Nationally known gardening expert, TV and radio host, author and columnist Melinda Myers joins WTMJ’s Libby Collins to talk about how she began her career, how she spends her winter months when the plants aren’t blooming, interviewing celebrities in their gardens, and much more on this edition of WTMJ Conversations. Listen in the player below.
A partial transcript is provided below, courtesy of eCourt Reporters.
LIBBY COLLINS: One of the shows that you did was something called Yard Work —
MELINDA MYERS: Oh, yes.
LIBBY COLLINS: — where you interviewed celebrities in their gardens. Who are some of the celebrities you talked with?
MELINDA MYERS: Eddie Albert, we had interviewed him. He had 18-foot-tall corn. And Eddie Albert was great, but he had an agenda; every time I asked him a question, he’d kind of steer it to what he wanted to talk about.
LIBBY COLLINS: Wait, what was his agenda?
MELINDA MYERS: He just wanted people to garden, which was great, and he was talking about the desert and how we need to garden. But he was great.
And then Ava Gabor.
LIBBY COLLINS: You interviewed Ava Gabor.
MELINDA MYERS: Ava Gabor, in her yard.
LIBBY COLLINS: Did she actually have a garden?
MELINDA MYERS: She came out in a flowy gown and a straw hat, and she had the Ava rose, and I was so excited, and I bent over and I was like, Oh, your rose, this is great. And we broke to re-set, and she goes, “Darling, if you ever get between me and the camera, I will just have to rip your eyes out.” I was like, “Okay. I won’t do that again.”
LIBBY COLLINS: How do you spend winter?
MELINDA MYERS: You know, when you ask what plants I suggest people plant, I think things with winter interest. If we don’t have snow, walking around on that gray, barren land, it can be a little depressing. But I leave my perennials stand for winter, increases their hardiness, many beneficial insects winter there, provides insulation.
When I taught, my students go, oh, it’s the dead plant lecture, because I wheeled in all my cuttings of flowers and grasses and all those things. But, to me, that adds some life, motion to the landscape and bring in those song birds.
Evergreens, of course plants with fruit and berries that persist into winter. I think that makes it exciting.
And then when it snows, I love to go out and take pictures and see how the snow rests on the plants, because I think that provides a different look into your landscape.
MELINDA MYERS: Our connection to nature goes way, way back. Getting yourself outside, getting your kids outside is so important and so helpful. There’s a lot of fear, depending on your parents’ view. I overheard a woman go, “Now don’t do that, there are bees out here and they’re going to sting you.” And I’m like, uhh. I really wanted to go up and say, you know what, not if you leave them alone. They’re our friends. But I didn’t think I should intervene.
But I’ve had to work with my daughter and grandkids as they’re growing up. Bugs are our friends; they do good things. Let’s watch them. You know, and if you watch the lady beetles eating aphids, and you talk about the parasitizing wasps that take care of the hornworms, it becomes like the sci-fi movies, and it’s way more exciting than that daisy sitting in the garden.
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