How to make a Showcase Garden

 A showcase garden is designed to be both beautiful and purposeful — a space that draws people in, highlights plants at their best, and creates year-round interest. Whether your garden is large or small, learn how to transform it into a standout landscape. On this episode of “In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners”, our topic is How to Make a Showcase Garden!  Two University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners Teena Spindler and Kay Havens discuss how to get your garden show ready! Teena and Kay are two of the premier Master Gardeners who design outdoor spaces.  Learn about some easy steps to get your beautiful garden ready to show as gardens are never truly finished.  A showcase garden develops character over time and becomes a reflection of the gardener’s creativity and care. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I'm Tina Spindler, and you're listening to In the Garden with University of California Master Gardeners. Today we have a really fun, timely topic. We're not really going to tell you how to plant things and grow things so much today as to how to get your garden into absolutely tip-top showcase condition. And why do we want to do that? Well, tis the season, it's spring, and Mother's Day is right around the corner, and weddings and showers and graduations. So there are so many reasons that you want to get your landscape into a really, really beautiful condition. And I have the best guest today who is so, so talented at doing this. Her name is Kay Havens. Kay, welcome. Thank you, Gina. I'm really excited to be here. And Kay is a fellow UC Master Gardener. And as a Master Gardener, she's been through so many of our great trainings. She's got certification in sustainable landscaping, edible landscaping. She's a master composter. And if that wasn't enough, she also has her own landscape consulting business. And as a consultant, she has helped numerous people, some in my very own neighborhood, get their homes ready for some pretty momentous events. So she's going to be able to give us today some wonderful tips for both the short-term project. So if you've got your in-laws coming over in a couple of weeks, she can help you out with that. But we're also going to talk about some longer-term projects. For instance, if you have an August wedding and you want to do a longer-term fix-up to your yard. So it's okay, let's get started. Do you want to start with some of the quick fixes if we've got something coming up really soon? You know, I think that's a great idea because people sometimes, if you tell them about big events, they get awfully scared right away. And the thing with spring is it's spring and it's so wonderful after winter to be thinking of beautiful color in the garden, to be thinking of bloom again, to be thinking of great growth, to be thinking of how are you going to use this to bring joy and beauty into other people's lives, not just your own. So we have some events coming up. Yeah, I I know that uh I've talked to people and you know they they are very, you know, complimentary because I'm in the garden a lot, right? So I I usually try to have color all the time, but they say, Oh my gosh, you know, I've got my in-laws coming over for Mother's Day. My house has been designated as the go-to place for this Mother's Day, and I'm just not a gardener, and while it looks okay, you know, what can I do to get it party ready? And so I know you have some really good tips to do a party ready kind of situation that doesn't take a whole lot of time to enact. Well, it's good that you start small because when you're setting the scene, it's important to know the scope of work. Don't think you have to do the entire garden. Start at how many people are coming. Are you gonna have five people, ten people, twenty people? Set the stage for them coming into your home. What are they actually going to notice? You have to realize that people, when they get together, often they are so busy interacting that they aren't going to notice a lot of what you will notice. Ah, so you've just lowered our stress level right away because now we aren't gonna totally panic over every every weed and and every not perfect plant. So so focus on the areas you're gonna be using and and the number of people that you have to accommodate. Right. So see see your guests arriving and realize that they are often your best ornament. Think of how people dress in the springtime, know it's gonna be beautiful weather for your garden event, plan for contingencies just in case. But see them coming up your front drive, up your front steps. What is going to grab their eye right at your front door? It doesn't have to be your entire whole front yard doesn't have to be done to the nines, but maybe have some pops of color at the front door. Yellow is often a great color for spring, and there's so many choices in the yellow colorway that you can choose from that can actually give you quite a lot of long bloom. So I would then take that to mean as I'm walking up to my house, picture where I can put a pot perhaps, or a couple of pots of colorful things. A couple of pots. You can do one tall pot, one small pot, a pair of tall pots. Walk up the driveway as if you're walking with other people. This is important because often we see the garden as if we're just walking around it alone, and that's not the case. You'll often have several people walking around the garden together. So don't crowd your walkway, but make sure you have a gracious entry and one really good pop there, maybe tall with something smaller in front. Or if you have a really wide entry, then you can do two. But think about the colors that you're going to be using in the house if you really want to get sophisticated. When it comes to events, I always ask about the color scheme because I would like to bring that to the front too. If somebody's doing sunflower yellow, make sure you have sunflower yellow out front. Absolutely. Yeah. Calendulas, if they're in season, know your plants that are in season, and bring that color all the way from the front to the table to the backyard. So, what are your favorite things? So we're, you know, we're in April, going into May, June. So, what would be some of your favorite colorful plants that you might use this time of year? Well, it depends on your time frame. So I'm glad that you mentioned that because if you are only a week out, annuals are going to be about the only thing you can do that are going to get you those pops of color. And we know what those are, those little pony packs, four inches. You can always go buy something larger at a Home Depot or better garden center that's going to give you a little more color. But think about the color that you're using throughout and coordinate it. You don't want to have a circus effect. Pick just two or three colors that coordinate well off that color wheel. That's a good point because I know you know I always want one of everything. I'm I have a hard time restraining myself when I go to the nursery because I want to try everything, and and I get away with it because I have a pretty big yard, so I can usually find places for it. But when you're when you're just landscaping or or wanting to spruce up the color at a front entryway or along a driveway, you're you're so right. You you gotta stick to just a few colors. The yellow and blue is always a great color combination. You can do pinks and silvers, you can go, you but don't jumble things up too much. Try and keep it very simple. Maybe just three colors if it's your first time out. And when you do those pots, remember you're gonna want something tall in the middle and towards the back that's called your thriller. You're gonna need a filler. Have you already talked about this, Tina? We have on other shows, but this is something you can't emphasize enough. You can't because it makes it so much easier for the homeowner. Get something tall to go in the back, filler that's got some interesting texture, and then a spiller, which can often be a lobelia, which is a brilliant blue, or something silver that could last all summer long. Or a bacopa if it's bacopa, little sparkly white. Yeah. Great idea with a bacopa. Okay, so now we've um dressed up our front walkway or driveway or or the steps to our to our home with these great um pots, or if we're putting them in the ground, we've limited ourselves to maybe three colors so that it doesn't look like a jumble. Now we get inside, we're hoping that people are gonna not just stay inside, but they're gonna move out into our backyard, our patio. Now, now what do we do? Now we've got maybe a little more area to deal with. Now you've got a little more area. It's important to when you're setting up to think about how much room you need people to circulate in. Often we think as gardeners that we're gonna fill up all the space with plants, and sometimes that's not why. Sometimes you really need to have room for people to be able to move. So don't get too many pots going out back. I would prefer you put it in the ground if it has some height than to fill up all your room for people. But Tina, this is something that you do really beautifully is you set the table using color. I've always admired that at your house. Use something that's got a little shazam on it because that's the best way to make your dining table come alive. That's where you can really push the color with gosh, it's so easy to get paper plates and napkins that have wonderful color. Yeah, it's it's I wish I could take credit for it, but um I had a friend who is a decorator, obviously way more skilled than me, in that area. And the thing that she told me to do is to quit thinking about the outside, having outside tablecloths, plates, and so on and so forth. She says, look in your house. She says, pick your favorite things from in your house. That brightly colored tablecloth, those really magnificent candlesticks, and she says, just start dragging stuff from inside your house. Pillows. Pillows, exactly. She did that. She took the sofa pillows from the family room and put them out on the patio furniture, and all of a sudden it was popped. Amazing, yeah. Yeah. So I I I absolutely agree. If you quit thinking of your outside as outside and you just think of it as a room, it kind of frees you. You can bring that stuff out for a day. It's not going to get room. It's not perfectly well. You can get a bag of lemons, pour them into a pot, and put them out on the patio, and all of a sudden you look like a million bucks. Fill up that big glass pitcher with lemon slices right next to it, chill a little ice in there, and who doesn't want to come and fill up their little glass with some water? So now you've got your guests on the patio, and hopefully they're chatting away really nicely. This is what you're saying. And they're saying a little drink, and there might be a little there might be a little something in their glasses. There may not be. You know, mimosas are awfully nice. I don't know if we can mention it. Sometimes the drinks alone can be a decoration. Colorful. Colorful. Be sure and dress up that glass. Have a little lime. Don't be afraid to put pansies in the water. Pansies are edible, can really sprig it up for spring. People are always surprised to see a little something in their water. And pansies have great colors. Boy, pansies are just like the most beautiful. Little violas, those little teeny little blossoms. Go ahead and drop those in there. Have them floating with the lemons because people will think, wow, look at that. It becomes an arrangement in and of itself. Yeah. Don't feel you have to do flower arrangements. You can always get a really nice plant to put on the table. Dress it up just a little bit. Use a teeny bit of moss around the edges of it so that whatever great container you brought from the inside out doesn't show. And then that plant can go into your garden later. That's one of my better ways of getting a little something extra special and then dropping it into the garden or putting it in a great pot of its own later. That's a great idea. I actually, my husband had a one of those big O birthdays last fall. And um so I was having, you know, a lot of people over for a barbecue, and rather than spend a lot of money on cut flowers, the chrysanthemums, of course, at that time of year were stunning. And I just grabbed some of those from our one of our favorite big box retailers. And some of those discount boxes have some amazing value. Yeah. And then I just bought, you know, little um uh not even uh woven pots, but more they looked almost like mini bushel barrels. They they just had those, you know, little containers there. And you're right, you pop that in, you put a little mozz around it, and done. If you really have to get fancy for a baby shower or something like that, you can coordinate with ribbon everywhere. You can get those large layups of ribbon at some of our big discount boxes that are pretty big ribbon, and you can just literally tie one on everywhere. Yeah. Make sure you have enough to gracefully drape down the side of whatever your containers are, but it's amazing how it will pull your whole look together from the front door to your table and even to your serving area if you just coordinate your bows. That that's a great idea. Yeah, to to do that with the and I assume the wire bows, the ones that have a little wire in that that will hold their shape are are better than thanks. Much better. Because you actually like to be doing this the night before. Yeah. And they can take the damp of an evening just fine. Yeah, just fine. Well, uh assuming that that we have this is real manageable so far. We we can do our entryway with a couple of pots, um, keeping our colors somewhat consistent, dressing them up with bows, carry that theme out into our patio that we've now uh dressed with linens and and uh candlesticks and other accessories from from inside. But I'm a little afraid people are gonna look beyond the patio. So they look beyond the patio, walk a little farther with me, yes. So often if you have the luxury of some time, you may want to go a little bigger in the backyard. Sometimes it's not the best plan to think that you're gonna fill in with lots of little teeny plants, although that is sometimes a great option if you need just color the corners or just to really get some little annuals in there. But if you can get a month on the event, or even better, six weeks, you can maybe get in some larger plants that live give a little bit more color for a longer period of time. Because lo and behold, you might put those little annuals in and they might go through a wave of color that ends right before your event. So often it's a good idea to have long bloomers. Ask at your nursery what plant can I get that is going to bloom for weeks at a time and look good for a long period of time. There are a lot of salvias that may fall into this category, but there's wide variability. I know there's one that I like called Mystic Spires that blooms for a really long period of time. And the Mexican bush sage looks great, but it blooms only a couple times a year. So be sure and ask your nursery prof professional. And so you're talking about maybe some shrubs that get a couple of feet tall, they're not just, you know, the six-inch nursery. That's where your economy comes in because if you think small, if and a lot of us grew up with um, and I love Disneyland. I love the what I love the way that Disneyland is so I mean, they've really that they're marvelous now in their landscaping. But a lot of us think that we have to paint by numbers and just fill in with the annuals, and that's not the case. You want to think a little bit larger, think about good backbone. Maybe now is the time that you really take a good look at your garden, get rid of all of the dead and icky stuff. It's springtime. Anything that's dead, it's time for it to go. And replace it with something that's gonna be a good long-term investment for your garden. Good point. So so you don't have to think that you have to re-landscape the whole place, but you can pick and choose some key areas, some scraggly looking things, and pull those out and replace them with something that's kind of stunning. Right. Yeah, this this might be the opportunity you've been looking for. A lot of us like to have a little event because we give ourselves permission to kind of do the things that we know that need to be done in our gardens. Right. And sometimes that can be as simple as a good backdrop. Right. Often that's overlooked in a garden. Good backbone, good backdrop, interesting textures. But more than anything, probably I I know from being on a few garden tours, often if you just tidy up Oh, absolutely. It's surprising how much you feel like you have a whole new garden. That's why if you get out there that's six weeks ahead, clean, wake out anything that's dead, tip, feed. And these days we have to be careful about our watering, but there's no reason you can't be very careful about your watering using, you know, you can drip with a hose just as well as you can with a an entire drip system. You just have to be ready to use a timer. But um it's really important to clean and mulch. Okay, let's let's talk about that just a little bit more in detail. Uh because I think, you know, we all say, oh yeah, we'll clean up, but but the the garden uh explanation of cleaning up means pulling out things that are not thriving, that are looking sickly, and giving things a haircut if if you have those types of plants. When you said tip, in case our listeners don't understand what that that phrase means in a garden, it it means that you need to uh take off a bit of that plant, correct? Well, it's like sh getting your hair shaped up. There you go. That's a good analogy. You don't a lot of people think that is a little round ball. And I would like to correct that impression right away. I would much rather see plants in a natural shape or even in a low mushroom than in a little round ball. But that's that's something that you can kind of do over the long term because you really want to have a lot of blooms on that plant. And if you prune it into a ball, it's only gonna have flowers on the top. But if you prune it down lower and wider, it will have blooms over the whole surface. Oh, good point. So there's a little bit of you know, technique to trimming that a person who does their own gardener that does their own gardening can achieve where uh maybe a mow and blow person might not take the time. Right. And that really shows when you have people over. There's people can see the difference. Right, right. And then you also mentioned mulch, which you and I both know if you do nothing else but pull out the dead things and then mulch, and you don't even plant a single plant, it will be immensely beautiful just doing that. Oh, the the difference that mulch makes cannot be underestimated. Number one, it's gonna conserve moisture. Number two, it's gonna make your soil temperatures a lot more even and plant friendly. Number three, it's gonna create uh an environment in the soil which is going to invite all the organisms that make soil happy and in turn make your plants happy. So um there's and and the most important thing is it cuts weeding down tremendously. That's my favorite thing. Yeah, that's my favorite thing too. Um and if you do get weeds, they just pop right out because the soil is so soft. It helps alleviate problems with compaction, it helps improve the quality of any kind of soil, sand or clay. So mulch is one of our number one things to do. And and we know as master gardeners, from a health standpoint of the garden and the soil, that it's the number one thing to do. But from a look standpoint, there is nothing that looks tidier and well cared for than a freshly mulched garden. So if you were going to have a a a party, when would you put the mulch down? I mean, assuming that you want to have a fresh look, what what would you do? When would you do it? No, I don't want to lay a hard and fast rule. Mm-hmm. If I could do it the day before and water it in, I I probably would, but that's not realistic because you're gonna want to be getting ready for your party. Right. You can do it a several weeks ahead. Okay. And then you can ha have like a bag on standby that you use for just freshening up any spots where you might have planted something. Sure. So and you can also do it months ahead and then just put a very thick layer on and scratch it up a little bit beforehand too. So long as you have a good dark color. Please, please do not use red bark. Especially where we live. It just doesn't go. It's a crime against horticulture. Oh. Now, um, for some of our listeners who maybe haven't mulched before, can you explain the different kinds of mulch and what type would be appropriate in different areas and plant situations? Sure, because mulch can be anything from a layer of gravel and rocks to a uh a fabric that you put a little something down over the top of. I don't like the look of just fabric at all. And I don't think that's actually very um long-term friendly either, because it's going to, if you do use landscape fabric, it's going to erode a lot more quickly being exposed to the sun. So you can put landscape fabric down and then put mulch at a lighter rate on top of it, but just know that you're going to have to keep refreshing your mulch. You've got heavy-based mulches that can be a larger bark type. Um, there are things called gorilla hair that will stay on slopes a little bit better because they the fibers interlock, you're gonna have to pay a little bit more money for that. Gorilla hair, I love that name. Yeah, there's cocoa fiber, which you don't want to use if you have dogs because it's um it is a cocoa product and it has theobromine and it can make the dog sick. But if you don't have dogs, it smells makes your garden smell like chocolate.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Oh, that would probably be a bad thing. I would probably want to crave the chocolate then.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

But that's good to know. I didn't know it had an effect on dogs. It's widely available and often this time of year, it can be specially priced at the big box stores where you can buy two, get one free. So you have every reason to um look into doing it. The thing is, take a look at your site because sometimes if you have a large yard, you might want to do a mulching party with your neighbors. We used to do that in the old neighborhood where we'd talk to some of the larger mulching companies and have them bring us a whole load, and we'd when we were younger, use wheelbarrows and buckets and and mulch our yards. Um, but if you can't do the wheelbarrows and the shovels, then bag product um is a lot easier to haul around, a lot easier to kind of clean up to. Yeah, it is, and and I can I can attest to this because I I do like to mulch and I've seen the benefit in my yard over the years, but uh I'm not as young as I used to be either. And so the whole getting um a pickup, you know, back of a pickup full and wheel bearing, wheelbarrowing it around myself is something that I I'm just not up for these days. And I finally have just uh asked my you know gardener. I do a lot of my own gardening, but I still have a gardener to do some of the heavier stuff, and I I just pay them, you know, once a year to bring it um in in bulk in their truck and have them spread it. And then uh at another time of the year, because I like to try and mulch about twice a year, I only have to touch up and and then I can just you know do smaller amounts myself or with my strong backed husband. But um, but yeah, I if you're having an event and you and you really want to mulch your whole yard, ask your gardener what it would cost. It it might not be as expensive as you think. And boy, saving your back so that you're you're a happy camper at your party might be worth it. It's really important to know your limitations with all of these things. Well, I think we've gotten a great start uh for folks who have the Mother's Day party or some other party that's coming up relatively quickly, but maybe we can talk a minute now about moving on to perhaps a more extensive look at your yard if you're having, say, a bigger event, or heaven forbid you're on a garden tour like I am this year.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Because then you really have to look at the whole yard. That gets freaking serious.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Well, let's start with something like a wedding. Because people would uh uh uh at first thought would think a wedding would be overwhelming in a garden. But I'm gonna use it as an illustration because it's really important to set the scope of your work when you're thinking about doing a large event and planning out ahead, knowing what is going to be happening in your garden so that you don't feel the entire garden has to be done. So if you can ahead of time identify number one, how many people are going to be coming, number two, where things are going to be set up. Because if you're going to have drink stations, if there's going to be an arbor, if there's going to be tables across the entire lawn, if you're going to be having to set up it, heaven forbid, in the garage. Um, you know, knowing all of these things ahead of time will help you focus your efforts where they are needed. Often we go off and we do a lot more work than we have to do. Good point. In my experience, I found it's very important to find out this time of year if they're going to be having umbrellas. Because umbrellas actually shield a lot of your garden from view. Oh, good point. Yeah. So if you have a part of your garden that you really don't want to have to address for this event, see if they can't set up a drink station right in front of it with a big umbrella or two. Interesting. And that whole problem goes away. You can get rid of an awful lot of your garden and then focus on the things that people are really going to see and notice. Because no sense, you know, knocking yourself out if nobody's ever going to see that thing behind the drink station. Right, right. Another thing is to realize how long people are going to be spending in any area. So as people come to the site, it's going to be very brief. They're going to be walking in, they're going to be more involved with, you know, what's in their handbag, how their, you know, shoes feel. Don't you don't feel that the front yard, unless there are tables out there, really needs to be anything more than what we were talking about earlier with the great entrance. Um plan out the backyard for where people are going to be looking. If it's a wedding and they're all going to be looking, you know, at the event, um, is there going to be an arbor? An arbor takes up, again, a lot of visual space. And you know that's probably going to be decorated. So your garden actually really doesn't have to be knocked dead perfect behind it. Interesting. Yeah, it's it's more like a canvas on which you bring in props or a stage on which you bring in props. Which is important to know too, because often there is a stage, or people maybe, you know, there might be a small dance floor. Worth knowing because heck, you know, do you really have to get your lawn in perfect condition for several hundred people to trot around on it? As, you know, with garden tours, that's an important thing to know too, that you're going to be having to deal with traffic. Right. So, um, and traffic takes up a certain amount of space, and um so uh plan it out in your mind ahead of time. See the event in the space, know, find out about the colors. Often you may not want to be doing a competing color in your yard. You may be better off just doing a straight green and white garden and having the event be the central focus point. Good point. So you could you may be able to get away with just a very simple palette and not have to do as much as you think. But now the garden tour, Tina, we know this is different.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

And I agree with this again.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

I'm not sure why I signed up again, but and I why I'm here. First of all, you can expect several hundred people and your garden, probably many more. So traffic flow bec again becomes very important. And where is that tourist, garden tourist, going to be first really encountering your garden? And I know I've been on several garden tours at your home, and you have some wonderful, wonderful um ways of making that person feel that they are someplace special. And that includes having just a very interesting container filled with something that kind of announces what's around the next bend. So um signage becomes really important in garden tours. People need to know where they're going. And you can have a you can get to work on that early, make sure it kind of speaks to your taste. Sometimes it's often provided on the street, so you don't have to worry about that. The people will be able to find their way to your home on the street, depending on whoever is putting on the garden tour. But you might want to find ways to invite people to different parts of your garden when they're there. So which gate are they going to be coming through? So people need to walk their gardens as if they are on the garden tour, and that can be very scary because you're gonna have people walking through your potting bench. Joe, she's getting nervous now. You're gonna have because it often helps to have traffic just going one way when you have several hundred people viewing your home. So they need to enter and exit. So at the entry and at the exit, it's often good to have a little something special. And then, as I said, some directions in your garden. Something to build a little anticipation. You could have something as simple as an arrow or a little sign saying, This way to and you can announce different parts of your garden this way to the edible section, this way to the flower border, and then the the person who's there gets to choose. We love choices. It's like which way do I go? Um, and then you can also do whimsical things along the way. I'm not big on tchotchis, but you can um have special little vignettes, which is where you can show your individuality and why your garden is different. I I really, really like to see the individuality of the gardener in the garden itself. And if you're on a garden tour, you also want to see how people solve problems. And I know you and I have been on some garden tours in Northern California that were exceptional for how people solved problems in their garden in creative ways. I'm thinking of a time we came around a corner and the gentleman didn't have much space in his garden at all. The garden was probably like 20 by 40, if that. And he had he was storing all of his outdoor extra dining chairs in the tree. Oh, I remember that. It was it was the cutest thing I ever saw. It was the cutest thing. I he painted them all red. Different color, yeah, a bright color. And he got he the central theme as you walked, he had a very clear scarlet red that was throughout the garden. And it really did help pull it together. It was little bits of art on the wall, little bits of you know, like a little red radio wagon here, the red chairs pulled up into the tree. You kind of went around the corner. He had the most whimsical hedges of all time, you know, trimmed into the into different shapes. Into the shapes of it. Like the one that was like an eyeglasses, yeah. Like an eyeglasses made out. We loved that garden. I think we might have gone around twice, probably, because it was just so much fun, and he had solved all these problems in very creative ways. So don't be afraid to be a little bit different and to show how you solve problems because that's why people are there. We can see beautiful gardens over and over again, but show yourself and how you solve problems. Another one I saw once was a hillside where there had been some erosional problems, and the women had used wine bottles kind of partially buried into the hillside to control the erosion and the different colors, all you saw was the bottom of the wine bottles, and they've kind of been stacked up in a very interesting way, and then the soil had kind of been um put over the top of them, and the greens and the blues and the browns of the wine bottles really, really made it interesting. So you I you know, you know you've got a winner when people stop and start taking pictures. Absolutely. You you mentioned um the the theme of color and and the one garden you and I saw where the the gentleman chose this kind of cherry red, fire engine red, that he repeated with furniture and other accents uh throughout the garden, which as you said tied the garden together. Can you um because I know you have such a great eye for this, can you digress maybe a little? But it really isn't a digression because for any event that you have or or just designing your garden in general for your own enjoyment, can you talk just a little bit about color and how that works in the garden from a plant palette standpoint and and then also how you can bring accessories into to emphasize that? Absolutely. You know, I I often relate it in the way that people get dressed. You don't put on all of your colors at once. Unless you're three. Unless you're three. But you know, you give a little thought to what you're putting on, and you don't, you know, you keep you keep it kind of simple because it's more effective that way. You really don't want to look like a circus clown. I mean, you you think of a circus clown, red, white, all the different colors going on at the same time. And yes, there is a certain joy in that. You know, it's it it can be very fun to have like a little area where you just do that, you just go wild, you have you know ceramic pots that are all fiesta colors, and um but keep that to a small little happy little area, um, and then move on to being a little bit uh more um keeping things within a certain color range. So use that color wheel because a garden, okay, think about this. If you have a pale pink Eden rose spilling over the wall, do you really, you know, think about how you can make that rose look its best? What if you were wearing pale pink, which I happen to be wearing right now, which is probably making me think of the Eden roses, what would you put next to that to make it really sing? That's right. Yeah. So um, you know, I'm looking at your chartreuse, and that looks great. Silver looks great with pink, uh, whites look great with pink, but think about your event too. This would be beautiful for a wedding shower, right? Yeah. And for a wedding. But if it's like a you know orange or yeah, yeah, exactly. You can you can kind of get the color, you have to give the color a little bit of thought, and you'll be so much happier with the whole effect if you do. So the gentleman that had all those great thrift store finds that he painted that same color throughout, he was really on to something, and you can be too. So if you have a favorite color that you really like, you can use it in more than one place in your garden to harmonize. Now I know you have some tricks too, because in your garden, well, in mine, I because I for Orange County, I have a pretty large garden, and um, as I mentioned earlier, I'm a plantaholic. There's no AA for that. So I just deal with it. Um, but in order to accommodate my love of having a lot of different kinds of plants, I have allowed myself to have different colors in different sections of my garden, and then I have a unifying plant that ties everything together, which in my case happens to be a white chasta daisy. And so I think for me, by having that repetition of a single color, a single plant that you can see in different places of the garden, it it doesn't seem so disharmonious that you are going from pink and at the other end of the garden there's some salmon-colored, you know, or orange-colored roses. But but it's okay because it's, I think, far enough apart, and in between you keep seeing the white shasta daisies repeated. And I think that can't be repeated enough that a white is a terrific neutral. And a lot of the white plants tend to be terrific bloomers as well. Isn't that the case? I I find that white plants are so much sturdier than white blooming plants, seem to just be more vigorous than some of the other colors. Is is that just my imagination? I think I'm kind of with you on that. You know, a lot of people think that, you know, have a thing about iceberg roses, but I have never met a more generous plant in my life. They just, you know, my mother used to say that if they were women, you really wouldn't like them because they give and give and give and give and give and they never stop. I mean, iceberg roses, I have a ton of them in my yard, and uh, you know, sometimes I'm like, oh, that's just so common. But then on the other hand, I'm like, but they're blooming like crazy, so they get to stay. That gal works really hard. Yeah, yeah, they work really, really hard. And having good hardworking plants in your garden makes your life easier. And so why not? Why not? Yeah. Why not? And and that, you know, the the older I get, that tends to be my philosophy that I'm adopting more and more is plants that need a lot of fussing over don't get to come in my garden. I I want some that are, you know, true blue and hardworking and give you a lot of bang for the buck. I I've been noticing um a lot of plants that are undersun in our communities. And with the drought, we need to be cognizant of that, that there are some work horse plants out there that can survive with very little water, bloom their hearts out, and we know who they are because they're often in um commercial areas, and people um say bad things about them because they're in parking lots. But they are terrific work horses, and you can use them as backdrops in your garden. Just groom them in a different way, groom them lower, groom them a little bit more differently, where the bloom actually shows up differently with Escalonia. If you don't cut it into a ball and you keep it nice and low, it's a terrific plant. Great, great dark green value that looks great with the pink. And the reds and um but start looking at those old campaigners. Give us a few more. Escalonia is a great one, and and you're right, if you don't take the electric shears to it, you know, and let it be a little more natural, it's it's a completely different looking plant. What are what are some other ones you would say? You know, it's just some of the people tend to disrespect hedge plants entirely. And I'm along with um Richard Smouth smouse with the um LA Times saying you cannot have a good garden without a good backdrop. And so some of the old standbys, the good old Lygostrum, the Texas Privet, very strong performer. You know, it just when you go to that big box store, it isn't gonna be the first thing you buy if you want blooms, but it probably should be because if you plant good dark green in the backdrop, you don't have to have as much color in the foreground. And you can build a little bit of height into the garden, you can build a lot of dimension into the garden, and that goes a really, really long ways long term in your garden. A lot of these plants don't need as much water as your annuals. You like I said, you don't need to fill your entire garden up with plants that need a lot of water, and we're we're all going to have to be more cognizant of that. And it doesn't mean we can't have beautiful gardens, and it doesn't mean we have to give up our annuals, it just means we may have to have a few pots of them rather than entire beds of them. Right. Just be wise. Look at your sight lines. This is something that's often overlooked. You know, if people aren't going to be seeing a certain part of your garden, there's no need to be spinning an awful lot of water in that part of your garden. So go ahead and put in good strong backbone plants in that part of your garden, but make sure that outside your kitchen window, that should be beautiful. Or someplace where you sit and you read and you look out into the garden, where you look out should be beautiful too. So that's that's a good point. I I just learned that lesson. Uh, we have a a tree, a beautiful sycamore, right outside our kitchen window, and I love looking at the tree, but guess what? The roots have gotten to the point where nothing will grow underneath it. And it finally dawned on me that I could put pots under the tree, and it's normally way too hot in my garden to grow things like fuchsia or begonias. But guess what? In pots under a sycamore tree, they're perfectly happy. So it took me a while to think to me that was outside the box because I wanted to keep planting things in the ground, you know. But um, but you're right, it's it's that's one of my areas that is worth a little more time and effort because I'm at that kitchen window doing dishes every day in the time. You should love your garden, your joy your garden should bring you joy every day. And you know, we have a saying in Master Gardeners that the best thing for your garden is you in it. Absolutely. So get out there and um really take a good look at what's going on in your garden, take a look at your sight lines, know that when you're in the house and you look out, that those places are important to you and in your life and in events as well, because we've been talking about events. Yes, and and uh to provide a few other little tips since I'm doing my, I don't know, fourth or fifth garden tour this year, there there are a couple of things that I have found that um people have commented on and that I too find I enjoy when I because I go on garden tours, I love to go on garden tours every year. And uh you mentioned uh signage, and um just so our listeners uh know we're not just talking signage about you know the vegetable garden is this away or the perennial garden is that away. The other kind of signage I find that people really do enjoy is if you have fruit trees in your garden, for instance, people love to know because garden tours are often at the time of year when these fruit trees are blossoming or bearing fruit, you know, baby peaches or apricots or whatever. And they might be interested to know what variety you have, because in Southern California, as we all know, not everything produces well here, and you have to be careful about getting low chill varieties. So, one of the things I try to do with some of the bigger elements in the yard, some of the roses, some of the trees, fruit trees, is I'll just get the little nursery, you know, signs and use a label maker and just put that it's you know a gold-kissed apricot. And I've had people come up to me and say, Oh, thank you so much. I've been wanting to get an apricot, but I wasn't sure which one to get. So I think that kind of signage, if you're doing obviously for a wedding for Mother's Day, not important. Not important. But um, if you if you are on a garden tour, the people by definition who are coming on a garden tour are plant lovers, and so they often want to know what the plants are. So I I pick out, like I said, either kind of the bigger ones, or if I have something that I know is kind of unusual, then I'll I'll try and put a sign if I remember what it is. Well, part of it is the education. Uh that's why people are going. They love the beauty, but they want to learn as well. And which talking of signage, often the week before that geranium matarance will have been in perfect bloom. The thing will have been in three feet across across with magenta blossoms, and by the time the garden tour comes off, it's now nodding its head and and going to sleep. So sometimes it's also a great idea to take a picture of that spectacular object you lost the week before. Okay, that's a great idea. I've never done that. A big picture, blow it up, put it in an acrylic sleeve, and put it on a stake in front of that plant and plant, and you can say, So sorry you missed me. That is a great idea. I've never done that. You know, sometimes it's not a bad idea to acknowledge that we're all human. I have read a really funny blog from a gardener back east, and it's been a very, very cold winter back east. And the garden tourists back there are really suffering. And she um was not able to get out into her garden. And so she was really suffering emotionally, thinking that she had to have this big wow garden um for this event. And the nurserymen didn't even have plants to put in. Wow. And so she had to use extensive assignments photos. But she also had to realize her limits. And that's important at this stage of the game to realize too that we all have our limits. We're dealing with nature, and sometimes uh all of us need to acknowledge that Mother Nature's gonna have her way. Absolutely. The things aren't gonna be in in the nursery that you think are gonna be in at the nursery. If you think you're gonna be putting in impatience and they're gonna be filling in this huge bed, well, sorry to tell you, there's impatient blight. Yeah, and so you're gonna have to find a new go-to, which is very difficult for a lot of people. So be willing to accept that nature is gonna have its way in your garden and roll with it a little bit. Yeah, and be and be inspired by just walking through the nursery. I know I I'm having to adjust a bit because we had such a warm winter that everything's been blooming early in my garden, and so I think the roses will be taking a break by the time the garden tour is here, the first weekend in May. And so I'm now in the walk in the nursery saying, okay, you know, what can I get that is big enough that it's gonna have some bloom, and I can, you know, plop in a few little spots throughout the garden, um, knowing that the roses I thought I was gonna have are, you know, may not be there. So you have to be willing to think out, like you said, outside the box and be inspired. We should mention the rose trick since we're probably coming towards the end of the rose. Oh, yeah, definitely. Talk about the whole fertilizing yeah. If you know you're going to have an event, you want to disbud your roses at least six weeks beforehand. And sometimes that's very hard to do, especially this time of year, because the most beautiful blooms are at the beginning. But disbudding, uh taking those buds right off and um feeding your plants up and making sure they have adequate water for roses in particular, you want them to be coming into bloom for your event, and then pray for good weather. So if we were had I done that, I should have backed up six weeks before the event, and whatever buds were on my roses I should have taken off. Yep. And would you do that? Because I've never done that before. Have would you do that down to the five leaflet leaf just like you were deadheading? Is that where you would have? It's like you're deadheading. Okay. And then you would fertilize at that time. Well, if you have your roses on a regular rose schedule, leave them on your regular rose schedule. Okay. But if it looks like they're being a little slow to set those buds, go ahead and give them a foliar feed. You can uh there are a number of things that you can spray right on the foliage that's going to give them an extra boost of energy right from their leaves. And you would do that the six weeks before, or I would probably do that about uh week three. About week three. Oh, okay. So pretty close to when you because you would you should see those buds swelling up and getting pretty darn fat right before your event. Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Well, for the next garden tour I'm on, I'll have to do that.

SPEAKER_01 54:07

Well, we've about run out of time, Kay. This has been really fun. I've had a blast to catch up with you and just have this fun, fun chat. So I hope everyone out there enjoys their gardens mostly. Don't stress. Use a few of these hints and hopefully you'll have a beautiful garden and lots of fun at whatever events you're hosting. In the meantime, I think we ought to run out and look at your garden. I know see your garden. He hasn't been to my house in a while, so I think we'll do that.