Ron Wilson 3/29/2025 Hour 2

Ron chats with the Arbor Dog and author Kelly Norris.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Our total free number eight hundred eight two three eight
two five five.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm Ron Wilson, your personally yard boy. We are talking yardening,
saying goodbye to the month of March, headed into the
month of April. Weather's really starting to warm up quickly.
Now we'll find out more about the Whatson's store over
the next two or three or four weeks for the weather,
because it is time for a bifurcation of segments, whether
it's the weather and in the trees with Ronnie Rothas.

(01:03):
Of course, the cold front, lom fronts, they fear him,
the weather channel, they idolize him. He's the man who
also inspired the saying trees are good. Here's our registered
consulting arbist amateur meteorologist is a Board certified Master Arbist.
Ladies and gentlemen. His website arbordoctor dot com. The arbor
doc himself, mister ron Rothas, sit down. Wow, amazing man,

(01:33):
you've got some fans out there.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yes, bo, I'm kind of mystified this morning.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Why are you mystified?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well, of course you know that I listened to your
entire show and you started out this morning by saying
that what kind of ending march like a lamb. And
I look at the weather forecast, and I'm like, what
is your definition of a lamb? Well, severe thunderstorm risk,
potential tornadoes, heavy rains, high limbs pale. I did say

(02:07):
that though the snow in the west, snow and ice
in the upper Great Lakes, all heck's breaking leaves a lamb.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
You ever seeing the lamb jump and skip and hop
They can jump straight up in the air. There they're
calm as can be in and all of a sudden
they're three feet off the ground twisting and turning.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Must be an energetic lamb.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Actually that lambs are fun to watch, you They just
sit down and watch. They just they are fun to watch. No,
I said, like, is it a lamb? Because I think
of cold weather and the lamb going out like a lion.
But you know, then, I said, you know we got
some storms. Does that count? So yes, it does count.
So it's a lamb in some areas, lions and others.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
How's that that sounds good?

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Are you outside this morning?

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yes? Sixty seven degrees is about a half hour ago
when I checked.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Well, and hear the birds in the background, Oh.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Right now, yeah, Well I'm inside but my windows wide open,
so I have that nature effect, which is good look
for the arbor doctor. I have the nature effect in
the background. Of course, now I have an airplane effect
in the background, but that'll be gone in a minute.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
I'd be asleep, cool air, the wind that the birds
singing in the background.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
M m m.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
All right, let's get this thing going. Talking with Ron
Rothis' website arbordoctor dot com. I know you're a busy
man right now, being the ISA certified Master gardner and
of course the registered consulting arbist as well. So what
are you doing? What's like your main thing right now?
What are you seeing out there? Any ghosts of drought

(03:49):
pass by.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
The way, Lots of ghosts of drought passed, especially with
Norway spruce and some of the West generboviety varieties like
green giant and spring grove. You know, they're they're good trees,
but if you don't water, I'm during these droughts, it

(04:11):
doesn't work out very well. And I've seen some mature
specimens that are either have kind of random brown patches
in the in the canopy or you know, some of
them have thirty you have dead branches and some of
them are totally dead, so you know, time is going

(04:33):
to tell exactly how bad the damage is. But some
of these I've seen some you know, large Norway spruces
which looks like that had it, and it's you know,
it's not an insect or disease specifically, although you know,
a stressed plant can certainly become more more susceptible to that,

(04:55):
but you know, foundationally, it's it's from the droughts that
we've had, not just over the past year, but remember
over the past several years we've had autumnal droughts, and
in last year we had some summer drought as well,
and parts of parts of the High On West Virginia
had some of the worst droughts they've had in probably decades.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
So if you didn't do your watering in the fall,
like we kept screaming through the whole fall season, there's
a good chance again, time will tell you're going to
continue to see this browning, this flagging, maybe whole pieces,
maybe the whole plant as we go through the next
month or so. And I'm seeing it already. We're getting
emails and you know, the pieces here and there, and
you know, darn well, it's just you know, go and

(05:40):
clip them out and hopefully it doesn't continue on and
keep them water as needed. But you're right, and again
I stole that from you, and I continue to share
it and people like that. But ghosts of drought passed,
and that's exactly what that is.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah, And you know, this is the time of the
year when it really starts to become kind of range
when I get caught out to look at a dying
Norway spruce or araviti and you know, I'm sitting here
looking at the seven day weather forecast and we have
as much as five or six inches of rain, maybe
even more in parts of the Ohio Valley over the

(06:17):
next week. And so you go out and there's flooding
and there's you know, standing water everywhere and everything's wet.
And he asked, what's wrong with my tree? And you
say it's from the drought, and they're like, but it's
borne down rain. Yeah, but it's the goats of the
droughts passed. That's what happened before. You know, it's what
we need to need to kind of know what the

(06:37):
history is. And and it's not what they're going through
right now, it's what they've gone through over the past
several years. And for some trees when they have been
stressed by droughts, if the soil becomes really super saturated
for an extended period of time, that can actually exacerbate
the situation because you go, you have a tree that's

(06:59):
already stressed, already has physiological damage from the from the drought,
and then you get a really dry soil where the
where the you know, the the plant now goes I'm sorry,
really wet soil where the where the tree is sitting
in water or the roots don't have oxygen and remember

(07:22):
roots need oxygen and moisture to survive, and uh, and
then you end up with just a compounded problem. You know,
the the roots are suffocating from being too wet, after
the plant was damaged from being too dry, And people
ask me what killed it? Was it too wet or
too dry? And I'll just look at him and say yes,

(07:45):
because it's some of both.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, no doubt. Talking with Ron roethas he is the
arbor doc. His website is arbordoctor dot com. When you
go out and see these plants, I mean, you know,
as we come out of the winter, I've seen a
lot of laurels that have the leaves of turned brown.
Stems are still good and the buds still seem good,
but the browning. I see a boxwood that were sheared
in late summer, new growth came out, lost all that

(08:10):
new growth over the wintertime. You know, some of these
arborvity with a little bit of flagging here and there.
Going to clip it out should be okay. Do you
know a lot of folks have a tendency to want
to fertilize, to push this plant back out and get
it rejuvenated and start it all over again. Do you
recommend feeding these plants as we come out of the
wintertime and we see it a little bit of the

(08:32):
foliage damage on there, you know, do you go back
in and do a little bit of feeding.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
I would say a qualified yes. You really want to
be careful not to use a lot of nitrogen on
trees and shrubs like that, because the nitrogen forces growth,
and when the plant is already depleted and you're telling
it you need to grow more, you're basically telling it

(09:02):
you need to spend the more out of your rainy
day bank account. If your rainy day bank account is
already depleted, you're going to go to the zero balance
and then the trees or plant is really in trouble.
So organic fertilizers and lower nitrogen fertilizers that are adding
some feeding some of the microbes in the soil, things

(09:24):
like that are probably beneficial. I would be just as
you know, I really think one of the you know,
just as as beneficial. And certainly you want to wait
until the soils dry out a little bit, but you know,
making sure they have good mulch going into the summer,
it's going to be as beneficial as anything. But yeah,

(09:46):
a little bit of fertilization this time of the year
with the stress plants is okay, but again stay away
from the nitrogen and kind of concentrate on feeding the
microbes in the soil and you know, things like that.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
So the organic and of course you organ if you're
gonna a little bit slower release, easy feed helps the
things that are alive and the soil continue on as well.
So organic fertilizers highly recommended by the arbor doc if
you need to do that, and then now's the time
to get out and get that taken care of.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yes, uh, now would be fine.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, I mean it's a perfectly fine time of the
year to do that. The thing about the organic fertilizers
is they're not as dependent on timing. Uh you know,
if you, if you, when we used to use a
lot of fertilizers that had a lot of high nitrogen
in them, we'd always say it, don't fertilize later in

(10:46):
the summer into the fall, because you'll push a lot
of late season growth that could get frozen into the winter.
If you're not using a fertile if you if you're
not using a fertilizer he has all a nitrogen in it,
You're not going to be pushing a lot of growth,
So that becomes less of a problem even if it

(11:08):
is fall. Of course it's not fault right now. So
you know, really timing is not a it's not real
sensitive to timing.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Got it. And again, if folks are thinking about you're
talking about like it'spoma is an example, they're a mill
organized example. There those types of fertilizers that are all
natural law organic. All right, take a quick break, we
come back talking with Ron Rothis the arbor doc. His
website is arbordoctor dot com. Be sure and check it out.
Lots of great plant information tree information as well as

(11:36):
weather information that you just you Once you get started,
you can't stop reading quick Greick. We come back more
with Ron. Roethis here in the garden with Ron Wilson help.

Speaker 4 (11:47):
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Speaker 1 (15:10):
Welcome back here in the garden with Ron Wilson, getting
that toll free number eight hundred eight two three eight
two five five. Talking with Ron rothis the arbor dock,
talking about trees. Wow, a little bit.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Of budget get the bogie joe introduction.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, a little bit of buggy joe there. Yeah, I'm
dusting it off, so I got to use it occasionally
yet Yeah, when you ever he decides to come back
on with us.

Speaker 8 (15:36):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Anyway, talking about what we're seeing from coming out of
the winter time with some of the trees and evergreens
especially out there right now, which unfortunately we're seeing some
leftovers from the fall, the ghosts of drought pass. So
all right, let's take a look at the weather right now.
Obviously I said, going out like a lamb. Uh, depending
on what kind of storms we get hopefully, you know,

(15:59):
they're got two. But as we start to look at April,
which kicks in on Monday, Tuesday, Monday Tuesday, whatever, what
are you seeing over the next two or three four
weeks as we go into the heavy spring season.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
And didn't I say that we were going to have
kind of an early.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Spring this year, you did?

Speaker 3 (16:15):
I think that looked out fairly well. But in any case,
as we go forward, this is not the only severe
threat that we have this week. For tomorrow, there is
a severe threat over a large area of the Mississippi
Valley up into the Ohio Valley. There could be some
tornadoes and certainly severe thunderstorms in heavy rain and hail.

(16:39):
But there's another strong system that's going to be coming
through the middle of this week. It's going to be
just as efficient at producing severe weather, and this one's
going to kind of stall out right now, it looks
like in the Ohio Valley and could produce multiple rounds
of very heavy rain, so that by the end of
the week, area from about Memphis, Tennessee, up through Louisville

(17:03):
and Cincinnati could have six inches or more rain.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
In some spots.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
So flooding is going to become a concern. Certainly, severe
weather is going to be a concern. You know, there
will be a severe thunderstorms, damaging wind threat, and potentially
a tornado threat in some areas. That's a little bit
conditional for tomorrow in the Cincinnati area, but certainly I
think we will see some tornadoes somewhere in the central

(17:30):
and east central part of the country tomorrow and Monday,
even towards the east coast. So a very very active pattern.
It looks like as we get toward the following week,
things might settle down a little bit and cooler weather
may start to move into a good part of the country,

(17:53):
taking us back near normal. We could have a few
nights that could get near free but nothing you know,
really extraordinary, it looks like at this point. But it
looks like the next week or so is going to
be really active and you know, just about everything that
Mother Nature can throw at us. And interestingly, this morning,

(18:16):
as we speak, there is a significant winter storm underway
up in the Upper Peninsula Michigan, where they're getting some
damaging ice as well as a couple areas of snow.
I think it's mainly a freezing rainstorm, but winter is
still hanging on up in the Northern Great Lakes this morning.
So a lot of stuff going on this morning and

(18:38):
this week.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
I kind of envision you, as you know, like in
the basement with all these monitors and all these things
around you, like a mad scientist, just like wringing your
hands and going, oh look at that front, Oh look
at that one coming over there.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
I don't have multiple monitors, but I do kind of
get like that sometimes, so that probably is an apt description.
But yeah, other than all that excitement this week, I
guess it is kind of a lamb wants nothing going on.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Thank you so much, so we partially agree on them.
By the way, your Plant Health Your plant Health newsletter
very good. I don't remember getting number one, but I
did get number two, and then I printed out number
one and I'm up to date. But I'm just curious,
what will they say about you?

Speaker 3 (19:25):
What will they say about me?

Speaker 1 (19:27):
Uh huh. My challenge to you today is ask yourself
the questions I posed in this article. Think about why
you're in this industry, what kind of a legacy would
you like to leave? And then it says what will
they say about you? What would you like them to say?

Speaker 3 (19:44):
I would like them to say that I was a
professional that did strived for the highest level of knowledge,
in the highest level of expertise, which you and I
both know. We're always learning, we're always growing, but you
know certainly don't want to fall into any type of
complacency or anything. So I'm always striving to learn more

(20:05):
and to grow.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
And I think it's what it's all about. And I
know you and I both say the same thing. I
learned something new literally every day in this industry. Every day,
something new, whether it's from you or research or whatever
out there or another landscape or gardener. But I learned
something new every single day, and I think that's always
exciting to have something new or something at least think about,

(20:28):
new concept or whatever. Ron Roth is always a pleasure.
Again his website arbordoctor dot com. Be sure and check
it out for both tree and plant care information as
well as the weather. Have a great weekend, sir.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
Same to use stay dry and watch the skies.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Wat's the lamb go out this past weekend. All right,
there we go. Coming up next, we got Kelly Norris's
book Your Natural Garden. Here in the Garden with Ron Wilson.

Speaker 4 (21:00):
Gardening questions. Ron has the answer at one eight hundred
eighty two three. Talk you are in the garden.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
With Ron Wilson. Hi, Ron Wilson here, Let me ask
you a question. Are you having problems with those hard

(21:28):
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Speaker 2 (21:34):
You know.

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(22:18):
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high yield kills all get some today. Welcome back here

(23:09):
in the Garden with Ron Wilson and our book of
the week this week. I'm telling you what is Let
me just say, when you read this book, if you're
not gardening doing more of a natural garden in your
landscaping endeavors, after you read this book and it's on
how to take care of your natural garden, you may
be convinced to start going that direction. I have to

(23:32):
admit that I read this book from front to back NonStop,
and I went back and read it reread it kind
of a quick read a second time because I absolutely
loved and I'm very jealous of his writing style. It's
written by Kelly Norris. Kelly is a award winning author.
He's a plantsman, formerly directed the horticulture and education the
Grand des Moines Botanical Garden. You've seen his works in

(23:55):
publications like New York Times and Better Homes and Gardens.
He writes for a lot of popular Gardening magazine, and
this Publications has all kinds of awards, and I'll tell
you why. He's got a great book right here. His
first book was a New Naturalism, and this one is
Your Natural Garden. It's the practical guide to caring for
your ecologically vibrant home garden. And Kelly is with us
this morning. Good morning, sir, oh, good morning.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Thanks for that introduction.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Hey, good to have you on our show. And I'm
going to tell you right up front your writing style.
I am jealous as heck.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Well, that's very kind of you.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Thank you. Just you carry people through from the mget
go to the end. I'm just like, and I'm liking
this cocoon and I'm just I'm totally engrossed in the
native or the gardens, the natural gardens and the hold
nine yards. You carried me through this and like I said,
I read a front to back NonStop. Then I went

(24:48):
back and kind of do a little speed reading, started
to take notes. Absolutely wonderful, i'mus, I am jealous.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
Heck well, well, thank you.

Speaker 9 (24:55):
You know, the book is hopefully a passport for people
as they're starting to explore maybe a new relationship they're
having with an ever increasingly popular kind of gardening.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah, and no doubt about it. And you know, as
I got as I finished it the first time, you know,
over over the years and I don't and I was
going to ask you where when you first started, what
you were like, but well, you know, I'm I'm still
more the landscape typical landscape designer when I'm doing design,
you know, with the regular landscapes and the beds and
the perennial gardens and things like that, but more and

(25:27):
more as we're looking to help our pollinators and recreating
these habitats. Obviously this all falls in with the with
the natural garden. And as I read through this book,
it just it just I don't know, it just invited
me more and more and more to start leading that
direction and get away from, you know, the typical landscape themes.
And I look to you and say, well, when you

(25:48):
first started doing this, Kelly, what were you just the
regular landscape horticultureless tight gardener and then kind of evolved
into this.

Speaker 9 (25:58):
Well, I've always had a fat with plants, both in
gardens from the time I was a kid, but also
with plants in wild places and their natural homes. And
you know, much of my career has been kind of
about seeing how much those two ends can meet.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
And you know, it was for me it was.

Speaker 9 (26:17):
In college when it started to sort of make sense
that there was, you know, an approach that that that
you know, led to the kind of gardens that we're
talking about in the book, that that you know, starts
to see gardens as less spaces that we control and
more as little little pieces of the patch patchwork quilt,

(26:38):
so to speak, that our world is in ecological terms.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
So it's it's it's certainly been a journey even.

Speaker 9 (26:45):
In my own life, but I've always had i think
an orientation towards thinking about, you know, maybe putting plants
in the lead first, so you know, look.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
At these the natural gardens. For folks that understand what
we're talking about here, can you just kind of briefly
describe everybody what is a natural garden versus a regular garden.

Speaker 9 (27:05):
I think of a natural garden as one that is
almost by default, very aware of that connection.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
To its place that I just mentioned.

Speaker 9 (27:14):
It's it's a garden that is, uh, you know, it's
perhaps intended to provide some complexity and habitat for the
great number of creatures that you know, we share the
planet with. And so you know, it's it's almost by
by its set up, by its intent, you know, headed
in a little different direction. But it's still a space

(27:34):
that's important for us to to relate to and to
interact with.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
And uh, you know, for those reasons, it's a it's
still a garden that needs.

Speaker 9 (27:43):
To reflect you know, uh, the aesthetic experience people want
to have with it.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
So it's a lot of things. Actually it's not. It's
not a place where where we're limiting our options.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
You use the word wild, I mean, is it is it?
Can I consider an the natural garden somewhat of a
wild garden?

Speaker 2 (28:03):
You certainly could.

Speaker 9 (28:04):
You know, Wildness is an interesting.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Word in our culture. You know, what does wild mean?
There's a whole essay about that in the book, actually,
you know.

Speaker 9 (28:12):
And so but oftentimes, yes, I think people look at
gardens like this and feel like there's they.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Have a wild heart. You might say that there's.

Speaker 9 (28:20):
That there is a space where you know, plants and
nature are in the lead.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
As you've been doing this and Kelly Norris is with
us this morning. Is latest book, is Your Natural Garden,
A Practical Guide to caring for an ecologically vibrant home garden.
As you have been doing this through the years and
now out talking about writing books about it, have you
found the acceptance of doing these natural gardens becoming more
acceptable than they may have been ten or fifteen years ago.

Speaker 8 (28:49):
Oh, I absolutely think so. You know, I'm increasingly surprised
by just exactly who we get calls from in our practice.
I mean, my work in a day to day basis,
you know, is running an ecological landscape design studio.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
And you know, we're very small.

Speaker 9 (29:08):
We work all over the place, but we work in
public and private places of kind of all scales, and
it's it's it's amazing to see, uh, you know, kind
of the reorientation of a lot of people towards towards
these ideas and just becoming more aware of how our gardens.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Are connected to the world around us.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
You know, as I look through this and again, I
am just I'm just leaning more toward doing this more
and more in my own yard and garden. But you know,
choosing and designing, choosing the plants and designing this and
putting it together is one thing, but then of course
taking care of it is another. And that's what this
book is all about.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
That's right.

Speaker 9 (29:48):
You know, the book that precedes this new naturalism was
really more or less the design books that starts to
get people thinking about kind of how to go about
getting one of these sorts of gardens started. And this
is where you know, this book ticks up where that
left off, because it obviously if you you head in
this new direction, at some point you start to go, well,
what's what's my job?

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Right?

Speaker 9 (30:07):
I mean, what do I do as a gardener now
and then? And that's what this book is really is
really trying to do, is help people think through a
series of uh themes and with a series of questions
about well, well, you know, you know there's an insect that.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Shows up, what do I do about that? Maybe maybe
I don't do anything.

Speaker 9 (30:24):
Maybe I asked a question and try to understand, you know,
what's happening there. And so it leads people through a
you know, I hope a process that helps them, you know,
maybe kind of reorient what gardening kind of means.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
You know, when I when I talk to folks that
are trying to do this or trying to develop the
metal the metal garden, you know, or the wildflower garden
or whatever it may be. One of the biggest things
that comes up right away is how do I know
what's a weed? And how do I how do I
deal with that? Right?

Speaker 9 (30:51):
Right? I mean, you know, it becomes that uh there,
there's there's a need clearly for us to you know,
deepen our knowledge about you know, plants that might be
in our midst and that we may not have names for, right,
I mean, that's right. You know, it's one of the
rules in our gardens if you can't if you can't
name it, you can't pull it, like because if you
can't name it, how would you know? And so that

(31:12):
you know, there's luckily there's you know, there's a great
number of uh you know, we'd id apps and tools
and these kinds of things that are helping people I think,
just expand their you know, awareness and knowledge about these things.
But yes, there there becomes a point where you know,
the gardener is still you know, very essential. I mean,
you're you're you're the you're the judge and referee out
there and deciding you know, who persists and and who doesn't.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
The first book is New Naturalism. The second book is
Your Natural Garden Practical Guide, to caring for area ecologically
vibrant home garden. Kelly Norris is the author. He is
with us this morning. Let's take a quick break. We
come back. So many questions, so little time here in
the garden with Ron Wilson.

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Speaker 1 (33:57):
Welcome back, You're in the Garden with Ron Wilson Special
guests this morning. Kelly norris first book is New Naturalism.
I highly recommend to get that, read it first, and
then come back with the newest book, Your Natural Garden,
A Practical Guide to caring for an ecologically vibrant home garden.
Absolutely wonderful. I'm telling you what. This is a great read.
You will love The way he writes is phenomenal. You

(34:18):
will get engrossed in this book and you will not
put it down until you finish it. Obviously. The photographs
and illustrations are phenomenal as well. I love that I
open up one of these, it's a two page of
the twenty twenty five Perennial of the Year Smooth Mountain Mint.

Speaker 9 (34:35):
Yes, indeed there's you know. It is a book that
features a lot of different kinds of images from a
lot of different kinds of places.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
I think that's an important point too.

Speaker 9 (34:44):
You know, the book is is you know, is a
conceptual thing, right, We're trying to talk about, you know,
topics that apply to a lot of people in a
lot of places.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
So you know, you're in Ohio, I'm in des Moines, Iowa.

Speaker 9 (34:55):
There's obviously a lot of things that are different about
our places, but there are still fun to that can
be applied in a variety of different kinds of natural burdens.
And we grow, we grow Cleet.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
Mountain into it's a it's a cool plant. I think
the other difference between our plants and the des Moines
ours aren't leaning a little bit from the wind.

Speaker 9 (35:16):
Well, gosh, it was a windy, windy day yesterday in
the garden. My gosh, I dispensed early on with.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
The need for a hat because I couldn't keep it
on my head.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
I don't know, you guys, put I was there. I've
been there a couple of times, been to Aimes a
couple of times, and of course you're flying to Des
Moines and to drive up to Aims and it was
just like everything was like at a tilt. It's like, wow, yeah,
I mean wind all the time. Crazy stuff. By the way,
the one, the one picture that really caught my attention
that I thought was outstanding is that slope planting that
you did. Yeah, what is that in Indian Indianola. Wow,

(35:50):
that is that's phenomenal.

Speaker 9 (35:52):
Yeah, that's the Blank Performing Arts Center on the campus
of Simpson College. And you know there there's there's a
couple of folk of it in the book. More on
our website which is Kellydinaris dot com. But you know,
a lot of folks deal with slopes, right. Everybody seems
to have a hillside or a slope or you know,
something in their backyard and trailing off to to somewhere else, and.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
It's they can be very challenging to deal with.

Speaker 9 (36:15):
And certainly that project pretty massive scale and a you know,
kind of a college campus setting but about a half
an acre planting. But you know, gives us a nice
project to talk about and show people's solutions for how
to think about stabilizing slopes and doing so in a
beautiful way.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
Now let me ask you this. You know, I look
at these and then I look at the the common
landscaping out there and you know, obviously we have the
hedges to trim and all that, and the weeding to
do and all that. Then I look at all these plants,
My first inclination would be is one is? And obviously
this is how your book addresses this. But does it?
Is it more? It would seem to me that would

(36:51):
be more maintenance with these than with a regular landscape.
But it's quite the opposite.

Speaker 9 (36:56):
It's you're exactly right, it is quite the opposite. Because
we're here and in this kind of setting managing you know,
a little collection of price specimens. We're leveraging the lives
of plants kind of in cohort in a complex system
to uh, you know, to produce the kinds of effects
that save us time and that save us kind of energy.

(37:18):
It's you know, in some ways you could say that,
you know, there's still very much a need for you know,
for good gardening and kind of good adjudication. What the weed,
what isn't, what stays, what goes? Uh, it's just the
effort and the labors are different, right, Like, there's still
there's still a need for a very active participatory role
of you know, you and your landscape, but it's less

(37:40):
about trying to control the lives of plants and more
leaning into letting them do some of the work.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Frankly, and again, you know, to do these obviously takes planning,
takes some homework putting them together. And I'm assuming once
you would start doing this type of gardening, which I
think is absolutely outstanding, is probably all always always on
the move as well, I mean, always changing, always adding
to you know, as you go through chism. Obviously you're

(38:08):
going to be replaying replacing some plants every now and
et cetera, et cetera. But boy, I'll tell you what.
And I look at this and I say, you know what,
what what's so cool about this is that it is
a natural garden. To sit back about six o'clock in
the evening on a lawn chair with my favorite beverage
and just sit there surrounded by this and watch the
show that's going to be put on by the birds

(38:30):
and the pollinators and everything else in the wildlife that's
going on, as well as the color and the flowers
and the movement and the whole nine yards.

Speaker 9 (38:38):
Well, I'm I'm you know, I'm standing here looking at it,
at one portion of our garden as we have this call,
and I mean, I you know, at this time of
the year, obviously it's you know, we've just finished the
cutting back of the garden, and I, like any other gardener,
look out and I see a list of chores and
things I need to do. But I will say, you know,
as we get through this sort of startup period in
the spring and we get more into the growing season.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
You know, somebody has.

Speaker 9 (39:01):
Asked me before, you know, what, what's your favorite garden activity,
And my answer is usually puttering. I just want to
be out there like you, like you described, you know,
sort of living with the space and noticing things and
observing things. And you know, gardening for me is my craft,
it's my art, and so I mean it's a very
I can't be in the garden and relax all that well.
To be honest, I'm usually pretty active, but I don't

(39:25):
always have to be busy. I can I can just
take time to sort of notice, you know, the incredible
array of life that's that's around us because of the way.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
We garden, you know what, I'm exactly the same way
to actually sit down and spend you know, an hour
or two just sitting there. I have a hard time
doing that. Yeah, I have to get up and go
do that, and go over to that plant and do this,
and go to move that around and do whatever. So
I'm with you on that one, you know, as we
look at this, and Kelly de Norris is our guest
this morning. He's the author of New Naturalism, an outstanding book.

(39:55):
And then the follow up is your natural Garden how
to take care of it basically, and again you'll be inspired,
trust me, by both of these to look to doing
this more and more in your gardens and your landscapes.
Is this something that can also be adopted and you
may have done this already on rooftop gardens like at
hospitals and businesses and all where we're seeing more of

(40:16):
the rooftop gardening to do this natural garden as well.

Speaker 9 (40:19):
Yes, yes, and there is there is you know, an
increasing body of uh you know, kind of research about
how to go about doing those things. Obviously, green roofs
have interesting challenges and you know, in terms of how
much media they can have and all this sort of stuff.
But but you know, there is increasingly, uh you know,
applications for thinking about you know, doing more than just

(40:41):
you know, you know, twenty years ago and people talk
about green roofs. They were talking about seedom up on
the roof, right, that was it, That was kind of
the only game in town. And now now, of course,
we're taking some of these same ideas and taking them
up up.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
There as well, and finding in.

Speaker 9 (40:53):
Fact that there's even ecological benefits to putting up on
a roof. I mean there's still pollinators on the impend.
How high up we're talking, I mean there's still things
moving at that level of level of the world. So yes, definitely.
I think what we're seeing is, you know, almost into
a realm of what some folks might call green infrastructure,
where we're applying these ideas to you know, maybe act

(41:17):
in partnership with some of the more traditional engineered built
ways that we've gone about, you know, putting these systems
into the world.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
You know, we were talking earlier about you're talking about the
wheeze and things like that. What about insect issues? What
about critters? I mean, you know there are deer and
rabbits and groundhogs and things that like to devour these
plants as well. You know, do you work how do
you work around that? Or you just try to find
more critter resistant plants when you're doing.

Speaker 9 (41:45):
This absolutely, but Ron, I have to say you doing this,
this is right now, you know, hour behind you also,
we're and then there's sort of predawn hours here and
I've seen two deer, a raccoon, and at least three rabits.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
And the time we've just been on the phones.

Speaker 9 (42:00):
I mean, you know, the life moves in our midst right.
You couldn't have asked a better question because I'm sitting
here watching it my my dining room window. But you know,
so we're certainly, you know, not immune to that. In fact,
where our garden is, uh, you know, on the north
side of Des Moines, I mean we're only a quarter
mile from the Des Moines River, which is our major
regional river system. I mean, we're lucky we've got great
green space as an immediate neighbor. But it does mean

(42:23):
that that, you know, our garden is very much.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
An extension of that habitat.

Speaker 9 (42:27):
And so you know, gardeners love to slice nature up
into good nature and bad nature, right, and so but
there's there's only one. So you have to kind of
decide at first how how you're going to live with
some things, and then and then you know, as it
comes to deer and things that like to browse.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
And eat, you know you can you can shift.

Speaker 9 (42:46):
The buffet, right, you can sort of tilt things the
you know, away from what.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
They're most interested in. That works sometimes it's not full proof.

Speaker 9 (42:54):
But the other thing I always say about that is
when you're gardening like this, you know you're not necessarily
growing one or two or three of something.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
You might be growing five or nine or thirteen of
something because you're growing them in bigger groups.

Speaker 9 (43:07):
And you know, if a deer eats a couple of those,
are you really going to get all bent out of shape?
I mean it's you know, it's a small slice of
what maybe what you're you're fielding out there.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Kelly D. Norris, it's an honor to have you on
our show. The two books get the first one it's
New Naturalism, and then the follow up is Your Natural Garden,
A Practical Guide to caring for an ecologically vibrant home Garden.
I guarantee you they are both wonderful reads, very inspirational.
You will love them. And of course your your website
is Kellydanorris dot com. Correct, that's right, so you can

(43:39):
go to check it out his website as well. But
the books are absolutely wonderful. Thanks for spending time with
us this morning. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Thanks, Ron, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
I take care, Kelly D. Norris your natural garden. I'm
telling you, you read through this book and you see
the pictures, and you see what can be done, and
the philosophy and all behind it, and what he said
has to say. It makes you think a couple of
times about what you're doing in your own yard and gardens.
Eight hundred eight two three eight two fivey five. That's

(44:08):
our number here in the Garden with Ron Wilson. How
is your garden growing?

Speaker 4 (44:18):
Call Ron now at one eight hundred eighty two three.
Talk you're listening to In the Garden with Ron Wilson.