- [Host] Could your landscape benefit from plants that offer fall and winter interest?

Troy Marden and Mike Berkley, both respected Plantsman, share their recommendations for native trees, shrubs, and perennials that will perk up your outdoor spaces.

Tammy Algood tours Southall Farm and Inn where guests are encouraged to experience agriculture, whether it's a stroll through the lovely kitchen garden, a walk down the rows of the orchard, or a look at the large production fields.

Plus Annette Schrader visits a gardener who enjoys the pretty shades of green, white, and pink of caladiums.

Gorgeous.

Stay tuned.

(upbeat music) First, high performing native plants that add interest to the landscape.

- Now I've always had an interest in native plants and as we're getting on a little further into the fall now, I have come to get the expertise of Mike Berkley at GroWild about some native plants that will give us some fall and winter interest in the garden.

So Mike, thanks for having us.

And I've got a little carex here.

This is carex cherokeensis.

- [Mike] Yes.

And you know, the sedges are hot right now in the native world, and we're using them as ground covers in shade and some sun.

And this is carex cherokeensis.

And they cause the cherokee sedge and it is fully evergreen.

It's great in a woodland or high shade and in some sun as well.

Good filler plant and, and fully evergreen.

- A great little ground cover type plant - Ground cover bunches.

- That will make good feet for other.

- Maxes out at about a foot tall.

- Right.

And the plant that you're holding with those beautiful kind of burgundy leaves.

- Yeah.

The beardtongues are really coming on.

This is a new selection of the foxglove beardtongue and penstomen digitalis Pocahontas.

It's a little shorter, has more pink color to it.

Most of the beardtongue are gonna be white, but look at the fall color.

And this is persistent and the basal growth down here at the bottom will turn this dark red and, and go right on into the winter as well.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] So not just a summer blooming color, but a fall leaf color.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] And the basal growth winter color.

- [Troy] Now one of my favorite shrubs, native or non-native is oak leaf hydrangea.

I just don't think you can beat them.

And this is ruby slippers.

- [Mike] Ruby slippers.

And I tell you, the oak leaf hydrangeas have just come on as a whole new thing now because these selections that came out of the USDA testing with down, out of McMinnville.

So there's now you can not only get different sizes, ultimate sizes.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] Ruby slippers tops out about the four to five foot range.

There's one called a queen of hearts that does about six feet.

And then there's one called munchkin, of course, which is gonna be the shortest.

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Mike] And you're talking about two to three feet on that one.

But what is really great, you know, we also know the oak leaf hydrangeas are very susceptible to leaf spots, especially through the summer.

And these are really clean, which gives you better fall color.

The bloom stands up, goes from white faced white to amethyst pink color.

So you almost get two tones of color.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] out of the bloom.

Outstanding.

And I can, because it's not as susceptible to the leave spot, I can put this in more sun than a lot of the other oak leaf hydrangeas.

- [Troy] Right.

And in my garden, Ruby slippers hangs onto this fall color well into like end of November, first of December.

Sometimes even almost until Christmas.

- [Mike] Around the holidays.

Absolutely.

- [Troy] Yeah.

So, and speaking of holiday plants, this is Winterberry Holly.

- [Mike] Correct.

- [Troy] And this is also grown commercially as a cut stem.

- [Mike] Yes.

- [Troy] Especially around the holidays.

- [Mike] Right.

And you know what the florist would do is cut this and not put it in a bucket of water so much.

They would put it in a dry vase.

Now this is a deciduous holly.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] Which means that all these leaves that you see on it now will be gone in a few more weeks.

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Mike] And then all you're getting is a silhouette of these red berries, okay.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Mike] So great winter interest plant, great cut plant to bring in indoors also.

Now, also wanna mention that they are what we call dioecious.

Dioecious means that you have the female plant here.

To have these berries, you gotta have a male winterberry somewhere around.

- [Troy] Right.

But you can have multiple female bushes and a male pollinated as long as you have the right one, you'll get berries.

- [Mike] You know, we have done a lot of designs where we've used winterberries and we may put in, you know, 10 to 20 winterberries in a large bed, one three gallon male.

And it has to be southern gentlemen, that's the name of it, and will do the pollinating and let the bees do their thing.

- [Troy] Sure.

So towering up above us here is a, is a great plant that a lot of people might not be familiar with.

I think everybody knows what bald cypress is.

- [Mike] Yes.

- [Troy] But this is a little bit different.

- [Mike] Yeah, Troy, this is pond cypress.

This is taxodium ascendens.

The needles are much finer, almost grass like, okay?

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] And this particular variety is called debonair And what debonair is known for is more upright, - [Troy] Very upright.

- [Mike] So if people have in their yard a tighter space, and they can't afford one to get very large, then the debonair works.

So, you know, the taxodiums or the cypresses are deciduous conifers.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] That means that, you know, they have needles, but the.

- [Troy] Like a juniper or a pine.

- [Mike] Right.

- [Troy] Same family.

- [Mike] But being deciduous, they go through the fall color and drop their needles.

So if you look at how small these leaves are on this tree, not much trash down below.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] And what we have found over the years is we can plant these in people's yards that have heavy clay and they don't have to put it in a bucket of water like the cypresses are.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] You could put this in some heavy clay.

It does great.

- [Troy] Yeah.

- [Mike] Without much water.

- [Troy] And it gets this beautiful kind of orangey bronze color in the fall.

And it holds onto it for a while.

- [Mike] It keeps it for a couple of months.

Yeah, absolutely.

- [Troy] Before the leaves fall.

All right.

So then in front of me, we have diervilla.

- Diervilla.

I'll tell you the diervillas are the southern bush honeysuckles.

And soon as I say that common name, people say, Oh, bush honeysuckle are unnatural.

- [Troy] Bad.

- [Mike] We know that non-native invasive bush honeysuckle that's in the parks, and a lot of people's backyards not a good plant.

So this is where the common name is not so good.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] But this is a diervilla.

And I'm crazy about the diervilla because they're very drought tolerant.

They handle dry shade.

- [Troy] Sure.

- [Mike] Which is a hard scenario sometimes to meet.

And as you can see, the fall color is spectacular.

- [Troy] We're mid-October, not even quite mid-October here, and we're already getting really good fall color.

- Good fall color persistent for a couple more months.

- And a little spring blooms.

- Yeah.

Small yellow flowers.

- Small yellow spring blooms.

- Yes, that pollinators like.

- And then in front of us sitting down here on the ground.

- [Mike] Right.

A lot of people wouldn't realize this, but you know, of course we're in the land of the cedars here in middle Tennessee - [Troy] Sure.

- [Mike] And, you know, we can't put a cedar in front of someone's house and it not take over the world.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] But, there are these selections that stay short and this is royo.

And as you can see with these sapphire blueberries, this is a female and it tops out at about four to five feet.

So it's a good foundation plant - [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] Plant it where you.

- [Troy] And kind of a spreading habit.

- [Mike] It has a little more spreading habit.

I like fitting several together so that they kinda layer on top of each other.

But you know, you think about it, it is a juniperus virginiana.

So the toughest evergreen in middle Tennessee.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] Is without a doubt gonna be the eastern red cedar.

But you don't have to get one that gets, you know, monstrous, so.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] Good shrub.

- [Troy] Exactly.

And to wrap up, we've got a couple of really interesting, unusual plants that I want to talk about.

The first one is this little pine tree.

- [Mike] Yeah.

This is something that 20 years ago we had a hard time growing because this grows down south along the coast, and this is the long leaf pine.

This is a pinus palustris.

And it kind of has a Cousin It kind of look to it right now.

And that's the way they look and then they'll grow up kind of fast.

And interestingly, the the long leaf pine, you know, when you go and buy pine straw as a mulch, you know, from the garden centers, this is the pine straw you're getting because it has such a long needle to it, it makes a really nice pine straw.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] And people look at this and say, "Wow, that's, that's amazing.

I've never seen anything like that before."

Well, for us, it's a native plant.

A North American native plant that's new for our area.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] And we're able to use it more now.

- [Troy] Right.

The interesting thing about this from a landscape, from a design perspective, is that this is just an exclamation point for the first.

- Yes.

- Five or six years.

It grows 10, 15 feet tall without ever having a branch.

- Right, right.

- It's just a long telephone pole of weeping needle.

- Telephone pole is exactly.

- Eventually, it will branch and become an actual tree.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- So, and the final one that I want to talk about is something that's really new to the market.

I mean, it's been floating around kind of the collector's circles for a while, but it's finally making it into the mainstream.

And this is an unusual hybrid, native hybrid.

- [Mike] It is a native hybrid, but it's unusual in the fact that it's inter generic hybrid.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] Meaning that you've got two genre that they cross.

A lot of hybrids are crossed by species.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] Which is a second name that you see.

- [Troy] Magnolia to Magnolia.

- [Mike] Right, right.

And so this is a franklinia crossed with a gordonia.

Okay.

The name is X gordilinia grandiflora.

And so the idea is that's it to make the franklinia alatamaha, a tougher plant.

And Dr. Tom Rainy in North Carolina, they did a lot of breeding.

- Right.

- Work.

Introduced a lot of great plants.

He wanted to make a franklinia that was tougher.

- Right.

- And of course, we know the story about franklinia.

It's completely expirated in the wild.

- In the wild.

- And, but we, you know, we still want it, but it's kind of temperamental about it's culture - It's very difficult to grow.

Very site specific.

- So, he took a plant that was in the same family, not in the same genus, which the gordonia, gordonia lasianthus and it's an evergreen out in the wild and the fall color's okay.

But the franklinia, fully deciduous, great fall color.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] By crossing this semi evergreen with this beautiful fall color deciduous plant, he made an unbelievable tree.

And I have to say, this is my favorite tree in the nursery right now.

- [Troy] Right.

- [Mike] Is the gordilinia.

It's in the tea family, so it looks like a camellia bloom, white bloom with a gold eye to it.

And what's really cool about this fall color is that up around January, it still has the fall color.

- [Troy] Has some of its leaves because of the gordonia background.

- [Mike] Crossing with the evergreen, correct.

- [Troy] Yeah.

And this is a really great example of, we've talked about this occasionally before in some segments.

When you hybridize, what you're hopeful of is that you get the best qualities of both parents and sometimes that also includes increased vigor.

And that's what we have in this plant.

A plant that, like you said, franklinia is difficult to grow, kind of temperamental, very site specific.

Gordonia, which isn't quite hardy for us.

And you get the hardiness plus the semi evergreen, plus the fall color, plus the bloom, and you get all the best features of every place.

- It's a win, win, win, win win.

- Mike, thanks so much for having us out to GroWild again and taking a look at some of these beautiful plants for fall and winter color.

- Thank you Troy, for coming out.

(upbeat music) - Chef Tyler Brown has been an inspiration to me for decades and I am privileged to be right here with him at Southall Farms in Franklin.

And I'm thrilled to have you as a part of our show today, Tyler.

- Oh, thank you so much for having me.

- I think you have the most lovely philosophy and perspective as far as loving the land.

And so I would just love to hear your thoughts about sustainable agriculture and your whole philosophy of farming.

- [Tyler] Yeah.

So, you know, largely grown from, from the standpoint of a chef, right?

And, and in my young years as a chef, seeing produce come into the kitchen from maybe large produce companies and then different opportunities working with local farmers.

I feel from a chef standpoint, it's our job to highlight the work of the farmer, right?

- [Tammy] Right.

- [Tyler] And at a point, I became very curious about what it takes to actually produce the produce and vegetables and fruits and, and I wanted to honor that.

I felt like to, to truly be able to honor the process, we need to understand what it takes.

And so I started seeking, and in my journey, I feel really from a chef standpoint, that simple is better.

The simplest techniques, small touch of salt and pepper, maybe a little butter, but really to highlight what the work and the garden has done and the earth's job.

And with that, you know, I really love best practices.

I like to celebrate the history and old ways, new ways.

Look at where we're going to in the future.

I think we have to always keep learning and keep expanding our periphery and saw that opportunity here at Southall to create a place that guests can experience just that.

The old ways, the new ways, how they work.

And, the biggest thing is we're here to just share our journey and our curiosities about agriculture and the farming and hopefully produce some good food and meet some wonderful people and enjoy our community at the same time.

So biodynamics is something that we're excited about, but it's not everything that we are, right?

- Right.

- It's really important to us and our philosophy to recognize both sides of the aisle, if you will.

Every farmer that I've come across and talked to about, whether it's growing melons or squash or whatever it may be, one thing I'm certain of is that I'll find a very strong opinion on how it's done.

And I've found that I need to form an opinion as well.

And mine is that there's knowledge everywhere, something to be taken from everyone and a place for us to apply it.

And it's not to say that we are doing the right things or the best things.

It's simply our journey and we wanna celebrate those successes and failures.

- One of the things that I immediately feel entering Southall Farms is order and that things are intentional and they're purposeful.

And so, and I think with order and you know how that is.

- Oh yeah.

Yeah.

- In the kitchen, with order comes peace.

And so was that the goal of all the planning that has gone into every little piece of Southall farms?

- [Tyler] Yeah, that's a big piece of it.

We have tried really hard to identify how we're going to utilize all these curiosities, right?

Whether it's the orchard or the gardens or our orangery.

How does each element come into contact with a guest?

And so they're, you have to have some order with that, right?

- [Tammy] Right.

- [Tyler] Because you have to think about how we're actually going to bring the whole story together.

- [Tammy] So you're building from soil to plant to yield to use.

You're just putting the whole landscape to work for you.

- [Tyler] Yeah.

That's the circle of life, like, right?

Each element.

We have to have a good soil to have a good plant, to have a good product that we are then putting in front of a guest.

So yeah.

That's a large part of it, you know, and back to that order piece, from a chef standpoint, I was very used to being able to control everything in four walls, right?

- Right.

- Because there was a controlled environment.

And so when I first started gardening, I tried to apply some of those sensibilities to, to gardening.

And I learned very quickly that I was not in control.

Mother nature is, is certainly in control.

And that was a great learning experience, right?

There's humility there, there's take a step back, observe, take a deep breath.

Again with the guest in mind and the experience in mind, we wanted to create different areas that we would have be producing and highlighting agriculture.

And some of those ways are through our propagation greenhouse where the seeds start and then they ultimately go out into the field and we've created a kitchen garden that sort of muse was some experiences that I had the opportunity to go and, and go to Monticello and see Thomas Jefferson's kitchen gardens.

And wanted to create a place where guests can come in contact with the vegetables.

- [Tammy] Right.

- [Tyler] And what we're doing.

I think it's just as much sharing as it is teaching, you know?

And sharing the experience and, but we want to give an opportunity to where folks can come and take a deep dive into what we're doing if they'd like, or they can just stay right on the surface and walk around and enjoy the beauty.

And we want to have a balance there with that piece of the experience.

But we want to share all of it.

- I so appreciate everything that you're doing here.

It is exactly what I try to do in my life and in my garden and in my kitchen as well.

- Yeah.

- So we're on the same path.

- Yeah.

- And I appreciate walking the path with you.

This is fantastic.

- Well, thank you very much.

It's been a pleasure.

And you know, I, a quote that I really love from a close friend of mine that said is "staying on the path doesn't mean a journey trouble free."

So there's, you know, ups and downs along the way, but Jeff Poppen taught me that line, and I really appreciate it.

I think about it all the time.

- Embrace those.

- Thank you for having me.

- Embrace those stones in the way, right?

- That's right.

That's right.

- Thank you.

- Learning moment.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - [Annette] We have had a refreshing rain and no better time to walk in the freshness of caladiums.

I'm gonna visit with Charlsie Haliburton in Clarksville, and she has the art of growing caladium down to a science.

And Charlsie, I'm glad I got to come here again so I can see your caladium.

And I want you to just start right out and tell us, give us an idea of what kind of caladium these are.

- Well, those are called fancy leaf candidum is their name.

And fancy leaf means that it's a larger leaf caladium that grows 18 to 24 inches tall, typically, and has a heart shape, which is green and white as you see.

And it has some pinks mixed in, but white Christmas is another green and white caladium has a lot more green.

- [Annette] Well, that's a good choice.

Now how old are these bulbs?

- Those are new bulbs.

I planted them in May.

You have to wait till the soil gets about 60 degrees, temperate to the touch and not, not before May because it's too cool.

We had a cool May anyway, so I plant a mid-May and they start to bud up pretty soon after that.

- [Annette] You're growing them in the ground and you also grow them in containers.

In that process, do you pre-pot these inside or do you bring all of these in the ground directly out?

- [Charlsie] Directly out.

You can, I have.

You can pre-pot them inside.

But these are new bulbs that arrive just in time.

I get them from Happiness Farms in Florida.

My mother always said caladiums like it really hot.

- [Annette] Well, they've been happy this year, haven't they?

- [Charlsie] They have been very happy.

- [Annette] Good.

- [Charlsie] Yes.

- There's some amazing things that happen with caladium, aren't there Charlsie?

- There are.

- And this variety is really, really pretty.

But it's been accentuated with something I love to see.

Where it's got droplets on it.

- [Charlsie] That's where it rained last night.

- [Annette] Oh, that's just beautiful.

- [Charlsie] Little diamonds.

- [Annette] Doesn't that make you feel a little cooler?

- [Charlsie] Yes.

- [Annette] Just seeing it.

- [Charlsie] Those are called rosebud pink.

- [Annette] Oh, rose.

- [Charlsie] I harvest them in the winter and stored them.

And these are three year old bulbs, but they've gotten a little smaller and you see their heart shape.

I love them.

I love the pink veins in here and surrounded by the green.

- Well they're just soft and lovely.

All right.

Now this is a great specimen.

Now this one?

- [Charlsie] Yes it is.

These are called miss muffets and these are called lance leaf.

That's fancy.

This is lance leaf.

It's a longer, it is still heart shape, but it's a longer elongated leaf.

And this is first year bulbs.

They're 18 to 24 inches tall as opposed to the taller fancy leaf.

So this is in a pot of ivy, and I planted these begonias this year, but the ivy I keep from year to year.

And this is really my favorite caladium.

I love the dark pink polka dot, the chartreuse leaf.

- [Annette] There's a lot of different color combinations.

- [Charlsie] I know.

- [Annette] That can go with that.

- [Charlsie] Yes.

- [Annette] Although, I think pink goes with that.

I don't mind any color with any color.

- [Charlsie] Right.

- Well, our eye can tell us that we are in a lush, shady, beautiful place and we're gonna talk about what the caladium want.

What does it want to grow good?

Tell us Charlsie.

- Well, I have shade.

They're extremely shade tolerant.

These bulbs right here are at least two years old, maybe three years old.

And this is, they're easily planted just maybe two to three inches under the earth.

And they come up and are beautiful.

And there are some sun specific caladiums that you can order, but I don't need those.

- [Annette] Yeah.

- [Charlsie] I need, I need shade specific.

- [Annette] That's not in your zone.

They are just lustrous in the shade.

- [Charlsie] They love the humidity.

They, as I said, they love the heat.

They just perform well.

- [Annette] When's it gonna tell you, "I'm done."

- [Charlsie] Probably early October, late September, early October when it gets kind of glassy and glazey looking.

- [Annette] Yeah, they get a little translucent or.

- [Charlsie] They do.

- [Annette] That's a good tip to know.

Yeah.

Do you have any kind of thing, other than a deer that you look for bothering your caladium?

- [Charlsie] Well, because I live in the deep woods, when I plant the bulb, sometimes I have some creature that digs up my bulbs, and I replant them.

But anyway, or sometimes on top of the soil, they'll, they're so easy, they'll grow even on top of the soil.

- [Annette] As I stand here under the shade of these beautiful dogwood trees.

Charlsie, I know that this is a spectacular specimen.

Tell us about this.

- [Charlsie] This is called summer pink.

It is a fancy leaf, as you can see, it's heart shaped.

It's a large fancy leaf.

The bulb was as big as my fist.

These are new bulbs planted in the ground in May, and I had no idea they're gonna be so tall.

I thought they were supposed to be 18 to 24 inches, but these are 18 to 36 inches.

- [Annette] Oh yeah.

This definitely has got 36 inches to it.

- [Charlsie] And they get so tall that after the rain, I do have some of 'em staked up, but they're just, they're glorious and they were very easily planted with this spade and gloves and just so easy.

And I do use Osmocote when I dig up the soil.

I put a little sprinkle of Osmocote and maybe two or three bulbs in at one time.

- Yeah.

I like to do that even with my daffodils that I don't plant just one because it definitely makes, if you want something that's full, you go go big or go home, you know?

- Yeah.

- That's kinda the way I think about it.

Well now, so this one has still got several months left.

- [Charlsie] Yes.

- [Annette] But you will eventually lift these out of the ground, so.

- [Charlsie] Yes, with the same spade that I dug them.

- [Annette] Let's just say, how easily this can be done for someone wanting to try their own hand in this.

- [Charlsie] It's easy, very easy.

You dig it up, you dry it out for a couple of weeks.

I'll do it on newspaper in the garage where it won't get rained on and then put them in boxes and mark them.

Because once they dry up you can't, It's hard to tell.

- [Annette] Well, let me ask you a question because there are some bulbs when you lift them out of the ground, what is left?

Do you cut off all of the dying stem that will get mushy?

- [Charlsie] I don't do that immediately.

You can easily pull it off once it's dried out.

- Okay.

- And sometimes I cut 'em and put 'em in vases after I've pulled 'em out the ground for arrangements.

And that's what I have here is.

- Oh yeah.

- You can always cut any of your caladiums and put them in water.

If you wanna give it to someone, do it 24 hours ahead.

- Cause you have to condition them.

- Same day is not good.

Sometimes they kind of wilt, but then they'll come back.

These I tried putting in water and they're too big and they didn't work well.

But the Miss Muffets did great putting them in water.

- [Annette] Well, you know, I appreciate the time here.

And even though it's muggy, they love it.

- [Charlsie] Makes them happy.

- [Annette] It does make them happy.

But most of all the lushness that, they produce a serenity and calmness, the caladium does in our gardens, I think at all time.

- [Charlsie] And I think they're just beautiful.

My mother loved Caladiums and that's what led me.

I've been doing, planting caladiums, enjoying them for 30 something years.

- [Annette] Yeah, you're doing the right them.

- [Charlsie] It's just a pleasure.

- [Annette] And you had a good year and I'm glad I'm here to see the fruits of your labor and thank you.

It was very beautiful.

- [Charlsie] Thank you.

(upbeat music) - [Host] For inspiring garden tours, growing tips and garden projects.

Visit our website at volunteergardener.org or on YouTube at the VolunteerGardener channel and like us on Facebook.

(upbeat music)