Coming to you from Studio A here at Proven Winters, Color Choice Shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified radio podcast and YouTube show with Stacy Hervilla, me Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, Stacey, let's dig in and get to work. Somewhat controversial, I guess
you could argue it's controversial subject today. Native ours a native r is a cultivar a cultivated variety of a native plant species, meaning it's a plant that's been bred or selected by humans for specific traits while still originating from a plant species naturally found in a particular region. That's a mouthful.
That's a good definition, though. That's the basics.
Yeah, it's the basics exactly. And I think what we're talking about here is native cultivars or native VARs. And I like native ours because I believe it's one of these situations where you can have your cake and eat it too. There's a lot of interest in and a lot of benefit from native plants, but native ours provide tremendous benefit in the landscape, and of course are beautiful because they have been bred for various characteristics that enhance
their beauty in our landscape. That's kind of how I look at it.
Yeah, And you know, I think it's important to acknowledge that native it's not that native ours exist because native plants aren't beautiful. We all know that we have so many beautiful native plants. We just talked about a bunch of them on our spring ephemeral show, and you know, any ride through anywhere in the US at the right time will be absolutely breadsaking because we do have such
an incredible diversity of beautiful native plants. But the thing is that native ours are selected or developed for having more of what people like, so color, more flowers. It can mean a whole lot of different things, but the bottom line is that I feel like it's a hard sell to get your average person who's maybe not really that much of a gardener, to say, oh, hey, you know,
grow this native hydrangea with really minimal flowers. They're not getting you know, some people will, and good good for them, but it's hard to get you know, the average person really excited about that. And what native ours do, I think is help people to see make that sort of transition from plants that are just straight up ornamental and you know, from somewhere else to native plants. It's kind of like a little bridge.
Yeah, exactly. It's the word I like to use is derivative. Derivative. So if the plant is a derivative, that's tough to say. But I got it a derivative that time. I got it of a native plant. That's open to maybe some controversy, maybe some subjective criticism.
Yes, oh definitely. There are some strong opinions about native oars exactly that you do not have to go very far to find. If you want to find out, just google nativar and tell us what you find.
But you know, my opinion on it is, if you have a beautiful native plant, and I'm going to take Echinationia as an example, So if you have a beautiful plant like echination, which I love in the landscape, if plant breeders are able to take that native plant and provide better color or longer bloom or more disease resistance in essence, in my opinion, it does help pollinators because the plant is longer, blooming, tougher, healthier, And it's something that we're going to dig into in sug for with
our friend Mike Connor, the b expert and get his take on this also, so that we cover all the bases today.
And you know, I think one of the things that even the people who are very disapproving of native of ours can't deny is that when it comes right down to the garden center where people are actually buying plants, we're not going to get people to start planting native plants that don't look good at the garden center. It's
just it's not going to happen. I mean, it might happen for you if you're super passionate about native plants, but I can tell you that unless a garden center is specifically specializing in native plants, garden centers cannot risk having a bunch of plants that don't look amazing and don't fly off the shelf. The season is too short,
the margins are too thin. And what native ours do again, they kind of form that bridge between something that can look great in a container at the garden center, so people will actually want to buy it and still have that fit to our native wildlife. So it might not be the absolute most perfect choice, but it is a better choice than something that's not native at all.
No, I agree in that garden center concept you're preaching to the choir, but that's true. Take a look at a plant like Manarda or bee balm and the improved. You know, I remember back in the seventies when I was selling perennial plants. By the time we got to June, they were so loaded with powdery, mildew and disease there was nothing left in the pot. Yeah, today's cultivars amazing and still do a great job for pollinators. So it's
quite a topic. And of course some of my favorite perennial native ours are Panicum obviously, switchgrass, Manarda, summarific high Biscus.
Well right, and of course don't forget the decadence Baptisia yep, big favorite over.
Here, Tuscan sun Helio and yes, like you said, Baptizia and Amsonia or storm cloud blue star. I love Amazonia so just beautiful. Also the agastakis. And then when we get into the shrubs, and I'm sure you're going to do this in segment two, Stacey, but boy, for me, I have a long list that I enjoy. But I'm gonna have to say that some of my favorite native ours are the smooth hydranges that have come out over
the past few years. But right there at the top also lemonine lace elderberry, which is just starting to leaf out in my landscape now, and kodiak orange tervilla.
You know, I'm really glad that you brought up the smooth hydrangs because smooth Hydrangea is also known as Annabel type hydrangas, would not be in our gardens, I don't think at all if it weren't for Annabel in the first place. And Annabelle it's unknown whether its origin is human or natural. But if you see and I've talked about this before on the show many times, if you see hydrange arborescens, a species of hydrangea in the wild, you'd walk right by it. You wouldn't even identify it
as a hydrangea. But many, many years ago, someone found a mophead smooth hydrangea, brought it to Anna, Illinois, planted it along the horse path there, and people started seeing it and saying, oh, can I have a piece of that? And that is what it took to start getting this plant into our gardens. And now we can go way into newer varieties like the invincibl series with pink and
purple and all of these different colors. And one might argue, because these are mophead hydrangeas, which are going to obscure the pollen and nectar bearing fertile florets, that they aren't quite as beneficial. And that may be true, but it's still better than planting something that has no wildlife benefit at all.
Agreed, absolutely, And so you're doing it both for the benefit of pollinators as well as your own personal benefit within your landscape. And I look, for example, a friend of mine just planted this incredible storm proof oh yeah, and to look at how the stems now are becoming stirdier. It's just amazing. Legend of the fall bottle brush.
You know.
The list goes on and on. Gaspy oak leaf hydranges. We enjoy these in our landscape, but at the same time, they provide benefit in many different ways. And I think that's how I personally feel about native arts.
Yeah, I mean, I think that again, it's all about the availability, and it's all about we have to appeal to the most people possible. And I think this is so important that a lot of people who are very puist about native plants will say, oh, well, that's not native enough. But it's a step in the right direction, and they are people are not going to usually. I mean, there's certainly exceptions out there, but generally speaking, people are
not going to go from zero to sixty. I don't garden at all to all of a sudden, I only grow pure native species, right, It just doesn't work that way. You need sort of that gateway at entry point, and maybe that's a smooth hydrangea, you know, maybe that is lemony lace elderberry. And once someone starts to see and experience those benefits of seeing the pollinators in the yard, seeing the birds, that's when that change begins to happen, and that is sort of how you start to go down that path.
That's really well said, and I appreciate you saying that because I believe that the native ours help produce interest and awareness of native plants also for the general public. So I wrote you a native limb, a rick. I'm looking for a plant adaptable, something unique yet practical, with a lineage that's native and improved in ways innovative. Its characteristics are unflappable, extraordinary. We raise the bar. This plant
is going to be a star in my yard. It's going to be pretty with a nature that is downright gritty. I love my imperturbable native var.
We got a lot of fancy words in there.
Did that was a really good limerick. Coming up next, Plants on Trial with Stacy. You're tuned into 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 shrubber 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. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we are talking
about native ours. And as Rick said at the beginning of the show, if you haven't heard this word, or you're like, are they saying native ar, we are saying nativvar. And this is a term that was coined, gosh, probably fifteen or so years ago by people who are kind of in the native plant movement, and it is a contraction of the word native, of course, and cultivar, which means cultivated variety, as Rick explained. And so we're yeah, we're really just talking about plants that come from nature
but then have either been selected or developed. And the difference between those, of course is selected. Is I'm just walking along, I see a plant that's a little different. I say, hey, that's a little bit different. I want to take that and see if that is consistent or develop saying like, hey, this plant has some great characteristics, but I'll bet if I work with it a little bit more, I can get more great characteristics in it to have something that is a bit different. That's why
I said with native plant with a twist. And there are a lot there's a great deal of debate out there on this subject, and you can probably already tell this is not going to be one of those straightforward plants on trial where I just give you one plan and talk about it for ten minutes. But I do have a method to the madness here, so please bear
with me. But there's a lot of people who are very disparaging towards native ours, and we've already given you a bunch of reasons why we think that native ours definitely have a place, and we're certainly not saying that it's native ours or nothing, but the fact is that native plants unless people really know what they're looking for and are willing to take a risk, they're a harder sell in the garden center, and native ours can start
to help to change that. And there's a couple of reasons why I think that people are so disparaging towards nativurs that I wanted to address in today's Plant on Trial, And there's two main reasons. So when people say that they're opposed to native ours, I think that what they're actually saying is their objection to native ours is that they were developed with humans in mind rather than wildlife.
And a native plant was never really developed, but it evolved in conjunction with local wildlife so that there is an ecosystem there where they're all mutually supporting each other. And with native ours, whoever was selecting or developing them had to say, like, hey, I think that this is really going to appeal to people. If it happens to appeal to insects or birds or whatever, bonus. But what I'm trying to do is to actually get it to
appeal to people. And they see that as inherently that that you're trying to appeal to humans rather than animals. But I think that this argument ignores two basic facts about native ours. Number one is that nature actually is a hybridizer itself. Sure, so when a plant reproduces by seed, which is to say that you've got one plant, pollen from another plant comes to it through wind or through an insect, a cross pollination has occurred, a transfer of
genetic material has occurred. So there's two different genes now, and even though those plants are likely the same species, when you have pollen from two distinct individuals, you introduce the potential for genetic mutation. And this is nature's adaptation for things that may happen down the line. You know, a lot of things have evolved simply because you know nature maybe throughout some red pigments into say a panicum, and that made them more resistant to sun as the
sun became you know, more intense or or whatever. There's all of these different examples. So nature is itself a hybridizer. And over time, native plants can live or thrive because they're able to adapt to the environment. So a lot of this just happens naturally, like we like we theorize happened with Annabel. So you can't take nature out of
the equation. Here and number two, there is I think a prevailing assumption because the research has been so mixed and come out over such a long period of time, that all native ours are bad because they disadvantage pollinators. And that's not at all true. And we were talking a bit about Echinesia in the first segment, and so I want to kind of use that as the example, because I think that Echinaesia is really the plant that sort of, you know, soiled the name of native ours back in the day.
It's a great example, Stacey, and we should run with that. And I appreciate what you said, because again for me, coming from the garden center industry, we can be criticized as far as native ours are concerned, because essentially we're adding these characteristics and traits to make the plant look nicer so we sell more of them at the garden center.
Well, you got to make a living, wi La the criticism exactly. So Echinaesia, you know, it started to become really popular, and we have tons of native Echinaesia in the US, and a great diversity of Akinesia, many of which you can't easily even find on the market. But probably about m'd say twenty five to thirty years ago, plant breeders started to introduce Echinasia with different color flowers.
So instead of the standard purply pink, white or yellow that you find in nature, there was red, and there was orange, and that all of these sort of fiery sunset colors coming in, and that started to potentially fundamentally change in sex attraction to them because obviously it's not the same color. Insects don't see color the way that
we do. And then I think it was the double Echinaesia that really changed things around because in the double Echinaesia, that big cone in the center, which is what the pollinators are all after, suddenly got transformed into petals, So you got a big fluffy pedal thing in the center, and now the insects can't find the pollen. And now this Echinaia, which is still a native species, has become a lot less beneficial to pollinate.
It something that's different.
Yeah, but that is not the only thing that native ours are developed for, not by a long shot. Flower petal count. Flower color is only one factor that breeders look for as they're developing nativevars. So size can be a substantial one plant habit having a plant that has a neater, tidier habit, then you're going to find out in the wild, so people can actually use them, you know, in their yard foliage color, which can also sometimes be a problem if the plant is a larval host that
may or may not be beneficial. So I think that the conversation has really gotten obscured, and there is just this general assumption that all native ours disadvantaged pollinators without really looking at what makes what really puts the var in the native ar.
Yeah, I agree, and for me, it is length of bloom and disease resistance, and if you're able to apply both of those, it becomes more beneficial to the pollinator. And in addition, the end user or consumer uses less of the I'm going to call them sides, pesticides, fungicides.
Or the plant just dies because it becomes so sickly that you know, and then it's not doing anybody is any good. But the thing is, I don't think this is a bread alone situation. And again, as I said, I think it's very important that we realize that native of ours can serve as a really really important first step to getting more people interested in native plant gardening.
And I don't know if I've talked about it on the show before, but one of my personal pet peeves about the native plant movement is they're trying to get people to plant native and transform their yards without ever making the case as to why we should support insects.
Now.
Of course, people like Doug tellmey are doing an amazing job of that, but I'll tell you it's a hard sell to get people to care about insects.
Sure, I mean, yeah, you're talking about the general public.
Yeah, yeah, the general public people. If you can't just say, like, hey, plant this native plant, it's going to attract a ton of insects, they'll be running the other way faster than you can say native are So we really it's really that we need, I think a pr campaign on the value of insects before we can just get people to immediately go full on. And I think that's where nativars come in. You plant a native r you see that
it's sustaining native insects. You see them, you know, buzzing and happy, and that makes you happy, and then you start to say, well, actually, hey, attracting insects isn't that bad. It's not as bad as I thought.
It would be.
So maybe I'm going to plant a few more. So it's about those baby steps. Not everybody is going to be able to just, you know, hear the message of Doug Tellomy and people like him. It's a wonderful message, but they're not immediately going to be converted and take that step. They need to find their own path.
And my experience in my landscape has been when I apply diversity, it takes a world of difference also in attracting all the butterflies, bees, and various insects that I have in my landscape. So not just sticking with one or two varieties that's spa and.
A diversity of bloom times so that you have a welcoming buffet from spring correct all the way into false. So let's bring this back to plants on trial, and I'm going to just quickly talk about some of the native ours in the PROFEMW. Wunner's color choice line and tell you what makes them different. As we've already said, we have a bunch of hydrange arborescens or smooth hydrange as a lot of those arm p head that is going to be less beneficial to insects. Some of them
are actually not. Some of them are lace cap like in vincibille lace and those are great, But like I said, most of ours are four size, so you've got low scape snowfire errohnea. This is a newer one, but it is about two to three times more flowers and subsequently two to three times more fruit than the wild variety, and so more flowers, more pollinators, more fruit or songbirds. So that doesn't change anything about its support of wildlife.
Legend of the small bottle brush recently a plan on trial about half the size of a conventional bottle brush. So even if you have a tiny little condo with a tiny little front entry court and that's the only place you have to plant, you could still have a father gilla sugarshack button bush. Now, when people see the flowers on button bush, they need to have one, they need to have it's so amazing. They are these really
cool pincushiony like globes. But if you see button bush growing around Grand Rapids, and you do it grows right downtown Grand Rapids along the river there, you're kind of like, uh, like they're pretty scraggly, big ten feet tall kind of scraggly plants. Whereas sugar shack, it's all about the size and the habit, so it's nice and around. It's about five to six feet tall, so people can actually use it in their yard. I mean, our winterbury hollies are
another great example of that same thing. Winterburry holly grows wild everywhere around here, but they're huge, They're absolutely massive plants, and our winter burry hollies have substantially smaller habits, so you can actually again fit them into your yard. And now here's an interesting one. Simply sensational sweet shrub or kelly caanthus. I have one of these in my garden, absolutely love it. A lot of people, especially in the Southeast,
are familiar with sweet shrub, very very popular. They remember their fragrance from their youth, such an incredible fragrance, but not a consistent fragrance. The fragrance varies a lot from plant to plant, and you'll see all sorts of experts talk about this. Well, simply sensational was selected because it is extremely fragrant, and by perpetuating that, you know that the plant that you get is going to have that fragrance that you want and do everything that you want
it to do. So you know, I really don't think that there is a reason that native of ours and native plants and native plant purists can't coexist. I think there is space for all of these things, and that we all need to give each other grace and space to kind of be on our own journey as we find our way to not just being better gardeners, but you know, being better stewards of our own yards and the earth.
So you're here.
That's a lot for a little plants on trial. But anyway, we're gonna take a little break after that, and when we come back, we'll be answering some garden questions. So please stay tuned. At Proven Winners 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 and evergreens for eight to ten years to
ensure or 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 Winners Shrubs in the distinctive white container at your local garden center, or learn more at proven Winner's Color Choice dot Com. Reading's gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where it is our pleasure to answer your gardening questions. And it is definitely
gardening question season. I know I've been hearing from gardeners all over the place, and you know, you can always leave a comment on YouTube. We do read all of those and see all of those, and if Adriana has a question she can't answer, she just asks me and we get you an answer there. But you can also write us at Gardening Simplified on air dot com. There's a contact tab and we will do our best to answer your question. But I know sometimes gardening questions are
very timely. I mean not to the point where you're like, I'm in the garden right now and I need to know in five minutes. We can't help you there.
Oh, I like that. That's good.
But if it is the question that can wait, you can always reach us at Proven Winners color Choice dot com and that will grow right to one of our horticulturists who will send you a personalized answer. Provenwinners dot Com also does the same thing if you have questions about annuals or perennials, or houseplants or palladiums or any of that other stuff. So we're always trying to help you out. What do we got in the mailbag today.
Ginny writes to us, so enjoy your show each week. Thanks Ginny. I read where there are pros and cons about putting coffee grounds in the garden soil. What are your thoughts? Also? Could you address what is good what is not so good for the garden soil. I host a group of gardeners in spring and fall. Would like to share this with them. Thank you, and I boy Stacey, I use coffee grounds. I like them. I think they're organic. I find the worms are busy in there. I just
think using it as a compost is key. Don't use it as a molt.
Definitely, definitely. And you know, of course everybody knows you can go to coffee shops and the usually got their old grounds there waiting for you to go ahead and use. But they don't really give you a lot more than just saying like grounds for the garden. You're just like, okay, but what do I do with the grounds for the garden?
Yeah, but in this case, the ends justify the beans.
I know you're going somewhere. Thank it took me a second. But but great news, Jinny. I have an excellent resource for you and your gardening group and we will post it in the show notes at Gardening Simplifying on air dot com. But Linda Chalker Scott, she is a professor and extension agent out in Washington State where they know a thing or two about coffee and she has an excellent horticultural mythbusting sheet on coffee grounds in the garden.
You can also just search for Linda Chalker Scott coffee grounds. It will come right up, and you know her verdict is that they are overall good, but she definitely cannot overdo it and you cannot really use them as a mulch. If you want to use them as a malch, make sure it's a thin, thin layer. Coffee grounds can compas very easily and that can make it difficult for the water to get through. They can also kind of just like turn like kind of krusty and gross looking. But
they are an excellent amendment to compost. So if you compost by all means, take your coffee grounds add it to the compost. And people think that coffee grounds tend to make the soil acidic I'm sure I have heard from many gardeners who have said something like, oh, I put coffee grounds on my high ranges and they turn blue. Actually,
coffee grounds are not necessarily acidic. The pH of the coffee grounds themselves can vary a lot in Professor Chalker Scott talks about this a bit in that fact sheet, So you can't count on it as a reliable soil acidifier or having any kind of predictable effect on the pH at all. And it can actually inhibit some seed germination, So not a great choice necessarily in vegetable garden. If you're starting a lot of stuff by seed couple of
other species, it actually improved seed germination. So basically, coffee is all over the place. It is a good organic amendment, whether or not your coffee is organically grown. The coffee grounds themselves are organic that came from a living thing, So it's best to think about it as an organic amendment to your compost or soil. But you want to mix it in. You want to be sparing in how you use it, unless you're adding it to your compost, in which case layer it up, put it in there and let it rot.
Yeah, I love it. I mean, there's a reason they call them grounds, right.
I mean to put them in the ground. Yeah, oh, I get it.
I mean, or I think I think it's great to use them. But you do have to bear in mind that they are not a complete fertilized.
They are definitely not and they are not a cure all. You know, a lot of times people like to think, oh, this thing is natural, and so it's going to do X, Y and z. But we have talked about in the past how there's so much misinformation out there. A lot of times just because something feels like it should be true does not mean that it is. Like the whole thing about coffee grounds acidifying the soil, it doesn't actually work that way.
So and you didn't like the ends justify the beans.
It's okay, not one of your better puns, but it's it's pretty good. I'm gonna give it a B minus.
Oh nice, try better luck next time.
It wasn't the cream of the crop.
Rick, Okay, thank you. Moving on, let's take a look here. Debbie is wondering. I just ordered a snowflake y Burnham. I'm in zone five B. Can I plant it?
Now?
All right?
Now?
I wanted to answer this question from Debbie and for anyone else who is wondering, because at this time of year, and especially in a season like we're having this particular year here in Michigan and probably most of the Midwest,
people wonder if they can plant now. And the simple fact is that since it is still quite cold here in Michigan, if you have a plant that is actively growing, so I'm talking about like a shrub or a perennial or a tree, not necessarily like pansies or things that are intended for outdoor, you know, decoration like that, chances are if it has foliage on it, that foliage is not remotely ready to deal with the cold in your area, because odds are.
It's coming out of a greenhouse or a covered structure. But if the plant is outdoors, yes, and mimics what the plants are doing within the landscape, go right ahead and plant, then it's safe.
Right, So you don't always know, but you know, if a plant has been in a greenhouse and you're just like, that's beautiful, I want to plant it. That foliage is so tender, and if it gets even into the thirties, it doesn't even necessarily have to freeze, all of that foliage is just going to turn brown. You'll feel really sad.
It probably won't kill the plant unless it's a super severe frost or freeze, but she'll be sad, and you'll be sad that you put all the money into that plant and all the time and planting it, and now it no longer looks beautiful. So you have to keep a close eye on the weather. If you are shopping
at a garden center, be sure to ask them. You know, they should be able to tell you how the plants were kept, and that can help you determine whether you plant them right then and there, what you got another pun on a tip of your tongue.
There, I just was going to say, better latte than never. Just keep going.
You know, I'm starting to be able to tell what he's got one like the vibes shift and it's like a balloon blowing up until it bursts. So don't be afraid to ask your garden center. And when in doubt, you know, buy it, enjoy it, and then just bring it inside on nights that it's going to be super cold, and then wait until pretty much the danger of frost has passed. Unless you want to be running out there every night if the frost or freeze threatens and covering
it with a blanket. So we have a question here from Jennifer. She is in Texas and she says they've recently had a lot of rain and it's causing the branches of her white pillar rows of sharon to become floppy. She says, they're nearly six feet tall, and I've never pruned them. She says. I want to say, I heard Stacy say to prune one third of this type of plant, but I'm not sure how or why can someone confirm.
So I want to address this because this is a question that comes up relatively frequently for the pillar hibiscus and the so pillar hibiscus are plants in the proven win there's color choice line that naturally grow with a really narrow columnar habit So instead of being a big, you know, eight feet tall and wide Rosa sharon, these grow very narrow, so like three to four feet and
then they get tall. But one of the things that can happen with Rosa sharon, especially in warmer climates like Texas, if they get a growth spurt, like they get a lot of water, it's spring they're in full growth mode, they may be fertilized. That can lead to floppy growth. The growth comes out so fast that the plant doesn't have time to harden off its cells and turn them into fully woody cells, and so they do flop over.
And you know, usually that's just a situation of weather conditions, but it can also happen if the branches start to get heavy. So if this starts to happen to you, I would recommend number one that you actually, instead of cutting them back by a third, which you can do. If you do that, try not to go for the buzz cut. Look, make your cuts a little bit more here and there, not just like one straight cut across
with the old hedge tremors. But you can also sort of identify the main branches and then thin out the side branches. And that's going to take a lot of weight away from those branches and help them stand up. And you can also use a combination of the two. But Rosa Sharon, especially in a climate like Texas, you've got nothing to worry about in terms of how much you can remove. You can definitely cut these back fairly hard.
Obviously you're using them for coverage you're not going to cut them back to the ground, but in terms of thinning them and trying to get those stems back up, just a combination of reducing the height and reducing the extra weight of those side branches should do the trick. And I would definitely recommend if you are fertilizing and
or if you have a lawn service. A lot of people don't realize that if they have a lawn service and they're coming in and applying high nitrogen fertilizers to maintain a lawn, that kind of actually impact plants that are in the lawn or are surrounding the lawn and pushing a lot of growth. So if you are fertilizing this, definitely cut back. Let the plant have some time to harden off those cells, which will happen naturally as the
season progresses. But yeah, springtime sometimes under ideal conditions, can push a lot of growth like that.
Yeah, I agree with you, don't cut it to the ground, but be aggressive in my opinion, and I think you'll derive benefit from it.
Yeah, and rosa sharing can take it so especially you know, sometimes if you're in a hotter climate, you've got to just do a little more than we have to do up here in Michigan where sometimes we're just hoping something grows at all. Jennifer, now would be a perfect time to do that in spring. You know, when it comes to this kind of pruning, you can prune it whenever you need to. It doesn't really matter that much because you're not you don't have to worry about the flowers.
It's still gonna flower. It's still early enough in the season, So I would go ahead and do that pruning now, get it back to where you need it to be, and you should be in good check by the time it does flower for you, probably in a couple of weeks down the road. So we're gonna take a little break. When we come back, we're going to be talking with Mike Connor about more native ours and native fund So please 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 Winners color Choice dot com.
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show today for branching news and interview with our friend back by popular demand, although he's a tree guy, so I'll say back by poplar demand. Mike Connor a horticulturist, arborist and pollination expert. Be expert, Mike. Always great to have you on the show.
Thanks so much for inviting me back. I never can get over the fact that you invite me to speak again. Thank you well.
We love to tap into your expertise, and it appears that our viewers and listeners also enjoy it asking us to bring you back, and so here we are. We knew we'd be talking about native ours today, so I sent Mike b mail. Did you get that, Mikey? Yeah, you bet? And Mike said that he would he would come on the show. So Mike, I guess let me ask just right off the top, in your opinion, being the b expert you are, are native ours beneficial to pollinators?
Absolutely? There are a few exceptions, but generally we can say that native ours are more beneficial to pollinators as a group than the species, and that's because of extended bloom time. That's because people are planting more of them. In other words, it's if it's a pretty plant, you're going to plant it and the bees will benefit. So yeah, I like most of the native ours that we have out there.
Well, tell us about those exceptions then, because you know, I think that is it's those couple of exceptions out there that have really kind of, uh, you know, spoiled
the whole shebang for a lot of people. And they just decide that they uniformly hate native ours and it's wrong to plant them without really looking, you know, more critically and deeply at what actually is making any given plant a native ar or different from the native species you'd find walking in the woods or the meadow or whatever.
I know, And that's really become not only a political issue, but I think for some people, almost to religious issues, they have to have the plant that was here before your opinions came to America or before you know, any other group came to America. And so they've defined and they say that at this particular time in history, this is our base and we can't change anything from that base.
And that's one side of the group. And that would be exemplified by famous authors and common proponents would be Doug Tellumy for instance, with his great books. I've met Doug. He's a very interesting guy. I think that he's strongly opinionated, but he does bring up a few good points where he says that we can develop a native ar that becomes completely non attractive to our pollinators. One example would be like the annabel hydrangea, which is a native ar.
It's an arborescuence hydrangea, but it's very, very philoriferous. But the flowers are not attractive, they're not fertile, they don't have any nectar, so basically they become a pollinator desert. But that's an exception. There are a lot of other really positive things out there that we can talk about. One other negative towards the native urs is that where are we going to de find what's native? Is that just your backyard? Is that the United States? Is that
North America? How are we going to define these terms? And so we move a plant in, which I'm sure you guys have experienced, to move a plant in from another part of Michigan, somebody may protests and say, well, that's not native to my area. On the other hand, there are people who will say, well that is native to Michigan, so it's something that I want in my garden.
So we develop native ours from these trees or I'm sorry, trees that's all I think about, from these native plants, and some people love them with some people hate them. And I understand the controversy. It's really intense because we could be diluting down genetic diversity. That's one argument. I don't know that that's really really part of the problem.
I think that we have to look at solutions, in my mind, to a problem that is out there, which is we lack the forage for our native bees and for our honey bees, and anything we can do that provides be forage fills in those gaps, fills in the gaps where there is no b forage spring or later in the fall. Whether that's a native ar or a native plant, I really don't care as long as it's being utilized by natives and honey bees.
Yeah, you know, I was thinking while you were talking, both Rick and I, you know, living out here by the lake shore, live in what would be if it hadn't been developed a dune environment, and it would be pretty much all dune grass, which is when pollinated and not necessarily particularly value. It has its own ecological value, of course, but as far as attracting pollinators and sustaining insects and trying to help all of our native bees
and all of that. You know, if we were to just let our landscapes be truly native as to what they are, we'd probably just have a lot of ticks and not a lot of fun sex and it wouldn't be that great.
Except a lot of kicks and spiders and not many pollinators. Ye have, absolutely correct, because you know, nature is always changing. You know, the forest and the trees that we have today are not the forests and the trees that our grandfathers had. Our grandparents and the environment that our grandparents had is not the environment that their grandparents had. Everything is changing. Everything is on this continuum. Everything is going.
And you know, if we want to go back far enough, we can say, well, you know, ten or twelve thousand years ago, there was a mile of ice above us. So you know, things have changed a lot in the last ten or twelve thousand years. So I believe that things are always changing. We're not in this period of you know, what they call uniformitarianism, where nothing changes, everything is as it was, because you know, with our own
eyes we see that's not what's actually happening. So as plants come in, as plants change, as the environment changes, you know, the needs of our pollinators will change, the needs of our insects will change. And in preparation for this talk, and I reached out to a friend of mine, doctor Daniel Potter. He's at the University of Kentucky, and I was talking to him and he said, well, you know, I wrote a paper about this, really, so he sent me a copy of paper and he compared native milk
weeds with native our milk weeds. And after you read his nineteen page paper, and you realize that there is no real difference. And he said, in conclusion, if this is what it takes to get milkweed out into the environment in order to provide food for our butterflies and our bees and our especially har monarch butterflies, it's very important that we be promoting the use of native ours, especially in urban gardens, because they're attracting our insects, they're
attracting our you know, our wildlfe. And it's not just to see in milk weeds that he talks about. But you know, if you get talking to me, talk about all these other native ours and culture bars that we have in the environment.
You know, I think that's interesting, especially with milkweed as the example, because you know, so many of us were conditioned in this way that like weeds in the yard
aren't bad. Milk weed is a weed, and you know, people may be unwilling to let our you know, native a sleepy ast Zoriacus grow wild in their yard thinking of it as a weed, but they might be perfectly happy to go to the garden center and buy, you know, a selection of milkweed and feel like that's good enough, and then that will start to again affect that change where they're like, oh, wow, maybe I will let some of those milkweed grow and see what happens.
Right, Yep, I totally agree with that. It's kind of a gateway for people to start planting plants that are more effective for our butterflies and our pollinators.
So, Mike, as a b expert and expert on pollination, can you share a few native ours that are favorites of yours if someone were to add them to their landscape.
Wow, that's really a good question, you know, And you're gonna ask me for a specific variemety here, Rick, And you know, I really really like the Agaskatchi. Some of those native ours are absolutely astounding in the way that they are attracting pollinators. They send your bloom times. One of my favorites in the milkweeds would be the Cinderella.
Oh yeah, yeah, so that's an esclipias incarnat a swamp milk weed. Bit more pink flowers, right.
Very yeah, very pretty. Another one that I really like is one called gay butterflies.
Oh yeah.
And you know, basically, any of these milkweeds that are out there that are native ours are gorgeous. You know. I like those things that once you plan them, you don't have to go back and read plant the next year or spend the money to plant it again next year. But milk are generally pretty good, and as you said, a lot of people used to regard them as weeds. But nothing is passion going among people more than two things.
One is monarch butterflies and the other is pollinators. Would be saved the bees, it would be, you know what's going on with you know, the honey bees, pollinators that are in our country, and that stirs passion in people. But I think number one would be monarch butterflies.
Ye, people used to think of milkweed, Yes, Mike, you're correct,
as weeds something to dispose yourself of. As a matter of fact, that all changed during World War Two with doctor Boris Berkman and the collection of seed pods to save the lives of aviators and sailors during World War two to pack life vests, and slowly but surely the whole public perception of milkweed changed, along with, of course the benefit to pollinators and stacy to ask you if you're keeping score at home, So essentially you're talking here about Esclepias tuberosa.
Tuberosa is the pink and the yellower orange one, yeah, yep. But our regular native milkweed is Sclepias siriaka.
For folks who want to buy one at.
Y yeahbosa is usually that is a native one, and it grows wild around here abundantly. But it is usually those orange or yellow ones that you see the most stuff. And but the one that Mike mentioned, Cinderella, is increasingly a you're increasingly able to find that, and its companion plant is ice ballet, which is a white flowered.
Fantastic version of that, and even ice bellet, by the way, it's just an astounding display of flowers. Yeah, they're really great.
And the thing about Asclepias milkweed is it is not a plant that likes the nursery environment. So it is definitely one of those plants that people need to maybe take a little bit of a leap of faith when they see it at the garden center and go, mmm, I'm not sure that's worth the money. It's what's going on below the soil that counts. But asleepist they have a tap root. They don't really love the nursery environment, but they're so important.
They they do, and sometimes they're hard to transplant. This experience, I've grown some from seed and you can grow them in a pod and then when you go to plant them all sometimes they're going no, I don't think so, I'm just gonna die wrong.
But I've had that experience too, you know my experience in the landscape. Also you mentioned Agastaki. There's a cultivar called meant to be or royal raspberry. Some people refer to the plant as hissop, but talk about a pollinator, hummingbird, be butterfly, magnet. In the landscape, I have some planted near miss Molly, but that beautiful in the combination of the two. They are co did on a July or August day in butterflies, bees, sphinx moths. It's it's amazing to watch.
Oh, you're absolutely right, that's one of my favorites. You mentioned two of my favorites right there. Rick, Thank you.
Now, Mike, I want to ask you, and we were talking about this a little bit earlier in the show. You know, I think there's a lot of publicity out there and a lot of people trying to convince everyone to plant natives and it's good for the environment. But you know, honestly, what I think really needs to happen is I think that insects need a little bit of a pr campaign because I think that it's a really
hard sell. I think people are willing to grow different things and try to make their yards, you know, more eco friendly or whatever that means, but it's hard I think to convince people that attracting insects is a good thing. Now, you're a bee guy, you know, what do you what's kind of your message When people are fearful and reluctant because they just they're just so conditioned to think of insects as bad and dirty and harmful and gross, and they don't want them around, I know.
And that's that's really too bad, because our insect population as a whole has decreased to cost America for a lot of different reasons. They used to do windshield surveys literally where how many bug splats were they're on the windshield, and that has decreased over the last few years, and so the insect populations have dropped. I mean, the one single most important plant you can put in for insects in general is an oak tree. It's not any good for our pollinators as such, but it's great for all
the other birds and for the environment. It's a real keystone species. But if we're looking at at other plants that we can put out there for insects, then I'm thinking of things that draw a lot of pollinators because they're getting from those milkley to good example, because you're feeding the monarch butterfly, and you're providing nectar for insects other than the monarch plus the monarch. And how do
we get around this idea of ooh insects. I just responded to an email yesterday about this where a gentleman is definitely afraid of bees, and he's defining the bees, and you know what, they weren't bees at all. They were yellow jackets coming out of the ground attacking him in the summertime. And we have this mistaken idea that all insects are bad. But the vast majority of native bees will never sting you. They can't sting you, they don't want to sting you. And it's kind of a
public perception. People like the idea. They get a one twuzy one. They talk about, well, we're going to plant for pollinators, and I think, oh good, you know, that's great, But they like to have their flowers up high so that they don't have to see them or encounter the insects there. I don't know if I'm answering your question or not.
It's just, you know, I think that that is sort of an you know, you mentioned Doug Tallamy, and I think that he has done a lovely job of making the case for why insects are merit conservation and how much everything else, you know, depends on them. But I still think, you know, the people who need to hear
that message are not reading Douglas. Tellmy they're the people who are in the garden center may have heard a few things about native plants and think, yeah, you know, I'm interested, but like they don't know what to buy because they don't know why they're doing it, and you know, saying like oh, this is going to attract a ton of insects. It's a selling point for me personally in the garden, but it's not a selling point for the average person. So you know, it's and of course I
don't expect you to have a great answer. If you do, wonderful, but you know how I feel like that is the hard work to be done here is, you know, helping people understand how important it is to have insects in the garden. And you know, we were talking earlier in the show too about how a native ar can help people, you know, have a plant in the garden and start to attract those insects and go, oh, well, you know what, maybe this wasn't so bad. You know, this actually isn't
that scary. I was afraid I was going to have some sort of you know, like horror movie level swarm in my backyard, and it's like, actually, you know what, this is kind of lovely but yeah, I mean that's a challenge, and I'm sure it's a challenge you deal with in your work as well.
It is, and I'm sure Rick has covered the advantage of some of the native arts in regard to the application of chemicals because so many of the native ours are disease resistant, so we have less spray that has to go on them. And I'll tell you, as an arborist, when I put in my arborist hat, I'll get a call from someone who will say, oh, I have all these bugs. You know, wrong terminology, but will say, have all of these bugs in my oak tree to spray?
And I'll say, you know what, unless they're spongy moth, I'm not going to We're not going to treat them. We're going to leave them. And most people are okay once you educate them on the benefits of insects and their oak tree. The disadvantage that I've run into is a lot of companies will go up to someone and say, oh, you have bugs, I will spray, and while I'm here, I will spray your garden, and I will also spray
your shrubs. You know, I will kill all the insects in your yard and I'm going to charge you a lot of money and you feel good about it, but you've destroyed that whole ecosystem. So we need to take a balanced approach as we look at insects in the environment and say, first of all, identify it. Secondly, is it harmful to me? Or is it harmful to my tree or shrub or landscape. You know, there is this point of diminishing returns where we can have a few insects in that land spe We can have a few
that are surviving. A few gypsy moths or spongy maths are not a problem because they sure as a host for the the parasitoids to the're feeding on them for the next generation. So we can allow a few. Let's let me get out of control problem. So I do try to educate people. Let's not kill all the insects in the environment. Let's try to keep some of them alive, and let's try to keep some of those host plants to support them alive.
It's all about becoming more and more bugweiser. There, Mike, and I think a marketing campaign is afoot. I like the idea. I think back to years ago with Smoky the Bear and only you can prevent forest fires. Let's do something for insects, you know, if you had a cute little bee flies into the flower, you know, says honey, I'm home, you know, or something like that. I think I have the idea.
All right, you've got the groundwork already. Late there.
We're going to work on it.
I don't know how your brain works. Rick, that's amazing.
It's scary.
Mike.
Always a pleasure to talk to you, my friend. Thank you for everything you do. Thanks for checking out with us today on this topic of native of ours and happy springing to you.
Thank you, thank you, Yeah, take care.
Thanks so much, Mike.
Well that was great, and honestly, I can't wait till the insects are back in my garden. It's still kind of cool, so not many yet, but I'm ready for them. As soon as they come back, we'll welcome them with gentle but open arms. So thanks so much to Mike Connor from Honeytree Nursery. Thank you, Rick, thank you, thank you, Adriana, and thanks so much to all of you. We hope you have a wonderful week ahead.