January 25, 2025 • 47 mins
Warm up this winter with the 2025 Houseplant of the Year! We also talk tropical hibiscus and a mystery plant predator. Featured shrub: Bambino Variegated Orange bougainvillea.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Broadcasting from Studio A.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
It's The Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella me, Rick Weist,
and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, Stacey, let's
take a leaf of faith today with tropical plants, and
why not do that. It's a good time to take
a staycation in the tropics, warm things up, think about
(00:26):
tropical plants for folks tuning us in here on radio
or podcast or YouTube wherever you may be. Well around here,
the temperatures right now are in single digits with wind
chills below zero, and Stacey, we're just kind of riding
it out.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I'll say it has been a challenge, but I have
to say that I'm also extremely grateful to live in
West Michigan, where as I've said before, are extremely cold
temperatures are typically associated by snowcover, which makes this cold
so so much easier on the plants, if not the humans.
We can't help you with that, but it is a
(01:05):
little bit of a relief, you know. I feel terrible
for the people on the other side of the state,
in the Detroit area who are getting even colder temperatures
and haven't even had any snow.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
No, You're right, snow is a great insulator. When I
take a look at my plants out in the landscape
and see snow piled up on them, I'm happy, especially
when we're in the grips of a polar vortex.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Oh, you can see your plants. All I see is
plant shaped mounds of snow for the most part.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So it's a great insulace, it is.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And I'm very grateful for it. So, even though I
don't like winter, and I really don't like snow, I
do have to give up my gratitude right now that
it is here protecting our plants to get through the
worst of this polar vortex.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, if you're in a warmer climate, just remember there's
snow business. Like snow business. So some tropical plant talk today,
including one of my favorites. I'm a big fan of
my good friend phil O Den. Oh boy, Phil, we
go way back now. It's a good plant to take
what I called a leaf of faith. It's native to
(02:07):
the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. I guess
there's as many as four hundred different species of philodendrons
and stacey. A few months ago, when I was in
Costa Rica philidendrons everywhere.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Oh, I'll bet oh love them. And you know, I
philodendin are kind of like the classic house plant, the
classic tropical foliage house plant. And for a long time
you just got kind of like a green philodendron and
that was it. And they've come so far. But one
of the things that I love about philodendron is the
name you said philodendron, but in Greek it actually translates
(02:47):
to tree lover because so many of philodendron species are
climbing plants that climb up trees in the rainforest, which,
of course in the rainforest it's always a constant battle
for lights from the tree canopies, and one of the
ways that philodendron deal with that is by generally climbing
up trees. Not all philodendron are climbing, and some climbing
(03:07):
philodendron when you grow them as houseplants, don't actually end
up climbing. But from a scientific name, standpoint tree lover. Yeah, Well,
I see a philodendron.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
And you I am a tree.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I'm a tree hugger and a tree lover, so I
guess I am a philodendron. I told you phil was
a good friend of mine, and you're so right, Stacey,
because philodendrons generally are classified in two areas. One would
be vining and another would be self heading, or people
called them arborescent. In keeping with what you just said,
(03:40):
So you've got the climbers and you've got the trailers.
We're very familiar in the garden center industry with the
trailers like Philodendron coordatum or brazil, which are beautiful philodendrons
that are generally put in hanging baskets.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yeah. I was going to say, you'll know the difference
because if it's going to be one of the trailing type,
it's to usually be in a hanging basket.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Now, the arborescent or self heading type is Are I peaked.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
In the envelope? The envelope please?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But I did peak And it's Prisma color orange. You gorgeous.
It's a philodendron that well is one of those climbing
type tropical philodendrons, and Stacey, it's a kaleidoscope of color.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
It is so colorful, as you could guess by the name,
it is orange, and you know, I think it's just
such a great example of how far we have come
in the houseplant world from houseplants being green, which is
nothing wrong with green. You know, I love green. I
could use a lot more of it in my life
right about now. But it's nice to have those other
colors as well. And this is a great example of
how plant breeding has brought about a whole new look
(04:50):
for philodendron.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Absolutely and with a climbing type philodendron or arborescent philodendron,
it's a great plant.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Also to use.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
A moss pole in a pot and see how it clings,
and I find moss pole pulls somewhat decorative in a
pot indoors.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Also, yeah, if you can get a plant going up them,
well that's happy and covers it. I absolutely love that look.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So let me give you a quick limb a rick
a minute, because I know we're trying to warm up
here in the single digit temperatures with wind chills well
below zero, so I'll give you my mid winter limb
a rick. Dreaming of warm days is my topic, as
my view of spring right now is myopic dreaming of
(05:36):
plants equatorial through images pictorial Take a staycation to a
place that is tropic, and I'll tell you what the
tropic plant. Tropical plants that we put in our homes
at least help a little bit at this.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Time they do. It makes a big difference to have something,
you know, living and reminding you that, yeah, they're under
all of those big amorphous snowpiles, there is life.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So time out for a tease.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Coming up in segment four, we're going to talk about
another tropical plant, and that would be Hibiscus Rosa sinensis.
These are the tropical hibiscus with beautiful flowers. I think
there's a lot of confusion with folks on high biscus,
and we can talk about that in segment four. But
you have the syriacus, right yeah, althea or Rosa Sharon,
(06:22):
you have the rose mallow, our favorite summerrific and then
you have the Rosa sinensus and Stacy, we're going to
talk about this because of Hollywood High Business.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Oh yeah, this is the first year for Hollywood Hibiscus
from Improoven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs to be available in
garden centers. So we are very very excited and already
definitely thinking of sunny summer days with colorful hibiscus flowers.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
So become familiar with the native habitat of tropical plants.
I think it really helps you when you grow them indoors.
And one of the things I love about topical plants too,
is not just using them as houseplants, but using them outdoors.
And you go to some of these warmer regions I
(07:08):
mentioned Costa Rica or South Florida, you'll see plants out
there that are used for landscaping. Icera is one that
you'll see everywhere. Bird of Paradise or Strelitsia, cordelline or
tea plant. I love those plants. The foliage is so
bright and colorful. I love autograph plant Clusia and Stacey.
(07:32):
A favorite of mind is crotons, and I don't think
we use enough crotons in our landscape beds or mixed
with annuals in the summertime.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Well, that is a bold choice to you mix croton. Now,
if you're not familiar with croton, perhaps this description will
conjure up a mental image for you. It is the
famously green, yellow and red plant.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Color, it's something, it's something. So when you went to
Costa Rica, do you feel like you, you know, kind
of learned more about how to grow tropical sort of
observing them in their natural.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Habitaty I did, because you know, again, when you're trying
to grow them indoors, the air is so dry. People
try to fix the problem by watering tropical plants or houseplants,
and they overwater them and the roots are too wet.
So any kind of humidity that you can provide, or
keeping it away from a heat source and back off
(08:26):
on the watering, I think to a large extent, your
tropical plants are trying to do the same thing we're
trying to do. Survive winter and let's get to spring and.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Summer for sure, you know. I when I was at
the New York Botanical Garden, I think I've mentioned this
on the show before. The curator of the Tropical Conservatory
used to talk about how in her Bronx apartment when
she was at horticulture school, she would tie a wet
rag to the radiator pole that you know connected the
radiator so you know, they run the radiators super duper
(08:57):
warm in New York City apartments, she would tie wet
rags onto them so as that heat was coming up
through them, they would just be given off steam. She
said she had the best indoor tropical plants of her life.
Now not always practical for most of us in a
more typical household situation. But if you have radiators and
you have a pole, might be worth trying, just saying,
(09:18):
or take.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Them in the bathroom with you, take them in the
shower with you. But whatever you can do, just think
about where they are native to. And the same applies
to philodendrons. Now, philodendrons are pretty easy to grow houseplant.
And again the variety's incredible. So you have lemon lime philodendrons,
you have creeping philodendrons. The Burkean philodendron a few years
(09:42):
ago took the industry by storm. It's kind of like
a green and white pin striped suit. What a great
plant pop art, which is a black cardinal or blushing
cardinal splash dash. And of course we remember in the
houseplant craze of the COVID pandemic when we were housebound,
remember the pink princess philodendron and how much people were
(10:05):
paying for that, Oh.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, yeah wow.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So and then of course glossy green foliage philodendrons like green,
Diamond green, Princess, Imperial green, and then the rigosum, which
is a pigskin philodendron. Because the foliage, which is notoriously
heart shaped leafd with philodendrons. This one looks like pig ears.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Oh interesting, and I'm familiar with that one. I like it.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
There's so much variety in philodendron is easy to grow.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
So a tip of the cap to.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
The houseplant of the year and that is Prisma Color Orange.
You gorgeous Philodendron Plants on Trial is coming up next.
We'll see how Stacey ties it all together. Stay tuned.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color Choice
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proven Winner's Color Choice dot Com. Greeting's gardening friends, and
(11:20):
welcome back to the Gardening Simplify Show. It may be
the deepest, darkest depths of winter out there, but in
here we are talking house plants, thinking about spring. Because yeah,
as a gardener, uh, it's all about what's next.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
What are we looking forward to?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
But the great thing we were just talking about Prismacolor
orange and gorgeous philodendron, the proven winner's houseplant of the
Year from the leaf Joy line. And you know, as
we've said previously, this is actually the last of our
Plants of the Year installment. It is the last one
that we're covering. But as we've said in the previous episodes,
the really great thing about these Plants of the Year
(11:57):
is their availability. And you know, the proof Owner's line
has so many plants that of course no one garden
center can offer them all. There's just way, way too many.
But one of the great things about the plants of
the year, whether it's the annual of the Year, perennial,
the or Shrubs of the Year, house plan of the Year,
it means that everybody in the industry is on board,
so there's going to be very good availability of that plant.
(12:18):
So this would be a great time to treat yourself
to an orange and gorgeous philodendron from your local garden center,
or you know, just go and check it out and
try to do something to get through the next what
I don't even want to count. I'm not even going
to count. It's too depressing.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
It's a good point.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I think of the plants of the year almost like
a flag something to rally around.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah, exactly, I look forward to And this is great too,
even though again I love green. That orange color is
just gonna bring a lot of like vibrant life to
your indoors, and it is easy to grow. It's not
it likes humidity. But overall they're pretty adaptable.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
They are.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
They don't need a ton of sun because they're understory
plants in the rainforests. So give it a try.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, let me quickly mention that that's a mistake I
see a lot of people make. They think they have
to put the plant in a sunny window in direct sunlight,
and you don't.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Have to eat.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
No, you don't want to do that in fact, as
if there were any sunlight or not to go around.
But I will stump, I will stop, and I will
it's you know, it's it's been a rough week here
in Michigan. There is just no I mean, between the
lions and this, like what else can we say. We're
working on it, but anyway, you know, last episode we
talked about, of course, the annual of the year, which
is super Tunia Mini Vista yellow. So I kind of
(13:30):
made Plants on Trial all about yellow. So it follows
that I would make this week's Plant on Trial all
about orange because orange is such a great color. We
have a number of shrubs that are orange or I
would say orange adjacent, Like, you know, either the foliage
is orange, the flowers are orange. There's something orange you
know about them. So when you have so many choices,
(13:52):
how do you pick? So I'm going way off the
deep end and I'm staying in the tropical world and
I am actually you could say this like an official announcement,
uh that proven winner's colored choice shrubs now has Bougainvillia.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Oh my, and I love booga.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Right now, I'm not I'm gonna talk a lot about
Bougainvillia in a moment. But a lot of people we
haven't been making like a huge deal out of this
because they're still kind of just getting off the ground here.
But today's plant on Trial is Bambino variegated orange Bougainvilla,
which is my favorite out of the line. So I
don't know about you, but for me, like if you
(14:30):
were to say, like what one plant to you says
like I'm on vacation. For me, it's bougainvillia. I'm gonna say, oh, okay,
that's a good choice. But I you know the thing
about for me boogainvillia, whether you've been to a tropical
hot climate or an arid hot climate, they do well
in both. There is I think few, if any plants
(14:51):
that bloom as perpetually as bougainvillia. So no matter what
time of the year you go on vacation to these
warm climates, you're gonna see boogain in flower and it
is unmistakable. So if you're sitting like, what's that word,
I've been to these warm climates, I don't know what
you're talking about. Typically, boogainvillia is a vine, a very vigorous,
woody vine, and always needs support. So you're gonna be
(15:13):
seeing bougainvillia up above, usually like on a pergola. In
some climates it's very popular to grow them like around
doors or something like that. They need some kind of support,
and the flowers, actually the bracts, which are kind of
like a modified leaf that are just there to attract pollinators,
are kind of papery. They're made up of three or
four of these kind of leafy bracts, and if you
(15:36):
peek inside, there are one to three really cute, really
cool white flowers, and that's the flower itself, is that
thing inside. So when you see a boogainvillia, you're seeing
extremely vivid color. Another thing like tropical hibiscus, of course,
is also known for vivid color, but bougainvillia colors are
like in another plant, like another planetary systems. Yes, there
(16:00):
are a few things that are just as completely bright.
And just say I'm in a warm climate, I'm on vacation.
Life is good. But you know, they do need again
this very sturdy support because they are woody vines and
they climb through little thorny well, some of them are
(16:21):
quite thorny or just kind of protuberances on the vine,
so they kind of support themselves. They don't climb by
vining or twining or anything like that. They just kind
of find their way up to support and cover, you know,
whatever it is. And they are very vigorous. So they
need quite a lot of maintenance if you live in
a warm climate, because you're constantly having to prune them
(16:42):
because they just go and go and go. They overgrow
whatever you're trying to grow them on. They take well
to pruning, and you know, they're none the worse for
the wear. But you know, a lot of times when
it comes to the garden, whether you're in a warm
climate or a cold climate, you want something that has
those same qualities of the standard, but maybe that you
can use in a different way. And that's where the
(17:04):
bambino bougainvillias, of which Bambino variegated orange is one. So
these are dwarf boogainvillias that we have just brought over one,
not just but a couple of years ago, brought over
from Australia. So these were developed in Australia where of
course probably the majority of the country can easily and
readily grow bougainvillia. And so instead of being you know,
(17:25):
fifteen twenty twenty five feet long and tall vines, the
bambino bougainvillia is anywhere from two feet to say, roughly
five feet tall and wide.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So great for containers.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Great for containers, and that is not something you can
really say about your more conventional boogainvillia. They can be
trimmed into like a neat shape and still flower because
again these are nearly perpetually flowering plants, or you can
just kind of let them go and do their thing
and be kind of more I think I wrote in
my notes here loosey goosey. But that's just the best
way that I can think about it now. I of
(18:00):
course know and believe myself that variegation can be very polarizing.
And this is a variegated leafed boogainvillia, but I like it.
Some boogainvillia I like, or some variegation I like, some
I don't like. I can't universally say I like it.
I know what I like when I see it. I
tend to like more neat variegation that's very clearly defined,
(18:21):
rather than excuse me, Rick, but Groton like where it's
all just kind of muddled together, got it.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
But you know, that's a fair thing.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
For all of us out there, and that's what makes
gardenings so great. So if you're familiar with our variety
sugar tip hibiscus, the foliage actually looks quite a bit
like that, so similar size and similar shape, and it
kind of has like a sage green, a mint green,
and then a nice creamy yellow margin. So it's not
(18:52):
everything all mixing together and swirling together. Things are pretty
clearly delineated, but it just adds a lot of splash
and color to the flower. And of course flowers are
the main event. And these are orange and orange boog
and Villia. I feel like is one of the colors
you see the least. Yeah, may be white, but like
you don't see a lot of orange. And when I
see these pictures or see the bambino boog and villas
(19:13):
blooming in our greenhouses here, I have my heart goes
out for the orange because they are so different and
they kind of have I don't want to say a
burnt orange because that sounds like a little bit too depressing,
but they're really vivid and they start pink and they
end pink. And you know a lot of times in
the plant world, pink and orange can be very close
(19:34):
or a lot of plants.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Will go and they look great together.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I love them together. Yeah, especially at this time of year.
So they kind of start out pink, they go to
this beautiful orange, and then they fade back to pink.
So when you're looking at a boogain villia plant variegated
orange boogin Villia, you're getting all of those colors at once,
and it just makes it gives it so much depth
and such an interesting plant. Because this is a shrubby boogainvillia,
(19:59):
A lot of and cold climates can actually grow it
because we couldn't normally grow one of the big vinding types,
because how would we even manage this huge, thorny plant
that needs very sturdy support.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
You know, that would be nice because when I worked
in the garden center industry, and I would buy and
bring up bougainvillia plants from the South to Michigan. They
put them in a box or a bag, They put
them on a semi truck and they sit there for
over a week on their way north.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Oh yeah, that's a They don't like that.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
By the time they get here, all of the blooms
are off.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
The planet, and hey wants to buy a boogavilion with
no flowers? Hunt and Vidic.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
It was difficult.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
But boucavilias are not hardy as you may have guessed.
They're only hardy down to USDA zone nine. Some sources
of say nine b heat tolerant through at least USCA
zone eleven. So these are firmly tropical plants. But like
I was saying. In those older types you couldn't easily
grow them for the long term because they were just
too big. You know, you could get one and try
to grow it, and of course it wouldn't like over
(20:57):
you know, grow its container just in one seat in Michigan,
but it did get quite large. So these new shrubby booginbhilias,
like the bambino variegated orange, we'll actually stay just two
to three feet tall and wide, so you can actually
grow it, enjoy it on your patio or porch all
summer long. As long as you give it full sun.
Hummingbirds love it. It will bloom all summer, and then you
(21:18):
can try to bring it in. Not the easiest plant
to grow indoors, not gonna lie to you, but it's
where the try. If you did invest in one for
some fun summer color, bring it indoors. Put it in
your brightest spot, coolest spot. It can't be freezing, but
you want good air circulation and cool temperatures. Don't over
water it, and with a little luck, you'll have another
(21:39):
plant to put outside the following summer and enjoy all
over again.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Love it. I love it.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
So that's Bambino variegated orange. If your interest is peaked,
you can of course see pictures on YouTube or in
our show notes at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. You
may not find it at your local garden center this
year if you are in a cold climate, but you
can certainly order it online and try it out yourself
in your garden. We're going to take a little break
and when we come back, we're opening up the garden mailbag,
so please stay tuned. At Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs,
(22:14):
we know that a better landscape starts with a better shrub.
Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our
flowering shrubs in evergreens for eight to ten years to
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beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and express your personal style.
Look for Proven Winner's Shrubs in the distinctive white container
(22:35):
at your local garden center or learn more at proven
Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it's one of
our favorite times of the show because we get to
help you with your gardening questions and you know what,
only do I really love helping people at their gardening questions.
It's just cool to find out what they're dealing with
out there, you know, from people in all different climates,
(22:58):
different situations. You know, we're all dealing with different things.
And you know, you and I are guilty of often
believing that the grass is proverbial greener. On the other side, Oh,
if only we could garden in southern Florida, if only
we could garden in southern Texas. Oh if only we
could grow in a avocado. But then you hear from
certain gardeners in warm climates and you're like, ooh, I'm
actually really glad that's not a problem to deal with.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's great to learn from other people, and it's fun,
especially at this time of the year, to dream a little.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And you know, last week we read
a comment from a listener Tom, who was talking about
how he wished that there was some sort of system
to help qualify a plant's heat tolerance, and that you know,
when he's looking to buy plants, he doesn't choose something
unless he hears from someone who's grown up for at
(23:48):
least three years that it will tolerate the heat in
his area totally fair. But we actually got an interesting
comment from another listener, Choi, and Choi says, I always
enjoy your video. There's something I learn and appreciate all
the details. I'm in Zone eight used to be Zone
seven B. We don't have spring. It's like from the
forties to the sixties. Come May, it's already in the seventies.
(24:10):
By summer, it's just hot. Most of our time is
the ninety degrees plus, and last year we had more
than one hundred ninety degree days. Troy goes on to say,
I have a comment on gardening and heat. I enjoy gardening.
My house faces south and has no shade. By mid afternoon,
my backyard is so hot. I love hostas, ferns, etc.
I don't have shade, but that doesn't stop me from
growing them. I would say if you're in a heat zone,
(24:32):
you can trick the plants by giving them water every day.
Keep it moist, don't let the soil dry out. It
works for me, and I've had them over four years
and they're still very healthy. So it's good advice for especially,
as Troy mentions here, herbaceous perennials like the ferns and hostas.
Now it doesn't always work, it does work. Basically, what
(24:52):
Choy's saying is if you give your plants extra water,
very often they can tolerate the heat. And that is true.
But one of the things about her base perennials compared
to shrubs or trees is that when the going gets tough,
they can just call it quits and go underground and
preserve and can serve all of their resources underground. Trees
and shrubs can't really do that. They can defoliate, but
(25:13):
usually if they do that, they don't have the energy
to come back right away sure, Whereas if a herbaceous
perennial goes prematurely dormant, usually it'll just you know, wait
until conditions improve and then come back.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
So and Choi makes a good point here as we
discussed with doctor Allan Armitage, and that is it's all
about afternoon sun.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yes, yep, yeah for sure. So thanks for that, Choi.
And you know, always good to hear from those warm
climate gardeners and how you're dealing with the unique challenges
and opportunities of your climates.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Well, speaking of warm climates, let's go to Texas. Clay
Is in Texas and has a mystery, and we well,
we'll see what we can do for Clay here. I've
visited Texas a few times, have never lived there. I
reckon Stacey, I'm at my wits end. I really I
hope you guys can help me figure out what's going on.
I have a feeling possibly one of our listeners or
(26:05):
viewers may have an answer for Clay here. For the
last few months, literally anything I put in my backyard
with a leaf on it, no matter how small, gets
immediately defoliated overnight. The only thing it won't touch, for
some reason, is my lime tree, but the lemon tree
right next to it is picked clean as soon as
the new leaves appear. I've tried sewing carrots, radishes, cilantro
(26:28):
in the garden with a piece of wire mesh over them,
but the instant a seedling pops up, it's immediately cut back.
I left the wire mesh on the ground, and eventually
weeds started growing under it in a perfect square. Then
as soon as I moved it, they were all gone
the next morning, et cetera, et cetera. In other words,
Clay's point is he can't even grow weeds. What's causing
(26:51):
this problem and how do I stop it? And Stacy,
I have a theory okay on this for Texas, and
that would be its pocket gophers.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Oh, pocket gophers.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Pocket gophers are legendary in Texas. In other parts of
the country we don't deal with them as much. They
call them pocket gophers because they are hoarders. They clean
their food before eating it, and they have these pockets
in their their jaws their mouth where they can store
a whole bunch of food, and they love foliage. Just
(27:26):
guessing here, So do again? I don't live in Texas, right,
but everything's bigger in Texas, and so are the pocket gophers.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
So do pocket gophers leave other evidence of their visiting
like burrows or tunnels or hills of soil like a
mole or something with As.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I understand it, they're neat freaks. Oh so I don't know.
I'm just saying because this is such a mystery for Clay,
I'm just taking a stab.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
At it, right, Okay. My first thought was mice, so
similar kind of thing. Mice can also be extremely voracious,
and you know, if you're spoiling them with only the tenderest, freshest, foliage.
That is what they're going to go for, you know,
never mind all that you know, thick, durable, hard stuff.
So I don't know if other listeners, perhaps from Texas
(28:12):
or warm climates have dealt with something similar and we're
able to catch the culprit. Definitely sounds like some kind
of rodent. I don't think it's an insect. One thing
that you could try. This is maybe a little bit
out there, but hey, you never know. Is put some
so when you sew something or put something tender out there,
put some flour all around the ground around this thing
(28:36):
and see if you capturing footprints there you go.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Or I would plant something that's really you know, this
is like a murder mystery that we're going to carry.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
From a plant murder miss and we'll.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Have our listeners and viewers help us out. But you know,
if that's the case what Clay is describing, I'd put
something tasty out there, and in today's day and age,
just have a camera set up and let's find out
what it is.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Yeah, So if you need some camera recommendation right us,
Adriana will send you there you go, some camera recommendations
so that you can catch the culprit and solve the mystery,
because you know, again ask us so many things that
people ask God in the garden. If it's your problem,
it's probably other people's problem, as welse.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Absoluctly, Hey, Stacy Brooke writes to us again about Kinsley's
ghost honeysuckle. You talked about that in our first episode.
And so Brooke is in Southeast Michigan, Zone six B.
We've been saving cardboard for months to build new garden
beds using the no dig method. I'm itching to work
(29:39):
outside when it's not too cold, so I have the
cardboard and access to straw that I could use as mulch.
Can I get a head start on laying this all out?
Is this something I can do before spring? So as
far as winter garden bed building is concerned, now this
is I call it zagna composting, and I do it
(30:03):
over grassy areas to kill off the grass, and do
it in the fall when leaves are readily available. So
I've never really done it in the winter.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Right now, My only real concern was two concerns I
guess about winter doing it in winter. Number one, I
would not try it in winter when the ground is
frozen because when the ground is frozen, it's typically very
uneven and it would be hard, I think, to get
the contact that you need from the sheet maulch. Is
this is this method is also often called it would
(30:33):
be hard to get that ground to sheet mulch contact
that you need to get that killing effect for the
vegetation underneath. You're just gonna have air and it's just
going to be a mess. So I think that you
do need to wait until you can at least do
something to keep the ground, you know, to get the
ground reasonably even Again, what that means, who knows, we'll see.
(30:55):
But it doesn't mean you have to wait until the
height of spring, just until maybe the soil is a
little bit more workable and not frozen solid. And then,
you know, my other concern about the winter is just
wetting it, you know, because you're supposed to usually wet
it so that you get that contact, and that is
not You certainly should not be renting your hose bib
(31:17):
right now in any part of Michigan, so you know,
that could be an issue. But otherwise I would say
you don't have to wait until the weather is you know,
nice enough to be outside. You can definitely get a
little bit of a head start, but you do want
to wait until the soil is to a point where
you can actually, you know, work it.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I admire Brooks spirit and Stacey. I've been out there
in February and March way too early, pretty much every
year doing this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
But you can't help it. You just want to get started.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
You got to get out there and smell the soil.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Catherine writes to us, I've grown Virginia in parts Sun
for over ten years, wondering about correct maintenance and trimming.
The older plants have long black stems about six to
eight inches, with the leaves starting off that so Virginia
or one of my favorite perennials, pig squeak, Stacey. Here
(32:08):
in Michigan it can look pretty rough in winter, but
in some parts of the country it almost acts like
an evergreen.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah. Yeah, So this is the first time I ever
saw Berghinia. I say berghinia, and Catherine does note ps,
it's another plant with a pronunciation. Debate, So Virginia Burghinia,
I sayberghinia. Yeah, it's a beautiful plant. The first time
I saw when I absolutely fell in love. I can't
grow it because I don't have shade and I don't
have my soil. But so what happens. This is one
(32:36):
of those plants that kind of forms like a rhizome,
almost like a rhizome type stem that the foliage comes
off of. And the longer that you have your plant,
the longer that rhizome is going to become because it's
putting out new foliage. Usually in a nice healthy patch
of burginia, there's enough offsets that they'll all kind of
form a groundcover and their leaves will overlap and you
(32:57):
won't really see it. But I did look online and
I saw some resources that basically said, it's just something
this plant does, and you should either bury those long
stems or tubers that are coming out with some more soil,
or you know, once if you do have some nice
offsets and it's filling in, just take out that old
one and let the new ones, those new younger ones
(33:18):
kind of take over. So there's something you can do,
little extra gardening love for you, And you can always
just try and digging them out and then replanting them
deeper if you don't want to just throw away that
sort of mother plant that has those long Sometimes unsightly stems.
So thank you all for your questions. If you have
a question for us, you can reach us at Gardeningsimplified
(33:39):
on air dot com or leave a comment on our
YouTube video. We're going to take a break. When we
come back, Rick and I are talking about Hollywood Hybiscus,
so please stay tuned. Thanks for listening to the Gardening
Simplified Podcast, brought to you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs.
Our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and
(34:02):
tested by experts with your success in mind. Learn more
at Proven Winners color Choice dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Today for branching news,
we're going to talk about an exciting line of plants
called Hollywood Hibiscus. But before we do that, Stacey had
to mention to you here in Michigan, where we've already
mentioned to folks that temperatures are in the single digits
with wind chills well below zero. There are some folks
(34:30):
here in Michigan who made the news because they have
a bright yellow cardinal visiting their bird feeders on a
regular basis. Scientists estimate the male northern cardinals' genetic mutation
makes that makes it yellow, makes it about a one
(34:51):
in ten million bird. Once you love to see that
bird at your bird feeder, I.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Would, and I would need to make sure I had
a good clear view of it. Otherwise I'd be like,
was that Baltimore Oriole? Was that this? And I'd be
going crazy trying to figure out what I had actually
just seen. And you know, it's really cool. I think
that I feel like you hear about one of these
every couple of years, and I think it's just great
that the Internet is, you know where is. Before you
(35:19):
would maybe not been believed or no one would learn
about it, And now like the whole state's like, oh yeah,
we got a yellow one in ten million cardinal right
here at Michigan.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
To see it.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Yeah, it's pretty great.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
It's a good point. Yeah, the couple have named the
yellow Cardinal, and we'll put the link at our website,
Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. But the couple named the
yellow Cardinal Donovan, after the singer song writer that nineteen
(35:50):
sixty six hit Mellow Yellow.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Oh great tune.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
It's a great love that. It's a great tune sticks
in your head. I'm feeling better.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I have feeling better, you know, I am too. Thank
you for that.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Well, then let's talk about Hollywood. Hooray for Hollywood Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Hybiscus, Stacy.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
This is really exciting for Proven Winners Color Choice shrubs.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
You know, we're.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Always talking about plant genetics, and I want to talk
a few minutes here about high biscus. Some of my
experience with high biscus in the garden center industry, but
Hollywood high biscus, when it comes to genetics, will now
be in that world famous white pot with that diamond tag,
(36:34):
and it's it's exciting.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
It is really exciting. And you know, we have long
wanted to have some tropical hibiscus in the Proven Winner's
Color Choice line. You know, not just because it's a
very common landscape plant in warmer climates, but because so
many people love growing them as summer color. And you know,
I think that this concept of these tropicals that we
(36:56):
buy for our backyards, you know, originally that was like
the one maybe people bought hibiscus, And now there's mandavilla
and all of these other ones, and so it's just
really I think has changed the way people think about
what's an annual. What you know, do you want to
invest in for color? And so when it comes to
investing in a tropical hibiscus, because these are woody plants,
they do cost a bit more than you know, your
(37:18):
average annual is going to cost. You want the highest
performance plant. You want the plant that is going to
do the most for you, bloom the most, have the
best color, and you know, up until relatively recently, you know,
you went to the garden center and looked for tropical
hibiscus and it was like, Okay, here's red, here's yellow,
here's you know, yeah, and that was it. And so
(37:39):
the cool thing about Hollywood hibiscus is these were developed
specifically to outperform the more conventional, you know, varieties that
were on the market. They have individual names, so you
know that what you're getting from year to year, if
you get, say, for example, Sunset Boulevard, that Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood hibiscus is going to be the same Sunset Bull
(37:59):
ofvar every yart, you're going to be getting the same
great performance and you get that nice reliability.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
And the thing that I'm excited about with Hollywood hibiscus
is generally, when I've grown Hibiscus, the flowers are here today,
gone tomorrow. Generally the blooms maybe last day. The genetics
with Hollywood Hibiscus Stacey is supposed to allow blooms to
(38:24):
last maybe as long as two or three days, and
that correct.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yeah, so not every variety in the Hollywood Hibsius line
lasts longer than one day. And the one day thing
is typical across the genus. So if you have Rosa Sharon,
those flowers typically last one day. My beloved summarific hibiscus
flowers last one day. But you know there's plenty of
them to make up for that. But the nice thing
about Hollywood is, yes, some of them are you know,
(38:49):
have that ability to open and last up to three days.
So you're getting a lot more color just from a
single flower, and I you know, I think that's such
a rate bonus. Not all of them have it, but
you'll definitely notice the ones that do, because you just
get that little extra color without having to do, you know,
anything special to get it.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, and arguably one of the knocks on hibiscus is
bud drop or the buds dropping off. And again my
experience in the garden center industry, I mentioned Booginvilia earlier,
and they drop all their color on their way to
on their way north to Michigan. The high biscus generally
(39:32):
would do that too. You can pack a lot of
high biscus plants into a semi truck, and they do.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
They pack them in there, so.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
You get a semi truck with five thousand high biscus
plants or whatever it may be. The floors in the
semi are metal. As you unload these highbiscus plants, those
slimy buds and flowers fall off, and it becomes a
real hazard.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Yeah, I would think.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
So much slide City.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
There's a reason they call them mush mummies.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Mush mummies exactly. So high biscus love.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
They're just like me.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
They love sunshine, they love humid.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Warm weather.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
And you know the other thing about Hollywood hibiscus compared
to other varieties is that the flowers open up fully
so a lot. And this is one of those things
that you might be sitting here going yes, acy, okay,
sounds like a real big deal, but you really will
notice a difference when you look at the plants, for example,
at your local garden center, that the ones that are
more satellite dish shaped and rounded, and the difference between
(40:29):
the ones that are opening fully so you get that huge,
full circle of bloom. And another thing that might not
seem like a big deal but will make a huge
difference when you see it in your yard is the
blooms of the Hollywood Hibiscus are also selected to face you,
to face outward, and a lot of the older varieties
they kind of droop a little bit, so you get
(40:50):
that color, but you're mostly seeing the backs of the petals.
You know, you're not getting that full on like shine in.
They're show offs shining in your face. Color and the
color is another thing. Now, what's your favorite color of
tropical hibiscus.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
I'd have to say yellow.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Okay, I'm team red for sure. I love, love, love
the red color. And you know, the scientific name Hibiscus
rosa sentensus is a rose from China. Yes, so some
people do call these a Chinese rose, although that is
definitely more of an old fetch and aim for them.
But I love the red because I feel like that's
the classic, you know hibiscus. But I do we have
(41:27):
beautiful yellows in the line, fabulous oranges, pink. Yeah, so
another one that if your tastes don't tend towards the
bright and loud and you prefer more of the soft pink,
there's even a pure white.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
So that's a really nice one.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
We often tell people, if you can only enjoy your
garden in the evening, look for white flowers. And the
Hollywood Hibiscus earth angel with the white flowers could not
do better than that for some evening magic.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, that's great on your deck or patio when you're
entertaining so Hibiscus rosa sinensis.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
You know the knock.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
And that's why I'm so excited about the genetics of
Hollywood hibiscus is because for people growing high biscus, sometimes
the knock is yellowing foliage. You need to make sure
to fertilize the plants properly. That's what I have found ye.
And then also hibiscus can be a magnet for aphids, mites,
(42:24):
mealy bugs. But I have always found that those problems
come along or persist when the plants under some kind
of stress. You have to make sure to water hibiscus properly.
And again, going back to the garden center industry, we
always taught to employees that you don't take a watering
wand and just water over the top. You put that
(42:47):
wand right in the pot. You fill that pot, and
you make sure Stacy that those roots are saturate.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yeah, and you know, I'm glad you brought up fertilizing
because the one sort of unusual thing you need to
know about carrying for Hollywood hibiscus is that you cannot
use high phosphorus fertilizers. So, in other words, you do
not want to use a bloom booster. And you know,
I was very grateful that when we started marketing and
(43:14):
growing the Hollywood line that they told me this, because
otherwise I'd be thinking, like, hey, let's load these puppies
up with bloebosters. We are going to get a ton
of flowers. But the phosphorus, you know, for whatever internal
chemistry reasons within the hibiscus, it actually causes problems. It
ties up other nutrients, and it will actually limit the
blooming and cause leaf drops. So you do not want
(43:34):
to use any kind of high phosphorus or bloom boosting
fertilizer against your best instincts for growing these plants. So
do keep that in mind. It does of course say
so on the tag, so you'll know that. But you
do want to fertilize them well so that you're giving
the plant plenty of energy to keep those blooms coming.
Summer's already way too short. We want to make sure
that they have all the resources they need for their
(43:56):
best performance. But save that bloom booster for free fertilizing
other stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
I'm glad you brought this up, and it is an
important point because you know, if you're keeping score at home, Stacy,
I'll ask you this question. Essentially, you want to fertilize,
but we're looking for something more so that we call
a balanced fertilizer.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Right, a balance fertilizer is going to probably be the
easiest thing for most people to find. But if you
can find something with the middle number the phosphorus lower
than the other two, that would be even more preferable.
And you know, a lot of there's much to be
said about fertilizers, like, oh, this is a this fertilizer,
this is a rose fertilizer, this is an orange fertilizer,
(44:37):
or whatever. But really all you should be looking at
is those numbers. So if that you know, ideal fertilizer
for the hibiscus ends up being a turf fertilizer, so
be it. You know, it's you're looking at those numbers,
not necessarily what they claim to do.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
I'm wondering if this is a fig leaf of my imagination.
But and sometimes we should do a show on this.
Plants that like to move and plants that don't like
to move. And my experience with highbiscus has always been
it's a plant. Once it's in a spot that it likes,
let's just keep it there.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
It could be it certainly doesn't like to move indoors,
it does, and of course a lot of people want
to move them indoors.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
North of zone nine, you're gonna have to move it in.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
All right. And you know, they are a plant that
you know, And I meant to say this about the
boogin Villia too. Generally speaking, you know, herbaceous tropical plants
will do just fine. So like the philodendron that we
were talking about at the top of the show, when
you get into these woody tropicals, they definitely struggle indoors
more than their herbaceous or non woody counterparts. So this,
(45:39):
like I said, with the Bougainvillia. If you are going
to try to bring your Hollywood Hibiscus indoors much as
much soun as you can give it, cool temperatures, fantastic,
good air circulation is going to be very, very crucial.
And if it dies or it makes such a mess
that you wish that it would and you just throw
it out, that's perfectly fine. There's still reasonably priced enough,
(45:59):
I think, to replace them every year. Try a new color,
try new color combinations, try something new, and don't beat
yourself up. It is a difficult plant for most people
to grow successfully indoors under normal condition.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
And don't be afraid to pune them back when you
bring them in.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
That's a great point. So Hollywood Hibiscus it is going
to be at your local garden center this season. You know,
if you're looking at it, take a moment to compare
it to the other types of tropical hibiscus your garden
center is carrying. You really will see a difference. And
like I said, when you're investing, you know in these plants,
you want to make sure you're getting the best performance possible.
(46:37):
And I'm confident that of all the tropical hibiscus out there,
Hollywood Hibiscus. Is it so you can find retailers at
proven Winners, Color Choice dot com or of course, if
you have any questions, reach out to us at Gardening
Simplified on air dot com. And with that, I want
to thank you Rick, thank you, thank you Adriana, and
thanks to all of you for listening and watching and
hope you have a wonderful week ahead.
Broadcasting from Studio A.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
It's The Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella me, Rick Weist,
and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, Stacey, let's
take a leaf of faith today with tropical plants, and
why not do that. It's a good time to take
a staycation in the tropics, warm things up, think about
(00:26):
tropical plants for folks tuning us in here on radio
or podcast or YouTube wherever you may be. Well around here,
the temperatures right now are in single digits with wind
chills below zero, and Stacey, we're just kind of riding
it out.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I'll say it has been a challenge, but I have
to say that I'm also extremely grateful to live in
West Michigan, where as I've said before, are extremely cold
temperatures are typically associated by snowcover, which makes this cold
so so much easier on the plants, if not the humans.
We can't help you with that, but it is a
(01:05):
little bit of a relief, you know. I feel terrible
for the people on the other side of the state,
in the Detroit area who are getting even colder temperatures
and haven't even had any snow.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
No, You're right, snow is a great insulator. When I
take a look at my plants out in the landscape
and see snow piled up on them, I'm happy, especially
when we're in the grips of a polar vortex.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Oh, you can see your plants. All I see is
plant shaped mounds of snow for the most part.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So it's a great insulace, it is.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And I'm very grateful for it. So, even though I
don't like winter, and I really don't like snow, I
do have to give up my gratitude right now that
it is here protecting our plants to get through the
worst of this polar vortex.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, if you're in a warmer climate, just remember there's
snow business. Like snow business. So some tropical plant talk today,
including one of my favorites. I'm a big fan of
my good friend phil O Den. Oh boy, Phil, we
go way back now. It's a good plant to take
what I called a leaf of faith. It's native to
(02:07):
the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. I guess
there's as many as four hundred different species of philodendrons
and stacey. A few months ago, when I was in
Costa Rica philidendrons everywhere.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Oh, I'll bet oh love them. And you know, I
philodendin are kind of like the classic house plant, the
classic tropical foliage house plant. And for a long time
you just got kind of like a green philodendron and
that was it. And they've come so far. But one
of the things that I love about philodendron is the
name you said philodendron, but in Greek it actually translates
(02:47):
to tree lover because so many of philodendron species are
climbing plants that climb up trees in the rainforest, which,
of course in the rainforest it's always a constant battle
for lights from the tree canopies, and one of the
ways that philodendron deal with that is by generally climbing
up trees. Not all philodendron are climbing, and some climbing
(03:07):
philodendron when you grow them as houseplants, don't actually end
up climbing. But from a scientific name, standpoint tree lover. Yeah, Well,
I see a philodendron.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
And you I am a tree.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I'm a tree hugger and a tree lover, so I
guess I am a philodendron. I told you phil was
a good friend of mine, and you're so right, Stacey,
because philodendrons generally are classified in two areas. One would
be vining and another would be self heading, or people
called them arborescent. In keeping with what you just said,
(03:40):
So you've got the climbers and you've got the trailers.
We're very familiar in the garden center industry with the
trailers like Philodendron coordatum or brazil, which are beautiful philodendrons
that are generally put in hanging baskets.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yeah. I was going to say, you'll know the difference
because if it's going to be one of the trailing type,
it's to usually be in a hanging basket.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Now, the arborescent or self heading type is Are I peaked.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
In the envelope? The envelope please?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
But I did peak And it's Prisma color orange. You gorgeous.
It's a philodendron that well is one of those climbing
type tropical philodendrons, and Stacey, it's a kaleidoscope of color.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
It is so colorful, as you could guess by the name,
it is orange, and you know, I think it's just
such a great example of how far we have come
in the houseplant world from houseplants being green, which is
nothing wrong with green. You know, I love green. I
could use a lot more of it in my life
right about now. But it's nice to have those other
colors as well. And this is a great example of
how plant breeding has brought about a whole new look
(04:50):
for philodendron.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Absolutely and with a climbing type philodendron or arborescent philodendron,
it's a great plant.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Also to use.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
A moss pole in a pot and see how it clings,
and I find moss pole pulls somewhat decorative in a
pot indoors.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Also, yeah, if you can get a plant going up them,
well that's happy and covers it. I absolutely love that look.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So let me give you a quick limb a rick
a minute, because I know we're trying to warm up
here in the single digit temperatures with wind chills well
below zero, so I'll give you my mid winter limb
a rick. Dreaming of warm days is my topic, as
my view of spring right now is myopic dreaming of
(05:36):
plants equatorial through images pictorial Take a staycation to a
place that is tropic, and I'll tell you what the
tropic plant. Tropical plants that we put in our homes
at least help a little bit at this.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Time they do. It makes a big difference to have something,
you know, living and reminding you that, yeah, they're under
all of those big amorphous snowpiles, there is life.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So time out for a tease.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Coming up in segment four, we're going to talk about
another tropical plant, and that would be Hibiscus Rosa sinensis.
These are the tropical hibiscus with beautiful flowers. I think
there's a lot of confusion with folks on high biscus,
and we can talk about that in segment four. But
you have the syriacus, right yeah, althea or Rosa Sharon,
(06:22):
you have the rose mallow, our favorite summerrific and then
you have the Rosa sinensus and Stacy, we're going to
talk about this because of Hollywood High Business.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Oh yeah, this is the first year for Hollywood Hibiscus
from Improoven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs to be available in
garden centers. So we are very very excited and already
definitely thinking of sunny summer days with colorful hibiscus flowers.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
So become familiar with the native habitat of tropical plants.
I think it really helps you when you grow them indoors.
And one of the things I love about topical plants too,
is not just using them as houseplants, but using them outdoors.
And you go to some of these warmer regions I
(07:08):
mentioned Costa Rica or South Florida, you'll see plants out
there that are used for landscaping. Icera is one that
you'll see everywhere. Bird of Paradise or Strelitsia, cordelline or
tea plant. I love those plants. The foliage is so
bright and colorful. I love autograph plant Clusia and Stacey.
(07:32):
A favorite of mind is crotons, and I don't think
we use enough crotons in our landscape beds or mixed
with annuals in the summertime.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Well, that is a bold choice to you mix croton. Now,
if you're not familiar with croton, perhaps this description will
conjure up a mental image for you. It is the
famously green, yellow and red plant.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Color, it's something, it's something. So when you went to
Costa Rica, do you feel like you, you know, kind
of learned more about how to grow tropical sort of
observing them in their natural.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Habitaty I did, because you know, again, when you're trying
to grow them indoors, the air is so dry. People
try to fix the problem by watering tropical plants or houseplants,
and they overwater them and the roots are too wet.
So any kind of humidity that you can provide, or
keeping it away from a heat source and back off
(08:26):
on the watering, I think to a large extent, your
tropical plants are trying to do the same thing we're
trying to do. Survive winter and let's get to spring and.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Summer for sure, you know. I when I was at
the New York Botanical Garden, I think I've mentioned this
on the show before. The curator of the Tropical Conservatory
used to talk about how in her Bronx apartment when
she was at horticulture school, she would tie a wet
rag to the radiator pole that you know connected the
radiator so you know, they run the radiators super duper
(08:57):
warm in New York City apartments, she would tie wet
rags onto them so as that heat was coming up
through them, they would just be given off steam. She
said she had the best indoor tropical plants of her life.
Now not always practical for most of us in a
more typical household situation. But if you have radiators and
you have a pole, might be worth trying, just saying,
(09:18):
or take.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Them in the bathroom with you, take them in the
shower with you. But whatever you can do, just think
about where they are native to. And the same applies
to philodendrons. Now, philodendrons are pretty easy to grow houseplant.
And again the variety's incredible. So you have lemon lime philodendrons,
you have creeping philodendrons. The Burkean philodendron a few years
(09:42):
ago took the industry by storm. It's kind of like
a green and white pin striped suit. What a great
plant pop art, which is a black cardinal or blushing
cardinal splash dash. And of course we remember in the
houseplant craze of the COVID pandemic when we were housebound,
remember the pink princess philodendron and how much people were
(10:05):
paying for that, Oh.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, yeah wow.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So and then of course glossy green foliage philodendrons like green,
Diamond green, Princess, Imperial green, and then the rigosum, which
is a pigskin philodendron. Because the foliage, which is notoriously
heart shaped leafd with philodendrons. This one looks like pig ears.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Oh interesting, and I'm familiar with that one. I like it.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
There's so much variety in philodendron is easy to grow.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
So a tip of the cap to.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
The houseplant of the year and that is Prisma Color Orange.
You gorgeous Philodendron Plants on Trial is coming up next.
We'll see how Stacey ties it all together. Stay tuned.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color Choice
Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique varieties
to choose from. There's a flowering shrub or evergreen for
every taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive
white container your local garden center or learn more at
proven Winner's Color Choice dot Com. Greeting's gardening friends, and
(11:20):
welcome back to the Gardening Simplify Show. It may be
the deepest, darkest depths of winter out there, but in
here we are talking house plants, thinking about spring. Because yeah,
as a gardener, uh, it's all about what's next.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
What are we looking forward to?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
But the great thing we were just talking about Prismacolor
orange and gorgeous philodendron, the proven winner's houseplant of the
Year from the leaf Joy line. And you know, as
we've said previously, this is actually the last of our
Plants of the Year installment. It is the last one
that we're covering. But as we've said in the previous episodes,
the really great thing about these Plants of the Year
(11:57):
is their availability. And you know, the proof Owner's line
has so many plants that of course no one garden
center can offer them all. There's just way, way too many.
But one of the great things about the plants of
the year, whether it's the annual of the Year, perennial,
the or Shrubs of the Year, house plan of the Year,
it means that everybody in the industry is on board,
so there's going to be very good availability of that plant.
(12:18):
So this would be a great time to treat yourself
to an orange and gorgeous philodendron from your local garden center,
or you know, just go and check it out and
try to do something to get through the next what
I don't even want to count. I'm not even going
to count. It's too depressing.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
It's a good point.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I think of the plants of the year almost like
a flag something to rally around.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah, exactly, I look forward to And this is great too,
even though again I love green. That orange color is
just gonna bring a lot of like vibrant life to
your indoors, and it is easy to grow. It's not
it likes humidity. But overall they're pretty adaptable.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
They are.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
They don't need a ton of sun because they're understory
plants in the rainforests. So give it a try.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, let me quickly mention that that's a mistake I
see a lot of people make. They think they have
to put the plant in a sunny window in direct sunlight,
and you don't.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Have to eat.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
No, you don't want to do that in fact, as
if there were any sunlight or not to go around.
But I will stump, I will stop, and I will
it's you know, it's it's been a rough week here
in Michigan. There is just no I mean, between the
lions and this, like what else can we say. We're
working on it, but anyway, you know, last episode we
talked about, of course, the annual of the year, which
is super Tunia Mini Vista yellow. So I kind of
(13:30):
made Plants on Trial all about yellow. So it follows
that I would make this week's Plant on Trial all
about orange because orange is such a great color. We
have a number of shrubs that are orange or I
would say orange adjacent, Like, you know, either the foliage
is orange, the flowers are orange. There's something orange you
know about them. So when you have so many choices,
(13:52):
how do you pick? So I'm going way off the
deep end and I'm staying in the tropical world and
I am actually you could say this like an official announcement,
uh that proven winner's colored choice shrubs now has Bougainvillia.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Oh my, and I love booga.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Right now, I'm not I'm gonna talk a lot about
Bougainvillia in a moment. But a lot of people we
haven't been making like a huge deal out of this
because they're still kind of just getting off the ground here.
But today's plant on Trial is Bambino variegated orange Bougainvilla,
which is my favorite out of the line. So I
don't know about you, but for me, like if you
(14:30):
were to say, like what one plant to you says
like I'm on vacation. For me, it's bougainvillia. I'm gonna say, oh, okay,
that's a good choice. But I you know the thing
about for me boogainvillia, whether you've been to a tropical
hot climate or an arid hot climate, they do well
in both. There is I think few, if any plants
(14:51):
that bloom as perpetually as bougainvillia. So no matter what
time of the year you go on vacation to these
warm climates, you're gonna see boogain in flower and it
is unmistakable. So if you're sitting like, what's that word,
I've been to these warm climates, I don't know what
you're talking about. Typically, boogainvillia is a vine, a very vigorous,
woody vine, and always needs support. So you're gonna be
(15:13):
seeing bougainvillia up above, usually like on a pergola. In
some climates it's very popular to grow them like around
doors or something like that. They need some kind of support,
and the flowers, actually the bracts, which are kind of
like a modified leaf that are just there to attract pollinators,
are kind of papery. They're made up of three or
four of these kind of leafy bracts, and if you
(15:36):
peek inside, there are one to three really cute, really
cool white flowers, and that's the flower itself, is that
thing inside. So when you see a boogainvillia, you're seeing
extremely vivid color. Another thing like tropical hibiscus, of course,
is also known for vivid color, but bougainvillia colors are
like in another plant, like another planetary systems. Yes, there
(16:00):
are a few things that are just as completely bright.
And just say I'm in a warm climate, I'm on vacation.
Life is good. But you know, they do need again
this very sturdy support because they are woody vines and
they climb through little thorny well, some of them are
(16:21):
quite thorny or just kind of protuberances on the vine,
so they kind of support themselves. They don't climb by
vining or twining or anything like that. They just kind
of find their way up to support and cover, you know,
whatever it is. And they are very vigorous. So they
need quite a lot of maintenance if you live in
a warm climate, because you're constantly having to prune them
(16:42):
because they just go and go and go. They overgrow
whatever you're trying to grow them on. They take well
to pruning, and you know, they're none the worse for
the wear. But you know, a lot of times when
it comes to the garden, whether you're in a warm
climate or a cold climate, you want something that has
those same qualities of the standard, but maybe that you
can use in a different way. And that's where the
(17:04):
bambino bougainvillias, of which Bambino variegated orange is one. So
these are dwarf boogainvillias that we have just brought over one,
not just but a couple of years ago, brought over
from Australia. So these were developed in Australia where of
course probably the majority of the country can easily and
readily grow bougainvillia. And so instead of being you know,
(17:25):
fifteen twenty twenty five feet long and tall vines, the
bambino bougainvillia is anywhere from two feet to say, roughly
five feet tall and wide.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So great for containers.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Great for containers, and that is not something you can
really say about your more conventional boogainvillia. They can be
trimmed into like a neat shape and still flower because
again these are nearly perpetually flowering plants, or you can
just kind of let them go and do their thing
and be kind of more I think I wrote in
my notes here loosey goosey. But that's just the best
way that I can think about it now. I of
(18:00):
course know and believe myself that variegation can be very polarizing.
And this is a variegated leafed boogainvillia, but I like it.
Some boogainvillia I like, or some variegation I like, some
I don't like. I can't universally say I like it.
I know what I like when I see it. I
tend to like more neat variegation that's very clearly defined,
(18:21):
rather than excuse me, Rick, but Groton like where it's
all just kind of muddled together, got it.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
But you know, that's a fair thing.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
For all of us out there, and that's what makes
gardenings so great. So if you're familiar with our variety
sugar tip hibiscus, the foliage actually looks quite a bit
like that, so similar size and similar shape, and it
kind of has like a sage green, a mint green,
and then a nice creamy yellow margin. So it's not
(18:52):
everything all mixing together and swirling together. Things are pretty
clearly delineated, but it just adds a lot of splash
and color to the flower. And of course flowers are
the main event. And these are orange and orange boog
and Villia. I feel like is one of the colors
you see the least. Yeah, may be white, but like
you don't see a lot of orange. And when I
see these pictures or see the bambino boog and villas
(19:13):
blooming in our greenhouses here, I have my heart goes
out for the orange because they are so different and
they kind of have I don't want to say a
burnt orange because that sounds like a little bit too depressing,
but they're really vivid and they start pink and they
end pink. And you know a lot of times in
the plant world, pink and orange can be very close
(19:34):
or a lot of plants.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Will go and they look great together.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I love them together. Yeah, especially at this time of year.
So they kind of start out pink, they go to
this beautiful orange, and then they fade back to pink.
So when you're looking at a boogain villia plant variegated
orange boogin Villia, you're getting all of those colors at once,
and it just makes it gives it so much depth
and such an interesting plant. Because this is a shrubby boogainvillia,
(19:59):
A lot of and cold climates can actually grow it
because we couldn't normally grow one of the big vinding types,
because how would we even manage this huge, thorny plant
that needs very sturdy support.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
You know, that would be nice because when I worked
in the garden center industry, and I would buy and
bring up bougainvillia plants from the South to Michigan. They
put them in a box or a bag, They put
them on a semi truck and they sit there for
over a week on their way north.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Oh yeah, that's a They don't like that.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
By the time they get here, all of the blooms
are off.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
The planet, and hey wants to buy a boogavilion with
no flowers? Hunt and Vidic.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
It was difficult.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
But boucavilias are not hardy as you may have guessed.
They're only hardy down to USDA zone nine. Some sources
of say nine b heat tolerant through at least USCA
zone eleven. So these are firmly tropical plants. But like
I was saying. In those older types you couldn't easily
grow them for the long term because they were just
too big. You know, you could get one and try
to grow it, and of course it wouldn't like over
(20:57):
you know, grow its container just in one seat in Michigan,
but it did get quite large. So these new shrubby booginbhilias,
like the bambino variegated orange, we'll actually stay just two
to three feet tall and wide, so you can actually
grow it, enjoy it on your patio or porch all
summer long. As long as you give it full sun.
Hummingbirds love it. It will bloom all summer, and then you
(21:18):
can try to bring it in. Not the easiest plant
to grow indoors, not gonna lie to you, but it's
where the try. If you did invest in one for
some fun summer color, bring it indoors. Put it in
your brightest spot, coolest spot. It can't be freezing, but
you want good air circulation and cool temperatures. Don't over
water it, and with a little luck, you'll have another
(21:39):
plant to put outside the following summer and enjoy all
over again.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Love it. I love it.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
So that's Bambino variegated orange. If your interest is peaked,
you can of course see pictures on YouTube or in
our show notes at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. You
may not find it at your local garden center this
year if you are in a cold climate, but you
can certainly order it online and try it out yourself
in your garden. We're going to take a little break
and when we come back, we're opening up the garden mailbag,
so please stay tuned. At Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs,
(22:14):
we know that a better landscape starts with a better shrub.
Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our
flowering shrubs in evergreens for eight to ten years to
ensure they outperform what's already on the market. For easycare, reliable,
beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and express your personal style.
Look for Proven Winner's Shrubs in the distinctive white container
(22:35):
at your local garden center or learn more at proven
Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it's one of
our favorite times of the show because we get to
help you with your gardening questions and you know what,
only do I really love helping people at their gardening questions.
It's just cool to find out what they're dealing with
out there, you know, from people in all different climates,
(22:58):
different situations. You know, we're all dealing with different things.
And you know, you and I are guilty of often
believing that the grass is proverbial greener. On the other side, Oh,
if only we could garden in southern Florida, if only
we could garden in southern Texas. Oh if only we
could grow in a avocado. But then you hear from
certain gardeners in warm climates and you're like, ooh, I'm
actually really glad that's not a problem to deal with.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
It's great to learn from other people, and it's fun,
especially at this time of the year, to dream a little.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And you know, last week we read
a comment from a listener Tom, who was talking about
how he wished that there was some sort of system
to help qualify a plant's heat tolerance, and that you know,
when he's looking to buy plants, he doesn't choose something
unless he hears from someone who's grown up for at
(23:48):
least three years that it will tolerate the heat in
his area totally fair. But we actually got an interesting
comment from another listener, Choi, and Choi says, I always
enjoy your video. There's something I learn and appreciate all
the details. I'm in Zone eight used to be Zone
seven B. We don't have spring. It's like from the
forties to the sixties. Come May, it's already in the seventies.
(24:10):
By summer, it's just hot. Most of our time is
the ninety degrees plus, and last year we had more
than one hundred ninety degree days. Troy goes on to say,
I have a comment on gardening and heat. I enjoy gardening.
My house faces south and has no shade. By mid afternoon,
my backyard is so hot. I love hostas, ferns, etc.
I don't have shade, but that doesn't stop me from
growing them. I would say if you're in a heat zone,
(24:32):
you can trick the plants by giving them water every day.
Keep it moist, don't let the soil dry out. It
works for me, and I've had them over four years
and they're still very healthy. So it's good advice for especially,
as Troy mentions here, herbaceous perennials like the ferns and hostas.
Now it doesn't always work, it does work. Basically, what
(24:52):
Choy's saying is if you give your plants extra water,
very often they can tolerate the heat. And that is true.
But one of the things about her base perennials compared
to shrubs or trees is that when the going gets tough,
they can just call it quits and go underground and
preserve and can serve all of their resources underground. Trees
and shrubs can't really do that. They can defoliate, but
(25:13):
usually if they do that, they don't have the energy
to come back right away sure, Whereas if a herbaceous
perennial goes prematurely dormant, usually it'll just you know, wait
until conditions improve and then come back.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
So and Choi makes a good point here as we
discussed with doctor Allan Armitage, and that is it's all
about afternoon sun.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yes, yep, yeah for sure. So thanks for that, Choi.
And you know, always good to hear from those warm
climate gardeners and how you're dealing with the unique challenges
and opportunities of your climates.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Well, speaking of warm climates, let's go to Texas. Clay
Is in Texas and has a mystery, and we well,
we'll see what we can do for Clay here. I've
visited Texas a few times, have never lived there. I
reckon Stacey, I'm at my wits end. I really I
hope you guys can help me figure out what's going on.
I have a feeling possibly one of our listeners or
(26:05):
viewers may have an answer for Clay here. For the
last few months, literally anything I put in my backyard
with a leaf on it, no matter how small, gets
immediately defoliated overnight. The only thing it won't touch, for
some reason, is my lime tree, but the lemon tree
right next to it is picked clean as soon as
the new leaves appear. I've tried sewing carrots, radishes, cilantro
(26:28):
in the garden with a piece of wire mesh over them,
but the instant a seedling pops up, it's immediately cut back.
I left the wire mesh on the ground, and eventually
weeds started growing under it in a perfect square. Then
as soon as I moved it, they were all gone
the next morning, et cetera, et cetera. In other words,
Clay's point is he can't even grow weeds. What's causing
(26:51):
this problem and how do I stop it? And Stacy,
I have a theory okay on this for Texas, and
that would be its pocket gophers.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Oh, pocket gophers.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Pocket gophers are legendary in Texas. In other parts of
the country we don't deal with them as much. They
call them pocket gophers because they are hoarders. They clean
their food before eating it, and they have these pockets
in their their jaws their mouth where they can store
a whole bunch of food, and they love foliage. Just
(27:26):
guessing here, So do again? I don't live in Texas, right,
but everything's bigger in Texas, and so are the pocket gophers.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
So do pocket gophers leave other evidence of their visiting
like burrows or tunnels or hills of soil like a
mole or something with As.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I understand it, they're neat freaks. Oh so I don't know.
I'm just saying because this is such a mystery for Clay,
I'm just taking a stab.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
At it, right, Okay. My first thought was mice, so
similar kind of thing. Mice can also be extremely voracious,
and you know, if you're spoiling them with only the tenderest, freshest, foliage.
That is what they're going to go for, you know,
never mind all that you know, thick, durable, hard stuff.
So I don't know if other listeners, perhaps from Texas
(28:12):
or warm climates have dealt with something similar and we're
able to catch the culprit. Definitely sounds like some kind
of rodent. I don't think it's an insect. One thing
that you could try. This is maybe a little bit
out there, but hey, you never know. Is put some
so when you sew something or put something tender out there,
put some flour all around the ground around this thing
(28:36):
and see if you capturing footprints there you go.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Or I would plant something that's really you know, this
is like a murder mystery that we're going to carry.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
From a plant murder miss and we'll.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Have our listeners and viewers help us out. But you know,
if that's the case what Clay is describing, I'd put
something tasty out there, and in today's day and age,
just have a camera set up and let's find out
what it is.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Yeah, So if you need some camera recommendation right us,
Adriana will send you there you go, some camera recommendations
so that you can catch the culprit and solve the mystery,
because you know, again ask us so many things that
people ask God in the garden. If it's your problem,
it's probably other people's problem, as welse.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Absoluctly, Hey, Stacy Brooke writes to us again about Kinsley's
ghost honeysuckle. You talked about that in our first episode.
And so Brooke is in Southeast Michigan, Zone six B.
We've been saving cardboard for months to build new garden
beds using the no dig method. I'm itching to work
(29:39):
outside when it's not too cold, so I have the
cardboard and access to straw that I could use as mulch.
Can I get a head start on laying this all out?
Is this something I can do before spring? So as
far as winter garden bed building is concerned, now this
is I call it zagna composting, and I do it
(30:03):
over grassy areas to kill off the grass, and do
it in the fall when leaves are readily available. So
I've never really done it in the winter.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Right now, My only real concern was two concerns I
guess about winter doing it in winter. Number one, I
would not try it in winter when the ground is
frozen because when the ground is frozen, it's typically very
uneven and it would be hard, I think, to get
the contact that you need from the sheet maulch. Is
this is this method is also often called it would
(30:33):
be hard to get that ground to sheet mulch contact
that you need to get that killing effect for the
vegetation underneath. You're just gonna have air and it's just
going to be a mess. So I think that you
do need to wait until you can at least do
something to keep the ground, you know, to get the
ground reasonably even Again, what that means, who knows, we'll see.
(30:55):
But it doesn't mean you have to wait until the
height of spring, just until maybe the soil is a
little bit more workable and not frozen solid. And then,
you know, my other concern about the winter is just
wetting it, you know, because you're supposed to usually wet
it so that you get that contact, and that is
not You certainly should not be renting your hose bib
(31:17):
right now in any part of Michigan, so you know,
that could be an issue. But otherwise I would say
you don't have to wait until the weather is you know,
nice enough to be outside. You can definitely get a
little bit of a head start, but you do want
to wait until the soil is to a point where
you can actually, you know, work it.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I admire Brooks spirit and Stacey. I've been out there
in February and March way too early, pretty much every
year doing this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
But you can't help it. You just want to get started.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
You got to get out there and smell the soil.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Catherine writes to us, I've grown Virginia in parts Sun
for over ten years, wondering about correct maintenance and trimming.
The older plants have long black stems about six to
eight inches, with the leaves starting off that so Virginia
or one of my favorite perennials, pig squeak, Stacey. Here
(32:08):
in Michigan it can look pretty rough in winter, but
in some parts of the country it almost acts like
an evergreen.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah. Yeah, So this is the first time I ever
saw Berghinia. I say berghinia, and Catherine does note ps,
it's another plant with a pronunciation. Debate, So Virginia Burghinia,
I sayberghinia. Yeah, it's a beautiful plant. The first time
I saw when I absolutely fell in love. I can't
grow it because I don't have shade and I don't
have my soil. But so what happens. This is one
(32:36):
of those plants that kind of forms like a rhizome,
almost like a rhizome type stem that the foliage comes
off of. And the longer that you have your plant,
the longer that rhizome is going to become because it's
putting out new foliage. Usually in a nice healthy patch
of burginia, there's enough offsets that they'll all kind of
form a groundcover and their leaves will overlap and you
(32:57):
won't really see it. But I did look online and
I saw some resources that basically said, it's just something
this plant does, and you should either bury those long
stems or tubers that are coming out with some more soil,
or you know, once if you do have some nice
offsets and it's filling in, just take out that old
one and let the new ones, those new younger ones
(33:18):
kind of take over. So there's something you can do,
little extra gardening love for you, And you can always
just try and digging them out and then replanting them
deeper if you don't want to just throw away that
sort of mother plant that has those long Sometimes unsightly stems.
So thank you all for your questions. If you have
a question for us, you can reach us at Gardeningsimplified
(33:39):
on air dot com or leave a comment on our
YouTube video. We're going to take a break. When we
come back, Rick and I are talking about Hollywood Hybiscus,
so please stay tuned. Thanks for listening to the Gardening
Simplified Podcast, brought to you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs.
Our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and
(34:02):
tested by experts with your success in mind. Learn more
at Proven Winners color Choice dot com.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Today for branching news,
we're going to talk about an exciting line of plants
called Hollywood Hibiscus. But before we do that, Stacey had
to mention to you here in Michigan, where we've already
mentioned to folks that temperatures are in the single digits
with wind chills well below zero. There are some folks
(34:30):
here in Michigan who made the news because they have
a bright yellow cardinal visiting their bird feeders on a
regular basis. Scientists estimate the male northern cardinals' genetic mutation
makes that makes it yellow, makes it about a one
(34:51):
in ten million bird. Once you love to see that
bird at your bird feeder, I.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Would, and I would need to make sure I had
a good clear view of it. Otherwise I'd be like,
was that Baltimore Oriole? Was that this? And I'd be
going crazy trying to figure out what I had actually
just seen. And you know, it's really cool. I think
that I feel like you hear about one of these
every couple of years, and I think it's just great
that the Internet is, you know where is. Before you
(35:19):
would maybe not been believed or no one would learn
about it, And now like the whole state's like, oh yeah,
we got a yellow one in ten million cardinal right
here at Michigan.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
To see it.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Yeah, it's pretty great.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
It's a good point. Yeah, the couple have named the
yellow Cardinal, and we'll put the link at our website,
Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. But the couple named the
yellow Cardinal Donovan, after the singer song writer that nineteen
(35:50):
sixty six hit Mellow Yellow.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Oh great tune.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
It's a great love that. It's a great tune sticks
in your head. I'm feeling better.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I have feeling better, you know, I am too. Thank
you for that.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Well, then let's talk about Hollywood. Hooray for Hollywood Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Hybiscus, Stacy.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
This is really exciting for Proven Winners Color Choice shrubs.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
You know, we're.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Always talking about plant genetics, and I want to talk
a few minutes here about high biscus. Some of my
experience with high biscus in the garden center industry, but
Hollywood high biscus, when it comes to genetics, will now
be in that world famous white pot with that diamond tag,
(36:34):
and it's it's exciting.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
It is really exciting. And you know, we have long
wanted to have some tropical hibiscus in the Proven Winner's
Color Choice line. You know, not just because it's a
very common landscape plant in warmer climates, but because so
many people love growing them as summer color. And you know,
I think that this concept of these tropicals that we
(36:56):
buy for our backyards, you know, originally that was like
the one maybe people bought hibiscus, And now there's mandavilla
and all of these other ones, and so it's just
really I think has changed the way people think about
what's an annual. What you know, do you want to
invest in for color? And so when it comes to
investing in a tropical hibiscus, because these are woody plants,
they do cost a bit more than you know, your
(37:18):
average annual is going to cost. You want the highest
performance plant. You want the plant that is going to
do the most for you, bloom the most, have the
best color, and you know, up until relatively recently, you know,
you went to the garden center and looked for tropical
hibiscus and it was like, Okay, here's red, here's yellow,
here's you know, yeah, and that was it. And so
(37:39):
the cool thing about Hollywood hibiscus is these were developed
specifically to outperform the more conventional, you know, varieties that
were on the market. They have individual names, so you
know that what you're getting from year to year, if
you get, say, for example, Sunset Boulevard, that Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood hibiscus is going to be the same Sunset Bull
(37:59):
ofvar every yart, you're going to be getting the same
great performance and you get that nice reliability.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
And the thing that I'm excited about with Hollywood hibiscus
is generally, when I've grown Hibiscus, the flowers are here today,
gone tomorrow. Generally the blooms maybe last day. The genetics
with Hollywood Hibiscus Stacey is supposed to allow blooms to
(38:24):
last maybe as long as two or three days, and
that correct.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yeah, so not every variety in the Hollywood Hibsius line
lasts longer than one day. And the one day thing
is typical across the genus. So if you have Rosa Sharon,
those flowers typically last one day. My beloved summarific hibiscus
flowers last one day. But you know there's plenty of
them to make up for that. But the nice thing
about Hollywood is, yes, some of them are you know,
(38:49):
have that ability to open and last up to three days.
So you're getting a lot more color just from a
single flower, and I you know, I think that's such
a rate bonus. Not all of them have it, but
you'll definitely notice the ones that do, because you just
get that little extra color without having to do, you know,
anything special to get it.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, and arguably one of the knocks on hibiscus is
bud drop or the buds dropping off. And again my
experience in the garden center industry, I mentioned Booginvilia earlier,
and they drop all their color on their way to
on their way north to Michigan. The high biscus generally
(39:32):
would do that too. You can pack a lot of
high biscus plants into a semi truck, and they do.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
They pack them in there, so.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
You get a semi truck with five thousand high biscus
plants or whatever it may be. The floors in the
semi are metal. As you unload these highbiscus plants, those
slimy buds and flowers fall off, and it becomes a
real hazard.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Yeah, I would think.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
So much slide City.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
There's a reason they call them mush mummies.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Mush mummies exactly. So high biscus love.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
They're just like me.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
They love sunshine, they love humid.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Warm weather.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
And you know the other thing about Hollywood hibiscus compared
to other varieties is that the flowers open up fully
so a lot. And this is one of those things
that you might be sitting here going yes, acy, okay,
sounds like a real big deal, but you really will
notice a difference when you look at the plants, for example,
at your local garden center, that the ones that are
more satellite dish shaped and rounded, and the difference between
(40:29):
the ones that are opening fully so you get that huge,
full circle of bloom. And another thing that might not
seem like a big deal but will make a huge
difference when you see it in your yard is the
blooms of the Hollywood Hibiscus are also selected to face you,
to face outward, and a lot of the older varieties
they kind of droop a little bit, so you get
(40:50):
that color, but you're mostly seeing the backs of the petals.
You know, you're not getting that full on like shine in.
They're show offs shining in your face. Color and the
color is another thing. Now, what's your favorite color of
tropical hibiscus.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
I'd have to say yellow.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Okay, I'm team red for sure. I love, love, love
the red color. And you know, the scientific name Hibiscus
rosa sentensus is a rose from China. Yes, so some
people do call these a Chinese rose, although that is
definitely more of an old fetch and aim for them.
But I love the red because I feel like that's
the classic, you know hibiscus. But I do we have
(41:27):
beautiful yellows in the line, fabulous oranges, pink. Yeah, so
another one that if your tastes don't tend towards the
bright and loud and you prefer more of the soft pink,
there's even a pure white.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
So that's a really nice one.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
We often tell people, if you can only enjoy your
garden in the evening, look for white flowers. And the
Hollywood Hibiscus earth angel with the white flowers could not
do better than that for some evening magic.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, that's great on your deck or patio when you're
entertaining so Hibiscus rosa sinensis.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
You know the knock.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
And that's why I'm so excited about the genetics of
Hollywood hibiscus is because for people growing high biscus, sometimes
the knock is yellowing foliage. You need to make sure
to fertilize the plants properly. That's what I have found ye.
And then also hibiscus can be a magnet for aphids, mites,
(42:24):
mealy bugs. But I have always found that those problems
come along or persist when the plants under some kind
of stress. You have to make sure to water hibiscus properly.
And again, going back to the garden center industry, we
always taught to employees that you don't take a watering
wand and just water over the top. You put that
(42:47):
wand right in the pot. You fill that pot, and
you make sure Stacy that those roots are saturate.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yeah, and you know, I'm glad you brought up fertilizing
because the one sort of unusual thing you need to
know about carrying for Hollywood hibiscus is that you cannot
use high phosphorus fertilizers. So, in other words, you do
not want to use a bloom booster. And you know,
I was very grateful that when we started marketing and
(43:14):
growing the Hollywood line that they told me this, because
otherwise I'd be thinking, like, hey, let's load these puppies
up with bloebosters. We are going to get a ton
of flowers. But the phosphorus, you know, for whatever internal
chemistry reasons within the hibiscus, it actually causes problems. It
ties up other nutrients, and it will actually limit the
blooming and cause leaf drops. So you do not want
(43:34):
to use any kind of high phosphorus or bloom boosting
fertilizer against your best instincts for growing these plants. So
do keep that in mind. It does of course say
so on the tag, so you'll know that. But you
do want to fertilize them well so that you're giving
the plant plenty of energy to keep those blooms coming.
Summer's already way too short. We want to make sure
that they have all the resources they need for their
(43:56):
best performance. But save that bloom booster for free fertilizing
other stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
I'm glad you brought this up, and it is an
important point because you know, if you're keeping score at home, Stacy,
I'll ask you this question. Essentially, you want to fertilize,
but we're looking for something more so that we call
a balanced fertilizer.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Right, a balance fertilizer is going to probably be the
easiest thing for most people to find. But if you
can find something with the middle number the phosphorus lower
than the other two, that would be even more preferable.
And you know, a lot of there's much to be
said about fertilizers, like, oh, this is a this fertilizer,
this is a rose fertilizer, this is an orange fertilizer,
(44:37):
or whatever. But really all you should be looking at
is those numbers. So if that you know, ideal fertilizer
for the hibiscus ends up being a turf fertilizer, so
be it. You know, it's you're looking at those numbers,
not necessarily what they claim to do.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
I'm wondering if this is a fig leaf of my imagination.
But and sometimes we should do a show on this.
Plants that like to move and plants that don't like
to move. And my experience with highbiscus has always been
it's a plant. Once it's in a spot that it likes,
let's just keep it there.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
It could be it certainly doesn't like to move indoors,
it does, and of course a lot of people want
to move them indoors.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
North of zone nine, you're gonna have to move it in.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
All right. And you know, they are a plant that
you know, And I meant to say this about the
boogin Villia too. Generally speaking, you know, herbaceous tropical plants
will do just fine. So like the philodendron that we
were talking about at the top of the show, when
you get into these woody tropicals, they definitely struggle indoors
more than their herbaceous or non woody counterparts. So this,
(45:39):
like I said, with the Bougainvillia. If you are going
to try to bring your Hollywood Hibiscus indoors much as
much soun as you can give it, cool temperatures, fantastic,
good air circulation is going to be very, very crucial.
And if it dies or it makes such a mess
that you wish that it would and you just throw
it out, that's perfectly fine. There's still reasonably priced enough,
(45:59):
I think, to replace them every year. Try a new color,
try new color combinations, try something new, and don't beat
yourself up. It is a difficult plant for most people
to grow successfully indoors under normal condition.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
And don't be afraid to pune them back when you
bring them in.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
That's a great point. So Hollywood Hibiscus it is going
to be at your local garden center this season. You know,
if you're looking at it, take a moment to compare
it to the other types of tropical hibiscus your garden
center is carrying. You really will see a difference. And
like I said, when you're investing, you know in these plants,
you want to make sure you're getting the best performance possible.
(46:37):
And I'm confident that of all the tropical hibiscus out there,
Hollywood Hibiscus. Is it so you can find retailers at
proven Winners, Color Choice dot com or of course, if
you have any questions, reach out to us at Gardening
Simplified on air dot com. And with that, I want
to thank you Rick, thank you, thank you Adriana, and
thanks to all of you for listening and watching and
hope you have a wonderful week ahead.
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