Autumn Leaves Abound. Here’s How to Use Them to Your Advantage

Coming to you from STUDIOA 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. Well, Stacey Neil Sedaka sang it well when he
said, raking up is hard to do. Now you know, now you
know it's true. The leaves are pouring off the trees and now what now,
what do we do? And that's what I'd like to talk about today,
because it's not a fig leaf of your imagination. Money grows on trees.
They have nutrients and available, oh, let's say, structure to improve
your soil. I love this time of the year. Well, you know
it's people think of leaves as a chore, and undoubtedly if you have a
lot of trees. I have a neighbor I think he said that he gets
thirty five leaf bags twice a season, twice a year trying to rake up
all of the leaves, and so it can be a lot of work.
But yeah, it is a gift from nature because it is something that you
can use for free, right to improve your soil. Exactly, thirty five
bags, uh twice oh, my raking back. He has had one big
tree removed. It was it was in poor condition. So maybe he's down
to like twenty five twice season now, I don't know. Here's what I
love about the leaves. They're alive. Look at how colorful they are.
That means to me, instinctively I put them in my soil, something good
is gonna happen. I mean, Stacy, If you take a branch during
the growing season and you cut it, what happens. The leaves shrivel up,
turn brown and fall off. But in fall they're not shriveling, and
you know, curling up. They're falling off the tree in just beautiful technicolor.
Yeah, I'm gonna put those in the ground. Well, that's what
the tree wants you to do, right, otherwise the leaves wouldn't be fall
all over the ground. When we use leaves in our gardens, we are
imitating the natural cycle of soil improvement. And so there is of course,
again, when it comes to your lawn, you can't just leave all the
leaves and leave a thick layer if you want your lawn to survive. That
won't work. But when it comes to garden beds or areas around trees,
immediately under trees, by all means, leave the leaves, shred the leaves.
Yes, we brought along some shredded leaves and I was very impressed with
your leaf shredding device. Oh boy, I tell you what is that fun?
I call it the Cherninator. I'll be back. It's amazing to play
with. Oh. I got to tell you a quick story about that.
I have been People have laughed at me before because when I was younger and
crazy and I couldn't afford a leaf shredder like that, I would put on
a pair of goggles, ear plugs. I would grab the whipper snipper,
the weed whacker, throw the leaves in a garbage can and just have at
it. And you know it, Bruce, Yes, and the neighbors would
watch and laugh. That's how I used to do. Okay, well,
that is creative. Was it effective? It was effective? And if you
want to see the Cherninator, just tune us in on YouTube look for Gardening
Simplified Show and you can check it out. Yes, footage shot by Rick
himself of the Cherninator in action. Well, I have a lot of memories
on this issue. I mean I could talk about mulching leaves and leaves for
hours. It's fun. When I was a kid in the sixties, people
burned their leaves. Yep, they'd rake them to the curb. We'd be
out there riding our bikes in the neighborhood and in the afternoon, and I
mean the haze in the neighbor I think it was equivalent to smoking a couple
of packs of cigarettes every time we went out there. Yeah, it was
a scent of fall. The smell of burning leaves was very much a part
of the fall experience. But I am grateful that things have eased up a
bit in terms of the way people think about leaves. Do you need to
lighten up the load on your lawn? But you know, people are starting
to leave the leaves and in addition to building up the soil, it provides
shelter for all sorts of wildlife, forage for birds, and it's less work.
It's less and and fall. If you have a lot of trees,
who isn't looking for a little bit less work. Well, the leaves at
their end of the life, At the end of their lives, as they
float to earth, they have nitrogen, phosphorus and potash content. Carbon,
but it's also the organic content matter content in the soil. That's one of
the benefits of building a great soil. So I just I can't encourage people
enough. I mean, I go out there scoping out houses who have maple
trees, and I drive around and then under the cover of darkness at night,
I grab these beautiful leaf bags and take them to my garden. On
a previous radio show I did, I made the mistake of saying that I
was looking for maple leaves and needed some. You would think it was a
Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon the Leaves Kept Common, But I love it.
I'm just going to suggest that you do your leaf peeping or borrowing in the
day. It's a lot less sinister looking that way, but it's more fun
at night. Okay, all right, I don't want to take away your
fun. So well, let me give you a limerick on this issue.
Okay, beware those compostable thieves that steal your maple leaves to his car under
darkness, he drags your carefully packed leaf bags in Planta clause he believes.
Now that's a name that I got years ago. People would start calling me
Planta clause because there I am in the street lights at night, running with
these big bags of leaves to my vehicle that I'm going to mulch and put
in my garden. So what stemmed from that, no pun intended, was
a Christmas song. Here comes plant clause. Here comes planto clause. Right
down planet clause lane. He's got a bag that's filled with leaves from the
public domain. Here is trailer jingle jangle. Oh what a beautiful sight.
So jump in bed and cover your head because planta clause comes tonight. See
I think I've just I've cracked it here. The reason that you don't go
during the day is you don't want a confrontation world. They're going to say,
hey, if you're going to take the leaves, at least you could
rake them. Yes, you're just trying to avoid that entirely. And just
the leaf fairies come, the leaves go away, but they aren't helping you
with the raking. And when it's dark outside and I'm grabbing those maple leaves,
it's more difficult to shoot pictures and post them in social media too,
isn't that rick vice? One? More? Here comes plant clause. Here
comes plant clause right down Planet Clause lane fixing to take them. You can
watch through the window pane when leaves are falling. He comes calling, all
is merry and bright. Put bags by the road and say your prayers because
Planet Clause come tonight. So there you go. I had to get that
on. All right, all right, fair enough. Now when we shred
the leaves like this, Stacey and I work them into the soil, it
helps speed the decomposition process, and I find the following year I have a
lot of worms in the soil. Yeah, because it adds organic matter and
also oxygen, you know, by improving that structure. We talk a lot
about composting, and composting is great. You should absolutely compost, and leaves
are an important part of composting. But in addition, if you're grinding up
your leaves and putting them in, it's like you're composting right there. It's
happening in the bed rather than in your compost file. Exactly. So I
love it, Thank you, thank you very mulch. Now, of course
we can mulch leaves into turf grass. Also, we don't want to smother
the turf grass. But if you've got a good blade on that moor.
They're finally chopped. A lot of people, like you said, Stacy,
are leaving the leaves, which would make a great marketing campaign. They are
doing that, I think through like the Audubon Society or National Wildlife Federation.
I think something like that. Yeah, okay, so they're on to you
with that one, but we support it whoever says it. I'm sorry.
I just get enthusiastic about this because, like you said at the beginning,
it's free, it's cheap, it's so beneficial. Why not take advantage of
it? I agree, people go to great lengths to improve their soil when
they don't realize it's all right there in their lawn waiting for them, ready
for you, free for the taking. All right, bonfoliage, my friends.
We're going to move on to Plants on Trial today, looking forward to
this. As a matter of fact, Stacy's going to talk about a plant
that I love. I love them all. We say that every episode.
I think. Plants on Trial coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified Show,
Proven Winners, 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. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show. You know, it is leaf season and
I always try to w you have three hundred and twenty some varieties of prooven
winnows colored choice shrubs to pick from? How do you choose? So I
try to narrow it down some you know, episodes are more challenging than others.
This being a leaf themed episode was pretty challenging because indeed, all of
our shrubs do have leaves, so that makes a very very big, you
know, pack to pick from. But the shrub that I chose for today's
plant on trial is tiny wine nine mark. Yeah, very nice little nine
mark. And what's little about it? So it's about three to five feet
tall and wide compared to six to eight feet tall and wide, which is
conventional for the larger nine bars that are out there. So it is slightly
smaller in size. You know, whenever we talk about a dwarf plant or
a tiny plant, it's always relative to how big that plant actually gets.
You know, it doesn't mean that it's going to stay five inches tall.
It just means for a nine bark, it's pretty tiny because it's about half
the size. It's quite tiny, tiny wine nine bark. Stacey lay that
botanical name on me because I think it's a cool botantica. It is a
good botanical name. It is Phisocarpus opulafolius. Oh, it sounds so good
when you say it too, that's thank you. So the way that that
breaks down is Physocarpus means bladder fruit really so yep. So the fruit the
seed head is kind of like I mean, I would hesitate to call it
like a puff like a lot of plants that have like bladder like bladder campion.
You know, they have a big round kind of you know thing there
that's got air in it. This one is not quite like that. I
think it's a little bit more of a stretch. And the opulafolius comes from
the plant resemblance to Viburnum opulus. Makes sense. So Viburnum opulus is a
very popular plant in Europe. It's also known as gilder rose. And so
just because that kind of was the better established plant, Physocarpus is the one
that looks like Viburnum opula folius like Viburnum opulus rather than Viburnum opulus looking like
physocarpus. Also, because of course Viburnum is native to Europe and Physocarpus is
native to North America. It's one of our wonderful native shrubs. And so
generally speaking, when we're talking about botanical nomenclature, the European stuff tends to
get preference because Linnaeus was of course European. You're amazing, stacy, all
of that coming right off the top of your well, you know, I'm
nothing if not pedantic, especially when it comes to two botanical nomenclature. But
let's get back to tiny Wine and the leaf show. Because the other thing
that's tiny about tiny Wine nine bark is its leaves. Its leaves are much
smaller than the typical nine bark, and that kind of accomplishes two different things.
It gives it a very very textured look. You know, if you
look at Tiny Wine in the Garden Center, if you look at our photos
at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com, it has a much different look than you're
used to seeing with a Viburnum urbs. Sorry, now, I've got viburnum
in the head here, much different than a Phisocarpus, your average nine barker
phisocarpus, which is going to have larger foliage. And Physocarpus are foliage plants.
Yes they flower, and they have quite nice flowers, but they're generally
thought of as foliage plants. So it has a much more textural distinctive look
than your average phisocarpus. And those tiny leaves mean that it's never going to
be extra work for you in the garden because those little leaves fall and you
don't really have to do anything. They just kind of, you know,
drop and mulch the plant or blow away and right, this is one of
those like you know, especially if you are like my neighbor with his thirty
five bags of leaves twice a year. This could be a very good choice
if you don't like raking leaves. So let's talk a bit about what it
looks like. It is one of those purply black type nine barks that became
so popular about twenty well long ago did Diablo come out? Oh boy,
it's been some time, right, so a lot of people are familiar twenty
years at least, I'd say well over ten. Yeah, so a lot
of people are familiar with this variety of nine bark called Diablo, and that
came from the Netherlands and it was the first dark leafed nine bark to hit
the market. So we have nine barks growing abundantly through most of the Eastern
US. In fact, if you were to take a hike almost anywhere in
a number of different environments, you're probably going to run into some of our
native phisocrepas. Okay, now they are going to be green. You're not
going to go, oh wow, that's so beautiful. I have that at
home. It's going to look green and a little bit more plain, especially
if it's deeper in the woods. So, as is often the case,
Europeans look at our native plants and say, hey, this has actually got
some pretty good stuff going forward. It's sturdy, it's nice, it has
nice flowers. Let's see if we can tinker with it and get some nice
color going And that was how they introduced the variety known as Diablo nine bark
again about twenty some years ago now. So that was the first real dark
leaf nine bark to kind of take the botanical world or the horticultural world by
storm interesting. Now, a lot of people are familiar with that plant.
It was instantly popular because there was really nothing else like it, very easy
to grow, but a lot of people don't realize that it is not properly
named. Its name is not diablo, like the Spanish word for devil.
Its name is actually diabolo, which apparently is I believe the Dutch word for
top, like a spinning top. Oh, fascinating, And I've been saying
diablo for twenty years. Yeah, and so this is just you know,
we're in America, we're obviously we're familiar with Spanish, so we kind of
just our brains fill in and say, oh, it says diablo. And
so now if you were to go in and say, you know, I'm
looking for diabolo nine bark, they'd be like, oh, you mean diablo.
You just have to be like whatever you say, Yes, that's that's
what I mean. I got aed So whatever you plant, you plant.
The physocarbas has come a long way since Diablo. Now, Diablo was a
very unique and interesting plant, but, as is often the case with dark
leaf, nine barks, very susceptible to powdery mildew. So that did kind
of turn off a bunch of people. But here at prouven Winter's color choice
shrubs. Our breeding goals with nine bark are reduction in powdery mildew. We're
looking for resistant varieties that don't get powdery mildew. Now, if you have
the green nine bark, no worries about powdery mildew whatsoever. It seems once
we start getting in those colorful genes, that's what you know, kind of
makes it much more susceptible to powdery mildew than the strictly native species. But
again, tiny wine has been tested. Plant it in full sun with good
air circulation, you should not have any issues with powdery mildew developing on tiny
wine, specifically despite the fact that it has that nice again dark purply foliage.
Stacy's talking about tiny wine nine bark. You'll be able to find the
information at our website, Gardening Simplified on air dot com and Stacy. There
are people who are at their computers using the search engine of their choice and
typing in f I. But that's not no, it's not that well's hypeen
nine bark. That would be a little bit easier than trying to sound out
physocarpas but yes, Physocarpus is pH y s o z A r p u
s. And do you know where the name nine bark comes from? No?
Okay, So apparently it is because of the peeling bark, which has
supposedly nine layers. Now I have never counted if there are nine layers.
Interestingly, hydrange of arborescents, our native smooth Hydrangea sometimes goes by the common
name wild seven bark. Okay, it is also peeling. Now, I
have seen mature smooth hydrangs. I have seen mature Physocarpus I the number of
layers to my recollection are not distinguishable. So I don't know. You know,
as with many common names, it's a good story, but not necessarily
rooted deeply in truth. That's interesting, it really is. Though somebody took
the time to count the layers or just estimated, Oh, ten barks just
didn't sound as good, so they went with nine bark. I do that
to people, you know, like if we're looking at a tree, I
say there's seventy five and thirty one leaves on that tree, and if you
don't believe me, you come get an answer somehow, how, somehow or
another. So whatever you call it, nine bark. The peeling bark,
I think really does give it an extra layer of interest. This is again
we talked about the leaves falling. It's a deciduous shrub, so those leaves
are going to drop in autumn. But when they do, as your plant
gets more and more mature, those the bark and those main stems really start
to peel quite dramatically, and I think it can be very very nice.
It's a good plant to plant, work and be backlit, so you can
kind of get that, you know, more of that effect to really especially
in winter, or you know, if you have like some sort of like
a a you know, spruce tree or something you can plant to kind of
set that off. So it's just a nice little extra feature. The flowers.
It has really pretty flower clusters in spring. It's in the rose family,
which is another reason why so many nine marks are susceptible to powdery meldew,
because of course the whole darn family there is like a powdery mildew jamboree
for the most party. But it's a great native shrub and particularly if you're
choosing a variety like tiny Wine, easy to clean up after, great color,
very easy care, just make sure you're planting it in full sun to
reduce that powdery meldew good air circulation. So follow those spacing recommendations and I
think you'll find it makes itself right at home and just about any kind of
landscape. Love it. I'm sold, all right. If you want to
see pictures or a lot more information about Tiny Wine nine Bark, just visit
our website, Gardening Simplified on air dot Com. Click on the show notes.
We'll have everything that you need right there. Now. We're gonna take
a little bit of a break. When we come back, we're opening up
that gardening mailbag, so please stay tuned. At Provenminner's Color Choice, We've
got a shrub for every taste and every space. Whether you're looking for an
easycare rose and 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. Greeting's gardening friends,
and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's one of my favorite times
of the entire hour. We are with you where we answer your gardening questions.
It's one of the ways that we try to simplify gardening for you.
So if you have gardening questions, don't hesitate to reach out. You can
reach us at help HLP, at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com, or just
go to Gardening Simplified on air dot com. Right there, we've got a
contact form you can attack to picture. In fact, even if you leave
a comment on a YouTube video, Adriana will say hey, I got a
great question, and sometimes we'll include those as well. So many different ways
to ask your question. And so what we got in the mail bag this
week. By the way, I got a nice message this past week from
some ladies who listened to the Gardening Simplified show while walking through the park in
Tokyo, Japan. Oh how lovely. Yeah, so that's wonderful. That's
very nice kenyah. Yeah, you never know. Keep those messages, questions,
comments coming. We appreciate it. Mary Wrights. I planted tulips and
a container and flower box last fall. I planted some in the garage no
light and the rest in outside pots with wire on top to keep critters out.
They were nestled together on my patio in a corner, but otherwise not
protected. I only got a few blooms in all the places where they were
planted. Pots were plastic, flower box was freestanding metal. What's the best
way to ensure success next spring? So interesting question now, I think I
had talked about when I, you know, realized that I had a horrible
deer problem and I had purchased tulips and thought that I was going to be
able to grow them and realize I was wrong, and so I tried to
just force them and I put them in plastic pots, you know, my
back patio there to get the cold treatment. Because this is what you can
force them, you know, put them in these containers, let them sit
through winter, get all the cold that they need, and then bring them
indoors, say sometime in starting in like mid February, and blamo flowers early,
which no one's going to complain about in February. But yeah, in
my case, the squirrels had dug them up. But it sounds like Mary
had taken precautions on that. Now. I do want to quickly, though,
go to the one in the garage because my suspicion there is that that
did not get enough cold treatment. What do you think? Interesting? Well,
through the years, I've forced a lot of bulbs, and nine times
out of ten when people have problems, the containers are above ground and got
too cold and the soil froze. In other words, when we talk cold
treatment, we were thinking forty degrees thirty five to forty, not rock solid
ice frozen. And if that happens, because the concept behind the dormant period
is for the roots to be able to develop so that when the warmth of
spring comes and it shoots up the stem, it has some gravitas at the
base to be able to sustain that plant or the spring comes, or you
bring it inside, which is like tricking it into an early speak. So
however you're doing this, but the cold is important the effort to grow those
roots. So perhaps it wasn't the cold, but it could have definitely been
dryness in the garage. And I know I've definitely made a big deal over
the past several weeks about how important it is, especially for tulips to be
very dry in their dormant period and spring in summer in order for them to
not rot. But they do need some water in the winter, so it's
possible that the plants were just sure too dry. Another thing I think a
lot of people don't realize is if you are trying to pre chill bulbs yourself
by putting them in a refrigerator, or you stored them in a refrigerator trying
to prolong their life. If that refrigerator has apples or certain other fruits in
it, it will actually cause the bud to die within the flower, within
the flower bulb. So I don't know if that was an issue. Ethylene
gas. The ethylene gas, yeah, it causes that to die. So
it could be that the bulbs weren't deep enough. I feel like there's a
lot of possibilities. It's kind of hard. I don't think that the container
itself the material of the container, because I know Mary mentions metal versus plastic.
I don't think that would be an issue now, as long as the
container has drainage holes change. I've been in many greenhouses that have huge coolers
full of Valentine's flowers, Easter flowers. They're forcing these bulbs that temperature is
right around thirty five to forty degrees and higher humidity and higher humidity. Yeah,
so I would say, try make sure you water them after you pot
them up, and hey, did you know this about tulip bulbs. If
you are forced them and you plant the flat side facing out, that's the
leaf side, and it will make a nicer little displayed it. You're right
the largest leaf and we are in bulb discount time, So please, by
all means, go out get those discountula bulbs, even if you can't grow
them because you have deer like us, put them, pot them up,
water them. When you pot them up, water them occasionally through the winter.
Bring them inside starting in February. Maybe she also brought them indoors too
quickly and they didn't have enough gold. Could be and Stacy, you're correct.
The bulbs this time of year fifty percent off, just like me.
Scott writes to us, send photo. He's sending photos of a mystery fungus
in his mulch, and ask what's going on here? We have lived here
twenty seven years. I have never seen anything. So you know, when
we talk about questions that we can answer on radio, I often shy away
from those that have photos because it's kind of hard. Of course, you're
listening, you don't know. You can go to YouTube and see the mystery
fungus yourself. But I thought that Scott's question was it's really good, and
I thought that it I wanted to take the time to answer it, and
we will have those photos for you in YouTube or on the show notes at
Gardening Simplifying on air dot com, because I wanted to talk about this because
there's so many people who have a similar experience to Scott, where you know,
hey, I've lived here for so long and then all of a sudden,
this wacky fungus is growing in my yard and my cursed what's going on?
And the answer is simply, it's your mulch. So you can see
in Scott's photo that he has some relatively fresh looking red dyed mulch in there.
And mulch, as we've talked about many times on the show, so
great for plants. It really helps to create an ideal rooting environment where the
roots are going to be able to grow vigorously for longer into winter, earlier
when spring comes. So we love mulch, and to me and probably to
Adriana too because she's a big fan of mushrooms, mulch has an added benefit,
and that's that it can grow all sorts of crazy stuff. You bet
it's it's amazing to see. We throughout the years, I've seen this often.
We and I'm not trying to be gross here, but we do call
it dog vomit fungus is what we call it. It looks like a dog
at eton a bottle of Frenches mustard and right there on the mulch, and
it moves too. Yeah. Yeah, So it's it's incredible to see,
and you're right what it needs to do. You know, it's a fun
guy who just kind of hangs out until the conditions are right, and then
if there's bacteria or decaying matter, then it's starting right. So it's it's
really even the fungus comes from spores and not seeds. It's very much like
a seed germinating. The conditions were just right for this to take place.
So the spores were there, the moisture level, the humidity level, your
mulch was at the right stage of decomposition, because some funguses were going to
need, you know, less decomposed mulch, some will need more decomposed.
So it's this ongoing like flux of possibility. And so Scott's very cool.
Mystery fungus is a coral fungus Adriana helped me identify it. Like I said,
she is a burgeoning microphile herself. Nice and they're beautiful. I mean
I thought that the phos of the coral fungus were really quite beautiful. So
nothing to be alarmed about. If you don't like them, by all means,
go out there and kick them down or dig them out. You can,
don't. You don't have to worry about it. There's nothing you can
do really to not let them grow. They're going to do what they do.
But personally, my advice is enjoy the show. Yeah, I agree.
I invite neighbors over, we set up lawn chairs. You stirred a
little bit at reshaped. Oh the dog vomit? Yeah that is ah.
I love fun guys, and like I said, fun guys just kind of
hang out until conditions are right. Then party. Party on the mult you
can stir the mulch. That helps a little bit too, Yeah, by
giving it more oxygen. But again, people, I think they freak out
because they think it's harmful, and it's not harmful. It's just a natural
decomposition process. And I don't know. If I had it growing in my
yard, i'd consider myself blessed. Yes, exactly, well said all right,
Jan writes to us, I live in Hardiness Zone five B, central
New York State. I have a potted rain lily. The directions for growing
indicate that the pot should be moved indoors to a dark, cool area and
allowed to go dormant. Do I water the plant over the winter during this
period of time googling allowing plants to go dormant has resulted in mixed opinions.
Please clarify. So it's such a good question, and I can certainly understand
Jan's confusion, And we might be guilty of this ourselves because we've talked about
people over wintering plants and containers, bringing them indoors, and talked about it
being important to have some moisture. But the answer with this, and with
so many things in horticulture, of course, is that it depends. And
when it comes to bulbs, and particularly bulbs from the southern hemisphere like Raylanly
zephyranthes, they need to be very, very dry over winter, So this
is not one that you would be watering. So once it starts to go
dorm it, you're gonna just kind of taper off your watering. It will
start to absorb those leaves naturally take in that energy. And then while it
does not have those leaves, you're going to basically want to water it not
at all, maybe a little bit halfway through its dormancy period, just to
make sure it doesn't dry out completely. But it helps I think to look
at the areas where these bulbs are native too, and then research what their
winters are like, how much rainfall is actually happening. And I don't know
offhand Rezephyranthes is native too, but Chile or whatever, and that will give
you a sense of how you can taper. You know, your behavior with
the plant to its actual needs. So very little to no water through the
winter. When spring comes up and you take it out, you can give
it some water that will help it spring back into growth. And then you
just repeat, yeah, you nailed it, Stacey, right on. You
know, in nature, you think about its natural habitat. It's in drought,
it's dry. Then we get some heavy rainstorms. How is it you
put it? Blam a blama it is, that's ei They're called rain lilyes.
So anyway, don't love it too much, back off and it will
reward you with its love and tern we're going to take a little bit of
a break. When we come back, Rick has got branching news stories,
so please stay tuned. The Gardening Simplified Show is brought to you by proven
Winners, 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 and the distinctive white container at your
local garden center. All right, folks, it's time for branching news.
Not breaking news, but we're not making this stuff up today. In branching
news, Stacy, let's start with this. You haven't given it much thought,
probably, but choosing the right leaf bags makes your fall chores easier,
especially if you've got a lot of leaves or rugged materials to clean up.
And when I was out there being plant to clause, carrying those bags around
and set them out, I noticed all these big chain stores had their logos
bright and big on what a great marketing ploy. You put them by the
curb. Everybody sees them there. Yeah, yeah, they know where you
got your leaf bags. It's amazing. Well, if you want information popular
mechanics, of all websites. Did some research on leaf bags, so we're
going to post that at our website, Gardening Simplified on air dot com and
you can do your own research. Do you have a preference. I'm just
you know, in case any listeners want to leave you some bags, paper
bags, any paper bag. You're not picky about the bag yourself. I
reuse them. Oh well, so if you have a favorite, you know,
let them know so they can be sure to It's like leaving cookies and
milkout for plantic claws. Exactly it, That's exactly it. Oh. I
like that. My mind is just racing right now. Okay. Leaf words
of the day. Mammock not hammock that you take a nap in, But
mammock is a verb. It means to break and tear, cut into fragments,
like we do with our leaves. Oh, I've never heard that before.
Mammock. Are you changing the name of your I might mammica nater.
I told you I'll be back. Yeah, so, uh, you got
my mind racing here. All hollus bullus holess bullus. That's an adverb.
I love that. It means all at once. Oh holes bullus. Just
the leaves fell off the tree. Holess bullus. So there you go.
All right, Beloit, Wisconsin. People go to Noodles and Company to save
a buck, not to have one interrupt their meal. But that's what happened
in Beloit, Wisconsin last week when a deer came crashing through the restaurant's window.
They have surveillance video, et cetera, et cetera, fun to watch.
We're gonna put that link at the website. And then after the deer
left, no one was harmed and the deer was able to leave just fine.
The location has reopened, they did a deep clean, and they're now
offering a two buck mac and cheese special. I like that macaroni and cheese
is like a warm hug for your taste, Budge, you know, Yeah,
do you think the deer like it? Evidently not. He hit the
road, but the buck stops there. Hey, dark eyed junkosh love them?
Okay, I figured you would. That's why I threw this into the
mix. A small sparrow that's synonymous with winter's return across much of the United
States. So, in other words, when you start seeing these dark eyed
junkos usually underneath your feeder because they like to pick up the seed underneath the
feeder. They've they've moved further south from where they love to be way north,
and so you've got these ground feeders that are high around in the snow
under your feeder. So just thought i'd bring that up that if you're seeing
them, that means winter is a round. Yes, I definitely see.
The return of the junkos is kind of like the end of the season.
Yeah, So you know, for better or forurse, I think I might
have had hummingbirds and junkos overlapping for maybe a week or so. Okay,
so as the summer goes and winter comes, they do overlap a little bit,
so a harbinger of winter be looking for them, dark eyed junkos.
Six people used a large potted plant to break into a drive through window at
a South Carolina pharmacy last week. Unbelievable, sir. A valance footage shows
six people in mask and gloves using a large potted plant to break out the
pharmacis drive through window. I beg your garden. That's a terrible use of
a plant. I mean, if you're going to break into something, I'd
think you could find a better tool. I guess you don't have you don't
have puns prepared for this. Uh no, well I'll tell you what the
uh this is. This is just so shocking. Uh. These these people
who use these the potting soil and the plant are partners in grime. Let's
call them that. In breaking this window. It's just awful. I don't
know, I just thought i'd bring it up. Do you think when their
trial comes and they're selecting the jury members, they're going to have to be
like, you know, are you a gardener? He's out plant lover?
Do you post pictures of house plants on Instagram? Yeah? I don't disqualify
you from serving on the jury if you actually cared about plants. Probably good
pointing on that jury, because I have a real problem with this too.
First of all, breaking into a pharmacy, what a dumb thing to do,
but to use a potted plant? Right, Yeah, I guess they
just really didn't like the plant. Well, let's move on to something else.
Let's move north to New York City. They've found an effective way to
kill rats. The strategy involves pumping carbon monoxide directly into rat burrows. Now,
of course, anyone who's spent time in New York City. I know
you've been there a long time, Stacy, and for myself to have visited
many times. And when you go down in the subway and you're waiting for
the train to come and you look down there in the tracks, it's quite
unnerving actually. So they have a real rat problem. But they have found
that this is so effective that it will wipe out the rats in areas where
they use it almost one hundred percent. They just get into these burrows and
pump in carbon monoxide and it's done. So, you know, I have
a lot of if you are squeamish about rats, I have a lot of
rat horror stories. I'll bet you do. You know, because I was
the horticulturist Tavern on the Green and at the time we had these big,
elaborate, you know, flower changeouts that we were putting new places, and
everything had to look tiptop all the time. So we would always have the
stock of you know, eight inch potted material in the back there, and
I'll tell you, you start spacing a bunch of eight inch daffodils or moms
or impatients close together, you've got a little rat heaven. Yes, So
I would go to pick them up and the rats would run across my feet.
Oh man, you don't forget that feeling. I can tell you that.
Oh, they have an enorm mouse problem in New York City with these
things. Yes, so, yeah, you asked about puns with rats,
It's easy. This is ratical. They have no regrats. That one's a
stretch. They erraticated the problem. This is going to be a frequent ratual.
I'll stop there. You know, rats aren't great, and of course
they can transmit a lot of disease, but I think they're, you know,
largely misunderstood. I didn't hate them as much as some New Yorkers.
Oh my, well, A very agile chihuahua has left the Internet in stitches
after a video of the dog climbing a tall garden fence without any issues went
viral. So we're gonna put the link there at the website. I watched
it too, Just this adorable dog, they call him spider dog, and
he climbs this tall garden fence because he wants to be on the other side.
And it was posted in social media and people just went nuts over over
it. It was pretty cute. I watched it. Yeah, it was
a chainling fence. So it's not like he was scaling some sort of you
know, stockade fence or something like that. He didn't jump it, he
just but he took his little paws and climbed right up that chainling fence.
And finally in branching news, firefighters have tackled a blaze at a farm growing
Christmas trees in Dundee. This is in Scotland. The Scottish Fire and Rescue
Service said six fire engines were dispatched to the Tayside forestry after a blaze broke
out on Saturday, October twenty eight. Wow. Is that sad? Or
I shouldn't end on a sad story like that? No, that is I'm
not even going to give it a pun. Christmas tree farm burns down.
Well, you know, it's unfortunate. But the the conifers, they have
a lot of volatile oils, so they are like I know, in areas
out west here in the US where fire scaping is really important, they often
recommend not using conifers because of those oils. If it gets very very dry,
they kind of you know flash, so you know much this is this
is one of the reasons why lawns became popular as they kind of serve as
a fire break. I'm depressed now, I'm sorry. I'm like the rat
stories. Well let me let me finish hunt this sometime. We're going to
do a show just on rats. Yes, let's do that. The Royal
Horticultural Society, which runs the Chelsea Flower Show, hopes to make gardening and
nature more accessible to young people inspire the next generation of growers, and so
in the coming year they have a no adults allowed garden and it's being designed
by a group of primary pupils from the Sullivan Primary School in Fulham, London
who have been working on it since this past summers. There's a positive to
end. Well, I feel a little left out, but sure it's good
for the kids. Well, this show has been good for me and I
hope it's been good for you and it's a kick in the plants to do
this show with you. Stacy. Thank you, likewise Rick, enjoy your
week and a big thank you very much to adrian Or Robinson for everything she
does as engineer and producer of our show. Thank you, Adriana. Most
of all, thanks to you. Keep tuning in, share it with friends
and neighbors. Watch on YouTube, look for us on Instagram. Visit our
website Gardening Simplified on air dot com. Look for our podcast wherever you get
your favorite podcasts. Have a great week, See you yeah, m hm hm