The Garden Mixer

Bunny Williams and I chat about her garden, new favorite plants and her birdhouse meadow, and also her new line of garden furniture, called Treillage after her former store. The Plant of the Week is the Hosta, which is polite enough to have the same common and botanical name. Various other topics include wood chips, leaving pulled weeds (hidden) in your beds, and Sir David Attenborough's 'A Life on our Planet'. 

Besides talking about various goings on in my early August garden, I chat with Erin Schanen, the Impatient Gardener, about her hopes and dreams for her summer, but this was recorded back before the peonies bloomed! The Plant of the Week is the perennial Allium, particularly 'Millenium'. 

No guest this week, just little me answering some questions and sharing some experiential wisdom on deer control. I bought a new toy: a pond vacuum, so we dig a little into that scum. Follow up on No Mow May and the use of Round Up too. The Plant of the Week is the Hydrangea paniculate 'Little Lime' and I have a big announcement for you in this episode!

Geum was first runner up for Plant of the Week, but since that's more of a spring plant, I went with the Madagascar Vinca. Brad Johnson and I discuss Geum, his DIY green house, using Round Up responsibly and his favorite tool, a step edger. I follow up on Jumping Worms and coming back from 3 weeks away from the garden. 

This week Roxana Snediker of Soil and Margaritas Instagram and YouTube fame joins us for a general discussion of her gardening in general, but we accidentally did a deep dive into tomatoes so I made that the plant of the week. At the beginning of this episode I am traveling home after 3 weeks and wondering what my garden will look like upon my arrival. I follow up at the end of the show by telling you what I found after I got home. 

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!