The Garden Mixer

America has a hydrangea problem. In the best possible way. They’re consistently among the best-selling flowering shrubs in the country, they colonize every garden center and big box supercenter from May to August, and, if you don’t have a deer problem, you’re likely to succumb to the latest plump, end-of-aisle offering every time you go out to buy some milk. Erin Schanen, The Impatient Gardener, and Founding Mixer, describes what has happened to us in one word: Hydrangification.

Marianne did not want to do a hydrangea episode — Hydrangement is real, Leslie’s got a bad case, and how much more can possibly be said? But Leslie disagreed and drafted in Scott Beuerlein — radio host, horticulturist at the Cincinnati Botanical Zoo and Botanical Garden, and Marianne’s nemesis at GardenRant — to prove it.

He had analogies. He had opinions. He had been thinking about hydrangeas all day.

And Marianne was wrong. It turns out there is quite a lot left to say. Join them as they delve deep into the hydrangea addiction sweeping the country.
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Alliums are more than just big purple lollipops — though those are magnificent and need no apologies. This episode covers the full arc of the genus: from the early-season small species to the big June globes, through the alien-landed wonders of late spring and early summer, into the summer-blooming perennial types that changed how many gardeners think about late-season color.
Whether or not Leslie and Marianne can do a 24/7 Allium channel based on the amount of species in this cool genus (970), they can certainly do a dive deep into the allium rabbit hole.
The Allium Channel. 24/7…. hmm… bears thinking about.
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“French Bistro” theme by Adieu Adieu. License D0LZBINY30GGTBBW

HACK YOUR POTS: SMART PLANTS. PERFECT PLACEMENT
It’s prime container gardening season, and everywhere gardeners are spending more than they should to achieve the dream of pots that stop people in their tracks and make their neighbors slightly jealous. But as anyone who has watched a lovingly assembled pot turn into a crispy disappointment knows — it’s not quite as simple as thriller, spiller, filler.
 
(Those words. So useful. So annoying.)
 
Today on The Garden Mixer, Leslie and Marianne are getting into the real business of containers: placement, proportion, pairing, and the hacks that professional container gardeners actually use — the ones they learned the hard way, so you don’t have to.
There will be opinions about sweet potato vine. There will be strong feelings about saucers. And somewhere in there, a 95-year-old gardener named Donna is going to redefine your potting vocabulary. If Leslie can remember what she said.
 
Grab your trowel. And maybe a dark and stormy.
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“French Bistro” theme by Adieu Adieu. License D0LZBINY30GGTBBW

Before “microclimates” became a gardening buzzword, Leslie and Marianne were already having hot flashes in the garden. 🔥🌿
In this vintage One More Sip episode of The Garden Mixer, we talk about:
• hot vs cool pockets in the garden
• why some plants fry in summer and freeze in spring
• raised beds, slopes, walls, and heat traps
• tropicals, hostas, wisteria heartbreak, and elephant ears
• Thomas Jefferson’s surprisingly clever vegetable garden design
• and how understanding your own garden is the real gardening superpower
Also included:
🍸 Marianne’s legendary goddess dress
🍸 Leslie comparing gardening to golf bunker shots
🍸 Hot Girl Summer Gardening™
🍸 More botanical pronunciation adventures than anyone asked for
This episode originally aired for paid One More Sip subscribers and is now being released publicly one year later.
#gardening #gardenpodcast #microclimates #gardeningtips #plants #thegardenmixer #horticulture #gardendesign

HIGH IMPACT, LOW EFFORT FLOWERS THAT DO THE WORK FOR YOU
 
When the growing season is moving at breakneck speed, an easy win in the form of copious, gorgeous, hey-I-forgot-about-THOSE! flowers is not only cherished, but longed for. Even gardeners who insist on making things more difficult for themselves (ahem…Marianne?) can enjoy the guilty pleasure of high impact, low effort blooms that do a disproportional amount of the work, and make you look like you know what you’re doing.
 
In this week’s episode of The Garden Mixer, Leslie and Marianne share some of their favorite flower-power plants, and confess that sometimes, their best laid plans are made better by plants who showed up, grabbed a drink, and quietly got on with the business of being beautiful.
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“French Bistro” theme by Adieu Adieu. License D0LZBINY30GGTBBW