Speaker 1: Coming to you from Studio A here at Proven Winters,
Speaker 1: Color Choice Shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified radio
Speaker 1: podcast and YouTube show with Stacy Hervilla, me Rick Weist,
Speaker 1: and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, Stacey, let's
Speaker 1: dig in and get to work. Somewhat controversial, I guess
Speaker 1: you could argue it's controversial subject today. Native ours a
Speaker 1: native r is a cultivar a cultivated variety of a
Speaker 1: native plant species, meaning it's a plant that's been bred
Speaker 1: or selected by humans for specific traits while still originating
Speaker 1: from a plant species naturally found in a particular region.
Speaker 1: That's a mouthful.
Speaker 2: That's a good definition, though. That's the basics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the basics exactly. And I think what we're
Speaker 1: talking about here is native cultivars or native VARs. And
Speaker 1: I like native ours because I believe it's one of
Speaker 1: these situations where you can have your cake and eat
Speaker 1: it too. There's a lot of interest in and a
Speaker 1: lot of benefit from native plants, but native ours provide
Speaker 1: tremendous benefit in the landscape, and of course are beautiful
Speaker 1: because they have been bred for various characteristics that enhance
Speaker 1: their beauty in our landscape. That's kind of how I
Speaker 1: look at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, I think it's important to acknowledge
Speaker 2: that native it's not that native ours exist because native
Speaker 2: plants aren't beautiful. We all know that we have so
Speaker 2: many beautiful native plants. We just talked about a bunch
Speaker 2: of them on our spring ephemeral show, and you know,
Speaker 2: any ride through anywhere in the US at the right
Speaker 2: time will be absolutely breadsaking because we do have such
Speaker 2: an incredible diversity of beautiful native plants. But the thing
Speaker 2: is that native ours are selected or developed for having
Speaker 2: more of what people like, so color, more flowers. It
Speaker 2: can mean a whole lot of different things, but the
Speaker 2: bottom line is that I feel like it's a hard
Speaker 2: sell to get your average person who's maybe not really
Speaker 2: that much of a gardener, to say, oh, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: grow this native hydrangea with really minimal flowers. They're not
Speaker 2: getting you know, some people will, and good good for them,
Speaker 2: but it's hard to get you know, the average person
Speaker 2: really excited about that. And what native ours do, I
Speaker 2: think is help people to see make that sort of
Speaker 2: transition from plants that are just straight up ornamental and
Speaker 2: you know, from somewhere else to native plants. It's kind
Speaker 2: of like a little bridge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's the word I like to use is derivative. Derivative.
Speaker 1: So if the plant is a derivative, that's tough to say.
Speaker 1: But I got it a derivative that time. I got
Speaker 1: it of a native plant. That's open to maybe some controversy,
Speaker 1: maybe some subjective criticism.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh definitely. There are some strong opinions about native
Speaker 2: oars exactly that you do not have to go very
Speaker 2: far to find. If you want to find out, just
Speaker 2: google nativar and tell us what you find.
Speaker 1: But you know, my opinion on it is, if you
Speaker 1: have a beautiful native plant, and I'm going to take
Speaker 1: Echinationia as an example, So if you have a beautiful
Speaker 1: plant like echination, which I love in the landscape, if
Speaker 1: plant breeders are able to take that native plant and
Speaker 1: provide better color or longer bloom or more disease resistance
Speaker 1: in essence, in my opinion, it does help pollinators because
Speaker 1: the plant is longer, blooming, tougher, healthier, And it's something
Speaker 1: that we're going to dig into in sug for with
Speaker 1: our friend Mike Connor, the b expert and get his
Speaker 1: take on this also, so that we cover all the
Speaker 1: bases today.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think one of the things that
Speaker 2: even the people who are very disapproving of native of
Speaker 2: ours can't deny is that when it comes right down
Speaker 2: to the garden center where people are actually buying plants,
Speaker 2: we're not going to get people to start planting native
Speaker 2: plants that don't look good at the garden center. It's
Speaker 2: just it's not going to happen. I mean, it might
Speaker 2: happen for you if you're super passionate about native plants,
Speaker 2: but I can tell you that unless a garden center
Speaker 2: is specifically specializing in native plants, garden centers cannot risk
Speaker 2: having a bunch of plants that don't look amazing and
Speaker 2: don't fly off the shelf. The season is too short,
Speaker 2: the margins are too thin. And what native ours do again,
Speaker 2: they kind of form that bridge between something that can
Speaker 2: look great in a container at the garden center, so
Speaker 2: people will actually want to buy it and still have
Speaker 2: that fit to our native wildlife. So it might not
Speaker 2: be the absolute most perfect choice, but it is a
Speaker 2: better choice than something that's not native at all.
Speaker 1: No, I agree in that garden center concept you're preaching
Speaker 1: to the choir, but that's true. Take a look at
Speaker 1: a plant like Manarda or bee balm and the improved.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember back in the seventies when I
Speaker 1: was selling perennial plants. By the time we got to June,
Speaker 1: they were so loaded with powdery, mildew and disease there
Speaker 1: was nothing left in the pot. Yeah, today's cultivars amazing
Speaker 1: and still do a great job for pollinators. So it's
Speaker 1: quite a topic. And of course some of my favorite
Speaker 1: perennial native ours are Panicum obviously, switchgrass, Manarda, summarific high Biscus.
Speaker 2: Well right, and of course don't forget the decadence Baptisia yep,
Speaker 2: big favorite over.
Speaker 1: Here, Tuscan sun Helio and yes, like you said, Baptizia
Speaker 1: and Amsonia or storm cloud blue star. I love Amazonia
Speaker 1: so just beautiful. Also the agastakis. And then when we
Speaker 1: get into the shrubs, and I'm sure you're going to
Speaker 1: do this in segment two, Stacey, but boy, for me,
Speaker 1: I have a long list that I enjoy. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to say that some of my favorite native
Speaker 1: ours are the smooth hydranges that have come out over
Speaker 1: the past few years. But right there at the top
Speaker 1: also lemonine lace elderberry, which is just starting to leaf
Speaker 1: out in my landscape now, and kodiak orange tervilla.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm really glad that you brought up the
Speaker 2: smooth hydrangs because smooth Hydrangea is also known as Annabel
Speaker 2: type hydrangas, would not be in our gardens, I don't
Speaker 2: think at all if it weren't for Annabel in the
Speaker 2: first place. And Annabelle it's unknown whether its origin is
Speaker 2: human or natural. But if you see and I've talked
Speaker 2: about this before on the show many times, if you
Speaker 2: see hydrange arborescens, a species of hydrangea in the wild,
Speaker 2: you'd walk right by it. You wouldn't even identify it
Speaker 2: as a hydrangea. But many, many years ago, someone found
Speaker 2: a mophead smooth hydrangea, brought it to Anna, Illinois, planted
Speaker 2: it along the horse path there, and people started seeing
Speaker 2: it and saying, oh, can I have a piece of that?
Speaker 2: And that is what it took to start getting this
Speaker 2: plant into our gardens. And now we can go way
Speaker 2: into newer varieties like the invincibl series with pink and
Speaker 2: purple and all of these different colors. And one might argue,
Speaker 2: because these are mophead hydrangeas, which are going to obscure
Speaker 2: the pollen and nectar bearing fertile florets, that they aren't
Speaker 2: quite as beneficial. And that may be true, but it's
Speaker 2: still better than planting something that has no wildlife benefit
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: Agreed, absolutely, And so you're doing it both for the
Speaker 1: benefit of pollinators as well as your own personal benefit
Speaker 1: within your landscape. And I look, for example, a friend
Speaker 1: of mine just planted this incredible storm proof oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and to look at how the stems now are becoming stirdier.
Speaker 1: It's just amazing. Legend of the fall bottle brush.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The list goes on and on. Gaspy oak leaf hydranges.
Speaker 1: We enjoy these in our landscape, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: they provide benefit in many different ways. And I think
Speaker 1: that's how I personally feel about native arts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that again, it's all about
Speaker 2: the availability, and it's all about we have to appeal
Speaker 2: to the most people possible. And I think this is
Speaker 2: so important that a lot of people who are very
Speaker 2: puist about native plants will say, oh, well, that's not
Speaker 2: native enough. But it's a step in the right direction,
Speaker 2: and they are people are not going to usually. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's certainly exceptions out there, but generally speaking, people are
Speaker 2: not going to go from zero to sixty. I don't
Speaker 2: garden at all to all of a sudden, I only
Speaker 2: grow pure native species, right, It just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2: You need sort of that gateway at entry point, and
Speaker 2: maybe that's a smooth hydrangea, you know, maybe that is
Speaker 2: lemony lace elderberry. And once someone starts to see and
Speaker 2: experience those benefits of seeing the pollinators in the yard,
Speaker 2: seeing the birds, that's when that change begins to happen,
Speaker 2: and that is sort of how you start to go
Speaker 2: down that path.
Speaker 1: That's really well said, and I appreciate you saying that
Speaker 1: because I believe that the native ours help produce interest
Speaker 1: and awareness of native plants also for the general public.
Speaker 1: So I wrote you a native limb, a rick. I'm
Speaker 1: looking for a plant adaptable, something unique yet practical, with
Speaker 1: a lineage that's native and improved in ways innovative. Its
Speaker 1: characteristics are unflappable, extraordinary. We raise the bar. This plant
Speaker 1: is going to be a star in my yard. It's
Speaker 1: going to be pretty with a nature that is downright gritty.
Speaker 1: I love my imperturbable native var.
Speaker 2: We got a lot of fancy words in there.
Speaker 1: Did that was a really good limerick. Coming up next,
Speaker 1: Plants on Trial with Stacy. You're tuned into the Gardening
Speaker 1: Simplified Show.
Speaker 2: Beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color Choice
Speaker 2: Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique varieties
Speaker 2: to choose from. There's a flowering shrubber evergreen for every
Speaker 2: taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive white
Speaker 2: container your local garden center or learn more at proven
Speaker 2: Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome
Speaker 2: back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we are talking
Speaker 2: about native ours. And as Rick said at the beginning
Speaker 2: of the show, if you haven't heard this word, or
Speaker 2: you're like, are they saying native ar, we are saying nativvar.
Speaker 2: And this is a term that was coined, gosh, probably
Speaker 2: fifteen or so years ago by people who are kind
Speaker 2: of in the native plant movement, and it is a
Speaker 2: contraction of the word native, of course, and cultivar, which
Speaker 2: means cultivated variety, as Rick explained. And so we're yeah,
Speaker 2: we're really just talking about plants that come from nature
Speaker 2: but then have either been selected or developed. And the
Speaker 2: difference between those, of course is selected. Is I'm just
Speaker 2: walking along, I see a plant that's a little different.
Speaker 2: I say, hey, that's a little bit different. I want
Speaker 2: to take that and see if that is consistent or
Speaker 2: develop saying like, hey, this plant has some great characteristics,
Speaker 2: but I'll bet if I work with it a little
Speaker 2: bit more, I can get more great characteristics in it
Speaker 2: to have something that is a bit different. That's why
Speaker 2: I said with native plant with a twist. And there
Speaker 2: are a lot there's a great deal of debate out
Speaker 2: there on this subject, and you can probably already tell
Speaker 2: this is not going to be one of those straightforward
Speaker 2: plants on trial where I just give you one plan
Speaker 2: and talk about it for ten minutes. But I do
Speaker 2: have a method to the madness here, so please bear
Speaker 2: with me. But there's a lot of people who are
Speaker 2: very disparaging towards native ours, and we've already given you
Speaker 2: a bunch of reasons why we think that native ours
Speaker 2: definitely have a place, and we're certainly not saying that
Speaker 2: it's native ours or nothing, but the fact is that
Speaker 2: native plants unless people really know what they're looking for
Speaker 2: and are willing to take a risk, they're a harder
Speaker 2: sell in the garden center, and native ours can start
Speaker 2: to help to change that. And there's a couple of
Speaker 2: reasons why I think that people are so disparaging towards
Speaker 2: nativurs that I wanted to address in today's Plant on Trial,
Speaker 2: And there's two main reasons. So when people say that
Speaker 2: they're opposed to native ours, I think that what they're
Speaker 2: actually saying is their objection to native ours is that
Speaker 2: they were developed with humans in mind rather than wildlife.
Speaker 2: And a native plant was never really developed, but it
Speaker 2: evolved in conjunction with local wildlife so that there is
Speaker 2: an ecosystem there where they're all mutually supporting each other.
Speaker 2: And with native ours, whoever was selecting or developing them
Speaker 2: had to say, like, hey, I think that this is
Speaker 2: really going to appeal to people. If it happens to
Speaker 2: appeal to insects or birds or whatever, bonus. But what
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do is to actually get it to
Speaker 2: appeal to people. And they see that as inherently that
Speaker 2: that you're trying to appeal to humans rather than animals.
Speaker 2: But I think that this argument ignores two basic facts
Speaker 2: about native ours. Number one is that nature actually is
Speaker 2: a hybridizer itself. Sure, so when a plant reproduces by seed,
Speaker 2: which is to say that you've got one plant, pollen
Speaker 2: from another plant comes to it through wind or through
Speaker 2: an insect, a cross pollination has occurred, a transfer of
Speaker 2: genetic material has occurred. So there's two different genes now,
Speaker 2: and even though those plants are likely the same species,
Speaker 2: when you have pollen from two distinct individuals, you introduce
Speaker 2: the potential for genetic mutation. And this is nature's adaptation
Speaker 2: for things that may happen down the line. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of things have evolved simply because you know
Speaker 2: nature maybe throughout some red pigments into say a panicum,
Speaker 2: and that made them more resistant to sun as the
Speaker 2: sun became you know, more intense or or whatever. There's
Speaker 2: all of these different examples. So nature is itself a hybridizer.
Speaker 2: And over time, native plants can live or thrive because
Speaker 2: they're able to adapt to the environment. So a lot
Speaker 2: of this just happens naturally, like we like we theorize
Speaker 2: happened with Annabel. So you can't take nature out of
Speaker 2: the equation. Here and number two, there is I think
Speaker 2: a prevailing assumption because the research has been so mixed
Speaker 2: and come out over such a long period of time,
Speaker 2: that all native ours are bad because they disadvantage pollinators.
Speaker 2: And that's not at all true. And we were talking
Speaker 2: a bit about Echinesia in the first segment, and so
Speaker 2: I want to kind of use that as the example,
Speaker 2: because I think that Echinaesia is really the plant that
Speaker 2: sort of, you know, soiled the name of native ours
Speaker 2: back in the day.
Speaker 1: It's a great example, Stacey, and we should run with that.
Speaker 1: And I appreciate what you said, because again for me,
Speaker 1: coming from the garden center industry, we can be criticized
Speaker 1: as far as native ours are concerned, because essentially we're
Speaker 1: adding these characteristics and traits to make the plant look
Speaker 1: nicer so we sell more of them at the garden center.
Speaker 2: Well, you got to make a living, wi La the
Speaker 2: criticism exactly. So Echinaesia, you know, it started to become
Speaker 2: really popular, and we have tons of native Echinaesia in
Speaker 2: the US, and a great diversity of Akinesia, many of
Speaker 2: which you can't easily even find on the market. But
Speaker 2: probably about m'd say twenty five to thirty years ago,
Speaker 2: plant breeders started to introduce Echinasia with different color flowers.
Speaker 2: So instead of the standard purply pink, white or yellow
Speaker 2: that you find in nature, there was red, and there
Speaker 2: was orange, and that all of these sort of fiery
Speaker 2: sunset colors coming in, and that started to potentially fundamentally
Speaker 2: change in sex attraction to them because obviously it's not
Speaker 2: the same color. Insects don't see color the way that
Speaker 2: we do. And then I think it was the double
Speaker 2: Echinaesia that really changed things around because in the double Echinaesia,
Speaker 2: that big cone in the center, which is what the
Speaker 2: pollinators are all after, suddenly got transformed into petals, So
Speaker 2: you got a big fluffy pedal thing in the center,
Speaker 2: and now the insects can't find the pollen. And now
Speaker 2: this Echinaia, which is still a native species, has become
Speaker 2: a lot less beneficial to pollinate.
Speaker 1: It something that's different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that is not the only thing that native
Speaker 2: ours are developed for, not by a long shot. Flower
Speaker 2: petal count. Flower color is only one factor that breeders
Speaker 2: look for as they're developing nativevars. So size can be
Speaker 2: a substantial one plant habit having a plant that has
Speaker 2: a neater, tidier habit, then you're going to find out
Speaker 2: in the wild, so people can actually use them, you know,
Speaker 2: in their yard foliage color, which can also sometimes be
Speaker 2: a problem if the plant is a larval host that
Speaker 2: may or may not be beneficial. So I think that
Speaker 2: the conversation has really gotten obscured, and there is just
Speaker 2: this general assumption that all native ours disadvantaged pollinators without
Speaker 2: really looking at what makes what really puts the var
Speaker 2: in the native ar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, and for me, it is length of
Speaker 1: bloom and disease resistance, and if you're able to apply
Speaker 1: both of those, it becomes more beneficial to the pollinator.
Speaker 1: And in addition, the end user or consumer uses less
Speaker 1: of the I'm going to call them sides, pesticides, fungicides.
Speaker 2: Or the plant just dies because it becomes so sickly
Speaker 2: that you know, and then it's not doing anybody is
Speaker 2: any good. But the thing is, I don't think this
Speaker 2: is a bread alone situation. And again, as I said,
Speaker 2: I think it's very important that we realize that native
Speaker 2: of ours can serve as a really really important first
Speaker 2: step to getting more people interested in native plant gardening.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if I've talked about it on
Speaker 2: the show before, but one of my personal pet peeves
Speaker 2: about the native plant movement is they're trying to get
Speaker 2: people to plant native and transform their yards without ever
Speaker 2: making the case as to why we should support insects.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Of course, people like Doug tellmey are doing an amazing
Speaker 2: job of that, but I'll tell you it's a hard
Speaker 2: sell to get people to care about insects.
Speaker 1: Sure, I mean, yeah, you're talking about the general public.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the general public people. If you can't just say, like, hey,
Speaker 2: plant this native plant, it's going to attract a ton
Speaker 2: of insects, they'll be running the other way faster than
Speaker 2: you can say native are So we really it's really
Speaker 2: that we need, I think a pr campaign on the
Speaker 2: value of insects before we can just get people to
Speaker 2: immediately go full on. And I think that's where nativars
Speaker 2: come in. You plant a native r you see that
Speaker 2: it's sustaining native insects. You see them, you know, buzzing
Speaker 2: and happy, and that makes you happy, and then you
Speaker 2: start to say, well, actually, hey, attracting insects isn't that bad.
Speaker 2: It's not as bad as I thought.
Speaker 1: It would be.
Speaker 2: So maybe I'm going to plant a few more. So
Speaker 2: it's about those baby steps. Not everybody is going to
Speaker 2: be able to just, you know, hear the message of
Speaker 2: Doug Tellomy and people like him. It's a wonderful message,
Speaker 2: but they're not immediately going to be converted and take
Speaker 2: that step. They need to find their own path.
Speaker 1: And my experience in my landscape has been when I
Speaker 1: apply diversity, it takes a world of difference also in
Speaker 1: attracting all the butterflies, bees, and various insects that I
Speaker 1: have in my landscape. So not just sticking with one
Speaker 1: or two varieties that's spa and.
Speaker 2: A diversity of bloom times so that you have a
Speaker 2: welcoming buffet from spring correct all the way into false.
Speaker 2: So let's bring this back to plants on trial, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to just quickly talk about some of the
Speaker 2: native ours in the PROFEMW. Wunner's color choice line and
Speaker 2: tell you what makes them different. As we've already said,
Speaker 2: we have a bunch of hydrange arborescens or smooth hydrange
Speaker 2: as a lot of those arm p head that is
Speaker 2: going to be less beneficial to insects. Some of them
Speaker 2: are actually not. Some of them are lace cap like
Speaker 2: in vincibille lace and those are great, But like I said,
Speaker 2: most of ours are four size, so you've got low
Speaker 2: scape snowfire errohnea. This is a newer one, but it
Speaker 2: is about two to three times more flowers and subsequently
Speaker 2: two to three times more fruit than the wild variety,
Speaker 2: and so more flowers, more pollinators, more fruit or songbirds.
Speaker 2: So that doesn't change anything about its support of wildlife.
Speaker 2: Legend of the small bottle brush recently a plan on
Speaker 2: trial about half the size of a conventional bottle brush.
Speaker 2: So even if you have a tiny little condo with
Speaker 2: a tiny little front entry court and that's the only
Speaker 2: place you have to plant, you could still have a
Speaker 2: father gilla sugarshack button bush. Now, when people see the
Speaker 2: flowers on button bush, they need to have one, they
Speaker 2: need to have it's so amazing. They are these really
Speaker 2: cool pincushiony like globes. But if you see button bush
Speaker 2: growing around Grand Rapids, and you do it grows right
Speaker 2: downtown Grand Rapids along the river there, you're kind of like, uh,
Speaker 2: like they're pretty scraggly, big ten feet tall kind of
Speaker 2: scraggly plants. Whereas sugar shack, it's all about the size
Speaker 2: and the habit, so it's nice and around. It's about
Speaker 2: five to six feet tall, so people can actually use
Speaker 2: it in their yard. I mean, our winterbury hollies are
Speaker 2: another great example of that same thing. Winterburry holly grows
Speaker 2: wild everywhere around here, but they're huge, They're absolutely massive plants,
Speaker 2: and our winter burry hollies have substantially smaller habits, so
Speaker 2: you can actually again fit them into your yard. And
Speaker 2: now here's an interesting one. Simply sensational sweet shrub or
Speaker 2: kelly caanthus. I have one of these in my garden,
Speaker 2: absolutely love it. A lot of people, especially in the Southeast,
Speaker 2: are familiar with sweet shrub, very very popular. They remember
Speaker 2: their fragrance from their youth, such an incredible fragrance, but
Speaker 2: not a consistent fragrance. The fragrance varies a lot from
Speaker 2: plant to plant, and you'll see all sorts of experts
Speaker 2: talk about this. Well, simply sensational was selected because it
Speaker 2: is extremely fragrant, and by perpetuating that, you know that
Speaker 2: the plant that you get is going to have that
Speaker 2: fragrance that you want and do everything that you want
Speaker 2: it to do. So you know, I really don't think
Speaker 2: that there is a reason that native of ours and
Speaker 2: native plants and native plant purists can't coexist. I think
Speaker 2: there is space for all of these things, and that
Speaker 2: we all need to give each other grace and space
Speaker 2: to kind of be on our own journey as we
Speaker 2: find our way to not just being better gardeners, but
Speaker 2: you know, being better stewards of our own yards and
Speaker 2: the earth.
Speaker 3: So you're here.
Speaker 2: That's a lot for a little plants on trial. But anyway,
Speaker 2: we're gonna take a little break after that, and when
Speaker 2: we come back, we'll be answering some garden questions. So
Speaker 2: please stay tuned. At Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs, we
Speaker 2: know that a better landscape starts with a better shrub.
Speaker 2: Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our
Speaker 2: flowering shrubs and evergreens for eight to ten years to
Speaker 2: ensure or they outperform what's already on the market. For easycare, reliable,
Speaker 2: beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and express your personal style,
Speaker 2: look for Proven Winners Shrubs in the distinctive white container
Speaker 2: at your local garden center, or learn more at proven
Speaker 2: Winner's Color Choice dot Com. Reading's gardening friends, and welcome
Speaker 2: back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it is our
Speaker 2: pleasure to answer your gardening questions. And it is definitely
Speaker 2: gardening question season. I know I've been hearing from gardeners
Speaker 2: all over the place, and you know, you can always
Speaker 2: leave a comment on YouTube. We do read all of
Speaker 2: those and see all of those, and if Adriana has
Speaker 2: a question she can't answer, she just asks me and
Speaker 2: we get you an answer there. But you can also
Speaker 2: write us at Gardening Simplified on air dot com. There's
Speaker 2: a contact tab and we will do our best to
Speaker 2: answer your question. But I know sometimes gardening questions are
Speaker 2: very timely. I mean not to the point where you're like,
Speaker 2: I'm in the garden right now and I need to
Speaker 2: know in five minutes. We can't help you there.
Speaker 3: Oh, I like that. That's good.
Speaker 2: But if it is the question that can wait, you
Speaker 2: can always reach us at Proven Winners color Choice dot
Speaker 2: com and that will grow right to one of our
Speaker 2: horticulturists who will send you a personalized answer. Provenwinners dot
Speaker 2: Com also does the same thing if you have questions
Speaker 2: about annuals or perennials, or houseplants or palladiums or any
Speaker 2: of that other stuff. So we're always trying to help
Speaker 2: you out. What do we got in the mailbag today.
Speaker 1: Ginny writes to us, so enjoy your show each week.
Speaker 1: Thanks Ginny. I read where there are pros and cons
Speaker 1: about putting coffee grounds in the garden soil. What are
Speaker 1: your thoughts? Also? Could you address what is good what
Speaker 1: is not so good for the garden soil. I host
Speaker 1: a group of gardeners in spring and fall. Would like
Speaker 1: to share this with them. Thank you, and I boy Stacey,
Speaker 1: I use coffee grounds. I like them. I think they're organic.
Speaker 1: I find the worms are busy in there. I just
Speaker 1: think using it as a compost is key. Don't use
Speaker 1: it as a molt.
Speaker 2: Definitely, definitely. And you know, of course everybody knows you
Speaker 2: can go to coffee shops and the usually got their
Speaker 2: old grounds there waiting for you to go ahead and use.
Speaker 2: But they don't really give you a lot more than
Speaker 2: just saying like grounds for the garden. You're just like, okay,
Speaker 2: but what do I do with the grounds for the garden?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but in this case, the ends justify the beans.
Speaker 2: I know you're going somewhere. Thank it took me a second.
Speaker 2: But but great news, Jinny. I have an excellent resource
Speaker 2: for you and your gardening group and we will post
Speaker 2: it in the show notes at Gardening Simplifying on air
Speaker 2: dot com. But Linda Chalker Scott, she is a professor
Speaker 2: and extension agent out in Washington State where they know
Speaker 2: a thing or two about coffee and she has an
Speaker 2: excellent horticultural mythbusting sheet on coffee grounds in the garden.
Speaker 2: You can also just search for Linda Chalker Scott coffee grounds.
Speaker 2: It will come right up, and you know her verdict
Speaker 2: is that they are overall good, but she definitely cannot
Speaker 2: overdo it and you cannot really use them as a mulch.
Speaker 2: If you want to use them as a malch, make
Speaker 2: sure it's a thin, thin layer. Coffee grounds can compas
Speaker 2: very easily and that can make it difficult for the
Speaker 2: water to get through. They can also kind of just
Speaker 2: like turn like kind of krusty and gross looking. But
Speaker 2: they are an excellent amendment to compost. So if you
Speaker 2: compost by all means, take your coffee grounds add it
Speaker 2: to the compost. And people think that coffee grounds tend
Speaker 2: to make the soil acidic I'm sure I have heard
Speaker 2: from many gardeners who have said something like, oh, I
Speaker 2: put coffee grounds on my high ranges and they turn blue. Actually,
Speaker 2: coffee grounds are not necessarily acidic. The pH of the
Speaker 2: coffee grounds themselves can vary a lot in Professor Chalker
Speaker 2: Scott talks about this a bit in that fact sheet,
Speaker 2: So you can't count on it as a reliable soil
Speaker 2: acidifier or having any kind of predictable effect on the
Speaker 2: pH at all. And it can actually inhibit some seed germination,
Speaker 2: So not a great choice necessarily in vegetable garden. If
Speaker 2: you're starting a lot of stuff by seed couple of
Speaker 2: other species, it actually improved seed germination. So basically, coffee
Speaker 2: is all over the place. It is a good organic amendment,
Speaker 2: whether or not your coffee is organically grown. The coffee
Speaker 2: grounds themselves are organic that came from a living thing,
Speaker 2: So it's best to think about it as an organic
Speaker 2: amendment to your compost or soil. But you want to
Speaker 2: mix it in. You want to be sparing in how
Speaker 2: you use it, unless you're adding it to your compost,
Speaker 2: in which case layer it up, put it in there
Speaker 2: and let it rot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. I mean, there's a reason they
Speaker 1: call them grounds, right.
Speaker 2: I mean to put them in the ground. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 1: I mean, or I think I think it's great to
Speaker 1: use them. But you do have to bear in mind
Speaker 1: that they are not a complete fertilized.
Speaker 2: They are definitely not and they are not a cure all.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of times people like to think, oh,
Speaker 2: this thing is natural, and so it's going to do X,
Speaker 2: Y and z. But we have talked about in the
Speaker 2: past how there's so much misinformation out there. A lot
Speaker 2: of times just because something feels like it should be
Speaker 2: true does not mean that it is. Like the whole
Speaker 2: thing about coffee grounds acidifying the soil, it doesn't actually
Speaker 2: work that way.
Speaker 1: So and you didn't like the ends justify the beans.
Speaker 2: It's okay, not one of your better puns, but it's
Speaker 2: it's pretty good. I'm gonna give it a B minus.
Speaker 1: Oh nice, try better luck next time.
Speaker 2: It wasn't the cream of the crop.
Speaker 1: Rick, Okay, thank you. Moving on, let's take a look here.
Speaker 1: Debbie is wondering. I just ordered a snowflake y Burnham.
Speaker 1: I'm in zone five B. Can I plant it?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: I wanted to answer this question from Debbie and for
Speaker 2: anyone else who is wondering, because at this time of year,
Speaker 2: and especially in a season like we're having this particular
Speaker 2: year here in Michigan and probably most of the Midwest,
Speaker 2: people wonder if they can plant now. And the simple
Speaker 2: fact is that since it is still quite cold here
Speaker 2: in Michigan, if you have a plant that is actively growing,
Speaker 2: so I'm talking about like a shrub or a perennial
Speaker 2: or a tree, not necessarily like pansies or things that
Speaker 2: are intended for outdoor, you know, decoration like that, chances
Speaker 2: are if it has foliage on it, that foliage is
Speaker 2: not remotely ready to deal with the cold in your area,
Speaker 2: because odds are.
Speaker 1: It's coming out of a greenhouse or a covered structure.
Speaker 1: But if the plant is outdoors, yes, and mimics what
Speaker 1: the plants are doing within the landscape, go right ahead
Speaker 1: and plant, then it's safe.
Speaker 2: Right, So you don't always know, but you know, if
Speaker 2: a plant has been in a greenhouse and you're just like,
Speaker 2: that's beautiful, I want to plant it. That foliage is
Speaker 2: so tender, and if it gets even into the thirties,
Speaker 2: it doesn't even necessarily have to freeze, all of that
Speaker 2: foliage is just going to turn brown. You'll feel really sad.
Speaker 2: It probably won't kill the plant unless it's a super
Speaker 2: severe frost or freeze, but she'll be sad, and you'll
Speaker 2: be sad that you put all the money into that
Speaker 2: plant and all the time and planting it, and now
Speaker 2: it no longer looks beautiful. So you have to keep
Speaker 2: a close eye on the weather. If you are shopping
Speaker 2: at a garden center, be sure to ask them. You know,
Speaker 2: they should be able to tell you how the plants
Speaker 2: were kept, and that can help you determine whether you
Speaker 2: plant them right then and there, what you got another
Speaker 2: pun on a tip of your tongue.
Speaker 1: There, I just was going to say, better latte than never.
Speaker 1: Just keep going.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm starting to be able to tell what
Speaker 2: he's got one like the vibes shift and it's like
Speaker 2: a balloon blowing up until it bursts. So don't be
Speaker 2: afraid to ask your garden center. And when in doubt,
Speaker 2: you know, buy it, enjoy it, and then just bring
Speaker 2: it inside on nights that it's going to be super cold,
Speaker 2: and then wait until pretty much the danger of frost
Speaker 2: has passed. Unless you want to be running out there
Speaker 2: every night if the frost or freeze threatens and covering
Speaker 2: it with a blanket. So we have a question here
Speaker 2: from Jennifer. She is in Texas and she says they've
Speaker 2: recently had a lot of rain and it's causing the
Speaker 2: branches of her white pillar rows of sharon to become floppy.
Speaker 2: She says, they're nearly six feet tall, and I've never
Speaker 2: pruned them. She says. I want to say, I heard
Speaker 2: Stacy say to prune one third of this type of plant,
Speaker 2: but I'm not sure how or why can someone confirm.
Speaker 2: So I want to address this because this is a
Speaker 2: question that comes up relatively frequently for the pillar hibiscus
Speaker 2: and the so pillar hibiscus are plants in the proven
Speaker 2: win there's color choice line that naturally grow with a
Speaker 2: really narrow columnar habit So instead of being a big,
Speaker 2: you know, eight feet tall and wide Rosa sharon, these
Speaker 2: grow very narrow, so like three to four feet and
Speaker 2: then they get tall. But one of the things that
Speaker 2: can happen with Rosa sharon, especially in warmer climates like Texas,
Speaker 2: if they get a growth spurt, like they get a
Speaker 2: lot of water, it's spring they're in full growth mode,
Speaker 2: they may be fertilized. That can lead to floppy growth.
Speaker 2: The growth comes out so fast that the plant doesn't
Speaker 2: have time to harden off its cells and turn them
Speaker 2: into fully woody cells, and so they do flop over.
Speaker 2: And you know, usually that's just a situation of weather conditions,
Speaker 2: but it can also happen if the branches start to
Speaker 2: get heavy. So if this starts to happen to you,
Speaker 2: I would recommend number one that you actually, instead of
Speaker 2: cutting them back by a third, which you can do.
Speaker 2: If you do that, try not to go for the
Speaker 2: buzz cut. Look, make your cuts a little bit more
Speaker 2: here and there, not just like one straight cut across
Speaker 2: with the old hedge tremors. But you can also sort
Speaker 2: of identify the main branches and then thin out the
Speaker 2: side branches. And that's going to take a lot of
Speaker 2: weight away from those branches and help them stand up.
Speaker 2: And you can also use a combination of the two.
Speaker 2: But Rosa Sharon, especially in a climate like Texas, you've
Speaker 2: got nothing to worry about in terms of how much
Speaker 2: you can remove. You can definitely cut these back fairly hard.
Speaker 2: Obviously you're using them for coverage you're not going to
Speaker 2: cut them back to the ground, but in terms of
Speaker 2: thinning them and trying to get those stems back up,
Speaker 2: just a combination of reducing the height and reducing the
Speaker 2: extra weight of those side branches should do the trick.
Speaker 2: And I would definitely recommend if you are fertilizing and
Speaker 2: or if you have a lawn service. A lot of
Speaker 2: people don't realize that if they have a lawn service
Speaker 2: and they're coming in and applying high nitrogen fertilizers to
Speaker 2: maintain a lawn, that kind of actually impact plants that
Speaker 2: are in the lawn or are surrounding the lawn and
Speaker 2: pushing a lot of growth. So if you are fertilizing this,
Speaker 2: definitely cut back. Let the plant have some time to
Speaker 2: harden off those cells, which will happen naturally as the
Speaker 2: season progresses. But yeah, springtime sometimes under ideal conditions, can
Speaker 2: push a lot of growth like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you, don't cut it to the ground,
Speaker 1: but be aggressive in my opinion, and I think you'll
Speaker 1: derive benefit from it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and rosa sharing can take it so especially you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes if you're in a hotter climate, you've got to
Speaker 2: just do a little more than we have to do
Speaker 2: up here in Michigan where sometimes we're just hoping something
Speaker 2: grows at all. Jennifer, now would be a perfect time
Speaker 2: to do that in spring. You know, when it comes
Speaker 2: to this kind of pruning, you can prune it whenever
Speaker 2: you need to. It doesn't really matter that much because
Speaker 2: you're not you don't have to worry about the flowers.
Speaker 2: It's still gonna flower. It's still early enough in the season,
Speaker 2: So I would go ahead and do that pruning now,
Speaker 2: get it back to where you need it to be,
Speaker 2: and you should be in good check by the time
Speaker 2: it does flower for you, probably in a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks down the road. So we're gonna take a little break.
Speaker 2: When we come back, we're going to be talking with
Speaker 2: Mike Connor about more native ours and native fund So
Speaker 2: please stay tuned. Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified Podcast,
Speaker 2: brought to you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Our
Speaker 2: award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and tested
Speaker 2: by experts with your success in mind. Learn more at
Speaker 2: Proven Winners color Choice dot com.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show today for branching
Speaker 1: news and interview with our friend back by popular demand,
Speaker 1: although he's a tree guy, so I'll say back by
Speaker 1: poplar demand. Mike Connor a horticulturist, arborist and pollination expert.
Speaker 1: Be expert, Mike. Always great to have you on the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for inviting me back. I never can
Speaker 3: get over the fact that you invite me to speak again.
Speaker 3: Thank you well.
Speaker 1: We love to tap into your expertise, and it appears
Speaker 1: that our viewers and listeners also enjoy it asking us
Speaker 1: to bring you back, and so here we are. We
Speaker 1: knew we'd be talking about native ours today, so I
Speaker 1: sent Mike b mail. Did you get that, Mikey? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you bet? And Mike said that he would he would
Speaker 1: come on the show. So Mike, I guess let me
Speaker 1: ask just right off the top, in your opinion, being
Speaker 1: the b expert you are, are native ours beneficial to pollinators?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? There are a few exceptions, but generally we can
Speaker 3: say that native ours are more beneficial to pollinators as
Speaker 3: a group than the species, and that's because of extended
Speaker 3: bloom time. That's because people are planting more of them.
Speaker 3: In other words, it's if it's a pretty plant, you're
Speaker 3: going to plant it and the bees will benefit. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I like most of the native ours that we have
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 2: Well, tell us about those exceptions then, because you know,
Speaker 2: I think that is it's those couple of exceptions out
Speaker 2: there that have really kind of, uh, you know, spoiled
Speaker 2: the whole shebang for a lot of people. And they
Speaker 2: just decide that they uniformly hate native ours and it's
Speaker 2: wrong to plant them without really looking, you know, more
Speaker 2: critically and deeply at what actually is making any given
Speaker 2: plant a native ar or different from the native species
Speaker 2: you'd find walking in the woods or the meadow or whatever.
Speaker 3: I know, And that's really become not only a political issue,
Speaker 3: but I think for some people, almost to religious issues,
Speaker 3: they have to have the plant that was here before
Speaker 3: your opinions came to America or before you know, any
Speaker 3: other group came to America. And so they've defined and
Speaker 3: they say that at this particular time in history, this
Speaker 3: is our base and we can't change anything from that base.
Speaker 3: And that's one side of the group. And that would
Speaker 3: be exemplified by famous authors and common proponents would be
Speaker 3: Doug Tellumy for instance, with his great books. I've met Doug.
Speaker 3: He's a very interesting guy. I think that he's strongly opinionated,
Speaker 3: but he does bring up a few good points where
Speaker 3: he says that we can develop a native ar that
Speaker 3: becomes completely non attractive to our pollinators. One example would
Speaker 3: be like the annabel hydrangea, which is a native ar.
Speaker 3: It's an arborescuence hydrangea, but it's very, very philoriferous. But
Speaker 3: the flowers are not attractive, they're not fertile, they don't
Speaker 3: have any nectar, so basically they become a pollinator desert.
Speaker 3: But that's an exception. There are a lot of other
Speaker 3: really positive things out there that we can talk about.
Speaker 3: One other negative towards the native urs is that where
Speaker 3: are we going to de find what's native? Is that
Speaker 3: just your backyard? Is that the United States? Is that
Speaker 3: North America? How are we going to define these terms?
Speaker 3: And so we move a plant in, which I'm sure
Speaker 3: you guys have experienced, to move a plant in from
Speaker 3: another part of Michigan, somebody may protests and say, well,
Speaker 3: that's not native to my area. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: there are people who will say, well that is native
Speaker 3: to Michigan, so it's something that I want in my garden.
Speaker 3: So we develop native ours from these trees or I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: trees that's all I think about, from these native plants,
Speaker 3: and some people love them with some people hate them.
Speaker 3: And I understand the controversy. It's really intense because we
Speaker 3: could be diluting down genetic diversity. That's one argument. I
Speaker 3: don't know that that's really really part of the problem.
Speaker 3: I think that we have to look at solutions, in
Speaker 3: my mind, to a problem that is out there, which
Speaker 3: is we lack the forage for our native bees and
Speaker 3: for our honey bees, and anything we can do that
Speaker 3: provides be forage fills in those gaps, fills in the
Speaker 3: gaps where there is no b forage spring or later
Speaker 3: in the fall. Whether that's a native ar or a
Speaker 3: native plant, I really don't care as long as it's
Speaker 3: being utilized by natives and honey bees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was thinking while you were talking,
Speaker 2: both Rick and I, you know, living out here by
Speaker 2: the lake shore, live in what would be if it
Speaker 2: hadn't been developed a dune environment, and it would be
Speaker 2: pretty much all dune grass, which is when pollinated and
Speaker 2: not necessarily particularly value. It has its own ecological value,
Speaker 2: of course, but as far as attracting pollinators and sustaining
Speaker 2: insects and trying to help all of our native bees
Speaker 2: and all of that. You know, if we were to
Speaker 2: just let our landscapes be truly native as to what
Speaker 2: they are, we'd probably just have a lot of ticks
Speaker 2: and not a lot of fun sex and it wouldn't
Speaker 2: be that great.
Speaker 3: Except a lot of kicks and spiders and not many pollinators.
Speaker 3: Ye have, absolutely correct, because you know, nature is always changing.
Speaker 3: You know, the forest and the trees that we have
Speaker 3: today are not the forests and the trees that our
Speaker 3: grandfathers had. Our grandparents and the environment that our grandparents
Speaker 3: had is not the environment that their grandparents had. Everything
Speaker 3: is changing. Everything is on this continuum. Everything is going.
Speaker 3: And you know, if we want to go back far enough,
Speaker 3: we can say, well, you know, ten or twelve thousand
Speaker 3: years ago, there was a mile of ice above us.
Speaker 3: So you know, things have changed a lot in the
Speaker 3: last ten or twelve thousand years. So I believe that
Speaker 3: things are always changing. We're not in this period of
Speaker 3: you know, what they call uniformitarianism, where nothing changes, everything
Speaker 3: is as it was, because you know, with our own
Speaker 3: eyes we see that's not what's actually happening. So as
Speaker 3: plants come in, as plants change, as the environment changes,
Speaker 3: you know, the needs of our pollinators will change, the
Speaker 3: needs of our insects will change. And in preparation for
Speaker 3: this talk, and I reached out to a friend of mine,
Speaker 3: doctor Daniel Potter. He's at the University of Kentucky, and
Speaker 3: I was talking to him and he said, well, you know,
Speaker 3: I wrote a paper about this, really, so he sent
Speaker 3: me a copy of paper and he compared native milk
Speaker 3: weeds with native our milk weeds. And after you read
Speaker 3: his nineteen page paper, and you realize that there is
Speaker 3: no real difference. And he said, in conclusion, if this
Speaker 3: is what it takes to get milkweed out into the
Speaker 3: environment in order to provide food for our butterflies and
Speaker 3: our bees and our especially har monarch butterflies, it's very
Speaker 3: important that we be promoting the use of native ours,
Speaker 3: especially in urban gardens, because they're attracting our insects, they're
Speaker 3: attracting our you know, our wildlfe. And it's not just
Speaker 3: to see in milk weeds that he talks about. But
Speaker 3: you know, if you get talking to me, talk about
Speaker 3: all these other native ours and culture bars that we
Speaker 3: have in the environment.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that's interesting, especially with milkweed as
Speaker 2: the example, because you know, so many of us were
Speaker 2: conditioned in this way that like weeds in the yard
Speaker 2: aren't bad. Milk weed is a weed, and you know,
Speaker 2: people may be unwilling to let our you know, native
Speaker 2: a sleepy ast Zoriacus grow wild in their yard thinking
Speaker 2: of it as a weed, but they might be perfectly
Speaker 2: happy to go to the garden center and buy, you know,
Speaker 2: a selection of milkweed and feel like that's good enough,
Speaker 2: and then that will start to again affect that change
Speaker 2: where they're like, oh, wow, maybe I will let some
Speaker 2: of those milkweed grow and see what happens.
Speaker 3: Right, Yep, I totally agree with that. It's kind of
Speaker 3: a gateway for people to start planting plants that are
Speaker 3: more effective for our butterflies and our pollinators.
Speaker 1: So, Mike, as a b expert and expert on pollination,
Speaker 1: can you share a few native ours that are favorites
Speaker 1: of yours if someone were to add them to their landscape.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's really a good question, you know, And you're
Speaker 3: gonna ask me for a specific variemety here, Rick, And
Speaker 3: you know, I really really like the Agaskatchi. Some of
Speaker 3: those native ours are absolutely astounding in the way that
Speaker 3: they are attracting pollinators. They send your bloom times. One
Speaker 3: of my favorites in the milkweeds would be the Cinderella.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, so that's an esclipias incarnat a swamp
Speaker 2: milk weed. Bit more pink flowers, right.
Speaker 3: Very yeah, very pretty. Another one that I really like
Speaker 3: is one called gay butterflies.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: And you know, basically, any of these milkweeds that are
Speaker 3: out there that are native ours are gorgeous. You know.
Speaker 3: I like those things that once you plan them, you
Speaker 3: don't have to go back and read plant the next
Speaker 3: year or spend the money to plant it again next year.
Speaker 3: But milk are generally pretty good, and as you said,
Speaker 3: a lot of people used to regard them as weeds.
Speaker 3: But nothing is passion going among people more than two things.
Speaker 3: One is monarch butterflies and the other is pollinators. Would
Speaker 3: be saved the bees, it would be, you know what's
Speaker 3: going on with you know, the honey bees, pollinators that
Speaker 3: are in our country, and that stirs passion in people.
Speaker 3: But I think number one would be monarch butterflies.
Speaker 1: Ye, people used to think of milkweed, Yes, Mike, you're correct,
Speaker 1: as weeds something to dispose yourself of. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, that all changed during World War Two with
Speaker 1: doctor Boris Berkman and the collection of seed pods to
Speaker 1: save the lives of aviators and sailors during World War
Speaker 1: two to pack life vests, and slowly but surely the
Speaker 1: whole public perception of milkweed changed, along with, of course
Speaker 1: the benefit to pollinators and stacy to ask you if
Speaker 1: you're keeping score at home, So essentially you're talking here
Speaker 1: about Esclepias tuberosa.
Speaker 2: Tuberosa is the pink and the yellower orange one, yeah, yep.
Speaker 2: But our regular native milkweed is Sclepias siriaka.
Speaker 1: For folks who want to buy one at.
Speaker 2: Y yeahbosa is usually that is a native one, and
Speaker 2: it grows wild around here abundantly. But it is usually
Speaker 2: those orange or yellow ones that you see the most stuff.
Speaker 2: And but the one that Mike mentioned, Cinderella, is increasingly
Speaker 2: a you're increasingly able to find that, and its companion
Speaker 2: plant is ice ballet, which is a white flowered.
Speaker 3: Fantastic version of that, and even ice bellet, by the way,
Speaker 3: it's just an astounding display of flowers. Yeah, they're really great.
Speaker 2: And the thing about Asclepias milkweed is it is not
Speaker 2: a plant that likes the nursery environment. So it is
Speaker 2: definitely one of those plants that people need to maybe
Speaker 2: take a little bit of a leap of faith when
Speaker 2: they see it at the garden center and go, mmm,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that's worth the money. It's what's going
Speaker 2: on below the soil that counts. But asleepist they have
Speaker 2: a tap root. They don't really love the nursery environment,
Speaker 2: but they're so important.
Speaker 3: They they do, and sometimes they're hard to transplant. This experience,
Speaker 3: I've grown some from seed and you can grow them
Speaker 3: in a pod and then when you go to plant
Speaker 3: them all sometimes they're going no, I don't think so,
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna die wrong.
Speaker 1: But I've had that experience too, you know my experience
Speaker 1: in the landscape. Also you mentioned Agastaki. There's a cultivar
Speaker 1: called meant to be or royal raspberry. Some people refer
Speaker 1: to the plant as hissop, but talk about a pollinator, hummingbird,
Speaker 1: be butterfly, magnet. In the landscape, I have some planted
Speaker 1: near miss Molly, but that beautiful in the combination of
Speaker 1: the two. They are co did on a July or
Speaker 1: August day in butterflies, bees, sphinx moths. It's it's amazing
Speaker 1: to watch.
Speaker 3: Oh, you're absolutely right, that's one of my favorites. You
Speaker 3: mentioned two of my favorites right there. Rick, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Now, Mike, I want to ask you, and we were
Speaker 2: talking about this a little bit earlier in the show.
Speaker 2: You know, I think there's a lot of publicity out
Speaker 2: there and a lot of people trying to convince everyone
Speaker 2: to plant natives and it's good for the environment. But
Speaker 2: you know, honestly, what I think really needs to happen
Speaker 2: is I think that insects need a little bit of
Speaker 2: a pr campaign because I think that it's a really
Speaker 2: hard sell. I think people are willing to grow different
Speaker 2: things and try to make their yards, you know, more
Speaker 2: eco friendly or whatever that means, but it's hard I
Speaker 2: think to convince people that attracting insects is a good thing. Now,
Speaker 2: you're a bee guy, you know, what do you what's
Speaker 2: kind of your message When people are fearful and reluctant
Speaker 2: because they just they're just so conditioned to think of
Speaker 2: insects as bad and dirty and harmful and gross, and
Speaker 2: they don't want them around, I know.
Speaker 3: And that's that's really too bad, because our insect population
Speaker 3: as a whole has decreased to cost America for a
Speaker 3: lot of different reasons. They used to do windshield surveys
Speaker 3: literally where how many bug splats were they're on the windshield,
Speaker 3: and that has decreased over the last few years, and
Speaker 3: so the insect populations have dropped. I mean, the one
Speaker 3: single most important plant you can put in for insects
Speaker 3: in general is an oak tree. It's not any good
Speaker 3: for our pollinators as such, but it's great for all
Speaker 3: the other birds and for the environment. It's a real
Speaker 3: keystone species. But if we're looking at at other plants
Speaker 3: that we can put out there for insects, then I'm
Speaker 3: thinking of things that draw a lot of pollinators because
Speaker 3: they're getting from those milkley to good example, because you're
Speaker 3: feeding the monarch butterfly, and you're providing nectar for insects
Speaker 3: other than the monarch plus the monarch. And how do
Speaker 3: we get around this idea of ooh insects. I just
Speaker 3: responded to an email yesterday about this where a gentleman
Speaker 3: is definitely afraid of bees, and he's defining the bees,
Speaker 3: and you know what, they weren't bees at all. They
Speaker 3: were yellow jackets coming out of the ground attacking him
Speaker 3: in the summertime. And we have this mistaken idea that
Speaker 3: all insects are bad. But the vast majority of native
Speaker 3: bees will never sting you. They can't sting you, they
Speaker 3: don't want to sting you. And it's kind of a
Speaker 3: public perception. People like the idea. They get a one
Speaker 3: twuzy one. They talk about, well, we're going to plant
Speaker 3: for pollinators, and I think, oh good, you know, that's great,
Speaker 3: But they like to have their flowers up high so
Speaker 3: that they don't have to see them or encounter the
Speaker 3: insects there. I don't know if I'm answering your question
Speaker 3: or not.
Speaker 2: It's just, you know, I think that that is sort
Speaker 2: of an you know, you mentioned Doug Tallamy, and I
Speaker 2: think that he has done a lovely job of making
Speaker 2: the case for why insects are merit conservation and how
Speaker 2: much everything else, you know, depends on them. But I
Speaker 2: still think, you know, the people who need to hear
Speaker 2: that message are not reading Douglas. Tellmy they're the people
Speaker 2: who are in the garden center may have heard a
Speaker 2: few things about native plants and think, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm interested, but like they don't know what to buy
Speaker 2: because they don't know why they're doing it, and you know,
Speaker 2: saying like oh, this is going to attract a ton
Speaker 2: of insects. It's a selling point for me personally in
Speaker 2: the garden, but it's not a selling point for the
Speaker 2: average person. So you know, it's and of course I
Speaker 2: don't expect you to have a great answer. If you do, wonderful,
Speaker 2: but you know how I feel like that is the
Speaker 2: hard work to be done here is, you know, helping
Speaker 2: people understand how important it is to have insects in
Speaker 2: the garden. And you know, we were talking earlier in
Speaker 2: the show too about how a native ar can help people,
Speaker 2: you know, have a plant in the garden and start
Speaker 2: to attract those insects and go, oh, well, you know what,
Speaker 2: maybe this wasn't so bad. You know, this actually isn't
Speaker 2: that scary. I was afraid I was going to have
Speaker 2: some sort of you know, like horror movie level swarm
Speaker 2: in my backyard, and it's like, actually, you know what,
Speaker 2: this is kind of lovely but yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 2: a challenge, and I'm sure it's a challenge you deal
Speaker 2: with in your work as well.
Speaker 3: It is, and I'm sure Rick has covered the advantage
Speaker 3: of some of the native arts in regard to the
Speaker 3: application of chemicals because so many of the native ours
Speaker 3: are disease resistant, so we have less spray that has
Speaker 3: to go on them. And I'll tell you, as an arborist,
Speaker 3: when I put in my arborist hat, I'll get a
Speaker 3: call from someone who will say, oh, I have all
Speaker 3: these bugs. You know, wrong terminology, but will say, have
Speaker 3: all of these bugs in my oak tree to spray?
Speaker 3: And I'll say, you know what, unless they're spongy moth,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to We're not going to treat them.
Speaker 3: We're going to leave them. And most people are okay
Speaker 3: once you educate them on the benefits of insects and
Speaker 3: their oak tree. The disadvantage that I've run into is
Speaker 3: a lot of companies will go up to someone and say, oh,
Speaker 3: you have bugs, I will spray, and while I'm here,
Speaker 3: I will spray your garden, and I will also spray
Speaker 3: your shrubs. You know, I will kill all the insects
Speaker 3: in your yard and I'm going to charge you a
Speaker 3: lot of money and you feel good about it, but
Speaker 3: you've destroyed that whole ecosystem. So we need to take
Speaker 3: a balanced approach as we look at insects in the
Speaker 3: environment and say, first of all, identify it. Secondly, is
Speaker 3: it harmful to me? Or is it harmful to my
Speaker 3: tree or shrub or landscape. You know, there is this
Speaker 3: point of diminishing returns where we can have a few
Speaker 3: insects in that land spe We can have a few
Speaker 3: that are surviving. A few gypsy moths or spongy maths
Speaker 3: are not a problem because they sure as a host
Speaker 3: for the the parasitoids to the're feeding on them for
Speaker 3: the next generation. So we can allow a few. Let's
Speaker 3: let me get out of control problem. So I do
Speaker 3: try to educate people. Let's not kill all the insects
Speaker 3: in the environment. Let's try to keep some of them alive,
Speaker 3: and let's try to keep some of those host plants
Speaker 3: to support them alive.
Speaker 1: It's all about becoming more and more bugweiser. There, Mike,
Speaker 1: and I think a marketing campaign is afoot. I like
Speaker 1: the idea. I think back to years ago with Smoky
Speaker 1: the Bear and only you can prevent forest fires. Let's
Speaker 1: do something for insects, you know, if you had a
Speaker 1: cute little bee flies into the flower, you know, says honey,
Speaker 1: I'm home, you know, or something like that. I think
Speaker 1: I have the idea.
Speaker 2: All right, you've got the groundwork already. Late there.
Speaker 1: We're going to work on it.
Speaker 3: I don't know how your brain works. Rick, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's scary.
Speaker 3: Mike.
Speaker 1: Always a pleasure to talk to you, my friend. Thank
Speaker 1: you for everything you do. Thanks for checking out with
Speaker 1: us today on this topic of native of ours and
Speaker 1: happy springing to you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, Yeah, take care.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Mike.
Speaker 2: Well that was great, and honestly, I can't wait till
Speaker 2: the insects are back in my garden. It's still kind
Speaker 2: of cool, so not many yet, but I'm ready for them.
Speaker 2: As soon as they come back, we'll welcome them with
Speaker 2: gentle but open arms. So thanks so much to Mike
Speaker 2: Connor from Honeytree Nursery. Thank you, Rick, thank you, thank you, Adriana,
Speaker 2: and thanks so much to all of you. We hope
Speaker 2: you have a wonderful week ahead.