In The Garden

Keith:   I want to talk to everybody today about our host of the hive program and bees in general. We've been doing this host-to-hive for two or three years. It's a perfect introduction to beekeeping. It's a way to keep bees long-term without having a hive in your backyard.

[00:00:55]Some people are allergic to bees but are interested in and want to participate.  It's more and more of a struggle to keep bees alive anymore. There's colony collapse, and there are a few different insect problems, and there are few different viruses that bees get. Yet they're absolutely a must for the pollination of certain crops.

[00:01:13] Many of the crops that we get at the grocery store need bees to pollinate those crops. We must keep raising bees and then keep splitting hives and maintaining the population we've got currently.  If you're thinking about keeping bees, I feel like it's important to start with two hives.

[00:01:32] There are years when we have 40% losses, and commercial beekeepers, in general, will have 40% losses. So it's getting harder and harder to keep a hive. It used to be that. You can set a hive out, and you'd have an 80 or 90% success rate. Now we're closer to 50 50 success rate.

[00:01:51] If you're not willing to keep two or three hives and study bees and really understand bees. Then host a hive is a there's a great program. You can paint the beehive, make it personal. And then we keep the hive, and we move them around to different nectar sources.

[00:02:08]That's one of the issues with bees in North Carolina is the nectar sources are mostly in the spring and then very light in the fall. So you end up having to feed the bees in between to keep them healthy and happy. What we try to do is we'll put 12 hives on a trailer, and your bees go on vacation, basically.

[00:02:27]We'll take them out to Asheville, beautiful view great nectar source. It's probably one of my favorite things about beekeeping is finding the perfect window. We have to close the bees up at night when it's cool. And then we have to make that Trek. And get there before the sun gets on the bees, and the bees are ready to fly, and it's too hot for them.

[00:02:50]Tends to be by the weather last-minute scenario. You know where you've got a schedule and many things that you can control in your life. This is not one of them. So I'll look ahead at the schedule, and then I'll figure out a time. It looks like Thursday morning is going to be the time.

[00:03:05] to move the bees. So we'll prep them on Wednesday night. And then I get to be chauffeured to, to Asheville. I'll jet out to Asheville, to a friend's farm. We'll set the bees up. We give them bear protection. Bears love both the larva from the bees and the honey as a protein source and sugar source.

[00:03:25]We'll put an electric fence up around to protect them from the bears. And you get to spend the day in Asheville or the day in the night in Nashville. And then you. Head back. So how exactly 

[00:03:34] Joe: does the host of the hive program work? You're going to take the bees that I'm hosting out to Asheville, right?

[00:03:41]What are the benefits for the people that are hosting the 

[00:03:43] Keith: hive? We have highs locally at the garden center and in various locations around the triangle. So if your hive is in Nashville and you want to see it hive open or want to participate in a hive?

[00:03:56]We'll open it, we'll schedule a time, and we have you come out. You can either gear up, or you can match from a distance. Sometimes we'll do group events where we do a screen room. And pop a tent up. They can stand in the screen room, and we'll, we're suited up on the outside, and we'll open the hive up and, we'll do educational things with kids.

[00:04:16] We'll show them the queen. We'll show them what brood is. Show them the difference between brood and honey in a frame. And it's a good way to get your feet wet if you wanted to keep bees down the road too. So you're slowly learning the process of opening the hive and how you go into a hive, and that smoke relaxes the bees and gets them to start gulping up honey in a kind of a survival instinct and make some really easy to work with.

[00:04:41] So we'll give them a little puff of smoke. You don't have to give them a lot of smoke and then. And then open a high for the person that sponsored a hive to pull stuff out and, and then other people want to be a little bit hands-on, and we'll have a day where they can actually go into a hive and pull the frame out themselves.

[00:04:56] I always say beekeeping's like putting your hand on a hot stove. It's you're not supposed to do it, but you're going to go ahead and test it. You know that glass unit. To make sure it's off, why would you do that? You've been burned before. Beekeeping is much the same. You're going to get stung.

[00:05:11] It's inevitable, any beekeeper that keeps bees has been stung, we get nucleus hives, which are five complete frames with the queen, and we'll buy those in the spring and unload three or 400 of them.

[00:05:23]There was a day that I was stung a hundred times. It's funny that when you've been stung by something. You think everything that flies stings is the same, but honeybee stings or a quarter or a half of what a hornet or a yellow jacket, or a lot of these other flying things are.

[00:05:39] So they don't hurt that much. And if you're not affected by a bee sting, they don't really bother you. Once you get into the hive and you get comfortable, You'll find yourself just mesmerized by what's going on. Probably two years into keeping bees, I would find myself open a hive and pulling a frame out and just leaning on the hive, and the bees are flying all around me.

[00:06:03] I dive, and almost as if you're looking at a piece of coral. A million things live in there, and they're all doing different things at different times. You can sit there and stare at that one piece of coral for 15 minutes, you can't believe that something, this new thing, just popped out of that space, and it's changing colors, and different things are going on.

[00:06:25] Same thing with bees it's when I was growing up, they would, you could buy an ant colony. And you sat there and watched the ants lay eggs and move the eggs around and tunnel, and bees are probably one of the most complex insects out there.

[00:06:40]It's similar to ants. They're just fascinating to watch, inside the hive or outside of the hive. When I first started keeping bees, people would say, they're so relaxing. I go out there with my coffee every morning, coffee or cocktail, and it's, and I'm like, I don't think I'm going to be drinking coffee or cocktails with my bees.

[00:06:57] And sure enough, a month in, I'm standing there; I can't wait to see what's happening today because the weather's warmed up or the hives are really doing well. And you want to get a quick visit in, so you're drinking your coffee and watching the bees. Something about that

[00:07:11] hum of the hive is like the yoga home. It's very relaxing, and you'll find yourself mesmerized by them. 

[00:07:18] Joe: So if somebody 

[00:07:18] wanted to host a hive with Garden Supply Company; what does that look like? What does it entail? 

[00:07:22] Keith: They go onto the website or come into the store, and they sign up; it's $295 a year. And then we provide them with a hi...

Keith:   Today, I’m talking about gardening for mental health. There are lots of articles out there more about gardening and how good it is for mental health. Something I figured out a long time ago for myself personally, not recognizing it, but no matter how bad a day I’d had, if I got out in the garden, touch the soil serotonin levels, go crazy in your body. It’s an easy place to relax.

[00:01:03]Joe: One of the few options we have in the pandemic 

[00:01:06] Keith:. Yep. So golfing, golfing has gone crazy. Gardening has gone crazy. The basics: you walk out of the house, and oxygen levels improve. When older people used to tell me they needed to get out in the sun and get some vitamin D to me, it was sounded like a lot of fluff.

[00:01:24]The older you get, I think the more vitamin D deficient you end up and, I feel totally different when the sun comes out, it’s the landscape looks brighter. Everything around you looks better. It’s, it just feels you feel so much better to be outside. So you say you’re breathing better oxygen, fresher air getting more sun.

[00:01:42]The other thing about gardening is just practicing acceptance. Stress, a lot of times, comes from trying to schedule and control everything around you. There’s, there’s only a certain amount of stuff that you can control in the landscape. It’s mother nature.

[00:01:56] That works. Yeah. You can do your part, but then what happens. You’re out there, and there’s a lot of different components to it. You may be looking at your vegetable garden, and two vegetables are failing miserably. It’s gotten too hot, and there’s nothing you can do to cool them off.

[00:02:11]Just accepting that’s the way nature is. And 

[00:02:14] Joe: yeah. And if you have a high-stress job or something, I’ve heard people say that it helps you slow down, but I don’t know if it’s slow. It just helps you embrace the fact that. This is how long it takes. Like these things take how long they take.

[00:02:25]And it’s I like that word that you’re using. I think it’s more about acceptance than forcing you to slow down. Yeah, 

[00:02:30] Keith: absolutely. And maybe it’s why I’m good at gardening. I’m not a control person at all. My management style is to point you in the right direction.

[00:02:41] Just let that ship sail. And I’ll come back around in about a week or two or a month to write that to that ship if it’s, heading in the wrong direction. But I tend to let you know, let things go, and let the way they turn out.

[00:02:56] So it makes gardening fun. It’s like being in the studio today. We’ve got a, we’ve got a bluebird that’s right at the window. And you’ve been trying to get in for the last 20 minutes knocking noise. It’s not the door. It’s the window. Hold the mic over there. Next time he tries it.

[00:03:14] Yeah. He’s he thinks that he’s got another bluebird in the reflection, so he’s mad. He’s not pumping up his chest. He wants to fight. He’s not happy at all. And you could try to change that, but probably not going to happen. So we’re going to, we’re going to live with our little friend.

[00:03:31]As far as accepting what’s going to happen, you do what you can do. You prepare the best you can come, prepare, prepare the soil, get the plants, the right best plants, and then accept the results. Do you know what I mean?

[00:03:43] That’s life, and it’s harder for some people than others, but gardening is a good way to learn that and practice. The other thing is, letting go of the idea that things are going to be perfect. Vegetable gardening, in particular, There’s lots of highs and lows.

[00:03:56] It’s, you get it in you till the garden everything’s fresh and pretty. And then. You get, come back a month later, and certain plants are doing better than others. Things are starting to produce fruit or greens, or you can start to harvest things. But it’s never going to be perfect.

[00:04:09]And then at the end of the season, it’s, you’re pulling out dead plants that are still producing but don’t look good and are near nearing the end. So just getting used to the fact that things aren’t perfect. The fixed mindset or growth mindset. When you make mistakes, it’s a growth opportunity.

[00:04:24] It’s not worrying about it, especially vegetable gardening or landscape gardening. I think it’s always good to get good advice. Especially when you’re talking about trees or talking about Woody plants larger projects so that you don’t make as many mistakes. Still, when it comes to perennial garden or flower gardening, growing a vegetable garden, it's

[00:04:42]Fun to go out there and experiment, try this, and try something else if it doesn’t work. That’s part of that whole growth thing. And while you’re going through all these processes, it’s It being outside, in general, is just a fun, fun place to unwind. Yeah.

[00:04:57] There’s 

[00:04:57] Joe: so many options that we have when it comes to spending our time. And so many of them in our culture feel like they have immediate results. Like I want to watch this movie so I can escape reality for two and a half hours, or I want to go shopping so that I have the thing that I want, but gardening is seasonal at the end of the trip.

[00:05:10] Like you have to think about it in terms of it’s going to be this year. I want to do this thing. Yeah. Which is a completely different mindset to put ourselves in than we normally are in. 

[00:05:20] Keith: Yeah, it is. And it’s I’ve got a friend that just passed several months ago and every summer he would plant every spring he planted a huge garden and he, he called me, and he’d say, I need corn and I needed, silver queen corn. I’m growing silver queen this year. It’s butter corn. And I would provide him with all the seeds because he lives in Virginia, and we’d go to the Lake in Virginia, and then I could help him pick the garden. In every fall, as the corn dwindled and the raccoons ate the corn one year, he had a bear rolling around in the corn.

[00:05:49]He would say, I’m not growing a garden again. It’s I’m done with this. He said, you can buy corn at the farmer’s market cheaper than you can, then you can plant and garden, and when May rolls around, and he’d call me, and he’d say, I want to quit and plowed that garden. And he said, this year, I think I’m going to use buttercream corn, or, he would, it would be something else.

[00:06:10] By the end of the season, things weren’t looking that great in the fall. And they were all drying up, he was feeling the feeling and the downside of gardening and, but give him a couple of months to rest in the wintertime, and he’d be right back at it.

[00:06:22]Yeah. And then, and then you get those re you reap there the rewards of their, fresh silver queen corn, you’re pulling out of your garden. It’s just after the crop has gone, and he would kind of get down about it all or anything that had gone wrong, or that thing about that darn bear.

[00:06:37]Joe: I’ve never done it as a good or that a couple of months go by and Hey, do 

[00:06:39] Keith: it again. I’ll do it one more time. Yeah. So I fell last time. It’s good. My new I’m like, I’ll do it. I’ll try it one more time. Talking about my friend that the other one of the other points to the whole mental health is the connection to other humans.

[00:06:5...

Keith Ramsey:  How are we doing today? We were going to talk about fertilizer for your yard, lawn, and garden today. There are always lots of questions that surround fertilizer and what to use and when to use it. It's pretty much two broad groups of fertilizer, organic fertilizer and chemical fertilizer, and customers are always with the organic movement:

[00:01:00] they're always worried about using chemical fertilizer, so I thought I'd talk about that and why it's important sometimes to use chemical fertilizer. It's chemical chemically produced, but it's just chemically produced to increase the amount of whatever element they're trying to try and to increase it.

[00:01:16] So to get nitrogen high enough to grow tomatoes, you really need some chemical fertilizer, in my opinion. Its organic fertilizers are a good thing for building soil. It's more like taking a multivitamin chemical fertilizer, like a perfect punch. It's gonna; it's gonna really put that plan into a growth model.

[00:01:33]Joe Woolworth:  To enrich it with nitrogen is something that occurs in nature. I think most people would probably be afraid that they'd put something weird in it. We're all thinking, what will we eat? I don't want to put monologues 473 in my body.

[00:01:45] Keith Ramsey: It is. So it's, it's chemically produced. It's, they're extracting nitrogen out of a natural source and just boosting the 

[00:01:52] Joe Woolworth: they're not trying to make it taste good. Exactly. What all this weird stuff and food. Exactly. 

[00:01:56] Keith Ramsey: It's not you're 

[00:01:57] Joe Woolworth: feeding your fertilizer. 

[00:01:58] Keith Ramsey: Stop that immediately.

[00:01:59] No, there's no 21, a red dye. Nitrogen is the key element in fertilizer for plant growth. There are pretty much nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, but those are the main elements. The nitrogen gives you plant growth and gives you that dark green color. If you, when your plant's yellowing generally all over the plant, usually that's a sign that it lacks in nitrogen.

[00:02:20] Sometimes, that can be a sign that the nitrogen can be there and the pH is off. So getting the pH right. So that the plant can actually accept the fertilizer that's there is important. Potassium's there for plant quality. It helps and aids in flowering and stem growth.

[00:02:36] It's all derived from rock phosphate. And if you apply rock phosphate to the soil as an organic phosphate, it really requires probably a year or two for the phosphate to break down. So adding a chemical phosphate is important.

[00:02:50] If you want to affect the plant, this year or immediately, phosphate is linked to storing energy, the process of photosynthesis. So general plant and health and quality flowering and rooting. Potassium, on the other hand, is it's really there for plant vigor and strength.

[00:03:05] Many times, root crops like potatoes or carrots or that kind of thing will need extra potassium to build that strong tube or root that you're going to eat. And that's an easy thing to get it, organically. It also helps the potassium also helps the plant resist disease.

[00:03:21] And then, there are all kinds of minors and so sometimes doing a soil test if you've got a plant or if you're particularly if you're growing crops of plants say you've got multiple blueberries or a blueberry farm.

[00:03:33] Soil testing is important because if the plant needs magnesium or manganese or iron, sulfur, copper, zinc, boron, those are the main minor elements a plant will use. If they need those and there's deficiency there, you can't just broadly add those to the soil.

[00:03:51], They're in many general-purpose fertilizers and are available in a lot of chemical or organic fertilizers. Still, if you're really deficient in one or two of those, it'll make a difference. Iron's a classic example of a soil lacking an iron, And you're adding nitrogen to the soil because of the plant's yellow.

[00:04:09] Sometimes, it just needs a handful of iron to make it make that difference. And in the olden days, people would add old nails or leftover steel to the soil around the tree. And then the iron would just, as it as the iron rusted it would become available to the plant, and they would leach down into the soil.

[00:04:25], You hear old-time gardeners say, throw a handful of nails in the bottom of the hole when you're planting a tree, and that would keep the tree really dark green and actively growing. 

[00:04:35] Joe Woolworth: Wow. So that's a lot of variables. There are three main components. There are five or six other sub-main components.

[00:04:40] And it depends on where your soil is, what plans you're growing. So when you go into a place like a garden supply company, how many choices for fertilizer? 

[00:04:49] Keith Ramsey: So there's a lot of different choices. I usually tell people not to get too bogged down in the details, even though we started in the details.

[00:04:56]Adding fertilizers to the landscape or to the lawn at the right time of the year in some form or fashion, the plants utilize the fertilizer and then every few years doing a soil test. Have a baseline. Do you know, especially if you're buying a new house or starting a new garden, getting a soil test upfront and getting a baseline so that you can head in the right direction is a good idea?

[00:05:16] And then just updating that every three to five years kind of thing. 

[00:05:21]Joe Woolworth: You mentioned the comparison of like multivitamins to types of fertilizer, are there a couple that always works really well for baseline?  

[00:05:30] Keith Ramsey: You go with these lawn fertilizers, for instance.

[00:05:31]I think it's essential. I follow up the guidelines from a lawn program in Virginia from the Virginia extension service, but. It's the sod program. And so you fertilized September, October, and December. The two main differences in fertilizers from in the, in that you're going to put down in the fall are a starter fertilizer, which tends to be high in phosphorus.

[00:05:54] So you want it for root growth. And so you're trying to establish good, strong roots, and you don't want to push that plant really hard with nitrogen. So it's lower in nitrogen higher and phosphorus and potassium. So that's what you start with within September, and then as the grass plant matures and starts to root in.

[00:06:09] Then you move to something higher in nitrogen because you want to push that plant to have top growth so that it also needs to grow more roots. And it's more established by the summertime,

[00:06:19]the difference between organic fertilizer and chemical fertilizer, so if you wanted an organic lawn, I recommend doing it. 90% of the time. Going back to chemical fertilizer, because if you do an organic fertilizer in the lawns, not getting enough green and it's not growing enough roots, it doesn't have everything it needs.

[00:06:39] The lawn will be lacking. And then it's, you're talking about an environmental issue. So if you put a lot of chemical fertilizer out and it's not a slow-release fertilizer, it can leech, and you lose that fertilizer. And it's not necessarily great for the environment, but if you use a.

...

Keith Ramsey:  All right. Today, we're talking about gardening during the wintertime winter work. Winter is a great time to take a look out your window and look at areas that need improvement. Either from a view standpoint, areas that need a screen, or looking at the bones of the landscape. 

[00:00:55]when we talk about bones, evergreen plants, the hardscapes, the walls figuring out where you need more structure or figuring out where you need a ceiling or a canopy that you can do with a tree or an Arbor entry to do a different area of the yard, with the, with an Arbor It's a great time of year because the trees are deciduous.

[00:01:13] In the middle of spring and summertime, you're in your backyard, and you've got total privacy as winter comes on, you've got six months of deciduous trees dropping their leaves. Suddenly you can see, straight into the neighbor's house, you can see TV when it comes on, you can see the lights.

[00:01:28]Yeah, 

[00:01:29] Joe Woolworth: we just moved, and I didn't even realize that my back neighbors existed until all the trees 

[00:01:32] Keith Ramsey: fell down. It's definitely a, I built a house a few years ago, bought the lot, and built the house at the Lake. So it's a country setting. Leaves drop. There's an old camper sitting in the woods, on the lot next to us. I never saw it. It doesn't bother me at all.

[00:01:50] Cause I'm there during the summertime. But when I go there during the wintertime, it's not the site that I want to see. It's not pretty. 

[00:01:56]Joe Woolworth: you can get a better sense of your land, but what specifically makes a lot more sense in the winter than in the summer when it comes to yard work.

[00:02:03]Keith Ramsey: There are all kinds of things you can do in the wintertime. Looking at your lawn, and if it's not dark green doing more fertilization, that's a, it's a great time to do fertilization. It's a great time to do all of the ground covers. You can do dormant seating top-dressed it with black soil.

[00:02:19] And then in the spring, you're going to get germination pretty quick. You can do lawn fertilization, like I said, mulching and pine strong. There's no better time to do it. Perennial plants are, have died all the way back to the ground, or you've got that is not looking at its prime, and it needs to be cut back. Ornamental grasses need to be cut back. In February, you start cutting your roses back. There are all kinds of dormant pruning that can be done. And when you're looking at a tree in the wintertime when it doesn't have foliage on it, you can see that we're branches are crossing or branches are rubbing or taken in and lifting a canopy a little bit so that you can walk under it.

[00:02:55]So that you can see through it, a layer in a Japanese maple. It is just so much clear when there aren't leaves on the tree. So you can do that kind of stuff. But doing all your cleanup, all your pruning the stuff that requires a fair amount of effort, and you pretty much produce your own heat.

[00:03:12] You know what I mean? When you're moving around, and you're really actively working, on a day when it's. 25 degrees to 40 degrees, whatever it's comfortable outside, a light jacket, and you probably end up taking it off. Mulching in particular, though, hardwood mulch is what I always recommend.

[00:03:28]it's organic, it's natural, and color. It's consistent. It's readily available. It's a by-product. When you're standing next to a mulch pile, It might be a hundred degrees inside that mulch pile. You're shoveling mulch, and heat is actually coming off the mulch.

[00:03:43]It's not a comfortable thing to do, and it's 80 degrees outside. Looking at your landscape, looking at the definition, digging some edges so that you've got that golf green look to the yard, given the lawn a better shape and then creating beds or around the lawn.

[00:03:58] But getting that kind of stuff out of the way, the perennials aren't up yet, you've got everything trimmed back. you don't have to be tender and delicate around the plants at that time of the 

[00:04:07] Joe Woolworth: year. Is there any planting that makes more sense to do in the winter that will either benefit you in the winter?

[00:04:13] You'll see some blooming, or it will be a benefit in the coming season. 

[00:04:16]Keith Ramsey: I'll never stop talking about this and that. And nobody will ever really believe me, but winter's the best time to plant stuff. dormant planting is ideal. You put stuff in the ground.

[00:04:28]Our ground never freezes. Hard enough that you can't dig. we might, you know, the very top crust of the soil, my freeze plants grow roots every day during the wintertime. So the most stressful time of the year for plants in June, July, and August, September. the further you can get from that period of time, the more roots you're going to have.

[00:04:46]And again, you go outside, something you can do with your kids, go pick a tree, Go pick a handful of shrubs, plant five or six blueberries, You're not going to break a sweat, doing it. It's the prime time to do it. Now. Plants will be rooted in usually when plants not well-rooted in you get sporadic growth.

[00:05:07] You'll see one little twig, pushing growth on three sides of the plant. Once a plant gets rooted in, you'll see a good full flush. So when you plan the wintertime by spring, you'll see it. Good. Full flush planting in the wintertime is ideal. 

[00:05:21] Joe Woolworth: planting in the wintertime dormantly is anything you should be looking at to the plant you might need to address?

[00:05:27] Do they need as much watering? Is it just 

[00:05:29] Keith Ramsey: put it in the ground? , you still need to look at a plant. On a weekly basis, basically. If you look at a plant and it looks good, are you looking at a plant, and it's dry, you water it. we tend to have enough moisture in the wintertime.

[00:05:40] there are lots of winners. You'd never have to water. But it's not a bad idea to keep an eye on them. Winter winds, cold temperatures. All dry plan out, whether it's got foliage on it or not, foliage is a really good indicator of being dry. When we talked about plant wilting, you can look out the window and see this it's wilted.

[00:05:57] It's either too wet or too dry. It's hard to tell from what if it's wilted, but if it doesn't have foliage on it if it's a deciduous plant, it's a little harder to tell. So you do need to go out and check them periodically. But it's typical that you don't have to do a lot of watering, if any, watering at all during the wintertime.

[00:06:14]It also saves. Most of us pay for water now.  It saves on the water bill to plant during the wintertime here in North. 

[00:06:21] Joe Woolworth: Carolina, we very rarely see any snow. Are there any specific kinds of plans did you have to watch out for when there's a frost warning? 

[00:06:27] Keith Ramsey: Not really most of the plants that, people are always when they buy plants, they'll call back and say, is there anything I needed to do?

[00:06:33] I need to wrap my plan up. If they bought a planet, a nursery, and it was outside, it's rare That we cover plants or that they would need to be covered in the landscape. We might cove...

Keith Ramsey:   Today, we're talking about bonsai trees. Bonsai has been around for thousands of years but has become really popular in the last few years at garden centers here in America. They've been here for a lot longer than that, but it's definitely a trend that's coming on. And the word bonds I, all it really truly means is a potted plant.

[00:00:59] In the Chinese culture, they would go out into nature, and they'd find plants and put them in a pot, and they'd start to train them like an older tree. The idea of growing a Bonsai you're trimming the roots, and you're trimming the top. So that, so by trimming the roots, you're shrinking the foliage on the plant. The more you trim it and the more fibers the roots get, the smaller the foliage gets. One unique part of that is when the plant flowers, the flower stay the same size.

[00:01:27] So you'll have an Azalea plant. You Bonsai, after several years, the foliage will start to shrink, get smaller and smaller. The limb shrinks the inner nodal growth shrinks. And when the plant flowers, it'll still have these large flowers. Fruit trees, Apple trees, Berry trees will always have really large.

[00:01:46] So it's a little distorted look. 

[00:01:48] Joe Woolworth: I didn't know that you could bonsai another type of plant. I never heard that. 

[00:01:51] Keith Ramsey: before. Yeah. So Bonzai is literally just potting a plant. Bonzai has grown into that shape of plant that you see, at a Juniper, but there's, you can really, truly bonsai any plant.

[00:02:02]it's going out and finding a plant. That's going to mirror the look that you want. If you wanted to, if you wanted the look of an old Oak tree, with that tree's structure coming up and a big trunk and then just a canopy, there's a number of trees that you can use outside.

[00:02:18] And there's a number of trees you can use inside. So there's, you definitely have to choose whether you're doing a Bonzai for inside or for outside and pick a plant that's going to do well in the environment that's your trying to place a plant. Yeah. You 

[00:02:30] Joe Woolworth: mentioned the process was trimming the routes as well as trimming the foliage back in.

[00:02:35] So, how do you trim the roots when it's an outside plant? 

[00:02:38]Keith Ramsey: it's a containerized plant. Say once a year, once every two years, you pull the plant out of the pot, and you're literally trimming the tips of the roots and some of the larger. Roots so that you don't have one large taproot going down anymore.

[00:02:52]You tip that taproot and just put prune in the top of a plant, the growth comes up, you prune it, and it splits, and you end up with multiple stems coming up instead of one stem. So basically, the same thing with the root, you're going to go in and trim the roots. It's going to split, and you end up with more fibrous roots.

[00:03:11]And the more you shrink that root space or, the more it's out of proportion with the size of the tree, the more that foliage just kinda starts to shrink. There are lots of different styles of Bonsai. It's picking a picture of a Bonsai offline or out of a book. Something that you've seen, a real bonsai that you've seen somewhere, and it's mirroring that.

[00:03:32]And in a lot of cases, they're mirroring. Older plants in a landscape, the Cedar tree that's grown on the side of a mountain, that's been windswept for years, that you see on a hiking trip, some at some point, you take a picture of that, or you have a picture of that in your mind, and you're trying to prune that tree and wire that tree so that it has that windswept look,  and

[00:03:54]I think karate kid is part of why I think, in the last few months, the last year, I think that resurgence of. That Cobra

[00:04:08] Joe Woolworth: Kai Netflix 

[00:04:09] Keith Ramsey: series. Yeah. Everybody's 

[00:04:11] Joe Woolworth: back into bonsai. Exactly. So Mr. Miyagi was always in there working on that tree.

[00:04:16] What kind of commitment is it to properly Bonzai a plant? Cause it seems like if you pay attention to the movie, it's about six, seven hours a day. 

[00:04:23]Keith Ramsey: You could spend six or seven hours a day, but you'd have to have it like a thousand bonsais. It's a really minimal commitment. It's more about getting the plants in the right location and then keeping them watered.

[00:04:35] If you're going to do multiple bonsais, Bonzai is something you'd probably want to if you're going to take a two-week vacation. It's like having a dog. You don't want to tie it up in the backyard. You want to get somebody to take care of it, at least give it some water.

[00:04:47] Every couple of days, Bonsais tend to dry out faster than other plants. Because they've got a small root base. Couple of things that you can do, just a simple timer where you get an irrigation system that comes on, and if you don't have an irrigation system or putting them under a full-time irrigation system, but what 

[00:05:04] Joe Woolworth: would you look for in the plant if you.

[00:05:07] As a sign that you were over-watering or 

[00:05:09] Keith Ramsey: underwatering?

[00:05:10] So overwatering is usually the whole plant wilts, just like any plant we look at.  The whole plant tends to shut down cause it doesn't have oxygen, and it's not getting any water when a plant doesn't have oxygen, they can't take up water, say you're so the whole plant kind of wilts. A dry plant usually yellows from the inside or loses foliage from the inside of the plant.

[00:05:31]So you'll see yellow leaves on the interior of the plant versus the exterior plant, maybe still wilting. It depends on the type of plant, but those are good signs. But placement is another thing it's, If you can take, a plant that, that needs full sun. You can put it in an area that's getting morning sun till maybe one or two in the afternoon, or that, get some morning sun and some afternoon sun, but it's in the shade in the mid-day, just having it in that right place is key.

[00:05:59]But you can select a plant. You can go out and buy a bonsai. We, we sell bonsais, a lot of garden centers sell bonsais. And, but you can also go with the picture to decide whether you want an interior Bonzai or an exterior Bonzai. If you've got an exterior plant where many people go wrong, they'll go out, and they'll buy a Juniper.

[00:06:18] And it's got a great bonsai shape, it's in a Bonsai, ceramic pot. They bring it in and set it on the coffee table. It's going to be sudden death, it's just not, there's not enough sun to dry, not the right environment. It's an outdoor plant and it needs to be outdoors. Outdoor bonsais can be utilized inside.

[00:06:37] But it's a rotation thing. They're going to be there for a couple of days and then you move them back out. You bring them in for a party, you move them back out. You're going to have company, you bring him in, you set them on an end table, and then shift them back out. Interior plants, you can do things like ficus trees, all the interior trees Shefa layers.

[00:06:55] And our Arbuckles make a great Bonsai. You want to highlight a plant for a highlight area or a low light plant for a low light area. But deciding which way you're go...

Keith Ramsey:   Hey, this is Keith Ramsey at the garden supply company. Today. We're going to talk about Japanese Maples. I always feel like Japanese Maples are kinda misunderstood. Everybody thinks they're extremely slow-growing and. They're really expensive. We carry a wide variety of one gallon Maples, and I've planted lots of one gallon Maples over the years.

[00:01:01] There's about 3000, 4,000, maybe an unlimited number of varieties of Maples.  It's not like you just have to have one Japanese maple in your yard.  There are tons of different colors; there are different sizes, there are different shapes. One maple compliment another maple.

[00:01:16]You can plant mixed like a mixed border of Maples. There are Maples that leaf out chartreuse. There's Maples that leaf out. Burgundy. When you break it down into two, into really two large groups, there's Palmatums, which are a large Palmate leaf, and most of that 99% are upright.

[00:01:34] There's a couple of holdouts that are weeping palmatum, so that's a big Palmate,  leaf. The other half of the plants are dissectums. So a dissectum is a dissected leaf. It's the Lacy leaf Japanese maple, and most of those are weeping varieties that are going to stay smaller and that that gets wider than they do tall.

[00:01:55] They're typically a focal point in a landscape, and they need to be placed well. You don't want them in with a bunch of round shrubs. Because it's going to be around plants, and they'll just blend in. You want them sitting out on their own with ground cover underneath them or boulders or rocks around.

[00:02:13]Both varieties do really well in North Carolina.   They handle our clay really well. Some of the varieties of pushing Angie year, so they are, they're slow-growing other varieties of growth, three, three feet plus. So you can buy a one-gallon maple and have a, have full-size tree in three, four years.

[00:02:32]So it's not necessarily an expensive plant. Now, a lot of times, people look at $300 plant. That's shorter than a, say, as an October glory, red maple, and, but a red maple, might push four feet of growth in a year.  And it's a much, much larger tree, which is why Japanese Maples work well in the type of lots we're building on now and small courtyards.

[00:02:56] it's a plant that'll grow in a pot and live in a pot for 15, 20 years if it's treated appropriately. 

[00:03:04] Joe Woolworth: I know that people like to go and purchase a Japanese maple, like from a big box store, but a lot of people run into a problem with their mislabeled, or they're not even the tree that, that they're 

[00:03:12] Keith Ramsey: purchasing.

[00:03:12] And there's, and knowing what your planning is. Yes, half the, if you go and you pick something up, and it's just a seedling maple, you don't really know what you're getting. It's something that's been cross-pollinated. You pick up a hundred seeds, and every one of those plants might be genetically different.

[00:03:28] The neat thing about Maples is,  they are crossed, and then they're grafted a lot of times. Typically they're grafted. And they're grafted for strong rootstock. And then for whatever the beneficial qualities of the top of the plant are whether it be color or the shape of the leaf or the growth habit. 

[00:03:46]

[00:03:46]Joe Woolworth: If you're going into the garden supply company with your eyes on a Japanese maple cause you got the perfect spot in your yard, is it just as easy as just planting wherever you want? Or is there a little bit more to it than that? 

[00:03:56]Keith Ramsey: I think it's, it's like anything you want a tree that's going to be.

[00:03:59] Portion it to this space. if you're doing an upright tree coral bark, Japanese Maples, or one of them, the top trees we sell the bark in the wintertime is a coral color. So when it doesn't have a leaf on it, The trees showing off. It looks great, and they're all Japanese Maples are asymmetrical.

[00:04:17] So there, each one of them is a piece of art. Everyone's very different. And the older they get, really the more character they get and the prettier they get.  The dissectum's, because they're weeping, really needed a space of their own. Most shrubs are the same shape as a dissect them.

[00:04:33] So when you start blending them all in, it just looks like another blob in the landscape,  if it's not out on its own. So you know, a lot of times off of the corner of a sidewalk and a driveway, somebody will put one under planet with flowers or a boulder, or something like that so that you can see the character of the tree and it's out there by itself.

[00:04:52]If you've got a tighter spot up around the house, you wouldn't want to do something like a Bloodgood that's gonna end up 20 feet wide. But a coral bark is a, or a seiryu. A Seiryu's an upright Japanese maple that's actually a dissecttum. It's one of the, one of the oddballs unbelievable spring green color.

[00:05:12] And then the fall color is a brilliant orangy red. But a tree like that, the coral bark or seiryu, are both small to medium-sized trees. So it's something you can plan off the side of a foundation, close to your house, with the appropriate spacing. 

[00:05:28] Joe Woolworth: I know in our area here in the Cary area, the triangle area of North Carolina, we have a lot of neighborhoods that are established with really big trees.

[00:05:35] And then we got a lot of new development, and sometimes you move into one of those new development things, and you're starting from scratch, right? It's a Japanese maple, a great tree to plant for having some significant growth in a couple. 

[00:05:46] Keith Ramsey: of years. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. And of course, it depends on the variety of there's varieties that put on an inch.

[00:05:51] And there are varieties that put on three to four feet. Picking the right tree and that's the key, whether you come to the garden supply company or you go to the Homewood nursery or Logan's Go someplace go to a small garden center where their plant knowledge is there. Picking plants without having good advice is really a waste of money. Just going in and grabbing a plant and slapping it in the ground. It just does not make sense. So going and getting the advice, the knowledge, people who have grown plants for years and years that know what the characteristics are and what will fit and what space. Picking the right plant for the right place is key.

[00:06:29] Joe Woolworth: Yeah, because I imagine everybody's got different goals. Somebody just might want an attractive tree. Somebody might want a lot of shades. Somebody might want something that doesn't grow very fast because they hate raking, 

[00:06:38] Keith Ramsey: and then there are lots of people that just collect Japanese Maples. I've probably got 15, 20 different varieties.

[00:06:45]and add in a couple each year. Now you mentioned 

[00:06:48] Joe Woolworth: that earlier that a lot of them come with grafted in, what does it take to graft in a Japanese maple into another kind  

[00:06:54] Keith Ramsey: it's a little bit of an art and a lot of science, but it's; basically, you're cutting a groove into the end of the rootstock.

[00:07:01] So ...

Keith Ramsey:   How are we doing? We're here today to talk about what's going on in the fall. I'm Keith Ramsey with garden supply company. Fall's a great time of year to, be in the garden. It's the season that really never ends.  Once it's temperature starts cooling off, you can  start planting 

[00:01:23] and you can plant all the way into the wintertime.  It's a nice time of year to work on a landscape project because you're not pressured. You can do one section at a time and you can work all the way through the winter. Plants establish really well during the winter months.   They're going to grow roots every day through the wintertime.

[00:01:39] So it's a time of the year that you can work outside and it's not too hot for plants. Aren't going to need a lot of water. This time of year, we're starting to get pansies and mums, that kind of seasonal color, and pansies are an amazing plant. They'll hold up to the cold weather.

[00:01:54]They're out there underneath the snow, as the snow melts, they come back to life and then they're usually flowering heavier than they were before snowfall.  Pansies are something that is easy to put in and just give you huge rewards. 

[00:02:06]Joe Woolworth: When's the ideal time to put in your pansies?

[00:02:09] .

[00:02:09]Keith Ramsey: month of October really is probably the ideal time. We start bringing pansies at the end of September.  But all throughout the month of October, and then we bring in larger flowers in November so that people can continue to plant them.
 

[00:02:22] Joe Woolworth: What does the process looks like if I want to put in some pansies, I head on down to garden supply, and then what?

[00:02:26] Keith Ramsey: . We can walk you through that. I think the key to an annual bed is really just building a great bed. It's building up the soil, putting in soil conditioner, putting in potting soil. And when you see commercial beds around town, that's the way it's done. , it makes  planting an

[00:02:40] an annual bed, just super easy. You can pull a flat of pansies and plant them in less than an hour. And that's, having the bed prepped and then the right soil is also what gives you the professional results too? That's, what's going to give you flowers all winter long getting the fertility, applying something, that's got a high phosphate fertilizer that, you can pick up at any local garden center, like garden supply company. 

[00:03:01]Joe Woolworth: So that's not like a complicated to get my soil tested kind of stuff. I'm just buying some products from the garden supply. 

[00:03:07] Keith Ramsey: That's it's really just a simple recipe.

[00:03:09] I'll put down a bag of soil conditioner on the bottom and then I'll top dress it with a bag of potting soil and then use half a bag of soil conditioner mixed into the potting soil and I'll dig that into the clay. So you're opening up the clay and you're giving it a deeper root base place for the plant roots to root down into the existing soil.

[00:03:29] But then you can plant directly in that mix. And then I use the other half of the bag of soil conditioner just to mulch the top of the bed.  You don't want to mulch with heavy bark soil because it just,  takes all the nitrogen out of the soil. And then we'll use an annual perennial fertilizer and it's a granular product.

[00:03:46] You can just, you broadcasted across the bed and water a man, and it's really. Pretty simple process. 

[00:03:52] Joe Woolworth: If there were a formula for it and to make it easy, let's say you buy a hundred dollars worth of plants. How much are you planning on investing in the soil so that you really make sure you get the most out 

[00:04:03] Keith Ramsey: of it?

[00:04:03] An average annual bed would be a flat of annuals. And so garden centers really have the best pricing on annual flats. None of the box stores anymore carry flats of annuals. They carry different types of packs or bigger pots. But we carry a 36 pack flat.

[00:04:20] That's $25.  It's less than a dollar, a plant. And then, you basically need two bags of soil conditioner and a bag of potting soil. So, with the fertilizer and the plants, it's probably, it probably doubles the cost. So for $50, you've got a six-foot by two-foot bed of color that lasts from October until April.

[00:04:40] Oh, it's really a deal and it's super easy to put in if you prep the bed that way, it's all about knowing how to plant like a professional landscape team would on a commercial. 

[00:04:49] Joe Woolworth: So you mentioned that this is also a great time of year for landscaping. The weather's not so crazy.

[00:04:53] What are some of the common things that people are putting in the fall when it comes to landscaping in their yard? 

[00:04:57] Keith Ramsey: So really, you can plant just about anything. There are a few perennial plants that really like to be planted in the early spring as it warms up. But 95% of the perennials can go in this time of year pansies all kinds of heuchera.

[00:05:11] There's a whole range of cool-season things that you can plant with pansies violas will handle a little bit more shade than pansies. It's a pansy-like plant. But then trees and shrubs when it cools off the top of the plant's not going through any stress and the soil temperatures are still warm enough through the entire winter that plants will grow roots.

[00:05:29] The idea is that it's just a fading season. It gets a little worse every day but it's never a bad time to plant in the wintertime. Once you get the plant in. You're going to start growing roots. And you're basically trying to establish as many roots as you can.

[00:05:42] Before we get into that July timeframe where it's really hot and the plants stressed. It's losing moisture. 

[00:05:48]Joe Woolworth: When I think of fall, right when I first got to the width of it, I know a lot of people think pumpkin spice, lattes, and stuff like that, but I think bonfires. Absolutely. I think it's time to start a fire in the backyard.

[00:05:59]Keith Ramsey:  The other day we had a seafood boil for some employees and friends. A bunch of people got together. It was that. Perfect fall temperature. We had the pizza oven at the store cranked up and we, we had gotten all the fixings from salvias pizza to make pizzas.

[00:06:14] We had we're putting fresh Bazell on it and just. Absolute perfect evening, but we had four fire pits that have been sitting there for, I don't know, probably six months towards the back of the store. It's been summertime it's hot and it hadn't really been the time. We sold all four. Fire pits to friends and family that were there.

[00:06:35] Yeah. We fired one of them up. Everybody's standing around it. , you're seeing the fire in the fire pit. It really is just a perfect time of year. And it's also, you can't have an open fire and Cary and most of the cities around here, but you can have a fire pit going.

[00:06:51] It's also a nice way when you're working in the yard. To pick up a few sticks, get a little fire going in your fire pit. And then, just ease into a Saturday evening, with marshmallows or drinks arou...

Keith Ramsey: [00:00:15] Today, we're going to talk about prepping annual beds or prepping pots for planting annuals.

Joe Woolworth: [00:00:20] what is an annual bed?

Keith Ramsey: [00:00:22] Every year, people plant annual flowers. 

An annual is something you're going to replace in the spring, and you're going to replace it in the fall. So, you end up with really good color spots in your yard. I always like to tell people to pick three good spots and an area in their yard so that they're focal points. Put one or two types of color in there so that they really draw your eye to that space, and they kind of hold space as perennials come in and out of bloom.

Joe Woolworth: [00:00:48] What's the difference between an annual and a perennial?

Keith Ramsey: [00:00:49] So an annual you're going to replace every year. It's, it's an annual event. It is something you've got to change. It makes it easy to remember. Perennials are going to come back year after year. But both of them provide you with a lot of colors, the downside to a perennial.

[00:01:04] people get all excited about them because they come back year after year, but the downside to them is they go into a big wave of blooms, and then they come out of bloom, or they bloom at one time a year, and then they. They don't bloom until the following year. Where annuals, you put them in and they're going to, they're going to hold that space.

[00:01:20] 90% of the time, if you prep the soil right, you're going to have really, good quality annual beds, and they're going to, they're going to perform well. There's always a downside or a weather-related event where annuals don't really do it that well, but typically you put an annual, and it's kind of, it's going to bloom from the time you put it in.

[00:01:37] planting time would be, kind of an April 15th to June 15th, and that's going to bloom around until frost. So, you're going to have blooms until, pretty much the end of October, November 1st. I usually recommend that people pull their annuals out a little bit ahead of that and replace them with pansies or vials, cool-season annuals that will bloom from the October timeframe all the way around until spring.

Joe Woolworth: [00:02:02] when you're getting ready, and you're deciding, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to make this pot here is going to be an annual Potter. This bed is going to be an annual pot. What? What sizes do you need? when it comes to choosing a pot or choosing a bed, is it dependent on the plant, or do you

Keith Ramsey: [00:02:16] know it's in relationship to the space that's around it, and what I usually tell people when they're making an annual bed is to do something that they can plant in.

[00:02:24] 1520 minutes, some, you know, half an hour at best. Something they can plan with a cup of coffee or a cocktail. You don't want it to be a really large, you know, a lot of work. But the prep and the bed and getting there, getting the soil right, and getting the fertilizer right is the key.

[00:02:39] To really have him professional results.

Joe Woolworth: [00:02:42] It's a recipe. What's the, what's the elements of the

Keith Ramsey: [00:02:44] recipe? So, the recipe, we usually start with soil conditioner, which is the cheapest soil amendment you can buy, but it's probably one of the better soil amendments. It's a pine bark-based product. 

We'll add that to the base.

[00:02:55], you know, an annual bed that's maybe—two foot by four foot. You had a bag of soil conditioner to the, to the base, to the bottom, and then we come back through with potting soil on top of that. And then we use soil conditioner to mulch the bed instead of mulch, because mulch takes a lot of nitrogen out of the soil.

[00:03:13], but once we get all that out, we put the, we, we add fertilizer to the top of the bed, at the recommended rate. And then dig that into the clay because clay is a really good soil amendment. Or it's a good, good soil base. It holds nutrients really well and, and holds,

Joe Woolworth: [00:03:26] Oh, really? My art is mostly clay, and I thought that I couldn't grow anything.

Keith Ramsey: [00:03:30] cause that's our home run.

[00:03:31] Yeah. So, clay holds nutrients well, it is full of mineral-rich, and it holds water really well. The downside to clay is that it's dense, it's hard to work with. And then it holds too much water. So, when you, when you add soil conditioner doing it, you're lightening. You're lightening up the clay.

[00:03:47]but you never want to remove the clay and add a bunch of, you know, if you take, if you dug a hole and remove all the clay and you add your really good soil to it, it's basically like a bowl of cereal, you know, it's just, it turns to mush. And plants are sitting in too much water. They don't have enough oxygen, and they've died from drought, basically.

[00:04:05], but once you get all that done, you dig it in. You can plan an annual bed, and you know, five, 10 minutes, you can because it's just fluffy.

Joe Woolworth: [00:04:13] Do you recommend people, like do the pre-ground kind of seedlings or you start with seeds?

Keith Ramsey: [00:04:18] typically, you're starting with a pre-ground, seedling. If you start with seeds, I always recommend doing it.

[00:04:23]in the, in the house, under lights, and getting the seedlings hardened off and ready to go, which is, which is a good possibility too.

Joe Woolworth: [00:04:32], remind me again, you said the best time of year to plant.

Keith Ramsey: [00:04:35] it's April 15th through about June 15th, probably ideally April 15th through May 15th. For getting annuals in, and it gives them the ability to get started before the hot part of the summer, even though they're hot weather plants, they get a chance to get rooted in and get established before it gets hot.

[00:04:52] On the flip side and in the fall, you want to plan them between October, which basically is ideal. Yeah. When you're putting it, you know, you're putting an annual bed together. If you do all the prep work, you're going to have professional looking annual beds. When you drive around town, you see these beds that landscapers have put in.

[00:05:08] that's what they're doing. They're prepping the bed. Growing up, I heard people say, you know, dig a $10 hole for a $5 plant. Which I always thought was absurd. It's, you know, it's a lot of soil, and it's a big expense. And that's not really even the case. It's more like dig a $5 hole for a $5 plant when you do that prep; you're really going to get the results out of it.

[00:05:27]. And then when it comes to—putting, annuals and pots. We do, we do something very similar. If it's a very large pot, we'll take a small nursery pot, turn it upside down in that pot, so we're not using so much soil. And so that it drains well and it's light, and you can move it around.

[00:05:42] So you're basically just creating a cavity of air in the bottom, in the bottom of the

Joe Woolworth: [00:05:45] pond. Those giant pots. I even move in it.

Keith Ramsey: [00:05:48] Yeah. Yeah. So, it's just a space taker. And then, you add soil conditioner about halfway up the po...

This podcast contains advice on how to prepare your soil for planting vegetable gardens. Keith talks about ways to get children involved and suggests which veggies to grow according to the season."

A discussion about the hardy Japanese Maples. This podcast goes into caring for them, why most come from the west coast, and the many different types and varieties available.