Broadcasting from Studio A Here at proven Winns Color Choice Shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified Podcast, YouTube and radio show with Stacy Hervella, me, Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Stacy, I thought it'd be fun today to talk about trigger plants. Some plants are just good communicators. They tell us when something's wrong. Other plants are kind of stoic, like squars or succulents. It's like, no matter what comes their way, they basically don't tell
you that something's going wrong. But some plants do.
You might call them drama queens drama queens, or you might call them trigger plants as we are entitling this episode, but yeah, I feel like I also would call them like signal plants or century plants. They kind of give you that, you know, clue that something's going on. For me. Well, one of the plants in my guard that I would consider one of these plants is a plant called Agastaki nepatoides.
It is the green, giant green Agastaki, very cool plants, but it doesn't really want to grow in full sun and dry soil like I have it in it will tolerate it. But if it has not rained for a while, it's the first plant to be like, whoa, I am peacing out. It's the first plant so well then I'm like, oh, things are really dry. So that's my that's my one
of my trigger plants. But that kind of shows you that the plants that we're talking about may or may not trigger something depending on how you grow them in good conditions, the conditions it prefers, this plant would not really be a trigger plant, would be perfectly happy, Yeah, perfectly trying to push it, you know.
Yeah. I call them read the tea leaves plants. I think fortune tellers used to have you drink a cup of tea and then the tea leaves that are left in the bottom of the cup. They'd interpret them or
whatever it may be, but reading the tea leaves. So for me through the years, one plant in my landscape or in landscapes in general, would be impatiens wall arianna okay, and often, you know, years ago we would allow them to get to the droop stage, so to speak, because it put the plant under a little bit of stress and they bloomed better that way. But with impatiens wall Ariana, when they're being a drama queen and you get out there and water them, suddenly they pop right back up.
So yeah, I guess you know. There are some plants. Let's take this as an example. It's finally hot here in Michigan.
It is at long last, and what you.
Start to hear from people is it's so hot. I'm like, we just went through winter. This is what we've been waiting for. But there are plants that have dramatic droops. So I mentioned impatients Waile Ariana. You add water, that distress is gone. You look at house plants spatifhylum or peace.
That was on my list for sure.
Yeah, and often you'll see them in office spaces where they are being a drama queen and exhibiting that dramatic group.
Yes, and they are a plant that definitely. The cool thing about them is not only are they telling you like whoa, hey, I need water, they wilt extremely dramatically, and then when you rehydrate them, they're really none the
worse for the wear. You know, some plants that they dry out and will dramatically, they're going to show some brown edges around their leaves, and really, you know, kind of not like have suffered from it, whereas the peace lily is just like, Okay, thanks, just wanted your attention. Appreciate that moving right on, life goes out. Yes, now for you in the industry, I thought your big trigger plant was going to be geraniums oherums.
But you know what, let me run this one by you. I think macrophilla hydrangels.
Oh, they definitely are rama queens. They are drama queens, but you know, I feel like they're not just I feel like they have a limitation, right, Okay, So big leaf hydrange is hydrange of Macrophylla. It's right there in the name. They have big leaves and they're beautiful plants, but they are just not that efficient at using water. Some plants are very efficient at using water, so our aforementioned is bad thephylum you give it that water poof,
it's totally fine. Whereas the max those big leaves lose water faster than the roots can replace it. So it's kind of like, I don't know, you know, like you just have things running at two different rates. The absorption rate and the transferration rate are are two different levels. So they're not trying to be dramatic. They just physically can't handle, you know, the heat. But they're also fine,
you know, and so it's a lot of things. What I tell people, if you have a big leaf hydrangel and it's consistently wilting on hot summer afternoons and you've just watered it, don't worryorry about it. It's just trying to deal with, you know, what it has to deal with. And that wilting in the case of the big leaf hydrangeas is its attempt to reduce the amount of leaf service exposed to the sun. If the plant is photosynthesizing, it's stomata on the underside of the leaves are open,
that's giving off water vapor. When a plant wilts reduces the amount of leaf surface exposed to the sun. That also covers up the stomata on the underside of the leaf, so that preserves some of that water that's transpiring out of the stomata. And it's just a survival mechanism. But yeah,
they're usually just fine in the morning. So if that's what you're seeing with your max wilting in the hot Sunday afternoon, next morning, everything's fine, and you're like, wait, do I need water or not, you probably don't.
Yeah, but a great trigger in the landscape that at a glance you can see, oh, things are a little hot and a little dry out here. And I'm glad you mentioned that because there are plants that have i'm gonna call it pronounced mid ribs on the full leaf, and it causes that plant to have the ability, as you mentioned, for the leaf to fold on itself and preserve moisture. You know, a great example of that are the Pikus trees that we enjoy in our homes as
a houseplant down in Florida. When they're growing there and they're getting a lot of hot sun, they use that midrib to cause the foliage to fold on itself a little bit to conserve some moisture. On let's say a hot summer day. You bring them up to Michigan, put them in a home where it's low light. You'll see where that foliage starts to flatten. The mid rib is not as pronounced, The color goes away from the leaf as opposed to that really dark dark green. A perfect
example of a trigger plant out in the landscape. I think dogwood is a great example. Dogwood leaves will curl, they will fold on that midrib and they will change color to a degree. A dogwood's a great trigger plant.
I always thought that was from infectives.
Well that's part of it too, exactly, so it will try to tell you what's going on. Let me give you a trigger plant, limb a rick. For my every well intended action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Guess Newton was right. My plant in hot sunlight is now a drooping distraction. Not always what one preconceives. Plant problems can be pet peeves. Thank goodness, they communicate before they capitulate by wearing their emotions on their leaves. See what
I did, I thank you. I like that one. But no, there are many trigger plants. I always plant, but copa with annuals. But copa is a really great trigger plant where you can look at a container and at a glance you can tell whether or not there are water issues. We do that with bridle veil baskets in the greenhouse.
You can see it at a glance. And again, Stacey, coming from the garden center industry, when I walk into a garden center and it's hot and dry, and it looks like the employees are having difficulty keeping up with the watering. One of the first group of plants that I walk up to our Shasta daisies. They're usually really full in the pot and the leaves will in my landscape too immediately exhibit this drooping and again being a drama queen, So I think Shasta daisy's too well.
And you know, it's important to realize about these trigger plants is that they aren't just telling you what they need. They're also kind of compensating for the plants nearby them that maybe don't have that ability. And by the time they wilt, it's too late. You know, they're really going to be suffering if you see, you know, those plants wilting.
So these are good plants to have to kind of give you that hint, especially if you are like me and you don't typically supplemental water and you don't really know what's going on. You know, my plants are close together in my garden, so they kind of help to, you know, shade each other out at the roots. And I have a lot of mulch, but yeah, I rely on those those cues to know, like, I better get to devoting some time to water.
Exactly a lawn is a perfect trigger and something for you to keep an eye on in summertime. I always suggest to people just take a walk across your lawn, then stop. Look back. If your footprints have a silvery cast to them in the grass, you'll be able to tell or you've cut the grass and you can see that silvery cra you know, just kind of a silvery cast to the lawn. You know, things are dry and
it's time to irrigate, or things are very hot. So there are many, many different types of triggers, and we'll talk more about them. Give you some good trigger plants in segment for to day.
Yeah, and we've talked a lot about summer triggers and wilting, but there's winter triggers too that we've talked quite a bit about, you know, like the rhododendrons decreasing their leaf surface. I think the important thing is, you know, to to take the time to notice these types of things and think about what they might mean. It's a language that you pick up on gradually, and that is really part of gardening, is it's you know, decoding the language of
the plants. And you know, I think your thing about the silvery lawn makes sense. Someone might be going like, I have no idea what he talks about, what he's talking about, but one day this summer, you're gonna actually notice it. You'll be like, that was what Rick was saying.
That's right, or the tire tracks, and you're right. The macrophila hydranges, those blooms they look grumpy to me. The rhododendrons in winter, they just look like they're moping.
They look very sad.
Yeah, yeah, Well, let's see how Stacey ties this in and plants on trial. That's coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified.
Show, beautify your home and community with proven Winn's Color Choice Shrubs. With over three hundred and twenty five unique varieties to choose from. There's a flower shrubber evergreen for every taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive white container your local garden center or learn more at proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Youre Reading's gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where today's
topic is trigger plants and basically what we're saying. I guess you know, I couldn't quite think of like the perfect word for this concept, you know, but they trigger an action from you because they are showing you like, oh, hey, something's not great in my environment here. Now, for humans, of course, if something's not great in our environment, we are able to get up and move to better surroundings.
And plants don't have that ability. So you know, what they're doing is not saying to you like, literally, hey I need water, But they are using their survival mechanisms to deal with those conditions. And those are not necessarily conditions that you notice, we experience life different than plants. So they then trigger an action from you. But I think it's also important to acknowledge in this conversation that some of these trigger plants. You know, it's not necessarily
a good thing and can trigger from you. The action it should trigger is moving it, because what it's actually telling you is like, good, I don't really love this, you know. And I gave that long example and exactly well, I gave that long example in the first segment about big leaf hydrangeas, and yeah, it can absolutely withstand that afternoon welting. You know, if you are in Michigan and you have you know, relatively few hot days, that's not
going to be a problem. If you are in a warmer climate or a hot climate and that's happening, that would be to me a signal that you should move the plant into an area where it is in afternoon shade. Because if that's, you know, happening, like in Michigan, we might get you know, no more than ten or twelve days where that's probably happening. But certainly if you live in a very hot climate and that's happening every day, for in July, August, in September, and eventually that plant
is going to start to suffer from that. So it's always worth considering, you know, as you notice these things about your plants, if the trigger action should be putting it on your fall list to transplant.
I like your line of thinking there, And the trigger essentially helps you make a decision. Maybe it's down the road, but make a decision for that plant, because that plant can't get up and walk away, right.
Yeah.
And we often used that phrase or that analogy read the tea leaves in running a business. I used it for years in running a business because if you look at the balance sheet or the financial statement in hale, you're essentially reading the tea leaves and making decisions maybe for future actions, but you're trying to analyze what's going on here and taking the clues that are being presented to you.
Definitely, and it really is like learning a language. And the language that you're going to be learning does include the things that Rick and I are sharing today, but it also includes the things that you will observe in your own garden. And that's really what gardening is all about. Now. Most of the plants that we have discussed so far as trigger plants. We've been talking about the changes that they undergo due to a result of some sort of stress.
But today's plant on trial is a trigger plant that what changes about it is something that actually makes the plant more attractive when the trigger happens. I can see Adriana's wheels are turning back there. I don't know if I'm not explaining this well, but when I announced today's plant on trial, in one second, it's going to dawn right on her. Because today's plan on trial is pinky
winky hydrangea. Yes, she's nodding, so pinky winky, if you're not familiar with it, is a panical hydrangea, and this is one of the earliest panicle high ranges that we introduced. Now I have to like take you back in time for a moment here Before Limelight came on the market in the nineteen nineties, panicle hydranges like PG or tart of A, they barely turned color, you know, they kind of sort of took on like a little bit of pink at the end of the season, but it was
not a main feature. Since Limelight, there has been a real trend over these last couple decades to select panicle hydranges that start out white and then take on better and better color. And I think you really see that across the proven winners color choice hydrangees that are subsequent introductions. For the most part, there's a couple exceptions have had better and better color and just briefly so I don't forget those couple of exceptions don't change color because some
people don't actually want the color to change. So that would really be a puffer fish hydrangea and to a lesser extent, Bobo, which does take on some pink, but so some people don't like it. But most people when they buy that panicle hydrangel, what they really want is that pink color and pinky Winky was really I think one of the very first panicle hydrangeas to kind of make its main benefit or main feature this color. Now, let's talk about that trigger, because when you buy a
pinky Winky hydrangea, it's going to start to flower. It's going to have a big, huge, beautiful it's honestly one of the biggest panicle hydrange of the flowers are enormous, the stems are huge and thick like reebar. Beautiful plant. Not a great choice for cut flowers unless you have
a massive vase. Ask me how I know. But so they come out with these beautiful lace cap white flowers and then you know, about mid summer, or sorry, about mid August, what's going to start to happen is the flowers are going to start to shade from the bottom towards the top, from deep pink to light pink to white at the top, and then gradually, as the season progresses,
it will go completely pink. Now, when this happens in mid August, you're probably on your summer vacation, reading a juicy book by the pool or on the beach, and you're like, this is the high of summer. This is amazing. Well, actually, from the plant's point of view, it's fall, yes, because what has triggered this color change is the shorter nights
and cooler nights that happened by August. Now I wanted to kind of get some context for this, and so just to help you understand, and this is just just using grand Haven, so it will be different in other areas. But on the summer solstice in grand Haven we have almost seventeen hours of day length. That's how long our days are. So by our June twentieth or so, little under seventeen hours. By the time mid August rolls around, we are under fifteen hours, so it's about fourteen hours
and forty five minutes of day length. So by the time mid August rolls around, you have a night that's basically longer by ninety or so minutes. And that's what's actually triggering that. So's those longer nights and the cooler temperatures. Why the cooler temperatures because as I've said many times on the show, plants synthesize their pigments at night, and when it's cool, they can synthesize their pigments more effectively and they get brighter. So this is triggered by long,
cool nights, not a problem for us here in Michigan. Now, many of our friends in warm climates they grow panicle hydrangees and they never turn color. They're just so disappointed, and they're like, what gives. Well, a couple of issues here. First of all, because you live in a warmer climate, your panicle hydrange is bloom much earlier than they do
for us here. For us, panicle hydrangees, the first ones, which are the quick fire hydrangs, those will usually be first blooming around fourth of July, but most of them were looking more like mid to late July for that initial bloom. You live in a warm climate, you're looking
at probably early to mid June. So now what that means is that as those blooms are starting to age, instead of that happening in August, where your day length is now almost two hours shorter than before, it's happening in July, during your hottest period of the entire year. So your nights are still quite long, your nighttime temperatures are still really high, very often in the South, you know,
typically in the seventies or higher. We're talking about places that are too hot to even grow tomatoes, because tomatoes can't really grow where nighttime temperatures are consistently in the eighties and so you don't get that color. So this is a trigger again that you can't control. And I know this is sometimes confusing for people because of course hydrangees, as we've talked about many times. You know, there's all
this confusion because they're all different. And some people say, well, panicle hydrangees change color, must be the soil chemistry like with big leaf hydranges, But no, it's entirely weather and day length triggered. So unfortunately, nothing you can really do. If you live in a hot climate, you either have to resign yourself to not enjoying those beautiful pink colors, or if you are an experimental gardener, you could play around with pruning it. You could play around with pruning
it a little bit later in the spring. Don't want to go too late. Of course it's too late for this now, but you don't want to go too late, and that will help to delay the bloom. And if you're able to push that bloom further into July so that you can kind of take advantage of that downswing on the nighttime temperatures, you might be able to enjoy that color.
It's a form of Chelsea chop.
It is kind of like a Chelsea chop.
Yeah. And when they turn color like that here in the North in August into September, I always get this kind of melancholy feel.
Because you know, you know what it's triggering. Other people are like, this is great at summer, and you're like, oh, shoot, my hydraene hit turned pink fall is on the way.
It's like back to school time.
Yes, yeah, like moms at the garden center.
Mom's the word.
So anyway, it's a great trigger plant. This is a case where the trigger works in our favor. And this isn't true just of today's plan on trial Pinky Winky. I picked Pinky Winky, like I said, because it really was the first of all panicle hydranges in the current era to really be sold for that color change. But there's tons more Pinky Winky prime. The new version of it has even better color, so you can find that
at your local garden center. We're talking about hardy down to USDA Zone three heat tolerant through USDA Zone eight. They can grow on zone nine, but definitely not getting any color in USDA Zone nine, so bear that in mind as you decide whether you're going to add Pinky Winky or any of the Perfuminer's panicle hydranges to your garden. We're gonna take a little break. When we come back, we're opening up the mail bag, so please stay tuned at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. We know that a
better landscape starts with a better shrub. Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our flowering shrubs in evergreens for eight to ten years to ensure they outperform what's already on the market. For easycare, reliable, beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and express your personal style. Look for Proven Winner's Shrubs in the distinctive white container at your local garden center, or learn more at proven Winner's
Color Choice dot com. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where I'm going to kick off mailbag where we normally answer your questions, and we will be answering some questions, but I'm going to kick it off with a little bit of a rant.
Oh yeah, here we go.
And the rant that I have on this episode is about plant id apps. Now, I want to say, first of all, I do not begrudge anybody who uses a plant ID app anymore than a very serious burder would be grudge me for using Merlin, And hopefully you don't begrudge me because it is a game changer. And similarly, I appreciate that people want to use these apps and find out, you know, what the plant is. And they have improved immensely. I remember when these things came out
and they were like a joke, you know. But obviously with AI and as more and more data has come onto the Internet for them to train these apps off of, they have generally gotten better, but they are far from perfect. And so I would encourage you, if you are someone who uses a plant ID app, to definitely take that with a grain of salt. So I had a message from a listener and she said that they had cleared out a bunch of you know, old weeds and brush
and everything around their property. Stuff started to recover and she didn't know what this one plant was and she used her plant Idea app and it said it was ground ivy, which is a weed. You know, it's a kind of a bad obnoxious weed. Also called creeping Charlie, and she said, but I looked that up after it said that, and that just doesn't seem like what it is.
What is it? And it was a native scuttalaria, So I mean not like a rare native plant or anything like that, but like certainly a plant that is well worth keeping. But you know, this plant id app probably has identified obviously is a lot more likely to come into contact with creeping Charlie than with scuttalarias. So it's not really even I don't want to call it mindset,
but it's not even in its you know, database to access. Now, there is another app, and I don't know if you get ads for this on Facebook, but they do advertise it to me on Facebook, and oh does it make my blood boil? So it is a plant id app, and it claims that if something is wrong with your plant, it will tell you what's wrong with your plant. That's all well and good. I mean again, you're gonna have to take that with a grain of salt, because there
are just so many things. And also, as we've ascertained on the show, you know, probably at least half the time when someone has a plant problem, it's water related. So you know, it has a pretty good shot at being right if it's telling you that your problem is related to the water that the plant is getting. But no, no, this particular app takes it one step further and tells
you what you should do. And the solutions, as have been advertised to me in this app have involved things like adding sugar to the soil, sprinkle with cinnamon, right, and so all they're trying to do is to I don't know what they're trying to do. They're there. I mean, it's ridiculous.
But think about it here a minute. So we live in a world of AI.
Now, yeah, I'm afraid, so, yeah, I'm afraid.
So and if you ask, for example, I was looking at a study. If you ask people like me baby bloomers, they essentially think, nah, this stuff is never going to take over, you know, care for the garden. It's always going to be a people thing. Not everybody feels that way. And of course, in the horticulture and agricultural industries, AI has really taken a hold sensors for watering, machine vision to identify problems, et cetera, et cetera. But that's on
a big scale. When are we going to get to the point where for the general homeowner they're able to use this AI technology or apps to truly determine whether or not the plant needs to be watered or not, or what the problem is. And I would agree with you, we're not there yet.
Well, I think that the main thing is just like there is no substitute for experience, and if you are a gardener or on your journey to becoming a gardener, you know you really don't just want everything to be figured out for you. You have to learn it yourself. And that's really I think a lot of what the trigger plant thing is about, too, is like starting to read that language and understand how to fix, how to notice when things are going wrong, of the conditions that
influenced your plants, and and act on them accordingly. So by all means, use them, learn from them, take them with a grain of salt, and take especially their so called solutions to your plant problems with a grain of salt. Even more so if you have to pay and they're selling you something, well, and.
You're preaching to the choir. Because I'm a sixty five year old man who has been in the garden industry for fifty years, I don't want to be replaced by an app. I want I like that experience thing. Whatever you said, so that, well, you know what fall in on that.
An app is unlikely knock on wood to have your sense of humor. So at least you've got that going sense of humous all right, So sorry about that. What do we got in the mailbag?
James writes, Hi, I enjoy watching your show on YouTube every week, going back over the last couple of years of information, great gardening knowledge and fun. My question is about a hosta that's been in the spot for ten years keeps getting bigger. I don't divide, it just keeps growing. I'm watching with interest this year that a few of the leaves are coming in with variegation. Haven't seen this before? Is it possible to cross pollinate from other hostas that
are variegated in my garden? Or is it reverting to something else?
Right? So interesting situation. What you are seeing there, James, is something called a sport and it is a offset or a branch. It happens in shrubs and trees as well of the plant that just takes on some different genes. This is just a genetic phenomenon. It has nothing to do with cross pollination, because the only way that like cross pollination could happen would be if it grows from seed. Now,
it is certainly possible for hostas to self sew. It happens quite a lot at my in laws house where they have a lot of hostas, and I see those popping up like weeds everywhere. It's a wild thing to see. But no, it's just the plant that you know, it's jeans are jumping around. You can read more about it. It's called transposons. This is also the cause of like those corns that have all the different colors, those are
also caused by transposons. And it's also how we got variegated hostas in the first place.
Sure, absolutely, and a.
Lot of varigated plants. I would say most irrigated plants do actually start as sports. So it's not reverting, it's just doing something different there. And you can, if you wish, take out that little part that's variegated, you know, dig it out and grow it on its own. It will grow better if it's detached from the much more vigorous all green version that you have.
Give it a really cool name, start marketing it, and give us ten percent of the royal.
You never know what it'll turn into, but it's totally normal and nothing to be concerned about.
And usually when you see that variegation, you're so right, Stacey, it's not the pollination. Usually you're looking at a genetic mutation, or a viral infection, or an environmental change, and nine times out of ten, probably a genetic music. Yes, yeah, Susan writes to us Hi, Rick and Stacy. I love watching your show every Saturday morning. It's so much fun listening to the two of you, and on top of that, I learned so much. Well, thank you, Susan, appreciate that.
I was hoping you could tell me to do it or don't do it. Live in Southern Ontario, Canada's on six A. Last week, I had twenty six green gem boxwoods planted, but I noticed the boxwood are quite pale compared to my neighbor's green gem as well as my green velvet in my yard. I wondered if some fertilizer might help. Do it or don't do it. I'd like to trim a little a little, but was suggested I wait a year. I'm dying to do it. Do it or don't do it. I appreciate your advice.
Right, So, a couple of things here. To answer your first question about the pale foliage, I would not do anything about it right now. You have to realize when a plant has made the transition, because these are newly planted from the garden center to your yard, it has undergone a major change in the way that it was kept. And boxwood are generally considered a shade crop in growers and retailers, and it was probably under shade, and now it's out there in the great wild and it's getting sun.
And the plants actually make different types of chlorophyll depending on how much sun or shade they get, so it probably has more of what would be known as the shade type chlorophyll, and it's trying to adapt to what is now a much sunnier spot. And that's why your plants that are already established and growing in those conditions look perfectly lovely. This plant, meanwhile, needs some time to adapt to the conditions and the light levels that it's
actually growing in. And that's just part of a plant getting established.
Yeah, it's part of a plant getting established. And also I would say that I have found with boxwood. They do like a well drained soil. They don't like to sit in water. I'm not saying that that's the situation here, but you can get pale foliage if you're not getting good drainage. You're going to want to water them well initially to get them established.
But you got to if you especially if you have clay soil, you need to make sure that you know it's not staying too wet. They also do prefer it a little bit more on the neutral to alkaline side. But again, when something is new, as long as it's not a water issue, I would definitely wait and see. You can start fertilizing it next spring, just to help it get established more quickly. But I don't think fertilizer is likely to be the solution to what you're seeing
right now. Now. Ask for Susan's question about trimming, what would you say.
I would say, don't trim right now, give them a season. You don't want to trim them just before winter and stimulate some new growth that's just going to die back anyhow, So I just let them go for now, that's my opinion. Trim them next.
Year, yeah, I would say, I understand you're dying to do it, Susan, But I would also wait. I mean, it's important to realize that when you trim something, you expose a lot of stem surface that's going to be giving off water vapor, and that can really kind of contribute to some stress. The plant's already putting all of its energies into growing roots in its new home, so in my opinion, the best thing to do for it
is to try to leave it alone. If there's a couple of stems out there that are just really driving you're crazy, you have my permission to cut those, but I would not get the hedge clippers out, just some selective pruting.
Love it, And we got a note from Mary try and move that into a segment four us. I want to ask you this question.
Okay, sounds good. We'll see if I'm triggered. So we're gonna take a little break and when we come back, we will be hearing that question as well as continuing our conversation on trigger plants. Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified podcast, brought to you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs, our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and tested by experts with your success in mind. Learn more at Proven Winners color choice dot com.
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It's time for branching news. Before we talk further on trigger plants, Stacey wanted to ask you a question. As a matter of fact, I was thinking about it this past weekend as I was sitting on the the Volvo loader loading car and pickup truck and trailer after trailer with bark mulch. We
got a question from Mary asking about dyed mulch. Mary's always used natural triple shredded hardwood and some of that almost can be like dust, but she likes the look of black mulch in the landscape and wanted to know if there's any harm in it. Is it a good idea to use black mulch? And you know, I'm thinking again about hot weather. Do you think with black mulch it puts a little extra stress on the plants or do you think probably.
Not well, whether it stresses the plants, I couldn't say, but it absolutely will increase the temperature around the plant. There's no question about that, just because just because you know black, just like if you go to the beach and have a big old black beach towel that you're laying on, you will be a lot warmer than if you were laying out there on white you know or something. And there you go. So it will absolutely raise the temperature.
And I can tell you as you know, I replaced my lawn with mulch as we're kind of refiguring our garden and I have lots of lots of beds. I really only have mulch paths and then planting surrounded by mulch. We actually took a laser thermometer out there and we just have regular, regular bark mulch. It's not triple shredded, just kind of a coarse landscape bark mulch natural. And the difference in temperature was about ten degrees warmer on
the mulch than on our concrete. So even regular mulch, you know, and it's not till decomposing, it's it's you know, done mostly decomposing. But mulch, you know, can raise the temperature. And so yeah, that black mulch will definitely you know, in absorb more heat. Now for us here in Michigan,
probably not a huge deal. You'd want to be careful around any very sensitive plants, of course, But you know I would say I am I am a no on dyed mulch in general, but could make an exception for black mulch because I do get why people like the look of it. Okay, you know it can look quite uh, quite sophisticated, I suppose. But that said, mulch is not necessarily an aesthetic choice. It is a plant health choice.
And so you know, you got to get into a situation where you're like, Okay, I'm just prioritizing what this looks like to me, but you know, red dyed mulch is an absolute no go. Any brown eyed mulch, like what are you even doing? Mulch is going to be brown and then kind of age to gray, and of course, you know there's some environmental concerns. I think. You know, they're putting all this dye onto the mulch and you're working in it, and you know there's just no need
for all of that to leach into the ground. So dyed mulch is a definite no for me. Red and dyed brown mulch are verboten. Black mulch. I get why you'd want to do it. I personally would not, but I do understand that.
I've always used natural hardwood mulch. Now it does bring up a point, so hopefully that helps you marry, So you could do it, but I think it does bring up the temperature a little bit. Yeah, trigger plants a trigger. Let's say a trigger fung guy in the landscape is slime mold.
Oh so much slime mold right now?
Yeah, And as the weather gets hot and humid, and you can stir it up and then it reshaved. You know, really cool stuff. Looks like a bottle of Frenches mustard that a dog threw up in the in the bark mulch. But it's an indication that maybe your mulch is hydrophobic and that you need to stir the mulch. So it's a good thing to look for and use that as a trigger in the landscape.
You know what I love about this? So, yeah, this is a mulch. This is a mold also known as the dog vomit fungus. Every year you hear questions about it because people are like, ah, what's going on. It is actually a slime mold. It is just living off the mulch. So when I see it in my mulch paths, which are just there is to basically keep down weeds and conserve the soil. I don't worry about it too much. I just see that as the as the mult decomposing.
Yeah, it's true.
Do you know what I love about it? When it starts to like burst open and you water it and all that like water runs off, but then the spores are coming out. Oh, I love that. I was just doing a bunch of that last weekend.
It is fun. Set up some lawn chairs and watch it.
Right, but not macrome.
Lunch on a macro may launchair. Leave that inside that's a little warm. The I love drip tips on plants. Now, drip tips, that's another phrase of mind. But allocacias, you know, we both love the coffee cups allocation. But many tropical plants will indicate to you when the weather is very, very humid. Not that you need an indicator to know that. Forgive me, I'm only humid. But these tropical plants. Look at them once, Alocacias, Ladium's, collocacia, they all naturally form
foliage that produces a drip tip. And my theory is it's because they grow well in hot and humid.
Areas, and you know, it's just a way to kind of funnel the water down towards the roots in an area where there could be a very dense undergrowth and they would be competing for it. So they're like, hey, this is mine. I'm funneling it right down to the roots. Or baby, you got it.
Another trigger plant. My landscape never fails, always works. I can walk into my back landscape. I'll walk right up to the tractor seat ligularity.
Ah, yeah, that thing.
The minute we're starting to see some stress in the landscape, that thing choose me out royal. So my tractor seat, my tractor seat ligular area caliber coas. I think that they're drama Queen's here's a plant that will talk to you, citrus. If you have a citrus plant like out on your deck, the green veining, the chlorosis in the full citrus plants talk to.
You yes, and mostly what it says is I don't like it here and I'm dying.
I want to go back to Florida. Menarda flocks they have a strong pronounced mid rib, but they also wear their emotions on their sleeves or on their leaves and then you start to see things like powdery mildew.
Yeah, that's you know, that's an interesting one too, because I think Manarda is of course notorious for getting powdery mildew, even though a lot of the newer cultivars, especially the proven Winter's ones, are much more powdery mildew resistant than the older ones. If your Manada is consistently getting powdery mildew,
that probably means it's pretty stressed. And so that would be a trigger for you that like, hey, this is not a great situation for this particular plant, and you want to move it to someplace where you know it doesn't undergo water stress. Because that's what I find is someone who does give my plants a lot of water stress, not on purpose, just because you know, I'm not into spending a bunch of money on watering my plants when I can just grow stuff that actually tolerates my yard.
I have found. Yeah, if they if they get too dry over and over again, they break out with powdery mildew. They're just like, I'm too stressed. The powdery mildew is taken over vegetable plants.
Vegetable plant garden is a great place to look for trigger plants. Tomatoes, of course talk to you. The zippering of the fruit, the blossom en rot. Maybe it's a calcium deficiency. Maybe the problem is that it's drying out in between watering. But tomatoes will talk to you. Cucumbers squash any of the que curvets when it relates to humid weather and downy mildew, powdery mildew, that sort of thing.
I suggest people take a look at their trees. Take a close look at your trees, and just don't ignore them. You'll look up into the canopy. I saw it this past week again, greening of the veins, but yellow foliage, or the foliage is thin at the top of the tree, or you look up into the canopy and you see that telltale sign of tar spot and you recognize that you need to increase the light and air movement through the canopy of that tree with some pruning and then stacey.
Of course, when it comes to trigger plants, some of the best trigger plants in the landscape are the actual weeds themselves.
Ah, that's a good point. I didn't even think about that.
Yeah, moss will indicate you have compacted soil. If the soil shape and shade. If the soil is way too wet, you're going to start to see horsetail, white clover. There's an indication that your mowing height isn't right. And in addition to that, there's a lack of nitrogen in the soil.
Because it can because it can grow in a lack of nitrogen, whereas other plants can't necessarily do that exactly. But a lot of people also just like to have clover in their lawn because it looks lovely.
Sure, So a lot of plants I look for, and a lot of weeds which are often in indication that there's something wrong with the soil. You look at plantain, and many times that's growing in nutrient deficient, heavy clay soils, a soil that needs to be air rated, black medic spurge red soil all indicate very dry soil. So I would suggest that you learn more about these weeds and use weeds like I do to help you read the tea leaves, so to speak as to what's going on in your less.
What does nuts edge mean?
Nuts edge means very wet, well drained soil.
Oh see, I don't know what soil at all, and I have tons of nutsage.
Yeah, I do too, so it's got I.
Don't think anyone can avoid that sage. It was a trick question.
Yeah, I think it's drainage. Though it does like a well drained soil.
It definitely likes my yard and it gets no supplemental water, but it does not seem to stop it. The good thing is it's easy to pull and kind of satisfying to pull too.
Exactly. I love it too. It's therapeutic. Well, thanks for reading the tea leaves with us this week. I hope it was helpful and you're seeing some triggers in your landscape. Thanks Stacey, thank you Rick, thank you Adriana, and thank you to you for watching us on YouTube, listening to the radio show version, and looking for us wherever you get your favorite podcast. See us soon