You’re tired. You’re hot. You’re yearning for autumn to set you free. But how your garden looks right now has everything to do with the choices you made in past planting seasons and a lot to do with foliage.
Have you capitalized on the resilient summer foliage options that keep working when the lobelia has melted and the poppies are so over?
This week on The Garden Mixer, Leslie and Marianne explore six of their favorite foliage plants for summer — each choosing a perennial, a shrub, and a tender perennial (aka ‘temperennial’) — and then choose their favorite option from the suggestions sent in by listeners on The Garden Mixer Chat on Substack.
Overall, the girls are in remarkable agreement this week…except for one, notable exception.
What are we looking for in summer foliage? Are flowers a necessity or a bonus? And, how many times, precisely, should a gardener kill a plant before giving up?
All this and Leslie learning the meaning of FFS, on this week’s The Garden Mixer.
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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They’re deer resistant, drought resistant, and boredom-resistant — and they’re not without controversy. Ornamental grasses might be the magic texture your garden has been missing all these years.
Whether you want to ‘blur and merge’ as per Grasses for Gardens and Landscapes author Neil Lucas, or ‘punch and soften’ as per the more violent of your two co-hosts, Marianne Willburn — using ornamental grasses strategically can help your garden relax and sway into summer, filling gaps, feathering edges, and giving you three-season architecture without the bagworms.
Join Leslie and Marianne as they share with listeners their top ten ornamental grasses and discuss why they are willing to risk censure and scorn for more than one of them.
Plus, Marianne confesses to a criminal act. And it’s not displaying her bare over-50 arms either.
Leslie’s criminal act this week is using the term “Tips and Tricks” before Marianne takes a sip of something that can help her cope with hearing it.
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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You’d like to go on vacation. Your family wants you to go on vacation. But you don’t know how to leave your garden. So you don’t go on vacation.
Wrong answer.
You NEED a vacation. You just need to prep your garden and make it Vacay-Ready.
This week Leslie and Marianne dive into what it really takes to leave your garden without the guilt. From prepping your plants to prepping your mindset, they want to help you take a break without sacrificing your blooms.
Whether you’re heading to the beach or taking a long weekend right in the middle of the growing season, you can come home to a thriving garden. With the right prep, your beans will be just fine.
All this plus the puzzling but indisputable link between testicles, armpit hair, and tomatoes.
It's another wildly inappropriate episode of The Garden Mixer, so carpe your diems and get that garden Vacay-Ready!
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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Welcome back! The girls are rested, refreshed, reenergized, and ready to tackle the overgrown gardens that await them with the tools they love this week.
From can't-be-without pruners to surprising new finds, Leslie and Marianne dish the dirt on the implements that help them dig it.
Are brand names important? What’s a seckie? How do you pronounce Okasune? And what on earth is Marianne’s problem with the hori-hori and will the woman ever let it rest?
Apparently not.
Also up for discussion — herons, rabbits, the elusive golden shovel, and why these hard-working gardeners aren’t eating breakfast these days. Yep, it’s a random mix of wonderful and we’re so glad you’ve joined us.
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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Waaaayy back when this podcast was just Leslie doing Into the Garden with Leslie, Marianne was a frequent flyer even though she was just a guest at that time. In this episode, Marianne and Leslie team up with Scott Beuerlein to talk about their "Dear Gardener" correspondence on Garden Rant.
Next week Leslie and Marianne, are back, tanned rested and ready for the summer garden and they will be talking about tools!
This week we reach into the archives to bring you the first ever time Leslie interviewed Marianne on her podcast Into the Garden with Leslie. You can tell by the stilted convo and awkward silences that we didn't really hit it off, and we've been faking it ever since.
Actually, we hit it off so well that as an apt preview of what was to come, we go completely off of whatever topic Leslie had planned and roam all over the garden.
Marianne and Leslie are taking a scheduled summer break, so there are no notes on Substack that correspond to this episode, and no video version either.
We do this because we know that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Back soon!
This week the girls mix dry humor and deep honesty with Doug Oster, Emmy award-winning garden broadcaster & author from Pittsburgh. This, unbeknownst to Marianne, makes him a Yinzer — and that does not mean he enjoys a Yingling from time to time.
For years, on television, radio, newspapers and social media, Doug has been an outspoken champion for organic gardening, and for the passion and personality of ordinary gardeners and the gardens they tend.
They'll discuss the importance of independent garden centers in helping to cultivate that personal touch, and dip into the changing demographics of gardeners across the nation from the perspective of three gardeners who have WAY too much dirt under their fingernails.
They’ll also touch on how garden media has changed, and which changes feel embraceable. (Hint: Leslie’s embracing everything.)
Join them as they go deep and sometimes a little dark — because killing the deer that just wiped out your lilies is going to leave you in a Game of Thrones frame of mind.
Deer. It’s what’s for dinner. At least at Marianne’s.
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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So. The garden is chaotic and you’ve either got guests coming, or you’re in danger of having an ever-so-mini breakdown each time you glance outside. How can you make it Bikini-Ready in a fairly short space of time?
The answer: you can’t. But you can definitely make it look decent in a one-piece.
This week, spurred on by one too many Ad-stagram promises to change your skin, hair, and body just in time for summer; AND an impending visit to Leslie’s garden by Marianne, the girls discuss some truly miraculous quick fixes to have you feeling better about the plant combos that didn’t gel, the deer ravaged hostas, and the obscene amount of ostrich fern taking over the beds.
You’d be surprised how much chaos can be contained by a few focused minutes and a bit of garden Spanx.
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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This week we decided to come clean and admit that, based on some of the amazingly detailed emails we’ve received since starting The Garden Mixer, our listeners are very much smarter than we are.
We’re dipping into a few of these [surprisingly polite] messages to bring their plant picks, techniques, and general wisdom to everyone.
Featured:
Garden writer Kathy Purdy from Upstate New York,
Paul Westervelt, Head Grower at Saunders Bros. in Virginia,
Tim Calkins, plantsman & galanthophile also from Virginia.
Matt Mattus, Senior Director of Horticulture for AHS
Are our listeners smarter than us? Oh hell yes.
(That should help to earn our explicit rating.)
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The Garden Mixer |Podcast on Spotify
Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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This week, the girls welcome Linda Vater to the Mix and try to stay focused on important topics like Marianne’s new topiary snail.
Linda Vater is a blogger, garden designer, stylist andlifestyle influencer with a penchant for grabbing shears and a gin and tonic and going after defenseless shrubs who don’t know how much they’re going to love their new look.
She has gardened for decades in Oklahoma City and is nationally known for inspiring others to shine a garden lens on everything from what’s for dinner to what you’re picking up at a thrift store.
Topiary, downsizing, and seeing the extraordinary in ordinary plants are all in the mix this week with Linda. Join us!
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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This week we're mixing up indoor/outdoor lines with a #houseplantvacation.
Do you allow your hard-working houseplants a little time off during the growing season to be the plants they were born to be? Just as we could all use a little time soaking up the sun, getting the drinks in, and feeling fresh air on our faces, our houseplants could too.
What a shame that time outside doesn’t make us look years younger like our plants.
Marianne shares her thoughts as the author of Tropical Plants and How to Love Them, and Leslie shares her desperation as someone who wants a clean & beautiful house at the beginning of spring.
Subscribe at The Garden Mixer Substack for full show notes, links and laughs.
For those who begin to garden in May with the aid of a smoking credit card, an SUV, and a minion or two, very little goes wrong as the spring garden joyfully romps towards summer.
But for those who started partying hard as early as February, the super-sized hangover is real.
Where did the color go? Where did the time go? Why do I have a headache? The strength of spring is equaled only in its spectacular demise.
There are spring ‘gaps’ in every garden, but they’re not the same for everyone. This week the girls aim to clean up from the rager that just happened, reclaim that spring energy with succession planting strategies, and figure out how to push the daffodil foliage under the sofa.
For full show notes, links and laughs, subscribe at The Garden Mixer's Substack.
Comments, questions or suggestions? We'd love to hear them. Drop us a line at comments@thegardenmixer.com - and don't forget to leave a review on Spotify, YouTube or Apple Podcasts.
In One More Sip of the Garden Mixer, episode 13 1/2, Marianne and Leslie give you the lowdown on this burning garden question.
When the spring erupts in tones of yellow, lemon, gold, and that weird orangey-mustard that you’re not sure you love, it’s time to bring on the blue.
Leslie Harris and Marianne Willburn have suggestions for how to achieve that in your garden, and dip briefly into the controversy surrounding the [almost] universally loved daffodil.
From blue bells in the woods to blue spells when you're pulling out Vinca minor by the fistful, they'll touch on some of gardeners' favorites, and get sucked down a rabbit hole or two on their way.
For full show notes, links and laughs, subscribe at The Garden Mixer's Substack.
Comments, questions or suggestions? We'd love to hear them. Drop us a line at comments@thegardenmixer.com
Welcome to One More Sip (of The Garden Mixer)
…a short form 15-minute episode for in-between weeks where Leslie & Marianne try — so far, successfully — to discuss one random topic that deserves some attention. But not necessarily agreement.
This week we're talking gardening click-bait. The good, the bad, and the what-the-actual-hell?
There have always been hucksters, shysters, snake oil salesmen, and dodgy characters selling magic beans.
And now we have the internet.
What’s the best way to approach the clickbait that tempts us all? Leslie’s approach is to watch two seconds and send it to Marianne to annoy her. Marianne’s approach is to dutifully wade through it and get annoyed. Smart people can do better than both of them. But what’s truly bad? What’s just clever marketing? What do you believe? Where should you go for good information? Links in the full show notes at The Garden Mixer’s Substack.
Join us for One More Sip of The Garden Mixer, and send us your comments, questions and suggestions at comments@thegardenmixer.com
It's a wild mix of topics this week on The Garden Mixer. Along with their guest, author and speaker Brie Arthur, Leslie and Marianne talk plant propagation, foodscaping, blooming shrubs, maintenance-hungry perennials, and lifechanging illness.
Turns out Brie is not just an expert on making baby plants, but can also share a thing or two about physically & mentally dealing with tick borne disease when your life is lived 100% in horticulture.
It's not going to stop her -- or either of them for that matter. (spoiler alert: Grey Goose vodka is your friend.) Join Leslie and Marianne for another episode of laughs, irreverence, and a viburnum or two on The Garden Mixer.
Read full show notes, links and laughs at The Garden Mixer Podcast on Substack.
We LOVE to hear from you. Comments & questions? Get in touch at comments@thegardenmixer.com
Much like days when you intend to start tomato seeds and end up digging the outline for the new pond, our bi-weekly conversations mix up topics, plants , and guests, and keep us on our toes.
We love that mix, but this week, we're experimenting with One More Sip -- a short form episode for in-between weeks that deals with one topic only.
At least that's what Marianne promised.
This week we're talking poisonous plants. Do you feel like there is a lot more made of plant toxicity in academia, social media and news than there needs to be? We do. And we want to talk about it.
What's reasonable. What's not. How can you adapt your garden? Do you need to? When does it make sense to pay attention, and what is unnecessary fear mongering?
From Digitalis to daffodils... the list is long and it contains plants that most gardeners would never do without. Feeling societal pressure to do without them anyway? You need some moral support -- or at the very least a couple experienced gardeners in your corner. Join us.
How much can you learn about pruning when your loppers are older than most Influencers? It turns out, quite a lot when you’re taught by the right people. This week, Leslie grills Marianne on her recent trip to the UK and the Great Dixter Symposium where pruning was on the menu (along with some incredible food thanks to Claire Rooney @thelayeredcook
Now's the time to get into the garden and prune, and the girls advocate a bold approach (with a little insurance on the side). From Rosa rugosa to Wisteria ahem sinensis (and frutescens), cautious pruners may just find that the pruning jobs they dreaded are now the best part of gardening.
But what, exactly, do knife fights and crotches have to do with pruning? You'll have to listen. Or watch! The Garden Mixer Video Edition is now on YouTube.
Please send your comments, questions and snark to make us laugh at comments@thegardenmixer.com
Full show notes at The Garden Mixer's Substack.
The Garden Mixer is also on Instagram @TheGardenMixer TikTok @the.garden.mixer & X @gardenmixerpod
We’re clinking glasses this week with Erin Schanen, YouTube’s Impatient Gardener, and we’re not asking her about her tomatoes.
That’s right, who needs to eat when June is a feast for the eyes? We’ll be interrogating Erin on the flower seeds she practically starts in her sleep, the ones that need a little more attention, and the favorites she would never be without.
First, there are a couple topics the girls want to hash out over Marianne's timeless gin & tonic and Leslie's 1990s glass of buttery chardonnay.
From what Leslie thinks of her Lomi, to how Marianne could possibly make a gardening podcast X-rated, there's a lot of fun in store. Join us.
Find the full time-stamped show notes, links & laughs at The Garden Mixer Podcast Substack
After an ill-advised foray into AI generated humor, the girls toast another conversation with a large glass of Cheeky Red and an expensively-bittered Old Fashioned, and turn their attentions to getting organized in the face of seed starting chaos, adding some healthy crunch to your winter sandwiches, and painlessly and trendily composting when you don’t have chickens, time, or balcony space for a questionable pile of yesterday’s dinner scraps.
Marianne goes over her trusty Grab & Go method (which she intends to patent just as soon as her workload diminishes), and Leslie feigns not only interest, but intent – excited to do something about the shocking mess on her dining room table that threatens to hang around for several months if harsh steps are not taken. Some seed starting that doesn’t require mess, packets or constant chaos is counter-raised alfalfa sprouts – and Marianne tries to make a new convert in Leslie.
What Leslie is far more interested in, however, is compost. And she loves her Lomi. But she’s got her work cut out for her trying to sell a Porche to a girl that drives a VW Bug.
