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

I'm Chris Cooper.

It's late summer, and the summer flowers are starting to look a little sad.

Today, we're gonna talk about how to spruce up your planters for fall.

Also, we're going to find out what kind of soil is best for your houseplant.

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 is the Director of Landscape at the University of Memphis.

And Celeste Scott will be joining me later.

Joellen, it's always good to have you here.

- Oh, it's good to be here.

- Let's talk about sprucing up those planters for fall.

- Yes, you know, it's been very hot.

- Yes, it has been.

- Hot summer days are over.

It's time to think fall.

- Yes.

- And you know, the flowers that are in your containers have done their job.

They've been pretty all summer.

The last part of the summer here, it's been really hot and dry all across the country.

So it's time to change out to fall.

Now, there's a lot of things that you can do.

You can, some of the plants might still look good.

But they might be a little overgrown, or they need a little pruning.

And if you wanna keep them in there, you can.

Or if you decide to take everything out and start over again, you can do all of that.

- Right, you have that option.

- Have that option.

- Gotcha, gotcha.

- And if you're gonna dig some, you're gonna take something out, make sure you get, dig enough of it out that you can get the rootballs and everything, because you're gonna be putting something back in there.

- Gotcha.

- And if it, the roots can't hold onto an excess amount of soil, well, you might have to put some extra potting soil in there.

- That's a good point, good point.

- And if you have trouble with, you know, water retention in that container, you might wanna put some soil moist crystals in.

- Okay, okay.

- But if you put some in in the spring, you don't need to because they're still there and active.

And they usually stay in the ground for two, three years, and then you have to put more in.

- I like that.

That was good.

And I would like to add this, when you're inspecting those plants, do look to see if they have any fungal issues.

- Mhm.

- Or insect pests.

- Yeah, yeah, that's true.

And one of the things you've gotta remember, it's the same principle that we talked about, is the thriller, filler, and spiller, you know, for containers.

You gotta have this really nice plant in there that's large and really grabs your attention.

Then, you need something that kind of spills over the side of the container for our spiller.

And then the filler is everything else in between.

- Got it.

- So let's look at some annuals and perennials - Okay.

- That we have available this time of year to put in our containers.

And first off are some annuals like Celosia.

Now Celosia, those are got those big plumes on 'em and they're bright colors like the fall, yellows and oranges and reds.

And so that would be good as a filler.

Coleus, this is the same way.

- Right.

- Coleus have usually a little bit larger plants, but they usually don't take more than one or two of them in a container because they're very large plants.

- They're nice too, I like those.

- But they still do good as fillers.

Marigolds.

- Mm-hmm.

- You know, actually, depending on if you already have marigolds in your container, they may have already fallen over, so they can be a filler or a spiller.

Depending on the age of them and how many you have.

Nice oranges and yellows, good colors for fall.

- Yeah.

- And then of course there are the pansies and violas.

People just, you know, wanna put those in.

And those come in any color you want just about so.

- The ol' reliable standoffs.

- They're very reliable.

And then they're more fillers.

There's some of 'em that are trailing.

And if you put 'em at the side of the pot, they will eventually trail over the side of the pot, but it might take 'em while for that to happen.

- Got it.

- And of course, crotons, they sell a lot of crotons this time of year.

It's a tropical plant.

Big leaves, huge leaves.

Nice, bright colors of yellows and reds, a little bit of orange.

Huge, huge plant.

Nice thriller plant for your container.

Very nice thriller plant.

- Sounds good.

- Again, of course, there's sweet potato vines.

You know, because they're spillers.

They're going over the side of the pot.

Then you've got some perennials.

- Okay - Perennials are asters.

Oh, the fall asters are really, really pretty.

And of course, Dianthus, that's another filler.

Lots of colors.

Reds, whites, pinks, purples.

And then chrysanthemums.

That is a good thriller plant.

- Okay.

- It's a huge plant.

It really grabs your attention.

It's nice to start with, lots of colors to choose from.

Always find them available in the fall.

- Okay.

- Ornamental grass.

Now that's another thriller.

That's a big plant.

It's gonna take over a large area on your container.

- All right.

- And very nice colors and addition to the texture that it grabs through your container.

Rudbeckias, those are fall-blooming Rudbeckias.

Nice yellow, nice daisy-like colors that they have, nice filler plants.

Coral bells.

- Yeah.

- Coral bells, oh my gosh.

You know, they vacillate between a thriller and a filler because they are huge, and they have beautiful colors on their foliage.

And they just do a wonderful job of brightening up your containers.

And of course, if you want something falling over the edge, a little perennial, creeping Jenny.

- Okay.

- That will do that.

And then, of course, there's a few vegetables, like the ornamental cabbage and kale, that they put with pansies all the time.

That's kind of a filler.

And then the ornamental peppers, again, a filler.

- Yeah, those are nice.

- Ornamental peppers are yellows and reds and oranges.

Again, the fall colors.

And then Swiss chard, of course, that's got bright colors.

And you know what, Swiss chard could actually be a thriller, depending on the size of the container 'cause those can get pretty big.

- Yeah, they can.

- Or they can be a filler.

- So why perennials versus annuals in containers?

- Well, when you're, you'll know when the weather changes and we get a frost.

- Okay.

- Because the annuals will, and especially the tropicals, like the croton, they'll be the first to go in the cold weather.

And the others, they will live through the winter.

- Okay, I like it.

- In the container.

- All right.

So can we talk a little bit about drainage?

- Sure.

- All right.

So what do you think about drainage?

We gotta make sure we have a hole at the bottom of the container.

- Yeah, there definitely needs to be a hole at the bottom of the container.

Hopefully, you've got that worked out.

But if you're putting in new ones, make sure there's a hole in the bottom of the container.

You might wanna make sure that if you're gonna put it on the ground, you might have to put it up on some rocks or something.

Because if the hole is in the bottom, but the container sits on top of the ground, there's not, the water is gonna have a harder time getting out of the container.

And you don't want the water to sit in the container.

If you want to, you can, people do put rocks, a layer of rocks, an inch or two of rocks in the bottom of the container just to help out with the drainage so that the soil isn't so soggy for the plants that are in there.

- Got it, that is good.

So let's say we have a early frost.

Can we cover those containers?

- Oh yes.

- Can we do that?

How would you do that?

- I, what, I would use a tarp.

- Okay.

- And I would go ground to ground.

- Ground to ground.

- Or if it's up against the house, take it around to the house from ground up and around to the house, because the house is gonna stay a little bit warm.

It's gonna give you a little bit of heat for that container.

Yes, I would do that.

- Okay, and you can also bring it indoors if you like.

- You could.

- Bring it in the garage maybe?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Okay, or in the home.

- Yeah, 'cause, you know, a lot of times some areas of the country, the cold snap doesn't last very long.

- Right, right.

- And you know, we have, you have a lot of holidays, fall holidays that you might like your container to look nice.

And if you have the choice of being able to save it, rather than having to change it out.

- I like it.

- You know, you can do that.

And of course you also pumpkins and gourds.

- Yes, yes.

- And scarecrows and you know, webbing for holidays.

- Corn stalks.

- Corn stalks.

All of that can be add, can add to your container.

- I think that'll be so nice.

We just have to wait 'til fall gets here, right?

- Yes.

- Thank you for that information, Joellen.

Appreciate that.

Appreciate it much.

[upbeat country music] - It's late summer and we are 16 weeks to the day into our experiment here with five different kinds of mulches.

We have a few more results that we can tell.

The flowers have done amazingly well.

The zinnias and the sunflowers, we have been picking them, taking them home, enjoying them indoors now for several weeks.

Our vegetables struggled because they were planted in extremely wet conditions, but our watermelons are doing really well.

We have several large watermelons that we're just waiting to ripen up, so we can pick 'em and take 'em home.

We've had one so far.

It was very, it was good to eat.

As part of the experiment, we're keeping track of how much time we spend weeding each section of the garden.

And so here are results so far.

This is after 16 weeks, weeks or four months.

We got a couple of really low mulch sections with about a half hour over four months.

That's pretty good.

All the mulches have performed well.

The control group, that's the section that has no mulch, four hundred and seventy minutes or about eight hours to weed that.

And as you can see, we don't go in and weed right away.

We kind of do it every couple weeks, we'll go weed.

So the control group is due for another weeding.

It'll probably take us an hour or two to weed that little bit so.

So far, we're seeing some big differences when it comes to weeding and, but we're seeing generally good performance out of all of the sections.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Celeste, we have soil on the table today.

So what are we gonna talk about?

- Yeah, so I wanted to do, you know, a quick demo just to show people what our soil products are made of and what the differences are between them.

You know, you go to the store, and you see all these different specialty mixes, potting mixes, and you oftentimes wonder, well what's the big difference?

- Right.

- Right, well there is a pretty drastic difference.

- Okay.

- In specialty mixes for a variety of different plants.

So today, just kind of wanted to highlight some of those and help people know what's inside the bag before they buy.

- And we're talking about houseplant media, right?

- Yes, yes.

- Okay.

- Media for house plants particularly.

And so I guess we'll just jump right into it.

So basically all of those are gonna have some mixture of some of these basic components that we have right here.

This is peat moss.

And you can see how fine and dry this is.

And this is going to be one of the base components of really the majority of our soil mixes.

- Okay.

- So it's hydrophobic by nature, means it repels water.

However, if we put water in here, mix it in really well, and help that moisture get into these very fine fibers, once it's moistened, it will have excellent retention of water.

So you can moisten it easily, and then it will hold that water and make it available to the plants.

- Okay.

- And then another attribute that it has, which seems a bit counterintuitive, is that it has pretty good drainage because of the very fine particles.

- Okay.

- Another thing that we'll find oftentimes in some of our soil mixes, is this product called perlite.

And you can tell here it's very, very fine.

- Yeah.

- It's almost like a ground up styrofoam, I guess, if you will, is what it looks like in texture.

And so perlite's added to mixes, what they provide to that mix is improved drainage.

- Good.

- And then a third product here is the vermiculite.

And again, it has a bit of a different texture.

It's almost corky feeling.

- Yes.

- It has the ability to absorb moisture, and it could also be used in a mix to help improve drainage, just by creating some space inside that media and allowing channels for water to go down through there.

I didn't bring any today, but other things that you might commonly see in your mixes would be shredded barks.

- Ahh.

- Sand even, and in some cases, some more unique type products like coconut fibers and things of that nature.

So a lot of different base products that go into making some of these specialty mixes.

And so before we get into talking about the mixes, I'd like for us to just talk a little bit about what are the basic jobs that a potting media - Okay.

- Needs to provide to a houseplant, right?

So we've kind of mentioned it already.

Of course it needs to be able to accept and hold water.

- Yes, of course.

- If the media can't hold water, then it's not available to the root zone of those plants, right?

- Right.

- Another thing that's tied very closely with that same concept, is nutrient uptake.

That nutrients is dissolved in what we call a soil solution.

And then that solution is taken up through the roots.

- Good, that's good.

- So those are the two basic jobs that we're really looking for these things to do.

Other kind of supporting aspects would be stabilization.

- Okay.

- So when we have larger foliage plants, some of those actually could benefit from a heavier soil media to help anchor their roots and hold them upright.

And then the final thing I'd like to mention there as far as their basic jobs is aeration.

- Yeah, so important.

- Yeah, some plants actually, believe it or not, don't need soil at all, so lots of different options and we wanna make sure that our plants are being delivered the things that they need to thrive.

- Okay.

- And that's-- - So before you get into that, so soil-less.

- Oh yes, good point.

Okay, so I hope you've noticed that we've been referring to our medias as media.

- Okay.

- And not soil, okay?

So when we, when you hear someone say a soil-less media, that means that there is no native soil in these products.

- Okay.

- Okay?

So peat moss is not soil.

It's peat moss.

[Celeste laughs] If it had soil in it, well I'll say some advantages of a soil-less media or is that we have better control over the density of that product, better control over water retention and aeration.

And then also we know that soil-less medias are disease and weed free.

- Ah, key!

- And really that's the number one.

- Yeah, okay.

- Super, super important.

So if you just went out in your yard and, you know, dug up a couple buckets of soil and tried to plant your houseplants in them, you probably would not have the success that you have in mind.

- Good point, Celeste.

- That you'd be looking for.

- Good, good.

- So that's what we're referring to when we're saying soil-less medias.

- 'Cause we get it a lot these days.

Soil-less media, okay.

- Yes, yes.

So much, so thanks for asking that.

Okay great, so we'll just jump in to a few of the different mixes.

Now there's lots of brands out there on the market, right?

I mean, all different kinds of brands, all different types of mixes.

But I've picked four to share with everybody today that I feel like are pretty common.

So lots of folks grow African violets.

All right, if you're not familiar with African violets, know that they really prefer to be watered from underneath.

They don't like to have a lot of moisture on their leaves.

And so this is the product that we're looking at for African violet.

- Looks good and rich.

- It does look rich.

And let me kind of do this so you can see the texture of it.

So if you can look in here, you can actually see that we have quite, the base, of course is a peat moss, but we have quite a bit of bark in here as well.

Like shredded pieces of bark, finally shredded, you know, not big pieces, but finally shredded bark.

You can see these white dots here.

That's perlite.

- Perlite, okay.

- Having that component of the peat moss allows this mix to be able to wick moisture up from the base of that African violet container.

The next one on our list here is a succulent mix.

And it has a much different, even color, not only texture, but color.

You can see this one's a lot lighter, a lot drier.

And I'm going to say that probably, you know, 98% of that, the base is peat moss.

And you know, depending on what you're doing, you could use a succulent mix for your cactus.

But if you've been out there shopping, you will notice that they even have a specialty mix for cactus.

And you can see this one is much darker in color and it actually has a heavier feel to it than the other one did.

And so I know that you can't tell it, but this one actually has quite a bit of sand in the mix.

- Okay.

- So what is sand doing?

Sand is a very coarse particle.

And so it's providing, again, drainage.

So even more drainage in this mix than what we were finding in the succulent mix.

And then the last one that I wanted to share with y'all today.

This is really unique.

So this is a mix that you might use for orchids.

If you're re-potting orchids up.

It's very, very coarse.

It has no peat moss in it.

This is all bark, shredded bark, largely shredded bark.

And then let me pick up one of these pieces so you can see here, this is charcoal.

- Ain't that something, yeah, charcoal.

- Yeah, and so that also does a lot for preventing fungus development.

So like we talked about before, orchids really need excellent aeration.

They do not want their roots to be in a heavy-type media that's going to retain moisture for any amount of time.

You could act, some orchids actually could survive just on misting.

- Mm.

- So just misting those roots periodically.

But if you, again, you know, it's a big orchid, you need something that needs an anchor, you know, to hold it up, and you're doing those in pots, that would be an excellent option.

And so with that, I'd like to point out that there's lots of university resources for mix your own recipes.

- Yes.

- For specialty soil mixes.

- How about that?

- Yes.

- And of course we have those links on our website.

- Excellent.

I'm glad that you mentioned that.

- Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that as well.

That's some good stuff, Celeste.

- Good.

- Good stuff.

- All right, thank you much.

- Yes sir, you're welcome, any time.

[upbeat country music] - This time of year, which is in September, is the best time of year to dig up and divide your spring-blooming or summer-blooming perennials.

And right here today, we're gonna be digging up this really overgrown, spread out big canna.

You wanna come out a little bit from the crown so you're not chopping through the part that you wanna keep.

Some of the other varieties you can dig up are daylilies, Verbena, Phlox, yarrow.

There's a lot.

Anything that blooms in the spring can be dug up and divided this time of year.

Oh yeah, look at there.

We got three big nice stalks.

Now I did kind of cut through one of them here, but that's okay.

You know, you've still got a good viable crown here going on in a bunch of tubers.

So now you're ready to transplant that to another area of the garden.

And because by this time of year, you know, the top has kind of done its thing, more or less.

You can go ahead and cut this off.

Now I've got some clippers, or you can just do this.

There you go.

Now you're ready to put it in another part of the garden.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Joellen here's our Q and A segment.

You ready?

- I'm ready.

- These are some great questions.

- Yes, they are.

- Here's our first viewer email.

"I've grown tiger lilies for years, "but this summer I have little black bugs all over the plants "sucking their life out.

What are these?"

And this is Silver from Memphis, Tennessee.

So Joellen, what are these?

- Well, they, you know, lilies don't get a whole lot of problems.

And as she said, she's had 'em for a while and she hadn't had problems.

It's most likely because this, the heat was so stressed this year, I would say they might be aphids.

- That's what I'm thinking.

I think they're aphids.

You know, there seems to be an aphid species for every plant species - Yes.

- That's out there, you know what I mean?

- Yes, there is.

- And they have piercing sucking mouthparts and of course they're feeding on plant sap.

- Yeah.

- Right.

Here's your indicator.

If you see honeydew, then you probably have aphids.

- Yeah, and there might be ants that are there too.

- Yes, good point, yes.

So what would you do about 'em?

How would you control the?

- Oh, you could just wash them.

- Yeah.

- Wash 'em off.

- Blast 'em off with water.

- Yeah, and I mean, if you have to do an insecticide, I would might just do insecticidal soap.

- Insecticidal soap will work.

- Something.

- Right, insecticidal soap will work, neem oil will work.

- Yup.

- Pay attention when using the neem oil, read the label of course.

- And watch the heat.

- Yes.

- It's just.

- That's why I said make sure you read the label on that neem oil.

- Yeah, you can't spray stuff like that in the heat.

- That's right.

But yeah, just blasting 'em off of water.

- Yeah.

- I think would be fine.

- Yeah.

- And then how about this?

Plant some of those pollinator flowers that are out there that encourage those beneficials to come in, and maybe the beneficials will take care - Of the aphids.

- The aphids.

- Yes they will.

- Think about, you know, lady beetles.

- Mm-hmm.

- And such, so I think that might help, Silver.

So thank you for that question.

Hope that helps you out.

Here's our next viewer email.

"What is this curly growth on my azalea leaves?"

And this is Mary from Wilson County, Texas.

So Ms. Mary, I know somebody who did a whole lot of work with azaleas back in the day.

- Back in the day.

- I'll let you take it, Joellen.

- Yeah, that's azalea leaf gall.

And it is a fungus.

- Mm-hmm.

- And you need to, it really doesn't hurt the plant 'cause it's on the leaves.

The problem is if you leave it there, the spores come out, it turns white.

That's the spores, and it'll just keep getting on all the rest of the leaves.

- Right.

- So when I had an internship, it was my job in the summer to pick off all the azalea leaf galls on acres of azaleas.

And let me tell you, it took a long time.

- I was about to say, it took forever, didn't it?

- It took a very long time.

But we had to get them off before they turned white in the spores period.

And every year, they were getting less and less of them because of that.

So yes, when you see them, just pick them off.

They'll be, that's the best way to get rid of them.

- Pick 'em off.

But you don't have to use a fungicide.

- No, uh-huh.

- I wouldn't use a fungicide.

So just get out there like Joellen said and just.

- Pull 'em off.

- Just pull 'em off, pull 'em off.

- Yeah.

- Have fun with that, all right?

- Yeah.

- Thank you for that question, Mary.

We appreciate that.

Here's our next viewer email.

"I am being invaded.

"I have never had these before.

What are they, and what should I do?"

And this is Karen from Germantown, Tennessee.

So Joellen just happens to know a little bit about this 'cause I've actually - Yes.

- Seen this a time or two, believe it or not, in Germantown.

- Oh, you're kidding.

- And some other parts of Memphis.

Genista broom caterpillars.

- Wow.

- Genista broom caterpillars, which when they become adults, are genista broom moth, right?

- Oh okay.

- So the young actually feed in groups.

They feed together, they can skeletonize the leaves - Ah.

- Of those plants, right?

And those plants that I'm talking about, are plants that are in the pea family.

- Ah.

- Right?

- So we kind of talked about this before.

That plant to me looks like a baptisia.

- Yeah.

- Right, which is in the pea family.

- So, you know, there's a lot of pea family trees, shrubs, everything.

- Mm-hmm.

- So just be careful they don't go from one to the other.

- That's right, that's right.

So again.

- We're talking about redbuds.

- That's in the pea family.

- Yeah, redbuds, right.

That's right, look at you.

Yeah, that's right.

So again, they're gonna feed together, right, en masse as young larvae, skeletonize those leaves.

But they can also form a web, right?

So within that web, right, it's gonna be the foliage that they're gonna be eating on or chewing on.

So you mentioned something that I think you could do.

- If I see webs like that and I see caterpillars in them, I'm thinking bird food.

[Chris laughs] And so I would just, you know, scrape 'em off or just - Open it up.

- Knock 'em down, knock, knock, knock.

And when they're down, you know, they kind of give off this a stress, little distress thing and birds know that and they'll come and eat 'em.

I think that would be the best way to do it.

But if she really wants to, I mean she could spray Bt on it.

- Yeah, Bt.

- But you've gotta, the webbing, you've gotta get around the webbing.

- Right, right, that's a good point.

- So you've gotta get rid of the webbing one way or the other.

I would let Mother Nature have some food.

- Ah, there you go.

So just open the webs up, right, because yeah, if you can catch them before they form the webs, then yeah, Bt is something that you could use, you know, for sure.

Neem oil.

- Neem oil, yeah.

- You know, or something that you can use.

Read and follow the label on that.

But yeah, just let Mother Nature have her way, right?

- Yeah.

- Open it up let the birds come in, let the wasps, some parasitic wasps will probably come in and take care of those as well.

So there you go, Ms. Karen.

I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, she's being invaded, right?

So thank you so much.

Joellen, fun as always.

- As always.

- As always, thank you much.

Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is questions@familyplotgarden.com 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 learn more about the plants Joellen talked about or find out more about different kinds of houseplant media, 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]