Hello, my friends, It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show, coming to you from Studio A. Here at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs with Stacey Hervella me, Rick weisst and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Today we talk about ip M. Now, IPM is not a technology company. The acronym does not stand for International Plant Manufacturers or Investment portfolio Manager. No. IPM is integrated pest management. It's a science based decision making process that combines tools
and strategies to identify and manage pests. In my opinion, Stacey, if you were to look up a synonym for IPM, it would be two words common sense. Would those were the words I was going to guess you were going to say, And I could not agree more. And you know, I think people hear the word IPM are they might be familiar with it from you know, other things that they might have heard. But the simple fact is that there is no better way to manage any kind of pest. And
this isn't just for the garden. This is also for household pests. YEP. What IPM basically is is learning everything that you possibly can about the pest, know thin in an enemy and learning everything you can about it's life cycle, what it eats, where it lives, where it shelters, when it reproduces how many times, and then using that information to craft a management plan that's actually based on the pest behavior, not just your behavior, not just
your reaction. Because when you take an IPM or integrated pest management approach to your problems, you're not just putting a band aid on the problem. You are truly resolving the root of the issue. Yeah, exactly, And I'm glad you mentioned indoors also because one of the issues with IPM is to set action thres threshole. When are you going to take action? You know, you think of the person who spots a spider in the house and it's like
burn the place down, you know, take some crazy action. So setting action thresholds, monitoring an identifying pests, and we should be out there monitoring three hundred and sixty five days out of the year, regardless of what your climate is. Like. Prevention so things like crop rotation or the health of the plants to make them less susceptible, and then control and evaluate the proper
control method for effectiveness and risk. In other words, avoid taking a shotgun to approach absolutely and you know, going back to what you said about observing and identifying the past, this is so important. And you know, we hear from so many gardeners all over the country who say, I want to preserve the beneficial insects, I want to preserve the pollinators. But unless you're out there actually looking at what's in your garden, don't know what is a
beneficial insect, what's a benign insect, and what's a pest insect. And a lot of times, especially when it comes to insects in the garden, and it's important to understand that IPM does not simply deal with insects or animals. It also includes you know, fungal, bacterial diseases. Even to some extent one could argue viruses. You aren't going to know what's good or what's
benign. And with bugs, sometimes you'll see damage and the insect will actually only be active at night, but the bugs that you're seeing on the plant are beneficial insects that aren't causing the damage. So it really does take a lot of you know, commitment to understanding the problem. But for me, that is I don't even want to say, half the fun, because that's
all the fun. I love researching this kind of stuff, and this is why I have so many facts about things like moles and bats and other insects, because I just I love learning about it and figuring out how I can, you know, alleviate the problem through my behavioral changes and through understanding you know how those how those animals live in function within my world. Yeah. It is a matter of your behavior, yes, and paying attention to it,
you know, Stacy. I was, I was in a home depot the other day and this guy recognized me, and he had a can of bug spray in his hand, and he he sticks the can of bug spray in my face and he says, is this good for bugs? And I'm like, no, it'll kill him, right, I love it. Yeah, So you've got to pay attention to your personal behavior now, Stacy, as it relates to IPM, here's my opinion as a general homeowner. You know, the science can be kind of blinding for people and kind of difficult,
and some people don't want to get that deep into the weeds. Right, So my opinion is this, first of all, putting a plant in the right place for that plant sunshade, whatever it may be, is one step of IPM. This the second part is plant diversity. I believe monocultures are a big problem. I love all the varieties for example provided by proven winners, color choice shrubs, and how these plants have been developed to be diseased resistant, let's say, or heat resistant. Diversity in your landscape,
I think is one way a homeowner can simply practice IPM definitely. And you know, having a diversity of plants not only gives you a kind of hedge, no pun intended against big issues, you know, any kind of big fungal disease or pest issues that might come into your garden. It also looks better and it gives you more to look at, gives you multiple season interests rather than just a one hit wonder garden that looks amazing in spring and is
then boring for you know, the rest of the season. There's so many benefits to it, and you know, certainly pest control as one of them. And there was a huge, very sad, vivid example for many people in the US when we lost elms as street trees. You know, we elms were a very common sat rightfully, so they're elegant. They're beautiful.
And you know here in Grand Haven, for the couple of surviving elms that we have, I always when I see one think, oh, imagine if Dutch elm disease had not taken all of these out, what our city would look like. Now we do have a diversity of street trees. Now that helps protect us a bit. Unfortunately, some of those elms were replaced with ashes, but with as trees. But you know, the diversity helps prevent
a large scale of catastrophe like that from happening again. One way to also manage IPM integrated pest management, in my opinion, is to pay attention to GDD, which is growing degree day accumulations. Helps you anticipate problems when they come along, whether it may be a pest, and again it doesn't necessarily have to be an insect. It can be a disease, it can be a weed. GDD helps us in here in Michigan we have something called a
GDD tracker. I'm sure probably in your community you have it too, but it helps us anticipate, for example, the emergence of Japanese beetles in summer and helps us possibly using repellent type sprays that will help with your roses or other plants that are susceptible to Japanese beetle. I think that that is one key Also so as it relates to IPM, biological controls are one facet that
we can use natural enemies. Cultural controls are also another one. For example, again, let's say you do have a lawn area in your yard. If you raise the deck on the mower, simply doing that and providing shade to the crown of the plant, you're going to use less as far as pesticides, weed killers and that sort of thing is concerned. Mechanical and physical controls. We can do that also traps and hand picking, and then of
course chemical control. Chemical control is a part of IPM, but we're using it in a way where we apply the chemicals in a responsible way, in a way responsible and when they will be most effective. You know, it reminds me of a conversation we had a couple weeks ago with a listener who said she had a huge issue with chiggers, yes, and really didn't want to use pesticides, but chiggers are biting her and her family and her pets.
And you know, of course I totally understand and appreciate people who don't want to use chemicals, but you know understanding that a chigger prevention program is not going to be spraying every week for the entire summer, that it's going to be targeting that phase where using growing degree days, we know that the eggs have just hatched and they're in that first instar or baby stage where they're going to be the do the most damage to you and your family, and
if you can treat it, then then that alleviates the need to do more. So it's really about applying them responsibly in terms of how you actually do it, and the when is a really important part too. So there isn't a simple solution to IPM or a one fix fixes it all. It's a matter of education. It is, truly, I think you can think about it very similar to organic gardening, which organic gardening is not an issue of
you know what you do and don't apply in your garden. Organic gardening is an entirely new approach to your soil, to your garden, to your ecosystem, to your garden goals, And similarly, IPM is just a totally different way of approaching the challenges that you face in gardening, and instead of just going to buy the can of bug spray and calling it good, you're taking
on that responsibility. You're learning about it. And to me, there's just this sort of you know, magic that happens when you start seeing yourself as part of this bigger world, not the boss of it. No, I agree, So I wrote a limerick to celebrate the occasion. The creepy crawlers on this stem are engaged in plant mayhem. I need something common, sensible, something a bit more defensible, maybe consider IPM. I need something that's
attainable, an action that is explainable. Self control I need to master in order to avoid disaster. I'm trying to be sustainable. So let's all get a head education and continue to learn throughout the course of the year about IPM. I love it, you know I will be me too. Plants on Trial coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified Ship Proven 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. It's the time of the show. If we put a plant on trial, that is to say, we're going to tell you all about one of the three hundred and twenty plus proven winners Color Choice shrubs, and you get to decide if it's going to earn a spot in your garden or not.
But before I launch into today's plant on Trial, I did want to address something that you said earlier, and that's that you said, in this case, IPM does not stand for investment portfolio managers, although I think that as gardeners we could potentially make the case for ourselves as investment portfolio managers. Depending on how many plants we have in our garden, they could constitute a
significant investment portfolio. Well said, you've got to manage your portfolio. That's what that's right, Investment plant man, plant investment manager or something like that. Anyway, I'm sure a lot of you also understand that feeling, because you know, when we garden, it's hobby time, and it's you know, we invest a lot of our time and money into our gardens and hopefully they're pulling their weight and worth it, and if they're not, well,
that's where IPM comes in, so you can figure out those problems. And you know, there's so many resources now. Before I know, when I was in horticulture school and the internet was barely a thing. You know, we had these huge, thick books on our shelves. That was an investment, you know, and that was how you learned about everything, was looking it up in books. And now you can find pictures from all over the country. This is what this pest looks like on this plant here, And
you know, it's just never been easier. So to me, there's really no excuse for taking a one size fits all approach to problem control. Not only those books Stacy, but also the school of hard knocks just experience, right, Yeah, and once you get zapped by Japanese beetles one summer, you start to learn about, well, how am I going to manage this problem? And yes, you've put an investment in these plants. I mean I've got a green thumb from all the currency I've handled that garden centers and
greenhouses, buying more plants. Yeah, there's more than one way to have a green thumb. That's for sure. But speaking of green, today's plant on trial is not green. It is red, and it is ginger wine nine barkiful and it is truly my favorite of all of the nine barks that I have ever seen. I've had it in my garden for years. I love it because it combines so beautifully with so many different colors. So ginger wine is a nine bark and nine barks are flowering shrubs. They're in the
rose family, although you wouldn't necessarily know it from their flowers. Their flowers sort of resemble more like an apple blossom. Are actually pretty close to an errone of flower if you're familiar with that. They're formed in little clusters in spring. But nine barks are primarily foliage plants. And this is sort of a trend that kicked off maybe twenty five thirty years ago with Diablo nine bark came to the US. It was popular in Europe, the first dark leaf
nine bark. They kind of made it onto the market and just sort of cracked this market wide open, and people went crazy for them because they are very attractive, they're very easy to grow. Nine bark is a North American native species which I know a lot of people really like, and they're just that's one of those plants that you can put in and not think too much
about because they generally don't need or even want pruning. I find personally that nine barks are best left unpruned and allowed to just grow with their naturally elegant habit, so low maintenance, easy care. They love the sun. They're very hearty, and so they're kind of one of those plants that people really liked. Yeah, and a few weeks ago, we had a show where
we talked about the art of layering in your landscape. You know. I find nine bark where it can be a standalone plant, it can be a backdrop, like you mentioned, the color is great or used as a hedge. There's a lot of uses for nine bars. Yeah, very much so. And that's one of the things I love about it as well. So ginger wine is a dark leaf nine bark, but it doesn't have that deep purple look that Diablo or our best seller Summer Wine nine Barque has. It's
more of a like sparkling reddish color. It's really bright, it's really lively, and as much as I love dark leafed plants, sometimes they can create a black hole in your landscape. You know, if they're too dark and you don't have the right kind of plants around them to set them off, it just kind of creates this like eye sucking hole in your garden that kind of detracts you. Now, it's good if you mix it in with some yellow or some pink and mix it up a little bit, but you do
have to be careful about that. But that's not really an issue with a red foliaged one like ginger wine. Now, with ginger wine, when the new growth comes out, it's kind of yellow and orange and these beautiful sunset tones, and then it ages to that nice red color, and that red color is going to persist from spring, and it looks beautiful in spring. When nine barks come out in spring, they just have this sort of ethereal
glow to the foliage. It's a celebration, it really is, and it looks so good with bulbs, and so that foliage will persist all through spring summer, and then in fall it turns an even sort of more vivid red, like more of like a true red. And then the flowers, which of course have already passed because they bloom in spring turn into these ornamental red
seedheads. They're actually quite interesting. Usually not something that people think a lot about as an ornamental feature on nine bark, but they are actually very effective.
So this is a great three season plant and then come winter, depending on your perspective, you might still find it interesting because that common name nine bark does come from the fact that this plant has exfoliating bark, which is to say that it peels away from the plant totally natural, and the more I'm sure the stems are, the more you're going to see that peeling effect.
But that's where the term nine bark comes from. I have not counted the layers, but apparently there are can be nine layers of bark, and that's where a nine bark comes from in a snowy climate. I like that, Yeah, sure, I really do. It's the same with oak leaf Hydrangea or paper bark maple. It's a great characteristic to have in winter,
definitely. Now the reason that I'm covering ginger wine is today's plant on trial on our episode about IPM is because I think a lot of people nowadays when they think of nine barks, their mind immediately goes to powdery mildew, and that is certainly an issue that diablohead. And this is often the case that when a new plant comes onto market, you know, someone has to be the pioneer, someone has to go out there and say it has these features.
We understand it's not completely you know, done yet, but so a lot of times nine bark got powdery mildew. And to some extent, this is a natural liability that a lot of nine barques can exhibit. Now it does not happen with our native versions, which are green. So it's really these more selected varieties of foliage color, whether that's purple, red, green, or yellow, those are the ones that are more likely to get powdery
meldew. And knowing this, and knowing that our mission here at privun Owner's Color Choice Shrubs is to reduce those kinds of diseases, we have been really careful to test our nine barks for powdery mildew. And I think that ginger
wine is one of the most resistant that I have seen. But that said, it's a great example of IPM because even though we select for resistance, and selecting a disease resistant nine barque will help you, there's still some things that you have to do as a gardener to mitigate its prevalence because you know, as you said when we were talking about a gardener who had powdery mildew,
the spores are just in the air. So a couple of important things to do, no matter what type of nine bark you have is in These are just basic IPM principles of putting the plant in the right place full sun. So it's very tempting I think when people see a foliage plant to think, oh, I can put this in a shaded spot because it doesn't really flower that much, or I don't care if it flowers, so nine bark, if you plant it in too much shade, you're gonna get muddy color
and you're probably gonna get powdery mildew. Why because in those lower like conditions, though, any moisture that's on the plant, whether that's from dew or an irrigation system or it rained, it's going to sit on the plant leaves longer, and those are the exact right conditions for powdery mildew too. Develop environment environment yep. So you want to make sure that they're in a full sun spot, so that's at least six hours of bright sun every single day.
This is another way that you can reduce powdery maildew. And well, this is true of nine marks, this is also true of any plant that gets powdery mildew. Proper spacing definitely want to make sure that you're looking at that width on a plant tag and that you are spacing surrounding plants or buildings an appropriate amount away based on that width. If you if you don't have your plants too crowded together, you get good air circulation and that again reduces
the incidents of pests and disease. Air circulation the key. Think about a hot, humid day in summer when it's just stifling, yeah, and think about the circulation around plants, right, Like I'm sure any parents know. You know, it's a hot summer day and your kids hanging off you, and you're just like it, need some air circulation similar for a plant,
Give me some space exactly. And you know, if you do see a little powdery mildew pop up here and there and you can't, you know, there's certain environmental factors where you can say, okay, adjust your sprinkler heads so they're not pelting this plant that we know is potentially susceptible if there's things you can't control, like humidity, like rainfall. If you do see a little bit come up, just take off those leaves or just snip off that
little bit of branch. It will make a big difference, and especially in the long term. And I think that's another aspect of IPM that is often underappreciated, is small gestures can add up. Yeah exactly. A few weeks ago we had the pruning show and as opposed to taking a little off the top, maybe taking out some branches and opening up the plants, yeah exactly. So there's a lot of different things you can do. Now, this is a beautiful plant. I have found them to be quite deer resistant.
So that's an IPM issue that I personally deal with, is selecting deer resistant plants so I don't have to be spraying them or going crazy or getting angry all the time. It is. So it's got good deer resistance, not the highest, but pretty good. I can certainly grow it. And again it's also about selecting plants that are going to be less susceptible. So that's
something we can do. But we'll meet you halfway. And then there are some additional things that you have to do that are just good horticultural practice, and that's the habits that you need to get into to be a good plant manager. So if you have any questions or want to see pictures of ginger wine nine mark, you can see it all at Gardenings Simplified on air dot com or just catches on the YouTube version where you can see footage that the
Adriana cuts in. We're going to take a little break. Why come back, We're opening up that garden mail bag, 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 easy care rose and 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. Now that it is meteorological spring. We know you've got gardening questions and we would love to help you with those gardening conundrums. All you have to do is reach us at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. You can also leave a YouTube comment. You can leave an Instagram comment. We'll get them and we will help you the best that we can to resolve your gardening issues,
whether they are pest related, plant related, people related. Although we are not psychologists, we can certainly give you some perspective from our years of experience. Yeah. And you know, speaking of years of experience, stacy, thinking of integrated pest management, I think of examples like when pe andes are about to bloom and the buds are just coated with ants, and some people will go crazy and empty a can of raid on them, or you know,
just just awful stuff. And again you have to you have to practice IP. By the way, as far as ants are concerned, do you know how you tell the difference between a male ant and a female ant? I don't. Here's a dad joke for you. You take the ants, and you take an ant, and you drop it in water. If it sinks, it's a girl ant. If it floats, it's buoyant. Yeah, I guess. So, okay, you want me to get to the mailbank. Let's do that, all right, So Kim asked the winter and
snow plowing or shoveling is delta heavyweight of snow to my landscape. I intentionally tried to get and keep the snow weight off my shrubs and it became a losing battle. So mother nature is forcing a big time printing this season due to so much damage. Any advice, Well, I am sure that Kim is not alone. I can tell you because I have had it happen to
me. And you know, as the snow started to melt a few weeks ago, we had a knock at the back door and I went out and there was my neighbor standing with basically half of one of my junipers, and she just said, I just wanted you to know I didn't cut this. It broke from the snow. And I said, okay. First of all, if you did have to cut it, that would be okay, I'd understand. And second of all, oh my gosh. So I wanted to address this because again, I know a lot of people are dealing with with
things that either broke or are severely bent or out of shape. Now, Adrian and I did make a quick YouTube short of this that you can check on our YouTube channel if you're interested in that. But I would say if a plant is broken, like the branch is literally broken, then you're gonna have to prune it. And this is a situation where sort of the advice on pruning old wood, new wood, prune, and spring prune now kind of goes out the window because you have to fix the broken stuff. Do
what you gotta do. You do what you gotta do. You don't want it to fall on anyone. If you don't take care of it, then chances are it could get worse because, for example, if something's just hanging and it's really heavy, it could strip the bark as it falls and that would cause even more damage to your plants. But if something is not broken, then I would say, if it's just bent, start considering how you might be able to remedy the situation through staking or tying the plant up.
And it can be temporary, but I think this can often be effective. Now, what happens when all of that snow weighs down a plant. The plant cells actually transform to a different type of cell in response to all of that weight. So when you take that off, you basically need to it's not just going to pop back up because now it has those cells created in that compression. So you need to actually take the initiative to prop that back
up and now you can do that. A lot of times I have, especially when I was a rooftop gardener and actually, you know, getting new plants up to a garden was an issue. We would often use string, heavy twine to wrap a plant up and bundle those branches together, and then they'll naturally start to take on and improve to growth habit. With some of my junipers or the one that really got damaged badly, what I'm going to do is tie so I had two leaders. One was obviously a much more
substantial leader. Now the one's going to be the new leader. But what I'm going to do in those branches that are kind of now flattened displayed from losing this is I'm just going to tie them up and back into the plant to kind of reshape it. And as it has that little bit of training, I don't need to leave that string on there forever, maybe just a season or two, and then that will help it to reshape itself. So sometimes this requires a little bit of creativity. You know, you're going to
have to figure out ways that you can do this. I mean, I've certainly seen people do weights, you know, like fishing weights to kind of try to get things to go a certain direction. I've seen wooden blocks trying to get a plant to grow in a certain direction. So you kind of have to use what you have. But if the plant is not broken and it's just a little bit out of shape, that doesn't mean you need to
write it off. You might be able to find a creative solution. So I would encourage you to to think critically about that before you make a rash decision. But again, if you have actual broken branches, meeting them up, cut them off and make sure that the damage won't get injure anyone. And I think this is an issue also IPM related culturally, in other words, having lived in a snowy climate my whole life, but I'm not bitter
about that. I try to plant herbaceous plants along the driveway edge or sidewalk edge, or if there are woody plants, pull them forward far enough from the roof's edge. I think that that can make a difference too, because I feel your pain. It's frustrating when you've grown this beautiful plant and the
ice and snow take it out. Yeah, and you know, it's easy to forget about that potential threat when it's summer and it's beautiful, and you're planting and you have a great idea, and then winter comes along and you find out it's right in the path of your snow blow or blowout, and there's all sorts of things that can happen. So if that is you you found out that something you planted last year is not in such a great space after all, this spring would be a great time to transplant it. There
you go, plant head. Loraine asks us, I really enjoyed watching your show on YouTube. Thank you, Vary Mulch. I was hoping you could help with a dilemma I have. I have an heirloom variety rose bush given to me from my grandfather. I don't know the variety though. My issue is rose chafers eating the blooms. I don't want to use seven to deal with them. Too poisonous for pollinators. Do you have suggestions? Yeah,
so this is a tough one. So rose chafers are a type of beetle and they do a number on roses, and a couple of times in the past when we've been talking about roses and Japanese beetles and chafers and those kinds of things, what we have recommended for reblooming roses, like Oh So easy roses or the rise up ros that we just talked about a little while ago.
Those can be simply cut back and trimmed, and because they'll continuously bloom as they recover from that trim and the pest has moved on, then you're able to get those pest free flowers. Now for lorrain, it's impossible to say, especially not even knowing a lot of those more old fashioned roses do
not have that ability to rebloom. If you were to deploy this strategy, you might not be guaranteed more flowers, but you also might And to me, this is a perfect example of using IPM because you look at that time when the rose chafers are most active, you take away the flowers what attracts them. Rose chafers don't actually have as long a life cycle as Japanese beetles,
so they're not feeding as long and so it's worth experimenting with. I mean, it's certainly better than looking at a bunch of jagged old rose flowers, which are only going to attract more rose chafers and Japanese beetles. So that's the first thing that I would recommend that you at least try, knowing that you might actually be sacrificing the flowers and that is unfortunate, but it's
worth at least trying. Now. As I researched more about rose chafers to help Lorraine with this question, it does seem that they are one of those rose pests that have very few alternative options for managing them. Most of the options just said if you don't want to use any kind of pesticide, you have to handpick them, and that's not super fun, but it is possible, and you can do it early in the morning. If you do that early, they're still kind of sluggish. You don't have to worry about them
flying or crawling all over. If you're squeamish, you can just kind of take the flowers and shake them into a bucket of soapy water and they'll just fall right into that. So hand picking is I think a huge part of IPM and something that I use a lot. But outside of those two options, I did not find a lot of options for controlling rose chafer. If you're squeamish about hand picking, some people become very skilled using vacuums. Oh, and I still think using a vacuum, like you said, when they're
sluggish during the day and not sucking the foliage off the plant. Some people become very skilled at that. Another thing, Stacey, that I would say my experience with rosechafers is that rosechafers emerge from the soil at a certain point of the year. We're talking IPM today, sometimes cultivation or cultivating at the base of the plant or in the area of the plant at that time of
the year, usually mid to late May here in Michigan. Most of the pressure is in June, and then pyreethering sprays when you really can't control the issue. Is a spray that I've used to deal with rose chap you know. Another important part of managing any beetles is understanding that beetles have a very interesting life cycle. They have a life cycle similar to a butterfly exactly.
So their larval stage is the grub and so a lot of times when it comes to managing adult beetles, even though your instinct is to say, hey, I got to smash this, you know, armored little guy on my rose plant, a better solution would potentially be managing grubs in your lawn and there's a lot of different ways to do that. Now, one thing I do want to point out most people think grubs I can manage them with milky
spore. This is a non toxic grub control. Milkie spore is not effective on rosechafer grubs, so do not If you use milki spore to manage Japanese beetles or we're planning on using it, do not count on it to manage the rose chafers. You'll have to find another management strategy for rosechafer grubs in your lawn. But also being aware that the adults can fly and will for your delicious, delicious roses. We do a little research on the life cycle
of a rosechafer. Well yeah, it definitely helps you feel a little bit more empowered to deal with it. So hopefully that will work for you. Lorraine want to thank everyone for their questions. If you have a question, Gardeningsimplified on air dot com is a great way to reach us and we would be happy to help you. We're going to take a break. When we
come back, we've got branching news. The Gardening Simplified Show is brought to you by proven winners 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 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 today. Our first story comes from the Los Angeles Daily News. David Gee's yard. A lot of people pay attention to it, not because of the plant material, but because of Murray. Murray is the name of a two and a half ton replica of the Moi figures that you see on Easter Island. Oh wow, yeah, really cool and you can check out the pictures at our website, Gardening Simplified on air dot com. And so his wife, as I understand, that, gave this to him
as a surprise gift. It's seven and a half feet tall. Murray the Moi was a surprise gift, so very very cool. It was fabricated out of volcanic rock in two thousand and seven. Is a big hit and popular on Halloween in the neighborhood. She had given it to him for Christmas. Now they're retired, planning to move to a smaller house. But you can't really pick up Murray and move Murray, so somebody's gonna have to buy it or decide they want Murray. Well, this is definitely an answer to what
do you get the guy who has everything? Yeah, exactly amazing. I love this statue. And of course the market for a second hand MOI is limited in Los Angeles, are pretty much anywhere. But I hope that this story has a happy ending. They're having monumental fatigue is what they're having, and they can't take they can't take Murray with them. So here you go an offer you don't want to take. For granted, here's an interesting story.
According to a post in social media the Monroe County, Alabama Sheriff's Office, residents were told not to be alarmed because there was a There was a post of them throwing pine cones along the roadside in the neighborhood, and the post indicated supposedly that the pine cones were outfitted with wireless five G mini spy
cameras to enhance their surveillance efforts. This innovative technology, known as conecms, featured high definition resolution two way audio with night vision capabilities and operate on a five G network compatible with Alexa and Siri. Now, a lot of people bought this. This had to have been a hoax, but you could imagine if you did believe it, how people would have gone nuts over this. Sure, fminds me of one of those stories on the NPR New show.
Wait, wait, don't tell me where you have to tell which story is wrong or exactly. This could be on one of those yard to hear first. Maybe the post was shared hundreds of times. They couldn't really confirm who posted the cone cams story or who was responsible for it. So just to be safe, some residents just did some yard cleaning and cleaned up the cone cams interest. Maybe I should start that in my neighborhood because I have a lot of pine cones in my yard and they are not fun to clean up.
So yeah, and it brings up the point, don't believe everything that you read on the internet. Right, Their attempt was controversial? All right? The oh this is interesting. I wanted to ask you, Stacy, if you've ever been here South Coast Botanic Garden. This is in California, just south of Los Angeles, as I understand it, but they have a bumpy driveway that leads to this botanical garden. It's an eighty seven acre garden, and the road is bumpy because the entire garden has been built on a
landfill. Trash trash underneath. The earth continues to shift and compact, and it causes bumps and divots in the pathways there at this garden. Have you ever been there? I have not. Sounds interesting eighty seven acres, so I'm putting it on my radar. South Coast Botanic Garden. Of course, we're going to put the link there at Gardening Simplified on air dot Com.
Check that out. It has rows and rows of colorful roses. But one of the world's first botanical gardens to be developed over a sanitary landfill, billing itself as a masterpiece of creative land reclamation. It's reclaimed marvel that other communities may be looking at to replicate with their own landfills. Also, yeah, it makes sense for areas where you don't get snow. A lot of times
landfills are repurposed into ski hills or sledding hills. South of Los Angeles, you're not getting much snow, so why not turn it into a gardener or bird sanctuary. You know what. I also think they should start turning them into butterfly sanctuaries, planting a bunch of you know, butterfly plants and just letting them do their thing. I like that. I like that, and you know, kudos to them. A lot of people don't want to have to deal with compost. They find it degrading. I'll let that one sink
in a little bit. When it comes to our health and eating things like vegetables, we tend to trust our parents, example, the most. This is interesting. It's a survey. While growing up proactive approaches like drinking water, eating healthy foods, eat your vegetables, clear that broccoli off your plate, going to their doctor for physicals, and taking vitamins and supplements or top
of mind. But at the end of the day, in the survey, respondents are more likely to trust their own parents when it comes to their health and wellness advice than they are of that of a best friend or social media. Do you buy them? I guess it depends on the parent. That's true. It's no secret we all learn from our parents, and health routines
are no exception. So I think people, especially when you're young. Most people do tend to think of their parents as having all the answers, whether or not they actually do, or even if they try to come across that way. It's just, you know, that's the person you go to and they always have an answer for you, whether it's a good answer or a bad answer, or ask me later, you know, so that we build that trust up, you know, in a good relationship when we're really young,
and mom can always fix everything. Okay, that's just I mean, it's why I'm addicted to vix vapor rub. I love vix vapor rub. I love the smell of it. I use it even when I'm not sick because my mom her go to was vix vapole rub. It was either ginger ale crackers, baking soda, or vix vapole rub. Those are the four things that fix everything. So there you go. A Texas woman is giggling at a recent mishap that occurred when she went to order a bouquet of flowers.
Sarah Hollingsworth, thirty five years old from Austin, Texas, runs a baby registry company called poppy list Now. She called a local flower shop to order a bouquet of poppy flowers to take with her to an exhibit in San Diego, California. She said she wanted some poppy flowers as it's part of the name of the company and also a very important flower in California. So she picks up the phone and she calls to order these flowers, and when she receives them, she's like, WHOA. At first, I was like,
these aren't poppies. She took off the wrapping. There were weird googly eyes. What are those things doing there? The wonderful person at the florist had misunderstood her and sent two puppies flower arrangements in the shape of a puppy, and after her initial shock, she thought, man, I'm so impressed with this design. She kept the puppy bouquet, and here's the interesting thing
for her. She posted a video of the bouquet to TikTok, where it now has over four point five million views and six hundred and seventy eight thousand likes. Wow, puppies, puppies. So there you have it. Today's show has been a kick in the plants. Thanks so much, they see. Thank you Rick, thank you Adriana, and most of all. Thank you to you for your support of the Gardening Simplified Show. Go to our website Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. The show notes are there for you,
not only of this show, but of previous shows. Also watch us on YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcast. We thank you, We thank you very much. Have a great week.