Episode 2745

- [Narrator 1] Behind every Pick Tennessee Products logo is a real Tennessee farmer. Pick Tennessee Products has helped people find those local farmers, food and fun for over 30 years.

- [Narrator 2] We are going to take you on a tour of a home landscape where the garden's beauty begins at the curb and follows all the way through the property. Annette Shrader looks at the plant pallet and color combinations that work here for both sun and shade. Plus, Troy Marden highlights a little known shade plant that stays green all year round. This and more. Join us. First, this garden landscape has eye catching spots at every turn.

- [Annette] It's a beautiful day in Kingsport, Tennessee and we're at the home of Cindy and Steve Harvell. The grounds here with its mini garden beds, vignettes, specimen plants and garden rooms is nothing short of spectacular. No other way to describe this and the Harvells have tapped a very capable plantsman and landscape designer to show us around. I discovered there's no truer friend than a gardener friend and I'm going to be talking with Jeff Calton about some of the plants we're gonna find in this landscape and right off the bat, I know Jeff, this I recognize, and agapanthus foliage. Now, tell me the name.

- [Jeff] Okay, this is Agapanthus Graskop. It's perfectly hearty. It's been here five or six years. It has sailed through ten bellow zero. We don't do anything special to it. The beds come out almost black. It's a little bit different than your normal agapanthus, but I'm thrilled that we can grow it.

- [Annette] Okay where can I go find one?

- [Jeff] This is a Monrovia, nursery plant. So, I'm sure any place that sells Monrovia products and order it for you.

- [Annette] Okay, and,

- You don't find them everywhere, but they can be gotten.

- I'm very excited about this. Now, I know, I'm not sure I've ever seen this pine back here or what is this bush?

- [Jeff] That's a Japanese black pine and it's a variety called Thunderhead.

- [Annette] Oh.

- [Jeff] And it's a slow grower. Has those long stiff needles, just looks like a, I don't know it just reminds me of teddy bear. The new candles, they're dark right now,

- [Annette] Yeah.

- [Jeff] But when they come out, they'll be white.

- Yes.

- Against that.

- Okay.

- And it's a slow grower, so it doesn't get outta hand.

- And I think every garden should have this Joe-Pye.

- I do too. That is a hybrid variety

- [Annette] Oh it is?

- [Jeff] called Little Joe, but Little Joe gets bigger here than he normally does

- [Annette] I was gonna say now my Little Joe is not that big

- [Jeff] I bought it. I got it as a Little Joe, but

- [Annette] You know, what's so exciting for me about this plant is right now if you drive through Tennessee and along the waterways, this is very prolific everywhere. It's one of my favorite.

- Very tall.

- Yes, it's one of my favorite going driving experiences

- Yeah.

- Okay, and you know, this right here is very twisted and unusual. Is this that, osage? What is this?

- [Jeff] No it's a Poncirus trifoliate Flying Dragon. You can see it grows all twisted.

- [Annette] Yeah.

- [Jeff] Has vicious re-curved thorns.

- [Annette] And it's in the citrus family? Oh there's, no it's not, I thought that was an orange.

- [Jeff] It's citrus. It flowered heavily, but then got frosted this spring, but they'll have oranges about the size of a ping pong ball.

- [Annette] Uh-huh.

- [Jeff] Very bitter, mostly seeds. If you plant the seeds, every one of them will come up.

- [Annette] Well then what's it good for? Might be a good deer preventer, maybe.

- Not so far .

- Okay, well then I'm gonna skip along down here because I know I saw some more evergreens that are really luscious in this part of the landscape. Right here standing above things, and I like the level of this, the berm.

- [Jeff] Okay, this berm is put in to give a little privacy and break from the street. A lot of stuff in here. This pine tree is one of my favorites. It's an Oregon Green, beyond that I can't remember the name, but it's a good pine. Saybrook Gold Junipers, which is a good Juniper to have

- [Annette] That's beautiful. Now when you say that, why are there bad Junipers?

- [Jeff] Some Junipers are very bad, I think, because well mainly they're overdone. They can get lots of brown dead growth inside. They will overwhelm the space. This is a good manageable size. It's easily maintained. It keeps a good, bright gold color all year and it develops these fox tail growth.

- Yes.

- Gives you a fluffy.

- Another thing to write down on paper.

- And it's soft. It won't eat you up when you have to work at it.

- And you know my eye is drawn to what's going to be really pretty in a few days that crepe myrtle there.

- [Jeff] Mmm-hmm.

- [Annette] That's a dwarf.

- [Jeff] That's a dwarf. We do head those back every year. We trim those differently than we do the standard crepe myrtles.

- [Annette] So, you head them back. Do you cut them to a foot? How do you do that?

- [Jeff] Some years we do. It just depends on the growing season.

- [Annette] Okay.

- [Jeff] But I think if you didn't trim them, they'd never get over five feet.

- [Annette] Well, that's still good.

- [Jeff] We don't want five feet.

- [Annette] Well and this is elevated for the purpose of privacy and just a little bit of the elevation out of a plant or two helps. This is a beautiful vignette and how it's been created, it's going from the lowly plant and accentuated by the tall and majestic, so right here we got a native sedum, don't we?

- There's several different sedums in there.

- [Annette] Yeah.

- [Jeff] You can see there's several different varieties going on. They've already flowered for the year.

- [Annette] And this is just a good example about how, if you can't insert a, sometimes the root bulbs and the things that are going on underneath the soil restrict us from planting, so by elevating and coming into a showcase pot like this and putting plants in it, it just makes it,

- [Jeff] A lot easier.

- [Annette] It sure is and I recognize a grass or two in here and the cannas and the overflow of the vine and then back here, we've got a perennial plant of the year.

- [Jeff] It's a good plant. Flower, it's only begun to flower the past week or so. It will flower for another two months. Deer hate it. So, I love it. It does smell like a onion, if you crush the leaves. Flowers for a long time. It's very good for pollinators. You'll see bees, butterflies, everything on it and it does flower for a long time and that's as big as it gets. The clumps will get larger.

- [Annette] And look how beautiful it plays off of the lavender and that gray leaf in there, the two purple combination. All behind there is one of those chartreuse plants that everybody longs for, isn't it?

- [Jeff] It is.

- [Annette] Get me something chartreuse in my garden and this is a sumac.

- [Jeff] It's a Tiger's Eye sumac

- [Annette] Tiger's Eye

- [Jeff] And that color, those chartreuse colors, work well pretty much anywhere.

- [Annette] And then that just lades on up into the wonderful branches of these flowing over bowles on this evergreen and what is this?

- [Jeff] That's a Weeping Norway spruce.

- [Annette] So that has some age on it, so it must have been a transplant with age.

- [Jeff] It was here when I came here and I'm sure it was put in as a large plant when it was installed.

- [Annette] Come in through a gate and you know every garden has to have, if we ever have time to use it, a relaxation time and point, so right here the sound of water. Isn't that great?

- It is.

- It's starting to set the theme, but then as we go through this meandering path that has a curve that takes the eye to a different direction, one of the things that I see effective to me when I look through here is how the echo of the chartreuse color of the sucre right here, even though behind us there are other plants with that color. Then it switches over here to the, is that Annabelle or?

- That's Annabelle.

- It so resembles the Incrediball, doesn't it?

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- [Annette] Yeah and this color keeps moving along with the curve of the path and here's another relaxing water sound that is so pleasing us both to the eye and to the ears and then we come to this other, same color, that's been repeated over here with the hosta and to me this is pleasing and you know I love this cordyline and then I guess the use of that Persian shield and this, tell me is the Carolina, South Carolina?

- South Carolina, Cindy's a South Carolina girl from Greenville.

- Yup.

- So we have a lot of South Carolina memorabilia.

- Oh well, why not?

- Around here.

- Yup, this is to me it is very pleasing and it stands out, the color and everything and the coleus and just a great use of color and this is a little house plant that I used to use.

- [Jeff] I call it the polka dot, I don't know,

- [Annette] Yeah, it is the polka dot, yeah and it comes in different colors.

- [Jeff] Yeah it does.

- [Annette] Green and white.

- [Jeff] This container we have, Cindy finds lots of different things. This is just an iron...

- [Annette] Oh yeah.

- [Jeff] Insert. I think it was a candle holder, but we don't do candles, so we did this, using a lime-green coleus, a little begonia, with some polka dot and another Persian shield.

- [Annette] Yeah there is and the green and white.

- [Jeff] Mmm-hmm. This is kind of a shady area. Doesn't get that much sun.

- [Annette] Well you know what, I think a candle'd be sort of nice coming up through .

- [Jeff] They tend to melt . They tend to melt during the day .

- [Annette] Okay . Well you know Jeff, no matter when or how you reach this point in this garden, it has the same effect, doesn't it?

- Mmm-hmm.

- It's calm. The breezes are coming, but even without that, there's a very nice collection of Sum and Substance Hostas over here and they come and go, but they are a beautiful, reliable plant. Then of course, I love the Mopheads here and then over there, which variety of Ligularia?

- [Jeff] Oh, I'm not sure. They're fully bedded. They're ready to flower.

- [Annette] And they're tall and yellow, aren't they?

- [Jeff] Yeah, they'll be this big.

- [Annette] Wow.

- [Jeff] Like a big yellow daisy.

- [Annette] It's been such a pleasure to walk with you through this beautiful garden and all of the design assets that are here and we know you've had a hand in that, as well as Cindy.

- [Jeff] Mmm-hmm.

- [Annette] And it's just been a beautiful visit and I've learned things here too.

- [Jeff] Well, Cindy's a joy to work with. She's a lot of fun and she lets you do pretty much whatever you want to do and I know her well enough to know what she likes.

- [Annette] That's wonderful.

- So it's a pretty good, she's a pretty good garden wife.

- Okay, well thank you.

- [Jeff] Well thanks for coming.

- Well, I love trees and I love planting trees, especially this time of year, spring and then again in the fall. You know what, Nashville is doing an amazing amount of tree planting right now that you can get in on. Let's find out all about it.

- [Julie] Root Nashville is this amazing new public and private partnership in Nashville that is planting trees and organizing this effort and leading the way is Libby Cheek. So, thank you so much

- Thank you.

- I see that you all have been planting.

- We have. We had a fantastic MLK planting day. We had close to 80 volunteers here, planting 74 ball and burlap trees, shade trees, that are gonna go in this Metro flood buyout property.

- Wow, well, now this is such a big partnership. So, you mentioned the buyout property,

- It is. So, this is a initiative that came out of the mayor's office and so we were fortunate that we have the mayor's support in addition to Metro Water Services. We have Nashville Health Alliance, which is from Senator Frist. We have the Nashville Tree Foundation, Hands On Nashville. We also have the Cumberland River Compact as the operational partner. So in addition to them, we have a lot of great volunteers that are helping us get trees in the ground and we are lookin forward to getting 500,000 trees planted by 2050.

- Wow, this is fantastic. Now, let's think about some of the purposes of this and you mentioned that this is one of the Metro home buyout properties that together the city, Metro Water Services and FEMA had the money to buy this property out in 2010 after the devastating floods. Now, how do trees fit in with that picture?

- Well the nice thing about trees, and I know a lot of people really don't realize so many of the water benefits that trees have. So, trees are great absorbers of storm water run-off. So in this property, there is a stream that runs behind us and as you mentioned in 2010, we had that unbelievable rain that came through and flooded so many areas in Nashville, and particularly those areas along streams and rivers. So, properties like this benefit greatly from having trees on the property cause the roots absorb that water. Over time, these trees are gonna mature. They're gonna grow into a wonderful tree canopy and those trees will not only absorb the water, but they're gonna filter air. It's gonna improve our air quality, our water quality. It's gonna reduce hot temperatures in the summer. I mean, you can't say enough good things about the trees, not to mention, you know, for those of you that like songbirds, it's gonna allow habitat for the birds in the community to come and nest and it'll just provide so much beautiful green space that we just didn't have before. Spreading out the different types of tree, species of tree, we're helping to offset so they're not all oak trees. They're not all ash trees. It's a nice mix. This particular setting, we chose trees that are native to the Tennessee area, but they also do well with water and then we care for the tree. So, all these trees that you see here, they're gonna be on a two year watering program. So the Cumberland River Compact, as part of its plan for planting all these trees, will be coming around and checkin on them and they're gonna know we've checked our rain gauges. We know that there hasn't been enough rain in Nashville, so we're gonna come out with our watering truck and water these trees for the next two years to give them every possible chance of thriving and growing into mature trees.

- So, can we participate and somehow in this effort?

- So, you can go to our website. You can apply for a small grant and by this, if you've got a neighborhood group or a civic organization or a church group, school group that wants to come in and do a tree planting, we would be more than happy to help you with that. So, you just download the grant, fill it out and we would, we'll have a consultation with you to make sure, go out and visit the site that you're talkin about and make sure that what you're asking for actually fits what we can do and then we advise you accordingly and we are just so fortunate that Nashville is the city that it is, to have the support of the mayor's office, to have the support of Senator Frist with the Nashville Health and all these different tree organizations. You know, we've got the Nature Conservancy helping us back up what we're trying to do. We want to make Nashville a healthier city to live in. So, we've got all this wonderful data that's coming in to say you've got people in this area of town that have all these respiratory illnesses. Well guess what? Planting trees in that area is gonna help lower the temperature to help those people that have chronic bronchitis or asthma not make as many trips to the hospital. We wanna make everyone benefit from all that a tree can give and that's why, either request a tree, plant a tree or help us raise money to buy more trees because 500,000 trees is a lot of trees to get in the ground and that's roughly 16,000 a year and so far, as of the beginning of this week, we had over 3,100 trees that have been counted. So if you've got a one inch caliper tree that you would like to plant and you want to have it counted, go to our website and you can click on the register a tree and you can see first hand what kind of impact your tree's gonna have. You can see how much water it absorbs, you can see how much air is filtered and you can see the value that it adds to your property. I mean there's so many great tools to this tree plotter and you can see where in Nashville trees have already gone and if you have a large group that really wants to see how many tree have I planted, the Nashville Tree Foundation has a lot of trees that they've been able to plot that have added to this campaign. So, we are just so grateful for all of these wonderful organizations who are adding to this tree count cause we can't do it by ourselves. It's gonna take all of us getting in there together, making a difference and in the long run, you know, with all the development that's going on in Nashville, we've got a lot to do to make sure the tree planting matches the other development that's going on.

- [Julie] And we're so happy that the city of Nashville and this project are coming together to put in all of these trees. Now, think about it everybody. When you're out there planting your tree this year, if it's one of these, it it's about six feet tall and about an inch across, your tree can be famous. It can be part of this effort by going on the Root Nashville website to register the tree and if you just want a lot more experience planting trees, sign up for one of the volunteer projects.

- Sign up. It's great. I mean, yesterday truly, when I came out here and looked at the property and saw all the trees waiting to be planted and the ground had been frozen and you know, we were all a little waiting on edge to see if it was gonna happen and those volunteers got in here and dug up those holes and got those trees in the ground and we were finished by 11 o'clock and so in an hour and a half time really, it was done, 74 trees in the ground. So if you've got a large group that has community service hours that you would like to contribute, give us a call. Talk to Hands On Nashville. They're always helpin corporate groups come in and plan a planting day. If you have a site that you know of that needs trees, let us know. We are always looking for sites that are good. Doesn't necessarily have to be a flood zone area. It could be any area that may have been developed and then has been left vacant and just needs some love and what better way to show love for your community than to put a tree in the ground.

- If this garden looks familiar to you, it might because we have been here on a couple of other occasions, looking specifically at this magnificent hosta collection, which now numbers over 800, but today I really want to look at shade garden companion plants. Things that will go with your hostas, but that give you different seasons of interest, different textures, different colors and different types of foliage. One of this of this gardener's quest was to find evergreen species to mix with the hostas because there's such an enormous variety of hosta in this garden, in the winter, when everything goes dormant, it was awfully bare. So, one of the first plants that she turned to was Rohdea japonica and we're going to see some vastly different varieties of this, but I wanted to show you the straight species first, as it exists in the wild. So, this plant is about a foot tall. You can see that it has kind of narrow, strap-like leaves, solid green, just a wide range of beautiful, beautiful plants. They come from Japan. They've been grown for hundreds, if not thousands of years and there are many, many different varieties all coming from one species and you can see some of the differences in these plants. This particular variety has a long strap-like leaf, green with a white edge. There are other variegated forms as well. They also come in solid green. This is actually a plant that Cornelia grew from seed and you can see this leaf is a little narrower, also very long and strap-like and again, these are completely evergreen in the garden, throughout the winter and if you look down here at the base of the plant, you'll actually see that the plant is in bloom. These are the flower stalks and the buds. These will actually open just a little bit more, but not much. They almost look like mushrooms, but that's the way the plant flowers and they're pollinated by gnats and slugs, believe it or not. The slugs actually do a favor in the garden, in this case and this little spike will actually turn into a stalk of orange berries later in the season. One of the most unusual Rohdea is, and there are a number of varieties like this, but I think in Cornelia's garden, this is one of the most beautiful, is this one and it's called Ho Sho Nishiki and this is what's called a dragon's ridge. You can see where I'm pointing down the middle of the leaf here. It has extra leaf tissue down the center vein and this is a very highly desirable ornamental trait, especially among Japanese collectors. So, they really look for these unusual forms and in this case, not only does this leaf have a dragon's ridge down the back of the leaf or down the top of the leaf, but it's also variegated, so that makes it even more rare and unusual. This beautiful, variegated Rohdea is a perfect example of just how tough and adaptable these plants are. You can see that it is growing in a container, a very large container, sitting above ground. So, it remains exposed during the winter. It still keeps its evergreen leaves and this nice deep pot allows for those roots to grow down deep and be really sturdy and healthy to support all of this top growth. So, this is a very, very adaptable plant. So, a very close relative of Rohdea is this plant called Tupistra chinensis. This is a variety called Eco Ruffles because of these ruffled leaves, but what I really wanna show you are these odd flowers. This plant, as well as Rohdea, actually members of the lily family, but you would never guess that based on these odd blooms. This too will have seed in the form of a berry later in the season and this plant is a prime example of the fact that plants don't read the books because if you were to look this up in a book or on the internet, it would tell you that this is only hearty to about zone 8 and here we are in zone 7, or in a real winter maybe even zone 6B, and in this somewhat protected backyard, it's growing outdoors just fine. Well, we would be remiss in having a garden visit like this without meeting the garden's owner and caretaker, my friend, Cornelia Holland, who has been so gracious to have us a time or two before also.

- I always enjoy it and I always learn.

- And we have talked hostas before and now we're sort of talking companion plants, and you mentioned to me that you really enjoy raising the Rohdeas particularly from seed. So, tell me about that process and these little babies in front of us.

- Well, you mentioned the red berries and in those berries is one to four seeds.

- Mmm-hmm.

- And they need a cold treatment

- Okay.

- In order to germinate and I will take the pulp off them and clean them well. Put them in the fridge and then put them under lights in a humidity chamber

- Mmm-hmm.

- And I've been growing them in a vermiculite and these are some the seedlings that have yielded this year .

- [Troy] So, these all came from green plants or variegated plants or?

- [Cornelia] This one came from a variegated plant.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [Cornelia] It did have the variegation on it, but these can come from green plants and still develop variegation later.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [Cornelia] Since there's only one species, all these in the garden

- [Troy] Mmm-hmm.

- [Cornelia] Have had that has their mother.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Cornelia] So,

- [Troy] Right so,

- [Cornelia] I takes about ten years to fully get all the attributes that may be possible.

- [Troy] So from these little seedlings that are just this years plants,

- [Cornelia] Mmm-hmm.

- [Troy] It may be anywhere from eight to ten years beyond this before you really see how this plant is going to develop?

- [Cornelia] Mmm-hmm, or it may be sooner.

- [Troy] Or it may be sooner.

- [Cornelia] Mmm-hmm.

- [Troy] Which means, that maybe if it's going to have that dragon's ridge that I talked about down the center of the leaf.

- [Cornelia] I have one that is doing that.

- [Troy] Maybe that doesn't develop for two or three or five years down the road?

- [Cornelia] I have on that's about a three year old plant that has a ridge on one of the leaves.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [Cornelia] Mmm-hmm.

- [Troy] Well at any rate, it's not a quick process.

- [Cornelia] No .

- [Troy] It's not a quick process. I know there are a lot of people out there in the world who hybridize hostas and daylillies and things like that where in two or three years, you begin to really see some

- [Cornelia] Mmm-hmm.

- [Troy] Some results if you're program is going well, but I think for growing Rohdeas from seed, that's probably one of the reasons that they're not really common on the market. Any tips for our home gardeners about growing these Rohdeas and maybe even some of the Asarums and things that you've tried? What's your sort of key to success because obviously, you've been successful here?

- [Cornelia] Ah, the Rohdeas typically need a drier area.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [Cornelia] If they get too wet, then they tend to dampen off. The roots rot off.

- [Troy] Mmm-hmm.

- Um, so, they need moisture, but yet, good drainage.

- [Troy] Good drainage.

- Good drainage, so your regular potting soil, you might mix it with,

- [Troy] Soil conditioner, pine fines or perlite?

- Yes, something to give it a better drainage.

- Loosen it up a little bit.

- Mmm-hmm.

- If you're growing them in containers.

- Yes, uh-huh.

- And in the ground, they seem to compete really well with tree roots. I know in my own garden,

- Mmm-hmm.

- Where some of the other plants suffer under the large roots of the oaks, the Rohdeas hang on tight.

- They do.

- And do pretty well.

- They do, they do.

- Well Cornelia, I wanna thank you for letting us come and take a tour of your garden again and be a part of this beautiful place.

- [Cornelia] Glad you're here.

- [Narrator 1] For inspiring garden tours, growing tips and garden projects, visit our website at voluteergardener.org or on YouTube at the Volunteer Gardener channel and like us on Facebook.

- [Narrator 2] Behind every Pick Tennessee Products logo is real Tennessee farmer. Pick Tennessee Products has helped people find those local farmers, food and fun for over 30 years.