Episode 3303

- [Narrator] Providing a sustainable habitat for wildlife begins with plant selection, and continues with natural gardening practices. Rita Venable introduces us to a native plant enthusiast who is maximizing his efforts by installing garden beds from the curb to the rear property line. He's found it has inspired others, too. Annette Schrader visits with a creative do-it-yourselfer who demonstrates how to bring the soothing sound of water into the garden. Join us. First, creating an inviting habitat to attract birds, butterflies, and insects.

- Have you heard of the gospel of native plants? Well, Paul Prill has. A long time ago, his yard was pretty much your typical suburban yard with lots of turf, and lots of foundational plantings, and the occasional shrub just for color, but he read this book and a couple of other books, and he saw the light. Now, his yard and landscape has over 100 species of native plants in 20 families, and he has five wildlife certifications for his yard, habitat certifications. Also, he has improved the soil here in the process, and he wants to share this gospel with everyone he meets, everyone. So Paul, most of your yard is shady, as we can see, but you have this one beautiful sunny spot. Tell us about it.

- So, I'm really happy I have this one beautiful sunny spot. There didn't used to be one. An oak tree came down over here and opened it up, and so I thought, "This is a great place to have some plants so the neighbors can see as they walk down the street, as they drive on their way to work, something that will keep them happy with what I'm doing in the rest of the yard."

- Tell us about the plants you've chosen for here.

- So, all this used to be Amur honeysuckle, by the way. There were 25 honeysuckle bushes back here that I removed along with the help of a neighbor not too long ago. Well, actually, about three years ago now. The coneflower here that people recognize, the Coreopsis tinctoria down here, there's still some Coreopsis lanceolata blooming in here, and then I've got these annuals in the front, the cosmos, but these are the sulfur cosmos. They're not the frilly, pretty cosmos, and I have them because when I've done butterfly counts, I've noticed that butterflies will visit these, where they don't visit the frilly ones, and so I very carefully have tried to pick plants that I know are going to be attractive to pollinators.

- [Rita] So Paul, in the native plant world, devil's walking stick is not really a plant that a lot of gardeners are attracted to because of the thorns and the size of it, and all, but you picked it.

- [Paul] Well, yeah, I picked it, because it is, I think, a really lovely plant. It kind of has this sense of palm tree, almost, to it, and what's really weird is that all these things that look like branches are just leaves, and they will fall off. It's a deciduous tree, and they fall off, and then a big flower comes up from what's left of the stalk to produce these leaves again the next year, and so it's really, I think, interesting and attractive, and it is native, so why not? Besides which, I'm a retired preacher, and every retired preacher needs to be reminded with the devil's walking stick, I think.

- Okay.

- And then around the corner is the shrubby St. John's wort. It's a smaller version of St. John's wart, which is good, because who wants something that's seven or eight feet tall? But it has all the same attractive features to it. It's got a lot of pollen for pollinators, and it's got a little bit of nectar, and so they can get all the protein they need, and some carbohydrates to move on to the next plant, and continue gardening, continue foraging for their nests or for themselves.

- [Rita] You see a lot of bees on that?

- [Paul] I do see a lot of bees, although it's been a little weird, I'm surrounded by Mosquito Joe, and so as it gets warmer, I'll see more bees.

- [Rita] Okay, the prairie plant that you did, the plains coreopsis,

- Yeah, the plains coreopsis.

- Did you choose that as a little bit of a climate hedge? Like, let's get something in here that can take the heat and-

- [Paul] Yes, take the heat, and something else that provides just a little pop of color.

- Yeah.

- 'Cause it's mostly lance-leaf coreopsis in here, and so after a while, you get a little weary of the same yellow aster, and so this thing with its red center is a really attractive feature in this area.

- Plus, it adds to the diversity of your native plant.

- It does, yes.

- Okay.

- [Paul] So, I really enjoy this plant. It's Aruncus dioicus, goatsbeard. As you can see, the plant itself gets to be about three to four feet, but then the plume that comes off of it could be another two to three feet taller than that, and so it just sort of stands out in a woodland area. It requires a lot of shade, but it'll tolerate morning sun, which is good, 'cause at about 10 o'clock, this will be in the shade, and it will be in its perfect habitat.

- [Rita] And it does spread, but not aggressively, right?

- It does spread, but not aggressively. It seems to be wind-pollinated, 'cause I've got five or six up here, and I only planted three.

- So Paul, lots of people have these hilly areas in their backyards, and you noticed it right away, being the astute person that you are, and you put in all these terraces yourself, right?

- Yes, every move, every stone in here, all the soil, I moved up here, up this nice incline, it was fun. I mean, this is the big challenge of this backyard is slope and shade.

- Mm-hmm.

- And so, I had to do a lot of research to figure out what might actually work in this area. So here, we have the American native Heuchera, alumroot. It's not pretty in the sense that it's, you know, had been bred for color, or been bred for variegated leaves, but it's still doing exactly what you want it to do, and it is 100% native to middle Tennessee.

- [Rita] As are 95% of the plants,

- [Paul] As are 95% of the plants in this whole area here.

- [Rita] Wonderful.

- There's some more shrubby St. John there, but mostly, I've got a lot of zigzag goldenrod, because in the winter or late fall, when there's almost nothing else going on, this is bright yellow with all the goldenrod, and it's really nice.

- [Rita] And it's hard to find a goldenrod that will bloom in the shade.

- [Paul] Absolutely.

- [Rita] Most of them bloom in full sun.

- [Paul] Full sun, love it. I've got some of those, too. Behind me is-

- And pollinators love that, too, in the fall.

- Yes, I mean, it's covered up. And of course, you've got, you know, bees need to eat in the fall.

- Right.

- And other things need the cover in the fall. I've got some Dicentra, bleeding hearts, behind me here, and then the oakleaf hydrangea, and there's several of those scattered around.

- And I do wanna talk a little bit about the dill that has hopped over from your vegetable garden to here, and your philosophy is?

- My philosophy is if it's native, or if it's useful, I will leave it. If it popped up there, it wants to be there, and so why tear it out?

- Of course, in a shade garden, you notice the overhead canopy, 'cause that's what makes it a shade garden, and I love these straight species eastern redbud trees. A lot of times, redbuds, when they experiment, they don't get the right nectar, but this one being a straight species native, I love, it's a host plant, and it's also a great nectaring plant in the spring. You've got sycamore, you've got hackberry, you've got what other trees?

- I've got silver maple, elm, hickory, and those are the big canopy trees.

- Okay, and also, then next, after the canopy layer, we go into the shrub layer, and I was surprised and delighted to see this.

- [Paul] This nice elderberry bush.

- Yes.

- There are four of them here.

- [Rita] Native plant.

- [Paul] It's usually not common to find elderberry in this much shade, but as you can see, moving down the row, there's a lot of shade, a lot of sun in the morning, and it will persist on for about three to four hours down there. And so, this one's done really well though, it's six, seven feet tall, and I'm really happy with it.

- [Rita] You ever do root cuttings on this?

- I have, that's why-

- Can I have one?

- Yes, you certainly may.

- Thank you.

- One of them back there is one that I did from root cutting.

- [Rita] I would love to have an elderberry.

- It's really happy.

- So Paul, we've seen not only a lightning bug, but bumblebees on this little patch of clover you have here. Tell us how you use clover for both soil amendment, and to enrich the soil, and as a mulch?

- So this, every clover is a nitrogen-fixing plant, and it's living roots that stay in the soil, which help the water drainage, and help to increase the virility of the soil. And so, that's what I'm really trying to do, is everything that I plant here, just leave it, when it dies back, just leave it. If I cut it, just leave the clippings, and let it go back and put more organic material back in the soil.

- [Rita] How often do you cut this clover back during the season?

- Maybe once a month.

- Okay.

- I'll trim it back a little bit, set it on the highest setting, and come through just so it doesn't look completely unkempt.

- [Rita] Okay, and do you notice a difference in weed suppression here and then in other bare soil areas?

- So, is this a weed? You know, it's a pretty, little flower. It's probably in the "Wildflowers of the Tennessee Valley," and so, I don't consider that a weed, but for the most part, no, I don't get a lot of chickweed in here, and don't have a ton of work to do in the spring.

- Okay, you have a monarch waystation, and this is part of it?

- Yes.

- And have you ever smelled common milkweed?

- I have.

- It is the most heady, fragrant flower smell, like vanilla, sweet vanilla, but lots of things will nectar on this, even though we haven't seen monarchs right now, laying eggs, but it's still a great garden plant, but you need a lot of space, I think.

- Yes. This was two plants two years ago.

- Okay.

- And so now, I have 12.

- Yeah.

- And I've pulled a few up to keep them out of this area over here, so yeah.

- Yes, so, we have about 13 or 14 native milkweed plants in Tennessee, so this is just one, but it's one that the monarchs really love, so.

- Right, we have three or four more down below, so.

- [Rita] Now, even though you have the plants to attract them, would they come if you use a whole lot of pesticides, et cetera, in your yard?

- Oh, goodness no. I mean, I don't do anything here. I like this guy. I dunno if you can see him or not, but there's a nice assassin bug.

- [Rita] Mm-hmm, waiting for?

- [Paul] Waiting for some kind of decent prey.

- And here's a-

- The little ants apparently don't interest it very much.

- [Rita] Yeah, they're too small.

- [Paul] But that's what you want. I mean, that's why I plant these things, to get all of the different fauna, places where they can feed.

- And do you have to tend this a lot? Does it need water?

- No, it doesn't, no, I mean,

- Does it need fertilizer?

- No, no. Again, leaf material,

- Don't fertilize your common milkweed.

- [Paul] You know, anything that might die in here, I just let it go.

- Okay, so do you water anywhere in your gardens?

- If I start to see these things start to wilt, I'll water.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- I have a rain gauge back there, and so if it's been a week or two, and things are getting really dry, I will water, otherwise no.

- You just use a hose?

- Just use a hose, yep.

- Okay, okay. So, no soil amendments, very little water,

- Right.

- And you use green mulch, and let plants die where they are

- That's right.

- To enrich the soil?

- Yep.

- So okay, great.

- Easy-peasy.

- [Rita] A lot of people love oak trees, and more lepidoptera, which is butterflies and moths, use oak than any other tree in eastern North America. So, you have found a cultivar.

- I found an oak tree.

- The problem is most of them get 100 feet tall.

- [Paul] Yes, so this is the problem, is that I don't have space for another big tree in my yard, really. This is a dwarf chinkapin oak. So, this tree tops out at about 20 feet, and as you can see, in the canopy of this silver maple, I've got plenty of space up here. It's got about a 10-foot spread, so it got six feet to the fence over here, and six feet to the garden, to this side of me, plenty of space for this to actually fill in this one area without just overwhelming or being in the front where NES will cut it off.

- That's great.

- It is great, I'm happy to find it.

- Paul, you have one of my very favorite small trees, large shrub, this deciduous holly, and it's typical holly, it's in the Ilex family, but it loses its leaves in the fall, but in place of it are these brilliant red berries, which actually do not ripen to where the birds really like it until March, and then the cedar waxwings will devour every berry within about a week. In this case, a day. It's wonderful, and tell us about your experience. It does have male/female trees, so you have a female, though, 'cause there are berries already on it.

- Right.

- So that's great.

- Well, and I have another small one over there that I bought. This was actually a gift to me in exchange for some plants that I gave to a friend of mine, so I don't really know much about this plant. He just had it growing in his driveway, and he had it for three years, and hadn't found a place for it in his yard. He said, "Do you wanna take this home, please?" And so I did. I took it home and I put it in my yard, and it seems like a fairly nice place for it.

- Oh, it's a wonderful plant. I highly recommend it for suburban landscapes, it's great. Paul, you've told me about a number of demo gardens you have in your yard, which is part of your evangelistic routine. Tell me about this bed right here, what's here?

- So, this is a very small pollinator bed. Obviously, there are lots of small sunflowers in here, that will get multiple flowers on them, that are basically about three to four inches around instead of the huge sunflowers. That is a baby Joe Pye weed. There are some Salvia greggii, lyreleaf sage back here, an effort to try and show people that they can put native plants in their front, or side, or backyard easily without too much effort, and there's one Russian sage here, so they don't all have to be native.

- No, no, yeah. The lyreleaf sage is particularly attractive to the snowberry clearwing in the spring, and I have seen American bumblebee on the Salvia greggii, too.

- Right. There's also some goldenrod in there, so we cover most of the bases.

- [Rita] You cover the seasons here.

- Yes.

- Spring, summer, fall.

- Yep.

- That's great. It's hard to do 100% native, but you said that this front yard area is at least 80% native?

- Yeah, when you take the whole spread all the way along the front yard,

- All the spread, okay.

- It's 80% native.

- But we all have to make concessions, don't we?

- Yeah, so my wife loves spirea, so we have some nice Japanese spirea, even though it's on the Tennessee Invasive Plant Council list. I try to make sure it doesn't go to seed. And then I've got some lovely daylilies growing here, some flowering quince back in the back. Now, there are some native plants, some blue salvia, and some phlox, and some turtlehead spread in here, but one of the turtleheads is at least the cultivar, the Hot Lips cultivar.

- Okay, and another concession we all have to make is, well, we don't have to, but a lot of people have gone to less turf. You've gone to less turf. How many native grasses do you have now?

- There's seven native grasses spread all through the yard, and I really like them, because, again, you don't have to water, you don't have to mow, they provide seeds in some cases, and they provide habitat for smaller critters.

- And some sedges, too, right?

- And two sedges, at least Carex sedge, four sedges, actually, Appalachian, Pennsylvania, Carex, and woodii,

- Oh, that's great.

- And that's spread through.

- I love this garden patch. It's 10 by 5, and you have made the most of it. Tell us about what you put in here, what you chose.

- So, down in the front is some long-sepal beardtongue, there in front of this bush.

- Ah, nice.

- And right here, the things that you're seeing are related more to prairie plants.

- Mm-hmm.

- This poppy mallow is actually a kind of roadside plant that you'll see growing up along the roads, like you will a few other things here. The rose verbena over here is something that is about level three or four in a cedar glade.

- Yeah, oh, I love that.

- And so, I'm trying really hard to create a cedar glade out there, but here, I want to have the things that are associated with cedar glades, like that is, and this one, I just ran across in a book on prairie plantings, and thought, "This is really beautiful," and when I saw that Mike Berkley was selling it at GroWild, I thought, "Okay, if it's good enough for Mike, then I will put it in my yard

- It's good enough.

- As a native plant, even though it's a probably a near-native, but not exactly native.

- That's cool, and tell us

- And this-

- About the, yeah, the witch hazel.

- This is-

- Does this bloom in the fall or the spring? This bloom's in the fall. You can kind of see here.

- Oh, okay.

- Some of the leaves that are starting to emerge here, and then in December, it gets these mostly indistinct yellow flowers on it,

- Mm-hmm.

- But if you're standing right here, you'll see them, and it's the only thing I know of that actually blooms close to the winter and on into winter

- Okay.

- In the trees. So it's just a-

- Does it stays through spring for an early-

- It stays through, well, it goes through February, maybe, and then they start to dry up a little bit, but they're just beautiful,

- Okay.

- [Paul] And they make me happy.

- Well, that's important, so, speaking of happiness, what's your overall philosophy of gardening?

- So, I basically am trying to create as much biodiversity as I can that's native to Middle Tennessee. Our guts do better if we have 30 to 40 different kinds of fruits and vegetables, spices and herbs, and our wildlife will do better if we have a wide selection of native plants, and so that's what I'm trying to do, is create as much biodiversity as I can to get as much fauna biodiversity as I can, insects and birds, small mammals, things like that. And this stuff is not for me, exactly, even though I love the color of this plant.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's for all the insects. And so that's what I'm trying to do, is to feed the wildlife around here.

- Yes, the insect life is so important, not only for our own enjoyment, but over 90% of terrestrial birds in North America feed insects to their young, so if you bring in the insects, the birds will come, too, and you need it.

- That's the plan. Actually, about 50% of the birds feed almost exclusively on insects, they don't like the seeds

- Ah.

- All that much, but certainly, by the time they get young, they need, and we can get up to 90, 95% of the birds that have to have lots and lots of insects to feed their babies.

- Yes, and even in the shady area, you still have bluebirds in your bluebird box.

- Yes.

- Which is amazing.

- Two years in a row, we've had birds nesting in there.

- That's great,

- I'm really excited.

- That's incredible.

- Yeah.

- [Rita] Tell us if you have any advice for either newbie gardeners or maybe established gardeners from your heart?

- So, I thought about this, and lots of advice, but the one thing I would say above everything else is don't be afraid. Three years ago, I knew absolutely nothing about gardening or native plants. I decided, when I retired, I wanted be a master gardener, and from there, things just kind of took off into native plants, and I have obviously spent a lot of time learning about that and creating a native plant garden, but don't be afraid. The nice thing about native plants is they love poor soil. They don't require a lot of attention, and so you can create a pollinator pathway in your yard without having to spend tons and tons of time trying to figure out whether or not you're qualified to put something in the ground.

- [Rita] Okay, so fear not.

- Fear not.

- Yeah. All right, that's great advice. Thank you, again.

- You're welcome, thank you.

- It was wonderful.

- This has been fun.

- Yes.

- I love showing off my yard.

- [Rita] Yes, evangelizing more people.

- That's right.

- If our gardens aren't peaceful enough, we also like to add water, water for the birds, the sound of the water trickling down the rocks, and I wanna talk to Marla. Marla, you are a resourceful lady and you've started adding water features into your gardens.

- Yes, ma'am.

- What was your inspiration for this?

- Well, we actually have a creek running through the front of our property, and I've always wanted a pond. I grew up in the country, and we had ponds, and so I thought I could bring that sound into the garden, the trickling sound of the water.

- Yes.

- It is very soothing, and it's close enough that I can come out into my garden, and I can sit and listen to that sound, and enjoy the nature's creatures that like to come and visit the garden.

- Yes, and you know, when I look down upon this, the first thing that inspires me, this is something I can do.

- Exactly.

- This does not take a backhoe to dig.

- Nope.

- You just inserted, it looks like a pond liner,

- Right.

- A small liner into it, but there's something else you've incorporated into this water feature that makes it feasible.

- My garden is way away from my house, so there is no electricity out here.

- Right.

- And so, what better way than to harvest the sunshine, and use a solar fountain, or a little solar pump? It's easy for anybody to install. You can find them relatively inexpensive. All you'll do is you plug in your pump to a hose, and set up your water garden, and it can be as little or as large as you'd like it to be.

- And you just have it circulating here, and of course, I know that you and I have a problem picking up rocks and putting them in our pockets, don't we?

- Yes.

- And so, you've just taken your rocks from the property?

- Right, this is just a small liner

- Yes.

- And I picked up different rocks, different kinds, and different colors of rocks from all around the property, moved them here, tried to find some flat ones that could be stacked in order to create the little waterfall effect that creates that sound of the water running down the rocks.

- And I can imagine this when all of your flowers that you have planted around, but, you know, you're watering, the butterflies have to have water, the bees have to have water,

- Right.

- The birds have to have water.

- Right.

- And you get the satisfaction of knowing you've helped them.

- [Marla] Exactly right.

- Well, I like the concept here. One other question, do you have any idea that you might utilize this for fish?

- I plan on it. It's still really early. I built this, dug this, and created this in January, so I'm getting it ready for springtime. I've already added a few plants that will start to grow shortly when the weather warms up, some water lilies, pickerel rush, I planted a spearmint plant.

- [Annette] I see that.

- [Marla] That came along, it grows wild down in my creek, so what better place?

- Exactly, okay.

- Put it down in here.

- I have to say, Marla, this is so fascinating, cute. How did you do this?

- Well, this is called, I call it a bird and butterfly bubbler, and it's in "The Barn Garden." Actually, I had seen a picture, and I thought, "How sweet to create something that the birds and the butterflies can bathe in, something at their level where they're protected down here in this area," and so I thought, "I can do this." So, it creates the illusion that the water, where is the water coming from?

- Exactly, but now, you didn't find a rock that had a little teeny hole. What did you do?

- Okay, well, first of all, there is a basin down below the ground.

- Oh.

- And so,

- [Annette] You dug a hole?

- [Marla] I dug a hole.

- Okay.

- I dug a hole, entered the basin down into the ground, sunk it to the ground.

- You lined it?

- [Marla] Exactly, sunk it into the ground, and then I piled rock. What I did is I had, oh, a screen

- Yeah.

- To put over the top, cut a hole in the middle of the screen, and put my pump down below, and then ran the pump or the tubing up through the rock. Now, yes, you have to drill a hole in the rock

- Takes a special-

- That's the harder, that is the hard part of the process.

- [Annette] Mm-hmm, and you put that screen to filter out debris from clogging your pump?

- [Marla] The screen is actually a place to be able to set the rocks on.

- Oh.

- So that they don't fall down in your water. So, you're going to put the screen over the top, you can also, in order to filter the water, you can cover it with a cheesecloth.

- Okay.

- You can put a cheesecloth over the pump,

- Okay.

- Because the water does get... It's in the ground, so,

- Right, murky.

- [Marla] It may get a little bit murky over time.

- And you do have to maybe sometimes, so, but the thing that makes this possible is that you do utilize the solar panel again.

- [Marla] Exactly, exactly.

- [Annette] Okay, well, I see the concept, and this is just something to acknowledge that you can do it, and then build

- Right.

- Your own ideas about it. Well, I have to say, this is aesthetically pleasing, and you know,

- thank you.

- [Annette] And the bees can rest,

- Exactly, bathe.

- And not be in the water, but this is a great idea to put the soft sound of water.

- Right, right.

- Thank you so much. I'm inspired.

- You're very welcome. Well, I'm glad, I hope you go home and create one.

- Hmm, maybe.

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