- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

It is winter and the garden is resting for spring.

In the meantime, we thought we would answer some gardening questions we got this past year.

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 Joellen Dimond.

Joellen's Director of Landscape at the University of Memphis.

And Peter Richards, our local gardener, is here as well.

Y'all ready?

- We're ready.

- This is our own Q&A show.

- Very good.

- I can't wait, these are great questions sent to us by our gardeners that are out there.

So here's our first viewer email.

"My African violets constantly get these "gnatty little flying things.

"I have tried hydrogen peroxide, epsom salt, "soapy water and I thought I had killed them, "but they started flying around again.

"They're merciless.

"What would you suggest to get rid of the small flying bugs on my African violets?"

And this is Lucille on YouTube.

So what do you think about that Joellen?

Those gnatty little flying things, right?

- And they are persistent, yes.

I understand her dilemma.

But they live in the soil and they like it moist.

So when you dry out the soil, they tend to not survive 'cause they're very fragile.

You can do that, also since they're living in the soil and if she's had such a chronic problem, she might consider transplanting into new soil, her African violet.

Other than that, you can put yellow sticky traps up near it so that it gets the flying ones and they get stuck on the yellow sticky trap.

That's about all, I mean, there are some chemicals you can use, but I would just do the drying out and the sticky traps.

And possibly as a last resort, repot it.

- Right, and we're talking probably about fungus gnats.

It's what I think is going on.

- Yes, probably fungus gnats.

That's most likely what they are.

- Yeah, okay.

Anything you'd like to add to that, Peter?

- No, yeah, just make sure that your soil's dry, you know?

Feel down in it and don't water it until maybe the top inch is dry.

And maybe you could even short it on water for a little while to dry it out.

But probably what you're having is you're killing all the ones that are flying and you have the eggs in the soil and they come back.

- So the problem here is overwatering, all right?

That's gonna be the issue, okay?

So thank you for that question, Lucille, we appreciate that.

Yeah, just dry it on out.

It'll be fine, it'll be good.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"My ninebark shrub got too much water.

Can I bring it back to life?"

And this is Eric from Imlay City, Michigan.

So what do you think about that, Peter?

- Well, maybe.

- Maybe?

- Probably not.

That's root rot.

So what happened is you overwatered.

And that might not have been something you intentionally did.

It could be that it was planted in a low area.

It could be that there's a downspout from your house that just dumps water onto it.

You know, it's hard to say, but you can try to see if it's gonna bounce back.

It might bounce back if there's enough roots left to be able to pull up enough nutrients to support the plant.

But it might be easier just to pull it out and plant a new one.

If you do plant a new one, I'd suggest that if you're planting it in the same place, to mound up the soil and plant it on top of the mound.

Doesn't have to be really high, but, you know, six inches or so, plant it on top of the mound, that'll help the water run away from the base of the plant.

And then just, you know, try and figure out why it got too much water.

If you're gonna replant it and then stop whatever the problem is.

- Sounds good.

- Causing the overwatering, yes.

- The overwatering.

Right.

- Sounds good.

- All right.

Thank you, Eric, we appreciate that question.

All right.

Here's our next viewer email.

"I have skinks in my flower beds.

"I changed the wood chips to rubberized mulch "and I have not seen as many as before, "but they are still a nuisance.

How can I get rid of skinks?"

And this is Evelyn from Hampton, Virginia.

So Joellen, how do you get rid of skinks?

- Well, you gotta get rid of their food source, which is bugs.

And I have to commend her.

She probably was told that and that's why she went to the rubberized mulch.

Because less organic matter, that means that the bugs will go away and not be there as much for the skinks to eat.

Is she cleaning up everything else?

That's the other problem, you got to get all the leaf litter, and not have places for them to hide, and just keep everything cleaned up.

And so the bugs don't want to be there and the skinks won't have any place to live.

There are nuisance things you can put out, but actually mostly getting rid of their food source and water.

If you have standing water sitting around, they like water too.

Dry up the water, get rid of the bugs, and you'll probably get rid of the skinks.

- Right.

My mom hates skinks.

It just scares her to death.

But I always tell my mom this, skinks are actually beneficial 'cause they're gonna be feeding on snails, slugs, right?

Millipedes, spiders, right?

Which most people don't want in their gardens anyway.

[Joellen laughs] - Yeah, true, true.

She's doing the right thing by trying to get rid of some of the bug population, but if it still bothers her, try to eliminate water and any other cleanup, so there's no place.

- Right, so any clutter or anything like that, just get it cleaned up.

- Leaf, litter, anything.

- Okay.

Well, there you have it, Evelyn.

We appreciate that question.

Yeah, don't let those skinks bother you, all right?

Here's our next viewer email.

"What kind of soil should I put in a raised bed and how deep does it need to be?"

And this is Johnny from Mineola, Texas.

So what do you think about that, Peter?

What kind of soil do you think Johnny needs for that raised bed?

- Well, soil wise, your native soil is probably very good for growing plants.

And so you want to have a lot of that in there.

If you just put in all compost or all manufactured soil or whatever, you're gonna have issues for a raised bed.

And so, you want to have some native soil in there.

Now that doesn't mean you have to go dig it up out of your yard somewhere else, you can buy native soil.

Check local mulch yards or soil places.

You can either go and pick some up or they can deliver it in a dump truck, depending on what you want to do.

But then also you can put in some organic matter.

And that will help to just loosen the soil, make the plants really like it, breaks down, gives some nutrients for the plants.

And as to how deep it needs to be, well, it all depends on where you're putting this raised bed.

So if you're putting it on soil already, then any height doesn't matter.

So you could have it, you know, two inches tall because the roots from the plants you plant in it can work their way down into the native soil underneath it.

Now if you have the raised bed, if you're putting it on concrete, you know, on a driveway or something like that, then you do need to have enough soil for the plants to be able to get the nutrients that they need.

And so at the absolute bare minimum, six inches, but you're gonna have problems keeping the soil moist if it's on concrete and it's only six inches deep, so you'd probably be better off doing at least a foot.

And then, you know, if you're on a surface that the water can't drain off of, you need to make sure that you provide drainage for your raised bed.

So don't be building a raised bed out of cinder block and put a piece of plastic inside it because it'll become a swimming pool and all the plants will die.

So a couple things you have to worry about there, but yeah, most people I think put their raised beds on the soil, in which case it's not, you know, how high is it convenient for you?

- That's the route I would take.

That's what I would do, anything you wanna add to that?

- And the organic matter, I would try to do 20% organic matter to the existing soil.

And that's usually a good number to be able to get them organic matter and nutrients to the plants and loosening up the soil a little bit without, you know, going so organic that it dries out too fast.

- Right, organic matter is always a good thing, y'all.

Always.

All right, appreciate that question Mr. Johnny.

Thank you much.

Here's our next viewer email.

"We have saved a new crape myrtle "that appeared apparently from a dropped seed.

"It was extremely close to our fringe tree, "so we dug it up, pruned it, and planted it in a large pot.

"It's blooming now and we ev entually want it in the yard.

"What is the best time of the year for us to transplant it And is this a Muskogee crape myrtle?"

Okay, and this is Sandra from Panama City Beach, Florida.

So what do you think about that, so they saved it, right?

- Yeah, they saved it.

- Put it in the large pot, they wanna keep it in the yard.

So the first question is this, the best time of the year to transplant it though?

- It is late fall and winter.

- Late fall and winter, okay.

Do you think this is the Muskogee crape myrtle?

- Good question.

I don't know.

It's hard, I mean, there's a lot of red and pink crape myrtles, unless they actually know that there's Muskogee crape myrtles around, and that is the only possibility that the seed could have germinated from then most likely it came from that.

But other than that, you know, I can't tell.

- Can't really tell?

Okay, okay.

And Peter, any thoughts on the best time to transplant?

You know, we mentioned fall.

- Right, yeah.

They're in Panama City Beach, Florida, so it stays pretty warm.

You know, it might freeze occasionally there.

So, yeah, like anytime fall and winter is a great time to plant it.

The crape myrtle can grow and get established in the soil when it's not really hot.

It's easy for the tree to grow there.

If I were farther north where you get really hard freezes, I might hold off till spring where, you know, especially if your soil's frozen.

So that way it's not too stressed by the cold.

And then put it in the spring and let it grow then.

- It can grow then.

All right, thank you for that question Ms. Sanders, yeah.

Good luck to you.

Good luck.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"I have noticed ornamental pear trees, Callery pear, "around southern California, "especially in the metropolitan Los Angeles, "Showing signs of spindling and irregular discoloration "that leads to death of affected areas.

"Most trees show about 15 to 20% discoloration symptoms.

Is there any way to treat this disease?

And this is G. Smith from Los Angeles, California.

Yeah, so I think it's interesting that they have a lot of these pears in the area.

And how do you feel about Callery pear?

- Well, you know, they are actually banned in certain states because they found out that the seeds that are in the little pears that the birds eat, when they pass through their system, they still are viable.

But the problem is when they germinate and grow, they revert back to the main species, which got thorns on it.

And it takes over the native forest.

So those have been banned in some parts of the country.

So, you know, they have their attributes, [Chris laughs] there's a lot of parts of the country that they're not welcome in because of their reverting back and taking over native forests.

- Yeah.

So back to the disease at hand though.

Beautiful pictures by the way, we appreciate the pictures.

Pear leaf rust is what that is.

Pear leaf rust, okay?

And so fungal disease, what that tells me is this.

There's some junipers in the area, all right?

'Cause that's the other host plant for the rust disease.

- Yeah.

- Right?

So you either have to get rid of all the junipers, right?

Or how about preventative fungicides?

So you probably have to talk to the city, yeah?

To get their crew out there to do some preventative fungicide spray.

Myclobutanil is the recommendation, you know, in this area, it's also the recommendation in that area as well.

So I'll read and follow the label on that.

Yeah, get that to the crews and see if they can take care of that for you.

And I think that'll work.

- Yeah.

- Right.

Because it seems like they have a lot of those in that area, you know, so obviously they want them.

So yes, we have to do that.

All right, G. Smith, we appreciate that question.

Thank you so much for the pictures, good pictures.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"I live in the Northeast and ha ve a long width white clover.

I like the look of clover when it is green, but not the white flowers.

"I've heard there is a green clover with no flowers.

What is its name and where can I find it?

My local nursery cannot help me."

And this is Anthony from Hempstead, New York.

Well, Anthony, guess what?

Peter has our answer for us.

- Yes, so there is a micro clover.

It's what it's called, it's called micro clover.

The Latin name is Trifolium repens or repens.

And it actually doesn't grow in a clump like regular clover does.

It tends to more spread out.

So it works really good for greening up your lawn and kind of being there between the grass.

The actual clover leaves are smaller than what you usually think of as clover.

And for the most part it doesn't bloom.

It also handles mowing very well.

For the most part it doesn't bloom, but there's going to be some blooms on the clover at some point during the year.

'Cause all plants want to reproduce.

And so, but what you can do is you can just mow 'em, you can just mow it when it's blooming.

And that helps to reduce the number of blooms you have.

So you won't have, you know, you won't have the big white or pink blooms on clover.

Like we think of for clover, it'll be smaller white blooms, but it will still bloom.

And two of the recommended cultivars for it are Pirouette and Pipolina.

So, or it might be Oipolina, but those are the two recommended cultivars for doing that.

But it's really good for filling in, especially if you have thin grass, things like that.

Also since it can handle mowing and it grows a little shorter, it doesn't outcompete your grass.

- That's good.

That's good information.

Appreciate that Peter, that's real good.

And I'd like to say this, Anthony, check with your local Extension Office.

They may have some, you know, different cultivars as well, you know, for you to choose from.

So yeah, thank you, Peter, that's good information.

All right, thank you for that question, Anthony.

We appreciate that.

Here's our next viewer email.

This one is very detailed, right?

Real good information.

"In the past few years, "I have noticed that the blue hydrangeas "in my area have been turning towards pink.

"I say towards because they seem "to be on a spectrum going from blue to purple to pink.

"And whereas before it used to be a predominance "of blue hydrangeas, now it's pink.

"I know that the color of hydrangeas "is primarily controlled by the acidity of the soil.

"So what do you think is going on?

"Why are my hydrangeas in my town all turning from blue to pink?

Thanks to Mrs. Grace from Nassau County on the north shore of Long Island, New York.

So very observant, right?

Very observant.

So yeah, blue, pink, right?

Little purple in the middle.

So what do you think?

- Well, I think the soil acidity is getting changed and that's what will happen over time.

It just needs to be more acid, so people need to be putting more acidic products into the ground around the hydrangea so they'll turn back blue again.

Why it's doing that?

Because eventually, it just does that.

The end product of organic matter is a pH of seven, which is neutral.

So I mean, you know, if you keep mulching around it, it's gonna end up not being acidic anymore, it's gonna tend towards being neutral.

So you have to keep adding.

For mine to keep mine blue, I keep adding soil acidifier to my soil, to my hydrangeas to keep them blue at least every other year.

The end product of decomposition is neutral, it's seven, and that's probably what's happening, 'cause people have mulched their hydrangeas and it's getting more basic instead of being acidic anymore.

- All right, so it's going up the pH scale.

- Yeah.

- How about that?

Which means that no aluminum is available to the plant.

- True.

- Right.

Yeah, she's really done her homework with that.

Peter, anything you want to add to that?

- No yeah, just, you know, if you want to, you can get a soil test.

I think the hydrangea though does a good job of testing the pH of the soil for you.

- Yeah, you're exactly right.

- Yes.

A litmus paper.

- Yep, you're exactly right.

- Yeah, just have some soil acidifier, give it some, don't dump it on there.

Because you could easily go way too far the other way and that'll harm the plant.

But yeah, it's just give it a little bit at a time and slowly draw it back towards the blue.

- All right.

- That's right.

Thank you for that question Ms. Grace.

Yeah, we appreciate all the explanation, that's pretty good.

All right, thank you much for that question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"I planted a Brown Turkey fig tree five or six years ago "and has never produced any figs.

"The area where it is planted is now in partial shade, "getting maybe five hours of sun per day in the summer.

Should I move it to a sunnier location?"

And this is Pat from Greenville, Tennessee.

So what do you think about that, Peter?

It hadn't produced anything, right?

Five or six years, so yes.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Sunny location.

- You know, full sun is considered six or more hours of sun a day.

If you're dealing with fruits, which the fig isn't technically a fruit, but it's the same idea.

It's a bloom.

But if you're dealing with, you know, heavily blooming plants or fruiting plants, you need to have as much sun as you possibly can.

Because the more sun it has, the more carbohydrates it can make, the more energy it can put into making the fruit or the blooms or, you know, whatever you're wanting out of that.

So yeah, I'd go ahead and move it and looking at it, it may be that, you know, whatever is next to it has grown bigger and is starting to shade it.

So make sure you move it to a place where you know you're not going to start getting something else, creating shade in another five years.

And then just make sure that, you know, make sure it's watered in the summer if it gets dry.

Make sure you water it.

That'll help the figs to grow and mature.

But yeah, that should be what you need to do.

- That should be it, yeah.

At least six to eight hours of full sun it's what your fig trees gonna need for sure to produce those figs.

All right Ms. Pat, we appreciate that.

In Greenville, at the local extension office there in Green County, Melody Rose will be able to help you out, okay?

Here's our next viewer email.

"We have two Chinese pistache trees in our front yard.

"One on either side of our driveway near the street.

"We planted them about the same time, about 15 years ago.

"And both have been good healthy trees.

"This spring the bark started splitting on one of the trees.

"We decided to wait and see how it did for the season.

"It leafed out fully just like the other one.

"Now large pieces of bark are falling off.

What, if anything, should we do?"

And this is Larry from Wichita, Kansas.

So what do you think about that?

- I like pistache trees.

They're very good trees.

And this is the problem that happens when you plant something trying to be even on both sides.

Something will happen to one and then it won't be even anymore.

But yeah, it looks like actually from the picture, the tree looks stressed.

Like it's not leafing out like it should.

And also based on the picture, it's near the street.

And during the winter they get snow there.

I'm just wondering if some kind of mechanical damage happened to that tree without them realizing it from either moving snow around or something that caused it to start declining.

But because of where it is and because it's a large tree, I would tend to want to remove it and if you wanna plant another one, plant it further back away from the street, if you're gonna do that, But I think, it looks like a mechanical, 'cause there's not a whole lot that bothers pistache trees, but if you get a mechanical injury, then other things can start infecting the tree.

And that's what it looks like to me.

That it had some kind of physical injury that's now causing it to not do well.

- Right, so let me ask you this.

What zone does Chinese pistache like?

- Oh, that's true.

- 'Cause I think that could make a difference.

- And that could be part of the problem too, 'cause pistache trees really like zones seven through nine.

And where he is in Kansas is zone six.

So it's a little bit, you know, it will live there, but it's not as happy as it would be further south.

So that's the other problem, you know, between some kind of mechanical injury and this being not quite in the zone that it prefers is why it might be struggling.

- I think so.

It could be.

And everything else would be secondary, like wood borers.

- Yeah, borers.

Everything else is, yeah.

- All right Larry, we appreciate that question, sorry about that.

Just keep it as comfortable as possible.

Keep it watered, keep it fertilized.

Yeah, we'll see.

We'll see.

All right, thank you for that question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"My chestnuts are wilting and turning yellow.

"Some limbs have died and dropped leaves.

"What is going on?

"I planted these blight re sistant chestnuts 15 years ago and they produced nuts for about four years."

And this is HoopGibson70 on YouTube.

So chestnuts, right?

- American chestnuts, I know they're trying very hard to get American chestnuts to be revived here, back in the United States.

- Any success with doing that?

- Yes and no.

- Ah, okay.

- The fact that he had it 15 years and it actually produced for four years.

That's wonderful.

They talk about regeneration in the forest of chestnut trees.

They will grow to be 20, 25 feet tall and then succumb to the chestnut blight yet again.

It says blight resistant, it's not blight proof.

And so, that's the problem here.

It probably did catch the blight and that's probably what's affecting it.

- So you think it's the blight?

- Yeah, most likely.

- Most likely?

Can I throw in something else I just thought of?

- Sure, go ahead.

- Wilting, you know what I think when I hear wilting?

- Something vascular problems?

- Yeah, verticillium wilt, yeah.

Which is, yeah, vascular disease, right?

- It could be.

It could be.

- Just wondering.

You know, picture would help.

But yeah, when I hear wilting, it's the first thing I think about is vascular diseases.

And I know verticillium wilt, you know, could be an issue with chestnut.

So something to think about.

- Limbs have died and dropped leaves, yeah, yeah.

And wilting and turning yellow, yeah.

It could be either one of those, 'cause they're all vascular diseases.

- And usually with the vascular diseases, yeah, I mean, the roots can't transport water to the upper canopy of the tree to the leaves.

So you get wilting of leaves, you get dead branches.

- Dead branches, yeah.

- Could be.

All right, HoopGibson70.

Did a good job, 15 years.

- Oh man, that's good.

And I wouldn't discourage him from trying again and get another one and try again somewhere else.

Not exactly in that spot, but you know, a little further away.

And see if you can't get that to grow again because they're producing resistant varieties all the time and improving on them.

So I'm sure from 15 years ago, they have a more improved variety now again, so I would try that.

- Sure, sure.

- But in the meantime, yeah, I would prune out those dead limbs as much as possible.

Keep it watered, fertilized.

Just keep it comfortable as possible.

All right, and we'll see what happens.

All right, so we appreciate that question.

Peter, Joellen, this was fun.

- It was.

- This is great.

These are some great questions from our gardeners out there.

Thank y'all much.

Appreciate it.

Remember we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is familyplot@wkno.org and the mailing address is Family Plot 7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova, Tennessee, 38016.

Or you can go online to familyplotgarden.com.

That's all we have time for today, thanks for watching.

If you want to find out more about any of the things we talked about today, go to familyplotgarden.com.

Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

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