What happens when you ask some great gardeners what their fave plant combos are? You get some great ideas! Listen as Kelly Lehman, Lizzie Rose, Steph Green, Jenks Farmer, Marianne Willburn, Serome Hamlin and Linda Vater tell us what they think goes together well and why!

Possibly the very first plant that Marianne Wilbur and I drooled over when we first got to Great Dixter for the May Symposium was the Persicaria 'Purple Fantasy' so it is appropriate that Persicaria is our Plant of the Week. Marianne and I chat about our week together with Fergus Garrett and the gang at Great Dixter, and why immersing ourselves into the experience was so good for our gardens and for our souls. I also touch on two other garden enhancements that we learned about that week and they are coppicing and meadows. 

Weeds are inevitable, so don't get excited that I indulged in outrageous hype for the title of this episode. But if you garden with with weeds (and if you garden, you have weeds) intelligently, you may pick up some information on how, why and when to control them. Tasha Greer's new book, "Weed Free Gardening" may sound too good to be true, but the subtitle "A Comprehensive and Organic Approach to Weed Management" is a great description of what we will learn from her in the podcast. The Plant of the Week is the Pelargonium that everyone calls Geranium, and I round up some Great Dixter information as well as give the low down on my No Mow May experiment. 

Maria Failla, the voice of Bloom and Grow Radio, has written a book called Growing Joy. She and I discuss the positive aspects about growing and that when you help a plant to live, you are really helping yourself with time in reflection and nature, all the while not being near a screen. Our Plant of the Week is the Kalmia latifolia, or Mountain Laurel, and I deal with questions on native bog plants, amending soil, and pruning Japanese maples. 

Our Plant of the Week is the Rose, which is far far too big a topic to do well, so instead I offer some of my growing hacks. It's not that I grow them well, it's just that I have figured out how to enjoy them well without growing them perfectly well. Janice Groves of Jay's Garden Journal got my attention because of sheet mulching, but our talk rambled all over her sun baked, cheerful garden. Garden answers to questions like how to tidy liriope, when to cut back bulb foliage and what is a strimmer are included too!

John Robinson is the neighbor and listener who answered my plea for help with the podcast, and in this episode I talk to him about his small but amazingly diverse garden. He is a champion of sustainable gardening and is very knowledgeable about natives. Plus, he handy enough to have designed and built his own chicken coop. Our Plant of the Week is the Aquilegia vulgaris, or columbine, and I talk about Peony Bud Blast. Doug Tallamy contributed to an answer to a question from a listener about Oak tree hybrids. 

If you did your homework assignment, this is good follow up information on the gardens of Great Dixter and the symposium that Marianne Willburn and I will be attending next week! Not only do we talk about the gardening opportunity, but we also touch on the idea of saying yes to something it would have been far easier to say no to. The plant of the week is the Fringe Tree, and I also talk about No Mow May, getting rid of invasive Nandina, and the Joe Gardener podcast episode with Dave Goulson about his book 'Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse'. 

Renée Clermont of Second Nature Designs in Martha's Vineyards talks design, containers, weather, and running a business up in a summer paradise. The Plant of the Week is the Peony, and I talk about roses, including tips on taming and transplanting them on this episode. 

Our plant of the week is having its spring moment and sticking its beard, or tongue, out at everyone in the prettiest way. In trying to get a better definition of a rain garden, Landscape Architect and I went down the garden path on that, plus Interpretive Gardens and Trauma informed Gardens. Lots of good listener questions are answered, including two on how to deal with invasive plants. 

Page Dickey, author of Uprooted and many other garden books, talks to me about her new garden and the elements of design and nature that molded a very different space from her long time Duck Hill garden. Azaleas are hogging all the bandwidth in my garden right now so they are the plant of the week. I talk about deadheading bulb flowers, late season mulching and recalcitrant Hydrangea macrophylla in The Play List.