Episode 2614

- [Narrator] On this episode, Troy Marden shares his picks for showy ornamental grasses. Sheri Gramer visits with a mix master of cocktails who features flavors right out of the garden. And of course, a whopping sized watermelon story. You'd best stay tuned. First, simply lovely garden beds in equally lovely settings.

- It's a beautiful day in Leiper's Fork, Tennessee. We're going to enjoy beautiful gardens of historical day lilies and along the way, we're gonna find wonderful punctuations of garden art. We're in the garden of Will Coltharp today, and you know what? He calls himself a gardener.

- I am a gardener.

- Well, I call you a gardener extraordinaire. Seven years into this garden. Take us on a beautiful tour.

- Okay, we'll start, first of all, welcome Annette.

- Thank you.

- Always glad to have visitors. This is a daylily garden also, so we are always open the month of June. It's a display garden. This is one of the perennial borders. We've got some Baptisia, we've got some daylilies.

- Let's go walk amongst them.

- Okay, and we've got a pot there that I've put some garden art in. I like my garden art. Got to have that.

- [Annette] That's a fabulous dragonfly.

- [Will] I really appreciate that. I enjoy that piece.

- [Annette] And you know, right here what I see in your garden is that you punctuate along the way with some colors that really pop. And the blue is one of them, and you also have used maroon, and so, it's just so wonderful. And when I stand here, maybe not what the camera sees, but how you have designed and laid out your gardens with curves and then put in the pops of color, whether it be with plants or garden art. It's a great accomplishment.

- [Will] Well, thank you. What I've tried to do is make the beds wider. I have always tended to make them too narrow. And you get the full effect when you have the wider bed with the swats of color, and that's what I'm trying to do, and I repeat color. I do the blue here, the blue's repeated again there, and then I need my contrasting colors also.

- [Annette] And see, even the way you've used your Japanese maple here, and then you've taken that color over here with this beautiful spike plant in the middle of this. So, it moves the eye. Lots of things can move our eyes in the garden.

- [Will] And I have my favorite colors. The purples, the maroons, and then I punctuate with yellows. White's always a good color to throw in to sort of diffuse, if it's too bold a color mix.

- [Annette] Well let's focus on some of these plants that you're achieving this color with. Like for instance, you've used this beautiful gold daylily here.

- Right, and that's actually an older daylily. It's labeled as part of the Chicago series that was popular back in the '70s.

- [Annette] Right, and I like the way you've repeated again another plant over here that mirrors this, that gives balance, doesn't it?

- [Will] Right.

- [Annette] And then of course, you can't say too much about the basketball over here.

- [Will] Nothing can compete with a hydrangea.

- [Annette] Incrediball.

- The Incrediball. I think it's a type of arborescens isn't it?

- It is, smoothly. Yes it is. And then you've also got the red over here of the Cros...

- [Will] Crocosmia, Lucifer.

- [Annette] Exactly. Why did they name something so beautiful that?

- [Will] I don't know. That is a bright red. That is a very bright red for the garden.

- [Annette] As a daylily enthusiast, Will, you go way back to categorize the historical aspect, please. Of the Hemerocallis.

- The American Hemerocallis Society has a display garden status that is pre 1980. Any cultivar that was registered pre 1980 is considered a historical. This garden is a designated historical display garden by HS. I've tried to stick to anything prior to 1960 because it makes me feel younger.

- [Annette] That's a good idea. Tell me this, where do you locate these? I belong to the HS and the local daylily club but if you google some of these cultivar names, you can find them and there's a network of folks who really have an interest in historic cultivars.

- [Annette] Okay, now then, I know they're hybridized. You do have this garden arranged according to the hybridizes, according to some of the older varieties and species.

- [Will] Right, and what I've tried to do was tell a story with this garden because in the back corner is the collection of species. That's where everything started. They came from the orient.

- All of these came from--

- That's right. And then, this bed over here they date back to 1893, 1905, 1910 and that's the first signs of the hybridizing of the species. I am very partial to the Virginia Peck cultivars. She and her husband were English professors at NTSU. They started hybridizing tetraploid, which refers to the chromosome count. Back in the 70s and she has some of, to me, the hardiest and most vigorous cultivars out there.

- What would this variety be right here?

- That would be a tetraploid. This one is White Pansy. She registered that in 1987. All of her colors though are so vibrant, they just really pop out of the garden.

- [Annette] Yeah, I can see that.

- [Will] And they're vigorous plants.

- [Annette] Look at the yellow.

- [Will] And they're tall.

- [Annette] I like the size of the blooms too.

- [Will] She's got some wonderful stuff and you'll see Virginia Peck's cultivars in Tennessee probably more than anywhere else. This is a Virginia Peck cultivar called Smoking Gun. She registered it back in 1987. It's from this cultivar that many of the real dark black burgundy newer registrations have come from. This is one of my favorite.

- [Annette] When I look at that it glistens. I don't see any spotting but I guess that can come with--

- [Will] It can come now. Lots of daylily enthusiasts will spray for thrips in the spring. I don't spray. But that's where a lot of your spotting comes from.

- [Annette] Oh.

- [Will] They get in the bloom back in March and if you spray two or three times in the month of March you can avoid that spotting. This part of the garden is devoted to species. It's actually from this group of species that all these other daylilies have come from. I like them because they're fragrant. They're nocturnal. They're tall and look at the branching. This is my Hosta collection. I just started collecting miniatures. I've got some in these hyper tuber pots that I made myself about 25 to 30 years ago. They're still in one piece. This is a new collection that I just started to add to the daylily garden.

- [Annette] Well you've done it well, beautiful.

- [Will] Thank you. Here's another piece of art that I like that I got several years ago. I call it the garden bell. It weighs a ton. It took my front end loading tractor to get in here but it has what I consider a very pleasant sound. It would be nice if someone could ring that at the end of each garden day.

- I think I need interpretation, Will.

- I think every person has their own interpretation on this. This one is called Pinnacle Bird. It's by an artist Tim Price, I believe. He's out of Clarksville. I bought this several years ago.

- [Annette] Really?

- [Will] I think it fits this spot just perfectly.

- [Annette] Will, this is a wonderful combinations of lots of things I used to see on the farm. It came up as a giraffe.

- It did come up as a giraffe. It's by an artist, Major Hall. Another purchase at the local craft fair during the month of May. When I put a picture of this giraffe on Facebook, it probably gets more comments than anything. Everyone likes what I call, April the giraffe.

- Yes, and we know why. That was fun to follow wasn't it?

- [Will] Yeah.

- A wonderful plow point. This right here is a half of a bed spring probably. Even got a bicycle chain for its tail.

- [Will] I was wondering what that was. I wasn't sure this is either.

- [Annette] I don't know.

- [Will] This looks like a fixture on a fence.

- [Annette] And a top link.

- [Will] Yes.

- [Annette] Correct or not. I don't care that it might be blowing up a storm, Will. We've just gotta walk down this path. The daylily in here are such beautiful specimens. You've actually, can you give me the direction of how these are planted. Is this north, south, east, west?

- [Will] That would be south.

- [Annette] Okay, so they're kind of north but you see how they are actually, sometimes daylily will reach for light but these seem to all be growing upright.

- [Will] Right, they are and westerly direction is over to our left so that's probably why you see some of them pointing in that direction. This was the first bed we put in when we moved here. Many of these are the newer cultivars that we've collected, that we buy on shopping trips when we these plant stores.

- I'm about to dive in to this one.

- [Will] My Sunny Valentine. That is a nice one.

- [Annette] Isn't that beautiful? Will, this is what you do when you buy 18 acres.

- Sometimes you end up with a riding ring. We didn't have any horses so we looked at it and decided, we're gonna turn this into daylily gardens. We are probably the only people in Leiper's Fork that have a daylily garden in a riding ring. Welcome to the Golden Nugget Arena.

- Okay, and you know underneath it you probably had some pretty good solves. You know, one of the advantages of having this vast property is you afford the ability to buy plants, put them where they can have all the room they need, and they're not restricted in any way.

- [Will] You're only limited by your energy level.

- [Annette] I'm just so sorry the rain has started to fall but it doesn't put a damper on anything that we've seen and all the work that's gone into this and the knowledge that you have and just to know that you can come up always with mew and fresh ideas at the end of the day and end of the seasons you have other things of beauty in your garden with your art. I just want to tell you, rain drops are falling on my head.

- [Will] Thank you Annette for coming.

- [Sheri] Farm to table. Locally grown. You've heard all that before. But what about where our beverages come from? There's something new going on out there. It's called garden crafted or wild crafted cocktails. We have a treat. We're gonna meet somebody known as #thedrinkwhisperer. We are in beautiful picturesque Allenbrooke Farms in Spring Hill Tennessee. A CSA farm and we are here utilizing their fruits and vegetables today to show you how to do garden crafted cocktails. I'm here with Zachary Helton, and he has been a bartender for over 18 years.

- Yeah, we are doing a lot of little easy, simple cocktails but where you can use fresh produce.

- [Sheri] You always use your fresh fruits and vegetables and herbs.

- [Zachary] If you're gonna eat fresh and drink healthy, I think that should all just play hand in hand. The fresher mint, the fresh squeezed juice as well, its all really important. You don't want to use anything fake if you can get away from it. You make better drinks that way.

- Alright, Zachary, let's get started. What are we gonna do first?

- Being in the South, I think we should start with is a julep. A little take on a julep that I'm gonna do tonight is gonna be a peach julep.

- Yum.

- I've made a local peach syrup. Just equal parts peaches, sugar and water. I've cooked that up right here. We're gonna use some fresh mint from the farm as well. We have sourced a local bourbon from Leiper's Fork distillery. We're gonna try to stay everything we can out here in Williamson county.

- Okay.

- This is a beautiful nine year old bourbon. From Leiper's Fork. It's called Hunter's Barrel Select. We're gonna use this bourbon, peach syrup, mint, and a bunch of ice. That's gonna be it.

- Alright.

- To start off, classic julep always has your julep tins so we've got one of those today. What we're gonna do is crush a little bit of ice. You can always buy bagged ice that's already crushed. Or, if you want to show off a little bit you can do it yourself. That's what we'll do tonight. I've got some right over here we're gonna use.

- [Sheri] Gotcha.

- We're gonna take just your household muddler, whatever you might have. Even the back of a hammer, if you got one of those if you don't have a muddler. Gonna get this right in to the regular ice. And start to crush it. You can see some people at bars will have what's called a Lewis bag and a big hammer and make a big show of this. That's all fun when you're trying to be dramatic.

- While you're finishing crushing the ice, tell me about the muddling. What is the purpose of muddling?

- You're expressing either oils or the citrus out of whatever you might be muddling.

- Okay.

- In this case we're gonna eventually muddle a little bit of mint and all the flavor from the mint when you're doing it in cocktails, is all gonna come from the back of the leaves.

- Okay.

- These little veins, we're actually wanting to express that oil out of there. You don't really need to beat it up. Literally, just a little bit of tapping.

- So, you don't want to pulverize it.

- Right, correct. That's usually people's mistake where they'll get in and do too much beating it up. It only takes a couple seconds. We're gonna fill a julep tin up with ice. Pack that nice and in there. Your classic julep, when you're doing this one, you're barely gonna shake it and you need a lot of mint. It's your main thing. A little bit of sugar and a whole lot of bourbon. Should make a really good julep.

- So basically, you're just stripping them off the main branch.

- I am. What you're gonna get from the main branch is gonna be a lot of bitterness. You want to keep that away. We've got a good pile of mint here.

- [Sheri] Mm, it smells good.

- [Zachary] About a good handful. What you're gonna do, smash it, rub it together. It's gonna express oils. You could even smell it even more.

- You're just kinda speeding up the muddling.

- Exactly. That way, I'm really not wanting to bruise it. If I can do it with my hands, it's even better. So, a little bit of that. Next, you're gonna take your measuring tool. What we're gonna do is a two ounce pour of bourbon. Which gives us about a half ounce of syrup. You can use simple syrup, just sugar water. Or you can use this peach syrup like I've done. For a little bit more flavor. So, we'll measure out. Syrup. What I always tell people, the best thing to do at this point is to go ahead and muddle now before you put in the more expensive spirit. Because the last thing you want to do is make a bad drink and make a mistake--

- Waste that liquor.

- And you've wasted the liquor. It's still gonna be good because you're drinking it but at least this way you know that you've got the sugar and that. We're taking the same muddler that we used for the ice. And just kind of tapping it. I'm not really putting my elbow into it. Pretty much just a couple fingers.

- Teasing that oil out of there.

- Yeah, exactly. You've got a nice little paste right there at the bottom. We just add bourbon and shake. And then shake it. About that long. Not long at all.

- No.

- Strain all your good stuff from your top shaker. Most places I've worked, we always prefer cleaner cocktails. By that, I don't want to have to dig things out of my teeth.

- So you're gonna strain it?

- Yes ma'am. We're gonna what's called, double strain this. We were using a Hawthorne strainer to start. Your typical strainer, you can get it almost anywhere for your cocktail sets. And then a nice little tea strainer. That's gonna catch anything else we need. Pour right into there. Over the crushed ice. The next part is pick you out a good piece of mint that looks really nice.

- Make it pretty for the garning.

- Yeah, and you're going to do the same thing we did earlier but this time you just slap it on your hands. And then we're gonna stick this right into here. And then, a lot of people don't really think about it but actual placement of your straw is really important too.

- Okay.

- If you're gonna go through all that and put the mint in there, do you really want to have the straw right behind it?

- Pretty picture.

- So that when people go to drink it, their nose is right in front of the mint. Tell me what you think.

- Yeah.

- Awesome.

- [Sheri] Alright, Zach. We're ready for another cocktail. What are we gonna make now?

- [Zachary] This one is one of my originals. I call it The Neon Nights. Everybody loves gin and cucumber. That's a really popular thing in most bars. People always ask for a little of that in their gin and tonic. People also ask, if you're using fresh juice and I don't want anything too sweet. This is exactly what I wanted to come up with was a very herbaceous, light, fun cocktail. This one, The Neon Nights, everything about is gonna be green. We're using english cucumbers.

- Juicy, non-juicy, really ripe?

- Riper the better.

- Do you prefer english cucumbers over regular?

- I do. I think they give a good meatier texture to them. When you're breaking them down and we're gonna muddle them as well.

- The seeds are smaller too.

- They are. So you don't have too much that you're trying to strain away or keep really clean. These are nice and crisp. These are gonna be really good today. We've got some god fresh mint, as well. Fresh squeezed lime juice. We're doing little bit of simple syrup. We have a beautiful local gin. It's Heath Clark's dry gin. This is actually made in Thompson Station out here in Williamson county. He's a good friend of mine. This is a locally sourced and distilled gin in our county. Which is really, really nice. It's a nice high-end gin you can find it locally all over Tennessee. He gets local juniper, a little bit of coriander in there and you get small little citrus notes off it. It's not a super aggressive gin. A lot of people have bad experiences with gin. It's usually before they're allowed to actually legally drink.

- Like drinking pine needles.

- Exactly, too much Christmas tree. This one's actually really light and refreshing. It's not nearly as aggressive. The next one is a little something different. It's called Green Chartreuse.

- I had not heard of this before.

- You should, it's amazing. As a bartender, this is easily one of my favorite spirits. What you have is an herbal liquor. It's 110 proof so it does have a bite to it. It's actually made from Carthusian Monks near the south of France. They've been making this thing since 1605.

- Is it bitter or sweet then?

- It is...

- Savory maybe?

- Bitter, herbal, and strong.

- Okay.

- [Zachary] First, we'll start with the english cucumber. We're gonna get about an inch and half worth. Along with the cucumber, we're gonna be pairing that with some mint.

- Again, you're stripping the branch and putting the leaves in.

- Taking that bitter part off. We're gonna have a good amount of mint. We definitely wanna get some good flavor out of this. Same way, gonna give it a little rub and then I've got fresh squeezed lime juice that I did earlier today. What we're gonna go here, is a three quarter of an ounce of lime juice. Our intention here is to not make a sweet cocktail. We're gonna do the lime and we're gonna do the simple syrup first. Like I said before with the julep, do your citrus and do your sugars first with the fruit before you put in your more expensive booze.

- Okay.

- On this one, we're only using a quarter ounce of simple syrup. I wanted it more tart. Not everybody likes sweet cocktails. So this one with the cucumber and mint should give us enough sweetness. Now we're gonna grab your muddler and this one unlike the julep, you're really gonna get in here.

- [Sheri] Okay.

- Use a little bit of elbow grease.

- You're gonna really mush that baby.

- Yes ma'am. You gotta get this all kinda nice and mixed up. Should make a nice little paste almost towards the bottom. So you've got all kind of nice and mushed up together.

- [Sheri] Here you go Zach, let's get that baby going.

- Now the fun stuff. We're gonna do this Heath Clark gin. We're gonna do an ounce and three quarters of this. And then just a half ounce of the chartreuse. Unlike the julep, where we were putting it over crushed ice, this cocktail is actually gonna call for bigger ice. What we're gonna do, is put on some larger cubes of ice.

- Mammo jammo cubes.

- [Zachary] That's right. You know, the larger cubes you'll see a lot at cocktail bars where they're using these nowadays because little ice and big ice all melts at the same speed so if I've got two big pieces of ice compared to a bunch of little ones, I've got less water in my drink.

- Okay that makes sense.

- So it's gonna hold up for longer. So you can take your time drinking it.

- Not to mention it looks better.

- Yes, exactly. This one's a nice good shake. Don't want to waste anything.

- No, sir.

- Get it all in there. So, you're taking your Hawthorne strainer again and your tea strainer because it's a double strainer. Pour it right over on top of your ice. Cucumber, gin, mint, chartreuse.

- That's really good.

- Should be nice an refreshing?

- Yeah, actually it would be delicious on a warm day.

- Yes.

- Well, Zachary I gotta tell you, thank you so much for sharing your garden crafted cocktails. We are learning so much that there's more to do than cook with our vegetables and herbs and fruit, thank you.

- [Zachary] Yes ma'am. Thank you very much.

- A lot of people ask me what they can plant in their gardens to get a really sing season of interest and a lot of bang for their buck. When you purchase something at the garden center you want to know that what you're planting is gonna give you a show and be functional in your garden or your landscape. Ornamental grasses are one of my favorite things for just that reason because you can buy a small two or three gallon pot in April or May and by the end of the summer, you have something that looks like this beautiful grass here to my left. This is a Miscanthus. It happens to be a variegated Miscanthus. And you can see that it's a good bit taller than I am. Probably seven or eight feet, easily. At maturity. This is a huge old clump. Not all of them are going to be this big right when you plant them. But they will eventually get this large. The nice thing about grasses is, they come in a really wide aray of sizes and shapes. If you can't handle one that gets eight to ten feet tall, you can certainly handle one that gets two to three feet tall. There are many choices in that range also. Most of the grasses that you're seeing right here are different varieties of Miscanthus. The same species but just different cultivars that have been chosen for one reason or another. Mostly height, leaf color, or the size and shape of their plumes. If you need a really good focal point for your garden, this is one of the best. This is a Dwarf Pampas Grass called Ivory Feather. It's also one of the hardiest Pampas grass for our climate. Some of the Pampas Grasses are not quite as cold hardy as many of our other grasses are. But this one will live here just fine. You can see the magnificent display that it puts on every autumn. One of our most popular grasses for the garden as well as for containers is this beautiful burgundy Pennisetum. The burgundy fountain grass. The main difference between this grass and most of the others is that this one is an annual. It won't survive our winters here. But the nice thing is, you can buy this in as small a container as a four inch pot and it will be five feet tall and three or four feet across by the end of the summer. It gives you a lot of bang for your buck. An immediate gratification in the garden. This is red switch grass. The plumes are very light and airy. The foliage in the fall will take on just the slightest shade of really beautiful red as we get deeper into October it will become even more red and the mature size of this plant even in full bloom is only about four feet. It will spread about two and half to three feet across. So, if you don't have room for those big eight foot Miscanthus or six foot Dwarf Pampas grass, this is one of the grasses that will fit in very nicely to the garden. As would some of the smaller growing fountain grasses, Miscanthus, Pennisetum, and others. We've seen some really beautiful varieties of ornamental grasses and you may be asking yourself, what do they need? How do I grow them in my garden? Well, the only real requirement is full sun. They're extremely adaptable as far as soil is concerned. They'll take our heat, our humidity, our drought, without batting an eye. You just need to make sure they get a full six to eight hours of sun a day. If they don't, they'll have the tendency to spread open in the middle and then they're not nearly as pretty in the garden that way. You can see from these beautiful examples that grasses come in a wide variety of sizes that will fit into almost any garden. Large or small. And they offer such a fantastic array of textures and colors for the garden. Especially when you consider that most other plants have a broad leaf of some sort and this gives you an entirely different texture to use in your landscape. They mix so well with all of autumn's colors. Their plumes are beautiful and again, they just bring another height and dimension to the garden that you really shouldn't be without. So do a little exploring, learn a little bit about some of these ornamental grasses and add some to your garden for a beautiful fall display like the one you see here.

- [Phillipe] I'm here with Freddie Burcham in Pleasant View, Tennessee. It is fall time, it's kinda raining this morning. It's just a beautiful day. You've got all kinds of spectacular pumpkins right here. Some huge watermelons. This looks like it's been a good year for you.

- Yes, it's been an exceptional year for us this year. Cool weather has made the pumpkin crop really good this year. They've really done real good. We're hearing every where that everybody's got record breaking pumpkins this time.

- [Phillipe] Yeah, wow. I see some different squashes and things here. Different gourds. What's this?

- [Freddie] That's called caveman's gourd. It's kind of like a club. Got the big wrinkles and stuff on it. That's what they call that one.

- [Phillipe] Yeah, that's cool. And what's this guy?

- [Freddie] This is a swan.

- [Phillipe] A swan.

- They normally get a little bit bigger in the neck here, and you can paint after they dry out, they look like a swan. When the ends come over.

- Yeah, yeah. This one's real pretty.

- [Freddie] That's a cushaw. It's a cushaw pumpkin. It's also a sweet potato pumpkin. They can call it either one.

- [Phillipe] I've definitely never seen anything like this. This is not something that you're gonna pick up at the grocery.

- No, you're not gonna see too many of these in the grocery store. These are some-- I've been doing the watermelons for years and years now. And these are some of the biggest I've ever grown. This year, weather helped us a little bit on it because we had some cool spells in July this year, where it was real cool. Actually, I didn't think they was gonna get this big but it just seemed like the month of August they really turned it on. They come on good.

- [Phillipe] Uh huh, yeah. Now, do you grow these for the state fair or anything like that?

- [Freddie] I grow them for the state fair and other competitions that we go to and stuff.

- [Phillipe] Are any of these guys winners?

- They was all winners. They was second place down to fifth place.

- Wow, yeah. What's your biggest guy here?

- This one here is 230, 255, 227 and 217.

- This the biggest one?

- No, this one here was actually the biggest one. But it's been pulled a lot longer than this one here.

- Okay, wow, yeah. These are, I mean, I've never seen anything like this. This is real fun. We just had to stop and talk to you this morning.

- [Freddie] Well, I was glad you did.

- [Phillipe] I'm sure you love to show off your work.

- [Freddie] Oh, yeah, yeah. We enjoy going it. We like to watch them grow in the field and plus, it's a lot fun this time of year to show them off.

- Yeah, yeah, alright. Nice to meet you.

- It was nice meeting y'all.

- Thank you.