Speaker 1: Broadcasting from Ground Zero Studio a here at proven winners
Color Choice shrugs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show
with Stacy Hirvella me Rick weisst and our engineer and
producer Adrianna Robinson.
Speaker 2: Well today, an annual.
Speaker 1: Review of the plants in your landscape. In many ways,
it's like the annual review of workers at a place
of employment, at least in this case, you're the boss
Apple Sauce and it's time for an annual review. You know,
most companies conduct annual performance reviews, usually at year end,
sometimes at the start of the year January February. But
it basically gets us to retrack and puts us in
our place as we evaluate performance. Evaluating plants involves assessing
their health, structural integrity, and suitability for the environment based
on the foliage, the roots overall vigor give it the
eye test, and key indicators include vibrant, unblemished leaves, sturdy stems,
well developed root system.
Speaker 2: So let's do a.
Speaker 1: Spring evaluation and Stacy, I'm out in my landscape evaluating
and I'm so I'm just so excited. The Inca Holland
Peruvian lilies, the Ulsterroame area. They're popping out of the ground.
We had surmised because of the polar vortex they weren't
gonna make it. They're hearty to zone six A. They
are busting out of the ground.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. I also didn't know that they emerged so early.
I would have thought that they would have emerged much later.
So that is amazing news.
Speaker 2: It's it's a miracle.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't have any real updates on that kind
of thing yet because even in a good winter, my
fig comes back pretty late. So so far everything seems
to be, you know, coming back and doing okay for
the most part, awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, when they come back, like I've always said,
it's like finding an onion ring in your order of
French fries. It's so enjoyable. And you know what talking
about annual reviews. Sometimes you got to fire a plant
from your yard. Maybe you made an impulse buy, walked
around the yard with a shovel in one hand plant
and the other trying to find a place to put it,
and now you're having regret. And if you're gonna bail
on a plant. I've always talked about the fact that
I still feel that fall, of course, is a great
time to do it, but springs a great time to
do it too, because Stacy, if you're gonna bail, well,
I guess do it now so that you don't miss a.
Speaker 2: Whole year of growth for your new plant.
Speaker 3: You know, that's my approach. Get it out as soon
as you can, especially if you doren't planning to move
it anywhere you have no real reason to try to,
you know, save it or keep it healthy to move.
You know, life is just too short for plants that
aren't pulling their weight or that you don't like. I mean,
a plant can be performing perfectly well, but if you
don't like it, or what I often find for myself
is that a plant isn't worth the amount of space
it takes up. Now, a plan can have like kind
of a you know, power performance, but if it doesn't
take up that much space, or it grows someplace where
I'm having trouble growing something else, it can stay. But
you know, if it's getting prime real estate and I'm
not loving it and it's big or even big ish,
I'm like, you're out. I got other things, other things
I can put here.
Speaker 2: I'm with you there, I hear you.
Speaker 1: So, just like with an annual review at work, have
next steps for positive and practical solutions. In other words,
if there's no follow up action plan put in place
at the end of the performance appraisal in this case,
an appraisal of how your landscape's doing, then it's really.
Speaker 2: Not worth it.
Speaker 1: So you have to evaluate what it is you want.
I'm a big fan of taking pictures and video and
your landscape throughout the season so that you can go
back and evaluate. You have to evaluate on some plants,
do you really want it there or does it need
to transfer to another department.
Speaker 2: So to speak. Right, Yeah, falls a great time to
do that.
Speaker 1: But you know what, you can do that in spring two.
Do your perennials need to be divided? Sometimes perennials are
dying out in the center and.
Speaker 2: Need to be divided.
Speaker 1: You see it everywhere you go, with a variety of perennials.
It's up to you to evaluate that and take action
at this time.
Speaker 2: Of the year.
Speaker 3: Well, and you know, I think that's a really important
point too, because if you don't take that action that
sometimes needs to be taken on those types of perennials,
then you're going to give a an incorrect performance review.
Because let's just take something a notorious plant for this
Siberian iris, okay, right, very common to grow into a
circle and have the center empty, and you know, at
first you're like, hey, this plant looks so amazing. I
love it, and then five years later you're like, this plant,
what happened? Well that's on you, because you then need
to dig that up and divide it and give that
a fresh start. And yeah, that's a little bit of work,
but it's pretty fun. You have plants to give to friends,
most likely who are going to be happy, and then
you can tell them, hey, five years down the road,
this thing's going to die out in the middle. But
all you have to do is divide it and find
five friends to give the rest of the plants to.
So you do have to take that responsibility. It's not
just the plants. And I'm talking a lot about this
in Plants on Trial.
Speaker 1: Oh good, Well, like I said, you're the boss Apple Sauce,
so do it. Review for pruning, review for pruning. Let's
get it done. And the problem I see is that
people don't have a good feel. Some people don't have
a good feel for pruning. So they just take a
little off the top, big problem. Okay, so review for
pruning and develop your pruning skills. Evaluating your garden now
will save you time, money, and frustration. And of course
there's all kinds of cliche that we could throw out here.
For example, when you get a performance review at work,
the review speak. Maybe you'll see they said you enjoy
your job.
Speaker 2: What they mean is you need more work to do.
Speaker 1: They may say you're a hard worker, usually someone who
does it the hard way and complains about it.
Speaker 2: Or you're timely. That means you panic at exactly.
Speaker 1: The right time on a project, or you're calm under fire,
you're two dazed and confused to act. So you know,
all performance review things, but it brings up the point
Stacy that in people we evaluate behaviors and results, but
with plants you want to evaluate the traits. In this case,
you have plant breeders like proven winners Color Choice Shrubs who.
Speaker 2: Do it for you.
Speaker 1: They invest and they develop plants that they know are
going to perform warm in your landscape. And so those traits,
the genetics, very very important and they're outlined on the
plant tax.
Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah, so you can make an intelligent decision, and
you know, a lot of times, of course, especially at
this time, we have to say, people are so often
swayed by what the plants look like in the garden center.
And you know, typically that is going to be a
pretty good representation of what to expect, but sometimes it's not.
You know, sometimes the plants are going to be better
because a lot of times those plants are coming out
of a pollyhouse, and so especially things with colorful foliage
maybe hasn't developed as much and doesn't look as great.
But yeah, I mean, we try to give you the
full resume, so to speak, if we're using the work
metaphors of the plant before you hire.
Speaker 1: It, right exactly. So let's do that landscape assessment. I
think in spring one of the most important things to
go out there and evaluate is your irrigation assets like heads.
For some reason, in winter, gremlins get into sprinkler heads
and mess them up or any type of sprinkler system.
Prepare as though we're going to have a drought this year.
I'm not saying we are. But it's about, just like
an annual review at work, be positioned to adequately.
Speaker 2: Review the employee.
Speaker 1: In other words, the individual doing the review has to
have a relationship with that person. If they don't know
that person or haven't worked with them, how can they
review them. And so you've got to have that day
to day contact the same way.
Speaker 2: It's a no brainer.
Speaker 1: You have to have that day to day contact with
the plants in your landscape, develop a relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. And I will say for myself, you know,
obviously it's spring right now. I think the important review
time for me comes later in the season, and then
trusting myself to believe it in spring, and this is
the first year I'm doing that. That's great, you know,
because like in the past, you'll be like, oh my gosh,
I have got to take out some of the sylphium.
It's taking over the whole garden. I don't want this much.
I love this plant, but this is way too much.
And then what happens. You know, you're like, oh, it's
not so bad. It's you know, it's little, and I
don't want to dig up the bulbs that are around it,
and I don't want to disturb all of this. And
then next thing you know, August rolls around and you're
drowning again. So you have to make those notes through
the air. But spring is a good time to think
about those things. Review pictures and videos and so forth,
if you've taken them. And yeah, i'd say most action
on a performance review is now is a great time
for that to take place.
Speaker 1: Well, on segment four, I'll talk to you about a
specific plant. And I did a plant review on and
I decided to fire that plant. You're out of here,
and I fired it last fall. I'm glad I did.
So here's today's limb a rick. This plant is a malcontent.
It's purchase I greatly resent. Okay, well, wow, I feel
better now. I guess I just had de vent. I
bought the plant four years ago. It cost me lots
of dough. The store received I lack. Yet I still
tried to bring it back. They smiled and just said no,
its use in my yard is now banned. It failed
even with helping hand. So get a grip. Here's your
pink slip. You, my friend, have just been canned.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'll talk about that plant. And segment four list
I'd like to hear what it is.
Speaker 1: Let's see how Stacey ties this in and plants on trial.
That's coming up next. Here on the Gardening Simplified Show.
Speaker 3: Beautify your home and community with Proven Winner's Color Choice
Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique varieties
to choose from. There's a flowering shrubber 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. Greeting's Gardening friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Joke, where the topic for
today is giving your plants, your landscape, your gardens a
performance review. And you know, you can do that individually
on a per plant basis like we were talking about, you
can also do it on a whole garden landscape bed
basis as well and say, you know, hey, like take
some time to think critically about what's happening in your
beds and do things need to change? And you know,
can you spice things up or calm things down whatever
you want to do. So there's lots of different ways
to do this, and I think a big part of
this whole idea of the performance review is to kind
of generally weed out the underperformers correct, right, like the
high performers. You know, no one like walks by one
of their favorite plants and is like, Okay, you're doing
a great job. You can stay like it's kind of
assumed that if you have a plant that's performing really
well and you really enjoy it, it's saying so now
you're thinking critically about the underperformers in your landscape and
what you are going to do about them, because again,
now is the perfect time to take action. Now. I
have again been dealing with home gardeners and home gardener
questions for many years now, well over two decades, and
I can't tell you how many times I have heard
from a home gardener who you know, has bought one
of our plants or whatever and it's not flowering. So
they've had it for a couple of years, it's not flowering,
it's not doing what they expected it to do. And
they asked me the dreaded question, did I get a dud?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's the plants fall?
Speaker 3: Did I get a dud? And you know, plants are
not like cars. There are no lemons. Plants are actually,
you know, genetically identical to that. So if you get
a limelight hydrange, if you had a Limelight hydrange twenty
years ago, and you want to add another one. Now
you're still getting the same limelight hydrange. It's consistent, it's expected.
So with that in mind, it is in very impossible
to get a plant that is a dud and just
refuses to bloom. If that is happening, there is something wrong. Now,
something that can happen in here is that a plant
is not inherently a dud, but is having some trouble
because of how it was treated prior to you purchasing it.
And you know that I don't need to tell you
that's a big part of that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Of course, every grower in every garden center tries to
do their best, but things happen. Plants get tipped over
in the garden center all the time, and then they
might miss out on watering, or they might get some
broken branches that are going to, you know, make their
habit a little bit funky. There's just so many things
that can happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you question why is it not working?
You know, it's the old adage of Larry in the office.
You know, boss comes up to Larry and says, I've
noticed you're just not working.
Speaker 2: Like you used to.
Speaker 1: I go buy your office and you're not working. And
Larry says, well, they installed carpet a couple months ago
so he could hear his boss coming down. May install
carpet now he's not working when the boss comes.
Speaker 3: Got the same kind of thing, gotcha. Yeah, So you know,
there's a lot of things that can impact plant performance.
But I wanted to, in this spirit of the performance
review for plants, talk about some of the things that
can go wrong with plants, so that instead of just
giving the plant a bad performance review, which you may
be tempted to do, you can take some time to
think about, are there other factors that are influencing this
plant's performance that I can control to improve it. Now, again,
what you want and what you think is worth your
time is always takes precedent over any of this stuff,
because you know, again, life is too short to have
things in your garden that you don't care for or
that you're waiting around forever for to do well. But
some of us have a sunk cost fallacy, right like
I bought this plant and I'm going to get the
best out of it, come, you know, no matter what,
or something maybe very near and dear to our hearts.
It was given as gift, or you know, we associate
it with something, or you know, we just want the
experience of seeing what we can do to change this
plant from a poor performer to a high performer.
Speaker 2: So you agree with me, be the boss.
Speaker 3: You got to be the boss. I mean, I think
that's the best part about gardening, right right, you know,
like you can just manage all of your plants and
create your own little world and no one can really
say boo about it. It's kind of great.
Speaker 2: Give your plants a bonus.
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about it all. My plants get lots
of appreciation. I don't know if they can if they
can handle pay their rent with that. But so anyway,
what I wanted to talk about for plants on trial
today was what are the sign what are the things
that can go wrong? What are the signs that those
things are going wrong, and how you can resolve them?
So kind of a little diagnostic kit as you're thinking
about your performance review. And you know, I think one
thing that just does not get said enough about gardening
is that things change. And a plant that you planted
even five years ago is now growing in much different
conditions than it was when you planted it. So you know,
we do have to continue to monitor all of these
factors that go into plant care and think about if
they're having a negative effect on the planet. It's usually
not the plant's fault. It's one of these things has changed.
So Number one is age. I think a lot of
people don't think about plants getting too old to perform
well anymore. And it's not necessarily like a super common thing.
We think about trees, right, and trees can live for
a very very long time, and we don't, you know,
think about that. And shrubs are very long lived. I
mean a shrub can easily live twenty five fifty years
depending on the variety or more. But plants do get old,
and especially shrubs, when they get old, they tend to
perform less, not as well. They have thicker wood. That
thicker older wood is less capable of putting out you know,
fine vigorous growth, So the plant doesn't look as lush
and full anymore. If it's not putting out a lot
of new growth, it's not usually getting a lot of
flowers on it. And so you know, sometimes if a
plant is old, it's either time to replace it or
time to give it a little rejuvenation. Pruning. Only you
are going to know if the plant's age is the
issue because you're going to roughly know, you know, how
long it's been there. You'd say, hey, I bought my
house ten years ago, this thing was already growing, so hey,
it's at least thirty years old. You know.
Speaker 2: I agree with you. Applies to people too. I think
of this every time I look in the mirror.
Speaker 3: Well, so, if you have an old plant, you can
remove it and replace it with something new. Obviously there
are so many choices now, but if you want give
it a rejuvenation pruning, and we've talked about rejuvenation pruning
lots on the show, you can simply cut it back
to you know, to stumps and it will regrow from
the roots if it's not too old. Now, I have
seen this fail. My in laws had a really really
old white gela. I mean the thing must have been
fifty some years old, you know, and it stopped flowering
as much, and I advised them to rejuvenation prune it,
and it killed it because the plant was just done,
you know, it didn't have the vigor in the roots anymore.
So you do need to be aware that that is
a risk of rejuvenating a very old plant, but it's
still worth a try unless you want to just take
it out.
Speaker 2: So agreed.
Speaker 3: That's age now, sun I think is the biggest one.
And so few people realize that most sits tend to
get shadier over time. And that's kind of a surprise,
right because we don't we don't really perceive the trees
as growing. But you know, pretty much every yard, at
least here in the Midwest, in any you know climate
that has a lot of trees, as those trees grow
and spread, they're going to cast a broader, wider shadow
and reach areas that they didn't before.
Speaker 2: This is a great evaluation point. Yeah, it really is so.
Speaker 3: And I hear this so often with people and lilacs.
Yes that people you know have a lilac, they've had
it for years. They love it, and they say, you know, gee,
four years ago, this thing was beautiful, it was covered
in flowers. In the last four years, it just keeps
flowering less and less and I'm barely seeing any blooms
on it. What did I do wrong? Well, if you're
ruling out pruning, which of course is always the first
thing that we do, then yeat lilacs. Are full sun
plants that need full sun not just when they bloom,
but later on in the summer when they are setting
their flower buds. And that's another thing. We don't necessarily
realize how shady our lilacs are in summer when they're
working really hard to produce those flowers, because we're not
thinking about our lilocks anymore. They're just a big green
blob on the side of the yard. So you'll know
a plant is not getting enough sun. Again, reduced flowering
is probably going to be the biggest tell, I think,
but you'll also see that it's sparse, that the internodes
or spaces between the leaves tend to be longer because
the plant is stretching for light. If it's a plant
with colorful foliage, or even just colorful fall foliage, that
color will be kind of muddy, not looking that great.
That's a sign that plant needs more sun. And that
would be a great time too. Instead of just evicting
it from the yard, although while you're digging it you
can certainly do that. Try it in a sunnier spot
in your yard and see the difference. Now the opposite,
too much light is not so much Typically an issue
for us in cool climates like this, but certainly it
can be a big issue for people in hot climates
and in you know, areas of high elevation, like in
the rocky mountains. So a plant you'll know is getting
too much sun if it tends to look kind of bleached,
it's frequently hard to keep watered. You haven't changed anything
about your watering, but all of the sudden, you know,
it's always wilting. You can't seem to keep it watered. Also,
you might see like browning on the tips or on
the edges. That's another sign. Basically the plant is just
going to look stressed. And this is often an issue
for people in hot climates where there was a hurricane
or another type of storm that rips off the canopy
and all the understory plants down below, or all of
a sudden in full sun. So again you can't you know,
just say, hey, these plants are no good anymore. You
have to think about all of these factors that have
influenced it. You know, I had a bunch more factors,
but we're already out of time because I just can't
stop gabbing about plants.
Speaker 1: Well, we got segment four, all right. We'll go right
back at this after we get through the mail bank.
Speaker 3: Okay, but first you have to tell me when we
get to segment four what the plant is, because that's
I can't leave everybody on the edges of their seats.
Speaker 2: I'll do.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna take a little break and when we
come back, we'll be opening up the mail legs. So
please stay tuned. At Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs, we
know that a better landscape starts with a better shrub.
Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our
flowering shrubs and evergreens for eight to ten years to
ensure they outperform what's already on the market. For easy care, 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. Creating's gardening friends and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it is our
pleasure to help you with your garden questions, quandaries and conundrums.
And I know they are abundant out there as things
come back from the winter or not or come back
looking a little bit different than you might have thought.
So I know there's lots of stuff going on, and
just a seasonal reminder when it comes to pruning. When
in doubt, don't don't you say I'll just get to
prune it since I'm out here right now, Just wait,
you know, until you figure out what the right thing
to do is, and then make your decision.
Speaker 2: Because when you make the decision, don't be afraid to
do it.
Speaker 3: Oh no, don't be afraid, you know, I think. But
the reason people are afraid to prune is because they
don't know why they're pruning. Correct, So this is an
off topic conversation sort of. But you know, if you
know why you are pruning, you no longer have to
be afraid of pruning because you know exactly what you
were going to do. People are afraid of pruning when
they don't know what they're trying to accomplish. So they're like,
where do I start? Because I don't know what I'm
trying to do. I just have the sense that I
should prune this because people say that or whatever. So anyway,
we have lots of information about pruning on our website.
Performer's Color choice dot Com. There's lots of resources on
there to help you out and yeah, when in doubt,
don't it's also of course on our plant tag. Now
to kick off the mail bag today, I have a
question of my own for our listeners. Oh. So, you know,
the weather has been improving here in Michigan, and so
my husband and I are sitting outside getting ready to
finally finish up our new patio that we've been you know,
thinking about for a couple of seasons now, and we
are torn between covering it with a pergola or not.
Now we both really like the idea, and we would
plant grape vines on it because that's just like so romantic.
You know, you have like the dining terrace under the
grape vines, and you know, then you don't have to
build a st because a grapevine, you know, actual grapevine
trellis takes up a lot of space and it's heavy duty.
Speaker 1: I caution you on that though, because if you do that,
you're going to see possums in summer.
Speaker 3: Ooh, I would love that. That's an incentive for.
Speaker 1: Me because I had and I had the grape vines
and wild grapes growing on it. You know, and then
later in summer when those grapes start to ferment, they
go up there and they get drunk and they lose
their car keys and oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Well we're going to grow table grapes, so we're planning
to harvest that.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, so, but get to them first.
Speaker 3: Then there is always that possibility. But my question for
our listeners that is keeping us from you know, fully
going in on this idea. If you have covered a pergola,
or if you've covered a patio or deck in a
pergola and planted anything on it, did it turn into
a bird infested nightmare where you could not eat under
it because the birds were doing their business up there.
So this is our concern is you know, if we're
going to do this, we do plan to use this
space extensively. So I wanted to hear from people who
have done this. Was it an issue if you didn't
plant on it, was it not an issue? Or it
wasn't an issue until you planted on it and the
birds had some coverage. So I am looking for some
first hand experience on this. You can leave it on
our YouTube comments if you have something to say about this.
If you've been. It doesn't have to be your garden.
It could be maybe you went to visit a friend
and they invited you for a romantic patio dinner and
it was ruined by birds. I don't know, but I
would love to hear from you, good or bad, your
experience with us. You can also reach us at Gardening
Simplified on air dot com. I would love to hear
what you have to say in your own experience.
Speaker 2: That's a great question.
Speaker 1: Nothing worse than bird evacuation on the patio table.
Speaker 3: Especially if they ate the grapes. But yeah, that's it.
That would be a nightmare. Yeah, I'm sure anyone who
has a mulberry can attest that issue. Anyway, what do
we got them out?
Speaker 1: Big? Cynthia's writing, How can fleas and ants in the
garden be removed safely for wildlife, pollinators and beneficial insects?
I do not use chemicals. We have gotten flea bites already,
have to wear garden boots.
Speaker 2: Please help.
Speaker 3: If not a problem that anyone wants to have no fun?
And you know so, I don't know a lot about fleas.
I don't have pets, so I've was reading some interesting
stuff about them. The best way to discourage them from
your yard probably easier said than done, but we'll start
here sun, warmth, and dryness. So they like high humidity,
they like coverage, they like moisture, and they like shade.
So if you can first of all kind of limit
those areas or even you know, limit one of those
factors in areas that are like that. I mean, if
you have a shaded area that's under tree, obviously you
can't change that, but can you say, adjust you sprinkler
system so it's not is moist over there? Or can
you cut the lawn short over there so they don't
have as much coverage. There's lots of different ways you
can look at kind of modifying the environment so that
they don't thrive, and certainly as it gets warmer here
in Michigan, that will be sort of a natural deterrent.
Diotamacious earth probably the go to for fleas in bugs
of all types if you are trying to kill them
without chemicals, So diatamacious earth. You're not looking for the
pool grade diatamacious earth that you use in swimming pools.
This needs to be a pest grade diatamacious earth. You
can get it all sorts of garden centers and that
kind of thing. Just if you have the pool stuff,
it won't work because it is not as sharp. Now,
diatamacious earth just feels like powder to you if you
touch it. You can't really tell the difference between cornstarch
or you know whatever. But it is actually diatoms, ancient
diatoms that have these kind of edges. So when little
insects crawl over them, they will get lacerated. Now, of
course that means it is a non discriminatory pest side
it will it will lacerate anything that does crawl over it.
But if you can put it in an area where
you know the fleas are, this is an effective way.
Once it lacerates their exoskeleton, they dry out and die.
So this is a really common way to manage fleas
on pets as well as indoors. Now, finally, it does
seem as though cedar oil is very effective against fleas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to suggest some sort of essential oil.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so cedar oil is known to be an effective detern.
It's actually used in some flea pesticides as well, even
though it is just a natural product. So you could
at least try putting that on yourself. If it's not
practical to put around your yard, you can, you know,
rub it on your ankles, on your boots, your pants
and see if that works. So all about that IPM
Integrated pest management, learning about the behavior and seeing what
you can modify to to eliminate the issue.
Speaker 1: Kim writes to US I recently a canthus or bears
breeches and.
Speaker 2: It was beautiful.
Speaker 1: I've read however, it can be invasive in some areas.
I am in seven B. Should I avoid this plant?
I won't avoid it.
Speaker 3: It's such a cool plant.
Speaker 2: I think it's so cool.
Speaker 3: It is such a very very cool plant, and I
would definitely like to have one in my garden, and
I could. There are two main types of a canthus
that are available to gardens here in the US and
probably Canada. A Canthus spinosis, which is hardy to USDA
Zone five, and a Canthus molus, which is the more
famous of them, that's hardy down to usdas one seven.
So you can grow both of those, but they can
be very aggressive. Now where they are actually invasive tends
to be more on the West coast in those milder climates.
Where they're not really getting set back by winter or
anything like that. They love hot, sunny, dry spots, so
you can try to also kind of minimize them if
you have just regular natural soil moisture. If you have
clay soil, they'll certainly be more limited than if you
have a really really well drained soil. But all of
this said, they are aggressive, They can regrow from even
the smallest part of the root in the soil, and
they are spiny is all get out. So if you
do find yourself needing to manage this plant, it's not
exactly going to be a fun task.
Speaker 1: Don't put in an area where you're going to frequent
as far as walking or sitting around or whatever.
Speaker 2: But if you do that, the things a showstopper in
the wad.
Speaker 3: They're beautiful. I really like them. I'd consider adding it
to my yard. But yeah, you do need to be
aware that sighting, as with everything, is going to be
very important, so you don't want to encourage it too much.
All right, we have one this question that I thought
was perfect for you. Deb says that her daughter in
law needs a type of tall grass. She wants seed,
not plants, But I don't know if this is possible
for a large area. The hell she wants it to
be three to five feet tall, large seed heads that
look beautiful when the wind is blowing. Perennial so it's
coming up every year. Erosion control, which pretty much all
grasses are going to have because they have that nice
fibrous root system, and of course full sun, which also
all grasses are going to have. So I don't know
if this is possible to get from seed.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a few different things you can do. Let's
start with the non seed first, and that would be
ornamental grasses. I would recommend switch grass or panicums, and
proven Winters has wonderful shy and sky, Niagara.
Speaker 2: Falls, Totem Pole.
Speaker 1: All of those are just fantastic and do great in
my landscape, and I think you will greatly enjoy them.
Lemon squeeze, pennacetum, and we'll give you that really cool
fuzzy head. So I would not throw that out as
an option. As a matter of fact, I'd go for
it from seed. Why don't you take the search engine
of your choice and type in tttf so T tall
turf type fescue okay, and you can buy those from seed.
There are many great varieties of tall turf type fescue
that you can just let grow as opposed to cut
it like most people would do with the lawnmower.
Speaker 2: You can cut it too.
Speaker 1: Great for high traffic, great for drought. Grows from seed
TTTF tall turf type fescue.
Speaker 3: All right, And I would just add to that, if
you are determined to grow from seed here, I would
recommend looking at one of the prairie seed companies that
sell seed mixture for exactly this. Now, you do want
to make sure you're going with a prairie specialist to
make sure that everything is native, because there's going to
be a lot of mixes out there that have all
sorts of crazy stuff in them. But there are definitely
some excellent ones that specifically create mixes of tall grasses
for exactly this. So just a little bit of search
engine work will get you to some really interesting options
there as well. So thank you so much for your questions.
We're going to take a little break and when we
come back, we're going to finally find out what plant
Rick fired from his landscape. So stay tuned. 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 do
a performance annual review and Stacey, Okay, let's get to
the plant that I fired.
Speaker 2: You're out of here.
Speaker 1: The botanical genus name is People pronounce it differently Ruse
or Russ. It's r h Us sumac, right, and there
is a There is a sumac or a Rus aromatica,
which is known as low grow sum Now, when I
moved into this house, I knew that I had sandy
conditions occasional drought there. It's a sloped area that needed
some help, and I had to do something quick to
fill the area before I could start planting what I wanted.
So I planted this big mistake. It's a deciduous native shrub.
It occurs in open woods, glades and thickets.
Speaker 2: It's dense and growing.
Speaker 1: You will often see this plant in the landscapes of
large stores that have a huge parking lot and have
these curved areas where they throw it in there it's.
Speaker 3: An extremely popular parking lot plant.
Speaker 1: Yes, and when I fired this plant last fall, had
it in two locations. Sometimes, you know, when you fire somebody,
it goes pretty well.
Speaker 2: You agree to disagree.
Speaker 1: And they pick up their stuff and walk out quietly,
and we're set.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it gets ugly.
Speaker 1: This one got ugly, oh, I mean ripping this thing
out and the way it would root in and fighting
that thing and then falling as I'm pulling on these
rooted stems and quickly dusting myself off to see if
some of the neighbors saw me fall. You know, I
felt really silly. So that's the one that I fired.
Speaker 2: Low grows soon.
Speaker 3: At So did you completely obliterate it completely?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: Okay, good.
Speaker 1: I'm still expecting it to show up at some point,
so I'll be you watching for it. But that plant
and my landscape.
Speaker 3: Is fighting well, you know, And that's a great example
of how plant trace is so important. Yeah, I mean,
you know that that plant does all of that and
has the erosion control and has really grateful color. It's
a native, you know plant, and it's kind of a
go to among landscapers all over. But it was not
the right plant for you in that spot and it
wasn't earning its keep, and you know, and so a
lot of times these performance reviews do you have to
come back to our own decisions, bad decisions so we've
made in the first place, and we've all made them.
We've all made them. I've certainly made plenty of bad
planting decisions in my life. So, okay, that was not
what I expected. But that was a very.
Speaker 2: Interesting It was aggressive point.
Speaker 3: People do love that plant.
Speaker 1: And gets loaded with gall and I just yeah, I
was the boss apple sauce.
Speaker 2: I got rid of it. I knew I could do
much better.
Speaker 1: So in segment two, Plants on Trial, I was thinking
about the fact that not only do you want to
evaluate the gardener a person who's doing that, I mean,
how much maintenance do you want?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely we have.
Speaker 2: To evaluate that.
Speaker 1: There are people who say to me, yeah, Rick, you
go ahead and plant your dahlia as your cannas and
enjoy your ornamental grasses. But for me, summer flowering bulbs,
for example, too much work digging them up, storing them
that time. I understand, so evaluate the gardener right off
the bat, but I also think that you have to
evaluate the ground area some people just instinctively in spring
will order ten yards of mulch, a pile of mulch
in the dry right, and yeah over top of what's there.
Speaker 2: Don't do that.
Speaker 1: You know, the mulch can become hydrophobic, stirret.
Speaker 2: Don't just do it.
Speaker 1: Know why you're doing it, I guess is exactly what we're.
Speaker 2: Trying to say.
Speaker 1: But it does bring up the point, Stacy, that when
you evaluate your landscape and your plantings, one big issue
always comes to the forefront.
Speaker 2: And that is water.
Speaker 3: Oof. You can say that again, and you know this
is another place where you have to decide for yourself.
Am I going to provide supplemental water and shell out
on my water bill and make sure my plants are
well watered? Or am I going to take a less
intensive approach? But you know, to go back to what
I was saying about evaluating a plant for water. You know,
water is definitely probably the is definitely the biggest reason
that plants don't thrive. And a lot of times people
don't really understand how to read what a plant is
doing in response to too much or too little water.
So I will tell you, as a low water gardener,
the number one thing that you can recognize if a
plant isn't performing well, it's shrinking. And I have seen this.
I had a great, beautiful planting of hellebores on the
side of my house, just beautiful. And they are in
an area where they get a lot of competition for
water from a pine tree, so and that's a very
well established pine so they're competing really heavily for the water.
We've had a lot of dry summers over the past
couple of years, and this is the first year that
that patch of hellebores just didn't come up. Because every
year it was a little bit smaller, a little bit smaller,
until finally it's just like hebe, I can't do this anymore.
I'm done. And it didn't come back.
Speaker 2: So oh, you know, men have to fire them. They
just left, They just.
Speaker 3: Left the building. But and that happens too, But you know,
it's it's important for me to say, well, geez, I'm
never growing that hellebor again. It's a terrible plant, because
it's a it was a beautiful plant, and it was
all totally my fault. But if you don't know those
signs to look for and to and to read and
understand how they're impacting that, then you're likely to blame
the plant or yourself, and it's kind of neither of
those things. So that's probably the number one thing you'll
also see, you know, going back to what he said
about too much sun, because a lot of times these
two things go hand in hand. A lot of sun
and low water will make it much more difficult for
a plant than a lot of sign with ample water
for many plants, but browning on the edge of the
leaves or the leaf tips are also going to be
a good sign that the plant is not getting enough
water or has dried out. Wilting, of course, is the
number one thing that people see, but the tricky thing
is wilting is also a sign of overwatering, especially on
plants that are extra susceptible to overwatering, so they will
wilt just because you know, they just have too much moisture.
And you know, I find I was thinking about this
as I was kind of putting these notes together. When
it comes to giving a performance review of a plant
that's had too much water, usually not an issue because
it will die. You know, a lot of these other
issues for talking about the plants can hang on for
some time to the point where you might say, hey,
you know this isn't working out, We're going to break up.
But if a plant gets too much water, it's probably dead. Yeah,
that's one of the surest, quickest ways to kill a plant.
Speaker 1: And they look at you and they say, this job
just isn't for me.
Speaker 3: So I'm yeah this, you know, the conditions here are
not appropriate for me to be working. And you know,
it just comes back to the simple fact that in
very wet conditions, especially for prolonged periods, there's no oxygen
getting to the roots, and the plants just cannot live
in that environment. Now, there certainly are plenty of plants
that thrive in wet soil. So again, it always comes
back to this plant choice. So the performance review really
is is, you know, do I like this plant? Is
it in the right spot for it to you know,
sort of accomplish its maximum beauty or whatever reason that
you bought it for? And if not, then how do
I change the environment? Do I move it? Do I
change something about how I'm where, I'm what I'm doing
so that it can get a positive performance review? So
sometimes we got to buy the work in agree.
Speaker 1: Now I've I've got to admit something here in this evaluation,
and I would admit to you, Stacey, that I think
you take a far more common sense approach than I do.
I have a tendency to give my plants too many raises,
oh and too much in other words, you know again,
I come from the garden center industry and we're selling
all kinds of potions and fertilizers anything that I have
a tendency to overfertilize.
Speaker 2: I can't help it.
Speaker 1: I'm I kind of lean towards being.
Speaker 2: Liberal in that.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, how many raises I can? I can give
you a tip, just be lazier. I mean that's basically.
Speaker 1: Kind of like, you know, I find a cool new fertilizer.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, you're a fertilizer tinkerer. I did not know
this about you.
Speaker 2: Hey, hi Ranger, here's a bonus.
Speaker 3: Oh. I mean, I do fertilize. I give the whole landscape,
you know, a good dose of fertilizer in spring, which
you know, I have very sandy lean soil. And of
course I fertilize my containers and my vegetables like crazy
because I'm trying to get something out of them. But
as far as stuff in the garden goes. Yet it
doesn't get it doesn't get a lot of love and
TLC from me.
Speaker 2: But I just think you're more practical.
Speaker 1: But again that comes from my background because every year
in spring it's oh, this new fertilizer's on the market,
let's try it and see what happens.
Speaker 2: So I tinker with it.
Speaker 1: It does bring up the fact that in the evaluation process,
possibly a soil test.
Speaker 2: May be a good idea for you.
Speaker 1: And in addition to that, Stacy, you mentioned such a
super important point, and that is the water evaluation. Maybe
in a few spots in your landscape, dig a hole,
fill a hole with water, step back and just see
what happens. It's going to tell you a lot about
what's going on around the root system of those plants
as you evaluate their performance.
Speaker 3: Definitely, and you know where water flows, where water drains
can vary a lot around a yard for so many factors,
factors outside of your yard, neighbor's yards. You know houses
where they're different gutters and downspouts or positions. So there
are always when it comes to water and sun, there
are typically multiple opportunities to try something out in a
different spot in your yard exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, Stacy, this was fun. Do I need to pack
my things and leave?
Speaker 3: No, no, you're staying.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you so much, and thanks to you
for tuning in the Gardening Simplified Show, watching us on YouTube,
listening to the radio version, and of course download that
podcast of the Gardening Simplified Show. Thank you Stacey, thank
you Rick, thank you Adrianna, and have a great week.