You don't have to hear it through the grape vine. You can hear it
and see it right here on the Gardening Simplified Show as we broadcast from Studio
A at Proven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs with Stacy Hervella, Adrianna Robinson and myself
Rick Weiss. Boy, I tell you what. It's go time, it's
grow time. It's May. Yes, it is the height. It is
literally the height of the gardening season. So we're gonna hit you with some
random thoughts as we get into growing. It's you know, the season is
a marathon. And I love the quote from Charles Schultz. He was the
creator of the Peanuts cartoon Snoopy and Charlie Brown, and he said running is
good. I'm a runner, and and so it caught my eye. Running
is good for the ground. It makes it feel needed, it's nice.
So it's gardening then in that case, because I definitely need to ground for
gardening exactly. And here's the point, Stacy, by ob not bring your
own beer, but rather what you should do is build your own basin.
Build your own basin, so as you're putting these fledgling little plants into the
ground and you prepare the soil. I always say, take it the next
next step and provide a perimeter basin around the plant to help hold the water
and the nutrients initially and get it off to a good start. Well.
That's especially important when you have super sandy soil like we do out here on
the west side of the state, where you can't really build it up too
well and it wants to run off. So it's sort of like akin to
leaving a watering lip when you caught up a plant in a container. You've
got that inch or so of area where water can accumulate in the plant can
take it up. So this is a similar kind of thing, but just
in the ground, and it's free. You don't have to buy anything to
do it. Just use the soil to make a little basin. Now,
soil is not a single entity. It's a mix of several things. I
call the existing soil the parent soil. But when you work in organic material
and mix them in with the existing parent soil, you probably get the best
results. Whereas compost is organic matter that is decomposed or decomposing and stacy.
When I was in Europe, it was interesting or you watch some of these
programs gardeners in Europe what we call potting soil, they call compost, yes,
a bag of composts. You see that if you follow any kind of
like British you know, gardening accounts on Instagram, or you watch any British
gardening shows, everything's compost to them. We have a much more literal definition
of it here, but there it is the potting compost. Yeah, you
know. Here, for example, we would call it a chocolate bar.
Not really what it is sugar and fat with food colorings and some cocoa in
it. Right, jeez, you're no fun. I love chocolate. Hey.
By the way, as we start planting, it's grow time. Take
me to your weeder stacy. It's important to keep up with weeds in the
landscape because they really compete with you with your plants for moisture and nutrients.
I have to confess to our listeners right now that over the weekend the thought
did cross my mind the weeds are firmly in control, despite the fact that
it's mid May. I do feel like the weeds are firmly in parts of
my garden, parts of our fine you know, where it's mulched thick,
but like, oh, we have a seed um garden with a collection of
a whole bunch of different seedums. It's beautiful. But little things like chickweed,
dandelions, you know, they get in there. I have a huge
beautiful patch of our native Apuncia cactus and where do you think the dandelions love
to come up? Right smack in the middle of that patch. I have
the same problem. And grasses grow up through. Yeah, yeah, they
know they they somehow manage to live where it's harder. But you know,
the weeds, it is important to manage them. But I also think that,
you know, weeding can be such a discouragement to people when they go
outside and they look at their garden, they think, oh, cheese,
I'm just going to give up. I can never manage all of these weeds.
And I think that's where a little bit of knowledge can potentially come in
handy. You know, like chickweed, for example, if if you only
have limited time or energy to devote to weeding, I'd actually leave the chickweed
alone. It's a spring annual. You know it's going to go away.
Yeah, sure, you don't ideally want those seeds to come and perpetuate your
chickweed issue. But you know, that's not where I would put my energies.
I would instead put it into pulling out grass weeds because that is a
total nightmare. You know, if I was the garden queen of the universe,
I would make it so that grass could never be a weed, because
what a nightmare that thing is. Grass grows best where you wish it wouldn't
exactly, and you nailed at Stacy. My point was going to be a
familiarize yourself with a difference between annual weeds or winter annual weeds and perennial weeds,
and it will help with your control. Yeah. I have the same
problem out in the garden. You know, we talked. I mentioned Europe.
In Germany, they have this phrase when you say goodbye to someone you
know until we meet again. It's alf feeder zane. I always look at
the weeds and say alf zane because they're coming back now. Of course,
on the internet you're gonna see a lot of gardening hacks too. We've talked
about that before. We're going to post a couple of pictures for you at
our website, Gardening Simplified on air dot com. One of the pictures folks
hammer out spoons out of the kitchen flattenham painting them and paint them and use
them as markers role markers. That's clever. It's kind of clever. And
then pots, filling pots with debris trash so you don't have to spend so
much money potting soil. And this picture of course has pop cans pop cans
in the I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily do that. I'd recycle the pop cans.
Well, you know here in Michigan we do often forget that that cans
are not worth ten cents apiece elsewhere, so that's less of an investment.
You know, I have been an ongoing battle about filling your container with dunnage.
You know, that's like what they call if you have a truck or
something, just to take up take up space. UM. And you know,
I totally get people wanting to use less potting soil. And a few
weeks ago we were talking about how potting soil is a resource. It is
expensive, it should be conserved, it should be stretched. So I'm totally
on board with that. But what I'm not on board with, UM is
just trying to get out of it just for the sake of it. Because
you know a plant's roots. Depending on the depth of your container, it
might actually need that entire container's worth of soil to really grow well and thrive.
And again I get the temptation to save money, but unless your container
is probably I would say over like sixteen or eighteen inches deep, I would
go ahead and fill it all all the way with soil and just reuse it.
And that makes obviously that financial expenditure of investing all that soil a little
less painful. I'm always trying to push it. I think we should consult
with our show attorneys. It's the firm Trillium, Sage, gall and Fungus,
and we'll find out what appropriate protocol is. Hey, a wire frame
for your cucumbers instead of having them sprawl all over the ground. I see
a lot of that on Pinterest and on websites also using chicken wire. Creating
a frame at a forty five degree angle at the base of the cucumbers allow
them to grow up in It allows some air movement for those q curb its
also, and it's so much easier to harvest. Yeah, particularly if you're
trying to grow like smaller cucumbers for pickles, it's a lot easier to harvest
when everything is in that vertical plane than when you're scrambling on the ground and
getting poked and pricked in. Yeah, exactly. So you know, there's
all kinds of things we can do here at the start. My advice today
is to invest in fertilizer prill pr i l s. It's essentially slow release
two to four month fertilizers and it's a process of osmosis with nutrients releasing through
this semi permeable membrane. And you'll see these at the garden center Stacey and
I love to pitch them in my containers with plants that I'm establishing, or
my hanging baskets. But essentially those prills release fertilizers slowly but surely over a
few moments. Yeah. They have a pretty fascinating mechanism that I encourage anybody
who is interested in, particularly if you are an engineering type. Their dispersal
method is really interesting and it's based on temperature. Yes, so you know
when you buy those kinds of products and it says oh feeds for whatever number
of months that's depending on the temperature, so it usually is releasing it some
sort of combination of sixty degree days, and there's different size holes that the
stuff comes out of it. It's really quite a fascinating engineering feet. But
you know, you take those little prills, sprinkle them around and you don't
even think about everything that went into them. Yeah, they're coated with in
some cases linseed oil and then they slowly but surely release that fertilizer. I
love using them, and they make a big difference. And in your containers
you could always supplement with some water soluble fertilizer. Also, I remember working
in the garden center Stacy, and you see a number of these prills in
containers when people are out purchasing their plants. And I had a lady return
one saying, I'm returning this plant because it has all kinds of insect eggs
in it. Have you ever heard, Oh, yes, many times,
and they do if you you know, if you look up slug eggs,
they do look like that. But the slug eggs aren't crunchy. The prills
if you can crush them in between your fingers and they make a very satisfying
little crunch. So there's my well rooted advice for you. Coming up in
our branching news segment. That's the fourth segment today, Plant Today, Eat
Tomato. I'm gonna talk about the fifty dollars tomato that you can plant this
spring in will celebrate with a limb a Rick. But first, Plants on
Trial. I'm looking forward to this one. Stacy's going to introduce a plant
that gets a lot of conversation among people. They love it, but struggle
with it. Yes, a lot of myths surrounding this plant that we are
about to dispel missurrounding it. You're tuned into the Gardening Simplified Show. Plants
on Trial is next. Stay tuned. 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 Ratings.
Gardening Friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show with Rick Weiss
and me Stacy Hervella. And this is the time of the show where we
put a plant on trial, and that means we're going to tell you all
about one of the three hundred and twenty plus proven winners color choice shrubs,
and you get to decide for yourself if it is going to get a spot
in your garden. Now, when I pick plants on Trauma, I have
three hundred twenty some choices, and if you just if you take away the
couple that we've already covered, that's still a lot of choices. So it's
always a little bit hard to pick one. So I use whatever you have
decided to talk about in the first segment, Thank you very much. And
because we had a big focus on soil, I wanted to talk to you
today about a plant that does have specific soil needs, and that is Dandyman
purple rhododendron. And could it be said, Stacy, that dandyman or all
rhododendrons have specific soil needs. Yes, all rhododendrons do require acidic soil,
and not just rhododendrons, but pretty much every member of their scientific family,
the eric Casey So that includes zaleas blueberries pyrus which is sometimes known as in
dromeda mountain laurel, another popular landscaping plant cranberry wintergreen. I could go on
and on, heathers and heaths and all of these plants it's not all that
common necessarily for a gene a family of plants to share cultural needs like this.
You know, typically it's kind of dispersed, it's all over the place.
It's very hard to generalize from a scientific perspective on what the plants need
from a horticultural perspective, but Eric Casey, the rhododendron or heath family is
that rare exception, and so I thought this was a really good opportunity to
talk about why exactly rhododendrons need acidic soil. This is great stuff, folks,
it really is. And Stacy, let me ask you on top of
that, with this family or with rhododendrons, drainage or the soil type on
top of pH is probably important, extremely important. If you would like to
kill a rhododendron, the fastest way to do that is to make sure it's
in very wet soil. They succumb to so many root diseases in wet soil,
poorly drained soil. So if you've got a rhododendron, well, actually
I wouldn't recommend that you fled the soil because they're very shallow rooted and should
be quite easy to remove by and large, But I do want to go
back to this concept of acidity because I think a lot of people do know,
oh, rhododendrons, those need acidic soil. But you know, it's
a misunderstanding or a misconception rather that rhododendrons need acidic soil out of a preference
or an environment that their roots just like to grow in. Okay, it's
not like, oh, this is a cozy acidic environment or this is what.
It's a zesty and I really like it. You know, it's acidic,
it's zesty. It's because nutrients, the major plant nutrients that plants require
to survive, are available at different proportions depending on the pH level of the
soil, and there's all sorts of really need easy to understand diagrams. We
will certainly put those in the show notes at Gardenings Simplified OnAir dot com.
And what you'll see is that they're these kind of different wedge shapes across this
grid of each of the different nutrients, and it shows how they narrow or
widen at various phs. Now, the nutrients that are most available at a
lower pH or a more acidic pH level are iron and nitrogen, and rhododendrons
are notorious for being iron hogs, and that is why they really need that
acidic soil. It's not so much the environment around their roots. It's that
the nutrients that they need based on their physiological metabolism, that kind of thing,
their broad leaf nature, other broad leaf nature, are most available at
those lower pH levels. And so that's also why you know a lot of
people probably you've seen in your time in the garden centers. Someone will come
in, Oh, my rhododendron, it's all yellow. I need some iron.
Well, yes, iron will temporarily do the trick. But if your
rhododendron is deficient in something and you're seeing that yellowing foliage, it's almost certainly
due to a problem in the pH level. And you're better off probably if
you can fixing the pH level instead of trying to, you know, apply
iron and fertilizer to remedy the situation. It's the classic example of the right
plant in the right place makes sense and perfect sense. And you know,
I can't blame for people for wanting rhododendrons because they are beautiful and they are
shade tolerant, and you know, the neighborhood. I grew up in Over
on the east side of the state. It was like rhododendrons were v choice
for frontyard landscaping. I don't think there was hardly any houses on our block
that didn't have a rhododendron. Why because we had these kind of recessed porches,
so it created these shady environments. And dendron was just like the go
to thing. And they're very memorable. You know. They have those that
big bold foliage, huge flower buds that you really can't miss. And dandy
Man Purple has giant snowball like clusters of purple flowers. So purple snowball.
This is not making any sense. Flowers in the snowball shape about the size
of a snowball. They look fabulous. Use your imagination or look it up
guarding simplified on air dot Com. We'll get it there. It makes perfect
sense, they don't. They remind you so makes me think of Sammy Davis
Junior. You know the dandy Man makes and everything he makes satisfying and delicious
musical. Internet Yes, that's always good. You can dandy Man is indeed
quite dandy. It was selected for its hardiness. Now rhododendrons, particularly for
people in colder climates, not always known to be something that is very tolerant
of cold temperatures and not just you know, oh the temperature is cold,
but they get a lot of damage. They're broad leaf evergreens, as Rick
so eloquently said a moment ago, and so that you have those broad leaves,
they're losing a lot of water over winter. The sun, the wind,
all of that is contributing to water loss. The rhododendrons they curl their
leaves to reduce the surface area that's losing water. And if that happens over
a long time, we've all seen it, you know, you get those
random branches that are completely dead. So having a rhododendron like Dandyman purple that's
better able to withstand cold temperatures, particularly for gardeners in zones for USDA four
and five, is a really really important factor. You know. That's interesting,
Stacy, because for me here in Michigan, I find the rhododendrons get
big and beautiful the closer you are to the Lake Michigan shoreline. As you
move inland, things like winter, sun and wind can certainly create problems,
absolutely and so they are kind of a great example of that classic coastal plant
that really thrives with the more mild conditions. Or and you do see some
absolutely beautiful rhododendrons around here. They're very long lived. Now. I used
to live on the East Coast and you would see, you know, just
massive, massive rhododendrons fifty or so years old. We done not to see
them get quite that old. I don't know, maybe we just get tired
of things and a rotate through. But we would definitely recommend taking a look
at Dandyman at Purple. It comes to us from Maine, so very appropriate
there that it was being developed for a heartiness, and we've talked a lot
about I think some of the key factors for success with rhododendron. You're gonna
want an acidic soil, and if you don't know what your soil pH is,
you can certainly get that tested. You know, the standard pH test
at your garden center will work just fine for giving you a rough idea of
pH, or you can send away for a soil test, but you definitely
want to make sure that you're not creating a maintenance nightmare for yourself or an
expense, we have to keep going back and fertilizing. Good drainage not really
a huge issue for us out here on the lake shore. But if you
do live inland, or you live in a place with clay soil or underlying
bedrock, then you're definitely not going to want to plant anywhere that drains slowly,
because again it goes back to those those roots. Avoid pruning a rhododendron.
This is not one of those plants that you should be meatballing or cutting
into a rectangular hedge. Rhododendrons are really truly I don't think this is just
my opinion, at their back when they're allowed to just sort of attain their
own beautiful shape and structure, and this is not one if you favor trimming
your hedges. Well, my top three on my list you nailed at Stacy
are drainage, soil, pH and then for me again in Northern States,
you mentioned the porches on the east side of the state. Some kind of
structural shade in winter really is helpful. It really is, because then you're
going to reduce all of that winter sun that's causing that water loss and can
lead to premature or sectional death on the rhododendrons, but you know they do
take shade in deep deep shade. For most of us, especially in the
north, You're you're not going to see as many flowers if they get too
too much shade, So you kind of want like that. Filtered light would
be an ideal situation, or morning sun is also a really good idea.
But if you have the right conditions for a rhododendron. Honestly, I think
there are a few specimen shrubs that you could do better than than a rhododendron.
Even though their bloom is relatively short, it is magnificent. That's first
time I ever heard that phrase. You're a wizard with words, Stacy.
You said sectional death. I have never heard that about a plant before.
I'm adding that, but you did see that, right. It's just like
one branch. Yeah, frustrating, not good, but at least we have
a name for it now, so listen. Dandelion Dandyman purple rhododendron is available
at your local garden center in the distinctive white permian winner's container. Ask for
it by name, or take a look at Gardening Simplified OnAir dot Com.
I got all the details We've got 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 gardeners, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. One of the
ways that we try to simplify gardening for you out there is by answering your
gardening questions. And you know, it's good to have a resource of people
who have strong opinions about horticulture and a lot of experience, and we will
give you both if you if you write it with questions. So to do
that, you can visit Gardening Simplified OnAir dot com. That is thee the
website for the show, or you can just email us at help HLP at
Gardening Simplified OnAir dot com. So what do we got in the mailbag today?
Well, well, put Stacy, I have strong opinions on all of
these questions, so let's get to them. Susan writes to us. We
started three apple trees from seed. They're about twelve inches tall undergrow lights.
When should we plant them? Should they be hardened off first? Boy,
she's going down the right road, Susan, good job. Should they be
hardened off first? Yes? They should be yes. Yes. And a
lot of people I think they hear this hardening off term and they think,
oh, that sounds hard or that sounds weird. I'm not sure do I
need to do that? How do I do that? And hardening off really
just kind of refers to the transition between the very safe and controlled environment of
your dining room or kitchen or wherever you're growing those seedlings, even under light,
to the outdoors where the light is going to be way brighter, You're
going to have harsh winds. You know, you've got all this air circulation.
It's it's really from a plant's perspective, like a night and day kind
of difference. So to just take something from this very sheltered environment and just
shove it outside and say, okay, deal with it. Many plants will
survive, but they will be set back because it's very stressful for them.
Yeah, my best analogy living here on the lake shore of Lake Michigan is
what I see in June. People have been in that comfy indoor environment all
your and then all of a sudden they say, we're going to the beach
and we're going to spend the whole day on the beach. And at the
end of the day, yeah, not pretty. Even June in Michigan,
it is very similar there. There is definitely kind of want to kind of
work your way up to it, some sunscreens and visits to the tanning bed,
whatever it means to you. You are going to run your work your
way up to it. So, yes, Susan, you should definitely harden
them off. And now is really a perfect time to start hardening things off.
You know, we might still have some dips into cooler temperatures, but
you can easily take them inside if you think it's going to get too cold,
but they should be outside in a shape locations. So you start with
quite a lot of shade and then gradually move them to more and more sun.
And you know, it only takes I usually do like a week to
two weeks, depending on you know the crop and how long it's been inside
and what's what it's looking like, what's your usual time frame. Yeah,
the same thing. And I think that not only sun, but you've got
to get them used to the wind. Yeah, the wind can create real
problems. So a little bit at a time. Don't put them outside all
day long on a windy day. You're gonna have trouble, right, And
then as soon as they're hard enough, you can go ahead and get them
in the ground. But do be careful. This goes for anyone any who's
growing any kind of seedling. Those tender seedlings that have just come out of
your house are like a delight to rabbits and mice and deer and whoever else
you might have visiting your yards. So if you can harden things off above
mouth level or protect them in some way so that you know they're just going
to be super appealing to rabbits, especially, so you want to make sure
you don't lose all your hard work. Right there at the finish line a
salad buffet. Hey Craig has a question. I have mature red and white
oak trees in my yard. With the recent warm weather this week, can
I still prune them this weekend without fear of getting oak wilt. I'm glad
that oak wilt is on Craig's radar. I'm extremely glad to hear that.
Yes, and we'll put a link on the website. But I want to
mention again here in Michigan, there's a website Michigan oak wilt dot org and
Stacy. What they have on that website is an oak wilt risk meter.
Oh interesting, and you can follow that risk meter the times when we're at
greatest risk, lower risk, and no risk. Okay, that's good to
know, But in a nutshell, if you don't have time to go to
the risk assessment tool there, you should not prune oaks at all between April
and July, and some people even say into August. Agree, And that's
a really good practice. And this doesn't just mean heavy duty pruning where you're
taking out limbs or trimming. It means even small wounding of the plant,
like little twigs, all of that because the way that oak wilt works is
it's a fungal disease and if you open up a wound and an oak tree
and those fungal spores are floating up in the air, it can take it
in and it will kill the tree. Some people call it sudden oak death
because it can happen so so very quickly. So you really want to make
sure that you're not creating any conditions for oak wilt to enter your oaks that
you actually have in your yard. And that means avoiding any kind of pruning
during that window. And I think you know one really important thing that people
should consider. Any good arborist, if you call them to prune your oaks,
is going to say no, I'm not going to prune these oaks right
now. And if an arborist is doing it anyway or says they'll do it
anyway, call a different arborists please, because it's not just the risk to
your oaks, but it kind of just shows that they don't have a good
handle on any other potential risks or problems that could occur. And so it's
good that people know this. You know, it kind of is like a
double edged, you know, outreach approach where you know, we need to
reach the trade and say, hey, definitely be very careful around your oaks,
but homeowners as well, because some people maybe have a smaller one that
they can, you know, prune themselves. But this is a very very
serious disease. It's not a native disease, and if we were to lose
oaks at scale in Michigan, it would be really truly nothing short of an
ecological disaster. No other tree hosts many different species of caterpillars, so butterflies,
moss in there by birds. I mean, it's just I don't even
want to think about it. I'm gonna It's a serious issue, and that's
why there are websites devoted to it. You know, with that risk meter,
you're right, it says the greatest risk is April fifteen to July fifteen,
lower risk March fifteen to April fourteen. But the recommended time for pruning
is November to February when they're completely just to be safe when they're completely dormant.
By the way, May is oak wilt Awareness month. Oh, I
think we've done our part. I hope yeah, I hope so. And
we will, of course put some links for you at the website Gardening Simplified
OnAir dot com so you can do your own research. And if you live
in a different state, o wilt is an issue in many many states,
you might want to look at your state's specific resources on oak wilt because that
timeframe will change a bit based on your climate. Meredith writes us a question.
I have a tiny wine nine bark, oh boy, I planted last
fall. It's in zone five, Ontario, Canada. I was told when
I bought it I should be chopping it back annually in parentheses A lot.
I've seen that compassing or copassing, calling it compassing or compassing, I say
compassing compassing. Compassing nine barks prevents you from seeing blooms in the current year
and can ruin its appearance. I've also read that older branches won't be as
durable and need to be chopped. So what's the best approach for pruning nine
barks? So my approach to pruning nine barks is to do nothing. I
am agree. I am opposed to regular pruning or trimming of nine barks.
I have several nine barks in my yard. The ginger wine is my absolute
favorite, and I have always found that pruning any kind of like trimming into
the plant really destroys the beautiful, elegant, natural habits of a nine bark
A little bit like we were talking about with the rhododendrons. They do have
a very natural, sort of a graceful arching habit, and if you're trimming
them back, meat balling them, anything along those lines, you're going to
get witches brooming, and you're going to get these funny little growth sticking out
all over. It'll be like, I don't know, a squadron of cheerleaders
or something with John bombing. Yeah, it just doesn't look natural. It's
kind of like I think back to the sixties when my mom would put a
pot on my head and cut my hair that way and I'll go around the
It just doesn't look good. It's not natural. It might be easy,
but it's not good. And you know that also is no doubt leading some
of the issues you might be seeing with flowering because nine bark is a shrub
that blooms on old wood. So basically what that means is it has its
flower buds for spring all through fall the preceding fall in winter, and so
if you are cutting it anytime from basically like August through you know when it
would normally bloom in June, you're removing the flower buds. Yeah, and
I think it makes a good point too that with a variety of shrubs,
even nine bark, when we say prune sometimes it means just pruning out some
old wood or weak branches, pruning it out all together. But don't do
that little off the top thing, absolutely, you know, and that's a
lot of people say, oh, what, I can't prunt it. No,
you can't selectively prune out branches. So you're identifying some branches that maybe
are going in a direction you don't want them to go, or are just
you know, old and not as productive with a nice, colorful new growth.
You can take those out, but this is definitely not one where you're
getting the hedge clippers out in shaping it. If you want to do that,
choose something else and not nine Bark. So as for Meredith, I
would say stop prunier or nine bark, Let it its haircut grow out.
Hopefully it's still young enough that it will be able to acquire that you know,
graceful natural habit on its own. And if it's too late for this
year, don't worry. There's always next year. So just avoid pruning it
and you can look forward to nine Bark flowers in twenty twenty four. You
know, Stacy, with all three of these questions, we were both strongly
opinionated. Not the first time, and it won't be the last. That's
why they pay us the big bucks. Well, we got to take a
little bit of a break right now. But when we come back, Rick's
got branching news and his weekly limerick, So please stay tuned at proven Winner's
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Winner's Color Choice dot com. Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's
time for branching news. Not breaking news, but we don't make this stuff
up. Stacy Plant Today, Eat Tomato, a story from the Philadelphia Enquirer.
For all those foodies out there who are about to plant their vegetable plants,
there are those who feel really nostalgic about gardening. Maybe they saw their
dad or their grandpa do it, but they have no time, they have
money, so they hire somebody to do it. Fascinated by it. I
mean, I personally enjoy the process, but I respect those who don't,
and that gives a lot of opportunity for people like you and me who actually
like to do it. Well exactly, it's big bucks, though, I
tell you what for a couple of four by eight foot beds, and then
they maintain them during the gardening season, so you don't have to water,
you don't have to weed, you don't have to fertilize. I don't know
why this story just blew me away, because I'm like you, Stacey,
I love doing it. But I suppose if you don't have the time,
you have the money. Great, there you go, So we're going to
post the story on the website. It did cause me, though, to
think about the money you put into fertilizer and plants and soil and timbers or
whatever else it may be. And we always joke about that fifty dollars tomatoes
at the end of the season. So I put together a limb a rick
for you. This week, my raised vegetable garden, I commence in its
construction. I will spare no expense. The components cost me lots of dough.
I calculated each backyard tomato cost me fifty two dollars and thirty nine cents.
So there you go. That's my limerick. Well, you know,
in addition to gardening, I also knit, and so if my husband ever
says anything, he's like, oh, it's home. So that's how I
look at it too. We spend money on our hobbies and gardening. If
gardening is your hobby, then all of the money that you spend is going
towards your own personal enrichment. And if gardening's not your hobby and you want
to pay someone else to do it, well I can tell you there are
a whole bunch of horticultures out there who will be at your service. Well
said, Well said well Stacy. Thousands and thousands of people download the Gardening
Simplified Show podcast. We thank you for that, watching on YouTube, listening
on radio, and in a recent study tells us what people are doing while
listening to a podcast, thirty percent of people are doing household chores while they
listen, and thirty percent are driving around. Those are the main things.
Other things were unwinding after a long day, taking a walk, working,
eating, eating a meal or a lunch break, etc. Etc. It
doesn't say anything about working in the garden unless that's lumped into household chores.
Well, you know, when I'm gardening, uh, there's obviously a lot
of good gardening podcasts and other podcasts, and I love to listen to music,
but honestly, when I'm outside gardening, I want to hear the birds.
Oh that's what I really so I'm not maybe I'm not all that surprised
that it's not on there, but that's my own personal approach, and I
love to talk to my plants while I'm out there. We carry on these
conversations, which is a very scary thing. But we're going to share with
you on the website again. Gardening Simplified on air dot com. I thought
this was cute from Parade dot com. Plant names for your precious angelic little
baby plants. And I went through the list and it was pretty creative.
Name your plants grove or rainy, or bamboo or pokey or chugs or missus
potts. You can go through the list. It's pretty interesting. I don't
name my plants, but I do name the animals that visit my yard every
year. Really, yeah, I do you have names for the chipmunks?
No, I don't really get chipmunks, but the rabbits and the hummingbirds will
usually get their own names. I like that. I like that a lot.
This from the Akron Beacon Journal. In two thousand and two, residents
led a public campaign to save a large white ash tree when the city announced
plans to remove it for construction of a curb ramp, and the neighbors prevailed.
Yay. But then what happened? Emerald as oh No took the tree
out too bad in twenty fifteen, so they cut the tree down there in
Akron. And then an artist, the name is Michael mars I hope I
got that name right. He long had admired that tree, so he turned
the stump into artwork. In September of two sixteen, when he secretly installed
a sword. Neighbors were mystified one day to wake up and see ex Caliber
that great boy, oh boy, King Arthur would be would be proud the
ex Caliber's sword and people people loved that. They The point here in the
story is they the stump had rotted and they had to grind it out,
and so the sword is gone. Well you know, they don't last forever,
but you can enjoy them. Well they do. Yeah, speaking of
King Arthur, do you know that I'm a knight. H did not do
this just happened on your trips Europe. They call me sir plants a lot.
I don't have arthrization to tell you that joke, but I did anyhow.
Okay, sorry, way to go the rectangular table if you haven't noticed,
Yeah, no round table here. Remember the story we did on neighborhoods
complaining about the noise of pickleball courts popping up all over the place. Well,
here's your answer. Pickleballs rapid spread as created dilemmas for public parks,
recordation departments. You know, they got to have the space, they have
to have the funds. Retirement communities or neighborhoods face challenges. You know that
constant pop pop. Oh, I know it well, right, But I
love pickleball and I'd like to play pickle ball. So pickleball is heading to
the malls where players can play and then grab a bite, t eat or
do some shopping. At least that's what landlords hope. So with many of
these malls, they're losing their big anchor stores and they're converting them into pickleball
arenas or areas where you can play pickleball year round and the neighbors don't have
to deal with the noise. And that's great because I think even if it
didn't make that noise, it's becoming so popular that you can barely get on
a court around here anymore. So more is better. You know, Over
in the Detroit area, they've turned a lot of those abandoned stores into swimming
schools for kids, have they really Yes, So they put in a big
pool and then they have like kids parties and swimming lessons, and you know,
I think it's really great that they found ways to use all those old
buildings. Absolutely, and pickleball, well, we just deal with it.
It's kind of a big deal. Okay, an extended gardening season here in
the North. I want to talk to you about this, Stacy, because
I'm a big fan of alnno Oh yeah, yeah, our new goddy.
We have a new plant called Elninho, So that's why I was thinking.
Tell me about the plant. Oh, it's fabulous. It's one of my
absolute favorite that we offer in the entire line. It's a hybrid between Chilopsis,
which is known as desert willow, and Catalpa, which is the bean
tree that you know we grew that's native here, both native shrubs. They're
hybridized. It's only hardy to USDs on six. But the flowers, I
can't even describe the smell um. It's kind of like a ripe cantalope with
vanilla. It's just the most beautiful smell. The flowers look like orchids.
It's a fabulous plant. Okay, this is breaking news, So f our
listeners who are driving along in the car doing household chores or whatever it may
be, tell us again what the plant is. What is the name of
the plant. It's al nino chtolpa. So it's a hut interspecific hyper into
generic hybrid, which means it's a hybrid between two genera Chilopsis and Catalpa.
So the name is Chittelpa. And we don't really have a good common name
for it, so we're calling it desert orchid. But like I said,
it's hardy d usd's on six. He tolerant through at least so nine,
And it's one of those plants that you really have to see and smell to
believe. Desert orchid will be much easier for me, and I think for
many of our listeners. I think it's a plant you'd like to, oh,
yes, this is fantastic. Well, you know. The reason I
like Alninho so much is here, at least in the North, and in
Michigan, we generally get a warmer, dryer winter, so I don't have
to pack the shorts away. Maybe work out in the yard a little bit.
I know on the west coast that causes a lot of rain, but
of course they could use that range. So in the Ohio Valley warmer,
so don't pack away those shorts. We'll be playing pickle ball in winter here
in the North and I'm looking forward to it, so thank you El Nino.
Not quite gardening season, but if it's less now shoveling, I'm all
for it. It's a stretch, but I'm all for it. Hey,
happy trell us to you until we weed again. Thank you Stacy, always
fun to do this show with you. And a big thank you very much
to Adrianna Robinson for folks who watch on YouTube, listen on the radio,
or listen to our podcast. She does such an incredible job with this show,
and we thank Adrianna. Thank you, Stacy, thank you Rick,
thank you Adriana, and thanks to all of you for listening. It means
so much to us.