The Hydrangea Show

Broadcasting from Studio A Here at Proven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs. It's the Gardening Simplified radio podcast and YouTube show with Stacy Hervella me Rick Weistenar engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson Stacy. With mysteries to solve them, you've got to have good clues. And there are many mysteries in life when you think about it, did the Lockness Monster actually exist? Does Area fifty one house crashed? UFOs? Is the Bermuda Triangle legend or real? Many mysteries in life, and we're going to add to that list. Why won't my hydranges bloom? If I had a dime for every time I've been asked that question, and I'm going to say right off the bat Stacy along the line of clues that when people approach me in the garden center, often they'll say, my hydranger won't bloom. Then I asked them what kind of hydrange do you have? And maybe what is the cultivar? They can't answer the question, and I don't blame them. Nobody carries around that sort of thing if you don't deal with plants every day. But Stacy proven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs is spent a lot of time trying to demystify hydranges because to many people they are a mystery. They are such a mystery. And you know, I think that that boils down to one single and actually very simple point, and it's exactly what you just said. People think that Hydrangea is just a monolith. Yes, it's like all hydrangees are hydrangeas, and that's the end of the story. And that's not the case at all. There are six main types of hydrangeists that are grown in North American gardens, and each one is a different species. Each one has different characteristics, and even though they all require somewhat similar growing conditions, they all have some unique kind of quirks and differences. That means that you can't just apply one way to care for them and expect the same results exactly. Let's take a look at the roster. Let's look at the score card. If you're keeping score at home, So you have Hydrangea macrophil. It's also known as florist Hydrangea or Tensia mophead lace cap hydrangea that in itself is confusing. Then hydrange of peniculatus. Some people call them PG hydranges, then smooth Hydrangea arbuesens or some people will call them Annabelle hydranges, then climbing hydranges, mountain hydranges, the serrata hydranges, oak leaf hydranges. And now you're just messing with me because on top of that we've got the reblooming hydranges also known as and I'm going to make sure to get this right from Stacy. Is it remontant. Remontant is the technical term, okay, but it really is just French for like flowering again, flowers again, Yes, comes to life again, flowers again. Then you have a host of improved cultivars. We've come a long way since botanical explorers on maritime trade routes brought the plant to Europe and the United States from Asia in the eighteenth century. And then Stacy explained flirty girl false hydrangea to me, my word. I have to admit I can understand why people are confused. It is very easy to be confused. But I think that the fundamental thing you need to know to hopefully reduce or eliminate that confusion is that again, these are all different species of Hydrangea, and they just aren't going to be treated the same. So you know, it's fairly easy once you actually start digging into the details to find out which hydrangea you actually have, because they are unique, even though you just kind of I think when people think of hydrangeas, they just think of those big flowers, whatever color comes to mind. But when we start diving into habit and what the foliage looks like and when they bloom and all of these other features, you do start to appreciate these differences, and that helps clue you in on what to do. But as far as the false hydrange of vine goes, I'm going to really confuse you on this one because the false hydrange of vine. So there's a climbing hydrangea, which was a true hydrangel Hydrangea anomala an anomaly for hydrangeas because it's climbing vine. Is it petiolaris? Yeah, so Hydrangea anomala petiolaris was the original name of it. Now I think they did just just you know, taxonomists are always changing their mind, So now I think it's just hydrange of petularis for the regular climbing hydrangea and the regular climbing hydrangea. If you look at the flowers, the steril florets, the showy florets, the papery ones are four petals, just like a regular hydrangea. Now, the false hydrange of vine is also a climbing vine, but the steril florets on that are just a single petal, like a little sale And as such, taxonomists put it into its own species, skies of phragma. Yeah, skis of fragma. People say of pragma, but I say, skis of fragon. I have it in my yard. I think think the flowers are really cool. They are very cool. But taxonomists were like, you know what, hey, we decided this is about five years ago or so. We decided, eh, you know, those single little steril florets versus the four sepal steril florettes not that big of a difference. We are going to reclassify Sky's a phragma as Hydrangea hydrangeoides hydrangel like hydrangea. Hello, So now the false hydrange of vine has become the Japanese climbing hydrangea. We've got the regular climbing hydrangea, and they're all botanically speaking, hydrangea a. You confused, yet they're in the mystery exactly the mystery for people now, if you if you boil this down, for many people, the big mystery is does it bloom on old wood or new wood. Adriana and I were chatting about the fact that last year when I was on Cape Cod, it was a green fest, no flowers because of the mop heads or the macrofs being affected by polar vortex. This year, Adriana went and says that they were just absolutely gorgeous. I've seen our pictures. Yeah, I've seen the ers. Honestly, I think there might be too many hydranges. I've never seen so many. I mean, we have a lot of hydranges here. Those pictures are eyepopping, Yeah they are. So you know, it comes down to whether or not they bloom on last year's would or this year's would. And yet you throw the whole reblooming thing into the mix, and that's where the bulk of the confusion comes with HYDRANGEA macrophilla, right, big leaf hydrange definitely. You know, so people here, people like me and you throw around these terms old wooden new wood all the time. But another way to think about those is when does the hydrange just set its flower buds. Okay, So hydrange of macrophilla sets its flower buds in August for the next year. So that's what it means. Set on old wood. It's on wood that it created this year. The time it blooms, that wood is a year old. That's old wood. Other hydranges like smooth hydrangees and panicle hydrangels that bloom on new wood, they set their flower buds in say April May, after they've started to leaf out, so they only have their flower buds present on the plant for you know, four or so months, whereas the big leaf hydrangea they have their flower buds on the plant for almost a whole year, and in that entire year, a lot of things can go wrong to damage those flower buds exactly, and then you wonder what in the world just happened. And that's why we try to demystify the whole issue of hydranges. I know that when we talk about hydranges, Stacy's eyes light up and she starts to talk really quickly because there's just so much to talk about it, and I love it. So I created a little limerick for you, Stacy that I call widrange not hydrangea. Why Dranga. Do you tease me? So? Why won't your lovely blossoms grow? My resident garden advisor told me, add more fertilizer. I'm spending lots of dough. Why Dranger, aren't you blooming? I did something wrong? I'm assuming, don't be an introvert? Or are your feelings hurt? Is it because I've been purning? Why Dranger, you're supposed to be turning blue? I've given you a good talking to. You could say I'm your worst critic. I've made your soil acidic, but nothing changes. Boo hoo oh. I love that. It was marvelous. So I tried to put this in, you know, just a synopsis of what we're wrestling with here, in an approach that maybe resonates with me. Yeah. And you know, there's just so many other factors. There's the color factor a lot of times. One thing that confuses people is they buy a hydrangea one year, and of course garden growers want to send that to the garden center in bloom. They buy it in May, the thing looks great, you know, next June julyrols around and they're like, WHOA, last year my hydrange was blooming in May. Why isn't it blooming this year? And so there's so many factors that are confusing, But ultimately I think we created you were joking about hydrange is demystified in the Mystery of hydranges, But we created Hydranges Demystified. It very informative sheet to help people understand the differences and how they impact the plant. And that will hopefully help people, and we'll of course link to that in the show notes at Gardening Simplified on air dot com and in the in the caption on our YouTube video as well. But it does take some dedication to sitting there and figuring it out, not a lot of time, and I would find that to be a very rewarding endeavor myself. And once you have that, it's there and you're good to go. It's like riding a bike, but you do need to invest that time and mental energy into getting it in the first place. Well, and in the garden center setting, we steer people towards hydranges Demystified often. It's something that proven Winners Colored Choice Shrubs has done. It is extremely helpful and you're right, Stacy, as I said at the outset, a mystery, but you follow the clues. You follow the clues, we got them for you, and you figure it out. Yeah, we'll see what's coming up here on Plants on Trial. I'm gonna guess it's a hydrange. But we'll see that's coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified Show, Proven winners, Colored Choice Shrubs cares about your success in the garden. That's why we trial and test all of our shrubs for eight to ten years, making sure they outperform everything else on the market. Look for them and the distinctive white container at your local garden center. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where the order of the day is hydranges. And if you did not know, I am going to go so far as to say that we are coming at you from the hydrange capital of the Midwest. Uh huh. I don't think that. Out here in West Michigan you could find more hydranges in a five square miles than the area that includes our facility and our trial garden. There are so many hydranges here and it's such a wonderful time of year to work here and see them all and I do love hydranges. I don't have a lot of them because I have deer. I think you probably know this feeling. Mine are inside my compounds. Okay, so I don't have a compound. I do have some oak leaf hydranges that have grown too tall for the deer to eat, so that is a very good thing, and they look fabulous. I have a gatswee pink. It looks absolutely gorgeous right now. And I actually saw a hummingbird at my Gatsby pink oak leaf hydrangeer the other day. That was a wild site. And I have a couple of hydrange of arborescens that have found their way to growing within a different shrub so the deer can't eat them, because I did deer love hydrange of arborescens. So I have these old old lilacs that were at my house when when we purchased it, and so the these Hydrangea arborescens have grown in them and the deer can't really stick their heads in there, and then that's where my couple of arborescens bloom. Great concept. Unfortunately, arborescens also bloom on the same years you would exactly. But you know the fact is that there are there's so much to say about hydranges. You know, I regularly do one hour talks. In fact, on this Saturday, while this show is airing, I'm doing a talk at English Gardens in the Detroit area at the Plymouth location. If you have time at eleven am, if you want to come hear me talk even more about hydrange is if this was not enough for you, and you're nearby, so it's really hard to pack everything in, but we do have a ton of resources for you. And the other thing is we're always happy to answer questions. Sure. But my number one piece of advice this is a simple one to remember. If you have a hydrangea and it's not blooming, whether it's because you pruned it and you're just now realizing I should not have pruned it, if it was weather damage, if it was deer damage, if a well intentioned spouse or child or landscaper cut your hydrangea back, whatever that reason is. My advice, go on vacation when it would be in bloom. Pretend you just missed the bloom because you're on some fabulous vacation, and then you can do better next year. It's like it's like taking away the paint practical advice. So that's what's just there's my one takeaway that we can get into a short window here, but it's time for plants on trial. And yes, of course today's plant on trial has to be a Hydrangea, despite the fact that I have featured a number of hydrangeas recently because you know, tis the season and all of that. But you know, I wanted to talk about a slightly different hydrangea than what most people tend to think of, because when most people think of smooth Hydrangea or also known as annabel hydrangea, and Annabel is a specific variety of smooth Hydrangea, it is the variety that basically launched the species into the mainstream in the nineteen sixties. Even though hydrangel arborescence is a North American native and it grows abundantly in the Southeast, so abundantly in fact, that I think, as I've said on the show before, a couple of years ago, I was driving down to South Carolina and stopped at a waffle house in North Carolina. Waffle house, Yeah, wafflelos is great. I love that. So we stopped at a waffle house and you know, kind of like on the outskirts of Asheville and parked and there's a hydrange of arborescence growing on the edge of the woods at the waffle House parking lot, not planted. Now, this is not their landscaping, mind you. This is just wild hydrange of arboreescens just doing its thing right there at the waffle House. I thought I was shocked. I have to say, you know, because this is a plant that I think of as you know, something that people plant and nurture and grow. But yeah, I mean, the fact is this is a wild animal that you can find abundantly in the woods. But if you did find it in the woods, you were hiking in the Blue Ridge Mounta or somewhere around there, you would probably walk by most hydrange arborescens, even when they were in bloom in the wild. How was breakfast? It was? It was It's been a whild now, but I think it was good. Good. And they're always very friendly at the waffle House. They are. It's always an experience. We don't really have them in Michigan exactly. So if you're listening from some area of the world where you're like waffle House, that's why. So Anyway, if you were if you were hiking, you would walk right by them because they are not showy. So the picture that you might have in your head of an Annabelle hydrangel or our best selling incredible Hydrangea with the big white flower heads, like almost basketball sized blooms, that's not what they look like in the wild. They're actually much more quiet. They're much more subdued because they're flowers are lace caps. And when I talked about Gatsby moon oak leaf hydrangel A couple episodes ago, we went into this a bit. So Hydrange's have two different florette types. They have the sterile florettes, the showy, papery ones that make up those big on mophead flowers, And that's what you're seeing in your mind's eye when you're thinking of hydrangea, and then the fertile florets, which are tiny, they're star like. That's where all the business happens, that's where the pollen is, that's where the nectar is. So in the wild, hydrange's job is just to reproduce, make sure that the plant will continue to pass on its genes and evolve to withstand any challenges that might come around. Introduce that genetic diversity by reproducing by seed, so as such, in the wild, they are lace cap flowers and they're not super showy. And today's plant on trial is a lace cap smooth hydrange It is our only lace cap smooth hydrangea, so you know it has to be special. It is invincible lace hydrangea. Now I've just sat here and said, hey, these lace cap hydrangeas are not necessarily that showy, but they still do have quite a lot of charm and a lot of value in the landscape. And of course, you know, we wouldn't introduce a smooth hydrange if it was just you know, ho hum mooring just for the sake of it. Invincible lace really is a truly special and truly fabulous plant. So try to imagine the flowers. Instead of being that big round basketball shaped and mopped, they're strongly disc shaped. So we'll just keep up the sports analogy and say they're kind of like a small frisbee, like a disc golf docky pug. Oh, yeah, probably like someone like that, a little bigger than that. But they're very flats, and that gives them like a really unique horizontal appearance in the landscape. Not only the appearance. But I just love the lace caps because they are landing pads for pollinate. And that's the other thing about them that makes them so special is that, Yeah, because all of that nectar and pollen is exposed and in the open, four pollinating insects to find. You're gonna have bees, You're gonna have butterflies, you're gonna have bugs, You're gonna have all sorts of cool creatures stopping by your invincible lace smooth hydrangea to just check it out, have snack, enjoy the weather. You know, it's a great thing. Now. It's kind of like stopping at the waffle a little bit. It is. It could be the waffle house of your garden. The other thing that makes in Vincibel lace specifically very special is that if you were in the woods and you were seeing a smooth hydrangea, it would be white and it would be kind of like a greenish white, again, not very showy, Whereas in Vinceibel lace is a two toned flower. So the sterile florets on the outside, the ones that are just there to attract the pollinators, there's fewer of them. They are creamy white with a pink center. So very very pretty. And then the fertile florets that make up the majority of each bloom are pink, and a really just beautiful natural pink that I think is so very very pretty, and you get that two toned color. You know, that two toned effect throughout the entire season until the flowers actually start to dry out and turn green. So it's a very long lasting color. And I think if you are the kind of gardener who is into native plant gardening, has more of a woodland type garden, looking for something a little bit more informal, it's such a beautiful choice because it has that color without drawing too much attention to itself. And not only native and not only great for pollinators, but stacy, what appeals to a lot of people in the garden center is the hardiness of this plant. This is a tough, hardy plant. That is a great point, Rick, because smooth hydrangeas are actually hardy down to USDA Zone three and that is cold. That is cold. That's cool. That is about as cold as it gets in the continental US. So really almost anybody you know from north all the way down to USDA Zone eight, so about through the Carolinas or so can easily grow these, and they are practically a no brainer. They're extremely easy to grow. And I think, you know, when people do have hydrangees like annabel which, like I said, has been around for you know, fifty sixty years now, just a classic in the garden, I think people do too much to them. I think people are overly maintained over because they typically cut them back to the ground, and that is a terrible idea. You don't want to do that because then you're forcing the plant every single year to reinvent itself as a new woody plant. You take away all that wood it put all the energy into growing, and make it do it all over again. Of course, the stems are going to be weak. What we recommend instead, no matter what type of smooth hydrange you have, whether it's Annabelle or one of our improved varieties like Incredible or the Invincibell series, is you want to cut it back by about one third its height. And what that does is it kind of splits the difference. It keeps a nice sturdy wood base while also encouraging a lot of new growth, so you get a lot of flowers. Because that's what it's all about now, Another thing that makes in Vince Bell lace very special is very sturdy stems, and this is very typical of the more wild types. They're going to have those really nice strong stems. So this is not a plant that you need to worry about finding on the ground after one of those crazy summer storms that we've been having, and out here in Michigan we have been having quite a lot of summer storms. So if you have an older smooth hydrangea and it's on the ground and you're just like, this is no fun, this is ruining my summer, take it out. Replace it with a stronger sem variety like incredle, like in Vince de Bell lace. Again, this is a plant that I think a lot of people would potentially be overlooking in the garden center because there are just so focused on those big, showy mop heads. But there is so much charm and so much value in lace caps like in Vince de Bell lace, and I really think that people should give them a little more credit, give them a second look, and think about adding one to their garden value. Is the word let's take a break and have some waffles. Want some waffles? Adriana? That sounds good. It's like a plan or they're famous Ashbros. We're going to take a break. We'll be back into it. At Proven Winner's Color Choice. We've got a shrub for every taste and every space. Whether you're looking for an easy care rose and unforgettable Hydrangea or something new and unique, you can be confident that the shrubs and the white containers have been trying, child and tested for your success. Look for them at your local garden center. Greeting's Gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where I feel like I just have to remind everyone that the plan on Treal was invincible. Lace Hydrangia got a little sidetracked there, and if you want to know more about it see photos. Please do visit our website, Gardening Simplified on air dot com and check out the show notes and everything you need to know about it is there, as well as how you can find a retailer near you that sells Proven Winner's Color Choice shops. But let's get to the mailbag. The first question today actually comes from Rick's dad, and I'm glad that you pass us on because this is a great question. It's one that I see a lot but I've kind of just like, since I understand what's happening, it's stopped. I've stopped asking identifying it as an issue. So I'm glad. He asked, Well, my dad asked. My dad is ninety four years old. He lives at a home and there are gorgeous magnolias around this home, and a number of them are blooming in mid July. And he's like, that's wrong. They should be blooming in April, not in mid July. What's going on? Rick? I gave him my answer. He said to me, I'd like to know what Stacy thinks. So did he? Yes, Well, what was your answer? Well, my answer was, they do that pretty regularly. We'll see that, and you're robbing Peter to pay Paul because when they do bloom in summer, that's less blooms for next spring. But it's not like the tree is in full bloom, it's just spattered. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. So you're right, that is correct. Hey, I'm right, But there is one thing I would add, and this is specific, specific characteristic. Two magnolias that have parentage of Magnolia lilia, floora lilya flora. It's a hard one to pronounce, so they tend to be pink, they tend to have like the narrow buds, and this is just a characteristic. It's normal for this species to do it. And basically what's happening is that, yeah, the plant is starting to flower buds for next year, but the buds that are opening, they don't need to be vernalized. They don't need to go through the cold. So whatever reason that actually causes this, again it's specific to plants that have this parentage, which is very common, very widespread. Typically you're going to see pink, but you will see some sort of pale, pale, pinky whites as well, and it usually means that the plant is actually pretty happy, so it's not a stress response. Sometimes when a plant flowers out of season, it can be a stress response. But from everything that I was reading just to make sure that I had all my ducks in a row, it actually means like, hey, I'm pretty happy, I got some extra resources. I'll just you know, zazz up the summer with some magnolia flowers. And for my dad's benefit, you said vernalized. In other words, the tree doesn't necessarily have to go through the cold of winter. Like a lilac in order to bloom there exactly. Yeah, and that's the same thing that happens with reblooming hydranges. Most hydranges, most big leaf hydranges, their flower buds need vernilization, They need exposure to cold to be like Okay, hey, i' experience to the season. Now it's time for me to grow and start flowering. Reblooming hydranges when they rebloom, it's because those new wood buds do not require vinalization or exposure to cold in order to develop and open. An excellent answer for my dad. There you go, Dad, So I was right, but Stacy gave an excellent explanation. Sophia writes to us Hi Rick and Stacy September twenty twenty two. I bought three Fairy trail Bride cascading hydranges. We've talked about that high ranger before. They're so beautiful as starter plants. As expected, they did not bloom last year. They are planted in eighteen inch planters and this is their first year with blooms. New Jersey Zone seven B just had a long heat wave. The blooms have turned pink and also brown in some instances. I know they should not be pruned as they bloom on old wood. Can I dead head them now? Will they rebloom later this season? So this is such a good question because yeah, fairy trail brade cascade hydrangeas, they're a newer hydrangea. We introduce the first one about four or five years ago, so they're really starting to grow in popularity. But the answer that I am going to give Sophia does apply for any big leaf hydrangea that you are seeing, And the answer is if your flower buds are not aging gracefully for whatever reason. It could because you live in a hot climate, it could because it dried out. Those are probably the biggest main reasons. But yet if the flower buds, instead of turning green and looking pretty, are turning brown, by all means, go ahead and take them off. Dead Heading is a type of pruning, but it's not the same as actually pruning your hydrangea in the way that we say don't prune your hydrangea. The trick is to just take that bloom in your hand and then trace the stem back and cut it off above the first set of leaves. So sometimes when you're doing this, you'll lift up that bloom, and see there's some little leaflets down there. You can ignore those. You want to trace it down to where there's two leaves emerging directly across from each other, and cut just above that, and if you do that, you'll meet in the plant's appearance without cutting into any old wood where the flowers for next year are probably already forming now. Fairy trailbride Hydrangea generally will not really rebloom and might put out a few blooms, so you don't have to worry about it. But with other types of reblooming hydranges, typically this is a case where deadheading them does not actually encourage new flowers to form, but it does meet the appearance. And it's just kind of a personal preference. That's the way I describe it to people. You're doing some house cleaning. In other words, what you're doing is you're nipping as opposed to pruning. But the minute you do something like that, for a lot of people, they're fearful that again along the mystery of hydranges, they're making a mistake. But you know, as always, the golden rule with hydrangeas are really almost anything in the garden, is when in doubt just don't just wait, do some research. Ask your friends on the gardening Simplified show, right into Proven Winners dot com. We'll get you an answer that will put you on the right track. So you learn something and you don't make mistake. So Peggy writes to us, I purchased a proven winter Summer Wine nine bark about eight years ago. It's been a wonderful shrub, growing to a significant size over the years, producing lovely flowers and foliage. This past year many of the branches started to die off and it looks rough. Wondering if I should cut it back significantly this fall and hoping it recovers. So this is western Maryland Zone seven eight. Yeah, so a great question. And she's wondering, like, does does this plant have a specific lifespan? Is this plant just ready to go? And the answer is no, not necessarily. You know, a lot of times shrubs can just kind of get old. They can get old thick wood that just becomes a lot less productive than younger wood. It's just not as vigorous, it doesn't flower as much. It might only put out leaves at the top. And so what you've started end up getting is a lot of thick, woody branches and kind of bear spots in your plant. But the good news is this does not mean your shrub is done for life. It doesn't mean you have to take it out and replace it, because shrubs have the amazing capability to regenerate, and all you have to do is do what's called a rejuvenation pruning. You just cut it back to stubs, and you know you can do that and fall. That's fine if you want to typically more typically it's done in late winter or spring, but really this is a six of one, half a dozen of the other. You know, for a nine bark in your climate, you can make your choice. Yeah, just cut it back to stubs, and then you're gonna want to make sure that comes spring. You give it some fertilizer, you give it some water. You don't want it to get stressed, because it's gonna need a lot of energy to recuperate from that severe pruning. But it will because it has the power of that huge, established eight year old root mass behind it to say, all right, we're gonna put that energy into these buds that are remaining, and you're gonna get a ton of beautifully colored, fresh new growth and the plant just gets a whole new lease on life. Nine Bark's a perfect example of flowering shrubs that can rejuvenate with a hard pruning, So I agree. Stacy Sarah writes to us, Hello, I'm new to gardening, learning so much from listening to your show. Thank you. I'm hoping you can help identify the problem with our sad weeping cherry tree. We planted it this spring and it's been doing great, but we just returned from a week away to find it riddled with damaged leaves. They look like somebody went wild with a whole puncture. What's going on and what can we do to save the tree? And I mentioned earlier questions if I had a dime for every time I've been asking, this is one of these. Yes, So it's common, right, yes, yeah, very very common. And maintain your composture. The tree's going to be open, the tree's going to be okay. The crazy thing this is crazy to me. I don't know if other people will find it so crazy. But this is a fungal disease called shothole disease or shothole fungus, and it's exactly what it sounds like. It looks like someone just took a little buckshot and shot through your leaf and left a perfect circle. Now, the funny thing about it is that it is a fungus because it does leave such a neat, round hole. You know, usually fungal diseases are going to be like powdery malde, some kind of like sheen on the leaves or leaf spots, and they're going to be very distinctive, whereas this actually makes a hole, and so people really aren't used to seeing that. But the interesting thing to me about this is that it can look like insect damage, and some insect damage can look like fungus. I'm thinking of the four line plant bug, something that we get a ton of questions on, and that is a little insect that feeds by making perfectly round indentations right next to each other, so it looks like a leaf spot. So fungal diseases can look like insect damage. Insect damage can look like fungal diseases. It's important, as always when we talk about integrated pest management, to identify the issue and decide what to do. Now, again, it's not harmful shothole disease. It's as long as it's fairly limited but like all fungal diseases, what you're going to want to do is comes fall, make sure you clean up all that foliage that drops, because that is where the fungal spores will overwinter, perfect conditions for them to sit there under the plant. And then in spring when the plant leaves out, that foliage is tender. It doesn't have a protective waxe cuticle yet, and the fungus is just like hey field day reinfect the plant. So just removing that foliage will make a big difference. So shotgun or shotthhole fungus, and I'm going to suggest that you follow Stacy's method here. I did that prior to the show using your site semicolon dot edu method. And if you do that with shotgun fungus or cherry tree shotgun, you'll be amazed at all the different universities that yes address this issue. It is quite common yep, and again not very harmful, but relatively easy to control. So we're going to take a little break. When we come back, we've got branching news, so please stay tuned. The Gardening Simplified Show is brought to you by proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs, our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens have been trialed and tested for your success, so you enjoy more beauty and less work. Look for proven winners color choice shrubs in the distinctive white container at your local garden center. Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's time for branching news. Stacy our first story today. I put this one in for a reason. Transit officials in California set a stretch of highway was closed for several hours when a truck overturned and spilled its load of tomatoes onto the roadway. Caltron's District ten, so this is in Sacramento, said Cruz. Cleared the tomatoes from the center divide to give the northbound traffic a chance to catch up. And I didn't put that in there. That was in the actual news story, and that's why I'm sharing it with you. Do you feel time? I'm wondering, are you proud? Are you feeling a little like usurped? I mean, I'm surprised you didn't shout to one up them here with some tomato pun of your own. In Heine's site, I should have added condiments to that story. A new survey addresses the term health washing. Have you heard the term health washing? No, I've heard the term green washing, but not health washing. I haven't either. Thirty percent of Americans admit to buying healthy foods just because they're trendy, according to new research. When stacked up against other priorities, however, healthiness came fourth, surpassed by the cost, quality, and personal and household preferences. The survey found that's still eighty two percent of people opt for products that use health washing terms. So health washing is a term labels intended to convey a product's health benefits, like multigrain or sugar free or organic, and people respond positively to high in and free range. So it's rather interesting these so health washing would be using terms like sugar free, multigrain, reduced, fortified light, all of those sorts of things. The number one health washing term on the list organic produce. Interesting because organic does have a meaning, and it doesn't necessarily have a correlation's health. It just means the way it's grown, exactly, exactly interesting. Well, coming up on next week show, we're going to be talking about each your landscape and we'll do a little bit of health washing ourselves. So I just found that to be rather interesting. All right, branching news always has to include a good hose story, because you know my relationship with hoses, which is not very good. Good Fairfield, this is Sacramento. An officer thwarts a July fourth blaze with a garden hose, showcases firefighting heroics amid Independence Day festivities. So, in an act that melded civic duty with outright heroism, a Fairfield police officer later identified as Officer Neil, insulated a home from destruction of fire on America's Day of Independence a few weeks ago. So he knocked on the door. The fence is on fire, the house is going to be on fire. No one answered the door. So he just took matters into his own hands, took the good, old, trustee, reliable garden hose, put out the fire. And it's a good thing he did, because, as perally by the Fairfield Fire Department, the firefighters shouldered the burden of seventy seven calls that day over their twenty four hour shift. Oh my gosh, trees on fire, fences on fire, roofs on fire. Are you kidding me? Yeah, it's you know. I am just glad and shocked. That the hose didn't kick while he was trying to pull it out and put out the fire. Same thought that get caught on the corner of the bed. You know, any number of those things that can happen with the garden hose, it would have happened to me. I'll bet the fire chief had a short fuse the next day. Do you root for the bears or the salmon? Now, I'm bringing this up only because here today I'm branching news. Maybe some people aren't aware of this, but it's fun for me to watch live cams. And there's a great live cam. We're gonna put the link at Gardening Simplified on air dot com. There's great live cams on explore dot org. And this particular one I was watching the other day was of Brooks Falls cat May National Park in Alaska, and you can watch the fish jumping the falls here and then you kind of sit there and you root for either the bears or the salmon. These live cams are fun. Oh they are. Explored dot org is a great website. And you know the cat my webcam became so famous because that is the home of Fat Bear Week. Yes, you know, so that's where the Bears live that you vote on in Fat Bear Week, So whether you're rooting for the Bears or the Salmon probably depends on how much you enjoy Fat Bear Week every October. I love that. A few weeks ago, we had a show on snakes and spiders. A follow up story, big Burmese python was found slithering outside in Indiana home. Animal rescuers in Indiana are trying to solve the mystery of a slithery surprise after a large snake was found wandering outside of the home. I'm not so sure I would say wandering. I don't think snakes wander, but anyhow, he was there. Westfield Police Department said the slithery surprise was spotted on Barney Circle and the Exotic Animal Rescue and Pet Sanctuary was called in to collect what is believed to be a large Burmese python. Please share it. A photo on Facebook showing the yellow snake failing to blend in with the greenery and landscape right outside the home, and the police as a matter of fact, said if this guy belongs to you, please call them. See they even have a sense of humor, so they couldn't find this snake. I guess initially, even though it's a big snake, it did try to hide in the shrubbery. You could say he was viper active. But they caught up to him and he is now at a let's see, being cared for by a animal sanctuary. Well that's good. I'm glad I had a happy ending. But this is Indiana and we're a little north from where we broadcast here in Michigan, and I cannot imagine if I walked into my landscape and a huge Burmese python was in my landscape, I would freak out. I would just like turn around while Craig back in the house and lock the door. I would run and call somebody anyhow. And finally today for branching news, Wimbledon, of course takes place in July, and that tennis tournament is famous for Wimbledon's strawberries, and I guess they were perfect this year for tennis fans despite Britain's soggy spring. So each year more than thirty eight point four tons of strawberries, so they're guestimating one point nine to million strawberries are picked and consumed during the two week tournament in London. A team of pickers at hugh Low Farms in Kent, so it's about thirty miles from Wimbledon. Start work at dawn each day and pick the before it's to be shipped to the All England Club. So juicy red strawberries big part of Wimbledon, and I guess they had a really good year for strawberries this year. So people just sit around the tennis tournament eating strawberries. Oh yeah, Oh interesting, I did not strawberries and cream and oh yeah for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert. Strawberries are the thing at Wimbledon in a great year. Speaking of that, I did want to mention real briefly that here in Michigan, and I'm assuming probably at least throughout the Midwest, it has been a good growing season. I cannot believe, you know, we have this phrase we use knee high by the fourth of July. The corn is huge this year. The amount of rain we've had, the weather, the early start to the spring season where we did not have hard frost again after maybe the third week of April. It's been amazing, Stacey. It has. It has been such a luxury to have so much rain. The garden looks so good, and you know, I don't really do supplemental watering, and of course for my containers and my vegetables, but to see, you know, most of my plans were drought tolerant, but they're still a lot happier if they get rain rather than my you know, benign neglect. But yeah, they everything looks so good. Everything is so lush and so beautiful, and it's just you know, if you're a gardener, and if you are a gardener who hates garden hoses and hate paying high water bills, this is the season for you. It's great, great, it's been great. And of course we mentioned my dad earlier in the show and at the home there there's two things they love to complain about as they sit around, the weather and the food in the cafeteria. Well, I can't do anything about the cafeteria, but let me tell you, we we've got to make sure to make a point to say, wow, fabulous and praise the weather when we're not complaining about drought or some thing like that. At least here in Michigan and in the Midwest, it's been quite a growing season. Yeah, And you know, also here it's been very cool. We've had a couple periods of hot weather, but for the most part, the weather has been delightful. The rain has been abundant, and yeah, I mean, I'm gonna knock on wood, but this has been a marvelous season so far weather wise, I'd say for us, yes, And I'm thinking about the pumpkins too. This fall and in October, of course, pumpkin is eighty or ninety percent water or whatever it is. So it's just been great. We hope you're having a great gardening season wherever you live, and thank you for tuning in the Gardening Simplified Show, whether it's radio, podcast, or YouTube, and of course make sure to visit Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. Thank you Stacey, thank you Rick, thank you Adriana, and thanks to you for your support of the Gardening Simplified Show.