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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Mulching the garden can keep weeds down.

Mulching with a thick layer of straw can almost eliminate them.

Today we're going to see how.

Also, daylilies are an easy-to-grow perennial flower.

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 Lucas Holman will be joining me later.

- All right, Joellen.

- Yeah.

- Looks like we got a job to do today, right?

- We've got a big job to do.

- All right.

- Look at all of this nice straw.

This is a big pile of straw.

- It is.

- And when you get a windfall like this, you know, somebody gives you some straw for your garden, you take it because this is wonderful mulch for the garden.

It will keep weeds down.

- Okay.

- So we're gonna do something a little bit different.

Since we've got all this, we are going to spread the straw out first, and we're then we're gonna plant.

- Okay.

- You can use hay also, but actually straw will last longer, because hay kind of mats together and ends up kind of stinking and decaying on top of the ground.

- Yeah, a little slimy if it gets wet.

- Yeah, it gets, it's bad.

Straw does not do that, but get it still holds the soil in place and keeps the weeds down.

You wanna start out with at least six or eight inches of it, and you may have to move it around- - Yeah.

- As it settles.

- So what are the benefits of doing this, Joellen?

- Well, first of all, it keeps the weeds down.

- Yeah.

- And then, so your garden doesn't have to compete with your weeds.

So the weeds are kept down.

And then also, as it breaks down, it adds organic matter to your garden.

So it's a win-win for everything.

- It's a win-win.

- And then think about the fruits, when they fall on the ground, they will not be on the actual ground, and it'll keep a lot of diseases from your vegetables.

Like, there won't be dirt splashing up on your tomatoes.

- Okay.

- And so it will keep your vegetables cleaner and more disease-free.

- You think it'll keep out nutsedge?

- Well, if it's tall enough, but I'm afraid nutsedge can get pretty tall.

So nutsedge can go through landscape fabric.

So I don't think we're gonna, well, we'll help some of it, but I don't think it's gonna get all of it.

It looks pretty good.

It's nice and thick.

- All right, Joellen, so we got down, - Yeah.

- The straw.

So what do you think?

- Straw, it looks good.

- Okay.

- It's a six to eight inches thick.

Then we've taken all of our vegetables.

We have seed and plants, and we've spaced them out where we want to plant them in the straw, and we've got our trellis up for the cucumbers to grow on when we plant those.

So we need to start planting.

And these are peppers.

- You have to start planting.

- Yeah.

And what you're gonna have to do is you gotta move the straw out of the way 'til you get to the ground.

- Okay.

- And you can- - There's the ground.

- You dig your hole like you would a flower.

I would leave the tags on so we know which one is which.

- Okay, we'll do that.

- You pull 'em out of the container.

You see they're nicely not root bound, the nice root system on 'em.

And you plant them so that the soil level is even with the top of the vegetable.

And you can just move the straw slightly to fill in.

- How about that?

All right, Joellen, we got those pepper plants in the ground.

Are they're gonna get choked out by the straw?

- No, we've covered 'em up, 'cause the plants are already growing so they can get the sunlight that they need, and their roots are shaded by the straw, and so are the weeds so that we won't get weeds up around them.

And you know, as they grow, the straw happens to shift with the weather that we get, you know, you just have to move the straw around to keep it nice and even across the whole garden.

- Okay, yeah.

They're tucked in real nicely there.

- Nice, nice and neat.

- I like that.

So what are we gonna plant now?

- We're gonna work on this trellis.

We're gonna put some cucumbers to grow on it.

But we have seeds of this, so we're gonna have to do something slightly different.

We're gonna have to make a space for them through the straw.

And sometimes your fingers do a better job of separating straw and finding the ground.

Now we can see the dirt here.

And I like to use a, what this pointed hoe, that sometimes they call a moro hoe.

It gets a nice straight line, separates the soil enough to plant some seeds.

- And how many seeds do you think you can plant in there?

- Well, since these seeds are not fresh, we're gonna make sure that they get germinated.

We're gonna space them fairly close together.

What I'll do is I will, oops.

I don't have that good of a seeder.

[Chris laughing] And we shall see how many of these come up.

If they are thin in one area and we want it thicker in another, we will move them around.

'Cause we can do that.

And I like to keep the packet of what's there.

I usually set it in the ground close to where it is.

And... - It's like they cover 'em up.

- You need to cover up the seeds.

And then this is the other reason why I like the hoe.

You'd like to firm the seeds to the soil, and it's real easy to do like this.

- Ah-ha, okay.

Look at that.

- There we go.

- Yeah, that works.

- Now, we don't put the straw over this.

We wait 'til they start germinating.

- Ah, okay.

- Because we don't wanna shade them out before they even get started.

- That's right, 'cause they need sunlight.

- They need sunlight.

- Right, got it.

- So when they start growing, we can start setting the straw around them.

- Got it.

- And then when they get taller, we can train 'em on the trellis.

All right, yeah.

Now we got more to plant.

We've got some green bean seeds.

We've got some tomatoes, some eggplant, and some zucchini.

And so we'll finish planting those.

- All right, let's get to it.

All right, Joellen.

- Yeah.

- So what do you think?

- Well, I think we're gonna have a nice garden, especially with all this straw.

- All right, so speaking of the straw, right?

There's seeds of straw.

So we need to be concerned about those seeds germinating?

- Some will probably germinate, but this straw has been sitting here for a while, and it was harvested.

So if there is some left in here, there might be a few, but it won't be a problem like you would think.

And then hay, of course, doesn't have seeds usually.

It's just cut grass.

But again, it really mats to the ground, and there's not as much air movement with it as the straw.

But either one will work.

- Right, 'cause I could definitely see people being concerned about that.

- Yes.

- I can see that, yeah.

- I can see that as well.

- And of course, as these seeds germinate, we will start moving the straw in around them to keep the weeds down.

- Okay.

- And we got our cages- - So that what'll do with the excess, you know?

- Yeah, the excess straw.

If we need more, it might get thin in some places and we wanna put some more on it, we'll do that.

- We'll do it, all right.

That sounds like a plan to me.

- Yep.

- This is good work.

- Yeah, a lot of work, good.

- Yeah, I can't wait to see what it looks like later on this season.

- It'll be pretty.

- It's gonna be nice.

So thank you much for that.

- You're welcome.

- Appreciate it, Joellen.

[upbeat country music] On this holly tree, we have holly scales, and you can see the little white flecks that are on this holly branch here.

These scales, all right, have piercing, sucking mouthparts.

They're actually feeding on the phloem layer of this plant itself.

So they're taking out a lot of those nutrients, right, those carbohydrates.

So they're actually secreting honeydew, right?

The substance goes through their body.

They're secreted outta their back ends.

And all of this black here that you see here.

So black fungus is called black sooty mold.

So the honeydew that's produced by the scale actually supports the growth of this black sooty mold.

So in order to get rid of the scales, you will have to use a systemic drench.

So the product that we recommend at UT Extension for the holly scales would be imidacloprid.

Again, that's the active ingredient.

You're gonna read and follow the label on that.

You're gonna pour it around the root system of this holly.

The roots are gonna take it up, and it's going to go all the way up to the upper canopy of this tree.

It will help to get rid of the holly scales and it may, with the help of Mother Nature, help get rid of some of this black sooty mold, again, which is a fungus.

[upbeat country music] All right, Lucas, let's talk about a real man's plant, right?

- That's exactly right.

- Daylilies.

- That's right, it's my favorite flower.

- It's your favorite flower.

- That's right.

- And I actually have some at home, so I'm can't wait for this segment.

- Yeah, you're a real man's man.

- Real man's man.

- That's right, yeah.

- Wait til' I tell my wife, real man's man.

How about that?

All right, so let's talk about the major types.

Let's start with that.

- Right now, daylily hybrids, there's probably over 60,000 different hybrids.

- Sixty thousand?

- And people get lost trying to figure out which ones they want to grow, because there's so many different colors and diversity in the daylily itself, 'cause you have some that are double, some that are spiral-looking form, you have some that are miniature, and the list goes on and on.

But there's two main distinct types.

You have a diploid and a tetraploid.

And a diploid daylily has two sets of chromosomes.

And a tetraploid has four sets of chromosomes.

So theoretically, if you're gonna become a hybridizer, you're really concerned about that, because tetraploids only breed with tetraploids and diploids only breed with diploids.

So a lot of people really aren't concerned with the tetrapod and diploid unless you're really going into hybridizing.

But a lot of the tetraploid-type daylilies are more showier, and diploids are more of the older ones.

But there's still some beautiful diploids that people are still breeding with today.

- Alright, diploids and... - Tetraploids, that's right.

- How about that?

All right, so let's talk about proper planning.

- All daylilies need full sun.

So what's full sun mean to you?

How many hours?

- Six or more.

- Basically, six or more hours is what a daylily needs.

And I see people put 'em in a lot of shade, and they don't bloom well.

Daylilies will live in shade, but they just won't bloom enough.

So we recommend six hours of full sun.

Proper planning, most daylilies are pretty temperamental to, or not temperamental, excuse me, to soil.

They're very tough.

So we always call this the perfect perennial because they're usually forgiving for wherever you put 'em in the landscape.

Whether it's really clay or really loose-type soil or really sandy-type soil, they do well in just about everything.

So they're really forgiving of where we put 'em in the landscape.

- Yeah, mine are actually in a spot where, you know, the drainage is not the best.

And they still actually do pretty good.

- Yeah.

- They're great plants.

- Yeah, they are good plants.

All right, now, let's talk about hybridizing, though.

- This is probably the one area that I'm so passionate about because people always want to improve on things that are in the past.

So one of my favorite things to do is see what hybridizers are doing today and see what seedlings are coming up with.

And it's really easy for people to do that today.

But you need to determine whether it's a diploid or a tetraploid daylily to begin.

So for today's purposes, we're gonna assume that all these are tetraploid daylilies.

And that they'll breed with each other.

So the main thing is you have to make sure that you get out there before the bees and any other pollinators to pollinate that flower.

'Cause all it takes is one pollen grain.

So it's easiest to go through, and we'll say I wanted to use this pollen and I wanted to go down here to this yellow one with this red eye, and I wanted to actually cross these two.

So I take the pollen from this one and I actually go to the pistil of this one.

- How about that?

- And all I do is a little dab and that's all it takes.

And then I leave it alone.

So the flower will actually close up.

I don't know if you can see it right here.

It'll close up, and within a few days, if it actually took, the flower will fall off and you'll see a little bitty seed pod start to form.

So it's really simple to do, and that's probably why there's 60,000 different cultivars on the market, because it's so simple to do that because we're always trying to improve on the older daylilies.

- Wow.

So you mentioned seeds and the seed pod.

So can you tell us a little bit more about that?

- Yeah, luckily we were able to find a little bitty seed pod right here.

So this is a fertile ovary, basically, producing the seed.

So theoretically this one had been crossed with something else.

So this is the seed pod.

Once the seed pod gets large enough, it turns brown and it cracks open to reveal the black seeds.

Once the seed pod cracks open, that means the seeds are ready.

But all daylily seeds need to go through like a cold period, like a stratify.

So a lot of people will put them in the refrigerator until springtime and plant those.

But to get a bloom from a seed on a daylily in Tennessee takes about two years.

- Two years.

- So this is for patient people.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- All right, so let's talk about dividing.

What are the ways to divide and and when to divide?

- It's easiest and it's best on the plant if you can divide it in the springtime.

- In the spring.

- If we go really late into the summertime, they're stressed out with drought stress.

'Cause in Tennessee we have no clue when it's gonna rain sometimes.

We can go two weeks every day with rain, and then we can go eight weeks without rain.

So sometimes we always tell people it's best to do it in the springtime, leave it alone in the fall time, and then just wait 'til the springtime 'til it comes up.

So when the foliage gets about three or four inches tall, that's a great time to dig and divide in the springtime.

- Okay, so how do you divide it, though?

- It's best, it's really forgiving also.

- Okay.

- This is another why, people will dig it up and I've seen people just take a shovel and cut it down the center.

- Oh, yeah?

- But if you kind of bring up the plant and you shake off a lot of the soil, typically those plantlets, once it actually propagates itself, they'll kind of pull off on their own.

And if you had a knife or a, I've seen people with different spades go through and cut 'em pretty easily, the clumps that way too.

It's just like dividing any other perennial.

- Sure, okay.

- Yeah, kind of the same way.

But they're pretty forgiving on that aspect also.

- Wow, all right.

We thank the daylilies for being so forgiving.

- That's right.

- How about that.

That's pretty tough.

- And beautiful.

- And beautiful all at the same time.

All right, so let's talk about resources for more information about daylilies.

- I'll tell you the first one around the Memphis area is the Memphis Area Daylily Society.

I think you told me you spoke there recently.

- I sure did, I sure did.

- And that's a great group of garden people.

And they actually hosted our regional daylily meeting last, I believe it was last year.

So we got to tour a lot of daylily gardens around Memphis and Mississippi.

And it was just beautiful.

- Yeah.

- Also, the American Hemerocallis Society is the national, basically the American Daylily Society.

It's the national organization.

And they put out a magazine called "The Daylily Journal" four times a year.

And it's a fantastic magazine to show what's happening with daylilies all across the country.

And I'm a member of the American Hemerocallis Society.

So I'm always encouraging people to do that because it's a great organization to learn more about my favorite plant.

- Your favorite plant.

- My favorite plant.

- So if, you know, people want more information about daylilies, could they call you?

- They could call me directly at the office.

They can email me.

I'm pretty active on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

- Right.

- So they can hit me up anywhere, and I'd love to chat daylilies.

But if they're around Memphis, I would look about the Memphis area Daylily Society, 'cause they always have speakers come in and visit them.

But look on the American Hemerocallis Society website also.

And there's a lot of different hybridizer websites that you can go see what people are actually creating in the ways of daylilies today.

- How did you learn that?

Did somebody teach you that?

Did you read about how to hybridize the-- - My high school biology teacher actually really kind of instilled this passion in me.

He was a daylily and a hosta person.

And when I was 16, 'cause most 16 year olds like daylilies, right?

- All right.

- He would always sell daylilies and I would go, and he was breeding some, and he was from East Tennessee, a little town called Spring City.

So I would always go over there and see what was blooming every day.

Because a daylily, the bloom only lasts 24 hours, thus the name daylily.

- Daylily, right.

- So the Latin name is Hemerocallis, which is Greek for beauty and day.

So it's kind of an older type name.

So you can know that for Jeopardy when you go on Jeopardy someday.

[Chris laughing] But I've always been fascinated since I was about 16, and now that I'm the old age of 34, I'm still really passionate about 'em, because I always love all the different hybrids.

- Sure.

- And see what people are coming up with today.

- All right, well, we're glad you brought that passion today for sure.

Well look, Lucas, we appreciate that good information about daylilies.

- Thank you.

- A man's flower.

- That's right, a man's.

- All right, thank you much.

- Appreciate it.

- All right.

[upbeat country music] - Here in the herb garden, we have to plant some more parsley.

This is some parsley that we planted last year, and as you can see, it's going to seed right now.

So there's not many leaves there to eat.

We'll just let that keep going to seed.

Maybe it'll reseed itself in the herb garden.

But I have a new plant right here.

This is curly leaf parsley.

There's two kinds.

There's flat leaf and curly leaf.

I'm just going to take it out of the container here, and we're just gonna plant it right here.

Now, when you're planting, you wanna make sure that you plant at the same level as the plant was in the container.

So that's probably just a hair too deep.

Put some dirt back in there.

Okay, that looks good.

Now we'll go ahead and firm it up.

You can see that I have a little bit of the soil from the container is visible there.

So that means I got it just about in the right place.

Now I'm gonna make sure I put the plant tag in here so I know exactly what I planted.

And when I put plant tags in, I push 'em very far into the ground, because over the course of the year, the sun beats on 'em and they tend to fade, and I can't read what it says come, you know, late summer or fall.

So by pushing it way far into the ground, I can just pull it out, see what it is, put it back in again.

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

Y'all ready?

- We're ready.

- These are some great questions.

All right, here's our first viewer email.

Very interesting question.

"Can flowers of ornamental varieties of trees pollinate fruit-bearing varieties of that tree?"

And this is Chris from Kingwood, Texas.

So what do you think about that one, Joellen?

Interesting question.

- Yeah.

The only ornamental tree that I can think of that would pollinate fruit trees is a crab apple.

- Okay.

- But think about it, crab apples actually form small crab apples.

So they've got, you know, they're designed that way so they would have enough to pollinate our actual apple.

If you think about some of the other fruit trees, like say pears and cherries.

When the ornamental varieties of those are, don't produce fruit.

- Right.

- So they're not gonna have anything really good to pollinate anything else with.

- Okay.

- So I would say, you know, if you have a crab apple and you have certain apples that are pollinated by crab apples, yes.

Everything else, I don't think will help you.

- Yeah, 'cause we definitely know the crab apples and apples, that does work.

We definitely know that.

But again, you know, he's talking about pears- - Pears and cherries, and they're so, you know, they're designed not to produce fruit.

So they're not gonna have- - Right.

- What they need- - And I'm thinking too, the genetics will be a little different, you know, in that- - Yeah, genetics.

- Regard as well.

So anything you want to add to that, Walter?

- No, I agree with her.

I mean it's just pretty much, that's the only think scenario I can think of where it would work.

That's about all I know on that one.

- Yeah, it's interesting to want to try it, you know, and you know, I'm for trying stuff, you know, be a citizen scientist.

- Yeah.

- You know, and see if it works or not.

But yeah, to your explanation, outside of the crab apples and apples, I- - Right.

- I wouldn't know.

- No.

- So yeah, we thank you for the interesting question, Chris.

And yeah, we'll do a little bit more research on that one of these days and see if we can come back with it, with a good answer, all right?

- Yes.

- All right, here's our next viewer email.

"What is this disease on my houseplant?

"I've tried spraying and wiping it off, but I can't get rid of it."

And this is Catherine from Nesbit, Mississippi.

So what is that, Walter?

- Well, it looks like mealybugs.

- It's mealybugs.

So it's not a disease.

- It's not a disease, it's mealybugs.

And I'm sure there's some type of safe insecticide that you make a spray to prevent it or you just may want to just do it by hand since it's inside, since it's an indoor plant.

- It is mealybugs.

Anything you wanna add to that, Joellen?

- Ah, you know, he's right, you know, and the only thing you don't really wanna put spray a whole lot inside.

- No, no, right.

- So you know, maybe a little insecticidal soap possibly.

- Yeah, something like that.

- Or some neem oil if you have to.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, I'd say keeping up with wiping them off would be a really good solution.

'Cause they're insects.

- Yeah.

I would take it outside to do that as well.

That's also something else, you know, with a Q-tip, maybe a bit of some alcohol.

- True.

- And touch it.

Contact.

- Right.

- It has to be contact activity, of course.

Now, depending on what publication you read, you could use systemics, right?

- Oh, yeah.

- So how do y'all feel about that?

I personally, not for a house plant.

- Not for a house plant, I wouldn't.

- But I mean that is a recommendation, to use a systemic.

So how do y'all feel?

- No.

As a two-year-old, I ate the house plant dirt, so I don't think so.

[Chris and Walter laughing] - Right, right.

Or you might have your dog and cat kind of nibble around- - Yes, yeah.

- So you kind of wanna be safe.

- I just don't wanna, I wouldn't do that inside.

- Right, yeah.

So Ms. Catherine, yeah, insecticidal soap, neem oil, you know, are the two things that we definitely recommend that you use for the mealybugs, all right?

So get after 'em.

Get after 'em.

Thank you for that question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Can I permanently get rid of ant hills at the base of my blueberry bushes without using chemicals?"

And this is Tine from Riceville, Tennessee.

So what do you think about that, Walter?

Without using chemicals?

- Yes, and the key word permanently.

- Permanently, yeah.

- I don't know about the permanent, but there's one method without using chemicals.

You know, ants are kind of funny.

If you just go disturb their mound, a lot of times they'll move somewhere else.

Now, the only problem with it is, they may move to another blueberry bush.

So that's the one key.

But you can, you know, take a stick or something and just rake across the top or something and they'll move somewhere else eventually.

But you know, there are other options that you can use permanently that will involve probably using some type of chemical.

- Right.

- You know, treatment.

- Yeah.

But of course... - Yes.

- Blueberries.

- Yeah.

- Blueberries and does not want to use chemicals.

- Doesn't want to use chemicals.

- So anything you wanna add to that, Joellen?

- Yeah, he's right.

Mechanically moving and disturbing them, they don't like to be disturbed, so.

- Yep.

- Just keep disturbing them until you get 'em to an area that you don't mind them being in.

- Yeah, just let 'em hang out there, right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, let there be no peace.

- Yeah.

[laughs] - That's right.

- So there you have it, Tine.

Yeah, disturb, disturb, disturb, right?

And hopefully they'll move away.

Okay, here's our next viewer email.

"Other than pruning out the dead, what can I do for the health of my dwarf boxwood shrubs?"

And this is Kenneth.

So what do you think about that one, Joellen?

- Well, wonder where Kenneth is from.

- All right.

- Boxwoods live in so many places, and it does look like it's had some environmental damage done to it, so, and I know he wants it to do well.

I noticed that some of the green growth from the picture is coming up after it's been have a dead spot.

So I would rule out some of the boxwood diseases for it.

So I would, again, environmentally, keep them healthy, give 'em a little bit of fertilizer, not too much nitrogen, and see how they do this next year.

- Right.

- They should come out of it.

We've had some small boxwood that were damaged with the cold.

- Sure.

- And I mean, it was really bad, and we cut out all the dead and have left them and they're doing much better this year.

So, you know, it can be done.

- So it can be done.

So continue to prune out the dead.

- Sure.

They're pretty tough plants.

I mean, you know, you can prune on them, and they'll come back.

- Right.

So yeah, culturally, I'm with you, Joellen.

Yeah, make sure it's not planted too deep.

Make sure well-drained soils and things like that, and yeah, prune out.

Yeah, again, keep pruning out, you know, the dead or dying, you know, plant material.

I think you'll be fine.

I think that'll work, Kenneth.

So we appreciate that much.

All right, so Joellen, Walter, we outta time.

That was fun.

- Yeah, it was.

- 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.

We have lots of videos about planting garden vegetables.

You can watch them at 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]