Northern Gardening; Diane Booth
- Transcript
It's in a fire. Or other gardening. My name is Sue Milo and I will be sitting in today for Paula Sunday at your normal. And joining me in the studio is Diane. Thanks for coming in again today. Well thanks for inviting me. Coming here. Well this is our third edition northern gardening and our newest program here and we've had some. Very educational programs the last couple of Fridays and we look forward to talking to you today. We're going to have a subject of the landscape design and you're going to be teaching a course coming up soon we'll talk about that. But we also welcome people's calls and the questions and we hope that they participate today. Our number is 3 8 7 1 0 7 0 0 0. Or 1 800 4 7 3 9 8 4 7. And Diane will do the best she can to answer questions that you might have. Our e-mail is also available right now you can
e-mail your question right now if you want. And our staff will pull that off and we'll get it on the air today if we can. That would be our e-mail address is WTI P dot org. And just send the email directly to us there. We do have a couple of e-mail questions for left over and we'll address those little bit later in the show. But right now let's get to the topic at hand and that is your the beginning home landscape design class that you're going to be offering Could you just kind of do an overview of that for us. Sure I'd be really happy to do that home landscape design or what we call home Scape is the new terminology which I all have learned it's changed over the over the years and I kind of like that I think it's a very good good way to describe it. It's become more and more important and I think especially in Cook County where we live there are some really because we live in a natural environment. We need to be very concerned about the preservation
of our native forests shrubs. And perennials fire wise as in the issue of goons. So we need to keep that in mind. I think also the introduction of exotics here is another thing we all have to keep in mind as we do some landscaping and I think there's more awareness simply because and I was thinking about this in the 50s and 60s when I was growing up. I don't remember my parents talking much about landscape you know. No you mean you put some trees then you put some grass in. Right. That was it. But I think you know that has changed quite a bit in the person that whether or not we want to really give that person credit or not is probably Martha Stewart thinking well if you think about it she kind of brought design to the average person whether it's interior exterior and she really did bring that to the forefront and it has become a bigger and bigger piece of our.
Our life I sure shared reason and you're right she brought it down to just the level of the average homeowner basically and wonderful suggestions I mean when you when you watch your show I think no one goes away without at least some little piece of information that they can put to use in their environments. So I think that's change and I think the other thing is with the increasing values of property landscape design has become a bigger piece. You know 15 at least 15 percent of what your property value is can be attributed to your landscape design 15. And I think people are more aware of them now than it used to be. I think also landscape design makes for better neighbors. Well and it's also a way often I think to get to know your neighbors better because sometimes it involves a property line especially tree plantings or fence or some kind of a stabilizer of a bank or something like that. Right.
And so you're bound to get to know them and you're going to be communicating with them and that can all help you know in the city they have the block parties Well here we might have landscape parties. Our vegetable party there you go. Yes. So I became really interested in landscape design probably 10 12 years ago maybe even longer. You had a book from 1994 that I did. It's my specimen here for all the radio listeners it's called landscaping for your future Cook County master gardeners. And I think you have the first one I did three different books three different versions in about I think within five or six years. And my reason for doing that I found working in the extension office years ago I started to recognize that the extension office really had an extension publications really did not address a large number of the questions coming in which had to do with landscape design and the few publications that were available from the extension really addressed mainly landscaping in an urban area which did not really suit a lot of the questions that
I was receiving about septic mounds and you know I have 20 acres how do I how do I deal with 20 acres versus a postage stamp. Right. Right. And all things water different types this was a huge issue. There you know we are unique in that area. I file I found this old edition actually as I paged through it again this morning. There were a number of good handouts that the extension service had it provided inserted in it. But basically it's the whole planning process that I was fun to review of it. It's the planning process and that's really when people come in. The first thing they say is Well how do I start. You know I want to do this this and this but I don't know how to do that. And so that's really when I when I'm doing a basic home landscape design course that's really what I'm doing. I try to to look at. I mean I've taken a number of classes in landscape design and I try to look at everything that I've read everything that I've learned and say OK now if I'm a homeowner and I don't want to
learn all that but I want to learn enough to just do my project. That's what I try to distill it down into because that's really what is pertinent to people. And they may not want to know all the other stuff. That's right. So so I kind of I start try to start people thinking in terms of the landscape as being an outdoor room concept. It's part of your house. It is. OK so how do you connect it. It has all these different. It has walls it has ceilings. It has different functions. And so to begin with I usually have him start trying to think about what are we going to use the space for. You know what do you what do you want to use the space for. And then from there you get you get some broad categories first of all there's kind of a public area that people are all going to see. So what is that function. Well usually what people want is they want to look nice right you want people to come to your home and kind of feel like oh this is kind and the first impressions are just impressions.
You also want them to know where the door is. I mean. And that's common appear because people add in new little routes in. Maybe you need to get the wood truck loaded back close by the house and you know there's some your service area service area there you go and you know what but where do you walk to. Right where does where does the even Avon lady go. Where is where the parking area is here. How do I get from the parking area or the walking area to the front door and how do I know it's the front door. OK so we talk a lot about how that is really important that you identify that front door is your focal point that your interest area so you can do it with color you can do with landscaping you can do it with signs. That's fine. But at least they know where to go. Sure. So that's naturally important. You also have an area that's becoming more and more important and I think it's probably the
biggest area and that's kind of your your family living outdoor area. And I think we've all seen how you know you go to target you go to Home Depot you go to these different places and there's an explosion of outdoor furniture an explosion of outdoor assessor Rees for gardening because gardening is the number one hobby in the United States really. It is actually and it's a huge I mean obviously all of these companies have figured out there's a big market out there and we can sell a lot of things. And you know we kind of I'll buy into it some I mean I'm guilty. Sure for sure of doing that. So they're they're providing a number of things on the shelf for you to purchase to fill up your your room basically your living area out your living room. Yeah how many of us never had patios when we were growing up and now it's a pretty common thing or a deck area. Or you know outside. I can remember as a kid I wanted a swing set really bad we didn't have one in our backyard you know. But it's
pretty common these days to have that. I was talking with someone from the Twin Cities the other day and they were talking about how many swimming pools have gone into backyards in Twin Cities. I'm going oh that's the next thing you know. Right. But but this area this living area has become a really important piece. And more than one I think you know you mentioned the playground equipment Well that would be one sort of could be one space that you identify or maybe you have like you said you're eating cooking outdoor area. And yet to an old maybe you have a moral garden to a loved one. You know I mean it's just endless right. It is actually and this whole interaction you know and you don't want fights going on in the family about who gets what space. And the pets and I think that's a very. But yes you know sometimes the paths cross over into the family living area some people prefer to keep them in the next area which is kind of the service area. I mean what do you do with your garbage. Right right. You don't really want that in the front door where people are going to see it you want it
assessable to the kitchen so you don't have to run a long ways be asleep with your garbage or your recyclables. So you have to have an area for that. You've done you've thrown out so many I think thought provoking things this might be a good time to even prompt our listeners if they've got questions if you've been listening to Diane booth today here on Northern gardening. Maybe yeah maybe that garbage is something you thought about. Or for that dining area outdoors that you want to create. We invite you to call in with a question for Diane she'll try an answer to our best ability 3 8 7 1 0 7 0 0 or 1 800 4 7 3 9 8 4 7. One of our staff will be glad to take your question down in writing or if you want to talk to us on the air we'll just ask your name and maybe what part of the area you're calling from. So anyway Diane more more on landscape design. It's a wonderful top it is and I think I've learned more over the years in that service area you also want to think about if you have a wood
burning stove if you have a fireplace you know where you're going to store that wood. You know some people do like a really nice neat maybe wood wall made up and it looks so nice the way they put it that maybe you do want to feature that as a focal point most of us probably don't do that. So you start by making a list. How do you start this. Well I'm getting there. OK. All right we're going away. I'm jumping the gun. You are OK and that's part of it. Part of this part of a class or part of talking to people about landscape design is asking a lot of questions but also slowing them down to think about all of these things for they before they actually build something or boy before they actually start their landscape. It can save them a lot of money and it can also save them a lot of aggravation and believe me I've made a lot of mistakes. So you know pick my brain first because I've made almost everyone out there. So it's a good thing.
So think about it and maybe. I mean I see what you mean what you mean about the mistakes you we're paging through those lovely garden magazines and it looks so inviting and you spend a lot of money and you put it in and then you figure out it's that doesn't really work we don't go there when we want to do this activity or it's in the way or I can't see no over there right or people don't think about you know the requirements for a plant they love that plant they purchase it and then they you know where my going to put it. And do I have the right conditions for it. So think think think think think through. So back to the service area though you know some of us still hang up clothes some clothes line I mean you don't want that out in front of the Asli. Right. Compost piles. Don't want that to be featured on your front yard I mean maybe you do I mean you know you got one kind of clothes. And then I think too about I still use like my vegetable garden. Could I mean I've got two vegetable gardens I've got one way in the back and sew and one in the front and one one in the front.
I never realised people really looked at until I would get comments from people as they're driving by. Oh I see you're growing corn. All right I'm going home. Gee maybe I should. And I mean Ishmael more careful about how that one looks on in the back is where the plastic is and the things that I don't really want people to see. And the one in the front. My husband does a great job of keeping weeded with you know with the tailor and stuff and I'm a much more conscious of that simply because it's a very visible. So vegetable gardens or flower gardens whether it's a cutting garden where you're going to be cutting off you may not want to have that directly out where people are going to see it. If it's a perennial garden that you want people to stop and touch and feel then of course you might want to have that close where people can look at so think about the use of it a lot when you're doing these things. Service Area service. Area one more area and this area really I don't think existed in the 50s but as it is does now it's called a kind of a private living area. I think about all these people who have hot tubs. Right. OK you probably again don't want to be on
your front lawn in your hot tub and you may not even be out want to be aware that you know where the family area is. So they're they're creating a new private living area outdoor space with a little more privacy a little more screening. I'm thinking you know hot tubs Well we don't have a hot tub but off of our master bedroom we created a three season porch and we have our quick goes right along side of that. And you know it's probably the best place to go and unwind and relax. You can sit there there's no TV no radio nobody buggin you you're sitting there in the rocking chair You're listening to the brook babble and you can sit there and read and I think that that that is kind of a nice private area and a lot of people are creating those in their homes. I think as we've gotten so busy with our lives and so many things we almost. You have a place to unwind and I think a tradition that we've maybe inherited in northeast Minnesota particularly in the Iron Range are the sauna and ex-journalists on a building.
And normally you don't put your all your clothes back on when you're done with the sauna you and you you wrap up maybe in your bathroom and you go back to your house. It's an external sauna. So yeah you don't want that in the front no. How you don't want your service there you know I would put our garbage man coming or whatever but a nice private area area that's kind of yours to enjoy and relax. So private areas and a whole new kind of a thing. Yeah no concept out there. And some good examples are there. Do we do we have designers. If you go to the lumber yard you say I've got my private area do you have any suggestions. What are they going to say. We're going to look at you and go What. I don't know about that. I can't answer that question. Well we do have folks that are listening today to Diane booth here on Northern gardening and we do have a listener on the line and we'll take their call here shortly.
So and we had a great question come in if I can go ahead and do that. Wondering what can be done with trees that have had their tops lopped off by the electric cooperatives under power lines. Can you save them somehow by pruning and also improve their appearance. Wow that's a tough one. And a lot depends upon the variety of tree. OK. If you're talking an evergreen and you come along and you lop off the top it's going to look pretty darn funny. Certainly an especially if it's an older tree if it's a younger tree. Sometimes what you can do is you can take a side branch and you can actually kind of tape it up or strap it up to become the new a pickle dominance or the leader tree. It may always look a little bit funny but if it's young enough it probably will go ahead and grow the problem is the Electric Cooperative is going to come back and it's probably going to lop it off again. So I guess the thing to think about is. If the electric
company is going to keep coming in there what do you want a plant that's going to be small enough so they don't have to deal with it and still provide you with some privacy. And there's a great book that I have in the extension office and it's actually a free one it's just put out by power companies. It's called the right tree in the right place. Oh wonderful. And it's a great little thing because it talks about a lot of the smaller lesser known kind of tall shrub trees that will only grow like 18 to 20 feet tall short enough to be under the power lines but yet will provide that screening piece. If it's a birch if it's a you know they're all going to get too big. That's right. Point Yeah the ones we love the ones we have. Yeah right. So a good resource available right at your office at the Cook County Extension office. Come on guy and pick up one of those and talk to me a bit further about that. It's difficult to find and everybody's going to say well deciduous are going to work the best. The problem with planting something that is Evergreen
is you're almost going to have to go to a specialty tree you know are native white spruce pines and they're all going to get too tall and now in the pine especially you'd have to fence in the day you're going to eat. Right you it would be wonderful but of course that's deer food which would be great because they're the right size some of them again are going to be deer food. So you know how much work are you willing to put into it. How much were you willing to put into it and to look at some of the more expensive if you want an evergreen hedge or something some of the more expensive new varieties that are coming out like there's a small Norway spruce it's a pendulum it's kind of a weeping and it only gets to be about 10 or 12 feet tall. OK expensive as well. You know what. But if you have about a couple of those that might provide some of the aesthetics that you want and then you can plant some deciduous in there as well. OK good tips. We're speaking with Diane booth today here on Northern gardening a member support WTOP and caller if you could give me your name and where you're calling
from today. Probably quite Pike Lake All right Bob what's your question or thought of what I might have some of these are. When I was growing a program director with actors Oh that's that's a fund I know. Does your Does your road come close enough so he can fill it up. Oh that's a problem with him. OK and so you're going to keep that access available. I don't know. OK. A lot of what people will do with that you know propane is kind of a difficult thing sometimes if you have spills or something can affect the foliage that's there. So oftentimes fencing becomes what people do they will actually put a fence and kind of block it off with a fence sometimes they'll put a planting in front of that fence which is one way of doing it. I'd have to know as far as your light conditions to be able to give you an idea as far as plantings go because of course if it's full shade you're going to be looking at a different more than likely you would want an evergreen of some kind but you'd have to know the light conditions to decide
exactly which evergreen you would put in there. But fencing I would certainly take a look at that would be my first choice and then to soften that fencing go ahead and put some plantings in. OK so even like a lattice work something like a lattice work or a solid fence or you know but again you also want to make sure if you're doing that are there other places within your landscape that you're going to be repeating that because you don't want to have a stand alone piece right. You want to be able to integrate that into the landscape so whatever materials other materials you're using like these are hard scaping materials fencing. If you're doing doing any rock work of any kind all that is call hard scaping and you want to make sure in your landscape that those hard scaping materials kind of are similar so that they kind of carry a unity throughout. So if you want some really good suggestions combine into the office and we'll go over some day and what is the phone number that people have questions they want to speak to you not on the air not today or what's the number to call.
It's 2 1 8 3 8 7 3 0 1 5. All right and this and getting back to Bob from Pike Lake his question about the propane tank. Are there restrictions. Obviously you need to allow access for the filling. Can you paint it green. Are there some restrictions on that. Not that I'm aware of you proud. It depends upon who owns that. And you own it of course there wouldn't be restrictions if oil or one of the other oil companies owns it or then you probably need to ask before you do that there are some fire wise things you want to consider too. I know fire wise would prefer that you don't have a lot of plantings right close to fuel tanks. So that's another consideration that you need to think about. I personally I mean I've read all the fire wise stuff and then I look at all the landscape stuff and some of it is in conflict with each other and so I'm in the process of trying to figure out you know how how can I do both and kind of compromise. And so that's one of the new pieces that I'm working on for the landscape class because it is a bigger issue up here and I and I think it's an important issue.
Sure. But I also am really design oriented so I have to marry those two together. When Diane alluded to the landscape class which will be held at the Cross River Heritage Center in Schroeder and it's going to be on two Saturdays April 29 and May 6 from 8:30 until noon and the deadline coming up is April 24th. Information available is available from our guest today Diane booth at 3 8 7 3 0 1 5. Diane we will. And I probably should mention I'm sorry that a class is filled at this point though it is however I will take a waiting list and if there are enough people who want another class I will certainly set up another one sometime good future. All right and do you assume a manageable amount for you is what. What are you. Can projects maximum 20 people two people per project. I may have more may have left but 10 projects is really about all we can do. Sure sure. Well we're going to just take a quick little musical break and we'll be back with Diane
booth with more information on landscape design. We also have a couple of e-mail questions here that came in about I bought some plants will take those as well we come back and we encourage you to call or e-mail your information a request for information. Our e-mail address is W. P. dot o r g and you can just click there and send us an email and Cathy Quinn will be out there and retrieve that for us or Susie come back give us a call 3 8 7 1 0 7 0 0 or 1 800 4 7 3 9 8 4 7. We'll be right back with Diane booth and Northern gardening. There were tons of chains to bridge. Letting Fluxion pass me
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Larger. Move to the center and. Asked to speak to mom Obama. Letter. To. Him when a good. Movie to say. To. Me you say. Do northern gardening here on member supported Claire Lynch for her new CD new day and also just to let you know today expecting weather wise mostly cloudy skies high around 50 tonight. 40 percent chance of some rain and we're looking at lows around 35 tomorrow mostly cloudy 40 percent chance of rain highs 55 to
60. And Saturday night 20 percent chance of rain in the evening in a low around 35 Sunday appears to be our best day partly sunny highs 55 to 60 near the lake and possibly 65 inland with the winds of the West at 5 to 10 miles per hour. I am your host today substitute host for northern gardening Paul Sunday. We'll be back with you next week. And today our special guest in the studio is Diane booth. Welcome Diane. Thank you. Nice to be here. And we're talking primarily about landscape design and but we did get a couple of e-mail questions I would like to let people know correctly that our e-mail address right now if you want to e-mail us is WTI P at Boreal dot org if you've got a question today and we will relay that to Diane we'll see if we can answer that. Also you could give us a call with your question 3 8 7 1 0 7 0 or 1 800 4 7 3 9 8 4 7. We got this question in. Last fall I planted some
tulip bulbs for the first time in my life. And I'm wondering if I should clear the snow this evidently last week snow and straw off the bulbs or leave them a little bit longer. Hall soon should we get that cleared off the bulbs. Well first of all they want to dig down and take a look and see are they are they. Is there green growth coming up. OK there's green growth coming up you're going to want to pull the snow back and you're also going to want to pull the mulch back the straw back and let them grow. But I wouldn't take the straw mulch very far away. Obviously you know we're pretty early in our season this year. April this is quite early to not have finished actually with freezing temperatures and I'm expecting we'll probably have a few more freezing temperatures. And if those young tender tips get frozen you can you can say goodbye to your tulips blooming so you want to have that mulch handy if the temperatures are going to dip down you want to make sure you can cover them up again with your mulch.
OK. That was Julie from Hovan with that question thank you Julie. On to more information here about landscape design where we go next with this well we weakly talked about the basic areas and we talked about the front service area the public area we talked about the family living area service area and private living area the four spaces. The next thing if you're thinking about doing it you want to do what's called a personal inventory checklist. And it's about a while mind that I put together is about a six page questionnaire that you go through with your family and answer the questions and it's an in-depth questionnaire to try to help you determine how you can best use that space. And what's important to you. And the reason I say that is so because everybody has different opinions and you kind of have to come to consensus as a family when you live in a home together. When you and you want to do that younger thing you should be doing as you want to be start a portfolio buy ideas things that you would like. You know there's some great gardening magazines out there garden design northern gardener and you know if you're a
Minnesota State Horticultural Society member Canadian gardening gardening country gardens or a culture of organic gardening I mean pick up pick a couple that you really like and look at them and start clipping out things that you do really like. Or if you want to go to the library and take a look at books come to the extension office we have a whole library over there. If you see something you like I'll be happy to make a photocopy for you. Wonderful but you do want to do that. And then you need to bring them in Ask the rest of the members of your family of course do they like them as well as you do. So that's important. Then once you've done that you want to move on to what's called a site analysis and mine is about four pages that I have people fill out. You want to take a look at what's already there. What style of home do you have the style of home when you is really going to help you dictate or help you decide what kind of a garden style you're going to have and what kind of
a what it's going to look like. Obviously if you have a brick home and it's a very formal looking home more than likely especially in the front area where people are going to be coming you're probably going to want to do more of a formal design and your balance is going to be pretty symmetrical so you want to think about that. The other thing I encourage people to do and I told people who are coming to the class to do this to please take photos take photos of all of your area and your home because sometimes we don't look closely enough at what's there. And if you can do it through four seasons you're even better off before you start your your landscape design because that gives you a very good idea of what it looks like around around all four seasons and you'll know then what to plant and what not to plant. You want to know all kinds of things as far as the drainage the macro climates and microclimates you want to test your soil you may want to test your water in a way there's four pages of stuff. All right. It's going to do what color we think in a moment here because they were.
We don't think it will just keep going we'll get this color back. I think it's really really important for you when you're landscaping to look at the setting you're in and especially that's important here. Sure. If you're living in an urban setting you might do things differently than if you're living in more of a rural area and I think sometimes we forget that if we're where we're used to living in an urban area and we moved to Cook County and all of a sudden we're in a rural area. Sometimes we bring our design concepts of the city into the country and it doesn't work real well. Always it doesn't and we'll have more on that but call your name and your question today for our guest Diane booth. Talk to me. Yes. OK I have a family and I have a question of all. Oh all right. Not to fight it last. Well of course they Freud. Are they going to be any good.
No really I think you better toss them specially if they feel really light weight normally once Bob's freeze like that without the protection of the soil and they are done they feel really light weight. They're very light. Yeah they're done. You killed them. Ok sorry. But do they write them for your question. Well OK so that was a little quickie when we invite your call 2 3 8 7 1 0 7 0. But back to the city plan for the country. What well or vice versa or vice versa I have also gone to the Twin Cities and I can't remember why but I happened to be going down a street and along a street it was pretty much ranch houses all along the street and then right in the middle someone had built a log home. And I kind of thought I actually stopped the car and I wish I'd had my camera with. But I looked at it and I kind of went you know if it had been there before the ranch homes were there and it had a lot of old plantings. It probably might have been OK. But it was a newer log home with very few plantings and it just
did not. I mean it stuck out like a sore thumb to be very honest. So you really want to take that setting into consideration when you are planning a home and when you're planning your landscape. Once you've done both your site analysis and you've gone through your personal inventory list you want to start taking all this information you have gathered and you want to make of the plan map. And I know people just cringe when I say that but you know this isn't for anybody but you. It doesn't have to be architecturally perfect it doesn't have you don't have to present it to anybody it's just a working tool for you. And it's very easy to do You don't need a whole lot of simple material you know a whole lot of specialized equipment or anything. And you basically can just figure out where things are and decide and but you do want to make sure that you're you're accurately measuring is to scale the largest possible jail as much as possible because if you don't do that any plantings are things that you do are not going to work out very well.
And on that base map you want to make sure that you draw out everything that you want to keep or you can't change. Sometimes I want to get rid of things but you know we can't change him so. So you want to show your boundary lines you want to show what North you want to know are all the buildings are your septic tank you want to know what your driveway is all that kind of stuff needs to go in your basement graph paper preferably here you can use graph paper but it's kind of nice There's a new graphing ruler which is only like a dollar. OK. So it's got little squares on it so you don't have to have graph paper you want and utilize that and that's kind of nice because most everybody has plain paper anyway so. And then from bat you can you can go ahead and you can start thinking than about about the fun part. Sure. That's one part of what I want to do with this kind of gone through everything else. And so you want to go back to your idea of outdoor rooms have walls floors and ceilings. Oh ceiling sure. OK. Yeah. An IP. Yeah. Well yeah. Outdoor walls can be trees shrubs it can be your neighbors fence it can
be a trellis. Any of those things the floors could be grass. They could be a ground cover of some kind. It could be gravel. They could be would be could be patio blocks. It could be water. OK so that's your floor. You're talking about ceilings. It could be tree branches the canopy coming over the top. If you have a don't have that you could have an awning off of the house. I've seen more and more people putting up fabric ceilings where you have just a framework and you're using fabric over the top canvas something like that doesn't even have to be canned. Lots of different materials being used. We're talking with Diane booth about landscape design in about your walls your ceilings and your floor of your outdoor outdoor room. Color Could you give me your name and where you're calling from today to your question. Good morning my name is Trina. I dare say I'm calling from Corey. Good I have a question for you. Forget
your favorite granny or better dear reader. I love that question. Gina do you want to stay on line for your answer or do you have any others any questions other questions today. That right there already well I'm going it for sun or shade or both. Okay I get a lot of questions about what plants are deer resistant and to be very honest with you Gina I don't think there's anything the deer won't eat at one point or another Ok I live in the middle of the John victory yard and I have planted on purpose a number of different things to see whether or not deer will eat them. And a lot of them have been on you know university lists saying these are deer resistant plants Well guess what they're not all deer resistant. There are some that I have had success with over about 10 20 years. Peonies have not been eaten by meat by at least at my yard monkshood is one that they pretty much leave alone. Daffodils for the most part
are not eaten by the deer. I do have pulmonary which has never been touched. And now Pullman areas sometimes and we have a really bad winter it's one of those kind of a zone for plants probably. And so you need to be fairly closer to the lake probably for that one. My delphiniums actually have have been kind of in between. They will sometimes chew them and sometimes won't. But more the more more times they won't and they will. I know this is kind of strange but this is how it kind of works. My lilies will get chewed and less depending upon the location location is another thing that I have found is very important. If you hide them a little bit amongst plants they don't like they don't always find them. At least it works for a while. Camouflage camouflage if you can camouflage them they might last a little longer. The other thing is if they are off by themselves. I recently put in hydrangea tar diet which is
kind of an upright hydrangea and it was I was told all of these a really dear just do not eat these. And I thought OK I put 5 in I put two and two in gardens and I put three out on the lawn. Well on the lawn were chewed down to nothing and the third one was left alone. Not sure why and the two in the gardens were left alone up until this year. OK so. You know that's about the best I can do daylilies also are ones that they don't usually go after I have dailies that do quite well that helps color where they are and if you want more I'd be happy to you know come into the office and I can give you more lists we can go down them one by one and I'll tell you my experience with all of them. OK all right thank you. Thank you for your call the day. Thank you Diane too. So back to the what that room we were looking at. Let's let's talk about what makes a yard look good or bad. Oh yeah. I think sometimes that helps us understand design concepts we're going to get into really the design concept
but probably the yard looks the worst is the yard that's covered in concrete. No maintenance. You know there's asphalt or concrete right up to the right up to the door. It's not a very nice looking yard obviously. So if you have or let's say you inherit a yard like that what can you do with it. Well. Besides just getting renting a jackhammer and going after that area and getting rid of the asphalt and getting rid of the concrete there's not a lot you can do you could put raised planters in place right. But again you'd have to be pretty good size specially if you're going to have trees or shrubs and at some point the trees or shrubs we're going to outgrow them. So it's I think it's just a temporary fix it is a temporary fix. OK. So that's the worst case scenario out of the worst case. Another one that I see quite frequently is how been guilty of this I've made this mistake where you you get a new tree and you plant it fairly close to the house you think it's far enough out. But you know you don't really think that far ahead you think 20 feet it's going to be plenty good I want to have it nice so I can
kind of see it you know 70 years later you can't find a house because you have the it's totally hidden by the trees and the shrubs that are there so smashed up against the windows and the door that you have no light dance a difficult one. Now what do you do with the hap something like that well if you if it's evergreens more than likely you're going to have to get rid of them. OK. And I seen this too where people have pruned them up from the bottom and they have left this little tiny little piece of. If the triangle which it looks like a little lollipop up there and some people like that look. I personally do not. So I would recommend that you do that. You probably really are better off starting over. If it's a deciduous tree your chances the pruning are much better. I mean obviously you can thin it out you can keep the framework short you can thin it out enough so that you can keep it from being smashed against the house and yet you can can get some light going through there and you have a little bit of light in the front of your
front of your house and you can and yards of that you can plant some other things right. So variety Yeah yeah yeah those are those are some of the things that you can do. And over planted yard isn't I mean that's kind of another thing. Oftentimes I go into someone's backyard and they'll say well what should I do with this and they have got a Colorado blue spruce next to a birch tree next to you know three white spruce and maybe an ash or something and they want to keep them all. And they're all mashed in together all but so and so planted this one and so. And I said you know you can't keep them all and they're all mature and they're all getting mature then maybe not totally mature but they're all running into each other in the shape in the form is really poor and you need to do something with it so what do you do. What do you do. It's a tough one. If it's if it's Shrub's it's not so bad because you can kind of divide and give them away. If you have somebody who wants to come in and get big Shrub's and some people do you know if there are trees there really is nothing you can
do. You need to go in and selectively prone and decide of all of these six or seven smashed together I maybe I'm going to get two or possibly three or maybe only one. So that's a mistake that we've all probably made and we just need to be very cognizant of that. So I have to keep reminding myself because I have a chance. And specially here when our climate were growing season it does not necessarily lend itself to some fast growing type. Well two species but it just takes a longer time to get things up to the height that we know they're going to be eventually once they're growing we just don't want to cut them down. Sentimental reasons yes. We're talking with Diane booth today here on Northern gardening and we're sure glad that you tuned in and we have just a few more minutes if you do have a question for Diane. 3 8 7 1 0 7 0 or 1 800 4 7 3 9 8 4 7 of the numbers to call. Or you can quick send us an e-mail at WTOP at
Boreal dot org we'll try and get that on yet today during this edition of Northern gardening. All right so more problem areas that you'd like to dwell on here. Well you know our common mistakes we all make in the yard I call the sameness yard. OK it's the yard that has. Arborvitae everywhere. OK OK. Which maybe looks fine but. But I ask. I ask people to think about OK how interesting is that to people. You walk up there. Oh it's all arborvitae you look at it you see it you don't pay any attention to it after that. So it doesn't it doesn't encourage your visitor to enjoy your yard and it doesn't encourage you to enjoy your yard and more than likely you're going to you're going to just kind of go you know it's the same stuff it's don't there and you probably won't take care of it because you know there's nothing new happening. Right. So that's that's something that I would I would say that if you have that situation you might want to take a look and keep keep anough of the
sameness so that you have a unity. Right because you want to repeat things common thread common thread. However you might want to take them out and then add some color some different pieces to that landscape. That are that are and make it a little bit into it's all in a line you want to change that. You know lines are there in certain instances. Line plantings are OK if they're framing like a sidewalk or something like that. But in most instances nature does not plant it that way. That's right and I follow the line fine. But it's it goes very quickly and it just kind of bypasses everything in between. And if you're framing a walkway to your front door that might be an OK place to do that because that is the whole goal you want people to go down that walkway and find that door. Sure and so they do follow that line right to where you want them so I'm not saying you can't I'm just saying Ask yourself why you're planting it. If you are planting the line sometimes you're doing it for shelter belts which is fine for wind. Usually you have not just a single line but you have two or three of Oh and the other thing would be
if you want a privacy screen or semi-private screen of some kind but again I would encourage you to do a couple different plantings and not just make it one single line. Sure you can do more clumping. Right it works nicer right. The last one. Well there's two more. OK let's one on that I'll talk about it's called the island look and you've probably all seen this where a person has a huge expanse of lawn and out in the middle of the lawn you have this little bitty garden or they have this little bitty shrub wishing well maybe. Yeah. And I'm not you know I don't I don't mean to make fun of anybody. I've done it myself. But you do need to recognize that there is a ratio between the lawn area and the garden area and you want that ratio to be at least 50/50. So if you are going to be put what if you want to be an island garden great. But make it big enough and make it so that it works with the size of proportion within your lawn your house and everything else. Otherwise
it gets lost and it really doesn't work. So even if you don't have enough plantings right away you can start with paths or other law and kind of features I would think to make that at least fill the space until you can get those plantings all in-and up to size and when you are doing plantings you really do want to start with your trees first. If you are planning a landscape it's your canopy that's your upper upper So you want to know where those trees are going to be and then you'll move to the next level which are your shrubs and then you'll move to your perennials and then your annual. And that works really well to do that and and I am giving you a lot of rules I'm not having talked about design because I talked about I was going along but you can't break the rules you can break the rules but you can't break the rules until you know and understand those design counts. So I think that's an important piece. And then one more item on just prettiness and or balance that you might look at in your own garden.
Just going to quickly say that there are a few principles of design are the same as anything else you want to look at balance. If you look at focal points you want to look at simplicity. You want to look at rhythm in line. You want to look at proportion. And if you have all those you're going to have a landscape that gives you unity and will make you feel wonderful. Oh oh oh what a perfect wrap up Diane Diane booth with us here on Northern gardening today. Now we've we've just gotten a wonderful assortment of information but what if we want more there are some other sources out there people can go to for assistance websites. Obviously extension office how calking we get more help on this. Well I am working on putting together a list of websites I'm a little behind on that there's a great book that I'm going to recommend. It's it's called Home scaping. It's called it's buy and help and it was came out in 2005. It's designing your landscape to match your home. And this concept did not exist. I mean I've always thought about it but I never found a book on that that you look at your
home and your home if your home fits you. You use that to help you do your landscape. And so that style or that deal you bring right out into your landscape and that's what she talks about and I like that concept I think it's an excellent resource and I do have it in my over at the extension office I have a whole bunch of these books over. OK. So basically I give a call 3 8 7 3 0 1 5 and see Diane's in the end if she can help you out there. Diane did you have another question there are any other type of from A-lister. I can't remember I saw Kathy but I don't think I'm in. Yeah we have a question here from a listener. Will I be incorporating rain gardening into my landscape class. You know I haven't thought about that's kind of a special ice I guess that people want to learn about I can put it in the landscape class if anybody wants to learn about rain gardening I have tons of handouts and I've done several presentations on it. Again call me at the office I'll be glad to give you. There's a whole manual online from the University of Wisconsin
Extension they've done a fantastic job of putting it together for the homeowner. You can just follow it step by step. Yeah right. I did. I have personally had not produced a ring garden and it was the most rewarding even for season and. And there are so many opportunities here with our landscape to do that. If you live in town where is there water coming off of your roof right down the sidewalk into our are overburdened you know systems here in the city of Grand Marais for example. And even in your you know prevents erosion has lots of good purposes. And yeah and that Wisconsin website is wonderful Also I believe the city of maple wood has something good. I don't know their website either but in St. Paul to you there are a number of different ring garden set up there. If you go over to superior there's a bookstore over there that has done one like your Wisconsin. Yeah same here
Wisconsin. I can't move the name of it unfortunately I'm terribly sorry but they have the owner of that bookstore has incorporated outside of her book store rain garden so that the water coming off the parking lot actually stops and goes into the garden and it it's a beautiful accent feature for her bookstore and it also works really well too. That watered down allowed and they primarily use native plants which is what we're all striving to use anyway. So those that can handle the extremes in wetness dryness kind of conditions. Yeah well good. Diane thanks so much for coming in today again for another edition of Northern gardening and people have further questions. You are at the extension office in Cook County Extension office 3 8 7 3 0 1 5. We'd love to have you back to kind of keep going on this subject I hope I hope you'll come back and join us here on Northern gardening. Oh sure. Diane booth with us today. And we'll be back with a few announcements here on Northern gardening.
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calendar. So we are going to go now to swing sessions with Bill Burkhardt. The weather today cloudy chance of rain showers highs around 50 tonight 40 percent low of 30 for 35 for a low. And Saturday mostly cloudy with a chance of rain showers highs 55 to 60 and 20 percent chance of rain in the evening lows around 35 with our northwest winds 5 to 10 and on Sunday partly sunny highs 55 to 60 near Lake Superior and 65 currently at the Grand Harbor. It is 46 degrees at the airport 50 and scattered clouds. At Forty eight degrees as well. It's 11 0 3. Stay tuned now for Swing sessions. This is welcome to our recollection of the music and the music
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- Series
- Northern Gardening
- Episode
- Diane Booth
- Contributing Organization
- WTIP (Grand Marais, Minnesota)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/331-010p2nnm
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/331-010p2nnm).
- Description
- Episode Description
- Northern Gardening with Diane Booth. Topics include landscape design. Sue Maijala fills in as host.
- Series Description
- Northern Gardening is a call-in talk show featuring in-depth conversations with experts on a variety of gardening topics.
- Broadcast Date
- 2006-09-01
- Asset type
- Episode
- Topics
- Gardening
- Subjects
- Gardening
- Media type
- Sound
- Duration
- 00:59:26
- Credits
-
-
Guest: Booth, Diane
Host: Maijala, Sue
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
WTIP (North Shore Community Radio)
Identifier: NG 0066 (WTIP Archive Number)
Format: MiniDisc
Generation: Master
Duration: 00:59:00
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
- Citations
- Chicago: “Northern Gardening; Diane Booth,” 2006-09-01, WTIP, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed April 25, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-331-010p2nnm.
- MLA: “Northern Gardening; Diane Booth.” 2006-09-01. WTIP, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. April 25, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-331-010p2nnm>.
- APA: Northern Gardening; Diane Booth. Boston, MA: WTIP, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-331-010p2nnm