Down The Garden Path Podcast

In this encore presentation of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss how to design with native plants and strike a balance in your garden between natives and the foreign ornamentals we love so much.

When people think about native plants, they often think of a wild meadow or an unkept urban lot. But natives offer many design opportunities and benefits to our gardens and landscapes.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• • How do you define native?
  • Where to look for native plants?
  • How should I start going about designing with native plants?
  • Using nativars.
  • "Hedges make edges."

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast. You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne via her website: down2earth.ca

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.

AI has moved into the world of gardening! In this encore presentation of Down the Garden Path podcast, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing speak with Dale and Carrie Spoonemore, creators of the new garden AI app, Seed to Spoon.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• Why did you decide to create this app?
• Where does the gardening information come from?
• Who is this app geared towards?
• Is it North-America based only?
• Can users customize their profiles so the app remembers their location?
• How does it differ from Google search?

Find From Seed to Spoon online:

• www.seedtospoon.net
• Facebook: @seed2spoon
• Instagram: @FromSeedtoSpoon
• YouTube: @FromSeedtoSpoon
• Tiktok: @seed2spoon
• Pinterest: @fromseedtospoon
• Twitter: @fromseedtospoon

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast. You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne via her website: down2earth.ca

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.

In this encore presentation of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw welcomes Tom Watson from BOLD to discuss landscape lightning.

About Tom Watson

Tom Watson is a Senior Business Development Manager with BOLD (Best Outdoor Living Design), focusing on his territory in Central Ontario. After working in business operations for over nine years, leveraging cutting-edge technologies for strategic growth and process improvement, Tom entered the outdoor lighting industry.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• Tell us more about BOLD, the new industry-leading landscape lighting company
• Landscape lighting is so important, why do you think it can sometimes be forgotten?
  • We forget about evenings at times during the landscape planning process.
• Now that many want to use their outdoor spaces, people are realizing the importance of lighting the space.
  • New landscape lighting can be added to existing landscapes.
• The impact is immediate when homeowners can now use their outdoor spaces in the evening and entertain longer on the weekends.
  • Mature plants and gardens look beautiful when highlighted with proper low-voltage lighting. Tom refers to this as painting with light!
• BOLD lights are CRI 90 or above. Sunlight is 100.
  • They come with a 7-year warranty.
• Are you seeing new trends in landscape lighting?
  • Black is still the most popular fixture colour.
  • New shape is a reflection of some new shapes in the interlocking industry
  • Smart technology is also popular. Products can be set up and managed through Google Home, Alexa etc.
• Where can contractors' homeowners see BOLD products?
  • Products are available at landscaping dealers. oDisplays will be there for people wh want to see them in person.
• BOLD is currently offering Mini Acadamy training to landscapers and designers.

Find more information about BOLD:

• • Website: www.boldpros.com
  • Instagram: @boldpros @boldpros_tom
  • Facebook: @boldpros

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.

You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne via her website: down2earth.ca

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.

In this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw welcomes Carla Bailey to discuss Women in Landscaping, a supportive community for green professionals that encourages women to enter the profession.

About Carla Bailey An HR professional for over a decade, Carla Bailey honed her expertise working for a leading landscaping company in London, Ontario. Dedicated to creating a positive work environment and resolving employee matters, her commitment to staff growth led her to discover and implement various government initiatives to support employee development.

In 2018, Carla and three other green professionals founded Women In Landscaping to introduce women to green professions and provide a community to help them thrive.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• What led to the creation of Women in Landscaping (WIL)?
  • Business support for women in the Landscaping industry with a variety of issues in addition to business development
• When was WIL started?
  • The group started in the greater London area in 2018.
  • It grew quickly until the pandemic hit. They held their numbers steady and registered as a non-profit in 2024.
• How often does WIL meet?
  • WIL currently holds monthly drop-ins on the fourth Thursday of the month across the province. Approximately 10-20 women attend, ranging from new to the industry to 30-year business owners to women going through career changes.
• 100,000 jobs in the trade in Ontario, with 25,000 vacancies. Still less than 30% are filled by women.
  • This demonstrates that the industries have not been successful on their own in attracting women into the landscaping industry.
• In 2023, WIL hosted the Touch-a-Truck event to promote awareness of women working in green professions, and 3,300 people turned up!
  • WIL has five Touch-a-Truck events planned for July 20th this year and another for September.
• WIL has partnered with Landscape Ontario
  • They will be hosting a Women in Landscaping Luncheon at the Landscape Ontario Congress in January 2025.

You can find Women in Landscaping on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.

You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne via her website: down2earth.ca

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.

You can now catch the podcast on YouTube.

This week on Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw welcomes Natalie Green from DynaScape Software to discuss their newest product, Creator.

About Natalie Green

Natalie is the Director of Product Development at DynaScape, working to understand the needs of landscape designers and build easy-to-use, modern solutions to efficiently create beautiful, functional, accurate plans for outdoor spaces.

DynaScape builds landscape software specifically for the landscaping industry. They are committed to developing tailor-made solutions for landscape professionals and continue to expand the products and services they offer to empower landscape professionals with the best design and management platform.

Here are some of the topics covered in this episode:

• The history of Dynascape design software and how it works for the landscape design industry
• Natalie also highlighted some of the limitations
  • These limitations and the importance of staying ahead of technology, especially the technology of computer hardware, have led to the development of a new product for Dynascape called Creator.
• The future of DynaScape Creator
  • How much more flexible it is being a web-based product
  • A two-week trial of Creator is available on their website if you are interested in giving it a try
  • Natalie emphasized that there was no such thing as too much feedback!
  • Be sure you share your likes and dislikes
• A Dynascape Design and Design Colour update is coming in June 2024.
• Joanne shared with Natalie how much she appreciated the training and technical support that Dynascape offers.
  • It helps designers manage deadlines knowing Dynascape is there and very responsive

Where you can find DynaScape:

• www.dynascape.com
• Get a free two-week trial of DynaScape Creator
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Instagram
• LinkedIn (DynsaScape)
• LinkedIn (Natalie Green)

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast. You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne via her website: down2earth.ca

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible. In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.

This solo episode of Down the Garden Path is a bit of a rant!

Recently, I heard landscape design referred to as a luxury product, giving the illusion that only the wealthy need one. I disagree.

Despite the initial investment, I believe landscape design will save you money in both the short and the long run. And I am confident that after working with a landscape designer, your project will be even more successful.

Things to consider:

Your landscaping project most likely contains hardscaping (patio, walkway, garden walls) and softscaping elements (gardens, trees) and having both of these addressed from the start is crucial to a successful project.

In my opinion, no one should treat the softscaping as an afterthought and try to "fill" it in after the hardscaping features are completed.

Here's a good example that I share in this episode:

A 2.5-foot-deep garden was left at the side of a pool for the large trees the pool clients wanted for privacy after the pool was installed. These clients called me for a planting plan to recommend the appropriate trees. Unfortunately, large trees have root balls that are 3-4 feet wide. There was no way the clients could get anything but small trees.

If a design had been done at the start of the project, the trees would have been put in earlier and the patio would have allowed for them, or the pool location would have been adjusted.

Landscape designers, like interior designers, view the big picture and look at things from different perspectives. We consider things like the views from the windows, especially the kitchen sink. Our drawings are to scale, allowing you to visualize your outdoor living space to ensure that the patio will fit your table or your new furniture set.

We are also aware of how things grow. We have seen the home where a tree was planted in the "wrong" spot. Too close to a walkway, too close to the back gate so that it limits access, etc.

There have been so many times that I have been called in to help clients "after the fact," and they all say, I wish we had a design to begin with.

I firmly believe that having a landscape design that you approve ahead of time will help you spend your money wisely on the things that matter and ensure that your project is exactly what you want when it is complete.

Look for Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.

You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne via her website: down2earth.ca

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

This week on Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw welcomes author Alan Heeks to the podcast to discuss his self-help book, Natural Happiness: Use Organic Gardening Skills to Cultivate Yourself.

About Alan Heeks

Alan Heeks is an inspiring guide to helping people cultivate their well-being through parallels with Nature. After a Harvard MBA and a successful career managing building materials businesses, Alan has spent 30 years creating nature-based learning venues, and leading groups there. In 1990, he started Magdalen Environmental Trust, converting 130 acres to a mixed organic farm. Since 1992 he has created Hazel Hill Wood as a 70-acre conservation wood and retreat centre. Alan has led many workshops with his Seven Seeds of Natural Happiness approach, including individuals, community groups, and NHS doctors.

Here are some of the topics covered in this episode:

• Natural Happiness can help you dig deep and stay cheerful in these stormy times.
  • It shows how you can use gardening methods such as composting, mulching, and crop rotation to cultivate human nature, too.
  • A gardener applies skills like observation, patience and creativity, and you can adapt them to deal with daily stresses and big issues such as climate change.
  • Alan's approach is positive and practical, easy to use for gardeners and others.
• On the podcast and on YouTube, they talked about the interesting and practical exercises sprinkled throughout the book
• The Nourish Your Roots exercise suggests trying Tree Talk.
  • Imagine yourself as a tree and consider whether all parts of you are in balance.
  • The roots, the trunk and your branches. It is a practical and helpful exercise, especially when it encourages us to do some pruning!
• Another self-help "quickie" we discussed was how we handle compaction in our lives.
  • Alan related it to the soil in a garden, which for gardeners is a very clear analogy.
  • If our soil has good structure and is permeable then the air, heat, water, and nutrients can get in.
• The opposite is compaction.
  • Many of us know how to handle compaction in the garden more than we know how to handle it in our lives. This book is full of these practical and thought-provoking exercises.
• With such chapters as "Use Natural Energy Sources," "Compost Your Troubles," "Cultivating Community" and "Growing Through Climate Change," you are in for a wonderful helpful book even if you are not a gardener.
• This book also inspires the child in all of us who remember drawing trees, climbing trees and playing outside.
• Whatever you might have going on in your life, Natural Happiness: Use Organic Gardening Skiles to Cultivate Yourself would be a wonderful addition to your bookshelf.

Where you can find Alan Heeks:

• Website: www.naturalhappiness.net
• Buy his book here.
• Sign up for Alan's free newsletter here.

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast. You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne via her website: down2earth.ca

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

This week on Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw welcomes author Mariam Pirbhai to the podcast to discuss her creative nonfiction book, Garden Inventories: Reflections on Land, Place and Belonging.

About Mariam Pirbhai

Mariam was born in Pakistan and lived in England, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines before her family immigrated to Canada in the late 1980s. She completed her Ph.D. in English at the University of Montreal and received the Governor General's Gold Medal. Mariam lives and works in Waterloo, where she enjoys photographing and painting the natural landscapes of southwestern Ontario. An English professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Mariam also wrote the award-winning short story collection Outside People and Other Stories, and the novel titled Isolated Incident.

Here are some of the topics we covered in this episode:

• Her journey through the landscapes of her life on her way to her current home
• How her travels in the past shaped the gardener she is now
• Her innate understanding of gardening meant that trees in the garden should produce fruit
• How her search for a fruiting mulberry tree proved challenging
• How the increased time spent in nature during the pandemic made her more aware of the plants in nature versus what we historically have been cultivating in our gardens
• Her deep dive into invasive plants
  • What belongs and doesn't belong in the garden
• The removal of a large amount of Buckthorn trees from the property
  • How it opened up a new area for her garden to expand

Where you can find Mariam Pirbhai:

• Website: www.mariampirbhai.ca
• Instagram: @mariampirbhai
• Facebook: Mariam Pirbhai

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast. You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne via her website: down2earth.ca

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube.

This week on Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw welcomes Julia Dimakos back to the podcast to discuss growing tomatoes. From starting tomatoes from seed to transplanting the seedlings into the garden, Julia shares her tried-and-true tricks to growing them successfully from seed.

About Julia Dimakos

Julia Dimakos' 7000 square foot kitchen garden is in Mono, Ontario, on 25 acres on the Niagara Escarpment. Julia has been growing vegetables and writing about gardening for over 13 years. She was twice published in Canadian Organic Grower magazine and became a published author in July 2022 with her first book, Tea Gardening for Beginners.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• How to start tomato seeds and the type of pots to use
  • It's not too late during this first week of May to start as the seedlings are quite tough.
  • You can put many seeds in a container: as they grow, they are easy to separate from the roots.
• The difference between determinate and indeterminate tomatoes
  • It is important to know what variety you can and want to grow so you know how to support the plant in the garden appropriately.
  • Spoiler alert: indeterminate tomatoes need support in the form of very TALL stakes!
• Julia shares some great tips on fertilizer and watering
  • The importance of watering to avoid blossom end rot on your tomatoes
• Tune in and then go buy some seeds of an unusual variety of tomatoes!

Click here to watch this episode on YouTube!

Where you can find Julia Dimakos:

• Website: www.juliadimakos.com
• Instagram: @juliadimakos
• YouTube: @gardeninggirl

Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast. You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne via her website: down2earth.ca

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube.

In this episode of Down the Garden Path podcast, Joanne welcomes Katie Tamony of Monrovia Plants to dispel five myths about growing roses.

About Katie Tamony Katie's official title is Chief Marketing Officer, but really, she is Monrovia's chief storyteller and trendspotter. She has more than 25 years of expertise in the lifestyle and leisure industries.

About Monrovia Inspired by the beauty of plants, gardens, and landscapes everywhere, Harry E. Rosedale, Sr. founded Monrovia in 1926 to be a premier grower of shrubs and trees. Monrovia collaborates with plant breeders worldwide to introduce improved plant varieties to North America. Monrovia plants flourish once planted to beautify gardens and landscapes. Visit Monrovia.com to learn more.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• Myth #1: Roses are too fussy.
  • We discussed how when you give the roses what they need, they are not very fussy. Katie mentioned the Floribunda rose variety called Grace and Grit. It is a nice repeat bloomer that once established puts on a show. Available in White/Red/ Pink and Yellow.
• Myth #2: Roses are prone to diseases.
  • The roses on the market now are much more disease-resistant than your grandmother's roses. Monrovia's Nitty Gritty™ is incredibly durable and disease-resistant.
  • This ground cover series will look great in the garden or in a container. The double blooms are available in peach, yellow, red, pink and white. This rose is also self-cleaning so no need to trim or deadhead throughout the season.
• Myth#3: Roses are water hogs.
  • This common myth boosts roses' reputation as being a difficult plant to grow.
  • Roses actually like it hot and dry. Once established, roses do not need a lot of extra watering and can deal with the same amount as the rest of your garden.
• Myth #4: Roses are no longer frangrant.
  • Well, the fragrance is back baby! This may have been true up until a few years ago but breeders have been working hard to bring the fragrance back in the new easy to grow varieties.
  • Monrovia's new Eau de Parfum rose collection features big romantic blooms that are easy to grow and very fragrant. Available in Berry, Bling, Blush and Bubbly.
• Myth #5: Roses don't grow in my tough garden conditions.
  • Several rose varieties bust this myth.
  • As mentioned, Nitty Gritty™ and Grace N Grit are known for doing well in tough conditions.
  • If you need an exceptionally hardy rose, then Monrovia's Seaside Swirl Rose collection is just what you are looking for. A Rugosa rose variety that comes in pink, red and blush with the Rugosa toughness and exceptional fragrance. They are also tolerant of road salt but are more compact and tidy than the typical Rugosa rose. Maxing out at 3 ft tall.

Find Monrovia online:

• • www.Monrovia.com
  • Facebook: @monroviaplants
  • Instagram: @monroviaplants
  • Pinterest: @monroviaplants
  • Twitter: @monroviaplants

Find Down the Garden Path online: Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast. You can also email your questions and comments to [email protected], or connect with Joanne via her website: down2earth.ca

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.