My guest is Ann Lillie from Go West Gardener. Ann fell in love with flower gardening during her college years. But when she moved to Colorado 15 years ago, she quickly discovered that gardening here is VERY different than gardening in other parts of the country.
Ann had her share of mishaps as she adjusted to our tricky western conditions. For example, many of her plants looked like swiss cheese after hailstorms! She earned her Colorado Gardener Certificate from the Colorado State University Extension, and she’s honed her skills through 15 years of hands-on practice.
Ann’s passion is helping novice flower gardeners in Colorado discover their green thumbs and find joy outside. And today, she’s here to share some of her favorite flowerpot tips, so you can grow happy and healthy flowers of your own.
For more western gardening tips from Ann, visit www.gowestgardener.com.
Special Limited Time Offer:
Free Mini Training: 10 Common Flowerpot Mistakes (& How to Easily AVOID Them)
- A 10 part email series
Sign up to be eligible to win Ann's Flower Pot Tool Kit - a $60 value!
Offer good until Friday May 22, 2020.
One winner will be selected and notified via email.
In this episode we will cover:
Thanks so much for tuning in again this week. I appreciate you 🙂
Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the Feedback section.
Special thanks to Ann Lillie for being on the show.
So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!
Also, don’t forget to Subscribe for FREE: Apple Podcasts | Android
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My guest is Ann Lillie from Go West Gardener. Ann fell in love with flower gardening during her college years. But when she moved to Colorado 15 years ago, she quickly discovered that gardening here is VERY different than gardening in other parts of the country.
Ann had her share of mishaps as she adjusted to our tricky western conditions. For example, many of her plants looked like swiss cheese after hailstorms! She earned her Colorado Gardener Certificate from the Colorado State University Extension, and she’s honed her skills through 15 years of hands-on practice.
Ann’s passion is helping novice flower gardeners in Colorado discover their green thumbs and find joy outside. And today, she’s here to share some of her favorite flowerpot tips, so you can grow happy and healthy flowers of your own.
For more western gardening tips from Ann, visit www.gowestgardener.com.
Special Limited Time Offer:
Free Mini Training: 10 Common Flowerpot Mistakes (& How to Easily AVOID Them)
- A 10 part email series
Sign up to be eligible to win Ann's Flower Pot Tool Kit - a $60 value!
Offer good until Friday May 22, 2020.
One winner will be selected and notified via email.
In this episode we will cover:
Thanks so much for tuning in again this week. I appreciate you 🙂
Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the Feedback section.
Special thanks to Ann Lillie for being on the show.
So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!
Also, don’t forget to Subscribe for FREE: Apple Podcasts | Android
Today’s episode is sponsored by Audible, where you can find audio books and exclusive audible originals.
Just click on the link to receive your 30 day free trial, a free audio book of your choice and a commitment free guarantee.
Audible: www.audibletrial.com/liveblissedout
Free membership for 30 days with your choice of 1 audiobook + select Audible Originals.
✓ After trial, get 1 audiobook and free Audible Originals each month from a rotating selection.
✓ Exclusive guided wellness programs.
✓ You will get an email reminder 7 days before your trial ends.
Commitment-free guarantee
✓ You won’t be charged until after 30 days.
✓ Don’t like an audiobook? Swap it for free.
✓ Cancel anytime, no questions asked.
Check out Planting Light Bulbs: 20+ Ways to Cultivate Success in the Digital Age by Neil Gray.
Thanks to Audible for sponsoring this episode and allowing me to share this great offer with my listeners!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Marisa: 0:00
This is Episode 36 on the Live Blissed Out podcast. Growing flowers can be such a fun way to relax, express your creativity and get in touch with nature. Did you know that getting outside in nature actually affects our brains? Research shows that it lowers our production of stress hormones, and increases are positive emotions. It turns out nature is good for us! Hello Action Takers! Welcome to Live Blissed Out. A podcast where I have authentic conversations with business owners and subject matter experts to help us get the scoop, the 411 and the low down on a variety of topics. Tired of hesitating or making decisions without having the big picture? Wanna be in the know? Then this is the place to go! I'm your host Marisa Huston. Helping achieve bliss through awareness and action. Thanks for joining me. The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast should not be considered professional advice. Sending a coffee mug shot shout out to Mary Gaul in Aurora, Colorado. Thanks, Mary for filling my coffee cup and being such a cool bean. If you'd like to help keep me fueled, head over to www.liveblissedout.com and click on the Caffeinate Me tab to give me a boost and redeem your bonus as a thank you for supporting the show. My guest is an Ann Lillie from Go West Gardner. Ann fell in love with flower gardening during her college years. But when she moved to Colorado 15 years ago, she quickly discovered that gardening here is very different than gardening in other parts of the country and had her share of mishaps as she adjusted to our tricky western conditions. For example, many of her plants look like Swiss cheese after hailstorms. She earned her Colorado Gardener certificate from the Colorado State University Extension, and she's honed her skills through 15 years of hands on practice. Ann's passion is helping novice flower gardeners in Colorado discover their green thumbs and find joy outside, and today she's here to share some of her favorite flower pot tips so you can grow happy and healthy flowers of your own. For more Western gardening tips from Ann, visit www.gowestgardener.com. Today's episode is sponsored by Audible, where you can find audiobooks and exclusive audible originals. Just head over to my personal link at www.audibletrial.com/liveblissedout to receive your 30 day free trial, a free audio book of your choice and a commitment free guarantee. Check out Planting Lightbulbs: 20+ Ways To Cultivate Success In The Digital Age by Neil Gray. You can also click on the link in the show notes to let Audible know I sent you and help support the show. Thanks to Audible for sponsoring this episode and allowing me to share this great offer with our listeners. Hey, Ann it's so good to have you on the show today!
Ann: 3:00
Thanks Marisa! I'm so glad to be here.
Marisa: 3:02
Well, you know, I am looking forward to talking to you about what you do. And so I wanted to start the conversation by asking you exactly why you decided to start Go West Gardener and what exactly do you do to help people in relation to gardening? Because I know you specialize in something particular, and I'd like to hear from you how you go about training people about specifically flowerpots because I know that's an area of expertise that you focus on.
Ann: 3:28
Yes, I have always loved flowers. When I walk out into a flower garden, I feel like the weight of the world lifts away from me. I feel calm, and it's an escape into nature and beauty and all the toxic energy around work and reading the news and politics kinda slips away, and I really wanted to be able to share that experience with other people. The interesting thing is that here in Colorado and similar Western states, we have very hard conditions for gardening. You think it's hard to be a gardener here? Imagine how hard it is to be a plant. So my passion is really helping people get this experience but understand how to navigate the tricky things about gardening in Colorado so they feel so much more confident and so that they can create that escape into nature right outside their door in their yards.
Marisa: 4:21
What in particular about Colorado makes it so difficult to garden in general? We're gonna dive into flowerpots in particular. But gardening in general I agree, is very challenging. But what exactly causes that?
Ann: 4:34
I love that. How much time do we have? Because we could go through a long list here! We're gonna come to the key things that kinda jump out at me. One are sun is really different. So obviously we're gardening at different elevation levels, whether you're down in the front range, where we might be about 5,500 feet above sea level up up in to the mountains. But that means that closer to the sun, that the sun is much more intense here and it's harder on our plants and things, even like sunlight, are different for plants. So, for example, in other parts of the country, a plant might prefer a full day of sun 8 to 12 hours. Well, here in Colorado and similar western states, that's more like six hours of sun. So if you think about that, 1/2 day in sun in Colorado is like a full day in many other places around the country. We're semi arrid, so we get very low precipitation even up in the mountains, where a lot of the precipitation is coming in the winter as snow and not necessarily in the summer as rainfall. It's very windy. I had a conversation with someone recently was that was telling me she can't put anything out on her patio. She's destroyed multiple types of furniture and pots blow away, and it's like a wind funnel up there and many of the listeners may be able to relate to that. It's really windy here, which is tough on our plants. That means they dry out faster. They're losing water faster, and we have some challenges around elevation. So our higher elevations. We have a much shorter growing season, particularly the folks up in the mountains, and you can get summer frost in the middle of the summer, which obviously can affect your flowerpots. So those are just a few of the things off the top of my mind. But there are many things that make gardening much trickier in Colorado.
Marisa: 6:11
Yeah, I can only imagine, and I'm also thinking about the people that may have had success with gardening and flower pots coming from a different state and then all of a sudden coming to Colorado and applying some of those skills and then it's not working and they're getting frustrated wondering what they're doing wrong because they're going well it worked before why is it not working now? And then of course, people like me who kill every plant in sight no matter what! I cannot keep a plant alive. It's even harder because I haven't been able to do it, even in successful environments, and now in Colorado it just makes it that much more challenging. So how do we give people the confidence to actually tackle this?
Ann: 6:48
Yes. It's a great question, Marisa. A couple of things come to mind, one knowing there's no perfect gardener. I think for some reason gardening feels really high stakes because we're dealing with living things. We don't want to kill any plants. But knowing there is no perfect gardener, even master gardeners do things wrong. Even the woman off the street that has this amazing garden out front she has killed plants. So knowing that there is no perfect gardener, I think is really helpful in kind of shifting your mindset. The next piece of advice I have is to start with something manageable. I think a lot of times we'll move into a home and we'll kind of inherit a big garden or we get really excited and kind of start big. But really starting with something manageable like flowerpots and container gardens is a great way to get a sense for do I like doing this? You know, am I learning how to do it? And then kind of moving into ground gardening to make it feel so much more manageable. And then knowing we aren't born with green thumbs. No matter what that neighbor up the street tells you, these are skills that are learned. Some of us started learning earlier in our lives. Like my mom always had a big garden. My grandma, my great aunt. So I was around it a lot as a child. But many people don't have that exposure and so we're learning these skills as adults. Kinda knowing that these are things that take practice and really seeking out help and being able to ask questions and go to workshops or get advice from places like Go West Gardener or from your local garden centre. All these things are helpful for really becoming more comfortable here.
Marisa: 8:11
Yes, as someone who's challenged with this sort of thing. I think one of the things that I go through is number one. I don't know what kind of flowers to plant. What are good flowers that I should be looking at? Because often times we look at a flower and we say I like it and just because you like it and how it looks, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to translate in terms of caring for it. And so, for example, I love daisies. They're just flowers that I find so beautiful and happy. But what if a Daisy does not go well in my home for a variety of reasons? Then I bring the daisy home and it dies. And I feel upset because I just killed my daisy.
Ann: 8:47
Yes, yes!
Marisa: 8:48
it breaks your heart. And so part of the thing is to try and figure out what are the appropriate plants And is it realistic? What If you wanna plant fruit plants inside your home? Does that even work? Is that even going to be something that is realistic for you? So making these decisions, like you said, requires a lot of thought, and you just have to have some basic information so you can set yourself up for success. What are some of those things that you would recommend we start thinking about if we were to decide to start planting our flowerpots this spring?
Ann: 9:18
This is a great question. I think a lot of people don't realize how much plants are like people. And let me give you an example there. If you were to take my sister and me and you were to put us both out in the sun all afternoon without sunscreen, one of two things would happen. My sister would turn this beautiful honey kissed tan. She would look like she is a surfer in some beach town in California or Hawaii. But if you put me out in the sun, I would turn pink and then red and then burn. I get freckles, I break into hives. It is not a good scene. And our flower plants are really similar, Marisa. Where some plants love sun. They actually need sun in order to give us those gorgeous, colorful blooms. And other plants do not like sun at all. In fact, it kind of ruins their chloroplasts if you put them out and they get too much sun and they not only will not give you flowers, but they're likely on their way out. So one of the most important things to start thinking about when you're thinking about a flowerpot is first of all, where are you gonna put it outside and getting a sense for how much light it gets, what times of the day is it getting that sun? Is it getting directs sun? Is it kinda more in the shade? And if you're not really sure, I find it really helpful to just pull out your phone and set yourself a timer at different times during the day and go out, snap a quick picture where you want to put that flowerpot so you get an idea for what the sun is doing there. And then when you actually go to buy plants like you said, we're naturally drawn to those pretty unique blooms but also being aware on the tag. What is the plant tag in that flower telling you about how much sun that plant likes? Cause I think one of the most common mistakes that new gardeners or people who are getting the hang of gardening make. They don't realize that plants have different sun needs, and they put together plants that love sun and that love shade together. And then they're kind of on the road to not have a successful flowerpot. But if you're aware of that when you go into the flower store and you're picking flowers that actually work really well for what kind of sun your plant is gonna need, then you're doing so much better. And if you are ever in doubt because no one expects you to be an expert in what every single different type of flower likes as far as it's sun needs, you can certainly ask and people will be able to tell you.
Marisa: 11:29
So I think that for somebody like me who is challenged, the three things that come to mind as we're having this conversation are sunlight, the soil and how you keep that soil moist. Because I tend to get so worried that the plants not gonna have enough water that I put too much water and I drowned my plants.
Ann: 11:47
Yeah.
Marisa: 11:48
And then the other thing I always think about is nutrition because they always tell you these little pellets or liquid that you put on the plants so that you know, they stay healthy and kind of like their vitamins, right? Like us people, we take vitamins, plants do to. And so those what makes things confusing for me because you have to have the right balance. You don't want over or underwater. You don't want to put too much sun or too little sun. You don't want to give too many vitamins. And so I think just finding that happy place that the plant really likes, where you see that it's happy and enjoying exactly how you're caring for it is key, don't you think?
Ann: 12:21
Absolutely. And I actually have a suggestion for helping get watering, right, because I feel like that is also something I can totally relate to. Where people feel like they either are under watering it, and then they realize, Oh, shoot. I haven't been watering and then they water too much or they're not really sure. So they're just kind of wandering every day, But there's a couple different things that you can do to help you get your watering right. One is if you stick your finger into the soil down about two inches, if it's damp, it's probably fine. You probably don't need more water. What could happen here in Colorado and similar western states is the surface gets really dry. But if you kind of poke in just a little bit, you realize that actually, it has plenty of water, and it doesn't need more. But another way that you can actually help get your watering right is get a little tool called a moisture meter. And if any of your listeners do indoor plants, they may already be familiar with this. But it's a device that you could also use in your outside flowerpots, and basically you stick it in your soil and it gives you a reading of, is your soil dry? Is it moist or is it wet? So you know exactly how much water is already in there? Very few of the flower plants that you'd be planning in your flower pots out here in Colorado are going to really want wet soil. Typically, they want to be in the moist range. Some like to get a little bit more dried out and then get moist again. But that will really help you from over watering. Because you're right, if you do over water or if you under water and then you over correct and over water, you're taking the space in the soil that's normally reserved for air that the plant roots need, and now you're filling it with water and you're effectively kind of drowning those roots, and you could encourage diseases like root rot and other things, and those are really hard for your plants to recover from.
Marisa: 14:02
Let's say that now we get to the point where I am ready Ann. I'm ready to get my flowers and I kind of know what I want. I'm excited. I'm going to do this flowerpot thing right? Where do I go?
Ann: 14:12
So you have a bunch of different options. I think we naturally think of the large home improvement stores, and they're definitely some perks to doing that. They often have cheaper prices, and they have a more limited selection, which, if you're just kind of getting started with gardening can be great, because it doesn't necessarily feel overwhelming when you go in there. But then there are also different places around town that are actually dedicated just to power plants. They're known as garden centers or plant nurseries, and you can actually Google Garden Center in and then put your town and kind of see what comes up. But these stores all they do is they specialize in flowers, and they tend to have more unique flowers, more unique blooms and all the tools. And a lot of times the staff's a little bit more knowledgeable and can really help guide you if you have questions. On the flip side, though, the first time you go to a Garden Center that's dedicated just to flower plants, it also can feel a little bit intimidating because there so many plans to choose from. And, like you said, if you're kind of drawn to pretty flowers and you just don't know where to begin, it's kind of hard to think through it. But rest easy when you walk into a garden center, typically, they've divided plants in to one of two areas. There'll be one area where it's your annuals, and those are the flowers that give you color all summer. They're bright, they're showy, they're wonderful for flowerpots because they give you that big punch of color and typically they're in one section of the garden center together. And then there's usually another section of the garden center that's dedicated to perennials, and those are the flowers that return year after year. But they don't necessarily give you color for the whole summer. And those typically are plants that you would more plant in the ground than in your flower pot, and those are oftentimes in a different section of the store. So when you walk into a garden center for the first time, if you don't see signage that helps you, know if you see one section that looks really bright and colorful and vibrant, that that's most likely the section for annuals, which are great for your flower pot.
Marisa: 16:08
So with these annual flowerpot types that we select at the Garden store or Nursery, do those just bloom and then once that year is over, that season is over then you basically discard the flowerpot?
Ann: 16:21
Great question. So at the end of the season with annuals, they are usually sensitive to freezing temperatures, some more than others. So down in our lower altitudes in Colorado, you're gonna typically gravitate to flowers that are more heat tolerant, but a lot of times when it gets to around 32 degrees they're pretty much done. They'll die. Some of the other annuals have a little bit more give to them. They're called cold, hardy, cold, tolerant annuals. You can get a little bit colder with them, but you'll get around 28 degrees, 25 degrees, and then they'll typically be done. So at the end of the season, when you start hitting those temperatures, your annuals are gonna die, and it's time to pull them out of your flowerpot. I also suggest taking the soil out of the flowerpot as well, if you're gonna leave your flowerpot outside because what can happen is sometimes you can get some moisture in there and it can expand and as it freezes and potentially break your pot. But yes, you're annuals at the end of the season they're done.
Marisa: 17:18
So is there an option to take that plant indoors and keep them in good temperature indoors throughout the rest of the year and then put them out again next year? Or is it just count on it for that one season and then know that next season you're gonna plant new plants?
Ann: 17:32
Most gardeners, typically at the end of the season, just pull them out, and either they put them into a compost pile or they discard of them in a brown bags that can go off to composting for the city, and that's kind of it. And you know that you're gonna start over next year. But there are some plants that you could try to bring inside.
Marisa: 17:50
Oh, see, I did not know this. This is awesome. What happens when I go in the garden center? How do I know what flowers I should be looking for despite the fact that I might be attracted let's say to a specific type of plant? How do I know what to look for that might help me become more successful when I start it specifically, if I were a beginner and not knowing what to do something that's not so difficult to learn In the beginning?
Ann: 18:14
It sounds like a straightforward question, but there's actually kind of a complex answer to it, because it depends if you're gardening at lower elevation. If you're gardening up in the mountains, you're gonna want to be a little bit more aware of what the cold hardiness is because up in the mountains, some flowers are more prone to damage from frost, so you want to ask about cool hardy annuals, whereas down here in the front range or down in her lower elevations, where we get these really hot summers that are dry, you're more likely to wanna look for ask about flowers that have a bit of a heat tolerance to them. And then the other question to kind of be thinking through is how much work do you want to do? So one thing with annuals is throughout the summer, when you plant annuals and flowerpots, many of them they give you a color for the whole summer. But what you may not know is they don't actually give you continuous color so they bloom, that bloom dies and then a new one wants to come in. In order to allow that new bloom to come in, you actually have to clip off the dead bloom so that a new one can come in, and that's called dead heading. So it depends a little bit on how much work you want. There are some annuals where you don't actually have to dead head. So things like wave petunias or you'll see another type of it looks like a petunia, but it's actually a slightly different flower plant. It's called Million Bells. These are plants that drop their flowers on their own. They're very low maintenance, they're heat tolerant, and you don't have to do any type of dead heading or work on them. So if you know that you're the type that you're not gonna pay quite as much attention to your flowerpot, those maybe the types of flowers that you're looking for. But in general, it'll depend on how much sun you think that you're gonna be giving your plant, where you're gonna be putting them, and then how much work that you want to do. And if you're unsure, it's always great to ask at the Garden Center and have people kind of direct you to different places to help you answer. And these are also the types of things that I'm hoping to be able to help people with on Go West Gardener as well.
Marisa: 20:11
That is so helpful, really. And I know that I'm more of a low maintenance person so that already gave me an idea of what to start thinking about. What are some popular questions that people tend to ask you when they reach out to you and say...Hey, Ann. I really need help. I wanna get started, but I don't know where to start.
Ann: 20:28
That's a great question. One of the things that I often hear is like...How many flowers doing I need? How do I know how many flowers to put in my flowerpots? There's nothing like getting home from the garden centre and realizing you didn't buy enough flowers or you bought too many flowers and now you feel a little wasteful. Although we could have a little side conversation if you can never have too many flowers. But it's like...How do I know? And so one of my favorite tricks that I learned a number of years ago, which helps me every time I get a new flowerpot is I take a piece of newspaper or a poster board or something where I can use it as a stencil, and I hold it up over the whole of the flowerpot and I cut it out and it doesn't have to be exact. You're just trying to get a circle or a square or whatever shape your container is that mirrors the size of your flowerpot. Then you take it with you to the garden centre, put it in your car or pull over to a little side aisle and put it down on the ground and you can actually put the flowers right on the stencil. So one you can see how they look together. It's almost like you're simulating what they're gonna look like in your flower pot. And you can get a sense for...Do I have too many flowers? Do I not have enough flowers? You can see how many will go there. When it comes to flowerpots. Marisa, I tend to like to have big color and like a big impact. So in the flowerpot, I tend to space my flowers closer together so they may be an inch to a couple inches, or even sometimes even slightly tighter so that initially they don't look that big. But oh my gosh, you give them a couple of weeks of water and some starter nutrients and they're often running and they fill in really close to each other. But having that stencil is an awesome guide. And if you feel self conscious, don't. I will tell you what. I can almost guarantee you if the person next to you doesn't say, oh my gosh, that's a great idea. They are thinking it in their head. They're wishing they had it themselves.
Marisa: 22:18
They're going. Where did you pick up that information?
Ann: 22:20
Yeah!
Marisa: 22:21
That's awesome!
Ann: 22:22
I do that with every new flowerpot that I get. And after you've planted a flowerpot for a year or two, you start getting a sense for how many flowers you need. But initially, it's super helpful, and it really helps you visualize.
Marisa: 22:33
When is the ideal time to start planting your flowerpots in the beginning of the season?
Ann: 22:38
You know, it's funny you should ask that because they're sort of this myth out there, right? That Mother's Day is the day and the choirs of angels start singing and the squirrels start dancing and all the gardeners emerged from their homes, and I will caution you. It really depends on how much work you want. So if you live down at one of the lower elevations in Colorado and you're using, Mother's Day as kind of a target. We've gotten snow or freezing temperatures five of the last 10 Mother's Days. So if you buy your plants too early, you're gonna being moving them in and out of your house. You're going to be covering them. You need to protect them from the freezing temperatures and from frost and definitely from snow. So I always like to say if you're down at a lower elevation and you don't want to be giving yourself a lot of extra work, I use May 15th as a target date for when I start looking at the temperatures over the next two weeks and seeing when are we gonna be finally out of those low 30 range or even potentially less. And when I see that we're finally passed that that's when I will go out and actually get my flowers or start planting and you can definitely do it sooner. But you're gonna have to be much more diligent about protecting those plants from frost and freezing temperatures and potentially moving them inside. I had one friend who calls it being a slave to your flowers. You're gonna have to be a slave to your flowers for a little while, getting them in and out. So May 15th. It's kind of a good target date for looking at the temperatures over the next two weeks and seeing what will that look like? Are we going to getting any freezing temperatures? And then it's kind of your decision of when you want to go out and buy and plant. Up at our higher altitudes up in the mountains, you're probably looking more at that first week of June of when you really want to start looking at the temperatures to go out and buy them. Again, unless you're okay with moving them in and out of your house and getting them acclimated to the temperature.
Marisa: 24:29
And we all know Colorado weather is so unpredictable. And so how long? Typically, there's a season last for the flowers. When do you find that people start to take them down from their flowerpots and get them recycled or composted?
Ann: 24:44
It depends at what altitude you live at? So our friends up in the mountains have much shorter season. They can even, you know, they can be less than eight weeks. It can be super short up in the mountains, and they have to keep their eyes out oftentimes, for the summertime frost. Down in the front range and other parts of the Colorado, it depends a little bit how warm it is. But the season can extend from, like late May through September or October, depending on the year and how early we start getting those cold temperatures. It really depends on how much work you want to put into it. If you wanna have your plants last a little bit longer at the end of the season again, you could start covering them or bringing them inside just for the nights to help protect them from freezing cold temperatures. But if you're kind of over it by the end of the summer, it's time it's ready. When you start getting those frosts, your annuals will start telling you that they're done and that they are ready to get pulled out. So it depends a little bit on where you live in Colorado.
Marisa: 25:41
If I were to go into a garden centre or any sort of place where they sell flowers and I need to make my selection, how do I know what to select to make my choice of flowers the most visually interesting as possible?
Ann: 25:59
Marisa, I love that question. This is one my favorite questions that I get. One thing to think about with your flowerpots is how you can add it's almost like architecture to it. So how can you add height to it? And how can you add something that's cascading out of it? Sometimes you might hear it called Thrillers, Fillers and Spillers. The idea being thrillers are those super tall plants that all add heights and drama and interest. So it could be where you wanna add grasses that you can add to your flowerpots or a tall annual that really adds that height to it. Then your filler is the flower that goes around the edges of the flowerpots. You're kind of in the middle that adds that punch of color. So it's something that really strikes you with color. And then the spiller is a flower that cascades or trails out of the flowerpot and really adds almost that waterfall effect. And now suddenly your flower pots are multidimensional and really pretty to look at. Another way to think about it, if you're kind of a visual person and thrillers, fillers and spillers kind of sounds like something that you might get mixed up. Think about it in terms of Colorado. So you want your 14 er's. You want those super tall flowers that you put either at the back of the flowerpot or maybe in the middle that gives you the height. And then you want the fillers, which are like your foothills, really reliable color right there in the middle. And at the bottom, you want the cascading waterfalls that come out of our mountains and those are your cascading flowers that trail down. And even if you have a smaller flowerpot, you can actually still do these techniques. Except maybe, instead of all three of those, you'll look for flowers that do two of those things. So, for example, when you're in the garden center, you might look for flowers that are the ones that trail down. And when you pick it up and look at the pot, you'll kind of see the flowers kind of trailing down out of the flower pot. That's the cascading ones and the ones that are a little bit more upright, those would potentially be more your fillers. And things like grasses, you'll see them. They're already much taller, and those would be your thrillers.
Marisa: 28:00
Wow, I never even thought to consider those things, and that's awesome Ann. Thank you!
Ann: 28:05
I love that. It's an instant way to make your flowerpots more interesting and exciting and create a real wow factor when people come over.
Marisa: 28:12
Yeah, and that's what we want, right? Wow! Thanks. Ann!
Ann: 28:16
You're welcome.
Marisa: 28:17
Wow, that's amazing stuff. How do people get a hold of you Ann, if they'd like to reach out to you to get a little help, get started and learn from you? What's the best way to reach you?
Ann: 28:26
Visit www.gowestgardener.com, and I've got all kinds of tips for people who are just getting the hang of gardening in Colorado and similar western states. One of the things I found when I was learning different gardening techniques is that there are a lot of rules out there about gardening. But people don't always explain why you're doing the rules. Then you don't really want to follow the rules or you forget the rules and www.gowestgardener.com, what I'm really trying to do, is find that balance between just giving you enough information so it's not a rabbit hole for information, but also balancing it so that you understand the why of why you're doing things. On my website, you can find a download called 10 Common flower past mistakes and how to instantly avoid them, and this is available any time. It's a mini training for people who want to be more confident with their flowerpot gardening and how to avoid those common flowerpot mistakes. And it's a 10 part series over 10 days that you receive a tip and email. But for a limited time, I'm also running a promotion with it. Visit www.gowestgardener.com, and then sign up for 10 common flowerpot mistakes. I'm gonna select one winner, and it's gonna be a flowerpot toolkit with some of my favorite tools for flowerpot gardening, like my favorite moisture meter and floral snips that I really like to use to really help you with your dead heading and a number of other tools. It's more than a $60 value. And as long as you sign up for the 10 common flowerpot mistakes by Friday, May 22nd 2020 you're eligible for the drawing, and I will select one winner and notify you by email.
Marisa: 29:57
I know that there are a lot of people listening that are probably listening because they've had frustration with getting going with their flowerpots. And so now you've provided us with tools and resources to give us confidence and to help us get started so we don't feel frustrated. So that we feel like this is something that we can achieve. And I'm just so grateful to have you here today, Ann. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us.
Ann: 30:20
I'm so glad. Marisa. Thank you so much for having me. This has been really fun.
Marisa: 30:23
That's all for this episode of Live Blissed Out. Thanks for listening and thanks to Ann Lillie for being my guest. If you find value in our show, please visit www.live blissedout.com to reach out, subscribe and share on social media. This show is made possible through listeners like you. Thank you. So long for now and remember to keep moving forward