Episode 2542

- [Announcer] The key to a successful Market Garden begins with the seeds. Phillipe Chadwick visits Green Door Gourmet to see their seed starting operation first hand. And, Troy Marden takes us along on a visit to Reflection Riding Arboretum & Nature Center. Miles of walking trails, as well as a three mile loop drive, highlight the scenic views of this three-hundred acre gift to nature lovers. Come along. First nestled at the western slope of Lookout Mountain.

- [Troy] Well it is a beautiful, sunny, summer day at Reflection Riding Arboretum in Chattanooga Tennessee. So tell us about Reflection Riding.

- Well Reflection Riding Arboretum and Nature Center is a facility that combines wildlife and our native plant populations. It's a 317 acre facility that has almost 15 miles of trails throughout. People can come and leisurely stroll through the countryside as well as get up on Lookout Mountain and see the vistas that are a really special part of this facility.

- [Troy] I know Lookout Mountain is kind of behind you and then Lookout Creek runs around the property border.

- Lookout Creek is, we share about a mile of creek front along Lookout Creek. And our property is between the creek and the Lookout Mountain itself. In fact part of our 317 acres are located on the side of Lookout Mountain. Combined with all the trails that The National Park Service has and Lookout Mountain Conservancy here in Chattanooga.

- So you probably then, I mean this property, running from creek bottom and wetlands all the way up, part way up the side of the mountain, to where you're probably more of a Granite based acidic soil where you'd find Azaleas and those kinds of things growing.

- That's right, you have a tremendous variety of plant cultures simply because of the terrain that's here.

- Right.

- And we have a wetland area, in fact that pretty well just dried up about a month ago, from all the winter rains and flooding that occurred along Lookout Creek. But yeah, the diversity of land and diversity of the plant populations is extreme here. And we really pride ourselves on having a tremendous collection here that people can-

- And a lot of diversity.

- Yes.

- So before this was Reflection Riding Arboretum & Nature Center, it goes back to a privatly owned history?

- The John Chambliss family actually started this facility sixty years ago, this year in fact this is our Sixtieth Anniversary. When he made this a public facility and enjoyed having people out enjoying the beautiful scenery and vistas that John Chambliss had identified early on. He loved the idea and in fact created many of the trails that are here. He created them as part of his contribution to making this property public access. And of course, Marie Humphry had a home on this property and Marie was a very good friend of the Chambliss'. They brought many plant collections from all over the country and planted them here on this property. So, much of what is here is because of those early people who were propagating their plants from all over. And most of them are native plants.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Larry] It's a class four Arboretum-

- [Troy] Okay.

- [Larry] With 140 different species of trees that are documented here on a map and in the field we'll see labels on each tree.

- [Troy] And you mentioned that there are miles and miles of walking trails here. Bicycles allowed?

- Yes, we permit the bicycles to come through here. In fact in addition to bicycles and pedestrians we're encouraging people to take our carriage rides that are now available this year.

- [Troy] Right now, one of the unique things you have here at Reflection Riding is actually, if you're unable to walk or bicycle through the property, there is a way to actually take a vehicle through. Or to, utilize one of your new horse drawn carriages.

- [Larry] Yes, that's correct. For the last 40 years I would guess, vehicles were permitted to drive through The Riding. That was part of the riding through on a beautiful Sunday.

- [Troy] That's part of the name.

- [Larry] That's right-

- [Troy] Reflection Riding.

- [Larry] They were able to ride through and now we're giving more people the opportunity to have a different, alternative form of transportation and that's through the horse drawn carriages.

- Well I couldn't pass up a chance to learn just a little bit more about the Chestnut Program here at Reflection Riding, and John's gonna talk to us a little bit more about how this program works. And what the idea is behind having these Chestnut Trees growing here.

- Well as you know the American Chestnut declined precipitately-

- Right.

- During the course of the twentieth century due to an introduced fungal disease. So there have been a lot of efforts aimed at trying to restore the American Chestnut. Part of that has been a hybridization program. Hybridizing American Chestnuts with Asian Chestnuts which are naturally resistant to the Blight, yes. And so we have a number of trees planted her on the property that are to varying degrees hybrids. And the younger generations are, increasingly pure American. While trying to retain that one trait from the Asian which is the resistance to the Blight.

- Sure. So, in a study like this, what really is the end goal?

- Well a lot of this is, testing and observation. Each of these trees is labeled and careful records are kept about it's Parentage.

- [Troy] Right.

- [John] And we observe them and we see how resistant they turn out to be, to the Blight. Sometimes it may appear as though, a particular lineage is very resistant but that may only be because it had not been exposed yet to the Blight.

- [Troy] Right.

- [John] And so you have to wait a number of years and see what the long term performance is. So, we have plantings like this and we can observe and keep records and learn more about which lineages show promise and which lineages don't.

- [Troy] And from the little bit of research that I've done and some other segments that we've shot over the years, with some folks from the Chestnut Foundation. My understanding is that we're up now to generations that really are fifteen, sixteenth's American Chestnut. And just one sixteenth Chinese Chestnut, and I think the hope is that, you know we're so close to being back to that pure Chestnut, and there's just enough disease resistance left then, from the Asian counterparts to be able to introduce essentially what is our native Chestnut back into commercial-

- You're right. The sense is we're right there on the cusp. We have some very promising cultivators, yes.

- [Phillipe] It is 25 degrees outside but it is the most exciting time for a lot of Gardeners because we are doing some seeds here. I'm at Green Door Gourmet, out in West Nashville. Why don't you tell me a little bit about, kind of your process.

- We fill the 72 cell flat with potting mix and then put some holes in there, and we're planting Leek Seeds. King Richard Leeks.

- Leek Seeds, okay. And these take a really long time, right? Leeks?

- They do, yeah, yeah. We're doing Onions and Leeks, this week because they take so long to germinate and we want to get a good head start on those. Pretty soon we're going to be starting Lettuces, Broccolis, Kale, all sorts of other vegetables.

- [Phillipe] Yeah, a lot of the early kind of Spring, late Winter stuff?

- [Kyle] Definitely.

- [Phillipe] Yeah. So when do y'all start Tomatoes and Pepper Plants?

- [Kyle] Around mid March. It's a little bit too cold to start them right now.

- And I guess you do probably several successions of those two since they grow so fast?

- We do yeah, we do secession planting of a lot of different things. So we'll do secession Tomato plantings, we'll also do secessions with some of our Leafy Greens, just to make sure that as we're harvesting throughout the year, we have availability for all of our different restaurants and local Box Members. We'll be direct sowing Beets, Corn, Okra-

- [Phillipe] Yeah, their root system just grows so fast you don't even bother puttin' them in, I guess the cell tray?

- [Kyle] Definitely and some of those, they're delicate to transplant or they really benefit from being seeded in quantity out in the field, so it's much more convenient for us.

- [Phillipe] And on this mass scale, is there anyway that you deal with fungus and bacteria getting in the seedlings? Is there anything that you do to help prevent that?

- [Kyle] Yeah, so we're very careful to water the appropriate amount, I guess. 'Cause if you water too much you sometimes will experience algae growth, or other pests will come in. And you want to try to keep the soil about like a moist sponge. So if you were to grab a handful of soil and you were to squeeze it and water came out, that would be too wet. Or if you were to feel the soil and it was completely dry, that would be too dry so we want to keep it somewhere in between.

- [Phillipe] With the seeds that you're doing, what's the kind of temperature ranges that we're working in here?

- Some of these earlier seedlings that we're starting, the winter crops, the Leafy Greens, we're gonna be trying to hold the Greenhouse between 75 and 85 degrees to get those seeds to germinate. They like a soil temperature in that range. And then when we move into the later season and summer crops, we're gonna try and get the Greenhouse a little bit hotter, maybe 85-90 degrees while they germinate. And then we'll take them outside and harden them off and then put them in the fields.

- [Phillipe] One thing I've noticed as far as seeds go is your soil quality, it's really nice and it's a good mixture, it's got a lot of grit in it.

- [Kyle] Definitely.

- [Phillipe] Can you show me a little bit more about that in your potting shed over there?

- [Kyle] Absolutely, yeah.

- [Phillipe] Great, thanks. So this is some of the prettiest soil I think I've ever seen.

- This is actually a new potting soil that we're trying this year and so far we've been really, really happy with it. It's pre-ground and that means that it doesn't clump quite like the soil we were using last year. So we have, we have really good drainage but we also have really good water retention in the soil. So we can hold that sort of rung-out sponge moisture level. And make sure our seeds germinate really well.

- Yeah and I see a lot of different things in here too that, you know there's some rocks in here that are helping with drainage.

- Right.

- A lot of the soils that you know, the home gardener is gonna get at home is pretty much straight Peat Moss.

- Definitely, definitely. Yeah and we have this in our store for sale, and then this potting soil also meets USDA Organic Standards, because we are an Organic Farm.

- So what are some kind of tips and tricks that people can use at home on a smaller scale?

- So, having a good potting soil is key. Keeping those seedlings moist but not too moist. Having a strong availability of light, so making sure that those plants are having a good 12 hours of light everyday. And if that means using an alternative light source, a growing light, that helps. Keeping the seedlings soil at the right temperature. And then also very, very important is keeping things very clean and sanitary. So we use these new trays every year, but if you are going to reuse trays you need to make sure they're very very clean. We follow here at Green Door, we follow the USDA Organic standards for what solutions to use when we're cleaning the Greenhouse, and our trays and things if we do end up needing to reuse them. But, typically we'll buy new trays to make sure that everything goes smoothly, because we are planting on scale.

- [Phillipe] Well thank you so much.

- [Kyle] You're very welcome.

- [Phillipe] I'm looking forward to coming back out and seeing all these seedlings in the fields and everything growing this Summer. I can already smell 'em. Thank so much.

- [Kyle] Thank you.

- It's time to start planting and we're at a great place today that's got all of your plant needs if you're in West Tennessee. I'm with Morgan Benson, he's with Digger O'Dell Nursery and Landscape. And you're going to tell me Morgan kind of some tips that viewers might need as far as selecting plants and what plants go together, which ones don't.

- Absolutely.

- So tell me about this, because lets just say I'm your typical customer and I come up and I've got a hodge-podge of plants just like this. You want obviously, success in the garden. So how would you advise me as far as which plants need to be planted together-

- Yeah.

- Which plants don't.

- It probably all starts with the size and the location for your particular garden area. Whether it be against the house, or if you're doing more formal, or more leisurely planting throughout the yard. You always want to know the sizes of things, just how big they get, you don't want to put something too big in too small of a space.

- And no it's not gonna stay this size.

- Exactly, not by any means.

- So lets say I've got this Verigated Hydrangea. So obviously you're tag is a source of a lot of information, as far as this goes. But what it doesn't tell you, is what would look good with this.

- Exactly, well if you're thinking Hydrangea, you're thinking probably more morning sun, afternoon shade. There are some varieties that can handle more sun but this variety in particular loves morning sun, afternoon shade. You can always go with a color pop of the Georgia Peach Heuchera, that's gonna go good in front of the Hydrangea to give you that caramel, purpley color, to offset this white and green. Which would look really-

- [Tammy] It's a real contrast, isn't it?

- [Morgan] It is.

- [Tammy] Okay, so all of these are... Are all of these in this family shade lovers?

- [Morgan] They are, most of your Heucheras can take a little sun. Sometimes after they start getting that hot afternoon heat, that might burn them up a little bit.

- [Tammy] Yeah.

- [Morgan] So it's always best, morning sun probably up to about twelve o'clock, one o'clock something like that is gonna be best for that plant.

- [Tammy] Got it. And tell me what this little, adorable is right here, that's got the sweet little bloom.

- [Morgan] That is the shade loving Brunnera. Fairly low, tends to kind of spread out and clump out a little bit. Very good for deeper shade gardens and again you get the contrasting white and green with the pops of blue on top of the plant.

- [Tammy] Talk to me about the sun lovers, lets start with this wonderful Fountain Grass.

- [Morgan] That's your Purple Fountain Grass, he's gonna be for zone seven, he'll be an annual. But this is a good pop of color around the mailbox in planters, on either side of a sunny front porch. Lots and lots of purple color, you'll get the greens in there too. And of course your little Cat Tail on top. Sun lovers, as much as you can give it.

- [Tammy] And is this a water lover as well?

- [Morgan] I would say no, most of your Grasses are pretty drought tolerant, so you could go a little on the lighter side for watering, you'd be okay.

- And I do love this funky-

- It gives you a different texture. Like I said in front of the, either side of your doorway would look perfect against a white house, that purple is really gonna pop.

- Okay so you've got this in a planter, what would you accompany this with that I have here on my cart?

- [Morgan] You could do probably the best thing would be the Moss Phlox, with the purple up front.

- [Tammy] Here?

- [Morgan] Exactly. That would do more to trail over your planters, give you a nice spill effect. You could even pick you out a few more trailing annuals and stick it in the pot, maybe some Chartreuse, Yellow Potato Vine, or something like that. That would work well.

- [Tammy] Yeah, just something that's just a little bit different than your normal look.

- [Morgan] Exactly.

- Now you've got some unusual things, I want you to talk to me about this lovely plant here.

- I will, this is a Jazz Hands, Dwarf White Loropetalum. It's kind of the, almost a cousin to the Emerald Snow Loropetalum, this guy's gonna do about three to three and a half tall and wide. Green foliage with the white flowers so instead of your contrasting purple with your red or pink flowers, this gives a good alternative.

- [Tammy] And again, is this a sun lover?

- [Morgan] It is, sun lover.

- [Tammy] It'll go very well with your Salvia, or you Moss Phlox.

- [Tammy] Okay and then talk to me about this wonderful Fern here because I just love the variation that you've got on this Fern.

- [Morgan] That's a Japanese Painted Fern. As it matures up you'll have more purpleing through your center vane, through here. Lots and lots of the nice greens and whites on this plant too. Smaller in size, maybe he's not gonna get big as some of your more traditional, say your Autumn Fern or something like that. He won't handle quite as much sun as the Autumn, so again you might go back to maybe doing these as a second tier in front of your Variegated Hydrangea.

- See this is the beauty of talking to somebody at the Nursery because you can't know everything so it's nice to see the new stuff. And you actually had a Japanese Maple that really caught my eye.

- [Morgan] We do, we do, we have a Sango Kaku Japanese Maple, also known as the Coral Bark. Lots of crazy, crazy pink bark throughout the Winter. The leaves come out a chartreuse green, and then they fade to a bright yellow in the fall. So almost three times of color, year round.

- [Tammy] And it's just stunning, I mean it almost looks fake.

- [Morgan] Yeah. People ask if they're painted and all kinds... Yeah, no. This one will handle more sun than some of your traditional ones. He'll do fine in a little bit, if he was getting morning sun up to afternoon shade. Even if he was a shady garden in the morning, and afternoon sun in the afternoon that would be fine.

- [Tammy] Okay so Morgan, we've got a common Azalea here but this one is so loaded with buds. What's the name of this Azalea?

- [Morgan] That is a Midnight Flare Azalea. Medium sized grower, loves the morning sun, likes a little bit of being protected in the afternoon from that hot, hot heat. But all around a great, great Azalea. Smaller leaf on that and you can see the new growth is a lot brighter against that mature-

- [Tammy] And it's loaded with buds.

- [Morgan] Loaded.

- And you were telling me that a good companion plant for this Azalea is this little adorable. Now tell me who this is.

- That is Artemisia Silver Mound, that gives you, and you can tell it's very, very soft. Again I've seen this plant do well in morning sun, I've seen it get a little afternoon and it does just fine. Great texture, that's where the key thing is for that. If you do that towards a low walkway or something in the same bed as the Azaleas, it would give you a nice, that gray-green look compared to that dark leaf with the red blooms. Lower growing plant and he'll spread out for ya.

- [Tammy] And it feels like a cashmere sweater.

- [Morgan] It does, very soft.

- [Tammy] So it's like the cashmere sweater of the plant world.

- [Morgan] And these guys you can cut those back in the Fall and they'll come back with abundance in the Spring.

- [Tammy] Oh, see that's what we love. In kind of thinking about this to help our viewers. What's the common mistake that people make with plants? Do they bunch 'em too close together? I've always heard that.

- A lot of times yeah, cause you're spacing on your plants, some of these guys you know if a plant's gettin' four feet, you don't necessarily need three of 'em in a six foot area, you know? So if you let the plants kinda do their thing and kind of follow their natural size. I mean, you would reduce your cost, and your planting.

- [Tammy] Right.

- [Morgan] But also not make it look cramped up and messy two years down the road.

- [Tammy] Right. So here at the Nursery, tell me, y'all have got oodles of plants. Anything that you need, you've probably got.

- [Morgan] Yep.

- [Tammy] So how many Greenhouses, do you have any idea how many plants y'all run through here?

- [Morgan] Oh, a lot. We've probably got 15 plus Greenhouses that we sell out of, for sure. We're on a 30 acre lot. We've been here since the late seventies, early eighties. We changed ownership about 11 years ago. I've been with the company for probably the past five years and we've expanded our inventory since then. We are really kickin' as far as Perineals, Annuals, Trees and Shrubs, we've got 'em.

- [Tammy] That's perfect to know.

- [Morgan] More or less March through probably November, we're here seven days a week.

- Got it. It is a beautiful place to visit-

- Thank you.

- You've made me want to load up.

- You gonna take a few home with ya?

- Yes.

- There you go.

- And I really appreciate your expertise, and thank you from our viewers to you as well. That we want to be plant friendly and so talk to your Nursery.

- [Morgan] Talk to your local guys, they'll know what's going on.

- [Tammy] Exactly.

- Well it's early April in Warner Park where there is a myriad of Wildflowers that anybody could enjoy, even if you're not a gardener. I'm here with Deb Beazley who's going to tell me all about the Wildflowers.

- [Deb] Welcome to Warner Park.

- [Julie] Well thank you. Well, I understand that these Wildflowers are doing quite well right here in the sunshine, where as I always thought they sort of needed shade.

- [Deb] I think a lot of people think that with Spring Wildflowers that they're very delicate, and have to grow in the shade, like people think of Ferns and so forth. But, actually they come up and bloom before the trees leaf out so it's very sunny down here now. And they like and need that sun.

- [Julie] Well Deb this is particularly beautiful purple Wildflower here and it's seems awfully large for a Wildflower.

- [Deb] This is purple Phacella, it is a beautiful, relatively large Spring Wildflower. It's just started blooming for this season, here in early April would be the time to start seeing purple Phacella. Here we have one of the prettiest, actually several of the prettiest Spring Wildflowers, the Jack-in-the-pulpit. Which is an unusual flower shape, it's in the Arisaema family. And everything in that family has flowers that contain a Spathe, and a Spadix. The Spathe in Jack-in-the pulpit is that cup with hood on it and then the Spadix is that little spike inside that sits in the cup. Now all of this is surrounding the flowers because they're actually very tiny little things at the very bottom of that spike inside that cup.

- [Julie] And this of course is our beautiful Trillium.

- [Deb] Oh they are just lovely, the Trilliums are in the Lily family. Trillium of course comes from the word for three, tri. They have three leaves, three seaples, three petals and then six stamens. That's typical for the Trilliums. Most of the Trilliums here in Warner Park are this marron, red color, and they have a very unique odor, a fragrance coming from this marron flower, that draws in flies and so forth as they're a pollinator. Because the marron flowers smell something like rotting meat.

- [Julie] So not the cutting flower to have in your Wildflower garden but just something to take a nice look at.

- [Deb] Absolutely.

- Well Deb I see something here that you don't often see in the Spring, around my house. I see a Rattlesnake-

- Ah.

- Fern!

- Absolutely, people freak out when we talk about this Fern. This one's interesting, it has spores that are on a separate stalk from the leaves. Most Ferns produce their spores on the underside of the leaf. This one as well as the one called Grape Fern, have their spores on a separate stalk in the center of the plant that will get a little bit taller and the spores will mature and look something like the Rattler of a Rattlesnake. This is Dutchman's Britches, beautiful little britches on a clothesline. That's how they get their name. White flowers, these are in the bleeding heart family. Very distinctive, a lot of people recognize Dutchman's Britches because they're so unusual. They don't look like any of our other flowers. Each flower has two spurs, pointing upwards, so the flower is hanging down. And dependent on Bumble Bees to pollinate them so they're hanging there and out of reach for a lot of other insects and crawling insects especially.

- [Julie] Well here we have another gorgeous purple flower.

- [Deb] This is Dwarf Larkspur, it is beautiful, it's in the Buttercup family. A very diverse family, with things that don't seem to look alike. But Larkspur, it's Latin name is Delphinium, and that means little Dolphin. That refers to the shape of the flower buds before they open.

- [Julie] Well these delightful little parasols Deb, I know that they're Mayapples.

- [Deb] Yes and they are, they're described as like little umbrellas, little parasols, little palm trees. They're well known and mid-April is their time. We see some flower buds here, the flowers will bloom in April. Then around late Summer, early August say, the little apples will be produced. The August Apples we should call them. Well Julie this is got to be the prettiest part of Percy Warner Park, this section of the Mossy Ridge Trail. It's four and half miles but all you have to do is walk a half a mile on it and see a tremendous number of Spring Wildflowers. It's just gorgeous.

- Well I'm seeing some really nice, lovely, tiny, white flowers right here.

- [Deb] Doll's Eyes is just starting for the season, so it's one of the later Spring flowers. These little white flowers are going to turn into seeds that are very white with a black spot on them. And sure enough they look like eyeballs, and that will happen around Summer, late Summer. You'll walk through the woods and see a cluster of eyeballs looking at you. So they're quite fun. So every season in Warner Park is beautiful.

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