- [Narrator] Obtaining a sense of privacy on a small urban lot on a densely populated street may seem impossible, but Marty DeHart developed a design plan that turned a homeowner's dream into reality.

This landscape design features a variety of top performing trees and shrubs that create a living wall.

She shares specifics about this plant palette that provides form, texture, and year round beauty.

Then Troy Marden faced challenges to his landscape from a multitude of animals, from armadillos to moles.

He shares his DIY methods that have been successful at controlling the critters.

Join us.

(bright music) This backyard has been transformed into a garden room with no sight line to the neighbors.

- Today I'm gonna show you a yard that I designed as the landscape designer.

This is East Nashville, densely populated place.

This yard, the client wanted certain specific things, very interesting.

Sanctuary, did not wanna see your neighbors, has dogs, wanted a dog friendly place.

Doesn't want flowers, so it's all foliage and texture.

I'm gonna show you how I solved these design challenges.

As you can see, the perimeter of this yard, which is not very large, is lined with a variety of tall, narrow, mostly evergreen trees.

There's one that is not, but this gives this beautiful screening effect that we have here.

We've got green giant arborvitae, emerald arborvitae, cryptomeria, radcians.

I like that one better than Yoshino 'cause it doesn't bronze out in the winter and beautiful magnolias back there.

That's called Alta, A-L-T-A.

Very beautiful.

This gave this sort of green wall interesting texture and foliage and this sense of privacy, it really encloses this garden room.

In front of this green wall, I've placed plants of interest and almost everything because this is such a small yard, it's like everything becomes almost a specimen.

No mass plantings here.

Everything is a one-off.

For example, this Japanese maple is a dwarf variety.

It's greening up now.

It's brilliant red in the earlier spring.

This is called Shaina and it's a lovely thing.

It just basically doesn't get a lot bigger than this.

Just a little denser and spreads out.

Below that is my current total favorite, creeping juniper.

I love this plant.

This is called Golden Pacific.

Blue Pacific's been around for a long time.

This is a newer one.

I've also seen it sold as all gold, either way.

What a great looking plant.

In the winter, it is bronzy yellow.

It is just the most like amber.

It's beautiful.

And then in the growing season, it gets these delightful yellow tips on it.

It'll get yellower as the summer progresses here.

Then, you know, once again another specimen.

This is a weeping deodar dwarf called Feelin' Blue and blue it is.

Lovely texture and form to this particularly contrasted against the very vertical backdrop.

This is a little dwarf chamaecyparis, which will just make a little ball around here.

This is a coral bark maple and it's placed here because it's against a wall of very dark green and in the winter when the leaves drop off of this and those brilliant coral stems show up like beacons against that dark green, it's really stunning to look at from out of the house, out the window.

It's really quite the showcase.

This whole feature over here, I mentioned she has dogs and a lot of the density of this planting here is so the dogs have hidey holes and cool shady places to hang, but this is basically the water dish, but done in a really beautiful way.

This is what's called a pondless waterfall.

There's a receptacle down below that big flat rock and that hole is actually natural in that rock, believe it or not.

And it also adds a really interesting feature to the garden.

Another thing about this whole lot is that it was flat and I brought in soil and built up this berm here and beds so that there was variation so that you get a lot more sense of depth and interest in the yard.

This is such a cool little pine.

This is called Schoodic.

It's a banksiana pine, which usually goes much further north, but it loves to crawl over rocks like this.

Once again, you can see the beautiful textures in the background, which really adds a lot of interest year round, magnolia leaves contrasted with, that's in Emily Bruner Holly and the cryptomeria and the green giant arborvitae.

This client also has these magnificent big containers.

These are actually copper and I think they're from Thailand.

They're Batik dye pots.

They're big enough that you can grow really quite striking things.

This is a white pine that is a light green in the summer and turns brilliant golden tips in the winter.

It's called winter gold.

Very, very, very pretty plant and it's a lovely contrast once again to the very dark green in the back.

This whole area over here is a deep part of the bed and this is really dog central back here.

Great place for them to hang out.

This is a lovely little chamaecyparis called Split Rock.

I love the blue foliage on this and the kind of frilliness of it.

It's really an unusual looking plant.

You'll notice that most everything that we've done back here is evergreen, but there are things that are not.

For example, this bank of bushes here is a native holly, Ilex verticillata, called Winterberry Holly.

This is Red Sprite.

Doesn't get real tall, it's just starting to set berries now, there's a male in there called Jim Dandy, which pollinates it.

In the winter, this drops all its leaves, but the red berries really show up.

Behind it is a tree that's way bigger than I thought it would get.

So you know, live and learn.

We may have to do something about that at some point, but right now it looks pretty cool.

That is a meta sequoia called a dawn redwood and this variety is called Ogon, which actually means gold in Japanese and that's supposed to be a slow grower but it's quadrupled in size in four years.

So we have another Japanese maple over here that sort of compliments but doesn't copy the coral bark.

This is one called Bihou, rounder, shorter and in the winter, drops its leaves and gets these beautiful yellow to golden yellow to coral orange twigs, really striking.

Very beautiful and I should mention that behind all of this are evergreens.

There's another cryptomeria and there are Nellie Stevens Holly's back in this corner.

So when all of this goes down, there's still a green wall to continue the privacy of this backyard.

Look at these junipers.

This one is really common.

It's called Dobbs frosted and it's one of my favorites, but my gosh, look how big it's gotten.

This is how they do when they're happy and it's really, it's got these amazing little yellow stems on it which give it this interesting almost bi-toned coloring.

Very distinctive, and once again, a nice feathery kind of foliage.

Lovely contrast both in color and form with the other things around it.

One of which is this weeping atlas cedar.

This is Cedrus Atlantica Glauca Pendula.

People have these all over the place, but it's just such a lovely specimen plant.

This kind of powdery blue green foliage on here is really terrific.

I wanted to mention the magnolia behind it.

That one is called Kay Parris and it is an offspring of little gem, which everybody's familiar with and that thing was, four years ago, it was six feet tall so I guess it's a pretty quick grower I would say.

You can see here's another one of these wonderful pots she's got and this is a tree form mugo pine in here.

Really, really handsome, nice ball shape with these spreading things and these verticals around it.

This last tree on this side leading back over to the exit gate is, this is a lovely tree, this is a Virginia pine, it's a native.

This particular variety is called Wate's Golden and we keep it kind of pruned in a modified Hindu pan so you can really see all kinds of structure.

This is the biggest container in the yard and it's a massive thing.

And we have a fern spray gold chamaecyparis in here, which we will keep pruned correct, you know, to balance correctly in the pot.

And I just love the way this sort of Carthusian gold bounces off.

She's got this lovely kind of lilac color to her house paint and there's a really nice contrast here that works really well.

Obviously containers are her thing.

She's got this succulent pot we put in for her.

She loves that too.

This is one of the few blooming things and it's probably just about done.

This is an Elysium, which is an American plant.

This is a hybrid sort between a Mexican species and the Elysium floridanum which grows further south but it's perfectly hardy here.

This one is called Woodlander's Ruby and it has these big star shaped blooms and that then produce these seed pods.

It's obviously a fertile hybrid, and it blooms in the spring.

It's a nice broadleaf evergreen and it sure seems happy here.

This is a really unusual plant.

This is a bald cypress but it's a variety called Peve Minaret and it is a dwarf for a bald cypress form and it has these extremely dense close ways of growing.

Now we put this in, it was quite small.

This coming winter, I'm gonna prune it back to keep it tighter and make it more the form I want.

But for right now it's doing this like this and it really fills this corner nicely.

It takes the curse off that corner of the house.

One of her dogs loves to make tunnels in the grass, where he lived before he had a little hidey hole in this big grass clump.

So when I put in this yard, I made a grass clump place for him.

This is a miscanthus, this variety is rigoletto.

This isn't evergreen, this is compact chamaecyparis, really beautiful.

We keep this kind of open.

This was in a container for a long time but we ended up putting it in the ground.

In another container here, look at how well this is doing.

It's really nice.

This is a weeping red Japanese maple called red dragon.

And one of the things I like about this variety is that it keeps its red color really well over the course of the summer.

A lot of red maples tend to go dark green when it gets hot.

This one keeps its color better than most and it's certainly happy.

One thing I would say is that we fertilize this pretty heavily because with holly tone, simply because in a pot, you know, it hasn't got a lot of foraging room for the roots, so we give it extra good culture but it seems to certainly be thriving there and it really fills up.

And once again, that color looks so great against the house.

To my eye, it just really is a pleasing combination around this round flagstone patio, I wanted to repeat that elevation change that makes a yard so much more interesting than just a flat pallet.

And so we built up this little berm, brought in some good soil landscape mix and put these evergreens in.

This is another Golden Pacific juniper.

Look how happy it is.

Shorted up with some interesting rocks, which is what I've done all over the place.

Just like at the waterfall.

This is a dwarf white pine, eastern white pine called green twist, stays low and you can see why it's called this.

It's got these really interesting, the needles twist and turn unlike just the straight species.

So it adds this, once again a really interesting textural quality to this whole area.

But it's not gonna get so tall that from the house it's gonna block her view beyond to the rest of the yard.

But it adds a sense of near and far to a small yard also.

So it adds interest in that way.

This is a dwarf blue spruce called Montgomery or Montgomery Blue.

I've seen it called both things, and my gosh, what a color.

Pretty spectacular.

If you look you've got blue, gold and then this Kelly green.

It's really quite the little showcase right here.

So you can see I think that we've solved most of the design issues that were brought up in putting this yard together.

It is a sanctuary.

It really gives you a feeling of privacy.

Lovely to look at four seasons of the year and the dogs dig it.

It's a really pleasing place to come to.

It's been wonderful to see it unfold and grow since it was put in and everybody seems to be pretty happy, including the plants.

(upbeat music) - Well there's nothing more disheartening than to work so hard on your garden all spring and early summer, getting it just perfect and then to have some kind of animal or insect pest come in and begin eating and or digging and tearing things up.

So I thought I would talk today just a little bit about some easy ways to help control some of these pests in your garden.

We've talked about diatomaceous earth before and basically what this is is plankton from the ocean that has been dried out in its dry form.

It's actually like a tiny little particle of glass.

So what happens is when a slug or an insect crawls through, the diatomaceous earth embeds in its abdomen, in the case of insects, kind of clogs up its breathing holes which are in its abdomen and eventually that insect or slug or snail perishes from that, it is non-toxic.

It is safe for use around children and animals.

I would say that when I use this in my garden, I don't apply it on a windy day.

We've got a pretty good little breeze blowing today and I would not do that just because it is very fine and it is kind of dusty so I go out and use it early in the morning.

I use gloves when I put it on, not because it's poisonous but because it can be just kind of irritating.

Another problem that I have had personally and I think a lot of us do up in the eaves, up in the rafters, carpenter bees and these little traps work really well.

You can see that there are bait holes basically drilled right into the front face and actually on each side of this little unit.

And what happens is the bee crawls into that hole, can't get out, looking for light, comes down into this jar and is trapped in there.

And one tidbit that I have for you about using these traps effectively, this just screws off, you can empty it and then it screws right back on.

But actually the buzzing of the bees that are trapped in here will attract more bees to the trap.

So you don't want to empty this until the jar actually gets fairly full and then you can go out and and empty the jar and wait until it gets full again.

A couple of pests that we all have trouble with that are really difficult to trap, one because of its size, and another just because it's not attracted to bait are deer and rabbits.

So I have found that the best way to work with deer and rabbits is with a good repellent of some kind, like Liquid Fence.

I personally use really only Liquid Fence.

The Liquid Fence has a really good stick to it.

It will last through three or four rains and it's very, very bitter.

So once they get a taste of it, they will pretty much leave things alone.

I use this on flocks in the garden particularly, I use it on my hostas if if the deer are coming after my hostas, which they do occasionally and I also use it on the daylilies.

Now let's talk a little bit about trappable animals.

There are some things that are pretty easy to trap, other things you may not want to trap, but if you have a problem with let's say raccoons digging and raccoons are really tough because they're one of the only mammals that has opposable thumbs and they're incredibly smart so they can grip things, they can dig, they can really do a lot of damage in the garden in a hurry.

Most of the time they don't do it on purpose.

They're digging for bugs, for slugs, for grub worms, those kinds of things.

And your plants get damaged sort of as a byproduct of that.

And basically what you wanna do to get something into a live trap is use a can of tuna or a can of cat food of some kind.

And the smellier it is, the better.

The important thing is with these live traps, you're just opening this door at the front.

It has a little latch just over here and you're going to hook that latch and that door stays open.

There's a plate back here toward the back of the trap.

And when something comes in and steps on that plate, enough body weight will flip this little switch, the door slams shut and your animal is trapped.

So obviously your bait has to be inside the trap.

And when you do that, you want to be sure that your bait is all the way at the very back.

So you're gonna set that bait in there first, then latch your latch, set this out in the garden and I try to just barely have it latched so that any amount of good pressure on this plate in the back will make this latch clip down and your door slam shut.

One of the animals that has become very prevalent in our area in the last 10 years are armadillos.

And there are a couple of things that you can use for armadillos.

There are some products, some repellent products out there like this Armadillo Scram.

It has a very unpleasant odor to the armadillo.

If you have areas where they are digging and burrowing, you can spread this around and it will help to repel them.

Armadillos really do an incredible amount of damage.

They are looking for insects in the garden and in the lawn.

If you have skunks or raccoons digging, you will notice small holes about the size of a golf ball.

Every foot, every two or three feet.

If you have an armadillo, and I know from personal experience, you will think somebody has played a horrible joke on you and just gone through your garden or your lawn with a rototiller because they can do, they're incredibly strong and they can do a tremendous amount of damage in a very short period of time.

If the armadillo repellent doesn't work, there is another option.

And there are these great armadillo traps.

These are scent baited.

Armadillos are not attracted to fruit or vegetables or live baits really of any kind, but they are attracted to the scent of another armadillo.

So there's a scent bait that fits inside of this wooden box.

And basically all you do is pull down on this wooden piece, hook this little hook under the eye, and it opens these trap doors on either end.

Armadillos tend to take the same path every night.

So if you can figure out where they're burrowing and where their path is, they will take that same path almost every night.

So you set the trap in their path that they run regularly, they come in one end of the box, they hit this little wooden lever, the box, the doors drop shut on each end and your armadillo is trapped inside the box.

You can then carry it off.

Finally, I think a problem that every one of us has dealt with as a gardener at some point or another are moles.

And most often when you have moles, you also have voles with a V. And they are two entirely different animals, the mole burrows underground.

And we all know what a mole tunnel looks like in our yard I think, the voles will use those mole tunnels as super highways and they will use the mole tunnels to get to places in your garden.

And then they will build their own little tunnels just under the mulch.

And the voles will come in and eat the roots off of your hostas.

They will eat the roots off of your hydrangeas.

I had a client call me one time and say, my 7-year-old nandina bush near the front door is dead.

And when I went over we could take the top of the plant and just lift it straight up out of the ground.

It had no roots on it at all and that was vole damage.

A vole is about the size of a field mouse, but it has big buck teeth like a beaver.

And so the moles then, which we are all familiar again with mole tunnels, there are a number of repellents that you can use.

Most of the repellents for moles are caster oil based.

This one, this small bag, only 10 pounds will cover up to 5,000 square feet of lawn.

You use it in a fertilizer spreader and it's 20% castor oil and moles hate castor oil.

A lot of times people will plant castor beans in their garden.

The castor beans are very poisonous.

The castor oil doesn't cause any harm to humans or to pets or anything like that.

So these granulated products are really good.

If you get to the point like me where you just can't take it anymore.

This archaic looking device is a mole, one of several varieties of mole traps.

And this is basically a pair of scissor blades for lack of a better description on a very, very strong spring.

So the way you're going to use this is you're going to look at the direction of the mole tunnel.

And if your mole tunnel say, is running in the direction of my arm, you're going to push this down into the ground perpendicular to the direction that the mole is running so that when you step on this, the top of this and set these springs, these blades are going to open up underground.

And I'll show you real quickly how this actually works.

You're going to push this down into the mole tunnel and then you step on the top of it and down in there those blade and you push it down as far as you can.

And those blades have opened up underground.

So when, there it goes, when the mold tunnels through, it pops, it hits this trigger and it pops back up.

And in theory, if there's a live mole running down there, you have just eliminated that mole from your yard.

There are also some mole traps that stand up above the ground and have a long kind of spear like blade.

I actually prefer this for a couple of reasons.

That blade has to come down with enough force that it goes through the ground to get to the mole.

And while it is set, that blade is above ground.

So if a small child or a pet gets a hand or a paw or anything under there and happens to trip that trigger, it can injure somebody or it can injure a pet.

So a lot of critters out there this time of year, it's high summer, the deer are browsing, the rabbits are browsing, we've got slugs and moles and all these things.

And it sounds like a whole lot of trouble to go to.

But really in actuality, it's not.

If you have a few of these things on hand, you can pretty easily take care of just about anything that might be doing damage in your garden.

- [Narrator] For inspiring garden tours, growing tips and garden projects, visit our website at volunteergardener.org and find us on these platforms.

(bright music) (peaceful music)