Hard at Work in Our Gardens
Season 6, Episode 27, May 22, 2024
Are you here for the early listen link? Good, but please don’t just click the link. Read on for a little behind-the-scenes and some extra tidbits. Like…
As I listened to the podcast, I realized we started talking about the “Chelsea chop” without any explanation. Long-time listeners know that’s what “everyone” calls it when we cut back late-blooming flowers like asters and goldenrod in late spring when the Chelsea Flower Show takes place in London. By the way, Chelsea is this week! BritBox has a special every day of the show.
Depending on where you garden, this chop might take place this coming week, or it might be a bit later, in which case, feel free to call it the Indy 500 chop. I call it this because I often do my chopping back around the time of the Indy 500 race on Memorial Day weekend, or later.
Moving on…
We started with a question about No Mow May and discussed whether you should participate. This led us to talk about the first Reduce Your Lawn Day, which was yesterday, May 20th.
We were pretty chatty before we got to our topics. I talked about buying seeds for 'Topcrop' green beans, an All-America Selection from 1950. And I explained why I bought a tree, Magnolia macrophylla var. ashei, without knowing exactly where I would plant it. Dee talked about some great roses to try, and about a recent blog post I wrote.
We finally got around to our flower topic, gomphrena, also called globe amaranth. We mentioned several varieties, including Proven Winners ‘Truffala Pink’ gomphrena and ‘Fireworks,’ sold out at Burpee.
Our vegetable topic was planting flowers in and around your vegetable garden, but the quote at the beginning reminded me I once posted about nine bean rows.
If you want to read more about some good flowers to plant in your vegetable garden, we also recommended Plant Partners: Science-Based Companion Planting Strategies for the Vegetable Gardens, by Jessica Walliser (Amazon), a book we reviewed in the past.
On our bookshelf, we were sent review copies of Your Outdoor Room: How to Design a Garden You Can Live In, by Manoj Malde (Amazon link). What did we think of it? Listen to find out! (You knew that was the answer.)
For our dirt, we discussed farmers using barn owls for crop protection from voles, mice, etc. Do you have owls around your garden?
Down in our rabbit holes, I mentioned Ida Bennett, a Lost Lady of Garden Writing, and Dee is enthralled with two podcasts: the Rose Chat podcast and the Sarah Raven podcast.
But don’t run off to listen to those podcasts until you’ve listened to our episode and answered Dee’s question at the end!
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For more info on Carol visit her website. Visit her blog, May Dreams Gardens.
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