Embracing the Beauty of Unruly Gardens

<v Speaker 1>Broadcasting from Studio A Here at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs.
<v Speaker 1>It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella,
<v Speaker 1>me Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson.
<v Speaker 1>Unruly an adjective that by definition means not amenable to
<v Speaker 1>discipline or control, disorderly, and so today we're not going
<v Speaker 1>to talk about invasive plant problems. Some plants are just
<v Speaker 1>delightfully somewhat out of control, unruly, the right amount of chaos,
<v Speaker 1>finding beauty and the tension between unruly and control. There
<v Speaker 1>are plenty of gardening voices out there setting boundaries for you,
<v Speaker 1>but what about some unruly gardening for example, asking yourself
<v Speaker 1>the question with some of your plants, are you willing
<v Speaker 1>to sway and flop versus staking a plant?
<v Speaker 2>Well, as the president of the local chapter of the
<v Speaker 2>Unruly Gardening Club, I am going to come out in
<v Speaker 2>full support of plants doing their thing. Yeah. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>it's funny because when we were talking about the topic
<v Speaker 2>earlier this week, one of my coworkers said, oh, unruly gardens,
<v Speaker 2>I can give you pictures for that. So I'm clearly
<v Speaker 2>not alone, and I think it comes from being a
<v Speaker 2>plant lover, and you know, just kind of appreciating plants
<v Speaker 2>for what they are and what they do. But for me, really,
<v Speaker 2>I think it goes another step further. And the reason
<v Speaker 2>that I pride myself on having an unruly garden is
<v Speaker 2>I'm gardening for the bugs and the birds, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>in nature, things are not all trimmed and clipped in
<v Speaker 2>neat and tidy. Nature is a glorious, you know, array
<v Speaker 2>of plants growing together, and I aim to replicate that
<v Speaker 2>in my garden. And I'm fine with it. But I
<v Speaker 2>totally get how people how this topic is going to
<v Speaker 2>make people a little bit uncomfortable. A lot of people
<v Speaker 2>think a garden should be anything but unruly.
<v Speaker 1>And speaking of people, I'm a people person, okay, And
<v Speaker 1>plants have personality like people do. That's true, and so
<v Speaker 1>I embrace it and enjoy it, especially the ones that
<v Speaker 1>are well kind of unruly. For example, I get excited
<v Speaker 1>about incredible stormproof smooth hydrangea or invinciblee we white. However,
<v Speaker 1>I appreciate and like the look of a flopping smooth hydrangea.
<v Speaker 1>For our YouTube viewers, I've got a few pictures for
<v Speaker 1>you that I took on Cape cod I kind of
<v Speaker 1>like it when they flop over. Or another example in
<v Speaker 1>spring for Scythia's can be somewhat unruly and having forcythias,
<v Speaker 1>and you know, I'm not talking about the show off
<v Speaker 1>sugar baby variety, but I'm talking about just a traditional,
<v Speaker 1>old fashioned forsythia kind of flopping along the ground and
<v Speaker 1>sticking up all over the place and the daffodils are
<v Speaker 1>coming out of the ground. I kind of feel like
<v Speaker 1>that's in unruly situation and it works. Or for example,
<v Speaker 1>one of my favorite roses, I love the oh so
<v Speaker 1>easy roses, but it could be argued that oh so
<v Speaker 1>easy roses and they're prolific blooming, can at times get
<v Speaker 1>a little bit unruly, at which point I'll take out
<v Speaker 1>my printed sures. Right, But I like that unruly nature
<v Speaker 1>of the plant, right.
<v Speaker 2>And roses are a great example. And we're going to
<v Speaker 2>talk a lot more about roses in plants on trial,
<v Speaker 2>but I think the Osoeezy series and shrub roses in
<v Speaker 2>general are a great example. They are you know, work
<v Speaker 2>has been done to kind of tame them and keep
<v Speaker 2>them more compact, but if they get a lot of
<v Speaker 2>water and conditions are good, they're going to start shooting out,
<v Speaker 2>you know, growth all over the place. That's a response
<v Speaker 2>to the conditions. Yep, And that can look a little
<v Speaker 2>bit unruly. But also it's covered in flowers, so you
<v Speaker 2>know it's straight off.
<v Speaker 1>When they get happy, their personality comes out. And I
<v Speaker 1>like that, I really do. So it's not about chaos
<v Speaker 1>gardening and throwing in extra plants. We are all like that.
<v Speaker 1>We'll go to the garden center. I can't leave a
<v Speaker 1>garden center without buying a few plants. And my car
<v Speaker 1>shows it. My car can be unruly. You've got fertilizer
<v Speaker 1>prills and rice holes and some soil on the floor
<v Speaker 1>and on the seats, and I can't help that. I've
<v Speaker 1>got a neighbor who's the exact opposite. He'll on a
<v Speaker 1>Saturday roll his car out, spend the entire day in
<v Speaker 1>the driveway detailing that car. I can't do that. I
<v Speaker 1>have no interest in doing. That's a matter of fact,
<v Speaker 1>to mess with him because he's always coming over asking
<v Speaker 1>me gardening questions because he likes that's my landscape, so
<v Speaker 1>he's always asking me questions about his garden. Anyhow, I'll
<v Speaker 1>back my car up, I'll open up all four doors,
<v Speaker 1>I'll fire up the leaf blower, blast everything out of
<v Speaker 1>the car, shut the doors, pull it back in the garage,
<v Speaker 1>mess with his head. And I think he kind of
<v Speaker 1>likes it. It's entertaining.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know, That's the great thing is that there
<v Speaker 2>is a place for both of these personalities in life
<v Speaker 2>and in the garden. And if you do want to
<v Speaker 2>be the kind of person who plants a garden and
<v Speaker 2>you impose your will on it and you trim it
<v Speaker 2>and you keep everything from touching, that is a perfectly
<v Speaker 2>acceptable way to maintain your landscape or garden. I have
<v Speaker 2>no problem with it. It's not what I'm going to do.
<v Speaker 2>But I do think that it's important to have this
<v Speaker 2>conversation because I think that that need that people, especially
<v Speaker 2>non gardeners who are maybe interested in gardening, feel that,
<v Speaker 2>like I don't have a real garden unless everything is
<v Speaker 2>pruned and trimmed and tidy, and I don't want to
<v Speaker 2>devote that kind of work. It keeps them from gardening.
<v Speaker 2>But there is joy in the unruly, Like I said,
<v Speaker 2>it's more akin to nature. So if you're into gardening
<v Speaker 2>for the bugs and the birds like I am, if
<v Speaker 2>you just love to be surrounded by flowers. You know
<v Speaker 2>it's it's a way to garden. And I'll tell you this,
<v Speaker 2>A big side effect of having unruly garden is a
<v Speaker 2>lot less work and a lot more time to enjoy it.
<v Speaker 1>So just saying no, I agree one hundred percent. Some
<v Speaker 1>examples for you. I love the mop top fountain, weeping
<v Speaker 1>butterfly bush and talk about breaking the rules. Long slender,
<v Speaker 1>weeping branches that are covered in lavender flowers in spring
<v Speaker 1>and hardy down to zone four. Here's another example, raspberries
<v Speaker 1>in your garden. Having raspberries is like having a bad
<v Speaker 1>hair day, but oh so delicious. Individual raspberry canes are biennial,
<v Speaker 1>meaning they live for two growing seasons, but there's perning
<v Speaker 1>involved when you're dealing with Flora.
<v Speaker 2>Kans anthorn's anthorns exactly unrumed. But you know you got
<v Speaker 2>to pay the price for those delicious raspberries, you got it.
<v Speaker 1>I would love a combination of treasure trove Rudebecia with
<v Speaker 1>xenias and cosmos and Stacy. I view cosmos as one
<v Speaker 1>of those unruly plants in the landscape that fits in perfectly.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you can put that anywhere, and it is an
<v Speaker 2>absolutely welcome addition to the garden, and if you like
<v Speaker 2>the cool pinks and whites, you can go with your
<v Speaker 2>regular cosmos. And if you like the hot colors like
<v Speaker 2>I do, there's a beautiful orange cosmos that you can
<v Speaker 2>grow just as easily. So there's kind of something for everybody.
<v Speaker 1>I love it, so it's all a matter of opinion.
<v Speaker 1>In segment four, we're going to talk to Eric and
<v Speaker 1>Christopher from Grow for Me Gardening and there's Zone six,
<v Speaker 1>a garden in upstate New York. I got a kick
<v Speaker 1>out of watching some of their videos because Eric gives
<v Speaker 1>tough stuff fun one of my favorite high ranges at ten,
<v Speaker 1>and Christopher doesn't because he thinks it's a little bit unruly.
<v Speaker 1>So we're gonna ask them.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know, we do want to say ahead for
<v Speaker 2>people who are familiar with Eric and Christopher or who
<v Speaker 2>or who aren't, their garden is decidedly ruly. It's very
<v Speaker 2>well organized. So we're gonna go totally the opposite direction
<v Speaker 2>in segment four when we have them on. But you know,
<v Speaker 2>even though I'm proud of my unruly garden, I would
<v Speaker 2>like to say that I do kind of think of
<v Speaker 2>it as a mullet garden, you know, you know, this,
<v Speaker 2>so a mullet, like the haircut. It's business in the
<v Speaker 2>front end, party in the back. So that is my
<v Speaker 2>garden because you know, I understand I have to put
<v Speaker 2>like a relatively constrained face forward. So my neighbors don't
<v Speaker 2>think I'm completely off my rocker.
<v Speaker 1>I know I've got some of that too.
<v Speaker 2>But then in the back, you know, all bets are off.
<v Speaker 2>I'm just saying, So that's a good way to think
<v Speaker 2>about things, too well.
<v Speaker 1>They already think I'm off my rocker based on how
<v Speaker 1>I clean my car.
<v Speaker 2>Regardless of that, you've made a big announcement to the neighborhood.
<v Speaker 1>Maintenance strips in the garden. I just want to mention
<v Speaker 1>briefly because this is seeding time for turf tall turf
<v Speaker 1>type fescues. There's so many different types. They're coarse blade,
<v Speaker 1>but to me, they are the perfect unruly type of lawn.
<v Speaker 1>It's a bunch growing grass and especially important for people
<v Speaker 1>who live in the transitions zone the mid Atlantic states
<v Speaker 1>into the plain states, where they can't really grow the
<v Speaker 1>warm season varieties, can't really grow the cool season varieties
<v Speaker 1>like we do here in Michigan. Receeders like morning glories
<v Speaker 1>or Verbina benariensis, delightfully unruly characters, and of course rows
<v Speaker 1>of Sharon. New introductions like paraplue or pillar althea are
<v Speaker 1>great options versus the conventional unruly or tending to be
<v Speaker 1>unruly rows of Sharon. So many other plants that we
<v Speaker 1>can talk about, and of course vines either nature alone
<v Speaker 1>a little bit are a little unrule and I love that.
<v Speaker 1>Let's see how Stacey ties this in and plants on trial.
<v Speaker 1>That's coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified Show.
<v Speaker 2>Beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color Choice
<v Speaker 2>Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique varieties
<v Speaker 2>to choose from. There's a flowering shrub or evergreen for
<v Speaker 2>every taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive
<v Speaker 2>white container your local garden center or learn more at
<v Speaker 2>proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's Gardening friends, and
<v Speaker 2>welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we are
<v Speaker 2>talking all about unruly gardens and the joys and pitfalls
<v Speaker 2>I suppose of them. It seems the main pitfall that
<v Speaker 2>we have ascertained so far as that our neighbors think
<v Speaker 2>we're crazy for being a little bit unruly. But you
<v Speaker 2>know that's a risk that we're willing to take.
<v Speaker 1>It's entertaining.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So to kick off plants on trial today, I
<v Speaker 2>wanted to share a little poem that kind of inspired
<v Speaker 2>my journey to unruly gardening. Not a poem by me,
<v Speaker 2>but by someone else. And I realized, did you have
<v Speaker 2>a limerick?
<v Speaker 1>Because we didn't, Shah, I have a limerick this week.
<v Speaker 1>We'll fit it in some.
<v Speaker 2>We're gonna fit it in somewhere.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>I'm giving you a chance because we were doing like
<v Speaker 2>poetry corner.
<v Speaker 1>Here your poem.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Okay. So it's just a short, little excerpt from
<v Speaker 2>a famous poem written very long ago in the sixteen
<v Speaker 2>hundreds by Andrew Marvel. And when I first read these
<v Speaker 2>lines years ago, I said to myself, this is how
<v Speaker 2>I want to feel when I go into the garden. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>just a couple of lines. What wondrous life is this?
<v Speaker 3>I lead?
<v Speaker 2>Ripe apples drop about my head. The luscious clusters of
<v Speaker 2>the vine upon my mouth do crush their wine. The
<v Speaker 2>nectarine and curious peach into my hands themselves do reach
<v Speaker 2>stumbling on melons as I pass, and snared with flowers,
<v Speaker 2>I fall on grass. Even though that's about an edible garden,
<v Speaker 2>that's kind of how I always wanted to feel. I
<v Speaker 2>just wanted to that feeling of just being like surrounded
<v Speaker 2>by this, you know, just bevy of plants all around you,
<v Speaker 2>and just that amazing feeling of being at the height
<v Speaker 2>of the season. So that's that's how I took a
<v Speaker 2>path to unruly garden, because you're not going to get
<v Speaker 2>that feeling if everything is all neat and tidy and
<v Speaker 2>in its place.
<v Speaker 1>I love that. And you painted a picture with words.
<v Speaker 1>Here's this week's limerick real short. My garden rambles uncontrollably,
<v Speaker 1>truly with the aromas of earthly petuli, but I let it
<v Speaker 1>go around my chateau. I like it somewhat unruly.
<v Speaker 2>Do you grow petuli? Oh okay, it just rhymed. It
<v Speaker 2>does rhyme. It's a cool it's an I mean, it's
<v Speaker 2>actually a very unsuspecting plant until you touch the foliage
<v Speaker 2>and then it smells well, exactly like petuli. So anyway,
<v Speaker 2>uh so I get it. Unreally, gardens are not for everyone,
<v Speaker 2>and I'm sure we have a lot of listeners here
<v Speaker 2>who are getting the hev GBS listening to us talk
<v Speaker 2>about a garden that is unorganized and you know, exuberant
<v Speaker 2>and full of plants. But I would make the case
<v Speaker 2>that even those among us who have a organized or
<v Speaker 2>ruly garden, I don't think ruly is technically the opposite
<v Speaker 2>of unruly, but that even the most manicured garden can
<v Speaker 2>benefit from some moments of unruliness. I mean, you know,
<v Speaker 2>if you think about some of the most you know,
<v Speaker 2>dramatic formal gardens around, like in France and in England
<v Speaker 2>and Italy and so forth, you know, they do typically
<v Speaker 2>have at least some element of wildness or nature. And
<v Speaker 2>just in the same way that unruly gardeners like us
<v Speaker 2>need some organization and structure to help that unruliness make sense,
<v Speaker 2>I would say that those organized and clean gardeners need
<v Speaker 2>some unruliness to you know, break up all of that
<v Speaker 2>you know, hard structure and everything that they're doing. And
<v Speaker 2>I feel like when I've seen really formal gardens, I
<v Speaker 2>feel like the one unruly element they tend to bring
<v Speaker 2>in climbing roses.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, you do not see that.
<v Speaker 2>Because roses are of course a classic a garden classic,
<v Speaker 2>and roses can be made to be very they're not, naturally,
<v Speaker 2>you know, very tidy. But of course plant breeding has
<v Speaker 2>introduced a lot of tidy ones. And if you are
<v Speaker 2>so inclined, you can really kind of train a rose
<v Speaker 2>to be very constrained and refined.
<v Speaker 1>Sure, but everybody loves a ramblin rose.
<v Speaker 2>Everybody does love a ramblin rose. And you know, even
<v Speaker 2>again in that most formal garden, they may take pillars
<v Speaker 2>or obelisks or pergolas or something like that and cover
<v Speaker 2>them with a structure, or of course, you know the
<v Speaker 2>famous rose covered cottage of the cottage gardening. So I
<v Speaker 2>am here in plants on trial today to make a
<v Speaker 2>case for climbing roses to be the unruly element of
<v Speaker 2>any guard. Uh, and specifically our series Rise Up, the
<v Speaker 2>Rise Up series of climbing roses. Now there are currently
<v Speaker 2>four varieties in the line. There's Rise Up Amberness, which
<v Speaker 2>is kind of a yellowy orange, really beautiful, amazing fragrance.
<v Speaker 2>There is Rise Up Ringo, which is bright yellow with
<v Speaker 2>kind of a red eye and a double flower. There
<v Speaker 2>is uh trying toys, No, I'm getting to lilac days. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>Rise Up amber Rays, which is a bright, bright, flaming orange,
<v Speaker 2>really cool, color and then yes, Rise Up Lilac Days.
<v Speaker 2>And it was specifically Rise Up Lilac Days that inspired
<v Speaker 2>me to come up with this today because I'm thinking
<v Speaker 2>of a photo that my colleague that we took at
<v Speaker 2>my colleague's house where she planted a Rise Up Lilac
<v Speaker 2>Days on her house. And her house is very neat
<v Speaker 2>and tidy. She's a very like put together, tidy person.
<v Speaker 2>Her landscape is very tidy, but she has a Rise
<v Speaker 2>Up Lilac Days that she just lets do its thing.
<v Speaker 2>And I tell you, the difference that it makes in
<v Speaker 2>her landscape is night and day. It's so good to
<v Speaker 2>have something like this. Now we're not just talking about
<v Speaker 2>growth of these climbing roses that is unruly. They're flowering
<v Speaker 2>is unruly too, and that is a wonderful trade off
<v Speaker 2>because you have this big plant that's climbing your house
<v Speaker 2>or again climbing a pergola and obeliska trellis a fence,
<v Speaker 2>so many different places to put it. And not only
<v Speaker 2>is the rose covering that structure, but the rose itself
<v Speaker 2>is covered in flowers and Rise Up Lilac Days. It's
<v Speaker 2>the rose of the year this year. It is a
<v Speaker 2>color that is you have to see it to believe it. Now,
<v Speaker 2>there is no true like purple rose deep purple, but
<v Speaker 2>this is pretty close. It is about the color of
<v Speaker 2>lilac flowers, a beautiful pinky purple, and the fragrance on
<v Speaker 2>this plant you just have to smell to believe. So
<v Speaker 2>now in vision that you have this, you know, beautiful
<v Speaker 2>climbing rose climbing up your garage or you know another
<v Speaker 2>structure in your home and it has hundreds and hundreds
<v Speaker 2>of flowers on it and it's just giving off this
<v Speaker 2>amazing fragrance. And there's just no other way to get
<v Speaker 2>that look in your garden than to embrace kind of
<v Speaker 2>that wildness of a climbing rose, like rise up lilac.
<v Speaker 1>Days wildness and yet almost thornless.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I love about the plant. And like I said in
<v Speaker 1>the first segment to Stacey, it's finding beauty in the
<v Speaker 1>tension between unruly and control.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And I think it's really cool how roses again
<v Speaker 2>combine that classic look with this element of wildness. Now,
<v Speaker 2>roses are not inherently climbing, so they're not going to
<v Speaker 2>be like a whisteria that twines around. They're not going
<v Speaker 2>to be like an ivy or Boston ivy that climbs
<v Speaker 2>by rootlets. They actually just have long, flexible canes that
<v Speaker 2>sort of allow them to scramble up a structure, kind
<v Speaker 2>of using their thorns and leaning up against their neighbor
<v Speaker 2>to attain new heights. So that does mean you kind
<v Speaker 2>of have to work at it a little bit. You
<v Speaker 2>have to kind of suggest to it where you want
<v Speaker 2>it to go. But once you do that, you are
<v Speaker 2>rewarded with that just amazing column of flowers. Now rise
<v Speaker 2>up roses are hardy down to USDA Zone four, so
<v Speaker 2>that's pretty impressive. They're all on their own roots, so
<v Speaker 2>you don't have to worry about protecting the plan and
<v Speaker 2>you know, having the bottom stock come up and you know,
<v Speaker 2>all of a sudden you have a different rose, yepe.
<v Speaker 2>They're on their own roots even down to USDA Zone four,
<v Speaker 2>and Lilac Days is heat tolerant up through zone nine
<v Speaker 2>and the other ones are mostly heat tolerant through zone eight.
<v Speaker 2>But so that means Lilocdaz's has this huge range no
<v Speaker 2>matter where you are, no matter what style of garden
<v Speaker 2>you have, this is the rose to get. I tell you,
<v Speaker 2>it is truly exceptional to see and again just kind
<v Speaker 2>of provides that little twist on having something that is
<v Speaker 2>unruly but without turning your garden into complete chaos.
<v Speaker 1>I've found it to be the perfect plant for a
<v Speaker 1>six foot chain link fence.
<v Speaker 2>Oh perfect, Well, that's way better than a chain link fence,
<v Speaker 2>I know.
<v Speaker 1>And by the time you get to August September, it's
<v Speaker 1>growing over the top of the fence, and oh, I
<v Speaker 1>just I love that plant.
<v Speaker 2>Now it does not need dead heading in order to
<v Speaker 2>bloom all summer, which is great. Since it is going
<v Speaker 2>to be a big, tall plant. I would recommend and
<v Speaker 2>this is going to be one of those easier said
<v Speaker 2>than done type of things, I would recommend that you
<v Speaker 2>do prone it because if you get out the ladder
<v Speaker 2>and you cut back some of those canes to shorten them,
<v Speaker 2>what you're going to end up with is that beautiful
<v Speaker 2>look of roses from the bottom all the way to
<v Speaker 2>the top rather than just at the tips. So does
<v Speaker 2>require a little bit of work, but trust me, the
<v Speaker 2>reward is worth it. And my colleague who planted a
<v Speaker 2>rise up Lilac days on her home will certainly agree
<v Speaker 2>that it's worth whatever or she has to put into
<v Speaker 2>it because the compliments that she gets and the joy
<v Speaker 2>that she gets coming home to see it every day,
<v Speaker 2>I agree, is more than worth it. So that is
<v Speaker 2>Rise Up Lilac Days and the Rise Up series of
<v Speaker 2>climbing roses from Proven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs. You will
<v Speaker 2>have no trouble finding especially Lilac Days at your local
<v Speaker 2>garden center this season. So if it sounds good, please
<v Speaker 2>do check us out on YouTube if you're not here already,
<v Speaker 2>so you can see some pictures of it, or visit
<v Speaker 2>proven Winner's Color Choice dot com so you can see
<v Speaker 2>more photos of it and decide if it's going to
<v Speaker 2>earn a spot in your garden. Really or unruly.
<v Speaker 1>I think it should, you know, Stacy, I think back
<v Speaker 1>to the nineteen seventies and eighties when at the garden
<v Speaker 1>center we'd have rosarians come in, and rosarians love them,
<v Speaker 1>but they had their whole list of rules, how to
<v Speaker 1>do this, how to do that? Cut back to the
<v Speaker 1>you know yeah, oh yeah yeah, and a plant like
<v Speaker 1>this just throws all that out the window. It really does,
<v Speaker 1>at least that's been my experience in my garden.
<v Speaker 2>I think it does. So hopefully that gives you some
<v Speaker 2>food for thought as we struggle through the last cold
<v Speaker 2>weeks of winter here in Michigan. We're going to take
<v Speaker 2>a little break. When we come back, we are going
<v Speaker 2>to be opening for the mailbegs, so stay tuned. At
<v Speaker 2>Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs, we know that a better
<v Speaker 2>landscape starts with a better shrub. Our team of experts
<v Speaker 2>tests and evaluates all of our flowering shrubs in evergreens
<v Speaker 2>for eight to ten years to ensure they outperform what's
<v Speaker 2>already on the market. For easycare, reliable, beautiful shrubs to
<v Speaker 2>accentuate your home and express your personal style. Look for
<v Speaker 2>Proven Winner's Shrubs in the distinctive white container at your
<v Speaker 2>local garden center, or learn more at Proven Winner's Color
<v Speaker 2>Choice dot com. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome back to
<v Speaker 2>the Gardening Simplified Show, where it's our time to help
<v Speaker 2>you with your garden question, quandaries and conundrums. And I
<v Speaker 2>know they are mounting out there in the garden as
<v Speaker 2>people's start doing stuff and thinking about stuff, So please
<v Speaker 2>feel free to reach out to us at Gardeningsimplified on
<v Speaker 2>air dot com. There's a contact forum right there. Do
<v Speaker 2>be aware, of course, that we get a lot of questions.
<v Speaker 2>We can't answer them all, but we don't want to
<v Speaker 2>leave you hanging, so it's very easy to get in
<v Speaker 2>touch with us also over at proven Winners, color Choice
<v Speaker 2>dot com, and if you fill out the contact from there,
<v Speaker 2>one of our horticulturists will get right back to you
<v Speaker 2>with a personal answer. No robots, no AI, none of
<v Speaker 2>that stuff. We really answer your gardening questions, so please
<v Speaker 2>do take advantage of that if you are stuck, because
<v Speaker 2>we only have time to get to a few questions
<v Speaker 2>every week unfortunately.
<v Speaker 1>And Stacey, thank you to the people who send fudge.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yes, of course and all the other nice things.
<v Speaker 2>If people have said it's really lovely. So what a
<v Speaker 2>we got in the mailbag today?
<v Speaker 1>Oh okay, Leslie writes to us, I have a twenty
<v Speaker 1>year old climbing hydranger that blooms beautifully every year but
<v Speaker 1>develops an unsightly brown, spotted, scorched look on the east
<v Speaker 1>facing side in midsummer. I've included pictures. This affliction has
<v Speaker 1>gotten work over the last few years, and it's been
<v Speaker 1>suggested that perhaps it is sun scorch caused from water droplets,
<v Speaker 1>but I'm not entirely convinced this scorching has only been
<v Speaker 1>occurring in the last four or five years. I've been
<v Speaker 1>aggressively pruning it for the past three years. It's growing
<v Speaker 1>a bit out of control, unruly, unruly, thank you. The
<v Speaker 1>vine is in shade from two PM on after getting
<v Speaker 1>bright sun all morning. The opposite side is completely shaded
<v Speaker 1>and looks good except for the occasional leaf that looks
<v Speaker 1>like the plant may need iron.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, really, so it's an interesting question. And I'm sure
<v Speaker 2>if you want to see the pictures that Leslie sent,
<v Speaker 2>they're going to be on our YouTube version if you're
<v Speaker 2>not already watching there. And this is the kind of
<v Speaker 2>damage on plants that people go, whoa, this is really weird,
<v Speaker 2>like is this a disease? Like what's going on here?
<v Speaker 2>And the fact is Leslie actually kind of answered the
<v Speaker 2>question right there in her question when she said except
<v Speaker 2>for the occasional leaf that looks like the plant may
<v Speaker 2>need iron. So iron deficiency is known from a botanical
<v Speaker 2>standpoint as chlorosis, and basically what it means is that
<v Speaker 2>the foliage is kind of yellow instead of green, and
<v Speaker 2>there can be depending on the iron deficiency and the
<v Speaker 2>plant in any other nutrient efficiencies that might be happening.
<v Speaker 2>It can be intervenal chlorosis where it's in between the veins.
<v Speaker 2>It can cause the whole plant to look kind of
<v Speaker 2>yellowish and washed out. But here's the thing that I
<v Speaker 2>think is happening to Leslie's plant. When you have iron chlorosis,
<v Speaker 2>that lack of iron severely diminishes the plant's ability to
<v Speaker 2>create chlorophyll, and it causes problems for the generation of chlorophyll.
<v Speaker 2>It causes the chlorophyll that is created to degrade very quickly.
<v Speaker 2>And chlorophyll, as you've heard a say on the show before,
<v Speaker 2>is essentially a plant's sunscreen. Yes, chlorophyll is also what
<v Speaker 2>photosynthesizes and makes energy for the plant, but it also
<v Speaker 2>kind of functions as a sunscreen to keep plants from
<v Speaker 2>getting burned. So if you have iron chlorosis and your
<v Speaker 2>plant does not have as much chlorophyll as it ought to,
<v Speaker 2>that is going to make that foliage far more susceptible
<v Speaker 2>to sunburn. And so that's what you have going on now,
<v Speaker 2>caused by the water. It's really caused by that iron deficiency.
<v Speaker 2>So I don't know if you have been fertilizing it.
<v Speaker 2>If you haven't, definitely start using a comprehensive fertilizer. Don't
<v Speaker 2>just look at those three numbers. You're going to want
<v Speaker 2>something that has additional nutrients. You can also find, of course,
<v Speaker 2>iron supplements that you can add, not the ones that
<v Speaker 2>you buy in the drug store, but iron supplements for
<v Speaker 2>plants that the drugstore ones are not probably going to
<v Speaker 2>work very well. And the cool thing about putting iron
<v Speaker 2>on a chlorotic plant is it greens up almost immediately. Yeah, right,
<v Speaker 2>So it's very easy to resolve this problem if that
<v Speaker 2>is indeed what the issue is. So read your fertilizer label,
<v Speaker 2>make sure if you are fertilizing it, the fertilizer you
<v Speaker 2>put has iron. Iron chlorosis can also be caused by
<v Speaker 2>a pH issue, which if your pH changes, it can
<v Speaker 2>tie up the iron in the soil so that it's
<v Speaker 2>not available for the plant to take up. So you
<v Speaker 2>might also just want to get a soil test to
<v Speaker 2>find out what's really going on. But I think if
<v Speaker 2>you apply an iron supplement from your local garden center
<v Speaker 2>according to packaged directions this year, I'm that problem is
<v Speaker 2>going to go right away.
<v Speaker 1>Stacey, I had chlorurosis on my climbing hydrangea and I
<v Speaker 1>used Aspoma hollytne it did work for Oh good, okay, Jenna, Right,
<v Speaker 1>I have a question about my suburban front yard and
<v Speaker 1>zone six pe. We have a tree in the center
<v Speaker 1>of the yard that's been declining since we bought the
<v Speaker 1>house eight years ago. It's finally at the end of
<v Speaker 1>its life. I would love to replace it with something
<v Speaker 1>that is either larger will grow quickly so we don't
<v Speaker 1>have to wait years and years before getting the benefit
<v Speaker 1>of the shade. I've thought about putting in a statement
<v Speaker 1>flowering tree, like maybe a magnolia or crape myrtle. We
<v Speaker 1>don't mind spending a little bit more money to get
<v Speaker 1>something more mature if it will really meet our needs.
<v Speaker 1>What would you recommend?
<v Speaker 3>Right?
<v Speaker 2>So I should have mentioned here Jenna is in southern
<v Speaker 2>Ohio Cincinnati area. So I want to just take out
<v Speaker 2>crepe myrtle out of the equation first thing.
<v Speaker 1>I would agree, just.
<v Speaker 2>Because if you yeah, probably you can do great with
<v Speaker 2>a crape myrtle for possibly forever. But you do have
<v Speaker 2>to know that, you know, one bad, bad winter could
<v Speaker 2>easily take out a crape myrtle tree in your area,
<v Speaker 2>So I would not risk investing that time and money
<v Speaker 2>into a crepe myrtle. I think magnolia is a great choice.
<v Speaker 2>They are pretty fast growing if their needs are met,
<v Speaker 2>and of course there's lots of great choices, but I
<v Speaker 2>thought that this would be a good opportunity to kind
<v Speaker 2>of talk about some of our guidelines for choosing a
<v Speaker 2>specimen tree. Now, again, I think Magnolia's are great, but
<v Speaker 2>they are, you know, especially the non evergreen type, which
<v Speaker 2>are the hardier ones, kind of a one hit wonder,
<v Speaker 2>and that one hit is worth it, don't get me wrong,
<v Speaker 2>but you know, so I think when you're choosing a
<v Speaker 2>specimen tree, you should have a little bit more thought
<v Speaker 2>process on what else it can do. You know, crab
<v Speaker 2>apples are beautiful, right, They're so fabulous, they're just amazing
<v Speaker 2>in spring, But then you also get the fruit, and
<v Speaker 2>the freuod attracts birds, and so you're getting a little
<v Speaker 2>bit more there. So I think you should consider color.
<v Speaker 2>Is there a color to the foliage and or to
<v Speaker 2>the flowers that kind of compliments something with your house?
<v Speaker 2>You know, people who paint their front door are really
<v Speaker 2>bright or fun color. Is there a way that you
<v Speaker 2>can plant something that kind of plays off of that
<v Speaker 2>because you have a fun front door color, not any
<v Speaker 2>not anywhere, Okay, no, gotta be really didn't want to
<v Speaker 2>be that unruly.
<v Speaker 1>I'm letting the plants be unrually. But no, you are
<v Speaker 1>right about that, Stacey. And you know, I would say,
<v Speaker 1>right off the bat, in my opinion, to fit some
<v Speaker 1>of that criteria, a june berry clump, right plant you know,
<v Speaker 1>spring flowers, june fruit and fall color that is it'll
<v Speaker 1>knock your socks off.
<v Speaker 2>And and great bark and yeah, the clumps, so you
<v Speaker 2>have the multiple that is a beautiful choice. You might
<v Speaker 2>have to work a little bit harder to find a
<v Speaker 2>multi stemmed service berry or shadblow or amlankire, but that
<v Speaker 2>is definitely one of the best kind of all purpose
<v Speaker 2>no brain or plants. And actually it's not even that
<v Speaker 2>overused yet, which for being such a great, you know,
<v Speaker 2>four season plant. I also think something like, you know,
<v Speaker 2>of course, temple of blue hepticodium, another great four season plant,
<v Speaker 2>piper bark maple. I know you've got one of those
<v Speaker 2>fabulous bark, just a beautiful, beautiful, handsome tree with excellent
<v Speaker 2>fall color. That's one of those plants that people are
<v Speaker 2>gonna walk by and go, what is that? So you know,
<v Speaker 2>I think it's important to think about, you know, multiple
<v Speaker 2>seasons of interest. Is there a color of the flowers
<v Speaker 2>or the foliage that's really going to cause a moment,
<v Speaker 2>like a traffic stopping moment? You know outside your house?
<v Speaker 2>Is is there a special birthday or something like that
<v Speaker 2>that you want the plant to be at its best
<v Speaker 2>at so you can take a picture in front of
<v Speaker 2>it every single year.
<v Speaker 1>Well, talking about unruly, here's something to add to your
<v Speaker 1>list of criteria. Ask the neighbors what they think, and
<v Speaker 1>ask a spouse for their opinion. Also, because at one
<v Speaker 1>of my homes, I planted a weeping beach. I love
<v Speaker 1>weeping beach, but it's kind of unruly. Everybody hated it.
<v Speaker 1>I was the only one who loved that tree, and
<v Speaker 1>to this day I love that tree. Well, good for you, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>still there and growing. Yeah, I took a stand.
<v Speaker 2>You know, did you let them come up under the
<v Speaker 2>branches and see how fabulous it is under the branches?
<v Speaker 1>I tried every sea side.
<v Speaker 2>You can't play in my playhouse. You've insulted my.
<v Speaker 1>Play I've tried everything.
<v Speaker 2>All right, what else we got in the mail bag?
<v Speaker 2>I think we have time for one more.
<v Speaker 1>Let's see Julie. Interesting question. This winter, I had an
<v Speaker 1>unbelievable amount of mouse damage I've never experienced in my
<v Speaker 1>sixty five years. Oceania County and West Michigan much harder
<v Speaker 1>winter this year than other years. My husband also put
<v Speaker 1>out bait stations, mouse bait stations in an effort to
<v Speaker 1>get the mice before they came in. Is it possible
<v Speaker 1>the bait stations caused them to come in? I'm afraid
<v Speaker 1>I lost several plants due to mouse damage. So we've
<v Speaker 1>got a couple different things going on out there. Number
<v Speaker 1>one the plant damage, and number two, it sounds like
<v Speaker 1>some of them are getting inside the house.
<v Speaker 2>That's not good.
<v Speaker 1>That's what it sounds like. Maybe I'm wrong.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I think that it is possible that the bait
<v Speaker 2>stations do attract them. I mean, they're intended to write.
<v Speaker 2>If there isn't something that smells good or tastes good
<v Speaker 2>in there to the mice, they're not going to go
<v Speaker 2>into the scary bait station. But I will also say
<v Speaker 2>I have seen multiple times here at the nursery in
<v Speaker 2>years where we've had extremely heavy snowcover for a longer period,
<v Speaker 2>we see far more mouse and vole as you pointed
<v Speaker 2>out before the show.
<v Speaker 1>Damage operating under the cover of all that snow.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, that gives them a great cover. And so they're
<v Speaker 2>down there snug is a bug in a rug. The
<v Speaker 2>hawks can't see them exact and they're just showing down
<v Speaker 2>on that nice juicy canebium layer under the bark. So
<v Speaker 2>I think it's a combination of the two. Obviously, there's
<v Speaker 2>not much you can do about the snow to deter them,
<v Speaker 2>but definitely, if you're gonna do bait stations, I would
<v Speaker 2>say maybe take them out by winter so they're not,
<v Speaker 2>you know, seeking food when food is otherwise scarce.
<v Speaker 1>And if the problem is voules, my recommendation don't use
<v Speaker 1>bait stations, use mouse traps. Bait the mouse traps. Use
<v Speaker 1>mouse traps, and that's going to give you a good
<v Speaker 1>barometer two on what's going on on.
<v Speaker 2>That's true, you do kind of need to see so
<v Speaker 2>you know how to treat it effectively. So thank you
<v Speaker 2>all so much for your questions. We're going to take
<v Speaker 2>a little break and when we come back we are
<v Speaker 2>talking to Eric and Christopher fro Grow for me gardening.
<v Speaker 2>You are not going to want to miss that, so
<v Speaker 2>please stay tuned. Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified Podcast,
<v Speaker 2>brought to you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Our
<v Speaker 2>award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and tested
<v Speaker 2>by experts with your success in mind. Learn more at
<v Speaker 2>Proven winnerscolor Choice dot com.
<v Speaker 1>Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified show Boy, do we
<v Speaker 1>have a treat for you today? We're going to talk
<v Speaker 1>to Eric and Christopher with Grow for Me Gardening and
<v Speaker 1>their beautiful garden in Zone six A and Upstate New York.
<v Speaker 1>At Grow for Me Gardening. They believe that creating beautiful
<v Speaker 1>outdoor spaces shouldn't be complicated or intimidating and stacy. That's
<v Speaker 1>what we're all about on the Gardening Simplified jo.
<v Speaker 2>Right, and so when we say Grow for Me Gardening,
<v Speaker 2>you can find pictures of Eric and Christopher. You can
<v Speaker 2>follow them on YouTube, on Instagram, and on their website
<v Speaker 2>Grow for Me Garden. So if you are not already
<v Speaker 2>familiar with their amazing work and their beautiful garden, well
<v Speaker 2>you'll see some of it on YouTube if you're joining
<v Speaker 2>us over there. But while you are on YouTube, you
<v Speaker 2>should definitely follow them as well.
<v Speaker 1>So Eric and Christopher, Welcome to the show. And I
<v Speaker 1>guess right off the bat, we're going to ask you
<v Speaker 1>whether or not winter has ended yet. They're in upstate
<v Speaker 1>New York.
<v Speaker 3>Well, thank you so much for having us. Technically winter
<v Speaker 3>has ended, but when we look out the window, it
<v Speaker 3>has not really ended. We have snow on the ground
<v Speaker 3>this morning. Yeah, it's a it's been a doozy this winter,
<v Speaker 3>a little bit colder, a little windier, and snowier than
<v Speaker 3>the last couple of years combined.
<v Speaker 2>But do you have at least have like daffodils or
<v Speaker 2>something poking something up above the ground.
<v Speaker 3>We have nothing. Normally we have focused by this time,
<v Speaker 3>and I think we have like maybe one bud. Yeah
<v Speaker 3>we have, we have one inch dacidyl foliage popping up.
<v Speaker 3>But that's it.
<v Speaker 2>It's a start.
<v Speaker 3>It's a start. We'll take it in the right direction.
<v Speaker 1>I encourage our listeners and our viewers to go to
<v Speaker 1>YouTube and grow for me gardening and see the beautiful
<v Speaker 1>garden that Eric and Christopher have in Upstate New York.
<v Speaker 1>And Eric and Christopher, I think the thing that really
<v Speaker 1>impresses me is when I go to your website and
<v Speaker 1>I look at pictures, I see that way back in
<v Speaker 1>twenty eighteen, you started from scratch.
<v Speaker 3>We did. We built our first home together and we
<v Speaker 3>had a sandy backfill lot. The soil, you know, I
<v Speaker 3>don't even think you could call it soil. I think
<v Speaker 3>when they built our neighborhood used to be a farm.
<v Speaker 3>So we picked up chunks of concrete and old bricks
<v Speaker 3>and it wasn't great, to say the least. And when
<v Speaker 3>they gave us a landscape package, which we always describe
<v Speaker 3>in quote because it was it was pretty rough, Eric
<v Speaker 3>took a picture of it and he went to the
<v Speaker 3>garden center. We were incredibly inexperienced gardeners. We were really
<v Speaker 3>new to us. So we went to the garden center
<v Speaker 3>with this photo and the first thing they said was
<v Speaker 3>get that white spruce away from the corner of your house.
<v Speaker 3>And that was the first big project we did, was
<v Speaker 3>lift this ball and burlap white spruce out of the
<v Speaker 3>ground and put it in the backyard. Yeah, that's when
<v Speaker 3>we learned how heavy those were.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, that's how it started. And it certainly snowballs. Keep
<v Speaker 3>in mind, twenty eighteen meant two years into our journey,
<v Speaker 3>we all suddenly had some time off from work where
<v Speaker 3>I think it solidified our love of gardening because we
<v Speaker 3>spent a long time in that garden every day.
<v Speaker 2>And so once you have a blank slate like that,
<v Speaker 2>you know, what's your inspiration? Kind of how did you
<v Speaker 2>get started attacking such a project with so many options?
<v Speaker 3>That's really important question that we asked ourselves. And the
<v Speaker 3>first thing we thought are missed neighborhood was we need
<v Speaker 3>to start thinking about privacy and kind of delineating our
<v Speaker 3>property from our neighbors, because nobody had any senses at
<v Speaker 3>that point in time. So one of the first things
<v Speaker 3>we did was we installed a hedge of limelight hydranges.
<v Speaker 3>We went from garden center to garden center collecting one
<v Speaker 3>gallon two gallon limelight hydranges to plant on the west
<v Speaker 3>side of our back property because we knew that those
<v Speaker 3>limelight hydranges could handle full sun and eventually they would
<v Speaker 3>get pretty large and be able to create a little
<v Speaker 3>bit of privacy on that side. And then we went
<v Speaker 3>inside our house and we started looking out our windows
<v Speaker 3>and thinking what kind of view do we want to
<v Speaker 3>have out of our windows, And we started with big
<v Speaker 3>structural things like birch trees or slender evergreens, and approached
<v Speaker 3>the garden from actually indoors, and then we went outside
<v Speaker 3>and we have a very square, contemporary home and started
<v Speaker 3>softening the harsh straight lines with some curved borders. And
<v Speaker 3>during all this time we were learning on social media.
<v Speaker 3>We were learning by watching Gardener's World, We were learning
<v Speaker 3>by subscribing and getting our hands on any imagazine needs
<v Speaker 3>to get it on, following people on Instagram, really just
<v Speaker 3>absorbing all the information we could, going to the local
<v Speaker 3>garden center, talking to the employees, going to the garden shows,
<v Speaker 3>taking the local classes as much as we could, and
<v Speaker 3>really fell in love with it and jumped in headfirst.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, that is just so inspiring, because I think
<v Speaker 2>so many people feel really reluctant to go into gardening
<v Speaker 2>because they're just like, how am I going to learn
<v Speaker 2>it all? And you know, for the for you to
<v Speaker 2>have gone from you know, virtually nothing in twenty eighteen
<v Speaker 2>to you know, now eight years later, having this absolutely
<v Speaker 2>stunning garden and just you know, doing it, not feeling
<v Speaker 2>like there was some magical moment where you guys would
<v Speaker 2>actually have enough gardening knowledge that you could you know,
<v Speaker 2>be quote unquote licensed to do this. You just you
<v Speaker 2>know dove in and learned as you went, and that's
<v Speaker 2>that's so important to not just like wait forever.
<v Speaker 3>That's probably one of the biggest gardening lessons we have
<v Speaker 3>learned since we started, is you really have to be
<v Speaker 3>a little fearless because plants are going to die, and
<v Speaker 3>sometimes it's you. Well most of the time it's you,
<v Speaker 3>but sometimes it's not you. And I feel like, you know,
<v Speaker 3>fearless pruning is something we were recently talking about in
<v Speaker 3>a video, especially on a young plant, so that you
<v Speaker 3>can shape it for the future. It might seem scary now,
<v Speaker 3>but it's going to be so much better later if
<v Speaker 3>you are fearless. And that's I guess what we were
<v Speaker 3>doing all along. We just didn't realize it. Yeah, And
<v Speaker 3>I mean there's a lot of science involved in gardening,
<v Speaker 3>but I think we kind of approach it like it's
<v Speaker 3>an art and that there's guidelines and parameters and as
<v Speaker 3>long as do play within them, you're you know, you're
<v Speaker 3>gonna have some mistakes, like you would in anything. We're
<v Speaker 3>gonna you know, we've killed tongues of plants over the years.
<v Speaker 3>We've had a ton of failures as many successes, but
<v Speaker 3>really having fun with it understanding that there's gonna be
<v Speaker 3>infestations of insects, there's going to be disease, there's going
<v Speaker 3>to be things that don't make it and you have
<v Speaker 3>no idea why, and then taking those things and learning
<v Speaker 3>from them and over the years, you know, we were
<v Speaker 3>just talking about this in one of our YouTube videos
<v Speaker 3>the other day. Our garden looks terrible this spring. We've
<v Speaker 3>had a brutal winter with extremely harsh winter winds. And
<v Speaker 3>I think six years ago I would have gone out
<v Speaker 3>in March, and I think we would have been extremely
<v Speaker 3>stressed out about the state of the garden. Right now, now,
<v Speaker 3>with our experience, we go out and we're like, Okay,
<v Speaker 3>this is going to work, this is going to be fine.
<v Speaker 3>Things go to make it. We have opportunities to add
<v Speaker 3>new things, you know, and over the years you really
<v Speaker 3>learn how resilient gardens are.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, that's really well said. I've always said, if you
<v Speaker 1>haven't killed any plants, you're not trying hard enough. And
<v Speaker 1>that's a great, great way of approaching it. We're talking
<v Speaker 1>to Eric and Christopher Grow for Me Gardening, and you're
<v Speaker 1>talking about fearless gardening coming from the garden center industry.
<v Speaker 1>Myself Eric and Christopher, I would say that there are
<v Speaker 1>a lot of people who fear trying hydranges. And I
<v Speaker 1>was watching one of your videos and you guys were
<v Speaker 1>doing account how many different hydranges do you have in
<v Speaker 1>your landscape?
<v Speaker 3>We have over two hundred in our half acre a
<v Speaker 3>lot right now. Oh wow, only time we don't grow
<v Speaker 3>are climbing hydranges.
<v Speaker 1>Uh huh.
<v Speaker 3>None of our trees are large enough yet. OK.
<v Speaker 2>Something looks how are we to for the future?
<v Speaker 1>When they I love you know, I'm watching one of
<v Speaker 1>the videos and Eric, I love the fact that you
<v Speaker 1>gave tough Stuff top fun a ten out of ten
<v Speaker 1>because that is one of my favorite plants in the landscape.
<v Speaker 1>But it's yeah, I guess it's not the neatest plant
<v Speaker 1>in the landscape, but boy, I love Mountain seratotype hydranges
<v Speaker 1>and even the tough stuff. When that first came when
<v Speaker 1>did that come out? Stay stuff to.
<v Speaker 2>Fun came out like just two or three years ago.
<v Speaker 2>It's still pretty recent. But the other part of this
<v Speaker 2>I hear I didn't see this video, but I hear
<v Speaker 2>the Christopher disagrees.
<v Speaker 3>Well, you know, stuff, we had a lot of fun
<v Speaker 3>last season. Just we did a series we did rating perennials,
<v Speaker 3>rating hydrangeas, and during this hydrange video we have some
<v Speaker 3>controversial tape. I think, you know I do. I I
<v Speaker 3>absolutely love and appreciate the Tough Stuff series hydrange is.
<v Speaker 3>I think my patience with that hydrangea, you know, because
<v Speaker 3>it takes a couple of seasons to really come into
<v Speaker 3>its own, So I think I was having a bit
<v Speaker 3>of an impatient moment with that.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know, we could actually have you guys back
<v Speaker 2>on future show to talk about gardening with your spouse,
<v Speaker 2>because it's certainly it's certainly something that I experienced to
<v Speaker 2>and it's always fun to see how one person, you know,
<v Speaker 2>embraces something so fully in the other is like, I
<v Speaker 2>do not understand what you see in that.
<v Speaker 3>We're potentially adding in another water feature in the garden,
<v Speaker 3>and as we were looking at different spaces where it
<v Speaker 3>could go. I tend to be the person that says,
<v Speaker 3>I'll just rip out those plants and move things. And
<v Speaker 3>Eric likes to let things live in their their nice home.
<v Speaker 3>Well I have a vision, right, It's so much fun.
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, I mean hydrangeas. Actually we fell into hydrangs,
<v Speaker 3>I would say, because Eric was the hydranger guy, and
<v Speaker 3>I love roses, so it was a little hydrangea versus
<v Speaker 3>rose and the roses are touching up. But we are
<v Speaker 3>a hydrange garden.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I'd love the fact that you guys are out there
<v Speaker 1>giving great information because you know, you talk about the
<v Speaker 1>most important step is knowing what type of hydrangea you have,
<v Speaker 1>and many people struggle with that. And then we reach
<v Speaker 1>the point of spring after a brutal winter and everybody
<v Speaker 1>wants to get out the pruning shoes. Getting that information
<v Speaker 1>out there and that experience you guys have had is
<v Speaker 1>so valuable.
<v Speaker 3>Thank you. One of the things we try to focus
<v Speaker 3>on at Grow for Me Gardening is really creating the
<v Speaker 3>content and creating the resources that we were looking for
<v Speaker 3>when we were starting to garden. So we really try
<v Speaker 3>to approach our videos and our resources on our website
<v Speaker 3>from that perspective of what we really wish we had
<v Speaker 3>access to when we were new gardeners. That's something that
<v Speaker 3>we really do focus on, not only by giving clear
<v Speaker 3>information so you know, this is a panicle hydrangea, let's
<v Speaker 3>help you identify it. But then because we're fans of
<v Speaker 3>your show, we're always going to throw in Hydrangea paniculata.
<v Speaker 3>So we you know, we want the good information, but
<v Speaker 3>we want to make sure we get to that extra
<v Speaker 3>little bit of the Latin the science in there too.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know it is an important part in that way,
<v Speaker 2>no matter what you know, no matter where you are
<v Speaker 2>and what you call the plant, you can look up
<v Speaker 2>hydrangea piniculator and confirm you know it's it's the same
<v Speaker 2>thing and find out what you need to find out.
<v Speaker 2>So one of the reasons that I thought it would
<v Speaker 2>be the perfect time to have you guys on the
<v Speaker 2>show this particular week is because Grow from Me Gardening
<v Speaker 2>has just come out with an incredible guide to hydrangeas,
<v Speaker 2>and I got a sneak peak in it because you
<v Speaker 2>asked us to weigh in on some of the information,
<v Speaker 2>which we were happy to do here at per Womner's
<v Speaker 2>color Choice. And what really I thought set this apart
<v Speaker 2>from so much of the other hydrange of information that
<v Speaker 2>I have seen over the years, is that your own
<v Speaker 2>perspective that you brought to it about not just the
<v Speaker 2>pruning and identifying and all of that stuff, but about
<v Speaker 2>actually designing and using hydranges in your landscape. So was
<v Speaker 2>it difficult to kind of put that into words. Was
<v Speaker 2>that a belief that you guys went into planting with
<v Speaker 2>or is it something that you kind of enacted naturally
<v Speaker 2>and then were able to talk about once you realized
<v Speaker 2>you had done it.
<v Speaker 3>Thank you so much. We're very proud of this guide,
<v Speaker 3>and I have to say, when it comes to the
<v Speaker 3>design aspect, this is something Eric articulates incredibly well. There
<v Speaker 3>are times where I would say, you know, I love
<v Speaker 3>the way that we're using the panicles as a structural piece.
<v Speaker 3>But I didn't say as a structural piece. I would
<v Speaker 3>say lots of words, and Eric would just make it
<v Speaker 3>really concise and say, no, that's and that's all. A
<v Speaker 3>really good tip for partners that garden is you really
<v Speaker 3>have to give them their flowers sometimes. But yes, Eric
<v Speaker 3>has a really great way of narrowing down this is
<v Speaker 3>how we're designing with hydranges. Even if I'm not exactly
<v Speaker 3>sure how, I just know that we did it. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I tend to think of the garden in vignettes, our
<v Speaker 3>little vision capsules as we walk around, and I think
<v Speaker 3>that helps us not be so overwhelmed by the concept
<v Speaker 3>of designing the garden. Is if we have our own
<v Speaker 3>little rules that we stay within within each vignette. It
<v Speaker 3>helps us to have cohesion throughout the garden. So one
<v Speaker 3>of those rules is to have structure in each vignette.
<v Speaker 3>And when I think about hydranges, I think about, well,
<v Speaker 3>of the hydrange varieties we have, the panicle hydrange have
<v Speaker 3>the most structure, the most upright, the biggest, boldest flowers,
<v Speaker 3>and if they get the largest size of the different varieties.
<v Speaker 3>And then when you look at these smooth yes, they're softer,
<v Speaker 3>they're more billowing, they're that nice mid height and they
<v Speaker 3>can be that softer mid layer in the border. And
<v Speaker 3>then a little bit further down with more texture is
<v Speaker 3>the mountain Hydrangea, the serrata, and you know big leaf
<v Speaker 3>hydrangeas want you want to be up close and study
<v Speaker 3>those gorgeous flowers on them. And the colors can be
<v Speaker 3>used to tie into different perennials or annuals throughout the garden.
<v Speaker 3>So there's really a space for every type of dranger
<v Speaker 3>when you're designing a garden.
<v Speaker 1>I love that. Now, great question Stacy, and answer Eric
<v Speaker 1>and Christopher, because I really believe this is something that
<v Speaker 1>people struggle with and giving them advice to approach it.
<v Speaker 1>In bite sized pieces. Because when I watch your videos
<v Speaker 1>on YouTube, you guys have a real feel for design
<v Speaker 1>in your landscape. You can see that it comes just
<v Speaker 1>naturally to you do do a great job. But being
<v Speaker 1>able to articulate that to someone else, that's the tough part.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I appreciate that. The uh, you know, the style
<v Speaker 3>of gardening that we've kind of developed over time because
<v Speaker 3>we have this pretty much square vinyl sighting house in
<v Speaker 3>the suburbs, we wrapped it around with all these curved
<v Speaker 3>kind of cottagy English style gardens. So we call it
<v Speaker 3>our contemporary cottage, our fun little word for it. But
<v Speaker 3>it is a lot of fun to be able to
<v Speaker 3>share our method because we've been able to break it
<v Speaker 3>down over time and explain it a little clearer. So
<v Speaker 3>it's not just well, if you put this one next
<v Speaker 3>to that one, they always work, because that's not always
<v Speaker 3>the case.
<v Speaker 1>So I want to ask a question because this will
<v Speaker 1>help me out, and that is if both of you
<v Speaker 1>could just take a moment and define for me what
<v Speaker 1>do you believe is a contemporary cottage garden. What makes
<v Speaker 1>a contemporary cottage different from let's say, the standard type
<v Speaker 1>of cottage garden that we've always looked at in better
<v Speaker 1>homes and gardens. Let's say, do you have a thought
<v Speaker 1>on that.
<v Speaker 3>I think our contemporary cottage garden has of course the
<v Speaker 3>gorgeous repetitive fluefy blooms throughout, but there's definitely some harder landscaping,
<v Speaker 3>hard escape involved in it. There's black metal accents throughout
<v Speaker 3>the garden. We use a lot of stone and concrete
<v Speaker 3>in the garden. More shrugs. I would say, yeah, I agree,
<v Speaker 3>we do. We don't. I would say a traditional cottage
<v Speaker 3>garden I think of more the perennial slash self feed
<v Speaker 3>kind of, and we have the perennials and lots of
<v Speaker 3>self feeders, but we really do anchor it with more
<v Speaker 3>of the shrubs, the roses, and a lot of evergreens too.
<v Speaker 3>That's a big part of our design process is always
<v Speaker 3>making sure that we have evergreens in those vignya, not
<v Speaker 3>just for winter interest, but really like that rest for
<v Speaker 3>the eye that you know, anchor points, you know. And
<v Speaker 3>so then when you have your large structure panical hydranger,
<v Speaker 3>you have that explosion of color, but you still have
<v Speaker 3>that Solara Cyprus or we I'm in love with Anna's
<v Speaker 3>magic ball in front of one of our other little
<v Speaker 3>vignettes too, you know that nice you know shar trusy
<v Speaker 3>color that's more constant, So that that's kind of where
<v Speaker 3>the contemporary part comes in. Maybe it's worth more in
<v Speaker 3>control of our cottage. Yeah, I mean using all the
<v Speaker 3>traditional plants, but you know, proofing them differently.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and you.
<v Speaker 2>Know you don't have like a fetched roof and stucco walls.
<v Speaker 3>And.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you never know what's comment that's true. Now we've
<v Speaker 2>talked a bit about your guide hydranges, and we'll give
<v Speaker 2>the link again at the end of the show. What
<v Speaker 2>I want to make sure if anybody's sitting there going well,
<v Speaker 2>you've told me all about this great guide to hygd ranges,
<v Speaker 2>can I please read it? Where can people find it?
<v Speaker 3>They can find it on growth gardening dot com. They
<v Speaker 3>can also check out our instagram which is Growth for
<v Speaker 3>Me Gardening. There's a link in the bio and in
<v Speaker 3>the story of highlights, and if they check out our
<v Speaker 3>YouTube at Grow from the Gardening is also there. So
<v Speaker 3>there's nice three excellent sources for the hydrangea Handbook.
<v Speaker 2>And speaking of the handbook, I remember you guys also
<v Speaker 2>made some worksheets to accompany this, so people can kind
<v Speaker 2>of apply the ideas to their own yard.
<v Speaker 3>We thought that'd be a fun thing for people to
<v Speaker 3>have access to worksheets. I think people like something tangible.
<v Speaker 3>They can write down, draw things out, you know, keep
<v Speaker 3>track of ideas, pruning, you know, using the handbook, you
<v Speaker 3>can discover which type of y dranger you have, and
<v Speaker 3>you can take notes and keep track of all the
<v Speaker 3>things you're learning as you go through the handbook.
<v Speaker 2>So, I mean, that sounds like the perfect way to
<v Speaker 2>spend these last cold days that are hanging on seemingly
<v Speaker 2>forever for us in the Midwest and the Northeast, even though,
<v Speaker 2>of course our friends in the warm climates are basking
<v Speaker 2>in basking or sweating one or one or the other.
<v Speaker 2>So I would highly encourage our listeners to definitely check
<v Speaker 2>those out. If this sounds like it's interesting. Again, I
<v Speaker 2>was just so impressed by the guide and you know,
<v Speaker 2>again the information you can find in lots of places,
<v Speaker 2>but not only did you distill that in a really
<v Speaker 2>digestible and interesting way, but you know, design advice is
<v Speaker 2>hard to come by from that, you know, really personal perspective. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you know, you get a lot of landscape design teachers saying, oh,
<v Speaker 2>you must do this and you must do that, and
<v Speaker 2>these are the principles of design, where you know, yours
<v Speaker 2>is really just a hey. You know if you look
<v Speaker 2>at our videos and you say, I wonder how they
<v Speaker 2>did that, I could never do that. Actually surprised. You
<v Speaker 2>can do that and here's the way to do it.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I appreciate that. We're really excited to share it
<v Speaker 3>with everybody.
<v Speaker 1>That's fantastic, fantastic. We're talking to Eric and Christopher grow
<v Speaker 1>for Me Gardening, so make sure to look for them
<v Speaker 1>on you YouTube, and can you share the website again
<v Speaker 1>for our listeners and viewers.
<v Speaker 3>The website is grow Formegardening dot com. But before we're finished, Rick,
<v Speaker 3>we do have a little surprise for you.
<v Speaker 1>Oh all right.
<v Speaker 3>We're not trying to not trying to steal anybody thunder,
<v Speaker 3>but we do have a little limb. Eric and Christopher
<v Speaker 3>if you wouldn't mind us sharing, I love it. I
<v Speaker 3>love it all right, let's dive in. Okay, ready for this?
<v Speaker 3>Are you sitting down?
<v Speaker 2>We are sitting down.
<v Speaker 3>Okay. If your shrub is a leaky green dug with
<v Speaker 3>Nara Bloom Norah bud, don't weep in the dirt or
<v Speaker 3>feel deeply hurt while dragging your name through the mud.
<v Speaker 3>To keep from becoming hysteric. Consults with Christopher and Eric.
<v Speaker 3>Their handbooks are fined for your peace of mind and
<v Speaker 3>a garden that's quite atmospheric. Identify, prune and design to
<v Speaker 3>make every high ranger shine, turn the pink ones to
<v Speaker 3>blue with a guy that is true and those empty
<v Speaker 3>sticks far behind.
<v Speaker 2>That was our first ever guest lim Eric or limb
<v Speaker 2>Eric and Christopher. Yeah, yeah, I mean the bar is
<v Speaker 2>so high now. I just so.
<v Speaker 1>You guys are we love it? Thank you so much,
<v Speaker 1>Thank you, that's so kind of Thank you so much,
<v Speaker 1>Eric and Christopher grow for me. Gardening guys. Let's stay
<v Speaker 1>in touch and thank you very much for your time
<v Speaker 1>here on the Gardening Simplified Show.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you well. I knew that talking with Eric and
<v Speaker 2>Christopher on the show today was going to be amazing,
<v Speaker 2>but that again raised the bar far beyond my expectations.
<v Speaker 2>So I truly hope that you our listeners take a
<v Speaker 2>moment to check out their guide to high Ranges and
<v Speaker 2>you know, again, just think about what their method and
<v Speaker 2>their approach to gardening means for you and how you
<v Speaker 2>can incorporate their ideas and principles into your own garden.
<v Speaker 2>So on that note, thanks so much to Eric and Christopher,
<v Speaker 2>thank you Rich, thank you Adriana, and thanks so much
<v Speaker 2>to all of you for listening. We truly appreciate it
<v Speaker 2>and hope you have a wonderful week ahead.