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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Orchids are tropical plants with beautiful, unusual looking flowers.

Today we're going to talk about how to care for them.

Also, not all bugs are bad.

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 Director of Landscape at the University of Memphis.

And Tonya Ashworth will be joining me later.

All right, Joellen, beautiful orchids.

- Beautiful orchids.

- Here on the table, right?

- Yes.

- So how do we take care of orchids, right?

- Yeah, and these are just store-bought orchids.

- Yeah.

- And they are all in their original containers that I got them in, which is probably not good.

- Okay, all right.

- But I have repotted this one in the same container.

Roots, by nature, like to come out of the container.

- I see.

- Because think about it, if it's sitting on the side of a tree in nature, and so the roots go everywhere because it mists and so they're out to capture the mist from the rainforest.

- Okay, that makes sense to me.

- So that's why they're like that.

All of these are Phalaenopsis.

- Okay.

- Which are the easiest to take care of and to grow.

I have had some Cattleyas and they are more difficult.

I've never gotten them to re-bloom or do well inside.

- Okay.

- I had a greenhouse and they did real well in there.

- Okay.

- Now you notice this one, I have them all sitting in an east-facing window.

This one gets more sun than these, and it blooms, this is the second time this year it has bloomed for me.

- It's a beautiful bloom.

- And you can tell the foliage has got a little bit of problems.

The yellowing here, well, it's gotten too much sun.

So I had to move it from its east-facing window and put it in a north-facing window.

East-facing windows seem to be best, because they get some light, but it's not intense early in the morning.

- Got it.

- A western window would be a lot hotter and you'd probably get more of these yellow leaves because of that.

It's too intense 'cause they usually are under a tree.

- Okay, makes sense.

- They like bright light, but not direct sunlight.

- Not direct sunlight.

Okay.

- So that's the key.

And you can't put 'em on your desk and just, you know, you can put 'em on your desk while they're blooming, but just to keep them, to get them to live, you really need to set 'em close to a window.

- Got it.

- An east-facing window is best.

- Is best.

- And so I have repotted this once and this is its original container, but I will, after it finishes blooming is best time to repot.

- So when is it gonna finish blooming?

- This could take several weeks.

- Oh, it takes a couple weeks.

Okay.

- Oh, more like three or four weeks.

- Oh, good.

- So it's beautiful.

But one thing you do notice, the rim of it has a little white cast.

- I noticed that, it's beautiful.

- Well, it's not supposed to be that.

In fact, I've noticed that it's gotten lighter and lighter, but I am not the best.

You know how the plumber's house always leaks, well... [Chris laughs] - I don't fertilize them when I should, so this flower is telling me it could really, the plant could really use some fertilizer, that I'm not taking care of it as well.

- Okay.

- Even though it is still very pretty.

- It is pretty.

So that's the indicator?

How about that.

- Yeah, it's supposed to be very, very dark.

And so there's orchid fertilizer that you use.

And this is actually given to me by my mother and I've never opened this.

- So it hasn't been opened.

It looked like it hadn't been opened.

- But I can tell you, what you're supposed to do, it doesn't take much, they don't like a lot of fertilizer.

So what you're supposed to do is take a gallon container, put a fourth of a teaspoon of this fertilizer in it, and dilute it, then water it with the fertilizer while it's blooming once every two weeks and while it's dormant and not blooming, once a month.

- Once a month, okay.

- So really it's not a lot- - Yeah, it's not often.

- Of fertilizer.

And you'll notice that these are all planted in this bark here.

So it's not soil.

So water just runs through it.

This is the problem.

People will water it and then not let it drain out.

Now you'll notice this has got some, I just watered it yesterday.

It's got some water in the bottom of it.

But you notice this container goes up, so it's not really sitting in water.

And there's just drips in here.

There's not much water in here at all.

And this will dry out.

It usually takes about a week for it to dry out.

- Okay.

- And I usually, I'll take it to the sink just like this and pour water from the faucet over it and just let it, you know, drip.

- Right.

- And then when it feels just a little bit heavier, because of the bark that is in there, and these turn green, bright green, instead of this off green color, I let it drain out and then I put it back in this container and put it back in the window.

- So the container needs to stay there.

- Container needs to stay here.

- It needs to stay there.

- And what you don't want, because this container has no holes in the bottom of it, there's no holes in the bottom of this.

So you leave the insert in there, 'cause it does have holes in the bottom of it.

- Got it.

So it stays.

- So it can drain but you don't leave it with water in it.

You don't do that.

- Got it.

- And so all of these are the same.

And look, this one's starting to bloom again and this one is starting to bloom again.

- Got it.

Okay.

- These don't get as much light as that one and these have only bloomed once a year for me.

But it gets enough.

And the window that faces east also has a tree near it.

So they're not getting as much sunlight as this one's getting.

But you see there, it's in the original container and I've just recently watered it too.

But it really needs to be repotted because all of these roots are coming up out of here 'cause it's growing and I really need to repot it and put it down into some bark.

- So that's how you know when to repot, right?

- Yeah, that's how you know to repot, is when the roots start coming up out of the container, that means it's, 'cause the stem is growing, so it grows along the stem and the roots come out below it.

- Okay.

- And so that's when you know, when the roots are all out of the pot, you know it's time to repot that.

- Okay.

- But I just haven't done this yet.

- So would that go up to the next container?

- Yeah, I would just, see I have this container here that I would like to repot some in.

I will probably put two of these in this container eventually because there's plenty of room in here.

And as small as these are, you don't need that much room.

These are much smaller blooming Phalaenopsis than this one.

- Okay.

- So it's not gonna need as much room.

This one has never bloomed for me.

So I am taking it home and putting it, not leaving it at work, 'cause it's not getting enough light for it.

It might need more light.

So I'm gonna put it in the same window with this one and see if I can't get it to re-bloom again.

But again, it needs to be repotted, the roots in this plastic container.

- Good green color.

- They're green, growing.

- Yeah.

- But most of them are up at the surface here.

- Right.

- And I just need to put it in some bark like this has got in it instead of this sphagnum moss that it came in two years ago.

So I mean, they've lived in here for two years.

It's time to upgrade their living quarters.

- Yeah, 'cause I'm wondering, somebody's looking at that, they're probably thinking that's root bound.

- It probably is.

- Okay.

- It probably is.

Now, let's just look at this one.

- Okay.

- I'll probably put another one with this.

It's getting ready to bloom.

I usually would wait till it finishes blooming, but this one's been really root bound for a long time and it has a lot more roots to it.

But one thing I took all the sphagnum moss out it and got all these nice roots.

Of course I soaked it first, because they're brittle if you don't soak them first.

- Okay, and why sphagnum moss?

- It's water-holding capacity and makes them moist for shipping and for people to grow.

Well, they've lived in it for two years.

- Oh.

- So they've done very well.

- Yeah.

- But again, I drain it out.

There's not much left in here.

I usually let it drain out.

There's dead roots and stems here- - Oh.

- That I would get out- - Gotta get those out.

- Of here 'cause we don't need that.

I don't need 'em at all.

Move this.

And yeah, we just don't need the dead roots and stems on here.

Don't need any of that.

- That's a lot that was in there.

- Yeah, it's quite a bit.

It latches onto the sides of trees and bark and moss and it lives.

- Okay.

- But and they like air, which is why you don't, you know, drown it too much with water.

Watering, over-watering, and not enough light is probably the number one cause for these not to live after you've bought 'em.

But like I said, this has been living in that little container for two years and it's bloomed for me every year.

- That's good.

- So I'll just put some bark in here, set this plant in here, and pour the bark around it.

Kinda anchors it in.

- So what kind of bark are you using?

Does it have to be a- - This is a special orchid mix bark.

- Okay.

It probably allows some good drainage and things like that.

- It is, it doesn't have any nutrients in it, and if you don't get 100% of the roots, that's okay.

It needs air.

- Yeah.

So then I would go ahead and I would water this.

I will put this under the faucet.

Make sure it's wet and there it's potted.

So I mean, it'll probably live in here, this is a much bigger pot than it was in.

So I'm sure it may never need a container any larger than this.

Now I would change out the bark occasionally.

I've changed the bark, I've had this one for four years and I've changed the bark once.

- Wow.

Okay.

- But again, I just need to fertilize 'cause I've never fertilized them.

So they really thrive on neglect except they don't like to be too wet.

Just make sure they're not wet and make sure you do water them.

- Okay.

- You'll see the roots will start shriveling and actually the leaves will start shriveling and that'll be a sign that it really needs water.

But you wanna keep, this sphagnum moss, you let it dry out between waterings, but then make sure that it does get watered and enough light for it to use all of the nutrients.

- All right.

Yeah, so don't over water.

- Mm-hmm.

Don't over water.

- Don't have to really fertilize it much.

- Give it enough light.

- Give it enough light.

- And it'll tell you that, like this one's saying, "Hey, I've got enough light to live, but I don't have enough light to re-bloom."

- Got it.

Got it.

All right.

Yeah.

For those folks who get these as gifts.

- Gifts, yeah.

- Or get 'em from the store, now they know how to take care of 'em.

- Yes.

- Well thank you, Joellen.

I appreciate that.

- You're welcome.

- All right.

[upbeat country music] - It's easy to be attracted to beautiful flowering baskets for summer color.

Mandevilla is a great choice for, it's a long season of flower with low maintenance.

Watering is the real challenge for being successful with these hanging baskets often 'cause they can dry out very quickly.

Use your finger if you can reach the basket to test if that soil is starting to dry out, then water it again and water it thoroughly, let it drain out of the bottom.

If it's too high and you can't reach it, try lifting it with a broomstick to tell.

When it's light, it's thirsty.

When it's heavy, then it probably doesn't need any more water.

Also, as the season changes and you have more foliage and it gets hotter, you might need to have more water to it.

And in reverse, as the days become shorter and nights begin to cool as we get toward fall, you may need to reduce those watering needs.

Also remember that if you are doing that much watering in this small container, a good little fertilizer boost mid-summer would be a great thing to do.

[upbeat music] - All right Tonya, let's talk a little bit about beneficial bugs.

But first, what do we mean by beneficial?

- Well, a beneficial bug or beneficial insect is a bug that helps you reach your goals in the garden.

Some of them are pollinators.

We think of immediately our bees that are good pollinators.

So they're beneficial to us.

And also we have a lot of bugs that kill other bugs that we don't like.

- Okay.

- So we have bugs that eat the bugs that would eat our vegetables.

- Okay, so you wanna start with the braconid wasp?

- Sure, the braconid wasp is very a common thing to be seen in the garden, but most people don't know when they've seen evidence of the braconid wasp.

Usually you'll find these on tomato hornworms.

- Sure.

- On your tomato plants.

You'll see all these little white egg sacks on the back of the caterpillar and the braconid wasp, even though it's a wasp, it will not sting you.

They're very tiny, like an eighth of an inch.

So very small.

The female lays her eggs on the ba ck of caterpillars, moths, beetle larvae, and some aphids.

And when those eggs hatch, the larvae eat the host, the tomato hornworm or whatever.

And then after they are done eating, the bad bug dies and the beneficial, the new beneficials fly away to infect more of your pests.

So if you see a tomato hornworm th at has all these little white egg sacks on the back, you don't want to squish it.

You wanna leave it there so that it can provide food for those good bugs.

You can also attract them in your garden by growing certain things like dill, parsley, wild carrot, and yarrow.

In general, any kind of little herb with small flowers.

Those, the adult wasp like to use for nectar.

- Wow.

Small flowers.

I think that's pretty interesting.

- Uh huh.

- Okay, now let's talk about green lacewing.

- Okay, the green lacewing, the larva are the ones that feed on the pests.

In this case, they like aphids, mealy bugs, caterpillars, scales, thrips, and whiteflies.

A lot of the things that we don't like, they like to munch on.

The females will lay her eggs on a slender egg stalk and she can lay about 200 eggs at a time on these stalks.

And one larva that emerges from that will eat 200 aphids in a week.

So they're called aphid lines.

They're really hungry.

Hungry guys.

- In a week.

- In a week, 200 aphids.

And they will feed for two to three weeks before they go into a cocoon.

And then five days later, they emerge.

- Okay.

- You can plant some things to attract them to your garden, li ke Angelica coreopsis, cosmos, and sweet alyssum.

And you can also mail order those eggs stalks with the eggs.

- Okay.

- So yeah, the green lacewing are very beneficial.

You don't wanna spray those with an insecticide.

And in fact, a good rule of thumb is, when you spray an insecticide, you oftentimes kill the beneficials with the ones that you're trying to get rid of.

- The good stuff.

- Yeah.

So unless you use Bt, 'cause it's specific to caterpillars.

- Sure.

- But if you use a broad spectrum insecticide, you're gonna kill all of your good with your bad.

So you want to be careful in how you use those.

- Good information to share Tonya, good information.

How about this next one though, a pirate bug?

- Yes!

- How about that?

- Minute pirate bugs.

- Yeah.

- Kind of a fun name.

- Yeah, that's pretty fun.

- They're very small.

A 12th to a 5th of an inch long.

That's where they get the minute from, very small.

And they're black and white in color.

The immature stages are very small.

They're kind of teardrop shaped and brown and orangey colored.

The adults and the nymphs will both be predators for thrips, spider mites, aphids, and their eggs.

And an adult will eat 30 spider mites a day.

So they're quick moving.

They'll attack just about anything though, not just those particular pests that we like to get rid of.

And the way they attack their prey is they have a piercing sucking mouth part.

So they'll use that mouth part to inject into their prey and then they will suck the juices out of the prey.

- Ew.

- Yuck.

But that's how they do it.

They can go from an egg to adult in three weeks and they have three generations per season.

And this is another one that you can buy online.

And they're actually a really good predatory bug if you've got a greenhouse and they may be more effective than others.

And if you wanna try to just encourage them to come to your garden, you can plant goldenrod, daisies, alfalfa, yarrow, clover, and vetch.

- Okay.

All right.

So how about the praying mantis?

We've all heard about the praying mantis.

- Well the praying mantis are really cool looking bugs.

- They are cool.

- Of course they get their na mes from their big front legs that they use to grab their prey while they munch.

And they can be really good at camouflaging themselves against twigs and sticks and all that kind of stuff.

They like to lay their egg cases in this paper mache looking thing.

Actually bought a tree recently and it had one of these egg cases on it.

So that was pretty cool.

- That's cool.

- And the egg case will have up to 200 baby praying mantis in there.

- Wow.

Okay.

- And you won't even know that they've hatched.

You can't tell the difference when it, you can't look at the egg case and tell if they've hatched or not.

You just have to happen to see a baby praying mantis somewhere.

And that's how you know that you've had hatches.

So you can buy them on the internet and put 'em in a greenhouse or in a garden setting, but you won't know if they've hatched or not unless you just so happen to see the babies.

And these take five months to mature and they can lay up to five egg cases in their lifetime.

And they like to eat pretty much anything that will catch their attention.

They're pretty slow moving and yeah, so they'll grab anything, like another beneficial insect even, they'll grab.

Like bees and other praying mantis, so they're not real particular on what they eat.

- Wow.

[Tonya laughs] That's pretty tough.

I've never seen a baby one, though.

- I haven't either except on the internet.

You can look up video of these things hatching out of their egg case.

It's really pretty cool.

- All right.

That's pretty good stuff, yeah.

So once again folks, be careful when you're using pesticides in the garden, right, 'cause we do have beneficials out there that will help us, right?

- Mm-hmm.

That's right.

- Thank you much for that good information, Tonya.

We appreciate that.

[upbeat country music] - We're here in the garden with one of the staple crops of the Mid-South garden, and that is the beautiful okra plant.

We have a few blooms here that are just past, gorgeous bloom.

But I think one of the most important and sometimes misunderstood elements in growing okra is when exactly do we need to harvest these fruit?

Oftentimes what we'll say is when they're two to three inches long.

And so we have a good example here of a growing fruit here, that is of course, too small, too small.

This could actually be a really nice size tender for harvesting.

Pretty quickly, they will get a little bit larger than would be ideal.

They might get a little bit tougher.

We can see, here's a little bit too large for harvest, some other larger fruit back there.

It's important to keep a close eye on the fruit so that you pick up just the right interval to keep them young and tender.

Every couple of days should be able to get you in the range of picking just the right stage as opposed to over-mature.

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

You ready?

- I'm ready.

- Oh, these are some good questions we have here.

All right, here's our first viewer email.

I think you'll like this one.

"How do I rejuvenate "and fortify my Stella D'Oro daylilies "to keep them thriving and re-blooming?

"I have some in containers and others in the ground.

Thank you," And this is Barbara.

So the old Stella D'Oro.

- Oh yes.

- Daylilies that you've taught us so much about.

- Oh yes.

I love Stella D'Oros.

They like all kinds of conditions.

- Yeah.

- Dry, wet.

They do well everywhere.

You know, they are re-blooming.

I usually only get two blooms a season.

They do not like heat, that's the problem.

So in that heat of the summer, they don't do anything.

- Right.

- But now, like all perennials, if you deadhead the seed heads on top.

- I was about to ask you about that.

- Yeah, they will more likely come to bloom again faster because it's not, what a whole plant's purpose is to reproduce.

So if you cut off that, they think, "Oh, I have to bloom again to produce more seeds."

- Right.

- Other parts of the country that don't get as hot, anything that re-blooms still needs a downtime to then get enough energy to re-bloom again.

- Got it.

- So you'll always have pauses and periods of it.

But here, we only get two blooms a season because of the heat.

- Got it.

- You know, I don't know where she's at, but she might get more.

And if she deadheads them, then she might get them to bloom again faster.

- She may, yeah.

That's what I need to do.

'Cause yeah, they will put a lot of their energy into seeds.

- Mm-hmm.

- Right.

Would you consider fertilizing?

I have not fertilized mine.

But would you consider fertilizer?

- Perennials don't need that much fertilizer, no.

And you're gonna cause more foliage than- - Right.

- And you would, plants will, if they think they're not gonna live very long, they'll tend to want to put out flowers and seeds.

So the more they're a little stressed, the better they'll probably bloom.

- Okay.

Better they'll probably bloom.

All right, but do deadhead.

But yeah, they are beautiful.

- They are pretty.

- Yeah.

Beautiful.

Thank you, Ms. Barbara, for that question.

I thought Joellen might like that one.

- Mm-hmm.

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

"I have a rose bush with black spot.

"How can I treat it?

"Does the soil need to be treated?

"Or should I just remove the rose altogether?

Thank you," and this is Barbara from New York.

- Oh wow.

- All right, so she knows the rose bush has black spots.

- Yeah.

- Common, very common disease of roses.

- And we probably see more of it here than she does there because our weather's so humid.

She probably sees it less there.

And maybe she's not had a problem with it before.

- Maybe.

- And you know, I would say air circulation, we go for environmental conditions.

Has it grown there for several years?

Is there other shrubs that have grown near it?

Other roses, the rose itself?

Does it need to be thinned for better air circulation to reduce the chances of black spot?

But yes, you can treat that with fungicides.

- You can treat it with a fungicide.

Couple of things.

Practice good sanitation.

And get those leaves up of course, because they do harbor fungal spores.

You definitely wanna do the air circulation, is something we talked about.

How about resistant varieties?

Let's look at some- - Oh yeah, definitely.

- Let's look at some of those resistant varieties, right?

And the thing about the soil is this, you know, down in our area, I mean, yeah, those fungal spores could probably be there for about a month.

- Yeah.

- Then of course they, you know, go ahead and go away.

But up in New York, like as you mentioned, yeah, it's always a little different.

The climate's gonna be a little different.

But yeah, our heat, humidity, because water spreads this disease.

- Yes.

- This fungal disease.

Water, irrigation, people.

- And does she have mulch on the top?

- Right, and that's something else too.

- Because the soils are so good up there, sometimes they don't use mulch.

- That's right.

- So yeah, I would put a mulch layer down to keep the spores from jumping on as well- - Yeah, get that splashing effect.

- On to that.

- Exactly right.

That's a good point.

So yeah, if you do those things, Ms. Barbara, we think you'd be fine.

And then of course if you have to use the fungicide, there's some fungicides out there.

Daconil is one.

A copper-based fungicide would be another one.

- Yeah.

- That you can use.

Just read and follow the label on that.

But cultural practices is what we always like to talk about first, right?

- Sure.

- So again, to get air circulation, look at the resistant varieties.

Mulch- - Mulch.

- Would be good as well.

So we appreciate that question.

That way you can enjoy your rose bush.

- Yes.

- Don't get rid of it.

- No, no.

Uh uh.

- Don't get rid of it.

All right, Joellen, it was good.

Yes it was.

- It went good.

Thank you much.

- Uh huh.

- 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.

If you want to learn more about caring for orchids, 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]