Episode 2810

- [Announcer] Coming up on Volunteer Gardener. Marty DeHart was honored to have spent time in the greenhouse with beloved rose hybridizer Whit Wells. Troy Martin takes a garden walk with country music icon Barbara Mandrell to look at some of Whit's famous roses. And, Tammy Algood helps stretch our gardening budget with plants that serve a dual purpose. Join us. First, a rose by any other name.

- Mm, who doesn't love a rose? And today we're gonna look at some gorgeous subjects. We're at Mid-South Roses in Brighton, Tennessee, we're gonna look at the creations of Whit Wells, the man who owns and operates this wonderful place, creates these gorgeous roses just like this. When did you introduce this plant?

- 76, I believe it was, when I patented it.

- Wow, it's a long time ago, I can understand why you named it what you did, we're just a little bit north of Memphis.

- Yeah, it was just the first I had I thought was good enough to name anything.

- Now, does that rose stay really small, it looks like it's--

- [Whit] Yeah, it's a small-growing plant. The bush'll stay really little.

- Oh, that's cute, it's certainly an intense color. Let's go look at some more of Whit's cool introductions. Whit, this is just incredibly beautiful, it's almost like a peace rose except pumped up with saturated color, tell me about this one.

- That's Summer Nights, it's a miniflora. It's a really good show rose. I've been growing it for probably 10, 12 years.

- I see a nice, long, straight stem.

- [Whit] It is, that's what makes a good show, that's right.

- [Marty] Right, now tell me about miniflora, just really briefly, what is miniflora category?

- [Whit] It's a new breed that they gave us between miniatures and floribundas. And it just came into its own in the last five to six years.

- [Marty] All righty, so smaller flowers like miniatures, but that hybrid tea form of the flower. But the bush,

- Little bigger, too.

- Little bigger, right, that is, it is a bigger flower than a miniature, but the bush form is just a regular rose bush. Yeah, right, okay, but that's great.

- And they can be fairly good size, in fact rules say the bigger they are the better, which they shouldn't have put in there. But I got some that's too big.

- This is, this next one just blows me away, the colors on this, gosh I hope the camera catches this reasonably well. The reverse on these petals is this creamy yellow which is really gorgeous with this almost fluorescent red on the inside of the petals, what's this one called?

- That's My Wife Kathryn. She liked the little rose, so I named it after her.

- Well how sweet, is there anything more romantic than having a rose named after you? And then there's this completely different color scheme of this cool pink, lovely.

- This is Ashton, that's one named after my granddaughter. She's just graduated from kindergarten.

- Hohoho, how sweet, she gonna grow up with a rose named after her. Whit, this is a beautiful rose, this one has the opposite of My Wife Kathryn in that the reverse of the petals is this darker tone. I've never seen that, what do you call this one?

- [Whit] It's Simply Beautiful.

- [Marty] Ah, it's gorgeous.

- [Whit] It's classified as a gray mauve in color,

- [Marty] Well that is a terrible, terrible description of an incredibly lovely flower, there's nothing gray about this flower. But I love that unusual, it's like turntable color, it's different than, it's backwards almost, but it's striking. And I must say the fragrance on this is intense. I love these yummy, they always remind me of food, tropical colors, those melons and everything, what is this rose?

- That's Rocky Top.

- Well that's a great Tennessee name.

- Have to be, you know it have to be orange to be that name.

- Oh, yeah, this is just mango orange, and fragrant of course, and this looks like it gets to be a fairly sizeable plant, huh?

- It does.

- Yeah, is this a hybrid tea?

- It's a miniflora.

- Miniflora, okay, see I still haven't figured out how to tell the difference. But I do love that flower, and this fragrance, I can smell it from here. Oh, and you bury your nose in it and it's intoxicating. And next to it is this wonderful yellow, and I know yellow, a good yellow rose is a real find, and this has the most precious buds on it, tell me about this one.

- [Whit] That's Yellow Bird. It's got a little bit of white on the outer petals which makes it good, I think. Some people don't like the white on it, but I do.

- [Marty] You know, I do, because it kinda makes the whole center of it glow.

- [Whit] That's what I say.

- [Marty] Boy, talk about colorful. I just love this, what do you name this one?

- Well, I couldn't think of a name for a long time, so I finally just called it the Best of 04.

- Hey, well, you know when you bred it, so there you go. That is just gorgeous, I mean it's got that contrasting reverse that I love so much, and the pickety effect of the, if you can see the intensity of the petals with that hot rosy red edging against that golden yellow that goes down to a cream, it's just lovely. What I wanna show you here is a little difference between a true miniature and a miniflora. This one, with a fully opened flower, is a miniature, it's got smaller foliage, typical miniature flower, tons of buds, flowers maybe two inches across when it's fully expanded. Next to it, with this huskier foliage, and a single bud up top, which is bigger, obviously it's gonna make a bigger flower than that miniature flower, this is a miniflora. Basically what they've done is they've crossed miniature with floribunda, and combined the words. This combines sort of the characteristics of both. Now, this, you can see, is sort of going toward a hybrid tea look, but the flower will be smaller, the leaves will be smaller, the plant won't be as husky and big and robust as a typical hybrid tea, so it's sort of splitting the difference between the two. Boy, we're looking at a contrast here, aren't we, this white is just gorgeous, tell me about that one.

- [Whit] That's Memphis Queen, it's really a good show rose. It's a true miniature.

- [Marty] Yeah, you can see that, lots of petals, little flower, sweet little buds.

- [Whit] It'll have nice big clusters on it, too.

- [Marty] It is a lovely, lovely flower, and that's a smaller bush then, right? And then next to it, I've never ever seen a rose that looks like this, this deep velvety maroon red with, these are like soft yellow color breaks in the petals, what do you call it?

- [Whit] Well, that's Memphis Music, and after it ages just a little bit, the yellow will turn to a white.

- [Marty] Oh, that's just amazing. That is unique, I've never seen a rose that looks anything like that. I wanna thank you so much for having us here and sharing your beautiful flowers with us and your expertise.

- We've taken you all over to see beautiful gardens, but sometimes it's nice to stay right here at home. We're in the heart of Music City, in front of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and just off of lower Broadway, and whether you're a Nashville resident, or whether you're visiting Nashville, this is a beautiful place to come. There's a new garden celebrating the music of Music City and the people who make that music, and we have a very special guest here with us today, who's going to tell us about the garden and how it came about.

- Troy, welcome to the Nashville Music Garden.

- Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us down here.

- Wouldn't miss it, this is a beautiful, beautiful place to be, I'm very proud of it.

- And you were sort of instrumental in helping get this garden going.

- In a very tiny way. My dear friend Pat Bullard is an unbelievable gardener, and she's really how I got started gardening, in fact I call her Professor Pat, because I started gardening in the year 2002, and every time I have a question I call Pat and say "Okay, now what do I do." Well anyway, I gave Pat, as a thank you, and it's an I love you, when I got some of my Barbara Mandrell roses, Jean King is the gentleman that hybridized them in 1980 something, and I wanted more when we moved, so the way I got them, Jean put me in touch with Whit Wells, in West Tennessee, and he is the one that got me my roses, so I gave two of them to Pat Bullard. And Pat, within, I don't remember, 48 hours, she called me and said "I have this idea, "your roses gave me this idea." She said "I went online," or whatever, she started researching of how many wonderful stars of country music that have roses named after them. Not only that, there are magnificent classic country hits, you know, the Tennessee Waltz and I'm excited to say, Pat is the one that made this all happen, she and her husband George. This will just, this will please people to know, there's no words because, right there, right across from us, is the Country Music Hall of Fame.

- Right, where you are now a member, inductee.

- Yeah, I'm so proud, so proud. And then, behind us is the symphony hall, and right there is the Hilton, and right there's the Sommet, where my Predators play, so this is a perfect location. People pass here all the time, we have our walkway of stars.

- [Troy] It is a gorgeous spot, and not only are you represented here, and I know your rose has been around, probably as long as a lot of them have, because it was one of the first ones.

- [Barbara] Other than, Patti Page is the Tennessee Waltz, which you know, Patti Page, I mean.

- And when they do come, they can not only see your rose, but they also can see roses named after people such as Dolly.

- Okay, Dolly's is about five feet away from my little ones over there, and I was looking at those, Troy, you tell me, when I showed Pat, I said "Now what's up, "these are my roses that Jean did for me "that are these beautiful little pastel miniature roses, "and then there's this fabulous, big bush "with these gorgeous red, orange." I said "For Dolly, what's up with that, "why is hers voluptuous and mine is this little bitty?"

- Well, we'll leave that up to them.

- I love it, Dolly is the sweetest person, and the roses is gorgeous, but not nearly as gorgeous as Dolly is, nothing is as pretty. And then my girlfriend Reba MaEntire, her rose over here, and my dear dear friend of so many years of my life, Minnie Pearl. She has her roses here. I miss her so much, I miss that lady.

- [Troy] The rose next to me is the Pam Tillis rose, and it's another of the miniatures. And you can see that it's only about two and a half feet tall, with a small pink flower that sort of changes color, it opens actually kind of a light coral pink and then fades to a very pale pink before the petals fall off, so you get a little bit of color change, and that's a very nice feature in this little rose. For a great small plant that packs a lot of punch, Ring of Fire can't be beat. You can see, when the flower opens it's kind of a bright yellow with an orange edge, and it fades to kind of a creamy color with more of a coral edge, so you get multiple colors on one plant, and it's just barely knee high. And it also seems to be fairly disease-resistant, so this looks like it's going to be a great little garden plant. One of Nashville's most famous residents and one of the garden's most beautiful flowers is the Dolly Parton rose, and as you can see from this flower in front of me, this is a hybrid tea, so this is a larger growing rose. This is early in the summer, so by fall, this rose will be on probably five or six feet tall, and you'll get these beautiful orangey red blossoms, big flowers, and that wonderful fragrance. This is also a great cut rose, it will last for about a week in a vase, so if you grow this one in your garden, it's good all the way around.

- I wanted to share with you because you're such, you're the gardener, but guess what, since the year 2002 I'm a gardener, and I'm just very excited because, I wanted to start with a fountain, and then my husband and I had never mosaicked, but the concrete below, we mosaicked it, and then it just went from there, and it got busy busy busy, you know? I laid the walkway through the garden, and I designed the patio how it would be for the professionals to do.

- Well and the pictures of it are absolutely beautiful.

- [Barbara] Well thank you. But I think gardeners have a special, when you meet somebody that gardens, and you're a gardener, you're immediately--

- [Troy] There's a special connection there. And I think the thing that I love about this garden is not that it just brings the gardeners to town, but it also ties gardening and music together in such a beautiful way.

- [Barbara] It's all the same in common with what the music and the love and, it's all about love.

- [Troy] It's all about a connection.

- [Barbara] Yes, absolutely. And I love it so much, and except in my garden, when I get that little black spot stuff, I just don't love that very much.

- [Troy] I know, me either, and it's always something.

- [Barbara] It's just my delight, because I see how really mighty God is in my garden. It's almost like having a worship or service or lessons, even the bugs.

- Even the bugs, whether we want them or not.

- And I make compost, you know, and I marvel at, it's amazing.

- The process, it's amazing, it is, it's an amazing thing. Well Barbara, thank you so much again for taking time out of your busy day, I know you've got a million things going on.

- I love the show, I'm very hungry to hear the people that you speak with, and I'm very hungry for the knowledge that you share, and seeing all the different sights.

- [Tammy] Gardens are places for quiet moments and are very therapeutic. Today I'm at a garden center that is just as full of calm tranquility. It's Long Hollow Gardens and vineyards here in Gallatin, and I'm joined with Hartley Scott, who is the owner of this wonderful place.

- Thank you Tammy, so we're approximately a 50 year old family business that was basically started by my grandfather, so he was a colonel in World War Two, and kinda took to gardening after the war, essentially as therapeutic. So, way before a lot of people caught onto this plants make people happy, or plant love trends, he was kind of ahead of his time, so it kinda transitioned from him to my father, to now myself, my wife, my mom, it's all a huge family business here.

- That's wonderful, we love family businesses, and quite honestly I just wanna move in here. It's beautiful.

- Sometimes I feel like I live here.

- I know you do. So let's talk about dual-purpose plants, because you've got some wonderful examples that can transition from garden to landscape and beyond.

- Correct, so kinda the dual purpose, it stems from the form follows function idea of architecture, so we like stuff that's not just pretty, we like it to have some type of function other than aesthetics, and we think now, Tammy, there's so many good plants now that you can achieve that in a backyard garden, in a container, on a multimillion dollar home, and everywhere in between. So it's a lot of fun.

- Got it, so what's a, give us some good examples of that, because seeing is believing, right?

- Absolutely, so this is one of our favorite plants, every year we show this to different garden clubs, and women's groups and other groups that come in, and we ask 'em "What is this plant?" A lot of times we'll put it in a brown bag, and we'll try to say "Okay, if you know what this plant is, "we'll give it to you." And a lot of times we're in earlier spring, so they're not identifiable by the blueberries on 'em, but this is a great, it's called Peach Sorbet, it is a more compact form of blueberry. So when you think about fruits and edibles, one thing comes to mind is that they're only functionable. A lot of times they're not that aesthetic. And you know, there's a lot of great plants now that kinda break that mold, so this guy is awesome, he has great foliage, we love the little bronzing of the tips, the lush green look. It also flowers. But it's a plant that essentially gets in the three to four foot range and then maxes out. So it is, it's not a big gangly overgrowing blueberry or blackberry that you used to see as much out in the country drive, so there's nothing wrong with that, but sometimes those species don't fit in to a front yard of a distinguished residence. And these do, these are good for flanking each side of the front steps, they're good for pots on patios, they're good for by the basketball court in the garage, they're good for almost anywhere.

- [Tammy] And a great companion for that is this lavender that's unbelievable.

- [Hartley] It is unbelievable.

- [Tammy] Tell us about it.

- [Hartley] This is phenomenal lavender. This is actually the most popular plant that we sell here, and we sell hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these. This is a dense form, cold-hardy, heat tolerant lavender. It has an amazing scent, it doesn't get quite as leggy and as bronze, you know sometimes lavenders brown out really bad at the base, lot of times we tell people, the more traditional types of lavenders are beautiful only from the top down. And if you think about it, if they're in an elevated planter or a raised planter box, they don't tend to look as good because they're very leggy. This guy is a lot more compact. We have customers that have had these for two years and three years and four years, and they love 'em. You know, in theory, will a brutal winter kill 'em or knock 'em way back? Probably, maybe, but we think they're well worth the risk.

- And another one that I honestly can't keep my hands off of.

- Yes, Chef's Choice rosemary.

- Yes, I just wanna stand and--

- It's a great plant, it's another great plant that we sell tons of, that's also in the Southern Living Plant Collection. A lot, now I'm a horrible cook, I know you're a chef, my wife's a chef, I'm a terrible cook, but what I am told every single time about the Chef's Choice is that cooks and culinary artists like the soft tips. So it's not as woody as other types of rosemary.

- [Tammy] It's truly aromatherapy.

- [Hartley] It is, and it's extremely fragrant.

- [Tammy] I love it.

- [Hartley] This is a compact Bloomerang lilac. Extremely fragrant, more compact, so this guy's only gonna get probably in the five to six foot range, maybe not even that big. Dense form, and not quite as big. So some people don't have the fortune of having these big yards, big spaces, and we have to use more compact forms of plants like lilac, which gets huge. I mean traditional forms of lilac may get eight to 10 foot tall easily. This guy's gonna be much more compact, but you're still gonna get the fragrance, and it's gonna rebloom.

- This one is gorgeous.

- This is an unbelievable variegated form called Instant Karma elderberry. So, again, I'm not a chef, but elderberry is a staple. It is a staple, now he will get a little bit bigger, probably in the six to eight foot range, but the foliage is dramatic, they're easily maintainable, they're fast growth, and the texture on it is really really cool, and we like it a lot because it splashes in an extremely loose and wild texture, and we love that, where everything we've seen so far, it's kinda dense and compact, this guy, he pays no attention to those rules, and he just does what he wants to do. A lot of people have container gardens, a lot of people have the big terrace or front porch, and what do we put in there, flowers, flowers, flowers. Sometimes they'll splash in a little bit of evergreen, but this is a really cool plant. Now, he's not fruiting, he's not in bloom right now, but this is an extremely cold-hardy variety of pomegranate. Actually hardy to zero degrees. So we advise clients and patrons here, great for a container, absolutely great, cause you can move it inside, if we get a brutal winter like we did four, five years ago. And they fruit. If you come back in a few months, it's no joke, the fruits will be on it, they're incredibly awesome, and they're a little bit easier to mess with than typical varieties of citrus, like lemon and limes can be very temperamental.

- Well, and it's just so different, you know, everybody doesn't have to look the same.

- That's correct, that's correct.

- Okay, so give us another good example of a dual-purpose plant.

- So here's another really fun one right here, a Pugster Amethyst butterfly bush, which, when we think of more traditional butterfly bush, and some of the pollinators, while we love 'em, the pushback that we hear a lot of times from homeowners is, "Is it gonna look messy, "is it gonna look dead half the season, "is it gonna get out of control?" And the answer is no, no, and no, this guy is a really good fit for a lot of that. Much more, again, kinda looser texture, like we're used to seeing on some of these other plants, but a dense and overall compact growing habit. So Tammy, this is one of my absolute favorite plants, now when I went to school for landscape architecture, it's totally different from horticulture. Landscape architecture has a lot of hits about native plants, native plants, native plants, native plants, but how do you use those in your own landscape? This is a beautyberry, believe it or not, this is called Pearl Glam beautyberry, it has a darker foliage than most beautyberry, so if you're out in the woods and you're hiking around middle Tennessee, in late winter, early spring, beautyberry is what is oftentimes blooming, it's great habitat, it's food for wildlife, but how do you incorporate it into your landscape? This, this is the answer. So this is a great specimen plant to use. Beautyberry is a plant that you gotta give a little bit of room, and a little bit of sunlight, 'cause it will get big, but the dramatic foliage is a great complement, especially if you have an all-green backdrop. So we love it.

- That's gonna be something I'll need to take home with me, along with this lacy little darling.

- That is Black Lace elderberry, you know a few minutes ago, we looked at a variegated form of elderberry, this is a dark foliage type with incredible white blooms, again, wild child of the garden, it's gonna be wild and hairy, it's gonna get big, you let it do its own thing. But for culinary and alcoholic purposes, elderberry is perfect and it's gotta get in there somewhere. Gotta get in there somewhere.

- You know, I appreciate your knowledge base of this, Hartley, and your tour of some wonderful plants that are not traditional, but just as easy as traditional plants to take care of.

- [Hartley] Absolutely.

- [Troy] We see a lot of beautiful gardens on Volunteer Gardener, and today I have the opportunity to spotlight a new garden at the Rochelle Center in Nashville. This is Hannah Kimbro, and Hannah is the creator of this garden here at the Rochelle Center. How did this project come about?

- I've been volunteering at the Rochelle Center for other things, and I realized that they didn't have a great place to go outside, and I was looking for a project to do for my gold award for Girl Scouts, which is 100 hours of service. So, I decided that this center garden would be a great thing to do over here.

- [Troy] Okay, great. So, did you actually come up with the design and the layout of the garden, built the beds and all that?

- [Hannah] After working with the citizens, I realized that many of them have different disabilities, have different height wheelchairs, and I thought it'd be best if the beds were different heights, so they could all see things from their perspective. They have the walkways on the outside from people in the wheelchairs, and then the people who can actually walk can come inside and look at the inside of the beds, so it's for everyone.

- Now I noticed that there's kind of an ingenious thing that you did to help accommodate watering for the beds, can you tell me a little bit about that?

- [Hannah] We realized that they may not be able to do watering every day, and may not have time, so we put hoses in the bottom of the beds so they can just hook the hose up to it and water it really easily.

- [Troy] Okay, so they're actually, it's kind of a soaker hose system that's buried under the soil, and it allows the plants to be watered without the clients here actually having to be able to manage watering cans or something like that.

- [Hannah] Yes.

- [Troy] In addition to the beautiful beds in the beautiful garden, there's a lot of decoration here also, can you tell me a little bit about your ideas behind how you decorated the garden?

- [Hannah] I wanted everything to be colorful and bright, and I wanted them to be able to hear different noises and see different things, and so that's how my decoration got planned. We were gonna dedicate a tree for the middle, and then when I was looking around, I decided that making a birdhouse tree with a bunch of different colors would probably be better for them than just a green tree.

- [Troy] So not only do they get to garden and be part of that, but when they come out here it's visually stimulating, it's different sounds, they get to watch the birds, all different kinds of things.

- [Hannah] Yes.

- [Troy] Well awesome, thank you so much for serving the community in this way, and helping us sort of move gardening along in a forward direction here in Nashville.

- [Hannah] Thank you.

- Well I'm really excited to be here with my good friend Pam Tillis. We've tried to do this several times, get you on the show, and here we are, finally.

- We've been coming up with concepts for two years now, and none of that happened.

- I know, it didn't.

- But this is happening, and this is so wonderful.

- You've been involved with the Rochelle Center for a little while now.

- Going on a couple years.

- Couple years, and so really, you and I got involved here when we started this little fundraiser last year.

- Little.

- It turned into a big fundraiser. Big project for us, and now because of your dedication to them, they've decided to give you something back, how's that make you feel?

- They couldn't have done anything more beautiful. We've been friends for a long time, even before our association with Rochelle, and you know that I love to garden, and I love flowers and plants and I never met a tree I didn't like, even hackberry splisserhearts, and Bradford pears, you know I love 'em all. And so to do a garden for me, it means more than I can really put into words. I really feel like...

- And I think it's something that my folks at home, who watch us on TV every week, may not know about you is that you are a gardener, and that's how we became friends, big time gardener. So...

- When I'm not on the road, that's my antidote to all that stress, and airports and passenger vans and buses, it's my therapy. They did an unbelievable job with this, they really did beautifully, and the clients painted the birdhouses, and I especially love all the herbs and everything, and it's just wonderful.

- [Troy] Well there are many great things about this garden, it's built in a very durable way, the structures are gonna last for a long time, there's an opportunity to grow a wide variety of plants in these raised beds, not just herbs and vegetables, but flowers that bring joy to the clients' lives, and it's an opportunity for a client here at the Rochelle Center who might not have the opportunity to otherwise get out and garden and get their hands in the dirt to do that here.

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