- Howdy, I'm John Hart Asher.

This week on Central Texas Gardener, see why pond gardening makes such a splash.

Nancy Hall turned a standard backyard into a colorful wildlife haven.

Steve Kainer, from Hill Country Water Gardens and Nursery, adds texture and color to ponds and bogs.

Blackshear Elementary student Adler Asher demonstrates a prairie biome model, and Colleen Dieter banks on the future by saving seeds.

So, let's get growing, right here, right now.

- [Announcer] Central Texas Gardener is made possible by the generous support from Lisa and Desi Rhoden.

Thank you.

(bright music) (bright music) - When Nancy Hall bought her house in 1985, the heavy clay soil hosted a lawn and a stark chain link fence.

As a new gardener, the plants, both adapted and native, taught her their ways.

Gradually, she layered foliage and flowers, accented with artwork from local artists.

Then she added a small pond and inviting patio to watch all the wildlife that come to visit.

- I've always loved gardening.

I bought the house in 1985, and I was so excited because first thing I wanted to do was to get out in the yard and start digging in the dirt.

(chuckling) I never get tired of...

I love the feel of the dirt in my hands.

When I got here, the house was a wreck, and there were no flower beds at all.

It was just some grass and stuff.

Over the years it's developed and changed, like the beds in the back, that big perennial bed I have, well, the first third of it, I was out there digging one day, and at the time, there was just a little metal fence.

We didn't have the privacy fence, and there was an elderly couple that lived back there, and the man had retired, but he liked to work outdoors, and so he saw me digging and he went, "Nancy, I love to work outdoors.

"Can I help you?"

So he came over the fence and started digging up a whole bunch of the the land for me.

There was a teenage boy who lived across the street, and he was always anxious to earn some money, so he came over and helped me dig.

Someone from University of Texas, where I worked for a long time, a student, who was trying to earn money, so she helped me dig up third section.

(laughing) It was that Blackland Prairie, which is clay, has a whole lot of clay in it, and when I would get wet, you could almost mold it, so over the years, I just slowly added more and more compost.

However, there are some plants that will grow in that Blackland Prairie stuff and you don't have to do anything to.

And I've never amended the soil.

If you get the right type of plant, you don't have to amend the soil.

But I did, for the most part, the big perennial bed, I have amended over the years with a whole lot of compost, 'cause it does keep that soil real loose, and because, you know, it would rain and get all soggy, and some of the plants weren't very happy.

Lavender, I have tried and tried to grow lavender.

I've made special beds, I've done the whole thing, can't grow lavender.

(laughing) But I try to stick to native plants or plants that are adapted to this area.

That always helps.

My mother was a big gardener.

She loved to garden.

In fact, when she'd come visit me, she'd be outside working in my yard.

And I lived in a small town that had farms right next to me, 'cause we lived on a dead end.

And at the other end of the block there was a big farm.

I think that probably inspired me.

And one of the farms had a pecan grove and every spring this giant field of daffodils, it was so pretty.

So with all that, I got my house, I went, "Oh, yay, I get to go out and dig in the dirt.

"How fun!"

Well, the first thing I built was the sidewalk along the house, and it goes to my shed.

There was a path, and it was mud, and it was a mess.

And so I had some people in Georgetown, a landscape company, and they came out and did all of this, and they had a mason who was wonderful, did great work.

Fairly recently I had them do a patio, which was a blessing.

Looks real pretty, too.

And then I got this table to go on the patio.

And then just recently I had the sidewalk from here on the west side of my house, I just recently had that done, too.

I mean, just piecing this together is a work of art, getting it to look really nice.

And you know, it's funny, when I planted the plants, I didn't really, I just went out there and planted them.

I mean, I tried to kind of put the taller plants at the back and the lower plants, of course, at the front.

But I didn't really have any plan.

I just kind of planted stuff.

And then if it did really well, great.

If it didn't, I would either move it, 'cause I have a rosebush I moved three times before I found the perfect spot for it, or I would just go, well, this plant's not gonna work, so I'm gonna try something else.

We have to kind of find the right spot for your plants.

Nurseries now are having more native plants and more, well, it says adapted.

I have more butterflies.

I have a lot of hummingbirds.

Bees love my yard.

And they love my pond.

I had a friend that moved down, a young man, he moved down from New Jersey.

He moved down here 'cause his cousin was here, and he needed a place to live.

And so I had an extra bedroom and bath and I said, "Well, you can live here, you know, "until you find some place to live, an apartment."

And I wasn't charging any rent.

So, one day he just said, "Nancy, you need a pond."

He was interested in landscaping and had made a pond for his mother.

I think that was the only pond he had done.

And so he just got out there one day with the shovel and just started digging.

(laughing) Digging and making platforms.

He loved landscaping, and while he was here he went to ACC and took a couple landscaping courses.

My pond is very popular with the squirrels and the birds, and all kinds of animals I see in that pond.

They love the water.

And in my fountain, too.

And the birds are in the water.

The squirrels.

I see everyone.

Everyone drinks out of those.

So that's nice for the wildlife.

And I have frogs.

Once a year I have frogs that make out in that pond and make a lot of noise at night.

They have their big party at nighttime and croak and croak and croak.

And at first it bothered me.

And then I just went, okay, Nancy, just kinda let the frog sing you to sleep.

So it's, you know, I don't even notice it anymore.

(laughing) But I love the sound of the water.

Any garden or pond or anything is gonna take a lotta work.

But it's something I love to do.

And I'm retired now, so I've got time to do it.

I worked in the nursing school in the Learning Resource Center as a librarian, a media librarian.

So I worked there for 35 years.

I guess the main thing is that I love to intersperse artwork into my garden.

I think that's an important component.

Over the years, I've collected art from a lot of artists from Austin, just from all around.

I like artwork anyway.

I always go on art tours and art museums, and so I just think that kinda adds to the the flavor of my garden area.

Kinda makes it a little bit unique, I think.

It's not just plants, it's plants and artwork.

And sometimes it's hard to find artwork that will go outside.

But I've found quite a bit over the years.

The baby bears came from a woman named Cat Quintanilla, who has a studio in South Austin.

I love the little bears with the turquoise eyes.

And so then I had commissioned the fish.

I've got fish by the same lady that are by the pond.

So Gardener Girl is a replica of a woman named Sylvia White Judson, who was a famous sculptor, and whose work is in the White House Gardens, in Jackie Kennedy's garden.

I also have a lot of mosaic in the garden.

I've got mosaic stones and two mosaic benches, and one of them was done was done by a lady in Bertram.

I guess I've always been into art, because my father was really big into art museums.

Wherever we went, we would go to the art museum.

And so I've always liked art.

I have a lot of art in my house.

I just think it's kinda like an art museum.

It's a plant museum with art everywhere.

(laughing) That's just one of my big themes.

I'm always looking for something else that I can put up that would be art that goes outside.

Yeah, yeah.

- Nancy's garden is one of many that you can visit on this year's Austin Pond Society Tour.

Right now, I'm excited to be joined by Steve Kainer from Hill Country Water Gardens and Nursery, one of the folks who really made pond gardening a splash in Central Texas.

Steve, how are you doin'?

- I'm fantastic.

Happy to be here.

- Wonderful.

I'm so happy you're here, 'cause I wanna talk about that, 'cause, you know, what is a water garden?

What are we talkin' about?

Are we talkin' about we need acreage to put in a big- - Man, it could be anything from the smallest bowl that'll hold a goldfish and a plant- - Okay.

- [Steve] To, yeah, of course, acres.

- When did y'all first get started doing some of the garden design?

- Wow, you know, this is our 25th spring.

So, do that math 20... (laughing) I guess our first spring was 2000.

- I'm lookin' at this beautiful lily over here.

What plant is this?

- [Steve] That is actually a new cultivar.

It's called Sangria.

- Okay.

- I think the bloom kind of explains that.

- Yeah.

- It's it's really cool.

It's actually a hybrid.

It's a tropical hardy water lily hybrid.

And it is a true, true hardy water lily.

It actually overwintered the last two winters in one of our big formal ponds.

And it's pretty stunning.

- That's beautiful.

And what about in front of that?

I think there's a juncus there?

- There is, yeah, that's a Blue Dart.

I love it.

Yeah, it's pretty simple.

Kinda what you see is what you get.

But really, I think I love how it gives structure, structure to the pond.

You can put that in a sizable pot, it'll get really, really big, really full.

- Okay, and for the lily and the juncus, too, and each of these, is there any specific care that you really need to do for these or- - You know, yeah, that's a great question.

The juncus, no.

- Okay.

- Very little, hardly anything.

The water lily, it takes, the most important thing people could do for it is fertilize it.

There's a actual tab that we use to fertilize once a month.

- Oh, okay.

- Water lilies are heavy feeders.

They love to eat.

And if you will fertilize your water lily, especially from now until 1st of October, you'll get bigger blooms, more blooms, better hue to the flower.

- Okay.

- Super important.

- And do you need to thin any of those out at all or?

- Absolutely, once a year you're gonna re-pot.

- Once a year.

Okay.

- You're gonna pull, we call 'em pups.

They're gonna have a bunch of little tubers that come off the rhizome.

- Right.

- And you pop those off.

Replant, put new soil.

The soil becomes fairly anaerobic over a year.

So, yeah, it needs all those things.

- Okay, and what about these two right here?

I see we've got a larger- - Yeah, I brought a couple tarots, colocasias, whatever you wanna call 'em.

The one on the bottom, Elena, that's a new cultivar that came out about two or three years ago.

It looks a lot like that tarot that you see in Town Lake.

- Right.

- Places that, but- - Right.

- This one's super cool.

It is not a runner.

- Okay.

- It's a clumper.

- Okay.

- It keeps that kind of marbling, mottling to the leaf there.

- Okay.

- It's really pretty.

And then this one, a friend of mine gave me this, a couple years ago, and I've been playing with it.

It's called Aloha.

It is from Hawaii.

It has that really cool metallic sheen to the leaf and then with the green stem.

Really fun plant.

- I think they're also known as elephant ears.

They're worried about these- - Sure.

- Being invasive.

This is one that is not.

- Yeah, they've done a great job of, you know, the clumper, certainly no more invasive than any other.

- Okay.

- Yeah, you know, I tell people, all these aquatics are made for your pond.

- Right.

- You know, there are certain ones, the natives that we can plant on the side of your stock pond or somethin' like that.

- Right.

- But some you don't.

They're not supposed to be.

- Yeah.

- No more than you should release a goldfish or a koi into the lake.

It's the same thing.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- And what about the papyrus up front?

- Yeah, I got a couple- - I see a small one and a big one.

- Yeah, the little one, it's called dwarf papyrus.

That's a little tropical.

It usually doesn't overwinter here, but it's really pretty plant.

But the dwarf giant, the one with the big head on it- - Right.

- It's pretty cool.

It's only gonna get about two feet tall, about what it is right now.

- Okay.

- But it gets the big papyrus head, like a Mexican or an Egyptian papyrus does.

- So we've had these crazy freezes.

Some of these will overwinter and some won't or- - Almost everything that we've talked about so far will.

That one dwarf, mm, probably not.

- Okay.

- Probably not.

But the rest, definitely.

- Okay.

And if you had that, would you need to pull that out?

Or is that one you just sorta just- - Replace?

- You know, even all of this, even in the worst that we've had, all of this is coming back.

- Okay.

- Now, if you let that pot sit outside of your pond or exposed- - Right.

- Where the entire pot can freeze solid, then yeah, probably not.

- And this, with the white flower here- - Yeah, that's a- - Is a Sagitarria?

- That is a Sagittaria, yeah, very good.

Sagitttaria montevidensis.

It's much like, there's a native duck potato.

- Duck potato, yep.

- Arrowhead sag, right?

- Right.

- That has a much bigger, broader leaf.

This one's a little narrower, and it has a real pretty, that little bloom has that yellow center.

- Yeah, that's gorgeous.

- Whereas, a native arrowhead, it's just a white bloom, but very pretty.

It's a cool plant.

It does very well here.

- Okay, and speaking of native, we then also have a native.

That's the iris, right?

- That is a Louisiana iris.

Definitely native to Southeast Texas, for sure.

And you could put that in your pond.

You could put it in a bed next to your pond.

You could plant it anywhere in your gardens.

Loves a little shade.

Right now it's time.

You know, I love this time of the year when all the iris bloom at the shop.

- Yes.

- And all the different colors.

This is a blue.

I think it's called Jerry, I'm not positive.

- Okay.

- But... (laughing) It's a cool plant.

I love the iris.

- Also, we're looking at this really nice lotus?

Is that right?

- Yeah, this is pretty cool.

Pretty fortunate this is here today.

One, we got a lotus actually blooming that we can put on camera.

(John laughing) - Okay.

- That's neat.

But yeah, one of my partners just brought this to me yesterday, actually.

And this is yellow peony.

It's that really beautiful double.

It has all the, you know, all the petals in it, super cool.

It's not a very big one.

It's only getting about three feet tall, maybe.

- Okay.

- And the vertical leaves about that height and the bloom's about the same.

I love to put these in water bowls.

- Okay.

- You can control 'em that way.

The thing with lotus, you know, they're so, they're a little precocious here, but they love our temperatures right now.

They love these spring temperatures.

They want full sun right now.

- Okay.

- But man, they cannot handle July sun.

- Ah.

- You know, and if you put 'em in full sun in July, they're gonna start to, basically just like we do, right?

(John laughing) They just, they shrivel up, right?

- They start to melt.

(John laughing) - Yeah, they brown out and they stress out, and they'll actually start going dormant way sooner.

So, you kinda put 'em in the sun now.

And if you can pick 'em up and move them into the shade in the summer, they'll actually keep the leaves goin'.

But their bloom is gonna last from now until mid to late June.

- Okay.

Well let's talk about the Austin Pond Society Tour.

It's a weekend?

- Yes.

Pond Society does a fantastic job.

If you've never been, go.

If you always go, go again.

I've always enjoyed it.

It's a good time.

People, they're crazy about their ponds, and- - Yeah.

- That's what I love about the Pond Society.

They do a fantastic job of showin' off and showin' off water gardening.

It's a really neat thing if you want something to get into.

- [John] Right, and it's for people to, they're gonna buy tickets at, what is it, $20 beforehand?

- Sounds right.

(laughing) - 25 or somethin' like that?

Okay.

- I know you go to their website.

- I just set the price.

- They've streamlined everything now.

It's so easy to go.

You can buy 'em at each site, I believe.

I think you go to that.

- And then Nancy Hall's who we saw earlier, that's one of the many wonderful gardens you can see.

- Right, oh yeah.

Definitely do that.

And that's the other cool thing.

You go see their ponds, but you also get to see their gardens.

You know, so many people here do such a great job with the perennials, the Central Texas perennials in and around their gardens and ponds, so- - Right.

- It's fantastic.

- And then just a quick question.

I know I've gotten this with a lot of, when we talk about wetland stuff, is there any issue if you put in a water garden you're gonna have with mosquitoes?

- No, that's definitely a misnomer.

Now granted, you turned off your waterfall and you walk away and you leave a standing water there with no Gambusia, you know, the little native fish or anything like that, absolutely, sure, of course you would.

- Right.

- You know, more than you would if you left a, you know, a pool of water in your yard.

- Right.

- But, one, they love stagnant, standing water, right?

- Right.

- And the goldfish and the little Gambusia and all that stuff in your pond, not gonna be a problem.

- I know the one that we, I mean, I have a little pond that we've done, too.

And I think what I've learned is if you make a habitat, you don't have that problem.

And something that I think that's just amazing is not only are the fish there, which I, you know, wanna ask about, you know, are they nibbling on plants?

But I mean, you know, toads, frogs show up, birds come in to use it to drink water, so, you know, there's so much joy to get out, you know, of it, and mine's small scale.

I mean if you set this up, it's really not just for fish.

It becomes really, you know- - Absolutely, yeah.

- Something for the rest of the creatures.

- Yeah, it's a great habitat for a lotta creatures, for sure.

- Yeah, and so, are there any issues with fish, if people decide to come?

I know y'all have koi and goldfish and whatnot.

Are there any issues with the fish eatin' the plants if you have 'em in there?

- (laughing) Goldfish, not really.

- Okay.

- Koi, sometimes.

- Okay, okay, okay.

- Often.

(laughing) It's usually the... You know, it's funny, I've seen beautiful ponds with two-to-three-foot-long koi live in perfect harmony with water lilies.

- Okay.

- And I have seen them just absolutely destroy them.

- Okay.

- So, yeah.

- And then a quick thing, is there any sort of division that you need to do just in general maintenance with these?

Are you pulling anything out?

Or once you set 'em in there, you just sorta let 'em go or?

- The water lilies every year, yeah.

- Okay.

- You're actually dividing, re-potting your water lilies every year.

Most of the bogs, yeah, once they become unruly, definitely split them.

- Okay, well Steve, I wanna thank you so much for comin' on.

I mean, these are some beautiful plants.

Really excited about the tour to see how everybody's working with these water features, 'cause again, I think it really adds just a wonderful habitat.

We need water here in Texas.

- No doubt, right.

- But thank you so much, Steve, for comin' on and sharin' with us your breadth of knowledge on water plants and pond gardening.

- My pleasure.

- All right, next, we're gonna check in with our special guest, Adler Asher.

(bright jazzy music) - I'm happy to speak with everyone today about grasslands and prairies.

Prairies used to cover 3/4 of Texas and a million more acres all over the world, but sadly less than 1% remain in Texas.

Grasslands are endangered because settlers chose to plant crops over the prairie land, because there were no trees.

Settlers also stopped two important events that are key to healthy prairies.

They stopped wildfire because they thought it was bad.

Did you know that historically every 10 years 14 million of acres would burn naturally, helping shape our grasslands.

The fires cleared out dead plants and put nutrients back into the soil.

The other event they stopped was the migration of bison, whose herds used to be in the number of millions.

The buffalo would travel around the USA eating plants and disturbing the soil, allowing different plants to thrive.

Both fire and bison also helped prevent trees from growing and shading out sun-loving grasses and wildflowers.

In my model, I have an example of a prairie.

There were many other animals that called the prairie home other than bison.

I chose to focus on the smaller black-tailed prairie dog and prairie chicken, because even small things can have a big impact.

Prairie dogs are keystone species that support 150 other animal species through their creation of tunnels in the earth.

These tunnels allow water to move deep in the earth and keep the soil temperature cool by allowing air to pass through.

The prairie dog is an herbivore who ate prairie plants but also prevented small trees from taking over the prairie.

Prairie dogs are cute, but also eaten by predators such as the Ferruginous hawk and the endangered black-footed ferret, which you can see in my model.

As shown, the endangered prairie chicken that requires vast space to thrive.

The prairie soils also are home to a universe of microbes that form beneficial relationships with grasses and flowers.

These plants couldn't grow if the microbes didn't attach their roots and allow the plants to thrive.

The microbes are also decomposers that recycle nutrients from dead plants.

So, why are prairies important to us?

Climate change is a serious threat to the world and is driven by too much CO2 in the atmosphere.

Prairies are great at locking carbon in soil as organic carbon.

We can use many of the prairie plants in our yards and landscape because their roots run very deep and conserve water.

Plus, they are important food and all our awesome pollinators.

Saving prairies can help save us.

We'd love to hear from you.

Click on centraltexasgardener.org to send us your questions, pictures, and videos.

- Now let's head over to Backyard Basics.

(bright music) - Hi, I'm Colleen Dieter.

I'm the founder of Central Texas Seed Savers.

We are a project of fruitful commons.

We are preventing extinction of important plants to Central Texans through seed sharing.

And one of the programs that we support are the seed libraries.

So, at Austin Public Library, most of the Austin Public Library branches, you can go to the library and take seeds out of the seed collection.

But you can also bring seeds to the library, too.

And you can put seeds in the book drop or drop them off at the circulation desk.

So, today I'm gonna show you how to prepare the seeds for delivery to the library.

Right here I have some inland sea oats.

This is a native grass seed, and you can harvest the seeds when they're dry.

So just make sure any seeds that you donate to the seed libraries, that they're dry, so that they don't get moldy.

And the important thing is to write the name of the plant.

Okay?

Just like this.

And the date that the seeds were collected, because the seeds, as they age, lose their ability to sprout, so we need to know how old they are.

And then write for the seed collection so the librarians will know what this is.

Okay?

And then you can put the seeds in the envelope.

Just like that.

And go ahead and seal it up really tightly with tape so they don't escape and roll all over the library.

Just like that, and then you're all set.

And most of the Austin Public Library branches have collections.

A lot of the suburban and exurban libraries in Central Texas have seed collections, too.

So just ask a librarian.

And if they don't have a seed library at your local library, ask the librarian, and Central Texas Seed Savers can help.

We can help set one up for you.

This year I want all of you watching to dedicate yourself to collecting seeds from one particular plant.

And so there's some good books to show you how to do that.

And that way you can follow one plant through its whole life cycle and collect seeds from that plant.

So you can contact us at centexseedsavers.org.

You can follow us on Instagram and our Facebook page.

It's Central Texas Seed Savers.

And for Backyard Basics, I'm Colleen Dieter.

- Find out more and watch online at centraltexasgardener.org.

Until next time, remember, adopt the pace of nature.

Her secret is patience.

(bright music) (bright music) (bright music) (bright music) - [Announcer] Central Texas Gardener is made possible by the generous support from Lisa and Desi Rhoden.

Thank you.

(bright flute music)