Latest Perennials Podcast Episodes
Episode 161: A Field Trip to the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill
Let's Argue About Plants - June 21, 2024 14:00 - 48 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsThere’s nothing nicer than being outside on a beautiful late spring day, especially if it means you get a whole day away from your desk. Danielle, Carol, and digital editor Christine Alexander recently played hooky from their editorial duties and went on a horticultural adventure at one of New E...
Episode 160: The RHS Chelsea Flower Show with Annie Guilfoyle
Let's Argue About Plants - June 07, 2024 12:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsDid you ever wonder what it would be like to get exclusive access to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show? Well, your dreams have come true because in this exclusive interview we got an all-access pass to THE horticultural event of the year thanks to Annie Guilfoyle, a 2024 judge. Annie is co-founder of ...
Episode 159: Plants that Take Sun and Shade
Let's Argue About Plants - May 17, 2024 10:00 - 55 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsChances are, you’ve got mixed conditions in your garden. One area might be in full sun, while another spot a bit farther away is in full shade. Even beds that have the same exposure on paper may have larger plants that shade out the ground below. This presents a challenge for developing a co...
Episode 158: Plants That Earn Their Keep with Irvin Etienne
Let's Argue About Plants - May 03, 2024 10:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsIrvin Etienne is the curator of herbaceous plants and seasonal garden design at Newfields, a 152-acre campus with art galleries, performance spaces, world-class public gardens, and a nature park in Indianapolis. Irvin has been a frequent contributor to Fine Gardening, sharing his horticultural e...
Episode 157: Flowering trees for every season
Let's Argue About Plants - April 19, 2024 13:59 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsDue to their size and expense, gardeners tend to put a lot more thought into the trees they ultimately buy for their landscape. While a perennial might only live for 6 or 7 years, a tree might grace your garden for 50 years or more—outliving the person who so carefully selected it, in fact. H...
Episode 156: Finding Design Inspiration with Jay Sifford
Let's Argue About Plants - April 05, 2024 09:00 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsJay Sifford is an award-winning landscape designer based in North Carolina. Several of his garden designs have been featured in Fine Gardening, including a one-of-a-kind modern meadow garden and a series of beautiful, functional dry creek beds. Jay’s immersive, naturalistic landscape designs a...
Episode 155: Deer Resistant Favorites
Let's Argue About Plants - March 22, 2024 09:00 - 55 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsOne of the worst sights you can ever see in the garden is a plant that has been browsed by deer. (Sidenote: we don't love the gentle word “browsed” in this instance. A more appropriate term might be “obliterated.”) If the munching is particularly bad, that perennial, tree, or shrub becomes unrec...
Episode 154: Putting Plants to the Test with Richard Hawke
Let's Argue About Plants - March 08, 2024 10:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsRichard Hawke is the Director of Ornamental Plant Research at Chicago Botanic Garden, where he oversees comparative evaluations of ornamental plants. The CBG Plant Evaluation Program has included 117 distinct trials over the past four decades, with 26 comparative trials currently underway in thr...
Episode 153: Compact Plants for Tight Spaces
Let's Argue About Plants - February 16, 2024 10:00 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsEvery gardener wishes they had 25 acres to garden on, right? Well maybe not, but most of us do dream of a healthy amount of ground to build beds and borders to our hearts’ desire. The reality of homeowners today, however, is that land is expensive and typical suburban lots have decreased in si...
Episode 152: Best of LAAP: Best of Our Listener Q & As
Let's Argue About Plants - February 02, 2024 10:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsOne of our favorite things to do here on the pod is dig through emails and social media shout outs from our listeners. It is always nice to hear about what problems you may be having in your gardens and to be able to offer advice from our decades of horticultural experience. And we’re lucky to...
Episode 151: Underappreciated Plants for Winter Interest
Let's Argue About Plants - January 19, 2024 10:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsDuring the winter months many plants reveal subtle patterns, fine details, and a new range of colors that help us to see familiar beds and borders with fresh eyes. This is an excellent time to get outside, evaluate your garden’s bones, and make some plans for spring planting. In this episode D...
Episode 150: Design Rules of Thumb with Stacie Crooks
Let's Argue About Plants - January 05, 2024 09:00 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsStacie Crooks is a Seattle-based garden designer who has created beautiful, ecologically friendly, low-maintenance gardens throughout the Pacific Northwest. She is also a contributing editor for Fine Gardening magazine and has shared her insights with our readers through 10 feature articles a...
Episode 149: Silver Plants
Let's Argue About Plants - December 15, 2023 13:00 - 48 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsPlants with a silvery sheen stand out beautifully against the sea of green that fills most garden beds. In this episode, Danielle, Carol, and their guest will highlight some shimmering shrubs, drought-tolerant perennials, a tiny dwarf conifer, and even an unusual silvery vine with a bit of a b...
Episode 148: Wish List Plants
Let's Argue About Plants - December 01, 2023 12:01 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsOh, dear listeners...it’s the most glorious time of the year! No, not because it’s time to hang the stockings or trim the tree—because it’s time to make the 2024 gardening wish lists. This year Carol and Danielle have selected the 8 plants they are pining over most. You will hear about a brand-n...
Episode 147: Great Native Grasses
Let's Argue About Plants - November 17, 2023 13:56 - 54 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsIf you like the beauty and impact that ornamental grasses bring to a garden design, you will love the many shapes, forms and colors that North American native species offer. Whether you need a practical groundcover, a dramatic focal point, or an airy filler to knit a matrix planting together, Da...
Episode 146: Best of LAAP: Our Top 4 Plants
Let's Argue About Plants - November 03, 2023 09:00 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsWhile searching through our archive of episodes we discovered something: There are a few specific plants we just can’t stop talking about. As the years have progressed here at Let’s Argue About Plants, we find ourselves experimenting with more and more varieties, so we have something new to repo...
Episode 145: Great Plants for Grouping
Let's Argue About Plants - October 20, 2023 10:00 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsIsn’t every plant great in a group? Well, the answer is no. Some plants are too vigorous in their growth habits to share the stage, while others are better if put on a pedestal all their own (i.e. the focal point plants of the landscape). Today’s episode we talk about plants that are great in ma...
Episode 144: Plant This with That-Fall Edition
Let's Argue About Plants - October 06, 2023 11:00 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsDanielle combo #1 'Limelight' panicle hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight', Zones 3-9) 'Sun King' aralia (Aralia cordata 'Sun King', Zones 3-9) Danielle combo #2 'Worcester Gold' blue mist shrub (Caryopteris × clandonensis 'Worcester Gold', Zones 5-9) 'Goldsturm' black-eyed ...
Episode 143: Best Of LAAP: Our Favorite Guests
Let's Argue About Plants - September 15, 2023 09:23 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsWe’re nearing our 150th episode mark and for us, that has meant a lot of plants discussed. But it’s also meant a lot of great guest appearances. As you know, each episode we ask an expert from the field of horticulture to lend us their brains and weigh-in on some great plant choices for the topi...
Episode 142: Fall Natives
Let's Argue About Plants - September 01, 2023 11:24 - 49 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsIt’s time to grab that sweatshirt and dig out those heavier socks—fall has arrived! Although it’s sad to see summer go, we’re getting super excited for the new season around here. The native plants in New England (where our podcast is based) are starting to look especially lovely so we’ve dedica...
Episode 141: Summer Color
Let's Argue About Plants - August 18, 2023 11:38 - 54 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsAround here we’re not fans of the f-word. No, not that f-word. We’re talking about FALL. In our minds that cooler weather is still a long way off, so we’ve decided to celebrate the dog days of summer by talking about plants that really put on a show in August. When much of the garden is looking ...
Episode 140: Listener Q & A
Let's Argue About Plants - August 04, 2023 11:00 - 53 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsIt’s that time of year again! The much-anticipated listener question and answer episode. Carol and Danielle look forward to this special episode (sometimes TWO episodes) because it allows them to offer real-life advice for the plant and garden design issues that are troubling all of you out ther...
Episode 139: Favorite Succulents
Let's Argue About Plants - July 21, 2023 10:00 - 49 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsQuirky, collectible, and water-wise, succulents will add eye-catching texture to any garden bed or container display. There are some succulents that are cold hardy, while others will need to be brought indoors for the winter in colder regions. Join Danielle, Carol and guest Amanda Thomsen as the...
Episode 138: Water-Wise Perennials
Let's Argue About Plants - July 07, 2023 12:03 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsDrought has become synonymous with gardening in the past several years. It seems like regardless of where you live, you will experience some sort of dry conditions in summer. This has led many of us to reevaluate our plant choices. Perennials we once relied on to fill our beds and borders may fl...
Episode 137: Field Trip to The Farmer’s Daughter Nursery
Let's Argue About Plants - June 16, 2023 12:42 - 28 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsVisiting a great nursery is inspirational. Colors and textures draw you in, and wish-list plants beckon to you from the benches and displays. You may even encounter a plant that you can’t live without, even though you’ve never seen it or heard about it before. Join Danielle and Carol as they str...
Episode 136: Plants with Presence
Let's Argue About Plants - June 02, 2023 13:49 - 49 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsWe all love plants that have some personality. These are the ones that stand out and make us take notice, and when we see them at a nursery, public garden, or in a fellow gardener’s collection, they go straight onto the wish list or into the shopping cart. Which unforgettable treasures will jump...
Episode 135: Spring Flowering Dwarf Shrubs
Let's Argue About Plants - May 19, 2023 14:27 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsIf you’re looking to add some heft to the spring garden, but don’t want to overwhelm genteel bulbs or ephemeral perennials then dwarf, spring-flowering shrubs are the answer. These little powerhouses are quick to put on new growth in the early part of the season and often sport blossoms in soft ...
Episode 134: Hole Fillers
Let's Argue About Plants - May 05, 2023 12:28 - 49 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsEvery garden has gaps that need to be filled from time to time. Whether you are looking for a short-term stand-in while a bed is being reworked or a quick fix after another plant dies, it is nice to have a list of pinch-hitters that can step in and fill space quickly. Listen in as Danielle, Caro...
Episode 133: Spring Combos
Let's Argue About Plants - April 21, 2023 13:31 - 51 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsTo gardeners, spring is the signal of something big to come. It kicks off our season. For the next several months we will primp and preen our beds to maximize their beauty and relish in their good looks. But as all our plants start waking up in April and early May, it can be hard to really focus...
Episode 132: A Tribute to Tulips
Let's Argue About Plants - April 07, 2023 13:49 - 44 minutes ★★★★★ - 374 ratingsTulips are a lavish spring gift that any gardener can give to themself and to their neighborhood with just a little advance planning. Whether your tulip bulbs are pre-ordered as early as possible in summer through your favorite supplier, or purchased last-minute from the garden center just befor...