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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Opossums are the only marsupial in North America.

Today we're going to learn more about them.

Also, there are many different kinds of groundcover.

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 Schmidt.

Mary is the Backyard Wildlife Center Curator at Lichterman Nature Center.

And Carol Reese will be joining me later.

That's a possum on the table.

Is it possum or opossum on the table?

- That's, that's a great question.

This is a Virginia opossum.

- Opossum.

- In North America, we just have opossums.

Possums is another animal that's found in a different part of the world, but here it's, it's acceptable to call them possums, but they technically are opossums.

- Opossums, you got that folks, opossum.

- Yes.

- How about that?

- And I brought a really special possum for you to meet today.

This is one of our education animals at the Nature Center.

This is not an animal that makes a good pet and most places it's against the law to keep them as pets.

- Okay, that's good to know.

- But unfortunately for this one, she was hit by a car when she was young and had a skull fracture.

She also got imprinted to people when she was in her rehab stage.

And so that means she thinks that she's a funny looking person or we're funny looking possums.

So that's why she's in captivity.

But most possums, best place for them is in the wild.

- In the wild.

- Yes.

But possums are so unique in North America.

They are our only marsupial, which is a pouched animal.

And so they're more closely related to kangaroos and koalas than anything else in North America.

So she does have a pouch and the, So the females have a pouch, and after just about 12 days of gestation, so from when mom and dad get together until when the young are born for possums, it's only about 12 days.

- How about that?

- Yeah.

They're about the size of your pinky nail, and they're gonna crawl, after they're born they crawl up into her pouch and they're gonna live there for about another month and a half.

- Okay.

- And then after that, and she can have up to 13 in her pouch.

- Wow.

- After that, they're gonna hang out on her back for about another month.

She's gonna take 'em around to some good feeding spots, which can be around human houses.

- Sure.

- Trash cans.

We just generate a lot of waste.

And they just see that as a food resource.

- Got it.

- So, really unique in North America.

Something else really cool about them, if you see their skull, they have more teeth than any other land mammal in North America.

They have over, they have 50 teeth, so that's quite a bit.

- Fifty teeth, that's quite a bite, right?

- Yes.

- Fifty teeth.

Okay.

- And they'll use the, those teeth.

Some of the things that possums are kind of known for, maybe misunderstood about is their defense mechanisms.

So one of the things they're gonna do if they get scared is they're gonna show all their 50 teeth.

They might hiss or growl or even foam at the mouth.

- Oh gosh.

- And so that is just some of their defense mechanisms.

The incidents of rabies in possums is very, very low.

- Okay.

- The other thing they do, a lot of people have heard of playing possum.

So that's what possums do when they get really, really frightened.

They will actually faint and a lot of times release a foul-smelling odor.

Most things don't want to eat something that's dead and really smelly.

- Sure.

- That kind of catatonic state can last up to like six hours.

So that's kind of a unique thing for them.

But unfortunately it doesn't work on one of kind of the most dangerous things for them, which is cars.

- Yeah.

- So stopping and growling at a car doesn't really stop it.

Right.

And plus, roadsides, one of the reasons we see them on roadsides is because they are scavengers.

- Okay.

- So they're gonna be eating things off the side of the road and they're opportunists as well.

So that's some of the reasons we see them on the sides of roads.

- Sure, that makes sense.

- Yeah.

- Thanks for explaining that.

What is the survival rate out in the wild?

- Yeah, so unfortunately they're pretty short-lived animals.

So in the wild, maybe one, one to two years in the wild.

In captivity, sometimes a little bit older, maybe four or five.

But because they reproduce so quickly, that can lead to some health issues as they start to get over a year or two.

- Okay.

Wow, so how long will you all keep Sugar?

- So she will be with us actually for the rest of her life.

- Okay.

- So when she was hit by a car, she has a skull fracture.

And so she, her sense of smell is not very good, which is really important for them in the wild to help find their food.

And she's also imprinted, so we'll keep her at the Nature Center for the rest of her life.

- Her life.

How about that?

- Yeah.

- All right so if we find a possum in our garden, in our yards, what should we do?

- Okay, so I get this question a lot.

- I'm sure.

- And a lot of times the first thing I ask them is, are you feeding a cat or a dog outside?

Because possums don't know the difference between cat food and possum food.

So they're, you know, mostly active at nighttime.

So they're going to be eating cat food or dog food if it's left outside.

- Right.

- But there's, you know, what I like to say is you can let 'em be.

They're not gonna be causing too many issues.

Here we go.

They're not gonna be causing too many issues in your yard.

But one of the ways to discourage them is to get rid of the food source that they're coming for.

- Okay, got it.

- But I, you know, they're part of our urban landscape.

They're great cleaner uppers, so a lot of that waste that you know, we're, we're throwing away and they're also eating a lot of insects, fruits and berries, stuff like that.

- Okay.

Now somebody's probably thinking, yeah, but I don't want 'em in my yard.

So I, you know, how can I?

- So then, you know, exclusion, right?

So finding out how they're getting in and what they're attracted to and taking those access points as well as the food sources away is what's gonna keep the possums away.

You can also try, you can also try some deterrents things like a motion-activated light or something like that, that when they come into the yard, it'll scare them right away and they'll tend to take off.

They're not nearly as as intelligent as raccoons.

So they have a fairly small brain.

So things like bright lights, loud sounds, will scare 'em off of an area.

- Okay.

And you mentioned, so they're active at night?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- They can be, they can be opportunists, they can be more like what we crepusculars so active like at dawn and dusk.

- Okay.

- But as we were talking earlier, they sleep a lot.

She spends most of her day sleeping and just a few hours foraging during the day.

- How about that?

And and how long do they sleep?

- They can sleep, I think, I think about 18 hours a day.

- Yeah.

18 hours a day.

- Yeah.

- That sounds good and relaxing sometimes, right?

- Yeah.

- How about that?

- But she's kind of, you know, she's curious right now she's kind of trying to figure out where things are.

But one of the things you can see on her right now is her tail.

And her tail, she can't hang by her tail.

Sometimes you'll see that in videos or in books.

They can't hang by their tails.

Maybe when they're really young they can, but what she uses that for is to carry leaves up into her cavity that she sleeps in overnight.

The other thing about her tail that's kind of neat is possums build up fat in unique places.

One of them is the base of their tail.

The other one are the sides of their eyes.

So if you see a possum with big bulging eyes, it just means that they're a little overweight.

She, at the Nature Center, they're on a diet to prevent obesity, things like that.

But sometimes you'll see ones with big bulging eyes and it's just that they're a little overweight.

- It's in the eyes.

How about that?

Yeah.

So how big do they get?

- Well, it can kind of vary.

She is an adult at this point.

She's a little bit of a smaller adult, but they can get up to maybe five or six pounds the males can.

- That is so interesting to me.

- Yeah.

And you can see now, unfortunately for her, because of her injury, she's not great at smelling.

But this is what you would see them doing out in the wild, is just using their senses to find their food.

- Okay.

And before we wrap it up, what about, yeah, this skin here?

- Yeah, so this is just the, a representation of their pelt.

And these hairs on the top are called guide hairs.

And that's actually what the young ones are holding onto when she's carrying them around.

- Okay.

All right, well thank you, Mary.

This has been pretty cool.

- Yeah.

Thank you for having us.

Pretty cool to have a possum, opossum, yeah, on the Family Plot table.

- Yeah.

- At that.

How about that?

You're doing good, baby.

You're doing good.

Thank you much.

Right.

We appreciate you being here today.

[upbeat country music] Crown.

- Crown.

Okay.

Well, most people would think that's what the queen's got on her head.

But with gardeners, the crown of a plant is the point where the stems meet the roots.

It's in other words, right there at the soil level, that's the crown.

And it's where roots turn into stems or stems turn into roots.

And in a perennial, of course it'd be fleshy, but in a tree, or something else like that, it'd be woody.

So it's just that junction - Okay.

- Of that transition area.

[upbeat country music] - Alright, Ms. Carol, here's a question we get a lot at the Extension Office, and Rudy probably gets this question as well.

Groundcovers.

What kind of groundcovers do I need to put in this condition or that condition?

So you about to tell us right, all about the groundcovers?

- Yes.

And, and you know, we're also developing those lists now to be available online, our website, uthort.com.

We're just finalizing statewide lists to be posted soon, so stay tuned there.

But we, I have over the years, of course compiled my own personal list for the ones that I have used here in West Tennessee successfully.

And the ones that I absolutely warn people not to plant.

So it is about evaluating the site, you know, sun/shade as it is with anything wet or dry.

And then choosing the appropriate groundcover.

But another thing I really want to talk about is a lot people do just want it to cover gr ound in a place where it's easy, I mean, excuse me, difficult to mow or where grass won't prosper.

But there's also just beautiful design reasons to use it.

For example, recently on a hydrangea tour which of course usually is in shade gardens.

Beautiful, bright, golden sweet flag, sweeps of it that pulls you ar ound the paths in the garden.

'Cause I do like in shade ga rdens to look for those golden or variegated plants.

Dark foliage plants will often just disappear in the shade against the mulch.

And also they provide great contrast.

Blue, I love blue plants.

I love purple plants.

But they don't show up unless you provide a pop of contrast sometimes behind it, or a golden understory.

Those beautiful Eucharis, you know that have the dark foliage, but the understory of the dwarf golden and sweet flag really makes 'em pop instead of against the mulch.

So I also wanna warn people they think they want a fast one.

- Yes.

Yes they do.

- But they don't.

- They don't.

- They soon will find out that fast ones don't know when to stop.

- Oh, that's the problem.

- They're like, Oh, okay.

So stop here.

Well, nope, nope.

I'm a living thing and I want to cover some ground and I wanna succeed.

So English ivy is famous for being horribly invasive.

It'll get up into your trees and the neighbor's trees and out into the woodland and just keep going.

And there's plenty of examples if you drive around Memphis - Plenty, yes.

- To see.

It will eventually shade out the canopy.

It's not good for the tree, it's not parasitic, it just shades out the ability of the tree to photosynthe-- photosynthesize, sorry.

- There you go.

- But it also will create that danger for that tree to be more subject to wind throw.

It as catches the wind service.

- Pulls it over.

- I was gonna take a picture of a weeping willow with covered with English ivy and they were coming out like little pigtails.

- Oh gosh.

- Oh my goodness.

- And before I got back to take the picture the wind got it.

- Oh, how about that?

- Just this last year.

So I like to look for the groundcovers that will stay in discrete clumps.

They may get bigger every year and more full and fill in and it's gonna cost more on the front end if you want a solid groundcover because you got to plug more in.

- Right.

- But the lack of maintenance, everybody tells me, I've never had anybody tell me they want high maintenance.

[Chris laughing] So if they want low maintenance, spend a little bit more money, you know, and get these slower spreading ones that stay in discrete clumps.

And there's lots of them out there now.

There are sedges and a lot of times we think of our weedy sedges as being problems and running, but there are many well behaved sedges that do stay in discrete clumps.

The sweet flags again, are ones that slowly spread and come in a variety of colors.

Also, I like to find those that will give me a season of bloom.

Ajuga has a beautiful little bloom.

- Yeah, I was gonna say that.

I like Ajuga.

- In the spring and the moss phlox, the Phlox subulata, a lot of people like to call thrift.

That's a great little groundcover.

- Periwinkle.

- Periwinkle will too as well.

Sometimes the Vinca, the periwinkle, the large one gets a little bit aggressive.

- Right.

Yeah.

- And another I wanted to mention about those really aggressive ones.

You think you're just gonna put it there and you have no more maintenance to do, but weeds come up in there.

- Yeah they do, speaking of weeds.

- Yes, I have gone out and photographed in the Vinca, right behind the experiment station, all the things that birds like to eat.

Virginia creeper, poison ivy, privet, hackberry.

- They'll drop it right in there.

- Native black cherry, the wild cherry.

That's, that's what happens.

And you, nothing you could spray there to kill it that won't absolutely kill the groundcover as well.

- Good point, yeah.

- So that's an issue.

- I want people to know there's two kinds of monkeygrass.

- Yes.

Please explain that one, yes please.

- They're different species.

Liriope muscari stays put.

- Stays put, right.

- It's a big nice clump, gets bigger, but Liriope spicata will run and it'll run into your lawn an d places you may not want it.

So I like to use it though in places that it's contained.

If it's contained completely surrounded by concrete, by sidewalk.

- It'll fill in pretty quick.

- It feels in beautifully.

And it looks like a river.

It just blows, it's got a nice texture to it.

But if you need slow spreading... Now, mondo will do that too, by the way.

It's very similar to Liriope spicata.

But the little dwarf mondos don't spread fast.

- I like those.

- Yes.

They're cute as they can be.

And they stay a little tiny height.

- Yeah.

They're really tiny.

- And there's even a black mondo.

- Yes, I've seen that one.

That's beautiful.

- It is beautiful, and it is the slowest thing you will ever plant.

- You're right.

You're right.

It's very tedious.

- So always go ahead and buy a lot because I love how I've seen people use it to make another plant pop, a variegated plant, for example, with that black background.

But buy enough to make an impact because it's not gonna spread quickly.

You're gonna be waiting for years for the effect that you hoped for.

- Okay.

- Now going back to the Liriope for a second.

It has to be cut back, right?

- If we have a yes, it'll start looking tattered at the end of winter.

Especially if we've had a severe winter.

- Okay.

- So just, you know, either set your mower on the highest setting or a weed eater, whatever you wanna do, you can do that.

Also, some of the pretty ones, there's a golden monkey grass called Pee Dee Ingot.

There's a beautiful Silvery Sunproof is a common one, but it's a gorgeous big variegated plant.

And I've seen friends use that as a perennial.

Just put it in next to something that compliments.

- Oh, nice.

- And just a little explosion of gold or silvery foliage.

My friend Jimmy Williams up in Paris has a great eye for using those, or even in containers.

They use them that way.

Some of the groundcovers, in fact make great container additions if you're thinking about the spillers, again, you know, for ev ergreen, for winter interest, I often leave them in containers fo r years and just add the summer annuals and then the winter things that I wanted to for more interest.

I wanna talk about sedums too.

- All right lets go sedums.

- I read sometimes just this blanket statement.

People will say, well sedums make a great ground cover and they take sun and they don't need much water.

- Right.

- Which one?

There are dozens of species and hundreds of cultivars.

- Yep.

- And they don't all make good groundcovers.

And some of them, you know, we think of them as really loving heat.

- Yeah.

- But some aren't so tolerant of our heat and our humidity.

So just to mention a, it's okay to mention a Memphis nurseryman by name is Paul Little.

- Paul Little.

- And he has selected a bunch of sedums that really do well in the South that will make nice, tight spreading groundcovers.

Angelina's hard to beat, that beautiful gold.

And it gets a burgundy color in the winter.

It stays.

And these will all tolerate a little bit of shade as well.

Chinese sedum, one of my very favorites, sometimes called Coral Reef in the trade now.

It gets a little bit of a ruddy color in the wintertime.

It stays a little tight rosettes.

And I've seen it do surprisingly well in shade.

And if I had to pick a third, there's one that Paul Little called me, He said, "Nobody comes in here and asks for that by name."

'cause it doesn't have a common name, it's Fetumus takesimense also classified as Sedum takesimense.

He said, "Is it okay?

People come in and say, "Could I please buy some of Carol's favorite sedums?

Can I call it Carol's favorite?"

And I said, "I'd be honored."

- Oh alright.

- Here in Memphis it has a label on it now.

- Trade name.

There we go.

- Carol's favorite.

Isn't it thrilling?

- Yeah.

That's pretty cool.

- So that's, that's a beautiful, beautiful sedum.

A little bit taller, but again, stays nice and tight and the texture is fabulous.

I use it in containers, I use it in the ground.

And the great thing about sedum, you can just pick up a piece and hand it to a friend.

- Right.

- You can accidentally leave it in your pocket for a few days.

- And it'll last.

- It'll still root.

I often show people how easy it is to spread, for example, Angelina, I'll pull a clump up and go over and throw it on the ground.

I say, now come back in a few weeks and it'll be a nice patch.

The surprising thing, because they are so drought tolerant, because Angelina sedum roots are just about that deep.

- Very shallow, yeah.

- They get enough moisture from the night air.

They don't really require deep rooted, though some of the clump-forming sedums do have deeper roots, so I'm not gonna tell you they're all that way.

But that's one of the reasons that I like them.

If they do get aggressive and they, they can get into areas where I don't want them.

They're easily removed, you can do it with a rake.

- Okay.

Just rake it up.

Right.

The night air is how it get it's moisture.

- I know.

Isn't that cool?

- Huh?

- Oh, remember that if you do get Bermuda grass.

- Okay.

- In your monkeygrass or mondo grass you can use - There, it's gonna happen.

- Yes.

- That's gonna happen.

- And I have stopped and told people, I've seen 'em all sitting there trying to weed Bermuda grass out of the monkeygrass.

You know, there's a herbicide for that.

- Yes, there is.

- Because monkeygrass is not a grass.

Mondo grass is not a grass.

- Right.

- They're an entirely different family.

So you can spray and kill those grassy weeds and those groundcovers and not harm your monkeygrass or monkey monkeygrass or mondo grass.

- Mondo grass.

Good stuff.

All right.

So we appreciate that good information about [Carol gasps] - One more, creeping raspberry.

- Creeping raspberry real quick.

- Do you love creeping raspberry?

- Yes.

- That's a great ground-- - They are unique.

- Cover for sun or shade.

The texture.

They'll cascade, and in full sun, they fruit, little yellow raspberries that are edible.

- Really?

- No thorns on 'em either.

They're kind of stiff, but not.

- And they're edible.

- Edible.

Absolutely.

- And nice, creeping low.

- I didn't know that.

- Yeah, we need to use that one more.

Well you have y'all from Ms. Carol Reese, they're edible.

Thank you, that was very good with groundcovers.

Thank you much, appreciate that.

[gentle country music] - It's getting to be the end of the year and it's time to clean out the garden.

And as gardeners, a lot of times we want to throw everything in the compost pile so we can get all of that good rich compost.

But there are certain things that we need to throw in the trash and not in the compost pile.

These pepper plants are healthy, so we are going to take them and throw them in the compost pile for next year.

Over here we have sweet potato vines that are still left and they are healthy.

So we're gonna throw them in the compost pile.

We have our okra actually blew over a few weeks ago in a strong wind.

It looked good, it didn't have any problems this year.

We're gonna put it into the compost pile as well.

Now our tomatoes... We're in the Mid-South, and in the Mid-South we have blight problems with tomatoes.

And this tomato here, you can see we got blight here.

There was blight during the summer so that we're going to throw into the trash.

So you gotta consider trash or compost.

If it's healthy, compost pile.

If it's not healthy, diseased, has bad insect problems, things like that, just throw it in the trash.

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

Y'all ready?

- Ready.

- These are great questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"We are being invaded by this little gray bug "that I hear is from China.

"They're all over outside and coming inside our homes.

"And it's like the more you kill, the more shows up.

What can we do?"

And this is Beverly from Whitehaven, Tennessee.

All right, Ms. Beverly.

So before Mary jumps in here.

Yeah.

So this is the brown marmorated stink bug.

So Mary, how do we control th e brown marmorated stink bug?

- Yeah.

Unfortunately a lot of people are having the same issue.

This is an invasive insect that is really invading the South and even moving further North.

It's important to remember it's a stink bug too, so don't squish 'em.

- Don't squish it.

- Might smell a little foul.

So I mean, really what you can do, I think you were talking about sucking 'em up with a vacuum cleaner, trying to get them outside.

But it's gonna be an insect we're gonna deal with for a little while.

- Yeah.

They're gonna be a problem, so yeah, if you have a shop vac, I would just, you know, suck 'em up.

Something else I would do too.

Yeah.

Go around your windows and your doors and seal those cracks and crevices or caulk the cracks and crevices.

That'll help because they're just like we are, they wanna go inside where it's warm during the wintertime.

- Right.

- So that's what they're trying to do.

So anything you wanna add to that?

- No, no that's good.

That's good, like you id, get the vacuum cleaner.

Get 'em outta there.

Suck 'em outta there.

Shop vac or something like that.

- Okay.

Yeah, that's it.

Shop vac.

Suck em outta there.

Don't worry about using pesticide.

I wouldn't use a pesticide.

I sure wouldn't do that, so yeah, suck 'em up.

You can knock 'em into a bucket of, you know, warm soapy water.

That's something you can do, but I wouldn't use a pesticide.

Alright Ms. Beverly, so thank you for that question.

We appreciate that.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

Oh, somebody here's gonna like this one.

"I live in a condominium "building and I would like to start a butterfly garden.

"How high will butterflies fly?

What plants would you recommend for zone seven?"

This is Marilyn from Arlington, Virginia.

Ms. Marilyn, we're just gonna get out of the way.

We're gonna let Mary here handle that 'cause she loves those butterflies, so.

- I do, and this is a great question.

And absolutely she can have a butterfly garden in a condominium, even if it's just in pots.

You don't have to worry about the height.

Butterflies over 15,000 feet.

- Wow.

- You're not gonna have to worry about the height.

- That'll be alright.

- But you can plant butterfly attracting plants in pots.

And so I would recommend looking not only at nectar sources, but also host plants for the caterpillars.

- I didn't think about that.

- Yeah, so definitely some nectar plants that do well in pots.

Things like the coneflowers, purple coneflower, black-eyed susans, and then look at some host pl ants if there's a certain type of butterfly, if you wanna attract monarchs, you wanna look at milkweeds for a host plant.

You can also do herbs, which are kind of, can serve two purposes.

So things like parsley we can eat, but there's also black swallowtail caterpillars like to eat it too.

So mix in some herbs, some host plants, and some nectar sources.

- That's good.

Yeah.

So don't have to worry about, 15,000 feet.

That's, you don't have to worry about that.

But yeah.

So yeah, zone 7, we're 7B here.

So grow similar type plants.

I love lantana.

- Of course.

- You know, something I wanna add to that, that I actually planted in my landscape that you should be able to plant there in Virginia to attract those butterflies, yeah.

I like that as well.

But yeah, your recommendations, spot on.

- Spot on.

Yeah.

- So yeah, if you need any additional information, yeah, just go to your local extension office.

They may have a list, you know, butterfly plants for you.

They're in Virginia, so thank you much, we appreciate that question.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"Why are some of my straw flour plants drying up, "turning brown and dying?

"The season is not over yet and the die off "started in August.

Same goes for my cucumbers."

This is Marie from Selden, New York.

Just from looking at the pictures, I wondered if she has an irrigation system because straw flowers are drought-tolerant flowers.

So if you give them too much water and if you look at the stems of some of those plants, yeah, they dying from the top to the bottom.

You know, so that reminds me of root rot.

You know, and then I looked at some of the other plants around that area, yeah, they look pretty sparse as well.

So I'm thinking it could be too much water.

- Could be too much.

- It could be too much water, - It could be too water - In that area.

So yeah, you know, check your, your soil conditions and things like that.

But, just looking at the straw flowers and just looking at them dying from top to bottom makes me think about root rot.

- Could be root rot.

Yeah, it could be that too much water.

Standing in there holding the soil, holding lot of water.

- It could be.

Is there anything you wanna add to that Mary?

- Might just think maybe too much water.

- I definitely think so.

So thank you for that question.

Thank you for the picture.

It really helped, so appreciate that.

So Mr. Booker, Mary we outta time.

Thank you much.

It was fun.

- Enjoyed that.

- 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 watching.

If you want to learn more about opossums or groundcover, go 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]