Speaker 1: Coming to you from Iconic Studio a here at Proven
Winters Color Choice Shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified podcast,
radio and YouTube show with Stacey Hervella, me Rick Weist,
and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, the bedrock
of my personal landscape is ornamental grasses, and there's a
lot of reasons for it. I have a lot of
deer pressure. But in addition to that, I'm trying to
grow a garden in beach sand, which is kind of
difficult to do. I live along the shores here in
West Michigan of beautiful Lake Michigan. The beaches of Lake
Michigan are just simply gorgeous, and you have the unforgiving,
harsh climate of the beach for plant vegetation to grow.
Then you have you have what i'd call the transitional
dunes that go beyond the beach and then the back dunes.
And that's where my home is, on the back dunes,
so you're nestled in there. And boy, when a storm
comes over Lake Michigan and the wind is blowing, it
just sounds like a freight train going overhead. But you're
protected there. So that's a positive. I guess the downside,
or some people wouldn't consider it a downside, and that
is come winter when the lake effect machine kicks in,
boy can it pump out the snow. And there are
many years when we get well over one hundred inches
of snow at my house there on the back dune.
But of course that makes it a great place to
grow plants. Hydranges grow great, rhododendrons grow well, fruit trees
grow well tempered by beautiful Lake Michigan. But Stacy, I
plant primarily ornamental grasses, and I think you know, planting
ornamental grasses where I live is great because it kind
of fits the scenery of the area. We talked about
borrowed scenery before on the show. Of course, my borrowed
scenery is the beautiful beaches of Lake Michigan. You'll see
the marram grass growing there, also the sand reed grass
and the milkweed growing in abundance. Unfortunately, some invasive species
two spotted napweed came into the United States in the
late eighteen hundreds. I think it was ejected out of
ship ballast if I recall correctly, and you'll see spotted
napweed there too, So I decided to plant lots of
ornamental grasses in my landscape. Of course, I'm also the
cana king, and we'll talk about that in segment four
because I've been having some problems with my cannas that
I want to share with our listeners and our viewers
and get your take on that. But the ornamental grasses,
I just love the way that they sway in the breeze.
They're so tough, reliable, drought resistant, deer resistant, and that's
a big reason I plant them in abundance in my landscape.
Speaker 2: And you know, they're so diverse. When we talk about
ornamental grasses, you know people probably have like a miscanthus
or something like that that comes to mind. But the
fact is that the ornamental grasses is a huge number
of different genera and different varieties and different colors, different shapes,
So it's not a monolith. You can have an ornamental
grass garden that is really varied and elegant and interesting
and not just misscanthus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. As a matter of fact, a grass that
I love are the panicums, prairie winds, panicums, switchgrass totem
pole is a favorite of mine and for those watching
on YouTube, Adriana will drop in pictures of my personal landscape.
If you're not watching on YouTube, listening to the podcast
or radio, we'll put some of the pictures in the
show notes at our website Gardening Simplified on air dot com.
But Stacy, I love panic. A totem pole is a
variety that's sturdy durabullets and ornamental grass that can really
withstand at verse weather conditions. But it's just a column
of steel blue foliage and just goes straight up in
the air. And when that thing starts to flower and
is in its beauty in July, August and September, I
literally have people ringing the doorbell asking me what that is.
Speaker 2: It is beautiful, it has structure, it has color, and
that beautiful blue, I think is something that goes so
nicely with everything else. And it really goes to show
you that ornamental grasses aren't boring. People think, oh, it's
just a grass. Grass is boring, grass is lawns. But again,
you get that blue, that structure. It's a refreshing alternative
to Carl Forster cal macgrassis, which is a fabulous grass.
It's beautiful, it has that same super upright structural presence
in the garden, but it's gotten a little overused over
the past several years.
Speaker 1: I would say, I'm glad you brought it up, and
that's why it's not in my landscape. Panicom's also Niagara
Falls is a great proven winter's grass. Lightning Bolt is
a favorite of mine. Also Chyenne the Sky because of
the color as we go through summer into fall, and Stacy,
you mentioned miss Canthus. Now miss Canthus is just I'm
going to say the bedrock of my landscape. Morning light
is a variety that I love. Very light, fine foliage,
lightly variegated, just dances in the breeze. Of course, you
can also choose miss Canthus that have as opposed to
vertical variegation horizontal variegation, left bandwidth.
Speaker 2: I love that. I think it just looks there as
a brinus. Yes, I love that one. And it's a
little bit wacky. It's not for everybody, and I don't
actually have it in my garden, but every time I
see it, I think I should find a place for that,
because I do love it. It's quite unique.
Speaker 1: It is a little wacky, but it's good.
Speaker 2: That's a good thing for me.
Speaker 1: That's a good thing you bet when it comes to
miss Canthus, there are many different cultivars that you can
choose from. For me, I consider the gold standard of
miss Canthus and we have pictures of it to be
October Fest. It blooms much earlier, so it's perfect for
shorter seasons in the north. The inflorescence is there by August.
It's a burgundy copper color transitioning to a cream color.
Proven Winners has one called Encore. I believe my favorite
of the miss Caanthus grasses. And then of course you've
got to mention Penacetum's Lemon Squeeze is a proven winter's
grass that I love in my landscape and gives you
some color desert plains, prairie winds, desert plains is great.
And then I'm very much into the annual grasses. You know,
some people don't want to plant annual grasses because they're like, man,
I'm wasting my money. I got to dig them up.
But you're doing that with other annuals and they're amazing.
Rubrim Purple Fountain Vertigo is a proven Winner's variety, gets
very large, has saber shaped purple foliage. And then Skyrocket
is a new favorite of mine. A variegated annual grass,
a proven winter's grass. Wow, that thing's gorgeous.
Speaker 2: You know, I think when it comes to growing ornamental
grasses is an annual, people get a little confused. They
probably think, like, I'm not going to pay for that.
I could have a perennial one. And that doesn't quite
click that Some ornamental grasses are not actually hardy or
they do legitimate just have that one year life cycle
where they're going to complete that in one year, go
from seed to seed. But yeah, for the right kind
of container, and if you like that vibe in that look,
they're absolutely worth it, just as much as any other
tropical or you know, big statement plant would be that
you're planting in your containers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you bet. And did I mention I'm trying to
grow in beach sand. Now I'm growing a lot of
other things too, And you'll see from pictures of my landscape.
Have a vegetable garden. My family loves green zebra tomatoes,
and so I love growing the vegetable plants. We grow
the vegetable plants in the garden. Many other cultivars blue
Atlas cedar, of course, I mentioned the cannas and Stacy
I have learned that dear villa is a very important
plant in my landscape. It's very drought tolerant, very colorful.
It does really well there on the back doom.
Speaker 2: And you know, I do love it. I have a
Kodiak blackter villa paired with shy and sky panic and
it's such a pretty combination. I wish I could take
credit for it, but it just kind of happens. But
that is, it is a really nice combination, and it
can really tolerate those similar conditions. Not quite as deer
resistant as the grass is, but the grass can also
kind of function to deter the deer a bit by,
you know, forcing them to step through it if they
want to, you know, munch the flowers off the davilla.
Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah. And then finally there is some blue lime
grass on the dune. Some people would cringe. I don't
recommend you planted. It is rhizotomous and it can get
out of hand quite quickly. But again, when you're trying
to grow in beach sand and you have an area
where it's functional. Same thing with the loriope. I have
a variety and you'll see the picture of big blue
when it blooms boy, is that functional. So again, when
your landscape, you've got to look at the environment you're
working with the community that you're living in and make
some choices as far as is your plant material is concerned.
And I can't help it, Stacy, I'm into ornamental grasses.
Speaker 2: I already knew that about you. But it's good to
have the list down there and have the photos and
have it all confirmed for our listeners. And they are
great problem solving plants, and you know, that's what we're
all about, is having plants that solve problems. And that's
a difficult situation growing in the beach and having deer
and all of these other issues. And you know, the
other thing is a lot of ornamental grass is take
up a lot of space, so you're not spending as
much money to fill that space and you're getting almost
year round impact. Really, the only time ornamental grasses aren't
at their best, it's pretty much like March and April, right.
Other than that, they're contributing to the landscape and looking amazing.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, speaking of problems, how's Stacy going to tie
in ornamental grasses with plants on trial today? Stay tuned,
We're going to find out next here on the Gardening
Simplified Show.
Speaker 2: Prooven Winter's Colored Choic 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 and
the distinctive white container at your local garden center. Greetings,
gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show,
where the order of the day is grass. And you know,
this is kind of a tough one for me to
pull into plants on trial because I don't know if
our listeners realize this, but Prooven Winner's Color Choy Shrubs
we sell shrubs and shrubs are woody plants, and a
woody plant is something like you know, you know from
tree rings. If you cut into the stem of a shrub,
it's going to be concentric rings like a tree that
you could count and see how old that particular stem is,
and that's what makes it a woody plant. However, grasses
are herbaceous plants and they are monocots. So if you
think way, way way way way back to high school
biology or whatever that looked like for you, a die
coot is sort of your classic seedling. When it germinates,
it has the two little leaves coming off, So like
the classic seedling that you think of, when a monocot germinates,
it is just a sheath. So you've seen grass seed.
Most of us have seen grass ed, whether we wanted
to or not, because grass can, you know, spread itself
around and make a little bit of a pest of
itself so that just a little sheath comes up. That
is a monocot. And there are no woody monicots. And
that might not mean a lot to you just to
hear that, but what this actually means is that some
plants that a lot of people think of as trees
or woody plants are not actually trees. So palms are
not trees, Bananas are not trees. And another one that
people might be more familiar with is the houseplant is dressina.
So you got the corn palm. You also have the
dragon tree that is, you know, sort of a classic
symbol of certain parts of Africa in the landscape there.
And so even though all of those things have a
tree like habit, they have what appears to be a
long tail trunk and a canopy up on top. They
are not trees because they're not woody plants. There are
no woody monocots. So what happens the difference is when,
if and when you were to cut into a palm
or a banana or something like that, what you're going
to see is just like fibers. It's kind of hard
to explain. Of course, if you live in a warm climate,
you've seen this dozens of times. You know, palms get
damaged in hurricanes or whatever, and then you just got
to why they Yeah, they have to use machetes. You
can't use a chainsaw. A chainsaw will not work on them.
It just will get all jammed up with those fibers.
So if you live in a warm climate, you have
certainly seen this before. But if you don't live in
a warm climate, it kind of comes as a shock
to be like, what do you mean? A palm is
not a tree. A tree is a tall thing with
a trunk and leaves on top. So we're gonna have
pictures of what this looks like on the YouTube version
of the show as well as in the show notes,
so you can kind of make sense of that. But yeah,
so they don't make those rings. Now, Banana plants do
make what looks like rings, but they're not tree rings
because they're not woody. What they are is the leaf
bases or the bottom of the leaves that made up
the banana plant all nestled together and kind of spiraling around.
So it does kind of look like a like it
does have concentric rings, but it's actually stacked up leaves.
Speaker 1: That's bananas.
Speaker 2: It is a little bit bananas. Yeah. So you know,
when we're trying we're talking about grasses, and I'm trying
to tie in plants on trial, Like, how do I
do that when we have no shrubs in the proven
Winter's colored choice line that are monocots and grasses aren't
woody plants. So I had to think about a different approach,
and I started thinking about grass companions. And you know,
people talk a lot about companion planting very often. It
comes up in terms of vegetables. And if you plant
these two things together, they can of help each other
out from a physical standpoint, like if you use you know,
beans to climb cornstock that does work. There is not
any scientific evidence as of yet that you know, one
plant will improve the flavor of another or repel pests
for another. It's still a fun thing to practice, but
really the key to companion planting is matching plants that
need the same conditions more than anything else. You can't
have two plants close together that need dramatically different conditions.
And so as reck is already established, grass needs full sun.
There are very few shade tolerant grasses. Do you grow hakonakloa?
That's pretty much what I've always heard is like the
one reasonably shade tolerant shitty spot.
Speaker 1: On the east side of the house, and it does great.
Speaker 2: Yes, So most grasses are definitely full sun plants, even
if you live in a hot climate and they want
pretty dry soil. If you over water grass, if they
are in too much water, if they are on irrigation,
they get floppy. They don't have that nice erect look,
that strong structural look. They just kind of go blu
and flop. So that's not great. So you want plants
that can take those same kind of conditions. Now, there
are plenty of shrubs that, of course are very heat
and sun and drought tolerant. But then the other factor
of picking a companion plant is do you pick something
that picks up the slack at a time when the
other plant is not at its best, or do you
just gild the lily and get something that is going
to look amazing when the other plants are at their
best and it's just an over the top you know, look,
it's an explosion of bloom. So for today's plan on trial,
I decided to go with a picking up the slack method,
because again, as great as ornamental grasses are, they are
not at their best in March and April. And that
is kind of a tough thing because those are definitely
months where you're pretty tired of brown. You want some green,
you want some things to be growing, and so you
can forgive them for the other ten months of beauty
that they give you, but March and April, we gotta
face it, every plant has its time.
Speaker 1: You're chopping them back and you're digging and dividing.
Speaker 2: And they haven't started to grow yet. Because most a
lot of the grasses that we grow as ornamental grasses
are what's known as warm season grasses, and they don't
start growing until it's actually quite warm out well into May.
So you do have that long window where there's nothing
happening except a little patch of stubble in your garden.
So today's plan on trial is Sister Redhead, Scotch broom
or sitisis controversy. I like it. It is a little
bit controversial. Now there's probably going to get a lot
of people out there going what's controversial about it. I've
tried to grow scotch broom and I cannot grow it.
It lives for one year and it dies. Whereas other
people are like, I'm going to come through that radio
and smack you, Stacy, because scotch broom is a horrible
invasive and it's true, Scotch broom is very, very invasive
in some areas, particularly the Pacific Northwest and the southeast.
But I picked Sister Redhead for two reasons. Number one
is it is in our in check program, which means
that it does not set seed. So Sister Redhead specifically
will not spread by seed. Now, if you live in
an area where ssyitisis is already invasive, you can't grow
this or any other one. It is banned. It can't
be shipped into your state. But in other areas, again
it's some people really have a hard time trying to
grow it, and the reason that they would want to
grow it in the first place is because it has
beautiful flowers and sister redhead, as you might guess by
the name bright red flowers, and you all know how
I feel about red flowers. It's my absolute favorite. I'm
crazy about them. I don't have sister redhead in my garden,
but bright red flowers with a little dab of yellow
in there. It's just incredible color. And it's blooming usually
in about April and May, so right at that time
where those grasses are just like I just got cut back.
I need a few weeks here to get my stuff
together and be able to grow again. So very very
colorful flowers to make up for that time when the
grasses aren't looking their best. And they have quite a
unique texture as well. And it's a plant I can
honestly say I have been asked about so much, even
when I was in California and it was invasive in
the woods and it was just like so painful to see.
My brother in law was like, what is that cool plant?
You know, not knowing of course that it was invasive.
Because the stems are green, they're kind of thin and wiry,
they actually look a bit like a grass, and then
tiny little leaves so the overall effect of a scotch
room is really quite unusual texture and color. It's green
all year round and so it almost has a look
like a grass as well. And of course it is
very it needs full sun and if you have any
drainage problems whatsoever, this plant is not going to live
in your yard. It can't take white soil. It's probably,
i would say, in my experience, even more sensitive to
wet soil than maybe even butterfly bush.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Have you ever tried to grow it?
Speaker 1: No? I have not. And if you're keeping score at home,
Stacy's talking about Sister Redhead scotch broom, Stacy, you pronounced
the botanical name cyitisis okayiss Sister Redhead. That was a
great band when I was in high school. I enjoyed them.
Speaker 2: Well, you can thank tim Wood for that name. And
like I said, it does not set seed. It is
a really unique and unusual color, and it's a great
plant to add spring color as well as to kind
of pick up that slack when your ornamental grasses are
just really you know, great idea not quite ready to
do their thing. There are other colors of citisis out there.
You can find pink and yellow of course is the
most common, and the one that is very, very invasive
is a yellow one. That's the one that you'll see
everywhere in those areas. And yeah, it's it gets three
to four feet tall and wide, so another nice size
to kind of mix in with grasses. Some ornamental grasses
get to be humongous eight to ten feet tall, but overall, Rick,
probably the ones in your yard are more in that
like three.
Speaker 1: To six foot range.
Speaker 2: I would guess that is the most common hardy down
to USDA Zone five, heat tolerant through USDA Zone eight. Again,
well drained soil is imperative, and it is extremely dear resistant,
making another great characteristic to go with those ornamental grasses.
Speaker 1: So Buck stops here.
Speaker 2: You can take a look at photos of Sister Redhead
Scotch Broom at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com or just
check us out on YouTube. You'll see all the photos
of it there. So again, this is not a plant
necessarily everyone can add to their garden, but if you're
in an area, and even if you're concerned about it spreading,
Sister Redhead, it does not set seats, so you don't
have to worry about that. We're going to take a
little break. When we come back, we're opening up 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 one of my favorite
times of the show where I get to answer your
garden questions. We'll talk about what our opinions are and
our experience. So if you have a question about gardening,
you are most welcome to reach out to us at
help HLP, at Gardening Simplified on air dot com, or
just visit Gardening Simplified on air dot com. You can
ask a question there. You can even attach a photo,
which it's always so good to see a photo. It's
very hard to be a plant detective and a psychic,
so photos are always welcome and you can easily do that,
So yeah, please do reach out to us if you
have any question, especially as we go into fall, you know,
people don't know what they're gonna Should I do this?
Should I do that? And remember the answers always win
in doubt. Don't so eat that in mind, uh as
you as you face your upcoming garden quandaries.
Speaker 1: I think of Stacy all the time when I'm working
in my garden, and I'm like, should I move when
in doubt? Don't?
Speaker 2: I mean when it comes to like a design thing
that's different. But I always say, you can always buy time,
Like you can't necessarily undo it, but you can, Like
if you have a crazy idea, and I have acted
on several crazy ideas in my garden without thinking, you know,
it's best to like give it some time to marinate
and then come back to it.
Speaker 1: Like when I'm at the gas station and I'm looking
at that candy bar and I'm thinking, and then I
think of Stacy, and I think, when in doubt, don't It's.
Speaker 2: Good advice for so very many things in life. So
exactly what's in the mailbag?
Speaker 1: All right? Stacy? Judith writes to us, I have a
flowering dogwood about seven years old, which had blooms on
its top branches. This spring. It now has for the
first time a stem one or two inches straight up
from where the bloom was, and on top of the
stem a dark pink round ball, not berry. I checked.
Do you know what it is? Yes?
Speaker 2: And it is one of my favorite things about fall.
So I want to first I thought this was such
a good question to answer, because people know flowering dogwoods.
We have flowering dogwoods native here in Michigan and through
a great deal of the United States. They're beautiful, they're iconic.
My grandma had one in front of her house growing up.
We had my mom has one in front of her
house now, and so they're really widespread. But that native
flowering dogwood corners Florida is not the only dogwood anymore.
The other there are other dogwoods flowering dogwood trees in
town that you can plant instead. And so Cornis cusa,
also known as Korean dogwood, is one that has really
become quite popular over the last I would say twenty
ish years or so years.
Speaker 1: I much prefer it.
Speaker 2: It is beautiful, and I mean, if you love flowers,
you cannot beat Corners cusa. This thing is a flowering
machine that creates way more flowers, it has a very
distinctive horizontal branching, and it's just the tree. It just
has a totally different presence in the landscape. If you
have more of like an informal woodlandy kind of garden,
you might want to stick with our native dogwood. But
if you are just trying to landscape your house and
have an absolute stunner of a tree, it's hard to
beat Cornis cusa Korean dogwood well.
Speaker 1: And it tends to bloom later than Corners.
Speaker 2: Florida, right quite a bit. Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1: And so if you're in the north, those bracts or
blooms or whatever you want to call them are longer
lived too.
Speaker 2: Just oh much longer. Yeah, So the Corners Florida, as
many spring flowering plants can do, it can blast through.
If we have like a hot, dry spring, you will
enjoy those flowers for very long, whereas the Corners Cusa
blooms for us here in Michigan June about mid to
late June, and yeah, those flowers will be effective for
nearly a month. So the flowers are one big difference.
The foliage is similar, but much glossier and showier. The
plant is more dense. But the cool thing about it,
the reason that I personally would grow a cornerscoose. Actually
I do have a corner scouse in my garden. It's
just very young, so I haven't thought about it much.
Is the fall fruit, and that's what Judith is seeing.
So if the plants are fertilized, and sometimes you know,
as with many trees fruiting, whether the fruits are edible
or not, it can take several years before they actually
set fruit. So I think that's what's happening here. This
was still a relatively young plant. Even though it's been flowering.
Not all of the flowers got pollinated for this fruit
to form. And the fruit on cornice cusa, it's so cool.
It's like a It is a little ball, and it
kind of has these like small, delicate little I don't
want to call them spines or spikes because they're not
they're not you know, they're not firm. They won't like
cut you or cause you pain. But it almost looks like,
I don't know, some sort of piece of artillery or
something like a mace.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, we always call them pink spiky soccer balls.
I say, it's a pink spiky soccer ball, and some
trees in nature just produce these spiky ornaments that are
so much fun and fall I think of sweet gum.
Speaker 2: All yep, now that is colorful, yes.
Speaker 1: But I agree with you that the kusa I think
saves the best for last.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's such unusual fruits. They start out kind of
white and then they become pink and then they turn
like a red. So they undergo this color change, it
gets good. The foliage gets good fall color as well,
so you're just getting this incredible combination. Just really interesting.
And the fruits are edible. Have you ever tried them before? Yes,
they're actually pretty tasty. They have a good flavor. The
only thing is they are mealy. They have like a
mealy texture and some people adriana is making a phase
back there. Op, it's a no for me. So it
is kind of a mealy texture. And the other thing,
if you do want to sample one, definitely bite into
it slowly so you're not chomping down on the seed
in there and breaking a tooth. But it is kind
of worth a little nibble if you have one. So
they're beautiful, they're edible. The squirrels will happily eat them
for you if you don't want to eat them, the
squirrels and the birds. So Judith, this is just the
first of many amazing cornice crucive fruits you're going to
enjoy on your new plant. So yeah, enjoy it.
Speaker 1: And if the squirrels are birds, don't eat them. As
you progress towards Christmas, they're just wonderful Christmas ornaments hanging
on that tree.
Speaker 2: Nature's doing, You're decorating for you. You can't beat that.
Speaker 1: So, Stacey, we've got a question for you from Layman writing,
I have some incredible high ranges I planted in May
twenty twenty four, and some of them seem to be struggling.
Some are losing leaves at the base turning yellow. Some
others are always wilting when the one next to them
are doing fine. What's happening? Also? Can I take them
out and pot them to rehab them during winter? If so,
how should I go about it? So Layman is struggling
with his incredible high drink.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we do have pictures from Lyman Layman, sorry
for mist pronouncing your name, so you can see what
these incredibles look like. And so the first thing that
I wanted to say to Lyman and anyone else who
is seeing hydranges or especially new hydrangees wilt, is that
on hydranges, overwatering and underwatering both manifest as wilting, and
that is particularly dangerous because you see the plant wilting,
your first thought is, well, gee, I just watered it,
but I guess it's just really thirsty and I need
to water it again, and then you're constantly exacerbating the situation.
So I believe that what is happening here is that
the plants are getting too much water and or the
drainage is slow. That can be kind of a fine
line and a difficult one to define because both of
those either of those things can be true. You're giving
it too much water, or maybe you're just giving it
the right amount of water, but your soil drainage is slow,
so you need to back off on the water. You
can give plants, like in our beechy gardens, we can
give plants quite a lot of water and never risk
overwatering them because the water always drains away. And you'll
see in Lyman's photos that the soil is quite dense
and clay, and you can see that the soil is
also very wet. So honestly, what I would say to
you is to just back off on the watering. I know,
when you have a new plant you want to make
sure it gets plenty of water, but I think you
can back off at this point in the season. I
would say once a week at most. I know we
are having kind of a warm dry spell at least
here in the Midwest right now, but I would back
off to just, you know, once once a week, maybe
even once every ten days. And as we go into fall,
you want to taper that back because the plants will
need less water as they start to go dormant, and
I can also impact the yellowing foliage as well. When
you're overwatering, nutrients are leeching out of the soil very
very quickly, and that can lead to that yellowing. So
here's what I would say. Do not dig them up
and pot them up for winter. Leave them where they are.
Know that, as we've talked about multiple times, fallows a
great time for root growth, and root growth is what
is really going to get these plants through any challenges
that they are experiencing. So you know, don't do anything.
Don't prune them. Just try not to worry too much
and let them just put on their roots, let that
foliage drop, and I think, you know, by next spring
they should emerge green and healthy. They really don't look
too too bad. So I think this is just an
issue of watering.
Speaker 1: It's the same struggle people have with the houseplants that
dog on watering issues.
Speaker 2: And you know, I understand people want to do the
right thing and they're concerned, and it is easy to overwater.
But you know when when I I try to help
people who have overwatered their hyghdranges, only you really know
if it's underwatering or overwatering, because only you know how
much water it's getting. And sometimes people will say, well,
I have water it once a week, okay, but how
much like are you, you know, turning on the hose
and letting it run for three hours because you heard
a deep watering is good. So it's always kind of
this fine balance between the drainage, how fast it's draining,
how much water the plants are using. But it really
goes for any plants, even if they were new this year.
Unless the weather is very hot and dry, you should
be tapering off your watering for fall just because plants
are using a lot less, the days are shorter, the
nights are cooler, and they're just not using as much water.
Speaker 1: I think the watering issue is just job security for
people like us, because I think people are always going
to struggle with it, and honestly sometimes I do too,
So you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, it's it is a it's something you learn
kind of by feel, not something. It's not a hard
and fast rule. So anyway, thank you so much for
your questions. If you have a question again, you can
reach us at Gardening Simplified on air dot com. We
hope to hear from you. We're going to take a
break and when we come back, it's a 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.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's time for
branching news and I was going to write into gardenings
simplified on air dot com with a question. But fortunately
I have Stacy sitting just to my left, and so
I'm going to pose this question for you, Stacy. I
struggled with my cannons over the past few weeks, and
the struggle was not due to leaf rollers, was not
due to the typical culprit like Japanese beetles. It wasn't
even due to deer. As a matter of fact, I
caught the culprit in the act. Many of my stems
on my five to six foot tall cannas were broken
off and damaged. And I'm like, who is doing this
dastardly deed squirrels. Squirrels are on the roof on the
fence wherever they get a tree, they'll make the leap
over to the cannas and what they're doing. And for
those of you watching here on YouTube, I brought along
some cuttings. When cannas are done blooming, they like other
flowering plants, will produce a seed head.
Speaker 2: Right, yes, And I have to say I cannot stand
canna seed heads. Like honestly, just sitting next to these
is kind of giving me the he begbis. There's just
something I've you know, my n across the street when
I was growing up had them not growing next to
her house, and I think they just kind of creeped
me out because they're kind of spiky and weird, and
I do like other things that spike you. We were
just talking about the you know, the Korean dogwood seedheads,
which I adore, but canna seedheads, I just have this
like visceral reaction. I don't like them. I cut them off.
I have the I grow the cannons that you gave me,
but I cut them off because I do not like
looking at them. So anyway, that's just my little no. No, no,
you can keep them up. It's it's important. We've got well,
I think we have an important thing to say about.
Oh yeah, the squirrels are going after it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and I've made note of the fact that
for you, Stacy, so it's can of seed heads and
it's wind chime, so yes, right.
Speaker 2: And the other thing day lilies that I do not
like day lilies. I feel like the flower pedals are
just the No.
Speaker 1: I think we could do a whole show on that.
That's coming up down the road. No, so the squirrels
are jumping on it. And what happens to the seeds
inside the spiky the spiky soccer balls, so to speak,
is they turn brown and almost black. They become very,
very hard. I was doing some research and it said
that in some parts of the country, they said that
native people would use them instead of lead shot in
their guns. That's how hard they are.
Speaker 2: What caliber is that?
Speaker 1: That's beyond my pay grade. So it's the squirrels that
are doing the damage, and they're jumping up there to
eat those seeds, so a crazy thing to me. It's
just not nutral for squirrels to do that. They binge
on the cannas and then they stay up all night
watching nutflicks. They are a real problem. Squirrels do like
plant based snacks. Although this is the same squirrel. I
believe that ate my patio umbrella.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it ate your patio umbrella.
Speaker 1: I had a treasure garden, beautiful cloth market umbrella and
they would perch at the top and they tore that
thing to smithereens.
Speaker 2: You are kidding, No, squirrels are aggressive over there. Well,
they must have found out from word of mouth that
the caniseed is delicious, are they are? They eating it
like right in front of you and making eye contact
the whole time. Yeah. Or are they burying some because
this is prime burying time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, they're snacking right there. They're sitting on the
deck and the fence and snacking right there. So frustrating. Anyhow,
the next frontier of home landscaping fridge scaping. I saw
this in the news. Fridge scaping is sharply divisive. It's
decorating the inside of your fridge like it's any other
room in your home. The trend has alternately delighted and
enraged TikTok viewers, who either swoon over the romantic scenes
at thirty five degrees or fume at the apparent craziness
of landscaping your refrigerator. And we have the link there
to the news story fascinating anything that will beautify your food? Wow?
Speaker 2: So wait, are they fridge scaping with food or is
it things that should not be in the fridge And
they're like turning their fridge into some sort of giant diorama.
Speaker 1: Let's cross that fridge when we get there.
Speaker 2: I guess you will.
Speaker 1: It's a well thought out plan. Talk about frozen assets. Yeah,
fridge scaping, I don't know. I wouldn't do it, but
you've got to be aware of it. And we're into landscaping,
so I thought i'd bring.
Speaker 2: Up the well. I mean, my fridge rarely has the
space in it for anything superfluous.
Speaker 1: But I'm happy if you know, I put stuff in
tupper wear containers and forget about it. And yeah, you
got to clean out the fridge. So cleaning it out
is just good enough for me to actually fridge scape it.
That's kind of.
Speaker 2: Crazy, all right, I'm looking it up. I'll see.
Speaker 1: I mean, in this case and in this news story,
the individual was putting a porcelain bust, stringing lights and
fresh flowers next to a bowl of bell peppers and
a carafe of orange juice.
Speaker 2: I mean, don't fridges already have lights? Are they not
good enough?
Speaker 1: They do? Boy, I'd like to see this fridge come
Christmas time. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow, got to get some colorful lights in there, seasonal goodness.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, on today's show, we've shown you pictures
of my personal landscape and what I'm doing in my landscape.
Just another personal note. Art prize takes place here in
West Michigan at this time of the year in September.
Art Prize is an annual international art competition in Grand Rapids,
a celebration of conversations, experimentation, ideas and inclusiveness. And Art
Prize is free open to the public, so artists will
put up exhibits in hotels and businesses and out on
the walk and people will come by the thousands to
see these. Now, we've talked about it on the show before.
I'm into sticks and I love the Instagram site Official
Stick Reviews and it has a lot of followers. Well,
living by the Lake, I pick up a lot of
sticks in driftwood out of the lake and I've created
an art exhibit of that driftwood. It has quite a
story behind it, and we'll put the link there at
the website. Those watching on YouTube, Adriana's set up pictures
here for you, or you can go to our website
Gardening Simplified on air dot com. But it doesn't change
the fact Stacey, that I'm into sticks and branches. I
can't help them.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think as gardeners were always kind
of on a little treasure hunt, yes, because we never
really know what we're going to find in our gardens.
In fact, you reminded me last weekend. We're working the
garden and found a huge bullet, like a big bullet
like one, like it's like this big. It had already
been fired off. So it's just the casing, but like
it's I mean, I live in town. It's not like
it seemed kind of old. But you know, you find marbles.
I love finding marbles in the yard, and so we
kind of have that like treasure hunting mentality, whether it's
rocks or sticks or fungus, and we're always we're always
looking for for those little hidden things.
Speaker 1: When I put a plant in the ground and the
shovel hits something hard could chunk, it's like, oh, this
may be the big one. You know. I love that You're.
Speaker 2: Right about that, and you never know.
Speaker 1: For me, drifting. You know, what's fascinated me about driftwood
is that people love driftwood. They're just I don't know,
and many people are just enamored by driftwood, and living
where I am, I've just become addicted to it. So
it's a part of art prize and and the exhibit.
So I thought i'd bring that up today.
Speaker 2: Oh, well, where can people see it?
Speaker 1: People are going to be able to see it here
in West Michigan in Grand Rapids. It's at the Hilton Hotel.
So it's Homewood Suites the Hilton Hotel right in the lobby,
big exhibit, and that exhibit will be displayed from September
twelfth through the end of September.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So there you go. Monrovia, California, newly listed for
sale in Southern California's notoriously pricey real estate market. Half
a house for a half a million dollars. Now this
is fascinating to me because I've spent a fair amount
of time in southern California at a garden center. There
a beautiful garden center, Rogers Gardens in Orange County, and
we would take drives through the neighborhoods and the prices
of homes and the yards are like postage stamp sized, you, unbelievable.
So there's a home there that is one bedroom, one
bathroom bungalow in suburban Monrovia, northeast of Los Angeles. So
what happened was it was crushed by a tree in
May with two renters and two dogs inside. No injuries,
thank goodness, but a fence and most of the roof
were mangled, and as opposed to fixing it up, they're
just putting it up for sale. Half a house, half
a million dollars. The price you can pick that up,
Stacy for four hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred
and ninety nine dollars. That's what you call an open
concept floor plan.
Speaker 2: It's probably already pending, honestly at this point, knowing how
real estate is.
Speaker 1: The race. And then one final thing. I always think
of this at this time of the year. I like
to hike, I like to walk, and if you're going
hiking this time of the year, we think of burdock.
Burdocks clinging properties. In addition to providing an excellent mechanism
for seed dispersal. It led to the invention of the
hook and loop fastener, so the Velcrow guy. The Velcrow
brand of hook and loop was invented by a name
a gentleman named George demestrol I believe is the name.
Nineteen forties. He was out hunting in Switzerland and had
the burdock all over his pants. He thought, boy, I
could do something with this and created Velcrow. And I
guess it's my point here, Stacy is whether it's globe
thistle or burdock or other types of seed fall. This
is a time of year when weeds do what they do.
Speaker 2: Well travel, that's true. And if you have burd we've
ever eaten the root hedburdock roots? Yes, it's delicious. So
you know, we often talk about managing weeds in fall,
and that would be a fine way to manage burdock
if it happened to be in your yard, is to
just go ahead and dig up. It's a very long,
skinny root, but I love it in a Japanese dish
called knpira where it's stayed with carrots. Absolutely delicious and
I'll bet you good for you too. I think it's
pretty darn healthy.
Speaker 1: You. Yeah, you could pull some of the roots, wash
them off, put them in a vase and do some
fridge scaping with them too.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we want to thank you for tuning in the
Gardening Simplified Show. We want to remind you go to
Gardeningsimplified on air dot com and Stacy, we're on Instagram too,
that's correct, so look for us on Instagram along with
official stick reviews.
Speaker 2: Follow us both.
Speaker 1: Thanks Stacy, Always privileged pleasure to do this show with you.
Thank you Adriana so much for your work and what
you do for the Gardening Simplified show. And thanks most
of all to you for tuning us in. Remember we're radio,
podcast and YouTube. Thanks for your support. Have a great week.