Walter Reeves, Georgia's Gardener
Making The World A Beautiful Place  

Walter Reeves in person is just like Walter Reeves seems to be on TV and on the radio ­ an easy-going, instantly-likeable, funny guy who has an immense knowledge of plants and gardening. If Clark Howard is the guru of saving money and thrift, then Walter Reeves is the Clark Howard of gardening. He fits his own personal belief about gardeners ­ that they are the friendliest people around and that you can strike up a conversation with a gardener anytime, anywhere.

Walter backs up his belief with an experience he recently had in New York City while on the subway.

"A lady got on with an Oxalis plant, and she was admiring it and protecting it from being jostled. The guy behind me and I started talking with her about the plant, about raising and caring for it and so on. Soon, another lady got on the subway, and noticing the plant, she said, 'Oh, an Oxalis. Does it have the pink or white blooms?' And then there were three of us happily talking with her about her plant."

Having visited New York, I can tell you it is not common for people there to talk with strangers.

One thing about talking with Walter Reeves ­ flower genus names are as familiar to him as TV shows are to the rest of us, and he delights in helping people identify plants.

"I enjoy it when people send me photos of their unidentified flowers or of specific problems with trees, shrubs and lawns. Feeling that I am helping make the world a better place is really important to me. I learned this from my parents. They firmly believed in educating and helping folks in their community."

Walter was raised in Inman, Georgia, on a farm in Fayette County "in the boondocks." He was the eldest of the five children of Frank and Frances Reeves. As the oldest son, he had to help with the family's two-acre garden: plowing, planting, hoeing, weeding and harvesting squash, okra, beans, corn, watermelon, peas and more.

"We didn't have a lot of money, but we had a lot of food. My father had a chicken farm and sold eggs for income until I was 12, then he sold Farm Bureau insurance, but he kept a few hundred hens and some cows, for milk, on the farm until I was 18. My mother canned hundreds of jars of vegetables from the garden. We slaughtered a steer each year to provide meat, and we ate our chickens as well."

Even though his parents lived on a farm, both were well educated. Frances was a Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Georgia, and his father Frank was valedictorian of Alvaton High School in Meriwether County. Both read voraciously and insisted on good grades from all their children.

So how did an admitted country boy become the phenomenon known as Walter Reeves, whose unofficial title is, "Georgia's Gardener"?

Walter got involved with 4-H when he was a boy, and there he learned how to speak in front of groups and make presentations. Plus, he was taught Latin at Fayette County High School "by the implacable Inez Hames," which proved to be extremely beneficial learning plants later on. Adding that to the knowledge he acquired through sweat equity in the family garden, and you can see how Walter Reeves was ready to hit pay dirt.

In college, Walter majored in chemistry, but he eventually discovered he had no aptitude for the subject. He believed he would not be able to make a contribution to the field. So needing a job and realizing that his career roots really were in the soil, Walter went to the Cooperative Extension Service.

They did not have an opening for a chemist, but they did have one for a 4-H leader.
Walter thought, "I can speak, I love kids ­ okay, I'll do it."

He started out in the Clayton County 4-H program and later moved on to DeKalb County's. It became obvious there that he had as much knowledge about plants as the county's college-trained horticulturalists, but his had the added benefit of coming from practical experience.

Then in the '80s, WGST AM 640 started venturing into the new area of "talk radio" and wanted to broadcast a garden show. They started asking around at the Extension Service for a garden expert who could speak well, and a co-worker told them, "Walter can do that."

That start in the broadcast field lasted seven years before WGST cancelled the show, but another opportunity opened up at NewsTalk 750 WSB AM, and Walter has been broadcasting there ever since on Saturday mornings from 6 am to 10 am. But then, every gardener in the State of Georgia already knows that.

Proving that he also has a face and a wit for television, too, Walter has a program on Georgia Public Broadcasting (Channel 8) called Gardening in Georgia that has been on the air since 1999 (Wednesdays at 7 pm and rebroadcast on Saturdays at 12:30 pm and 6:30 pm ­ gardeners know that, too). Add to that his Thursday column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, books (his latest is Georgia Gardeners' Q & A: 501 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions), and you can see why Walter has such a great following in the state.

As you can imagine, Walter has a great appreciation for the beauty and the wonders in the plant kingdom and an appreciation for the humor you can find there.

"Plants have descriptions that are so apt for their appearance. For instance, "Monkey Brain" fruit. Each fall people send me photos and call me on the show asking, 'What is this fruit that looks like a monkey brain?'

"It's Osage Orange, and the softball-sized fruit looks just like monkey brains. Or in spring, they call about this big orange glob with tentacles of jelly coming off their cedar trees. And that's Cedar-Apple Rust."

Walter explained that sometimes you have to be very careful in describing a plant. "Like Stink Horns, for instance. They look like, well, a dog's reproductive organ sticking up from the ground. People call up and say, 'I've got this mushroom that looks like a .' and their voices trail off because they can't say what it looks like on the radio."

So what did Walter Reeves plant this year?

"Euphorbia and Sedum" he said, because they are drought-tolerant. Sedum encompasses about 400 different species of succulents and has water-storing leaves, which makes them a perfect plant for drought conditions. 'Autumn Joy' sedum reaches two feet in height and blooms in the fall with tiny dark pink clusters flowers. As an added bonus, it attracts butterflies.

"There are little Sedums and big Sedums. All have flowers, and all have different leaf colors, which make them attractive when they aren't flowering. After they bloom briefly in the spring, then you have the color of the foliage, which can be lime green, gray-green, white-green, and so on."

Euphorbia also comes in many varieties, and it has a root system that stores water. It is typically found in tropical and subtropical regions, like Africa.

"With Euphorbia, there are thousands of species with a great variation in what they look like. Poinsettia is a member of this family of plants."

The Euphorbia amygdaloides, or wood spurge, Walter planted has a narrow, soft-white leaf. Others have dark leaves or green leaves with red edges.

Wanting everyone to beautify their space with better plants and gardens, Walter offered these keys to successful gardening:

Right Plant, Right Place
For seniors who love to garden or grow flowers and plants, Walter says the biggest consideration is to make your gardening low maintenance, before planting and after. Start out by choosing plants that are disease-resistant and drought-tolerant.

"Choose the right plant for the right place in your yard. People sometimes see a beautiful plant in the nursery, and they have to have it. Then they get home and read that it needs 'dappled shade,' and they don't have dappled shade in their yard. Choose plants according to where you can plant them."

Amend Your Soil, Amen!
"It is imperative in the normal, clay-filled, unproductive soil we have around here to put in soil conditioner when planting. That can be ground up pine bark, rotted wood chips, organic matter, or compost. I see people walk out of a nursery with $100 in plants, but no soil conditioner. Conditioner makes roots happy; happy plants are healthy plants. So then you won't have to talk to me about diseases and pests later."

Mulch Is A Must
"Mulch over the top to hold moisture on the plant. Pine straw, bark chips, grass clippingsthey all work great."

It's a simple as that.

One last tip from Walter is for saving your back. Using raised beds is a great way to grow lots of plants in a confined area. But stooping over to reach them is a killer for the back. Walter suggests building a Really Raised Bed that is at waist level. Plans are available free on his website. Click here for the free plans for Walter Reeves' Really Raised Bed.

"The Really Raised Bed is a shallow wooden frame with a large surface area and a mesh bottom that lets water drain. You can attach legs of any length or set it on sawhorses or other supports like cinder blocks. It's terrific for gardeners of all ages, sizes and abilities. It can be moved to capture sunlight in spring and fall and to avoid the sun and high heat of summer. Best of all, you can garden comfortably at waist level and avoid problems with pest animals."

Walter Reeves has several books to his credit, including 50 Great Trees For Georgia, 50 Great Fruits & Vegetables for Georgia, and two others in the same vein on flowers and shrubs. Here are a few of his planting suggestions:

Trees: Trident maple and 'Autumn Brilliance' serviceberry.

Fruits & veggies: blueberry, fig and blackberry.

Flowers: 'Homestead Purple' verbena: "It's perennial, it spreads, and it blooms from April until frost." 'Hardy Amaryllis' Amaryllis johnsonii: "Blooms in May with big red flowers."
Shrubs: "All varieties of loropetalum. 'Little Henry' itea, which grows to a height of 2 to 3 feet with long white 'hangy-downy things'; it spreads and sends up suckers so you get more each year."

Vines: Crossvine 'Tangerine Beauty', has "orange tubular flowers that will knock your socks off. 'Amethyst Falls' wisteria with small purplish flowers and the vine won't grow all over your trees."

Walter's books are available at local bookstores, or you can get a personalized, autographed copy on his website, www.walterreeves.com.

You can see Walter Reeves in person at the Home Show at Georgia International Convention Center on Oct. 18th. Until then, you can watch his show on TV, listen to his radio show on Saturdays, and read his books and his column in the AJC on Thursdays ­ and join him in bringing color and beauty to the world.