'A Growing Passion' Springs Into 4th Season On KPBS

KPBS Midday Eddition . It is springtime. San Diego is in bloom. It seems weird getting rain to have the best looking spring in years. How do we keep up appearances coming in summertime? Back -- Welcome. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Is raining today. It will bring through the weekend? Back wouldn't that be awful? Back what does good spring rain do for us? Back at makes everything look so beautiful. It does do that. All the colors pop in the rain. It gives us an extra shot of water so that things stay green a little later in the summer. Our gardens, the ones that are data to be here, they go to sleep in the summer. It delays a little bit. We can fill the rain buckets to top. I've seen gardens with beautiful blooms on the Rose bushes. Is that early in the season for that? It's just about the right time? Back I don't know that it is early. There are things that are early but I think the roses are just about right. I have a few roses in my garden they are gorgeous. I haven't seen yours but I've seen the gorgeous roaches. Your new season, it starts with the Rose Parade. We have the making of a Rose Parade float. We have a clip that episode. There's a tradition in 1949. We have been working together ever since. It is frightening. You are driving a giant piece of steel down the street. You could easily run something over. It is a little frightening. That is from the first episode that airs tonight of season four. Man is with me today. We have a drought and water conservation's, doesn't make more difficult for the Rose Parade floats to be put together? Back if it did, nobody is talking about a. Most suppliers don't company US. Is interesting because the Rose Parade was devised to show off our wonderful mild winter climate. All of flowers came from Pasadena. That was where they shut off the bounding. Over the course of years, most of the flour production is offshore. It has been interesting. The students decided they were only going to use California grown flowers. They were the first ones to reintroduce this. There were four of them were grown. There are 85% that are covered. All of the antique autos, those are all California flowers. The other floats are from flowers around the role. I had no idea. What else will be audience learn this season of growing passion? I understand you will be talking about but. You will never look at life the same way again. We are looking at an official insects. They are insects that are the good guys in the garden. That is our turn. In nature comedy is no good and bad. They pollinator food and aerator soil. They eat the bad bugs. You can't have a garden without insects because you would have nothing to make the tomatoes and squash. They are pollinated by insects. We are looking at it couple or a variety of beneficial bugs. We are talking about the citrus greening to see that is threatening California's citrus. There's a parasite that has been imported from Pakistan that is being released all over Southern California. We are going to an insect farm. We will see how precious are pollinated. You also be talking about edibles from zero? Back not from zero. Their crops from the sea I didn't mean see world I met see, the big world. Yes. When I was in graduate school, I worked on out she. There are single celled plants of locution. The basis of our future and, it generates oxygen in our atmosphere. This is something I've been wanting to do forever to show people how pervasive algae are in our everyday lives. Nearing cosmetics, food we, not just sushi but in other foods. Near being used to make surfboards, plastics, and they are petroleum that propels our cars and everything else. This is bio fuel and yesterday we were shooting the whole day out the middle of nowhere at the world's biggest spirulina farm. It is the little green algae that makes the powder that you put your smoothies. That was fascinating. It is a hint of what is coming up. While I have you here, I would like to talk about the concept of people who have recently changed their landscaping to be drought tolerant plants. Things may not be looking very good right away. Can you tell us about how long it takes for new plantings to take hold until you see something more than just bread rocks? Back we have an episode on that. We have one on how to renew your lawn. The key, the key to the garden is to use plans that are adapted to our climate but also to plant them, to space them according to the size they would naturally grow. That means that when you buy a plant that will get two 6 x 6, you buy it in a 1 gallon can, it might only be 10 inches tall. It looks a little sad. It's just a baby. You want to space it so it can grow to 6 x 6 and not run into something else. When you look at a newly planted garden, they can look spare. Blank three times. In six months or year or two years, it will grow in. It will be great. You won't have all of the maintenance. You won't feel like you had to be constantly cutting to keep her from running into its neighbor. Nothing wants plans to do that because they don't look good when you do that and they don't want your while. Now this is the fourth season, what kinds of feedback have you gotten? Back we get great feedback all the time. It is fun. People stop me they say they look at Munising are to the garden lighting? Yes. We love the show on water and how gets to our gardens and farms. We had no idea. Their big trees or the episode on how plans come to market and the process of breeding. New plants. Inc. getting them to the nursery and the show. People are fascinated by that. We just get tons of positive feedback all of the time. Was the time they say, I had no idea. You say to yourself? You are such an expert but doing is program, have there been surprising things that you learn? Back every day. That is part of what makes it so interesting. I might know a little bit but sometimes I know a lot. Sometimes I have an idea at and I follow their idea. You follow the idea and it take you places you had no concept that you were going go. It makes it that more interesting. I been speaking with man Sturman, the host of a growing passion, the new season premieres tonight at 830 on KPBS . Thank you for doing is. My pleasure. A few.