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PAS Garden Home: Triumphant Tulips

Spring is bursting forth at the Garden Home Retreat so it's the perfect time to discuss some of the season's best plants like tulips, spring herbs and strawberries.  Plus visit Garvan Gardens during their Tulip Extravaganza and see how conservationists are helping native North American trumpeter swans.

Tulips Featured in Today's Show:
'Negrita' (Purple)
'Perestroika' (Salmon-red)
'Maureen' (Pale Yellow to Creamy White)
'Pretty Woman' (Red Lily)
'Angelique' (Pink Double Late)
'Mrs. John T Scheepers' (Yellow Triumph)
'Apeldoorn' (Orange-red Darwin)
'Lady Jane' (Pink and White Species)
'Lilac Wonder' (Purple Species Tulip)

Hands on Gardening
Planting Herbs that Can Take Cool Spring Temperatures - While most herbs like it hot, there are a few that can survive cool spring temperatures.  Try planting thyme, parsley and chives.  You can plant 3 to 4 of these herbs in an 18-inch container.

The Green Component
Terne Coated Stainless Steel Gutters - The gutters are an important part of the rainwater harvesting system at the Garden Home Retreat.  The roof water is directed to the underground cisterns by the gutters.  The gutters used are traditional in that they are a half round, but the material is terne coated steel, which will not corrode or rust.  This means the gutters will not stain the house and they are durable.  Terne coated steel is inert, meaning that there will be no heavy metals in the water collected off the roof. So, you could literally drink this water.  This is important because this water will be used to irrigate the vegetable garden and orchard.

Garden Home How To
Growing Strawberries as Groundcover – An interesting way to use strawberries is as a groundcover.  They certainly fit the criteria: easy to grow, rapidly spreading, and evergreen.  Plus they produce strawberries!  At the Garden Home Retreat we dug up some strawberry runners that had rooted in a path and transplanted them under a fig bush.  We had enough little plants to fill a 20-foot diameter bed, spacing the plants about 8 to 10 inches apart. Over the course of this summer they'll grow together forming a nice, thick carpet of strawberry leaves.

Garden Home Inside and Out
Kristin Warner, Horticulturist, Garvan Woodland Gardens, Hot Springs AR – Kristin discusses the Tulip Extravaganza at Garvan where 90,000 tulips planted the previous fall show off their spring colors.  The Extravaganza starts in early March and continues through April.

Pets in the Garden
Waterfowl at the Garden Home Retreat - If you've ever tried to raise poultry, you know that part of their care includes protecting them from predators. That's certainly the case with many of the waterfowl species at the Garden Home Retreat.

Some of the most elegant birds at the Retreat are the 5 mute swans. Even before they arrived we put a system in place to keep predators from getting their eggs.  In early spring they're particularly vulnerable because the females are making nests and laying eggs.  They become targets for bobcats, coyotes and foxes. Raccoons and possums love the eggs. The protective structure we built at the Garden Home Retreat is a series of corrals. During this period, they can be housed comfortably. They can lay their eggs. They can hatch out their little nestlings and then they can mature to the point we can turn them loose on the pond and there they'll be safe.

Other waterfowl breeds living at the Garden Home Retreat include those curly feathered geese called Sebastopols and an adorable little duck, which is black and white, called a Magpie, which happens to be a very good egg layer.

Karen Rowe, Biologist, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission – Karen explains how the AGFC is trying to help restore the pattern of migration of the native North American trumpeter swan to include the Mississippi Flyway which includes Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa and Arkansas.  The trumpeter swan is North America's largest water fowl with an 8 foot wing span, weighing 30 pounds plus.

Virtual Makeover
Sandra in Oregon is looking for ways to bump up the charm factor on her stucco cottage.  In this Virtual Makeover she receives tips for combining roses, a picket fence, perennials and annuals to create a garden that suits her home.