Always Room for Another Plant | Volunteer Gardener

Sometimes life calls for us to downsize our gardens. When that happens, this amazing garden is going to show you what you can do in a limited amount of space. Her goal is to get one of everything and I think you're going to be amazed at what she's accomplished. Who can deny that an Annabelle hydrangea is the queen of hydrangeas, isn't she? They're beautiful. I love them. I have a very difficult exposure here. It's full south. And even though it's a little bit toasty for them come August, you can see they perform really well here in this full sun. And this is zone eight now I think we are in Memphis. This is Linda Orton and she is affiliated with the Hydrangea Society that comes and goes and I've known her to be that expert for years. But today we're in her garden and I'm standing behind something that I'm amazed also with. Tell me about this. That is a daylily called autumn minaret and it's a very tall daylily and I have a friend who's a big daylily fan and I reached out to them and they said I have a couple extras I'll gift you. So we were able to arrange for me to have a couple and these used to be in my back area that didn't get as much sun but here in the south exposure it has shot up it's at least six feet tall. So that was a good friend to have. I know I'm very happy with it we'll see what it looks like. When we welcome people into our homes it's very important the first impression is what they see before they go through your door and you have limited space but you also have impressed with what you've done right here just on this wall. Tell us tell me about your choice of plants. Well I'm a big clematis fan and so this is called a starfish and I have another one in there that blooms early it's already gone over and this is a herbaceous clematis down here stand by me the purple little elf's hat. Yes I love it and you know that has a very long blooming time. It does and if I had cut it I am very shy pruner and I've been really preoccupied this year and I normally would cut that back a lot further feed it and it would flush out and not be so droopy right now and some friends gave me again some dahlias and I've never had them before so it's been kind of an experiment and I have them in a pot so that I can once they go over I can move them around somewhere else or put them out of sight. As we step further into your entrance into your home and gardens you've already got a garden a real garden created right here so I see all kinds of examples of perennials annuals tell me about your choices here. Well again this doesn't get as much sun because it's protected a little bit by my home but this is the way I go into my home every day I don't have an area where I can go into my house through my garage so I kind of made it for me. I wanted to see something pretty that I like to see every day when I come in and out of my house so I've got a lot of mix of hellebores and mostly the annuals are in pots but this is a I have clematis in pots and well and now let's talk about this Japanese maple. It's a Ryusan and it's been out probably 20 some years but when it came out it's basically a ground cover it will grow laterally on across the ground if you don't stake it and I've got it staked up in a pot. And underneath it you you've actually created a small garden right here with perennials yeah what have you chosen in here? That's a status I think or a stachys I never can pronounce it correctly and then there that's called a pink octopus companula. That is too cute. Yeah and that's a perennial and I didn't have space in the back so I put it in a pot here we'll see if it makes it through the winter again and then the rest are little annuals that I filled in for color contrast. The snowflake hydrangea to me is a masterful hydrangea tell me about that. That was found actually in someone's front yard down in Alabama by Eddie Aldridge and his father oh probably 20-30 years ago and it is a sterile form and so when you cut it and put it in your bouquets on your table you don't have that shedding that you would see from a lot of other hydrangeas. I see what you're saying but but it has triple flakes doesn't it? Yes it's an amazing yeah it's like a hose and hose in a azalea you would call a hose and hose where the flower just keeps coming out in a chain and it when it ages it turns green like a pale limey green. It's beautiful I love it you don't it's a little hard to propagate and I don't think you see it so much in the trade because I don't think it was ever patented. I just recently found mine. We have literally stepped into a garden and let's talk about right here what you've collected in your in your container plant the garden you've created. Tell us about all of this plant material that you've gathered here. Well I'm a big hydrangea fan as you can tell and my garden doesn't lend itself to planting macrophyllas in the ground because the sun so this north side of my house is a perfect place to put a lot of different hydrangeas in different pots so I just grouped them up in a collection basically of the different hydrangeas that strike my fancy. Yes well and they seem to live well there and they don't mind. They really are happy. They don't mind being contained do they? No really I think they do better for me in pots than they have in the ground. I have some in the ground. Yeah. If you don't have a lot of shade you've got to make use of what you what you can. And you have a goal too. That's right I have I'm a focused on hydrangeas a lot. This right here is complete coverage of how you've taken a clematis and other binding materials to put a backdrop on this otherwise wooden wall. Yes it's kind of a sore spot for me that wall so I found these trellises and put them up and I have about six different clematis growing up in there. Wow. They've all grown over but some bloom really early and some bloom later. It's so amazing when you take a big urn and set it off to itself but then it becomes a statement piece. You've given it a hair. What is that? That is a golden oregano. Oh. And it's just an ornamental oregano and I like that lime green color in a garden. It kind of sets itself off from the other greens that you see. Don't you think it's a blending color? It might bring together things otherwise you wouldn't put it together. A little cohesive. Yeah I think so also. In your gardening efforts Linda let's start at your top layer up there. The plants that you put in there and are you happy with them? Well this year I'm kind of happy with that golden oregano and then I have a phlox that's more of a spring blooming phlox and then this year I bought some germander that's supposed to be evergreen and is very easy or adaptable to pruning and so I'm hoping that will fill in and I'll have like a little evergreen hedge up there come winter time. I'll testify for you. It absolutely will. I have it. I love it. It's blooming right now purple. Okay. Okay now let's go on down. Well I got the lavender there is phenomenal and in December 22 we had that bad cold drop and I lost one of the two I had. I don't know why you know three feet apart one is fabulous and the other one I had to replant it so that's a new plant on the right. It's not for us to know. No it's just you just keep going. Yes. Don't give up. And nestled beneath that we've come come down to the next layer and I see you have is that an oriental lily? Yes I bought that last year at a nursery in Bloom. A lot of my lilies rot for me because I have a drip irrigation and it's not conducive to having bulbs. So I bought that in a pot and I cut it back and I left it outside all winter and lo and behold it came back. So I love it and it's it's very pretty. It's that stargazer. Okay now then moving back towards our left here you have some azaleas. Yes those were here when I bought the home but they were all scattered like polka dots up and down in different places and I just dug them all out and consolidated them more so they'd be three or four on each side of the my angel. Well we're to level three is what I'm going to call it but we're not finished. Okay. So you start over here with this magnificent container. I see a perennial in there but that that is a wonderful pop of color and you have a wonderful little ground cover there. Chocolate chip adjuga. And that's a small one isn't it? Yeah. And then what is your choice? Those are called a tater tot. Tater tot. Arborvitae and I got that again at the UT sale. Well it's a wonderful additional and it's low growing and a nice border plant and is this incredible or is that? Yes it's an incredible. For me the the Japanese maple was here when I bought the home and I didn't want to move it go to the expense of moving it or I just was it was pretty and so for me sometimes I start with what I have to have. I had to have an Annabelle back here because in the evening that white just glows. It is. Moonlight garden. Yeah so I put that in there first and then I just kind of worked around and under everything and just contrast my color of my foliage of my Japanese maple with the limey green. Yes this is our understory where you found more space to plant more plants and their requirements are a little bit different because you have the shade. So in here what are just a few of things you've chosen? Well this is that Petey Ingot which is like a liriope and but it's supposed to clump but I don't know if that is true but it has that lime green foliage and I like that little it's like a little splash of sunshine in the shade. Yes and then there's a leaf up next to it what what kind of a? That is a some type of a mountain mint and don't ask me which I got it from a mail order nursery some years ago and I've never seen it again offered anywhere but it has that lemony lime leaf and it's a little different shape than the liriope and then I have this big leaf yellowy pasta so I was trying to vary my leaf shapes but keeping the same color family. But you know you you hit on an important point when I first started gardening guess where I found my plants? I ordered them yes yes and and we're very fortunate these days but you've ended up all of this square footage you've got right here by putting some more hydrangea in the ground and even a peony so all of this is just so cohesive and it definitely works. Well it feeds it satisfies my need for putzing in the garden and having one of everything. We need it. Have you ever sat and tried to decide exactly how many plants do I have? Oh no. Number one? No years and years ago I used to try to keep a ledger of what I spent and that I quit that pretty quick. What you spent or the plants you had? Well both. Okay. What plant I bought where I bought it when I bought it and how much it cost me and after digging up a few plant tags and dead plants I kind of quit that so I just buy whatever I really want. Before me sits a six foot square garden with a canopy of a crepe myrtle over it without underestimating maybe 60 plants reside here. All different ones. And you know the good thing really too all of these do have the same growing habit. That's right. And it wouldn't be successful without it. The shall I say that the first thing you would see coming out would be your this hydrangea. That's a cute little one. What is it? It's called munchkin and it was developed actually in middle Tennessee at the USDA Experimental Station. Oh. So it should do very well for everybody in Tennessee. Okay and next to it we have a plant that has two interests. It has a spiky bloom but it has spiky pointy leaves. What is this? A shredded umbrella plant they call it. Shredded umbrella. Yeah. Well and of course who could deny this should be could be anywhere in the world and you made a garden out of a hosta plant because you put another plant. This is a spectacular is this summon? Summon substance and I because I like to have a lot of plants I you have to do different levels so I brought it up into a pot so that I could plant under it because if it had been in the ground I would have lost my space. So ground story again. That's right. And you filled it down here with with Solomon's seal that's a different solid color. Stairway to heaven I think it's called. Yes and and this is another beautiful hosta it and you've got foam flowers and this is a geranium strawberry geranium and it's a it's actually a good ground cover. It is and it used to be considered always a house plant. I know I had it as that. Well and over in the shady side over here I see an interesting Solomon's seal and I don't know that that I've ever seen this variety. A friend gave me that and it's called white tiger. White tiger? White tiger. White tiger. White tiger. Wow. Not sure the proper name but it's that white if the more sun it gets the whiter that white is. Yeah. It's unusual. I do see you have success with maidenhair fern and you know not every gardener does. I'll tell you what I do every year I buy maidenhair fern to keep in the house in a big planter. I like it in my house. Yeah. And every year invariably I don't water it like it wants and it goes it wilts. So I cut it back and I bring it out here and I put it in the ground and it I have a really high ratio of success so that's many many different little three or four inch pots I bought at the at a garden center that used to be in my house. Well. So when they when you kill them in the house don't think you killed them just cut them back put them out here and water them and it's like miraculous they just come up. What kind of time do you spend in this garden? I don't ever I hate to say this I rarely spend any time in the garden setting and looking at it. I spend almost all my time that I'm out here doing something either deadheading trimming it. Yes. Just relocating it I don't think it's doing well in one spot so I dig it and put it somewhere else or planting new plants. I really don't know I don't feel like I'm tied to my garden as I did my old home that was so much bigger but I loved a garden I like to be outside and so it's I call it puttering so well it's not really a work. That's the best kind of garden and you realize that it is joy just well I just want to have one plant today I don't want to get all tied up. No. And and that is the pleasure of gardening. Yeah. And I love it. That I don't believe that any garden could ever have too many hydrangeas. No. I don't believe that that any garden can ever be created that won't take our time. Oh it's time consuming it most of the time you spend sometimes just in your head. Oh I know. Thinking about what you're going to do or when you go to a garden or center or nursery you see a plant and all of a sudden you say you know that might work. Well I have to say Linda that through my knowledge of the your works here and in horticulture and at the Dixon Gardens and and with the hydrangeas that your reputation goes before you and and what what I enjoy is always seeing your participation and what you do for this community as as far as that and and to tell you that I've ever seen a garden like this never ever and I admire it so much and it just goes to show the desire is there and the will is there and the garden came from you. Yes I love it I love it and it's and gardening and talking to other people about gardening there's a lot of a lot of my way of make connection of friends and acquaintances and things like that it brings people together. Absolutely it's something that will start a conversation that will never end. That's right. Thank you so very much. You're welcome thank you for coming to the garden. If you like gardening you'll want to subscribe to this channel. 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