Episode 3317

- [Narrator] A well-planned garden can be attractive and also provide for beneficial insects. Sheri Garmer tours one such residential garden in Brentwood that is part of the Green Bridges program of the American Herb Society. We'll learn about this initiative that encourages home gardeners to create safe and supportive passage for pollinators. Bulbs, tubers, and corms are all geophytes, which makes them an excellent choice for water-wise gardens. Annette Shrader tours the impressive geophyte border at JC Raulston Arboretum, where hundreds of different taxa provide grand color and form. Come along. First, providing resources such as pollen and nectar for pollinators can make gardening even more satisfying.

- We're in a residential garden, Brentwood, Tennessee, where we're gonna focus on pollinators today. Nancy Coleman, hey, how are you?

- Good morning, Sheri. I'm doing great. A little warm.

- Yeah, I want you, yeah. Could you please tell me about the thing that the Herb Society has started? That's why we're visiting you today.

- The Herb Society of Nashville is part of the Herb Society of America, and they sponsor gardens across the country that are little oases for pollinators and they're called Green Bridges. And my garden happens to be a Green Bridges garden.

- And so you apply to do this?

- Yes.

- [Sheri] What's some of the criteria?

- [Nancy] Well, of course planting plants that are beneficial to pollinators, no pesticides or things like that, as much as you can, natural soil care.

- [Sheri] So really, you're not locked into any type of plant material? Okay, it's just something that draws the pollinators.

- Right. I happen to have a mix of herbs. And most of them have some kind of herb focus because I personally like those. But it doesn't have to be specific to birds.

- [Sheri] Terrace gardening. You kind of had to, didn't you?

- Yes. We are on a hillside here. And this is an old remodeled house. This is not a new build by any means. And originally, the house had some gardens back here, some beds with railroad ties, which we've been here over 30 years, so those have gone by the wayside. And we started with replacing those with some stone and then added and expanded, you know, like you do, and added the fountain.

- Let's talk about this beautiful plant.

- Oh, these are asters. They're blooming a little early. Usually they're a fall bloomer.

- [Sheri] Everything's a little early this year, have you noticed?

- I think the-

- The wet warm spring?

- [Nancy] Kind of wet spring, et cetera. So what I'll probably do is when they're through blooming, kind of like you do with mums, I'll cut them back and-

- See if they do it again.

- Hopefully they rebloom in the fall. Sheri, this is Arp Rosemary that survived the severe freeze.

- [Sheri] So Arp is one of the winter hardy ones. They even grow up in zone four, five, and six.

- [Nancy] And they do quite well here. So it's one of my favorite ones to include. The gray is Powis Castle Artemisia. And I kind of use it as a backdrop for some of the other blooms. And it has survived several years. It's come back from the freeze. I prune it down so that it doesn't get higher than the wall. And I think it makes a really nice backdrop for the other colorful plants.

- [Sheri] And we've got some gorgeous coneflowers here.

- [Nancy] Yes, this is a nice little focal point here on the end with the orange coneflower. You'll note I have several varieties of it as well, very hardy in this area. There are lots of different colors you can incorporate into the garden.

- [Sheri] I noticed that you had Phlox in a couple spots. And Phlox is one of my favorite cottage flowers anyways, but the pollinators really like it.-

- Yes, they do. They'll be covered up. We've got some Phlox here, some tucked back in the other cormers. My grandson actually planted one for me, which I love.

- That's a good move.

- So he likes to come over and check it out, see how it's surviving. It's kind of fun. The whole family kind of comes and occasionally gardens.

- Nice. Salvias are one of my favorites, probably because they come back so heartedly and they're so beautiful in the summer in the heat. And this one is almost done blooming, but it's still showing a little bit, this is purple. And then what do we have down here?

- [Nancy] This is a different varietal, but also purple. If you'll walk through the house, you'll see that purple's one of my favorite colors. But I do love them for many of the same reasons.

- And then back here-

- And I have a beautiful red one back here that has been, I love them because they're so hardy. And they do come back every year. This poor plant has survived three moves in the garden.

- [Sheri] Oh wow. Three moves at this location or?

- [Nancy] At this location. I believe this one is called Lipstick.

- Well that makes sense. Yeah, it looks like a tube, yes. One of my favorites, Showstoppers in the garden. What you got going here?

- [Nancy] The hibiscus is one of my favorites. I grew up in the tropics.

- Did you?

- As a child, yes. And we had some gorgeous hibiscus plants around our home. And of course here in Tennessee, those particular varietals are not hardy. But one day on a walk through Cheekwood, I saw these and searched them out. And I have planted several because they are a wonderful memory plant for me. And you can see they're blooming beautifully in this heat akin to the tropics.

- [Sheri] And this is a great pollinator, along with what's in front of it, a Lavender. What variety is that Lavender, do you know?

- [Nancy] I think this is a Provence, which is one of my favorites. And you can see there's bees crawling on it now.

- Nice long stems.

- It also is a survivor plant. It has come through the cold winters that we've had and actually done very well, which is uncharacteristic of this variety. But I think-

- [Sheri] I think it's kind of protected in here. It's nested into the wall.

- It's protected into the wall, which kind of protects it from the winds. And I think may keep it a little warmer. So it's done well. And it is putting on a show this spring.

- I wanna talk about your flagstone walkway and what you got growing in it.

- [Nancy] All right, this flagstone walkway was a remedy. This is where most of the water drains off our hillside and down through this area and down and around. We could never get anything to grow here. And it was an eyesore. We tried different varietals of grass, all of that, and everything kept washing. So we got the notion of creating sort of an extra patio, which is what we did with the flagstones. They're just filled with fine gravel and then lined with the Mondo Grass, which creates interest. It's filled in really well.

- [Sheri] But it's unique because you popped it in the center too for a little accent.

- And we are irrigated. So the little irrigation valves come up in the center and then water this area. But it has created a nice area where we used to have an eyesore. So we're really kind of pleased at the way it turned out, we had some wonderful young men that helped us lay out-

- The necessity worked out.

- Yes.

- [Sheri] I see several of these in your garden. Let's talk about it.

- [Nancy] Okay, the Baptisia or False Indigo is a plant that, again, is very hardy in this area. It comes up every spring. I've had them for several years. This particular varietal blooms blue. And then when it's through blooming, it has this beautiful dark pod-

- [Sheri] That drops seeds everywhere, yes, yes.

- [Nancy] But I happen to like them. That color is one of my favorites. You see some purple coneflowers mixed in. And here in the center, I've got a cardinal flower that's returning. That's a surprise. I planted that several years ago and hadn't seen it for a while, but it decided to return this year. So it should shoot up a little more. And hopefully now that it's got its feet, it'll come back every year.

- And right here?

- And here in the cormer is some Sedum. Again, a very hardy plant. It's protected here from the deer. I don't think they get in this close. And in the fall, it has these beautiful light lavender flower heads. And with the morning dew, they look like they're coated in ice and sparkles. So we really like that one too.

- Pretty.

- It'll be very pretty in the fall.

- Gorgeous.

- Thank you.

- What is it?

- This is a Rose of Sharon. It's also referred to as a Mallow. These again are quite hardy. I tend to focus on those.

- [Sheri] Shrubs and tree form, correct?

- [Nancy] Yes, shrubs and tree form. This is more of a shrub.

- Different colors as well.

- Different colors. I'm particularly partial to the purples and blues. So we have a purple. But they have a beautiful white and a gorgeous red Mallow as well if your taste runs to those. And it's framed behind this little Carolina Jasmine that early in the season blooms yellow.

- Nancy, I wanna tell you, thank you very much for sharing your garden with us.

- I'm so glad that you came.

- And educating our viewers about pollinators and what the Herb Society of America is doing for those.

- I hope that they'll inquire. They can just go on the web to Herb Society of America and click on Green Bridges and it'll tell them all about it.

- Well thank you very much for sharing, it's been great.

- I hope you all will come down and enjoy a little glass of Hibiscus Lavender tea on this warm day.

- I am very happy to be standing in this border today. I'm in Raleigh, North Carolina. And we are gonna look into a family of plants that you may already know, but you do not know them as geophytes. And we're gonna talk with Tim, and I'll say he's got a lot of names. But today, we're gonna use his knowledge as a plant specialist in this grouping of plants.

- So I will correct you. We're not looking at one family of plants. Geophytes aren't a family. So we're looking at a plant, I mean they occur in all kinds of different plant families. And I love plant families. So at this time of the year, we're here in March, so you're gonna see a lot of spring flowering bulbs. But there are geophytes that are also in summer plants as well, and fall, winter, spring, all four seasons, you will find geophytic plants.

- [Annette] Well, let's just talk about this beauty.

- This one right here is one of the Ipheions. This is Ipheion Uniflorum Jessie. So Ipheions are actually from South America, from I believe Uruguay, Paraguay area. Maybe a little bit of Argentina and Southern Brazil, they might range into that areas where they're actually native. But they do wonderfully here in the Southeast United States. They are actually in the onion family, so the Alliaceae. And so they actually have a true bulb, and it's just a true tunicate bulb, which we'll show you those a little bit later on. But that's just like what you would buy on your onion that you go to store and buy. Or garlic, which is another Allium. So these are next to it. And this one actually, if you break the leaves on this one, this one does smell like onion. And some people find that offensive because if you just bump into these and bruise and you'll get the odor of onion. And some don't like that in their gardens. But this is a spectacular blue form of it that I really do like here. This is one from the Mediterranean, and it's actively growing during the winter months. That plant is Dracunculus Vulgaris, but it flowers in late April, May, and the early June with this enormous foot to two and a half foot long spathe and spadix, which is burgundy. And it's really cool. And it's really loved by its pollinator, which is flies. And so it smells lovely of rotting flesh. But at this time of the year, you're seeing the spectacular foliage on it, which has these white stripes on the lobes of the leaves. And it's just really cool for that. It's not affected by our winters here. And it grows... It starts to come up maybe December actually is when it starts to come up, and its peak growth is not until April. But it has actually a tuber. And like I said, it's related to Calla Lilies and skunk cabbage things, which is the Araceae, the Arum family, which is becoming a little bit of a weed for us here, Arums. So it's in that family and also includes so many of your houseplants, which you might not think of that, it's related to Philodendrons, your Swiss cheese plant, that is Monstera, devil's ivy, which is Epipremnum, and there's just so many of those now.

- [Annette] All right, now then we've got some well-known spring flowers that are included in this group. And it's a lovely Tulip.

- Yep. I have actually a couple forms of this one. This is a Tulipa Clusiana type. And there's actually two here. The one is out further than the other right now. So we have Tulipa Tinka here, which is in full flower. They're closed up right now because it's overcast. But that's actually really good because you can see the outsides of the petal, or actually the tepals, which are rosy red on them. And then when they open, they're just a soft yellow. The Clusiana tulips are excellent for us here in the Southeast. They don't need the much colder, longer winters that so many of the other tulips need. So these will flower with a shorter winter chill, and they reproduce prolifically. And so they often outcompete when they're eaten by squirrels and deer and rabbits. So you have more of a chance of getting this one to grow. And so I've had them in this garden for years. They actually have multiplied several times over.

- This is a cheery sight.

- Yes it is. This has been flowering for about a week and a half for us, or two weeks now. This is one of the winter flowering iris or early spring, this is Iris Bucharica. It's a genotype iris. And this is kind of a unique iris. I won't show you any of the root systems of these, but they have both a true bulb, and then they have these swollen roots that come out of them, which is really cool. And it helps them, again, get through difficult times of the year or the drier times of the year. These are actually native, I think more towards the Middle East, so Asia Minor area. So they are accustomed to dry summers, hot dry summers. But they do perfectly fine through our winters and early springs. This is a bearded type iris, which does not have a structure like that one actually has at all. This is a Rhizomatous Iris. And these are a modified stem that runs along horizontally on the ground. And then the branches come off of that. And that's where you get your fans of foliage and then flowers on that.

- [Annette] This is probably the most familiar.

- These are very familiar when it comes to iris. And most of the ones we grow in our gardens are like this. The Iris Bucharicas are kind of like this, but not exactly, but they being that they're a true bulb. This is actually a Habranthus or a Rain Lily. But they have a true bulb here. And this is a tunicate bulb, meaning it has these papery outer layers, much like again, like an onion. And that has that on that as well. But added to that, these have another structure that comes out there, thick, fleshy roots. And going back to geophytes, geophytes are earth, being geo, and phyte, life. So all this stuff is underground pretty much. And so that's where we get our bulbs and we think about them. They're our most common things are our true bulbs. Like the Narcissus that I have here, the tulips, those are also tunicate bulbs. The other common bulbs that we have, and you may see a lot of, are the lilies. And they have what's called a scaly bulb. And it is a true bulb as well. And so the the scales and actually on your tunicate bulbs and these scaly bulbs, and it's more apparent on them, they're actually modified leaves that are under the ground or the bases of old leaves

- [Annette] Is this bulb always alive?

- [Tim] Pretty much, yes. It'll get actually this one, this species is Lilium Formosanum. It can get a couple inches in diameter. So it's always alive unless it dies.

- [Annette] And now this root structure above the top of the bulb, what is this?

- So that's actually part of the stem of the plant that actually comes up out of the ground. And then you do have the roots coming off of that which are stabilizing it. So they're secondary, but you also have the roots at the actual base of the bulb itself. So another type of geophyte are plants that have corms. So some of the things that have corms that you may be familiar with would be Gladiolas or Crocus, in particular, Crocosmia, they all have corms. This is actually a plant from the west coast. This is from California and Oregon area. This is a Dichelostemma. It's in its own family. It's kind of bizarre. But they also have a corm as well, often on corms, going back to what you had said earlier, is this always alive, you will get stacks of old corms a lot of times growing.

- [Annette] That's what I wondered, do they grow down here?

- So they replace the corm each year. It's a modified stem instead of the modified leaves that you had on the previous bulbs. So it's actually kind of more like a rhizome, which is again, a modified stem. Some other things that are a little bit more familiar would be tubers. And this is a tuberous plant. And you might not guess what this is from, but this is from a plant in the African Violet family that we grow in the ground here. This is from a Sinningia. And this is a summer flowering plant for us here. This is Sinningia Tubiflora, which...

- [Annette] A common name.

- [Tim] Maybe a hardy Gloxinia.

- [Annette] Exactly, that's what I thought that was.

- Like I said, African Violet family. And we can grow these here in Raleigh with no problem. Not all Gesneriads have tubers of course, but these do. And this is more like a potato.

- Oh yeah, it does look like that.

- And this one spreads in that same way.

- And the Calla Lily look to this one.

- The Calla Lily's actually much more like that. But yes, they are a tuber as well.

- I'm interested in the carrot.

- The carrot looking thing, it's not related to the carrot at all.

- [Annette] I know it.

- [Tim] So do you have any guess as to what this thing is?

- [Annette] Let me see. It's foliage. It's heart shaped.

- [Tim] This isn't a native, but we have natives actually, especially out in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, Pipevines. This is a Pipevine. This is Aristolochia.

- The butterfly, love those.

- Yes. Most of these plants, they have these modified structures underground to help them get through times of say temperature change that is cold or heat. I think this one has it there, a storage organ so it can come back from being eaten by the caterpillars of the Pipevine Swallowtail, which is a spectacular black swallowtail with blue hind wings. And we have them all through this border. And this is actually not one of our natives, Aristolochia This is a species from Brazil actually. This is Aristolochia Fimbriata, and it's really actually really easy to use in the landscape here because this creeps on the ground. It doesn't actually vine over things. So it's not gonna take over the whole yard or the house like some of the large native growing one. And there are some other less attractive of our native ones, which you don't even notice. But it has a tuberous root is what this has.

- [Annette] Of the wild carrot or the Queen Ann's Lace, they grow the same.

- They have a big tap root and it's swollen like this just like a carrot. But anyway, so it has dual purposes for it. This gets through cold weather, but it also gets through the few weeks each summer that the butterflies have eaten it for the third time down to the ground and they come back up with a vengeance with in a few days.

- And it's drought, right?

- It's very drought tolerant as well.

- [Tim] This is going back to rhizomes now. This is another type of rhizome. This is a scaly rhizome on a plant that you might grow. This is an Oxalis, or you might know them as Shamrocks, which we grow these as perennials here in Raleigh. There's native ones and there's introduced ones. This is one that's introduced. This is Oxalis Triangularis probably or Regnellii. The classification's a little sketchy I think at times. But anyways, they have this scaly rhizome, which is a little different from the iris here, which has this solid rhizome.

- [Annette] Well, and age is defined in this one too.

- Yes, but you can break this up and it will cause old buds to come out on these. And you can get new plants that way. So that's kind of a really cool thing about the Oxalis. So I have another really cool one, which is a lot less common. I have a Cyclamen in here, which is a swollen hypocotyl. So the hypocotyl is the area between the seed leaves on a new seedling, and where the root actually forms. So it's that stem in between. And that's what this is on the Cyclamen. It's really bizarre. But this is a Cyclamen Hederifolium, which is fully hardy for us here and would be as well as in Tennessee. And these flower for us, most say they flower in the fall. I get flowers on these things from anywhere from May until November. But those are a few of our different kinds of geophytes here.

- [Annette] Okay, Tim, we have talked about from all different places, different types of plants that can be a geophyte. Now let's bring this home. Let's talk about the different structure underground. What does that really mean to these plants?

- Okay, so it's life and death, if you think about it. So those structures I kind of alluded to early on are structures to get that plant through a hard time, whether it's through times of cold or even heat or wet or dry or bravery for instance. So they are a storage organ of energy. It's that backup, that time for difficult times.

- [Annette] Well, I do know that the examples that lie sleeping still, but I'm happy to understand exactly what this geophyte is, and I thank you for the time that you've taken out of these busy days here. When spring comes, people wanna come, don't they?

- [Tim] Yes, yes, the garden's been getting busy and I've been getting busier in the garden,

- Well I understand that. I don't wanna take any more of your time.

- I encourage you all to come back though, at other times, this border in particular will be full of all kinds of other additional geophytes.

- Yes, thank you so much.

- A little bit about growing Caladiums. There are two ways you can buy Caladiums. You can buy them in packs of dried of bulbs that have been wintered over. These are not growing plants, and you'd plant them in a pot and grow them. Or you can buy them like we do here, we grow those bulbs and then sell them here at Hewitt, you can buy these finished plants too. If you grow the bulbs, they only sprout in really, really warm conditions. Either you wait and they'll start sprouting in say, late May outside. If you don't plant them in cold soil, don't put them out too soon, they'll just rot for you, and then you'll be really disappointed. Or you can start them inside in a warm place. They need a lot of light in that case, a warm window. If you have a little greenhouse or a little growing area under grow lights, you can put them on a little heat mat. Bottom heat will really make them grow fast. Just watering them with warm water will help. You wanna keep the soil temperature up. Now what happens in the fall when frost is threatening? They take no frost. Frost will kill these things, not just the tops, they'll kill the roots, you don't want that. So what you do is dry them down before, say first frost around here is usually around the end of October, generally speaking, in Middle Tennessee, varies a little bit across the state, but keep an eye on the weather. When the nights are consistently below about 45, figure your Caladiums are done for the year. You dry them down, you put them in a cool but not cold place. Don't put them in an unheated garage. It's gonna get too cold there. If you've got a basement or a place that stays 50 to 60 degrees, that's perfect. Don't put them in the fridge. They don't like that. That will throw them into such deep hibernation that they might not sprout the next year. So that's the best way. Just keep them in the pot. You can even do that, then knock them out, replant them in fresh soil in the spring and throw them on again.

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