Well Charles, you've really brought in some unique plants here, and I know plants are such an important and integral part of health, be it for the forest, but also for us, so, you know, tell us about these.

>>Sure, well, I think it's wonderful.

We have in Virginia over 2,400 native plants.

>>Oh wow.

>>And you've got a native plant for every occasion, essentially.

>>(laughing) Yes.

>>So these are in the mint family, and I think the key to kinda emphasize is that you've got great variety.

You've got this bristly hedgenettle that is unique, and it can get big, and fill in a space, The humble wild basil, which is just a simple plant, but can bring in a lot of insects to it.

And then this one is one of your champions of late summer.

It's one of your mountain mints, pycnanthemum.

>>Oh yes.

>>And they're incredible for bringing, and they bloom for about two months.

>>They're like pollinator magnets.

>>Yeah, so really getting to know your mints, and it's an opportunity not only to improve your health, or your gardening, but also to bring that wildlife in, which greatly improves your own experience.

>>Yes, yes.

>>And then of course we've got one of our big biggest families, which are the composites, and they- >>Which are the daisy-type plants.

>>Exactly.

>>It's the best way to describe them.

>>Yeah, disc flowers usually, and ray flowers.

And you've got asters, which can grow in many situations.

This one can grow in drier soils and woodlands.

You've got ones that will grow on outcrop slopes, like this one is a rattlesnake plantain, or rattlesnake weed, and then other asters from the woodlands.

>>Right.

>>This one I think is particularly interesting.

This is blue-stemmed aster, I mean, excuse me, goldenrod.

And it grows in the woodlands, and it's tough as nails.

>>You know, I've grown that in my garden, and I've given it too much sun.

>>Yes.

>>And I've got em, you know, I've tried it again and I've put it into more shade, and it's done great with good success.

And I think everybody needs to realize, a lot of these aren't full sun plants, that they're dapple shade, part shade.

So that shade gardener's going, "Yay, they're giving me plants I can grow."

(laughing) >>Absolutely, and almost everything on this particular is table right now is shade tolerant, and actually prefer shade.

>>And the other thing is people think asters, they think fall.

>>Yeah, but we also have those big showy ones like, the black-eyed Susans, which- >>Ah, here's a beautiful composite, yes.

>>And everybody enjoys a black-eyed Susan.

So they're just a wonderful species.

Of course, the yellow here, and there's a number of these particular ones, the rudbeckias, they're really incredible plants.

And then we have, along with it, of course, we have one of our rose family members, a blackberry.

And of course wonderful food and flower.

And of course we have along with it, kinda the humble strawberry.

So our fragaria, which is the same species that all the commercial strawberries are grown from.

But this one I pulled out of the edge of my wood line, and I stuck it in the garden, and it exploded.

There's hundreds of 'em now.

>>Yes, and you know, the berries are a little bit more seeded, but they're still tasty.

>>Oh, they're very, yeah, very much so.

>>Very, very tasty.

>>Yeah.

>>And I don't know, I'm a person walking through the woods growing up, you know, blackberries and raspberries were our lunch sometimes, 'cause we didn't wanna go home.

>>Yes.

>>And just to sustain us- >>I've been there too.

>>You know?

(laughing) >>Absolutely.

>>Yeah, but you've got this purple leaf giant here?

>>Yes, so it is, the species is our native red bud, cercis canadensis, but unfortunately this is a cultivar that has a leaf color change.

>>Yes, yes.

>>Which means that native insects can't eat it.

So it's problematic from a a wildlife perspective.

>>They get confused.

>>Yeah, absolutely.

>>You know, we've got all these cultivars that are out into our nurseries, and you know, trying to take our native plants, and you know, change them slightly to make 'em a little more ornamental, trying to appeal 'em to the masses.

And they're finding through research that actually changing the color of the leaf confuses our native pollinators.

So this is a perfect example where, you know, you're trying to do a good deed, but it doesn't hit the mark all the way.

>>Right, so ecologically for, you know, for wildlife, it's not good to have that.

But also that means it could be diminished benefits for humans, just because you're not gonna have those species coming into your yard as a result of that.

And some of the other species we brought in here include, in this case I wanted to talk a little bit about good old oaks.

Our oaks are so important, they're the backbone of most eastern forests.

The insects eat those leaves.

They're critical for a central part of raising bird young, for caterpillars.

But these two particular were actually planted by blue jays.

>>Oh, really?

>>So the number one disperser of oak trees are blue jays.

>>Really?

>>Yeah, small seeded.

And then this other is actually quite interesting.

These were native persimmon, and these were actually, I harvested the seeds out of coyotes scat.

>>(laughing) Oh, fun.

>>And coyotes are a disperser of persimmons.

And it blessed me in my side yard with giving me some scat.

And as a result, I've got my own persimmons, which I'll grow and eat later on, eat it myself.

>>Well, I was gonna say, he's got very good taste for those persimmons (laughing).

>>Yeah, absolutely.

>>Well, we don't think about, you know, how seeds are dispersed, and we need to recognize that it's not just the wind blowing things around.

>>Yes, gut scarification.

>>Yes, scarification, in addition to stratification.

>>Yeah.

>>Well let's talk about two woody plants.

We've got just a minute left.

>>Okay, so cornus amomums, we're familiar with our flowering dogwood.

And the flowering dogwood has a cousin, another cornus species, this is found throughout most of Virginia.

This is silky dogwood.

And its flower is white, although they're very small, there's a whole bunch of 'em in a disc.

And it's a wonderful plant.

It prefers wet areas, but also grow in dryer soils.

It can grow in almost full shade, but also grow in full sun.

Extremely versatile and tough.

And it's cainy, you can cut it and it'll actually do fine.

>>This is a workhouse of the garden.

>>It is, and then right next to it are two others, in this one pot, we've got two of our native viburnums, dentatum, which is southern arrowwood.

So dentate leaves, like teeth.

And then the other is maple leaf viburnum.

And I do wanna emphasize that, you know, we have a tremendous number of non-native species that can be problematic.

There are a lot of invasive ornamental viburnums.

So I really encourage folks, these are wonderful natives that can fill your garden space, give you great benefit, and provide great wildlife benefits.

>>Yeah, well I think, Charles, that you've shown us some really good diversity here, and plants that we're really not familiar with.

And I thank you so much for coming in and sharing them with us.

>>Absolutely.