301 2024 Garden Trends

Show Transcript

GB 301 2024 Garden Trends TRANSCRIPT

Farmer Fred  0:00

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. It's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred.

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.

2024 Garden Trends Pt. 1

Farmer Fred

What are you planning on doing in the garden in 2024? The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society has spoken to gardeners and professional landscapers throughout America to find out what’s on their to do list this year…or not to do.

For example, quieter gardening is a trend. So is how leaves from your trees are being put to use. Among the popular plants for 2024: Fruit trees, houseplants, ornamental grasses, sedges and an overwhelming demand for hydrangeas. Also homeowners are getting tired of dealing with one commonly used plant that has lots of problems and requires lots of work: boxwoods.

We talk with the vice president of horticulture for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Andrew Bunting, about these trends. Plus he has info about the upcoming edition of the largest flower show in the nation, The Philadelphia Flower Show, which has been going strong since 1829.

We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Let’s go!

Farmer Fred

So what is New Year's for you? For most people, it might be January 1, but I think for gardeners, the new year starts when the catalogs start hitting the mailbox. And I don't know about you, but the catalogs started hitting the mailbox in late December. So we're wondering about 2024 for the new year, and what we're going to do in the garden. And you're probably looking at those catalogs going oh, that's a nice plant. Oh, that's a nice plant. Well, let's widen your perspective a bit. And think about, well, what's nice for your garden? Let's talk about gardening trends that are coming up. And one group of people who sort of have a magic eight ball that can figure out what's going to happen in 2024, in the way of gardening, is the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. And they come out with their annual list of top trends for gardeners. So what do we expect to see in the new year? we're talking with Andrew Bunting. He is vice president of horticulture for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which is probably more famous for their Philadelphia Flower Show, which happens in late winter, early spring. And coming up, It'll be in March. We'll have details about that. Andrew, it's a pleasure talking with you again, and always good to find out what's going to be happening in the garden, both indoors and outdoors.

Andrew Bunting  3:09

It's good to talk with you again.

Farmer Fred  3:11

Talk about how you develop these gardening trends on a yearly basis.

Andrew Bunting  3:17

Yes, so what we do is, we kind of synthesized lots of information. So we listen to lots of podcasts, look at all the magazines, both popular magazines, as well as trade magazines. I go to a lot of conferences and symposia. And I visited a lot of gardens, we take all this information and kind of funnel it into creating these top 10 gardening trends. So a lot of it's observational from all these different channels of information that we have access to.

Farmer Fred  3:58

And there's certainly a lot of things happening in the way of gardening and I, like you, talk with industry experts to see what they're developing. And it's always interesting to figure out well, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Is there a demand for a product or a service? Or is the developer or the breeder just coming up with these based on their own thoughts on this? And it's kind of difficult to tell. All I know for sure is there's a lot of interest now in indoor gardening, and we'll talk a little bit about that as well. But there's also a lot of interest in climate change, and among your trends for gardening and 2024, a lot more people are worried about climate change and what they can do to help mitigate that. And if you're a gardener, there's certainly a lot you can do.

Andrew Bunting  4:47

Yes. So several of the trends have to do with the environment. One is you know, mitigating climate change and the other one is just seeing  your garden as part of the  environment or the local ecosystem. With regards to climate change, that's a  tricky one, because the changes in the climate vary from region to region, it could be a lot of people are looking at it fairly broadly with hotter summers, drier summers, maybe periods of the year where  there are periods of the season where there's heavy, heavy rainfall. So you're looking for plants that either are growing in natural areas or that can withstand those conditions. So I was talking to some colleagues around here, one of the things they're doing for their little Arboretum is putting together a list of plants that actually grow in the south. So these would be plants that would have part of their  DNA makeup would be would have more heat and drought tolerance. So starting to plant those plants with the idea of if it's embedded in their genetics, then they can probably take summers that are more extreme than what we're used to.

Farmer Fred  6:12

Are you seeing that on the East Coast in your area around eastern Pennsylvania? Are you seeing especially warmer winters?

Andrew Bunting  6:20

yeah. And that's one of the most notable things that we're seeing, are winters where they're warmer, like last year, I think we had a total of a third of an inch of snow, when typically we would have probably 20 to 40 inches of snow. We're having winters that don't get as cold. it used to be 20 or 30 years ago the first Magnolia would bloom right around the first of April. And same with the first flowering cherry, it was about the same date. Now, both of those are happening. We can get cherries and Magnolias  in bloom as early as a month earlier. And then all the bulbs are blooming earlier. So everything is blooming earlier, but there can still be extremes. So you know, we might get a week of warm temperatures in March and all the early magnolias come into flower, but then you know, it can still dip down to 25. So the blossoms are probably more vulnerable than they've ever been, because they kind of get coaxed out of hibernation and come into flower. And then we get, you know, still some cold dips during the winter.

Farmer Fred  7:38

Yeah, that's a big problem, especially for those who grow fruit trees. And we'll talk more about fruit trees as well, with chilling hours, possibly decreasing where you live, that might threaten the existence of some certain varieties that need say over 1000 1500 chill hours.

Andrew Bunting  7:58

yeah. You know, I think with these kinds of climatic swings, there's lots of issues around, you know, proper dormancy.  one of the issues we had  happened from the Midwest all the way to the East Coast is that we have a fairly mild fall. So a lot of plants  weren't really shutting down and going into kind of  their winter dormant stage. And then the temperatures drop drastically. I was in Memphis, and they went from 60 degrees to  below 10 degrees for two nights, and it killed hollies to the ground. Azaleas, boxwoods, a whole host of staple landscape plants were totally destroyed over just a two night episode.

Farmer Fred  8:56

Wow. By the way, I'd like to point out too, that you've used the word Magnolia several times now. And you do have a book about magnolias that  may be out of print, but it's still available as a used book. “The plant lovers guide to magnolias”.

Andrew Bunting  9:10

Yes, I wrote that. I think it was published maybe about eight years ago. But yeah, it's a nice little encyclopedia of Magnolias for the homeowner or for the home gardener.

Farmer Fred  9:26

And if you deal with Amazon or bookstores that specialize in used books, you can probably find it at a reasonable price. Maybe you're selling it out of the trunk of your car, too.

Andrew Bunting  9:38

I don’t. I have a few copies left. I occasionally see it on Amazon.

Farmer Fred  9:44

Yes, at a fairly reasonable price. You don't have to spend $200 for it.

Andrew Bunting  9:49

I think the original price is like $30, you probably can get it for 10.

Farmer Fred  9:56

I think the lowest price I saw was 27. And that's reasonable. All right, getting back to considering the environment as you garden. I think that has a lot to do with the idea of sustainability. And one of the movements that's been popular for a few years now, and it's still on your list of gardening trends, is basically leaving the leaves. Using leaves as mulch.

Andrew Bunting  10:21

That has been, I guess, trending and continues to be a trend. And the idea behind that is, in the fall, in most parts of the country, the leaves fall off the trees. And what they do  in my little town here is everybody rakes them up or blows them to the curb side and a big truck comes by and sucks them all up. The idea with “leave the leaves” is to actually as they fall, either leave them where they fall, or rake them into the bed leaving the leaves as kind of a natural mulch. And over the course of the winter, they'll naturally kind of break down into leaf compost or compost. And one of the reasons why you want to leave the leaves is it's in that kind of organic duff or leaf litter, where a lot of pollinators in particular, overwinter. So they might overwinter  as a larva or beetle  or some insect form. And if you rake all that away, there's no place for these pollinators to overwinter. So it's really it's kind of twofold. One is to not rake them to the curb side and have someone take them away. Instead,  use them for organic matter. And then also those leaves can provide habitat for these overwintering insects.

Farmer Fred  11:53

Conversely, you're also providing habitat for any pests that may have infested those leaves during the past Spring and Summer and Fall season. So I would imagine that if you are saving leaves, you would just want to save the healthy leaves and discard the unhealthy leaves.

Andrew Bunting  12:10

Yeah, yeah, if you can do that. I mean, that's probably hard to discern. you can't really tell what's overwintering in that leaf litter, if it is good insects or are bad insects. but I also feel like, if you remove all the leaves, you're not necessarily  removing all the pests from your garden.

Farmer Fred  12:38

And one habit that you put on your gardening trend list for 2024 would cover several of the points you make, and that is saving those native plants or especially the ornamental grasses. And don't be pruning them back in such a hurry in the fall. Give some of the good guys a place to spend the winter. The good bug hotel, especially lady bugs. Out here, muhlenbergia, a deer grass, if you leave it the way it is, and okay, it's not the prettiest, but it's providing habitat deep down inside that ornamental grass for a winter home for ladybugs and once it warms up in February or March, they'll come marching out, and we'll get a good start on helping control the bad bugs in your garden.

Andrew Bunting  13:26

Yeah, that's right. So you know, typically, the practice for many would be,  come this time of year, to go into the perennial garden. Then cut all your perennials back for the winter. And what's been suggested is don't don't cut those perennials back. Leave them the way they are. And in those stems, and often the stems are hollow on a lot of perennials and ornamental grasses, is the larva and other insects or insect types. It’s habitat for them. They'll get into  those hollow stems and overwinter there and then emerge in the spring. So the thought is, don't hack them back. Yes, it may look a little untidy. But you know, a lot of perennials can also look fairly ornamental for the winter especially, like you mentioned the deer grass, it is winter insurance. So you know, I think for a lot of these practices, it's also kind of changing or accepting a new aesthetic in the garden.

Farmer Fred  14:37

Yeah, I have to convince my neighbors of that every time they go by my front yard, and it seems to be kind of a wild looking garden.

Andrew Bunting  14:44

Yeah, same here. Right now, as I look out the window, I have Molinia ’Sky Racer’ which is a ornamental grass. and I have an ironweed, Vernonia, It's still up so I think this time of year, people are less critical of how your yard looks,

Farmer Fred  15:03

Well you since you mentioned it, let's take a little scenic bypass on that iron weed, because that was one of your Gold Medal plants in 2023. And now you're going to have to explain the Gold Medal program and how those plants get on that list. But one of those plans for 2023 was a Vernonia. The ‘iron butterfly’. I have to laugh because last night I had to sit down and listen to all 17 minutes ofIn A Gadda Da Vida. And I wonder why did I misspent my youth like that? But anyway, the varietal name is iron butterfly, and it's a Vernonia. It's an iron weed. And I started looking up ironweed. And I'm thinking, “Why isn't that plant out here?” I mean, it's not in the Sunset Western garden book, but it is in their National Garden book. And in the research I was doing on Vernonia, the iron weed  is adaptable to zone nine, but it is widely adaptable through mainly zones four through eight.

Andrew Bunting  16:02

Yeah, so the Gold Medal Program is a program that the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society started about 40 years ago. And we have a group of about 12 to 15 professionals who get together every year and plants get nominated. And once they're nominated for this,  this group gets together and kind of discuss the list and we try to whittle it down to about six new plants a year. So we're picking plants that are adaptable, have ecological functions, are ornamental. Plants that people can actually find in their garden centers. Plants that have multiple seasons of interest. So we usually we usually pick six and they can be trees, shrubs, vines,  perennials. so the selections are from 2023. One of them, as you mentioned, is one of the iron weeds and the Vernonia are widespread across the United States. They are fairly adaptable as a genus. this one is Vernonia lettermannii, the ‘iron butterfly’ only gets to about two and a half feet tall. It's covered in tiny purple flowers in the late summer or early fall. Actually, the plant that I have that I have not cut back in the garden out front, I can see Vernonia iron butterflies from my seat right now. It has finally turned kind of a gold, golden yellow, so it has the flowers. It's really good for a pollen and nectar source for late season pollinators. So it's good for that. But it's also very late flowering, which is a good niche for it in the garden.

Farmer Fred  17:50

I was wondering, because if you get the golden hues in the fall with the iron weed, this is not a deciduous plant?

Andrew Bunting  18:00

Well, it's just it's a perennial. So like right now the leaves are kind of brownish black. You know, ultimately, it'll get cut back to the ground.

Farmer Fred  18:14

Oh, okay. And that would happen when it starts warming up in the spring?

Andrew Bunting  18:19

Yeah, yeah. So like, you know, to your point about leaving perennials up for the winter, I'd probably wait until maybe April 1, by then most of the overwintering insects will have emerged. And I'll go in and cut it back to the ground and then it just kind of rejuvenates itself  for the season.

Farmer Fred  18:42

So the last time I looked, that area of eastern Pennsylvania you are in was in USDA zone five. but in the 2023 USDA zones, where are you?

Andrew Bunting  18:53

We were in the sixes, now we're between 7a and 7b. So okay, just over the course of 15 years, we've gone up a zone.

Farmer Fred  19:05

Wow. And so around here for cutting plants back, It might be in early March, whereas you are doing it in April. I should point out that the  ironweed is a plant that, I believe, is native just to Oklahoma and Arkansas, yet is widely adaptable. And some references say it is adaptable in USDA zone nine. It's heat tolerant, it's drought tolerant, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why this plant is not being grown commercially here in California. For our water wise environment.

Andrew Bunting  19:42

Yeah, it's pretty drought tolerant because it comes from like you said, a part of the country where there is an appreciable amount of moisture. Yeah, maybe it's, I mean, you have basically winters where you get most of your moisture and then  you have no moisture for the summer. So maybe it's not that drought tolerant. That's a possibility.

Farmer Fred  20:07

From the research I did on it, it needs irrigation, but not that much. Maybe once a month.  So that would certainly fit into waterwise gardening plans here in California where there's always the threat of a drought.  But then again, local nurseries don’t have it because wholesale nurseries aren't offering it, probably because there's no demand for it. So now that we're talking about it, people are gonna go into nurseries, here in California especially, and say, “Oh, do you have that iron butterfly plant”? The staff will look at them kind of cross eyed, wondering what they're talking about. And all I'm doing is just ticking off retail nursery owners now because they can't find the plant. So let's point out you can grow it from seed if you want. But it's kind of hard to find from seed.  I only saw a couple of  catalog companies that offer the seed. I saw it in High Country Gardens and in White Flower Farms catalogs. so you can get it as a seed. but that's the general ironweed. I don't know about the availability, in particular, of the iron butterfly ironweed, if that's available at seed.

Andrew Bunting  21:15

Yeah, so that's a selection that was made. I would say it's probably more available than many of the ironweeds just because it is a particular selection that was made.

Farmer Fred  21:30

Yeah,  it is a native perennial, like we said, in Arkansas and Oklahoma, but it thrives in a wide range of soil conditions. It'll survive hot and dry too, as well as periods of inundation of rain. And as you stated, It flowers late in the season, so it's a kind of a nice late summer - early fall bloomer.

SMART POTS!

Farmer Fred

You’ve heard me talk about the benefits of Smart Pots, the original, award winning fabric container. Smart pots are sold around the world and are proudly made, 100%, here in the USA.

Smart Pots is the oldest, and still the best, of all the fabric plant containers that you might find. Many of these imitators are selling cheaply made fabric pots that fall apart quickly. Not Smart Pots. There are satisfied Smart Pot owners who have been using the same Smart Pots for over a decade, actually approaching 20 years.

When you choose Smart Pot fabric containers, you know you’ll be having a superior growing experience with the best product on the market.

And your plants will appreciate Smart Pots, too. Because of the one million microscopic holes in Smart Pots, your soil will have better drainage, and the roots will be healthier. They won’t be going round and round on the outside of the soil ball, like you see in so many plastic pots. The air pruning qualities of Smart Pots create more branching of the roots, filling more of the usable soil in the Smart Pot.

Smart Pots are available at independent garden centers and select Ace and True Value hardware stores nationwide. To find a store near you, or to buy online, visit smart pots dot com slash fred. And don’t forget that slash Fred part. On that page are details about how, for a limited time, you can get 10 percent off your Smart Pot order by using the coupon code, fred. f-r-e-d, at checkout from the Smart Pot Store.

Visit smartpots.com slash fred for more information about the complete line of Smart pots lightweight, colorful, award winning fabric containers and don’t forget that special Farmer Fred 10 percent discount. Smart Pots - the original, award winning fabric planter. Go to smart pots dot com slash fred.

2024 Garden Trends, Pt. 2

Farmer Fred

As I mentioned in the open to this show, there was a trend in gardening for 2024 known as “quieter gardening”. What do we mean by that? Let's get back to our conversation with Andrew Bunting, vice president of horticulture at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

Farmer Fred

Now getting back on the highway of gardening trends here, the other thing to consider as the environment, as you garden, is the ears and nose of your neighbors. And we still see that big switch going on from gas powered engines to battery operated machinery.

Andrew Bunting  24:23

Yeah, so  one of the trends, and I see it just kind of anecdotally around here, is a lot of people are switching from two cycle gas powered machinery such as lawn mowers, blowers, weed whips, even chainsaws, to battery operated machinery. And some local Botanic Gardens and arboreta, too. So there's a local garden called Chanticleer public garden, and they've gone totally battery operated. So if a fairly significant botanic garden can do it, then I think homeowners can do it as well. And I know that many of the manufacturers of the equipment have kind of gotten ahead of this. So they have really good battery operated alternatives available even for the industry. So one of the biggest, I think questions was: would a battery operated chainsaw have the same power as a gas powered chainsaw? And from what I'm hearing? The answer is, yes. So if there's a two cycle piece of equipment or machinery that you're currently using, chances are there's a really good battery operated alternative.

Farmer Fred  25:49

Yeah, I'd be a little concerned about the weight of that chainsaw with the size of a battery, it would need.

Andrew Bunting  25:55

Yes, sometimes the weight the battery can be an issue. But I suspect, like everything over time, that the batteries will become, smaller in life later, as well.

Farmer Fred  26:11

I believe that's Moore's law, about batteries (transistors, actually) getting twice as powerful at half the price and half the size. So that that's always a nice thing to look for. And there's always electric chainsaws, too, that you plug in.

Andrew Bunting  26:25

Yeah, no electric chainsaw is I think, especially for the homeowner, they often don't need the same kind of capacity or power that contractors need. So, a lot of the equipment, battery or electric plugin types, can be perfectly fine for a homeowner.

Farmer Fred  26:46

One of the biggest advances if you've been in a cave and haven't kept up with horticultural tool advances, is the handheld chainsaw, the one hand chainsaw, it's it's just a small little chainsaw. Rosarians have  adopted this little battery operated chainsaw to aid in their “shovel pruning”, in winter time.  Yep, it works quite well. Now one of the things under that garden trend of considering the environment you have, is using peat free potting soils to help lower demand for peat harvesting. We've heard over the years that peat bogs are basically an endangered species in our vital wetland habitats. But the option. Is it any better? the option that we hear most about is coir, which is made from coconut husks and shells. I would think that would be endangered as a result?

Andrew Bunting  27:43

Yeah, I think there's different alternatives. so there's coir, which are coconut hulls. There's composted peanut shells or hulls, there's rice hulls, there's leaf compost, so the companies that make alternatives to peat-based potting soils are using byproducts from other industries. Pine bark is another one. The idea is that the coconuts are being harvested anyways for coconut products. So the  husks or hulls are available, versus the peat, which you mentioned. Peat exists in these peat bogs, often in Canada, in different parts of Europe. And they're extremely fragile ecosystems to begin with. So you have to get there. So you have to drive or create a road into these peat bogs and then you dig this peat which takes 10s of millions of years to turn into peat in itself, it is not a renewable resource at all. So it's just trying to find suitable alternatives for the peat, which are usually composted products from other industries.

Farmer Fred  29:11

Alright, let's move on to another gardening trend for the upcoming year. Growing fruit at home. And boy o boy, if you've never tasted a freshly harvested piece of homegrown fruit versus what you would get in a grocery store, you're missing out on a real tasty treat.

Andrew Bunting  29:31

There is a real interest in fruit, either traditional fruit around here such as apples and peaches and pears and then, like where you live, citrus. but also trying out new types of fruit. So that might be things like around here, the Asian persimmon and I suspect in California is a really interesting crop and very easy, easy to grow there. They can either look like an egg, or they can get like kind of a squat little pumpkin in that they are colored orange. You just need another type of cultivar of the Asian persimmons to get fruiting. I have four in my backyard, they're probably 10 or 12 years old. Each one is probably 20 feet tall, and each one produces probably 500 to 700 persimmons per year.  even from one or two for certain plants, you're gonna get incredible fruit production.

Farmer Fred  30:39

I know the native persimmon needs a pollinator, but with the Asian or Japanese persimmons there's a lot of great self fruitful varieties, especially the Fuyu persimmon, which is very popular here its self fruitful, and just to dissuade people from thinking that this is a tree full of bowling balls, because you use the word pumpkin, they're smaller than that. they're about the size of a baseball or so.

Andrew Bunting  31:01

Yeah they're not the size of the pumpkin. They just look look in shape like a little pumpkin right?

Farmer Fred  31:07

Little is the key word there. And yeah, the tree is very productive. I have a Fuyu persimmon tree in our yard. And we just got done harvesting more than we can eat so that's why we have a dehydrator. we slice them up, dry them, and make a treat that lasts for months. And it's a very tasty treat. dried Japanese persimmons especially the fuyu which is a non astringent persimmon, which means you can pick it from the tree, and bite into it and you won't spit it out. On the other hand, if you have an astringent Japanese persimmon like a Hachiya, you have to wait for those to just soften up till they're almost jelly like before they they sweeten up.

Andrew Bunting  31:51

Yeah, the one I have, a Saijo, which is non-astringent. you can pick them right off the tree when they're ripe and eat them. the other astringent ones will make your mouth pucker up just like the native persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, which is in the woodlands of the eastern half of the United States. They're much smaller, they're like the size of a gumball. And they have to be frosted in, multiple times on the tree, before they're edible. But the Saijo, I've had people come over and we've probably picked them at least 1000 this year and people use them for cookies. Bread. You can eat them right off the tree my neighbors have use them and made ice cream.

Farmer Fred  32:42

Yeah, it's one of my favorite pieces of fruit, the persimmon, the Japanese persimmon. the other plants that you mentioned on your list for growing fruit at home and this is when we did an episode on recently, about the Paw Paw. And here California we're not too familiar with the Paw paw. so we're test growing it at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. And we have discovered that  it probably would be best grown in an area where you get afternoon shade because it's not that heat tolerant.

Andrew Bunting  33:11

if you go into the native woods around here, you'll find the native Pawpaw, Asimina triloba.  while it can grow in full sun, it really is in its native habitat an understory plant. So you can imagine in The Woodlands, it gets a lot of shade. It has a squat little fruit that looks kind of like either a big peanut or a little banana, and it has a banana like texture and tastes. It grows native in places like Indiana and Michigan, the common name in Indiana is the Indiana Banana and in Michigan it's the Michigan banana. And then yeah, they're gaining in popularity. It helps to have multiple types for cross pollination and the pollination is by a fly. So you know I've heard of people taking roadkill put it in a bag, yes, and it attracts these flies that fly around and pollinate the flower. And the flowers themselves if you've ever seen one is kind of a pendant bow. And it's kind of a meat color like a carrion color like a deep purple. So I think the flowers probably evolved, or kind of co- evolved with the pollinating fly to look like meat.

Farmer Fred  34:40

We pointed out when we were talking about Paw Paws that the aroma of those flowers might resemble the corpse flower. And that may be the reason why it attracts flies.

Andrew Bunting  34:52

Yes,  the corpse flower is a really good example of kind o