Ground Breaking Banter - Rick
Some of the fastest growing cities in the US these days are in hot climates: Dallas, Nashville, Raleigh, just to name a few. And most of the people moving to these areas are coming from cool Midwestern climates. And while adjusting your wardrobe (and air conditioning budget!) to suit these steamy new environs is a given, it’s also going to require a change of thinking in terms of gardening and landscaping. We’re joined in this episode by Brie Arthur, also known as Brie the Plant Lady, who moved from Michigan to North Carolina over 22 years ago. She shares her story of what’s different, what’s better, and what’s surprisingly hard – and surprisingly easy. Join us at the YouTube link above – or on your favorite podcast platform – to hear our whole conversation. Even if you never intend to move yourself, you’ll find reasons to be grateful you garden where you do!
Here’s this week’s Lim-A-Rick, Ballad of a Northern Transplant:
I faced northern winters with acridity
Sold my house now I’ve got liquidity
I learned through word of mouth
To garden you gotta go south
And put up with the heat and humidity
I long for a cool gentle breeze
I’m surrounded by drooping leaves
My plants aren’t the only thing wilting
Like me they are slightly tilting
It feels like a bajillion degrees.
Crape myrtle has long been thought of as the quintessential Southern flowering shrub or tree, lining city streets and gracing home landscapes from Washington DC all the way to New Orleans. Few other woody plants can boast the sheer flower power that crape myrtle has, as they are positively covered in blooms all summer long. Typically, flower colors are extremely vivid, though there are a few softer pinks, lavender, and white. But the amazing floral display is not the only reason that crape myrtles are such popular plants: they also have dramatic smooth bark that’s either white or red, depending on the species (the more popular Lagerstroemia indica has the tan bark, L. faurei has the beautiful orange-red bark). The bark peels to reveal different colored spots, creating a beautiful display year-round. And while the foliage on most varieties does turn really nice orange-red in autumn, overall, they aren’t much for foliage.
Except for the Center Stage series of crape myrtle, developed – believe it or not – right here in Michigan by our plant breeder Megan Mathey. It is a black-leafed crape myrtle that makes this beautiful plant even more unique, and that dark foliage really, really sets off the vivid colors. Center Stage crapemyrtle is available in three colors – red, which have covered on the show before, coral, and pink. Today we’re going to focus on Center Stage Pink crape myrtle. The flowers are a very vivid fuchsia-pink and make an exceptionally bold statement. The contrast with the deep black foliage and the bright pink flowers gives it unmatched presence in the garden or landscape. The Center Stage crapemyrtles were several years in development as we sought to identify only those resistant to powdery mildew, a disease that disfigures conventional black leafed crape myrtles.
While most people tend to think of crape myrtles as trees, the Center Stage series is shrubby, which means it’s easy to make room for one. They naturally grow with an upright, multi-stemmed habit that takes up far less space than a tree or even some of the other large shrubby ones. This shrubby habit also means that Center Stage Pink crape myrtle can be grown in areas where the tree forms can’t – in USDA zone 6, for example, the plant may die back to the ground if winter is harsh, but it can come back from the roots and because it blooms on new wood later in the season, it will still bloom. These shrubby crape myrtles have made many people rethink where crape myrtle can be grown.
Crape myrtle is in the lythraceae, or loosestrife family. And while the word “loosestrife” strikes fear in the heart of many a Midwesterner due to the invasive purple loosestrife everywhere. However, not to worry – crape myrtle is not invasive is not known to seed, even in warm climates. It shares its membership in this family with some pretty surprising company: pomegranate, and the invasive water caltrop. When you look closely at the flowers of crape myrtle, they are surprisingly intricate, a characteristic which is often lost due to the quantity. It’s worth spending the time to look at a single flower and take in how unique it is!
Center Stage Pink crapemyrtle is hardy in USDA zone 6, though it may die back to the ground in harsh winters, and heat tolerant through USDA zone 9. For our hot climate listeners, it has exhibited outstanding performance at our Florida trials, with no signs of disease. These are full sun plants, which is also crucial for minimizing any potential powdery mildew. They need well-drained soil but otherwise are not too finicky; they are drought tolerant once established (which is one of the reasons they are so often used as street trees). The only pruning they should need is if they experience winter damage. Otherwise, leave them unpruned for the most flowers and best effect. Center Stage Pink crapemyrtle will reach 6-12’ tall and up to 8’ wide – that wide range is due to the difference you’ll experience growing it in a cold climate versus a warm or hot place.
If you’d like to add Center Stage Pink crapemyrtle – or any of the 320+ Proven Winners ColorChoice Shrubs – to your garden or landscape, you’ll find a list of local retailers here.
Gardening Mail Bag - Stacey
I feel your pain, Karma – I’ve had zucchini destroyed by squash vine borers many times, and it makes all the jokes about having so much zucchini that you have to sneak it into strangers’ cars sting when you can’t get a single one because these little pests have severed your zucchini plant from its roots. But to answer your first question, yes, zucchini plants do have a short life cycle – they don’t keep producing all summer into fall. The plant kind of exhausts itself and dies, which gives you an opportunity to plant a fall crop or perhaps even more zucchini, as making multiple sowings of zucchini seed is the only way to ensure a consistent supply beyond the height of summer in most climates. Try sowing a few additional seeds every three to four weeks; how late you can do this depends on how long the variety of zucchini you are growing takes to mature, which can be found on the seed packet (note that this is days from germination, not days from planting the seed).
To answer your second question, it does not seem as though squash vine borer is known to be an issue in Utah. However, they are found in Mexico and while Utah of course does not border Mexico, it’s not so far away that it’s out of the range of possibility for the adult insects, which are moths, to wind up there. It’s also worth noting that there are two other insects that could cause similar damage to the squash vine borer: the pickleworm, which preys on cucumbers but can happily use zucchini as an alternate host, and the melonworm, which prefers melon but can make use of zucchini as well. 
Smokebush, known botanically as Cotinus coggygria, are popular for their usually colorful foliage and unique seedheads that do indeed look like puffs of smoke in summer. But the fact is that all smokebush have a very odd growth habit, going through dramatic spurts of growth that lead to long, bare branches with a tuft of vigorous growth at the top. The good news is that, as they mature, they lose this tendency to put on the awkward teenage growth, but the bad news is that you are likely to have to deal with it as it does – this is especially true if you start with a small mail order plant rather than a larger one purchased from a garden center. So indeed, the answer is to just prune back the growth. Where, exactly, you do this depends on the growth and what you want the plant to look like, but you can take the entire stem out, or simply cut it back to within the body of the plant.
This is a common problem with all varieties of smokebush, so we made a video about it that you can watch here.
Rick is our lawn care expert, and he has some great tips. First, when they mow the lawn, keep the deck high. While a closely-cut lawn is always irresistible, cutting your lawn longer has several benefits, including that the blades of grass themselves will shade the crown, conserving moisture and reducing stress so the plant grows more vigorously. A vigorously growing lawn will readily outcompete weeds, so regular fertilizing and watering will help a lot as well. Finally, it’s useful to identify which weeds are the biggest problem for the lawn and apply a pre-emergent herbicide. This is only effective on seeds, so if there are perennial weeds established in the lawn, those will need to be managed by hand. If the biggest threat is simply crabgrass, putting down corn gluten meal is a great solution.
This excellent page from Oregon State University has lots more tips.
Do you have a question for us? We’re happy to help! E-mail us or use the contact tab above. Due to high volume, we may not get to your question, so if you need an answer quickly, please reach out via the Proven Winners website.
Branching News - Rick
In the final segment, we dive deeper into the intricacies of gardening in the North versus the South with Brie Arthur. Join us at the YouTube link above for our whole conversation, and to hear the top three plants that Brie is grateful she can grown in the South that she could never grow in Michigan.
