Episode 2904

- [Narrator] Gardens are always evolving. Some plants fade and get replaced by new ones. Gardener's preferences evolve too with experience. Annette Shrader revisits a Clarksville gardener who is excited about the changes she's made. Plus, Julie Berbiglia showcases herbs and perennials that are well-suited for beginning gardeners. Come along. First, the updates to these perennial beds have been quite a success.

- It's another happy day in a garden. We're in Clarksville. We're talking with Angie Han. Angie is an extreme grower, I believe. And she has focused on many plants in her life, in her garden, but today, Angie, I want to talk to you... You switched to a new iris.

- Yes. One time I had a field of beauty irises, but I switched to Japanese irises. The reason is that I discovered Japanese irises is a whole lot more exotic for my point of view. And after bloom's gone, the foliage is nice and green all the way until frost and make your garden nice and look pretty.

- [Annette] And I can think of something else. It's got a really nice vertical line to it. Doesn't it? That foliage from the Japanese Iris?

- [Angie] Yes. This is nice. The beauty irises after blooms gone, that fully deceased.

- [Annette] It gets a lot of rot and the rhizomes too. So in your experience, now that you've grown 'em for several years.

- [Angie] Yes.

- [Annette] You've moved them about. What is the best location for them?

- [Angie] Japanese iris likes moist. They can do well in a regular flower bed, but they are when in the hot, dreamy, dry, hot summer day, they need a little bit more water then normal garden. But they do well in a regular flowerbed.

- [Annette] I really like this one now. What is this one?

- [Angie] Oh, this one called Maine elegance. I love this whiteish and have a little bit of colors in it. It is just exotic. I thought this is so pretty.

- [Annette] And I noticed with the white, it doesn't melt out like in the sun. It's full sun right now.

- [Angie] Okay. Oh, now this one called cascade crest. And I really love this one too. Like bluish and it is just... This one, a little bit late bloomer, but it just so pretty. Dancing wave, this one is a deep, deep color. And I really like this deep color.

- [Annette] Okay. So, really, if someone wants to plant the Japanese iris, and to know, when typically do they start to bloom?

- [Angie] Normally, they blooming about end of May and through the mid June and July.

- Whenever they come, we want them and we welcome them. Don't we? Okay. Now let's switch to another Thai plant. We're going to go into a bulb plant.

- Okay.

- Okay. I know that you have a magnificent display of fusion lily. What is a fusion lily?

- [Angie] Okay. Fusion lilies, they are coming up early in the spring before any other bulbs. These fusion lily, they are strong with the frost. When they come up like this tender shoot, coming up, have a frost, even the snow in top of it, don't worry about.

- [Annette] Okay.

- [Angie] They're good. They're hardy frost.

- [Annette] And I noticed that you have a row, complete row, of fusion lilies there in front. Oh, and there's another thing about that fusion lily. What happens when it blooms, after it blooms?

- [Angie] Okay. Now fusion lily's not like... I have lots of tree lily. It's called orienpet tree lilies. But the orienpet tree lilies, they are... After blooms the foliage lasts until frost. But now this fusion lily, they come up early in the spring, but then after bloom's gone, they turn brown and they just simply gone away. Kind of like a surprise lily.

- Or a daffodil.

- Just like a daffodil, or kind of like a surprise lily or resurrection lily. Or so many names on that one.

- Right. Okay. Well then that explains then you really don't have to worry about it because right beside or behind that row of lilies.

- Yes

- You have the tree lilies. And again, we can't predict the blooming time, according to what we can do.

- The weather.

- [Annette] So I know you do have one blooming, several blooming, but I do know, tell me now, about the beginnings of this hybrid tree lily.

- [Angie] Okay. Now, or probably week from now, they start blooming, the early bloomer, I might have one start blooming. But by one week from now, they'll probably all bloom. But tree lilies they could reach up to the 12 feet and they are so strong. And those tree lilies, the exotic beauty from mother, oriental lily, and strong father, trumpet lily. They hybridize they in between. That is why it's called orienpet lily and we call tree lily, because they're reaching up sky up high. And that is so, so strong. And fragrance, you can't believe fragrant. It just unbelievable fragrance.

- [Annette] Is it a morning fragrance or an afternoon fragrance?

- [Angie] In one day. All day! All day!

- [Annette] Okay.

- [Angie] And they blooming not once, they bloom like daylily, they only bloom one day.

- [Annette] Yes.

- But these or tree lily, they bloom three days or sometimes the weather is nice and good, sometimes bloom up to five days. So you have full over this lily. I just love the tree lilies.

- Well, now I know some of your gardening techniques. I know you don't use fertilizers. Are you doing anything special for these.

- [Angie] Okay. Now, I've been gardening for a long, long time, and I only use very little fertilizer for the perennial garden. Perennial garden, which is all these lilies, and all these daylilies. This is my method. I just let mother nature taking care of, no artificial fertilizer or nothing. What I do, I do time to time. I do compost, like cow manure, they season it, cow manure, or season it, horse manure. And in the fall I kind of shovel full of it and throw down in there. That's all.

- [Annette] Then in the winter, then it just decomposes and rains in, doesn't it?

- [Angie] In the fall. That's when I do, in the fall and they just like.

- [Annette] Well, then you've just transitioned us into another lily. You have beautiful daylilies. And I'm going to let you pick out three favorite ones today.

- [Angie] Okay. This is my really favorite. This is, it's called fried green tomatoes.

- [Annette] Oh my, everybody's going crazy.

- [Angie] The name is, but anyway, this is called fried green tomatoes. I really like, this is so different from other daylily. I really like it,

- [Annette] I Like the green in it, I guess that's the fried green tomato.

- [Angie] Yes, green and red. It is so exotic looking.

- [Annette] Yeah. And there's another one. I think that looks a little like your blouse, pink?

- [Angie] Yes. Now this one it's called same love and it came from Hanson, and it just so beautiful, and I had to have this one, say, "I got this one."

- [Annette] Well I know, hey, if you've got the room and you've just got to have it, get it.

- [Angie] Yeah, I know.

- [Annette] And give it a home!

- [Angie] I say, I got the number I'm click when I see something new and something so different then I gotta have it.

- [Annette] Well, and you've got another one named after an elegant lady. What's her name?

- [Angie] I got this one is Rose F. Kennedy.

- [Annette] Yes.

- [Angie] And I also love this one too. They're just green. And it is just so pretty. I like these three the best.

- [Annette] In this varied plant selections you have, Angie, you have a beautiful bears bridges. How hard is that to grow?

- [Angie] Oh man, this is the easiest plant you can grow. All you gotta do just plant it and just forget about, this can endure part sun and full shade or full sun. So in any place you wanted to choose, you can just stick it in there and put it in there. And you forget about them. They bloom beautifully and they can go with the hosta because there's the full shade. Or they can go to the full sun with the other plants. It is the easiest thing. But when they bloom, they really pretty.

- Well, Angie, I want to tell you. Anytime that you want to pick up a new plant group or maybe someday we'll see all these tree lilies in bloom.

- Oh, yes.

- It is always wonderful to, shall I say, pick your brain. It's just full of work in your... Your brain is full of ideas. Your hands are full of work and you get down on those knees. And I'm just always amazed at what you accomplish out here in your garden. And thank you for allowing us here in these days.

- [Angie] Thank you so much. Thank you.

- Well, I have all kinds of favorite plants that I love to share with people who have just started gardening. Why? Well because they're pretty much bulletproof and they don't use a lot of water. So let's take a look at some of 'em. I've got a little bit of everything for everybody. So flowers, herbs, even vegetables. See what we've got here. Well, first of all, you might see these beautiful dianthus, and coreopsis in your nursery. They're always a great bet. Just take 'em out of their original pots. Get them in another pot or in the ground, give 'em a good water and you're done. Something that's even easier is my favorite thing which are sedum. They're not going to hardly need any watering at all. And they're going to be beautiful. And they don't mind the heat. Great choice. So this is a sedum, autumn joy, it's going to grow pretty tall. And then it's going to put out little pink flowers and the butterflies are going to love it. This little sedum is a type of stone crop has these tiny little yellow flowers, and it's just going to continue to sort of cascade and spill, so these are a great choice. This right here is some of my sedum that I pulled out of my yard. Look at all these different plants it has. So it is starting to get really mature and really crowded. So here's how easy it is to give one of these away. You pull it off the base. You have some really nice roots here and you could go ahead and put it in some water If you want, let it make a few more roots, or I just plug these back into the ground and give 'em some good watering. They're just fine. These indeed are those plants that you can dig up, throw to the side for another day, and they'll probably be fine going back in the ground. So love me the sedum, autumn joy. Take a look at some of the others now. So something else that is absolutely a bulletproof favorite of mine. That again, you can throw to the side, if you can't plant it today and it's going to be fine tomorrow. It's going to be this big hunk of black-eyed Susans. And when you look at this big hunk, there are a lot of individual plants in it. So it can be as simple as just getting in there with your bare hands and pulling it out. And there we go, you just plug that into the ground and you have another black-eyed Susan, that's going to grow. Now the other great thing about these kinds of plants that I'm showing you here is that they multiply like crazy, which means you're going to have plants in the future to give away, just a great way to try out new things. And that's just the beginning of some of my bulletproof plants. Every now and then you get a bulletproof plant that's a surprise to you. So look at this poor little thing. Well I almost threw it away. It sat outside all winter and it dried all up. And it was cheap, I got it on sale, the end of the season last year, and it was pretty. But then all of a sudden I looked down and boom, flowering. So all I'm gonna have to do now is just cut away some of this dead stuff and we'll see how it goes. Sometimes bulletproof plants are just a experiment in what outlasts and outlives your neglect. Oh, a real favorite of mine. We have daylilies. Now I've had people give me daylilies. I've thrown them bare root in the trunk of the car and forgotten about 'em for a week. And they look a little dried up, but they will grow. So always daylilies. And another favorite here for the different insects for the butterflies, is yarrow, and it spreads like crazy, not like invasive, invasive, but it does spread. So again, you can yank it out and give it to other people. This one has a lot of great roots on it. So nice flowers. Now let's look at some of the herbs. So it's easy to have a big tub for your herbs, just a big planter. And once you get things in there, then I suggest you keep it near the back door. And it's something that when you rinse off vegetables, you can take that water and pour it in there. So that will make it a water-wise type of planting for you. So in this one planter, I have some rosemary, I have a strawberry mint that is new for me this year. I somehow ended up with a mustard plant in there, probably just tossing seeds around to the pot next to it, but I think that's going to be fun. I've got some parsley and some basil and they are actually going to do quite well in this pot together. And they're going to be easy to take care of and a lot of fun. What else do we have? Ah, do not forget the herbs that spread really nicely, like oregano. These are so easy to take care of. Just plunk them in the dirt and pretty soon you're going to have almost an oregano bush. They're really great. Okay, here is one that you just need to know a little bit about how to deal with it. Both of these are different types of mints. You can tell it's a mint if it has a square stem. And mints are a little tricky because if you just put them in the garden they're going to spread everywhere. So I do recommend that you put 'em in a pot. They could go in with this oregano and that way they're not going to end up all over your bed and taking it over. What else here? Oh, onions. Now these are a really great type of onion. These are called a walking onion or an Egyptian onion. And you can see they don't get that big onion bulb, but all of this is very edible, even the greens. What is very cool about 'em is that they have these little things that come out the top when they're making their new little bulbs. And eventually that will get heavy and fall over, root itself, and so it's walking across your yard. But again, pretty much bulletproof, as these types of things go. One other thing that I would suggest you just try would be some form of peppers. These are some little jalapenos. They're going to need to wait a little bit longer before I feel that it's safe to put them in. But after that, once they get going and it gets hot. Again, I've found it pretty hard to kill jalapenos. So another bulletproof thing that you can do is take advantage of some of our spring and late fall annuals, like these pansies. These are great. They really can withstand a lot of those late frosts, or early frost, depending on the time of the year. They aren't annual, so they are not going to come back for you next year, but they're well worth it, and they're nice perkiness. Now I've combined these with this greenery back here, and this actually are turnip greens. I had a few seeds that sort of, wasn't sure what to do with, and I thought, well, I'm going to stick them in here with the pansies because they both liked being nice and cool. And both of them really, their only needs are some water, pretty hard to kill as long as you keep it cool and wet. So don't stress yourself out. Don't feel like you have to grow absolutely everything the first time. And certainly feel like it's okay to share with other people and trade and ask them what are the things that they really need to get rid of. 'Cause they have too much of, and those are going to be your bulletproof plants. So get out there, get gardening, have a lot of fun and you might even have some fun experiments, like I did.

- It's always a real treat to come visit the garden of a designer, somebody who really puts landscapes together with a lot of thought and a lot of craft and a lot of skill. And today is no exception. We're in the beautiful garden of Mike Cruze of Cruze Naturescape Consulting. And Mike, come on in here. I want you to start telling me about what you've put together. This is the first thing that caught my eye when we came up to your place, this beautiful and unusual setting combination of plants, which I haven't seen put together before.

- [Mike] Yes, it's got the echinacea, at the same time the lilies are coming open.

- [Marty] Right, those hot lilies. And then what's really sets everything off though, is this to my mind, this blue, silver, wonderful, datura the angel's?

- [Mike] The angel trumpets.

- [Marty] Yes. This is the upward facing kind that comes back.

- [Mike] Right, this is the native.

- [Marty] Right, the native, and what I love is not only in this combination do you get lots of pow during the day, but this plant is a nighttime bloomer. And you can see, actually, that this white, this is last night. Am I correct?

- [Mike] Correct.

- [Marty] You can see it's closing up and it's done for, it's done its job, but coming just down the pike is tonight. You can see it's about to unfurl these tight, beautiful... It opens up really fast.

- [Mike] It really does. And it'll be open in the next three hours, more or less.

- Wow. And the fragrance. Oh my gosh. Just awesome.

- It's to die for, it's...

- [Marty] Mike, I just love what you've done here. This deeply shady hillside and you've put together this delightful combination. Tell me what it is that I'm looking at here, these ferns.

- [Mike] Well, this is your autumn fern.

- [Marty] Autumn fern, beautiful.

- [Mike] So it will stay with us all winter and give us a lot of color.

- [Marty] And then this delectable.

- [Mike] It will disappear. But now it's beautiful. This Japanese painted fern.

- [Marty] Oh, that silvery color. And you know what I'm loving? I just noticed. There's a little bitty pipsissewa under there.

- [Mike] Yes there is.

- [Marty] Picking up this silver. Isn't that delightful? That's a little native. Oh, that's just wonderful. This is a kind of a moister area in your shade, Mike. I see you've got this beautiful waterfall behind us here and I love the way you've taken such a striking, wonderful, tropical, my favorite caladium white queen and stuck it in the midst of this setting. And I love what's around it. Tell me, what wonderful plant am I looking at here?

- That's the turtle head. It will be a late bloomer, bring some color later on in the fall with the aster.

- Oh, okay.

- [Mike] The wild aster that we were looking at on the hill, earlier.

- [Marty] Right. Wonderful. So this gives you late summer, early fall color.

- [Mike] And here's of course the color before they... While we're waiting on the blooms.

- [Marty] It's beautiful.

- [Mike] Behind you I have some hosta that will be blooming soon also, so it's...

- [Marty] And you've worked in this wonderful, sort of contrasty, variegated, the Vinca here.

- [Mike] The Vinca, yes.

- [Marty] Really beautiful. Well, Mike, I see you're doing some, what I think of as reverse zone pushing here, with this northern plant growing in your shady garden.

- [Mike] Yes, this ligularia, I have about 30 and I... They come in bloom along the creek are just beautiful.

- [Marty] Correctly sited, they'll work in the south, I know, not the deep south, but in Tennessee they will.

- [Mike] You need to keep them in the shade.

- [Marty] Right.

- [Mike] 'Cause they are a sun full plant.

- [Marty] It's a pretty spectacular plant. But one of the great things about this plant is it's more than just a great spire of blooms. It's got these huge leaves that just are... Isn't that just spectacular?

- [Mike] Yes, they are. They're beautiful.

- [Marty] Really wide.

- [Mike] A sawtooth.

- [Marty] A sawtooth, really dramatic, doubly dented right? And they have almost a tropical feel, to me, especially contrasted with... I love this combination again of the fern behind it.

- [Mike] This is an ostrich. And this one here is actually another fern coming through.

- [Marty] Yeah.

- [Mike] Like a lady fern.

- [Marty] Lady fern is what it looks like.

- [Mike] I believe that's a lady fern.

- [Marty] But I love the contrast between the super fine almost comb-like foliage on the Fern and these big bull rounded heart-shaped leaves of this ligularia. It's a great combination. And then I just love purples and roses and those sorts of colors. And I love this little cluster you've done here, Mike. This beautiful little yellow throated kind of... I don't know, what would you call that plum?

- [Mike] Yes.

- [Marty] Daylily? Maybe little grapette or one of those? But it's beautiful. It's not too tall. Look at the bud count on this thing. It's and the grassy foliage contrast so beautifully with this. Tell me what this is.

- [Mike] It's the grape leaf anemone with some of my fall colors coming in.

- [Marty] So this blooms in the summer? This comes on a little later.

- [Mike] A few weeks later.

- [Marty] And it'll get a little taller than this, right?

- [Mike] Yes.

- [Marty] And silvery pink, just beautiful.

- [Mike] Correct.

- [Marty] Like a, kind of like a softer silverier version of that bloom. And what I really love is what you've got right back here. Now we're looking at seed pods, right?

- [Mike] Yes. They're in the process of drying out and becoming brown, I guess this is more color for the garden.

- [Marty] It is. And this is kind of a double whammy plant. It's honesty and people grow it. It also sort of will self sew around. It just shows up where you want it. What I love about this is, it's got this color of flower earlier in the spring.

- [Mike] Exactly.

- [Marty] So you've got the same thing. Plus, when these get ripe, they turn that beautiful...

- [Mike] Bronze.

- [Marty] Oh.

- [Mike] Silver bronze, and they rattle when the wind blows.

- Oh, and that's such a delight, you get the sound as well as the beautiful visual effect. And I love the fact that that color sort of compliments the silveriness of the anemone blooms. I just think that's a subtle and unusual and really smart combination that you've got going here. I love it.

- Okay. And after the fall flower blooms, we have the winter flower coming on in, around late November, early December, these camellia. And they have large pink flowers on them.

- Oh, beautiful.

- Also one behind me.

- Oh, man, that's just awesome. And then you've got this red foliage, sort of plummy, kind of Japanese maple over it all.

- And then, these leaves were of course turned bright red. And then as they disappear, these big pink flowers will start opening up.

- How spectacular

- It really is a show.

- In such a small area, you've got four seasons of beauty right here. It's just wonderful. I just want to thank you so much for sharing your wonderful, wonderful, garden with us and these delightful combinations you've put together. This has been a real treat.

- Watermelon is wonderful on the patio, but sometimes you want to do something a little bit different with it. So we're going to make Beat the Heat watermelon lemonade. It starts with a simple sugar syrup. So what I'm going to do is take a cup of sugar and I'm going to add a fourth of a cup of water to it, and I'm putting it over medium heat. And I'm just going to stir this. It doesn't seem like much water, but it will certainly melt all of the sugar. And all you gotta do is just stir it for a second, and you've got the makings of a nice sugar syrup. Okay. We're going to let that just kind of sit here and dissolve for just a second. Let me turn the heat down and let's go to our watermelon. I'm going to need two cups of watermelon. And the equivalent of that is about a fourth of a slice of what I would call a medium sized watermelon. I'm using a seedless one here, but you don't even have to use seedless if you don't want to, you can use one that seeded because we're going to strain those seeds out of there. Okay. So I've just cubed this up and I'm going to put this in the blender. Now a lot of people think, "Oh shoot, the blender's not going to work with all of this watermelon hunks in there." But we're going to add our lemon juice for the lemonade to it. And always keep in mind that however much sugar you use in lemonade, you're going to use the same amount of lemon juice. So we used a cup of sugar. We're going to use a cup of lemon juice. So if you'll put your watermelon in the blender first and then pour the lemon juice on top of that, you shouldn't have any trouble with all of that blending. Okay? So we're just gonna put this lid on and puree this. Just for a couple of seconds there and it's done. All right. Now, what we're going to do is strain this mixture. You know, how I was telling you, don't have to worry about the seeds. The reason you don't have to is because we're going to strain it. Now you've got two separate kinds of strainers that you usually have in your kitchen. This one has all kinds of little wide holes that are kind of dispersed through the colander. You don't want this one, too many bits of pieces of the watermelon can slip through there. You want one like this instead, that's like a fine mesh strainer, and you're going to just put it over your pitcher. Now this takes a few minutes, but what you're going to do is just strain all of this pureed watermelon mixture over your pitcher that you're going to be serving it in. And just let it keep straining, keep straining, keep straining. Obviously, if you've got a bigger mouth pitcher and a bigger mouth strainer, it goes faster. And then you're going to discard all of those solids. Okay. As that strains down? When you get all finished, you're going to add the sugar syrup to that mixture. We have already done it here. This is already strained, and it's already got the sugar syrup added to it now, but we're not finished yet. Gonna add some sparkling water. Sparkling water is sometimes labeled as soda water or even seltzer, and it's just carbon dioxide infused water. And a lot of people use this because it settles a nauseated stomach. I like this particular brand, but you can use any brand that you want. Just get about a 23, 24 ounce bottle. And then you're going to add that just before you get ready to serve. You can do the sugar syrup mixture and the lemonade mixture and combine it and put it in your fridge and have it all ready. And then just before the party, you're going to add this soda water, or sparkling water to it, and give it a nice big stir. And you've got a beautiful. Beat the Heat watermelon lemonade.

- [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.