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Coming up in the first half of tonight's episode will travel to the Blackwater Ecological Preserve to learn about rare plants.

And in the second half of our show, we'll be visiting the gardens of Colonial Williamsburg for a lesson in landscape design.

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

Stay tuned for Virginia Home Grown.

Are you counting the days until it's time to put the tomatoes in the garden?

I know I am.

I'm Amy Williams.

And I'm Peggy Singlemann.

And welcome to Virginia Home Grown.

You know, Amy, I was able to go to Colonial Williamsburg, where we were able to learn more about some ideas and ways that people could incorporate landscape design concepts into their gardens.

And as always, we welcome your questions via phone call or email.

Well, Peggy, I had the opportunity to go down to the Isle of Wight to learn about a program that DCR has on rare plants.

Take a look.

Johnny We are at the Blackwater Ecological Preserve.

Tell me what you do and how you use the space.

As a staff botanist with DCR.

My job is to sort of sleuth out where rare plants are in Virginia.

That's sort of the first major thing.

Figure out where we can find them, where we can protect them, what land can be purchased.

This is a place owned by Old Dominion University, but also managed by the Department of Conservation.

We have dedicated it as one of our natural area preserves.

It's surrounded by even larger area, totaling about 1300 acres.

That is a natural preserve of ours.

So the place has longleaf pine on it, which is all around us, including right here, a species that was widespread in southeastern Virginia.

But by the 1800s and becoming extremely rare because of overharvesting, utilization for turpentine ship masked anything else you can name was eventually almost eliminated from Virginia.

So it is here, but also a whole flora that is found with longleaf pine throughout the southeast.

That itself is becoming rare, especially in Virginia, where we have very little of it remaining and where it's sitting at the very northernmost edge of its range.

And now I know you're going to show us some of those plants in a little bit, but when you talk about Longleaf pine, there's management that goes into it.

We're not just going to have a forest and enjoy it, and that's the end of it.

How do you perpetuate a long life?

Pine forest, right.

So it's a little special.

Longleaf pine is a very much a fire.

Adapted species.

A lot of species are including a lot of the species that grow in the understory of this place.

So they all kind of live together in that environment.

Fires were very natural part of the landscape still are where they're allowed to go.

But of course we have roads everywhere and everything else that stop them, plus houses.

We don't want to burn anybody's house.

But in order to manage longleaf pine, if you were to plant them, let's say fire is one way to eliminate the vegetation around them.

And getting a sort of a freeze them in around the plants and then a little bit of a clear spot in the woods or wide open allows the trees to grow.

They sit in a what we call a grass stage, which is much smaller than this, even looks like a tuft of grass at the ground.

And they won't come out of that stage unless they have either fire or something else to sort of remove vegetation or if that doesn't happen, it will take more years to pop out of the grass stage and grow like this one.

And fire really has long been an important aspect of our landscape, right?

But never fire water.

Right.

But it's it's harder for us to accept that now, isn't it?

It is.

It's sort of inconvenient in a lot of cases.

We have to watch for smoke.

And not only the fire itself, but it's long been involved in the creation of a lot of the plant communities, we would like to call them in Virginia, not just in the coastal areas, but up in the mountains as well, which is something that people don't realize.

But it's really fascinating to look around because you look at these trees and they are soot black at the base.

That's right.

Because they just stand.

They yeah, they can deal with it.

Once the longleaf pine gets to a certain size.

It is basically impregnable to the fire.

And for these, the bark is very thick when the fire comes along.

If you burn in enough frequency, the sort of to replicate the the time period, which we think was natural in longleaf systems, you don't have a huge amount of fuel left to consume, so you don't get flame lengths that are halfway up the tree.

You will get them lower.

It's a lower intensity, fairly fast moving fire will not burn down into the tree and kill it.

So yeah, they'll come through.

Sometimes you'll see the canopy half burned and a little bit of tufts at the top and the tree will green up and continue to live.

Well, I love to check out some of the other plants before we go look at those.

Tell me a little bit about the rare plant inventory.

What are you guys doing?

Right.

So as far as rare plant inventory, which is sort of my part of things, we try on the landscape based on historical records from specimens in museums and then also, you know, recent sightings on our own fieldwork to target places that might have these rare species.

Usually they're very rare habitats.

We try to track them down, map them and figure out all the characteristics of the species that's there, whether it's flowering or not, whether it needs some sort of management.

From there, we're able to figure out how do we go about protecting it.

A lot of places, if you just lock them up as a preserve, a lot of the species will dwindle over time.

They need some sort of management, active management, it sounds like here with the fire.

Right.

And so here you have Pixie Moss is one of them.

Yeah.

You said was a favorite of you, right?

Which is not even a moss.

It has that name because it's very small, but it is a species that's associated in this region with long leaf pine very tightly.

In Virginia.

We have it in a very few places and what we call sort of sandhill areas near rivers in the southeastern part of the state.

And it's a flowering plant that's related to a number of species that are up in the Arctic.

But it is actually down here, grows from a little bit in north in excuse me, Long Island and then dribbles down into South Carolina.

But Pine Barrens, for instance, has some.

But again, these far maintained landscapes, very, very small.

The flowers are less than a centimeter broad, but extremely attractive and just wonderful to have here because it's one of the emblematic species as far as being a longleaf pine associated there.

There's a number of them here, Holly, about 20 or 30 or more that are rare.

But it's one of those that speaks to the business of needing a nice, open, well burn place.

Interesting.

And now here you don't have only rare plants that are associated with longleaf.

And I understand that one of the ones that you have near the swamp is Trillium.

That's right.

So Trillium are familiar to many people from the mountains, usually very large plants, three leaves and a beautiful flower.

We have a species here called Virginia Leese Trillium, which is a globally rare species, very diminutive, and it's one that you find in some of these swamps you can very occasionally run into a population of, and we happen to have a couple populations on the preserve here.

So Johnny, we're in another part of the preserve, which looks a lot different, right?

This is a swamp.

Yes.

Okay.

So tell me why we're here.

Yeah.

So why we're here.

Sort of coursing through the preserve are a number of these swamps and draining the uplands.

Why we're here is because of the trillium that I mentioned before.

Virginia lease.

Trillium, which is a very small plant.

It's also one that reproduces occasionally, but also has these populations that sometimes consist of sterile individuals.

Many, many of them.

So yeah, not really sure exactly why or how that happens, but I do know that the Trillium can take a long time to develop from a seed into a mature plant, sometimes three years, just to get a single leaf.

Wow, a few more years to get actual three leaf plant that doesn't flower and then more to get one that finally does flower.

So here we probably have three or 400 plants.

At the moment there are maybe less than a dozen that are in flower.

And then this ties back into what we talked about with the loblolly, because when you do your controlled burns, you utilize the landscape.

Exactly.

We utilize the landscape.

Sometimes people will use fire lines that are sort of plowed to get make sure fire doesn't get away, but you're actually able to use natural firebreaks like these swamps to keep the fire in check.

And a lot of times the what we call e ketones areas between these wet wet spots in the uplands are quite diverse and the fire going through there can have some some nice effects.

Really interesting and the site is fascinating and I'm glad that you shared it with us.

Sure.

And thanks for spending the day with us.

Oh, thanks very much, Johnny.

It was a really interesting visit out there.

And you have brought a lot of things to share with us.

But I want to remind everyone that our phone number and email are on the screen right now.

So go ahead and send in your questions and we'll get to those in a little bit.

You brought some pictures for us to look at of other plants that can be found, because what we learned that morning is that you have to have a very keen eye and you have to be very patient and hit it just at the right time.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So what are some of these?

Yeah, some of these other ones.

There's a host of rare species down at the Blackwater preserve.

The one right here is Grass Pink Orchid or the pale grass pink orchid, which is known now only from one place in Virginia down there at Blackwater.

It used to be known from a few sites, but by the time the forties roll around and a botanist from Harvard came down doing some inventory, he only found those few and really not many more have been seen since then.

They're beautiful.

Also sheep kill or sheep Laurel, which is, as you may be able to tell from the flowers related to same genus, is Mt.

Laurel, just much smaller, has this interesting stamen to sort of pop out of their pockets when you touch them.

And pond space, a rare shrub that's known from really a handful of places in Virginia and very few in the whole Southeast, as in some of the ponds on the preserve.

So are these all associated with the lonely find the way they are, especially the first to the latter, the pond space is one that's found on the landscape where longleaf pine occurs in wetlands.

Within that landscape, we say embedded within the long pine landscape.

Yes, Johnny, no one has ever taken me through a swamp before for over 15 years.

So that was an exciting thing to do.

So yeah, the crew loved trudging through there.

Yeah.

So you have a very interesting office in that space.

That's right, Exactly.

For most of the the warm part of the year, you try to be outside and gathering data all these rare species and involves, you know, swamps, mountains, places like that, anywhere we can go.

And you brought with you a collection of the tools of your trade and some things that kind of make sense, right?

Sure.

Some items that we need to have, you know, everybody needs a notebook and something and right in the rain.

Yeah, right in the rain.

Because you've got to be able to do this and thunderstorms and whatever else.

And as I was saying before, sort of indecipherable script that only I can understand and understand, but basically taking good notes on what you find where how many speak, how many plants are there, reproduction threats, that sort of thing.

We're trying to record when we collect plants, we have a sweet shrub that I brought today called Acanthus, which is a species.

It's actually quite rare in Virginia as a native, something that people plant quite a bit as far as collecting plants and why we do it.

We want to record what these species are, where they grow a lot of cases for conservation needs or for general scientific purposes.

And so what we do is we make what we call herbarium specimens.

So herbarium is nothing more than a museum with dried pressed plants.

And some people do this just for ornamentation and for fun.

Exactly.

People will do, say some with ferns.

I've seen four framed items which are really attractive, but what we're doing is trying to preserve these things so that people can look at them.

Many, many years from now and hundreds of years actually.

These things last if you put them in the proper cabinets and take care of them.

So what you're saying is, even though technology has gotten us so far ahead, we're still not going to rely solely on a digital camera to capture this and know and quite frankly, a lot of species are not identifiable by those sorts of means.

We get photos all the time.

What is this?

Sometimes we can tell them, sometimes we can't.

Mostly what will happen in some of the genera that have a lot of species in them.

We'll have to say, please send us a specimen, a clipping, something so we can dissect the plant.

So walk us through how we would do that.

So basically for creating a specimen, what you want to do is first, this is a sort of standard plant press.

A plant press is not very fancy.

This isn't high tech, but it's been used since a very, very long time ago to document what we have, where we have sandwiches of cardboard, which we call ventilators.

Okay.

So just standard cardboard, standard, cardboard, sorry.

And then in between them, blotter paper that will absorb with the moisture away.

So what we will do is take a particular specimen, try to fit it into the size of the press.

Oh, make sure we don't overdo it.

The ultimate size of the specimen is that one sitting on the easel over there.

So we want about 11 by 16.

So we want to make sure that whatever we clip in this case, this is as technical as it gets.

And is there a standard size?

There is.

So even if you had a smaller press, you're all you want this, right?

So that basically that sheet size fits in every herbarium cabinet in the entire world that's sort of standardized.

So all you really want to make sure you do is be able to have the specimen in there with the flowers.

But then also another piece that is turned over to see the underside of the leaf, because there's a lot of detail there.

Exactly.

Detail.

And then also sometimes hair, things like that that you need to see on the underside.

So the idea then is you would put this in there once you press it, which again, not technical, we're just going to squash it.

But once you do that, when you pull it out and mounted on a specimen sheet like that, somebody at once would be able to see the top side and the underside and all the things you need to identify.

And then as I look at this and then if you guys can see this here, there is a lot of detail in the car, right, in these labels.

Right.

As much detail as possible.

The person who collected that from up in Northern Virginia is somebody who puts in a lot of detail about geology of the site, all the plants associated weeds that are present, that sort of thing.

And then something that I thought was interesting that you were saying is a lot of this is still this is good for the kid who says, what is the purpose of me learning Latin?

You are still recording a great deal in life, right?

So when, for instance, we'll just sort of put this on here for convenience at the moment, but when we go ahead and we press a specimen, sort of squash it down, when we get this thing crest, we not only apply a label that has a scientific name on it, which is in Latin, but also whenever a species is described as new to science, I can hold the label for you.

Maybe it will get not only a scientific name, but it will have a fairly short description in sort of Latin.

Botanists don't know how to do Latin very well beyond the two names.

Right.

But.

But other than that, we have to put something in these publications that record for all time what this thing look.

But what I just got out of that that is kind of the coolest thing is new species, right?

Because, you know, I turn on the news and every couple of months there's a frog in the rainforest or some really cool creature.

You're telling me we're still doing this in Virginia?

Exactly.

So we're still doing that in Virginia.

And in fact, in the last well, definitely, it's interesting to point out that journal right there, if you would sort of clean it up a little bit.

So just as an example in that particular article, I mean, that particular journal, that issue had three species that were described as new species to science that included their in their range was Virginia.

So in other words, a couple of them were found almost only in Virginia.

Another one found a little more widely.

But nevertheless, Virginia was a key part of their natural range.

It is really fast.

It does seem a little bizarre.

We don't think about it in our backyard.

We think about it as some distant, faraway, really cool place that wait for the plane ticket to get to Right now.

To be sure, it's harder to find something.

Is there science in Virginia because it's been looked at, obviously for such a long time.

But it there's a lot of things out there, a lot of acreage and very few people relatively looking around, looking around for it.

And then we don't have a lot of time.

But one of the last things I found interesting was that illustrations are still really important.

They are.

That illustration is actually one that we included in that journal article.

And so it's one where if you notice, unlike a photograph, you're able to sit there on a on on one placard and give the seeds of the other seeds, the, the, the calyx, the, you know, the symbols, that sort of thing at the root, all in one place.

People can tell what it looks like.

So, yeah, very well done.

Line drawings are pretty much essential to describing these plants.

And this is it's really interesting.

And like you said, long time when I was doing that.

Yes.

Yes, exactly.

He was receiving shipments from John Clayton and other people from, you know, from what now is the US back over there and identifying them and giving them names.

So wonderful, really interesting.

And I think that's something that we could apply to our own gardens.

Next marking when you grow things and how you to them and exactly you have a good way of keeping records really fun.

Thank you, John.

That's very interesting.

As we get ready to take your questions, Peggy is going to share with you this tip for me to take a look.

It's springtime here in central Virginia, and the landscape is just filled with flowering trees and flowering shrubs.

And here at moment it's no exception.

One of my favorites, though, is this beautiful Pearl Bush that we have here at moment.

It's a 100 year old stand, and Bush is popular amongst the Victorians and you can see a lot of them in the older sections of town blooming amongst those landscapes of those Victorian homes.

But pro-Bush itself has a wonderful Latin name called X Accord, a race mimosa, and it's a plant that blooms in the early spring and then it's just green throughout the rest of the year as these really light blue green leaves that are just very attractive in the garden.

It gets its name from the fact that the flower buds line up along the stem like pearls, like a string of pearls, hence the name Pearl Bush.

And although it makes a beautiful display, it's also giving us an opportunity to check out our plant.

Because when flowering plants are covered in flowers, it's easy to see who's kind of snuck in and taken over and started growing as well.

And in this case, you can see right here to my left is some Japanese honeysuckle.

This is Lyn is a japonica.

It is from Japan, obviously.

And it came into this country a number of years ago as an ornamental plant and by birds, it's dispersed everywhere.

But this vining plant grows up and into our shrubs and actually shrouds it, killing large sections and.

And sometimes the whole plant that we want in our landscape.

And so this is a good time of year when the plant's flowering is to go and I spy it and then actually flip it over.

You can see that it's the vines are just twining up through the branches.

So here at moment we're going to get in with our Clippers and carefully remove that and then we're going to follow the stem or the vine down to the ground and remove that as well.

We're going to dig it out.

It's not a deeply rooted plant, so it takes out pretty easy and then it's gone.

It's gone forever where if you just cut it, it'll come back for sure, because it's a very, very aggressive vine.

So once you get that removed from your plant while it's small, you know that you can preserve your blossoms of your beautiful flowering shrubs and trees for seasons to come.

Beautiful.

And thank you.

I like to take credit, but it's been there a hundred years.

You've been there a long time, but not quite that it's not quite that long.

Or else you're aging beautifully, I have to say.

My hair.

Yes.

Gorgeous plant.

I want to remind everyone that we are on Facebook.

So if you're on Facebook, go ahead and follow along with us there.

You can ask your gardening questions throughout the month and someone gets back to you usually rather quickly and you can also follow us at our Web address.

And there you can see past shows that we've done.

And this show will be put up in a couple of days and repeat watch things that you really enjoyed and want to see more of the family.

Absolutely.

So we've got some questions coming in.

Suzanne wants to know when the best time to trim her redbud tree is.

Should she wait for a fall?

I would do it now because they're through flowering and you're spring trees and your spring shrubs you want to prune after they're through blooming and we've got leaf growth and we have very little purple, red, pink left on those trees, perfect time.

And if she doesn't early in the fall, it could actually it will be removing the flower blossoms for next year.

Right.

So yes, definitely.

Now is now is a good time to do it.

John in Richmond wants to know when is the best time to plant tomatoes since it has been so chilly This spring?

I'm going to say pull out that soil thermometer.

It's all about the soil and the temperature of the soil.

And our nighttime temperatures are still I mean, we had 47 degrees last night and I'm going to I'm a wimp.

My heat was on.

Yeah, but anyway, you've got to get that soil warmed up and I'm going to give it another another week.

We've got some warm weather coming into the forecast.

And so just give it one more week.

If you've put in your tomatoes are ready, just watch those nighttime temperatures when it dips below 50.

They want to be a little bit protected from that cold air.

This is where the cloche comes in.

Yes, this is it.

And, yeah, you know, we always want to be the ones with the first tomato, but rushing it doesn't do you any good.

Actually.

It hampers it.

Yeah, it slows everything down.

Shaun in Richmond wants to know how I can keep English Ivy from taking over or killing my azaleas.

Hmm.

Well, it's going to take just like I said, get in there and start slowly pulling it in and start at the bottom.

I always go to the base of the plant so you can see where those vines are coming out.

And that's where I start.

If you start at the top, you're going to make a mess but started at bottom and see where those roots are and see where that mother plant, I'll call it is and just start teasing it out and working it out and get it out of there and then make a good circle around the base of that plant, you know, by hand, removing all that ivy.

And you go, Oh my gosh, Peggy, you're asking a lot.

Yeah, I am.

But it's a tenacious vine that's a of failure.

It will kill your shot.

So, John, is that an issue with rare plant inventory?

You must come across a lot of invasive.

Exactly.

And English Ivy, actually, you know, occasionally is one of them.

But in a lot of these natural areas, as removed as they are, they tend to be a lot of other species, a lot of ones are tenacious as English ivy.

But the funny thing is, a lot of the ones that are the worst tend to be these little minuscule things, oftentimes annuals.

Some of the grasses.

So like GM is one of them stilt grass that we call it.

This plant just has the ability to take over vast areas.

And with it being an annual, you can't do a whole lot about it.

Once they have a seed bank going, you have to exhaust that seed bank even if you do pull or spray it in one area in order for it to not come back.

If you don't spend a number of years doing that in any one area, it will come back.

And I would imagine it's risky because we talked on site about how seeds can last in the soil for years upon years.

So you don't want to put a weed preventer down because it could limit your season.

It can be really hard.

And there are some places where you definitely have to make a choice.

There are places that are just rife with some of these invasives.

There are also vestiges of some of the native flora left.

What to do.

There is a very, very difficult choice.

And unfortunately, in some of those cases there is no good answer except to go back in time and say, Don't, don't do stuff out.

Yeah, yeah.

But it makes you be aware of how cautious we need to be when we get some of these.

And I think we're all guilty of seeing something beautiful at the Garden Center and being warned, Hey, that could be invasive and going there, but it'll be okay.

And we really have to be aware that maybe there are there are some where you would think that and some of the species even take a little while to become invasive.

They'll sit there even in a whole population of people in Virginia will have a species that's planted or even got out a tiny bit and they'll just sort of limp along and then something clicks and all of a sudden you can have some decade or two later everybody saying, Wow, where did this come from?

We know there isn't.

And Virginia does have a native plant invasive list on the Internet.

And if you're you're questioning a plant that you want to introduce into your garden, you can easily go and look at that.

And that is helpful because there are plants on there that I have worked with numerous times.

I know you have the landscape industry and you think this isn't invasive.

It never had a problem with us.

And the the people who know are telling you, be careful.

Karen from Richmond says her flocks are overgrown and she would like to know how to transplant them.

I tried before and it didn't work.

I'm guessing I'm thinking garden flex or are we thinking creeping phlox if we're talking about this summer of blooming garden Phlox, now is the time to lift it.

Divide it and to move it around.

And you want to make sure that when you lift it, you get ample roots with it.

Don't just slice that soil in immediately, but get a good amount of root system and then you can tease them apart with a lump of part.

Or if you want to, you can just take a knife and make a clean cut.

Don't just rip them and snap them.

You want good, clean cuts so the plants can heal well.

If you're talking about our creeping phlox or mountain phlox is what I was brought up with it, that you want to wait till after it's bloomed.

And then what you want to do is field gently underneath that plant and find out where it's rooted.

And that's where you want to be able to make your division.

So if you just go in there, start cutting up, assuming that every piece that touches the ground is rooted, you are going to not succeed, but you've got to see where it's layered and get those roots to be able to move.

And if your flocks are overgrown, creeping plots are overgrown, you have a lot of people who are envious of you.

Yes, exactly.

That's a nice problem to have.

It's a beautiful problem.

Johnny, Nancy in Hanover wants to know what kind of plant you are pressing and does the bloom smell like strawberries?

Oh, yes.

So Sweet Shrub is the point that I was pressing.

To me, the flowers and to my wife, she was mentioning it tonight.

Smells kind of like apples and that sort of sweet kind of smell.

The leaves, when you crush them, have a bit more of almost a benzine odor.

A real strong, spicy smell.

That's very different.

The flower smell are pretty subtle, but just beautiful and fragrant in both departments.

Yes.

If you're going to buy this, though, buy it when it's in bloom, because not everyone has the fragrance.

I notice that area.

Yes.

It's just such a genetic variation in the wild.

You can run across that as well.

Mm hmm.

And now I've not experienced much scent on the ALBA.

The white variety.

Does it typically not smell as strong?

I don't have much experience with that one either.

The one I've seen, I just haven't noticed.

It's nine.

What's wrong with beautiful plant, though?

Love that plant.

Nice.

Next to a deck or a patio or somewhere where you can really enjoy it.

Well, somebody can If they've got one in their garden and can share it, they can put it on our Facebook page.

There you go.

Great.

I let us all know I might go home and do that with mine.

Joanne in Richmond wants to know, how do I get rid of Petunia?

Oh, gracious.

It's hard to say that, right?

Yes.

Oh, this is one of those plants.

You should look down the list before you bought it.

It's smelly.

It can grow in water.

It can grow in dry areas.

It can grow and sun.

And it can grow and shade.

And you can do a system of smothering it.

You can do the system of literally digging up all the soil with the plant, and you're going to you're crazy.

But carting it on off, you can be consistent and just continually cutting off at the roots and you will eventually exhaust the roots.

Or you can use a variety of other roots.

But what I like to do is really cut it down close to the roots, and then you can truly smother it with cardboard, newspaper, whatever.

But I'm talking about thick reams of it.

I mean, smother it, choke it, have it go away and you will win, I promise you.

However, if you see a tiny little piece, you get after that and dig it up or it'll be there.

It is a strong one.

Brenda has a question on Mt.

Laurel.

How do I grow Mt.

Laurel?

I've tried seeds without success.

Gosh, is that for me?

Hope I've never tried to grow Mt.

Laurel myself.

So Ian Robertson gave us a tip on Mt.

Laurel.

And help me remember, it was like it has to be planted in September.

Is it one of September for you to have the most success and very humid soil?

Yeah.

You have to realize these plants live on the depth of the soil of your forest floor.

And so you've got to have you.

I'm sorry.

Red Clay is wonderful, but not for Mt.

Laurel.

And you do have to have that very rich organic layer there.

And planting time is key and shade.

It's not going to tolerate being on the skin to tolerate the sun and also well-watered keep on top of it that first season and you'll succeed.

You can do this and great plant to have in your yard.

It's a great plant.

Well, guys, that is all we have time for in the first half of our show.

But, Peggy, I'm looking forward to your trip to Williamsburg.

You were chilly out there.

It was a tad brisk, but it was beautiful.

So let's take a look and see what Peggy found out.

Laura?

Bianca, you've been the manager of landscape services for many years at Colonial Williamsburg, and it's been a joy to just watch these gardens grow and just be more beautiful each year.

Well, thank you, but we all know there's a lot more to it than just beautiful flowers put together in a bid.

And you're right.

You just happened to be here when the daffodils are at their peak.

Just in a couple weeks, they'll be fading away and other things will be blooming.

But it's the structure of the hardscape that's so important in the garden.

And I think at first people are overwhelmed when they see a garden like this.

I could never have this, or it's more work than I want.

But there's so many lessons to be learned from our gardens, and I think the biggest one is how to create unity and harmony in a garden.

Yes.

And one easy way is using similar materials and colors.

The fence, the arbor, the benches, all the same color, all made out of wood, keeping it all cohesive.

You know, that KISS theory is so important to a successful garden.

I think homeowners just try to put too much into the garden when they have to realize keeping it so simple and and just as you said, cohesive is truly the key to success.

Right.

And even just using large grouping of plants instead of one of everything, which is tempting to all us gardeners.

Yes.

But one trick that we do here is getting an early and a late blooming daffodil because it's one face.

The other one such as the camper now is coming on.

So now we have six weeks of bloom instead of just three.

You know, a little bit of research and looking online to see which daffodils are the early the mid the lates the emails within that season is well worth time spent because these bulbs actually come up year after year and the deer don't write them.

No, they do a big bang for the buck there.

Yeah.

They don't eat the snapdragons either.

So we're in luck there.

I wanted to also point out just the paving that we're on, which is gravel gives a different feel to the garden.

Less formal than brick.

Mm hmm.

Also, with your color palette, it's more of a muted color as well.

We've got the edging boards to help keep the gravel out of the beds and to define that space of the garden.

Exactly which the fence helps to do.

But I like to show you another garden where we have it framed using different materials.

I'd love to see for.

I am.

Let's go.

All right, Laura, This is a beautiful little space that we have here.

You just enter this very, very unique kind of intimate area.

And the tulips you chose there, they're just lovely.

Again, keep it simple.

Mm.

Simple color palette of white and blue.

Using similar colors to with the hardscape materials, the fence and the wellhead match the color of the building.

Very simple.

But as you said, very relaxed, too.

We've got the bench.

Hopefully you'll sit and enjoy your garden.

But even in between the weeding, it's nice to have a bench.

And we have another one over at the arbor.

I like to point out in this garden too, there's a little bit of formality here with the four open hallways.

We share them, but that could be in your garden in a small shrub.

It doesn't need to be sheer to prune.

This is Colonial Williamsburg, so we have the topiary.

But again, it anchors the gardens.

Think about bookends at the end of each bed.

And I think that's important.

If you do have a flower bed to provide some structure like that nice little space enclosed with a fence, but you can also use hedging.

And behind the bench here we've got the pomegranate, which in a few more weeks I'll be leafed out and it gives a whole different kind of enclosure.

So I think that's a good point to remember, is that not all of the elements have to be evergreen, that we can incorporate deciduous plants into our gardens because during the growing season they'll provide that element of privacy that we're seeking.

Right.

And I love deciduous plants.

I think we tend to lean more towards evergreens.

With so many of your natives have wonderful flowers and fruits.

Exactly.

They give enjoyment throughout the seasons and in addition to attracting pollinators, which also add to the life of the garden.

Very much so, yes.

And a small lawn.

I think a lot of landscapes I see have these huge yards, huge lawns.

We'll think about breaking it up with a border going around.

Maybe it's not as deep.

It could be just maybe three feet deep, but it helps to break up that space and give a little bit more interest.

What I like about this is the proportion of the border to the lawn.

The lawn is there, but it's not dominant.

It's the gardens, the borders, right.

That are the dominant feature here.

And it helps to anchor the whole garden.

Now, in the previous garden we saw there was no lawn.

Those were all flowers.

So again, this is not quite as much maintenance, but something to add more interest to the garden.

And whereas we had the gravel pathway in another garden, we have the brick, it's a little bit more formal, but again, it creates helps to find the space breaking up what could have been a large lawn into a more intimate space.

Yes, it feels very comfortable to be in, extremely comfortable and look at the different fence that we have throughout here.

We've got the pale fence and the other garden.

We saw the picket fence.

So that's one way to add an interest to your garden to do with a little bit of structure, a little bit there year round.

Right.

And and remember, we talked about early, mid and late daffodils.

You have the same with tulips and you can get your early, your mid and your late blooming tulips as well.

So those are just little things you can do to add more interest for a longer period in your garden.

I know some gardeners they can change their color palette from the early tulip to the later Philips and enjoy.

Well, and that's why I love tulips so much, because you can do different color combinations, even with the interplay out of here.

And so in seven we can grow winter hardy annuals, so you can create a different color palette every year by depending on what color to love and what color annual each.

Exactly.

Change it up from year to year.

Flora This has been a joy.

I think, You know, we all focus on our plants when we design our gardens, and I think our viewers are now thinking, how can I add structural elements to my garden and how can I add design elements to my garden to have it truly be a cohesive, I want to say, landscape, and that's what carries it through all the season, every single one of them.

Well, thank you for having us.

Great to have you here.

Well, thanks.

I'm always come back and peek over those fences and thanks, Laura.

That was a beautiful time.

Oh, what glorious Gardens.

And I know it was a little chilly of a day.

A little damp.

Yeah, we are, But some great points to bring about for people to consider when they're designing their gardens.

And Laura's got some great plants here.

But before we get started, I want to remind you that our phone calls are open as well as we welcome your emails with your gardening questions that we can answer later on in the show.

Laura Beautiful things.

I mean, gosh, we've got springtime and you've brought it into the studio.

I did.

And when did that filming?

That was right before Colonial Williamsburg's Garden Symposiums.

And one of the topics that was so popular were native plants.

So I thought it'd be great to bring along some samples because I don't think we use them enough in our gardens.

No, I agree with you.

You know, we sort of get caught up with the latest Wowza and from whatever, and we know we need to look in our own backyards.

Right.

And I think one that many people are familiar with is the dogwood.

This is the Virginia State tree and dogwood is the corruption of dagger wood because the wood is so hard, it was actually used for daggers.

But what a win win tree.

It has beautiful flowers right now.

The red berries followed that are great for wildlife and then fall foliage, which is one of my favorite things to have in the garden.

So it's a wonderful tree for a year round.

It's an understory tree, another tree that's blooming now in our garden.

It's another understory tree is the red Buckeye.

Yeah, and a lot of people aren't familiar with this unless they're an Ohio State fan.

They know the Buckeye, but it's another small stature tree.

If you can see the red blossoms here it is called Buckeye, because the nuts that this tree produces looks like the eye of a bark.

And it's a beautiful, beautiful chestnut color.

And some people believe in the pocket.

It's good luck.

Oh, but we have it in several gardens like Colonial Williamsburg.

It has a pretty five section leaf.

It does the foliage a little earlier than most in the fall, but usually the trees have put out their foliage.

First in the spring are the first, first to fall.

So it's all in all, all's.

This is also like the dogwood, a small tree to include in our landscape.

Right.

And I think people get overwhelmed sometimes when they see the large trees.

They forget about the smaller trees and how many varieties and choices they have.

Yes.

Yes.

And speaking of the big trees, I can't help but talk about the oak.

Oh, When I pledge the forestry club at Virginia Tech, I chose the white oak as my tree because it is so valuable for what it does for humans and for wildlife.

And look at the little baby lit up the little leaves It's leafing out right now.

It's a little behind the red oak and you can tell the difference.

There's the Red Oak family in the White Oak family and the Red Oaks have a point.

You can usually see bristles on the point of their leaves.

Yes.

And you have to look really good because it's so small right now.

But once they mature, they're easier to see and the buds are pointed.

Yes.

Whereas the white oak has no bristles and the buds around it, they're lobed nicely.

Lobed.

Yes.

Nicely, Lou.

Yes.

And we learned from Doug Ptolemy that over 500 insects depend on the white oak, which makes it important there.

It's an important element to consider to add to our landscape.

And we talk about, you know, when we talk about native plants, we need to talk about we're not asking for a purist garden.

We're just asking people to consider augmenting or supplementing their garden with native plants.

You know, azaleas are beautiful parks with they're beautiful.

But we need to, you know, bring into our bring our our I want to say Virginia plants into our Virginia it to preserve the diversity in our gardens.

And this was such an important plan to the colonists everything from building houses to furniture.

I mean many people have baskets, but many people have oak chairs that were in their grandparents house because it's very strong.

So a wonderful, mature, wonderful wood.

And driving up today from Williamsburg.

Oh, the perfume of the deciduous azaleas in your car.

Oh, I'm loving the smell.

Well, I opened your car door ring of the barge bathrooms, early plant explorers.

When they first discovered this plant, they said the the hill looked like it was on fire from it just being in red buds ready to burst open and just beautiful and a lot of people are familiar with the Asian evergreen azaleas.

But these are the deciduous native azaleas.

Yeah, beautiful.

And you don't get fragments like this with the evergreen azaleas.

Never.

And I have a pink one that's just starting to pop open right there.

So let's bring it on up.

This is just starting, but you see, it's going to be a nice, pale pink hold it down there to see.

But the value of these plants are the beautiful flowers, but the fragrance and I garden for fall foliage and fragrance.

It's something to consider.

This is not a big tree.

This can get maybe 8 to 10 feet to maturity, but it's definitely a wonderful attraction, especially near your patio or something.

Yes.

Where you get to enjoy it.

You know, at moment we have a hillside of pinks, the rhododendrons, and just beautiful soft white flowers, and they just pop right out at you.

And that's the youngsters.

They all that's have brought it to mind.

Yeah, yeah.

But here's a plant that a lot of us consider as a native, but also is considered as a one of those vines that we need to be aware of.

Yes, I noticed this has five leaves, not three, but five leaves.

And this is Virginia Creeper.

And this, too, is a wonderful plant for wildlife and for the food, the berries, their juices.

But talk about fall foliage, blood red.

Beautiful.

And it's nice to grow up your trees.

Or if you have an arbor.

I am growing it on Ann Arbor at my house.

Yes.

And we saw the arbor at the lights.

The tenement when you were there.

The other great plant to put on that would be what we had growing on it.

If you can reach me, the honeysuckle is usually when you think of honeysuckle, you want to scream and run the other way before it.

And so right here, this is the native honeysuckle.

This is the John Clayton honeysuckle.

And it will not eat your house overnight.

It doesn't have the fragrance like the Japanese honeysuckle, but it doesn't have the rapid growth either.

I mean, I can understand why the Japanese honeysuckle was introduced because of the fragrance.

Our native honeysuckle.

For one thing, the hummingbirds and the number of pollinators that will come to this plant versus the Japanese honeysuckle.

Plus, you know, people are saying, Oh, my gracious, it's a Japanese honeysuckle.

It is not the invasive.

No, that that we consider a pretty soft yellow, which if you can reach me the other honeysuckle, I'll pass over to you is a nice complement to it.

Mm.

We actually in my garden I have them planted together so you have the two different colors together.

The red and the yellow.

My favorite is John Clayton.

Yes, it's a deeper red.

Very, very nice touch.

So again, it's one that you need to know what the plant is.

So you're not getting the invasive type, which you were talking about earlier.

Yes, exactly.

With Johnny.

And I think we've got one more here that we can talk about that is actually more of a wetland plant because I walk in my neighborhood every day practically when time allows.

And these are blooming all along the roadways in the byways that I walk by every day.

Yes, this is called Choke Berry Arona.

And it's, as you can see, blooming now, followed by little red berries.

If you're familiar with what rose hips look like, it's it's sort of like that.

Another fall foliage.

Yes.

But this has of several colors, red, orange and yellow, all in the same leaf.

It does spread.

Colonizes.

A colonizes is a good word, but it's all where you plant it.

So if you have an area you want to fill in with something, this is a great choice.

Great for birds, too.

And if also if you have an area where it's wet and that's something we have to consider as our native plant palette has plants for those very wet areas as well as those very dry areas.

Right.

And a little bit of you know, a little bit of research will get you to the plant that you need.

That's right.

Well, Laura, this has been fantastic, very educational, wonderful way of bringing in to our plant palette by bringing into the studio these beautiful plants.

I hope people will try them.

Thank you.

And now I'd like for you to go take a visit out to Lewis Skinner for the plant of the month.

We here at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and the Flagler women.

And this month's plant a month is trillions.

The genus trillions and trillions are called volumes because they are three leaves three equals and three petals.

This genus is made into the eastern side of the United States.

The one I have in front of me here is Trillium Flex.

Appears this particular species is notable because it has petals that hold up the flower high above the plant.

Well, some of the flowers and some of the other species of sessile, which means they sit below the plant.

Some of the other species that run in this genus have pink flowers, molted leaves, some are miniature, some are taller.

But they are all early spring ephemeral cultivation wise.

These plants want to be it within soil moisture in the spring that dries out a little bit more in the summer, have a canopy mostly deciduous underneath it.

These plants are a true native ephemeral.

I'm not very well seen in our native woodlands anymore because of habitat loss and they are actually illegal to the show we dug out of the wild, but you can find them from reputable breeders in the more and more starting to pop up here in the garden center.

And the reason why I chose this plant for this month is because it is a beautiful, ephemeral that is not often seen and unappreciated.

Special thanks, as always, to Louis Kenter Britanico Garden for participating in Plant of the Month.

Yes, I was there last week.

It's looking beautiful.

It is all of our public gardens are looking beautiful, right?

Charlottesville's a little envious of Richmond, I have to tell you.

Should be in Williamsburg.

It's a little further ahead than us too.

Gorgeous, Gorgeous.

We have lots of questions.

But before we get to this, I want to remind everyone that if you have any questions that come up between now and the next show, you are always encouraged to send them to Richmond Times Dispatch.

Richard Nunley, who used to be the host of the show.

And he is so good about getting right back to you and you may even see it appear in one of his future columns.

So we thank Richard for that and for his continued support of the show here.

Guy from Petersburg wants to know if pomegranates grow in this zone.

I almost bought one today, Guy.

Well, I'll let you answer that.

Well, we are zone seven and Williamsburg, Prague.

And they grow fine.

There they are.

You can get a dwarf kind now for the if you're in a more colder area, the dwarfs do a little better.

No, they'll do just fine in zone seven and probably up to D.C. and in Charlottesville, if you need to put them up closer to a building or if you have a brick wall, give them a little micro climate.

That would be good.

Really a great plant to have.

Jonny, we had a question for you.

Rich from Albemarle wants to know what are the ecological and historical companion tree species?

Wow, that sounds hard.

Already in the Southeast Virginia, Zuni Pine Barrens are a companion tree species, companion tree species.

So who else grew with this So Well, we had longleaf pine, of course, And then some of the others that are really notable.

There are turkey oak, a couple of the oaks you're mentioning Oaks really, these are scrub oaks ones that are growing in these Sandhills near rivers, Turkey, oak, blue jack.

Oh, could be another one.

These are all not things that will grow huge in your yard.

There's a sort of the main ones down there.

There's also loblolly pine and long and short leaf pine, too.

Short leaf, something that you can find in this barren landscapes.

Loblolly is more of a recent thing in terms of, you know, several decades, but it never was a thing that was so widespread in the uplands.

Now it's around in a lot of places, including there some it just a reminder and I know it's common sense, but when you go down to a place like that and I traveled 3 hours from Charlottesville to get there the difference in our landscape all in Virginia, you know, in a day's drive, what we experience is a sense wonderful and reminded of.

I spent a summer in England one time and a man said, You guys, I'll come over here and get all excited about this.

Have you traveled through your country?

Yeah, we do really have an amazing We also make the zone five in Virginia.

What a wide range of plants right there in our own state.

And you can do it today and you can do it in a day.

Growing rhododendron Mike from Dinwiddie wants to know, do you have any helpful hints for growing rhododendron like soil and lighting?

He hasn't had much success.

Oh, you have rhododendrons down Williamsburg, You have a few.

It's a little humid, but shade is is critical and a good soil to sort of like what you were saying with the mountain laurel very similar growing conditions with a good homemade soil and some afternoon shade and keep it watered, especially the first couple of years before it can get its own root system going.

Yeah, and Laura did say the key afternoon shade because it does need some sunshine to initiate networking events.

Yes, Becky in Richmond has a gardenia question, and I think a lot of us have experienced her gardening has better damage this year.

Yes, the damage to broadly it's was significant.

Extremely.

She wants to know what the best time to prune the dead grow this.

I'm telling people to kind of wait and see what the plant has to say before start taking your shears to it.

And then when I'm encouraging people to do is not prune back to that real weak little bud, but to go back to the stronger portion of that stem where the growth is coming out much stronger, You'll see what I'm talking about when it starts.

And sometimes you just have to dig it up and get a new one.

I'm sorry, but, you know, it depends on the extent of the damage of the plant.

But just wait a little longer.

Remember, it's cooler.

It hasn't gotten really warm out.

And good gardenias are more southern based plants.

So give it a few more weeks.

Be patient.

We call that supporting your local nursery.

You're doing something great for the state of Virginia sheep soil, Jim.

And as well as how do I get rid of it?

Oh, gosh.

Well, that's a sign of compacted soil right there.

For one thing, when you have this sheep soil and, well, the organic or not organic way, I mean, Roundup would take care of it.

It's got a heck of a root if you think like a dandelion, too.

So it's probably using something like Roundup would be the quickest way.

Otherwise you'd have to just again, fix the area too.

If it's just a couple of plants, you could afford to put newspaper down, whatever.

So it depends on how large the area is.

What do you think?

Or perpetually dig?

Yes.

Yeah, that would be your summer.

Your summer?

Yeah.

Kids who are in trouble a lot.

Punishment, Charles and Goochland.

Has you mentioned that it is okay to allow Virginia paper to vine of a tree?

I thought it was not good for vines to grow on trees.

How high will it go up the tree There will.

It will put on 20 or 25 feet.

And what you can do is each season you can, if it's starting to get too much, you can cut it back a little bit.

I choose trees that have a high canopy, so it's a while before the branches branch out.

So it's not really getting up into the fall.

So it's really the trunk and the right damage.

But you do have to notice it will start to move on to the next tree.

So when it gets to that point, you might want to do some selective pruning honored as well.

So not maintenance free, but it's a beautiful but it's definitely worth it for its value to wildlife.

Johnny Tanner says he is looking up the rare plants that we discussed today and he sees an article regarding shale barons and.

DOUTHAT Yes, and he said he's very familiar with Barth and Allegheny Counties and he's wondering where he can find more information.

Right.

Shale Barrens are a very unique habitat that you find in mainly Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, places like that, that there are steep shale substrates in the mountains that sort of basically the soil, if you want to call it that, slopes off quite a bit, very unstable, very, very hot in the summer, like desert, like conditions at ground lines.

You have species that are very well adapted to that habitat, what we call endemic species that occur only on shale barrens.

And there's actually a few of them that are in Virginia.

One of them is even endangered.

There's some amazing things that go on the shale bear.

And so as far as figuring out where they are, where to explore them and that sort of thing, actually.

DOUTHAT State Park is an excellent place to start.

The trails there will take you up into some of the most amazing shale barrens that are actually fairly close to the car and just DCR maintain information on that online if they like that.

Well, as far it depends on what you mean by maintain on line.

But we do have a lot of things on our website that detail everything about rare plants, plant communities across the state, whether rare or common, what composes them, what species are there, where you can find them, properties where you can see certain things.

So yeah, it would be a great start to go to the DCR Natural Heritage website to sort of and I have said DCR repeatedly tonight for fear of tripping over my head.

Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Very good.

Very good.

We only have a couple of minutes left and a few more questions.

Is it possible to grow Redbud from cuttings?

Of course, yes, of course.

You can take cuttings of a red.

Matter of fact, Yeah, but it starts from seeds very easily too.

So I think that would be easier than cutting anything.

With an eye out.

You'll often find little babies that you can very easily.

It is leg.

You will Wilson from King William wants to know, does American Chestnut do well in this area?

By this area I mean central Virginia right here.

Well, he's in King William.

Well, American Chestnut doesn't do well anyway.

They they've just started to bring it back.

Yes.

And so there is actually a website they can visit the American Chestnut Foundation that he can find a lot of information on.

We're doing some test plots out, for instance, in the western part of the state for service land to try to figure out whether the crosses are working well and how well they're working.

Yeah, we did an episode once down near Wintergreen where they're trying to do some reintroduction and crossbreeding and things like that.

Guys, it went by so fast.

It always rapid fire.

Thank you, Johnny.

Thank you for having me on.

Yes, Thank you, Peggy.

Thank you for surviving a very wet, wet herbs galore and coming to us this evening.

And as always, we appreciate you guys tuning in.

Next month, we're going to do some really interesting things.

We're going to visit a private garden in Charlottesville, and Peggy is going to take us to the east end of Richmond, where students have recognized that there is a food desert in their community and they're doing something about it.

So pretty impressive and pretty interesting stuff.

And we hope to see you back here next month on Virginia, home grown.

Thank you.

Thanks, guys.

Great time.

Thank you.

It was a very good show.

Thank you for watching.

Virginia Homegrown.

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