The Garden Mixer

Welcome to a Barrel Aged episode of One More Sip. One More Sip is our every-other-week deep dive on a single topic — released fresh to paid subscribers, and then, after a year of fine barrel aging, uncorked for the wider Mixer community. You’re holding the bottle now. Enjoy!! If you’d like to catch these episodes while they’re still young — and get all the show notes, the GM Chat, and Substack LIV...

Parking lot plants. The ones growing between the cart return and the McDonald’s drive-through. The ones shaved into meatballs and meatloaf and shapes that can’t be easily defined in meat terms. The ones that ask for nothing more than hard pan, cigarette butts & exhaust fumes — and deliver anyway. These plants have a reputation problem. Not because they aren’t good plants, but because they’ve b...

In this latest Barrel-Aged episode of One More Sip of The Garden Mixer, Marianne and Leslie talk about all of their worst gardening boo-boos over the years. The format is interesting-- this is a LIVE Substack video that took place a year ago. They bring up mistakes that range from planting the wrong thing to just plain planting wrong and one story involves the explosion of a rear window. Who knew...

Last December, Leslie and Marianne talked deer fences on the podcast — and Marianne’s imminent enclosure and ironic freedom. Somewhere in the middle of that episode, Founding Mixer and friend Erin Schanen, The Impatient Gardener, decided she’d had enough. Not of the podcast. (uh, obvs!) Of the deer. So she did what any reasonable person does when pushed past the breaking point by a herd of four-le...

What makes a good garden path? Gravel? Grass? Pavers? Wood chips? Flagstone? And why does something that looks gorgeous in one garden become a maintenance nightmare in another? In this Barrel Aged One More Sip, Leslie and Marianne head down the garden path—quite literally—to talk about the materials they’ve used, loved, regretted and sworn never to use again. Marianne is preparing to replace nearl...

With some surprise and not a little relief, the garden is hurtling towards late middle age by mid-September. The promise of spring and the relentless drive of summer have departed, and with them the cultural expectation that the garden needs to look good in a crop top and pretend that it’s still May. There are some big bonuses to late middle age. With lowered expectations now the norm for those ar...

Gardeners in cold climates dabbling with tropical and subtropical plants in their summer gardens are about to come to a hard stop: First Frost. If you’re a gardener who loves these plants outside, but doesn’t particularly want them rubbing shoulders with you over the winter, you may be interested in which ones Marianne terms “Best Friends” in her last book,  Tropical Plants and How To Love Them  —...

It’s planting season once again for many of us in the Northern Hemisphere – which of course means buying season, and splurging season, and did-I-really-need-that-many-clearance-plants season. Need a strategy? Today we welcome Louisa Zimmermann Roberts, co-owner of Thanksgiving Farms in Frederick, Maryland who’s been watching the buying habits of customers for decades, and has more than a little in...

On this Barrel Aged and decanted episode of One More Sip of The Garden Mixer, Leslie and Marianne go full listicle and shelve the “Do!” for the “Better If You Don’t Do” on a range of issues in the garden — from design considerations, to maintenance considerations, to yes…psychological considerations. While gardening is a creative, subjective exercise, we can definitely make it harder on ourselves...

Each year, millions of gardeners prowl the globe seeking ‘aha!’ moments that they can bring back to their own gardens at home. Are you one of them? Leslie has been visiting gardens abroad for decades, and over the last two years, Marianne has built a company dedicated to bringing great gardens to great groups of people. Together they’re heading to Normandy next week to see gardens such as Giverny...

This week, Leslie & Marianne dive into the sticky world of beekeeping as a gardener. Leslie is buzzing with questions (and incredibly bad puns) and mercilessly questions Marianne who kept bees for over 15 years and can’t let go of the possibility to do so again (just as soon as she gets her resident bear problem under control and/or moves out of her valley). Is she delusional or just in love?...

In the heat of August, it’s not just gardeners that want to check out — it’s their plants. But there’s a lot plants can tell us about the conditions we’re all navigating, so it’s worth paying attention when the temperatures soar. To channel those thoughts, Leslie and Marianne welcome Carol Reese — horticulturist, writer, humorist, retired University of Tennessee extension specialist, and keeper of...

Botanical Names: Those complicated, two-part, dead language elements of tongue- torture that every gardener looking for a special plant will face at some point in their horticultural journey. Should you embrace the challenge, and feel vulnerable? Or dismiss the challenge and [possibly still] feel vulnerable? This week on One More Sip of The Garden Mixer, Leslie and Marianne discuss the third optio...

Every gardener has a tchotchke threshold — the point at which a garden stops being a garden and starts being a yard sale with better plants. But where exactly is that line, and who gets to draw it? After decades of embracing, avoiding, judging, and occasionally defending their own questionable choices, Leslie and Marianne weigh in on the art of garden ornamentation — how to use it well, when to pu...

It’s mid summer and if you haven’t been staking your floppiest floppers, the chance is you haven’t quite gotten away with it. Some plants stand tall on their own. Others need a little help. In this Barrel Aged One More Sip of The Garden MIxer Leslie Harris and Marianne Willburn tackle one of gardening's most practical—and most overlooked—skills: staking. They discuss which plants are worth sta...

Every gardener has them. The plant that ate the house, the catalog seduction that ended in tears, the tree you loved that didn’t love you. Regrets are how gardeners learn — or in Marianne’s case, how they beat themselves up while learning. Leslie chose the topic. Marianne suffered through it. Both of them had more material than an hour could possibly cover. Welcome to a guided tour through the tax...

Deadheading, do we or don't we? The answer, as you expected, is complicated. And Leslie and Marianne want to dive into the nuance on this week’s One More Sip. In fact they’re going to discuss a lot of heinous herbaceous amputations in the name of beauty, such as Chelsea chopping, tiered pruning, and post-pruning. Why does it work? And when doesn’t it? And do you really have the patience to sni...

America has a hydrangea problem. In the best possible way. They’re consistently among the best-selling flowering shrubs in the country, they colonize every garden center and big box supercenter from May to August, and, if you don’t have a deer problem, you’re likely to succumb to the latest plump, end-of-aisle offering every time you go out to buy some milk. Erin Schanen , The Impatient Gardener,...

Alliums are more than just big purple lollipops — though those are magnificent and need no apologies. This episode covers the full arc of the genus: from the early-season small species to the big June globes, through the alien-landed wonders of late spring and early summer, into the summer-blooming perennial types that changed how many gardeners think about late-season color. Whether or not Leslie...

HACK YOUR POTS: SMART PLANTS. PERFECT PLACEMENT It’s prime container gardening season, and everywhere gardeners are spending more than they should to achieve the dream of pots that stop people in their tracks and make their neighbors slightly jealous. But as anyone who has watched a lovingly assembled pot turn into a crispy disappointment knows — it’s not quite as simple as thriller, spiller, fill...

Before “microclimates” became a gardening buzzword, Leslie and Marianne were already having hot flashes in the garden. 🔥🌿 In this vintage One More Sip episode of The Garden Mixer, we talk about: • hot vs cool pockets in the garden • why some plants fry in summer and freeze in spring • raised beds, slopes, walls, and heat traps • tropicals, hostas, wisteria heartbreak, and elephant ears • Thomas...

HIGH IMPACT, LOW EFFORT FLOWERS THAT DO THE WORK FOR YOU   When the growing season is moving at breakneck speed, an easy win in the form of copious, gorgeous, hey-I-forgot-about-THOSE! flowers is not only cherished, but longed for. Even gardeners who insist on making things more difficult for themselves (ahem…Marianne?) can enjoy the guilty pleasure of high impact, low effort blooms that do a disp...

Flamboyant, sophisticated, blousy and beautiful - the peony tops the favorites chart of so many gardeners (and non-gardeners), that we had to devote a spring episode to them. They are delicate, but tough, and can live for up to a century -– so it makes sense to figure out what you want and where you want it before you plant one. Leslie & Marianne start that conversation with their favorites to...

Leslie and Marianne have ground to cover today. And possibly, so do you. Spring hits, everything wakes up and suddenly your garden looks like it’s got a bad case of bedhead. Bare spots and awkward tendrils abound. What can pull everything together and literally connect the dots? Our suggestion is a strategic toupee in the form of a good ground cover that also protects the soil, cools the roots, &a...

Just when you thought winter would never end, spring comes and clobbers you with seeds, weeds, and a list that just won’t quit. Cue the panic. There is a TON to do — so how do we prioritize what’s important, what’s inconvenient, and what’s seriously not getting touched for a couple months? Leslie and Marianne thought that the best person to tell them was friend and Founding Mixer Erin Schanen, The...