Understanding Invasive Plants

<v Speaker 1>Broadcasting from Studio A. Here at proven winners Color Joy 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. Well, today, Stacy,
<v Speaker 1>we get into the weeds on a tough topic, invasives.
<v Speaker 1>Lots to talk about in regards to this subject, Lots
<v Speaker 1>of opinions out there, and you know, I look at,
<v Speaker 1>for example, where I live along the shores of Lake Michigan.
<v Speaker 1>I look at an invasive that came into the country
<v Speaker 1>years ago, spotted knapweed. Oof.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, most people don't even know that's invasive.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, exactly, because it's been around so long, has the
<v Speaker 1>pretty little pink flowers. But it's also a lellopathic and
<v Speaker 1>so it crowds out desirable native plants, like in our
<v Speaker 1>case along the lake shore milk weed. And so this
<v Speaker 1>is a not only a set and tough subject, it's
<v Speaker 1>it's almost an emotional subject too. That involves many agencies
<v Speaker 1>of our government. And of course, Stacey, plenty of opinions
<v Speaker 1>to go around on social media.
<v Speaker 2>Well, that is for sure, and you know that's one
<v Speaker 2>of the reasons why I wanted to do the show
<v Speaker 2>on invasives because if anybody is a social media user,
<v Speaker 2>whether that's Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or anything, you know,
<v Speaker 2>there's really all of these different people and organizations taking
<v Speaker 2>advantage of those platforms to put out a lot of information.
<v Speaker 2>And a lot of that information is very useful and
<v Speaker 2>very good, and a lot of it is hot garbage, just.
<v Speaker 1>Like anything else. Don't believe everything you.
<v Speaker 2>Read, right, So, you know, obviously you want to follow,
<v Speaker 2>you know, reputable sources that are posting reputable information, but
<v Speaker 2>you also have to take all of this with a
<v Speaker 2>grain of salt and take things as a learning opportunity,
<v Speaker 2>especially before you share them and perpetuate more misinformation or
<v Speaker 2>partial information or just outright bad information. But yeah, this
<v Speaker 2>is a difficult topic and it's not one that we
<v Speaker 2>are going to be able to completely cover because it's
<v Speaker 2>just too massive.
<v Speaker 1>It's immense.
<v Speaker 2>But you know, also here in Michigan where we are located,
<v Speaker 2>invasive plants have suddenly gotten quite a lot of attention. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>after many years of getting pretty much zero attention. Very recently,
<v Speaker 2>State of Michigan is attempting to ban some invasive plants
<v Speaker 2>from being sold in the state, which is probably going
<v Speaker 2>to come as a surprise to people. They're probably thinking, hey,
<v Speaker 2>if this is invasive, why is it even being sold
<v Speaker 2>here in the first place. But there was never any
<v Speaker 2>bans against it.
<v Speaker 1>You're so right about that, Stacey, And coming from the
<v Speaker 1>garden center industry, if you take an example like calorie pair,
<v Speaker 1>and then if all of a sudden, you know, calorie pair,
<v Speaker 1>thousands and thousands millions have been sold through garden centers
<v Speaker 1>and stores and then all of a sudden you can't
<v Speaker 1>sell it anymore. It's those are a high impact decisions.
<v Speaker 2>Aren't And the other thing is that people don't understand necessarily.
<v Speaker 2>So you know, another name for calorie pair, which is
<v Speaker 2>c A L L E R Y, not calorie like
<v Speaker 2>calorie that gives you energy, just in case you're wondering
<v Speaker 2>and you're getting you know, internet results that say it
<v Speaker 2>has fifty four calories per you know, average pair calorie
<v Speaker 2>and also known as Bradford pears. And you know, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>when they bloom, right, everybody and their brother goes into
<v Speaker 2>the garden center going, I want one of those beautiful
<v Speaker 2>trees with the white flowers. And for many years there
<v Speaker 2>was no reason that they couldn't buy them, and now
<v Speaker 2>they're going to be told, oh, you know, we can't
<v Speaker 2>tell you that anymore.
<v Speaker 1>Pretty flowers, but stinky.
<v Speaker 2>Oh terrible stink. And you know, I used to live
<v Speaker 2>in New York City and there were entire streets lined
<v Speaker 2>with Bradford pair, I mean entire blocks in blocks in
<v Speaker 2>a row, and on a spring day, you know, it
<v Speaker 2>would look like it was snowing and it would actually
<v Speaker 2>be kind of lovely, but God forbid you breathing.
<v Speaker 1>I think that's where that whole trend started. As far
<v Speaker 1>as street side plantings are concerned of Bradford or Calorie pair,
<v Speaker 1>so yeah, I can picture that. So there's a lot
<v Speaker 1>of terminology involved here, invasive versus native. While native plants
<v Speaker 1>can be aggressive or I like to call them frisky,
<v Speaker 1>they're generally not considered invasive because they exist in balance
<v Speaker 1>with the local environment. And then you have invasive versus
<v Speaker 1>non native. Not all non native plants are invasive, only
<v Speaker 1>a percentage of them are problematic. And then you have
<v Speaker 1>invasive versus aggressive. And we've all had aggressive plants in
<v Speaker 1>our landscape, but it may be that they're just spreading,
<v Speaker 1>as I say, a little bit frisky. Many government agencies
<v Speaker 1>involved in this. You have the US Department of Interior,
<v Speaker 1>you have the US Department of Agriculture, an National Invasive
<v Speaker 1>Species Council the NISC. They're advised by the ISSAC, which
<v Speaker 1>is the Invasive Species Advisory Committee. And then on top
<v Speaker 1>of that you have APHIS, which is the Animal and
<v Speaker 1>Plant Held Inspection Service that's a sub agency within the
<v Speaker 1>US Department of Agriculture or USDA. And then you have
<v Speaker 1>your state agricultural departments, and every state has an agricultural department.
<v Speaker 1>You have all of them involved in this.
<v Speaker 2>It's a hot topic, it is, and it makes it
<v Speaker 2>really hard to get clear information. But I think the
<v Speaker 2>one thing that our listeners really need to know about
<v Speaker 2>that long list of government organizations involved, and not just
<v Speaker 2>in invasive plants, invasive species in general. This can include
<v Speaker 2>animals and different diseases and things like that. But the
<v Speaker 2>important thing to know is that invasive plants are invasive
<v Speaker 2>on a state by state basis. You know, there are
<v Speaker 2>plants that are horribly invasive on the in the Northeast
<v Speaker 2>that aren't the least bit of a problem in the West,
<v Speaker 2>which is really surprising because you would think that the
<v Speaker 2>mild amenable climate of the Pacific Northwest would mean everything,
<v Speaker 2>could you know, get a leg up and go crazy,
<v Speaker 2>But that's not the way it works. So really you
<v Speaker 2>have to turn to the state or province if you're
<v Speaker 2>joining us from Canada that you live in, for the
<v Speaker 2>best information on what's invasive in your state, and then
<v Speaker 2>to further complicate things. Though not all of these state
<v Speaker 2>agricultural organizations have an equal commitment to taking on invasive plants.
<v Speaker 2>I can tell you some states are extremely aggressive in
<v Speaker 2>managing invasive plants and educating the public about invasive plants
<v Speaker 2>and banning them, and some states are much more less
<v Speaker 2>a fair you know, they aren't really going out there
<v Speaker 2>and prioritizing this, and so that might make someone especially
<v Speaker 2>if you are you know, like I mean, I think
<v Speaker 2>we can take Michigan in Indiana here is a great example.
<v Speaker 2>Indiana is one of the states that is very, very
<v Speaker 2>aggressive in their invasive plant bands, whereas again in Michigan,
<v Speaker 2>we haven't really done anything for years, and now there's
<v Speaker 2>an attempt to get this done. So it makes someone
<v Speaker 2>wonder like, well, does it just not cross the state line?
<v Speaker 2>You know, it sees the state line and goes WHOA, Nope,
<v Speaker 2>can't do it. I'm not invasive in Michigan. I'm not
<v Speaker 2>going to jump the line there. But yeah, so it's
<v Speaker 2>difficult to find information, but your state is always whether
<v Speaker 2>or not they are proactive or reactive, the number one
<v Speaker 2>source for finding out what's potentially problematic in your area.
<v Speaker 1>And very important work. I mean, we have to protect
<v Speaker 1>agriculture and waterways and a host of things. So, as
<v Speaker 1>I mentioned, we're getting in the weeds here today.
<v Speaker 2>But you know, I think that's a really important point too,
<v Speaker 2>is it's not simply when we talk about an invasive plant.
<v Speaker 2>What separates an invasive plant from the other terms that
<v Speaker 2>you described is that an invasive plant is going to
<v Speaker 2>go out into the wild and displace basically native habitats,
<v Speaker 2>native ecosystem. So it's not just that you know, oh,
<v Speaker 2>something like a mint right in your backyard is an
<v Speaker 2>aggressive plant and it's kind of hard to control. That
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't really be considered an invasive plant. It's the plants
<v Speaker 2>that spread out into the wild and when that happens, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it can mess up things like erosion, you know, it
<v Speaker 2>can mess with water flow, other animals, insects, all of
<v Speaker 2>these different factors. So it's really not as simple as
<v Speaker 2>you know, Hey, I was hiking and I didn't want
<v Speaker 2>to see this, you know, ugly invasive plant in the
<v Speaker 2>middle of the woods. It's it's a very complex subject.
<v Speaker 1>An example along that line, I just came back from
<v Speaker 1>Puerto Rico and in the airport coming back into the
<v Speaker 1>States encountered the Beagle Brigade. We've got a picture for
<v Speaker 1>you on YouTube. The USDA uses a Beagle Brigade detector
<v Speaker 1>dog teams, adorable dogs all over the airport. Fantastic. You
<v Speaker 1>take your luggage, you take your carry on, you have
<v Speaker 1>to run it through a scanner, get it tagged before
<v Speaker 1>you can head back into the country. Of course, in
<v Speaker 1>Puerto Rico they have a real issue with something called
<v Speaker 1>an African tulip tree. You see them everywhere in full bloom.
<v Speaker 1>They've colonized the land all across Puerto Rico. It's a
<v Speaker 1>fast growing tree species, but it's non native and listed
<v Speaker 1>on the one hundred global Worst Invasive Species. But as
<v Speaker 1>you drive along in Puerto Rico you can see this
<v Speaker 1>tree has taken over the landscape.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you know, Puerto Rico is an American territory, of course,
<v Speaker 2>but I don't think in all of my travels, I
<v Speaker 2>have ever been to a place that had stricter agricultural
<v Speaker 2>restrictions than Puerto Rico to the US. I mean, it was,
<v Speaker 2>it's pretty intense.
<v Speaker 1>It is. It's intense. But that adorable beagle sniffing our.
<v Speaker 2>Bags making sure you don't have some you know, tropical
<v Speaker 2>fruit in there or something else like that.
<v Speaker 1>Found an old meal raisin cookie. Huh.
<v Speaker 2>Oh.
<v Speaker 1>Well, let's see where Stacey goes with us in plants
<v Speaker 1>on trial. That's coming up next here on the Gardening
<v Speaker 1>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, despite my cheerfulness,
<v Speaker 2>we are talking about a very un cheerful topic today,
<v Speaker 2>and that is invasive plants. And you know, it's a
<v Speaker 2>tough thing that's near and dear to my heart, because
<v Speaker 2>you know, every single one of us who goes into
<v Speaker 2>gardening or plants something, we do so out of positive intent.
<v Speaker 2>You know, when we plant something in our yards, whether
<v Speaker 2>you know, any type of plant, we're trying to do
<v Speaker 2>something good. We're either trying to improve the yard for
<v Speaker 2>ourselves in our own enjoyment. We're trying to provide some
<v Speaker 2>privacy or some shade. We're maybe even trying to help
<v Speaker 2>insects like you know, bees, butterflies, pollinators, all that. So
<v Speaker 2>we go into any garden center whatever plants we're purchasing
<v Speaker 2>or planting with good intentions. But of course we all
<v Speaker 2>know what they say about good intentions, and that is
<v Speaker 2>why we have invasive plants. You know, no one said, hey,
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to plant this because it's super invasive and
<v Speaker 2>I want to be a real trouble maker. But at
<v Speaker 2>the same time, it's very difficult to find out for
<v Speaker 2>most people, you know, it's hard for them to make
<v Speaker 2>the right decisions. And I've heard, you know, over time,
<v Speaker 2>from a lot of different home gardeners of varying skill level,
<v Speaker 2>that that's a big point of frustration for them. You know, how,
<v Speaker 2>I don't want to do a bad thing I am
<v Speaker 2>here trying to do good and I don't want to.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know enough to make a choice that is,
<v Speaker 2>you know, unintentionally bad, and that makes it's one of
<v Speaker 2>the things that makes it really difficult. Now, I will
<v Speaker 2>tell you, you know, one of the important things that states
<v Speaker 2>and provinces do for invasive plants is they ban them.
<v Speaker 2>So the invasive plants that we're talking about today, there's
<v Speaker 2>a number of invasive weeds that have come out through
<v Speaker 2>agriculture and are not things that most average people are
<v Speaker 2>going to come in contact with. But you know, the
<v Speaker 2>sad fact is there are a number of invasive ornamental
<v Speaker 2>plants that originated as ornamental plants. Great example that a
<v Speaker 2>lot of people aren't aware of the New Jersey bamboo
<v Speaker 2>also called Japanese not weed. That is a plant that
<v Speaker 2>was actually brought to America by Frederick law Olmsted for
<v Speaker 2>landscaping Central Park. And you know, he thought it was
<v Speaker 2>beautiful and elegant, and now it's everywhere and it's a
<v Speaker 2>terrible plant to have and a terrible plant to get
<v Speaker 2>rid of. But you know, again, it was brought in
<v Speaker 2>with the intention of being ornamental, and you know, Central
<v Speaker 2>Park kind of an assign here, but kind of can't
<v Speaker 2>help but mention this. Central Park is also where Starlings
<v Speaker 2>our first release.
<v Speaker 1>I love that story sometime about it.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, so Shakespeare, Shakespeare, the Shakespeare Garden in Central Park.
<v Speaker 2>So Central Park is fabulous and amazing and wonderful as
<v Speaker 2>a place it is, and I know I was fortunate
<v Speaker 2>enough to work there for three years. Yeah, the epicenter
<v Speaker 2>of a lot of these a lot of these problems
<v Speaker 2>that have have since come up, but again all done
<v Speaker 2>with positive intentions. And the good thing is that as
<v Speaker 2>we have seen those mistakes be made in the past,
<v Speaker 2>we can now start to you know, kind of project
<v Speaker 2>for making better decisions in the future. We can learn
<v Speaker 2>from those mistakes.
<v Speaker 1>And like I said, Stacey, there's very important work being
<v Speaker 1>done by people out there to keep us from making
<v Speaker 1>these mistakes.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, exactly. So. Again, one of the most important things
<v Speaker 2>that a state will do when they decide to ban
<v Speaker 2>a plant is that prevents it from being sold in
<v Speaker 2>garden centers. So if you live in a state that
<v Speaker 2>is a proactive banner of invasive plants and potentially invasive plants,
<v Speaker 2>you know you're in a pretty good spot because you
<v Speaker 2>don't have to worry really about going into the garden
<v Speaker 2>center and accidentally buying something that's going to be a problem.
<v Speaker 2>It's just not there in the first place. There's sometimes
<v Speaker 2>a moratorium. They'll say, okay, you can you know, nurseries,
<v Speaker 2>garden centers can sell through their stock in the next
<v Speaker 2>five years, and then after that there's no more that
<v Speaker 2>kind of thing. But what about the rest of us,
<v Speaker 2>You know, how are you going to find out and
<v Speaker 2>make a decision that is not just beneficial for the
<v Speaker 2>environment because you don't want your plant spreading into the wild.
<v Speaker 2>But the simple fact is the plant is likely to
<v Speaker 2>spread into the wild. There's probably going to be spreading
<v Speaker 2>around your own backyard and your neighbor's yards as well.
<v Speaker 2>And as much as even people like Rick and I
<v Speaker 2>love gardening, we're not looking to make more work for ourselves.
<v Speaker 2>You know. We'd rather have that time to either enjoy
<v Speaker 2>the garden or spend it doing the tasks that we
<v Speaker 2>really enjoy, rather than you know, pulling out seedlings of.
<v Speaker 1>We're having people using roundup, which is a whole other issues.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, there's a whole other issue. But the point that
<v Speaker 2>I'm getting at is for those of us who live
<v Speaker 2>in areas where there are not a lot of invasive
<v Speaker 2>plant bands in place, we here at proven winners colored
<v Speaker 2>Choice shrubs have come up with the in check program,
<v Speaker 2>and in check is a designation that basically says that
<v Speaker 2>the plant has been through our normal trialing and testing
<v Speaker 2>process to make sure that it outperforms everything and blooms
<v Speaker 2>better and grows better and will be easy to maintain.
<v Speaker 2>But these plants with the in check design have undergone
<v Speaker 2>additional trialing to make sure that they are seedless, sterile,
<v Speaker 2>and or non invasive. Those are three separate concepts, but
<v Speaker 2>basically what that means for you as a home gardener
<v Speaker 2>is that if you are choosing a plant that has
<v Speaker 2>an in check designation, you do not need to worry
<v Speaker 2>about its spreading around because you know, basically what's happening
<v Speaker 2>is in our industry, and especially like in the landscape industry,
<v Speaker 2>you know, there's a lot of staple plants that people
<v Speaker 2>find very, very useful, and to suddenly have them sort
<v Speaker 2>of disappear out of the plant palette is difficult for
<v Speaker 2>everybody in the industry. So a lot of talented plant
<v Speaker 2>breeders that we work with, like doctor Tom Rainey out
<v Speaker 2>of North Carolina State University doctor Dennis Warner out of
<v Speaker 2>North Carolina State doctor Mark brand out of the University
<v Speaker 2>of Connecticut have been devoting their considerable skills to developing
<v Speaker 2>alternatives to things like barbary, to things like burning bush,
<v Speaker 2>and developing non invasive alternatives. And there's a lot of
<v Speaker 2>different ways that they can do this. They have a
<v Speaker 2>whole arsenal of skills, so these plants still have some
<v Speaker 2>of the benefits, you know, the easy care for in
<v Speaker 2>the case of barbary, people really like barbary because it's
<v Speaker 2>so dear resistant, right, So you can still kind of
<v Speaker 2>have those plants, but without the issues that the more
<v Speaker 2>conventional versions cause. Now, I do want to say there's
<v Speaker 2>twenty two varieties currently in the in check program and
<v Speaker 2>it does include again those known invasive plants, things like ramness.
<v Speaker 2>Our fine line ramness is in there, sun Jay Toto
<v Speaker 2>and Sunjoy Mini maroon, barbary are in check. Our new
<v Speaker 2>fireball seedless Uanamus, which is the only seedless burning bush
<v Speaker 2>on the market. And people love burning bush. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>think you can do a lot better than burning bush myself.
<v Speaker 2>But he'll try talking people out of burning, so it's
<v Speaker 2>not going anywhere, right, But you can substitute a regular
<v Speaker 2>burning bush for a fireball seedless and not have to
<v Speaker 2>worry about it spreading. We also have plants in the
<v Speaker 2>in check program that are not known to be invasive.
<v Speaker 2>They're not banned anywhere because again they're not spreading out
<v Speaker 2>into the wild, and that is really the key factor
<v Speaker 2>that states consider when they're looking to you deem a
<v Speaker 2>plant invasive or ban it. But something like how many
<v Speaker 2>times have you heard this rick Rosa Sharon? I had
<v Speaker 2>a Rosa Sharin. I loved it, but it just puts
<v Speaker 2>seeds all over my yard and made a maintenance nightmare
<v Speaker 2>and I'm tired of it. Do you have a Rosa
<v Speaker 2>Sharon that doesn't have seeds? And yes we do. We
<v Speaker 2>have two right now. And that includes the beautiful Azuri
<v Speaker 2>blue satin rows of Sharon, which is so pretty. That
<v Speaker 2>is a single blue, but a very beautiful true blue.
<v Speaker 2>Especially when it's in bud. That plant will not set seed.
<v Speaker 2>And there's also a dwarf one called Polypetite hibiscus that
<v Speaker 2>has kind of lavender flowers and bluish green foliage, and
<v Speaker 2>that one is also seedless. So some of the in
<v Speaker 2>check plants again, are known to be sort of notoriously invasive,
<v Speaker 2>and this provides an alternative. But some of them are
<v Speaker 2>also just a way of making your guardening chores a
<v Speaker 2>little bit easier, so you can kind of have your
<v Speaker 2>cake and eat it too. It's not so much a
<v Speaker 2>worry about, you know, Rosa sharon is going into the
<v Speaker 2>woods and disrupting the ecosystem. It really is primarily an
<v Speaker 2>issue only in urban areas and doesn't spread usually far
<v Speaker 2>away from your yard. But no one wants to pull
<v Speaker 2>rosa share and seedlings every day long.
<v Speaker 1>It's pain.
<v Speaker 2>Although a lot of people you see them, you know,
<v Speaker 2>they dig them up and then they try to sell
<v Speaker 2>them by the roadside for like five.
<v Speaker 1>Bucks Facebook marketing.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, well this is not the one for you
<v Speaker 2>because these are not going to set seed now. Butterfly
<v Speaker 2>bush is another great example. Butterfly bush out West is
<v Speaker 2>a terribly invasive plant, and it was banned except for
<v Speaker 2>newer varieties like the ones in our incheck program, which
<v Speaker 2>have been scientifically proven to have reduced fertility. So if
<v Speaker 2>you are what if you live in the Northwest, that's
<v Speaker 2>only those are going to be your only options. Is
<v Speaker 2>these non invasive varieties. But for the rest of us,
<v Speaker 2>it's kind of just a nice to have, right, It's
<v Speaker 2>just nice to know that you are then selecting a
<v Speaker 2>butterfly bush that you don't have to worry about spreading
<v Speaker 2>seed around, even if it's a place like here, you know,
<v Speaker 2>in Michigan, where butterfly bush very rarely spreads by seed
<v Speaker 2>for most of us. And guess what, our best selling
<v Speaker 2>butterfly bush also happens to be in the in check program.
<v Speaker 2>Pugster blue butterfly bush. Yes, what fabulous blue flowers. So
<v Speaker 2>the great thing too about the in check program is
<v Speaker 2>that it's not just like settling for a plant that
<v Speaker 2>is not as attractive as the you know, more problematic counterpart.
<v Speaker 2>They're equally, if not more attractive. You just don't have
<v Speaker 2>that extra issue of worrying about the seed spreading. Now
<v Speaker 2>you will find in check plants on it is your
<v Speaker 2>local garden center and you want to look at the
<v Speaker 2>plants tag, There is a little in check designation before
<v Speaker 2>the common name. So for example, if you take the
<v Speaker 2>pugster blue butterfly bush, it will say Pugster blue in
<v Speaker 2>check butterfly bush. So if it's an in check butterfly bush.
<v Speaker 2>If it's an in check barbery, etc. Then you know
<v Speaker 2>that is one of the variety that you are not
<v Speaker 2>going to have to worry about spreading around, So do
<v Speaker 2>look out for that. You can find a full list.
<v Speaker 2>Just go to proven Winner's Color Choice dot com and
<v Speaker 2>type in in check two words and you will get
<v Speaker 2>the whole list of our plants and learn a little
<v Speaker 2>bit more about all twenty two of them. With that,
<v Speaker 2>we are going to take a little break, but when
<v Speaker 2>we come back, we're going to be opening the garden
<v Speaker 2>mail bags, so please stay tuned. At Proven Winners Color
<v Speaker 2>Choice Shrubs. We know that a better landscape starts with
<v Speaker 2>a better shrub. Our team of experts tests and evaluates
<v Speaker 2>all of our flowering shrubs in evergreens for eight to
<v Speaker 2>ten years to ensure they outperform what's already on the market.
<v Speaker 2>For easycare, reliable, beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and
<v Speaker 2>express your personal style, look for Proven Winner's Shrubs in
<v Speaker 2>the distinctive white container at your local garden center or
<v Speaker 2>learn more at proven Winner's Color Choice dot Com. Creeting's
<v Speaker 2>Garden friends and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show,
<v Speaker 2>where it is now our pleasure to help you with
<v Speaker 2>your gardens. Questions, quandaries, and conundrums and celebrations of course always,
<v Speaker 2>although there's probably not too too many of those just yet.
<v Speaker 2>We heard from some listeners with some nice orchids and
<v Speaker 2>so forth blooming indoors over the winter.
<v Speaker 1>But well, we get questions, we get conundrums and stacy.
<v Speaker 1>I've got to say, thank you very mulch. I sometimes joke,
<v Speaker 1>send us brownies or fudge. We got fudge linquor infused
<v Speaker 1>gourmet fudge with cherries and cranberries, and there was one
<v Speaker 1>toasted pecan. Wow. Thank you wow. I love it.
<v Speaker 2>So yes, thank you very much.
<v Speaker 1>Conundrums and send fudge Adriana.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, Adriana would like us to start asking for airstreams.
<v Speaker 2>Oh she would like an airstream travel trailer. Oh there
<v Speaker 2>you go, so you know we can.
<v Speaker 1>Let's work on that.
<v Speaker 2>Send us airstreams. We'll make sure she gets it, don't worry, no,
<v Speaker 2>just kidding. We really do appreciate that, and we always
<v Speaker 2>appreciate hearing from you. It means a lot to us.
<v Speaker 2>And so if you do want to reach out, just
<v Speaker 2>go to Gardening Simplified on air dot com. There is
<v Speaker 2>a contact form right there on our website, and you
<v Speaker 2>can even attach photos, which of course are always very
<v Speaker 2>helpful in diagnosing issues and seeing your celebrations. Of course,
<v Speaker 2>so I welcome you to reach out to us there.
<v Speaker 2>And you know we can't answer all of the questions
<v Speaker 2>just because some of them are too long and too
<v Speaker 2>involved and too hard to describe on the radio, But
<v Speaker 2>we do want to help every single one of you
<v Speaker 2>who does have a gardening question. So, and you'll get this.
<v Speaker 2>If you email us, you'll get a bounce back that
<v Speaker 2>immediately says, hey, we may get to your question on
<v Speaker 2>the air, but you can also reach us at proven
<v Speaker 2>Owner's Color choice dot com. There's a contact form there
<v Speaker 2>that will go directly to one of our horticulturists and
<v Speaker 2>you'll get a personalized response because you know we're invested
<v Speaker 2>in your success. We don't just tell you that on
<v Speaker 2>the show.
<v Speaker 1>It's so I agree.
<v Speaker 2>Anyway, what have we got in the mail bag this week?
<v Speaker 1>We're going to need your help, Stacey, because Gary's asking us,
<v Speaker 1>can you recommend a boxwood variety that grows fast and
<v Speaker 1>tall for a deer proof privacy hit?
<v Speaker 2>If only, if only I could, Gary the said, unfortunate
<v Speaker 2>fact for us in cold climates. And Gary did have
<v Speaker 2>a six one six area code in the phone number
<v Speaker 2>he included, so pretty sure he's here with us in
<v Speaker 2>West Michigan. But yeah, Unfortunately, the tall, beautiful box was
<v Speaker 2>that you see in English gardens or even when you
<v Speaker 2>go to the American southeast like Virginia and around you know, Willie,
<v Speaker 2>Colonial Williamsburg and that sort of thing are not as hardy.
<v Speaker 2>In fact, some of them are not hardy at all
<v Speaker 2>as the sort of more rounded, squat shorter ones that
<v Speaker 2>are much more common in our landscape. So it is
<v Speaker 2>unfortunately very difficult to find a tall boxwood hedge that
<v Speaker 2>is appropriate for privacy that is hardy to Michigan. And
<v Speaker 2>as far as fast growing, well that is the real
<v Speaker 2>pipe dream here because that is also not going to happen. Now.
<v Speaker 2>I will tell you Gary, I am trying to do
<v Speaker 2>this in my own yard with trying to make kind
<v Speaker 2>of a boxwood wall with a variety called John Baldwin.
<v Speaker 2>It does get to be about six to eight feet
<v Speaker 2>tall probably by the time I reach about one hundred
<v Speaker 2>years old, and if I'm alive to see it, and
<v Speaker 2>it is a very beautiful upright pyramidal boxwood variety. But yeah, unfortunately,
<v Speaker 2>between the fact that they are not as hardy and
<v Speaker 2>that they are much slower growing, that leaves those of
<v Speaker 2>us in cold climates in kind of a lurch. Of course,
<v Speaker 2>there's lots of breeders out there trying to find this
<v Speaker 2>kind of holy grail. In the meantime, I would suggest,
<v Speaker 2>if you have sun for it, do you consider a
<v Speaker 2>juniper as a deer proof privacy hedge alternative. They're also
<v Speaker 2>kind of slow growing, but they're much more widely available. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>we're much faster than a box but which wouldn't take much.
<v Speaker 2>They are one of the slowest growing plants. But yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I really wish there were gary and I hope that
<v Speaker 2>one day there will be. But for right now, looks
<v Speaker 2>like it's going to be a juniper.
<v Speaker 1>All right, boy, Stacy, I was in my landscape this
<v Speaker 1>morning and I looked at my lemonee lace elderberry and
<v Speaker 1>the buds on that are really nice and thick. Won't
<v Speaker 1>be long now that we'll be enjoying the lemonee lace
<v Speaker 1>and Pamela writes to us last year, I planted a
<v Speaker 1>lemony lace elderberry per your recommendation from an earlier show.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you very mulch, because we're both crazy about that plant.
<v Speaker 1>That's right. I understand I should plant two elderberries to
<v Speaker 1>get the best blooms. As I plan a new bed,
<v Speaker 1>I would like to add a second elderberry. Do I
<v Speaker 1>need to plant another lemony lace or a different one?
<v Speaker 2>Right? So age old question here something that is very confusing,
<v Speaker 2>and we do try to clarify this on our website,
<v Speaker 2>but I'm happy to clarify it here as well. So
<v Speaker 2>lemony lace elderberry will only set fruit or berries if
<v Speaker 2>it is cross pollinated with a different variety. So this
<v Speaker 2>isn't a situation like a holly where there's separate male
<v Speaker 2>and female plants and you need to make sure that
<v Speaker 2>you have a male and some females and only the
<v Speaker 2>females will get berries. The thing with elderberries is also
<v Speaker 2>the case with viburnums, is simply that they need genetic
<v Speaker 2>diversity introduced in order to set those seeds. So it
<v Speaker 2>shouldn't impact their flowering at all. But certainly if you
<v Speaker 2>want the berries and on lemony lace, I think they
<v Speaker 2>are quite attractive. They're red, they come out later in
<v Speaker 2>the season. They contrast beautifully with that bright golden foliage,
<v Speaker 2>so they are a nice kind of thing to have there.
<v Speaker 2>But no, you cannot get fruit on lemony lace by
<v Speaker 2>planting another lemony lace. Because our plants are clones of
<v Speaker 2>one another. They're vegetatively propagated, so that no matter when
<v Speaker 2>or where you buy a lemony lace elderberry, it's always
<v Speaker 2>going to be the same plant. The flip side of that,
<v Speaker 2>of course, is that they cannot serve to cross pollinate
<v Speaker 2>each other. The good news is, Pamela, I'm not sure
<v Speaker 2>where you are located, but the species that lemony lace
<v Speaker 2>elderberry is Sambucus rasamosa, is very abundant here in Michigan
<v Speaker 2>in the wild. So if you live near almost any
<v Speaker 2>kind of wild place, you see it in ditches along
<v Speaker 2>the highway, You'll see it all over the place. Native
<v Speaker 2>populations can serve to pollinate your lemony lace. If you
<v Speaker 2>live I'd say within you know, maybe a mile or
<v Speaker 2>so of some native Sambucus rassamosis. But that's the other
<v Speaker 2>key thing. If you are looking for a cultivated variety
<v Speaker 2>or something from a garden center, it should not be
<v Speaker 2>a different species. The other species it's really popular of elderberry,
<v Speaker 2>either Sambucus nigra or Sambucus canadensis. Those bloom much later.
<v Speaker 2>And you know, Rick was just talking about the fabulous
<v Speaker 2>buds that he's seeing on his lemony lace. Those are
<v Speaker 2>the flower buds. Because lemony lace is one of the
<v Speaker 2>earliest shrubs to flower in our garden. Probably yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>mean it basically goes kind of our sweet and low
<v Speaker 2>sweet box, and then you know a few weeks later
<v Speaker 2>you're gonna get flowers on the lemony lace. It flowers
<v Speaker 2>what's known as naked before the foliage comes out. It
<v Speaker 2>has these big, beautiful, lacy flowers. So if you're gonna
<v Speaker 2>plant another species, it's not necessarily the pollen wouldn't be compatible,
<v Speaker 2>but that that Sambucus nigro or Sambucus canadensis that's not
<v Speaker 2>going to be flowering until June, so no chance across
<v Speaker 2>pollination there. So you might be able to find another
<v Speaker 2>Sambucus resamosa. It can be a little bit tricky. I
<v Speaker 2>think there's one variety called Sutherland's Gold, but I think
<v Speaker 2>that because lemony lace is such a much better production plant,
<v Speaker 2>you know, for the growers to actually get to you
<v Speaker 2>that it's just a lot more abundant. So another thing
<v Speaker 2>that you can do and do tried with caution on
<v Speaker 2>this piece of advice, but if you can harvest some
<v Speaker 2>stems of an elderberry, you know, from a ditch or
<v Speaker 2>something like that. Obviously you don't want to go on
<v Speaker 2>private property or do this in any kind of park
<v Speaker 2>or anything like that, but you can actually take some
<v Speaker 2>stem and put them in your yard and let the
<v Speaker 2>bees kind of do the work that way, if you
<v Speaker 2>can get your hands on some of the native population.
<v Speaker 2>But again, they have to their blooms have to overlap exactly,
<v Speaker 2>so you'll know it's them, because there's not going to
<v Speaker 2>be other elderberries blooming. And I'm thinking that's going to
<v Speaker 2>probably be yeah, maybe a week or two here.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, it's I can't wait. And Pamela, let me suggest
<v Speaker 1>to you also that with my lemony lace elderberry in
<v Speaker 1>my landscape, I planted blue fortune agasthat ooh in front
<v Speaker 1>of it, and it gets tall enough so that it
<v Speaker 1>can use the lemone lace as a backdrop, and that
<v Speaker 1>contrast between the blue flowers and the lemony lace, that
<v Speaker 1>combination in a landscape really pops.
<v Speaker 2>Yes. In fact, I also have that combination, not deliberately,
<v Speaker 2>it just kind of turned out that way, but I
<v Speaker 2>do love it. It is I mean lemony lace. It's
<v Speaker 2>just it's such a beautiful plant, and it's such an
<v Speaker 2>interesting plant that even if you don't get the fruit
<v Speaker 2>on it, not to despair, because it is so ornamental
<v Speaker 2>on its own, and it really offers so much that
<v Speaker 2>the fruit is just kind of a bonus. I would
<v Speaker 2>also say, if you are the kind of person who
<v Speaker 2>is interested in using elderberries for culinary or medicinal properties,
<v Speaker 2>this species of lemony lace, Sambucus rasimosa, is the less
<v Speaker 2>desirable of them. If where's the fruit of Sambucus niagra
<v Speaker 2>or canadensis is juicy, The fruit on the lemony lace
<v Speaker 2>is kind of like a pithy, you know, like that
<v Speaker 2>like kind of spongy weirdness. It is also toxic, as
<v Speaker 2>is the fruit of the regular elderberry if it's not
<v Speaker 2>fully ripe. So again it's a nice ornamental feature. I
<v Speaker 2>wouldn't recommend harvesting it or using it for any purposes,
<v Speaker 2>So if you don't get it, it's not the end
<v Speaker 2>of the world. You'll still get beautiful flowers, beautiful foliage,
<v Speaker 2>and have an amazing landscape plant to show for it.
<v Speaker 1>Every time I hear about elderberries, I'm taken back to
<v Speaker 1>high school when I was cast in a play arsenic
<v Speaker 1>and old lace. Oh yeah, and drinking elderberry wine.
<v Speaker 2>Ah yeah, fine these days. Yeah, and you're going to
<v Speaker 2>need a lot of elderberries to make some wine. But
<v Speaker 2>you know, doesn't make it impossible. Anyway. We're going to
<v Speaker 2>take a little break. When we come back, we're finishing
<v Speaker 2>up our conversation on invasive plants, so please stay tuned.
<v Speaker 2>Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified Podcast, brought to
<v Speaker 2>you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Our award winning
<v Speaker 2>flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and tested by experts
<v Speaker 2>with your success in mind. Learn more at Proven Winners
<v Speaker 2>color Choice dot com.
<v Speaker 1>Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show as we address
<v Speaker 1>the issue of invasive plants today and Stacy, you've reminded
<v Speaker 1>me too that it's important with plants to understand the
<v Speaker 1>botanical name in order to properly identify plants and problems. Earlier,
<v Speaker 1>I mentioned the African tulip tree in Puerto rico. That
<v Speaker 1>is Spathodea camp panulata, But important to know that. Or
<v Speaker 1>I think of an invasive plant here in Michigan in
<v Speaker 1>spring into June. You see it all along the ditches,
<v Speaker 1>and that is Dame's rocket. But again important to know
<v Speaker 1>because if you're especially fond of this plant because you
<v Speaker 1>have memories of Grandma growing them in her garden, or
<v Speaker 1>you see them along the ditches and you simply identify
<v Speaker 1>them as being flocks and they look like flocks, it
<v Speaker 1>doesn't help address the issue that it is an invasive
<v Speaker 1>plant that produces copious amounts of seed and will outgrow
<v Speaker 1>other plants in short order. So there, I'm going to
<v Speaker 1>take a shot at this stacey. Hesperus matronalis.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, Hesperus matronalis. It's one of my favorite botanical even
<v Speaker 2>though the plant is kind of saying it's just so
<v Speaker 2>beautiful to say Hesperus matronalis.
<v Speaker 1>Well, hesperus comes from the Greek word for evening.
<v Speaker 2>As I am, it is not lovely. I think that's
<v Speaker 2>a beautiful word.
<v Speaker 1>And it's pretty too.
<v Speaker 2>It is very pretty. It has beautiful kind of cool
<v Speaker 2>color that like cool lavender color, you know, on a
<v Speaker 2>spring evening and it's very fragrant, and I know I
<v Speaker 2>should not be talking so rhapsodically about an invasive plant,
<v Speaker 2>but it's important too, because, Yeah, as you were saying, Rick,
<v Speaker 2>you need to know these scientific names, because that is
<v Speaker 2>how you're going to find out scientific information. If you
<v Speaker 2>were to go online and simply type in Dame's rocket,
<v Speaker 2>you know, the robots are going to think that you
<v Speaker 2>just want something like some old herbal remedies using Dame's rocket,
<v Speaker 2>or find out the medieval history of why it's called
<v Speaker 2>Dame's rocket or whatever. Whereas if you are then typing
<v Speaker 2>in instead Hesperus matronaalis or you know, you find it,
<v Speaker 2>you find out that scientific name, then you research with
<v Speaker 2>that scienceentific name, You're going to get a whole different
<v Speaker 2>set of results than if you just put in Dame's rocket.
<v Speaker 2>And you know, I recently came across the situation where
<v Speaker 2>this the importance of searching by a scientific name became
<v Speaker 2>especially clear to me. I saw a bunch of different,
<v Speaker 2>you know, and reputable sources online talking about the invasiveness
<v Speaker 2>of bush honeysuckle. Oh yeah, Now, there is a plant
<v Speaker 2>that we sell that is a North American native species
<v Speaker 2>called d'urvilla. The most common common name for the darvilla
<v Speaker 2>or Kodiak series is bush honeysuckle, but that was not
<v Speaker 2>actually the plant that they were talking about. And all
<v Speaker 2>the plant that they were talking about is a honeysuckle
<v Speaker 2>that happens to be a bush or a shrub instead
<v Speaker 2>of the more common vine, which is leniscera to terika.
<v Speaker 2>So these are totally different plants. But again, if we're
<v Speaker 2>just going by the scientific or just going by the
<v Speaker 2>common name, you're very likely to get confused. Now, we
<v Speaker 2>have specifically shied away from using the common name bush
<v Speaker 2>honeysuckle or our durvilla for this exact reason, because, you know,
<v Speaker 2>the actual shrubby honeysuckle that is invasive and is a
<v Speaker 2>terrible plant and terrible pests. We didn't want it to
<v Speaker 2>get confused with that. But still people will look up.
<v Speaker 2>They might say, oh, you know, hey, I saw this tervilla.
<v Speaker 2>I want to know more about it. They start looking
<v Speaker 2>into it. They go to a website, even a reputable website,
<v Speaker 2>which says, oh, it's bush honeysuckle, and then you're like,
<v Speaker 2>wait a minute, I thought you said it was native.
<v Speaker 2>How is this invasive so it is so important to
<v Speaker 2>take that extra time if you are a researcher, and
<v Speaker 2>I think a great many gardeners are researchers. We love
<v Speaker 2>diving in and finding everything we can out about a topic.
<v Speaker 2>So go in with your common name, if that's all
<v Speaker 2>you have, that's a great place to start. But take
<v Speaker 2>you know, those first couple of results. You know, Wikipedia
<v Speaker 2>is usually a great place to start. You'll find the
<v Speaker 2>scientific name there, and then after that, subsequently go through
<v Speaker 2>and do those searches using the scientific name, and then
<v Speaker 2>you're going to get scientific information instead of just you know,
<v Speaker 2>who knows what.
<v Speaker 1>Oh important point to be made. You know, you go
<v Speaker 1>back to the Dame's rocket. We were talking about it.
<v Speaker 1>It could be viewed by some people as a traditional
<v Speaker 1>plant because your frame of reference only goes back to
<v Speaker 1>when Gramma enjoyed that flox in bloom. But the reality
<v Speaker 1>is the plant's been around since the sixteen hundreds and
<v Speaker 1>is native to Siberia and Europe, and ant.
<v Speaker 2>Gramma was probably calling it flox or you know, because
<v Speaker 2>we common names, you know, there's nothing governing them. Anyone
<v Speaker 2>could make them up and a lot of us will
<v Speaker 2>find out that, you know, we may have grown up
<v Speaker 2>with some bad information, So never too late to get
<v Speaker 2>the right information.
<v Speaker 1>You've got it. Here's your limb a rick for today
<v Speaker 1>on invasive plants. Very short. Together, we can be persuasive
<v Speaker 1>to control plants that are pervasive. Some are out of control,
<v Speaker 1>so the land we patrol for invaders that are invasive.
<v Speaker 1>And again, Stacy, going back to what we said in
<v Speaker 1>segment one, it's more so about plants that in most
<v Speaker 1>cases are non native and get into the wild and
<v Speaker 1>displace plants that are familiar to that environment.
<v Speaker 2>Right, And you know, sometimes it's not such a clear
<v Speaker 2>cut line. I mean a plant that certainly you and
<v Speaker 2>I are well familiar with that A lot of scientists
<v Speaker 2>and invasive plant managers will go back and forth on
<v Speaker 2>is frag Mighties the giant read You know, there are
<v Speaker 2>people who think that's just basically an invasive native. There
<v Speaker 2>are also those who say it's probably not native. But
<v Speaker 2>it's been around so long that we can no longer
<v Speaker 2>prove whether it was indigenous or introduced. But it doesn't
<v Speaker 2>change the fact that Frank Mighty is a massive problem
<v Speaker 2>for a lot of waterways.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly, very big problem. And then you have some
<v Speaker 1>native plants that some people identify as invasive. For example,
<v Speaker 1>if you look at solidago, the Canada golden rod, which
<v Speaker 1>is an important plant in the landscape because it's important
<v Speaker 1>for pollinators blooming at a time when generally they're earn't
<v Speaker 1>as many blooms around. Or for example, Asclepias syriaca or
<v Speaker 1>the common milk weed, some people view that as an
<v Speaker 1>invasive plant. It's a native plant, but invasive because they
<v Speaker 1>can readily spread by rhizomes and you can find large
<v Speaker 1>colonies in a landscape.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's for sure, I mean it is. There is
<v Speaker 2>a question of your personal perspective as well as what
<v Speaker 2>you know sort of the government or the agencies consider
<v Speaker 2>something to be invasive, and you know, it's it's very
<v Speaker 2>difficult to sort of generalize about it too, because you know,
<v Speaker 2>one of the worst invasive plants in the UK is
<v Speaker 2>a rhododendron. I mean, it is super aggressive and a terrible,
<v Speaker 2>terrible problem. I absolutely despise it, and I'm sure there
<v Speaker 2>are so many of our listeners out there going invasive rhododendron.
<v Speaker 2>I can barely get the darn thing to grow, you know,
<v Speaker 2>much less have it be invasive and saladego are Solidego
<v Speaker 2>candidensis is terribly invasive in Asia.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, yeah, exactly, and yet our environmental ecological powerhouses the
<v Speaker 1>benefit of both milkweed and Canada golden rod, especially to
<v Speaker 1>our pollinator population. So it gets quite complicated as the
<v Speaker 1>Invasive Species Advisory Committee defines in invasive species as one
<v Speaker 1>that is non native to the ecosystem under consideration and
<v Speaker 1>whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or
<v Speaker 1>environmental harm to the environment and to human health. So
<v Speaker 1>all difficult. In the first segment also we talk about
<v Speaker 1>how positions can vary from state to state. Your your
<v Speaker 1>cup plant that you love in your.
<v Speaker 2>Landscape, that's an aggressive plant.
<v Speaker 1>It's an aggressive plant. So I noticed in my research
<v Speaker 1>that it's banned and considered an invasive in New York State.
<v Speaker 2>Oh interesting. Yeah, the only reason that it remains reasonably
<v Speaker 2>in check in my yard is because my soil is
<v Speaker 2>so dry. So yeah, it's it's very and it's so
<v Speaker 2>difficult to generalize, and we don't. We always want to
<v Speaker 2>give our listeners some sort of concrete, you know, takeaway
<v Speaker 2>that they can use, and you know, I think really
<v Speaker 2>the takeaway here is that since there is no kind
<v Speaker 2>of gold standard nationwide for the US or for Canada.
<v Speaker 2>You need to kind of go to that local state
<v Speaker 2>level and do a little bit of research yourself and
<v Speaker 2>it pays off.
<v Speaker 1>Right. You know, a plant with a complicated, long story,
<v Speaker 1>and we touched on this earlier. You wantamus a latus
<v Speaker 1>or burning bush, and it can spread into woodland areas
<v Speaker 1>and become a real problem. But that's some of the
<v Speaker 1>work that's being done by plant breeders. Stacey, you mentioned
<v Speaker 1>for our listeners and viewers to mention it one more time.
<v Speaker 1>Fireball seedless, so it's sterile. It is.
<v Speaker 2>Yep, you don't have to worry about it spreading. And
<v Speaker 2>again there's many ways that plant breeders can accomplish this.
<v Speaker 2>It doesn't mean that the plant is not still beneficial,
<v Speaker 2>that it's still going to flower and those flowers can
<v Speaker 2>still support insects with any nectar that it has. It
<v Speaker 2>just doesn't set seed, just like a seedless watermelon.
<v Speaker 1>Well, complicated topic, but hope you enjoyed this look inside
<v Speaker 1>invasive plants and maybe we'll have to do some future
<v Speaker 1>episodes on it.
<v Speaker 2>Well, it's a very massive topic and we could say
<v Speaker 2>a lot about it, but I hope we at least
<v Speaker 2>got people interested enough to find out for themselves what's
<v Speaker 2>going on in their area exactly.
<v Speaker 1>And don't believe everything you see in social media.
<v Speaker 2>Now it's for sure.
<v Speaker 1>Please, Thanks Stacey, Thanks Rick, Thanks Adriana. Thanks to you
<v Speaker 1>for watching us on YouTube, downloading our podcast, or listening
<v Speaker 1>to us on radio. Have yourself a great week.