Episode 3203

- [Announcer] Since the early 1930s, hybridizers have made great improvements in daylilies. From the color range to the patterns, to the form, there's a lot to love. Annette Shrader visits Bluebird Springs Farm, where daylilies takes center stage. April Moore shares tips on collecting seeds throughout the ornamental garden. And Troy Marden goes up on the roof, the green roof of the Music City Center in downtown Nashville. Join us. Daylilies, easy to grow, easy to propagate, and perhaps the showiest blooms in the garden.

- Have you ever wondered why people are so enamored with the daylilies? Is it their color, is it their height? Or maybe they're just a little bit maintenance free. And I'm ready to find out what the answer to those questions are. The thing that drew me to this daylily, is it's color. Hi Nicole Bull from Bluebird Springs Farm.

- Good morning.

- It's a wonderful day to be here and I love this color of this one, because it's not spotted. Sometimes they will spot, won't they?

- They will, especially if there's been any rain or water, dew in the morning, but this one held up really nice even though we had some rain last night, so.

- [Annette] Well, your selections of flower, the height, and the colors, everything is marvelous in-

- [Nicole] Thank you.

- This area that we're in, and I can't help but be drawn next to that color.

- [Nicole] It's very bold, isn't it?

- [Annette] It is.

- [Nicole] This is called "Primal Scream." It's a really popular daylily, but-

- [Annette] Yes it is.

- [Nicole] You may notice it's a lot shorter than what most people see in the garden, because the winter we had this year really did a number on a lot of our plants. And so they're blooming shorter than they normally would. And a lot of them are much shorter than usual this year.

- [Annette] And as I recall, I don't remember having a season like this in a while, have you?

- No, this is pretty unique. I don't remember it being quite this bad. I mean, they're still blooming, they're still beautiful and the plants survived. That's the beauty of daylilies. They'll take about everything, but they may not be at their best this year because of that odd freeze/warm cycle we had.

- [Annette] I love this one now.

- [Nicole] It's beautiful.

- [Annette] What about the edging on this?

- [Nicole] It actually has two edges. It has the dark purple edging and then it has a very, it's called a wire edge, that yellow, I don't even know if you can see that.

- [Annette] Oh yes, like, right here.

- [Nicole] But very, very thin yellow edge on the very edge of it. So it's one of my favorites, I love this one.

- [Annette] This one is just glorious. What is this?

- [Nicole] This is called "Gigantic Ray of Sunshine" by Sandy Holmes out of Ohio. Normally it would be much, much tall, it's pretty tall now, but it would normally be much taller. And you'll notice that it's got ants on it-

- [Annette] Yes.

- [Nicole] And that's usually a sign that it's a fragrant daylily.

- [Annette} Oh.

- [Nicole] And you can usually tell which ones are fragrant, 'cause they'll have more bugs on them and especially ants.

- [Annette] I found that I have some of the older specimens and they are fragrant. So does a hybridizer have that in mind? Do they want to do some that are fragrant, or-

- There are some people who look for that quality, but I would say it's pretty low on the things that most people are looking for. I think it's a lucky thing if you get it, but it's not really what most people are really looking for. They're looking for the beautiful blooms or the special shape of the petals or something like that.

- [Annette] Okay, I see ants on this one.

- [Nicole] Yes, so it might have a little bit of fragrance to it.

- [Annette] Oh, it might depend on whether or not they're nocturnal or, as far as fragrance goes?

- I've never noticed a difference between whether they're, fragrance relating to nocturnal or not. I've never really even thought about that.

- [Annette] What is-

- [Nicole] This is a spider type of daylily,

- [Annette] Oh, yeah?

- [Nicole] It's called "Titanic Tower."

- [Annette] Goodness.

- [Nicole] And I like it for the colors, but also because it's so tall, and it just really stands out in the garden.

- [Annette] In a good year, would the scape be this tall.

- [Nicole] A little bit taller, yep.

- Okay.

- This one, yeah, this one's usually about this height.

- And you know, it does give you vertical in your other perennial borders, doesn't it?

- It really does, yes-

- Okay.

- Not many perennials are that tall in your garden, so.

- [Annette] Well, Nicole, not only do I like the color, but I like the name.

- [Nicole] Yes, this is "Angels Bow Down" by Carol Emmerich. She has a lot of religious themes to her names, so you'll see that often in hers. But she has beautiful daylilies and she does a lot with purple. So I really like her daylilies.

- [Annette] Well, and I also think that the "Queen Anne's lace," this just gives this such a beauty that you just can't reproduce that with-

- [Nicole] Yeah, I like them mixed in with all the other flowers. So everything in this bed is supposed to be purple and orange.

- Well Nicole, I really enjoy your usages of your daylilies, now daylilies can bloom early, mid, and late, so how do you choose yours?

- [Nicole] Well, I do like to have a variety, so that I can have plants that start blooming in early May and go all the way through our first freeze in October. So I try and buy daylilies based on the season that I don't already have daylilies blooming in. So I look for things that are like, very late. They usually say on their registration what season they're intended for. So early, mid, or late there's, you can buy according to what season they should bloom. Early here in Tennessee is mid- to late-May, and then mid is usually right around middle of June, right now, and then late can go all the way into August or September.

- Tell me about your experience with re-bloomers.

- Well, I do always look for re-bloomers when possible, because that just gives you an extension on your bloom time. There's different types of re-bloomers. We can have some that will immediately re-bloom. So while you have flowers on the plant now, you'll see brand new scapes coming up. And so as soon as that first flush of blooms dies, you're gonna have a a re-bloom on that plant. And then there's others that will re-bloom months later. So you could have it blooming in June and then again in September, maybe even October. But the number one way to get re-bloom on your daylilies is to give them enough water. They love water and especially during those hot summer months. If you want 'em to re-bloom in the early fall, they need water. And if they've set seed, it's best to cut that off. If your goal is re-blooming, it's best to cut those off. If your goal is hybridizing, of course you would keep the seed. But that does make the plant kind of go into seed building mode instead of blooming mode. And so it would slow down a re-bloom if you have seed pods on your daylily.

- When I think about a re-blooming daylily, my experience was with "Stella D'Oro."

- Yes.

- I really never had that success. And they do send up a new flush of bloom scapes, right?

- They do, so they do tend to set seed very easily. So you'll see the little seed heads on there. I don't think I have any to show you right now, but, so those need to be cut off.

- That's probably my issue.

- That would encourage re-bloom and then they need more water.

- Okay.

- A lot more water, probably.

- Well, everything you have here is so delicious to the eye, but I think you have some very small ones-

- [Nicole] I do.

- [Annette] That I would like to see.

- [Nicole] Okay.

- [Annette] Well Nicole, if I had just a small little patio with a container, that would be perfect.

- [Nicole] It would, yes.

- [Annette] What is the name of that?

- [Nicole] That's "Little Lemon Twist." Normally it's a little taller, but the flower is about the right size. But yes, we have a collection of minis and smalls in this area.

- [Annette] And they must not bloom quite as early. And then even though it's in the yellow family, this is a small sweet little thing.

- [Nicole] Yes, this one's adorable. It's called "Dash Dash."

- [Annette] What is the smallest one ever, you've ever seen?

- [Nicole] I've seen one that's smaller than this, just a little bigger than a thumb. That's pretty small, this one's pretty.

- [Annette] Bigger, a thumb! Well that's amazing. There is a national daylily convention in Nashville right now.

- [Nicole] There is.

- I understand the hybridizers sent you plants and-

- They did.

- They're coming to see you and you have them on display for them. Let's look at the guest bed.

- Alright, so this double is called "Aliens on Bourbon." It's by Donald Wolff, he's out of Kentucky. I do like to have plants in my garden that have been hybridized by somebody kind of nearby, 'cause it's used to our area.

- [Annette] What about the form on this one?

- Well, it's a double. I don't know exactly how it's registered. We've got some twisting of the sepals back here. Sometimes they'll register it that way and sometimes they don't. Sometimes it just opens that way. But I imagine this is registered just as a double.

- Okay, so how about that one?

- [Nicole] This is called "Electrifying Ripples," by Kirsten Hatfield out of Ohio. And you can see it's got all this patterning in it, which-

- [Annette] Oh, yeah.

- [Nicole] It depends on the weather, but on this nice, cool, cloudy day, you really get to see all that patterning. So that one's really showing off today.

- [Annette] Yeah that one is definitely, comes to greet you, doesn't it?

- [Nicole] Yes.

- [Annette] Yeah, and I do, I've seen pictures of these, but until you see it in person, you don't understand that rippling in that.

- [Nicole] Yeah, it's beautiful.

- [Annette] That's in the throat, and on the eye of that one. Well, lead us on. Another hybridizer is?

- This is Subhana Ansari, out of California. That is called "Infinitely Interrelated."

- [Annette] Oh, okay, that's an interesting name.

- [Nicole] Yes, she has interesting names and beautiful patterning on that daylily.

- Gosh, I just can't imagine walking through daylilies and down the road in my head, I think I could take pollen from that one and mix it with that one and then I'll come out with this one. That's how we all get sucked into hyperbridizing.

- Oh, no, I didn't just say that.

- Okay, now Nicole, tell us a little bit about the American Daylily Society.

- Well, it's a national group that is made up of smaller clubs, usually local clubs. Like we have a Middle Tennessee club here, and once a year they meet and have a convention. And they establish all the standards for different types of daylilies and how to name them, register them if you're a hybridizer.

- [Annette] Okay, so it's a lot of business then, isn't it?

- [Nicole] There is some business to it, yep.

- I think I like this one now.

- [Nicole] That's a beautiful little double.

- [Annette] Who is this?

- [Nicole] This is "Double Discovery," by Williams. It's very pretty.

- [Annette] Oh, and it's got a little longevity to it, 'cause it was hybridized in, or registered-

- [Nicole] Registered in 2012, yes.

- In 2012. Okay, now then I as in my own garden, know that they're spider daylilies. So you think this could be a spider?

- I don't, I believe it is, but I'm not positive. In order to be registered as a spider daylily, the pedal length has to have a ratio of one to four, four inches long to one inch wide. I believe this would qualify, but without seeing the registration details, I can't be sure.

- [Annette] Yes, and, oh, I like the name.

- [Nicole] Yes, "Frog's Hair."

- [Annette] Frog's hair.

- [Nicole] Fine as frog's hair.

- [Annette] Fine as frog's hair. That's Jim Murphy out of Virginia.

- [Annette] And you know, we can't judge it according to, we already know, today is not gonna be like it will be next year or what it was last year.

- [Nicole] Right, so this plant has only been in this place for two years I think. So as they become more established, sometimes they start to really come into their own, like year three.

- [Annette] Yes.

- And behave better, which is why people sent these plants quite a long time ago, so they would be well established.

- [Annette] So how far in advance did you know this national convention was gonna be here?

- [Nicole] Well we knew two years.

- [Annette] Okay.

- [Nicole] Usually it's three years, but we knew two years.

- And I, as I stroll relaxing with you, I do know you happen to be a chairman.

- [Nicole] I am.

- Oh my.

- Yep, co-chair of the national convention.

- [Annette] I'm sort of partial to this one for more than one reason.

- [[Nicole] I am, too. This one is one of my introductions. It's called "With the Help of Friends." I just registered it this year, and I love it for a lot of reasons. I love the color, I love the height. I think it's really bold and it stands, I guess I like things that stand out in the garden and I felt like this really did.

- Well, Nicole is I'll stand here with you admiring the work of your hands-

- Thank you.

- I want to thank you because I know you're a busy lady this week.

- Well thank you for coming.

- [Annette] And these are time-sensitive flowers, aren't they?

- [Nicole] They really are.

- [Annette] We needed to get to you this week so that we could see what you have here. And you definitely know what you're doing and have, I'm looking forward to seeing more introductions by you.

- [Nicole] Oh, thank you.

- Fall is here and that means it's time to collect seeds of anything that you want to propagate for next year. It's best to do that on a dry, sunny day. And you want to look for seed heads that are brown and papery, in most cases. And we'll talk about another one in a minute. These are blackberry lily seeds. They're quite large and easy to handle and so you just wait till they're this stage and you just snip 'em off. Now people recommend you use a paper bag and I recommend that as well, but I collect a lot of seeds, and I like to recycle plastic, so I use plastic bags, but I put in silica gel and I don't completely seal them. If you use Ziploc bags, never completely seal them because the moisture trapped inside the seed will make them mold. And unlike most seeds, this is an example of one that you would actually harvest when the pods just start turning yellow. And this is actually a balsam impatien, also known as a "Touch-Me-Not," and the reason is, is because when these ripen, if you just barely touch it, the seeds pop out. And so you want to get these before the seeds have popped out, which means you need to get 'em when they're just dark green or starting, or starting to turn slightly yellow. Yellow is perfect. If you wait too long, the seeds will be gone. These are seeds of Stokes aster, and with Stokes aster particularly, you have to wait till they are completely dry and completely brown, pod and all. And so these now have been here for a couple of months after the flowers were gone and now I will actually harvest the little tiny seeds within the capsule. Now be careful, these are really sharp and actually can hurt, so wear gloves. Now that we've collected our seeds and I have three types here, there's a very important thing you must do and that's label them. Trust me from my experience, you won't remember what they are in a week. So go ahead and label them. And so I can reuse my bags, I like to just put 'em on Popsicle sticks and just put that in the bag with it. And remember, don't completely seal the bag. Our next step is going to be to let them dry. And that's why it's important not to seal the bag. You'll put these partially open if you're using plastic or in a paper bag, in a dry place, like an attic, a garage, somewhere like that. And you'll leave them there for three weeks to allow them to dry completely. Now there are a few seeds that you wouldn't actually dry out. And pawpaws is a great example. I've started some from seeds before and actually they germinate better if you don't completely dry them and just put them right in the ground. But if you can't do that, then it's okay to just dry them and try them next year. Just be aware, they may not germinate quite as well. Most seeds do need to be processed and dried. But once you get 'em outta that drying period, you're gonna move to the next stage, which is the actual processing of the seed. And basically what that means is, you're gonna take out the very big bits of the stems, all the big parts that you don't want to keep, just get rid of those. And then as you can see here in this bag, the seeds are already falling out and after three weeks there'll be a lot of seeds that have already fallen out and it'll be easy to take the stems out. Now these seeds are quite large, so it'll be easy enough to just take the seeds out. I won't have to do much extra except just clean it up a bit. There are some seeds that are quite small, lobelia, cardinal flower, all those are quite small, poppies. And so these asters gonna be fairly small seeds, and for those I have to take another step. And what I do is I sift out the bigger parts, well, I pick out the bigger parts first, but then I'll just actually open this seed head out over a screen or a sifter. And you could use a flower sifter or something like that for this. Little tiny seeds, see the seeds? Those little tiny bits are seeds. Now I might actually pick all these out or use a different size screen than I have today. But you can see that some are so small, they've made it through all the way through this fine screen right into the bowl. Final step is you're going to store these. Whether you're trading them to friends or you're going to plant them and just aren't ready to do so yet, waiting for spring, then you just will store these in a coin envelope. And you can get these at office supply stores, online at Amazon, but a paper envelope, even a regular business envelope works just fine. And all you do after you've labeled it, so you know what it is, is you just pour 'em in there. Oh, I missed a few, but I'll get 'em. They're big enough seeds. So this is pretty easy to do. If you're using really small seeds like our asters, then you're actually gonna use a funnel for this step. After you've put your seeds into your envelope and made sure it's labeled, you'll want to go to the next stage, which is chilling. Chilling increases the seed viability for up to 75%. And I have seeds from two or three, four years ago, that I've collected and I can still put them out and get plants from them. So you wanna put 'em in a fridge if you have the space. And if you don't have fridge space, then just make sure it's a dry environment where they'll be chilled. A basement that's dry or a garage that's dry, but not too insulated or heated because you don't want them to wake from dormancy until you're ready to plant them. Now that you know how to collect seeds of your own, there's nothing stopping you from expanding your own garden on the cheap.

- [Troy] Drive down any street in Nashville, and it's obvious that our city is growing exponentially. Six years ago our new Music City Center opened and I am here today with Renee Barker. And Renee when this Music City Center was under development, even in the planning stages, there were plans for a green roof. Tell me a little bit about the green roof here and what we're seeing and also what it does for the building.

- Sure, so we are a LEED Gold-certified facility and part of the design and construction process was to build a green roof here.

- Right.

- This is just over four acres.

- Wow.

- And it was designed to mimic the rolling hills of Tennessee, so that's why there's a little bit of a waviness.

- So that's why you see this waviness up here.

- [Renee] Below us is actually our big exhibit hall space.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [Renee] So the green roof helps insulate that wide open space, helps us save on heating and cooling a big empty room.

- [Troy] Right, so for our viewers, if anybody attends the "Antiques and Garden Show of Nashville"-

- [Renee] Right.

- [Troy] Or anything else here, but that's kind of one of the things that's near and dear to our hearts. You are actually under this green roof. As far as the variety of plants that are up here, it's mostly sedum.

- [Renee] That's right. We have 14 different kinds of sedum.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [Renee] Just to make it interesting throughout the year-

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Renee] It looks a little bit different, different flowers.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Renee] But we also have some clover up here.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [Renee] That found its way up here accidentally, but we learned that the bees actually really like clover, so.

- [Troy] Yes, they do, that's absolutely correct. How deep is the soil and everything in here?

- [Renee] This is only about two inches deep of soil.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [Renee] Sedum is a really low maintenance, low growing plant.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Renee] So we don't have to mow up here, like you would a yard. We kind of just manage the weeds and take care of it.

- [Troy] And how are the weeds managed in a situation like this?

- [Renee] We do have people that come out here and hand pull the weeds. Since the bees are so close by, we don't want to spray anything.

- [Troy] Spray, do anything like that. So really sustainable.

- [Renee] Yeah.

- [Troy] I mean in every sense of the word, and it and the building as well. The architecture, the construction of the building is such that you're using storm water?

- [Renee] That's right.

- [Troy] Right?

- This green roof system is part of our stormwater catchment. When rainwater falls through here, it's collected in an underground cistern that holds 360,000 gallons of water.

- Right.

- And from there it's piped throughout the building for all of the toilets and urinals and for our landscape irrigation.

- Okay, well you mentioned beehives. Now we're going to join Mike Brent, who's the beekeeper here at the Music City Center. Well, the last place you might expect to find beehives is in the middle of downtown Nashville. And not only are we in the middle of downtown, we're on the roof of the convention center with Mike Brent. Mike, show us what you have going on up here at the top of the building.

- Sure, shortly after the Music City Center was built, they put four beehives up here. and I'm with the National Area Beekeepers Association and they had asked us to help mentor some of the staff here in getting the hives started and checking the hives and helping 'em out with 'em. So that's what I do. I'm not an employee here or anything-

- Right.

- But come down and help the staff.

- Sure.

- As they do that. So we've got four hives. We're gonna open up number four here.

- Alright.

- We just, we didn't name 'em, we just numbered them one to four.

- [Troy] Yeah. And like most hives, you'll find a brick or a rock sitting on top of 'em. It's unusual that you get enough wind that it's gonna lift the top off, but it does happen. And especially when you're a hundred feet up in the air like we are, and you've got winds swirling sometimes in a storm or whatever. So like most hives, there's a feeder, well there's a screen on top to keep other bees or other insects from, from coming in. There's a feeder that is sometimes used, especially during the earlier and later part of the season to feed the bees and help give them a little bit of a headstart during the season. You'll feed 'em a mixture of sugar water that they will use that gives 'em energy to build out comb and things like that.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] They don't use it to make honey. That's the nectar that they gather.

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Mike] But, so you'll see when I lift this up, there are a lot of bees. This is probably the strongest hive up here.

- [Troy] Uh-huh.

- We've got three boxes here. The bottom two are what we call brood boxes. That is primarily where the queen lays eggs, raises bees, you'll find the baby bees growing in there and so forth. And you'll also find honey in there.

- [Troy] Right.

- That they use for their nutrition and pollen.

- [Troy] Okay. The honey's, their carbohydrate, the pollen is their protein.

- [Troy] Is their protein, sure.

- And then the upper boxes are what they call honey supers, which is what we steal from 'em.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- When I open this up, since it's pretty overcast this morning, there are not many bees out flying around. But when I open this, you're gonna see a lot of them-

- [Troy] There they are.

- Start to come out, wondering what are we here? What are we doing? Why are we bothering them? Bees are not aggressive, they are defensive. You can see what we call the capped honey, where they have put a wax capping over it. Once they have put the nectar in there and they fan it, they get it down to where it's honey, which is a lot thicker than nectar and they just have to dehydrate it some. And then on down in these lower ones, you will see honey that's still being evaporated some from the nectar, that's not quite capped yet. So that's what you're primarily gonna find in the top box, is just frames that look like this, that are gonna have honey either still being produced or that's capped. This side, they don't have any of it capped yet. But if we were to take out all these frames, you'd see the same thing in this top box.

- [Mike] Any unique challenges involved in having bees up here versus down on the ground?

- [Mike] Not really. I mean, you would think that there might be challenges of where do they go find nectar in the concrete jungle of downtown.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] But we've had an analysis done of their honey. You'll find that, at least in the last couple of years, it has primarily been clover that they have found somewhere within a couple of miles of here.

- [Troy] Wow.

- [Mike] I'm not gonna pull out a frame since they're getting so active because it's so cloudy.

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Mike] And stuff, and we'll talk about that a little bit after I close it up. If this was sunny this morning, instead of so cloudy and overcast, they'd be out flying in and out, working, going out, looking for nectar, looking for pollen in various areas. Typically a bee will fly as much as two or three miles, if they have to, to find a source of pollen or nectar. Here they're finding a lot of stuff pretty close by, we've determined.

- [Troy] Well as Nashville does continue to grow. I think it's important for all of us to be environmentally conscious and the Music City Center is leading the way,. here in Nashville. We thank them for letting us come up on the roof for this spectacular view of the city, and sharing the bees with us today.

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