2025 Houseplant of the Year and Talking Tropical Plants

<v Speaker 1>Broadcasting from Studio A.
<v Speaker 2>It's The Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella me, Rick Weist,
<v Speaker 2>and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, Stacey, let's
<v Speaker 2>take a leaf of faith today with tropical plants, and
<v Speaker 2>why not do that. It's a good time to take
<v Speaker 2>a staycation in the tropics, warm things up, think about
<v Speaker 2>tropical plants for folks tuning us in here on radio
<v Speaker 2>or podcast or YouTube wherever you may be. Well around here,
<v Speaker 2>the temperatures right now are in single digits with wind
<v Speaker 2>chills below zero, and Stacey, we're just kind of riding
<v Speaker 2>it out.
<v Speaker 3>I'll say it has been a challenge, but I have
<v Speaker 3>to say that I'm also extremely grateful to live in
<v Speaker 3>West Michigan, where as I've said before, are extremely cold
<v Speaker 3>temperatures are typically associated by snowcover, which makes this cold
<v Speaker 3>so so much easier on the plants, if not the humans.
<v Speaker 3>We can't help you with that, but it is a
<v Speaker 3>little bit of a relief, you know. I feel terrible
<v Speaker 3>for the people on the other side of the state,
<v Speaker 3>in the Detroit area who are getting even colder temperatures
<v Speaker 3>and haven't even had any snow.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>No, You're right, snow is a great insulator. When I
<v Speaker 2>take a look at my plants out in the landscape
<v Speaker 2>and see snow piled up on them, I'm happy, especially
<v Speaker 2>when we're in the grips of a polar vortex.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, you can see your plants. All I see is
<v Speaker 3>plant shaped mounds of snow for the most part.
<v Speaker 2>So it's a great insulace, it is.
<v Speaker 3>And I'm very grateful for it. So, even though I
<v Speaker 3>don't like winter, and I really don't like snow, I
<v Speaker 3>do have to give up my gratitude right now that
<v Speaker 3>it is here protecting our plants to get through the
<v Speaker 3>worst of this polar vortex.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, if you're in a warmer climate, just remember there's
<v Speaker 2>snow business. Like snow business. So some tropical plant talk today,
<v Speaker 2>including one of my favorites. I'm a big fan of
<v Speaker 2>my good friend phil O Den. Oh boy, Phil, we
<v Speaker 2>go way back now. It's a good plant to take
<v Speaker 2>what I called a leaf of faith. It's native to
<v Speaker 2>the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. I guess
<v Speaker 2>there's as many as four hundred different species of philodendrons
<v Speaker 2>and stacey. A few months ago, when I was in
<v Speaker 2>Costa Rica philidendrons everywhere.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, I'll bet oh love them. And you know, I
<v Speaker 3>philodendin are kind of like the classic house plant, the
<v Speaker 3>classic tropical foliage house plant. And for a long time
<v Speaker 3>you just got kind of like a green philodendron and
<v Speaker 3>that was it. And they've come so far. But one
<v Speaker 3>of the things that I love about philodendron is the
<v Speaker 3>name you said philodendron, but in Greek it actually translates
<v Speaker 3>to tree lover because so many of philodendron species are
<v Speaker 3>climbing plants that climb up trees in the rainforest, which,
<v Speaker 3>of course in the rainforest it's always a constant battle
<v Speaker 3>for lights from the tree canopies, and one of the
<v Speaker 3>ways that philodendron deal with that is by generally climbing
<v Speaker 3>up trees. Not all philodendron are climbing, and some climbing
<v Speaker 3>philodendron when you grow them as houseplants, don't actually end
<v Speaker 3>up climbing. But from a scientific name, standpoint tree lover. Yeah, Well,
<v Speaker 3>I see a philodendron.
<v Speaker 1>And you I am a tree.
<v Speaker 2>I'm a tree hugger and a tree lover, so I
<v Speaker 2>guess I am a philodendron. I told you phil was
<v Speaker 2>a good friend of mine, and you're so right, Stacey,
<v Speaker 2>because philodendrons generally are classified in two areas. One would
<v Speaker 2>be vining and another would be self heading, or people
<v Speaker 2>called them arborescent. In keeping with what you just said,
<v Speaker 2>So you've got the climbers and you've got the trailers.
<v Speaker 2>We're very familiar in the garden center industry with the
<v Speaker 2>trailers like Philodendron coordatum or brazil, which are beautiful philodendrons
<v Speaker 2>that are generally put in hanging baskets.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. I was going to say, you'll know the difference
<v Speaker 3>because if it's going to be one of the trailing type,
<v Speaker 3>it's to usually be in a hanging basket.
<v Speaker 1>Exactly.
<v Speaker 2>Now, the arborescent or self heading type is Are I peaked.
<v Speaker 1>In the envelope? The envelope please?
<v Speaker 2>But I did peak And it's Prisma color orange. You gorgeous.
<v Speaker 2>It's a philodendron that well is one of those climbing
<v Speaker 2>type tropical philodendrons, and Stacey, it's a kaleidoscope of color.
<v Speaker 3>It is so colorful, as you could guess by the name,
<v Speaker 3>it is orange, and you know, I think it's just
<v Speaker 3>such a great example of how far we have come
<v Speaker 3>in the houseplant world from houseplants being green, which is
<v Speaker 3>nothing wrong with green. You know, I love green. I
<v Speaker 3>could use a lot more of it in my life
<v Speaker 3>right about now. But it's nice to have those other
<v Speaker 3>colors as well. And this is a great example of
<v Speaker 3>how plant breeding has brought about a whole new look
<v Speaker 3>for philodendron.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely and with a climbing type philodendron or arborescent philodendron,
<v Speaker 2>it's a great plant.
<v Speaker 1>Also to use.
<v Speaker 2>A moss pole in a pot and see how it clings,
<v Speaker 2>and I find moss pole pulls somewhat decorative in a
<v Speaker 2>pot indoors.
<v Speaker 3>Also, yeah, if you can get a plant going up them,
<v Speaker 3>well that's happy and covers it. I absolutely love that look.
<v Speaker 2>So let me give you a quick limb a rick
<v Speaker 2>a minute, because I know we're trying to warm up
<v Speaker 2>here in the single digit temperatures with wind chills well
<v Speaker 2>below zero, so I'll give you my mid winter limb
<v Speaker 2>a rick. Dreaming of warm days is my topic, as
<v Speaker 2>my view of spring right now is myopic dreaming of
<v Speaker 2>plants equatorial through images pictorial Take a staycation to a
<v Speaker 2>place that is tropic, and I'll tell you what the
<v Speaker 2>tropic plant. Tropical plants that we put in our homes
<v Speaker 2>at least help a little bit at this.
<v Speaker 3>Time they do. It makes a big difference to have something,
<v Speaker 3>you know, living and reminding you that, yeah, they're under
<v Speaker 3>all of those big amorphous snowpiles, there is life.
<v Speaker 1>So time out for a tease.
<v Speaker 2>Coming up in segment four, we're going to talk about
<v Speaker 2>another tropical plant, and that would be Hibiscus Rosa sinensis.
<v Speaker 2>These are the tropical hibiscus with beautiful flowers. I think
<v Speaker 2>there's a lot of confusion with folks on high biscus,
<v Speaker 2>and we can talk about that in segment four. But
<v Speaker 2>you have the syriacus, right yeah, althea or Rosa Sharon,
<v Speaker 2>you have the rose mallow, our favorite summerrific and then
<v Speaker 2>you have the Rosa sinensus and Stacy, we're going to
<v Speaker 2>talk about this because of Hollywood High Business.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, this is the first year for Hollywood Hibiscus
<v Speaker 3>from Improoven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs to be available in
<v Speaker 3>garden centers. So we are very very excited and already
<v Speaker 3>definitely thinking of sunny summer days with colorful hibiscus flowers.
<v Speaker 2>So become familiar with the native habitat of tropical plants.
<v Speaker 2>I think it really helps you when you grow them indoors.
<v Speaker 2>And one of the things I love about topical plants too,
<v Speaker 2>is not just using them as houseplants, but using them outdoors.
<v Speaker 2>And you go to some of these warmer regions I
<v Speaker 2>mentioned Costa Rica or South Florida, you'll see plants out
<v Speaker 2>there that are used for landscaping. Icera is one that
<v Speaker 2>you'll see everywhere. Bird of Paradise or Strelitsia, cordelline or
<v Speaker 2>tea plant. I love those plants. The foliage is so
<v Speaker 2>bright and colorful. I love autograph plant Clusia and Stacey.
<v Speaker 2>A favorite of mind is crotons, and I don't think
<v Speaker 2>we use enough crotons in our landscape beds or mixed
<v Speaker 2>with annuals in the summertime.
<v Speaker 3>Well, that is a bold choice to you mix croton. Now,
<v Speaker 3>if you're not familiar with croton, perhaps this description will
<v Speaker 3>conjure up a mental image for you. It is the
<v Speaker 3>famously green, yellow and red plant.
<v Speaker 1>That's right.
<v Speaker 3>Color, it's something, it's something. So when you went to
<v Speaker 3>Costa Rica, do you feel like you, you know, kind
<v Speaker 3>of learned more about how to grow tropical sort of
<v Speaker 3>observing them in their natural.
<v Speaker 2>Habitaty I did, because you know, again, when you're trying
<v Speaker 2>to grow them indoors, the air is so dry. People
<v Speaker 2>try to fix the problem by watering tropical plants or houseplants,
<v Speaker 2>and they overwater them and the roots are too wet.
<v Speaker 2>So any kind of humidity that you can provide, or
<v Speaker 2>keeping it away from a heat source and back off
<v Speaker 2>on the watering, I think to a large extent, your
<v Speaker 2>tropical plants are trying to do the same thing we're
<v Speaker 2>trying to do. Survive winter and let's get to spring and.
<v Speaker 3>Summer for sure, you know. I when I was at
<v Speaker 3>the New York Botanical Garden, I think I've mentioned this
<v Speaker 3>on the show before. The curator of the Tropical Conservatory
<v Speaker 3>used to talk about how in her Bronx apartment when
<v Speaker 3>she was at horticulture school, she would tie a wet
<v Speaker 3>rag to the radiator pole that you know connected the
<v Speaker 3>radiator so you know, they run the radiators super duper
<v Speaker 3>warm in New York City apartments, she would tie wet
<v Speaker 3>rags onto them so as that heat was coming up
<v Speaker 3>through them, they would just be given off steam. She
<v Speaker 3>said she had the best indoor tropical plants of her life.
<v Speaker 3>Now not always practical for most of us in a
<v Speaker 3>more typical household situation. But if you have radiators and
<v Speaker 3>you have a pole, might be worth trying, just saying,
<v Speaker 3>or take.
<v Speaker 2>Them in the bathroom with you, take them in the
<v Speaker 2>shower with you. But whatever you can do, just think
<v Speaker 2>about where they are native to. And the same applies
<v Speaker 2>to philodendrons. Now, philodendrons are pretty easy to grow houseplant.
<v Speaker 2>And again the variety's incredible. So you have lemon lime philodendrons,
<v Speaker 2>you have creeping philodendrons. The Burkean philodendron a few years
<v Speaker 2>ago took the industry by storm. It's kind of like
<v Speaker 2>a green and white pin striped suit. What a great
<v Speaker 2>plant pop art, which is a black cardinal or blushing
<v Speaker 2>cardinal splash dash. And of course we remember in the
<v Speaker 2>houseplant craze of the COVID pandemic when we were housebound,
<v Speaker 2>remember the pink princess philodendron and how much people were
<v Speaker 2>paying for that, Oh.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah wow.
<v Speaker 2>So and then of course glossy green foliage philodendrons like green,
<v Speaker 2>Diamond green, Princess, Imperial green, and then the rigosum, which
<v Speaker 2>is a pigskin philodendron. Because the foliage, which is notoriously
<v Speaker 2>heart shaped leafd with philodendrons. This one looks like pig ears.
<v Speaker 3>Oh interesting, and I'm familiar with that one. I like it.
<v Speaker 2>There's so much variety in philodendron is easy to grow.
<v Speaker 1>So a tip of the cap to.
<v Speaker 2>The houseplant of the year and that is Prisma Color Orange.
<v Speaker 2>You gorgeous Philodendron Plants on Trial is coming up next.
<v Speaker 2>We'll see how Stacey ties it all together. Stay tuned.
<v Speaker 3>Beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color Choice
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<v Speaker 3>to choose from. There's a flowering shrub or evergreen for
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<v Speaker 3>proven Winner's Color Choice dot Com. Greeting's gardening friends, and
<v Speaker 3>welcome back to the Gardening Simplify Show. It may be
<v Speaker 3>the deepest, darkest depths of winter out there, but in
<v Speaker 3>here we are talking house plants, thinking about spring. Because yeah,
<v Speaker 3>as a gardener, uh, it's all about what's next.
<v Speaker 1>What are we looking forward to?
<v Speaker 3>But the great thing we were just talking about Prismacolor
<v Speaker 3>orange and gorgeous philodendron, the proven winner's houseplant of the
<v Speaker 3>Year from the leaf Joy line. And you know, as
<v Speaker 3>we've said previously, this is actually the last of our
<v Speaker 3>Plants of the Year installment. It is the last one
<v Speaker 3>that we're covering. But as we've said in the previous episodes,
<v Speaker 3>the really great thing about these Plants of the Year
<v Speaker 3>is their availability. And you know, the proof Owner's line
<v Speaker 3>has so many plants that of course no one garden
<v Speaker 3>center can offer them all. There's just way, way too many.
<v Speaker 3>But one of the great things about the plants of
<v Speaker 3>the year, whether it's the annual of the Year, perennial,
<v Speaker 3>the or Shrubs of the Year, house plan of the Year,
<v Speaker 3>it means that everybody in the industry is on board,
<v Speaker 3>so there's going to be very good availability of that plant.
<v Speaker 3>So this would be a great time to treat yourself
<v Speaker 3>to an orange and gorgeous philodendron from your local garden center,
<v Speaker 3>or you know, just go and check it out and
<v Speaker 3>try to do something to get through the next what
<v Speaker 3>I don't even want to count. I'm not even going
<v Speaker 3>to count. It's too depressing.
<v Speaker 1>It's a good point.
<v Speaker 2>I think of the plants of the year almost like
<v Speaker 2>a flag something to rally around.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, exactly, I look forward to And this is great too,
<v Speaker 3>even though again I love green. That orange color is
<v Speaker 3>just gonna bring a lot of like vibrant life to
<v Speaker 3>your indoors, and it is easy to grow. It's not
<v Speaker 3>it likes humidity. But overall they're pretty adaptable.
<v Speaker 1>They are.
<v Speaker 3>They don't need a ton of sun because they're understory
<v Speaker 3>plants in the rainforests. So give it a try.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, let me quickly mention that that's a mistake I
<v Speaker 2>see a lot of people make. They think they have
<v Speaker 2>to put the plant in a sunny window in direct sunlight,
<v Speaker 2>and you don't.
<v Speaker 1>Have to eat.
<v Speaker 3>No, you don't want to do that in fact, as
<v Speaker 3>if there were any sunlight or not to go around.
<v Speaker 3>But I will stump, I will stop, and I will
<v Speaker 3>it's you know, it's it's been a rough week here
<v Speaker 3>in Michigan. There is just no I mean, between the
<v Speaker 3>lions and this, like what else can we say. We're
<v Speaker 3>working on it, but anyway, you know, last episode we
<v Speaker 3>talked about, of course, the annual of the year, which
<v Speaker 3>is super Tunia Mini Vista yellow. So I kind of
<v Speaker 3>made Plants on Trial all about yellow. So it follows
<v Speaker 3>that I would make this week's Plant on Trial all
<v Speaker 3>about orange because orange is such a great color. We
<v Speaker 3>have a number of shrubs that are orange or I
<v Speaker 3>would say orange adjacent, Like, you know, either the foliage
<v Speaker 3>is orange, the flowers are orange. There's something orange you
<v Speaker 3>know about them. So when you have so many choices,
<v Speaker 3>how do you pick? So I'm going way off the
<v Speaker 3>deep end and I'm staying in the tropical world and
<v Speaker 3>I am actually you could say this like an official announcement,
<v Speaker 3>uh that proven winner's colored choice shrubs now has Bougainvillia.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my, and I love booga.
<v Speaker 3>Right now, I'm not I'm gonna talk a lot about
<v Speaker 3>Bougainvillia in a moment. But a lot of people we
<v Speaker 3>haven't been making like a huge deal out of this
<v Speaker 3>because they're still kind of just getting off the ground here.
<v Speaker 3>But today's plant on Trial is Bambino variegated orange Bougainvilla,
<v Speaker 3>which is my favorite out of the line. So I
<v Speaker 3>don't know about you, but for me, like if you
<v Speaker 3>were to say, like what one plant to you says
<v Speaker 3>like I'm on vacation. For me, it's bougainvillia. I'm gonna say, oh, okay,
<v Speaker 3>that's a good choice. But I you know the thing
<v Speaker 3>about for me boogainvillia, whether you've been to a tropical
<v Speaker 3>hot climate or an arid hot climate, they do well
<v Speaker 3>in both. There is I think few, if any plants
<v Speaker 3>that bloom as perpetually as bougainvillia. So no matter what
<v Speaker 3>time of the year you go on vacation to these
<v Speaker 3>warm climates, you're gonna see boogain in flower and it
<v Speaker 3>is unmistakable. So if you're sitting like, what's that word,
<v Speaker 3>I've been to these warm climates, I don't know what
<v Speaker 3>you're talking about. Typically, boogainvillia is a vine, a very vigorous,
<v Speaker 3>woody vine, and always needs support. So you're gonna be
<v Speaker 3>seeing bougainvillia up above, usually like on a pergola. In
<v Speaker 3>some climates it's very popular to grow them like around
<v Speaker 3>doors or something like that. They need some kind of support,
<v Speaker 3>and the flowers, actually the bracts, which are kind of
<v Speaker 3>like a modified leaf that are just there to attract pollinators,
<v Speaker 3>are kind of papery. They're made up of three or
<v Speaker 3>four of these kind of leafy bracts, and if you
<v Speaker 3>peek inside, there are one to three really cute, really
<v Speaker 3>cool white flowers, and that's the flower itself, is that
<v Speaker 3>thing inside. So when you see a boogainvillia, you're seeing
<v Speaker 3>extremely vivid color. Another thing like tropical hibiscus, of course,
<v Speaker 3>is also known for vivid color, but bougainvillia colors are
<v Speaker 3>like in another plant, like another planetary systems. Yes, there
<v Speaker 3>are a few things that are just as completely bright.
<v Speaker 3>And just say I'm in a warm climate, I'm on vacation.
<v Speaker 3>Life is good. But you know, they do need again
<v Speaker 3>this very sturdy support because they are woody vines and
<v Speaker 3>they climb through little thorny well, some of them are
<v Speaker 3>quite thorny or just kind of protuberances on the vine,
<v Speaker 3>so they kind of support themselves. They don't climb by
<v Speaker 3>vining or twining or anything like that. They just kind
<v Speaker 3>of find their way up to support and cover, you know,
<v Speaker 3>whatever it is. And they are very vigorous. So they
<v Speaker 3>need quite a lot of maintenance if you live in
<v Speaker 3>a warm climate, because you're constantly having to prune them
<v Speaker 3>because they just go and go and go. They overgrow
<v Speaker 3>whatever you're trying to grow them on. They take well
<v Speaker 3>to pruning, and you know, they're none the worse for
<v Speaker 3>the wear. But you know, a lot of times when
<v Speaker 3>it comes to the garden, whether you're in a warm
<v Speaker 3>climate or a cold climate, you want something that has
<v Speaker 3>those same qualities of the standard, but maybe that you
<v Speaker 3>can use in a different way. And that's where the
<v Speaker 3>bambino bougainvillias, of which Bambino variegated orange is one. So
<v Speaker 3>these are dwarf boogainvillias that we have just brought over one,
<v Speaker 3>not just but a couple of years ago, brought over
<v Speaker 3>from Australia. So these were developed in Australia where of
<v Speaker 3>course probably the majority of the country can easily and
<v Speaker 3>readily grow bougainvillia. And so instead of being you know,
<v Speaker 3>fifteen twenty twenty five feet long and tall vines, the
<v Speaker 3>bambino bougainvillia is anywhere from two feet to say, roughly
<v Speaker 3>five feet tall and wide.
<v Speaker 1>So great for containers.
<v Speaker 3>Great for containers, and that is not something you can
<v Speaker 3>really say about your more conventional boogainvillia. They can be
<v Speaker 3>trimmed into like a neat shape and still flower because
<v Speaker 3>again these are nearly perpetually flowering plants, or you can
<v Speaker 3>just kind of let them go and do their thing
<v Speaker 3>and be kind of more I think I wrote in
<v Speaker 3>my notes here loosey goosey. But that's just the best
<v Speaker 3>way that I can think about it now. I of
<v Speaker 3>course know and believe myself that variegation can be very polarizing.
<v Speaker 3>And this is a variegated leafed boogainvillia, but I like it.
<v Speaker 3>Some boogainvillia I like, or some variegation I like, some
<v Speaker 3>I don't like. I can't universally say I like it.
<v Speaker 3>I know what I like when I see it. I
<v Speaker 3>tend to like more neat variegation that's very clearly defined,
<v Speaker 3>rather than excuse me, Rick, but Groton like where it's
<v Speaker 3>all just kind of muddled together, got it.
<v Speaker 1>But you know, that's a fair thing.
<v Speaker 3>For all of us out there, and that's what makes
<v Speaker 3>gardenings so great. So if you're familiar with our variety
<v Speaker 3>sugar tip hibiscus, the foliage actually looks quite a bit
<v Speaker 3>like that, so similar size and similar shape, and it
<v Speaker 3>kind of has like a sage green, a mint green,
<v Speaker 3>and then a nice creamy yellow margin. So it's not
<v Speaker 3>everything all mixing together and swirling together. Things are pretty
<v Speaker 3>clearly delineated, but it just adds a lot of splash
<v Speaker 3>and color to the flower. And of course flowers are
<v Speaker 3>the main event. And these are orange and orange boog
<v Speaker 3>and Villia. I feel like is one of the colors
<v Speaker 3>you see the least. Yeah, may be white, but like
<v Speaker 3>you don't see a lot of orange. And when I
<v Speaker 3>see these pictures or see the bambino boog and villas
<v Speaker 3>blooming in our greenhouses here, I have my heart goes
<v Speaker 3>out for the orange because they are so different and
<v Speaker 3>they kind of have I don't want to say a
<v Speaker 3>burnt orange because that sounds like a little bit too depressing,
<v Speaker 3>but they're really vivid and they start pink and they
<v Speaker 3>end pink. And you know a lot of times in
<v Speaker 3>the plant world, pink and orange can be very close
<v Speaker 3>or a lot of plants.
<v Speaker 1>Will go and they look great together.
<v Speaker 3>I love them together. Yeah, especially at this time of year.
<v Speaker 3>So they kind of start out pink, they go to
<v Speaker 3>this beautiful orange, and then they fade back to pink.
<v Speaker 3>So when you're looking at a boogain villia plant variegated
<v Speaker 3>orange boogin Villia, you're getting all of those colors at once,
<v Speaker 3>and it just makes it gives it so much depth
<v Speaker 3>and such an interesting plant. Because this is a shrubby boogainvillia,
<v Speaker 3>A lot of and cold climates can actually grow it
<v Speaker 3>because we couldn't normally grow one of the big vinding types,
<v Speaker 3>because how would we even manage this huge, thorny plant
<v Speaker 3>that needs very sturdy support.
<v Speaker 2>You know, that would be nice because when I worked
<v Speaker 2>in the garden center industry, and I would buy and
<v Speaker 2>bring up bougainvillia plants from the South to Michigan. They
<v Speaker 2>put them in a box or a bag, They put
<v Speaker 2>them on a semi truck and they sit there for
<v Speaker 2>over a week on their way north.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, that's a They don't like that.
<v Speaker 2>By the time they get here, all of the blooms
<v Speaker 2>are off.
<v Speaker 3>The planet, and hey wants to buy a boogavilion with
<v Speaker 3>no flowers? Hunt and Vidic.
<v Speaker 1>It was difficult.
<v Speaker 3>But boucavilias are not hardy as you may have guessed.
<v Speaker 3>They're only hardy down to USDA zone nine. Some sources
<v Speaker 3>of say nine b heat tolerant through at least USCA
<v Speaker 3>zone eleven. So these are firmly tropical plants. But like
<v Speaker 3>I was saying. In those older types you couldn't easily
<v Speaker 3>grow them for the long term because they were just
<v Speaker 3>too big. You know, you could get one and try
<v Speaker 3>to grow it, and of course it wouldn't like over
<v Speaker 3>you know, grow its container just in one seat in Michigan,
<v Speaker 3>but it did get quite large. So these new shrubby booginbhilias,
<v Speaker 3>like the bambino variegated orange, we'll actually stay just two
<v Speaker 3>to three feet tall and wide, so you can actually
<v Speaker 3>grow it, enjoy it on your patio or porch all
<v Speaker 3>summer long. As long as you give it full sun.
<v Speaker 3>Hummingbirds love it. It will bloom all summer, and then you
<v Speaker 3>can try to bring it in. Not the easiest plant
<v Speaker 3>to grow indoors, not gonna lie to you, but it's
<v Speaker 3>where the try. If you did invest in one for
<v Speaker 3>some fun summer color, bring it indoors. Put it in
<v Speaker 3>your brightest spot, coolest spot. It can't be freezing, but
<v Speaker 3>you want good air circulation and cool temperatures. Don't over
<v Speaker 3>water it, and with a little luck, you'll have another
<v Speaker 3>plant to put outside the following summer and enjoy all
<v Speaker 3>over again.
<v Speaker 1>Love it. I love it.
<v Speaker 3>So that's Bambino variegated orange. If your interest is peaked,
<v Speaker 3>you can of course see pictures on YouTube or in
<v Speaker 3>our show notes at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. You
<v Speaker 3>may not find it at your local garden center this
<v Speaker 3>year if you are in a cold climate, but you
<v Speaker 3>can certainly order it online and try it out yourself
<v Speaker 3>in your garden. We're going to take a little break
<v Speaker 3>and when we come back, we're opening up the garden mailbag,
<v Speaker 3>so please stay tuned. At Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs,
<v Speaker 3>we know that a better landscape starts with a better shrub.
<v Speaker 3>Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our
<v Speaker 3>flowering shrubs in evergreens for eight to ten years to
<v Speaker 3>ensure they outperform what's already on the market. For easycare, reliable,
<v Speaker 3>beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and express your personal style.
<v Speaker 3>Look for Proven Winner's Shrubs in the distinctive white container
<v Speaker 3>at your local garden center or learn more at proven
<v Speaker 3>Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome
<v Speaker 3>back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it's one of
<v Speaker 3>our favorite times of the show because we get to
<v Speaker 3>help you with your gardening questions and you know what,
<v Speaker 3>only do I really love helping people at their gardening questions.
<v Speaker 3>It's just cool to find out what they're dealing with
<v Speaker 3>out there, you know, from people in all different climates,
<v Speaker 3>different situations. You know, we're all dealing with different things.
<v Speaker 3>And you know, you and I are guilty of often
<v Speaker 3>believing that the grass is proverbial greener. On the other side, Oh,
<v Speaker 3>if only we could garden in southern Florida, if only
<v Speaker 3>we could garden in southern Texas. Oh if only we
<v Speaker 3>could grow in a avocado. But then you hear from
<v Speaker 3>certain gardeners in warm climates and you're like, ooh, I'm
<v Speaker 3>actually really glad that's not a problem to deal with.
<v Speaker 2>It's great to learn from other people, and it's fun,
<v Speaker 2>especially at this time of the year, to dream a little.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, definitely. And you know, last week we read
<v Speaker 3>a comment from a listener Tom, who was talking about
<v Speaker 3>how he wished that there was some sort of system
<v Speaker 3>to help qualify a plant's heat tolerance, and that you know,
<v Speaker 3>when he's looking to buy plants, he doesn't choose something
<v Speaker 3>unless he hears from someone who's grown up for at
<v Speaker 3>least three years that it will tolerate the heat in
<v Speaker 3>his area totally fair. But we actually got an interesting
<v Speaker 3>comment from another listener, Choi, and Choi says, I always
<v Speaker 3>enjoy your video. There's something I learn and appreciate all
<v Speaker 3>the details. I'm in Zone eight used to be Zone
<v Speaker 3>seven B. We don't have spring. It's like from the
<v Speaker 3>forties to the sixties. Come May, it's already in the seventies.
<v Speaker 3>By summer, it's just hot. Most of our time is
<v Speaker 3>the ninety degrees plus, and last year we had more
<v Speaker 3>than one hundred ninety degree days. Troy goes on to say,
<v Speaker 3>I have a comment on gardening and heat. I enjoy gardening.
<v Speaker 3>My house faces south and has no shade. By mid afternoon,
<v Speaker 3>my backyard is so hot. I love hostas, ferns, etc.
<v Speaker 3>I don't have shade, but that doesn't stop me from
<v Speaker 3>growing them. I would say if you're in a heat zone,
<v Speaker 3>you can trick the plants by giving them water every day.
<v Speaker 3>Keep it moist, don't let the soil dry out. It
<v Speaker 3>works for me, and I've had them over four years
<v Speaker 3>and they're still very healthy. So it's good advice for especially,
<v Speaker 3>as Troy mentions here, herbaceous perennials like the ferns and hostas.
<v Speaker 3>Now it doesn't always work, it does work. Basically, what
<v Speaker 3>Choy's saying is if you give your plants extra water,
<v Speaker 3>very often they can tolerate the heat. And that is true.
<v Speaker 3>But one of the things about her base perennials compared
<v Speaker 3>to shrubs or trees is that when the going gets tough,
<v Speaker 3>they can just call it quits and go underground and
<v Speaker 3>preserve and can serve all of their resources underground. Trees
<v Speaker 3>and shrubs can't really do that. They can defoliate, but
<v Speaker 3>usually if they do that, they don't have the energy
<v Speaker 3>to come back right away sure, Whereas if a herbaceous
<v Speaker 3>perennial goes prematurely dormant, usually it'll just you know, wait
<v Speaker 3>until conditions improve and then come back.
<v Speaker 2>So and Choi makes a good point here as we
<v Speaker 2>discussed with doctor Allan Armitage, and that is it's all
<v Speaker 2>about afternoon sun.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, yep, yeah for sure. So thanks for that, Choi.
<v Speaker 3>And you know, always good to hear from those warm
<v Speaker 3>climate gardeners and how you're dealing with the unique challenges
<v Speaker 3>and opportunities of your climates.
<v Speaker 2>Well, speaking of warm climates, let's go to Texas. Clay
<v Speaker 2>Is in Texas and has a mystery, and we well,
<v Speaker 2>we'll see what we can do for Clay here. I've
<v Speaker 2>visited Texas a few times, have never lived there. I
<v Speaker 2>reckon Stacey, I'm at my wits end. I really I
<v Speaker 2>hope you guys can help me figure out what's going on.
<v Speaker 2>I have a feeling possibly one of our listeners or
<v Speaker 2>viewers may have an answer for Clay here. For the
<v Speaker 2>last few months, literally anything I put in my backyard
<v Speaker 2>with a leaf on it, no matter how small, gets
<v Speaker 2>immediately defoliated overnight. The only thing it won't touch, for
<v Speaker 2>some reason, is my lime tree, but the lemon tree
<v Speaker 2>right next to it is picked clean as soon as
<v Speaker 2>the new leaves appear. I've tried sewing carrots, radishes, cilantro
<v Speaker 2>in the garden with a piece of wire mesh over them,
<v Speaker 2>but the instant a seedling pops up, it's immediately cut back.
<v Speaker 2>I left the wire mesh on the ground, and eventually
<v Speaker 2>weeds started growing under it in a perfect square. Then
<v Speaker 2>as soon as I moved it, they were all gone
<v Speaker 2>the next morning, et cetera, et cetera. In other words,
<v Speaker 2>Clay's point is he can't even grow weeds. What's causing
<v Speaker 2>this problem and how do I stop it? And Stacy,
<v Speaker 2>I have a theory okay on this for Texas, and
<v Speaker 2>that would be its pocket gophers.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, pocket gophers.
<v Speaker 2>Pocket gophers are legendary in Texas. In other parts of
<v Speaker 2>the country we don't deal with them as much. They
<v Speaker 2>call them pocket gophers because they are hoarders. They clean
<v Speaker 2>their food before eating it, and they have these pockets
<v Speaker 2>in their their jaws their mouth where they can store
<v Speaker 2>a whole bunch of food, and they love foliage. Just
<v Speaker 2>guessing here, So do again? I don't live in Texas, right,
<v Speaker 2>but everything's bigger in Texas, and so are the pocket gophers.
<v Speaker 3>So do pocket gophers leave other evidence of their visiting
<v Speaker 3>like burrows or tunnels or hills of soil like a
<v Speaker 3>mole or something with As.
<v Speaker 2>I understand it, they're neat freaks. Oh so I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>I'm just saying because this is such a mystery for Clay,
<v Speaker 2>I'm just taking a stab.
<v Speaker 3>At it, right, Okay. My first thought was mice, so
<v Speaker 3>similar kind of thing. Mice can also be extremely voracious,
<v Speaker 3>and you know, if you're spoiling them with only the tenderest, freshest, foliage.
<v Speaker 3>That is what they're going to go for, you know,
<v Speaker 3>never mind all that you know, thick, durable, hard stuff.
<v Speaker 3>So I don't know if other listeners, perhaps from Texas
<v Speaker 3>or warm climates have dealt with something similar and we're
<v Speaker 3>able to catch the culprit. Definitely sounds like some kind
<v Speaker 3>of rodent. I don't think it's an insect. One thing
<v Speaker 3>that you could try. This is maybe a little bit
<v Speaker 3>out there, but hey, you never know. Is put some
<v Speaker 3>so when you sew something or put something tender out there,
<v Speaker 3>put some flour all around the ground around this thing
<v Speaker 3>and see if you capturing footprints there you go.
<v Speaker 2>Or I would plant something that's really you know, this
<v Speaker 2>is like a murder mystery that we're going to carry.
<v Speaker 3>From a plant murder miss and we'll.
<v Speaker 2>Have our listeners and viewers help us out. But you know,
<v Speaker 2>if that's the case what Clay is describing, I'd put
<v Speaker 2>something tasty out there, and in today's day and age,
<v Speaker 2>just have a camera set up and let's find out
<v Speaker 2>what it is.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, So if you need some camera recommendation right us,
<v Speaker 3>Adriana will send you there you go, some camera recommendations
<v Speaker 3>so that you can catch the culprit and solve the mystery,
<v Speaker 3>because you know, again ask us so many things that
<v Speaker 3>people ask God in the garden. If it's your problem,
<v Speaker 3>it's probably other people's problem, as welse.
<v Speaker 2>Absoluctly, Hey, Stacy Brooke writes to us again about Kinsley's
<v Speaker 2>ghost honeysuckle. You talked about that in our first episode.
<v Speaker 2>And so Brooke is in Southeast Michigan, Zone six B.
<v Speaker 2>We've been saving cardboard for months to build new garden
<v Speaker 2>beds using the no dig method. I'm itching to work
<v Speaker 2>outside when it's not too cold, so I have the
<v Speaker 2>cardboard and access to straw that I could use as mulch.
<v Speaker 2>Can I get a head start on laying this all out?
<v Speaker 2>Is this something I can do before spring? So as
<v Speaker 2>far as winter garden bed building is concerned, now this
<v Speaker 2>is I call it zagna composting, and I do it
<v Speaker 2>over grassy areas to kill off the grass, and do
<v Speaker 2>it in the fall when leaves are readily available. So
<v Speaker 2>I've never really done it in the winter.
<v Speaker 3>Right now, My only real concern was two concerns I
<v Speaker 3>guess about winter doing it in winter. Number one, I
<v Speaker 3>would not try it in winter when the ground is
<v Speaker 3>frozen because when the ground is frozen, it's typically very
<v Speaker 3>uneven and it would be hard, I think, to get
<v Speaker 3>the contact that you need from the sheet maulch. Is
<v Speaker 3>this is this method is also often called it would
<v Speaker 3>be hard to get that ground to sheet mulch contact
<v Speaker 3>that you need to get that killing effect for the
<v Speaker 3>vegetation underneath. You're just gonna have air and it's just
<v Speaker 3>going to be a mess. So I think that you
<v Speaker 3>do need to wait until you can at least do
<v Speaker 3>something to keep the ground, you know, to get the
<v Speaker 3>ground reasonably even Again, what that means, who knows, we'll see.
<v Speaker 3>But it doesn't mean you have to wait until the
<v Speaker 3>height of spring, just until maybe the soil is a
<v Speaker 3>little bit more workable and not frozen solid. And then,
<v Speaker 3>you know, my other concern about the winter is just
<v Speaker 3>wetting it, you know, because you're supposed to usually wet
<v Speaker 3>it so that you get that contact, and that is
<v Speaker 3>not You certainly should not be renting your hose bib
<v Speaker 3>right now in any part of Michigan, so you know,
<v Speaker 3>that could be an issue. But otherwise I would say
<v Speaker 3>you don't have to wait until the weather is you know,
<v Speaker 3>nice enough to be outside. You can definitely get a
<v Speaker 3>little bit of a head start, but you do want
<v Speaker 3>to wait until the soil is to a point where
<v Speaker 3>you can actually, you know, work it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I admire Brooks spirit and Stacey. I've been out there
<v Speaker 2>in February and March way too early, pretty much every
<v Speaker 2>year doing this kind of stuff.
<v Speaker 1>But you can't help it. You just want to get started.
<v Speaker 3>You got to get out there and smell the soil.
<v Speaker 2>Catherine writes to us, I've grown Virginia in parts Sun
<v Speaker 2>for over ten years, wondering about correct maintenance and trimming.
<v Speaker 2>The older plants have long black stems about six to
<v Speaker 2>eight inches, with the leaves starting off that so Virginia
<v Speaker 2>or one of my favorite perennials, pig squeak, Stacey. Here
<v Speaker 2>in Michigan it can look pretty rough in winter, but
<v Speaker 2>in some parts of the country it almost acts like
<v Speaker 2>an evergreen.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Yeah, So this is the first time I ever
<v Speaker 3>saw Berghinia. I say berghinia, and Catherine does note ps,
<v Speaker 3>it's another plant with a pronunciation. Debate, So Virginia Burghinia,
<v Speaker 3>I sayberghinia. Yeah, it's a beautiful plant. The first time
<v Speaker 3>I saw when I absolutely fell in love. I can't
<v Speaker 3>grow it because I don't have shade and I don't
<v Speaker 3>have my soil. But so what happens. This is one
<v Speaker 3>of those plants that kind of forms like a rhizome,
<v Speaker 3>almost like a rhizome type stem that the foliage comes
<v Speaker 3>off of. And the longer that you have your plant,
<v Speaker 3>the longer that rhizome is going to become because it's
<v Speaker 3>putting out new foliage. Usually in a nice healthy patch
<v Speaker 3>of burginia, there's enough offsets that they'll all kind of
<v Speaker 3>form a groundcover and their leaves will overlap and you
<v Speaker 3>won't really see it. But I did look online and
<v Speaker 3>I saw some resources that basically said, it's just something
<v Speaker 3>this plant does, and you should either bury those long
<v Speaker 3>stems or tubers that are coming out with some more soil,
<v Speaker 3>or you know, once if you do have some nice
<v Speaker 3>offsets and it's filling in, just take out that old
<v Speaker 3>one and let the new ones, those new younger ones
<v Speaker 3>kind of take over. So there's something you can do,
<v Speaker 3>little extra gardening love for you, And you can always
<v Speaker 3>just try and digging them out and then replanting them
<v Speaker 3>deeper if you don't want to just throw away that
<v Speaker 3>sort of mother plant that has those long Sometimes unsightly stems.
<v Speaker 3>So thank you all for your questions. If you have
<v Speaker 3>a question for us, you can reach us at Gardeningsimplified
<v Speaker 3>on air dot com or leave a comment on our
<v Speaker 3>YouTube video. We're going to take a break. When we
<v Speaker 3>come back, Rick and I are talking about Hollywood Hybiscus,
<v Speaker 3>so please stay tuned. Thanks for listening to the Gardening
<v Speaker 3>Simplified Podcast, brought to you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs.
<v Speaker 3>Our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and
<v Speaker 3>tested by experts with your success in mind. Learn more
<v Speaker 3>at Proven Winners color Choice dot com.
<v Speaker 2>Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Today for branching news,
<v Speaker 2>we're going to talk about an exciting line of plants
<v Speaker 2>called Hollywood Hibiscus. But before we do that, Stacey had
<v Speaker 2>to mention to you here in Michigan, where we've already
<v Speaker 2>mentioned to folks that temperatures are in the single digits
<v Speaker 2>with wind chills well below zero. There are some folks
<v Speaker 2>here in Michigan who made the news because they have
<v Speaker 2>a bright yellow cardinal visiting their bird feeders on a
<v Speaker 2>regular basis. Scientists estimate the male northern cardinals' genetic mutation
<v Speaker 2>makes that makes it yellow, makes it about a one
<v Speaker 2>in ten million bird. Once you love to see that
<v Speaker 2>bird at your bird feeder, I.
<v Speaker 3>Would, and I would need to make sure I had
<v Speaker 3>a good clear view of it. Otherwise I'd be like,
<v Speaker 3>was that Baltimore Oriole? Was that this? And I'd be
<v Speaker 3>going crazy trying to figure out what I had actually
<v Speaker 3>just seen. And you know, it's really cool. I think
<v Speaker 3>that I feel like you hear about one of these
<v Speaker 3>every couple of years, and I think it's just great
<v Speaker 3>that the Internet is, you know where is. Before you
<v Speaker 3>would maybe not been believed or no one would learn
<v Speaker 3>about it, And now like the whole state's like, oh yeah,
<v Speaker 3>we got a yellow one in ten million cardinal right
<v Speaker 3>here at Michigan.
<v Speaker 1>To see it.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's pretty great.
<v Speaker 2>It's a good point. Yeah, the couple have named the
<v Speaker 2>yellow Cardinal, and we'll put the link at our website,
<v Speaker 2>Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. But the couple named the
<v Speaker 2>yellow Cardinal Donovan, after the singer song writer that nineteen
<v Speaker 2>sixty six hit Mellow Yellow.
<v Speaker 3>Oh great tune.
<v Speaker 2>It's a great love that. It's a great tune sticks
<v Speaker 2>in your head. I'm feeling better.
<v Speaker 3>I have feeling better, you know, I am too. Thank
<v Speaker 3>you for that.
<v Speaker 2>Well, then let's talk about Hollywood. Hooray for Hollywood Hollywood.
<v Speaker 1>Hybiscus, Stacy.
<v Speaker 2>This is really exciting for Proven Winners Color Choice shrubs.
<v Speaker 1>You know, we're.
<v Speaker 2>Always talking about plant genetics, and I want to talk
<v Speaker 2>a few minutes here about high biscus. Some of my
<v Speaker 2>experience with high biscus in the garden center industry, but
<v Speaker 2>Hollywood high biscus, when it comes to genetics, will now
<v Speaker 2>be in that world famous white pot with that diamond tag,
<v Speaker 2>and it's it's exciting.
<v Speaker 3>It is really exciting. And you know, we have long
<v Speaker 3>wanted to have some tropical hibiscus in the Proven Winner's
<v Speaker 3>Color Choice line. You know, not just because it's a
<v Speaker 3>very common landscape plant in warmer climates, but because so
<v Speaker 3>many people love growing them as summer color. And you know,
<v Speaker 3>I think that this concept of these tropicals that we
<v Speaker 3>buy for our backyards, you know, originally that was like
<v Speaker 3>the one maybe people bought hibiscus, And now there's mandavilla
<v Speaker 3>and all of these other ones, and so it's just
<v Speaker 3>really I think has changed the way people think about
<v Speaker 3>what's an annual. What you know, do you want to
<v Speaker 3>invest in for color? And so when it comes to
<v Speaker 3>investing in a tropical hibiscus, because these are woody plants,
<v Speaker 3>they do cost a bit more than you know, your
<v Speaker 3>average annual is going to cost. You want the highest
<v Speaker 3>performance plant. You want the plant that is going to
<v Speaker 3>do the most for you, bloom the most, have the
<v Speaker 3>best color, and you know, up until relatively recently, you know,
<v Speaker 3>you went to the garden center and looked for tropical
<v Speaker 3>hibiscus and it was like, Okay, here's red, here's yellow,
<v Speaker 3>here's you know, yeah, and that was it. And so
<v Speaker 3>the cool thing about Hollywood hibiscus is these were developed
<v Speaker 3>specifically to outperform the more conventional, you know, varieties that
<v Speaker 3>were on the market. They have individual names, so you
<v Speaker 3>know that what you're getting from year to year, if
<v Speaker 3>you get, say, for example, Sunset Boulevard, that Sunset Boulevard
<v Speaker 3>Hollywood hibiscus is going to be the same Sunset Bull
<v Speaker 3>ofvar every yart, you're going to be getting the same
<v Speaker 3>great performance and you get that nice reliability.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And the thing that I'm excited about with Hollywood hibiscus
<v Speaker 2>is generally, when I've grown Hibiscus, the flowers are here today,
<v Speaker 2>gone tomorrow. Generally the blooms maybe last day. The genetics
<v Speaker 2>with Hollywood Hibiscus Stacey is supposed to allow blooms to
<v Speaker 2>last maybe as long as two or three days, and
<v Speaker 2>that correct.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so not every variety in the Hollywood Hibsius line
<v Speaker 3>lasts longer than one day. And the one day thing
<v Speaker 3>is typical across the genus. So if you have Rosa Sharon,
<v Speaker 3>those flowers typically last one day. My beloved summarific hibiscus
<v Speaker 3>flowers last one day. But you know there's plenty of
<v Speaker 3>them to make up for that. But the nice thing
<v Speaker 3>about Hollywood is, yes, some of them are you know,
<v Speaker 3>have that ability to open and last up to three days.
<v Speaker 3>So you're getting a lot more color just from a
<v Speaker 3>single flower, and I you know, I think that's such
<v Speaker 3>a rate bonus. Not all of them have it, but
<v Speaker 3>you'll definitely notice the ones that do, because you just
<v Speaker 3>get that little extra color without having to do, you know,
<v Speaker 3>anything special to get it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and arguably one of the knocks on hibiscus is
<v Speaker 2>bud drop or the buds dropping off. And again my
<v Speaker 2>experience in the garden center industry, I mentioned Booginvilia earlier,
<v Speaker 2>and they drop all their color on their way to
<v Speaker 2>on their way north to Michigan. The high biscus generally
<v Speaker 2>would do that too. You can pack a lot of
<v Speaker 2>high biscus plants into a semi truck, and they do.
<v Speaker 1>They pack them in there, so.
<v Speaker 2>You get a semi truck with five thousand high biscus
<v Speaker 2>plants or whatever it may be. The floors in the
<v Speaker 2>semi are metal. As you unload these highbiscus plants, those
<v Speaker 2>slimy buds and flowers fall off, and it becomes a
<v Speaker 2>real hazard.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I would think.
<v Speaker 1>So much slide City.
<v Speaker 3>There's a reason they call them mush mummies.
<v Speaker 2>Mush mummies exactly. So high biscus love.
<v Speaker 1>They're just like me.
<v Speaker 2>They love sunshine, they love humid.
<v Speaker 1>Warm weather.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>And you know the other thing about Hollywood hibiscus compared
<v Speaker 3>to other varieties is that the flowers open up fully
<v Speaker 3>so a lot. And this is one of those things
<v Speaker 3>that you might be sitting here going yes, acy, okay,
<v Speaker 3>sounds like a real big deal, but you really will
<v Speaker 3>notice a difference when you look at the plants, for example,
<v Speaker 3>at your local garden center, that the ones that are
<v Speaker 3>more satellite dish shaped and rounded, and the difference between
<v Speaker 3>the ones that are opening fully so you get that huge,
<v Speaker 3>full circle of bloom. And another thing that might not
<v Speaker 3>seem like a big deal but will make a huge
<v Speaker 3>difference when you see it in your yard is the
<v Speaker 3>blooms of the Hollywood Hibiscus are also selected to face you,
<v Speaker 3>to face outward, and a lot of the older varieties
<v Speaker 3>they kind of droop a little bit, so you get
<v Speaker 3>that color, but you're mostly seeing the backs of the petals.
<v Speaker 3>You know, you're not getting that full on like shine in.
<v Speaker 3>They're show offs shining in your face. Color and the
<v Speaker 3>color is another thing. Now, what's your favorite color of
<v Speaker 3>tropical hibiscus.
<v Speaker 1>I'd have to say yellow.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I'm team red for sure. I love, love, love
<v Speaker 3>the red color. And you know, the scientific name Hibiscus
<v Speaker 3>rosa sentensus is a rose from China. Yes, so some
<v Speaker 3>people do call these a Chinese rose, although that is
<v Speaker 3>definitely more of an old fetch and aim for them.
<v Speaker 3>But I love the red because I feel like that's
<v Speaker 3>the classic, you know hibiscus. But I do we have
<v Speaker 3>beautiful yellows in the line, fabulous oranges, pink. Yeah, so
<v Speaker 3>another one that if your tastes don't tend towards the
<v Speaker 3>bright and loud and you prefer more of the soft pink,
<v Speaker 3>there's even a pure white.
<v Speaker 1>Wow.
<v Speaker 3>So that's a really nice one.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 3>We often tell people, if you can only enjoy your
<v Speaker 3>garden in the evening, look for white flowers. And the
<v Speaker 3>Hollywood Hibiscus earth angel with the white flowers could not
<v Speaker 3>do better than that for some evening magic.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's great on your deck or patio when you're
<v Speaker 2>entertaining so Hibiscus rosa sinensis.
<v Speaker 1>You know the knock.
<v Speaker 2>And that's why I'm so excited about the genetics of
<v Speaker 2>Hollywood hibiscus is because for people growing high biscus, sometimes
<v Speaker 2>the knock is yellowing foliage. You need to make sure
<v Speaker 2>to fertilize the plants properly. That's what I have found ye.
<v Speaker 2>And then also hibiscus can be a magnet for aphids, mites,
<v Speaker 2>mealy bugs. But I have always found that those problems
<v Speaker 2>come along or persist when the plants under some kind
<v Speaker 2>of stress. You have to make sure to water hibiscus properly.
<v Speaker 2>And again, going back to the garden center industry, we
<v Speaker 2>always taught to employees that you don't take a watering
<v Speaker 2>wand and just water over the top. You put that
<v Speaker 2>wand right in the pot. You fill that pot, and
<v Speaker 2>you make sure Stacy that those roots are saturate.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and you know, I'm glad you brought up fertilizing
<v Speaker 3>because the one sort of unusual thing you need to
<v Speaker 3>know about carrying for Hollywood hibiscus is that you cannot
<v Speaker 3>use high phosphorus fertilizers. So, in other words, you do
<v Speaker 3>not want to use a bloom booster. And you know,
<v Speaker 3>I was very grateful that when we started marketing and
<v Speaker 3>growing the Hollywood line that they told me this, because
<v Speaker 3>otherwise I'd be thinking, like, hey, let's load these puppies
<v Speaker 3>up with bloebosters. We are going to get a ton
<v Speaker 3>of flowers. But the phosphorus, you know, for whatever internal
<v Speaker 3>chemistry reasons within the hibiscus, it actually causes problems. It
<v Speaker 3>ties up other nutrients, and it will actually limit the
<v Speaker 3>blooming and cause leaf drops. So you do not want
<v Speaker 3>to use any kind of high phosphorus or bloom boosting
<v Speaker 3>fertilizer against your best instincts for growing these plants. So
<v Speaker 3>do keep that in mind. It does of course say
<v Speaker 3>so on the tag, so you'll know that. But you
<v Speaker 3>do want to fertilize them well so that you're giving
<v Speaker 3>the plant plenty of energy to keep those blooms coming.
<v Speaker 3>Summer's already way too short. We want to make sure
<v Speaker 3>that they have all the resources they need for their
<v Speaker 3>best performance. But save that bloom booster for free fertilizing
<v Speaker 3>other stuff.
<v Speaker 2>I'm glad you brought this up, and it is an
<v Speaker 2>important point because you know, if you're keeping score at home, Stacy,
<v Speaker 2>I'll ask you this question. Essentially, you want to fertilize,
<v Speaker 2>but we're looking for something more so that we call
<v Speaker 2>a balanced fertilizer.
<v Speaker 3>Right, a balance fertilizer is going to probably be the
<v Speaker 3>easiest thing for most people to find. But if you
<v Speaker 3>can find something with the middle number the phosphorus lower
<v Speaker 3>than the other two, that would be even more preferable.
<v Speaker 3>And you know, a lot of there's much to be
<v Speaker 3>said about fertilizers, like, oh, this is a this fertilizer,
<v Speaker 3>this is a rose fertilizer, this is an orange fertilizer,
<v Speaker 3>or whatever. But really all you should be looking at
<v Speaker 3>is those numbers. So if that you know, ideal fertilizer
<v Speaker 3>for the hibiscus ends up being a turf fertilizer, so
<v Speaker 3>be it. You know, it's you're looking at those numbers,
<v Speaker 3>not necessarily what they claim to do.
<v Speaker 2>I'm wondering if this is a fig leaf of my imagination.
<v Speaker 2>But and sometimes we should do a show on this.
<v Speaker 2>Plants that like to move and plants that don't like
<v Speaker 2>to move. And my experience with highbiscus has always been
<v Speaker 2>it's a plant. Once it's in a spot that it likes,
<v Speaker 2>let's just keep it there.
<v Speaker 3>It could be it certainly doesn't like to move indoors,
<v Speaker 3>it does, and of course a lot of people want
<v Speaker 3>to move them indoors.
<v Speaker 1>North of zone nine, you're gonna have to move it in.
<v Speaker 3>All right. And you know, they are a plant that
<v Speaker 3>you know, And I meant to say this about the
<v Speaker 3>boogin Villia too. Generally speaking, you know, herbaceous tropical plants
<v Speaker 3>will do just fine. So like the philodendron that we
<v Speaker 3>were talking about at the top of the show, when
<v Speaker 3>you get into these woody tropicals, they definitely struggle indoors
<v Speaker 3>more than their herbaceous or non woody counterparts. So this,
<v Speaker 3>like I said, with the Bougainvillia. If you are going
<v Speaker 3>to try to bring your Hollywood Hibiscus indoors much as
<v Speaker 3>much soun as you can give it, cool temperatures, fantastic,
<v Speaker 3>good air circulation is going to be very, very crucial.
<v Speaker 3>And if it dies or it makes such a mess
<v Speaker 3>that you wish that it would and you just throw
<v Speaker 3>it out, that's perfectly fine. There's still reasonably priced enough,
<v Speaker 3>I think, to replace them every year. Try a new color,
<v Speaker 3>try new color combinations, try something new, and don't beat
<v Speaker 3>yourself up. It is a difficult plant for most people
<v Speaker 3>to grow successfully indoors under normal condition.
<v Speaker 2>And don't be afraid to pune them back when you
<v Speaker 2>bring them in.
<v Speaker 3>That's a great point. So Hollywood Hibiscus it is going
<v Speaker 3>to be at your local garden center this season. You know,
<v Speaker 3>if you're looking at it, take a moment to compare
<v Speaker 3>it to the other types of tropical hibiscus your garden
<v Speaker 3>center is carrying. You really will see a difference. And
<v Speaker 3>like I said, when you're investing, you know in these plants,
<v Speaker 3>you want to make sure you're getting the best performance possible.
<v Speaker 3>And I'm confident that of all the tropical hibiscus out there,
<v Speaker 3>Hollywood Hibiscus. Is it so you can find retailers at
<v Speaker 3>proven Winners, Color Choice dot com or of course, if
<v Speaker 3>you have any questions, reach out to us at Gardening
<v Speaker 3>Simplified on air dot com. And with that, I want
<v Speaker 3>to thank you Rick, thank you, thank you Adriana, and
<v Speaker 3>thanks to all of you for listening and watching and
<v Speaker 3>hope you have a wonderful week ahead.