- [Narrator] On this "Volunteer Gardener," Troy Martin visits with a couple whose tropical backyard landscape reminds them of a favorite vacation spot.

Marty DeHart showcases a selection of annuals that perform well all season long.

Plus, boxwood blight has been found in our area.

David Cook shows you what to look for and what to do next, stay tuned.

(upbeat music) First, what a fun plant palette to enjoy from the back deck.

- Looking at the background behind me, you might think that I have finally given up and skipped the country, but the truth of the matter is we're tucked into a little neighborhood just off of Knoxville road right here in Nashville, surrounded by banana trees and other tropical plants in the garden of Richard and Kathy Smith.

Richard, welcome to "Volunteer Gardner."

Thank you so much for letting us come and see the garden today.

- [Richard] Thank you, thank you for being here.

- [Troy] Tell me about this little paradise you've created back here.

- [Richard] Oh Lord.

(laughs) Well, we started out with four banana trees that the neighbor down the street gave us and I really didn't want them at the time.

And this is the result.

- [Troy] And here this is what four has turned into.

- [Richard] Yes, sir.

- [Troy] Cautionary tale.

(both laugh) So leave them in the ground?

- [Richard] No, I actually have to dig them up every year, put them in a plastic bag, put them in my garage, water them about once a month and springtime, put them back out.

- [Troy] Right, so do you cut them off to a certain level or- - [Richard] No.

- [Troy] No, you take the trunks and everything the whole thing to the garage?

- [Richard] The whole thing.

- [Troy] Wow, that's it.

- [Richard] Now, if they get too big, I'll just throw them away and they have little babies on the side and that's what- - [Troy] Comes back and makes the next generation.

Well, I like that and there are a few that are hardy in our region, but I love the way you have them because they're spaced out.

It's almost like a forest of banana trees.

And then you have all of these other interesting tropical and hardy plants too.

But a lot of tropical things just tucked in and around under the bananas.

So I saw some gingers, some of the butterfly gingers, tell me about those.

- [Richard] Well they, we started off with just a few plants and of course they multiply.

- [Troy] Right, like crazy.

- [Richard] And so we have to really cut them back.

- [Troy] Cut them back?

- [Richard] Yeah, and they bloom every year, Oh, the fragrance is so good.

- [Troy] Yeah, and I have some in my garden and I leave them out.

They will come back.

But what I find is that I don't get very many blooms on them and I wonder if maybe having them in pots and they're kind of root bound, I just noticed yours were really in full bloom.

- [Richard] I would say that's true.

- [Troy] That's true.

- [Richard] Yeah.

- [Troy] What about maintenance on those?

Just as far as general care?

- [Richard] Nothing too.

- [Troy] Water and fertilizer?

- [Richard] Just water and fertilizer, that's it?

- [Troy] Yeah, and then when they get too big for their pots, do you unpot them, divide them?

- [Richard] I do, I cut them up, separate them out.

- [Troy] Separate them out, re-pot them, give them to friends?

(both laugh) - [Richard] Yeah, my neighbors and let them do it, yes.

- Exactly, you guys are really into tropicals, why tropical?

- Well we go to Hawaii about every year, so- - Not this year.

- This is Hawaii for us.

- This is Hawaii for you, yeah.

Well, that's great.

It's neat that you can bring that little piece of tropical paradise home.

Now, one other plant that I've noticed in the garden that we cannot miss talking about are these incredible angel's trumpets that you have flowering.

And they're really in full bloom right now.

- [Richard] Right, they are.

I started off, I ordered three plants about goodness gracious, probably 20 years ago.

And as you see, this is what's come from those.

- [Troy] Come from those three plants.

- [Richard] But now probably every year I will take one down and don't plant it again.

- [Troy] Huh, so do you divide the little root sprouts that come off of them?

Or do you take cuttings?

How do you?

- [Richard] I make cuttings as we have one over here that, I got two plants that next year, they'll be here.

- [Troy] They'll be here.

- [Richard] And when they get too big, I have to cut them down.

I can't handle them.

(laughs) They're heavy.

- Right, because they're also potted.

And they go in and out of the garage, the way the bananas and some of these other tropical things?

- Everything goes in and out.

- Everything goes in and out.

- Unbelievable, that's a real labor of love.

- It's a fun time getting them in and out.

- Well, very good.

- But we enjoy it and it's worth it.

- Yeah, you also have a really pretty pond here in the garden, is that something you built yourself?

- [Richard] No.

- [Try] No.

- [Richard] My wife did that.

- [Troy] Oh, your wife did that.

(laughs) So Kathy was out here and digging holes and creating a pond.

- [Richard] She was digging holes and my daughter and I was sitting up there watching her for a while and I said, how long do you think it's gonna take before we get down there?

It didn't take long.

- [Troy] Didn't take long.

And a really interesting plant blooming there next to the pond, that little pink flowered, begonia, where did that come from?

How did it get here to the garden?

- [Richard] Her mother had that in her house.

- [Troy] So a little pass along plant that's come from another generation.

- [Richard] We got just a little bitty plant and we grew in the pond.

- [Troy] Yeah, yeah, well they're happy.

They'll spread themselves around and- - [Richard] They love the moisture.

- [Troy] Another plant that I noticed as we were walking through your garden and this might be another sign that you love Hawaii, is a pineapple plant that actually has some fruit on it.

So how does that process work?

- [Troy] Well, that started, my wife does that, that part of it.

And she's got one plant and she plants it in- - [Troy] After a certain period of time?

- [Richard] Right, and it's another one we take in and out.

- [Troy] Take in and out every winter 'cause obviously it won't live over the winter here.

- [Richard] We don't know how big it's gonna get yet, but it's getting there.

- [Troy] And with enough age, then it will flower and (inaudible) a pineapple and hopefully you'll have a pineapple to eat, maybe two.

- [Richard] I hope so.

(both laugh) - [Troy] Also the tree fern, does that go in and out or is that something that you just- - [Richard] Yes, in and out.

- [Troy] In and out.

- [Richard] Everything you see in a pot- - [Troy] Everything that's here.

Everything that's in a pot gets carried into the garage.

I love that tree fern.

It also just gave such a know architectural element along with the bananas and- - [Richard] It does take less maintenance [inaudible] water.

- [Troy] You also have some really pretty garden ornaments and yard art, as we say.

And sometimes that gets a negative connotation, but I love yard decoration.

So is there anything particularly that you guys have that you really love that's special to you?

- [Richard] Well, my wife has got a bottle tree and she's collected them and collected and it's unique.

- [Troy] Found a tree trunk.

It looks like to me and just this limbed it off.

- [Richard] And hang them right on there.

- [Troy] And hang them right on the- - [Richard] Different colors.

- [Troy] Great way to do it.

As I was walking up the driveway, I noticed a unique vine over to the side that looks to me like a muscadine.

- [Richard] That's correct.

- [Troy] Yeah and it actually has some ripe fruit on it right now.

- [Richard] Yes it does.

- [Troy] And something obviously that you've started and grown here.

- [Richard] Right, that's probably about 15 years old.

It took a long time before they ever matured.

But once they did, oh.

- [Troy] Then you get some muscadines every year.

Nothing like a good muscadine jelly.

Do you eat them fresh?

- [Richard] Fresh.

- Mostly fresh.

- One at a time.

- Don't blame you, don't blame you at all.

- I wanna thank you and Kathy for allowing us to visit today and see your little piece of tropical paradise.

It has been a pleasure and obviously as a labor of love.

- [Richard] We're glad to share it with you.

And thank you for coming, appreciate it.

(upbeat music) - I wanna talk today about some cool annuals that you may or may not be aware of.

Some of them were pretty new to the trade to the market and I've grown all of these and I wanna tell you, I like them and that's why I'm recommending them.

And the first one I wanna talk about is this begonia here.

Everybody knows dragon wing pink and dragon wing red.

This is one called baby wing white, and it's got kind of a bronzy leaf and it's got the habit of a small dragon wing, blooms prolifically all summer into fall.

It gets maybe 18 inches tall as opposed to 24 to 30 inches like a dragon wing when it's happy.

But the main thing I wanted to tell you about this plant, aside from its wonderful garden performance all summer, is that for me, now, granted it was in a sheltered spot on the south side of my house in part shade, which seemed suited just fine, it came back.

Two years in a row, it overwintered and resprouted.

I had no expectation of this.

So you could have knocked me over when the first time I saw it.

And then the next year it did it again.

So just saying, you might have some luck with this.

But even if it doesn't come back for you, it's a wonderful performer, a great sort of filler plant in a container, for example.

And speaking of great container plants, this is one that's become available somewhat lately.

This is Lysimachia, loose strife is the common name of that group of plants.

This is one called midnight sun, dark foliage is very striking and you can tell right away, it's a spiller.

It wants to go over the side of the pot and really make a lovely cascade of this dark foliage.

And depending on the color of your pot, this can be really quite striking.

Furthermore, it has little rounded, golden yellow flowers in summer, not covering itself, but intermittently scattered throughout the foliage, which is really beautiful.

Plus it's mostly hardy.

So it may well come back for you.

Also, we treat it like an annual, like we do so many things, but it's actually a perennial.

And another one that does that is, this is one of the black and blue salvias.

This one's called black and bloom.

You can see as opposed to black and blue, the leaves are a little bigger, a little shinier, the nodes are a little shorter.

This one gets, same as black and blue, it'll get three feet tall.

It's just got a slightly different presentation to the plant, beautiful cobalt blue blooms in the summer, hummingbird magnet.

It's called black and bloom because as it matures, the stems get very dark.

You can see it just starting to happen here.

It's starting to darken up.

They'll turn almost black.

So you get black stems and the black petiole and calyx that holds the flower out and then this beautiful, brilliant blue flower coming out.

Blooms loves hot weather, likes to bloom intermittently all summer for me.

And this is another one that comes back.

It will typically re sprout in the spring, which is a wonderful thing, great plant.

And if you like to have hummingbirds, this is a plant to get.

And so is this one.

This is a cuphea and look at the cool flowers on that, long, tubular, with a pistil and the stamens just sticking out beyond the corolla that end of the flower.

When a plant, when a flower is red or orange and tubular, that says hummingbird and you're right, this is a hummingbird plant.

This is a wonderful biggish plant for a container.

I use it as the thriller sort of the top, the tallest plant in a container.

And it blooms all summer long, loves hot weather, pretty drought tolerant, if you forget to water the pot, it's not gonna croak on you.

And yet again, another hummingbird magnet, wonderful plant.

This coleus isn't new, but it's so much my favorite that I wanted to talk about it.

It's called redhead.

This is a spectacular bedding plant.

It takes full sun folks.

This is not one of these you have to tuck into a moist shady spot.

I plant these out in full sun in suaves in my client's gardens and they are just spectacular.

It'll get 30 inches tall and become dense, a great brancher, doesn't just get one tall spindly growth on it.

It makes a bush out of itself, and it keeps that beautiful kind of wine color all summer long.

It's just a great plant.

Impatiens, you know about eight, nine years ago, we got hit with impatiens Downy mildew.

And if you've grown just traditional impatiens before that and then all of a sudden, nobody could keep it alive.

It would be fine and then three weeks later, it'd be dead to the ground.

That disease is still around, and it is totally fatal to our traditional garden impatiens, not new Guinea impatiens, not sun impatiens and those sorts, those interspecific hybrids, they don't get it, but this kind does, the super elegans and the dazzlers and all those that we used to grow so readily.

Well, guess what?

The breeders have been at work, and there are now two strains that I know of and there may be, I'm sure there are more coming to market that don't get the disease.

And I have grown both of these and know that it is true.

This one is called imara.

This is, this is imara purple, but it comes in the usual sorts of impatiens colors, reds, pinks, whites, lilac, that sort of thing.

The other strain that also offers all of those sorts of colors and orange and even a starburst kind, I think imara has the starburst, but the other strain is called beacon, like a light, a beacon light.

And both of those seem to be highly resistant to impatiens Downy mildew.

They do not go down.

They just bloom all summer.

So you can have impatiens again, which is a great addition.

I mean, how much did we miss it?

It used to be the biggest selling annual in the country and it went to almost nothing because of that disease.

I wanted to talk about this great begonia.

There are a number of big flowered begonias on the market.

And in my opinion, in my experience, this is the best.

It's a string called tophat, and there's a tophat pink, and this is tophat white.

The flowers are huge, it blooms nonstop.

The plant has a very nice habit, kind of bushy, gets about 14 to 16 inches tall for me, does great in pots, does fine in the ground, a really terrific plant and the flowers don't get the brown edges that some begonias tend to get.

Lastly, another wonderful annual for pots.

And this is plectranthus, it has an aromatic, is a member of the mint family.

And has that sort of aromatic foliage that mints often do.

So check these out at your local garden center.

They're all great plants.

(upbeat music) - We grow several unusual crops here in our garden.

Well, of course we grow weeds.

And when I was young, I liked to study the wild plants that were edible.

I wasn't quite as good a gardener back then, but none of them really tasted all that good, except for one that I really enjoy.

And it's called Lamb's quarters.

It's in a family of plants called Chenopodium, that includes spinach.

Lamb's quarters is wild spinach.

Well, during the winter, I was reading these seductive seed catalogs and I came across a named variety of Lamb's quarters that's been grown just for the greens and it has a pretty purple center in it.

And here it is, this is called magenta lamb's quarters.

Isn't that beautiful?

All you do is just pick off the tips of this, steam it up a little bit and serve it just like you would spinach.

It's really good.

Another weed that's common in our lawns is the dandelion.

Now, you've probably heard of dandelion greens, which are edible, but they're a little bit tough.

Well, we're growing one this year called Italian dandelion, which is actually in the Cichorium family.

Italian dandelion is a bitter green, that's really good for you, a liver detoxer and just a very good green, though it's quite bitter.

The lamb's quarter isn't nearly as bitter.

Another unusual crop we're growing this year is borage.

It has beautiful blue flowers and an interesting flavored leaf that tastes quite a bit like a cucumber.

Borage is another medicinal herbs.

It's used as a garnish in restaurants.

You don't see it a whole lot, but again, this is more of something that you would find in Europe.

So when you're gardening, if you feel like you don't really have a green thumb, you may start by growing some of these easy to grow weeds.

(upbeat music) - I'm here at the UT Plant Pest Center, and it's a diagnostic lab for Nashville, Tennessee in the state.

And we're gonna be discussing issues with boxwood shows, which are the most common type, old type shrub that you will find in many large estates and they're very popular shrub and new landscape plannings.

But the problem of being popular with a boxwood shrub is that there are serious disease and insect issues that are creeping up.

And one in particular, we're gonna look at today and do some serious discussion on with Dr. Alan Windham, is called boxwood blight.

So Alan Windham, it's good to see you again.

- Good to see you David.

- And we have worked too many years in the past, and I'm gonna tell you, Alan, as my mentor, he, that's what I got to call him, that he's a mentor, a good friend.

So Alan, as an extension agent, you do too, you get a lot of calls on various plants that have problems and a lot of people refer to any issue decline of a plant as a blight, but you'd actually have found a serious problem with the boxwood, the disease is called a blight, isn't it?

- Right, there's a relatively new disease, boxwood blight, new to the US in 2011 and first found in Tennessee in 2014.

It's not really widespread, but we do find it every year.

And as a matter of fact, I've already diagnosed it in a natural garden since January.

The first residential garden we found it was in Knoxville.

And I think the homeowner lost 600 boxwoods from it.

So we've learned a lot about it since that time.

So actually there is some good news.

Number one, it hasn't spread as fast as we thought it might, which is good.

And two, there are some treatments for it.

And three there's, some regulatory things that are going on to help protect consumers when they buy boxwood so that the boxwoods they are buying are healthy.

- Okay, when you said spread, maybe not spreading as rapid but we know that fungal pathogens can be spread by spores and it could be airborne.

So if this is not spreading, or if you see an isolated case, how did that disease occur?

How did it get started on that one particular shrub if you don't see any of their infections around it?

- Long distance movement is via moving infected plant material.

And short distance spread could be someone working in one garden going to the next garden and it's got really sticky spores, it could be on your clothing, your hands, tools.

So one thing you need to do, if you do shearing, prunning of boxwoods, probably disinfecting the tools would be a good thing.

Especially if you have more than one client and you go to another garden, those tools need to be disinfected.

- What would a homeowner look for and what should they look for?

And we encourage people to look for this problem, this boxwood blight if they have boxwoods because you wanna be proactive.

By the time you see the disease, you're in a lot of trouble.

So what would be some symptoms say they could find on their boxwood shrub?

- Okay, so during the growing season, you're gonna see leaf spots, pretty good size of leaf spots on the leaves, which is unique to this disease.

And during the winter months, those leaves fall off so the plant looks a little bare, but they're little black lesions on the green twigs and there's no other disease that does that.

So actually it's really easy to diagnose.

- Now, I've heard there's a quarantine and where did that come from and who enforces that?

- So that was instituted by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture as a way to minimize the chance of infected boxwoods coming in from the state, 'cause there's a lot of plant materials shipped into the state each year.

So basically it's three things, number one is, that if a nursery is gonna ship boxwoods into the state of Tennessee, they're gonna be part of a Boxwood Blight Cleanliness program to make sure they're doing everything they can to minimize chances of that disease being a problem.

Two, they're gonna be recently inspected before they ship.

And three, the person, the vendor receiving the plants has to notify the Department of Ag when they're going to arrive to give them a chance to inspect them.

- Okay, so quarantine is good and it's necessary, but it's not 100% foolproof, is it?

- It's not.

- So you find, you have found several landscapes and did you get a call from the person that was helping maintain that?

Or did you get called from the owner?

- Usually it's the person, the grounds manager that maintains the property that we deal with.

And I would say, so when you manage diseases, first thing, be able to recognize it, which you mentioned the leaf spots, the little lesions on the twigs.

The second thing, bring a sample to the Soil Plant Pest Center and have it identified.

It's an easy thing for us to identify.

We can usually do within 24 hours of no problem.

And then three, you decide whether you want to try to treat it, to remediate it on a plant because there's been a good bit of luck in doing that with some of the landscapes here in Nashville.

You can spray with fungicides after you prune it back, remove the disease portions, spray what's healthy and you would do that probably every two weeks in the spring and fall with a fungicide and maybe once a month in the summer.

And then, once you no longer see any symptoms appearing, basically you just scout for symptoms for the near future and make sure that it doesn't come back.

- Now if someone brought this to me and someone actually has brought this to you, and a lot of homeowners might think, is this boxwood blight?

But I see the leaves are still attached on this.

- Right, that's volutella blight, which is very common, not very serious, may make the plant look a little thin, but then this one, this is the one that you have the pink spore masses on the underside of the leaf so it's really easy to identify.

- [David] Okay, is that visible with the naked eye?

- [Alan] It is, it is.

- [David] But a hand lens, a little magnification will be helpful too?

- [Alan] A hand lens will help.

- [David] Okay.

- [Alan] It's easy for most lay people to identify.

- [David] Yeah and I can see how it makes a plant look unsully but this is not gonna kill the shrub or defoliate it.

- [Alan] No, no, and sometimes we'll see a volutella blight in conjunction with boxwood leaf miner, so boxwood leaf miner itself can make a boxwood look really rough and thin canopy and leaves that drop.

- [David] Yeah, so the boxwood leaf miner actually is just a little tiny net like fly.

And most people will never see that one flying around after they emerge, but they live inside the leaf.

So that's, they do a lot of damage, they kind of eat the leaf from the inside out.

And you probably have some examples here.

I know you've got some shrubbery here, that if you hold this up, it's amazing.

If someone looked at this, they would think, well, it looks green, it looks healthy and then they'll walk away thinking this shrub doesn't have a problem, but it has initial leaves that are infected.

I see, I get this blistering.

This is actually kind of severe on right here.

- It is, it is severe.

And you're right, so you're right that most of the year, this insect lives within the boxwood leaf.

And what's interesting is that it emerges at the same time boxwood's putting out new growth in the spring.

- Okay.

- So that's actually a good time to look.

And if you go and look at your boxwood and you see new growth for the first time, you'll see these little nightlight flies hovering all over the boxwood and they're there to actually lay eggs.

- Okay Alan, let's get back on boxwood blight.

- Great and just in the last couple of years, there have been some new boxwood cultivars release that are more tolerant of boxwood blight.

- You're not using the word resistant yet.

They get the disease, resistance doesn't mean never.

A plant can hold its own for a while, tolerate the disease, but most boxwoods are susceptible, no?

- Most are, most the ones that I have seen are, and actually the little dwarf boxwoods are some of the ones that are most susceptible to it.

The good news is that, immune is probably the word you were looking for.

We don't have any plants that are immune to it.

Even the ones that are resistant may get the disease, but they'll probably retain their leaves and be able to just tolerate it very well.

- [David] A homeowner couldn't find something at a garden center, a box store [inaudible] - They can, actually, most of the fungicides that are labeled for leaf spots would work pretty well.

Now as far as organic products like a copper fungicide, don't know how well that would work.

You definitely could try it, but you'd probably have to spray more often, maybe once a week, if you wanted to try an organic option.

But other fungicides that are on market for leaf spots would probably work pretty well.

The main thing is, you can't just spray it, walk away from it and forget it.

You have to go out and scout, see if you see a new growth.

If the fungicides work, and you're gonna see new growth, you're gonna see new leaves developing and you're gonna see fewer of the leaves that have the least spots and less leaf drop, that tells you you're on the right track.

- [David] So this disease is, it's gonna be with us right, for a long time?

- Probably it will be with us for a long time.

I don't think there's gonna be a cure, but there's definitely things that we can do to minimize the damage from it.

And I think the good news is more people know what it looks like.

As a matter of fact, most cases that I've been involved in in the past year, they recognized it really early so it didn't spread, which is like a best case scenario.

- Okay, very good.

So commercial people out there, they're getting educated on this and we hope to educate homeowners through this typing of the show too.

So it doesn't mean you shouldn't ever plant a boxwood, you should be aware of that there're issues, some serious and some not so serious.

So keep an open mind, but keep an open eye and scout and check your plans and keep them healthy.

- Sure, they're great plants.

They're the backbone for a lot of gardens in Tennessee, and I think they're gonna be here for a long time.

- Good deal, well, thanks for your input.

It's always best to go to the specialist.

- [Alan] Thank you.

- [David] He knows what he's talking about.

'Cause I can ask the questions, I get good answers.

Thank you, Alan.

- [Alan] Yeah, good to visit with you.

(upbeat music)