- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South, I'm Chris Cooper.

Spring is a good time   to make major changes   to the landscape.

But before you   pick up the shovel,   you should have a plan.

Today we're going to show   how to create a new design   for your beds.

That's just a head   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 is Director of Landscape at the University of Memphis.

Hi Joellen, this is gonna be fun.

Let's talk about drawing a landscape design.

- Yes, yeah, there's a lot of places you can start.

- Okay.

- Of course, the first thing, we had mentioned before, you gotta be able to have a tape measure to measure your area.

So you'll know the kind of this dimensions you're working with.

And then you can do this on a plain piece of paper, or you can use a tablet.

There's lots of different programs that you can do to put circles and things around here.

It's just whatever you want to use, your medium.

I do both, but I typically like just graph paper.

Graph paper is the easiest to use because the little squares can be your one foot, and one square equals one foot, one foot-square, or you can do one square equals two feet-square.

It's however long your design is and how you can use the graph paper use the dimensions of what you have.

You can get as technical as you want.

There's T-squares here, there's architectural rulers, regular rulers, you can have a triangle, circle templates, whatever you want, but you know, even a protractor with a straight edge is easy to draw with.

I like to use the circle template for many things, not only for straight edges, but I like to help with my curves, drawing my curves with them.

Now, the one thing you have to know about the curves, you can draw it on the paper all you want, but when it comes to the actual world, you may have to go outside.

And if you're putting curves or anything in, I highly recommend you mow the lawn, [Chris laughing] because if you can't mow the edge, I did.

I learned this the hard way.

If you can't mow the edge that you've created, then you're gonna create yourself more problems because you have to go back with weed eaters or do anything.

So yeah, set your design out.

You know, you have it on paper.

You've got to say, well, let's see how it works out in the real world.

And if you can't mow that edge, you're gonna have to tweak the curves- - I like that, okay.

- Tweak the curves.

- I didn't think about that, okay.

- Tweak the curves.

So, and you know, one of the things, we have a finished product of we did upfront,   and that landscape is...   this is the same   process that I used   for that landscape design.

- Yeah, great design.

- So we measured it, we found the area that we needed,   then we researched   to figure out,   we did the percolation test   and knew that we had a   drainage problem there.

So then we use plants   that would like full sun, 'cause that's a full sun area and would like to have wet roots.

We drew it on a piece of paper.

So that's how we came   up with that design.

And that's the process   that you go through after you and your family have determined, oh, well this is what we want the yard to look like or this is what I want my front to look like or something like that.

You've looked at it from the street, you say, "Hey, I don't wanna block the door.

I don't want to block the view of my door or anything.

Maybe I want the tree out in the yard, a small tree.

Maybe I want a small planting out in the yard.

I don't really don't want anything next to my house."

- Right.

- I mean, insect, the people would really like that because they don't like to have shrubs up against the house and plants do better, not crammed up against the house.

- I agree because what?

- Air circulation.

- Air circulation.

- There's just no air circulation up there.

- And you don't wanna block the windows either, right?

- No, you don't want to block windows either, but there's many different ways to do the design.

And one of the things that you really want to think of are the design elements.

You have to have design elements in any design that you do.

And some of those are lines.

Lines can be curves, they can be horizontal, they can be vertical.

And there's tons of different plants that can have combinations of that, can fit those elements.

Also, you know, you gotta take your structures and your hardscapes into consideration because I do want to, if you have a back patio or a back deck, how do you want the plants to be around that?

Do you want them out in the yard so you can see them?

Or do you want them closer to you on the deck or on the patio?

That's just different ways that you can think of where you want the plants to go.

- Okay.

- Of course you want some unity and harmony, meaning the style you pick.

I mean, you might like a Japanese garden with some rocks and all that, but if the style of your house and, or the backyard that you have, where you want to put this doesn't fit that, maybe you don't want to put that in your yard, or maybe when you changed their whole yard to that.

I mean, it's all up to you.

There's no right or wrong to any of this, but you do have to remember about scale and proportion.

Scale and the proportion has to do with the plants, with each other and in scale and proportion to their surroundings or structures that you're going to put them next to.

So you've gotta think of that.

Large trees, there's very few places large trees go in a urban setting there.

You can have a few here and there, but remember if you have a zero-lot line house and you put a large oak tree in your backyard, you're not gonna have anything else there because it's gonna take up the whole yard.

So you've gotta think, you know, in harmony the proportions for all of that.

Then of course all plants have forms.

You know, some of   them are very loose,   like ornamental grass   is very loose and wispy.

Others are round like   boxwoods and hollies.

And formal, you   can have a formal, if you want a formal yard, you gotta think lining up things.

And you're gonna think the same amount on each side and that's a formal type of setting.

Informal, asymmetrical would be a few here and there, groups of threes and fives and sevens.

And that's when you wanna think of groups of threes and fives and sevens, because they visually looks better in groups like that.

Odd numbers look better.

- I always wondered that, why three, five and seven?

- I don't know why, but for some reason it just looks better to us in odd, odd groups, odd groupings.

Of course, textures.

You know, if you have all the same textured plants, even though they're different plants, it's not going to do anything for you visually.

So what you're gonna need is some coarse textured plants,   a medium textured plants and   some very fine textured plants.

And we kinda did that outside   because we had the Magnolias   that have large leaves.

We use the Florida anise   that has large leaves.

We used the Spiraea   and the hollies   that have kind of a   small to medium leaf.

And then we use the vase   shaped forms of the sweetgrass   and the daylilies.

So we had all these   different kinds of textures   and color is another thing.

The sweet flag grass is yellow.

And then the flowers on the shrubs bloom at different times and are different colors.

So you have a full... color is good for four seasons.

And if you can get a plant that is a four season plant with interests, and then your landscape naturally changes throughout the year without you having to do anything.

And what better way have saved time than that because you've got your plants are working for you.

And then of course, you gotta remember light and sound.

Light meaning, you know, put some landscape lights out at night, so you can enjoy your plants at night, either from the street, looking at your house, or maybe in the backyard around where you're gonna be entertaining all the time.

Have some lights pointing up into some of the shrubs or trees really gives depth to your landscaped area for you to enjoy.

And of course, sound, you can always use a small bubbling, a fountain of some kind, either some people put them around their front doors.

There's others that have them on their patios in the back.

Some kind of water movement can cause you nice sound.

Also that's why a lot of people use ornamental grasses.

Ornamental grasses are good substitute for water in the landscape because they have a lot of movement.

Anytime the wind blows, the leaves of the ornamental grasses move, which mimics the movement of water.

And of course in the wintertime they rustle and you know, it's... so you get all of these different seasons of change in your yard without having changed anything.

- Yeah, I love that in the wintertime and the color doesn't bother me, you know, that it's brown.

So I just like that in the landscape.

I think that's good.

- So, that's what you start with.

You gotta think of all of these elements.

And if you look here,   these triangular   shapes are always good.

And then you draw   things with mature sizes   in mind of each plant   and you put them together   as the birds look at it.

But then when you look down   at the bottom, you'll see,   oh, well these three, they   were large tall plants.

These were medium sized plants   and those were small plants,   but you can't tell   that from this view,   but with the other view   does show you that, and you can do that and a lot of these landscape design programs on the computer will actually have plants so you can put in the landscape to do that.

I know the plants, so I don't have to do that to visualize it because I know the plants enough that I know this one's gonna be tall and narrow and I want them what this here and want this shorter one in front and all of that, but you don't have to do that.

A lot of times you don't always want the tall thing in the back.

Sometimes the tall thing can be just in the middle and then the other plants can go around it at different heights.

And it doesn't have to be, you don't have to do stairsteps.

You don't have to do a stair-step at the back, the tall then shorter, and then the ground, no, mix it up.

The more you mix it up, the more depth that's going to be to your landscape and the more you're going to enjoy it.

- Wow.

So you really have to do your homework when it comes down to knowing the mature sizes of your plants.

- Yeah, I mean, you can see plants in the landscape and say, "Oh, I really liked that."

And then you find out, "Oh, that is a little bit too tall for my area."

So maybe what you wanna do is create another area where that could go in your landscape.

But yeah, you just have to do some research when you see some plants and know what the mature size is to be able to draw it on your plan.

- Okay, so since you just mentioned draw, why don't we draw something?

- Sure.

And if we take this, as one of these squares equals two feet, so I've got four feet here.

So if I look at this and I've got a plant that gets up to four feet, which is most shrubs.

So I would be saying, "Well, I wanna do an odd number of them."

So I'm gonna put one here and you usually put a dot to the center, I wanna do two here.

- So what is that in the center for?

- That's the center of where it's planted.

So you can look at this and say, "Oh, well this is four feet."

So two feet in is where I want the center of my plant to be.

And then you can just keep drawing a few of them.

I'm gonna put another one over here.

And there's kind of an angle going here.

- Huh, I see it, okay.

- And then you say, "Well, I want a whole bunch of littler plants, but I think I'm gonna put them over here."

So you draw them in and you got five there, again, threes, fives- - And those smaller.

- Smaller plants.

- So give us an example of a smaller plant that you're gonna be thinking about.

- Oh, I would think that these would...

I would say these are our dwarf boxwood, and these are variegated Liriope.

So then I've got some dark evergreen, and then I've got a seasonal color that's variegated all year long.

And I'll put one more here.

And this is assuming that this is south.

- I've gotta get the directions, okay.

- This is a north.

So I've got hot sun blazing on the front of this, whatever this is.

And so I'm gonna need something that will take the hot sun.

- Which is why it's so important to those directions.

- Right.

- Right.

'Cause our sun is, the sun is brutal here.

- Yes, it is.

- In Shelby County.

- It is.

And say, well, I say, I've got a plant here and it's a little bit bigger.

So I'm gonna say this one gets about six feet round and it's gonna be a hydrangea that takes the sun to give me some color.

And I probably would put some more, balance this out by repeating a few of these over here.

Make sure you keep the right circle you're working with.

[Chris laughing] So there I have three over there and then I might put, again, some more of the small.

Again, nothing in a straight line, very free-formed.

- So you talked about the free form, right?

So how do you put all that together though to create the balance that you were talking about?

- Well, like these are variegated.

So that's why sometimes it's good to do a color.

That's why when I ended up coloring things at the end, because you've got these as one color and you've got these as a different color and sometimes I just put crosses on them.

So you end up with this random pattern that is balanced with the harmony, because you're repeating some of the same plants around.

'Cause if this is obviously, this is not very large.

The smaller it is like maybe we up front, how many plants did we have?

We had one, two, three, four, five, six.

We had basically seven different varieties of plants with the cannas.

- Okay, right, right, okay.

- So now I wouldn't want to do more than five to seven different varieties of different plants with different colors and different textures in this design so that it would be harmonious.

- Yeah, the five and seven is the odd- - And the five to seven is odd number.

- Okay, I got it, okay.

- To go with it.

- Sure.

- And if I have enough room, I might get and repeat my hydrangeas over here if I have enough room.

So then I would end up with two hydrangeas over here to end up with three hydrangeas altogether.

So yeah, and then you draw, I do the filling, then I think there's enough room for something else.

Like maybe some daylilies.

Or some perennials through here.

Maybe you have some spots, leave spots for annuals.

- Right, so that's why you are discussing about using annuals.

Okay, so fill in.

- So that's why you would mix all of that up.

And yet it would be harmonious.

And right now there's one, two, there's three different kinds of plants here right now.

And if I used an annual, that could be four and then another perennial, like a daylily or something that could be five, and I'd be done.

- So how do you determine which plants do well together though?

- Because they all have the same moisture requirements.

- Okay, got it.

- Yeah, and this is gonna...

I'm going for something that likes to be hot and dry.

- And dry, okay.

I got it.

And I guess on your plan here, you would show where, you know, this may be some underground wire and you know, the structures and things like that.

- Yeah, if I had called and got the utilities out, maybe there's a plumbing coming into the house right here.

What if the plumbing is coming into the house right here?

We'll see.

That's why you wouldn't want to put annuals right here.

'Cause it'd be easier to move if you had to get the plumbing in the house.

- I know what somebody is going to be thinking though when they see the plan.

How do you determine what you plant first?

- I usually plant the bigger stuff and work my way down.

It's just a lot easier 'cause it takes more effort and it's early in the morning and I'm wanting to get the large stuff in the ground first.

And as the day is waning on, then it's easier to plant the smaller stuff around it.

- Yeah, and make sure you get all of that watered in then you'd be good to go.

- All of it watered in, yes.

- And of course, you're gonna do your soil tests ahead of time.

- Soil test, see if it needs any fertilizer, then I would highly recommend putting mycorrhiza down.

'Cause there's was symbiotic relationship between the mychorrhiza micro-nutrients in the soil and everything will be happy.

- Everything will be happy.

But Joellen, you just made us happy.

That's pretty cool to see an actual plan in the works.

So thank you much.

We appreciate that.

[upbeat country music] - Native plants.

- Oh, that's another one that there's a lot of confusion about.

When do we say it's a native?

And I can give you a whole bunch of definitions, but I think the one that is most reasonable and the one that would make the most sense   would be a plant that grows   naturally in a particular area,   an ecosystem or a habitat   or region of the country   without indirect or   direct human intervention.

It was there originally.

And if we, when we talk about the eastern United States and we talk about native plants in the eastern part of the country, those are the plants that were here when the Europeans came.

And that's the sort of the standard definition of a native plant in the eastern part of our country, is what was here, growing here naturally when the Europeans first came.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Joellen, this is a Q and A segment.

You ready?

- I'm ready.

- These are great questions.

- Sounds good.

- Here's our first viewer email.

"I have a brown turkey fig   and the fruit goes moldy   "on the inside   before it ripens.

"Why are my figs   not getting ripe?

Please help."

Fab Iron on YouTube.

- Yes.

- Brown turkey fig, delicious fig.

- Delicious.

- You know all about that.

- Gorgeous.

- But they're moldy in the inside before they ripen.

So what do we think about that?

- Well, you know, figs actually ripen from the inside out.

So they might be trying to let it get ripe on the outside, but by the time it does that, and it's staying outside on the tree, it's molding on the inside.

So I would... you usually pick figs and they're still not quite right ripe yet.

So you want to pull them off the tree before they ripen.

But you know, it could be a cultivar problem too.

It could be that it's too wet there because wetness, in the ground, the roots, this is not good for figs.

Figs like to be on the dry side.

- Figs love good well-drained soil as we know.

Again, we talked about the cultivars, some take a couple of more months than others to ripen.

Figs do not like any type of stress.

- No.

- None, right.

So I think a lot of what we talked about could be the issue with that.

And then two, we don't know what time of the year, right?

He's talking about.

- We don't know what cultivars he has.

- We don't know the cultivars, right?

But something else to that, that delays ripening, cool days and short days, right?

Or cool night, short days can delay ripening.

So, it is something to think about.

- It is something to think about.

But more importantly, he needs to start harvesting them before the outside is what he considers ripe.

- Yeah, just a little bit before it gets ripe.

Yeah, I can remember grandma doing that, sitting on the counter for a little bit.

They'd be ready to go.

Ready to go.

All right Fab, we hope that helps you out there.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"Our cherry blossom tree was struck by lightning last year.

"This year it still blossomed.

Can a tree struck by   lightning stay healthy?"

This is Terry from   Conyers, Georgia.

Interesting question.

- Yes.

- So can a tree struck by lightning, can it still grow to be healthy?

- It depends.

Yes, it can.

It depends on how severe the lightning strike was.

I mean, I've seen some trees that were struck by lightning where their bark was blown off and you know, they're immediately like dead, but if this one is still alive, it might have a streak where the lightning went down to the ground in it.

And if it did, I would make sure that I kept that sprayed with insecticides because that's gotta be weak, the tree is weakened, which might be why it bloomed so beautifully.

So you need to make sure the bugs don't enter the bark through that.

So keep that sprayed with an insecticide.

And then of course fertilize it.

- That's what I would do.

- Just once a year in the spring, I wouldn't go crazy with the fertilizer, but you just wanna make sure it's alive.

And I'll only do that for one or two years.

I mean, it's not gonna need any more than that because it's gonna try to heal over if there is a wound in it.

- Yeah, I'll definitely fertilize because yeah, tree struck by lightning, stressed.

It's going to be stressed severely, right?

'Cause the nutrients are gonna get zapped, you know, from the lightning strikes.

So I would get out there as soon as I could with some fertilizer, get it watered in so the roots can take it up and see what happens.

And you're right about the insect pests and diseases.

It's gonna be another issue as well.

So you wanna keep your eye on that for sure.

Because that tree is stressed and weakened from that lightning strike, so.

- And bugs and diseases are opportunistic and they see something in stress and they'll go to that.

- May be a good idea to call a certified arborist, you know.

Have him to come out, you know, take a look at and assess the overall tree health and see if it can be saved.

So I would go that route as well.

But yeah, that tree is going to be stressed severely, but I've seen some of those trees struck by lightning live.

- For many years.

- I sure have.

All right, so thank you for that question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Hello, we found this   weed growing in our yard.

What is it?"

This is Bethany from   Jackson, Tennessee.

Oh, Ms. Bethany,   guess what that is.

Cutleaf evening-primrose is what that is.

- It's a wild flower.

- It's a wildflower,   it looks beautiful.

You know, deep taproot system.

Has the tooth-lobed   alternate leaves, right?

Beautiful flower.

The flower is like a   yellow pinkish color.

- It looks pretty   in the picture.

- I actually love   that flower, right?

But it's versatile.

This wildflower can either be a winter annual, a summer annual or biennial.

- Oh, wow.

- So how about that?

So you can enjoy the beautiful blooms, usually it blooms first in the spring and then later in the fall.

- In the cooler weather.

- In the cooler weather.

Yeah, so you can have those blooms year-round.

Winter annual, summer annual or biennial.

Think about that.

Aren't these wildflowers something else?

- Yes.

- So cutleaf evening-primrose, right?

And I usually see them in pasture areas, side of the road.

I live across from a wooded area.

So I see it on the side of the road there, as you get into the woods, but it's absolutely beautiful.

I like to see it.

- Pretty good.

- So Bethany, you have a beautiful wildflower.

Enjoy it.

Joellen, this was fun.

- Yes, it was.

- Thank you much.

Thank you much.

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.

Joellen showed us how to design a garden bed on paper.

If you want to see how to turn that design into a reality, head on over to familyplotgarden.com.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]