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Coming up in the first half of tonight's episode will travel to Nelson County, where Susan Meister will talk to us about designing a garden for low maintenance.

And in the second half of our show, we'll be in Richmond's Bryan Park to learn how riparian buffers can help improve our water quality.

As always, we welcome your gardening questions via phone call or email.

Stay tuned for Virginia Home Grown.

Are the weeds getting ahead of you in your garden this month?

They are at my house, but tonight we've got tips to stay on top of them.

I'm Amy Williams.

And I'm Peggy Singlemann.

And welcome to Virginia Home Grown.

In the second half of our show, we'll be learning about how we can save the bay by planting more trees.

As always, we welcome your gardening questions via phone call or email.

Amy.

Well, Peggy, last week I met with Susan V Meister and Nelson County, and she talked to us about how to design a low mainte So, Susan, you have brought us to a beautiful garden and you're going to talk to us about low maintenance, design and care of the garden.

But first, tell us a little bit about you.

I know you are a horticulturist and designer and artist.

How did you come to be such?

Well, I had background in art and I knew that I wanted to get into landscaping, so I became a gardener early on while I was taking classes in horticulture and landscape design.

And.

And then from there, I. I worked my way through the garden as a professional gardener.

And then I ended up working as a full time landscape designer.

So.

And you worked in this garden with your very talented husband?

Yes, that's right.

My husband's a recently retired stonemason, but he did all the stonework as well as the the water features that we're going to be seeing in the garden and has a wonderful life.

You guys did a great job together.

And we're going to take a look at some of the things that you did.

But let's talk about the low maintenance aspect of it.

It's gorgeous.

I'm guessing you didn't just come in and drop plants at the foundation.

No, we didn't.

We did a lot of good soil preparation, even though there was a garden here beforehand.

Very often over time, the soil can get compacted even by the original construction work that was done.

So we like to get the soil prepared very well.

There's a symbiotic relationship between the soil and its its organisms with the plants and their roots.

So we like the soil to be in good shape.

So preparation is very important.

Plant choices, of course, are very important.

And sometimes that's hard to swallow because we're addicted to plants, right?

And we're going by a lot.

And so one of your other roles addresses that, which is that I shouldn't go to the garden center and buy one of everything that I like.

Mass plantings are important.

Mass plantings simplify things.

And as you can see with our bit over here, we have a simple mass planting of Shasta daisies.

And from where I stand behind them, there are cabinets.

And when you have a mass planting and makes a strong statement in the garden and the one one plant, you know, helps to background the other.

It also makes maintenance more simple because instead of choosing if you have ten plants and you've got to figure out what you have to do with each plant, you now know that, well, there's this mass and that mass.

And I know I need to do.

I just need to prune these back and I need to deadhead those and I'll be done.

So you have two decisions to make, and that shortens your maintenance time.

And it can also reduce your maintenance costs if you're hiring it done.

Absolutely.

Because I can hire someone without as much expertise.

Mm hmm.

Exactly.

You can say this is the plant.

See this mass here and that mass there?

These are the plants that I want.

If you see anything that looks like that, leave it.

Everything else can go.

And that's a very simple way to instruct your help.

Great.

So and then mulch is key.

Mulch is very important.

Mulch is important in terms of the health of the soil.

It helps to keep the moisture down.

2 to 3 inches of mulch will help keep weed seeds from popping up.

But you don't want to over mulch.

We like a certain amount of mulch each year to be put down so that your total in a perennial bed is two inches.

Trees and shrubs, you can do more like three inches, but that's total.

Not each year.

So that's a little.

Yeah.

Now, one of the things you did in this beautiful landscape I think is lovely.

We're in Nelson County, you get a little rain, but you took advantage of the natural environment and you softened that woods edge rather than having a hard life.

Yes, absolutely.

I think, you know, when you live in a natural environment like this, most people want to live in a natural environment.

You don't want to change it, but you need to to kind of meld, you know, your planned landscape with unplanned.

So, for example, over here we have a lot of native trees and native shrubs like the mountain.

Laurel and the mountain Laurel are skirting the edge of the woods and they help bring the interest down from the tall trees.

They soften the edge.

And then we have our our bed.

And behind the shrubs is our natural leaves.

So we mulch up to that.

And just behind the shrubs.

And in the fall, they can just blow leaves into the woods where it will naturally biobanks great science.

And so often we go and we clear out the understory and then you're left with this bare spot that you can't get anything to grow because of the root mass that's there.

Yeah.

And you don't really know what to do with it.

Yeah, exactly.

It's very hard to get a new planting established under trees that have been there for 30 years.

They have.

They've extended all their roots everywhere.

So they're going to outcompete any new plant you put there.

The other disadvantage, of course, is, is that you've you've opened up the space and and given deer fair view of your garden and also taken away some of what they would browse on.

So they're much more apt to come up to your place and browse on your stuff.

So now this garden has one other area that's low maintenance.

Yes.

And that is the yoga garden.

Yes.

I love that idea.

Yeah, tell me about that.

Well, the yoga garden came up in conversation with the client.

I think I was designing different spaces, and she said something about doing yoga outside.

And I took the opportunity to.

To actually design a space that would be specifically for that.

And the yoga garden is a wonderful way to illustrate the importance of bones in a garden, because if you have strong bones in the garden, which are the structural elements or key accent details, that always carries the garden, even if it's weedy or under there, or a simple patch of lawn, which is.

Yeah, exactly.

Now there are more high maintenance areas.

Yes, there are.

And I would love to take a look at those.

Can we take a walk?

Absolutely right.

This is and you talked about the bones of the garden.

It's very evident here that you took that into consideration.

Yeah.

I think the bones again, the bones of the gardener are very important in the whole low maintenance issue.

But also this garden is seen from above.

There's a deck up there with a wonderful view of the mountains, and they look down on this garden.

So the bones of this garden are very important.

And in the winter time, much of the plant material here is dormant.

So again, that makes it interesting.

So this is higher maintenance.

It's a water feature which lends itself to that.

But what else makes them a little more well is you can see that there's a great density of plantings here and a fairly complex planting.

We have some little marquee over there, which is LOOSESTRIFE, and it's growing around a peony.

And then there's this, the variegated pink and major.

And both of those have a tendency to just run wherever they they please.

Thank you very much.

So in that case, they often are running in places where you don't want them.

So that's a maintenance issue, this kind of planting, too.

You get a lot of weeds in here and it's kind of hard to get the weeds out a little tight places.

There's a lot of leaves that collect in some of these things and then a water feature on its own.

There's often algae issues, but algae algae is the weed of the water garden, right?

So and whenever it rains, you'll often get an algae bloom.

So that's disconcerting for people.

But one of the ways to make that low maintenance is to change your expectations.

If you don't expect your water feature to be clear, like a swimming pool, then then it's really more realistic to the natural condition of the pool.

So that's one way to change your maintenance, is to change your expectations.

Makes good sense.

And you talk about the bones, and this pond is actually not a liner.

That's right.

This this garden here, the person who owned this house before was an avid gardener.

And they had built a water feature and they used one of those tubs.

So we we did it and we dug a hole and sunk the tub in the ground.

So you wouldn't even know that this is one of those pre formed.

So that is the key.

They are in grand pools, not above ground.

Good preparation, good preparation and installation work.

So this is a beautiful garden and such great information and it helps you really think through the process when you're choosing your plants and choosing what you'll do.

I appreciate you sharing it with us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

It's beautiful out there.

And despite our little drizzle that we had that it occurred midway.

But I didn't.

No, no, not at all.

You brought a lot of great plant material and I want to talk about all of it.

But let's remind our viewers that our phone number and email are on the screen.

So go ahead and send in your questions and we'll get to those shortly.

So what did you bring with you?

Well, I generally brought plants that are low maintenance.

These almost everything on here is is deer resistant as well.

And most everything is also drought tolerant.

That's something that's very important when you're looking for a low maintenance landscape, is to have things that are drought tolerant and deer going to not going to eat.

So I'll start with the ground cover.

Yeah, we've got some ground covers here and there's different ways to go about ground covers, perennials or shrubs.

And here we've got a number of different kinds of hellebore.

So a lot of people have heard of hellebore at this point.

The wonderful thing about Hellebore is that they they're evergreen year round and they are late bloomers.

Some of them bloom in December and some bloom in January and others in February.

So you can have a range of bloom and then for the winter they hold onto those brackets well into the spring.

So it looks like they're blooming.

Absolutely.

It gives you some texture in the garden for a long time.

This is actually this is several attacks, this strata, also known as Japanese plum.

You and this is a ground cover shrub.

This stays very low.

It's also a shade plant.

So it looks a lot like the English use, but it's actually a Japanese U and it's better in shade.

It grows very slowly, but it does a nice job of covering and nice if you're looking for sort of a needle to evergreen because people struggle to get juniper to grow in the shade, in the Juniper network, in the shade.

Other wonderful items, this is this is a little used plant, but it's called f a medium.

I never did like the common names of this, so I just call it a medium.

But there's a number of different kinds of upper medium and it will hold its leaves well into January, right about the time when it starts thinking about setting bud so you can cut it back.

Then.

And then it has little flowers in late February, very small, but in the wintertime there's not much to look at.

So it's wonderful to see these little flowers and then the leaves emerge.

And you have these leaves for for months and months.

And it's very sweet, looks very delicate, but very, very tough.

Plant can do well under trees.

Another ground cover that can do very well under trees is this is one of the many different kinds of St John's work.

And this one's called Brigadoon, named after a garden center in on the West Coast Brigs Nursery, I believe.

And Plant Delights actually developed it.

It's chartreuse, as you can see.

Gorgeous.

And then yellow, the colors wonderful.

And then in the fall it'll go kind of a peachy color.

It's not as well known for its flowers.

The flowers of most Hyperion are yellow on this one doesn't flower that much, but it is dearest and it doesn't get very tall.

I cut it back once in the winter and that's it.

It grows because not everyone's in interested in yellow.

Yeah.

So you get the option of.

Yeah.

And yet it gives you a lot of color in a dark place.

It grows under my maple tree in the worst soil possible.

Wonderful.

Downtown Piney River.

Couple quick little.

We can see this with the camera.

These are Hakura, also known as Coral Bells.

And if you look at the back side on this one, back side of the leaves are purple.

The front is silver with variation.

There's many, many different varieties of hookah.

They're very tough.

They're somewhat drought tolerant.

They prefer a little bit of moisture, but they're deer resistant and they hold their leaves well into the winter and then they leaf out and get a lovely spring so we can scoot these out of the way and get down to our shrubs before we run out of time.

You brought with you a collection of Suspiria.

Suspiria now Spiral are are kind of very common in the garden, but I'd like to bring them up as as a plant that really is it's so tough, so easy to care for.

And most of these species that we have here, they're either Bermuda varieties or their Japonica varieties.

So they're never going to get much more than four feet tall, which is really nice.

This particular one is called Dulce Hookah and it's not used for just leaf, but the leaf is very deeply saturated.

That's the thing.

That's one of the unique things about it.

It has, of course, a deep pink flower in the spring.

This is a little tired looking because it's the end of the summer, but and then you'll get some fall color in the leaves as well.

Beautiful.

We also have spirit of gone and oh, gone is gold in Japanese and this is in landscape looks very almost a yellowy chartreuse.

Look at the difference of that leaf.

Very fine texture of willow leaf.

This plant is supposed to be maybe five feet by five feet.

Also has most of these by Rhea's have pink flowers and that's why Rio will take some shade or it'll take some shade.

You really get best performance in the full sun, but they will tolerate some shade.

This is a gold mound and right now it's a bit green.

But early in the summer it's very gold.

In the spring, the leaves are peachy.

And then the fall, they're peachy as well, you know.

So I haven't said anything about the flower.

I have plenty of, you know, foliage color.

So but the flowers are pink.

Very tough plant.

And and this is one more this is very popular right now called Neon Flash being August.

This isn't the best time of year for anything, but it's starting to show its fall color.

But this has one foliage color when it emerges, which I believe it's sort of a pinkish color, then it goes green in the summer and then gives you could fall color as well.

So those are good small shrubs and shrubs are your friend in terms of a low maintenance landscape, because generally with the spirals you don't need to do much pruning.

They take up some real estate and cover the ground and you get the floral display and it makes weeding a heck of a lot easier because you're not trying to get around, get around little things.

You can get the go in there and yeah, just get right underneath it.

So we've got some five burners by burns.

Do very well for us in Virginia and we have a number of them that are actually in Native.

This is by Vernon Dantata, also known as this one is Blue Muffin.

You can see the blueberries on it.

I'm not shaking too much and it's known for its blueberries, which last little while until the birds find them and then the birds will enjoy them.

And you can see it as a nicely serrated leaf.

It's very attractive, an upright shrub, and I think you get about ten feet tall.

So I only have about 30 seconds.

30 seconds.

Okay.

I guess winter serve, I burn them.

This one has been developed because it has a really lush green leaf.

You can see gorgeous has a white flower in spring.

And then it also has really a good red fall color.

So that gives you a lot of interest.

So shrubs take up territory.

They cover the ground so that we don't come up and generally are very low maintenance plant.

Very nice.

So and one last one.

One last.

This is double file VI Burnham needs a little more moisture than the other two.

Not quite as drought tolerant but gets to be quite a large shrub, takes up a lot of room, has a beautiful white flower.

Sometimes people see it from a distance, like it's a dogwood.

It blooms after dogwoods in the late spring.

So it's very nice and fall color with this as well.

Great choices.

And so if I burn them, you have choices of deciduous and evergreen.

Yes.

Yes.

And all of these that I've shown you are deciduous.

Yeah.

Wonderful information.

I'm going to be sure to incorporate more shrubs in my landscape.

Thank you for the information.

While we get ready to take your questions, take a look at this tip from Peggy at Marmont on veg It's August and it's getting near the end of summer, which signals the time for a fall.

And at Jack's Garden, we're putting in our fall vegetable gardens.

Yes, it's August, but it's time to do so.

This is an excellent time to plant your leafy green vegetables.

And so today we're going to plant kale and we're going to plant some spinach We're going to start off with I want to show you two different methods of planting the seeds.

The first one is a row method where we've created a nice scored a nice row here.

We're taking a few of the seeds and sowing them a little bit here.

And then about nine inches later a few more and then nine inches later a few more.

And then we're going to cover them with soil and we're going to pat them nice and tight and closed.

And then what we're going to do is we're going to take a little bit of straw and we're going to cover that row so that we're going to actually enable the soil to hold that moisture because it is a hot summer sun still.

And we need these seeds to stay moist in order to germinate.

Now, you say, why did you sell them nine inches apart?

It's because as these germinate and grow, we can initially thin the seedlings that are very close together.

But then in a few more weeks we can pull out that middle one and enjoy that in our kitchens and allow that once every 18 inches to grow on to maturity.

Of course, our last step here naturally, is to water.

But another type of sowing is more of a broad cast seed method, and we're going to use our spinach to do that.

And again, I've raked out my garden bed and I've taken the rake and scored some points, some furrows into it, and I'm going to take my spinach seeds and I'm just going to broadcast them into the garden and I'm going to do so this randomly nice and not necessarily even, but the best I can.

And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to pat them into the soil so they're nice and set.

And then once again, I'm going to take my soil and I'm going to cover them lightly.

And lastly, of course, I'm going to once again get some straw.

And again, I'm trying to retain the moisture on these hot, hot days.

Now I am going to have to water these seeds every day until they come up.

But with the cool night, temperatures so germinate pretty quickly and before you know it will be enjoying those greens.

Now in August, it's time for leafy vegetables, as already mentioned.

But come September, it will be time to put those other cold crops in or broccoli's cabbages and cauliflower.

So get back into that garden and get it ready for a fall crop.

So in just a few short weeks you'll have fresh produce on your table once again, great information, Peggy.

And now I know I have to go home and go to work.

And I sure do.

It's that time of year before we get started on all the questions that we have.

I want to remind everyone that we have a Facebook page.

So if you would go there and like us and follow along, you can ask questions throughout the month.

You'll also see us post articles and things of interest up there that you might enjoy, and we'll answer your questions as quickly as we get to them.

You can also go to our Web address, which is on the screen there and watch past shows.

And the show will actually beyond in the next couple of days.

And you can go back and rewatch and write down some of those plant names if you are interested in those.

So, ladies, we have a few questions.

The first is about LOOSESTRIFE, and it is I read somewhere that loosestrife was endangered.

Is that true?

And what do you know?

In some ways I kind of hope it is sort of the opposite of that.

There are several different kinds of loosestrife.

The purple loosestrife is a terribly invasive species in the Northeast and other parts of the country.

The loosestrife that was in the garden that we showed was a white loosestrife, which is not quite as invasive, but it will take off.

So I don't know if it's endangered.

I find whenever it's in a garden that it's definitely not endangered.

So I'm setting up my suspicion as an officer.

Yes.

QUESTION On damaged foundation plantings, Judy says she has several of her foundation plants, primarily the White Indian Hawthorns were damaged this past winter.

She is looking to replace them this fall.

Her house is in Yorktown and the front of the house receives full sun in the afternoon.

Name a couple of shrubs that are ideal for her situation.

I keep going back to Auto Look and Laurel's.

They don't they can get a little taller than the Indian Hawthorn.

I also like to know if I burn them, which we didn't talk about both.

Can I buy burn them in auto look and Laurel's get broader, but there are a nice deep green shiny leaf.

The Nova Burnham is a small leaf and the auto look and it's got a broader leaf so great choices.

Hope that helps Judy.

All right, Walgreens Henry from Dinwiddie says Is it time to plant his fall greens such as collards?

Oh, yes, it is.

It's a much time back.

It's kind of getting a little on the late side.

This is a great time to sow the seeds.

And if you're like me, I'm going to go and start looking for the transplants to put out.

And we've got to get those gardens growing so that we can enjoy them not only through the fall but into the early winter.

So.

So it might be getting a little late for seeds.

Yes, it is.

But your garden center ought to have plenty of transplants and starts to enjoy.

Very good.

Tammy and Chester said she has a three year old fig tree that she wants to transplant.

Is it best to transplant figs in the fall or the spring?

I'm going to say in the spring.

Likewise, they're they're really borderline hardy for a lot of areas.

So I do it in the spring.

So we generally say fall is for planting and a great time for transplanting, but there are a few exceptions to that.

Things that aren't particularly hardy.

It's always nice to let them stay in their original location.

Crape Myrtle has done great work as well as our Southern Magnolias.

They do much better when you transplant them.

Actually, in August.

It's a good question.

So protect it through the winter and in the spring.

Go ahead and move it to your desired location and then mulch and water.

Well, the first year, yeah, very good.

And the other good thing about that with the fear is that we can lose a lot to dieback over the winter.

And it's going to really.

Marty from Charlottesville says she has a rex that she'd like to keep as an ornamental tree.

What's the best way to go about pruning it back, putting it back, Pruning it back?

Well, I would prune gently and carefully, and I think the winter time is a good time to see the structure of the sty racks.

If you have any question about a tree like that, which which where the structure is so important, you might actually ask a professional to help you.

And that could be an arborist, but it could also be a fine gardener.

Yeah, a trained horticulturist.

I'm wondering if by ornamental trees she means in a container or if she means the structure, because the structures of those can be fabulous.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yes.

That's how I was like.

Right.

Yeah.

And I think you want to tread lightly.

Yeah, you're right.

Hiring somebody who knows that they're doing pruning like that is really essential.

Especially they become quite valuable trees as Yeah, absolutely.

And as Susan said, not right now, but yeah, talk to us about pruning right now.

It's not the time to do it.

This is not, you know, people are getting out of their houses.

It's cooling off.

It's time to you know, they want to get back out into the garden.

Things have grown.

They've gotten a little wooly, some cases very wooly.

And you want to get in there and start pruning heavily.

But what you're going to be doing is initiating more new growth that'll come out just in time for the frosts to hit it back.

And we can't wait to think of energy sort of as a bank in those roots.

And so if you can do a little light pruning if you absolutely have to, but save it for that February-March time to go and do that structural pruning for the next growing season, it's very hard.

Now, you've been inside the heat.

You don't want to be in there anymore and you try and get everything done.

Well, that's cool, but I'm sure you can find some weeding, too.

Yeah.

Yes, you can't.

My house is available for practice.

Betty in Richmond said in the Crabtree Falls area that there's a wildflower that grows.

It's delicate, white with irregular petals.

You're down in that area.

D, Does it strike you exactly the words I was going to say?

What time of year?

Because my roof is delicate, white with irregular.

Yeah.

I think there's some.

I've seen some sailing.

There's also there's another little Lancaster's growing.

Yeah.

Asters they're of course then more of a daisy form.

I'm not sure the name of that.

I'm sorry.

So, Betty, a good idea with that might be to take a picture next time you're out and your local extension service would be able to help you with that.

Michael Chance in Nelson County is pretty good at doing that.

And there's also a there's a Virginia native plant Facebook site.

You can post things there and people will identify things.

So great.

Yeah, it's really, really handy.

Very good.

Peggy, what is going on at moment right now?

Oh, beautiful things.

I'll be honest.

Are roses just came out of a big flush of bloom, but the perennials and annuals are looking fantastic.

And I'll be honest, we have a few insect issues like any garden does right now.

And we're just really excited with the the weather cooling, particularly the past few weeks.

You know, things are starting to rejuvenate and grow.

And I can tell that in a few weeks we're just going to have some spectacular gardens to look at.

Again, it's this time of the year so nice because the disease and insect damage is starting to fall back off and you can start to enjoy things again, be out there.

And I think too, that brings up a good point.

People need to realize that in August, the leaves on our trees have done their thing and so the insects can come in and eat them.

And it's not the time to be so concerned about my gracious, you know, my tree leaves are my shrub leaves are being eaten.

It's sort of like it's time for those Lepidoptera caterpillars to get their part of the food cycle or the food web.

And so that's an employee lacks a little bit about when you can you've got to get your threshold going as any good integrated pest management program.

That's a promise.

Peggy Cornett That I would mention, because Peggy is always so helpful to us with tips from on to or from Tiffany on a cello, on a cello.

The other end, the other pegging.

At the other end, they have the and I always have to double check and make sure I get it right.

Her Heritage Harvest Festival coming up the 12th.

I believe it is a September and is a wonderful source of information and I highly recommend it to anybody who goes there.

They have great speakers and they have great booths and lots of information and a good place.

So definitely put that on your calendar.

And I think food samples, too.

Yes, food always a great that's a great way to kickstart yourself to get back into the garden, because we all have a tendency to think, oh, well, it's August or September, time to put it to bed.

And my attitude is, no, it's time for a whole new wave, a whole new chapter.

And this really is the time of year for gardeners.

We think of spring, because that's sort of when where our show is put on.

But this is when we do the hard work.

This is when we do the hard work.

Like a lot of the planning that has been going on is about the ready to be installed list.

For a place like Monticello.

You can see what they're doing in their vegetable gardens.

They have a wonderful demonstration garden there.

So yes, yes, absolutely.

Epitome of what's going on.

So, Susan, what are you finding in gardens as you're out and about and what are people facing this time of year?

Well, actually, as I'm out and about, I've just been astounded at how much moisture we've had.

The world is so green and and so many plants look so terrific because we haven't had the stress that we normally do have.

I mean, it's been a number of years of really good moisture.

And, you know, I I've just been really impressed with how good everything looks right now.

We're fortunate.

You know, we're the West Coast is really suffering or we don't have the benefits.

But oftentimes this time of year, you'll see redbud trees that are looking kind of sad and hydrangeas that start to look sad.

Things can look really stressed by the end of the summer.

But so far, they're all kind of holding off.

I mean, even even seeing seedlings just standing up really nicely.

You know, it's a really, really good opportunity to visit a garden.

Yeah, it's a great absolutely great information.

Ladies, we've got more questions that we'll address in the next segment, but I want to get us over to see your visit with Anne and learn about the Chesapeake Bay tree planting.

Yes.

Okay.

Take a look.

What a beautiful day to come to Bryan Park with answers from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and talking about the Chesapeake Bay and water runoff.

What the most perfect place to start, but is in a parking lot.

Yeah, parking lots are problematic for Haiti.

They're just like our streets and our sidewalks and our driveways.

They water doesn't smoke in here.

No, it's still compacted.

Compacted.

And it just will run off and sheet flow.

And what'll happen is rain when it lands on a parking lot or any impervious surface, it will just pick up any of the pollutants that are there and carry it downhill and then downhill.

In our case, there's a stream at the bottom of this, at the bottom of this parking lot, which goes into another stream, which goes into another story.

This is passing creek.

It goes on up and broke up and broke is then took on me, I guess in the James and then goes into the bay so our water runs downhill.

Yeah right.

And they're so interconnected and we don't think about that here in Richmond.

Yeah absolutely.

I mean anything that lands on that impervious surface, what, your driveway or sidewalk, ultimately it's going to end up in our waterways.

Yes.

So whether it's fertilizer, pesticide, herbicides, it's dirt.

Right.

Any of that is going to ultimately flow downhill and into a stream or a creek.

It'll go in a storm drain that I'll eventually find its way into a stream.

What are some of the practices we can take as homeowners to reduce that runoff?

Well, one of the examples here is we planted a repair and buffers.

So repairing and just means anything that is adjacent to our waterway.

And so our buffer is trees and shrubs.

And the idea is they're going to capture some of the sediment and take up some of the pollutants, as well as some of that the nutrients, the excess nutrients that are coming off the land before it gets to the water.

So it's just trying to intercept to act as a filter between the parking lot and the stream.

And while here there's a stream in our homes, we usually have gullies, ditches, you know, management of that stormwater which does carry on down through and does end up in our waterways.

Right.

And while not everybody has a space for repairing buffer, maybe they could add more trees to their landscape.

Absolutely.

I mean, you don't have to be adjacent to a creek or a stream to benefit from having additional trees in your yard.

Right.

They'll they'll have a lot of benefits.

They'll reduce your heating and cooling costs.

Right.

And that's reducing your energy usage.

That's reducing the amount of emissions that are going up into the air.

Ultimately, this emissions that fall back down, right, with rainfall.

So that that absolutely is a good use.

But also trees will intercept a lot of the rain in and of themselves.

That will stop a lot of different things that are problematic for our stream health because trees shade parking lots and shade streets and sidewalks, they can reduce the heat impact rate.

You know how hot asphalt.

Yeah, that's right.

Well that first flush of rainfall off that hot parking lot into a stream, that's a thermal, you know, not good for the water quality and macro invertebrates in the stream because it heats that water up and heats that water out.

Really quickly.

I mean, it's hot coming off in a summer day.

It's hot coming off those parking lots and they're also bringing in sediments.

And the sediments actually are not helping the stream.

Yeah, sediment does a couple of bad things, right?

I mean, it blocks sunlight from reaching the underwater grasses in the bay, which is one of the big reasons we're trying to keep sediment out of the bay, but also sediment in a in an area like this.

It gouges out the sides of the stream bank and there's soil on the stream banks and that soil phosphorous is attached to the soil particles.

So when you start gouging out the stream, banks are sending phosphorus downstream.

So we're just trying to reduce the volume trees will do a lot.

They'll uptake some of the nutrients, they'll slow erosion, right.

Their root system will spread out and will hold the soil in place.

So you'll have less soil that's actually going off of a parking lot or your yard or your swale and into a waterway.

This is wonderful.

I think we need to, though, go down and really take a look at the work that you've done.

And it's in its infancy.

We have to think ten years from now how that is going to grow, its impact is going to grow with time, but it's going down and take a look.

Let's look at our buffer.

And here we are down here by the creek where all the action is, where we need to make sure we protect that creek.

So tell me about it.

So what you got here are a bunch of species that do really well.

Creekside So an example would be this elder Berry Right, Right.

And we have a silky dogwood behind you.

Those are plants are doing really well right here.

They need this moisture and so they'll do really well right here in the creek, but as we move away from the creek so we're standing on this giant white oak tree.

Yes, it's absolutely gorgeous.

But as you move away from the creek, you're going towards some of what we call the upland plants.

Right?

So we've got persimmons, we've got some white oaks, we're planning some red oaks up there.

And then we've also put in some understory trees.

We've got some of the sources.

Canada red, but red spots are up there because those are nice understory trees we've got.

We're putting a few dogwood and the whole idea is we're trying to mimic from a diversity perspective what a what a natural forest is going to look like.

Exactly.

And if everybody walks through a forest, which not everybody has a wonderful opportunity to do, they will notice that there's a lot of different trees within and plants within a given area.

It's not a monoculture like we.

We tend to think with our lawns.

Yes, yes.

Yeah, our lawn.

Yeah, definitely a monoculture.

Definitely.

And that is what we're trying to get away from.

Right.

If you can put some distance with trees that have the ability to uptake those nutrients and to reduce the sediment from getting in there, it'll reduce the fertilizer from hitting that stream.

And that's, you know, that's going to improve the health of the bay.

So even if you're a homeowner and you don't have a creek in your backyard, planting trees can still be really beneficial from a water quality perspective because this tree, the size of this canopy, all the pollutants that are on the pavement, it's stopping those from heading the creek because it's actually causing a buffering and it's capturing and holding that rain from ever hitting the pavement to begin with.

So it's very important when we site our trees is to have part of the canopy, you know, reach over our driveways and reach over our sidewalks.

Absolutely.

And one of the things when living in the worst design, that spot where one should design the buffer, she was trying to make sure that we closed down our tree canopy.

Right.

I mean, you want to have you know, upper storey trees in the lower storey understory trees, and that's really how she design a spider.

So the point is, as a homeowner, we can actually do, you know, create a repairing buffer zone.

We can increase the absorption of the water into our landscapes and reduce our runoff, but we can also do it esthetically.

It can be I mean, it can be beautiful.

I mean, these these are all our berries, right?

They'll provide both habitat and provide nice seeds that the birds eat.

And if I put a native, then I'm putting in some habitat and I'm providing food for my songbirds because they need something to eat.

And people go, Oh, I don't want insects in my yard, but without insects we have no sun, you have no birds, right?

And that's the whole.

And we say, Oh, you train for the ecosystem.

Yes.

Yes.

Well, I know that you've really enjoyed working in this area and bringing location that truly needed to be, I'll say, managed a little better to improve our water quality here, and particularly how it all flows down to the bay.

And I thank you for sharing that with us.

Thanks for having me on.

And what a beautiful day to be at Bryant Park.

And who would have thought it was August and with that lovely breeze to keep us cool, it was a beautiful day at Fort Worth and to hear the leaves of the trees just, well, moving around in the wind made it a very special time.

But before we learn more about those trees, you know, first I want to remind everybody that our phone, your phones and our email are still available to send in your questions and see if we can get some more of those things that are lurking in your mind answered.

So please send us an email or call in with your question.

We'll answer it later on in the show.

But trees, trees are so important and people sort of take them for granted.

They kind of think they're concrete and they really don't know the true value of them.

But in that recurring buffer segment, we learned a lot about them.

And you've brought some plants in with us, too, to talk further about this.

That's right.

When we were looking when we were in Bryant Park, we saw some elderberry and it was a low growing shrub.

Right.

Doesn't get very big.

But we love it, produces these gorgeous berries, Right.

Is great for wildlife and it's it's really easy to grow, stays pretty low 3 to 4 feet right.

And gorgeous flowers are we we like using that around wetlands and it's a plant that can tolerate pretty wet soil, pretty wet soil.

The second plant, of course, is silky dogwood.

Yeah, we saw that as a buffer too.

And that one is also called swamp dogwood.

Remember that one has that one requires moisture in order to thrive.

It really likes it wet.

So for that plant, we we have that right up on the stream bank.

Yes.

Let's see.

So that one that neat thing about that is it if the branches touch the ground then they'll, they'll root there and then you'll create just a thicket of that circuit board which is so important because we were talking about the importance those roots play in the role they play in helping that stream bank and keeping that phosphorous, that soil up there that's trying to sort away to soil erosion on this and to stabilize the bank.

Right.

And it's a plant that you can buy one of and just watch it grow and expand on its way through.

Yeah, that's beautiful.

It is.

So let's see, the third one that we brought in, we brought in of my firm.

Yes.

It's another one that also has gorgeous white flowers.

Yes.

Right.

And produces a really nice fruit that the birds like to eat.

So a really bluish fruit.

And it's a I'm sorry, I say it's a plant that's commonly used in our landscapes, but this one here was our native one, which is the Dan Tatum, which is a wonderful plant to have with that beautiful blueberry.

We have it at Marmont.

I grew up in a parking lot.

Okay?

And because it can take such moist soil, it can also take extremely dry.

That's right.

It's much more drought tolerant than the other two that we brought in.

Yes, that's right.

And although it gets a little big every now and then, a little pruning it, just Sicily here and there can keep it in check.

But it's a great plant to put into your landscape.

Absolutely.

And and I think, too, on these plants, you know, when we think about soil erosion, holding the banks and just being able to keep the water going into our soil rather than just running off, you know, we talk about trees, but those shrubs are equally as important in the canopy, although it's albeit a lot smaller than the tree, but it's equally as important with their fibrous roots, more surface oriented to hold that soil.

Absolutely, yes.

But moving into the trees, you know, we okay, so some of the trees that we planted at the buffer, we also planted one of the black gums.

Right.

And I Whatcom is one of my favorite trees.

It's got such a beautiful pyramid shape.

Its colors in the fall are absolutely gorgeous.

It's got that beautiful glossy leaf.

And this just sits pretty stately tree.

You get to be 50 to 60 feet tall, really one of my favorite in the landscape.

And I am not used as often as I think it probably could be.

I agree.

And it's one of those plants that in the in the late summer, like right now, the black gums, those beautiful scarlet red leaves are starting to emerge.

Yeah, just a couple here and there.

Right there.

It's coming know falls coming but just a lovely plant.

And that reminds me, though, that, you know, as our trees go through senescence and they start to show that color and they start to fall, that plays another important role that we never mentioned.

Yeah, absolutely.

What's there when the trees drop their leaves, those leaves decompose and that adds promise to the soil.

All right.

As organic material to the soil.

And that lets that lets rainwater soak in.

So when you're adding any organic material, whether it's compost or leaf litter, you're improving the soil's ability to soak up rainwater.

So that's going to help our bag.

That leaf litter is sort of like a sponge.

It's like a sponge, absolutely.

And people don't think of it.

You we're so busy raking it off of our lawns.

And that's right.

We need to we need to malted on our lawns.

And I understand, you know, you know, at Marmont, we actually where we need to rake.

We rake, but we move the leaves to another part.

We don't compost them.

We compost them or just put them down in another place that they can be that wonderful humor.

See you know, groundcover that that trying to mimic that forest floor to be able to, you know, put that soil back together.

But we have one more plant to talk about that's right across the eastern Redbud.

And the reason I brought that, you know, my grandmother used to call this Jacob's coat, and the reason is it blooms once or an Easter.

Right.

And it's got that Some people call it a pink, but I call it a purple, a purple bloom.

And it's usually by at the same time in my or that the daffodils are, but it produces beautiful seed pods.

It'll grow well on either dappled shade or in Folsom.

It's pretty drought tolerant.

It's just a really nice understory tree.

It is.

It's also called the Judas Tree.

Back in Victorian times it was.

I didn't know it.

Yeah, it was a very unique name at the time.

But our eastern red buds, of course, you know, harbingers of the spring that are dappled along are going to be the first thing to bloom except then we could go into the avalanche.

Here is for, you know, the service varies but tree wise it is the first to bloom.

Well and this is wonderful information and I really thank you for bringing in these specimens.

Oh, thanks for having me.

Yes.

And sometimes a short list and just focusing in on a few will help our homeowners expand their plant palette just a little more.

And to be able to incorporate these into their landscape.

Absolutely.

These are all natives, so I hope they are incorporated in the landscape, which means they're going to help our insects and help our birds.

That's right.

All our pollinators all of them.

So thank you.

And now what I'd like to do is go to the plant of the month where we can learn about another native Joe Pie.

We'd.

Hello.

My name's John Thompson with the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service in Anna County.

I'm here today with the Plan of the Month program to talk about Joe.

Persuade.

I've chosen Joe.

Persuade because it's a beautiful flower.

And with the craze right now, we're having with pollinator gardens and so forth, This was one plant you could use not only in a pollinator garden or butterfly garden, but also around your landscape.

A couple of things to point out.

One, of course, is its height.

I'm about six foot tall.

If I were thick.

Hails This plant is obviously much taller than I am.

There are several varieties of Japan we'd pick from one of them.

Our gateway should stay around the three foot to four foot tall height, and that might be more appropriate for most landscapes.

Of course, we've got a beautiful flower here.

This plant is going to flower most of the summer.

It should go from July until through October, depending on the weather conditions, which is really nice to have.

There's not many plants that we can pick that'll stay showy like that for so long.

Japan weed is a perennial.

It will recede itself.

But if you're starting from scratch, finding seed can be somewhat challenging.

I would start with your local greenhouses and garden centers and see if they carry it.

Some will, but if they don't, perhaps they can source the seed for you.

If you ask if that still doesn't bear fruit, then looking online you can find seed through online catalogs or online greenhouse operations and they will carry several different varieties.

Now, this one here we have here is found on the roadsides right now blooming heavily.

It is purple.

Of course, there are a wide varieties.

Just bear in mind that the purple variety seems to do a better job of attracting the butterflies.

Monarchs, swallow tails and what have you will come.

And this provides us a nectar source throughout the summer.

We see frequently in the press right now information about monarch butterflies, how their numbers are and what they need as a pollinator to feed them through the year.

And this is one plant they will come to continually, which would make a really good partner to a milkweed planting as well.

This plant needs full sunshine, so bear that in mind it will persist in partial shade but not fall shade before sunshine is preferred.

It also does like moissanite.

So if you have a corner that for some reason stays wet but does get full sun, this might be the perfect plant for that site.

Thank you to John for his help with Plant of the month.

It was great information and joke I read.

It is a really fun plant.

Oh it's fantastic.

Lots of new introductions.

Yes that.

So that if you can't have a plant that's as tall as John there, then what are some of the other little Joe?

And then you have baby Joe and understand that dwarf is relative, right?

We've got a lot of questions, ladies.

But before we get started, I want to remind everyone that if we don't have a chance to answer your question tonight, you can always send it to the Richmond Times Care of Richard Nunley.

And he is always very good about getting back to you, getting you an answer, and you may even see it appear in one of his future columns.

So please write to Richard and ask him any questions that you might have.

All right, here we go.

Small apple tree.

Devlin says she grew an apple tree from an apple seed, but it's only two or three inches tall.

How can she prepare it for the winter?

Oh, my.

First off, most of our apples are grafted.

They've got two sets in your root stock.

And then you put the the Scion wood on top of it to be able to get to the apple cultivar that you have.

And many of them that grow from Cedar are just sort of like what Johnny Appleseed planted and we'll become more of a smaller you know I'll say I hate to say it, but lesser quality apple although it will produce.

And what you can do to put it through the winter is I hope it's outside and not inside because it is a tree and you can actually create a little sheltered niche into the plant and not knowing where you are in Virginia.

I'm really kind of going broad on this question, but if you're more into the mountains, into the Charlottesville area of our viewing audience, you've got to find that little southerly niche and maybe, you know, create a little bit of a burlap or with maybe some parts a little secluded microclimate versus if you're in the I'll say, more Eastern part of our viewing area, you've got an area where you've got to make sure you have enough area where when the rains come, it can dry out some so it doesn't rot on you.

So sort of a fun science experiment, but it's not really going to get you what you're expecting, perhaps.

No, I think come January, a little bit of catalog perusing would find what you're looking for.

Although like your enthusiasm over at.

Yes, Peter and Bonnie, he says Peggy advises watering every day for the new leafy seeds.

But how much water should he use and what time of day is best?

Well, we want to water early in the morning is preferred, and we actually want to be able to put an inch of water down per week.

And in doing so, you want to be at a measure by the old tuna fish.

Can I'll say unit and watering every day.

Gee, with a lawn and you've prepared it properly, you want it to be able to penetrate a good inch or so down into the seeds can actually get nice and wet and then germinate.

So the answer is get your tuna fish canned out and see how much is falling through whatever watering method you have and stick your finger the soil if you need to, and make sure it feels like a wrung out sponge.

Right.

You know, And if it's still too wet, don't water.

Well, let's wait until it dries out.

So do the touch test.

If you touch a test works, everything's fine every time.

And via email says she has Loosestrife taking over her garden and wants to know how do you control gooseneck loosestrife?

You?

Well, you can put up some kind of edging that if you want it.

You put up some kind of edging and the deeper the better.

You just have to get out there and pull it up.

You can edge with a shovel much like they do, edging any kind of bed or edging any kind of lawn.

So really you're breaking that root to keep it.

It it goes around and runs, runs around by root root runners basically.

And then it'll just it'll just shoot up wherever.

So I don't know really exactly how deep your edging should be, but a lot of edging that you can get in the store might be 4 to 6 inches.

So that would be a start.

And then just staying on top of it and try to avoid it in the first place if you.

Yeah, yeah I mean I like the white loose next right.

I know the tongue twister on that it's a it's a beautiful plant and and it does take care of itself especially in a moist like this but yeah, you can have too much of a good thing.

You can.

Let's see another question.

Corey sent a question via Facebook and I said, you mentioned how mass plantings can make it easier to communicate your attentions when hiring help maintaining a garden.

What other recommendations do you have for hiring garden maintenance help?

Well, you want to you want to pick the right tool for the right job.

There's companies that really do a lot of mowing blow.

That's what we call mow and blow blowing.

They're they're good at doing the lawns and mulching and getting your leaves up and edging and taking care of, you know, just keeping leaves off the driveway.

But generally, those kinds of crews don't know a lot about horticulture.

A fine gardener is going to know more about a horticulture and what needs to be done in your beds and how to properly treat your plants, fertilize them and address diseases and stress and that kind of thing.

And then you want to look to an arborist for trees and arborists Can can almost a lot of them also do shrubs if you have large stands of shrubs.

So it's it's picking the right the right professional for the job.

So it's not really different than in your house.

You may hire a general handyman, but if you have plumbing, you call somebody else to come and help with that.

And gardening is no different.

Yeah, exactly.

So you shouldn't necessarily expect that the guy who comes with the lawnmower is going to know and you just want to watch with caution.

Generally, there's a lot of guys who are out there who say they do lawns and they do landscaping and they have a truck and they've got a shovel and a wheelbarrow, and they're happy to do anything that requires heavy labor.

But if you have a real specific plant question, you may want to ask somebody else a little bit more about plants.

Corey also said he's tried being organic and chemical free for the past few years, and he's becoming overwhelmed by weeds.

A couple quick tips for how to stay on top of the weeds.

Well, stay on top of weeds if timeliness is everything.

If you give your garden a good clean up and then get your mulch down, and if you do that in the fall and you do that again in the spring, I'm not saying you mulch each time, but if you haven't mulch in the fall, then get your weeds taken care of in the spring when they first start coming up and then mulch.

Well and then as soon as you start seeing weeds, get them then because it's a lot easier to get a weed that's this tall with a root system that that's that big rather than when it gets a lot bigger.

And in that case, a lot of times it's just a matter of stuffing them up with a hole.

Yeah, you can get a scuffle hoe or a regular hoe or, you know, any anything.

And if the weeds have gotten really bad, some people even use well, those are what you call.

But it's you can burn them if you get a propane.

That's what we do at our.

Yeah.

And you can burn them down but you have to be very careful with that.

So that's a way to avoid chemicals as well as that of using Roundup.

And that has, that is exactly what we've gone to with the kids and the dogs and everything.

So but then I chased my husband around going, That's a good plant.

Yeah, but once you've done that, you've killed the top of the plant and in some cases you've killed the plant because it's an annual weed.

But in other cases the plant is has more of a perennial root and don't come back.

So half the battle is, you know, once you've done your treatment of the weeds, you've got to mulch and then you've got to stay on top of that.

And, you know, if you can dedicate a few minutes every couple of days, you're better than once every two weeks going.

And, you know, if you're on out there, if you're on the cell phone with a friend of yours, you know, talking on the cell phone, you just pull a couple, you get advice and question about the Nissa.

If I want to incorporate Nyssa into my garden, are there any tips or tricks that I need to know?

Is it a I can go and pick one plant and stick it in my garden?

Or do you really need to if you want it to fruit?

Right.

There's a male and a female.

And so that's if you want fruit, you're going to need to have both.

So if I go to a garden center, do they typically sell them?

Sexed?

Yes, they usually market very good.

And do they have to be relatively close together?

How close they need to be.

But knowing that they're trees and they don't have to be like.

Right, right, right.

So you could talk your neighbor into getting one and you could get one if you were so inclined, if you didn't have a lot of space for it.

It is one of my favorite plants.

I love it and follows my favorite season, so I love that.

It reminds me it's coming with us early Reminder, we only have a couple of minutes left, but Charles in Goochland said, What can you tell them about five Burnham Leaf Wilt and how to treat it?

Yes, unfortunately that's a weak spot, in my knowledge.

I'm sorry.

I think they could you know, I think we've got to send that one off and I'll get back with them.

All right.

Well, let me get back with you later.

That's a great question to talk to the extension service about, because they're going to stay on top of what the latest and greatest approaches for taking care of that plastic going identify it 100%.

Make sure so many vivarium is out there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because it may be very specific to the type of vibrant and the growing.

I'm just a couple of minutes.

Mary from Richmond says When you say prune in the spring, what time of spring do you mean?

Well, I think what we're going to all agree on is that it's a big question plants that that actually flower in the spring you want to bloom after they flower prune after that parent thank you and plants that bloom more into May and June you in July and August you want to prune into your February March before they even leaf out.

There's a there's a wonderful chart that's been prepared with your tax dollars through Virginia extension.

And if you go to the Virginia Tech website, they have a chart on one of the best times to prune shredders.

So handy Yeah.

And because a lot of people get really confused about old wood.

New wood.

So.

All right.

When we have time for one quick question, Trey says he loves his Virginia creeper, but how can you control it better?

Oh, golly, you can cut that back to the ground every winter and it will grow back up.

You can train it on things.

I would wear gloves.

Some people have a reaction to the sap to it, but it is spectacular.

It is spectacular in other parts of the country.

They plant it pretty regularly.

And lady ladies, wonderful information.

We had tons of questions and I got those all answered.

And I really appreciate it, Susan.

And great information.

I think everybody can go and add some trees and shrubs to their landscape, reduce their maintenance and help the environment.

Peggy, great information as always.

Next month we're going to meet with Peggy Cornett, am on a cello, and she is going to talk to us about what's new and happening at Mr. Jefferson's mountain.

And Peggy is going to take us to learn about butterflies.

Yes.

All right.

So that's all next here on your community idea stations and Virginia Home Grown.

Thank you for watching Virginia Home Grown for information on how to become a financial partner, please contact Lanny Fields at 8045608226 or L fields at Idea stations dot org.