Episode 3206

- [Narrator] April Moore checks out the display garden at Andrew Jackson's Hermitage for a stellar collection of fall greens that you can keep harvesting through first frost. Troy Marden has an impressive list of house plants for novices and experts alike. Bright indirect light is the key for these beauties. Annette Shrader visits with a new gardener who got the bonus of an established and well-designed backyard garden when she bought her home. And Marty DeHart tells us about the new hybrids of blackberry shrubs that bear fruit twice a year. Join us. Cut-and-come-again greens that are known for their good flavor.

- It's fall, and we're here at Andrew Jackson's Hermitage to learn about winter greens with historic garden manager Bradley Roberts.

- How you doing?

- I'm doing great, thank you.

- We have a cool season display garden here that features several different types of greens that do well in the cooler temperatures in late fall and throughout the winter months. One of our more cold-hardy varieties is our Alabama Blue collard, which is right here.

- That's pretty.

- This is an Alabama heirloom, open pollinated. And open pollinated means that it's just been pollinated by its natural devices, either seed carried by wind or a pollinator like a bee or a wasp. It's called Alabama Blue because you can see this kind of blue, glaucous purply hue, and these red venated stems here, this red venation in the leaf. Love this plant. A lot of the ornamental vegetables you see are not so tasty, they're more bitter.

- Yeah.

- But this one is delicious. It's really known for its sweet flavor, and after it gets a nice heavy frost on it, it even sweetens the leaf-

- Oh, yeah.

- Up even more.

- I was going to ask you when you'd want to harvest these. So when it's starting to frost.

- You can harvest these after first heavy frost.

- [April] Mm, 'kay, and you can repeat harvest them?

- You can.

- Awesome.

- You can cut on these until the plant is gone. In these display beds, what I like to do is let them bolt or go to seed.

- [April] And save the seed.

- [Bradley] Well, we do save a lot of our seed here. When you're growing some of these open-pollinated plants, they don't always come true from seed.

- Come true, yeah.

- So that's kind of an iffy undertaking. But I like to let these go to flower because the flower spike, you know, rises up out of the plant, it's a nice yellow color, a tight cluster of flower, and the pollinators love it.

- Oh, that's awesome. Okay, let's look at some of these others. What is this?

- So this is another collard, also cold hardy. This one's called White Mountain. And this is another favorite of mine because this is a South Carolina heirloom-

- [April] Oh!

- [Bradley] And I'm a native South Carolinian.

- [April] Oh, cool.

- [Bradley] This particular collard in South Carolina is known for the best sauerkraut collard.

- [April] Really?

- [Bradley] Yeah, it brines really well. People use it also in a lot of stews. And this is another famous one for your New Year's Day collard.

- Oh, yeah!

- Yeah.

- That's a great idea.

- That's a big tradition in the Southeast is eating collard greens for the luck of money on New Year's Day, and White Mountain collard is famous for that old-

- Wow.

- You know, Southern, you know, celebration on New Year's.

- [April] Yeah, well, you know, looking at the leaves, it looks so much like a cabbage.

- [Bradley] It does, and it has a thick leaf like a cabbage.

- Like a cabbage, yeah.

- [Bradley] And it has a little different flavor than the Alabama Blue, and obviously a very different look, but it does have that, you know, traditional collard flavor.

- Yeah. Okay. Okay, well, let's look at some of these other, oh, look at this guy. He's really curly.

- I really like this because of its curly leaf. This is called Southern Giant Curled mustard.

- [April] Aptly named.

- [Bradley] Yeah, you can see that frilly leaf edge, so it's a really great texture plant in your display garden because it really-

- It's pretty.

- [Bradley] Offsets some of the smoother foliage of a lot of your collards. And it has a really nice, almost chartreuse bright green color, which really pops. Loves full sun, but very tasty. You know, this mustard green is boiled down and often cooked with meats in the Southeast.

- [April] Yeah, can you harvest this again and again like the collards?

- You can. You can keep cutting on it. This is not as cold hardy as the collard greens are. So if it gets-

- Frilly leaf.

- [Bradley] Yeah, that frilly kinda thin leaf, you can feel how thin the foliage is. When it gets down to the 20s, this is gonna take a beating from the cold temperatures.

- [April] But the collards can take colder than that, right?

- Oh, absolutely.

- Cool.

- [Bradley] I mean, some of these collards, like the Alabama Blue, it can go down into the single digits.

- Wow.

- And you will not get any significant frost damage.

- [April] That makes it super easy to grow here for a very long season.

- [Bradley] Yeah, it does. But I do suggest planting the mustard earlier in the fall because they're not gonna take the cold temps like the collard greens will.

- Right, right. And how quickly do they mature?

- [Bradley] This is almost full maturity, so they'll mature from seed in about 60 days.

- [April] Oh, that's good, that's really good.

- Yep.

- Cool.

- Fast grower.

- Yeah, absolutely. And cut and come again.

- Yeah!

- That's awesome.

- Yeah, you can keep cutting-

- You can't beat that!

- [Bradley] No, you can keep cutting on it until it's gone. And, like I said earlier, they're delicious!

- Thanks so much, Bradley. I feel like I've learned a lot, but I feel like there's a lot more that I wanna learn, so I'm just gonna have to come back, right? 'Cause you've got a lot more varieties here that we didn't even get a chance to talk about.

- We've got several different varieties of greens that are gonna be on display here at the AJC, the Andrew Jackson Center, which is our visitor center, throughout the entire winter months, and then we'll have a new display out here this spring.

- Fantastic!

- So you'll have to come back then too.

- Oh, well, I will. Thanks so much!

- Thanks for coming.

- I remember growing house plants as a kid with my grandmother. They fell out of favor for a little while, but they have found a resurgence recently, especially among the younger generation. I am at Lawrence & Clarke Cacti Co. in Old Hickory, Tennessee, and I'm going to join Kim Daft for a discussion about house plants. Kim, thanks so much for letting us visit today. I wanna talk about this group of plants that is broadly what my grandmother would've called philodendrons. She would've just called all of them philodendrons.

- Yes, yes. And a lot of these actually are philodendrons. Some are cousin to, sister to, but not quite philodendrons.

- Right.

- But this is a group of plants that have really come up in popularity in the last couple of years.

- Sure.

- [Kim] Some of them have been around a very long time. Anyone around in the '70s knows what a Monstera is. This beautiful plant has been popular. It was very, very popular in the '70s-

- [Troy] Right.

- [Kim] Sort of like it was mentioned earlier, went out of style-

- Yeah.

- [Kim] Through the '80s and '90s, and then in the 2000s have seen a massive resurgence in popularity.

- Sure.

- But the Monstera deliciosa likes like a bright indirect light. It really thrives in an indoor environment. And as the plant grows, if it's given the opportunity to go upward on a totem pole, or some people will even add a chain or a branch to the plant, as the plant grows larger upwards, the leaves will actually expand. You'll get more fenestrations, which is the holes-

- The openings, right.

- The splits, yes, these openings are the fenestrations. This is a primary fenestration. This is a secondary fenestration. So if the plant can go upwards, you're gonna get more of that.

- More of that. And even larger leaves.

- Yes!

- Yeah, yeah.

- Exactly, exactly. It is an aroid plant, which just means in nature it's sort of terrestrial. It'll climb across trees, across soil, and pulls moisture through its aerial roots. Over here, this is a Philodendron Brasil.

- Right.

- So this is in the Philodendron family. Monstera is actually not a true philodendron, but this is. The Brasil has kind of a lemon-lime splash with bits of a softer sage green and then the rich dark green.

- Right.

- [Kim] Every leaf is a little bit different. You'll see some segments have tons of neon in them, but they are really beautiful specimens. Fantastic grower indoors and in indirect light as well.

- Right, and this can be grown either as a hanging basket plant where it will trail and hang and be beautiful or you could also put this on a totem.

- Absolutely.

- Same thing with the pothos, and I think this is another one that everybody will recognize.

- Yes, yes. This is a Golden Pothos, a Hawaiian Golden Pothos to be specific. This particular variety has more of the bright yellow splashes. And if this plant is allowed to grow upwards on a totem pole such as this, if it can get that upward growth, these will actually split and look very similar to a Monstera.

- Right.

- It's a really, yeah, unique plant in that as the leaves develop, they can get so large, they will develop splits if they can go vertical long enough.

- Now, this one is a beautiful plant, also a philodendron?

- It is, but this-

- But more of a silvery leaf form.

- Yes. So this is the Silver Sword Philodendron. Their juvenile leaves are very tapered and rounded, almost teardrop shape. But as they mature, the reason they're called a Silver Sword, you'll see a flattening and more of a pull at the back of the leaf. It really does develop a look that looks like a sword, which is why it's called the Silver Sword. The leaves get larger and more tapered. It's really, really beautiful, and it always has this gorgeous silver. And this is another one that does really, ideally it's gonna grow best vertical if it can. Yeah, absolutely.

- Right. And I think here's a really great image of what-

- Yes!

- An example of what you've just been talking about.

- Yes.

- As far as immature leaves, these kind of teardrop or almost oval-shaped leaves down here at the bottom, which are the immature foliage. And then as this plant grows upward on this trellis, you can see that the leaves actually change. We call that scientifically a change in leaf morphology.

- Yes, yes.

- But-

- [Kim] And this is, so this is Rhaphidophora Decursiva, also known as a Dragon Tail. This one obviously has been trained to grow on a trellis versus a totem. Either one works, anything works. But look at the shape of this leaf as it matures. It's just beautiful. Really, really unique design as they get larger. And Rhaphidophora is a rapid-growing aroid. I've had them grow as much as six to eight feet in a year.

- Right.

- So they will vine upwards, climb everywhere if given the opportunity.

- Sure. Talk a little bit about care of this group of plants. And I know that's a broad assumption, but-

- [Kim] So largely, philodendrons like a, they like a moist environment, but they really need to dry. They truly need a well-draining soil. So when we repot them, we'll typically put them in a mixture, especially if they're larger, in like a cactus mix-

- Right.

- That has those extra soil amendments, perlite, sand, so that they get the moisture that they need, but they also have a substantial amount of drainage.

- If you were to find these growing in the wild, they would be growing in the leaf litter on the jungle floor.

- Yes, precisely. Precisely.

- So not in, you know, heavy-

- They're not gonna be-

- They're not gonna be in heavy clay Tennessee soil-

- No.

- Or anything like that.

- No, no, no.

- They're going to be growing in a very loose, porous, open medium, so.

- Yes. Oftentimes climbing up trees.

- Right.

- Climbing up branches, climbing across the floor, like you said. And in the environment that they're in, their roots are designed to adhere to the surfaces around them so that they can pull themselves and have stability through various weather conditions.

- Right, I'm gonna reach over here and grab one more plant real quick because I wanna talk about this cute little guy.

- Yes. So this is another Rhaphidophora. This is a shingle plant. As he grows, he flattens his leaves along the wood and will, again, adhere himself to the surface as he's growing upwards.

- So if you put this on a tall, flat, when you re-pot this-

- Yes.

- Say you come here, take him home for yours. Put him on a taller flat piece of wood and he'll grow all the way up-

- Absolutely.

- [Troy] And shingle himself all the way up there.

- Absolutely. And you can even co-plant him in with another plant. I have one in my greenhouse, it's potted up with a Ficus Audrey. So I have it at the base of the trunk so that it can climb upwards since they both like similar soil conditions.

- Gotcha. That's great. Any other advice for people who might want to grow some of these plants at home? Kind of bright indirect light like we're seeing-

- Yes.

- Coming in this window-

- Yes.

- Here that we're in front of.

- So bright indirect, ideally, is going to be a north- or east-facing window. Or if it's so south- or west-facing, we wanna be across from that window, we're several feet away from it. Especially older windows, it's gonna be more intense. Newer windows will have enough filters, you can be a little bit closer.

- Right.

- Also, you can correct underwatering. If a plant gets thirsty, they're gonna look a little droopy, that's very easy to water and correct. When you overwater, especially with philodendrons, the overwatering will rot the root system of the plant.

- Right.

- And you basically have to treat them for the infection they've developed and then redevelop that entire system of roots so that it can-

- Right.

- Pull the nutrients it needs.

- For as many years as I've been in the horticulture world, I think probably I've seen more plants of any kind killed by overwatering-

- Absolutely, yes.

- Than underwatering.

- Yes.

- Every time.

- Every time.

- Thank you so much for being with us today-

- Thank you for having us.

- For giving our viewers a look into this world of aroids. And it's fun to be here, and I really appreciate your time.

- [Kim] Well, thank you for coming out!

- A garden in the spring is a wonderful thing, and I cannot wait to showcase this beautiful garden situated on terraces in Nashville. Savannah Yarborough, you are a very fortunate lady.

- I am.

- You are. And what did you like first? The house or the garden?

- Well, it was the pictures of the garden that lured me into the house.

- Oh, wow.

- Yeah. So I bought this house in 2020 as a place for me to live by myself. And I bought it from a woman who had created this garden since 1955 when she moved into the house.

- Oh, fabulous.

- Yeah.

- And I can tell that she was from England?

- [Savannah] She was, she was, and she loved flowers.

- And she really created in this garden a lot of structure that is so necessary, the bones-

- Yes.

- Of this garden. And her rock terraces and her strategically placed plants for anchor plants. So now let's go to flowers.

- Yes. There's plenty to choose from.

- There are lots in here. And, you know, an overview, I would think that, wow, you need to pull your weeds! But that's not a weed, is it?

- [Savannah] It's not a weed. No, it's a Blue-eyed Mary that goes everywhere, like a sea of blue and white in the springtime.

- [Annette] I have to say, I was fortunate enough to see a photograph of these when they were in bloom.

- Yes.

- All over! But now, you don't call that an invasive, you just call that a pretty spread.

- [Savannah] A present.

- [Annette] It is!

- [Savannah] So one of my favorites that you can see sort of everywhere are the columbines.

- Yes.

- That was something I had never had before. And they, I think I have five different types of them, and there's still a few left.

- I see that.

- Each different color, and they just grow so tall, and they spread out everywhere, and I absolutely love them.

- [Annette] All of these were here and you rescued them?

- [Savannah] Well, they were here. They were just under a lot of other things. And so I have spent the last three years creating some breathing room and clearing out and trimming things back so that these each have a place and an opportunity to shine.

- Well, with you saying that, and you come with a history of gardening for you to be able to walk into a space and know what's really there.

- It took time. It took time, but I do, my mom is an avid gardener, so I have learned a lot from her over the years.

- Yes, yes.

- But she said, when I got this place, that I had my work cut out for me, and she was right.

- Okay. And well, Savannah, along with your perennials in here spring, I see that you also have a very wonderful specimen right here.

- Yes.

- [Annette] I like that ninebark.

- [Savannah] Yes, it's so beautiful.

- [Annette] And, you know, that leaf color-

- [Savannah] Where we've worked for the last season to really trim it back to-

- Yes.

- [Savannah] To get it in its most healthy form.

- [Annette] Yeah, and it looks like it's an arching thing.

- Yes.

- And it likes to be that way. I know you're particularly fond of clematis, aren't you?

- I am.

- You have a beautiful one. Do you happen to know the name of that one?

- [Savannah] This one, I don't actually know the name of that one. And we are waiting on the bloom for the one next to it to find out what that's gonna be when we see it.

- [Annette] And you've never seen it bloom?

- [Savannah] Never, this will be the first time.

- [Annette] That's great, you've got another Christmas present. Okay, in the scope of what you are doing here, tell me a little bit about gardening on a hill.

- [Savannah] Well, it is not the easiest, that's for sure. It does take a little bit of extra effort and help from friends to be able to do it. But I've got a little cart that I bring out, you know, I'm just used to going up and down the hill.

- Right. This is the second level. We're gonna go to the third level.

- Great, let's go!

- Well, Savannah, tell me about the recovery. I believe you said this is a smoke bush right there.

- Yes, it is. So, it's quite an old specimen that we have, again, spent quite a bit of time trimming back. And as you know with the smoke bush, you have to do that over periods of time. And I have yet to see it bloom, but I do think this is gonna be the first time I get to enjoy it.

- [Annette] You know, it is literally like a puff of smoke.

- Yes, yes.

- It's quite unusual. The deer ate mine.

- Uh-oh, uh-oh.

- [Annette] Now, you also mentioned that you like the Japanese painted fern?

- [Savannah] I do. I love those. And I just love how they complement too with the Solomon's seal, which is quite widespread in this section.

- [Annette] Yes.

- [Savannah] And it's quite shady over here most of the summer, which is great, and I love the color palette that it all gets. It's very relaxing and calm.

- [Annette] So, you actually have deep shade, you have sunlight-

- Yes.

- [Annette] And you have semi-shade, dappled shade.

- Yes.

- [Annette] Well, that's a good garden.

- [Savannah] Very well balanced.

- Now then, let's move to the... Where you have more of the summer perennials perhaps?

- Yes, up top.

- Okay. Well, Savannah, you've got random, rampant hellebore everywhere.

- [Savannah] I do.

- What do you do with that?

- I do. Well, the first season that I had the garden, we spent a lot of time clearing that up because it is just-

- Are they difficult to dig?

- [Savannah] So difficult. They'll tear your hands off before you can tear them out of the ground.

- Oh, wow.

- Yeah, it's hard.

- [Annette] I have some loose friends too.

- [Savannah] But you can always see their little babies everywhere.

- Oh, I know!

- So you gotta get ahead of it.

- [Annette] I've got the first chorus of that song.

- [Savannah] You do, yes, yes. But I do love them. I mean, I never get tired of the way they look and how they fill things in. It is really nice.

- Yeah. And they're evergreen.

- Yes, true, very true.

- You know, Savannah, from this vantage point, the designer originally of this garden, I can see her eye moved randomly. And you can tell that here is a dogwood. Here is another plant.

- Witch hazel, yes.

- Witch hazel, yes. And so there she has height, but yet she left room for all the different specimens, and I'm not really sure if that would come in the cottage garden, but I know that structurally she provided ample in between all of that.

- Yes.

- So as we go down through here, I know that you've got lots of things in here, but I see you have a peony this morning.

- [Savannah] I do! I've got three big ones up here. They are the only peonies. We've got some in the front of the house, but these are the only three in the back. And I do love them every season.

- [Annette] That's a herbaceous peony, and those heads are so large and so fragrant. Through this walkway, I can tell that you have some daylilies and some more of that wonderful Blue-eyed Mary.

- Yes.

- The stacked stone wall that is holding up all of this hillside, it was done excellently because through all of this wear and tear and the water, it is still standing. But, of course, they did mortar it in.

- Yes, they did.

- And that is crucial for it-

- [Savannah] Yes, and it was built in 1940. So the fact that it has withstood all those years and all the rain is pretty wonderful, I think.

- [Annette] It is. Over the years of time, water will take its toll.

- It will.

- But this was done very well. And then I know you have spiderwort through here.

- [Savannah] I do. It has been a thorn in my side sometimes, but-

- [Annette] And, you know, I found that to be true, but it does present color.

- [Savannah] It does, and height sometimes, that's really nice.

- Exactly, exactly. And it blends in well. And I know you have asters in here. You have phlox in here. And I know-

- There's an allium there.

- Yes, I see that allium too.

- That one little, yeah.

- [Annette] But standing up here on the top of the world with you, your garden is really, really great. And I know that it would be a thing of enjoyment to look out my window every morning-

- Yes.

- With my first cup of coffee to see what's out there. And you truly are blessed.

- [Savannah] I am, I am. I love that. Every morning there's always a new surprise.

- [Annette] And you have cardinals.

- I have all kinds of birds. I've got lots of cardinals and blue jays.

- Well, it's a wonderful garden, and it has had many years of someone to love it.

- Yes.

- And create it. And now it's in your hands.

- Now it's my turn.

- And now it's in your hands. And now it's starting to rain on us again.

- Here we go. Just in time.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much.

- Blackberries are a great Southern favorite. Who doesn't love 'em? And they, historically, you know, you take your basket, and you go out and get all clawed up picking blackberries from the wild patch. I wanna show you newer blackberry breeding, which you can have in your own yard. You won't get hurt, and they bear twice, two times a summer. Not once. These are called primocane blackberries. And this particular one is called Prime-Ark Freedom. Notice no thorns. That's one of the main things about these very vigorous plants. And you can basically wade into them without getting hurt. This is the end of June. And you can see that the first set of blooms, like all the blackberries around you that are wild, has bloomed. And the fruit is setting and come in ripening. And there's quite a bit down this row, and there's gonna be another bloom in August, a big one. So you're gonna have blackberries in a normal season, which would be, say, July, late July maybe, mid to late, depends on the weather, and then again in late September. You'll get two. And these are big blackberries. You know, these will get this big and juicy. I have eaten these, they're wonderful. There are several primocane varieties. One's called Prime-Ark Jim. They were mostly developed by the University of Arkansas, which I think is why they're called Prime-Ark, and it's a wonderful line of breeding. You can see that they are incredibly vigorous! We cut these to the ground in March, which is what one typically does with this. And you can see that this will bloom. And you can see it's just starting to form bloom buds at the top of this cane. This is the July bloom that will ripen in late August into September. They do like to be trellised because the canes are kinda heavy and be arched. You can see we have this sort of double-V arrangement here. Very easy to set up. But however you wanna grow 'em, or if you just wanna plant 'em in a clump and let 'em do their thing in a thicket, they do that too. In terms of growing them, normal soil like blackberries. Any blackberry, the wild ones included, they wanna grow, and they're very vigorous, and they don't require a ton of fertility and special treatment. You can buy the canes. I bought these online. You can sometimes find them in garden centers, but you're better off finding suppliers online who will ship you like 10 or 20 canes at a shot, that you put 'em in in the late winter, early spring, and let them do their thing the first year. The next year, you cut 'em back, ground level, fertilize them, let 'em do their thing. Really easy to grow. I heartily recommend this. How many blackberries can you do this with? There's another thornless called Triple Crown, which is a little lower, but my experience is the Prime-Ark ones are just the bomb. I can't recommend them enough.