Episode 3414

- [Presenter] In traditional Italian-style villas, the outdoor spaces are often treated as an extension of the home. That holds true here, as a row of trees and shrubs form a living wall that serves as a backdrop to a vibrant and varied color garden. Tammy Algood treats us to a tour, alongside the passionate gardener who has created a harmonious space, blending home and landscape. Then Julie Berbiglia takes note of the harbinger of spring, the beauty of bluebells, buttercups, and wisteria blossoms, all found on an old homestead. Join us. A mature landscape with large established trees, pretty and purposeful plant collections, and a sense of privacy.

- Planning is a key to success, and we are here in Nashville today, at the home of Deby Pitts, who put a lot of planning into your yard. Deby, thank you so much for inviting us to your garden.

- We started planning our yard and our home in 2005. So it's been a work of love, and skill, and dreams for over 20 years. And something like this just doesn't happen by one person. It's collaboration of many individuals.

- Right.

- We had a pretty big team working together to create it, and now my gardener and I maintain it.

- [Tammy] This courtyard is stunning. Tell me about how you incorporated this into your home, and the planning that went into this particular spot.

- With pleasure, and it's a fun story. My husband studied to be an architect, and then decided to become an accountant. I studied to be a biologist, and then became a business person. But we still have the love, I have the love of the outside, and my husband has the love of architecture, and he decided that maybe we should build an Italian villa. Well, when you build an Italian villa, you have to incorporate both the interior architecture and the architecture of the home, as well as landscape architecture. And that's what this place represents, is the marriage of interior architecture and landscape architecture. The Italian philosophy is one where the further away you are, the wilder the environment is. And as you get closer and closer to the actual home, the landscape becomes more refined. Until you're in a courtyard like this, which is actually, in Italian architecture, considered a room of the home.

- [Tammy] It has got so many levels of interest that you have incorporated into a relatively small space.

- [Deby] That's correct.

- [Tammy] Talk to me about how you've got all these different layers because it's not just one thing to look at, it's lots to look at.

- So if we look over this area right over here, think of this as a wall of a house, except it's a wall of landscaping and horticulture. We have the Hughes that form the base,

- Yes.

- And then we have the hornbeams that we keep trimmed that forms the wall. And then along it we have all of the decor, this is a color garden, and depending on the time of the year, it flushes out with different colors. We've got the white of the phlox, which a couple weeks ago was unbelievable. There are daisies in here, there's roses in here, peonies that are pink and bright pink, and we have white roses and pink roses. Right now, one of my favorites is over in that corner over there, are some beautiful irises that just popped out, and they're the really fine, delicate, wild type of irises. And then at the very end, that whole row over there, is a collection of three different types of acanthus, and they produce those magnificent flowers that are purple and lavender and off-white. And they last for weeks in the house when you trim them.

- [Tammy] Really?

- [Deby] And they're incredibly regal and just spectacular.

- [Tammy] Well, and I love the height of them, and you've incorporated a pastel color palette here.

- [Deby] Mm-hm.

- [Tammy] And that sure does bring uniformity into the space just like you would in a room in the house.

- Right, right.

- So all of these get what kind of light?

- So this area is unique, in that it gets morning sun, 'cause we're facing due east this way. And then in the afternoon, when the sun is really hot coming out of the west, the house shades this entire garden. So that's why we have azaleas, and that's why the acanthus thrives here so well, and we have these amazing crinum lilies, and then scattered throughout in pots, are hydrangeas, they're the really bright pink hydrangeas, and over on the far, what I'm calling a wall, there's a layering of greenery, there's arborvitaes that form the backdrop, and then we have the rose of Sharon,

- Mm-hm.

- Which is next, and then down at the bottom, you see the lace cap hydrangeas, and then where the columns are, there's actually Hughes to separate the rose of Sharon. And then over there, I have some pots that have the asparagus ferns in 'em. I just love being out here, it's a great place to come and grab a cup of coffee or tea.

- It is so calm, and really, it's large, but you've made it feel so cozy. Deby, talk to me about this, because I'm gonna have to grow this now, thanks to you.

- And I'll give you a slip, that is an acanthus plant. They have a variety of different types of leaves depending on the variety that you pick. This one in particular is called a bear breeches acanthus. They are very durable and very sturdy plants. Their roots grow down five feet into the ground, so in the summertime, in the spring, in the summer, they look like this. They, and you don't have to do anything to 'em. They just grow. This type of leaf, the acanthus, is a very famous motif in architecture. You'll see it like on the corbels, and the flowers all look the same regardless of the underlying type of leaf that it has, they all look like this, they make great cut flowers, they will last from one to two weeks in the house, and they just look magnificent.

- [Tammy] When you cut these, do you cut these really low down here?

- I do. I cut them down, down at the very bottom.

- Oh, all the way down there?

- [Deby] And yeah, and then I trim them appropriately. But these will last in the garden like this for a good two months.

- [Tammy] It's really a beautiful specimen of a plant. And obviously, it's very healthy and looks great here. It just kind of frames, as you say, this side of the room.

- [Deby] It does.

- We are in the back room of your house, Deby, your back garden room, and trees have really played an important part in making this area beautiful. Talk to me about your trees.

- [Deby] If you look everywhere around this area, the trees form the background or the walls. We have elm, we have magnolia, we have holly, there's Japanese maple, we have these magnificent regal columnar oaks. We have one of my personal favorites, the willow.

- [Tammy] Yes.

- [Deby] I love the curly willow, we have espalier pear trees, this is a Belgian fence over here, or back over there is an arbor that was a present for my husband on Father's Day years ago. We have the vitex, but I just love being back here. It makes me so happy.

- It just forms all kinds of levels of interest. And that willow, I mean, I cut on mine all the time.

- [Deby] So do I.

- [Tammy] Do you? Because that makes such interesting things to put in flower arrangements.

- Yep, yep, yep.

- [Tammy] And it looks like it has been there forever. How long have these trees been in the ground here?

- [Deby] They have been in the ground for approximately 18 years.

- [Tammy] So this is the time element, that you have to give your garden time to become what it is.

- [Deby] Right, when you plant a tree, you're planting for the future.

- Correct, correct. And you know, we do like fast growing things, but we also appreciate it when something just kind of evolves on its own.

- Right, and so what you're seeing here are these beautiful trees that we planted 18 years or so ago. Like look at those arborvitaes over there, they're magnificent, and it's, my love for trees has extended to the volunteer work that I do as the Horticultural Society of Middle Tennessee's president. We have joined forces with the Metro Nashville program called Plant A Tree, whose goal it is, is to plant a half a million trees by 2050. And we have decided to collaborate with them because many of our members are very concerned about what's happened to the tree canopy, not only in Nashville, but throughout Middle Tennessee because of the urban growth, which is both a blessing, but if we don't manage it carefully, it could cause harm to the future for our children and our grandchildren.

- [Tammy] Absolutely, and look at the, could there be a better natural fence than trees?

- No.

- They're perfect for that.

- [Deby] Right? You don't have to paint them,

- [Tammy] Yeah.

- [Deby] You don't, all you need to do is just,

- [Tammy] Give 'em space.

- [Deby] Give 'em space, and let 'em grow.

- [Tammy] Your banana.

- [Deby] Oh.

- [Tammy] Talk to me about, because that just makes me happy, it looks so tropical and fun.

- [Deby] I love these hardy bananas. I started out with just one, one of them is called a pip when they're tiny babies, I started out with one right about where those, that chaise lounges, and they've just taken over that space, in the summertime, imagine this, those hardy bananas fill in that entire space between the regal oak and that cherry tree. And it just, it makes it look like you're in the middle of the tropics. I did get bananas one year, but I have to say, I don't care if I ever get any more bananas 'cause they're not really very delicious.

- [Tammy] But the leaves are why you grow, because they look like fans.

- [Deby] And it's all part of the, what I consider part of my philosophy of planting, which is I like to do edible gardening.

- [Tammy] Yes, I agree.

- [Deby] And so I have the bananas, which are part of that, the goji berries, which are in those pots over there, and everywhere you look throughout my garden, you'll see edible things. Like over here, we have pear trees that are cut into a Belgian fence. I rarely get any pears off of them, 'cause the squirrels that we've talked about earlier get most of the pears. But if you'll see, I have fig trees that I keep pruned down. The fig trees will get to be about six feet tall, but underneath them all is mint, because I can contain the mint in that bed over there, 'cause mint can be really invasive.

- [Tammy] Yes, it can. It's the gift that keeps giving.

- [Deby] It is, but boy is it good in a julep.

- [Tammy] Isn't it though?

- [Deby] And it's good in tea.

- Yes it is. Deby, talk to me about these mulberry trees, because you've got them wonderfully contained right now.

- So these are Persian mulberry trees.

- [Tammy] Okay.

- [Deby] They will get mulberries approximately 2 1/2 to 3 inches long, but they also have another habit. They grow to be 40 feet tall, and I don't have room left in my yard for 40-foot-tall Persian mulberry tree, so I am treating them as if they're bonsai mulberry trees, and I'm training them by cutting the tops off, some would say I'm manipulating them. That's okay.

- [Tammy] Yeah.

- I think it's okay to manipulate a plant or two in your yard.

- I totally agree. And so you want it to be no taller than probably about where it is right now.

- The one on the right is a little too tall, I've gotta trim it, and I've gotta trim the, deadwood it, but they're now about two years old, so I'm hoping that maybe next year, I'll have fruit.

- Excellent. You've just got little touches of wonder all over your yard, Deby, and your garden has inspired me, I just feel it, I wanna move in.

- You can, I have room.

- It's beautiful. Thank you for giving us a visual feast for our eyes today. Our viewers will love it, and I do, and you're a lovely person.

- [Deby] Thank you, so are you, Tammy. It's a joy.

- Spring is always a wonderful time, you never know what's coming out. And I find myself today in the middle of this glorious patch of blue and a little pink, and of course, some green. And I'm here with Matthew, hanging out in Cheatham County. Wow, let's start with where we are, this is an old, old homestead.

- Yeah, we're in a Virginia bluebell patch. But it's sort of interesting to think that this area got colonized by people from Virginia and North Carolina. And this is an old area, this is way back in my backyard where there's probably no agriculture history, and people started settling in the early 1800s. And I think partly from cows moving through the woods, and deer moving through the woods, the bluebells get established wherever it's moist.

- Yes, and we are actually down in perfect area for these beautiful flowers. We've got, I can tell there's a little bit of water can run through here, we've got a little dappled shade, what else do we need for these lovely things?

- [Matthew] Well they're part of the spring ephemerals, so they come and go really fast, and in about a month, you won't see them anymore. But it's nice that they grow so quickly in the spring, that these big lung-shaped leaves that are glabrous and waxy, can resist any of the spring frosts. And you see the little blue flowers coming out, almost like forget-me-nots, and they're just beautiful the way they unfurl and uncurl.

- Well, they're absolutely gorgeous flowers, and we're lucky to be out here just as they're blooming, since they're not going to last very long. Now spring ephemerals, oh my gosh, there's so much to see. And so this is an old place, and I know we've got some more old plants, so let's go look at them. Well, I love daffodils, because to me, they mean, whee! Spring's going to be here. And there's a really early one, the tete-a-tete daffodil. So I know that's one of your favorites too.

- [Matthew] I like the tete-a-tete, 'cause it's, as early as those yellow ones, that just bloom by the rough side of the road. And yet, it's a modern variety that is a miniature, and that has a bunch of, you know, pretty attributes, very yellow, with a slight orange tinge to the corolla. And there's tete boucle, which is double. So that's been evolving, so I've been learning a little bit from the Daffodil Society, but I do recommend their breeding, is just amazing, and they're always coming up with new things.

- Well, and one of the neat things about the tete-a-tete, is that it's somewhat resistant to some of our little critters that are running around in the spring looking for something to eat.

- That reminds me, Julie, 'cause we have voles here, so apart from deer, which would be the big problem, and they don't eat daffodils in general, because daffodils are toxic to 'em. But the voles sometimes will slip a bulb into their hives, and then get rid of 'em, and so I always have to worry about that, but so far I don't do anything to 'em, but I know some people in the society, they protect things in baskets, and it's also a good way to keep the clump from dividing so much, like the ones that are behind us, those have just multiplied, and so you can't tell one individual bulb anymore from another individual bulb after they've produced 8 to 12, to 24 different baby bulbs.

- Well, and just like all daffodils, is this correct? That when they're done blooming, we don't wanna cut 'em down right away, right?

- Right, yeah, yeah.

- Okay, so we're going to cut the stock, so it's not gonna try to produce anything, and we're going to leave the foliage until it naturally dies.

- Yeah, and you know, with all of these, I think even as they fade, they tend to lose all their petals, and so you really, you don't have to worry about 'em. Some, especially the jonquils and the smaller varieties, their corolla and petals actually just fade away. And so you don't even need to pick off the seed heads. In fact, it's sort of nice to have if you have more than one variety, to cover that seed head like my friend Becky does, and keep it, and see what you get as a plant. Maybe five years down the road, it'll flower.

- [Julie] Nice, well, let's talk about some other varieties. Well, we have a little bit of a misnomer now to talk about, the wild daffodil, but it's not wild from here, it's just been on your homestead for, yeah, a very, very long time.

- A long time, yeah, yeah.

- [Julie] So what does it like about living here? Where does it want to live?

- [Matthew] Well, that's what we call the buttercup. And so the traditional buttercup of the south, I think, is the daffodil or pseudo-narcissus, that can just live on its own and multiply. And it stays there for about 50 to 100 years. And since this place is over 100 years old, it's probably around, especially in a sunny location on the hillside that faces south. So they want to face the sun, and they want to come up very early, and so they need that soil temperature to go up and start warming up, and that'll bring 'em out, and I just spread 'em out in swaths, and about three years down, after planting one individual bulb, you get a nice clump. And so the nicest thing is, they're not bright colors, they're not big sizes, they're sort of medium in all aspects, but just they work as wild plants, almost.

- [Julie] Well, what another beautiful plant that we've had naturalized, that isn't causing us a problem, and we can feel free to enjoy it all spring long.

- [Matthew] Yeah, I don't think it's invasive, so it's just one of those plants that we can enjoy, and call it the buttercup, and drive by it and see a patch of yellow.

- [Julie] Now if you've been in any old neighborhood, or on some of the old properties like the one we're at here, then you are likely to see all of this tangle of vine everywhere. And then if you're really lucky, and in the right place at the right time in the spring, you'll see it start to bloom.

- So we moved to the wisteria, and then within wisteria, we have at least three species that are all ornamental and of importance.

- Alright, well let's break it down for people, because you know, people were bringing wisteria over a couple hundred years ago, and so we have a lot of it. So let's see here, let's talk about the one we're seeing up here, it's clearly gonna be this beautiful dark blue, purplish color, it's just now starting to bloom, it's gonna come out really quickly, as the heat hits it in the next couple of days, what kind is this?

- [Matthew] So this is pretty, it matches your shirt, and it's basically the classic blue that we see for the Japanese wisteria, which is darker than both the Chinese and the American. It also has the longest of the racemes, the racemes being the set of flowers all the way from where your top fingers are, down to where this little worm-like structure is opening, and each one of those little knobs is a new flower that's gonna come out, and that whole raceme is gonna be at least half a foot long, maybe a foot.

- [Julie] Fascinating, okay, now we have a different wisteria right here. We've got some different colors, and which one is this?

- So this one being lighter, and a little bit bi-color, in that it has a different part of white butterfly, and then followed by these keel flowers that are purpley. And the scent is really beautiful, which is typical of Chinese wisteria. And Chinese wisteria can be distinguished by the way the vines grow, compared to Japanese wisteria. Even though they're neighbors, Japan and China, they grow in different directions.

- [Julie] Ooh, say more about that, what do you mean they're growing in different directions?

- So many plants will do a twine, and especially if they're a vine, they will twine in a way that is called binding. And that binding is where the stem elongates in either a clockwise, or a counterclockwise direction. This is also termed right-handedness or left-handedness in plants. And anybody that's grown beans, know that this is a characteristic, because if you put the vine up the trellis in the wrong direction, it'll immediately all unwind and fall down at your feet.

- Oh, I've had that happen. Okay, let's look at this one. Which one, okay, we've got a good example here. So which one is this?

- So this one is the Chinese wisteria, and it happened to be two vines that last season, grew together. And you can see that the direction of growth is around the clock, counterclockwise. So we have a counterclockwise, what we call a right-hand turn, and that turn is called the Z-turn. This turns out to be the more common of ways that plants trellis and climb in subtropical areas.

- [Julie] Alright, now let's talk about sort of the, one of the issues with wisteria, despite it being so beautiful and attractive, is that it obviously grows like crazy, and then the Chinese climate sort of similar to some of our southeastern climate, so it can get really out of control and take over. So what are the conditions it likes the best, or the least?

- [Matthew] Okay, I recommend the Japanese wisteria slightly better than the Chinese wisteria, and of course, if you can get an American wisteria, you can grow that. They're not actually from Tennessee, they're a little bit further south, and richer lands. They have in common with the Japanese wisteria, that you need a wet spot to grow them. And this hill was an old spring, and as a result, it grows on top of probably what was a well that someone used and it's always happy. The Chinese wisteria is a lot more drought-tolerant, and for that reason, it'll grow almost anywhere, and can get pretty invasive, why? Because both Japanese and Chinese wisteria will grow to your 200-foot side-to-side, and which is amazing, they'll sucker along the way, and root along the way, but they'll also grow about 40 feet high, and so on some trees, they'll choke the tree.

- Aha.

- But they prefer some trees versus other trees.

- Well, you know, the benefit of having these really old properties is seeing a lot of these plants that have come over that we've been able to enjoy through the years. And the other benefit now, is that we're learning more and more about things like the wonderful American wisteria, which you can duplicate these kind of conditions with something that we now know might be environmentally better-placed in your area. So every spring, enjoy the spring, and take a look around you, because you never know what you're gonna find that might bloom just for a few days.

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