Spring Things

Gabe and Rebecca talk about what they're working on in the garden, they're favorite things about Spring, some mistakes, opportunities, and recommendations.

Show Notes:

Bloodroot - https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=saca13

Jacob's Ladder Purple Rain - https://www.bluestoneperennials.com/POPU.html

Mayapple - https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=POPE

Hibiscus - https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=HIMO

Hori hori knife - https://nisakujapan.com/collections/gardening-knives/products/nisaku-stainless-steel-weeding-knife-7-25-inch-blade-650-weeding-knife-serrated-blade

Anne Helen Petersen Garden Study - https://annehelen.substack.com/p/welcome-to-garden-study

Transcript

00;00;05;15 - 00;00;09;18
Speaker 1
Welcome to leafing out a podcast about gardening. I'm Gabe and I'm Rebecca.

00;00;09;27 - 00;00;18;21
Speaker 2
We're here to let you in on gardening secrets. Answer your questions and inspire you to make the world a better, more beautiful place. Starting in your own backyard.

00;00;18;23 - 00;00;23;29
Speaker 1
Or front stoop or terrace or windowsill, or wherever you do your gardening or.

00;00;23;29 - 00;00;32;13
Speaker 2
Your parents backyard, as I have been doing for years, fiddling around with whatever yard I can get my relatives to let me mess around in.

00;00;32;13 - 00;00;35;09
Speaker 2
welcome to leaping out.

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Speaker 1
Welcome to leafing out.

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Speaker 1
Leaking out is sponsored by garden for wildlife. Garden for wildlife delivers native plants specific to your region. Visit garden for wildlife.com and use the code leafing out for 10% off your purchase.

00;00;48;09 - 00;01;10;18
Speaker 2
We are so excited about our code! Please go use our code. Please shop at garden for wildlife.com. They're so cool! We want to welcome you to the official first season of Leafing Out. Instead of randomly releasing episodes every nine months or so, or actually doing a first official season. And this spring, summer and fall, we're going to be releasing new episodes once a month.

00;01;10;18 - 00;01;18;02
Speaker 2
So please make sure to subscribe so you have something good to listen to. What you're weeding and watering and digging in the dirt. This year.

00;01;18;10 - 00;01;23;25
Speaker 1
So it's the middle of May. What are we loving about gardening this time of year? Rebecca?

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Speaker 2
What do we love in May? I mean, first of all, it's just wild how we wait and wait and wait for any action in the garden. And then, like so much happens so fast, I just feel like it's so full throttle. It's very fun and a little overwhelming.

00;01;39;28 - 00;01;44;21
Speaker 2
but let's see, some of the stuff that I'm loving right now is,

00;01;44;21 - 00;01;49;07
Speaker 2
I mean, of course, seeing perennials come back from below ground,

00;01;49;08 - 00;01;55;02
Speaker 2
the tender perennials that completely die back and just go underground and then come back year after year.

00;01;55;02 - 00;02;06;14
Speaker 2
It's always just so satisfying to see that and remember exactly what I planted, where there's always something that I forgot. And then it comes up and I think, oh my gosh, there's that thing.

00;02;06;15 - 00;02;20;20
Speaker 1
There's always surprises. I was really worried about my bloodroot. I, you know, had looked so crappy and I think maybe I stepped on it at the end of the season or something. And it's like going great out there. It's bigger than ever. And you have like, it was very happy.

00;02;20;20 - 00;02;44;21
Speaker 2
One tiny bloodroot plant, bloodroot, is a really sweet native to New England, I think. Right. And locally kind of native plant that kind of looks like wild ginger or it has big. It's like a very small little perennial. It's only like eight inches tall or ten inches tall or something that has it big leaves that kind of look like, almost like the leaves on a ginkgo tree, sort of.

00;02;44;23 - 00;02;59;25
Speaker 2
and it has beautiful little, white flowers that look sort of like a daisy flower or something. And it's just a sweet little native. But we have this one plant of it and we're like, oh, don't step on it. But it's a there.

00;03;00;03 - 00;03;01;11
Speaker 1
More than one now.

00;03;01;13 - 00;03;24;04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to say about perennials too, is like noticing what has what what of what of our little plants. Babies having babies. Some of the, some of our baby plants are now making their own babies. I saw that, did you see there's, one of our Jacob's ladder plums? The. We have some Jacob's ladder that are a variable called Purple Rain.

00;03;24;04 - 00;03;39;04
Speaker 2
That being a Prince fan, of course, I could not let that go in the nursery. I had to buy it. I don't even know. I don't think they're bad. I don't, I don't I might have killed it, but we have another Jacob's Ladder that is a very gifted leaf one, and we bought three. And there's a fourth one there.

00;03;39;11 - 00;03;41;10
Speaker 2
That's that's so sweet. It's really.

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Speaker 1
Exciting.

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Speaker 2
It's very,

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Speaker 2
it's nice to have those hard won successes.

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Speaker 2
what else are we loving this time of year?

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Speaker 1
the maple I really love. That's another, native

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Speaker 1
it's one of these things that you kind of get and it's ephemeral, meaning that it, doesn't even really last the whole season like it, you know, by sort of mid-August, it's kind of withering and fading away, if.

00;04;05;09 - 00;04;13;29
Speaker 2
Even that long. I can't remember how long we last. It's like a spring, ephemeral native. So it comes up and it hangs out for a while, and then it goes away.

00;04;13;29 - 00;04;16;07
Speaker 1
And I think we planted it a couple years ago.

00;04;16;08 - 00;04;16;21
Speaker 2
Two years.

00;04;16;21 - 00;04;29;28
Speaker 1
Ago? Yeah. Yeah. And it was, it did it was fine the first year, last year. Was it a okay. And then this year I'm like, oh my gosh, do I need to like pull some of that out and give it away or something. It's like totally taking over that corner of the yard.

00;04;30;00 - 00;04;34;09
Speaker 2
It spreads in a nice way. It doesn't it's not too aggressive, but it does spread and

00;04;34;09 - 00;04;46;21
Speaker 2
we'll put in the show notes, lists of, the plants we're talking about and links so that you can actually click and see pictures of what the heck we're talking about. The maple is really cool because it looks like a little,

00;04;46;21 - 00;04;49;15
Speaker 2
almost like a little palm tree or like a little umbrella.

00;04;49;23 - 00;05;04;00
Speaker 2
It's like one stalk. And then it has a big wide sort of, circular umbrella shape to it. And underneath that umbrella is like a little flower that then fruits that. That's the apple part of it. It's really, really there's really sweet looking, very magical.

00;05;04;00 - 00;05;06;28
Speaker 1
You can imagine a little gnome living under there or something.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. And it looks weirdly like kind of tropical or something. It's cool to have natives that look sort of like, wow, what is that thing? Where did you find that? It's actually, it's it's from here.

00;05;18;15 - 00;05;28;17
Speaker 1
On that note, I will throw out one other kind of native tropical, which is, I guess our hibiscus is growing back, and this wonderful and beautiful.

00;05;28;21 - 00;05;36;28
Speaker 2
Where else? What else are we doing right now this spring? Like, all the gardening stuff. What do we do? What do gardeners do this time of year? And we're.

00;05;36;28 - 00;05;42;08
Speaker 1
Weeding. We're weeding like mad. We're pulling out a million,

00;05;42;08 - 00;05;54;15
Speaker 1
violets, which are lovely and beautiful and native. But I think if we didn't weed for a year, we would have an entire backyard of only violets. so you got, you got to edit.

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Speaker 2
We're editing.

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Speaker 1
Yeah.

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Speaker 2
We're weeding. We're editing.

00;05;57;13 - 00;06;08;19
Speaker 1
we have a bunch of seeds going in, a little garden window. We're getting ready to harden them off. so I will say that I have a somewhat complex relationship to hardening everything.

00;06;08;21 - 00;06;08;29
Speaker 2
You know.

00;06;08;29 - 00;06;19;27
Speaker 1
Complex, really. I do have a complex relationship to almost everything you love to do the complicated way. Oh, well, I was actually going the opposite way with this. I am such a lazy gardener that I don't like hardening off,

00;06;19;28 - 00;06;26;13
Speaker 1
and I didn't. We're going to get to grass plugs, later in this episode. I did not harden off my grass plugs.

00;06;26;15 - 00;06;36;17
Speaker 1
I just kind of rolled the dice on those, and they worked fine. I worked, yeah. so I guess, you know, there's an asterisk on my hardening off advice, but.

00;06;36;18 - 00;06;37;28
Speaker 2
What is hardening off for people who don't?

00;06;37;28 - 00;06;42;13
Speaker 1
Yeah, right. Taking a step back. So hardening off if you start seeds,

00;06;42;13 - 00;06;46;20
Speaker 1
indoors, you're growing them obviously in a very controlled environment.

00;06;46;23 - 00;07;04;11
Speaker 1
And then in order to acclimate them to the much stronger light of the sun outdoors and the, wind and everything else, you take them out, you know, first, maybe for like an hour or two and then for an afternoon and then eventually a whole day.

00;07;04;14 - 00;07;08;29
Speaker 1
and I feel like you may know more about this than I do. Rebecca. Do people usually harden off over the course of a week?

00;07;09;05 - 00;07;27;24
Speaker 2
I don't know, I feel like I've read it like two weeks. You're supposed to, like, bring them outside during the day and then bring them inside during the night so that they don't get too cold too fast overnight. It seems hard. It's like then a thing that keeps me from doing starting seeds indoors. I don't want to deal with hardening off.

00;07;27;24 - 00;07;40;17
Speaker 1
what I have the most stuff that I'm going to be hardening off in some way, shape or form is tomatoes which are, you know, they're tender. If you put a tomato out there and it freezes, your tomato plant will die for sure.

00;07;40;17 - 00;07;45;25
Speaker 1
I would say that my advice for new gardeners would be just be

00;07;45;25 - 00;07;51;20
Speaker 1
somewhat aware that the elements you're exposing this plant to outdoors are

00;07;51;20 - 00;07;56;24
Speaker 1
much more intense than what it's experienced indoors in terms of temperature, in terms of wind, in terms of light.

00;07;56;26 - 00;08;08;10
Speaker 1
So like in previous years, I think there have been years when I didn't harden off my tomatoes. I just put them out and surrounded them with like a little, kind of cone of,

00;08;08;10 - 00;08;10;00
Speaker 1
like remake.

00;08;10;00 - 00;08;19;18
Speaker 1
So I'm excited to start hardening off my tomato plants, which are right now in the garden window and are probably depending on how happy they are.

00;08;19;18 - 00;08;24;19
Speaker 1
They're 6 to 8in tall, and I'm going to be taking them outside for an afternoon pretty soon.

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Speaker 2
Taking them to visit the outdoors.

00;08;26;07 - 00;08;32;12
Speaker 1
That's right. So they can you know, get to know the other plants and, you know, eat, introduce them slowly. It's like, you know.

00;08;32;15 - 00;08;33;24
Speaker 2
Taking your dog to the dog park for.

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Speaker 1
The for exactly.

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Speaker 2
Exactly like, oh.

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Speaker 1
Yeah.

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Speaker 2
I don't have a dog, but I imagine that's how you are.

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Speaker 1
Taking our cat to the cat park. Same thing.

00;08;41;03 - 00;08;50;05
Speaker 2
But when we visit the cat park, let's not to do. Too many vets here might not, alienating our listeners right away. Right off the bat.

00;08;50;05 - 00;09;09;27
Speaker 2
yeah. I started some flowers from seed to. I am just, like, dying to get them in the ground. But, I'm waiting a little bit longer because I think the ground is still a little bit chilly and the nights are still a little bit cold, and I don't want to risk anything, but I'm so excited to get all the stuff we started from seed into the ground.

00;09;09;27 - 00;09;18;03
Speaker 2
and so all the seeds that I have that are direct sow stuff because I'm still waiting on like the zinnias and,

00;09;18;03 - 00;09;24;24
Speaker 2
I got some lupine seeds that our daughter was like, that's like Miss Rump. Yes. We need, I need that,

00;09;24;24 - 00;09;26;10
Speaker 2
did you say lupine or lupine?

00;09;26;10 - 00;09;29;08
Speaker 1
I say lupine, but I think I think they're both correct, I don't.

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Speaker 2
Oh, Lord.

00;09;30;14 - 00;09;52;12
Speaker 2
Oh, I'm also looking forward to, getting some fun annuals I like around this time of year, going and picking up some annuals and seeing what kind of weird new varietals they've created this year. There's always some kind of new splashy stuff I already picked up a few things just to start off some pots, and put like some, some,

00;09;52;12 - 00;09;55;21
Speaker 2
potato vine and some other, like, little flowers around the back door.

00;09;55;21 - 00;09;58;11
Speaker 2
And it feels so nice to do that. Finally,

00;09;58;11 - 00;10;00;14
Speaker 1
I'll note just very briefly that,

00;10;00;14 - 00;10;03;06
Speaker 1
you had mentioned soil temperature and

00;10;03;06 - 00;10;07;16
Speaker 1
soil in pots will warm up more quickly than soil on the ground. So you can,

00;10;07;16 - 00;10;11;18
Speaker 1
if you're kind of figuring out where to plant things, you can get away with planning a little earlier in pots.

00;10;11;21 - 00;10;23;18
Speaker 2
Yeah. If you are listening to this and wondering, like, can I plant my my last frosty the Just it's about to happen and I'm looking at the weather or whatever. What you want to do is,

00;10;23;28 - 00;10;31;04
Speaker 2
you have to make sure that your plants aren't going to get any frost on them. If you're going to risk it, you have to be really, really, really confident about the weather report.

00;10;31;04 - 00;10;49;02
Speaker 2
If you're going to risk planting before your last official frosty, you can find your last frost date. You just Google your town that you live in, or your state that you live in, and you'll find your last frosty. You don't want to put anything outside that is not frost tolerant before that day. If you're planting,

00;10;49;02 - 00;10;52;01
Speaker 2
a shrub or something, that's totally fine.

00;10;52;01 - 00;11;09;23
Speaker 2
You got a new rhododendron, you want to put it in the ground, you're good to go. But any kind of tender perennials or tomato seedlings or your basil that you just. We're at Home Depot and couldn't resist picking up. It just would. Give it a minute, make sure that you're not going to get any frost on it, because the whole plant will die right away.

00;11;09;23 - 00;11;11;06
Speaker 1
Well, speaking of shrubs,

00;11;11;06 - 00;11;25;21
Speaker 1
one thing that's very exciting is the amount of height and foliage and everything else that we're finally seeing on the trees and shrubs that we planted 3 to 5 years ago around our water bed.

00;11;25;21 - 00;11;31;28
Speaker 1
it's one of those things that people say, you know, oh, gardening takes time. Where, you know, it passes quickly.

00;11;31;28 - 00;11;34;08
Speaker 1
You don't stand there tapping your foot next to your,

00;11;34;08 - 00;11;36;23
Speaker 1
black elderberry, wondering when it's going to get big.

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Speaker 2
It's a practice of patience. It's really.

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Speaker 1
It's. Yeah. I mean, I think the most dramatic,

00;11;43;04 - 00;11;53;26
Speaker 1
thing that I've, that I notice every time that I walk out back into our backyard is our witch hazel, which I want to say, we got five fish years ago. It was one of the.

00;11;53;26 - 00;11;55;00
Speaker 2
First.

00;11;55;03 - 00;12;05;09
Speaker 1
Large, shrubs or large plants that we bought. And I think we got it when it was maybe three feet tall. And it's got to be.

00;12;05;09 - 00;12;06;22
Speaker 2
Five, maybe five, maybe it.

00;12;06;22 - 00;12;07;24
Speaker 1
Was five feet tall.

00;12;07;25 - 00;12;15;14
Speaker 2
A little shorter than me, but it's huge. Yeah. It's growing. It's probably it's growing like a foot and a half every year. Yeah. So it's probably like nine feet tall right now.

00;12;15;14 - 00;12;24;28
Speaker 1
Feet tall. I mean, it used to be you kind of looked down into the witch hazel and we're like, oh, that's cool. And now it's taller than the fence. You're looking up into its branches.

00;12;24;28 - 00;12;32;10
Speaker 2
It suddenly feels like a real tree. It's really tall. And, you know, the birds are landing in there and hiding in there and,

00;12;32;10 - 00;12;46;03
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's just so nice to finally walk into our backyard and feel like there's a scale happening where some things around the borders and the foundation plantings, those big, big items that we were like, okay, we're planning out our garden, okay.

00;12;46;03 - 00;13;10;05
Speaker 2
If this thing, this height, maximum, then you know, the the thing next to it or right in front of it will be like this height. But when you put everything in the ground, everything's so short and tiny and you have to really kind of be creative and visualize it. but we were just our friend just stopped by to, like, look at something at our house, and they walked into our backyard and were like, whoa, oh, wow.

00;13;10;05 - 00;13;14;03
Speaker 2
It's really popping off. Like things have really grown. Wow.

00;13;14;03 - 00;13;16;19
Speaker 2
that feels really good. Really rewarding.

00;13;16;23 - 00;13;22;21
Speaker 1
At the risk of being obnoxiously Zen or something,

00;13;22;21 - 00;13;29;01
Speaker 1
I do feel like one of the great pleasures of gardening is that seasonality and,

00;13;29;01 - 00;13;31;29
Speaker 1
expectation and then the payoff of the thing,

00;13;31;29 - 00;13;35;09
Speaker 1
whether that's waiting for spring and then seeing things. And I think that

00;13;35;09 - 00;13;42;24
Speaker 1
for me, one of the big manifestations of that is exactly what you're talking about, that planting that little tree and watching it grow

00;13;42;24 - 00;13;47;27
Speaker 1
and seeing it be big and thinking about when it was tiny.

00;13;47;29 - 00;13;49;00
Speaker 1
The most

00;13;49;00 - 00;14;03;26
Speaker 1
poignant example of that is, of course, our, dogwood, the native dogwood that we have. and I highly recommend this little silly thing that we do to everyone. We take a family photo in front of that dogwood every spring.

00;14;03;26 - 00;14;07;16
Speaker 1
We got it when it was, I don't know, maybe two feet tall.

00;14;07;18 - 00;14;11;05
Speaker 2
For $6. it was at, like, the end of.

00;14;11;05 - 00;14;11;19
Speaker 1
The.

00;14;11;21 - 00;14;14;11
Speaker 2
Year. Late fall? Yeah. $6.

00;14;14;14 - 00;14;24;15
Speaker 1
And so we got it in fall, and then, is this tiny little tree we had not a lot of stuff in our backyard. And when our son was born.

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Speaker 2
The next year.

00;14;25;14 - 00;14;40;02
Speaker 1
The following spring, I came home from the hospital just to, like, grab some clothes really quick or, you know, a couple of other things and go right back to the hospital. Feed the cat, feed the cab. yeah. And, it was blooming for the first time and it,

00;14;40;02 - 00;14;42;01
Speaker 1
it just is really, it.

00;14;42;01 - 00;14;56;02
Speaker 2
Just felt so poetic and the rhythm of the garden and getting in touch with, like, the constancy of checking in with things and seeing things happen again or seeing something happen that you hoped to happen.

00;14;56;02 - 00;14;56;17
Speaker 2
is.

00;14;56;17 - 00;15;09;05
Speaker 2
the long term rewarding kind of relationship is just really valuable and kind of singular or unique or hard to find, like there aren't a lot of parts of life that that really, really, really exists.

00;15;09;05 - 00;15;13;01
Speaker 2
And, and it's pretty special feeling to me. Yeah.

00;15;13;01 - 00;15;14;10
Speaker 1
and really going into

00;15;14;10 - 00;15;25;07
Speaker 1
that, that obnoxious, world, I will say that another piece of gardening that I do appreciate is it's mandala like aspect, which brings us to dead trees.

00;15;25;10 - 00;15;31;14
Speaker 2
Yeah. yeah. So we have a couple of things that we managed to kill, which is always just part of it.

00;15;31;14 - 00;15;45;22
Speaker 2
I've been relieved to hear from gardeners who I talked to who are very experienced, much, much more experienced than me, that, you know, the list of their they're all like, oh my God, you should see the list of things that I've killed.

00;15;45;25 - 00;16;09;19
Speaker 2
I mean, like it's trial and error and experimentation. Trying and failing is just part of it. And it's nice to have kind of permission to, embrace that. If you need permission to embrace that and, like, live and learn and try and fail and try again or try something else. Permission granted. Like I'm waving my magic wand over you, you have permission to, like, mess around and try things.

00;16;09;19 - 00;16;16;09
Speaker 2
It's okay. This is part that is gardening your garden. If you're doing that, you're gardening. That's what you're supposed to do.

00;16;16;11 - 00;16;25;07
Speaker 1
I always like the comparison to cooking. Yeah, cooking. Share a lot. Like if you've never made a dish that you were like, that's disgusting. You just haven't done enough cooking.

00;16;25;10 - 00;16;27;18
Speaker 2
Yeah. Experiment more, take more risks.

00;16;27;18 - 00;16;53;09
Speaker 2
Yeah. So we last year I think because of drought, in the really hot months, we, I think we lost two plants. We lost our Japanese maple, unfortunately, which is like one of my favorite things that I had in the garden. And I was really excited about it. And it was a really, unique, like, uncommon type of Japanese maple that had kind of white, white and pinkish and like, green leaves.

00;16;53;11 - 00;16;57;28
Speaker 2
It was called Yuki. How it still is alive is hanging on by a thread.

00;16;58;05 - 00;16;59;20
Speaker 1
So three leaves in a.

00;16;59;20 - 00;17;17;16
Speaker 2
Row and there's like one little branch at the at the bottom that is still alive. It's the only branch that's alive. So we're going to see what happened. But the thing is, like even seeing that that plant did not meet that tree did not make it, you know, now we've been thinking and talking and thinking and talking about what to replace it with.

00;17;17;16 - 00;17;26;26
Speaker 2
And looking at, you know. Okay, what did we learn from what happened with the Japanese maple? Is it the perfect place for a Japanese maple? Should we try that again

00;17;26;27 - 00;17;27;27
Speaker 2
Or,

00;17;27;27 - 00;17;31;14
Speaker 2
Would it be better to put a shrub there?

00;17;31;16 - 00;17;44;05
Speaker 2
are there really unusual natives? That would be cool. Is it the right place to do something that's not a native? But that is like a really, really cool, interesting decorative plant there?

00;17;44;05 - 00;17;52;12
Speaker 2
I don't know when you're just starting out and you have, like a lot of space and you're planning and you're thinking, how am I going to, like, afford to buy all these plants?

00;17;52;12 - 00;18;00;14
Speaker 2
It's can be really overwhelming. And you're buying, like, a lot of plants, or you want to buy a lot of plants. But once you've established your garden,

00;18;00;14 - 00;18;14;12
Speaker 2
you don't really get to go shopping that often for big ticket items. So even a failure can turn into a fun shot at like, something big and new, and getting to bring an intentionality to it with the information that you have now.

00;18;14;14 - 00;18;17;01
Speaker 2
So that's that's kind of fun and exciting.

00;18;17;01 - 00;18;17;28
Speaker 1
Yeah, totally.

00;18;18;01 - 00;18;20;21
Speaker 2
You really want to put what is it called, the maple that you want.

00;18;20;21 - 00;18;21;16
Speaker 1
To mountain maple.

00;18;21;16 - 00;18;33;19
Speaker 2
You keep keeps advocating for a mountain maple in that in the spot where our Japanese maple was. Mountain maple is a Native North American plan. And it's a shorter maple tree. It's smaller,

00;18;33;19 - 00;18;38;24
Speaker 2
and it still gives a lot of like, amazing maple fall autumn color. Yeah.

00;18;38;24 - 00;18;43;29
Speaker 2
We'll see. We'll keep you posted on what we decide. I believe we were deliberating about it.

00;18;43;29 - 00;18;44;26


00;18;44;28 - 00;19;04;10
Speaker 2
Guarding for wildlife is helping people buy the right plants. They took the guesswork out of buying native plants. And they will deliver plants specific to your eco region directly to your doorstep. So visit garden for wildlife.com to shop by your zip code and use the code, leaving out for 10% off your purchase. Garden for wildlife is so amazing!

00;19;04;10 - 00;19;26;26
Speaker 2
I was just looking at their, the plants they have in stock and it's really cool. They I was like, oh, what are these prices for? Because I sell plans, buy packs and then they will ship you like three plants in a pack for really affordable rates. It's like more affordable than some of the local nurseries. Here I was really I was really taken aback when I looked at the pricing per plant.

00;19;27;02 - 00;19;31;13
Speaker 2
it's a good deal. And some of the native plants can be actually hard to find.

00;19;31;13 - 00;19;41;27
Speaker 2
The original of the streets. Species of native plants are aren't often sold in your typical garden nurseries. A lot of those nurseries are selling,

00;19;41;27 - 00;19;45;05
Speaker 2
like highly developed, sort of a cultivar of.

00;19;45;05 - 00;20;15;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, but not really the original, which, you know, we are, native plant people, but we are a gentle native plant people. If you are tiptoeing into the world of native plants, garden for wildlife is really a great place to start because they also have a lot of information that can be really helpful. Figuring out a world that is sometimes full of folks who are using the Latin names, maybe or otherwise, making it not the most beginner friendly corner of the gardening community.

00;20;15;24 - 00;20;16;04
Speaker 2
Yeah,

00;20;16;04 - 00;20;26;17
Speaker 2
I'm I'm really excited that they're a sponsor. so make sure go to garden for wildlife.com. You put in your zip code and then you use the code leafing out for 10% off your purchase.

00;20;26;17 - 00;20;28;20


00;20;28;20 - 00;20;36;10
Speaker 1
So this is a segment we call a whoops a daisy, and it's all about learning from our mistakes, of which there are many, so many.

00;20;36;13 - 00;20;40;02
Speaker 2
The easiest segment to plan and our podcast is whoops a daisy.

00;20;40;08 - 00;20;41;12
Speaker 1
The hard part is picking one.

00;20;41;12 - 00;20;46;03
Speaker 2
How can we pick just one mistake that we've made in our garden to share with you?

00;20;46;03 - 00;20;50;16
Speaker 2
the one I want to share too. I have a a mistake to offer you.

00;20;50;16 - 00;21;00;25
Speaker 2
plant now, not later. Don't. I don't do what I have done year after year and go to the garden center

00;21;00;25 - 00;21;10;00
Speaker 2
in July and plant a bunch of, like, expensive perennials at a time when it is just too hot for them to really get established.

00;21;10;00 - 00;21;10;18
Speaker 2
And of the.

00;21;10;19 - 00;21;13;06
Speaker 1
Garden center, and they're blooming and they look great.

00;21;13;07 - 00;21;14;04
Speaker 2
They'll sell them to you.

00;21;14;05 - 00;21;24;09
Speaker 1
Because the gardeners have been watering them every day and feeding them weekly. They look terrific. and then you put them in your garden and probably don't water them every.

00;21;24;10 - 00;21;45;04
Speaker 2
Every single day. It's hard, challenging. And even if you do, exposing the roots in the middle of a really, really hot summer and putting them in a new place, they're it's going to be really stressful for those plants, and it's just going to be really, really hard for them to succeed. You want to plant in spring and in fall.

00;21;45;04 - 00;21;54;15
Speaker 2
You do not want a plant in the middle of summer when it's really hot. It just doesn't work. Your plants are not going to thrive. They won't get as large as quickly.

00;21;54;15 - 00;22;04;12
Speaker 2
it will take like way many more years for them to get established. If they do make it, than if you did this plant at the same plant the same year and you just planted it during the right season.

00;22;04;26 - 00;22;10;19
Speaker 2
Let's talk about some other little things, little tips and tricks that we're we're dealing with and, you know, updates and stuff.

00;22;10;19 - 00;22;19;10
Speaker 2
I have another I have a hot tip to offer. Here's something I'm doing in the garden. Weed. Now I'm trying to take care of future me

00;22;19;10 - 00;22;28;18
Speaker 2
today. Rebecca. I wants to take care of future Rebecca. And what I'm trying to do is get in there and not let weeds flower and make seeds.

00;22;28;20 - 00;22;31;17
Speaker 1
And also get them out while they're small where they have tiny little roots.

00;22;31;20 - 00;22;51;29
Speaker 2
some weeds are so persistent because they have really strong, deep tap roots. If you can get them when they're babies, it's so much easier to get enough of the taproot that it won't keep coming back and coming back and coming back. If you wait until the weeds are huge, it's awful. It's so overwhelming, you're going to be so much more tempted to just, like, not even try.

00;22;52;01 - 00;23;03;01
Speaker 2
And then the weeds will release like thousands of seeds and it just gets harder and harder and gets more daunting if you weed. Now, if you live in spring, give.

00;23;03;01 - 00;23;05;04
Speaker 1
Yourself the gift of weeding today.

00;23;05;04 - 00;23;10;08
Speaker 2
Weed today. Take care of future. You. What's going on with you? What are you doing?

00;23;10;11 - 00;23;17;10
Speaker 1
Well, an update on my first ever experiment with grass plugs. Which means ten out of ten.

00;23;17;12 - 00;23;19;29
Speaker 2
When you say grass plugs, you know, you think of hair plugs.

00;23;19;29 - 00;23;34;00
Speaker 1
Well, it's exactly the same. Actually, I don't have hair plugs. I shouldn't say that. I have no idea. Physically, this in my impression is it's quite similar, though. so we have a low mo, low water full of little flowers, lawn,

00;23;34;00 - 00;23;44;17
Speaker 1
that due to our questionable approach to watering, has had its own successes and failures, particularly the area, that is full, full sun of our backyard.

00;23;44;17 - 00;23;52;06
Speaker 1
a really pretty much killed it pretty much that day. You killed it pretty good. Yeah. Killed a real good. And so that became it got scorched.

00;23;52;06 - 00;23;54;15
Speaker 2
Really. Sun scorched to really dry.

00;23;54;18 - 00;23;55;03
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;23;55;03 - 00;24;13;12
Speaker 1
So that was a weed patch last year. And, I determined that I was going to not just do seeding. I also did seeding where I spread seed. But I wanted to really give the grasses, a head start. So in the basement, I have a grow light.

00;24;13;12 - 00;24;17;28
Speaker 1
and I set up, I did a couple rounds of this with,

00;24;17;28 - 00;24;19;14
Speaker 1
you know, those 24,

00;24;19;14 - 00;24;21;10
Speaker 1
whole little trees,

00;24;21;10 - 00;24;24;15
Speaker 1
and started the, the grass from seed, just the way taxes out.

00;24;24;16 - 00;24;25;03
Speaker 2
What those are called.

00;24;25;03 - 00;24;26;27
Speaker 1
I think those are called sell packs. Yeah.

00;24;26;29 - 00;24;30;28
Speaker 2
Did you use the plastic ones or the, the cardboard ones that you can plant?

00;24;31;01 - 00;24;32;19
Speaker 1
No, I used the plastic ones.

00;24;32;19 - 00;24;36;18
Speaker 1
that just kind of like, pop out, you squeeze the bottom of the top pops out.

00;24;36;18 - 00;24;40;13
Speaker 1
and, yeah, it really made a huge difference.

00;24;40;13 - 00;24;52;23
Speaker 2
so. You grew the grass from seed in the little parcel packs in the basement under a grow light so that they were ready the spring. And then you just, like, put them every so often out in the backyard. In the lawn.

00;24;52;25 - 00;25;01;23
Speaker 1
Exactly. Yeah. I, took my I'm going to segway into our next section right now. hurry, hurry knife. Which is probably my favorite garden tool.

00;25;01;23 - 00;25;02;22
Speaker 1
which is like,

00;25;02;22 - 00;25;12;03
Speaker 1
imagine a trowel turned into a knife, and I dug little holes and I popped the seed plugs into those, holes or the grass plugs, I should say. Not see plugs.

00;25;12;06 - 00;25;12;28
Speaker 1
And,

00;25;12;28 - 00;25;30;03
Speaker 1
because I had been growing them under grow lights in February when I was planting them out in, like, mid-March. they were already, you know, two and three inches tall, whereas the weed seeds and whatever else was out there was barely even starting to grow at all.

00;25;30;06 - 00;25;33;22
Speaker 2
And you didn't have to worry about Frost with that because those grasses are frost tolerant.

00;25;33;22 - 00;25;35;24
Speaker 1
That's right. They're they're frost tolerant.

00;25;35;24 - 00;25;56;16
Speaker 1
and full disclosure, I didn't even harden them off. I mean, our basement is cool, but I just took them straight from our, you know, 60 degree basement right outside. I think I maybe timed it with, like, a warmish week, but perfume in the ground. And now that whole section of lawn is I've continued to weed it a bit, but it looks, I mean, way, way back.

00;25;56;16 - 00;26;09;12
Speaker 2
It really does. Yeah. And another thing that I think is so smart about this is like when you try to recede along or like supplement a struggling lawn by, seeding, you know, in place,

00;26;09;12 - 00;26;13;10
Speaker 2
you got to worry about birds eating all that grass seed and whatnot.

00;26;13;12 - 00;26;14;11
Speaker 1
And you just get,

00;26;14;11 - 00;26;19;06
Speaker 1
how many of them are sitting just right so that they Germany, and you're kind of checking on them all the time and you're not.

00;26;19;06 - 00;26;20;05
Speaker 2
Walking on that.

00;26;20;07 - 00;26;31;16
Speaker 1
Yeah. I find that whole process like a little bit stressful. Yeah. That's the other thing with the seed plugs. I mean, I think I tried to like never really take it easy on it for a week or something, but. Yeah. And they're off to the races I like survived.

00;26;31;18 - 00;26;33;18
Speaker 2
That's like a lazy approach to gardening.

00;26;33;18 - 00;26;52;13
Speaker 2
This is also why it's important to experiment and mess around and like embrace that things won't always work. Because if you try to do things in a kind of perfectionist kind of way, you can just drive yourself so crazy and do it the hard way. And sometimes, and this is kind of why I like having this podcast is sharing like a little bit of hacks and stuff.

00;26;52;16 - 00;27;06;00
Speaker 2
Because sometimes if you are, if you do like googling about gardening stuff, you will find like the 1012 step way to do everything perfectly. And do you really have to like, where can you fudge? Do you really have to do every little step?

00;27;06;00 - 00;27;10;24
Speaker 2
It's good to know that that works without hurting off. And why not?

00;27;10;24 - 00;27;18;06
Speaker 2
now we're going to do a segment where we have a few recommendations, things that we endorse for you that you might want to check out.

00;27;18;09 - 00;27;24;03
Speaker 1
And I already said my recommendation. It's the horary knife. I got one from a brand called the Saku.

00;27;24;03 - 00;27;30;25
Speaker 2
But say it again for people listening. Hori Hori knife. Right. Hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry.

00;27;30;26 - 00;27;38;24
Speaker 1
I looked it up mere moments before this episode was recorded. It means dig in Japanese. Dig, dig. Yeah.

00;27;38;24 - 00;27;42;04
Speaker 1
And it's really great as, like an all purpose. It's. It is the.

00;27;42;04 - 00;27;43;00
Speaker 2
Best. It's just the.

00;27;43;00 - 00;27;51;18
Speaker 1
Best. As I was describing, you can, you know, dig a hole and plant a plant in it the same way you use a trowel. But it's got a sharp enough knife that if you're weeding, you can kind of like,

00;27;51;18 - 00;27;55;11
Speaker 1
cut something right at the root and, like, pop it out of the ground.

00;27;55;11 - 00;27;57;09
Speaker 2
It's like a one size fits all.

00;27;57;09 - 00;28;05;02
Speaker 2
Okay. My recommendation is a newsletter, which I get so many email newsletters I have signed up for way too many.

00;28;05;02 - 00;28;32;27
Speaker 2
I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but one of the few that I always really religiously read is an Helen Peterson's newsletter called Garden Study. She has a, a newsletter about many things, and then her garden study newsletter is sort of like a subdivision of her overall newsletter. I don't even know if I'm using the right words for that for these things, but garden study, is where she writes really in-depth discussions, about what she's doing in her garden and what she's learning.

00;28;32;27 - 00;28;34;09
Speaker 2
And it's,

00;28;34;09 - 00;28;37;13
Speaker 2
a little bit like niche, different topics. So,

00;28;37;13 - 00;28;40;10
Speaker 2
she recently wrote, for example, about dahlias and,

00;28;40;10 - 00;28;52;14
Speaker 2
I think she talked to a dahlia farmer, and, she learned a lot about, different, like Blythe and different stuff that like fungal problems that happen with dahlias.

00;28;52;14 - 00;28;58;10
Speaker 2
she just is really thoughtful. She's a beautiful writer, and I learned a ton reading this.

00;28;58;10 - 00;29;04;15
Speaker 2
And it's fun. And she has fun, like, photos and stuff. So I recommend that sign up for it. Garden study and Helen Peterson.

00;29;05;03 - 00;29;07;29
Speaker 2
Thank you so much for listening to leafing out.

00;29;07;29 - 00;29;23;11
Speaker 1
If you have a question you want answered on the podcast, email us or send us a voice memo at leafing out pod at gmail.com or you can DM us on Instagram. We're leaving out pod over there. We love hearing from you. We would love to answer your questions so please chat with us.

00;29;23;13 - 00;29;34;17
Speaker 2
You can find info from today's show in the show notes. If you click to expand. The episode info wherever you're listening to your podcast, you should be able to find links and like names of plants and all kinds of stuff like that.

00;29;34;17 - 00;29;40;28
Speaker 2
also links to our recommendations like the newsletter and the hoary, hoary knife. We'll throw all that in the show notes.

00;29;40;28 - 00;29;41;29
Speaker 2
Also,

00;29;41;29 - 00;29;55;03
Speaker 2
if you like this episode, please, please rate and reviews on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen. That really helps other people find us. And we would be delighted to read your kind review.

00;29;55;05 - 00;29;57;21
Speaker 1
Or, you know, you can be critical, be nice, but you can be.

00;29;57;21 - 00;30;04;07
Speaker 2
Credible where you things don't. Don't tell them to be. Be critical. Be nice. Be. Please be nice. Thank you for being nice. Happy gardening.

00;30;04;08 - 00;30;06;00
Speaker 1
See out there out there.

00;30;06;00 - 00;30;11;00


00;31;09;02 - 00;31;14;22