Episode 3202

- [Narrator] On this Volunteer Gardener, Troy Martin takes us behind-the-scenes with a nurseryman to understand what figures into the cost of a plant at the retail center. You'll be amazed. Jeff Poppen shows us how easy it is to propagate southern high bush blueberry plants. And Tammy Algood tours a display garden featuring an array of annuals that can add the perfect pop of color. Join us. Planting a mixture of annuals brings flexibility and new interests to the garden each year.

- Color is the name of the game and when you want dramatic, you come to Knoxville to the UT Garden. We're visiting with my friend, James Newburn, who is the Interim Director of UT Gardens. And boy, this is a splash of color.

- I tell you, we have created the color garden. If you want to determine what colors to put in your garden, we have the rainbow of colors here. So, most of this garden are annuals, so this is your bedding plants, this is what you want to create that splash of color in your home garden, in your containers, or in the landscape beds.

- And you've got a good pairing here that looks beautiful together. So, let's talk about what you've got here that's really making a dramatic show.

- Yes, this is Solarscape. The lower one in the foreground is Solarscape XL Salmon Inpatiens, and this is a cross between the New Guinea Impatiens and are typical shade Impatiens. And so, these do well in full sun, what we normally don't think of as an Impatiens location. And so, they just thrive out here in full sun. And unlike the New Guineas, although there is a tendency to flag in the afternoon, they really stand up to the heat of the afternoon. Something that's pretty important here in the south.

- Absolutely. And you've paired it with this bee loving.

- Oh, I tell you what, this is Salvia Blue Spires, or Mystic Spires, and you can see the bee activity this morning. If you want to create a haven for pollinators and beneficial insects, this is the plant to plant. And look how uniform it is in such a nice deep rich blue color that doesn't fade in the sunlight, but still shows up when the garden is in the shade in the evening.

- It's just such a beautiful backdrop for the Impatiens, they go together well.

- They really do and you get a nice, you don't feel like you're being overloaded with flower blooms. I think that's what's important in thinking of your home garden is that sometimes a mass of planting of something will keep your eye from being too busy. And so, we have these big drifts of color that are a bit more effective I think in creating an inviting space.

- You know we love the sun lovers.

- Yes, we do. Our garden here at UT is primarily sun so we're always looking for those that can add that splash of color in full sun.

- I love it. And we've moved a little further down with another beautiful pairing that are sun lovers as well.

- That's right. So here we have Profusion Cherry Zinnia, this is the low growing Zinnia, mounds, and then it's just beginning to bloom, you see the blooms coming up on top of the foliage. And my goodness, what a bright, bright pink that is.

- It's happy.

- It's a neon, it will show up in the morning, let me tell you. Tammy, right behind the Profusion Cherry, we have Limewire Coleus. It's really Burgundy Coleus and you know, it's not known for its bloom, in fact when it does send up flower spikes, we just pinch 'em off so we really keep it that foliage color and with the variegation in that and how that burgundy matches with the pink. They really, again, help show each other off, and so we're looking for plant combinations that together, they are a bigger bang for your buck, than when they're separate.

- Well, this is the perfect idea for your home garden.

- I think so.

- And it sure is dramatic and it's beautiful. And James, thank you for joining us today to show us some great examples of border plants.

- It's my pleasure. Come to the color garden anytime.

- Our area of Middle, Tennessee, often gets a late spring frost while the fruit trees are blooming. So, we won't get fruit that year. Every few years, we will get a nice crop of apples and pears, but hardly ever do peaches and plums bare well up here where we live. Over the past few decades, we've put a lot more energy into our berries, because they are much more reliable. These rabbit-eyed blueberries were planted two years ago, and they're very well established. It was 40-something years ago when Hector and I bought a couple hundred of these southern high bush blueberries from North Carolina. We brought them in here and planted 'em, and boy they did great. And so, for years, I've been propagating form those original plants. This is the, really, the granddaughters, or great-granddaughters of my original patch. I've had two other really good blueberry patches. So, when we transplant blueberries, we can go look for a branch that's fallen down and made a shute that's come up. Something like this right here. Now, I used to take cuttings of blueberries and try to mix them and all that, it just took too long for somebody as impatient as I am. And then I noticed that these side shutes come up, so I'm just gonna pull back the mulch there, and you can sorta see where this is starting to get some roots on it. But I think we can maybe find one that has a little more roots and we'll just leave this one for maybe next year or some other time. Let's look over here. So here's a shute coming out of the ground, let's dig around it and see what it looks like. Oh yeah, look at this. See all those roots there? Oh, that's good right there. So now what I wanna do is find out somewhere down here where it's kind of attached to the mother plant. Pull out my crusty, whoop, Felco's, and we'll just get down there and we'll just prune this off right down here somewhere. I would say just right here would be good. Wow, look at that. See, that one there doesn't have much on it, I'm not gonna worry about that, but this one here I like. Look at that, all those roots on there. So, I don't want this to dry out so I'm gonna dip it in some water that I've soaked willow bark in. Black willow has, soaked in water, has rooting hormones in it. So we take the strips of the bark and soak 'em in water, and it helps plants to root when we're transplanting and trying to get cuttings and stuff to have roots. So, I'll just put that in there. Okay, we'll take this over to where we're gonna plant it. So, I've got this ground in pretty good shape, I've already put some compost on it. It used to be a garden, so it's pretty free of all these creeping weeds that have got into my berry patches before and made me have to start a new berry patch. Those creeping grasses have ruined several of my berry patches in the past, so I like to plant the berries in a place where I've been cultivating. So I know there's no Johnson grass, Bermuda grass, and those creeping ground ivy's and things like that in here, because I've been growing vegetables in here and keeping it cultivated. So I think this'll be a good place for a berry patch. So we've already set out a row of 'em here, and this land's, it's had some compost put into it, and the soil's in pretty good shape. So blueberries are shallow rooted, they don't go very deep. So, we want to keep these roots fairly close to the surface. So we'll take our little blueberry plant out of here and it's a little bit sidling but I think that'll be okay. And just lay it down like that, just kinda like it was in the old patch there. Put some nice soil on top of it and I really like to firm things in when I'm planting them. Get the air pockets out and get a good root-to-soil connection going. And really, all we have to do is leave these little bitty things here coming out, that's what's gonna make the new bush. And one of the important things we do when we plant is of course we have to water them. Plant out of the ground is like a fish out of water. We wanna get that in the ground and get those roots moist right away. There. Yeah, I like to water them in and then put dry soil on top. I never like to water something and not put the dry soil on top, because it'll kinda make a mud cake that'll dry out and be difficult to work with. There was a blueberry farm near where I grew up and we could always tell when the blueberries were ripe because there'd be a big loud canon go off every hour. Kaboom. And that was to scare the birds away. This was up north and those were northern high bush blueberries, and they send out a stem and not the side shutes like the southern rabbit eyes do, so they're not as easy to propagate. We love these rabbit eye blueberries because they grow good in the south, they make nice big berries. Unlike most garden crops, blueberries like a very acid soil, something like 5.5. So we add elemental sulfur. It's a little bit caustic so I'm wearing a glove. And it doesn't take much, just a little bit. Eventually as the plants get bigger, I might put a half a cup or so to a plant. It's really a good idea to learn how to propagate plants, 'cause gardening is all about saving yourself some money and these plants that I bought 45 years ago have supplied me with all the blueberry plants that I need, I can make blueberry plants and give 'em to my friends. It's a great thing to do. We will have to get a mulch on here, so I'll get some more of this chopped up leaves and put that down here, maybe some rotten wood chips or something like that. Want to keep these well watered the first year because of those shallow roots, can't dry out. So we'll water them and then mulch 'em and make sure, just keep an eye on them, make sure they're damp under there all year. And we'll get another nice blueberry patch out of it. The bumblebees are what pollinates a blueberry. Honeybees can't get into the bloom, they don't have a long enough proboscis to get into the bell-shaped tubular blueberry blooms. By all means, I think you should set out some fruit trees and enjoy the blooms. And you'll get some apples and pears some years, and they're beautiful to have around, but for a reliable fruit in Middle, Tennessee, blueberries are your best bet.

- So many of us spend a lot of our time in garden centers, especially in the spring and fall, looking for new plants. And I always feel like sometimes when I go shopping, I'm kind of surprised at how much plants actually cost. So, I have come to the source, Samara Farms, with Matt Dawson, and we're going to talk just a little bit about how plants are produced, what's involved, and sometimes why plants cost what they cost. So, thanks Matt for having us out today, and really appreciate being here. One of the great examples that everybody is familiar with of good landscape plants, are Annabel Hydrangeas. And so, here we are from a production standpoint, tell me how you get from this point here in front of me, to what we're seeing in bloom.

- Okay, the Annabel Hydrangeas, Hydrangea Arborescens, which is also one of our native plants, and it is well-known because of its flower. It actually is a sterile flower, it does not produce seed. So in order to create this plant that doesn't seed, and have this type of bloom because the native hydrangea has a flat bloom, it's not as showy.

- A lace cap.

- Yeah, not as showy. So, this plant was actually selected for that purpose. In order to create more identical ones, you have to do what is called asexual propagation, which means that we would take a cutting off of this plant, like if we cut it right here, and then cut the flower off, and then stuck it into a tray that held multiple little pots like this. Then that plant would root out into this and create a new plant that is genetically identical to the one you see flowering. That then allows us to have a uniformed crop that everybody's getting the plant that they want. It's not a hit or miss, it is a sure thing which is what the garden centers want, when the people take it home, they want that proven, they want that.

- You know that when you buy Annabel Hydrangea, it is Annabel.

- Correct. And so, through that process though, this is a two year old plant then at this point, from a baby, so we've got two years in this, two years of irrigation, two years of fertilizer. At this point, it goes to what's the three gallon pot. This has just been potted into this. The three gallon pot now is one of the most common sellable sizes that you see. The larger plant below is a seven, we go from three's to seven's, so once we get it to a sellable three gallon size, we've got another two years in it. So, that then is a four year old plant from the initial starting point.

- From taking the cut.

- From the taking the cut.

- Four years, to three gallons.

- Four years to three gallons on an Annabel. Annabel's grow pretty quick.

- Right.

- To get to this big plant, which is what most people would want, it's then another two years. So now we're looking at six years to create an Annabel Hydrangea that's been cut back properly, well-branched. And so that's, to me as a nurseryman, that's kind of a longterm investment of my capital and money.

- Right.

- Not to mention that there are other aspects of crop failure, problems that arise. Not every plant lives, so we will have loss. So we have to account for that as well.

- Right. And here, we're just really talking about container production. Then, when you get to field production of things, that adds another level. And field production, you could produce Annabel's in the field, but a lot of times, your field production is say, for even longer term crops, like your box woods and your shade trees, and flowering trees, and things that need to be in the ground. And then you're talking about, from cuttings or from grafted liners, we would call this a liner in the industry a lot of times, you're talking about probably a minimum seven year investment and in some cases, 10 years, 15 years, depending on the size of the plant the ultimate size of the plant and all that. So, it is a huge investment in time and resources.

- Yes, it is. So, we're planting today for what our projections are of where the economy will be five years from now, in most cases. Now, that's for trees and shrubs, the perennials, we can turn those a lot faster, we can force those in heated houses which allows us to then make longer months for them to grow here in Tennessee. Or you just produce them further south and ship them up.

- Right. And with perennials, if you start with a plug this size, depending on the plant and how fast it grows and fills out, that may be an investment of just a few months to maybe up to a year or two, and then you can generally turn a perennial back, send it out into the, either into a landscape project or to a garden center.

- Yes, of course. Perennials, we grow in similar houses. This is actually called a hoop house that's behind us here. And so, we're able then to cover this with plastic during the winter, and then we can put heaters in it. During the summer, we can open it, we can put shade cloth on it. So, it becomes multi-purpose. The way we're setup here with the space between the houses, is these get bigger, we spread 'em out in between. If we don't sell them all by winter, we can push them in together and protect them, and they call it a coal frame house because it doesn't have regular heat. With the plastic on it though, we can produce a perennial if we start it from a liner in February, I could be selling it in four months. The perennials usually are a lot cheaper than a one gallon, say, Annabel Hydrangea.

- Sure.

- If I put this into a one, your Annabel Hydrangea should cost you probably a third to 50% more because of the longevity it took to grow it. And that has a lot to do with the trees and shrubs as well.

- Right. And then, talk a little bit about harvesting plants in the nursery industry, digging trees and shrubs and what's involved in that. I know when I was growing up in the nursery industry, or working in the nursery industry when I was growing up, we dug everything by hand. It's all balled and burlaped by hand up until probably about my last year before I moved to Tennessee. So, there is a tremendous amount of labor involved, but now you guys have equipment that will do a lot of that.

- We do, we do. Granted, the equipment doesn't last forever, and it's very expensive equipment, but as all industries have moved towards mechanization due to labor shortage, due to multiple reasons, due to the fact that it always shows up and it always does its job as long as it's not broken. It's very beneficial. So, these are machines that have spade blades, so they'll dig into the ground and they'll be four of them, and that allows you then for not, you can harvest a tree five, six times faster which in turn helped reduce the cost of the tree and allowed us to sell larger trees for less than what it would be if we hand dug them. A lot less, because the labor is often one of the larger costs in producing the plant. The plant does its thing, and of course, the land does its thing.

- It's just an investment in time.

- It's investment in time, right, and land resource.

- Yeah, land resource, of course.

- If you looked at the nursery as leasing the land, every square foot has a dollar value. And if you aren't earning that square footage on your property, then you're not managing it well in order to produce what it could be producing. Say if you just rented it to something else.

- So you mentioned that perennials really are a quicker turn around for you and Rudbeckia would be a great example of that probably. What kind of production time are you looking at on something like this?

- Okay, these were potted up in late January, early February. At that point in time, the hoop house had plastic over it and so even though it was 30-40 degrees outside, we were maintaining 50 to 70 inside the house and then nighttime temperatures, we always kept above freezing. So, some perennials that are a little bit tender, if they're up and you get closer to freezing, you may need to add heaters.

- Heat.

- But in most cases, we've been very successful in being able to start the perennial far faster than you would if we were just leaving it up to outside temperatures without protection. So, this product here, like I said, is now a sellable, ready-to-go, one gallon, and we were able to produce that in about a five month time period.

- So, this is Rudbeckia Prairie Sun, and there's a lot of information usually on plant tags. I was just looking to see, because one of the other contributing factors to the cost of plants, is whether they are patented or not. And then you're getting into a royalty situation where you as the production end of things are paying a royalty. Talk a little bit about royalties in the plant industry and what they are and what they're for.

- Okay, plant selection and breeders are always trying to find that new thing, that new item that they think is going to be a hit.

- The next hot plant.

- Yeah, it's their retirement plan, it's their golden ticket, let's say. So, royalties come about when they've patented a plant and anyone that wants to produce it has to then pay for the right to be able to create more babies of that plant through propagation, which we discussed briefly earlier. So, on top of that, they're also doing the marketing for that plant.

- Sure.

- So the royalty helps pay for the magazine ads, and on top of that--

- And the pretty colorful labels.

- And the labels and the specialty pots that we're starting to see now, the branding that's going on.

- Or sometimes when you walk into a garden center, you see a big banner flying somewhere for bloom struck hydrangeas or just any number of different plants that are out there on the market. But those are all varieties that have been patented by somebody, so that adds again, to the cost of that plant. And some people may say, well why would I pay more for X when I could have a non-patented version of something that costs me less money. But that selection has been made for a reason, generally because it's improved in some way. Correct?

- Right, or it's that plant in that new special color.

- Right, it's unique somehow.

- Right, like this flower here is massive. You see the size of that compared to other Rudbeckia, and it's two tone. You've got the orange fading to yellow. So, it's prettier, it has incredibly sturdy stems. You can see how thick and dense it is. So, a breeder not only thinks about the color, but thinks about the structure.

- The performance.

- The performance, right. You don't want to have something that the nurserymen tries to propagate 100 but only 15 come up looking great. You want a plant with vigor, toughness, durability, bulletproof. Really, the breeders are after trying to create something that the homeowner can not mess up with.

- And so really what that patent does is it helps pay the breeder for their work and their investment, because anybody who follows me on social media knows that I dabble around in day lilies some, and I'm getting ready to introduce some to the market, I hope, but that's been a 10 year process just to get to finally where I have enough plants and enough that I think are good enough to even entertain trying to get them out there on the market. So, I've invested 10 years of my time in creating these new plants and my hope is again that maybe some of the plants will start paying me back for my investment in their time and care. So, there's that angle always to look at. Well Matt, thank you so much for having us out to the nursery, and explaining just a little bit more about what's involved in the production process and helping all of our gardeners at home understand just why that plant at the garden center costs what it costs.

- Thank you for coming out.

- [Narrator] For insiring garden tours, growing tips, and garden projects, visit our website at volunteergardener.org, and find us on these platforms.