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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Roses are a beautiful   addition to the garden.

Today we're going to   plant a bare root rose.

Also, you have to plan to   have a successful garden.

Learn what you   need to consider   before you choose   your flowering plants.

Let's just head 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 Mr. Bill Dickerson.

Mr. Bill is our rose expert and Rick Pudwell will be joining me later.

All right Mr. Bill, let's talk about planting a bare root rose.

What's that process?

- Well, a bare root rose typically they ship them like that because you don't have to pay for soil.

- I got you.

- So they just wrap them up.

You can get them usually at a discounted price.

Now typically, if you order from some of the big nurseries, they tell you to soak them in water with just a tad of bleach to kill any kind of germs they might have picked up from the...

So you soak it for anywhere from 24 hours, 12 hours to...

I mean you can leave it in there for three days.

- Wow.

- That helps hydrate the roots.

- Okay.

- 'Cause when it comes, it just doesn't have any roots.

It's just got the big, main roots.

- Okay.

- Which kinda balance out the canes on top.

Now this has got... - It's pretty moist [laughs].

- Yeah, it's full of water.

It's just... - This is paper, yeah?

Look at that.

- Now they've wrapped that pretty much with either pine fines or hardwood mulch.

And you see- - Yeah, look at the roots.

- You can see that that's gonna be the Mother Nature to feed the canes.

- It's nice.

- Now for purposes I don't know what's in there.

[Chris laughs] And we'll just see what's- - Yeah.

- There's not a whole lot of... That's why you go to a nursery and you get a really nice plant.

- Gotcha.

- Because here there's- - Oh, it's not many at all.

- I haven't found a root yet.

This is kind of good to...

This is the difference from getting a good potted rose that'll have canes on the top and the roots on the bottom will be the same size as the canes on the top.

- Okay, got it, got it.

- And as you can see here, there's not a whole lot of food source.

These leaves come from the roots.

- Yeah.

- And all the sugars and starches it's fed from the roots to the leaves up through the canes.

This just don't have a whole lot of...

So you kinda get what you pay for.

- Oh yeah.

- And what kind of concerns me is somebody to go buy one of these, 'cause it's only six or seven bucks and say, well, it didn't do very well.

- Yeah.

- Well now we know why.

[Chris laughs] - No food source.

We know why.

- I've never seen this.

This is...

I've opened a bunch of these up.

Typically if you order them from the online type nurseries, the canes will be about as long as here but this size and the roots will literally be that long.

- Gotcha.

- And sometimes I'll trim them back a little bit, but they've taken- - Your sure you don't trim them back that far, right?

- Yeah, it's gonna take this plant...

I mean, it's growing and you see new canes.

All of these be canes that came from a bud eye.

One here, one here, one here and I thought it was good for a demonstration.

But normally, I'd have canes like that and I would... - Wow.

- This is just almost humorous.

[both laugh] I'd have canes down a foot and a half.

I'll add a little soil.

I guess you can call it that.

I'll put some Epsom salt.

Sprinkle some of that.

Yeah, you get what you pay for.

- Oh yeah.

It's a good example though.

- It's is.

I'll add just a little more dirt.

- There you go.

- Just prop that up.

Now I'm gonna break that little one off the top.

- Now what about your fertilizer now?

- Yeah.

- I think it's gonna need some help.

- Now as small as the roots are, well- - Yeah.

- A lot of times you can put some of the water solubles.

- Okay.

- Typically when you get a new bush, you want to go half strength.

If it calls for a tablespoon to the gallon, you wanna put a half a tablespoon to gallon.

- Okay.

- 'Cause it's good for vigorous plants that are already established.

But you take a plant like this, it could tend to burn some of that new... And you saw how fine and white they are.

- Yeah, Yeah.

- Add a little more dirt.

Soggy dirt.

- Yeah, it's soggy.

- It's so soggy I don't even know if soil would be offended.

[Chris laughs] Because you wanna use some of the soil that came out of it.

At least a third.

You can add any kind of amendments you want.

Any compost or type materials are really good.

Kind of pack it down some.

Now this is a case where with no more roots, I don't want those to dry out.

- Gotcha.

- So any kind of mulch, pine fines or hardwood bark.

Hardwood's a little less money and I like it just as well.

- Okay.

- It breaks down quicker and it adds amendments to the soil And I'm- - So you pile up again.

- I'm piling it up.

- Gotcha.

- Just so those canes keeps some moisture in them.

Right now we got plenty of moisture.

But a normal, and I don't remember what that is.

If it gets dry, those canes will get dry.

And that... All of a sudden that plant will start wilting down and sometimes they're recover and sometimes it won't.

- Okay.

- And I'll just... And then later on, as it comes up and bushes out, you can come in with the water hose and spray it with a strong stream and take it down a little bit.

And by the end of May start of June, you're just gonna have-- - Put it on back, okay.

- You're just gonna pull it on back.

- That's- - If you don't, where you were gonna get a cane, you'll get a root.

Mother Nature's pretty strong willed.

- Now does any of this need to be pruned?

Is that okay?

- No, these are good.

And these are... You can see there's a little brown on this side and I'm just gonna...

I'm gonna go ahead and prune it.

And then I'll look at the cane and I can see where there's just a little bit of brown on one side and it's starting- - Okay.

- And this has start fresh.

Over here this looks kind of... You want a good clean cut.

And as we tell people, you wanna use a bypass   instead of anvil   and I've run into-   - It will crush it, right?

I got you.

- People that's got an anvil   and it just smashes that   cane and it's gonna die.

- Right.

- And then I'll sprinkle a little more product on the top.

I see a little powder.

That's powder.

This has got a lot of microbial type.

Feathers, kelp.

- Got the earthworm.

- Worm casing.

- Casings.

- And that'll just go down into the soil.

Now once this cane starts coming out depending on the bloom, it takes about 40 days to go from a bare cane, a cane sprouts out, it'll get up to here.

And it takes about 40 days before get a bloom.

- Ah, 40 days.

- Once you get that bloom, you dead head it and you just cut down below it.

And then this takes another 40 days to get that bloom.

So it's one day your roses... You've got a lot of roses in your garden, like in May.

- Right.

- And then the end of May, you've got a bunch of new growth that looks like this and no roses [chuckles].

- How about that?

So the 40 days, pretty much get us to Mother's Day.

So you can get roses for Mother's Day.

- There you go.

That's... You get the... And typically roses bloom best in cool weather.

The first one in May.

- Yeah.

- And the last one in about October, when the weather cools down, that's where you get the really big blooms.

Once it gets hot, those blooms open up and fall apart before you get home from work.

- Sure.

Sure.

And Mr. Bill, we appreciate the demonstration.

Bare root rose planting.

How about that?

Which we didn't have that many roots, so appreciate that, right?

- It did.

Hopefully we'll look for more roots next time.

- Hopefully so.

Thank you, sir.

- Thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Cold frame.

So, this of term we're hearing a lot more about these days.

- Yeah, yeah.

It's where you use a cold frame   as a sort of a season extender.

And a cold frame typically,   when people think   of a cold frame,   they kind of comes to mind   that it's just something that   of blocks or concrete blocks   or wood and it has maybe   a window sash over it   or a transparent top.

And it's usually it tilts.

It could be shaped like this and the window sash is here and then it's got the concrete blocks and you open that up and it's tilted or leaned.

It's higher in the... To the north, but lower to the south so that it catches the southern sun during the fall and early spring.

People can start cuttings.

They can kind of protect plants from cold.

They're not heated, that's the reason they're called a cold frame cold.

- Cold frame, right.

- But it's just sort of a, a little plant protection, for cool weather.

A lot of people even overwinter, some of their more tender plants in a cold frame, yeah.

[upbeat country music] - All right Mr. Rick, let's talk about annuals and perennials 'cause guess what?

Folks are ready and anxious to start planting now.

- Well, they are.

It's getting to be that time of year.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Our last average frost usually is 15th of April but a lot of times it's way before that.

- Right.

- So we're at that time.

I think the main thing when you're thinking about planting plants is really pick the site where you're gonna grow things.

- Okay.

- If you think about it, some of the plants I brought today are shade perennials and of course they've bloom early before the leaves are on the trees.

- Okay.

- When they get the most light.

And of course if you just pick the first things that you want and don't think about where they're gonna go, you might buy shade plants to put in the sun.

[Chris laughs] And you really don't wanna plant most of the annuals 'til the soil gets a little warmer toward the middle of April.

- Okay.

- And so, you really have to think about what you're gonna plant.

So, just picking the site is really important.

- Okay.

- And then the next thing is, figure out what's gonna grow there.

And part of that, it also certain people have color schemes they want in their garden.

They wanna know...

They want something red, white and blue because of whatever reason or yellow and purple or whatever they want.

So, you need to think about that and then also bloom times, because plants bloom at different times.

There's perennials that bloom in the spring, some that bloom in summer, some that bloom in the fall.

Some that are repeat-bloomers, but most of them not.

And of course, annuals bloom pretty much the whole season.

Almost from the time you plant them 'til frost and most species.

So getting the site selected, deciding what it's like.

Is it well drained?

Is it wet?

- That's key these days.

- Are you gonna water frequently when the drought comes in the summer?

And all these sort of things.

So you have to kind of plan for that.

Obviously there's plants that grow in dry sites, wet sites, soggy sites.

- Sure.

- So, making the proper selection is really important.

- Okay.

- And then, if you want a nice garden with something blooming all year round, a good tact on that... And this goes in the category of trees and shrubs as well, is to visit a good nursery.

- Sure.

- Maybe once a month.

- Sure.

- And see what's in bloom.

In our climate there's things that bloom even in the winter.

Witch hazels and Camellias and a lot of ornamental cherries, lots of stuff like that.

And even Lenten rose start in February and things like that.

So, if you pick something out at a nursery every month of the year, you'd pretty much have an all year round garden.

- That's pretty good.

I didn't think about that before.

Okay, all right.

Makes sense.

- And then the other thing I would worry about is proper soil preparation.

- Ah, without a doubt.

- And it depends what you're gonna plant as to how you would amend it.

But most of the time you wanna be sure that the site is well drained for most things.

You wanna add some organic matter, the appropriate fertilizer, check the pH.

Are they acid-loving plants?

Are they alkaline loving plants?

I see lots of people that try to grow both in the same bed and wonder why some do well and some don't.

- That's right.

That's right.

And I'm gonna interject here, Mr. D., with a soil test - Don't guess, Soil test.

That's right.

- Getting your soil tested would definitely help with that plant selection for sure.

- I agree.

- Okay.

- So those are all things to look for.

And then if you're new to gardening, I think a lot of people tend to think too big right away.

- Yes.

- And they bite off more than they can chew and then come summertime and it's time to weed and deadhead and all that stuff and you're worn out.

So I think pick the spots very carefully.

Maybe near the front entrance to your house, if you're somebody that works nine to five and that's what you're gonna see when you come home from work or maybe near your deck or patio, or maybe you wanna do a series of containers, but I'd locate them close to the house where you're gonna have to see them and water them because in the summer if you forget, they don't last long.

- They don't last long at all [laughs].

- Or maybe a view from a window where you sit in the house and look out when the air conditioning is on so you can actually see it.

But pick your spots carefully and do your most color plantings in those locations, unless you're real avid gardener or you're retired and you have lots of time, you can do it all.

- Right.

Right.

- So I think those are all important things- - Okay.

- To look at.

- Okay.

Now let's define for the folks what's an annual?

- Okay.

An annual is a plant that could be grown from seed or some cases some tropical plants, like lantanas, like here where they're grown from cuttings.

- Okay.

- But usually they spend their whole life cycle in one season.

- Okay.

- So, they flower their hearts out, go to seed and they die.

- Okay.

- Okay?

- And what about perennials?

- Perennials are plants usually that are herbaceous.

In other words, they die to the ground in the winter, although there's some exceptions.

But we are more like a shrub, but most perennials die to the ground in the winter.

They live for a number of years.

They flower at a specific time of the year.

Some perennials if you will deadhead them, will bloom more than once.

- Okay.

- So that means cutting off the spent blooms of course- - Yeah.

- So they don't go to seed because that plant wants to reproduce and of course if we can prevent that, it's gonna flower again.

- Okay.

It's good.

Good explanation.

I like that.

Now let's talk about some of the plants that you have here.

- Okay.

Well, I mentioned that shade perennials were blooming now.

Also lots of bulbs are blooming now which were planted in the fall, but the pink flower there is Silene, and that that's a nice shade perennial.

And then in front of it is a blue columbine.

Now these are young plants.

They are just starting to grow.

They're gonna get bigger.

And then the plant with the green leaves and the little bell-like flowers that are just forming is a red-leafed form of Solomon's seal called Ruby Slippers, which is a new one.

Most of the Solomon's seal you see are green-stemmed with the white bells or there's what they call false Solomon's seal which is variated foliage.

And it looks almost identical to the true Solomon's seal.

- Okay, now you said shade.

So what do we mean by shade?

- Okay, shade- - That's always a question we get.

- Right.

And there's degrees of shade.

- Right, and there's- - And you can have too much.

- Okay.

- Okay.

If shade is from a tree, you are also competing with tree roots.

- Right.

- So, your bed preparation there is gonna be different than if you're doing a planting in the sun where there aren't tree roots.

[chuckles] Right.

- Okay.

- Right.

- So probably if you're planting close to the tree for whatever reason, your best bet is to dig fairly sizeable holes.

If you've hit a big root adjust your planting site.

Amend that soil as well as you can and plant the plants there.

- Okay.

- If it's really dense shade, your best to stay with things that really are not flowering   like hostas.

Everybody knows hostas-   - Yeah.

- With the colorful foliage.

Ferns of course will   take deep shade.

There's other   plants that will...   Epimediums.

There's a lot of plants   that will really   thrive in the shade.

If it's moving shade where the little sunlight filters through, a lot of these flowering plants will do really well that the notable thing is that they flower in the spring before the trees leaf out.

- Right.

- Okay?

But they still have to complete their life cycle so they need some sun to actually mature and grow flower buds for the following year, so- - No, that's good.

- Those are degrees of shade.

- Good, good explanation.

All right.

So what about the other plants that you have?

- Okay, that's a bleeding heart, which is also a shade perennial and the flowers do look a little bit like a heart.

And again, it does just blooms in the early spring, but very nice.

Most of the summer and fall-blooming perennials are sun plants.

- Okay.

- So, things like daylillies and phlox and Rudbeckia, Echinacea, asters Those are summer and fall blooming.

So, by planting correctly... And by that I'm saying, in drifts that are kind of mixed figuring heights in consideration, you could have a perennial border that bloomed all year round but then it's nice to mix a few annuals in there because by repeating the same annual throughout the bed, you'll have bursts of color- - Nice.

- The whole season.

And that makes a very pleasing effect versus just a big mass of one thing.

- How about that?

I need you to come to my house help me out.

[all laugh] - All I have to do [indistinct] for a big space for a long time.

- And what do we have here too as well?

- These are lantana, very popular plant.

- Yeah, I like that- - It's a butterfly plant, so people like that.

And this is Cuphea, the common cigar plant 'cause you see the little flowers kinda look like that.

There's many different forms.

There's one called   bat-faced cuphea   that if you look at it closely   it looks like a little   bat face with the ears.

These are long blooming plants.

They're technically tropical plants 'cause they're grown from cuttings, but we treat them as annuals.

Plant them in the spring, let them go to the fall.

This particular lantana is called Ms. Huff, which is pretty much perennial in our climate.

- Oh, it is, okay.

- The nice...

It will die to the ground like a herbaceous perennial and then come back from the roots.

Lantanas will grow in hot sunlight in a parking lot where there's asphalt and or along the sidewalk.

And that's really useful in our climate because that's a tough place to have annual color.

- Right.

- It's just like you notice that the best pansies that bloom through the winter are in parking lots because they've got all that heat sink from the asphalt and the concrete.

- That's why it looks so good, yeah.

- But the ones that are out in lawn areas and stuff don't do quite as well.

- Okay.

- 'Cause it's colder.

- It's cold.

All right.

Okay, actually makes sense.

- So, anyway, just... You gotta look for those little niches in your landscape at home.

There's some places where certain things are gonna do better than other things.

You just have to figure that out.

- How about that?

Mr. Rick, we appreciate you being here today.

- Oh, you're most welcome.

- Thank you much.

Thank you much.

Good stuff.

[gentle country music] - Well, it's time to plant the spinach in our square foot garden.

And spinach in a square foot garden   is planted nine   plants to a square.

So what we're gonna do is   I'm just gonna take my shovel and I'm going to make three little trenches here in each of my squares.

And then I'm going to you go ahead and take my spinach seeds and put them in.

Now spinach requires the dark to germinate.

So the seeds have to be planted far enough down into the soil that it is dark.

If there's light where the seed is, it will not germinate.

So there we go.

I'm now just gonna cover it up.

Kinda pat it down a little bit to make sure there's good soil contact.

Now that'll come up in a few days and hopefully pretty soon we'll have spinach.

[gentle country music] - All right, Joellen this is our Q and A segment.

You ready?

- I'm ready.

- These are great questions.

Let's get to the first one, okay?

- Okay.

- "Purchased and planted an   Amber Jubliee ninebark tree   "last fall.

"I was anticipating the   promised beautiful fall color,   "but alas that did not happen.

"The leaves are green   with large black spots.

"Is this a fungus or   some other disease?

"Did I do something   wrong to cause this   and is going to be   a continual problem?"

And this is E. Sawyer   from central Ohio.

So ninebark, beautiful plant.

- It is beautiful plant.

- Beautiful plant.

So what do you think about that?

- Well, one thing I think it might be stressed 'cause it's new transplant.

- Okay, okay.

- So a lot of it could be environmental factors that are causing the problems.

- Okay.

- But the black on them reminds me of anthracnose a little bit.

- Me too.

- And I'm wondering what the weather has been like there, 'cause if you had cool wet weather in the spring or even in August, September, it could cause that kind of mottling on the leaves.

- Right.

I would agree with that.

That's what it looks like to me.

It kind of follows the veins a little bit so it looks like anthracnose.

We don't know the time of year of course.

- No, I wonder when she took that picture.

I don't know.

- And there's something else I noticed from the picture too.

It looks like it's pretty close, to the outside wall.

So you wonder if it gets good air circulation through there to dry those leaves off.

- Oh, that's true too.

- So that's something that I noticed from the picture.

But yeah, fungus?

Yeah, so I mean there's of course some fungicides that you could use, but we like to start with the cultural practices first.

- I think that would be better, yeah.

- Right.

Yeah, start with those cultural practices and then okay if you wanna use a fungicide, there's some copper based fungicide.

Daconil is something that you can use.

But culturally yeah, let's make sure, right?

- Good air flow, yes.

- Good air flows.

Yeah, you're probably gonna have to move it- - Well, that's what I was wondering if it's a young tree and she's just planted it, she needs to look at the mature size of the tree.

How wide is it gonna get and then place the center of the trunk so that it still has airflow around the structure.

- Okay, okay.

That's good.

- With that as much as she can- - Right.

- Because that's gonna help the tree.

- Okay.

That's good.

And the tree can be saved.

It can be saved.

- Oh, yeah.

- It can be saved.

- It's fine.

- Beautiful ninebark tree.

Nice.

All right thank you for that question.

Hope that helped you out.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Ten years ago   I planted Camellias   "and they have done   very well, 'til now.

"There's a strange pattern on   the bark of one of the plants.

"I have pruned it   into a tree shape   "so that it would show above   the Camellias in front of it.

"It blooms profusely in late   winter with pink blooms.

"I have it planted   across against   "the north-facing side of the   house and it gets dapple sun   "as soon as the sun clears   the house around noon.

"The other Camellias   "do not appear to have   this on their bark.

What is going on?"

And this is Chris   in Nashville.

Appreciate the details.

- It was, yes.

- We know when the sun is coming over.

- Yes, that is great.

- I like this.

We're planting in front of it, to kinda hide that.

This is good.

- And they've got on the north side.

- On the north side.

Facing the side of the house.

Yeah, dapple sun.

- It's getting some, okay.

- Nice blooms.

- Yeah.

- Oh, this is good.

So what do we think that is though?

We've seen that before.

- Well, I've seen...

Unfortunately I've seen that a lot.

- I've seen it as well.

- It's wildlife at it greatest.

It's yellow-bellied sapsucker.

- Yellow-bellied, yes.

- They came and did   that to my Viburnum and of course that's a shrub.

- Right.

- So when they started circling a few of the limbs ended up dying, but not the whole plant.

- Right.

- Unfortunately his has got a nice trunk and that gets to be a little bit more difficult.

But yeah, that's wildlife at it's greatest.

- It's just wildlife, yeah.

And I have that similar damage to my hollies right in front of my door.

Almost perfect lines.

- It's amazing, isn't it?

- The way they do that.

And I've seen them a couple of times is out the window kind of looking.

But yeah, just a couple of limbs have died from that damage.

But for the most part, the tree is gonna be fine.

Yeah, it's gonna be fine.

So your Camellia I think will be fine.

Look, they are protected.

So yeah, don't run out there and try to shoot them, anything like that.

- No, no.

- Right.

But yeah, the tree will be fine.

I don't think there's anything you need to do to try to deter the yellow-bellied sapsuckers-- - No.

- For doing that damage.

- He's trying to find some food.

- Right.

Yeah, so I think that'd be fine.

But Chris, we appreciate that.

Yeah, the details in that.

- I love it.

And the picture.

Good picture, so we appreciate that.

- Good picture.

- So yeah.

Don't be alarmed, yellow-bellied sapsucker.

You can read on that if you want to.

But yeah, it's not gonna be a problem.

All right, Joellen that was fun.

- Yes, it was.

- Thank you for being here.

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 joining us.

Today we planted roses, which is only the first step.

Go to familyplotgarden.com to learn more about rose care.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]