Episode 3222

- Can you have a residential landscape that is both supportive of wildlife and cohesive and tidy? Rita Venable introduces us to a pair of Master Gardeners who have designed and installed just such a landscape. Native plants dominate here. They also grow vegetables in these high-yielding raised beds too. Inspiring. Sheri Gramer introduces us to a woman who wanted a field of dreams in front of her home with 5,000 daffodil bulbs. We'll learn how it came to be so stay tuned. There's always room for one more plant, especially when they support beneficial insects and birds.

- One of the most difficult things about incorporating native plants into your landscape is how to make it not look like an overgrown meadow. Here, we see how that can be done in both the front yard and the backyard. This yard is a pollinator-friendly yard and it's pesticide free, and you can tell by this lovely native gaura that it's already attracting bumblebees. And this is Kristy Bergstrom, the designer of it all, and she and her husband Matt, have designed and implemented this beautiful, chemical-free, not just pesticide-free, but-doesn't-use-anything garden. So, Kristy, tell me about your gaura.

- You know, we're really proud of that fact that this is a pesticide-free garden. Gaura is one of our favorite plants. We have it planted in two spots to kind of anchor the front. None of our other neighbors have planted it. We don't know why, but it's one of our favorites, you know? It gets even taller and this variety is called swirling butterflies. It actually literally looks like butterflies swirling around as it continues to grow throughout the summer. And as you can see, the bumblebees absolutely love it.

- They do. They're all over this one and that one too, so. All right, so you've incorporated that and the... We've got your beautiful Dahlia here, which is not a native, but it's certainly not invasive. No, I love them. That one is McKayla Miranda, and it's just such a gorgeous flower. Yeah. Up front we have really tried to stick with kind of a pinks, purples, and whites color theme. And in the back we've just kind of let it go a bit more wild. But yeah, up here, because we've got an HOA and we've got neighbors, we wanna try to keep it a little bit more uniform. But yeah, almost all of these plants are natives. A lot of them I've grown from seed, the zinnias every year I grow from seed. They gomphrena grow from seed as well. So yeah, we're just really proud of it. And, you know, part of why we've labeled so many of these plants and why we have that sign up here is so that we can encourage our neighbors to not use pesticides as well.

- Yes, that's a great idea. And you've got the asclepias tuberosa and the orange milkweed right here too, which is lovely.

- [Kristy] That's actually a purple one.

- [Rita] Oh, I'm sorry.

- The pink and purple one.

- The swamp milkweed.

- Yep.

- That's right. That's right.

- Cinderella, yeah. And you've got lavender. And as we go around, you've got purple coneflower, which is a mainstay of the culinary garden.

- Well we let those... You know, they don't look great at the moment, but we let them go to seed because the birds, you know, they like those seed heads and that helps feed them throughout the winter. So we just let them do their thing and they've re-seeded themselves like crazy. We've got an Arkansas bluestar over here as well.

- Yes. That's a native too.

- Yeah, the liatris too. So yeah, we're really proud of this front. You know, we actually even expanded it a couple of years ago too, 'cause we wanted more bed space and we've got plans to do even more, so.

- [Rita] Yeah? Oh, great.

- [Kristy] The less grass the better, in our opinion.

- You are the gomphrena queen. We love gomphrena. There is lovely gomphrena here and I notice the skippers are all over. They in particular like it. And so why do you like gomphrena so much?

- I love it because it retains its color. So this one's obviously white, but in the backyard I've got other colors. I love it because you can use it in wreath arrangements so it retains its color even when you cut them. I mean, they're really easy to work with, with wreath arrangements.

- And so many different colors too. And I love your switchgrass right here, which is a native grass. This is Shenandoah, you told me earlier. It turns a beautiful red in the fall and it's also the host plant for several Tennessee butterflies. So very beautiful. And you've also carried the gaura over to the other side. And it's just a nice beautiful picture out here.

- [Kristy] We attempt to make it cohesive out front. We get a little bit more wild in the back, but we do attempt cohesion out here.

- It is cohesive. It's lovely.

- Yes. Thank you.

- [Rita] This plant, this Dahlia won first place in Williamson County Fair and tell us about any tips you can give the viewers about how to grow dahlias. How do you do it so great.

- [Kristy] So I've actually had better luck growing them in the ground. And I have always found each year, at least in my soil, that they get an iron deficiency about halfway through the year. So I'll feed 'em with a little bit of iron feed 'em occasionally. But I mean, for the most part, I put 'em in the ground, cover 'em with some extra mulch over the winter and then leave them alone.

- [Rita] And that's it.

- Let nature nature, you know?

- Okay. When you live in a subdivision, you are gonna face these awkward areas that are about like a junior-high-yearbook picture. So Kristy and her husband Matt, have done a fabulous job of making this a lot less awkward. Tell us about it, Kristy.

- Yeah, so we actually had the path put in last fall and that was a huge project for us. We didn't actually put it in, but we paid somebody to professionally do it and they did a phenomenal job. And we also had them dig out this grass all on the side. So it's just given us so much more bed space to work with, which has been our favorite.

- [Rita] I love the Columbine and the coleus and everything you've done here. Kristy, tell me about your choices here.

- [Kristy] Thank you so much. Well, one of the main reasons why I grow coleus in the first place was a segment I saw on "Volunteer Gardener" a couple of couple of years ago. It's just such a great easy plant. So cheap. Yeah, those were actually gifts from a neighbor of mine who has a full shade garden, and when we were starting to plant out this area, she offered up some of hers, some of her beautiful oxalis and hellebores, which are just two of my personal favorites. Yeah, this coleus, it's one of the ones I've grown every year since I've seen it. It performs really well in my garden.

- [Rita] And the leaves are incredible.

- [Rita] Yeah. The foliage is just stunning. It's such a beautiful pop of color in the garden as well.

- It is.

- [Kristy] Yep. Absolutely love the corabells too. They're, they're another favorite of ours. And again, more gorgeous coleus. You know, it's such a cheap thing to buy in the garden centers and it's such a crazy plant because it performs beautifully either in shade or in full sun or in pots. It's just crazy. So-

- [Rita] I love the way you've done the chartreuse on the leaves here.

- Oh yeah.

- [Rita] And then in the full plant there too.

- That's gorgeous.

- That lime coleus is just one of my absolute favorites. But yeah, I always tell people, buy it, because, you know, it's something so great to fill in your borders with.

- And I don't think you've over hasta-ed either.

- You know, we love hostas. That's actually... I learned recently from a neighbor of mine that they make miniature hostas, so I of course-

- Oh, wow.

- [Kristy] Of course had to buy some of those.

- [Rita] So we may see more hostas in the future then.

- Yes, yes. So that's the lakeside, little, tough hasta that's just adorable, but yeah, so we have dotted in some hostas, but you know, as far as the ecosystem goes, we try to vary it up too and not do too many of one plant. Because you wanna-

- [Rita] So you don't have a monoculture.

- [Kristy] Exactly. Exactly.

- [Rita] Kristy, I love your major wheeler, native honeysuckle. Tell us about that and why you chose this plant for your fence.

- [Kristy] Well, we actually heard about it from a fellow Master Gardener when we took the program in 2019. And we saw pictures of hers and we were like, "Oh, we gotta grow this." So this is actually the third year that we've had it in the ground and it's bloomed every year, but this has been the show-stopping year. It's had really, like, three really good flushes of flowers, the hummingbirds fight over it, we've got a little nest buried in there too. I mean, just everything loves it and it's such a stunner. Our neighbors always comment on it and is... Yeah, it's one of my favorite things in the garden.

- It's actually a host plant too, for a beautiful moth and lots of butterflies like it as well. So really good choice. I love that. And plus it hides the fence so you don't just have this big wall of board.

- [Kristy] Yep, yep. Well, and it looks just as good on the other side of the fence as it does on this side.

- Oh, okay. The story of the Bergstrom's garden is she designs, he plants and does the building. So it's a gorgeous place. Tell us about your vegetable garden, Matt, and how you and Kristy work together to make it happen.

- [Matt] Sure. So we really expanded this in 2020. Wanted to start growing more of our own vegetables so tore out all the grass back here, laid down some landscape fabric and the rocks. and then I think one of the keys was cut out where the raised beds are, so that way any of the plants not only have all of that soil to grow through but can reach into the native if they need to. and it turned out great.

- Now, the rocks are for drainage?

- Drainage and aesthetic.

- Okay. Okay. They're gorgeous. And tell us about the bags.

- So the grow bags was sort of an emergency way to grow more things that we didn't have room for. So primarily we use them for potatoes, they grow really well every year. And then when those finish, we'll harvest those and then put some later-season crops in as well.

- I see you've got some peppers over there too as well. So tomatoes here.

- Yeah, gotta grow tomatoes every year.

- Yes, have to, have to.

- They grow great. Yep. I think it's one of the best things that you can grow if you have space for it. I think it's one of the best-tasting things that you can grow in your garden versus something you can buy in a supermarket.

- Yeah. Yeah. And it's so great you have incorporated the pollinator plants so they'll pollinate the tomatoes and you have more tomatoes.

- We wanna incorporate flowers in with the vegetables.

- And you've got a little eggplant there?

- [Matt] That's right. Absolutely.

- Awesome.

- Yeah, I've got a couple of varieties.

- Okay. And tell me about these vegetables too.

- So beets, which have gotten a little outta control this year, but we will certainly be using them. More peppers, always grow basil, it's a great companion plant for tomatoes. And then some more peppers and a little bit of fennel in there too, actually.

- [Rita] Oh, cool. Host plant for the black swallow.

- Exactly.

- Perfect. So Matt, tell me about the wood you used for the beds and how you constructed these. And do you have a watering system in there too?

- I do have a watering system in there. I'm gonna work on redoing it here soon to get a little better efficiency. But the beds are built two-by-six, pressure-treated lumber with four-by-four posts on the inside just screwed together. Honestly, it's easier than you think it would be. Two-by-eight or four-by-eight, excuse me, is the size, which just makes it easy. You take one side, cut it in half, and that's your short side, and then an entire board is your long side, so really anybody can do it.

- Cool.

- [Matt] And they work out great.

- And these are part of your plan also? So a cover.

- These are actually allow us to do either frost protection in the winter, in the early spring, or we can do shade cloth in the summer, which I'll probably do soon. And then we've even had used some heavier plastic on it to almost make a small greenhouse environment, especially in early spring if we want to get a jump on growing stuff.

- Wonderful. That's wonderful.

- I know, he's so smart. And of course, you have to have dahlias.

- Yes.

- And more dahlias.

- Yes. Yes, this is Fremont's memory over here. It's one of my favorites. As you can see, I need to divide the tubers 'cause plant is completely out of control this year.

- If you need a place to send those, you know. Just saying.

- Happily, we'll share some. One of my favorite things to do, and I've finally been growing enough flowers in my garden this year, is to make neighbor bouquets. So that's one of the things that I've been doing with this Dahlia plant this year and I love it. But yeah, these are specific pollinator beds, hexagonal ones that I think structurally look really interesting and beautiful design-wise in the garden. Gardener's Supply Company is a place that we have been inspired a lot by their catalog.

- Especially in the winter.

- That was one of the things that we saw and this one was like, "Well I could build that," so that's what we did.

- Okay. So some herbs along here. And then more... Some cherry tomatoes here.

- Yeah, we'll put a tomato wherever we find space.

- Yeah, wherever there's room.

- Tomato-crazy people.

- Love love, love the salvia greggi. This is actually a Texas, Southwestern more native, but it does well here and the bumblebees and the butterflies love it. So it's great to... And again, you're incorporating these natives right into your garden.

- Yep.

- [Kristy] And it was a cutting that we took from some Master Gardener beds, so yeah.

- Oh cool. It's great. This little spot is so endearing. I love your goldenrod. This is solidago rugosa. Fireworks. And you've even got a native ironweed in the background and this will turn a deep purple with a yellow. So complimentary colors. Gorgeous.

- Yes, yes. I love the bush habit of this one. You know, a year or two ago we just kinda let stuff start to grow up in the lawn enough so that my husband could identify different natives and so that's when he found some of the goldenrod that was already growing here. This one we got from a Master Gardener plant sale. And I just love the bush habit of it 'cause it's different and it really does look like fireworks coming out. It's gorgeous.

- It does!

- [Kristy] Yeah, it does.

- [Rita And Kristy] It's gorgeous.

- [Rita] Gorgeous. And of course we have token gomphrena here.

- Yep, more gomphrena because I can't have enough gomphrena. But yeah, you know, every year we just kind of... I think we're actually gonna end up making another bed over here, but we just kind of stick things in the yard, 'cause again, grass just doesn't add anything to the value of the ecosystem. It just sucks up more water. So we might as well put some plants. And you can see, I mean, the bumblebees are just going crazy and the carpenter bees are going crazy for the celosia back here and the zinnias and the gomphrena. They love it, so.

- Yeah, and even more so as time goes on.

- Mm-hmm. Yeah. And this will soon be covered. As it continues to bloom, it will be absolutely covered in bugs.

- This spot is one of my favorites in your whole yard. I absolutely love this because you've taken the native wild flower and put it on a trellis and made it into something beautiful. And it has gold funerary caterpillars all over it. So tell me about how you decided to do this.

- Well, I originally saw this design in a catalog, saw the trellis, so we bought the trellis and then, you know, we just decided that the raised beds were gonna just be too expensive to try to also buy, so we ended up, you know, this one was like, "Well, I'll build 'em," so that's what he did. And it's really another showstopper in the back of our garden. I love it because our neighbors can see it as well. You know, it's obviously very open back here, but he also strung solar=powered fairy lights on it. So at night it just looks...

- Oh, yeah.

- It comes on automatically.

- Love it.

- It looks really, really beautiful and it's not too bright for moths or anything like that. It's just quite, you know, just enough light to be beautiful. And yeah, the passion flower was actually gifted to us. Two little seedlings from another Master-Gardener friend of ours. Again, more free plants. That's why you joined the Master Gardeners. And yeah, she said they would get eight to 10 feet of growth this year, and she was absolutely correct. So yeah, but now caterpillars have been munching on it for a while, so it's starting to look a little sad, but you know, that's the thing too, in our garden. We're not gonna pull stuff off. We're gonna let nature be nature back here. And it's one thing that we're really proud of back here in this garden, is just letting you know... For example, the gomphrena over here. We've had aphids on and off of it like crazy. And you know, we've... A week or two ago, the ladybugs showed up and cleared 'em out, so it's pretty-

- That's how it works.

- Yeah, it is. It's pretty amazing.

- So, basically, if you dream it, then you will come and build it, right?

- I'll do my best.

- It's like Garden of Dreams.

- I'll do my best.

- Yes, it is, it is. Absolutely.

- And just real quick, I love the way you put the bee balm in pots, again, incorporating natives into your landscape and you've got some coneflower there and other things. So this area is just amazing. And I can see you sitting on the porch at night watching those fairy lights.

- We do. Not in this heat, but typically in the spring to early summer and then in the fall again. It's a great place to come out here and read a book and just enjoy nature, you know? We also frequently see the hummingbirds flying over there and fighting over the major wheeler honeysuckle. So yeah, it's beautiful. We really enjoy it. And our neighbors enjoy it too.

- [Rita] It's just amazing what a team you are. It's great.

- And we hope that we inspire people to really be thoughtful about what they're putting in their garden, to think about the overall ecosystem and to stop using pesticides and chemicals and just let nature be nature. It's really amazing what happens in your garden when you let it do its thing.

- Yeah, and you've done a great job.

- Thank you.

- [Rita] Nice. You both have

- Springtime in Tennessee. You're out driving around, whether it be in a subdivision, a city, or out in the country. You see fields of daffodils, you see plots of daffodils and wonder, where do those come from and who thought to plant 'em? We're visiting Sparta, Tennessee with someone that had a dream to do just that. We're visiting Tracy Crosland today and I just wanna know, what was your dream and what were you thinking of? Did you have a wild hair?

- Apparently that is what happened, according to everybody that has found out what I've done. But I suggested to my sons, "Hey, why don't we plant 5,000 daffodils out here in front of the house?" And they're like, "Mom, that's ridiculous. 5,000. You don't even know how many 5,000 is." But I kept talking, I kept talking, and eventually they caved and agreed to help me plant 5,000 daffodils.

- [Sheri] Whatever mama wants, mama gets.

- [Tracy] Oh, maybe.

- [Sheri] And so what... Why did you wanna do this? I know you thought you wanted to do it, but what was your dream?

- Okay, so last spring, I planted a field of zinnias and cosmos mostly, and I realized, "Wow, we're gonna have to replant this every year to get this to come back this full." So I thought, what can we plant that would come back year after year with little maintenance. And daffodils. Once you get the daffodils in the ground, they're going to naturalize on their own. Very little work needs to be done. You just get to enjoy them for years and years.

- [Sheri] And it looks like they're all the same variety. Is that correct?

- [Tracy] Actually, no. 80% of them are the King Alfred daffodils. I also planted 20% of them... It was like a mixed grab bag of different kinds. But they were all naturalizing, they were all supposed to bloom mid-spring. And so, I see like, maybe two or three of those popping up that are a little bit different than the King Alfred.

- [Sheri] How big of an area did you plant here?

- [Tracy] Somewhere between a half an acre to a full acre here is planted.

- [Sheri] Did you do this all by yourself?

- Oh, goodness.

- I know you said you asked your boys to do it.

- [Tracy] I had... My boys helped me, their wives. I had family, friends, my dad was here, nieces were here. So it was a big family-friend event to get all of these planted.

- [Sheri] Did you do it all on one day then?

- [Tracy] We got the majority of it planted in one day.

- [Sheri] Wow.

- [Tracy] And then, it still took one other day to get all of them planted, but the majority of it happened in one day with a whole lot of people. This is actually a field we cut for hay.

- Okay.

- So we'll just let all the grass grow around this and hopefully the greenery will take in enough energy that by the time we're ready to cut this for hay, which will probably be 1st of June, something like that, the first cut, they'll already be ready, have all the energy stored in the bulb so they'll be ready to bloom again for me beautifully next year.

- [Sheri] Did you all plant these by hand or did you use power tools or what was your-

- [Tracy] Oh goodness, no. We literally drilled 5,000 holes using a power-planter garden auger.

- Wow.

- Yes.

- [Tracy] Just one, or was there multiple?

- There actually was two.

- Okay, okay.

- [Tracy] We actually used two so both sons had the augers and we could not keep up with them. They were drilling the holes. And this is clay soil so this is not easy digging right here, but the augers just went right through the soil so easily. It was clay, we're talking red clay, so I added compost and manure to literally every single 5,000 holes. We added compost too and then dropped the bulb in and covered it back up.

- [Sheri] I guess you did have a wild hair, didn't you?

- [Tracy] Yes.

- [Sheri] Halfway through that day, did you think, "What in the world have I gotten myself into?"

- [Tracy] My kids were thinking that for sure.

- [Sheri] I bet. I bet, I bet. Well, I bet you they're pleased that mama's happy at this point, right?

- [Tracy] Yes. And they're loving it. And I'm planning on living here for the rest of my life so it's something fun that we get to enjoy every spring forever.

- So you have your front porch right there. You get to look at these beautiful flowers. Are you gonna cut some and bring 'em in for vases or dry some of the flowers this year?

- Well, I may not do it this year, but in the years to come, hopefully I'll do that. But honestly, every morning when I wake up, I come and I go to the front door and look out the door to see how many are blooming.

- I know I follow you on Instagram. It's hey_honeysuckle. Is that correct?

- Yes.

- And I've enjoyed watching your fingers. You are kind of in a lot of different things. What other things are you growing and doing here?

- Okay, so I'm on Instagram @hey_honeysuckle, also on Facebook @hey_honeysuckle and I've got a website, heyhoneysuckle.com. And what I'm really into right now is we are just waiting on all of these daffodils to come up. They're not all up yet. So we're excited to see them continue to bloom and grow. I've also got some ranunculus that I have pre sprouted, so I've got some in the container and some I'm getting ready to plant really up over the hill over here. So hoping the ranunculas are gonna bloom for us and be beautiful.

- [Sheri] Why did you pick those out of everything?

- Ranunclus?

- Yeah.

- Because they're gorgeous-

- [Sheri] And they're expensive! They are, but once you get the cores, you can save them and re dig 'em up and replant 'em and that's the plan that I guess I had seen online that somebody said, "If you're not a professional, you can't grow these." And I was like, "What? Challenge accepted."

- Yeah, they dare. Yeah, they dared you.

- So I'm not saying that it will work again this year, but it worked for me last year and they were beautiful so I doubled how many I pre sprouted and planning on planting those next week in the ground.

- And you do a lot with hydrangeas.

- I do. I mean, hydrangeas are such a big-impact plant. I love how gorgeous they are. And there's some really easy hydrangeas, so I choose the easy ones, right?

- And you had mentioned you did a flower field last year for the first year.

- Okay, so last year my dad came and we scraped off all the soil, and we tilled it up and we planted wildflower seeds all over about an acre. And we were shocked, both my dad and myself. We were shocked at how beautiful it was, how well it performed. And that's something else on Hey Honeysuckle that we keep up with and try to post for everybody to see.

- And that wasn't for everyone else to know. That wasn't for a retail business. That was just because you wanted to do it. I wanted to do it and I suggested it to my dad. I'm like, "Hey, you know what I think it would be cool is if we tilled up that hillside right there and planted wild flowers." And he was like, "Okay, I'll help you do it." So I was like, "Oh my goodness!" So when I get somebody willing to help me, I'm like jumping on quickly.

- Do you do vegetables as well?

- I don't grow any vegetables at all. I only grow-

- Not this year.

- [Tracy] Impractical things. So maybe, hopefully in the future, I'll start growing things that are more practical. And honestly, I have been in construction and very busy with construction. My kids just graduated college. They took over the construction business. So that's given me time to do all these floral projects I have, all these gardening projects around the house.

- So we're gonna see how you did this. I wanna see the drill auger.

- Okay. I wanna see what you amended the soil with.

- Okay.

- So if there's some other people out there that get wild hairs in the wintertime and they want to do something the following fall, they'll know how to do it.

- Absolutely. Let's do it.

- [Sheri] All right, this is a toy. A toy for gardeners. Tell me about it.

- Okay, so this is a three-inch auger. It's got a three inch diameter, and I prefer like the 30-inch length. I'm five six, so my son is six-foot-tall, so he kind of prefers the 36-inch length, but this will drill through clay soil like nobody's business. I know a lot of people that follow me on Hey Honeysuckle will say that their auger slips out of the drill when they hit the hard soil, but this drill here's got these locks on it so you can lock it in so it's not gonna slip. And you also get like a really smooth turn with this power-planter auger. And also, see this handle? This makes it a lot safer.

- Okay.

- So there's a lot of safety mea-

- So it's not gonna jerk around on you.

- It's not gonna jerk around on you as much. You've got this to hold on two hands with, you can brace this on your leg. There's lots of ways you can make this safe and easy just to zip through that clay soil. And this is a battery pack so you can have extra batteries charged and ready to go if you're doing a big field.

- Yes, yes. And this is a six-hour battery pack too.

- Oh, wow. That's a lot.

- Yes.

- And so you were saying you amended the holes with something. Is that this right here?

- Heres the compost right here that I use. It's just Garden Magic, it's compost and manure. And I just drop that in all the holes. And my friends, all of us dropped it in the holes. A group effort.

- [Sheri] That's a lot. That's a lot.

- [Tracy] Yes.

- There's a favorite poem of mine about daffodils.

- Yes. Yes!

- And the last sentence is, "And then my heart, with pleasure, filled and danced with the daffodils." I just think that this is the first year, let's be strong and think positive. In years to come, this is gonna be here and it's gonna be totally awesome. I wanna thank you for sharing your dream, your wild hair, and good luck on your next adventures.

- [Tracy] Thank you so much, Sheri.

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