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Garden Evolution
87 Plays11 days ago
Brett and his wife, Annie talk about how their home garden has changed over the years including what they enjoy about it, what it means to them, and the types of plants and maintenance they do. If you're an aspiring plant person or looking to get out of a rut in your gardening life, this episode may provide a spark.
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Holiday Bonus Episode Introduction
00:00:19
Speaker
Welcome
Evolution of Personal Gardening Spaces
00:00:20
Speaker
everybody ah to another episode of Hort Culture, and if you can't tell by now, I'm not Alexis. It's another one of our special little bonus episodes that we record around the holidays when it's hard for us to all to get together.
00:00:33
Speaker
and I'm actually joined today. i was I was thinking about how I could talk about my little corner of the horticultural universe, which aside from my work stuff,
00:00:50
Speaker
is a little quarter acre lot with a house and so a few trees and some plants that we'll talk about here in a little bit um and that's I think that for a lot of our listeners or if you're not a farmer or if you're not yet on a larger parcel of land it could be that your little corner of the horticultural world is a porch with a couple of plants on it or it could be that you have a small vegetable garden or a raised bed or maybe a large garden or something like that And so I was just reflecting a little bit on how my little corner of the horticultural world has changed across time. But it would be disingenuous and and dishonest if I were to
00:01:38
Speaker
act like that's just my story to tell. And so I i have actually invited a special guest. ah She is a award-winning, renowned anthropologist.
00:01:53
Speaker
Dr. Annie Kemple joining us today, but not in that capacity, ah but to talk a little bit about gardening.
Gardening Journey in Lexington, Kentucky
00:02:01
Speaker
Hey, Annie, welcome to the Hort Culture podcast. Hello, happy to be here. How happy would you say that you are to be here?
00:02:08
Speaker
As ah an official listener of about three and a half episodes, I'm extremely happy to be here. You can tell we ah it's a very supportive environment over here. So if I didn't make it clear, Annie and I are married. ah We have been married and and we've where we've had this little a house on a parcel of land in Lexington, Kentucky for ah ten years just over 10 years now.
00:02:35
Speaker
So, ah can you briefly tell us a little bit about your interest in plants and horticulture, how that's maybe grown over time, where that came from, any any initial thoughts you have? And then I think maybe we can talk a little bit about the progression, the the stages of development or evolution of our gardening ethos after that.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah. oh That's a that's a big big question to start us out with. I think i like to make things unmanageable from the jump. Also, for the record, the reason I've only listened to three and a half episodes is because I get the the constant podcast at home every day of this lovely man talking about these things. Lucky or cursed, you decide.
00:03:20
Speaker
um to your question i have loved plants for a long time i don't know though it's one of those i can't really pinpoint the exact time when i was a kid or teenager when i was like hey these things are really cool you know we
Transforming the Yard into a Garden
00:03:35
Speaker
had a small tomato garden when i was a kid But I think um when we bought this house, it was the first time that I had the realization of like, oh, planting things is something we can do. We can just do this. It's almost like going to college and realizing you're an adult and you're the one who has to go to the store and buy the ice cream. Like, oh, I can do this. um And so I think we started relatively small
00:04:03
Speaker
um kind of bracketing out little patches one at a time and transforming our small yard. But I really, I really think it was moving here and having the space and the, I guess mostly the space and the support to be able to plant things. Yeah. So if we jumped back 10 years, uh, to, it was 2024, um, fall of 2024, we moved in here.
00:04:29
Speaker
2014? I mean 2014, sorry. yeah It is 2025 now. It was 2024 recently. It was 2014 a while ago. Thank you. Yes. So in the while ago one, the 2014 period, we we moved in and we initially, I think we kind of, and and and since then too, we've I kind of think about the our space as a, there's a front yard,
00:04:56
Speaker
There's a backyard and then there's that stretch along the side of the house. There's kind of like those three main areas. Does that sound fair? Yeah. And so we and all of that when we moved in was in inside and ah we we then discovered it was a there was an abundance of um of stones. I don't call them rocks. I call them stones, you know, about a one foot by one foot, give or give or take a little bit, you know, of a limestone that had been brought in and for some reason stacked in a circle like two or three stones deep into the ground. So like I took the top layer off and then
00:05:35
Speaker
um There'll be some pictures on the on our Instagram page showing some of the progression of this over time. Also, massive euonymus bushes that we are still... One, ah, ah, one. Oh, God. Well, it's spread. We're still kind of pulling it up. It was one singular but mighty. yeah Yes. Yes.
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah, and so there was so there was basically a couple of bigger, trees ah you know, decent sized trees, a beautiful a couple of beautiful dog ah beautiful dogwoods, ah brad root pear in the front yard, ah and a large euonymus, and then a bunch of grass. That was kind of this the slate we started with.
00:06:11
Speaker
And so what's your memory of that first push? You know, you talked about bracketing. So I think we've talked about this on previous episodes
From Large Gardens to Manageable Plots
00:06:20
Speaker
where um maybe you take and you you figure out you know one section that's three by six or four by eight or something like that.
00:06:29
Speaker
and you put stuff in it, and for one year, you take care of that. And then the next year, maybe you expand it, you see how that went, you add a little bit more. For us, I think it was kind of building like from the house out. So it was like adding little peninsulas onto our continent of of other stuff. But what's your what's your initial or your early memories of our that shift from the kind of grass and euonymus and blank slate to something more something less blank?
00:06:58
Speaker
um i think i remember really just how small we started, especially in the front yard, um, just with some flowers and just trying to get anything to grow out there with like weird shading and maybe not the best soil. So having to amend it a little bit. Um, but then in the backyard, I remember when did we start the vegetable garden out there? Was that 2015? Was that our first year? It would have been, it would have been spring, I think spring of 2015, probably. Okay, so pretty quickly expanded in the backyard to planting rows of vegetables. and so At that time, I had just come from working at the UK South Farm, where I had fields, larger fields that of vegetables that I managed. And so that was my reference point. And so I think we created, you're saying, you know, rows of vegetables, but it was kind of like a little mini
00:07:53
Speaker
horticulture enterprise that we had back there with drip tape and longer, you know, 40, 50 foot long rows and and all that kind of stuff. Yes. I don't know why I feel the need to explain why we did this, but um I've been vegetarian since like maybe 2008.
00:08:10
Speaker
um and I like eating well
Gardening Choices Influenced by Lifestyle
00:08:13
Speaker
-prepared vegetables. um and so Having a ah vegetable-heavy diet, but at the time not really being able to afford a CSA, $600 all at once, is kind of a lot when you're not making much money.
00:08:25
Speaker
And those are 2013 numbers as far as 600. Yeah. um So kind of thinking about that when we were planning the backyard of like what are the what are the vegetables that we would like to have not only now, but we would like to can for over the winter and what are ways that we can supplement our diet um and you know pay for it with our labor rather than the little bit of money we had coming in.
00:08:49
Speaker
um And then, yeah, I'm getting ahead of myself, but slowly transitioning out of that into what we have now. But thinking or reflecting on that time, how much it taught me about, you know, I didn't grow up on a farm. I didn't really grow up knowing anyone who worked in horticulture. I did not even really realize that was something people went into.
00:09:12
Speaker
um But it taught me a lot about weed management and pest pressures and fungal pressures and all of those things that as someone who studies and obviously eats food, you don't really think about unless you experience it or hear someone talk about it. And so it taught me a lot about, you know, even though it was very small, all things considered, it taught me a lot about food production and how challenging it is.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah, and in academic circles you might say we eat with the literature review first, right? And then the eyes, and then other. I hate that. Okay, wow. Thank you. Okay, well the honesty, the the therapy for honesty has been working out. Marriage counseling for therapy for honesty has been helping in the new year. So much for resolutions.
00:10:07
Speaker
um No, so I think is it's interesting. So if you're, ah one one thing I'll just mention before we move on to some of the transitions is when we were we were lucky and fortunate and privileged and all the other things to be able to get into the housing market and co-own a house with the one of the major banks ah through a mortgage before all of the explosion, we said 2014, you know, and housing prices have skyrocketed and ah Seems bad ah access to housing and access to that home ownership thing that so many American dreams are built around is just I'm not gonna go fully down that rabbit hole but on the off chance that there are folks who are thinking about getting into the housing market or thinking about finding a new place to live and you're interested in in doing some horticultural stuff and very small side note I'll mention is when we did this one of the things that I would do and our realtor who is very nice but found me a little strange I think was I would I'd get my iPhone and I would oh there's a compass in your iPhone and I would get that out
00:11:13
Speaker
And I would orient myself to which way was south facing, west facing, east facing. Some people will do that because they're thinking about putting in a porch and they don't want to be cooked in the afternoon sun or they you know want a really nice morning sun or whatever. In my case, it was because we wanted to have a space to grow stuff. And so our area of town has a lot of trees.
00:11:34
Speaker
that This lot happens to have a pretty good open wide open south facing window ah to be able to get a lot of sunlight in. In the northern hemisphere we get a lot of sun from the from the south and so even back to when we were looking at houses and evaluating where we wanted to live we knew we wanted to grow
Transition to Perennials and Garden Focus
00:11:50
Speaker
plants somehow and so that was important because if we were in a really shady location we would have had to do something different maybe cut trees down, pivoted somehow, but um that's just something I'll mention as you're as you're looking at houses, that site selection does matter if you're wanting to have a garden. And for us, it's that outdoor space has been so important. And I think over time, to allude to what you were talking about a little bit, as as as life moves on, as we have jobs that are different,
00:12:20
Speaker
as we get a little bit older ourselves, as maybe we have a little more money on hand, um there's an opportunity for us to think differently about how we're going to handle that space or how we're going to use that space. And so when would you say that that was? That we that we kind of we made a transition. So we we know, spoiler alert, we no longer have our whole backyard and vegetables like we at one point did.
00:12:49
Speaker
And now we have it, you know, in ah a variety of perennials we'll talk about here in a second. Was that transition in 2020? Was it post COVID? No, I don't think it was post COVID. I think it was pre maybe like 2019, 2018, 2019, somewhere in there. We started to lose our enthusiasm, I think, for the large garden.
00:13:10
Speaker
Yeah, I get tore up by mosquitoes. And so the idea of weeding and, you know, taking care of existing outside, um you know, after work, being tired and having to do all of that was it was just becoming more of a burden than it was a source of joy, I think.
00:13:28
Speaker
Yeah. Cause I mean, and you could say we could have just toned it back to a small raised bed and yeah that would have been fine. Cause at the point at that time, I think we had like eight or 10, 50 foot, 40 to 50 foot long rows with a variety of mixed vegetables. Yeah. And it's kind of intense, you know? yeah i mean Especially like that's not our full time job. We don't, which I mean, yeah. Yeah. And we both had full time jobs.
00:13:53
Speaker
Yeah. And I think I will say one holdover, I think, is we still grow a good number of herbs um and like plants that we can use in cooking or in making tea, but aren't really the you know main ingredient. Yeah. Well, so I mean, we can launch next into the what the new iteration of the the the next iterations of the yard looked like. um But before we do it, I want to say like with for you, was there any kind of struggle with cutting out the vegetable growing you know ah for for me there was but I was there for you yeah I mean I yeah I think there's well first of all I'm not I'm not Alexis or Ray or
00:14:42
Speaker
ah Jessica Jessica. Oh, sorry, Jessica. um You didn't call it Josh. So that's a plus. Yes, that I would really apologize. um I think that so I cannot walk you through a a deep horticultural explanation of how exactly seeds work and develop into plants, but there's something deeply human about the mystery of not being able to see what is going on below the surface you know you take this little tiny thing you see from a plant and you hold on to it and a few months later you throw it into the soil and a little bit later some green sprouts up and then a little bit later that becomes food you can eat there's just something so
00:15:27
Speaker
deeply human to me about that, and so I think there's there's something there on a deeper level that I still do miss about growing vegetables, but I think ah
Identity, Society, and Gardening
00:15:39
Speaker
you know on a more immediate level,
00:15:42
Speaker
I, especially now because we're in a different financial position, I really enjoy being able to support someone who's trying to make their livelihood out of this or does still get joy from growing fruits and vegetables. um I'm really happy that that can continue elsewhere.
00:16:07
Speaker
and yeah Yeah, I think we both we both have a little bit of a tendency or ah a likelihood to critique a notion that the solution to all food problems is for people to grow their own food. Is that fair to say? Yes. Yeah, we won't go into that too deeply now. Maybe in the future episode, we could talk more about that. But I think that that for for me, the struggle was a little bit more on like a sense of identity loss and probably ego.
00:16:35
Speaker
where we would have, like we still and we still have people who think because they they met us at some point in that three or four year period, they still think, oh, you all grow like all your own vegetables and like that, this is like who you are and man. And sometimes people saying like, it almost makes them feel bad about themselves that they don't do more of that or whatever. And all of that, like there is, a if this is about the culture of horticulture,
00:17:01
Speaker
a lot of There is a lot of like Instagram toxicity around local food, yes around gardening, around growing stuff. And I i target target Instagram, but it certainly exists on the blog on the blogosphere and on the vlogis regular media, the vlogosphere, othersphere, stratosphere, mesosphere. um But I... I am so opposed to that. like i it It offends me so deeply that you would take something like that and use it to like promote your personal brand or construct some sort of identity that that puts you above others or something like that. And I think that probably relates to the humanness of it. like
00:17:46
Speaker
The idea that gardening or doing you know engaging in plant stuff mate like is is a way to show off would make people 50 plus years ago laugh. yeah like It was just something that you did. or like You did it because you were too poor to buy the stuff. or you you know So anyway, I'm getting on a little bit of a soapbox there, but I think there was a transitional period where I was like, well, who am I if we're not the people who grow a bunch of vegetables in their backyard? Or like, I'm mean not meeting expectations of what people think who I think, how people think I am. Or if I don't do that, then what am I doing? And granted, I have plenty of other things that I do. So I don't, it wasn't a long term struggle of mine, but
00:18:26
Speaker
it's just I think something that I would say to people who are listening and are maybe in a similar boat or or something or they're feeling some kind of pressure to do something for for a performativity or for a identity
Challenges in Growing Certain Vegetables
00:18:40
Speaker
projection that like this is supposed to be fun like this is supposed to be joyful this is supposed to be something that fills you up not something that you feel like you have to Do and like I, you know, social media is a double edged sword. There's really good things and really bad things about it. But I found myself like wanting to post things on social media, like do them so I could post them on social media or something like that. And that to me is that's a sign that maybe you we wanted to reorient. And so we did reorient. And there's also, I'm just gonna, this may be a ah side note tangent, but there was a conception of, oh, those are the people who grow all of their own food or all of their own vegetables. And even when we had the eight to 10 rows of 50 foot, right that' like we were still having to supplement, um yeah you know, with grains and proteins and stuff, but also like we couldn't grow every vegetable we wanted to eat. Sometimes um sometimes I want to make eggplant Parmesan and we didn't grow eggplant. Yeah, flea beetles, you know? I'm not about that life. You could pay me to deal with ah flea beetles on eggplant, common thing, and gotcha it's just the whole thing. Plus they make me so itchy. The plants make me itchy. Yeah. Or like realizing that Brussels sprouts are one of my favorite vegetables and I love eating them, but man, growing them, am I allowed to curse.
00:19:58
Speaker
Growing them is kind of a bitch. oh ah And so just you know not wanting to grow that. um and so there's that you know If you're not familiar, Brussels sprouts take a really long time and you're ultimately going to be eating like a somewhat leafy portion of the plant. So in other words, the buffet is open to the things that like them.
00:20:19
Speaker
all year, 140 days or however many days it is supposed to be, you know, to most Brussels sprouts. Anyway, that's just a little horticulture nugget for the horticulture people. Yeah, they take up so much space, but, um, broccoli and so space there's all, yes, there's also a lot of mythologizing that goes on around people who grow any amount of fruits and vegetables. And I think that's something that along the lines of what you were saying with, you know, not wanting this to be your identity or kind of pushing back against that, I think just the,
00:20:49
Speaker
the mythologization that goes along with growing your own fruits and vegetables, I think can sometimes be counter to ah actual efforts to transform our food system, because it's ah an individual focus when I think there needs to be more of a focus on community. But again, that's another side note. The doing the thing is a triumph of the individual. The failing to do the thing is a failing of the individual. And that's sort of all that's discussed, or all the the only way it's thought about, as opposed to,
00:21:17
Speaker
Why isn't it easier for people to participate in a more just food system? Why isn't we don't why don't we consider food to be a human right in the United States or or wherever you're, you know it maybe be you do in the place that you're listening. Anyway, I told you we're bringing an anthropologist on, um and as if I need much encouragement in that direction. but um Yeah, so so we made this this kind of hard transition, I think, and there was that whole a global pandemic in the middle. um But how would you how would you characterize, and I think
Pandemic Impact on Gardening Practices
00:21:50
Speaker
we're we're a little bit overselling just how much, like we even while we had the vegetables, we had multiple areas of our yard that were in, um
00:22:02
Speaker
I guess ornamentals mostly like native plants but a variety of other just flowers basically flowers and some shrubs and all this kind of stuff this all predates my interest in bonsai and in the front yard we had had some bulbs and some stuff like that And I think in 2020, let's just say 2020 was kind of the the breaking point of when the before and the after. But in 2020, I think we made this transition where we started to change what the backyard looked like, and we really expanded in the front yard. And you, this is why I couldn't didn't want to do this by myself.
00:22:38
Speaker
You are the main, were the main driver of a lot of that. um While I was struggling either working a lot or struggling with pandemic stuff or whatever, and you obviously were were working full time too, but you found some time and energy to go out and do the Annie style wildflower seeding.
00:23:01
Speaker
You just grab a handful of seeds and throw them somewhere. You just stamp them into the soil. You heard of Johnny Appleseed. This is Annie Wildflower seed. Just pounds and pounds of wildflower seed. Well, during, I think you talking about that reminded me during 2020, I was doing interviews for ah my schoolwork and I remember- PhD dissertation. Award winning. Award winning dissertation. I'm done, I'm just proud. Okay, thank you.
00:23:29
Speaker
um I was interviewing people about growing food, eating food, experiencing food in Eastern Kentucky, and I remember talking to one woman who you know was going on and on about how she loves gardening, that's her therapy, when she has a bad day at work, she can't wait to get home and like just get into her garden and how like her entire yard has been transformed into a garden.
00:23:52
Speaker
And I asked her, oh, are those vegetables? And she said, no, I don't I don't plant in vegetables. They're all flowers. And for some reason, the passion she had around that was what made me be like, oh, I can plant flowers. We don't have to do all vegetables. It can be.
00:24:08
Speaker
this can just be a beautiful thing for us to experience and for neighbors to experience and people who come over. Um, and so she really
Complementary Gardening Approaches
00:24:16
Speaker
changed something inside of me. Um, but I think I remember really reflecting on her story and what she told me and thinking about like, yeah, that's, that's really doable and that's beautiful. So what did you,
00:24:35
Speaker
What have you done now? What what did you do to our ah like in that in that initial period? It was I would say I would say the strength of Annie is endurance, persistence, patience.
00:24:52
Speaker
not patience and like ah of the vibe. And my my strength is like planning out like logistical planning of that type of thing and spreadsheets and sketches and thinking about, you know, would you would you agree with that? Is that a fair characterization? Which is why I think we have a bunch of very nicely planted bulbs in the front yard of tulips and daffodils and crocus. And along the side of the house now too. And along the side of the house. And those all come up beautifully in the spring in very pre-planned thought through ways. And then we have wild patches of wildflowers coming up every the rest of the year for when I. Both of which are a huge vibe.
00:25:37
Speaker
from when I have gone out and just thrown seed or out. Yeah. And I mean, I think there's well, there's parts. So the the area where we have somewhat we have wildflowers that were initially there kind of while the vegetable garden was still there, that's pretty wild. But then as we transitioned the vegetable garden into something more ornamental, um we did a little bit more structured planting. Yes. And planting plants, transplants instead of seeds. Can you talk a little bit about that, like the the mix of transplants and ah like seedling kind of things and trees and seeds and like kind of how your understanding of that has grown because there's a lot of folks who listen to this I think who might be in a similar boat that you were in in 2015 2016.
00:26:25
Speaker
I think the, I don't know if this is directly answering your question, but I think the most maybe transformative thing I have learned along those lines is that you can start your own annuals. So starting like, I don't know, petunias or something like that from seed is something that you can just do. You don't have to go pay $20 for a petunia plant. um Although they have some really cool varieties that, you know, you may not be able to sell. I take that back a little bit, but I think there is also a value if you're on a budget and you're trying to maximize your your impact, you can get a three dollar.
00:27:03
Speaker
ah you know a couple of three dollar things of seed and some trays and some stuff and some ah so some media, planting media, garden media for maybe 20, 30 bucks total. 20, 30 bucks doesn't go too far in the buying annual bedding plants. So that's a great great shout. What about the other like putting a plant where you want it to go versus? Yeah.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah, and knowing that at all you know knowing that you have a transplant that is a couple inches tall, and if I put it in the ground, it'll come up where I put it in the ground, not just a wild scrabble of things.
00:27:37
Speaker
also with um Sunflower seeds in particular I probably put out Not exaggerating three to five hundred sunflower seeds every year And I don't get a single sunflower because they're dug up at chipmunks or when they sprout they're eaten by something else I think we got it. We got a system now. Yes As of 2024, late 2024, we have a system. And if it works in 2025, we'll be able to, we'll be sure to share it on the podcast. But um yeah, that's definitely an issue. Direct seeding is, you know, it's cheaper because it's, you know, five bucks for some seed. You throw it out and it could be a hundred plants or it could be zero.
00:28:19
Speaker
Um, so how would you describe, you know, either through what a couple of the plants we have in the mix out there or just the overall aesthetic? How would you describe what our, what our spot looks like now? I mean, people, other people have described it as like a home arboretum. Um, that feels a little grandiose. I've heard people say that it feels kind of like a park.
00:28:45
Speaker
I like that.
Enhancing the Garden's Design
00:28:46
Speaker
Well, I mean, arboretum maybe is a little like, but it's like the, if you've ever been to the Lexington, the central Kentucky arboretum near campus, there's a couple of sections with lower growing stuff that don't, you know, not the big trees and all that. And it does have a little bit of that feel. We have a, we put in a patio, a paver patio in 2022.
00:29:08
Speaker
two think so. I think one of my favorite things about it is we have walking pads kind of up like from the patio up to the right of the yard that swings back around to the front and then through the middle and back down the left side. And so it's just a really nice a place surrounded with flowers where I can call some, like take a phone call or call someone and just kind of meditatively walk along those paths. I mean I'd say you know linearly there's probably 250 feet of paths back there. And that's that's an example where I think if if it had been just me, if it had been just you, we might not have had paths at all.
00:29:48
Speaker
correct If it had been me, it might have been just overly landscaped and not really like wild enough and not some of the cool vegetation and flowers and other stuff, unexpected stuff that we have back there. And so I think that, again, this was why I didn't want to just talk about it myself. We also, I think a couple of other things I would note that i that we've added that I i think really add.
00:30:10
Speaker
We have a variety, a couple of different, um they're they' I guess you could call them hardscaped slash structural elements. So we have several ah arches of different sizes. That was something that you specifically requested. you're an You're a big arch guy? Love an arch. Any reason for that or just?
00:30:32
Speaker
Some of it is functional. ah I mean, I don't know. I like the way they look, but I also like the function of it. We have some, um ah what are they called? The sun compass plant compass plants that are on either side of a path and they have a tendency to fall over in late summer. And so having an arch to kind of hold them up makes them, makes the path usable and makes them look prettier. And then I like the idea of growing vines over arches and that provides the structure for some more vining yeah plants. I think it it also,
00:31:02
Speaker
One of the things about that space now, you know in in the past with the farm, many farm, many horticulture farm, it was a functional space, and it looked like a functional space. yeah It was not overly pleasing to the eye except the fact that you maybe enjoy the order of straight lines. Now, it's more like another large room in the house, kind of, in in the sense of like spending time out there, granted the mosquitoes still exist.
00:31:33
Speaker
But we've got we've been using some like thermos and stuff like that to just, you know, mitigate that a little bit. But the arches have a way of introducing an architectural element into the overall space that acts in the same way that a door or a window does to, you know, frame the outdoor ah Area into the house into a house or something like that um it just it just makes it more Yeah architectural it it it reinforces those paths as like an element within ah Your overall experience of the space like it's kind of landscape architecture vibes another thing that we've done is we brought in um
00:32:12
Speaker
quite a bit of rock, ah just one little trucklet load at a time mostly. I think two things I would not have done if it weren't for you was using rocks as landscape features and using raised beds.
00:32:27
Speaker
you You really encourage you know the thoughtful use of raised beds in different places and that's something I, I don't know, I was a little resistant to maybe because I didn't fully understand what they were really, how they were helpful or beneficial or functional.
00:32:44
Speaker
Yeah, there's a couple of spots out there where i for both visual and functional reasons, I was trying to get things raised up a little bit. We've talked about that on the podcast before. The value of raised beds for drainage and for keeping roots happy and all that kind of fun stuff. um Yeah, the rocks is a big that's something that I drew very heavily from Japanese garden design. Our garden is very much not a Japanese garden.
00:33:11
Speaker
it is cottagecore maximalist fused with Japanese garden. Like there's elements of it. In winter, it kind of looks like a Japanese garden. In the season, it looks like, holy moly, this is like a butterfly and bees most exciting place to be in the world, which is both of those are really, really awesome. Um, but, but rocks have a, have a big, um,
00:33:34
Speaker
A big role in Japanese gardens is this way of you know A, they look cool, but
Reflecting Kentucky's Topography in Garden
00:33:41
Speaker
I think in a lot of Japanese gardens, theyre they are a symbolic reference to the mountains, which play such a huge role in the landscape of Japan, obviously.
00:33:53
Speaker
And if that's not obvious to you, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound condescending. But um what ah one little thing that I tried to do in in the layout of our garden is to just a little bit give ah east to west Kentucky feel ah in the sense that there's kind of this this um the the far east so to speak it's it's actually not oriented east west but the or no i guess i guess it kind of is yeah it kind of is the eastern edge has kind of like more forested it's darker it's damper it's and then there's a mountain range so to speak that's contoured and it also has some stones, and then there's a more of like a central area, and then the western's a little bit flatter and kind of tapers out to to our neighbor's yard. um So within within reason, I was trying to mimic the topography of Kentucky, or at least use that as a reference point. um All the things you can do in inside when you have cabin fever and are thinking about changing things up. But but so yeah, I think, and we've also added in the bonsai stuff. yeah
00:34:57
Speaker
And that's pretty heavily impacted the space. A couple of benches. I mean, not as much as you would think. You know, it's not like it's taken over the whole space, but there's definitely that as an a whole element too. Trying to think. there's Is there anything, some of the species we have out there, um as far as trees in the ground,
00:35:18
Speaker
We have a Japanese red pine. ah We have a Japanese umbrella pine, which is not a pine. I think it's sciaticitis is the genus. I think both of those are kind of dwarf cultivars. We have a juniper, a blue Chinese juniper that's again kind of a dwarf, you know, 20 foot tall cultivar.
00:35:41
Speaker
Couple of the Japanese black pines that I'm gonna try to keep small Let me see what else a variety of other junipers in the ground and Then as far as you know, the flowers go a lot, but what are some of your favorites or some of the highlights for you? Oh Some of my favorites.
00:35:59
Speaker
um ah Goldenrod, which we never planted. I don't know where it came from. Just kind of blew in and took root and it's beautiful. um different I think we have two or three different varieties of Goldenrod that just showed up. um i mean i I like zinnias and sunflowers. The zinnias also have started just kind of popping up every year, which is fun. um Oof, what else? Cone flower. What are the vining plants that we put in this past year? I'm completely drawing a point. There is a trumpet vine, yes which is a native. And there is a clematis, yeah a cult of clematis that are then kind of, we have one that's a like cool purple-flowered cultivar, and then we have another one that I think is a white-native cultivar.
00:36:51
Speaker
um I do like a mix of native and non-native plants. Yeah, we're not native purists. I'm not a purist, yeah. i also I also get a lot of joy from like the herbs and stuff that we grow, um so chamomile and lemon balm and orange balm, which I found for the first time last year. you just grow those What do you do with those herbs? Do you even do anything with them?
00:37:10
Speaker
um use I really like cooking with fresh herbs in the summer. So like just being able to go outside and grab a handful of basil and rosemary and thyme and oregano and just throw it into a tomato sauce. It's so good. But also drying some of them to use it in the winter. Drying lavender and chamomile and lemon balm and Marjoram, all for tea. Marjoram makes an incredible tea. If you have not tried it, I highly recommend it. Just chamomile
Herbs for Cooking and Teas
00:37:41
Speaker
and marjoram together, steep for five to 10 minutes, so good. um But yeah, I get a lot of joy out of the tea.
00:37:50
Speaker
being able to grow herbs and use them throughout the year and try different ones and see what works and what doesn't in different places. um Different basil, our basil has started coming up every year. Just let it go to seed and it's just planted itself. Self seeding. Oh yeah.
00:38:08
Speaker
um I'm trying to think of what other flowers or herbs we have out there. Bluestar is another flower. We have a bunch of different types of butterfly weed. might say it was a butter I always get butterfly milkweed. There it is. Asclepius, a variety of tuberosa, speciosa, syriaca, a couple of others. Yeah.
00:38:35
Speaker
As far as the things that we've had to do, so we, you know, the there's the planning, the layout, the planting. What's the other stuff that, you know, we've kind of had to do over time?
00:38:48
Speaker
um i mean with The thing that comes to mind is something we had to do more recently was I mentioned the golden rod found its way into our yard and it kind of started taking over one of our native beds um to the point where it was crowding out some false indigo and some coneflower and some other stuff. and So having to kind of manage that, pull some of it out. um Manage is a good word. i mean it's yeah Because you don't want to pull all of it out. You want it to come you want you know some of it there. You want it to come back, but you don't want it to be an entire quarter of your yard. yeah um Irrigation.
00:39:24
Speaker
Yeah, some watering. um We've mostly just done hose watering since since this iteration. Before we used drip tape for our straight beds and everything. um Mulching, that was the thing that I was like, we've we have we have brought in a good bit of mulch across time. um Maybe not as much as people might think,
00:39:46
Speaker
But we've used Chip Drop recently to get some chips for some walkway areas and stuff like that. um We got free mulch
Embracing a Low Maintenance Garden
00:39:55
Speaker
through the city of Lexington. if you Shout out LFUCG for their free mulch days. That's pretty cool. I don't know. it's i Overall, you would say the maintenance on what we have now is significantly lower than it was when we had vegetables. Oh, yes. Yeah, because it's it's not annuals like it's mostly either perennials, biennials or reseeding annuals to some extent. Yes. I mean, and you could plant annuals in and whatever, but it's just a lot lower maintenance and a lot higher joy. Yes. you know I'm spending more time sitting out there and less time weeding. Yes. And it's like I can I can walk through our paths and pull out some weeds once a day or every other day. And, you know, it takes five to 10 minutes instead of having to spend
00:40:40
Speaker
It's more like journaling and less like writing a novel. Yes. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, to close, I would love to hear why,
00:40:53
Speaker
why do you even want to do this or did you and do you want to continue doing this? Why? Starting and ending with the big questions. Um, and um, I mean, I think the,
00:41:10
Speaker
The beauty of it, I think it creates a welcoming place where I hope people want and enjoy spending time. um I really like the idea of people walking by and seeing our front yard and I don't know, maybe a particular flower, the a butterfly or something just kind of brightens their day a little bit.
00:41:33
Speaker
um Yeah, I don't. So it's it's about the the interface between plant and person. Yes. Yeah. And you're not just a you're not just a straight up. It's pretty. That's cool. But you're not also a straight up. Oh, it's for the butterflies and the bees. And that's it. Correct. It's a little bit of both. Yeah. Blend. Yes. Yeah. you Would you say that it improves your quality of life? Yes.
00:42:00
Speaker
Yes. Just yes. Just yes. Extremely strong improv.
00:42:07
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, I think it I do find that as we have made that transition, I actually voluntarily spend more time out there, even when it's hot and not overly comfortable. I spend a lot more time, you know, under the under shade, but it's just sitting out watching stuff or or walking around and enjoying it.
00:42:30
Speaker
There's also just something to be, and'm I'm going to do a terrible job trying to explain this, but looking out at a yard or even just like a small patch, at you know, two by two patch of flowers or a really cool tree or something just brings me so much more peace than sod. It's a lot more inspiring. It it feels more
00:42:57
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know what the right word is cause I don't want to moralize it. I don't want to mythologize it like with the growing your own fruits and vegetables, but it just, yeah. Something about that feels more like what you want to be doing and what you want to have. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Well, I think that's a good place to leave it. Thank you for joining the podcast today. Thanks for having me. When, uh, when are we getting some hort culture merch?
00:43:26
Speaker
Well, I don't know. oh That was not scripted and we will be talking about that after I end this podcast. No, I don't know. We we have thought about doing it.
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement
00:43:36
Speaker
um I think we were thinking about how to promote a little bit more, thinking about how to get us on for guest spots. I think having some merch could be a vibe. I'm not exactly sure how the working at UK versus not, I don't know. I don't know what that how that and plays in. but yeah If you want merch, drop it in the comments, shoot us an email, or you can check us out and make a leave a comment on Instagram at Hort Culture Podcast. You can email us, that's in the show notes, the email address is in the show notes. um Without any further ado, I'll say thank you for joining us, and as we grow this podcast, we hope that you'll grow with us. Take care, and we'll see you next time.