- I'm Madeline Hooper.

I've been gardening for over 20 years.

And of course, with gardening comes a lot of aches and pains.

So I finally decided that maybe I should find a fitness trainer to see if I could fix my problems.

And a fellow gardener introduced me to Jeff Hughes.

After working with Jeff, it dawned on me what would be more exciting than to travel all over America, visiting a wide variety of gardens and helping their gardeners get "GardenFit".

Taking care of your body while taking care of your garden, that's our mission.

- Madeline, this is our first episode.

We're doing it.

We're finally doing "GardenFit".

- I can't believe it, really.

Our dream is coming to life today.

- Remember when we first started talking about that?

- I do.

And now we're going to be visiting 13 different gardens all over the United States.

I think that we're going to see almost every style and type of garden you can, from all kinds of specialty vegetable gardens to Japanese gardens, desert gardens, wonderful English-style gardens.

We're going to visit a native American heritage garden.

We're going to gardens in the New England region.

We're going to California.

We're going to go to Colorado, Michigan, Texas, Virginia.

We're going to Miami.

And we're going to actually learn from these guest gardeners their visions and why they created their gardens.

I think each one of them are gonna be really special and unique, but they're going to have one thing in common, - What?

- They need to get "GardenFit".

- Oh, everybody's got an ache and pain.

So I've got a job.

- Yeah, everybody wants you to come.

- All right.

This is going to be a real adventure.

- Big adventure for us.

- [Jeff] All right.

Well, we're starting today.

So where's the adventure begin here?

- So today, we're going to picturesque Pennsylvania.

- So who are we going to see today in Pennsylvania?

- Well, actually, we're going to Eden.

- Wicked.

[Madeline laughing] We're a little over dressed for that one.

- If we were going to that garden, we would be definitely overdressed, but today, we're going to a different Eden, another Eden.

And this is a garden that my friend Renny Reynolds created called "Hortulus Farm".

- Madeline, I've been your friend for a couple of years now.

There's a Renny that you talk about all the time, that you've traveled all over with, the Renny that drives up and brings you plants all the time in his car and stuff.

- Exactly.

That Renny.

When he comes, you can't find him in the car 'cause he's with so many plants, so and he's really very, very generous.

And I've had the pleasure of traveling all over the world to see gardens with Renny.

And what's exciting is that he's a landscape architect.

So seeing all these gardens through his eyes is really not only educational, but so much fun.

And besides Hortulus Farm being such a famous garden, Renny is really famous for the parties that he created in New York City.

He was an event planner, really famous things for fashion designers, for society weddings.

And he was really instrumental in putting Studio 54 on the map.

- That was a cool place.

- That was a cool place.

Kind of a really exciting environment.

And he's the one that let thousands of balloons fall out of the sky inside.

So everything about Renny is kind of large-scale.

You're going to love seeing the excitement that he brings to gardening.

- That sounds fun.

Well, hey, we're almost there.

- [Madeline] We are.

- [Jeff] I can't wait to meet him already.

[cheerful upbeat music] - I'm so happy you finally get to meet Renny.

- I am too.

- [Madeline] Renny.

- Madeline!

- How are you?

- Hello darling.

Good to see you.

Hey Jeff.

- Hey Renny.

- How are you?

- Heard so much about you.

- Good to see you.

Come in, come in.

- [Jeff And Madeline] Thank you.

- Wow.

Pretty cool, huh?

- Well, I wanted you to come into the library first, before we visit the gardens, because I wanted you to see what really helped to create the inspiration for doing 24 gardens on the 100 acres here.

I've been collecting these books for 42 years and there are lots of books on English garden design.

- [Madeline] Well, that's what I wanted is to just say for a moment because Jeff is the most enthusiastic trainer I've ever met.

And Renny is the most enthusiastic gardener I have never met, but I think Jeff really is great at transforming people.

And you're an amazing transformer of everybody's gardens, including your own.

So what was your inspiration?

How did you get started?

- Well, happily, I have a degree in landscape architecture.

When I was eight years old, I was apparently a brat and my next door neighbor showed me how to propagate plants by cutting one plant to create a new one.

And I was mesmerized.

I thought this is the coolest thing.

That led to a lifelong passion for horticulture and gardens.

So without further ado, shall we see these gardens?

- I've heard much about it.

I can't wait to see it.

- Terrific!

- Yes!

This is the vegetable garden.

- [Jeff] That's what you said we were going to go to, but it doesn't quite look like a vegetable garden.

- There's an old friend of ours, Rosemary Verey, very famous English garden designer.

She actually designed gardens for Prince Charles' high grove.

She, along with my late partner, Jack designed this garden, he was very into vegetables.

We would eat out of the garden every summer and still do.

She believed that your vegetable garden could be every bit as beautiful as any other part of your garden.

She also called her vegetable garden, the French word "potager" for a vegetable garden.

So this is our "potager".

And you can see by the boxwood topiaries and this wonderful structure here, - [Madeline] This is fabulous.

- but it all goes to making it another really functional place to be.

And Jack designed it with all of these beds, but he learned a lot from Rosemary as he was doing it.

We have two layers here, of the timbers, but the idea was to keep going and keep adding layer upon layer so that as you get older, you can reach in, you add more compost every year as you've added the layers of wood and you don't have to reach as far into the garden - [Madeline] Bend over.

- to get the produce.

- That is probably one of the best tips I've ever heard of.

- [Renny] When you think of garden design, you're thinking of the different layers of the garden and it's not unlike interior design, where you have, okay, what is your floor made of, their baseboards in the architecture, what's the next level?

Is it a chair?

Is it a sofa?

Is it.. And garden design is the same.

- [Madeline] What I think it's so unique here are these structures.

So I mean, the combination of having a center point like this, a focal point, with a beautiful urn and a wonderful pedestal under this pergola, which literally, so what did the trees running- - [Renny] There are [indistinct] that have been trained over a number of years to follow the structure here.

- And you have a moment of shade because most of the vegetables need sun.

I've never seen a box with a topiary boxwood in the middle of a vegetable garden and it's wonderful.

- [Renny] Well, you have to go to Rosemary's garden.

- [Madeline] I do, I'd love to.

- [Renny] And probably Prince Charles' as well.

- I think it's fantastic.

Should we move on?

- Absolutely.

- And see some more gardens?

- To another garden.

Well, this garden, the concept of this came to us from finding this wonderful Eiffel Tower outside of an antique shop in England.

Because at the time, I was doing events in New York and one of the manually was the April in Paris Ball for the American French Foundation.

I thought this guy's going to think I'm a crazy American when I walk in and ask him if he can ship it to the US.

Well, just the opposite.

How fast would you like it there?

[Renny and Madeline laughing] Afterwards, it came out here to rest.

We sometimes have clematis growing on it as well, but I really do like the structure of it.

Of course, it had to have a French garden at the base of it.

- You know, we have a new word for Jeff, "Parterre".

- [Jeff] Parterre.

- Exactly.

Parterres were part of French gardens in the time of the Louise and a parterre is a bed that's created with specific form and design to it.

So basically, it's best looked at from, say, a drone or something from up above.

So you're looking down at the design of the garden and the English revolted against that and did much more natural gardening.

And that's one of the basic differences between the two.

And this garden, when it's in flower has red lobelia, blue ajuga, various other blue flowers.

So it's red, white, and blue for the colors of the French.

- [Jeff] Ah, very nice.

- [Madeline] Love this garden.

- Shall we visit another?

- Yes, definitely.

- So Renny, why did you put in these long perennial borders?

- Every English garden, sort of the centerpiece or the main part of it is usually the perennial borders.

I really like having the soft, romantic colors of lavender, pink, gray, and white.

So it's nothing really jarring.

It's just very soft colors.

These roses are fantastic, you know.

They're called landscape roses now, and you can find them in pretty much every garden center.

They literally bloom all summer long, which is fantastic.

- That is fantastic.

- And this spirea over here, the bees are loving that spirea.

- I've see that the whole way down, the bees are everywhere.

- Pollinating plants are fantastic.

Well, I've been meaning to move this begonia and haven't so- - [Madeline] Now's your moment.

- Well, exactly.

[Renny grunting] - Renny.

- Yeah?

- Put that down.

Did you hear yourself go, you heard it, right?

- I did.

- So that's pretty heavy and it's really tall.

- It's gorgeous.

- It's gorgeous, it's gorgeous.

I just watched you attack that with your feet together and you had to lean over and it just made your whole body have to do so much extra bracing.

A really much easier way to pick something up, especially when it's in your way, get up really close on it and spread your feet wide, get really close and edge in.

And instead of leaning over it, just, your feet are wide, it makes it, you're already down because you're already closer because your feet are wider.

Grab it.

You can tilt it a little bit, but then pull it to you.

- Okay.

- And pull it to your hips.

So get it up here and make it part of you.

Don't let it be something that's not a part of you, make it part of you.

And now the ground's holding it up with you.

- Okay.

- [Madeline] You look better doing it- - [Jeff] The wider your feet- - [Renny] Well, of course he's right.

It feels better.

- [Madeline] Of course, you're right.

- Yeah.

- Oh, that looked great, Renny.

- Yeah.

- Much better.

- That made a huge difference.

- Huge difference.

- So just to clarify something, there is no right or wrong.

There's just consequences to doing things different ways.

- Got it.

- I'm not right.

It's just logical.

[Renny laughs] - He's right.

- So let's see more border.

[lighthearted guitar music] - So Jeff, this is my favorite garden of all the 24 gardens that Renny has here.

- Well, you're so nice, Madeline.

- Oh, I love this space, it's joyous.

- Well, this started off, it was all a large sloping hill side.

And we wanted to create a space for the local community to have not-for-profit events, which we've done.

We've had several a year since we started.

And that's the reason this is such a large round space.

We cut here, we filled over there and created a 45-foot diameter round swimming pool.

- I think that's a perfect example of having no boundaries.

Renny just creates drama.

This is just so dramatic and so beautiful.

- I saw that walking up, this bush from a distance that just looked like part of the garden.

And as I get closer, I realize it's much taller than I am.

- Another thing the Brits have to teach us is the importance of foliage color, which I cannot emphasize enough because yes, we have these lovely flowers in bloom for a month, six weeks max, and then you have green, but with foliage color, it lasts throughout the season.

This was even stronger Oxblood color when it first came out and it'll sort of green up as we go along to the season, but it still stays that purple-y color.

And you look at the way it relates the aesculus part of a flora and bloom on the right.

- [Madeline] It's beautiful - [Renny] It's really fun.

- [Madeline] And the way they're balanced.

- [Renny] I'm big on symmetry and in nature, it's very hard to keep that going because one plant will grow faster than the other or it'll die.

You know, it's actually easier to get a great effect in a garden on a hillside.

- [Madeline] And the yellow, the Coreopsis here, coming up, it just kind of waved to you to come on up.

I love it.

- [Renny] It's good to have it out here when the pool, you know, is open and we're enjoying the pool.

- That's great.

Now hold on just a second.

The way you're going up the hill is kind of trudging.

It's very intuitive for the body to lean over to go places, but that's actually stumble-walking, your thought, you're stumbling, you're falling on your foot and then going uphill, you're actually like bearing yourself down while you're trying to go up, which are opposites.

So you've been talking about a lot of structure here.

So if you hold your structure and just put your foot down, instead of leaning your upper body weight in, bring your hip in, over your foot.

Every time you put your foot down, just bring your hip and hold your structure on the way up.

And you're actually going up with your body while you're going up the hill.

- Ah.

- Doesn't that feel good?

- That's great.

- [Jeff] You kinda float.

Renny, this has been a really great tour of Hortulus Farm.

- [Renny] Well, thank you.

- The idea of structure and size and everything is really kind of struck me the way you've done things and I'm going to try to relate it to some of the fitness part of "GardenFit" with you.

- Great.

- So first of all, I just want to ask you, you know, what kind of aches and pains do you deal with on a daily basis?

- Oh, yeah.

Well, my knee does hurt occasionally.

[laughs] - Let's talk about the knee for a minute.

Now we did a couple of fixes while we were walking through the garden and both of those, you were putting a lot of undue stress on your knee.

So I brought a little something here to help you understand what the knee's job is and why sometimes you can make it hurt.

So a couple little dumbbells.

This was going to represent your thigh or your femur.

- Okay.

- And this was going to represent your shin.

- Yep.

- All right and then they come together, just like that.

And that's actually what the knee is.

It's just a bone on top of a bone.

And they have a little thing called cartilage in between, like that.

Take your left hand there and just lightly wrap it around.

Wrap your fingers around the knee part right there.

- The knee part?

- Yeah.

Now, just lightly, all you're going to do is just hold those two together lightly.

They still need to be able to move, okay?

Now, if it was to start to do anything other than stay on top of one another, your fingers wouldn't be able to hold it.

- Right.

- Right, okay.

So that's kind of what ligaments do.

They're there to just hold it in place, not to hold weight, but to just hold it in place.

So when you actually bend a little too far and the pressure is not coming down, but it's going off, it wants to slide off.

And that's where people tear their meniscus.

You're just stretching those ligaments.

That's probably why your knee bothers you a lot.

And it's because you're constantly keeping them stretched out.

So if you take a little time and pay attention to not putting them in that position, they will come back to a good tight brace and your knee won't hurt.

Are there any other places that bother you occasionally?

- My shoulder, it's sort of in here.

You know, after spending a day in the garden or.. - Okay.

So show me like with your body or.. - Well, you know, you sort of do this and... - Okay.

One-handed.

- One-handed.

I'm right-handed so yeah, like right then, it sorta hurt when I did that.

- Okay.

Again, what you have here is bone coming up, your upper arm bone, and then your shoulder comes out to here.

It's just two bones right here.

And there's a bursa sac there that's designed to cushion when they come together.

If you dig into it and you're pushing that in, and then you're rotating it, it's kind of like if I took my finger and just rubbed it against your hand like this, right?

Okay.

It's annoying.

If I did this for about an hour, it would start to hurt.

- Right.

- If I did this for four weeks, we probably have a hole in your hand and be bleeding.

You have so much to.. - It's a lot to prune here.

- To prune, yeah.

We're certainly not going to stop you from pruning.

- My joy in the garden.

- It's your joy in the garden, yeah.

So what we need to do is just find a way for you to do all that pruning without so much of that repetitive irritation on that bursa area.

So let me observe you doing your pruning and we'll develop a fix from that.

- Terrific.

That sounds great.

- Okay.

Well- - Let's grab the shears and do it.

- [Jeff] All right.

[shears whirring] - You see, it's really, it hurts my shoulder, Jeff.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

So I get what you explained to me and now that see it, I've got the fix.

You wanna give that to Madeline?

So when your shoulder is forward, you're closing that gap, like we spoke about earlier, and then you're moving around in that socket with that gap closed.

And you're just squeezing and irritating the bursa sac.

So the idea would be to not squeeze that, to put some space in there and open that gap up.

So what I want you to do, take your arms, drop them down.

Now slowly raise them up and keep your face back and fill your lungs, keep them full, out wide all the way down.

Keep them full.

All the way back up, down in front, put your face back, way back here.

Don't exhale yet.

Now drop your shoulders.

[both exhale deeply] Now feel how your shoulders are down and your chest is out.

Feel that posture.

Okay.

All right.

Now hold your arm out.

- I can tell the breathing even being sort of a- - The breathing actually helps stretch some of this muscle that's tight.

Now hold your arm out and you're going to feel the weight of mine.

Arms weigh about 10 to 12 pounds.

You add the weight of that, and you've got about 20 pounds hanging out here.

- Right.

- You need, just like a scale, you need to put about 25 pounds here.

So it can balance that out.

So instead of doing it from here, drop those shoulder blades down where he just felt that exercise and it holds that up.

So now take your shears.

And if you need to get in there, move your foot in, bring your knee out underneath you, but keep this open and go ahead and do this.

[shears whirring] And just keep that balance of the weight there.

You can reach it all the way out if you want, just keep the balance here.

Yeah, now try, just hold the weight of it out.

Feel that weight.

Now, counter it right here.

Now without turning it on, just, you know, just feel how you can move.

- Right.

- And you're gonna move from here, not from your shoulder socket, but your body can rotate with that.

That's going to keep the pressure off of that and make that not hurt so bad.

So I'm gonna take this and free up your right hand.

Where's Madeline?

- I'm right here.

- You ready?

- Ready.

All right, so ready?

- Hello.

- Hello.

[Renny laughing] - We have- - We have a need now.

- We have a need.

Yes.

It's the "GardenFit" need.

Your knee was bothering you.

And I gave you a couple of tips on what you can do to stop irritating it so it will feel better.

And then same thing here, even though it was pretty instant fix, it will completely go away if you pay attention to not causing it.

We're coming back in four weeks.

And I want you to promise me that you will incorporate these little tips I gave you into your lifestyle.

- Absolutely.

That's a promise.

- All right, we got it then.

- He'll do it.

I trust him.

- Thank you.

- All right.

- It's been fun.

- It's been real fun, yeah.

- I look forward to four weeks and being a whole new me.

- [Jeff] Yes!

[everybody laughing] [upbeat music] - [Jeff] Madeline, I remember when you first came in to see me and your main objective was to alleviate all your aches and pains from all your gardening.

- Definitely.

And you did teach me how to take care of my body while I was gardening.

And I think it was your common sense approach because everything you told me I was able to really do.

And then there was this bonus.

Not only did I stop stressing my body, but I got stronger, I did and I enjoyed my gardening even more.

And I really enjoyed the exercises and fixes you showed Renny about making sure that he took care of his body while he was pruning and also while he was lifting heavy objects and you showed me.. - Oh, the trug.

- My trug, then if I keep my feet apart, I'm really closer to the ground.

I just lift up something that's heavy and bring it to my hips.

- Yeah, it's all about the hips.

They're the muscle central, most muscle dense part of the body.

And it's the same idea of how I told Renny how to go up the hill.

Instead of leaning over and bending his knees and making his knees hurt, his legs tired, stand up straight and tall.

Bring your hips in and walk right up the hill.

- I remember that.

- Yeah.

So, you know, you were talking about things that wear people out in the garden.

So is there something else that you can think of that wears people out in the garden?

- Absolutely.

Getting up and down from the ground all the time.

- Up and down.

Well, you know, I have a fix for that.

I've taught you the fix for that.

Children taught me how to stop doing this because children's spin and go.

But somewhere along the line, adults start thinking the way to come up is to put one foot out front.

Put all your weight right here and push and then bring this foot up really quick.

And that's how they get up.

And that works to a certain extent, yeah.

But what if you're tired?

What if you've been working on the ground?

Your legs aren't really ready to move quick.

And what if your foot doesn't make it, right?

- [Madeline] Almost scary.

- You're going to end up flat on your face.

- Back on the ground.

- So the idea is what's the goal when you're on the ground?

To be up.

And when you're up, what are you doing?

- Two feet.

- Exactly.

So when you're down, look, you're on two feet.

Why would you want to go to one?

Why not just spin around?

You're on two feet.

You're halfway home.

- Yeah and that's what you taught me.

So we start in the armchair position, put one hand down and you rotate to the ground.

- And that's how you get down.

And your knee loved that, it was a soft landing on your knee.

- So the I put my hand back down again, and rotate back to the armchair, I'm up.

- You're half way there and you're up.

Yeah, yeah.

Some people are not going to have the same flexibility you have or even the strength way down there.

So to start building the strength, you can turn this into kind of an exercise.

I'm just going to put these blocks where your hand and your knee were.

Go into your arm chair and you have a block for your hand and a block for your knee.

And you got there a little quicker, right?

- [Madeline] Yes.

- So a way to turn this into an exercise, to strengthen it is to just do a touch and go.

So you've got your hand there, touch and go, back to the armchair and touch and go.

And you can do four or five of those and then come on up.

- Good exercise.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

[lighthearted guitar music] - [Madeline] Here's Renny.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- Oh, my goodness.

He looks so different.

- Welcome.

Welcome.

- [Madeline] It's so nice to be back.

- [Renny] Welcome to Hortulus.

- Great to see you.

- Oh, you know what?

Here we go.

- Good to see you.

- Look at you.

- The new me.

- [Jeff] Yes!

[everybody laughing] Your knee brace is- - [Renny] Gone.

- [Jeff] Gone.

- My knee doesn't hurt, my shoulder doesn't hurt.

And I really love having the new posture.

- Isn't that great?

- Yeah.

It feels good.

- You really feel the difference?

- I really feel the difference.

I'm just thrilled.

I can't thank you enough.

- You're welcome.

- So tell us what's new in your garden?

- Hydrangeas are in bloom at the moment.

- [Madeline] They're lovely.

- [Jeff] Previously, we had the viburnum in bloom.

So everything's different every four weeks.

- Isn't that amazing?

He's different in four weeks and the garden's different in four weeks.

Let's go celebrate.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Come to the terrace for celebration.

Well, I feel so lucky to have this celebration with you all, for what you've done for me.

Part of what happens between gardeners and apparently, now fitness people as well, is sharing.

Gardeners like to share what they have, this exciting new plant.

The world of gardening is such a fabulous place.

- I see your corelation.

- So lucky to be sharing things with each other.

- So I'm going to just put this out there, the fitness tips that you got that worked for you, treat them like plants that you give your friends, share those, pass them on.

There's very common ailments that you get from gardening and you've got some fixes to share with your plants now.

- Absolutely.

- That'd be great, yeah.

- I think the biggest present is sharing Hortulus Farm with us because it's been just a joy to be here, Renny.

- Such a pleasure - Thank you - It's gorgeous here.

- Get your thinking, see the wonderful gardens that you've created, actually just smell how delicious everything is, it's really a treat.

- It's been 42 years of hard labor.

- [Madeline] It has.

[everybody laughing] But it paid off.

- But I love it.

- [Madeline] Yeah.

So Jeff and I always liked to say, it's all about how to- - How to maintain your body, while you maintain your garden.

- [Renny] Perfect.

Absolutely.

- And then you enjoy it more.

- Absolutely, I will.

Thank you.

- [Jeff] You're welcome.

[upbeat energetic music]