Speaker 1: Broadcasting from Studio A. Here at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs.
It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella, me,
Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well,
consider the potsibilities and Stacy, I did not come up
with that pun. It was one of our listeners who
came up with that.
Speaker 2: Is.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about container gardening today and when
you container garden, you're putting a plant on a pedestal
for all to see. We're going to break that down
for you today and have your flowers gone to pot. Well,
maybe that's a good thing, because some plants are better
in containers than in the ground. And I should mention
probably Stacey right off the bat as we talk about
putting together your beautiful containers for this year, going to
Proven Winner's website and looking at the recipe ideas. These
are not ideas that someone just conjured up in a
room and penciled down, but rather these are vetted and
trialed recipes. A great place for many people to stop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are so many recipes. I am truly in
awe of how many they've created and what really makes
those recipes different. You know, they're for garden centers as
well as for home gardeners to use in their own inspiration.
But what Proven Winners does is they take the vigor
rating of each plant, and they pair plants together so
that there's not like three super vigorous different plants that
are constantly competing and constantly overgrowing each other. You can
have one vigorous plant and you have to position it
away from the less vigorous plants. And less vigorous isn't bad.
It just means it doesn't grow as fast or take over.
So it's really about that balance. And you know, people
like me just do it by trial and error. And
I have kind of gone mostly to doing mono containers.
Oh okay, mostly because I do like the looks. So
I'm on containers just a container with one plant in it,
not a big fabulous combination, partly because I do like
the look, and partly because my containers are on the
small side. My collection has just kind of turned out
to be a little bit on the smaller side, you know,
like fourteen inches and smaller, so they don't necessarily make
for great pairings. Even though I've tried that for many years,
I've found myself feeling a little disappointed by the end
of the season. So I just go for one big,
super showy thriller in each container and call it today.
Speaker 1: Interesting. We'll talk about that today, because there is nothing
wrong with just putting one plant in a pot. Of course,
monochromatic colors also today there are so many different fabulous
containers that you can pick from that if you picked
the monochromatic color for your scheme, sometimes the container can
be the star of the show. So these are all
things to keep in mind. And you're right, Stacey, I
have my personal recipe that I like to use. I
love to use the salvia blue suede shoes as the
thriller in a container. It's worked out really well for me.
And have some pictures for folks on YouTube of the
hummingbirds coming to my blue suede shoes. And of course
my theory, Stacey, and that is colorful foliage that you
get from colius or from heart to heart kalladiums combined
with let's say a plant like kufia, they almost act
as a colorful billboard attracting humming birds to your landscape.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I pick pretty much all of my
container plantings on two things. Do they attract hummingbirds or
are they edible? If those two things can be combined,
great case of maybe nasturtium, let's say. But for the
most part that those are my qualifications that I need
to decide if I'm going to grow something in a container.
And all of us have different, you know, sort of
qualifications that we use. And yeah, but you know, attracting
hummingbirds is so important to me because when I sit
on my back patio there and you know, all of
the plants are in full bloom, and hummingbirds are coming
and feeding like you know, five inches from your knee
because they're just so entranced by all of the flowers.
I mean, that is just a highlight of the season
right there.
Speaker 1: I agree it's thrilling. So here's a simple formula for
a sixteen inch container. Let's go with a sixteen inch
container to have a thriller in the center, two to
three fillers around that thriller, and then two to three
spillers around the edge, maybe five or six plants. That's
going to be a packed container. But it takes the
approach thriller, filler, spiller or focal filler Edger trailer working
from the center out and stacy. For me, I have
to admit that one of the fa favorite things for
me and planting up containers usually ends up being the
thriller in the center.
Speaker 2: I agree completely. I mean to me, that's kind of
what it all gets based around. That kind of determines
you know, which container you're going to use, what color
of the you know, filler and spiller you're going to use,
and all of that. Of course, it can happen another way.
You can find something else, a spiller that you really
like and build back from that. But yeah, I find
that I'm always planning around those thrillers. And like I said,
I've learned my lesson. I've definitely tried to cram a
lot of things into a container, and you know, they
do pretty okay. It's not like I'm like left with
nothing or I regret it. It's just that I have
found I prefer to let those thrillers really get big,
to use all of that container space and just be
you know, over the top, rather than share the stage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think your approach with containers should be
that you can take some risks and this is not
a long term commitment. If it crashes and burns, we
can have a do over. Yeah, it's pretty easy to do.
And that's the great thing about containers. Make sure that
we have a drainage hole. That's probably one of the
most important things if you're going to container. Garden and
potting mix specially designed for containers. It's light and fluffier
than garden soil, so it drains the water but still
holds moisture and nutrients, provides air pockets for the roots,
stays nice and light and fluffy. I looked at a
quote from a greenhouse here in West Michigan. I love
the way they put this. Think of potting mix as
the five star hotel for plant roots, while garden soil
is more like sleeping on the ground in a tent.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's very I feel like it's gotten
really difficult for people to choose what to use at
the garden center because there are just so many options.
You know, back in the day, you could see like, Okay,
there was garden soil, there was potting soil, and that
was it. And so you're saying, Okay, if it's going
in the garden, I use the garden soil. If it's
going in a container. I'm using the potting mix. But
now it's not like that anymore. Now there's raised bed
soil and garden soil it. You know, it's just like
there's all of these crazy names, and the thing is
you have to look at the ingredients. You have to
flip that bag over and look at what's in it.
And potting mixes, regardless of whether they say potting mix
or potting soil or who knows what on the front,
they should contain no actual soil. And that's kind of
a crazy thing for people because they think, oh, you know,
I still do use the term potting soil, even though
I try not to. I try to, you know, practice
what I preach, heer and say potting mix. But you know,
if you have any actual soil, actual weathered earth material
in that, yeah, it totally. It makes it heavy. It
messes with the drainage. It's harder for roots to grow
in there in the container environment. So you want that
nice fluffy container mixed potting mix. But you know what
else has happened in the last like ten or fifteen years.
They stopped shipping a lot of containers with drainage already
drilled out. Yeah, they don't have any drainage in them already.
And a lot of people, especially people who are new
to gardening, they're buying this container at the garden center
a store and they're thinking, okay, well, I'm ready to go.
They don't realize, you know, they don't print on the
bottom of the container like drill out holes or anything,
and they expect you to just know this. And this
is super crucial. You cannot grow in a container without
a drainage hole unless you're growing a water garden, and
you will have a water garden like it or not.
If you're growing a container without a drainage hole.
Speaker 1: With plastic pots, you'll see an area where you can
pop out the open up the drainage hole with a screwdriver.
But yeah, so important and a captain obvious statement. Larger
containers hold more soil. But that's significant because usually the
more soil the better. At least your odds of success
are going to increase. But still, drainage is important. Potting
soil is expensive, and I can show you the Dutch
side of me. With smaller pots, I won't reuse the soil,
I'll dump it out. But in larger pots. I'll amend
the soil and try and get two to three years
out of it. But that's just the Dutch side of me.
And then you have all these people who dummy up
the bottom of a container using styrofoam balls or broken pots.
One thing through the years that I've seen a lot
of people use are those pool noodles. Oh yeah, yeah,
in the bottom of a big pot, so that you
don't have to invest as much in soil, but don't
go cheap on the soil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I agree. I am a huge proponent
of reusing potting soil, not the least bit Dutch, but
for me, it really is from an environmental reuse standpoint.
You know, I don't want to throw all that away
because that's a problem and it is organic matter and
it will eventually decompose. But I'm going to conserve my
investment in that material. I'm going to reuse it. And yeah,
I just dump it all out. I stir in, mix
in a bunch of bags of compost or compost a
maneure or anything like that to add some nice rich
organic matter back in and to stretch it. Because I
don't know about you, but somehow every year I have
more containers. I don't even buy more containers.
Speaker 1: They grow.
Speaker 2: They grow. Yeah, Like, I don't even say, Okay, I'm
going to get more containers. I just sort of end
up with more containers, you know. Like this year, I'm
doing something different. I am using some hanging baskets on
the corner of my vegetable garden. I'm fixing them somehow.
Don't ask me how, because I haven't figured this out yet,
but I will to the top of the posts of
the vegetable garden and I'm planting them with nasturtiums to
trail down. And I'm super excited about it. But hey,
guess what, that's four more big containers I know I
have to fill. So it's important to me to stretch.
Speaker 1: That the things we pot up with, right, Yeah, exactly. Wow. Well,
coming up in segment four, we'll talk about some combinations
some favorite plants for containers. Let me end this segment
with the limb a rick. You're putting plants on a pedestal.
It's the pride cometh before the Fall Limb a Rick
or the continued Adventures of Old ned Old Neds Gardening
skills are self taught. He diligently works his plot. Although
you may scoff old Ned's now a show off as
his plantings have gone to pot. Aside from his plot
that is edible, he has floral pots that are incredible.
Come here, look see Old neds become artsy putting all
his plants on a pedestal. To his neighbors. He's an entertainer.
Their amusement is a no brainer, because when unrehearsed, he
trips falls head first in the center of his container.
I'll have to talk about broken pots in segment for two.
I've seen many of them in my day. Coming up next,
plants on trial. That's next here on the Gardening Simplified.
Speaker 2: Show, beautify your home and community with proven Winn'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. You're Reading's Gardening friends,
and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we
were talking all about containers. Just in time for Mother's Day,
partly because mom loves a container, and you can, of
course buy her a ready made container. You can plant
up your own container for her with your specially selected
container and plants. Hanging basket is also a container. But
whatever you're doing. You know, when we were on break
just a moment ago, Adriana made an excellent point that
I know a lot of the ladies in the audience
will appreciate. She said that a container without a drainage
hole is like pants with fake or no pockets. And
you know, we can't have that anymore, Like I mean,
we boycott those things. So it's the same way, like
you know, you can have a little container water garden,
but you do have to realize, no, there's no amount
of broken pottery shards, there's no amount of pool noodles,
milk cartons, who knows what that You can put in
the bottom of a ceramic pot with no drainage and
make it suitable for anything but plants that love money.
So let's just get that out of the way right now.
But I'm a huge container gardener. I love it. I'm
like I said, I mostly grow edibles or you know,
hummingbird plants in my containers because they're around me and
use the ground for other things. But we hear from
so many people here at priven Winter's Color Choice Shrubs
about can I grow X in a container? And you know, hey,
we do our jobs. We sit there, we talk about
our plants on social media, and you know, we have
our ads that a lot of our listeners have probably seen.
And I know they're doing their job because then people,
you know, write to us and say, oh, gee, I
saw this at it looks really great. I want this plant.
I don't want to make beds. I maybe don't have
space for any more beds, but I really really want
this plant. And so the container is kind of the
natural choice for those of us who have maybe maxed
out ter space or are just looking to you know,
try something out or want something decorative.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, there's so many great choices, Stacey. Even if you
look at a category like perennials, the Hugh Curros, the Tirrellas,
the Virginia small hostas, all of those plants are fabulous
in containers.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, the simple fact is when people say
can I grow X in a container? The answer is
pretty much always yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are really very few things that you
can't grow in a container as long as you have
reasonable expectations of what the plant is going to look
like and do, and that you consider the conditions that
you have for the plant to grow in. That's really
the key here.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: You know, I've used this example over and over on
the show, but I really think it's so vivid. A
ginko tree in nature will reach up to one hundred
feet at least fifty I mean, they're massive trees right right,
and yet you will very often see ginkos as a
bone side tree. So if you can take a one
hundred foot tall ginko tree and cram it into a
bone side container that's like this big, you know, like
the size of like a jewelry box, then yes, of
course you can grow a hydrangea or whatever in a container,
but you have to understand that it is going to
have a dwarfing effect on any of these plants. So
the example in the bone side is that if you
restrict a plant's root room, which is what's going to
happen when it's being grown in a container, it will
respond by restricting top growth. So that is what kind
of makes all of this possible. So you do have
to realize let's just say that what you want to
grow in a container is an arborviding. You want to
have like a little container privacy hedge because you have
a condo or an apartment or something like that. Well,
you know, you may look at say green giant arborviting.
You know, one of the most popular arborvids out there
is not going to be a giant for you. It
might reach you know, five seven feet depending on the
size that you put in it. So you need to
have those reasonable expectations. And you know, speaking of expectations,
I don't think I laid out what the plant on
trial today is.
Speaker 1: No, you haven't yet.
Speaker 2: The plant on trial today is shrubs and containers. Oh
and what you need to know what makes a shrub
or a perennial because really all of these things that
I'm about to say translate just as well for perennials
and even for trees.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people are more willing to take that risk today. Yes,
and then you have all these new cultivars available also,
you know, cascading hydranges. Yeah, I think that they have revolutionized.
Speaking of Mother's Day, the whole Mother's Day market, Oh.
Speaker 2: My gosh, they have, I you know, we have really
We knew they were amazing plants when we saw them
the very trail broadcascad hydrangeas years ago, and we were
so excited to be able to bring them to the US.
But they have just taken off and just have a
life of their own and are so beautiful and so
popular and are really abundant right now in garden centers.
So anyway, so you can grow, yes, almost any perennial
or shrub in a container, as long as you have
reasonable expectations and as long as you have the right conditions. Now,
I do want to get this out of the way first.
A couple of plants that generally don't make a great
choice in containers are those that are very prone to
producing runners. Runners and suckering plants generally don't grow well
in a container. And any fellow herb gardener who has
gotten the apparently brilliant idea to just say, well, I'll
control my mint by growing in a container, the mint's
like not. Uh, mint does not grow well in a container,
goes way too well in the ground because it does
have that suckering running. But if you try to restrict
mint to a container, it's going to be like, nope,
I'm not growing at all. There is no middle ground
for me. It's all or nothing. And that's true of
certain shrubs and perennials that are again really really known
to sucker. So I'm thinking of things like maybe idea,
which is a suckering shrub, anything like that that's kind
of really reproducing our erronia would be another option. So
you do want to kind of rule those out, but
really just about anything else. So whether people think that
if you live in a cold climate, a shrub or
perennial's ability to withstand winter cold is the single biggest consideration.
Speaker 1: Which is true because we have the root system above ground.
Speaker 2: That is true. But I have to say, in my
many years when I was a rooftop gardener, all we
did was containers. I mean true, they were massive containers.
They weren't like you know, the home containers. I have
seen far less damage from exposure to cold around those
roots than from poor drainage. Again, I would agree, and
it's really poor drainage during periods of cold weather that
are going to be especially detrimental to plants growing in
a container. And I've talked about this before. But really
what happens is we have this ice cube effect in
a container. If we live in a cold climate, the
whole volume of the container freezes, and then when spring
comes and it starts to thaw, it thaws from the
outside in. So the weather's starting to get warmer, it's
not snowing anymore, it's raining, and you have this container
that has like, you know, maybe two inches of thaw
around the outside and a big old ice cube in
the center, and the water's not getting through that ice cube,
and that really causes it to back up. So I
think the bigger consideration here is a plant's ability to
withstand challenging conditions. And there are a number of plants
that we already know can withstand really really challenging conditions.
So it's not so much about, oh, you know, there
is the sort of old adage that you pick a
plant for a container that's two zones hardier than the
one that you're in. I think if you do that,
you are depriving yourself of so many potential options, because really,
again it's not usually the cold. It really is usually
that that water freezing up size is the other one. Now,
I will say, if you're growing most perennials or shrubs
unless they are a very dwarf variety, you are looking
for containers that are probably in the sixteen inch plus range.
Speaker 1: Sixteen at a minimum in mild.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, at a minimum, and even then you
know it's going to stay pretty small. The reason that
you want this size, even though I've just made the
example about the bone size, is because what you don't
know about growing bone size is that bone size growers
water their plants like three times a day. It is
not a set it and forget it type of situation.
And most of us, when it comes to growing shrubs
and trees and perennials in our gardens, are not going
to be willing to give that kind of water. So
when we, you know, try to grow a shrub, perennilar
tree in a container that's too small, we are making
a watering nightmare for ourselves because there is simply not
enough volume of soil to support the water needs to
hold onto the water needs for the roots. And in fact,
that is one of the signs if you have a
really difficult time keeping your container adequately watered, one of
the signs that it's time to move it to a
bigger container to take it out and root print it
and put it back in that container or move it
out into the landscape. So really we're not talking about
what's possible, we're talking about what is feasible for most
of us who live in the modern day world and
don't devote ourselves to watering, you know, a fifty year
old bone side. We just want a nice shrub and
a container to enjoy on our patio. So we are
looking at bigger containers. Yet sixteen inch, I would say,
is a bare minimum. You don't have to go to
like one of those huge, massive, like concrete municipal answers
that your city has, you know, in the park. But
I would say you're looking probably more in the twenty
to twenty six inch range for the most part, to
really let the plant come into its own and to
be decorative. And that is the other consideration is, you know,
since you are devoting this real estate and this money,
you know, with the container and the soil and the
care and all of that, is the plant actually decorative
enough to merit this place, to merit this real estate.
And that's a difficult question to answer because we all
have our own you know, versions of that, and if
we live in an apartment or a condo or something
like that, we might say, well, this is worth it
because this is the only way I can grow, say
a lilac.
Speaker 1: Right. The advantage of annual containers is we're pretty well
assured they're going to be blooming their heads off exactly
all season long. So as far as the size of
that container is concerned, Stacy, I'd leave a little room
for some mulch at the base too.
Speaker 2: Malta is going to be your BFF as a container grower,
because you want to protect that surface and minimize water
are evaporating from it. So do consider those decorative issues.
Is this plant giving you enough for what you have
to give it? And you know, there's a couple ways
around that. I want to say, just before we take
a break. You can mix it with annuals. If it's
a big enough container, you can plant annuals around the
size to kind of judge things up a little bit.
And especially if it's an evergreen, you can also think
about putting lights on it, which might be a really
really nice thing to do if you are an apartment
or condo and need that little extra atmosphere so you
know we're always looking at how we can make again
that payoff worth our investment. So there is some food
for thought on shrubs, perennials and trees in a container.
We are going to take a little break when we
come back. We're opening up the mail bags, so police say.
Teamed at Proven Winner's 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. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we're talking all
about containers, but taking a brief respite from that to
answer your garden questions, quandaries and conundrums. And I know
they are abundant as the season comes on and you
know most of us have probably done our garden cleanup
and I'm wondering is this coming back? Is this not
coming back? And I have to say, even though spring
was pretty early for us here in West Michigan, a
lot of things are definitely taking their sweet time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and a lot of things were knocked back
by what I'm gonna call a polar vortex winter. So
same thing in my landscape, a little.
Speaker 2: Slow out of the yeah, So don't panic if certain
things in your landscape aren't showing signs of life just yet.
Had a warm spring at first, and it's not being
kind of cool for all.
Speaker 1: The winter's back, Yes.
Speaker 2: Not quite winter, but you know it's it's definitely cool
and slow. So patience, as always is what we need
as gardeners, even though it's a lot easier to recommend
to you than to follow myself. So if you have
a gardening question for us, you are always welcome to
reach out to us. Our website is Gardening Simplified on
air dot com. There is a contact form right there
that you can use to send us an email. And
please do be aware that, of course we can't answer
all of your questions and only some are suitable for
air because we have such limited time which I am
now currently taking up by talking to you about how
we have limited time, but we do care about your success,
and so you can also reach out to us at Provenwinters,
color Choice dot com and one of our horticultures will
get you a personalized response very quickly because we do
care very much about your gardening success. So, Rick, what
do we got in the mail bag?
Speaker 1: Judy rights to us. I planted two El Nino chetalpas.
This will be their third season. One has a full
vay shape, the other one is just one stalk about
eight feet tall. A few leaves at the top is
all it's ever done. I feel like I need to
print it, but would love some instruction. I'm in the
Texas Hill Country, Zone eight B. I hope you can
see the leaves at the tip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she sent a picture. So what Judy has
here is I'm guessing. Because these plants are so uneven
in the way that they're growing, I believe that she
probably started with two small mail order plants rather than
plants from the garden center. And when you buy the
small one court premium Winer's Colored Choice shrubs via mail order,
you're getting a plant that basically we would have sent
to a grower for that grower to grow on in
trim multiple times, whereas if you buy it the garden center,
that work is already done. You have a nice full plant.
Whereas so if you're buying the small ones online you
need to put a little bit of that work in yourself.
And what happens when a grower trains a plant or
grows a plant for sale, they're trimming it multiple times.
Many of them are trimming it through the season as
many times as the growth will allow. Why because when
you trim a plant, when you take off that top,
it branches out below it, and that's what gives you
that nice full look. So I think that what happened
with Judy's here is that it just didn't get trimmed,
and so you have one main growth. They're just getting
taller and taller and taller, and it's not allowing any
of that side or lower growth to come out and
give you that nice full plant. Well, fortunately, you really
cannot go wrong pruiting on the inyo chatalpa. This thing
is a beast. So despite the fact that it's now
made and you are in a warm climate, if it's blooming,
you can wait till it's done blooming to do this.
If it hasn't started blooming yet, you can do it now.
I would go ahead and shop that eight foot broomstick
down to I don't know, a foot two feet.
Speaker 1: I agree have had it with the El Nino in
my yard. I have pruned it and it's really nicely branched. Now.
I think it's all about taking out that terminal bud
stacey and forcing the plant to think to grow.
Speaker 2: Awards absolutely so it will resolve itself very quickly once
you do that pruning. But yeah, you have to remove
that terminal bud. And again this is just a matter
of starting with a smaller plant versus one that the
growers have pruned. And for those of you who have
El Nino that are maybe just growing just fine, you
never have to worry about whacking this plant back. It
is such a beast. It can easily withstand super heavy pruning.
The only thing you want to watch out for, of course,
is if it has flower buds. You want to enjoy
those flower buds and the fabulous fragrance rather than just
cut them off. But even if you're pruning this in
the summer, as long as it's not too late in
the summer will recover. It will be just fine. This
plant can absolutely take it.
Speaker 1: You bet prone aggressively. Sandy writes, Hi, there, I just
purchased a two gallon pot fairy trail Bride hydrangen, and
I'm wondering if the foliage will get darker as it
matures or with more sun. The one I bought has
medium to light green foliage. And as I mentioned Stacey,
in the greenhouse this spring, I've seen that cascade hydranges. Boy,
they're all the things.
Speaker 2: They are, and they are so beautiful. And it's not
totally unusual for a plant after it's newly purchased to
have foliage that isn't the same as when it's outdoors.
When plants are grown in greenhouse conditions what we call
in the industry grown under polly. That blocks out some
of the wavelengths of the sun's light, and very often
the result is that the foliage color is not as
full and as rich as it would be when it
has the full UV spectrum once it is outdoors. So
typically what's going to happen here is that once you
get that plant outside in some full sunlight, it will
naturally green up as it increases its chlorophyll production. If
it doesn't, it could be you know, obviously it's a
lot of a plant's energy to bloom as much as
a fairy trail bride cascade hydrangea does, So it could
be that it could use a little bit of a
fertilizer just to green up, even though you know, undermost conditions,
the growers will have fertilized this thing, you know, amply.
But I also wanted to mention this in terms of
people who are at garden centers right now and are
looking at plants that have either purple or yellow or
variegated foliage, and you know, they're maybe looking at the
plant tag and saying, well, shoot, this says that it
has purple foliage, and the plant in front of me
here is kind of green. Now, this happens a lot.
One plant that comes to mind where I've seen this
happen very often is black lace elderberry, one of our
best sellers. All of these plants, again, they can't fully
produce all of those nice pigments indoors when they're being
grown by the grower. Even if they're not indoors indoors
they're in a quantit hut. They have plastic over them.
That does reduce their ability to produce those pigments. So
what you see in the garden center is not necessarily incorrect.
It does not mean that it's a dud, and it's
not going to color up once it's in your landscape.
It just means that it needs the sun. Also very
true if you're ordering by mail, because a couple days
in a box, in a closed off box before it
reaches you is also going to degrade those pigments. So
not to worry. Get it outside in the full sun,
and within weeks everything will return to exactly what you expect.
I think it's not.
Speaker 1: A pigment of your imagination. Great share rights to us.
What is going on with these arborviti? Why all of them?
Are they saveable?
Speaker 2: Yes? So for our YouTube viewers you're looking at this.
For our non YouTube viewers, what we're talking about is
a row of arborvid looks like mushrooms, very very large
overgrown mushrooms.
Speaker 1: They're very interesting.
Speaker 2: They're very interesting. So the top is green and kind
of mushroom shaped, and then the bottom is brown and
just like a stem. And what you have seen their
share is complements of the deer that is a deer
pruning job on arbor viting.
Speaker 1: And I see them everywhere. I call them deer topiaries.
Speaker 2: That's a great name for them, because that's pretty much
exactly what they are.
Speaker 1: We have some people who like that. Look can they
come in the garden center asking, no, you got some
of those deer topiaries? They do not jewel.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't think so. But I'll tell you what. Now
that you're hearing this from us on the Gardening Simplified Show,
you probably will drive around and see these everywhere and
know exactly what has happened. So yeah, what you'll see
is that this happens basically at deer height. They love
arborviti so much that they will just eat everything that
they can possibly reach within raisin and then what they
can't reach grows and is green and is totally unscathed.
Now you're asking are they saveable? Which is a great question,
and probably years ago I would have told you no.
But I did see something very interesting happen near me
where we have a lot of deer here in West Michigan.
There is a marina that had a bunch of arbor
idy planted along the road and the deer, of course,
just were destroying them. And for a couple of years
every winter they had a landscape company come out and
wrap them in burlap. And I could not believe, if
I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, how much
they were covered as a result of just being physically
barriered off from the deer. Every spring they would start
to recover, they would grow, and the deer didn't really
bother them so much in the summer when there's of
course plenty of foods elsewhere. Yeah, and they did. They
managed to come back in a way that I that
really truly shocked me. So it is possible, but you
do have to keep up on it, because one year
they didn't call a landscape company and now those harbor
viiety are right back to where they used to be. Yes,
So yes, by covering them, especially in winter. You can
use deer repellent now if you wish, but obviously there's
nothing for them to eat, but cover them in winter
to protect the growth that they're going to be putting
on this spring. In this summer, just some burlapp will
work great. You know deer repellent or you know deer deterrent.
You'll have to keep reapplying through the season so that
burlap seem to work great. Wrap it around the parts
that they can reach. Do that every year, and yeah,
they absolutely have a chance at returning, although since you
are signing up for a long term maintenance job, you
might also just want to replace them with something that
is deer resistant.
Speaker 1: So or enjoy the topiaries and accept compliments on their robust.
Speaker 2: Run, or that we're going to take a little break
when we come back. We're continuing our conversation on container growing,
so please see didn't 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. As we talk
about planting up your containers, Stacey, I wanted to mention
right off the bat here that well, some food for thought,
feed your containers. That's my opinion. Whenever I plant up
my containers, I'll use a granular fertilizer when I put
the plants in the ground, then I supplement with a
water soluble fertilizer. I love the proven Winners fertilizers because
they have not only the major nutrients in them, but
they have the micro nutrients. So I'll feed with granular
at the outset and then supplement with water soluble. I
also love to try to restore or claim broken pot
I'll sink broken pots into the ground and use them
as containers as such, or if I have an old,
worn out container like I do right now, a large
square pot it's kind of falling apart, I go to
the hardware store or lumber store, pick up some cedar planks,
build a box around it, and I get a few
more years out of it.
Speaker 2: Now, from your years in the garden center, you know,
you used to sell a lot of pottery tons, So
like what percentage would arrive damaged?
Speaker 1: I would say probably three three four percent arrived damaged.
Then as you process it, you damage some more. And
I'll tell you what, Ceramic pottery can be very very dangerous.
I have seen many injuries and myself cut my hand
on ceramic pottery. Yeah, it's so you have to be
careful in handling it, and not everybody can handle ceramic potter.
Speaker 2: Heavy it is. And you know, I always rear gardening
gloves when I'm bringing mine up from the basement to
the upstairs, just so I get that extra little grip,
because that's you know, moving those ceramic pots. It's one
of those things that you think, oh, I got this,
and then you get like halfway from your storage point
to your outdoor destination and you're like, I don't got this.
Speaker 1: Drop one on your foot and you're gonna feel it
for a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you'll feel the impact in your pocketbook when
you break one of your expensive containers. So they are fragile.
I mean, they're beautiful, and I you know, almost all
of my containers are single color ceramic containers. I love it.
But it's interesting to know that, you know, there's that
kind of amount of breakage just you know, just because
they are fragile and they move around.
Speaker 1: They're heavy and fragile.
Speaker 2: Yes, not a great combination.
Speaker 1: That's why I keep a two wheel cart in my shed.
Some people would refer to it as a dolly to
be able to move stuff like that around, especially as
I get older and really don't care to try and
impress anyone that I can pick that. Now we talked
about thriller, filler, spiller. Good thriller choices include, in my opinion,
tall grasses like the fountain grass, skyrocket. I love using skyrocket,
two can cannas, Drsina plants or cordellines. I love anything
that's tropical as my thriller. In the center of a
container tall Salvius, meteor shower, verbina, some shrubs, maybe a
shrub like Bobo Bobo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was. I was going to make
Bobo the plant on trial today because years ago, many
many years ago, when I was first started here, when
Bobo first came out, we had a very very large
container with a Bobo Hydrangea in it, planted with Vista
supertunia vista bubblegum around it. And man, the people were
just like, I want to know exactly how to do
this exact container. People just absolutely loved it.
Speaker 1: Another thriller. I love Alocasia emerald Isle. That may be
my favorite. This one's fabulous and I can grow it
in shade or sun hibiscus. You know, you could consider the.
Speaker 2: Hollywood Hollywood hibsius.
Speaker 1: Such make a great thrillers.
Speaker 2: Such a great container plant, especially for those of us
in cold climates. Who that is really our only way
to grow it. But even if you live in a
warm climate and you're just planting on your patio, it
makes a great choice there because these things bloom all
summer long with big, super colorful flowers that stick straight
out rather than hang down, so you can really enjoy
that face, a beautiful face of the hibiscus. You know,
even if I could grow tropical hibiscus in a landscape,
I think I would still grow it in a container. Yeah,
so I could engage with it more and really enjoy
those flowers.
Speaker 1: Agree, majesty palm or a phoenix, Robellini palm, date palm,
love palms as thrillers and containers vines, especially if you
have a support in the center so that the vine
can go vertical. And we haven't mentioned yet to day
crossbine dressed to thrill that maybe that's something.
Speaker 2: That could be that could be an interesting choice for sure.
Speaker 1: Graceful grasses prints tut the dwarf Egyptian papyrus. That's a
great one too.
Speaker 2: Now that's one that you could grow in a container with.
Speaker 1: No draak, no drainage holes.
Speaker 2: You could So we have found you've found a plant here.
If you have one of those fabulous containers with no
drainage holes and you don't want to drill them, which
you probably don't want to drill an a ceramic container anyway,
any of the proven winners tut papyrus will work great
in that container.
Speaker 1: They'll love it.
Speaker 2: Just make sure your neighbors aren't outside when you empty
that container in the fall, because that soil is going
to be pretty darn smelly. That can smell it already
and too unfortunately.
Speaker 1: So you have the thrillers in the center, then we
work our way to the outside with the fillers. The
supporting cast fillers are the workhorses of your container. They're
usually mounding plants that fill in the space around your
thriller create a full, lush look. And I had mentioned
perennials earlier, like hostas or hu karas. So many great
plants to use as fillers. I like Verbina superbnas, any
of those, the bidens or the mini vista petunias, they're
fabulous fillers. Truffala, pink gamprina is great. All of those
would provide great fillers. But the idea is to give
the container some GRAVI toss by filling in around the
thriller that's planted in the center, and then as we
work our way to the outside, we have spillers or trailers,
cascading plants that drape over the edge of your container,
softening the look and adding some movement. We had a
listener to the show, I think earlier this year what
was at Upstate New York that had those super tall containers.
And if you have a tall container, boy, the spiller
is super important. It's a similar concept to the edging
or edger that you would lose you use in a landscape.
If you do it right, it tends to pull the
whole thing together. Lobularia And of course one of the
most popular potato vine would be great. And there's a
great new potato vine this year has been selling fabulously
in the greenhouse. I need to have it for my containers.
It's an introduction this year, Sweet Caroline Sweetheart shadow Storm.
It's an ornamental sweet potato. It has the bright green
foliage with super dark foliage. It's real blotchy. Oh.
Speaker 2: I think it's really cool too. I really like it.
And it's kind of one of those plants that can
go with just about anything. It's going to be a really,
really nice, versatile plan. I think you.
Speaker 1: Bet silver falls dichondra. I love any of the plectranthis.
I love guacamole trailing over the side of a pot,
and I'll add it in a large pot. At one time, Stacy,
I tried oh so easy roses and it actually worked pretty.
Speaker 2: Coo oh that's good to know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was fun. You know.
Speaker 2: I would also say, as you're putting together your container,
don't judge it right after you plant it. You know,
it takes time for these things to knit together. And
if you have just finished your plant and your container
and you step back and you go, eh, give it time,
it's not you. It takes time for your vision to
come to fruition. And if you're thinking of some amazingly
fabulous container that you've seen in the past, well chances
are you saw that at peak later on in the
summer when everything grew together. So give things a chance
to grow. You can always make changes later, but don't
judge it based on you know, when you just got
those you know, three or five little tiny plants in
the container and you see all that soil and you're like,
this is never gonna work. It will work.
Speaker 1: Just have fi will work. Don't judge your book by
its cover. I do have to mention again, I see
a lot of people making the mistake with containers that
they don't know how to water, and so they just
decide to water every day just a little bit. The
soil in the upper profile is soaking wet, and the
soil down below is dust dry. When you water, water thoroughly.
Because we've already covered the drainage whole issue, and bear
in mind that today there are aquapots. There are self
watering pots, wicking pots. These aquapots are very cool, and
we just did a talk this past weekend at the
Greenhouse and Stacy a lot of people were interested in
the features of an aqua pot and how it makes
watering easier.
Speaker 2: Right. The cool thing about the aquapots is you can
get the inserts to go in any container exactly. You
don't just have to already have a self watering container.
But there are a number of self watering containers out there.
The thing that no one tells you about self watering containers,
you do have to water them conventionally until the roots
go down deep enough for them wicking to actually have
an effect, because the wicking does not just start to
go up where the roots are after you've just planted.
So the general guideline if you're planting into a self
watering container, you want to do probably about six weeks
of conventional watering till the roots really start going and
get down enough into the soil matrix that that self
watering feature will actually work. So don't give up hope
too early and say hey, this is in self watering
at all. Need to have roots in place before it
can actually self water.
Speaker 1: It's important to note and of course bear in mind
a Mother's Day weekend, a lot of people will be
getting ten inch hanging baskets, those common ten inch smaller baskets.
Of course, greenhouses and garden centers have beautiful, big hanging
baskets that you can purchase, wonderful, enjoy it, Mom will
love it. But if you get one of those smaller ones,
just bear in mind odds are it's not going to
make it through the summer and it's well, there's nothing
wrong with upsizing it into a larger container because again,
stay the soil mass does matter as we get into
the heat of something.
Speaker 2: That makes a huge difference. Well, this was fun, Yes
it was Yeah, did you contain yourself?
Speaker 1: A lot of ground to cover. Thanks Stacey, thank you Rick,
Thanks Adrianna, and thanks to you for watching us on YouTube,
downloading our podcast, or listening to the radio version of
our show. Have a great week.