Episode 2752

- [Narrator] Keeping something in bloom when hummers are expected, is a key to attracting them. Matt Kerske visits with a gardener who plans and plants his garden to support these nectar-seeking birds. Plants, fish, pumps. Tammy Algood gets help keeping her home water feature the eco-friendliest. Plus, Troy Marden tours the neighborhood garden that greets residents as they head in toward home. Join us. This is one busy layover spot during hummer season.

- Well Chris, we're standing in your front yard which is just an incredible garden of flowers and edibles and herbs that you have for the winged creatures that are all flying all around us. Tell me a little bit about how long this has kind of taken you to reclaim it back from, you said, original turf when you moved in.

- [Chris] Well, it used to all be lawn, everything you see here. This was all grass. Pretty much we saw a couple of hummingbirds show up about six to eight years ago, somewhere in there. And had a couple of feeders out. They showed up, every year we've seen a couple more. So I made the decision to turn the entire lawn into what you see now, a basically a hummingbird, butterfly garden.

- [Matt] It's almost like a sanctuary, I guess.

- [Chris] Exactly.

- [Matt] Ever since then you we're just kind of bit by the bug and just continued offering a safe habitat and food sources and they just came in droves.

- [Chris] Exactly. And they haven't stopped. Every year they keep showing up and the numbers go up every year. The migratory patterns, when they show up, they know where their food source is. So they fly here and they stay here every year.

- [Matt] Do you feel like you're kind of, even though you might not have the data tracking on it, but do you feel like you have some of the same families and herds and kind of swarms, I guess, I don't even know what you call them, coming back to the same feeding ground, nesting grounds in the summer?

- Absolutely, absolutely. I can tell because they're more tame than most hummingbirds. First thing I hear from people, I come over, they say you can get very close to the hummingbirds. Normally you can't do that. So I'm, that tells me they're pretty much the same ones, or they're used to people, they're used to this environment.

- [Matt] Gotcha.

- [Chris] There's always somebody walking around if it's not me, it's somebody else.

- [Matt] What kind of types of hummingbirds, can I ask, as far as the varieties?

- [Chris] We get the ruby-throated hummingbird. That's pretty much all we'll have here, is the ruby-throated. Occasionally get the rufous, that shows up in the fall. I have yet to see one here but it's the only other hummingbird that'll pass through. They travel much further north than the ruby-throated. And so as they're migrating back, if you leave a feeder out in the fall, you might get lucky. And see one of them, other hummingbirds. The flowers will attract them. The flowers is what you need to really bring them in. When they find a yard that has flowers that they like, they will, eventually, check out every flower in the nearby area, including the feeders. And when they find a feeder, usually they'll stick around after that. As long as you keep it out there, that's where consistency comes in. As long as you keep it out there, it's very important to keep it clean. You wanna make sure there's always food for them and as long as they have that, they will continue to show up.

- [Matt] Move on.

- [Chris] Exactly.

- [Matt] So the flowers almost kind of serve as a big billboard, big X target. They're coming down, looking for more and find the food and that's how you've really kept these families around.

- Yes, absolutely, yes.

- Fantastic. Well I'd love to take a walk around a little bit and kind of talk about some of the most popular plantings in the garden.

- Sure, of course.

- All right. So Chris, as we're kind of walking around the garden, I'm just amazed by the number of hummingbirds that are just swarming all around to the different plants and to the different feeders that you have here, it's just incredible. I wanna talk a little bit more about some of the flowers that you've used to kind of act as that big sign post to them and attract them in and use them as feed. Can you tell me a little bit about this guy right here? What are we looking at?

- Well this is a tithonia or a Mexican sunflower. Very attractive, not only to the hummingbirds, but to butterflies, bees. They love this plant. What makes it even more special, is that you can grow this in any type of soil. They can even take part shade too.

- [Matt] Wow, huge.

- You can plant this anywhere. Gigantic and you start them by seed, early in the year. Whether you start it inside or direct sow it. It'll be this big before the end of the growing season.

- What I find fascinating, you were telling me here is that there's a lot of maybe misconception that hummingbirds were only attracted to tubular flower-type plants and if I wanted to attract hummingbirds, I gotta only plant tubular flowers, but you're saying that's not the case in this way.

- [Chris] No, they love this flower. They like this, they love zinnias, the celosia they're very fond of. It's not just the tubular flowers. They see in ultraviolet. People can't see ultraviolet light, but hummingbirds can. So can bees and butterflies. So this is gonna look a lot more brilliant to them, than it does us. Not just red tubular flowers, but other flowers have the same properties.

- [Matt] Orange, blues.

- [Chris] Exactly.

- [Matt] Gotcha.

- [Chris] And there may be a higher proportion of red tubular flowers that have good ultraviolet reflective properties, but some others do too and it's not all just red tube flowers.

- [Matt] Fascinating. So you almost kind of get secondary benefits, not only good as cut flowers, for use inside, but what you're saying, this is also covered in swallow-tailed butterflies, you know, looking around here without scaring them away. Just beautiful swallow-tails along with bumblebees, honey bees, hummingbirds. So it's just a broad range of attractants.

- [Chris] Yes, absolutely.

- [Matt] Along with the tithonia here, out in the garden, we also have some blue lobelia, you mentioned celosia.

- [Chris] Those are very nice, very popular, very colorful. Not only attractive to the hummingbirds, but it's good to look at. Easy to grow, another plant that's not very picky about soil, almost effortless.

- [Matt] Gotcha. Reseeds itself almost from-

- [Chris] Every year.

- [Matt] How about any other plants in the garden that you've noticed that have been food?

- Well not so much food. One thing is the okra here, this is a burgundy okra. It turns out that the hummingbirds very much like to use these perches. And it gives them a good view point. You've got these hibiscus flowers here and you also get okra on top of it. So it's a win win win.

- It's a food source, almost like a hummingbird hotel for their stay, you know, staycation and then off to the next food source.

- Absolutely, yes.

- [Matt] We've got black and blue salvia.

- [Chris] Yeah, that's a great one for your hummingbirds. It's almost magical the effect is has on it.

- [Matt] Now that's a tubular dark type flower.

- [Chris] It is, yes it is, yes.

- [Matt] And so Chris, it's obvious that not only do the hummingbirds enjoy the flowers in your garden, but they're also very much attracted to your feeders as well and you kind of see that just from what's in the background here, they're absolutely just swarming on this feeder. Just chirping away, you know, it sounds amazing. Tell me a little bit about best practices and what you found in your feeding solution and how you manage that.

- [Chris] Here in Tennessee we'll have 90 degree weather, lot of humidity. That's a recipe for mold, mildew, things you don't want in your feeder. So it's very important to have a clean feeder. Don't let that sugar water go bad, replace it every two, three days, if you can. If not, just take it in. Don't replace, just make some fresh. One part sugar, four parts water, is what you make. Dyes have been found not to be good for hummingbirds. Not even dyes, no dye at all. Just sugar water, that's all you need.

- [Matt] Along with placing the feeders throughout the garden, you just have them here on shepherd hooks, they're spaced throughout, no really rhyme or reason to it. Just kind of implanted next to your garden for best viewing practices.

- [Chris] That's the number one right there. So you can see them all. Another thing too, you'll notice the songbird feeders are kind of outside of this area.

- [Matt] Yeah, you mentioned something about a little competition, or something.

- [Chris] Yeah, exactly. The hummingbirds get very aggressive this time of year, when they're migrating. They're competing for the food. If you watch them, you'll see they lot of fighting.

- [Matt] Amongst themselves?

- [Chris] Amongst themselves for the food.

- [Matt] And with songbirds, you said.

- [Chris] And with the songbirds. They will chase away cardinals, they will chase away finches, I've seen them chase hawks. They will chase anything.

- [Matt] Wow.

- [Chris] So that's why I have all the birds set out to the side, so it's not just for the looks, it's for that reason too. To keep the songbirds happy.

- [Matt] Gotcha. So you're kind of separating your songbird feed from your hummingbird feeder.

- [Chris] Exactly.

- [Matt] I had no idea that that was the case, but they're so cute and cuddly, but they can get a little territorial when it comes to food.

- [Chris] Absolutely, yes.

- [Matt] And then along with the gardening aspect of it, I could tell you were talking, you have a similar passion in photography. Tell me a little bit about that and how that has come into play around your home here.

- [Chris] A lot of that ties directly in with this. I like to do a lot of macro photography. And so I'm having somewhere where I can walk out the door and just start taking pictures, is nice.

- [Matt] Macro photography meaning?

- [Chris] Very tiny. Very tiny, very tiny photographs.

- [Matt] Close ups?

- Exactly. Very close ups. Half inch or smaller. So on the flowers, you'll see you got not only the hummingbirds, lot of bees, lot of insects, lot of small things that you don't notice until you start walking around here.

- [Matt] Being quiet and standing up close is some, I imagine, some of the best practices for getting that perfect shot.

- [Chris] Exactly, exactly. And the songbirds make for great photography too.

- [Matt] What time of the year and hummingbirds are, I guess, more summer oriented. You were saying songbirds are more different season.

- [Chris] In the fall. In the fall, they'll show up.

- [Matt] The hummingbirds, they'll be here till maybe mid September, then they'll start tapering off. Lot of times the last one we tell to go home in October. Starts getting a little frosty so we have to take the last feeder down and say it's time, time to go home.

- [Matt] Time to go, close up shop.

- [Chris] Exactly.

- [Matt] Now where can viewers go to learn a little bit more about your photography? You mentioned Instagram as a source.

- [Chris] Yeah, Instagram. I'm on Instagram as birdsbugsplants.

- [Matt] There's no and. Just birdsbugsplants.

- [Chris] Birdsbugsplants.

- [Matt] Fantastic. I just wanna thank you so much for your time and attention to your garden.

- Adding a water feature to your landscape can be a lot easier than you might think. But a professional is always advised. So we're with talking with Derek Johnson who is a master, certified aquascape contractor.

- That's it.

- Yay. With JVI Secret Garden and Derek, you're gonna talk to us about the five not steps, but what did you call them?

- The five parts of an ecosystem pond.

- Absolutely. So let's start with number one.

- Sure, so number one is really the mechanical skimmer.

- Got it.

- Because if we can skim that debris. So when we think of skimmers, we think of the pool and we think of taking that skimmer in there. But if we can skim the debris, and catch it in the basket, then that debris doesn't go to the bottom of the pond and turned into, basically, a nutrient load of compost. So what does compost do? Compost is a fertilizer so we don't want fertilizer, nitrogen, in the pond. So if we can keep that debris off the bottom of the pond and in here, we're ahead of the game as far as keeping your ecosystem pond healthy and clean. So here we have our mechanical skimmer. This stone can seem heavy and cumbersome, but it's really not. It's just a faux piece. So this is where our mechanical filter lies. So we have our pump, it's located inside of here. A lot of ponds have the pump at the bottom of the pond. And when your water is crystal clear and pristine, you don't wanna see the pump at the bottom of the pond. It's just unsightly. So you put it in here so the benefit of that now we have a skimming action. So anything hits the surface of the water, like these leaves, it drops in, it gets pulled right into the skimmer. So now, this is what I really love about this. You can come in here, you shut this little door, the pump's gonna drain that water down, we easily take the basket out. So we've got our debris here, we just take it. I like to put the stuff in the, and the sucking sound is totally fine. Doesn't hurt anything.

- [Tammy] So you don't need to be intimidated by that. It's a short time between this and that so we take our debris. I like to put this in a compost bin. Why not, right? So and then you easily put the skimmer back in, your skimmer basket I should say, open up the door-

- Oh sweet.

- Water rushes right back in. We'll check this daily. We'll just walk by, make sure there's nothing in there. During the summer months, really nothing. Nothing's going on. But in the spring time as leaves are starting to, you know, the canopies are starting to come on, you get that spring flush, we get those big thunderstorms we always have, leaves may blow into the pond and come in here, so you check it a little bit more often.

- This is like brilliant.

- It's so easy.

- I don't know that I would have a pond without that, that's fantastic.

- Absolutely. And the really cool thing too, if you don't have a skimmer like this on your existing pond, a lot of times we can retrofit one of these onto your existing pond.

- So if you had one for a while, you might wanna upgrade and make-

- Absolutely.

- So that's step one.

- Yes, so this is-- We always wanna start with a skimmer and then, one of the other more beneficial sides of a water feature, is if you look down in here, we've got what we refer to as beneficial gravel. Not all ponds have gravel on the bottom.

- [Tammy] What's the benefit of gravel?

- So we've got microbes and enzymes that will literally remove nitrogen from the water column. They'll seed in all of this gravel and the nitrogen cycle, like as this stuff grows and flourishes, on a microscopic level, they're literally like eating all the nitrogen out of the pond.

- Oh.

- So, on a food chain, you've got algae, algae feeds. Well beneficial bacteria is just a step higher on the food chain, so it will remove that nitrogen so it doesn't feed algae. So therefore-

- So you've got clearer water. Okay, so what if you don't have gravel in the bottom of your pond, can you add that?

- Absolutely, it's as simple as-- It's just decorative gravel, it's nothing fancy. Even though the surface appears smooth, if you looked at it underneath a microscope, it would look like the surface of the moon. Let's think about probiotics, it's good for our gut. So if you think about an ecosystem, so the gravel and the beneficial bacteria's kind of like that microbial gut flora that helps our immune system. So it's kind of the same concept.

- [Tammy] So gravel is your friend?

- [Derek] It is your friend.

- [Tammy] Okay, so Derek, what is part three of our five part process?

- Gotcha, so part three is gonna be bio-filtration, your bio-falls. So up here, where our falls the head waters, if you will. As that water comes up, through the bottom of that filter, we've got filter pads in there. And that water's-- The water column is literally scrubbed and cleaned, so the way we size these filters, like this pond is a little less than 2500 gallons, that filter is what we call a 2500. So it can filter up to 2500 gallons of water. So we size those. So you've got that bio-filter up there. The water comes up, gets scrubbed by those filter pads, it gets dumped and aerated, comes back down, and goes into the mechanical skimmer.

- Okay, so do you have to change those filter pads?

- Once a year, on spring cleaning we come and we remove those, you can remove them yourself. You wanna remove them. But you don't wanna wash it with chlorinated water. You will take it and maybe bank-- Because you get this black gold, this bio-film that is amaze, like teaming with life. So it's very important that you don't wash that off with chlorinated water but you can get some heavy debris. If you just bang it on a hard surface, or even sometimes like us, we'll take a clean out pump and we'll rinse it really, really rough with that clean out pump. Because we want that to be in there. We're just kind of removing the little bit of too much sludge build up.

- I get it.

- We put those right back in there and you're good for another season. If they completely come apart, and fall apart, that's when you wanna replace them, because it really is black gold.

- So you don't necessarily have to replace your filters every year, you just-

- You just wanna clean it.

- Clean it. Okay, got it. Okay, now part four.

- Part four is gonna be plants.

- Oh yeah. That makes it pretty.

- It does. So it's truly a water garden when you have plants. Now plants literally need nutrients, fertilizer, in our gardens and everything else. If we fertilize them they're gonna be better off. So when you have plants in the water column, they're removing nitrogen out of the water. I mean look at these, these guys, these pickerel are blooming, they're super happy. It's because our fifth part, fish.

- Fish.

- So the fish, the fish waste, feeds our plants and then we have a complete ecosystem with our mechanical skimmer, our beneficial gravel, our bio-filtration, our plants and our fish.

- How do you know how many plants to put in a pond?

- It's a rule of thumb. So visually, I mean, you can give, you can really dive down and do schematics and figure everything out, but I like to use a third rule. With pond plants, the third rule is install about a third of plants based on the surface area of your water, visually. Because over a season or two, it could cover up to three quarters of your pond, which is too much. Now if you're an avid water gardener, that's okay, but if you wanna enjoy your fish and see that open water, you wanna be careful with that. So during spring clean outs, when you clean your bio-falls and do your skimmer, that's a great time to propagate, to thin out those plants, give them to friends, so it's a time to thin the pond a little bit.

- And that doesn't hurt them, they'll come bounce right back.

- Absolutely.

- And is it pretty much the same rule with fish? How many fish do you know how to-

- So that's, it's similar. So basically you wanna do the surface area, so you wanna be like length times width. So this is basically, I think we're a 14 by 17, something like that. So we're a couple of hundred square feet, of surface area water. So the rule is, an inch of fish per square foot. 200 inches of any size fish you want, equaling 200 inches.

- [Tammy] If you want small fish, you could do-

- [Derek] Absolutely.

- [Tammy] Got it.

- [Derek] Absolutely.

- [Tammy] It's up to you.

- [Derek] Yup and you want, they'll mature too so let's do the reference of three inches. So that's kind of your max load. So if you have three inches of fish, over 200 square foot, you're getting a really, really heavy fish load. So what happens a lot of times, is, when we get into water quality issues, and clarity issues, is people overfeed their fish. They're our friends, they're our family.

- I know, we love them.

- And they come up and they say hi and you just wanna give them food but what happens is if we overfeed them, then they produce more fish waste, therefore the plants and the ecosystem, everything, even though we put all this together, can't keep up.

- So it's out of balance.

- Yeah, so you have to-- So, on a pond, you always have a little bit of biofilm that grows on the bottom. A little bit of green fuzz is fine.

- It's pretty actually.

- It is, it is, so let the fish eat that. So, the way I see it, is ice-cream and salad. If I have ice-cream and salad in front of me, I'm eating ice-cream. So that's kind of like fish food.

- [Tammy] Right.

- So if you're constantly giving them fish food, they're not gonna eat their salad, that nice little green fuzz on the bottom, they'll keep that in check. That's what's so cool about having the beneficial gravels we talk about, the round rocks, because a koi's mouth has a round and it actually comes out like a little suction cup. They can grab those rocks and clean them. So that's why, when you look at the bottom of this pond and why it's so clean, is we don't overfeed them, we encourage them to eat their salad. But we treat them with some ice-cream from time to time. So there's one more step, the sixth step, lighting.

- Oh. Okay, I have lighting in my water feature but what's the rule for that?

- So it's your daytime pond and your nighttime pond. And we always look better in the right lighting.

- Yes, candle light.

- Yes. So what, so LED lighting, that's where we're at today. That's technology has gotten us there. But you don't wanna over light your pond, you just wanna create just nice like silhouette. It's like over on this side we have a pond that's up-lighting the waterfalls there. Under here, we have a nice little fish cave and that's up-lit at night. And then over on that side, we've got the little destination stone. And there's actually a light under there that's glowing. Now you don't see these, we wanna make sure they're hidden very discreetly. But there's actually eight lights in this pond and we don't over-light, we create those beautiful little silhouettes so that you can come out in the evening, maybe have a glass of wine, glass of tea and just relax, let the day go. And it's otherworldly. It's a whole nother scene at night.

- Does it influence the fish?

- Not so much.

- Okay, so they don't care.

- No, not at all.

- Okay, all right, terrific. So there's really, to really enjoy your pond at night, you wanna do more than just hear it, you wanna see it and hear it.

- [Derek] It's the sights and sounds of the water feature that literally calm us down and relax us.

- [Tammy] Right, the perfect way to end a day. Derek, you've helped us a lot. Thank you so much.

- [Derek] Absolutely, thank you so much.

- You know, in neighborhoods everywhere there are vacant lots. Sometimes those lots sort of fall by the wayside, become derelict and that's what this lot was like up here in Wyatt's Creek. But an enterprising gardener has changed all of that. And it's beautified this whole little neighborhood, hidden back here off of this road and I can't wait for you to see it. So David Sprouse is the gardener that, has created this amazing space out of an old abandoned lot. And tell me how this all came to be.

- Well this is actually a reserved parcel for the neighborhood that I live in and I acquired it just from a buddy of mine and it was total woods. I mean, it looked like the woods you see around this plot and I cleared it with a chainsaw and brush piles. It took me about a year to clear it and my full intention was to do a garden. And it's actually zoned agriculture. So there were a lot of challenges just to get this garden up and going.

- [Troy] So one of the things that you did, as you were clearing, was you sort of had your creative mind engaged also. And you built some of these structures that you have in the garden and created some unique gates. Tell me about, you know, coming up with these ideas and then how you executed them.

- Well, what I did is I selected and I marked various trees on my property. This actually is sassafras wood, it came from my residential property, which is very close by. And I would get dead wood, you know and things, and I felt like I could use that didn't cost anything and this is where this arbor, I think there are some cedar here and black locust across the top.

- But you've chosen wood that will stand up to the elements for a number of years.

- Resistant to rot.

- So you don't have to worry about this rotting, you know, in the near future.

- And this is a bed frame that actually belonged to my grandfather. It's been sitting in our barn for quite some time and I just, I said well, this would make a good gate.

- It's lightweight so it's easy to open and you have just immediate access to the garden this way.

- Well, I didn't really have, I didn't design this garden, I guess, in a way a typical designer would. I didn't plan the entire thing. I just did it in little pieces and bits and chunks. And this rose garden is probably two years old. And the slabs here, red oaks, and once again there was a dead red oak on the property and I just thought wow, these will make great stepping stones.

- So again, just sort of recycling, up-cycling from nature. And even though, it's very rustic with the wood round stepping stones and your limbs along the pathways, it's also got kind of a formal aspect to it, a formal layout.

- David] And it ended up being a triangular shape, obviously. And all the rocks that you see too, are basically rocks that I just dug up from the property. As you know, being a Tennessee gardener, it didn't take long to find a rock.

- [Troy] Found plenty of rocks.

- [David] So it may not be, you know, as smooth as a typical type rock path, but you know, once again you're using resources that are free here.

- One of the things that you've done, David, that I think is really unique and really beautiful, is that you've mixed your plantings up in this garden. The vegetables hang out with the roses and there's privet mixed in. Golden privet, not bad privet, but golden ornamental privet. You've got melons mixed in with other ornamentals. Tell me a little bit about your philosophy behind doing it that way.

- Well, you know, I've planted vegetables in many of these gardens as we can see, you know, corn and beans and as I planted melons and things, through the years, as you know melons spread and to keep the grass from coming up underneath them I had these mulch beds that I did with leaves. And as you know melons and things like that do real well in that mulch leaves. So it's really an experiment in companion planning and plant diversity and it seemed to, this year all of my melons and things look really well.

- And obviously the squash are happy.

- Yes, the squash, the yellow zucchini actually, has done quite well and once again there's some shade that it gets but the sun comes this way and it seems to be thriving.

- [Troy] Yeah, your shade is basically from one big tree. So as the sun moves across, you get sun at different times of the day and there's plenty.

- [David] Exactly.

- Of sun to grow these things successfully. You've also got roses growing on, again, a very unique structure. Something that you've built a lot out of just salvage pieces.

- Well the story behind this piece is my neighbor gave me this, it's an old wood rack. He said it was about a rick of wood. And he said do you want it and I said sure. And he also gave me these clothes line pieces and I started thinking wow, I could make a gateway entrance with this and these are cow panels and once again, the only money I spent was on the cow panels.

- Right, which you can pick up fairly inexpensively at a farm supply store. And they're sturdy. I mean nothing, once this is tied up, you can grow anything on this and it's not gonna take it down. So you've done a variety of raised beds, out of different kinds of materials but I think anything, anybody who's being really resourceful, can find any number of ways to make raised beds. But I particularly like these that are done out of logs. Again, recycled material right from the property and I'm assuming this is some kind of wood that also is gonna

- [David] Cedar. be rot resistant.

- [Troy] So these are cedar logs.

- [David] Yes, red cedar.

- [Troy] Cedar trunks.

- [David] Yes.

- [Troy] So peach trees are another fruit, obviously, that you are growing very well here but sometimes are a little persnickety in this area, we're a little north.

- Absolutely. A lot of humidity.

- A lot of humidity and there are some challenges.

- [David] Yes. I have really three varieties, a hell haven, a Redhaven and a Red Baron. Now probably the ones that have haven in the last part of the name have done the best, but as you know, in Tennessee, the peach bore can be quite a problem, they bore into the fruit and the fruit drops to the ground and the insect, or whatever it is, comes back up through that ground. And I do spray with a organicide. I do try to do all of my edibles with organic sprays and it does help. Your not gonna get a full, you know, crop, but I can get peaches, if I can keep the deer and the pest off them, which is another challenge.

- Another challenge because you're not fenced here.

- No.

- So there are those challenges also.

- Yes, absolutely.

- [Troy] Well, it is amazing to me that you've taken this from just sort of an abandoned wooded lot to what we see today and I wanna thank you for sharing your time and your expertise and your knowhow and showing all of us that you can create something beautiful if you just a have a little bit of creative vision.

- [David] Well thank you Troy, thanks for coming out.

- [Troy] Thank you.

- [Narrator] For inspiring garden tours, growing tips and garden projects, visit our website at volunteergardener.org, or on YouTube at the VolunteerGardener channel. And like us on Facebook.