Episode 2906

- [Narrator] - This time, on volunteer Gardner, Jeff Poppin shares his knowledge, about growing garlic in Tennessee, including reliable and tasty varieties, Annette Shrader tours a backyard garden, filled with gorgeous deep planting beds, from one corner to the other. And Tammy Algood discusses getting a good yield from blueberry shrubs. Join us First, a wide variety of plant material and dense beds, can create a sense of privacy and peace.

- I just walked into, maybe another continent because this garden has an antique Japanese influence in it, but it's all been possible because, Beth O'Leary has some really neat ideas about gardening. Beth, thank you for allowing us here.

- Thank you for coming.

- And I want to, for you to tell us exactly what got you into this type of gardening.

- I'm a Buckeye, I'm product of Ohio state university. I had the good fortune. I'm blessed to have, a really good set of instructors, really from a young, very young person. I liked plants and got plugged in at the right place at the right time. And here I am.

- What led you to Nashville?

- I was an intern at Cheekwood right out of college. And I moved in... June of 1990. And my husband came three months later, so I could not have done, any of this without Robert Edwards, my husband and my business partner. I just couldn't have done it.

- Okay. Now you've been on this quarter of an acre for how long?

- for 25 years. Like my, our oldest child is 26 and he was an infant when we moved here. So, this is the fourth version of this backyard, because we accommodated gigantic perennial garden in the beginning and then kids grew up and didn't play on the place set. So the garden behind you was the place set.

- The lifestyle changes in the garden. Never sit still.

- That's true. That's so true.

- Now we're to today, I know that you're a hosta person.

- I am

- led me to,

- Yes.

- You. So tell me today about the hostas that you're most fond of.

- Ooh, I like them all. I never met a hosta, I didn't like.

- Me either.

- And it seems like hosta lovers, it runs in... either, like I'm really, really big or like I'm really, really small

- Or maybe really blue or really short.

- Right, there's not, no nobody's lukewarm about it, but I like the ones that are verigated that are chartreuse and dark green, like Francis Williams is the classic example. I'm really fond of that color combination. Anyway, it appears on the leaf and the bigger and more corrugated, which means it's corrugated like cardboard and the ruffle pie, crust edge. The more activity on the leaf, the more crazy I am about it, that activity on the surface of the leaf, the corrugation and the pie crust edging, it makes it more slug resistant texture and the slugs can't get hold of it. And I have, because I'm so shady and I've got water, I've got a real slug problem. So I'm all the time fighting slugs. And this year I've had good success.

- 'Cause you have a very good way of fertilizing your hostas, don't you?

- Oh yeah, the good hosta magic. The hosta society magic is... if you start at April 15th, which is our frost date, until the temperature reaches 90 degrees on a regular basis, was on or about May 30th. So you've got a 45 day window to treat three times with miracle, grow tomato, food and miracle grow tomato. Food is loaded with lots of micronutrients, so that it promotes real green vigorous growth. And in a hosta green growth means blue growth because you know, there's so many of the hostels are blue. A blue hosta, is a green hostel with a glaucous coating on the leaf. That's what makes it blue.

- Okay. Now let's move on to an unnoticed. As I was walking earlier with you, there's like five layers of plantings from wall to wall garden. Then you also believe in covering every square inch don't you?

- I do and I've liked plants since I was a little kid. So, when I go to my mom's house or I go to my in-laws house and I see plants that I have sparks a memory, I got, I have to dig some and bring it home.

- I have that same theory. I'll find the plant I want. And then I find a place for it.

- Absolutely.

- It's sub stay over there and pots.

- Yeah, I've got a little special area. Just the holding area. I call it, but I work them in. I do get them worked in.

- And, even though you are shady, you've managed to, you have dappled shade.

- Absolutely. I have some of it I've created and others mother nature did for me, this yard had 19 bucks, elder trees when we first moved here and we have lost every one of them to storm damage.

- Yeah.

- So something had to go in their places, which is the reason for the massive amount of layers. Because if you can't get height immediately, you can combine height with width and treat density, so that your neighbors can't peek in.

- You've conquered privacy.And how have you done that?

- Well, it's really close here. I have neighbors on all sides in the backyard. So I have planted, for density and I just, pack it in. I don't know any other way to describe it, except just, get it in and give it enough water and nutrients that it'll get up and go in and find its own light.

- And now, you've got a vignette that is really nice to sit in. And it surrounds one of your koi ponds.

- Yes.

- And you also have, some babies planted in there don't you?. I do mine. That's where I keep my mini hosta About half of my mini hosta collection is planted in the rocks around the koi pond.

- Yeah

- I'm sure that the sound, if I had a visitor, I would enjoy sitting in those chairs and hearing the water because the, all of that is so serene and just... really it's private.

- It is private. One of my favorite things is to come home from work and have one of my neighbors waiting on me, in the backyard because they know they can come in the backyard. They know eventually I'll be in the garden and I get back to the pond and there they are waiting on me. How was your day? How are you doing? It's good to see you. That kind of thing makes me feel like

- That is, part of the beauty of gardening because it opens a door. It opens the door to friendship and questions and sharing. It's a group effort.

- My whole entire family helps me out here. My husband, Robert Edwards, my business partner and husband and lifelong friend. It seems like adult friend, definitely and my three adult children, they helped me a lot because I'm just one person.

- Yes.

- And I'm getting old and I.... have trouble doing everything I wanna get done.

- It's a beautiful thing to grow old with our garden.

- I agree.

- Tell me, do you have right off hand some, an idea of the mistakes as a professional, the most, the biggest mistakes that people make with their gardens

- Expecting too much too soon. And it's like, why isn't this growing? Why, didn't this do this, expecting plants to react like people or animals.

- Exactly.

- They don't, they're not here. boys hit plants. Don't do it that way. A plant you just have to put it in the ground and you have to, watch it. You have to let it be, just have to let it be.

- And it has to acclimate as it is. Right and time of planting and pruning at the wrong times, probably the biggest mistake people make with flowering shrubs, especially hydrangeas. They go through and knock off all the flower buds and say, why didn't this bloom.

- Thank you for, allowing us to be here and see your work. See your garden through your--

- Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for coming.

- Our farm has been growing garlic for over 40 years. We love the Spanish Roja type. And about 20 years ago, I started growing music and I love music. And I love the garlic variety music. Also, these are big rock emboli types, and they differ from the.... silverskin types. In that they, have a hard neck, the silverskins have a soft neck. They're the ones they use for braiding. They're generally smaller and not as flavorful. We like these rock and bullies because they, really packed a punch and their cloves are very easy to peel. So, garlic is one of those crops. You plant in the fall, you can't plant garlic in the spring and get a good bulb. So around mid-September to mid-October, we worked the ground up and make beds. You can see how they've made a little bed here with a one, two, three, four rows of garlic in it. And the soil gets lots of the Biodynamic Compost. Garlics are pretty heavy feeder, in the fall. We take garlic cloves off of the bulb. We make sure that there's no bad spots on them and that they are still secure in the root there. And then we put them down into the soil, not very deep, you know, something about like that and just cover them up. And so this has done the fall. And then you cover this with hay about that deep, or you can just keep it clean, cultivated by hauling it. Yeah, either way works well. We like to put the hay down, because the sides mulching, the weeds, the hay will keep in some moisture if it gets dry and also the hay is gonna break down and just be more great organic matter for the soil. One of the reasons I like growing garlic, is the root system really goes out there and has lots of microbial action in it. And it's beneficial for the soil. And so we can improve our soils by growing garlic. It's the next crop does really well, following garlic. They're a really, easy crop to grow. I like growing them for a number of reasons. They grow in the off season. You plant them in September or October, and they're growing all the winter long. They'll just sprout up a little bit in the fall. And then they kinda winter kill, in late May. The garlic plant wants to send up, a shoot and make a flower like all plants. So this is called the garlic scape. And it'll make, a little bulblets up at the top here, but we wanna put the energy of the garlic, into that bulb, so we clip these off, just like that, right there. You can see where this whole field, has been clipped off. So we used to take a machete and clip them off and just leave them until somebody said, you know, these are edible. And so, now we actually give these to our CSA customers. They're actually very good. You can make pickles out of them and have pickled garlic scape. All the parts of the garlic are edible. You know. You need to leave, if you want to, of course, the bulb is what we're after. So, a bulb of garlic is actually, surrounded by these like paper, like things. And when it's dried, each of those represents one of the leaves. So, this leaf then goes down into the soil and goes around that bulb. So, we wait until these leaves start to yellow and dry and, and die, but we pull the garlic while it still has a few green leaves on it, because those will ensure that the garlic itself will have a couple of good rappers around it and that'll help keep it... longer, make it store better, because it will be protected. The rock emboli, garlic will last, till about February, and then we'll take some of it and we'll dry it in a dehydrator. And then we can grind that up in a mortar and pestle and have garlic until the new crop comes in.The silverskin, garlics to soft next store better, and they'll keep longer, but they have more wrappings around the cloves, thus making them harder to appeal, but a better storage capacity. You can tell where these leaves have already died. And so that's not gonna be a handy paper, but these leaves are still green. They're still wrapped around that bulb, but they'll start to die back. And when they get dead to about up here, and there's still a few green leaves, that's when we harvest the garlic and you just take a digging fork and put in the ground like that and pop them up. They come up pretty easy. Another cool thing about garlic is that it can be, follows other crops, real well. So in your garden, you might have some summer squash or cucumbers, maybe some green beans. And those things will kind of peter out by September. And you pull those out and right where they were growing. You put some compost in, put your garlic cloves in there. They'll grow during the off season, in October through about next June. You'll have to get in there and weed them in April and keep them clean. But then, when you pull them in mid June or end of June, your bed will be clean and perfect timing for planting late summer squash, green beans or cucumbers, which will come in, in September rather than being your early crops. So that way you have successive props, of things growing in your garden, all the time. You wanna keep those garden beds busy. You've got a lot invested, your compost and your tillage and everything. And you just wanna keep those beds busy and don't let any weeds grow up.

- A few years after planting small fruits, whether it's blackberries, blueberries, or raspberries, you may find that you've got an overgrown bushy shrub rather than a productive plant, or you may look at it and think nothing's happening here. So what we wanna do is talk to my friend, Dave Lockwood, UT fruit specialist with extension and figure out what do we need to do with a plant like this? That looks like it needs to be pulled up. Dave

- Yes.

- Help.

- Okay.

- Talk to us about this blueberry plant. 'Cause this is pretty typical of what you'll see right now before the plant starts bushing out.

- Yeah, blueberries can be a slow starter in our planning. So, one of the things I like to do is, build a canopy up in the air and not worry about early fruit production. And to do that, similar to what we talk about in trees, we're gonna look at the tree or that the plant and determine whether we've got any dead or broken wood or shoots in the tree. We're gonna prune those off like we do here. And one thing I always caution people, about is, look at the basal part of the cut and see what the color of the wood is when you make that cut to make sure it's healthy, green. Okay. So those were dead shoots. This is also a dead shoot. So the first thing that I would is to cut those off. Now, blueberry, can set fruit buds on a very young plant and the first few years of their life, especially if they're kinda weakened growing, they don't wanna have fruit. We were gonna de fruit them. This plant does not have any fruit buds on it. I do think the deer have grazed off a lot of them. Well, I actually, I said it didn't, but it does have a couple. You can always tell the fruit buds on blueberry, in that there are larger plumper around their buds, as opposed to the leaf buds, which are much smaller, more pointed and occur further down the shoot. So there's a couple of fruit buds. There are couple here.

- So this is leaf.

- Yes.

- And this is fruit.

- That's correct. And so, in a young plant like this, where your primary goal is to grow up the plant, you don't wanna let it fruit. So, I like to come in while the plant is still dormant and cut off the shoots with fruit buds on, because we're attempted to leave some fruit, to see what it's gonna be like.

- So that the way just showed with the fruit grownup, you're gonna cut that off and never let it, go to fruit.

- Right. And depending on how the plant goes, we may do that for the first two, three years of its life. And then after the canopy gets on up, then we'll let us start the fruit and you'll have a bigger plant and you'll better crop. And it's gonna be up higher where you've got better air circulation around the canopy for disease control and also for ease of maintenance.

- You know Dave, I get that though, because if I had seen that, I would have been like, Oh, maybe we'll have just a couple of blueberries. And but you, that's not what you want to happen at this plant.

- No

- Okay.So let's look at this one because, this one, to me, it looks similar to that. So I'm assuming this comes off.

- Right?

- This comes off. Okay, all right. And then what about, I mean, this looks kind of odd.

- With that, the shoot died back to this point and I liked to always cut back into healthy woods. So, I'm gonna cut that dead tip off, again. We'll look at the color of the wood under the cut. It's healthy. That's good. If it wasn't healthy, I'd cut further down.

- All right, and let's go to this one other one that looks like it's kind of in that same, boat, do they typically all kind of match each other when at this point of the year, when you got nothing really going on.

- It's quite common for them to have very similar growth habits. So on this one, the two you're touching in this one are dead. The tip of this one is dead. I probably would go below those and cut it all off. And again, we've got a healthy shoot. I'm gonna cut this dead tip off here and leave this. It's fairly healthy. Now, we do have fruit buds here.

- No, well, where are you gonna cut those off? So I'm gonna come below those and cut them all off. And actually, I do the same thing there. So we've, gotten rid of the weaker... shoot growth, where it's a side-branch and we're trying to build stronger growth and more upright growth.

- Okay. So Dave what did you do with this? Do you mulch this? How do you take care of it from here on out after you've done all of these?

- Well, blueberries are kind of a unique plant in the third one. They're acid loving plants are a lot like azaleas in the landscape, so they need an acid soil. So we build a raised bed. Then you can see the bed here, and we may have a contained bed like this, or it may not be contained, but we, incorporate a lot of organic matter. We lower the pH, and that does several things. First off, blueberries have a very shallow root system. So, they're very vulnerable to hot temperatures in the summer, or if it turns out dry, those roots are gonna be apt to dry out. The mulch will, tamper both temperature and moisture levels in the road zone of the plant and makes it a whole lot more conducive to good root growth, which of course is essential for top growth.

- Right,

- Following that, we like to irrigate. And you can see that there's an irrigation line laid down on top of the ground here because, in the spring, we quite often get adequate water. But as we often see, mid-summer, which is still a critical time, in the blueberry plants growth we'll, run into die times.

- Right?

- And so, without a combination of the mulch and supplemental watering, the plants are gonna suffer.

- So, this summer, you just keep it mulched and watered, and you don't do anything else to the plant.

- I would probably, fertilize it about three times, very light application. So, if you've got just a few blueberry plants and you've got some Mosaic plants, I use the Mosaic food. Mosaic fertilizer on my blueberries as well, because I had similar fertility requirements. If I had a lot of blueberries and Northern areas, I would buy a fertilizer called ammonium sulfate, which is an acid forming nitrogen fertilizer, and use that. But it would only be like an ounce, so at bloom about six weeks again, and then six weeks after that. So about three applications, assuming that either we're irrigating or that we're good in good rainfall. And by mid-summer, I would no longer fertilize the plant.

- And let it just do its thing and just keep it watered.

- Yes.

- Okay. All right, so after about, three years then is when we start getting some yummies.

- Yes, Yeah. Generally and depends a little bit on how the plants go on, but if it's grown, like we'd expect it will, the third year I'd be inclined to let us start to fruit.

- Got it.

- Okay, Dave, thank you so much for this. I've learned a lot. You're a good pruner Dave. I'm sure the plants will agree, but it looks a little scary at first, but thanks for the lesson on that. I think we all needed it.

- Well you are very welcomed.

- It is the peak of rose season in the garden of Ron Daniels in Hendersonville, Tennessee, we're gonna take a look at a number of types of roses that will perform really well here in the middle Tennessee area, from climbers to miniatures, hybrid teas and several other favorites. I can't wait for you to see this garden. It is prime rose season here, and some of your most beautiful ones are these climbers that are on the fence. Tell me a little bit about some of these that, you have that are a little bit more tried and true.

- Okay. The new Dawn for instances is the Rose has been around since 1930, one of the first hybrid ties Rose and one registered. And it just does well, I enjoy growing it because of, or you can see the flowers unbelievable, but they produce the big flowers and they do repeat bloom.

- Sure.

- So it takes like it'll take 30 below zero. And they'll, I mean, it's just unbelievable

- Its a good, tough plant

- In my experience, pretty disease resistant also

- Oh definitely it requires very little training

- So people are looking for something that will climb and really take up a good amount of space and be tough. A New Dawn is a good one.

- Right. And a lot of people, they don't understand. They think they're climbers. They're really not climbers they're trainers and vines climb. But if you train them on a fence row or trellis or up against a building and time off, they'll do well. So, and then the Don Juan is one of my favorite red ones because it has this beautiful, red velvet, but look to it. And it repeats bloom to just unbelievable

- Right throughout the summer.

- And then behind us on the Arbor is a really pretty little rose, kind of a nice pink color and little clusters, pretty good sized clusters of little blossoms. And this, what is the name of this one?

- Jeanne Lajoie.

- Jeanne Lajoie.

- Yeah. It's of course a miniature and it's Oh, the rating owning is just unbelievable. It's like around 9.

- Right now.When you say rating,

- Well, the American Rose society has a rating system where they test these roses all over the country and people's own I've tested some here myself and they rate them according to disease resistant growth patterns of them, how they flower, how they replete disease resistant, growth patterns of them, how they flower, how they withstand our climate. Right. So just lots of good garden qualities.

- So just lots of good garden qualities. And they write them what from zero to 10.

- Well there is no zero or 10 Believe it or not. If you get something anywhere from seven to nine, you've got a very good shape, Especially for our climate.

- This rose, I believe it's called Jaminine Have you found it to be a really good performer here.

- Oh, excellent. It's an excellent show rose and a great, cut rose.

- What makes a good show Rose?

- Well, basically the shape of it, the buds need to be real tight and have a good oval shape to it, and of course the foliage plays a part in it also.

- Sure.

- These right now, I probably wouldn't, but I had already cut this, because they are in different stages. but this is probably one of the top 10 show roses out there.

- Right.

- So now we're looking at hybrid tea roses, which are, the classic rose that everybody think of, when they think of roses and the ones that everybody really wants to grow. and this is the variety called Dublin And tell me about the roots of this plant, because roots are important in roses

- Right. Well, this is on root type of Rose--,

- Which means that it's not grafted. And so it's a great show rose, Dublin, It has been around a while and its on top ten also it don't get much bigger than this. It'll stay about the same height and produce some good flower.

- Here you have a bed of miniature roses. And for people who don't have a lot of space, this might be a good option.

- Oh, that's true. A miniature roses, is a good rose to start out with as a beginner and you can grow them in pots or even small areas like I have here.

- Sure. And they, produce just as good and you don't have to be as particular about the deadhead, you just gonna trim them off and bloom right back. a lot of them have a tendency to blame more in clusters. So when the cluster finished, then you can just cut the whole thing off and right. Not quite as much individual deadheading, maybe as with some of the mini miniatures have become more popular in the less four, five years even on the show and showing people they have up also meant that they have many floras right. I have so many floras too. Also I got them splended up here, many floras So that means they get a little taller, right. Little bigger flower.

- And then we have these great little shrubby kind of miniature roses, like Gizmo which has been a favorite of mine for a long time and a good color and lots and lots of flowers.

- Gizmo was awesome.

- I know that there's a special reason that you grow roses. Tell me a little bit, about why you got into this and what you do with your roses.

- Well, I've always been somewhat of a gardener, but 20 years ago I met a man named John Curtis who was a local Rotarian here in Hendersonville. And he kinda introduced me to roses. Right. And so he had a ministry with Other words, he, every misspelled, all the roads he grew, he gave away. He took him to his local church, or when you'd seen him out in public, he always had roses. And, and so I've kind of carried that on. He's passed on now, but he passed that on to me and I use it my local church and in my community, and I do show roses occasionally, but my main focus is to share roses, but what a great thing to be able to show roses and share roses. And I think we pick the perfect day to be here in your garden. Thank you so much.

- You're very welcome.