Coming to you from Iconic Studio a here at proven Winners Color Choic Shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella, me, Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well Stacy, today, let's talk about rhythm and repetition. They're important landscape design principles that provide cohesion in a landscape, in other words, kind of a sense of belonging in a landscape, and they can create
a mood in a landscape. Rhythm is kind of the visual movement or flow that guide your eye through a landscape. And Stacy, I've learned through the years that people in general like patterns and similarities. You feel comfortable with them.
People love patterns and similarities in things like clothes and home decor. But it always amazes me that when it comes to DIY, landscaping and gardening, it's a concept that most people just completely miss out on interpreting. And it's honestly one of the simplest, easiest, most sure fire design
concepts that you can implement in your garden. Let me tell you this, and I speak from experience, using concepts of rhythm and repetition of like the same plant repeated throughout the garden is easy, it saves you money, and it covers a multitude of other design sins. By establishing that structure through repetition and rhythm, you can get away with so much more beyond that, it makes a huge, huge difference.
Yeah. Absolutely, you're basically creating a hierarchy in the landscape, kind of a sequence of spaces, a theme like we talked about a few weeks ago with my landscape near the beach using grasses, various grasses, a re pedd element, so to speak. To do that, and rhythm and repetition go hand in hand. Rhythm is the repetition of elements to create a sense of movement, flow and unity. Stacey, I've seen that very often. It's poignant in Japanese gardens. That's where I really.
Oh yeah, definitely example.
So similar elements multiple times in a landscape, unity, harmony and order, and yeah, a lot of times you know we talk about harmony. There's a great correlation between music, creating music, playing music, and the landscape as far as repetition is concerned and dynamics. Now, to celebrate this, I wrote you a little little a rick about rhyme and repetition. Of course a limerick better rhyme. So I got that part covered. But here you go. Repetition it ain't so hard.
Repetition is in my yard one plant, but I have many. I've spent a pretty penny. Just put it on my credit card. Repetition it ain't so hard. Repetition is in my yard. One plant, but I have many. I've spent a pretty penny. Just put it on my credit card.
See what I did, And it goes on like that.
I like it repetition. But you know, it can be more than plants. It can be stone, it can be various things within the landscape, and I've seen that more and more with paths and patio stones and patios also, whereas opposed to just using one type of stone, using various patterns or colors within a patio or a path and creating a rhythm some sort of repetition really can have a huge impact.
Yeah.
I'm glad you mentioned that because I'm actually working on a very similar situation in my own yard. So we put in a patio, and the stones or the paver units that we use there had come from my neighbor the person who had lived there previously had for some reason with them all around the outside of the house in a line. They graded it properly. They no longer needed them. They were not doing the job that the original owner had intended to do. So they gave us
hundreds of these patio payers. No, I didn't particularly care for them, but they were free. Couldn't beat the price, and much like you, I'm not going to turn down a bargain. It was right next door, so it was easy to move, and so it's not my first choice, but.
You know, it works.
And now we're going to add another patio and I'm thinking, okay, well, if I'm shelling out for this, I'm not going to buy the same reddish pink color that I don't really care for, but I can buy it in a different I can buy the same unit in a different color, and then I can still have that kind of theme and variation is how it's often would be considered in like classical music, you know, the theme of course for these paving areas is this you know, eight by thirteen
or eight by fourteen unit, but then interpreted in different colors. And it's just a simple way to keep things unified, and again it covers up for all of the craziness that's going to happen when I surround it with you know, a double border of baptisia and some homorific high discuss it's true.
And you know the placement of those pavements too, there can be a form of syncopation to the way you set those pavers. In other words, if you pick certain colors, the distance between those colors can either quicken or slow one's pace. All of those are important elements within a landscape. And a great composer, of course, understands that many different instruments and people together can create a masterpiece. There's all sorts of different instruments that are used, for example, in
a symphony. And if you think of Beethoven, Beethoven's fifth, you know, do duh, well, it's three four time, okay. And so if you have in your landscape, you could look at it as boxwood boxwood boxwood hydrangea boxwood boxwood boxwood high does that make sense?
That makes sense?
And you could also look at it as round box wood, round box wood, round box would conical box. And you know, this concept of designing by musical terms is not unfamiliar to many very talented garden designers. There is a designer named Julie Moore Messervey who famously designed a garden in Toronto called the Music Garden, which is based on a
Box symphony. And so she or not symphony. I forget exactly what piece of music it is, but it's based on a piece by Box and it's you know, the way she laid out the paths and the beds and everything. Interprets this same musical concept in a physical way in the garden. So if you're into music, you might want to look up her work and kind of see through her lens how she interprets it.
That's fantastic. I love that. Yeah, so it directly ties into you know, Dobie Gray got it right. Remember Adobie Gray in this song drift Away. I don't thanks for the joy that you've given me. I want you to know I believe your song. Oh yeah yeah, rhythm and rhyme and harmony. You helped me along. You're making me strong.
She's one of those guys that like his song is more famous than his name.
That's true. But you know I mentioned syncopations. I love syncopation in music, and the way I visualize it as if your eye is panning across a landscape and you have let's say some lower growing spyrias or whatever, and then all of a sudden there's a pointed evergreen.
That just pops up.
You know, that's syncopation in the landscape, and boy does that add a lot of interest. And then of course within music you would have a cadenza, and a cadenza is interpreted as an ornamental passage. It's often near the end of a movement and sometimes improvised, but it's generally some kind of peace or plant or or something within the landscape that just gives all kinds of flourish where
the eye. Why, you know, it's a focal point, whether it's a fountain or it's a blue atlas cedar or whatever it may be that that just stands out in the landscape. And so a focal point, Boy, that would tie into the whole analogy with music too.
Yeah, And you know, that's like kind of what I was saying earlier about the boxwood boxwood conical boxwood is you know, by doing a little research, which is a great thing to do as we're coming into the colder months, you can find plants that you can have different shapes like that, you know, especially conifers and evergreens, that you'll find those shapes and then that there's just enough cohesion with the foliage and the color and all of that
to interpret that, you know, throughout the garden using those various different shapes, and it's very similar.
Yeah, these Italian words that describe music, I don't know if I pronounced them right, like piece of zicado, picata chicado. Yeah, okay, so that's a term that means pinched or plucking of strings, and Chaikowski used that really well, that that plucking. It's it's kind of in the landscape. It would be using plants that rise and fall in height, and that's fun
within a landscape. And then of course you have forte, which would be loud, yeah, strong, playing loudly and in a landscape of course, that's dynamic, it's force full and stacey. Therein lies are color choices like red. Huh.
Yeah, I didn't even need to do that, but yes, I do like red forte.
Right, and it's going to stay as opposed to let's say, using pastel shades.
Within a lands you know, and the important thing to remember about all of this is that it doesn't necessarily have to be like this the whole season. You can have the forte for just a short, you know, moment when that plant whatever it is, is in its full flower or the fall color or whatever it is. So it's not like it's always beating you over the head. It's a moment that you can look forward to based on the seasons.
Yeah, because you need an intermission. Speaking of intermission, let's do that now. And coming up next, Stacy's gonna give us plants on trial. That's coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified Show.
Proven Winner's 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 time for us to put a.
Plant on trial, which is to say, we're going to tell you all about one of the three hundred and twenty plus proven Winner's Colored Choice Shrubs. And you get to decide if it's going to earn a spot in
your garden. Now, of course, on today's topic of rhythm and repetition, really any of the plants in our line could work this way, because really it's just a matter of you taking a plant that you really like and using it typically in multiples of odd numbers is the most common way to do this, and repeating that theme through the garden in a way that makes visual sense.
And really you can do that with any plant. But one of the plants that I think is particularly suited to this type of treatment is a plant that got the most feedback I think from the recent garden tour that we did on YouTube, and that is Tater taught arborvide.
Yes, I love Taters, and you know, coming up in segment four, I'm going to talk about the invention of Tater, not the plant, the stuff we actually.
I can't wait, so Tater tot arborvity. If you didn't see the video of you are interested, you can find that on our YouTube channel, and of course there will be a link in the show notes at Gardening Simplified on air dot Com. It's pretty easy to envision this one if you're not at all familiar with it. It is an evergreen, and it's round, and it's cute like obviously the name tater Todd is very cute. And it naturally grows just as a tidy little ball of that beautiful
arbor idy fan like foliage. And you don't have to lift a finger, You don't have to prune this thing. It just naturally grows that way. It reaches two to three feet tall by three to four feet wide, so as it grows more mature, it will kind of lose some of its roundness and become a little bit more oval, but it still has that strong, strong structure that lends it really well to using as a theme in variation
in your garden. And best of all, even though you could use any shrub or tree or whatever to do this, it's an evergreen, so it provides year round coverage so that you are establishing that structure in your landscape and it's persisting throughout the year, so you don't lose it. It doesn't just come and go based on the seasons.
Yeah, if you talk about four or four time in music, equal beats four beats to a measure, this plant would fit that role. It looks to me in the landscape like whole notes.
Oh you could say that.
And by the way, when we did the garden walk, at one point I was petting the tater tots because they just look like a cute little puppy. And I got a lot of eye rolls on that one.
So yeah, it was cute.
I don't know, it's an irresistible plant, and that's kind of you know, it's one of those things, right, And when you go to the garden center and you see tater tot arborvity and you're like, I love this thing, and what do people do? They buy one, they buy two, And if they buy two, you know what they're doing with them, right, They're putting them on either side of their doorway. Yes, they're matching them in a container. And all of those are perfectly valid ways to use something
like tater tot arborvidy. But I think that when you aret to you know, imagine this concept of rhythm and repetition,
and you're buying multiple tater tot arborvitis. So let's just say to establish the theme and repetition, you're going to buy five sets of three, or you know, maybe you can mix that up in different ways, and then you're gonna spread that through your landscape in different areas, and then you know, that's how you establish that Again, once you've established that structure, you can get away with so much more beyond that. Structure is a gardener's best friend.
And I'm telling you this as someone with absolutely zero self control when it comes to plants. If I like them, I have to establish strong structure. My garden has does not have curving lines. My garden has straight lines to impose some formality so that I can go and you know, be wild with the plants inside of that. So it's a simple way to bring you know, again that that structure to the landscape. And really I think another good way to think about them as punctuation marks in the garden.
So you said musical notes, and that's also very useful, But tater taw arbor vity is almost like a period in the garden. And if you could get a taller arbor idy and mix it up with something like a north pole arborvidy, which functions almost as an exclamation point in the garden, and you're mixing and matching these in within the garden, you are basically using these plant horticultural elements. As a musician does notes.
I love that thought as punctuation. Who is that famous musician that used puncture, Victor Borg?
Oh yeah, yeah, Victor Borg.
Yeah.
I think it was Borsia. Yeah, Boria. Okay, my grandparents used to watch him.
Yeah. Oh he's hilarious. Watch him on YouTube.
Incredible, that's the only place. Yeah, but we digress. Yes, So there's a lot of.
Different rounded globe like arbor dy out of there. And I know how irresistible these dwarf evergreens are to people. They just they just love them. And I don't know if it's because it kind of is implying to them that they're not going to have to prune, because people also do love to prune their stuff and make sure that it's all tidy and neat, and so this kind of gives you that tidy appearance without you ever having
to actually do any pruning yourself. So there's a number of globe like arbividy out there that you will see probably at your garden center. Very old variety called woodward globe, which I think was probably the standard for years.
It was the standard. People liked it, but tended to get floppy. That's what I like about Tater times Yes, doesn't do that, and.
It's much smaller.
So woodward globe got to be every bit of five feet tall and wide as it got to be mature, which is also a problem because people saw a cute little woodward globe at the garden center and thought, oh, this is great. I'm going to plant this tidy little thing, and then they soon become very large. I'm thinking of some in my neighborhood that were actually planted on either side of a set of steps, and as they've gotten
too big, they've been pruned. And this is arborvidy in general, or not plants that you want to have to back because they're going into your walking space. They don't really look so good when you do that. So Tater Tot's much smaller again, two to three feet tall by about three to four feet wide, nice and dense, and it
holds up to snow very well. Now, I would say, by and large, most rounded arborvits are going to hold up pretty well to snow, especially compared to the conical ones, which sometimes if they get like a very heavy snowload on a branch or so that can kind of bend them out of shape, and with the increase in ice storms that many of us have experienced over the past couple of years, obviously that makes it even harder. So it's a good, low maintenance plant that continues to bring
structure and beauty to the landscape. Now, one of the comments that we got on the garden tour was whether we were going to have a tater tot arborvity for USGA Zone nine. Oh and unfortunately not at this point. Trying to breed heat tolerance into a plant genus or species that doesn't already have it, I don't even know how that would work. I'll talk to the plant breeders around here see if they know. I don't even know
if it's possible. But this tendency for evergreens to take on a very tidy and rounded shape or just various shapes whatsoever, does exist across species. So for those people in USDA Zone nine who can't grow tat Tot, I would suggest a Cryptomeria also known as Japanese red cedar. There's a variety called Globos and Nana which is going
to grow very similarly. No tater Tot is hardy down to USDA Zone three heat tolerant through about USDA Zone eight, and we have discovered that it is much more heat tolerant than we initially thought, so we've heard some great reports from growers in the South that do very very well with it. Obviously, the hotterer climate, the more shade the plant is going to want, the more water it's
going to need. In both cold and hot climates. I would recommend a good two to three inch layer of shredded bark mulch over the roots because like many conifers, the roots tend to be quite shallow, so multiple do a lot towards helping keep those roots cool in the summer warm in the winter, as well as conserving moisture so that you know, continue to have that nice, healthy foliage and a nice habit. It is a little bit slow growing, which is a good thing, and most evergreens
tend to be a little bit slow growing. There are some faster growing arborvidis, especially that we're developed for hedging. This is not going to be one of them. So if you are looking to use tater ta arborviidy as a main kind of punctuation point throughout your garden, definitely look for larger plants if you don't want to wait for a couple of years for them to start turning into anything. But another way to interpret the rhythm and repetition would be to mix various sizes. And I love
this look. It's not something I have personally used, but I love it whenever I see it where someone makes a new planting and they have like, you know, a three gallon of five in a one gallon, so that they're kind of at different stages and so you're still establishing that, you know, theme in variation, but without it being so you know, matchy matchy.
Yeah, exactly, And that I like your approach on the punctuation thing. I mean, not everybody's into music composition and that sort of thing, or classical music, so looking at it as punctuation pretty neat those tater dots can be the periods. Yeah, sorry, And you know, like the fine line buckthorn right. Yeah, I think it's a great concept.
So it is pretty pest resistant. But of course, since it is an arborvidy, I regret to inform you it is not dear resistant. So you will see no tater dot arborvid in my garden or rix garden or at least outside of his compound. But if you don't have deer, this is a great plant to try and start experimenting with these concepts of repetition and rhythm theme in variation in your garden and just see what it does. You will be amazed at the difference it makes. And it's
so simple. You don't have to know all of the plants, you don't have to know all of the secrets. It's just an easy way to do.
What the pros do.
Sure, really, so we're gonna take a little break. When we come back, we're opening up the garden mail legs, 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. Greetings, gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Well, we were on that quick break, Adriana contributed an interesting idea that I wanted to share with everyone, and so she was saying, like, what if you took tater tots and planted one kind of in the background, one kind of in the mid ground, and one kind of in the foreground, and you use the artistic concept of foreshortening to kind of make them look
like they were a snowman are all grouped together. And I thought that was so interesting because of course Adriana is a photographer and videographer, and this idea of like design and how we all interpret repetition and rhythm and all of these design concepts really depends on our own perspective, which is of course informed by what we do. So there are really no wrong answers or no way wrong way to interpret these ideas in your garden. It's all based on what works for you and how you see things.
Well said all about interpretation.
Love that.
So anyway, we are always happy to answer your garden questions. So you can reach us at Gardening Simplified on air dot com or leave a comment on a YouTube video and we will get back to you because we do want to help you. And you can also reach us at Provomner's Color Choice dot com for a faster answer because of course shows only on once a week, so I know sometimes there's some gardening I'm urgencies out there.
So last week we had someone right or two weeks ago, we had someone write in about a weird berry that formed on her dogwood, and we talked about the difference between dogwoods, and I think that prompted this message.
Yeah, Beth writes about a plant we talked about, cornis Cusa. Love your show. I learned so much. My Kusa dogwood tree has some areas appealing bark not due to critters. Can you tell me what's going on the tree is otherwise healthy and yielding tons of flowers and now berries.
So Beth did include photos, and I'll tell you it is such a pretty planting. You are going to love this when you get a chance.
To see it.
I could not hardly imagine a better sighting for cornis cusa Korean dogwood.
Nice.
It's absolutely perfect, And Beth, I am pleased to tell you that what you are seeing is nothing to worry about. It is a natural tendency of the Korean dogwood to have its bark flake off, and it's one of the things that actually makes the plant so interesting, especially in winter when it has gone dormant, is that the bark develops all these different color patches. Now it's called exfoliation. That's the horticultural term for it, so a little bit
different than exfoliating your face. You can't hasten the exfoliation of the bark on the corner scusa. It just happens naturally as it matures. And that's the key here. So that's why you weren't seeing this happen in previous years, and now all of a sudden it is and you're like, oh my gosh, what's going on. My plant's just like
losing big chunks of bark. It is totally normal, and it just happens when that bark starts to reach a certain maturity and then it will start to exfoliate, and then it will continue and it will just keep looking more and more interesting as time goes on.
It's developing character.
It is developing character, So no cause for concern. And if you have a moment, please to take a look at Beth's Korean dogwood, which is beautifully sighted and I think a great use of the plant.
Stacy Barber is writing to us, I would love to grow Lemonee lace elderberry. I love that plant in my landscape. Hardy and zones four to seven. I'm in Zone eight B on the Olympic Peninsula. Can I grow it?
So?
The Olympic Peninsula is in Washington State, the Pacific Northwest. And I love Barbara's question because I think we have addressed this on the show before, but it always bears repeating because the heart the USDA Heartiness zone system is so far from perfect.
It is really just a.
Guideline for helping to choose how much cold a plant can tolerate to determine whether it can grow in your yard, and that is the problem. It does not remotely address how much heat a plant can tolerate, so companies like US and other plant brands are then forced to kind of use the USDA hardiness zone system to address heat tolerance, even though it's not a measure of heat tolerance. So we say, okay, where USDA Zone seven is. If you look at a hardiness zone map, that's about roughly the
extent of where this plant will do well. But of course the issue is that not all USDA Zone eight and nine and so forth are created equal. And the example that I often give when I'm talking about this to people is that Austin Texas and Portland, Oregon are both USDA Zone eight, and you need not have visited either of those places to know that they are vastly different climates and that what you can grow in Austin, Texas USDA Zone eight and what you can grow in Portland,
Oregon USDA Zone eight are very different things. So if you live in a cool Zone eight, you are in that zone. You know. The reason that that is considered zone eight is because your winter temperatures are mild, but your summer temperatures are mild as well. So if you're in the Pacific Northwest or in a milder climate at a higher altitude, different things like that, you do have the chance to grow plants like lemony lace, elderberry, especially
if your nighttime temperatures are cool. That's another thing that the hardiness zone system doesn't remote addressed, is like what's the nighttime temperature? Like how long is it hot? So it is imperfect. It's the best guideline we have about Barbara. I'm really glad that you asked this because I think that lemony lace should do fabulously for you on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. If you are concerned because it does have yellow foliage, and the foliage is, as says
in the name, quite Lacey. Definitely more shade will help, you know, for it to be able to withstand anytime you do get some hot, dry weather, which I'm not really sure that ever actually happens on the Olympic Peninsula.
You know, I've visited the area often and so beautiful. And your analogy is great, Stacey, because if you think about it, think about Austin, Texas, and then think about Barbara on the Olympic Peninsula, it's the Pacific Ocean that is tempering the climate. And so I would agree with you wholeheartedly that I think Barbara could be very successful with lemony lace Elderberry.
So you know, if you have a question about any of our plans and you you know we have a certain heartiness or heat zone on them and you're wondering, please do reach out to us. You know, we're always happy to tell you we have some experienced hot climate gardeners on staffer that we can talk to. And you know, ultimately we're just trying to make people successful. But we are stuck with the measurement system that we're stuck with, so we do the best we can, but we're always
happy to elaborate if we can. So thanks for your question, Barbara.
Okay, here we go. Stephanie has lobbed one right into Stacy's wheelhouse. I need help with Macrophilla hydrange of winter care. I live in Zone five B. I have some planted in the ground and in containers. I heard that zone hardiness refers to the plant, but not the buds. Is there such a thing. I've also heard that if I should spray, will stop on the stems. How should I give my high ranges the best possible chance for blooming next season? Love, love, love my high ranges, and love
the show. Please enlighten, Thank you, and thank you Stephanie, Stacy take it away.
Yeah, right, of course, this is such a big question. And Stephanie, what really interests me about the way that you asked it is I heard that the zone hardiness refers to the plant, but not the buds, and that is exactly the issue with most conventional big leaf hydrangees. The plant itself, its roots, its stems can easily grow in USDA Zone five B, but the flower buds, which are indeed on the stems all winter long, don't necessarily show the same level of resilience to cold temperatures, and
that's not common. That is not a common factor among most plants. It is. It's pretty unique to hydrange of Macrophylla, and that's one of the reasons why people get so frustrated and confused about them. So in theory, in USDA Zone five B, yes you should be fine. However, of course, depending on where you are in USDA Zone five B,
you might not have very cooperative winters. You might have very very cold winters with no snow cover, and that really exposes those flower buds to long term potential cold damage.
Now you will know if winter kill is the problem on your big leaf hydrangees if in spring they come back from the ground or very very low on the plant, and that case winter weather did take them out, and you will have to protect the whole plant with some sort of cage made out of wire and some leaves, and they sell different you know, plant protectors that you can experiment with as well or move it potentially to
a more protected spot. If, however, spring comes your plant is leafing out along the entire length of its stem, then winter's fine, and the issue is spring because another thing that happens, and this is not exclusive to cold climate gardeners. This happens for warm climate people as well. Those spring frosts. After the plant has leafed out and started growing, blam oh, those spring frosts come along and
it just fries the bud. And that, fortunately is a little bit easier to protect against, because all you have to do is keep an eye on the way. If the plant is showing green and a frost or freeze is threatened, just get out there, throw an old sheet, towel, blanket, something like that. Do not use plastic. Just throw that over the top of the plant and then you can remove it the next day when the danger of frost has passed, and that will help get it through those very cold nights.
Blamo's a good explanation. And of course you have those buds on the stem in winter. In spring, in many cases, Stacey, there's been an early warm up, the buds are starting to swell and then we get the blam all event and.
Yep, wow, and that happens even in you know, Atlanta, any place that can get a spring frost. So that's not exclusive to cold climates. But I will tell you Stephanie. Unfortunately, will stop or wiltproof will do nothing to avoid this situation. So that is used to prevent things like evergreens from drying out over winter. Some people use it on decorations and that kind of thing, but unfortunately for the hydrangea it won't do a lick of good because really the
issue is temperature. So we have some more research resources that we can share and we will link those in the show notes at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. So thank you all so much for your questions. We're going to take a little break and when we come back, we've got branching news, so please stay tuned. The Gardening Simplified Show is brought to you by Proven Winners Color
Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering shrubs in evergreens have been trialed and tested for your success so you enjoy more beauty and less work. Look for Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs in the distinctive white container at your local garden center.
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's time for branching news and again a reminder coming up later in October, we're going to do a show on Halloween. Horror stories, horror stories in your garden, in your landscape, in your yard, a time when things simply went awrye the wheels fell off. We'd like to hear about that to share with others. As I've mentioned before, Stacy, I have many, many stories where such a thing has happened to me, and they
stick with you for the rest of your life. I know that when my kids were young, I was putting in an above ground swimming pool. I was re landscaping the area, took out some trees, putting in an above ground pool, and I was working on it one Sunday and a friend came by and said, listen, this swimming pool will not be blessed because you should be in church and so this swimming pool is you're going to
have problems. I'm like, yeah, yeah, whatever. That night, a horrific store storm came through and what I had built of this pool ended up in the neighbors. Yeah, and I had to start all over. So yeah, that was one of my many, many Halloween horror stories. I'll share another one with you. I used to roof houses and barns with my dad years ago. I would help him and we were on top of a barn out in the middle of nowhere, and the ladder fell off the barn. Oh. No,
so there's no way down. So my dad says, well, I'll search this side of the roof for a way down. You searched the other side, and we'll try and figure out a way down. You know, this was before we had cell phones. Yes, And suddenly I see my dad walking on the ground. I said to my dad, how in the world did you get down there? He says, well, there's a manure pile on the other side of the barn, and I just jumped in.
Oh my goodness, I said, well, how far did you sink?
He said, I sunk ankle deep. So I went over to the other side, jumped in the manure pile, and I sunk up to my mouth. I'm like, I thought you said you only sunk ankle deep. He says, yeah, I went in head first. We need your Halloween horrors. I'm sure you've got some horror stories.
I mean, you know, the ghost of plants passed that I thought I could grow and die and haunt me to this day. The belief that I could grow big leaf or not big leief that I could grow smooth heyd ranges on my property when I first moved in, and then between the deer and the extreme dryness, I soon realized was never going to happen. The horror of realizing that, yeah, I feel that.
Best laid plants. I remember a home that I owned clay soil and decided to seed the expansive lawn and the following day just gully washer storm and all the seed, you know, washed away. We've all had those types of experiences. I can go on and on with my horror stories, but we want to hear yours, so send them to us Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. Send us an email,
send us pictures if you have them. But we want to hear your horror stories because Stacy, we learned from mistakes, and our listeners and and our viewers could maybe help someone out there by sharing their horrors.
Okay, I do need to just say, if your story involves a personal injury and you include photos, please send a warning.
I am excited.
I am extremely squeamish about blood and injuries, so I do not want to be surprised by that photo. I will forward it to Adrian Enrich. They'll take care of it. But I would appreciate a warning before I open any injury photos.
Good it, good point. Well, we talked about Tater Tot, and interestingly enough, I had that in the branching news here. Speaking of Oregon, the city of Ontario, Oregon, will celebrate its legacy this month as the birthplace of one of America's greatest culinary creations, the Tater Tot. So in nineteen fifty three there were two brothers that created the first Tater Tots in their Arita factory located on Oregon's border
with Idaho. So they have a two day event in September that celebrates the tot, including novel Tater Tot dishes, live music, car show. You know, tater tots are just ubiquitous, and to know the birthplate birthplace of the tot is kind of cool. Who doesn't like Tater Tots?
I mean, I'm okay on them, but I'm kind of not.
I kind of can't get over the fact that for all of these years of hearing the brand Orida, I never realized it was Oregon in Idaho. Oh, Adriana too, You should have seen her face.
Oh boy? Well, okay, so now all joking aside, we've talked about this on the show late August and into September. We've had some really serious problems with drought in the Midwest, and I wanted to share on our web page, Gardeningsimplified on air dot Com a link to a map. There is a map that basically publishes where drought is taking place. It's a drought monitor, and it's color coded and you're able to see that. And unfortunately, our friends in Ohio
have really suffered this late summer and into September. Lack of rain in recent months is laying waste to farms across Ohio, leaving farmers in the region with smaller crops lower yields. So, according to this map, over ninety five percent of Ohio is experiencing some sort of drought conditions with below average summer precipitation. Over seventy eight percent of the state, mostly including most of northwest Ohio, is under a moderate drought or worse. Forty two percent of the
state have felt the impacts of severe drought. Almost a quarter of the state of Ohio feeling the effects of what they can classify as an exceptional drought, and Ohio is afflicted by the most significant extreme drought conditions. On this map, they grade the amount of drought the drought stress. And so, boy, I'll tell you what I feel bad for our Ohio friends. There's other parts of the country too,
but Ohio has really taking it on the chin. And here in Michigan, as I drive along the expressway or along roadways, you'll look into the woods along the road and you'll see the poison ivy turning bright red that's climbing up trees. You see trees starting to turn color. Early drought can affect fall color, and we're starting to see that here in Michigan. You know, for people who love plants, Stacey, you can spot from a mile off a plant that's experiencing drought stress.
Yeah, you know, I was thinking about that the other day. How I remember when I was in horticulture school. Teach you're saying like, oh, you know, you can really tell the trees are drought stressed, and I was like, you can, And now, yeah, how you are able to read that? And you know, another sure sign that I am seeing everywhere around here is premature to foliation. So the leaves are just dropping off the plants, not turning any color or anything like that. The plant's just like I don't
have enough water. You guys are out of here and just trying to conserve its resources. So yeah, it is rough, and hopefully we'll get some rain soon. But you know, another issue, and it gets this dry, is that if you do get a big storm, the surface tension on the soil has developed so strongly that the water can just run off, so it doesn't actually wet the soil.
So another great reason for MULT. You know, we're huge opponents of mulch on the show, and MULT will help prevent that at least somewhat so.
And that's true. And there are many great stories also of past droughts in past years where they are able to see on trees far removed from that drought years later, the effect that that drought had on that tree some In some cases, if the drought is severe enough, it can have not just implications for next year, but long term implications for plant. It also brings up the point that it's important to not pack away the hoses too soon.
I wish we could, but we cannot see.
We can't exactly, and especially plants that are underneath soppets, plants that don't necessarily get the natural rainfall in the first place, or plants that are competing with tree roots stacey heading into winter, you really have to have an eye for that, and you want to make sure to supplement the water as we have. You don't want a plant to go drought stressed into winter.
You know, it's so true, and I have for years when people have asked me about, you know, how much should I water and fall? When should I stop? And the advice that I always give is, you know, you can usually stop, you know, sometime and fall unless the weather is unusually hot and dry. This weather is unusually hot and dry, So no, unfortunately we cannot step. Especially if you have a newer plant, you're going to want to make sure that it's still getting good water. You
don't want to stack stress on top of stress. We have no idea what this winter is going to be like, but you know, if you live in a cold climate, winter is generally a bit stressful on plants. They go dormant. And if a plant goes dormant and can't fully make use of the resources that it has because it's just dropping foliage, green or whatever due to the drought, that
does set the plant back. And you know, one or two years, probably not going to be a huge deal, but if we continue to have very difficult weather like this, it does, yeah, definitely begin to take a toll on the plant. So as you're going around still watering your containers or vegetable garden or new plants or whatever, make sure you're giving a little love to those established plants too. They will definitely appreciate it.
Well said, always a privilege and pleasure to do the show with you, stay see Thank you so much, Adriana, and thank you to you for watching us listening to us. The Gardening Simplified Show is a podcast, radio and YouTube show, so look for us and have yourself a great week.