Speaker 1: Broadcasting from Studio A here at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs.
It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella,
me Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson.
Today we're finding inspiration. You can actively seek it out
or it can come naturally. And how do you do
that with plants and your landscape. Inspiration is insight, which
refers to what we absorb or take in, and movement
is how we act on it in our landscapes. Without movement,
insight is just knowledge and conversely, taking action without insight
is simply doing so they go hand in hand. How
do you get inspired? I really think one of the
ways you do in a landscape is to think about
the function of the space. I have a perfect spot
on the east side of my house where I can
envision myself sitting there sipping on a cup of coffee
in the morning as the sun is coming up. I
think a lot of inspiration is closely tied to drama,
and I like the thought of utilizing some of the
new cultivars that are available on the market today to
help influence some of that inspiration for your landscape. And
I'm thinking about some plants that actually change color over
the course of the season, providing drama. You know, I
love little Lime Punch hydranga. And then in twenty twenty six,
the Super Bell's Magic double grapefruit calibri CoA is coming
that changes color also during the season. And so Stacy,
I was thinking about inspiration and it struck me. Seasons
provide inspiration. Seasons in our lives provide inspiration. So if
you think about it, the seasons are kind of like theater.
And I'll put it this way. Spring is a great awakening,
Summer is a blockbuster movie, fall is the grand finale,
and winter is reflection. And so I think it's embracing
the seasons. That's one way to find inspiration in your garden.
And I think also starting small and building momentum because
success breeds success. We've heard that before, but success also
breeds complacency. So a lot of this is all about attitude.
Speaker 2: That's for sure. Yeah, you know, it takes a long time,
and I think that's the important thing here is nothing
happens overnight in the garden, and you don't have to
get things right right away. You know, you have your
vision for this space, on the east side of your house.
I had a vision for all of these different spaces
in my house, and I had lived in my house
for a good nine years before I was ready to
really pull the trigger and do what I did. But
I needed that time to kind of think about it
and use my space. And you know, I have no
regrets because now I feel like we did the right thing. So, yeah,
it's an attitude and we're definitely not complacent. There's still
a lot of work to be done.
Speaker 1: And think about this. A great way to think about
garden inspiration is to think of the opposite of inspiration.
So in lieu of inspiration, how about copycat neighbors? All right?
Is it flattering or is it flat out annoying? And
I'm fascinated when I think about this because in my neighborhood,
you know, when I got the house, immediately started tearing
everything out, the lawn, changing everything over. The neighbors were watching.
I have some neighbors who immediately started working on their
landscapes and started copying some of the things I was doing.
It was as though I gave them license to do
these things. I have some other neighbors who dug in
their heels and said, no way, I'm not doing that.
As a matter of fact, one of them put parked
a boulder in his front yard and that's the extent
of his landscape. Very uninspiring. But think about it. And
estimated seventy percent of American homeowners copy home related ideas
from their neighbors. So they're copying everything from the lawn
furniture to lawn care, colored choices, purple front door, or
anyone lighting upgrades, replacement windows, plants, and landscape choices. But
many people find well, you know, Oscar Wilde said imitation
is the sincerest form of flattery, but sixty seven percent
of homeowners find it uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing about the Oscar wild quote. It
goes around a lot, but it's almost always missing the
very crucial second half. Were you getting into this? Yeah, yeah,
So we always make sure to say this around here.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can
pay to greatness very goal. So it's's not simply flattery.
I do not have to worry about anybody trying to
replicate what I do in my garden. My neighbors all
think I am completely insane. They do enjoy looking at it,
but they do not envy me, or want the work
or know how that goes all along with what I'm doing.
My neighbors think, however, Yeah, well, I think there's a
there's a garden blogger. Her name's Carol, and she wrote
in a blog once, and I think it really sums
it all up. If your neighbors don't think you're a
little bit crazy, you're probably gardening wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, I agree one hundred percent. My point
here is, as we talk about inspiration, don't copy your neighbors.
Be an original. And I would say, for example, there's
a statistic I read, watch your neighbors when they're grilling.
One in six people, fifteen percent believe flames kill off bacteria,
and twenty seven percent of people are confident dirt adds
flavor to their cooking.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, for real, Yeah.
Speaker 1: For real, dirt keeping up with the Joneses. So I
wrote you a little copy cat.
Speaker 2: I'm going to think twice about going to anyone's house
for a barbecue. Ever, again, they might be in the
twenty seven percent.
Speaker 1: It's scary, isn't it. So here's my copycat limb A
rick about my neighbors. They're watching from a distance. Call
it neighborly coexistence, looking for inspiration to enhance their curation
with the path of least resistance. I was trying to
be original, but now I'm just miserable. They all copied
my design that I had found online. It's downright wrong, despicable.
Am I flattered or annoyed with my idea? They have toyed?
In December, I'll copy their lights, Christmas decor and holiday sights.
I'm sure they'll be overjoyed. Yeah, I tell you what.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, this did happen to my colleague and
she was upset. So she built a very distinctive front
fence pattern. Okay, that was not like you know, it
wasn't something off the shelf. She you know, designed this
and they built it. And then the place next door
to her went up for sale and they wanted to
spruce it up and they built the exact same fence
and she was not happy.
Speaker 1: I tell you what. It happens. And with my landscape,
I think a lot of inspiration comes from the vibe
that you're trying to create and living on the in
West Michigan, on the Lake Michigan, shoreline and near the beach.
I wanted tropical vibe, so I went for swaying grasses
instead of the traditional evergreen foundational plants, and they became
the backbone of my landscape. And then I picked out
tropical plants, or at least plants that had tropical appeal
at allocacia, colocacia, bananas, high biscuits, cannas, different types of cannas, kalladiums,
color blaze colias, cordelines, all of that, even hardy cactus.
All of that makes a difference and helps create that vibe.
Adding water features to something like that also helps add
that vibe. Now in my case, I have a built
in borrowed water feature, and that is Lake Michigan. You
can hear the waves from my house. Using containers for
true tropical plants and annuals, areas of shade or filtered shade,
get that rainforest vibe, palms, all of that sort of
thing I think are very important. So tune into what
vibe you're trying to create. And then again, like I said,
the seasons, I think fall is a great time for
inspiration in the garden, and we're going to talk more
about that in future.
Speaker 2: We nice you know. I think that people can be
excused to a certain extent for copying you because it's
a little bit like, you know, learning to cook. They're like, Okay,
I want to make a chocolate cake, but I don't
know what ingredients I need to put in here, and you,
as a horticulturist, you have that ingredient list, and they
see the ingredients of a great garden in your yard
and they're like, you know, just like we were saying before,
when I go to the garden center, I am just
bewildered by choice. Rick seems to know what he's doing.
These plants do well around here. I want what Rick has,
so they you know, you're a role model. They're not
just a you know, they're not just imposters. They're looking
up to you.
Speaker 1: But I would proceed with a word of caution, and
that is with those recipes. I'm the type of person
who doesn't necessarily follow I add a little of this,
take that out rear, and sometimes it gets me into trouble.
Speaker 2: It's true, if you know what you're doing, you're willing
to take risks that the people who don't know what
they're doing are probably not going to be very happy.
With but they might ask you first, but.
Speaker 1: I'd far rather be inspired because life is more fun
that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then your whole neighborhood look amazing. You'd be
responsible for transforming your entire neighborhood.
Speaker 1: We'll give you some inspiration ideas and segment four next,
let's see how Stacey ties this all in in 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
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proven Winner's Color Choice dot Com. Were Reading's gardening friends,
and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Joe, where the
topic of today is inspiration, the perfect, hopefully little you know,
thing to get you through how hot it has been,
how dry it has been. If you were out here
in West Michigan, we're like, what four inches below normal
for July. And you know, between the heat, the humidity
and the lack of rain, it can make you feel
pretty darn uninspired. So that's when it's time to kind
of dig in and look back as to why you
gotten yourself into this whole gardening mess in the first place.
I think there's two great ways to do that. There's
two ways I normally do that, and number one is
to look at books, and there are some wonderful picture
books of gardens from all over the world. Or of
course you can browse websites of different public gardens around
the world, find great pictures and get inspired that way.
And then the other thing is, of course, to visit
public gardens. And that is where I will say that
I have found my biggest inspiration, which Rick, I don't
know if that makes me a copy cat like your neighbors,
or if I'm just, you know, doing what every artist
or creator has ever done, which is look at something
that someone else did and start taking it in a
new direction.
Speaker 1: Oh that's that's not copycat, that's just learning. Because for
me too, I've I've received all kinds of inspiration from
gardens in the Netherlands, British Columbia, the Pacific Northwest, you know,
all of the you know, and you can point them
out and they've helped helped inspire me. So if you
do it in a public garden, that's.
Speaker 2: Not and that's that's a free for all.
Speaker 1: That's a free okay.
Speaker 2: Now, unfortunately you don't have a ton of public gardens
out here in West Michigan. We do have a couple,
but certainly if you're traveling or planning travel, I love
to plan what I'm seeing around public gardens and public
gardens are a way to not just see, you know,
new ideas and new combinations, new plants and us. If
you're copycatting, you're gonna have the labels there, which is
good compared to most people's yards, although some people do
label their plants. And it is at a public garden
that I found one of my biggest garden inspirations, and
that is the late nineteenth century gardener and writer William Robinson.
So Adrian is nodding because of course that is Adriana Robinson.
I'm not sure if that's any relation. It would be
nearly impossible to tell, but let's just pretend it is.
So he was pretty much the first gardener and designer
with any kind of influence to speak out against the
status quo, which was at the time Victorian carpet bedding,
and so if you're not familiar with that concept, it
was basically like different shaped beds in turf that were
planted very tightly with colorful annuals. And that was a
garden back then. You know, this is really sort of
there was still like a landscape movement, but even that
was just kind of like trees. They were trying to
replicate nature. And William Robinson came along, you know, kind
of on the tail end of the Victorian period and
basically is the person who is responsible for everything that
we think is gardening today. And it's so wild to think,
you know, that there was a time where the way
that we combine plants and the way that we build
gardens now simply did not exist like it was. It
was impossible to imagine until William Robinson came along. And
William Robinson wrote two seminal books that you can still
find today. You can usually download them for free if
you are an ebook reader, because of course they are
well off copyright, The Wild Garden, which is my personal
favorite and my biggest inspiration, and The English Flower Garden.
And both of these books, you know, they were written
before photos, so they have some illustrations, and I think
there might be some more modern versions with some photography,
but these are really the books that kind of brought
us to where we are now. And if you admire
the gardens of you know, just to name a few
big names, Omi and Van Sweden who really kind of
brought this style of planting out in the nineteen nineties,
or more recently Pete Audolph. That's really they were sort
of informed by William Robinson's style and it was such
a sea change from what had been happening. So I
really got inspired to read William Robinson and learn more
about him and his planting style and everything that he
contributed through the wild Garden at Wavehill. So Wavehill is
an absolutely incredible public garden in the Bronx in New
York City. It's not one that people usually visit. It's
off the beaten Path. You can't take the subway to it.
You can take the Metro North train. You can also
take a cab or a you know, ride share. There's
lots of ways to get there now. You can take
a bus. But if you have a trip planned to
New York City and you're going to see one garden,
you know, of course I've been to the New York
Botanical gard and that's my alma matter, that's where I
went to horticulture school, and of course I love it.
I've been to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. But if you
were going to spend your time in one single garden
in New York City, I would urge you to make
it Wave Hill because it is just so beautiful and
so inspiring. And the Wild Garden at Wavehill is to
me the most awe inspiring of all, which is really
saying something, because the entire garden, from the moment that
you walk in, will just completely take your breath away.
The Wild Garden was based on the work of William Robinson,
and it has a really cool kind of seating area,
and the centerpiece of the plants in the garden is
a giant, beautiful, mature cut leaf Sumaco and it is
just it's trained and grown in this way that really
sort of epitomizes everything that William Robinson was teaching, which
is to take plants, especially native plants, and don't really
take the wild out of them, but use your gardening skills,
in your gardener's eye and your artist's eye to make
them sort of more of a sculptural element. He really
wasn't looking for ornament, he was looking for plants themselves
as ornament. And that's what this sumac at the Wave
Hill Garden really does. And I always knew that someday
when I had house, I was gonna want to have
the same plan in my garden, just because it's so
beautiful and so interesting. But then I got a house,
and my quarter acre suburban town lot isn't really necessarily
that amenable to this very large plant that also suckers.
So if you make a smac happy, it suckers and
comes up all over the place. It becomes kind of
a management nightmare. And so I found, much to my surprise,
I wasn't planning this. It just kind of turned out
this way that one of our plants in the proven
Winter's Color Choice Shrubs line allowed me to reinterpret this
concept in a way that actually worked for my yard,
and that is lemony lace elderberry. And I've said it before,
this is a plant that I've always liked from the
first time that I saw it, but I didn't love
it until it came into my garden. And I am
just just love, love love, I'm just smitten with this plant,
and it really has a lot of the same qualities.
So it has as you might guess by the name
yellow very cut leaf foliage, it isn't going to be
quite well. Mine's pretty young still, so it may develop
more of a sculptural kind of aspect like the sumac
at Wave Hill did, but it does a lot of
the same things and it kind of has evolved therefore
into my own little interpretation of the wild garden in
my yard like that. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I've been to New York City many times. How come
I've never been to Wave Hill Gardens. Thank you for
the inspiration.
Speaker 2: The book A trip right now. It's it's so great.
Speaker 1: I have to do that. And Lemonie lace I have
that in my landscape. Had visitors this past weekend from Oklahoma.
That was the plant they were drawn to in my landscape.
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised because it is such a great plant.
So it is hardy down to Usdazon four heat tolerant
through USDA Zone seven, So not sure your Oklahoma visitors
would have a ton of success with it. It is
not the most heat tolerant. Apologies to are hot climate friends.
You might look into that sumac for your gardens instead.
It is, however, pretty shade tolerant, so mine is in
part shade. And I've also found that it's very drought tolerant,
so you know, I don't really do supplemental watering. Mine
is probably three or four years old now, my lemony lace,
and you know, no supplemental water, and it's doing fine.
It doesn't like dry out or get stressed or anything.
Of course, that probably helps that it's in part shade.
In addition to being hardy USDA zones four to seven,
it is four to seven feet tall and wide now
in my garden. Because of that lack of water, I
anticipate it staying on the smaller side. But this plant
just brings so much into my garden, and I like
that it gives me some continuity because of course I
can't go to Wave Hill all the time anymore. I
don't live in the Bronx like I used to, and
so it kind of I like that it calls to
mind that same experience and love that I've had for
that garden and all the great times I've had in
that garden, but in a way that actually works for
my yard. So it's kind of like, you know, a
point of continuity between those two things. It is also
a native species, so Sambucus rasimosa is our native red elderberry.
It blooms early in spring. So most of our elderberries
bloom in summer. Sambucus rassamosa red elderberry blooms very early
in spring. It actually blooms generally before the leaves come out,
nice white flower clusters, fragrant, and as soon as those
flowers kind of start to form, the foliage comes out.
When it emerges, it's this beautiful red color and the
light hits it and it's just it's a magical, magical plant.
And I really I like that. It has, you know, again,
given me this apportunity to kind of take a bunch
of my inspirations and reinterpret them in my own backyard.
Speaker 1: I really like that. And I would add to that
also on the color wheel, opposite colors attract or can
provide some real impactful inspiration in your landscape. And my
Lemonee lace, Stacey, I have blue fortune agasthat.
Speaker 2: Oh I have one, You're there too.
Speaker 1: I have that combination. Is I think it's inspired.
Speaker 2: It is, it is. It's a beautiful plant, so if
you can grow it, I would highly encourage you at
least checking it out. It's also very derresistant. They have
never touched mine even once, which is definitely saying something
for where I have it. So we will share some
pictures on the YouTube version of the show if you
are interested in seeing that, and you're not already tuned
in there, but that's Lemony Lace and that's today's plant
on trial, so you can decide if it earns a
spot in your garden, wild garden or not. And Adriana
will put some links to William Robinson's works in the
comments on YouTube or the caption YouTube as well. We're
going to take a little break. When we come back,
we're opening up the mailbags, so please stay tuned. At
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landscape starts with a better shrub. Our team of experts
tests and evaluates all of our flowering shrubs and evergreens
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Proven Winners shrubs in the distinctive white container at your
local garden center or learn more at proven Winner's Color
Choice dot com. Reading's gardening friends, and welcome back to
the Gardening Simplified Show where it's one of my favorite
moments in the show where we get to help you
with your gardening questions. And you know, if you have
a questions that you would like us to answer on air,
you can always reach us at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com.
That's a website. There's a contact form there. But I
had a listener who wrote and she was worried about
her cherry tree, and she said, please answer me by Saturday.
And sometimes we don't get a chance to answer you
that quickly, but that doesn't mean that Proven Winner's Color
Choice Shrubs does not want to help you. We do.
So if you have a timely question, please don't send
it to the show and hope that we'll get to you,
because we may not, but we do want you to
have success. So instead go to proven Winner's Color Choice
dot com and use that contact form and you will
get a response from one of our horticulturists in a
more timely manner than we'll be able to give you
on the show. Just don't want to leave anybody hanging,
especially in all this heat and stress and drought and humidity.
And I mean, are you liking this? You know, you
talk a lot about how much you love this summer
in July is your favorite month and the heat. And
I am wondering, like.
Speaker 1: You're going to get in trouble for saying this, But
I just love it, Okay, good, I can't help it.
I love it. I suffer during the wintertime, good, And
that's why I said, when it comes to inspiration, embrace
the seasons. And I've been working real hard to embrace winter.
But it's a struggle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't embrace winter. But I also am not
loving being you know, four to six inches deficient in rain.
That it's a little drug that is making this July
a little bit tough to enjoy.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie speaking of inspiration. As my good
friend the Vincent van Grow would say, it's getting a
little sketchy out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah all right, So with that, Rick, what do we
got in the midle there?
Speaker 1: Forgive me, I'm only humored, Okay. Carla writes to us,
I have purchased a chokeberry bush. It's July it's full
of green berries. I worry it will send its energy
to making fruit instead of getting roots established. Should I
trim off the berries or will that encourage it to
send out new growth?
Speaker 2: So, Carla, I am in the camp that you shouldn't
do a thing. Just keep it watered and keep it happy,
and the plant will basically decide I'm using air quotes
here if it can maintain that fruit or not, because
if it has you know, plants basically have an energy budget,
just as we have an energy budget, and if they
have enough energy in that budget to both maintain the
fruit and grow roots, then they will do so correct
and if they don't, then they will drop that fruit
because they are capable of doing that. Of just saying
like whoa too stressed? Need to concentrate on root growth
this fold, these fruits are out of here. I think
sometimes people get that was a piece of advice that
was often given, I think in earlier years, that you
should take all the buds off your new apple tree
or you know, and it's just like, do you really
not have anything better to do? Or do not trust
plants to kind of be able to do this stuff?
Speaker 1: You know? Fruit drop is a very real thing on
fruit trees. Plants are smart. Plant foliage will fold on
itself to conserve moisture. So I agree with you. Let
nature take its course.
Speaker 2: Right, So definitely keep it healthy, keep it happy. If
you are as dry as we have been in West Michigan,
make sure you're giving it, you know, some good water.
Even though chokeberry erronea is very very drought tolerant as
well as wet soil tolerant. You want to avoid them
being stressed, you know, during their first year. But I
think you're gonna get lucky, Carla, and have a beautiful
crop of red fruit to enjoy our very first year,
as well as a healthy, well established plant.
Speaker 1: I've got a really nice letter from a listener, Brenda,
who discovered US two months ago. She wants our feedback
on an idea she has. I've recently taken over the
maintenance of an established garden in Wisconsin, Zone five. The
garden has several overgrown areas. One area in particular that
I am keen to enhance has a large raised bed
of Bishop's weed.
Speaker 2: Ooh, my most hated plant.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, your most hated plant that is self contained.
It's more than I could remove any time soon. Thoughts
about intermingling Fallen Love's sweetly Japanese anemones within the Bishop
weed patch? Will they commingle nicely? Will one or the
other outcompete the other? Will the anemones spread to other
separate parts of the garden by seed, et cetera, et cetera?
And how many years will it take for new plants
to bloom. I'm hesitant to experiment in a garden that
I do not personally own, and I've declined inviting anemonies
into my own garden for fear of an invasion. So
I have zero experience in growing.
Speaker 2: So what Brenda is proposing here is fighting fire with fire. Yeah,
that's an interesting approach to me. I don't know if
I've ever kind of dealt with with a bed of
an invasive, difficult to manage plant and thought, you know what,
I'm going to grow another invasive somewhat difficult Well, I mean,
Japanese enemies aren't invasive. They're aggressive, but you don't for
can only find them, you know, popping up in the
woods or out stepping their boundaries. But they are a
very aggressive garden plant.
Speaker 1: They're aggressive but gorgeous.
Speaker 2: They're gorgeous. They are so pretty. I mean, it's hard
to resist how pretty the flowers are.
Speaker 1: I kind of like this though, you know, let them
duke it out and figure it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, now I can't say who will win. That's
the tricky part. I mean, Egapodium Bishop's weed is such
an aggressive plant as well, and that's why it is
so invasive and so difficult to manage. Both of them
are very shade tolerant. Both the Japanese and eemone and
the Bishop's weed are very very shade tolerant. So you know,
whether this will work, I don't know, but I do
think it's worth a try. You know, it would be
easier if the plant you're trying to out compete was
a sun lover, and that the Japanese and Emenies would
then provide the shade and kind of shade it out.
But I think that it might be able to compete.
I wouldn't worry too much. I feel like the Japanese
and Emenies don't spread by seeds so much as they
spread by roots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's true, well, very very true. Yes, But
I'm just sitting here thinking why not just kill the
Bishop's weed first and then plant away. But maybe you're
I don't know, you're hesitant to do that because you
don't own the property.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe they don't want to use pesticides for whatever reason,
because you know, again, I am for the judicial use
of pesticides. But as far as I'm concerned, if it's
an invasive plant, that's a pretty darn good special. If
it's bishop of pesticides, yes, I will admit I got
great pleasure from killing the bit of Bishop's weed that
was in my yard when we purchased the house. So Brenda,
if you don't want to just straight out, you know,
spray the Bishop's weed to get rid of it, I
think it's worth a try. The fall in Love Sweetly
is the proven winner's variety. It may not be as
aggressive as some of the older varieties like Honourine Jobert,
which are easier to find, so you might want to
start with something that you know is more aggressive, because
a lot of times the winter's plants are bred to
be less aggressive and a little bit more refined, so
that might not have the competition level that you need
for this project. So I would try it with one
of those. The great thing about the Japanese and Emenies.
If you can find someone who has them, they always
have them to spare, so you don't necessarily need to
invest a bunch of money in buying the plants.
Speaker 1: So and I love them. I love the way they
dance in the landscape. I guess my advice would be,
why just pick one type of plant? If you're going
to get in there and fight with that bishop's weeds,
let's pick out a few different types of plants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could definitely do that. And you know, of
course the Japanese and Emenies don't really do much until fall,
so you might want some other stuff in there just
to keep it interesting. But you know, you'd have to
do some some research onto what else could be as aggressive.
But I would I would start small, get some plants
from someone who has some, and put them in there
and see what happens and let us know, because this
fighting fire with fire technique could potentially be a brilliant
new solution.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a great joke. A bishops weed and an
emonee walked into a bar. Now, okay, we'll move on.
Marjorie writes, I have several varieties of PW. Perennial hibiscus
in my gardens every summer, the Japanese beetles skeletonize the
leaves but leave the flowers alone. Also, the darker foliage
Hibiscus seem to be more affected than the green ones.
Is this the color or just the location? These are
my favorite plants. They make such a statement when in bloom.
I agree. Please advise on how to keep the Japanese
beetles at bay oof.
Speaker 2: You know, that's a tough one. That is a tough one. Now,
of course there are traps out there, but many people say,
if you are a gardener, don't put the trap in
your yard because it will just bring literally putting all
the Japanese beetles your yard. If your neighbor's not a gardener,
perhaps they will let you put one in their yard
because it doesn't, you know, if they don't have plants
that they're trying to, you know, to conserve, or if
you have maybe a common area in your neighborhood and
you can put it over there. I think that the
best management approach for Japanese beetles is definitely to go
after the grubs, either with a nematode, a predatory nematode,
or BT, which is the only thing that BT is
actually effective against is Japanese beetles, but it takes a
couple of years for the population to get established in
your garden as far as the varieties go. You know,
there's something that we see here very often in our trials,
and that is that some roses initially seem to be
less favored by Japanese beetles than others. We have noticed
that roses with thicker, more glossier leaves seem to be
less favored. However, I would not ever take that to
mean that if that was the only rose that you
had in your garden, that the Japanese beetles would ignore it.
It's just so much harder to test if there is
true resistance within a plant or it is just the location,
like Marjuri said so, and breeding Japanese beetle resistance again
is also not as straightforward as like breeding for another
color or breeding for a different size. So I don't
have any great news for you on that front. Maybe
one day, but I would do some research into controlling
the grubs. I found a great publication from the USDA
on this, and Adriana will link that so you can
get the benefit of that information and hopefully get a
handle on your Japanese beetles. But hey, at least you're
still getting flowers on those summerifics, so that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: I spram with kneem oil or insect decidal so during
the heavy pressure periods, and last night I was out
there hand picking them and Marjorie I found it to
be very therapeutic.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's good to know. You can also kind of
just take the plant and shake it over a bucket
of soapy water and let them all fall in there.
Or get chickens. Chickens do you love to eat them too?
So not all practical advice for you, but hopefully we've
got some nuggets in there to help you out.
Speaker 1: Oh nuggets, good one.
Speaker 2: We're going to take a little break. When we come back,
we're continuing our conversation on garden inspiration, so please stay tuned.
Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified podcast, brought to
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Gardening simplified show. As we talk
about inspiration and stacy. These days, I think most people
are finding inspiration for plants and landscapes via a digital source, YouTube,
or whatever it may be. But with well over forty
years in the garden center industry, I will tell you
that you can find inspiration at garden centers and greenhouses,
and I encourage you there are many a wonderful we
call them igc's independent garden centers throughout the United States
and Canada and of course in Europe where you can
walk through and get inspired. And I can tell you,
having worked in a garden center for years, I could
point out to you a number of people who would
come on their lunch hour and just wander around, and
it's a great way to get inspired.
Speaker 2: It is like a garden. And you know what, the
IGC the garden center offers something that you can't do
necessarily at a public garden or a neighbor's garden, and
that is that you can take the plants and move
them all around right and hopefully not leave them that there,
but you know, take some, put them on your cart,
and then go and find those combinations. It kind of
lets us like a try before you buy situation. You
can't do that everywhere.
Speaker 1: That's exactly it. Of course, Proven Winners provides a lot
of great recipes online that will help give you inspiration.
But you're right about that, Stacey, because I would also
watch people who would experience or participate in something I
call plants envy, and that is when someone has filled
their cart up with plants, someone else looks at what's
on their cart and now we're full circle back to
the whole copy there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where'd you find that? Ooh, I want one of those. Yeah,
I've seen that. I've been responsible for that on both
ends myself. Sometimes it's just a matter of you couldn't
find it and they just saw that part earlier, and
you're like, show me where you got that.
Speaker 1: I want that exactly exactly. You know when it comes
to inspiration too. I was thinking about this the other day.
Let's not forget about the renters. I looked that up
the other day and it said in the United States,
as of twenty twenty four, there are approximately forty four
million renter occupied housing units. And when I was doing
my live gardening show, when someone would walk up to
me and say, hey, I love listening to your show,
and I don't even own a home. I would always
love it when they would say that. And so my
point is is, if you want to get inspired, participate
in some container gardening. And again I love some of
the work out there with proven winners where we get
a little daring and we'd put flowering shrubs in containers
and it's doable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, you can do the mix. You can do
them on their own and a great thing, especially if
you do rent you may not have a lot of privacy.
You can use shrubs and containers to give yourself a
little temporary privacy. And that's a you know, very easy
thing that you can do. There's just yeah, there's so
many different ways to use containers and so much inspiration
out there, you know, a lot. Like I was saying before,
it's hard to believe there was a time where container
gardening was little more than you know, the cauldron or
the swan, right and you put like a geranium in there,
the whiskey barrels of course, the original container and now
container gardening is you know, is mostly probably what drives
annual planting every year. And I love, love, love my containers.
I don't put really any annuals in the ground. All
the annuals I do are in containers well, and.
Speaker 1: The beauty of it is, if you're a renter, they're
on the balcony. As you garden, you're not going to
have deer pressure, at least most likely not going to
have deer pressure. As a matter of fact, I have
a picture to share with you our YouTube viewers of
a neighbor of mine who was frustrated with the deer
pressure on arbor vities, and so he just planted them
all up in containers and has them on his deck
overlooking the yard. I guess he was inspired to do
something about deer. Trees, of course, are inspirational. They're an anchor,
a ceiling, a focal point in spring when they leave
out in summer, when they provide shade, their fall color
and shadows during the fall season of course, and then
in winter their structure. I find a tree, for example,
like a ginko tree, a living fossil that's survived for
millions of years, as a tree that's inspiring to me,
especially when it turns color and fall. I just love it,
you know.
Speaker 2: And trees also, if you are more of a birder,
you will have so many more birds in your yard
if you have a tree, at least one tree. And
I have found too that you know where you place
your feeders makes a big difference if you plant them,
if you place your feeders near a tree, and if so,
if birds or what are inspiring you, you place your
feeders near a tree, and the birds feel safe, like
they have a place to flee to. If you know
a hawk flies by overhead or something, you'll get a
lot more birds. And so that's another way that you
can kind of combine your passions in an inspiring way
to get even better results.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so I think it's important to remember again
if you're trying to get inspired with your landscape. Some
plants just live for drama. I think about Bird of Paradise, Strelitzia,
or even let's talk about Hollywood high biscus. I mentioned
how with my landscape I wanted to get that tropical
feel in my landscape and did that with a variety
of plants, But if you add something like Hollywood high biscus,
that will really give you that feel. Some plants inspire
when it's their time to take the stage. Lilacs in spring,
lavender in summer. So again, I keep going back to
this thing, Stacy, where you have to focus in on
the vibe that you're trying to create, and I think
you might be amazed at how inspiration will come along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. You know, one of the things that
I'm finding super inspiring in my garden at this very
moment is my cup plant Selphia portfoliatum in full flower.
And you know, this thing is towering ten feet above
my garden. Absolutely love to see it, and I if
you look at it, you spend any amount of time
looking at it, you will just be again inspired by
the amount of the diversity of creatures that this thing
is attracting and supporting. I mean, at any given moment,
there are just dozens and dozens of different species of insects.
There's butterflies, there's goldfinches, there's hummingbirds, and they're all just
buzzing around this plant. And that's why igarden, that's my
vibe is you know, let's get all these insects in here.
I want to stand in my garden and be at
least somewhat deafened by the humming of insects like that
is my vibe. That's what I love now. Probably no
one's going to copy that. It's a hard sell, I understand,
but I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, try it. If it doesn't work,
then you can try something else. Not all inspirations are great.
I mean, the Beatles were considered a great rock and
roll band, but not all their songs were great.
Speaker 2: Well, no, when bats a thousand.
Speaker 1: I mean, you ever listen they have a song called
dig It.
Speaker 2: I don't know that one.
Speaker 1: Oh it's terrible. But you know, I have a friend
and we talk about this where he gets his motivation
from doing things that most people don't do. And I
have found that my whole life also is if I'm
willing to dive in and do something that most people
don't do, you find inspiration. Yeah, you can make you
can make yourself look silly, but you find inspiration that way.
And a garden is just like your mind. It's easier
to be inspired when you clear the clutter, brain fog.
That's why I need to clean out my garden, shed
take inventory of what brings you joy. Gardening is the
slowest of the performing arts now, Stacy Adriana. We we
got that comment from a listener on YouTube, and I
thought that that was brilliant and it's something to sit
back and think about. Gardening is the slowest of the
performing arts. I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true you need a lot of patience, but
it's uh but you're always it's in a constant it's
just dynamic. Even though it's slow, there's always something happening.
But a garden's never really finished, so speed is kind
of relative.
Speaker 1: So to inspire and I agree, And that's why I say,
again coming from the garden center industry, when I see
people pick a Saturday in May and that's when they
get everything, buy everything. You're going to get it all
done that day. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2: Your centers are open other days besides Saturdays in May.
Speaker 1: And we have the upcoming fall season which is just
so important and so.
Speaker 2: Great, and PS has a lot of sales there you.
Speaker 1: Go exactly So to inspire you and taking a look
at your home life landscape, I'm going to say this,
and that is domestic landscape design is about taking risk,
sometimes taking the path less trodden, and being brave with
design choices. Yes, again, your neighbors may be watching through
the curtains. You might not be successful, just like some
of the Beatles songs. But you got to get out
there and try, because, as I said at the outset
of the show, there's insight and there's movement. You gotta
have both and hopefully you'll find an inspiration that will
bring you real joy.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, Well this has been fun.
Speaker 1: I hope you're inspired. Thank you Stacy, thank you Rick,
thank you Adriana, and thanks to all of you. Remember
you can get our show via YouTube podcast wherever you
get your favorite podcast. Of course our radio show version,
and make sure to visit our website, Gardening Simplify on
air dot com. Have a great week.
Speaker 2: M