Karl Gercens of Longwood Gardens, Edgworthia chrysantha, February Gardening Chores

Episode 54: Transcript

TRANSCRIPT:

Leslie: You guys, it's happening! Spring is coming ... well, some days here and there. Welcome to Into the Garden with Leslie on NewsRadio WINA. This show is sponsored by Dos Amigos Landscaping. I'm Leslie Harris, and I love to gardensplain.

Our plant of the week is so good that at this time of year, I literally skip over to see it and cut its blooms almost every day. I'll be chatting with Karl Gercens of Longwood Gardens and his enthusiasm could very well make you drop your secateurs and drive straight to Kennett Square, Pennsylvalia. And the playlist as always is about how you could be playing in your garden this week. Let's just talk about seed starting for a tick here. True confessions. I am just not one of those people who gets that thrill that they talk about every time they see a little grain come from that paper packet and turn into a plant. Maybe I'm a little cynical, but I pretty sure that's what's supposed to happen. I'm mean, it's really cool, but not thrilling for me. So like in terms of movies, it might be like the Bourne Supremacy for others. But for me it's more like Downton Abbey. I like it a lot, but it doesn't get me all revved up.

But saving money, saving time and not using a plastic bag does get me revved up. So that is exactly how I felt this week when I did a seed starting experiment with compost, that free stuff that's at the bottom of the pile. Easy to make, free of charge, already in your yard. I'm so lazy about running errands. I took the same seed packet - tomatoes of some sort. I was so eager about the execution and the sowing that I failed to document the exact thing I was sowing, but it doesn't matter. I sowed them all the same day, the same type of container, you know those takeout food thingies. I mean, they don't have to be single use. They're really handy and different media. One was store bought seed starting stuff. I won't say the brand, but it was well reviewed and the price tag reflects the reputation. And the second was my compost - sifted, nuked or cooked in the microwave for about 90 seconds.

Well, why would I do that? Funny, my husband was equally curious. There's so much information out there and I've read that it's better to start seeds in a sterile medium. As always, I'm a little bit fuzzy on the science, but it makes sense to me that seeds certainly don't need an extra nutritional burst just to germinate. I mean, you wouldn't feed a new chick to get it hatched, right? It should hatch first and then you feed it, right?

Anyway, cooking the compost would've killed off the wee little beasties in there that may not have been welcoming to the seeds. And the last one was just my straight up compost and I cold compost. My piles don't get hot. So we're talking about a lot of living organisms in with those seeds. Those three things, and guess which one is winning? The raw compost - by far - and dead last is the pricey seed starting stuff. I am so pleased to know that I just don't have to buy that stuff anymore. The cooked compost is even beating it out. And I've heard from lots of people on Instagram that they've had similar results. So maybe you take seed starting medium off the old shopping list. I guess I won't be getting any sponsorship offers from that industry.

The plant of the week is the Paper Bush. This is the Edgeworthia Chrysantha and this is a repeat. I talked about it way back in Episode 4, but I can't stop talking about it. So here we go. It's a tree-like shrub or a pretty darn small shrubby tree. The native range sadly is China, so it doesn't help with my native plant guilt complex, but it helps with everything else. It's a kind of a skinny zone. It just grows in zone 7 through 10, so down in Florida, but only up to Southern Pennsylvania. And then of course it's fine in the Pacific Northwest because I mean, they can grow anything up there. On Mobot, which is that database, the Missouri Botanical database that I refer to a lot, it does list it as a shrub, but I've pruned mine to look like a little tree. It's a pleasant, brightest brown bark with almost tropical-looking leaves in summer. They're oval. And you might think for a second, wait a minute, is that a rhododendron? And then you're like, no. Those are too long and they're not as stiff and they really do look slightly tropical. It gets to about six feet high, easily pruned. The wood is extremely soft. I keep mine short and I don't let any suckers grow at the bottom because I want that tree-like sculptural look.

I grow mine in a filtered shade, but they do fine in sun and they probably flower more than mine. Just the normal amount of water, normal soil, no special needs. Oh, they're deer resistant. And I read that you can do some things to get additional blooms like water it in summer - hmm, what a concept - and plant it in more sun than I do and of course, not prune it all the time like I do. But it makes me happy and I love the amount of flowers that I have. It was one of my first big plant purchases to put in this garden. So I put it really close to the house. I can see it out the kitchen door, and right now those blooms are swollen and it's like a series of chunky fairy lights, especially on a gray day. Even the new brown bark at the top pops a little bit more, and the silvery yellow bells hanging down are just luscious. But the best thing about this plant are the flowers and it's flowering right now, February for me. The best thing you can do is just go out and cut a new bloom every day, and it's like carrying around perfume on a stick. Just keep it close to you. You can put it next to your bed. You can put it on your dashboard, next to your kitchen sink. You don't even have to bother to put it in water. You can just cut a new one the next day. Carry it around. It'll make you so happy. So this is the Paper Bush or the Edgeworthia Chrysantha. It is a great plant and the scent is AMAZING. That's like all caps amazing. It's so hard to describe scent, but it's sweet and it's lovely. Just trust me. Head over to the blog on my website, lhgardens.com to see some photographs.

This is Into the Garden with Leslie on NewsRadio WINA. Coming up, we'll talk with Karl Gercens of Longwood Gardens.

Welcome back to Into the Garden with Leslie on NewsRadio WINA and we are speaking Karl Gercens of Longwood Gardens, one of my favorite gardens. I think one of the world's favorite gardens because it is one of the biggest and the best. Oh, and it's also just a few miles from my sister Sue-Ann who has been on the show for a few times. I just love going with her. I would go any time of night or day. If you haven't been to Longwood, you're making a big mistake. And Karl is so kindly talking to us. He is the Manager of the East Conservatory, which begs the question - wait? I didn't know there was a west one. Apparently, there is a West Conservatory in construction, but let's concentrate on what he does, which is a whole heck of a lot. Karl, thank you very much for joining me.

Karl: It's absolutely a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Leslie: Well, I'm very happy to talk to somebody who works at one of my favorite gardens and he was saying many funny things before I hit record that I made him stop. I'm like, wait, you have to say these things to my listeners. He has been working at Longwood for 25 years and he's seen some stuff. So, describe to the listeners exactly what is it that you do, and also tell us what it is that you like about it.

Karl: Well, Longwood is an amazing garden. If you have not visited, I say lucky you, because you've got something incredible to look forward to. And if you have visited Longwood, I can't wait to have you back because of course, Longwood is changing constantly. And as Leslie just mentioned, we are building the largest Conservatory in north America. It'll be opening in 2024, and that Conservatory has been in the plans for over a decade. We've been working very diligently for at least the past five years, four years, three years. I mean, right now it's just getting into the thick of it. So that's been keeping us occupied while keeping our beautiful floral displays going each and every day of the year.

So, in the East Conservatory, I am finding plants from around the world. I'm trying to get them here to Longwood. I'm helping our production team grow those on to see if they'll be viable for our displays. Then I work with our designers to find places for them to get them in the ground, take care of them, and then finally compost them when it's done. So, it's a wonderful really from beginning to end process that I get to participate in here in really one of the world's premier display gardens.

Leslie: It's amazing to me that you compared it and rightly so to the Philadelphia Flower Show or the Chelsea Flower Show. And it's like, well, we do that every day. Every day.

Karl: You know, you want blooming flowers, you don't just wait until March for the Philadelphia Flower Show or May for Chelsea. You come to Longwood any day. It's your birthday in January, February, March, April, May? Flowers, yes. We've got them always. I think one of our signature statements here at Longwood is always in bloom and it's so true. We as outdoor gardeners, we are so happy for things like Hamamelis and Galanthus that give us those super early flowers. You know, we love Acer tataricum and Chrysanthemums for those really late blooms, but in the Conservatory each and every day, there's going to be something jaw droppingly amazing. And I often tell people, winter is the best time to visit the Conservatory. Right now, our spring displays are in full flower and the plants that you'll see in the Conservatory this time of year only bloom in the winter, which means if you miss coming in February or March, you won't get a chance to see those until next year.

If someone says, oh, I'll wait till April and I'll go to Longwood, you are not going to see these great plants we have. We have scoured the world for amazing winter blooming plants. Or if you do come in the summertime, we don't want you to see the same plants indoors and outdoors. I often tell people, we like to find those Goldilocks plants. Those plants that can't take the rain. They can't take the wind. They can't take the sun, so we put them in the Conservatory and those Goldilocks plants, as challenging as they are to grow, they are so enjoyable to watch them bloom for their three days, three weeks, however long they last.

Leslie: I hope it's closer to weeks instead of days. Oh wow. What's good right now? Karl and I are talking in mid-January, although you might not be listening to this until February, but anyway, what's good right now? What's making you happy?

Karl: Oh my gosh! We have dozens of things. Right now, we just installed Dombeya, which is a kind of tropical hydrangea. We have Cyclamen that just went in. We have Guzmania, Pillaria going in. We will have Pellionia by the time you get here. Streptocarpus, Clerodendrum. We have roses in flower and aloes, Roldana. These are just off the top of my head, whichever color you want. You know, each walkway in the Conservatory is kind of color coordinated. So, whether or not you want to have something monochromatic. I love warm colors, especially in the winter, so lots of oranges and yellows, but of course you expect in the springtime to have pastels. We have the pinks and the yellows as well. And then every now and again, we like to mix things up a little bit and put some color combinations together that perhaps you wouldn't normally think go together. I just love watching people experience these things. You'll get a funny look. You'll get some conversations between two people. If it made you stop, if it made you talk, that's exactly what we're looking for.

Leslie: And do you get to make the decisions about the color combinations or how does that work?

Karl: So here at Longwood, we have a designer, Jim Sutton. He used to be my coworker; now he's my pseudo boss. He and I work extremely well together. He's been here about as long as I have, and he gets all the glory if something looks beautiful and I get to fix all the things that might be a problem. It's a one-way relationship and I'm okay with that. But no, he is wonderful in that he allows us to incorporate as many ideas as we can possibly come up. He will have final approval on everything, but we've been at Longwood for the same amount of time. We all understand the direction that Longwood's going, so the decisions that we make here are usually very much agreeable, and he counts on me to find unusual plants around the world and he loves plants. So, whenever we can incorporate those into our displays to have something unique as well as beautiful, then that's two for the price of one.

Leslie: And so, when we were talking before I hit record, you mentioned that so many things can go wrong and that kind of thing would drive possibly somebody else crazy in this job, but you like it because you like to fix things. What kinds of things do you need to fix?

Karl: Well, of course, Longwood is perfect and everything here is absolutely flawless and it's just a magical place, which that is the illusion that we want you to have when you come here. I used to work at Walt Disney World. I used to work at Filoli Estate in California, which was the Dynasty mansion, so I like to tell people I have been in horticultural entertainment all my life.

One of the first movies I ever watched was the Wizard of Oz, and I just remember smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors. So, when you visit Longwood, yes, everything is real. We are real people, but at the same time we have real problems, just like any other gardener would. And I think sometimes that's the fun of when you get a chance to talk to us in the garden, because you'll be like, do you have any insects here? I'm like, do I have insects? Let me show you. What diseases do you have here? Every one you can imagine. We go through every single challenge you may have at home. In the Conservatory, it might be a little different in that we are putting on … let's just say my outdoor garden peaks in June for maybe three weeks. It's when all the lilies are blooming and the foliage is as fresh as it can be. Before that, it's a little quiet. After that, it's a little tired, but at Longwood, every day is supposed to be the most amazingly perfect day you've ever seen.

So, in order to achieve that, of course we have to have plants waiting behind the scenes to rush out in the middle of the night or early morning before you get here so that they look like they've been there forever, even though they were just planted not even one hour earlier.

Leslie: Oh my.

Karl: In order to make those things happen of course, we have to have countless lists of plants. What plant even blooms this time of year? And then we have to say, well, how much can we manipulate that plant? Can we make it bloom earlier? Can we delay the flowering? And then we have to know how long is it going to bloom? Tulips last 10 days, if the weather's right. Digitalis, those might last two weeks if it's very cool, but what if it's hot? What if there's an insect outbreak and then it cuts their display life in half? Then we have to make sure the next plant is again ready to go. So, we have to always be looking ahead, always be looking behind and be looking all around at the same time.

It's like the Google car. You got the camera on top that just sees 365. I kind of think that's what we're doing here at Longwood. We're planning not only this year, because we have to make our plans a year in advance. We're planning for 2, 3, 4 years in advance. So, whenever my phone rings and someone says, we have a problem, I start off by saying what year and then we go from there. Which garden, which walkway? And then once I get all that figured out, now we can talk about what the actual problem is. But what could the problem be? We can't find a plant that we need. I ordered X, Y, Z last year and it's been discontinued. The supplier says, well, this is just as good. It's the wrong color entirely so that's not going to work. Or they say you wanted these four feet. Well, it's actually half the size you wanted. You make that work? Okay. We need twice as many. We don't have that many. So, then you have to start figuring out what you can do.

Or specifically today we had some bromeliads arrive from California. Don't tell my coworkers this, but they're the wrong color so we're not going to use them. We're going to sell them in the gift shop, which fortunately we can do that.

Leslie: Good.

Karl: But if the color's not right, we're not going to use it just because it arrived. I mean, we're going to absolutely use the right plant in those situations, so if that means we have to sell something through the gift shop, if we give it to our students so they can learn how to grow those plants, we'll do all those things before we put the wrong plant in the garden.

Leslie: Wow. Oh my gosh. There is so much to this. This is Into the Garden with Leslie on NewsRadio WINA and we are lucky enough to be talking with Karl Gercens of Longwood Gardens. He runs the Conservatory, the current Conservatory. They're building a new one. I'm just kind of curious as to when that new one is built and your colleague is already there watching his hole in the ground become something in 2024 that's not going to be a hole in the ground. How do you and he picture working together? Will it be completely different displays? How does that work?

Karl: That's a very good question. We are going to have a completely new Conservatory that will look totally unique from everything else we have here at Longwood. Our new Conservatory will have a Mediterranean theme, s lots of plants, obviously from California or from the actual Mediterranean. We're also getting things from Australia and South Africa, so all these plants will be full sun plants, hot dry summers, cool moist winters. The seasons in that garden will be mostly spring-ish. Winter and spring are when that garden will really peak and the rest of the Conservatory, which is my world, a little bit more tropical. We'll be getting lots of plants from Florida and from the Southeast and sourcing things from Southeast Asia and that kind of thing, and those plants bloom almost any time of the year. Don't tell anybody but I think my job is a little easier because I get the Florida plants, which we have already been doing. So, he gets all the new stuff, but of course I'll be right there with him helping him all along.

I used to oversee the Mediterranean garden here at Longwood that was in place since the early nineties. So that was kind of the inspiration for this new garden that we built because some of those older structures that we had at Longwood, they were quite old from the fifties and sixties. They weren't necessarily historic to when Mr. DuPont first was building everything, but they were built after he passed away so they weren't, again, DuPont historic, so for us to take those down made a lot more sense than to try to repair them. Plus, the fact they were small.

Of course, our visitation at Longwood has just increased exponentially. I mean, the place is just blooming all the time. We have fantastic fountains, amazing trees, wonderful history. Not that I'm plugging Longwood but I I've been here for a number of years and I absolutely am thrilled to go to "work" every day, because just as you know, when you go out in your garden, you're doing work just because you're physically moving things and, in your mind, that's your therapy. That's your happy place.

Leslie: That's my place. That's my playground.

Leslie: That's what I get to do when I come to Longwood. And I know that I've got to be one of the most lucky individuals in the world that you get paid to indulge your passions. I'm sure other people get to do it. I just haven't met too many of them yet, but I tell our students, do you wake up in the morning wanting to do what you get paid to do? That's what I'm doing. Do you get up early on the weekends before the alarm goes off, because you're excited to go to work? That's what I get to do. I'm excited to see my plants grow. I'm excited to see my students grow. I'm excited to hear about my volunteers' lives and they give us so many hours teaching every week into the garden, and it's just wonderful to catch up with them. We always have new plants here at Longwood. We always have new people - our visitors and our students and volunteers, so it's always fresh. Longwood is not a place that's tired and old. And if you've been to Longwood with 10 years ago, you've missed hundreds of amazing changes.

Leslie: The displays! Yeah. Oh, I bet.

Karl: Every single year, I just encourage people to come multiple times per year. And I also say, if you can't find the amazing thing today, you look me up. I'm Karl - Karl with the K- and I'm more than happy to show you what's amazing today because we put a lot of thought into what we're doing and literally passion goes into these plant selections, the installation of them and the care and maintenance. So, it's a garden filled with passionate people.

Leslie: You are a very good salesperson, but you're also a very good photographer. And besides your obviously very deep connection to where you work, these other places where you've worked, your garden travels. Filoli is one of my favorite gardens. I just can't wait to get back there someday. But I think I would go to Longwood first, given the choice after listening to you. You were also at Disney World so you have a great deal of experience with this sort of thing. But tell us about what moves you when you take photographs of gardens, and is it individual plants or is it scenes? What do you like about your photography?

Karl: Yeah, that's a very good question that I haven't really ever thought about so I'm going to do that very quickly as I'm a few words without hopefully saying the word ummm. I think that photography for me originally started out as documentation. I really just wanted to document the places I went. I wanted to get pictures of plants and landscapes that I could use in presentations because I knew I wanted to share with people. I have been to lectures where other people have shared in front of me, and I was so inspired by hearing them. Sometimes disappointed by their pictures, but I thought, wow, if I could have their enthusiasm, if I could have their knowledge and if I could have a really good picture, this is going to be a great presentation. I've learned a lot over the years by attending other seminars, by looking to other people's work.

Certainly, by no means am I a professional photographer. I have never had a class on photography. I have never purchased any professional photography equipment. I want you to know that I'm just using - just using - a Sony Alpha 6000 straight out of the box, the lens that came with it, no tripod. I mean, literally I'm just carrying it around. For those of you who haven't seen my images, I share them freely on Facebook and Instagram. I have a ginormous collection on Flickr which you can access via my website, Karl Gercens.com. And as you look through those images, you may realize this guy is not a professional photographer. But what I say is I am fortunate to be able to visit these gardens. 3000 gardens in 32 countries. I just stopped counting at that point.

Leslie: Wow!

Karl: And what do I love? I love macro photography. I love looking at a piece of a flower and not knowing what it is. And then as you back out, you're like, oh, wow cause it's a totally different world. You look inside of a digitalis and you see the hairs and the speckles. You look inside a Salpiglossis and you have got all those crazy window-like covers. But equally a landscape is absolutely glorious. And I think about, I was at Winter Tour earlier this year for fall color and I look out across the meadows of Northern Delaware and the grass was green and there was a Sycamore tree in the distance with kind of yellowish leaves. But the white bark was starting to show through and the sky was just so big cause you're in a meadow and there's a little road of course running through it and it's just a beautiful scene. So, beauty is literally everywhere. I can be happy looking close upon something as well as looking outward, and I don't think I've ever counted which one I do more of. I think I love them both equally.

Leslie: All right. That's a great answer. All the links that Karl mentioned will be in the show notes, including his photography collection on Flickr. And also, just so our listeners know, in case you're involved in a garden club and you need a speaker, you're hearing this man speak. He speaks well and he has great images, and he does do that for groups, just so you know.

This is Into the Garden with Leslie on NewsRadio WINA and we're talking with Karl Gercens about Longwood Gardens. He is the director of the East Conservatory .... sorry, the manager of the East Conservatory there. And there is a west one coming as we have discussed. We talked about your photography. Let's get back to Longwood a little bit. I can tell you really shy about talking about it, but I'd love to know when a regular gardener like me, when I go to visit a place like Longwood, I'm often really challenged by what is this like compared to what I do. I can see that it's far neater. And as you said, it is sort of a visual display that no personal gardener ever wants to have, except for maybe right before a cocktail party. What are some things that you all do there that would totally relate to a personal and weekend gardener?

Karl: That's a very great question. I think really everything we do here at Longwood can be related to your home garden. The thing is you have to look at small bits of it. Longwood overall is huge. It's grand, it's massive, and that's what I think can be overwhelming. But when you train your eye to look for the details and look for the vignettes, those are the things you absolutely can take home. I have been to again, countless gardens around the world and there are people that almost apologize and they say, oh, I'm sorry. My garden's not like Longwood. And my immediate response is, well, thank goodness. I need to see something different. You know, if they just have one container of vegetables or flowers, I can look at that one container with my kind of x-ray vision. I'm looking very closely at just those three plants, and then I can imagine those three plants - the color, the texture, the repetition - and then all I have to do, like on your phone, you just kind of pull it out and then you make it into a Longwood display.

I've been inspired by literally a front door container on someone's patio, where they had colors - oranges, whites, and yellows, and I said, I need that color combination on our central walk of the main conservatory. So, three plants. Bring it back, show someone. They're like I love that and then I order 500 plants of each one and we make it happen. It's the same way. Your one pot turns into 500 at Longwood, but our 500 can easily go down to just a container in your own garden.

So, design aspects - color, texture, form, repetition, harmony, echoes - all those things are consistent in a large garden or a small garden. And at the same time, we think about gardens from other parts of the world. You live in a desert? That's no problem. We can totally talk about negative space. We can talk about this filled-in area over here with some vertical accents over there. Again, those are all design elements. You're from the tropics? No problem. You've got wonderful, bold textures, but what if you contrast those with a small texture and I can show you examples of that with some of our local flora that you can then duplicate with your native flora.

So again, I've been visiting gardens from around the world. I find equal inspiration, no matter where I am. Originally, I had a boss that was telling me that it doesn't make sense for you to be going to this desert region. What is that going to help you in your job here at Longwood? But I don't think what he was realizing was you need to see something totally different. It's like going to an art museum and seeing something that's completely out of your comfort zone, out of your understanding so it just kind of shakes your mind up like an etch-a-sketch, and then you can start redrawing with what's in front of you. And if you just get one thing out of that, then it's been a complete success. So you've got to put yourself into a new situation, into an unknown situation, and let's even say an uncomfortable situation, to let your mind grow. I do that literally monthly by taking trips, and those trips could be to all 50 states, or soon as this restriction opens up, Down Under. I love going to South Africa. I absolutely love Australia and New Zealand. I love going to Southeast Asia because everyone is doing something amazing in all of those places. And if I just get one little bit of that inspiration, it's going to happen.

Leslie: That is so cool. So, tell me again... I think you mentioned it, but tell us again, how many gardens you think you visited over the years?

Karl: Yeah, I stopped counting at 3000, and that was at least four-ish years ago. So I visit at least 300-ish gardens a year, so yeah, I just don't even want to do the math anymore.

Leslie: You should start a whole new podcast just about the gardens that you've visited.

Karl: Oh my gosh. It's exhausting when I think about it

Leslie: Something like Into the Garden with Leslie. It's like Around the World with Karl. That's what we just do.

Karl: And I keep looking around. I'm like, surely someone else is doing this. Someone else has already done this. I cannot be the only person who is literally visiting gardens every single weekend of the entire year.

Leslie: There are a lot of crazy people out there, right?

Karl: People always ask me what does your home garden look like? You know, this is something that I think is so important for home gardeners to hear, cause when I give lectures around the country, around the world, folks are like, oh, I could never travel like you do. I said, first of all, we should never compare ourselves to someone else. If you like to travel, you should and if you don't like to travel, then you shouldn't. But I do love to travel and I do love to garden. And then you wonder, well, how in the world do you have a home garden if you're never at home? Of course, my coworkers say I'm never at work, which apparently, I am today.

But with my home garden, I have chosen plants that obviously are low maintenance. I've chosen a design style that's low maintenance. And I'm creative about how I take care of those plants. I wanted a woodland garden which obviously is low maintenance design, but I wanted to it to be a horticultural woodland. So, as you're walking through, if you're a plant person, you look up and you're like, what is that red-leafed tree? That's Albizia and then you look down, you're like, what is that red-leafed shrub? You're like, well, that's Leucothoe. And then you look over there and you're like, well, what is that orange-leafed shrub? You're like, well, that's Spirea.

Each plant is amazing, but then the overall effect is kind of this kaleidoscope, kind of this colorific, technicolor world. It's not as technicolor as I want it to be, but I literally dream of reds and yellows and oranges and purples, just colors around me. If I could live in a new England fall color forest, that would be my ultimate dream. Just having warm colors all around me all the time. I kind of get that at Longwood, but I would just love to have that in my outdoor garden. So those are the plants I've chosen. The plants are amazing. The design is easy and the maintenance, you are out there once a month, once every two weeks, as often as you want to, because the plants don't require daily nitpicking.

Here at Longwood, that's what we do. Daily picking of yellow leaves, of dead flowers. I dare you to find a dead flower in there. I'm teasing; there are plenty of them, but we have 500 volunteers here at Longwood and these are passionate people, practically banging down the doors to come and work here. Please let me come. Okay, we'll let you come. Deadhead all these flowers for me, but these people, they winna be here and we would be denying them if we didn't allow them to come into the gardens, literally weekly.

We have people coming in every day of the week, five, six hours a week for the entire year, and that's why our displays look so amazing. Because you know, it, gardens take a lot of effort and you're not going to get that same look if you're not out there on a regular basis. So, I get my heavy maintenance at Longwood and I get my loose around the edges at home.

Leslie: Yeah. One of my other questions that you've basically already answered is how would a gardener not be able to relate to things at Longwood? And the fact is that we just don't have those volunteers for six hours a day in our gardens. And I personally wouldn't want that because I don't mind a little bit of a loose look and also I want to do all the fun myself, but what are some other examples of how … you can't make it like that. Besides the deadheading and the perfection, lots of people who garden - and I hope most of my listeners don't ever use pesticides or herbicides - they're just like, oh, somebody's gnawing on my leaf. That's no big deal, but you guys probably have to a little bit.

Karl: We're using integrated pest management here at Longwood. So first and foremost, choosing plants that are the toughest that they can be. If by chance we have a plant we have to have, maybe it's a historic plant, maybe it was a donation that we have to keep going on, then we would start to introduce maybe beneficial insects. If those didn't work, then maybe we'd move into something like insecticidal soap or horticultural oil, and hopefully we wouldn't have to go much further than that because then we really start questioning is this plant that important? We really probably should just choose something else. Maybe it's the last elm tree in all of Longwood that Mr. DuPont planted. Okay, we're probably going to do whatever it takes to protect that thing. But when it comes to choosing new plants in the garden, just like in your own garden.

I grew up in Mississippi, starting to grow roses hybrid tea roses in Mississippi. I'm not sure if any of you are trying to do that but it's not really a good idea because the humidity, the rain and the hot nights, that's just not what hybrid tea roses want. But the fact that I was doing that from fourth grade to ninth grade, it taught me to persevere and to keep on trying, because we're going to make it work.

And when I moved out to California and saw roses growing out there practically with absolutely no maintenance whatsoever, I realized there are parts of the country that plants are supposed to grow and there are parts of the country they're not, so you should not bend over backwards. You should not become a slave to your garden that you cannot leave, that you cannot travel where you want to, when you want to, because you've made an improper plant selection. If that plant requires all that maintenance, then maybe it's time to give it to someone else and let them try it. And then they'll quickly realize too this plant's just not the best for our area.

But these days, we've got amazing plant companies that are really trying to help gardens do great things with the least amount of care. I love the folks over at Proven Winners. They are choosing truly beautiful plants that work in so many parts of the country. I've gotten to know lots of people there that are doing the breeding, that are certainly talking about the marketing. Sometimes folks talk about, you can't believe what these tags say and I think these days, the companies have caught on. They no longer just want to sell a plant because when it doesn't perform well for you, you're not going to be happy. And even more importantly, especially in the professional realm, we don't want novice gardeners. We don't want new people to think they can't grow plants just because they've chosen the wrong one. There are so many plants that you can grow and whether you are in Pennsylvania or Connecticut or down in the Carolinas or over in Iowa or the far west, there are plants that will grow extremely well for you and you just have to tap into your local garden clubs. You have to tap into those local gardeners that have tried this for years, and then you too will be successful without having all the angst of turning yourself upside down.

Leslie: Karl, you have taught us so much and I feel like I've been to Longwood Gardens, sort of. Thank you so much for chatting with me today.

Karl: It's been an absolute pleasure and I would be more than happy to welcome you to visit Longwood. Look me up when you're here and I'd be happy to show you around.

Leslie: All right! And I'll put all these links in the show notes. This is This is Into the Garden with Leslie on NewsRadio WINA and coming up, we'll be going into what you can do in your garden this week.

Welcome back to Into the Garden with Leslie on NewsRadio WINA. Karl Gercens, you may not need as much caffeine today after listening to that. The plant names that he rolled off his tongue. I mean, I know plenty of plants, but hardly any of those. If I get my act together, I will be assembling a lot of images for us all to learn about all these new plants. So gimme a few days and then go to my website lhgardens.com. See if I came through and while you're there, do sign up for my monthly newsletter even if I didn't come through with the photographs, which I will very much try to do. I always knew that Longwood Gardens was something special, and because my sister Sue Ann lives close by, I've been there many times, but I was not tracking that things change so much there that you can go every year on your birthday and see different displays.

Are there that many plant accommodations? I guess there are. There are links in the blog to Longwood, to Karl's website, and don't forget to check out his Flickr account and his collection of amazing photographs. Unlike me, he takes pretty pictures and unlike me, he labels them and organizes them properly. Pretty impressive for a busy guy with a big job!

Questions from listeners. There are lots of them this week. Hey, did you know that sometimes I just make them up? It's true. That one about Roger and the ivy last week, I thought that was a pretty good one, but there was no Roger. Sometimes podcasting is such a lonely life. No, I'm just kidding. I like podcasting. This week however, I got a few questions. My sister Kim asked me about removing bulb protection. She had put down poultry fencing over her cute little garden bed in Old Town Alexandria, where apparently the squirrels are a little aggressive.

It protected her tulips all winter, but I do think it's time to pull it. And indeed, I got that done here in my garden just this week. I wish I could speak authoritatively on the eating habits of squirrels, but I would be making that up too and I have my limits. My rule of thumb is if you see the tips of the bulb foliage starting to poke up, I think it's time to remove the protection.

Similar question about cleaning up garden beds. Unfortunately, I didn't make a note of whom that question was from, but sorry, if it was you, but the question would apply to many of us just now. Is it time to clean up the beds if we left leaves as mulch, or if we didn't cut things back last fall? And the answer is yes, no and maybe. Yes, if the current look of your garden is impacting your enjoyment of it. It really does wonders for the tidy, garden-loving soul to peel back the brown and see the tips of things emerging. The answer is no if the leaves and old perennial foliage isn't bothering you. The longer you can leave that stuff, the more time beneficial insects have to cuddle up and get ready for the real spring, which is coming soon, but we're not quite there, and the plants that are coming up through that will come up. They do it in nature without us all the time from what I can see. And then the maybe piece, I do begin the process of spring cleanup in my front garden beds. Absolutely. Then I work my way around to the back, tidying some beds, depending on where they are. But most of my garden beds keep the leaves, maybe not the sticks and the ugly dead brown beds from last year. But yes, the leaves all year long and that is the mulch. So maybe clean up some and maybe is no rush and that is your maybe.

Hey, here's a pro tip. If you have a wildish woodland bed, but you don't like the look of the untidy edges, just with leaves and stuff, go ahead and edge the beds and even mulch the edges with proper double-shredded hardwood bark type mulch, but leave the middle wild. It's a visual cue that says, yes, I am gardening here and I care, but those leaves are staying there because they're feeding my soil and I care about that too.

Some more mail that I got. These aren't questions, but I got great information from Sharon Burnham of Roanoke Valley. She was listening to an episode last fall, and she heard me grousing about the difficulties of dividing Miscanthus grasses. She wrote that a reciprocating saw is a great tool to use in that situation, and you don't even have to dig out the root ball first. Just cut back the grass and stick the saw in, and then maybe cut the root ball into quarters and then you can dig out the smaller pieces much more easily. Now Miscanthus grasses can be invasive, so grow them with care. Unfortunately, I love the look of them, but I've been digging mine out so that I can replace them with native ornamental grasses.

I wish I had known about Sharon's trick just this week, because I wrestled with one so big that upon freeing it from the earth, I could not pick up the root ball and I wanted to carry it away. So instead of a saw - because I didn't know about Sharon's tip and I don't have a saw like that now - I grabbed my ax and the result was good, but it was a little bit exciting, flailing away with my ax on a round item, on a hillside. Perhaps the saw next time. Thank you very much, Sharon. And thanks also for doing a deep dive Sharon into the issue of doggie issue.

So, she had heard my musings on that topic and she recommends a book called The Pet Poo Pocket Guide and that exists and I will put a link to it on my Amazon storefront in the show notes. Sharon has a big dog and she wanted to deal with his “productions” responsibly. So, with that book and other research, she devised a way to collect the stuff in a tumbler and add straw, leaves and water as needed and even those decomposable bags with the "item" inside if she had collected it like on a walk and it worked. She said the odor was negligible and her first batch is almost ready to use on the garden, but of course not on a vegetable garden. Not on edible plants because she like I, simply would not take the chance on passing along the pathogens. Thanks so much Sharon. That information doesn't stink. Sorry.

All right. What to do in the garden this week? Well, it's just not terribly different than the things I've been saying for like the last seven weeks, but I'll tell you what I did just in case that inspires you to join in with similar or to simply ignore it, which is an option. I checked on my little seedlings daily, which is a miracle. Well, it's maybe not such a miracle because I had Siri tell me to do it every day, and I am coachable and willing even if the coach is a machine created by the evil cult of Apple iOS, upon which I rely. My seed sowing skills are pretty meager, which as my friend Amanda, the ever-hopeful gardener says, is a good opportunity for adventure. The adventure is mostly for the seedlings, the poor little things. No bottom heat, only the very lucky get plastic domes for germination. The rest get opaque, plastic shopping bags, no grow lights. Still, I have some tomatoes and lettuces coming along and I will keep sowing, but I should probably stop talking about the subject. My pathetic methods won't help you. If you want to learn how to do it properly, find a Joe Gardener YouTube. I'll just be quiet now.

I continued my pruning this week, but I didn't do any boxwood like I should and like I said I would. Last week, I teased about skylights and Swiss Cheese and cloud pruning. I think I'm going to put you off for one more week on the details of boxwood pruning in these ways, because this episode is getting pretty long, but if you were like, no, I was waiting to hear more about boxwood pruning, and I had set aside the first week of March to do exactly what Leslie told me to do, then here are the basics again.

Boxwoods love air and they don't like sharing at this time of year, because it can get quite cold and they might brown. So instead reach in, create holes and I will get back to you on more next week, promise. I also cut daffodils, which were not blooming. They were in bud and I brought them into my 70-degree house and I said, okay now will you bloom? And they did, but it took a couple of days. Remember with daffodils, I'm just sure you know this, they leak some sort of slimy something that makes it very hard on other plants in your vase. So don't mix and match with them and other flowers because they're just not very friendly. Apparently after a few hours they run out of slime and they will play nicely with the other cut flowers, but waiting is good.

Oh, and one more thing that I did. I brought in some azalea branches to force in the warm and there they sit. I'm looking at them right now as I type six days later. They look remarkably similar to the way they looked six days ago, which is to say not unbecoming, but no great celebration of spring either. Hmm. I bet there's some trick to that and I grow weary of Googling at this time. So, if you have any Intel on forcing azalea branches, would you please share?

What to listen to this week? How about just birds? Birds poking around in your yard. I think that'll do quite nicely. Oh, and here's my ask for the week cause I'm so needy. If you are new to the podcast, would you mind rating it or even crafting a review if you are feeling crafty. I do appreciate it and spread the word if you like. That is how I will grow. Here's a nice review from ...from ... You know it helps actually if you put your name in the reviews, but this, I have to pronounce this. It's so funny [unclear; 43:20]

He or she wrote this back in November. Anyway, this is what they said, he or she. I recently got bitten by the gardening bug. I've been reading and listening to podcasts about how to garden. This is one of my favorites. From the intro music to sound quality to interesting guests, this is by far one of the best podcasts I have come across. I have learned so much. Oh my gosh, [unclear; 43:43] you are so kind and I'm really pleased to hear about all the bits that you like.

You know that music, that's my buddy Rusty Gear. It's the instrumental form of his tune Forgiveness After All. And that sound, so me camping out under this blanket at the kitchen counter does pay off and I am really pleased to hear that. Thank you for listening, you all. My friend Nanny New down in Tasmania would say something really cute like my little sausages. I do appreciate it, and any comments, questions, or corrections, please send them to me on Instagram @leslieharrislh, or email me at lharris@lhgardens.com. I name the show Into the garden with Leslie because I am really into my garden and I want to get you into yours and it's almost time. See you next week.