Speaker 1: Broadcasting from blooming West, Michigan. Here at Studio A proven
winners Color Choice Shrubs, It's time for the Gardening Simplified
YouTube radio and podcast show with Stacy Hervella, me, Rick
weisst and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. All right, Stacy,
you're on a deserted island. What kind of plants would
you want on that island with you, especially if you're
limited to let's say five plants. And I thought about this,
and I thought, why is this topic important? And I
think the topic's important because there are a number of
plants that we take for granted every day. I first
think about trees and the shade that they provide, and
many times we don't pay attention to those beautiful trees
and the landscape until a storm comes along and branches
or trees are down. Or you know, I love ornamental grasses,
and you look at panicum or switch grass and its
ability to provide biofuels and bedding for animals, maybe feed,
whatever it may be, in addition to being a beautiful plant.
Many times we take certain plants for granted. I'm pretty
sure we wouldn't take them for granted if we were
on a deserted island.
Speaker 2: No, you'd be grateful for everything that you could get.
And that is what this is about. So we're not
saying these are like our you know, must have plants
that we love the most out of the world. These
are our survival plants. On this theoretical island where climate
is no issue, we can grow whatever we want. Yeah,
and we're talking just about like what plants can equip
us with our everyday needs of survival.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And when you said dessert, I thought it was dessert,
not desert or disha.
Speaker 2: I always say I feel like desert island, but I
could be wrong. I don't know. Yeah, is what we
don't mean. It's literally a desert because obviously we're saying
you can grow plants there.
Speaker 1: Oh, I was thinking along the lines of Crembu lat
and Lemon Moraine.
Speaker 2: That's a dessert eye favorites.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's true. There are deserted islands, deserted so
to speak, across the world, including those that aren't necessarily tropical.
You look at Devon Island in the far north of Canada.
They use that island to practice and test for future
Mars landings. Oh I did not know that verse and
that sort of thing. Yeah, so if it was a
tropical island, I think you and I are going to
probably both agree that I want bamboo there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you gotta have a bamboo because you
want to build structure. Now you talked about shade. Of course,
in theory this island, you're going to need some shade,
but you're also going to need shelter because you know,
who knows what's going to happen, You're gonna need you
have wind or animals or who knows what. In Bamboo
is a great plant for providing construction materials extremely quickly.
And you know, I'm going to go one further with
the bamboo, and I am going to pick the specific
species Philostackies edgeless, because this is the most edible bamboo
as well. So you got a two for one here.
Because all of our plants they're gonna have to do
at least double duty. Well, they can't compete with us
for the bamboo. That's going to be a problem, okay,
But yeah, I mean, you know, then you've got the
bamboo shoots to eat, and you've got the bamboo stems,
which actually grow very fast. I think bamboo is one
of the fastest growing plants on Earth. Uh, so you'll
be able to build yourself that shelter relatively quickly and
then start to you know, have some protection.
Speaker 1: Oh by weight, one of the strongest materials in the world.
And you're right, we need that for shelter. I want
to make sure to have a coconut tree. Heck yeah,
and I think that you know, they knew what they
were doing on Gilligan's Island. As a matter of fact,
you know, they had that coconut, the coconut trees there
on Gilligan's Island. The professor could even make a radio
out of a coconut, but they couldn't get off the island.
I just think coconut's important because I could use it
for building materials. The leaves pretty much most of the
parts of the plant are edible, very fibrous. And of
course the coconuts. This past year, when I was in
Costa Rica and sipping from a fresh coconut, you know
where you grilled a hole in and pop the Wow.
Speaker 2: The only plant with liquid endosperm, So the coconut liquid.
The liquid inside the coconut is the endosperm, which is
the tissue that nurtures the seedling when it germinates. So
like when you think about a bean seedling, those two
you know, big bean halves that come out. That is endosperm,
That is the food that fuels the shoot to germinate.
So coconut is the only plant with a liquid endosperm.
Speaker 1: Fascinating and you can.
Speaker 2: Drink it and it's extremely nutritious. And you know, in
theory here on our island, we may not have a
lot of fresh water, and coconut water is going to
be the next closest thing that you can do to
sustain yourself. Coconuts are extremely productive, they're pretty much ever bearing.
And then yeah, as you said, coconut palm foliage is
extremely useful. You can weave yourself a hat, so while
you're out there cultivating your you know, desert island garden,
you're not getting all sunburned. You can weave yourself some clothes, bedding. Yeah,
you know it's in yes, and you got the fiber
off the coconut. So it's another, you know, multiple duty
kind of plant. And coconuts are so ubiquitous that they
don't actually know where they originated because they are so
good at getting around and maintaining the integrity of their seed.
And so they've basically spread to the entire tropical world
and beyond and and sinus can't quite pinpoint exactly where
they originated.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's fascinating. Interesting. Well I'm going to add to
that then, bananas, because bananas.
Speaker 2: Also, you don't like bananas, I'll eat them.
Speaker 1: I mean I put them in my fruit smoothies in
the morning. I just don't like to sit there and
eat a banana.
Speaker 2: I got you.
Speaker 1: But if I'm on a deserted island, I mean when
in Rome, do as the Romans do, and I'll eat
you know, even the flowers are edible. And you were
talking about the fibers, you know, with bananas, maybe I'd
be able to start up a craft project. I have
a lot of time on my hands on this dessert.
Speaker 2: Well, and you can also use banana leaves for cooking,
so they can be a plate potensil. But I am
actually going to diverge from you here. My number three
plant is a little bit specific. It is coffee cups
coal a Casia so col acasia alocasia. These are plants
known as elephant ears, and coffee cups is very interesting
variety where the foliage grows facing upward, forming a little
quite a large cup like formation, so very different than
your standard plant where it's just going to be that
straight leaf. But now you have a vessel to collect
some rain water. And the colocasia itself, the root is
edible and widely consumed again in tropical countries known as malaga.
Different things, different names in different cultures, but it is
highly nutritious and highly edible. So I got a water
catchment system and an edible route.
Speaker 1: I love that now, and I agree with you that
that's going to be a great choice. I believe it's
called tarro, and is that what it's called.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it has different names in different countries and cultures.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and here's an interesting thing that I'll throw
at you, and that is my beloved Cannas are a
potential candidate for our deserted island because you can eat
the rhizomes of a can and they taste very similar
to the colocacia that you're talking, same difference. And you know,
I could probably form the can of leaves to collect
rain water too. But you're right, we're gonna need a
method to collect rain.
Speaker 2: Water and This is a cool plant that you can
actually grow. So the other ones, you know, we're talking
about not really plants that most of our listeners could
just PLoP into the garden and grow. But this coffee
cup's colocasia is a very popular plant right now and
easy to find as you're doing your garden center shopping
in the north.
Speaker 1: Of course, we can grow bananas. We'll talk about that
in segment. For Musa bajou is a winter hardy banana,
we can talk about that. So my final plant, I
think Stacey is going to be having an orange tree.
I want oranges. Captain Captain Cook when he sailed the seas,
he understood that scurvy and lack of vitamin C is
what would kill his sailors on a long journey. So
on some oranges.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I put citrus as a generic sort of you know,
I couldn't really decide. I thought long and hard about
which citrus would be the best citrus. I'm leaning towards lime,
but I'm open to any of them. And you know,
the other great thing about the citrus is true, it's
going to give you some shade, so you know, you'll
have some shade to sit under on your island under
your tree, and you know you're going to be kind
of probably stressed and maybe a little bit sad, but
you'll have the beautiful fragrance of the citrus tree to hopefully,
hopefully give you a little bit of hope.
Speaker 1: I love this. I love this, and all of these
plants far more useful than Wilson the volleyball that Tom
Hanks was stuck with.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think Tom Hanks had a choice. I
don't think he and I don't think we'll get a choice.
But just in case we do, I did add one
more garlic. Now, I garlic. You know I'm feeling like.
Speaker 1: For my cholesterol level.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm your cholesterol levels are probably going to be
matter a lot less on this silent. I'm just saying,
but you know it's you're gonna want to switch up
the flavorings. Garlic is pretty easy and fast. You can
eat the flowers as well as the I mean, don't
take up a lot of rooms. So that's my frivolous choice,
I think. But you're gonna probably need to do something
to switch up your dietary. You know, regime here, it's
gonna get a litt dull believe me.
Speaker 1: In segment four, I'll add a few frivolous Also, here's
my limerick for today. It's tough on an island deserted.
Not my choice to be here inserted. Just me and
my plants only here. It can get quite lonely. Bear
in mind I'm extroverted. I'll occasionally go off on some rants.
Can't keep to myself. Some stance. Just me and my
very own plot. There's no human within earshot. Tell me
do you talk to your plants? I want to find
out from Stacy if she talks to her plants. I'll
admit that I do plants on try. Coming up next
here on the Gardening Simplified Show.
Speaker 2: Beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color Choice
Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique varieties
to choose from. There's a flowering shrub or evergreen for
every taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive
white container your local garden center or learn more at
proven Winner's Color Choice dot Com. Greetings gardening friends, and
welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we are
doing a little bit of a thought exercise today and
talking about plants that we would want if we were
to be stranded on a hypothetical island somewhere. And yes,
as horticulturists and gardeners, it would be easy for us
to say, oh, I just couldn't possibly live without the
beauty of you know, summarific hibiscus. But you know, when
the rubber hits the road, we're talking about the survival plants,
plants that are going to give you a little bit more.
Even though these plants, for the most part, are not
plants that we're going to be growing here in our
gardens in Michigan. Although I would love to live in
a climate where I could grow my own coconut palm.
That would be pretty great. That would be pretty pretty great.
But anyway, so when it comes to proven Winter's Colored
Choice Shrubs here and plants on Trial, where we talk
about one of our three hundred and twenty plus varieties,
despite having that very long list of plants to choose from,
none of them, I regret to inform you quite rises
to survival level requirements. They are mostly ornamental plants, of course,
they're certainly animals. Survival may depend on some of these plants,
insects and birds and so forth, but human survival, it's
a little bit of a stretch. Now, we do have
some edible plants. We have splendid blue blueberry, we have
Taste of Heaven BlackBerry. We have a new it'll actually
be on the market next year. All those small plants
will be available mail order this year. A new bush cherry.
You ever grow a bush cherry? No, yeah, So it's
you know, the they're not going to be like the
cherries you buy in grocery stores, but they are completely edible.
They're quite tart, but it's much easier to grow than
a tree cherry, very very prolific. You don't need a pollinator.
So it's just kind of a fun choice. So we
have some edible plants that are going to give you
some nice fruit. But again, you know, these even though
they have a good crop and a fairly good long
season of bearing, you know, on our island, we can't
afford to just you know, have a plant there that
we're waiting for two weeks of blueberries on We need
perpetual production. So it was a hard one for me
today to keep with the theme. But I did come
up with an idea and it is a flavorette paired rose. Now,
you know, on this desert island, you are going to
need some you know, food for the soul, of course,
and we talked about that a little bit with the
citrus and the delightful fragrance of the citrus, and so
flavor Ae paired probably follows more into that food for
the soul than food for the body. But it does
at least work with this idea of it doing double duty,
you know, and that's important too. So Flavorette paired is
actually new in garden centers this year. It is an
edible rose and it starts out kind of pink, and
the flowers open white, and they're really full. They have
a really really high pedal count an amazing fragrance, and
the flavor and fragrance is reminiscent of ripe pears. Now,
this is a plant. It's a second plant in the
Flavorette series. This is a series of edible roses that
came to us from Serbia and from a great rose
breeding program there. You know, in the US, most people
don't really think of roses as food. I mean, maybe
some people will have like a bottle of rose water
if they do a lot of baking, or something. But
for the most part, North American people not big rose eaters,
whereas we're in Europe and in other cultures, roses are
very much a part of you know, everyday food consumption.
Speaker 1: It's going to change now, I tell you what. These
are fabulous plants. And we just got them in at
the greenhouse where I'm helping out in spring, and I
also posted about them in social media, posted beautiful plants,
posted a picture of myself with these plants, Stacy. People
are excited about this and really hadn't thought through this
concept until Flavorette comes along, and it's like, wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all in and they're beautiful, and that's you know,
what's really important is they aren't just edible, they are beautiful,
and so you know, technically speaking, all roses are edible.
So we're talking the petals, the flowers, the fruit after
the flowers fade, the rose hips when they're right. But
these roses, Flavorette pair today's plant on trial and then
its companion plant, Flavorette honey apricots were selected specifically for
being edible, and that's not just a question so of
their flavors and the intensity and uniqueness of their flavors.
It's also a textural issue, so some roses are going
to have really thick petals, some might have some bitterness
to them. Whereas the flavorrette were in addition to the
flavors selected for this high quality edibility. They're really soft
and kind of lush to taste. I have taste of
them now, I think they are really nice. I do
enjoy eating them. We do recommend if you're really looking
for the maximum sweetness, you'd want to kind of avoid
the very base of the pedal where it's kind of white.
There's a little bit of bitterness there, but not enough
to really impact it, kind of like treat it like
an artichoke, keep that and then bite it off. But
you might be wondering, like, well, what do I do
with an edible rose? Well, the thing is with flavorette paired,
you don't actually have to do anything. It can just
kind of be in your garden and you're like, oh, hey,
this is edible, because even if you never harvest it,
it is still a beautiful, landscape worthy rose. It's going
to bring a lot of interest to your garden. But
the petals are can be used fresh or dried and fresh.
They are really lovely and tasty enough to just kind
of sprinkle over a salad or garnish a dessert plate.
It's very popular to layer them with sugar and put
them into a sealed container and for a couple of days,
and then that infuses the sugar with the fragrance of
the rose and you can use that in things like
teas and that type of thing.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I'd put them on ice cream.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you could definitely do that, or maybe.
Speaker 1: My porridge, my oat brand that I eat in the morning.
Speaker 2: Give that little summary, you know, kind of vibe. I
like that. So you're gonna get one? Are you gonna
add one to.
Speaker 1: The solt It's going in the compound.
Speaker 2: All right. I'm glad to hear that. So uh yeah.
So really, there's so many different things that you can
do with this once you start diving into it. And
the people who developed this rose in Serbia created a
beautiful cookbook where they worked with chefs from all over
Europe to develop some unique recipes. So if you need
some inspiration, it's definitely a great choice. Now we have
also evaluated these for disease resistance and we are looking
for plants. You know that we're always looking in the
proven winner's color choice line for plants that do more
than just one thing. You know, we don't want it
to just be like, hey, this is an edible rose
and it's really cool and it's beautiful, but it's going
to be, you know, plagued by disease and you're gonna
not even be able to get anything out of it
because it's struggling so much. So we are testing for
disease resistance, and both flavor At Honey Apricot and Flavorite
PAIRT have shown good disease resistance. But as with any rose,
for best disease resistance, you're going to want to do
a couple of things. You're going to want to plant
it in full sun, so that's a minimum of six
hours of bright light every single day, and you're going
to want to give it good air circulation. This is
so important because all of those fungal leaf spot diseases
that pop up on roses and other plants, they thrive
where there's a low air flow. So you know, the
plant isn't drying off quickly. It's just kind of like
a stagnant spot with good airflow. Air can get to
the plant, the leaves will dry off quickly, which will
help reduce the incidents of any kind of folly or
disease occurring. So flavor ite pair gets to be about
three to four feet tall and three feet wide, so
you're going to want to make sure that from the
center of the plant it has at least three feet
kind of on all sides to make sure it has
that good air circulation so that it's getting maximum light,
maximum disease resistance, and of course maximum flowers because you
need all that sun and light for flowers.
Speaker 1: Absolutely great point, and I think I would add to that, Stacey,
I would probably prune off some of the bottom branches too,
not allow some of those branches to touch the ground.
But you're so right that that air movement thing, especially
when we get into the hot, humid days of summer,
is so important.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And speaking of hot and humid days, this is
also a continuous blooming row. So it will bloom all
summer unless it gets very very hot and you're in
a hot climate, it might need to take a little
break just to deal with all of that heat stress.
But here in Michigan they do bloom pretty much all
summer for us without a problem. You may be wondering
where you can grow it, and it is hardy down
to USDA Zone four, heat tolerant through USDA Zone eight,
so a little less heat tolerant than a lot of
other roses, which I think just comes from it coming
from a breeding program in a fairly temperate, you know
country where it was developed more for its edibility than
it's you know thoroughly, it's it's landscape resistance. So it's
companion plant. Flavor Ae honey apricot gets to be five
to eight feet tall, so this is a much smaller plant.
Very good if you have small spaces. I think this
would be an amazing addition to an herb garden. Absolutely,
I wish I could put it in mine, but I
can't because I have deer, and of course roses, despite
their thorns, are not the least bit deer resistance. So
I'm just gonna have to dream about having flavorette paired
row in my herb garden instead of actually being able
to put it there.
Speaker 1: I'll let you know how it goes. Like I said,
I'm putting one in the compound.
Speaker 2: Are you putting in paired or Honey Apricot are thinking
about both, Okay, yeah, so in my vegetable garden. Yeah,
I think it makes a great companion to the vegetable garden.
And flavor at Honey Apricot is a beautiful kind of
orangey apricotti color and paired, like I said, is pink
and aging to white. And you know you can combine
them together in your in your dishes and everything. So
I look forward to your Martha Stewart styled photoshoot once
your flavor ate roses are producing and you and you
have a very deluxe porge.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, you asked for it. Get ready, Adriana, bring
the video camera.
Speaker 2: All right, Stay tuned, and if you are looking to
add a flavor ate rose to your garden, make sure
you look for it at your local garden center. This season,
we're gonna take a little bit of a break. When
you come back, we're opening up the mailbag, so please
stay tuned. At Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs, we know
that a better landscape starts with a better shrub. Our
team of experts tests and evaluates all of our flowering
shrubs and evergreens for eight to ten years to ensure
they outperform what's already on the market for easycare, reliable,
beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and express your personal style.
Look for Proven Winners shrubs in the distinctive white container
at your local garden center or learn more at proven
Winner's Color Choice dot com. Readings Gardening, Friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show where it is one
of my favorite times in the show where we get
to help people with their gardening questions, quandaries and conundrums.
And I know we are in the thick of gardening
season right now, and you may have some questions, quandaries
and conundrums of your own, and maybe you also have comments.
So obviously here in the show we only have a
little bit of time to answer your gardening questions, but
that doesn't mean that we don't want to help. So
you can always reach out to proven Winner's Color Choice
dot Com use the tact form there you'll get an
answer much sooner, as well as on priven Winters dot com.
So if you don't have a question about shrubs specifically,
I have questions about annuals, perennials, tropicals, whatever, check it
out in Priven Winners dot com and you will get
an answer within a business day or two, not from
a robot, from a real person who actually wants to
help you. So apologies if we do not get to
your question. But you know we do hear from a
lot of listeners with comments or celebrations. You know, some
people may not have gardening pals to share their accomplishments with,
but a listener Dale actually reached out with an interesting article.
So he says that we gave our listener who had
aphids on her Cinderella milkweed the worst possible advice, and
I'm like, whoa, my ears are pricking up here. And
he goes on to share an article that was published
in the journal Insects that so it's a peer reviewed article.
This isn't just some you know, wacky thing he found
on Pinterest that he's trying to claim is true. This
is a real scientific article that milkweed plants that support
quote diverse arthropod community. So multiple species of insects depending
on them are actually better for monarchs, and specifically the
first generation each year of the monarchs, the spring monarchs. Now,
so basically, what the study goes on to say is
that in milk weed plants that have aphids, and milkweed
bugs and milkweed testic monsters, a number of different insects
that do also rely on milkweed aside from the monarch,
are actually sought out more by monarch adults to lay
their eggs on, as they're seeing perhaps is more resilient.
They're not exactly sure why. Now, I do want to
add a caveat here. This study was limited just to Texas, Oklahoma,
and Louisiana, and that is significant because those states, of course,
are so close to the lands or the monarchs migrate,
so their behavior there could be a little bit different
than we're going to see up here in Michigan. But
he did go on to say, also so that you know,
one of the things that we recommended was an insecticidal soap.
And the truth is that by the time the monarchs
are or the milkweed is up enough to actually have
aphids on it, it's completely possible that there are actually
monarch eggs and or little teeny tiny caterpillars that you
have to have a really good eye to see. So yeah,
and of course the soap would kill those as well
as killing the aphids, So you know my overall thought
on aphids and I we talked a lot about aphids recently,
because aphids are so prominent in the spring. You know,
everything's soft and succulent growth, and that is their favorite thing.
I will say for my part, I have a lot
of tolerance for aphids. I usually don't do anything about them,
but you know, I get it people get freaked out. Now,
I will say later in the season on milkweed, I
have had aphids that are so bad that what happens is,
you know, they take over and their excrement starts to
grow mold, and then that mold becomes really active to
flies and wasps, and there are a number of wasp
predators of milk of monarch caterpillars, And of course by
that time, no sane monarch would lay her eggs on
this mold covered horrible milk weed plant. But I will
say later in the season, when I do have milkweeds
that are looking like that, I very often do cut
them back. But at that point, you know, of course
I'm looking them over, but I would still probably just
cut them back rather than actually try to control the aphids.
So we will put the link to the study that
Dale sent in the show notes as well as in
the YouTube comma or the YouTube caption there. It is
a full length article, so maybe a little bit much
for the average listener, but it's quite interesting and I
thought it was very interesting that it was something that
they were studying, so I wanted to share that with you.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's a fantastic thank you, Dale, and
great food for thought.
Speaker 2: Yes, for sure. So we have a question from Linda.
Speaker 1: Dear Stacey and Rick. I'm addicted to your show. Oh
I've learned so much from watching all of your episodes.
I keep watching them over and over. My son in
law has a market with a greenhouse, and for the
past three days, at the age of seventy four, I
have done nothing from morning till night but help them
repot plants to get ready for spring sales. Way to go, Linda,
that's fantastic. You both have mentioned that you have a
deer problem in your yard. My daughter and I both
have the same issue, and my son in law's market
gets attacked from time to time. You mentioned that you
spray for deer to deter them, but you never mention
an actual product. Might I ask what you use and
how well it works for you. How often do you spray,
how much do you dowse the plants with? And does
it have a negative effect on the blooms? Love Love
love your show so nice?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what do you use?
Speaker 1: Well, lots of deer where I'm at. Of course, you know,
I built a compound online and I ordered signs that
said no deer alloud and deer can read. So that
has helped. Also, if you don't have a compound, of course,
there are many wonderful deer resistant plants in this case.
Of course, yes, Linda's trying to, especially in the market,
have plants out there that deer can affect. So throughout
the years, I've used liquid fence. Okay, however, over the
past couple years I have used if we're asking for
a specific product, I've used BOBBYX.
Speaker 2: Boy.
Speaker 1: Does it smell, yes, but it works. And I also
like to do some feeding with malorganite. The deer do
not like the malorganite. Also, even though the product is
not labeled as a deer control, I know a number
of people who use malorganite also to deter them. So
I think a combination of deer resistant plants, you know,
incorporating aliums, ornamental grasses, nepettas, lavender, that sort of thing
will cause them to turn their nose up. But Bobex
is the product that I.
Speaker 2: Like, all right, So I have definitely mostly just planted
things that the deer won't eat. You know, I decided,
despite the heartbreak of finding out that I had deer
when I moved into my house, not thinking that I would,
I found that I just don't have it in me
to spray all the time, you know, the trait. It
would just be disheartening to me. So I was kind
of like, you know what, I'm just going to give
up the plants that I wanted and can't have and
enjoy them elsewhere, and I'm just gonna kind of have
a garden that the deer don't eat. But that said,
even if that is your approach, you do still need
to spray because very often plants that are deer resistant,
when they are fresh from the nursery or in spring,
when they have fresh new growth, they may get some
browsing because you know, it's not the same as a
plant in the middle of this summer. It's all fibrous
and tough. So sometimes you even if you have deer
resistant plants, you still need to have a little bit
of spray.
Speaker 1: Got up the other morning, poured a cup of coffee,
walked out into the front yard to take a quick
check at the landscape, and my next door neighbor there's
a deer sitting on her front porch, just lounging there
on her front porch, watching the sun come up. It's ridiculous.
I had a little conversation with this deer. And I
love putting pots of flowers on the stairway leading up
to my front door, and I have used a truffle
of pink gumfreness because I love them and allegedly supposed
to be somewhat deer resistant, and they just chow on
those things. So I hit them with the bobecks. And
then when the Amazon driver comes or the postal service
worker or a visitor to the house and they brush
against the plants, their pants smell like bobecks. I can
picture them in the car driving away, going.
Speaker 2: What is that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The simple fact is I really hate to be the
bearer of bad news, but any quote unquote good smelling
deer repellent is not going to work. They have to
smell disgusting. There's just no two ways about it. And
the most effective ingredient in deer repellent is putrefied egg solids. Yeah,
and dried blood as lovely as the cell is. Sorry, Linda,
those are the most effective ingredients. And as you can imagine, yes,
putresca so rotten eggs that they have been dried out
and powdered. So yeah, there's just no getting around at
deer repellants to be effective, really, do you have to
smell awful? Now? I have use some of the winter
green type smelling like the really strong mint smell.
Speaker 1: Cinnamon, oil, castor oil, yes, lemon grass in there, that
sort of thing, but some of them are only as
useful as taking the actual bottle, yes, throwing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So unfortunately I use plants skid. It smells disgusting.
It is very effective, and if you put it on
and it looks like dried blood, it has like a
really dark red color and you think, oh my gosh,
I ruined my plants, but you didn't. It does kind
of somehow disappear as far as flowers go. Yes, if
you were to put a most deer repellent directly onto
a flower, chances are you will lose that bloom, so
you want to time it really so that it's the
bud that you're covering over, you know, the actual blooming flower.
And then you have to apply them as often as
the plant grows, so you know it doesn't have a
you know, a systemic effect where it's on the planet,
and it will keep growing every time that deer puts
every every time the plant puts out new growth that
is now appealing to the deer because it doesn't have
the repellent on it. So how often you apply it,
they're usually pretty rain proof, but anytime you have new growth,
you have to put more.
Speaker 1: On question four A, are we going to have deer
on our deserted island?
Speaker 2: I hope not. I didn't even consider them. I'm not
gonna lie. And yeah. So the other thing is I
would say they're not generally safe for vegetables, so any
kind of edible plant, most of these deer repellents are
not safe to use. But I did find a really
great resource from the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension that
goes over all of the different deer repellents, all of
the common ingredients and talks about how effective they are,
how you can use them. It's a really, really useful
one of the best websites I have ever found for this.
So we will definitely be sharing that in the YouTube
caption as well as in the show notes at Gardening
Simplified on air dot com. So we feel your pain, Linda,
But unfortunately I have to say if it sounds too
good to be true when it comes to deer repellent,
it usually is just you know, putting coyote urine around
your yard is usually not not gonna do it. It
sure does. We're gonna take a little break when we
come back. We're continuing our conversation on deserted island plants,
so please see thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified podcast,
brought to you by Proven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs. Our
award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and tested
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Okay to continue
on this deserted island thing. This fascinates me and by
the way, that's making the assumption that the island is tropical.
What about a cold weather deserted island. I mentioned at
the outset Devon Island, which is and it's not a
little island, it's big. It's about the size of West Virginia.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that is big.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they test Mars rovers there and that sort
of thing. But if I was there and it was
a cold island, my list of plants Stacey would be
potatoes or some kind of root vegetable, cucumbers, blueberries for
the whole vitamin sea thing, a maple tree because a
maple tree is a great resource for many reasons. And cabbage.
Those would be my choices.
Speaker 2: All right, I hope you have like a stove and
some salt for canning.
Speaker 1: Well there's the next problem, creating fire, right, yeah, right,
Because when I went to a survival guide thing and
it said what do you do first, don't pant, don't panic.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I'll try not to do that, but I'm
sure I will be an a king.
Speaker 1: Maintain your composture. Then sit down, make a plan, and
your survival priorities are shelter, water, fire, food. Yes, so
the fire part. By the way. Interestingly enough, here in
West Michigan we had quite an event this past weekend
where some huge mulch piles started on fire.
Speaker 2: That's scary.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it was. It was scary, But some gigantic
mulch piles at a suppliers started on fire. It just
shows you the heat that's generated inside those mulch piles.
But you're going to start to see some stuff out
there where people are worried about mulch in your landscape
just spontaneously self combusting. And it's not something that you
have to worry about. When you've got two or three
inches of mulch down in your landscape, this is not
something that's going to start on fire. These are gigant
and you find it around the country, not just the
event this past weekend here in West Michigan, but around
the country from time to time, Stacy, you'll see some
of these mulch piles that get so hot in the
center they do start on.
Speaker 2: Fire, right, And you really have to think about the
difference between a massive, massive mulch pile and the temperature
that is in the center of that versus just a
few inches spread in your yard. And to be fair,
you know, mulch is still a fire has ord. Do
you want to be real careful if you are having
you know, one fires and that kind of thing. But
it's not going to spontaneously combust because it just doesn't
get to that temperature once it is spread out, you know,
into that normal layer that we use. But yeah, I
remember being a landscaper, you know, and having mulch delivered
to a job site and it's summer and you get
into the center of that pile and it's just like, yeah,
just like a sauna just coming right off of that,
right off of that multipile.
Speaker 1: Thank you very mulch. But it does also bring up
the point that when your mulching plants, don't mulch them
too deep.
Speaker 2: That's for sure, you know, it can be warm around
the plant exactly.
Speaker 1: So anyhow, just went off on a table.
Speaker 2: I was actually just quoted in a mulch article recently.
I forget what magazine it was for. A garden writer
reached out and it was really great because a lot
of times when I talk to garden writers about different topics,
you know, they kind of I wouldn't say, like they
censor me. They don't censor me, but they will, you know,
I will talk from the cuff and then they'll put
my words very nicely, and she ran my unedited and
thoughts on that rubber mulch. Oh, So you know, basically
the short version here is it's just fine if you're mulching,
your kids, play set with it, but do not under
any circumstances. I think I said, for the love of
all that is horticultural, do not use rubber mulch in
your bed. So we can put a links to that too.
If you want to know a lot more about how
I feel about.
Speaker 1: Mulch, I agree, yeah, don't get me started on stone mault.
We got to stop right here. Okay, Although while we're
on a rant thing, why don't we just go for
it here a minute. This past weekend very busy at
the greenhouse. Sure, and you would be amazed. I want
to make sure I'm accurate here. Three different people over
the course of the day who came to me and
asked me for the rainbow tomatoes or the red and
white hosta plants. Believing that these AI scams are real.
So I would invite people to go back and revisit
episode eighty two fact or fiction when we talk about
this stacy, because there's a lot of that out there.
Speaker 2: It is there's so much, and I do feel like
it's a teeny bit better than it was last year,
where at least you know, they are putting some really
rotten stuff out there, but they're not offering it for
sale for the most parts. But yeah, there's just so
much AI generated stuff, and you know, it upsets me
because plants are cool enough on their own. You know,
they don't need to be put through some sort of
AI and have weird colors and sizes for you to
appreciate them. They're worth appreciating just as they are. But
you know, it's always worth there's always information in there,
Like it'll say, oh, this is called you know whatever.
You can always google that plant name, that variety name
that they're claiming is associated with it. See what else
is out there, give it a little fact check before
were you head out to the garden center.
Speaker 1: And while I'm thinking about it, we talked about the
multch Let me just quickly mention that there was an individual,
a nice gentleman who came walking in It's busy, stops me,
shakes my hands as he watches the Gardening Simplified show,
loves the show, and then he proceeds to tell me
that his grandson was sent home from school with a
note because they were working on grammar, and his grandson
insisted to the teacher that the phrase was not thank
you very much.
Speaker 2: It's thank you very mulch aw.
Speaker 1: And she sent him home with a note. And I'm
so proud. Nah oh boy. All right. So this deserted
island talk caused me to think a minute, Stacey, and
I want to ask you this question. Let's say it's
not a deserted island, but let's say you had to
leave your home today and you could only take five
plants with you. Oh, would that be tough?
Speaker 2: From my garden, I can only take five individual plants.
Speaker 1: Five individual plants, So I would probably take a favorite
grass cultivar. I'd take some of my cannas, probably a baptizia,
a panicle hydrangea, and a macrophilla hydrangea. When push comes
to shovel. If that's all I could pick, probably take those.
Speaker 2: Oh those are good choices, those are good choices. I'm
glad you had some Hydrange's in there.
Speaker 1: I mean, is there, yes, is there a plant that
you absolutely positively would you know? We gotta leave, We
gotta leave. Now we're not coming back. I'm taking this plant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it probably would be my summarific hibiscus. Okay,
but you know, I have a lot of lavender, a
lot of lavender in my garden and I love it,
you know, and I feel like it's very you know, important.
It could be a good seasoning, I guess if I
if I'm stuck with this and in few other plants,
I also just feel like, you know, if it's kind
of like, oh, hey, what sort of symbolizes my garden
at home, it's probably boxwood, lavender, succulents and summerific hibiscus,
because I have a lot of hardy suculents, and I'll
tell you my hearty suculent gardens right now are looking stunning,
best they've ever looked, just amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, when we talk about having to pull up
plants and take them with us and or being on
a deserted island, one of the things that came to
mind for me, and we don't talk about it often,
well maybe we do, and that is herbs talk about
plants that are so beautiful and beneficial at the same
time and don't ask for much except for some sunshine.
And I was thinking that. The other day, walking back
in my landscape, there were some chibes that I left
in a container over winter, and as opposed to getting
rid of them, they come back up in spring and
they were coming into flower and just so beautiful. And
I'm thinking, you know, if there's if there's a plant
we need in our landscape and incorporate into our landscape,
it would be herbs because of the ornamental, edible, and
therapeutic benefits that they provide.
Speaker 2: You know, I feel the same way, And I am
so grateful that herbs are one of the plants that
you can grow without having to fence off from the
deer or no deer repellent required. I am very grateful
that I am able to have a part of my
garden that is not completely fenced off right now, because
even when they're emerging and that foliage is young and tender, no,
they aren't touching the sage or the chives or the
oregano or anything else. So, yeah, I love herbs. I
love how they all look so Mediterranean together. They all
look incredible together no matter how you combine them. And yeah,
I mean I've been working hard in my herb garden
for the last several weeks getting it ready to kind
of work towards the herb garden of my dream. So
I have been thinking about herbs quite a bit lately myself.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks so much for joining us here on I'm
going to call it Gilligan's Island today. I'm hoping I'm
not the captain that got us into this mess. I
certainly hope I'm not Gilligan. I like to think I'm
the professor who can make a radio out of a coconut.
Thank you, Stacy Rick, thank you Adriana, and thank you
to you for watching us on YouTube, downloading the podcast,
or listening on radio. Have yourself a great