Episode 3302

- Pick a dozen plants and learn everything about them. That's the idea of being put forth in this teaching garden at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Troy Marden discovers design inspiration in these garden beds too. Marty DeHart finds herself in a stunningly beautiful setting at Sarah P. Duke Garden in Raleigh, North Carolina. It's peak bloom time for the Yoshino cherry trees in this awe-inspiring alley. And we'll visit with the horticulturist who designed this botanical treasure. Come along. Let's look at some core landscape plants known for their dependability and versatility.

- One of the important features of the University of Tennessee's Garden is teaching students and just outside of the plant sciences building, Andy Pulte, Dr. Andy Pulte has created a garden here just for the purpose of teaching kind of first-year students really

- That's right.

- But everybody, they're first new plants.

- That's right.

- As they entered the program here. So tell us about the garden you've got here and some of the plants that are featured.

- Yeah. You know, Troy, honestly, these plants are some of the first plants that new people learn as they get into gardening.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] And it doesn't matter if, you know, you're 45, you're 50 years old, you're just getting into gardening.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] Or you're a student who thinks you're interested in plants.

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Andy] And you wanna learn new plants. And so this garden was designed with, in a way, with simplicity in mind. This whole design is based off of one of my favorite garden designers in the UK, his name's Adrian Bloom. I got interested in him 'cause he's a conifer guy. I'm a conifer guy.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] He writes perennial books. I love herbaceous perennials. And so this design is an homage to Adrian Bloom.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [Andy] And his big gardening principle is, he said, if you are wanting to get interested in plants, it's your first time gardening, he says, pick 10 to 12 plants and get to know those 10 to 12 plants. Everything that you-

- [Troy] Everything about them. Yeah.

- [Andy] Everything.

- [Troy] Learn them intimately.

- [Andy] That's right. But the bones of this garden, there's other really kind of cool, interesting plants in here, but the bones of this garden are very common plants.

- [Troy] Right. Like geranium Rozanne, this big river that's running through.

- [Andy] Yeah, that's exactly right. So we've got a hundred-foot-long river of geranium Rozanne, but we've kind of created this river with some other plant material on either side.

- [Troy] Right.

- And so for the most part, this geranium gets afternoon shade in a lot of cases. And as we move to the shady side of the building, it actually thrives a little bit more than it does here.

- [Troy] And then you've also got Perovskia, Russian Sage.

- [Andy] Yeah, that's right Now, it's salvia.

- [Troy] Oh, right, yes.

- [Andy] And so, you know, we're always trying to keep up with things. This one is Peek-a-Blue. It's not available on the market anymore. But I mean, just regular, we know that Perovskia or this Salvia is great for winter interest. And so when designed this garden as well, we're thinking about when are the students here, right?

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Andy] And so we want this to look good not just in the height of summer, but when I'm teaching plant ID class.

- [Troy] Exactly. Which is in the fall or the spring and not July.

- [Andy] Exactly. Exactly.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] And so, I mean, as we look around this garden, you're gonna see that, man, maybe some of these things aren't as far along as they are in other gardens. We do early cutbacks.

- [Troy] Right.

- You know, we take the heads off of things. Some of the Salvias you're gonna see, we're cutting 'em back.

- Right. So that way so that they flower later. And then when the students need them in September, they're here.

- That's right. A hundred hundred percent.

- [Troy] So also this Vermillionaire Cuphea. I know that's a Jason Reeves favorite plant.

- [Andy] That's right.

- [Troy] You know, he's always talking about Vermillionaire Cuphea. Is this hardy for you here?

- [Andy] A hundred percent hardy for us. We had a little problem this past year.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] In a certain spots. But here we're a little bit warmer here. This was probably five plants you can see later in the season. But it's alive.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] It's alive and-

- [Troy] So we might call this a tender perennial.

- [Andy] Yeah.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] Temperennial.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] Temperennial. It's very interesting. A lot of these Cupheas, they need our native bees to pollinate 'em to produce seed. And a lot of the honey the other bees that you see in there, they're actually nectar robbing.

- [Troy] Okay.

- [Andy] And so if you really pay attention to the base of those kind of filiform flowers, you'll see that they've got little holes in 'em where bees are actually in their nectar robbing the end of 'em.

- [Troy] So they drill a hole and they take the nectar out.

- [Andy] That's right.

- [Troy] But they don't actually pollinate the flower.

- [Andy] That's right. That's exactly right.

- [Troy] Interesting. So one of my favorite grasses, Miscanthus Morning Light.

- [Andy] Right. So bad guy, right? Miscanthus is a bad guy in a lot of people's mind.

- [Troy] Well, yeah, yeah.

- [Andy] And you know, certainly as you move, Troy, now in Knoxville all the way into Western North Carolina, you're gonna see escaped Miscanthus on the side of the road.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] But I mean, when I'm teaching this grass in my class, it's a call to understand not just the plant, but the cultivars, right?

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Andy] This is Miscanthus Morning Light. You just said, hey, this is a great grass. This one of my-

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] I've never seen a seedling of Miscanthus, Morning Light.

- [Troy] Ever. In 40 years of gardening, I've never seen a seedling off of this particular cultivar.

- [Andy] Right.

- [Troy] In any garden that I've ever had it in.

- And Troy, we use this grass too, to tell people that, hey, you know what the scientific names of plants tell you about a plant.

- [Troy] Right.

- This is Miscanthus sinensis, right? It tells you that it's from Asia in a scientific name.

- Right.

- And so scientific names mean things, and we can learn about the plants just from their scientific names.

- Sure. Another old-time favorite are the sedums.

- [Andy] That's right.

- And you know, years ago we grew Autumn Joy, but now there are all these improved cultivars.

- [Andy] Right.

- [Troy] That stand up and don't flop, and you know, don't lay open by the middle of the summer, and are really just all-around nicer plants than some of the old ones that were on the market.

- [Andy] Yeah. Troy, as you know, we would call this kinda like a stonecrop sedum.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] It's in the, what they call the Herbstfreude Group, which is German for Autumn Joy, right?

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] And so there's all of these plants that people just might casually refer to as Autumn Joy.

- [Troy] Autumn Joy, yeah.

- [Andy] Right. Indian chief, there's Autumn Fire.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] All these different ones. And they've influxed in and out of the plant market for probably 50 or 60, 80 years.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] But we love this group of old-fashioned sedums. They grew great where we grew up in the Great Plains.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] They grow great in Tennessee.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] They're reliable. We give 'em a haircut, a hard chop, the Chelsea chop we give 'em in early season in May.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] Really anytime before the 4th of July, I say. And the students are here in the fall. And for us in Tennessee, they really become Autumn Joy sedums.

- [Troy] And the Chelsea chop is a UK, is a British term.

- [Andy] Yeah.

- [Andy] For people who aren't familiar with it, the Chelsea chop is a British term and it refers to Chelsea and the Flower Show and kind of forcing of plants to bloom at a certain time of year. And in our case, it's when sometimes we can cut perennials back hard early in the season to get them to bloom shorter or later or a combination of the two, so that you can manage their size and their bloom time just a little bit more. And it's the same kind of thing we would do maybe with Asters when we tell people-

- [Andy] A hundred percent.

- [Troy] You know, keep your asters cut to keep them compact until late in the season, you know, July or so. And then let them bloom in the fall. Mums we used to do the same thing with, you know.

- [Andy] And if you have any of, you know, we always say this, if you have any of our great native roadside plants.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] In your garden, Eutrochium, the Joe Pye weed.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] Any of the ironweeds, the Vernonias. This is a great, anytime before the 4th of July, I always say, give them a haircut. They're gonna be shorter.

- [Troy] Right.

- They're not gonna lodge in the gardens. When I started thinking about this garden and thinking about what are these common plants that people would recognize.

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Andy] Man, well, you can't not go to Echinacea.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] Purple coneflower. You and I were trying to come up in our heads like how many native species do we have in Tennessee or the southeast, but there's several, right?

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] And so how did, Troy, we were talking about this, like how did all of this happen?

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Andy] How did we move from a plant in the wild, there's purple ones and when we were kids there was a white one?

- [Troy] Right, right.

- [Andy] Right, there was a white one.

- [Troy] That was a big breakthrough.

- [Andy] It was a breakthrough. And now we've got reds and oranges, and we're just-

- [Troy] And how do we get there?

- [Andy] And how do we get there?

- [Troy] Yeah.

- So Troy, in my hand, what's this one? A quiz.

- Echinacea paradoxa.

- That's right. Very good. And so this is the key, the key to it all, right?

- Right.

- Is this yellow color, which is, this is one of our native ones. You educated me. This is Ozark native, right?

- Right. And the only yellow-flowered Echinacea. All the rest of the yellow flowers are either Ratibidas or Rudbeckias or you know, but lots of other yellow daisies, but the only yellow Echinacea.

- Yeah, that's right. So we've got this yellow one. And so this is the key that unlocked all these really cool hot colors.

- Right.

- In echinacea. We've got great coneflowers native to kind of the central cedar glades of Tennessee.

- Yes.

- Like this one, Echinacea tennesseensis, you know, kind of sparse populations of this one, Echinacea paradoxa.

- Pallida.

- Pallida, I'm sorry. Thank you, Troy. You're my plant ID teacher. And then we all know Echinacea purpurea.

- Purpurea, the original.

- [Andy] Yeah, kind of the-

- [Troy] Purple coneflower.

- [Andy] The purple coneflower. The one that we talk about a lot. And so if you're gonna think about, man, full sun, I want to add a perennial, a herbaceous perennial to my garden. It's gonna bloom its head off.

- [Troy] Easy to grow,

- [Andy] Easy to grow.

- [Troy] Good for the pollinators.

- [Andy] And so, you know, Troy, this patch that we're standing on, which is a little patch.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- But it started out as a seed mix called Cheyenne Spirit. And you know, fast forward whenever you want to grow Echinacea, if you can plant, this is a big breakthrough in Echinacea. If you plant a seed of Echinacea in, typically in January, let's say in your house or whatever

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] To get that plant to bloom that season, that's another breakthrough, right?

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] And so this mixed Cheyenne spirit that we used, it's possible.

- Yeah. Hybrids occur in nature.

- That's right.

- You know, and a lot of the hybrids that we have in our gardens were inspired by things that breeders found where these natural populations overlap each other in the wild.

- That's right.

- So hybrids are not just manmade laboratory creations, if you will, by us, it happens. The bees make them, the birds make them, you know, all of the pollinators make them where these natural populations overlap in their native habitat.

- Yeah. Things are always changing. You know, conditions change. Shade conditions change. And so these populations, they migrate, they change.

- Nature is a fluid thing.

- A hundred percent.

- Yeah.

- A hundred percent.

- [Troy] Salvias are really popular garden plants also. And part of it's because they just, so many of 'em have such a good long bloom season. But I think this group, the Black and Blue group, which there are several of now out there on the market, is a great example of a plant that 20 years ago when we first started growing this was basically an annual.

- [Andy] Right.

- [Troy] In a garden setting, this is a plant that is now firmly perennial.

- [Andy] Right.

- [Troy] And in some cases, maybe a little bit of a problem.

- [Andy] Right. You know, Troy, you know, part of this could be too, we had a stretch of mild winters.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] You know, and this was alive during those stretch of mild winters.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] It didn't get hit hard in the wintertime.

- [Troy] Yeah. Now, it's gotten deeply rooted.

- [Andy] Strong as ever.

- [Troy] Which makes it hardier. Yeah.

- [Andy] Strong as ever. We've been pretty solid with this Black and Blue Salvia guaranitica, a great plant. But there's a whole new line of breedings.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] We talked about Amistad is one of 'em.

- [Troy] Yeah. Black and Bloom is another one that you find out there now. And they're just a great group of plants. They flower like annuals all summer long, but they come back. So great group of plants to have.

- [Andy] Hummingbirds. We're looking at bees as we kind of, you know, walk around the garden.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] We notice the bees that are on this.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] These black calyxes that are on this cultivar Black and Blue.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] Is really the show shopper.

- [Troy] Make it really attractive. And behind us here is this beautiful specimen of one of the variegated Redbuds. And this one happens to be variegated and weeping, but you've staked it up so that it's more of a waterfall.

- [Andy] Yeah. I'm trying to, this Whitewater Redbud, I've kind of haphazardly staked it up. You know, a lot of these Weeping Redbuds, if it's this variegated one or not, they will be as tall as you stake them up.

- [Troy] You stake them up.

- [Andy] They don't have a strong central leader. So if you wanted it 10 foot tall, you can stake it up to that as long as you've got the ladder and the willpower to do it.

- [Troy] Yeah. You take a small pliable branch and-

- [Andy] Especially in the spring, yeah.

- [Troy] Stake it up high in the spring, yeah

- [Andy] We continue to love our native Redbuds and all of the cultivars, the fanciful cultivars that have come out with different color foliage, that can add so much to a garden.

- [Troy] Right. Another really colorful plant we've got in here is a very common plant. And some people would just cringe and go, oh no monkey grass, you know, but Liriope and this is a variety called Pee Dee Gold Ingot and it's got bright golden foliage.

- [Andy] Yeah. Chartreuse gold foliage.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] And I mean, what's there to complain about Liriope? It does exactly what it's supposed to do, right?

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] It can be a turf grass substitute. In here we've made a kind of a winding gold river along a path. The step stones don't get engulfed by it.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] And it's a highlight in a shady situation too.

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Andy] So why not add, you know, Pee Dee Ingot this gold monkey grass.

- [Troy] Right. Plus it gives you winter color.

- [Andy] A hundred percent.

- [Troy] It's an evergreen, so you've got it there in the wintertime also. And then one other favorite that's in this garden that I noticed a little ways further down is Heuchera villosa, which is one of our native species of Heuchera and coral bells of another plant, especially for shade gardeners that kind of started coming on the market 25 years ago. Dan Heims at Terra Nova Nurseries and started a lot of that breeding, and now we've got a lot of different cultivars that involve our native species.

- [Andy] Yeah. We've got a lot of native Heuchera throughout the whole state of Tennessee.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] I don't think any of 'em are tougher than Heuchera villosa.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Andy] Our native one. And when you see that plant is covered in fuzz, it's covered in hair.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Andy] It's got all that surface area, it reduces transpiration. It's a tough plant. And so if you're in the store and you're looking for a Heuchera, if you see a little bit of fuzziness to it, it might be a clue that it's got our native Heuchera villosa in it and it's gonna be a tough plant for the home garden.

- [Troy] Right. Andy, I wanna thank you for spending some time with us here in your teaching garden.

- [Andy] Anyone's welcome, of course, at the State Botanical Garden of Tennessee. We've got sites throughout Tennessee.

- [Troy] Right.

- Crossville, Jackson, here in Knoxville. Here in Knoxville, we're open sunrise to sunset every day of the year. So come on over. It's free to visit, but we'd love to see you.

- Thank you.

- Here at gorgeous Duke Gardens, I'm with Mike Owens, who's curator of the historic gardens here. And we're gonna talk cherries. It's peak cherry tree time, and oh my gosh, Mike, what a beautiful thing this is. Tell me what we're looking at here.

- [Mike] These are Akebono Cherries. It's a cultivar of the Yoshino Cherry.

- [Marty] Sure.

- And this one is one I picked because I really love the way it glows, the way it shines in the sunlight. I think it's one of the brightest of the Yoshino types.

- [Marty] It's really gorgeous. It's not quite white. There's this faint blush pink to it that's just charming. And isn't it a little earlier than what people think of as true Yoshino.

- [Mike] Yeah. We have some Yoshinos out here and this one blooms a little bit earlier than those.

- [Marty] And has a long season of bloom.

- [Mike] It's about the same as the other Yoshinos, but it's really exciting when it does bloom. 'Cause it's so early here, blooms with the Redbuds and people come from all over to see this particular alley which has been here about 12 years.

- Okay. So you put this in?

- I did, yeah. We used to have linden trees here, which had, a lot of 'em had blown over in the storms.

- [Marty] Okay.

- [Mike] And so we redid this whole alley and built some rain gardens on the side as well. And I've put the containers in. And the idea here was we have our highest visitation in spring to give visitors a really pretty alley to walk through in the spring. And when the petals fall, it's like snow falling. It's absolutely beautiful.

- [Marty] I know in Japan with these, they have festivals at petal fall for these trees. It's considered such a beautiful site.

- [Mike] Yeah. We have a large Asian population in our area and you will see a lot of them really love come to the gardens. 'Cause we have so many cherry trees and it makes 'em think of home.

- [Marty] So let's talk a little bit about growing these. I mean, they're pretty easy to grow, correct?

- [Mike] Yeah. As long as you're not in too wet of soil.

- [Marty] Okay. They want drainage.

- [Mike] Most all your cherries need good drainage.

- [Marty] Okay.

- As long as you are giving them sunlight. Now some of the cherries like these, if they're growing in the shade, they will grow and they will have some blooms. Even in the woods here, we have some that have been there for a really long time and they bloom.

- [Marty] They just won't have as many flowers.

- [Mike] Right.

- [Marty] Yeah.

- [Mike] Yeah. And especially if, unless it's under pines, which are evergreen.

- [Marty] Right.

- [Mike] Fits in the deciduous woods.

- [Marty] Right.

- [Mike] They do okay in part shade. I like to give 'em at least half a day of sun.

- [Marty] Yeah. So pretty fast growing?

- [Mike] This one is, these have been here 12 years and they were probably half the size.

- [Marty] Okay.

- [Mike] As they are now. They're probably about 25 feet tall now.

- [Marty] 25 feet, I'd say, yeah.

- [Mike] When I got 'em when they were about 10 to 12 feet.

- [Marty] Okay. So that's pretty good growth.

- [Mike] Yep.

- How about fertilizing them? Do you do anything to 'em?

- We have fairly good soil here. We didn't fertilize them at all.

- Okay.

- No real needs to fertilize none of these trees.

- Okay. They're not a real hungry plant? What about pests? Do you have any issues with like tent caterpillars or any of that sort of stuff?

- [Mike] Sometimes cherries can get bores.

- [Marty] Yeah.

- [Mike] But out here we have a variety of different trees and shrubs. We don't really have a lot of pests in the gardens.

- [Marty] That's nice.

- [Mike] But I have seen some of the tent caterpillars occasionally.

- [Marty] Yeah.

- [Mike] And I often would, if I can reach 'em, I'll just put on a glove and just rake 'em out.

- [Marty] Yeah.

- Once you destroy that, tear up the nest, they kind of don't have that protection from birds.

- [Marty] Right. And they're easy prey.

- [Mike] Yeah. And you don't have to use chemicals that way.

- [Marty] Yeah. Yeah, better not to do that.

- [Mike] Yeah, we try not to spray any chemicals in the gardens unless we have to.

- [Marty] Good plan. I approve. Let's talk about maybe a couple other cherries you might recommend in addition to this gorgeous variety.

- Well, we have a lot of the Prunus subhirtella, I guess the Higan Cherries.

- [Marty] The autumn blooming varieties, especially.

- [Mike] Yeah, we have some of those out here. And I have a lot of the weeping forms in the terrace garden down there

- [Marty] Oh, those are lovely down

- [Mike] They come in pink, double flowers, and they've been hybridized for years in Asia, and so there are some really good forms out there. And that's one of my favorites. They're later than these so they'll be another two or three weeks later.

- [Marty] Oh, that's lovely. Then there are those big pink double-flowered types that are like-

- [Mike] Like the Kwanzan Cherry is a light pink, big giant double flower. That one does okay here. A lot of the cherries in our heat don't do as well. They might have a 20, 30-year lifespan.

- [Marty] Okay.

- [Mike] But these Yoshinos and these Akebonos, they can just keep going. I haven't seen any die or any one of them suffering from heat.

- [Marty] Well, the ones in Washington, the famous Tidal Basin Cherries, aren't they largely this, these yellow ones as these Yoshino types?

- [Mike] Right. And you know, it gets really hot in DC.

- [Marty] Yeah.

- [Mike] It's in a kind of a depression.

- [Marty] Right, and it's muddy.

- [Mike] Right on the coast. And they can tolerate the heat there really well.

- [Marty] Yeah, yeah. So, oh, well, this is just spectacular and I know it's a humongous draw for people to come and see this every year.

- [Mike] Right. As soon as the sun comes up, there'll be lots and lots of visitors.

- [Marty] Oh, I'm sure there will. Well, I just wanna thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and sharing this gorgeous thing you created here. It's just been a lovely visit.

- [Mike] Well, you're so welcome. I'm glad you came.

- Today, we're visiting beautiful Bells Bend Farms where they do a lot of gardening and have a CSA. On our farm, we don't use a lot of plastic. We don't have plastic hoop houses. We don't have any plastic drip irrigation and we don't use the plastic mulches that are so commonly used nowadays. Instead, we rely on traditional farming methods such as gentle tillage and soil surface cultivation. We like to grow lots of cover crops like this beautiful purple hairy vetch. And of course, we make lots of biodynamic compost to put on our fields too. But there is one plastic product that we do use, and it's a poly-spun row cover that we use to help extend our seasons. On our farm, we use the row covers in the fall to cover our kale, and cabbages, and spinach. And it keeps the plants from freezing. They have heavier claws and lighter claws. The heavier ones can give you up to six to eight degrees of frost protection, which means that if it's 25 degrees outside, your plants underneath there may not get to start, you know, below 32. So the lighter ones then only give you two to four degrees of frost protection. But they let in more light. So they would let in maybe 85% light, whereas the heavy ones might only let in 70% light. So that's a trade-off there. So these Brassicas were grown in the spring under the row cover. And let's look under here and see what we can find. Wow, look at those cabbages there. The floating row cover keeps the hard pounding rain from hitting the soil as hard so the soil stays a little softer and doesn't form that crust and caking as much as when it's exposed directly to the rainstorm. So this row cover warms the soil up and gives us that head start in the spring. So we can get into our gardens a couple weeks early. And you know, if gardeners are really anxious after a long cold winter to get out in our gardens. And so the row covers give us a really nice little head start to get some things in early. This is a dwarf curly kale, probably scotch. There's a radish, that got started early. And here's some lettuce. And this is cilantro. Well, it's already bolting up and going to seed. The cilantro plant will make a seed that's called coriander. Another use for the row covers is insect protection. When we cover our cabbages with the row covers and seal it up with the dirt. Then those pesky cabbage moths, those white little moths that fly around, can't lay their eggs on your cabbage leaves and make the cabbage loopers, which put holes in them. Any gardener that's tried to grow eggplants has had problems with that pesky flea beetle. It will make lace out of an eggplant leaf. You can use the floating row covers to keep the flea beetles off of your eggplants. Here they've just planted these eggplants and we're putting the row cover drown and sealing it up with the dirt. Now, when the eggplants start to flower, we are gonna want insects on our eggplants because we need bees and pollinators to get on the flowers to make the fruits. Backyard gardeners love to put hoops over their raised beds. And maybe these were made from some plastic conduit and you put the roll cover over that hoop and you can garden all winter long. We use sandbags to hold the edges of the row covers down. Here, they're using clumps of the soil that's right next to it. I've used rocks and old boards, or just about anything I can find to hold it down to keep the wind from blowing it off. There are several grades of this row cover and the cheaper ones will be lighter. They'll let in more air, but they won't last as long and they'll tend to get these tears in them quicker than a more expensive, heavier-duty row cover. There are even row covers that have threads and they're thatched, much like modern-day tenting material. And that really helps it keep from ripping and tearing. But of course, those will be more pricey. A reason I don't like plastic is because I never know what to do with it after I'm done with it. So plastic is found now everywhere on the earth. There's a whole lot of it in the oceans and it's just kind of trashy. So when you do use a row cover and it starts to rip, it's your kind of job to pick up these little pieces and dispose of them properly. The floating row cover is also good to keep the frost off your strawberry patch. So although we don't use a lot of plastic at our place, these row covers are really handy to extend our seasons a little bit and keep the insects off. It's just, you know, we have to be careful with them when we're done with them, that they don't end up all over the place and find their way into the appropriate disposal.