Speaker 1: Broadcasting from spring Like 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, today's show been there killed that
would like it back? I think a lot of people
can relate to this topic. And my philosophy going in Stacy,
is that losing everyone's lost plants. We've all killed plants,
but losing is not the opposite of winning. Losing is
part of winning. We learned valuable lessons along the way, takeaways,
so to speak, and we've done that with plants and
many facets. I'm sure of our lives and I've always
told people, if you haven't killed any plants, you're not
trying hard enough. And I didn't just fall off the
turnip truck. I have had a lot of experience killing
plants in my life.
Speaker 2: Stacy oof same. I mean, you know, before when I
was younger and just had houseplants, killed a lot of houseplants,
and then I finally got my dream garden, not quite
my dream garden, but finally got a house where I
could actually build a garden, and boy, has my plant
death teally gone up?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, Frank Sinatra said it best regrets. I've
had a few, but then again too few to mention.
I did what I had to do, and I did
it my way. So we're just doing it our way.
And along the lines of this topic, And you mentioned
houseplants one of the first plants that pops into mind
for me. I think for a lot of people it's
a good example plant and that would be ferns in general.
So you know, yeaho oh boy. Over the years. Well yeah,
and the problem there is that ferns are just like me.
They love humidity, and they're in the problem. But maiden
hair ferns, like when they come into the greenhouse, they're
so cute, they're adorable, they're beautiful. I want one, I
want to take one home. But whether it's maiden hair
ferns or button ferns or staghorn fern there's a lot
of them on the death list.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I mean you you know, I feel like
that is probably one of people's you know, when they
first get excited about house plants and they go to
the garden center, that's probably like their first experience, really,
you know, having a bad experience with plants, and who
can blame them? You know, they're there, so they assume
that they're going to have reasonable Karen structments or you
know what I really love when a fern is like
low light requirements. Oh yeah, I got that this is
going to be great, and it doesn't say anything about
the humidity requirements, which are considerable. So people just look
at the light and think everything's going to be hunky dory,
and it is far from honkey dory. And I, as
a young adult, for certainly killed my first maiden hair
fern very quickly. And you know, the the other one
that they sell that attracts a lot of people and
they pretty much immediately kill it is the Sela Janella
or rainbow loss. Yes, yes, yes, yeah, love those so beautiful,
but yeah, good luck keeping that alive in your average
household environments.
Speaker 1: So there's lots of example. You know, let me give
you a little story example on this topic. Go back
to twenty ten. My daughter's getting married and we're having
a backyard wedding. So I'm trying to get the yard
just spectacular. The wedding's the end of June, it is
March and April of that year, we had three consecutive
weeks where the temperatures were between sixty and eighty degrees.
Everything flushed out. I still remember the night April ten,
twenty ten, got into the twenties. That night, Oh God,
the entire night. Everything fried the hosta, I mean everything
just fried. And it was a great lesson for me
as to the resilience of plants or juvenation of plants,
because a lot of these plants leafed out enough in
time for the wedding in late June and looked beautiful,
and you would have never known that we had that
hard frost in April. And I take a lesson from
some of my friends in Florida because when they get
a freeze in Florida, generally we learn a lesson from
them in that they recommend don't prune right away, be patient.
Dead foliage protects the live tissue looking to grow, don't
push with fertilizer, let nature take its course. And I
think those are good lessons to learn.
Speaker 2: I think those are great lessons to learn for anybody,
but especially our listeners. In warm climates, you are probably
dealing with a whole lot of that right now. Yes,
polar vorte and you know, I get it, like you
see all of this like gross black, squishy growth or
whatever it is on your plants, and you think I
got to remove it. I've got to remove all evidence
that this happened. But yeah, it does offer some protection.
And you know, even in warm climates like Florida, they're
not out of the woods yet for you know, it's
not going to be another polar vortex situation, but you
can certainly get a frost.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I've seen Japanese maples that just look completely fried
and dead and then within a month refoliated. So it's
it's a good lesson to learn, you know. Another plant
example for me is blue Atlas cedar. I love that tree.
I have a picture of one in my landscape for
our YouTube viewers, but it's a zone six plant. I
live in Zone six and when we have a polar
vortex winter like we had this past year, turns brown
and it's it's tough to take. And when I lived
further inland in Michigan, I was unable to grow them,
but I love the plant. So Ben there killed that one.
Another one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just thinking, you know, I know you like
to mention old songs. Yes, I'm just thinking in my
head of an old song, don't it make my blue
seater brown? Instead of don't to make my brown eyes blue?
Don't to make my blue seater brown?
Speaker 1: Very good? I like that. I like that. That's a
classic song. Well, you know, and trees in general. It's
tough to swallow a loss when it comes to trees,
and we all, you know, learned lessons over the decades,
Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight, and in recent history of course,
eab and green ash, as well as hemlocks, the wooly
adelga and the damage we're seeing here along the lake shore.
And it's hard to move away from trees that you've planted.
I've had to move away from a beautiful ginko tree,
which reminds me I need your help, Stacy in finding
a skinny fit ginkle. Oh.
Speaker 2: I wish I could help you. Those are going to
be so popular, but you're on my list. As soon
as I think as you one, you're going to get one.
Speaker 1: You know. A weeping beach, a weeping larch, a paper bark,
maple of down redwood. I've moved away from them all,
and it's hard to do.
Speaker 2: It is hard to do, you know, when you fall
in love with something and you finally have the place
to grow it, they're the first things that you think of.
And I actually had a very similar experience, not with
a tree, but when I finally got my house, I
had visions of the incredible meadow of gmtriflorum also known
as prairie smoke that I had seen at Chanticleer Gardens.
And this is such a cool plant. So it's a
native GM. Geum and it blooms in late spring with
these really cool cherry red flowers that look kind of
like Hershey's kisses, and those are really cool to see
and have beautiful lacy foliage. And then as that flower fades,
it turns into the prairie smoke, which is just this
beautiful clematist like and people have heard me talk about
how much I love the clematist seedheads, so it's a
little bit like that, but even whispier and so so lovely.
And so one of the first plants I bought for
my new garden was gmtriflorm prairie smoke, and you know,
didn't really realize that it is not going to make
it in my doney, very dry, very sunny garden, and
that poor thing evaporated faster than you could say GM triflorum,
and that is a pretty short botanical name. And I
tried subsequently because you know, I thought, hey, I've seen
this thing self so like crazy, this is going to
be so dreamy and yeah, and I would like it back.
I wish I had the conditions to grow it. But
I am as guilty as so many other gardeners of
wishful thinking, right, you know. And that's but again, that's
not a failure. That's not a loss. I lost the plant,
but I learned a lot and through all of that
in trial and error, and I've discovered new plants that
I might not have ever purchased if I had succeeded
with the prairie smoke in the first place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever kills your plant makes you better, Yeah, something
along that line. I'm trying to wax philosophical. Now that works,
make you feel better about it. But yeah, so I'm
always pushing that type of thing too. Out of zone.
Don't be afraid to kill a few plants. Here's my
out of zone limb a rick this week. You need
to cut me some slack for giving tender plants all
whack not hardy in my zone. I really should have
known been there now I want it back. Been there,
killed that in impulsive purchase, fell flat. But this plant
is primed for an encore. Welcome back to my yard
for more. I'll roll out the welcome mat. And it's true.
Through the years, I've watched people buy plants like they
buy lottery tickets. They go in thinking this ain't gonna work,
but then they go back for more, and I think
that that's great. I'm encouraging people to do it well.
Speaker 2: It's true, and there are a lot of things that
can change, you know. For example, if you start with
a bigger plant, perhaps than your first try, then you
can actually be more successful than you would have been
with just the smaller one that you started off with.
So it's almost always worth another try.
Speaker 1: Yeh, Stacy, So what I've always said, You know what
I've said, There's always more room for jello and plants.
That's true, So get out there and take some chances.
Let's see how Stacey ties this in with plants on trial.
That's coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified.
Speaker 2: Show, 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 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. Greeting's Gardening friends,
and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show where we're
talking about been there, killed that, and want it back,
specifically as it pertains to the plants in our lives,
because yeah, we're all victims of wishful thinking, and when
we come across that plant at the garden center, you know,
we kind of can't help it and we give it
a try. But that's how you learn. I mean that
really is what it means to be a gardener is
to you know, get these plants, try them out, and
you know, if something says that it needs moist soil
and it ends up shrinking down to just a little
dust speck in your in your landscape, then you kind
of start to know, I don't have moist soil, I
have dry soil. And you may have noticed if you
are joining us on YouTube that Rick and I are
happen to be wearing black, as does Adriana, and this
coincidence we are chalking up to mourning for all of
the plants that we have killed in our in our past.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and full transparency, we do not communicate together. No,
we don't as to what we're going to be wearing.
And I thought I'd take the Johnny Cash approach today,
So yeah, and appropriately, so, I guess.
Speaker 2: So, you know, it's okay to mourn for the plants
that you that have passed on that you attempted to grow.
But what's not okay is to dwell on that and
to beat yourself up for it, because you know, we
can only do so much. And whenever we're gardening or
growing houseplants, we're taking a plant out of its native environment,
out of all of those factors that really help that
plant thrive, and putting it somewhere else. And really the
success in gardening comes to, you know, a plant's ability
to withstand a wide range of conditions so that as
it gets further away from that natural environment, it can
adapt or to replicate those exact conditions so precisely that
it can still live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, Stacy you're outside the norm because
I know that you love succulents and you're very good
at growing succulents. But boy, there's a lot of people
over the craze the last ten years or so who
have killed succulents and been frustrated.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, or you know, the other thing that people
get frustrated with suculents is the dulation when the especially
like the echavarias and stuff, when the center starts to
get real tall and they think, what's happening. I bought
this cute rose out of a plant, and yeah, that's
that's just what's happening because it's out of its environment.
But as a plant company like proven Winter's Colored Choice Shrubs,
it might not come as a big surprise to you
that we don't really like to talk a lot about
our plants dying, you know, and that makes sense, right.
We try and test our plants so that you can
be successful. The plants are living things, and you know,
over the many years that I have been here, I
have heard from many many gardeners who have unfortunately killed
one of our plants that they purchased. And so, in
the spirit of been there killed that want it back,
I thought that I would talk about our most killed
proven winner's colored choice shrubs. Well, it is interesting because
as I sat down to think about it, this is
going to seem very ironic at first. By far, our
most killed shrubs are some of our best sellers. Oh
and those two plants are panical hydrangeas and lilacs. Really, yes,
and the reason for this so those are very popular.
So of course, on the one hand, if a plant
is very popular, that means there are more of them
out there, more people trying it, and therefore a greater
chance that someone is going to inadvertently kill their new
purchased lilac or panical hydrangea. But that's not entirely it,
because they're actually both quite durable plants. But they have
a kryptonite, a weak point, and that is that neither
of them can withstand poor drainage or too much water. Oh,
and that is why these plants are These two are,
by far, in all my fifteen years of being here
and helping home gardeners with their problems, far and away
the two that are most killed Limelight, which you know,
I'm sure we have so many listeners right now thinking
people are killing limelight, like my Limelight has been through everything.
It is a beast. But I can tell you I
have heard from so very many people who have killed
Limelight as well as their other panicle hydrangees, because they
get so excited about bringing this home, having it in
their garden and they think, I am going to make
the perfect home for this new plant. I'm going to
dig a hole. I'm going to fill it up with
some nice fluffy compost top soil, sphagnum, moss, fill in
the blank. It could be any of these things, potting mix,
It goes on and on. Garden soil is one another
thing that they sell. So they dig the hole, they
fill it up with this nice, rich, fluffy mix that
they've purchased from the garden center. They put the plant
in there, and they have just created the worst possible
conditions for either a panicle hydrangea or a lilac. Because
what that does, Yeah, because it's well intentioned. So you know,
we've been talking a lot about killing plants kind of
as a wishful thinking, like I wish I could grow this,
and I can't. My conditions aren't right, my zone is right.
This is more of a love to death kind of approach. Wow.
Speaker 1: I think Johnny Cash did a song on this. It's
called the Walk the Lawn.
Speaker 2: I wish I had to come back for that, but
I'm I'm scrambling through my mental you know file of
Johnny Cash songs. I'll get back to you on that one.
But okay, So what happens when they do this, especially
if they have clay soil? And it is precisely the
people who have clay soil who are most likely to
do this because they think, like, oh, the soil is
so hard and so difficult to grow, and so I
need to make this nice, beautiful, fluffy environment. But when
you do that, what happens is you create literally a bathtub.
So the bathtub is that hard clay soil around the hole,
and then you put the soil in the you know
amendment inside and the plant inside. And then when you water,
that fluffy amendment can hold onto so much water so
much more quickly than the surrounding soil, so it infiltrates
into the hole very quickly. But then what happens is
all of those airspaces in that fluffy amendment are holding
onto water directly around the plant roots, and it takes
forever for it to leak out into those tiny, little
dense you know, soil particles that surround that fluffy hole.
And both panicle hydrangeas and lilacs are extremely susceptible to
this condition. In fact, I would say it is the
only thing that can take them down. That's why I
would say it's their kryptonite, because you know, nothing really
takes Superman down except kryptonite. Similarly, nothing will take these
stup plants down because they're both really hardy, easy to grow,
you know, not super finicky like I mean, Lilacs are
a full sun plant. Panicle hydranges can take some shade,
not finicky about pruning or anything like that. Pretty disease resistant,
pest resistant. But yeah, their kryptonite is too much water
and or poor drainage. And people love them to death.
Speaker 1: That's why when I'm helping out people in the garden center,
I will always say to them, don't dig a hole,
just mix the existing parent soil fifty to fifty with
whatever you're going to amend with. I think your odds
are greatly increased if you do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, And that's the other thing is so
generally we do not recommend amending the soil, because I
think it's too long of a story to accurately tell.
So you know, in the little tiny space that we
have on our plant tags, we do not recommend amending
the soil. If you do want to amend the soil,
yes it is possible, but you absolutely positively have to
thoroughly incorporate the amendment. And by amendment, I mean the
compost or topsoil or garden soil or whatever it is
that you're adding. You have to thoroughly incorporate that with
your parent soil or the soil that you excavated. And
you know, again, since we're talking mostly about people who
have clay soil who are doing this, amending that soil
that you dug out is so much easier said than done,
because what did you pull out? Like a giant unk
of clay.
Speaker 1: It's hard work, not.
Speaker 2: You know, like a nice soil that you can easily
mix in. So you're out there like chopping the thing up,
you know, the giant claw to clay and trying to
mix it. And so it's just it doesn't work out
as well in practice as it does in theory. So
the best thing you can do is not to say
that you can't grow these plants. You can, but if
you have clay soil and you are growing them, only
plant directly into your native soil and be very careful
about watering. Yeah, a lot of times you'll hear people say, oh,
I planted this new plant, and I'm watering it, you know,
every other day or whatever. If you have clay soil,
you may not actually need to water that often because
clay soil is excellent at holding onto water, which is
part of the problem in this specific case. So always
water by feel. Don't water a new plant just by
route or a program or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Schedule, don't do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually check out what is going on. Once you
get these plants established, they are going to be much
much much more resilient in the face of these challenges. Still,
neither of them will really thrive in a situation where
they have, you know, a lot of wet feet for
a prolonged period, but they're going to be much better
able to withstand that once they are established. But really
it's that and I'd say this is the case with
anything that I think you or I have killed. It's
really that first year or so that is the really
crucial time, and if a plan is going to fail,
it's almost always within that brief period, not years down
the line. So you really just need to get it
through those first couple of years. And even though I
did have a couple of other most killed plants on
my list, that's all we really have time for. But
you know, just briefly, we've talked about it before. Rhododendron,
let's touch on it and segment four, all right, let's
do it all right with that, we're going to take
a little break, so please stay tuned at proven Winner's
Color Choice Shrub. 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
Winner's 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 plants that
we bought killed and wished we could have back. Because
there's also a lot of plants that I have bought
and killed in you know, Yeah, I don't really care
if it's coming back or not, but there are a
lot that you know, I really wish that I could
grow and can't, whether it's a matter of deer or
dry soil, or.
Speaker 1: Or just get past the guilt. Yeah, the guilt of
killing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you feel guilty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you feel guilty.
Speaker 2: About killing well sometimes you don Redwood. It was the
Don Redwood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, again, it's how you learn as a gardener,
and more importantly, it's how you evolve your own garden,
because as you discover what is what actually works in
your yard, then you know it's much better. In my opinion,
I have become the kind of gardener who is not
like I'm going to do whatever it takes to grow
this plant because I want this specific plant. I have
become the kind of gardener who's like, I don't really
want to work that hard. I want stuff that wants
to be here, right.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I personally believe it's better
to learn from other people's mistakes than your mistakes, so
be observant in your neighborhood, what works you know in
your region. I think that's important too.
Speaker 2: That is also easier said than done, because as my
good friend always says, you can't tell anybody anything. They
have to learn it for themselves. And truer words were
never spoken. That is, you know, we can tell people
were all day long, but until you discover it for yourself,
like you can say, well, GM tryfluorum sounds pretty great.
I'm going to try GM trifluorum in my yard and
I'm going to show Stacey. And you know, if you
don't have dry soil in full sun, you might not
be so successful. But you should still try because that again,
we never want to be discouraging and I didn't want
to be discouraging in plants on travel either when I
talked about the most killed proven winners colored choice shrubs.
But I want people to understand that it's not an
inherent fault in the plants. It's a problem of where you're.
Speaker 1: Putting them exactly. Because cultivars today are amazing compared to
what I used to deal with in the seventies and eighties.
The advancements in the last ten to twenty years. Unbelievable. Yeah,
the heartiness, drought resistance, heat resistance, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: And plants are more vigorous. You know, we're looking for
plants that are more vigorous and that means they're going to,
you know, ideally be better able to withstand the challenges. But
speaking of challenges, it is the time of the show
where it's our pleasure to help you with your garden questions,
quandaries and conundrums and celebrations of course, and we had
a few of those come in, but I was having
trouble with my computer downloading photos. So maybe next time
we will go over some of the great advice in
celebrations that we have received from some of our listeners recently,
but just could we not get the computer to download
the pictures this time anyway, So if you have a
question for us, you can always reach us at Gardening
Simplified on air dot com. You just click on the
contact us tab. You can write us a note right
there and even send in a picture, which is always
helpful when you're asking a question about a specific plant
in your yard or what's going on with something. You
can also leave a comment on the YouTube version of
the show because Adriana reads all of those comments and
passes those questions on to us. So what do we
got in the mailbag this week?
Speaker 1: All right, right off the top, writing to you gardening
experts for advice on using composts. I recently started using
an in home composting machine and curing my own compost
in the garage. Do I need to test it for
any reason before applying it to plants? Any plants that
I shouldn't put it on? So yes, maintain your composture
and move forward. You know, I think of the phrase
garbage in garbage out. I was coined in the late
fifties early sixties when IBM was the craze and we
thought about computers. You know, it was foreign to us
at the time. I was just a little tight. But
compost is the same way garbage in garbage out.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I mean, compost is garbage.
Speaker 1: It's garbage. It's you know, good there's good garbage and
there's bad.
Speaker 2: Garb, right, I mean, but as long as you're composting
vegetable scraps anything like that, I mean, yeah, your carrot
peelings are probably garbage or would go in the garbage,
but they're perfectly acceptable at the repost. So what be
a garbage like, what's garbage compost to you?
Speaker 1: So certain types of manure. I'm trying to be gentle here.
Speaker 2: Uh right, so that's a little different. I was going
to mention the manure too. You do need to be
careful with manure. And I don't think you're making putting
manure into your home composting machine most likely.
Speaker 1: I understand, but I have seen it, and I have
people ask before, like their pets.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, yeah, yeah, don't put that in there. So
I'm just throwing it out here is a dog owner,
and you should have just seen the face that she
may at the mere thought of composting that. No. But
but okay, so first of all, as far as manures do, no,
it's I was going to mention it because that is
the only condition really that I can think of where
uh there might be an issue with putting it on plants,
because especially so you generally do not compost the manures
of carnivorous animals. Correct, So that's going to include all
of your standard household pets except like a goldfish.
Speaker 1: And let me quick mention to answer your question. Also,
for me, the number one issue would be as far
as garbage in garbage out have an excellent ratio of
green to brown material.
Speaker 2: Well, otherwise you're just not getting compost. You're just getting
rotting stuff. It's not actually turning into the nice brown,
crumbly compost. But so normally, I would say from household composts.
So we're talking about, you know, like your household trimmings
of vegetables and fruits and that kind of thing, leftover
food scraps, you know, maybe some garden stuff that's going
to be just fine to put on pretty much anything.
You might want to be more sparing around plants that
need good drainage, like a butterfly bush or something like that,
because it can hold quite a lot of moisture. Compost
is very rich. It's not soil, but it is an
organic amendment. But yeah, if you are purchasing or composting
your own animal manure, so chicken, horse, cow, that kind
of thing, goat, you do need to be very careful
because those can be very high in salts, and so
there's a lot of plants that are very sensitive to salt. Now,
salt is held in the ionic bond to the soil
particles very weakly, so that makes it very easy for
it to flush out through rain and irrigation and that
kind of thing, but some plants are naturally very susceptible
to that. Also, whether you're using home compost or animal compost,
make sure it's not hot. Definitely you can burn plants
that way. But for the most part, you know, compost
is just an organic amendment that is going to be
adding nitrogen and adding a moisture retaining kind of sponge
to the soil. So once you know that that what
it's actually doing is adding nitrogen and moisture retention, that
can kind of help you. You know, there's really no
plant that's like, whoa, I've got too much nitrogen, please stop.
There's some succulents that if they get excessive nitrogen their
leaves can kind of burst. But for the most part,
most plants are going to be like, I'll take all
the nitrogen you got, Like that's great, I'm gonna be green,
I'm going to be healthy. There's some exceptions out there,
of course, and like I said, plants that need good
drainage you might want to avoid. But other than that,
I think that you're going to be just fine. I
don't think you need to worry about testing it or
anything like that. So yeah, just make sure you're putting
in genuinely compostable materials and you know, using it sparingly,
because you got to make that stuff stretch over a
lot of plants. For most of us, no one can
ever really have enough gombos.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're right, Hey, Stacy, we got a question from
a YouTube viewer if you can, can you cover some
transplanting tips and ways to harden off the plants so
they won't be shocked once they go into the garden.
Any rules of thumb. And I want to quickly say
I want to pile on. As far as your comment
is concerned digging the hole to put the plant in,
I think that that's going to be the key issue
because what I see people do is surface water, and
what you're going to want initially is good deep watering,
because when the plant goes outside, suddenly it's subjected to wind,
sun and transpiration takes place. And if you're just surface
watering or haven't properly prepared the soil as you described
in the previous segment, then you're going to have problems.
So I really believe that's a key to transplant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And you know, as far as hardening off goes,
that's also really important because when plants are going from
the very protected environment of your home, even if you
put a fan on them like I do from my seedlings,
even if you have light like I do for my seedlings,
the difference between that very protected environment and the outdoors
is substantial. So you really do want to introduce them
to those conditions gradually, because plants make different types of
chlorophyll based on the light that they are getting, So
once they start getting outdoors with that full unobstructed sun,
they're going to start making a different chlorophyll and they
need to do that slowly. They can't just be like whoa,
you know, shifting gears here. So I think it's very
important to harden off. And I would do that simply
by you know, trying to put them outside. Usually I'll
start on a weekend because you know, I've got a job,
and just put them out for like a few hours
on Saturday morning, a few hours on Sunday morning, bring
them in, and then you know, Monday, after I get
home from work, put them out for a few more hours. Really,
I don't think it tastes much more than a week,
but you definitely do want to introduce them gradually. And
as far as actually transplanting handling the plants, I've got
one very crucial tip. It does not get said enough.
Do not handle seedlings by this stem. If you break
the stem, there goes your plants. Like you have no
you no longer have that seedling. It's not going to
rebranch or restart from the ground, So handle it from
the foliage. It feels funny, you know, it feels a
little bit strange to try to do this, But either
handle it with like some sort of you know, butter
knife or spoon or something that supports the whole plant.
Do not, as tempting as it is, pick it up.
That extremely delicates done because if you lose that, there
goes your seedlings. So just a couple of quick, little tips,
but very important tips that if you follow, you will
be successful. And I know it's seed starting season, or
at least almost so for us here in Michigan, So
you keep that in mind if you are a transplanter
of seed. We're going to take a little break when
we come back. We are continuing our conversation on plans
that we have killed in which you could have beck.
So please stay tuned. Thanks for listening to the Gardening
Simplified Podcast, brought to you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Ben, there killed
that want it back? I've got a great little story
to share a moment with you. A number of years ago,
in a community that I live in here in West
mishis a landscaper inadvertently cut down a tree that he
was not supposed to remove. Now, the reason he wasn't
supposed to remove the tree was because it was a
moon tree. On Apollo fourteen, Stuart Russo, one of the pilots,
he was the command module pilot, had taken a bunch
of seeds into space when he returned as part of
the nineteen seventy six bi centennial. These seeds were dispersed
to various communities and trees were planted. And this was
a beautiful tree. They cut it down. Oh no, so
I was involved with the community and the police department
there to come up with a direct descendant from this tree,
replant the tree and get it back. And to this day,
as a matter of fact, we have a picture for
our YouTube viewers of me by the tree. The tree
was put in the ground and regrown with lots of
circumstance and ceremony and that sort of thing. It's just
a sycamore tree, but a great story how we got
it back.
Speaker 2: Did you all have a big toast with.
Speaker 1: Tang, Yes, yes we did. It was a great party.
I'll tell you what. It was fantastic. So you know
that was an experience for me. But we mentioned it
in the first segment Stacey, and that is along the
lines of this topic. I guess a lot of people
would relate to houseplants with Ben there killed that and
would like it back that emotion. I think about Kaalathia's
gardenias indoors but again a plant that loves humidity, ferns, diefenbakia,
succulents indoors orchids, all of those types of plants. And
then for me where I live, similar to you, Stacy,
sandy soil here along the lake shore of Lake Michigan.
So plants like a stillby, I keep going back for more,
but I struggle with it. Ligularia like bottle rocket or
tractor set, Jacob's ladder, Japanese iris or Siberian iris, ferns,
and a plant that you have touted, Stacey, and I
want it so bad, but I think I'm going to
struggle with it. And that is a sugar shack button
boo oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I tried that. Killed that. Yeah, but you know,
again that was too little water. And very often, you know,
you start looking into how a plant where it grows naturally.
You know, button bush is a plant that grows directly
into the banks of riversides and ponds and that kind
of thing, so it very often has its actual feet
in water. And once you learn that, then you can say, well, gee,
you know, my garden definitely does not have that much water.
But there are some plants that can adapt, you know,
red twig dogwood is a great example, also grows along
those river sides with its feet mostly in water. But
it's a plant that, you know, once is established, is
actually quite drop tolerant and very very durable. So it's
not always a sure thing, you know, we try to
you know, with our plant tags, and I speak for
the entire horticulture industry when I say this, we try
to give you the best information that we can. But yeah,
I mean sometimes you know, our reality is different than
our imaginations, and and we want to try something or
think that you know, it will be okay, and it won't.
You know. The perennial that I have basically had to
give up on is hugra as well as all the
ones that you just listed. Yeah, Oka Hugra is definitely
like my hugra attempting days are over. I've done it
long enough and it's just it's just not gonna happen
my garden. It's just too darn dry. But interestingly, there
are a number of ferns that I can grow quite successfully, okay,
and another plant that I haven't killed, so not quite
this exact storyline, but that I am surprised. And this
is why it's always worth trying. If you love a
plant is variegated Solomon seal. Oh. Yeah, that is a
plant that has seems to you know, if you had
just said, like, hey, do you think that you can
grow this in your very dry garden, I would say
probably not. But it just thrives and multiplies in my
garden and is so so beautiful. You know, by the
end of the summer, if it's been a very dry summer,
it's definitely looking a little tired and brown. But that
just means it goes dormant and you know, yeah, I've
got nothing for the last of the season, but comes
back next spring like it didn't miss a beat. So
that's why it's always worth trying. You never know.
Speaker 1: So there's a good lesson to be learned here, in
my opinion, and that is take a look at the
root system of the plant, because it's going to tell
you a lot. For example, I could take a day lily,
dig it up, throw it on the ground, and come
back a couple months later and plant it, and odds
are it's going to grow. Whereas if you look at
the example you mentioned earlier in the show and let's
touch on it rhododendrons, the root system is small proportionately
to the top of the plant, so you don't have
a lot of margin for error if you mess up
the foundation of the plant.
Speaker 2: That's true, and you know, I think that one thing
that happens with people, the reason that they often kill
rhododendrons is very similar to what I also said earlier
in the show about ferns, which is that you know,
when someone's purchasing it, all they see is that it's
shade tolerant, low light tolerant, and they think, we'll shoot.
I got some really low light in the north facing
side of my house. This sounds like a perfect plant,
But what you don't know necessarily is that road dedendrons
absolutely need a moist, acidic, well drained soil. They cannot
tolerate drought, and they can't tolerate wet soil either. Correct
and there, yeah, there's plenty of situations where that already
exists where rhododendrons absolutely thrive, or there are also opportunities
to change your environment so that they do thrive. But
you are the one who really needs to kind of
make that decision. And if you find that a rhododendron
did not do well for you in front of your
house or whatever that situation was, well, then that kind
of makes you start to gives you more information to
a better decision for its replacement. You probably should not
just replace it with another rhododendron.
Speaker 1: Very true, So we've learned a lesson. We're about to
enter into hanging basket season, and the hanging baskets that
are purchased in May, like for Mother's Day. You know,
they've been carefully nurtured in a greenhouse. They're not root
bound yet. But then you put that ten inch plastic
basket out in the wind and the sun, and decline starts,
and by the fourth of July, the thing is a
distant memory. And so my whole point is I like
to view those ten inch hanging baskets, those plastic baskets
simply as a delivery container, simply to the like the
bags that you get at the grocery store to move
the product home or to be able to give those
flowers to Mom on Mother's Day. But I'm big into
upsizing hanging baskets, moving them into moss baskets, or if
it's a ten inch basket, move it to a twelve
inch container. Same thing in the landscape. I love using
containers in the landscape because you create this almost micro climate,
that is, even if the container is sunk into the landscape,
a micro climate that's kind of separate of the existing conditions,
whether it's dry soil, clay, soil, wet soil, whatever it
may be. So again, I want to make that pointer
on hanging baskets. Love hanging baskets, So many great plants
to put in hanging baskets. I embrace it, but think
about it because if you kill it, you're going to
want it back and maybe you can give it better
odds going into the summer season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so true. And the other thing you have
to remember, and this is true with all plants that
you're purchasing new. They're coming from an environment where it
was literally someone's job to keep them moist, and that
is no longer the case. For it is now your responsibility.
You are not getting paid for it like the other
person was prior to purchasing it. And so yeah, like
it doesn't mean you need to keep up that same
level of watering, but you definitely need to know that
you're going to have to help with this transition, just
like we were talking about with hardening off seedlings.
Speaker 1: Sure, and not only that, is there an individual to
keep an eye on them, but they have an automatic
irrigation system where it's simply dripping and feeding that plant
as it grows and it is happy and it's content,
and you can get.
Speaker 2: A drip system for your hanging basket. So if you
are the kind of person who always buys your mom
a hanging basket for Mother's Day, maybe consider mixing it
up this year, helping her install a drip system for
hanging baskets and giving her a future full of hanging
baskets that she doesn't have to water. Because I've had
a drip system before. Ultimate and luxury, I tell you
better than a fancy watch.
Speaker 1: So along the lines a good point, say, I like
that idea. So along the lines have been there, killed it,
want it back. I'm on pins and needles. I know
a number of our viewers and listeners are too, because
we've talked about Peruvian lily or Alstromeria and this past
year mine just gave incredible cut flowers throughout the summer
into fall. It was gorgeous. Now I want it back,
and it's supposed to come back, or at least be hearty,
and I'm thinking, after this polar vortex, I'm questioning, so
will I buy more? Absolutely, I'll buy more, but I'd
like to see it come back.
Speaker 2: You know, I would like to see it come back
to you. I'll be very interested to see what happens.
But I would also say that is a great case
for trying it again, because in this case, it was
not that you didn't have the right conditions. It's that
we had an exceptionally unusual winter for us here in
West Michigan, as well as I know for much of
the country. So that would be another situation because like
we said, it's really those first two years that where
a plant can fail. So if you had an unusual
weather event that first season, you know, give it another
try another year and see if you can get it established,
because once it's established, all bets are off.
Speaker 1: Losing is not the opposite of winning exactly. It is
a part of winning. So let's get out there and
take some chances, folks. Thanks Stacey, Thanks Rick, Thanks Adriana,
and thanks to you for watching us on YouTube, listening
to our radio show, or downloading our podcast. Wherever you
get your favorite podcasts, just look for the Gardening Simplified Show.
Have a great week.