Coming to you from Studio A here at proven Winns Color Choice Shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella, me, Rick weisst and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, Stacy, let's tap on the brakes a little. Somebody has to say it is life too short for spacing plants? I mean plants at the greenhouse or the garden center. When you start shopping this spring, it's like going to the buffet in Las Vegas. Your
eyes tend to be bigger than your stomach. Or when I take my grandson to the store and I say, wow, you can have a little treat, it's impossible for him to decide. There's so many choices. It's unreally usually ends up with two or three trees.
Well, you know, this idea that life is too short for proper spacing is something that I have said many times myself to friends and gardening colleagues. And I have softened that stance a bit, which we will get to, but it really comes from so. I went to horticulture school at the New York Botanical Garden School of Professional Horticulture, and one of my first days on our rotations where you work in all of the different areas of the gardens.
It was spring and the crew leader dropped me off at this giant, massive, beautiful urn and a couple flats of pansies and was like, okay, we'll be back to pick you up in like forty five minutes. And I was like, okay, cool. And so you know, I'm looking at the pansies and they have a little tag in them and it says like, you know, space eight to
ten inches apart or whatever. So I'm like okay. So, you know, they drop me off with like three flats, and I take this urn and I plant like eight pansies in it, following this, you know, this instruction on the tag. And when she came back to get me after I had done this, she was like what is that?
And I'm like, following the spacing instructions and she goes, no, no, no, no no, and she's like, this is how you do it, and she starts taking the pansies out and she's squishing, gently squishing the root balls and just packing them in there. And you know, that's when I realized that spacing is primarily a suggestion. There are certainly consequences to ignoring spacing not so much from an annual perspective, and certainly not
from a pansy perspective. But overall, it is just a suggestion, and there are plenty of times where you, as a gardener, are free to completely disregard that in favor of a better display.
Absolutely, and when it comes to annuals, throw the spacing out the window.
Oh for sure. The spacing on those things is ridiculous. You'd think that they would decrease it so people would plant more and they'd sell more. But you know, especially back in the days of the cell pause, Yeah, you know, it was like twelve inches. And I remember, you know, being a landscaper back then, and you know, the trowel with the markers on it, and I'm like, this looks terrible, But well, I followed the instruction, so it must be right.
I never follow spacing instructions when it comes to annuals. Thus my limerick for this week, Every plant's my favorite. I'm embracing so many to choose from I'm pacing They're so fabulous I can't pick. So I wrote this lima rick to announce I'm giving up spacing. You know, plant spacing if you think about it. There are calculators online and all sorts of stuff on how to figure out plant spacing. Generally, I've just done the math in my head.
For example, if you have a plant that at maturity is four foot wide, putting it next to a plant at maturity that's three foot wide, just add four plus three, divide by two, which is three and a half, and put the plants center to center three and a half feet apart. That's how I've WoT.
It's basically that simple, and I think that maybe the key that's missing for a lot of people is the I don't know or don't realize that the spacing recommendation is based on the predicted width of the plant. Yes, and that's another aspect of why it is so subjective. Let me ask you this. Are you a do you like your plants to touch or do you like your plants not to touch?
Well? I like I like them to touch. But I am a person who will not bring a tape measure out into the landscape. I like to plant in odd numbers and I don't want it to look like I measured it.
Sure right, right? A lot of people don't want their plants to touch, which, honestly, more power to you. It seems crazy to me because I like my garden to look like a garden, like a jungle like with all the plants, So I need my plants to touch, so I always ignore spacing or go with smaller spacing. But there's plenty of people out there who don't like the look of a full garden and they prefer the space and everything kind of you know, it's just a different approach.
It's perfectly valid for those of you are my plants can't touch type out there, But that plays a big role into how you decide you're going to space.
Yeah, or let me throw a monkey wrench into it. Spacing in my mind, is more important in the shade than it is in the sun. In the sun you get plenty of sunlight, air movement, and so disease less of a problem. In the shade, you want to have proper spacing. Just the theory on my part, Yeah, for sure. Of course, there's all other types of different issues too.
Some plants are allellopathic and I'm looking here, I had written down here sunflowers, Nepetta, morning glories, lantana, And of course you've got the notorious mob boss of the group black walnut. But some plants are you know, they kind of push others.
Out right, And you know, there's a lot of research nowadays it says that a lot of the beliefs around allellopathy are not wrong but over exaggerated. And you know, what I've read in that case is that it's not so much like but even with black walnut, except for the very sensitive plants. So do not try to plant tomato anywhere near in the vicinity of a black walnut. But it's primarily the branches, leaves in fruit that fall
that cause the issue. It's not just some sort of you know, force field coming out around the roots or anything like that. So in that case, you know, my neighbor across the street has a massive black walnut, So if squirrels are coming over and depositing you know, walnuts in my yard, then I can't space around that.
Well, I tell you what, Speaking of squirrels as it relates to plant spacing, if you want to throw cashew to the wind, what you do is you go vertical. Yes, absolutely, just like they did in Top Gun. Right, and some people refer to it as bio intensive planting. Using vines going vertical. One of my favorite plants and tight spots are clematis if you've got a good sunny spot. Others
you could use, of course, rise up Lilac days. I was amazed at how well that did in my garden this year, kind of elevating above the group flirty girl false hydrangea in a shady area. And of course I've always talked about exclamation points, so you take rows of share in the pillar series or skybox Japanese holly or fine line buckthorn, or I got to throw in a
grass stacy and annual grass like vertigo. You know, these add excitement, They can stand alone if you wish to kind of rise above the others and kind of give you a permission to pack it in a little definitely.
And you know, another aspect of that, I would say is that you can get away with a lot less space in between plants if you were willing to do some work. And you know, this is a question that we can all ask ourselves is how much work do I want to do? What type of work do I want to do? And one great example of that would be Espelier. So Espelier is you know when you see
usually a shrubs. Some comes it's a small tree trained up against a fence, and sometimes it can be very meticulous where they've tried to create like a Belgian fence, where branches are criss crossing and making a diamond pattern. Or it's just a matter of pruning a shrub so that all of its growth that would come outward or backward is pruned off and it only goes left and right. And so I have a winter honeysuckle nisra a fragrant tissima, which is one of the first things to bloom. Smells amazing.
It smells like fruit loop cereal, and it's a huge plant. I mean, these things get to be ten feet tall and ten feet wide. But my husband loves to prune and has taken it upon himself to espalier this winter honeysuckle next to our fence, so it takes up just a fraction of the space. He loves pruning it. So if you are someone who loves to prune, you can, you know, use these little tips and tricks and take
on that responsibility. If you're not someone who likes to prune, then you're probably not going to do that.
So when we say life is too short for spacing. We to a degree say it tongue in cheek.
To a degree.
Yes, But you know, in spring, when I'm out there in the vegetable garden and I've got a packet of bean seeds or carrot seeds, I'm notorious for getting halfway down the road and the row and the seeds are gone.
Yeah, I'm the same. You know, I've been roached vegetable gardening for my entire adult life, and I still distrust the spacing in spring. It's just impossible to believe, you know. And so like this year, I planted way too many tomatoes in my space. I had an amazing harvest, but by the time they all grew it in, it was like playing a game of twister to get out there and try to harvest everything and find these one spots where you could step that weren't covered by tomato plants.
But you know what, it's just enthusiasm. It's enthusiasm for what we do well.
Enthusiasm. But also if you tighten up the spacing, I think it makes watering easier. You always want to pack in more plants, I know, Stacey, you're like me. If you walk through a greenhouse or a garden center. You can be inspired and like, h I'd like that plant, and next thing you know, you're walking around in your yard with the plant in one hand the shovel in the other, looking for a place to put it.
Yeah. I have definitely been there, yes, And then you know you're like, oh, well this container could use another plant, so you just wedge it on in there and then you know. But it's a good way to learn. You
do learn a lot by pushing those boundaries. I will definitely say that, oh hey, quick, before we take a break, I have to tell everybody that next Friday, February twenty first, here on our YouTube channel, we are going to be doing our first ever YouTube live and we're going to be telling everybody about all of the new shrubs for twenty twenty five. So it is a public peak at everything that's going to be new. It's going to be super great. I'm going to be there. Natalie Christina Crimson
from our YouTube channel are also participating. So if you've got spring fever, you're dying for a little break, some flour, some greenery, please please join us here on YouTube Friday, February twenty first at twelve Eastern at time. We hope you'll see you there.
Well, we'll see how Stacey ties it in plants on Trials. Coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified.
Show, beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique varieties to choose from. There's a flowering shrub or evergreen for every taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive white container your local garden center or learn more at proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where the order of the day is plant spacing, an issue in
gardening that has tripped up many people. I've certainly had to hold a lot of hands as people have worked through how to space things and what to do with a range when you have a range of spacing, which I'll talk about the next segment a bit. But I did want to say, you know, I have softened, as I said in segment one, my stance a little bit on life is too short for proper spacing, and you know, sometimes it isn't sometimes it is. But like last year,
right I bought some basil. We were in Chicago. We wanted to have a picnic, and instead of just buying you know, cut basil, I bought a basil plant and I said, okay, I'll just you know, go home and plant it, which I did, but all my containers are already full at that point. So I had three massive containers, like big, giant, twenty four inch containers that weren't full. So I says, okay, I'll just plant the basil in here. It's fine. I had the best darn basil harvest of
my entire life. Adrian is like exclaiming because she saw it when she came to film at my house. I mean they were shrubs. They were like three feet tall and wide. That's fantastic because I did give that extra space because normally I was like jamming it into these pretty little decorative containers on my patio, which is fine, but you know, that's when I really realized, if you want your basil to produce, you got to give it some room. But that's where the learning comes in.
Right, Like I call it basil instincts.
Well, I have that instinct. Now I will definitely be continuing to do that. And another place where of course, you don't really want to go into messing with the spacing too too much. Is trees and shrubs correct, And that's for a couple of reasons. Number one is that trees and shrubs tend to be a little bit more expensive than annuals and even perennials, So you don't want to make a mistake that you later have to correct and risk the investment that you've made in not just
purchasing the plant, but in time and effort to plant it. Also, overall, a lot of trees and shrubs aren't super amenable to pruning for size, especially with so like in my garden, I talk a lot about my silfium, which is self sown abundantly, and sometimes I do leave those plants to go, and if those selfium plants start getting a little bit too wide, I just go out there and I straight up ripoff entire stocks, you know, to kind of to try to narrow it down and take up less space.
You don't really want to do that. Well, first, Philly, you can't do that with a woody plant, and you don't necessarily want to do it. Some woody plants are not very amenable to that kind of pruning to control their width, and so you don't have that option, you know, like hostas or another plant that they're taking up too much space, they have too much leaves. You just go out there and take off some stems.
Right, get shrubs, which yeah, I've done that. And with shrubs, the problem is the plant will look like it got a bad hair.
Yes it will, and you no one wants that. No one wants that. And then you know the other thing, of course, is that shrubs and trees are plants that we tend to plant for the future, for the long term. So it really pays to think far off into the future. Even though, like we were talking about in our Dwarf Helperdos Spruce rant a couple episodes ago, it can be very hard to believe that this, you know, cute little shrub that you're holding in your hands is going to
reach some sort of epic proportion. But it will, and you you need to trust those when you are investing again time and money into these more permanent plants. Now, that doesn't mean you can't fudget a bit here and there. Like I was saying with the Espalier, it does to some extent depend on how much work you are willing to do. And I actually happen to really enjoy going out there and ripping out some stems of my sylphium
and getting the garden a little bit refined. And my husband happens to really enjoy espaluing it and doing that pruning once a month or whatever that is. So again, this is really a question of how much effort or how much work are you willing to take on and the type of work that it is, and if you enjoy that. But you know, one of the issues I think with spacing, the reason that so many of us want to, you know, kind of minimize how much space we give our plants is because we just want more
plants in the ground, you know. And I don't have a huge yard. And yeah, as you said, my eyes are bigger than my garden. My dreams or a bigger than my garden as well, and so sometimes yeah, I do fudge things to try to get more there. And also because I just love that full, lush look.
And that's why I say, you got to act like Tom Cruise in Top Gun, and you gotta go vertical sometimes.
Right, And one way that you can do that is by choosing fastigit plants, and you've probably heard us use that word here and there. Basically, all it means, it's a fancy word, it is a Latin word, but from a horticultural perspective, all it means is that a plant naturally grows with a narrow columnar habit, so instead of being a big, wide, spreading tree, it's just a tidy,
little column. And that word fastigit comes from the Latin for high or lofty these plants, a fastigit plant doesn't necessarily have to be very tall, but it will be very narrow. One of the best examples of this is the fastigient English oak Quercus rober fastigiata. Beautiful plant, and for some reason here in the US, by and large, it is that fastigiit version. It's far far more popular than the big, full, massive tree version. But there's lots
of choices among shrubs as well. So you might be familiar with our pillar roses of sharon like purple pillar, white pillar, red pillar, glowstick, and skybox Japanese holly, fine line ramness. We have this new yard line viburnum, which is an evergreen for milder climates, and today's plant on trial. Stonehenge U is also a fastigit plant.
Didn't we introduce people to that plant in our winter garden walk?
We did, which might be one of the reasons why it was on my mind, because as you can see, we do have many others. Ooh, another one that I forgot to mention. One that you love skinny fit gink o.
Yes, love it.
That's a very small, narrow ginko. Not too many on the market yet, but so I'll tell you if you see one, snatch it up. But there will be more coming on the market in the coming seasons. So if there's some kind of plant that you really really want and you don't have space for it, like an oak or gang goo, there very often are these fastigial alternatives that just take up a fraction of the space. You know, a fastigit you know, tree or shrub for example. Taking
this taxis stonehanji reaches two to four feet wide. That's pretty darn narrow. That is not a lot. I mean, you know, I think my summarific hibiscus take up more space sure than that. But if you consider you or taxes on the whole. Even though here in the US we kind of think of them as very kind of boring suburban plants that are just planted as like a front yard hedge show.
Yeah, but I think your timing on this is perfect, Stacy. I mean, everyone at this time of the year is thinking about taxes, right.
That's right. I was going to say this for April fifteenth, but you.
And I answer plant questions I wrote down here. An accountant is someone who solves a problem you didn't know you had in a way you don't understand.
That's true.
That's what accountants do.
We problem and sometimes people don't understand that too. But yeah, so in the like in England, you will see taxes that you would not even recognize because they get to be massive, massive trees, and yeah, we just don't. They just don't do that here. We don't grow them that way. And of course we don't have thousands of years of history, but there you can find all over the UK and Ireland use that are thousands of years old, literally known to be two or three or four thousand years old.
One of the oldest, the fourteen gold U, has a trunk circumference, or had at one point. It's now kind of hollowed out fifty two feet wow. And uh use are known to reach heights of sixty five feet or taller. So you can really see how a plant like Stonehenge, you at just two to four feet tall and wide, give you an opportunity to kind of get some of that look that history, but with using just a small,
small fraction of the space. And a great thing about fastigit plants as well is that they don't need pruning, you know, because they aren't growing wide, they're just growing with a stove pipe kind of shape. You really don't need to prune them. Now. You can height prune them if you wish, it is usually best to let them go, but if you start them when they're young and you're not cutting into any really thick wood, you can easily maintain a lower height as well on a fastigit plant.
But like Rick said, you can see Stonehenge in the winter landscape in our most recent winter garden tour, and I think that that where that plant is planted in our gardens really kind of shows how this plant can be used and how useful and beautiful it is.
And at this time of the year, in the dead of winter, we'll take any green we can.
Get, yes, even from a taxis even. I mean, I have to say I have my own ideas about taxes because I grew up with taxis outside my yard, growing up like it was there, you know, it was a newer development. And I think that so many contractors developers are just like, hey, we need something to put in coverage. We don't know if it's sun or shade. We're not going to bother finding out because you do take full sun to full shade. And that's pretty great characteristic.
Tell me about it, Stacey. I come from the garden center industry. We would unload semi loads of taxes balden bur lap. Yeah, the soil around the roots usually were solid clay. You lift those things all day long. You start to think about death and taxes all that.
Yes, aren't you glad that's not a thing anymore?
Oh oh my.
And they can take pretty much any soil as well. So another thing that's great for contractors to, you know, just throw in front of these developments. Poor soil, no problem. As long as it's well drained. They don't mind sand. One thing that's that taxes in general do mind though, that you should be aware of if you're thinking about planting Stonehenge Texas. They are not derresistant. And it's bizarre
because tax is one of the most toxic plants. And you know, I don't like to freak people out talking about toxic plants, but it's so wild to me that so many people are so concerned and yet this completely ubiquitous plan, at least through the Midwest everywhere, extremely toxic to humans and pets. The deer will eat it like there's no tomorrow, like it's candy. It's like a compulsion
with them. I don't know how that works, but anyway, I would have to say, if you grew up like me, with your mother constantly warning you not to touch the red berries on the green shrubs in the front of the house, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. But again, Sonehenge, you is a great plant if you live in USCA zones four through seven, not super heat tolerant, have shade, and are looking for a space saving evergreen.
If that's not what you're looking for, I will list the rest of the fastigit shrubs and trees that I have discussed in our show notes at Gardeningsimplified on air dot Com. We're gonna take a little break. When we come back, we're opening up the garden. Mailed eggs of police. Stay tuned at Proven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs. We know
that a better landscape starts with a better shrub. Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our flowering shrubs in evergreens for eight to ten years to ensure they outperform what's already on the market. For easycare, reliable, beautiful shrubs. To accentuate your home and express your personal style, look for Proven Winner's Shrubs in the distinctive white container at your local garden center, or learn more at proven
Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's our favorite time of the show where we get to answer your gardening questions. But before we do dive into what we've got this week, I wanted to briefly talk a bit about the spacing on the plant tag. And like I said earlier, the spacing that's recommended at least speaking about Proven Menner's Color
Choice Shrubs is based on the width of the plant. So, however, why the plant gets from one end to the other is how we're going to recommend that you space them, and very often both the width and the space, the width and the spacing will always be the same. We just had to separate about because some people didn't understand that you can use the width to calculate the spacing. But in almost all cases, what you're going to see is a range of sizes. So we take sone hands you,
like we just talked about it. In plants on trial, we have a range of width and spacing on that two to four feet, and a lot of people find that confusing. Do I space it two feet? Do I space at four feet? Do I space it three feet? And overall, here's the kind of guideline that you can use. The colder your climate, the less wide that plant is likely to get, because your colder and longer winters are
going to prevent it from growing quite as much. The warmer your climate, the more likely you will want to use the higher end of that range, because your plant is going to have a longer growing season and thus it is going to grow more. There's a lot of other growing conditions that play into that. If it's like ideal growing conditions and you're fertilizing it all the time.
Of course, it's going to get bigger than if it's you know, struggling in you know, sandy dune soil and not getting irrigated like in my garden in your.
Right Stacey, as you would say, your mileage may vary, yeah, very much. So if you're planting something in northern Minnesota compared to someone in North Carolina, that with could be possibly significantly.
Different, definitely, And it also is a personal choice. Like I was saying, I know a lot of you don't like your plants to touch. I love my plants to touch, so I'm always reducing that spacing as almost as much as I possibly can to make sure I get as much in. So if you definitely don't want your plants to touch, that's another case where you would use that higher end of the range and space them at three
or four feet. Also useful in hedging. If you're going with a hedge, especially in a cold climate, I would always always use the smaller number because you're doing it for coverage. You don't want to wait the rest of your life for things to grow into with each other. So it can be that's where the subjective aspect of it comes in. But we're not trying to be deliberately
obtuse about how wide the plant gets. It's just that it is a There are just so many factors, so you know that's where sort of the art part of gardening comes in.
Sure, and personal preference absolutely definitely, you bet all right, CJ writes to us this week High Team, I look forward to your show every week. Question. I planted this ginko princeton centry in my High Desert Zone six B garden summer twenty twenty three. I noticed this funky growth down at the base of the trunk, and I'm wondering if I should be concerned. The vertical lines may be
from feral cats at the nursery. According to the nursery gal who sold it to me, it seemed to do okay last summer, a little bit of new growth and some minor tip die off at the top, signing off with a sassy wink.
There you go, right, So this plant is being girdled as we speak. So CJ did send some pictures and you will see those in the YouTube version as well as on our show notes at Gardenings Simplified on Air dot com. And yeah, this is a bad case of girdling and your tree will not be long for the world unless you fix this.
So it's choking.
It's choking itself. Yeah, so you can see that the roots are kind of that you can already see that they're moving in a circular motion. You can also see that they're kind of you know, twirling and twisting around each other. And so, uh, first of the first thing that I would do, and one thing that I noticed from your photo CJ, is that you have your drip emitters right up close to the base of the plant.
And I don't think that that's helping, because that's what that's doing is keeping that area really really moist and probably leading to a lot more hair root development there. You really want those emitters to be out at the
canopy of the plant. Now, Princeton Princeton sentry is a somewhat fastigic ginko, so that might not be very very far off, But look at where the leaves are and try to position your emitters to that so called dripline or just outside of it where when it rains, the water drips off the plant and makes that ring around the planet. That will help a lot. I don't think you're doing yourself any favors there, and then I think
you got two choices here. You can dig up the plant and correct the girdling, which would probably be the best thing to do. It's only two years not quite two years old, so it's not going to be like a lot of roots. I don't think it'd be super
hard to dig. And even though doing this will set it back a little bit, I think that the investment that you put into it to correct it will certainly pay off in the long run because the other alternative, and you do have to fix this, is to just take an axe or a saw and take out some of the worst defenders, and that's not really ideal.
What would you do same thing. I really have nothing to add, And I think your point, as far as the water is concerned, or when people fertilized trees, always work your way out to the drip line. Let's not work around the trunk.
Yeah, it's easy to think that that's where you would want to have it, but now you really want to you know, the tree basically does kind of adapt to the fact that that's where the water comes from when it rains, so that is where you want to really target your watering on any tree or shrub, or really even a perennial, because bigger perennials will have a drip line as well.
We have some pictures to show folks who are watching the YouTube version because Bethany writes to us, Hello, thanks for the show. I enjoy listening to it every week. I've learned a lot, and i'd like advice on what to do with my laurels. Don't rest on your laurels, right, that was easy. Last year, a few patches started wilting and turning yellow brown, and now several of the shrubs are affected. I tried pruning out the affected branches, spraying fungicide.
It's still spreading. Do I need to remove the affected plants completely? Can I cut them back? I want to try and protect the remaining healthy one.
Right, So do take a moment to look at Bethany's photos. If you're not watching us on YouTube, go to Gardening Simplified on air dot com and you'll see them. And I wanted to answer Bethany's question today because it is an issue that I think a lot of people are likely to see happen in their yards this coming spring. The laurel that she's talking about is a cherry laurel Prunus Laura sirasus. So it's not like a bay laurel or something like that. It is a brunly fevergreen does
want a sitic soil. But you know, a lot of times when we see things starting to go wrong and there's multiple of plants here in this planting, our first
thought is that it's a disease and it's spreading. But I think when you look at Bethanese photos and if this is happening to you, if you take a moment to step back and really look at the area where this is happening, you're going to start picking up on a little bit more clues, more clues than you may have just initially thought by looking at you know, from one direction, and what I see here in Bethany's planting is that all the plants on the right side are dying.
And what I notice is that there is a downspout from the house right there, and very likely what is happening is probably they're getting too much water. They're having soil drainage issues or possibly like leeching issues from excess water there that is either leading to drainage issues or leading to a pH problem because cherry laurels do want an acidic pH so it could be just like leeching
out all of the organic matter. But when you look at this and you see that those damage plants are so concentrated together and not just randomly through your hedge. It's not like one down at one end and then one in the middle. These are concentrated together. So something is happening. It is almost certainly cultural, which is to say it's related to water, you know, for soil fertility something like that, and not a pest or disease, although
it could be rabbits. So what you're going to need to do, Bethany is I would recommend clearing away your mulch and trying to get down there and look what's going on. You know, is the soil extremely wet and soggy. I think that your plants that have turned brown are not going to come back. But the ones that have kind of that like sad, pale green color, which that is definitely not a great color to see in your garden potentially could be saved. But you're going to have
to remedy the situation. So you need to get down there and see. It's so easy for people to think when they see something going wrong with the tops of their plants that it's a pest, a bug or something like that. But I mean, honestly, nine point five times out of ten, it's always an issue that originates at the roots and the leaves are just manifesting whatever problem that is.
I agree, look down, not up, and with broad leaf evergreens rhododendrons are another example. I phy top thro a can be a problem, and I think you nailed it on the head, Stacey, and I would look at that soil because if you don't have good drainage, and we don't know if this is a heavy soil or not, but without good drainage, you're going to have those problems and it will appear in the top of the plant
as though it's browning, turning, pale and moping. Yeah, and that's exactly what I see in these patres.
And you know, phi toop throa is a disease, but phi toop through a root rot is a disease that's caused by wet soil. So it's not really a situation where like, oh gosh, it caught this horrible disease. It's a it's a disease that kind of manifests based on the cultural condition additions, and then it's the phytoproa that might take it out. But the phytopthroa is only there
because of the poor drainage. And Bethany does look like she is located in Tennessee, so almost certainly a pretty heavy clay soil and rocky soil which can definitely, you know, lead to drainage issues. So clear that multuay dig around look for clues. After you have a heavy rain, go out and check and see how much moisture that downspout is funneling into that bed, and you know, possibly the solution is a simple is redirecting that down spout out into the lawn instead of into your bed. Great, so
there's always more clues there if you look. But anyway, Bethany, I'm sorry to hear about your cherry laurels and hope that you're able to save them. Anything that's still green, I would at least give it a little bit more time if you're able to remedy the soil issues. We're going to take a little bit of a break, and when we come back, we have gardenings simplified fan favorite Birdman in the house to talk bird So stay tuned. Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified Podcast, brought to
you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and tested by experts with your success in mind. Learn more at Proven winnerscolor Choice dot com.
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Today in Branching News, I want to kick off branching News Stacey simply by sharing that for our YouTube viewers or rad listeners or podcast listeners. I'm going to be in the Chicago Land area on March eighth, so that's Saturday, March eighth. I'm going to be giving a couple presentations at Plathill Nursery. Have you ever been there?
I have not been there, but I know they are one of the biggest and best nurseries in the Chicagoland area.
Fantastic nursery. I'm going to talk about plant scaping also easy to grow plants. The presentations are based on the work you and I do here on the Gardening Simplified Show. So if you're in the Chicago Land area, love to see on March eight, that's in Carpentersville, Illinois, plat Hill Nursery Stacy coming up on February fourteen through seventeen this weekend, Yes, is the Global Bird Count And this is exciting and if you want to learn more about it, just go
to birdcount dot org. As a matter of fact, you can follow live online as people submit their bird counts. It's kind of that's neat, yeah, and to count birds. And I thought, who better to talk to about this? I mean, we just got off super Bowl weekend, right, super Bowl super Bowl weekend, So let's move on to Global bird Count and celebrate with a birdman himself, Bill Stovell. Bill, how you doing this winter?
Doing well this winter? How are you doing? There? Sounds pretty good from here.
I'm anxious for spring, Bill, can't wait. As a matter of fact, you know, I was thinking this past week watching the birds at my bird feeder, with the ground still snow covered and everything icy and frozen. I start to think about birds running out of berries and natural food sources. It's probably a good time of the year to be feeding them, right, Bills.
One of the best. It probably is the best right now. They're in more need. Now. All my berry trees except my hawthorns are picked beer. They've been each each one in the winter berries and then the all the you know, all the different kinds of berries that we produce for them, and now they're gone. They're supplemented with some flour seed at the feeder and see.
It exactly, you know, Stacey. We often talk on the show about putting plants in the landscape that provide those berries, and there are so many great choices, and it's at this time of the year that it becomes pretty evident part of the reason why we do it.
Definitely. The birds are very active at my suwet feeder, and you know, that reminds me of a question, Bill, It's been on my mind lately, and you are the perfect person to ask. So I have a seuwet feeder, and of course, you know, my garden is primarily geared around attracting and making it hospitable for birds. So there's plenty of shelter. I've got evergreen shelter just you know, a few steps away. I've got a magnolia tree that
is very very close for them to fly into. And you know what else, I've got Cooper's hawks and I love you know, I love birds of prey, so I, you know, I understand that that's a natural part of it. But sometimes I do get to asking myself, am I just like setting up a shooting fish in a barrel situation? Am I making things worse for the birds when I'm trying to make things better?
Not so often. First of all, the hawks are there once in a while, they don't stay there a long time, and they're only good one out of seven, you know, they save it seven chances before they get one bird. Oh, I really get one that's a little a little weaker
than the others for some reason. Really, And yeah, And one of the reasons that we have so many birds and then the nests are so large, you know, the flocks are so big, is that there's a there is a predatory situation, you know, throughout the country, and that's only one of them. There's diseases, and there's windows, and there's other things. So it's just just part of their life and you're not doing anything bad. You're probably doing
more a whole lot more good by feeding. And our hawks need to need to survive too, because they take care of the more crippled birds and the you know, they call they call the herd or the flock, any of the weaker one. So, and they're gorgeous birds.
Oh I'm crazy about them. I do love to see them. But you know, I'm not gonna lie. I did see a pair work to take out a woodpecker, and I'm like, couldn't have just been a sparrow, a starling?
Maybe?
Did it have to be a woodpecker? That was a little bit of heartbreaking.
Yeah. Most most often I'll take a morning dove and there's just a big puff of feathers. But we have a lot of mourning. Does at the second most popular popular bird there is a morning dove.
So there's no shortage on my house, that's for sure.
Just just another pigeon.
Yeah, exactly.
I think what we ought to do is say up an ad hoc committee to analyze the situation. Yeah, I know that was well global bird count So Bill, what's the use in counting birds? I think I have a good idea. But you know, the website states that scientists need hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to report what they're seeing in their backyards, neighborhoods, wild places around the world. They call it participatory science, community science. Because we're interested
in the health of birds. For our viewers on YouTube, showing you some pictures of some tucans that I took pictures of in Costa Rica a few months ago, just amazing to watch. So we love, we love the the enjoyment of watching birds. But Bill, the point here is that we can make a difference too by helping track and report birds in a bird count correct correct.
This is just a fantastic possibility of a snapshot of everything that's on the globe at the same moment, so you can get an idea about how many and what kind of birds we have, and if there's a real problem with one species or two, then you can turn a little at tension towards the conservation of that, making their habitat better or their food sources better or something like that. So it's a management skill and it's an
inventory of what we have. Our population changes all the time, so we need to know.
So it's useful to have it at the same time every year, even though the actual date changes. Of course, you know they need to have it on a weekend so humans can actually participate. The birds have different schedules, of course, but then you have that consistency from your dear that it's always that second weekend in February or third weekend in February or whatever it is.
Well, then your birds are pretty much in the same place as they were last year at your feeder or the same places in your in your yard or your woodland nearby, or the walking trails whatever out in the fields.
And so with the backguard great bird count, is any contribution valuable? Like even if you can only watch for you know, five minutes and you do only see a morning dove or you know something like that, is that still useful?
Well, I think that's one reason that they haven't spread for such a long time, because you're not going to be watching for that time. You can go and spend fifteen minutes and take a note, and then next time you're fixing the dinner or something that that you look out to do another fifteen minutes and you come, you pile it together, and all of a sudden you find you the species that are coming in on a consistent basis, and you've got your observation for your territory. Right.
So, anyone who can even dedicate a few minutes and whether or not you have a feeder. Right, This is not dependent on whether you have a feeder. It's just whatever birds are present in your backyard where you are well.
You greatly increase your possibilities if you have a feeder and uh water, Yeah, you know, heated bird baths one of the two because that attracts the birds and sewet which is a different group of birds too. Woodpeckers and that are more into the suet where your seed feeders are are different groups of birds. But uh, then you've got the full full population available at that time, you know, for the you know, whenever, whenever you had chance to
look at it. You don't have to spend a lot of time doing it.
Yeah, I'm amazed at the great work done by many organizations and many people that care about these beautiful birds that we enjoy in our outdoor environments along with our plants. Cornell University and the Autuban Society, and it goes on and on. I remember in the past interviewing someone who volunteered to pick up birds at the base of a tall building year round and dead birds that had struck the building, and I was, you know, during the interview,
I was saying, how do you do it. I would be so depressed at the end of the day walking away. But it's important work that they're doing.
Bill.
When it comes to the environment, the health of birds and wildlife in our landscapes are just a snapshot, like you said, of how healthy our environment is.
Well, they are in a canary in the mine for the whole population. Yes, it's an indicator of health, and birds are one of the primary indicators because they're more vulnerable. You can see the population fluctuations first, and birds before other things are apparent.
Just to pause here.
Yelling to launch and also amphibians.
But I know, I think we're all just sitting here going gosh, it's really sad.
So Birdman. The other thought that runs through my mind. I went outside this morning to clear snow from the driveway, and it was quiet and very cold, but I listened to the cardinals singing in the trees. But I wanted to remind people of something you taught me a long time ago, and that is it's at this time of the year that, more than just about any time of the year, water is important for birds.
Right It is the most important right now because they can't get it easily. They can't melt snow and have it be effective with their body temperatures. They need to have flowing their water that's unfrozen, whether it's along the curb, or whether it's along a crook bank, or of all a bird bath that has a heater in it so
they can just come anytime they need it. And they need to take clean So they need to take baths occasionally too to keep the picks and the other things off, because they need their feathers to be efficient.
I remember that polar vortex winter of twenty fifteen when everything just froze solid, and the number of dead birds that we saw out there. Like I said, why don't we queue up old Yeller and watch the end here? Now that we're depressed, let's move on to something more happy, hummingbirds and robins and all of that good stuff that's coming soon.
Right yesterday I saw four robins and three male bluebirds in a sunny spot, so they're they're looking around for a few of the berries that are left. They're looking at the sunny spots on the next of the building where the ground is now clear because it's been reflexively heated, so they're stretching in that along the bases of the trees where there's still a little ground showing through, and along the streams where there's some green to eat eat
things and fine bug. So they're struggling out, but they're doing just fine.
Sorry, I think I'm still sad.
I'm depressed. I'm going home.
We're sick of winter, bill, Yeah, as I'm sure the birds are.
Yeah, I'm ready for spring. Well.
And of course people on YouTube watch us all around the world, or they're watching in the south, and they're wondering what we're talking about here, right, that's true.
Well, there's some benefits to this. There are no mosquitos fighting me today, that's true.
We got to be grateful for those things. So as spring does come closer, what are some of the first migrants that are going to come back that we should have our eyes peeled for.
When you see a plot of red winged blackbirds at the edge of a field, and you know things are coming on. When you look up in the sky and you see angels flying over and calling, When you look up in the sky and you see some ducks and geese and trumpeter swan's going on over, you know things are starting to move.
And why the red wing blackbird. I'm curious about that.
Do they migrate, Yeah, yeah, they move further south and then they come back and flocks. They don't migrate very far. I don't think they just go down to where there's not so much snow. It isn't everybody goes to Florida. They go to Tennessee or or you know, there's become good things in Tennessee. They got horses and whiskey. They got good things.
And those red winged blackbirds they're just establishing their perch. So come spring, when I'm out there running on the trail, they've got their clear vantage point to peck me in the heads.
They set up a little exercise parlors around you, so they're they're really in shape to do that.
That's great, So hummingbirds. Everyone looks forward to to that time of the year. I was looking online in social media and saw just the most incredible picture of an indigo bunting in a field of flowers. Talk about gorgeous color, you know. And I'm a person who has always felt in Major League Baseball, you've got the Orioles, you've got the Blue Jays, you've got the Cardinals. I've always felt there should be an Indigo bunting team. I love that bird bill.
They're great. They like little brambles and there is a little spark and blue that's down inside the raspberry bushes and there, and that's where they ens, and that's where they live. But oh boy, are there's something when you see them?
They really are?
They are so any remaining words of wisdom for us here birdman, as we we anxiously await spring.
Keep the bird feeders in a sewet is full, leave your peter plugged in, and uh stay turned, put the logs in a fireplace, and wait where it's on the downhill slide. The days are getting longer, they are.
We're talking to the birdman, Bill Stoville. Hey, Bill, any idea when the loons are going to arrive on the lake for you?
I'll bet it's going to be March fifteenth to nineteenth.
Oh really?
Is there a line in Vegas on that?
Yeah? Yeah, I take the nineteenth actually been the nineteenth a pretty pretty often. It's there's not a lot of gamblers for that. You gotta be loony to do that.
Oh boy, so you are the loon ranger, aren't your Bill?
Yes? I am the ranger southernmost late in Bury County or in the United States, it has loons.
Well, and that's only a month away, so that is definitely something to look forward to.
A month away, and the male will come in first, and a couple of weeks later, the next week the female will come in and they'll start paddling around and diving and cooling and doing their pair bonding, and pretty simon, I'll have nests and eggs and foots in the air.
Well. I love it, you know.
Alan Armitage has told us Bill that the reason we garden gardeners never get old because they always have something to look forward to. I guess the same could be said for birders right.
Absolutely, the life, the spring, the rejuvenation happiness that goes along with it, the color and the song, the fresh air from the leaves that are growing and creating oxygen forest in the woods. It's just rebirth. It's a great thing, it really is.
Thank you, Bill, I feel so much better.
I'm glad we were able to end on a happy note too.
Yeah, instead of a silent pause.
Yeah, it's always fun to talk to you bird man, and thank you for your enthusiasm them for wildlife. And birds. We really appreciate you.
Well. It takes a group of us to make it happen, and it's happening with us, So thank you very much for letting me play well.
Thanks Bill, take care take care of Bell youto. Well, I don't know about you, but that made me even more ready for spring than I already was. And I was already pretty ready for spring.
I have spring fever.
I think you had spring fever since November. November, we want to thank Birdman Bill Stovell for joining us. Thank you, Rick, thank you, thank you Adriana, and of course thank you so much to all of you for listening and watching. We hope you can join us on Friday, February twenty first for our new Plants live reveal on YouTube. We'll see you then