exactly exactly. Now, of course, getting back to the question of
our listener and whether or not we make mistakes, Yes, of course we
make mistakes. We learn from our mistakes. One suggestion that I would have,
and we talked about plant placement, is that with plants. What I
like to do in fall is in fall, I start dreaming about what next
year's garden is going to look like. And in the process, in fall
and early spring, there are plants that you dig up, there's plants that
you move, there's plants that are too big for this certain area. A
great thing to do, and I do it every year, is I take
pictures in fall, and I make sure to save those pictures. And then
in the dead of winter, as the snow is coming down and you can't
be out there in the landscape, you can begin to do your strategizing,
determine what mistakes you made in the past year and be better for it.
You know, it's such a good strategy because the garden in spring everything's coming
up. It looks so nice and tidy and small. And then by midsummer
your like, holy MACARONI, what was I thinking? And then in fall
you're like, Okay, next year, I'm going to do better. And
then if you're not getting those pictures, it's probably not going to happen because
you forget exactly. So just a suggestion for you, and oh hey,
by the way, also getting back to the falling out of a tree,
with a chainsaw. Yeah, when you're young, you're invincible and you're stupid.
Oh, you at least think you're Invinci. You're stupid. And I
was stupid. And now all of my work is done by certified arborists.
I would never do something like that, never encourage anybody to do something like
that. I remember on one of my properties, we had to cut down
a very large cottonwood tree, and I thought I was doing it right,
and as the tree started to lean, it was leaning towards my neighbor's grudge.
Oh dear, And I drove my nineteen seventy six Monte Carlo out there,
hooked up a rope to the tree and to the bumper of my Monte
Carlo. I pulled the bumper off. Oh my, my nineteen seventy six
Monte Carlo. I loved that car. Did you get the bumper put back
on? Oh? Yeah, Okay. I'm much wiser now in my older
age, because you just you do some of the dumbest things. I mean,
one minute your young, fun and invincible. The next Ye're turning down
the radio in your car so you can see better. I'm at that stage.
I mean, I do feel like there's some people joke about that a
lot, but there's some truth. It's hard to concentrate when there's a lot
of you know, noise and everything. So it's not like, oh I
can see better, but you can concentrate on what you're doing. So I
have done that my whole life. So and I'm a bit younger than you.
So now another good company. Another mistake that I make, and I'm
sure you make this one too, is I get so anxious and spring I
plant out annuals or tender plants too early. I jumped the gun and then
maybe I covered them on cold or frosty nights. But all you got to
do is miss one night and Elvis has left the building. Well yeah,
and if they don't die, they do get severely set back. They are
not equipped to deal with cold weather at all. I'm lucky I don't have
that problem because I do my annual shopping with my mom sometime in May when
it's already kind of, you know, passed, So I don't have that
temptation to go out there and get stuff and say, oh, it'll probably
be fine. I'll roll the dice and we probably won't have a frost because
that never happens, really, so, Stacy, you know, I'm the
cana king, and one mistake I made a couple of years ago was I
stored the canna's infall. I was impatient. I didn't allow them to dry
and cure properly, put them in storage wet, even had a tarp over
top of them to keep them nice and warm. Super dumb mistake. Following
spring, all of those rhizomes were just mush rock. Right when you said
super dumb mistake, I thought you were going to say soup, as in
that canna has turned into after canna soup. That's what it was. A
dump them all. So, you know, Stacy, the point is we've
all made a mistake or two or more. And the great thing about making
mistakes is that we learn from them. You know. They always say you
learn you learn by the mistakes of others, and manytimes, I find myself
being the other. You definitely learn from your own mistakes as well. So,
and you know, when people say, oh, you know, I
love listening to you and Rick, you're both so knowledgeable. You know,
the knowledge that we share on the show, some of it we've learned in
books and plant tags and so forth. But honestly, most of it we've
learned by doing. We've learned by being gardeners and working with plants, and
that is the best way that you learn. And if you want to become
a garden expert, you don't do that in a textbook. You do it
by getting in the dirt and seeing it firsthand, exactly. Sometimes the school
of knocks hard knocks, some knocks worse than others. Not knock joke coming
out, forget it, Let's go to let's go to plants on trial here
on the Gardening Simplified Show that's coming up next. Stay tuned. Prooven Winners,
Colored Choice Shrubs cares about your success in the garden. That's why we
trial and test all of our shrubs for eight to ten years, making sure
they outperform everything else on the market. Look for them and the distinctive white
container at your local garden center. Greetings, gardening friends, and welcome back
to the Gardening Simplified Show. You know, I do love talking about mistakes
because the mistakes that I have made in the garden are the things that definitely
stick with me the most. And probably my earliest mistake was cutting back lavender
in the garden that I had when I was in college, thinking, oh,
this thing looks terrible, got to cut it back, and there went
my lavender. But I never have cut back lavender since, so, you
know, and some mistakes lead to a vendetta. Do you have any horticultural
vendettas from your mistakes? Oh? Yeah, yeah. So when I was
in horticulture school, we had a plant id exam and I got one plant
wrong. And I pride myself on my plant identification scales. Adrona can tell
you I'm a very good I'm very good at plant identification, so I pride
myself on those scales. I got one plant wrong and it was egga podium
photogrourica, the horrendous plant known as goutweed or Bishop's weed. An awful plant
to begin with, but now I hate it even more and I can't even
look at that invasive thing without becoming, you know, a little bit enraged
on my you know, twenty five year old behalf. Take me to your
weeder. It's good, and you know what, it's funny being part of
a plant brand, like obviously, we don't want people to make mistakes.
We want to give people everything they need to be successful when they buy one
of our plants, and that can be a little bit difficult when you specialize
in hydrangeas, sure, because people love hydrangeas and they are, you know,
without question, one of the most problematic plants because they are a little
bit difficult to understand. And I think if it comes to one single plant
in the garden in landscape that people consistently make mistakes on, I'd say hydrange
of Macrophylla big leaf hydrange This is the kind with the big pink, purple
or blue flowers, is as a contender for at least the top three.
I agree. And people live in fear of making pruning mistakes, and you
know, because yeah, it's very disappointing when you've made a pruning mistake and
the thing doesn't bloom. It's even more disappointing when you didn't make a pruning
mistake and it still doesn't bloom. And that's and that does happen. So
there's two reasons why big leaf hydrangeas are so prone to people making mistakes.
One of them, of course, is that they bloom on old wood,
so that basically means they have flower buds for the next year or the current
year pretty much all year long. Basically, they start making their flower buds
for the following season in August, so flower buds are on that plant all
the way until it flowers the following you know, June or July. And
that opens up a very wide opportunity for you know, improper pruning for deer
or rabbits to munch on the plants for cold winter, cold or spring frost
to nip those buds. And the second reason, and this one I do
take very personally, is because those plants look for all the world like you've
got to cut them back in winter. Exactly. I was just going to
say that they're so beautiful, and then they reach that point people feel like
I gotta do something, or I know I'm supposed to do something, but
what do I do. They look at it and they think that looks horrendous
and probably dead, and so I'm going to cut it. It's like they
dare you to cut them back. I swear, and I've done it.
I've cut them back too, because they just really look like they should be
cut back. So when we're looking at developing new hydrangees, we want hydrangees
that are going to resolve these mistakes that are going to be almost if you
will mistake proof. Not to say you can't learn from them, but we
want you to be successful. You know, sometimes maybe you don't want to
devote your life to learning about when big leaf hydrangeas set their flower buds and
when you should prune them, and this, that and the other. The
answer to that is you should avoid pruning them if you can. And so,
you know, we want to make it easy for people, and so
I wanted to cover for today's plants on trial our best hydrangea, our best
big leaf hydrange for people who are just like you know what I'm done.
I just want something that performs. I don't want to learn when it blooms.
I don't want to learn how to prune it. I just want to
put something in the ground and have something that blooms every single year. And
that hydrangea is Let's dance can do. Hydrangea a beauty. It is a
beauty. And so you're probably wondering, like, okay, well what makes
this one so different? And you have seen, you know, over the
past years you've been coming here to visit Studio A at proven Winner's Color Choice
Shrubs. We have a big line of let's dance can do hydrangeas right outside
our office, and I have been watching those develop over five years and they
truly are extraordinary. So there's two things that make them extraordinary in mistake proof,
if you will. The first one is that they have better flower bud
hardiness. So, like I just said, they have flower buds on them
basically August until following July when they start to actually open their flowers. So
those flower buds being present on the plant during cold weather are very susceptible to
cold damage. They could get frosted zapped just because the temperatures do in fact
dip so low. Of course, deer can be an issue, and so
the flower buds are better able to withstand the cold weather. They can take
more cold without getting zapped like older varieties would. So that's one factor that
we're always looking for, so we want that better cold tolerance. And then
the second factor has to do with this pruning. Whether you prune it accidentally
because you think, oh gosh, this thing looks terrible, I've got to
cut it back, or a deer pruned it for you, or a an
for this all the time, a well meaning child who's home from college and
things. They're gonna help you with your fall cleanup. Landscapers very often don't
know, you know, they just they do the whole moblow and go,
and they don't know. They just think, got gotta do the full cleanup.
Better not leave anything standing. So there's a lot of ways that things
can be cut back, even if you know better. So let's dance can
do. Hydrange just sets its flower buds along the entire length of its stem.
Now that doesn't sound like a big deal, except when you find out
that big most big leaf hydrange is conventional. Big leaf hydrange is only set
their flower buds at the tippy top. So if they were getting you know,
if they were getting frozen off, if they were nipped by deer,
if they were cut off, there goes the flower buds. Whereas if they
set it along the entire stem and there's something left, there are still flower
buds even way down there towards the ground to flower. And that's what letstance
can do does. And you know, I this is it's kind of hard
to like really explain what this translation in the performance of the plant until you
see it yourself. And I knew all this, you know, before we
introduced it, Megan Matti, who's been on the show Our Plant Breeders,
said oh, this is so extraordinary. And I was like, okay,
yeah, whatever, until I actually saw it in front of my own desk
here at the office over this time, and I have seen. Now I
don't recommend that you do this, but I have seen it. Every single
March, the ground screws come through and they chop those things down, and
the first time we were all sitting out and asks going, oh my gosh,
what are they doing. They're not going to flower. And in June
they were covered in flowers like nothing ever happened. So again, we don't
necessarily recommend that you don't do the right thing, but if the right thing
is not done, you're still going to get flowers. And that is pretty
extraordinary. When it comes to big leaf hydranges, you essentially, with this
introduction, took a problem and you nipped it in the bud. We did
nip it in the bud, but not yeah I'm trying to think of that's
literally or figurative, but we nipped it in the bud. You just have
to get lets dance can do hydrange and see it for yourself because it is
a seeing is leaving kind of plant. Now it is a lot of its
genetics are a mix of big Lea Hydrangea hydrange of Macrophylla and mountain Hydrangea Hydrangea
serrata, So that's where that better cold tolerance comes from. Another thing that
comes from that hydrange of serrata or mountain hydrange of parentage is that the flowers
are lace cap so instead of being those big, full round flowers that everybody
loves, they are more flat and open, and not everybody loves that particular
look. I quite like it because I like more of a natural kind of
look, and this is closer to what hydrangees do in the world. It
also attracts pollinators, which mopheads typically don't because all of the good stuff,
all the pollen and nectar and everything's hidden deep within the flower. So it
is a mobhead. But you know what, if again, if you're tired
of hydrange is not performing for you, I honestly can say, let's stance
can do. Hydrangea has absolutely amazed me, and I think our breeding team
did an incredible job. So I love mountains Serrata hydranges. Tough stuff would
be one. Right, So you're essentially saying a tough stuff or a mountain
serrata was packaged with a conventional big leaf hydrangea and now they benefit from Yeah.
So we had in exchange of genes yep. Yeah, So the hydrange
of Serrata contributed that increased cold hardiness, Okay, and then this ability to
set flower buds down the entire length of the stem that came from the big
leaf ydrange So there's certain varieties of big leaf Hydrangea that had that quality.
We identified them, we started breeding with them and refining and selecting specifically for
that. So again, great plants aren't just made. They don't just happen
and you say, hey, there's a great looking plant. Oh wow,
it happens to perform. Well. You know, we set out with a
very specific goal for a high performance hydrangea. Almost mistake prof hydrange I want
to say almost, because there's so many factors. Of course, when it
comes to gardening. I didn't even get a chance to talk about growing it.
But it has all the same you know, care recommendations, and of
course we'll put those on our website at Gardening Simplified on air dot com.
But I really do highly recommend let's stand can do hydrange and now I do
just want to say, seeing as right now it is mid October, if
you live in a cold climate where they're fine for cold climates, we actually
sell them as hard eat Zone four one of the very few hydranges that actually
is. If you live in zone four or five, I would probably wait
till spring to plant it. But if you live in zone six or warmer
and you can get your hands on one, it's a great time to do
that. Otherwise, put it on your planting list for spring. If you
need a list of garden centers near you that sell our plants, just go
to proven Winters Color Choice dot com or of course, Gardening Simplified on Air
dot com. We're going to take a little bit of a break. When
we come back, we're opening up that garden mail bags, so please stay
tuned at proven Winter's Color Choice. We've got a shrub for every taste and
every space. Whether you're looking for an easycare rose, an unforgettable hydrangea,
or something new and unique, you can be confident that the shrubs and the
white containers have been trialed and tested for your success. Look for them at
your local garden center. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening
Simplified Show. You know, I could have gone on a lot longer about
let's dance can do Hydrangea. It's great. It's such a cool plant.
And Adriana just reminded me seeing as it is fault. It also has gray
fall color, which a lot of hydrangeas don't have, so it's still blooming
right now. It's absolutely covered in pink flowers here at the office in West
Michigan. And then the flower the foliage turns purple, so you have those
really pink flowers with dark purple foliage. It's a really, really great plant.
So again, check it out at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. And
while you're there, if you have a gardening question, you can send that
to us. There's a contact form there or you can email us help at
Gardening Simplified on air dot com. I know it's at time of year where
people are trying to tie up a lot of loose ends in the garden,
wondering should I do this, should I do that, shouldn't I do this?
Remember what we said on our last show when in doubt, don't prune.
So keep that in mind. And with that, let's open up the
mail bag and see what people are asking, all right, Stacey Kelly writes
to us last week the shrubun trial was the lemony lace elderberry that's a favorite
of mine. In July, I planted two of them in part sun.
When I planted them, I surrounded the riot ball with top soil, which
contained organic matter with peat moss. Within a couple of weeks, they both
had severely wilted leaves, even though I had watered them twice a week.
One has completely died. Any ideas, Oh, I have an idea?
Why? So you know, I understand it makes so much sense to people
when they're planting something new that they want to make the perfect little home for
it, and they think that what that perfect little home looks like is a
hole filled with nice, soft soil that the roots are going to be able
to grow into easily. And you can't be blamed for thinking that. However,
it is definitely not the best thing to do because what happens is called
the bathtub effect. And I have explained this to so many gardeners, and
I think it's one of those mistakes that you make, and when you understand
this, it kind of all clicks into place. But basically what happens is
that amendment that you added, the potting megs or topsoil or whatever you added,
holds a lot of water. It's light, it's fluffy, it has
big, big air spaces between the soil particles, so it can hold a
lot of water compared to the soil around it, your natural soil. Which
this does tend to happen most often to gardeners who have clay because they think,
oh, the roots will never be able to go into that clay.
And this effect is so so exacerbated in clay soil situations, and so that
clay soil has very very tiny spaces between its particles. So you've applied a
bunch of water, that hole just absorbed it all up, and now gravity's
going to take its toll. It's going to drain out and down, and
it's kind of like a crowd trying to rush through a tiny door. And
so because it can't all get out at once, it can't drain naturally,
that water ends up sitting around the roots and leading to root rot. So
I've seen this happen so many times. Some plants are far more susceptible to
it than others. Panicle hydranges and lilacs come to mind. I have so
so many gardeners who have killed their panicle hydrangs and lilacs doing this. So
we generally do not recommend that you amend the soil when you plant. If
you insist on amending the soil and there are those out there, then you
should try to thoroughly mix it with your natural soil till they're almost indistinguishable before
you plant. You don't want to have that bathtub of you know, the
outside of your natural soil and then the soft stuff inside. Well, Kelly,
I'm in the amendment camp. I like to use soil amendments, but
I agree with Stacy one hundred percent. Worst thing you can do is create
a bathtub. So that's why I always mention to people, think about the
roots extending out into the soil profile. If you're going to use amendments,
just mix it in fifty to fifty with the parent plant in the surrounding area.
But those were well spoken words, Stacey, don't create the bathtub.
You're gonna kill a plant, right and you know lemony lace is a Sambucus
resumosa or native red elderberry, and they can actually take some wet soil.
But the difference is when they're getting established, they don't yet have the root
system to help them through that. So don't necessarily think that just because a
plant can withstand wet soil, that's the best conditions for it while it's getting
established. So if someone has already done this and they're seeing this happen,
then what I recommend is that you gently remove the plant, thoroughly mix that
amendment in, and then replant and it should be able to recover. Good
advice. Kate writes to us, my Hawaiian sunset high biscus has something all
over the stems and branches. What is it? It's a total loss?
Treatable or should I cut it back and start over? Well, you know
it is October and they call this spooky season. And this photo is not
for the faint of heart. H it's yikece, it's yikes. So we'll
put Kate's photo of her high biscus on the website. You can see it,
and what you will see there is a a hibiscus stem that is completely
covered with fluffy white stuff. Yes, very fluffy, very white and very
covered. We see this on tropical high biscus. And this is a tropical
hibiscus, oh clarify you. Yeah, and I refer to it as snowy
scale. This one has a very bad case. And then you throw into
the mix some mealy bug, and of course with tropical high biscus, I
also find aphids to be a problem in season. And Stacy, you had
mentioned to me that this listener was from down south. Yes, so she
is somewhere in southern Georgia. Okay. And so the plant isn't in the
landscape. It does look like it's in a container, but it is.
Indeed hibiscus, snowy scale and scales are fascinating insects. I find them just
utterly fascinating. They're a little bit gross, but also very interesting. So
basically what happens is that the insect, the female insects, settle down,
hunkered down on the plant. They have their babies. The babies they are
called crawlers. They crawl out from under the mom. They settle down on
a new place on the plant or a neighboring plant. They hunker down,
build a bunker, build a bunker, they have babies. Those babies crawl
out, and so it's very easy to get this infestation that completely covers the
plant. And there's soft scales which are relatively easy to treat, and there's
armored scales. And this is an armored scale, which sounds so metal,
but in fact is just the fact that they make a hard shell that make
them very difficult to treat. In fact, when I was looking up snowy
scale and hibiscus, it says the family constitutes one of the most successful groups
of plant parasitic arthropods and include some of the most damaging and unmanageable pests of
perennial crops and ornamentals. Yeah, and I believe it because to try and
get on top of the problem you would have to spray during the crawler stage.
And when is the crawler stage? And how quickly does that? You
know, it's just too much work for me, Stacy. If the problem
hasn't gotten too far, I'd like to use horticultural oils, or at least
try horticultural oils because of that armor that you talked about. Yeah, and
so yes, if you're going to use a regular pesticide, that's actually going
to kill the crawlers. Do you need to time it exactly perfectly, and
that time could be so short that you could actually miss it. Oil,
horticultural oil is a much better choice. And what that does is it completely
coats the insects spiracles or their breathing holes, and so they suffocate, which
sounds cool, but when you see Kate's picture you'll understand why. So a
good coating of oil will do it. But honestly, I would say,
unless this plant has sentimental value to you, or is going to be difficult
to remove in some way, I would not salvage it. I would move
on. Yeah, I would too, at least at that stage. I
would do that. And I'm glad I had my pen handy, because every
week I learned from you, Stacey, and today I learned spiracles. Yes,
I had never heard that. That's in second breathe spiracles. I like
that. So the good thing, though, Kate, is that the Hibiscus
snowy scale is specific to tropical hibiscus, so you don't need to worry about
it going on to any other plants unless they are also tropical hibiscus. Yes,
all right, Mary writes to us, do you have a suggestion for
the best app that identifies wildflowers and other plants. Thanks. Yeah, I
thought this was a really good question, Thain question. So I asked around
at work here for some different people and what they recommended, and the pretty
much unanimous recommendation was Google Lens. And so Google Lens is an app,
but if you have an Android phone, it's pretty much already on your phone.
You can just take a picture of something and then it will actually give
you the option to search in Google Lens. And what that does is basically
resources all of the photographs on Google for a close match and gives you all
of those results so you can match it yourself. Now, this is going
to work better if something is more distinctive. You know, if it's just
kind of like a regular green leaf, you might see might get a lot
of results that are difficult to decipher. But if you have something like an
oak leaf or you know, I was experimenting with a beautiful rebeccia that was
growing I found growing in my neighborhood. Henry Islers, do you know that
variety has beautiful quilled pedals, very distinctive. And then it was immediately like,
oh yeah, that's Henry Elers Redbekia. But even if you have an
iPhone, you can download Google Lens as an app, or iPhones kind of
have their own version of this. So if you go into your photos,
if it's a photo of a plant or an animal or something like this,
and you look down at the bottom, there's a little eye in a circle
and has two little stars on it. If that appears and you click it,
it will say look up plant, animal, whatever, and then it
will give you the examples that it might potentially be the potential matches right there
in your photo app, so you don't even have to get kicked over to
the internet. It's great and there are many other great apps also, and
many of them are free, which is great. If you're asking why someone
would use a free plant identification app, is like asking why would you use
a free search engine. I mean, it's the same thing, and so
it's a great thing. And I noticed that in some areas they're doing bio
blitzes for kids. It's kind of like an Easter egg hunt, but they
use the app and identify as many plants as they That's a fun idea.
And then I did want to mention one other one. I have not used
this myself, but a lot of gardeners have talked about it. It's called
right Plants, and it's specifically for gardeners because not only is it going to
identify the plant for you, it will give you information about growing it.
So if you're looking not just for what you find in the wild, but
for how you can add stuff to your garden, Right Plants is an app
worth looking into. We've got to take a little break. When we come
back. Guess what The birdman is back. He's in studio. You're not
going to want to miss this, so stay tuned. The Gardening Simplified Show
is brought to you by proven winners Color Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering
shrubs and evergreens have been trialed and tested for your success so you enjoy more
beauty and less work. Look for winners Color Choice Shrubs and the distinctive White
Container at your local garden center. Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show.
It's time for branching news and Boyd, we have a great episode for you
today. He flew in not under the cover of darkness. It's broad daylight.
As we record the Birdman, Bill Stovell bill Is has been a friend
of mine for many, many years. And of course I know Stacy,
you just love birds, and it's migration season, so what a great time
to talk about birds. It's always a good time to talk about birds,
but especially during a migration season. So welcome to the show Bill. Thank
you Rich. Great to be here. Hey, let me start off with
loons. You brought along a loon on the table here, beautiful, not
a real one for our listeners, one for our listeners, but on YouTube
you can see this loon. These are wood carvings, correct, correct.
I have a friend as a master carver, and he carved not only that,
but these two beautiful wood ducks, and they're great replicas. The loons
are a fantastic bird. The othernmost ones are in Berry County, Michigan,
but all up north. We've developed a group called the loon Watchers, and
I'm a loon ranger, means I'm responsible for it, putting out the platforms
and the buoys to keep boaters away from them when they nest. And the
birds are very gregarious. I'll come up quite close to your boat because they're
so confident, being good swimmers, but they protect they're young quite aggressively.
That's fantastic. Now, as gardeners and people who love plants and flowering shrubs
and that sort of thing, let's start here adding flowering shrubs to your landscape
or various plants. Stacy those berries, especially during migration season as they need
to eat and stay fueled up. Important to landscape for wildlife. Yeah,
and you know, the fruit, of course is important. Everyone associates fall
with fruit, but flowers as well because many birds are insect eaters, and
if you still have flowers blooming, that's going to attract insects. A lot
of the flowers that I grow are in seed right now, so goldfinches,
migrating, you know, all sorts of things are just going bananas fighting each
other over the seed crop in my garden right now. That answers a question
about why so many birds are not at feeders right now, because nature is
blessed the ground with all kinds of feed And that's true. And I mean
there's no better natural weed control right than birds or insect control. Yeah,
that's why it's good to feed birds all year around, because they'll be there
if they're nesting, they'll be there feeding their babies insects because you can't feed
a baby a seed. That's true. I never thought about that. Even
now in October, the birds, like hummingbirds, are very very active,
at least at my house. Shed are they still active for you? So
as we've had some warmer days, they've come back, but I had a
couple when it got a little cooler and cloudier they kind of disappeared. But
I'm keeping my feet are stocked just in case those slow pokes are on their
way down south and a little hungry and mine are completely gone. I haven't
seen them for three weeks. Oh really, and what's happening. They're accumulating
flocks and because you guys are over here by the edge of the lake,
they use that as a guide and just fly south. And I'm more in
the center of the state, so they're coming over to meet with a group.
Well that's really good to know, because I know I've seen in a
lot of birding groups on Facebook that people get really concerned when some people are
like, I haven't seen a hummingbird in weeks, and others are like,
well, jeez, I still have them, And then they think, oh,
is something wrong? Did they die, did they get hurt. So
it's good to know that where you're located will impact how late you're going to
see hummingbirds, and hummingbirds understand what they're doing. That's true, but we
should give them a little over our credit. We don't have a problem with
population. It's a distribution thing that makes the question. I have a question
about hummingbirds. So it appears that the males leave sooner than the females,
at least towards this Now, I seem to see males first and then females,
and in fall I've had females, but I haven't seen a male in
probably about six weeks. Is that normal or do the males migrat earlier.
I don't know about that. I hadn't observed that. I think it makes
sense. I know that the males come back first to capture the territory and
then andraw a lot of birds. A lot of the males come back.
Some even stay here because they want to keep the best spot well. I
wouldn't be surprised if the females are chasing them away, because by about August,
none of the females in my yard are letting a male get anywhere close
to my feeders or plants at all, competition for food exactly. There was
an article in the Smithsonian magazine about migration, speaking of hummingbirds and other birds
or waterfowl, and it was fascinating. We're going to put the link on
the website Gardening Simplified on air dot Com. I had fun reading this article,
and I think you will too. In Europe in the eighteen hundreds,
naturalists could not explain how local birds disappeared during the winter, and then in
a German village in eighteen twenty two, there were a number of birds that
showed up with a thin spear through their neck and they determined, well,
they were in Africa during the cold weather and were shot at. They had
a number of theories, and then if you fast forward, many people would
use the moon at night because a lot of the migration takes place at night,
and use the moon to capture the silhouettes and determine what species of bird
was flying south. Fast forward to today. Artificial intelligence being used by Cornell
University and Birdwatch fascinating stacy and they've gotten to the point where they can give
people a three day warning so that lights are turned off, because that's a
big problem in cities during migration. They lose birds that way, they can't
find their way with the light. And this is a big season for waterfowl,
right, exactly right, Yeah, they're getting ready to go south.
They can't feed well through the ice, so they have to get to where
there is no ice. That's the whole concept of the migration in the first
place, to get to where the food sources are on a consistent basis so
they can make it to the next year. And that's why we tend to
have seed eating birds that persist through winter because they can find food, whereas
insectiv warious birds and waterfowl ice no bugs around can be a problem, except
for woodpeckers. Well, we like woodpeckers a lot. I love woodfower.
You don't want to get me started. I love them. Bill. You've
often mentioned that it's important to provide water in winter. Winter birds can find
the seed eating birds they come to your feeders can find food. They're mobile,
they can find that easily. Frozen water makes a real problem. So
a heated bird bath is a lifesaver for a lot of the birds, and
many times will get reports of a small group of bluebirds males in watering in
a bird bath in the winter, right middle, And is that a startling
shot? Hey, you know what, you need a little good luck even
in the winter. Right So I'm curious now you with Stovall wood products,
you make bird feeders and bird houses. And I think that there are a
lot of misconceptions in confusion about bird houses because you know, they've kind of
a lot of bird houses out there are strictly decorative, correct, and you
know, people just say, oh, well, I put out this,
you know, cutesy little bird feeder I got at the Hallmark shop, and
I never got any birds, So guess I'm not putting up any more bird
houses. But you make bird houses the birds will actually use. There are
about eighty four species of birds out of many, many ones that are cavity
dwellers, and they're the ones that use the houses. And a birdhouse is
actually just a hold on a rotten tree. But by putting the right sized
entrance hole, you restrict larger birds from disturbing the smaller birds, and that's
how that works. A lot of the ones that are decorative don't have any
care about the thickness of the wood and the size of the hole. They
just want it to be pretty, and those don't work well. So can
you give us some tips about choosing the right bird house in the first place.
The most universal bird house as a one and a half inch entrance hole,
which is the same size as a downy woodpecker. That's the reason we
had cavity dwelling birds other than woodpeckers for all these years. Now we're able
to supplement that with good bird houses with it one and a half inch entrance
hole. But that's just the right size for nuthatches and tip mice and chickadees
and whole raft of smaller birds. And that's most of your nesting birds.
The others, the larger birds are specific to how it's like a wood duck.
They need a specific size hole, and for that there just aren't enough
big trees, big dead trees. Owls have the same problem. So how
do you know now when you're talking about those bigger birds like a wood duck
or an owl. No, those are going to want a home much higher
up in a tree than something like a rent or a Chickenye. No,
height has less to do with it than location. As long as the wind
isn't blowing directly into the entrance hole and it's above let me say six eight
ten feet. That's high enough for most birds because nature doesn't have any decision
about where to put their hole in a tree. The reason that you see
holes in the top of the trees, that's where the bugs are. Ah,
that makes sense. Interesting, we're chatting with Bill Stovell, he is
the birdman here in the studio, and you know you mentioned the decorative bird
houses that you see around, especially during I have found that they really do
not have many of them do not have a means of cleaning out the bird
house. Now that's been a frustration for me in the landscape because I never
know when should I get in that bird house and clean it out, or
should I even be messing around in their house? In the spring is a
good time to march is a good time to go check that bird house,
open it up and see. If a bird house doesn't have a way to
clean it out, it's not going to be functional. But at that point
you may have things left over from mice or things from the from the winter.
During the season. It's probably best, unless you're going to be monitoring
those bird houses on a regular basis, to just leave them alone, and
often when you check it in in March, you'll see there are three different
nests in there. There'll be a bluebird nest first, and then a chickadee
nest second, and then a wren nest third, So three different species of
birds have been in the same house in the winter. It's good to have
the nest in there because they use it for roosting because if you have an
empty house, their body temperature has to heat up the whole house. But
if the house is half full of nest, then they and many birds that
you get two or three or four birds going the same bird out if it's
really really cold. Oh interesting, I didn't think about that. Roosting is
really important for birds up here that are surviving the colder weather. I just
can't resist cleaning the house because you see them loading that thing. They're putting
cigarette butts in there, and dryer lint and all kinds of stuff to pack
their house, and it just seems like there should be some house cleaning.
At some point. I watched missus Wren take sticks out of a house that
I'd forgotten to clean, and I watched her put new sticks back in,
so she changed the furniture around to suit her. They're not going to be
in words. Oh, they loved to see you keep your hands off.
So now it's October. When is the best time to put out a birdhouse?
Every day, so it's never too late, never too late. Birds
will start to look for them. They're always interested in what's going on.
They're watching you. They're watching you in the garden, they're watching you in
the forest. And when a new thing comes out, they'll check it out
and then they'll mark it on their calendar for when they return. Some of
them will stay there, some of them use it for roosting during the winter.
But in the middle of the summer is not a bad time. Whenever
you have a chance to put out a birdhouse, it's going to be a
positive. There is no in the spring. Of course, we think about
it and we put a lot more out at that point in time, and
then we capture that whole season's input of birds. But anytime it is a
good time. And it's particularly important for the big, big houses, like
the owl houses and wood duck houses to get those up in the fall,
because they come back about in the first part of April, and you're not
gonna be one slipping and sliding up in a tree in april. That's true.
Now does it matter if a bird house is a fixed firmly to a
tree or if it's hanging. I'll tell you this in confidence. Wrens are
swingers. The rest of the bird population likes them to be stable. Well
that's good, that's really. I mean, rens are delightful to have around,
so that's good to know if you want rents. So does this mean
I know sometimes there's an issue of like European sparrows or starlings or something getting
into nests and causing problems. If you have a free hanging nest like that,
does that exclude some of those problematic birds? Not really. The one
you're seeing most often are the sparrows because they have the same size entrance sole
as the universal size as darling as you need a larger entrance, so they
don't they're not as invasive. But sparrows are a real nuisance and other birds
have to fight off the sparrows. And there's a chance where you can get
busy rick because if you see a sparrow in your house, keep an eye
on them. As soon as they fill it up, take it out and
as soon as they fill it up again, take it out, and what
they'll do, they'll give up and then the bluebirds or the tree swallows can
use that house. So you have to be persistent, be persistent. And
Rick is, swallows are fascinating and we're so lucky living by the lake shore,
have so so many to watch, I mean so many birds here along
the lake shore. Again for our viewers and our listeners, we're broadcasting from
West Michigan. Bill, Is is it because we have so much water around
here that we're blessed with so many different species and birds. I think it
has water as one part of it. But the habitat that we have along
all this wetlands and all these shorelands and all these that we have in southwest
Michigan just make a natural habitat. Habitats that way you keep birds and have
birds having good food, good cover, good nesting areas. That's why we
have a population like we do. We've got areas of treetops where we have
lots of warblers. It's just a bonanza places for birds. Well, you
know what, And I've been thinking a lot lately about that concept of habitat
and what that means for a gardener and for gardening, because anytime you plant
something, you are creating habitat. And the choices that you make of the
plants that you put in the ground in your garden are what determines what's going
to take up residence in your yard. And with good decisions, you can
make your yard much more hospitable for birds that we actually want to see and
birds that need that extra help. If you can get dogwoods and wounder berry
and a lot of the understory type shrubbery, if you can get perennials that
see like cone flower and black eyed Susan and several of the others, you're
developing a nice seed base. And as long as crab apples, all of
those things are excellent. And the birds will help you if you just let
them drop the seeds around in your woodland and let them grow. Let the
volunteers show up. We have an amazing number of I only had a couple
of winterberries once upon a time. Not lots of them. Oh that must
be beautiful. You know, when I travel, I put a note in
my phone and I know when I'm going to go to the airport and hit
the road. Now with these birds we're talking about habitat, they do migrate.
Is it because the days are getting shorter? Is it because the food
is less available? What causes a bird obviously not a calendar, but what
causes a bird to say, I'm gonna hit the road, I'm leaving this
habitat and see you later. I'm going to vacation down south. I think
there have been a lot of studies, but a lot of it's light.
When the light is at a certain position, then they get itchy and they
start to make for the south, and that tells them that the flowers are
not going to bloom as vigorously, or they're going to be losing their leaves,
They're not going to be producing berries. So it relates to the vegetables,
and you know the natural habitat and light has a great influence on that.
So I think they're all tied together. See I'm hoping this year again,
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's an El Nino winter and that they
decide more of them decide to stick around this year. I mean, you
do have winters where some birds stick around longer, right, That happens all
the time. We have more geese than we would like to have because they
decided they could stick around. But there are a lot of birds that we
didn't used to have that We've seen more robins now, we see more blue
birds that are wintering over now, and not only the males. They were
seeing a few of the females staying. And they do it for a couple
of reasons. One is they're selfish. They want their old habitat back,
they want their old house back. But they also can survive on a lot
of the berries and the water, and they can eat little vegetables, long
edges of when there's snow, you can see them right along on a stream
side eating bits of grass or leaves or stuff. They're pretty incredible. And
of course more people are feeding. You know, bird feed has become quite
popular, so that also helps. Does that help or does that hurt?
Does that confuse things? I think it helps considerably because they have a place
they can go that they can depend on food, and then they can they
eat food from around the surrounding area. So you're reducing your insect population by
having feeders out. But bluebirds don't really eat seeds, so they eat meal
worms and things like that, so that's a specific kind of feeding. But
sue people put out to it and as you know, meal worms and that
kind of thing in it. But bluebirds like the water. But they find
everything. They find everything in nature that they need. You don't have to
supplement that too much other than if you want to see them, get them
started on meal worms and then go see people sell meal worms because we love
them. I don't want to duck the question hat ducks hack ducks. They're
going to stick around up north, they head south. Tell me about ducks
because I love ducks. Well. Ducks migrate, and they migrate in great
flocks. And that's the time when the duck hunters have the best time along
in their duck blinds and the black labs go out and splash around in their
puddles. And but this is a great time to see them along the shorelines
and little lakes and ponds that you find, because they'll come in flocks and
then they imprint to a particular place for a very good time two three four
weeks and you can see them every night coming in. We have that not
only the ducks, so we have wood ducks coming in on a lot of
them. We have mallards coming in a lot of them, but we have
sand hill cranes. Huge quantities of sand hill cranes for this region come in
and they come back every night. Now, I was in Wisconsin a couple
of weeks ago, and there's Northern's constant Green Bay and some sand hill cranes
landed in a park and they were about as close as me to you,
and they were not the least bit phazed by us. Is that typical behavior
They can be acclimated by people. That happens in Florida all the time.
They'll walk right up to a knock on your window for some popcorn, but
it's not the onliest thing for the birds. And they've got a kind of
a pointy beak. You know, they could stick you pretty easy, So
I wouldn't they try to feed them they But I was quite quite surprised because
I feel like every other time I had encountered one that was very far away,
or I was driving on the highway or something like that, and it
was like, oh my gosh, Like I thought they were sculptures at first
because they were so close. Well, we don't hunt them anymore that we
did a long time ago. Uh, And some states do hunt them,
but they found they're very difficult because they're very bright birds there. Well,
cranes are the oldest. They're one of the oldest birds in the universe.
Loons of the other that that those two birds evolved the longest adough, But
if a man shows up in a field with a stick in his hand,
the santual cranes could be long gone, maybe after the second shot. But
they're not going to be around. They're real. They leave fast. But
they've the ones you've seen must be in They may have been in park areas
up north where they were fed. Yeah, it was a it was a
city park. I mean, they didn't seem to be looking for food,
but they just seemed completely unfazed by the fact that we were, you know,
ten feet away talking about parks up Nord. Years ago, we used
to see swans all over the place. Not anymore. No, I've never
seen one, and I go bird watching almost every weekend. But since my
friend Joe Johnson planted trumpeter swans in southwest Michigan, we have several hundred pairs.
They're all and that's our native swan, right, Sorry I got those
confused. Yes, so now we only have mute swans because they were released
in we only have no I'm confused. The mute swans are the ones with
the yellow bill okay, Yes, and they're the ones that were brought over
from Europe, yes, as decorative birds and they made a mess. Yeah,
And now the Department of Natural Resources and trumpeter swans have pretty much eliminated
them. So it's our native bird. The trumpeter swan is the one that's
around all the time, a lot of them, and they're doing a really
great job of reproducing and growing. That's good to hear for a moment of
color. Commentary bird Man. A few weeks ago, quite a stir was
created when some flamingos got off track and ended up in Lake Michigan. I
mean, how often does that happen? I picture a hurricane coming along and
they get blown off course. Now, of course, with migration, and
because a lot of birds migrate at night again, big cities, lights,
buildings, that type of thing can become a real problem and the birds become
disoriented. But from time to time we learn of a disoriented bird. Had
you ever heard of flamingos in Lake Michigan before? That? Is that's a
real oddity. It hadn't happened in reading the literature, it may not happen
again. But flamingoes eat shrimp. We don't have shrimp in Lake Michigan.
We have crayfish. They better learn how to eat a crayfish. Watch their
little bills. They can get takeout at the red lobster. They can.
I hadn't thought of the red lobster. Do they have little chips or how
do they pay? Well, you know, if people had seen flamingoes,
you know, fifty or one hundred years ago, no one would have believed
them. They would have thought they were hallucinating or something. And thank goodness
people were able to get photographic proof because it's it seems totally improbable. Well,
it's a strange. It's just absolutely strange that they come up here.
They probably saw the water when they were flying in, but they need to
stay down south. Well, hopefully they made it back safely. Maybe it
was a hurricane. Yeah, they say, Bill, How important is it
to teach kids about birds and watching birds, caring for birds, paying attention?
How important is that to you? Why is that important? Well?
I think we all need some serenity, and one of the most important things
about bird watching is seeing who is at your feet or who was in your
yard and identifying them by name. Same with shrubbery and trees, and that's
how you get a base of the conservation of the of the country. And
with birds, they're a primary indicator. It's like the canaryan k and a
mine. But when population is decreasing, that means there's a change in the
habitat, and we don't know that. At least people keep track of them,
and our next generation are the ones that are going to have to do
it. We're doing more banding now, we're getting more information. You mentioned
the AI possibilities at nighttime. We're learning more about it and if we can
stop the changing of the habitat or make sure that habitat is available for some
of the birds that are in trouble. But the only way that we're going
to know is teach the children about nature, all kinds of it. Go
for a walk, get your feet well, turn over a rock, find
something, Just get outdoors. If you've got to go trout fishing, look
up in the sky and see see what's going on around you. I go
trout fishing, not so much to catch fish, just to be there.
Sometimes that's what it's all about. You love bird watching? Why do you
love it so much? I mean, it's a lot of what Bill just
said. I love seeing the interactions of birds and their habitat. And you
know, the thing that's so fun about it is it's never the same day
twice. You really never know when it comes to birds. They're so mobile,
you really never know what you're going to encounter. And I've found that
birding is a lot like gardening in that once you start looking, you see
more and more and more, and the world just expands in a way that
you didn't know was even there when you first started looking. It's great.
Oh you're both professionals in all kinds of areas. But the more you know
about birding, the more you know you don't know. It's just incredible.
That's absolutly true of gardening too. I don't know if I'd look at myself
as a professional. I kind of wing it. He is the birdman,
Bill Stovell and Bill, thanks for joining us on the Gardening Simplified Show.
It's been a pleasure to have you here. My hope to help with the
education of this stuff. Oh and Stacy, always fun to do this show.
This is great. It is and you know, if you're looking for
a bird house that will actually get birds taking up residents, you can find
stubble wood products online, are at your local bird bird store. There are
many many brick and mortar stores around the country. My distributor in Saint Louis
area has four thousand out there around the last dates and the ones in Wisconsin
there's they cover with salesmen eight states and the people out of Grand Rapids have
five warehouses, so there's lots of about there. But this is really about
education, reds and then and keeping the birds safe and having places for them
to have a safe life. Bill, We're going to let you fly off
to your next destination. Stacey, it's been fun. Thank you so much.
Thank you, and thanks Adriana, and thanks to all of you for listening.