Gardening Simplified

By Newsradio WOOD 1300 and 106.9 FM (WOOD-AM)

What's Gardening Simplified about?

Introducing Gardening Simplified, a new radio show and podcast from Proven Winners ColorChoice Shrubs.Hosted by life-long gardeners Rick Vuyst and Stacey Hirvela, the Gardening Simplified show is designed to share our love of plants and gardening. Whatever your skill or experience level, you’ll find something interesting, useful, and just plain fascinating in every episode.

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Gardening Simplified episodes:

05.04.2024
Gardening Influences
Rick and Stacey share the stories of those who have influenced their horticultural perspective in life. We'd love to hear about yours!
04.27.2024
Solutions for Shady Gardens and Landscapes
A listener recently commented, "Shade is hard," and we agree. So in this episode, we simplify it and provide plant-based solutions. Plus, learn when it might be time to replace a plant in your landscape. Featured shrub: Sweet & Lo...
04.20.2024
Plant Recipes to get your Garden Cooking
Ultimately, a garden is just combinations of plants - but how to put them together? We share tips and ideas on building a beautiful border. Plus, hydrangeas oozing sap and maple helicopters. Featured shrub: Flavorette Honey Apricot rose.
04.13.2024
Meet the Beneficial Bugs in your Backyard
The term "beneficial insects" gets thrown around a lot but what does it really mean? We explore the concept and share which ones you're likely to find in your backyard, and how to best support them. Featured plant: Lo &...
04.06.2024
Spring things: what you need to know now in the garden
There's lots growing on in the garden now, so join us for timely tips on lawn care, weed management, soil testing, and more. Mike Connor is our guest, sharing his expertise on trees and bees. Featured shrub: Yuki Snowflake deutzia.
03.30.2024
Fact or fiction? Spotting online plant scams
The internet is teeming with fake AI-generated plants and digitally manipulated photos - we give tips on how to spot them. Plus, pruning dogwoods and Birdman is back! Featured shrub: Invincibelle Mini Mauvette smooth hydrangea.
03.23.2024
Can't-Miss Plants at the Garden Center this Year
Wondering how to spend your garden budget this season? We've got you covered with our can't-miss plant lists! Plus, helpful tips on pruning and transplanting. Featured shrub: El Niño desert orchid.
03.16.2024
Garden Tools: Is Your Shed Properly Stocked?
The right tools for the task are just as important in the garden as they are in the shop. Learn our must-haves and favorites. Plus, pruning whorled hydrangeas and Supertunias. Featured plant: 'Aphrodite' sweetshrub.
03.09.2024
Problem-Solving with IPM
From bugs to bunnies, pests are part and parcel of gardening. And IPM - integrated pest management - gives us the tools to resolve issues using smarts and strategy. Learn what IPM is and how it can help you problem-solve,...
03.02.2024
Cool Plants for Wet Soils and Celebrating Meteorological Spring!
Whether it's from poor drainage or a high water table, wet soils can be hard to deal with. But there are lots of beautiful plants that will thrive in them! Learn what they are and other tips for dealing with...
02.24.2024
Pruning Demystified & How Honey Bees Handle a Weird Spring
Should you be pruning now? Today we talk about what you should prune in spring and what you should not. Hear how this unusual spring is affecting honey bees and tapping maple trees for maple syrup with beekeeper and expert,...
02.17.2024
The When and Where of Growing from Seed & Interview on Leafjoy® Houseplants
When spring fever hits, the temptation to start seeds becomes irresistible. But when is the right time? What's the right equipment? We'll tell you! Featured plant: Still Waters clematis.
02.10.2024
Sun, Shade, Part-Shade - Explaining Plant Light Needs
Are those recommendations for light on plant tags arbitrary, or do they mean something? Find out in this episode, where we also discuss spring fertilizing and animal weather prognosticators. Featured plant: Fairytrail Bride Cascade Hydrangea.
02.03.2024
Drought Tolerant Plants & Taking the Irritation Out of Irrigation - Interview with Tim DeGeest
Drought: it's dusty. It's dry. And plants can help make it a whole lot prettier. Learn about what makes a plant drought tolerant, and how you can alleviate drought with a DIY drip irrigation system. Featured plant: Double Take Scarlet...
01.27.2024
Happiness with Houseplants (even gardenias!)
How many houseplants do you have? Whether it's one or one hundred, we're celebrating the indoor gardening renaissance. Plus, learn the secret to success with gardenias indoors (and outdoors), and hear about the rise in bonsai theft. Featured plant: Steady...
01.20.2024
Layering Plants in the Garden and Landscape
A garden planted in layers is dynamic, interesting, and beautiful. Learn what it means and how to do it! Plus, plant cold hardiness, pruning elderberries, and biophilia. Featured plant: Cesky Gold dwarf birch.
01.13.2024
2024 Plants of the Year
Meet the 2024 Proven Winners all-star team: the Plants of the Year! Learn about each variety and how they are chosen. Plus, causes of brown arborvitae, planting bulbs in January, and the Pantone Color of the Year. Featured shrub: Fizzy...
01.06.2024
Listener Resolutions
12.30.2023
Stacey and Rick’s New Year’s (Gardening) Resolutions
Do you have new year’s resolutions for 2024? Or maybe, your new year’s resolution is to avoid new year’s resolutions – either way, we’d love to hear your thoughts! Learn about different types of fertilizers, which is best for your...
12.23.2023
Garden Tunes and Birdman is Back
Do you have a gardening playlist? Listen in for our favorite plant and outdoor-related songs. Plus, using pine needles as mulch, planting around black walnuts, and a winter update from Birdman Bill Stovall. Featured plant: White Album wintercreeper.
12.16.2023
Everything Evergreen and Talking Tea With Debra Knapke
Evergreens lift our spirits during the holidays and carry our landscape through winter. Learn the two types of evergreens, and the benefits they bring to the landscape. Plus, snowload on trees and shrubs and a guest on herbal teas. Featured...
12.09.2023
The New USDA Zone Map, and What It Means for You
In mid-November, the USDA put out a new hardiness zone map, the first since 2012. Learn what's new in it, and why, and what it might mean for what you can grow. Plus, hydrangea growing questions and a waterless waterpark....
12.02.2023
Plant-Based Holiday Decor, Indoors and Out
December is here, and along with it, holiday decorating. Grace your containers, windowboxes, and maybe even a few spots indoors with cut branches and greens! Hear our suggestions and get advice from designer Deborah Silver.
11.25.2023
Hydrangeas and the 2023 Polar Vortex
Cape Cod is synonymous with hydrangeas, but as Rick discovered at this year's Hydrangea festival, polar conditions threatened the display. We talk hydrangeas that stand up to the cold and other solutions. Plus, hydrangeas blooming in fall and javalinas. Featured...
11.18.2023
Vegetables: The Plants You Put On Your Plate
When cooking and eating vegetables, it can be easy to forget they started as plants. We discuss the joys of growing veg and sharing them on your holiday table - and maybe even getting kids to eat them. Author and...
11.11.2023
Going All-in on Native Plants - Or Not?!
Gardening with native plants gets a lot of talk these days, but what does it really mean? We explore the possibilities, benefits, and myths of gardening with natives in what may be our most controversial episode yet. Featured plant: Low...
11.04.2023
Autumn Leaves Abound. Here’s How to Use Them to Your Advantage
They're colorful, they're abundant, they're...useful? Yes! Fallen leaves are perfect for improving soil. Find out what to do with yours, plus, mystery fungus, a fence-climbing Chihuahua, and new vocabulary words about leaves. Featured plant: Tiny Wine ninebark.
10.28.2023
It’s Plant Moving Time, so Let’s Get a Move On!
Whatever your reason for moving a shrub or perennial - the site has become too shady, the plant outgrew the spot, or you just don't like where it is - now is the perfect time to move it. Learn how...
10.21.2023
Choose Your Path Wisely - All About Garden Paths
A garden path gets you from point A to point B, but it's the path materials, the shape of the path, and of course, the plants, that make the journey worthwhile. Hear our favorite path materials, along with bumblebee pollination,...
10.14.2023
Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned in the Garden
No one likes to make a mistake, but the mistakes you make in gardening tend to be the lessons that stick with you most. Hear the mistakes Rick and Stacey have made and what they've learned from them. We end...
10.07.2023
To Prune or Not to Prune? Cleaning-up the Garden in Fall
In this week’s episode, Stacey and Rick discuss what perennials you should be pruning in fall, and which you shouldn’t. Stacey reminds gardeners when in doubt, don’t prune! If you’ve noticed more acorns this year, it isn’t just you -...
09.30.2023
Key Elements for Fall Bulb Success
It's time to plant fall bulbs! Learn how you can be successful selecting, planting, and growing bulbs. Stacey shares a shrub perfect for planting next to your bulbs for a stellar spring display. Stacey and Rick talk about gardening next...
09.23.2023
The Art of Enjoying Your Garden
As gardeners, we tend to enjoy working in our gardens. But we should also take the time to enjoy being in them, looking at them, and appreciating our hard work. Plus, gravel in flower beds and removing annuals in fall....
09.16.2023
Bonus Episode – Mailbag Edition
Thank you to all of our listeners who send us in their gardening questions! In this bonus episode, Stacey and Rick answer questions from the mailbag that haven’t had a chance to be answered on the show yet.
09.16.2023
Rocking the Establishment: What It Means to Get a Plant “Established”
"Once it's established" is oft repeated about plants but seldom explained. In today's episode, we change that and cover what it actually means. Plus, Japanese beetle resistance and garden trends. Featured plant: Kodiak Orange diervilla.
09.09.2023
Fall-ing Into Place – Celebrating Our Second Year!
As we head into our second year, we look back at all that we’ve discussed on and look forward towards what’s to come. Our Plant on Trial is one the Fonz would approve of – Perfecto Mundo® Double Pink reblooming...
09.02.2023
Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Plants (Plants You Want to Touch and Ones You Don’t)
So many plants have an inviting, touchable texture - we share our favorites, as well as those you should definitely avoid touching. Plus, a beautiful, bouncy hydrangea, pruning boxwood, and printing photos on foliage. Featured plant: Little Lime Punch hydrangea.
08.27.2023
Getting Edgy: The Pain and Necessity of Your Garden’s Edges
Edging your garden beds is a crucial part of maintaining a landscape, but a good edge? That's easier said than done. Find out why, plus we talk favorite vines, deterring dogs, and Stinky the Owl.
08.19.2023
Building Better Relationships With Your Neighbors Through Plants and Preventing Powdery Mildew
Do you know your neighbors? If not, plants can change that! Plant something that sparks conversation and make connections within your community. Plus, dealing with powdery mildew, cleaning pruners, and another bear story. Featured plant: Sweet Summer Love clematis.
08.12.2023
The Self-Sow Show
We love self-sowers! Far from weeds, these plants pop up where they will thrive best, making you look like a design superstar. Plus, saving tomato seed and an interview with PHS vice president for horticulture, Andrew Bunting. Featured plant: Sunny...
08.05.2023
Plants That Beat the Heat and Interview With Brie The Plant Lady
It’s not just people that get sunburned, plants can too! Learn about damage that sun can do to plants, how you can avoid it, and about plants’ natural sunscreen. Rick and Stacey interview with a special guest, Brie Arthur aka...
07.29.2023
The Blue Plants Show
Dive into the world of blue plants and learn how bigleaf and mountain hydrangeas can turn blue. In Plants on Trial, Stacey introduces a new, easy to grow blue hydrangea. Rick discusses news regarding rising temperatures and a 97 year...
07.22.2023
The Summer Time (Gardening) Blues
Yes, summer gardening is actually harder. Today we explore problems gardeners are facing in the dog days of summer and tips to work through them. In Plants on Trial, Stacey and Rick talk about a plant that makes gardening easy....
07.15.2023
Mid-Summer Vegetable Tips, Junipers as Hedging, and Growing Castor Beans
It's the height of summer, which means the vegetable garden is in full swing. Learn how to keep it looking, and producing, its best. Plus, growing showy castor bean plants, and the elements of curb appeal. Featured plant: Gin Fizz...
07.08.2023
How to Pamper Your Plants, a Revolutionary Rose, and Interviewing Dr. Judson LeCompte
Learn various ways you can give your plants a spa day and why you shouldn’t add Epsom salts in your garden. At Last, a groundbreaking rose is put on trial and Dr. Judson LeCompte joins us to talk about plant...
07.01.2023
Do Plants Repel Mosquitoes? Plus: Why Your Hydrangea Isn’t Blooming, and Meet One That Definitely Does
Do plants really repel mosquitoes? We look at the evidence. Plus, learn why your hydrangea might not be blooming, and how police used a YouTube video to save ducklings. Featured plant: Incrediball Blush hydrangea.
06.24.2023
South vs. North Gardening, Managing Fire Ants, and Garden Photography With Adriana
Are you a Southern gardener longing for the North? Or perhaps the other way around? We break down the pros and cons of gardening in hot climates. We move on to a gardener with fire ants in her potted lemon...
06.17.2023
Vivacious Variegation, the Truth About Milky Spore, and Plant Breeder Megan Mathey
Variegation: love it or hate it, we discuss this unique plant mutation from a scientific and aesthetic standpoint. Plus, we dive into the truth about controlling Japanese beetles using milky spore, and end with an interview with Proven Winners ColorChoice...
06.10.2023
Watering Advice, a Game-Changing Spirea, Native Ferns, and the “Chelsea Chop”
We're suffering through dryness not seen in 100+ years here in Michigan, so watering is on our minds. Join us as we talk water conservation tips, a high performance, drought tolerant spirea, controlling cucumber beetles, and the time-honored tradition of...
06.03.2023
Favorite Herbs, the Secret to Cilantro, and a New, Non-toxic Way to Manage Slugs
Whether it's just a pot of basil or a whole garden's-worth, having fragrant herbs as close as your backyard is luxury. Learn our favorites, plus how to grow cilantro successfully, a trick for more chives, and a brand new slug...

What's Gardening Simplified about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Gardening Simplified episodes:

Gardening Influences

Solutions for Shady Gardens and Landscapes

Plant Recipes to get your Garden Cooking

Meet the Beneficial Bugs in your Backyard

Spring things: what you need to know now in the garden

Fact or fiction? Spotting online plant scams

Can't-Miss Plants at the Garden Center this Year

Garden Tools: Is Your Shed Properly Stocked?

Problem-Solving with IPM

Cool Plants for Wet Soils and Celebrating Meteorological Spring!

Pruning Demystified & How Honey Bees Handle a Weird Spring

The When and Where of Growing from Seed & Interview on Leafjoy® Houseplants

Sun, Shade, Part-Shade - Explaining Plant Light Needs

Drought Tolerant Plants & Taking the Irritation Out of Irrigation - Interview with Tim DeGeest

Happiness with Houseplants (even gardenias!)

Layering Plants in the Garden and Landscape

2024 Plants of the Year

Listener Resolutions

Stacey and Rick’s New Year’s (Gardening) Resolutions

Garden Tunes and Birdman is Back

Everything Evergreen and Talking Tea With Debra Knapke

The New USDA Zone Map, and What It Means for You

Plant-Based Holiday Decor, Indoors and Out

Hydrangeas and the 2023 Polar Vortex

Vegetables: The Plants You Put On Your Plate

Going All-in on Native Plants - Or Not?!

Autumn Leaves Abound. Here’s How to Use Them to Your Advantage

It’s Plant Moving Time, so Let’s Get a Move On!

Choose Your Path Wisely - All About Garden Paths

Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned in the Garden

To Prune or Not to Prune? Cleaning-up the Garden in Fall

Key Elements for Fall Bulb Success

The Art of Enjoying Your Garden

Bonus Episode – Mailbag Edition

Rocking the Establishment: What It Means to Get a Plant “Established”

Fall-ing Into Place – Celebrating Our Second Year!

Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Plants (Plants You Want to Touch and Ones You Don’t)

Getting Edgy: The Pain and Necessity of Your Garden’s Edges

Building Better Relationships With Your Neighbors Through Plants and Preventing Powdery Mildew

The Self-Sow Show

Plants That Beat the Heat and Interview With Brie The Plant Lady

The Blue Plants Show

The Summer Time (Gardening) Blues

Mid-Summer Vegetable Tips, Junipers as Hedging, and Growing Castor Beans

How to Pamper Your Plants, a Revolutionary Rose, and Interviewing Dr. Judson LeCompte

Do Plants Repel Mosquitoes? Plus: Why Your Hydrangea Isn’t Blooming, and Meet One That Definitely Does

South vs. North Gardening, Managing Fire Ants, and Garden Photography With Adriana

Vivacious Variegation, the Truth About Milky Spore, and Plant Breeder Megan Mathey

Watering Advice, a Game-Changing Spirea, Native Ferns, and the “Chelsea Chop”

Favorite Herbs, the Secret to Cilantro, and a New, Non-toxic Way to Manage Slugs