Coming to you from Studio a Here at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs.

It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella, me, Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson.

Today part two of our four part series Rejuvenation the action or process of giving energy or vigor to something.

True.

Rejuvenation is not merely an occasional event.

It's a practice.

It can become a habit, a good habit.

And of course the idea of rejuvenation has inspired countless poets, philosophers and storytellers.

I mean, think about the Fountain of youth.

I'm still looking for.

It right well, Constant Leon did not find it either, so.

But it symbolizes our hope and belief that change is always possible, no matter the circumstances.

And when we talk about plants and rejuvenation, a plant that I like to think about, Stacey are perennials.

I think rejuvenation is what makes perennials so popular.

This past spring at the Greenhouse, I made it a point to ask a bunch of customers what is it that you like best about perennials?

And many people said to me, well, because they come back year after year.

And then I said, what do you like least about perennials, and they said, well, sometimes they don't come back here after year.

I would have thought they'd said cutting back.

But you know, yes, yes, exactly.

So splitting perennials, bend over and split your plants.

It's loads of fun.

It'll entertain your neighbors, your plants will benefit.

Pruning shrubs, of course, is a huge issue as it relates to rejuvenation trees in many ways, and sometimes we don't pay attention to the trees the way we should, and that's why arbarus are around.

House plant rejuvenation, trickle irrigation, soil rejuvenation, huge cutting back, ground covers feeding.

So I don't know, I knew you had a inya.

Rejuvenation the topic today and stacey rejuvenation pruning, heavy pruning.

We've got to look at things like flowering shrubs where rejuvenation type pruning is key.

It is, and it's one of the really unique features that shrubs have.

One of the really unique abilities that they have, which is to say that you can have a horrible overgrown shrub in front of your house and think how in the world.

Am I ever going to get this out.

I'm gonna have to hire a professionals that's going to cost me thousands of bucks.

And in fact, you don't necessarily have to remove it.

You can get the chainsaw out, cut it back to stumps and give it a literal new lease on life and basically take it right back to day one and it will regrow from the ground.

And I'm glad you mentioned stumps because in my mind there let's test this a moment.

I think there's a differentference between renewal pruning and rejuvenation pruning.

So renewal pruning, maybe let's look at bud lea and cutting a portion of the plant back to renew it from year to year, whereas you mentioned stump or stumping taking it to the point where we actually do a full rejuvenation.

Lilacs are a good example or rhododendrons.

As a matter of fact, for a YouTube viewers, I have a couple pictures.

My neighbor had a huge rhododendron, decided that he was going to stump it do major rejuvenation, and of course that's always a shock to the system with something like a rhododendron, but we have pictures to share with you, and it's amazing how the plant will overtime, whether it's a lilac or a rhododendron recover.

Yeah, I mean a rhododendron would not be high on my list of shrubs that I would necessarily rejuvenation prune.

On the other hand, if it were a situation or it's between deciding is it going to come out because it's overgrown and causing problems or should we just give it a try to cut it back and see what happens, then I would certainly try it.

But yeah, lilacs are a great example why.

Jila are another one that definitely benefits from rejuvenation pruning.

Almost any multi stemmed flowering shrub that can be rejuvenated, and it's a pretty amazing process.

People do it with privet a lot, especially out on the East Coast where there's you know, big privet hedges.

They get kind of old and woody, and a lot of times what happens with shrubs they've been growing, they put on really really thick, you know, old growth, and then that's just not as productive for that nice leafy growth that people want, say from a privet I can tell you when I did live out on the East Coast, my friend and I used to spend a lot of marches doing a lot of privet rejuvenation jobs.

I actually bought my sewing machine by doing a privet rejuvenation job on the Jersey shore.

So well, and you're so right about and you mentioned a key thing, multi stems, shrubs, and you're so right about that.

So dogwoods hydranges for Scythia's spyrea.

Clear, we're not talking about dogwood trees.

Please do not try this on your dog with trees.

We're talking about the shrubby dog with the red twig dog.

Would just want to make sure no one gets any crazy ideas out there, because we'd be hearing about it.

Very true, very true.

So Arctic fire, yes, exactly, exactly.

So multiple stems from the base, they're well suited to rejuvenation pruning.

But there are lots of examples.

And of course, some plants I have found, like potentilla or Spyreea, not only do well with the rejuvenation pruning, it almost seems as though they like it.

They do, And that's a really good point.

I'm glad you brought it up because very often.

You know, I've kind of made the point that rejuvenation is something you typically do for very large shrubs that start to overgrow their space, but it actually works just as well for very small shrubs like spyreea where yeah, they just you know, again, as there wood gets older and older, it generally becomes less productive.

And so when you cut that back and you just leave a couple inches of stem for the new growth to come out on, it puts out all that fresh new growth.

You might not get a great year of flowering that first year, but going into the second year and beyond, you will not believe the difference that it can make.

It really is like giving yourself a whole new plant.

Yeah, another good point because in renewal pruning, maybe you look for the older wood and cut that all the way back, and so it's variable, whereas with rejuvenation you would cut the whole plant back.

Let me give you a limb a rick.

It's based on a fictitious gardener that I have just playing in my mind.

Is his name idiolated?

No, he's old Ned, Old Ned, Okay.

Old Ned.

There once was a gardener named Ned who's rubberhead overspread.

He began to chop the branches that flop gave a new look to the homestead.

Rejuvenation is good for you, change a new point of view, thought Ned.

When he looked in the mirror, he reached for his personal share.

Now Ned has a new hair dude.

Yes, it is a bit like hair.

You know, sometimes a new haircut can rejuvenate your entire vibe.

It doesn't necessarily cause it to branch out if you cut it back, but yeah, gives you a new feel and a new vibe.

If we're talking about rejuvenation.

And we'll carry this on into segment four.

Also because there are issues like purging in your landscape or soil rejuvenation.

So important soil texture and organic matter content key properties that influence the soil's ability to hold water or nutrients.

And it never ceases to amaze me, Stacy now Lance escaping in sand, the inability of that soil to hold water and nutrients.

It's amazing, it really is.

So I I'm glad you brought this up because I have a good friend who is also a gardener, and she gardens in the country and ever since they set up, they're a big vegetable garden.

They have been getting loads of horse manure delivered via a local horse owner, and so he just comes to their property anytime dumps off his truck.

So they have been building their soil with composted manure for years.

And she has vegetables beautiful and finished and harvested like where mine are just like seedlings, like little tiny seedlings.

And the difference between that fertility that they have built up, that richness, that moisture retention, it's night and day.

It really is shocking to me.

And you know, I amend my soil, but I don't have the ability to just have some horse owner, you know, dump off this manure in the middle of the city anytime I want.

So I've done it with leaves, you know, grinding leaves and that sort of thing and fall.

But one thing that I'm looking at we can talk about in a segment four cover crops, and I'm looking at the dikon radish, oh yeah, and trying that in the sandy soil.

Yeah, So I'm going to give that a try because I have landscaped and everything from blue clay to beach sand and everything in between.

Ben successful doing it, But there is an act of rejuvenating the soil, and it's very important.

Well, but which would you pick if you had to choose between your blue clay soil and your sandy beachy soil, what are you picking?

Hands down?

Easy sand, Amen, I love my sandy soil.

You know you don't get so dirty.

You know, remember that horrible feeling of sticking your shovel in the clay and then the clay doesn't come off and your shovel weighs a million pounds.

Oof, sucks the boots right off your face the worst.

So yeah, I do it for all.

It does have some liabilities, but I do love my sand.

I've lost landscaping equipment in clay just sucked into the earth.

It's crazy.

Of course, there's rejuvenation of houseplants also, and one of my key tips on houseplants if you're going to rejuvenate them is do it at a time of year when you can move them outside to do it, and pull the plant out of the pot and stick your face right in the dirt and take a smell.

That smell will tell you a lot about how healthy your plant is and how you're doing with your houseplants.

We'll continue on in segment four, but let's see how Stacey ties this in with plants on trial.

That's next here on the Gardening Simplified Show.

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Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where the time.

The topic of today is rejuvenation and as I said, the ability to rejuvenate themselves from tiny little stumps is actually a very special feature that flowering shrubs, multi stem flowering shrubs have now, as we alluded to with the rhododendron, not all you know, multi stem shrubs respond to rejuvenation equally well.

So if you're thinking about this, and you're thinking about it for a shrub that we have not specifically mentioned as being suitable for rejuvenation pruning, of course, there's many more, we can't list them all.

Do a quick search and just make sure that you're not setting yourself up for disaster because there are some exceptions, certainly rhododendrons just more sensitive, slower growing.

Of course, if you view a rejuvenation pruning on say a taxis, you will be waiting for that rejuvenation for a very very long time.

So you need to know what you are getting into.

And you know, usually in what we've talked about so far with rejuvenation is rejuvenation done to kind of give your plant a new start.

There are also ways that you can kind of take this concept of rejuvenation pruning and use it yearly, purely for esthetic purposes.

And that is what today's Plant on Trial is all about.

So I have to ask you, rick, are there any smoke bush in your neighborhood?

You know what, there are not.

There aren't no, but you've seen them smoking because they are smoking right now.

They are.

I mean, this is the time of the year to be a smoke bush, or to see a smoke bush really, because they are at their absolute best.

Also known botanically as catinas, this is a plant that people absolutely love.

You know, it may not necessarily look like a whole whole lot in the garden center, but when people see a smoke bush in a neighbor's house or anything like that.

They're like, what is that?

I need to have it?

And I will absolutely agree.

A beautiful specimen of a smoke bush, it's hard to beat.

Yeah, there's one in Grand Haven that I can think of where they actually chose the pink based on the color of their smoke bush and pruned it as a small tree and it's just full of smoke right now and it's absolutely gorgeous.

So people tend to think of smoke bush more as flowering shrubs or trees.

They are a large shrub that can be prune as a large tree, so it'll be sort of a small tree, prune so that it has a trunk rather than all of those multiple stems, and so people tend to think of it they it flowers.

Actually, the flowers are not super showy.

It's the seed pods that developed after the flowering that are the smoke.

But the smoke gets so much attention that people often forget that Catinas or smoke bush are excellent foliage plants.

They're dramatic.

They are just absolutely dramatic.

It makes me think of how when I was a kid in the sixties, we would eat candy cigarettes you know, by nineteen sixty five, I had a two pack a day habit.

It isn't good.

I'm a little younger than you, but I can still remember trick or Tree getting candy cigarettes, which sounds absolutely absurd right now, but it did happen.

That's okay.

So today's plant on trial is Winecraft black smoke bush, and this is a perfect example.

It has beautiful smoky seed pods that are at their peak right now here in Michigan.

Of course, if you are one of our listeners in a warmer climate, they might be on their way out.

If you're in a cooler climate, they might just be getting going with their smoke.

But the foliage on Winecraft black catinas or smoke bush is absolutely beautiful.

And that's a great feature to have because outside of that, you know bloom and smoke period sort of in early to midsummer.

It keeps the plant looking really great.

But like I said, people don't tend to think of smoke bush as foliage plants because of course, the best feature with the seed pods is right there in the name.

But I wanted to share the idea that smoke bush in whether Winecraft black or any of the other smoke bushes that are out there with fabulously colored foliage, they make a great candidate for compassing.

And compassing is basically doing rejuvenation pruning, which is to say you're cutting it back to little stumps, but you're doing it every year or perhaps every other year.

And what that does to a smoke bush.

You are not going to get the smoke, I will have to say that first and foremost.

But what you get is foliage like you have never seen before.

And this is something that I saw quite frequently when I was a rooftop gardener in New York City.

Obviously, we're dealing with smaller spaces than we are out here in Michigan, where people tend to have much larger yards.

But smoke bush is a big plant.

And if you want this unique color and the thing about smoke bush foliage, you really have to see it to believe it.

So if you take a walk and there's a smoke bush in your neighborhood, don't just go.

Don't just be dazzled by the smoke.

Take a closer look at the foliage.

It's kind of I don't know if it's like waxy or satiny.

It just has this really really unique texture and gene.

It beads water, which I think is always really lovely, and it's really not like anything else.

If you touch it, it's kind of you can feel that it's different.

And so when you take a smoke bush and you compose it or do this rejuvenation pruning regularly rather than just to renew the plant, you get the most fabulous foliage plant you can imagine.

And this works great on rooftops because it kept it really small.

Winecraft black smoke bush today's plant on trial it gets to be eight to ten feet tall and six to eight feet wide, so that's a pretty large shrub.

Of course, it can be pruned and very often has to be prune because smoke bush naturally has this kind of wild and crazy growth habit.

It's just a characteristic of the plant.

But by cutting it back, instead of having that wild and crazy plant, you just get this rounded kind of pillory column of just absolutely beautiful foliage.

This makes the foliage bigger than it would normally be if it was allowed to reach its full size.

The color is more intense, and it's just a really really unique way to treat the plant.

And I would say if you already have a smoke bush and you're not happy with how it's going, or you just want to try something new, it might be worth trying because it really does give it a totally different role in the garden, especially.

If it's getting rangy or leggy.

Which they see that.

Yeah, they do get that way.

They are definitely a very unique plant.

So if you want to rejuvenation prove or not coppae and compassing basically just means you're cutting back to stems to get a lot of new growth.

And initially compassing started out in England as a way to grow steaks or firewood, and so they would cut it very low and then these straight stems would come out and that'd be very easy to grow steaks.

A very close component to this is pollarding, which is instead of cutting it down to little stumps, you cut it at some higher height.

Same kind of thing crape murder.

The pruning of myrtles is actually a type of pollarting, so you cut it back and that growth comes all out at the same height.

So you can do that as well if you have a specific height that you want the plant to reach.

So what you want to do if you're starting new You don't want to copass your plant right away.

You want to give it a good three years in the ground to develop a good root system, because a good root system is crucial to this concept of rejuvenation pruning.

Without that engine below ground to fuel that recovery.

From cutting back so severely, you're not going to get a vigorous recovery.

So you don't want to just start off right away, even if you generally intend to grow this as primarily a foliage plant.

So let it go for three years.

By that fourth year, then in spring you're just going to cut it back to stumps and you might be going like, I don't know, but it will work that again, that root system is fueling the growth that comes out of it and all of this really beautiful, colorful new growth.

It's really hard to explain, I think without seeing it, just how dramatic the impact of doing this really is.

So you would do it in late winter early spring.

You don't really want to wait until the growth starts to come out and it will just recover, and then you just go and do the same thing sprague after spring, after spring, and again.

It keeps it in check, It keeps the plant small, and manageable, especially if you have a small space and you love this color.

It's a great approach to managing it.

And it's, just like I said, a very different way to do it.

Now, if yours is pruned as a small tree with a single trunk, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

It will still come back, but you'd really be missing out on all those years of having you know, trained it as a tree, because it does take some consistent effort to be able to continue growing catinas as a tree.

But the shrub types this will work great on.

Now.

Did you know that smoke bush is a member of the anacardier c family, which contains mangoes, Cashew's pistachios, and poison ivy.

What a group I know.

Oh, it's a rose gallery kind of.

It's pretty wild to think, so don't worry, You're not going to get poison ivy.

A mad family.

The sumac family, yes, so also our beautiful saghorn sumac I.

Know, hangs around with some pretty rough characters.

It's it is pretty wild to think that this hardy planet is hardy down to USDA Zone four.

Heat tolerant through USDA Zone eight is related to all of these super tropical plants.

But again I have never heard of anybody having like a contact dermatitis issue with catinas, so you don't have to worry about going out there and working on it.

It does have kind of a resinous smell, which I actually quite like.

I don't know if you've ever smelled it before, Yes, I have.

But the benefit of course Bambi isn't going to chew on.

It, that's true.

It is very very deer resistant and rabbit resistant, so it's a great plant to have around.

And of course then you can tell all your friends that hey, this is our you know, hardy relative of cashews and mangoes.

Winecraft black is a full sun plants.

That's today's plan on trial.

Winecraft black.

It has dark, purply black.

Fully that means it is going to need full sun.

If you don't have full sun, don't despare the golden version.

Winecraft gold can actually take part shade, so that lack of chlorophyll really helps it to take part shaded.

So there's a lot of different ways.

I think this is what gardening is really all about, that you can take these tools, these techniques, this knowledge and mix it up and try new things in your yard and really find a way to amaze your friends, amaze yourself, and make the most of your garden.

We're going to talk about that next week.

I was thinking that too, all right, So Winecraft Black at Tinys.

It's available at your local garden center.

If you don't know where your local garden center is, visit Proven Winners Color Choice dot Com.

We've got a retailer locator there, and if you want to know more about Winecraft Black, you can find out more about it there as well.

So we're going to take a little break.

When we come back, we're opening the mail bag, so please stay tuned.

At Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs, we know that a better landscape starts with a better shrub.

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Greetings, gardening friends and Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show.

It is the time of the show where we can help you with your gardening questions, quandaries and conundrums, And if you have one, you can reach us at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com.

But because we can only get to a certain number of questions every week and we don't want to leave you high and dry if you need immediate assistance, which sometimes you do in the garden, you're out there going what do I do well?

First of all, win in doubt, don't don't do anything you're not sure about doing right to Proven Winners instead, will get a personalized response to you before you make a decision that you could potentially regret.

So you can just reach us at Proven Winterscolor Choice dot com, or you can also go to Proven Winners dot com.

There's a little purple bar there that says questions feedback, We're listening, and there you can get questions about your annuals, your houseplants or galladiums, whatever you have kicking around in the garden.

So a lot of times people leave questions on our YouTube videos.

And the first we're gonna kick off mailbag today with two questions that were from YouTube viewers.

They were related to last week's question about someone had daily leaf streak disease, and I guess I mentioned the disease aster yellows.

So someone asked if we could speak more about aster yellows, and then someone else asked about rose rosette disease, and I was like, Hey, this is perfect.

I can just go ahead and combine these into one answer because both astor yellows and rose rosette disease are caused by a phytoplasma.

Wrong, they are not.

They used to.

They used to think.

That's what got driven into our Yeah, that's why I consider it a Ghostbusters problem in the land.

Yes, so they have sense discipts.

So rose rosette disease.

Both of these diseases.

The reason that they were thought to be related is because when they are infected, they result in some wacky growth like growth witches.

Broom dogs and cats living together exactly.

And so with ast yellows what happens you just see it most often on like cone flowers or redbeccia, and it basically creates these weird satellite flowers popping out of the main flower.

And with rose rosette.

It causes a number of different symptoms, but usually the growth becomes really really thick.

The thorns proliferate, so whereas you know normally they would be kind of spaced apart on this down, they get really really dense.

The flowers form and these weird little clusters, and so basically these were thought to be the same thing.

But rose rosette has had substantial scientific resources devoted to its understanding, and they have since discovered that it is a negative sense RNA virus and not a phytoplasma.

Oh boy, so I got to reboot my whole brain.

You do.

I am not going to get into what a negative sense RNA virus is.

I looked it up.

You can also look it up if you are fascinated by these things.

Yes, it went way way over my head, as.

Doctor Peter Wenkman would say, normally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance.

Yes, but it's fascinating if you're into a virology.

So, a phytoplasma is a type of bacteria that is lacking a cell wall.

So you can, again, if you want to go in off the deep end here, you can look into the structure of a bacteria and why this matters.

But a phytoplasma is bacteria like, So instead of actually being caused by a phytoplasma or this bacteria like thing, rose rosette is actually caused by a virus.

And astro yellows is still of course caused by the phytoplasma, but the results are the same and the transmission is similar, and this is what's really important.

Whereas aster yellows is transmitted by a leaf hopper, which are kind of cute little buggers that again hop there's a bunch of different leaf hoppers out there, but they hop onto your plant, they feed, they have the astra yellows phytoplasma in their digestive system, they transmit it into your plant mutats like crazy.

Rose rosette is spread by an aerofied mite.

So there's a slightly different method of transition.

They are different organisms that actually cause the infection.

The results overall are pretty similar, and this is what's really important, because this is what people, of course we're asking for on YouTube.

What do you do if your plant has these?

So Number one, you have to remove it.

And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you really do have to remove these things.

They do not recover.

Pruning is not going to make them go away.

We talk a lot about fungal diseases being on the plant and not in the plant.

Will a phytoplasma or a virus.

Unfortunately, is in the plant's vascular system.

So even when it goes dormant, all of that sap, all of that stuff is still in the plant, so it never can recover.

And if you leave it, all you're doing is making more kind of an epicenter of more disease to spread to other plants in your yard, to your neighbors, throughout your community.

So it is really important if you have an infected plant, you dig it out and you discard it, don't compost it, just put it straight away in your trash, don't send it to the city compost or anything like that.

You do want to discard these plants, and then of course the biggest question after that, can I replace it with more of the same plant.

Now, whether it is the virus or the phytoplasma do not persist in the soil at all.

They have to live within the digestive system of the insect or within the vascular system of the plant, and obviously that doesn't mean soil.

However, of course, when you remove a plant, a lot of times there's living roots still remaining behind, and so they do recommend that you plant something different for the following two to three years until any of those roots die.

Now I have to say, I've thought about it.

I think it is extremely unlikely that by putting the new plant in, it's going to somehow contact this last little remaining rootlet in the soil and they're going to unite.

But you know, however, the area, at least my theory is the area may be prone to such a problem.

If the mites, for example, on wild multiflora roses, let's say, then you may want to I think you're wise in pointing that out, that that maybe you want a plant to would gel instead of a rose for a period of time.

But I really do think it's to a degree, at least for me, for my observation, rose rosette has been a problem in certain areas.

Now, I don't know if that's just a fig leaf of my imagination or what I mean.

I have people who say to me, well, if you have that problem in your region, don't use leaf blowers.

Around the roses because of the mic I don't.

Know, I mean the mites are going to find a roses Anya, I agree.

It does also tend to indicate that there is something about that spot or that plant that is just more appealing to the leaf hoppers or mites.

And if you're investing the time and money into a replacement, of course you loved your rose, you loved your cone flower or whatever it was, but it is best to put something else.

You might be able to replace it again down the line once you know, maybe the bugs have created a new pattern, but to be safe you should plant something different.

And just in conclusion here before we move on, it is important to know rose rosett only affects roses.

It doesn't even impact other plants in the rose family, which are numerous.

Whereas astro yellows is a very non discriminating phytoplasma.

It infects a ton of different plants, not just in the astor family, so potatoes, carrots, trees, it can get a lot of different things.

So if you are dealing with astro yellows, it's a good idea to look it up, verify what it is, and find a plant that's not going to be affected to replace it.

Looked up this quote from Ghostbusters.

Ray pretend for a moment that I don't know anything about metallurgy, engineering or physics.

Just tell me what's going on.

Well, we just did.

We did in a big way.

But you know, it's good to know about these issues so that you can recognize them if they do pop up in your garden or a friend's garden, because it really it's going to take gardeners like you to recognize these problems and hopefully be able to put a stop to them.

Alison writes, Hello, I was so glad you mentioned the black Eyed Susan vine on your Elevation episode.

I plant had proven the selection's rose color variety this summer, lots of leaves and vining growth, but I've only had one of the pots produce any flowers at all.

It was only one flower planting on my deck in the full sun.

What am I doing wrong?

I did add proven Winn's slow release fertilizer when I initially planted, but haven't fertilized since because I had read that would encourage too much leaf growth.

Thanks for your information and thank you, Alison.

Appreciate it, and I still contend that you have to put the plant under some stress.

I'm gonna guess that Alison is just too nice a person and this plant is too pampered, and a little bit of stress, as in drought stress would make a difference.

I mean, it is a healthy plant, it's not overly healthy.

It looks good.

But I was reading about Thunbergia black eyes using vine, and every source I said said that's starting in midsummer it produces those flowers.

So I'm not sure where Alison was located offhand, but I would also say, potentially, we're just getting to midsummer right now, so it is possible.

And I have seen this with other vining annuals as well, ye cup and saucer vine.

They simply don't start flowering until well into the summer.

So whereas all of your other summer annuals are kicking it and looking amazing, you're like, hey, what's going on, You're just foliage.

But now that we have kind of reached this period where we're getting really really warm temperatures or having warm nights, that is the kind of thing that triggers these plants to flower.

So I really think you aren't doing anything wrong, you know, if you were to buy this in flower very often, that's because the grower put it under those ideal conditions to get that flowering, and they just haven't occurred naturally yet.

So Allison, I would say, continue to fertilize it as you have been.

I don't think you need to go crazy just like every two weeks or so.

And I wouldn't be surprised now that we're getting some really summery weather if you don't see those flowers start aring to appear very very soon.

And the good news is they will last well into September, so you'll have a good you know, ten weeks of flowering.

Yeah, I agree with you, and I'm not saying that Allison is over watering it either.

I'm just saying I have learned that if I back off on the watering, a little bit of drought stress sometimes.

You know they used to do that instead of using growth regularly, so you know, it's just something to try.

So yeah, don't worry if you forget watering it once or twice, see what happens.

I don't think you're going to set it back, but I think it will start earning its keep very soon.

So thank you all for your questions.

We're going to take a little break and when we come back with continuing our conversation about rejuvenations.

If please stay tuned, Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified Podcast, brought to you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs.

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Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show.

Our episode this week on rejuvenation, and I do want to mention we are at a time of year, or quickly approaching a time of year when rejuvenation of a lawn or a turf area can be very effective.

I personally believe, especially if you're in the Midwest and North, as far as your turf is concerned, the best time of the year to take a look at rejuvenating turf is from August to October.

That means feeding, seating, whatever it may be.

That window of opportunity is ideal not necessarily spring, but rather summer, so August to October, so put that on your calendar if you want to rejuvenate your lawn, and of course in many ways you can rejuvenate a lawn also by taking a look at core air rating, and you can rent a core a Raider.

You don't have to have somebody do it for you if you don't want it.

As a matter of fact, it's quite entertaining.

It's a lot of fun.

And when I used to have turf, I used to do it all the time, but have no need to do that anymore in beach sand with no turf.

Another form of purging, or rather rejuvenation would be purging.

And I was rereading about this thing, this Japanese method of decluttering, where you hold something in your hand and then you ask yourself, do I really need this?

And since I've started doing that, I've gotten rid of a whole bunch of stuff.

All my wind chimes is bay, some of my lawn chairs, you know, decluttering, But garden management can almost be like purging stuff out of your landscape.

I mean, because the point is, who can't stop at a greenhouse or a garden center and buy something?

True?

I can't, Yeah, for sure.

I always walk out with something.

And so at some point you've got to rear range things and do a little bit of a little bit of purging.

You know, sometimes you just get tired of the seeing the same old, same old things aren't moving around, and you want to mix things up a little bit.

And that's rejuvenation too, saying, you know what, I'm just sick and tired of ex plant and it's time it gets replaced with something new and we spice things up a little bit up in.

Here, you know, if you're tired of it and you want to spice things up a little bit.

As you said, what about people rejuvenation?

Okay, how about your personal rejuvenation.

When you get to summer and fall in the garden, you can start to get a little bit of a little bit of you know, weary.

And yet it's a known fact that gardening really really helps us as people rejuvenate.

Centenarians across the world.

I've been reading about where was it in Okinawa, Japan, the area of the world with the highest ratio of centenary and they tend to garden until very late in life.

Gardening tends to give them a key guys, the correct pronunciation their reason for living.

They benefit from a high level of social connectedness and gardening.

So invite someone over to your garden and have a beverage and sit and talk for Yeah.

You know, it's a good way to kind of get a new perspective on your garden when you feel a little fed up with it, to have someone over and they're like wow, and you're like really, I mean I'm not.

So it's mid July here, mid to late July.

I'm not super crabby about gardening.

I'm still loving it, but I will say I am quickly getting very, very sick of watering.

And we are officially, we are officially in a moderate drought here in West Michigan.

They just announced that this week.

It feels a little more than moderate.

I don't think we've had any appreciable rain to speak of out here for some time, so I'm not losing it just yet.

But you know, as you can attest, moving the hose around gets real tiring, and I shudder to think about my water bill.

I'm just saying, I just wet my plants.

Yes, I'm sick of the hoses too.

So think about people rejuvenation, and I remind myself of that often that the exercise we get from our gardening.

And make sure of course that you're hydrating properly, you're watering the plants but make sure you yourself also are hydrating properly.

But there's just so much benefit to gardening and your own personal rejuvenation.

There's another analogy on my mind that as long as we're waxing poetic or philosophically here for a moment, and that is ever since I entered rewirement, I call it.

I think of the sports analogy.

Now.

In sports, when an athlete makes it to the pro level, many times they're shocked at how fast the game is, and they struggle and maybe make some bad decisions, let's say football or whatever it may be, and so everything just moves so fast.

Here's my point as it relates to gardening.

I observe that in the greenhouse and the garden center in spring there is a rush to buy everything, plant everything, get everything done, and then go on vacation.

But the reality is that gardening is a year round activity and when you garden with purpose like that, everything starts to slow down a little bit.

When you recognize, as it relates to rejuvenation, how important the fall season is, you will enjoy your garden more and your plants will benefit from it.

I mention the turf and how fall is the perfect time to rejuvenate turf.

But the same thing with your soil.

Maybe you're planting some cover crops or moving some plants, feeding some plants.

I still contend that I've had a lot of success in fall, when the leaves are dropping off the plants, that's when I feed, and the soil remains warm, the plant is able to uptake that the nutrients.

It's a form of rejuvenation.

So I guess you know.

My point is, sometimes I become frustrated when I see that that wild rush in spring and carts loaded with plants.

Well, that's wonderful, and it's great for the garden center industry, but what about summer and what about fall and early winter?

You can get you can get the game to slow down a little bit for you, and then you're probably gonna see things better and have better perspective in your landscape.

How's that for philosophical, that's philosophical.

I feel like if you have a vegetable garden, you don't really slow down.

I mean, I'm just saying, especially this year, it's going great.

I love it.

But yeah, vegetable gardens don't give you a chance to slow down.

But it's true you have to really be And I mean, are you garden You get annuals because you love the seasonality, because you love to you know, change things up and have plants that you can't have in spring, winter and fall.

So do you need to just slow down and take it all in?

And that's why if you ever come to my garden, you're gonna see a lot of weeds, because sometimes that's just not how I want to spend my time in the garden.

And they really don't bother me enough.

I mean, you know, uh, yellow nutsedge as an exception, because I always pull that and crabgrass as soon as I see them.

But I have a slight problem with oxalis right now.

It's kind of firmly in control, but also it's kind of pretty, so I'm just kind of letting it do its thing in certain spots in the garden.

Well.

Along that line of weeds though again, and this concept of having the game slow down on you weed control in fall is key in my mind, and I don't do a lot of weeding in spring.

I looked for those weeds in fall when they're in a rosette stage and dealing with it in fall.

So that's a form of rejuvenation.

Here's another form of rejuvenation at this time of the year.

You mentioned the watering, Just a deep, slow trickle with the hose setting it at the base, provided you don't forget about the hose.

Right, set a time on your phone.

That's what I do, make sure I don't forget.

And we had one of our listeners I think, mentioned to us that along the lines of irrigation, that when you hand water you develop a more meaningful relationship with your plants.

Well, you know, they say the best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow.

There you go, an understanding of plants.

That's good.

Here's another rejuvenation plant in the landscape.

You mentioned the vegetable garden, but what about herbs.

I view herbs as one of the key rejuvenation plants in the landscape.

It's almost like the old cut and come again enias that we used to cut and then a few weeks later you come back and they're loaded with flowers.

But take as an example chives.

I'm amazed at the resilience of chibes and how they can reach a point where they're gorgeous and then they're so ugly and then you chop them back and suddenly they're beautiful.

Yeah, it is really incredible, and I don't think enough people know that they love chives and they're blooming and they love to harvest them and use them, but then they're kind of like, oh, chive season is over, and it doesn't have to be.

If you cut it back right after it flowers, it will regrow.

Now, I do have to tell you, as someone who does very little supplemental watering, especially in the herb garden, it's not going to come back unless you're watering it well or you're lucky enough to have some rainfall, which we don't have anymore in West Michigan.

And I'm only slightly bitter about it.

I'm really trying to keep it together here.

But yeah, it does need a lot of water to help to regrow from that.

But yet if you do that, you will get a whole new fresh crop of chives and they will continue to produce for you all through summer and fall, so you don't you never have to be without them, and that's a pretty great thing.

Yeah, Oregano is that way also, though I let my oregano just go into flower and when they bloom, they're beautiful.

They're beautiful, and they attract so many pollinators.

And if you're a regno is anything like mine, it also self sews.

And I would rather have a regno as a weed than say, yellow nuts edge, So I let it do its thing.

You know, briefly at the end.

Here also that you know, I have some rejuvenation plants that I love in spring when winter is over, because it's no secret I don't like winter.

I like hot weather, so hellebores and pansies and magnolia and redbud and amsonia, and you know when they start to pop up.

But when I think rejuvenation too, A couple plants that I think of our perennial hibiscus.

Isn't it amazing how they just, you know, they're down to nothing and then huge And.

I love seeing that.

Yeah, it's just it's so wild to see how they're so late to emerge, you know, find the Memorial Day weekend you're like, oh, you're growing, and then by fourth of July you're like, oh, you're huge.

And you're beautiful, and you're beautiful exactly, or when winter has done, how gnarly and awful the bud Leah's look.

But then you prune them back and within short order.

Wow.

Yeah.

Same with my vegetable garden.

I planted it and I was like, oh, it's so little and small, and now it's you know, everybody's muscling each other out for space.

I love it.

Rejuvenation's a fun topic, and I hope that you're feeling some rejuvenation this summer as we head into the important fall gardening month.

Thank you Stacey, thank you Rick, thank you Adriana, and thank you for watching us on YouTube, listening to the radio version of the show, or our podcast.

Have yourself a great week.