Coming to you from the historic halls of Studio A here at proven winners, color Choice Shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified radio podcast and YouTube show with Stacy Hervella Me, Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, the word nostalgia has its roots in the Greek language and was translated in the eighteenth century as acute homesickness or homecoming. Of course, today nostalgia is viewed as a natural,
common and even positive emotion. And then, of course you've got the term vintage, which, boy, it can cover a lot of gardening trends and designs and styles like architectural gardens of Paris, the romantic winding paths of an Italian villa, charming, wild and carefree designs of an English country garden. You can go on and on. There's a vintage style to suit every taste. But Stacy, we do know that homeowners say that gardening makes them feel nostalgic, and I guess
gardening makes you feel nostalgic. It makes me it reminds me of it, maybe a simpler time with family. I remember my dad and my mom. They loved working out in the garden. I loved the thought of a hot Fourth of July day and sitting underneath a big shade tree. Of course, people have all kinds of nostalgic remembrances of plants, like lilacs or a vine that's growing up a wall, you know, and even in television you think about the Brady Bunch Show and that pathway leading up to the
welcoming doors. All of these things create this nostalgic feeling for us, and gardens and plants can do a great job of contributing to a nostalgic type.
Of feel absolutely, and I think a lot of people do start gardening to bring back some of that magic for themselves as well as to create some of that magic for the next generation. I think as we get a little bit older, we start to realize that, you know, these shrubs are not going to plant themselves. And if we want, you know, our children or neighbors or friends or whatever to have these, you know, same kind of
experiences that we had. You know, someone had to have planted those things and created a yard a space where you wanted to be because it did have flowers and it did have plants, and that that is what is so you know, salient in your memory, and yeah, it doesn't just happen. If you want that, you have to get up and do it, and you can be the one.
Yeah, exactly. A mixed planting can create a real nostalgic feel and stacy. You know a lot of people getting into wild flows gardens, rambling wildflower gardens because of the pollinator issue. But if you go beyond planting it for bees and butterflies, a garden like that creates a real cottage garden type of nostalgic feel.
Yeah, and you know it can I feel like thinking about my own sort of nostalgia for plants that I grew up with. It's interesting to me that some plants that I remember from my childhood do not feel nostalgic, while others do. So my mom always had a I think I just figured this out and answering my own question here, had a big old lava rock or near our front porch with hens and chicks planted in hens and chick yeah. Yeah, So this of course was the
seventies early eighties, and I love hens and chicks. I still grow them. I have a big collection myself, but I don't think of those as nostalgic like to me, even though I did discover them first as a little child, Like, I don't have nostalgia for that, but I do have nostlgia for other things my mom grew like bleeding heart. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely a nostalgic plant for a lot of people.
Yeah. For me, it was a neighbor who grew lots of dianthus, So diale, that's cool.
That's a very definitely kind of more of an old fashion. I mean in the proven Winn's line, there are tons of new dianthus, but dianthas are definitely a plant that are nostalgic from recent history as well as very old history. I mean you see dianthos also known as pinks, you know, in the unicorn tapestries and all sorts of medieval art. But yeah, there was a time when they were quite quite popular and then they kind of fell off the earth.
And now our partners at Walter's Gardens and proven Winters Perennials are kind of bringing them back.
And it brings up a good point, whether it's proven Winter's Perennials or proven Winters shrubs. What's been fun for me to watch is I've been in the garden center industry since the seventies, and yes had a strawberry pot with hens and chicksen n Okay, and I would have to say I'm really not nostalgic about it either. However, as far as shrubs are concerned or perennials, these plants
that give us that nostalgic feeling. Roses, hydranges, paeonies, lilacs, lavender, all of these types of plants give you that feel. But back then in the seventies in the garden center industry, we didn't have the plants that we have today plant breeding. As we've talked about being in the golden age of plant breeding, I think it's bringing back some of this nostalgia.
And Stacey, I planted one of the reminiscent roses in my landscape and I have to say it really gave me a nostalgic feeling with a plant that's bred for today and is disease resistant and already.
I love seeing that, you know, And I'm going to talk about this more when we get to the mailbang and I'm sharing a listener story. It is amazing to me to really get the perspective on what plant breeding has done because people tend to think, oh, it's just about having a new color of something, or you know, it's a bigger flower, and that's actually not necessarily the case. It really kind of all came home to me that so much of what plant breeding is is to bring gardening within reach of people.
Now.
You know, back in those days, it took a lot of effort for someone to grow those dianthus. They needed constant dead heading, they needed so much attention, they didn't bloom very long. So you would put all this effort into something that didn't actually give you all that much of a display, you know, over the course of the season for the amount of work you had to put in. But now plant breeding has dianthus that bloom without you don't need to dead head in them, and they're just
gonna bloom pretty much all summer long. And so what plant breeding has done is not just aesthetic, but is actually taken away a lot of the work that gardening is associated.
With, exactly, and it has fed this nostalgia boom. You know, I remember as a kid, mock orange just a huge, unwieldy plant. Not so today. Bridal re spyriea for Scythia's. Of course, you've got the show off for Scythia's today, smooth annabelle, hydranges, garden flocks and creeping flocks, and of course geraniums. They make me feel nostalgic too, only because in the seventies that's basically all we sold. At least
it sure felt that way in the garden center. Spikes, vincavine, and geraniums, but balsam ladies, slippers, sweet peas, nasturtium, shasta, daisies, hollyhawks, heliotrope, all of these plants really create that feeling of nostalgia. And then when you add to it in the landscape, some antique or worn or weathered planters, cobblestone in pathways, unfinished sculptures, and water features that don't have a painted finish on them but just weather naturally wrought iron in
the landscape is charming and nostalgic. And a picket fence, even if you don't have the picket fence up to keep your neighbor out or whatever you're using it for, the picket fence just really really gives you that nostalgic feeling in the garden. Now, for me, one thing that gives me a nostalgic feeling in the garden and I'm going to talk about it in segment four, and that is lawn chairs. An those rotten webbed lawn chair about them, and we would sell them in the gardens. Oh, we
had packages of replacement. Have you ever been to a family gathering where some one sat down in one of those webbed lawn chairs and when they get up they carry the chair with them.
Yeah, I've seen that before, or fallen.
Through the chair. Oh, my word. And we had these trifolding jelly tube strap lawnchairs.
Now those are no good. Those are no good. The old fashioned webbing one's school, the jelly roll one na.
And there is a certain lawn chair at family gatherings again to get nostalgic that when you pick up your food, your potato salad, your burger or whatever at this family gathering, you don't want to be the last one because you're going to be stuck with that chair. I'll talk about it in non segment four. But there's something about patio furniture and law and maybe it's because of my history
in the garden center industry that it does that. But lawn chairs give me just this unbelievable nostalgic feeling.
Well, you know, my husband and I collect lawnchairs, okay, and we have an enormous not enormous, we have a sizable collection. We only take ones that are all aluminum, so I never had any wood or plastic. And they have to be the type that have the replaceable webbing where you can take out the screw and replace the webbing. And yeah, you can pick them up at a state sales for you know, two or three dollars and some of them are really quite attractive and very comfortable.
So I feel you on.
That well, and I'm going to find out and segment four, then if you have this notorious chairity that I'm referring to.
Me, sure to find out.
Stay tuned for segment four. First, we'll have plants on trial. We'll see how Stacey ties this all together here on the Gardening Simplified Show.
Proven Winn's Color Choice Shrubs cares about your success in the garden. That's why we trial and test all of our shrubs for eight to ten years, making sure they outperform everything else on the market. Look for them in the distinctive white container at your local garden Center. Greetings, gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. The order of the day is nostalgia. And yeah, I
mean I can't tell you. I don't have to tell you because I'm sure that you when you were working in the garden centers had people come up to you and say, I'm looking for a plant that my grandmother has. I'm going to ask you when people ask you that, how many times out of ten on average was it a whigela.
It was often a Wiejela. But I would truly have to say that at the top of the list was bridal rea Spyria.
For whatever Reasonspiria is very lovely.
I do like it.
I mean, the flowers last for like three days.
And they're gigantic.
But yeah, I mean that's a plant that I don't I think you'd be hard pressed to find them nowadays. They kind of have fallen out of fashion. You just like see old hedges of them, you know, out in the neighbors. But I think Wayjila is one of the most popular, you know when people, and I think they're more likely to ask about it because they don't know what it is.
They just can't pronounce it.
They can't pronounce it, for one, and for two, yeah they don't. They just remember that Grandma had this, you know, big bush with trumpet flowers on it, lilac.
They know the name Roses. They know the name.
And today's plan on trial is not a white gla because the point that I'm trying to make is that most plants that are truly nostalgic for people do have fragrance, yes, because it's not just the visual aspect of being around the plant that makes it so nostalgic. And I don't even if you aren't acutely aware of this fact, you know, I think you still have a sense of it that things that you can remember from scent bring back an emotion like nothing else. Yes, you know, you can look
at things, you can touch things. All the other senses are pretty good. But when it comes to smell and memory, I mean, and it's like you can be taken back in time. You know, you can just go back right to a moment.
And they say, if you have that scent as a young child, it's imprinted on your brain.
Yes, And a lot of us that we were going to a grandmother's house or a great grandmother's house, you know, as young children. So I was thinking about all of this and I came across a very interesting article that I will link in the show notes at Gardening Simplified on air dot com. This is from the Harvard Cazette from Harvard University about smell and memory. Smell and memory seem to be so closely linked because of the brain's anatomy,
said Venka Tshmurty, the Raymond LEO. Erickson Life Scientist, Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard. So this is not just us riffing on the importance so sent and memory. We have credibility here from an expert. He goes on to say smells are handled by the olfactory bulb, the structure in the front of the brain that sends information to the other areas
of the body's central command for further processing. Odors take a wrecked route to the limbic system, including the amygdulla in the hippocampus, the regions related to emotion and memory. So it's not just a matter of that smell going right into your brain, but that the parts of your brain that are processing that fragrance or smell are specifically linked to emotion and memory, so it just becomes so powerful.
And when you know, even if we if someone experiences plant blindness where they're really unaware of plants and that there are different types of plants and the roles that they fill around us. I think even them when they have these fragrant memories of a lilac or whatever it was, that they have that same, you know, immediate emotional and memory type reaction.
I think that's why lilacs are such a big deal on Mother's Day.
Yes, absolutely, and the timing's perfect, so you kind of can't argue with that. Although how much longer they.
Will be perfectly seeing.
We don't know.
But so it's obvious now why fragrant plants loom so large in our memories, even if there were other plants there. And I think some old fashioned fragrant plants are never going to go out of style. I don't think as long as lilac can be grown in your area, people will ever stop growing lilacs. They just they love them too much. But some have almost disappeared from the market.
Some plants that were extremely popular, you know, a couple decades ago, a century ago, are almost unheard of literally nowadays, and one of those plants is Philadelphis, also known as mock orange. As you might guess from the common name, it has small white flowers that do indeed smell quite a bit like an orange blossom. But this is a perfectly hardy plant.
They are.
Actually there's species that are native to Canada and very cold regions down to Zone three. Most are hardy down to USDA Zone four and heat tolerant through USDA Zone eight. It's not remotely related to citrus. It's actually more closely related to hydranges than to citrus, which is in a totally different family. But Philadelphis is a plant that, yeah, I think for so many people, the fragrance automatically takes you back.
Now.
The first time I encountered a truly magnificent memory stirring philadelphis was when I lived in New York City and we were walking down a street in the East Village and there was an old, old, old, old cemetery, cemetery. It was close to the public, but it was still surrounded by walls and still had, you know, plants and stuff from back in the day, and there was a philadelphis there that was probably about fifteen feet tall, and it had these like elegant arching branches that arched over
the wall, and the thing was in full bloom. And you just turn down this street and you know, it blooms in June, so the air is like warm and steamy, and just that fragrance on the June air, I mean, it was just it was mind blowing. But for all of those reasons, the fact that I just described a shrub that was at least fifteen feet tall and wide is one reason why it may have fallen our favor. People don't have that kind of space, and a couple
of other things. Because it does bloom in June if the weather's very hot, not unlike the bridal respyrriea, especially older varieties, those blooms would just blast through it just you wouldn't be able to enjoy them for very long if it's hot and dry. And then finally, and this is a weird characteristic, older varieties of mock orange have
very poor quality foliage. So what would happen is that by you know, summer, the foliage would turn kind of like a grayish, sickly green color and it would get really tattered. So you know, by the time you're in like mid to late summer, you've got a pretty crummy looking plant on your hands, and it bloomed for you know, maybe a week if you were lucky. And that's a lot to ask for a relatively small reward. So I
think a lot of people stopped growing Philadelphis. But Tim Wood, our director of new plant Development, loves Philadelphis and when he set out to develop the first Philadelphis for the proven Winner's color Choice line, which is today's plant on trial Illuminati Tower mock Orange Philadelphis, he wanted to resolve all of those issues and create a mock orange that
actually merits its spot in the garden. So the first thing that makes Illuminati Tower different is that it lives up to its name by growing as a tower like shape. So it's very very narrow, it's very upright, and it doesn't branch a lot, so you know, whereas most of the time you think about a shrub and it's branching all over and that gives it a lot of width, this does not branch much, so it stays very calumnar and narrow, and so compared to the old fifteen to
twenty foot Philadelphis that used to be grown. This is going to reach five to six feet tall and just three feet wide, so very small footprint, but still has a lot of flower power and that tower habit becomes even more dramatic when it flowers because the flowers are at the top and they just really accentuate this almost four sided look that the plant has. It also has very thick, very dark green, deeply ribbed foliage, and this will hold up all season long, so you don't get
that tattered, sad look later in the season. Now, as for the flower longevity, that is going to depend on the conditions. It will certainly last longer because these other qualities have to be brought about by having additional chromosomes in the plant to cause them to be beefier and stockier and have better quality foliage. That does typically have a positive impact on the flowers where they have more substance and can be longer lasting. But it has that
same beautiful, sweet fragrance. And so if you're in the market to either redeem some of your own nostalgia or perhaps plant some nostalgia for the next generation, I think the Illuminati mock oranges are a great choice. Again, we're focusing on Illuminati Tower. I really love this variety because it's a great space saver, and a lot of us just don't have room to just have, you know, things like they used to be.
A couple of years ago. You gave me one. Oh yeah, I planted it. Wow, unbelievable and it's in a tight spot, fits perfectly in there. And then this spring when it came into flower, I posted pictures in social media. People went nuts over it, asking what is that plant? And my response to them was, you're just seeing the pictures. If you could smell this thing, if this was smell a vision, you'd be even more blown away. I love that plant staste.
And I'm so glad you said that, because it is a plant that you definitely again because it's fallen out of favor and there's no longer this. Of course, you're gonna have a mock orange, because everybody has a mock orange, and it's a great way to extend the season beyond the lilacs because they're not going to overlap. Typically, your lilocks will be done blooming and the mock orange can come in and take that over. It's deer resistant. You
probably have yours planet in the compound. But it is a good, dear resistant plant, very attractive, full to parts on is fine. Although the closer you get to USDA Zone eight the end, the hot end of its tolerance, the more shade that it is going to want. It is drought tolerant, though of course when it's in bloom you're gonna want to give it a little extra water just to make sure those fabulous flowers last as long as possible. So planting time is almost done for most
of us. But definitely put Illuminati Tower mock orange or any of the Illuminati mock oranges on your planting list for next spring, and you will be very very glad that you did, as well the people who you are trying to create nostalgia for. Next We're gonna take a little break, and when we come back, we're opening up the garden mail eggs.
I please stay.
Tuned at proven Winner's color choice. We've got a shrub for every taste and every space. Whether you're looking for an easy care rose, an unforgettable hydrangea, or something new and unique, you can be confident that the shrubs and the white containers have been trialed and tested for your success. Look for them at your local garden center. Greetings gardening friends,
and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. You know we're going to answer your garden questions, whether they are about something that used to be, or something that is or something that will be. We're always happy to help, So you can reach us at help HLP at Gardening Simplified on air dot com, or just visit Gardening Simplified on air dot com. There's a contact form there, you can attach photos and we're always happy to help with
whatever is on your mind. And part of the reason that we were inspired to do this particular topic for the show was a message from a listener. And so his name is Randall or Randy Cooper. And here is what Randy wrote, attached to to photos of my father's flower garden from many years ago. This was in the front yard of our house in Parkwin Village in Kalamazoo, a neighborhood designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and added to the National Register of Historic Places in two thousand twenty two.
The neighborhood is now seventy years old, seventy seven years old. Having grown up there, I'm adding to the history of the neighborhood by making some remarks about the garden view that caused cars to slow down as they passed by on the road. My knowledge of flower names is only modest. What flower species do you see in the pictures? If you could take the time to respond by email and describe what you see flower wise, I'd really appreciate it. I know some of what's there, but I'd like some
confirmation as well. Thank you, Randy Cooper. So when I opened the two photos that Randy sent, and they were dated, so one was dated like around nineteen fifty five and one was dated around nineteen sixty five. And I mean, if this is one of those situations where if you know, you know, and I know you know, if you ever had grandparents who you looked at their slides, these photos of Randy's just have this vibe that just takes you
back to what it was like to be there. And so I loved seeing the photos and I wrote Randy back an extensive Randy, if you didn't get my message, please do you reply, because I wrote you everything more than you would want to know about the plants in your dad's garden. And so the pictures are going to be on YouTube of course, as well as in the
show notes at Gardening Simplified on air dot Com. But one of the things, probably the number one thing that really stood out to me and looking at Randy's photos, and they are beautiful though there's so many different plants in them, was how hard his dad had to work to get to get the garden to.
Look like that and now it looks beautiful.
Oh, it's stunning. I mean, there's two different photos. I don't know if it's of the same garden at two different times or two very different gardens. One is more of a perennial garden full of delfinium, and I think I saw some red Valerian in there. I had a whole list. And the other one is more of a sort of traditional annual border, which no one does anymore.
Right, it looks like something they'd put on the cover of one of those old Seas catalogs. I just loved it, Randy, It seriously does.
But you know, back then in the fifties and sixties, again, as we were talking about, plant breeding was not what it is now, and so gardeners like Randy's dad, Fred, they really had to put the time in and This is where gardening, you know, I think acquired its reputation as just being a ton of work, because for those gardens to look like they do in these photos. You know, back then, there weren't delphiniums that stood up on their own. You had to stake them all, you know. You couldn't there.
You could get plants mail order, you could buy some things locally in small garden centers, but for the most part, if you wanted any kind of variety at all in your garden, you were growing everything from seed. You know. It's not like nowadays where you can just pop down and bring a couple of flats back and start planting and get some immediate gratification.
Yeah, the plants are in these plastic trays. Now. I remember those days way back when, and they had these plants that they started from seed and wooden flats, and people would walk around with aprons and butcher wax paper and you'd pick out the plant you want and they'd trowl it out of the tray, wrap it in butcher wax right five cents or whatever the price was on it, and wow, I have some pictures of that too, So it's amazing and I love looking at that the annual
bed in the picture that Randy sent, because it does bring back memories. As a matter of fact, I remember in the nineteen sixties that there was a movement to make marigolds the national flower, and you would see marrigolds everywhere. I remember the the petit little dwarf ones. They were called boyoboy mix. And then you get the huge African marigolds that would be in the back of the bed, you know, a good three four, five six feet tall in some cases. And yet Stacy, many of these plants
had to be staked. They didn't have the gravi toss that plants today have. But to see that, or there was a state fair mix of xenias, they'd get really really large, loaded with powdery mildew. So I would guess in this case also the gardener was doing a fair amount of hand watering. It's just beautiful to see.
Yeah, the more you think about, you know, the conveniences and everything that we take for granted now, not just in terms of maintaining a garden, but you know, in terms also of the plants themselves, the choices that he made. It's so clear that Randy Sadfred had such pride in this garden. I can't even imagine the countless hours he
must have spent. And I truly do hope that that there were many many cars that stopped and talked to him, because you know, when a gardener works that hard for something, it means a lot. I will tell you right now, I don't work that hard in my garden. If it were that much work, I probably wouldn't do it. But
you know, it definitely says labor of love. And so I really thank you Andy for sending those in, and thanks to your late father for all of his amazing hard work, and yeah for really just kind of showing us that gardening nowadays, whether it's annuals or perennials or shrubs, watering, fertilizing, buying plants, caring for plants, it is a whole new day and we can all shed those you know, biases and preconceived notions we have about gardening being a ton
of work and you can't go on vacation and you know you can't do anything but work in your garden. It's not like that anymore.
I just those pictures gave me such a nostalgic feeling. By the way, in that bed of annuals. Also the red flower that I see in there, I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's a salvia. And everybody planted that thing, and it was a variety by the name of red Hot Sally. Everybody planted red Hot sallye. And you know our annual salvia is today Proven Winners has the Rocking series, the rock and Fusia. They are incredible.
These are aggressive plants. They bloom beautifully. They're just unbelievable performers in the garden. Red Hot Sally. You'd put it out there and yes, it would put out this flush of beautiful red flowers. But then we'd get some hot, steamy weather, maybe a rain shower, and now it'd be red hot stems. It's just a stemfests. So yes, the work and the care that he put into that garden is evident, and I love those photos.
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the salvia Kaksinia or red hot Sally, because that is not dissimilar to today's plant on trial, the mock orange, where it was a plant that was everywhere for a while and then poof just disappeared off the face of the earth because people were just like, I'm not dealing with that. You know, it was just too much work for too little reward.
Go to say it for our listeners, blam blamo. Yeah, there you go.
And now I feel like it's starting to make a comeback. Proven Winners has some new Salvia coxinia that are definitely not your grandmother's Salvia coccinia. There's a lot of different types of salviaut there, but I'm glad you brought that one up because that is definitely that with the marigolds, really put that garden in its time.
Fantastic. All right, real quickly here, Stacey, We've got to help Stephanie out. She's in Zone five B, Yorkville, Illinois, and my nine of my big leaf hyde ranges are starting to put out a second round of blooms. What do I do we're seeing that.
Yes, So basically what is happening here, Stephanie, is that you have a variety of reblooming big leaf Hydrangea that needs to put on a certain amount of growth before it will create those new wood flowers. So those are the older types. They need more time to do that. And so for a lot of people, especially in the Midwest. Our summers just aren't long enough for that rebloom to occur,
and we know normally never see any of it. Whereas this season, because it has been quite mild and and much longer, it's giving those older varieties of hydrange a chance to actually create that so called rebloom. So all this is is buds that it formed back in August that did not need vernalization or cold treatment to bloom. It doesn't mean it's taking away from next year. It's not a problem for the plant. It's not making it
more sensitive to frost. If you do get a frost, those old flowers are just going to turn brown and go away, and you can cut them off if you'd like. But it's really not a cause for concern. If you don't want your reblooming hydranges to start reblooming in late October early November, you would actually like that to happen in the summer when it counts. Do take a look at the Let's Dance reblooming hydranges, particularly the varieties Let's
Dance Skyview and Let's Dance can Do. Those are our fastest rebloomers, and so you will actually be able to get rebloom during the summer, rather than waiting all the way until fall when you're thinking more about you know, moms and missletoe than.
Yeah, that's fantastic and a quick thirty seconds here. Nelvia wrote to us because I love this plant. I have it in my landscape. Oh so easy, lemon zest rose Nelvia has an unusual leaf cluster. But this is something we see out there.
Yeah, you know. Unfortunately, and Melvia did include pictures which will be on YouTube. Unfortunately, this is pretty much a characteristic case of rose rosette disease. And rose rosette disease is a I could talk a lot about it. It's quite a fascinating disease. There are no known resistant roses right now to rose rosette disease because it's not a disease like fungus that just blows in on the wind.
It's actually transmitted by in a little mite, a tiny, tiny, little broad might that blows in on the wind, and then that guy has some bacteria in its digestive track that it transmits to the plant. And once they get this rose rosette disease, they cannot recover. The best thing that you can do is to take it out and discard it, which will prevent it from being preyed upon by additional broad mights and they will then get the bacteria in their stomach. So it's unfortunate, but it is
not recommended to keep the plant. It won't recover. You should take it out, and they recommend not planting a rose. It's not in the soil, but because it's most likely that the mtes will come back and feed on your new roses that are replacing it, they do not recommend replacing an infected rossette disease rose with another rose. We're gonna take a little break. When we come back, we
got branching news, so police stay tuned. The Gardening Simplified Show is brought to you by Proven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens have been trialed and tested for your success so you enjoy more beauty and less work. Look for Proven Winns Colored Choice Shrubs in the distinctive white container at your local gardens.
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's time for branching news and Stacey Today, instead of a limb a rick, I need a moment for a lawn chair. Rant. We're talking about nostalgia today, and I have lots of nostalgic memories of lawn chairs. Folding aluminum webbed lawn chairs. In the nineteen seventies at the garden Center, we sold them for twelve ninety five each and on the fourth of July they would be on special for nine ninety five.
Dang, it's a bargain.
What a deal. Now, we didn't have Google or YouTube or tech support to figure out how to open the stupid chair or get out of it. For that matter. You couldn't call tech support. And for people who would sit on one of these strapped web lawn chairs and you're wearing shorts, if you sit on that chair too long and then get up and walk away, people will be able to tell that you've been sitting in a web
strap lawn chair. Now, these chairs are amazing. You were risking injury or embarrassment every time you put your seat in one of those chairs.
And at that.
Time, I recall as a kid, in addition to the web chairs, we had metal lawn chairs. Now, think July, think one hundred degrees, think Son, think shorts. You get the picture, right, Yeah, unbelievable. So my point is, when I was a kid back in the sixties, we had real lawn chairs. The lawn chairs today I call yawn chairs. They are equivalent to furniture that you would have in your living room. You could take a nap on them. They have cushions, They are just so comfortable. We had
real lawn chairs back in the sixties and seventies. Today we have have yawn chairs now, those colorful ribbed chairs, those webchairs. Think about it. If you're at a family gathering and you pick up a big plate of potato salad and your hamburger, and you go to sit down in the chairs, and my parents would have all these webbed lawn chairs sitting around. By the way, everybody had packages of replacement webbing in their garage because they tore
all the time. Okay, and Uncle Frank was a little large and he would do some damage to the chair. You have to reweb the chair. But if you got your potato salad and your burger, and everyone seated around having a great nostalgic time sitting around underneath the shade tree and those lawn chairs, and you were late in getting your potato salad and Hamburger. There's one chair left. It would always be the dreaded Makrom lawn chair.
Reck Rick, I make these.
I don't want to sit in a Macrome lawn chair. That's why I'm bringing it.
Ouh man, all right, you're not invited.
A ninety degree day in chain. Now, how do you keep that pattern from like imprinting on your lane?
Oh you don't. Oh okay, I mean we're pants.
I guess, so I guess they're not yawn chair.
No, I mean, you know, I get it. I will say that the I've always wanted to do one, and so I did one with the actual traditional Macroma cord and it's not macrime. People call it macrime because it's a Macrome cord, but the actual technique is a combination of crochet and weaving. And so I did one and it was fun. I enjoyed it.
It was actually pretty expensive.
I mean, I like, I can amaze.
The idea is that it's not a weaper than the webbing. But now it's hard to find webbing, so I think they're even more popular now. I am working currently on a new version of this using paracord. You know paracord, you know it's so the paracord instead of the Macroma cord is much softer and it's not as prickly, so it's not like as plasticky. It's more suitable for the outdoors. So I haven't finished yet to say for sure if it's going how it's going to compare. It was similar
in press. I mean, the Macroma lawn chair is not saving you any dough. It's you're spending probably a good thirty to forty dollars to replace the webbing with the Macroma cord, and for the Paara cord it was probably more like forty to fifty.
So it's a labor of love.
It's something you do because you enjoy it, and because the chairs that I'm working on right now were actually are good friends grandmother's chairs really yeah, and they had the jelly strap, which I hate, and so those don't have, Like the really good vintage lawn chairs have holes for screws in the back, so they can be infinitely replaced and it's pretty easy and straightforward. So I am pro lawn chair. It's hard to find good replacement kits anymore.
I guess too many people had them in the garage and they rotted away or they threw them away or whatever. But you know, when I see a good webbing replacement kit at an estates, all you better believe I snap that up.
Yeah. Back in those days, you would see the twisted frame of one of those chairs every week out by the trash out by the road, right exactly. And the patio furniture was yellow and green, large floral print cushions that match the color of the appliances in your kitchen. And yes, the vinyl jelly tube chase lounges. These are trifoled vinyl tube strap lawn chairs, and those things were horrific. And what teenagers would do at that time in the
sixties and seventies totally dumb. But in summer you'd slather yourself in baby oh yeah, right to get a good tan, and you'd sla between the straps of these tube strap lawn chairs. And I guess this just brings back all kinds of nostalgic memories for me.
Well, I can't believe you didn't mention. I feel like this was everywhere when I was a kid, that red stained wooden patio furniture that, yeah, you know, that was that was everywhere.
Yes, and if you're wearing baby oil, it's not pretty. Yeah, so this stuff just comes back to me. It's just unbelievable. So I'll give Macroma chairs another truck.
All right, I'll bring you one to sit in. You can see what you think. I will say one thing that I truly do love about our vintage lawn chairs. And we only pick them up at a bargain. You know, we're not like looking to do anything crazy, but I do appreciate compared to furniture in my garden that I've paid much more for that it truly can go anywhere. And in a garden, you know, you want to be able to move around and sit wherever is looking good,
you know, at whatever given time. The lawn chairs, you know, they're not just called lawn chairs for the sake of it. They're called launchers because they can sit in the lawn and not go into the lawn, not pick up the soil. The weight is distributed so you can really put them
any place that you want. And so yeah, say some you know part of your garden that you don't usually sit near is looking great, you put two launchers out there, you enjoy it well, last and then you can move it to another place.
Yeah, cause Stacey, they took these aluminum lawn chairs and then they took it the next step and they made rockers out of them.
Oh yeah, that's right.
Actually, my original Macrimae is also a rocker.
I love this. We got to bring one in the studio and I got to give it a try.
We will now.
Growing up in the garden center industry. Also, I got to quickly mention, of course, pink flamingos. In yes, plastic pink flamingos. A guy by the name he was a twenty one year old arts school graduate. His name was Don Featherstone.
Oh, I love that.
And he's the one that created this product. And when they first came out in the US, you could buy a pair of flamingo lawn ornaments for two dollars and seventy six cents. I also remember a company called Union Products and they would do blow molded plastic stuff. Now it's real interesting because they carried it over into Christmas, all the blow molded.
Figures, the Snowman.
Yeah, and their most famous one was Santa behind the reindeer in a sleigh and it was famously depicted by the movie National lampoons.
Christmas pojet, yes, yes.
Yeah, when Clark W. Griswold goes nuts out on the front lawn and starts kicking the antlers off the reindeer. But we would sell a lot of Union products and their two big items were Dutch kettles and cauldrons.
Oh, I was going to mention the cauldron. I'm glad you brought up the cauldron.
Yes, and people would plant geraniums in them, not put drainage holes in them so they'd drown the plants. Okay, you could pour the one, but these black cauldrons and Dutch kettles just bring back all kinds of nostalgia for me. And then another big one, and I'll end it with this because I could talk about this topic for days. But the spinning daisies out in the daisy pinwheels, and they sold these things to you saying that they would solve your problem for underground pests like moles and voles
by transmitting vibrations into the ground. Ridiculous. And so they had all kinds of different colors of daisy pinwheels. And I remember, as a young man working in the garden center industry, we wouldn't just get a few boxes of these. We would get semi loads of these things. We'd sell them for ninety nine cents each, and we would say thousands of these daisy pinwheels.
You don't see those anymore now, I have to ask you. They're out there on the Union Products thing. Are they also the people behind the Swan Planter? Yes, same thing, the Swan good Ol Swan Planter.
Just amazing. Well, I'm feeling nostalgic.
How about you, I am. You brought back a lot of memories.
Thanks for a fun show, Stacey, and I'm looking forward to sitting in this studio in a macro a chair.
Yes, watch out for it on YouTube.
Thank you, Adriana, and thanks to you for your support and watching us on YouTube, listening to the radio show and our podcast. Have a great week.