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>> HI, THERE, I'M TOM SPENCER. THIS WEEK ON CENTRAL TEXAS GARDENER, GET A NEW SPIN ON
HOUSEPLANTS WITH JENNY PETERSON, CO AUTHOR OF "INDOOR PLANT DÉCOR" WITH KYLEE BAUMLE.
FROM STYLE TO STATEMENT, BRING SOME OF THAT GARDEN LOVE INSIDE, EVEN TO YOUR HOME OFFICE.
ON TOUR, SEE HOW MUELLER IN AUSTIN TRANSFORMED A FORMER AIRPORT AND WILDLIFE HABITAT.
Daphne answers your top question and her pick of the week. John Dromgoole has your basic
backyard tips. Let's get growing right here, right now.
Support comes from Geo Growers, offering custom soil blends for lawn, garden and xeriscaping,
and landscaping supplies. For more information go to GeoGrowers.net.
>>
What happens to an airport when it closes? See how Mueller airport in Austin transformed
runways into of community of close neighbors, diverse gardens, and wildlife habitat restoration.
>> Everybody's garden reflects their own personality. >> Almost everybody in this neighborhood gardens
on some level or other. >> Because we have smaller spaces here, it
is a more doable yard. >> You are not secluded in your backyard anymore
like you were when you had a big backyard. You sit on your front porch and you see your
neighbors and you say hi and they do the same thing.
>> At Mueller in East Austin, it' a new and yet old fashioned way to garden, with compact
yards that value resources and connect neighbors as nearby bungalows did years ago.
It's a community that unites with nature, too, through the parks and ponds that have
brought back wildlife on land once covered by airport run ways and parking lots.
>> Catellus, who is the developer of Mueller, is very sensitive in the design and what's
happening with the environment. >> Sunflowers that collect solar energy dot
the I 35 access road. In the restored prairies, real native plants support wildlife habitat,
framing human services and homes, designed to be as resourceful as their gardens.
Janelle Dozier faced two challenges, Texas weather and a downsized garden.
When she and husband Don moved from New Orleans after Katrina.
>> We wanted to be close in town so that we could do all of the fun stuff in downtown
Austin, so it was a tradeoff. And then I realized how much you can do with a little postage
stamp space. >> Janelle's garden may be smaller but every
square foot packs a punch. After removing glass, she amended her clay
soil for better drainage. She even has a peggy Martin rose, a Katrina survivor, that's just
as tough in Texas. In the brutal alley strip she calls the strip
tease, Janelle affirmed her new roots with Texas natives.
>> And I realized, you know, I am right here in the city on the old airport lot and I can
have butterflies. I can have Hummingbirds.
>> A few blocks away, Keith Romel and partner Jose Brunel spend more time enjoying their
low maintenance garden than tending it. >> It's a small yard and I just wanted to
get as much impact from it as possible. I color was a big thing for me.
I wanted a variety of color so I think every color in the spectrum in the rainbow is in
there. Not only the color, just texture and variety,
so there was mulch and crushed granite and rock and different sized rocks, so there is
a lot of ways to add texture and interest to the yard and that was my goal.
The walkway was just pushed away and is going right through the garden and so it makes it
look really a lot more expansive. It looks like a bigger yard than it really
is. >> Laura and Andy Atlas don't have far to
go to pick organic food on their street side garden.
Since the airport moved, not only did they buy into a resourceful home, they wanted a
new garden perspective. >> We had a typical lawn with the front flowerbed,
and so this is different from what we had before.
>> Yes, this is our first time to take out all of the grass from a large area. We actually
have a larger garden here than we would at our other house because it is manageable.
>> The kids are out looking at dragonflies and caterpillars and birds nesting and it's
really brought nature in a really intimate way.
>> There is a consciousness in the neighborhood. People, you know, consciously don't want to
use pesticides. People talk about all of these kinds of issues.
We've got swallowtail caterpillar in a pot there and we have barn swallows nesting in
our eaves. We had a mourning dove that was fledging that was living on the patio for
a couple of weeks. You know, we came outside this morning and
there was a dragonfly sunning itself or hanging out there.
You see all of these things and it just makes you feel good.
>> The native prairie was the reason that first adopters, Carolyn and Glenn Hagler chose
their lot. >> Across from the greenbelt I thought I can
look out and pretend that I'm away from it all, even though I am not.
>> An inspired gardener, Carolyn wanted to downsize from the large one in their former
home. >> Typical suburban yards are large and full
of grass and if you want to do anything, it requires a lot of work and a lot of upkeep.
But this neighborhood, we have small spaces, small yards and it is doable. It's not an
overwhelming thing. >> That is the main difference here is people
really do garden and love to see the difference that a little bit of work can do.
>> The new prairies are taking hold, despite the drought conditions since they were first
seeded. >> The Native American prairies have been
so overused. They have been built on.
They have been tilled, used for agriculture. There is a very, very tiny percentage of untouched
native prairie left. So we had this great opportunity to recreate
the prairie here at Mueller because we had native soils that had not been tilled.
>> To achieve restoration, Catellus collaborated with Dr. Mark Simmons from the Lady Bird Johnson
Wildflower Center and RVI landscape architectural designers.
>> It's an example of what you can do with green and native here in a totally urban area
on top of what used to be tarmac and runways. >> Mueller neighbors and residents formed
the friends of the prairie to maintain them. >> When I do everything I can in my yard,
I can always go to the prairie and the demonstration garden.
I have a 30 acre garden out there to play with.
>> The wildflowers that grow over there are really inspiring because, you know, they come
back every year. They just do whatever they do and I like to
have elements in my own garden. >> There is all of this stuff that it's from
right here, that you can pick the seeds back into your own yard and they will do great.
>> To illustrate how home native plants can fit into a home garden, RVI Landscape Architect
Chris Lalich designed a more formal setting. A walk around his central labyrinth connects
all viewpoints. Sculptor and Mueller neighbor Chris Levack
designed the artwork to celebrate the garden's indigenous roots.
>> This is a wigwam that you make a house at night where you pull saplings together.
>> Levack's pollen grain testified to Austin's claim of allergy capital of the world.
Each section of the prairie is planted for its biome.
United by trails, popular for jogging and strolling. The main link is habitat cluster
for wildlife diversity. Arachnophillia, designed by Houston artist
Dixie Friend Gay, applauds the return of wildlife in the former of parking lots.
Wildlife helps parking lots too and engineering designs that helps all residents.
>> all these parks and the ponds and themselves are helping with storm water control for Mueller.
>> At lake park, it is hard to imagine that I 35 or a busy shopping center is just around
the corner. >> Two blocks away, I can arrive at one lake
and walk around, and then two blocks the other direction, I can walk to another lake and
walk around, and the scenery just around the lakes itself changes as you walk around.
>> In its innovative urban design, Mueller has an eye on the big picture, a community
that connects service, neighborly bonding and environmental responsibility.
>> And everybody is aware of nature and how we can incorporate nature into our gardens
and as part of our homes and then to have wildlife inhabit this urban space and create
a space for wildlife where it's not just this human environment.
>> I think in the future, places like Mueller are going to be important because if we continue
the same cycle of tilling up our prairie, which is so ravaged already, that this is
a really a seed bank for what we might be able to spread into the future.
>> So when you look at the gardens here, think that this used to be under concrete and we
are just having the most fun doing this and we are also learning about soil, about improving
soil, because if you can improve what was under tarmac, you can improve anything, you
know. >> We are now going to shift our attention
from outdoors to in, and we are joined by Jenny Peterson.
Welcome back to central Texas gardener. >> Thank you, always a pleasure to be here.
>> We are here to celebrate your new book which is indoor plant decor, and this is really
about indoor gardening in a way, isn't it? >> It is.
It is kind of where interior decor meets house plants.
It is not house plant 101 book out there. There is lots of fine books that tell you
how to grow plants and individual plants but it is how to use plants in a very stylish
way so that it reflects your own particular decor and your own personal sense of style.
>> And you use the word "our." we want to give a shout out to your coauthor.
>> Yes, my wonderful colleague Kylee Baumle, who is in a more northwestern setting, and
we became friends a few years ago and it was our idea to do a book together and this is
where we crossed over. >> Great.
>> Yes. >> So let's focus on the indoor gardening
concept. What you have done in terms of the book is
really to organize kind of thematically different styles, if you will
>> Yes. >> of decor and matching that with plants
and thinking about how you contain the plants and present them.
>> Exactly. It is not just about a plant in a pot on a
table, although we don't scoff at any kind of household house plant displays that anybody
could come up with but we have come a long way to having a ficus tree in your dorm room
and an African violate in your kitchen window sill, just things that are a little more stylish
and a little more creative and give you a jumping off point of being more stylish.
>> A lot of the imagery in the book is not just stylish, it is artistic and maybe a little
bit of avant garden. >> Yes, we were going for that.
There may be more of traditional gardener or person with more of a traditional or classic
that could look through some of our book and think that's a little whackadoo for me but
hopefully we have something that will appeal to everybody in whatever kind of decor you
have in your house. >> Well, you are in Austin, so whackadoo to
you. >> Yes, my friend had to reign me in a little
bit and it's not crazy. Yes, it is, and they had to bring me back in.
>> A ying and yang situation. You brought a lot of things in and I want
to show them off. First we have a grouping of beautiful plants
and really remarkable containers over here so tell me why you brought this particular
group in. >> Well, there is a few different ways people
can start off planting their own interior house plant display.
One of them start with the plant themselves. As you can see by virtue of foliage or flowers,
a lot of these plants have a very distinct flowers, like the alocasia have very strong
foliage and veining in the leaves so it tells me tropical or ethnic or tribal, very masculine.
If you are a dude and want something in your house that is not frilly or fussy, that is
a plant to start with. >> Certainly bold, I love the color of the
alocasia and it looks great, the color. >> Almost looks fake to me.
I killed a few of those until I figured out how to deal with them.
>> A lot of people like decorating with interior Mexican furniture or African accents and this
perfectly matches that. >> Exactly.
That's something to keep in mind. If you have a strong theme like that or decor
style coming in your home, you want to pick a plant that has foliage or flowers that's
going to complement that, not fight it. >> And behind that is the bird nest firn which
I think is an architectural plant. >> Yes, I love the bird's nest thorn because
it's a chameleon and changes. It can be very traditional depending on the pot you put them
in and can be contemporary because it has the strong architectural form.
>> And then orchids. >> Yes, orchids and then the plumosa firn
that is in the small orange pot. Any of those can be classic elegant choice.
It can even a bit Asian or zen inspired. >> I always thought of an asparagus firn as
being a zen plant. >> When you have something like this, you
want to go softer and simple and not quite as bold as that.
You can go bold but not quite as graphic as that alocasia.
>> And very traditional, the pothos ivy. >> Yes, a lot of people start them in your
college dorm room, you pick out it up for your entertainment center or headboard and
it depends on how you use it. You put it in a little pot like that, it tells
me I am fresh and young and quirky and there is a way to what I call grandma plants and
put them in a fresh new container and update it.
>> You brought a classic grandma plant. >> Yes, what I love about this, what we just
talked about was having a jumping off point with your plant selection.
Well, you can also do the opposite, have your jumping off point be your container collection,
so you have this very small but beautiful plant.
Anybody can grow this in any household. There is nothing exotic about this plant.
So if you pop it out of the planter and put it in that chartreuse and a gray, small pot
in the back, it looks very artsy contemporary, different vibe and then change it in dark
red container, it is instantly classic or elegant and then leave it in that little turquoise
pot and to me it is a little more tropical and earthy because it is more pottery like.
>> Right. >> And then I always like my household is
more eclectic and that's one of the styles in our book as well, so if you have an eclectic
enter your, what is keeping you from putting all of those containers together?
You mix them together and put very simple house plants in them.
>> There is such an explosion in this beautiful glazed pottery now.
You can have them any color, any form. Imprinted with beautiful patterns or just
plain. Then they look great together.
>> Exactly. Now, one thing that's good to keep in mind
when you are combining really different pieces of pottery like that is to keep the plants
very simple. You don't want to have your plants and your
pottery all working against each other and competing for attention.
>> Good point. >> So that's what I tend to do.
>> You brought along I love these presentations. >> I do, too.
>> Looking at that hand. It looks like an old glove model thing.
[LAUGHTER] >> I don't know what what
>> A prosthetic? >> Who knows.
But I love the presentation on these. >> Well, do you know what?
You don't have to have a traditional container to put plants in and the ones with soil so
you have the Celosias here with the beautiful bloom and there are ways to display these
and there is the pottery here with glazed hand and you lay them in here for these little,
you know, kind of interesting planters here, you pop the larger Celosias in there, and
you don't even need to have I was saying radish planters, you can use anything in your household.
You can find old silver pieces, mason jars, even cool looking buckets with old paint in
it. Those can be repurposed in cool containers
for inside. You just have to pay attention to a little
bit of drainage in the bottom. >> Real briefly, you brought something that
can hang on the wall. These are pocket gardens?
>> They are. You take that very strong outdoor gardening
trend of the vertical garden. It has been a strong trend for several years
and when you bring that inside, you can bridge a really cool product like this from the woolly
pocket company where you attach this really cool planter to your wall, plant it and then
there is there is a water reservoir where you just
>> Let it wake up? >> Exactly.
>> Very cool idea. Very cool idea.
>> Again, the plant is "indoor plant decor," very fun and beautiful images.
>> Thank you. >> Thanks for coming on with us.
>> My pleasure, John. Thank you.
>> Coming up next is our friend, Daphne. >> Hi, I am Daphne Richards. Our question
this week goes all the way back to late season frost which damaged quite a few plants.
Most of the questions we got involved tomatoes that were planted a little early, as we were
all excited but the early warmth tricked us into planting before it was quite time.
Although I didn't plant any tomatoes early, I did make a different rookie mistake and
got some front damage in my yard on some established trees and shrubs.
I got quite a few calls from people with similar damage so I thought I would use my own tree
as an example. Frost damage on trees is not really that common,
since our temperate zone deciduous trees can tell time quite well.
They click the off the hours of cold they've received along with the hours of daylight
to increase with the coming spring. They do this to know what time of the year
it is. Now back to my rookie mistake.
I fertilized my plants too early. My landscape is very young and a little raw so I am impatient
for growth, especially since the high temperatures and lack of rainfall since my arrival in Austin
four years ago have hampered my progress. I really thought that my landscape would close
to down by now, but instead, I only had two beds, a row of wax myrtles, and a gorgeous
Montessori oak. In my impatience to get my shrubs tree into
high gear, I fertilized them a little too early, three days before the frost, in fact,
causing the tender new growth to shoot out and to be extremely vulnerable when old man
winter visited for the last time this spring. I was so in shock when I first noticed the damage.
And sort of tip invading disease would not only have not only caused burn symptoms on
the new leaves but also on the tender, developing stem.
That would have caused the stem to be discolored and I would have seen obvious die back.
Although I am disappointed at the frostbite, you can see the plant is already recovering
by breaking new buds which will create all kind of new growth and actually that will
make my tree more full and lush which will hopefully look much nicer in the long run,
our team is also known as bachelor's button. This plant has been a gardening main stay
and gardener favorite for years but recently colors were developed by researchers at Texas
A&M. Before these plants were released, I was lucky
to given some to trial in my garden and I can report they are indeed fabulous.
In fact, they were declared Texas superstars in 2012, meaning they were trialed and shown
to be super tough in most Texas landscapes. The plant trials coincided with the summer
of 2011, hottest on record, and these little plants kept on going and blooming like crazy.
In addition to newer, deeper root colors, taller plants were also developed.
We love to hear from you so visit us not KLRU.org/CTG and thanks for watching us now let's check
in with John Dromgoole with backyard basics. >> Hi, I am John Dromgoole.
We will talk about nematodes today. There is reason that parasitics are beneficial.
There are a wide range of flies, the worms, and these are the ones you encounter sometimes
in the garden. When they attack them, they can stay in their
host for 48 hours and there is no acquired immunity.
It is not harmful to earthworms, beneficial to insects.
And the way the nematodes are used, they find different grubs.
They find carbon monoxide soil or temperature changes and this is a good time to find them
in the soil. They are easy to use.
They are very effective. They control I mentioned a few, there are
many, many grubs that are in the soil that can do a lot of damage in the garden or in
the landscape or in the yarn. For example, chiggers, too, out in the special
areas these are a problem, you can spray them out there.
They need to be sprayed in the evening or early in the morning because the sun can destroy
them, so doing it late in the day is very important.
The other thing is, they need to be watered and water is an important part of the success
of using these nematodes, and so this might take place over two weeks.
It is not as if you had to water every day, depending on what the soil moisture level
is, but I think that's essential, so out of the sun and nice water for them and they will
get into the ground and they attack the grubs. Within 48 hours, I mentioned that, they will
have killed these grubs and they make their way into the grub through the ***, through
the mouth parts, or actually through the sphericals and some of them that are soft bodied they
go right through the body, also. There are other types of nematodes you may
also have heard of and these are the kind that attack plants.
These aren't that kind. These are different.
It is not the one that does damage. It is easy to use.
They come in containers like this and there is a medium in there that helps keep them
in the jar and keeps them nice and fresh with a little bit of moisture, and so this is how
they come to you. The other thing is, now you will take them
and put them in water and release them into the water medium and then at that point you
will put them in your sprayer by going through this filter. That way, no medium is going
in there, just the nematodes, and then you can spray it out there.
I think this is something to think about when you begin to have insect problems in the yard
that are coming from the soil. There are many of them.
So this is a nice advancement. If you never tried this, you will find that this is an
effective way to stop some of those problems, especially for those of you who grow fruit,
like peaches. The plum curculio does a lot of damage and
this is a way to do that without toxins. This is very different than putting insecticides
into the soil. So I think you will have very good success
with problems in your garden when you use their beneficial nematodes.
I am John Dromgoole. I will see you next time.
>> Find out more at KLRU.org/CTG and check us out on FaceBook.
On June 1, cool off with a preview of the Austin pond society tour.
Until then, I'll see you in the garden. >> So learn about today's program, watch online
and follow CTG's blog, check out KLRU.org/CTG. ¶
¶ >> Report from central Texas Gardener comes
from Geo Growers, offering custom soil blends for lawn, garden, xeriscaping and landscaping
supplies. For more information, go to GeoGrowers.net.
>> This week on central Texas gardener, get a new spin on house plants with Jenny Peterson,
coauthor of Indoor plant decor with Kylee Baumle.
Bring some of that love inside even to your home office, and how Austin transformed a
former airport. Daphne answers the top question and makes
answer of the pick of the week and John Dromgoole has your basic tips so let's get growing.
>> Country Gardener is brought to you by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a foundation
providing funding since 1979.