Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're listening to Let's Guarden with Scott Berlin, I
(00:02):
am him. I'm here with Pat Greason from Nytorp Nursery
and Jordan hook Camp from EHR and we are talking plants.
We got two good plants guys here, three good plants
guys if I count myself, if I may be soavol,
so bold, yeah, and we will gladly take your questions
about any any favorite garden plants, any plants you want
(00:24):
to buy, can't find, want to know what's great out
there or how to grow them, and we'll take your
calls at eight hundred eight two three eighty two fifty five. Jordan,
during the break, we were talking about a an really
interesting plant called chili Willy. It's a type of holly
(00:45):
and it might be the boxwood replacement we kind of
need right now.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Uh yeah, this plant has a really interesting story tied
to the Cincinnati area. So I don't know if all
your listeners will know. But since I's got a little
problem with we call box tree, and it's devastating boxwood's
in our area, and so homeowners are looking for options
to replace boxwood, and there really aren't any great options.
(01:10):
There's a lot of you know, we we preach diversity
in plant different kind of plants in your landscape, for sure,
but people do still want a nice green, round, he
hedgy looking plants.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
This ones were always a cookie cutter thing. They fit everything,
sun shade, wet, dry, They would handle just about any resition.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Super hard to replace, super hard to replace. We might
have a good replacement.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
We really think so.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And this just Frank Kevin O'Dell found this.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You're correct, and this has a and I believe it
was probably five years ago. He found an islex granada
down in Japanese holly down in Indian Hill, and he
had the wherewithal and the knowledge this. Kevin O'Dell's a
local plantsman, been in the industry for longer than I've
been alive. Yeah, for sure, he had the knowledge to
(01:59):
see this plant and know that that was a Japanese
holly that was old enough to have survived the winner
of seventy seven, which is the coldest winner on record
in Cincinnati. Correct, I looked it up. Yeah, and he
knew that that would make that plant special because there
are no Japanese hollies alive in Cincinnati for the ten
(02:22):
year old hollies, let alone a forty year old holly,
and so in horticulture, and he knew this that if
he took cuttings off of that plant, those cuttings would
have the same hardy traits as the parent plant. And
so lo and behold we have. They named it Alex
Chili Willie and it's taken about five years, but we
(02:45):
had a nursery all the way out on the East
coast grow them and finish them, and it's like we
got to get them back to Cincinnti. So they're back.
We've had them ship back and it had a.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Really nice form, really beautiful foliage.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
They're great looking, beautiful plants. So I think it's a
very good option. It's just got such a neat story.
I mean, I consider myself a plantsman, but I would
not have known had I walked.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Through that people would have made that connection, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Never in my wildest dreams. Because I made that connection right,
and then for it to actually get in production and
become a real plant to where a homeowner can buy them,
it's really neat.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Such a heavy lift, but it happened, which is fantastic,
super cool.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So that was Kevin O'Dell's fine and just a super
neat story. So try that one out. Keep keep your
eye out for that one. Alex Chili Willy found in
Cincinnati brought it back.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
So I bet you Kendrick and O'Dell may have that
one avail.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
If naugh Wilson for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Pat you you sent me some pictures earlier this week
that really captured my attention. Uh. These were from your
the farm you grew up on.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Actually it was my late mother's farm that she was
born and raised on, Okay outside of New Richmond, Ohio.
The farmhouse sat behind these trees, so there are three
Katalpa trees that are planted there. My mother was born
and raised in that house. And some people here in
(04:15):
Cincinnati may know Clara Burger.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Clara was the daughter's sister Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yeah, she was her youngest sister. So Clara Burger was
born and raised in that on that farm too. The
trees are still there, three Ka trees. They were planted
in nineteen ten, she said, and they were seedlings that
were brought home from for Arbor Day from the school kids,
which is amazing. And next to those is a magnolia
(04:43):
grand of flora, which is straight species southern magnolia. Those
struggle here in Cincinnati sometimes. But that tree.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I asked Clara how old that tree was and she
said it was there before she was born.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
So we're looking at a long time ago and it
actually made it through the blizzard of seventy seven. If
I knew what I know now, I would love to
have written something or did some recording of what all survived, Yes,
blizzard of seventy seven, because here in this region a
couple of events that were just devastating to plants, the
(05:20):
Blizzard of seventy seven and the drought of nineteen eighty eight.
There was nothing like the drought of nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I just remember.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Everything was actually everything was under restrictions. I remember being
in the garden store and we were on water restrictions
and we let everything die that summer because we just
couldn't walk and there was nothing you could do that.
We went for almost five months without rain.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So a reminder to gardners that bad years will come. Yeah,
but then you follow up and you keep going.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah, why do we have this fascination? And I'm as
guilty as anybody of eating plants that aren't necessarily hearty
for our area, but we want to try them and
we want to be the only one that hands them.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
So that's what Lessnically, they're just cool plants that people
want to grow, and you know, and who knows. But
you know, the trouble now is we are warmer than
we were, but we still have those wild swings to
where we.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Get we're still called below zero for a few days
and that's going to do a number on things.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Are we going to see minus twenty six again? I
don't know, it could happen.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, you know, yeah, it's one hundred year thing, fifty things.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah. We're currently bringing in and trying a lot of
new laurels, which are broad leaf evergreens. Yes, you're seeing
all kinds of varieties come on the mark and they're
borderline for us.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, I'd say broad leaf evergreens are the most fickle
when it comes to.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Some of my southern customers have a lot of those,
and they have some of the straight species that'll grow
fifteen twenty feet tall, and when you get that cold,
it'll take them all the way down to the ground,
the roots they will. It'll be a while before they
get back to that high.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I'm going to add in a couple other catastrophic weather
events that really affected our our plant palette. One is
the uh, the easter freeze. I think it was two
thousand and seven or eight, Yes, where we had the
warmest spring from January to March. It was sometimes in
the eighties. It's never blow frost. And then mid easter,
(07:30):
we mid right around Easter, mid April, we had a
week of teens. Yeah, and that everything had leaved out.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
It was just took the Japanese maples all the way
back to the trunk.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, a lot of them didn't make it.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Big Japanese. Yeah, it just froze all the branches on
them and then they started sprouting back from the trunk.
But yeah, a lot of them didn't make it.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
And also add in that that vortex, the polar vortex
that came in what twenty three I think, where we
went from sixty degrees in evening to wine eight and yeah, that.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Was in December. Yeah, it was really hard on a
lot of things. I did a lot to the box
woods before the box stream off came. Yeah, big big plants.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
So again, you know, these things come and go. Gardeners persist.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
We carry on so with Yeah, you know, I'm not
necessarily a nursery guy. I'm more on the annuals and
perennial world of gardening. But uh, asking a good friend
of mine, you know, playing with these broad leaf evergreens,
and he's always playing them on the north side of
your house. And fine, I was like, well, why isn't
that where all the storms come in from. All our
(08:34):
winter weather comes from the north. It's older. Why would
that make sense? And you know it's interesting. That's because
it doesn't get sun in the winter. The swings that
you don't want your plants warming up when the roots
are frozen during the day to keep them cold on
the north side of your house, they'll just stay dormant.
And that's how you can try a lot of these
(08:57):
zone six zone seven plants.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We've got to take a break. When we come back,
we'll continue on talking about good plants and how to
grow them. We are taking calls eight hundred eighty two,
three eighty two fifty five will be right. Since I
have you guys here, and you you guys are the
best people I know to describe how all this works.
Let's talk about how plants get to market. I think
(09:20):
gardeners will find it interesting. You know how things kind
of work from basically the idea of a breeder somewhere
all the way to how it shows up in your
local independent garden center. So how's that work.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well, it's quite a journey from start to finish. Yeah,
when you're going to your local garden center and you
see that petunia on the shelf, there was a ten
year journey for that plant to probably get to market
and become a saleable plant. And there are breeding companies
all around the world introducing new varieties every year.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, more and more, it seems like.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
More and more, I mean hundreds and hundreds, and so
it becomes this select a process. Now the breeding companies,
and they could be as simple as a single person
trying to introduce a new variety, some guy in his backyard,
all the way to these big, you know, global companies
that have you know, plants all around the world. And
so they've done the first research and trials you know,
(10:20):
behind the scenes, and they've selected and found this plant.
Usually takes about five years once they find a plant
that they deem worthy because not only do you have
to find a plant that's attractive to a homeowner, but
it has to go through a production process. You have
to be able to produce it at scale. Not all
plants are producible, so you know, they have to try
(10:41):
all that and then once they finally deem it ready
to show, then they put it in trials all around
the country, actually grow out trials like the Cincinnati Zoo
and Botanical Gardens has so there's trial sites like this
all around the country.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So they will perform because all.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
These plants that they're bred and other parts of the world. Yeah,
you know, other parts of the country. And just because
the plant look great in California does not mean it's
going to look great in Cincinnati or Indianapolis or Michigan.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Or where these plants are branded anymore or come from
branding companies. And it doesn't take long too many bad
plants out there with your name on it to ruin
the good reputation you've established. So the trialing part of
it is really important.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, it's not so much they're bad plants, it's just
that they're in the wrong climate. Yeah, you know, the
wrong area. You know, in Cincinnati, we have terrible humidity
in the summer, where in Michigan they don't have that,
so plant might dali. I'll give you a Dalia. You know,
we all don't. None of us really like dahlias so much.
In Cincinnati they get powdery mildew in the summer, they're
(11:48):
hard to grow. But in Michigan they're beautiful.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Does that mean they're bad plants? No? And that's why
we go through this whole trialing process.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
And that's why I always tell people. You know, first
of all, look for the trialing that goes on out there.
A lot of them are universities. You can google just
plant trialing and they'll start to come up. But the
closer that trial is to you, the more relevant it
will be.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Absolutely. I've spent my whole career going to all these
trial sites, and you know, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It's like, pretty good job.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We can talk more
about that, but yeah, I get to go to California
and see these trials, and then I go to Michigan
and see them. Yeah, and I don't know if we
want to get into this, but you know, I said, well,
we got the Cincinnati Zoo here and they got some trials. Yeah,
don't we sure trial all the plants at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Why yeah, the homeowners can go down there and see
(12:39):
these great plants, and so yeah, that's all part of it.
And even when they make it to market, it's at
that point the consumer decides because even if it's a
great plant, it's producible. I know it looks great in
the garden.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So these companies have ten years of development behind their belts,
a lot of money invested, and now it all depends
on whether people buy them on the shelves and pat
that's where you come in. You sell these plants from
a grower to the garden centers. First of all, how
does a garden center pick out from all the producers
out there? How do they pick out?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
They're looking for what's being marketed. So with the secret
to plants is all in the marketing. When as long
as I've been doing this as a home gardener, we're
always looking for that million dollar.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Plant traditionally market in a week. Link in horticulture, it
has and that's changed a lot lately.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
It has.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
So people don't realize when it comes to plant patents
and things with the typical plant patent is going to
run you about one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Is that right? I did not know it was.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
And almost all of that is in legal fees. Wow,
who gets to market it, who gets to propagate it,
who's going to be growing it? So it is very
expensive to do that and ten years on annuals, that's
a long time with trees. It's even longer trees, thirty
forty years. There are some tree companies out in Oregon
(14:09):
that are working on things right now that are not
going to be on the market till probably twenty fifty.
So eternal optimists, Yeah, they just want to see over years,
what's going to happen to this tree. So it takes
a lot longer with trees. Shrubs not quite as much, but.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah, you know, anticipate what their the customers are going
to want.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Again, they're looking at the colors, they're looking at what
the research is out there. They do a lot of
plant research to see what kind of colors or what
is what people are looking for. A big category is hydranges.
There's so many highdranges out there, and when you're dealing
with the Limelight series, there's so many new varieties of that.
(14:55):
They have been able to find ones that are going
to be smaller ones that are going to have bigger flowers.
Ones are going to have a little bit more pink
to them. So when you have a good plant, you
can build on that. Sometimes the genetics is a little different.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
But how much do the garden centers depend on guys
like you to steer them in the right direction? You
as a salesman from a wholesaler and Jordan is you
as a broker salesperson? Also, you know who's connecting people
with all the producers.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, I mean we have to make the evaluations. You know,
I'm going all around the country.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
To find these They're trusting you, they are.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Trusting me, and so that I take it very seriously
to know what most greenhouses will do. They'll look at
last year's sales and base their new production on that,
and then they'll drop off the bottom few items. You
know that if you have fifty items, will drop off
the bottom two or three.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
So if your plan is not available anymore, that's the
reason we're.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It had low sales, Yeah, exactly, And so then we
can bring in three or four new ones to try.
And that's what's interesting, because there'll be a foul and
new annuals introduced. But really a new garden center of
greenhouse will only bring on two or three. Yeah, you know,
it's a trialing process, and we really got to know
what's good because we can't have bad plants.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
One of the things you just did, which is a
major event, is you went to the Cast California Cast
California Spring Trial Spring trials where a lot of new
plants get introduced and all the producers are showing you
know what's going to be available usually next year the
(16:34):
following year.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, And I want to talk to you about that
a little bit when we come back. But we also
want your calls. Give us a call at eight hundred
eighty three eighty two fifty five. Three guys here that
no plants want to help you out with them, how
to grow them, what to buy, where to find them,
all that and more. You are listening to Let's Garden
(16:57):
with Scott Berlin, Pat Greeson and Jordan hold Camp, and uh,
we do want your calls. Give us a call about
anything plant related. What plants are great well or not,
how to grow them, how to fail all those things,
uh and more. Jordan, you went out to the California
(17:17):
Spring Trials earlier. You pretty much go every year. I
went once, uh, and this is a big deal. This
is where all mostly all the annual well the annual
producers and a few perennial producers put on a show.
And this goes on from San Francisco all the way
down to La Correct, up.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
And down the coast. It's all on the coast off
Highway one oh one, Highway one up and down the coast.
And yeah, this is the big intro. So they're growing
out all the plants for the following season. It's wet
like the Detroit Car Show, but you're ahead. Yeah, it's
a big show. It's almost a competition, and it's all
the breeding companies showing their best new introductions. And you know,
(17:59):
it's a huge, huge set up an event. Only about
six hundred people go. Really, it's all the top people,
the top. It's expensive, it's expensive to go, and so
it's all the top sales broken broker companies and yeah,
it's amazing marketers, but it's only about six hard. We
have such a tight little industry. Yeah, that's what it is.
(18:21):
And so they're bringing all that information back and and.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
You basically go from production house to production house or
some places where they're just showing marketing to the plants,
but you're you're looking at each individual company's newest and
greatest material that they're putting out there for the.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yes, it's all the individual companies and they all have
their stations up and down the facilities down the coast,
and it's beautiful. And one thing we realized real quick
when you go out there, it's like, Wow, they can
grow really nice plants in California. That's not what my
petunia looks like at home. You know, you don't want
to get caught and saying this is just this awesome plant.
And again we talked about the trialing process back here. Yeah,
(19:02):
but yeah, that's where you get to see the newest
stuff and what's going to be introduced. And again it's
a thousand plants you're going to look at, So what
five or eight or ten You have to narrow it
down and what's going to fit your customer and why
and go through that whole process. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's
at the end of March, and so the weather is
(19:24):
always like seventy degree days and nights. Yeah, and yeah,
like I'll just keep mentioning petunias. You'll see a petunia
flower like six inches wide.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
You know, it's like you got the best growers in
the world grow Yeah, yeah, what what cut your eye?
What are some things you saw that are really exciting?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Oh gosh, there's so many. Yeah. All the new sunflowers
coming out are really nice. When they first came out
years are these the sunflowers wants to use more for
betting plants, you know, not the ones you would grow
a big seed sunflower to get a seed dead. These
are ornamental pipes and they're the new breeding on them
that they're more compact, more flowers, better garden performance, great
(20:07):
for pollinators.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And really the first ones just came out a few
maybe five or ten years.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
And now there's probably a dozen dozens on the market'll
take it better and better.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
They are still taller plants maybe waist high range, yeah
oh yeah, but really showy annuals. So I think we
look great for pollinators.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Double Sunfinity last year, yeah, was brand new and it
looked great at the zoo, and now it's at retail.
And so for twenty twenty seven, we're going to see
single Sunfinity and we can talk about the difference between
a seed versus vegetative. Yeah, these are vegetatively produced.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Sunsponsor more consistent.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
They're clones.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
They're clones. They're totally consistent. Yes, and you know exactly
what you get with a seed grown annual. They're mostly consistent,
but there's some variation.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And there's some growers that specialize in growing plants from seed,
and then there's other growers that specialize in growing from cutting,
and so you see the diversity there, and it's definitely
different plants. But this new single Sunfinity Vegetative will be
a very It's a nice yellow with that dark center
traditional sunflower looks. I'm pretty excited about this.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Gardeners go they when you hit the garden center, you're
not very very seldom are you going to know whether
something was sea grown or vegetative. Does it matter to
a gardener.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
No, that's all from the production on the back end. Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Anything else that you saw out there that just knocked
your socks off.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Oh, I'm looking at my list right now. I pulled
up my top picks and it's forty five items, so
I was out of a thousand. So yeah, we'll try
to not talk about them all. But there's a new
petunia out called Metallic Orange. Yeah, and it's got an
iridescent flower. It's orange iridescence. So that one was really cool.
(21:58):
Last year they came out with ana called the Orange
and that's on the market right now. So it's an
orange petunia and that's something we haven't seen in ten years.
Actually banned orange petunia breeding in the United States, yeah,
because they're genetically modified with a orangeetic. Yeah, they banned
them completely, and now we can get them back into
(22:19):
the market now. So there is the orange and being.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
So you can safely eat an orange petunia.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I have no idea. It had no effect on the patia.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
You can't. I don't think you should eat.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
We have glowing petunias now, so yeah, we can talk
about that too.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
There are glow in the dark petunias, not necessarily great performers.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Actually, so again we talked about this breeding stuff. There
are new there's a pink one and a new white one.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, and they're.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Good performers because they've they've introduced new genetics. And yes,
there are glow in the dark petunias on the market.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
If if you need that, it's available.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
It would be available at all your garden centers. And
and you're going to pay for those too. Yeah, very expensive.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, it's a real neat glowing plant. It's going to
cost you extra money.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, it's a real neat story about how that was
developed with lightning bugs, mushrooms, mushrooms. Yeah, he crossed a
glowing there's a apparently a glowing mushroom, and he crossed
that genetic with a petunia. And so now if there's
like starshine at night, you were not going to see
a glow.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, it's not like a like an electric glow.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
It's driveway right, but you know, it's more of a
party trick, is what I've seen. Yeah, grow your deck
and then you bring it in your house and turn
all lights off and you sit there and sure enough
that sucker will start glowing right before your eyes.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
If you have strong feelings about glowing plants, give us
a call eight fifty five. We'll talk about them. What
else you got there?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Oh my gosh, let's just go through this list here.
H oh, Gonfrina, spit fire pink. Is there anybody know
Gonfrena the common name for globe glow mamera, So everybody
just knows it as gonfre traditional name, but a lot
(24:09):
of gonfrinas on the market are getting they're too big
and kind of hard to produce. So this new in
a pot to make it look pretty at retail. You know,
they all have good garden performance. But this new spitfire
pink is a really compact, tight one so it won't flop,
it'll stay nice and straight up in your garden.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Pretty excited about that one. There's a lot of new
colias coming out. I'm super excited.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
They just get you think, oh they've cut, they've done
everything you can do with and then they come out
with something different.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
There's awesome breeding in Colia, and so in Colus we
always look for no flowers late in the summer. That's
what we want. We don't want them purely, and so
the seed ones kind of go to you know, they
go to flower, and the plants don't look pretty once
they go to flower. These new vegetative ones are just awesome.
There's one called pink Ribbons and it is totally my
(25:00):
it's a standout. So that's just a few. There's a
huge list that on your end, so you're already so
this is the difference. I'm looking at plants that will
bring into the market for next year. Yeah, Pat's actually
selling those plants that we introduced last year in the
market now consumer. So what's a new variety, Pat, You
(25:20):
probably wouldn't be so much on a new perennial that
you've seen just take off? Is the one on the
top of your head that line, Oh this is so much?
Everybody knows which what is it? There's a new statue Lambsier.
Everybody knows that hez good good plant. We all know
(25:42):
Helen grow grow, kids love it. Yeah, correct, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Is not a popular color. Jordan and I were talking,
we really I love that in the garden small doses,
but to do an entire.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Garden of it would be kind of I have an
entire guard.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yeah, there were some Sometimes you come out with a
sharse and it's kind of sickly looking. But some of
the newer ones that are coming out there are really
good colors. And they were a really nice accident color.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So this one's really fun. It's called key lime. It
is a chartreuse.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Bright lime, fuzzy, little fuzzy. Yeah, it's awesome, great. They
spread nicely as a groundcover. Yeah, and that's a perennial
where you know, tuck at annuals.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
So that's one we introduced it. You guys grew maybe
two hundred first crop. They were gone.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yeah, everybody get we're different.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
That's what we're looking for. Plants that, yeah, are marketable.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Catch people's attention.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
You mentioned spigelia. There's several new ones of those coming
out and there's some really good colors on those.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
So have you sold out of all your spidelia already?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Do you have a spygelia? As soon as they ye crazy? Well,
we have three hundred on Friday and by Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
They're gone for forever and ever. Nobody knew about that plant.
Nobody even bought it.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, it wasn't producible.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
It was improducible. It took tissue culture.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
So there's a long story behind this, and it's a
company up in Michigan called Walter's Gardens. Yeah, and they
found out their breeder and their growing team found out
how to grow a bear root clump which could then
be finished in a nursery and a reasonable amount of care.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
That's the ticket.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah, from cutting it was just too hard, too slow,
but they did a very nice bear root. Well, what's
happened is they're finding that this is now, going to
the future, there's gonna be a shortage on spigelia. They're
having trouble producing even enough so so companies can sell it.
But they're having trouble producing. They're getting like fifty percent
(27:37):
yields out of their fields. And so people always complaining,
why is this plant so expensive? I think a retailer
about thirty dollars.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, for a one got worth every penny.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
It is worth every penny, and so you know, Walters
is actually looking at dropping it, and I said, no, no, no, no.
They said, well, we'll have to double the price. I said, well,
your sales will drop, but it's such a good plant.
It warned that price really does. And so people will say, man,
it's a thirty dollars planet, it's so expensive. Well, it
(28:06):
warrants that price. That's why it's that expensive. It was
difficult for the production side. But it is a beautiful
plant in your eue.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
So nowhere near the in the foreseeable future will that
be an easily available plant. No, it's sort of like
the Bartella, the eto Pe and ees where the production
is hard and slow. A great plant lives forever you
want it, but it's going to cost you more because
it just is so hard to produce.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
So what's Spygelli in the future, Get your name on
them for next year's crop if you want. They'll just
sell out so fast. Yeah, they'll be gone. The crop's gone,
and then there's not a second or third crop.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
The garden centers that I'm dealing with never bulk at
that price, so I know that they're selling them and
their customers are going to pay for that. Yeah, they
don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Well, let's go ahead and take a break. We'll talk
a few more plants and a lot more when we
get back. You're listening to Let's Garden with Scott Berlin.
Give us your call at eight hundred and eighty two
three eighty two fifty five. Will be right back, and
we're talking all the best plants. We want to take
your calls. Give us a call. We'll tell you what's
out there, what you should plant, what you shouldn't, how
(29:15):
to plant, how to grow it, why it didn't work,
why it did work. If you want to talk, if
you have an opinion on glowing petunias, give us a call.
Give us a call. So we were talking about plants
at our trendy that you can't keep in stock. What
are some of the others that people should jump on
if they see them.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
One that we just sell out of all the time
is Baptisia. All of them, all of them, every one
of them.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Every one of them is good. You know, haven't come.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Across the showing.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
What's the one with the foliage golden anniversary. So that's
a new one. We hope to see it in production
next year, but is completely chartreuse foliage with blue flowers.
And I'm a shart troos nut. Definitely, all teases are great,
long live perennial and it'll just get better and better. Yeah, great,
(30:08):
great plant, full sun, dry soil. Absolutely deer resistant for
the most part. I've heard stories, but mostly it's considered
a deer resistant.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
The only thing I don't like about that plant I
wish it bloomed longer. It's bloom for about a month.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah that's normal.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
That's longer than most perennials. Yeah, yeah, if it's yeah,
if you had a season long bloom.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It does have good interesting seed seed pods on. It
looks really good.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
It keeps its form for the most part, especially the
new cultivars keep their form and they look nice all season.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
So yeah, one that's probably common for us and more
avid gardeners, but for uh, your everyday homeowner, a hellibore
if you have a shady, dry area or deer problems, Hello,
bores are probably one of the best plants. Yeah, I
mean we talked about spigelia just being an awesome plant.
Hellibares rock solid. And there's again new genetics, live.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Forever, live forever, yeah, prob Yeah, the new genetics that
used to be the flowers knotted down.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Now there's point they're pointing, pointing, a blooming a little later,
but they still bloom. I mean, it's the first thing
in your garden, the bloom. They'll bloom March first.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
You'll have flowers right for their early pollinators.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Great for pollinators.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Yeah, dry shade, they're one that I have never had.
I've gone through droughts and they always flower the following year.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah. I've seen them lay flat where they've got so dry,
the flat flatten, But you get some rain again, they
come back up and deer do not touch them, No,
they do not.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Then certainly a popular plant, but not heavily on the market.
Epimedium we don't see enough epimedium.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Out there, you know, it's it's one. It's hard to photograph,
it's hard to market. I think, uh, there were none,
and then there were three out there and those sold. Okay,
Now all of a sudden, there's thirty of them out there,
and I think people don't know about them, or they
they they're confused about which one they buy.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
I think a lot of people don't know about them.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
That's one of the only plants that I've ever found
that will grow under the soffets of my house. They
never get the direct sunlight, they never get direct rain,
and they will survive.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
So another dry shade plant, so deer resistant.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And there's spreading types and there's clumping types. You can
use them as a groundcover like the old.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Ones, especially like rubrium sulfurium.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
They those are good spreaders.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
They don't take over the world though.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
No, not one. They're actually very slow to spread, but
you want them to because they're so cool.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah. Yeah, some of the new ones are really good.
There's one called front lighting. Yes, that's like the old sefurium,
but the flowers are held up above the foliage better,
and I think it's actually a quicker spreader. Yes, yeah,
Orange Queen, Amber Queen, both really plants.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
A lot of the oranges are new colors that they're
starting to work with on those, the flowers are held
well above the foliage.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Really good. People should really be seeking these out and
using them if they can. What other plants are you
guys thinking about?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Well, we could talk about Tiarella is another underused great plant.
There's a lot of hookrara on the market, and they
are good plants, there's nothing wrong with them. But I
feel tirel are actually stronger, better plants, better flower power,
better spring show, really cool new forms coming out with
(33:31):
some color in the foliage. But I really love.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Very close hookras.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
Though I'm seeing a lot more breeding going into the
flowers because I've had some of them. Yeah, the flowers
are not that great, right, I take the flowers off.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
A lot of attention was put on foliage color, good
colors and then really great but flowers flower suffered and
now they're trying to get both and succeeding with some
of these. What's one that you really like for both
flower and foliage?
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Flower and foliage.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, it's so hard to remember for me.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
The ones that I mentioned earlier the pulmon areas. Oh yeah,
actually because you have all of those different colors in
the spring, Yeah, purple pinks.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
With the tirellas, it's like a more well that's a
native plant, more of a very low growing plant than.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
A hukra yes spread striped foliage on some of those.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Spring symphony is a really good one.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Really nice flowers held up like a spiky white flower. Yeah.
And Hugh Carrella is like a mixed cross between.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
The two, between the two all fun fact.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So hookra common name is coral bell. Yeah, a tirella
common name is foam flower. And so when you cross
them you get foamy bells. Foamy bells, that's what all. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
And how are those for performing? I've never really very good?
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, excellent, very good performers. Even I think they're tougher
than straight hookrak they have the tirella blood in them. Yeah,
they've got a little more heartiness. Yeah, great plants.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
We talked about Nepada a great landscape or former. There's
all different kinds out now. I believe that's a top
selling print. Probably number one is a category, believe.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
It or not, And there's probably at least ten different
varieties out there now, all with cat related names.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yes, pajamas, cat's mew, yeah, Persian blue, yeah, all those things.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
But they're all pretty good. They're just different sizes, usually.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
A big, small, and medium new one that's Catwalk Queen,
big flowers on that one.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Well, oh and Chartruse on the loose.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
There is a yeah, of course there is yeah for
that one. So just a reminder, you can catch our
podcast on any source of podcasts. Uh. We do want
to take your calls today. Give us a shout. Eight
hundred eight two three eighty two fifty five. You're listening
to LTS Garden with Scott Berline. We'll be ray back
If you're listening to Let's Guarden with Scott Berlin, I
(00:02):
am him. I'm here with Pat Greason from Nytorp Nursery
and Jordan hook Camp from EHR and we are talking plants.
We got two good plants guys here, three good plants
guys if I count myself, if I may be soavol,
so bold, yeah, and we will gladly take your questions
about any any favorite garden plants, any plants you want
(00:24):
to buy, can't find, want to know what's great out
there or how to grow them, and we'll take your
calls at eight hundred eight two three eighty two fifty five. Jordan,
during the break, we were talking about a an really
interesting plant called chili Willy. It's a type of holly
(00:45):
and it might be the boxwood replacement we kind of
need right now.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Uh yeah, this plant has a really interesting story tied
to the Cincinnati area. So I don't know if all
your listeners will know. But since I's got a little
problem with we call box tree, and it's devastating boxwood's
in our area, and so homeowners are looking for options
to replace boxwood, and there really aren't any great options.
(01:10):
There's a lot of you know, we we preach diversity
in plant different kind of plants in your landscape, for sure,
but people do still want a nice green, round, he
hedgy looking plants.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
This ones were always a cookie cutter thing. They fit everything,
sun shade, wet, dry, They would handle just about any resition.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Super hard to replace, super hard to replace. We might
have a good replacement.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
We really think so.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And this just Frank Kevin O'Dell found this.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You're correct, and this has a and I believe it
was probably five years ago. He found an islex granada
down in Japanese holly down in Indian Hill, and he
had the wherewithal and the knowledge this. Kevin O'Dell's a
local plantsman, been in the industry for longer than I've
been alive. Yeah, for sure, he had the knowledge to
(01:59):
see this plant and know that that was a Japanese
holly that was old enough to have survived the winner
of seventy seven, which is the coldest winner on record
in Cincinnati. Correct, I looked it up. Yeah, and he
knew that that would make that plant special because there
are no Japanese hollies alive in Cincinnati for the ten
(02:22):
year old hollies, let alone a forty year old holly,
and so in horticulture, and he knew this that if
he took cuttings off of that plant, those cuttings would
have the same hardy traits as the parent plant. And
so lo and behold we have. They named it Alex
Chili Willie and it's taken about five years, but we
(02:45):
had a nursery all the way out on the East
coast grow them and finish them, and it's like we
got to get them back to Cincinnti. So they're back.
We've had them ship back and it had a.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Really nice form, really beautiful foliage.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
They're great looking, beautiful plants. So I think it's a
very good option. It's just got such a neat story.
I mean, I consider myself a plantsman, but I would
not have known had I walked.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Through that people would have made that connection, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Never in my wildest dreams. Because I made that connection right,
and then for it to actually get in production and
become a real plant to where a homeowner can buy them,
it's really neat.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Such a heavy lift, but it happened, which is fantastic,
super cool.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So that was Kevin O'Dell's fine and just a super
neat story. So try that one out. Keep keep your
eye out for that one. Alex Chili Willy found in
Cincinnati brought it back.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
So I bet you Kendrick and O'Dell may have that
one avail.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
If naugh Wilson for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Pat you you sent me some pictures earlier this week
that really captured my attention. Uh. These were from your
the farm you grew up on.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Actually it was my late mother's farm that she was
born and raised on, Okay outside of New Richmond, Ohio.
The farmhouse sat behind these trees, so there are three
Katalpa trees that are planted there. My mother was born
and raised in that house. And some people here in
(04:15):
Cincinnati may know Clara Burger.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Clara was the daughter's sister Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yeah, she was her youngest sister. So Clara Burger was
born and raised in that on that farm too. The
trees are still there, three Ka trees. They were planted
in nineteen ten, she said, and they were seedlings that
were brought home from for Arbor Day from the school kids,
which is amazing. And next to those is a magnolia
(04:43):
grand of flora, which is straight species southern magnolia. Those
struggle here in Cincinnati sometimes. But that tree.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I asked Clara how old that tree was and she
said it was there before she was born.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
So we're looking at a long time ago and it
actually made it through the blizzard of seventy seven. If
I knew what I know now, I would love to
have written something or did some recording of what all survived, Yes,
blizzard of seventy seven, because here in this region a
couple of events that were just devastating to plants, the
(05:20):
Blizzard of seventy seven and the drought of nineteen eighty eight.
There was nothing like the drought of nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I just remember.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Everything was actually everything was under restrictions. I remember being
in the garden store and we were on water restrictions
and we let everything die that summer because we just
couldn't walk and there was nothing you could do that.
We went for almost five months without rain.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So a reminder to gardners that bad years will come. Yeah,
but then you follow up and you keep going.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yeah, why do we have this fascination? And I'm as
guilty as anybody of eating plants that aren't necessarily hearty
for our area, but we want to try them and
we want to be the only one that hands them.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
So that's what Lessnically, they're just cool plants that people
want to grow, and you know, and who knows. But
you know, the trouble now is we are warmer than
we were, but we still have those wild swings to
where we.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Get we're still called below zero for a few days
and that's going to do a number on things.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Are we going to see minus twenty six again? I
don't know, it could happen.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, you know, yeah, it's one hundred year thing, fifty things.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah. We're currently bringing in and trying a lot of
new laurels, which are broad leaf evergreens. Yes, you're seeing
all kinds of varieties come on the mark and they're
borderline for us.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, I'd say broad leaf evergreens are the most fickle
when it comes to.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Some of my southern customers have a lot of those,
and they have some of the straight species that'll grow
fifteen twenty feet tall, and when you get that cold,
it'll take them all the way down to the ground,
the roots they will. It'll be a while before they
get back to that high.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I'm going to add in a couple other catastrophic weather
events that really affected our our plant palette. One is
the uh, the easter freeze. I think it was two
thousand and seven or eight, Yes, where we had the
warmest spring from January to March. It was sometimes in
the eighties. It's never blow frost. And then mid easter,
(07:30):
we mid right around Easter, mid April, we had a
week of teens. Yeah, and that everything had leaved out.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
It was just took the Japanese maples all the way
back to the trunk.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, a lot of them didn't make it.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Big Japanese. Yeah, it just froze all the branches on
them and then they started sprouting back from the trunk.
But yeah, a lot of them didn't make it.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
And also add in that that vortex, the polar vortex
that came in what twenty three I think, where we
went from sixty degrees in evening to wine eight and yeah, that.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Was in December. Yeah, it was really hard on a
lot of things. I did a lot to the box
woods before the box stream off came. Yeah, big big plants.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
So again, you know, these things come and go. Gardeners persist.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
We carry on so with Yeah, you know, I'm not
necessarily a nursery guy. I'm more on the annuals and
perennial world of gardening. But uh, asking a good friend
of mine, you know, playing with these broad leaf evergreens,
and he's always playing them on the north side of
your house. And fine, I was like, well, why isn't
that where all the storms come in from. All our
(08:34):
winter weather comes from the north. It's older. Why would
that make sense? And you know it's interesting. That's because
it doesn't get sun in the winter. The swings that
you don't want your plants warming up when the roots
are frozen during the day to keep them cold on
the north side of your house, they'll just stay dormant.
And that's how you can try a lot of these
(08:57):
zone six zone seven plants.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
We've got to take a break. When we come back,
we'll continue on talking about good plants and how to
grow them. We are taking calls eight hundred eighty two,
three eighty two fifty five will be right. Since I
have you guys here, and you you guys are the
best people I know to describe how all this works.
Let's talk about how plants get to market. I think
(09:20):
gardeners will find it interesting. You know how things kind
of work from basically the idea of a breeder somewhere
all the way to how it shows up in your
local independent garden center. So how's that work.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well, it's quite a journey from start to finish. Yeah,
when you're going to your local garden center and you
see that petunia on the shelf, there was a ten
year journey for that plant to probably get to market
and become a saleable plant. And there are breeding companies
all around the world introducing new varieties every year.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, more and more, it seems like.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
More and more, I mean hundreds and hundreds, and so
it becomes this select a process. Now the breeding companies,
and they could be as simple as a single person
trying to introduce a new variety, some guy in his backyard,
all the way to these big, you know, global companies
that have you know, plants all around the world. And
so they've done the first research and trials you know,
(10:20):
behind the scenes, and they've selected and found this plant.
Usually takes about five years once they find a plant
that they deem worthy because not only do you have
to find a plant that's attractive to a homeowner, but
it has to go through a production process. You have
to be able to produce it at scale. Not all
plants are producible, so you know, they have to try
(10:41):
all that and then once they finally deem it ready
to show, then they put it in trials all around
the country, actually grow out trials like the Cincinnati Zoo
and Botanical Gardens has so there's trial sites like this
all around the country.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So they will perform because all.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
These plants that they're bred and other parts of the world. Yeah,
you know, other parts of the country. And just because
the plant look great in California does not mean it's
going to look great in Cincinnati or Indianapolis or Michigan.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Or where these plants are branded anymore or come from
branding companies. And it doesn't take long too many bad
plants out there with your name on it to ruin
the good reputation you've established. So the trialing part of
it is really important.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, it's not so much they're bad plants, it's just
that they're in the wrong climate. Yeah, you know, the
wrong area. You know, in Cincinnati, we have terrible humidity
in the summer, where in Michigan they don't have that,
so plant might dali. I'll give you a Dalia. You know,
we all don't. None of us really like dahlias so much.
In Cincinnati they get powdery mildew in the summer, they're
(11:48):
hard to grow. But in Michigan they're beautiful.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Does that mean they're bad plants? No? And that's why
we go through this whole trialing process.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
And that's why I always tell people. You know, first
of all, look for the trialing that goes on out there.
A lot of them are universities. You can google just
plant trialing and they'll start to come up. But the
closer that trial is to you, the more relevant it
will be.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Absolutely. I've spent my whole career going to all these
trial sites, and you know, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It's like, pretty good job.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We can talk more
about that, but yeah, I get to go to California
and see these trials, and then I go to Michigan
and see them. Yeah, and I don't know if we
want to get into this, but you know, I said, well,
we got the Cincinnati Zoo here and they got some trials. Yeah,
don't we sure trial all the plants at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Why yeah, the homeowners can go down there and see
(12:39):
these great plants, and so yeah, that's all part of it.
And even when they make it to market, it's at
that point the consumer decides because even if it's a
great plant, it's producible. I know it looks great in
the garden.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So these companies have ten years of development behind their belts,
a lot of money invested, and now it all depends
on whether people buy them on the shelves and pat
that's where you come in. You sell these plants from
a grower to the garden centers. First of all, how
does a garden center pick out from all the producers
out there? How do they pick out?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
They're looking for what's being marketed. So with the secret
to plants is all in the marketing. When as long
as I've been doing this as a home gardener, we're
always looking for that million dollar.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Plant traditionally market in a week. Link in horticulture, it
has and that's changed a lot lately.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
It has.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
So people don't realize when it comes to plant patents
and things with the typical plant patent is going to
run you about one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Is that right? I did not know it was.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
And almost all of that is in legal fees. Wow,
who gets to market it, who gets to propagate it,
who's going to be growing it? So it is very
expensive to do that and ten years on annuals, that's
a long time with trees. It's even longer trees, thirty
forty years. There are some tree companies out in Oregon
(14:09):
that are working on things right now that are not
going to be on the market till probably twenty fifty.
So eternal optimists, Yeah, they just want to see over years,
what's going to happen to this tree. So it takes
a lot longer with trees. Shrubs not quite as much, but.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah, you know, anticipate what their the customers are going
to want.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Again, they're looking at the colors, they're looking at what
the research is out there. They do a lot of
plant research to see what kind of colors or what
is what people are looking for. A big category is hydranges.
There's so many highdranges out there, and when you're dealing
with the Limelight series, there's so many new varieties of that.
(14:55):
They have been able to find ones that are going
to be smaller ones that are going to have bigger flowers.
Ones are going to have a little bit more pink
to them. So when you have a good plant, you
can build on that. Sometimes the genetics is a little different.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
But how much do the garden centers depend on guys
like you to steer them in the right direction? You
as a salesman from a wholesaler and Jordan is you
as a broker salesperson? Also, you know who's connecting people
with all the producers.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, I mean we have to make the evaluations. You know,
I'm going all around the country.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
To find these They're trusting you, they are.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Trusting me, and so that I take it very seriously
to know what most greenhouses will do. They'll look at
last year's sales and base their new production on that,
and then they'll drop off the bottom few items. You
know that if you have fifty items, will drop off
the bottom two or three.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
So if your plan is not available anymore, that's the
reason we're.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It had low sales, Yeah, exactly, And so then we
can bring in three or four new ones to try.
And that's what's interesting, because there'll be a foul and
new annuals introduced. But really a new garden center of
greenhouse will only bring on two or three. Yeah, you know,
it's a trialing process, and we really got to know
what's good because we can't have bad plants.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
One of the things you just did, which is a
major event, is you went to the Cast California Cast
California Spring Trial Spring trials where a lot of new
plants get introduced and all the producers are showing you
know what's going to be available usually next year the
(16:34):
following year.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, And I want to talk to you about that
a little bit when we come back. But we also
want your calls. Give us a call at eight hundred
eighty three eighty two fifty five. Three guys here that
no plants want to help you out with them, how
to grow them, what to buy, where to find them,
all that and more. You are listening to Let's Garden
(16:57):
with Scott Berlin, Pat Greeson and Jordan hold Camp, and uh,
we do want your calls. Give us a call about
anything plant related. What plants are great well or not,
how to grow them, how to fail all those things,
uh and more. Jordan, you went out to the California
(17:17):
Spring Trials earlier. You pretty much go every year. I
went once, uh, and this is a big deal. This
is where all mostly all the annual well the annual
producers and a few perennial producers put on a show.
And this goes on from San Francisco all the way
down to La Correct, up.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
And down the coast. It's all on the coast off
Highway one oh one, Highway one up and down the coast.
And yeah, this is the big intro. So they're growing
out all the plants for the following season. It's wet
like the Detroit Car Show, but you're ahead. Yeah, it's
a big show. It's almost a competition, and it's all
the breeding companies showing their best new introductions. And you know,
(17:59):
it's a huge, huge set up an event. Only about
six hundred people go. Really, it's all the top people,
the top. It's expensive, it's expensive to go, and so
it's all the top sales broken broker companies and yeah,
it's amazing marketers, but it's only about six hard. We
have such a tight little industry. Yeah, that's what it is.
(18:21):
And so they're bringing all that information back and and.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
You basically go from production house to production house or
some places where they're just showing marketing to the plants,
but you're you're looking at each individual company's newest and
greatest material that they're putting out there for the.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yes, it's all the individual companies and they all have
their stations up and down the facilities down the coast,
and it's beautiful. And one thing we realized real quick
when you go out there, it's like, Wow, they can
grow really nice plants in California. That's not what my
petunia looks like at home. You know, you don't want
to get caught and saying this is just this awesome plant.
And again we talked about the trialing process back here. Yeah,
(19:02):
but yeah, that's where you get to see the newest
stuff and what's going to be introduced. And again it's
a thousand plants you're going to look at, So what
five or eight or ten You have to narrow it
down and what's going to fit your customer and why
and go through that whole process. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's
at the end of March, and so the weather is
(19:24):
always like seventy degree days and nights. Yeah, and yeah,
like I'll just keep mentioning petunias. You'll see a petunia
flower like six inches wide.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
You know, it's like you got the best growers in
the world grow Yeah, yeah, what what cut your eye?
What are some things you saw that are really exciting?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Oh gosh, there's so many. Yeah. All the new sunflowers
coming out are really nice. When they first came out
years are these the sunflowers wants to use more for
betting plants, you know, not the ones you would grow
a big seed sunflower to get a seed dead. These
are ornamental pipes and they're the new breeding on them
that they're more compact, more flowers, better garden performance, great
(20:07):
for pollinators.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And really the first ones just came out a few
maybe five or ten years.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
And now there's probably a dozen dozens on the market'll
take it better and better.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
They are still taller plants maybe waist high range, yeah
oh yeah, but really showy annuals. So I think we
look great for pollinators.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Double Sunfinity last year, yeah, was brand new and it
looked great at the zoo, and now it's at retail.
And so for twenty twenty seven, we're going to see
single Sunfinity and we can talk about the difference between
a seed versus vegetative. Yeah, these are vegetatively produced.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Sunsponsor more consistent.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
They're clones.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
They're clones. They're totally consistent. Yes, and you know exactly
what you get with a seed grown annual. They're mostly consistent,
but there's some variation.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And there's some growers that specialize in growing plants from seed,
and then there's other growers that specialize in growing from cutting,
and so you see the diversity there, and it's definitely
different plants. But this new single Sunfinity Vegetative will be
a very It's a nice yellow with that dark center
traditional sunflower looks. I'm pretty excited about this.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Gardeners go they when you hit the garden center, you're
not very very seldom are you going to know whether
something was sea grown or vegetative. Does it matter to
a gardener.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
No, that's all from the production on the back end. Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Anything else that you saw out there that just knocked
your socks off.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Oh, I'm looking at my list right now. I pulled
up my top picks and it's forty five items, so
I was out of a thousand. So yeah, we'll try
to not talk about them all. But there's a new
petunia out called Metallic Orange. Yeah, and it's got an
iridescent flower. It's orange iridescence. So that one was really cool.
(21:58):
Last year they came out with ana called the Orange
and that's on the market right now. So it's an
orange petunia and that's something we haven't seen in ten years.
Actually banned orange petunia breeding in the United States, yeah,
because they're genetically modified with a orangeetic. Yeah, they banned
them completely, and now we can get them back into
(22:19):
the market now. So there is the orange and being.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
So you can safely eat an orange petunia.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I have no idea. It had no effect on the patia.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
You can't. I don't think you should eat.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
We have glowing petunias now, so yeah, we can talk
about that too.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
There are glow in the dark petunias, not necessarily great performers.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Actually, so again we talked about this breeding stuff. There
are new there's a pink one and a new white one.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, and they're.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Good performers because they've they've introduced new genetics. And yes,
there are glow in the dark petunias on the market.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
If if you need that, it's available.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
It would be available at all your garden centers. And
and you're going to pay for those too. Yeah, very expensive.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, it's a real neat glowing plant. It's going to
cost you extra money.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, it's a real neat story about how that was
developed with lightning bugs, mushrooms, mushrooms. Yeah, he crossed a
glowing there's a apparently a glowing mushroom, and he crossed
that genetic with a petunia. And so now if there's
like starshine at night, you were not going to see
a glow.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, it's not like a like an electric glow.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
It's driveway right, but you know, it's more of a
party trick, is what I've seen. Yeah, grow your deck
and then you bring it in your house and turn
all lights off and you sit there and sure enough
that sucker will start glowing right before your eyes.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
If you have strong feelings about glowing plants, give us
a call eight fifty five. We'll talk about them. What
else you got there?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Oh my gosh, let's just go through this list here.
H oh, Gonfrina, spit fire pink. Is there anybody know
Gonfrena the common name for globe glow mamera, So everybody
just knows it as gonfre traditional name, but a lot
(24:09):
of gonfrinas on the market are getting they're too big
and kind of hard to produce. So this new in
a pot to make it look pretty at retail. You know,
they all have good garden performance. But this new spitfire
pink is a really compact, tight one so it won't flop,
it'll stay nice and straight up in your garden.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Pretty excited about that one. There's a lot of new
colias coming out. I'm super excited.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
They just get you think, oh they've cut, they've done
everything you can do with and then they come out
with something different.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
There's awesome breeding in Colia, and so in Colus we
always look for no flowers late in the summer. That's
what we want. We don't want them purely, and so
the seed ones kind of go to you know, they
go to flower, and the plants don't look pretty once
they go to flower. These new vegetative ones are just awesome.
There's one called pink Ribbons and it is totally my
(25:00):
it's a standout. So that's just a few. There's a
huge list that on your end, so you're already so
this is the difference. I'm looking at plants that will
bring into the market for next year. Yeah, Pat's actually
selling those plants that we introduced last year in the
market now consumer. So what's a new variety, Pat, You
(25:20):
probably wouldn't be so much on a new perennial that
you've seen just take off? Is the one on the
top of your head that line, Oh this is so much?
Everybody knows which what is it? There's a new statue Lambsier.
Everybody knows that hez good good plant. We all know
(25:42):
Helen grow grow, kids love it. Yeah, correct, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Is not a popular color. Jordan and I were talking,
we really I love that in the garden small doses,
but to do an entire.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Garden of it would be kind of I have an
entire guard.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yeah, there were some Sometimes you come out with a
sharse and it's kind of sickly looking. But some of
the newer ones that are coming out there are really
good colors. And they were a really nice accident color.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So this one's really fun. It's called key lime. It
is a chartreuse.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Bright lime, fuzzy, little fuzzy. Yeah, it's awesome, great. They
spread nicely as a groundcover. Yeah, and that's a perennial
where you know, tuck at annuals.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
So that's one we introduced it. You guys grew maybe
two hundred first crop. They were gone.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yeah, everybody get we're different.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
That's what we're looking for. Plants that, yeah, are marketable.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Catch people's attention.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
You mentioned spigelia. There's several new ones of those coming
out and there's some really good colors on those.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
So have you sold out of all your spidelia already?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Do you have a spygelia? As soon as they ye crazy? Well,
we have three hundred on Friday and by Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
They're gone for forever and ever. Nobody knew about that plant.
Nobody even bought it.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, it wasn't producible.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
It was improducible. It took tissue culture.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
So there's a long story behind this, and it's a
company up in Michigan called Walter's Gardens. Yeah, and they
found out their breeder and their growing team found out
how to grow a bear root clump which could then
be finished in a nursery and a reasonable amount of care.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
That's the ticket.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah, from cutting it was just too hard, too slow,
but they did a very nice bear root. Well, what's
happened is they're finding that this is now, going to
the future, there's gonna be a shortage on spigelia. They're
having trouble producing even enough so so companies can sell it.
But they're having trouble producing. They're getting like fifty percent
(27:37):
yields out of their fields. And so people always complaining,
why is this plant so expensive? I think a retailer
about thirty dollars.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, for a one got worth every penny.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
It is worth every penny, and so you know, Walters
is actually looking at dropping it, and I said, no, no, no, no.
They said, well, we'll have to double the price. I said, well,
your sales will drop, but it's such a good plant.
It warned that price really does. And so people will say, man,
it's a thirty dollars planet, it's so expensive. Well, it
(28:06):
warrants that price. That's why it's that expensive. It was
difficult for the production side. But it is a beautiful
plant in your eue.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
So nowhere near the in the foreseeable future will that
be an easily available plant. No, it's sort of like
the Bartella, the eto Pe and ees where the production
is hard and slow. A great plant lives forever you
want it, but it's going to cost you more because
it just is so hard to produce.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
So what's Spygelli in the future, Get your name on
them for next year's crop if you want. They'll just
sell out so fast. Yeah, they'll be gone. The crop's gone,
and then there's not a second or third crop.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
The garden centers that I'm dealing with never bulk at
that price, so I know that they're selling them and
their customers are going to pay for that. Yeah, they
don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Well, let's go ahead and take a break. We'll talk
a few more plants and a lot more when we
get back. You're listening to Let's Garden with Scott Berlin.
Give us your call at eight hundred and eighty two
three eighty two fifty five. Will be right back, and
we're talking all the best plants. We want to take
your calls. Give us a call. We'll tell you what's
out there, what you should plant, what you shouldn't, how
(29:15):
to plant, how to grow it, why it didn't work,
why it did work. If you want to talk, if
you have an opinion on glowing petunias, give us a call.
Give us a call. So we were talking about plants
at our trendy that you can't keep in stock. What
are some of the others that people should jump on
if they see them.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
One that we just sell out of all the time
is Baptisia. All of them, all of them, every one
of them.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Every one of them is good. You know, haven't come.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Across the showing.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
What's the one with the foliage golden anniversary. So that's
a new one. We hope to see it in production
next year, but is completely chartreuse foliage with blue flowers.
And I'm a shart troos nut. Definitely, all teases are great,
long live perennial and it'll just get better and better. Yeah, great,
(30:08):
great plant, full sun, dry soil. Absolutely deer resistant for
the most part. I've heard stories, but mostly it's considered
a deer resistant.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
The only thing I don't like about that plant I
wish it bloomed longer. It's bloom for about a month.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah that's normal.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
That's longer than most perennials. Yeah, yeah, if it's yeah,
if you had a season long bloom.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
It does have good interesting seed seed pods on. It
looks really good.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
It keeps its form for the most part, especially the
new cultivars keep their form and they look nice all season.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
So yeah, one that's probably common for us and more
avid gardeners, but for uh, your everyday homeowner, a hellibore
if you have a shady, dry area or deer problems, Hello,
bores are probably one of the best plants. Yeah, I
mean we talked about spigelia just being an awesome plant.
Hellibares rock solid. And there's again new genetics, live.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Forever, live forever, yeah, prob Yeah, the new genetics that
used to be the flowers knotted down.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Now there's point they're pointing, pointing, a blooming a little later,
but they still bloom. I mean, it's the first thing
in your garden, the bloom. They'll bloom March first.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
You'll have flowers right for their early pollinators.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Great for pollinators.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Yeah, dry shade, they're one that I have never had.
I've gone through droughts and they always flower the following year.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah. I've seen them lay flat where they've got so dry,
the flat flatten, But you get some rain again, they
come back up and deer do not touch them, No,
they do not.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Then certainly a popular plant, but not heavily on the market.
Epimedium we don't see enough epimedium.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Out there, you know, it's it's one. It's hard to photograph,
it's hard to market. I think, uh, there were none,
and then there were three out there and those sold. Okay,
Now all of a sudden, there's thirty of them out there,
and I think people don't know about them, or they
they they're confused about which one they buy.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
I think a lot of people don't know about them.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
That's one of the only plants that I've ever found
that will grow under the soffets of my house. They
never get the direct sunlight, they never get direct rain,
and they will survive.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
So another dry shade plant, so deer resistant.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And there's spreading types and there's clumping types. You can
use them as a groundcover like the old.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Ones, especially like rubrium sulfurium.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
They those are good spreaders.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
They don't take over the world though.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
No, not one. They're actually very slow to spread, but
you want them to because they're so cool.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah. Yeah, some of the new ones are really good.
There's one called front lighting. Yes, that's like the old sefurium,
but the flowers are held up above the foliage better,
and I think it's actually a quicker spreader. Yes, yeah,
Orange Queen, Amber Queen, both really plants.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
A lot of the oranges are new colors that they're
starting to work with on those, the flowers are held
well above the foliage.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Really good. People should really be seeking these out and
using them if they can. What other plants are you
guys thinking about?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Well, we could talk about Tiarella is another underused great plant.
There's a lot of hookrara on the market, and they
are good plants, there's nothing wrong with them. But I
feel tirel are actually stronger, better plants, better flower power,
better spring show, really cool new forms coming out with
(33:31):
some color in the foliage. But I really love.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Very close hookras.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
Though I'm seeing a lot more breeding going into the
flowers because I've had some of them. Yeah, the flowers
are not that great, right, I take the flowers off.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
A lot of attention was put on foliage color, good
colors and then really great but flowers flower suffered and
now they're trying to get both and succeeding with some
of these. What's one that you really like for both
flower and foliage?
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Flower and foliage.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, it's so hard to remember for me.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
The ones that I mentioned earlier the pulmon areas. Oh yeah,
actually because you have all of those different colors in
the spring, Yeah, purple pinks.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
With the tirellas, it's like a more well that's a
native plant, more of a very low growing plant than.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
A hukra yes spread striped foliage on some of those.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Spring symphony is a really good one.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Really nice flowers held up like a spiky white flower. Yeah.
And Hugh Carrella is like a mixed cross between.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
The two, between the two all fun fact.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So hookra common name is coral bell. Yeah, a tirella
common name is foam flower. And so when you cross
them you get foamy bells. Foamy bells, that's what all. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
And how are those for performing? I've never really very good?
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, excellent, very good performers. Even I think they're tougher
than straight hookrak they have the tirella blood in them. Yeah,
they've got a little more heartiness. Yeah, great plants.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
We talked about Nepada a great landscape or former. There's
all different kinds out now. I believe that's a top
selling print. Probably number one is a category, believe.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
It or not, And there's probably at least ten different
varieties out there now, all with cat related names.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yes, pajamas, cat's mew, yeah, Persian blue, yeah, all those things.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
But they're all pretty good. They're just different sizes, usually.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
A big, small, and medium new one that's Catwalk Queen,
big flowers on that one.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Well, oh and Chartruse on the loose.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
There is a yeah, of course there is yeah for
that one. So just a reminder, you can catch our
podcast on any source of podcasts. Uh. We do want
to take your calls today. Give us a shout. Eight
hundred eight two three eighty two fifty five. You're listening
to LTS Garden with Scott Berline. We'll be ray back
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