Speaker 1: Broadcasting from Studio A Here at Proven Winters, Color Joy Shrubs.
It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella, me,
Rick weisst and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. All Right,
today's show is on the house, well every week. It's free,
but it's about your home's color, style and appearance in
combination with the plants that you choose. And I guess
choosing a color for a house is similar to making
landscape design decisions. Just this past year we reroofed our
house and I thought, well, this is pretty basic, it
would be easy decisions. Ah, the guy shows up with
a pickup truck, drops the back bed. He's got about
one hundred different color samples, and you've got to make
a decision. Plants and colors are going to have a
major effect on the vibe of your house, but they
can also show case the geographical region or time period
in which your home was built and the surrounding area
and community. And painting the outside of your house can
be costly, so you got to do your research. And
there are three components to a tastefully painted house. The
main color, the accent colors, and the trim. And while
most homes tend to have a neutral main color, most
homes playing with color can be done in a subtle
way using accent colors. So color outside and the color
outside as far as your home is concerned, Stacy, it
can be tricky because you're often competing with nature.
Speaker 2: You can it's so important, you know, really to I
think pick the plants for your house color. And a
lot of people don't realize that. And it surprises me
because when it comes to interior decorating, everyone says, oh, well,
this will pick up on the mustard yellow of my
wall or whatever. But when it comes to outside, people
just don't even know where to start. And it's like,
start with the color of your house. Now, we can't
help you. I am no color experts, so I can't
help you with your roof choice and your paint choice,
but we can help you with your plant choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And there are all sorts of colors to
work with. Modern and bold choices are trending, with shades
of charcoal, deep blue, jet black making a statement. And
then you've got the trim. As I had mentioned, I'm
seeing in my neighborhood more and more homes going with
a black exterior with maybe brown trim, brown garage doors,
a brown front door. Very interesting doing this show. Driving
here to the studio today, I live on a cul
de sac and I took a look. If you go
down the street, the houses are red, white, gray, blue,
two blue ones, tan, dark brown, white, and black, tan, yellow,
turquoise brick, and I mean we're all over that. Yeah, right,
So there are a lot of options available to you.
And I find it really interesting that we here in
the north or the northeast, we live in vinyl sighting country.
Speaker 2: That's for sure.
Speaker 1: With vinyl siding, I mean, the sky's the limit. There
are so many different colors you can choose, or you
can paint your sighting as we did. We had an
olive green house and we decided to go with blue
and white trim. So according to annual data from the
Census Bureau's Survey of Construction, I thought this was interesting.
Stucco was the most common principal sighting material on new
single family homes, followed by vinyl sighting. So here in
the north Northeast, a lot of vinyl sighting. You move
to the south, southwest, southeast, a lot of stucco, here
in the North, people aren't real familiar with stuckle. You
know that. I study stand up comedy and I saw
a comedian was hilarious. He said, stucco. That sounds like
a clown that gets himself into difficult situations. Stucco. Don't
go in there. Your feet are too big. But stucco
is something that can really give you a Mediterranean feel
or you know again, it's about the vibe of your
house and interesting thing to stacy For people who have
stucco homes, one thing that's an issue for them is vines.
You've got to pick the right type of vine, because
the wrong type of vine, let's say it's Trumpet vine
or Boston ivy or Virginia creeper, they can do damage
to the house.
Speaker 2: For sure. Yeah, we don't have a lot of stucco here.
It does tend to be more in the mold climates.
I'm surprised men board or hardyboard was it on your list,
because so many of the new homes are being built
with that, and that's kind of a nicer alternative to
the vinyl siding. But I'll tell you this, I have
so many hot takes on housing materials and colors, and
I am just biting my tongue right now. I know
me too, I am biting my tongue and keeping my
opinions for the plant portion of this show. But I'm
I'm just saying.
Speaker 1: Something to look forward to, Stacy. I just took a
look while you were talking. So stucco number one, vinyl
sighting number two, fiber cement sighting such as hard hard
plank or hardboard, hardiboard, Yeah, hardy board twenty one percent, okay.
And then that's followed by.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm seeing that a lot around here. Yeah,
that hardyboard, and it looks nice. And I think you
can get that custom painted so it's like already deeply
saturated in the material, then you don't have to worry
about painting it.
Speaker 1: And you got to make that color choice. I was
doing some research and I found the least popular color.
Oh not the most popular color, but the least popular color.
And we'll have the link for you at the website.
It's radiant lilac.
Speaker 2: It's the least popular color lilac really out of everything.
Speaker 1: Yep, radiant lilac. So huh, I don't know. I mean,
you look at Classic House colors. Usually you're working with
neutrals like white, beige, gray, and black, but very popular
are sage green, navy blue. I love navy blue.
Speaker 2: Hey, you wear your navy blue shirt today and I wore.
Speaker 1: My navy blue shirt today. You know. With our blue home,
I was thinking about the landscape, and technically if you
have a blue home, essentially you have to look at
having a specimen plant possibly in your landscape, good foundational plants,
green plants, and then something with color that compliments and
adds some pop so and possibly repeated throughout the landscape.
So I was thinking with a blue home like an
oh so easy rose in pink, because pink plays well
with all types of colors. As far as the green
is concerned with my home, because of the area that
I live in, I do it with ornamental grasses instead
of evergreens. But it does cause me to see why
green is such a popular color, because if you have
a black home, or a green home or a blue home,
white home, that color green is so important in the landscape.
And it shows me why boxwood is so popular. And
I love the color green, I mean I love green
better than yellow and blue combined. Did you see what
I did.
Speaker 2: I did. See what she did there? Well, you know,
I worked used to work for Martha Stewart Living Magazine,
and the what we had always heard was that Martha
specifically chose that kind of gray, sagey green, because it
sets off plants so nicely, so cool, almost kind of
not quite a neutral, not quite just like a gray,
little bit of assassin there with the green, but you know,
very complementary to all sorts of different plants.
Speaker 1: Makes sense. Well, it's decisions, decisions, decisions, So the Limerick
today applies to that, and that's making these decisions. Maybe
you're making these decisions with a spouse and you've got
to pick out these colors and pick out the plants.
Do you argue colors with your spouse? Your curb appeal
cause you to grouse, Make it home, sweet home, in
colorful coda, chrome, no charge. Our advice is on the house.
Our arbitration is friendly guiding. And with whom are you siding?
See what I did?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: Thank you hot today. Your choice more than cosmetics, it
goes beyond esthetics. With your decisions, you'll be residing. But
it's true when you put a plant in a ground,
you tried to have it develop. You spend all that
money on the appearance of the outside of your house.
You got to make some good decisions because you're going
to be sticking with it for a while.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's a lot easier for us to
sit here and say you got to make good decisions
than it is to actually make said decisions. But at
least it's easier now than it ever was before because
you can use one of those things on the computer
and it will kind of like fake the color into
your house and you don't have to just go in
blind like you used to. So it's a little bit easier.
But then again, you know, you can get some analysis
paralysis because then you're just trying everything you know, and
you're just trying so many combinations, so you just get
sick of it and you're just like, whatever, I don't
care anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'd love like when you go to the
East Coast or Cape cod and they have the clapboard
or you know, the cedar shakes or whatever they call them,
and they're kind of tannish color at first, and then
they gray as time goes on. They add the white trim,
and then you look at getting something like a beautiful
smooth Hydrangehow with that, it's no wonder high ranges are
so popular in.
Speaker 2: That or you know a rose covered cottage on Nantucket
doesn't do much better than that?
Speaker 1: Wow, Well, let's see how Stacey ties this in with
plants on trial that's coming up next here on the
Gardening Simplified Show.
Speaker 2: Beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color Choice
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Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we are talking
about the colors of your house and how you can
accentuate that with the plants that you choose. And I
think that it's one of those situations where I don't
think a lot of people even remotely consider the color
of their house when they're when they're out picking up
a plant at the garden center or shrubs especially, you know,
so they're they're kind of just like they don't have
any cues they are just lost and there's tons of
selections and they don't know what to do when the
answer is right in front of you. The answer is
in your house, and whether that means it's the overall
color of your house or you know, a lot of
times nowadays people will do a super colorful front door yep,
something like that, shutters, yeah, trim you know. There's all
sorts of little things like that that you can pick
up on. And again, this is one of those things
that I think, as you're driving around or walking around
and you see a house that just looks great, the landscape,
the house, everything looks great together, you do need to
take a moment to just like stop and analyze it
and think about, like, what is it that I really
like about this combination I mentioned. In my neighborhood, there
is a really content, temporary looking, kind of like eighties
contemporary looking house that's kind of like a deep smoky
gray and they have a beautiful royal purple smoke bush
in front of it, and it's trimmed, so it's you
Normally I wouldn't love something that was kind of not
let to go to its own devices, but they trim
it and there is just something about that combination that
looks so incredible. And you know, you also don't have
to consider what a plant looks like all the time.
You can match it to something that is seasonal on
the plant. You could match it to, say, spring flowers.
If it's something like a crab apple, work with that
fall color. You know, it doesn't necessarily matter if it
looks so spectacular all the time. It matters that you
get that one amazing moment where your whole neighborhood goes.
Now that person they know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I like that. I picture a gray home with a
Japanese maple.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like a beautiful dark leaf Japanese maple. That's
a great choice. But really you can't go wrong as
long as it is to your taste, because that's what
this is about. It's not about impressing all the passers by.
It's not about impressing Rick and Stacy. It's about whether
you like it and making it an expression of you.
But as you go to the garden center and think
about new plants or design your landscape, especially as we're
coming into winter, you know, look for those colorques that
are already in your house and work off of those. Now,
for some people, that's super easy. As you said, if
you have a more neutral colored house, if it's white,
if it's gray, something like that, you know, you can
do pretty much anything. In that case, you would probably
want to stick with one of your favorite colors to
you know, have some flowers and then kind of reinterpret that.
So it's really easy. I think if you start thinking
about these things in terms of how you would decorate inside,
instead of looking at the outside as just this whole
new world that you don't know, you already have the
skills because you already decorated inside. So you have to
just transfer those skills to the outdoors. Now, I love, love,
love love a good brick house, unpainted brick. Not going
to go there, but I'm just gonna say right now,
don't paint the correct it's a hot take, but I'm
not going to allow myself to go into the rabbit hole.
But you know, there's so many, especially throughout the Midwest,
so many beautiful brick mid centuries, and it breaks my
heart to see so many people trying to convert them
into some sort of modern cottage when you already have
like this beautiful, high quality material in house. Why are
you trying to make it look like a lesser quality house.
I don't understand, but I have one theory, and that
is that, especially in the landscape, those mid century orange
and red brick colors that were so common, they can
be a little bit tricky to landscape with. And you know,
you don't ever have the luxury necessarily of just changing
the color. I mean, you could paint it, but that
just turns again a low quality or a low maintenance
material into a high maintenance material. So I have the answer.
Whether you are stuck with analysis paralysis and you don't
know what color to use, or you have a weird
colored house and you don't know what color to use,
or you have one of these red or orange brick houses,
the answer for you is blue. Hmm.
Speaker 1: I can go with that.
Speaker 2: I know you like blue.
Speaker 1: I love the.
Speaker 2: Blue, and you page your house blue. That's how much
you like it. So when it comes to plants, choosing
a blue foliage, especially foliage, I mean there are blue flowers,
and of course there's hydrogege of macrophilla, which has the
most famous blue flowers of any commonly grown plants. Blue
foliage will go with pretty much anything. Wow, I mean,
I've thought through this. I think it would even go
with what was it, lilac something the least popular radiant
li I think it would even go with radiant lilac
if you were so inclined. Now, typically this blue is
kind of interpreted in terms of evergreens, and there are
a number of great blue evergreens so that you can
grow everywhere from really cold climates to really warm climates.
So like juniper false cypress if you live in a
milder climate, there's all sorts of beautiful true cypresses that
you can grow. And so evergreens are a classic choice.
Of course, there's often holly's have shades of blue. And
as important as evergreens are for the landscape, it's equally
important to have some more seasonal elements, whether that means
a flowering shrub that's going to you know, offer flowers
at some point in the air and then go darmant,
you know, to just give your landscape that seasonality. And
so I am presenting for today's plant on trial double
play blue Kazoo Spyria.
Speaker 1: Awesome plant.
Speaker 2: Such a great plant. Now, as you can probably guess
from that name, its foliage is a beautiful kind of
powdery blue color. Now, for a lot of people, when
you hear spiria, there's probably a specific plant that comes
up in your head, and it's one of those real tidy,
little tuffity plants with pink flowers. This is not that
type of spyria. This is a different type of spyria,
spirea media. Uh, the one that you're probably thinking of
with the pink flowers and the little toughet that is
Japanese spiria ormalda spiria. But this is a spyria media,
so it's going to be a little bit bigger. So
I'm gonna get two to three feet tall and wide.
And the foliage all season long is just this beautiful again,
powdery blue kind of color. And as the new growth
comes out, it takes on tones of kind of this
muted purple pink and lung green. Now that sounds much
more colorful than it actually is. This is something to
remark about, but we're not talking about like a kaleidoscope
of colors. Everything is very complementary, yeah, very subtle and complimentary,
so subtle bits of color. And then here's the real kicker.
It blooms full of big white flower clusters in spring,
so you never have to worry with those white flowers
in the blue foliage. This is a plant that goes
with everything that's the little black dress of the landscape.
So I just think it's a great plant, and I
know I fell in love with it because the flowers
are really really big, they attract pollinators and so it's
a kind of a different take on your average spirea.
And one of the things it's also really great about
it is its habit is very versatile. So again it's
two to three feet tall and wide, and it naturally
grows with kind of a round, mounded kind of shape,
and you can trim it if you want, So if
you love that more formal trimmed look, you can certainly
do that, or you can just let it go on
its own. Its stems are kind of slender and arching
and just really really graceful. If you do want to trim,
double play blue Cuisie. If this goes for any spiria,
So anyone who's sitting out the who already has spiria
and is wondering if you want to trim it, you
want to do that after at flowers that will give
you the longest time for it to set flower buds
for the next year, and it looks great either way. Spyria,
of course, are pretty good deer resistance, so if you
have deer, it's not a problem. They're also pretty tolerant,
and they're one of those plants that is pretty versatile
when it comes to light as well. So if you
have a situation like I do, where one half of
my front yard is very sunny and one half of
my front yard is very shady on either side of
the door, it can be hard when you have already
a symmetrical house to get that symmetry when you have
two totally different conditions like that, Whereas something like a
spyriea is so good in sun or in at least
part shade that this would make a good way to
get that kind of cohesive look on either side of
your door.
Speaker 1: I love that, And I just popped on Provenwinners dot
Com and Stacy I see it's really hearty too, all
the way to zone three.
Speaker 2: Yet partied his zone three. He tolerant through USDA Zone eight,
so a nice wide range of heartiness there. So for
almost all of our listeners it will actually do really well.
And Yo, Spury is just known to be low maintenance,
it's known to be drought tolerant, and it's a plant
that I think. I mean, when I see this plant,
it pretty much always looks great. Will benefit from mulch
because lakes most spireas pretty shallow rooted, so those roots
are close to the surface and can easily dry out.
So a good two to three inch layer of mulch
is going to help you a lot with this. But overall,
I think this is kind of one of those no
brainer plants. If you don't want to think too much
about your landscape, you know you need to do something different.
Think blue. Sorry, Michigan State fans, this is not a
dig at you gore went in doubt. Go blue for
your landscape no matter what colourhouse you have, and double
play blue. Kazoo is a great place for you to start.
So if you are looking to plant this season, there's
still plenty of time to plant here in Michigan or
really almost any cold climate. You just want about six
weeks before the ground freezes solid, so we have plenty
of time for that to happen still, so put it
on your shopping list, and if you're thinking about not
doing anything until spring, We'll add it to your planning
list and look for it at your favorite local garden
center coming next spring.
Speaker 1: Quick question, will you hit me with a hot take?
And segment four.
Speaker 2: In it depends where are we're going. All right, there's
always hot there's always a hot take in here. So
the answer is yes. We'll take a break and when
we come back, we're opening to the mailbag, so stay tuned.
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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. Breathing's gardening friends and welcome back
to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it's my favorite time
of the show because I love helping people with their
gardening questions, quandaries and conundrums, and I know they're out there,
you know, at this time of year, Man, is stuff
looking tired? I'm not gonna lie. My carden looks tier.
Speaker 1: It has been hot and dry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so dry. So if your garden is looking tired, yes,
you can still write us in with a question, but
know that you're in very good company. The plants are
just done. Plants are just absolutely done for the season.
Speaker 1: But they are were sick of dragon hoses around.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, so sick of it. I'm only doing
it because of the potential of still more tomatoes. If
I didn't still have so many tomatoes ripening in the garden,
I would probably just be like, I'm done. I don't
care anymore. But you know, also, I am keeping my
containers watered, even though uh they are clearly the plants
that are in them have clearly so thoroughly filled with
roots it's almost impossible to keep them watered anymore.
Speaker 1: Same, I just wet my plants. I'm out there all
the time.
Speaker 2: But you know, I'm keeping them watered because the hummingbirds
are still around. And of course all the annimals that
I picked are four hummingbirds. I did stop filling my feeders,
so I was like, you know, they didn't seem to
becoming to the feeders as much anymore anyway, so I
decided to just say, hey, you got plenty of flowers
here and the containers. You got plenty of flowers in
the zinias in the vegetable garden, and they are loving
those zinias. So no more feeders.
Speaker 1: And people have to understand we're broadcasting here from the
state of Michigan and Stacey. We are now into October
and it feels like July.
Speaker 2: It does. It feels like a cool July, but I
do think a cool down is coming. But in any case,
you may have questions, and that's what that was all about.
And you can always reach us at Gardening Simplified on
air dot com. There is a contact form there. You
can also leave a comment on our YouTube version and
Adriana will read all of those and get back to you.
So we welcome you to ask there. And sometimes we
get really nice notes from fans, like Kimberly wrote us
and she said, thank you so much for your show.
It has brought me so much a joy. You've inspired
me and educated me in so many ways. And I'm
a huge fan, which is so sweet, because that's all
we really want to do so really appreciate that. Thank
you for saying so. She also shares a tip for
our listeners, and she sends them pictures, so we'll have
those in the YouTube version for you. She created a
proven winner's plant tag reference using a binder ring and
a whole punch to keep every plant tag that she
buys accessible for posterity.
Speaker 1: Brilliant. I'm not that organized. That is brilliant.
Speaker 2: I'm not that organized either, and she is very organized.
So she has these. She has one all of just shrubs,
and she has one of annuals and they're all on
there so you can go through because you know what
I always do. I plant my annuals and I say
I'll remember what this is and I throw away the
tag and that I'm like, nope, don't remember what that was. Anyway,
hopefully I'll find it next year if I liked it.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So that's a great idea. And then you know, you
could have this because those binder rings, you know, those
little snap apart binder rings that you get office supply stores,
super inexpensive, and you could do one, you know, different
for every year of annuals and you could put a
little tag on there. It's twenty twenty five, taggurate, tagger
it and keep all of that. So great tip from Kimberly.
Thank you so much for writing ins. So what do
we got in the mailbag?
Speaker 1: Melissa writes to us, Hello, Rick and Stacey love love
your show. Thank you, Melissa. I got a good deal
on some North Pole arbor vity. It's one of my favorites,
even though I have extreme deer.
Speaker 2: Traffic one of their favorites too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I couldn't resist planting the beauties. Do you
recommend planting junipers or some other deer resistant shrubs along
the base to help protect them? Is there anything besides
a fence that will help?
Speaker 2: Oh? Well, you know, I figured Rick and I would
have an earfull for you on this one. Personally, I
would not attempt arborvid You know, there are food, there
are shrubs plants in general that deer will eat, and
there are plants that they don't eat, and there are plans.
It's that they love an arborvide, at least through occidentalists.
The Eastern arborividy is one of those plants that they love.
And I can't blame them because if you crush the
foliage on that it does release the most delicious fruity smell,
and that has to taste really good to them, like
juicy fruit gum or something like that.
Speaker 1: And I love North Pole arborvity Thuya occidentalis. I love
the plant, but to grow it, I have it in
the component.
Speaker 2: You have to have it in the compound. But here's so,
here's the thing I'm melissa. So you can try planting
a lower hedge of something like a juniper in front
of it. Perhaps that will deter them, you know, anything
that you can do. I find, at least living in
more of an urban area with deer, that our deer
are mostly path of least resistance kind of creatures. They
want the good stuff, but they don't really want to
work too hard for it. So I find that often
minor deterrants are pretty effective. But you have to be
careful because you also don't want to put this lower
juniper hedget you're using to try to deter them too close,
because then you'll lose that great cone shape and that
nice branching all the way to the ground that characterizes
North Pole arborvidy. And of course the worst part about
arborvid is if the deer do eat them. It takes
them so long to recover if they do ever at all,
and then it turns into the little muffin top arborviding
where you just got the thing on the top and
then the bare branch is on the bottom. So here's
what I would recommend, A good dose of deer repellent,
even if you are doing the hedge in front of
it to try to deter it. A repellent is going
to help you so much, and very often, especially when
they're young, they're going to be even more appealing to deer.
When these plants are young, the growth is much more tender.
As they get more established in the landscape, they can
be slightly less appealing. But you know, really, once they
get you know, and once they find your arbor fighting,
it's pretty much over for them. And unfortunately, no plant
is dear kryptonite. It's not like you can put something
you know, that's like smelly or that they don't eat
in front of them and they'll go, oh, nope, not
going to bother. They'll still somehow sniff out those arbor viding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'll see people wrap them in burlap and
I'm like, then what's the point, Because it's just downright ugly. Right.
Speaker 2: Well, now, I will say there's a marina by me
that did wrap some very deer damaged arborvity over winter
and they really started to recover because what was happening
is that the deer were mostly eating them in winter
when the food sources were scarce, and they would kind
of go and move off for the summer. But one
winter they didn't do it. And now those things are
done because it's one of those things you have to
keep doing now with.
Speaker 1: The repellent, good quality repellent. Again, we mentioned this in
a previous show. I love Bobbex. It's something that comes
off the East Coast. No, they are not paying me
to say this. I just personally use it in my landscape.
I think it's a.
Speaker 2: Great You know, the best tip we can give you
for deer repellent is if it smells even remotely good
to you, it's not gonna work. If it smells foul
and you really worry that your dogs are gonna go
bananas when you spray it, it's probably the right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bobbys has chicken livers in it.
Speaker 2: Oh lovely appetize, Yes, indeed, so get something stinky, don't
fall for the minty fresh note that they like mint,
but it's not as much of a turn, especially over winter.
So if you've planted them me lessa make sure you're
protecting them, especially for their first winter, because that is
going to be a very crucial time for their long
term value in your land.
Speaker 1: Sha at the base Also yes, all right, Stacey Aki
writes to us. I live in Zone four in British Columbia, Canada.
I have several second year Canterbury bells. Some flour this year,
but most did not think they're going to flower next year.
Speaker 2: Stacy right, So interesting question. Canterbury bells is a type
of companiola also known as bellflower. Kind of an old
fashioned plant, but I feel like it is starting to
make a comeback. Yes, I know. Proven Winner's Perennials just
released a perennial companula a couple of years ago. A
line of perennial companilas very popular in England, but kind
of you know, not as well known here. But you
will notice that I said that Proven Winners introduced a
perennial companila, because not all companilas are true perennials. A
true perennial, of course, comes back from the same roots.
Year after year it has a crown and the growth
goes dormant in the fall, and then it will come
back up from that growth or from that crown the
following year. The ones known as Canterbury bells are actually biennials,
and a biennial, if you're not familiar with it, is
a plant that puts out a rosette, nothing but a
rosette for its first year, and then in the second
year it will shoot up those flower stocks. So hollyhocks
are a good example of a biennial. Most there are
some perennial hollyhocks, Lunaria, the little money plant that people grow, Verbascum,
the mullin that grows all over on our road sides.
You see that big rosette and then no flowers that year,
and it doesn't flower until the second year. So what
happens with a biennial. Most biennials are self sewing, So
when you buy that plant, typically it is in its
second year. Sometimes they will be in its first year,
so ready to flower. You get those flowers that first year,
it set seeds, those seeds drop, you get a rosette
next year, and then the following year you have flowers.
Now Eventually, after a couple seasons of self sewing, you
will end up with something that is always in flower.
But it takes a couple of life cycles. Sure to
have that second year.
Speaker 1: I immediately think of garlic mustard.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's another yeah, good example, bad example, but
a good example of a biennial. A bad example of
a plant to have in your garden. So not to worry.
Aki those plants that didn't flower this year will be
flowering for you next year. And make sure you're leaving
those seeds so you continue to build that population up
and you always have a fabulous population of cants to
enjoy their beautiful British Columbia. We're going to take a
little break when we come back. Apparently I'm giving a
hot take as we continue our discussion on house colors.
We'll talk to you then. Thanks for listening to the
Gardening Simplified Podcast, brought to you by Proven Winners Color
Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are
trialed and tested by experts with your success in mind.
Learn more at Proven Winners color Choice dot com.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we talk
about the color of your house. Of course, there are
many different types of architecture, many different types of colors
to choose from. But again, in choosing colors, well, choosing
colors for the house is pretty similar to choosing colors
for your landscape. You're going to look at the main color,
the trim color, and accent colors. You've got to consider
your neighborhood. Choose a color that compliments your surroundings without
being jarring. Consider the environment. Fun for me in my
neighborhood again, live on a cul de sac, so everybody
watches everybody else and neighbors talk. And one of my neighbors,
great guy, made the decision to change the color of
his His house was tan colored. He went to the
brightest turquoise.
Speaker 2: You wow. He was like, I'm sick of being the
tan guy. Yeah, I mean the turquoise guy.
Speaker 1: Was that the talk of the neighborhood or.
Speaker 2: What I'm good? Did they say good things or were
they like pearl clutching?
Speaker 1: It was actually it was mixed fifty.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, you know, I feel like out here
by the lake shore, it is much more common to
do those beachy, bright colors, even though they look a
little bit crazy in winter. It seems like that's a
very popular don't you do around here? Have that kind
of beechy vibe.
Speaker 1: I had a neighbor just down the road. Again, it
was a white home. Yeah, it was a white home.
He went with barn door red. I mean, and again
for some people it was like, hey, that's cool. Other
people were like, how can you do that to our neighborhood.
But then, of course he has choices to make as
far as plants are concerned, and whether it's plants or
the colors that you pick for your home, high contrast
works well, like if you pair dark sighting with a
light colored trim, that's so again, I guess I'm talking
about contrast, looking for contrast in the landscape, looking for
contrast with your colors. You of course can pick a
monochromatic look with a home. You could create visual interest
by using different textures on the same color siding and trim.
So we're looking at textures here. We did a show
on shades of green and using different foliage sizes and
textures match your roof. Ensure you're chosen sighting color or
the paint that you use complements your home's roof. And
trim so you get a cohesive design. I guess there
we're talking about repetition again in your landscape. When you
find a plant that works for you and the color
works really well, repeating it allows the eye to travel
across the landscape and makes it really comfortable, but sometimes stacy.
If you're picking out some plants to do this, you
got to experiment a little bit, and the worst thing
that can happen is you have to dig up the
plants and move them. I'm talking about color that's outside
of the foundational plants. It's kind of like throwing something
against the wall and seeing if.
Speaker 2: It sticks right. And it's a lot cheaper to move
the plant than to repaint your So so you know
that's a good option to have, is that you can
move things around. I think you can also, you know,
mitigate or manage color situations that you may not like
with more with different color. Sure, you know you can
add to it. You can have like some some white
usually works as a good blender in the landscape's silver foliage.
I mean, there's not a lot of white foliage here.
We can get variegated plants, of course, and you know
you can kind of use that to sort of blend
it in. But I like what you said about repetition,
and you don't have to repeat the same plant. If
you pick a color that you really like, yes, you
are then able to reiterate that through your landscape in
foliage plants and in flowers and in stems and in
garden accessories like containers and things like that. So you
aren't just saying, okay, like you know, red is my color,
so red rose is all around. You can then take
that red and find some red foliage like Kodiak red
dur villa. And you can also add something that is
red in the fall, really great full color like an erronia.
And so you have these multiple layers of interest and
again that helps you to narrow down the plant selection
so much. You know how many times I don't need
to ask you, did you see someone standing there in
their shrub section, just you know, with a glazed look
in their eyes? Think, you know, bring the colors with you,
Take a picture of your house, have it on your phone,
and use that to guide your decisions, you bet.
Speaker 1: And super important make sure that you put annuals into
the mix, because it gives you that flexibility I mentioned earlier.
How much I love that combination of blue and pink,
and that pink plays well with other colors. So for
the spring, summer, early fall period, if you can add
truffle of pink, gumphrina, bubblegum, super tunias, that sort of thing,
the ohso easy red or pink roses, You're so right, Stacey.
It doesn't have to be the same plan, but pick
up those colors and then use them in the landscape.
Speaker 2: I love what you said about annuals because if you
are someone who is not super confident in your ability
to combine colors, which again, this is completely subjective, so
there's no objective like you did this wrong straight to
plant jail is it is your own personal taste. But
annuals are such a great color laboratory. Yes, for you
to start experimenting with combining colors, and you know, it's
low stakes. If you combine some annuals and you're like, whoa,
that is just too garish for me. It was one season,
so what you know, not a big deal. Or you
can separate the plants so they're not clashing or whatever.
But that's really I think where you make those discoveries
about what colors really work in the landscape. What colors
you really like and what colors do you want to
bring through your landscape to improve it and improve that
curb appeal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're going to make some mistakes, but you're also
going to make some really great discoveries, like wow, look
at me go. And that's why I say throwing something
against the wall and seeing if it sticks. It's like
when I make spaghetti and I cooked the pasta, I
always throw a little on the ceiling.
Speaker 2: I remember those commercials. Ye say that, but my mom
and ever let me do that for good reason.
Speaker 1: For good reason. Yes, So if you're gonna paint, look
this up. This is interesting, Stacy most popular exterior colors.
If you're painting, we talked about vinyl siding, stucco, that
sort of thing. But if you're going to paint alabaster,
a warm off white, white, dove white with hints of gray, tricorn,
which is a true black. Again, we go back to black,
and is black a neutral color?
Speaker 2: I mean, I will say that I do love the
idea of a black house. I think way too many
people are painting their brick black and again taking that
inherently beautiful, low maintenance material in bring it into a
high maintenance material, because once you paint, you can't go back.
But you know, the black trend I think does derive
from a practice that is popular in Scandinavia where they
would side with burned wood. Okay, so and those are beautiful,
you can look them up, just absolutely gorgeous and I
you know, obviously not necessarily practical and very high cost,
so not something that the average person can do. But
I think that the black paint is to some extent
a desire to get that same kind of look. But
I think as far as plants, I think if you
have a black house, it's very important to choose plants
that bring life and bring light and movement into there
because it can look like a kind of a black
hole in the landscape. So you know, that doesn't mean
you have to go totally to the you know, extreme
and plant like bright yellow everything, but you know, purples,
pinks like something like that that really helped to bring
that life well.
Speaker 1: And like we talked about in the backdrop show, I
truly believe that green pops on black.
Speaker 2: Oh it definitely does.
Speaker 1: And there are so many different shades of green, and
we can go to chartreuse all different types of green.
You put that against black, and that is I don't know,
it just looks rich to me. It looks very very stylish.
Other popular paint colors were Pewter, which is a cool
muted tone of gray, Polar Bear Classic well a cool
white tone, Peppercorn gray, which I think very pretty, and
peppercorn gray is going to look almost like those worn,
weathered cedar shakes on the East Coast. And I love
that pool House, which is a mediumish light blue paint
Naval dark blue. I love that grayish, so blending gray
and beige. Right, if you can't make up your mind,
maybe some grange. And then iron Ore, which is a
really dark gray that looks almost charcoal black. So many
many different choices, Stacy, I think the gray and mud
red combination is beautiful. I think pink and cobalt blue
super beautiful. And then if you have a light yellow home,
I really think that green plants are going to be
super important because again, green plants are going to really
stand out well against a light yellow home. And I
do love the look of a yellow home and using
that color in the landscape. But when you decide to
use it, then you do have some decisions to make
as far as plant.
Speaker 2: Materials, So yeah, definitely, And all this talk has kind
of made me realize something we didn't really address is
choosing your pink colors based on your plants that are
already in your land escape. So say, for example, you
have a fabulous established plant. You know, is there something
about that plant it's you know, it's flowers, it's fall foliage,
or maybe it's regular foliage. Is there something in that
that can help you inform your color choices for your house.
So you're working with what you already have and not
against it.
Speaker 1: I like that. You know what works really well with
yellow is mahogany brown. So if you have some trees,
you have some of that brown in your landscape, that's
a great way to go. Also, I like black forest green,
So it is a green that is so dark it
almost feels black.
Speaker 2: That's my favorite color, is it?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: I love it. My earrings are actually that color.
Speaker 1: They are Wow. You practice what you preach.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic that color too.
Speaker 1: So is your hot take that just don't paint brick?
Is that where your hot take is? You just don't
like that?
Speaker 2: I mean, I just it breaks my heart to see
people take an inherently high quality, low maintenance material and
turn it into what looks like a lower quality material
that is then high maintenance. You know, the brick needs
to breathe, and it costs a bunch of money to
sand blast it off. To try to get back to
that original is not necessarily feasible, especially if you have plants,
because then the plants are going to get damaged. And
you know it, really, it really breaks my heart to
see so so many people. Of course, everyone can do
with their house what they will, but it just boggles
my mind that you could have a material like brick
that never needs anything really hardly at all, never needs painting, right,
How great would that be? And you paint it so
it needs painting? Yes, but you just like spending money,
you know. I don't get it. But anyway, everyone has
their own taste. That's what makes the world go around,
you got it.
Speaker 1: I love that talking about being plant specific as far
as the color on your home is concerned. I just
want to quickly mention Stacy, I was looking at it
coming into the studio today. Also, many homes utilize white trim,
I mean classic styling. You have a gray home with
white trim, or a blue home with white trim, the
incredible storm proof. Yeah, and looking at that plant and
how that would perform in a landscape and tie in
the trim of the house. I don't have any. I
gotta go get some.
Speaker 2: That is a classic choice. And you know what, it's
one of those looks that just kind of gives you
that like cottage or country garden kind of vibe. It's
such a popular landscaping plant for that exact reason, and
it's one of those things you just can't go wrong
with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well, I'm inspired. This has been a
colorful show.
Speaker 2: I hope you're inspired to plant plants and not repaint
your house because that'll be expensive.
Speaker 1: Plant plant and I re roofed it, so that's oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're locked in for a while except for those plants. Well, yes,
that was a great conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank you Rick, thank you Stacy.
Speaker 2: Thank you Adriana, and thanks so much to all of
you for listening. We truly appreciate it, and no people
wonderfull wak ahead