Episode 3015

- [Narrator] Tammy Algood finds an impressive collection of trees that support pollinators and perform well in our region. These heavy bloomers provide nectar for loads of insects, bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. Sheri Gramer is a big fan of house plants. She's got a sampling of plants that can fit and flourish in every situation. And Troy Martin strolls a beautiful backyard garden that's been 20 years in the making. First planting trees that provide pollen and nectar is an effective way to support hardworking insects and birds.

- When we think about attracting bees to our garden, we mainly think about annual flowers. But our next guest says look up because trees are just as important.

- The flowers on the ground are this much of the world.

- Correct.

- And the trees are, you get a huge volume of flowers on a tree and that's what we're trying to capture here for everybody that's interested in pollinators, is trying to capture the whole world that the bees see and all of the things that they can use for nectar. So we can use this part right.

- How interesting. Yes, what is this? Cause I love this plant.

- This is a black chokeberry called Aronia, and it makes an edible berry in the fall. It's edible if you add enough sugar to it. It's called chokeberry because it's very astringent right off the plant. But it's got a very high vitamin C content and they make syrups and jellies and wine and things like that with it. But it's in the rose family and you can see the pollen on the flowers here, and there's a lot of nectar in there. And you can see that there's a lot of flowers in each cluster, so this is a very efficient plant for bees to collect nectar from. When they hit one of these, they can go to several flowers at once and then they can go over here and hit several flowers at once. So they can be very efficient at collecting nectar and pollen from this. This is a large shrub, gets about 12 feet tall, three or four feet wide, blooms this time of the year, it's April, April and early May. Then this one will be done and then we'll get to enjoy the black berries that are on there in the late summer.

- [Tammy] Got it. So this is a great kind of a spring-flowering shrub.

- [David] It's spring-flowering shrub. It's attractive enough to plant next to the house or to plant as a feature in a garden someplace. It will spread a little bit but it's not gonna take over the yard.

- [Tammy] Good,

- [ David] But it's a native plant. This is a native plant that was actually fairly common in the colonial period of the country. Agriculture and whatnot has done away with a lot of this stuff. So we don't see it very often anymore. And this is an Inkberry holly right here, this one is densa, but this is an Inkberry holly, and we've got several hollies in here. Hollies bloom in the late spring and early summer. They produce a huge number of flowers. A matter of fact, this plant right here, if you buy comb honey that's made in the United States, most of the comb honey United States comes from this and about a half a dozen other species of Holly that grow in Georgia and north Florida. But when this thing blooms there's thousands of flowers in a patch of these. And it's an extremely efficient producer of nectar. And all of the hollies, the Chinese hollies, the Korean hollies, the American hollies, these hollies, we've got some deciduous hollies back here behind us that lose their leaves in the wintertime. All of these hollies are very, very efficient producers of nectar for honeybees.

- Okay. So you're right. I don't think about hollies when I think about bees. And David, I wanna give the viewers many options as possible. So talk to us about some other good options for the homeowner, that's interested in attracting bees.

- This is a tree called the Ivory Silk Tree Lilac. And this is a really good substitute for something like a Bradford pear, if you're wanting to get rid of those. This is gonna bloom here in the next few weeks. It's April now, it's gonna bloom sometime in May. This is gonna have a kind of a creamy white flower. It's fragrant. It grows however much it's gonna grow early in the spring, and then it stops. It doesn't grow anymore through the summer. But these clusters of flowers are gonna be yay big when they finally get ready. They're very showy. I see 'em as street trees in Kentucky a lot. I don't see 'em as much down here. There's some around the Vanderbilt campus. It's a nice healthy trouble-free sort of tree. And it's small enough to fit in a small yard. So this one's gonna get 20 to 25 feet tall. So it's gonna fit in. If you're in an Urban's situation with a smaller yard, this is a good tree that will fit that yard and not out overgrow it.

- I love this, David. What is this?

- This is a Little Leaf Linden. This is the European version of our native basswood tree. This is a street tree in Germany. It's a very popular tree throughout Europe. It produces flowers in early June. The nice thing about this one as far as the bees is concerned is the flowers hang upside down and the nectar doesn't wash out of these very easily if you have a big rain. Over time, long period of time, it will become a very large tree. But in the short term, in a normal life cycle, it's gonna be 30, 40 feet tall in a person's lifetime. But it produces flowers at a fairly young age. It's got very few problems. Japanese beetles like the leaves, especially when they're young, but after the tree gets bigger, that's not much of a problem. But it's a nice tree. It's got a good form. It's a very good bee tree. And the thing about this one when you talk about it being, now, this one's not a native, our native one is over here. This is our American Linden or basswood tree. This tree grows a lot faster and gets a lot bigger, but it takes a little longer for it to bloom. This tree is, I have not yet figured out why people don't plant this in their yard. This makes a beautiful tree. when I first started growing 'em I was worried about 'em maybe breaking and being tender. Well, the wood is soft, but it's not brittle. So if you have an ice storm on this tree, it'll bend all the way to the ground. And when the ice melts off, it'll stand back up again.

- Interesting.

- But it's a beautiful tree. It has these big red buds on it through the wintertime. It leafs out in the spring very nicely. Has a nice good green color. It's just a wonderful tree that really ought to be in more people's yards.

- Well, and David, you have bees here. But these plants that we've just talked about, they will attract the bees to your yard from a far distance away.

- Yeah.

- So you don't have to worry about the bees. They'll find it, right?

- Yeah. I mean, if there are bees within three to five miles of you, they will find your plants, your flowers. And just, even if you have bees, it doesn't mean that your bees are gonna use the plants that are in your yard.

- True.

- Your bees may go somewhere else and other bees may come to your yard. So, that's, you know, the honeybees world is very, very large.

- David, you have one of my favorites of all time, the bottlebrush buckeye. I love it.

- Well, this is a really wonderful little plant. It grows fairly slowly. Takes four or five years to bloom. But when it blooms it's, mine blooms on the 4th of July. Okay. So, I mean, this is literally like fireworks in the garden. The flower clusters are 10 or 12 inches tall. They bloom over the course of three or four weeks. They attract every pollinating insect, bird in the world. They attract all of them. We have all the swallowtail butterflies. We have bees of all kinds. We have hummingbirds. We have everything. This plant literally shimmers with activity when this thing is blooming. It's just amazing. Not only that, it can take the shade. So if you've got a shady yard, you can plant this in a shady yard and still get plenty of flowers on it.

- Which is rare.

- Which is hard to find, is something that really likes the shade. But this can go in fairly deep shade and still have plenty of flowers on it. And it's a native tree to the south. It's more of Alabama and Georgia, but it does fine up here in Tennessee.

- I love it. It's one of my favorites of all time. And I really appreciate David. You've given us so many options of things that we can be everlasting in our garden for bees, versus something that we have to plant annually. So thank you for educating us on trees and bees.

- All right. Thank you for coming out.

- [Sheri] We're in Franklin, Tennessee today, and we're at Rooted from Yarrow Acres. We're gonna learn a little bit about plants and what they require, easy, hard, and I'm visiting with Lindsey.

- Hey, how are you?

- Good. Lindsey, I love all these plants, obviously. And can you tell me about these to my right here.

- So these are in the Pothos family. Right here we have a Jade Pothos. It kind of gets that name from the Jade color. And then up here we have a neon, and then down here, we have a golden. Just to name a few.

- [Sheri] So plant care, are these easy, hard, entry level?

- [Lindsey] These would be in my determination and entry level, because, you typically only have to water them once to twice a month. And they're very vocal plants. So they speak to you. So when they're wilted or droopy, that's when they need water.

- [Sheri] Awesome.

- [Lindsey] These are some of my favorites. I wouldn't necessarily say that these are an easy, beginner level plant. These are all Calatheas, which are in the prayer plant family. In the morning and in the evening, they're known as a prayer plant because in the evening they rise, or they kneel depending on the type of plant. So in the morning when we get here, all of these guys are all rising to show you the underneath of their lead leaves. Like this one is really pretty. You can see the different variegation as well as the one right here. So when he rises, this is a rattlesnake Calathea, he shows us his pretty leaves, pretty purple colors. And then during the day they kneel to show us their other colors.

- [Sheri] So when they do that, is that because you turn the lights on in here or?

- They go with the rotation of the earth and the sun. So when the sun is up, they're kneeling and when the sun is down, they're rising.

- [Sheri] Basic requirements.

- [Lindsey] They like little drinks throughout the week. They love humidity, and to be misted. If you do not have a humid climate for them, I would suggest a pebble tray. which is basically really easy. You just do a tray with some pebbles and leave some water there, so it creates a humid environment for the plant.

- [Sheri] I saw some other plants on the other side of the shop, let's go visit those.

- [Lindsey] Sounds like a plan.

- [Sheri] Well, this is quite an arrangement. What are these Lindsey?

- [Lindsey] These are Sansevieria, or snake plant, or the slang term from them is mother-in-law's tongue.

- [Sheri] And it looks like they come in many, many varieties which would be the different color tones, I'm guessing.

- [Lindsey] Yes. The variegations come in all levels from super light with the moon shine, and the benzyl sensation all the way up to the green and yellow, which is the Laurenti.

- [Sheri] Now these are entry level.

- [Lindsey] Super entry level, super easy. Someone comes in the store and says, they've never had a plant before. This is the plant that I show them. They only need to be watered once a month. They love to dry out. And in the winter seasons, I would sometimes maybe go nine to 10 weeks on watering them.

- [Sheri] And so what about light?

- [Lindsey] They can take super high light, or super low light, which makes them super easy for customers. The higher the light that you give them, the faster and taller they're gonna grow. But if you give them low light, they're just as fine to stay the way they are.

- [Sheri] So, it's a good office plant.

- [Lindsey] Oh, heck yeah.

- And they do flower.

- Yes, and their flowers are particularly very fragrant. Like super long stem of white, tiny flowers that give off a beautiful aroma.

- And so what is this beauty right here?

- This is probably one of my favorites. This is the Ficus Audrey, which is the easier sister to the Fiddle-leaf fig.

- [Sheri] And so tell me about the care of both the Fiddle-leaf and the Audrey.

- So if you were to walk in and ask me or tell me you wanted a Ficus or an Audrey, one of the first things I would tell you and ask you is how much light you have in your house. They particularly love to sit next to,

- This is a Fiddle-leaf?

- Yes, this is a Fiddle.

- Okay.

- [Lindsey] We can tell the difference. The Audreys have a more texture on their leaf, they're fuzzy, whereas the fiddles are shiny.

- [Sheri] All right. Well, thank you very much for sharing. You have a beautiful place.

- [Lindsey] Thank you.

- [Sheri] Enjoy it.

- Sometimes a hillside garden provides a challenge, but on this sort of open woodland hillside garden, just a little bit south of the main part of Nashville, George Ann and Johnny O'Connor have done a spectacular job of creating a beautiful garden. How long ago did this start?

- [George] Oh, maybe 18 years.

- [Troy] About 18 years ago.

- [George] I got a John Deere riding mower for an engagement present.

- All right. And you decided that even with a riding mower...

- Well, it had a trailer.

- Okay.

- And you started hauling things.

- Yes, I did.

- I see. So tell me about sort of the development of the garden and how it all came about.

- [George] Well, as you see, I've lived in this house about 42 years and it's covered with walnut and hackberry,

- [Troy] Right.

- [George] A few poplars, and there wasn't much here. So like all beginning gardeners, I think there was a ring around the tree,

- [Troy] Sure.

- [George] To start with.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [George] And then from that we added on a pathway, and a island, and another garden, and all of it had to be amended the soil's very bad.

- Okay. And you also had this hillside to deal with.

- It did. It's not level at all. So even working it, you're on an angle to work the garden.

- [Troy] How did you determine, or how did you go about really dealing with this slope and everything that you have here?

- [George] Well, we went to the top part to make the level.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [George] And then built the lower part to meet it,

- [Troy] To meet it,

- [George] In Stages.

- [Troy] And you built it out of, I see some wood rails here along the sides, almost railroad tie kind of,

- [George] Landscaping.

- [Troy] Landscape ties. But a lot of stone.

- [George] Lot of stone.

- [Troy] How much stone?

- [George] 40 Ton.

- [Troy] 40 Tonnes of stone.

- And then I quit counting.

- Right. And I understand that Johnny,

- [George] Johnny, yes,

- [Troy] Moved all that stone.

- [George] He did. He did

- [Troy] And built all of these beautiful stone walls that we see. So then your plant palette probably was dictated by the site.

- [George] It was.

- You've got lots of hydrangea.

- Yes. I bought these as Annabelle, but you know, they're not, they're the smooth leaf.

- The little Lacecap.

- They are just the native one, and, but Annabelle was a daughter of these.

- [Troy] Right, right.

- [George] And so they've done very well. I should probably have cut them down pretty low in the winter, because you can see they're getting pretty tall now. But you can cut those all the way down to maybe a foot, and then they come back. So about every third year I'll do that to them to keep 'em from being so,

- Quite so big. And kind of overtaking the hostas and everythings that are in the bed. Well, so much more to see, so, let's keep on walking down the path here. So George Ann, one of the things I notice you have a lot of are climbing hydrangea, you have several in different places. Tell me about those.

- [George] Well, I like the look of them, and we do have a lot of tree and a lot of space so I wanted to have some horizontal to stop the site from going all the way to the sky. And I got onto this. The first one there, is the oldest. I didn't realize there are more varieties. Once you get into a group, you sort of like have to have 'em.

- [Troy] Exactly.

- And so the second one is roseum and it has a little bit of a pink tint to it. And then the third one is Molly, and it has a fuzzy kind of leaf. I use Wilkerson Mills. A lot of them came, maybe all of these climbers came from there, but he says, don't let them climb to the moon.

- [Troy] Okay.

- Meaning let 'em go over something.

- [Troy] Right.

- To get horizontal, much like a common rose. So, you'll get the mound distributing.

- So, they like keep going up and up and up, they don't bloom as much as if they're on something like an arbor, like you have.

- Yes, they like the arbor

- They go over the top.

- They do. And if I clip the tips because they're getting a little bit out in the way that seems to have more bloom on it.

- Okay.

- The next year.

- Very good. I've noticed a number of Lasecap hydrangeas here in the garden, and this one I think is the most impressive. What variety is this?

- It is the Blue Billow.

- Blue Billow. So this is hydrangea serrata, which is a different species from the big, what everybody calls the French hydrangea, the macrophylla. My experience is that they bloom better after our cold winters. And certainly we've had a couple of really cold winters and these are looking mighty fine.

- [George] They seem to be everlasting.

- [Troy] Right.

- [George] No matter what happens, they have a bloom on them. Maybe a little bit smaller.

- [Troy] Do you have to do any trimming on them?

- I do. I don't trim them off unless there's one coming out.

- Right. Or unless you've got like a dead tip or something, after the winter.

- But all of these, when they bloom, you just cut off the dead of the dead blooms.

- Right.

- Just make it neater.

- [Troy] Right, right. One of the other things that I've seen that you've done here in this garden is, you've got some vines growing up through some of the shrubs, which gives you another layer. A really nice clematis in particular, growing up through. Is that a camellia?

- [George] That's a camellia. It's a fall-blooming. I think it's kind of interesting.

- [Troy] Yeah. It's really beautiful. Jackmanii?

- [George] No, it's when I got at the Jackson Summer Festival,

- [Troy] Okay.

- [George] And it was like, all summer long, something of that.

- [Troy] Summer love?

- [George] Summer love.

- [Troy] Summer love,

- [George] That's right.

- [Troy] So that's one of those new ones.

- [George] It's a new one, but it looks like, like the one where used to be dependable.

- Beautiful. Well, I love that so much of your garden is so textural, and a lot of that has to do with the hostas that you have, and I know each other actually from the Hosta Society, I think that's probably where we met and I know you're really involved. So, tell us a little bit about how you got started in hostas and maybe point out a favorite or two.

- [George] Well, I belonged to the Middle Tennessee Hosta Society, and there's a great group of friends. I love the hosta, but I didn't want just all hosta, I wanted to mix it around. And I think they're very blendable with a lot of plants.

- [Troy] I think they are too. And you've got a lot of fern, you've got Solomon's seal, spring wildflowers, and they all work so well together. Any varieties that you're particularly proud of?

- [George] Well, there are some Trident True and they would be listed like on the popularity poll every year.

- [Troy] Right.

- [George] So, if you're new to hosta, that's a good source to use, to know what people have experienced success with.

- [Troy] Right. And the popularity poll comes from the American Hosta Society.

- [George] It comes from the members that are actually growing hosta, to vote on what their favorites are.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [George] So if for 10 years sage, has been on the list, you know, that must be a pretty good over a wide area.

- [Troy] Pretty good over a wide range of climates and things.

- [George] But as an adventuresome person, you see one, nobody's ever grown it and you've just gotta buy it. Whether it grows or not.

- [Troy] I understand, and that's how all of us gardeners are ,I think.

- [George] Yes, yes. But, I think my favorite is Victory, and it's a pretty big one.

- [Troy] It's a really big one.

- [George] This one over here is pretty big, and I don't wanna talk about it too much because next year it could be little.

- [Troy] Right.

- [George] You never know.

- [Troy] That's how it is.

- Yes.

- But, as hostas go in the south, a lot of times we don't see a lot of really big hostas like we do up north, so Victory certainly is impressive.

- It is. And sage is always a winner. June is always favorite of everybody. Yes, it is.

- Very good.

- [George] And there's some substance behind that, that bright yellow, is one that people enjoy and have success with.

- Right. So this part of the garden is the downhill side of the garden, and it's a little bit newer. But you're still feeling featuring a lot of shade plants. We're still under big trees and we're kind of here on a drippy rainy day, a little bit, but it's, I love a shade garden in the rain because everything sort of gets bright, and the greens are so green. But, you've got a lot of native azaleas down in here I notice.

- I like those and they like this shade.

- Right, and they like this hillside.

- They like that good drainage and all of that. And I love the sound of this stream. How long has the stream been here?

- [George] About six years now. So it's beginning to get a little bit filled in over the sides.

- [Troy] Right. You've planted around the edges of it. And how long is this?

- [George] It is 50 feet I believe. It has a horsepower motor to go that length and height.

- [Troy] Okay. And then it comes down into sort of a hidden basin underneath here. Right?

- [George] They call it a pooless waterfall.

- [Troy] Right.

- [George] Pooless one. So the motor is in vault. It takes 68 gallons to prom the system outside the vault.

- [Troy] Okay.

- So, it pumps it up.

- And then from here it just recirculates up to the top of the hill and it all runs back down and disappears underground. So you don't have an open body of water.

- No danger.

- And you don't have any danger. You don't have mosquitoes. You don't have all of that. So, nothing to worry about.

- But you wanna make sure that the hose that you use going from the source is thick because chipmunks bit through the first.

- Oh, there you go.

- They had little teeth marks. We saw the evidence.

- I've had that problem with soaker hoses in my garden where I'm trying to water, and they go for that water source and chew through the soaker hoses. So that's a great tip. This whole bed that we're looking at here, I think people can tell is newly planted. And what happened here?

- [George] I had a strip of bamboo, copper, plumping bamboo and thinking it was shielded from this fence, kind of a dead spot there.

- [Troy] Right.

- And it began to look not as vigorous. And then it started growing like grass on the bottom. And then I was told that was a bloom.

- Okay.

- And it was very mysterious.

- Right.

- I cut all that off, fertilized it, thinking it would go back to growing big canes.

- Right.

- But nothing happened. And over a period over five years, I found out,

- That it was dying off.

- It was dying off.

- So this is an interesting phenomenon that has happened across the country because bamboo actually started being imported to the United States in the early 1900s. And it takes about 75 or 100 years for a stand of bamboo to flower. But once it does, then it dies. And what we've learned is that, those clones that were brought here from China and Japan in the early 1900s, are now beginning to flower. And once they do, they'll die off. So people are sort of frantically looking at ways to, we never thought it would be a problem to make more bamboo. And it's not, certainly there are plenty of stands out there, but what you're looking at now is regrowing bamboo from seed that those old clones are setting. So, it's an interesting thing when that happens. But it's opened up an opportunity for you here, to expand the garden a little bit more. So most of your garden is pretty natural, but you've got one area here and it has a little more formal feel. Any particular reason for that? Or was there a tree in the center that sort of dictated that at one point? Or how did this little area come about?

- [George] Well, I just wanted to have some variety, and this was my formal. It's as formal as I could be.

- [Troy] It's formal as it's going to get, right?

- [George] Yes.

- [Troy] I love the Japanese maple in the pot, there in the center, and I think that's something that a lot of people don't think about or that maybe don't even know is that Japanese maples actually in our climate perform quite well in containers. And it makes a really beautiful centerpiece for these rings of hostas that then sort of radiate out. Now we've talked quite a bit about hydrangeas and you've got, this is the panicle hydrangea.

- [George] Yes, quick fire.

- [Troy] Paniculata, quick fire.

- [George] Quick fire.

- [Troy] And these are tree form, which adds to that formality a little bit.

- [George] Yes.

- [Troy] Thank you so much for sharing your garden with us. You and Johnny. We really appreciate being able to see such a beautiful shade garden, and on kind of a challenging lot.

- [George] But, made easier by Johnny laying the stone.

- [Troy] Absolutely. Thank you.

- [George] Thank you for coming.

- [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.