On this week's episode, host Phil Tower welcomes Rick Vuyst and Stacey Hirvela, hosts of the radio show and podcast Gardening Simplified from Proven Winners ColorChoice Shrubs.
Rick and Stacey are life-long gardeners, and on every episode of Gardening Simplified, their passion is to share their love of plants and gardening.
Rick and Stacey shared their backgrounds with Phil. They talked about the show in general, including many of the more popular topics they've covered on previous episodes of Gardening Simplified. On every episode, Rick and Stacy cover a variety of topics suitable for beginning gardeners or long-time garden landscape experts. They stress that, regardless of your experience level, they'll have something interesting, useful, and helpful in every episode. Gardening Simplified is heard on WOOD Radio in Grand Rapids, at 106.9 FM/1300 AM on Saturdays at 9 am and Sundays at 7 pm.
You can also watch the show on YouTube, or listen on iHeartradio or your favorite podcast app.
Online: Gardening Simplified
Rick and Stacey are life-long gardeners, and on every episode of Gardening Simplified, their passion is to share their love of plants and gardening.
Rick and Stacey shared their backgrounds with Phil. They talked about the show in general, including many of the more popular topics they've covered on previous episodes of Gardening Simplified. On every episode, Rick and Stacy cover a variety of topics suitable for beginning gardeners or long-time garden landscape experts. They stress that, regardless of your experience level, they'll have something interesting, useful, and helpful in every episode. Gardening Simplified is heard on WOOD Radio in Grand Rapids, at 106.9 FM/1300 AM on Saturdays at 9 am and Sundays at 7 pm.
You can also watch the show on YouTube, or listen on iHeartradio or your favorite podcast app.
Online: Gardening Simplified
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend a public affairsprogram. Hey it's West Michigan Weekend from
iHeartRadio. Thank you so much fortuning in, and I'm your host,
Phil Tower. We're with you everySunday on all of the iHeartRadio stations across
West Michigan, and we are alsoavailable on the iHeartRadio app. We're a
podcast too. After you hear thisprogram on the radio, you can download
(00:29):
it get all of our episodes atwoodradiodot com. And boy am I excited
to invite these two people. We'rein studio, which we don't get to
do a lot, but when wehave big shows, we got to do
them in studio. So it isa great pleasure to welcome into the program
the hosts of the Gardening Simplified Show. It's both a radio show and a
(00:52):
podcast from proven winners Color Choice Shrubsand it has been going strong now for
well over. It's is it twoyears? Guys? How long? Going
on? Two years? Going ontoo? Okay, year and a half.
Time flies when you're talking green.It's a pleasure to welcome to the
microphone to my left as you're keepingscore at home. Rick Weist and Stacy
(01:17):
Hervella. They are Gardening simplified showhosts and they are in studio with us
to talk about the garden, becausewell it is mid May, it's Mother's
Day actually, as you're hearing thisconversation on the radio. First of all,
Rick Weist, your a familiar voiceto these airwaves. Welcome to the
program. Well, thank you verymuch, appreciate that, and in you,
(01:40):
Stacy Hervella, hopefully are familiar voice. The program Gardening simplifies airzon Wood
Radio News radio would one oh sixpoint nine FM, thirteen hundred AM Saturday
mornings at nine am, and thenthis podcast as well. Stacy, What
should our listeners know about you?Stacy? This is your life? Okay.
(02:01):
First of all, you're with provenwinners Color Choice shrugs, yes,
and you are a gardening person allyour life, right. Yes. So
I started out enjoying gardening just asa hot kind of hobby, and I
was earning my bachelor's degree in linguisticsat the University of Michigan. One day,
one beautiful spring day, staring outthe window, going now, what
am I going to do with thisdegree? And all of a sudden it
(02:24):
dawned on me that I could gointo horticulture as my career, that I
enjoyed it and that it was actuallya viable career option. So at that
moment, the breaks came on andI moved to New York City to go
to the New York Botanical Garden Schoolof Professional Horticulture. That's where I got
my professional training. And now Iget to help people garden using proven Winner's
(02:44):
Color Choice shrubs and through the GardeningSimplified Show, whatever gardening endeavor they're involved
in, from linguistics to gardening.What were you going to do with linguistics?
I don't know. That's a greatquestion, and yes it was many
years ago, but I was justinterested in it. You know, I
was really fascinated by the phenomenon oflanguage, and so, you know,
(03:05):
I just wanted to study it.But I will say that, you know,
definitely, studying something like that andwriting a lot of papers, taking
in a lot of different information andparsing it in a way that you can
recommunicate it back to someone makes alot of sense and works very well with
my job. Now, good,and you're with a guy who likes puns.
Is that annoying or you know Ithink that Rick, if I might
(03:28):
be mistaken, but I think thathe has curtailed his punniness a bit on
our show compared to the previous show. You know, we have a YouTube
version as well, and so peopleare able to leave their comments, which
is not something you could necessarily havehad under the old show. So you
know, if you're familiar with YouTubecomments at all, people don't hold back,
So he doesn't want to risk it. Okay, all right, and
(03:50):
that's that's good. Is she beingaccurate? You do? Yeah? And
good Phil. It's just been amazingto work with Stacy and what she does
for folks. As far as educatingthe general public and gardening. I'm more
of an you know me, I'mmore of an entremneur. Okay. I
(04:10):
operate by the seat of my plants, and I think it works. They
are yeap, it does work.But you know one thing about Rick.
He may have cut down on thepuns, but if you've listened to the
show, he's introduced a new segmentwhere he writes a poem, a limb
of Rick as it were, forevery episode, So he's still getting his
you know, his rhymes and histhings in there, and people do love
those and every day every episode hemanages to make them fit with our theme.
(04:33):
It's pretty amazing. So even ifyou haven't heard Gardening Simplified and the
Radio, it is a podcast,you can get it wherever you listen to
your podcast. You guys have donewell over the episode that just came out
yesterday and was on Wood Radio oniHeartRadio. What episode number was that?
I think that's ninety. Yeah,it's close to ninety. We're right about
(04:54):
ninety. Okay, so about datea milestone, which is fantastic. I
do know, and for full disclosure, I do I have some title with
this show. I'm just basically theguy who checks in with these guys about
once a year to make sure they'redoing all the best practices. And you
know, if you had those studentswho had independent study in college, you
just met with them like once ayear to make sure they were showing up.
(05:15):
That's the way Ricky Stuffs are.They're really great students and they're really
great at what they do. SoI guess the biggest question is people listening
to us whether they are just thinkingabout starting a garden or they're like really
hardcore into growing a gardening garden andreally taking care of their landscape and their
gardening everything. Is this show foreverybody from beginner to expert? Or who
(05:40):
is the target audience for gardening simplified? It's a great question, and I
would say it is for everybody fromfrom beginner to expert, because we do
have a lot of introductory material wherewe're talking about a topic, but we're
also you know, between our twoexperiences, we're able to introduce ideas and
concepts and facts that I think alot of people, even who have been
gardening a really long time, findinteresting. And we also take listener questions,
(06:02):
which you know, then we're dealingwith people from all sorts of different
skill levels, right, And that'sa great thing about gardening. I mean,
it crosses over all boundaries, allcultures. People can relate to gardening,
whether you believe you're a skilled gardeneror not. You know, I
was listening to an interview with JerrySeinfeld just this past week and he was
(06:23):
talking about one of the greatest thingsyou can do in life is acquire a
skill. And I've always been theperson who has told people, you know,
go out there and kill some plants. If you haven't killed any plants,
you're not trying hard enough. That'sthe beauty of gardening. You can
get your hands in the dirt.I think that there's a reason why the
(06:45):
bulk of centenarians across the world havea common characteristic, and that is their
gardeners. Right, so you actuallylive longer if you're out. I think,
so getting in a dirt, beingactive, it's kind of a low
impact aerobic exercise, or it canbe high impact if you're hauling you know,
really big bags of soil around witha wheeled barrow. So you guys
(07:06):
cover a lot of different topics.I've got a lot of questions, I
mean, and it is, asStacy said, it's for all level gardeners.
I guess one of the questions I'mwondering, are there trends in gardening?
I mean, some of the thingsthat you've been having come up over
and over again. And I'll startwith you, Stacy. Any anything that's
been hot in twenty twenty four andwe're only about four months at a few
(07:29):
days into the year. Yeah,you know, with social media, trends
can spread like wildfire, whereas beforethey had to take a long time to
spread. So native plants is justa huge trend right now and people are
very interested, but they don't necessarilyknow how to approach it. So that's
one of the ways we come inis you know, what are those first
steps that you can take. Isit planting something that is a native species?
(07:49):
Is it learning more about what youcan plant? That is always huge?
And container gardening, I mean that'sreally never gone away, It's only
gotten bigger. But container ardening letspeople who have any size space actually have
a little garden. You know,all you need is someplace to put that
container. And that's another way Ithink we can really serve people with inspiration
and ideas and advice and really celebratingtheir successes. Yeah, and I believe
(08:13):
Phil you know, Tim Wood withproven winners color Choice shrubs, he would
say that we live in the goldenage of plant breeding. And I'm amazed
at the cultivars and varieties developed byproven winners and proven winners color choice shrubs.
(08:33):
The genetics are unreal and I thinkwe've come so far. You know,
when I broke into the garden centerindustry over forty years ago, the
plant material then available was nothing likewe have available today, and just something
as simple as petunias. You lookat petunias. Boy, when I worked
(08:54):
in the garden center, I hateddeadheading those crazy things, and today they
just bloom their heads off their selfcleaning Stacy. I almost feel like like
it's a not miss, it's aplant you can't miss with. Yeah,
with the cultivars available, definitely.And that's a good point because you know,
people don't think of gardening as aninnovative type of practice, and it
(09:16):
really is, and plant breeding isjust one of those ways. But in
our industry, people are constantly innovatingnew ideas, new products, new techniques
and things that really help people findmore success than they would have in the
past. Yeah, and Phil,you know, COVID changed everything also,
and you take a look at gardeningtrends, for example, cut flower gardens
(09:37):
just having flowers in your garden thatyou can bring inside and enjoy one of
the many trends in gardening. SoCOVID did have a huge impact the year
twenty twenty on what it is wedo and the approach that we take,
so you can do a garden insideif you've got good light to an extent,
right, ye, Well, ofcourse, the and interest in houseplants
(10:01):
has been unreal over the last fourfive, ten years, and as Stacy
mentioned, I think platforms like Instagramis what drove that. Yeah, and
you know, grow lights, indoorgrow lights have gotten so much more affordable.
You know, back when I startedin gardening, if you had a
grow light, you were like rich, Like you were you had the money.
(10:22):
It's a really fund your hobby,or you were growing something that was
illegal, which might have also madeyou rich. Yeah, whereas now you
can get a little grow light andbe growing herbs and even some edibles and
flowers and houseplants, even in areally dark home. And that it's just
part of the innovation that there's newproducts and new ways to think about things
(10:43):
that have always been done, andthat just makes it so dynamic and so
vibrant. Right instead of she shedsor man sheds in the backyard, people
are putting in greenhouses. It's verycommon consumer greenhouses. And they're just really
getting into this because, as shejust said, people want and grow stuff
they can eat. They want tofeel like they're self sustaining, and that
(11:03):
is a powerful thing. You know, you've done a lot of different topics.
By the way, we're talking withRick Weist and Stacey Hervella, host
of Gardening Simplified. They do havea website you can check out all the
episodes. They've got a top tenplants list. I don't know if that's
kind of like the NFL draft thatjust wrapped up and they draft plants.
But you can see their top tenlists. Gardening Simplified on Air dot com.
(11:24):
Gardening Simplified on air dot com Andif you don't know how to spell
that, just google it and you'llyou'll find it. Just google Gardening Simplified
on Air and you will find it. But you've kind of a lot of
different topics. You did one onblue plants, which got me to thinking,
I've never really thought about that.We think about plants being green.
(11:46):
Tree start off as green, butthere are some things that are different colors,
like red, Like well, rubarbis part red, right, yeah,
and then it turns green. Butthere are blue plants. Why are
the things that are not green?This is kind of like ask, you
know, the scientists or the linguisticexpert, do we know why there are
(12:07):
blue plants and things are different thanblue or green? Yes, the flowers
are different colors to attract different pollinators. Okay, so you know bees,
which are a very important pollinator,tend to be attracted more to yellow but
different pollinators moths, all these otherinsects. Even flies can be pollinators,
butterflies, they're attracted to different colors. And the way that an insect sees
(12:31):
that plant is much different than theway we see it. So even if
we perceive, oh, it's justa blue flower, if you were to
look at it, you know,and be able to see the same light
wavelengths that an insect can, yousee it totally different. But it really,
as much as we like flowers tolook at them, the flower only
exists to get pollinated by an insector wind or whatever that mechanism is.
Are there some things that start witha stalk or a stem that are not
(12:54):
green? Well, if you thinkabout it, phil I mean, you
think about chlorophyll, and you know, if that's the dominant pigment, the
plant is green. But think abouta simple tree you mentioned trees. As
the season progresses, the chlorophyll breaksdown and then less dominant pigments come to
the fore and we enjoy the fallcolors that we do. So, you
(13:16):
know, gardening to me is almostlike this great drama, this play and
these various colors and dynamics of plantstakes center stage at different points during the
season, and that's part of whatmakes gardening as exciting as it is to
me. Yeah, there's a lotto observe, and especially in spring,
(13:37):
a lot of colors are dependent ontemperature, so things tend to be a
little more colorful in spring, geta little more green in summer, and
then back to colorful and fall.You've talked about the power of you know,
science over the years and making plantsmore bug resistance, more disease resistant,
leaves that fall off automatically, hardier, all kinds of things, and
(13:58):
so much can be done in alab. I really hesitate to ask this
question, but I will on theradio. It has artificial intelligence yet made
its way into the world of gardeningand growing plants and houseplants. Good Lord
help us. But I would thinksomewhere somebody's thought of an application for artificial
(14:20):
intelligence, like let's look at thisplant ten years down the road from now,
or here's this tree and we're goingto run it through an AI filter,
and this was what it's going tolook like if you live in this
climate versus that climate. What dowe know about this, guys, and
you can say I cannot talk aboutit on the radio. Thank you,
next question. No, you know, Phil, I'm impressed because those are
(14:41):
all wonderful uses of AI that wouldactually benefit fit people. But unfortunately,
so far, mostly what I haveseen with AI in plants is scammers,
and they are creating these fake plantsusing an AI image generator and then offering
so called seed for them on Instagram, on Facebook, on social media sites.
(15:05):
I saw this topic on Gardening Simplified. I was looking at episodes of
which, by the way, they'vegot over what ninety plus. You got
to check it out because you guysactually did a show on online plant scams
have like okay, was this inApril? First show? And this is
fascinating, Yeah, putting pictures offake AI generated plants selling seeds so called
(15:30):
seeds, so called seeds. Oh, I can only imagine. That's like
people who sell and I just learnedabout this. You know, we are
going to actually have a show comingup on morel mushrooms. On this program,
we're going to talk to mister Mushroom. He runs a Facebook group,
but there are a lot of peopleonline selling moral mushroom seeds that may or
(15:50):
may not work. But seriously,people are falling for a scam of fake
online plants. Yeah they are,and I think that, you know,
they want to believe it's true.So these online plant scammers, they're they're
reaching for the sun. They're notjust like, oh, let's just pretend
that this you know, sunflower isbright purple instead of yellow. Oh no,
they're making up whole new plants thatlook like little kittens. They're making
(16:11):
up, you know, plants thatlook like monkeys all of these states.
You see. Really, people arefalling for this. Well they want it
to be true because it does lookreally cool, and they think, well,
you know, hey, they're onlythey're selling me, you know,
five seeds for ten bucks. What'sthe harm. Well, the harm is
that you're supporting a scammer. Andyou know the problem when people have a
bad gardening experience is they blame themselvestypically, and that's what we try to
(16:34):
avoid is to help people get overwhat seems like a setback, learn from
it, and move on. Yeah, Stacey's so right. You you put
it in the ground and then youbelieve, well, it must have been
my fault. It didn't work.So if you'd like. If you'd like
a donut plant, fill a plantthat produces donuts at the ready for you.
(16:56):
I'll send you a package of cheerios. Yeah, have you seen it?
Have you? Has anybody been curiousenough to just order some of these
fake seeds and see what they looklike? Oh? You have? And
what do they look like? Theylook like seeds? It's just dust in
a bag and right, yeah,it's I mean, think about the places
you can go. You can getpeppercorns, you could, you know,
(17:18):
get a watermelon and take the seedsout and just send them. And by
the time anyone says tries to findyou and say hey, you scammed me,
those scam companies are long gotten.This is the most fascinating. This
is why I wanted to have Rickand Stacy on West Michigan Weekend here on
iHeartRadio, because I knew I'd learnedsomething about plants that was just mind blowing.
And ai fake plants that people areactually falling for and buying seeds online
(17:41):
is pretty amazing. And at adonut plant, I'm just saying, would
be cool. A t bone steakplant would be cooler. I'm just saying.
So Rick and Stacy, somebody listeningto us, it's May and it
happens to Mother's Day. Happy Mother'sDay to you and yours. If somebody's
(18:03):
thinking about, Okay, this isthe year I'm going to start a garden.
I'm an empty nester, all mykids are out of the house,
my husband's playing golf. I wantto get out in the yard, or
I want to start small to acontainer garden. I mean, I would
think if it were me, Iwould be overwhelmed. First of all,
I'd be afraid of failing. Secondly, I would think, Okay, I
got a neighbor next door who's killingit. I don't want to look like
(18:25):
a fool. But it is avery collaborative thing. And I'll start with
you, Stacey, and Rick Fhilfordto chime in for somebody who's like deciding,
at age fifty five, I wantto go out and plant a garden
or start. Is it easier thanever to start and get started small and
kind of take it from there.Yeah, it's definitely easier to get started
small. But you're right that peopleare spoiled for choice, and so when
(18:47):
they go to the garden center,it's really easy to get overwhelm. Oh
yeah, and to just kind of, you know, have analysis paralysis.
But what I encourage someone to dois to just let yourself go to the
garden center if you can go maybeat the time it's not so crowded and
you don't feel so pressured, andjust browse and fall in love with something.
And to me, that is themost important first step in gardening is
(19:08):
falling in love with a plant,because you're so much more motivated to learn
about it, to care for it, to keep it alive, and you
know that first love. For me, that just that cements everything, and
so find the things that you like. You know, you can certainly do
all your research and learn everything youcan about our plants, proof of Winter's
plants and other plants. But whenit comes right down to it and you
(19:30):
go to the garden center and yousee something and you just have that I
have to have that feeling. That, to me is what's really going to
set you on that journey in away that it will stick and not just
be something you dabble in. Yeah, I'm with Stacy on that well ridded
advice she just gave you there,Phil, Because you ever walk into the
grocery store or walk down the cerealaisle overwhelming, right, So you find
(19:52):
something you like. And I alwaysrecommend the folks to do two things.
One start in bite size pace.I mean, what follows spring summer it
gets hot, right, we'd startto grow. You can quickly become discouraged.
So do it in bite sized pieces, and pay attention to the foundation.
The soil that you're planting in isvery, very important. So if
(20:15):
you do those two things, youprogressively grow. You know, I've been
involved in the garden center industry foryears and I can tell you that we
view the tomato plant and the pepperplant as the gateway drug to gardening.
If you have success in that,well, then odds are you're going to
try something else and then add somethingelse to your partfolio, so to speak.
(20:37):
Yeah, a lot of people dotomato plants, and it's pretty hard
to wreck one, especially if it'sin a pot. But now I was
just thinking about container gardening. Iknow a lot of people who have put
container gardenings, like on a deckraised higher because a lot of people,
as they get older, can't bendover as well. So you can do
gardening that's easier to reach, andyou know, like one of you is
(20:57):
saying, not getting overwhelm by weeds, not planning a big plot. Is
there a vegetable beyond a tomato ora pepper? Like, if I don't
like tomatoes or peppers, it's actuallyme. I like everything to do with
tomatoes except the actual tomato itself.If I don't like that, Is our
carrots easy? Is lettuce easy?What would you recommend if somebody said,
(21:18):
I want to grow something I caneat beyond tomato or pepper? What's easy?
Stacey? I mean, I dothink people need to have herbs,
because there is such a luxury tohave your own herbs, and no matter
what you're cooking, you've got somethingright out there. So I would say
herbs. But you know, lettuceis a great option because nothing beats homegrown
lettuce. You know, you canget some pretty okay lettuce in the grocery
store, but when you're harvesting ityourself, oh my gosh, it's night
(21:41):
and day. It's very fast andeasy to grow. It usually kind of
gives up by summer, but thenyou can just keep sewing and you'll have
another crop in fall. But whenyou have your own homegrown lettuce. It's
so tender, the textures so different, and you know, there's nothing like
having guests over and being like,oh the salad. Yeah, I agree
with that. Yeah, I lovethat, except real quickly, and we
could do a whole of the showon critters and pass. Yeah. Can
(22:04):
you rabbit proof or deer proof?Like, if you've got lettuce, rabbits
will eat all your lettuce down,oh yeah, and everything else. If
you're growing in the ground, yeah, you can just kiss it goodbye to
the rabbits or the slugs or something. But you were talking about containers,
and you know, a narrow windowbox, a thin window box, not
something that's terribly deep, is agreat choice. And you can put those
(22:26):
window boxes off the side of yourdeck and that is the perfect You really
only need, you know, perhapseight to ten inches of soil depth to
grow lettuce really really well. Andthen it's way up there on your deck
and you know, the rabbits canonly look at it sadly from the ground.
That's good. And if it's highenough, well, if you have
a deer coming that close to yourhouse, you've got a brave deer.
But you know, I do thinkabout rabbits having as a kid our garden
(22:51):
just being menaced by rabbits, andsome people do fences and people will go
to great links to keep the pestout. And speaking of that, did
are show on bugs, good bugs, bad bugs? Generally speaking? Bugs
are good for your garden generally speaking, but how do you know a good
bug from a bad bug? I'massuming there's an app for that. Probably
(23:14):
there probably is an app for that, but you know, really it's a
question of what you can tolerate interms of the damage. So there's bugs
that eat bugs. Those are goodfor your garden because they're going to prey
on the bugs that are eating yourplants. And then there's bugs that eat
plants, and so a lot ofthose insects that eat plants, you know,
sometimes they're just going to come by, take a little nibble, move
on, not that big of adeal. But then there's other ones like
Japanese beetles are a great example thatif they get into your garden, you
(23:37):
know, you can kiss a lotof what you were trying to grow goodbye,
and so that's going to have amuch lower threshold of tolerance of your
ability to tolerate some insects feeding inyour garden then, you know, just
a little bit. But people shouldnever freak out if they just see some
chewed leaves in their garden. That'sjust nature doing what it does right.
And it's easier, Rick than everto treat pests, bad bugs, and
(24:03):
other things with non chemical solutions.Fair enough to say, sure, I'm
in home depot the other day anda guy sticks a can of bug spray
in my face. He says,is this good for bugs? I'm like,
no, it'll kill him, youknow. So, yeah, there
are resources out there, and youknow, on the show, one of
the things we talked about in dealingwith bugs is educating yourself. Educating you
(24:26):
know, like Stacey said, somepeople will freak out if they see a
bug. No, it's very natural. So get an education, educate yourself
on bugs, and you'll deal withthem in a far more responsible manner.
As you mentioned phil ipm Integrated PestManagement. Okay, we've got a couple
of minutes left. Rick Feiss StaceyHervella hosts of Guarding Simplified, both a
(24:49):
radio show and a podcast from provenwinners Colored Choice Shrubs right here in West
Michigan and worldwide on the iHeartRadio appand wherever you get your podcasts. Gardenings
simplified on air dot Com. Okay, Stacy, this is the lightning round.
Best wisdom you would give a gardeneror maybe a tip for getting out
in the garden this year. Thiscould be something you guys covered recently on
(25:11):
podcasts. What wisdom would you sharewith someone wanting to get better in the
garden. Well, I would saythat it's okay to kill plants. It
might hurt a little bit, butyou can learn something from every plant that
you kill and get a lot betterat not killing plants. But you do
have to give yourself a room tomake those mistakes and just learn from them.
Okay, Rick, have good irrigationequipment. I hate hoses. I
(25:34):
hate dragging hoses around. Good irrigationequipment and comfortable clothes. Comfortable clothes.
What is a bad thing to wearin the garden. Oh, I don't
like wearing blue jeans in the garden. You know, I love wearing these
these flexible pants that are that arecomfortable but will provide coverage for you.
(25:56):
So I believe comfortable clothes, possiblya hat, great gloves. I think
that that's a key component. Becausewe did an episode on the joy of
gardening, and that's one of thecomponents of enjoying your garden. I thought,
for a moment you're gonna say youwore sports from that. That could
be a thing nothing you could poston social media. I don't know,
(26:18):
Rick, You've got quite a filingon social media. That could be a
whole topic. Have you guys donea gardening and fashion episode yet? Oh?
I don't know about fashion. I'mnot sure we're the best people to
talk about it, but we couldsee what we could work out. I
would tune in for that episode.What do you wear? I know you
did a show about nude gardening onetime, a long time World Naked Gardening
Day. Yeah that was last weekend. Yeah that's right. It was not
(26:42):
doing that, but I like that'sgood wisdom. Don't wear jeans, don't
wear something that's confined, don't gardenin high heels or a three piece suit
and a vest or something like that, because of the sun and cancer risk
and things like that. We're agood hat and things like that. Okay,
(27:02):
fair enough. This has been reallyenlightening and I got to about half
of my questions, so thank you. I hope this was not too uncomfortable.
You guys are used to asking allthe questions. Was that okay,
oh it was great. You dida great job. All right. So
everybody on the radio will hear thisand go yeah, I like this,
(27:22):
and I do want to encourage youto tune in. Not because I am
a big backer of these guys.I love what they do and they're really
super talented. But it is agreat podcast. It's a great radio show
again nine am Saturday morning. Youcan inherit live on one oh six point
nine FM, thirteen hundred and AMNews Radio would but you can also get
it as a podcast on your phone, on your probably on your smart speaker
(27:45):
anywhere. Just say hey, playme gardening simplified. Rick Feist, Stacy
Hervilla. This has been a lotof fun you guys, Thank you,
thank you. It's been a pleasure. They have been our guests. They
did make the cuts, so they'llget invited back again. They've been our
guests in this segment of West MichiganWeekend. In fact, that's our program
for this week. Thank you somuch for tuning in. Hey let's do
(28:06):
this again next week on this iHeartRadiostation. I'm Phil Tower. Thanks for
Listening iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend, apublic affairs program
iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend a public affairsprogram. Hey it's West Michigan Weekend from
iHeartRadio. Thank you so much fortuning in, and I'm your host,
Phil Tower. We're with you everySunday on all of the iHeartRadio stations across
West Michigan, and we are alsoavailable on the iHeartRadio app. We're a
podcast too. After you hear thisprogram on the radio, you can download
(00:29):
it get all of our episodes atwoodradiodot com. And boy am I excited
to invite these two people. We'rein studio, which we don't get to
do a lot, but when wehave big shows, we got to do
them in studio. So it isa great pleasure to welcome into the program
the hosts of the Gardening Simplified Show. It's both a radio show and a
(00:52):
podcast from proven winners Color Choice Shrubsand it has been going strong now for
well over. It's is it twoyears? Guys? How long? Going
on? Two years? Going ontoo? Okay, year and a half.
Time flies when you're talking green.It's a pleasure to welcome to the
microphone to my left as you're keepingscore at home. Rick Weist and Stacy
(01:17):
Hervella. They are Gardening simplified showhosts and they are in studio with us
to talk about the garden, becausewell it is mid May, it's Mother's
Day actually, as you're hearing thisconversation on the radio. First of all,
Rick Weist, your a familiar voiceto these airwaves. Welcome to the
program. Well, thank you verymuch, appreciate that, and in you,
(01:40):
Stacy Hervella, hopefully are familiar voice. The program Gardening simplifies airzon Wood
Radio News radio would one oh sixpoint nine FM, thirteen hundred AM Saturday
mornings at nine am, and thenthis podcast as well. Stacy, What
should our listeners know about you?Stacy? This is your life? Okay.
(02:01):
First of all, you're with provenwinners Color Choice shrugs, yes,
and you are a gardening person allyour life, right. Yes. So
I started out enjoying gardening just asa hot kind of hobby, and I
was earning my bachelor's degree in linguisticsat the University of Michigan. One day,
one beautiful spring day, staring outthe window, going now, what
am I going to do with thisdegree? And all of a sudden it
(02:24):
dawned on me that I could gointo horticulture as my career, that I
enjoyed it and that it was actuallya viable career option. So at that
moment, the breaks came on andI moved to New York City to go
to the New York Botanical Garden Schoolof Professional Horticulture. That's where I got
my professional training. And now Iget to help people garden using proven Winner's
(02:44):
Color Choice shrubs and through the GardeningSimplified Show, whatever gardening endeavor they're involved
in, from linguistics to gardening.What were you going to do with linguistics?
I don't know. That's a greatquestion, and yes it was many
years ago, but I was justinterested in it. You know, I
was really fascinated by the phenomenon oflanguage, and so, you know,
(03:05):
I just wanted to study it.But I will say that, you know,
definitely, studying something like that andwriting a lot of papers, taking
in a lot of different information andparsing it in a way that you can
recommunicate it back to someone makes alot of sense and works very well with
my job. Now, good,and you're with a guy who likes puns.
Is that annoying or you know Ithink that Rick, if I might
(03:28):
be mistaken, but I think thathe has curtailed his punniness a bit on
our show compared to the previous show. You know, we have a YouTube
version as well, and so peopleare able to leave their comments, which
is not something you could necessarily havehad under the old show. So you
know, if you're familiar with YouTubecomments at all, people don't hold back,
So he doesn't want to risk it. Okay, all right, and
(03:50):
that's that's good. Is she beingaccurate? You do? Yeah? And
good Phil. It's just been amazingto work with Stacy and what she does
for folks. As far as educatingthe general public and gardening. I'm more
of an you know me, I'mmore of an entremneur. Okay. I
(04:10):
operate by the seat of my plants, and I think it works. They
are yeap, it does work.But you know one thing about Rick.
He may have cut down on thepuns, but if you've listened to the
show, he's introduced a new segmentwhere he writes a poem, a limb
of Rick as it were, forevery episode, So he's still getting his
you know, his rhymes and histhings in there, and people do love
those and every day every episode hemanages to make them fit with our theme.
(04:33):
It's pretty amazing. So even ifyou haven't heard Gardening Simplified and the
Radio, it is a podcast,you can get it wherever you listen to
your podcast. You guys have donewell over the episode that just came out
yesterday and was on Wood Radio oniHeartRadio. What episode number was that?
I think that's ninety. Yeah,it's close to ninety. We're right about
(04:54):
ninety. Okay, so about datea milestone, which is fantastic. I
do know, and for full disclosure, I do I have some title with
this show. I'm just basically theguy who checks in with these guys about
once a year to make sure they'redoing all the best practices. And you
know, if you had those studentswho had independent study in college, you
just met with them like once ayear to make sure they were showing up.
(05:15):
That's the way Ricky Stuffs are.They're really great students and they're really
great at what they do. SoI guess the biggest question is people listening
to us whether they are just thinkingabout starting a garden or they're like really
hardcore into growing a gardening garden andreally taking care of their landscape and their
gardening everything. Is this show foreverybody from beginner to expert? Or who
(05:40):
is the target audience for gardening simplified? It's a great question, and I
would say it is for everybody fromfrom beginner to expert, because we do
have a lot of introductory material wherewe're talking about a topic, but we're
also you know, between our twoexperiences, we're able to introduce ideas and
concepts and facts that I think alot of people, even who have been
gardening a really long time, findinteresting. And we also take listener questions,
(06:02):
which you know, then we're dealingwith people from all sorts of different
skill levels, right, And that'sa great thing about gardening. I mean,
it crosses over all boundaries, allcultures. People can relate to gardening,
whether you believe you're a skilled gardeneror not. You know, I
was listening to an interview with JerrySeinfeld just this past week and he was
(06:23):
talking about one of the greatest thingsyou can do in life is acquire a
skill. And I've always been theperson who has told people, you know,
go out there and kill some plants. If you haven't killed any plants,
you're not trying hard enough. That'sthe beauty of gardening. You can
get your hands in the dirt.I think that there's a reason why the
(06:45):
bulk of centenarians across the world havea common characteristic, and that is their
gardeners. Right, so you actuallylive longer if you're out. I think,
so getting in a dirt, beingactive, it's kind of a low
impact aerobic exercise, or it canbe high impact if you're hauling you know,
really big bags of soil around witha wheeled barrow. So you guys
(07:06):
cover a lot of different topics.I've got a lot of questions, I
mean, and it is, asStacy said, it's for all level gardeners.
I guess one of the questions I'mwondering, are there trends in gardening?
I mean, some of the thingsthat you've been having come up over
and over again. And I'll startwith you, Stacy. Any anything that's
been hot in twenty twenty four andwe're only about four months at a few
(07:29):
days into the year. Yeah,you know, with social media, trends
can spread like wildfire, whereas beforethey had to take a long time to
spread. So native plants is justa huge trend right now and people are
very interested, but they don't necessarilyknow how to approach it. So that's
one of the ways we come inis you know, what are those first
steps that you can take. Isit planting something that is a native species?
(07:49):
Is it learning more about what youcan plant? That is always huge?
And container gardening, I mean that'sreally never gone away, It's only
gotten bigger. But container ardening letspeople who have any size space actually have
a little garden. You know,all you need is someplace to put that
container. And that's another way Ithink we can really serve people with inspiration
and ideas and advice and really celebratingtheir successes. Yeah, and I believe
(08:13):
Phil you know, Tim Wood withproven winners color Choice shrubs, he would
say that we live in the goldenage of plant breeding. And I'm amazed
at the cultivars and varieties developed byproven winners and proven winners color choice shrubs.
(08:33):
The genetics are unreal and I thinkwe've come so far. You know,
when I broke into the garden centerindustry over forty years ago, the
plant material then available was nothing likewe have available today, and just something
as simple as petunias. You lookat petunias. Boy, when I worked
(08:54):
in the garden center, I hateddeadheading those crazy things, and today they
just bloom their heads off their selfcleaning Stacy. I almost feel like like
it's a not miss, it's aplant you can't miss with. Yeah,
with the cultivars available, definitely.And that's a good point because you know,
people don't think of gardening as aninnovative type of practice, and it
(09:16):
really is, and plant breeding isjust one of those ways. But in
our industry, people are constantly innovatingnew ideas, new products, new techniques
and things that really help people findmore success than they would have in the
past. Yeah, and Phil,you know, COVID changed everything also,
and you take a look at gardeningtrends, for example, cut flower gardens
(09:37):
just having flowers in your garden thatyou can bring inside and enjoy one of
the many trends in gardening. SoCOVID did have a huge impact the year
twenty twenty on what it is wedo and the approach that we take,
so you can do a garden insideif you've got good light to an extent,
right, ye, Well, ofcourse, the and interest in houseplants
(10:01):
has been unreal over the last fourfive, ten years, and as Stacy
mentioned, I think platforms like Instagramis what drove that. Yeah, and
you know, grow lights, indoorgrow lights have gotten so much more affordable.
You know, back when I startedin gardening, if you had a
grow light, you were like rich, Like you were you had the money.
(10:22):
It's a really fund your hobby,or you were growing something that was
illegal, which might have also madeyou rich. Yeah, whereas now you
can get a little grow light andbe growing herbs and even some edibles and
flowers and houseplants, even in areally dark home. And that it's just
part of the innovation that there's newproducts and new ways to think about things
(10:43):
that have always been done, andthat just makes it so dynamic and so
vibrant. Right instead of she shedsor man sheds in the backyard, people
are putting in greenhouses. It's verycommon consumer greenhouses. And they're just really
getting into this because, as shejust said, people want and grow stuff
they can eat. They want tofeel like they're self sustaining, and that
(11:03):
is a powerful thing. You know, you've done a lot of different topics.
By the way, we're talking withRick Weist and Stacey Hervella, host
of Gardening Simplified. They do havea website you can check out all the
episodes. They've got a top tenplants list. I don't know if that's
kind of like the NFL draft thatjust wrapped up and they draft plants.
But you can see their top tenlists. Gardening Simplified on Air dot com.
(11:24):
Gardening Simplified on air dot com Andif you don't know how to spell
that, just google it and you'llyou'll find it. Just google Gardening Simplified
on Air and you will find it. But you've kind of a lot of
different topics. You did one onblue plants, which got me to thinking,
I've never really thought about that.We think about plants being green.
(11:46):
Tree start off as green, butthere are some things that are different colors,
like red, Like well, rubarbis part red, right, yeah,
and then it turns green. Butthere are blue plants. Why are
the things that are not green?This is kind of like ask, you
know, the scientists or the linguisticexpert, do we know why there are
(12:07):
blue plants and things are different thanblue or green? Yes, the flowers
are different colors to attract different pollinators. Okay, so you know bees,
which are a very important pollinator,tend to be attracted more to yellow but
different pollinators moths, all these otherinsects. Even flies can be pollinators,
butterflies, they're attracted to different colors. And the way that an insect sees
(12:31):
that plant is much different than theway we see it. So even if
we perceive, oh, it's justa blue flower, if you were to
look at it, you know,and be able to see the same light
wavelengths that an insect can, yousee it totally different. But it really,
as much as we like flowers tolook at them, the flower only
exists to get pollinated by an insector wind or whatever that mechanism is.
Are there some things that start witha stalk or a stem that are not
(12:54):
green? Well, if you thinkabout it, phil I mean, you
think about chlorophyll, and you know, if that's the dominant pigment, the
plant is green. But think abouta simple tree you mentioned trees. As
the season progresses, the chlorophyll breaksdown and then less dominant pigments come to
the fore and we enjoy the fallcolors that we do. So, you
(13:16):
know, gardening to me is almostlike this great drama, this play and
these various colors and dynamics of plantstakes center stage at different points during the
season, and that's part of whatmakes gardening as exciting as it is to
me. Yeah, there's a lotto observe, and especially in spring,
(13:37):
a lot of colors are dependent ontemperature, so things tend to be a
little more colorful in spring, geta little more green in summer, and
then back to colorful and fall.You've talked about the power of you know,
science over the years and making plantsmore bug resistance, more disease resistant,
leaves that fall off automatically, hardier, all kinds of things, and
(13:58):
so much can be done in alab. I really hesitate to ask this
question, but I will on theradio. It has artificial intelligence yet made
its way into the world of gardeningand growing plants and houseplants. Good Lord
help us. But I would thinksomewhere somebody's thought of an application for artificial
(14:20):
intelligence, like let's look at thisplant ten years down the road from now,
or here's this tree and we're goingto run it through an AI filter,
and this was what it's going tolook like if you live in this
climate versus that climate. What dowe know about this, guys, and
you can say I cannot talk aboutit on the radio. Thank you,
next question. No, you know, Phil, I'm impressed because those are
(14:41):
all wonderful uses of AI that wouldactually benefit fit people. But unfortunately,
so far, mostly what I haveseen with AI in plants is scammers,
and they are creating these fake plantsusing an AI image generator and then offering
so called seed for them on Instagram, on Facebook, on social media sites.
(15:05):
I saw this topic on Gardening Simplified. I was looking at episodes of
which, by the way, they'vegot over what ninety plus. You got
to check it out because you guysactually did a show on online plant scams
have like okay, was this inApril? First show? And this is
fascinating, Yeah, putting pictures offake AI generated plants selling seeds so called
(15:30):
seeds, so called seeds. Oh, I can only imagine. That's like
people who sell and I just learnedabout this. You know, we are
going to actually have a show comingup on morel mushrooms. On this program,
we're going to talk to mister Mushroom. He runs a Facebook group,
but there are a lot of peopleonline selling moral mushroom seeds that may or
(15:50):
may not work. But seriously,people are falling for a scam of fake
online plants. Yeah they are,and I think that, you know,
they want to believe it's true.So these online plant scammers, they're they're
reaching for the sun. They're notjust like, oh, let's just pretend
that this you know, sunflower isbright purple instead of yellow. Oh no,
they're making up whole new plants thatlook like little kittens. They're making
(16:11):
up, you know, plants thatlook like monkeys all of these states.
You see. Really, people arefalling for this. Well they want it
to be true because it does lookreally cool, and they think, well,
you know, hey, they're onlythey're selling me, you know,
five seeds for ten bucks. What'sthe harm. Well, the harm is
that you're supporting a scammer. Andyou know the problem when people have a
bad gardening experience is they blame themselvestypically, and that's what we try to
(16:34):
avoid is to help people get overwhat seems like a setback, learn from
it, and move on. Yeah, Stacey's so right. You you put
it in the ground and then youbelieve, well, it must have been
my fault. It didn't work.So if you'd like. If you'd like
a donut plant, fill a plantthat produces donuts at the ready for you.
(16:56):
I'll send you a package of cheerios. Yeah, have you seen it?
Have you? Has anybody been curiousenough to just order some of these
fake seeds and see what they looklike? Oh? You have? And
what do they look like? Theylook like seeds? It's just dust in
a bag and right, yeah,it's I mean, think about the places
you can go. You can getpeppercorns, you could, you know,
(17:18):
get a watermelon and take the seedsout and just send them. And by
the time anyone says tries to findyou and say hey, you scammed me,
those scam companies are long gotten.This is the most fascinating. This
is why I wanted to have Rickand Stacy on West Michigan Weekend here on
iHeartRadio, because I knew I'd learnedsomething about plants that was just mind blowing.
And ai fake plants that people areactually falling for and buying seeds online
(17:41):
is pretty amazing. And at adonut plant, I'm just saying, would
be cool. A t bone steakplant would be cooler. I'm just saying.
So Rick and Stacy, somebody listeningto us, it's May and it
happens to Mother's Day. Happy Mother'sDay to you and yours. If somebody's
(18:03):
thinking about, Okay, this isthe year I'm going to start a garden.
I'm an empty nester, all mykids are out of the house,
my husband's playing golf. I wantto get out in the yard, or
I want to start small to acontainer garden. I mean, I would
think if it were me, Iwould be overwhelmed. First of all,
I'd be afraid of failing. Secondly, I would think, Okay, I
got a neighbor next door who's killingit. I don't want to look like
(18:25):
a fool. But it is avery collaborative thing. And I'll start with
you, Stacey, and Rick Fhilfordto chime in for somebody who's like deciding,
at age fifty five, I wantto go out and plant a garden
or start. Is it easier thanever to start and get started small and
kind of take it from there.Yeah, it's definitely easier to get started
small. But you're right that peopleare spoiled for choice, and so when
(18:47):
they go to the garden center,it's really easy to get overwhelm. Oh
yeah, and to just kind of, you know, have analysis paralysis.
But what I encourage someone to dois to just let yourself go to the
garden center if you can go maybeat the time it's not so crowded and
you don't feel so pressured, andjust browse and fall in love with something.
And to me, that is themost important first step in gardening is
(19:08):
falling in love with a plant,because you're so much more motivated to learn
about it, to care for it, to keep it alive, and you
know that first love. For me, that just that cements everything, and
so find the things that you like. You know, you can certainly do
all your research and learn everything youcan about our plants, proof of Winter's
plants and other plants. But whenit comes right down to it and you
(19:30):
go to the garden center and yousee something and you just have that I
have to have that feeling. That, to me is what's really going to
set you on that journey in away that it will stick and not just
be something you dabble in. Yeah, I'm with Stacy on that well ridded
advice she just gave you there,Phil, Because you ever walk into the
grocery store or walk down the cerealaisle overwhelming, right, So you find
(19:52):
something you like. And I alwaysrecommend the folks to do two things.
One start in bite size pace.I mean, what follows spring summer it
gets hot, right, we'd startto grow. You can quickly become discouraged.
So do it in bite sized pieces, and pay attention to the foundation.
The soil that you're planting in isvery, very important. So if
(20:15):
you do those two things, youprogressively grow. You know, I've been
involved in the garden center industry foryears and I can tell you that we
view the tomato plant and the pepperplant as the gateway drug to gardening.
If you have success in that,well, then odds are you're going to
try something else and then add somethingelse to your partfolio, so to speak.
(20:37):
Yeah, a lot of people dotomato plants, and it's pretty hard
to wreck one, especially if it'sin a pot. But now I was
just thinking about container gardening. Iknow a lot of people who have put
container gardenings, like on a deckraised higher because a lot of people,
as they get older, can't bendover as well. So you can do
gardening that's easier to reach, andyou know, like one of you is
(20:57):
saying, not getting overwhelm by weeds, not planning a big plot. Is
there a vegetable beyond a tomato ora pepper? Like, if I don't
like tomatoes or peppers, it's actuallyme. I like everything to do with
tomatoes except the actual tomato itself.If I don't like that, Is our
carrots easy? Is lettuce easy?What would you recommend if somebody said,
(21:18):
I want to grow something I caneat beyond tomato or pepper? What's easy?
Stacey? I mean, I dothink people need to have herbs,
because there is such a luxury tohave your own herbs, and no matter
what you're cooking, you've got somethingright out there. So I would say
herbs. But you know, lettuceis a great option because nothing beats homegrown
lettuce. You know, you canget some pretty okay lettuce in the grocery
store, but when you're harvesting ityourself, oh my gosh, it's night
(21:41):
and day. It's very fast andeasy to grow. It usually kind of
gives up by summer, but thenyou can just keep sewing and you'll have
another crop in fall. But whenyou have your own homegrown lettuce. It's
so tender, the textures so different, and you know, there's nothing like
having guests over and being like,oh the salad. Yeah, I agree
with that. Yeah, I lovethat, except real quickly, and we
could do a whole of the showon critters and pass. Yeah. Can
(22:04):
you rabbit proof or deer proof?Like, if you've got lettuce, rabbits
will eat all your lettuce down,oh yeah, and everything else. If
you're growing in the ground, yeah, you can just kiss it goodbye to
the rabbits or the slugs or something. But you were talking about containers,
and you know, a narrow windowbox, a thin window box, not
something that's terribly deep, is agreat choice. And you can put those
(22:26):
window boxes off the side of yourdeck and that is the perfect You really
only need, you know, perhapseight to ten inches of soil depth to
grow lettuce really really well. Andthen it's way up there on your deck
and you know, the rabbits canonly look at it sadly from the ground.
That's good. And if it's highenough, well, if you have
a deer coming that close to yourhouse, you've got a brave deer.
But you know, I do thinkabout rabbits having as a kid our garden
(22:51):
just being menaced by rabbits, andsome people do fences and people will go
to great links to keep the pestout. And speaking of that, did
are show on bugs, good bugs, bad bugs? Generally speaking? Bugs
are good for your garden generally speaking, but how do you know a good
bug from a bad bug? I'massuming there's an app for that. Probably
(23:14):
there probably is an app for that, but you know, really it's a
question of what you can tolerate interms of the damage. So there's bugs
that eat bugs. Those are goodfor your garden because they're going to prey
on the bugs that are eating yourplants. And then there's bugs that eat
plants, and so a lot ofthose insects that eat plants, you know,
sometimes they're just going to come by, take a little nibble, move
on, not that big of adeal. But then there's other ones like
Japanese beetles are a great example thatif they get into your garden, you
(23:37):
know, you can kiss a lotof what you were trying to grow goodbye,
and so that's going to have amuch lower threshold of tolerance of your
ability to tolerate some insects feeding inyour garden then, you know, just
a little bit. But people shouldnever freak out if they just see some
chewed leaves in their garden. That'sjust nature doing what it does right.
And it's easier, Rick than everto treat pests, bad bugs, and
(24:03):
other things with non chemical solutions.Fair enough to say, sure, I'm
in home depot the other day anda guy sticks a can of bug spray
in my face. He says,is this good for bugs? I'm like,
no, it'll kill him, youknow. So, yeah, there
are resources out there, and youknow, on the show, one of
the things we talked about in dealingwith bugs is educating yourself. Educating you
(24:26):
know, like Stacey said, somepeople will freak out if they see a
bug. No, it's very natural. So get an education, educate yourself
on bugs, and you'll deal withthem in a far more responsible manner.
As you mentioned phil ipm Integrated PestManagement. Okay, we've got a couple
of minutes left. Rick Feiss StaceyHervella hosts of Guarding Simplified, both a
(24:49):
radio show and a podcast from provenwinners Colored Choice Shrubs right here in West
Michigan and worldwide on the iHeartRadio appand wherever you get your podcasts. Gardenings
simplified on air dot Com. Okay, Stacy, this is the lightning round.
Best wisdom you would give a gardeneror maybe a tip for getting out
in the garden this year. Thiscould be something you guys covered recently on
(25:11):
podcasts. What wisdom would you sharewith someone wanting to get better in the
garden. Well, I would saythat it's okay to kill plants. It
might hurt a little bit, butyou can learn something from every plant that
you kill and get a lot betterat not killing plants. But you do
have to give yourself a room tomake those mistakes and just learn from them.
Okay, Rick, have good irrigationequipment. I hate hoses. I
(25:34):
hate dragging hoses around. Good irrigationequipment and comfortable clothes. Comfortable clothes.
What is a bad thing to wearin the garden. Oh, I don't
like wearing blue jeans in the garden. You know, I love wearing these
these flexible pants that are that arecomfortable but will provide coverage for you.
(25:56):
So I believe comfortable clothes, possiblya hat, great gloves. I think
that that's a key component. Becausewe did an episode on the joy of
gardening, and that's one of thecomponents of enjoying your garden. I thought,
for a moment you're gonna say youwore sports from that. That could
be a thing nothing you could poston social media. I don't know,
(26:18):
Rick, You've got quite a filingon social media. That could be a
whole topic. Have you guys donea gardening and fashion episode yet? Oh?
I don't know about fashion. I'mnot sure we're the best people to
talk about it, but we couldsee what we could work out. I
would tune in for that episode.What do you wear? I know you
did a show about nude gardening onetime, a long time World Naked Gardening
Day. Yeah that was last weekend. Yeah that's right. It was not
(26:42):
doing that, but I like that'sgood wisdom. Don't wear jeans, don't
wear something that's confined, don't gardenin high heels or a three piece suit
and a vest or something like that, because of the sun and cancer risk
and things like that. We're agood hat and things like that. Okay,
(27:02):
fair enough. This has been reallyenlightening and I got to about half
of my questions, so thank you. I hope this was not too uncomfortable.
You guys are used to asking allthe questions. Was that okay,
oh it was great. You dida great job. All right. So
everybody on the radio will hear thisand go yeah, I like this,
(27:22):
and I do want to encourage youto tune in. Not because I am
a big backer of these guys.I love what they do and they're really
super talented. But it is agreat podcast. It's a great radio show
again nine am Saturday morning. Youcan inherit live on one oh six point
nine FM, thirteen hundred and AMNews Radio would but you can also get
it as a podcast on your phone, on your probably on your smart speaker
(27:45):
anywhere. Just say hey, playme gardening simplified. Rick Feist, Stacy
Hervilla. This has been a lotof fun you guys, Thank you,
thank you. It's been a pleasure. They have been our guests. They
did make the cuts, so they'llget invited back again. They've been our
guests in this segment of West MichiganWeekend. In fact, that's our program
for this week. Thank you somuch for tuning in. Hey let's do
(28:06):
this again next week on this iHeartRadiostation. I'm Phil Tower. Thanks for
Listening iHeartMedia West Michigan Weekend, apublic affairs program
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