Orchids are popular house plants and can produce beautiful blooms over many years, if they receive the proper care. Annette Shrader sets out to de-mystify orchid growing with an orchid hobbyist and member of the Orchid Society of Middle Tennessee. Growing medium, proper watering and fertilization, re-potting, pests + solutions are all discussed.
More folks are growing their own food these days, so perhaps a nut crop could fit into the home landscape. Tammy Algood goes to Bethpage TN to learn about seed germination, what's needed for good pollination, and expectations of yield over the course of the tree's life (which can be 150 years).
Marty DeHart visits with a passionate plants person who hybridizes and cultivates hellebores. It's mid-March, and these 'jewels of winter' are showing off their colors in beautiful blooms. We learn the successes of hybridization: the new characteristics, bloom size, colors, and habit are evident in the several cultivars we examine.
Annette Shrader tours a country estate landscape that has some of the very best cultivars of the daylily, earning it the status of an official American Daylily Society Display Garden. She learns which characteristics of this easy-care perennial this collector enjoys the most. Hint: its the variety in colors and petal forms, and the way one plant can have blooms over a period of several weeks. His collection tops 1,800 plants.
Referred to as the money tree, or lucky plant, jade plants are native to KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa, and Mozambique. They have become a common houseplant worldwide. Tammy Algood visits with a collector to learn the number one mistake people make in caring for their jade plant, and how easy they are to propagate.
Annette Shrader visits a plantsman that has a collection of staghorn ferns that include both 'antler' frond and shield frond varieties. This impressive collection of epiphytes represent native regions around the globe. This discussion encompasses plant culture, growth habit, propagation, and recommended care.
Sheri Gramer is a newcomer to bamboo, so she seeks expert advice at Almaville Bamboo Company in Almaville, TN. Proprietor Chris Buker explains how bamboo is an economical way to create a privacy screen which is pest-free, low maintenance, grows in poor soil conditions, and offers the height that shrubs and trees do not. For more information, abcbamboo.com.