Episode 2901

- [Narrator] Training and tending a bonsai tree is a stress free, rewarding hobby. Sheri Gramer introduces us to techniques used to create these beautiful specimens. And Troy Marden is planting this year's tomato plants right into his rolling compost pile. It's nutrient rich and offers good drainage. This and more. So stay tuned. A rolling compost pile might be just the spot for potatoes and tomatoes.

- Welcome to my compost pile, everybody. This is not the most glamorous part of my garden, but I've done something kind of interesting out here this season that I wanted to show you. Down at the far end, we have the fresh compost, the fresh material that is just in the process of composting. And as I work my way up this direction, I have two and three-year old compost and then actually five and six-year old compost down here. And I do use it in the garden, but I always have a large pile to sort of maintain. Since I'm not traveling this year and I'm actually home to maybe enjoy some fresh vegetables and I don't really have a place in the main part of the garden, I decided to turn my compost pile into a vegetable plot. You'll see here in front of me, in the part of the pile that is still mounted up, I have potatoes sprouting. These are the fingerling type potatoes that you buy in the grocery store for 5 or $6 for a very small bag. At one of the garden shows this spring. I was able to purchase a bag of tubers for about 5 or $6. And out of that 5 or $6 investment, I'll get 30 or 40 pounds, maybe more of potatoes this summer. The great thing about this is that the compost is so loose that when I get ready to harvest, all I'll have to do is dig under the plants just slightly enough to loosen them. And I should be able to pull the potatoes right out of the ground. That keeps from stabbing them with a fork or slicing them in half with a shovel as you're trying to dig them. Then as we move further down the pile, I actually raked this down level because I love to have a few home grown tomatoes to eat every summer. And again, I didn't really have a spot in the main part of the garden to be able to do that. But I do have this little spot out here. And I wanted to show you, because we're actually down into native soil. I think sometimes because you have the opportunity to see all of this on television each week, that sometimes it's kind of assumed that we all have perfect gardening conditions. And I want you to know that we garden just like everybody else in Tennessee does. We have clay, We have rocks, We have all kinds of things. You can see that I'm down in here into this brown, tan clay level of soil, but there's about four inches of compost over the top of it. When I get ready to plant my tomato plants, I always dig a big hole, much bigger than you might think is necessary, but I'm gonna show you how and why here in just a minute. But what I want you to see is if you really learn how to use your tools, chop this soil up good, it will break up really nicely in just a few turns of the shovel. And with that good layer of compost in there, what is not the most desirable soil in the world actually becomes pretty good. And I learned to plant tomatoes from my grandfather. I still do it the same way. I've done it for 40 years and we just kind of make a big well here, push some of this loose soil out around the edges. I've chopped down good and deep. I'm gonna take one of these tomato plants. We will pull the bottom leaves off just like this. And you want to plant deep. I know that other people have talked about this on the show before, but I always like to bury the stem of the tomato about halfway, because it will always form roots along that stem and you'll have a much stronger plant for it in the future. Quick and easy as that, pack this well in around. I'll come back and tidy this up just a little bit later on, but pack this good and tight. And then when you water in the summertime, you have a well here to hold all of that water right around the plant. Fertilize about once a month with whatever your favorite fertilizer is for your vegetable garden. And you'll have huge crop of tomatoes all summer long.

- Isn't it amazing how a garden transformation can happen, for me, I was in a fishing boat, minded my own business watching the floater, waiting for a croppy and all of a sudden, here's this log, this hollow log right beside me beside the boat. And I said, stop the boat. And with a big old grappling hook that you might pick something up. This at that time weighed about a hundred pounds, took a male to pick it up. And I brought it home and set it over on a bench. And it began to dry up. But then, all of a sudden, you see what happens? Now, I can pick it up. It's amazing how much water had been absorbed into this trunk of this tree. And it was just waiting there for me. I had to come up with a plan about how I'm gonna hold this dirt in this log. Well, 'cause I don't want it to wash away. So over all my sidewalk behind my greenhouse, I found some moss. And when I get this in place over where its resting place is gonna be, I'm gonna have a rock here and then I'm gonna lay this moss here to give it some aesthetics there. I think that that'll hold the soil so it won't wash away. Let's look at the plant selections that I have. First of all, the simple variants are the Hens and chicks. And I'll just tell you, this is a true testimony. This little Hen and Chick has been in this pot, no less than five years, Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall. And never died. That just tells you they are a hardy bunch. And with that in mind, I think that it doesn't... See, there's not much soil. It's never had enrichment. I think that's a really good choice of plants for this log. And these are gonna require some sun and so along about 12:00 and 1:00 o'clock underneath this Cedar Atlas back here behind me, I have some lumps that I've had to cut off. And so it does get enough sun there. All of these things will survive. What's gonna happen. This is gonna put out... This is the Hen and it will put out Chicks. So let's go get another one. Here's one that's Cosmic Candy. Isn't that sweet? This has got on it, and it's about to put out its babies. I'm gonna take off a little bit of the soil they put on it, I'll back up for just a second and tell you that I've got some sand that I wanted to put into this soil too. I think that will help with the drainage. And it'll also make the soil a little bit heavier. I wanted that. And then I wanna give it some pike back here. I am gonna elevate it when I put it where I want it to be. But anyway, I have me a bum built here. And this has happening before your very eyes. 'cause I don't know how this is gonna turn out, but it was something in my head and now we're gonna make it work. Okay, let's go back to the little Cosmic... Cosmic, What was it? Cosmic Candy. Yes. And I'm gonna put a little bit of room for it to have where these little things are gonna grow. Here's one, here's another one. This one is Cotton Candy. Isn't that cute? It's already putting out its little tentacles. I guess you would say it it's legs and feet, whatever. I need to make some space for that. And as I'm looking at my choices here, I'm gonna look to what, in my placement, as to what I think it's gonna need... Some of them are larger. And here's the one that's called Gold Nugget. That is a color, which is a good color. I'm just gonna sort of place these like this for just a second. And then I'm gonna leave room for this little Lemon Coral. This is a Sedum, Mexican Sedum. And placing these plants on... Some are hardy, some are not. This one is actually a hardy Sedum. And it's hardy to zone four. So in the winter time, this will not be hardy and this will not be hardy and this won't be Hardy, but all of the rest of these will. For accent and the color and the plant themselves, I'm trying to mix them. I wanna have a good portion of good color. And so I'm gonna take this probably and put it right here because you mix these two together. This one is hardy, but this one is not. That's still a good color combination and keep the low ones sort of to the front like this. And then this is a nice little Chocolate Ball as it's called. This is hardy. And this little wire vine, is just interesting. And I have had this actually come back in the Fall... In the Spring, I'm sorry. This is a sedum that is Hardy and it's rosy colored. And it will have a little bloom, but you know, like with all plants, when you put things in a container that they sometimes don't grow to their full potential. So I'm gonna keep that in mind with some of these that I put in here. Now that I have my plants pretty much like I want them, I have another hobby, I pick up rocks. But the rocks I want to incorporate into this, look like Coral. And then these are sort of hot plants. These are gonna enjoy some hot afternoon. So I have some rocks that I got up out of the creeks. This is coral, And I'm just gonna insert some of these in here. And there's two reasons, because again I'm packing in some dirt. I don't want my dirt to leave the roots of my plants. And so I've just picked up a few as I was thinking about it. And I love a rock where the geode has come out. Anytime you have a rock that's round in the center. And I have some very large ones, large enough that I see the birds drink out of them. And then these are vertebraes I think, but I'll just put this one... I'll put this one right down here, but now then the thing that I haven't incorporated into it, I have a little sedum, that is a native sedum that when I was at the family farm that I got the other day. This is very winter-hardy and it'll creep over the edges. I think I will just put it right here. And this is fully packed now. And I think it's about ready to find a home over here under a tree. Okay, I have a special spot for this in my garden. When I was thinking about this finished product, I wanted it to look like it was in a natural setting. I wanted to add something else with it. So by the use of a container that I have made on one of the first programs, about 18 years ago, I'm going to take it and I'm gonna incorporate into it some miniature Hostas and just give it a theme of outdoor and woodsy and then sun. And I felt like it looks at home where I've placed it underneath this container. I look forward to the changes that I believe I'm going to see in underneath this tree and from the use of the afternoon sun and the morning shade, it'll be a nice transformation.

- Well, recycling is part of urban living and it's also part of urban gardening. And with Matt Kerske of Gardens of Babylon, we're gonna talk about some of these things that it's not debris, it's not trash it's useful stuff. So

- That's right.

- of course, leaves and garden clippings, even grass clippings are all great things to put on the gardens.

- Always.

- And what about all this stuff that we think about throwing away or recycling? Let's think about how we can use that.

- There's a lot of different multiple uses here. Just some examples that we use a lot in my own garden and I have a lot of customers talking about their own gardens at home. Just always consider things like aluminum foil what I'm holding here. A great little device for wrapping around your zucchini, or squash plants to keep out the squash vine borers at bay. A lot of people have problems right at that soil line, right where that stem comes out of the ground, take a piece of tinfoil, kind of wrap it right around the stem there keeps the vine borer from getting in and ruining your squash harvest. From things like old spice containers, yeah keep a couple of these around. Sometimes really small seeds like lettuce seeds are kind of hard to sow, dump your packet in here and just kind of sprinkle them out. Much easier way to go around. They make spice containers that have all different size holes. Keep those in mind.

- Well, and then there're all those paper products we have, you might have teabag envelopes that are left over. You can save seeds in those. Maybe you're collecting them in the garden. You could certainly, all your regular envelopes, you get all that junk mail, save those to put things in. I like to use a toilet paper tubes, cut them in half, stick them in the ground and plant your seeds in there. And that way you won't accidentally weed them out when they first start growing. And then of course, newspaper and cardboard are great things to put down for weed suppression. And then of course we have egg cartons and eggs.

- [Matt] Right, that's right. and from egg cartons and eggs, can also be used. Once you use up your eggs, you got great little seed-starting pots right here that you can rip these off and they turn into little seed pots. And that you can use in the garden, after you get done using the incredible edible egg, you got the shell leftover. Eggshells are great sources of calcium, always great to be doing a lot of eggshells in the compost pile. Tomatoes love calcium. so you can either even use them in the compost pile or just crush them up and sprinkling 'them around plants. it's a great slug deterrent as well.

- And then of course, what about our CD here with all that--

- We've got this shiny CD here now and I had a great customer talk to me about his blueberry patches. He just had so many problems with birds in his blueberry and strawberry patches. Julie, he taped two CDs together with the shiny sides out and hang them from a fishing string and plant them around with bamboo poles or stakes up around the garden. And these birds just really do not like a reflective material spinning around in the garden.

- Oh, what a great idea. Well, let's see it. And I can think of a plant markers. Let's see, I like to use plastic forks and write on them and stick them in the ground.

- That' right, that's right

- What about you?

- From old recycle blinds, Plastic or a metal recycle blinds, cut them up use them as plant markers there also. Just a lot of different ideas before you pitch something out, maybe consider how could you use it in the garden? Because there's just so many different types of recycled uses.

- All right. Well, all your yogurt containers, your plastic bottles, save them, cut them in half, put some holes in them, use them to plant in. Seems like there are a lot of uses for all those recyclable materials. Give it a try, it's not debris, it's not trash. It's all useful garden supplies.

- [Sheri] How can you have a forest in a relatively small space? or even on a tabletop? How about Bonsai gardening? We're here today with Don George. Don,

- [Don] Hello.

- You've created quite a little oasis of bonsai back here in your backyard.

- [Don] Well, I started doing bonsai probably 30 years ago. And you can see I've amassed quite a collection. And this was one of the traditional specimens for bonsai that most people think about the Pine tree.

- What does that word mean?

- Bonsai. You pronounce it Bon Sai, not Bon Zai. And bonsai means tree in a pot. And the artistry of bonsai comes in coordinating the feel of the tree and the feel of the pot. You don't put a rugged tree such as this in a very delicate pot.

- [Sheri] as this grows, then you wrap it with wire?

- [Don] I do. And if we can focus in, I'm wiring this tree with copper wire to bring the branches down this way, I'm not quite finished here yet.

- [Sheri] How old is this specimen?

- [Don] Well, I knew you'd ask that question and really it's somewhat of an inappropriate. I don't wanna say rude question

- [Sheri] Question to ask 'cause we don't ask their ages?

- [Don] That's right.

- [Sheri] Okay.

- [Don] Because bonsai trees are supposed to look old.

- [Sheri] Okay.

- [Don] And so when you make a bonsai, you expose a lot. I can tell you the parts, but asking the age is actually a compliment because it's supposed to look old,

- [Sheri] But they can be very old. Is that correct?

- Oh yes. This tree is probably 300 years old. I went to the National Arboretum and the emperor of Japan gave Ronald Reagan a tree that was put in the pot in 1400.

- Wow.

- They can get very old and they're almost immortal.

- [Sheri] Don, what is this one? It's gorgeous.

- [Don] This is a specimen of a White Oak that I got in Colorado from a friend's yard. He asked me if I wanted it, and I said sure. And you can see it's got a beautiful trunk. A lot of large leaves, I haven't styled it too much. But Oak trees are... People always ask, can you do bonsai of any tree? And you can, but some trees don't look quite as good. And Oak trees are that because the leaves don't shrink. A lot of the deciduous trees as you keep them in a pot year after year, the leaves will get smaller and smaller. Next is a Beech tree, an American Beech and the leaves are small around this tree It's only been in the pot for a couple of years. I've collected it in the woods.

- So really you can just go out in the woods and find something that you think will be ideal and then bring it back and pot it up and start toying with it.

- [Don] As long as you get permission

- [Sheri] Oh, okay

- [Don] To dig it up.

- [Sheri] Okay, okay

- [Don] But yes, you can. You can do bonsai of just about any tree. But again, some like a Sycamore the leaves don't shrink as much.

- [Sheri] Don, this reminds me of an Ivy. What kind of tree is this?

- [Don] This is called a Trident Maple. And a Trident Maple is one of the classic trees used for bonsai. Because the leaves do shrink very small. I don't know if in other gardening you can leaf-prune and you can defoliate the whole tree about this time of year. And then when the new leaves come out, they'll come out much smaller, like the size of that leaf. Rather than some of the larger leaves that you see. The Trident Maples are very nice for bonsai because the leaves will shrink and you can defoliate them. I have a couple more of those trees around here.

- [Sheri] And where did you learn all this? You said you've been doing it for years, but self-taught? Self-read?

- Well, pretty much self-taught. Everybody's probably seen "The Karate Kid" with Mr. Miyagi,

- Right

- Wipe on wipe... Well, the tree that he was trimming on, I took a lesson from the guy, that was Roy Nagatoshi's tree. He was a Japanese master. And I've taken classes from him and some other masters. Instead of just having single trees in pots, you can do a grove or a forest of trees. And this is a Dawn redwood forest. Typically with the forest, you put the larger trees in the front and the smaller trees in the back to give it depth. Again, you put it in somewhat of a more rugged pot, but this isn't terribly rugged, but I added a rock. And again, you wire the branches so that they look old, if you admire trees out in the forest, the young trees have their branches going up and the older trees are sagging because of the snow and the ice. And that's the look that you're trying to achieve.

- [Sheri] Tell me about how you take care of these when it's so hot out. We've had intense heat lately.

- [Don] Yes we have. And the pots are made out of ceramic and can get very hot. In fact, over a hundred degrees, which would damage the roots of the trees. And so besides watering several times a day to keep things cool, I'll often cover each pot with white fabric to reflect the sun from them.

- [Sheri] And you don't like drip irrigation.

- [Don] No, drip irrigation is unreliable. And many of these trees are very expensive. And plus I like them. So if the irrigation fail, I'd have problems. So I hand water every day, at least twice a day. And one of the main considerations with bonsai is the soil. There's no organic material in this soil at all. It's all inorganic clay. This is called akadama, double-fired clay from Japan. And then we'll have lava rock and then some pumice, There's no organic material whatsoever. when you water the tree, the water goes straight through. And each bonsai pot, if I can show you a pot later, has several large holes in the bottom.

- [Sheri] Okay.

- [Don] So that the water just flows straight through. And then you also have to fertilize very well because everything just runs through

- Well, tell me... yes go ahead.

- The akadama is made to hold nutrients. That's why we use this. And it's rather expensive, we have to ship it in from Japan. But it holds nitrogen and it holds phosphorus and all the chemicals. You can see the roots very nicely on this tree. And most Japanese Maples do that. And that's called the nebari. We have different parts of the tree, the nebari and the trunk, and then the branches. And they're supposed to be in harmony together, just like a painting would be. And so when you style some of the bigger trees, you want to have all these features in it, Bonsai is not just putting a tree in a pot. There's an artistic flavor to it.

- And I'm curious about the deciduous ones, as well as the Pine. And evergreen, I saw some two, I think. What do you do when the weather turns cold?

- That's a good question. All of these trees I take into my own heated garage.

- Okay.

- In the winter time. You can mulch them into the ground covered with the Pine straw that we have. The last few winters we've had have been kind of chilly and I've lost a tree or two. So I decided to put them in the garage.

- Okay.

- And then it's in a wagon and I can wheel it into the sun if it's a nice day and back in and during the night.

- Do you continue to water them throughout the winter, then?

- Oh yes, yes.

- Okay.

- You need to do that. It brings up another great point. We often go to shows and the public asks, can I buy this bonsai? I wanna bring it in my house and put it on my desk. You see all these trees are outside

- [Sheri] Correct

- [Don] And they never, never go inside unless it's for a show for one day or so.

- [Sheri] Don, this is a starter. Tell me about this. How do you go about starting one?

- [Don] Well, this is a juniper, a Shimpaku juniper, and the Nashville bonsai society had a workshop with a Japanese master about a month ago in my barn. And these looked like bushes that you would buy at the plant nursery, and between wiring these trees and trimming these trees. This is the way that you start designing true bonsai, again.

- [Sheri] That that makes me come up with... I'm thinking of a question. If I wanted to start one of these, I wouldn't buy a dwarf evergreen. I would start with a regular evergreen, not a dwarf or a miniature like they're available now.

- No, you can buy a regular evergreen at any plant nursery. Make sure it has plenty of branches, and then have some wire and some snipers and away you can go. But you don't need dwarf.

- No.

- [Don] Anything will work

- Oh great.

- [Don] Next year I'll put this into a nice bonsai pot. So it compliments. And so the bonsai is really living art. And so you need to compliment this tree with a nice pot, but you can't do it this time of year. You have to wait until the spring to...

- Why is that?

- [Don] well, the plant is growing actively now,

- Okay.

- And using the roots, when you re-pot bonsai, if we--

- It shocks it a little, maybe?

- It does, but if you cut off 30% of the foliage, you have to cut off 30% of the roots.

- Oh!

- So that it compliments. And at this time of year, the roots are actively working. If you cut off 30%, it would probably kill the tree. So the trees are almost immortal because as you re-pot, like this tree would be re-potted every five years, you re-trim the roots, so it grows new fibrous roots every five years. So it can almost live forever.

- [Sheri] I know that you belong to a couple of organizations, are there help groups as well?

- [Don] Oh yes. Most of the cities, Nashville, Chattanooga, Memphis, all have bonsai societies. You can probably look them up on the internet. Our society is very eager for new members and we're happy to help anybody who's interested in learning about bonsai.

- [Sheri] Well, thank you so much, Don. It's been wonderful and I just think this is absolutely so peaceful and tranquil out here.

- [Don] Oh, thank you

- [Sheri] Thank you for sharing.

- It is very nice and peaceful and come back and visit anytime.

- All right, thanks.

- [Narrator] For inspiring garden tours, growing tips and garden projects. Visit our website@volunteergardener.org or on YouTube at the Volunteer Gardner channel and like us on Facebook.