Covering Ground - All About Ground Cover Plants

<v Speaker 1>Coming to you from Studio a A. Here at proven
<v Speaker 1>winner's color choice shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified
<v Speaker 1>Radio YouTube and podcast show with Stacy Hervella me, Rick
<v Speaker 1>weisst and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, Stacey,
<v Speaker 1>we have a lot of ground to cover today. We're
<v Speaker 1>going to be well grounded as we talk about ground covers,
<v Speaker 1>and therein lies a dilemma. Groundcovers can well, they can
<v Speaker 1>be a problem because anything that usually fills in quickly
<v Speaker 1>and a space many times will spread where you don't
<v Speaker 1>want it to go.
<v Speaker 2>That is definitely a risk. Yes, they are plants, like groundcovers,
<v Speaker 2>are obviously selected because they spread to some degree of quickness.
<v Speaker 2>Some are quite slow. But yeah, that once something has
<v Speaker 2>the ability, the inherent ability, and the conditions to spread,
<v Speaker 2>it can occasionally be difficult to stop said spread.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, well, we run the risk of playing with the
<v Speaker 1>word invasive. So when we talk about ground covers, we
<v Speaker 1>have to think about in what situation does this particular
<v Speaker 1>plant spread aggressively? How hard is it to remove if
<v Speaker 1>you have second thoughts or buyer's remorse, and is it native?
<v Speaker 1>Is it suited to wet or dry areas, so groundcovers
<v Speaker 1>kind of have this stigma of what is one man's
<v Speaker 1>trash is another man's treasure. I mean, who hasn't dug
<v Speaker 1>up a little pot of something and shared it with
<v Speaker 1>a friend and then regretted it.
<v Speaker 2>Right. But on the other hand, you know, it can
<v Speaker 2>go the other way where people say, oh, I really
<v Speaker 2>admire your beautiful planting of X and I have similar conditions,
<v Speaker 2>and you know, then you have a little you know,
<v Speaker 2>testament that it's going to do okay for you. I've
<v Speaker 2>found in my time that people's bigger complaint about groundcovers
<v Speaker 2>is usually that the aren't growing fast enough because they
<v Speaker 2>want that coverage right now. And you know, a lot
<v Speaker 2>of groundcovers, especially very popular one's like Pacissandra, always befuddles me.
<v Speaker 2>It's a slow growing groundcover, and of course once it's
<v Speaker 2>established it looks great. But I mean, how much time
<v Speaker 2>do you really have to devote to getting your pacissandra established?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? Very true. And that groundcover, of course can be
<v Speaker 1>important in our landscapes because it's a great alternative to
<v Speaker 1>bear earth, which is not a natural condition, or because
<v Speaker 1>something's going to grow or sometimes mulch. But yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>appreciate that comment, Stacy, because I look at my landscape
<v Speaker 1>and I have larape as a groundcover in my landscape. Now,
<v Speaker 1>there are some people who will say I would never
<v Speaker 1>plant larope number one, it's not native. Number two, it
<v Speaker 1>can get kind of invasive. But when you dig deeper
<v Speaker 1>and you do your research, you know there's one area
<v Speaker 1>where I have Lara pe spacata and that one can
<v Speaker 1>be rather rise otomous and a little bit invasive, but
<v Speaker 1>it is on a south facing slope of solid beach
<v Speaker 1>sand where nothing else will grow, and it does great.
<v Speaker 1>I also have a loriope big blue, which is a
<v Speaker 1>clumping type of loriope, different from the spacanta. So my
<v Speaker 1>whole point there with that, Stacy, is that if you're
<v Speaker 1>going to pick a groundcover, you do have to do
<v Speaker 1>your homework.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I have to ask you a question. Do you
<v Speaker 2>like larape so much because it looks most of the
<v Speaker 2>year like an ornamental grass?
<v Speaker 1>It does?
<v Speaker 2>It?
<v Speaker 1>Does? It looks like a grass, especially big blue? I
<v Speaker 1>love it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I figured that might be one. And of course
<v Speaker 2>it loves the sun and it's der resistant, So yeah,
<v Speaker 2>if you have those conditions, it's a useful plant for sure.
<v Speaker 1>You bet. And when we talk about groundcovers, of course,
<v Speaker 1>there's a lot of popularity in meadow scaping, whether it's
<v Speaker 1>growing wild flowers or even turf or lawn grass. Well,
<v Speaker 1>arguably it's a groundcover. Yeah, And there are many different
<v Speaker 1>types of seed mixes available now that you can use.
<v Speaker 1>I've often used tall turf type fescue lefted on mode
<v Speaker 1>as a groundcover in some tough utility areas, but you
<v Speaker 1>can get shorter fescues now, and whenever you say fescue
<v Speaker 1>in a grass seed mix, fescue is generally both shade
<v Speaker 1>and sun tolerant and also drought tolerant, so it may
<v Speaker 1>be an option for you. Or possibly clover nitrogen fixing
<v Speaker 1>even micro clover.
<v Speaker 2>Love a good glover lawn, if only I could have one.
<v Speaker 2>I've tried to establish some clover, but the rabbits had
<v Speaker 2>other plans, so I don't know if that's going to
<v Speaker 2>happen in my yard. But yeah, I mean, I would
<v Speaker 2>argue that turf is a groundcover, and that when we're
<v Speaker 2>talking about groundcovers, very often what people want is that similar,
<v Speaker 2>very cohesive look that turf has without the mowing, right,
<v Speaker 2>and that's perfectly valid reason. I think that's one reason
<v Speaker 2>why people do like leiopies much, because it can quite
<v Speaker 2>look like a lawn. Un most of course it's in
<v Speaker 2>flour and then you've got all those fabulous purple spikes.
<v Speaker 1>Everywhere, and it's steppable, and it is very.
<v Speaker 2>Steppable because not every groundcover, and I think that's a
<v Speaker 2>really important thing about what we're going to be talking about.
<v Speaker 2>Not every groundcover is very foot traffic tolerance correct, And
<v Speaker 2>a lot of times that is why people want grass
<v Speaker 2>in the first place, because grass does cover the ground,
<v Speaker 2>it does outcompete weeds, it does tolerate a lot of
<v Speaker 2>foot traffic from pets and people, but it does come
<v Speaker 2>with the responsibility to morow. But I think you make
<v Speaker 2>a great point about the lawn mixes. Not enough people
<v Speaker 2>realize that turf grass is actually a very diverse group
<v Speaker 2>of plants. And sure, if you just go to your
<v Speaker 2>local box store, you're going to be very limited on options.
<v Speaker 2>But if you are able to go to like a
<v Speaker 2>feed store in your town or specialty suppliers online, you
<v Speaker 2>will find that there are so many different grass mixes
<v Speaker 2>with varying you know, levels of maintenance that they require.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, and if it's predominantly fescue. That's where I say
<v Speaker 1>you're going to have some success. Don't look at the
<v Speaker 1>pretty picture on the front of the package, turn it
<v Speaker 1>around and take a look at the content, yes, ingredients
<v Speaker 1>in the package. Right, here's my limb a rick for
<v Speaker 1>groundcovers this week because with groundcovers, of course, they help
<v Speaker 1>capture dust, they help with erosion issues. They play a
<v Speaker 1>real role in the landscape. Erosion has made my slope steeper.
<v Speaker 1>I need an invader, not a sleeper. But that sounds
<v Speaker 1>kind of scary. Things could get rather hairy. Do I
<v Speaker 1>really want a creeper? Look out? I could be a
<v Speaker 1>runner overstep my bounds. That's a bummer, a planting that
<v Speaker 1>could backfire and eventually require a new zip code by
<v Speaker 1>the end of summer. And of course, Stacey, some groundcovers
<v Speaker 1>are great for that notorious strip between the sidewalk and
<v Speaker 1>the street and coming up in segment four. We got
<v Speaker 1>some feedback from our listeners and viewers and I did
<v Speaker 1>a little research. Also pretty interesting what people call that. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>that's difficult are yeah?
<v Speaker 2>I agree, I am looking forward to that. And you
<v Speaker 2>know there's when it comes to groundcovers. Yes, of course,
<v Speaker 2>You're going to probably pick on the esthetics first. Then
<v Speaker 2>you're going to look and say, hey, is my you know,
<v Speaker 2>site sufficiently sunny or shady? Because also groundcovers are a
<v Speaker 2>great solution if you have a very shady yard and
<v Speaker 2>have trouble getting turf grass, growing groundcovers can be a
<v Speaker 2>great solution to that. But a lot all of them
<v Speaker 2>have some drawbacks. And I mean that's true of most plants,
<v Speaker 2>but for example, a lot of people are attempted to
<v Speaker 2>plant ivy English ivy as a groundcover or a lawn alternative,
<v Speaker 2>and it can look pretty great, but I can tell
<v Speaker 2>you from experience it is a haven for mice and rats.
<v Speaker 2>So if you live in an urban area or you
<v Speaker 2>have rat populations at all, please stay away from ivy
<v Speaker 2>as a groundcover. Trust me, I have lived through it.
<v Speaker 2>I have felt the rats running over my boots when
<v Speaker 2>I lived in New York City and we had an
<v Speaker 2>area that was covered in ivy. They love it. It's
<v Speaker 2>like the perfect environment where it's something like you know,
<v Speaker 2>a pacasandra, and I know I keep coming back to that,
<v Speaker 2>but sweet woodrooff they create more of a maze and
<v Speaker 2>they aren't as a dense like the ivy forms like
<v Speaker 2>almost like a canopy that they can live under.
<v Speaker 1>M hm, no, that's very true. Many people would just
<v Speaker 1>simply say, don't plant ivy because of that face of nature.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, but we tend not to have that problem
<v Speaker 2>in the Midwest. You know, ivy is extremely invasive out west.
<v Speaker 2>In the Midwest, a lot of people are like, shoot,
<v Speaker 2>I can't even get the darn thing to grow in
<v Speaker 2>the first place, so they don't really realize it. But yeah,
<v Speaker 2>if it is happy, it is one of those groundcovers
<v Speaker 2>like you've described, it will be way too happy and
<v Speaker 2>need a new ZIP code by Yeah this summer.
<v Speaker 1>You know you mentioned sweet woodruff. I've planted that in
<v Speaker 1>my landscape. But I love it.
<v Speaker 2>I love it too. It's my favorite groundcover, is it really?
<v Speaker 2>I think it's so pretty. It is. It can be
<v Speaker 2>a little bit aggressive in some areas. Of course, I
<v Speaker 2>don't have to worry about that because I have neither
<v Speaker 2>the shade nor the moisture to grow it. But I
<v Speaker 2>think it is one of the prettiest and most elegant groundcovers.
<v Speaker 2>I just I love it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's herbal, it's aromatic, pretty flowers on it. In Germany,
<v Speaker 1>they have a lot of uses for it. Yes, it's
<v Speaker 1>quite fascinating.
<v Speaker 2>You can even if you go to a German restaurant
<v Speaker 2>in the spring, you could even get a PLoP of
<v Speaker 2>the syrup in your beer because they use.
<v Speaker 1>The Yes, put it in beer. Yeah, you're right, and
<v Speaker 1>they'll float the flowers on wine. As I understand, it's
<v Speaker 1>used as a flavoring for a lot of things. So
<v Speaker 1>that's that's a great groundcover and I love it. I
<v Speaker 1>also recommend to people often people will not think of this,
<v Speaker 1>but using annuals as a groundcover, Yeah, you may consider
<v Speaker 1>that to be too expensive, but boy, it fills in
<v Speaker 1>a pocket quickly. If you have many Vista petunias or
<v Speaker 1>Mojave portcha laca. It's beautiful, it's gorgeous. You'll enjoy it
<v Speaker 1>all season long and not have the maintenance you can
<v Speaker 1>have with the perennial groundcovers.
<v Speaker 2>And it also negates any issues you might have of
<v Speaker 2>snow storage and snow removal because you're not going to
<v Speaker 2>have anything there because your annuals dive back and then
<v Speaker 2>you can start all over again next spring.
<v Speaker 1>So there are multitude of options when it comes to groundcover,
<v Speaker 1>and we're going to move that list of groundcovers into
<v Speaker 1>segment four. We'll touch on that, go down the list
<v Speaker 1>of some of those plants, and I'm sure Stacey has
<v Speaker 1>a good one in store for us too in Plants
<v Speaker 1>on Trial, and that's coming up next here on the
<v Speaker 1>Gardening Simplified.
<v Speaker 2>Show, Beautify your home and community with proven Winn's Color
<v Speaker 2>Choice Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique
<v Speaker 2>varieties to choose from. There's a flowering shrubber, 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. Creating's gardening for and
<v Speaker 2>welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where the order
<v Speaker 2>of the day is groundcovers and we're trying to get
<v Speaker 2>this at a time where you might be thinking about
<v Speaker 2>transforming part of your yard or garden into groundcover instead
<v Speaker 2>of whatever you have right now. And now is a
<v Speaker 2>great time to go in and dig in and do
<v Speaker 2>that research and make sure that you're choosing a plant
<v Speaker 2>that not only will thrive in your conditions, but a
<v Speaker 2>that you like, because that's important too, and you know,
<v Speaker 2>b that won't become a nightmare. And we're going to
<v Speaker 2>talk more about groundcovers in segment four. But I think
<v Speaker 2>anybody who has listened to the show, probably for any
<v Speaker 2>appreciable amount of time, has heard the first hand horror
<v Speaker 2>stories from multiple listeners on chameleon plants. Who Tunia. We
<v Speaker 2>just had one last week in fact, and I know
<v Speaker 2>when I sent Adriana the pictures, she was like, whoa,
<v Speaker 2>You weren't kidding. She loved at that poor woman's yard.
<v Speaker 2>So as you research your groundcover choices, absolutely avoid whutunia.
<v Speaker 2>And you might just also want to check your states
<v Speaker 2>invasive innoxious weed list. You know, not all invasive innoxious
<v Speaker 2>weeds or groundcovers, and not all groundcovers are invasive innoxious weeds,
<v Speaker 2>but there's definitely some overlap there, and you know, it
<v Speaker 2>would be impossible for us to sit here and tell
<v Speaker 2>you what they are because it varies so much by
<v Speaker 2>state exactly.
<v Speaker 1>And that's part of the reason I said, Stacy that
<v Speaker 1>when you're looking to put in a groundcover, not only
<v Speaker 1>are you going to have to live with it, but
<v Speaker 1>it's important to do that research because it's so variable.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and the nice thing about the groundcover that you
<v Speaker 2>and I mentioned that we like so well sweetwoard druff,
<v Speaker 2>which can be a bit aggressive if it's very happy,
<v Speaker 2>very easy to pull out. Some thing is just gone,
<v Speaker 2>but some you know, you need to do a lot
<v Speaker 2>of digging. But anyway, I don't think a lot of
<v Speaker 2>people think about shrubs as groundcover. I don't think a
<v Speaker 2>lot of It's like not the first type of plant
<v Speaker 2>that comes to people's mind. Yeah, And whether they're thinking
<v Speaker 2>of groundcover.
<v Speaker 1>That's interesting to me because I have, you know, whether
<v Speaker 1>it's a juniper or whatever it may be. I'm always
<v Speaker 1>thinking shrubs.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think that they make a great groundcover. And
<v Speaker 2>last week's plant on trial, which was low skate mound erroonia,
<v Speaker 2>is one of those great choices. Juniper is also a
<v Speaker 2>great choice. I know a lot of people really dislike
<v Speaker 2>juniper because it does have the unfortunate habit of letting
<v Speaker 2>some grass grow where the light gets through. You've been there, right,
<v Speaker 2>oh my word.
<v Speaker 1>Yes. And in the garden center industry, we sold so
<v Speaker 1>many of those what were they called blue rug.
<v Speaker 2>Blue rug the name's right there in the name. It's
<v Speaker 2>a full yeah. Yeah, And then you got to like
<v Speaker 2>get a rake under there, your hands are getting all
<v Speaker 2>scratched up. Yeah, but you know that said that's that's
<v Speaker 2>a great evergreen ground cover. And like I said, everything
<v Speaker 2>has a little bit of give and take care. You know,
<v Speaker 2>nothing is going to be the perfect plant for your groundcover.
<v Speaker 2>But shrubs are very much worth considering. And yes, well
<v Speaker 2>they may have a little bit higher you know, initial cost,
<v Speaker 2>because very often with the herbaceous groundcovers that I think
<v Speaker 2>most people think about for groundcovers that we were talking
<v Speaker 2>about in the first segment, you can get a great
<v Speaker 2>deal on those, like in a big tray, you know,
<v Speaker 2>so you're not buying a bunch of one gallons or
<v Speaker 2>something like that. War's with the shrubs, you know, you
<v Speaker 2>are starting with a one, two or three gallon plant.
<v Speaker 2>But they do fill in really nicely. And of course
<v Speaker 2>the great thing about like a juniper is you get
<v Speaker 2>evergreen coverage, right and you don't have to worry about
<v Speaker 2>that worse.
<v Speaker 1>They see some people will do that with vines.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, vines. So some vines that'll work on because
<v Speaker 2>like the ivy that I mentioned, some vines say, for example,
<v Speaker 2>you are thinking I love climbing hydrangeas, I want to
<v Speaker 2>grow climbing hydrangea as a groundcover. You're probably I don't
<v Speaker 2>want to discourage you from trying it, but you're probably
<v Speaker 2>not going to be super successful because some vines they
<v Speaker 2>just want to grow up exactly, they don't. They will
<v Speaker 2>refuse to grow horizontally and they'll just try growing up
<v Speaker 2>and if they don't grow up, they become very unhappy.
<v Speaker 2>And also, climbing hydrange just tend to be a little
<v Speaker 2>slow as it is not a great choice. But by
<v Speaker 2>all means, experiment, do your research, But tell me this
<v Speaker 2>has ever happened to you? Rick? Okay, you go out
<v Speaker 2>and you buy like a pair of shoes or a
<v Speaker 2>piece of clothing, and you wear it a couple times
<v Speaker 2>and you love it and you're like, you know what,
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to get that in every color, or I'm
<v Speaker 2>going to also get the one that's kind of you
<v Speaker 2>know that was like that but had a zipper, or
<v Speaker 2>you know, like you love it. You're like, this is
<v Speaker 2>it and then you know you go back and it's
<v Speaker 2>too late because you didn't realize you loved it until
<v Speaker 2>and that's a very frustrating thing. Well, running shoes, running shoes,
<v Speaker 2>that happens to you. Yeah, they probably like circle through
<v Speaker 2>running shoes, cycle through running shoes very quickly in the marketplace.
<v Speaker 2>So you got but but you don't know how many
<v Speaker 2>you want to buy until you've run in them for
<v Speaker 2>you know, a couple dozens' expensive too, Yeah, so you
<v Speaker 2>can't stock up. So anyway, we know that feeling at
<v Speaker 2>proven Winter's Colored Choice shrubs, and that is why when
<v Speaker 2>we have a plant that people absolutely love, we try
<v Speaker 2>to find ways to develop additional versions of it that
<v Speaker 2>work in more situations makes sense. And the perfect example
<v Speaker 2>is today's plant on trial, spilled wine white gla.
<v Speaker 1>You like it, like it a plant?
<v Speaker 2>So spilled wine white Gela is basically a dwarf form
<v Speaker 2>of the very first proven Winner's color Choice shrub back
<v Speaker 2>then it was just a color choice shrub without the
<v Speaker 2>proven winners, wine and Roses whyeula. So do you remember that?
<v Speaker 2>Do you remember when wine and Roses came out? Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I mean it's so wild to think now, like you know,
<v Speaker 2>it was so it was the first if you're not
<v Speaker 2>familiar with it, it was the very first dark leafed
<v Speaker 2>white gula with pink flowers.
<v Speaker 1>It was a deal.
<v Speaker 2>It was a huge deal. I mean, nothing like that
<v Speaker 2>had really ever been out in Whigela were an old
<v Speaker 2>fashioned favorite. People love them, they remember them from Grandma's
<v Speaker 2>house and all of this. And then along comes wine
<v Speaker 2>and roses and it looks like no other whitejela that
<v Speaker 2>certainly anyone in North America had seen up until that point, right,
<v Speaker 2>And it was a great plant. It was an instant success.
<v Speaker 2>But it's a pretty big plant. It gets to be
<v Speaker 2>four to five feet tall and wide. And so people
<v Speaker 2>love that, you know, bright combination of the dark foliage
<v Speaker 2>and bright flowers. But they're like, t room do I
<v Speaker 2>really have for this? You know, five by five shrub
<v Speaker 2>which is pretty big. So we started very early on
<v Speaker 2>in this process looking for ways to get this same
<v Speaker 2>combination of great foliage color and great flower color but
<v Speaker 2>in different types of habits that you can use in
<v Speaker 2>new ways. And spilled wine was the very first answer
<v Speaker 2>to that. Actually, So unlike wine and roses, which is
<v Speaker 2>going to be five by five, spilled wine gets to
<v Speaker 2>be just two to three feet tall and three to
<v Speaker 2>four feet wide. And that is kind of the ideal
<v Speaker 2>groundcover habit. You want something that is wider than it
<v Speaker 2>is tall typically, and it's just it's a great groundcover, sure,
<v Speaker 2>and you can imagine now now, just if you have
<v Speaker 2>the reference for this, like, imagine groundcover planting of like
<v Speaker 2>say Pakassandra green looks pretty good, but now imagine a
<v Speaker 2>groundcover planting of spilled wine wigela, especially when it's in
<v Speaker 2>bloom and it is just a field of purple foliage
<v Speaker 2>with bright pink flowers.
<v Speaker 1>Fantastic, and it's doing what you want it to do.
<v Speaker 1>It's shading the ground, cooling the ground, it's keeping weed
<v Speaker 1>seed from germinating while looking absolutely marvelous.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, and as you mentioned, keeping down dust helping to
<v Speaker 2>prevent erosion. And you know if you put mulch down
<v Speaker 2>when you plant them, that will help even more because
<v Speaker 2>the multiple of course decompose more slowly, and you won't
<v Speaker 2>need to replace it anyway because the plant will cover
<v Speaker 2>it all up. So I also wanted to mention that
<v Speaker 2>when you think about shrubs as groundcover, you do kind
<v Speaker 2>of I think need to detach a little bit from
<v Speaker 2>this mentality of carpet, because a plant like spilled wine
<v Speaker 2>can function as a groundcover without taking You know, you
<v Speaker 2>don't need to plant fifty of them. If you plant
<v Speaker 2>three in a garden bat or in a landscape, bad
<v Speaker 2>they're still going to have that exact same kind of
<v Speaker 2>effect in all of those benefits. So it's not an
<v Speaker 2>all or nothing. I'm not saying go out and plant
<v Speaker 2>fifty you know, spilled wine and transform your yard from
<v Speaker 2>a grass yard to a white gela yard, because that
<v Speaker 2>sounds interesting. But you know, just know that when you
<v Speaker 2>plant shrubs with this type of habit, this low growing,
<v Speaker 2>wider spreading habit, that you are getting all of the
<v Speaker 2>benefits of a groundcover just in one single plant.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and getting back to that criteria on ground cover,
<v Speaker 1>we want it to be easy to grow but not.
<v Speaker 2>Invasive, absolutely, and you don't have to worry about that.
<v Speaker 2>Whydelia does not self sow, and it is very easy
<v Speaker 2>to grow. And I think that you know, when whenever
<v Speaker 2>you think about a plant that has long been popular,
<v Speaker 2>like Whygela, it's got to be easy to grow, right
<v Speaker 2>because if people were struggling, they wouldn't persist, and they
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't remember her at Grandma's house, and you know all
<v Speaker 2>this other stuff. So Whyjella is such a great example
<v Speaker 2>of a flowering shrub that is extremely easy to grow. Basically,
<v Speaker 2>you just give it son, don't let it dry out too.
<v Speaker 1>Much at it's it's easy to grow, just difficult to pronounce.
<v Speaker 1>People call them wiggles and wiggle's and all that kind
<v Speaker 1>of thing.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, But again, as always, as long as you're walking
<v Speaker 2>out of the store with the shrub that you wanted,
<v Speaker 2>whether you said wigla or vigela or any of the
<v Speaker 2>other numbers of pronunciations that you and I have heard
<v Speaker 2>over the years, Rick, we're all happy, you bet. But yeah,
<v Speaker 2>full sunplant. This is definitely a full sun plant. And
<v Speaker 2>even though we do sell some white Gela in the
<v Speaker 2>Proven Winter's brand, like Mimnet, for example, which is variegated
<v Speaker 2>and has quite a bit of white, that is that
<v Speaker 2>makes it more shade tolerant overall, Whygela are full sun plants.
<v Speaker 2>They're going to want at least six hours of brights
<v Speaker 2>on every day, hardy down to USDA Zone four, heat
<v Speaker 2>tolerant through USDA Zone eight, so a nice little range there.
<v Speaker 2>You know, when it gets too too hot in the south,
<v Speaker 2>they lose their foliage color, they don't flower as well.
<v Speaker 2>These are a plant that wants some cold treatment during
<v Speaker 2>winter in order to bloom well, So that kind of
<v Speaker 2>caps off that southern limit for whyejela to do really
<v Speaker 2>really well, very dear resistant.
<v Speaker 1>You deserve a break today, so.
<v Speaker 2>That's always a good thing. And in long blooming, so
<v Speaker 2>we do have reblooming Whyjela in the Sonic Bloom series,
<v Speaker 2>spilled Wine is not really reblooming, but the great thing
<v Speaker 2>about it is because it has that nice dark foliage,
<v Speaker 2>it keeps your landscape looking fabulous all season long. So
<v Speaker 2>the only thing you need to know is and this
<v Speaker 2>is good no matter what why Jela you have in
<v Speaker 2>your yard. Why Jeila are quite late to emerge in spring.
<v Speaker 2>So if other stuff is growing and you're sitting there
<v Speaker 2>looking at your Ydela wondering if it's dead, it's probably not.
<v Speaker 2>Just needs a little more time, because you know, sometimes
<v Speaker 2>we all need a little more Look for spilled Wine
<v Speaker 2>Why Gela in your garden center the spring. It is
<v Speaker 2>a great choice for all sorts of landscape challenges, and
<v Speaker 2>of course you can learn more at Gardenings Simplified on
<v Speaker 2>air dot Com Ante Pictures. In the YouTube version of
<v Speaker 2>the show, we're gonna take a little break. When we
<v Speaker 2>come back, we're opening up the garden mail bags, so
<v Speaker 2>please stay tuned at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. We
<v Speaker 2>know that a better Landscape starts with a better shrub.
<v Speaker 2>Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our
<v Speaker 2>flowering shrubs and evergreens for eight to ten years to
<v Speaker 2>ensure they outperform what's already on the market. For easycare, reliable,
<v Speaker 2>beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and express your personal style,
<v Speaker 2>look for Proven Winner's Shrubs in the distinctive white container
<v Speaker 2>at your local garden center or learn more at proven
<v Speaker 2>Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's Gardening friends, and welcome
<v Speaker 2>back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it's our chance
<v Speaker 2>to answer your garden questions, quandaries and conundrums. And if
<v Speaker 2>you have one of those as we approach the season,
<v Speaker 2>remember the first piece of advice is when in doubt,
<v Speaker 2>don't prune. And the second piece of advice is you
<v Speaker 2>can email us at help EHLP at Gardeningsimplified on air
<v Speaker 2>dot com and we'll get your question and if you
<v Speaker 2>need an answer sooner than that, because of course we
<v Speaker 2>only recorded one show a week. You can also go
<v Speaker 2>to every Winner's Color Choice dot com and ask question
<v Speaker 2>and we will get back to you personally. So a
<v Speaker 2>couple of weeks ago, we had a question in from
<v Speaker 2>some local listeners step and Mary, and they had a
<v Speaker 2>crate myrtle in their yard that there was a mystery there.
<v Speaker 2>It suddenly was cut down to nubs. They wrote us
<v Speaker 2>and we talked about it in the show and they
<v Speaker 2>created quite the controversy in the YouTube comments on the show.
<v Speaker 2>Everyone was like, I'm invested in the Stephen Mary mystery.
<v Speaker 2>I'm wondering what's going on. And so, you know, we
<v Speaker 2>put out the call. We said, step and Mary, people
<v Speaker 2>want to know what's going on, and so we've got
<v Speaker 2>a little more information for you now on the Stephen
<v Speaker 2>Mary situation. Yes, so they bought this center stage red
<v Speaker 2>crape myrtle at a nursery in south Haven after hearing
<v Speaker 2>about it on the show. Love to hear that. It
<v Speaker 2>was a great place and they were very informative. Also
<v Speaker 2>loved to hear that. So we had a spot where
<v Speaker 2>there was a white fence, but first a tree had
<v Speaker 2>to be removed. It was cut down a couple of
<v Speaker 2>summers ago, but we had to wait until the next
<v Speaker 2>spring to have the stump removed. I know this pain.
<v Speaker 2>So we put the plant into a new larger pot
<v Speaker 2>built at the nursery. Said that we needed to know
<v Speaker 2>to keep the plant in a pot in a place
<v Speaker 2>that would not allow the pot to freeze, because crape
<v Speaker 2>myrtle is fairly hardy. For us here in Michigan were
<v Speaker 2>kind of on the edge of its hardiness. But you know,
<v Speaker 2>certainly if it's in a container, you're going to want
<v Speaker 2>to take extra precautions, and if it was in the ground.
<v Speaker 2>And so finally the spring comes, the stump gets ground,
<v Speaker 2>they're ready to plant the crape myrtle, but they can't
<v Speaker 2>get the stump ground down far enough. So Steve then
<v Speaker 2>plants the crape myrtle kind of with soil mounded around
<v Speaker 2>it on what is left of.
<v Speaker 1>The stump's important clue.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, so then he put a bunch of mault around
<v Speaker 2>it so the dirt wouldn't be exposed. And that year
<v Speaker 2>it bloom was beautiful. And this is a beautiful crape myrtle,
<v Speaker 2>black foliage, red flowers. You have to see it to
<v Speaker 2>believe it. So then this past late January or early February,
<v Speaker 2>Steve was looking at it one day and could not
<v Speaker 2>believe what he saw. It was cut down to almost nothing.
<v Speaker 2>We're about to get the big clue that we've all
<v Speaker 2>been waiting for here. I did notice that none of
<v Speaker 2>the bark was chewed on, but I also noticed a
<v Speaker 2>lot of rabbit cocoa puffs around the area. Dun dun,
<v Speaker 2>dun dum. They must have had a feast. Yeah, So
<v Speaker 2>the only thing I would say is rabbit and deer droppings,
<v Speaker 2>and believe me, I know, because I have so many
<v Speaker 2>of both in my yard look very similar. Yes, so
<v Speaker 2>rabbits are round and deer are kind of a little
<v Speaker 2>bit more oval. They can even be fairly similar in size.
<v Speaker 2>So but it does make sense that this would be
<v Speaker 2>a rabbit because what we were seeing in the original
<v Speaker 2>photos that they sent is it looked like it was
<v Speaker 2>in the container, and actually when the damage happened, it
<v Speaker 2>was in the ground with kind of a little you know,
<v Speaker 2>like you see those old dairy barns where they had
<v Speaker 2>the ramp for the horses with like that built in
<v Speaker 2>further rabbits. So then all of a sudden, all the
<v Speaker 2>pieces kind of have fallen into place. So Steve has
<v Speaker 2>since put a fence around it, and he's wondering if
<v Speaker 2>the rabbits could chew the branches when they were that thick,
<v Speaker 2>And I think that, Yeah, definitively. Now we have our answer.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely if you do a little bit of research. First
<v Speaker 1>of all, rabbits when they chew on a branch, it's
<v Speaker 1>usually just a clean forty five degree angle on the branch.
<v Speaker 1>The other thing is, as far as crape myrtle is concerned,
<v Speaker 1>I've found in my research that rabbits love crape myrtle.
<v Speaker 1>Oh really, we thought it was just burning bushes and
<v Speaker 1>that sort of thing, But they love crape myrtle well.
<v Speaker 2>So Steve is then asking do we think this plant
<v Speaker 2>will survive? And I'm happy to say that yes, I
<v Speaker 2>do think it will survive. Crpe myrtles are an interesting
<v Speaker 2>plant because they are the crpe myrtles that we offer
<v Speaker 2>through premit runners are shrubby, so in the south you go,
<v Speaker 2>they're trees big, some of them are quite large trees.
<v Speaker 2>The ones that we offer and the ones that we
<v Speaker 2>typically recommend for colder climates are these shrubby types because
<v Speaker 2>they're lower to the ground and they can come back
<v Speaker 2>and still grow. Whereas if it was a tree and
<v Speaker 2>the whole thing dies, the trunk's dead, you're not gonna
<v Speaker 2>have a crepe myrtle anymore. Whereas with these shrubby types
<v Speaker 2>because they are multi stemmed. What happens if we have
<v Speaker 2>a very harsh winter, and even if they die all
<v Speaker 2>the way back to the ground, they will actually come
<v Speaker 2>back from the roots and go on to flower later
<v Speaker 2>in the spring, act.
<v Speaker 1>Like an herbaceous perennial.
<v Speaker 2>Right, So you got a complimentary pruning of your crate myrtle,
<v Speaker 2>and I think it should be fine. Definitely you're going
<v Speaker 2>to want to keep this mulched. And if you know,
<v Speaker 2>the important thing is and we have found this repeatedly
<v Speaker 2>in our trials here in West Michigan, if a crate
<v Speaker 2>myrtle does die all the way back to the ground,
<v Speaker 2>it does take some time for it to re emerge,
<v Speaker 2>So be patient, don't give up on it too early.
<v Speaker 2>And I do want to address something that I said
<v Speaker 2>when we first answered Steve and Mary's question, and that
<v Speaker 2>was that rabbits don't typically leave behind the parts that
<v Speaker 2>they bid off unless they don't like the plant. I
<v Speaker 2>did add that because I said that they do that
<v Speaker 2>to my my aliums pharacephalons. Well, I was happily walking
<v Speaker 2>around the garden this past sunny weekend, and what these
<v Speaker 2>rabbits did was they nibbled off stems of my lavender. No,
<v Speaker 2>they didn't take a single bite. They were like, oh crud,
<v Speaker 2>this tastes awful.
<v Speaker 1>They were testing you and the plant.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah. So I'm walking through the garden and I
<v Speaker 2>see these little lavender plants and there's like three stems
<v Speaker 2>just sitting next to it, cut at that perfect forty
<v Speaker 2>five degree angle, and I was like, what are you
<v Speaker 2>guys doing? So you know they're bored. They're bored. I
<v Speaker 2>think that's it. Yeah, they're just like, might as well
<v Speaker 2>taste this? Might as well taste this? Oof, that's terrible.
<v Speaker 2>Just gonna leave this behind. So anyway, Stephen, Mary, I
<v Speaker 2>think that your plant should be okay, be patient with it,
<v Speaker 2>and once it does start to grow, don't be afraid
<v Speaker 2>to fertilize it to give it a little extra boost
<v Speaker 2>to help it outgrow the numerous stresses it has encountered
<v Speaker 2>and it's short life.
<v Speaker 1>Fantastic Karma has a question about her peach tree. Help,
<v Speaker 1>what's going on with my peach tree? Something jellish is
<v Speaker 1>all around the base of my peach tree. Not jealous
<v Speaker 1>gel is. Yes, it just showed up the spring when
<v Speaker 1>I cleared around the tree. I hope you can see
<v Speaker 1>it in the picture. What is it? What do I
<v Speaker 1>need to do? If anything, it's a very moist and
<v Speaker 1>squishy like solid gel. I haven't looked at the pictures Stacey,
<v Speaker 1>but I can tell you exactly.
<v Speaker 2>All right, what is it?
<v Speaker 1>Peach bor? You get this guy material at the base
<v Speaker 1>of a tree, usually the larva a working at the
<v Speaker 1>base of the tree, underneath the bark, and when they
<v Speaker 1>do their damage, that's the end result. We always called
<v Speaker 1>it gumosis.
<v Speaker 2>I love that word, gomoses, gumosis. I was very excited
<v Speaker 2>to share that word with our listeners today and it
<v Speaker 2>is gumosis. It's such a funny word, but gumosis. And
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to have a great link in the show
<v Speaker 2>notes at Gardening Simplified on air dot com, and of
<v Speaker 2>course it will be in the YouTube caption as well.
<v Speaker 2>There are a number of potential causes of gomosis on
<v Speaker 2>peach trees and stonefruits in general. So if you have
<v Speaker 2>a plum, you know, any of these other ones, it
<v Speaker 2>can also happen on those. But it can be due
<v Speaker 2>to a number of different insects. It can be due
<v Speaker 2>to environmental conditions. But yeah, Rick, like you said, when
<v Speaker 2>it is happening at the ground level, it's almost one
<v Speaker 2>hundred percent that it's the peach borer. So that's what
<v Speaker 2>you've got, karma. There are pictures at the link that
<v Speaker 2>we're going to be sharing that show how you kind
<v Speaker 2>of need to get in there and clear out the
<v Speaker 2>gunk that the larva has caused with its boring.
<v Speaker 1>That sounds peachy.
<v Speaker 2>Kill the larva, Yeah, it's a little bit gross. It's
<v Speaker 2>not for the squeamish. Yes, putting that out there. Find
<v Speaker 2>those little larva in there. You're going to be shocked
<v Speaker 2>at what a lot of damage such a little wormy
<v Speaker 2>fella can do. But you got to kill it, squish it,
<v Speaker 2>feed it to the birds, whatever, and then be vigilant
<v Speaker 2>about it in the future.
<v Speaker 1>And one of the ways to be vigilant from my
<v Speaker 1>past experience is you can put sticky traps out in
<v Speaker 1>June July when the adults are active, and it will
<v Speaker 1>help you identify exactly what the problem.
<v Speaker 2>That's a great suggestion. So the link that I'm going
<v Speaker 2>to share is from Utah State, so the exact dates
<v Speaker 2>and timing is based on Utah, whether or not Michigan.
<v Speaker 2>But you can always contact the Michigan State Cooperative Extension
<v Speaker 2>to find out exactly what you need to do for
<v Speaker 2>your particular gummosis situation.
<v Speaker 1>Stacy Shawna has an issue with a weedy, invasive groundcover.
<v Speaker 1>Bought a house on two acres here in Oklahoma a
<v Speaker 1>year and a half ago. This is my second spring.
<v Speaker 1>I'm still learning about landscaping, but my yard appears to
<v Speaker 1>be filled with a bulbous species. You're correct, Star of Bethlehem,
<v Speaker 1>as evidenced by the flowers it produces in spring. I
<v Speaker 1>can't seem to get rid of it. I've had my
<v Speaker 1>lawn treated, et cetera, et cetera. Am I doomed? Help?
<v Speaker 2>So this is definitely so it's not really a true groundcover,
<v Speaker 2>but once it gets established, it basically grows like a groundcover.
<v Speaker 2>And I wanted to bring this up for a couple
<v Speaker 2>of reasons. First of all, if you have it, do
<v Speaker 2>not go, oh, look at this pretty little bulb that
<v Speaker 2>just volunteered in my yard. Dig that up and take
<v Speaker 2>care of it so you don't end up like poor Shauna.
<v Speaker 2>Because this is an extremely aggressive bulb and the flower
<v Speaker 2>is actually kind of pretty. So I couldn't blame people
<v Speaker 2>for you know, potentially thinking they should keep it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, a lot of people do mistake it for wild onion.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, it does look a bit like that. And also
<v Speaker 2>people could mistake the foliage for crocus because it does
<v Speaker 2>also look like crocus foliage when it emerges, but it
<v Speaker 2>doesn't usually have the white stripe. It's a little bit
<v Speaker 2>more softer and grassier, and you can actually have the
<v Speaker 2>bulb for quite a while without it flowering, so you
<v Speaker 2>might have it. So it is a very difficult weed
<v Speaker 2>to control shauna. So I don't have good news for you.
<v Speaker 2>I'm afraid. First of all, if you're researching it, make
<v Speaker 2>sure you're researching the right species, because there are ornamental
<v Speaker 2>ornithogolums out there that you can grow, and make sure
<v Speaker 2>you're not reading about those. Do not allow this to
<v Speaker 2>go to seed, So if it flowers, mow it down,
<v Speaker 2>chop it down. Make sure that you're not letting it
<v Speaker 2>go to seed, because it spreads by seed as well
<v Speaker 2>as bulblitz underground. Consistent mowing can help because it will
<v Speaker 2>help weaken the plant, but it will not resolve your issue,
<v Speaker 2>and you can't out compete it with groundcovers or anything else.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm afraid you know Oklahoma can get really hot,
<v Speaker 1>but the plant is native to hot regions of southern
<v Speaker 1>Europe northern Africa. I'm afraid that we in the garden
<v Speaker 1>center industry years ago carry some of the blame because
<v Speaker 1>we were busy selling them as minor bulbs. Once it's established,
<v Speaker 1>I would say this, if you were going to try
<v Speaker 1>the herbicide route, you're only going to be successful if
<v Speaker 1>you rough it up first. In other words, as Stacy mentioned,
<v Speaker 1>just you know, chop it and then apply the herb beside.
<v Speaker 1>It's going to help, but it's very bulbous, so it's
<v Speaker 1>so hard.
<v Speaker 2>To come Yeah, and there's so many little bulbs that
<v Speaker 2>aren't going to have foliage. This is going to be
<v Speaker 2>a multi year process and it's not going to be easy.
<v Speaker 2>But again I will put some resources for you in
<v Speaker 2>the show notes at Gardening Some Fight on air dot Com.
<v Speaker 2>Going to take a break. When we come back, we're
<v Speaker 2>talking more groundcovers. 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 winners Color Choice dot Com.
<v Speaker 1>Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Okay today for
<v Speaker 1>branching news. Let's start off with this. You started it, now,
<v Speaker 1>let's finish it. And that is that area between the
<v Speaker 1>sidewalk and the road. And I found stacy that this
<v Speaker 1>is highly variable between what municipality or part of the
<v Speaker 1>country you may live in. Here's some of the ways
<v Speaker 1>people describe that area right of way. If you call
<v Speaker 1>it a right of way, odds are you're a city
<v Speaker 1>planner or you're into zoning or that sort of thing
<v Speaker 1>makes sense. A lot of people call it the hell strip,
<v Speaker 1>the devil strip, parkway easement, verge, boulevard, city strip, no
<v Speaker 1>man's land, the dog toilet. In Michigan, you get a
<v Speaker 1>lot of snowplow disease in that area. Road verge, nature strip, swale,
<v Speaker 1>the beside walk. Oh.
<v Speaker 2>I like that one.
<v Speaker 1>That's a good one.
<v Speaker 2>I want to make sidewalk happen, as.
<v Speaker 1>I understand it's civil engineer. Some call it the furniture
<v Speaker 1>zone because that's where all the utilities fair.
<v Speaker 2>Fair yeah, and where you put your furniture out for
<v Speaker 2>the garbage man if you want to get rid of it.
<v Speaker 1>The old folding larger. Yes. Uh. And then as I
<v Speaker 1>understand it, and maybe some folks can help us with this,
<v Speaker 1>they say, only in Cleveland they call it the tree lawn,
<v Speaker 1>and in New Orleans they call it the neutral ground.
<v Speaker 2>Right, So I thought the new shore grounds in New
<v Speaker 2>Orleans were more the things in the boulevard. But either
<v Speaker 2>way we'll find out.
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure we're gonna get a lot of comments.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I mean, that is an impressive list. I am
<v Speaker 2>very impressed you compiled all of that. See, I had
<v Speaker 2>never heard the term parkway, which apparently is the preferred
<v Speaker 2>term out here in West Michigan. And last summer, my
<v Speaker 2>neighbor had a bunch of people over from the neighborhood
<v Speaker 2>and we were all sitting around chatting, and of course
<v Speaker 2>the topic came up to the deer, and everyone was
<v Speaker 2>grousing about the deer, and one of the neighbors said, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you know, not all that long ago, everyone's parkway was
<v Speaker 2>planted with daffodils or with daylilies, and I know, And
<v Speaker 2>I was like, like Central Park and he was like, no,
<v Speaker 2>you know, the parkways. And it was the first time
<v Speaker 2>I had ever heard that term.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, Well, you know, a lot of people consider that
<v Speaker 1>area a parking space.
<v Speaker 2>That's true. So and I can see that, you know,
<v Speaker 2>especially if you did have a neighborhood all get together
<v Speaker 2>and everything was planted the same, that it could look
<v Speaker 2>very park like in like a parkway. And I know Hellstrip,
<v Speaker 2>of course was developed or introduced by a gardener back
<v Speaker 2>in probably the nineteen nineties who started gardening that area
<v Speaker 2>and said it was in Colorado, so very very dry,
<v Speaker 2>low water, and that was where the name Hellstrip came from.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think they're quite so hellish for us here
<v Speaker 2>in Michigan.
<v Speaker 1>Not too bad except for the snowplow. Damn.
<v Speaker 2>The snow can be bad, right, all right.
<v Speaker 1>List of groundcovers thumbs up, thumbs down Stacey Lysimachia The
<v Speaker 1>Creeping Jenny money.
<v Speaker 2>Work, Huh's Aesthetically it's a thumbs up. But growth wise invasiveness,
<v Speaker 2>it's all thumbs down.
<v Speaker 1>I like to put it in containers.
<v Speaker 2>It is cute, though. I like still coin like leaves.
<v Speaker 1>Creeping flocks.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, I like it, but I think a lot of
<v Speaker 2>people have trouble growing it.
<v Speaker 1>Well, creeping flocks. I don't care for it because it
<v Speaker 1>looks good one week out of fifty two weeks.
<v Speaker 2>But it looks pretty darn good when it does one week.
<v Speaker 1>We already determined both you and I like sweet wood
<v Speaker 1>grow love it. Wild strawberry or fregaria. Now this is
<v Speaker 1>a native plant. It occurs in all the US states.
<v Speaker 1>We can be neutral on it.
<v Speaker 2>If we can be neutral, I've had a wild strawberry
<v Speaker 2>that did not suffer the not World senior, the barren
<v Speaker 2>strawberry that I planted in my yard, and it was
<v Speaker 2>a nightmare to get rid of. Okay, but it can
<v Speaker 2>look kind of interesting.
<v Speaker 1>Okay. I like to put lamium in hanging baskets, but
<v Speaker 1>not necessarily as a groundcover. Yeah, some people would disagree.
<v Speaker 2>It's you know, I think people see it's one of
<v Speaker 2>the few really common and easy to grow plants with
<v Speaker 2>truly silver foliage. You know, the foliage when you look
<v Speaker 2>at it, the silver spots on it, they look metallic.
<v Speaker 2>It's really bizarre, and that does make it quite nice.
<v Speaker 2>But they can be very aggressive, and if so, it's
<v Speaker 2>kind of one of those situations where like if they're
<v Speaker 2>happy enough to be growing well, they go everywhere, but
<v Speaker 2>they never really look good. You know, they don't have
<v Speaker 2>that liken full mounded look where everything, because when you
<v Speaker 2>see an individual sound of it, you're like, ooh pretty.
<v Speaker 2>But then in reality there just does not. In my experience,
<v Speaker 2>I've not seen any patch of lamium or lamy astroum
<v Speaker 2>live up to the hype.
<v Speaker 1>Some people refer to it as dead nettle. If you
<v Speaker 1>want to try a proven winners variety, pink shab leis
<v Speaker 1>might be a good one for you to try. Perennial geranium.
<v Speaker 1>Here's a steppable two thombs up, all right, all right,
<v Speaker 1>a steppable Irish and Scotch moss, which are not true mosses,
<v Speaker 1>but they are a steppable.
<v Speaker 2>They're beautiful, but you know, good luck growing them well.
<v Speaker 2>And they look there are so there's somewhat steppable now
<v Speaker 2>I have seen. I actually had a roof up garden
<v Speaker 2>when I was a roof up gardener in New York
<v Speaker 2>that had a fake lawn of these and it was
<v Speaker 2>really lovely. And you know, the people whose whose apartment
<v Speaker 2>it was did walk on it and let their dog
<v Speaker 2>walk on it, and it was a never ending maintenance litmre.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, all right, I know I'm going to get a
<v Speaker 1>thumbs up on this one. Low skate pernia.
<v Speaker 2>Love it. Yeah, yeah, good choice.
<v Speaker 1>I love using annuals Minivita petunias, sweet potato vine like
<v Speaker 1>sweet caroline, you got a hot spot. I think it
<v Speaker 1>makes a great groundcover. Mohavey yea.
<v Speaker 2>I do want to mention on the sweet potato vine.
<v Speaker 2>It's an interesting plant because it came out gosh, I
<v Speaker 2>don't remember how long ago people loved it, and it
<v Speaker 2>is so aggressive in a good way. You know, it
<v Speaker 2>really fills up and people were finding sweet potatoes in
<v Speaker 2>their containers that they emptied at the end of the season.
<v Speaker 2>So a lot of companies, including proven winners, that have
<v Speaker 2>been working on breeding less aggressive sweet potato vines specifically
<v Speaker 2>for containers. Yes, so that you get all of that
<v Speaker 2>great foliage color without you know it taking over your
<v Speaker 2>entire container, nay, your whole neighborhood. And it's not invasive
<v Speaker 2>like it's not like, but it's very vigorous. So if
<v Speaker 2>you are growing a sweet potato vine as a seasonal
<v Speaker 2>groundcover and you want that coverage, make sure you're going
<v Speaker 2>for one of those old fashioned, older varieties and not
<v Speaker 2>one of the newer ones. Just look at the size
<v Speaker 2>that's on the tag, because you might be very disappointed
<v Speaker 2>when you buy a proven winner's variety that was intended
<v Speaker 2>for just being a nice accent and a container, and
<v Speaker 2>then you plant it in the ground and it goes
<v Speaker 2>very little.
<v Speaker 1>It's good point. Good point. You might give this one
<v Speaker 1>a thumbs down. But steakis the big years, you know,
<v Speaker 1>the big years lamb oh. I love that. Okay, I
<v Speaker 1>do too. And the deer leave it alone anything any
<v Speaker 1>kind of time, creeping time, wooly time, lemon time. Oh,
<v Speaker 1>I love it and comes back year after year. Oregano
<v Speaker 1>as a groundcover, and I grow it for the flowers.
<v Speaker 2>I got plenny.
<v Speaker 1>There you go.
<v Speaker 2>It's definitely a very happy ground cover in my yard.
<v Speaker 1>There's an orange carpet, hummingbird trumpet or California fue yusha for.
<v Speaker 1>It's native to the Western US. Tolerates deer, drought, erosion,
<v Speaker 1>dry soil, shallow rocky soil. I have not personally grown.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if it's hardy enough for US.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, I don't think it is.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I would be surprised.
<v Speaker 1>He probably zone seven or warmer zone eight, something like that.
<v Speaker 1>Barren Strawberry, I'm not a.
<v Speaker 2>F weld Senia, so wald Senia was our silver bullet
<v Speaker 2>solution when I was a rooftop gardener for the areas
<v Speaker 2>outside of apartment buildings where people who have dogs get
<v Speaker 2>down and their dog is immediately like, oh, finally, wald
<v Speaker 2>Senia was the one groundcover that we could consistently count
<v Speaker 2>on center shade. I believe it, no matter what, to
<v Speaker 2>stand up to repeated dog urine, I believe it.
<v Speaker 1>So there is that I think it's non native. I'm
<v Speaker 1>pretty sure.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think it's native. But it is called barn strawberry,
<v Speaker 2>and it does look a bit like a strawberry.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Vinca minor or myrtle thems down in many parts
<v Speaker 1>of the country. It's considered an invasive yes.
<v Speaker 2>And it's you know, yeah, my dad.
<v Speaker 1>Loved Vinca minor. It was something he could grow really well.
<v Speaker 1>He just loved that m well.
<v Speaker 2>And you know, to be fair. When it's in flower,
<v Speaker 2>the flowers are quite pretty. The color is really lay
<v Speaker 2>and pretty.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Oh so easy roses of course.
<v Speaker 2>No traffic but yes.
<v Speaker 1>No, no, not a steppable exactly. Here's an interesting one,
<v Speaker 1>low growth sumac.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I love it, you love it, Yeah, I love it.
<v Speaker 1>It's a native plant. You find it a lot in
<v Speaker 1>parking lots ye right, yep, in their parkways or whatever
<v Speaker 1>they call those things the islands. I have some in
<v Speaker 1>a very sandy area does really well, but it gets
<v Speaker 1>loaded with bladder warts, call them bladder warts, just covered
<v Speaker 1>with them. It's caused by a mite that over winters
<v Speaker 1>in the branches, and it doesn't kill the plant. It's
<v Speaker 1>just real pumpy. I think both you and I like
<v Speaker 1>prickly pear cactus.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I do have it. It is definitely a groundcover
<v Speaker 2>that needs to be managed, and it's not a fun
<v Speaker 2>plant to manage this, I can tell you if you
<v Speaker 2>have it and you need to manage it. What we
<v Speaker 2>have started doing is taking barbecue tongs. One person holds
<v Speaker 2>up the paddles that we want to take off. The
<v Speaker 2>other person takes like looppers or a pruner or sharp
<v Speaker 2>shovel and cuts it off. And then you have to
<v Speaker 2>put it right into the you know, lawn bag or
<v Speaker 2>the garbage or whatever. And make sure, for the love
<v Speaker 2>of the poor person who has to pick up that
<v Speaker 2>bag that it is labeled prickly pair cactus or put
<v Speaker 2>in your garbage. Just don't make someone else have to
<v Speaker 2>deal with it.
<v Speaker 1>Teamwork there you go two more quick ones. Would you
<v Speaker 1>use Doutsia as a ground Yes.
<v Speaker 2>I would. I thought about making it a plant on
<v Speaker 2>trial today, but I figured I hadn't done a why
<v Speaker 2>deal in a while.
<v Speaker 1>And I love Seatum's, I love rock and low.
<v Speaker 2>Rock and grow our thumbs up on this one.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because it's perfect for a hot, sunny spot. So
<v Speaker 1>there you have it, Stacey. We covered a lot of
<v Speaker 1>ground today.
<v Speaker 2>Well, we did cover a lot of grand today, and
<v Speaker 2>one last thing before we go Okay, next episode, we
<v Speaker 2>are covering plants we hate. As you can imagine, opinions
<v Speaker 2>will be had, they will be strong, and we would
<v Speaker 2>love to hear from you. So leave a comment on
<v Speaker 2>YouTube or visit Gardeningsimplified on air dot com and write
<v Speaker 2>us with the plant or plants that you hate. We
<v Speaker 2>will compile everyone's answers and see if we're all on
<v Speaker 2>the same page.
<v Speaker 1>I promise to bring my a game.
<v Speaker 2>I love it all right, So thank you Rick, thank you,
<v Speaker 2>thank you Adriana, and thanks so much to all of
<v Speaker 2>you for listening. We hope you have a fantastic week ahead.