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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Frogs and toads eat bugs.

Lots of bugs.

Today we are going to learn   all about these beneficials.

Also, songbirds are   great to have around,   but sometimes they   are a nuisance.

We're going to give some ideas   on how to discourage them.

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 Mary Smith.

Mary is the Backyard Wildlife Curator at Lichterman Nature Center, and Mr. D is here.

- Good to be here.

- Thanks for joining us.

Guess what we have on the table here, Mr. D. [Mary laughs] [Chris laughs] - We got some toady frogs, I think.

[Mary and Chris laugh] - We're gonna talk about frogs and toads, and we're glad to have you, Mary.

- I'm glad to be back.

I'm glad to be talking today about these beneficial amphibians and I brought some of my friends, some frogs and toads, and we're gonna talk a little bit about why you want them in your garden.

- Let's go ahead and pick up on that right now.

- Frogs and toads are misunderstood.

They're in the group of amphibians and amphibians have a typical life cycle that's tied to water.

All the amphibians, frogs, toads, salamanders,   are gonna start out as   eggs laid in the water   and then they're gonna go   through the tadpole stage until eventually most of them come out of the water as adult frogs.

Like I said, some of the stuff that they're misunderstood about is, one of the things we get all the time is, "Don't pick up a toad, you'll get warts," right?

- I remember that as a kid, right, hearing that.

[laughs] - Yeah, me too.

I handle toads, I don't have any warts on my hands.

But that's a myth.

Warts are caused by a virus, not by frogs and toads.

But what that myth comes from is toads are covered with bumps and warts and that's actually one of the ways that they protect themselves.

If, say, a raccoon or a curious dog is going up to a toad, they can actually secrete a toxin from those large glands right behind their eyes, and so that's one of the ways they protect themselves.

- Interesting.

Now, what kind of frogs and toads do you have for us today though?

- A lot, basically everything can be called a frog.

But they kind of start to break down into different families and so I brought representatives of most of what we see in the Mid-South.

The typical frogs, like the bullfrog, leopard frog, those guys have long back legs and they leap.

They're not hoppers like our true toads, have shorter, stubbier legs, lumpy and bumpy on their backs, and they hop.

And then I also brought a treefrog-- - (Chris) Yeah, which is neat.

- Yeah, we were talking about tree frogs.

A lot of people think they're a tropical species, but we do get tree frogs here in the Mid-South and this is a representative of the green tree frog.

And then, lastly, I brought along a spadefoot, which is one that a lot of people probably have in their gardens, but they don't see them because they stay buried in their substrate most of the time.

- Now let's explain to the folks, especially gardeners, how are they beneficial though?

- Great, so they're beneficial in a number of different ways.

The one that we think of and probably most gardeners appreciate is that they eat a lot of insects.

Bullfrogs, for example, will eat anything that moves, anything they can fit in their mouth, and so they're really beneficial that way.

But frogs and toads can absorb things through their skin.

Things like pollutants, or they're susceptible to different funguses, so they can be a big indicator that something might be going on in your yard, as far as maybe there's a, you're using a pesticide or something that's affecting the amphibian population, so they can be good environmental indicators as well.

And then, of course, what I like about frogs and toads too, especially starting in the spring, is their sounds.

Especially warm nights.

That's when we'll start to hear things like the tree frogs, and then the bullfrogs have that call where they get their name.

They sound kind of like the sound of a cow or a bull, and that's how they get their names.

Springtime is a great chorus of frogs and toads.

- I'm sure, Mr. D., you probably hear some of those bullfrogs out your way, don't ya?

- I do hear some of those bullfrogs and I've eaten some of those bullfrogs before too.

- Oh, wow.

- Yeah, they're very tasty.

- Oh, wow, how 'bout that?

[laughs] - Yeah.

[laughs] That's what we were talking about.

If you've eaten frog legs, most of the time, they come from an American bullfrog because it's one of the largest frogs, native frogs that we get in North America.

- It's good to know.

How do we attract those frogs and toads in our gardens?

- I have a couple tips on attracting these, and the first one is, we think about what kind of habitat are we providing.

When we talk about their life cycle, they're all tied to water, so if you have some sort of water source or protecting our watersheds and our wetlands, those are definitely beneficial.

Some other things you can do, I brought along here, almost all of our gardeners will have some sort of pot.

Maybe it's got a crack in it or it's not really useful anymore as a pot.

You can make it into what we call a toad abode.

[Chris and Mary laugh] What you do is, if you've got one of these clay pots and a couple nice rocks, just kind of prop it up and that gives a little respite for the toad to hide out during the heat of the spring and summertime.

If you have a pot and it has a nice hole right here, you can, you don't even need the rocks.

The toad can get in that way.

- How 'bout that?

What do y'all feed the toads and frogs out at Lichterman Nature Center?

- Lichterman Nature Center, their diet is insects and mainly crickets.

- (Chris) Mainly crickets.

- And sometimes mealworms too.

The toads, which a lot of our kids get a big kick out of this, sometimes are pretty good at eating in front of people.

This is an American toad, and they're, basically they're looking for things that might be moving.

And what they use is those kind of bulging eyes, which is another characteristic of the toads is they have kind of these big, bulging eyes versus the frogs.

But they're gonna use those eyes.

They go into their head and help push that food to the back of their mouth.

- (Chris) Wow, how 'bout that?

Now, we talked a little earlier.

You did mention that the bullfrogs will consume other frogs too, though, right?

- (Mary) That's right.

- (Mr. D.) Oh!

He got him.

[laughs] - Bullfrogs are really known to eat anything they can fit in their mouths, so they'll eat other frogs, they'll definitely eat a lot of insects, and they're gonna eat things as large as birds, as long as they can fit 'em in their mouth, and they're opportunist feeders, so whatever they can catch.

- (Chris) Whatever they can catch, they-- - Yeah.

- (Chris) Oh my goodness.

[Chris laughs] - (Mary) Did you see his eyes closing?

- (Chris) Yeah, I just saw that.

I think that is so neat.

I'm sure the kids actually enjoy that, don't they?

- They do, yeah.

- Wow.

Now, if you were a kid and you wanted to catch a frog or whatever, what's the best way to do that?

- The best way to do that is to look for the right environment.

I find them sometimes in my garden, around the house.

You're looking for the right sort of environment.

They aren't gonna be in a dry field.

They need some sort of moisture.

And then just kind of listening for them.

If you're hearing them, they're definitely around, and then you always want to let 'em go after you kind of observe them for a while, and let 'em back in their environment so they can finish eating and potentially find a mate.

- 'Cause that's what they want to do, right?

Find a mate.

[laughs] - Yeah.

- So those are some of those calls that we hear, right?

Some of those sounds?

I mean, is that why they're making those sounds?

- Absolutely, those sounds, most of the time, they're trying to attract a mate.

Sometimes it's territorial, trying to keep another male away.

But most of the time, it's to attract a mate.

- All right, so there you go, Mr. D. Those are the sounds you're hearing out there.

- This toad is extremely unhappy because he just saw his buddy eating a meal, and he sees these worms over here-- - He does.

[laughs] - In this little canister and he's trying to get to 'em, so he's very unhappy.

- Yeah, let's see if we can bring him out and give him a, give him one too.

But they're, what they're doing is they're looking for movement, so he's seeing those mealworms move around and that's what he's, that's what he wants.

- (Chris) How much can they eat, though?

- (Mary) They'll eat quite a bit.

Now, we kind of don't want to overfeed them at the nature center, but they're opportunist feeders just like the bullfrog, so toads, they're gonna eat maybe 8 to 10 crickets every day if you give them that many.

But they're really beneficial 'cause they're not just eating crickets.

They're eating-- - (Chris) Wow, there it goes.

- (Mary) Any of the insects.

- (Mike) Another one bites the dust.

[Chris and Mary laugh] - Yeah, they get 'em pretty quick, too.

It doesn't take long.

- They are, yep.

- How 'bout that?

Mary, we appreciate that.

Thank you for bringing the frogs and toads.

- Thanks for having me.

- Keeping us entertained.

They're entertaining us.

[Mary laughs] How 'bout that?

So we thank you much.

[upbeat country music] Heirloom, and of course we hear this one a lot.

- Yeah, usually we think about heirloom plants as being those, and a lot of people disagree about exactly what the age has to be of the heirloom seed, how long that has to be around.

But, typically, I think, about 50 years.

If the seed has been out,   we have a lot of old   heirloom varieties of vegetable   that have been around--   - (Chris) Tomatoes, of course   you hear all of the time.

- Yeah, like Brandywine.

Yeah, that's the one.

- Cherokee Purple, yeah.

- Corn has been around and watermelon seeds, you know.

And then, there's heirloom flower seed as well, that's been out for a very long time, and usually typical of about 50 years.

And, they're usually seed that will breed true from seed to seed.

That's how they become, open-pollinated, that's what that means, that they will set seed that are true from generation to generation.

In other words, they're stable over time in different generations.

That's why they have been carried on by people who have brought, you know.

My grandmother always didn't pick half of a pea row of her black-eyed peas or her green beans.

She'd let 'em go to seed, and those were the old heirloom varieties that her grandmother had, and that's how she knew it would be the same bean or the same pea.

So, that's why we really kinda cherish those old varieties, 'cause they have a lot of tradition and family memories, and they're good varieties, a lot of 'em.

- (Chris) Yeah, passed down from generation to generation.

- Yeah, exactly.

[upbeat country music] All right, Mr. D., let's talk about songbirds as pests.

- Yeah, that's kinda-- - They can be pests.

- Right, and that's kinda, it's kind of bad that sometimes they're pests because we try to attract 'em.

We have bird feeders and, but they can be a pest, especially when you are growing fruit.

Blueberries, especially.

They will completely wipe out your blueberry planting.

What I try to do is plant enough for me and the birds.

- (Chris) [laughs] Share.

- Try to beat 'em to it.

And I try to beat 'em to it.

But there are things that will give you some relief.

The best thing and the only thing that I know of that is pretty much 100% effective is exclusion using bird netting.

If you have small   enough plants,   two or three plants that   you can put posts around   and completely cover   it with bird netting,   real thin netting,   then that will work.

Even then, you may have one that somehow gets in there every once in a while.

Exclusion is the only thing that I know of that will completely work.

One thing you can't do is you can't kill 'em.

You can't shoot 'em.

- (Chris) I was gonna ask you about that.

- Songbirds are protected by law.

- (Chris) They're protected.

- I'd say to the 12-year-old with the 20-gauge shotgun, BB gun, forget it.

You can't.

- (Chris) Don't work.

- You can't shoot songbirds.

There are other birds that you can, that are not classified as songbirds.

Some of the blackbirds, cowbirds are considered pests and they're not considered songbirds even though they sing.

But some, you know, you need to check local regulations as far as that's concerned.

But exclusion is by far the best way to keep 'em out if you can figure, if you don't have a very, very large planting.

A very large planting, then you need to go with, you can use sounds, frightening devices.

There are propane cannons   that you hook up   to a propane tank   and every so often,   it'll build up pressure   and then it will make a   loud noise, exploding noise.

Owls, the plastic owls,   you can put them around.

Mylar tape, you can, that flashes in the sunlight.

You can hang that around in different places.

Any time, with all of those, you have to change it from time to time.

A radio blaring, [Chris laughs] especially with country music, [Chris and Mary laugh] will chase 'em-- - Country music.

[laughs] - Will do a pretty good job of chasing 'em off.

And you can switch channels.

But you've got to put a radio in a, I have a radio in a, like an outdoor patio storage box to keep it dry and it's pretty effective.

Because the voices change.

- (Chris) The inflections and-- - From the DJ to the music and all that, and so it's not something that they, it lasts pretty good because it's not something they get, can get used to as easily.

- Yeah, plastic snakes?

- Plastic snakes, any kind of predator.

If you can find a plastic red-tailed hawk that you can set up on a tree, but, and then the owl, you know, move 'em around because if they see it settin' there all the time, they're gonna, "He's not gonna bother me."

But those are all things that you, to be successful, you've got to be persistent and you've gotta be, use a lot of different things.

Diverse and, and then, you know, you're gonna have some damage.

Be prepared to tolerate a little bit of damage.

- Now what about when they start building nests?

How do you go about dealing with them then?

- The only time that I see nests as a problem is if they stop up your gutters and things like that.

Now, I have seen swallows, they'll build a mud nest up around your light fixtures   in your garage   and your carport.

That's where the snakes   really come in handy.

If, where the nest is,   close to where the nest is,   if you put a good   lifelike-looking rubber snake or a live snake for that matter, up there, that will, I think that will, they will think twice about doing that again, and I've actually, I've wrapped a snake around the light fixture that swallows kept building their nest in and they didn't do that anymore.

Of course, you have neighbors that, folks, friends that come in that almost have a heart attack when they look up there and see a snake up there.

But it keeps the birds out.

But that's probably the best thing for a nest.

Wherever a nest, I mean that's a stationary location and if you put something there that scares the bird, that should do the trick.

- Do they, any structural damage that you know of that they may do or cause?

- Woodpeckers.

Woodpeckers can create, can damage your, if you have a wooden Western cedar house or a wooden house, they can get out there and they can, they can peck holes in it, and most of the time what they're doing is a mating ritual.

But the same thing.

Owls or-- - (Chris) Something that you can move.

- Yeah, something to make some noise because they're relatively shy.

Woodpeckers are shy.

But a radio or something like that can help.

- You like that radio deal, huh?

[laughs] - I like the radio deal.

I've got to give a-- - With the country music.

[laughs] - Yeah, yeah, my, Dave Kitty gave me that idea when he was successful at keeping raccoons from eating his sweet corn with a radio in his garden.

So Dave, thank you for that idea because I use it all the time.

- How 'bout that?

- Yeah, I'm a, I guess I'm a music fan.

[all laugh] - He's a music fan.

Before we wrap it up, Mary, is there anything that you want to add about songbirds or do you know much about them?

- Sure, yeah, the only thing I would add is if you're gonna discourage the nesting, do it right when you first start seeing them nest, before they start laying eggs, things like that, and it's just like Mr. D. was saying about the, against the law to kill the birds.

You can't really remove those nests either, once they have eggs and young in them, so get your fake predators out there early.

- So it has to be done early.

- (Mr. D.) Yep, they are protected.

Just remember that.

- So yeah, you can't shoot 'em, so we definitely want to bring that up again.

- That's right.

- We appreciate that information, Mr. D. - Good deal.

[gentle country music] - Okay, I wanna show you a technique for hostas called raw sizing.

Many hostas only want to produce one plant each year, and they get bigger and bigger.

But, to make them double in size, you really wanna get pups on 'em.

So, I'm gonna show you how to do that.

When the pip first comes up in the spring, take a razor blade or a sharp knife and come straight down on the pip and cut halfway down 'til you get-- There's a basal plate just under there.

You'll feel it, it's a little bit hard, and cut through it.

And then, make another one the other way.

So, you've made a X or a cross right in the top of it, okay.

Then, by splitting that basal plate, you'll get a pup to come off of each one of them.

You'll get four, and then you can divide those and move them if you want to.

Or, just let it be a bigger hosta.

[gentle country music] - Here's our Q & A session.

Mary, you jump in and help us out, all right?

- Okay.

- Here's our first viewer email.

"While I was diggin'   in my garden,   "I found this pupa.

"I have a feeling   it's not a good bug.

Am I right?"

And this is from Mike   from Ringgold, Georgia.

I can tell you this   though, Mr. Mike.

You know what I think?

That's definitely   a pupa of a moth.

Now, I don't know if   that's from a cutworm or something else like that, but here's a good way to find out.

I would put that pupa in a cup with some moist soil.

- See what comes out.

It could be-- - Poke a couple of holes in it.

- Could be a hornworm.

- Keep that soil moist and you'll find out what comes out later on in the spring.

- It could be a beetle, too.

- Ah, it could be a beetle.

- It looks similar to beetle pupa, as well.

- There you have it, Mr. Mike.

- Check it out.

- Yeah, do a little investigating.

I would try that out.

Just put it in a cup, some moist soil, poke some holes in it, see what comes out.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Should I prune an   old Osage orange   or just leave it alone?"

And this is from Elizabeth   in Byhalia, Mississippi.

Look, look, look how he's lookin', Mary.

[Chris and Mary laugh] All right.

You wouldn't prune it?

- It's been my experience, leave 'em alone.

- (Chris) Leave 'em alone, right?

- I mean, you know, they're,   they are tough, tough plants.

- (Chris)   Thorns.

- The bodark is another   name for the Osage orange.

It's a very tough iron wood.

You can make a fence post   out of that plant right there and it'll last-- - That's what they used to use back in the day, I remember my grandpa said, for barbed wire.

- Well, just about.

- Yeah, 'cause of the thorns on it.

- But 30 years, it'll last as long, it's one of the only, there's two or three wooden black locusts in the heart of a cedar, the red cedar, and Osage orange will last 30 years.

That's the life of a steel fence post.

[Chris and Mary laugh] So prune it if it's, the limbs are in your way, if you're mowing under it, and you know, you can prune it.

You're not gonna hurt it.

You're definitely not gonna hurt it to prune it because they are one tough plant.

- (Chris) They are tough, yeah.

- They are tough trees.

And I've, they're really good if you wanna like, try to make you some hiking sticks and things like that.

My old Vo-AG teacher had a paddle made out of one.

- (Chris) Oh my goodness.

[laughs] - And that is extremely painful, I can tell you.

- (Chris) Oh my goodness.

- He was very proud.

It's a pretty wood.

I've seen duck calls made of Osage orange.

The wood is kind of the orangey color.

There's a lot of things you can do with it, but as far as a way to prune and train an Osage orange, I'm not aware of anything that, out there.

What about you?

- Anything?

A disease, crossing, rubbing, I'll take those out and I'll leave the rest.

Because it is tough, it is tough.

- I had a, when I moved down to Mobile in the mid-'80s, somebody brought one of the fruit into my office and,   "What is this?"

You know, "I found this   on the side of the road."

You know what I mean.

"What is it?"

"Osage orange."

- (Chris)   An Osage orange.

- They're very common down   in the southern part of,   even southern part of   Alabama and Georgia and Mississippi and, but they grow up in our, up in this area, up in the Mid-South.

- (Chris) I've seen 'em here as well.

- 100 miles north of Memphis, we've got 'em.

There you have it, Ms. Elizabeth.

Be careful, all right?

Here's our next viewer email.

"My crape myrtle   "has quarter-size white   patches on the branches.

"Is this anything   to worry about?

"I thought it may be because   of all the rain we have had.

"I had thoughts about   cutting the branches   back to the knuckles."

And this is from Terry.

- (Mike)   Terry, that'd be crape murder.

- Yes, murder!

[laughs] - I'm not sure that's legal, that's crape murder.

- Cuttin' it back to the knuckles.

- Crape murder.

- So what do you think?

- For white patches, I'm gonna refer to you.

- Again, if we had a picture, we could definitely tell you.

White patches.

- (Mr. D.)   Could be scale.

- Crape myrtle   bark scale maybe?

'Cause it actually,   you can see it in patches   on some of those   branches and stems,   so that's the first thing   that comes to my mind.

'Cause everything else, of course, if it was black, we would say black sooty mold, and that would be because of aphids or the crape myrtle bark scale, but I'm thinking that's what that is.

- Yeah, and I wouldn't cut it off.

Just try to control the scale.

And right now, what would you recommend as the-- - Imidacloprid, of course.

You can put that in the ground late April, May, into July.

It's systemic.

The roots will take it up and of course that will help with the scales.

And a lot of people have been treating it because the pressure from the scales has pretty much gone down a little bit the past few years.

Because there are people treating for it.

But that's what I would do.

But without having a picture, I mean, that's the first thing that comes to my mind.

- Yeah, you got to at least send pictures.

Pictures help.

- Yeah, and cuttin' it back to the knuckles, actually, somebody actually told me this.

If you cut 'em back to the knuckles and they have scales, maybe you eliminate some of the scales.

- Maybe you do.

- Maybe you do.

But I just think that's a bad practice though.

- Well, I've seen research that said that if you prune crape myrtles very, very heavily, they'll have a lot of blooms on 'em.

If you don't prune 'em at all, they'll have a lot of blooms on 'em.

- (Chris) So there you have it.

- I tend to go on the don't prune 'em very much.

- (Chris) Yeah, I don't prune mine at all.

- Train 'em.

They are a tree.

I like a crape myrtle to be a tree, not a bush.

- (Chris) I'm with you.

I'm with you.

There you have it, Terry.

Here's our next viewer email.

"About this time every year,   "I see wild onions   popping up in my garden.

"Is this something   I should deal with?

And if so, what can I do?"

You know about   those wild onions.

It's probably wild garlic.

- What that's tellin' me is you need to be plantin' onions in your garden.

[Chris and Mary laugh] In this time, if wild onions and wild garlic is poppin' up-- - (Chris) That's what you need to plant.

- You need to be plantin' onions in your garden.

Unfortunately, in a garden situation-- - (Chris) It's gonna be tough.

- I don't know of anything that you can put out there that won't hurt your garden vegetables.

In a yard situation, there's a lot of things that you can use to take it out, take the wild garlic out of, out of your turf grass.

But in a garden situation, I'm not seeing that as a problem.

You can cultivate 'em, dig 'em up.

- (Chris) Just dig 'em up.

The ground has been moist here.

- (Mr. D.) Real easy to dig up.

- I would just get your trowel.

Get your Family Plot trowel.

[Mary laughs] You can't pull it up.

- You can't pull 'em up but you can dig 'em up.

- You can dig 'em up because they have bulbs, so you want to make sure you get all the bulblets.

- And it is, they are, this is wild garlic, probably.

Wild garlic has the round-- - It's wild garlic.

- The round, hollow stem and the, if it's wild onion, doesn't it have a flat-- - It has a flat, solid stem.

- Flat, solid stem.

- And it's a major difference.

But if it's in your lawn, then how would you control it?

- In my lawn, I mean, I would, I'd probably go in there early with Weed-B-Gon.

- (Chris) Weed-B-Gon?

- It's a mixture of 2,4-D, dicamba, mecoprop or different things like that, and that will do the trick.

It may take more than one treatment.

- (Chris) It will.

- But over a period of time, you can take 'em out.

And there are several.

I think, Image.

- Image is another one, Imazaquin.

Yeah, Image is another one.

- There are several herbicides that will take out wild garlic in your lawn.

- In your turf.

- In your lawn.

Don't do it in your garden.

- So do read the label on that.

- Because some of these things have some pre-emergent activity.

If you spray your garden, even though you're gonna, you don't have anything planted out there right now, that pre-emergent activity can cause you problems with your tomatoes and your peas and your other things.

- Good point, but in a garden setting, I would just get a trowel, get it up.

I wouldn't spray anything in my garden.

- Get out there and use that tiller and cultivate it out.

- Mary, Mr. D., we're out of time, it's been fun.

- Thank you.

- I thank you.

Remember, we love   to hear from you.

Send us a 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 joining us.

It's about time to put seeds in the ground and start this year's garden.

If you have any gardening questions, go to familyplotgarden.com to get answers.

We have hundreds of videos on all sorts of gardening topics.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]