
Advertise on podcast: The Garden Mixer
Rating
4.8from
This podcast has
169 episodes
Language
EnglishPublisher
Leslie Harris and Marianne WillburnExplicit
No
Date created
2021/03/31
Latest episode
2026/02/06
Average duration
66 min.
Release period
17 days
Description
The Garden Mixer is a bi-weekly gardening podcast hosted by Marianne Willburn, garden author and columnist, and Leslie Harris, host of Into the Garden with Leslie. Each episode blends practical gardening advice for beginners, thoughtful insight for experienced gardeners, and plenty of humor, as Marianne and Leslie mix opinions, strategies, listener questions, expert guests, and the occasional cocktail. If you’re looking for a gardening podcast that’s honest, informative, and genuinely fun — not preachy or perfect — this is your place. 🌱 Gardening shouldn’t be boring. 📺 Full video episode
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Check latest episodes from The Garden Mixer podcast
A New Year for American Gardeners with Rochelle Greayer
2026/02/06
They’re BAAAAAAAK!
Season II kicks off today — WELCOME if you’re new and welcome back if you’re not! Even Leslie and Marianne have been missing the weekly mix of seasonal relevance and irreverence — and a chance to raise a glass in support of our gardening audience all over the world who are dedicated to the proposition that gardening shouldn’t be boring.
The Garden Mixer is bringing you one of those gardeners today — Rochelle Greayer, the new editor of The American Horticultural Society’s American Gardener Magazine.
Are you an AHS member? We hope you will be by the end of this episode.
In a country of over 340 million people that covers over 3.7 million square miles of extremely confusing but necessarily detailed eco-regions, what exactly does it mean to be an American Gardener?
Are the characteristics of an American Garden as easy to recognize as those of a British, Italian or French Garden? What are we adding to the conversation around gardening, and where are we owning it? And why does the RHS get all the good press anyway? July 2026 marks a big birthday for this country of gardeners — perhaps it’s time to take the microphone back and celebrate our strengths.
We’re indulging our revolutionary tendencies today, on the Season II kickoff of The Garden Mixer!
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Gardening on Social Media: What's Real and What's Not with Amanda the Everhopeful Gardener
2025/12/19
In the beginning, social media and gardening seemed meant for each other. After all, how better to teach than to show?
But it does feel like we might have lost our way in the last few years. Now we’re pushed towards viral moments, not moments of true discovery. Now we watch sexy six packs selling six packs; and find ourselves navigating a manufactured reality that makes everyday gardeners feel inferior, not empowered.
Are we doing more following than we’re actually doing gardening? We’re talking to gardener and garden influencer Amanda Nadeau of The Ever Hopeful Gardener today about who to trust, why to trust, and when to just let go and have fun.
Even Leslie’s cocktail is trying to be #authentic, today on The Garden Mixer.
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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Deer Proof Your Garden: Where Deer Stop and Sanity Begins
2025/12/05
Deer Damage. Few things crush a gardener’s spirit faster than to stroll outside and see that Bambi has invited himself for dinner.
Coincidentally, few things crush Marianne’s spirit more than referring to these four-legged agents of the Devil in cute terms such as ‘Bambi’.
What’s on their perfectly curated menu? Pretty much all of your favorite garden plants. Sprays, granular applications, and motion sensors can keep those deer at bay, for a minute or two. But what about the ultimate solution?
No, the other ultimate solution — a fence. Leslie’s been there, and loved it. But just how tall, how expensive and how ugly does it need to be to protect our plants?
The answer may surprise you. Today, the girls discuss the pros, the cons, and the many considerations of deer fencing, deer spraying, and all the things in between, as Marianne prepares to have her garden world rocked by the installation of a Bambi-blocking fence.
___________________
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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Garden Season Wrap Up with The Impatient Gardener #31
2025/11/21
Promises, promises. We all make them at the beginning of each year. And — made desperate by the cold claws of winter — gardeners make even bigger ones at the beginning of each growing season.
Today on The Garden Mixer, Leslie and Marianne take journalistic integrity to a new level and actually follow up with the promises made, the products they loved, and the season they foretold back in February when they hosted Erin Schanen, The Impatient Gardener.
They’re catching up with this popular Midwestern gardener and social media star over large cocktails and larger garnishes, and Marianne is throwing out some suspiciously large statistics in honor of the first anniversary of their Substack debut.
From the angst of sweet peas to the unbridled joy of bananas, it’s definitely confession time, and no-one’s skimping on the honesty or the drinks. Join these three gardener-friends as they beat their chests and rend their garments.
Or is that just Marianne?
___________________
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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The Late Autumn Garden: Let's Put Some Lipstick on This Pig #30
2025/11/07
Let’s be honest and dispense with the illusion of carefree, perfectly decaying, infinitely Instagrammable, late fall gardens.
In reality, the leaves have blown off the trees, the decorative pumpkins are getting soft spots, and there’s a whole lot of flattened, crushed, eaten, and dejected going on where you had envisioned majestic seed heads, trusses of berries, and full-on fall splendor to welcome friends and family home for Thanksgiving.
Today, Leslie and Marianne have some tips for successfully curating the reality of that garden. How do we uncover the good, downplay the bad, and plan for better next year? How do we put lipstick on this pig?
The girls are transitioning to the winter garden — beautifully. Today on the Garden Mixer.
___________________
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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#29 All About Bulbs. Plant Now, Thank Yourself Later
2025/10/31
How better to take advantage of the experience, skill, and time of others than to buy and plant a plumped-up, pumped-up, ready-to-bloom-for-you bulb?
Or maybe two hundred.
When perennials need a couple years, shrubs insist on commitment, and trees require a selfless gift to future generations; bulbs are all about YOU — and it’s time to indulge. Granted, it’s the you of six months from now — but where else in life can you successfully pull off a surprise party for yourself? And afford the florist?
Today, Leslie and Marianne explore all the options. Which ones will delight the senses, which ones will delight the critters, and which tools can help you get them in the ground. It’s not too late to grab those last-minute deals and give yourself the spring surprise party your family keeps meaning to throw.
___________________
Be sure to hit the subscribe button so we can keep you smiling while you hit the mess [your garden] out there.
Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
____________________
Socials – Pick Your Platform:
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#28 The Great Transplantation: How to Divide and Transplant the Right Way
2025/10/17
Cool air and warm soils mean that it’s a great time to divide and multiply the plants that you love, and Leslie and Marianne want to help you do it easily, efficiently, and with the least amount of plant pain as possible.
What are they dividing in their gardens and how are they doing it? And why is it so good for the plants to rip them from happy homes just when they were thinking of taking a well-earned nap? For that matter, why aren’t the girls sipping pumpkin lattes and waiting ‘till spring?
Set down that bulb planter and grab those two forks, because it’s all about FREE this week on The Garden Mixer.
(Just for the record Marianne hates pumpkin lattes. Leslie's a fan.)
___________________
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Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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#27 The Cornwall Chronicles: Gardens in the Gulf Stream
2025/10/03
Today, The Garden Mixer is highjacked by two jetlagged women drinking way too much coffee and trying to pull themselves together to adequately describe the many sights, tastes, and eureka moments of nine days visiting gardens in Cornwall and the Southwest of England.
From new naturalism and earthworks at Wildside, to the breathtaking views across Tresco Island, to extraordinary fairy tale hotels, the girls discuss special moments and numerous takeaways — both for their gardens at home, and for future visits to this very special area of the UK, often under-visited by American garden-trippers looking for “The Big Five.”
(Though which gardens constitute “The Big Five” is still up for debate.)
For the WHOLE story, this is an episode you’ll particularly appreciate by following up on The Garden Mixer Youtube channel, where the video version is #jamfirst packed with photos and snark. (Even if Marianne insists it should be #creamfirst.)
What the heck is she talking about? By the end of this episode, you’ll not only know what clotted cream is, but you’ll be well versed in the right way to layer it on a scone.
At least according to Marianne.
Plus, microscopes, dahlias, & unbelievably, Beavis and Butthead. All on this week’s Garden Mixer.
___________________
Be sure to hit the subscribe button so we can keep you smiling while you hit the mess [your garden] out there.
Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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#26 The Great Migration: Plants in the House
2025/09/19
September has snuck up on most of us and cold weather is right around the corner.
Suddenly it’s time to walk through your garden and decide who’s making the travel team and who’s sitting out this season in the great hereafter. Can you set aside sentiment and choose the strongest and healthiest to make winter a joy instead of a chore? Do you know when to bring them in? (And what you can get away with?)
From bathing them, to babying them, Leslie and Marianne share personal anecdotes and practical tips for managing houseplants and storage plants, addressing pest control, and deciding which plants to prioritize based on space, aesthetics, sentiment, and good old-fashioned guilt. The girls are not always on the same page, but they’re generally aiming for the same ending: To avoid the last-minute first-frost scramble and a herniated disk.
Plus, Damn I Wish I Planted That for the late September garden, ritualistic flogging in Clear Up Corner, and a fine red wine lessened un peu by a lousy French accent — all on this week’s episode of The Garden Mixer.
_______________________________
Be sure to hit the subscribe button so we can keep you smiling while you hit the mess [your garden] out there.
Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
________________________________
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#25 Autumn Blooms for Bees: Must Have Pollinators
2025/09/05
Pumpkin spice may have snuck itself onto the shelves (and into Leslie’s cheesy introduction), but that doesn’t mean that the pollinating insects in your garden have stopped searching for pollen to store and nectar to sip. On today’s episode, Leslie and Marianne discuss some late blooming species you can grow to keep those pollinators healthy and gearing up for winter — and which will also make you smile as the garden moves from summer-sizzle to autumn-fizzle.
Soil is warm, bugs are low, temps are cool, rains are coming, and nurseries are selling. Time to give that hard-working garden a few new picks to extend the bloom season until (and sometimes after) frost. Between them, the girls will give you nine terrific choices. But wait there’s more! A set of Ginsu knives, AND two further great plants for this time of year in Damn I Wish I’d Planted That.
All this and competing tropical cocktails, Choppin’ Broccoli, and some serious cultural confusion over Matthew Perry resolved, on this week’s episode of The Garden Mixer.
_______________________________
Be sure to hit the subscribe button so we can keep you smiling while you hit the mess [your garden] out there.
Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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#24 The Art of Editing Your Late Summer Garden
2025/08/22
As a gardener, you are not just creative, you are a creative. Your job is to go out there and create your tail off. But the other job you must strive to do well is that of an editor, tightening the voice of your garden with strategic cuts that help it shine and become the garden you envisioned (even when those cuts seem counterintuitive).
This means that cruel things are going to happen. Cruel, and perhaps unusual.
In this episode, Leslie and Marianne talk about everything from volunteer seedling strategies to de-browning the borders. Get ready to yank flowers, cut limbs, discard seeds, and mop your brow. It’s going to be bloody, but it’s going to be good.
_______________________________
Be sure to hit the subscribe button so we can keep you smiling while you hit the mess [your garden] out there.
Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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#23 Fabulous Foliage plants for Summer
2025/08/08
You’re tired. You’re hot. You’re yearning for autumn to set you free. But how your garden looks right now has everything to do with the choices you made in past planting seasons and a lot to do with foliage.
Have you capitalized on the resilient summer foliage options that keep working when the lobelia has melted and the poppies are so over?
This week on The Garden Mixer, Leslie and Marianne explore six of their favorite foliage plants for summer — each choosing a perennial, a shrub, and a tender perennial (aka ‘temperennial’) — and then choose their favorite option from the suggestions sent in by listeners on The Garden Mixer Chat on Substack.
Overall, the girls are in remarkable agreement this week…except for one, notable exception.
What are we looking for in summer foliage? Are flowers a necessity or a bonus? And, how many times, precisely, should a gardener kill a plant before giving up?
All this and Leslie learning the meaning of FFS, on this week’s The Garden Mixer.
_______________________________
Be sure to hit the subscribe button so we can keep you smiling while you hit the mess [your garden] out there.
Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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#22 Ten Great Ornamental Grasses Episode
2025/07/25
They’re deer resistant, drought resistant, and boredom-resistant — and they’re not without controversy. Ornamental grasses might be the magic texture your garden has been missing all these years.
Whether you want to ‘blur and merge’ as per Grasses for Gardens and Landscapes author Neil Lucas, or ‘punch and soften’ as per the more violent of your two co-hosts, Marianne Willburn — using ornamental grasses strategically can help your garden relax and sway into summer, filling gaps, feathering edges, and giving you three-season architecture without the bagworms.
Join Leslie and Marianne as they share with listeners their top ten ornamental grasses and discuss why they are willing to risk censure and scorn for more than one of them.
Plus, Marianne confesses to a criminal act. And it’s not displaying her bare over-50 arms either.
Leslie’s criminal act this week is using the term “Tips and Tricks” before Marianne takes a sip of something that can help her cope with hearing it.
_______________________________
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The Garden Mixer |Podcast on Spotify
Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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#21 The Beach or Beans Episode
2025/07/11
You’d like to go on vacation. Your family wants you to go on vacation. But you don’t know how to leave your garden. So you don’t go on vacation.
Wrong answer.
You NEED a vacation. You just need to prep your garden and make it Vacay-Ready.
This week Leslie and Marianne dive into what it really takes to leave your garden without the guilt. From prepping your plants to prepping your mindset, they want to help you take a break without sacrificing your blooms.
Whether you’re heading to the beach or taking a long weekend right in the middle of the growing season, you can come home to a thriving garden. With the right prep, your beans will be just fine.
All this plus the puzzling but indisputable link between testicles, armpit hair, and tomatoes.
It's another wildly inappropriate episode of The Garden Mixer, so carpe your diems and get that garden Vacay-Ready!
_______________________________
Be sure to hit the subscribe button so we can keep you smiling while you hit the mess [your garden] out there.
The Garden Mixer |Podcast on Spotify
Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
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#20 The Tools Episode
2025/06/27
Welcome back! The girls are rested, refreshed, reenergized, and ready to tackle the overgrown gardens that await them with the tools they love this week.
From can't-be-without pruners to surprising new finds, Leslie and Marianne dish the dirt on the implements that help them dig it.
Are brand names important? What’s a seckie? How do you pronounce Okasune? And what on earth is Marianne’s problem with the hori-hori and will the woman ever let it rest?
Apparently not.
Also up for discussion — herons, rabbits, the elusive golden shovel, and why these hard-working gardeners aren’t eating breakfast these days. Yep, it’s a random mix of wonderful and we’re so glad you’ve joined us.
__________________________________________________________
Be sure to hit the subscribe button so we can keep you smiling while you hit the mess [your garden] out there.
The Garden Mixer |Podcast on Spotify
Full Show Notes at The Garden Mixer Podcast’s Substack
________________________________
Socials – Pick Your Platform:
Follow us on Instagram @thegardenmixer
Indulge us on TikTok @the.garden.mixer
Spar with us on X @gardenmixerpod
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Podcast reviews
Read The Garden Mixer podcast reviews
jojimurph 2025/11/21
Friendly, informative and fun
I’ve been following Leslie since her solo act and always enjoyed her friendly podcast. Now with Marianne, I think she is having more fun! This duo rea...
Johnny Baloney 2025/12/17
Slop
If you view your garden as a curio cabinet to store the latest offering from Proven Winners, if the difference between fuschia pink and warm purple fl...
Annie Carbury 2025/10/23
Fun. Period.
The chemistry between these two is fantastic. They each garden differently, are not rigid, and inspire me to keep my mind open and my creative juices ...
Heather Grace 2025/10/13
The Most Delightful Gardening Podcast
This podcast is my favorite gardening companion. If you ever see me smiling and chuckling while deadheading perennials and pulling out weeds, it’s bec...
DFWHD 2025/07/27
Light and refreshing with subtle undertones of humor and real deal gardening know how.
The Garden Mixers, Leslie and Marianne, offer a unique blend of flavorful gardening information and nuanced commentary that both new and experienced g...
chloecolettecc 2025/04/21
Entertaining, Fun, and Helpful!
I love this podcast! I’ve learned so much from Leslie (from this podcast) and Marianne (from this podcast and her books). Thank you so much to Leslie ...
sailorgirl220000222 2025/04/08
The best pod to listen to in the garden
Let this podcast stand as a testament to the magic that can happen when friends, gardening and cocktails collide. With a pair of hosts who are equal p...
@Senchantedgarden 2025/03/05
Perfect combo
Leslie Harris and Marianne Willburn are the perfect combo for this podcast. I have always loved listening to Leslie for the past few years through her...
WakeRobinGarden 2025/02/24
Witty, fun, and informative.
Like being in the backseat listening to your friends banter back and forth about all things horticulture. Perfect for a long drive or making spaghetti
Kurt in NWCT 2025/02/13
Love the New Format!
Long time listener of Leslie’s original podcast, but Marianne is a perfect co-host! I am a total fanboy of hers and a fellow Anglophile—OMG what a pai...
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