Gardening Simplified Show - Summer Garden Tour 2023

Greetings gardening friends and welcome to the Gardening Simplified show on location! So it's early August and as you can see the hydrangeas here in our trial garden are off the chain. So Rick and I thought we would come out here and kind of give you a little lay of the land, talk about our hydrangea trialing, show you some of the highlights of the garden, and you can see what really goes on here at Proving Winters Color Choice Shrubs. So as we go through this tour you're going to notice a lot of hydrangea macrophylla or big leaf hydrangeas and everything that's out here has passed our initial trialing. So it's been in the greenhouse, we've determined that it blooms like we want it to, it has good stem strength, it has good potential for introduction, and before we make that decision we bring them out here to give them a landscape trial. So everything out here is planted in groups of three just in case something goes wrong with one of them and what our R&D team will be doing is observing these over a period of several years just to make sure that they perform after repeated different types of winter. Some of them will be pruned improperly just to see what happens and of course to make sure that they look amazing every single summer, summer after summer. Of course I had to make a stop in front of one of my all-time favorite plants in this garden. Rick do you know what this is? Oh let me see if I can get the pronunciation right. Esculus? Yes. Is that right? Yeah. You can finish it off for me. This is Esculus parviflora. That's what I meant to say. Our native bottle brush buckeye. So everyone knows, well not everybody, but a lot of Midwesterners know the Ohio buckeye which of course is the state tree of Ohio. But we have other native horse chestnuts as well and this is a shrubby horse chestnut that blooms here at height of summer. It brings out with these beautiful long reseams of flowers. They have these gorgeous long anthers that protrude. It's super fragrant. It's absolutely covered in pollinators. This is not a proven winner's color choice shrub. This is just a plant that happens to be in our garden. It probably never will be a proven winner's color choice shrub because it's a little bit big for most people's yards. But if you are into natives and you have the space for it, this is such an incredible plant to add to your landscape. Beautiful. Ready? Sorry, I got distracted. Just admire. Does anyone recognize this plant? You recognize it? Yeah, I do. What is it? It's a lace cap hydrangea and you're going to tell me what variety. This is tough stuff aha. So this is one of the newer varieties in the tough stuff series and one of the things that makes it special is that it has these kind of semi-doubled water lily like flowers and as you can see this is one of those hydrangeas that will turn pink or blue depending on the soil chemistry and this one's kind of in the midst of changing. And the tough stuff series as you may recall are mountain hydrangeas which means that they come from colder regions of Japan than their close cousins big leaf hydrangeas. So they tend to have better bud hardiness than big leaf hydrangeas. So if you can't necessarily get reliable bloom on most big leaf hydrangeas tough stuff aha is a great choice. I find tough stuff to be one of the most reliable blooming hydrangeas in my landscape. And you get to look forward to this every year. Unreal. So Rick is over there exploring our rose trials and much like the hydrangea trial that I was just talking about what we have here are roses that have passed the greenhouse phase of our trialing process and now they're out in the landscape to see if they can still stand up to weather conditions. Not get black spot, not get powdery mildew. Do they continue to bloom which of course what fun is a rose without any flowers. So will they bloom without deadheading. So even though these roses mostly look really gorgeous they're actually undergoing some pretty harsh conditions. Of course they do get water because you can't really judge them if they don't get water but one of these plants almost certainly is the next great rose for your garden. Wow you rose to the occasion. Beautiful. One of the interesting things about what's happening in our rose trials right now and I've talked about this on the show a couple times is that you know initially disease resistant landscape roses were kind of the thing and they didn't have fragrance but over the years as breeders have been able to work continue to work with those disease resistant genetics they're working on bringing the fragrance back into the plants. So a lot of these roses have really really incredible fragrance. I wish you could smell them. Stacy when I stand in this beautiful garden I think proof is in the pudding right. I mean there's nothing you know we do a lot of talking on the gardening simplified show but a picture is worth a thousand words and we talk a lot about Rose of Sharon. Yeah. Wow. Or as you call them Althea. Yeah or Althea. Or Hibiscus Syriacus whatever you want to call it. I love these they're really the epitome of summer and I feel like I've been saying this over and over in this video but this is one of my favorite. This is Paraplu Violet Hibiscus or Rose of Sharon and it's one of those plants that you really just have to see to believe there's something so otherworldly about its flower color it just kind of seems to glow in the landscape and you know the other day we were talking about like moon gardens and how plants can kind of seem to glow in the landscape. I think this is such a great example and it really has a nice refined habit very very floriferous a very unique and unusual color. I'm just crazy about this plant. And it blooms at the right time of year we get into August it's hot we start to get a little weary. Right like you were talking about in our blue flower show it cools you in the landscape. Another great reason to plant it. Hey Rick do you like your flowers stripy? Sometimes this one yes I like it. This is a really unique hibiscus and like the one I just showed you this is also in the Paraplu series. This series was developed in France and it was developed for its very large flowers. This particular one was selected for these beautiful stripes it's almost mesmerizing right like you just get hypnotized when you look in there. And these like Paraplu Violet also have that kind of like smaller more refined shape the foliage is a little bit softer and more delicate and just covered in flowers. These plants are still a little bit young these were just planted this year from a two gallon but like most roses of Sharon pretty fast growing and pretty deer resistant which is good news for you and me. Well on the show a few weeks ago we talked about Polypetite. Oh yeah. I just love these developed rows of Sharon that have a controlled size to them and just so colorful. So Rick you know anyone who likes hydrangeas? Oh I love hydrangeas. This thing has gone kaboom and you know what's interesting to me Stacey is you know we often talk about hydrangeas needing some protection this is right out in the open. Right and this has been through a full winter and I guess we keep referring to this but everybody's probably wondering what it is. What is it? This is Let's Dance Lovable Reblooming Big Leaf Hydrangea. This is actually going to be new in garden centers in 2024 so this is probably a lot of people's first time seeing it and this one was developed by Megan Matti who you remember we had on the show a few weeks ago. I think she mentioned this is one of the plants she's most proud of and she was joking the other day she was out here looking at this and she said yeah it's pretty good there's just one problem with it doesn't bloom enough. Megan wow. And what's really cool about this you can see is that most of the flowers that you can see that are really colorful right now are the old wood blooms. So these were the buds that overwintered here in West Michigan from last fall and winter but you can also see that this is a reblooming hydrangea that really does because as you look through here you can see that despite all these old wood flowers you're actually getting these new wood flowers emerging right alongside and that's long been one of the biggest issues you know with reblooming hydrangeas is that those new wood flowers they just took too long to emerge and so like maybe they would flower in September but you're already buying mums you're certainly not thinking about hydrangeas. So this is really a great example of the innovations that Megan and her team are bringing into hydrangeas. Yeah that's fantastic they're not out in the parking lot they are backstage ready to take center stage. Yes and you can see some of the more mature stems have a really nice purpley red color. This is probably about seven plants so it doesn't really just get this big they're all kind of jammed together but if you love that classic blue hydrangea summer look Let's Dance Lovable will do well for you. Oh sorry no it's fine I again was just recording. Stacy I'm very much into landscape roses and own root roses only because they're a workhorse in the landscape but how can a workhorse look so delicate and so beautiful and then on top of all that be so fragrant. Isn't it great so these are atlas roses and these are actually in I don't even know what count of bloom so it's like I said earlier it's early August right now so these already had like what is supposed to be their best spring bloom and these were cut back which is optional you don't necessarily have to do that but it does neaten the appearance so you're going to get something like this. So I mean imagine having roses bloom like this in early August it almost looks like it's June again. Oh beautiful. An atlas rose of course has been a plant on trial before and as you may recall if you watched or listened to that episode it's called atlas because it was one of the first fragrant disease resistant landscape roses and as Rick said it also happens to be gorgeous. So here we have two plants that people are really really excited about it's been a lot of buzz on these two plants let's dance sky view re-blooming hydrangea and little lime punch panicle hydrangea. Wow that looks like a punch bowl of color it's gorgeous. They both are and so one of the things that makes let's dance sky view special is that it's one of those hydrangeas and I think we've talked about this a bit on the show that is able to set flower buds on the entire length of its stem. So regular conventional hydrangea macrophylla or big leaf hydrangea they mostly set their flower buds at the top or the terminals of the hydrangea so if it gets killed by cold weather if someone comes along and prunes it there go the flower buds but as you can see with these buds emerging so low on the plant that's because they're emerging from lower down on the stem and the fact that this hydrangea is able to have all those extra flower buds means that even if there is a really cold winter or someone does inadvertently prune it which of course we do not recommend but yeah we know happens it happens this one can still bloom and this has a beautiful purpley blue color of course the the flower color is going to depend on your soil chemistry but typically if it's in an acidic soil and you have aluminum available you're going to get into these beautiful like sky blue violet tones top to bottom blooming right it's blooming all the way to the ground it's just irresistible and they're so like round and covered in flowers now speaking of things that are covered in flowers all the way to the ground this is little lime punch and i'm sure you've been hearing a lot about this it's barely made it on the market but people are really excited why because they loved lime white they loved little lime and the difference with little lime punch you know the flowers start out kind of cream and go to the classic green which you can see in a lot of places here but it's the flower color it takes on after that where things really get interesting because they're going to you can see they're already starting to turn pink here in early august which is great so you don't have to wait all season for that to develop but especially if you live in a cooler climate those pink tones become really really vivid they have a punch pink color so stacy the the panicle blooms almost look like you know at the carnival when they put ice in a cup and then they take food coloring and and pour it over the ice and and the colors change and that's one of the great things about panicle hydrangeas right then you know the colors change as the season progresses never a dull moment just like oh my word oh my word that's sensational yeah are you are you rolling good i want to eat it it's good enough to eat yes are you still rolling yeah uh so the plant that we are exclaiming over here i know you can't really probably see a lot of the flowers are kind of hidden by the foliage but this is simply sensational uh calycanthus also known as a sweet shrub and you know a lot of the calycanthus sometimes they don't have a good fragrance or they're only fragrant at certain times like late in the evening or when the flowers are fading um and this one is truly truly fragrant and i you i hate to say this but you really have to smell it for yourself because it smells delicious that's the best way to describe it it smells delicious you want to eat the thing i do want to eat it like my mouth is watering from smelling this so if you love fragrant plants and i mean we are getting close to this to really bury our noses in it but i was actually over here to talk about these plants and even just starting to look at them i could smell the fragrance coming off of this plant so if you love fragrance and who doesn't uh simply sensational sweet shrub or calycanthus this is a newer variety but a really nice choice for anyone who loves fragrance or native plants but this one's not native but also very fabulous and recently featured in plants on trial these are the center stage crepe myrtles another plant from megan matai who was one of our guests and you can see these have actually been in the ground here in michigan so this is what they look like after they've been knocked back by a winter because here in west michigan um we're about a usda zone 6b so usually our winters are severe enough that they'll die back to the ground but then they'll just pop right back up and start flowering so this is center stage pink over here we have my personal favorite center stage red and these are really just starting to get going so they have a lot of buds on them the flowers are really just getting to just getting started so here in michigan it holds back the size comparatively to the south but it certainly doesn't diminish the quality of the blue it does not hold back the color so we dragged adriana out from behind the camera and behind the soundboard to tell you about one of her favorite plants in the trial garden miss molly butterfly bush yeah i love miss molly i think it was probably the first plant i fell in love with starting uh with proven wonders color choice i always love budley it's kind of one of those nostalgic plants for me uh the fragrance but the color on miss molly is just so vibrant and stunning and i think i have probably a billion different shots of pollinators on it so it's just it's a perfect size i like how the stems are more upright in the habit it's not really columnar i don't know if i would call it that per se but it's a little more upright rather than stout which uh the pugster series can be a little more dwarfy so i like that it looks whimsical and wispy and when you see butterflies flying through it it just feels like a dream usually there are butterflies i think we scared them away probably now stacy some people like variegation in the landscape and we recently did a show on variegation this is a beauty yeah this has a really unique variegation this is bubbly wine by gila one of our newer varieties another one that's just starting to come on the market but if you are a fan of variegation or just colorful shrubs in your landscape this is such a great choice i love how neat and tidy it is you know variegation sometimes it can be too much too busy you know too busy i think this one is really just perfect even in this mass planting it doesn't seem like it's too overwhelming and this is a plant that was actually developed here in michigan but not by us at proven winners color choice shrubs but it was selected over on the east side of the state so good hardiness and this is just a really nice plant if you want a lot of color without a lot of maintenance like most by jula and i think we can't see you good hiding spots are instrumental to a chipmunk's life so at this point in the tour i kind of shudder to think how many times i've said this is one of my favorite plants i hope no one was keeping count but this really is one of my absolute favorite plants and this is quite new and it's very different so the name of this plant is el nino chatulpa and you probably haven't heard that genus before that type of plant it's a hybrid between chalopsis our native desert willow that's native to the southwest and catalpa which is you know the they call it all sorts of different things but it gets the big leaves and the big white flowers in like early summer you can kind of see that reflected in these we call it desert orchid because the flowers do indeed resemble orchids and they have the most amazing fragrance so we were just talking about the sensational calycanthus which has kind of a fruity more edible fragrance this one has a fragrance that's just like perfume and i think it's best characterized as a combination of ripe melon and vanilla but you really have to smell it to believe it and so this is hardy too about usda zone six it will sometimes here die back to the ground but just like the uh crepe myrtle that we were talking about it will come right back up and then it puts out these amazing spikes of these beautiful intricate flowers all summer long and this is definitely one of those that if it's in your garden the fragrance will just kind of waft in on the breeze and you'll be like oh my gosh what is that so if you're looking for something a little bit different if you say stacy rick you guys talk about hydrangeas too much can you show me something i don't know this is it el nino chatulpa or desert orchid so stacy you're one of the people that have taught me a love of hydrangeas and i know everybody loves macrophyllas and panicle hydrangeas but smooth hydrangeas i kind of had to develop a love for them and wow just with the new introductions it's just there's a softness to it and you know these obviously we've had a bunch of really heavy rain most of these are unintroduced varieties that we're just kind of trialing but you know annabelle really made a name for smooth hydrangeas and then we have worked to improve that with plants like incredible and so on um you know it's hard to say like if you're only going to have one hydrangea you know what would it be but um what a tour it has been oh seeing all the hydrangeas in our trial and display gardens here this year right it's a kick in the plants i tell you what and like i said at the outset the proof is in the pudding like this just that classic look oh i love it well thank you so much for joining us for our tour this won't be the last we can definitely show you more in the future but we really appreciate you listening to the show watching the show subscribing however you get the gardening simplified show we really appreciate you thanks so much