(upbeat music) - Every so often I get to do a show with someone that is so knowledgeable about horticulture that I can honestly say they have forgotten more about plants than I will ever know.

I'm Mary Holm host of Prairie Yard and Garden, and today we will meet not just one person but a whole family that fits the bill.

Let's go visit the Wagners who make horticulture a real family affair - [Lady Announcer] Funding for Prairie yard and garden is provided by Heartland Motor Company, providing service to Minnesota and the Dakotas for over 30 years in the heart of truck country.

Heartland Motor Company, we have your best interest at heart Farmer's mutual telephone company and federated telephone cooperative proud to be powering Acira.

Pioneers in bringing state-of-the-art technology to our rural communities, Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen in honor of Shalom Hill Farm a nonprofit rural education retreat center in a beautiful Prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota and by Friends of Prairie Yard and Garden.

A community of supporters like you who engage in the long-term growth of the series.

To become a friend of Prairie Yard and Garden, visit pioneer.org/pyg.

(gentle music) - [Mary] When Tom and I add a tree, shrub or perennial to our yard, it is a big deal.

It is well known among our neighbors that we have plant discussions quite often as to what to plant and where.

Now this is just with Tom and me.

Imagine if you have a whole family of four with lots of knowledge and different plant preferences.

Today let's see how that works for Roger, Cheryl, Brian and Meredith Wagner of Wagner Greenhouse and Landscaping of Fisher, Minnesota.

Welcome Roger.

- Well, thank you for coming out to visit us.

I really appreciate that.

- Roger, you taught horticulture, I believe, is that right?

- Yes, at the University of Minnesota Crookston.

We had associate degrees and then we have bachelor's degrees and I was there for 30 years.

- In addition to teaching you started a greenhouse and a landscape operation, but you're also really known for your Fernleaf peonies too, is that right?

- Yes, we were into fernleaf peonies big time.

I think there are about 4,000 plants in the field that we dig and divide and we have singles and doubles and I enjoy it very much.

- How did you get started with the fernleaf peonies - In 1978, they were putting a dike in in the city of East Grand Forks.

They were told by White that I had these fernleaf peonies and they need to buy them.

And so the city bought them and then I bought them from the city and I've been dividing ever since.

- [Mary] Well, they're really quite rare, aren't they?

- [Roger] You wouldn't think so when you look out in the parking lot and you see hundreds and hundreds of them you know?

- Now, are friendly peonies the same thing as Japanese peonies?

- No, they're in a group by themselves, they're in a group called Paeonia Tenuifolia and the Japanese peonies are like, like the typical peonies that we have around here, only they're a variety of colors and shapes, but the fernleaf peony has a very lacy material and they do bloom by Memorial day.

Sometimes they refer to them as Memorial day peonies.

We dig them into fall and I divide them, and when I pot them up that I make sure it has a five to seven eyes and we have a U blade that we go underneath, and some of our clumps get quite large, yeah, they'll get, you know, 20 inches across, and so we come across with the U blade and the employees put them on a trailer, and then I sit in the shop there in the shade.

(Mary and Roger laughing) By myself, by the way, and I have a saw, I mean, it looks like the crude brothers and I'll just cut them right in half with a saw and then I'll shake the soil off of them.

And then I'll look for the eyes.

And there'll be just a little merits to my growing points and I will select the tubers out that have the growing points and the real nice ones though, I'll make sure I've got five to seven eyes and the ones that would have just one eye, I put those to the side, because we then, we put them back in the field.

- [Mary] And they always come in red?

- [Roger] Red.

- [Mary] Okay, so you sell, you always make sure that you have some that you put back in so they can multiply and everything.

And then you also have a bunch then that you sell the following year.

- Yep.

In the spring, when the in fact we overwinter them and out in the display, even right now, there are already three inches high and they grow fast, and we have to get them out of the overwintering site right away.

- Now besides Fernleaf Peonies, you have some pick your own operations too.

- Oh yeah, We have, we have U-pick raspberries.

We have the variety Boyne.

- [Mary] Okay.

- [Roger] And we have U-pick rhubarb, which is unheard of but people that have rhubarb can't give it away, and those that don't have it, can't find it.

(Mary and Roger laugh) And so two bucks a pound, you come on out and you pick it, and we have U-pick asparagus and-- - Well somewhere along the way, you started a beautiful garden center too.

Now, do you handle all of that or do you have another member of the family that handles that?

- [Roger] Brian does the landscaping and Meredith and Cheryl they do the flowers, they order the flowers.

I do most of the seeding, but I'm kind of a gopher.

You ever seen a 300 pound gopher?

(both laughing) - Now do you think that it would be possible to get Meredith in to tell us a little bit about the garden center too?

- [Roger] Absolutely, she would love to, and Cheryl would be there and as you look around the facility, the choices they make fantastic.

The baskets that she puts together, well she puts them out there and I plant them.

Jeff, Han and I, we plant like crazy.

- [Mary] Well, I'm looking forward to finding out a lot more about that.

Let's go see if we can find her.

- All right, okay, very good.

(gentle music playing) - Meredith, your dad said that you kind of are in charge of working here in the garden center.

So I have lots of questions for you.

- Okay, I'll see what I can do to answer them.

- When was the garden center started?

- So the garden center was started in 2005 after my father retired from the university of Minnesota Crookston.

And I was working here mostly on the weekends but I also had a full-time job in Fargo.

So I would drive up and take care of stuff on the weekends or holidays.

And then most recently in the last three years I resigned from my position, and I'm full-time here.

- How do you decide what to grow for varieties?

- Well sometimes it's something that we'll see in a catalog.

We do start a wishlist, our customer wishlist, which has been pretty helpful because, you know, they're out there and they see different things maybe that I wouldn't notice.

And also based on what the industry is showing, you know what we have done in the past is also a good benchmark.

And maybe if it's something that didn't go well that last year or the year before we discontinue and kind of try out some different varieties.

- [Mary] when do you start your plants?

- So we do seeding.

We do seed some of our own plants but any plugs that we get in, we'll get those in at the end of February, that's our geraniums.

We'll get those in.

And then plugs, We'll get in all of March.

So every week I'm going to Fargo to pick up an order.

We used to pick them up at the airport in Grand Forks, they discontinued that service.

So the company let's say in Michigan there's Mast Young Plants.

They'll ship it out to Memphis, it goes Memphis to Fargo, I'll pick it up in Fargo because if they put it on a truck, it's a cold truck and the plants can die.

So I'll go pick it up in my warm vehicle and I'll drive it up here and they'll survive and we plant them up.

- Where do you start your seeds?

- So we have a facility, actually, there's a separate room in one of our shops that we have as a growing facility and growing chambers and overhead lights.

My dad does a lot of the seeding.

So I kind of leave that up to him, but I help with watering of the inventory and the product to keep it alive.

- When you have a growing chamber like that, what are some of the things that you have to be concerned about?

I'm sure light.

- Light, making sure that the plants aren't stretching.

That's a big thing, because if they're not getting the right amount of light they're going to stretch and reach for any light source that they can get to and then that will get top heavy.

They could damp off, and then they, you know they'll fall over and die, and now we're weeks behind and we'll have to start over and reseed.

The humidity, moisture.

When we're watering these items we have to water from the bottom up because otherwise if you water top down, it can also hurt those plants.

And you don't want any water droplets sitting on it so it can cause more disease.

- And then after they get big enough where do you move them then?

- So actually we start them in trays similar to this.

So this would be a starting tray for seeds which is exactly what we're doing here.

From this point, we would transfer them up into what is called a 1204, it's a poly pack, and there's four cells in it.

And then these each plant is individually transplanted into that in multiple flats, I mean, there's 48 cells per tray.

So depending on what we have quantity of, there could be 96, there could be, you know, unlimited number of plants.

Again, my mom and dad do the transplanting.

I'm not allowed to do that part, but I do the planting of the plugs and the design of baskets and such.

- Okay, well, can you tell us about some of the unusual plants that you grow and have available for sale here?

- Sure, this is one of my favorites.

It's called a Mexican petunia.

It will actually get about four feet tall.

Now I, everybody else asks is it an annual or perennial?

in my house It's a perennial, in the real world, it's probably an annual.

I winter over about 70 different plants.

So it's just something that I like to try and see, what will, you know if it will make it so I can tell the customer and educate them if they want to continue growing plants on their own.

It flowers purple and it drops its flowers every night.

So when I first started growing it I thought I'd killed it because it was dropping its flowers and I went, "Oh, what am I doing wrong?"

So it's called April showers and it will drop it drops its flowers overnight and produces new flowers every morning.

So we have a plant called Juncus and it's got a corkscrew look to it.

It's more of a filler.

So when you're doing a planting they talk about a thrill, a fill and a spill.

So this would be a fill, so it just kind of fills in some areas and gives it some bulk to the plant.

This one here is called a kangaroo Apple.

This will get about four feet tall.

It's you know, this is one that we started from seed.

And what you need to do is you need to ferment the seed and it will be planted and transplanted into this.

This is the 1204 or the poly pack that I was mentioning before.

And this one there you need to be really careful when you travel with it because geo tropism will take over.

Now what I mean by that, if it's laying on its side, it will in about 45 minutes, it will start to grow towards the sun.

So when you stand it up, it's going to have a crook in it.

So one, a couple of years ago my dad and I were going to lay it down and stand it up, lay it down, stand it up.

So it had like a staircase look to it, but we chose not to.

So, but it is a a fun plant.

It has purple flowers, a nice accent would be to do some purple petunias with it.

They go, well, the watering habits are similar.

So this is another fun plant that we actually have a lot of customers that ask for this.

This one here is a grass, an ornamental grass it's called First Knight.

It is really pretty, it's got the nice purple dark accents to it.

It's very, it is sturdy.

It will stand up in the wind very well.

And it will actually, if you can see the tag here it turns this really, really deep purple.

And the blades actually will go from green to dark purple.

So there really won't be any green unless it's new growth.

And it's just a stunning, stunning plant.

I mean, at the end of the summer it's going to be this big round.

It's gorgeous.

- [Mary] So the more sun that it gets the more purple it gets?

- [Meredith] Yes.

Yes.

- [Mary] Okay.

- [Meredith] This one is, we've had it before and it didn't really go very well.

And then I saw it in a catalog and I thought I kinda like the look of that.

So I thought I'd try it again.

And it's called Ptilotus and the variety or the name is Joey and I think it has to do with where it's, you know originates from in Australia.

And so I have sold out of this last year and I'm really hoping that that continues this year because I doubled up on my quantities.

But as you can see, the, the blooms are quite soft and there are seeds in those.

So, you know, if the customer, I try to teach the customer on collecting seeds, I don't collect seeds because patented material, and we're not allowed to do that but I'll teach the customer.

So if they want to try something at home and just kind of educate them a little bit more on just, you know instead of just saying here, buy this, I want to tell them about the watering habits, what they can do with it, how to trim it back, maybe take a cutting, so - Since that forms seeds, will it keep doing better or growing better, if you clip off the spent blooms - I do, I clip off the spent blooms.

And then again, then I'll dry that and give that to the customer or, you know let them know about how to do that.

But again, it's kind of similar to deadheading with the petunias and in other flowers that have blooms that if you cut off the old flower, new one's going to start - I think you've just helped me have a better luck with that plant.

- Okay.

That ones, and it loves to be on the dry side drier the better, because you can always water it.

You can't always to bring it back when it's too wet.

- [Mary] Okay.

- Now this one is called King of Hearts.

As you can see, there's a heart on the flower and you see the part there.

Now, this one we had, this is new this year.

We've had this one before, this is queen of hearts.

So I'm going to do a basket that has King of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, a lot of people don't really think that red and pink go together well but I also have a potato vine that's ACE of Spades.

So I've got to kind of have a full house.

It's kind of like my play on things.

And some people will buy it just for that and they'll buy it because they like the flowers together.

So they kind of like my different names.

So I'll give some different names to the plants.

Night sky has a twin.

This is called pink sky.

And so at first I wasn't sure I was sold on it and it always looked like it had bleach kind of spilled on it, but I really like it.

It's really nice growing habit, it's full, We've already cut these back twice this year.

And when we cut them back, what we're doing is we're trying to not let them get so spindly or leggy and it helps them get more full in the center.

- [Mary] Yeah because when you said night sky, that one is blue.

- [Meredith] Yeah, that one is blue, yup, and then pink, I said this is twins, so twin sister.

Another one is pistachio.

It says the chartreuse.

So chartreuse was the color of last year.

I might've missed it, but I had these last year.

But to me, I just, I like to use this as an accent.

A lot of purples do real well with it.

And Lysimachia, which I do Goldie locks which is a chartreuse color and that'll trail down, and just really helps make it pop.

- [Mary] Well, you mentioned making planters and stuff and I see a lot of beautiful baskets and everything.

Do you do all of those?

- [Meredith] I do most of them, there are a few people that have some input but I'll get, you know, my inspiration maybe comes from a catalog of, I saw a picture of it had some flowers in it and it was just a water pitcher and it held all these stripes on it.

And I thought I really liked those colors.

So I went and gathered the plants and that's that's how I came up with a combination.

Sometimes it just kind of looking around and grabbing plants and I'll carry a bucket with me or a pot with me and I'll set them in there.

I'm like, Nope, I'd just kind of pick and choose.

But I guess I kind of just have an eye for it.

I mean, I don't want to brag because I, to me, I just, they look good, but my dad he thinks they're pretty top-notch.

So I really appreciate that.

- Now you also have a landscape operation that goes here with the Wagner family too.

- We do yes.

- And who does most of that?

So that is my brother, Brian.

He does the landscaping and the hardscaping and then I'll maintain the trees and shrubs and evergreens that are here, that he would take out on the job or the customer could come and directly purchase.

- Well, do you think we can go and pick his brain too?

- I think we should.

(gentle music) - I have a question.

Recently I've heard a lot about Buffalo grass.

Could I plant this in my lawn?

Well, Buffalo grass is one of our native grasses but it has a distinct disadvantage in that it isn't the bright green color that we're used to seeing.

At best conditions, buffalo grass is kind of a blue, gray color and it might even be a dormant color like what we see here.

Only in a heat of the summer will it have its best color?

The biggest advantage with Buffalo grass is it's short, even though we have mowed the plots that are here, some of this has jumped out here and at full height it's only about four or six inches.

So it is a really slow growing short plant native especially in dry sites or even clay soil conditions but its coloration is usually not what most people want for their lawn.

It'll go dormant as soon as it's cold in the fall, it takes a long time to green up in the summer.

You will never have to water Buffalo grass but it's not going to be that bright green color.

- [Lady Announcer] Ask the Arboretum Experts has been brought to you by the Minnesota landscape Arboretum in Chaska, dedicated to enriching lives through the appreciation and knowledge of plants.

- Brian I was told that when I wanted to learn about landscaping, I need to come and talk to you.

So how did you get started with landscaping?

- My dad dragged me out of bed in the morning, but then after I started doing it for awhile, I started to enjoy it and then I went to school for it and I've been doing it for 30 plus years.

- When you get together with a homeowner and they want to do some landscaping, what are some of the things that you ask them in order to come up with a plan for them?

- One of the things I ask is, is how long they've been there and what they want to do in their yard, whether or not they want to, you know, if they're outdoor people or if they just want it to look nice when somebody drives by or if they want it functional that they're going to use, and sometimes I also ask them how much money they've got.

(Mary laughs) - [Mary] Well, and some people might not be able to afford it all at one time, and so, but you can still even work with that too, can't you?

- [Brian] Absolutely, in a week we can do it in phases, and you know, or we can work with them where, you know, if they want to do part of the work, you know where, you know, we'll set it up and maybe install the edging and then they'll plant it and we'll come back and do the rock or whatever they feel comfortable doing, You know, we can, we have many different, you know, options that way.

- [Mary] When people are doing landscaping, what are some of the functions of having landscapes?

- Well, it, you know, it increases the value of your home.

It also, if you're planting trees and shrubs, you know it also helps with your cooling costs on your house, things like that.

You know, if you, if putting up hedges and things like that, you know, and windbreaks and things, you know it helps with, with protection and everything else.

It also is just enjoyable, and the beauty of it, you know, the plants the flowers and all of that.

- [Mary] My husband, Tom and I have such different tastes in yards and landscaping and everything.

But he always says that balance is very important in a landscape.

And I'm one that, if there's a plant on this side of the driveway then there the same one should be over here but you don't necessarily have to do that, right?

- [Brian] No, no, we, you know, balance is important, but it can be, you know if your house is taller on one end than the other, you know having something tall, you know, on the opposite side will kind of bring your house into balance, so it doesn't have to be the same plant.

It, you know, it, a lot of times, you know in landscaping you see odd numbers you know, threes, five, seven, things like that, you know and that's just, you know, it just a lot of times it looks better, but sometimes, you know balance is important in some things but otherwise, you know, I like to tell people that it can also be randomly symmetrical.

- How do you work with Heights of plants?

- You know, when we're working with Heights, you know sometimes you'll want something taller off the corner to anchor, and then you want to make sure that you're not getting plants that are gonna get larger than windows and things like that.

You know, if you don't have a window or if you have a blank wall then more height is always better.

And sometimes, you know, every house is different but sometimes you have this split levels with windows that are pretty low to the ground.

So then something lower and kind of just, you kind of look at each project and, and kind of say, well this will work, or this won't work.

One thing to think about is, you know if you get something too large, you know, right by the front door.

Yeah, you know, security issues, you know, it's people don't, you know, always know what's behind that.

- How far apart should you space the plants?

- You know, that varies from variety to variety but kind of as a rule of thumb, you know you want to be about three feet out from your house, you know, with the plants.

And then you'd let you know, usually on your basic shrub you know, about three to four feet apart it'll give them lots of space because they're going to get big, you know, they're going to grow into it.

- [Mary] Do you recommend using mulch around the plants too?

And if so, what kind?

- [Brian] You know, we do a lot of mulch and we use rock mulch and we use wood mulch, we also use rubber mulch, and so there's lots of options as far as that goes, my personal preference is rock mulch because it's the most low maintenance.

Your other mulches they tend to blow away, or you have to add to them over time.

If you don't put mulch down, then you are going to spend more time weeding and things like that.

It's also important to, you know, what kind of weed barrier you put underneath there.

Because if you use a cheap weed barrier that's a lot, one place that a lot of homeowners skimp is on the weed barrier, and then they spend the rest of the time having that landscape pulling weeds.

So spend the money on a good weed barrier - [Mary] Years ago, it was really popular to use evergreens around your house.

And that kind of fell out of favor and then it seemed like a lot of colorful shrubs were kind of the in thing.

What do you see now as being real popular?

- [Brian] A lot of things right now, it's still a lot of color, people like color.

They also want function, so they, I see a lot of patios and retaining walls, things like that, you know, and incorporating not only just plants but other things, even some lawn art into the mix, And it's, you know, a lot of it's a personal preference, but the the spreading evergreen, we do not put a lot of those in anymore.

They're, you know, they have their place, you know hillsides, things like that, but they, they get big and they get overgrown and they look nice when they look nice but when they don't, they look terrible - [Mary] About how long does your average landscape last and look nice?

You know, if you spend the money to buy quality, you know whether it be in the weed barrier and everything else, you can expect that landscaping to last at least 15 years with just a little bit of maintenance, you know, it, you know, pruning and, you know, just making, you know cleaning out the mulch every year, you know blowing it out and things like that, simple, easy maintenance things and it can last easily, 15 years.

- [Mary] I've heard the term hardscape, what does that mean?

- [Brian] That's usually patios, retaining walls, boulder walls, things like that.

And a lot of, you know, outdoor kitchens and pergolas and things like that.

And that's kind of been really trendy right now.

- Brian, do you do water features also?

- We do do some, you know we have done ponds but there is a liability issue there, you know, as far as, you know and the homeowner needs to be aware of that, you know, because the deeper the pond, then you have issues, you know, with small children and pets and we also do some rain gardens.

Rain gardens have become quite popular, you know lately because of the environment.

- Well, thank you so much.

This has been very educational and very informative too.

Thank you so much.

- You're welcome.

(gentle music) - [Lady Announcer] Funding for Prairie Yard and Garden is provided by Heartland Motor Company providing service to Minnesota and the Dakotas for over 30 years in the heart of truck country.

Heartland Motor Company, we have your best interest at heart Farmer's mutual telephone company and federated telephone cooperative proud to be powering Acira.

Pioneers in bringing state-of-the-art technology to our rural communities, Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen in honor of Shalom Hill Farm, a nonprofit rural education retreat center and a beautiful Prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota, and by Friends of Prairie Yard and Garden, a community of supporters like you, who engage in the long-term growth of this series to become a friend of Prairie Yard and Garden, visit pioneer.org/pyg.

(upbeat music)