Coming to you from Studio A at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. There's no
shrubstitute for this shows. It's the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy, Hervella me,
Rick Weiss, and our engineer and producer Adriana Robinson. All right,
so Stacy, Adriana and I have the privilege and pleasure of getting to interact
with all kinds of people across the United States, into Canada and around the
world. And one Gardening Simplified Show listener sent us a note. Can you
discuss the basics of getting a plant established? It's fun to select new plants,
but if they don't make it through the first winter, it can be
discouraging, causing one to trim back expectations by planting less in the coming season.
For those of us learning as we go, getting plants established can turn
out to be a bit of a steep learning curve. You know. I
was thinking about this, thinking some people always seem to be in the right
place at the right time, And I'd like to tell you that from my
experience as a person, it's not just because they're lucky. For people they
prepare, It's not just about proximity. These people have prepared for the moment.
They shadow, they're willing to serve, they're consistent, they show up
and show up well, and then they take a shot. Well, if
you're going to take a shot with your plants, first of all, you've
got to make sure that they're in the right place at the right time to
give them that opportunity to grow. Building is like while planting is like building
a structure. Okay, you've got to have a plan. You should have
a plan, some sort of plan if you're going to do it. You
need to establish a foundation on the plot of your choosing and the esthetics will
come later. So there is an element of planning that goes along with putting
a plant in the ground. Well, there is not, least of all,
because you do have to consider what your conditions are, your light conditions,
your soil conditions, and so you at least need to have that in
mind right before you start picking those plants. And you know, I know
personally as you do the heartache of falling in love with something only to find
out it won't do well. It either gets eaten by deer, or your
soil is too dry or it's not hardy. Usually is my situation. But
yeah, you have to be prepared. Yeah, so a plant is established
when the roots have grown into the surrounding soil and there's a bit of new
growth on the branch tips. So a gentle tug is going to tell you
when the roots are established, and if you've made good plant choices, odds
are you're going to be successful. I like to use a few different examples.
Stacy. One example that I would use, and for our YouTube viewers
you'll see this in studio for those listening to the pod cast or radio,
I'm putting a wineglass on the center of the table. Well that was as
impressive as I thought it might be. Sorry, I was trying to give
our radio listeners a little sound effect. Yeah, that doesn't work. Probably
should have practiced that beforehand. Anyhow, that wineglass, to me represents a
tree. Let's say we're trying to establish a tree. Now, many people
think roots go deep into the soil, and they don't. It has a
flared look the tree does, similar to a wine glass, and so it's
extremely important to prepare the soil properly for whatever plant you're putting in the ground,
trees or shrubs, because roots need oxygen just as much as they need
water and minerals and they are going to flare out from the base of the
plant. There's going to be structural roots that hold that plant in place.
But Stacy, what we're trying to encourage our what we would call adventitious roots
that are working their way into the soil profile. And those are the roots
that are going to really do the work in establishing that plant by absorbing the
minerals, the water, and taking care of feeding that plant. Right.
So two things there. I think a lot of people, you know,
you're either hiking in the woods or driving along the expressway and there a storm
had gone through and you see those trees uprooted and they took a huge chunk
of earth with it, and a lot of people probably see that and think,
wow, that tree wasn't rooted that deeply. That's probably why it fell.
And that's not the case. Plants don't actually grow as deep as many
people think that they do, for the simple fact that oxygen does not penetrate
that deeply beyond about eighteen inches in the soil, and its actually need oxygen.
So yes, they are going to go somewhat deeper, but it's not
like you know, when you see those trees, there's something wrong with them.
They just they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and the
wind happened to blow them over. But you know, this concept of a
ablishment is so important because I think very few people fully understand or realize that
a plant can only grow on top as much as its root system can support.
And so after you plant something, you don't see a lot of growth.
And we definitely hear from people who are like, oh my gosh,
I planted you know, fill in the blank here and it hasn't grown and
what's wrong and what am I doing wrong? And I'm a horrible plant parent.
And no, just because you aren't seeing the growth above ground doesn't mean
there's not a whole whole lot of activity underground. And until that root system
is in place, the plant is not going to have the resources to devote
to a lot of that top growth, to devote to a lot of flowering,
to devote to a lot of color development, fruit development, whatever that
ornamental feature is. It's really important just because we don't see the roots to
understand that they really do control the growth of the plant. Yeah, exactly,
you need to look down and out first, not down and out as
in feeling depressed, but down and out because we need that root establishment.
I was reminded of it this past week when there was a group of ladies
at the greenhouse that approached me and said, hey, I bought these hearty
mums last year and they're supposed to be perennials, but none of them came
back. And you know I can guarantee. I always tell people with hearty
mums, once they're done late October November, cut them back, but leave
some stubble on them, a little mulch over the top, because if you
don't, those plants aren't well rooted in the ground. When you've put them
in the ground, they'll push up or heave out of the ground and you'll
lose the plants, those fine roots. So it's about establishment in the soil,
having a good foundation. You're not going to build a house that does
not have a good foundation. Let me give you a quick lime rick on
this subject. My gardening skills have astounded by beautiful plants. I'm surrounded.
Don't tell me I got lucky, because my plants are plucky. We just
make sure we're well ground. Did So that's the key, right, Yeah,
yeah, so competition in nature. So I don't care if you're putting
a house plant in some soil indoors, or a tree in the ground,
or a flowering shrub or some perennials. That seasonal timing along with good soil
establishment as well as as we talked about, oxygen for the roots, is
going to make a world of difference for your plants. Now, Stacy,
you'll see a lot of these starter fertilizers out on the market, like vitamin
B one, and there are many people who think that's just silly, doesn't
work, other people who swear by it. I mean, what's your position
I'm using a starter fertilizer. My position on using a starter fertilizer is that
it's not typically needed. Okay, first of all, because especially when you're
buying something you know, new from the greenhous or nursery, it has been
fertilized within an inch of its life. You know there fortizing it regularly,
It had a time, it had a time release fertilizer like osma code or
whatever incorporated into the soil, and so it's nutrient needs are really really well
covered. And adding a bunch of stuff to the soil when the plant is
doesn't necessarily have the root system to take them up. It's just kind of
a ways things can leach out. But I get the idea that people feel
like they want to make a perfect little home for their new plant, and
I think that's a very good approach to take to it. But I just
think that the answer doesn't always lie in buying something for said beautiful cozy home
for your new plant. It really just results. It's really just a matter
of taking the right steps so that the plant can live. So they're not
usually harmful. And we've talked about mike rizing before and my approach to and
those are very often a part of starter fertilizers. And my viewpoint on microrizing
is they are absolutely great, but adding them to your soil is likely to
work because they're a living thing and if you don't have the right conditions,
all any microizing you add is going to die. And if you have the
right conditions, they're already in there any ways. It's similar to like the
vitamins or the phosphorus thing. You can overdo it just because it's not necessarily
that more is better. There is a sort of stasis there of how much
a soil can hold in terms of nutrients, in terms of other supplements like
dwan or microizing. Yeah, that's true. You can buy a beautiful car,
but if there's no engine under the hood, it's not going to function
well. So roots not only anchor the plant, but again, the adventitious
roots are going to reach into that parent soil where you've placed this plant and
give that plant a good feeding foundation. Stacy, I wanted to mention for
our listener who also reached out to us on this establishment issue. I have
found many times pruning and pinching also important in the initial establishment of a plant.
In other words, when you buy a beautiful plant at the garden center,
the garden center wants this thing to look beautiful why full of flour,
because you're going to buy it impulsively, right, But sometimes pinching or pruning.
I'll often do that when I put aunt flowering annuals in the ground,
we'll pinch them first because we want to focus on that root establishment and we
want the top growth to be proportionate to the root system. Does that make
sense? It does make sense because what you're basically saying is is, you
know, thinking about things as roots growing in proportion to the top. The
top that you have is proportional to the root mass. But if you take
away some of that top, now you have more root mass than you need,
and that will help it get more established. It can put it's more
of its energy into growing those roots instead of just growing up, up,
up up up. Yeah. I understand that's a difficult process for people to
pinch beautiful new plants that they just got, so I don't think it's imperative,
but it can be a good idea. And if you believe that that's
what you need to do, then I'd say, by all means, do
it. Sure. And that's why last week when we talked about fall is
for planting. Because the soil is warm, but the plant isn't putting all
that energy into top growth. It may be a good time for you to
try to establish plants in the landscape. Coming up later on today's show,
segment four Branching News, we're going to talk gardening trends. That's truly be
a lot of fun gardening trends that you have to look forward to in twenty
twenty four. But first Plants on Trial, Stacy's going to introduce us to
a beauty. You don't want to miss this that's coming up next here on
the Gardening Simplified Show. Proven Winner's Color 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 in the distinctive white container at your local garden center. Creating's Gardening
friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. You know, we
were just talking about plants getting established, and it's I had to have to
deliver some news to you Rick about plants getting established. I was thinking of
you in the garden. I happened to walk by my cannas that you gave
me at the end of the season looking fabulous. Absolutely love them. The
hummingbirds are going crazy. We'll never be without them again. But these puppies
busted through the fiberglass container that I have them planted in. Wow. I
was walking by and I was like, something caught my eyes, said what
is that? And they incredibly hulked it right out of that container exactly.
Yeah, and I did overplant them in the container, but you know that's
easy to do. Because you got these cannonrhizomes. You got a big I
had, like a big twenty two inch container. I'm like, oh yeah,
I'll just pack them in there. It'll be fine. Now they're huge
and so strong, and they've grown with so much force that they have actually
broken the side of the container. Wow, a root awakening, And I
mean the container is destroyed. But I'm also sitting here wondering how in the
world I'm going to get these things out of here when they have filled it
so abundantly. So accept compliments on their robust growth. Yes, it's they
are robust, I will say that. And speaking of robustness, we were
just talking about establishing plants, and you know, I always like to tie
the plant on trial to whatever we're talking about, and so as I was
thinking about which one we're going to put on trial today, I said,
this could go either way. I could choose a plant that's slow to get
established or a plant that's fast to get established. But then I said,
you know, a couple of weeks ago, we covered Sweet Summer Love Clematists
as our plant on trial, and that is a plant that, as I
said during that segment, is definitely slow to get established the plant the clematists.
They have really thick, fleshy roots. It just takes a lot of
energy for them to grow enough of them to perform well and grow a lot
on top. So I said, you know what, now I'm gonna go
opposite. I'm going to talk about a plant that's fast to get established,
and that plant is Kodiak orange dervilla. Natalie Carmoli here at Proven Winners Color
Choice Shrubs got me excited about this plant. I put it in my landscape.
I love it. Yeah, it's a great plant. Now, I
will say for everybody who's listening at home that it is not the showiest of
the Proven Winner's Color Choice shrubs. This is and that's okay. That's a
good thing. I mean, if every single plant in our garden is showy,
you don't know where to look because everything's popping off and going crazy.
So this is going to be one of those quieter plants that you use,
maybe incorporate into your landscape. I have several and so. Dervilla is a
North American native shrub. In fact, here in Michigan you'll see it growing
all over Macina Island and in many places up north. It is a member
of the honeysuckle family, and as such, it has very tidy opposite foliage,
So the leaves are a range opposite one another on the stems, and
it just has like a very neat, clean look, and the new growth,
the new foliage growth emerges a really really nice orange. It gets really
nice red orange fall color, and then all through the summer it puts out
these small yellow flowers that attract a lot of different pollinators, especially bumblebees.
So you know, it gets to you about three to four feet tall.
So it's kind of one of those plants where you might just say, like,
yep, it's a plant, but it really has a subtle color that
I think helps it blend so nicely with other things. I think the orange
goes great with brick homes, which can also often be very difficult to landscape.
And of course in terms of the establishment, this is a very tough
and very durable plant. I find it to be drought tolerant. It's yeah,
so that was my experience too. So you know, as we've said,
we've both garden and really sandy soil dunes, a dune sort of environment,
and I have and I'm not suggesting that you do this listeners, watchers,
however, you're joining us on gardening simplified. I have transplanted it in
the middle of the summer, and I swear this thing did not miss a
beat. Wow, it's fantastic. And they have their roots are, you
know, like a pretty much a regular shrub root kind of system. They
do have sort of almost like a runner. Now, they they aren't like
a suckering shrub. They do sucker a bit, but really they mostly stay
kind of within the plant body. And these vigorous suckers are what help it
get established so quickly. It just is really able to grow those roots very
quickly and get established. So you start enjoying that color, enjoying good growth,
enjoying that flowering a lot sooner you're not waiting, you know, the
typical establishment time frame, which usually we say is two to three years.
Yeah, if you're keeping score at home, you want to google it.
We're talking about Kodiak orange Dervella. At least, Stacy, you called it
dervella. I've always called it dear vella. And I planted it because allegedly
it's kind of deer resistant, it's kind of desist, it's kind of that
was a good way to say it. It's nibble done the flower. Yeah,
yep. So I find that the deer do nibble it a bit,
especially in spring, which is very common a lot of things that are otherwise
deer resistant, you know, they come out of winter, they're super hungry.
Anything that is you know, first out and has that tender new growth.
They're like, yeah, I'm eating it. I need a salad.
I'm tired of all this mark. And so they do nibble it a bit,
but overall they don't seriously damage it. So they do eat it a
bit, but not to the point where you're like, oh my god,
there's nothing left. So it's just something to keep in mind if you have
deer. I find that the damage does taper off, you know, by
summer, when the growth gets a little bit more you know, tough and
woody, rather than that really super soft spring growth, which they really really
like. So this plant, this Kodiak orange darvilla, was developed by a
gentleman by the name of Mike. I don't hope I don't miss pronounce his
last name uckneat Uneat And you may not know his name, but I can
almost assure you that you have grown some of his plants. Now, he's
not normally a woody plant breeder. His most impressive breeding introductions have been annuals,
and one of them is wave petunia. Oh yeah, now you know
that's a huge one. Obviously, wave petunias are not the proven winners petunias
we have the supertunias. Wave petunia is a different brand, but it has
a similar sort of idea behind it, that it doesn't need deadheading, that
it's very, very vigorous, much more heat tolerant than the older variety.
So he was on the team that developed wave petunias, and he is also
the person who developed all of the fabulous dragon wing begonias that are so popular
right now. So some serious breeding chops. This is one of his earlier
forays I think into woody plants. But we're really grateful to have it.
And again it's a simple plant, but I think it's it's a really nice
one to It can make a nice hedge, It could make even a taller
edging, a good screening plant. I include it in my native plant you
know borders, so it just kind of intermixes with all of my different native
perennials. It does not need pruning, but you can prune it if you
want so. In our trial gardens they do often prune it to kind of
keep it a little bit more compact and shaped. So if you prefer that
look, this can easily withstand pretty much as much pruning as you want to
give it. I do prefer more of the natural, taller look, so
I do not prune mine. Another thing great thing about darvilla is that it
is quite shade tolerant, and certainly when you see it in the wild it's
growing in sort of the edges of woods where it's it's typically quite shady.
And if you grow it in too much shade, now the orange part of
kodiac orange will be a little less orange, the plant will probably be a
little bit more green. But you know, sometimes I think, you know,
knowing if you have a lot of shade, just knowing what to expect,
knowing that it will live, but maybe just not do you know the
best not have as many flowers, not have as bright of an orange foliage,
and certainly not have as good fall foliage. You know, plants like
this are often a good choice when you have a situation like I do,
where my front is half sun and half shade. So you want some symmetry.
Yeah, it's a common thing, I think. So you want some
symmetry, you want some cohesion. But what are you going to do when
one side is very very sunny and one side is very shady? Will you
get a plant like this or boxwood that can really take either of those conditions
and then that kind of gives it that cohesiveness that people really like. That's
fantastic. Did a little research, Stacy. The plants named or der Vella
or deer vella, whatever you want to call it. Plants named after a
French surgeon from the seventeen hundreds, doctor Marin dear Ville m. He was
a botanist, a travel writer, and a French surgeon. Wow, busy
guy. He was a busy guy, a real renaissance man. It's a
very Francied plant. Now. I do use the name durvilla to describe this
plant. I don't like its common names. The most popular common name that
you will see on this plant is bush honeysuckle, and I don't like that
because it's in the honeysuckle family, as I already said. But a lot
of people they hear some honeysuckle and they immediately think we invasive, not going
to grow it, and this is not an invasive plant. It's not going
to self sew all over. Just because it's in the family doesn't mean that
it is. In fact, the flowers aren't fragrant, which is what most
people expect from a honeysuckle, so it's not going to be doing that either.
So that's why we use the common name durvilla to refer to this excellent
native plant. You can see pictures of it on our website, Gardening Simplified,
on air dot com, or in another place that you might frequent Instagram
because Gardening Simplified it now has an Instagram account Gardening Simplified Show if you were
there, and we will be featuring the plant on trial every week so you
don't have to go far to find out and see it. If you happen
to listen to us on radio, We're going to take a little break.
When we come back, we're opening up that gardening mail bag, so please
stay tuned. At proven Winner's Color Choice, We've got a shrub for every
taste and every space, whether you're looking for an easy care 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. Greetings, gardeners, and welcome back
to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's time or we open up the Garden mail
Bag and answer questions from gardeners across the country and in fact often around the
world. And if you are a fan of the Garden mail Bag, like
hearing about other people's problems in the garden and our answers to them, we
are actually going to do an extra We're going to do a bonus episode of
Just Guarden in Mailbag questions. I know, you know, I've We've had
a lot of questions and they're all important. But when we can only do
three in a show, that makes it really hard to like get to everybody.
And so we're going to do a special episode of just Q and A.
This is gonna be fun. I see London, I see France,
I see problems with your plants. That's why we're here. It's really wondering
where that was going, right, That's where it went. So the cameo,
the all Mailbag episode is not going to be here on the radio,
but it will be on your favorite podcast platform as well as on YouTube,
so please check us out there if you would like to see that. You
can also visit Gardening Simplified on air dot com and you can find it there.
So what's in the mailbag today? All right? Shirley writes to us
one, how does one prune a Wolf River apple tree to bear fruit?
Our other apple trees fruit out, but we do not get fruit from the
Wolf River tree. All the apple trees planted in twenty seventeen, they've got
multiple apples and crab apples, so pollination shouldn't be an issue. They failed
to see blossoms in spring. They just want to make sure that it's being
pruned correctly, right, so I think. Now, I don't know.
I'm not an apple expert by any stretch. Now, I did read that
Wolf River apple was developed in Wisconsin, so should have good heartiness. But
I do wonder if there's something about the actual sighting of this tree or something
else where the blooms are getting frosted off every year. That's my suspicion.
It's a hardy, what we'd call antique tree. You're right, Wolf River,
Wisconsin, eighteen seventy five and super hardy, super cold hardy. So
it's hard to figure out what's going on here with this tree. But I
would tell you that I did a little research when I saw this question,
and I see people out there with the same problem. Really, some I'm
saying it's been six years. There were a few that said it's been twelve
years. So I'm not so sure it's anything. Surely's doing wrong. I'm
sure you're doing it right, surely, And I would tend to agree with
you, Stacy that number one, it takes a while to establish to fruiting
size. And number two, boy, those spring blooms, maybe we're losing
it right. And you know, it could be that it just blooms earlier
and they're getting you killed off by late frosts. You know, it's it's
sort of one of those situations, not unlike big leaf hydrangels Hydrangel macrophila,
where yes, the plant is hardy, but are those flower buds as hardy
as the plant itself? I don't. I don't know. I'm not an
apple expert, but that would be my suspicion that it is some sort of
weather condition. And I know that doesn't make things easy. You've already got
a bunch of time into your Wolf River apple. But it definitely sounds like
Sureley knows what she's doing. She knows about pollination, she knows about pruning.
If she's getting fruit on her other trees, and you know, maybe
this one is just obstinate. I think it's going to take a little time.
I really do, surely. Also as a question, what makes leaves
on pear trees cup up? We have one young pear tree that has cupped
leaves. It's planted near other pear trees that seem perfectly healthy. There's no
obvious sign of insects or fungus treated with nem oil fertilized the trees. It's
just not thriving and dropped its fruit in early summer. I would say,
Stacy that if it dropped fruit in summer early summer, some fruit drop and
the leaves are cupping. Sometimes that is a water indication with a pear tree.
If there's no evidence of insects or disease, it could be a water
issue in that spot. Yeah, you know, when a plant doesn't have
enough water, it's like whoa, it can't support all this fruit. There
you go, don't eat you anymore. I'm going into survival mode, not
fruit ripening mode. And you know, even if you have a situation like
surely does, where you have a number of trees and other ones are healthy,
there can be so many different factors that aren't visible to the eye,
whether it's underlying bedrock or another tree in that's not even necessarily super close to
it, that is out competing it for water. And you know, when
I research this question, did I find a host of answers or potential explanations.
I saw drought stress, nutrient efficiency, herbicide drift, fungal diseases like
anthracnose pests like the pair leaf curling midge. So surely suffice to say,
we cannot give you anyone answer, but we can give you some guidance.
And so I would say, this is definitely a great situation for your local
cooperative extension. You know, I think that they're especially valuable when it comes
to fruit because that's one of the things that they really specialize in. And
if you do want to dive into it more online, I'm going to repeat
my best advice for searching and finding reliable information on the internet, which is
simply to type in your terms, you know, pair cupping leaves or pair
weird foliage, however you want to say that, and then in cite si
te colon dot edu. And that will limit your results to just university websites
that are based on research and you don't have to weed through that. You
know, with every person who has a gardening blog, you know, throwing
out what they think it might be, you're actually finding some reputable information that
you can hopefully use and put into action to improve that pair. Yeah,
if it's a curling midge or disease, you're probably going to see it on
the foliage, maybe browning margins or whatever it may be. If those leaves
are green and cupping, we've got to go down a different rooms. Ye,
all right, Karen writes to us Japanese beetles. Big problem for Karen,
do you foresee new cultivars that will be Japanese beetles resistant? If you
can now buy roses that are disease resistant, why not come up with ideas
for resistance to beatles? Yay, good question, Kim. It's such a
good question, and I can certainly seek why people would be like, well,
gee, if you can accomplish all these other things things, And we
do talk a lot about what plant breeding can accomplish, like why can't it
do this? And so I thought about it, and you know, a
lot of disease resistance does occur at the genetic level. And if something is
controlled by a plant's genes, which disease resistant, Not just plants, but
humans are very often their genes control whether they are more susceptible or less susceptible
to certain diseases. Plant breeders can work with genes. They can identify which
gene is causing the problem. They can work on modifying that gene or changing
it or reducing its prevalence in the parentage by through selective breeding, and induce
that disease resistance. Now, insect resistance is quite another story, because no
plant is necessarily born resistant to insects, and insects are you know, basically
non discriminating feeders. They're just like, I'm on this thing. Take a
little bite, taste pretty good, I'll eat some more. And if they
like it, they call others to join the party. It because the plant
will start to emit hormones like hey, I'm in stress, and the insects
are like, whoa looking for some stress plants to eat? Here you are,
this is fantastic party time, And so that makes it more difficult.
Now, we do know that Japanese beetles do tend to prefer roses that have
thinner foliage, So roses that have thicker glossier, more leathery foliage are definitely
less preferred by Japanese beetles. But I would not go so far as to
say they are Japanese beetle resistant, because what I think would happen, since
Japanese beetles love roses so much, is that say you said, okay,
you find this rose, someone says, hey, this is Japanese beetle resistant.
You take out all your other roses, you put this new you know,
supposedly Japanese beetle resistant rose in there. They love roses. They're just
going to eat it. You know, just because you don't see them on
it doesn't mean that they won't eat it. They're opportunistic. So it's a
lot harder, even though we can can select for certain qualities that are less
appealing to insects, testing for it, ruling out all the possibilities as to
why it might have been eaten less one year than other roses is unfortunately nearly
impossible. So in the meantime, just keep smashing those Japanese beetles, tell
your friends to do the same, and maybe eventually if we all pitch in,
well manage to control it. I'm a dreamer. Well, you know,
with roses, it's the aromatic oils and the flowers, and yeah,
you know you're gonna have that. The beetles just love them so and the
larva become adults and just start feeding on roses. Yeah, they're tired of
being grubby. I don't know. Hey, a question from Cleopatra. Michaeleb
that Cleopatra. That's fabulous, and I hope I pronounced it right. I've
ordered from you before, loved what I receive. Why can't I go online
and order from you anymore? I have the Gardening Simplified issue number nine,
and I love it. So this is such a great question and I can
answer it pretty quickly. Now, I do want to say, Gardening Simplified
is the name of our show. It's also the name of the landscape guide
that Proven Winners Colored Choice Shrubs puts out every other year. So we just
had one that came out this past year. That's the one yep. And
so that is not a catalog of things that you can order. It's a
look at all of our plants. But all Proven Winners shrubs are actually sold
in garden centers or online, and so we don't sell them directly. So
where we come here in this studio a from Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs,
we are not a place where you can actually buy them. Instead, you
actually have to go to your local garden center. So even though a booklet
like Gardening Simplified, we'll tell you what we have so you can go look
for it at your garden center, it's not someplace that you can order from.
And if you can't find what you want at your local garden center,
please do you ask them. They can usually order what you want from the
person who supplies them with Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Now we have got
a guest waiting for branching news, so please 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 proven winners color choice shrubs in
the distinctive white container at your local garden center. Welcome back to the Gardening
Simplified Show. It's time for branching news and excited about today We're going to
talk about garden trends twenty twenty four and talking to Katie Dubal. Katie is
the second president of the Garden Media Group, a women owned and run public
relations firm that specializes in the home and garden industry, celebrating more than thirty
years of business, and they author an annual Garden Trends Report. I love
reading this report every year, and it's around this time of the year that
the report it comes out. Now, Katie travels the world, scouting and
presenting garden trends to audiences from Italy to Chicago. Katie lives in Westchester,
Pennsylvania, and her goal is to convince people that brown thumbs can in fact
be turned green. Boy, that seems like a good mission to me.
Katie. Welcome to the Gardening Simplified Show. Thanks so much, it's good
to be here. It's great to have you on the show and talking garden
trends for twenty twenty four, and I had the opportunity to see you speak
in Ohio earlier this year. The seven trends, if I'm correct, that
you are releasing this year, are buying power or to futurism, delight in
the dark, bugging out, hanging in there, nature calls, and a
color of the year. So let's dive into that and maybe start with buying
power. Who's buying all these plants out there in twenty twenty four? Oh
sure, yeah, so I love the way our trends. Just for those
of you who I know you'll you'll plug how to download it. But at
guard Media groups dot com back to last trends. But the way that we've
done it this year is that you actually pick a persona that works for you.
So if you go through them, you'll see different words. So the
words for buying power are digital, influential, and humble, and we call
them the Zoomer generation, so gen Z and the little play on words for
the boomers. But interestingly enough, all the data shows at gen Z is
buying houses ahead of generations before them, so they have greater percentages. Thirty
percent actually of that twenty five year old group now own their home compared to
twenty seven percent of Gen z's or Gen xers and twenty eight of millennials of
that same age, So they're ahead of the curve there in buying their homes,
which, as we know in the landscape corticulture green industry is great for
us because when you're investing in your home, you're investing in your landscape.
But there's another little new thing here that we're looking at is that old pandemic.
And because this generation in particular has worked from home for a big chunk
of their career, they're willing to send more money on things around the home.
So they want that fancy stand up desk and that real ergonomic chair,
but they also are willing to invest more in their landscapes and the products that
go along with that landscape containers, premate containers, plants and things that go
outdoors, plus of course the things that swoop up their office indoors. Right,
you got to have a good zoom background for all those remote meetings you
can have outdoors. Impress them with your garden exactly. Is this a group,
Katie, I recall within the trends you talking about echo anxiety. Is
this a group that experiences this or is this everybody in general that drives us
to put more plants in the ground and enjoy gardening the way we do.
No, you're right, sixty seven percent of Americans eighteen to twenty three experienced
that eco anxiety. And I have a lot of teachers in my family from
you know, preschool up to the college level, and when I was telling
them about the Trends report, they all really identify with the fact that they're
young students experienced this kind of hopelessness that they feel like what have we been
handed? Like why would you hand the parable climate down to us? And
what can we do about it? So you're right that this generation's experience is
kind of this black luster attitude about what can we do? And so one
of our overarching trends is called eco optimism, and that's what the whole report
is about. All of our trends by back to that, and we really
hope that, you know, part of the mantle of us as horticulturists,
as scientists, as landscapers communicators is that we spread the positive news of about
the joy that gardening can bring and all the other data that's great out there.
There's really positive data and climate facts real science based facts that things are
happening in a positive way. But of course that's not a sensational thing that
the media wants to support. So we really urge a lot all of the
companies out there to be those harving years of that positive news. Is that
part of the reason, Katie, that there's so much interest in insects and
pollinators. Also there certainly seems to be a lot of interest in insects,
to be honest, you know, every year we try to put pollinators in
our trends, even though what is it five years now, honey nut ceios
took to be off of the box of curios to raise awareness about the decline
of pollinators. So it's not really a trend anymore. It's here people understand
that there is insect decline. I've been seeing a meme lately about how to
turn your life out if you've been seeing that, like different faults you can
buy that are more insects friendly. So I think that that's kind of more
mainstream now. So every year we are challenged to put something in our reports
that is current, but also the field taps into that passion that people have
for insects, and this year the trend is called bugging out, and what
we've really seen is a rise of not just bug the core inside, not
just you know, a bug on a wall, the tax to Journey classic
ones, but really super realistic displays. So the rugs that have these moths
and beetles and they actually look real. They're not that qute honey nut cheerios
b anymore. And so it's helping people understand that and appreciate. Let's hope
that indoors, if they can live with that beetle or live with that mob,
they'll be more accepting of it outdoors. Absolutely. Now, tell me
about hort to futurism. I'm probably mispronouncing it, but hord of futurism.
It kind of sounds sci fi to me. What's that all? You got
it exactlete. Well, when we do hide trend support, you know,
we don't just make it up. We do a lot of research and we
look at the you know, the western markets in China and you see they've
reported a fifty percent year on year increase in sci fi profits their film and
TV. So we say, oh, there's got to be something there if
that market is blowing up in sci fi, and look at our own you
know, The Last of Us where we're all being eaten by a deadly mushroom
and they're a fun gui. So it's we are obsessed with that science fiction.
But the one thing that we see really different here is when we all
picture maybe the future or sci fi, it has traditionally been a very cold
metal like I Robot style, But actually when we're seeing these things come to
play now, they're filled with color. They're bright, and they're bold,
and they have flowers everywhere. There's a fantastic exhibit that's actually right now happening
in Asia, and it is where you walk through the into the have a
cousin who just went to Japan. You walk through the exhibited, super immersive.
It's called Team Labs. Sorry I couldn't remember the name Team Labs.
You walk through the exhibited barefoot in six inches of water and it's mirrored,
but you're surrounded by plants. Every room is different plants, so it's this
immersive experience. Philadel Philadelphia Flower Show this year, the Garden Electric. It
was a mix of neon floor to feeling lights with horticulture. We're seeing a
lot of different displays at garden centers. The South Coast Batanical Garden has an
event called Astra Lumina, and it's pushing that envelope of our traditional garden light
displays. We all love our holiday light displays at our public gardens, but
they're really pushing those boundaries. So we're seeing so many more ways of looking
at horticulture that's more futuristic, that get that taps into what we're seeing in
pop culture this size by type of attitude adventures. I'm concerned about one of
the trends in the report, and that is dark gardens or Halloween gardens,
or Victorian gardens or goth gardening, or plants that are like half dead.
And to me, that does not sound like job security for me, I
want to help people grow playing what's the deal? Sure well, this one
was actually born out of a conversation that I had with the director of horticulture
at the Oakland Oakland Cemetery down in Atlanta. And her name is Abram Lee,
and she's a dear friend of mine. She just recently became their director
border culture, and she says that you would not believe how cemeteries have become
the third space. I'm sure we all know this term Starbucks point that you
know the place. It's not your home, it's not your office. Where
do you hang out? And she said, you wouldn't believe the number of
we talked about these zoomers in particular, but the number of people who are
walking the cemetery, walking their dogs, taking yoga classes. You know,
the cemeteries were once on the outskirt of our modern cities. But as our
cities grew, so did the population, and they engulfed these cemeteries and became
these giants, let's sake free public parks in the parts of Atlanta and the
heart of Philadelphia and the heart of Massachusetts or Boston. So they're becoming third
spaces. So I'd got really into the idea of what people experience as they
walk around that cemetery. And what we love about that is it's not just
you're looking at the history to the people the past, but also the plants.
Some of our modern directors of horticulture of these cemeteries are really into kind
in historical plants with the people who are buried there, or as they call
them in Oakland, their residence. So if you started to research this this
more, I realize that there actually is a big trend right now of people's
obsession with kind of this. Gop Wednesday, the show Wednesday with a big
hit on Netflix of famous football player did a darkness retreat where he spent two
days in complete darkness and silence. You look on TikTok, the skult Pasta.
It is just across all different types of industries. We had this obsession
with darkness and then I don't know rick it. When you were at Cultivate,
you noticed lots of dark foliags, lots of dark plants were being released
this year. Even at Far West there was a collection of dark foliage plants
that was announced, the brand new collection. So the consumer is taking this
passion of Conada's darkness and they're getting furious. They want more of this dark
few plants, blood red plants, stark peeling on trees, eeries, spooky,
not just a Halloween, but they're wanting it all year round. Wow,
that's interesting. I visited Cape cod this past summer and it was fun
walking through the cemeteries. I thought it was very interesting. Same thing in
Boston, but I didn't know that I was trendy. I guess as far
as dark plants are concerned, yeah, you see that on Pinterest. Also
it's a trend. Yeah, so hanging in there, hanging baskets. Containers
still still a hot trend, right, Yeah. They can't ignore the fact
that container gardens are huge. The National Gardening Association survey that it was a
two hundred percent increase in people contain our gardening last year. And when we
look at that number, we thought, Lord have mercy, that is a
huge increase a spend of let's spend seventy two point seventy two dollars up from
twenty two, up twenty two dollars in the last year. And this is
actually jen X who get often ignored when we talk about, you know,
generations and demographics, but it's the gen xers who are spending the most on
containers. But it can't just be containers. Yes, containers are hot,
but what we really are looking at here is the way that people are we
using more plants into their life so they can't can't get anymore on their deck,
they can hang plants to maximize the space and the plants in their home.
And we love this friend. We love seeing it because of course it's
it's healthier for the plant and it's a binding or trailing plant, it has
more room to grow, let mold or mildew around it. And then of
course as a social media star, when you take pictures of your plants,
a vertical picture performs better on social and a horizontal picture, so it's going
to get more play online. So we just think this trend is here to
say that people are going to be maximized. You see those memes online,
it's like just the to the garden center and the trug is filled with plants
and you can't see the person. People want more plants, and this trend
we see is just a way to give them more access and more space.
I'll tell you what, Katie, don't forget about us baby bloomers. Also
because we like hanging baskets and containers because we don't have to bend over to
maintain it exactly. So when the water totally stacy. One of the fabulous
flowering shrubs that we talk about on the Gardening Simplify show is Limelight and the
new introductions of Limelight, and you're saying that cyber lime and lime is the
color. Lime is a vivid, punchy, powerful that's a that's a color
shades of green and lime for twenty twenty four. Correct, Yeah, yeah,
Well, when we do the research on this, we look at trend
forecasting firms and everywhere you turned it was green, green, green. And
the reason that they cited non industry related people, right, they said,
it's sause it's harmony with nature. But when we really we've already picked green,
and because we're in the industry, we've really learned to hone in on
that color and saying, well, what shade of green exactly do we think
we'll be trending, And both indoors and out, we think that cyber lime
because look, we talked about forty futurism. We think these ideas of these
right neond are going to be trending. So it's the brightest green you can
get. Someone the other day that it reminded them of permit of frog.
But I like your lemon, your lime light. And of course where we
talk about house plants, people always want to know what's trending with house plants.
Indoors, we see this lime green taking over the peak color interiors as
well. Interesting. Well, thanks for your time, Katie, appreciate it.
By the way, I want to mention to you that NFL player who
spent time in darkness was Aaron Rodgers Rogers who went to the New York Jets
and last night was injured in his first game and they're not so sure he's
going to play again this year. So kind of a sad thing for all
those New York Jets fans out there. Not me. I'm a Celia Eagles
for all the way. That's what I was trying to draw out of you
and find out where you stood. Her name is Katie Daboo and Katie is
the second president of Garden Media Group, a women owned and run public relations
firm specializing in the home and garden industry. We appreciate you being out there,
Katie and bringing us up to speed on some of these trends for twenty
twenty four. Oh well, you're welcome. Thanks so much for having me.
Thanks Katie, have a wonderful day. Wow. That was fascinating and
that was a lot of information. We couldn't get it all on the radio
show, So listen to the podcast or check us out on YouTube if you
want to listen to the entire trends report and everything that Katie Dubow has to
say about it. In the meantime, we thank you for listening, thanks
to Adriana for Rick, and wishing you a great week in the garden ahead.