All right, so let's talk about best plants for Tennessee.
What did I plant for sure?
It's common but an adorable plant, I'm just gonna start with spring, that seems logical,
is our little moss phlox, I love the little Phlox subulatas, they just do great ground
covers, they also serve as a winter interest because they're evergreen.
They're highly durable, you can get a range of colors of different kinds of pinks and
blues and purples, even whites, if you decide that some of the pinks might clash with your
coral azaleas.
Also I gotta have that, I've gotten a little crazy over columbines, which to me, were not
a huge favorite to begin with, they look delicate, but they're really not.
They're tough and durable and they reseed generously and I love that fact.
I really fell in love with one at work called woodside variegated, and it came to us as
a golden green variegation with cobalt blue flowers.
And as it reseeds into our mulch, it comes back both gold, green, and variegated, it's
become now where it's mostly gold but it still has the cobalt blue flowers.
So I took some of the seeds home and shook 'em around my little woodland area, and this
was the first year that they really bloomed prolifically, and I'm spreadin' 'em around
to other parts of the garden.
And our native columbine, which I adore.
Because the hummingbirds love it as well, and they are very, very tough plants.
So that spring ephemeral kind of disappears as it gets hot, so you're gonna have to go,
well then I like to go into successional gardening, later phlox would be woodland phlox, which
can be used in sun or shade, and will give you a good bloom season to take you on into
the hotter days of summer.
Course there's tons of selections for summer.
I'm a big fan of the coneflowers and I love some of the newer ones that have come out.
The PowWow Wildberries have been very good.
I know, PowWow, kinda stretch your mouth when you say it.
It's a hard one to forget.
They've been really good because some of the new colors, even though they're exciting,
have not been very durable perennials for us.
That's a very friendly one for wildlife and those of us who care about the pollinators,
of course, are gonna add those.
And everybody knows about the Rudbeckia foliage, you know, the black-eyed susan, there's a
bunch of other good Rudbeckias, the hirtas are often just annuals, they'll reseed generously,
but why wouldn't one go get a pack of seeds of Rudbeckia hirtas, also called gloriosa
daisy.
The trilobas, there's a bunch of other Rudbeckias that I think are valuable additions.
I have a big place, not necessarily my house, got a modest little home, but a big landscape
and a lot of acreage, whereas a lot of people like little plants, I like big, bold plants,
I want big impact, lotta bang for the buck.
So having been a fan of the tropical look all my life, I'm going for the Cannas and
the elephant ears that have proven to be more perennial for me.
So I have to have Bengal Tiger, that's my favorite Canna, with that gorgeous golden
striped foliage, 'cause even when it's not in bloom it's so beautiful.
And Tropicanna as well has a beautiful foliage.
Both have orange blooms, Tropicanna tends to get a little faded lookin' later in the
summer.
And I like to mingle those with the elephant ears.
And the elephant ear that I have found to be very durable, almost aggressive, is one
called Illustris.
And Illustris has the black leaf, and most of the black leaf forms are not perennial,
but Illustris has a black leaf with a strong green vein.
It's not gonna get quite as big and lush as some of them, but it spreads nicely for me
and so I can move it around and put it in different parts of the garden.
And just one more, it's not a perennial, but I always grow it every year from seed, would
be the castorbean plant, a lot of people are worried about that, 'cause it does have a
poisonous bean.
So be aware of that if you've got kids or critters that might eat the poisonous beans,
but the big, red form, Carmen or--
- Is it stay red all summer?
- [Carol] Yes.
- The fruit's kinda interesting with the kinda spiky, and you probably wouldn't have moles
around it, I guess.
- That was the old theory, my grandaddy grew 'em and called 'em mole-killer bushes.
- You think it plays out?
- I don't think so, in fact, I don't even think the beans are quite as poisonous as
rumored to be, from research.
You really have to eat a good number of them to be killed.
Used to be you thought if you ate one you were--
- Right.
- The Ricillinic acid, I think's the toxin.
- Right, right.
But anyway, just want to throw that out there for people to be cautious, but gosh, again,
so much bang for the buck from a few seeds.
Getting into fall, I'm really getting into the asters, asters and the goldenrods that
aren't terribly invasive.
Again, that extends the plants for the pollinators, a lot of those butterflies that are migrating
north through that time, excuse me, they're migrating south in the fall, and people think
of monarchs, but the sulfurs also migrate, a lot of the salvias that are late blooming,
goodness, how did I leave out salvia for summer?
I'm a huge salviaphile, love them.
And a lot of them show off well in the fall, like Mexican Bush Sage.
And I love the combination of the old Mexican Bush Sage with the old Autumn Joy Sedum.
I know that's kind of an old plant and there's newer colors and exciting foliage, but the
Autumn Joy, I love that color, they're very sturdy, and I leave them up through the winter,
which we're getting into for winter interest, with a little cap of snow on them they look
really good.
So evergreen perennials for winter interest would include the Sweet Flag, it's kind of
a grassy.
I love any of the sedges, evergold, everillo, is particularly spectacular, a solid gold
sedge.
And the Hellebores which have become commonplace and easy to find now, are both evergreen and
winter bloomers.
So that wraps us back around towards spring, and who doesn't love a few daffodils?
I don't like to overdo them because you gotta look at that foliage for so long, so I do
mingle them with the other plants as well so I can hide the ugly foliage.
- You can put 'em in the back of the bed or back of the yard.
- That's right.
And they do well in the woodland setting, which finally, I do have a shade garden established.
Which leads me back to one that's not as common, and that is, I forgot to mention, the Japanese
anemone, which is a really easy to grow shade lover that looks very delicate, it looks like
a beautiful pink or white poppy in the woodland landscape.
I'm going back again, I meant to mention, and I know you love natives, the Spigelia,
the Spigelia marilandica, sometimes called Indian pink, I don't like that name 'cause
there's a lot of other plants called Indian pink, and Spigelia's fun and pretty to say.
Used to be hard to find, you can find Spigelia pretty readily now in the landscape.
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