Natalie Carmolli
NATALIE CARMOLLI has been a lifelong student of plants and has the exciting job of educating gardeners about new plant selections and how to find just the right one for any space. Eric welcomes Natalie to GardenSMART. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm so happy to be here, thanks for inviting me. Eric opines - months and months and months of hard work have gone into this project.
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Why Shrubs And Perennials
Your job was to collaborate with all parties to make sure they got just what they wanted. Natalie understood that Victoria was really interested in a low maintenance landscape, and that’s where SHRUBS AND PERENNIALS really do their best. Once you get them in and they get themselves established there is very little work required to have a beautiful landscape year round. So selecting a nice assortment of plants that are going to bring color from spring all the way through winter is something everyone wanted to keep in mind.
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Adjusting The Plant List According To Plants Available
I have a supplier I work with in Atlanta, even a local landscaper, or a local wholesaler who I can say - this is the plant list we're looking at. What do we have that might ADJUST THE PLANT LIST a bit, but still serve the same purpose as the original landscape plan? The landscaping company was really great about looking at the list and saying, yes, I could use that in place of this other plant. And coming from a grower in the same state, you know, Georgia is a really hot, humid place we know that those plants are doing well for them here and will thrive in this landscape. Natalie agrees, when she was talking to Vicky earlier she suggested they go around and look at the neighbors yards and see what's doing really well.
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Plant Groupings And Selections
Let's talk about some of the PLANT GROUPING AND SELECTIONS here, Eric realizes that was Natalie's touch. Natalie explains, it's kind of lucky to have these beautiful blue containers and then have beautiful blue flowers on a lot of plants that are blooming right now. We decided to put in these Pugster Blue Buddleia as one of those alternative plants we talked about earlier because something that they wanted in the original design wasn't available. So Natalie said, how do you feel about about Buddleia? Buddleia serves all the purposes that Vicky needed to have served.
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Arborvitae
Let's talk about the ARBORVITAE. This is a wonderful selection, the more compact plants are really what work in these small gardens. Tell us about this selection. This is a selection called Thuga Sting Arborvita. It will grow to be 11 to 12 feet tall and two feet wide.
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Sambucus
Eric noticed throughout this design, there are wonderful sprinklings of dark, almost black foliage SAMBUCUS and then also some purply Japanese maples. These dark leaf sambucus, like Black Lace are huge, big statement plants. What we did once again, just like with the buddleia, they decided, what can we do with the sambucus to make it more urban friendly? And that's when they came up with Laced Up sambucus.
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Callicarpa
Eric wants to take a look at the rest of the garden. One thing that was very important to Victoria was attracting wildlife and very few things do that better, and also in a showier way, than CALLICARPA. Natalie has a wonderful selection here. Which one is this? This one is called Pearl Glam Callicarpa. What's so great about it is we've got it cited really beautifully here in the sun so that the leaves can turn nice and purple as it gets more sun throughout the season. We're going to get different foliage interests. Initially we get a pink flower, then when those pink flowers drop away they get a bright purple berry which is a wild life attractor.
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Honeysuckle
Eric next would like to talk about HONEYSUCKLE. It's a wonderful plant, and there are some great selections that have really wonderful ornamental value. Natalie selected one that's designed to to grow up on the overhang for the porch. When people hear honeysuckle, they think, I don't want that. Honeysuckle's invasive, I'm not putting it in my garden. But there are two honeysuckles in the Proven Winner's Color Choice collection that are noninvasive.
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Heuchera
She could hear a bird chirping and has really incorporated some nifty plants here that play well in the shade. One of them is Black Pearl HEUCHERA, which is really only going to grow to about two feet tall and wide. It has a really dark black purple leaf. In the springtime, you'll get these spires with white flowers that contrast against the black leaves. One nice thing Natalie likes about Heuchera is they will ultimately grow larger. She likes to say - they sleep, creep then leap. They arrived at a certain size and you’ll think - this is what they’re going to do.
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Metamorphose Japanese Maple
Another plant back here they had a little trouble finding, but Natalie's so glad they found it. And that is METAMORPHOSA JAPANESE MAPLE. Proven Winner's Color Choice is new to the tree business. But they're working with people who aren’t. And the folks who do have a lot of experience in the tree business are bringing some gorgeous trees to the portfolio and Metamorphosa is one of the newest. It is a shrubby Japanese maple so it's not gonna grow with a central trunk, like some do, instead it's gonna have many stems toward the bottom.
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Deutzia
Eric loves the choice of DEUTZIA back here as well. There's been a lot of work that's occurred in that genius. He remembers the first time that Chardonnay Pearls came on the market and what a revelation that plant was but then wondered, what's happening next? Natalie's got some wonderful representatives here. The first is Yuki Cherry Blossom, which is covered with pink flowers.
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Indian Hawthorne
Eric mentions another great plant that as someone, like himself, who's lived in the southeast for pretty much his entire life, thus one of his favorite small flowering shrubs is Rhaphiolepis. Natalie, which selection did you chose for this garden. You know, these are a new plant to me, being a northern girl, I hadn't heard of the INDIAN HAWTHORNE. It's a beautiful broad leaf evergreen plant.
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Oakleaf Hydrangea
Natalie also included a Gatsby Gal OAKLEAF HYDRANGEA. She's a huge oakleaf hydrangea fan. It's a North American native plant, so well adapted to our soil and really a wide variety of climates. It's a hydrangea that will do well here in the south and it's also a hydrangea that's highly tolerant of shade. What you get with Gatsby Gal is a smaller oakleaf hydrangea. Oakleaf hydrangeas can get to be 10, 12 feet tall and wide.
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Choosing the correct plants for your garden is one of the best ways to ensure its success in the years to come. In this episode GardenSMART visits with an industry leader and explores the ever-changing world of flowering shrubs and perennials.
Spring Meadow Nursery has led the industry for decades with new plant introductions, always with a focus on plants that are thoughtfully designed for both durability and beauty. Their portfolio of plants has had an enormous impact on the American landscape and they continue to surprise us with amazing selections year after year.
NATALIE CARMOLLI has been a lifelong student of plants and has the exciting job of educating gardeners about new plant selections and how to find just the right one for any space. Eric welcomes Natalie to GardenSMART. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm so happy to be here, thanks for inviting me. Eric opines - months and months and months of hard work have gone into this project. This was a site that needed a lot of love. We have a primary residence and a tiny house, both have been completely made over and Natalie was a huge part of making that happen. Thank you? Natalies says it was her pleasure, when approached to help out with this project, it was such an exciting concept because we got to really design from the ground up. Although it's always exciting to add things to existing gardens, starting with a blank palette is something that, unless you're a landscaper, you don't get to do all the time. So she was really excited to work with the landscaper and landscape planners to be able to use their design to incorporate the kinds of plants that might be successful in this landscape.
Eric would like for Natalie to talk us through the process of working with Kaylin and Bailey, who put together this design. He knows there was a lot of back and forth and Victoria, the homeowner, was also quite involved, and had her own vision and her own passion for what this might be. Your job was to collaborate with all parties to make sure they got just what they wanted. Natalie understood that Victoria was really interested in a low maintenance landscape, and that’s where SHRUBS AND PERENNIALS really do their best. Once you get them in and they get themselves established there is very little work required to have a beautiful landscape year round. So selecting a nice assortment of plants that are going to bring color from spring all the way through winter is something everyone wanted to keep in mind. We'll talk about those choices a little as we go through this landscape design plan.
Discuss the landscape design, which was spectacular by the way and talk about specific plants. For example, the issue - we don't have the particular plant that you want in this landscape design, but, because I’m from Michigan, I have a supplier I work with in Atlanta, even a local landscaper, or a local wholesaler who I can say - this is the plant list we're looking at. What do we have that might ADJUST THE PLANT LIST a bit, but still serve the same purpose as the original landscape plan? The landscaping company was really great about looking at the list and saying, yes, I could use that in place of this other plant. And coming from a grower in the same state, you know, Georgia is a really hot, humid place we know that those plants are doing well for them here and will thrive in this landscape. Natalie agrees, when she was talking to Vicky earlier she suggested they go around and look at the neighbors yards and see what's doing really well. Then she could bring that plant into her landscape? And that's what a new gardener should do, take cues from your neighbor's gardens then go to your local garden center because they're not going to offer you anything you can’t be successful with here in this climate.
Eric thinks the before and after of this site is really, really dramatic. What an amazing job was done here. Let's go look at the main garden. Good idea, let's talk through the design a little because he knows Natalie was involved in the very earliest aspects. Eric loves the simplicity of the plan, there is really an elegance to it. Victoria wanted something that would allow her and her sister to travel easily between the two residences. She also wanted a central water feature. Eric loves this fountain and, of course, the sound of water. What's better in a garden than that? We have this grand entrance from the street, then the beautiful slate aggregate trail. This is what everyone sees from the street and as you're approaching the house there are some wonderful architectural statements.
Let's talk about some of the PLANT GROUPING AND SELECTIONS here, Eric realizes that was Natalie's touch. Natalie explains, it's kind of lucky to have these beautiful blue containers and then have beautiful blue flowers on a lot of plants that are blooming right now. We decided to put in these Pugster Blue Buddleia as one of those alternative plants we talked about earlier because something that they wanted in the original design wasn't available. So Natalie said, how do you feel about about Buddleia? Buddleia serves all the purposes that Vicky needed to have served. They're deer resistant. They're very, very easy to maintain once established, they're extremely drought tolerant and they love the sun. We're standing in the heat of the Georgia sun right now, and they couldn't be happier. So, Buddleia was a great choice, and one nice thing about these Buddleia’s is they stay nice and small. Another thing that was important to Victoria was attracting pollinators and wildlife and Buddleia is great for that. It is butterfly bush after all. Butterfly bush is a great source of nectar for pollinators. Pollinators really need a diverse selection of plants to live and thrive. They will set their eggs on some plants, but they also need plants to feed on. Some other great choices that really work well here are Echinacea, coneflower a super, super durable plant, wonderful in flower but also has attractive foliage. Then the sprinkling of ornamental grasses, which Eric thinks are underused in many designs. He loves the texture and also with ornamental grasses, many of them look wonderful, even in the dead of winter with dry seed heads. Agree and that's the full season planting that we're talking about.
Let's talk about the ARBORVITAE. This is a wonderful selection, the more compact plants are really what work in these small gardens. Tell us about this selection. This is a selection called Thuga Sting Arborvita. It will grow to be 11 to 12 feet tall and two feet wide. So you can get those exclamation points in the garden, which you really need when you're planting, especially in an urban setting like this. They will get to be nice and tall yet stay thin. They frame a super entrance, like two columns at the doorway of your yard.
Eric noticed throughout this design, there are wonderful sprinklings of dark, almost black foliage SAMBUCUS and then also some purply Japanese maples. These dark leaf sambucus, like Black Lace are huge, big statement plants. What we did once again, just like with the buddleia, they decided, what can we do with the sambucus to make it more urban friendly? And that's when they came up with Laced Up sambucus. And that's what is planted in this garden. It's only going to get to be about two feet wide, but it's still going to have that really tall, 10 foot height with some branching that comes out from side to side and little tufts of black foliage almost make it look like a Dr. Seuss plant. You get pink flowers in the spring, then followed by black berries, which wildlife absolutely love. From the flowers to the berries, you get a long season of attracting pollinators, and then, of course, the birds come in later and clean up all the berries.
Eric wants to take a look at the rest of the garden. One thing that was very important to Victoria was attracting wildlife and very few things do that better, and also in a showier way, than CALLICARPA. Natalie has a wonderful selection here. Which one is this? This one is called Pearl Glam Callicarpa. What's so great about it is we've got it cited really beautifully here in the sun so that the leaves can turn nice and purple as it gets more sun throughout the season. We're going to get different foliage interests. Initially we get a pink flower, then when those pink flowers drop away they get a bright purple berry which is a wild life attractor. So we get the pollinator attractor first, then the wildlife attractor coming next. This is not to be confused with calacarara Americana, which people see often in botanical gardens. This is a hybrid calicarpa that's going to stay a little bit smaller than your typical calacarpa, and the berries on it are tinier than the Americana. It's a really interesting selection. This one's gonna get a little bit taller, faster than the Japanese maple. Vicky had asked how can she maintain the size? Can she trim it? You absolutely can. You can trim some of the branches that are a little bit lower that might be branching out a little bit higher. You want to trim it early in the spring or late in the fall. Right now, it would stress it in the heat. But it's going to give you better branching, it's going to give you a fuller shrub. So there are a lot of ways you can maintain this plant, and it is a gorgeous look in this garden. Natalie loves it paired with this Japanese maple. Eric thinks they're great, great mates. And as they grow, Victoria might actually decide that she enjoys the privacy they provide for her front porch. Absolutely you never know. And they'll sway in the wind, they're absolutely beautiful.
Eric next would like to talk about HONEYSUCKLE. It's a wonderful plant, and there are some great selections that have really wonderful ornamental value. Natalie selected one that's designed to to grow up on the overhang for the porch. When people hear honeysuckle, they think, I don't want that. Honeysuckle's invasive, I'm not putting it in my garden. But there are two honeysuckles in the Proven Winner's Color Choice collection that are noninvasive. The one in this yard is called Kintzley's Ghost. Kinsley's Ghost has been on the market for a little while now and Natalie has been keeping an eye on it. We think it's so special that we worked with the person that bred it, the people that were offering it to see if they could bring it into the Proven Winners program, because they believed in it that much. They really believe that it is something that will perform exceptionally in people's gardens and it does. It's got this almost eucalyptus looking foliage. And it is amazing! It produces a very small, almost insignificant yellow flower in the spring. A lot of what you think might be foliage on this plant is actually a bract that's a dusty blue bract that appears underneath the flower, then when you look farther down the stem, you see more dusty blue leaves. It's a quick grower. Natalie put one in her Michigan garden that was a one quart size three seasons ago and today it's about 12 feet tall. That is about as high as it gets. She has it growing on an obelisk, but it stays put. So although it's quick to get its regular size, it's not going to go to seed and start sprouting out all over your garden. It's quite a showpiece. Natalie can't wait to see it when it's using the post on the other side of this tiny house and creating the showpiece that she knows it can be. It's going to be amazing. Is it fragrant? It has a very slight fragrance when it blooms, but it's pretty insignificant. The reason they really wanted to add it was it has such a special leaf.
The other honeysuckle is also a non-invasive called Scentsation Honeysuckle. It's going to look like your typical honeysuckle vine with big groups of yellow and white trumpet shaped flowers that cover the plant from top to bottom, hummingbirds love to come to visit it in the spring. Natalie also grows this one and loves it. It does have the sweet, sweet scent that you expect from honeysuckle. It is also non invasive.
Victoria joins Eric and Natalie. Before we get into your questions, there are a few more plants that Eric would like for Natalie to tell us about in this part of the garden. Plus there are some really special ones that I think Victoria will be really happy with once they get fully integrated into her landscape. Natalie loves this shady walkway to Victoria's back door. It seems like a quiet little sanctuary.
She could hear a bird chirping and has really incorporated some nifty plants here that play well in the shade. One of them is Black Pearl HEUCHERA, which is really only going to grow to about two feet tall and wide. It has a really dark black purple leaf. In the springtime, you'll get these spires with white flowers that contrast against the black leaves. One nice thing Natalie likes about Heuchera is they will ultimately grow larger. She likes to say - they sleep, creep then leap. They arrived at a certain size and you’ll think - this is what they’re going to do. The next season they’ll be about the same size but the next season they’ll blow your mind. They will double in size, they're gonna be huge and will be gorgeous. They come up nice and early in the spring with this beautiful dark black foliage with a contrasting white flower that plays so well in a shady area. You can buy copper colored Heuchera, you can buy green apple colored Heuchera, there are so many to choose from. Natalie's a big fan.
Another plant back here they had a little trouble finding, but Natalie's so glad they found it. And that is Metamorphosa JAPANESE MAPLE. Proven Winner's Color Choice is new to the tree business. But they're working with people who aren’t. And the folks who do have a lot of experience in the tree business are bringing some gorgeous trees to the portfolio and Metamorphosa is one of the newest. It is a shrubby Japanese maple so it's not gonna grow with a central trunk, like some do, instead it's gonna have many stems toward the bottom. If you like, early early in spring you can prune some of those out to expose some of its legs or ankles a little bit if you want. But it has this really pretty light colored foliage with a white margin, then in the fall, the foliage will turn shades of red, just like Japanese maples. Natalie really loves this one and is really happy Victoria got it. And it's not too big either. It is a tree, let's remember that but it will only get to be about 8 to 10 feet tall, so it's a nice size. And it will do well back here. The only thing that would affect a Japanese maple is if you put it in a little bit more shade you'll get a little less color in the fall.
Eric loves the choice of DEUTZIA back here as well. There's been a lot of work that's occurred in that genius. He remembers the first time that Chardonnay Pearls came on the market and what a revelation that plant was but then wondered, what's happening next? Natalie's got some wonderful representatives here. The first is Yuki Cherry Blossom, which is covered with pink flowers. But next season Victoria will be able to find the newest called Yuki Kabuki. Keep an eye out for that one. The one you have is uh Yuki Snowflake, it has white flowers in the spring. Natalie states these are full size and about one to two feet. So what you see in your garden is the size that they're going to be.
Natalie points out that a lot of times when people are planting a new garden they bring a brand new shrub into their their yard, then plant it, but they're like, oh, it doesn't look happy anymore. Well, it's a little bit shocked. When you pick anything up and move it to a new home, it needs some time to establish a root structure. Natalie knows that the people that put these plants in amended the soil really nicely. She's certain they loosened the roots up as well, especially when you get a bigger plant, you want to loosen that root ball up really well. This will help establish their roots the first season, then next season, they'll reward you with a shower of flowers.
Eric mentions another great plant that as someone, like himself, who's lived in the southeast for pretty much his entire life, thus one of his favorite small flowering shrubs is Rhaphiolepis. Natalie, which selection did you chose for this garden. You know, these are a new plant to me, being a northern girl, I hadn't heard of the INDIAN HAWTHORNE. It's a beautiful broad leaf evergreen plant. Some of these plants are southern staples and are generally really large. But with La Vida Mas, Indian Hawthorne, we've got a nice compact dwarf size plant. You still get the pink flowers in the spring and that nice broadleaf evergreen appeal. You’ve got it planted up against the house which is really great, because if you're walking through here all season, you get that nice green foundation plant.
A couple more that Eric would like for Natalie to talk about before we get into the Q&A is the Oakleaf Hydrangea and the Viburnum, both wonderful flowering shrubs. Let's talk about the viburnum first. The viburnum are planted right next to the Indian Hawthorne along the foundation of the home. What we've got is a viburnum that we call Glitters and Glows. And there's a very special reason for that. This is the type of viburnum that'll give you a blue berry in the fall, a lot like Blue Muffin that's a very popular viburnum that has a blue berry in the fall. The problem with viburnum is they're male and female, so they need a male plant for the pollinators to come along and pollinate the female plant so that you get those berries. And it's often hard to find a pollinator plant for Blue Muffin. Honestly, you have to find just the right plant that plumes at just the right time. So they had All That Glitters and All That Glows - two separate viburnums that were sold one male and one female. They both flower, only one creates a berry, though. So they thought, let's just put a liner of each in one container and call it a day, so that Glitters and Glows, the male and the female, are in one container. They grow up together, they grow into one shrub, but it's a self pollinator. And, you don't have to worry about hiding that male pollinator around the corner. You've got it all there in one plant and the foliage is super shiny and beautiful. It's just a great viburnum. And this one grows a little taller, so they have them planted next to some mechanical boxes on the house and it will do a nice job covering some of that up.
Natalie also included a Gatsby Gal OAKLEAF HYDRANGEA. She's a huge oakleaf hydrangea fan. It's a North American native plant, so well adapted to our soil and really a wide variety of climates. It's a hydrangea that will do well here in the south and it's also a hydrangea that's highly tolerant of shade. What you get with Gatsby Gal is a smaller oakleaf hydrangea. Oakleaf hydrangeas can get to be 10, 12 feet tall and wide. They are monsters, but they're beautiful monsters, but they can get really large. This one is a compact variety five to six feet tall and wide and you get the summertime panicle flower. But you're not gonna be able to change your soil and get a blue hydrangea with this guy. It's going to have a white flower that just ages to a soft green color. And it just does it naturally. No soil is gonna affect the color, but the bonus that you also get with an oakleaf hydrangea is the foliage turns a russet brown, an orange color, in the fall. So once again, a full season of interest.
Victoria, while we have Natalie here, why don’t you ask the expert any questions you have as you're thinking about this new design, this new landscape, with all these amazing plants. What do you need to know to be as successful as you can? Victoria does has some questions. It has been extremely hot these past few weeks. So much so that she has already lost a couple plants. Is there some point where you say - Okay, with this plant is it worth the water. It's certainly up to you, but sometimes you put a plant in one area and it's going to do beautifully, then you put it in another area and it struggles. That's telling you something. The plant is telling you something. But, Natalie would say, especially with shrubs and perennials, give them a season. Don't give up too soon, lots of shrubs that look dead up top still have a healthy root system. So it could still come back and oftentimes it comes back even better.
Thank you Natalie. Thank you so much for helping with this project and sourcing all of these wonderful plants, then coming and telling us more about them and what to expect. Victoria is excited. Natalie is such a wealth of knowledge and she can't wait to see what amazing new showstoppers are coming down the pipeline in the years to come. These plants have really made a huge impact on Victoria's tiny house.
Spring is right around the corner, that means most gardeners are craving color. click here for an interesting article in which experts provide their top 7 selections for go-to plants with early blooms.
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