Down The Garden Path Podcast

In the second-last episode of Down the Garden Path for the year, Matt and Joanne take a look back at the popular topics and guests of 2021.

Don't miss Joanne and Matt as they take a look back at the popular topics and guests of 2021 on the Down the Garden Path podcast.

They also answer some listener questions:

• What does girdling mean as it refers to gardening?
• Are there any weeds that are good for your garden?
• Can you explain what the three numbers in fertilizer mean?
• What's the best way to lower the pH level in your lawn and garden?

Looking for the perfect gift for the gardener on your list? Tune in next week for Garden Gift Ideas.

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss 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.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In this week's episode of Down the Garden Path, Matt and Joanne welcome author Sarah Battersby to discuss the 2022 Toronto & Golden Horseshoe Gardener's Journal, now celebrating its 30th year. This wonderful publication will help both you and your garden stay organized for the new year.

About Sarah BattersbyAlong with coaxing anything to grow in her dry-shade city rock garden, Sarah has been carving a cultivated space out of a forest of lilacs and sumachs at her schoolhouse in Hastings County for 30 years. Sarah got the gardening bug with indoor plants as a teenager, co-writes at TorontoGardens.com and is particularly interested in planting for wildlife and for scent. She wishes she'd never planted that goutweed.

Some of the questions and topics covered:

• How did the garden journal start?
• How did you and your sister Helen become involved?
• Tell us about the digital sourcebook.
• How is the book's creator, Margaret Bennet-Adler, still involved?
• What feedback have you received from last year which prompted changes this year?

To purchase a copy, visit GardenJournals.ca.

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss 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.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In this week's episode of Down the Garden Path, Matt and Joanne welcome David Lin, owner of Dave's Air Plant Corner, to learn how to grow and care for this interesting and wonderful group of houseplants.

About David Lin

David has been growing Tillandsia for more than seven years, and as soon as he started collecting them, he was hooked! His goal is to share these amazing plants with more people and hopefully, everyone can take a breather from their busy life and admire the unique beauty and characters of air plants.

Some of the questions and topics covered:

• Tell us why you think air plants are so cool.
• What exactly is a "Tillandsia"?
• Do you remember what the first Tillandsia you purchased was?
• How do our Canadian listeners get plants from your shop?
• When buying air plants, what should you look for to make sure you're getting good air plants?
• How do we care for air plants once we get them home?
• Is there anything special we need to grow air plants?
• What's the best way to display air plants?
• What are some of your favourite air plants?
• Tell us about 'Botanical Toronto' this Saturday, November 27

• www.davesairplantcorner.com
• Facebook: Dave's Air Plant Corner
• YouTube: Dave's Air Plant Corner
• Instagram: @davesairplantcorner

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss 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.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In this week's episode of Down the Garden Path, Matt and Joanne welcome Joe Salemi, Deputy Executive Director of Ontario's premier horticultural trades association, Landscape Ontario. Joe shares the many opportunities a trade association like Landscape Ontario has for landscape professionals and addresses some of the issues currently facing the landscape industry.

About Joe Salemi

Joe is a people-first leader with over 18 years in the professional landscape industry, a career culminating in the observation of the challenges and barriers landscape horticulture business owners face daily. Joe has a combined background with trade association management and driving a vertical market software company. He is a sales leader and product specialist, with a high degree of marketing prowess who focuses on developing relationships for mutual benefit. Joe's passion is helping companies build efficiencies, increase capacity, and boost profits.

Some of the questions and topics covered:

• What is Landscape Ontario?
• What is the benefit to the customers of hiring Landscape Ontario members?
• How do you become a member of Landscape Ontario?
• Professional development opportunities, apprenticeship, and certification.
  • Skills Advance Ontario: second year, test pilot – www.growoutdoors.ca
• Labour crisis management
  • industry hiring hall concept
  • apprenticeship
  • foreign labour
• Landscape Ontario Congress, IPM symposium, and landscape designer's conference
• Covid-19 task force

• www.landscapeontario.com
• Facebook: Landscape Ontario
• Twitter: @green_for_life
• LinkedIn: Landscape Ontario
• YouTube: Landscape Ontario
• Instagram: @landscapeontario

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss 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.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In this week's episode of Down the Garden Path, Matt and Joanne welcome landscape designer and author Jan Johnsen to learn more about her book Floratopia - 110 Flower Garden Ideas for Your Yard, Patio, or Balcony. Her latest book is packed with colourful photos exploring the many flower varieties for spaces of all sizes and addresses common gardening questions, with great tips for gardeners of all skill levels.

Jan Johnsen began her professional life in Japan in a landscape architecture office. She has been a principal in the landscape design firm Johnsen Landscapes and Pools, based in Westchester NY, for more than 30 years. Her natural design approach is evident in the landscapes that she shares in her books: Heaven is a Garden, The Spirit of Stone, and Gardentopia. And of course, the book we're going to talk about today: Floratopia.

Some of the questions and topics covered:

• What inspired your latest book 'Floratopia'?
• The format change is different from your earlier books. Why is that?
• Tell us about your other books.
• Your book is filled with so many wonderful tips, one of them being the benefit of not cutting plant material back.
• Does every design you do involve a pool?
• The use of annuals in the landscape and the value they add to the garden
• Dutch landscape designer Piet Ouldof's garden design tips
• Claude Monet designed the gardens he painted.
• What are some of your favourite perennials to use in containers?
• The power of umbel-shaped flowers.
• When you do a design, do you spec annuals for a landscape?
• Deer-resistant, not deer-proof, flower gardens and plants: what can we plant?
• Jan is startig a new online course touring her gardens and sharing her knowledge in the spring of 2022.

• www.janjohnsen.com
• Facebook: The Spirit of Stone and Heaven Is A Garden
• >Twitter: @janjohnsen23
• Pinterest: Jan Johnsen
• YouTube: Jan Johnsen
• Instagram: @johnsendesign

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss 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.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In this week's episode of Down the Garden Path, Matt and Joanne welcome horticulturist and author Leslie Halleck. Tune in as they discuss Leslie's latest book, Tiny Plants, and explore the fascinating world of tiny indoor plants, inspiring you to creatively get growing indoors.

Leslie began her career in horticulture in 1992, where she worked at and helped run a retail plant nursery while operating her own small gardening business. In December 1998, she started at the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden as Curator of Plants, and then Director of Horticulture Research. One of her specific duties included the creation of their nationally recognized plant trials program and gardens, design, and plant selection for all the display gardens, plant collections management, teaching, and website development.

In 2000, Leslie launched Halleck Horticultural which she operated in addition to her position at the Dallas Arboretum. For almost a decade, Halleck Horticultural has provided a variety of services to the green industry, including horticultural consulting, marketing, and branding plants and development -- as well as garden center design -- and consulting. Leslie has won multiple awards for writing, creative direction, and marketing from the Turf & Ornamental Communicators Association, including the coveted Gardner Award for Writing in 2017.

• Leslie shared that during an internship in Puerto Rico to study the effects of Hurricane Hugo. she discovered a colony of tiny orchids (Lepanthes rupestris) growing and this led to a lifelong interest in "tiny plants" and inspired her latest book.
• Tiny Plants are defined as species that are genetically determined to grow under 6 inches.
• During the show, Leslie breaks down the basic plant classification based on how plants grow and uses that to explain the differences in a variety of "tiny" plants in the book.
• These classifications help us to determine how to best group these plant types together, and the best way in our indoor environments (e.g., window sills vs grown under glass)
• The book outlines some great ways to display our tiny plants
• What is the difference between a terrarium and a cloche?
• Leslie answers some listener questions about indoor lighting and bonsai and tells us about the Garden Society Project.

• You can order all of her books (Tiny Plants, Gardening Under Lights, Plant Parenting) on her website: www.lesliehalleck.com
• Twitter: @lesliehalleck
• Pinterest: lesliehalleck
• YouTube: lesliehalleck
• Instagram: @lesliehalleck

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss 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.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

Every fall on Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw review the benefits of not cleaning up the garden as plants and leaf debris overwinter many beneficial insects. There are, however, some pest concerns in the garden you can take steps to manage now. In this episode, Joanne and Matt discuss a few major garden pests which have been causing some trouble in their own gardens, some of which you may have heard of and some new ones.

Matt and Joanne discuss:

• Gypsy moth, also known as LD Moth
• When to use BTK to kill the caterpillars and how and when to get the traps to kill the adult male moths.
• Some things you can do to prevent the caterpillars from boxwood tree moth.

• Boxwood blight:
  • Life cycle, controls, what to look for in the garden. There is no known treatment for blight.
  • If infested, it is important to remove and destroy plants and disinfect your garden tools, etc.
  • Identify and manage common problems with boxwoods
• Recommendations when bringing houseplants inside, common pests and their control.

Resources mentioned in the show:

https://onnurserycrops.com/author/jenllewellyn/

https://landscapeontario.com/box-tree-moth-help

Each week on Down The Garden Path podcast, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss 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.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

Thanks for listening! Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe!

In this week's episode of Down the Garden Path, Matt and Joanne welcome Guy Ruccolo, the owner of Blue Star Nursery, a gardening centre located in Windsor, Ontario.

Guy answers a few of our questions:

• What's your background in the industry?
• How did you come to own Blue Star Nursery?
• What happens each season at Blue Star? Can you give us a year-at-a-glance look?
• Tell us about the products you carry at your garden centre. Do you grow your own plants?
• How do you find climate change affecting the plants we're selecting and planting?
• Do you warranty your plants? (The unpredictable weather has affected plants so much that now they are warrantying regular-priced plants until Nov 1st.)
• What do you do with the plant material you don't sell by the end of the year?
• What is the effect of certain bans on insecticides on plant choices?
• How have you found the pandemic has affected the horticulture industry?
• What have your biggest challenges been over the last year and a half with Covid-19?
• What are some of the new and hot plants your customers are asking for?

Guy said the hot trend this year is fruit trees, especially the four-in-one fruit tree!

He also recommended applying nematodes on your lawn to address grubs. The Windsor area is currently being hit hard by them. Mosquito Barrier (made with Californian Garlic Juice) is amazing for treating your yard for mosquitos and can even help with Japanese beetles.

• Firelight Tidbit Hydrangea– new dwarf paniculata hydrangea
• Summer Crush Hydrangea– intense " red" macrophyla hydrangea
• Firefly Nightglow Diervilla – Native Pollinator, Burgundy Foliage with yellow flowers, part shade to shade
• Brandywine Maple– Acer Rubrum, seedless 30ft Maple tree

You can find Blue Star Nursery online at www.bluestarnursery.com.

To learn more about how to apply nematodes, listen to our episode Applying Nematodes.

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss 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.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe!

In this episode of Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw discuss how to keep your roses protected all winter long. Different roses require varying levels of care and protection. Listen to this week's podcast for tips on keeping your roses growing beautifully every year.

• What are the types of roses?
  • Hybrid tea, floribunda, grandiflora, shrub roses (knock out roses), carpet roses, miniature
• What are some ways you can protect your roses for the winter?
  • Learn how to mound your roses for the winter.
  • What is a rose cone? Is it better than mounding a rose?
  • What are some ways you can protect your rose from rodents and rabbits?
• When should you wake up your roses for the season?
• How should you prune each rose in the spring for its best start?
• How can you protect your roses from pests and diseases like Japanese beetles and black spot
• Answers to your frequently asked questions about climbing roses
• How much sun do roses really need to be successful?
• Learn the importance of confirming the size of the mature rose bush and leaving space for it to grow; this allows for good air circulation.
• It's okay to remove a struggling rose bush and replace it with a more disease-resistant variety.

Past shows:

Japanese Beetles Applying Nematodes

Each week on Down The Garden Path podcast, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss 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.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and helpful topics. Their goal is to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In this week's episode of Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw discuss "lasagna gardening."

Lasagna gardening helps you build healthy soil, even in the most challenging locations and without the back-breaking labour. Whether you're growing beautiful flowers or tasty vegetables, lasagna gardening is a great way to easily give your plants healthy living soil.

• What is lasagna gardening?
• When is the best time to start your lasagna garden and why?
• What tools and materials do you need to build a lasagna garden?
• How long does it take to put together a lasagna garden?
• How long does it take until the lasagna garden is ready to use?
• What are some of the pros and cons of lasagna gardening?

Past shows:

My Fall Landscaping Project, November 2016

Each week on Down The Garden Path podcast, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss 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.

And Matthew Dressing is a horticulturist and landscape designer. He owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, Joanne and Matthew do their best to