It's time for the Gardening Simplified show coming to you from Studio A. Here at proven winners Color Choice Shrubs with Stacy Hervella me Rick Weist, and our
engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson Well Stacy. Many greenhouses and garden centers depend on shoppers who are decorators, so they're not necessarily horticulturists or maybe interested in the science of it all, or die hard gardeners for that matter, but they're interested in decorating using containers and color during the spring season and it's time to plant, you know, I think that the decorating approach is actually a very
underrated approach to beiging plants. I agree. I think far too many people feel like they do need to be a horticulturist and they aren't, and therefore they just say Nope, not for me. Whereas I love that decorator mentality where you're just like, I love the color. I love that this is a seasonal decoration, you know, just like buying Christmas decorations or anything like that. I think that that attitude makes gardening so much easier and so much
more fun. You can get to the horticulture part later. You can always look that stuff up. That's just cold, hard facts. I am so glad you said that, because I paint walls in my house and I am not skilled enough to paint those walls. I'm a horrible painter, but I do it anyhow because I want to. Oh well, that's good. It also needs to be done well, probably more needs to be done. So if you're going to plant up some containers, try to pair plants with similar
vigor. It's pretty frustrating if by July August one plant has overtaken the other. Well, that happens often, you know, honestly, even in the best combinations. And I find that, even though I may personally be aware of those differences in vigor issues, I usually just at that point in the season, let the most competitive plant just do its thing. Aha I do, and you know you can go out there and manage it. But that's
like just different approaches to gardening. You know. If you want to pinch some things and try to keep everything in that tight little you know package like you bought it. No, I don't mind. Think it's getting a little more you know, wild and crazy, and it's like, okay, you won the race. Good for you grow the rest of the season. I agree. I like that so at least match cultural needs. So if it's a plant that needs shade, match it with other plants that need shade.
I mean it seems obvious, although you know when you think about it, through the years, plants like colius or kalladiums have changed. You know, they used to be all shade plants. Now we can grow them in sun. So familiarize yourself with that, identify and incorporate upright filler and edging plants. We often talk about thriller, filler, spiller, and then have an understanding of color schematics, like opposites on the color wheel attract purple and a
yellow or a blue and a yellow. As a matter of fact, there's a great link at proven Winters will teach you about color schematics and we'll put that in the show notes. Yeah, Christina just did a great article. She knows a lot about colors. She's an artist herself, so it was
a really enlightening article. And you know, I think when it comes to color now, this is where I think that designer mentality really comes in handy because a lot of people are picking based on horticultural and the designers are like, these are my colors, this is what I'm going for, And I think having that in mind as you go to the garden Center makes the journey so much more fun and so much more interesting. So for me, I don't really have like colors that I use all the time, but I do
have very colorful containers that I use consistently. I mean, they were an investment, they were expensive, They're beautiful glaze ceramic, so that I make sure that those are sort of determining my colors of what I'm going to put in them. But that queue can mean anything for any number of people. It can if you have one of those really colorful front doors, you can, you know, put something in that calls that in shutters, whatever colors
you like your furniture. There's just so many different ways to use color to make your decision and just take away some of that fear and analysis paralysis that can come with being in the garden center in spring. Yeah, I like that. A polychromatic look, just an explosion of color or something that's analogous where the colors are, you know, next to each other on the color wheel. So just familiarize yourself with the color wheel and some of these schematics
that you can use. There's also classic versus unconventional pairings. I suggest you push the envelope. There's a joke, how many floral designers does it take to change a light bulb? Does it have to be a light bulb?
Because I had another idea? Right, so push the envelope. Well, you know, I like that, and I do that too, because a lot of times I will go to the garden center with a vision in my ad, these are the things that I want to do, and then they don't have some of the plants that I was hoping that they would have that they had last year, that I was relying on them to have. But what I have found by remaining flexible, if your cart at the garden center
looks good, your containers are going to look good. Oh you know, because they're all together in the cart. And if you're sitting there going this stuff looks great, and go ahead, and you know you can put the front porch stuff on the bottom shelf and the back porch stuff on the top shelf so you can really get a look at it. But if it's looking
good in the container, you can figure it out at home. I mean, I always throw in a handful of extra plants working with my color scheme, because you never know what inspiration is going to strike when you're actually at home doing it. Now you can see why Stacy's mom goes shopping with her at the gardens. See yes, right, Yeah, So it's not just annuals, vegetables, herbs, roses, shrubs, houseplants, bulbs. When we say bulbs, we're talking things like kalladiums, cannas, dahlia's, elephant
ear, callo lilies, and of course perennials. Also, there are many great shrubs that you can put in containers. And of course, when considering herbs the plant in a container, I think the most important thing is looking at the amount of sunlight and water preferences. So I have found generally that if you plant herbs like oregano, let's use that as an example, they're usually good for the outer rim of the pop. Yeah, and there's a lot of different types of oregano. But yeah, I I oregano. I
could have an oregano lawn at my house if I want it. It's extremely vigorous. I mean, I love it, But in a container, you know, And also there's also those ornamental oreganos like Ken Beauty. I was actually just showing that to Adriana a couple of weeks ago, that aren't really so much for herbs, but kind of go with that whole herb. You know, look in a container. Absolutely store bought hanging baskets. I recommend
in general, don't go with the basket that they're selling you. I mean, they're great, they're wonderful, but I like to upsize hanging baskets. If it's a ten inch hanging basket, I like to have some baskets around where I can push it up to a twelve or a fourteen inch basket when it gets windy and dry and hot in summer. Stacy, you may be
glad that you did. Right now. Do you have those kind of like metal containers with a cocoa liner, and so you just get like fourteen or sixteen inches of those, and then that's a smart idea and they look a lot better than most of the containers. You know, if you're going to the garden center to get that. A lot of times you pay a premium for something that's not just a white plastic pot. So if you can get it home and get it into your very handsome hanging baskets. And I like
it out of the game. I like it with a combination planting of course, good soil, a good water source, feeding, and drainage. Those are the four to me key basics. And again I love the slow release Osma COT type of fertilizers and containers. I just think they take some of the some of the effort and thinking out of it. Yeah, and you can do it right with a planting time, so it doesn't get much easier
than that. So I suggest that you push the envelope, that you stretch it a little bit and try a variety of plants in containers, have some fun with it. I personally believe there is not a right or a wrong. You need to express your personality what I do sometimes with extra plants that I've bought at the garden center, I just jam those last few in a container and step back and see what happened. So I wrote a limerick for that. Today. I'll try this plant, I thought, because I had
over bought, I'll stick it right there. It could go anywhere. My garden has gone to pot. I really had good intention. No plant can I abstention it's like putting it on a shelf. I can't contain myself. I need an intervention. You know. At the greenhouse this past week, I was talking to a young lady who loves gardening, and she made up her mind that she spent so much money on plants last year that this year
she was not going to buy plants. First day the greenhouse was open, she had a cart full of I mean, how can you resist after a lot of winter, and you know, honestly, like it's a pretty small investment for how much joy it gives you over the entire summer. I think absolutely. Now, don't forget perennials, Like I said, Hugh Curra's Serendipity, Alien and the Rock and gross Setums, Cat's Pajamas, Nepeta, all of those do really well. Chantilli lace Aruncus, Tuscan's sun heliops. There
are so many great perennials. And remember that if you use them in your container's next fall, you could put them in the ground overwinter them in the ground, and then stacey use them again next year. You know, I think that's an especially great piece of advice for something like hukara, where you know when you're putting your container together and you feel like it just needs a little something extra. But you've been around the annual second like seven times already,
nothing's jumping out at you. And you know, go and get those hugras. They're a perfect foliage accent. They're perfect size for putting in a container. You can find just about any color and then yeah, you can just break it out and put it in the ground in the fall. I've seen that many times colorful all year long. I can't contain myself. As a matter of fact, I can't wait to hear what Stacy has in plants on trial that's coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified Show. Prooven Winners
Colored Choice Shrubs cares about your success in the garden. That's why we trial and test all of our shrubs for eight to ten years, making sure they outperform everything else on the market. Look for them and the distinctive white container at your local garden center. Greeting's gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where the word of the day is recipe, recipes for containers, Recipes in the garden. And I think this is an area where
a lot of people really get tripped up. I mean, I'm guessing from all of the emails that I've seen from you know, home gardeners over the years where they write to Proven Winners and they say, can you tell me what plants I should put with X? Yes? And I find these questions the hardest to answer, not because I don't know those plants, but because I do think they're a matter of personal taste. You know, what do you what's your color, what's the look you're going for? You know,
what kind of thing do you like. Do you want like one shining moment where everything is just going gangbusters, or do you want to kind of have some things going in early summer, some things at peak in midsummer, and you know, kind of spread the display out. So I feel like it's such a personal issue. But that said, we do have a number of
resources through Proven Winners to help you create these recipes. And of course, if you go to a garden center that sells Proven Winners annuals, you're going to see a lot of those recipes already created by professionals for sale in their hanging baskets, in their combo containers, and lots of things like that. So they can. You can not do the work if you want, But I personally find combining plants, especially annuals, is one of my favorite things
that I do all year. So we will put links in our show notes at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com you can see the Proven Winners recipes and we'll also link you to a really fun program through the Perennial partner for Proven Winners called Easescapes, where they have also used experts to put together combinations of perennials kind of little mini gardens that are very easy for you to translate into you know how you can put these in your yard and have a similar looks.
We have lots and lots of resources for you, but I will say, you know, just knowing the light exposure that a plant needs, like you said, Rick, if that is similar to the plant that you're trying to pair with, then you kind of can't go wrong. And if you do go wrong, at least in your eyes you think something doesn't look great, you can always move it. Yeah, you know, it's a pretty low stakes kind of thing. And these recipes on Proven Winn's site are fantastic to
scroll through. They're inspir they've got great names. But I would ask you, Stacey, when you're when you're cooking and following a recipe, do you take liberties with the recipe like you got see? I mean, how can you not? Like, even if you feel like the recipe is pretty sound, you still have to take liberties with what you know your equipment can do. Like I know that my stove runs really hot, so if it says put it on medium high heat, I know that for me is not you
know, a seven or eight. I know that's like a four on my time my stove. So you know, you get to know all these little nuances and that's that's called learning. That's how you become a better gardener. What a great analogy. So you can get inspired by these recipes at Provenwinners dot com and then have some fun. Yeah, and if you don't feel like doing it again, there are plenty of professionals who will do it for you at your local garden center. But I would say give it a stab.
It's it's my favorite thing to do whenever year, I discover interesting new combinations. So, speaking of recipes, today's plant on trial is an edible shrub sounds delicious. It is delicious. Now, I think when most people think of an edible shrub, if indeed they even do think of an edible shrub, they are thinking things like blueberries, raspberries, if you're from a warmer climate, maybe pomegranate is a shrubby plant. If they're really into esoteric
stuff, currants, gooseberries, quints, elderberry. I don't think that when most people think about an edible shrub they're thinking of roses. I would agree, yeah, because they think, ooh, thorns. They just think of the whole plant, like, you can't need a rose, it's real thorny. Now, even if someone does think about a rose as an edible plant, they're probably thinking of the rose hips, yes, or the fruits from the rose, which are used in many cultures in jellies, juice, tea.
They're very high in vitamin sea, so you can even get like rose hip supplements from you know, health food stores and that kind of thing.
And they're beautiful. That's why the birds eat them. And in fact, that high vitamin sea content in roses is also why deer eat them despite their thorns, because they eat them almost as a compulsion because they need the vitamin C in the Glant, and I think the hips sometimes compete with the flowers for beauty they didn't do yeah, and especially like in fall, when you get a little bit of both going. So hips are beautiful and edible,
but they are not the only edible part about a rose. Roses have actually been eaten in many, many cultures for centuries, and they've really only kind of fallen out of favor as a food source in Western cultures, where we tend not to think about them anymore, but they still have a long tradition in many other cultures. And it isn't just the hips, it is the petals themselves. And I'm really excited to talk about this new edible rose in
the proven Winter's color Choice line called Flavorette Honey Apricot Rose. Now, if this might not be the first time you've been hearing about it, because we have been seeing it everywhere in the press. It's in the Gardener's Idea book this year, which you can read online if you haven't looked at that. It's on the front cover a fine gardening magazine coming up, and it's really
just a spectacular rose. This is the first year it's going to be available at Garden centers, and obviously I want to talk about the way it looks. You have a face for the name here as we talk more about the rose. So it is kind of an apricot color, this beautiful peachy orange kind of color. And it's a very full rose flower, so double triple petals, you know, not one of those ones where you're seeing the center like a single rose. So not the best for pollinators, but really just
that beautiful old fashioned charm. It is a larger rose, five to eight feet tall and about four to five feet wide, so this isn't one of those little groundcover roses. But what's so special about it is that it comes to us from a breeding program in Serbia where they were specifically looking for edible
roses. Fascinating, isn't it. So we've talked a lot on the show in the past about how breeders when they are setting out to develop a new plant have different goals, and very often, and certainly for the last thirty years or so, in the rose industry, the goal has always been disease resistance. That was the hot topic. And I think that now that the disease resistance sort of hurdle has been overcome, now breeders are starting to turn
their attention to other factors. We know we can get disease resistance, So how do we get those big, full flowers and disease resistance. How do we get delicious flowers? How do we get fragrant flowers? And that's really what this breeding team in Serbia called Phenogena Roses is doing. And so flavor At Honey apricot is our first introduction from them, and they have really been developing these roses for different flavor profiles, which is a really cool idea.
I mean, you know, if you've ever been to a rose garden that was in full bloom, you know, if you're going around and smelling the roses, they don't all smell the same. They all have unique fragrances. And it's the same with their flavors, because of course, fragrance and flavor are very very close tied together. So in their program they've been sampling for
these different flavors. Now, Flavorrete honey apricot, our first introduction, does actually taste like honey and apricot now, I mean not like having you know, a piece of bubblegum or something that's some certain flavor it's not quite that strong, but it is distinctively different from the other varieties of flavor at So there's a second flavor ate variety called Flavorette peared, which tastes like pears. Now that'll be out next year, so we're just going to focus on Flavorette,
honey, apricot. But they've been trialing for these all these different flavors, working with chefs in Serbia to create unique recipes that really highlight these individual distinctive flavors. And in addition to the flavor, they're looking for petal texture. So you know, when you get lettuce, it's not like the lettuce breeders just say, oh it's green and edible, go and have at it. They're also looking for lettuces that are soft and you know, enjoyable to
chew. They don't want, you know, one wants a stringy, bitter lettuce. So they have similar been testing these petals for their edibility. Are they lush, are they soft? Are they very sweet without a lot of
bitterness. So it's a kind of a combination of flavor and texture that makes flavor at roses so different, and you can see why there's so much variation in how they work with this, because think about the perfume industry how they work with roses and all the different types of sense it would make sense to do that for roses that we're going to eat. I can picture flavorette honey apricot rose on a salad in summer. Oh yeah, it's beautiful. It
looks absolutely gorgeous on the plate, even if you never harvest it. It is gorgeous in the garden because again it has those beautiful old fashioned flowers that people like so much. Now, I will say, if you're getting this plant, you don't just kind of pop a handful of petals in your mouth, and you generally, if you're eating the petal on its own, you want to kind of avoid the base of the petal. So when you have the petal, you'll see that the base is white. It's a little bit
bitter and pithier down there. It's still edible. It's not gonna hurt you. It just kind of takes away from that flavorite honey apricot experience. So just go ahead, like an artichoke or something, hold it by that end and then take a bite off the soft pedally end. You can chew it up and really taste the flavors. But like you said, in a salad, just sprinkled over a salad is beautiful. There's so many things you can
do with it. You can layer it in sugar. So take the fresh rose petals, layer them in a closed jar with a bunch of sugar, and that will actually flavor the sugar with a flavorite honey apricot scent. And you can use that in tea or baking or anything iced tea. Oh, that would beautiful. That's a great idea, so really versatile, really kind of just I think opens the door and opens people's minds about what roses can
really do in the garden and in the kitchen. Love it You rose to the occasion, Stacey, Well, you can rise to the occasion too by
adding flavorite honey apricot rose to your garden. I can't get to talk a lot today about rose culture or growing it, but of course all of that information will be in the show notes at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com, as well as pictures of flavor at Honey Apricot Rows, so you can see for yourself how beautiful, unique and interesting this brand new edible rose actually is We're going to take a little break. When we come back, we're opening up
the garden mail bags, so please stay tuned. At proven winner's color choice, We've got a shrub for every taste and every space. Whether you're looking for an easycare rose, an unforgettable hydrangea, or something new and unique, you can be confident that the shrubs and the white containers have been trialed and tested for your success. Look for them at your local garden center. Greeting's
gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It is one of my favorite times of the week where we owe it up that garden mail bag and help people with their questions. I certainly understand what it's like to be out there. They're going, what do I do? And you're out there, you got your gardening clothes on, you got your tools out there, you said, oh, I'm not gonna wait to get the right answer, I'm just gonna do something now, and then you go and regret that.
I mean, I've been there, done that myself, so we can help you prevent that. If you would like to reach us at Gardening Simplified on air dot com, you can send us a message. We will be happy to help you out. If we can't get to your question right away and you need an answer, there are lots of other ways to get a hold of us. You can actually just go to proovenwinners dot com, click on feedback questions. We're listening and you will get a personalized answer from one
of our horticulturists, whether it's about Trumb's perennials, annuals, houseplans. We got you. Don't get scared now. Like I always say, maintain your composture. We'll get through this together. Hey, Stacy, Genie has written to us. I garden in New York Zone seven B, where I've been growing two limelight high ranges in huge twenty two inch containers for the past four years. That's fantastic. Ye, Recently, I've noticed something that I've never
seen before. There's some white coating on the branches, looks waxy. Thinking it was some kind of fungus, I cut the branches even harder back to find it again just a few days later. Please advise me what's going on with them. I'm really worried since this is the very first time this has heard. Yes, So Genie sent some photos of her issue, and then
Adrian I was reviewing comments on YouTube and sent me this one. A YouTube viewer asked, I noticed my limelight hydrange has been severely oozing sap after the branch being cut. What's going on? What has been happening to three of my hydrange's and this has been happening to three of my hydrange's in containers? Is this normal? And I would say it's not common, but it's not
abnormal either. And having looked at Genie's photos and thinking about the time of year, what I believe is happening here is that the sap is actually oozing out and drawing on the plteam. I shouldn't say ooze because it is not oozy at all. It's actually quite watery. It looks just like water. You wouldn't even be able to tell, So it's not like sticky like you
think of pine sap or something like that. But it's not uncommon for woody plants, shrubs and trees that are pruned in spring to have some sap flow when you cut them. Now, some plants are notoriously worse at this than others. I know. I learn in horticulture school never cut a birch in spring. But you know, one spring, I was working in a public garden and there was this birch tree and I think, you know, the one of the lower branches had gotten damaged by snow and ice and so it
was kind of like hanging. So I needed it to prune it off. The tree didn't even think, you know, you're in the zone. You're just doing your work. You don't think, whoa birch not gonna prune it in spring? So I pruned this thing and oh my gosh, it was like someone had turned on a faucet. It like it didn't quite spew out with force, but it just it was running like running water. It was
alarming. And a lot of times that sap flow. Of course, again, as I said, some plants are more susceptible than others, But that satflow is really just a question of what are the conditions in the plant and the weather when you prune it, And that sap flow can go at different rates at different times, and sometimes when you cut it you might actually see it coming out of the plant, and if it's really heavy, it might
actually drip on the plant and dry. And then because it is containing like sugar, salts, all those kinds of things in the sap, because the SAP is a combination of the xylumin flow on the water and the food, the sugar water that's sustaining the plants, all of that. As that moisture dissolves, the water dissolves out of the sap, what you're left with is that kind of condensate, that sort of crystalline kind of structure on the plant.
So I can't tell you precisely why this year over any other year your plants might be dripping sap. It's just something that happened. Yeah, I say, grow with the flow, you know, if it's if it's sending out some sap, I think it's an indication that the roots and stems are healthy and they're doing what they do and there's good, good flow. I mean, that's part of the reason I get an annual check up myself. I mean, they're checking my cholesterol levels and that kind of thing, right
right. And and so I think because people do tend to think of sap as blood, they kind of freak out when they see this because they think that their plant is literally bleeding to death, And the simple fact is that it's probably not harmful for your plant to have this SAP flow. I mean, you certainly want to avoid it just from a you know, best practices standpoint, But if it happens, it's not the end of the world. It doesn't mean your plant is going to die or really be harmed in any
way, so don't panic. They do not recommend doing anything to try to staunch the flow. The plant will automatically eventually do that on its own. And then you know, of course, if there is like any mess that you can clean that up, will just dry it off or whatever, and then you know, just to be on the safe side, I would say, if you have prune a plant that had a very very heavy SAT flow,
give it a little fertilizer, keep an eye on it. Just make sure it doesn't experience any stress that might further set it back, because again, it is losing some water in nutrients. It's not like blood. The plant is not bleeding to death. But you know, you just want to give it the best chances at recovering from any little bit of stress that it did have. But I'd accept compliments on its robust health, yeah, I would. Jim's asking us a question, and it's something a lot of people
deal with. We have a large perennial bed with a number of fairly young plants. There's a fair amount of space which we cover with bark mulch. The bed is overhung by a large maple tree. Oh, I see what's coming. Samaras, the little helicopters in vast quantities in the spring. If we put down the bark mulch early, they fall and fall making a layer on top of the mulch, and we spend hours picking them off before they
sprout. If we mulch after the samaras have dropped, would the layer of mault suffocate them and stop them from sprouting or would they just fight their way through. I had a customer once Stacey, who purchased a large amount of bark mulch and then called back a month later to complain because the bark mulch was full of weed seeds. And I went to this house to inspect and a they were all box elder selings that were popping up through the bark mulch.
And that's what happens that unique design for maple trees. Those helicopters a papery wing, and that's how they send their seeds out to look for a new planting ground, right, because if they just dropped directly below the tree, that'd be a tough place to grow, even though a lot to drop directly exactly. So, first all shout out to Jim for using the proper term samara. It's not a great word, samara. Samara. I love that word, so helicopters does not do them justice, even if it is
descriptive. Samara is much more poetic. So my advice here, I don't think that the mulch is going to be enough to keep these plants down, even though I have found in my experience I have a huge silver maple in my front yard. I have found that it's not by choice, just happens to be there. It puts out a huge amount of helicopters all over the
yard, and I find that actually very few of them germinate. Sometimes I think the thicker they fall, the less likely they are to germinate, because they're kind of like competing each other, and squirrels will get in there and you know, eat them, some of them dry up or whatever. My advice would actually be to put down a pre emergent, like a granular pre
emergent that prevents weed seeds from germinating. If you're not trying to grow anything else in this bed, you know, you're not growing vegetables from seed or flowers or anything like that, it's already planted. I would actually put down some preventative, you know, pre emergent herbicide, and then put your mulch and that pre emergent herbicide. Usually they last, you know, pretty good long time, and that will prevent any seeds that do fall in the garden
from sprouting. I don't think that I would recommend putting the mulch over them. You know, I've received a lot of calls on this throughout the years, and Jim mentioned here that they've spent hours picking them before they sprout. That's not you know, you want to spend your time doing something else. And I have found if in lawn areas they sprout, let's say you've er rated your lawn. The point with these samaras is, if they do sprout, if you cut the tops off them, they'll give up. They got
nothing left. They've got nothing left, so you cut that foliage off them. So if they're in the lawn, cut you cut the tops off you're done. You don't have to apply anything to deal with them. And I think potentially that could work in a landscape bed too, with a weed whacker. Just a suggestion, right, take the tops off they're going to give up. Oh, that's not a bad idea. Just walk on them. They're pretty delicates, so they might not be able to withstand foot traffic either.
I think we have time for one mare, Okay, Jessica. Right. So, I've noticed one of my local big box stores has a habit of overwatering their plants and then putting them cheap in clearance when they get brown and wilty. I don't want to encourage their bad practices, but I've figured that if they're on clearance, they won't be getting as much encouragement to keep doing it. Do you guys have any recommendations for taking care of plants that
have been overloved with the water? Oh boy, I could talk about three hours on this topic. Well, you know that we've talked about it before when we've talked about flooding and overwatering and everything. And the bottom line is if a plant has been overwatered, the one thing it needs is oxygen exactly. And if you can get an overwatered plant oxygen very often you can save
it. And I've you know, certainly seen many people do this when they've overwatered their shrubs by planting them in an amended hole with a bunch of you know, bathtub effect. So I'll composts and stuff in there. So I would say, get these plants out of their containers. That's going to help the water dry more quickly. That's going to help them, that's get oxygen. And I think, you know, provided the conditions improve reasonably quickly,
they should the plant should be just fine. Now, I would encourage you to not like, put this directly in the sun. I'll have those roots exposed directly to the sun. You can put like a piece of cheese cloth or newspaper or something over that. Keep it in a shaded spot, just so it's getting good air circulation and not direct sun. Yeah, you're getting a bargain, so enjoy it. I was in a garden center last year and there was a young man watering dead plants. I had a little bit
of fun with him. We had a great conversation, and I'll just leave it there. Well. Jessica did include photos of some of the plants that she has recently rescued. They are lavenders, and I'm telling you, Jessica, if you can rescue a lavender like you have your good to go because they're one of the most sensitive about overwatering. We're going to take a little break. When we come back, we've got branching news. You won't want to miss it, so stay tuned. The Gardening Simplified Show is brought to
you by proven Winner's Color Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens have been trialed and tested for your success so you enjoy more beauty and less work. Look for proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs and the distinctive white container at your local garden center. Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's time for branching news and Stacey. According to research, grocery shopping on an empty
stomach will cost you an extra twenty six dollars per trip on average. The factors that most influence what Americans buy at the supermarket are price, flavor, availability, and nutrients in that order. And if you're going to make an impulse buy, you're most likely to snag bananas first, then grapes, then apples on the way to check out. Those are some pretty healthy implies. I thought impulse spies were more like, you know, chips and candy barns
exactly. So. Yeah. And then on bananas, the survey settles the debate about the right stage to eat a banana and found that half fifty percent said it's during the yellow with no spot stage. A surprising number six percent opt to eat their bananas while they're mostly green. I'm surprised that you're giving bananas this much airtime, Rerick. I know they are not one of your
favorites or not one of my favorites. Yeah, I don't like bananas, but I'll tell you, when you go back to those factors price and availability, you can't beat a banana on either of those things. I think you just can't be too bananalytical or something like that. But there you go. Yeah, so I had to give bananas their time in the sun. Hey, a fascinating thing. I wanted to ask you about, Stacy, because I've been observing this for years working in garden centers in greenhouses, and I
have deserved it again this past weekend. Folks when they're shopping for plants and they're excited to buy their plants. Love to buy plants off of carts, you know, the shipping containers, that sort of thing. Now, I observed something this past weekend where the plants were beautifully displayed in a landscape bed and they were on the cart. Most people gravitated towards the plants on the
cart. And so I call it the milk carton effect where you know you're buying milk, and you reach to the back and you look for the one with the best date, right, Yeah, And I think that's psychologically, you know, I'm not saying it's a bad thing they're buying off the carts, but I think psychologically that's what's happening. I don't know, do you
think that's interesting? I will put forth another theory, okay, and that is that at most box stores, if you're used to shopping at box stores, almost everything is merchandised on a cart, all the annuals and herbs and perennials, and are not usually some perennials. So I think, especially if someone is typically a box store garden center shopper, they're probably just really used to shopping from carts. It's fascinating to me, it really is, so
I call it the milk carton effect. Landscapers working in the backyard of a Virginia home made a surprising discovery a suspected cannon ball dating from the Civil War landscapings were landscapers were working in the yard of a home on Frederick Street in Stoughton, Virginia when they uncovered what they initially thought to be a strange rock. One of them ended up rinsing it off and we saw that it was
a meat ball, a metal ball. Oh my. They had recently dealt with a similar discovery at another home, so they knew what to do because they cart these things off as a suspected explosive and live ordinance. So yis, yeah, find a cannon ball and I guess I could. I can see that in Virginia right. The fact that they're still unearthing them in twenty twenty four is amazing to me. The fact that they're still potentially live art salary is pretty and it would be so disappointing. You'd be so psyched that
you found this cannonball and then you couldn't even keep it. Yeah, amazing. Did you know human cannonballs never get fired? They can't find someone else of their caliber. So bad joke. Hey, the Heinz Ketchup people. You know, also, soon all of us are going to be planting tomato plants. Yes, and the Heinz Company announced the launch of a new solution for Ketchup lovers who sometimes get a little carried away, the world's first ever
catch up insurance policy. We're going to put this link at the website at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com you can sign up. As a matter of fact, there are fifty seven different types of claims for those who believe that Tomato Ketchup is all worth the risk. Now, of course I've taken out some white shirts and some nice slacks with with ketchup. But now you can purchase insurance that will cover your pets, stains on carpets, the sofa. The
insurance is designed to provide swift and hassle free compensation to affected individuals. Forty eight percent of people regularly deal with ketchup accidents, yet ninety one percent assert that their love for Tomato Ketchup justifies the occasional spills. So now you can be covered for ketchup spills. I you know, I feel like I didn't even hear anything after pets because because I'm kind of really hung up on the
fact that people are potentially staining their pets with Ketchup. That's a little alarming. Shake that bottle and can shake the ketchup bottle and then a lot of sorry, that was an E. Cummings, Bam. I cannot take credit for that, really, right out of the back of your head. Outstanding. So, but what I did want to mention, of course, we're going to be planting tomatoes soon here in the North as we get near that last frost date. But I found it interesting. I did a little bit
of research. They see, Ketchup was invented by a horticulturist. His name was James Meae in eighteen twelve, as I understand it, and these first Ketchup versions used brandy instead of vinegar and sugar, so they were maybe using a shot glass when they enjoyed their ketchup. Some following editions included oysters and anchovies. Oh yeah, I gotta get that savory in there. Yuck.
Oh, I don't know. I think it could be delicious. I mean, I'm not a huge Ketchup fan, but I would be more I'd be more likely to try in anchovy or what was it, fish sauce or oysters. I would be more likely to try an oyster or anchovy based ketchup than a regular ketchup. Interesting, I'll go for the brand to Stacy. I put this story in just for you. A bird confused police officers by mimicking a siren sound. Oh. The reason we just did that is because I
can't say mim that word that word. So anyhow, police officers thought it was an April Fool's joke. They were left confused. So the bird, Stacy, was a starling. Oh, and it mimicked He did it the sound of sirens on the police cars. I believe Starling's are fascinating birds when it comes to sound. Mozart had a pet starling because he was so obsessed with their sounds. I did not know that. Wow, that's fascinating now. They probably weren't in imitating a siren back then, but yeah, I
love listening to the saying. And I was actually testing it out on my Merlin Bird id app because I'm sitting there looking at a starling singing, and my Merlin id app is just lighting up red wing blackbird, red wing blackbird the whole time because they're mimicking red wing blackbirds. But they also have their own enormous range of something. And I have not heard them do a siren, but that is interesting well. And part of the reason that the starlings
like to mimic is it's part of the whole mating thing. In other words, the males, if they can project out a variety of voices, as I understand it, it makes them more attractive to the females. And another interesting thing is at the end of World War Two, Hitler and the Germans were employing something called a V one rocket, and a V one rocket was the early edition of what we would today a cruise missile. It was terrifying.
It was horrible when these V one bombs were used on England. The point here is after World War Two there were Starlings that were mimicking the V one bomb. Wow, and that was really boy. That would cause the hair to stay up on your arms. Hopefully the next generation did not learn that song. Fascinating. Fascinating. So oh, and last story here real quickly. Top French court suspends their ban on using the word steak on plant
based foods. So in other words, you can't throw steak or prime rib or filet or those kind of words when you're out there selling plant based products. I guess this is a real debate in that industry and interesting to find. It is so like cauliflower steak, mushroom steak you see here, and then of course there's all the meet substitute steaks out there, so they're obviously taking it very seriously. I can say. You know, it is sometimes
confusing, You're like, is this cauliflower or is this steak? But you know it's always good to be clear. Give chick peas a chance. All right. So anyhow, that was fun, What a fun show. I hope you enjoyed it too. Thanks so much, Stacy, Thank you, Rick, enjoy doing the show with you and YouTube Adriana. Thank you so much, Adriana, and to all of you. Remember our show is on YouTube, it's on radio, and you can get it wherever you get your favorite podcast. Have a great week.