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Garden Myths
173 Plays2 years ago
Welcome to Hort Culture, the podcast where we dig into the science and art of growing plants. Today we're going to dive into some common garden myths. Tune in and learn how to grow your garden smarter, not harder.
Horticultural Myths-Washington State University
Some Garden Myths and What Science Has To Say
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction to Hort Culture
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow.
Return of the Hosts
00:00:11
Speaker
Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture. We are back and ready to chat. Welcome to Hort Culture. Live in studio yet again. Live in studio. And we are just as disruptive as the last time, I guarantee.
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm clicking my pen for giving that things like that show up on, on sound. So, you know, work with this here. We're fresh.
Online Myths and Misinformation
00:00:37
Speaker
We're fresh. So today we're going to talk about some, uh, of course we all, we all work, we all, number one, we all surf the internet. Okay. So if you're here, you've, you surf the internet, right? You hope people still say it, surf the internet.
00:00:52
Speaker
I'm sorry, please don't judge me. I feel very attacked. You have a well at home. We don't judge you. Also a millennial. We say surf the inner world. I don't know. I mean, what do you what do you say? Browse the dark web. I mean, that's something different.
Garden Myths: Watering Plants
00:01:09
Speaker
Oh, nevermind. I ride the lightning bus in the web or in theaters. I think that's what they say on Reddit.
00:01:19
Speaker
Anyways, oh, you're okay. You're still on Reddit? Yeah, it's vintage. Vintage is in. Is your mind saying the back up? It's super simple syndication. It's still relevant. Anyways, those of you who look at the web. We all surf the web. We all surf the web. And we come across these things where you're just like, huh, that makes sense. But is it in fact true?
00:01:44
Speaker
So we're talking about some myths that we see as your professionals who you can trust indefinitely. And some of these will be myths that we've heard in person from people that maybe come into your office or any number of other places. Some of them I believe myself.
00:01:59
Speaker
And to be fair, these are not like urban myths or involving Sasquatch Bigfoot or Yetis. That's not the kind of myths. No cryptids. No, no cryptids. Yeah. Josh is making notes. My entire points of interest are destroyed. Go to me last. Come to me last. I'll be ready once everybody else hears. Order last year. Yeah. So garden myths. Yeah, garden myths. Do you want me to start?
00:02:21
Speaker
Yes, go ahead. I'm very passionate about this one. I heard this a lot last year and it was kind of like, well, that makes sense. But then the more I thought about it, it was like, wait, no, that's not right. And so this is me saying, I'm just now learning.
00:02:39
Speaker
watering plants when it's hot outside. So last year in June, we had an early very hot June, you know, we were seeing over 90 degrees consistently and plants were just, you know, practically melting. Yeah, they were really suffering. A lot of our... Hot boy summer, not good for plants. Hot boy summer is not good for plants.
00:03:00
Speaker
And so a lot of people were saying, oh, you can't water in the middle of the day. Well, some of these plants really needed to be watered multiple times a day. And we typically don't encourage evening watering of stuff because there's no sun to kind of dry that leaf surface out. But a lot of people were saying that the water acts as a magnifying glass on the leaf surface. And burns it. And burns it. And scorches it. Like a demented child in an ant.
00:03:24
Speaker
Yes. Have you guys heard that before? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, all the time. It's a bonsai thing. There's a book by this guy named Michael Hagedorn called Bonsai Heresy. I can see why you bought it. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. It's got flames on it.
00:03:42
Speaker
And he talks about this exact, one of these myths that's pervaded bonsai for a long time. Yeah. It just, it keeps coming back and it's like nursery. People will tell people who, you know, you know, a lot about the industry kind of keep coming to this and I'm here to tell you that is in fact a myth.
00:03:59
Speaker
All right, you can water a plant anytime.
The Truth About Foliar Feeding
00:04:03
Speaker
You can even water it at night if you want to. Like I said, we don't typically recommend that, but if a plant needs water, if a plant is wilting, and it's, let me preface that with, if it's hot and dry outside and your plant is wilting, you should water it. Now, if it just rained yesterday and your plant is wilting, you have other problems. Yeah, it might be too wet. It might be too wet. We'll get into, we haven't really done a ton of disease stuff.
00:04:28
Speaker
So we could talk about water molds all day long. But anyways, you can, in fact, water your plants on a hot day. You can spray water directly on them. And guess what? They're going to be all right. And Alexis, isn't that backed up by research? There's been numerous research publications on this through time. And there's not been one case where it's ever been proven to cause any kind of leaf burn. It's usually from other things. And on the topic of garden myths, because we all observe things.
00:04:58
Speaker
And then we kind of put two and two together sometime. I think this is a classic case where people observe they may be watered during the day and all of a sudden they see margin leaf burn. Well, that could be from any number of things, over watering, under watering, root issues, all sorts of issues, like oxygen of any kind, salts in the soil.
00:05:18
Speaker
may not have a direct relationship with and it does not have a direct relationship. I will tell you, don't fertilize the leaves of your plants when it's really hot and dry outside because fertilizer is essentially salts, right? We don't often think about that, but they are salts. And if you put salt on a leaf, yes, it's going to dry them out. So straight water is normally something that you can do. So if your plant is wilty, water it is the, um,
00:05:44
Speaker
basis of mine and just don't water with salt water and you'd be good. And maybe getting the leaves wet in the evening regularly for fungal reasons, maybe not a great idea as far as the whole magnifying glass burning, et cetera thing. I think sometimes exactly what you said, Ray, you didn't maybe water
Blossom End Rot: Beyond Soil Deficiency
00:06:04
Speaker
enough. The plant got so hot and was not able to cool itself, wasn't able to transport water, started to burn, then you watered it too late. Yeah.
00:06:13
Speaker
gave it what it needed, but a little bit too late and think, Oh, I just caused that. You made a faulty direct correlation. And you know, we're all guilty of that. We say one plus one. Well, that is one plus one that equaled the situation. Well, one plus whatever other external factors in this case, not watering, not magnifying effect. That's a good number. Yeah, that's a great one. Yeah, I'm starting with. Yeah. Do you want to jump into the foliar feeding?
00:06:39
Speaker
Oh, since that's kind of related to getting leaves wet. Yeah, that's a good one related to that. Well, all of you have heard this, so please feel free to jump in. But there's this idea of foliar feeding that's going around.
00:06:51
Speaker
It's been going, I mean, it's not a new thing, but it feels to be like it's caught steam a lot lately, at least in the circles that I run in. An example of foliar feeding that I think a lot of people know is when they have blossom end rot on their tomatoes and they go to a store because before they come to the extension office, a sad day, and they say, here, spray this calcium onto the leaves.
00:07:16
Speaker
it will fix your blossom end rot because as we all know on this podcast, blossom end rot is actually caused by lack of calcium in
Epsom Salts and Plant Health
00:07:24
Speaker
the plant. Well, foliar feeding, like I give this example, I don't know if it's the best example, but it makes sense in my brain. Foliar feeding is more of an, it's instant. It's more, if you have a plant and really, really bad health, yes, it works. Yes, it can help, but it's a very short term solution. So I say, if you are feeding the soil,
00:07:44
Speaker
You are therefore feeding the plant. It's kind of like taking your vitamins every day. It's going to keep you healthy. If you take your vitamins, you drink plenty of water, you exercise, all that kind of stuff. It's going to keep you healthy. But if you do get sick, you're going to go take that antibiotic to hopefully instantly make you better, right? That antibiotic is kind of like foliar feeding. It helps instantly. But if you don't exercise, eat right, take your vitamins, you're going to keep getting sick. And so you're going to... So bigger problems other than just nutrient management.
00:08:14
Speaker
Probably larger issues and you're putting what trying to put a band-aid on it So like it's not that you shouldn't use fuller feeding and like fish emulsion is a big thing But a lot of people are using fish emulsion right now and they're using it as a foliar feed which number one stank Like I don't know why you'd ever want to run that but people do it and they also do the calcium through foliar and I've done the calcium before because I had plants that really were
00:08:40
Speaker
It has to do with, you talked about it earlier, respiration. So the way water moves in a plant, well, when it's really cold, uh, water is not moving up and down the plant or really hot either. So calcium moves in water. And so I couldn't get the roots to pull water fast enough to get that calcium where it was needed. So I put on a foliar feed of calcium. So it was instantly where I needed it, but I continued to put calcium at the soil level. Uh, so it's not, it's not, I'm not saying it's a bad thing.
00:09:10
Speaker
but it shouldn't be the only thing that you're focusing on. And foliar feeding
The Myth of the 'Black Thumb'
00:09:13
Speaker
only works for micronutrients, end of story. They've done a lot of research on this. No macronutrients will ever be taken up by foliar feeding. It just doesn't work. And you touched on something else, just the biology of the plant, the way the plant
00:09:27
Speaker
Kind of takes in, gives off water, self regulates the whole water system and moves things around. That works against you with folder feeding. Not only that, but just certain types of trees and shrubs, plants in general, they all vary wildly in their ability to absorb the micronutrients.
00:09:43
Speaker
through leaf tissue. So not only is kind of the biology working against you, but each plant is different in its own individual capabilities. Lots of issues with foliar feeding. When you say macronutrients, tell us what you think. Like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, the things that we need and the greatest quantities inside of a plant that are most needed.
00:10:03
Speaker
on average for most plants cannot be taken up through foliar feeding, only the micronutrients. So that's just another important consideration is only the macros can be taken up. Once again, you know, each plant has its own different ability to even, you know, take those micronutrients in. So yeah, foliar feeding is something that, you know, I've looked into and we kind of see, you know, that as one of the ways that
00:10:29
Speaker
we could get extra nutrients in plants. But most of that research was done in the 1940s, 50s. It's older research. And now the newer research is kind of pointing out some of these limitations, I guess, on foliar feeding. And it seems like you're just trying to mask a larger root issue or growing condition issue. And foliar feeding is not going to correct that. You're mandating it. Yeah, yeah. And then maybe a little, a little micro myth or micro misunderstanding within what Alexis just mentioned is that
00:10:55
Speaker
that blossom end rot is caused by a soil deficiency. In most cases, that calcium may be in the soil, it just can't get up because you haven't put enough water on the plant.
00:11:05
Speaker
And so sometimes people will think it's a nutrient deficiency. They'll get sold a bag of calcium carbonate or whatever at the store, put it on and maybe nothing happens. And so this is an example. It's a very heavy element. It's hard to move around. Yeah. In this case, the correlation of there's something missing, there is something missing and it's the delivery system of water to get that nutrient up.
00:11:27
Speaker
So that's just another little, just for those who haven't followed all the pods and aren't, aren't familiar with their Blossom Enrot facts and figures. Well, you know, something related to this and I'm going to go into witness protection for the next one. Okay. Because I have been named Roy ticket. I, yes, I am Roy ticket. I live in Albuquerque. Yeah. Yes. I may have to go into protective services after this, but let's talk a minute. You mentioned you brought it up guys. Just remember that.
00:11:56
Speaker
Now you talked about blossom end right I'm going to talk about the golden bullet of gardening that's epsom salts, epsom salts which is what it's not calcium sulfate that is not what epsom salts is it's magnesium sulfate and it's interesting that in the garden that seems to be one of the golden bullets of
00:12:15
Speaker
gardening is to put that on. If you have a problem, put it on, it's going to make it better. That's a lot of it, basically. Well, take blossom. It's called a panacea. Yes, it is a one shot silver bullet. We talk about that. Yes. But it
Indoor vs. Outdoor Plant Care
00:12:30
Speaker
is not one of those types of solutions. In fact, it can make something like blossom end rot even worse because we said that's related to calcium. More specifically, the calcium transport in the plant. Well, magnesium and calcium are antagonistic to one another.
00:12:44
Speaker
In other words, that ion, that little particle, that plant can only take so much in of that particular charged particle, which magnesium and calcium have the same charge. So it actually fights calcium going into the plant. It's a cation. Yes. So that exchange there, it's a cation, not to be confused with catfish, which is a different topic altogether. But yeah, it can actually work against you.
00:13:13
Speaker
and make things even worse, but just consider that when you're using Epsom salts and it is a salt. So also consider that, but that is my plug against using
00:13:22
Speaker
Epsom salts in the garden. So epsom salts are high in magnesium? They are. Magnesium sulfate is what you're putting on, which doesn't have calcium in all together. Yeah. Do you remember cations are positively charged? Do you remember how to remember that? For those of you out there having to take a soils class, cats are positive animals? Oh, not. We're going into exchange capacities, aren't we? Somehow how does that relate to cats? That is a good way to remember that.
00:13:50
Speaker
Based on how talkative we are today, I'd say we have a pretty high exchange capacity. Oh, I think so. I think the caffeine is real. It's getting real. My face is getting warm. I'm hitting my parabolic curve right now. Yeah. But that was one of those things that I've tried to work with people over time. And it can just actually make, you know, make things worse, both adding it to the soil and spraying it on as a topical spray. It doesn't work. I've got a little bit less of a nuts and bolts.
00:14:19
Speaker
myth here or thought. I'm shocked. Something conceptual. It's a bit something obtuse. It's kind of a high art piece. If y'all would put on these hats that I brought. What do you think about the idea that someone says, I just don't have a green thumb, I have a black thumb, or maybe with
Lawn Care Preferences
00:14:40
Speaker
opposite or a red thumb on the color wheel, the opposite would be red, I guess. A red thumb can't grow anything.
00:14:47
Speaker
Is that, are there some people who just don't have it? They don't have what it takes? I think that's called a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe it's a lack of interest in the endeavor of what you're undertaking.
00:15:00
Speaker
Well, I've known some people who would love, they think that they would love to grow plants and they just can't seem to do it and they could become discouraged. I wonder if they're not loving them to death sometimes. Sometimes they can love them to death. I always say that you haven't found the plant that's right for you. So there's plant partnerships, right? So just like you find your life partner or your pet partner or whatever.
00:15:20
Speaker
whatever kind of partner you find. I have a podcast partner, podcast partners. I think we all have a plan. So like any, anybody in the industry that grows plants for a living will tell you they have at least one, probably multiple plants that hate them. Cypresses. Okay. Josh, this is Cypress or Josh. We look alike.
00:15:45
Speaker
Just like, I can grow everything perfectly. That's what he grows. Yeah, I'll say, I can't grow, of all things, aloe or air plants. If it's not in a soil media, I can't grow it. So basically, you can't take a plant that needs no additional nutrients and grow them? No, I cannot. I have killed every single air plant I have ever had. Quit putting your foliar sprays on there, Alexis. Yeah, Alexis has been foliar feeding. You have some salts. Just straight.
00:16:13
Speaker
I can have a big house full of plants that are really hard to germinate or, you know, some things just grow really well for me. So what is your plant partner? Everyone's going to have to divulge their plant partner sequence. As if I could pick just one. Ooh, Holly, Holly Plantamory. Yeah, there you go.
00:16:34
Speaker
So that's what I tell people with the green thumb. You just haven't found the plant for you yet. I do think that there is a also a huge difference between inside and outside plants. And I think that there is a personality skill set outlook dynamic to that as well. Like there are people who are good outdoor plant people and there are people who are good indoor plant people. And they're people who are good at both.
00:16:58
Speaker
Even with the indoor situation, that's how much life gets in the house. That's a limiting factor. That indoor environment is tough because I'm big on light meters and if you want to quantify the amount of light in your house, the quality and quantity, then you can do that. You have a light meter, right?
00:17:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah. You know, I got a light. Oh, yeah. We'll have to compare. Oh, yeah. So for the, for the bonsai, I have, I alter the water and I have a pH meter and a light meter. So I go around like measuring the light and measuring the pH. And it's surprising sometimes, is it not? Because it's good to work from data. Put it that way. You think you have more quality coming in measure it. You can't
00:17:37
Speaker
And a lot of times we just overestimate the quality of life coming into our homes. And I do it all the time. I'm like, oh, it's plenty of life. And I'll look at the life meter and try to put that on some kind of scale and it's not nearly enough. Yeah. And I think a lot of indoor stuff manages, or sorry, manages, it thrives on managed negligence. And there are some people, you said loving something to death. There are some people who want to do something to a plant every day.
00:18:04
Speaker
besides just walk by and talk to it and sing it a little song, which they like. They do like that. But they want to be weird. Yeah. But you can't water, you can't water mother and lost tongue snake plant every day. You can't, you can't do that kind of thing. Whereas I am okay with indoor plants, but much more of an outdoor plant person because they kind of take care of themselves, but you can also check in on them and give them what they need. And
00:18:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's almost like the difference between cats and dogs in some ways, like indifference and like kind of wildness and you just support them and see what they do versus like, you are their God because they don't get raised. Sometimes you see these plants doing what they normally do and it's a normal function of what they do, but when you have to pass it five times a day, you make these astute observations and you over observe and you're like, oh gosh, it's got brown on the leaves. It's always had brown on the leaves. It's just, you notice it when you go past it back and forth so much. Yeah.
Lawns vs. Alternative Ground Covers
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah, that makes me think, as far as indoor plants, it's not really a plant. The only thing I can really do well indoors is fungus. Oh, yeah. Josh has a heavy black mold problem at his house. We do it good. I wouldn't call it a problem so much as a soldier. It's like fall at the house of Usher, but I think fungus base just collapses. With the night of the fungi. Now I am become mycelium.
00:19:32
Speaker
you got any you got any myths over there sure a couple of them and I guess the one that is screaming out to me to be said which I hope well there's no way anybody in here believes this myth but the idea that clover is a weed
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's jarring to hear. Well, it should be important to say that the definition of a weed is a plant that's out of place. So there's an arbitrary aspect to what gets defined as a weed.
00:20:03
Speaker
So throw back the last week, right tree, right place, not a weed. Right, exactly. Wrong. Whereas like if somebody says clover is a weed, their arbitrary decision is incorrect. Their opinion is wrong. You should not have one. But yes, you know, I've heard and seen evidence of people discussing and lamenting how hard they've been fighting to try to get rid of the clover in their yard. Well, it wasn't in my yard. It's a weed in my beds and I do fight it.
00:20:31
Speaker
okay and sure sure wow yeah it felt we needed we're gonna pause the podcast to listen it's coming after my columbine and and we have to fight about it which is a native plant i will point out yeah well i guess to to emphasize in the lawn area okay all right yeah because it's important to note that the clover which is not native to here was brought over here by
00:20:58
Speaker
the Dutch in the 1600s has been here longer than the tall fescue that was brought over in the 40s. Boom! Gross. Yeah, there's been a real interest. I don't know why I've gotten several phone calls the last couple of years on people wanting to convert their lawns to
00:21:14
Speaker
All clover lawns, which is, there's some specific considerations there. And there's some plant materials now that are, that lend themselves better to that. They're more specifically. Microclover. Yeah, the micro, I mean, there's some, like it doesn't have near the traffic tolerance, but there's some real benefits on the ultimate high that the lawn's going to get. There's some really neat considerations and there's some use case scenarios where it'd be a great choice, I think, but you have to know kind of all the pros and cons, but I'm glad to see.
00:21:42
Speaker
that people are starting to consider. Do you mow it still? You can. But a lot of the clovers, some of it's like the top specifically for lawns stay lower. It'll be uneven. If you want to get it up, you can always mow or if you're having grandkids over and you want to take the blooms off because there's bees in the blooms and kids get in there and they get stung. Like the stains of clover don't come out of clothes like
00:22:06
Speaker
fescue stains. The stains are completely different. So there's some things you have to kind of work through to make sure it's free and it adds not much.
00:22:14
Speaker
travel resistance, not much traffic resistance. But yeah, I'm so glad that we get those phone calls and we can talk with people about clover lawns, that people are thinking about that, I love it. I just had the image of Ray doing some hands-on experiments by doing baseball slides through clover. Not the knees of all of my clovers. These clovers stains are nasty. These are clover stains, these aren't going anywhere. The rock star where you run out on your knees and just slide through different patches. I've got a slither slide except it's dry.
00:22:49
Speaker
sports people told me that and I had to go look it up and I asked one of our specialists on campus I'm like this sounds like a myth like I was like this can't be true and he said oh no it's true because sports people hate clover because it doesn't come out the uniforms or anything so I was like
00:23:04
Speaker
Wow, okay. I thought it thought it was not a real thing, but I was like, oh great, you're detergent. Yes, maybe get a stronger detergent. Every clover has its stain. Yeah. You know what? I had play clothes as a child. I think everybody should have some. Some play clothes? Play clothes. I still have play clothes. I still have play clothes. Yeah, that's the clothes I have on the day. I have way too much in a row. Because you're playing too much.
00:23:27
Speaker
Too much plans, quote unquote. Yeah, it's a good one. I like clover. Clovers are good. You know, Josh, I feel like that feeds into another thing that you have disdain for, which is lawns in general. Yeah, I mean, there's a hot take. The idea that... He's also going into witness protection.
Changing Attitudes Towards Lawns
00:23:44
Speaker
Is a lawn a required, a turf lawn, let's say, or a grass lawn? Is that a really good? Yeah, is it good? Is it something you even want? Well, what's the form and function consideration for that? So the myth is you have to have a fescue lawn.
00:23:57
Speaker
And we would all say that this should be debunked. You don't have to, no. I must say, I am probably, maybe, I don't know, I'm maybe not speaking for everyone here, but I speak for everyone. When I say that I am not as vehemently anti-lon as maybe I once was, in the same way that I'm no longer a purist about the native stuff like I once was. Now that being said,
00:24:26
Speaker
80% of our little patch of Lexington is not lawn, but I would say it's more like 90, more like 90% of our area has been deleted and now it's under control and get defeated.
00:24:44
Speaker
Well, no, I think that there is a utility for a wide open space in some cases. I think that there are some people who have very active dogs who maybe otherwise aren't going to get necessarily a lot of exercise. I think that there is a value in being able
00:25:00
Speaker
for kids to play on the lawn. I think there are things and I, I think mainly what I'm speaking to, I'm getting a little out of pocket here, but mainly what I'm speaking to is that in general, I would like to see us move toward a focus in the discussions of this stuff, not as our group, but in general, move away from a shame based thing because sometimes people will come over and they'll be like, Oh, I'm so ashamed that we have a lawn or like, I really want to kill our lawn, but I just haven't done it already. And it's like,
00:25:27
Speaker
Chill, baby. Everything's going to be okay. Does it work for you? If you can grow it, you can mow it just if it meets your objective. Yeah, if you want to do it, I mean, if you want to change it, do it. If not, don't feel bad about it. But if you do want to, here's how you can do it. And what we did was, we did it a little chunk at a time. You know, you sort of expand out and consume the lawn gradually over time, and then you get to a certain point and you're like, okay, let's knock it out.
00:25:50
Speaker
But, so that's what I, I am generally anti-wan for the main reason of I hate cutting the grass. Sure. I hate it. Oh, I love that. I love cutting. I don't know why, but I don't care if I'm mowing weeds. I don't care if I'm mowing weeds. Totally. I see one of those things that I can see what I've done. You want to push more or zero? Well, it's a hillside and it's straight up and down, but it's good cardio. That's why you got such a picturesque calves. Have you been looking at my calves? I'd be lying if I said I have.
00:26:18
Speaker
But no, it's one of those things that's interesting. I have neighbors that hate mowing and they have that done.
00:26:24
Speaker
People view that, it's really interesting. Well, it can be a big resource sink. I think that's what people are looking at. Yeah, time and money. In some places where there's limited water, things like that. I had read some statistics a couple of times. I don't have them in front of me here, but that if we consider irrigated crops nationwide and we were to consider an irrigated lawn just another crop, it would be the number one crop in the US. By acreage.
00:26:53
Speaker
Yes, yeah and and in terms of how many inputs go into it. So there's a lot of resources going into keeping our live but like Brett said, you know, it's not something necessarily be have shame about but consider, you know, when you look at your lawn, what would you like that
00:27:12
Speaker
wall tree. Yeah, definitely. Completely impassable. There are options with things like hardscaping and mulch and, you know, other round covers like clover, micro clover, things like that. And to just consider that space, what other functions might it have that you would enjoy?
00:27:29
Speaker
And if it's not a lawn, go for it. Just kidding. If you have recovered from the shame of having a lawn, change your life. The thing that's changed, the biggest in my mind about lawns, you know, is being, is the uniformity that I expect from that. You know, in the back, you know, if there's no neighborhood covenants or rules and regulations that say you have to have, you know, weed-free lawn. In the front, I've got a little tiny patch and I've maintained it according to neighborhood standards. But in the back, it's,
00:27:57
Speaker
everything in the world. It's yellow clover. It's all the white Dutch clover that's in there. It's a lot of just what people would consider weeds, but I mow it and it's green most of the year and I have garden areas back there, but I will mow it and keep it kind of uniform. I don't mow it very often, but I mow it. It suits my function and I've really changed over time. I used to be one of those that turf needs to be uniform. It needs to be a monolithic planting that's very uniform.
00:28:22
Speaker
But I've really, I've reduced my inputs into the lawn a great deal, you know, over time for whatever reason, I'm not for sure. But I look at it differently now. I enjoy seeing little butter cups and little wild violets and all the other fun stuff. And maybe that's it. Yeah. Because that's just more inputs. I don't want to input into the lawn more time and more product. And I think that, um, for me personally, it's very personal thing.
00:28:51
Speaker
But that uniformity just comes at too high price for both in terms of time and product. So yeah, that's a good one. It's got a mullet lawn. Business in the front. Exactly, exactly. It's definitely like a business cut up front in the back. It's a dirty pool hall in the middle of a Texas. All the pageantry of an Alabama concert. And it's all that in the back. Yes, it is indeed.
00:29:19
Speaker
That's where all the fun stuff
Gravel and Drainage Myths
00:29:20
Speaker
is. What are the garden myths that we have? Talk about myths and misconceptions and personal preferences. Oh, I got one. Oh, go. Let's talk about your plant in a plant. Okay. In a pot. It's a good place to start. Plant in a plant in a pot. Plant in a plant in a pot. And do you put gravel in the bottom for drainage or large rocks or something like that before you put your potting soil on top? Or are you straight potting soil? Hold on, let me call my extension agent.
00:29:49
Speaker
They'll have the right answer, Myth 3. Hi, it's Alexis. How can I help you? Hi, Alexis. Can I talk to somebody else, please? You yelled at me last time. Can we talk to somebody that knows something about planes? If this is about the gravel again, you know what I'm going to say. Okay, I really want to put the gravel in. I'm going to need you to not do that. Oh, okay. Thank you for busting this myth for me.
00:30:09
Speaker
So don't put gravel in the bottom. And seed. Yeah. So, um, gravel, it disturbs the water column. And so it goes down to, so you've got this potting soil, right? It's got a nice fine texture to it. Water won't move. Eventually it will, but it won't move very quickly in the way that your plant roots need it to move from that fine texture to that coarse gravel texture. So you create kind of this false layer.
00:30:36
Speaker
going on there and it will just hang out. And what we know, what we all know is that your roots most of the time, unless it's a bog plant, which is a different story, but for most of us, your plants don't like to sit in water. And so that water will sit right there in that potting soil where all those roots are and it will rot them. And you get disease issues and things like that. So it's better for it to be complete potting soil as long as you have a drainage hole in the bottom.
00:31:03
Speaker
So if you buy one of those pretty pots that doesn't have a drainage hole in it, you best be getting your drill out. And I'm assuming the drainage hole provides all the actual air the roots need. Is that the case? If it has air holes in the bottom, drainage holes, that also acts as, you know, we get that question every now and then. Yeah, I believe that the water pulls the air down through the top of the water. So that really doesn't have an impact on much at all.
00:31:27
Speaker
Physics. I think I guess that would be physics, right? Oh yeah. I don't know. I'm a horticulturist. She's more of a concept person. I'm more of a big picture person. I think this is what dumb people call physics. For me, it's just the way things grow. For me, it's just the way plants grow. So anyways, don't put gravel in your pots, people.
00:31:47
Speaker
Yeah, because that does feel like it's one of those where you can understand the thinking. Yes. We use gravel as a driveway. Water can go down through it and get out. But if you have it in a dense substrate and it hits an area that has significantly more air space in it, it doesn't have that kind of adhesive, cohesive effect to continue to pull the water at the bottom of the pot.
Sterilizing Garden Tools
00:32:14
Speaker
Slows it now there are cases where you're going to maybe use a gravel or gravel type substance throughout the pot And you know a lot about that right all about tell us about how you use these larger soil structures
00:32:30
Speaker
In cases where you want the soil to dry out even faster, you're going to create a rougher texture with more space throughout the water column for water to flow through. It holds more space for air just if there is used in things like bonsai or things that you need like a kind of a sub sort of a substrate orchid bark mix, that type of thing.
00:32:50
Speaker
And so in that case, you might have a very rough texture. You know, a very few bonsai are grown in like a traditional peat moss soil media. A lot of it's a blend of lummus, oh, lummus, lava, pumice, and this other kind of clay-based thing. But it's a very dry mix and it drains very freely. But again, it's more or less the same consistency all the way throughout the mix so that it
00:33:17
Speaker
It can drain out the bottom. So if you're worried about a plant not having enough drainage, you need to mix in that, I wouldn't recommend gravel. I'd go with something like perlite, but that's what I've used. Cacti mixes, stuff like that are going to have a heavier perlite, but you're mixing that through the whole pot. The whole pot is ideally the same consistency.
00:33:36
Speaker
You don't have those layers of different things in your soil. It doesn't have to do with gravel being bad. It's just that the difference in particle size within that media mix is what causes the issue. Makes sense. Another one.
00:33:56
Speaker
Cause like anyways, garbage. I'm going to go home and take the, now I gotta go home and take the gravel out of the bottom of every single plant because I wonder if my water was standing on top. I kept calling and there was a busy signal cause I always kept asking Alexis if I should put gravel in mine.
00:34:13
Speaker
gravel, which, you know, we get that all the time. People just have a hard time believing that. They really do. Yeah. Cause they will say, well, that makes no sense. No common sense. But it's interesting. And you mentioned, mentioned it, add heat, some cohesive forces. The water just doesn't move right. It will, it does not want to leave that area.
00:34:29
Speaker
of fine material. So it's crazy. Yeah, that's a huge one. Well, and just to make it a little even a little more meta, when you plant a plant in the ground,
00:34:44
Speaker
the soil water column is now, I mean, not infinitely deep, but it's immensely deep. And so the structure and the pressure of pulling down from that type of environment, that's why plants in the ground will grow a little bit faster. That's why the water can move differently through that type of strata is because
00:35:07
Speaker
You have the whole earth essentially acting like your pot. Whereas when you're growing something in a pot, you are in control of that whole little thing. And you take that native soil and you put it in like a container garden. People wonder why it turns to concrete. You disturb the soil column and its permeability factors. So once you take out that natural movement, that soil, even though, let's say you did not disturb the soil at all, you were able to take a perfect scoop.
00:35:30
Speaker
10 inches deep and take that exact soil and stick it in a container. It's going to turn to concrete and it baffles people. Why does it do that? Where you've disturbed that natural ecosystem and that column of soil that is more than just that eight to 10 inches of good topsoil. Whatever. So yeah, the soil physics is a whole, it's a whole thing. It could be a great topic for the future. Yeah. Yeah. Just all of that that goes into soil. Shout out to you. Yeah. What up? Shout out.
00:36:04
Speaker
All right. Any other myths we've got that we hear a lot of there? I mean, it's like an infant
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:36:09
Speaker
amount, but. Well, it's not a myth. I mean, I ran onto this one just a couple of years ago and I had to think about it. You know, and something that we recommend a lot is of course, if you're printing something like fire blot, you know, of course you need to sterilize your pruners, you know, in between every so many cups because you don't want to spread the disease or whatever problem you're trying to prune out.
00:36:28
Speaker
We always say, you know, a quick and easy solution is to, you know, use like a diluted bleach water solution to clean your tools. And I heard a person in extension at a national meeting say, but don't do that. It's not really a myth, but she said, there's, don't do that. There's a better way to do it. And I was like, well, what do you mean? She goes, well, you know, instead of bleach, which is highly corrosive to your very nice tools, some people love their hand tools and I get that or their pruning tools. They love those. They may be.
00:36:53
Speaker
You know, a very high quality or there may be a family heirloom, but she said, you know, don't use bleach. And I'm like, Oh goodness. I've always recommended bleach. It is effective. But she said, that's not the point. The problem is it's corrosive. You know, you clean all the organic matter off your printer tools like you normally would. And she recommended using antiseptic mouthwash because it's not corrosive.
00:37:12
Speaker
for the nature of that product. And I'd never thought about that. She said pruners, she said in her commercial, and I guess she dealt with a lot of commercial nurseries that they're constantly sterilizing like every day. She says bleach, those pruners will not last. And she said instead, it's, you know, and she had done some research on it, apparently said antiseptic mouthwash works better. And I thought that was really interesting because it's pH balanced. It's, you know, literally mouthwash. So it's balanced in such a way that it's non-corrosive.
00:37:39
Speaker
I thought that was pretty great. So I've recommended that more and more. And that's not really a myth. Maybe that's a best practice, but I had never once given that consideration. Really cool. Yeah. That one part, you know, bleached to nine parts water, uh, you know, the standard recommendation we make, um, and that once again is effective. But if you're doing that a lot corrosive and never would have thought about that. But ever since then, that's what I do at home now is use
00:38:03
Speaker
You know, it's got to be an antiseptic mouthwash because there's mouth washes that you can get that may be like, you know, supposed to strengthen your enamel on your teeth. Those won't work. That has to say antiseptic mouthwash. She clarified that ever since then. I really thought that was so cool. Before this podcast releases, I'm going to go buy a stock in Listerine or something because we're going to have an impact on the world. We just include all of you to go buy mouthwash.
00:38:33
Speaker
Listerine, named after Joseph, I believe Joseph Lister, one of the main, I would say probably the father of a thing, two women and a black person who knows before him, but white guy father of antiseptic practices and surgery. Oh. Countless lives saved by people washing their hands. Like the tools, surgical tools or hands, everything? Everything.
00:38:59
Speaker
Well, there we go. The antiseptic concept was originally invented as an antiseptic. They were like, put this in your mouth. If we put mint in it, it'd be fine. I just, I imagine putting the stream on my mouth and then thinking about printers.
00:39:31
Speaker
That is a worst-case scenario not a best management practice Yeah, yeah. All right. So really quick. Tell me the myth that we busted today that you brought up Josh go the clovers of weed busted
00:39:46
Speaker
Magnesium sulfate, otherwise known as Epsom salts. That you should put gravel in your pot. Busted. A non-green thumb just means you haven't found the right plant for you. Busted. Aww. So, what, did we, what did we bust that before? Oh, that you have a, you can't, some people don't have green thumbs. Busted. Yeah, busted. Anyways. Wonderful. You got really into that. Get it together, guys. You got really into that. Well, um.
00:40:13
Speaker
I think that's it for our myths today. If you have any more myths, if you're wondering if something is a myth or you heard a cool myth, please feel free to comment or send us an email, comment on our Instagram at hort culture podcast and tell us all your cool myths and we will help debunk them or maybe not. I don't know. Maybe it's not true. Maybe it's true. We'll figure it out together. And then we hope as we grow this podcast that you will grow with us.
00:40:40
Speaker
and we will see you next time. Thanks for a great chat, everybody.