The leaves are falling off the trees. May the forest be with you.
It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella me Rick Weis, Stenar
engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, Stacey, it's time to move Heaven
and Earth, as I call it, it's plant moving time. Don't feel
guilty if a plant wasn't in the right place in the first place, bust
a move. However, well you plan, there will always be a plant
that isn't quite in the right place in your garden. This is the time
that we can do something about it. I don't know about you, but
I love moving plants. It's like a fresh start. I have no problem
with it. But I have discovered that plants definitely do better when they have
some time to get established, and so every time you move something it does
set it back a bit. But you know, I think it's really important
that everyone understand that in gardening, you do not have to get it right
the first time. If you plant an oak tree, yes, if you
plant it sugar maple, yeah, you're probably not going to transplant those.
But in terms of shrubs, perennials, even annuals vegetables. You know,
you don't need to get it right, and a few people do get it
right. And even if you think something looks right, well, the person
who planted it might not think that. They just didn't move it. So,
you know, and another thing about moving plants that's so common is that
most sites tend to become shadier over time. Trees grow and mature, and
so you know, what was once a perfect spot for a lilac because it
got at least six hours of sun, as your neighbor's tree or whatever grew
and the and the spot became shadier. Now your lilac's no longer flowering.
You got to move it, yeah, exactly. And as Sheryl Crow sang
in her song, a change will do you good. And in some cases,
for your plants, a change will do you good. Now here in
Michigan where we're broadcasting from, I was just looking at you know, forecasts
here over this week overcast with drizzle, temperatures in the fifties. Perfect moving
plants, right, yep, for sure. And you know, ideally you
want to do it when they're dormant or going dormant. Why because then they
don't have to worry the plant doesn't have to worry about supporting all its foliage,
trying to grow flowers, doing all of this other stuff. It's in
full root growth mode. The leaves are falling anyway, if they haven't already
fallen off. And so when you move it at this time of year or
in a late winter early spring is also a good time because it's still dormant.
It just doesn't have to devote its resources to so much stuff. It
can just devote it to resources to growing new roots and recovering from being transplanted
because the soil is warm, but the air temperature is getting cold exactly.
And you know, you can do some pruning too. Pruning any unruly parts
of a plant not only promotes plant health, but also makes it easier to
move. Some people will pre cut roots on plants knowing the plant's going to
be moving, maybe a few months ahead of time, and the theory there
is that the roots would develop some beneficial hair roots. What do you think
about that? So a lot of people they call that air pruning. So
they're trying to make sort of an air layer or an air barrier around the
plant and where it is. So they're kind of getting ready to dig it.
I mean, I don't think it hurts. I think that no matter
what, the plant is still going to have to recover from being moved.
And yes, well that will to some extent perhaps cause the plant to branch
within the root ball. You know that since you've severed it from the from
the outside, it's not a bad idea. But not doing it wouldn't stop
me from moving something. Now, if you're going to be moving some larger
plant, obviously smaller plants are easier to move larger or more established plants.
You want to take as much of the root ball along as possible to a
void transplant shock. And I found that having a good tarp a tarp is
your friend. I like the slide method where I can just kind of roll
it on to the tarp and then drag that tarp to the new location,
which if you're smart, you have prepared that new location before digging up and
moving the plant to its new location. Definitely, and that is so important
for people who have soil like we do out here on the lake shore where
it is so sandy, you couldn't really get a root ball to save your
life. And at least in my soil, I don't know about yours.
It's so sandy. So yeah, some soil does cling to the roots,
but it's certainly not like if you've ever purchased like a bald and burlapped tree
or shrub where you've got that nice compacted clay rupbel Now our friends who have
clay soil are thinking, oh my gosh, transplanting is a total nightmare because
I'm digging up a five hundred pound root ball because of all the soil clinging
to it, whereas we can't really quite get any But I do absolutely one
hundred percent agree with you on preparing the new spot as closely as possible.
Of course, you don't know exactly how big the root all is going to
be when you dig it, but you have to try. Your goal is
to minimize the amount of time that the plant spends out of the ground.
Because you talked about hair roots, and hair roots can mean like the very
fine roots that you can see. But it also roots do have literal hair,
not literal hairs like hair on your head, but hairs on them,
and those hairs are so so crucial to absorbing water, to absorbing taking up
nutrients from the soil and the longer those are exposed to air and light,
the more of them are going to die and again cause the plant to have
to work harder to recover from the transplanting. So whatever you can do to
minimize the amount of time that that root all sees the sun, the better.
Fantastic. Yeah, microscopic, yeah, hair roots. As we sit
here talking about moving, I can't help it. A dad joke comes to
mind. What did the artists say to his vehicle that would not move?
I give up, van go Okay, I lead into my limerick here.
I know it's so bad, but I love dad jokes. I can't help
it. Okay. So my limerick on moving plants a new location would behoove
this shrub that I need to move it's out of control. Twigging means I
will be digging. I just hope it will approve. I'll move to a
location that suits and show off it's at tributes. I'll dig, tug,
cajole and it's feelings console while I try to remember the roots. I mean,
try and take as much of that rootball with you when you're as you
can. And you know, I think in terms of doing that, it's
helpful to think about how far those really go around the plant, and it
is much wider than you might think. Now, there is a point,
of course, where you can't be disturbing other plants that you're leaving in place,
and you know, the reality of the plant that you have to move
sometimes doesn't allow you to go there. But I would say try to start
a little further out from the plant than your initial instinct might be. And
if it turns out that you know, there aren't any roots there and the
soil is just you know, falling and you're not getting any roots, then
you can go a little bit closer. Yeah, yeah, good point.
Good point. Now, of course, if you're moving plants because you're moving
to a new home, here are a few things to think about. Because
you can't take all the plants with you. That has always bothered me when
I've moved. You can't take them all with you, and they're your babies.
So move hard to find rare plants. Move plants would sentimental value,
and uh, move a few plants that make your garden feel like home.
Yeah, that's a really good thing, because I think everyone does have the
plants that they're just theirs, you know, they planted one time on a
whim and it's just they've come to life it and that really does make you
feel like you have that continuity with you know, your older garden. But
you know, speaking of transplanting for moving, I moved in July and I
had to just dig everything up and hope for the best and it worked out
okay, okay, But you know, again a lot of times we were
talking about this here in late October, where it is an ideal time to
move, but sometimes you know what, you just got to do what you
got to do and help for the best. And that's that's gardening. Because
we garden in the real world as horticulturists. We try to give people best
case advice or you know, here's the best practice, but ultimately life sometimes
is not about best practice. Is so doing what you need to do at
the time. It's true, and of course, yes, autumn and spring
are probably your best time to move plants. Of course, with perennials,
it's easy and you can get two for the price of one. There can
be some division as you do it, divide and conquer. Of course,
you don't want to move a perennial when it's in flowers. So in the
door. Government season is probably the best time to do it. Vines.
You would cut those back really hard before you dig them out of the ground
to move them to a new position, and they obviously will recover from that,
they'll do what they do. And then finally, Stacy, there are
some plants that simply do not like to move. You can move pa Andis
and I've successfully moved P and E's, but arguably they really don't like to
move. Or Magnolia's or yuccas. Good luck, I've moved yuccas before,
but you know, you do have a good Yuckas have like a long kind
of taproot, and anything that has that long tap root is going to be
harder to move. But what I've also found when I've heard that advice like,
oh, this doesn't like to be moved, it's not that you can't
do it successfully. It's that it takes it so long to recover from having
been moved, that it might just be worth starting with a new plant rather
than waiting, you know, the three to five years for it to finally
get over the stress of move. Because it is stress even if you minimize
it. You know, it is stressful for the plant. Stressful, but
sometimes you got to move. I heard a motivational speaker said, if you
don't like where you are, move you are not a tree. I guess
he makes a good point there. Plants on trial coming up next here on
the Gardening Simplified Show. Stay tuned. Proven Winner's Colored Choice Shrubs cares about
your success in the garden. That's why we trial and test all of our
shrubs for eight to ten years, making sure they outperform everything else on the
market. Look for them in the distinctive white container at your local garden center.
Greeting's Gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. At
this point in the show, we put one of the proven Winner's Color Choice
shrubs on trial, which means we're going to tell you about it and you
get to decide if you're going to add it to your landscape or not your
garden, whatever you call it. And you know, I always try to
tie into whatever the theme of the show is, and today I picked a
rose. I picked oh so easy Italian ice rose. And one of the
reasons that I picked it is I wanted to kind of address the ease of
transplanting because we get so so many questions at prove Owner's Color Choice Shrubs Abot.
I planted this, you know, Like I was saying in the previous
segment, a lot of places get shadier over time and people people need to
move them or they and this is common and I am just as guilty of
this as anyone else. You buy a plant, it's a cute little one
gallon and you look at the tag and you're like fifteen feet. I don't
think so, and then a couple of years go by, and then next
thing you know, it is indeed fifteen feet and you have to move it
well, hopefully before it gets to be quite That's all. So I think
that especially shrubs and most perennials are easier to move than most people think,
at least in terms of the root mass. Right Like, you aren't going
to need an excavator, you're not going to need a bacco. You will
be able to successfully move most trubs that are even reasonably mature. And that's
true of roses. Roses are from a root standpoint, very easy to move.
From a physical ability standpoint, things could get a little bit trickier.
So I am going to get into some tips on transplanting roses But first I'm
want to kind of paint the picture of oh So easy italianized rose and tell
you why I picked this out of all of the many, many roses in
the proven Winter's color choice line as today's plant on trial. And you've heard
a say before that roses really have a second wind or a second summer in
windfall comes around. The longer nights, the cooler temperatures just completely change the
color of roses. It's amazing. I have oh So easy roses. And
as you get into November, that's a good way of putting it. Second
wind. Yeah, even as late as November, if you have not had
a severe frost yet, they will continue to open. Buzz. Now,
they probably won't be setting any new buds, but any buds that they did
set over October, and we've had a warmer than typical October here in West
Michigan, any of those buds they set, they'll continue to open. I
mean, I have seen roses absolutely coated with frost and plants still just like
eh whatever. So o sweezy Italian ice rose is sort of like the color
coloration is similar to one of the most famous roses of all time, and
that is peace the piece rose, so it kind of has like a creamy
yellow center and that sort of graduates out to orange and then finally pink at
the tips of the petals and oh sweezy Italian ice. Rose is absolutely beautiful
when it blooms in summer, but the color that it takes on when it
blooms in fall is really just something that you have to see. And it's
not that it's like, you know, gaudy, but it's just so much
writer and you know, with the moody fall light and everything, it's just
sort of shining out in the landscape. And I have found that particularly,
I think the pinks on Oh So Easy Italian Ice are what really gets you
know, the volume just gets turned up and you know, it's it's just
like a totally different experience. And that's one of the things I love so
much. And I think I talk about this a lot on the show when
I'm talking about plants. I love plants that have these changes. I love
something that's a little bit unpredictable and that you know, you're not just like,
Okay, well, yeah that rose is beautiful, but it looks the
exact same as it did a month ago. No, I don't want to
want something to, you know, be of its time, and I think
oh so easy Italian ice rose is a perfect example of that. I think
that's why people love fall color. It's just all the changes and the change,
and it's vibrant. And when you can add plants to the landscape that
add to that vibrancy. Wow. Yeah, and especially an unexpected color like
those pinks in orange and yellow. You know, they're not the as they're
a little bit more on the pestel side, whether than the super vivid tones
you're seeing in the landscape, but they just somehow feel right at home in
the autumn landscape. Now it's about two and a half foot tall and wide
row, so it's a shrub rose, a landscape rose, as we call
it. And basically what that means is that it's very, very sturdy.
It's not going to be sort of one of those narrow vase shaped roses like
a hybrid t. It's going to be kind of like a nice two and
a half foot by two and a half foot square of a plant. And
of course, as all the rest of the oh so easy roses, are
very disease resistant, and when we're testing for disease resistant, disease resistance on
roses through for the proven Winner's color choice line. What we do is we
start in our greenhouse trialing plants and we put all of the plants on trial
close together. These are real plants on trial and not plants on trial on
the show. All the plants are trialing close together. We do overhead watering,
we don't spray anything, and we're just kind of trying to let nature
take its course and do a natural selection. Any plant that under those conditions
is going to get powdery meldew or black spot will automatically take out of the
trial. Sure, you know. So just let's see what happens under the
worst possible conditions, and then if things make it through that, then we
start moving them on and evaluating other aspects. How do they do in the
landscape, how do the flowers look. So it's important to us, especially
for the OsO Easy series, that all of these plants are disease resistant,
and that means they're not likely to get black spot, they're not likely to
get powdery meldy, which of course with a big two when it comes to
roses, and they don't need dead heading. That's another thing. That we
look for is you know, traditionally things like hybrid tea roses, you need
to be out there cutting the old stems off so that they will continue to
flower. And that's not the case with the osoeasy roses well. And the
bonus when we move at this time of the year, also a stacey is
the winter heartiness of these plants. Yeah, that's a great, a really
great point because most, not all of the OsO eazy roses are hardy to
usdas on three or four, so quite quite hearty, and so you don't
really have to worry about moving that will they survive winter. They are all
on their own roots, So if you're familiar with older roses that might have
been grafted and have a different route and top, that's not the case with
Oh So Easy. They are all one hundred percent own root rose, so
they will easily be able to stand up to the cold. And yeah,
now is a great time to transplant them because they're going to have you know,
it's late October, they're going to have a good six weeks of good
growing conditions for their roots to recover. And roses are definitely one of those
plants that as we as they go dormant, will absolutely just put all that
energy into their root system and you know, really be able to recover from
that, get that good root system. The rest of the plant is dormant
so that when spring does come, they can just come roaring back without a
problem. If you're keeping score at home, Stacy's talking about oh so easy
Italian ice rose, all of the oh so easy roses, Stacy, I
love. I am moving some in my landscaping right now. I don't like
moving roses. I'm hoping maybe you have an idea or a pointer for well.
I don't have a magical formula. I don't have a magical trick,
but I do have some suggestions. Now I have to ask you, are
you moving these into your new deer compound? Yes, my new deer compound
secure safe. You know it's so wild that roses are so thorny and so
favored by deer. There's so many other plants like barbary the deer won't touch
because they have thorns, whereas roses it just does not bother them at all.
And people are so surprised when they're like, well, I was covered
in thorns. Why would a deer eat this and not only do they eat
it, they devour it. Yeah taste. I've heard from a rosarian that
they are naturally very high in vitamin C, so that the deer almost eat
them as like a compulsion, like they can't resist this like super nutritious plant
that's in front of them. But yeah, in terms of those thorns,
that does make them a little bit tricky to move. But I do have
a couple tips that will make it hopefully a little bit easier, okay,
or at least well, it's always going to be a little painful. So
rose gauntlet, you know, rose gauntlets are are gloves for working with roses
that usually go up to your elbow or higher. And they're not just tougher
or more durable. They really are much more protective. And the nice thing
I like about rose gauntlets is that they typically have a lot more flexibility in
the fingers, because you need to have good flexibility for pruning roses. Working
around roses. You can't just have like that stiff, heavy leather glove that
would be protective against the thorns but not actually let you, you know,
fuck your fingers in and weeding. Oh oh that's a rough one. Yeah,
So get your rose gauntlets. Definitely, do not wear anything knit,
no sweaters, nothing that those rose thorns are gonna snag on at your smoothest,
like raincoat, although those can also get snagged by a thorn. And
then get yourself some rope and make a loop. You're like a double it
down, so you have a loop at the end, and then wrap it
around your plant and put the free end through that loop and sinch it so
that you're kind of drawing it up into like a ponytail. And then go
ahead and wrap it again and give it a not so make sure it's a
nice long piece of rope. Don't use anything that's too soft and synthetic.
It's going to get caught and drive you crazy. But like a good twine
or something like that. So for this reason, I do not recommend pruning
your roses before you move them. Oh really yeah, because you want to
have more to work with, you want to lasso, you want to last
on them. This is basically what we're doing. This is exactly what we're
suggesting here. Lasso up your rose. Hopefully you've already got that hole prepared,
go ahead and transplant. Keep it last out until you've completely filled in.
So that you have room to get in there and backfill it properly,
and then you can unleash your lasso. Don't try it untie it, just
get a knife and make quick work of it, and that's when you can
go ahead. And if it's fall, you probably want to save your punting
until spring. But if you were to transplant your rose in spring, that's
when you would want to go ahead and prune it and get it ready for
the season, and it should go on without missing a beat, and you
should hopefully only have a few scratches to show for your ordeal awesome rose to
the occasion, So listen. We're going to put pictures oh so easy Italian
ice rose on our website, on our Instagram page, Gardening Simplified on air
dot Com. We're going to take a break. When we come back,
we've got the garden 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 easycare rose and 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
gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's my favorite
part of the show because we're really going to simplify gardening for you and answer
your garden questions. We do have again, some big juicy questions to answer
with big juicy answers, so I want to get right to it. But
if you do have a question for us, you can reach us at help
HLP at Gardening's Simplified on air dot com, or just use the contact form
at Gardening Simplified on air dot com and we will try to get to your
question. And what do we got in the mailbag today? Rick Well Stacey
Jim sends us a juicy question. I have chestnut trees I planted ten years
ago. This year, I'm getting nut production on three of them, but
they're not what I expected. They're all singular nuts that look more like big
spiny acorns than the expected birds. The leaves look like chestnut, but not
the nuts. Are these just immature trees? Pictures are attached? What do
I have? Oh? Geez, well, I think this is an important
question, and I do tell people when I respond to them with their gardening
questions. Often, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, and
I really do, I really do, but I do try to break it
gently. So, Jim, I hate to be the bear of bad news.
But those pictures you sent are not chestnuts, and we will put those
pictures, of course, on the website Gardening Simplied dot com. If you
watch the YouTube version, you will be seeing those as well. Jim,
what you have, or at least the pictures that you sent are of sawtooth
oak Quercus acutissima. So the foliage does look identical, pretty much identical in
fact, if I I'm not super familiar with chestnuts, because unfortunately, our
beautiful native American chestnut did go extinct nearly it's working on coming back, but
the Chinese chestnut is the primarily primary one that's planted nowadays. But the foliage
looks almost identical to the Chinese chestnut, and therefore it's possible that there was
a mix up at the nursery and you know that the plants were just I
don't know where you ordered these from or where you got them. Quercus acutissima.
The saw tooth oak is not native to North America. It's actually native
to Asia, so probably not dug out of the woods or anything like that.
But so it's possible it was just an innocent mix up at the nursery
because again the foliage looks so similar, or it's possible that there was just
a miscommunication, and this often happens in it This would not be the first
time I've seen it happen. It's so important to try to use botanical names,
even if you see yourself as a complete lay person. I'm not a
professional horticulturist. I'm not a botanist. Why would I need to know the
botanical names. It's so worth looking up the botanical names of the plants that
you want to make sure they are consistent because one of the beauty of scientific
names is that they are the same all around the world. So if you
were to go to an arboretum in another country, they might put the common
name in their language and you might not know what it means at all.
But if you're recognizing that scientific name on the tag or whatever it is,
you know what it is because that is universal. That's what Carl and Naas
intended all along, and it's important to be acutissima with your identification. It
definitely is, especially when like Jim, you have ten years into the plant.
So the good news is that the sawtooth oak is still a beautiful tree.
The squirrels are gonna love it. If not, we will not have
chestnuts versting on an open fire. I fear, at least not from these.
Now. It's possible, since you said you only have three of them
that are actually showing these these seed the acorns, maybe there was a mix
up and the other ones are actually chestnut. It's it's really hard to say.
There could be any number of reasons why some are more mature than others.
But just to before we let you go here on this issue, I
do want to make another case for learning your scientific names, because okay,
you have Quercus acutisimak, known as it's not toooth oak. You thought you
were getting the Chinese chestnut Castania molus. There is a North American native oak
called the chestnut oak that does not actually look so much like a chestnut,
and that is Quirkus montana. So this is all very confusing. I know
we're gonna put it in the show notes, so it's all mapped out there.
But again This is why it's so important to do your research. Find
out that scientific name, and then search by that if you're looking online,
if you're going to the garden center, any good plant company, their tags
should have the scientific name on there, since you're sure of what you're buying.
So, Jim, I'm sorry they're not chestnuts, but you do have
beautiful acorns, beautiful oak trees, and like I said, the squirrels will
at least be grateful. Keep us posted on those other ones though, as
they hopefully start to flower and bear. Fruit and chestnut flowers are actually much
more showy than oak flowers. They're white, they bloom in sort of early
summer, very very fragrant, so you might no sooner and not just have
to wait until you see the seeds. Remember that one hit wonder song by
Thomas Dolby, blinded by Science. Yeah, she blinded me with science.
Che blind. Yeah, that's kind of how I feel. Sorry, I'm
really sorry, Jim, I am sorry too. It's fascinating. Okay,
Nicole, a few questions about over wintering plants and containers. Thanks for your
question, Nicole. She has a couple questions about over wintering in isles.
Kranata patio box. Japanese holly was given to her by one of her professors.
Planted it in a large planter. She's wondering the best way to protect
it through winter while it's still trying to be established. Also started some lavender
and gustafolia from seed the spring. It's in a smaller planter. I'm wondering
the best way to over winter bring it indoors? Right, So no I
am. I am very opposed to bringing hardy plants indoors for now. I
did have someone write me the other day and she was like, well,
you can I have over winter perennial or tropical hibiscus, and this, that
and the other. The warmer climate your plant is native to, the more
success you're going to have overwintering indoors. If the planet is hardy, that
is would normally be able to survive outdoors in your area, it's really really
going to struggle if you bring it indoors. So Nicole. In both cases,
I do recommend that you keep them outdoors. The challenge here is the
challenge is going to be keeping the Japanese holly, which is a broad leaf
evergreen, wet enough and keeping the lavender dry enough so the lavender cannot deal
with winter wetness, so to over winter the lavender successfully, which, by
the way, great job starting that from seed. Lavender seeds are like the
size of dust, so not the easiest thing to grow from seed. I
would put that in a very shallow planter, so you're not having a lot
of soil underneath, just holding onto water. And one of the issues that
happened so often with plants and containers in winter is that you get this ice
cube developing. The mass freezes and as it starts to thought thoughts from the
outside in, so you end up with this big ice cube in the center
that's going to take a lot longer to thaw than the edges were. And
with a lavender, you're getting those rains and just the soil staying really moist
and not draining. That is going to cause that lavender to rot. Now,
the opposite issue is kind of true for the Japanese holly. What's going
to happen. It's an evergreen, so those leaves are just losing water season
long through winter, sun, winter wind. But if the ground is frozen
or the soil, if the ground's frozen, it can't take up any water
to replace that. If the ground is not frozen but the soil is too
dry, it has no water to take up to replace that and it will
end up desiccating. So in this case, I would say try to keep
it out of the sun and wind if you can. It still needs the
exposure to fresh air and to light, but you just don't want to have
it in the bright direct sun where that is really really just beating down on
it and taking away that water. Yeah, with the holly, my opinion
is the root should be below ground level so you heal it in and if
you have a spot on the north side of the house structural shade protected from
wind and sun like you mentioned Stacy, I think you can do fine.
Yep, and malchmulch will be good on the holly, but don't put it
on the lavender. So we'll digest that all in the show notes for you
if you have any follow up questions. Roger asks, I've been out of
the country, not able to deadhead my roses now then I'm back Zone seven
A. The roses have hips as lar ping pong balls. Is it too
late to deadhead now? Get more blooms before winter? Should I leave the
hips. So rose hips are something that I think only rosarians really knew about
before. But since these disease resistant, non stop blooming landscape roses have come
on to the market that don't need dead heading to continue to bloom, people
are seeing the hips or berries or seed pods of roses a lot more than
they used to it. And I love rose hips the beauty. I love
them too. They're super beneficial for wildlife, and in the case of landscape
roses specifically so shrub roses like what we talked about earlier Oh So Easy italian
Ie, the rest of the Oh So Easy series, it does not stop
them from continuing to bloom. Now, there are roses that need to be
dead headed or have those snipped off to continue to bloom, but most roses
not a problem, and at this point in the season, I would not
snip them off. I would just let them. They contribute great winter color,
so they can be anywhere from orange to bright red, so really attractive
in the landscape, and if the birds haven't already eaten them, they certainly
will by the time they get softened by a couple of freeze thaws a little
bit later in the season. So no sweat roger. You're probably already seeing
more flowers forming, and you're making the birds happy as well. I agree.
And rose hips as big as ping pong. You know what ping pong
is. Ping pong is ten percent hitting the ball, ninety percent running around
the room trying to retrieve the ball. Yeah, that's for sure. Crawling
under the couch. Where did that thing go? That's ping pong. Yeah,
I'm a terrible ping pong player. I just say that right now,
as my husband unfortunately knows. So anyway, thank you all so much for
your questions. You can find all of the notes at Gardeningsimplified on air dot
com, where you can also send us your question if you have one.
We're going to take a little break. Branching news is coming up next,
so please stay tuned. The Gardening Simplified Show is brought to you by proven
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and tested for your success so you enjoy more beauty and less work. Look
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garden center. Okay, my friends, it's time for Branching News and Stacey.
Of course, we love fall foliage and October going into November. What
I find fascinating is images from space that show you the color in the Northeast.
It's pretty fascinating to look at well, yeah, to look at that,
And we're going to put a link on our website, Gardening Simplified on
air dot Com. A study from Appalachian State University estimated the annual event of
fall color results in about thirty billion dollars and economic impact in the classic sight
seeing areas like Vermont, according to experts at the US Forest Service. Of
course, a combination of warm sunny days cool crisp nights can help enhance the
most vivid colors visible from space. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, it
is pretty cool. Going to the West coast, a gargantuan Western red cedar
tree, standing one hundred and fifty one feet tall and seventeen and a half
feet in diameter, has been discovered. Flora's Island, so that is,
northwest of Seattle and west of Vancouver, has one of the largest contiguous areas
of old growth forest left on Vancouver Island. This gentleman was walking along and
spotted this tree believed to be more than a thousand years old, the find
of a lifetime, one of the largest old growth seeds ever documented in British
Columbia. Pretty cool. That's marveled and the pictures are amazing too. Them.
We're going to put the link on the on the website. When you
come across something like that and that area too, when you look at the
western red seedars and all the old growth seeds in that area, it takes
your breath away. You know, it's and it's so wild to think about
a tree just being discovered. But I know when I was in California earlier
this summer in the giant redwoods, you know, they are still regularly discovering
giant redwoods that out that are bigger than they thought. And you know,
it really is just about the right person coming around at the right time and
knowing what they're seeing, because other people might have hiked that area and just
said, WHOA, that's a big tree and moved on. And you know,
it's so it's like you you could be that person who really realizes what
you have and make a new record. Yeah, and it's important and it's
important that it's recorded in that we celebrate these trees. Their survivors is what
they are, which brings on a dad joke. So this skinny the little
guy walks into a lagger's office says, I want a job. The guy
says, you don't look like a lagger. He says, try me.
So he hands them an axe, says there's a large cedar tree out back.
Let's see how you do. Comes back. Two minutes later, the
tree is cut down. The logger says, no way, two minutes.
My best laggers could not do that. Where'd you get your training with an
ax? The guy says, I got my training in the Sahara forest.
The guy says, don't you mean Sahara desert. He says, well that's
what they call it now, bad joke. Let's move along. Let's move
to something sad. Oh this time of year, bird strikes on glass.
Oh gosh, yeah awful. Then they drive you crazy when you see that.
It does. And you know I because they're migrating. The birds are
just their their brains are I don't I can't describe it. Their brains are
someone else. So I have two deer exclosures where I grow my vegetables,
and they're just PVC cages that we wrap with with windowscreen, and it works
perfectly well to keep the deer out. But the other day I walked out
to the garden. It was a sunny day, and I watched bam,
bam, two deers in a row or two birds in a row fly directly
into that screening. Now, they bounced right back and they were fine because
it was just screen. But I was like, how these things have been
here for months at this point. Unfortunately, they were okay, But yeah,
when it's glass or something hard, it can be quite traumatic. And
this story really hits home, no pun intended. At least a thousand birds
died from colliding with one Chicago building in one day, so they kept track
many of us. I know, I've been there many times. McCormick Place
is the largest convention center in North America and it's primarily covered in glass,
so it's a lethal obstacle for birds. October fifth of this year, they
did the count within one point five miles of McCormick Place. At least one
thousand birds died, others injured, and they kept track. So anywhere you've
got glass, you're going to have birds hitting the windows, especially during migration
season, and this article was quite interesting and we're going to post it on
the website. It explained that when you have glass in a building, these
strikes for birds during the day generally occur at the lower level, especially if
you have plants and shrubbery inside. At night, of course, they become
disoriented by the lights and crash into the glass. And so there's a lot
of work being done by people who are trying to maybe anticipate these problems and
get some of these buildings to turn off the lights in larger buildings. Will
put a link there also the work that they're doing in New York where they
want to flip the switch on some of these commercial buildings to reduce the number
of these bird strikes. Yeah, I have seen some bad bird strikes in
my time, and it's always a heartbreak. Yeah, it is because it's
not usually you know, the sparrows or grackles or some they're not grackles,
but starling's something that you know, maybe could use a little reduction in the
population. It's always something really unique and beautiful. So it's a real tragedy.
So something to keep on our radar, something that's being exposed by the
ubiquity of social media disturbing and frustrating at the same time as bad behavior at
national parks. Oof. Yeah, it has been bad. And I saw
something in social media it sparked outrage. Recently, there was a lady standing
right next to a prone bison on the side of the road, and a
few others swarmed mere feet away, snapping pictures with their phones, and right
there was a sign two foot away that warns people of the danger not to
get close to these animals. As a matter of fact, in this case,
I guess there was a ranger that was yelling at her, saying move
away, because this bison has had charged people before. She was standing right
next to this thing. Anything for the perfect selfie, I guess, Oh
my word, I tell you what now. Of course, bison, I
guess, have large humps at their shoulders and a bigger head and a beard
compared to a buffalo. And they can live for a long time too.
Yeah. I don't know about two hundred years, because that would be a
bison tennial, but they do. I set that one up. Yeah,
yeah, But anyhow, an American bison that works out at the gym is
a buffellow. Two bad jokes for you there? Should I move on?
You got more? I mean no? Oh, I could come up with
more events. Are you going for quality? Yeah? Quality? Or I
thought Bison tenni oal was pretty good? All right, see you later.
Alligators. A Pennsylvania man opened his front door to find a large gator stretched
across the threshold a couple of weeks ago. It led to at least nine
other chompers being rescued from a nearby home. Tony Golarski of Kissky Township told
WTAE of the moment he learned about the alligator that was spotted on his front
porch. The reptile five to six feet long, spotted by a neighbor.
Now Gerlaski had just been discharged from the hospital. The neighbor called and said,
hey, I don't know, but you better check your back porch there
because there's a five to six foot alligator there. I guess there was a
neighbor of his who had a dirty backyard pool. The enclosure had broken and
the reptiles ran amok. But where did they come from? He was just
bringing them in and according to this article selling the gators on Craigslist, No,
that's terrible. Sell an alligator. I know it's terrible. He's been
arrested. And can you imagine opening up the back door and a six foot
alligator in Pennsylvania of all places. And I can see it in Florida,
but Pennsylvania. No. So the good news it was watering the plants at
the time while it was there because it was an irrigator. The neighbor in
this case was the instigator. And now the person collecting these alligators will be
dealing with a lit a gator. Okay, that does it for branching news.
That was fun, wasn't it. Yeah. We want to thank you
for watching and listening to the Gardening Simplified Show. We do want to remind
people who listen to the podcast. Many people download the podcast on a weekly
basis, and thank you very mulch for doing that, or listen on radio.
But Stacy, if you want to check out the show, check it
out on YouTube. Yes, you get a little bonus content on YouTube.
If we have a guest, you get the whole addition, not just the
radio edit. And of course Rianna works really hard to put in fun photos
like you will be able to see Jim's acorns that were supposed to be chestnuts
if you go to YouTube so Yeah and you can check out our wardrobe changes
week after week. Thank you very much, Stacey, thank you, Thanks
Adriana. Appreciate everything you do. Adrianna Robinson, our engineer and producer.
Thanks most of all to you for watching and listening to The Gardening Simplified Show.