Speaker 1: Broadcasting from Studio A Here at proven Winns Color Choice Shrubs.
It's time for the Gardening Simplified Podcast, YouTube and radio
show with Stacy Hervella, me, Rick Weist, and our engineer
and producer Adrianna Robinson. Stacy, I thought it'd be fun
today to talk about trigger plants. Some plants are just
good communicators. They tell us when something's wrong. Other plants
are kind of stoic, like squars or succulents. It's like,
no matter what comes their way, they basically don't tell
you that something's going wrong. But some plants do.
Speaker 2: You might call them drama queens drama queens, or you
might call them trigger plants as we are entitling this episode,
but yeah, I feel like I also would call them
like signal plants or century plants. They kind of give
you that, you know, clue that something's going on. For me. Well,
one of the plants in my guard that I would
consider one of these plants is a plant called Agastaki nepatoides.
It is the green, giant green Agastaki, very cool plants,
but it doesn't really want to grow in full sun
and dry soil like I have it in it will
tolerate it. But if it has not rained for a while,
it's the first plant to be like, whoa, I am
peacing out. It's the first plant so well then I'm like, oh,
things are really dry. So that's my that's my one
of my trigger plants. But that kind of shows you
that the plants that we're talking about may or may
not trigger something depending on how you grow them in
good conditions, the conditions it prefers, this plant would not
really be a trigger plant, would be perfectly happy, Yeah,
perfectly trying to push it, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I call them read the tea leaves plants. I
think fortune tellers used to have you drink a cup
of tea and then the tea leaves that are left
in the bottom of the cup. They'd interpret them or
whatever it may be, but reading the tea leaves. So
for me through the years, one plant in my landscape
or in landscapes in general, would be impatiens wall arianna okay,
and often, you know, years ago we would allow them
to get to the droop stage, so to speak, because
it put the plant under a little bit of stress
and they bloomed better that way. But with impatiens wall Ariana,
when they're being a drama queen and you get out
there and water them, suddenly they pop right back up.
So yeah, I guess you know. There are some plants.
Let's take this as an example. It's finally hot here
in Michigan.
Speaker 2: It is at long last, and what you.
Speaker 1: Start to hear from people is it's so hot. I'm like,
we just went through winter. This is what we've been
waiting for. But there are plants that have dramatic droops.
So I mentioned impatients Waile Ariana. You add water, that
distress is gone. You look at house plants spatifhylum or peace.
Speaker 2: That was on my list for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and often you'll see them in office spaces where
they are being a drama queen and exhibiting that dramatic group.
Speaker 2: Yes, and they are a plant that definitely. The cool
thing about them is not only are they telling you
like whoa, hey, I need water, they wilt extremely dramatically,
and then when you rehydrate them, they're really none the
worse for the wear. You know, some plants that they
dry out and will dramatically, they're going to show some
brown edges around their leaves, and really, you know, kind
of not like have suffered from it, whereas the peace
lily is just like, Okay, thanks, just wanted your attention.
Appreciate that moving right on, life goes out. Yes, now
for you in the industry, I thought your big trigger
plant was going to be geraniums oherums.
Speaker 1: But you know what, let me run this one by you.
I think macrophilla hydrangels.
Speaker 2: Oh, they definitely are rama queens. They are drama queens,
but you know, I feel like they're not just I
feel like they have a limitation, right, Okay, So big
leaf hydrange is hydrange of Macrophylla. It's right there in
the name. They have big leaves and they're beautiful plants,
but they are just not that efficient at using water.
Some plants are very efficient at using water, so our
aforementioned is bad thephylum you give it that water poof,
it's totally fine. Whereas the max those big leaves lose
water faster than the roots can replace it. So it's
kind of like, I don't know, you know, like you
just have things running at two different rates. The absorption
rate and the transferration rate are are two different levels.
So they're not trying to be dramatic. They just physically
can't handle, you know, the heat. But they're also fine,
you know, and so it's a lot of things. What
I tell people, if you have a big leaf hydrangel
and it's consistently wilting on hot summer afternoons and you've
just watered it, don't worryorry about it. It's just trying
to deal with, you know, what it has to deal with.
And that wilting in the case of the big leaf
hydrangeas is its attempt to reduce the amount of leaf
service exposed to the sun. If the plant is photosynthesizing,
it's stomata on the underside of the leaves are open,
that's giving off water vapor. When a plant wilts reduces
the amount of leaf surface exposed to the sun. That
also covers up the stomata on the underside of the leaf,
so that preserves some of that water that's transpiring out
of the stomata. And it's just a survival mechanism. But yeah,
they're usually just fine in the morning. So if that's
what you're seeing with your max wilting in the hot
Sunday afternoon, next morning, everything's fine, and you're like, wait,
do I need water or not, you probably don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but a great trigger in the landscape that at
a glance you can see, oh, things are a little
hot and a little dry out here. And I'm glad
you mentioned that because there are plants that have i'm
gonna call it pronounced mid ribs on the full leaf,
and it causes that plant to have the ability, as
you mentioned, for the leaf to fold on itself and
preserve moisture. You know, a great example of that are
the Pikus trees that we enjoy in our homes as
a houseplant down in Florida. When they're growing there and
they're getting a lot of hot sun, they use that
midrib to cause the foliage to fold on itself a
little bit to conserve some moisture. On let's say a
hot summer day. You bring them up to Michigan, put
them in a home where it's low light. You'll see
where that foliage starts to flatten. The mid rib is
not as pronounced, The color goes away from the leaf
as opposed to that really dark dark green. A perfect
example of a trigger plant out in the landscape. I
think dogwood is a great example. Dogwood leaves will curl,
they will fold on that midrib and they will change
color to a degree. A dogwood's a great trigger plant.
Speaker 2: I always thought that was from infectives.
Speaker 1: Well that's part of it too, exactly, so it will
try to tell you what's going on. Let me give
you a trigger plant, limb a rick. For my every
well intended action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Guess
Newton was right. My plant in hot sunlight is now
a drooping distraction. Not always what one preconceives. Plant problems
can be pet peeves. Thank goodness, they communicate before they
capitulate by wearing their emotions on their leaves. See what
I did, I thank you. I like that one. But no,
there are many trigger plants. I always plant, but copa
with annuals. But copa is a really great trigger plant
where you can look at a container and at a
glance you can tell whether or not there are water issues.
We do that with bridle veil baskets in the greenhouse.
You can see it at a glance. And again, Stacey,
coming from the garden center industry, when I walk into
a garden center and it's hot and dry, and it
looks like the employees are having difficulty keeping up with
the watering. One of the first group of plants that
I walk up to our Shasta daisies. They're usually really
full in the pot and the leaves will in my
landscape too immediately exhibit this drooping and again being a
drama queen, So I think Shasta daisy's too well.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's important to realize about these trigger
plants is that they aren't just telling you what they need.
They're also kind of compensating for the plants nearby them
that maybe don't have that ability. And by the time
they wilt, it's too late. You know, they're really going
to be suffering if you see, you know, those plants wilting.
So these are good plants to have to kind of
give you that hint, especially if you are like me
and you don't typically supplemental water and you don't really
know what's going on. You know, my plants are close
together in my garden, so they kind of help to,
you know, shade each other out at the roots. And
I have a lot of mulch, but yeah, I rely
on those those cues to know, like, I better get
to devoting some time to water.
Speaker 1: Exactly a lawn is a perfect trigger and something for
you to keep an eye on in summertime. I always
suggest to people just take a walk across your lawn,
then stop. Look back. If your footprints have a silvery
cast to them in the grass, you'll be able to
tell or you've cut the grass and you can see
that silvery cra you know, just kind of a silvery
cast to the lawn. You know, things are dry and
it's time to irrigate, or things are very hot. So
there are many, many different types of triggers, and we'll
talk more about them. Give you some good trigger plants
in segment for to day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've talked a lot about summer triggers and wilting,
but there's winter triggers too that we've talked quite a
bit about, you know, like the rhododendrons decreasing their leaf surface.
I think the important thing is, you know, to to
take the time to notice these types of things and
think about what they might mean. It's a language that
you pick up on gradually, and that is really part
of gardening, is it's you know, decoding the language of
the plants. And you know, I think your thing about
the silvery lawn makes sense. Someone might be going like,
I have no idea what he talks about, what he's
talking about, but one day this summer, you're gonna actually
notice it. You'll be like, that was what Rick was saying.
Speaker 1: That's right, or the tire tracks, and you're right. The
macrophila hydranges, those blooms they look grumpy to me. The
rhododendrons in winter, they just look like they're moping.
Speaker 2: They look very sad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well, let's see how Stacey ties this in
and plants on trial. That's coming up next here on
the Gardening Simplified.
Speaker 2: Show, beautify your home and community with proven Winn's Color
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proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Youre Reading's gardening friends,
and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where today's
topic is trigger plants and basically what we're saying. I
guess you know, I couldn't quite think of like the
perfect word for this concept, you know, but they trigger
an action from you because they are showing you like, oh, hey,
something's not great in my environment here. Now, for humans,
of course, if something's not great in our environment, we
are able to get up and move to better surroundings.
And plants don't have that ability. So you know, what
they're doing is not saying to you like, literally, hey
I need water, But they are using their survival mechanisms
to deal with those conditions. And those are not necessarily
conditions that you notice, we experience life different than plants.
So they then trigger an action from you. But I
think it's also important to acknowledge in this conversation that
some of these trigger plants. You know, it's not necessarily
a good thing and can trigger from you. The action
it should trigger is moving it, because what it's actually
telling you is like, good, I don't really love this,
you know. And I gave that long example and exactly well,
I gave that long example in the first segment about
big leaf hydrangeas, and yeah, it can absolutely withstand that
afternoon welting. You know, if you are in Michigan and
you have you know, relatively few hot days, that's not
going to be a problem. If you are in a
warmer climate or a hot climate and that's happening, that
would be to me a signal that you should move
the plant into an area where it is in afternoon shade.
Because if that's, you know, happening, like in Michigan, we
might get you know, no more than ten or twelve
days where that's probably happening. But certainly if you live
in a very hot climate and that's happening every day,
for in July, August, in September, and eventually that plant
is going to start to suffer from that. So it's
always worth considering, you know, as you notice these things
about your plants, if the trigger action should be putting
it on your fall list to transplant.
Speaker 1: I like your line of thinking there, And the trigger
essentially helps you make a decision. Maybe it's down the road,
but make a decision for that plant, because that plant
can't get up and walk away, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And we often used that phrase or that analogy read
the tea leaves in running a business. I used it
for years in running a business because if you look
at the balance sheet or the financial statement in hale,
you're essentially reading the tea leaves and making decisions maybe
for future actions, but you're trying to analyze what's going
on here and taking the clues that are being presented
to you.
Speaker 2: Definitely, and it really is like learning a language. And
the language that you're going to be learning does include
the things that Rick and I are sharing today, but
it also includes the things that you will observe in
your own garden. And that's really what gardening is all about. Now.
Most of the plants that we have discussed so far
as trigger plants. We've been talking about the changes that
they undergo due to a result of some sort of stress.
But today's plant on trial is a trigger plant that
what changes about it is something that actually makes the
plant more attractive when the trigger happens. I can see
Adriana's wheels are turning back there. I don't know if
I'm not explaining this well, but when I announced today's
plant on trial, in one second, it's going to dawn
right on her. Because today's plan on trial is pinky
winky hydrangea. Yes, she's nodding, so pinky winky, if you're
not familiar with it, is a panical hydrangea, and this
is one of the earliest panicle high ranges that we introduced.
Now I have to like take you back in time
for a moment here Before Limelight came on the market
in the nineteen nineties, panicle hydranges like PG or tart
of A, they barely turned color, you know, they kind
of sort of took on like a little bit of
pink at the end of the season, but it was
not a main feature. Since Limelight, there has been a
real trend over these last couple decades to select panicle
hydranges that start out white and then take on better
and better color. And I think you really see that
across the proven winners color choice hydrangees that are subsequent introductions.
For the most part, there's a couple exceptions have had
better and better color and just briefly so I don't
forget those couple of exceptions don't change color because some
people don't actually want the color to change. So that
would really be a puffer fish hydrangea and to a
lesser extent, Bobo, which does take on some pink, but
so some people don't like it. But most people when
they buy that panicle hydrangel, what they really want is
that pink color and pinky Winky was really I think
one of the very first panicle hydrangeas to kind of
make its main benefit or main feature this color. Now,
let's talk about that trigger, because when you buy a
pinky Winky hydrangea, it's going to start to flower. It's
going to have a big, huge, beautiful it's honestly one
of the biggest panicle hydrange of the flowers are enormous,
the stems are huge and thick like reebar. Beautiful plant.
Not a great choice for cut flowers unless you have
a massive vase. Ask me how I know. But so
they come out with these beautiful lace cap white flowers
and then you know, about mid summer, or sorry, about
mid August, what's going to start to happen is the
flowers are going to start to shade from the bottom
towards the top, from deep pink to light pink to
white at the top, and then gradually, as the season progresses,
it will go completely pink. Now, when this happens in
mid August, you're probably on your summer vacation, reading a
juicy book by the pool or on the beach, and
you're like, this is the high of summer. This is amazing. Well, actually,
from the plant's point of view, it's fall, yes, because
what has triggered this color change is the shorter nights
and cooler nights that happened by August. Now I wanted
to kind of get some context for this, and so
just to help you understand, and this is just just
using grand Haven, so it will be different in other areas.
But on the summer solstice in grand Haven we have
almost seventeen hours of day length. That's how long our
days are. So by our June twentieth or so, little
under seventeen hours. By the time mid August rolls around,
we are under fifteen hours, so it's about fourteen hours
and forty five minutes of day length. So by the
time mid August rolls around, you have a night that's
basically longer by ninety or so minutes. And that's what's
actually triggering that. So's those longer nights and the cooler temperatures.
Why the cooler temperatures because as I've said many times
on the show, plants synthesize their pigments at night, and
when it's cool, they can synthesize their pigments more effectively
and they get brighter. So this is triggered by long,
cool nights, not a problem for us here in Michigan. Now,
many of our friends in warm climates they grow panicle
hydrangees and they never turn color. They're just so disappointed,
and they're like, what gives. Well, a couple of issues here.
First of all, because you live in a warmer climate,
your panicle hydrange is bloom much earlier than they do
for us here. For us, panicle hydrangees, the first ones,
which are the quick fire hydrangs, those will usually be
first blooming around fourth of July, but most of them
were looking more like mid to late July for that
initial bloom. You live in a warm climate, you're looking
at probably early to mid June. So now what that
means is that as those blooms are starting to age,
instead of that happening in August, where your day length
is now almost two hours shorter than before, it's happening
in July, during your hottest period of the entire year.
So your nights are still quite long, your nighttime temperatures
are still really high, very often in the South, you know,
typically in the seventies or higher. We're talking about places
that are too hot to even grow tomatoes, because tomatoes
can't really grow where nighttime temperatures are consistently in the
eighties and so you don't get that color. So this
is a trigger again that you can't control. And I
know this is sometimes confusing for people because of course hydrangees,
as we've talked about many times. You know, there's all
this confusion because they're all different. And some people say, well,
panicle hydrangees change color, must be the soil chemistry like
with big leaf hydranges, But no, it's entirely weather and
day length triggered. So unfortunately, nothing you can really do.
If you live in a hot climate, you either have
to resign yourself to not enjoying those beautiful pink colors,
or if you are an experimental gardener, you could play
around with pruning it. You could play around with pruning
it a little bit later in the spring. Don't want
to go too late. Of course it's too late for
this now, but you don't want to go too late,
and that will help to delay the bloom. And if
you're able to push that bloom further into July so
that you can kind of take advantage of that downswing
on the nighttime temperatures, you might be able to enjoy
that color.
Speaker 1: It's a form of Chelsea chop.
Speaker 2: It is kind of like a Chelsea chop.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And when they turn color like that here in
the North in August into September, I always get this
kind of melancholy feel.
Speaker 2: Because you know, you know what it's triggering. Other people
are like, this is great at summer, and you're like, oh, shoot,
my hydraene hit turned pink fall is on the way.
Speaker 1: It's like back to school time.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, like moms at the garden center.
Speaker 1: Mom's the word.
Speaker 2: So anyway, it's a great trigger plant. This is a
case where the trigger works in our favor. And this
isn't true just of today's plan on trial Pinky Winky.
I picked Pinky Winky, like I said, because it really
was the first of all panicle hydranges in the current
era to really be sold for that color change. But
there's tons more Pinky Winky prime. The new version of
it has even better color, so you can find that
at your local garden center. We're talking about hardy down
to USDA Zone three heat tolerant through USDA Zone eight.
They can grow on zone nine, but definitely not getting
any color in USDA Zone nine, so bear that in
mind as you decide whether you're going to add Pinky
Winky or any of the Perfuminer's panicle hydranges to your garden.
We're gonna take a little break. When we come back,
we're opening up the mail bag, so please stay tuned
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Color Choice dot com. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back
to the Gardening Simplified Show, where I'm going to kick
off mailbag where we normally answer your questions, and we
will be answering some questions, but I'm going to kick
it off with a little bit of a rant.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, here we go.
Speaker 2: And the rant that I have on this episode is
about plant id apps. Now, I want to say, first
of all, I do not begrudge anybody who uses a
plant ID app anymore than a very serious burder would
be grudge me for using Merlin, And hopefully you don't
begrudge me because it is a game changer. And similarly,
I appreciate that people want to use these apps and
find out, you know, what the plant is. And they
have improved immensely. I remember when these things came out
and they were like a joke, you know. But obviously
with AI and as more and more data has come
onto the Internet for them to train these apps off of,
they have generally gotten better, but they are far from perfect.
And so I would encourage you, if you are someone
who uses a plant ID app, to definitely take that
with a grain of salt. So I had a message
from a listener and she said that they had cleared
out a bunch of you know, old weeds and brush
and everything around their property. Stuff started to recover and
she didn't know what this one plant was and she
used her plant Idea app and it said it was
ground ivy, which is a weed. You know, it's a
kind of a bad obnoxious weed. Also called creeping Charlie,
and she said, but I looked that up after it
said that, and that just doesn't seem like what it is.
What is it? And it was a native scuttalaria, So
I mean not like a rare native plant or anything
like that, but like certainly a plant that is well
worth keeping. But you know, this plant id app probably
has identified obviously is a lot more likely to come
into contact with creeping Charlie than with scuttalarias. So it's
not really even I don't want to call it mindset,
but it's not even in its you know, database to access. Now,
there is another app, and I don't know if you
get ads for this on Facebook, but they do advertise
it to me on Facebook, and oh does it make
my blood boil? So it is a plant id app,
and it claims that if something is wrong with your plant,
it will tell you what's wrong with your plant. That's
all well and good. I mean again, you're gonna have
to take that with a grain of salt, because there
are just so many things. And also, as we've ascertained
on the show, you know, probably at least half the
time when someone has a plant problem, it's water related.
So you know, it has a pretty good shot at
being right if it's telling you that your problem is
related to the water that the plant is getting. But no, no,
this particular app takes it one step further and tells
you what you should do. And the solutions, as have
been advertised to me in this app have involved things
like adding sugar to the soil, sprinkle with cinnamon, right,
and so all they're trying to do is to I
don't know what they're trying to do. They're there. I mean,
it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: But think about it here a minute. So we live
in a world of AI.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, I'm afraid, so, yeah, I'm afraid.
Speaker 1: So and if you ask, for example, I was looking
at a study. If you ask people like me baby bloomers,
they essentially think, nah, this stuff is never going to
take over, you know, care for the garden. It's always
going to be a people thing. Not everybody feels that way.
And of course, in the horticulture and agricultural industries, AI
has really taken a hold sensors for watering, machine vision
to identify problems, et cetera, et cetera. But that's on
a big scale. When are we going to get to
the point where for the general homeowner they're able to
use this AI technology or apps to truly determine whether
or not the plant needs to be watered or not,
or what the problem is. And I would agree with you,
we're not there yet.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that the main thing is just like
there is no substitute for experience, and if you are
a gardener or on your journey to becoming a gardener,
you know you really don't just want everything to be
figured out for you. You have to learn it yourself.
And that's really I think a lot of what the
trigger plant thing is about, too, is like starting to
read that language and understand how to fix, how to
notice when things are going wrong, of the conditions that
influenced your plants, and and act on them accordingly. So
by all means, use them, learn from them, take them
with a grain of salt, and take especially their so
called solutions to your plant problems with a grain of salt.
Even more so if you have to pay and they're
selling you something, well, and.
Speaker 1: You're preaching to the choir. Because I'm a sixty five
year old man who has been in the garden industry
for fifty years, I don't want to be replaced by
an app. I want I like that experience thing. Whatever
you said, so that, well, you know what fall in
on that.
Speaker 2: An app is unlikely knock on wood to have your
sense of humor. So at least you've got that going
sense of humous all right, So sorry about that. What
do we got in the mailbag?
Speaker 1: James writes, Hi, I enjoy watching your show on YouTube
every week, going back over the last couple of years
of information, great gardening knowledge and fun. My question is
about a hosta that's been in the spot for ten
years keeps getting bigger. I don't divide, it just keeps growing.
I'm watching with interest this year that a few of
the leaves are coming in with variegation. Haven't seen this before?
Is it possible to cross pollinate from other hostas that
are variegated in my garden? Or is it reverting to
something else?
Speaker 2: Right? So interesting situation. What you are seeing there, James,
is something called a sport and it is a offset
or a branch. It happens in shrubs and trees as
well of the plant that just takes on some different genes.
This is just a genetic phenomenon. It has nothing to
do with cross pollination, because the only way that like
cross pollination could happen would be if it grows from seed. Now,
it is certainly possible for hostas to self sew. It
happens quite a lot at my in laws house where
they have a lot of hostas, and I see those
popping up like weeds everywhere. It's a wild thing to see.
But no, it's just the plant that you know, it's
jeans are jumping around. You can read more about it.
It's called transposons. This is also the cause of like
those corns that have all the different colors, those are
also caused by transposons. And it's also how we got
variegated hostas in the first place.
Speaker 1: Sure, absolutely, and a.
Speaker 2: Lot of varigated plants. I would say most irrigated plants
do actually start as sports. So it's not reverting, it's
just doing something different there. And you can, if you wish,
take out that little part that's variegated, you know, dig
it out and grow it on its own. It will
grow better if it's detached from the much more vigorous
all green version that you have.
Speaker 1: Give it a really cool name, start marketing it, and
give us ten percent of the royal.
Speaker 2: You never know what it'll turn into, but it's totally
normal and nothing to be concerned about.
Speaker 1: And usually when you see that variegation, you're so right, Stacey,
it's not the pollination. Usually you're looking at a genetic mutation,
or a viral infection, or an environmental change, and nine
times out of ten, probably a genetic music. Yes, yeah,
Susan writes to us Hi, Rick and Stacy. I love
watching your show every Saturday morning. It's so much fun
listening to the two of you, and on top of that,
I learned so much. Well, thank you, Susan, appreciate that.
I was hoping you could tell me to do it
or don't do it. Live in Southern Ontario, Canada's on
six A. Last week, I had twenty six green gem
boxwoods planted, but I noticed the boxwood are quite pale
compared to my neighbor's green gem as well as my
green velvet in my yard. I wondered if some fertilizer
might help. Do it or don't do it. I'd like
to trim a little a little, but was suggested I
wait a year. I'm dying to do it. Do it
or don't do it. I appreciate your advice.
Speaker 2: Right, So, a couple of things here. To answer your
first question about the pale foliage, I would not do
anything about it right now. You have to realize when
a plant has made the transition, because these are newly
planted from the garden center to your yard, it has
undergone a major change in the way that it was kept.
And boxwood are generally considered a shade crop in growers
and retailers, and it was probably under shade, and now
it's out there in the great wild and it's getting sun.
And the plants actually make different types of chlorophyll depending
on how much sun or shade they get, so it
probably has more of what would be known as the
shade type chlorophyll, and it's trying to adapt to what
is now a much sunnier spot. And that's why your
plants that are already established and growing in those conditions
look perfectly lovely. This plant, meanwhile, needs some time to
adapt to the conditions and the light levels that it's
actually growing in. And that's just part of a plant
getting established.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's part of a plant getting established. And also
I would say that I have found with boxwood. They
do like a well drained soil. They don't like to
sit in water. I'm not saying that that's the situation here,
but you can get pale foliage if you're not getting
good drainage. You're going to want to water them well
initially to get them established.
Speaker 2: But you got to if you especially if you have
clay soil, you need to make sure that you know
it's not staying too wet. They also do prefer it
a little bit more on the neutral to alkaline side.
But again, when something is new, as long as it's
not a water issue, I would definitely wait and see.
You can start fertilizing it next spring, just to help
it get established more quickly. But I don't think fertilizer
is likely to be the solution to what you're seeing
right now. Now. Ask for Susan's question about trimming, what
would you say.
Speaker 1: I would say, don't trim right now, give them a season.
You don't want to trim them just before winter and
stimulate some new growth that's just going to die back anyhow,
So I just let them go for now, that's my opinion.
Trim them next.
Speaker 2: Year, yeah, I would say, I understand you're dying to
do it, Susan, But I would also wait. I mean,
it's important to realize that when you trim something, you
expose a lot of stem surface that's going to be
giving off water vapor, and that can really kind of
contribute to some stress. The plant's already putting all of
its energies into growing roots in its new home, so
in my opinion, the best thing to do for it
is to try to leave it alone. If there's a
couple of stems out there that are just really driving
you're crazy, you have my permission to cut those, but
I would not get the hedge clippers out, just some
selective pruting.
Speaker 1: Love it, And we got a note from Mary try
and move that into a segment four us. I want
to ask you this question.
Speaker 2: Okay, sounds good. We'll see if I'm triggered. So we're
gonna take a little break and when we come back,
we will be hearing that question as well as continuing
our conversation on trigger plants. Thanks for listening to the
Gardening Simplified podcast, brought to you by Proven Winners Color
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's time for
branching news. Before we talk further on trigger plants, Stacey
wanted to ask you a question. As a matter of fact,
I was thinking about it this past weekend as I
was sitting on the the Volvo loader loading car and
pickup truck and trailer after trailer with bark mulch. We
got a question from Mary asking about dyed mulch. Mary's
always used natural triple shredded hardwood and some of that
almost can be like dust, but she likes the look
of black mulch in the landscape and wanted to know
if there's any harm in it. Is it a good
idea to use black mulch? And you know, I'm thinking
again about hot weather. Do you think with black mulch
it puts a little extra stress on the plants or
do you think probably.
Speaker 2: Not well, whether it stresses the plants, I couldn't say,
but it absolutely will increase the temperature around the plant.
There's no question about that, just because just because you
know black, just like if you go to the beach
and have a big old black beach towel that you're
laying on, you will be a lot warmer than if
you were laying out there on white you know or something.
And there you go. So it will absolutely raise the temperature.
And I can tell you as you know, I replaced
my lawn with mulch as we're kind of refiguring our
garden and I have lots of lots of beds. I
really only have mulch paths and then planting surrounded by mulch.
We actually took a laser thermometer out there and we
just have regular, regular bark mulch. It's not triple shredded,
just kind of a coarse landscape bark mulch natural. And
the difference in temperature was about ten degrees warmer on
the mulch than on our concrete. So even regular mulch,
you know, and it's not till decomposing, it's it's you know,
done mostly decomposing. But mulch, you know, can raise the temperature.
And so yeah, that black mulch will definitely you know,
in absorb more heat. Now for us here in Michigan,
probably not a huge deal. You'd want to be careful
around any very sensitive plants, of course, But you know
I would say I am I am a no on
dyed mulch in general, but could make an exception for
black mulch because I do get why people like the
look of it. Okay, you know it can look quite uh,
quite sophisticated, I suppose. But that said, mulch is not
necessarily an aesthetic choice. It is a plant health choice.
And so you know, you got to get into a
situation where you're like, Okay, I'm just prioritizing what this
looks like to me, but you know, red dyed mulch
is an absolute no go. Any brown eyed mulch, like
what are you even doing? Mulch is going to be
brown and then kind of age to gray, and of course,
you know there's some environmental concerns. I think. You know,
they're putting all this dye onto the mulch and you're
working in it, and you know there's just no need
for all of that to leach into the ground. So
dyed mulch is a definite no for me. Red and
dyed brown mulch are verboten. Black mulch. I get why
you'd want to do it. I personally would not, but
I do understand that.
Speaker 1: I've always used natural hardwood mulch. Now it does bring
up a point, so hopefully that helps you marry, So
you could do it, but I think it does bring
up the temperature a little bit. Yeah, trigger plants a trigger.
Let's say a trigger fung guy in the landscape is
slime mold.
Speaker 2: Oh so much slime mold right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as the weather gets hot and humid, and
you can stir it up and then it reshaved. You know,
really cool stuff. Looks like a bottle of Frenches mustard
that a dog threw up in the in the bark mulch.
But it's an indication that maybe your mulch is hydrophobic
and that you need to stir the mulch. So it's
a good thing to look for and use that as
a trigger in the landscape.
Speaker 2: You know what I love about this? So, yeah, this
is a mulch. This is a mold also known as
the dog vomit fungus. Every year you hear questions about
it because people are like, ah, what's going on. It
is actually a slime mold. It is just living off
the mulch. So when I see it in my mulch paths,
which are just there is to basically keep down weeds
and conserve the soil. I don't worry about it too much.
I just see that as the as the mult decomposing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I love about it? When it
starts to like burst open and you water it and
all that like water runs off, but then the spores
are coming out. Oh, I love that. I was just
doing a bunch of that last weekend.
Speaker 1: It is fun. Set up some lawn chairs and watch it.
Speaker 2: Right, but not macrome.
Speaker 1: Lunch on a macro may launchair. Leave that inside that's
a little warm. The I love drip tips on plants. Now,
drip tips, that's another phrase of mind. But allocacias, you know,
we both love the coffee cups allocation. But many tropical
plants will indicate to you when the weather is very,
very humid. Not that you need an indicator to know that.
Forgive me, I'm only humid. But these tropical plants. Look
at them once, Alocacias, Ladium's, collocacia, they all naturally form
foliage that produces a drip tip. And my theory is
it's because they grow well in hot and humid.
Speaker 2: Areas, and you know, it's just a way to kind
of funnel the water down towards the roots in an
area where there could be a very dense undergrowth and
they would be competing for it. So they're like, hey,
this is mine. I'm funneling it right down to the roots.
Or baby, you got it.
Speaker 1: Another trigger plant. My landscape never fails, always works. I
can walk into my back landscape. I'll walk right up
to the tractor seat ligularity.
Speaker 2: Ah, yeah, that thing.
Speaker 1: The minute we're starting to see some stress in the landscape,
that thing choose me out royal. So my tractor seat,
my tractor seat ligular area caliber coas. I think that
they're drama Queen's here's a plant that will talk to you, citrus.
If you have a citrus plant like out on your deck,
the green veining, the chlorosis in the full citrus plants
talk to.
Speaker 2: You yes, and mostly what it says is I don't
like it here and I'm dying.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to Florida. Menarda flocks they
have a strong pronounced mid rib, but they also wear
their emotions on their sleeves or on their leaves and
then you start to see things like powdery mildew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's you know, that's an interesting one too, because
I think Manarda is of course notorious for getting powdery mildew,
even though a lot of the newer cultivars, especially the
proven Winter's ones, are much more powdery mildew resistant than
the older ones. If your Manada is consistently getting powdery mildew,
that probably means it's pretty stressed. And so that would
be a trigger for you that like, hey, this is
not a great situation for this particular plant, and you
want to move it to someplace where you know it
doesn't undergo water stress. Because that's what I find is
someone who does give my plants a lot of water stress,
not on purpose, just because you know, I'm not into
spending a bunch of money on watering my plants when
I can just grow stuff that actually tolerates my yard.
I have found. Yeah, if they if they get too
dry over and over again, they break out with powdery mildew.
They're just like, I'm too stressed. The powdery mildew is
taken over vegetable plants.
Speaker 1: Vegetable plant garden is a great place to look for
trigger plants. Tomatoes, of course talk to you. The zippering
of the fruit, the blossom en rot. Maybe it's a
calcium deficiency. Maybe the problem is that it's drying out
in between watering. But tomatoes will talk to you. Cucumbers
squash any of the que curvets when it relates to
humid weather and downy mildew, powdery mildew, that sort of thing.
I suggest people take a look at their trees. Take
a close look at your trees, and just don't ignore them.
You'll look up into the canopy. I saw it this
past week again, greening of the veins, but yellow foliage,
or the foliage is thin at the top of the tree,
or you look up into the canopy and you see
that telltale sign of tar spot and you recognize that
you need to increase the light and air movement through
the canopy of that tree with some pruning and then stacey.
Of course, when it comes to trigger plants, some of
the best trigger plants in the landscape are the actual
weeds themselves.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's a good point. I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, moss will indicate you have compacted soil. If the
soil shape and shade. If the soil is way too wet,
you're going to start to see horsetail, white clover. There's
an indication that your mowing height isn't right. And in
addition to that, there's a lack of nitrogen in the soil.
Speaker 2: Because it can because it can grow in a lack
of nitrogen, whereas other plants can't necessarily do that exactly.
But a lot of people also just like to have
clover in their lawn because it looks lovely.
Speaker 1: Sure, So a lot of plants I look for, and
a lot of weeds which are often in indication that
there's something wrong with the soil. You look at plantain,
and many times that's growing in nutrient deficient, heavy clay soils,
a soil that needs to be air rated, black medic
spurge red soil all indicate very dry soil. So I
would suggest that you learn more about these weeds and
use weeds like I do to help you read the
tea leaves, so to speak as to what's going on
in your less.
Speaker 2: What does nuts edge mean?
Speaker 1: Nuts edge means very wet, well drained soil.
Speaker 2: Oh see, I don't know what soil at all, and
I have tons of nutsage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do too, so it's got I.
Speaker 2: Don't think anyone can avoid that sage. It was a
trick question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's drainage. Though it does like a
well drained soil.
Speaker 2: It definitely likes my yard and it gets no supplemental water,
but it does not seem to stop it. The good
thing is it's easy to pull and kind of satisfying
to pull too.
Speaker 1: Exactly. I love it too. It's therapeutic. Well, thanks for
reading the tea leaves with us this week. I hope
it was helpful and you're seeing some triggers in your landscape.
Thanks Stacey, thank you Rick, thank you Adriana, and thank
you to you for watching us on YouTube, listening to
the radio show version, and looking for us wherever you
get your favorite podcast. See us soon