Sensory Gardening Seminar - March 9, 2019

All right, so we're going to get started with sensory garden.

This is going to be all your senses, smell, touch, taste, hearing.

We're going to do them all.

You'll see on this page, I printed this out from the University of Florida.

This one only does touch, sound, and fragrance.

I've been so busy, I didn't have time to type up my own, and I've been lazy.

This has got a little bit of great information.

We're going to go over a lot of plants.

I'm going to give you the information about them, how they grow, what to look for, how to take care of them.

That way you can be successful in planting your sensory garden, whether it's something that you want to taste, if it's smell, feel.

There's a different garden for everybody, or you can have a little bit of both.

The first thing I'd like to start with is where you're going to put this sensory garden, or maybe it's just a couple of pots in your back patio.

Is it going to be sun or shade?

Preferably sun.

You can get a lot more options with the sun, having at least, I would say, four hours for a lot of these blooming plants to survive and be happy.

Picking the location is going to be crucial.

If you have shade, that's okay.

We can get around some of that, and we also have flowers that will work well in the shade.

Picking your location, you're going to find whether you need the sun or the shade plants.

It is important that you pay attention to that area when you're out here looking.

We have two shade houses.

Anytime you're underneath a plastic or underneath screen, those are going to be your shade plants.

If you're wandering after the seminar, that's where you're going to find those.

Anything outside of those two shade houses, you're going to find that they're going to require about four hours of sunlight or more.

Keep in mind that your sun will change in the summertime, and it will rotate out, so remember that.

I get a lot of people come back from up north, and they go, my plant's disappeared, or there's carcasses left, and they burned up from the sun because the sun changed. Whoops.

We'll try to avoid that so you don't get frustrated and have a happy garden.

The first thing we need to do when we're planting these, and this is important, the establishment process is going to be very important for you guys. I don't believe we handed it out this time, but we have planting instructions at the register, so if

you want them when you exit, you can ask for them.

Let's say we start out with a six-inch pot.

We want to dig the hole twice as wide.

That's going to allow us room to fill in with good dirt, water.

We want to make sure that we don't bury the plant too deep.

If you plant it too deep, you're going to rot it out, and it will die sooner or later.

It's usually a slow process than a fast process.

Once you've got your hole dug twice the size, we're going to go in there and we're going to use either mushroom compost, cow compost, or organic peat.

We're going to mix it half and half with the existing soil, whatever you have dug out of that hole.

That's going to help hold moisture and nutrients while you guys are watering and trying to get it established.

It takes about a month.

You go in there, your watering pattern, thank you, Ms. Shelby, we'll see who wins the prizes.

You've got to be present to win.

You've got your soil mixture in there, a half peat or compost.

We're going to backfill.

I like to put in water as I backfill with the dirt just to make sure there's no air pockets.

As I'm backfilling, fill it right up to where the top of the level of the roots.

If it's too deep, pop it out or start again.

Once you get it nice and compact, your watering is going to be by a hose every day for the first week, not an irrigation system every day you go in there and turn the button on.

That only waters about two inches of your yard, typically.

Two inches doesn't get to the bottom.

Some of these plants drink a lot of water, so that soil must be moist.

We water these things every day, so they're on a normal pattern.

Now you've got to take that pattern and slowly work it away.

The second week's every other day, third week's every third day, fourth week's every fourth day.

After that, irrigation should be enough.

If you see the plant stressing out a little bit or wilting in the afternoon, go ahead and give it a little bit of water.

Make sure your watering is done first thing in the morning.

Plants go to bed at night just like most of us.

They will not drink at night.

If you water them at night and they're sitting wet all night, it's no different than me putting you in the bathtub and saying, okay, let's see how you're doing in the morning.

Not going to be too happy.

Keep your plants happy.

Water them in the morning, not at 10, 30, 11 o'clock when you get out of bed.

It's got to be early enough.

They want that glass of water first thing in the morning.

Then you can fertilize with our Formula B. It's a slow-release fertilizer.

Otherwise you've got to wait about four weeks, then you can go in and hit it with any other types of fertilizer that's needed. Formula B is Osmocote-based.

It's a blend that we do in-house here.

It has minor elements that the Osmocote lacks.

So Osmocote is like meat and potatoes.

There's no carrots and the rest of the vegetables are not there.

So we add those in.

It's a 90-day fertilizer, so every three months.

Every three-month fertilizer is a good one to use because it typically feeds at a proper rate here for Florida. Anything longer than that is probably going to stress the plant out or not give it enough.

If you do liquids, it's once every two weeks minimum.

The season for planting these plants is typically here, year-round.

Most people would say spring, March is the best month to get things in the ground.

It's cool, but we've still got some warm.

We're out of the frost.

But do people plant year-round here? Yes.

It's warm.

If you get a frost, cover it up.

Some of this stuff will be fine with frost.

This is the other fertilizer I would recommend you use in your garden about every three months.

This may affect your sensory garden for a little bit because it does have a little bit of an odor to it, but it is organic. Organic has come down way in price and it outweighs huge benefits compared to synthetics.

Not one just for our environment, but two for me and you if you're ingesting it, three for the plant.

This is 100% readily available.

Synthetics are 20 to 30%.

This is Holly Tone.

It's an acidic fertilizer, so anything that flowers is going to like the acidity.

That's an every three month fertilizer.

You'll find on our planting instructions we also talk about root stimulator.

This will generate about 40% root growth.

If you have any sick plants, you can use this as well.

It's once a week for a month, three and a half tablespoons per gallon.

Give you a big boost.

It's kind of like an insurance package.

It'll help get those plants up and going much faster and easier than if you didn't use it.

That's a little boost if you need it.

Now while we're on organics, I'd like to mention this guy.

There's a couple good guys I like in this.

There's a lot of good people in this community here.

This is one of them.

Dr. Kirchner.

This is an all organic herbicide.

Works pretty well.

It's seawater and vinegar, a high grade vinegar.

It's a little pricey because of the high grade vinegar, but it is great stuff if you don't want to use Roundup.

If you're in a sensory garden and you're touching and rubbing on different things, you may want to be using this rather than something that's more harmful to the environment and ourselves.

If you need to use an insecticide, because not everybody wants bugs on their flowers that they're going to eat or rub on, we do have Spinosad soap.

Comes in a couple of different styles.

This is a great one.

Great all-around use, probably one of the ones I recommend the most.

It's bacteria-based, it's organic, it's safe for animals.

They actually make a pill form for your cats and dogs now, for fleas and ticks.

It also does fire ants, does all kinds of insects.

So Spinosad soap, great product if you need it.

Again, it's organic.

Anytime you spray any fertilizers or insecticides, make sure you're doing it first thing in the morning or late in the evening.

Don't do it during the middle of the day or you will burn your plants.

So I think we got that covered on the Establish.

Anybody have any questions on getting them going? Is there any sticker agent in this?

Yes, it's got soap.

This one's Spinosad soap, it's got a sticker in it.

How safe is it for bees?

You don't want to spray it on bees.

You want to do it in the morning or in the evening.

Once it's dry, it's safe.

We actually have a beehive here now.

So have I used harsh chemicals in the past? Yes, when I needed it.

But do I use them if I can help it?

Nine times out of ten.

I've thrown stuff away so I don't have to spray because I've lived here all my life.

I've fished this river all my life and I know that things have changed around here and we got to do our part to kind of protect our environment here and kind of smarten up a little bit.

So I'm glad to have the bees and I'm happy to be a part of this nursery.

So we're trying to do our best.

We got a full line of organics now.

I have a question about the watering.

If it's raining, you never know when it's going to rain.

If it's raining, yeah, you have to judge that.

You're better off to go out there and add water than to say that little light sprinkle was enough because it might not have been.

If you get a heavy downpour, chances are you're not going to need the water.

So you just kind of have to watch that.

There is a chance of overwatering, but you're taking water away.

Chances are unless you're watering every day for weeks and weeks and weeks, you shouldn't be overwatering to a degree.

All right, you guys ready to get into the plants?

All right, so the first one's touch that we have on here.

A lot of people say sensory garden.

You start reading articles and it's saying for the blind or for the deaf.

It's for everybody.

It's for everybody.

The kids probably enjoy this the most when I have these kids come in from different field trips because they get to touch and smell everything.

And me being here as long as I have, 16 years, I've put my nose in just about everything around here.

The other guy likes to try stuff that he's been here the second longest other than the owners.

He likes to eat stuff and I'm not going to tell you to take any advice from him because he is eating things he probably should not have.

So Phil.

Man, where do I start?

Well, let's start with this one.

We'll start from the ground up.

This is a great ground cover.

It grows pretty quickly.

It's very hardy.

Remember when I said there's very few plants that like the shade that flower?

Here's one of them.

So if you have a nice shady area, you need to cover some ground or maybe drape out of a pot.

This one's called chenille.

It's got a nice fuzzy flower to play with.

You can run your hands down it.

It's kind of cottony like.

Blooms year round.

It is a year round grower.

You do have to keep it in check because it will root as it goes and create a mat.

Very pretty in hanging baskets.

When the seminar is over, you guys can go find all these plants or come up here and play with them if you want.

This one here is lambs ear.

You probably know this one more up north than you do down here if you're a Florida person.

But lambs ear, I've got a grower that's been growing it for a couple years now.

And these leaves, as it gets bigger, will get much, much larger.

This is a shade grower.

And I'm going to tell you, it's a little tricky to get it to go over through the summer because they do not like the humidity that Florida has.

They do not like the pouring rain in the summertime that Florida has.

And it has partly to do with that velvety leaf.

Now this time of year, they like it because it's not raining every day.

The cool days don't bring as much humidity.

And last year we had one that was probably about this tall.

Nice and big and round.

And the ears, or the leaves on them, were like this.

But these are very soft and kind of almost velvety.

So it is a fun one to kind of rub on.

Now when you're picking these plants to feel and touch,

put a variety of different things in that area so you can kind of go and bounce around from different things.

Like this one, for instance.

That one was nice and soft.

This one is a cardboard palm.

You've probably seen a lot of these around town.

They're very tropical, very easy to grow.

They like it on the dry side.

And if you feel these leaves, they get its name, cardboard palm, from the cardboard.

They've got that cardboard feeling very stiff.

These will get up around four to six feet.

They like the sun.

They will also handle the shade as well.

They're very slow growing, though.

So keep that in mind.

This one here is a bird nest fern.

Maybe you need to go indoors.

Maybe you don't want to go outside in the hot heat.

You just want a couple little plants inside your house that you can do.

Well, this would be one of them.

Or if you have a really nice, dense, shady area.

This bird nest fern has got a nice texture to it that's got a nice wrinkly leaf to it.

So it's kind of different.

Again, it can be used as a house plant or you can use it outside, but it must be in the shade.

Any direct sunlight will burn this up in the summertime in a hurry.

These can get upwards to three feet, and there's a lot of different varieties of bird nest fern.

It is a slow grower, and it likes it semi-moist.

Keep in mind, if you're going to keep any of these plants in pots, that you make sure you let them drain and dry before you re-water. You talked about over-watering.

In pots, it's very easy to over-water because we soak it down, we don't want it to go dry because one day of dryness could hurt it. Well, I'm going to go back to the bathtub.

Let me sit you in the bathtub for a week and see how you feel.

You're not going to like it. Your skin's going to want to fall off.

Same thing with the plant.

When you're in pots, you can always, always add water.

You can't take it away.

Let them dry out in between your watering.

It's important to check them in the afternoon.

Just in case you went on the dry side in the morning, check them in the afternoon.

Don't let them go too dry for too long.

That creates damage.

The damage done from going too dry, though, is much better than going too wet. Once it's rotted and you lost your roots, you're done.

If the plants just kind of went too dry, you can re-leaf it back out.

Trim it back.

We do have moisture meters, but you know what?

They do fail from time to time, so I don't rely on them.

Check the moisture on top, around the edge, or you can do what I do every morning and kick the bucket.

If the bucket goes thud and it doesn't move, you know that thing's wet.

Now, if you have a ceramic pot or something,

I don't say go kick that thing.

You're going to break your foot, and I'm not responsible.

Let's go back to a couple more fuzzy leaves.

Silver buttonwood.

Probably grow this as a hedge.

If you live on beachside, chances are this is in your yard because it's salt tolerant.

It loves that salt air, stays nice and silvery, and it's happy over there.

It likes dry, sandy conditions and as much sun as you can give it.

Now, you will see sometimes they get kind of brown and moldy looking, and the best thing I can tell you is it's usually a lack of food or water's getting on the leaves.

So keep the water off the leaves and keep them happy.

Keep them fed.

buttonwood. They can grow upwards to 20 feet. Got another nice silvery foliage.

This one's gonna like it in the shade.

It'll also tolerate full sun during the winter months.

During the summer months though I would suggest you maybe down to half sun or pure shade.

This is a ground cover called licorice.

You can also use it in hanging baskets.

So if you don't have enough yard and you need to go upwards we can do that too.

This is again licorice.

Comes in a lot of different styles but this particular one is a ground cover or cascader.

Works great in pots breaking up the sides of the pots.

No not edible.

Smelling like licorice.

It just gets the name licorice plant.

So no don't eat that.

We did have a plant when I first started here years ago.

They called it a cigar plant and the guys all told me that's what they used to roll the cigars.

And I sold the guy this plant and I says because he had a big old cigar walking around the nursery.

He says you got to check this thing out.

It was bad.

I haven't seen them since.

I don't believe everything people tell you.

A lot of this is all opinion or guidelines when I tell you these heights.

So don't come to me next year and say well you said it was going to grow six feet and it got seven.

There's a lot of guidelines in this business.

This one here is Texas sage.

It's a great plant.

I've seen it used on berms and sandy areas.

Where it's native to Texas it grows in the ground where there's cracks in the ground.

They like it on the dry side.

Do not keep them too wet.

Otherwise you'll end up with a very sparse plant.

But this is another one that you can kind of touch and feel.

It's very soft.

So beautiful purple flower on and off all year long.

They also come in a green form.

So there's silver and green on these.

So if you like putting potted plants around the patio or something and you're not one to water as well.

This one's a little more forgiving.

It also comes in tree form.

They'll get upwards about six feet here.

That's Texas sage.

Sun. That one's gonna want a lot of sun.

You want another one for shade? I'll give you another one. This one goes both ways.

Sun or shade. This one here's got a nice ripply leaf. So you got texture to rub on.

You've also got a nice flower to look at.

They call this jessica.

They also call it

Mexican honeysuckle.

Also good for hummingbirds.

Yep. This one will grow upwards to six foot.

Most people will keep them trimmed down around three or even lower.

Beautiful plant.

It's got color on it year-round.

A lot of texture in the leaf.

So if you got a lot of smooth leaves in that area, this would be a good one to put in there.

Kind of break it up.

It's more eye-appealing.

Sometimes playing with different textures in the garden.

It's sun or shade.

Containers is okay.

Yep. Any of this stuff can really grow in pots.

You just got to keep in mind the longer it sits in that pot and the happier it is, the more root bound it's going to become.

What happens when we get root bound? It wants a lot more water.

And you got to make sure you keep up on feeding it because now there's no soil holding any nutrient in there for it to suck at.

So that's usually the point where most people start failing in their pots and things start to decline is because they get root bound and we have a hard time adjusting to that watering pattern.

I can tell you I've got some plants they become so root bound and in the summertime you could water them three days, three times a day and they're still not happy.

You know at that point my shelf life on that plant is gone.

Get rid of it.

Or you got to go in there trim the roots back, pack some fresh potting soil back in there, cut it back and let it regrow back out.

Alright, a couple more on the touch.

So we've got all these fuzzy leaves.

How about some waxy leaves? Well this one here is a Clusia.

It'll grow in the sun or the shade.

It has denser growing habits in the sun but does just as well in the shade.

Likes it dry. This one here you can use as a hedge. You could use it as a tree.

Again likes it on a drier side.

It's also known as signature plant.

You can go in there, take a pencil or pen, put your name, leave a message and it'll stay on the bush.

You can put it by your front door and everybody can write their name in it.

Clusia. C-L-U-S-S-I-A. So that's a neat one. You can Google signature plant.

You'll see there's artists out there that actually engrave highly detailed pictures in it.

Quite unique.

Things you should probably avoid.

One of the guys says, oh you need one of these for the touch.

I says, yeah.

This is make a good billy club.

Keep in mind what you're using your garden for.

Obviously if it's for the blind, don't put that in there.

You know.

Something like this would be a little more appropriate.

Okay. It is a little kind of different texture for most people.

It's a little more spiky when you touch it.

It kind of sometimes will either irritate your skin or if you have rough hands like myself, it just kind of feels rough.

Touching these different things, if you have your eyes closed and you're enjoying and relaxing or maybe you had a cocktail.

You know these different feelings as you're touching them.

Those different senses.

You may want to touch this after all that nice softness or do this one first and then you touch that soft and go ah.

This is another neat one.

You can.

The juniper family is huge.

You can go from trees to bushes to anything unique.

This one here.

This is a foxtail fern.

They're kind of a clumping fern.

You can do sun or shade on these.

They typically get around two feet at the most.

Kind of bushy.

They're a darker green in the shade than if you put them out in the sun.

But talk about a tough plant.

This one here.

If you tend to go away for a week at a time, this one probably is still going to be there if you don't water it.

It holds a lot of moisture.

This thing probably weighs 25 pounds right now.

Half the plants would be half the weight of that.

You can.

Dividing plants, you always run your risk of doing some damage.

But a lot of them that sucker off like that.

Yeah. No.

No problem. All right. We did the cardboard palm. This one's kind of fun.

This is straw flower.

This one can go in two different departments in your sensory garden.

Just by shaking it, you can hear it sounds like straw.

You touch it.

It feels like straw.

It's very papery.

This is called straw flower.

Used as an annual here.

Typically, you only get them to grow through the springtime.

You get into the heat of summer.

They don't look as good.

Can you summer them over? Sure.

You'd have to baby it probably in the shade.

But this one likes the sun and does like it on the drier side.

Straw flower comes in all different colors.

We've got a ton of them right now.

But grape potted plant or even in the ground as an annual, just some extra color.

But that's a fun one.

That's all smell.

All right.

I'm going to go over sound next because this one's going to be pretty quick and simple and then we get into the smell and we're going to go crazy.

So it doesn't always necessarily have to be plants.

Whether it's a wind chime, this one I just happened to bring the bamboo one because we've sold down a lot on our Corinthian bells.

All we got are the big ones are heavy and I wasn't lugging that thing out of here.

But you can throw some chimes in there just to make some extra music.

Some people don't care for them.

There's a few different things that you can get sound out of the garden.

It's going to be harder with plants than it is with added mechanisms like the wind chimes.

Maybe you want a water feature.

You know you've got your bench that you're sitting underneath a nice pergola for a little bit of shade.

You want to hear that water splashing.

We have simple do-it-yourself pump kits inside the store where you can just take a regular pot.

It comes with everything you need.

It'll plug the hole.

It's got a light in it and you can bubble out or trickle into a pot.

Works really nicely for making noise.

Otherwise you could purchase a fountain or anything like that.

Another way to get sound is attract some of the wildlife.

Put up a bird feeder or provide plants that may bring in the birds.

I've got one right now.

He comes every year.

I'm pretty sure it's the same bird because I swear he mocks me every morning.

He's sitting there beeping at me and everything else while I'm trying to get ready.

I enjoy him the days I get to have my cup of coffee.

Other than that it's

you're going to ask me that. I'm not a bird specialist but I don't know. He's in a tree.

I can't see him. I go to bed. I go to work at night and I come home at night.

I'm guessing it's a mockingbird.

I don't know.

He likes Simpson stoppers.

Do you know what bird eats that one? He doesn't either.

He's just non-stop.

He gets in that tree every morning.

I've got the neighbor next door. He's going crazy. He took his tree down and everything.

This one here I just put it down.

This is beautyberry.

It produces very bright purple berries up on a big stalk.

They are brilliant purple.

They're very pretty.

Attracts the birds.

This plant is a native. Gets up to six foot. Likes the sun. You could also plant Simpson stopper.

I have two of those in my yard kind of as a specimen.

They come in there and gobble up the berries and then go back up into my oak tree and squawk at me.

You can attract them that way to make some noise.

You can get tall grasses like this one.

Maybe swaying back in the wind.

If you have a nice windy area you can hear it kind of rustling around.

I'm going to tell you a story about this one.

I wish I had a big projector and I could put it on here for you.

There are a few plants that make noise.

Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants out there.

They say you can sit out there at night and listen to that thing creak and crack as it grows up.

You literally are hearing it grow.

During the day you can hear it clanking back and forth.

The leaves rustling back and forth.

It provides its own mulch.

I really don't carry bamboo anymore but if you're interested in bamboo there's a couple good local people here that grow it.

If not you can special request it.

I am going to tell you it is expensive and I only special order it occasionally.

It's like surgery for the growers.

It's not cheap anymore like it used to be.

This plant here, probably 14, 13 years ago I get this call on the radio while I'm up there watering in the morning.

You got to get back here.

You got to get back here.

I said what's going on? He says you got to get back here.

We used to have a kid named Brandon and he watered the back greenhouse and it was summertime.

He sprayed this down nice and wet like he's told to do every morning

and it started shooting seeds out like popcorn.

You could hear it just click, click, click, click, click and they're shooting everywhere.

I have it on my phone.

I videotaped it.

Every summer the guys are out here when the heat's just right.

They go and water it down and cool it off and bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

They're shooting everywhere and they come out with force.

If you feel like you got stung by a bee and you're watering your plants it might have been this thing.

Keep in mind it will spread obviously if the seeds are flying everywhere.

It's not terribly invasive but you'll get little seedlings here and there.

This is chrysandra. There's a lot of different varieties of it. It does like the shade here.

It will tolerate sun in the winter months, not in the summer months so much.

Upwards to three feet and there are other varieties out there as well.

This has also got good texture on the leaf and it is waxy.

There's probably other ideas out there to get sound in the garden.

They probably have rain gauges or chains and different things that may make

different sounds but those are the ones I got for you today. Now I almost forgot this one.

I'm being very gentle and easy with it because I don't want it to do it right away but this is mimosa plant.

They have several different breeds.

This is the ground cover and this one I mean the kids just they love it.

This one here being the ground cover or a cascader it likes full sun.

It'll probably grow in the shade just as well.

It's very hardy and it does grow fast.

Gets a little lavender flower.

Looks like a puff ball from Dr.

Seuss. When you touch this now you look at pay attention to the texture of the plant.

You got it? Can everybody see it? Those leaves are pretty much wide open.

They close right up so that's something you can see and feel like the mimosa tree.

Can it be invasive? Oh yes because it crawls and creeps everywhere but you can keep it in check with a weed whacker.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't well actually this one might be the native.

I would have to double check.

I don't know if it's more.

I want to say it's this variety but a lot of times we get hybridized varieties so they're not as invasive or intrusive you know like argolardia.

You know everybody wants the native one but until they get it and actually have it in their yard sometimes they regret it.

You know so the growers have manipulated these things that way. All right. Smell.

So fragrance.

You guys want to start with the stinky stuff or the good smelling stuff?

Stinky. All right. All right. This one here.

The landscapers.

If you have this in your yard and your landscaper cuts this thing first in the morning, you're the one that he's crying to me about.

Okay because it smells like wet dog and he's got to smell like that all day.

Okay. This is viburnum suspensum.

They also have viburnum odoratissum.

It's got an odor to it.

Some people like it.

Most people don't.

So when you're trimming this or smelling it in the morning, if you've had enough of that sweet fragrance and you know you need that smell or you just can't stand your neighbor over there on the side yard in the morning drinking his coffee peeking through

your shadow box fence, you put these there.

Make sure he's not here today.

This one here is wax myrtle.

This one is a native here and it has a lot of different uses for it.

An old farmer told me if you plant this, it actually repels fleas and ticks.

And when you break it up, it's got kind of a, I don't know, citrusy kind of flavor. It's different.

So, this one, I mean, you guys can come up here and smell all this stuff later, but this is a great bush.

Also, the wildlife likes it. Obviously, if it's a native, they're familiar with it.

It's a good bush for the birds to hide out in, hang out.

But wax myrtle, you can grow it as a hedge. You can do a multi-branched tree.

There's a lot of different uses you can do. They will grow upwards 15 feet plus.

It puts off a flower, but it's really not significant. You're not going to see it or notice it half the time.

Sun, if you put it in the shade, it's going to get stretched out, a little leggy.

All right, let me see if I can find anything else that doesn't smell good.

I don't have too many of those. Ah, we'll go with this one.

This one's society garlic.

So, if you like that garlic smell and want something kind of pretty in there, this produces a purple flower.

Likes, again, the four hours of sunlight at least.

It will multiply, but kind of stays in a clump.

And it does smell like garlic, especially in the morning or at night is when it's really going to put off its odors.

I love weeding and cleaning them because it drives my wife nuts for a day or two because she, where's that smell coming from? It doesn't wash off the hands very easy.

I really, I think that might have been the only two different kinds.

Oh, here we go. It's all right. That's a tough one. This one here.

Any of you guys got problems with cats in the neighborhood?

Or maybe you don't want your sensory garden smelling like cat pee because you got a neighborhood cat that likes to come by.

This is Swedish ivy. Cats do not like the smell of this, so it will repel them.

You can come up here and rub on it. It does have an odor. Some people really like it.

Some people hate it.

It depends on the person.

It's got kind of a different type of leaf, too, so you can feel the texture on it.

It's kind of stiff, but does have a little texture to play with.

And you will pick up definitely an odor on this.

This is used for a ground cover or a hanging basket or even a trailer down the side of your pot.

This one likes mainly shade, can take some sun, morning sun, a little bit of afternoon sun, but preferably not all day.

Swedish ivy, also known as candle plant. Lantana. This is another one that has a different odor to it.

There's a lot of different varieties, so you can get them as far as a ground cover as well up to a bush or a tree.

There are native varieties of this plant as well. But again, you come up, rustle the leaves a little bit.

There's different ones with different textures. Some of them kind of feel a little bit of fuzziness or velvety.

But again, this one's got a little bit of a different odor to it. I can't tell you what it smells like.

I can only tell you what it reminds me of is pickle loaf, the sandwich meat.

And you'll probably think I'm nuts when you come up here and smell this.

But lantana, great plant for the sun and comes in a lot of different styles, so good one to play with.

If you're buying the ground cover varieties, you want the very small leaf.

If you want more of a bush, look for the big leaves. That's the difference in them.

Oh, they bring a lot of pollinators. That's a butterfly favorite there, bees, lantana.

I'm sorry? Sun? Oh, yes, yes. At least four hours.

So we've got a few herbs here. Obviously rosemary, great smell, very easy to grow.

You can grow it in a little bit of shade, but really likes as much sun as you can give it.

And we'll take it on the drier side.

This is usually the last thing standing in our vegetable garden in the summer after we've given up and haven't had time to care for it.

That one's still there crawling all over the place.

There is a ton of different varieties. You can get it barbecue flavored.

You can get upright. You can get the ones that crawl on the ground.

There's just there's endless on this one.

And it is one that's appreciated in the sensory garden a lot.

Did I show you guys this one yet? Oh, man, I didn't trick you at all, huh?

I'll tell you a quick story. We're almost an hour in.

So I had this sitting up in my herb bench and I couldn't understand why it was up there.

And all the guys said, hey, it's the Cuban oregano.

I said, no, it's not. So the owner comes up. Yes, it is.

That's that stuff that they grow over. And and I says, OK, try it.

So I broke off a leaf, started making this face and I says, it's not Cuban oregano, is it?

No. So you got Cuban oregano.

This one has a multi use. Smell is great.

Flavor is great. Very, very hardy ground cover.

Very nice velvety leaf on it, too. So it's also works as far as the touch as well.

Preferably full sun on it will take some shade as well.

Strictly ground cover. You could have it cascade down the pot if you want.

So that's another great ground cover. You've got mint.

This comes in all different forms.

One of my relatives, he grows this as a ground cover in his rose garden.

And it's only so he can drink mojitos, I think, every day of the week.

But very easy. Just be careful. Can be a little aggressive.

So if you're not out there to maintain it, you might want to keep this to a pot.

Drinks a ton of water and it comes in a ton of different varieties.

Spearmint, peppermint, mojito mint, lemon mint. You name it, it's out there.

Chocolate mint.

This one here.

How many of you say it's dill? I'm going to start doing this backwards. It's fennel.

And the way you can tell if you're out there buying your herbs, crack a piece off, wrinkle a little bit up.

I don't care if you do it.

You've got to do it to figure out what it is sometimes.

You've got a million seeds sometimes, or it's so young you can't tell.

Break it up, smell it. You like licorice? No.

Okay, well then don't smell this one.

Because fennel smells like licorice.

All right? It's a sure sign to tell you right there.

Oh yeah? Yeah, we had it in our pickles one year.

They were good. I think somebody had a hard time IDing their plants that night.

No, it lives year-round.

The grower that grows these, he's got some that are just,

I mean, they've got trunks with big bulbs on them. I mean, they're huge.

So you can keep them going.

Basil. A lot of different varieties of basil out there.

I'm going to tell you the one that everybody prefers to make pesto out of.

It's hard to grow here. There's a lot of disease issues with it.

You know, it's just the way of the times.

New diseases, stronger strands.

It's just one of those deals.

I'm not going to tell you that every one of you is going to be successful growing basil.

However, there's a lot of different varieties like this one that are easy to grow.

Similar smells. Some of them smell completely different.

We get one that grows the fennel.

He only does it a couple times a year, and he calls it rose basil.

When you water that thing in the morning, it smells like bubblegum.

It is so wonderful.

This one does not smell quite like bubblegum.

That'll bring in a bunch of pollinators as well so you'll get that sound of the bees humming in and out.

If you want to get into the sweet smells, next let's do these real quick and then we'll get into the real sweet stuff.

You got citronella.

Any of you like that citronella smell? We've got citronella plants.

Bonnie's plants were in here this morning unexpected and brought a bunch of these.

If you like to repel mosquitoes, we got a deadly combo up here that you can do.

Obviously citronella, centideranium.

They use that in some of your citronella oils, believe it or not.

This one is lemongrass and if you actually look on that citronella oil that you buy, a majority of it's really lemongrass.

So if you're trying to repel mosquitoes in your sensory garden or you like the smell of fresh lemon, break you off a leaf, you can put it in your tea, you can chew on it, you can smell it.

A lot of different uses for the lemongrass.

Also swaying back and forth when it gets some dry leaves in it, it's going to make some noise.

The lemongrass will get upwards four or five feet. The citronella is more of a three foot.

Lemongrass likes a lot of water, it grows really fast.

Your citronella likes it dry.

A lot of times they have crop failure with that plant when they start them from young little babies because they stay too wet and rot off.

We're going to get into the jasmine.

There's several different varieties of jasmine that bloom that smell nice.

Night blooming is one of them.

So if you're that night owl that likes to sit out back and enjoy the evenings, night blooming jasmine is a good one.

Works great for providing a little privacy, can grow upwards six, eight feet.

If you let it, most people will maintain it between the three and five foot mark.

Very fragrant at night when it blooms.

It does like to get chewed up a little bit by caterpillars though, or worms.

Moth comes in at night with that nice fragrance, comes in, lays its eggs, and off it goes.

Then you see the damage later.

The worms are hiding in the soil when you're out there looking at it and you're wondering what's eating it.

It's worms.

Use your spinosad soap.

This is the other jasmine that smells.

This is confederate jasmine.

It's best grown in the sun at least four hours for a good heavy production of bloom, but will tolerate some shade as well.

Very fast growing.

Blooms in the spring and in the fall pretty heavy.

A little sporadic through the summertime.

Great fragrance.

You can come on them and smell them.

You can drive by some developments that got it grown over their walls.

It is just prolific.

If you're allergic to latex,

it's not a plant for you.

It contains a high amount of latex, so if you touch it, you break it, and it starts sapping that white milky sap, and you get it on you, it's going to burn your skin.

If you're allergic to latex, now you know what to look out for. Any plant that has white milky sap.

There is another variety of jasmine out there that's really fragrant.

They no longer carry it anymore due to the fact of greening in the citrus industry, but it's called orange jasmine, mock jasmine.

There's a lot of different names for it.

Lakeview jasmine.

So some of you, if you have older homes, probably have some of that in your yard.

If you don't, sorry.

Wish you did, because it's a wonderful plant.

This one's a new rose we're carrying this year.

We're going to have about,

oh, a big, a whole bunch of them for customer appreciation.

So if you like roses, the grower is saying this has been a really easy one for them to grow.

It's an off-breed from the knockout called Belinda's series.

Highly, highly fragrant.

Supposed to be an easy growing rose.

We'll see,

but a wonderful scent. I would keep this away from the touching part of your garden.

It's a Belinda's series. We've got lavender, if you guys like lavender.

This one, I like breaking off the leaves and putting it in my underwear drawer or sock drawer.

No, I don't do that.

But it's got a great smell. There's a lot of different varieties out there.

This one is the Panada variety. It's more of a compact variety. Puts off a lot of purple flower.

We've got some other varieties out there that don't do as much flowering, but still have a

great smell. Different texture leaf, different color leaf. You'll find these in our greenhouse.

They do really well in the shade, especially in the summer months.

You can have them out in the sun during the cooler months, but remember, come summer time, that's going to be one that's going to start crying out in the full sun.

It's like one of some of my employees when summer comes.

Another fragrant one is Buddleia.

Great for butterflies.

If you want to bring in some of that butterfly attractor.

Wonderful scent on it.

It's a very light scent, so if you, you know, gardenia is too much for you, the jasmine's too much, this is a very soft smell.

Of course, mine are all out of bloom right now, and I ordered some more, and they're quite haven't come into bloom, so that's all you get.

But they come in a big variety of sizes, colors.

Right now, all we got is the full growing size.

That's going to get upwards six, eight feet, no problem.

It's all right as long as it's up there.

If you hear something wrestling back here and big, get ready to get on your chair.

We'll have a 500 pound pig out back.

That became a pet when it was about five pounds, and it came from here and squeezed its way through the fence.

All right, this one, you know, I think is going to catch on a lot around this place.

It's been one I haven't been able to find for years,

up until recently, and there's several different flavors of this one, but this is what they call a gardenia tahitian.

Okay, it comes in a double and a regular.

You'll see in our inventory, the doubles have a different texture leaf, much darker, happier looking plant.

The other ones do just as well.

They're not quite as dark green. The flower is a little smaller. We also have tree form of these.

They are highly salt tolerant, so if you're on the river or beach, this is the only gardenia you're probably going to be able to grow because the other ones are not salt tolerant.

Tahitian gardenia,

and it can grow in the ground or in a pot.

Very fragrant, blooms year-round.

They'll grow upwards of six, eight feet.

Now you go back to another type of gardenia.

This is what they call a non-grafted gardenia.

You will notice there's multiple branches going down into the soil.

This can only grow in a pot, and these prefer more shade than sun.

Will they handle full sun?

Yes. They're only going to get about three, four feet. That's where you should probably keep them.

Any taller than that, they kind of get stretched out.

Great scent, but it's got to stay in a pot.

If you want to plant gardenia in the ground, other than the Tahitian, you must request grafted.

It'll have a single trunk coming up, and then it'll bush out.

Don't worry about the single trunk.

You can hide that eventually as you trim on it, and it gets fuller, and the trunk disappears.

This one here is Esperanza.

Again, another one that's very lightly scented, so you got to get your nose in there.

When you go to put your nose in there, we do the eye test. There's no bees.

This smell to me is very heavenly. It is very sweet. You'll have to smell it.

You're smiling at me. You get to try it. Esperanza.

It can be a tree or a bush.

It comes in a lot of varieties, so make sure you do the test and smell it before you buy it, because some have no fragrance at all.

This one's the old-fashioned Esperanza. Tacoma stands is another name for it.