Episode 3216

- [Announcer] Native plants are beautiful, require little maintenance, and provide for wildlife. Rita Venable visits with a beloved member of the Wilson County Master Gardeners to learn more about these stellar plants and how to propagate them. Tammy Algood visits with an enthusiastic new gardener, who has the whole family involved in the home vegetable garden. She's found that the time spent working in the garden is just as rewarding as the harvest, come along. By seed, by cuttings, or by layering, let's learn how to propagate a variety of native plants.

- Many people ask me where to find native plants for their gardens. Today, we are going to visit with a self-taught naturalist, who is going to teach us about how to propagate native plants. One of my very favorite spring native plants is our Wild Columbine, and this beautiful flower, the way it hangs down, the red color, the yellow pollen, is just beautiful. And it's very hard to sometimes put plants in your garden that the pollinators like early on, and this one starts comin' on late March and early April. But to tell you more about it, I am going to let Linda Robertson, who is the self-taught naturalist I told you about, tell us about her propagation of columbine, Linda.

- Okay, well, thank you Rita. I would like to say about the columbine too, it's red color attracts hummingbirds. And so you know when it is blooming and the Red Buckeyes are blooming that you will have plenty of hummingbirds. It is a very easy plant to propagate, has very tiny seeds. The seeds were collected just as soon as they were mature in the early summer. And I did seed these flats right away, and they sprouted in the fall.

- [Rita] Okay.

- [Linda] And they overwintered as young seedlings, and this is what they are today.

- [Rita] Did they die back in the winter, like to nothing, and then they resprouted in the spring?

- [Linda] No, they don't.

- [Rita] They stay green all winter?

- [Linda] Yeah.

- [Rita] I did not know that.

- [Linda] They do. Or you can collect the seed and then, and then let them sprout in the spring. Let 'em germinate in the spring.

- [Rita] Okay, so you planted yours immediately then?

- [Linda] I did, but sometimes I wait.

- [Rita] Okay. Now, if you already have columbine in your yard, this also self seeds, if you want to just let it go?

- Right, it will self seed. It is not a really robust plant. You will have the plant for several years, but then it will self seed, but that same plant won't come back.

- Okay, so you need to let it resow a little bit then, if you wanna keep having columbine in your yard.

- Yeah, don't clip all the seed heads off.

- That's good. Another of my very favorite spring native plants is Miami Mist, and this one happens to be growing in a pot. And this Christmas fern is also in here, and actually, the Christmas fern was probably in there first, and the Miami Mist just decided to join it. So here's what it looks like in the wild. And it's just lovely at the base of this tree, the way it goes right into those little coves and nooks and crannies there along the roots. So, Linda, can you tell us how you get this in your garden?

- [Linda] It's a naturally occurring native wildflower, and it draws many pollinators. The other day, I was out here just looking, and I saw at least three different kinds of native, they were bees, flies, or wasps. I couldn't really tell the difference, they're hard to tell when they're so small. But there are many pollinators in the springtime, and it just is occurring naturally everywhere around here.

- Another plant that Linda has propagated is this Golden Alexander. And what I really love about it, I also have it in my garden, in my yard, is that it's the host plant for the Black Swallowtail, which is a native butterfly to Tennessee, and it also provides a lot of pollen and nectar for bees, small things, pollinators in the early spring. It blooms very early, like late March, early April. And it also, the third great thing about this is that it blooms in the shade and partial shade.

- Right, this is a Major Wheeler Honeysuckle. It's our native honeysuckle, and it's a darker red than some of the coral colored honeysuckles. We propagated this by layering. You can see the rock on the top here. I had another plant, and in the late summer, we just lay the stems over, and when you plant them in the ground and put a rock on top, then you can propagate this plant by layering.

- Cool, and then you, when do you dig it up actually and put it in a pot?

- I leave it there almost a year.

- Oh, okay.

- You can tell when the roots are developed, it won't come out of the ground.

- Yeah, and then just kinda cut it off from the parent plant and put it in some dirt, and there you go. Okay, that's cool. This is also a host plant, I believe, for the Snowberry Clearwing?

- [Linda] Yes.

- [Rita] And it's very, very attractive to hummingbirds, our little Ruby Throated Hummingbird that comes through. Should be here any day now.

- [Linda] It's here.

- [Rita] It's here, it's here, cool. Well, you, and if you let it drape down, especially, in front of a window, and you can sit in your house and look out at this, it's just, it's amazing. Two more beautiful native plants in spring are the Purple Phacelia and the lovely Blue-eyed Mary right here, known for its brilliant blue flowers. And Linda is going to tell you a little bit how she propagated this. How'd you get these?

- Well, I found some seeds. These were some plants growing by the side of the road, and I did collect the seeds and brought them out here and put them in pots. And they, it is a biennial, it is not an annual. So if you have this flower this year, you will not have it next year, but it will shed seeds, and then you'll have a lovely stand.

- [Rita] So you'll have a continuous bloom year to year, if you let it go to seed?

- [Linda] No, well, those seeds, you've gotta get plants that are blooming the next year to go to seed, so you really need two different communities of seeds.

- [Rita] Okay, okay.

- [Linda] But it's a beautiful plant that blooms in the spring, and I've seen lots of bees on this.

- Now, what advice, Linda, do you have for people, that they may see a beautiful plant in a friend's yard or along the roadside? Of course, we don't dig up plants, but what about collecting seed? Are there rules or what do you go by?

- If you do collect the seed, then you should only get 10% of the seeds that you see.

- Okay, so don't take the whole head off.

- No, you don't take the whole thing.

- Just shake a few seeds off in your hand.

- Right.

- Okay. And tell us about the Blue-eyed Mary.

- Oh yeah.

- What about that?

- Yeah, the Blue-eyed Mary is a beautiful plant that was considered endangered for awhile. It's a plant that also blooms in the early spring, and the pollinators do love that plant. It is an annual, and it does not like to be disturbed. So, I have given this plant to many people, and they say it doesn't come back, but they probably mulch it or, probably it's mulch that covers it up and then it won't bloom. But, it grows out in my yard, the seeds are scattered everywhere.

- So it needs sunlight to germinate, is that right?

- Yes, but it's early, right now, before the leaves are on the trees, it'll be gone in another month.

- Okay.

- Or less.

- So which of these two are the easiest to propagate in your opinion?

- They're both very easy.

- Okay.

- They just. They just need the right place.

- Right.

- What's really amazing about this is that I find it growing on tops of our limestone outcrops in the shade.

- [Rita] Okay.

- [Linda] These plants over on some of my neighbor's property, it's just beautiful in the spring with the lovely lavender on top of the limestone cliffs.

- [Rita] Yeah, as a backdrop. Yeah, that would be, oh my goodness.

- [Linda] It's stunning.

- Gorgeous. Okay, well, another way to propagate, we've talked about seed propagation, is division. And this is a Dwarf Crested Iris that has been divided from other Dwarf Crested Irises on your property, correct? And this one now is a multiple. So any reason in particular you chose to put, or is this one root, or did you put several plants in this?

- [Linda] This is one plant, but if you want to, you can pull it out, and you can see the divisions. It will not hurt it. You can see.

- [Rita] This is making me nervous.

- [Linda] It grows like, it grows like an iris. There's a little violet in there, we'll pull that out. But you can see the swellings there, each of those will make a new iris.

- [Rita] Oh, that's so cool.

- [Linda] See the rise on there?

- [Rita] That's so cool.

- [Linda] Yeah.

- [Rita] Yeah. And they're a lot easier to dig than.

- Right, they're right on the top of the ground. You don't have to bury them. They're like an iris. You can just throw them out, and they'll grow.

- And in nature, we see these along stream sides and creeks, and they just kinda tuck themselves along the way, and it's just a beautiful flower. And you can tell the typical iris little bloom right there, just gorgeous.

- [Linda] Yeah, it's a beautiful plant.

- [Rita] This is Virginia Bluebell, and oh, what a show it makes in early spring, and not only for people, but for bees as well and butterflies. Linda, tell us about this plant.

- The plant is also easy to propagate. It makes a multitude of seeds. These are the early blossoms right here. They start out pink, and then they turn this sky blue color, and they mature, probably in another month, these seeds will be mature. And I collect the seeds, and I plant them right away. They really don't need to stratify. I do plant them in flats with the suitable growing medium, and then I take a row cover, a very lightweight row cover, and I put it over the flat and I set them outside. And let Mother Nature work her magic with these seeds.

- [Rita] Do you have to water, or you just keep them natural?

- [Linda] You really don't have to water them. They get enough water. Out in nature, they don't get watered. They just get what Mother Nature provides. And so that is what I do unless it's a Celandine Poppy, which needs, it's a hydrophilic seed, and it needs to be a little damp. These seeds are not hydrophilic, they're just.

- [Rita] They're just what they are.

- [Linda] They're just what they are, right.

- Okay, okay. So Linda, you are affiliated with the Wilson County Master Gardeners and also Cedars of Lebanon State Park. Tell us about that affiliation and how those two organizations work together.

- Well, the Master Gardeners have been instrumental in maintaining the butterfly garden at the park. It's a butterfly and native plant garden, they help maintain all year long.

- [Rita] So Linda, tell us about the annual plant sale that the Wilson County Master Gardeners puts on at Cedars of Lebanon.

- [Linda] Well, we do it in conjunction with Cedars of Lebanon Park, and it's every May. And we will have about 130 different species of shrubs, vines, grasses, herbaceous plants, and I'm leavin' one out, and trees, yeah, we'll have a lotta trees.

- [Rita] Are you the only group that propagates for that sale, or are there any other groups that also bring?

- [Linda] We're the only group.

- Okay, thank you so much for showing us your propagation methods today and showing us your beautiful spring plants, native plants. And we're just excited to get out there and get our hands in the dirt. So thanks.

- Thank you.

- You've inspired us.

- Thanks.

- We appreciate it.

- Fig trees are one of the best ornamental and edible trees you can grow in your landscape. I'm here with Jeremy Lekich of Nashville Foodscapes. Tell me all about this fig tree.

- Yeah, so this is about 10 years old, this tree here, and it's on a southern facing brick wall, which is a really good spot for a fig, as much sun as possible and thermal mass, right. So that's a brick wall, that's a stone wall. I mean, really just any wall is enough thermal mass to really keep it goin'.

- I've had some die back on mine a few years back, when it got below zero, but other than that, it's been really tough, which is fun. And you've got some of the fruit right there.

- Yeah, they're pollinated by microscopic wasps, so every time you eat a fig, you're eating a bunch of microscopic wasps, which sounds disgusting, but it's actually incredible. And it means that there's some added protein into the fig. But it's an incredible pollinate, so all the flowers are inside the fruit. The male parasitic wasps don't ever leave. The females travel outside of the fig, and go to other figs and go inside and work with the male wasps inside that fig to pollinate. And then you get this delicious fruit. You're never, they're microscopic so you don't see them, but that's why you don't see these big, beautiful blooms on a fig tree, because they're all inside the fruit.

- [Phillipe] Right, they just start off as these little kind of miniature figs and just kinda grow from there.

- [Jeremy] Yep, yep, and there's these little hole at the very bottom that you see, and you can see it on this one too. That's where the microscopic wasps travel in and out.

- [Phillipe] Very cool. Well, one of the best trees, as far as ornamental and edible, that I think we can grow in this area.

- [Jeremy] Absolutely, my favorite variety, I've tested a lot of different varieties, the one that seems to be the best is Chicago Hardy because it fruits on first year growth.

- [Phillipe] Wow, yeah.

- [Jeremy] Which makes a big difference, because as many people who have figs know, they will die back, especially in a hard winter, and so if we have Chicago Hardy, the first year growth starts producing figs right away, which makes it so that even in a hard year where the fig dies back, you still get good fruit set.

- [Phillipe] What's the pruning kind of techniques you use on these?

- Yeah, so figs are almost always, at least here, gonna die back some in the winter. So I usually wait until early spring to determine how much has died back, and then I cut it right above, right kind of where it's dead and where it's alive. And you can do that by scratching the branch here. And you can see how it's green underneath, that's the cambium layer.

- [Phillipe] Okay.

- [Jeremy] So if you ever wanna determine whether the fig tree branch is dead or alive, you can do little scratches up and down it to determine where it's dead and where it's alive. If it's dead, it'll be brown underneath.

- [Phillipe] Cool, yeah, so a nice compact ornamental edible tree. Don't forget about fig trees.

- There's nothing more wonderful than a beautiful vegetable garden right outside your back door. And today, we are visiting with Jill Andrews, and Jill is a new gardener. So tell us how you got started gardening, Jill.

- Yeah, so last July, it was the week of my husband's birthday. His birthday is July 14th, so I put him to work all week with pickaxes in this area. And we just sweated it out for days and days and days. And yeah, this is the only flat part of our yard, 'cause our yard is so hilly, and this is the sunniest part of our yard. And it's great.

- I love it, so was your husband kind of bemoaning this or did?

- [Jill] No, not really. He's really into it as well.

- [Tammy] Very good, very good. So placement is key, as you know, so what you've done is you've selected these sunnier areas of your vegetable garden for your more sun-loving plants that you've got.

- Yes, yep, I've got the tomatoes and the okra, Brussels sprouts, peppers, the stuff that really loves the sun. Our yard is, we have so many trees around, we're kinda surrounded by woods. And so it's pretty shady, so everything grows slower here. I have to be a very, very patient gardener.

- [Tammy] Do you like that part?

- I think there's part of me that's like, come on, come on, but it's also great, I would say, 'cause it's been so hot in this area that I think like the shade is actually maybe helpful.

- Very good, very good. So you started this part of planting in April.

- Yes.

- [Tammy] And I love how you've tied little red ornaments to your tomatoes to keep the birds perhaps away when they do.

- [Jill] I think it's working, yeah.

- [Tammy] I hope so, right.

- [Jill] I think so, yep. My tomatoes are mostly still green, so .

- [Tammy] Well, you know what? Mine are too, and I'm in a full sun area.

- [Jill] All right, that makes me feel better.

- [Tammy] You might not be as far behind as you think that you are.

- [Jill] Okay, yep, mm hm.

- So what you've done is you've varied it, and you've got basically a row of each thing. So tell me what you like most and what your challenges are.

- Yeah.

- As you vegetable garden.

- Well, so this is the first time I've grown okra, and it's working really well so far. It's shooting up, and the plants are producing fruit, and it's great. Brussels sprouts are gettin' eaten. I have, as you've seen probably, a lot of those white moths.

- [Tammy] Yes.

- [Jill] They are everywhere, and so that's one of my biggest challenges is just keeping the caterpillars at bay. But yeah, so the tomatoes. I've got one, two, three, four, five varieties, and they're slow growing, but they're doing great. And then these are my peppers. I've got all kinds, like green peppers and red peppers, and then jalapeno and cayenne. So these are bush green beans, and then I've got.

- And, these carrots, because.

- Yeah.

- I am also a huge fan of carrots, and I grow them, but I live on a rock.

- [Jill] Uh huh, so do we.

- [Tammy] Okay, so you've had to kind of build up your soil a little bit to make your carrots happy here.

- [Jill] Yes, it's very rocky, and this is my second harvest. The first harvest and garden that I had here was a fall garden. So we started it in July, so it started in the summer, but it really was a fall harvest. And so, yeah, this is my second time with carrots, and they're doing so well, I'm excited. I haven't pulled any out yet, but I can see that I have some that are potentially ready.

- [Tammy] Yes.

- Yeah. I honestly love all vegetables. When I was growing up in Illinois, my mom had a garden, and she would always wonder where the broccoli went. And the broccoli was actually going straight into my mouth. When I was out there playing, I would just pick the heads of broccoli and eat them, and I still love doing that.

- [Tammy] I love it.

- [Jill] Yeah.

- [Tammy] You've been in the music industry and a singer and songwriter for a couple of decades. Is gardening kind of like writing a song?

- With being a creative person and writing songs, sometimes you get a little frustrated. Like, I'll sit in my studio and I'll try to write a song, and some days it goes better than others. Some days I can't come up with the lyrics I want, or the melody isn't quite right, but when I come out to the garden, I can feel like immediately accomplished in what I do. If I plant something, it automatically just fulfills something in me, and it's just such a peaceful process. Nature has always provided a whole lot of inspiration for me. Just watching the bees and watching the spiders and just all the interesting life out here, that if you don't stop and slow down and pay attention, you will not see, you'll just miss it. And it provides a lot of songwriting inspiration.

- Very good, that's nice. And you know what? What I like about it is that it's organized, so it's almost like a piano keyboard almost.

- [Jill] Yeah, it is.

- [Tammy] You've got it all kind of arranged just so.

- [Jill] Yeah, that's true.

- [Tammy] And it's logical.

- I think the challenge is the organization of it for me, where to plant the things, because the sun moves gradually over the course of the day, and it's hard to know what is actually the sunniest spot in my garden. And so I would say it's, like the trial and error is the challenge for me of just figuring out like what the best placement of things are. And the bugs . The bugs, you know.

- So, Jill, let's look at the other things you've got planted here, because you've got so much variety crammed into a little space. I mean, look at your greens.

- Yeah, the greens. I feel like the greens are, they are flourishing the best, because it is a shadier garden, so they last longer. I mean, my lettuce is now bolting, but the Swiss chard is amazing over here, and the kale is doing so well. I just replanted arugula right here. I had it over there and it was doing great, but then it all went to seed, so I just, I was trying it again, kind of in a shadier spot. But yeah, we eat tons and tons and tons of greens, so that's our heaviest crop.

- [Tammy] Well, and you know what? Even when my lettuce bolts, I still cut it and use it.

- Yeah, same, yeah, it still tastes great.

- Exactly, now I may need to shred it sometimes to utilize some of the little, get the toughness out of it, but I still use it.

- [Jill] Yeah, yeah.

- [Tammy] Well, this is pollinator heaven.

- It actually is. This is agastache, and there's two plants here. And I bought them because I knew that they were native, and I didn't realize how tall they got. So I put 'em right in my garden, and it provides even more shade. But the bees and the butterflies are just all over it from morning until night. They're just all over it. When I'm watering, I'm always like, I don't wanna hit you guys, can you guys move? So, this is like, yeah, this is, I'm so happy I planted this.

- [Tammy] And is this a new planting? Did you plant that this year?

- [Jill] I planted this one year ago.

- [Tammy] One year ago.

- [Jill] Yeah, yeah.

- [Tammy] So, it obviously loves the spot.

- [Jill] Mm hm.

- [Tammy] I thought it was one big, huge plant.

- [Jill] Yeah, it's two, it's two, and I planted some goldenrod over there as well, just,

- [Tammy] Nice, nice. I love this little herb garden.

- [Jill] Thank you.

- [Tammy] And you've just kind of made it out of things that you found?

- Yeah, so when we moved into this house, there was honestly like a lot of trash in the woods. And I think the previous neighbors or generations, they kinda just threw their stuff. I don't know, maybe there wasn't a good dump system back then, I don't know. But we found a lot of cinder blocks, and we've kinda used them for a variety of things. And I was really trying to not spend a ton of money on my garden this year, so I planted a lot of things by seed. And I thought about buying containers, and then I was like, what if I use cinder blocks? So I found these cinder blocks in the woods, filled them up with dirt, and then I just put plants in there. And so far it's been great, it's worked really well. And they're right outside of my back door next to my kitchen, so I can come out here with scissors, can have my kids come out here with scissors right before dinner and cut fresh herbs. It's really awesome.

- And again, it gets sun, but not too much sun, but I like it because it's self-contained. So everything is just kind of in its own pot, but not really.

- [Jill] Yep, yep, it's great. And I have all the herbs that I love out here, so it's excellent.

- Perfect, you have really epitomized what it means to start gardening, Jill. And that's what we like to show our viewers, and it's really been an honor.

- Thank you.

- To see how you've done it, what you've learned in the process, and thank you for introducing us to your garden.

- [Jill] Thank you.

- [Tammy] It's lovely. It sings a nice song.

- [Jill] Thank you.

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