Low Effort Flower Gardens - The Lazy Gardener

Join us for another episode of “In The Garden with UC Master Gardeners”.   Master Gardeners Teena Spindler and Katrina Kirkeby expound on the meaning of lazy gardening! Or, as we call today’s show, Low Effort Flower Gardens. These two Master Gardeners often talk about leaving on vacation and coming back to see PRESENTS all over their gardens! Well, eventually, after some diligence and maybe hard work initially, everyone can aim for a relatively easy flower garden that basically grows itself. Eventually! You may even want to take notes as you listen. Teena lists all of the possibilities and closes the show with her favorites when it comes to perennial, annual, shady, and sunny garden options. Teena tells about her design for a small plot if you don’t have a vast amount of space. You CAN do it! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners. Good morning. This is Katrina Kirkabee, and I'm here today with Tina Spindler, fellow Master Gardener, and we're going to be talking about low-effort flower gardens.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

And Tina, how did we just come upon this subject? Well, as some of our listeners may know, Katrina and I do a monthly garden show called What to Do This Month in the Garden. And often while we were doing that show, we would be talking about what was happening in our gardens and how excited we were that this plant was returning, or this plant self-sowed, or we went on vacation and we came back and our flowers were blooming like crazy. And so we thought, you know, maybe we should do a whole show on how we get these gardens to produce flowers with minimal effort.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

You know, Tina, I think what was an epiphany to me is I took a long trip and I was out of the country and I kind of was like, oh, I'm going to give up on my garden this season. And I didn't do much. You know, we cleaned up the garden, but we didn't do much. And all of a sudden, I start having the beginnings of a beautiful flower garden. When you got back. When I got back. And I'm like, well, what's with this? Right? It shouldn't, why? This isn't a lot of work. It still is work, but it wasn't a lot of work. So we start talking about how we could do low effort gardening and how we could share it with everybody because sometimes our lives just get so busy. And how can we in our busy, busy lives, do a garden that looks really, really nice without spinning as much intensive work? Absolutely. So today our topic is going to be how do we do that?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Well, first, maybe we should start out by describing uh the term low effort flower garden. Um, it can mean different things to different people. And so, in general, what we're talking about is a garden that provides colorful flowers for most of the year with low effort from us, the home gardener. And that does not mean no effort. Exactly. Low effort is a relative term. All gardens take some effort. But what we're going to do in this show is discuss strategies and plants that keep the work in the garden to a minimum.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

You know, I I I've really been looking forward to the show, Tina, because it seems like life is just so busy. And I've noticed a lot of people have given up on gardens or doing things in gardens because it's just too much work. So let's start about, you know, let's talk about low effort. There's probably a foundation to it.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Yes, and I think in an existing garden, what I would do, what I have done, is I look at the garden as it is, and I look at the plants that are not causing me a lot of trouble, but are giving me a lot of return for my effort. And so if you're going to try to transition your existing garden to a more low effort garden, that's that's the first step is to go out there and take a look at it. And it doesn't mean that you have to remove everything because everything you have is bad. What it means is take a look and see what you have that's performing that great or that you love and you just don't want to change. So for instance, what I would do, and what I have done, is in a bed, I I love roses, and so most of my garden has roses scattered throughout it. So if I were gonna redo a section of it to be more low effort, I would probably keep the roses because I love the roses, the way they look. Some of them smell amazing and they're great for bouquets. And so I would keep a rose because even though people may think roses are high effort, they're actually not if you do, you know, just a few basic uh minimal care.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Yeah, and I agree with you, Tina. I really thought they were a lot of work and they were for somebody that was a much better gardener than me, but I realized they're not.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

They're not. I mean, roses, as long as you deadhead them, which just means cut off the spent blooms, they'll keep blooming. And if you give them fertilizer a couple of times during the growing season, you'll continue having blooms from their first bloom in April until here, uh December. Um, and we usually prune them in January. So you basically, for me, that's that's pretty low effort. You know, if you just have to deadhead and give them a little food, that's pretty low effort. Yeah. And then, of course, there's one semi-big effort, which happens, as I said, in January, where you uh prune them and uh and then clean them up. And then I usually do a once-a-year spray. So you hear about people, oh, I gotta spray, I gotta spray, I gotta spray to keep these diseases at bay on my roses. But I find if you just prune, clean up the mess, and spray in January, you're you're pretty good for the rest of the year. You you may get some rust, you may get some mildew, you may get some um aphids, but you know, as long as you do a really good cleanup once a year, I find it's pretty manageable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Now, Tina, when you're looking at your garden, when we're thinking about low efforts, so you go out and you look at your garden and you say, Well, what's the best bang for my buck, so to speak? And then what are my troubled children? Like one of my troubled children was I had this ginger plant. And this ginger plant started off really small and it overtook everything. And then I spent so much time pruning this thing to get it to the size I needed for that area that it was becoming an issue. You know, it's just taking too much time to keep it small. So when you're looking at things, you're like, well, look at your troubled things too, or things that you're spending too much time on. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

That's one of the keys. Uh, and so um again, it's the what to keep is your first question when you're going for a low effort garden. What to keep. If you don't like roses, don't keep it, rip it out. Um, if if you love uh scented things and you have a lot of lavenders and and sages in your garden, keep those. And as you said, if you have things that are overtaking other things, pull them out by all means. Pull them out, transplant them to a corner where they can take over and you won't care, or just throw them away altogether if they're just you know too much hassle for you. So so that's the first thing is to look at what you want to keep. And those are, as you said, what gives you the most bang for the buck, and the buck is how much effort does it take. And secondly, um, what is annoying you? If something's annoying you because it's taking too much time or it's constantly getting sick, take it out. Get rid of it. And and uh so so that's what I start with is is what to keep. And and I personally do healthy roses. Now, some roses are so prone, you know, to to disease. Take those out. But I have other roses that never get anything, and so those are the ones that I would keep.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

You know what was one of the hardest things for me to learn was something called shovel pruning. Yes, and I think we need to give people permission. Would you explain shovel pruning and give them permission to shovel prunes? Yes, because I it took a lot of years for me to give myself permission to shovel prune. So tell us what shovel pruning is, Tina.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Shovel pruning is not really pruning, it's digging something out and throwing it away. But we we use a funny term the master gardeners call shovel pruning.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

You know, I've spent so much time trying to save a darn plant. And because I I can do this, I'm a master gardener, I can save this plant. And one of the best things I've ever done on some occasions is just get rid of it. It's okay. And it's free, actually.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

You just have like a weight lifted on your shoulder. Wow, I never have to deal with that again. Um, so yeah, so uh it when you've decided what to keep, and some of the things that I have kept as I've done this process is on, as I mentioned, roses. Um, I keep my lavender, assuming the lavender at is at the right stage of its life, because sometimes lavender gets too woody, and then you want to shovel prune it and get it get it out and plant new lavender if you love lavender. Um, sages, I love sages, um, but sometimes I've planted, say, uh a sage that gets too tall somewhere. It's like, oh, yep, that's gotta go. You know, it's just too tall for it. And it's okay to do that. And it's okay, yeah. Um, and then other blooming plants, uh, such as Austromaria, which um, you know, spreads by tubers and take takes over big sections, which is a blessing on the one hand, but maybe not a blessing because it's encroaching upon, like now I have some encroaching on my roses. Um, dig it up, transplant it somewhere else, or throw it away, or give it to a neighbor. Um, I think you and I are gonna exchange Austromarias this fall because we're gonna uh take out what's too much and and exchange the ones we don't have.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

And we both like different colors, and I'm gonna put it in different places. So, Tina, what you're saying is actually take a good look, objective look at your garden and look at it and say, what's taking a lot of my time? And do I really is it worth it? Because something might take a lot of time, and you love it profoundly with all your heart. So it's worth it. But sometimes things take a lot of time, and you go, Why?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Exactly. Or sometimes they don't take a lot of time, they're easy, but as a result, they may have spread too much, like the Austromaria, you know, like I have uh the patch of clivia, um, and uh that is just you know, over the years taken over a whole section. Uh calolilies, you know, can can just spread and spread and spread. And yet those are super low maintenance plants that give you beautiful flowers to cut. The calolilies? The calolilies and the clivia. Um, so what what I do in that case is uh, and and this part isn't low effort when you're first wanting to create a low effort garden, but I have over the years moved calolilies into a lot of other places in my garden because I like them and they require no effort. They're not they're not bothered by disease or critters, gophers don't eat them. So identify the plants in your garden. Daylilies are another one that you know are kind of bulletproof. Um, so identify the ones that you may already have that you think are super low maintenance, and if you have too much of them, then just dig them up, divide the clumps, and put them in other areas of your garden where you can give them a friend to a friend. To a friend. Yeah. So that's that's what we mean by the first step is uh looking at your existing garden, identifying the stuff that you already know is low maintenance. And look at your garden objectively.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

You know, sometimes I don't know about you, Tina, but sometimes I look at mine and I kind of like skip over certain plants, you know, like I don't pay there, I'm so used to seeing them. And then I don't realize like this morning I was looking, I'm like, oh my gosh, this thing has just taken over. And I just need like to get rid of it, get rid of part of it, like 50% of it or 80% of it. And then the garden's gonna be a lot more manageable.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Well, it's funny you say that because you know, we do, and then my husband will go out in the garden and he'll go, why is that there? And I'm like, Oh, yeah, I don't know, because it's always been there for the last 10 years. But you know, he's the one who's like, that just doesn't look so hot. What why is it there? And probably because it is low maintenance and I just don't want to, you know, have to deal with it. But um, if you're ready to convert parts of your garden to less maintenance, look for those plants that are already low maintenance and maybe dig and divide them and put them in other places.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Or just keep the what you have there. So then you after you look and say, what's low maintenance, then you look at your garden and say, what's taking a lot of my energy?

SPEAKER_00 12:13

And then you pull the rest out. So so in a particular bed, I might leave a rose, um, some lavender that's there, and maybe a patch of ulstromaria. And then I just take everything out of the rest of the bed, right? And so now I have this beautiful empty canvas that I can now, where maybe over the years I've always planted seasonal annuals in that every single spring, every single fall, and so I'm you know replace these annuals over and over and over again, and that's that's not necessarily low maintenance.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

No, but before we start talking about plants, why don't after we've cleaned it up, okay, we're now going to work on easy gardening. So, first thing is getting it, pick, choose what you're gonna keep, what you're gonna get rid of, and then should we talk about some soil?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Absolutely, because now that you have these empty swaths of ground that you want to take care of, you do have to do the first step that we do in any garden, uh, whether it's our veggie gardens or our flower gardens, we always have to prepare the soil. And we won't spend a lot of time on that because we have entire shows on soils, but just briefly, you won't forget the soil. This is the important next step. So uh dig that soil down about eight to ten inches, uh dump some bags of compost, which often is just labeled garden soil in our nurseries and at big box retailers. So dump about three to four inches of compost on top of that soil, get a flower-friendly fertilizer, and you want to follow the directions on the package and sprinkle that over the appropriate area in the appropriate quantity. And when I say flower fertilizer, you can, if you don't want to spend a lot of time worrying about it, get a rose fertilizer, right? A rose fertilizer is for flowers, that's what it does. But just a little bit of technicality. There's three numbers on the front of every fertilizer box, uh, and they have dashes in between. And so it might read uh five, seven, four. Five-seven dash four. And the first number is nitrogen, that makes plants grow green stuff. The second number is phosphorus, that makes plants bloom and set fruit. And then the the last one is potassium, which um helps the overall root development and health of the plants. But as you might have guessed from this description, it's that middle number in a flower garden that you want to be higher. And if you look at a rose fertilizer, it's that middle number or the phosphorus that's the highest number.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

And tell us again what the phosphorus does. Makes plants bloom. Oh, and a flower garden. That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

So um then you, as I said, you sprinkle that on top of your uh soil and compost, and then you just get uh a cultivator, which is that long-handled thing that has uh curved tines at the end of it, and you chop the soil up with that so that it ends up being uh kind of uh smooth, not not super big chunks in it, and then you just rake it smooth, and now you're ready to plant whatever low effort plants you decide to plant.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Now, before we go to low effort, I know there's some people out there that might have some weeds in their garden. Now, besides getting rid of the plants you don't want, shall we weed the garden before we do the soil prep?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Oh yeah, always, always weed. Um, because you know, as as we know from little kids, when we would pick those dandelions and blow the puffy, you know, all over the garden, that's obviously how the weeds are gonna proliferate. So always pull when you're pulling the plants out that you don't want, be sure you pull all the weeds out too, so that you're not dispersing any weed seeds or weed roots, because some weeds uh propagate through their roots. So pull as as many out as you possibly can.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Try to make it as clean. What you're saying is make it a really clean bed for sure. Leave in there, and you want to have a clean bed before you put the soil amendment in. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

But now that you have the so that's the hard work, and if you can, you know, uh engage your gardener, if you have a gardener to do that part for you, you know, boy, then you just get to do the fun part of picking the plants and planting them. Uh my husband, actually, who isn't a big gardener, but he loves to pull things out. I he just for some reason gets a charge out of that. Send them to my house soon. And so if I just show him a section and say, I want everything out except this rose and you know these other two shrubs, he's like, oh, goody, goody, goody. And then I don't have to do that part. And often I can con him into doing that digging and mixing of the soil too. So I love when he's available to do that. Um, but once you have that part done, the next part is choosing your plants. So choosing your plants. How would you go about choosing your plants? Well, you're gonna listen to this show because we're gonna tell you what our favorite uh low-effort plants are.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Should we first talk about there's plants that like the shade and there's plants that like the sun?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Yes, the way the way we're gonna divide this talk up is we're first gonna talk about the categories of plants that you should choose for either a sunny garden or a shady garden. And those categories are shrubs, which you know, you may have already left some shrubs in, um, perennial flowers, you may have already left some perennial flowers in, like the lavender and ostromeria that we talked about. Um, and then there are annual flowers, which you may or may not want to include in this low effort garden. And the reason is annual flowers need to be replaced twice a year in the spring and the fall because they only last one season. But if you plant annual flowers that self-sow, produce seed, like California poppies, then you can plant those once and they may continue self-sowing in your garden kind of forever. Or Alyssum's another one that does that, right? You say you have alyssum everywhere in your garden. It comes back, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

It does. And my poppies, I love my poppies. You know, that when I came back that year, it was just I had everything was just blooming, and they were things they're self-sewing, or they were, you know, uh flowering shrubs, or you know, it was just it was just really our bulbs coming up, and it was, I was so surprised.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Well, and then that's the last category. You mentioned bulbs. Um, that's the fourth category of things that can be low effort, and so we'll talk about bulbs, particularly the ones that are low effort that come back year after year, uh, not tulips, because tulips don't come back year after year here. We're only going to talk about the ones that do come back year after year here, so that you can have this lower effort garden. But but those categories, shrubs, perennials, annuals, and bulbs, those four categories also have preferences of what kind of sun exposure they want. So we will talk about separately. First, we're going to talk about the sunny garden and we're going to talk about all the choices for the sunny garden. And then when we're done with that, we're going to talk about the shady garden and all the choices that are available for them.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

You know, that'll be nice for people because we both all of us have probably sunny and shady. So if we just stay in one direction for a while and we'll talk about well, why don't we talk about sunny first? Yes. So let's start talking about how to make our garden. Now we that with everything's weeded out, cleaned up, the soil's ready to go. Let's talk about sunny gardens. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

And um we are going to run through a lot of type, you know, plant types here in uh this section of our little talk. And so if you're you know driving or not in a place where you can write this stuff down, uh just know that you can go to the University of California Master Gardener's website and all of our radio shows are recorded on that as podcasts. And so when you do get to a place where you can take some notes, you can go ahead and listen to it as a podcast and pause it, you know, while you write things down. Um so this will sound like a lot of information because we're gonna talk about a lot of different plants.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

And it is a lot of information. So just if your eyes glaze over a little bit, come back and listen to again with a piece of paper or pen and or computer in hand.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yeah, for sure. Um, so first of all, uh we're gonna talk about the four categories of plants, uh, and we'll start with shrubs. Uh, and the reason I start with shrubs is because those are gonna be the biggest thing in your flower garden. They're gonna take up the most space. And as we've already mentioned, roses, which personally I like, but you may not. Um, but some other ones are Mexican sage, heliotrope, and butterfly bush. I think those are all pretty low effort plants. You have to trim the Mexican sage once a year, the flower stalks that bloom, you just come down to the ground, throw them away. And um, heliotrope, you can deadhead like you would deadhead, you know, any other flower plant, like a rose. And and then butterfly bush, I love because it is a great background plant. It gets quite tall and comes in different colors from white to different shades of purples and blues, and attracts butterflies. Which is amazing. But it does take up a you know a fair bit of space and it gets pretty tall. So you have to decide whether that's going to work in your space.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

And you also have to look at all these plants when you're thinking about planting them. How big do they get? Absolutely. Now I have this beautiful Mexican sage, and it takes up one whole wall side of my back garden. And it's probably maybe 30 feet. And but it gets beautiful. All I have there is Mexican sage. It's in the sun, it gets the morning and afternoon sun. It gets big. It's prolific. Everybody goes ooh and awe over it. And once a year I cut it down.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

And it I have a big backyard, and that's a one thing that I can use to take up a lot of space that looks beautiful, that's no maintenance. And it's just been a winner for me.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the first things you have to decide is, you know, how big is your garden, right? If if you're living in a townhouse or a condo or an apartment, um, you know, you may be gardening only in containers or raised beds. And so a big spreading plant like Mexican sage wouldn't be a good choice for you. But there are other sages that don't get nearly as big that might be good choices for you.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

So and I think part of uh having an easy garden is trying to have the size of the plant that fits your garden because I know that one really well. I love the look on your face really well. We both have plants that are too big for the space, and we spend too much time trying to keep them contained in that space. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Yes, and a good example of that are the sages, right? The Mexican sage gets huge, other sages stay smaller. Um, but another one is heliotrope. So I have two kinds of heliotrope in my garden. One's the heliotrope marine, it's the dark, you know, bluish-purpley one. And then I have another one that has very light lavender flowers. That thing is as tall as me. That heliotrope with the light lavender, and I don't even know what its name is because it was a pass-down plant. Someone gave it to me, but it is as tall as me. And so I have to keep that thing trimmed, you know, regularly, once a month. I have to go out with shears and and and trim it up. Whereas the marine heliotrope gets like a foot and a half tall, and I just deadhead that, and that's it. You know, deadhead it once a month, and it's super fast. Um, so so now I've mentioned heliotrope to you, but you need to understand that you know, some heliotropes are small and manageable, and other heliotropes are giant and take more pruning.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

So, what you're saying is do a little bit of homework when you're working in this low maintenance garden to keep it low maintenance, actually see not only the plant type that you have, but what specifically that plant, what the size of it. Is it itty bitty? Is it dull?

SPEAKER_00 24:55

If you're going and buying new things at the garden center, be sure you read the tags because you want to, you know, flax is another thing, and we're not talking about that today because it's uh not a flowering plant and we're focusing on flowering plants. But you know, there are some flaxes that are so well behaved, you know, they're a foot to 18 inches tall and they look beautiful in a pot. And then there's the flax that's in my front yard that's as tall as me and about five feet in diameter, right? So if I were just going and buying a one-gallon pot, I better read the tag on that pot to make sure I'm getting the little one that's not going to go crazy. Um, so absolutely that's key on the shrubs, especially to make sure you identify the the size, the ultimate size of it. Then moving on, um, perennial flowers, which are my this is my favorite. This is where you should probably invest most of your space allocation, I think, is in the perennial flowers because uh they come back year after year. And so you're only going to plant them once. Uh, you may have to replant them in three to four years if it's a lavender, because lavenders get woody and and may not uh look good beyond that. Uh, but some things, some perennials last kind of indefinitely, or what they do is they they spread, like we mentioned the Alstromaria, you know, they they spread and get bigger, um, which you may not want, but but it happens over a long time frame, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yeah, it's it's just not overnight. No, you know, my ginger plant overnight would grow and you it was just amazing. But my my ostromeria is it took time and and you had you didn't have to do it every year.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Yeah, I have a patch of Austromeria, the one I'm gonna divide this year, um, and it's been there 10 years, and so I figured dividing it in 10 years, that's still kind of low effort.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Very low effort if I only have to do it once every 10 years. Versus that Dan Ginger plant of my darn ginger plant of mine, which I was cutting every week just to keep it under control. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

So some of my favorite sunny uh perennial flowers, and then if I don't list some of yours, then jump jump in. But uh lavender, as I've mentioned several times. Shasta daisies are probably my favorite perennial flower, and the reason is is they are completely pest and disease-free. Uh, occasionally a snail will eat some of the petals when on a flower when it blooms, but they bloom so profusely that you can sacrifice one daisy to to a snail, it's not a big deal. Um, they they do spread, sometimes they spread too much. In that case, I dig them up. Katrina now has them in her garden.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

And I've already dug up some of mine because they've spread that you gave me.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Right. Um, but overall, they require no maintenance other than dead heading, and they give you vases and vases full of flowers, and so I have them literally all over my yard because I just I just love the and they bloom from May in my garden until the end of August. How about in your garden? Same here.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Yeah. You know what else you taught me is that I really specifically like them because they also break up other colors. Yes, and that's just a such an added bonus. They're beautiful and they're a good break between other plants.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Especially if you're like me and you know, I'm a I'm a plant hog, I want some of everything, but that can tend to make your garden look like a real hodgepodge. But if you have a unifying plant like the Shasta Daisies, particularly because they're white, if you put a white clump in between, say, you know, a pink and then the white clump and then there's yellow, it doesn't bother you so much. And then there's another white clump because you have, as Katrina said, broken it up, but the white unifies the garden. It keeps taking your eye to the next area of the garden and it doesn't look like hodgepodge. Get chastadaisies. Yeah. So anyway, and they're they're easy to find. Usually in the springtime, you can find six packs of them, which makes them pretty cheap. Uh, don't buy gallons uh if you can find six packs because they'll get to be gallon size on their own pretty quick. Um, other ones, other uh perennials that are of low effort, um daylilies, everybody's familiar with daylilies, they only require deadheading, that's it. Um they can you can't pick those, they don't you know come into the house uh in bouquets. Um you I mean you can pick them and bring them in for that day if you want, but you know, they're they're called daylilies because the flower only is open usually for the day. And uh those clumps can get big, but if you again, if you want this low maintenance garden and you want color, you know, that's just kind of be there all the time. I mean, daylilies they bloom almost all year. Um, that's a great option. Uh I don't particularly plant them because I want things that I can cut and bring in bouquets, but for people who just want to have something color to look at in their garden, great choice. Um, rudebeckia, uh also known as uh uh what's the common name? Black-eyed. Black eyed Susan. Black-eyed Susan, yeah. Um love Rubbeckia. Now that's short-lived, it only lasts a couple of years, but uh it often self-sows, so I like to have that. Yarrow, yarrow, very long-lived uh perennial plant, comes in different colors, pinks. My favorite is the bright yellow. I think that that looks amazing in bouquets. Uh and I my yarrow plump's as old as this garden, which is like 20 years old. It's just been there forever. Wonderful. Uh Cedum. Um, I like sedum. It it's one that blooms in the fall. So we often don't have a lot of things that bloom in the fall. And it's uh on this kind of on the succulent end of the spectrum. And what's cool about that flower is it starts out one kind of pinkish color, and then as it ages, uh uh it the petals don't fall off. They just turn, what would you say, kind of a rusty color? Yeah. So uh that's really pretty. Um and then the chrysanthemums. Do you do you grow chrysanthemums?

SPEAKER_01 31:24

I sometimes. You know, I I they're easy. You know, I like especially when I'm changing like colors in fall. You know, I have a couple always planet because there's something in I think of them as my fall colors. Yeah. And they just come up.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

And what's funny is um when we hosted a birthday party for my husband, gosh, 15 years ago or so, and for the centerpieces, I just went to a big box retailer and got little chrysanthemums and just plumped them in little pots, you know, uh clay, clay pots and used it as a centerpiece, right? Cheap centerpiece. And then so then I had, you know, a dozen of these little six-inch chrysanthemum plants, and they were yellow. And being a gardener, I'm like, oh, I can't just throw them in the trash. That's that's a mortal sin, you know, to throw a perfectly good plant in the trash. So I just went to these odd corners of the garden where I have odd spaces, and I just threw them in there thinking, oh well, you know, they probably won't make it. They're like 15 years old now, and they've spread, and I dig them up and pull them out, and but leave some of them. So chrysanthemums are pretty, you know, crazy in terms of not needing much effort. I'm resilient.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

I saw one in my garden the other day, and I'm looking at it, I'm like, I don't remember planting it. But there I came home from another long trip and there it is. It's coming out and it's happy.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

So if you buy them at the grocery store or at the big pox retailer just because you want, as Katrina said, to have a little uh you know autumn color, um, maybe don't throw it away. If you've got a little spot, put it in the ground. It it may reward you by coming back year after year. And they're also good cut flowers. They're beautiful cut flowers. And if if they get too big for the spot, then you know you can always pull them out. They're easy to pull out. Um, so uh clamatus, a beautiful flowering vine that I like to put kind of in the background if you've got, you know, a trellis or a gate. A clamatis is a great thing to put. We already mentioned sages. Coriopsis, one of my very favorite things to use. My daughter has two toddlers. Uh, she lives in a you know little patio home that doesn't have a lot of garden space, and I landscaped hers uh with it for a low effort, you know, flower garden because she doesn't have a lot of time, and so part of its sun, part of its shade, and in the sunny part, I put the choreopsis and um the uh a couple of bulbs, warm warm season bulbs that just come back year after year, and um uh sea lavender. So the choreopsis, which is orange, and the sea lavender, which is purple. Beautiful, beautiful combination, and there's virtually no mayons. So uh lambs ear, uh, that is not a super long perennial, long-lived perennial, but I do like the gray fuzzy texture if you're gonna, yes, and it's low-growing, so if you need something kind of lowish, verbena bonariensis, I love that's a tall verbena. Uh, and it it self-sows. We're gonna talk about self-sowers because if you want a low effort garden, why not have something that plants itself? You know, then you don't have to do it. So we already talked about the poppies, the California poppies. We'll mention those again. Another thing that perennial that self-sows itself, sometimes considered an annual, but in California, actually, they're they're a perennial. Um, gonfrina, another thing that I don't think gets planted enough. Uh, the perennial, there are annual gonfrinas. There's a perennial uh variety of gonfrina, and they end up sending up these little globe-headed purple flowers. Yeah, they're fun looking flowers. And so those are fun. Um, and they kind of um a lot of perennials in the wintertime when they're not blooming, uh, you just cut them back down to their base. That's how the Shasta daisies are. When you cut off all the blooming part, you're just left with a low base of green leaves. Which is love. Which is fine. It's just like a brown cover. And the golfrina can be like that. Some of them are more shrub-like, but um Gerbera daisy. Now we see those at floris in bouquets all the time. I love gerbers. I I never planted them in my garden until the last few years. I love them. I do too. I love them. And they surprise you and come back.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Yeah, it's so anyway. And they give you a lot of color, especially if you have a big yard. The flowers are big enough so you could see them from a distance.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

They are, and talk about great cut flowers. You know, they're they're fabulous. That's why we see them at Florida Shop because they're great, great cut flowers. I mentioned the sea lavender. Um, if you don't know what that is, that's that purple straw flower that we see a lot in California. Um that that's bulletproof. Uh snails like to hide under it, but the snails don't damage it. So they just like to live under it because the leaves are kind of what would you say, leathery or thick or something. Yeah, so they don't protective of them. Yeah, they don't really eat it, but they they like to hide under it. So when I scatter snail bait, I always put it under sea latter. Um, we talked about all stromeria. Um, gara is one I've come to really like. Uh, gara, again, is one of those plants that when it's not blooming, you just cut it down to its base, little green leaves, and then the next bloom season it sends up these wispy uh pink and white, uh kind of wispy looking flowers, right? Um, not a good cut flower, but beautiful in the garden. And then if you want another self-sower that isn't used by people, which is crazy, and it's all over my garden because it's has self-sowed to death, it's called Rose Campion or Licnus, and it's a gray-leafed uh plant. Again, it's just the base is just gray leaves, and then in the spring, it sends up these stalks that are about two, two and a half feet tall with magenta flowers on them and scads of them. And again, not a great cut flower, but in the garden just looks magical.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

And you know what's nice about what the plants you just talked about, Tina is some of them they blew different times of the year.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

So that makes it really, really nice. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Um, so we still have so much to cover brush. But um, so we've talked about shrubs and perennial flowers. Now we're gonna talk briefly about annual flowers, and I'm gonna focus on annual flowers uh that kind of self-sow. And remember, with annual flowers, you would plant them in the spring and different ones in the fall when it's cool. So you may not want to embrace this if you're really looking for that low effort garden, uh, because that's kind of a lot of planting. But if you want to plant some that self-sow Cosmos, sunflowers, marigolds, zinnias, alysum, uh gomfrina, as I mentioned, um, and Nicotiana and Queen Anne's lace. Now those all will self-sew. Uh for the Nicoshiana, I get I have the white tall variety, and that self-sows. I planted it 15 years ago. It comes back every year. And it comes back in places I don't want it, and I just rip it out. But when it blooms, it is this white cloud. It and it's it's tall, and I like tall flowers. It's about three feet tall, I think. So if you do want to plant some annuals that may come back from self-sowing, those are some suggestions. Um, and then cool season annuals. Um the California poppy and calendula are the ones that self-sow the most reliably, as well as Shirley Poppies, another pass-down plant that I received from a friend. And the Shirley Poppy, instead of low like the California poppy, is tall, like three, three and a half feet tall, and it gets this peony-shaped pom-pom. It is beautiful on the top of it.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

You gave me some of those, they are gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

They're amazing, stunning, very short season, but because when they go to seed, I just shake the seed pots all over the garden and I get them the next year. So no effort.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

No effort. Yeah. I was I forgot about them. Yeah, and then they came up. But I have to talk about poppies. Okay, California poppies. If you have an area that's a little bit drier, my California poppies come back every year, and they are stunningly gorgeous. And I haven't planted them in years and years and years and years. And it's like one of the first they just come out and it just they're so pretty. So there's things to think about, and it's really nice to have these things that self-seed.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Yes, and with the California poppies, you can either get a packet of seed, um, or they actually in the nurseries um the last few years, I've seen them in six packs. And uh, so if you if you're a little nervous about planting from seed, buy them in a six-pack. Yeah, but they're really easy from seeds too.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

I forgot about them. Yeah, you know, this is putting away, I just forgot about them, and then they they've been coming back year after year, and it's a little area that's like by my pond that's really dry, and I can always count on them.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

Oh, that's that's so fun. And there's nothing better than California poppies. I I sit on my landscape committee where I live, and we sew California poppies along our drives, you know, our roads in the community every year, and people just go nuts over that display when they see it everywhere. There's something happy about them.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

And I tell you, when I drive up to your house and see them every year there, and it's just the collar just pops. It's just beautiful. Yeah, it is. And we're you know, it's just it's a happy flower.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

So do it in your own yard, yeah, and it'll be amazing. Um, so the last category of things to plant is bulbs. Um, but we're gonna focus not on those fussy bulbs, but on the ones that will naturalize. And um the warm season bulbs, because again, you know, we have to talk when to plant these things. The warm season bulbs that naturalize, and Katrina tried this at my urging, I think, are dahlias and gladioli. Those are the ones that come back, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Oh my gosh, yes. I love my dahlias, I love my glads, and they just have come back and come back. It's just that was it just those were the ones that popped up when I was gone. It was just all these glass just came up on their own.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

And they're tall, they're like four feet tall. The dahlias are usually tall if you plant the tall varieties, and so to be gone and come back to this giant display must have been amazing.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

It it it was amazing. I mean, they just all came, I have them planted in the back, and they all just start coming up. And I I just came home and I was thinking I was gonna get a thing of weeds, you know, and here I have the poppies are getting the spring, everything's starting to go, the glass is starting to go, everything is going. And I didn't do any much of anything. So that's hence the show.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

What a gift. Yeah, what a gift why we're doing the show. Um, and then we'll talk about cool season bulbs, and those you would be planting in the fall, uh, usually October, November in Southern California. And the ones that naturalize are some of the daffodils, but before you buy them, Google the varieties because there's a million varieties out there, um, because you don't want the ones that I mean, if you want low effort, you know, particularly look for daffodils that come back every year, which includes paper whites. So if anyone gives you paper whites, which are a type of daffodil, for at the holidays, you know, often that's given as a gift. Don't throw those bulbs away, put them in your garden. They will come back. I have bulbs out there, paper whites that have been coming back for 20 years. So don't throw your paper whites away. Dutch iris come back year after year. Um, bearded iris, which isn't really a bulb, but it's a rhizome, but so it's more like a perennial. Um, but they come back year after year and grow into big clumps. So every so many years you'll want to divide them. Frisia, a South African. Bulb, crocosmia, allium, leucogium, and oxalis, which is not just a weed, there's a bulb called oxalis that is very low growing but gets um pretty little tiny, the kind I have are these bright pink flowers in the spring and they last until it gets hot and then they just go dormant. But then as soon as the weather cools off and we get some rain, they're back. And so talk about low effort. Real low effort. Yeah. Um, so anyway, that that wraps up unless you have some things to share, Katrina. I think you covered it all.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Sunny garden. Sunny garden. Now we need to talk about the shady garden or the part shade.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

Park shade garden. So let's let's talk about what shade means. So there's deep, deep shade that never gets any sun. It's really tough to grow a lot of things in deep, deep shade. So we're not gonna talk about that, but we're gonna talk about the part shade garden because that's what a lot of us have, is we have um, you know, places under trees that get, you know, maybe morning sun, not afternoon or dappled shade or whatever. So we're gonna talk about the part shade garden. And apologize if I go too fast, but want to not run out of time before we cover this. So again, we're gonna follow the same format and talk about shrubs first, and we're gonna look at our existing garden. And some of the things I have in my existing garden that I wouldn't pull out because they are pretty low effort, are the camellias, azaleas, gardenias, and ferns. Even though ferns aren't a flower in a shade garden, I think that they give you uh a lot of balance, you know, that to have something that looks nice even when the flowers aren't blooming. So if you have ferns, I might leave them in a shade garden.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

We have a fern garden, and with the we call it a fern garden, but we have some other things in it, but the ferns are always there and it's happy and peaceful.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

And the other thing I like about having ferns is some ferns, particularly the leather leaf ferns, are good for filler for bouquets. So you often see leather leaf um in a bouquet from a florist.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

So that's a that's a good thing to have in your and all the ones that you need it you just mentioned are pretty easy to take care of. You know, and my camellias are gorgeous and my gardenias are wonderful in the smell. It's just low effort.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Low effort for the azaleas and gardenias, especially though, I I do fertilize those once a year and the camellias, but um, if I forget the azaleas, they'll get that you know really pale green and they won't look very healthy. So if you're gonna keep azaleas, do try to remember to fertilize them so they don't look sickly. Yes, yes. And then um moving on to the perennial flowers. Uh I love um these. I think they're pretty low maintenance. Helibores, fuchsia, aqualagia, another name for that is columbine, hooker, viola, bell flowers, another name is campanula, and bacopa. Um, I know a lot of people may not be familiar with hellebores, they're also called lenten rose. Uh, I love to plant new things, and so some years ago I saw a six-pack of these things called helibores that I had never planted, and I love them. I now have spread them out in lots of the shady areas in my garden because they are bulletproof and and they will uh spread and so and and they they bloom in the winter. That's why it's called um Lenten Rose, is you know, February when Lent begins, uh, and it's still winter. That's in the east, that's one of the first things that blooms is these halibores. So if you've never tried them, pretty fun plant. Um, fuchsia, oh fuchsias are beautiful. Um, they can be um some are are maybe a little fussier than others, um, and they do need water. Uh, so um, you know, decide whether or not you want to to include those. Aqualagia is uh a perennial that we often treat as an annual. You'll often see just six packs of them in the nurseries in the springtime, and they get those. How would you describe those flowers?

SPEAKER_02 48:16

Kind of like butterflies or yeah, they'd be kind of delicate.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

I would say look it up on look well, look all these up. Yeah, because you want to make sure they're the size and what you like and the colors and all that, but just look that one up. It's a little hard to describe.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

It is, um, but it does self-sew, which is one reason why I um listed it here. Hooker is uh actually a really nice edging kind of ground covery plant. It it grows in like a little mound, and then in the spring it just sends up these little stems that have these little red flowers, pink flowers on them. Cute little things that are um just kind of nice to look at all year, but then they they bloom once a year, and they their little clumps will grow, and so that's that's why I like those. Uh viola, we all know viola, the the cute little viola plants. Um, they will spread. Uh and these are not the annual violas, this is the perennial viola, and it gets a little purpley flower on it, and it just spreads in between other plants and makes this beautiful brown cover, but it's not, I don't think it's invasive. Um bell flowers, uh, there are different varieties of bell flowers, some are tall, some are short. Uh, the ones that are short and ground cover-y, I think are really lovely in a shade garden because then you just don't have that bare dirt, it just kind of creeps along. And uh and bacopa, I mean, we all know bacopa, right? We we see that in in pots all the time. Bacopa is the best for pots. Uh, does need water, doesn't like to be dried out, but um bacopa now comes not just in white but in some lavender colors, so that's cool. And then we'll talk about the annuals. Uh, we'll also have a little time. Um, so in the warm season, impatience, oh my gosh, those are the bright light, right, of shade gardens. Um, especially the New Guinea impations, they have kind of the bigger flowers, and it's nice because you can see them in the in the shade. Right. And I have some in pots, and they are, what are they? Like two and a half feet in diameter. They're just they're just huge. So it's just you look under this, I I have this tree, and so I can't plant anything in the ground because the roots are there. So I have pots all around this thing, and you just see these big old two-foot colors, you know, white and hot pink, and it's it's pretty cool. So, anyway, I love impatience for the shade. I know that everybody has them, but the reason everybody has them is because they're easy. Easy, easy to give you a lot of color. Yeah, and you may need to uh replace them every couple of years, but you can actually cut impatience back, um, but do it while it's warm because they don't like cold weather. So um if you're gonna prune them, I would would cut them back, you know, like in September so that they still have a chance to regrow new growth. Begonias, beautiful, uh, and there's all kinds of baconias. Coleus, not a flower, but gives you great color. And that polka dot plant, you know, that one that has um that's green, but mostly pink leaves. Yeah, it's beautiful. Pretty fun. It's pretty fun. Yeah. Then for cool season annuals uh in the shade, lobelia, cinoraria, and an violas are lovely. And then for bulbs, um, the bulbs that do well in the shade are Clivia, as I've mentioned before, and Calalily, but they don't they won't bloom in in heavy shade. So put them in partial shade. And of course, daffodils um don't mind part shade. Um, not heavy shade, but part shade. So I think we're running out of time.

SPEAKER_01 52:05

Yeah, we just have maybe a few more minutes. I think maybe we start doing recapping. Recap, yes. So now we've planted all this stuff. We've got to be. And first of all, we know we've given you so much. And like, are you eyes glazed over yet?

SPEAKER_00 52:20

Right, right. So you probably want to go to our website and and play this with paper and pen so that you can take some notes. Um, but let's talk about how you keep this this going. Um, and does it take much? Because that's why Katrina and I like it, is because it doesn't take much. So the only thing that you need to do for a lot of them is deadhead them. So when the flowers are spent, your Shasta daisies are done, deadhead it. Throw them away. Roses, deadhead. Sages, deadhead. So just deadhead, that's the main thing. Um, fertilize. So fertilize when you are planting, when you're planting your new plants, always want to put fertilizer in the ground. And then you want to fertilize a couple of times of year, and it can depend on the plant, like azaleas and camellias want you to fertilize actually right when they're done blooming, kind of counterintuitive, but that's when they want you to fertilize. Um, whereas other plants will appreciate fertilizer like the roses, you know, right when they're starting to set buds. They'll like they'll like some fertilizer. Um, and then the last thing that Katrina and I do, um, but only if we're not expecting plants to self-sow, to keep it tidy and keep the soil uh weed-free, we mulch. We like to put down mulch, which is just uh in my case, I just use compost and put like two inches or we do the same thing. Yeah. And it cleans up the garden too. It looks really nice. But when you know that seeds are dropping of your California poppies or whatever, don't cover them up deeply with mulch because then you'll prevent them from germinating. So that's the only kind of caveat there. Um, and then we'll just do a quick recap on what we talked about were self, good self-sowers. Shasta daisies, Alyssum, Shirley Poppies, California Poppies, Rose Campian or Lickness, the White Tall Flowering Tobacco, Calendula, Cosmos, Halibore, Verbena Bonariensis. Those are my top ten.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

I think you hit the my favorite top ten too. And let's talk about just real quickly about bulbs that multiply. Easy bulbs. Easy ones. Okay, ones that we don't have to take out of the ground every year and refrigerate. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

That wipes out tulips.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

So we don't do tulips. And we love tulips, but neither one of us have the time. So if you have time, tulips are beautiful. But I also find tulips don't last very long once they bloom. So I tend to like both of us tend to like ones that multiply and we don't have to pull up. Exactly. That this is our list.

SPEAKER_00 55:00

So this is the list for the um paper whites and other daffodils, bearded iris, oxalis, freesas, ostromeria, clivia, calilily, and then sometimes the Dutch iris, um, they they will last for multiple years, but um, by the third or fourth year, the numbers are not coming back. So, you know, I still plant them because I love them in bouquets. Um, but the other ones are more reliable about uh either multiplying or being low, low maintenance. Uh and and one last thing to tell you about the bulbs that multiply, it is a good idea once every three years or so to dig up your clumps and divide them because if you leave them in the same clump, the bulbs get smaller and smaller.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

And the flowers get smaller and smaller, less and less.

SPEAKER_00 55:50

But you know, if you don't if you don't have the time, you don't have the bother.

SPEAKER_01 55:53

Don't have the time. It it it's okay. Well, but Tina, I think we you cut we covered a lot today. And um, I know there's a lot of information here. You might want to go back and listen to this again and take some notes, but truly, in our busy, busy lives, this has just been, we both have discovered that maybe it's the older we get or the busier we get. I don't know. But just having not having to be in your garden as much, you know. And sometimes there's times in your life when you want to be in the garden all the time, and sometimes get busy with other things. So having a um low effort garden. Now, this one might take a little bit to get started, and just maybe cleaning some of the stuff out just as a start, but then you'll get rewards year after year after year.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

That's what we are wishing for you, and you'll still enjoy your garden, and your family, friends, and neighbors, when they come over, will say, Oh my gosh, how much time do you spend in this garden? And then when you come home from a trip, you go, oh my gosh, I can't believe how good it looks this year.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

So, with that being said, I think we need to say goodbye for this show.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

Happy gardening, everyone.