- Hi, thanks for joining us for the Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.
I'm Chris Cooper.
There are lots of little things you can do to help your garden grow that aren't fertilizers or chemicals.
Today we're going to be looking at cultural practices.
Also there's so much gardening information online, but is it reliable?
That's just ahead on the Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.
- (female announcer) Production funding for the Family Plot: Gardening in The Mid-South is provided by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.
[upbeat country music] - Welcome to the Family Plot.
I'm Chris Cooper.
Joining me today is Lee Sammons.
Lee is a UT Extension agent in Hardeman County, and Carol Reese will be joining me later.
All right, Lee, good to have you here today.
- Thanks, Chris.
- All right.
So let's talk about some general cultural practices for our landscapes.
So where would you like to start with that?
- Okay.
We're talking in the gardening situation?
- We can talk gardening, all right.
- All right-- - Landscaping.
- We want to make sure that we've got our seeds and everything laid out in preparing for the spring planting.
Wanna have our fertility right, having done a soil test at some point in the year, hopefully in the fall, laying out our garden and what we're going to plant, selecting varieties that are disease resistant.
You talked about things that are not necessarily using chemicals, but we can do a lot by selecting varieties in our garden that are disease resistant.
- Okay, that's good.
- And making those choices on things.
But having the soil ready to plant and tilled and those type of things is very important to start our gardening experience.
- Now, we talked about getting the soil tested, right?
You did mention that.
There are some fertilizer recommendations, but you can also use organic materials as well.
So can you talk about using some organic materials, instead of using the commercial chemicals?
- Sure.
We can add organic matter to our gardening from either compost that we've done or compost that we buy from the stores.
But adding our organic matter is very important to have good earthworm and good tillage and our soil that's not so compact, it has better water holding capacity when we start our gardening procedure.
- Okay.
So when we're talking about plants, right, planting in our gardens, right, whether it's a vegetable garden, flower beds and things like that.
So how important is plant spacing?
- It is very important.
We don't want to overcrowd our planting.
So you need to know how big of a space do we need for, whether it's a flower or whether it's a vegetable, how much space is that gonna take to make sure that you're getting good light, good air circulation around the plants that'll keep disease problems from developing in our garden.
- So we're in a vegetable garden situation now, right?
So we have our plants out there and they're starting to show signs of diseases.
What is a good cultural way to deal with those diseases?
- You can remove those diseased plants, like you've got one tomato plant that is dying, remove that out of your garden as soon as you see it.
You can remove leaves off that may be infected or from specific plants that way.
- And definitely with the tomatoes, blight is the first thing that popped into my mind.
So you're just saying we can just remove those diseased leaves and-- - Yeah.
- Yeah and throw those away, don't compost those, right?
- Right, don't compost those.
- You can throw those in the trash.
So yeah.
So how do we combat insect pressure in the garden as well?
- There again, the spacing, those type of things, having good air circulation will help and using some of the organic neem oil and some of the other things, like you said controls insects.
- Yeah, and I always suggest scouting.
- Yes.
- Not just on the surface.
You have to flip the leaves over because a lot of those eggs right are gonna be laying right up under the under side of that leaf.
So yeah, definitely make sure you're out there scouting in your garden.
So what about when we're trying to develop our lawn?
So what are the things we should consider for our lawn situation?
- We want to make sure that we've gotten it cleaned up if we're starting sticks or leaves or those type of things off our lawn, fertility proper than that.
And cutting height is very important in grass in our lawns, and make sure that we're not mowing too low or cutting more than a third of the foliage off of it, each time that we're cutting our lawn in that way.
- Okay.
And too, thinking about the lawn situation and flower beds, for that matter, we always get the question about controlling weeds and of course most people would consider using chemicals to control weeds, but are there other means to control the weeds outside of using chemicals?
- In our lawn areas?
- Lawn or flower beds.
- Or flower beds.
I mean, you can then mulch will keep the weeds from coming up and seed germination, that type of thing.
Of course, hand pulling's always one of those things that we don't like to do, [Chris laughing] but sometimes that's an easy way.
You see one weed come up in your area, then pull it up.
Don't go get the chemical to start spraying for two weeds in your flower beds.
So those type of things.
- Okay.
And if we do have like diseased limbs and things like that, how important is pruning?
- Pruning is very important to remove those diseases off our ornamentals and getting those out of the garden area.
So when our shrubs and trees start to come out in the springtime, we'll start seeing there's some disease problems and you want to remove those as soon as you see it.
- Which is why it's always important to scout, you know?
So I would recommend to scout, especially in the wintertime because you can see the bones of your landscape, per se, and it's a good opportunity to look for those scales and things like that.
So just in case you have to use low-impact means to control insects and things like that, there are some that are out there that you can use.
And I know we both talk about using the oils, right?
So can you talk a little bit about using those low-impact means to control insect pests?
- Yeah, we can always use a horticultural oil.
Sometimes you may just see one or two insects.
That doesn't mean that you need to go spray immediately.
Kind of scout and just see if there's an increase.
And sometimes we can use a water hose, and just force the insects off the leaves and that may stop the problem right there.
- Right, right.
Yeah, so I'm big about using the oils, whether it be dormant oil, horticultural oil, neem oil, or something else.
And of course, insecticidal soap.
You always want to read and follow the label, of course, when you're doing that.
Because we want to look out for our pollinators-- - That's correct.
- For that means.
So is there anything else that you can think of we need to do in the garden that we consider to be a cultural practices?
And I'm glad you mentioned using the resistant varieties because that's something I try to push as well.
So I thought that was good.
But is there anything else we need to be mindful of?
- Just scouting, the time that you're actually working in the garden, if it's high humidity or heavy dew, we don't want to be out there pruning tomatoes or anything that might be spreading disease from one cutting of one plant to another plant in the high humidity, dew on the foliage that way.
- Okay.
One last question for you.
So when we talk about vegetable gardens, right, how important is crop rotation?
Because that's what I consider to be a cultural practice.
- Yeah.
That's one of the more important things in gardening, if you're doing the gardening.
We definitely want to rotate our vegetables and tomatoes.
Don't plant them in the same area.
We always have a problem with early blight and those type of things.
And rotation will definitely help that.
So you don't want to plant the same vegetables in the same spot every year.
Rotate your garden around.
- Okay, and why is that?
Why do we not want to plant in the same place every time because of?
- Diseases and other problems, that it's in the soil-borne potentially there on that.
- Okay.
Well, thank you, Lee.
We appreciate that.
So hopefully with those good cultural practices we get those gardeners ready for spring and the rest of the year.
So thank you much.
- Okay.
[upbeat country music] - Here is an example of a plant that you do not want to throw into your compost pile.
This is lemon balm.
Lemon balm is a herbaceous perennial herb.
It self seeds and it also grows by rhizomes, hence the aggressive growth.
If you look at the leaves, they're in the mint family.
So instead of throwing this herb in the compost pile, the best thing to do is this, right?
How about just break off a piece of it, put it in a pot, let it grow in a pot, or share something with your neighbor, or if you must throw it away, don't throw it in your compost pile, as you can see it likes it here, just throw it in the trash.
So again, lemon balm, very aggressive plant that is in the herb family.
And guess what?
Smells good too.
[upbeat country music] All right, Ms. Carol, we always tell folks they can go to the internet and find some of those answers to their gardening questions, but how do we know if those sites actually have good advice?
- Well, and I'd say maybe even the majority of them don't.
[laughing] So a lot of times you just go to Google and type something in and I'm not sure how that logarithm works, but things pop up that aren't necessarily good sources.
I have a few kind of general rules.
And first and foremost, if they're trying to sell you something, they may not be telling you the truth, they may not be telling you the whole truth, and even just omission a lot of times is the big crime.
I'm particularly suspicious of big box store sites because they won't give you regional information about plants, so they're gonna make them all sound like they're gonna do well.
As soon as the information is inaccurate, especially about size of plants, a lot of times.
Plants are gonna get bigger.
I always tell people plant tags lie.
[Chris laughing] Don't believe the plant tags.
So there are a few nurseries that I do trust and I don't know if that would be a good idea to mention those as far as specifics, but one thing I've noticed is online sources, sometimes when you even order the plants they're not accurate.
So one thing I also look for, if it's an online nursery, does it give good information, but do I actually get the plant I ordered?
- Okay, makes sense.
- But as far as good information, yes, we do like for people to go to the university sites.
I mean, we try to research all our information and so if it's a .edu site, but-- - But?
- Stuff doesn't disappear off the internet often when it should, and things change as you and I know.
New diseases come down the pipe, new pests.
So a plant that we once considered very durable is no longer.
So we have to be sure we stay current.
I always tell people this.
I'm going to mention several good sites, but I like to go to several sites to make sure I have a consensus because any one site could be wrong.
So I check with EDU sites, I'll check with...
There's a good botanical garden site, The Missouri Botanical Garden site is a very good site.
- Which is one that I go to.
- And it pops up pretty quick.
And that's another thing I like, an easy...
Some of the websites are poorly designed, they're hard to find the information.
[Chris laughing] So that's one thing that I like to look for.
The other thing that I like to look for are professional organizations.
For example, information about tree pruning or roots, a lot of times, like if you type in "tree roots and foundations", you're gonna find a whole bunch of garden bloggers who are gonna tell you, "Oh, those roots are gonna bust your foundations."
But we want to go to those sites that have really studied tree roots.
So the Urban Forestry Association, the arboriculture association, any kind of professional association is really trying to get good information out there to make sure that their information is reliable and trustworthy so that you hire their members.
So I look for those.
Also, if it's not about a particular group of plants, these large, well-founded plant societies.
The Magnolia Society, The American Conifer Society.
There's a Fern Society right here in Memphis.
The hydrangea, Mid-South Hydrangea Society.
- It's big.
- 400-500 members.
- Yeah, it's big.
- So, you and I like to talk about replicated studies.
We're supposed to repeat studies several times to make sure that this plant does behave well in all these different settings and over a series of different years.
Well, imagine if you've got 400 or 500 members reporting in on this particular hydrangea or conifer or Magnolia, it's as good as a replicated study.
- Oh yes it is.
- And they're not trying to sell you anything.
They want you to succeed with that Magnolia.
They want you to enjoy the plants that they enjoy.
So I certainly do trust that information.
- Okay.
Yeah, the .EDUs is pretty much what I go by.
Look, several states, you know?
The land grant institutions, I'm looking at all of their information.
- Very much so.
And especially with, we were talking about plant trials and evaluations, I look for those states that have similar climate.
Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi-- - I do the same.
- Kentucky, Virginia.
I look at all those and see, yeah, oh hey, this plant's done well for everybody over a wide range of sites.
- Okay.
Now, let's talk about this.
What about Facebook?
Because everybody's on Facebook now and they're putting garden information on Facebook.
So what do you think?
- Well, I'm not a fan of just anybody's information.
Somebody can put, oh, even just identify a plant, they know what it is, they act like they're an expert.
A lot of times they're wrong.
[Chris laughing] But then a lot of these sites have a lot of very informed members and a few specifics, one that I really love and use a lot is the Tennessee Naturalist Facebook page.
And they'll know plants in the wild and insects and moths, frogs, mushrooms, you name it.
So I love that site because usually I'll have like park rangers or different informed biologists who will come on and tell me.
Also the Soil Plant Pest Facebook page is awesome.
- Without a doubt is good.
- Absolutely awesome.
And of course, they're posting pictures of current diseases and insect issues.
So a lot of times I'll look at that and go, hey, that's what somebody just brought in today.
So it keeps me very up to date.
Not to mention that also is gonna give me recommendations.
- You're exactly right.
That's one Facebook page I go to every day.
- Yes, it is fantastic.
- Every day.
- It is really fantastic.
People who despise Facebook and think it's all about videos of cats or what you had for breakfast that morning, I don't use it for that and I use it for things that I'm interested in.
Plants, insects, even dog rescue groups a lot of times will network on the Facebook pages.
If you're doing a plant identification, say, in Tennessee, then the Tennessee Naturalist Facebook page or Plant Idents, maybe a local Facebook page, there's Tennessee Birds, all kinds of things like that, but you can be in Hawaii and take a picture of a plant and probably post it to one of the more international plant identification pages and get somebody that knows that plant.
It's just amazing.
You could be somebody, an expert from India or China.
It's just awesome how all these people can network and just a little snapshot of a plant within a minute, you're told all about it.
- That's good.
- People who decide they don't like Facebook, they're just not using it right.
- I mean it has a good purpose-- - Absolutely.
- If you can do things like that, for sure.
- Absolutely.
- Because of course, we do that a lot, just put pictures on there just to see if somebody can identify them.
I know I do it quite often.
- Yes.
And not only that-- - It's useful.
- For example, in our plant sales, we will post pictures of the plants that are gonna be in the sale and their cultural conditions.
So by the time they come into our plant sale, they know what'll work in their yard and already have their list made out.
So yeah, lots of good ways that you can use it.
Also, a few good industry magazines.
I like American Nurseryman, because people like Mike Dur will often write for that.
But some of the little garden magazines that are written often by people, and I'm not saying amateur in a derogatory way, I'm just saying that often they have not necessarily done the scientific research behind the article.
So look at those with a little bit of caution.
- Okay.
All right, appreciate that good information.
That works.
- Good.
- Thank you.
[upbeat country music] - Well, we're out here in the WKNO gardens, and this is a raised bed, two years ago we planted with strawberries.
And it may look a little thin right now, but this last summer we harvested over 250 plants from here.
We did use a ground cloth underneath it, and you notice it's pretty much weed free.
We do want to clean out some of this dead foliage.
And it's kind of like pansies.
They don't look very pretty in the wintertime, but as soon as it starts warming up, they'll take off, and we're gonna have a whole bunch more plants, and even more important, a whole, whole bunch of strawberries.
Being that wintertime is coming on real quick, we really don't want to fertilize at this time of the year.
But in the spring, when you start seeing new growth, it'd be advantageous to go ahead and apply a balanced fertilizer that contains nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, the three basic numbers for fertilizer.
[upbeat country music] - All right, Lee, you ready?
- Ready.
- This is our Q and A segment.
We've got some good questions here.
All right, here's our first viewer email.
And this is one I do like.
"What a shock.
"When I went to snip parsley from my herb garden "and it was completely gone.
"These beautiful bugs were on what was left of the plant.
"How do I prevent this from happening again?
Thanks," And this is Donna from Washington, DC.
All right, so yeah, of course it's feeding on her parsley, right?
And that would be, we call it the parsley worm or parsley caterpillar, right?
Which will become the beautiful eastern black swallowtail butterfly.
But she wants to prevent this from happening again.
How would she do that?
[Chris chuckles] - There are netting that you can buy, that you could cover over your parsley plants that prevent them from laying their eggs on the parsley leaves.
And that's probably gonna be the best thing that she can do.
I would not use any type of chemicals at all.
That's not anything we want to do.
That is their favorite food and they're gonna be searching out a place to lay those eggs so that their larvae they develop will have something to eat on.
- I would agree with that, yeah.
So they like to feed on plants in the carrot family.
- That's correct.
- So either you're gonna plant enough, right?
Or you're gonna have to share.
- That's right.
- So I would share with them, and yeah, if it's that much of a problem, Ms. Donna, I would just hand pick those off.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I wouldn't worry about trying to use any chemicals or anything like that, you'll be just fine.
So plant enough, they eat it down.
Guess what?
It'll come back.
- Plant more and share.
- Plant more and share is what I like to do.
Yeah, let's share with those beautiful bugs out there, right?
All right, so thank you for that picture, Ms. Donna, we appreciate that.
All right, here's our next viewer email.
"My Japanese maple has a heavy infestation of scale.
"The tree is dying and I would like to treat "as soon as possible.
"It is now the end of September.
"Can I treat now in the fall?
"What can I do to help my tree recover?
And is there anything other th an pesticide spray I can use?"
And this is Tamar, right?
So this is actually a good question.
And she knows that her Japanese maple of course is being attacked by scales.
So there's the Japanese scale.
They do a lot of damage.
So can she treat now?
- She could treat it now with neem oil.
That'll kill the scale over the wintertime.
If it's real severe, she could use some pressure with a water hose, maybe try to knock them off [indistinct] wasn't too bad, she doesn't want to use any type of chemical, possibly.
And then in the spring, I would do fertility and try to encourage new growth.
- All right, I agree with all of that.
I sure would.
Yeah, so neem oil, or you could still get away with horticulture oil now.
These Japanese scales have waxy coverings.
Right, so if you use enough of the oils, guess what?
It dissolves the waxy covering and it will expose the scales to winter conditions.
And that may kill it, right?
But then I would come back next year, I'll think about fertility, and then just kind of go from there.
Just see what happens.
See what happens.
Especially since you don't want to use a pesticide.
So we gave you low-impact means using the horticultural oil, dormant oil is another one, or neem oil and just get out the water hose, right?
High pressure, knock them off, and then check next year, scouting is important, check next year, fertility, I think you'll be fine.
So thank you, Ms. Tamar, we appreciate that.
Here's our next viewer email.
"Our Alberta spruce keeps getting these brown patches "that almost have a webby substance binding it.
"I've tried cutting it out, "but as you can see, it comes back.
Any ideas?"
and this is Don and Shelly from Magnet Cove, Arkansas.
So any idea?
- It could possibly be spider mites.
I would check-- - Spider mites.
- And then make sure that that's the problem.
You may have to use a chemical spray to control the spider mites.
It could be disease, and continue to cut that out on it, and try to promote regrowth with some fertility on the plant.
- Yeah, I think that's good, yeah.
Alberta spruce, yeah.
I mean, the fact that you got it to grow is pretty good, in Arkansas, number one.
Number two, yeah.
So yeah, spider mites is what that is.
That's actually a heavy infestation of spider mites.
Anytime you see webbing, that means you have a lot of spider mites, for sure.
And I'm probably thinking those are the spruce spider mites.
You usually see those early in the spring or late in the fall, right?
I would have to use, of course, an oil, right?
So I would use the horticultural oil, you can still use neem oil is something that you can use.
Read and follow the label on that, and see if that helps you out.
See if that helps you out, and then I would just keep cutting back the dead.
Because spider mites have piercing sucking mouthparts, of course they're feeding on those needles, taking a sap out, causes stippling there.
So yeah, read and follow the label and I think that would help you out.
So thank you for that question, all right?
Here's our next viewer email.
"Bermuda grass has taken over our daylily and daffodil bed.
"Is there anything that I can spray "to kill it without harming our bulbs?
"Normally we have been able to control it "by pulling it on a regular basis.
"I plan on putting down some different edging this fall "to prevent the grass from getting into the bed again.
Thanks."
This is Max and Sally from southeast Missouri.
So yeah, they want to kill that old Bermuda grass, right, that's over there daylily and daffodil bed.
That old Bermuda grass, right?
- It's aggressive-- - Oh, it's aggressive-- - It gets in the bed, yeah.
But there is a herbicide that we can use, Fusilade or Ornamec is what the ho meowner can buy to spray that and does not kill your daylilys.
It kills grasses but not the daylilys.
- Yeah, targets grasses, of course annual and perennial grasses.
Yeah, Bermuda is a bear to try to control.
So I would still try to pull up as much as I possibly can, use what you suggested, read and follow the label, and I think you'd be fine with that.
Yeah, the different edging, yeah, you might want to try.
I mean, how do you feel about the edging?
- Well, we have underground stolons on Bermuda grass, and it can go under the edging, so that may help, but it may not control it.
- Yeah, it definitely might not control it.
But I would do two different things here.
I would continue to try to pull it up if I possibly can.
And then of course use the product that you mentioned.
Then I would think about a pre-emerge moving forward.
So I'll definitely think about a pre-emerge in the spring, for sure.
And I think that'll help you out.
All right, so appreciate that question.
Thank you much.
All right, here's our next viewer email.
"For two years in a row my hydrangeas have not bloomed.
"I have fed and mulched them.
"What can I do to get them to bloom?
The plants look healthy but no blooms."
And this is Darlene.
So here's a typical question we used to get about hydrangeas.
No blooms, right, so what do you think?
What could be the problem here?
- Well, the picture she sent, that's a macrophylla Hydrangea.
- Oh, look at you.
- That's the key right there.
And they bloom on second year of wood, not new wood.
- Okay, second-year wood.
That's important.
- If you're cutting them back in spring, then you're cutting all your blooms off, so you don't want to prune in the spring.
Other reason could be we had a really cold winter that could have killed all the blooms for this year.
Could have been one of the problems.
But you want to prune those like August and September.
So it's going to promote new growth that will be two-year-old wood when we have the blooms in the summertime.
So it could be the weather condition that killed it or it could be you pruned at the wrong time.
- How about that, Ms. Darlene?
There you go.
I have nothing to say, right?
No, I agree with all of that.
It's usually pruning.
- Yeah.
- Which is why you should know the type of hydrangea that you have.
- That's correct.
- Right.
Because they all get pruned at different times.
- Different times.
- Right.
So you explained it well.
So I think that may be the issue.
It's pruning and then of course winter injury possibly could be something as well.
So thank you, Ms. Darlene.
Appreciate the picture too.
- The picture helps.
- Yeah, definitely did help.
So thank you much.
All right Lee, that was fun.
Appreciate it.
- Thanks, Chris.
- Thank you much, thank you much.
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[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]