When Garden Centers Are Exploding with Flowers
Season 5, Episode 26, May 10, 2023
In this week’s episode, Dee and I talked about some flowers and fruit trees that neither one of us are personally growing, for a variety of reasons. But that didn’t stop us from talking about them, and we won’t talk you out of growing them. They may be the perfect plants for you. More on that after this little story…
We actually recorded this episode last week. But if we had recorded it yesterday, as is our habit (which we will get back to doing soon) I would have told this story at the beginning of the episode…
My garden club met on the other side of the city yesterday, and as we occasionally do when we are out and about in the spring, we stopped at a nearby greenhouse to check out the plants.
As I stepped out of my car and began walking toward the greenhouse, my phone rang.
Guess who it was?
Yep, it was someone from the local greenhouse just around the corner from my house.
How did they know I was just about to go into a different greenhouse to buy plants? How are they tracking me? I promise I buy 99.9% percent of my plants from them and only buy elsewhere if they can’t get something I am desparate for.
Okay, maybe 95%?
Anyway, surely it was just a coincidence that she called me at that exact moment.
Later in the day when I went to the local greenhouse to find out how they knew I went to another greenhouse to buy more plants, we had a good laugh about it. Then I confessed about the plants I bought at that other greenhouse.
Now, if they call me again the next time I’m at a different garden center or greenhouse…hmmm…maybe I should go to a greenhouse on a different side of town and find out if it really was a coincidence? (Queue up the mysterious music trailer…)
Now, back to this episode! Are you curious about the flower we talked about that we aren’t growing? It’s society garlic, Tulbaghia violacea. Ha! Dee suggested this flower and didn’t realize that I would use its species name to talk about violas. It’s only hardy to USDA hardiness zone 7 so I can’t grow it even if I wanted to. But it might be perfect for your garden.
If you want to read about society garlic with no mention of violas, you can check out this article from North Carolina Extension.
For our vegetable topic, we decided to talk about growing stone fruits like peaches, apricots and plums, though neither Dee nor I have any of these fruit trees in our gardens right now. I found a good article from Univ of Minnesota extension
that you can read for more information if you want to grow some of these trees yourself.
On the bookshelf, Dee had me check out The Allergy-Fighting Garden: Stop Asthma and Allergies with Smart Landscaping by Thomas Leo Ogren (Amazon Link) from my library. If you suffer from allergies, you might need this book!
Most of our dirt was about the American Garden Rose Selections announcement and the Heritage Rose Foundation.
Down in the rabbit holes, I suggested this substack article on “A Pilgrimage for Book People.” We all have events and places we visit yearly, don’t we? You’ll have to listen to find out about one of the events I attend annually and who I saw there this year.
Do you make an annual pilgrimage to a place or event? Do you grow stone fruits? How about society garlic? Leave a comment to tell us about one or all!
And the other stuff we want you to know….
If you want to help support the podcast at no extra cost, please click on our affiliate links and purchase something from them:
Botanical Interests
Farmers Defense
Etsy
Territorial Seeds
True Leaf Market
Eden Bros
Bookshop and Amazon links are also affiliate links.
You can also support us via a monthly subscription for as little as $3 or a one-time payment through Paypal. Thanks to everyone who has already done so!
Please feel free to email us anytime at TheGardenangelists@gmail.com
For more info on Carol, visit her website, or visit her blog, May Dreams Gardens.
For more info on Dee, visit her website, or visit her blog, Red Dirt Ramblings.
On Instagram: Carol: Indygardener, Dee: RedDirtRamblings, Our podcast: TheGardenangelists.
On Facebook: The Gardenangelists' Garden Club.
On YouTube. We should post a new video sometime, but it’s hard to keep up with everything.
I was disappointed with your assessment of Society Garlic. I live in Southern California (home in zone 10 and rental in high desert zone 8). In my area the Society Garlic is a very low maintance workhorse! I have a few of the green/blue plants and several of the variegated varieties.
They are evergreen here although, generally, don't bloom in the winter months. They can be prolific bloomers in spring, summer and fall. They don't really 'spread' but do multiply and are easily split like a daylily. I have seen some plants as large as 3-4' across, but generally are 12"x12".
Yes, they do have a slight garlic smell that I notice when I am splitting plants, but in the garden there is not really any scent. Besides, who is crawling around in the garden smelling their plants? Ha!
I really appreciate your podcast. Keep up the good work.
Donna B.