Episode 2812

- [Narrator] This time on "Volunteer Gardener", Annette Shrader is in the tri-cities region of Tennessee to tour the garden of a true plants man. Then, Tammy Algood knows that a leaky home pond can be a head-scratcher. She learns leak detection protocol from an expert. Plus, raised bed vegetable gardening. Off we go! When you put the right plant in the right spot, you will be rewarded.

- Once upon a time on Facebook, I saw a post, a post from Jeff Calton. And the beauty and the plants that I saw there have led us here today, and we're gonna be amazed. I'm about to go into the head of Jeff Calton. We are in Carters Valley, and I'm standing before a garden, that I feel like is an artist's palette , that you're collecting the colors, and how you have successfully achieved this in these gardens here before us. So talk to me about your choices of color and height and plant selection in here.

- Well, there's no real process, we just pop it in. To put it in, and the beds continually grow. Dylan took over this part. This over here already existed. I put in, I like the globe thistles, they're tall, they're electric blue. Good for pollinators, and give you a good long season with no work.

- [Annette] Okay, are they invasive right there?

- [Jeff] No, no, not at all. That's only two plants right there. They get big and wide, but they're not invasive at all. Once they finish flowering, I cut them down.

- [Annette] Yeah and I love this melon color of this daylily right here. That is so beautiful. Those two colors so compliment each other.

- [Jeff] I don't know the variety of that one.

- [Annette] Well, you don't have to. You can find them, they're readily available in that color. But then echoing back behind that, you picked up yellow. And that you said, what's the name of that daylily?

- [Jeff] That's an old standby, that's Hyperion, right there, large flowers, fragrant. They never fail you.

- [Annette] Okay lemme ask you this, it has multiple bloom scapes and buds, is that the season or is that gonna happen every year?

- [Jeff] That happens every year.

- [Annette] That's really good to know.

- [Jeff] Every year.

- [Annette] And then that red back there, that's so brilliant behind that yellow. That is ...

- [Jeff] It's Crocosmia Lucifer.

- [Annette] Yes, I can't ever say that.

- [Jeff] That one's a Lucifer.

- [Annette] Yeah, and then I know that to your left over here, there's another plant color. Even to the far back, there's that orange daylily. That, you know, I like orange, but orange has its place kinda, doesn't it? That's really orange.

- It does, that's Primal Scream. Is that variety, and it's really good when the flowers are large. It's always dependable and it does a good job. And it's that plant has converted a lot of people who don't like orange in their garden, they want that.

- [Annette] Would you believe I have just been gifted one of those?

- [Jeff] They're good ones, you won't regret it. You'll be happy to have it.

- And sometimes in life we get bogged down, but this is the best bog to have, and I'm quite envious because I've always wanted a bog, Jeff. So, you've surrounded it with complimentary plants and let's go to the center of the subject. This, the pitcher plants.

- These are Sarracenias, the pitcher plants. It's one of my favorite plants in the whole yard. These are the flowers. They have these other-worldly, they don't look of this planet, but they grow, this is in a submerged bathtub.

- [Annette] And it's got water all the time?

- [Jeff] All the time it's filled with peat, sphagnum peat, and then you saturate. You just have to get in there like Lucy doing the grapes, and get it all wet, and then you plant those. Sometimes I have to top it off with water, but normally the rainfall keeps it wet enough.

- [Annette] And it's in a bathtub with a bullet hole.

- [Jeff] Mhm, it's in a bathtub with a bullet hole. Right here, there's quite a few that grow these, you cut them back once a year, that's all you ever do to them.

- [Annette] Well you know, in my mind, I had those pictured as being a floor in a plant.

- [Jeff] No.

- [Annette] So they are hardy?

- [Jeff] Some of them go up to seven four.

- [Annette] I'm going to ...

- [Jeff] Not all of them but some of them.

- [Annette] I have something I might try putting those in, and I can't help but look right over there. Look at the sun beaming off of the calla lily!

- [Jeff] That calla, I like the leaves, I like the flower. It's not a performer, it has one flower a year. So, you enjoy that one while you can.

- [Annette] But you know, I think that's kind of an insignificant bloom if you look at it in the world of colored foliage.

- [Jeff] Mhm, I like the foliage. The flowers are gravy.

- Yes, they are.

- They are gravy.

- [Annette] They're just the little eyes in the newt mouths of this.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- [Annette] Okay, let's talk about other things that are complimenting, say, your pitcher plant. This is really pretty, what is the name of this here?

- This is Carex buchananii. You see I've never met a carex I didn't like. A lot of people don't like this because of the color, but I do. This bronzy leaf.

- [Annette] It has its place in your palette.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- [Annette] But now lemme ask you, I've had this but mine was not winter-hard. And maybe because I had it in the container.

- [Jeff] That'srobably it. These have been here for years. Now every few years I'll dig them up, chop them in pieces, and replant, 'cause they'll, this one's starting, it'll die in the center, you get this down the hole.

- Yeah, it happens.

- You just have to chop them up.

- This right here has the trunks of age. What is this?

- This is a Japanese maple, this is Shishigashira. A Lion's Head maple. And they'll turn, it has this real finely cut leaf. Slow grower, has a real nice fall color. This is not normal, they never get big, but I had to cut about six feet out of the top of this one. It got hit with a verticillium wilt, and I was gonna take the whole plant out. And then friends in Oregon said no, go below that, cut it out 'til you get wood, that doesn't have dark streaks.

- [Annette] Just like we're doing a rose instead of ...

- [Jeff] Yeah, so I cut that off. I cut about six feet off, and it's so far doing fine.

- [Annette] Well, now and you think about that wilt happening only in our perineal plants' soft tissue, but it happens in a tree.

- It happens in a tree. It started verticillium wilt, and I thought it was fatal but it wasn't.

- And in this area, you have effectively used a needled evergreen behind you. And I'm not familiar with this one.

- This is a Japanese red pine, Pinus densifloras Oculus Draconis. It's a Dragon's eye pine.

- [Annette] I'm gonna go home with that in my head.

- [Jeff] Well they say if you look at the branches from there,

- Oh, I see it!

- [Jeff] It looks like a dragon's eye, I wouldn't know.

- [Annette] Well, it's not a candle, that's just the ...

- [Jeff] That's this year's growth. It grew that this year.

- Yeah, but that's the center inside ...

- Yeah.

- is not a new candle, it's just what it does.

- No, it's just what it does. Gets that, this white, white look, and then Sun King Aralia which ...

- [Annette] Absolutely.

- [Jeff] It's a good plant for anywhere.

- Well, and without going there, I know that my eye couldn't see the path that led us here. And now I'll ask you one more question, this is going to get the sun?

- Yeah.

- And it's going to stay until late afternoon?

- Until 4:30 at least.

- Well.

- These need a lot of sun.

- [Annette] Okay, let's go see maybe something that could be shaded. The culinary sage in the purple, that sets the palette here, doesn't it?

- [Jeff] It does.

- [Annette] And then talk about the plants here that are touched with that color, and what they are, that leads us to the top?

- [Jeff] Okay, the sage we use it a lot. That and the tricolor and the variegated, just to give tough durable color in the heat, that'll take the heat, where a lot of things won't. Standing Ovation switchgrass gives you something that you can see, some of the same color purple.

- [Annette] It does.

- [Jeff] In the leaves.

- [Annette] Okay, and then bouncing off of that,

- [Jeff] We've got the coreopsis with sort of the same color in the center. The sedums and the slab plant in the crevice garden, the colors come and go. But it'll have that same color, in that sedum early in the year. And the Joe-Pye will again have the, same color.

- Well, and you can't forget old chicken grit. It's purple too!

- Chicken grit everywhere.

- [Annette] Okay.

- [Jeff] I buy more chicken grit than anybody, and I have no poultry.

- [Annette] And they will know big your flock is.

- [Jeff] Yeah, they do.

- [Annette] Okay, let's go into some shade now. That maple tree has a name, but you've adapted another name. What is this tree?

- [Jeff] That is the grandsons' secret hiding place. It's, they play inside that tree and hide.

- [Annette] And you allow them to climb the branches?

- I do, I do, they're not very big yet. So they can play around under that tree and they think they're far away.

- [Annette] And I'm noticing it has a little opening. But really, botanically, what is this?

- [Jeff] That is another dissectum, and this one is Inaba Shidare. This one is about, I don't know, 10 feet tall.

- Okay.

- And 20 feet across.

- [Annette] That's good. From one magnificent maple to another, Jeff.

- This is one of my favorite trees. This is Acer griseum, a paperbark maple.

- This is beautiful.

- It's very hardy, beautiful bark, beautiful bark.

- What about these leaves emerging?

- Okay, this is the tree, it's never failed me. I don't know if it works for everybody. But once this tree leafs out in the spring, I plant anything.

- No more frost.?

- No more damaging frost after that. But that's only my personal thing, I don't know if it's universal.

- [Annette] Well, I want to tell you, knowing that you had said that, I watched mine at home, and when that happened,

- Did it work?

- [Annette] It worked, but for me, the beauty of this tree is the exfoliating bark. And that you see that papery look. Well Jeff, I know I've been told not to be envious, but I don't know how to keep from it. You have collected your knowledge. You're well-educated, you have an eye for art, and you're situated right here in the mountain air and the beautiful blue-green around you, and I am, and I wanna come back someday.

- [Jeff] Come back anytime, we're happy to have you here today, and we'll leave a light on for you.

- [Annette] Thank you!

- [Tammy] Water is soothing and relaxing, and adds a whole different dimension to your landscape. So let's start with the water feature itself.

- [Derek] Okay.

- [Tammy] What are some things that we need to do to make sure that our water feature stays in tip-top shape?

- [Derek] I got you. So one big thing that we run into is leaks.

- Yeah.

- So, there's a couple of things we need to do. How do we know that we have a leak? You know well it's obviously if you're losing water, it's like something's going on. So we want to start with the leak protocol.

- Okay.

- So what the leak protocol is, we want to isolate, 'cause most, as you can see here, most water features have a stream and a waterfall, then you have your pond area. Well, which area is leaking? You could be on a wild goose chase, and it can drive you mad trying to pinpoint what that is. So, to kinda find the needle in the haystack, if you will, is the best to go ahead and turn your pump off, fill your water level all the way up to your normal operating level, and let's leave it off for 24 hours. If you need to leave it off longer, throw an aerator in there, 'cause the fish they need the oxygen. So let's see if the pond itself recedes, within that 24hours. If it doesn't, now we've isolated most likely, to the waterfall area. And what we found, it's probably about 95% of the time, it's in the waterfalls.

- [Tammy] And is that because it's doing all the work?

- [Derek] Sure, and if you look at the, like the streams with the shallow stream bed.

- [Tammy] Right.

- [Derek] It's very easy sometimes to just have a low edge. Or a dam, it's not uncommon. So if you're not staying on top of your pond, and we talk about how do we stay on top of this to keep it in tip-top shape. You know it's, we're almost in fall. So when the leaves begin their fall, if they dam up in the stream, it can easily push water out over the edge. So sometimes you don't see that.

- So when you talk about the edge of your pond, let's go look at that, so that you can show us

- Yeah absolutely.

- Exactly what you're talking about.

- Absolutely, so when we're looking at the stream itself. So let's say we've isolated it, and we know that the pond itself is holding water. So we're gonna come up here, this is about six foot long. So when we build these water features, we literally take our liner and we roll it up along the back edge.

- [Tammy] I see that, yeah. You covered it up nicely.

- [Derek] Exactly.

- [Tammy] But you've just folded that back under and rolled it up?

- [Derek] Yeah, we literally just fold it up nice and neat, about a little six inch. 'Cause sometimes you have to get in there, it's what we call pull up the pants. So if that's settled, you want a little extra overlap so you can get in there and pull up. So here's what can happen. Let's just say I'm in here and I'm actually doing some gardening, I'm going to pull some weeds or something like that, and I walk over and I step on this edge, and unbeknownst to me I pushed it down, now that water's gonna push its way out, and it can literally drain this thing, it can take it. Now in these, we have a mechanical skimmer. We can talk about that. You're only gonna lose about four inches of water. So that's usually what happens if it's a low edge. Sometimes, in the biofall back here, some people will have, so we put biofall so bio filtration on this. But other water features may just have a two inch or inch and a half PVC pipe. It's what we call the fire hydrant effect.

- Right, right.

- That can be up there, and sometimes that can get dislodged, a piece of wood or rock get shifted. Sometimes just animals come up, squirrels, and they can dislodge something, and push water out of the back of it. So that's basically, we would just inspect around the perimeter of the pond, typically find a low edge, and you just pull the pants up.

- [Tammy] So, if you pull this all back, and you don't see a low edge.

- [Derek] Right.

- [Tammy] Then what's your next step as far as finding your leak.

- You wanna make sure that you don't have any heavy debris in your pond, or in your stream rather. So make sure there's any leaf dams. I mean 'cause--

- And just visually look for that.

- Absolutely, just look through, 'cause most people are so used to staring at their beautiful water features, you'll know there's something out of place.

- Yeah.

- So that's usually the leaves debris, like you see some leaves, and even some algae too. If you get like an excessive string algae, or blanket algae buildup, that can actually push water out. One other thing, I just thought about this, at my house, I've had a leak on my pond in my backyard. Water lettuce, beautiful water lettuce. So you put those in the biofalls. If you know water lettuce or water hyacinth, they grow prolifically.

- Yes.

- Well they grew so much, that the water could not escape the biofall fast enough, and the water went out the back. And I'm a pond professional. And I'm like, what, maybe I'm overthinking, and it's like, what happened to my pond? And sure enough I look up there, there's water lettuce growing like crazy. So I pull a few out, and I throw them down in the pond, and they're totally fine. Water escapes and goes down. So even a pond professional can overlook stuff like that. So basically, you just look for dams and low edges. But there's one other thing that we don't ever want to happen.

- What's that?

- Chipmunks.

- Oh, what do they do?

- They'll burrow in the sides, and like any other rodent, their teeth are always growing. So they're constantly chewing to whittle those down, and they'll chew in the sides of your liner.

- And how do you know that's a problem?

- It's when you're in leak protocol. You're searching, you have no low edges, you have no dams, you know that the pond's holding water. And a lot of the time, it's usually a visual. So what do people do a lot of times? They put bird feeders beside their pond.

- Yeah, that's so much fun to have it all right there!

- Chipmunks love it!

- Oh, gee, yeah.

- So, but that's probably 1% of the time. We do have some scenarios where rats, I mean that has happened when they can get in there. So what you really wanna do when you're building these, if you're doing a DIY project, don't leave a bunch of gaps in between your rocks. Backfill that really, really well with soil. Pack it in nice, because chipmunks, they don't, they're looking for the path of least resistance. They want a little burrow, and like get in their little spot. So if it's all packed in there with soil, they're probably just gonna pass on by.

- Got it.

- But you think a lot of water features, it's just a lot of rocks stacked on one another. So it's great crevices for those little guys, for Alvin to go in there and just do his thing, so.

- [Tammy] Okay so Derek, you turned a leak into an asset in this particular pond. Show us that.

- Yes, so it's what we call our secret falls. So, we had a low edge over on this side, and you can kinda tell we've got our gravel over here. And I can actually pull this rock back just to show. So this liner, as we were talking about that low edge where it gets pushed down, this liner right across through here, was actually pushed down and water was coming out. So what I did, is literally came through and just pulled all this back, made sure the water stayed on the inside of it, take a couple of rocks, just kinda disguise it. And then you got a nice little secret falls.

- [Tammy] Sweet, so even a problem can become an enhanced part of your pond, if you know what you're doing.

- [Derek] See that's, and as enthusiasts, and the people that hang out with their water features are constantly playing with and tinkering with them. 'Cause this is a living organism. It's not, landscapes are beautiful, but there's something about this, this movement stuff, you find yourself wanting to play, and actually become a kid again.

- Yeah, Derek, this is exactly the kind of thing that I think that most people want in their gardens, but are sometimes a little bit intimidated by it. So we really appreciate your expertise.

- Absolutely.

- On this to help our viewers, we want water. It helps with the wildlife, it helps with all kinds of things, and it helps you relax.

- [Derek] Water is life.

- [Tammy] Yeah.

- [Man] Well, if I had to pick just one house plant, that was easy to grow, nicely colorful, this might be the one.

- Definitely, Philodendron Pink Princess is very colorful with the pink variegation is very random. Very pretty, easy to grow. They like bright light. Allow them to dry in between waterings. Eventually, they want something to climb up on, a moss pole or a wooden stake or something round.

- [Man] But for quite a while, I mean this is in a like six inch pot.

- [Calvin] Right.

- [Man] And it's doing just fine as a little tabletop plant.

- Oh, most definitely. And they're not the fastest growers, so you can keep it in a six inch pot and leave it in there for a good while.

- Well it sounds like a great choice to me.

- For sure.

- So if you're looking for a beautiful, easy-to-grow houseplant, you can check out all of these plants, this one and more, at Tennessee Tropicals with Calvin Owen. And how do they find you?

- www.tennesseetropicals.com Our Facebook and Instagram is also @TennesseeTropicals

- For those of you who don't have big fields, like we do on our farm, you may want to consider raised bed gardening. This is a good way to produce a whole lot of food on a very small amount of land. This raised bed has leeks, kohlrabi, Swiss chard, beets, cilantro, tarragon, onions, lettuce, all in this just little small spot. And I'd like to introduce you to Sally, the gardener here. Hi Sal.

- Hi Jeff, how's it going?

- Great, and Sally's been gardening for 40 years here, and is an old friend of mine, and we share a lot of knowledge about gardening. We just love to get together, and talk about gardening, always have. So, tell us what you got growing here. I mean this is a beautiful looking soil.

- [Sally] Well, thank you, it has a lot of compost and amendments in it. And I've had these raised beds for about four or five years. So I've learned how to make the most out of them. I have, as you mentioned, lots of spring vegetables, and I've been harvesting them for quite a while. I'm getting ready to, this is a mixed salad an all-star lettuce mix that I'm getting ready to pull out because once it gets bitter, there's no point in keeping it in the ground. And I'll pull it out and probably put some peppers, or summer Batavian lettuce mix in there. I get a whole year's worth of food out of these beds, just by pulling them up and planting new things. And they make wonderful salads and stir fries.

- [Jeff] Can we look at the kohlrabi?

- [Sally] Yes!

- [Jeff] They're a, it's an unusual vegetable. So kohlrabi is a turnipy, cabbagey like thing.

- Yes, and they grow thick, that they are nice to eat.

- [Jeff] Look at that soil! Look at the roots on those things.

- They're nice to eat in salads raw, or also you can cook them with broccoli, and cauliflower and cheese sauce. And a lot of the things in a raised bed I grow pretty thick, like carrots, and then I thin them out and take them and--

- [Jeff] Those look tasty.

- And pull them out. The other thing that I do is, I'll do successive plantings of things like carrots and lettuce and beets. This year, we had such a rainy April, I wasn't able to do as many as I wanted to. But I have enough beds that I can keep something going all spring. And then when summer comes, I'll probably put peppers in here, maybe a few eggplants. I still have potatoes in there to dig. I also keep different herbs here. So, it's fun because you never run out of different, you know, possibilities with it. And then I have things that, you know, I've kept Swiss chard in these beds for a couple years, and the parsley.

- [Jeff] Really?

- [Sally] Yeah, where I can just eat on it. And the parsley the same way until it starts to go to seed.

- [Jeff] Where's your parsley?

- [Sally] Parsley's over here.

- [Jeff] Okay, oh it's starting to go to seed right now.

- [Sally] Yeah.

- [Jeff] You know that leaving it grow to seed is a good idea because it draws in beneficial insects. So there's a nectar that beneficial insects need, besides the insects that they eat. And parsley is one of the best crops to let go to flower, because that flower helps the beneficial insects. So during the winter, Sally covers her garden with Reemay, a floating row cover. She has these little hoops, and that's how she's able to grow stuff during winter.

- That's right. And it can get pretty cold outside, and I can go open it up, and have kale, and chard, and Chinese greens, and spinach, and different radishes, turnips. And it feeds us all winter, unless it gets down, you know, to zero.

- [Jeff] And do you actually throw other, like, blankets across it too?

- [Sally] Yes, last year, on your suggestion, I threw blankets and quilts, and just insulated it like crazy to keep the winter promoting vegetables.

- [Jeff] Well your other beds are made from wood, which I'm assuming Steve made for you, and rock work is one of my little hobbies, and I helped Sally get some rock beds here right by her house. She primarily uses this for flowers and, gosh, what all you have in here?

- Well, I have a mixture. I have zinnias that I've just planted, and before I had the zinnias, I had all my broccoli, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, and cabbage plants that I plant really thick.

- And then you transplanted them.

- And then I hauled them out, and transplanted them in the garden when they were ready. Because again, I use the Reemay, the tobacco canvas, and I kept it warm. This bed, most of these are annuals. And I change it out year to year. I don't necessarily have the same things growing, although obviously the calla lily is a perennial. I have bunches of snapdragons and zinnias. The balsam has come back on its own. There's thyme in here, I stuck a few eggplant. A coleus, some straw flowers, and more salvias, I love those, and the dianthus are pretty too. So this is just, this is almost like having a artist's palette, and just trying to come up with splashes of colors and different sizes of plants, and it's just, it's sort of my fun garden that is not a lot of work, because I can keep it clean.

- [Jeff] Well I know from personal experience that Sally grows everybody's favorite fruit, strawberries. Are there any ripe ones in here?

- [Sally] Well, there's just a few left, a few stray strawberries, not very big. And here you go, here's one here.

- A little taste.

- A little bite, and--

- How long has this bed been here?

- [Sally] This bed, I think I've had three years.

- [Jeff] And again, you find it a lot easier to keep the weeds out.

- [Sally] The weeds with strawberries are a nightmare.

- [Jeff] Oh, yeah.

- [Sally] And so I finally said I'll never grow another strawberry, and then I came up with these raised beds, and decided I definitely wanted to plant some strawberries. And what is nice about this, is I'm gonna probably build another bed here, and another bed there, because there'll be lots of runners.

- And you just transplant them.

- And I'll transplant them or put them in pots, and start another strawberry bed, because it will fill up. But again, you can just sit down and weed away, or pick 'em and it's really handy. So, this is okay and I have two varieties, the Earliglow and the Northeaster, which didn't do as well. Jeff, as you can see, I plant them, space them at 12 inches apart, and they have just filled in, and made a nice little plot of strawberries for good eating.

- [Jeff] Well your peas look like they're doing wonderful in this raised bed. When did you get them planted?

- [Sally] I planted them the beginning of March. These are the green arrow, the whole peas. And on the other side is the snap peas, the sugarsnaps. I like to have both varieties. And in between, I stuck in some potatoes, just for good measure. Those are Yukon Golds.

- [Jeff] Those are the yellow ones, right?

- [Sally] The yellow ones, and they're good eating. I also have some Russian banana fingerlings, and some purple potatoes. I try the specialty varieties, because I can get the Kennebec's all day long from you. And this is already a second crop. They sort of were almost done, and then we got some rain just at the right time, and they have flowered and come on again. But I, they're pretty much, you know, if it stays warm they'll be done in the next week.

- [Jeff] Well, you've got some beautiful raised beds here, Sally.

- [Sally] Thank you, Jeff.

- [Narrator] 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.