Episodes

You’ll never want to leave a Susanne Hudson designed garden. Each garden room is an invitation to relax and enjoy again. Susanne has been designing homes and gardens for over 40 years. She believes your home is for living and enjoying every day. Her personal garden has been featured in Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens, Country Living, HGTV, This Old House, New Zealand’s Lifestyle Book and more. She shares her garden with guest each year during the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival Gar...

In this episode we will talk with Landscape Architect Bruce Holliday about his landscape design philosophy and how you can enhance your property’s value. Bruce has seen just about everything in his many years as a Landscape Architect where he has designed and installed landscape plant material, hardscapes, lighting, and irrigation for residential and commercial projects. At Pike Family Nurseries he supervised 12 landscape designers that produced more than 2,500 landscape plans annually as Dire...

Dewayne Gallatin earned his nickname “King of Containers” while overseeing The Sibley Horticultural Center at Callaway Gardens. His primary horticultural focus today is managing and developing future projects for private gardens and estates. A close friend once suggested he enter a container gardening contest that ended up attracting over 1,000 entries. Little did he know a whole TV episode on PBS’s “The Southern Gardener” would be produced around his winning entry. He earned Horticulture Ass...

In between being a stay-at-home Mom, volunteer, writer, photographer, and speaker Meg Cowden has been a full-time gardener for 25 years. Her first vegetable garden crop was tomatoes grown in 5-gallon buckets in the city. Now she gardens in the western suburbs of Minneapolis. Her garden now is close to a quarter acre. Growing fruits, vegetables and annual flowering plants. Meg’s background in natural resource management led to her pursuit of succession gardening and interest in pushing the gro...

Jason Reeves knows plants and loves talking about them. He is a research horticulturist and curator for the University of Tennessee Gardens, at the West Tennessee Ag Research and Education Center in Jackson. He evaluates thousands of new and unique plants each year through out his imaginative garden art displays. Jason travels the world speaking at gardening symposiums and serving as a contributing editor to “Fine Gardening” magazine. While growing up on a farm he fell in love with the plant...

How would you like to impact the environment in a positive way with your garden? In this episode we talk with Dr. Andy Pulte about having fun and succeeding in a dynamic ecological vibrant garden. Andy grew up in the nursery industry in Grand Island, Nebraska. He received his Ph.D. in plant sciences from the University of Tennessee. He is now on the faculty in the same department teaching, advising, and coordinating UT’s plant sciences undergraduate program. You will find him feeding his pas...

Pam Farley talks about what it takes to grow a high yield container food garden in this episode. Her successful methods has produce many a good meal for her family. Since grade school Pam has been gardening and writing. These two interests collided in 2009, when she created the website BrownThumbMama.com. There she has documents her huge list of home and garden tips. Millions of readers from around the world visit her site to learn about vegetable gardening, easy recipes, and making a nontoxi...

In this episode we talk with Nancy & Pierre Moitrier about how they approach garden creation as a wife and husband team. Why inspiring your garden soul is important to them as they design and build an outdoor space. Bringing life to your garden by harvesting natural materials to build one-of-a-kind whimsical structures known as French Folly. A whimsical world in the garden will open up to you as they talk about ole world antique troughs. Listen to the scheme of how these lost and forgotten c...

When Noelle Johnson arrived in the desert she kill every plant she owned. She fancied herself a green thumb, but she wasn’t from around here, the desert. She was determined to succeed and earn her B.S. degree in Urban Horticulture from Arizona State University. For a few years she dodged golf balls from the tees and fairways while designing and caring for the plants around the course. Which included hundreds of trees, shrubs, perennials, and yes, even cactus. Noelle is a horticulturist, lands...

Growing organic vegetables is Susan Mulvihill’s passion. She has learned many lessons from her consistent gardening of 5 acres in Spokane, Washington with her husband Bill. Their large raised-bed garden yields some mighty fine edible crops. Always curious and researching answers to their garden challenges. Susan loves sharing her findings through numerous outlets. Her newest book The Vegetable Garden Problem Solver Handbook promises to be another best seller. The book will help you identify a...

Toni Gattone believes there is always another way to get it done with adaptive garden tools and mindset. She believes that gardening is one of the healthiest activities for anyone. In this episode we talk about how being resilient and resourceful are the keys to not giving up on gardening. When to start and who needs Toni’s successful techniques in using adaptive gardening.. Toni Gattone is the author of the book: The Lifelong Gardener: Garden with Ease and Joy at Any Age Toni is a passionat...

In this episode we talk about the future of boxwood in the garden, a visit to Bunny Mellon’ Garden, and the return of the Norton Grape to Virginia with Pat Reilly. Pat educates homeowners and landscape professionals. Teaching them how to select, care and thrive the plants of their gardens. She is the horticulture outreach specialist for NewGen Boxwoods and Saunders Brothers, inc. and you’ll also find her at Merrifield Garden Center in Northern Virginia. She has been an active Master Gardener ...

In this episode I talk with Kathy Jentz about groundcovers and how they may solve many of your garden issues. We explore how to make wise selections when seeking the perfect groundcover. Kathy is a life-long gardener. She believes that growing plants should be stress-free and enjoyable. Her philosophy is inspiration over perspiration and is on a mission to turn black thumbs green. Kathy’s newest book Groundcover Revolution is a powerhouse of garden wisdom. She also co-authored The Urban Ga...

Today we talk with two plant geeks that meet in a garden. Both are now Directors of two prominent public gardens in North Carolina. Adrienne Roethling is the Director for Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden in Kernersville, NC. Jon Roethling is the Director Reynolda Gardens of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. They tell their story and the stories of the amazing gardens they oversee. How they handle garden conflicts at home. Even their vacations are about plants.

At Stoneleigh, Ethan Kauffman is introducing biodiversity to a formal garden. Using sound design reasoning and creative native plants for formal hedges and knot gardens. He is always looking to fill a function and not just an expectation of what a plant should be. Ethan developed his love of the natural world exploring the Susquehanna River hills in southeastern PA. He cultivated his horticultural perspective over two decades of gardening in the Deep South, including as director of Moore Far...

In this episode we talk with Jordan Daneker about the little things that bring your outdoor spaces to life. He walks us through the process on how he discovers and builds the perfect outdoor space for you and your family. We explore the artful details used to put together plants, pools, pavilions, hardscapes, lighting and more to yield a unique and quality environment. Jordan’s obsession and passion started as a part time job in 2008 and now he is on a mission “To Get North Carolina Outside”....

Paul Chappell grows trees headed to a landscape garden near you. He talks about the fascinating journey your tree might take before finding a home in your garden. Once your tree finds its home, Paul lays out what it takes for you to be a successful tree grower for multiple generations. Paul fell in love with plants and their care over 36 successful years ago. He tells some very interesting stories about his time at Callaway Gardens. The challenges of growing native trees in the nursery. Also,...

Jenny Simpson meets people on their gardening journey and helps them grow, bloom, and thrive both in their garden and life! In this episode we talk about how being a student of your garden puts you on a track to success. Jenny & Jerry Simpson are growers and retailer of specialized plants that thrive in the often-challenging climate of the southeastern United States. Their Creekside Nursery, Inc. is an all-hands-on deck family operation located in the serene countryside outside Dallas, NC. A...

Janet Draper gets to play in the dirt and talk to people from around the world. This is her 25th year as the sole horticulturalist for Smithsonian’s Mary Livingston Ripley Garden. This tiny 1/3 of an acre garden is located on the National Mall and in Washington, DC. The garden is open to visitors 24 hours a day. Due to the nearly constant events occurring within a stone’s throw, and major construction on aging buildings, the challenges of keeping the gardens looking good can be daunting. Jan...

How did the Poinsettia become the Christmas flower? It is a series of intriguing stories full of human drama, mysteries, secrets, challenges, and world domination. Find out why every poinsettia plant sold today carries a critical pathogen that is a key to its success and is detrimental all other plants. Also, we will learn how to be successful in selecting and growing your poinsettia year-round along with having a few myths squashed. In this episode 086 Jim Faust tells interesting true Poins...

We are at the beginning of Christmas season and it is time to display the Christmas Tree. Dr. Mel Koelling knows Christmas Trees. He and his wife Laurie have grown thousands of trees every year at Tannenbaum Farms in central Michigan. A nationally recognized expert in the Christmas Tree industry, Dr. Koelling taught and served in the Department of Forestry at Michigan State University for over 35 years. Tannenbaum Farms was purchased in 1977 as an extension of Dr. Koelling's professional int...

Pearce Butcher has always known that she is an artist who loves nature and science. In this episode we dissect Landscape Design as a unique combination of art, science, and problem-solving. Pearce loves the challenge of looking at a space, listening to the concerns and dreams of the homeowner, and coming up with beautiful solutions. She composes absolutely stunning landscape designs for her clients at Pearce B Designs. Be inspired by her extraordinary designs on Instagram @ Pearce B Des...

So much of Charles Daniel’s garden world revolves around camellias. In this episode he talks about how to be successful with Camellias and their surprising history. He shares why Camellias are a key plant for year-round blooms. We also talk about how to overcome garden challenges. This lawyer, banker, and successful business owner “retired” to his new passion for gardening. He reveals his journey that led him to the ongoing development and caring for some of the most unique gardens in Savannah...

082 – David Brown – Designing From The Garden You will often find David Brown studying plants in the gardens at Hills and Dales Estate. He seeks to acquire the perfect cutting for his amazing indoor arrangements. In our conversation he tells us how you may accomplish the same with your garden plants. Before coming to Hills & Dales Estate, David taught high school horticulture for 30 years and then was an adjunct instructor at Southern Crescent Technical College for 8 years. On top of all that...