GARDENFIT

- [Madeline] I'm Madeline Hooper.

I've been gardening for decades and living with aches and pains.

So I finally decided that maybe I should find a fitness trainer to see if I could fix my problems.

And after learning better ways to use my body in the garden, it dawned on me, what would be more exciting than to travel all over America, visiting a wide variety of gardens and helping their gardeners get "Garden Fit."

In season one, for all our guest gardeners, gardening was their life.

For season two, we're going to visit artists who are also passionate gardeners.

And for this lucky group, I'm so thrilled and excited to welcome this season's garden fitness professional, Adam Schersten.

Taking care of your body while taking care of your garden.

That's our mission.

- [Narrator] "Garden Fit" is made possible in part by Monrovia.

[gentle music] [no audio] [gentle music] - Next, we are going to visit Cynthia Myers.

And Cynthia Myers is a musician.

- Ah, after my own heart.

- [Madeline] Definitely.

So Cynthia actually started playing the piano, Adam, at age three.

- Okay, that's a little earlier than me.

- Yeah.

Quite impressive, I think.

- Yeah.

- But she ended up touring all over the country, playing for symphonies as a flautist.

- Cool.

- And now she plays with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

- [Adam] All right.

That's the big league.

- It is the big lead.

She's their principal piccolo player, and she plays the Tanglewood in the summer.

And that's really near me.

You know, Tanglewood is this iconic place.

Maybe if you've heard of it.

- I've heard.

Yeah.

- [Madeline] Have you been there?

- No.

- Well, I've gone almost every summer of my life.

And you have picnics, beautiful picnics, and listened to fantastic music out on this fabulous lawn.

So I'm sure I've heard her before.

- Wow, that's really cool.

Yeah.

Now you get to meet her.

- Exciting.

Yeah.

And she also teaches music.

I mean, I think she sounds very passionate.

And, of course, she also is a very keen gardener.

- Of course.

But, so then why are we standing in this field?

- Here?

This is the only part of my garden that is sort of natural.

Everything here are from seeds that are in the soil, but she really understands native plants and only plants, native plants in her garden.

When she first got there, there were tons of invasives.

So she must have spent years cleaning that up.

- I love that whole native movement where people are planting native plants to help the local pollinators.

- Exactly.

I think that's her whole mission, to really create this habitat for pollinators.

Exactly that.

So I think what we're gonna see is how she selected specific native plants and put them together to make beautiful beds.

Almost the way people do that with perennials.

We'll see lots of butterflies and bees and kind of have a lot of fun with her.

And I also think it'd be really interesting for us to see how her music has affected the way she designs her garden.

- Yeah.

And maybe even vice versa.

How- - Probably.

- The garden affects the music.

- Yeah.

It's exciting.

So, shall we go?

- Let's do it.

- Let's go.

[gentle music continues] I can't wait for you to meet Cindy.

- Oh, me neither.

This looks so great.

- I know.

She said she was really a king gardener, and it certainly looks that way.

Cindy.

- [Cindy] Madeline.

- So good to see you.

- Good to see you too.

- And, Cindy, this is Adam.

- Adam.

- Adam, this is Cindy Myers.

- It's nice to meet you.

- Pleasure to meet you.

- Adam Schersten.

So we're here.

- Thank you for coming, sharing my crazy yard with me.

- It wasn't hard to find your house.

But perhaps before we really dig in and take a look at all of your plants and gardens, maybe tell us how did you become a musician and a gardener?

- It's a good story.

Everybody I think in life should have an inspiration.

A person who inspires them.

And for me, that's always been my oldest sister.

- Okay.

- She's 15 years older than me, and she was a pianist and she's a scientist and a gardener.

And so when I was little, she was always encouraging me to go forward and be a musician and do what I wanted to do.

And that's how I found my love for music.

And then when I became a grownup and I'm contemplating, I have a garden and I have a house and I'm very bad at gardening.

- Nobody's bad at gardening.

I bet you were new at gardening.

- I was new.

Thank you.

- [Madeline] You're welcome.

- Appreciate that.

And I was visiting her and I noticed that everything in her garden was moving.

There were bees and butterflies and birds and everything was active.

And I had not really noticed that in any other landscape I had seen.

And I was fascinated by it.

And so I started talking with her about that and she encouraged me to start small and keep going.

And she started me out with a little tiny plot, which I can't even remember where it was anymore.

I think it's over there.

I'm actually pretty sure it was over there.

- [Madeline] That's sweet.

- [Cindy] With five species of plants.

- [Madeline] Wow.

- [Cindy] That's where we've gone.

- Yeah.

I think a lot of people should know that you don't need grass in the front of your house, that it's so much more effective and beautiful for a lot of reasons to have a garden.

- It was a little scary to do that, especially when you're in suburban neighborhoods.

You know, I don't live out in the country.

- Yeah.

But it's such a nice departure- - Yeah.

- From like the usual lawn.

- [Madeline] Totally.

- [Cindy] Yeah.

- [Adam] It's so much more interesting.

- And it was important for me to do.

Not that grass is not fine, but grass is for humans.

- [Madeline] Yeah.

- It's not for other species.

- Everything else.

- Everything else.

And so it really doesn't nourish anything.

These plants here are for the butterflies and the bees and the birds and the moths.

- Oh, wonderful.

- Whatever insects are native and need a place to eat.

- And I bet it's like a party seeing them all out here every day.

- It's amazing.

It's one of my favorite things is just to watch them.

It's fascinating.

And I learned so much just by watching these different insects and what they do and how busy they are and how meticulous they are and what plants they will go to and what plants they won't.

- [Madeline] Let's look at that.

- [Cindy] Sure.

- Because I think you have this big philosophy about native plants.

- Yes.

- And that they actually are better attractors of the local birds and bees.

- Sure.

- [Madeline] Should we follow you?

- [Adam] Have to, I think.

- So all through here, there's various types of mint.

This one is a slender mountain mint that's in bloom.

And the bees love that.

- That doesn't smell very minty.

- So you want one that smells a little more minty?

- Yes, please.

[everyone laughing] - So this is Virginia mints.

- [Madeline] Ah.

- And this isn't in bloom yet.

This won't bloom for a little while.

- That's mint.

- Oh, wow.

- That's fantastic.

Lovely.

- [Cindy] Yeah.

And what is this bloom?

Does this bloom white?

- It blooms a little white and silver.

- Oh, wow.

- It had a silvery tinge to it.

It's really quite beautiful and covered in bees.

- [Madeline] Lovely.

- [Cindy] Covered in bees when it blooms.

- [Madeline] I love that.

- It's a beautiful plant.

- [Madeline] Since the front of your yard is so beautiful, can't wait to see what's in the back of your house.

- [Cindy] I can't wait to show you my very favorite tree.

- [Madeline] Oh, good.

- [Cindy] So this tree is a river birch that we put in about 15 years ago.

- [Madeline] Oh my goodness.

- [Adam] Wow.

- [Madeline] Look at that.

- [Adam] I've never seen three trunks so big.

- [Madeline] Oh, what a lovely peaceful garden.

- [Cindy] Thank you - So what is that in the corner?

- That is a woodland sunflower.

It's one of my favorite plants and I didn't put it there.

- Oh my goodness's, a woodland sunflower.

- [Adam] Nice.

- [Cindy] Yeah.

- [Madeline] That's kind of new.

- Yeah.

It's a shade sunflower.

And obviously, it's not in bloom.

It'll bloom in August.

But it's a beautiful plant.

And I planted it elsewhere in the yard.

- [Madeline] Really?

- It just showed up.

Yeah.

- That probably is probably the birds bringing it in.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Absolutely.

- And I love that you have that swing and a hammock here.

Is this a big restful area?

- It is.

It is.

It wasn't always that way.

But my husband put the hammock there after he got it for his birthday.

- Ah.

- And we move the swing back here.

And we find, we spend an awful lot of time back here.

We read books in the swing and he takes naps in the hammock.

- [Madeline] And how lovely.

- [Adam] That sounds nice.

- [Cindy] It's a way to make us part of things.

- Yeah.

You get a chance to take care of your plants and take care of yourself.

- Absolutely.

- Your mind and your body.

That's so cool.

- [Adam] Right at my alley.

- Yeah, exactly.

Perhaps you could show us some other special areas of your garden.

- Sure, I'd love to.

Thanks.

We'll walk this way.

[gentle music] - Come on through.

- So, Cindy, where are we off to now?

- I wanna show you what's under my hemline.

- Oh, wow.

Isn't this awesome?

- [Adam] Wow.

Look at that tree.

- [Madeline] Awesome.

- [Cindy] I know I use that word a lot, but that's how I feel about it.

- Cindy, again, there was nothing here before?

- There was nothing here before.

There was nothing here before.

- [Madeline] So you decided to put in a weed?

- [Cindy] No, wait a minute.

I mean exception to you, you know.

Okay.

- Virginia Creeper?

- I know.

I know.

Even native gardeners think that this is a weed and are curious about why we do it.

This is a plant that I put in because I literally didn't know what else to do.

And it loves it here.

It loves it here.

And it is a really good bird plant.

- [Madeline] Really?

- [Cindy] It's a very good bird plant.

- [Madeline] Yeah.

- And the color in the fall is to die for.

- [Madeline] Really?

- It's just beautiful.

This whole thing will be reddish gold.

And as it dies back, it gets a little brown.

So you have all those fall colors mixing together.

It's really stunning.

- [Adam] Wow.

- It's a stunning plant.

- And I see you have things popping through it.

- Yeah, so it, actually, in the springtime, the creeper is not here.

So this is loaded with violets.

- Oh wow.

- So it's all purple in the spring.

And then the violets die back, the creeper comes in.

But what's popped in, which I think is fascinating, is this guy right here.

This is Joe-Pye-weed.

And- - [Adam] Another weed.

- Another weed.

I know.

I know.

Native plants get a bad rap, I'm telling you.

But this was part of my original five species little garden that started in the front of the house.

And I tried to keep it alive for a very long time and it just did not wanna be there.

And so I thought it was gone and I came back here and- - [Adam] Wow.

Have fun.

- There it is.

- [Cindy] And it is on other places in the yard too.

So we'll see what it does.

- That would be very interesting.

- Yeah.

But I'm excited.

- I think, as we're laughing about weeds, I think that maybe you would agree that there's definitely this trend not only for native plants but really thinking there are no weeds.

Get the right plant in the right place.

- Right plant in the right place.

- And then you have this beautiful look.

So it's kind of not so much prejudice against weeds.

- No.

Exactly.

And And I think of weeds as invasive plants that are pushing these plants out.

Yeah.

- So have you done something like this in another area?

- Oh, let me show you.

- Okay.

- Under the maple tree.

Ooh, under the maple tree.

- Let's go.

- Good luck little Joe-Pye.

[Cindy and Madeline laughing] - So here is what's under my maple tree.

- Another beautiful bed of native plants.

- And you said the key thing, a bed of native plants.

A lot of times people don't realize that natives really love to be in beds, actually.

And what we did here was try to find a plant that you see under maples in the forest.

- Oh wow.

- This was just all really dead and dying grass because it's such a big tree and it's so shady.

The grass was easy decision to take outta here.

So we started with small groups of different types of plants to see what would happen.

- Clever.

- And this is what's happened.

- Process of elimination.

- It's beautiful.

- Yeah.

Process of elimination.

- You have a big variety of plants in here.

- We do.

What you see mainly that's the dominant in this garden are whitewood asters.

They bloom in August and early September.

And so when they do bloom, it looks like it snowed here.

- [Madeline] Yeah.

- It's colored and white.

- They must be beautiful.

- But there is another variety of goldenrod in this garden called zigzag goldenrod, and it's a very delicate goldenrod.

And so that'll bloom the same time the asters do.

So then you have these patches of yellow.

- Well, I love the look right now with these dark stems and the bright green leaves, you get to see the individuals.

- [Madeline] Right.

- [Cindy] Yeah.

- [Madeline] I love that too.

- And like under the hemlock tree, there are different plants that come out in the spring, the idea of succession.

So underneath all of this, you look really closely, you'll find Spreading Jacob's Ladder.

- [Madeline] Oh.

- Packera.

There's ginger under here.

There's all kinds of little things under here that bloom in the springtime.

- With food.

- So it's purple.

- What a cool idea.

- And really, really beautiful.

And then they go to sleep and these guys take over.

- Something else comes in.

- Yeah.

It's been really fun to watch this.

And we have more Virginia creeper over there, which I keep in check.

I really do.

- It's okay.

- It's really making me crazy.

- I know.

I know.

I know.

But these are the things that want to be here.

And so we were able to be successful with it because the plants wanted to be successful.

- And it's sort of like a community?

- Very much.

Thank you for bringing that up because it really is true.

Plants like to touch, not unlike us.

- That's such a lovely thought.

- Yeah.

Seriously.

- If everybody took some plants and put them together- - Together.

- Wouldn't that change the planet?

- It would make such a big difference.

And you know, what I want to encourage people to do is to just take a patch.

It doesn't have to be this.

Picking the right plants for your place that encourage pollination, encourage native species to come and do their work is a way for us to make a difference in what happens in the planet and saving so many species.

- Just love that.

And we can help plants and native species, and we can help ourselves the same time.

- The planet.

- Exactly right.

- And speaking of help, what do you think about going back to the restorative garden?

And you can tell me a little bit about your body troubles.

- I would love to.

- Awesome.

Well, let's do it.

- [Madeline] All right.

Sounds good.

[gentle music] - All right, so you wanna tell me a little bit about what's bothering you?

- Sure.

So the longer I've been doing this, the harder it is to get up off the ground.

I spend a lot of time on my knees weeding, digging with a hand shovel.

And after minutes and minutes and lots of minutes doing that, sometimes it's really difficult for me to get back up.

I can, but it takes a minute.

- But it's stiff and pain- - And it hurts.

Until I start moving again, it's really bothersome.

- [Adam] Yeah.

- So I feel it really in my knees and a little bit in the hips.

- Okay.

- How many times do you get up and down in a day?

- Oh, when I'm gardening, I don't even know.

- [Madeline] Endless.

- I don't, it's endless.

- So this is a big problem.

- Okay.

- [Cindy] Yeah.

- All right.

Well I've got some good solutions.

- [Cindy] Okay.

Awesome.

- Anything else?

- The upper body, so my shoulders, there's a huge part of what I do when I play, when I'm at work.

So we hold this instrument this way, and between the long flute and the short piccolo, I'm in constantly moving this back and forth.

And over 40 years, that gets pretty tired.

- Yeah.

- But what's exacerbated it even more is when I'm actually digging with a shovel.

I really feel it.

And I have a partial tear here, so I'd really like to avoid that on the left side.

- Great.

Well, let's start on the ground- - [Cindy] Okay.

- 'Cause that's what you started with.

- [Cindy] Okay.

- In this kneeling position.

And yeah, it makes a lot of sense that if you've been down here for a long time, that these gals or guys are gonna be barking when you go to try and stand up.

So one thing that you could do to help that is really let them warm up a little bit.

So just come, take this- - Warm up?

There is a concept.

- I can't imagine getting off the ground with enough time to warm up.

- Yeah.

- We'll try.

- So you just come here and then just like straighten that leg out, maybe a couple times.

Let the knee adjust.

Let's remind it what it's like to be straight before we try and throw our weight on it.

- [Cindy] Can I ask the question?

- Sure.

- Do I put the knee back down on the ground or leave it elevated when I come back?

- [Adam] Yeah, put it on the ground.

- Okay.

- [Adam] Or you can do either.

- Okay.

- And then we'll just move into the half kneel position, 'cause I'm assuming that's where you often get up from.

- [Cindy] Yep.

So we can just swing a leg forward.

So I'm really, I'm gonna talk about alignment and the biomechanics of the leg.

And so one of the first things that can happen is if we're too much on a tightrope, we're already setting ourselves up for bad alignment.

So just make sure that your knee and your foot are kind of hip width apart.

Because what we're looking for is that femur and the foot to be in line with each other.

So if you just look down your own leg, the bone of your thigh should match the angle of your foot.

- Okay.

- So if we look at Madeline, go ahead and show us bad alignment.

So see how this hip comes out and we've got the thigh diving in towards the knee and then the foot really just doesn't match.

And then if we were to bring that hip backwards and bring that thigh into alignment.

- Straight down in the middle of the foot.

- Yeah, this is gonna be a much better position to move The knee from.

The knee is a very simple hinge joint, but it's neighbored by the ankle, which is a 360 joint, and the hip, which also can move in all directions.

And so if you imagine a hinge being stuck between two things that can rotate like this, that hinge can get pulled out of position and then we try and use it, and we're just torquing that knee in a bad way.

And you'll feel much stronger in this position.

And maybe not immediately since you're used to potentially doing this with bad alignment and the body has learned how to do that.

But if you really wanna preserve this joint, you wanna retrain your ability to keep these things in line while we rise up from the ground, ooh, rise up from the ground.

- That's pretty impressive.

- [Melanie] Well, he's been working with me.

- Yeah.

It didn't happen overnight.

- Right.

I was always out there.

So a great way to practice this is with a little bit of balance assistance.

- [Cindy] Okay.

- So I'm just gonna come here in front of you and just put my hands, and this could be a fence or anything stable if I'm not here.

Yeah.

And think about getting off the tight rope.

You got your feet and your knees at hip width.

Yeah.

Everything looks good to me from here.

And you're just gonna try and maintain that alignment as you push up through both legs.

- Uh-huh.

Okay.

- Pressure is on.

- Oh geez.

- There you go.

- Okay, I'm up.

- You're up.

Well, you want to try and come down and see if you can maintain that alignment.

Very good.

- Oh, really?

- Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

- Okay.

Because that felt like I was gonna go.

- No.

- [Cindy] Okay.

- That was fantastic.

- Okay.

- And so getting up and down from the ground uses the same mechanics, it's the same set of legs, and we just want to keep those bones in that alignment.

- Very nice.

- Okay.

- It looks like it's already getting easier for you.

- It feels so different.

- And hopefully, this will really help with any extra stress that you may be causing the knee that might be making it more and more painful.

- [Cindy] Right.

That's awesome.

- And then for the shoulders, I mean, walking around the garden with you today, I can see the same thing I see on 95% of people, which are shoulder blades that are slightly protracted or separated and slightly elevated, and it's this kind of rounded shoulder position that we all know.

- Not pretty.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

So what we're gonna do is just a quick reset of the shoulder blades to try and get them into this more vertical position.

So we're just gonna take the arms and externally rotate as much as we can, and even feel that external rotation come into the shoulder blades.

You feel how the shoulder blades start to- - The whole way.

- Keep some of that tension in the back, holding those shoulder blades in place.

And now try and bring the arms- - Just down.

- Down to your sides without the arms dragging those shoulders.

That was pretty good.

- Was it?

- Yeah.

- [Madeline] Yeah.

- And so this is a much better position to be using your arms from.

- Whether you're clipping something or putting flowers together, I used to hunch over to do that.

- Yeah.

- And now it feels so much, like you were saying, stronger, but you just feel better.

It actually makes you smile.

- Yeah.

- It really anchors where your arms attached to your body, right?

And this is a much better way to use those rotator cuffs than from here.

And so preserving the life of that left side and then also rehabilitating that right side and that injury, this will be a very powerful tool.

Just practicing to get those shoulder blades in place, let the arms down.

And then as you put your arms out in front of you, feel how that tension can land in your back instead of right here in those painful areas.

You can really just move that tension- - [Cindy] Got it.

- Back to where it belongs.

- Awesome.

- [Adam] Makes sense?

- I think we're all gonna get a chance to practice this because Cindy was nice enough to invite us for a little picnic of wine and cheese.

And we are so excited that we can hear you play.

So maybe we could go over there in this position.

Does that make sense?

- That makes sense.

- And I have a surprise for the two of you too.

- [Madeline] Oh good.

- [Adam] Ooh.

- All right.

- One more time.

- One more time.

- Lock it in.

- Okay.

- All right, let's go.

- Okay.

So welcome to a Tanglewood picnic.

So excited to be here for this.

- And tell us more about what you're playing.

- So I'm the piccolo player with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and a big part of our season is in the summertime when we move out to Lenox to play at Tanglewood for eight weeks.

- I love Tanglewood.

That's really magical there.

- Yeah.

It is a very, very special place.

It's a wonderful place to hear music, to experience music.

Music and nature have always been something that functions together.

But composers through ages have been influenced by nature and want to portray that in their compositions of all theses four seasons.

- [Madeline] Right.

- Right, Where you can hear the dog barking, literally hear the dog barking, with the viola in the middle of one of the movements.

And Beethoven is another one, and Beethoven is one of my favorite composers.

"Pastoral Symphony" is and obvious piece.

So in that piece, he creates a part for the flute that portrays a bird.

- Oh wow.

- And so from time in memoriam, the flute always gets to play the bird.

It's what we get to do.

And it's a scene along a brook and everything stops and you get to hear.

[gentle flute music] - [Madeline] Oh.

- And the cuckoo comes along in the clarinet in the back and it's just, I get chills when I think about that.

- That's amazing.

- [Cindy] That's such a beautiful part of the piece.

- So beautiful.

- Yeah.

- Composers today are very influenced by our gardens, our environment, our climate, what's going on.

So it's a natural companion.

- Isn't that lovely?

- [Cindy] Yeah.

- Sort of a rhythm, right?

Yeah.

It's wonderful.

- Exactly.

Like the rhythm of the garden you were talking about.

- Yes.

Right.

- [Cindy] Right.

- It's the rhythm of your garden.

- So are you guys up for something a little different?

- I think so.

- [Cindy] Yeah?

- Why not?

- Yup.

- Yeah, I'm up for it.

- [Adam] Do it.

- So I don't know if you are aware, but I am also a teacher, and one of the first things that I have my young, young students do- - [Adam] Oh, boy.

- [Madeline] Uh-oh.

- Is learn to play the flute with only the top of the instrument, which we call the head joint.

So the instrument is like the body.

- [Adam] Yes.

- We have the head.

- We've got joints- - [Cindy] Oh, yes we do.

There's joints.

- So there's the head, there's the body, and there's the foot.

- [Madeline] Wow.

- [Adam] Wow.

- [Cindy] Right.

- Who knew that?

- So we're gonna start out with just the head and give you guys an idea of what it is to make a sound on the instrument.

So I have one for each of you.

- Okay.

- Adam, you can take that one.

Madeline, you can take that one.

I'm gonna take mine.

So have you ever cooled off a spoon of soup?

- Yes.

- Yes.

- Okay.

So I'm gonna pretend that this is a spoon of soup and you're gonna set this, the wide part, and you're gonna set it what I call in the valley on the chin.

You have a place, oh, wait a minute.

Let's think about our arms.

Let's bring the instrument to us.

There we go.

So you wanna feel the edge of the hole against your lower lip and then pretend you're cooling a spoon of soup.

Put it down.

[gentle flute music] - [Cindy] Yes!

- Nice job.

- See, nice job.

It's really easy.

- Oh my God.

- All right, all right, Adam, your turn.

You're too far rolled out.

[gentle flute music] And there it's there.

- There it is.

- [Cindy That was It.

- Thank you.

You're a great teacher.

- Oh my God.

This is so exciting.

Should we make a noise like that out of what looks like a tube.

So I'm gonna play the first movement of the "Fantasy in B Flat Major" on the piccolo.

- Wonderful.

[gentle piccolo music] [gentle piccolo music continues] [gentle piccolo music continues] Oh wow.

[Adam and Madeline clapping] That was wonderful.

- Wow.

[Adam and Madeline clapping continues] I think you're really on to something with that.

- Yeah.

I think you got, she's got that down, right?

- Yeah.

- Right.

Oh, that's wonderful.

- Thanks.

You know, thank you so much for coming out and sharing all this with me.

- [Adam] What an amazing job.

- So how about some cheese?

- Oh.

- Yes!

- Please do.

- Okay.

There are plate and cheese.

- [Madeline] Thank you.

I love your plate.

- [Cindy] Glass.

Thank you.

So what can I get you?

- [Madeline] Ah.

- [Cindy] Fruits, cheese?

- [Madeline] I think a slice of cheese.

- [Adam] Yes.

[gentle music] - [Narrator] Get "Garden Fit" with us.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music fades] [gentle music] "Garden Fit" is made possible in part by Monrovia.

[gentle music] [gentle music continues] [gentle upbeat music]