Favorite Herbs, the Secret to Cilantro, and a New, Non-toxic Way to Manage Slugs

Coming to you from Studio A at Proven Winners Color Choice shrugs. It's time
for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella me, Rick weisst and our engineer
and producer Adrianna Robinson Stacy. Today we talk about herbs because I have time
on my hands. A bad pun right off the bad thy m e.
But as Stacy reminds me, if you have to spell it out, it's
not that great a pun. So let's move on. You have sunshine,
you have containers, They're easy to grow. And one of the trends in
gardening is all things Mediterranean. So Stacy, as we enter the heat of
summer, why not herbs? Oh? Why not? Indeed? I think
that. You know, we've talked a little bit about some of the luxuries
of gardening. The luxury of having your own cut flowers out your back door,
the luxury of having your own herbs out your backdoor is something I really
can't put into words. You know, you're sitting there thinking about what you're
gonna have for dinner, and then you say, well, shoot, I
don't have any cilantro and then you say, wait, yes they do.
Yes, I think garden and that is such a great feeling. I love
growing herbs. I grow a ton of herbs, and so yeah, you
don't have to twist my arm. Well for all gardeners, because herbs tend
to be easy to grow, Stacy, I would dare venture out and say
that they're to a degree pest free too, just by their nature. They
really are. And I'm proud to say that that deer don't eat them.
Yeah, I being how much luckier can you be? The tomatoes, forget
it, peppers, they'll nibole them. The herbs, they never touch them,
and I am so grateful for that. But you know, interestingly,
I was actually just thinking over the wheat. Last weekend. I was planting
pesto perpetuo basil. You know, it is such an amazing basil. So
it's variegated, which is cool and different, but it doesn't flower. It
never flowers, so you can keep getting that foliage. It doesn't get woody
and really really resonance instead of the plant putting all its energy into flowers at
some point. So it's beautiful. It's fragrant, and for many years I
had a problem with the asiatic garden beetle on my basil. You know,
that. I also call it the coppery menace. It was the only thing
that would eat basil, and it would absolutely skeletonize it. Now that problem
has abated for me a bit knock on wood, But I always found that
they never touched my Pesto perpetual. But that really is like the only herb
pest I have ever had to contend with in many, many years of herb
garden. Well there's pesto besto and a masil basil Italian sweet basil, A
number of varieties, as Stacy said, that really don't do much as far
as flour initiation is concerned, and so you get more benefit from the plant.
I call it basil instinct. And I love to plant basil around my
tomatoes because it makes the tomatoes taste better. No scientific evidence, but there
you have it. I love time, also, Stacy in A favorite of
mine is wooly time, and I grow it for its ornamental nature, not
its herb name. Yeah, wooly time does not sound terribly appetizing, right,
but it is a beautiful plant. I grow a lot of time,
and would you believe it, I am self sows abundantly for me in my
garden. I mean it pops up everywhere, and that's really nice. So
wherever the parent plant is, when that's getting a little old, I'm sure
to find some seedlings around that are just getting into the prime of their life
and really productive. That's great. I'd like to know if you grow some
lemongrass. Lemon grass is a great herb. First of all, for the
botanical name, I'm gonna clabber this stacy, but simbo poken simbo. It's
called lemon grass. Ah, And lemongrass has this great botanical name. But
the great thing about it growing it in your yard or garden. So if
you walk by and you take some of it up and stick it in your
mouth, it tastes like the breakfast cereal fruit loops. Okay, it does.
I find that lemon grass is a very polarizing flavor. But that is
a very enthusiastic endorsement. Yeah, used in Asian and Thie cooking. I
don't eat fruit loops for breakfast. I'm more of a Captain crunch guy,
but that's okay. How about dil? Do you like growing dil? Remember
as a kid working on the farm growing dill, and it was always covered
with bees. Yep, it's so pretty. I do love growing dill,
although dill is one of those plants that never really stays where you put it.
And I think the best way to grow dell is to grow start it
from seed. So you know, it's really hard to grow from a seedling.
I it's not hard, but it's a much easier to grow from a
seed and let some of those flowers go to seed and then let the dill
tell you where it wants to grow. I love having a nice population of
self sewing dill. That's a great point. I like that point to have
that dill so we can make some dilly beans later on in the year fantastic.
I had read somewhere that dill was called the meetinghouse herb was chewed by
early American children to lull them through the long sermons oh my parents. Also,
my parents used to always pass me peppermints so I could get through those
eternal sermons about eternity. So yeah, interesting. And if the pepper it
came out of my dad's pocket, it tasted like cologne, and if it
came out of my mom's pocket, it tasted like perfume. But I'll never
forget that. Well, I don't know if that will will fly these days.
I think today's children demand a little more than a head adel to non
and boring situation. All right, let's get divisive, let's get to oh
controversial and talk cilantro. Oh yes, cilantro is so controversial because people either
love it or can't stand the taste. And as I understand it, Stacey,
it's biological. In other words, there was a genetic survey by researchers
at Cornell University. They found that there's a very specific gene that makes some
people strongly dislike the taste of cilantro, saying it tastes like soap. I
have heard that I am firmly in the love at camp. I've pretty much
always got to have a bunch of it in my fridge because I use it
in so so many recipes. But I think what's more controversial about cilantro when
it comes to gardening is so many people don't understand how to grow it.
I have heard from so so many gardeners over the years who just say,
every time I grow cilantro, it doesn't look good, it doesn't thrive,
Like what am I doing wrong? And I'm going to reveal the secret right
here on the Gardening Simplified Show. Okay, the grocery store has given you
unrealistic cilantro expectations. So you know, you buy cilantro in the grocery store,
you get this big, leafy, beautiful bunch. That big leafy,
beautiful bunch that you're buying is probably ten to fifteen cilantro plants, maybe less,
maybe eight to ten, but it's not one plant. And so people,
I think, because that's what their experienced buying it is, they tend
to think it's something that you're just going to grow and grow and grow,
like basil or time and just keep trimming off of. But that is not
the case at all with cilantro. It naturally has an extremely short life cycle.
That's true. We go like a week. We're talking about annuals,
so it's a true annual, but that lifespan is a matter of weeks instead
of a matter of months. And so you can't just plant cilantro once and
expect it to produce for you all season long. It just won't happen.
Books, we'll talk about cilantro bolting or going to flower, at which point
even the most diehard cilantro fan I think could barely stand to eat it because
it develops some kind of you ever eating a bolted cilantro? Oh yeah,
it's a that's a taste sensation there, Ye talk about divisive. But you
keep seating it, right, Yes, I mean keep seating it. That's
it. So definitely the cilantro is another plant that I would say, don't
buy the seedlings at the garden center. Instead, buy a pack of seed
and keep sewing it like every two weeks or something. Now, what I
often do is to actually put it into two terra cotta pots, so I
have one kind of on the backburner growing in and one that I'm cutting off
of. So in my displays, I don't have one. That's all,
you know, stubble. But yeah, cilantro is not going to be like
you see in the grocery store. You need to sew a long out of
it, and you need to sew it often, and then you will have
the cilantro of your dreams. But you have to stop thinking about cilantro like
you think about basil. You know, if you get good at growing cilantro
and you give it away to friends and neighbors, you know what that makes
you? Oh? No, a cilantropist. Okay, moving along. I
love clipping chives in the garden. I love growing chives. It's easy,
it's fun, and I love snipping up little chunks of chives and putting them
on my potatoes. Chives are so useful to have in the garden. I
got a secret for chives too, you do, yeah, you know,
so you know after they flower, which is right now, and chive flowers
are so beautiful and edible. But once they flower, they kind of get
real thin and you don't get a lot of like robust chives anymore. Well,
all you have to do after they flower is cut the whole thing back
to a little stubble mound. I found that, keep it watered, and
then you'll get a whole new crop of fresh chives. And if they do
the flower. The flowers are are beautiful. They're beautiful, they're edible,
they attract ellinators. I love them. It's a great herb. Everyone should
have that in their garden. As a matter of fact, there was a
famous song done by the Beege's Chive talking remember that one. Sorry, okay,
you know we could talk about mint. I love lemon balm in tea
Camo mile is that how you pronounce it? Yeah, yeah, I love
that. But you talk about mint and how invasive it can be. Probably
mint is a good example of why in many cases we grow herbs and pots.
Right, yes, but mint resents being in a pot. I'll tell
you how I control my mints. Okay, dry soil. If the soil
is very dry, it will not spread as vigorously as if it's in a
moist soil. So I keep my soil real dry, which is not difficult.
When you live on West Michigan. You're the lake shore very sandy,
and that really helps to eliminate the spread. So it stays in a nice
kind of contained area and I don't have to worry about terror my neighborhood with
my mint patch. Fantastic, fantastic. It was meant to be all right,
So we could talk for days about herbs. I think for future shows
we should continue to dive into this subject. Well. I believe that you
really do want to talk about herbs, but I also think you have a
whole list of herb puns that you have not been able to pull out yet,
So I'm questioning your motives. Rick. There's a reason I love the
music of Elvis Parsley. All right, So coming up next, plants on
trial will continue, well, kind of an herbaceous or herb talk, not
herbaceous, but an herb talk with a beautiful plant that Stacy's going to introduce
to us. That's all coming up here on the Gardening Simplified Ship 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 in the distinctive white
container at your garden center. Greetings, gardening friends, and welcome back to
the Gardening It Simplified show Man. We really didn't get enough time to talk
about herbs. We'll have to have a part two. Let's do it.
I mean we got to talk rosemary and a whole bunch of other herbs.
Yeah, and there's always more to talk about with herbs. Now. I
did want to clarify. I did say mint doesn't do great in containers,
and I did want to just kind of offer a bit more explanation on that.
It will. You can certainly grow it in a container, but because
it does like to run, it doesn't really like to be contained, so
it doesn't it's not really as a robust in the long term. I agree,
and I knew exactly where you were going with that, and I agree
with you. I mean, it is a plant that can. It grows
so fast it requires a new ZIP code by the end of summer. It
does, So go ahead and try it. I never want to discourage anyone
from trying it, but be aware that you know a lot of things where
you think, Okay, this is a solution, I'm going to contain it
and I'm going to fix the problem. The plant's like, I got other
ideas, so just a little fby either. So today's plant on trial is
we don't really have herbs exactly in the proven winner's color choice line, so
I had to stretch it a little bit, but I think I did a
pretty okay job. Today's plants on Trial is black lace elderberry. I think
you did a great job. I love elderberry. Elderberry is so cool,
and you know, black lace is an ornamental elderberry that is instead of just
having like playing green foliage and white flowers, it has deep almost black foliage,
kind of purple black foliage that is naturally occurring in this beautiful fine lacey
kind of dissected look. Oh, that lacy dissected look to the foliage Stacey.
When when I see the plant from a distance, it looks like a
Japanese maple, and you know, that's it's a great opportunity for people who
live in climates that are too cold for Japanese maple to kind of have that
look. Now, it doesn't have the full color of Japanese maple, and
it does get much much larger than most Japanese maples, but it does have
that similar that that finely dissected foliage that people love in Japanese may. It
does have a similar look. And then right around now in early summer,
it develops flowers, and the flowers are pink. So you have this dark,
purply black foliage with these bright pink flowers. Black lace is one of
those plants that when people see it in bloom at the garden center, they
just have to have it. Wow. I've seen so many garden centers position
black lace as an impulse item, you know, like at the entrance,
because they know people don't always make it out to the shrub section, which
you should. There's lots of good stuff back there, but they just know,
when you see this thing, you've got to have it. Now,
where does the herb part come along? People are probably wondering. Some people
have some sense that elderberries are edible have an herbal, you know, connection,
And I think a lot of this just comes from being in the US,
where elderberries are not as popular for food or medicine as they are abroad.
So in Skandinavia, did you know that they will cut off the fresh
flowers of elderberries, so they have to be fresh because when the flowers get
old, they smell like cat pee. When they're fresh, they smell like
Annis. Elderberry has a lot of weird I know elderberry has a lot of
weird smell stuff going on. Is anyone who has ever grown when can tell
you. But when the flowers are freshly open, they have a really beautiful
kind of light sweet Annis scent. So in Scandinavia they cut them off,
they dip them in batter and deep fry them as a kind of fritter.
I've never tried it, but I've seen pictures of it, and they're infused
into beverages. So, especially in Eastern Europe, they are placed in like
ice water or lemonade where they infuse that you know, kind of annie se
scent. In England they're very popular. Are made into an elder flower fizz
where the flowers are so high in natural yeast that with some sugar and some
pure water that doesn't have any minerals or chlorine in it, they will ferment
into a lightly alcoholic, naturally fermented beverage. Well, I'd like to try
that. You know. It's true that sambucus or elderberry has been around for
a long long time and has been used by many cultures for its medicinal purposes
too, right, Yeah, And I think if people do have some sense
of elderberry having medicinal qualities, it is because its use in cold medicine has
really become popular, especially since covid. It can alleviate a cold and flu
symptoms, especially cough. I think there's even a cough medicine called sam Buchal,
which is named for sambucas, the botanical name of elderberry. But the
fruits most commonly are used to make things like cough syrups and other herbal remedies
like that, and wine and wine Oh yeah, every time I see the
plant, I think in school, I was in a play called Arsenic and
Old Lace. Oh yeah, Frank Capra, Carrie Grant starred in it.
But I was the crazy guy who thought he was Teddy Roosevelt. When the
anties would lace the elderberry wine with poison. I'd collect the bodies, thinking
they were affected by yellow fever, bring them to the basement, and just
a play. Not for real. Rick wouldn't be city here next to me.
Look it up. It's a classic. I mean it's a real classic.
But yeah, elder it can be made into wine. I've often seen
it used as sauces, like for game and that kind of thing. But
interestingly, as we sit here and talk about the culinary and medicinal uses of
elderberry, the foliage and stems are very toxic. So if you are going
to consume elderberry, you do so at your own risk. And black lace
would not be one of those varieties that I would recommend for consumption. It
really is sold as an ornamental and it was a reject from an edible or
elderberry breeding program. Wow. Yes, so this was happening in the UK,
where, like I said, their elderberries are much more a part of
you know, food in medicine than they are here typically, And they had
this breeding program where they were trying to find elderberries for food and medicinal uses,
and black lace came out of one of their you know crosses, and
they said, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is way too ornamental for
us. It's still got some of these qualities, but what it really has
is better in a program like proven Winners Color Choice shrubs. So they shipped
it across the pond and it has been one of our best sellers ever since
it was first introduced, because really, I think people sort of had a
sense that we do have a native elderberry. We actually have two native elderberries
in the US in Canada, but no one ever really thought of them as
particularly ornamental until black lace came along, and then it was like, really,
you know, raising the bar beautiful. So it's a very easy plant
to grow. And so let me just back up a sex. So talking
about the native elderberries, our native elderberry is Sambucus canadensis, which makes sense
Canada, North America, and the species that black lace is is a closely
related European cousin Sambucus nigro. So some taxonomists will consider one to be a
subspecies of the other, indicating that they're even more related. This goes back
to the splitters and lumpers, which I think we've talked about on the show
before. If you're a splitter, you think firmly that they are two diferent
species, Sambucas canadensis over in North America Sambucus nigra in Europe, and some
will say, oh, it's Sambucus nigra subspecies canadensis. Some people will say
it's Sambucas canadensis subspecies nigra. It goes on and on. I'm sure people
are going to need some Delda chiwan Is like as they go through the botanical
nomenclature of elderberry. But you know, it's important that people sort of understand
the difference and similarities between these two. So you can almost think of them
as European and American counterparts of one another. They are very similar in their
look, in their size, and in their bloom times. And that matters
because if you want fruit on black lace elderberry, you're going to need a
different a different variety of a sambucus or elderberry that blooms at the same time
and is not a black lace because all the black lace are clones of each
other, so they have identical pollen. You need that cross pollination of two
different varieties in order for fruit to develop. But the great news for those
of us in North America who live near natural populations of our native elderberry is
those will typically do the trick of pollinating it. Okay, so we probably
have some people out there growing black lace right now who said, well,
gee, I don't. I didn't know you needed a pollinator. And I
get fruit on mine every year, and that's because our native elderberries are pollinating
it, because those bloom times do overlap. The other thing you can do
is use our other elderberry, laced up elderberry, which will serve as a
pollinator for it, and then you have two black ones. But we'll get
to laced up on another plant on trial. It's fantastic. I was doing
some reading too, Stacey, and I saw that in some cultures, some
areas, they'll use the berries as a food colorant or food coloring. That
makes sense. Yeah, the berries are always black so yeah, whether you
have black lace or our native they on Sambucus candidensis. They are a deep
purply black and they stain a dark color. Now very easy to grow full
sun for most of us you'll get the best color and most flowering. That
way, the more your client it is hot, the more shade that's gonna
want, and what you're gonna find. This is not a great plant for
hot climates, and I know we have a lot of hot climate listeners who
are probably growing right now, and I'm sorry. I'll make it up to
you with a good one next week. But in warmer climates, what happens
is the foliage doesn't develop the color as well, so it's kind of like
a muddy greeny black. It's not as nice. It can still grow,
but we really only recommend it through about USCA Zone seven. Average soil needs,
average water needs. It's very very tolerant. I grow a ton of
elderberry in my very dry you know, soil does very well. And I
wanted to bring up deer because I have found that they will eat it for
about the first two years and after that they never touch it. So the
first years after planting, I think that the growth is just really soft and
tender, and they're much more attracted to it, whereas after a few years
in the ground, it starts growing beyond their ability to reach it. Because
black place elderberry is a big plant. It's going to get to be about
eight to ten feet tall and wide if you don't prune it or just kind
of let it grow to its own devices. So eventually they will stop eating
it. But I did have to fend off against them for a couple of
seasons after I first planted, so a little sprits of repellent initially, and
then we'll be good to go. That's right. So it is a beautiful
plant. If you want to see a picture of it, and I highly
recommend that you do, you can visit our show notes at Gardening Simplified OnAir
dot com, or like I said, just visit your local garden center.
They are sure to have this one and be placing it in a position of
pride because they know it'll fly out the door when you see it. I
can testify in the garden center of a lot of people who come back and
say, I can't believe how easy this plant is to grow. Yeah,
it's easy. It's beautiful. And again, if you want to know more
Gardening Simplified OnAir dot com, we've got to take a little break. When
we come back, we're answering your garden questions, so please stay tuned to
Gardening Simplified. At proving 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. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back to
Gardening Simplified. It's one of my favorite parts of the show where we get
to help our listeners be better gardeners know more about plants in gardening. And
you know, I do appreciate our listeners so much. And I heard from
a listener whose question we answered a few weeks ago. We talked about Josh's
birch tree that he was saying he had had some trouble with it, and
he sent some pictures and so we put out a bunch of thoughts about it.
Well, Josh took our advice not only took our advice, but made
a video about taking our advice on his YouTube channel, Joshua's Garden. So
please, we'll put a link of that link to that in our show notes,
and you're definitely going on to check that out and see how it's going.
For josh it already looks like it's better than it was when he sent
us the pictures. But I'll definitely be following that journey along closely. I
think that's great. And Jim sends us a note he tried his hand at
a limb a Rick and Jim. I think you did pretty good, he
said, watching Stacy and Rick after dinner. I'm reformed from a gardening center.
No more random plant chooser or untested loser. I can now be a
true proven winner. Ah, well done, Jim, and thank him very
much. Appreciate that. If you want to reach out to us, you
can certainly do that Gardening Simplified OnAir dot com or just email help HLP at
Gardening Simplified OnAir dot Com. So what do we got in the mail bag
today? Rick? Well? Stacy Edith has a problem. She sent a
photo my autumn joy seedom is having issues. I'm not sure what is causing
this to occur. It appears to be spreading to my other seedoms within the
same area. Leaves distorted, small, curled, something red. I don't
see bugs. Have you seen this before? How do I treat it?
And thanks for your time. So I looked at eis picture and of course
we'll put these in the show notes so you can see too. And I
feel pretty confident that it's slugs. And you know, slugs are not a
typical problem on seedom because you know, they grow in sunny, dry areas
and slugs do not like those conditions. So you know, one thing that
can happen is that sites can sort of become shadier over time. But for
whatever reason, I do think that that it's slugs. You can when you
see those irregular holes, especially kind of in the middle of a leaf,
that's usually a pretty telltale sign of slugs. And I think that you're seeing
a combination of slug damage and the fact that the conditions for your seedom are
not ideal for it to grow well, and so those two things are really
kind of setting it back. You know, I saw your picture of the
red bits on the leaves. I think that might be like from too much
water or nutrient leaching. It's not really a huge cause for concern. But
my advice here, Edith would be you can control the slugs if you want,
and we're going to have a slug control tip in Branching News at the
end of the show. But I would consider moving it because I don't think
that your autumn joy Sedom is in the right place for it to achieve its
best. Like I said, sites can change over time, get shadier,
get you wetter from having an irrigation system install or just being shadier, and
they don't use as much water. So it's a great point, Stacey,
and for people keeping score at home. Autumn joy Sedom is one of those
upright taller seedoms I have found through the years. And maybe you don't want
to do this, maybe it's tough for you to do this, but I
like to lop mine back initially in June to reduce the size and then they
will still produce those flower heads for the month of August. That might help
with the slugs to heat things up a little bit. But don't forget to
divide them occasionally too, because other ways going to get that floppy thing.
Yeah, especially if they're not getting enough sun, they will be very floppy.
And you know, there are some interesting proven winter seedums as well.
I really love pure Joy. Have you grown pure Joy? It's kind of
like a dwarf version of autumn Joy, so it doesn't get as tall.
I think the foliage is really nice and I have bunches of that that I
really really like. So if you are going to replace it or looking for
something for a different sun year a spot in your yard, consider pure Joy
instead. Hey, Maria had a great question for us. Okay, I
was looking for a climbing plant for my new arbor and I'd love to plant
the pink pink Clematist that was our plant on trial a few weeks ago.
My only concern is is it toxic to dogs? I'm not sure that my
dog would eat it, but she is a curious dog. Any advice would
be appreciated. Now, this is obviously this is a question that we get
all the time, people saying is this toxic? Is that toxic? And
you know, short of something being like definitively deathly toxic, it's not an
easy question to answer because there really are a number of degrees, you know
to to this problem. So you know, The question then becomes, well,
how toxic is it? Is it like you're just gonna feel kind of
crummy or your dog's gonna feel kind of crummy. Will it pass? You
know, will they need veterinary attention? How much do they need to consume?
As we all know the dose makes the poison. What parts are toxic?
You know, we were just talking about the elderberry, and yeah,
you know, fresh flowers and ripe fruit can be eaten, but any other
part you should not eat. So it becomes it's really not like a black
and white kind of question. There's it's really very gray. But my advice
for anybody who wants to make sure they're not planting things that are potentially toxic
is really simple. So you're going to use a search engine of your choice.
You're going to type in the plant's botanical name, which you can get
on our website provenment Ers color Choice dot com, or it might be on
the plant tag or you can find that somewhere. So use the botanical name,
the scientific name, and then type in site si te colon dot edu.
And what that does is it limits all of your search results to just
university websites. So it's going to filter out all the bloggers, all the
other stuff that you aren't sure that you can rely on. And by limiting
it to university websites, you're getting veterinary programs, you're getting medical programs,
and so you're getting really useful advice. And then you know, by making
sure that you're using the scientific name, you're also eliminating any confusion about common
names, because a lot of times people will have the same common name for
different things. So that's the surest way I think for people to do their
own due diligence and then make your own decision based on you know, hey,
your dog might throw up, and you say, well, I don't
want my dog to throw up, so I'm not going to plant this,
or you know, if they're probably not going to eat it, so you
know it's probably okay. And in the case of clematis, it is one
of those they might throw up kind of situations, so not deathly toxic,
but a number of plants in the nunky lacy, the family that Clematis is
in, are known to be toxic. And I think it's also important that
you know, short of a plant being sold as an edible plant, you
shouldn't be eating you or your pets should not be eating them. So,
but this is definitely a place where a little research will go a long way
and help you feel more confident in your planting decisions. That's great advice,
Stacy Donald writes to us. I love catmint and Russian sage. Some of
the new cultivars like cats Pajamas and nopetta and denim which is the Russian sage.
Love that plant are not as easy and vigorous growers in my garden.
Could be that pH needs are different for these cultivars, and Stacy I would
not go down the pH road. I don't think it's a factor. It's
it's like other plants, you know, the cats pajamas cats me out that
I grow in my landscape. I love the fact that it seems to have
much more controlled growth than let's say, you know, the older stand by
varieties like Walker's Low. Right, you know that's a great point. Yeah,
it's this is probably not any kind of cultural condition. If you're seeing
really vigorous growth from those old fashioned varieties like Walker's Low or the standard Russian
sage. It's important to understand that when people, when plant breeders, develop
a new variety. They're usually looking to solve some sort of problem, and
that's exactly what Rick was saying, Like, uh, Sperovski of Russian sage
can get to be a huge plant and it almost always flops, you know,
So what will happen By the time it starts to flower. It gets
really heavy and some people will call it splaying, where it kind of just
opens up from the center, so it doesn't really flop down like a you
know, pony does, but it just kind of breaks open and falls all
over the place. That's what we'll splay. Yeah, And so the breeder's
goal was to eliminate this splaying, and one of the ways they do that
is by working with the plant's growth, making it a more compact variety.
And as such, it's not going to grow as quickly. It's not going
to have long inner nodes where it's just you know, shooting out really you
know, fast growth that can often be weak and floppy. So I think
in both of these cases, and definitely with the Perovski a Russian stage,
it's just a situation where the breeding goal was not to have a super fast
growing, super vigorous plant, but to have one that doesn't flop and doesn't
splay and stays well behaved, like you said, Ric, So it's kind
of remedying some of the liabilities of the older varieties. My parents always taught
me I have to behave on the splay ground from a young age. Right.
Plants need to do the same. And again you'll find with herbaceous perennials
that in some cases to avoid those problems, dividing the plants from time to
time really is of benefits, dividing and pinching, and you know, pinching.
I think pinching perennials is such I don't do it, but I think
it's a fascinating topic. And if anybody is interested in controlling their perennial growth,
I would highly, highly recommend the book The Well Tended Perennial Garden by
Tracy disabad Oust. This she spent years of her life pinching back her garden
at different times, taking meticulous observations of when things bloomed, how the pruning
affected them, does pruning it, are pinching it at this time? Do
this? Does it? Do that? And she published all of her results
in that book. And you know, there's very few gardening books that I
would say are a must own, But if you are a perennial gardener,
I think that is an absolute essential item to your library. I love it.
I just made a note future show, we're going to talk about pinching.
Pinching. Okay, let's do it. We'll have to do it soon.
O Coyle's time to pinch. Yes, that's true to an All right,
well, we're going to take a little break now. If you have
a gardening question for us, you can email us at help at Gardening Simplified
on air dot com, or just visit Gardening Simplified on air dot com.
And when we come back, we've got a branching news and you want one
of us. It's so please stay tuned to Gardening Simplified. 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 in the
distinctive white container at your local garden center. Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified
Show. It's time for branching News and our first item in Branching News this
week is a slug fest. That's right o Oregon State University. Recent research
reveals bread dough to be the best attractant for trapping slugs, even better than
beer. Now this is interesting, Stacy. The collaborators haven't determined yet why
bread dough, a simple mixture of flower water and yeast, attracts slugs and
snails, but they theorize that it's the fermentation process that draws them, and
I would agree it's got to be the yeast. It's the yeast you could
do to trap slugs. But pretty interesting stuff. It is interesting. And
you know, in the relatively short time we've had the show, I can't
believe how many people have written to us with slug questions and slug problems.
And they almost always say, I don't want to use anything toxic if I
can help it, I want something non toxic. And this is a great
opportunity. So the recipe that these researchers at Oregon State developed is one cup
flour, two cups of water or has needed, and one packet of yase.
And don't worry, we'll put this in the show notes. So if
you're driving, you don't need to slam on the brakes and write down the
recipe. Just visit guarding Simplified on air dot com. You mix that together,
you put it in a container like a cottage cheese container or yogurt container.
You bury it with the rim, flush with a soil level, and
then the next morning you go out and clean out your slug, stir up
your dough and start it again. Wow. You just let them slug it
out. It's amazing. Yeah, they went bonkers for it. According to
the University, bread dough outperformed everything. In one instance, over eighteen thousand
snails were trapped in forty eight hours. Wow. So very effective and non
toxical. Though, you aren't going to want to let your dog get a
hold of that because no yikes. Yeah, slugs have given us a lesson
on breaddough if you just loaf around your toast. Right, So this works.
I'm going to give this a try in my garden. So how about
good vibes? Always talking about good vibes in the space that you're in,
and we as gardeners, landscapers, garden centers, plant lovers, we like
to think about good vibes in your space. We're gonna share with you a
study that basically talked about the top ten essentials for good vibes wherever you are,
maybe a restaurant, visiting someone's home, your home, wherever it may
be, your space. Cleanliness was at the top of the list. Windows
was high on the list also, and good smells. Yeah, that makes
perfect sense to me. Trendy design, high ceilings, but plants or green
space also made that top ten list. And I think that that's good because
the top five indicators of bad vibes in a space are unpleasant smells, dirty
environment, too cold or too hot, no windows, and dead or unkempt
plants and greenery. Oh well, that makes a garden a very questionable.
You don't know if it's good vibes or bad. It might have bad smells,
it could have too hot or too cool to temperatures. But sweet garden
always has good vibes. It's great. The other day I was out and
about. I saw this young man. He was walking along. He was
wearing a T shirt and it said, don't kille my vibe. I thought
that was good. I want one of those shirts. Did you stop to
tell him how much you appreciate it? Put a smile on a space.
Okay, word of the day. As I've always said on this program,
Stacy, I find you to just be a genius with words and pronunciation of
words and all of that stuff. And I have to be honest with you.
I did not know this word flu vitol, Yeah, relating to rivers
or I know. Uh uh, this is uh, it refers to the
This was in the Merriam Webster Word of the Day and it says it refers
to the colored outer layer of the rind of a citrus fruit. Oh,
never before. That's uh, that's interesting. Yeah, that's a new one
on me for sure. Okay, I don't know how many times people would
have occasion to use it exactly. I've never found the occasion, you know.
And that's kind of one of those things when we say like, oh,
it doesn't matter if you pronounce a scientific name correctly as long as you
get the plant that you want. If you're using this word and people have
no idea what you're talking about, it's not really doing you a lot of
good either. So I don't even know how to pronounce it. But it's
spelled f l a v E d O. And according to the Merriam Webster
Dictionary. Yes, colored outer layer of the rind of a citrus fruit.
So okay, I don't know, learned a new word. Interesting night gets
my peal of approval. Let's go to Pennsylvania. According to wtag Joshua Jenkins,
forty two years old, I put this one in here for you,
Stacy, because I know you like spiders, right yeah, w tag J
in Pennsylvania. Joshua Jenkins of Altuna, Pennsylvania, was arrested Thursday night after
he called nine one one because his house was on fire. He was trying
to burn spiders. Oh no, yeah, and uh he was. He
told them he was using a butuane torch. They said, actually he was
using a propane torch to burn the spiders and their nests from the outside of
the home and started the house on fire. Not a good idea, No,
that's terrible. Better like spiders, Why do I like that? Oh?
They're just fascinating. I mean I could go on and on about the
facts about spider silk, but I'll give you one of my favorites. Did
you know that if there, if you could make a rod of spider silk
the thickness of a pencil and stretch it across the sky. So it was
taught it would stop a plane in midflight. That's how strong and elastic it
is. Yeah, so it doesn't break, you know. That's why like
bugs and stuff can fly into it and they don't fly through, they don't
bounce back, they get caught in it. I mean, it really is
one of the most amazing materials on Earth. And they're just fascinating. I
love to watch the orb weavers, which are the kind that make the you
know, really the classic spider web shape. I just love to watch them
do their work and I'd love to, you know, watch them catch pest
insects and they're just really cool. Yeah, that's fascinating. It really is.
And I love the modern spiders because they don't have webs. They have
web sites. They all work as web designers or techie web designers. Do
you use the relocate method? I am a person who does that. If
I find a spider in the house, I pick it up and take it
outside. I do not use the relocate method. I leave the spiders where
they are because a lot of people don't realize that there are indoor spiders and
there are outdoor spiders. So the indoor spiders are not really going to survive
outside. I mean, occasionally an outdoor spider will make its way into your
house, but for the most part, your indoor spiders are your indoor spiders,
and your outdoorspiders your outdoor spiders. So your indoor spiders are probably not
going to be long for the world, but they can fend it for a
fend for themselves. And you know, hey, you've done the best that
you can with something you're comfortable with, So I gotta do this. I've
got a knock knock joke. Okay, okay, knock knock, knock,
knock, knock, knock, knock knock. Well, you had to count
on eight fingers, so there, spider, exactly all right. A Dutch
startup company is now selling coffins that biodegrade within forty five days of burial.
Now that's interesting. The company's Loop Biotech, start in twenty twenty and makes
coffins and earns. They're shipping to Europe and the United States, and so
they're making these coffins let's see up cycled hemp combined with mascellium, the root
structure of mushrooms, and they make these coffins and they start breaking down after
forty five days. Now, that's interesting. Yeah, that's that's a good
solution. Yeah, and hopefully they're much more affordable. Well yeah, their
marketing campaign should be buy our coffin. It's the last thing you'll ever need.
Yeah, so you're hired. Let's go to Charlotte, Charlotte, North
Carolina. The city of Charlotte. They have a new bike lane, electric
streets street Boy, that's tough even for me, a trained professional, to
say, a street sweeper. They named it. The Charlotte Department of Transportation
asked the public to submit ideas for what they should call this street sweeper.
The public weight in on what to call it, and they settled on Sweepy
Mix sweep Face, oh boy, inspired by Yes, I thought the runner
ups were better clear Opathra and sweep Caroline. Oh yeah, that's a good
one. Yeah, I mean, especially since it's Carolina, North Carolina.
I'm surprised that didn't win. I guess they just wanted to make the news
with another Bodie mcboat Face inspired name. I think so too, and their
streets will bristle with beauty. Stacy. Always fun to do this show with
you. There, you haven't another edition of Branching News and in upcoming weeks.
Boy, we've got some great topics to share with you and always invite
you to visit our website. Our website is Gardening Simplified on air dot com.
There are a number of people who work to post show notes there for
you, pictures, and of course we thank Adriana Robinson for the fabulous job
that she does engineering producing the show, getting this content out there for you
folks. We thank her and Stacy. It's fun and we just want people
to visit the website and send us your questions or comments. Yes, and
if you are watching us on YouTube and seeing Adrianna's work, you're also seeing
that we have our new summer background up because it's June, so you won't
want to miss your opportunity to check that out. We've changed with the seasons
and it's full on gardening season, so we couldn't be happier, fantastic.
It's a kick in the plants. Thanks Stacy, Thanks Adriana, and thanks
to you for watching and listening to the Gardening Simplified Ship.