Fact or fiction? Spotting online plant scams

Coming to you from Studio A. Here at proven winners, color choice shrubs.
It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella, me, Rick
weisst and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. So how about those characters offering
exotic but fake plants, bulbs, and seeds. They're busy trying to get
your credit card and reeling you in with amazing images, promising colors, characteristics,
and flavor like you've never seen before, all in your own backyard.
Operators are standing by. Yeah, deception, and I'll tell you what.
It's nothing new. Think about the traveling medicine shows, popular in the late
eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, a traveling group that held performances and entertainment
to lure people in and then give them a sales pitch for their miracle cures
and elixers. Today it' ai images doctor to make plants look incredible, plants
bursting with juicy, rainbow colored fruit. I suggest you visit your local independent
garden center or greenhouse, and I'll tell you what. Stacy a clue for
me right off the bat. Rainbow color is your first clue that this may
be a scam. There is no pot of gold, it's not somewhere over
there, and they should be sent to Prism. Get that one. I
do get it. I get it. It's amazing what you see out there
today. You know, I think you said it all when you said it's
incredible, because it is literally incredible, as in, there is zero credibility
with what these people are claiming they are going to sell you. And I
am really getting frustrated. You know, we all have seen the rise of
AI artificial intelligence to create all sorts of stuff over the last year, but
this is the first year I'm really seeing the it really impact plants and what
people are claiming they can sell you. And I pretty much went off on
a rampage a couple weeks ago when this total AI generated plant that looks like
the flowers literally look like little kittens, was sweeping social media. I wish
I were, I wish I were, and people went bananas for it,
you know, because it's combining things that people love, cats and flowers,
and it was, you know, a creative image. But some company saw
this and said, oh well, we'll just pretend that this is something that
we can sell. And I could not believe when you saw the ads for
this, the number of people who were like, I love this, I'm
ordering right now, I just ordered, and a few people like is this
real? And I have to say, in most cases, if you have
to ask is this real about something you're being advertised online, most likely the
answer is no. No. Well, humanity's appetite for rare and visually striking
plants goes back hungry of years, and of course we remember, while we
don't remember, we remember reading about tulip Mania, where a single bulb could
be up to ten times a person's annual income. And even today I noticed
on Tulipsinholland dot com there are tulip bulb hucksters out there targeting tourists to buy
tulip bulbs during winter, spring and summer, a time where these bulbs have
been out of the ground for months and months and probably are not going to
perform for you, and most people don't know that. So it's kind of
a twofold problem, right. We have a problem of people just wholesale making
stuff up, either generating it through AI and it's completely fake, or taking
a photo of something that is real. And I think you see this very
often on hostas and dailyly, so some of our most popular perennials out there
and they photoshop them and they're putting all sorts of crazy colors, just like
you said, they ought to go to Prism for this sin against horticulture,
and so they're totally unbelievable. But then there's also this out of season,
so it's real stuff, but they're giving you the false impression that you're going
to be successful to something that you aren't. And I so lately, after
the whole kitten fiasco, the kitten seed fiasco, I've seen I've been sart
been served myself tons of ads for seeds like seed mixes, yes, and
these videos that they're claiming it's just like someone sprinkles like a bunch of seed
down and then next thing you know, oh my gosh, and it's just
a million different flowers and it's totally fake. And you know, working for
a plant company and being a horticulturist, I take this very personally and I
do get upset about it because when people fail, as they invariably will,
not through any fault of their own, but because they are literally being sold
a bill of goods at the outset sure, they're gonna blame themselves. They're
not gonna what happened. Yeah, they're not going to say, oh,
hey I got you know, I got scammed or someone sold me a bum
steer. They're gonna be like, oh, you know, the kitten plant,
I just I couldn't grow. I didn't water it right, or I
put it in the wrong spot right. Yes, So they'll play themselves and
then they'll actually miss out on plants that they could be successful with, and
that to me is a real problem. Avocado trees that grow in Zone three,
blue venus fly traps, pink house plants, amazing multi color butterfly bushes.
Have you seen these well, I've seen those. Yep, Yes,
every color under the rainbow, blue water melons, white dove orchids from seed.
You know, I've found that house plants, houseplants, seeds are real
problem. Yeah. I think seed is definitely a major indicator unless you're buying
it from a reputable seed company that you know has been around for a long
time. If they're claiming that something is only available as seed, that is
an immediate red flag for me. And especially orchids, because I'll tell you
something about orchid seeds, A lot of people might not realize they are literally
dust. They are less than dust. Yes, because the interesting thing about
orchids, one of the many interesting I guess, is that they don't have
any sort of food source around their seed. So like if you think about
like a bean seed, it's got those big food storage organs so that it
can generate energy for the seedling while it's germinating. Orchids don't have that.
They have to be in the specific place for them to get their nutrients in
the seed. And so even if someone was legitimately selling you orchid seed,
which is a huge if the chances of it growing are minimal from most people.
That's well stated and a great example of Stacey. Orchid's certainly a problem.
So beware of shockingly low price points, shockingly bizarre photos. As a
matter of fact, on our website, I think I'll post some of my
indications that this may be an AI photo somebody. I'm certainly not a professional
photographer like Adriana is, and I'm sure she can spot them just like that.
But some pointers there on our website on how to spot some of these
photos. You would like to rant on this, Stacey and so would I
so let me give you a lima rick or a lima rant this week rainbow
tomatoes give me a break, and it can't taste good. For goodness sakes,
it looks so unique. Shipped from Mozambique. No return shipping for this
garden fake. The photo is doctored bay buy Ai into something we can't identify.
It offends my intelligence causes due petulance online horticulture gonna rye seed shipped in
a milligram. Come with a planting diagram. But don't bother digging, cause
soon you'll be wigging over this bogus garden scam. It's amazing. They dramatize
you won't believe your eyes. It's plant science fiction, horticultural dereliction. You're
in for a big surprise. A polka dot luscious blue pear. Where's it
from? Buyer beware, put away your credit card. It's gonna fail in
your yard and make someone a millionaire. I think that there are people out
there, Stacey, who are making big bucks off these scams. Absolutely,
and that's also very upsetting because it's just the same as if they were scamming
you with anything else, and you know it is also an issue. I
don't know if you remember a couple of years back when there was all these
news stories about random seeds arriving to people and people were freaking out. I
mean, honestly, these sellers could put anything in a package and sell it
to you. It could be an extremely noxious weed, it could be a
toxic plan. I mean, I don't mean to be alarmist here, but
there really are no standards for what these people are putting out there. So
it's so important to have that vigilance, not just to prevent scammers from having
even more means to scam, but you know, for issues of your own
personal and local safety. I agree, look for testimonials if you're ordering,
and of course there can be fake testimonials out there, but in social media
places like Facebook have plant scammer groups that out these people. Oh good,
I'm glad to hear that that can be helpful also, And I remember the
houseplant craze in twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, and when the pink congo philodendron came
out and they created that pink color based on ethylene gases, where you'd get
this pink plant thinking it's a rare plant, and then after a few months
it's green again. All of these types of scams are out there, they
really are. And you know, we do have a number of tips that
we're going to share on the website at Gardening Simplified on air dot com to
help you determine. But one thing I do want to mention is scientific names.
And a lot of our listeners will kind of bulk at scientific names.
Oh boy, that's for the plant knobs be in place again. But a
lot of times a lack of a scientific name is a red flag. But
in the infamous kitten aiflower example, they did have a scientific name. I'm
giving air quotes right now if you're not watching us YouTube, and it was
if you actually searched that scientific name, it was a bermeliad. Didn't look
anything anything like the plant. So a lot of people they are counting on
them not to do that due diligence. Yeah, that's true. Good point.
And for me, my favorite out there are those multi colored tomatoes where
you got bright blue, yellow, orange, pink, polka dot tomatoes all
on the same vine. Don't buy it. Coming up next, Plants on
Trial, We'll see how Stacy ties this subject into her Plant on Trial this
week. That's coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified Ship, Prooven Winner's
Colored Choice Shrubs cares about your success in the garden. That's why we trial
and test all of our shrubs for eight to ten years, making sure they
outperform everything else on the market. Look for them and the distinctive white container
at your local garden center. Greeting's Gardening friends, and welcome back to the
Gardening Simplified Show, where the theme of the day is trying to prevent you
and anyone you know and love from falling for fake plant scams online. And
boy are they abundant right now. I mean you cannot personally, I cannot
open a social media app and look at it without seeing something. And you
know, those ads are largely unregulated, so it's not like there's any way
to necessarily check. And so I think that that is an issue for people,
is they want to believe or you know, there are some things that
truly are innovative. And one thing that you may have heard about this season
is the glow and the dark petunias. You know, I haven't heard about
those yet. No, So that's actually legitimate. That's actually legitimate, So
not to muddy the waters here. But there really are some things happening that
are true, and then a bunch of fake things that people are claiming are
true, and then it starts to make those waters even muddier. But yes,
the glow and the dark petunias are are real. How much they glow
I do not know. I think right now there available only through a Kickstarter
where a bioengineering company is offering them. But from all reports they do somehow
glow. But what people I think really need. It was good for me
to hear that there are resources on Facebook plant scam groups that are trying to
out these scammers. But I do just want to say if you are wondering,
before you spend any money, please know that you can reach out to
us and the best way to do that. I mean, of course,
you can find us at Gardening Simplified on air dot com, but we only
check that help at Gardening Simplified on Air dot com, website or email inbox
only about once a week. So if during the course of the week,
if you see something like this and you're concerned, you're wondering, is this
really real? You can reach us at Provenwinners, Color Choice dot com.
Click the contact box. Christina or myself will get back to you and we
will be happy to weigh in and save you the money and stop these scammers,
because that's the only way it's going to happen if people keep buying from
them, and then of course, once the season's over, they disappear,
never to be found again. They might they have a satisfaction or money back
guarantee, but they're going to be long gone by the time you try to
make good on that, you know, so you won't be happy to be
that resource for you. But again, reach us. Reach out to asset
proven winners color choice dot com for a faster response than here on the show.
This is cleansing and it feels really good to get this out there.
And whatever you do, don't buy donut seeds because you're gonna get cheerios.
Yeah, I've seen that. And April Fools is coming, so you know
you will see that one going around. So April Fools, be especially careful.
It's this Monday, so watch your step and your wallet. So yeah,
you know, I like to try to tie the plants of the week,
the plant on trial in with today's theme, and so how do you
do that? When you're a company selling real plants to real people, great
plants, really nice plants, and still kind of keep in with the theme.
So I went through all of our plants. I thought long and hard
about it, and today's plants on trule is Invincible Minima Vette Hydrangea. I
love it, and it is a real plant. It is absolutely real plan.
I have seen it many many times myself, and the photos that you
see of it online or on our website or on Instagram do very much represent
the plant itself. And you know, we don't alter the plants in our
photos because what good would that do us. We want to show you a
product on the tag or on the website that's a representative of what the plant's
actually going to do in your yard, because if it isn't, you're not
going to be happy, and then you're gonna come to us and we're gonna
have to make good on that. So you know, we don't want to
fool people, and so we are very forthcoming and honest about those photos.
We don't alter them. So sometimes I think that in real life, not
usually in the photos. I have found that of all of our plants,
Invincibile Minimavett hydrangea is the one that is most likely to sometimes look a little
bit fake in real life. Wow. And there's a good reason for all
of this, and that is that it is a triploid plant. And that's
a way that you may have heard here and there on the show. And
basically what that means is that the breeder, doctor Tom Rainey from North Carolina
State University, as he was developing it, he used a technique that caused
the chromosomes to appear or to develop in sets of three, in set of
sets of two, like most normal plants would do. And what that means
from just a practical standpoint is that those extra chromosomes in every cell actually physically
make the cell bigger. There needs to be more space for those extra chromosomes,
So even as small as a chromosome is, that cell still needs to
be bigger to accommodate them. And of course plant cells, the walls are
rigid, so those cells actually expand and that can result in all sorts of
manifestations in the plant itself. And in the case of in Vincio mini mauvette,
and in most cases of triploid plants, and there's many tripoid plants out
there. Daylilies especially are one that you'll often find the defining characteristic that you
see over and over again is thickness, So you have really thick, leathery
foliage. The flowers tend to be very very thick and almost a little bit
kind of stiff in a way. And in the case of an vincebel mini
mavette, those stems are what you're really not gonna believe on this plant.
And that's what I was going to ask you. With the smooth hydranges,
sometimes I consider them a little floppy. Yeah, the stems on me this,
I don't think it's possible for in vincebel minimavette to flop. Maybe if
you grew it in like complete dark and it really got stretched. And I
know every time that we have had them in the garden around the office here,
they are one of those plants that I personally this is a little embarrassing,
but I personally can't resist kind of giving them an old boin, you
know when I walk by, because they can take it and they just like
bounce right back. The stem is practically like rebar it is, for this
is a dwarf plant. That's only going to be about two and a half
to three feet tall. But the stems really are uncannily thick and strong and
sturdy. I'm glad you admitted that, because I wasn't going to admit that
I do that, and I like to do that with hydrangea heads. Yeah,
a little bit of a bomb. Well, you know, it's not
as satisfying when it's like an Annabelle, which this is related to as a
smooth hydrangea. That one's just kind of like, you know, floppy and
moving around where this is going to be that you know, like buoying.
It's like you'll have to supply the sound effect yourself. It does not actually
make the sound, but it does actually have that kind of feeling in the
garden. And so that stem strength is a really really important feature again,
Rick, of all smooth hydranges. Because you may not know the term smooth
hydrangea, it is most commonly referred to in the marketplace as an Annabelle hydrangea.
Yes, that's the word that most people know. But annabel is a
specific variety of smooth hydrangea that was introduced in the nineteen sixties by a professor
at the University of Illinois named doctor Joe McDaniels, and he found it growing
in Anna, Illinois and Southern Illinois, introduced it to the market, took
the world by storm. Everybody loved it, and it really kind of transformed
the way people think about hydrangeas because this is a new wood blooming hydrangea,
so no pruning. It incorrectly, very hardy, hardied down to USDA's own
three and it had mop head flowers. And then for about forty plus years
nothing really happened in the world of smooth hydrangeas. But of course the goal
was always out there to get those stronger sounds, because anyone who grows Annabel
can tell you you get a strong summer storm. That thing is on the
ground no matter what best practices you implement, and we will give you best
practices. It's just an inherent quality of that plant. It's just what it
does. Yeah, when I was on Cape Cod last summer, that's what
I saw. So when you're shooting pictures, you practically have to lay on
the group because they're flopping old and because it's a shrub, it's a little
bit too heavy for something like a ke andy ring to work on. It.
So our goal at proven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs has always been to develop
these stronger stems so that the flowers when they are at peak and we get
those summer thunderstorms like we do so often here in the Midwest, that they're
still going to be standing up at the end of that Invincible Mini Mauvette,
I think is one of the best examples of this. That's huge and it's
but it's actually small. It's two and a half to three feet tall,
whereas Annibal's going to be more in the four to five foot range. So
that's a really nice feature too. Fits in nicely with your perennial garden.
And the flowers are Mauvette purply pink kind of color, and so up until
we were able to introduce the first pink hydrange of arborescins, which was Invincible
Spirit back in about twenty ten, white was the only color available. But
with the breeding of Doctor Rainy in Vincible Minimauvette brings this like almost kind of
purply pink color. It's much more purple than our other pink hydrange arborescins are
and it's just this cute, tidy little mound. It almost reads to me
in the garden like a perennial like a salvia or something like that, because
it's just so mounded and so tidy, and that's not how people generally think
of smooth hydrangeas, you know, especially so for our friends across the fruited
and rooted plane. The next question, Stacey would be hardiness. Hardiness.
It's a great question. So smooth hydrangs are generally hardy from USDA zone three
through a heat tolerant through USDA Zone eight in vinceviil minimauvet. So that triploid
factor, those extra chromosomes did have the unusual effect of actually slightly decreasing the
hardiness. So we consider in vincebel minimauvette hardy to USDA zone four instead of
zone three. So that does take off some people. It's still quite quite
cold tolerant, especially for a hydrangea, because when we get into these more
colorful blooms, even if you live in zone four, even if you live
in zone five, you might want a pink hydrangea, a pink hydrangea macrophila,
and you haven't had success. This gives you the chance to have a
similar look, but on a plant that's much hardier, more reliable and easier
for you to grow. Yeah, so like you mentioned Stacy grows or Balloons
on newwood YEP. Okay, so listen. We're going to put all the
information on our website at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. There's so much to
say about this plant. You really have to see it for yourself. You
can pick up on a lot of the traits that I'm describing in the photos
that we're going to share, so look at them closely. And if you
see this in your garden center this spring when you're shopping, definitely take a
moment to compare it to the other hydrange of arborescents around it, and you'll
see just how different it really is. We're going to take a little break.
When we come back, we're opening up the garden mail bag, so
please stay tuned. At proven Winner's Color Choice, We've got a shrub for
every taste and every space. Whether you're looking for an easycare rose, an
unforgettable hydrangea, or something new and unique, you can be confident that the
shrubs and the white containers have been trialed and tested for your success. Look
for them at your local garden center. Creeting's Gardening friends, and welcome back
to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we are talking about fake plants, AI
plants, scam plants, and of course all the other stuff that we normally
talk about, like answering your garden questions. But before we get to that,
I do want to just mention you one of the things that we were
talking about when it comes to detecting scam or fake plants is to search online,
use a search engine of your choice and try to find out more information.
And I mentioned these glow in the Dark petunias that are coming out this
year generating a ton of buzz. And the difference with these is if you
search for them, you're going to find a whole bunch of additional information not
from their website, mind you, but from other websites like the USDA that
they granted approval for this plant to be sold, and that helps to give
a lot more credibility. So take the time. If you are wondering again,
you can reach out to us, but take the time to find out
and if it is legit, if it truly is such a breakthrough innovation that
it looks exactly like a cat when it flowers, there's going to be other
sources, you know, writing about this plant. It's anything that's truly,
truly innovative does not exist in a vacuum in these days, so just another
little Your results may be cat to strafi. Yeah, I think that they
will if the phone is glowing there too, like the petunas. So anyway,
if you have a garden question for us related to real plants, fake
plants, whatever, we're always happy to help. You can reach us at
help HLP at Gardening Simplified on air dot com, or just visit Gardening Simplified
on air dot com and click the contact form. You can send us a
message there and you can even attach a photo. So what's in the melt
egg today? Rick, Jamie and Gino right from Connecticut. We love hydranges,
have planted a few bushes in our Zone six landscape. The bushes we
have are a few seasons old and have never really performed well. We've puned
them down in winters previously. However, after listening to your podcast, and
in particular the one about hydranges, we decided, when in doubt, don't
prune? Is that? No, Stacy, I love hearing that, So
this winter we just let them be it looks like there are buds forming and
I'm hoping that blooms better this year. Did we do the right thing by
not pruney? Yes, they did, Yes, and now we can see
buds. Can we cut off dead branches going forward this season? And when's
an ideal time to do that? Yes? And so Jamie and Gino did
include photos, so I am able to confirm that this is indeed a hydrange
of macrophilla or a hydrange of serrata, both of the type that bloom on
old wood, which means that all through winter they're going to have their flowers
for the following season, so for summer twenty twenty four. And you absolutely
did the right thing by not pruning them. If you can't tell what kind
of hydrange you have, or you don't know why or if you should prune
something, as they've noticed, do not prune, and you have hopefully saved
your hydrange of buds. It looks like they are healthy and doing well.
And now that you can see where those buds are emerging, and I'll share
these pictures on the show notes at Gardening Simplified on air dot com. You
can go ahead and cut off any portions above where that growth is emerging that
hasn't shown signs of life. And sometimes this happens, like if you have
a really harsh winter and you have a snow line. You know, the
parts that were under the snow might have been more protected, and so you'll
see deadwood above that. So once you're seeing that new growth, it's perfectly
fine to go ahead and snip off those dead portions or the portions that aren't
showing signs of life. It's also similarly okay right now if you did have
a hydrange that was blooming regularly, to cut those flowers off to make room
for that new growth. But just a word of advice to Jamie and Gino
and anyone else who is seeing something similar to what they are with their hydranges.
We're not quite out of the woods yet. In fact, we are
in the hydranger zone. Yes, oh, good one. I like that.
You know, I haven't used that one on the done. I mean,
it's you know it good. It truly is the hydranger zone because this
is in some ways the worst time of the year for hydrange is because we
had warm weather. I've never been more proud of you than this. We
still have a long way to go. So you know, I've had those
warm temperatures in March that pushes the hydrangees to start growing, and you know
it's still March. It's late March, but it's still March. And very
often for those of us they're in zone six. We're in zone six.
It's not at all uncommon for us to still have frosts and freezes. And
the more those hydrangea flower buds come out and emerge, the more jeopardized they
will be by those late season frosts and freezes. So you've gotten this far,
but just a word of advice. If you do have very very cold
temperatures predicted and your hydrangs are leafed out at the point where we're seeing Jamie
and Gino's, just cover them with like an old blanket sheet, towel,
not plastic, something like that, just for the night that those cold temper
you're threatened. You can take it off the next morning and that's enough just
to keep the frosty air from contacting those delicate buds and preserve the flowers.
So again we're not out of the woods just yet. Still have to get
through probably the next six ish weeks. Again, it always seems like we
have a frost on Mother's Day, like without fail. So keep an eye
on them, keep an eye on the weather report. But I think that
you guys should be in for a fantastic display this season. We always get
a hard frost here in Michigan late April and then, as Stacey would say,
blamo those swelling buds. Yeah right, And I was at a flower
show this past weekend. Let me interject, some folks were saying they took
your pruning advice and it's worked great for them. So i'd encourage you to
do the same and consider planting some of the Let's Dance hydranges. Also,
yeah, absolutely, Oh they were bred to deal with Yes, we definitely
developed them with that in mind. So if you make a mistake and prune
them, you should still get some flowers. But if you don't prune them,
you're really going to see a spectacular display. Lusiana writes to us,
and I hope I'm getting your name right. Good afternoon. I love your
show, and I too think life is too short for proper plant placement.
I like her attitude, kindred spirit, love it, love it. So,
Lusiana writes to us, says, my question is regarding red and yellow
twig dogwoods. I understand that to keep their branch colors vibrant, I should
be cutting them to the ground every other year in late winter, maybe every
year. So the question is should I cut them down as soon as I
plant them if I just bought them in late winter or early spring. So
it is a great question, and we've talked about this here and there on
the show. But what Luziana is talking about is our native red twig dogwood
Cornis Sarsia, very common plant through most of the Midwest and the Northeast,
native and also very popular in landscapes. But what happens with this plant is
when the branch is get much beyond their two year mark, they start to
develop like a quirky bark instead of that colorful, smooth stem that they have
when they're younger. They get dull, and you know, they're just building
up that bark, and that's just how it goes. Of course, the
only reason you're growing them is for those colorful stems. So if you want
them to continue to be maximally colorful like they were when you bought them,
then what you have to do is prune them to make sure that they always
have this younger than two year or younger growth on them. So Luciana,
I do not think that you should prune your new plants. There's no need
for that. I generally would recommend a strategy where probably by the plant's second
year in the ground, you are going to go out and take out in
late winter early spring a third of those oldest branches. So just identify the
ones that are thickest, that are maybe starting to develop some of that quirky
bark like growth, and you just take your lappers or hand pruners and snip
those out, and that's all you need to do. A lot of people
do manage them by cutting them to the ground, and that's a fine way
to do that if that's what you want. I personally don't think that works
as well for most residential situations because then you've just got you know, stump
fest for a couple of weeks, and that's not that fun. So my
personal approach is to just sort of manage a couple of the stems every year,
so you're just keeping that younger, more colorful growth. But if you
prefer to, you know, rip off the band aid as it were,
you can pull art it, and we talked about that a couple shows ago
are copposite, copposite, Yep, just go ahead and cut it to little
stumps. So it really depends on you know, what you're willing to deal
with in your yard, the amount of time that you have to spend,
and the look of the plan that you're going for, because of course,
compassing it is going to keep it a little bit smaller. Oh. Birdman
has a comment, I grow mind for the food value. Oh, because
the birds love those little white berries and they're beautiful and they're beautiful and they
make a beautiful big about a four or five foot tall bush, red stems
all through it. But they are barkie, yeah, but they're just a
gorgeous shape. Yeah, And you know Birdman is right. So Birdman is
our surprise guest for the fourth segment, Surprise everybody. He's absolutely right.
There are ornamental features that you do miss out on. If you are pruning
your red twig dogwood, you know, really severely like that, you won't
get the flowers, and thereby you won't get the fruit because of course the
fruit develops from the flowers. The flowers are very nice, and I think
you're absolutely right. I love the fruit. And for many years I hadn't
seen the fruit because I was so used to seeing the plants being managed and
pruned. I was on Mackinaw Island and I saw this patch of red twig
dogwood just covered in white fruit, and I was just I mean, it
was breathtaking. It was absolutely beautiful. Yeah, I'll see that out there
too. Now a lot of people will prune them back because they're doing it
specifically for Christmas decorations in the bright color, right, right, So you
know, this is just such a great example of what it means to be
a gardener. Is that we learn the facts about the plant, and then
we interpret those facts to get what we want out of the plant, to
get it to do the reason that we bought it in the first place,
or we learn new facts and new reasons to use the plant and then implement
that in our approach. So all you really need to do is that fact
finding gathering, and then you get to make the decision. It's beautiful.
I love it. It is a beautiful thing. Every opinion spins off another
opinion and another angle, and that's what I love about guard Yes, gardeners
definitely develop opinions. We're gonna take a little break and when we come back,
we're gonna have Birdman Bill Stovell right here in the studio talking about bird
housing, So please stay tuned. The Gardening Simplified Show is brought to you
by Proven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens have
been trialed and tested for your success so you enjoy more beauty and less work.
Look for Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs in the distinctive white container at your
local garden center. Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's time for
branching news and on today's show, we are going to interview a popular guest
on the show, The Birdman, Bill Stovell, has swooped in and our
topic today is going to be bird housing and why not. Nationally, mortgage
interest rates are up significantly, there's a lot of housing shortages, but we
got to think about those birds that are nesting at this time of the year,
and I want to make sure there's no housing shortage for them. Stays
right, They can take that up between themselves, but we got to do
what weekends make sure they have plenty of choices. So Birdman, thanks for
joining us again here on the Gardening Simplified Show. Well, thanks for having
me. We do use recycled cedar, by the way, little short pieces
from a mill near us. That's as much as we need. Fantastic that
right up, but tedter It makes it really good material. Yeah. For
that birds can get their toenails in it, and they can't get it in
steel or in plastic, So stick with wood. Oh there's also a great
insulation factor in wood, which we use in housing, and it's practical here
in the hot summer, this is a little cooler in the winter, it's
easier to warm this house up. And that was going to be one of
my questions Birdman, when it comes to bird houses and putting them out in
spring, what type of material should you use? And you've answered that question
because you do see many decorative bird houses out on the market. But you
would say, when push comes to shovels, so to speak, use wood,
use wood. Yes. So my mother in law had a decorative birdhouse
someone gave her as a gift and she put it outside because she was just
like, oh, you know, it's a birdhouse and it was wood,
but it had like a bunch of like crazy stuff glued to it, and
so they screwed it to a tree, and wouldn't you know it, the
next year she had bluebirds. Wow. Well, that's a fact, because
the only thing that bird is looking for is not how decorative it is.
It's the little around entrance hole. And if there's a cavity inside it,
then those really decorative things can maybe have enough space for a run, which
is probably more common than a bluebird. Right, But that's very common,
and so do specific hole sizes attract specific birds. It's kind of the opposite.
A whole size restricts larger birds, so the inch and a half bluebird
sized hole is universal because the smaller birds can all fit in that. So
you're likely to have smaller birds like chickadees or wrens or tit mice or things
like that in that house, but you're also likely to get English sparrows,
which are not fun. So by making the entrance hole smaller like this one,
which is an inch and a quarter, then the sparrows can't fit in
there, but the desirable bird that you're looking for can. It brings up
a good point, and that is in spring we see birds making nests using
landscape materials to make nests. Probably the most famous, at least in my
mind, would be robins. So the point is how many birds require a
house? What kind of birds are you trying to attract to your yard.
Well, in my bird book, there's over a thousand species of birds,
but only eighty are cavity dwellers. And there are two kinds of cavity dwellers.
There's a primary cavity dweller and the secondary cavity dweller. The primary one
is my competition. They're the woodpeckers. They're the ones that make the holes,
and then they use the house for that season, and then they vacate
it and make ane in the next year, so that house is available for
the other birds. So before people were here to make houses for them,
nature was taking care of itself. It's a great system. Wow, Yes,
fantastic. It is such an amazing system. And I've seen that in
the place where we go birding that you know, one year we discovered a
hole that was being used by a downy woodpecker, and then the next year
was using used by rens, and it was just so incredible to see sort
of this transition, and you know when you have those moments I think,
where everything just suddenly falls into place and makes sense. It's just such an
amazing feeling. That's some years ago in the forties and fifties, they were
noticing that the bluebird population was really bad, and it was because in the
plains they were cutting down all the trees there were not leaving enough woodlots.
And then they decided that maybe we could make bird houses to replace that,
and that was the beginning of a lot of bird houses being made, and
now the bluebird population is huge, right. And was that a similar thought
that spurred on the Purple Martin house craze. Yes. And the wood ducks.
We had real trouble with wood ducks because that's a big cavity in a
dead tree. But by putting wood duck houses out and we get a duck
will have like sixteen babies. Wow. So you get a lot of bang
for the buck. You need a lot of space space and they pop out
and the way they go the we're talking to the birdman, Bill Stovell,
and the house that you're holding their Bill, I put one of those up
in my yard that I got from you. Bill creates these homes or builds
these homes. I had tree swallows that moved in. You are lucky.
I know it was a beautiful bird. Those swallows are. You're very likely
to get either bluebirds or tree swallows. And if you put them in pairs
about thirty feet apart, you may get a pair each. Because they'll fight
off the English sparrows in many cases, so gaining up on them, so
they're getting. Nature is helping itself. Now. Of course, for human
beings April May June our big search for a home months. Realtors will tell
you that. But of course in spring, these birds are nesting and they're
looking for natural materials to put into their nest. Through the years, I
have seen birds using the the inflorescence of ornamental grasses, using dryer lint.
I even have seen some birds fly by with a Marlborough cigarette butt in their
mouth. It wasn't nesting they were talking about, but it is true.
Correct nest. And for the gardeners out there, I would suggest be a
sloppy gardener until later in the spring. Let the let your garden mature,
leave the seeds there. We're all winter long, and you'll have birds in
your garden all winter long. That's great. And I love my garden because
right in the corner we have I had to put a fence around it because
of the deer. I put a bluebird house, and she's always watching me
in the garden. She then comes down and gets you know, when I'm
turning the dirt over finding out what else is there, So it's she likes
us too. Now I have a question, since we're, you know,
talking about social media and fake things on social media. For many years people
were sharing this thing about like, oh, you can, if you're a
knitter, which I am a knitter, you know, put your yarn scraps
in a suet cage and let the birds use them to build nests. And
then it became dryer lent, and then it became pet hair. And now
it seems this year I've been seeing kind of a backlash to that, where
people are just saying, like, don't put this stuff out. The birds
can fend for themselves. You know, what is your perspective on that.
Should we help the birds find nesting material or can we inadvertently cause more harm
than good. I think it depends on the material that they're using, because
they can't make a value judgments or chemicals involved, but I'm not sure it
makes any difference. If you put some things out for them to use as
nesting that's kind of neat to watch it. There's even little chunks of things
like that. You can buy in a store, a little bag with nesting
materials, and there's not wrong with that. But they'll like, my wife
shall choose what she wants, and let's go down that road a minute,
man, And that is what does a bird look for in a house?
Convenience location where it's mounted, the color of the house, aesthetics, I
mean, what's a bird looking for? All the above for bringing that up,
Sure, a house should be kind of dozzling colored natural color because they
want to be private and in a safe place, high enough so that the
predators can't get to it easily. Many of the books say to put houses
way up high. That's the only reason that the holes are in the tree
way up high is because that's where the woods tender has nothing to do with.
The birds don't have much of a value in heights. It's like fish,
how deep is the water? They don't care, and the birds don't
care because they're flying. Good birdhouse if you're mounting it, just put it
like four or five six feet up. The bigger houses like wood ducks or
owls that you should put them eight or ten feet up and back on a
big tree. For chickadeese, put them back in the edge of the forest
edge. For bluebirds, put them out out near the near the fields so
they can get at them. You know. It brings up a good point
now for those who are watching us on YouTube. Bill in your right hand,
you have the house that could be mounted on a tree, a post,
wherever you decide to mount it. The birdhouse to the left, which
I personally would refer to as a wren house. Maybe I don't know if
I'm right or wrong. Correct, Okay, a wren house that has a
hook in the top, and I would think that if you hung that thing,
the birds are going to get dizzy in there. Well the wind blows,
I think. I want to remind you that wrens are swingers, and
they like to have this mobile. They really enjoy it. Really, yes,
they really enjoy it. And I've had problems with this house because I
could see last spring that there was sticks in it, which is what wren's
have in their house. But when I opened it up to clean it,
because you need to open it up to clean it, I started taking some
of those things out, and the lady ren got in behind me and was
scolding me because she was already building the nest. And I backed away and
I could see her taking old sticks out and putting new sticks back. So
if she's put new furniture in there, wow, not that was fun.
But in the spring is the time to take the old nests out, not
in the fall. Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that because I
always feel guilty when I clean out like the birdhouse. You have to your
right there, I clean that thing out, I pull the pin, open
up the side and clean it out. So tell me again, when should
I do that? Now? Now, in the spring before they start building
their nest, right, take the old out and clean it out. And
once in a while you found a mouse in there, but mostly you'll find
last year's stuff. Sometimes you'll find two or three nests in here, one
on top of the other. And this is easy to get at. And
I point this out because I've got a friend that bands birds, and he's
got four different golf courses that he has blue bird trails on last year,
he banded five hundred birds. Wow. And he can get at them with
this house because he can reach in the side of it and grab the bird.
Oh, and get a hold of it, and then put the little
band on and let the bird go, and then it'll come right back to
the house. Because they imprint to the house. They don't worry about a
human. You can go and look in the house and they don't. They're
more interested in the house and the family than they are in you. Wow.
And there's a hoax out there that we leave a scent and they'll be
shy of that. Number one, birds don't smell very well. They smell
okay, but they don't smell very well. But they do a good sense
of smell. But they just overlook that. Their interest in reproducing is a
lot greater than worrying about somebody's aftershave. Wow, new meaning to the word
a bird in the hand. Yes it is. And the swirling wren house
was not a fig leaf of my imagination. They're cool with it. They
love it. They love it. And you said that the ren house on
yours. The whole is too small for sparrows, so it's unlikely to get
sparrows, they cannot fit in it, Okay, the case with the chickenees
houses and wren houses and the others. An inch and a quarter, an
inch and a half, it's the size to tell fit in. But anything
lower than that they can't fit in. All right, that's good to know
because otherwise, Yeah, those sparrows will take advantage of anything that they can.
If you have a sparrow problem, let them nest, take it out,
let them nest again, out and they'll give up the eventually give up,
yes, and then you can the good birds that you want will come
and you'll leave them alone, of course, And that happens to me every
year. I have a fence throw and I have a tree swallowed at nests
and a couple of bluebirds at nest. But I just have to go through
the because my neighbor feeds crushed corn cracked corn, and the sparrows love it.
So I've got a harbor of that. Let me tell you what it's
Steve Allen, who used to work at the Kalamzuo Nature Center. He got
over three hundred blue birds, one hundred and twenty tree swallows, and he'd
been doing it a few years. He had seventy three that returned. Wow.
So and one of the nests had an albino in it from the previous
year. He was looking for the albino, but it didn't show up,
but one of its siblings showed up, so he had that. And so
they come back to the same area. And birds have their own territory,
and it's likely to be right around your house. If you feed birds,
you'll be close to close to your house. And if you feed through the
winter and through the summer, they'll nest near where they have a food source,
and you'll have less bugs in your yard, and you'll they'll find nesting
places right where you live. Yeah, that was my experience with tree swallows.
And they came back a number of years. The initial year, what
they did was by the road we had a mailbox and underneath that a newspaper
box a slot for the newspaper, and they the first year they nested in
there. So I put one of your bird houses right out there by the
road by the mailbox. The next year they chose the house instead of the
newspaper box, which I don't blame them for doing that. Well, she
had good taste exactly, so Bill I was also thinking. It's often recommended
with bird feeders that they be placed a certain distance away from the home to
avoid bird strikes into the windows. They're very active in spring. Does the
same apply to bird houses, that we should put them out at least ten
feet twenty feet from a home or windows? Do you think that that would
do any good with houses? I would put most of them out away in
the yard, not very close to the house at all. The exception of
that are the wrens, and they love to be right at the house.
If you hang a little house like a ren house right on your porch in
an area that you're not using a lot, you know, but they'll be
saying to you all summer long home tweet homes, tweet home. Yes,
but these other ones put out in the yard, and don't put them two
close together. You know, you need some space. So I have a
standard quarter acre city lot. What would be a good number of bird houses
for me? So it would just one be a good choice? Or could
I do multiple? You could do multiple. I don't know what the corners
of your territory. Early you know you may because they birds don't have the
same borders that we have, so they don't look at your yard and say,
oh, right there. No, you go there to have food.
I don't know there to have housing. But you can go to the corners
or up in trees right right around there, two or three Okay, they
should kind of be out of sight of one another. If you're going to
put multiples, like one in the front yard and in the backyard and then
one in the corner of the porch or something like that, and fill to
the yard up. All right, I'll give it a try. Obviously,
this is a great thing, especially if you have kids around or grandkids,
to be able to watch these birds and spring so much fun. Anything you
want to add birdman as it relates to nesting and bird houses for folks,
this spring, well, now is the time to put them up. But
anytime it's a good time to put a bird house up. It doesn't have
to be in the spring. But they're looking for them now, so you're
likely to have a successful placement right now. But you can put them up
in the middle of the summer. You can put them up in the fall.
Birds use these houses in the winter for roosting, so that when it's
really cold, they go in there and they can maybe two or three birds
all over in the same house and stay warm. So in the fall leave
the old nest in and then take the old nest out in the spring,
so that by filling the bird house up some it there's less space to have
to heat up. Well, Stacey, there's obviously a great connection between gardening
and plants and birds in our landscapes. And if you have a question for
the Birdman, of course you could send that also to us along with your
gardening questions Gardening Simplified on air dot com. You can see where you can
send us questions. We love those questions and love tying those beautiful birds into
our landscape. Tors absolutely, Rick. Many of my best dealers are in
garden centers. They have specially special sections of it. And then there are
a lot of brick and mortar stores that specialize in outdoor birds in particular,
so there are many places to find products like these, and so often that
people that are in those stores are very knowledgeable. Yeah. Sure, don't
pass up to your local people. If you can support your local businesses in
the gardening industry, it's just fantastic. Birdman. Thanks for swooping in here
today and talking housing with us. We really appreciate it. I thank you
very much for let me come in. Well, that was great. I
know I've got my work cut out for me this weekend. I'm going to
get some bird houses, get them put up, and wait for them to
just move right in. Thank you bird Man, thank you Rick, and
thank you Adriana, and of course thank you so much to all of you.
We hope you have a wonderful week ahead.