Hello, my friends across the fruited and rooted plane. It's time for the
Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella, me, Rick Weissed and Adrianna Robinson as
we broadcast from Studio A proven winners Color Choice Shrubs. All right, let's
make moms may What kid hasn't picked a bouquet of dandelions or lilacs for mom
and whatever species it is. Stacy, I say, if you give mom
flowers, you rose to the occasion. Well that's true, although I when
I was young, I was quite obsessed with daffodils, as my grandmother and
mother could attest, and as well intentioned as such a gift, Maybe it's
not the ideal flower to give away. I remember stating up a shirt real
good because you know, dandelions have that milky sap, and getting little dots
all over my shirt and they never washed out. But the intention was good
because I did indeed pick them from h It's wonderful, so spected. Spending
on Mother's Day has gone up nearly every year in the last ten years or
so, even during the prime of the pandemic in twenty twenty. And then
you throw in some inflation into that. And this is a big deal,
the big three flower holidays or Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and Christmas.
But you know, Mother's Day here in the Northern States coincides generally with our
last frost date. Yes, certainly here in Michigan, give or take you
know, a week or so. And so that's what causes that flower frenzy
at this time of year. And my experience in the garden center industry is
Mother's Day weekend is a big weekend for hanging basket sales. You know,
it's an easy gift to give, yep, And they're kind of irresistible because
they look absolutely amazing in May. But I know last week you promised us
you would give us your uncensored opinion on hanging baskets. So I have been
waiting with bated breath for a week. Well, you know, long live
the King. Okay, hanging baskets, You're right, are the king in
the month of May, and long live the King. The problem is they
tend to fizzle after the fourth of July, just like the fireworks. Because
many of the hanging baskets you'll find in stores garden centers are right around that
ten inch size and I say invest in upsizing your baskets. Get some baskets
that are a little bit larger. I like to buy these hanging baskets at
this time of the year and either take the hangers off and use them in
containers, planted into containers, or upsize them into larger baskets, because a
ten inch basket to stacy by the time we get to the heat of July,
but it's tough to keep that thing water. Yeah, and you know,
those plants want to outgrow that tiny little container. And I think it's
important that people realize that when it comes to hanging baskets, you do get
what you pay for. You know, if you're seeing a really, really
an expensive hanging basket and thinking, oh, I'm lucking out, well,
they're probably best off just buying it for the plants and not the basket,
because the plants will outgrow that. But I'm happy to say I think that
much like we were talking about last week, with the revolution and container gardening,
there's been a revolution in hanging baskets, and you see a lot nicer
baskets. The basket itself has become part of the gift, and you can
find really nice of like wire. I don't even mind those cardboard pressed cardboard
kinds because they're kind of neutral looking, and soon enough, especially with something
vigorous like supertunias or something like that, the plant will completely overgrow that because
there's plenty of root room. So it's not like the olden days where everything
was like a kind of crummy eight inch plastic exactly molded container. There's a
lot more choices, and when it comes to Mother's Day, don't skimp.
Yeah, and one of the nice ones exactly. The king is dead,
long live the king. Actually, the first king refers to the deceased ruler
and the second king refers to a six sessor. But I'll tell you what.
It can be difficult to find hanging baskets in July for a successor,
so do it right right now. And that's kind of my rant on.
Hang, Okay, well, that's fair enough. And you know, especially
if you are giving them as a gift, and even if you're doing it
for yourself, you deserve the best, So you should look carefully at those
baskets, and if they don't have one, you like, move onto another
garden center because there's a lot of variety out there. Hydranges make a great
gift for Mother's Day. And I wanted to ask you about this stacy because
you see a lot of hydranges at Mother's Day, or as zalias or bulb
plants that are forced into flower ye. And if I had a dime for
every time I've been asked the question, Okay, I got this for Mother's
Day and it was beautiful, But now what do I do with it?
Can I plant it outside? You know, the florist grown hydranges, aren't
they going to survive being put outside? So opinion, that's such a good
question. Now, how much time do we have left? Touch is getting
So it's a great, great question, and it's hard to answer because there
is so many out there. So it's true that a number of the hydranges
that you'll see for sale, especially around Mother's Day, are really should be
considered gift hydrangeas. They're intended just to be given and displayed on a tabletop
indoors and not necessarily planted outdoors. And the reason for that is these florist
hydrangeas were not developed with the intent of good landscape performance. Their beautiful gift
plants. A great example is shooting Star Hydrangea. You know that one very
popular. It has like it's a lace cap, but it has long florets,
long tubular florets that really come out and give it a very distinctive look.
Shooting Star Hydrangea is actually only hardy to USDA Zone eight. Wow,
so that's not even a hardy plant in it, but you would know that.
You just think, oh it's another hydrangea well similarly proven owners colored tray
shrubs. We specially treat some of our hydrange of crop specifically to ship to
growers in February so that they can grow them on to be in bloom and
sell for Mother's Day. Now those plants, they look like gift plants,
but they're in you know, the standard white proven winners container and those are
developed to be landscape plants. So it really depends and a lot of times,
you know, unfortunately there's just not the information that you need coming with
the plants to make that informed decision. And that's the problem, right,
And that's the problem. But if you're buying one of those proven Winners hydrangeas,
it is easy because it comes with our nice diamond tag with all the
information you can check the hardiness, right, on there, and if it's
hardy in your zone, then you know it's going to be good for mom
to plan outside and enjoy for years to come. And that's the kind of
hydrangea that I would get. But the others are, you know, beautiful
for a temporary period of time. And usually a rule of thumb would be
your purchase that with a foil wrap yet around it. And that foil wrap,
one of the first things you should do is poke some holes in the
bottom of it. Put a drainage. You know, I've walked by plants
and stores where you pour the water out because it's a bathtub and then and
then next come the fungus gnats, so you know, make sure to provide
drainage if there's a decorative cover on that plant, you know. And there's
something to be said too for those hydranges that are florist hydrangees and just meant
to be enjoyed indoors. Not everyone's mother is a gardener and maybe doesn't want
that plant that she has to then plant outside in the landscape, or you
know, maybe doesn't have the space for it or isn't able to. So
I think there's really space for both at Mother's Day. But if your intention
is to get one that mom can plant outdoors in the garden, again,
it's probably not coming in a foil wrap. It's probably you know, out
more in the garden center part than in the floorist part of your local garden
center. And if you want Mom to just have one she can enjoy and
then move on from the foil wrapped one is your choice. Now here's the
suggestion for you, and that is, of course, we know Mom loves
plants and loves flowers. What I have seen more and more of in the
garden center industry is as opposed to buying something for mom. Take mom along
and let her pick out what she wants. Yeah, I see that all
the time, and it's fun. You get some bonding time and she gets
the plants she wants. Well, you know I will be since Tomorrow's Mother's
Day, shopping for plants with my mom is one of my all time favorite
things to do of the entire year. It's something I look forward to every
year. And I will tell you I did not grow up in a gardening
family. My mom is not to this day, and she'll be the first
to admit it. Not a gardener. She doesn't consider herself a gardener.
She likes to have some flowers outside. And when I lived in New York,
she would call me from the garden sent her some saturday in May in
a panic. I'm looking at this thing and it says it's this, and
I don't know if it's good, and can you help me out? So
it's been so wonderful since I've been back here, and we can go together,
and it's you know, I just I really treasure that time. So
I think if you can do that with your mom and bring your own expertise,
especially if your mom is reluctant to choose your own plants, your opinion
and expertise and your time with you is what she really wants. And if
you can't do that, of course you can bail and get a gift card.
And along the lines of Mother's Day, of course, a gift card
is great so she can purchase plants at some point a Mother's Day. I
would apply a dad joke with gift cards and ask her, don't spend that
all in one place. No, I guess you're going to You're stuck with
that gift card. But anyhow, great ideas, they're edible, plants are
great ideas herbs mixed containers, rosemary or lavender of course, orchids, Gardenia's,
Kala's, manda Villa, hydrangeas, clematis, roses, oh, my
bird of paradise. So many great choices for and if you don't know what
to pick. If your mom has a favorite color, there is no simpler
guideline for picking a plant other than to find something in her favorite color.
So that's a great little shopping tip you can take with you. I think
we nailed it. Make Mom's mate. Coming up next, plants on trial.
Stay tuned, you're tuned in to the Gardening Simplified Ship. The Gardening
Simplified Podcast is brought to you by proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs with over three
hundred flowering shrubs and evergreens, all trialed and tested for your success. There's
one for every taste in every space. See them all at Proven Winners color
Choice dot Com. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified
Show. It is the day before Mother's Day and you know a lot of
people, especially if they are not familiar with garden centers, they go to
the garden center for their one time this Saturday, and they get really confused,
and it can be very difficult to pick when there's so many wonderful things
at the garden Center. And I might be biased, but I think you
can't go wrong with a shrub if your mom has a space to plant one.
I do believe truly that a proven Winners Color Choice shrub will make the
most special gift for her, because then you're not giving her flowers just for
a day or a couple of weeks. You're giving your flowers year after year
after year, and every time it blooms, she'll think of you. And
that's not a bad things makes you the favorite kid. But I know when
you go to your local garden center, you're going to see a lot of
proven Winners Color Choice shrubs. And so what I wanted to feature on today's
Plants on Trial is a plant that is new at the garden Center this year,
and one that is absolutely gorgeous, so fabulous. It's reminiscent pink rose.
This one checks the boxes because when it comes to roses, many times
people want classic beauty and they want fragrance. Yep. And that's why we
call it reminiscent because it is reminiscent of the roses of olden days. Then
let me just give you a little background here. So you know, for
many, many years, roses, I mean centuries, really, roses have
been the most popular garden plant, just beloved by people and cultures all throughout
time. And they kind of started getting a reputation with a hybrid tea rose
in the nineteen twenties as being finicky and hard to care for and disease prone
and a lot of work, and so people started turning away from roses,
and people rosarians, people who are devote their life to the study of roses,
said hey, you know, we don't want this to happen. We're
gonna resolve this. And they started to develop a very disease resistant roses.
So they still flowered, but they didn't have to be sprayed, and they
didn't have to be pruned in a special way, and they were very vigorous.
They didn't get the same diseases that the old hybrid teas weaker plants got.
But what the tradeoff there was is that the flowers were generally not fragrant,
the colors were not as you know, sort of classic, the flower
size wasn't as big they didn't have as many petals, all of these things
that people really loved, and so for a couple decades there, people just
kind of shifted and said, oh, no, we're just going to grow
these disease resistant roses and that those are and that kind of really changed it.
And then people started saying, well, you know, gee, I
really miss those beautiful, blousy, fragrant, old fashioned roses, but you
know, what am I going to do? And so it's kind of like,
once one breeding goal has been attained, and that breeding goal being disease
resistance, peep, the breeders are then able to move on to the next
goal, and that is disease resistance with all the old fashioned charm and flower,
and that's what we're seeing in the Reminiscent Rose series. So there's actually
three roses in the series, Reminiscent Pink, Reminiscent Coral, and Reminiscent Krama,
which is kind of like a buttermilk color. But I'm highlighting Reminiscent Pink
because this is the one that the growers of proofn Winners Color traice shrubs have
been the most excited about. So I think it's one that you'll see you
know, really heavily at your local garden center. So it's almost the flowers
are a resemblance of almost what is known as a cabbage rose. You ever
have a cabbage rose, it's not a cabbage, it is a rose.
But the flowers are so full of petals that they do indeed almost resemble a
cabbage. And so it's just got that beautiful sort of bowl shaped old fashioned
look, a nice light but bright pink, so not like a you know,
Namby Pamby, medium pink, and just full of that classic rose fragrance,
but also easy care, disease resistance, not going to need deadheading to
bloom all season, which you know old fashioned roses couldn't do, and so
you're just going to get all of that in a single package. And so
it's really really quite new that these these roses that bring the old fashioned charm
with the new performance have been available. Having spent a lot of time in
the garden center throughout the years, Stacy, you're correct that people concern themselves
with disease resistance. And I can see why the you know, it's awful
with the older roses when all the leaves would fall off in midsummer and it's
really disappointing, but also hardiness. Hardiness. You know, you mentioned the
hybrid teas and that big knotty graft at the base and we'd lose them over
winter and be disappointed. That's I think that's the development that really has taken
roses and a love of roses to the next level. Yeah, I'm really
glad you brought that up, because I completely glossed over that, and that's
not something to gloss over. It is a massive improvement. So Reminiscent pink
rose is hardy to USCA zone four and heat tolerant through USCA Zone nine,
So that means a lot of the country and Canada is going to be able
to grow this plant with no problem whatsoever. And it is what we would
say own route, so it's not grafted. The plant is just one single
plant, so you don't have to worry about, oh do I are the
graft union. The planting instructions are the same as any other of the provenment
Ter's Color Choice shrubs, which is basically dig a hole, put it in,
put the soil back, puts a mulch, water it, You're done.
You know, I've I've had that in the garden center many times where
someone will come up to me and say, Okay, so I need a
plant I needed to grow to Oh, I don't know, three feet tall.
I need it to be easy to grow. I need it to bloom
all season long. It's got to grow in the sun. What do you
have for me? And I'll take them over to the own roses and they'll
go oh, and I'm like, what's the problem here, Okay, because
again they're thinking back to years ago when roses were just so much maintenance and
so much care. When I grow them in my landscape, it just blows
me away what little care they need. Yeah, it's you know, it's
been sort of a struggle I think from all of the different rose brands that
are out there is to be like, no, really trust us. This
is a great rose that you can treat like an easy care plant. And
another thing that you really can't stress enough is that they do bloom continuously all
summer. So you're not just going to get those flowers in June and then
nothing until the following year. This will bloom all season long and really truly
beautiful. So this kind of has an interesting story of how it got to
the US the Reminiscent series of roses came to us from Serbia. So yeah,
that sounds cold, Well it is cold. But there is a really
interesting breeding program and brand in Serbia called Pheno Geno Roses, and we've been
working with them for a couple of years and evaluating their roses for quite a
long time, and they are specifically breeding for all of this old fashion.
They're also breeding edible roses, which a lot of people don't realize that roses
are edible and have been used in food and flavoring for centuries. So really
interesting rosebreeding and they're really just bringing a totally new perspective. And so we're
so excited that proven Winners Colored Traye Shrubs is the only one to bring these
Phenogena roses to North America. So I mean, I think it just really
has a great story, and you know, we've been evaluating it here in
West Michigan for years before we decided to make the introduction. Now, if
you are wondering if a rose is the right plant for your mom for a
Mother's Day, the number one thing you need to know is if she has
sun. Because roses are full sun plants, they need at least six hours
of bright sun every single day, and I think that's really the key to
knowing if you're going to be successful. And sunlight, and of course feeding
also. I mean, is it fair to say, just as a generalization
that roses are heavy feeders. Well, so they will live if you don't
feed them, But if you really want that optimum performance, then yes,
regular fertilizing is definitely a good idea because you know, as we've said on
the show before, it takes the plant a lot of energy to flower,
and you know it will certainly live and have some blooms if you don't fertilize.
But if you're giving it those extra nutrients and it's able to make use
of those and put those into more energy, the result, of course is
going to be more flowers, bigger flowers, better color, and everything that
you like about the rose in the first place. You know, I view
this reminiscent pink garden rose as being just an amazing development as far as roses
are concerned. For folks who are watching or listening, and you're not in
the horticulture industry, these people who develop these plants over time, Stacy,
I'm amazed at how they vet these plants. It's not like they decide,
oh, let's put this out on the market. There is a long period
of trial and error, and I like to view the trial people who are
very much into plant material as the gatekeepers. Yeah, you know, it's
it's crazy. I I would not be a good plan to evaluator because I
just like them too much, right, and they have to be so ruthless
and say, do you know what, this is beautiful, but it's not
meeting our standards for performance. It's not disease resistance, disease resistant enough,
and so yeah, it really takes a lot of discipline. But you know,
I think that that work and that ability to say, like, no,
this doesn't make the cut is what really pays off for people and what
makes proven winners. Rose is such a good choice for mom and for a
gift, because even if your mom doesn't really consider herself a gardener, she's
going to be successful with it, and you know find that that, you
know, she's changing her mind about what it means to grow a rose.
Look at the blooms on our website. We're going to put it on our
website, Gardening Simplified OnAir dot com. When I look at the blooms you
mentioned cabbage, I also think a pony like flower, and I just look
at something like that and I think, boy, that is a rose that
Napoleon would have bought for Josephine to put in the garden. Indeed, it
has a similar old fashion and antique look. So for more information, you
can visit Gardening Simplified OnAir, dot com, or of course, go to
your local garden center and look for Proven Winners Color Choice shrubs and Reminiscent pink
rows in the white container. We're going to take a little bit of a
break, but when we come back, we're answering your gardening questions, so
please stay tuned. Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified Podcast sponsored by Proven
Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Learn more about our trial tested and proven flowering shrubs
and evergreens, and find a local retailer at Proven Winners color Choice dot Com.
Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. We
are about to answer some gardening questions. And if you have a gardening question,
you're out there enjoying in the weather and the garden and you're wondering why
you should do You can always reach out to us at help HLP at Gardening
Simplified on air dot com, or visit Gardening Simpfia on air dot com.
You can check out our show notes, see pictures of that beautiful reminiscent rose,
and ask your own questions. So Rick's gonna crack open the garden mail
bag and tell us what people are asking this week. Well, here we
go. John is wondering can I plant garlic in the spring and get a
harvest? Stacy you inspired me last fall to put garlic in the ground.
Can John be successful planting garlic in spring? So the short answer is yes.
Now. Typically in colder climates like here in Michigan, garlic is generally
fall planted and that kind of gives it a headstart on routing, which is
crucial of course for the plant to develop. But in warmer climates, garlic
is often spring planted. Now, John, if you are going to attempt
this, I would definitely recommend that you are either buying garlic from a garden
in center that you're making sure it's freshen is just brought in for this season,
or from one of the garlic suppliers online, because not all garlic can
grow in that timeframe, so there's long day garlics and short day garlics,
and so you're going to want to make sure that the garlic that you're planting
actually will grow. Now. The worst that's going to happen, though,
is that if you plant garlic now and you don't, you aren't able to
get a harvest. So basically, you know that your garlic is ready to
harvest, and for those of us who plant at it and fall, that
will be around mid July. You know it's ready to harvest because the foliage
starts to wither. Now you might not see if the foliage withers for you,
it might just be because the plant is going dormant. But the worst
it's going to happen as you're going to leave that garlic in the ground and
then it will be just like fall planting and you'll be able to harvest full
bulbs the following summer. So it's certainly worth a try. If you pull
a few out, you know, towards the end of the season and they
haven't developed those nice heavy bulbs, just go ahead and leave them in the
ground, and it's like you pre planted a two year garlic crop forth of
following summer. It's fantastic. And you know, growing garlic is just plain
fun. It is. It's fun, it's easy, and it's fun.
It's extremely easy. They're very easy to care for. And if you're growing
a hardneck garlic, you also get the garlic scapes or the flowers, which
you don't have to take out, but most people do take them out because
it helps for the plant to direct more energy into the garlic bulb. And
the garlic scapes are a beautiful cut flower, which you're going to think I'm
crazy until you see them. They're a very cool cut flower. And they're
also delicious to eat, so it's kind of like a two for one.
Yeah, fantastic, all right, Mitch asks us Hi. I was wondering
about the difference between ritting hormone and Michael Risey. Hey, now I like
that question. Are these just two different names for the same thing? No,
they're not. And if not, what is the difference? Should they
be used during repotting or when putting a peep puck with a seedling into the
soil and how well do they really work? And right off the bat,
for our viewers and our listeners, let's get the pronunciation down first a minute,
Stacy, I say micro riz or Michael Riza. What do you say?
That's what I say? Okay, good. So we've got that down
and we've got that cleared up. And I would say Michael Rising is a
fun guy, just like me. Yeah, it is a fun guy.
It's microscopic. That's not like you, right, true, I'm here.
But so micro rizi is really interesting. So basically what micro riz is,
what the word literally translates to from Greek is mushroom roots and our fungus roots.
And so micro riz is a naturally occurring fungus in the soil and it
grows in sort of a symbiotic relationship with plants. There's endomcro riz, and
there's ectomies. One of them grows around the roots and one of them grows
through the root. And basically what they do is they pass on the water
and nutrients to the plant roots. They also help to break down, you
know, nutrients in the in the soil and to pass them onto the plant.
Now a little bit, let me quickly say it's a love story.
It's a love story. It's it's a relationship between fungus and a plant.
It is. It is kind of like that they don't have any choice because
they just kind of pop up. But I should write a book. It
would be probably be a very good children's book, maybe an adult book.
I don't know. But anyway, So, mike rize really burst onto the
scene probably about ten or fifteen years ago. You started seeing them as anculans
that you could add to your soil, and you would find potting mixes inoculated
with them and all of that. And the question as to whether they are
good or not largely depends on the situation. So I remember when I was
in soil science class. I was we were talking about it with our professor,
and his simple answer to whether micro riz are beneficial in natural soil so
in the ground, is that if they could survive there, they would already
be there. It's important to understand that this is a living thing that's in
the soil, and so therefore they require proper conditions. They're a soil can
only sustain a population of so many. They can't just have unlimited micro riza
that just keep, you know, multiplying and multiplying. So my general opinion
about micro riza is that it's probably not worth adding to your soil because if
they can grow there, they're already there. And if you apply it and
the conditions aren't right for them to grow, then they're just going to die.
And you you know, it's not really harmful, of course, but
you've just kind of wasted some money and time. But when it comes to
soilist mixes potting mixes, like Mitch asked about the puck in the soil,
those are not going to have microiza in them because they're not natural soil.
They're just organic matter. So they can be beneficial in that type of situation
where it's not a natural native soil that's weathered from stone. But they are
totally different, like you said, Rick, from a rooting hormone, So
microiza are not a hormone. They are a type of fungus. Rooting hormone
is actually a plant hormone. It can be synthetic, so it can be
synthesized in a lab or it can be also be brewed or made from some
other plants. Willow famously is a way to make your own rooting hormone.
You just take a bunch of willow twigs and steep them in water and then
that has that plant hormone in it that helps rooting. So that is a
real plant hormone, and it does help rooting of some plants. Some plants
don't need it. But they're totally different things. They serve totally different purposes,
and I would only recommend rooting hormone if you are trying to propagate a
plant from a cutting with I would say, think worst floor. If you
think about the forest floor, the conditions there and the roots of the trees.
That's that's the world's first worldwide web. It is absolutely right about So
thanks for that question, Mitch. That was very interesting. Marissa has a
problem, she says, help. Slugs are taking over. Oh it's a
slugfest, all right. I'm a new gardener with a major slug problem.
Anything I plant gets decimated by the slugs before it can get established. I've
tried homemade sprays picking off to slugs over planting. Nothing works. Slug bait
is the only thing that has made a dent in them, and I don't
want to have to keep putting down more. Do you have any suggestions?
Boy? You know, you take like an area of the Great North Northwest
in the Seattle area and with all the rain that they have. I think
they have some festivals there called slug fest and they have a slug Queen and
they make slug chili and all that type of thing. But in your garden
a real pain. One thing that you need to think about as far as
the slugs are concerned is think about how they live and where they hide out.
And if you have a lot of moist damp areas, maybe the mulch
is a little too thick, but think about where they hide during the day.
A good example, slugs can do significant damage to hostas. Oh yeah,
many times by pulling the mulch away from the hasta plant. You could
use some dietemacious earth that sprinkled in that area. That will do a great
job in helping control the slugs. Because the slugs are around stacy because they're
finding the conditions to be great, right, and so they love so they
come out at night. This is why so many people don't know they have
slug problems because they only come out at night and they say, what my
hostess was cheese and it was a slug. But they go down under the
mulch any place that's cool and hidden from the lights. So when you do
pull that mulch away, you're taking away sort of their daytime Heidi spot,
and that makes it, you know, makes them go to other places.
But you know, a couple of months ago on the show, we talked
about baiting for slugs. Now, yes, you can use slug bait,
but the important thing is a lot of people don't realize slug eggs hatch out
in February, so they hatch out really early in the spring. And you're
going to get much better control if you concentrate your use of that bait earlier
in the season when they're tiny, little baby slugs, rather than when they
get big and can cause a lot of damage. So obviously it's a bit
too late for that now in this season, but definitely mark your calendar for
next February so that you can do that. And I would also say,
you know, she talked a bit about picking. You can set traps like
bury a little tun can with some beer or soda in the garden. Boy,
that's always fun. You know, you do the beer thing and the
slugs crawl in there, lose their car keys, die happy. But I
think you're better off just drinking the beer yourself. And you know, although
I read somewhere university students determine that the non alcohol beer works better than the
yeah, because it's not the beer. They just want like the sweet sugary
liquid. And also another thing that you can do is just put out like
a rough piece of wood, like think about a cedar shingle, something like
that. Yep, just set it right down in the garden, and then
the next morning go out scrape those things right into a garbage bag, repeat
as necessary, and that will take care of several of them. So there's
definitely some non toxic way to manage slugs if you do want to use less
bait, and then, like I said, when you do use that bait,
concentrate it when it's going to be the most effective. We need to
take a little break, but when we come back, it's a branching news.
You won't want to miss what Rick is sharing this week at proven Winner's
Color Choice Shrubs. We love plants. That's why we bring you the Gardening
Simplified podcast, and that's why we trial and test all of our shrubs to
make sure they outperform everything else on the market. Let our expertise help you
create the gardener landscape of your dreams get started at proven Winner's Color Choice dot
com. Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's time for branching news
and Stacy. I love reading blogs from influencers and I read one this past
week which was fun. The title of it was what to read based on
your favorite house plants? Oooh interesting. I thought that was interesting. So
this writer said, if you love monstera plants, read a romance. If
you love fiddlely fig plants, try reading suspense. If you love money trees,
try reading a book about luck while that would make sense. If you
love succulents, try reading a book set in the American West. And if
you love spider plants, try reading a story about parents and children. So
I think this is a what I would call a novel idea kind of fun
to think about. I kind of like all those plants should I read?
You know, you've got a lot of reading to do. I suppose if
you're in divines and hanging baskets you would like a good old cliffhanger or so
right, it was bound to have all right, Stacy, I just recently
returned from the Netherlands and had loads of fun. Made a little video that
I want to share on our website, Gardening Simplified OnAir dot Com. In
the notes, just was fascinated in the Netherlands how flat the terrain is.
But I'll tell you what. The tulips and the bulbs and flower were amazing.
Yeah, you hit it at peak and really they bloom just for you.
They were waiting for you. It was awesome. Mid April a great
time to a great time to visit. And by the way, I wanted
to mention also here in the United States, the Seattle area has Tulipville or
an area there in Skage Skatget Skatget right, it's Skatget County or Skadget Valley,
and there's a lot of competition going on there. As I understand it,
there were five classmates they formed Spinach Bus Ventures, a bus that they
used to ride on as kids working in local spinach fields, and then they
started a tuliptown there and now they're competing and it's become as big as Christmas
over there. So if you want to see some cool tulip fields in the
Seattle area, I think it's a little north of Seattle. And yes it's
Skadget. That's the correct pronunciation as I understand it. But the Scadget Valley
would be a great place to visit. All right. A week ago we
talked to the birdman and I thought this was great. Nearly two hundred people
from around the world have applied for jobs at a zoo to wear bird costumes
as part of an official seagulls scaring duty the Blackpool Zoo in This is in
England, I believe. They said the peckish pests have been persistently stealing food
from visitors and animal enclosures, so they came up with this idea where they
would dress up people as birds and walk around and scare off the seagulls.
You know, seagulls can be quite aggressive, so it feels like they're kind
of taking their own life in there, and I think, but I think
they're onto something. Applicants have even sent in videos of themselves already dressed up
as birds practicing. You already have a bird costume. Oh, take a
walk on the wild side, you know it would be kind of fun to
do for a while. Sure, sure, yeah, I've noticed here on
you can do it here. I was going to say, we've got plenty
of seagulls on the beaches. To do a real public service. You could
just run around the beach in a bird costume this summer. You know,
I might try it. I might try it. It'd be a lot of
fun to see what kind of reaction i'd get. You know, I'll tell
you what. Here on the beach in West Michigan, the magnet for seagulls
is doritos. Oh is it? All the time? Bring a bag of
Doritos to the beach, and the seagulls will is it the smell, is
it the color? Is it the color of the bag? You know,
I don't know. They just like doritos. Okay, that is interesting.
I have never had doritos on the beach, but I have certainly had plenty
of seagulls antagonize us what we've been picnicking. So yeah, I'll give it
a scientific Try potato chips one week, doritos the next, and see what
happens. And you'll see. Yeah. So anyhow, at this zoo,
I just think it would be a fun thing, at least to do for
a few weeks. Maybe the costume would be a little hot, but it
would be fun to try. I don't think it's a long term job.
I mean, you can't trust your job security there at a zoo. There's
too many cheetahs cheetas. Sorry, moving on, let's see take a look
here. Oh, I gotta share this with you. Bird Seed super expensive
right now. There's an old expression that when something is worth very little money,
a person might call the price merely bird seed. But not any longer.
Bird seed prices sky high across the country. Retailers and producers are reporting
higher prices on bird seed, and they're saying factors include the war in Ukraine,
increase shipping and packaging costs, and a previous dry growing season for key
bird seed ingredients, all making it more expensive to feed the birds. Well,
I have got a solution for our listeners. Oh boy, plant plants.
They make their own bird seed every single year, year after year.
Now, I honestly the only bird feeding that I do is sue it in
the winter and hummingbird food of course during the season, and other than that,
I honestly leave it to my garden to feed the birds. I leave
all my perennials in place, lots of flowers, and so they have free
reign of whatever they want to pick. Out there. And you know,
if you're buying plants instead of bird seed, then like I said, you've
got your own kind of bird seed source and you get the entertainment of watching
them, you know, pick around in your plants. So now I like
that a lot, you know, as a as a baby bloomer and a
grandpa. I'm allowed dad jokes. And I don't know if you've ever done
this, but it's a lot of fun. And I'd suggest that you go
into a bird store or a pet store and you buy some bird seed,
and then there's someone at the checkout and you ask them how long will it
take when I plant these seeds for the birds to grow? And just see
what kind of reaction you get. It's loads of fun. I'm guessing an
eye roll, usually an eye roll? Usually an eye roll? Do they
ever say I never heard that one before? All right, And then we
have a survey to share with you on the website again, Gardening Simplified OnAir
dot com. Check it out. The average homeowner encountered about four surprises or
unexpected costs within the first year of home ownership, spending around three thousand,
six hundred dollars to address them. So you buy a home and surprise and
the cost averages around three thousand, six hundred dollars. But what I found
interesting, Stacy, is the factors that influenced the respondents in this survey on
making their purchase decision of the home. The location, of course was number
one, but right following right after location was yard land size, the cost
of course, and then curb appeal. So both yard land size and curb
appeal are very much tied into what it is we do plant material and are
high on the list for factors influencing people buying homes. Well, you know,
the great thing about the curb appeal part is you can control that.
If you buy a house that has land but no curb appeal, you get
to fix that. And that's a lot of exactly I agree. So there
you go in a forest in southern Chile, a giant tree, it's a
cypress, has survived for thousands of years and is in the process of being
recognized as the oldest in the world, known as the Great Grandfather. The
trunk of this tree, measuring four meters about throughteen feet in diameter, is
believed to contain scientific information that could shed light on how the planet has adapted
to climate change. So they say this tree is more than five thousand years
old and is on the brink of replacing Methuselah of four thousand, eight hundred
and fifty year old Great Basin bristle cone pine that's found in California. So
talk about a survivor and talk about how science and scientists can learn from a
survivor like this. That's really cool. You know a lot of people,
I think know that when you're looking at the tree rings, the wider rings
were better growing years, and the narrower rings so not the light dark that's
the xylum and floam, but when they're wider or thinner, that indicates better
or worse growing conditions. So they can kind of count. Hey, there
was you know, a hundred years of really terrible growing conditions, So there
is so much. There's a whole language really that goes along with that.
Or we had a few years of drought or whatever it may be. Yeah,
So just cutting down a tree and then reading the rings will tell you
a lot. Unfortunately, it also causes a problem for the future of that
tree. Yes, but they can take a core. They do have little
cores that aren't so damaging to the trees. Softly well, Stacy, it's
always a kick in the plants to do the Gardening Simplified Show with you.
And we want to thank Adrianna Robinson, our producer and engineer, for the
work that she does to put our show on the air on a weekly this
indeed, she's great. Thanks so much for watching. Enjoy your week and
we'll talk to you next week here on The Gardening Simplified Chick.