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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Blackberries are a delicious   addition to any garden.

Today we're going to look at   some new blackberry cultivars.

Also, lilies are beautiful   and add a pop of   color to the garden.

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 Dr. Natalie Bumgarner.

Natalie is a Residential and Consumer Horticulture Specialist with UT Extension.

And Joellen Dimond will be joining me later.

Hi, Doc, new blackberry cultivars, right?

- Yes!

So- - Exciting, huh?

- Yeah!

- I like blackberries, too.

- And it is, it's a great time of year to think about the deliciousness that can be yours in summer, right?

- Oh, I like that.

I like that.

- Yeah, yeah.

So it's a great time of year to think about some of the bare root options.

That early spring period is a really good planting time for a lot of our small fruits.

- Good deal.

And I did bring a few samples with me.

You know I love to transport plants.

- Oh yeah, we know that.

- In the car, across the state.

[Chris laughing] And so these are some examples of some of the new cultivar trials- - Okay.

- That we have going.

And so we actually, in one of our research stations at UT, we actually have a 10-cultivar trial that was just, it's just close to a year old.

- Okay, good deal.

- So we're actually gonna be getting fruit this summer in, you know, in full volume.

And so we have some of the traditional standards of blackberries as well as some of the new cultivars that are coming on the market.

- That's pretty good.

Do y'all need anybody to come up and do any taste testing?

Oh, okay.

- Oh, I really think that it will be, that it will be.

We've been calculating out what the tonnage is gonna be, and we're thinking that there may be a little bit available for sampling.

- Oh, okay, all right.

All right, good deal.

- Yeah, yeah.

[laughs] - All right, so what did you bring us today to look at?

- So I brought today a couple of examples of some of the new cultivars, but first I wanted to kind of point out a little bit about blackberry growth habits so that some of the cultivars and some of the things that we were talking about would make sense.

- Okay.

- So essentially, we call blackberries, what we would say is biennial canes, right, which means they live for two years.

And so typically what will be bearing fruit will actually be what we call the floricane.

This is a potted plant, so it is not 100% happy.

The berries will be bigger, you know, once it gets into full production and in the ground, but the fact that there are berries on this cane means that this is actually its second year of growth.

And so we call that- - Oh, that's second year.

Okay.

- A floricane.

- Floricane, all right.

- The first year of growth would be, you can kinda see this, this taller guy here in the back, and so we would call this a primocane.

So essentially it will grow vegetatively in the first year, and then it will flower and bear fruit in the second year, and then this cane will die back.

- Good, good.

- And so that is kind of our standard, you know, blackberry habit.

- Good description.

- So if you have blackberries, you know, in the backyard or in the woods, that's gonna be their standard habit.

And they are a lot of great cultivars that are on the market that are this traditional floricane-bearing.

- Okay.

- And this is, we actually, we live in the Mid-South, and it's a great climate for blackberries, but the breeding is really spreading that out, so they can be grown in many parts of the country.

- That's good.

- Now they are cold-weather sensitive.

- Okay.

- So you know- - Sure, sure.

- There are some spots where if you get down far below zero, we start to, you know, get a little bit dicey there, but there are many parts of the country that can work well for them.

And typically what will happen is we'll grow this primocane lots of times when it gets above our trellis system, because many of these will require a training system, you know, we'll pinch the top out.

That will encourage lateral growth, and from those laterals, next year will be where the fruit will be born, so that's- - Oh, the lateral growth.

- Yeah, yeah.

- I gotcha, okay.

Didn't know that, okay.

- Of course, this is an example of one that has not been pruned, and you can see- - Oh, yeah.

- The fruit growing from the top, but you know, he will produce more fruit if he has more side shoots.

So you can see, there is some management required.

Well, the interesting thing that of course been occurring in the breeding world for cane berries for the last few decades, really, is the opportunity to, instead of waiting for that second year to bear fruit actually bear fruit on a first-year cane.

- How about that.

- So we call that primocane-bearing, or you know, that may be the geeky terminology for it.

Lots of times you might hear, see them refer to as fall-bearing.

- Okay, I've seen that.

- And there've actually been fall-bearing raspberries available for longer than blackberries.

So if you've grown Heritage, if you've grown Caroline- - Okay, got those, okay.

- Those would be fall-bearing, which means that they're gonna grow, and they're gonna produce fruit on that first year.

- Sure, okay, good deal.

- There can be, of course, some marketing assets if you're a small grower.

The benefit for a homeowner is that it can make management really simple because you can just cut down all of the canes in the fall or the late winter.

They will grow, they will produce fruit, and you can cut them again before they grow the next year.

And so it makes management- - God, that does make it a lot simpler.

- Really simple, yeah.

- Oh, man, that works out real good.

- Yeah, and so we call those primocane bearers.

And now we actually have some that are available in blackberries as well.

And so this little guy right here is actually a cultivar called Prime-Ark Freedom.

Much of the blackberry breeding is coming out of the University of Arkansas, not surprising.

You know, they're a great- - Okay, yeah, not surprised.

- Great crop for that part of the world.

And so actually all of these are examples of crops that are coming outta the Arkansas breeding program.

And so our trial and what we're really looking at is primocane versus floricane bearing, things like yield, quality, taste.

- Taste.

- Taste quality.

- I like taste.

- Even, and how they, we have, we're gonna have different trellis systems, so how we support these canes.

And we really want this information to be useful, certainly for small producers, but for homeowners as well, because there's a lot of that information that goes both ways, for the small-scale commercial and for the homeowner.

And so I brought a few, a couple examples.

I talked a little bit about Freedom as the primocane bearer.

Now, he may not get quite big enough to bear much- - No, no.

[laughs] - On this first year, but under normal circumstances, you know, he would flower and bear fruit later in the season on a first-year cane.

This is one of the newest cultivars that is on the market.

And this is a cultivar named Ponca.

And Ponca is one that we are especially excited about kind of in the world of small fruits because it is bred to have a very high soluble solids content, sugar, for those of us who really like sweetness.

- Yes!

[laughs] - And so it has been tested above 10%, 11, 12, 13%.

- Wow, oh, yeah!

- Soluble solids, so it is very sweet, now- - That's gonna be good and sweet.

- Yeah, yeah, for some of us, we love a straight-up sweet berry, and so that's really where this breeding is going.

This is a floricane bearer.

- Okay.

- But it is bred to be very high soluble solids.

So you know, when you think about blackberries, the blackberries that we might find wild or some of the older cultivars that have been in production for a while may have a little bit more of that acid balance.

I kinda think eating blackberries is like eating tomatoes, you know?

Do you like straight sweet?

- Do you like, right, right, right.

- Do you want some acid balance?

And where- - Right, that's a good point.

- Yeah, and where this breeding is going is a little bit more straight sweet.

- Okay.

- But we're really looking forward to seeing how this plant grows and produces and how it tastes along with, you know, the other eight cultivars that are in that trial.

- Yeah, well, I can't wait to see the results.

- Yeah.

- And maybe taste the results as well.

- Yeah.

- Quickly, any disease issues we need to know about or- - Yeah, so certainly- - Insect pests?

- Some of the things that we pay close attention to when we think about disease management on blackberries, now there are some, you know, stem diseases.

Anthracnose would be one.

We wanna pay attention to what might be like a dieback that can occur, a stem blight when we make cuts and do pruning, you know, so good sanitation, good control of the health of those stems.

One of, you know, and of course there are fungicide- - Oh, yeah, sure, sure.

- Protective fungicides that we can use.

As a general statement, we don't really have a recommended schedule for a home blackberry.

You know, we would encourage folks to pay close attention and if necessary, you know, there are materials they can use.

But one of the interesting things about primocane- versus floricane-bearing is that you may really be able to reduce disease incidents overall by not carrying over that second year cane.

- Yeah, the second year.

Got it, good.

- Which could provide, you know, an even simpler mechanism for controlling disease.

- That's good, okay.

- There are certainly some, you know, there are some leaf diseases as well, and we can even get into the spotted wing drosophila.

We can even get into some insect issues for those later summer berries.

But as a general statement, blackberries can be a great place to start when we think about fruit crops for the home garden.

- Oh yeah, nice and sweet.

- Yeah.

[laughs] - Like that.

[laughs] - You know, there are times when people will say, "What kind of peach should I grow?"

And I'll say, "I would recommend blackberries," right?

"Have you considered blueberries?"

So there are some ways that small fruits can be a great way to start, you know, and kinda get your feet wet before the more challenging tree fruits.

- Good deal, we appreciate that information.

All right, good stuff.

[upbeat country music] What about cultivar?

- Oh, cultivar.

- How 'bout that one?

- Well, that's even down even a little further, yeah.

- That's the ultimate, yeah.

Yeah, so for example, Magnolia grandiflora, Little Gem.

- Little Gem, right.

- Little Gem, that is a cultivated variety,   and that's what   cultivar stands for   is cultivated variety,   culti-var, you get it?

So, you know.

- I get it.

- But that's, and it's usually written with single quotes around it.

So you would go Magnolia grandiflora,   single quote, 'Little Gem.'

That means that's the   cultivar, Little Gem.

And then you would have, what's another one?

- There's a Green Giant.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep.

- There sure is.

A Goliath.

- Yeah, and I'm trying to think of like in flowers, too, you know, there's all kind of cultivars in flowers.

Like Laura, let me think about daylilies.

You know, they have all these named varieties, cultivated varieties of daylilies, so that gets it down to the exact cultivated variety.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Joellen, let's talk about lilies!

- Lilies!

- All right?

- Yes!

- So what do we need to know about lilies?

They're beautiful, by the way.

- Well, like the iris we talked about before- - Beautiful.

- But they have gorgeous, large blooms, very showy in the landscape and in bouquets, and you see 'em in weddings and all, in flower arrangements all the time.

- Yes.

- Very showy.

One of my favorite flowers because of that.

- Really.

- I just love them.

- Yeah, I have a lot at home.

- Yeah, I just love, love the colors.

- And I've planted a lot of them and enjoyed a lot of 'em over the years.

- Me, too.

- But they're, we're gonna talk about a few that do well in the Mid-South area.

- Okay.

- In fact, we have great, at this type, this area and the area around Tennessee in Zone 7, one of the greatest areas for lilies to grow in the ground.

So we need to take advantage of that.

- Yeah, by all means.

- The first one that we're gonna talk about is the Asiatic lily, which is the ones you see in these containers right here, and then you can find 'em very easily in garden centers.

You know, they come in containers or they have 'em in bags that you can buy and plant yourself, very easy to grow, very readily available.

And so they come in lots of colors and sizes, as you can see, I mean, they're just gorgeous.

Now, if you want to cut them and bring them inside, you see the pollen on the ends here, there?

That stains really, really badly.

So if you're bringing them inside, if you're putting 'em in a bouquet, it's nice to just take your fingers and get rid of them, just pull them off.

- Okay.

- And then they won't have that dark staining everywhere on your clothes or anything else.

But otherwise, that is pretty on the flower.

- It is nice.

- I like it.

- Well, that's the Asiatic lilies and their hybrids.

There's one called, we're gonna go from the earliest-blooming ones to the latest-blooming ones, which is Lilium candidum, which is the Madonna lily.

- Madonna!

[laughs]   - It blooms in the fall,   and it's only white,   and it's very, very fragrant.

So that's a good one to have-   - In the fall,   in the fall.

- In the fall.

So see, you have lots of lilies that bloom almost all summer long.

- Hey, that's good.

- Then there's Lilium formosanum, the Formosa lily.

It blooms in the summer   and usually June, July.

but it can be six   to seven feet tall.

- Wow!

- Yeah, so gotta leave   some room for these.

Then there's the one that you see everywhere.

In fact, it is brought over from Asia, but it has naturalized in North America, and that's the tiger lily, Lilium lancifolium,   and that's a beautiful   one to have in your yard.

It will naturalize,   it'll do very well,   but it has smaller   flowers than these,   but they usually hang down,   and they're orange with   little black spots on them.

So probably people have noticed   it in the landscape more as, I mean, out in nature than they have in their own yards, but do very well.

And there are other colors they've developed for that, too.

- Okay, and before you go even further, naturalize, you used the term.

- Yes.

- What does that mean?

- That means that it has escaped.

- Okay.

- And it has gone, and it is, you can see 'em in ditches and around on nature walks.

- Okay, very good.

- In the woods.

They like that.

- Okay, good.

- Yeah.

Then there is the Easter lily.

- Yeah!

- And it has its own, it's   longiflorum and its hybrids.

Now we see 'em   blooming at Easter,   and it's a trumpet lily,   'cause it has a long stem   that looks like a trumpet.

And there's lots of those trumpet lilies, but the Easter Lily is one that, you know, you can plant it in your yard, and it will grow here and come back and bloom the next year in June.

- In June.

- So it works really well.

- Okay, okay.

- Of course, of all the trumpet lilies, the one that is most popular is called regale,   and it has maroon on   the back side of it   and white on the inside.

- Oh, wow.

- And of course it's very tall.

It's six, seven feet   tall, so very regal plant.

- Okay.

- Then you've got the Oriental lilies.

The Oriental lilies   are more sturdy   than the Asiatic   and the trumpets,   and they have done a cross.

Of course the most famous   one of these Oriental ones   is the Stargazer.

- Okay, okay.

- And you see that at the florist all the time.

It's pink, and then it has the white edges on 'em, very popular, but they've crossed the Oriental lily with trumpet lilies, and they call them Orienpets.

- Orienpets?

[laughs] - Yes, Oriental and trumpets, so Orienpets.

- Pets, ah, Orienpets.

- Yes!

- All right, okay.

- And so they are much sturdier, and there's a lot of different colors and types of those, too.

But what do they like to do?

Where do they like to grow?

They like sun.

- Full sun, right?

- Like full sun.

They like a partly shady area.

- Oh, okay.

- But they like well-drained soil, and they do not like wet soil.

So if you're having problems with them, for diseases or insects or anything, it may be the environment that you have 'em in.

Give them room, don't bunch them up close together.

Give them some space so the air can move between them.

- Okay.

- Because you don't want the Botrytis, the leaf disease that gets on them.

'Cause if you have have that, you can preventively spray that the next year with a fungicide.

- Okay.

- But you know, environment is probably the best key to be having success with the lilies.

- Okay.

- Is give 'em enough space, don't crowd them.

- Space, well-drained soils.

- And well-drained soils.

Yes, now, and when you buy them like this, just remember that lilies are a bulb, but they don't have the papery covering on them like a normal bulb would.

So that means the outside dries out very fast, and you don't want that to dry out because that's part of the bulb that is gonna grow.

- Okay.

- So when you get these, plant them as soon as you get them and try to keep them moist.

- Okay.

- And they do reproduce by, you know, the bulbs just keep getting more and more on each side.

But sometimes they have little spots on the end   called imbricate bulbs   that come on the leaves, and you can take those off, and they'll reproduce by that all too.

- Oh, so they'll reproduce.

How 'bout that?

- Yeah.

- Okay, I got it.

- They're very interesting.

- Didn't now that.

- There is one insect problem that they have, and that's the red lily beetle.

Now the red, I have never   seen that here on my lilies.

- Neither have I.

- But apparently   it lives its entire   life cycle on a lily.

So you're either   gonna see eggs,   or you're gonna   see the bug itself,   or you're gonna see   its nymph stages, but they say the best way to control it is with neem oil on the nymph stage.

- Nymph stage, okay.

- Yeah, and you can use insecticides, too, but it's pretty easy to control with neem oil if you want to, if you see them, but you just inspect often.

- Which you haven't seen.

Neither have I.

- I've never seen them here.

- Okay.

- So, but they say they're a problem.

- Not on mine.

- But I've never seen them.

- Okay.

- In fact, the only trouble that I keep having, which is why I bought me some more, is that the voles- - Ah!

- Like to eat the bulbs.

- Okay!

- So now that I've got these new lilies that I wanna plant in my yard, I am thinking getting a wire cage and planting them in a wire cage- - Yeah, that's how you're gonna deal with voles.

- To keep the voles, yes.

- I'm gonna- - Right.

I'm gonna make a wire cage to plant them in so that the voles can't get to them.

- Aha, smart, smart.

- Mm-hmm.

- Didn't realize they had that problem with voles.

I need to pay a little bit more attention to mine.

All right, okay.

[Joellen laughing] But I do like the lilies, though, 'cause they're- - It's beautiful.

- And they're easy.

- They're not difficult, no.

- Easy.

- Huh-uh, I've never had any problems, and I've just enjoyed them.

- Good deal, well, we appreciate that, Joellen.

Buy more lilies, folks.

- Buy more lilies.

- Oh, you enjoy that.

- They're beautiful.

- They're beautiful.

Thank you again, good stuff.

[gentle country music] - I have two plants here that are ready to move up.

This one is a snapdragon, and it has a tap root system.

This one is a Digitalis, and all the leaves come out of one center point.

So when you're planting, this one stays at the same soil level.

This one I could actually plant deeper if I wanted to.

So I'm gonna show you how to do this.

These are about the same heights, but I still want to put a little bit of soil down in the bottom of the pots, and I just gently squeeze the pot like this.

And I'm just going to gently put him down in there, push him down just a little, and then backfill.

This one, I can just go up the stem, it's not gonna matter.

On this plant, the Digitalis, it comes, it's called a crown plant 'cause all the leaves come out of that central point.

I'm going to squeeze gently again.

You can, if the roots are starting to circle the bottom, you can gently loosen them like this.

Put him in there, and now when I backfill, I want to be very careful though that I don't get a lot of soil down into the crown.

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

These are some great questions.

Are you ready?

- Yes, let's do it.

- "Let's do it," she says.

All right, here's our first viewer email.

"How can you keep corn   from blowing down?

I have this problem   every year I plant corn."

This is Shirl.

So how do you keep the   corn from blowing down?

- Well, there are a few weather elements that we cannot completely control.

- Yeah.

- But I'd throw out a few ideas.

- Okay.

- One of course would be, if possible, you might wanna change your row orientation- - Okay, so I like that.

- So that you're not completely broadside.

- Okay.

- The other, you know, as just a horticultural disclaimer, make sure that we're not over-fertilizing.

- Ah.

- You know, and having excessive growth.

The other thing, and this is something that we attempted in our garden but not always got done was actually doing a little bit of hilling.

- Oh, so the mounding, okay.

- Mm-hmm.

- Hilling, okay.

- Yeah.

- All right.

How did that work?

- Yeah, it can work well because corn will continue to produce those additional prop roots.

So if you provide a little bit more soil there around the base of the plant, it can have a little bit more root growth and root stability over time, so.

- It can, okay.

- Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, we don't promise 100% efficacy.

- Yeah, no, of course not.

- But it can be asset.

- Of course not, but yeah, the mounding is something I've seen some of the old-timers do, if you will, my grandfather, and it worked.

- Yeah.

- You know, for the most part.

But yeah, switching up, yeah, changing up the rows.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I think really helps as well.

So Shirl, hope that helps you out there.

Thank you for that question.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"I have seen   videos that suggest   "spraying a water, baking soda,   dish soap, olive oil solution   "on fruit trees and vegetable   plants to combat aphids,   "whiteflies, mites, and scale.

Would this be effective?"

Chris, London,   Ontario, Canada.

So what do you   think about that?

So let's say that again, baking soda, dish soap, olive oil solution.

- So to me, that sounds like it may actually have a combination of a variety of potentially useful ingredients.

There are potassium bicarbonate products.

There are insecticidal soap products.

There are oil products.

So I'll give you my perspective on that.

- Okay, and I'll give you mine, okay.

- My general recommendation is that for low-impact products, like those soaps and oils and bicarbonate products, to stick with commercial formulations because we are more familiar with their efficacy.

- Right, right, so I would agree with that.

And I was gonna say that, so that's good.

- Yeah.

- Right, but yeah, so they will actually, of course, what we're talking about will work for, you know, these insect pests that are listed, right?

- Yeah.

- But yeah, I would want you to buy that said product, you know, to get the control that you're looking for.

- Yeah, and be able to find your pest or disease on the label.

- Be able to find the pest, right, right, because we do know that of course your oils, like your neem oil, for example, does a good job, insecticidal soap and such, but yeah.

- Yeah.

- Get that product, you know.

And I'm sure if you check with your agent there possibly, they would have, you know, a spray guide, especially for your fruit trees, and then would have, of course, publications for your vegetables as well.

- Yes, yes.

- Right, to get these insect pests controlled.

- Yes, specific for the crops, and yeah, yeah.

- Right, specific, so it works out good.

So thank you for that question, Chris, all right?

Lot of combinations there, all right.

Here's our next viewer email.

"I'd love to know the   name of this weird weed.

"It pops up   everywhere in my yard.

"If I don't pull it   up when it is small,   "tiny white spikes   grow on the stalk,   "and I have to wear   gloves to pull them up.

It's very annoying."

This is Lynn   from Dresden, Ohio.

Nice picture there,   Lynn.

We appreciate that.

So I live across from a wooded area, and I see wild prickly- - Lettuce.

- All the time.

- Yeah.

I bet if you break it, there'll be some latex there.

- And it's of course a summer annual, or can be a biennial.

Rosette of leaves first,   here comes the woody stem,   but then, yeah, it would   produce a yellow cluster   of flowers.

- Yeah!

- It has a, you know,   deep tap root system.

- Yeah.

- But yeah, if you touch it   without gloves along the midrib   of the leaves.

- Little spines, yeah.

- It has some   little spines there   also at the base of   the leaf, but yeah, side of the road, pasture areas, row crop areas, you're gonna have that.

- Yep.

- Right.

And it grows pretty tall because- - Oh, it can, yeah.

- Yeah.

My neighbor across the fence from me has one growing now, and that thing's about six, seven feet tall, yeah, so [laughs].

- It's getting ready to disperse, right?

Yeah, yeah.

- Oh, it's already doing that.

- Sure, sure.

- Yeah, neato.

So I might have some in my yard.

So that'll be fun.

- Yeah, yeah.

The lettuce is moving.

- So Lynn, there you have it, prickly lettuce, that wild prickly lettuce.

So thank you for the question and for that picture.

That was fun, Natalie.

- Yeah, yeah!

- Thank you much.

Thank you much.

- Good question!

- Good questions as always, 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.

If you want to learn more about planting and caring for blackberries, 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]