Pollinator Garden Tour: Everyone Can Grow a Garden (2023) #23
Garden writer Susan Mulvihill takes you on a tour of her pollinator garden, which she and her husband Bill first created in 2019. Check out how the plants are doing and get some important information about creating your own pollinator garden. Afterwards, Susan also walks you through her front perennial garden. From Susan's in the Garden, SusansintheGarden.com.
Susan gardens in Spokane, Wash. While most of this region is in hardiness zone 6, her garden is in a microclimate, making it zone 5b.
Susan's newest book, The Vegetable Garden Problem Solver Handbook, is now available! You can order a signed copy of the book or Susan's previous book, The Vegetable Garden Pest Handbook, by sending her an email at Susan@SusansintheGarden.com.
Here are her affiliate links to the books on Amazon:
1. Vegetable Garden Problem Solver Handbook: amzn.to/3uIMA0A.
2. Vegetable Garden Pest Handbook: amzn.to/3Jh6aXS.
Susan has much more than this KZhead channel! Follow her on:
Blog: susansinthegarden.com/
Facebook: / susansinthegarden
Instagram: / susansinthegarden
Email me: Susan@SusansintheGarden.com
Can’t wait to see the poppies in bloom!
Thank you for the tour, you can see some of the bees already enjoying the bounty! Thank you for also mentioning the botanical names.
That was so much fun to see! Thanks, Susan😊
I really enjoyed your video, Love your pollinator garden.Just subscribed your channel!
Thank you, Linda!
P.s. my girls 11& 8 love the friendly chickadee and when they here your theme song always watch with me- thank you for all the content
That is cool!
Thank you for sharing! ❤
LOVELY, THANK YOU.
Your lupines are amazing this time of year!
I just love them!
Can't wait to see the poppies, tfs!
Awesome garden im converting my yard as we speak.
That is wonderful!
How do you keep the wildlife from eating everything? We are in drought Z5a WI and we scared a deer out yesterday when we came back home and this morning I have to figure out how a rabbit crossed 2’ chicken wire and hog fence. I have purchased flower seeds from American meadows a couple years ago and the wildlife grazed it bad. I had lupines until they ate them. They grow wild in the ditches in Bayfield. It’s been such a tough year. I have a lot more winter sow flowers to finish up today and all need to be fenced in so things are getting crowded. It’s SOoo dry here the milkweed dried up and froze from freak frost a week and half ago and froze most peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, grapes and berries. Before the unwarned frost they were all beautiful 😭. The local winery lost 95% of buds on most grapes to an earlier frost and they are on a hill. Our frost was just before Memorial Day and no weather forecast covered it. Hope the forecast is correct for rain this weekend as I don’t remember the last one. The other worry is the low temp this morning was 41* and another cool one tonight and NE wind and clear-I’m nervous because if it happens again I’m throwing in the trowel. Then I will get a high tunnel and create my own climate as this battle of weather, wildlife is too costly. I’m an undercover agent as everything I grow is under some kind of cover. It’s dust here and smoke from wildfires which I thought we would not have this year. I guess if the west isn’t burning somewhere else is and the lows are dragging it right to us in Midwest. I planted red poppies last year in fenced garden and they are gorgeous! They love not being eaten by wildlife here. I’m sure your flowers will be popping all over soon. Take care.
The main problem we encounter in our front garden is voles. They are so destructive and very hard to control, other than with Mole Max, which contains castor oil. But you can't use that near edible crops (which fortunately aren't out in our front yard). We used to get a lot of deer but they've had a major decline due to disease problems, so we don't see them much anymore. Most of what we're growing in those 2 beds aren't really of interest to them, or they just munch a bit here and there.
Susan, thanks for the update on your pollinator and perennial gardens, they are beautiful. I'm so glad that🤗 Ned showed up to see what you were doing. Blackcap Chickadees are one of my most favorite birds, but how did you know it was Ned, the male? We don't get them here, so I've never seen a pair of them together. I hope you and Bill are having a great week. ~Margie💚🐝💐🦋
Hi, Margie. Well, you are right: it's very hard to tell the male from the female. To be honest, we just decided he was a male, with the thinking that the female was on the nest and so he was the provider! But, for all we know, she's Nellie!
@@SusansInTheGardenChickadees are such polite little birds, taking only one seed at a time, and I love that!
Thank you Susan. Both flower beds are just lovely. What direction does you front garden face? Our east facing front native pollinator garden was native Texas Blue Bonnets and a few yellow daisies (don't know where they blew in from}. My husband mowed yesterday in every direction to spread the seeds already covers about 1/2 acre. Followed by a wonderful but short rain storm. I think we are set for next year.
That's funny! Both beds run E-W.
Camassia is native to the U.S.
That is correct!
Hi Susan, loved the flower tour. I planted Sweet William from seed last year and planted the seedlings in containers and various corners of raised beds. Boy was I disappointed when I found out they don't bloom until the second year! So this year I have many Sweet William flowers out there. Do you know if they keep cycling around - will they live next year and bloom again in two years?
Hi there. Mine have bloomed for 3 years in a row so I think they just have to get established first.
Help my tomatos and peas haveThrips!! I watched your video from last year,,,but upon inspection with my magnifying glass (tx for the idea) I see aphids and what looks like pollen. But damage looks like every picture . Could there be both? I do have your book but loaned to my sis in law.
Oh my! It's possible you have both thrips and aphids although I've never had aphids on tomato plants. Anyway, the first thing you should do is to carefully hose off the plants in an effort to dislodge both types of insects from the leaves. If you can take photos of what you're seeing and email them to me (Susan@SusansintheGarden.com), I would be happy to take a look. For the thrips, you might also consider hanging a sticky blue card near the plants because thrips are attracted to the color blue. You can easily make your own by getting a blue plastic file divider or some other sturdy blue paper and painting on either Vaseline or TangleTrap. They'll get stuck and die.
A thought about pollinators. So my June bearing strawberries need pollinators but early spring when strawberries start to bloom there aren't really any pollinators around in Northeast Nebraska because it could still be chilly. Thought??
Hmm, that is a challenge. First of all, you can hand-pollinate them if you're desperate (I've never done this personally but I do see a lot of information on the web about it). My other thought is to plant some early-flowering perennials nearby to attract the pollinators.
Much trouble with deer in either the pollinator or perennial gardens?
Hi, Tim. We really haven't seen many deer in the last few years, which I'm attributing to disease issues. But prior to that, they (along with some moose!) would come into our front yard where it isn't fenced and munch on a few plants. But it was never so much damage that it was noticeable or a problem. It could be that most of the plants I'm growing out there aren't as palatable to them.
Very lovely, but your perennial garden is also a pollinator garden. I'm not sure why you differentiate between the two. They both attract pollinators and neither is 100% native, but they both have natives
Yes, that is very true. Since we created the pollinator garden just a few years ago, compared to the flower garden which has been in place for about 30 years, I guess that's just how we differentiate the two when referring to them!
How do you keep the weeds at bay?
I'm diligent about weeding, although they still sneak in! But I try my best to keep up with them.