How to Pamper Your Plants, a Revolutionary Rose, and Interviewing Dr. Judson LeCompte

Coming to you from Beautiful Studio a here at proven winner's color choice shrubs.
It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella me, Rick weisst and
our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Stacy, We're familiar with spa Day for
your plants. It was well made popular by all the people enjoying houseplants after
winter, taking their houseplants out for a walk, dusting them, basically giving
their plants a little bit of pampering. But why not have a SPA day
for your outdoor plant. I think it's a fantastic idea. Yeah, I
think so too. Now, of course, as people, you know,
we have a SPA day and I'm amazed at everything you can do. It's
unreal. The hydrotherapy, jet bath, massage, pedicure or manicure, mud
bath, micro derm abrasion, salt scrub, clay or herbal body mass I
like that cucumber on the eyes thing, you know, that looks really comforting
to me. I've never done it. Oh well, it's very simple and
very refreshing. You should try, especially if its cucumber is very cold and
your eyes are kind of you know, hot and dry. I like it.
I like it, seaweed, body wrap, aromatherapy, acupuncture, waxing,
reflexology, massage, saw on a hot storm treatment, beer bath,
hydrotherapy, steam room, oxygen face, etc. Etc. Unreal and waxing.
When they tear the hair off, that's a rip off in my mind.
Sorry, bad pun right at the start. Now, when I think
about spade for our outdoor plants, one of the first things that pops into
my mind is Epsom salt. Oh gosh, Now, people love I know.
That's why I'm bringing it up. People love in Epsom salt bath.
It's relaxing. Well, what about for your plants? Stacy online, there's
you know, and these are the salts that are not for your French fries.
Epsom comes from a place in England. I think it's south of London.
Their mineral salts. And the argument is they add magnesium, which is
important for photosynthesis for your plants. You would balk at that. People use
it on roses, tomatoes and peppers. Why do you bulk? Okay,
So I get that people like to, you know, have something that's like
we're pulling a fest when on the system we're beating the man by using epsom
salts and not fertilizer. Like I get that, you know, people like
those kind of hacks. And it's true. The actual central molecule of chlorophyll
is magnesium, and UPSOM salts are magnesium sulfate or magnesium sulfite. I don't
remember which, but any chemists out there don't know. Okay, But the
simple fact is that the majority of residential landscapes and gardens are not deficient in
magnesium, and so it does absolutely no good and can't actually do harm to
apply this less you know it's needed. And so because it's like this household
thing and you know, you know, if you've soaked your feet or taken
a bath and up some salts that it's it's good for you, they just
think it's this harmless household thing that they can just you know, put willy
nilly on their plants. But there's two potential issues. Well, first of
all, there's three. The first one is that it's just a waste of
money and resources if the plants don't need them and there's no benefit. Second
of all, if it's salt, so you are salting your soil every time
you apply magnesium or magnesium sulfate. And while it's true that salt is held
very lightly to soil molecules and it can be washed out very quickly just from
rain or irrigation, you are still salt, literally salting your soil when you
apply up some salts. And third of all, if you are applying an
abundance of magnesium, you can induce a deficiency in calcium. So all of
the essential nutrients for plants in the soil they worked together and they have these
relationships. So if something gets like way out of balance, it can actually
tie up or make unavailable to the plant other nutrients due to various chemical reactions.
So you're applying magnesium sulvader or app some salts, and you're actually can
repeated use because you think, oh, hey, this is this harmless household
thing, and I can just I can't possibly harm my plants, would do
anything wrong by applying this, you could actually induce a calcium deficiency in your
garden. Let's leave the epsom salts home for our spa day and save a
fare our self. Fellow gardeners. You might need them at the end of
the day of gardening, but your plants almost certainly do not. How about
hydrotherapy. Stir the mulch. I like to stir the mulch in my landscape.
Mulch can become hydrophobic, and in summer to allow the mulch to breathe.
I think that that's a spa approach for your plants. A mud bath,
maybe top dressing with a good organic material. We've talked in past about
dairy do but some kind of organic matter that you could add to the soil.
And I like a jet bath. Okay, I don't know how you
feel about this stacy, but take for example, dwarf Alberta spurs. Okay,
it's hot and dry outside. The mites are gonna like that. Oh
they are gonna love it. And so I like to take a hose and
blastsom jetwater right into the center of some of these dense plants and you can
almost hear them go. But you're not using the car washing nozzle right now,
not getting it a little shower spoil your soil. How about slow release
fertilizer. Don't forget to feed the plants do need to be fed in again,
you know, when you pick out that fertilizer, you can get some
fertilizers that are just quick release, here today, gone tomorrow. But as
you know, I like the prills that last for three to three to four
months. So when you check the package of a product, a gardening product
that you buy for your plants or your garden, I always like to look
at it this way, and that is with these packages, it's party on
the front, business on the back. So flip the package over and read
the back of the package and what's in that package. Because the front of
the package is going to have cute kids kicking around a soccer ball in this
beautiful yard and everything is great. Yeah, it's so important to any product
that you're buying for your garden, whether it's a fertilizer, some sort of
pesticide, what you know, micro rise, a wish. We've also talked
about always read the back. It's so important because you know, it's not
just what's in it, it's also how you're going to apply it, when
you're going to apply it, and there's so many things that like, the
timing is very crucial, and so you might be buying something only to come
home read the instructions and say, well, shoot, I can't apply this
until next spring. Then it sits in your garage, it goes bad,
you forget about it. So you know it pays to do your reading and
stacy. As a talented professional copywriter like you, you want people to read
the directions. Oh, I definitely want because everyone wants them to be successful.
You know that's important. How about a steam room. Some plants in
your landscape can get overshadowed by other plants as they grow and want some more
sunlight. So a little bit of pruning, a little bit of pinching,
little bit of deadheading. I really believe that that's got to be a part
of a spade for our outdoor plants. Well, that is happening in a
big way in my garden right now. You know, I have a lot
of native plants, and so they start out in the summer or in the
spring they look all, you know, small, and I start planting new
stuff, and next thing I know, I'm like, WHOA, that got
huge. Even though I've been growing this thing for you know, seven years,
it still always exceeds my expectations on exactly how much it's going to grow
and how big it's going to get. So I have a lot of exactly
that on my garden list for this weekend. I agree and with people.
Of course, I mentioned microderm abrasion, you know, working on wrinkles and
acne. Well, how about in our landscape to focus on the weeds and
get rid of the weeds they're competing with our favorite plants. And if you
want to give your outdoor plants a spa day, how about we do a
little bit of weeding. Oh always, You know, I actually don't mind
weeding all that much. There's certain weeds I really detest, but overall,
it's not my least favorite garden shore and it's always really interesting and it's always
satisfying. You know, after you've weeded even a small area of your garden,
you step back and you're like, that looks a lot better. You
can tell I spent some time on that, and that's a good feeling.
Take me to your weeder. You've got it, so pinch deadhead, take
care of those weeds. It's almost like a manicure, you know. Yeah,
that's a good way to think about it. Get a manicure. You
nailed it, ah reck here marks grow more polished every day. Hey.
By the way, when we talk about spa hot tubs can you use the
hot tub water on your plants now, provided it's not a salt water hot
tub. You know, we tend to change the water in our hot tubs
every three months. So if you took the cover off and let it sit
for a couple of days, maybe ran the jets and tested for chlorine,
bromine, check the pH arguably you could use that water on your plants,
like to if you drain it. Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah,
not scooping it out of the tub while you're in there and watering the pansies,
but to you know, But anyhow, at the end of the day,
as we've learned on this show. We talked about it a few weeks
ago, Stacy, you can talk to your plants, you can touch your
plants and they'll enjoy it. And you can just look at them and enjoy
their beauty and don't forget to enjoy the interactions that they're having with each other,
with the insects and the birds and all of that. I mean that
to me is where the most value enjoy comes from gardening, I agree,
And not only that interaction with the atmosphere. Again, check your or tomato
towers, your steaks, your supports, make sure that there's good airror movement
between the plants. We're getting good light to the plants, especially the lower
leaves. Those have all got to be considerations too for plant spa DA Just
no epsom salts. That's it. That's right good. Coming up next,
Plants on Trial, Stacy's going to introduce us to a plant. Don't miss
it. That's next here on the Gardening Simplified Show. Proven Winners. Colored
Choice Shrubs cares about your success in the garden. That's why we trial and
test all of our shrubs for eight to ten years, making sure they outperform
everything else on the market. Look for them in the distinctive white container at
your local garden center. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening
Simplified at Show. You know, we were just talking about giving your plants
a spa day, and I think part of giving your plants a spot a
specially if you have hanging baskets, is giving them a little trim because you
know, they can get a little bit draggled at this point in the season.
They grow so much, they're so vigorous, and they can kind of
look a little maybe too long, and they just don't have that cute compact
look that you bought them for. So one of my tips, particularly for
this time of year, as it's a good idea to trim your hanging baskets,
particularly if you have like you know, supertunias, anything that grows kind
of longer. And I always recommend to people that they do this just before
they go on vacation and then that way you don't have to see it,
you know, kind of grow out of that haircut. You cut it,
you drive away, you're gone for a week, you come back and the
thing looks great. Yeah, And you know, along the lines of SPA
Day, we talked about salt scrub well as far as baskets hanging baskets are
concerned, I'd like to get out of trash can fill it with water and
dunk the whole bask Maybe you do you're pruning, then you dunk the baskets.
So we get the root ball good and soaked and we're good to go
to go on vacation. You know. Vacation is also my recommendation for people
whose hydrangees don't bloom and they're frustrated, I say, just go on vacation.
Pretend you missed it. Come back. Everything's fine. Vacation is a
solution for so so many. This gardening stuff is easy. Just pretend it
never happened. But it's the time of the show where we put a plant
on trial, which is to say that we tell you all about one of
the three and twenty proven winner's color choice shrubs, and you can decide for
yourself if it's going to earn a spot in your garden or landscape. And
you know, I always try to tie it into whatever we're talking about in
the first segment. And so today's plant on trial is at Last rose,
a plant that does not really need spa days. Why because it is a
self cleaning rose. And that's that's a term that goes around a lot,
but people don't necessarily you know, is it like a self cleaning cat litter
box? Like how does that work? What exactly does this mean? And
now it doesn't have like built in windshield wipers or anything like that. The
what it means is that the flowers fall off naturally when they fade. So
the opposite of a self cleaning rose is one and I'm sure you've seen this
and our listeners have seen this in gardens, if not in their own garden.
So when those rose blooms start to fade, they just kind of like
turn into a gross brown clump. Mush a clump, Yeah, gross brown
clump that just started stays on the plant and it kind of like nods down
and looks super sad and just clumpy. And so it's clumpy and it turns
brown, and it attracts pest like especially Japanese beetles. They're gonna love that.
And in a self cleaning rose like at Last Rose, what happens is
that as the blooms start to fade, the petals just start to fall off,
and that means you don't get those like clumpy petals sticking on the plant.
But also it looks really beautiful because then you have rose petals kind of
scattered all over the ground and everybody loves that. Look. I've seen this
in the garden center where you have a number of at Last Roses on display,
and when they do that, it's gorgeous. It's almost like you know,
when the little kid goes down the aisle and a wedding and throws the
rose. Beautiful flower kid, flower kid. Yeah, every days boys and
girls do it, right, Yeah, just girls, Yeah, well,
the boys usually the ring bearer. The little girl's sprinkling the flowers, okay,
and so little girl and they're they're cutely walking down the aisle. At
Last Rose is a great choice for that. In fact, speaking of weddings,
at Last is one of the reasons that we named this rose at Last
because at Last by Edda James is such a popular wedding song. So we
thought that this beautiful rose would be the perfect way for people who had that
as their wedding song to kind of commemorate that. But it also has another
meaning, and that is that it is one of the first fragrant landscape roses.
Oh, I was gonna bring that up. I love the aroma on
this rose. It's beautiful. I love to stick my face in it and
take a good whiff it is. It really is beautiful. So it's kind
of an apricot peachy orange color and it has a classic rose fragrance. So
the at last as in finally comes from the fact that you know, as
we've talked about on the show many times, landscape roses are great. They're
disease resistant. You don't need to spray them, you don't need to worry
about pruning them. They bloom perpetually, but for many, many years they
just didn't have fragrance. And at first people were like, hey, that's
cool. You know what, I don't mind just having this easy to care
for rose. It's just going to bloom its head off. But then they
started saying, yeah, you know what, I kind of missed the fragrance.
So at Last is really one of the first roses to combine that classic
rose fragrance, really high pedal count, so big, full flowers, but
with good disease resistance. And when we say disease resistance on something like at
Last, we mean primarily powdery mildew and black spot, the two biggest,
you know, diseases that roses get. So not only is it self cleaning,
it's disease resistant, it's fragrant, it's beautiful. This is a little
bit of a taller rose, so probably more in like the three to four
foot range. A lot of our OsO easy roses tend to be quite small
and ground covering, so it's a shrub rose. You know you're gonna want
to plant it like so it has plenty of space and good presence, but
it will bloom all summer without deadheading. Now, unfortunately, it is not
resistant to Japanese beetles. And I know Japanese beetles are on a lot of
people's minds right now. No roses are truly resistant to Japanese beetles. Now,
a lot of times landscape roses like at Last. Part of their ability
to withstand all those common rose diseases comes from the fact that their foliage is
thicker and more leathery, and that is a little bit less preferred by Japanese
beetles. But I think it's still a stretch to say it's Japanese beetle resistant,
because if you were to say have at last, because you said,
hey, they eat all my other ones, I'm just going to plan at
last, the Japanese beetles are still going to come right fire shot across the
bow and apply your controls and anticipating the Japanese beetles just as you would with
any other Yeah, and you know, if you don't want to use any
kind of chemical control. One of the great things about proven winners color choice
roses, since they do bloom perpetually without deadheading, is I know it can
be a little bit difficult for some people, but you know, just go
ahead and cut the whole thing back, like right about now, when the
Japanese beetles are at their worst. I know it can be painful, but
it's also very painful seeing your rose covered in Japanese beetles and eating your flowers.
So just cut the whole thing back, take the flowers off, because
the flowers are their favorite. That's what they're primarily going for. Cut your
whole thing back. I know it's going to be a little painful. Keep
watering it, keep fertilizing it for the next month or so, and it
will start to bloom. And when that bloom starts up again, the Japanese
beetles will be far diminished and you won't have that issue. So it's kind
of like a having your cake and eating it too if you don't want to
apply chemical controls. And like many landscape roses, as the temperatures start to
cool in September, it really comes into its own again and is just beautiful,
covered in flowers, beautiful color, and tons and tons of fragrance.
As Josephine would say, let them eat cake. It was Josephine, right,
No, that was Marie Antoinette. Oh that's right. Shoot, I
was trying to tie in roses because Josephine loved roses. But you are correct,
hey, Stacy. I was going to send a note to our gardening
mail bag Gardening Simplified on air dot Com, as many people do, to
ask you a question, and that is, I love my roses in my
landscape, but I have a problem. The chipmunks eat the flowers. So
this is you know, you don't have to write me. Yeah, I
know. That's why I'm asking you right now. Okay, good. I
have never heard of that before, and it sounds like it's the first time
you've seen anything. And I think it's because it's so hot and dry.
I did a little research on the internet and it sounds like other people have
that issue too. They just clip them right off the flower blossom. Yeah,
it's frustrated. Well, you know, and when you think about it,
rose petals are so succulent, they're just full of moisture um, and
most roses are actually all rose flowers are edible. Some don't taste as good
as others. Um. Some are actually quite lovely to eat. And so
not only is the chipmunk getting this, you know, moisture source at a
time, where it's incredibly dry here in West Michigan. They're also getting a
delicious rose. But you know, maybe they are on a date and they
need to impress their date with some roses. I don't know. Yes,
yes, and at Last does have thorns. Like most roses, they're kind
of spread out, they're large or easy to deal with, and really it's
an easy care rose. Now, of course, the thing to know about
roses always full sun. You know, we're not going to recommend that you
plan at Last rose or any other rose unless you can give it at least
six hours of good, bright sun every day. That's going to help that
disease resistance. That's going to help you get more flowers, better color on
those flowers. So sun is really I think the most crucial part of being
successful with roses. Even if you pick a very easy to grow, disease
resistant landscape rose like at Last, unless you planet in full sun, you're
probably not going to be that happy with the results. I endorse it.
Marie Antoinette, I'm sorry I misquoted you and Stacy with at Last. The
color on that rose is gorgeous. Yeah, it's you know, there's so
many different ways to describe it like I said, Apricot peache. It's just
it's a classic, beautiful color that goes with so many different colors in the
garden, so many different house colors. So I think it's a great choice.
If you want to see pictures of it, of course, you can
always go to Gardening Simplified OnAir dot com and we'll have photos there all of
the information you need to grow it, and you can of course find it.
That's your local garden center that sales Proven Winners Color Choice shrubs. All
right, sol Hey, by the way, let me get back to Josephine
a minute. She would always have roses in her garden because she had bad
teeth, and so if she smiled, she'd have a rose at the ready
to cover. Is that true? I think it is. I've never heard
that send them to us at Gardening Simplified on a dot com. Well,
even if you have perfect teeth, you will love at Last Cross. We're
gonna come back with a garden mail bag in just a moment, so please
stay tuned. At Proven Winner's Color Choice, we've got a shrub for every
taste and every space. Whether you're looking for an easycare rose an unforgettable hydrangea
or something new and unique. You can be confident that the shrubs and the
white containers have been trialed and tested for your success. Look for them at
your local garden center. Greetings, gardeners, and welcome back to the Gardening
Simplified Show. It's one of my favorite times of the show because I love
helping people with their gardening problems, and I know you do too. Yeah,
I like the show. I know you like helping people with their garden
problems. I hope you like this show. If you do have a gardening
problem, we'd be happy to help you as well. All you have to
do is go to Gardening Simplified OnAir dot com and click the contact tab,
or if it's easier, you can go to You can just send us an
email at help HLP at Gardening Simplified OnAir dot com, as these people have
done. So what's our first question in the mail direct Stacy? First one
from Kelly in Michigan says, something is feasting on my roses? Who is
the likely culprit? Where do I look for clues? And Kelly sent us
a picture? Right, So, since Kelly sent us a picture, and
thank you very much, for doing that, Kelly, I can confirm it
is not chipmunks. It's weird the picture, and of course he'll put this
in the show notes that gardening simplified on air dot Com. The picture of
Kelly's rose shows some sort of how would I describe it, like narrow oval
type of holes in the leaves and they're all over the leaves and it is
a very easy pest to diagnose for me. It's a very widespread pest.
And it is known as a rose slug, and it's not a slug,
and it doesn't actually look all that much like a slug either. Um,
I guess that they people probably call them rose slugs because the damage looks a
bit resembles a bit of what slugs would do to something like a hosta or
something like that. So it's actually a saft fly, and a saft fly
even though it has a fly in the name. We're just going to make
things real confusing here, but it's not our fault. We're gonna blame the
entomologists on this one. Uh So, a saft fly is actually a relative
of bees, wasps, and ants um and it's you know, non singing
and basically what happens. The adult is a small flying insect and they lay
their eggs on roses, and the little larva that hatches out is on the
underside of the leaf. So this is another reason why people have so much
trouble, you know, identifying a rose slug. Is the issue is because
they're on the underside of the leaf. Up, yes, they're like what
happened? And what happens is when that little larva is very tiny, it's
little mouth can't make it all the way through the leaf tissue, so it
only will eat one layer of the leaf. So when the rose slugs are
first getting established on your plant, you get this kind of like window like
damage and you might not even really notice it because it's small because the pests
are small. But then as that little larva starts to mature, then it's
able to get through the whole leaf, and that's when you start to see
those oval kind of you know, full holes through the leafs. The other
tricky thing about rose slugs is, like many plant eating insects, they turn
the exact color of the plant that they're eating, and it gives them I
mean, it makes sense right that whatever they're they're kind of clearish, so
whatever they're internalizing is going to turn them that color. But it's also very
good camouflage. If you are a soft insect that a bird would love to
find and chow down on, it gives them perfect camouflage. So even though
I find the damage to rose slug to be very distinctive, a lot of
people don't see the insects because you do kind of need to train your eye
to look for them. So I, you know, a small infestation of
rose slug in here in Michigan, we only usually have one generation a year,
so they kind of get the damage out of their system and move on.
I do usually manage them by hand picking. They tend to congregate more
at the tops of plants. So again, if you have a disease resistant
landscape rose that will bloom, you know, pretty much continually all summer,
give it a little trim throw away all of those you know, top growth
with the rose slugs on them. That's a pretty easy, non toxic way
to manage them. But it's a very widespread pest. Yeah, I do
some trimming. Yeah, because spraying, like you said, one generation,
well then it becomes a revenge spraying. So a little bit of trimming exactly.
So, uh, let me tell you, when you start to look
at the damage of rose slugs, it will become second nature to you to
to diagnose this issue as well. So please do go to gardening somelified OnAir
dot com. We'll put some of my favorite resources there that I share with
gardeners all the time who deal with this, and then you'll be able to
see the roast slug yourself. It's pretty interesting. I don't know, I'd
like it very interesting, all right, Janet in Michigan, I want to
I want to wait until fall to plant an area in front of my deck.
Of course falls a great time to plant. How do I manage the
area until then? It's bare dirt? And I would say to Janet bear
dirt is not a natural condition. Something's going to grow there now. In
the past, when people have faced this issue, Stacy, one thing I've
suggested is using some annual rye. We use it underneath shade trees also,
just for a temporary cover, and then you can till it in. Yeah,
and then it adds organic matter to the soil. But yeah, in
addition to you know, who knows what kind of horrible weeds growing in the
area, you're also getting soil erosion, you know, weather, through rain,
irrigation, when all of those things will cause your soil to erode a
bit. And because organic matter or the good stuff in your soil is lighter
in weight than your soil particles like clay, sand in salt, it's the
first to go. So when you let your soil, if you were to
let your soil a road like that, you'd be losing all the organic matter
that is going to be so beneficial when you do plant. So another option
would be mulch, and you don't have to go out and invest in fancy
mulch, which you're just going to have to move out of the way when
you do plant the area. I would recommend that you just get arborist wood
chips, and these are not going to be the prettiest, but they are
going to be highly effective. And you can pile those suckers on a good
six to ten inches deep, which sounds absurd except that because this is raw
wood that's just been chipped from the tree, it has a lot of airspace
in it and it hasn't decomposed a bit like the mulch has, so even
after you put a very thick layer like that. Within a matter of weeks,
especially at the height of summer, it's going to start compressing down into
a normal size layer of mulch. And then you know by the time you're
ready to plant. First of all, you're not worried about like, oh,
I'm wasting all this expensive mulch that I bought it. If it gets
into the soil, no problem. If you just move it aside and reuse
it, at that point it would be ready to use as a mulch.
So that would be my recommendation, Janet, Thank you very mulch. And
sometimes arborus woodchips are even free or if not extremely low cost, very very
true. Not something you want to walk barefoot, that's for sure. If
this is near your deck in a place where you walk, you might want
to put some stepping stones or something like that. But a good low cost
way to manage it and have fun planting this fall. I Lean sent some
photos of her little quick fire hydrange. Of the leaves don't have that dark
green color. Instead, they almost look green Knon. This is their second
year and they receive four hours of direct sun. I thought it could be
an iron deficiency and I applied Espoma iron tone, but I don't see much
change, okay, and I lean, like she said, did sense some
photos which we will put on the show notes and what Eileen is seeing.
So basically, if you can kind of imagine this, the foliage has like
a kind of lighter ring around it, not quite like variegation, but the
edges of the foliage have kind of a yellowish cast. And I have seen
this numerous times on hydrangeas, even here in our trial garden where they're expertly
cared for. I don't know exactly what the cause is. I've seen it
sometimes over an entire hydrangea. I've seen it sometimes just here and there in
a single hydrangea. But I did want to address Eileen's use of iron.
So there's nothing wrong with applying that iron necessarily, but if the iron didn't
work, when you apply iron too for an iron deficiency, the results are
usually quite fast, much faster than applying like a regular fertilizer. But one
of the issues with iron is that it can be tied up in the soil
with phosphorus. So earlier in the show we were talking about calcium getting tied
up if you have too much magnesium if you've been appl apps and salt and
inducing a calcium deficiency in your plants. So similarly, phosphorus. High phosphorus
in the soil can induce an iron deficiency. So it's not that the iron
isn't there, it's that it's chemically bound in the soil due to the presence
of the phosphorus, and it can't be freed up for the plants to take
up. Now, one of the issues, of course, is that all
commercial fertilizers pretty much are very unnecessarily high in phosphorus. And this goes back
to the early days in fertilizer where someone said, hey, you know what,
I think nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are the most essential plant detrius,
the big three. And it's true they are some of the most limiting.
But phosphorus, especially here in North America, not really all that deficient
in most soils, and a lot of places, municipalities and so forth have
actually banned high phosphorus fertilizer because the runoff is leading to algae blooms. So
if you've been fertilizing with a conventional fertilizer that's high or even medium and phosphorus.
One thing to consider is that it could actually be tying up the iron
in your soil, in which case not even the iron that you apply is
really going to have much effect. So I would say if you are fertilizing
regularly with any kind of fertilizer that contains phosphorus, I would recommend backing off
of that or switching to a fertilizer very low or hopefully non existent in phosphorus.
Hopefully we'll get more options that way. As this is more awareness comes
to this issue, So back off on the other fertilizer and CEF that helps.
But don't worry, Eileen. I've seen the pictures of your plant and
there's nothing to worry about. It's still a healthy, vigorous plant and should
boom just fine this season. Coming up next week when we have veggie tails,
we'll talk about the difference between magnesium and manganese and Stacy, I think
you bring up a good point that people often overlook, and that is checking
the soil pH Yeah, oh yeah, that's always important too. All right,
listen, thank you so much for all of your questions. We'd be
happy to help you too. Just visit gardening Simplified OnAir, dot com and
contact us when we come back. We have got a special guest and he's
going to tell us all about gardening in the South Soap. Please stay tuned.
The Gardening Simplified Show is brought to you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs.
Our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens have been trialed and tested for your
success so you enjoy more beauty and less work. Look for Proven Winners Color
Choice Shrubs in the distinctive white container at your local garden center. It's time
for branching news. Here from Studio A at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs,
and today an interview with doctor Judson Lecompte. Judson is a product development manager
for Proven Winners and one of those people who's traveling North America and the rest
of the world looking for great shrubs for gardeners. Judson, it's pleasure to
have you on the show. It's great to be here. Oh this is
fun. I tell you what research and development you know, research and development
in plants. Maybe this doesn't isn't on a lot of people's radar, but
it's uh. It's an investment and your work essentially is to be innovative,
right it is. We want to find the best genetics from around the world,
bring them back here to spring Meadow, evaluate them, see how well
they do, and then hopefully get them into the catalog. So innovation Judgson
in other roods, Would it be fair for me to say that you're a
risk taker? Very much? So? I think to travel certainly as a
horticulturists. Most horticultureists like to stay put. They'd like to stay with their
plants, But I love to travel. I got some really scary stories on
that. For I want to hear the almost got blown up in Turkey one
time. Yeah, that's scary. That was an adventure, made it out
of that. Okay, my mom maybe lost a few years from that one.
But no, we are always hunting for the best new plants. Will
take risks on plant generas that a lot of companies just wouldn't, you know.
We certainly focus on our major categories like hydrangea and ladilla and roses,
but we want to stretch and press the boundaries a little bit and offer people
a few newer genetics that they might not be exposed to. So no,
I detected a bit of a southern accent. Yes, yes, And so
I know that one of your roles here is specifically trying to expand the Southern
plants for proven winners color trade shrubs. And you know, because of the
podcast and the YouTube show, we have listeners from all over the country and
they were frequently asked to give a little more love to those in hotter climates.
And along those lines, I've always wanted to ask you, like,
what, now that you've lived in Michigan for three years, what do you
miss most and least about gardening in the South? Oh man, what do
I miss most? Is it camelias? Because that's probably what I'd say it
is. So my PhD was actually in Chamelias. So I studied tea production
for Mississippi actually when I was in Mississippi. Um, but as an Alabama
boy, of course, as camellias, it is our state flower. Oddly
enough, not native, beautiful, beautiful. A lot of chameilias came in
and out of the port of Mobile. So that's why chameilias are very important
to Alabama. Well, I misleast definitely the weed pressure. Weed pressure up
here is much lower. Um. I was hoping I wouldn't have um nuts
edge, but we still have that. We got no judgson. Is it
true in Alabama that if you're on a country road parked at a stop sign
at the cuds, if you sit there too long, the kudzoo will grow
into your through your window. Yes, maybe it may just come in there,
reach in and grab you. You know, kuds is actually not as
bad as we once thought it was. Um. You know, we always
say it's the vine that ate this out. I'm not saying that it's so
good. It was a good plant choice, um, but it does like
being in those disturbed areas, so edges of forests, roadways things like that,
um, which is where we see it because we're most rat so it's
not going into the forest and really not like valuable natural areas as much as
people would assume an invasive plant. Yes, but it was brought in to
be with erosion control and be cattle feed. But it doesn't have a very
extensive root system and cattle don't like to eat it, so well that's a
problem. Yeah, but it does grow exceptionally fast feet a day, so
wow, that's that's impressive. So you know, as you look at bringing
more southern or hot climate not just southern because I know you're looking at plants
from you know, Mexico and plants that are appropriate for arid climates as well.
What do you think are some of the most exciting introductions that we've made
in the proof of Warner's color choice line that people in warmer climates should be
aware of. So I'm very, very excited about the bouvardia that we're coming
out with. We've got a few different bouvardias still on trial, so there's
more coming. But the first was Estralada little star just flowers its head off
all summer. As long as it's warm, it's going to be in full
flower. And talk about hummingbird magnet. So most people don't know buvaria.
If they know what, they know it as a cut flower. For me,
it was a completely new genera as well, so as a cut flower
commonly used in Europe. In the Netherlands they grow it, but it gets
like six feet tall in the wild. It's from Texas Mountains of Texas,
Mexico, Central America, but it grows in very dry, arid deserts.
I was just in Chihuahua and you could see it growing on the side of
cliffs and hat and rained in months and just tough as now. Well,
seeing it in the wild is never a problem because it's flowers a scream out
from the landscape. And that's one of the reasons that the common name,
since people don't necessarily know Buvardia, the common name we've given it is firecracker
bush. Yes, because the flowers do kind of they got like a star
like quality. They come in a little cluster. Well, it's nice like
a firework. Two. When they open, they're going to open an orangish
red and then they fade the insides due to a light pink, so you
get a little colored contract. So I've grown est eat a little star our
introduction of Bouvardia as a container plant on my patio because if the color is
so irresistible, And even though I started with a little tiny court, it
really quickly grew went on to flower like a lot like a mandevilla. You
know, Mandevilla's have become really popular as like backyard container plants. I really
think there's a lot of potential. And what I love the most about it
is it attracted a ton of houmny yards. Yes, and the ticket with
it is is to just grow it dry so again from the desert. So
we want to treat it like we would a butterfly bush or a budleia.
We want to have super well drained soil. And a lot of people may
think I lost my budleia over winter because it wasn't cold hearty. Well,
it was really that it died from being too wet. Yeah, so perfect
plant if you're in a cooler region to use as a container plant stick in
the garage in the winter and bring it back out in the spring. And
what about your family in Alabama and the South would because they are a more
humid climate. Is Bouvardia appropriate for them as well? It would be.
They just really need to watch out. I've told Mom and Dad got one,
so like, don't plant it in the clay, you know, you
want to have it in well drained soil, just so that you can make
it through the winter. Right, that's the biggest clue, the biggest issue
for sure. That's fantastic. We're chatting with doctor Judson Lecomte. He is
a product development manager for Proven Winners. Here at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs
and Judson a question for you, and that is in twenty twenty. Twenty
twenty one, we saw a lot of new gardeners join into the ranks of
those who love what it is we do. And as a product development manager,
as someone who goes out and seeks new varieties of plants, you're like
a rock stuck. So my question for you would be that the characteristics you're
looking for for me, off the top of my head, I would say
the top three characteristics would be deer resistance, fragrance, and heat. Would
you agree with that or am I missing something? No? I think those
are very good boxes to check. We have a lot of different things that
we look for or plants and upcoming trends. One of the big trends that
I'm looking at now is that my generation is finally able to purchase a home,
even though interest rates aren't so great. Yeah, so they're finally able
to purchase a home. They've had house plants, certainly through the pandemic.
They needed something to do. They were able to educate themselves, they had
time to research about a plant, so they brought them inside. Big foliage,
bright foliage. I think that's now going to transfer outdoors. So as
we're able to buy houses, we're going to be looking for more foliage color,
larger foliage, glossy things, so trying to find that tropical look and
extend that to colder regions. I'm definitely hunting for plants to fit that niche.
But edibles also very important. Certainly when there's times of financial worry,
people turn to edibles very quickly. They just feel some peace of mind having
something produced from home. Do you, by the way, do you have
a favorite season? Oh, let's see, I know that's a tough question.
Is you have a favorite season of year? What is definitely not winter?
Okay? You know when first moved here and a first node, he
I was like, so what do you think? He's like, I love
it. It's so no right, and you have you And I was like,
okay, your first snowfall maybe a little exciting, but talk to me
in March. Okay, So the snow I still love. I still like
the snow. I find pleasure from shoveling my driveway. Oh okay, I
feel a sense of accomplishment when I'm done. I can see the progress.
Yea. Um. But yeah, the like fourteen days of sun over winter,
not about that, not about that life. But I will say it's
the best spring, summer, and fall I've ever had. Is it worth
it or you're still jury's still out on that it's worth it. Because if
you're in Alabama right now, I'll call this summer winter right so, it's
so hot you don't even want to go outside, so you're staying inside.
So I actually spend more time outside in Michigan than I ever did in this
so interesting because I think people just think, oh, well, you can
be outside all winter and it's totally great. Yes you can. It could
be ninety at Christmas. Wow. Really, but I'm still I'm still not
skiing. Everybody here tries to give me your skiing and snowboarding. I'm not
trying to get sunny bonoed down the hill. That's not my thing. Yeah,
I'm with you on that, but I know you also said that we're
talking about favorite season, not your least favorite. But one thing that really
interested me that you said over winters here is that the winter is not so
brown. Yes, the winter is very green here. So for us in
the South, all of our in this mostly relies around turf grass, unfortunately,
but all of our turf grass goes dormant, and so it turns brown.
And because we use cool season grasses here, as soon as the snow
goes away, it's bright and green and everything's crisp. And I get to
have really great bulbs here down south. You know, your tulip will come
up even the first year and it's kind of wonky looking off to the side.
It's true, the blobs are pretty good, because I mean, there's
very few plants that are as rewarding. Right you put them in the ground,
they go out for years, they look amazing. You look forward to
them. I was never a paeony fan, but now I've grown to really
appreciate paeonies. So, yeah, what about lilacs. Yeah, you can
be honest, it's okay. It's so still not a fan of the lilac.
When we go and we evaluate plants every week, and we go and
look at whatever's looking great that week in our trials, and so of course
early in spring we go and look at lilacs, and I always try to
travel that week. Don't don't tell the bosses. I always try to travel
that week because the fragrance is so strong. It actually makes me a little
nauseous. It gives me a headache, it makes me nauseous. But everybody
from the North is so excited to gre and evaluate him, and as one
of two Southern people here, it just makes me a little bit nauseous.
But now Guardenia Week all about Guardenia Week. So the guardenias are in full
flower right now in the greenhouse. Theyll amazed. I agree, they smell
amazing. It's just what you're raced with and what you know, childhood fragrances.
Sure, and you know, I have heard from so many gardeners who
have moved to the South or California and they're just like, please tell me
I can grow with lilac, And well you can. The bloomerings, I
mean, do really well in the heat if you're gonna if you're gonna shoot
for a lilac, right, not the strong super fragrance, but really good
repeat bloom and get the color. The color can handle heat. And you
can always have lilocks as a cut flower. If you live in a hot
climate and can't grow, yeah, well I'll plan on not bumping into you
at the Lilac Festival year on the East coast. Yeah. Along that line,
though, Judson, again as an individual who travels the world and is
interested in developing new plant varieties. When I interview folks in the industry,
I always like to put them on the spot and have them give me two
plants that are your favorites that you can share with our YouTube viewers, with
our listeners. Two favorites, folks, listen up, He's gonna share two
favorites with us that you should have in your yard. Okay, So off
the top, Um, I have always loved Catinus Winecraft black. The foliage
color has always been great. When when you first start here in the company,
to ask you what your favorite plane is on easy, Um, it's
just the color is so nice. You can prune it hard, you can
do whatever you want to get the nice smoke. And so for our audience,
this is a smoke bush. Sorry, no, it's okay. You
says cool like I do the same thing. But so smoke wush and people
know smoke bush because but winecraft black really does it want better with that with
that dark foliage color. Um. But as a personal hobby, my grandmother
was a dailily collector and hybridizer, and so wow, I continue I continue
love dailies. I moved from the South with a U haul ful and but
what do you like about daylilies? They're tough, toughest nails except for the
deer. Except for the deer. Um. Likely I have a fence in
backyard, so that's good. UM. But you can grow them in concrete.
You can grow them from coast to coast, north to south. UM.
And I can breed those. So if I breed a shrub, you
know, I feel responsibly that should give it to spring meadow. Okay,
gotcha, you know day lily. I could take that. I still go
into proven winter. Right, So what UM like? What style of daylilies
do you like? UM? I tend to like diploids, so just because
what does that mean for um? So this is going to be generally smaller
flowered, UM, but more flowers UM. And then your tetraploids will have
larger flowers, larger foliage, but generally less flowers. They're the bigger show
your ones, right. UM. So I can't grow day lilies because of
the deer. And that's fine because I they're definitely not my favorite plant.
But if I did, if I if I could grow one, if I
could grow one, I would grow automniac because I love like those really tall
really open flowers, and I hear those aren't really like fashionable, they're not
fashionable. Um right now, I'm my two favorite, going bananas. Yeah
that's first to bloom every spring. It's a simple yellow, but it flowers
its head off and then tiger swirl. Oh yeah, honking big flower,
really really big big. There's some Alabama for you, really really big flowers
and flowers on a on a large scape as well, so nice. Yeah.
I uh. Years ago, I was talking to someone from Provomer's Perennials
and they said that going Bananas dailily got its name from the breeder's wife because
you know, she was like walking into the house and she said, oh
man, that new yellow dailily you're working on is going bananas out there,
and that was how it got its name. It doesn't surprise me that you
like the taller daililies because Judson she uses words like clumpy, doesn't like like
like garden mums. Right, yeah, I'm not the big I like.
I like plants with spaces. Yeah, I coins into light the meatballs.
There's something for everybody, right, I know. Yeah, she's got the
naturalistic look and I want mine. It's good. It's all good. Yeah,
you know what, that's the great thing about gardening is there's something for
everybody, and everybody's taste and preferences can be accommodated. And if your taste
and preferences changed, you can always just change your garden. Yes, it's
like so dynamic. You're never yes, hide from trees, you're really not
very locked in. And even then, well, even then, so um.
I have a very good friend in Tennessee, Miss Eleanor Fries. She
was one hundred and three years old. She was a conifer collector. Um.
She's an amazing person and one of her favorite sayings was if she dies,
she dies, and that was her motto. With gardening. You get
it, you plan it. If it dies, it dies, do your
research, do make a knowledgeable choice, and try to put the plant in
the right place. But you got to realize we're working with a living thing,
and sometimes it just doesn't work out. I agree. Always said,
if you haven't killed any plants, you're not trying hard. Yeah, you're
not a real horroriculturist. You know how many plants we gosh? I know
we're all like looking at each other suspiciously, like it's our personal our personal
plants better be tough exactly, but aside from clumpy plants, and what do
you call them? Judgson? Meatballs, meat meat honking meatballs. Hankins,
Yeah, Hankins. Question for you. A plant helped me out here.
And by the way, we're we're chatting with doctor Judson Lecompton. He is
a product development manager here for proven winners Color Choice Shrubs. Judson, just
a quick comment on using native plants in the landscape, because you know there's
so many great new varieties. Now, how do you feel about me?
I love native plants. Actually, during my master's research, I work with
a forest service I'm working with Sarah Sny or a pitcher plant um Sara Senny
or Rubro where we are or where he's pitcher plant um to propagate from a
bog that they couldn't incorporate fire into. So fire is very important in southern
forests, and so we actually propagated that and got it into a bog that
they could manage, and so that population is now flowering and reproducing. So
very passionate about native plants. The only problem with native plants is that they've
not been developed for long, or if they have been, it's been in
Europe. So we'll travel to Europe often to find our natives that have had
breeding work done to them to have better habit, better size, more uniform
that we would look for in a horticultural plant. You look at roses or
hydranges, they've had hundreds and hundreds of years of breeding and improvement where a
lot of our natives haven't. So it gives us a great opportunity to find
some really awesome natives and that we see every day and just underappreciate. Sure,
we know the demand is continuing to grow for native plants, but I
don't want us to get one sided either. It's about having a diverse landscape.
Um. You know, if we if we were to only eat the
plants from northern Africa, where people originated from, we would be very limited
in our diet. So insects and pollinators and birds, they eat a lot
of different things, not just native things. UM, don't see me hate
mail. But it's about having a diverse landscape full of natives as well.
Do you have a favorite place to travel too in your work? If you
were to pick one, sing, yeah, this is on the agenda.
I'm I love going Asia is very fun I like Asia a lot. M
The food is good, the people are good. Um. For me,
it is. The plants are very important, but I'm like a talent agent.
The people are so important for me. I want I want our breeders
to be successful. I want to promote them as much as possible. And
so you make friends everywhere you go. So there's not a bad place,
Um, when you're dealing with plant people. That's true. I agree.
Well, it's been a pleasure to get to know you, Judson and having
you join us here on the Gardening Simplified Show. I call it a kick
in the plants, but it's always fun to meet people like you. You're
just so enthusiastic about plants and we learn from you, and thanks for all
the work you do. Well, thank you, it's great to be here.
Well, I think Judson said it best. Plant people are the best
people. That means you, that means Adriana, that means all of you
too, So thank you so much for listening, and we will see you
next week.