Talking Pollinator Plants, Deer, and Dry Shade Gardening

Super Fun Time Talking Pollinator Plants – In this video we visit our friend Steve Castorani to talk about fall pollinator plants in his garden. He has deer pressure and dry shady spaces.

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In this video, I’m joined by my friend Steve Castrani who owns North Creek Nursery and we’ve shot a video at Gateway Garden Center and owner of American Beauty’s plant brand. So, we’re very familiar with Steve in our videos at this point on purpose because he’s just a legend uh legend in horiculture. Uh there you go. Yeah. Yeah. I got smiles all around, but it is actually it is actually true. Steve is very well known and very wellliked uh in the world of horiculture. We’re going to do a video here in his home garden. Um, it’s been a tough dry summer and we’re want to show off some important fall pollinator plants and late summer pollinator plants. Most of them will be herbaceous perennials, dieback perennials. We’re going to start off with a shrub though. Um, yeah. Yeah. We want to talk about hydrangeanger. This hydrangeanger aresscent. Arberence. Hos halo. Yes. Hoses halo. Yes. And uh, now this is this time of year. It’s midepptember just about. It actually is exactly midepptember and um this has been blooming since June uh in June July pollinators are thick on this plant. I mean it just happens to be and you can see there are are remnant blooms here. So it has absolutely um great post bloom. Yeah. Uh super aesthetic. And what you’re looking at is the actual flowers were in the center here. Yes, this is what was pollinated. These bracks around the outside, you know, kind of draw the pollinators in, let them know, hey, I’ve got something over here you might like. My son and I were hiking in the North Carolina mountains, South Carolina mountains a couple weeks ago, and you know, just fields of hydrangeanger arpes, you know, that are this is one of our great native uh plants. Why is this particular one This one came through the Mount Cuba trials, right? This is like the number one in Mount Cuba trials. Yeah. And um I believe because um we just see a quantity and quality of pollinators that are attracted to this plant. Yeah. We don’t have that today, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And now we’re looking at additional ornamental value here uh in the home landscape. Right. So when we’re here on the 4th of July and this is fully in bloom and there’s a parade that comes by the house. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is a shining star. Yeah. It’s just a great plant and uh so yeah, you name the pollinator, mostly bees, but uh butterflies also, right? Uh just are loving this plant. One other point on that, it’s fairly rare that a named selection would beat the species at the Cuba trials. I mean, you normally they’re going to be just under. So, it’s it’s okay. It’s good to go potentially pick a plant that’s not the straight species for sure. But if you’re looking at the Mount Cuba trials, you can get one that’s kind of in the upper end of the pollinator activity. So maybe it’s more floriferous, but it’s also this one just happened to do both. It’s straight species. It’s just it was a name selection, right, of a of the species that was found by Rick Ray, right? Uh a professor, former professor uh up in Pennsylvania here locally. Yeah. And uh we see him at events here and there, too. Yeah. Yeah. It, you know, sharp eye sees lots of plants. Notice that this plant larger flowers. Yeah. Um and the number of flowers, long blooming number of flowers. And then throw on top of that a super pollinator. Uh you can’t go wrong. Yeah. So hearty. Um you can cut this back in in in the spring and actually uh blooms on new wood, which is probably a question. That’s another thing we should say. Some hydrangeas bloom on old wood, some bloom on new wood. These could just simply be cut to the ground if you if you pretty much. I mean, I cut this back last year and actually, you know, you get more blooms if you cut it back a little bit. Uh, you can control the side. We’re here at uh the entrance to the property and uh we don’t want something that’s going to continue to get too large. So, cutting it back increase the number of blooms uh the quality of the blooms. Excellent plant. I wanted to point out here we’re at the entrance of the property again. Uh here’s a plant, one of my favorite plants, Sukura uh veloa autumn bride. uh found locally here uh in uh Monton, Maryland by a friend of ours, Richard Simon. And this plant blooms a long time. It’s a fall blooming plant uh and just has great uh staying power in the landscape. Tremendous fall pollinator plant. I can see some bee activity on on the plant here. Um just there’s a lot going on with this plant. uh great green foliage uh good foundation plant uh great for dry shade. The fall blooming sedums the upright fall blooming sedums are all super important pollinator plants. We sometimes don’t think of them as that just more decorative decorative plants but that they tend to open and bloom for two three days at like peak color but then beyond that these flowers will continue to open and there’s not a lot that will draw in more pollinators. This one is one that Steve has in it here in his garden that’s called Matrona. And again, it’s not one of those that’s out in the uh world as he’s Yeah, you’re saying it’s not This one’s really not available much anymore. This is a plant that we grew for many many years. It was uh u I’ll say the ISU the intern uh perennial plant of the year. Yeah. For for Europe. Uh when it was introduced in the early 2000s by a gentleman Ewalt Hugan from Fryberg, Germany. So it it got a lot of notoriety. North Creek grew it for years and years and years. It’s a great plant. Uh this has been in this garden here for 20 years. Uh it gets cut back in the spring, comes back every year. Uh right to at this time of the day, it’s in the shade, but earlier it’s in it’s in sun most of the day. Uh it has these dark stems. Uh kind of maroon maroon highlights through the foliage. um just not uh popular or maybe a little harder to grow, right? And in spring, you know, when it’s up in the pot, it may not look like much to folks at that time, you know, and you just don’t know. This is the thing about I’ve said on the channel for years about shopping at different times of the year, you know, you will gain, you know, some knowledge of things. But this again, but there are other lots of other upright sedum out there. You may see this in the market. Yeah. Look for it. It it might still be out there. Yeah. Um, an excellent plant in the right place. Dry again. It it it needs good drainage. You know, it sedums um are Zurich. Yeah. A good Zurich a plant for Zurich landscapes. Boom. You got it. Hey, here we are in the driveway. Um, and I wanted to point out a couple plants that I particularly like in the fall. Pollinator plants. uh because we need pollinators uh for plants that uh provide nectar and pollen in the late season to keep bees active and over and allowing them to store uh food over winter. Uh one of my favorites, astro devaricatus. Um this one uh again we’re under birch trees. You can see the activity and birch they they suck all the moisture out of the ground. Uh, but here’s a plant that does really well in shade, shade all day pretty much in this area. Um, and it is just a nice uh beautiful, beautiful flowers that are going to last maybe up to six weeks. Uh, going to point this back out again. Uravalosa pollinator activity. Um just again dry shade right on the edge right on the edge of a parking lot. You can see the the uh debris of the of the birch trees. Uh great combinations. This is a little Joe upum. Euptorium dubium. Uporium dubium. Dubium I think in Latin means uncertainty. I think it’s now called utroium. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. But dubium I think in Latin means uncertainty. I’m certain you’ll like this plant. Yes, there’s no uncertainty uh in this particular uh this particular variety. What’s interesting about this is we usually think about upupitorium being like moist conditions kind of mo sun sunny but moist kind of conditions. This is the opposite of that. This is in dry shade. Yeah, we get we get moisture here um that comes off the driveway. We’re a little bit lower, but I can tell you that it hasn’t rained in a while and we’re not anticipating any rain. This has been here for 10 to 15 years in this garden. Uh it seeds in a little bit. Uh but really um low, you know, takes the stress, right? Uh can count on it every year being here. Yeah. It’s not really getting any taller. I mean, this is our normal with enough sun in our normal height. And uh uh it’s under uh these nisses uh that are again sucking moisture out of the ground, right? And it’s doing really well. And it’s it’s shady here most of the day. I always think of this a plant that’s, you know, if I was going to tell somebody where to grow it, full sun will take moisture. But here it is, uh, not doing what we tell it to do. Yeah. And it’s, but, you know, Yeah. Right. It’s going and it this thing’s made a decision. Yeah. On where it wants to be, and it’s decided that the dry understory here was the spot to be. It’s It’s stretching a bit. Yeah. The um, you have a lot of deer pressure out here. We have a lot of deer pressure. So, things we’re showing you right this minute, the sedum was sampled a bit. We saw a couple little spots where it had been maybe sampled and disliked cuz they didn’t eat it. They just they just sampled and disliked it. Maybe uh this hasn’t been touched, right? Yeah. So, this is a good good one for, you know, an open space like this where the deer are visiting at night. And one thing I’d lastly point out, it’s a little past its prime. Uh the flowers have kind of passed. The pollinators are gone from this. May have bloomed a hair early this year, but you still see the color in it. There’s a lot of pollinator activity on this plant when in season in season it be covered in pollinators and going from flower to flower to flower. But even after it’s finished peak flower, it still has this great color on it. We’re standing here in front of uh Chelon uh tiny Tortuga. Um only gets about two and a half maybe three foot tall. Uh right off the driveway it’s fall. You can see again um some of the oak leaves down underneath this beautiful uh taxodium and uh here’s a plant that seasonally wet taxodium kind of associated with wet but um this is the turtle head and it it’s fall blooming lots of pollinator activity uh darker foliage than the species which um we’ll we’ll look at in a second. Um, we have another one uh next to the the job pie we looked at earlier. Uh, Chelon Lioney um, hot lips name selection that North Creek named a long time ago. Um, just a great uh, another fall plume blooming plant that can uh, be available to pollinators in the late season. Really a very important plant that uh, could enhance your landscapes. Yeah. Yeah. And I like this one cuz it can be in the front of the border a little bit. Most most of the time these are going to have to be in the back bloom until they, you know, toward the end of the season and you kind of hide them in the back until they start blooming. This one the foliage looks so good on it. I mean look at where we are in September and look how good the you know this dark green color that these generally have. I mean generally the across the board on the species are nice foliage. We talk about deer pressure. We have a lot of deer in this yard. It’s not not fenced in. And uh you can see it’s really clean. It hasn’t been touched by a deer. Uh so we’re getting a full array of blooms. Um hasn’t been uh suppressed uh by deer pressure earlier. So um excellent plant. What do you think? The way the flower is engineered, the bee literally goes completely inside. It closes behind them, right? And they get trapped in there for they don’t get trapped, but they have to turn themselves completely back around, which ensures to get out. Yeah. Ensures they’re absolutely covered in pollen when they leave. And then they move it around. Yeah. Right. So, this is Karaopterus Beyond Blue. And you may we we had our first choice karaopterus in the Raleigh garden uh die last year, but it was about four years old. And you get these things on these karaopters where they die. It’s been about six or seven years, this particular plant. I’ve had a couple that, you know, aren’t as happy as this one. Right. Look how floriferous this one is. I mean, I have to show this off how big these flowers actually are without disturbing the bees too much. But, you know, you see the size of my hand here versus these flowers. This is one of the showier karaopters. Keriopters tend to be, you know, fall blooming shrubs. We’ve had them bloom a little earlier in our garden than normal the last few years, but um they tend to be late summer, early fall. And again, this one was definitely picked for the amount how floriferous it actually is. And you can see all of the activity uh on this plant. Um and you said how long has this one been to ground? About seven years, probably. Seven years. And this is important in that it’s not a native plant, but we get a lot of questions about I do uh about uh native plants and uh native bees and honeybees and uh activity of non-native plants. Are they beneficial? Yeah. Here’s proof. We have tremendous pollinator activity on many native bees on karaopterus in the late fall. Again, emphasizing the well midfall. Uh and this is going to bloom for a while while yet. And uh yeah, just um yeah, it it’s it’s just like that sedum over there. It’s another non-native, non-invasive. So non-native, noninvasive, beneficial pollinator plant that we can have in our gardens that are well overall well behaved. Uh you can see um the shirt uh that Steve is wearing um is our ACA shirt. Uh if you’re interested in it, it’s at the store at TTube.com. Uh we gave him this one a while back. A couple year or so year. Two years ago. Two years ago. Two years ago. He keeps wearing it. And he keeps Yeah. Every time we run into him, he’s got it on. So happy about that. Yeah. Thank you so much. Here in the at the back of the house, Vernonia Lettermani iron butterfly. And it’s a great example of the fact that we have a monarch right now enjoying some pollen off of this plant um circling around. Might come back again um right along the walkway. And this has been in this garden uh in that spot for maybe eight or 10 years. And uh it’s just lovely in the late fall. Absolutely beautiful. the the bees, the butterflies are always attracted to. It’s another dry shade kind of spot, too. Big, you know, I mean, it’s it’s sunny a good bit of the day, but yeah, in the morning it’s shady here, right? Middle of the day, it it it uh Right. I mean, it’s getting good. You got the trees limbmed up pretty far, so you’re getting plenty of light at the end of dry. But it is dry. Yeah, it is dry. Yeah. And that monarch just keeps coming back around. No matter how much we bother him, bother her, she’s still going to come back. Yeah. Good timing on uh you know just good serendipity. Yes, we’re here what I in what I call the pollinator garden. It’s midepptember. Uh some things are a little tired but there’s a lot of activity here and you know it’s it’s a little messy but um it’s easy care. Um talked about upum little Joe. We have rudekia subtomomentosa henry eers with these beautiful flute fluted flowers and again this is a plant that uh really hits its stride in late summer from July and August but still blooming uh still getting activity. Um we have this lemon queen picnanthemum muticum always uh number one pollinator plant that anybody could put in their yard. It’s a little aggressive, but certainly um u when we walk through here, it’s like, what’s that fragrance? It’s pignanthemma muticanin. It it’s it’s a mint, and it’s absolutely fantastic. Yeah, because it’s a mint, it’s going to be deer. A little plant that kind of creeps through things and lives on the edge. It’ll it’ll live in gravel. Um that’s a wine cup or caloi invoca. um just about to bloom and starting to bloom. We have um our fall blooming uh aers. Um this is uh I think Raidon’s favorite. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, just about to start blooming. You have a lot in here that have been blooming. Equipius in here. Uh arenium yakapolium. So, there’s been a lot going on in here. Right. Rishnake master. some uh rudekia fulgida fuljida. So there’s a lot. Yeah. And you end up with a lot of seed heads out here. So as as as so when something comes into flower and it’s good for the pollinators, it moves out of flower, the next thing comes in for the pollinators. But that last thing is now good for the birds. Yes. There’s a lot of bird activity that sweep through here all day long. Right. Right. And there’s there’s editing that needs to be done. And I know that this is something I I kind of uh need to do a better job of. You know, you talked about seeding. Hey, some plants uh are more aggressive than others and they u may maybe aren’t exactly where you intended them to be. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s okay. Nature uh deals with it. You know, and it’s great for the birds, great for the butterflies. It’s an area that I don’t have to maintain much. Yeah. Yeah. When are you cutting this down? When would you cut? I cut this down in March. So you Yes. Leave it up March uh into April. Are you mowing it? I mow it. Yeah. So you literally it’s a once a year mowing. It’s a once a year and some editing and some weeding and uh some management. I mean get even with the certain of these plants if you want them to be better behaved and not as tall, you can give them uh what they call uh the Chelsea chop. Yeah. Right. and can come in here in uh June up to mid July and you’ll have some of these plants that are actually better behaved and maybe in instead of uh 6 to 6 to 8 foot tall, they’ll be four to five foot tall and in bloom and with as many if not more blooms. Yeah. And it’s certainly easier overall than mowing a lawn all summer. How how much water are you giving? No supplemental water after it was planted. And this was planted uh uh six or eight years ago, right? And this has given you some trial at the nursery too on Yeah. You write all these things and you hear all these things, but then when you throw it in your own garden and look at it for six years, you kind of you can kind of go through and figure out what is what, right? And I don’t have a garden staff here, so you know, it’s like I said, it’s a little messy. That’s okay. That’s okay. It’s messy. It’s per It’s perfect messy, though, because when you walk through here, literally, I mean, life just flies out from under you, all around you. Yeah. And that’s the fun part. It’s a good thing. And there’s a progression, you know. We’ve got u um bonardas in here that had bloomed earlier. Uh and yeah, it’s just Yeah, it just continues through the season. Well, thank you uh Steve for inviting us back up here. We have we run Yeah, we run into each other all over the place and then we’re able to come up here and and film together. Thanks for including me in your travels. Yeah, we love it. Absolutely. Thank you so much, guys. Y