March 15, 2025 • 45 mins
So much ground to cover! Learn about plants that work well and ones that are best to avoid when it comes to ground covers. Featured shrub: Spilled Wine weigela.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Coming to you from Studio a A. Here at proven
winner's color choice shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified
Radio YouTube and podcast show with Stacy Hervella me, Rick
weisst and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, Stacey,
we have a lot of ground to cover today. We're
going to be well grounded as we talk about ground covers,
(00:25):
and therein lies a dilemma. Groundcovers can well, they can
be a problem because anything that usually fills in quickly
and a space many times will spread where you don't
want it to go.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
That is definitely a risk. Yes, they are plants, like groundcovers,
are obviously selected because they spread to some degree of quickness.
Some are quite slow. But yeah, that once something has
the ability, the inherent ability, and the conditions to spread,
it can occasionally be difficult to stop said spread.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yes, well, we run the risk of playing with the
word invasive. So when we talk about ground covers, we
have to think about in what situation does this particular
plant spread aggressively? How hard is it to remove if
you have second thoughts or buyer's remorse, and is it native?
(01:25):
Is it suited to wet or dry areas, so groundcovers
kind of have this stigma of what is one man's
trash is another man's treasure. I mean, who hasn't dug
up a little pot of something and shared it with
a friend and then regretted it.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Right. But on the other hand, you know, it can
go the other way where people say, oh, I really
admire your beautiful planting of X and I have similar conditions,
and you know, then you have a little you know,
testament that it's going to do okay for you. I've
found in my time that people's bigger complaint about groundcovers
is usually that the aren't growing fast enough because they
want that coverage right now. And you know, a lot
(02:05):
of groundcovers, especially very popular one's like Pacissandra, always befuddles me.
It's a slow growing groundcover, and of course once it's
established it looks great. But I mean, how much time
do you really have to devote to getting your pacissandra established?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah? Very true. And that groundcover, of course can be
important in our landscapes because it's a great alternative to
bear earth, which is not a natural condition, or because
something's going to grow or sometimes mulch. But yeah, I
appreciate that comment, Stacy, because I look at my landscape
and I have larape as a groundcover in my landscape. Now,
(02:41):
there are some people who will say I would never
plant larope number one, it's not native. Number two, it
can get kind of invasive. But when you dig deeper
and you do your research, you know there's one area
where I have Lara pe spacata and that one can
be rather rise otomous and a little bit invasive, but
(03:02):
it is on a south facing slope of solid beach
sand where nothing else will grow, and it does great.
I also have a loriope big blue, which is a
clumping type of loriope, different from the spacanta. So my
whole point there with that, Stacy, is that if you're
(03:23):
going to pick a groundcover, you do have to do
your homework.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, I have to ask you a question. Do you
like larape so much because it looks most of the
year like an ornamental grass?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It does?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
It?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Does? It looks like a grass, especially big blue? I
love it.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, I figured that might be one. And of course
it loves the sun and it's der resistant, So yeah,
if you have those conditions, it's a useful plant for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
You bet. And when we talk about groundcovers, of course,
there's a lot of popularity in meadow scaping, whether it's
growing wild flowers or even turf or lawn grass. Well,
arguably it's a groundcover. Yeah, And there are many different
types of seed mixes available now that you can use.
(04:04):
I've often used tall turf type fescue lefted on mode
as a groundcover in some tough utility areas, but you
can get shorter fescues now, and whenever you say fescue
in a grass seed mix, fescue is generally both shade
and sun tolerant and also drought tolerant, so it may
(04:26):
be an option for you. Or possibly clover nitrogen fixing
even micro clover.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Love a good glover lawn, if only I could have one.
I've tried to establish some clover, but the rabbits had
other plans, so I don't know if that's going to
happen in my yard. But yeah, I mean, I would
argue that turf is a groundcover, and that when we're
talking about groundcovers, very often what people want is that similar,
very cohesive look that turf has without the mowing, right,
(04:56):
and that's perfectly valid reason. I think that's one reason
why people do like leiopies much, because it can quite
look like a lawn. Un most of course it's in
flour and then you've got all those fabulous purple spikes.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Everywhere, and it's steppable, and it is very.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Steppable because not every groundcover, and I think that's a
really important thing about what we're going to be talking about.
Not every groundcover is very foot traffic tolerance correct, And
a lot of times that is why people want grass
in the first place, because grass does cover the ground,
it does outcompete weeds, it does tolerate a lot of
foot traffic from pets and people, but it does come
(05:31):
with the responsibility to morow. But I think you make
a great point about the lawn mixes. Not enough people
realize that turf grass is actually a very diverse group
of plants. And sure, if you just go to your
local box store, you're going to be very limited on options.
But if you are able to go to like a
feed store in your town or specialty suppliers online, you
(05:54):
will find that there are so many different grass mixes
with varying you know, levels of maintenance that they require.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yes, and if it's predominantly fescue. That's where I say
you're going to have some success. Don't look at the
pretty picture on the front of the package, turn it
around and take a look at the content, yes, ingredients
in the package. Right, here's my limb a rick for
groundcovers this week because with groundcovers, of course, they help
capture dust, they help with erosion issues. They play a
(06:24):
real role in the landscape. Erosion has made my slope steeper.
I need an invader, not a sleeper. But that sounds
kind of scary. Things could get rather hairy. Do I
really want a creeper? Look out? I could be a
runner overstep my bounds. That's a bummer, a planting that
could backfire and eventually require a new zip code by
(06:49):
the end of summer. And of course, Stacey, some groundcovers
are great for that notorious strip between the sidewalk and
the street and coming up in segment four. We got
some feedback from our listeners and viewers and I did
a little research. Also pretty interesting what people call that. Yes,
that's difficult are yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I agree, I am looking forward to that. And you
know there's when it comes to groundcovers. Yes, of course,
You're going to probably pick on the esthetics first. Then
you're going to look and say, hey, is my you know,
site sufficiently sunny or shady? Because also groundcovers are a
great solution if you have a very shady yard and
have trouble getting turf grass, growing groundcovers can be a
(07:31):
great solution to that. But a lot all of them
have some drawbacks. And I mean that's true of most plants,
but for example, a lot of people are attempted to
plant ivy English ivy as a groundcover or a lawn alternative,
and it can look pretty great, but I can tell
you from experience it is a haven for mice and rats.
(07:53):
So if you live in an urban area or you
have rat populations at all, please stay away from ivy
as a groundcover. Trust me, I have lived through it.
I have felt the rats running over my boots when
I lived in New York City and we had an
area that was covered in ivy. They love it. It's
like the perfect environment where it's something like you know,
a pacasandra, and I know I keep coming back to that,
(08:15):
but sweet woodrooff they create more of a maze and
they aren't as a dense like the ivy forms like
almost like a canopy that they can live under.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
M hm, no, that's very true. Many people would just
simply say, don't plant ivy because of that face of nature.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So yeah, but we tend not to have that problem
in the Midwest. You know, ivy is extremely invasive out west.
In the Midwest, a lot of people are like, shoot,
I can't even get the darn thing to grow in
the first place, so they don't really realize it. But yeah,
if it is happy, it is one of those groundcovers
like you've described, it will be way too happy and
need a new ZIP code by Yeah this summer.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
You know you mentioned sweet woodruff. I've planted that in
my landscape. But I love it.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I love it too. It's my favorite groundcover, is it really?
I think it's so pretty. It is. It can be
a little bit aggressive in some areas. Of course, I
don't have to worry about that because I have neither
the shade nor the moisture to grow it. But I
think it is one of the prettiest and most elegant groundcovers.
I just I love it.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, it's herbal, it's aromatic, pretty flowers on it. In Germany,
they have a lot of uses for it. Yes, it's
quite fascinating.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
You can even if you go to a German restaurant
in the spring, you could even get a PLoP of
the syrup in your beer because they use.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
The Yes, put it in beer. Yeah, you're right, and
they'll float the flowers on wine. As I understand, it's
used as a flavoring for a lot of things. So
that's that's a great groundcover and I love it. I
also recommend to people often people will not think of this,
but using annuals as a groundcover, Yeah, you may consider
(09:45):
that to be too expensive, but boy, it fills in
a pocket quickly. If you have many Vista petunias or
Mojave portcha laca. It's beautiful, it's gorgeous. You'll enjoy it
all season long and not have the maintenance you can
have with the perennial groundcovers.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
And it also negates any issues you might have of
snow storage and snow removal because you're not going to
have anything there because your annuals dive back and then
you can start all over again next spring.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
So there are multitude of options when it comes to groundcover,
and we're going to move that list of groundcovers into
segment four. We'll touch on that, go down the list
of some of those plants, and I'm sure Stacey has
a good one in store for us too in Plants
on Trial, and that's coming up next here on the
Gardening Simplified.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Show, Beautify your home and community with proven Winn's Color
Choice Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique
varieties to choose from. There's a flowering shrubber, evergreen for
every taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive
white container your local garden center or learn more at
(10:55):
proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Creating's gardening for and
welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where the order
of the day is groundcovers and we're trying to get
this at a time where you might be thinking about
transforming part of your yard or garden into groundcover instead
of whatever you have right now. And now is a
great time to go in and dig in and do
(11:17):
that research and make sure that you're choosing a plant
that not only will thrive in your conditions, but a
that you like, because that's important too, and you know,
b that won't become a nightmare. And we're going to
talk more about groundcovers in segment four. But I think
anybody who has listened to the show, probably for any
appreciable amount of time, has heard the first hand horror
(11:37):
stories from multiple listeners on chameleon plants. Who Tunia. We
just had one last week in fact, and I know
when I sent Adriana the pictures, she was like, whoa,
You weren't kidding. She loved at that poor woman's yard.
So as you research your groundcover choices, absolutely avoid whutunia.
And you might just also want to check your states
(11:59):
invasive innoxious weed list. You know, not all invasive innoxious
weeds or groundcovers, and not all groundcovers are invasive innoxious weeds,
but there's definitely some overlap there, and you know, it
would be impossible for us to sit here and tell
you what they are because it varies so much by
state exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
And that's part of the reason I said, Stacy that
when you're looking to put in a groundcover, not only
are you going to have to live with it, but
it's important to do that research because it's so variable.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, and the nice thing about the groundcover that you
and I mentioned that we like so well sweetwoard druff,
which can be a bit aggressive if it's very happy,
very easy to pull out. Some thing is just gone,
but some you know, you need to do a lot
of digging. But anyway, I don't think a lot of
people think about shrubs as groundcover. I don't think a
lot of It's like not the first type of plant
that comes to people's mind. Yeah, And whether they're thinking
(12:46):
of groundcover.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
That's interesting to me because I have, you know, whether
it's a juniper or whatever it may be. I'm always
thinking shrubs.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, I think that they make a great groundcover. And
last week's plant on trial, which was low skate mound erroonia,
is one of those great choices. Juniper is also a
great choice. I know a lot of people really dislike
juniper because it does have the unfortunate habit of letting
some grass grow where the light gets through. You've been there, right,
oh my word.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yes. And in the garden center industry, we sold so
many of those what were they called blue rug.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Blue rug the name's right there in the name. It's
a full yeah. Yeah, And then you got to like
get a rake under there, your hands are getting all
scratched up. Yeah, but you know that said that's that's
a great evergreen ground cover. And like I said, everything
has a little bit of give and take care. You know,
nothing is going to be the perfect plant for your groundcover.
(13:41):
But shrubs are very much worth considering. And yes, well
they may have a little bit higher you know, initial cost,
because very often with the herbaceous groundcovers that I think
most people think about for groundcovers that we were talking
about in the first segment, you can get a great
deal on those, like in a big tray, you know,
so you're not buying a bunch of one gallons or
something like that. War's with the shrubs, you know, you
(14:01):
are starting with a one, two or three gallon plant.
But they do fill in really nicely. And of course
the great thing about like a juniper is you get
evergreen coverage, right and you don't have to worry about
that worse.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
They see some people will do that with vines.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Oh yeah, vines. So some vines that'll work on because
like the ivy that I mentioned, some vines say, for example,
you are thinking I love climbing hydrangeas, I want to
grow climbing hydrangea as a groundcover. You're probably I don't
want to discourage you from trying it, but you're probably
not going to be super successful because some vines they
(14:36):
just want to grow up exactly, they don't. They will
refuse to grow horizontally and they'll just try growing up
and if they don't grow up, they become very unhappy.
And also, climbing hydrange just tend to be a little
slow as it is not a great choice. But by
all means, experiment, do your research, But tell me this
has ever happened to you? Rick? Okay, you go out
and you buy like a pair of shoes or a
(14:57):
piece of clothing, and you wear it a couple times
and you love it and you're like, you know what,
I'm going to get that in every color, or I'm
going to also get the one that's kind of you
know that was like that but had a zipper, or
you know, like you love it. You're like, this is
it and then you know you go back and it's
too late because you didn't realize you loved it until
(15:18):
and that's a very frustrating thing. Well, running shoes, running shoes,
that happens to you. Yeah, they probably like circle through
running shoes, cycle through running shoes very quickly in the marketplace.
So you got but but you don't know how many
you want to buy until you've run in them for
you know, a couple dozens' expensive too, Yeah, so you
can't stock up. So anyway, we know that feeling at
proven Winter's Colored Choice shrubs, and that is why when
(15:40):
we have a plant that people absolutely love, we try
to find ways to develop additional versions of it that
work in more situations makes sense. And the perfect example
is today's plant on trial, spilled wine white gla.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You like it, like it a plant?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
So spilled wine white Gela is basically a dwarf form
of the very first proven Winner's color Choice shrub back
then it was just a color choice shrub without the
proven winners, wine and Roses whyeula. So do you remember that?
Do you remember when wine and Roses came out? Yeah,
I mean it's so wild to think now, like you know,
it was so it was the first if you're not
(16:21):
familiar with it, it was the very first dark leafed
white gula with pink flowers.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It was a deal.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It was a huge deal. I mean, nothing like that
had really ever been out in Whigela were an old
fashioned favorite. People love them, they remember them from Grandma's
house and all of this. And then along comes wine
and roses and it looks like no other whitejela that
certainly anyone in North America had seen up until that point, right,
And it was a great plant. It was an instant success.
(16:48):
But it's a pretty big plant. It gets to be
four to five feet tall and wide. And so people
love that, you know, bright combination of the dark foliage
and bright flowers. But they're like, t room do I
really have for this? You know, five by five shrub
which is pretty big. So we started very early on
in this process looking for ways to get this same
(17:11):
combination of great foliage color and great flower color but
in different types of habits that you can use in
new ways. And spilled wine was the very first answer
to that. Actually, So unlike wine and roses, which is
going to be five by five, spilled wine gets to
be just two to three feet tall and three to
four feet wide. And that is kind of the ideal
(17:34):
groundcover habit. You want something that is wider than it
is tall typically, and it's just it's a great groundcover, sure,
and you can imagine now now, just if you have
the reference for this, like, imagine groundcover planting of like
say Pakassandra green looks pretty good, but now imagine a
(17:54):
groundcover planting of spilled wine wigela, especially when it's in
bloom and it is just a field of purple foliage
with bright pink flowers.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Fantastic, and it's doing what you want it to do.
It's shading the ground, cooling the ground, it's keeping weed
seed from germinating while looking absolutely marvelous.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yes, and as you mentioned, keeping down dust helping to
prevent erosion. And you know if you put mulch down
when you plant them, that will help even more because
the multiple of course decompose more slowly, and you won't
need to replace it anyway because the plant will cover
it all up. So I also wanted to mention that
when you think about shrubs as groundcover, you do kind
(18:36):
of I think need to detach a little bit from
this mentality of carpet, because a plant like spilled wine
can function as a groundcover without taking You know, you
don't need to plant fifty of them. If you plant
three in a garden bat or in a landscape, bad
they're still going to have that exact same kind of
effect in all of those benefits. So it's not an
(18:58):
all or nothing. I'm not saying go out and plant
fifty you know, spilled wine and transform your yard from
a grass yard to a white gela yard, because that
sounds interesting. But you know, just know that when you
plant shrubs with this type of habit, this low growing,
wider spreading habit, that you are getting all of the
(19:18):
benefits of a groundcover just in one single plant.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, and getting back to that criteria on ground cover,
we want it to be easy to grow but not.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Invasive, absolutely, and you don't have to worry about that.
Whydelia does not self sow, and it is very easy
to grow. And I think that you know, when whenever
you think about a plant that has long been popular,
like Whygela, it's got to be easy to grow, right
because if people were struggling, they wouldn't persist, and they
wouldn't remember her at Grandma's house, and you know all
this other stuff. So Whyjella is such a great example
(19:50):
of a flowering shrub that is extremely easy to grow. Basically,
you just give it son, don't let it dry out too.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Much at it's it's easy to grow, just difficult to pronounce.
People call them wiggles and wiggle's and all that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yes, But again, as always, as long as you're walking
out of the store with the shrub that you wanted,
whether you said wigla or vigela or any of the
other numbers of pronunciations that you and I have heard
over the years, Rick, we're all happy, you bet. But yeah,
full sunplant. This is definitely a full sun plant. And
even though we do sell some white Gela in the
(20:27):
Proven Winter's brand, like Mimnet, for example, which is variegated
and has quite a bit of white, that is that
makes it more shade tolerant overall, Whygela are full sun plants.
They're going to want at least six hours of brights
on every day, hardy down to USDA Zone four, heat
tolerant through USDA Zone eight, so a nice little range there.
You know, when it gets too too hot in the south,
(20:48):
they lose their foliage color, they don't flower as well.
These are a plant that wants some cold treatment during
winter in order to bloom well, So that kind of
caps off that southern limit for whyejela to do really
really well, very dear resistant.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
You deserve a break today, so.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
That's always a good thing. And in long blooming, so
we do have reblooming Whyjela in the Sonic Bloom series,
spilled Wine is not really reblooming, but the great thing
about it is because it has that nice dark foliage,
it keeps your landscape looking fabulous all season long. So
the only thing you need to know is and this
is good no matter what why Jela you have in
your yard. Why Jeila are quite late to emerge in spring.
(21:29):
So if other stuff is growing and you're sitting there
looking at your Ydela wondering if it's dead, it's probably not.
Just needs a little more time, because you know, sometimes
we all need a little more Look for spilled Wine
Why Gela in your garden center the spring. It is
a great choice for all sorts of landscape challenges, and
of course you can learn more at Gardenings Simplified on
air dot Com Ante Pictures. In the YouTube version of
(21:51):
the show, we're gonna take a little break. When we
come back, we're opening up the garden mail bags, so
please stay tuned at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. We
know that a better Landscape starts with a better shrub.
Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our
(22:11):
flowering shrubs and 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
at your local garden center or learn more at proven
Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's Gardening friends, and welcome
(22:34):
back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it's our chance
to answer your garden questions, quandaries and conundrums. And if
you have one of those as we approach the season,
remember the first piece of advice is when in doubt,
don't prune. And the second piece of advice is you
can email us at help EHLP at Gardeningsimplified on air
dot com and we'll get your question and if you
need an answer sooner than that, because of course we
(22:56):
only recorded one show a week. You can also go
to every Winner's Color Choice dot com and ask question
and we will get back to you personally. So a
couple of weeks ago, we had a question in from
some local listeners step and Mary, and they had a
crate myrtle in their yard that there was a mystery there.
(23:18):
It suddenly was cut down to nubs. They wrote us
and we talked about it in the show and they
created quite the controversy in the YouTube comments on the show.
Everyone was like, I'm invested in the Stephen Mary mystery.
I'm wondering what's going on. And so, you know, we
put out the call. We said, step and Mary, people
want to know what's going on, and so we've got
(23:39):
a little more information for you now on the Stephen
Mary situation. Yes, so they bought this center stage red
crape myrtle at a nursery in south Haven after hearing
about it on the show. Love to hear that. It
was a great place and they were very informative. Also
loved to hear that. So we had a spot where
there was a white fence, but first a tree had
to be removed. It was cut down a couple of
(24:00):
summers ago, but we had to wait until the next
spring to have the stump removed. I know this pain.
So we put the plant into a new larger pot
built at the nursery. Said that we needed to know
to keep the plant in a pot in a place
that would not allow the pot to freeze, because crape
myrtle is fairly hardy. For us here in Michigan were
kind of on the edge of its hardiness. But you know,
(24:21):
certainly if it's in a container, you're going to want
to take extra precautions, and if it was in the ground.
And so finally the spring comes, the stump gets ground,
they're ready to plant the crape myrtle, but they can't
get the stump ground down far enough. So Steve then
plants the crape myrtle kind of with soil mounded around
it on what is left of.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
The stump's important clue.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yes, so then he put a bunch of mault around
it so the dirt wouldn't be exposed. And that year
it bloom was beautiful. And this is a beautiful crape myrtle,
black foliage, red flowers. You have to see it to
believe it. So then this past late January or early February,
Steve was looking at it one day and could not
believe what he saw. It was cut down to almost nothing.
(25:03):
We're about to get the big clue that we've all
been waiting for here. I did notice that none of
the bark was chewed on, but I also noticed a
lot of rabbit cocoa puffs around the area. Dun dun,
dun dum. They must have had a feast. Yeah, So
the only thing I would say is rabbit and deer droppings,
and believe me, I know, because I have so many
(25:24):
of both in my yard look very similar. Yes, so
rabbits are round and deer are kind of a little
bit more oval. They can even be fairly similar in size.
So but it does make sense that this would be
a rabbit because what we were seeing in the original
photos that they sent is it looked like it was
in the container, and actually when the damage happened, it
(25:45):
was in the ground with kind of a little you know,
like you see those old dairy barns where they had
the ramp for the horses with like that built in
further rabbits. So then all of a sudden, all the
pieces kind of have fallen into place. So Steve has
since put a fence around it, and he's wondering if
the rabbits could chew the branches when they were that thick,
And I think that, Yeah, definitively. Now we have our answer.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Absolutely if you do a little bit of research. First
of all, rabbits when they chew on a branch, it's
usually just a clean forty five degree angle on the branch.
The other thing is, as far as crape myrtle is concerned,
I've found in my research that rabbits love crape myrtle.
Oh really, we thought it was just burning bushes and
(26:29):
that sort of thing, But they love crape myrtle well.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
So Steve is then asking do we think this plant
will survive? And I'm happy to say that yes, I
do think it will survive. Crpe myrtles are an interesting
plant because they are the crpe myrtles that we offer
through premit runners are shrubby, so in the south you go,
they're trees big, some of them are quite large trees.
The ones that we offer and the ones that we
typically recommend for colder climates are these shrubby types because
(26:56):
they're lower to the ground and they can come back
and still grow. Whereas if it was a tree and
the whole thing dies, the trunk's dead, you're not gonna
have a crepe myrtle anymore. Whereas with these shrubby types
because they are multi stemmed. What happens if we have
a very harsh winter, and even if they die all
the way back to the ground, they will actually come
back from the roots and go on to flower later
in the spring, act.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Like an herbaceous perennial.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Right, So you got a complimentary pruning of your crate myrtle,
and I think it should be fine. Definitely you're going
to want to keep this mulched. And if you know,
the important thing is and we have found this repeatedly
in our trials here in West Michigan, if a crate
myrtle does die all the way back to the ground,
(27:39):
it does take some time for it to re emerge,
So be patient, don't give up on it too early.
And I do want to address something that I said
when we first answered Steve and Mary's question, and that
was that rabbits don't typically leave behind the parts that
they bid off unless they don't like the plant. I
did add that because I said that they do that
to my my aliums pharacephalons. Well, I was happily walking
(28:03):
around the garden this past sunny weekend, and what these
rabbits did was they nibbled off stems of my lavender. No,
they didn't take a single bite. They were like, oh crud,
this tastes awful.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
They were testing you and the plant.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Oh yeah. So I'm walking through the garden and I
see these little lavender plants and there's like three stems
just sitting next to it, cut at that perfect forty
five degree angle, and I was like, what are you
guys doing? So you know they're bored. They're bored. I
think that's it. Yeah, they're just like, might as well
taste this? Might as well taste this? Oof, that's terrible.
Just gonna leave this behind. So anyway, Stephen, Mary, I
(28:44):
think that your plant should be okay, be patient with it,
and once it does start to grow, don't be afraid
to fertilize it to give it a little extra boost
to help it outgrow the numerous stresses it has encountered
and it's short life.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Fantastic Karma has a question about her peach tree. Help,
what's going on with my peach tree? Something jellish is
all around the base of my peach tree. Not jealous
gel is. Yes, it just showed up the spring when
I cleared around the tree. I hope you can see
it in the picture. What is it? What do I
need to do? If anything, it's a very moist and
squishy like solid gel. I haven't looked at the pictures Stacey,
(29:20):
but I can tell you exactly.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
All right, what is it?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Peach bor? You get this guy material at the base
of a tree, usually the larva a working at the
base of the tree, underneath the bark, and when they
do their damage, that's the end result. We always called
it gumosis.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
I love that word, gomoses, gumosis. I was very excited
to share that word with our listeners today and it
is gumosis. It's such a funny word, but gumosis. And
I'm going to have a great link in the show
notes at Gardening Simplified on air dot com, and of
course it will be in the YouTube caption as well.
(29:58):
There are a number of potential causes of gomosis on
peach trees and stonefruits in general. So if you have
a plum, you know, any of these other ones, it
can also happen on those. But it can be due
to a number of different insects. It can be due
to environmental conditions. But yeah, Rick, like you said, when
it is happening at the ground level, it's almost one
hundred percent that it's the peach borer. So that's what
(30:21):
you've got, karma. There are pictures at the link that
we're going to be sharing that show how you kind
of need to get in there and clear out the
gunk that the larva has caused with its boring.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
That sounds peachy.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Kill the larva, Yeah, it's a little bit gross. It's
not for the squeamish. Yes, putting that out there. Find
those little larva in there. You're going to be shocked
at what a lot of damage such a little wormy
fella can do. But you got to kill it, squish it,
feed it to the birds, whatever, and then be vigilant
about it in the future.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
And one of the ways to be vigilant from my
past experience is you can put sticky traps out in
June July when the adults are active, and it will
help you identify exactly what the problem.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
That's a great suggestion. So the link that I'm going
to share is from Utah State, so the exact dates
and timing is based on Utah, whether or not Michigan.
But you can always contact the Michigan State Cooperative Extension
to find out exactly what you need to do for
your particular gummosis situation.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Stacy Shawna has an issue with a weedy, invasive groundcover.
Bought a house on two acres here in Oklahoma a
year and a half ago. This is my second spring.
I'm still learning about landscaping, but my yard appears to
be filled with a bulbous species. You're correct, Star of Bethlehem,
as evidenced by the flowers it produces in spring. I
can't seem to get rid of it. I've had my
(31:46):
lawn treated, et cetera, et cetera. Am I doomed? Help?
Speaker 2 (31:52):
So this is definitely so it's not really a true groundcover,
but once it gets established, it basically grows like a groundcover.
And I wanted to bring this up for a couple
of reasons. First of all, if you have it, do
not go, oh, look at this pretty little bulb that
just volunteered in my yard. Dig that up and take
care of it so you don't end up like poor Shauna.
Because this is an extremely aggressive bulb and the flower
(32:15):
is actually kind of pretty. So I couldn't blame people
for you know, potentially thinking they should keep it.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, a lot of people do mistake it for wild onion.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yes, it does look a bit like that. And also
people could mistake the foliage for crocus because it does
also look like crocus foliage when it emerges, but it
doesn't usually have the white stripe. It's a little bit
more softer and grassier, and you can actually have the
bulb for quite a while without it flowering, so you
might have it. So it is a very difficult weed
(32:42):
to control shauna. So I don't have good news for you.
I'm afraid. First of all, if you're researching it, make
sure you're researching the right species, because there are ornamental
ornithogolums out there that you can grow, and make sure
you're not reading about those. Do not allow this to
go to seed, So if it flowers, mow it down,
chop it down. Make sure that you're not letting it
go to seed, because it spreads by seed as well
(33:04):
as bulblitz underground. Consistent mowing can help because it will
help weaken the plant, but it will not resolve your issue,
and you can't out compete it with groundcovers or anything else.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
And I'm afraid you know Oklahoma can get really hot,
but the plant is native to hot regions of southern
Europe northern Africa. I'm afraid that we in the garden
center industry years ago carry some of the blame because
we were busy selling them as minor bulbs. Once it's established,
I would say this, if you were going to try
the herbicide route, you're only going to be successful if
(33:38):
you rough it up first. In other words, as Stacy mentioned,
just you know, chop it and then apply the herb beside.
It's going to help, but it's very bulbous, so it's
so hard.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
To come Yeah, and there's so many little bulbs that
aren't going to have foliage. This is going to be
a multi year process and it's not going to be easy.
But again I will put some resources for you in
the show notes at Gardening Some Fight on air dot Com.
Going to take a break. When we come back, we're
talking more groundcovers. Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified podcast,
(34:12):
brought to you by proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Our
award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and tested
by experts with your success in mind. Learn more at
proven winners Color Choice dot Com.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Okay today for
branching news. Let's start off with this. You started it, now,
let's finish it. And that is that area between the
sidewalk and the road. And I found stacy that this
is highly variable between what municipality or part of the
country you may live in. Here's some of the ways
(34:45):
people describe that area right of way. If you call
it a right of way, odds are you're a city
planner or you're into zoning or that sort of thing
makes sense. A lot of people call it the hell strip,
the devil strip, parkway easement, verge, boulevard, city strip, no
(35:07):
man's land, the dog toilet. In Michigan, you get a
lot of snowplow disease in that area. Road verge, nature strip, swale,
the beside walk. Oh.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I like that one.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I want to make sidewalk happen, as.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I understand it's civil engineer. Some call it the furniture
zone because that's where all the utilities fair.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Fair yeah, and where you put your furniture out for
the garbage man if you want to get rid of it.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
The old folding larger. Yes. Uh. And then as I
understand it, and maybe some folks can help us with this,
they say, only in Cleveland they call it the tree lawn,
and in New Orleans they call it the neutral ground.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Right, So I thought the new shore grounds in New
Orleans were more the things in the boulevard. But either
way we'll find out.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
I'm sure we're gonna get a lot of comments.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yes, I mean, that is an impressive list. I am
very impressed you compiled all of that. See, I had
never heard the term parkway, which apparently is the preferred
term out here in West Michigan. And last summer, my
neighbor had a bunch of people over from the neighborhood
and we were all sitting around chatting, and of course
the topic came up to the deer, and everyone was
grousing about the deer, and one of the neighbors said, yeah,
(36:30):
you know, not all that long ago, everyone's parkway was
planted with daffodils or with daylilies, and I know, And
I was like, like Central Park and he was like, no,
you know, the parkways. And it was the first time
I had ever heard that term.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Wow, Well, you know, a lot of people consider that
area a parking space.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
That's true. So and I can see that, you know,
especially if you did have a neighborhood all get together
and everything was planted the same, that it could look
very park like in like a parkway. And I know Hellstrip,
of course was developed or introduced by a gardener back
in probably the nineteen nineties who started gardening that area
(37:14):
and said it was in Colorado, so very very dry,
low water, and that was where the name Hellstrip came from.
I don't think they're quite so hellish for us here
in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Not too bad except for the snowplow. Damn.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
The snow can be bad, right, all right.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
List of groundcovers thumbs up, thumbs down Stacey Lysimachia The
Creeping Jenny money.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Work, Huh's Aesthetically it's a thumbs up. But growth wise invasiveness,
it's all thumbs down.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
I like to put it in containers.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
It is cute, though. I like still coin like leaves.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Creeping flocks.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Oh, I like it, but I think a lot of
people have trouble growing it.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Well, creeping flocks. I don't care for it because it
looks good one week out of fifty two weeks.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
But it looks pretty darn good when it does one week.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
We already determined both you and I like sweet wood
grow love it. Wild strawberry or fregaria. Now this is
a native plant. It occurs in all the US states.
We can be neutral on it.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
If we can be neutral, I've had a wild strawberry
that did not suffer the not World senior, the barren
strawberry that I planted in my yard, and it was
a nightmare to get rid of. Okay, but it can
look kind of interesting.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Okay. I like to put lamium in hanging baskets, but
not necessarily as a groundcover. Yeah, some people would disagree.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
It's you know, I think people see it's one of
the few really common and easy to grow plants with
truly silver foliage. You know, the foliage when you look
at it, the silver spots on it, they look metallic.
It's really bizarre, and that does make it quite nice.
But they can be very aggressive, and if so, it's
kind of one of those situations where like if they're
(38:56):
happy enough to be growing well, they go everywhere, but
they never really look good. You know, they don't have
that liken full mounded look where everything, because when you
see an individual sound of it, you're like, ooh pretty.
But then in reality there just does not. In my experience,
I've not seen any patch of lamium or lamy astroum
(39:17):
live up to the hype.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Some people refer to it as dead nettle. If you
want to try a proven winners variety, pink shab leis
might be a good one for you to try. Perennial geranium.
Here's a steppable two thombs up, all right, all right,
a steppable Irish and Scotch moss, which are not true mosses,
(39:40):
but they are a steppable.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
They're beautiful, but you know, good luck growing them well.
And they look there are so there's somewhat steppable now
I have seen. I actually had a roof up garden
when I was a roof up gardener in New York
that had a fake lawn of these and it was
really lovely. And you know, the people whose whose apartment
it was did walk on it and let their dog
(40:04):
walk on it, and it was a never ending maintenance litmre.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Okay, all right, I know I'm going to get a
thumbs up on this one. Low skate pernia.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Love it. Yeah, yeah, good choice.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I love using annuals Minivita petunias, sweet potato vine like
sweet caroline, you got a hot spot. I think it
makes a great groundcover. Mohavey yea.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I do want to mention on the sweet potato vine.
It's an interesting plant because it came out gosh, I
don't remember how long ago people loved it, and it
is so aggressive in a good way. You know, it
really fills up and people were finding sweet potatoes in
their containers that they emptied at the end of the season.
So a lot of companies, including proven winners, that have
(40:46):
been working on breeding less aggressive sweet potato vines specifically
for containers. Yes, so that you get all of that
great foliage color without you know it taking over your
entire container, nay, your whole neighborhood. And it's not invasive
like it's not like, but it's very vigorous. So if
you are growing a sweet potato vine as a seasonal
(41:07):
groundcover and you want that coverage, make sure you're going
for one of those old fashioned, older varieties and not
one of the newer ones. Just look at the size
that's on the tag, because you might be very disappointed
when you buy a proven winner's variety that was intended
for just being a nice accent and a container, and
then you plant it in the ground and it goes
very little.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
It's good point. Good point. You might give this one
a thumbs down. But steakis the big years, you know,
the big years lamb oh. I love that. Okay, I
do too. And the deer leave it alone anything any
kind of time, creeping time, wooly time, lemon time. Oh,
I love it and comes back year after year. Oregano
(41:47):
as a groundcover, and I grow it for the flowers.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I got plenny.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
It's definitely a very happy ground cover in my yard.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
There's an orange carpet, hummingbird trumpet or California fue yusha for.
It's native to the Western US. Tolerates deer, drought, erosion,
dry soil, shallow rocky soil. I have not personally grown.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I don't know if it's hardy enough for US.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Okay, I don't think it is.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, I would be surprised.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
He probably zone seven or warmer zone eight, something like that.
Barren Strawberry, I'm not a.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
F weld Senia, so wald Senia was our silver bullet
solution when I was a rooftop gardener for the areas
outside of apartment buildings where people who have dogs get
down and their dog is immediately like, oh, finally, wald
Senia was the one groundcover that we could consistently count
on center shade. I believe it, no matter what, to
(42:43):
stand up to repeated dog urine, I believe it.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
So there is that I think it's non native. I'm
pretty sure.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
I don't think it's native. But it is called barn strawberry,
and it does look a bit like a strawberry.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah. Vinca minor or myrtle thems down in many parts
of the country. It's considered an invasive yes.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
And it's you know, yeah, my dad.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Loved Vinca minor. It was something he could grow really well.
He just loved that m well.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
And you know, to be fair. When it's in flower,
the flowers are quite pretty. The color is really lay
and pretty.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah. Oh so easy roses of course.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
No traffic but yes.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
No, no, not a steppable exactly. Here's an interesting one,
low growth sumac.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yeah, I love it, you love it, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
It's a native plant. You find it a lot in
parking lots ye right, yep, in their parkways or whatever
they call those things the islands. I have some in
a very sandy area does really well, but it gets
loaded with bladder warts, call them bladder warts, just covered
(43:53):
with them. It's caused by a mite that over winters
in the branches, and it doesn't kill the plant. It's
just real pumpy. I think both you and I like
prickly pear cactus.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Yes, I do have it. It is definitely a groundcover
that needs to be managed, and it's not a fun
plant to manage this, I can tell you if you
have it and you need to manage it. What we
have started doing is taking barbecue tongs. One person holds
up the paddles that we want to take off. The
other person takes like looppers or a pruner or sharp
(44:26):
shovel and cuts it off. And then you have to
put it right into the you know, lawn bag or
the garbage or whatever. And make sure, for the love
of the poor person who has to pick up that
bag that it is labeled prickly pair cactus or put
in your garbage. Just don't make someone else have to
deal with it.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Teamwork there you go two more quick ones. Would you
use Doutsia as a ground Yes.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
I would. I thought about making it a plant on
trial today, but I figured I hadn't done a why
deal in a while.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
And I love Seatum's, I love rock and low.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Rock and grow our thumbs up on this one.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, because it's perfect for a hot, sunny spot. So
there you have it, Stacey. We covered a lot of
ground today.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Well, we did cover a lot of grand today, and
one last thing before we go Okay, next episode, we
are covering plants we hate. As you can imagine, opinions
will be had, they will be strong, and we would
love to hear from you. So leave a comment on
YouTube or visit Gardeningsimplified on air dot com and write
us with the plant or plants that you hate. We
(45:27):
will compile everyone's answers and see if we're all on
the same page.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
I promise to bring my a game.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I love it all right, So thank you Rick, thank you,
thank you Adriana, and thanks so much to all of
you for listening. We hope you have a fantastic week ahead.
Coming to you from Studio a A. Here at proven
winner's color choice shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified
Radio YouTube and podcast show with Stacy Hervella me, Rick
weisst and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, Stacey,
we have a lot of ground to cover today. We're
going to be well grounded as we talk about ground covers,
(00:25):
and therein lies a dilemma. Groundcovers can well, they can
be a problem because anything that usually fills in quickly
and a space many times will spread where you don't
want it to go.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
That is definitely a risk. Yes, they are plants, like groundcovers,
are obviously selected because they spread to some degree of quickness.
Some are quite slow. But yeah, that once something has
the ability, the inherent ability, and the conditions to spread,
it can occasionally be difficult to stop said spread.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yes, well, we run the risk of playing with the
word invasive. So when we talk about ground covers, we
have to think about in what situation does this particular
plant spread aggressively? How hard is it to remove if
you have second thoughts or buyer's remorse, and is it native?
(01:25):
Is it suited to wet or dry areas, so groundcovers
kind of have this stigma of what is one man's
trash is another man's treasure. I mean, who hasn't dug
up a little pot of something and shared it with
a friend and then regretted it.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Right. But on the other hand, you know, it can
go the other way where people say, oh, I really
admire your beautiful planting of X and I have similar conditions,
and you know, then you have a little you know,
testament that it's going to do okay for you. I've
found in my time that people's bigger complaint about groundcovers
is usually that the aren't growing fast enough because they
want that coverage right now. And you know, a lot
(02:05):
of groundcovers, especially very popular one's like Pacissandra, always befuddles me.
It's a slow growing groundcover, and of course once it's
established it looks great. But I mean, how much time
do you really have to devote to getting your pacissandra established?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah? Very true. And that groundcover, of course can be
important in our landscapes because it's a great alternative to
bear earth, which is not a natural condition, or because
something's going to grow or sometimes mulch. But yeah, I
appreciate that comment, Stacy, because I look at my landscape
and I have larape as a groundcover in my landscape. Now,
(02:41):
there are some people who will say I would never
plant larope number one, it's not native. Number two, it
can get kind of invasive. But when you dig deeper
and you do your research, you know there's one area
where I have Lara pe spacata and that one can
be rather rise otomous and a little bit invasive, but
(03:02):
it is on a south facing slope of solid beach
sand where nothing else will grow, and it does great.
I also have a loriope big blue, which is a
clumping type of loriope, different from the spacanta. So my
whole point there with that, Stacy, is that if you're
(03:23):
going to pick a groundcover, you do have to do
your homework.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, I have to ask you a question. Do you
like larape so much because it looks most of the
year like an ornamental grass?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It does?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
It?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Does? It looks like a grass, especially big blue? I
love it.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, I figured that might be one. And of course
it loves the sun and it's der resistant, So yeah,
if you have those conditions, it's a useful plant for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
You bet. And when we talk about groundcovers, of course,
there's a lot of popularity in meadow scaping, whether it's
growing wild flowers or even turf or lawn grass. Well,
arguably it's a groundcover. Yeah, And there are many different
types of seed mixes available now that you can use.
(04:04):
I've often used tall turf type fescue lefted on mode
as a groundcover in some tough utility areas, but you
can get shorter fescues now, and whenever you say fescue
in a grass seed mix, fescue is generally both shade
and sun tolerant and also drought tolerant, so it may
(04:26):
be an option for you. Or possibly clover nitrogen fixing
even micro clover.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Love a good glover lawn, if only I could have one.
I've tried to establish some clover, but the rabbits had
other plans, so I don't know if that's going to
happen in my yard. But yeah, I mean, I would
argue that turf is a groundcover, and that when we're
talking about groundcovers, very often what people want is that similar,
very cohesive look that turf has without the mowing, right,
(04:56):
and that's perfectly valid reason. I think that's one reason
why people do like leiopies much, because it can quite
look like a lawn. Un most of course it's in
flour and then you've got all those fabulous purple spikes.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Everywhere, and it's steppable, and it is very.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Steppable because not every groundcover, and I think that's a
really important thing about what we're going to be talking about.
Not every groundcover is very foot traffic tolerance correct, And
a lot of times that is why people want grass
in the first place, because grass does cover the ground,
it does outcompete weeds, it does tolerate a lot of
foot traffic from pets and people, but it does come
(05:31):
with the responsibility to morow. But I think you make
a great point about the lawn mixes. Not enough people
realize that turf grass is actually a very diverse group
of plants. And sure, if you just go to your
local box store, you're going to be very limited on options.
But if you are able to go to like a
feed store in your town or specialty suppliers online, you
(05:54):
will find that there are so many different grass mixes
with varying you know, levels of maintenance that they require.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yes, and if it's predominantly fescue. That's where I say
you're going to have some success. Don't look at the
pretty picture on the front of the package, turn it
around and take a look at the content, yes, ingredients
in the package. Right, here's my limb a rick for
groundcovers this week because with groundcovers, of course, they help
capture dust, they help with erosion issues. They play a
(06:24):
real role in the landscape. Erosion has made my slope steeper.
I need an invader, not a sleeper. But that sounds
kind of scary. Things could get rather hairy. Do I
really want a creeper? Look out? I could be a
runner overstep my bounds. That's a bummer, a planting that
could backfire and eventually require a new zip code by
(06:49):
the end of summer. And of course, Stacey, some groundcovers
are great for that notorious strip between the sidewalk and
the street and coming up in segment four. We got
some feedback from our listeners and viewers and I did
a little research. Also pretty interesting what people call that. Yes,
that's difficult are yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I agree, I am looking forward to that. And you
know there's when it comes to groundcovers. Yes, of course,
You're going to probably pick on the esthetics first. Then
you're going to look and say, hey, is my you know,
site sufficiently sunny or shady? Because also groundcovers are a
great solution if you have a very shady yard and
have trouble getting turf grass, growing groundcovers can be a
(07:31):
great solution to that. But a lot all of them
have some drawbacks. And I mean that's true of most plants,
but for example, a lot of people are attempted to
plant ivy English ivy as a groundcover or a lawn alternative,
and it can look pretty great, but I can tell
you from experience it is a haven for mice and rats.
(07:53):
So if you live in an urban area or you
have rat populations at all, please stay away from ivy
as a groundcover. Trust me, I have lived through it.
I have felt the rats running over my boots when
I lived in New York City and we had an
area that was covered in ivy. They love it. It's
like the perfect environment where it's something like you know,
a pacasandra, and I know I keep coming back to that,
(08:15):
but sweet woodrooff they create more of a maze and
they aren't as a dense like the ivy forms like
almost like a canopy that they can live under.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
M hm, no, that's very true. Many people would just
simply say, don't plant ivy because of that face of nature.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So yeah, but we tend not to have that problem
in the Midwest. You know, ivy is extremely invasive out west.
In the Midwest, a lot of people are like, shoot,
I can't even get the darn thing to grow in
the first place, so they don't really realize it. But yeah,
if it is happy, it is one of those groundcovers
like you've described, it will be way too happy and
need a new ZIP code by Yeah this summer.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
You know you mentioned sweet woodruff. I've planted that in
my landscape. But I love it.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I love it too. It's my favorite groundcover, is it really?
I think it's so pretty. It is. It can be
a little bit aggressive in some areas. Of course, I
don't have to worry about that because I have neither
the shade nor the moisture to grow it. But I
think it is one of the prettiest and most elegant groundcovers.
I just I love it.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, it's herbal, it's aromatic, pretty flowers on it. In Germany,
they have a lot of uses for it. Yes, it's
quite fascinating.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
You can even if you go to a German restaurant
in the spring, you could even get a PLoP of
the syrup in your beer because they use.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
The Yes, put it in beer. Yeah, you're right, and
they'll float the flowers on wine. As I understand, it's
used as a flavoring for a lot of things. So
that's that's a great groundcover and I love it. I
also recommend to people often people will not think of this,
but using annuals as a groundcover, Yeah, you may consider
(09:45):
that to be too expensive, but boy, it fills in
a pocket quickly. If you have many Vista petunias or
Mojave portcha laca. It's beautiful, it's gorgeous. You'll enjoy it
all season long and not have the maintenance you can
have with the perennial groundcovers.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
And it also negates any issues you might have of
snow storage and snow removal because you're not going to
have anything there because your annuals dive back and then
you can start all over again next spring.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
So there are multitude of options when it comes to groundcover,
and we're going to move that list of groundcovers into
segment four. We'll touch on that, go down the list
of some of those plants, and I'm sure Stacey has
a good one in store for us too in Plants
on Trial, and that's coming up next here on the
Gardening Simplified.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Show, Beautify your home and community with proven Winn's Color
Choice Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique
varieties to choose from. There's a flowering shrubber, evergreen for
every taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive
white container your local garden center or learn more at
(10:55):
proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Creating's gardening for and
welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where the order
of the day is groundcovers and we're trying to get
this at a time where you might be thinking about
transforming part of your yard or garden into groundcover instead
of whatever you have right now. And now is a
great time to go in and dig in and do
(11:17):
that research and make sure that you're choosing a plant
that not only will thrive in your conditions, but a
that you like, because that's important too, and you know,
b that won't become a nightmare. And we're going to
talk more about groundcovers in segment four. But I think
anybody who has listened to the show, probably for any
appreciable amount of time, has heard the first hand horror
(11:37):
stories from multiple listeners on chameleon plants. Who Tunia. We
just had one last week in fact, and I know
when I sent Adriana the pictures, she was like, whoa,
You weren't kidding. She loved at that poor woman's yard.
So as you research your groundcover choices, absolutely avoid whutunia.
And you might just also want to check your states
(11:59):
invasive innoxious weed list. You know, not all invasive innoxious
weeds or groundcovers, and not all groundcovers are invasive innoxious weeds,
but there's definitely some overlap there, and you know, it
would be impossible for us to sit here and tell
you what they are because it varies so much by
state exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
And that's part of the reason I said, Stacy that
when you're looking to put in a groundcover, not only
are you going to have to live with it, but
it's important to do that research because it's so variable.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, and the nice thing about the groundcover that you
and I mentioned that we like so well sweetwoard druff,
which can be a bit aggressive if it's very happy,
very easy to pull out. Some thing is just gone,
but some you know, you need to do a lot
of digging. But anyway, I don't think a lot of
people think about shrubs as groundcover. I don't think a
lot of It's like not the first type of plant
that comes to people's mind. Yeah, And whether they're thinking
(12:46):
of groundcover.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
That's interesting to me because I have, you know, whether
it's a juniper or whatever it may be. I'm always
thinking shrubs.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, I think that they make a great groundcover. And
last week's plant on trial, which was low skate mound erroonia,
is one of those great choices. Juniper is also a
great choice. I know a lot of people really dislike
juniper because it does have the unfortunate habit of letting
some grass grow where the light gets through. You've been there, right,
oh my word.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yes. And in the garden center industry, we sold so
many of those what were they called blue rug.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Blue rug the name's right there in the name. It's
a full yeah. Yeah, And then you got to like
get a rake under there, your hands are getting all
scratched up. Yeah, but you know that said that's that's
a great evergreen ground cover. And like I said, everything
has a little bit of give and take care. You know,
nothing is going to be the perfect plant for your groundcover.
(13:41):
But shrubs are very much worth considering. And yes, well
they may have a little bit higher you know, initial cost,
because very often with the herbaceous groundcovers that I think
most people think about for groundcovers that we were talking
about in the first segment, you can get a great
deal on those, like in a big tray, you know,
so you're not buying a bunch of one gallons or
something like that. War's with the shrubs, you know, you
(14:01):
are starting with a one, two or three gallon plant.
But they do fill in really nicely. And of course
the great thing about like a juniper is you get
evergreen coverage, right and you don't have to worry about
that worse.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
They see some people will do that with vines.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Oh yeah, vines. So some vines that'll work on because
like the ivy that I mentioned, some vines say, for example,
you are thinking I love climbing hydrangeas, I want to
grow climbing hydrangea as a groundcover. You're probably I don't
want to discourage you from trying it, but you're probably
not going to be super successful because some vines they
(14:36):
just want to grow up exactly, they don't. They will
refuse to grow horizontally and they'll just try growing up
and if they don't grow up, they become very unhappy.
And also, climbing hydrange just tend to be a little
slow as it is not a great choice. But by
all means, experiment, do your research, But tell me this
has ever happened to you? Rick? Okay, you go out
and you buy like a pair of shoes or a
(14:57):
piece of clothing, and you wear it a couple times
and you love it and you're like, you know what,
I'm going to get that in every color, or I'm
going to also get the one that's kind of you
know that was like that but had a zipper, or
you know, like you love it. You're like, this is
it and then you know you go back and it's
too late because you didn't realize you loved it until
(15:18):
and that's a very frustrating thing. Well, running shoes, running shoes,
that happens to you. Yeah, they probably like circle through
running shoes, cycle through running shoes very quickly in the marketplace.
So you got but but you don't know how many
you want to buy until you've run in them for
you know, a couple dozens' expensive too, Yeah, so you
can't stock up. So anyway, we know that feeling at
proven Winter's Colored Choice shrubs, and that is why when
(15:40):
we have a plant that people absolutely love, we try
to find ways to develop additional versions of it that
work in more situations makes sense. And the perfect example
is today's plant on trial, spilled wine white gla.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You like it, like it a plant?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
So spilled wine white Gela is basically a dwarf form
of the very first proven Winner's color Choice shrub back
then it was just a color choice shrub without the
proven winners, wine and Roses whyeula. So do you remember that?
Do you remember when wine and Roses came out? Yeah,
I mean it's so wild to think now, like you know,
it was so it was the first if you're not
(16:21):
familiar with it, it was the very first dark leafed
white gula with pink flowers.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It was a deal.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It was a huge deal. I mean, nothing like that
had really ever been out in Whigela were an old
fashioned favorite. People love them, they remember them from Grandma's
house and all of this. And then along comes wine
and roses and it looks like no other whitejela that
certainly anyone in North America had seen up until that point, right,
And it was a great plant. It was an instant success.
(16:48):
But it's a pretty big plant. It gets to be
four to five feet tall and wide. And so people
love that, you know, bright combination of the dark foliage
and bright flowers. But they're like, t room do I
really have for this? You know, five by five shrub
which is pretty big. So we started very early on
in this process looking for ways to get this same
(17:11):
combination of great foliage color and great flower color but
in different types of habits that you can use in
new ways. And spilled wine was the very first answer
to that. Actually, So unlike wine and roses, which is
going to be five by five, spilled wine gets to
be just two to three feet tall and three to
four feet wide. And that is kind of the ideal
(17:34):
groundcover habit. You want something that is wider than it
is tall typically, and it's just it's a great groundcover, sure,
and you can imagine now now, just if you have
the reference for this, like, imagine groundcover planting of like
say Pakassandra green looks pretty good, but now imagine a
(17:54):
groundcover planting of spilled wine wigela, especially when it's in
bloom and it is just a field of purple foliage
with bright pink flowers.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Fantastic, and it's doing what you want it to do.
It's shading the ground, cooling the ground, it's keeping weed
seed from germinating while looking absolutely marvelous.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yes, and as you mentioned, keeping down dust helping to
prevent erosion. And you know if you put mulch down
when you plant them, that will help even more because
the multiple of course decompose more slowly, and you won't
need to replace it anyway because the plant will cover
it all up. So I also wanted to mention that
when you think about shrubs as groundcover, you do kind
(18:36):
of I think need to detach a little bit from
this mentality of carpet, because a plant like spilled wine
can function as a groundcover without taking You know, you
don't need to plant fifty of them. If you plant
three in a garden bat or in a landscape, bad
they're still going to have that exact same kind of
effect in all of those benefits. So it's not an
(18:58):
all or nothing. I'm not saying go out and plant
fifty you know, spilled wine and transform your yard from
a grass yard to a white gela yard, because that
sounds interesting. But you know, just know that when you
plant shrubs with this type of habit, this low growing,
wider spreading habit, that you are getting all of the
(19:18):
benefits of a groundcover just in one single plant.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah, and getting back to that criteria on ground cover,
we want it to be easy to grow but not.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Invasive, absolutely, and you don't have to worry about that.
Whydelia does not self sow, and it is very easy
to grow. And I think that you know, when whenever
you think about a plant that has long been popular,
like Whygela, it's got to be easy to grow, right
because if people were struggling, they wouldn't persist, and they
wouldn't remember her at Grandma's house, and you know all
this other stuff. So Whyjella is such a great example
(19:50):
of a flowering shrub that is extremely easy to grow. Basically,
you just give it son, don't let it dry out too.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Much at it's it's easy to grow, just difficult to pronounce.
People call them wiggles and wiggle's and all that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yes, But again, as always, as long as you're walking
out of the store with the shrub that you wanted,
whether you said wigla or vigela or any of the
other numbers of pronunciations that you and I have heard
over the years, Rick, we're all happy, you bet. But yeah,
full sunplant. This is definitely a full sun plant. And
even though we do sell some white Gela in the
(20:27):
Proven Winter's brand, like Mimnet, for example, which is variegated
and has quite a bit of white, that is that
makes it more shade tolerant overall, Whygela are full sun plants.
They're going to want at least six hours of brights
on every day, hardy down to USDA Zone four, heat
tolerant through USDA Zone eight, so a nice little range there.
You know, when it gets too too hot in the south,
(20:48):
they lose their foliage color, they don't flower as well.
These are a plant that wants some cold treatment during
winter in order to bloom well, So that kind of
caps off that southern limit for whyejela to do really
really well, very dear resistant.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
You deserve a break today, so.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
That's always a good thing. And in long blooming, so
we do have reblooming Whyjela in the Sonic Bloom series,
spilled Wine is not really reblooming, but the great thing
about it is because it has that nice dark foliage,
it keeps your landscape looking fabulous all season long. So
the only thing you need to know is and this
is good no matter what why Jela you have in
your yard. Why Jeila are quite late to emerge in spring.
(21:29):
So if other stuff is growing and you're sitting there
looking at your Ydela wondering if it's dead, it's probably not.
Just needs a little more time, because you know, sometimes
we all need a little more Look for spilled Wine
Why Gela in your garden center the spring. It is
a great choice for all sorts of landscape challenges, and
of course you can learn more at Gardenings Simplified on
air dot Com Ante Pictures. In the YouTube version of
(21:51):
the show, we're gonna take a little break. When we
come back, we're opening up the garden mail bags, so
please stay tuned at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. We
know that a better Landscape starts with a better shrub.
Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our
(22:11):
flowering shrubs and 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
at your local garden center or learn more at proven
Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's Gardening friends, and welcome
(22:34):
back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it's our chance
to answer your garden questions, quandaries and conundrums. And if
you have one of those as we approach the season,
remember the first piece of advice is when in doubt,
don't prune. And the second piece of advice is you
can email us at help EHLP at Gardeningsimplified on air
dot com and we'll get your question and if you
need an answer sooner than that, because of course we
(22:56):
only recorded one show a week. You can also go
to every Winner's Color Choice dot com and ask question
and we will get back to you personally. So a
couple of weeks ago, we had a question in from
some local listeners step and Mary, and they had a
crate myrtle in their yard that there was a mystery there.
(23:18):
It suddenly was cut down to nubs. They wrote us
and we talked about it in the show and they
created quite the controversy in the YouTube comments on the show.
Everyone was like, I'm invested in the Stephen Mary mystery.
I'm wondering what's going on. And so, you know, we
put out the call. We said, step and Mary, people
want to know what's going on, and so we've got
(23:39):
a little more information for you now on the Stephen
Mary situation. Yes, so they bought this center stage red
crape myrtle at a nursery in south Haven after hearing
about it on the show. Love to hear that. It
was a great place and they were very informative. Also
loved to hear that. So we had a spot where
there was a white fence, but first a tree had
to be removed. It was cut down a couple of
(24:00):
summers ago, but we had to wait until the next
spring to have the stump removed. I know this pain.
So we put the plant into a new larger pot
built at the nursery. Said that we needed to know
to keep the plant in a pot in a place
that would not allow the pot to freeze, because crape
myrtle is fairly hardy. For us here in Michigan were
kind of on the edge of its hardiness. But you know,
(24:21):
certainly if it's in a container, you're going to want
to take extra precautions, and if it was in the ground.
And so finally the spring comes, the stump gets ground,
they're ready to plant the crape myrtle, but they can't
get the stump ground down far enough. So Steve then
plants the crape myrtle kind of with soil mounded around
it on what is left of.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
The stump's important clue.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yes, so then he put a bunch of mault around
it so the dirt wouldn't be exposed. And that year
it bloom was beautiful. And this is a beautiful crape myrtle,
black foliage, red flowers. You have to see it to
believe it. So then this past late January or early February,
Steve was looking at it one day and could not
believe what he saw. It was cut down to almost nothing.
(25:03):
We're about to get the big clue that we've all
been waiting for here. I did notice that none of
the bark was chewed on, but I also noticed a
lot of rabbit cocoa puffs around the area. Dun dun,
dun dum. They must have had a feast. Yeah, So
the only thing I would say is rabbit and deer droppings,
and believe me, I know, because I have so many
(25:24):
of both in my yard look very similar. Yes, so
rabbits are round and deer are kind of a little
bit more oval. They can even be fairly similar in size.
So but it does make sense that this would be
a rabbit because what we were seeing in the original
photos that they sent is it looked like it was
in the container, and actually when the damage happened, it
(25:45):
was in the ground with kind of a little you know,
like you see those old dairy barns where they had
the ramp for the horses with like that built in
further rabbits. So then all of a sudden, all the
pieces kind of have fallen into place. So Steve has
since put a fence around it, and he's wondering if
the rabbits could chew the branches when they were that thick,
And I think that, Yeah, definitively. Now we have our answer.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Absolutely if you do a little bit of research. First
of all, rabbits when they chew on a branch, it's
usually just a clean forty five degree angle on the branch.
The other thing is, as far as crape myrtle is concerned,
I've found in my research that rabbits love crape myrtle.
Oh really, we thought it was just burning bushes and
(26:29):
that sort of thing, But they love crape myrtle well.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
So Steve is then asking do we think this plant
will survive? And I'm happy to say that yes, I
do think it will survive. Crpe myrtles are an interesting
plant because they are the crpe myrtles that we offer
through premit runners are shrubby, so in the south you go,
they're trees big, some of them are quite large trees.
The ones that we offer and the ones that we
typically recommend for colder climates are these shrubby types because
(26:56):
they're lower to the ground and they can come back
and still grow. Whereas if it was a tree and
the whole thing dies, the trunk's dead, you're not gonna
have a crepe myrtle anymore. Whereas with these shrubby types
because they are multi stemmed. What happens if we have
a very harsh winter, and even if they die all
the way back to the ground, they will actually come
back from the roots and go on to flower later
in the spring, act.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Like an herbaceous perennial.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Right, So you got a complimentary pruning of your crate myrtle,
and I think it should be fine. Definitely you're going
to want to keep this mulched. And if you know,
the important thing is and we have found this repeatedly
in our trials here in West Michigan, if a crate
myrtle does die all the way back to the ground,
(27:39):
it does take some time for it to re emerge,
So be patient, don't give up on it too early.
And I do want to address something that I said
when we first answered Steve and Mary's question, and that
was that rabbits don't typically leave behind the parts that
they bid off unless they don't like the plant. I
did add that because I said that they do that
to my my aliums pharacephalons. Well, I was happily walking
(28:03):
around the garden this past sunny weekend, and what these
rabbits did was they nibbled off stems of my lavender. No,
they didn't take a single bite. They were like, oh crud,
this tastes awful.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
They were testing you and the plant.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Oh yeah. So I'm walking through the garden and I
see these little lavender plants and there's like three stems
just sitting next to it, cut at that perfect forty
five degree angle, and I was like, what are you
guys doing? So you know they're bored. They're bored. I
think that's it. Yeah, they're just like, might as well
taste this? Might as well taste this? Oof, that's terrible.
Just gonna leave this behind. So anyway, Stephen, Mary, I
(28:44):
think that your plant should be okay, be patient with it,
and once it does start to grow, don't be afraid
to fertilize it to give it a little extra boost
to help it outgrow the numerous stresses it has encountered
and it's short life.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Fantastic Karma has a question about her peach tree. Help,
what's going on with my peach tree? Something jellish is
all around the base of my peach tree. Not jealous
gel is. Yes, it just showed up the spring when
I cleared around the tree. I hope you can see
it in the picture. What is it? What do I
need to do? If anything, it's a very moist and
squishy like solid gel. I haven't looked at the pictures Stacey,
(29:20):
but I can tell you exactly.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
All right, what is it?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Peach bor? You get this guy material at the base
of a tree, usually the larva a working at the
base of the tree, underneath the bark, and when they
do their damage, that's the end result. We always called
it gumosis.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
I love that word, gomoses, gumosis. I was very excited
to share that word with our listeners today and it
is gumosis. It's such a funny word, but gumosis. And
I'm going to have a great link in the show
notes at Gardening Simplified on air dot com, and of
course it will be in the YouTube caption as well.
(29:58):
There are a number of potential causes of gomosis on
peach trees and stonefruits in general. So if you have
a plum, you know, any of these other ones, it
can also happen on those. But it can be due
to a number of different insects. It can be due
to environmental conditions. But yeah, Rick, like you said, when
it is happening at the ground level, it's almost one
hundred percent that it's the peach borer. So that's what
(30:21):
you've got, karma. There are pictures at the link that
we're going to be sharing that show how you kind
of need to get in there and clear out the
gunk that the larva has caused with its boring.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
That sounds peachy.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Kill the larva, Yeah, it's a little bit gross. It's
not for the squeamish. Yes, putting that out there. Find
those little larva in there. You're going to be shocked
at what a lot of damage such a little wormy
fella can do. But you got to kill it, squish it,
feed it to the birds, whatever, and then be vigilant
about it in the future.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
And one of the ways to be vigilant from my
past experience is you can put sticky traps out in
June July when the adults are active, and it will
help you identify exactly what the problem.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
That's a great suggestion. So the link that I'm going
to share is from Utah State, so the exact dates
and timing is based on Utah, whether or not Michigan.
But you can always contact the Michigan State Cooperative Extension
to find out exactly what you need to do for
your particular gummosis situation.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Stacy Shawna has an issue with a weedy, invasive groundcover.
Bought a house on two acres here in Oklahoma a
year and a half ago. This is my second spring.
I'm still learning about landscaping, but my yard appears to
be filled with a bulbous species. You're correct, Star of Bethlehem,
as evidenced by the flowers it produces in spring. I
can't seem to get rid of it. I've had my
(31:46):
lawn treated, et cetera, et cetera. Am I doomed? Help?
Speaker 2 (31:52):
So this is definitely so it's not really a true groundcover,
but once it gets established, it basically grows like a groundcover.
And I wanted to bring this up for a couple
of reasons. First of all, if you have it, do
not go, oh, look at this pretty little bulb that
just volunteered in my yard. Dig that up and take
care of it so you don't end up like poor Shauna.
Because this is an extremely aggressive bulb and the flower
(32:15):
is actually kind of pretty. So I couldn't blame people
for you know, potentially thinking they should keep it.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, a lot of people do mistake it for wild onion.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yes, it does look a bit like that. And also
people could mistake the foliage for crocus because it does
also look like crocus foliage when it emerges, but it
doesn't usually have the white stripe. It's a little bit
more softer and grassier, and you can actually have the
bulb for quite a while without it flowering, so you
might have it. So it is a very difficult weed
(32:42):
to control shauna. So I don't have good news for you.
I'm afraid. First of all, if you're researching it, make
sure you're researching the right species, because there are ornamental
ornithogolums out there that you can grow, and make sure
you're not reading about those. Do not allow this to
go to seed, So if it flowers, mow it down,
chop it down. Make sure that you're not letting it
go to seed, because it spreads by seed as well
(33:04):
as bulblitz underground. Consistent mowing can help because it will
help weaken the plant, but it will not resolve your issue,
and you can't out compete it with groundcovers or anything else.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
And I'm afraid you know Oklahoma can get really hot,
but the plant is native to hot regions of southern
Europe northern Africa. I'm afraid that we in the garden
center industry years ago carry some of the blame because
we were busy selling them as minor bulbs. Once it's established,
I would say this, if you were going to try
the herbicide route, you're only going to be successful if
(33:38):
you rough it up first. In other words, as Stacy mentioned,
just you know, chop it and then apply the herb beside.
It's going to help, but it's very bulbous, so it's
so hard.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
To come Yeah, and there's so many little bulbs that
aren't going to have foliage. This is going to be
a multi year process and it's not going to be easy.
But again I will put some resources for you in
the show notes at Gardening Some Fight on air dot Com.
Going to take a break. When we come back, we're
talking more groundcovers. Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified podcast,
(34:12):
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Speaker 1 (34:24):
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Okay today for
branching news. Let's start off with this. You started it, now,
let's finish it. And that is that area between the
sidewalk and the road. And I found stacy that this
is highly variable between what municipality or part of the
country you may live in. Here's some of the ways
(34:45):
people describe that area right of way. If you call
it a right of way, odds are you're a city
planner or you're into zoning or that sort of thing
makes sense. A lot of people call it the hell strip,
the devil strip, parkway easement, verge, boulevard, city strip, no
(35:07):
man's land, the dog toilet. In Michigan, you get a
lot of snowplow disease in that area. Road verge, nature strip, swale,
the beside walk. Oh.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I like that one.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I want to make sidewalk happen, as.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I understand it's civil engineer. Some call it the furniture
zone because that's where all the utilities fair.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Fair yeah, and where you put your furniture out for
the garbage man if you want to get rid of it.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
The old folding larger. Yes. Uh. And then as I
understand it, and maybe some folks can help us with this,
they say, only in Cleveland they call it the tree lawn,
and in New Orleans they call it the neutral ground.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Right, So I thought the new shore grounds in New
Orleans were more the things in the boulevard. But either
way we'll find out.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
I'm sure we're gonna get a lot of comments.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yes, I mean, that is an impressive list. I am
very impressed you compiled all of that. See, I had
never heard the term parkway, which apparently is the preferred
term out here in West Michigan. And last summer, my
neighbor had a bunch of people over from the neighborhood
and we were all sitting around chatting, and of course
the topic came up to the deer, and everyone was
grousing about the deer, and one of the neighbors said, yeah,
(36:30):
you know, not all that long ago, everyone's parkway was
planted with daffodils or with daylilies, and I know, And
I was like, like Central Park and he was like, no,
you know, the parkways. And it was the first time
I had ever heard that term.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Wow, Well, you know, a lot of people consider that
area a parking space.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
That's true. So and I can see that, you know,
especially if you did have a neighborhood all get together
and everything was planted the same, that it could look
very park like in like a parkway. And I know Hellstrip,
of course was developed or introduced by a gardener back
in probably the nineteen nineties who started gardening that area
(37:14):
and said it was in Colorado, so very very dry,
low water, and that was where the name Hellstrip came from.
I don't think they're quite so hellish for us here
in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Not too bad except for the snowplow. Damn.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
The snow can be bad, right, all right.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
List of groundcovers thumbs up, thumbs down Stacey Lysimachia The
Creeping Jenny money.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Work, Huh's Aesthetically it's a thumbs up. But growth wise invasiveness,
it's all thumbs down.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
I like to put it in containers.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
It is cute, though. I like still coin like leaves.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Creeping flocks.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Oh, I like it, but I think a lot of
people have trouble growing it.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Well, creeping flocks. I don't care for it because it
looks good one week out of fifty two weeks.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
But it looks pretty darn good when it does one week.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
We already determined both you and I like sweet wood
grow love it. Wild strawberry or fregaria. Now this is
a native plant. It occurs in all the US states.
We can be neutral on it.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
If we can be neutral, I've had a wild strawberry
that did not suffer the not World senior, the barren
strawberry that I planted in my yard, and it was
a nightmare to get rid of. Okay, but it can
look kind of interesting.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Okay. I like to put lamium in hanging baskets, but
not necessarily as a groundcover. Yeah, some people would disagree.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
It's you know, I think people see it's one of
the few really common and easy to grow plants with
truly silver foliage. You know, the foliage when you look
at it, the silver spots on it, they look metallic.
It's really bizarre, and that does make it quite nice.
But they can be very aggressive, and if so, it's
kind of one of those situations where like if they're
(38:56):
happy enough to be growing well, they go everywhere, but
they never really look good. You know, they don't have
that liken full mounded look where everything, because when you
see an individual sound of it, you're like, ooh pretty.
But then in reality there just does not. In my experience,
I've not seen any patch of lamium or lamy astroum
(39:17):
live up to the hype.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Some people refer to it as dead nettle. If you
want to try a proven winners variety, pink shab leis
might be a good one for you to try. Perennial geranium.
Here's a steppable two thombs up, all right, all right,
a steppable Irish and Scotch moss, which are not true mosses,
(39:40):
but they are a steppable.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
They're beautiful, but you know, good luck growing them well.
And they look there are so there's somewhat steppable now
I have seen. I actually had a roof up garden
when I was a roof up gardener in New York
that had a fake lawn of these and it was
really lovely. And you know, the people whose whose apartment
it was did walk on it and let their dog
(40:04):
walk on it, and it was a never ending maintenance litmre.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Okay, all right, I know I'm going to get a
thumbs up on this one. Low skate pernia.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Love it. Yeah, yeah, good choice.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I love using annuals Minivita petunias, sweet potato vine like
sweet caroline, you got a hot spot. I think it
makes a great groundcover. Mohavey yea.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I do want to mention on the sweet potato vine.
It's an interesting plant because it came out gosh, I
don't remember how long ago people loved it, and it
is so aggressive in a good way. You know, it
really fills up and people were finding sweet potatoes in
their containers that they emptied at the end of the season.
So a lot of companies, including proven winners, that have
(40:46):
been working on breeding less aggressive sweet potato vines specifically
for containers. Yes, so that you get all of that
great foliage color without you know it taking over your
entire container, nay, your whole neighborhood. And it's not invasive
like it's not like, but it's very vigorous. So if
you are growing a sweet potato vine as a seasonal
(41:07):
groundcover and you want that coverage, make sure you're going
for one of those old fashioned, older varieties and not
one of the newer ones. Just look at the size
that's on the tag, because you might be very disappointed
when you buy a proven winner's variety that was intended
for just being a nice accent and a container, and
then you plant it in the ground and it goes
very little.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
It's good point. Good point. You might give this one
a thumbs down. But steakis the big years, you know,
the big years lamb oh. I love that. Okay, I
do too. And the deer leave it alone anything any
kind of time, creeping time, wooly time, lemon time. Oh,
I love it and comes back year after year. Oregano
(41:47):
as a groundcover, and I grow it for the flowers.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I got plenny.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
It's definitely a very happy ground cover in my yard.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
There's an orange carpet, hummingbird trumpet or California fue yusha for.
It's native to the Western US. Tolerates deer, drought, erosion,
dry soil, shallow rocky soil. I have not personally grown.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I don't know if it's hardy enough for US.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Okay, I don't think it is.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, I would be surprised.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
He probably zone seven or warmer zone eight, something like that.
Barren Strawberry, I'm not a.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
F weld Senia, so wald Senia was our silver bullet
solution when I was a rooftop gardener for the areas
outside of apartment buildings where people who have dogs get
down and their dog is immediately like, oh, finally, wald
Senia was the one groundcover that we could consistently count
on center shade. I believe it, no matter what, to
(42:43):
stand up to repeated dog urine, I believe it.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
So there is that I think it's non native. I'm
pretty sure.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
I don't think it's native. But it is called barn strawberry,
and it does look a bit like a strawberry.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah. Vinca minor or myrtle thems down in many parts
of the country. It's considered an invasive yes.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
And it's you know, yeah, my dad.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Loved Vinca minor. It was something he could grow really well.
He just loved that m well.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
And you know, to be fair. When it's in flower,
the flowers are quite pretty. The color is really lay
and pretty.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah. Oh so easy roses of course.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
No traffic but yes.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
No, no, not a steppable exactly. Here's an interesting one,
low growth sumac.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yeah, I love it, you love it, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
It's a native plant. You find it a lot in
parking lots ye right, yep, in their parkways or whatever
they call those things the islands. I have some in
a very sandy area does really well, but it gets
loaded with bladder warts, call them bladder warts, just covered
(43:53):
with them. It's caused by a mite that over winters
in the branches, and it doesn't kill the plant. It's
just real pumpy. I think both you and I like
prickly pear cactus.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Yes, I do have it. It is definitely a groundcover
that needs to be managed, and it's not a fun
plant to manage this, I can tell you if you
have it and you need to manage it. What we
have started doing is taking barbecue tongs. One person holds
up the paddles that we want to take off. The
other person takes like looppers or a pruner or sharp
(44:26):
shovel and cuts it off. And then you have to
put it right into the you know, lawn bag or
the garbage or whatever. And make sure, for the love
of the poor person who has to pick up that
bag that it is labeled prickly pair cactus or put
in your garbage. Just don't make someone else have to
deal with it.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
Teamwork there you go two more quick ones. Would you
use Doutsia as a ground Yes.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
I would. I thought about making it a plant on
trial today, but I figured I hadn't done a why
deal in a while.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
And I love Seatum's, I love rock and low.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Rock and grow our thumbs up on this one.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, because it's perfect for a hot, sunny spot. So
there you have it, Stacey. We covered a lot of
ground today.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Well, we did cover a lot of grand today, and
one last thing before we go Okay, next episode, we
are covering plants we hate. As you can imagine, opinions
will be had, they will be strong, and we would
love to hear from you. So leave a comment on
YouTube or visit Gardeningsimplified on air dot com and write
us with the plant or plants that you hate. We
(45:27):
will compile everyone's answers and see if we're all on
the same page.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
I promise to bring my a game.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I love it all right, So thank you Rick, thank you,
thank you Adriana, and thanks so much to all of
you for listening. We hope you have a fantastic week ahead.
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