Episode 3409

- [Presenter] On this "Volunteer Gardener," Rita Venable finds Okra and tomatoes among the many good performing crops at the BELL Garden. This hybrid school and community garden is on an acre at Bellevue Middle School campus in Nashville. And its mission is to educate and to serve. Troy Marden showcases the popular hydrangeas on the market and traces their evolution through cultivation and hybridization. And Tammy Algood learns about fruit bearing shrubs and trees that need a companion for successful pollination. Join us. Where the harvest is used to build healthier and deeper connected communities through garden based volunteerism and for food distribution to those in need.

- It's not just about the plants when you put in a garden, it's about the people that work there and also the purpose of the garden. What is it for? Today we're at BELL Garden and I have the privilege of meeting with Deborah Stillwell, the Executive Director, and Missy Hamilton, who is in charge of gardens and programs for BELL Garden. Tell me about this wonderful place. It's a hybrid, right? It's not just a community garden. It's that and students from Bellevue Middle School.

- Correct, so we are the largest and the only hybrid school and community garden. And the hybrid came in after COVID, where we saw so many people that needed somewhere to go. And it's also about sustainability. So where other gardens have issues with getting volunteers or people to manage it, we have both students and volunteers who are always here. And our purpose is first of all to educate. Second, it is to serve. Deborah will talk about our food donations. And then again, it's all about building community.

- That's great. So Deborah, how many pounds of food do you typically give away in a year?

- Well, it depends. This year it has been a difficult one. The weather, tomatoes, we lost all our zucchini to mosaic virus. Had to pull up 150 plants, that was heartbreaking.

- No

- We looked to donate about 2,000 pounds, this year and we donate to the Bellevue Food Bank. There is a food bank in Trevecca Towers where there's a food desert and also free store. So we have three places a week we donate our produce.

- That's fantastic. So we are in the pollinator section right here. Beautiful, flowers all around. Tell us about them.

- Well, our most prolific flower here are zinnias. They're super easy to grow, come in a lot of different colors and we succession planted them. So we'd have a lot of new blooms coming up when the others die back. We also have some gomphrena here, comes in lots of different colors and their great filler flowers. One of our other truly popular plants for pollinators are celosias These right here are some smaller celosias here, but we have them throughout the garden. Another thing that they love is lambs ear. We have a bunch of perennial lambs ear. When they bloom these beautiful purple flowers, they're all over the place. The beauty of the lambs ear is the perennial will come back for us every year.

- [Rita] Not a native plant, but the bees really love it.

- [Deborah] Yeah, these we have to plant.

- [Rita] Okay. And tell us about the asters too.

- [Deborah] Well, their perennials, they come up every year about this time. What we really love about them, first of all, the unusual color. There are not a lot of purple flowers and everything such as this. And they tend to bloom after these start dying back. So something is beautiful going on in the garden for the pollinators all the time.

- [Rita] Great, and the golden rod in the back. I especially love that. So that's great. And it looks good with that other aster back there. Which is a different species. And it just taller different form altogether. So this is great. And why have a pollinator garden in a food community garden?

- [Deborah] Well obviously the pollinators pollinate. So we have more food in everyone can do their job. But interestingly enough, this isn't just a pollinator garden, it's also our cutting garden. We had a lot of our supporters come in and wanted to cut some of our perennials and everything for flower bouquets. And we thought, okay, we'll just plant a few raised beds of flowers. And they were so popular, so phenomenal that we put in, we have 12 beds here, mainly zinnias, but other things too that are cut flowers. So they bring income to the garden because we sell our cut flowers. And also they're beautiful. And also they're great for pollinators. So they're very important to us.

- And with the marketing background, right? You came up with the idea of why aren't we selling these at the farmer's market?

- Well, interestingly enough, when I first came here, we weren't even selling our produce. We were giving to one food bank one day a week. And then the rest of the week, I can't even remember what was happening to our produce. So I set up a small farm stand at our gate, and it was so popular that we have grown to farm stand Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons, Saturday mornings, and on Thursdays we're also at the Bellevue Farmer's Market across the street.

- [Rita] That's so cool. This is the primarily food garden section and a lot of raised beds here. I think you said 52 maybe.

- [Deborah] They're everywhere.

- [Rita] They're everywhere. And they use a lot of companion planting here. So tell me about that.

- Absolutely, so one of the main things, for example, is using marigolds and zinnias. Zinnias is to bring in the pollinators, marigolds because they're stinky and rappel squash bugs, which are evil. And you know, calendula, I know all the things. The other part that's so important, we have the raised beds out here and we want to keep crops going throughout the season. So we have chard, we have kale, we have more cold hardy plants out here. And then inside our high tunnels we have the lettuces, the less cold hard. So the most important thing is that we maintain organic gardening practices.

- [Rita] Tell me about the irrigation too.

- [Missy] Yes. So we love it. One of our volunteers named Evan, has done a remarkable job of creating throughout the entire garden a DIY irrigation system.

- [Deborah] And he's been here for years and years.

- So people have different skills. And some people do the mulch in the garden and some people do other thing, build things, whatever, so. Tell us about, do you have any other plants? And I see the golden rod over there, the zinnia here. You brought in from the pollinator garden. What else do you have here? Do you have what?

- [Missy] So this time of the year.

- [Rita] What is this?

- [Missy] These are jalapeno peppers. Of course they're not cold hardy, so we'll be seeing them go bye-bye after a while. We have these amazing long beans. They're long and purple, which makes it easier for our volunteers to harvest. And then we have the end of season our eggplants, tomatoes. And again, we do so much companion planning that there's a lot of basil and all kinds of things throughout the garden. But again, it's cool season. So you'll have to come back and visit us in May and June.

- [Rita] We'll do that. Sounds like a great idea. Deborah, there are no less than eight or nine bees on this celosia, it is gorgeous and huge and it's all mixed in throughout the food garden. But I also see a soldier beetle. Tell us about why you picked this plant, what it does.

- [Deborah] Well, interestingly enough, I picked it 'cause I really liked it. I thought it was interesting. And it's my favorite plant now. It comes in all different colors, all different varieties, spikes, fans, and it grows prolifically as you can see. The seeds are come up on these little areas here. And this big plant started from a seed about the size of a poppy seed.

- [Rita] Oh my goodness.

- So if you can imagine, there's lots of different varieties. Some are short and compact, some are super tall, some have super wide stalks about this wide. And we just kind of planted them assorted all around and got all this beautiful stuff. They're very hearty and they're good for bouquets in, as you said, pollinators with all these bees on them.

- [Rita] Fantastic, I love the color pops in the food garden too. You still have okra, I love the blooms on this It's an African plant, but grows so well here in our hot humid south. Tell us about this for fall. Do you get a lot of people wanting okra? I mean, what about that?

- [Deborah] Oh absolutely, it's our number one crop behind tomatoes. And the great thing about okra is that it loves hot dry weather. And it will grow and grow and grow. We have to pick it every day. Last week I picked nine pounds in one cutting and it will grow unto frost.

- [Rita] Wow. Yeah, that's incredible. So it's more a fall plant than it starts up in late summer, early fall.

- [Missy] It starts in late summer absolutely. It needs higher temperatures to germinate and to grow.

- Okay. So and you have a red one there in your hand?

- Yes, we have two different kinds. We have the green and we have the red.

- What's your favorite?

- Well, I like these a lot because they're easier to see. It's very hard when you're harvesting because they blend in so well. And so you come in, you know, days later and you have something about this big. But as you can see down here, we have that one tagged. We do save our seeds and in that way, you know, we don't have to purchase seeds the following year.

- Okay, great. Overall, how much food do you give away from this garden?

- This year we hope to give away 2,000 pounds. Maybe even be more than that. We've just planted our cool season crops. We have a hoop house that we actually have plants growing inside to try to lengthen our growing season, but it'll be between 2,000, 2,500 pounds.

- [Rita] Wow, that's incredible.

- Yep, yep.

- All on an acre of school property, so that's incredible. And the students learn a lot here too, right Missy?

- Oh, absolutely, today they're gonna be coming in to do a bee count and actually, wait, we're talking about with one okra pod, there are enough seeds to feed more and more and more.

- [Rita] That's awesome. Do they get it? Do They get the connection?

- [Missy] Oh, absolutely. All of it. They love it, especially coming here and most of them, I've never seen an okra plant before and they love it and we put them to work.

- That's incredible, so thank you so much for letting us come today. We really appreciate it. And it's a wonderful place doing such good work. You have people, you have plants, you have purpose, you have all three, the trifecta of gardening. So thank you.

- [Deborah] Thank you

- [Missy] thank you.

- You know, I am always on the lookout for unique and unusual plants. Even when I'm not in a nursery or garden center, if I'm out hiking in the wild, I'm looking for interesting variations on things that might be occurring naturally. Or if I'm walking through a big wholesale nursery, I might be looking for that one plant that's in a pot somewhere that just looks a little bit different. I think everybody's familiar with hydrangeas. I think this was a great place to start. Let's look down at this far end first with Annabelle and Invincibelle Spirit. These are cultivars, cultivated varieties of one of our native species?

- [Matt] Correct?

- [Troy] Yes. So hydrangea arborescens So how did we get to Annabelle?

- Okay, Annabelle, when a seed block was laid out at a nursery, you'd have a 1,000 come up, Most of them come up at non-identical, they're gonna be variants in sizes, they're gonna be different just as you would see them canoeing down the Harpeth. We have our native hydrangea all along-

- The Harpeth River.

- [Matt] The Harpeth River right here. And say that you were canoeing along and as you said, you like to spot things. And you saw this one seedling not have that flat-

- [Troy] That flat lace cat bloom.

- [Matt] But this giant globe bloom. And you're like, I want that for my garden. Yeah, well you can have it because you could go up to it. You could take a cutting of it and then root that cutting and it would be genetically identical to the exact one you saw. And that's how we come up with cultivars. Now sometimes it's from seed and the entire plant looks different. Sometimes it's just a bloom that looks odd on that plant-

- [Troy] On one branch.

- [Matt] And that's how we ended up with Invincibelle Spirit. That was an Annabelle that had one bloom that came out on a plant pink. So the selection and the cutting was made of that plant. And then when it grew, they took more cuttings and more cuttings. So that's how we bring something new to the trade. It's not like there's mad science going on a lot of times, it's just you're finding something natural in nature and you're reproducing that one thing again and again. And that makes a great cultivar then.

- A lot of it is luck. In the case of especially of spotting things out in nature, a lot of it is luck. And a lot of it is sort of training your eye to things that are different and unique and unusual. Now, I know also that in addition to Invincibelle Spirit. which is this soft pink, then the hybridizer have gotten involved. Sometimes it's little backyard hybridizer who are more hobbyists. Sometimes it's gigantic corporate nurseries that do hybridizing and that sort of thing. Working on specific projects. For instance, now I think there's one called Invincibelle Ruby, which is an even deeper pink, bordering on red not really what we would maybe consider a true red but an even deeper color. And that was brought to us by selective breeding, sowing seed and then choosing, you know, a single plant that was a little darker in color. And then working with that and going on, you know, another two or three generations. And the same thing has happened. The same kinds of things have happened. Not just in hydrangea arborescence, but also in hydrangea quercifolia, the oak leaf hydrangea, which I think is one of our favorite, you know, certainly one of my favorite landscape plants and a favorite native. But we do have many cultivars, many cultivated varieties of oak leaf hydrangea. So let's talk a little bit about some of those. Ruby slippers right here in front of me, which is a more dwarf variety. That was created by Sandy Reed, down at the research station in near McMinville. And then what about this one in the middle?

- [Matt] Tuff stuff.

- [Troy] Tuff stuff.

- [Matt] And it's more of one that we're trialing. It's been brought to the market. It's one not as common. And the selection has, as you can see, it's a lighter, more yellow leaf. So when planting oak leafs in the shade, sometimes you want something to brighten up

- [Troy] Just a little brighter.

- [Matt] Right. And so-

- [Troy] Not gold really, but a little lighter green, a little kind of a chartreuse green.

- [Matt] It is incredibly durable and tough, hence the name. And can handle a little bit more wet. A lot of oak leafs don't like wet.

- [Troy] Wet soil.

- [Matt] Annabelle hydrangeas, on the other hand, can handle the wet soil.

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Matt] The reason why there are a lot more oak leaf varieties than arborescence varieties is because the selections you can cross pollinate.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Matt] The Annabelle hydrangea is sterile.

- [Troy] Mostly sterile, yeah.

- Right, so it's more difficult to create new varieties with something that doesn't produce seed. So you're able to take one flower and another flower cross pollinate and end up with a lot of seed variation.

- [Troy] And that has happened in oak leaf hydrangea quite a bit, but there also are a lot of just natural selections. Sharp-eyed plants people out there who have seen something that's just a little bit different. And that would be the case with something like Snow Queen.

- [Matt] Yes.

- [Troy] Where if you saw a wild population of just straight oak leaf hydrangea, hydrangea quercifolia growing out in the wild, most of those plants would have a kind of pendulas bloom almost. Snow queen is different because her blooms stand upright. And they're very large. They're not as large in a container situation, but once you get them in the ground, big tall, 12 inch blooms that stand upright all over the plant.

- [Matt] Massive and beautiful.

- Yeah, and so some sharp-eyed plants person out there noticed that this plant was different and said, hey, we're gonna propagate this if it proves itself over a period of time, we're gonna name it and introduce it to the industry. And I think Snow Queen is one of our great landscape plants. The thing is, 20 years ago every cultivar of, there weren't as many varieties of oak leaf hydrangea out there and they were all big, they were all large growing landscape plants. Six by six, eight by eight, 10 by 10. Then a couple of varieties, Peewee and Sykes dwarf came along 25 years ago or so. They were smaller in stature, but not necessarily the greatest plants. They're kind of shy, flowering and-

- [Matt] They were weak and disease issues with them. For foliar problems.

- [Troy] Foliar problems.

- You can see the ones that are selected now have a lot better foliar.

- [Troy] Yeah, cleaner leaves, not as much fungal spotting and that sort of thing.

- [Matt] And that's another thing that a keen eye or a grower or a breeder is looking for. It's not always just the bloom.

- And I mentioned Sandy Reed a few minutes ago, and we actually did a segment with her probably 15 years ago when Ruby Slippers and Munchkin were getting ready to come to market. And so Sandy took it a step further, and this is where we get human involvement. She did the hybridizing using dwarf varieties of oak leaf hydrangeas that were available to come up with varieties that were truly compact, dense, heavy flowering, and a much better selection for home gardeners than what was currently available on the trade. So she saw a need, a gap in the market if you will, and spent 20 or 25 years of her life creating these new oak leaf hydrangeas.

- And a lot of the ones that she started with were ones just like you talked about, people found in native blocks.

- Sure.

- What she accomplished was, that she brought them all together to one spot and allowed all the dwarf ones from different places. Crosspollinate, and then sow those seeds. And make selections of the healthiest.

- Generations and generations. I mean years worth of work, decades, really worth of work that went into this on the front end. And you mentioned native blocks. I can remember going with our old buddy Don Shadow one time down to the northern part of Alabama where there are a lot of oak leaf hydrangeas.

- One of this.

- One of these, you know, came from there. But he took me to a place where there were naturally occurring double flowered forms. There's a variety called Harmony that has huge sterile flowers. They're kind of floppy and they don't hold their heads up very well. But it was amazing to me to see the natural diversity in our native populations and I guess my point is, that I think sometimes when we see a variety, a cultivar of something, we assume that it's not native, but it is, it is a special selection of... It may have had involvement like Sandy's varieties from one of us as a hybridizer, or it may have just been a keen eyed nurseryman/plantsman who saw an opportunity to introduce something new and unique to the market. Thank you so much for giving us a little bit of insight. We could stand and talk about this all day across all varieties of plants, but just a little bit of insight about what goes into selecting new varieties of plants. We really appreciate it.

- [Matt] Thanks for coming out.

- [Toby] Yeah.

- Anytime. Hydrangeas are probably one of my favorite shrubs. And I love the idea that people have taken the time to hybridize and work with them to where homeowners with smaller backyards are wanting just that patio, potted plant. You now can have in an oak leaf.

- Can also enjoy them too. Can also enjoy them as well.

- Thanks so much.

- Thank you.

- For bigger, better fruit, sometimes you've got to plant a companion. Dave, talk to me about that. This is Dave Lockwood with UT Extension. He's a fruit specialist. And Dave, I know that the companion planting is very popular, but I don't know what needs a companion and what doesn't. So talk to us about that.

- Okay, yeah, for the most part you should consider that all apple trees, all pear trees, some sweet cherries, some plums, muscadine grapes, rabbit eye blueberries, need to have two or more varieties so that you get cross pollination. If you have just one variety, the crop is gonna be a lot smaller and much less size and poorer quality. So cross pollination assures that we're gonna have bigger fruit and more fruit on each of those.

- So instead of having one apple tree it's better to have two different varieties of apples.

- Yeah. A minimum of two. The more you have, the more varieties you have, the more assured you are that you're gonna have pollination at the right time, so yes.

- Okay, so Dave, but what if you have one pear tree, one apple tree, does that serve the same purpose?

- [Dave] No, it doesn't. So it has to be similar types of fruit. So apple and apple, pear and pear. Sweet cherry and sweet cherry. We don't see any crossing, no.

- [Tammy] Okay, and then so when you've got this landscape plan, how close do those plantings need to be to each other for it to be even beneficial?

- [Dave] The closer the better. Normally I'd say within 50 feet, but like the closer they are, the more apt you are to get insects that will visit both of those. And the more different types of plants you have that may be in bloom the same time the more competition you have for the insects who do the pollination.

- [Tammy] And we're talking about bees for pollination and wind you said affects that.

- [Dave] Right, in most of our fruits, those with the showy blooms, our insect pollinated and honeybees are by far the biggest one that we have. Bumblebees will work other types of bees, some flies will work, but honeybees are the primary insect that transmits pollen or transfers pollen among different fruit crops.

- So Dave, in fruit crops, when you're looking at different varieties, what do you need to look for in selecting that? Because some grow better in different areas than other, I know about the zone, but really what do you need to look for for Tennessee?

- If you are looking for the best fruits for your area, first contact the extension office, they're gonna have... They see a lot of different people in that area and they may have encountered the same issues. And of course they have access to the information that we generate as well as other universities. A reputable nursery will have that information in their catalogs so that if you're growing a certain type of apple, it's important that you have an apple tree that will bloom at the same time. Not all of them do. And also that apple tree has to have viable pollen. There are a few sterile pollen varieties out there that won't work. So the catalogs, the extension service, and of course people, your neighbors, if they're successfully growing fruit, then we know that what they're doing is gonna be successful and we can copy their practices. Generally, if the plant grows, if it blooms and there's no fruit or not much fruit, I look at it as a pollination problem and you need to have another variety or two in the vicinity.

- Great. Thank you Dave Lockwood. I appreciate that. And so do our homeowners who are maybe yearning for fruit and maybe haven't been successful in that area. Thanks so much.

- [Dave] You're very welcome.

- [Presenter] For inspiring garden tours, growing tips and garden projects, visit our website at volunteergardener.org and find us on these platforms.