Down The Garden Path Podcast

This month on Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw take a deep dive into some of the most popular shrubs which grace the nursery benches and our gardens. In this episode, they begin their discussion with a two-part series on hydrangeas.

Tune in for the first in a two-part series on hydrangeas.

In Hydrangeas: Part 1 – Annabelle & Oakleaf, Joanne and Matt discuss:

• Growing conditions: soil, temperature, zones, lighting and watering
• Blooming: type, when and for how long, colours
• Cultivars of note for each plant
• Annabelle or Hydrangea arborescens cultivars
  • Hydrangea arborescens Incrediball
  • Hydrangea arborescens Invincibelle Spirit
  • Hydrangea arborescens Invincibelle Limetta
• Oakleaf Hydrangea or Hydrangea quercifolia cultivars
  • Hydrangea quercifolia Alice
  • Hydrangea quercifolia Pee Wee
  • Hydrangea quercifolia Ruby Slippers

Enjoy last year's Down the Garden Path podcast episodes on shrubs:

Shrubs: Pruning

Shrubs: Evergreens

Shrubs: New for 2020

Shrubs: Nativars

Upcoming Shows:

August: A month dedicated to flowering trees, including standard trees, flowering dogwoods and large flowering trees.

About Your Hosts

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.

This week on Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw wrapped up their deep dive into some of the colourful and resilient staples of the perennial garden with a look at a favourite of many, perennial geraniums, or cranesbills.

Tune in to learn more about perennial geraniums.

Matt and Joanne explain:

• the difference between hybrid, cultivar and variety; this is consistent across all the perennials discussed this month.
• how they are different plants from the annual geraniums or pelargoniums, the popular bedding plant.

Matt gives a great overview of :

• Growing conditions: soil, temperature, zones, lighting and watering
• Blooming: the type, when and for how long, and what colours to expect
• Their use and value to the perennial garden
• Cultivars of note for each plant, including, but not limited to:
  • Geranium macrorrhizum (Bigroot Geranium)
  • Geranium sanguineum (Bloody Cranesbill)
  • Geranium Rozanne

Check out Joanne's pictures of her Rozanne and the cuttings she shared with a neighbour in the past two years on the @downthegardenpathpodcast Instagram account.

Joanne and Matt answered listener questions about Rozanne: Is it invasive? Does it grow in the shade? Tune in to hear their answers to these questions and more!

Enjoy past perennial Down the Garden Path podcast episodes:

Intro to Perennials

Perennials: Peonies

Perennials: Groundcovers

Perennials: Ornamental Grasses

Perennials: Attracting Beneficial Insects

Shade: Beyond the Hosta

Upcoming Shows:

July: A month dedicated to popular shrubs, including hydrangeas, ninebarks and weigela.

August: A month dedicated to flowering trees, including standard trees, flowering dogwoods and large flowering trees.

About Your Hosts

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.

This month on the podcast, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw take a deep dive into some of the colourful and resilient staples of the perennial garden. Last week on Down the Garden Path, they examined Echinacea & Rudbeckia, and in this episode, they discuss perennial foliage plants.

No garden is complete without some interesting perennial foliage.

Tune in as Matt and Joanne discuss:

• Their favourite perennial foliage plants.
  • Matt's choices include: Ligularia, Rodgersia, Bugbane (Actaea), Lamium, Carpet Bugle, Kirengeshoma, Mukdenia, Mudgenia, Heuchera/Tiarella/Heucherella, Pulminaria, Sedum
• Growing conditions: soil, temperature, zones, lighting, watering.
• Blooming: Type, when and for how long, what colours.
• Use and value to the perennial garden.
• Cultivars of note for each plant.

Enjoy past perennial Down the Garden Path podcast episodes:

Intro to Perennials

Perennials: Peonies

Perennials: Groundcovers

Perennials: Ornamental Grasses

Perennials: Attracting Beneficial Insects

Shade: Beyond the Hosta

Upcoming Shows:

June 28th: Pernnial Geraniums

July: A month dedicated to popular shrubs, including hydrangeas, ninebarks and weigela.

August: A month dedicated to flowering trees, including standard trees, flowering dogwoods and large flowering trees.

About Your Hosts

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.

This month on Down the Garden Path podcast, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw take a deep dive into some of the colourful and resilient staples of the perennial garden. Last week's topic was Salvias and Speedwells and in this episode, they discuss Echinacea & Rudbeckia, also known as Purple Coneflower and Black-eyed Susan.

Tune in to learn more about Echinacea & Rudbeckia.

Discover useful information about each plant, including:

• Growing conditions: soil, temperature, zones, lighting, watering.
• Blooming: type of blooms, when & for how long, what colours.
• Use and value of each to the perennial garden.
• Cultivars of note for each plant.

Matt and Joanne also answer some great listener questions about perennials:

• How deep should you plant in the garden?
• What does dead-heading mean?
• What are the best perennials and annuals to grow in the shade?
  • Suggested perennials: Brunnera, Lungwort, Tiarella, Bugbane, Columbine
  • Suggested annuals: Begonias, Calla lilies, Impatiens, Wishbone

Enjoy past perennial Down the Garden Path podcast episodes:

Intro to Perennials

Perennials: Peonies

Perennials: Groundcovers

Perennials: Ornamental Grasses

Perennials: Attracting Beneficial Insects

Shade: Beyond the Hosta

About Your Hosts

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.

This week on Down the Garden Path podcast, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw take a look at salvias and speedwells, the colourful and resilient staples of the perennial garden.

Tune in and learn more about how to include salvias and speedwells in your garden.

Perennial Salvias (also known as "sage") are a must-have for the garden border, blooming early summer to autumn! Planted in the spring, these aromatic beauties are great for cutting and beloved by bees and butterflies. They are drought-tolerant, too.

Surprisingly, they are in the mint family and also related to the kitchen herb, garden sage. They grow well across many zones and are available in different shades of purple, pink and white. As an added bonus, they stay upright without splitting in the center.

Matt and Joanne discuss:

• The growing conditions: soil, temperature, zones, lighting and watering
• Blooming: type, when and for how long and the colours
• Use and value to the perennial garden
• Cultivars of note for each plant
• The Color Spires and Profusion series from Proven Winners.

Speedwell (Veronica) is an easy-to-grow perennial with long tall spikes of small petals in different shades of blue, purple, pink, or white. Speedwells are a little shorter than salvias and some varieties are even prostrate, offering more of a ground cover.

Matt and Joanne discuss:

• The growing conditions: it grows best in full sun and best be deadheaded to extend bloom
• The Magic Show series from Proven Winners

Enjoy past perennial Down the Garden Path podcast episodes:

Intro to Perennials

Perennials: Peonies

Perennials: Groundcovers

Perennials: Ornamental Grasses

Perennials: Attracting Beneficial Insects

Shade: Beyond the Hosta

About Your Hosts

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, Matt and Joanne welcome returning guest Gardening Girl Julia Dimakos to discuss digging deep with veggies.

Julia started growing food after having children and fell in love with it! She gardens organically and tries to keep things simple while growing new and uncommon vegetables each year. Her garden is located in Mono, Ontario, on 25 acres on the Niagara Escarpment. Two years ago, Julia expanded her vegetable garden from 2000 to 7000 square feet, continuing in the formal kitchen garden style.

Julia has been growing vegetables and writing about gardening for over 10 years and has been published twice in the Canadian Organic Grower magazine. She loves to inspire others to have their own vegetable gardens by showing them the simpler side of gardening.

Don't miss our conversation on "digging deep with veggies" with Gardening Girl Julia Dimakos.

Julia answers a few of our questions:

• How is your garden doing?
• What did you do to prepare?
• Once everything is planted in the vegetable garden, do you have advice for what to do next?

Julia discusses her favourite tomato varieties and helps Joanne understand the difference between determinate and indeterminate tomato plants.

She also gives some excellent advice on growing lettuce and answers a listener's question about growing strawberries.

There's so much valuable information in this show, you won't want to miss it!

You can find Julia online here, as well as on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.

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.

This week on Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw take a look at new and unusual annuals in the garden and the best way to care for them.

Joanne and Matt discuss new and unusual annuals and how to care for them.

Some of the topics include:

• What's the difference between annuals and perennials?
• How do we take care of our annuals in the garden?
  • Conditions that need consideration: light, soil, watering, fertilizing
• What's happening in the garden centres with the availability of annual plants.
• What are some of the new annuals for 2021?

Listener questions and feedback:

• What are some annuals that spread?
• Why has the price of annuals increased this year?
• What are the best hardy annuals?
• Listeners weighed in about whether they put their annuals in pots or the ground.
• Do you have any recommendations for soil additives for annuals?

Matt and Joanne also discuss the importance of water for annuals and how simply putting the right annual in the right spot can lead to greater success.

About Your Hosts

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.

May is a busy gardening month as we prepare our gardens for a new season. But what about ourselves? How we get ready to garden is just as important. This week on Down The Garden Path, we're joined by chiropractor Dr. Geoff Smith with the tips and tricks we need to keep ourselves safe, healthy, and happy while working in our gardens.

Dr. Geoff Smith is a chiropractor with 20 years of experience. He is the proud owner of Oshawa South Chiropractic Clinic and a team member at the Clarington Rehabilitation Clinic. Gardening injuries have been a common source of patients during his years of practice. He enjoys helping people keep up with their gardening adventures. Geoff's passions lay in the world of health and fitness. He is an avid trail runner and exercise enthusiast. Gardening was a natural fit and the COVID-19 pandemic provided the perfect opportunity to "dig in" and get started with a new healthy hobby.

Join us this week for a conversation with chiropractor Dr. Geoffrey Smith about fitness and the garden.

Some of the things we discuss in this episode of Down the Garden Path:

• Although seen as a relaxing hobby, gardening can be physically demanding. What can we do to warm up before heading out into the garden each day?
  • Dr Smith talks about how stretching routines like yoga has many benefits for gardeners.
• Are there ways we can do things differently while gardening to prevent injury?
  • Dr. Smith discussed the importance of varying our positions and or the chores we are doing in the garden.
• Should we do a cool-down after we've finished working in the garden?
• What inspired you to start gardening last year? Tell us a bit about your gardens.
• As a new gardener, what are your thoughts on the types of tools to safely stay active in the garden?

You can find Dr. Smith online at www.oshawasouthchiropractic.com.

About Your Hosts

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.

This week on Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw kick off the month by answering your questions about planting and what you should be doing in the garden in May.

This week, Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing answer your May planting and gardening questions.

They cover a variety of topics, including:

• The popularity of fruit trees: Matt discusses cocktail trees with different varieties of fruit on one tree.
• Tomatoes & Potatoes: He also mentions a new "product" -- a tomato plant grafted on a potato, called Ketchup and Fries. Hilarious but true! Ask for it at your local garden centre. Once the tomato plant is done in the fall, you can harvest the potatoes in the pot below.
• Hydrangeas: Joanne discusses the challenges with Macrophylla Hydrangeas and/or the Easter Hydrangeas and why they shouldn't be planted in your GTA garden.
• Cedars: Matt discusses the differences in cedars in response to a listener's question about their hardiness.
• Roses: The popularity of roses and the hottest varieties: Now is the time to find that specific one you may be looking for, but tune in if you want to hear Matt help you determine which variety you should get based on the space you have.

About Your Hosts

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.

This week on Down the Garden Path, landscape designers Matthew Dressing and Joanne Shaw wrap up their month-long discussion on lawn care with a look at the different ways to control white grubs and other pests in the lawn.

Joanne and Matt answer your questions on grub control.

• What beetles are leaving white grubs in the lawn?
  • What is the life cycle of these insect pests?
• What products are there? In Canada vs. the U.S.
• We discuss nematodes and Scotts® Grub B Gon®
  • When is the best time to apply these products?
  • How are they applied?
• Do these biological solutions work?
  • Can you use both?

Down the Garden Path listeners had a lot of nematode questions!

For a deep dive on how to apply nematodes, check out past episodes of Down the Garden Path:

Applying Nematodes

Japanese Beetles

The Benefits of Natural Insect Control

Also discussed was weed control, as well and the best way to try and control challenging weeds like Creeping Charlie. Matt told listeners about a new product, Wilson's Weed Out, and how it works as systemic weed control.

About Your Hosts

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.