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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Everyone wants pretty   plants in their yard.

Today, we're going to talk   about colorful garden additions   Also, strawberries are the   first berries of spring.

Today, we'll plant some.

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 Jill Maybry.

Jill is a horticulturist at the Memphis Botanic Garden.

And Tom Mashour will be joining me later.

All right, Jill, we all excited about growing those outdoor flowers, but is it quite time yet?

- It's almost time, but not quite.

Our frost-free date is April 15th.

- Okay.

- Here in Memphis, - in the surrounding area, so there's still a chance we could have a little bit of cold weather.

- Still a chance, yeah.

- Still a chance, but we're getting closer.

We've made it through the winter.

The cold weather and the ice, and it's just about time to get into those summer flowers again.

- Yeah.

So this time of year is when I really start looking ahead to the summer flower garden, and summer garden in general.

- Okay.

And I start looking out for fun, new introductions, new hybrids, maybe, of exciting new flowers, or foliage plants that I can add to mix in with my tried and true favorites.

- Okay [laughs].

- Also try out a few new things, and I love to look through catalogs and social media this time of year to get some new ideas on maybe plant combinations, color combinations.

- So social media is pretty big on new ideas on for plants.

- It is, it is.

Instagram has been a good source for me lately.

If you haven't tried it out yet, if you go on, you can put anything in the search box.

You could put in coleus or butterfly gardening, and then get all kinds of pictures.

Something I like about it is that it's mainly, it's photograph-based.

- Okay.

So rather than just words, you're getting a lot of pictures and inspiration.

- Okay.

So what are your tried and true favorites though?

- Well, I use a lot of lantana.

I'm a big fan of pollinator gardening, butterflies and hummingbirds, and lantana is generally native a bit south of here, but it does make a fantastic annual through our hot summer weather, 'cause it does get hot here.

- Yes, it does.

If you may have noticed.

Hot and humid and a lot of plants that do great up north, maybe make it through our spring, then once it gets hot, they're done.

- They're done.

- They can't handle it.

- Okay.

- And that's something that I do appreciate about the lantana.

- I love lantana.

- The hotter it gets, the happier, - Yes.

- the lantana gets.

- This is one of my favorite varieties that I've been using for years.

It's called Dallas Red.

- Dallas Red, okay.

- It's a very bright red and orange, little bit of yellow in there too.

Very, very brightly colored, and it is a magnet for hummingbirds.

- Oh wow.

- Hummingbirds and butterflies - Okay.

like to go to it.

And this is one of the larger growing lantanas, so it'll get two to three feet tall.

A lot of the newer lantanas are bred to stay small, and to be useful in landscapes, where things need to stay kind of small and petite, but this is one of the older varieties.

- Wow.

- So it'll get nice and big and really fill up a garden bed.

- So will the frost kill it at the end of the?

- It will.

- It will, okay.

This one is, I have never had come back.

They do have slightly different hardiness levels, so different varieties of lantana will.

And this is one that here is strictly an annual.

- Strictly annual, gotcha.

- Yeah, so it does need to be replanted - Okay.

- each year.

- But that does bring me to the other lantana I wanted to mention.

This is a newer variety.

- Yeah, we like new.

- Yeah, something new and different.

So this is called the Chapel Hill Yellow.

[Chris laughs] And this was developed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

- Surely, right?

- Right, right.

And I love the yellow on it, 'cause it's such a soft primrose yellow.

Some of the existing lantanas, like the New Gold, are a, it's a beautiful gold, but almost kind of a brassy bold color.

And to me, this is a lot softer, and pairs with a lot of other color combinations, sometimes better than the New Gold does.

You can see how well those, those colors combine.

- Nice.

Throw a little red in with it.

- Okay.

- And I've just, I've really enjoyed using this one with different color combinations.

Also this Chapel Hill stays lower to the ground.

- Okay.

- It tends to stay low and spread out, rather than the Dallas Red wants to grow more upright.

- Got it.

Okay.

- So the Dallas Yellow can get to three feet across, or even a bit more, while not getting more than about 18 inches off the ground.

- Oh, I like the sound of that.

Okay, yeah.

- And this one is hardy here.

- Oh, even better.

- Yes.

- Okay.

I've had this in my yard for, this will be its fourth summer in the yard, so it comes back just fine.

I do leave the stems, about a foot or so of stems in the fall, and then I don't cut it back until it starts to come back up in the spring.

- Okay.

- And that gives it some protection, and it has been a reliable perennial in my yard so far.

So some other fun things that I like.

So this is the, pull out this one here.

This is the shrimp plant.

- Yeah.

- So this is a tropical that's been been around for a while, available for a while.

This is native to Central and South America, so a bit south of us.

Not going to make it through a winter, but it loves our summers, loves the heat, loves the humidity.

This can be grown in a container, or planted in the ground, and it's going to be kind of bushy, and have these flowers that flare out.

And I believe it does get its name shrimp plant from these little bits of flowers that pop out from it, look a bit like a little curly shrimp.

- How about that?

Okay.

- Also shrimp colored.

And this is a great hummingbird plant too.

- Okay, okay.

- So great to add to your hummingbird or butterfly garden.

It'll pull in those yellow butterflies in the fall.

- I've never seen those flowers before.

That's real nice, okay.

- Isn't that pretty?

They're kind of neat.

They've got tiny little, it's hard to see from a distance, but tiny little purple markings on the throat there.

- Nice.

- A lot of fun to watch hummingbirds come, come take a sip from them all day long.

- Nice.

- And then this is a neat one here.

- Okay.

- This is an Abutilon, or also called a flowering maple.

And this is another South America plant, so it will not hardy through a winter, but a beautiful, fantastic tropical for us here.

Loves our heat and humidity.

This one I believe is called Tiger Eye is the cultivar, it wasn't named when I got it in.

- Okay.

- I believe it's the Tiger Eye.

And this one will get up to three or four feet over the summer.

Again, good choice for a container or in the ground.

Got those beautiful colorations on it.

- Yes, it's so beautiful.

- And it is a fantastic hummingbird - Okay.

- Hummingbird plant.

And I like how the color combines with our Dallas Red lantana.

- Oh, wow, yeah.

- So you can imagine those two paired in a container or in the ground, and quite a feast for your hummingbirds and your butterflies coming by.

And another color I like to pair with these two, you know, purple.

Purple goes with just about anything.

- Okay.

- So throw in some of this Purple Heart to your planting, and Purple Heart, again, can take sun.

It's going to be just super happy, no matter how sunny and hot it gets.

And this will usually be a perennial planted in the ground here.

- Got it.

Here it'll keep on coming back.

And this will stay low.

- Okay.

So when you're planting, this would be something closer to the edge of the pot, or spreading out across the ground.

And this does get little pink flowers that bees like.

- I've see those.

- Yeah, so you'll get a little pollinator action coming to those as well.

- Good deal.

- So, so far all good pollinator plants.

- Yeah, I'm a big fan of pollinators.

- I could tell.

You've mentioned that a few times.

- Yes, and I like native plants, but I love the tropicals.

It's just hard to beat the way a tropical plant from Central or South America performs in our heat.

- Right.

Yeah, I don't blame those natives who want to take a break in the summer heat.

Yeah, it's so hot.

- I do too.

That's when we go inside, and enjoy some ice cold lemonade and the air conditioning.

So this has been a favorite of mine for the last three years or so.

This is a tropical Salvia.

- Okay.

This is a hybrid called Wendy's Wish.

[Chris laughs] This is going to get to about three feet, or even three and a half feet tall and wide over the summer.

Makes a nice big kind of tent or shrub, and it will flower all summer long.

As soon as it starts in the spring, it doesn't take a break.

Just keeps on sending out those flowers.

Definitely a hummingbird destination plant.

- I can see, I can see why.

Yes, beautiful.

- Isn't that pretty?

- The color, yeah.

Oh goodness.

- There's been some exciting, I think, exciting breeding work done with the tropical Salvias lately, and there're lots of new introductions coming out.

- And lastly you have that beautiful coleus, right?

- Yes, so last thing I wanted to talk about was coleus for adding color to the garden.

So coleus is an annual foliage plant, and new introductions of this keep coming out too.

There's breeding work being done.

This is a fairly new one called Twist and Twirl.

- Twist and Twirl.

I like it.

- Which you can kind of see where it gets its name.

It looks like it's on the move.

All of all of those leaves look like they're in motion.

And I love how they're brushed with all of these colors.

Quite a colorful plant there.

And this coleus, a lot of the new coleus that are coming out, can be grown in either sun or shade.

It used to be, the original coleus were pretty much strictly shade coleus, and then a line of the sun coleus came out that really needed full sun, - All right.

to show their best colors.

And as this is one of the newer ones, this is supposed to do fine in either sun or shade.

So far, I've had it in a pretty sunny spot, so I'm excited to experiment with it this summer, and see where it can do the best, where it's going to show off the best.

- Wow, sun or shade.

- That, supposedly.

- Can't go wrong, supposedly.

- So we will see.

- Okay.

Thank you, Jill.

- You're welcome.

- Beautiful plant combinations, yeah.

And again, we can tell you like those pollinators, right?

- I do, I do.

- Thank you much.

- You're welcome.

Thanks for having me.

- Sure.

[upbeat country music] - This is a classic example of why when you're putting in any kind of fruit tree or plant in general that you get the soil right before you plant it if you can.

Now we planted these blueberries about four years ago, and they ought to be in full production right now.

They ought to be six feet tall.

However, they have struggled.

This one is doing pretty good.

It's got some buds are swelling, and it's got, it's going to set some fruit this year.

This one, I'm not sure it's alive, but our problem here, the pH was too high.

This pH when we started was around 6, 6.2, I think,   and we needed ideally to   get the pH for blueberries   down to between 4.8 and 5.2.

Now we're going to   try to remedy this, and we're going to find some elemental sulfur.

We're going to do another soil test, and determine what the pH is right now.

And we're going to put a 2X rate of elemental sulfur out.

I have seen, personally seen, where a double rate of sulfur actually increase the size blueberries by about twice.

It lowers the pH faster, and I think that that would probably help us here.

We're going to, we're going to, we're in a survival mode at this point.

[upbeat country music] - Hi, Mr. Tom.

- Hi, Chris.

- How's it going?

- It is going well.

- Good.

We're out in our Family Plot garden.

- Yep.

- And you're going to show us how to plant strawberries.

- Yes, and UT has a recommended way of doing it.

- Okay.

- For commercial farmers or strawberry growers, and I figure if it's good enough for them, which their livelihood depends on, it should also be good for us in our home gardening.

- Which should work pretty good.

UT has some good stuff, huh?

- Absolutely.

That's one of my reference points always.

- Good.

Glad to hear.

- For the first place to go.

Okay, well, one of the things they recommend is a white covering over the soil.

Now, normally they prefer a long dome-shaped one, raising it off the ground.

But in our particular conditions, I don't think that's necessary.

- Okay.

- But the white cover is, and it has three functions.

Number one, it keeps the strawberries off the ground.

- Okay.

- So you don't get any rotting of strawberries or those little critters eating the bottom.

Number two, it retains moisture.

And finally, number three, that it reflects the heat.

As you know, in the Mid-South, rain is very few and far between in the summertime.

So that's how we're going to plant 'em.

- Okay.

- What this is, is we're actually just a shower curtain liner from a dollar store.

- Okay.

Obviously it costs a buck.

- All right.

Okay, they're 70 inches by 72 inches, so what I did is I cut it long ways in four strips, or basically quartering it.

- Okay.

And the reason for that is I get more bang for the buck.

- Gotcha.

[Chris laughs] - Okay, so what I, we did is we laid out two of those strips together.

They're approximately six feet long, and I overlapped them about a couple inches.

And the purpose of overlapping them is because we don't get that rain in the summertime.

I can open it up right there and water it.

- Right.

- And then cover it back up again.

- Smart, smart.

- That way, it is so much easier to water that way.

- Okay, got it.

- Okay, now we're going to go ahead and plant our strawberries now.

UT, again, recommends spacing them   approximately 12 inches   apart in 2 rows   with each row offset of each   other by about six inches.

- Okay.

- So it gives them   more room to grow.

So let's get to it.

- All right.

Okay, what I'm going to do again is just cut some slits into the plastic where I'm going to plant them, and just cut a lit, slices up really easy.

All right, now we're going to go ahead and plant them.

Since these are already in pots, it makes it easier.

We're going to get a sooner crop, and don't have to worry about drying out as quick.

Okay, Chris, may I?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- Nice plants, don't you think?

- Absolutely.

They're very healthy looking.

- Now how deep would you plant those?

- Actually just, you actually should tear this.

Let me tear this off here at the top, 'cause you do not want any of the peat pot sticking above the ground.

What it'll do is just wick out the moisture.

This is the crown right here.

You don't want it any deeper than that.

- Okay.

- If worse comes to shove, you may have a little bit higher, but typically you plant it where the crown is even with the soil, or at least the same depth that it was in the pot.

- Okay.

- There we go.

Well, the first one is planted.

Now we can go on to the next one.

- Okay.

- And by the way, the way I'm holding these things down is I'm using these little garden stakes you get for putting in ground cloth.

It holds them down fine, and they come up easy.

And they're cheap.

You can also make your own from metal, the old fashioned metal coat hangers.

Onto the next one.

- Okay.

Again, approximately 12 inches, right about there.

One nice thing about raised beds is it's usually good soil all the way down, so you usually don't have that clay layer as you do in a typical garden.

Now your average garden plant, vegetable plants, the root zone is about six inches down, which is fine, because our top soil is usually only about six inches deep anyway.

All right.

- All right, and before hand that to you, let me take this weed seed that's in there out of there.

- Okay.

- You don't want to introduce that.

- No.

Again, pulling off the top of the peat pot, and popping it in there.

And I have no problems using my fingers.

[Chris laughs] Yeah, I guess a happy gardener is one who's got dirt under their nails.

And strawberries is not a very critical plant.

You give it just a light touch and so forth.

That's cool.

There is only so much energy available from any plant, be it tomato plant, pepper plant, or strawberry plant, for producing the fruit.

Thus the first strawberries are going to be a good size, but then as more and more strawberries appear, they're going to get progressively smaller.

So if you want big strawberries, you do need to thin out the blossoms.

If you don't care, then just let them produce.

Okay, this is the last one of the 10.

- All right, it's looking good too.

- Yeah.

Now typically they will produce their additional runners, which you can pot up, or put them in containers and save them for next spring.

Strawberries plants are usually good for about two years, and then they got to be replenished, and you can use runners to replenish them.

- Do we need to remove any of the flowers, any of the berries that are present on the plants right now?

- Well, they, like I previously mentioned, that the fewer flowers, the fewer the strawberries, the larger the strawberries are going to be.

Now my son, he likes to do them and gives them away, but he gets them about that big and dips them in chocolate, and then makes swirls around them and the whole bit.

But, so the fewer, the more, the bigger they're going to be.

- Sure.

- The ones you pick off, the small ones, they're edible.

They're just not as pretty as the big ones are.

- Mm-hmm, sure.

- And then if you all remember that I, we have two pieces of plastic here, and the reason for that, so I can open up the center one, take those little clips out, water it, and then put it back together again.

As far as the dirt, it looks kind of messy on the outside, but the first rain is going to wash it off.

- Yeah, Mother Nature will take care of that.

- So they'll handle it.

- Right.

They're healthy plants and-- - They look good.

- I expect them to be good, and I'll be out here in a month picking.

No.

- Yeah.

- If I don't beat you to them.

I love strawberries.

- You probably will be.

- All right, Mr. Tom, we appreciate that.

- Okay, my man.

- Thank you much.

- I enjoy doing it.

- All right.

[gentle country music] - It's two weeks and the radishes are up, and it's time to thin them.

If you remember,   we planted them   two seeds per hole   to try and make sure   that we had one plant   when we were all done.

So to thin, like, we'll take this right here.

I have two plants and one of these needs to go, so I'm going to look and see which one seems the farthest along and the healthiest, and that's this one right here.

So I'm going to keep this one, and I'm going to get rid of this one, but they're planted so close together that if I pull this up, I'm probably going to disturb that one, so I'm going to come along with a pair of scissors, and just trim off the plant I don't want.

So let's move over here to this one.

I like.

I'm going to get rid of that one right there.

This one only has one.

That one only has one.

That one only has one, so we'll leave that alone.

Here, I'm going to trim this one off.

There's none here.

Let's see.

This one's kind of tangled up.

Okay, we'll get rid of that one, and we'll get rid of this one.

And I'm going to continue doing this for the rest of the plants, but when we're all done, we'll be back.

We'll be down to our final spacing, and we can just let the plants grow from there.

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

You ready?

- I am.

Let's do it.

- These are great questions.

"Let's do it," she says.

All right, so here's our first viewer email.

"The previous owners of our home "had castor bean plants growing on the property.

"We cut down the castor bean plants, "and would like to use that space to plant tomatoes.

"Should we be concerned   about planting edible plants   in the same space   as the castor beans?"

Janet from Athalia, Ohio.

It's an interesting   question though.

So they want that space   to plant tomatoes, but should they be concerned about planting the castor bean plant there?

- Well, that's a good a question.

- It's a good question.

- 'Cause as we know, castor bean is toxic.

- Right, ricin.

- It's, yes, it is grown as an ornamental.

I've grown it myself.

It's a beautiful plant.

- Oh yes, it is.

- Beautiful plant from Africa,   has fantastic large leaves,   beautiful in an   ornamental garden.

The seeds are   the most toxic part.

- Yes.

- So it is my understanding   that after the castor bean, the following season you should be able to grow whatever you'd like there.

- Okay.

That the only issue would be if some of the seeds have fallen and remain in that soil.

But if that's the case, then you'll probably just have volunteer castor beans coming up and those can be removed.

- Right.

- But there should not be any lingering toxin in the soil to be concerned about at this point.

- No, you're exactly right.

Yeah, so the toxin again is going to be the seeds.

It's ricin is what that is.

So there's no toxic material located in the roots.

So yeah, once you remove that plant, then it should be okay.

- Right.

- You know, you should have, again, that space for your tomatoes.

- Fortunately, yes.

- Yeah.

- Yes, fortunately.

Yeah, which is good, right?

- Right.

- 'Cause yeah, obviously it's full sun.

Yeah, castor bean is a beautiful plant.

- It is.

- Likes a robust growth habit.

It's real nice.

- Yes, and some of the varieties have bright red leaves, so it's a fantastic foliage plant for a display, but definitely want to be aware of how toxic the seeds are.

- All right, so there you have it, Janet.

Thank you for that question.

You should be fine, all right?

Plant those tomatoes.

Here's our next viewer email.

"I have a lot of deer in my neighborhood.

"Whatever I plant, they eat.

Are there flowering shrubs   and plants deer would not eat?"

This is Jennifer from   Brandon, Mississippi.

So do you know of any shrubs, flowering shrubs, plants that deer would not eat?

And here's the thing about that though, I think deer would pretty much eat anything if they're hungry enough.

So with that being said, do you, yeah?

- Yeah, I was going to mention that, that there are no truly deer-proof plants, because if they're hungry, like you said, they're hungry enough, they will eat it.

But there are plants that are not their favorite.

- Okay.

- So if they have plenty of other options, there are plants that they're more likely to leave alone.

Deer have a great sense of smell, so any plant that has a strong scent to it is something that they're are probably going to want to avoid.

- Ah.

- For instance, herbs like rosemary, lavender, thyme.

- Okay.

- Anything like that, - the deer are probably going to pass on by.

Annuals like a marigold.

Marigold is also   strongly scented.

- Okay.

- And not going to   be a favorite choice.

Lantana tends to have   a strong scent to it.

- Okay.

- And the leaves   tend to be tough   and a little bit fuzzy.

The leaves tend to have hairs,   so it's not such   a soft, yummy leaf   as some other plants out there.

Some perennials, flowering perennials you can plant.

I like to think about what grows here naturally that the deer tend to leave alone,   like purple coneflowers.

- Yeah, I can imagine, okay.

- Rudbeckia, black-eyed Susan.

Coreopsis, the little   little tick seed.

- Okay.

- Those are things   that naturally grow here in the Southeast, along with the deer out in the woods, and the deer tend to leave them there.

- Okay.

Columbine just came to my mind.

- Yes.

- How about that?

Okay.

- Yeah.

- Butterfly weed,   the orange milkweed.

- Okay.

- That's also a furry leaf,   and it does have   that milky sap, so that's going to be very, very unpalatable.

- Okay.

- To a deer if it bites into it.

As far as a shrub, butterfly bush.

- Yeah.

- Also has a furry leaf to it.

- Okay.

- Rose of Sharon.

- Rose of Sharon,   have that, okay.

- That old, old heirloom.

- Probably Abelia, yeah?

That's a flowering shrub.

- It is, it is.

- Okay.

I'm not sure how well they,   have you seen them survive   deer here?

- I've seen them survive.

Yeah, deer here in this area, I have.

- Okay.

I sure have.

- My parents have had some struggles with deer   and their Loropetalum   have survived very well.

The deer seem to avoid those.

- Good deal.

All right, so there's a few that we threw out there for you, Jennifer.

And something that I would suggest.

Yeah, why don't you go to your Mississippi State Extension Office and maybe they have a publication that can help you.

- Probably do.

- You know, with your deer issue eating your plants, and I'm sure they probably have one of those publications on file for you.

All right, so thank you for that question.

All right, Jill.

It's good, it's fun.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Thank you much.

- Good to be here.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- 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.

At familyplotgarden.com, we have over a thousand videos on all sorts of plants, bugs, diseases, and a ton of other gardening topics.

Also while you're there, you can ask us your gardening question.

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

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[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]