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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Solomon's seal, Japanese maple, and weeds.

It sounds like a normal garden.

It is also the topics of some of today's garden questions.

It's the Q&A show next 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.

It is summer and the garden is in.

Over the last few months, we have answered lots of viewer questions, but we have not had the chance to air them all, so we're catching up.

First up, a question about snails.

"How do I keep snails from devouring my hibiscus?"

And this is Stephanie from Florida.

So Mary, I know you like questions like this.

- Yeah, I like all animal questions.

- Yeah.

- Okay, so discouraging snails.

There's a lot of home remedies out there that people try and sometimes have success with, so things like crushed egg shells.

- Okay, which she tried.

- Okay.

- Yeah, along with vinegar, she tried.

- Okay, so coffee grinds.

- Okay.

- There are a number of traps out there.

So you bait a trap, say with beer, and they fall into the trap and they're not able to get out.

That's another option.

If you wanna look bigger picture, you can encourage their predators, like frogs and toads, so creating a small water feature, providing habitat for frogs and toads, like little toad abodes.

Those are natural predators.

And then another thing too is try to determine where are these snails at when they're not on your plant.

So snails like to be in kind of damp and warm areas.

So think about if you have like a piece of cardboard laying out, if you lift that up, you're probably gonna see a ton of slugs and snails, so removing anything that they're gonna be hiding under, overturned pots in damp, warm areas is what I would recommend.

- Okay, I like that.

Anything to add to that, Jessie?

- Oh, just that I really love snails.

I love looking closely at how interesting they are, so.

- Closely.

- I say let them eat, but that's okay.

- Let them eat.

- I say in Florida, they probably have a big diversity of 'em too.

- I would think so in Florida.

I definitely would, for sure.

So there you have it, Ms. Stephanie.

Hope that helps you out there.

And if you're going to be using some baits, just be careful of the kind of baits you're gonna use.

Look for something that contains iron phosphate.

But we're gonna go with Mary again here, so- - Beer.

- Just the environment.

- Beer, beer.

So how about that?

[gentle country music] "Is there a way to prevent squash bugs by treating the soil before planting?"

And this is Marsha from Columbus, Ohio.

So what do you think about that one, Joellen?

The old squash bugs, right, they are tough.

They are tough.

- Well, the best thing to do is to keep the weeds and all of the debris down around the garden.

That's the best thing you can do because a lot of these bugs overwinter in the weeds.

- Yes.

- And they're everywhere.

You can't get rid of them.

If you get rid of 'em in your yard, your neighbor has them, or the neighbor down the street has them, and you just simply cannot get rid of 'em, 'cause they fly.

- Yes.

- And they're gonna find a food source, which could be your squash, unfortunately.

- Yes, so practice good sanitation is what that sounds like to me.

Walter, do you have any- - Absolutely, yes.

- Any suggestions?

- And, you know, and there are not any residential-label, homeowner-label materials to even put in the soil to combat it 'cause I know that question also asked can they put it in the soil?

So you just have to do your due diligence and just kinda treat 'em when you see 'em and deal with 'em from on top of the ground.

- And Marsha knows to do that.

She knows to get out there and scout and look under those leaves, and that's pretty much what you're gonna have to do.

- Yeah.

- Right.

So yeah, good luck with that.

Squash bugs are tough.

- Yeah, they're tough.

[gentle country music] - "My rose plant is being besieged by something.

"I think it's a bug, "but a neighbor said it could be a fungus, "and another one said it might be the Japanese beetles.

"Either way, it used to produce healthy flowers "like bunnies every year, but now I rarely see any flowers.

"I've tried spraying it with Sevin, Bonide, neem oil "and Bonide rose three-in-one, but nothing seems to work.

"Can you please help?

Thank you so much."

And this is Andrew from Springfield, Illinois.

So can we help Andrew with that?

And I think we both have the same issue with our roses.

- Yes, I do, I do have the same issue with my roses.

And so that damage that they're seeing on the leaf is actually feeding damage from an insect.

This is the rose sawfly.

So in its adult form, it is a small fly, insignificant.

I can't imagine you would've ever seen it.

But in its immature stage, it looks like a caterpillar, but it's not a caterpillar.

So you can't use products that target caterpillars to kill this particular insect.

- So no Bt.

- Right, no Bt.

- But it does kind of look like caterpillar.

It's light green, kind of translucent, and they're usually on the undersides of the leaf.

- Yes, they are.

- And their mouths are so small, they're chewing insects, but they're so small that they can't bite all the way through the leaf, right on the front end, so they scrape off the under surface of the leaf and leave a little translucent layer on the top, and so we call that window paning.

It looks they've made a cute little window pane.

But then after a while, say you get a rain or the wind's blowing, those window panes are gonna fall out, and so then yes, you do have a complete hole that might be reminiscent of feeding damage from some other kind of insect.

- I could see that.

- So it could be a little tricky is what I was trying to get at, but it's just a rose sawfly.

They're not really gonna affect the overall health of your plant, not gonna cause death.

I would say if you have reduced flowering, I would look and see if, do you have different light in that area than you used to?

Have the plants around it matured so that you're getting less light?

Usually if we have lower light levels, you're gonna have less flower production on your roses.

- Good observation, yeah.

- And those insects don't feed on the flower buds.

- That's right.

- They're concentrated on the leaves.

- That's right.

- And it's all throughout the season, so it would be hard to even control those, you know, through an insecticide.

So from my point of view, since it's not life-threatening and it's not actually feeding on the flower buds, I wouldn't recommend worrying too much about treatment in the home garden, right.

If you're managing a botanic garden with a flower garden, of course, we're gonna try to do things to minimize that, but for home gardens, I wouldn't worry about it too much and I would just check on some of those other things, make sure it's not competing with other plants around it for nutrients.

Make sure it's still getting a good six hours of light.

Roses love sun.

- Yep, they love sun, full sun.

Again, had the same issue at home.

- Yep.

- Yep.

And those little caterpillars, look, they camouflage so well.

- Yeah.

- So well.

So yeah, flip the leaves over.

- They're really light green.

They're like a neon-y light green- - They are.

- So they just blend right in.

- Yeah, I tell my son they look like gummy worms.

- They do look like gummy worms.

- He won't try it, though.

They look like gummy worms to me.

- They do look like gummy worms.

- So there you have it, Andrew.

Yeah, we wouldn't worry so much about it.

I don't at home.

- I don't either.

- Yeah.

I don't worry about it at all.

[gentle country music] "My Japanese maple did not fully leaf out.

Can you help pinpoint the problem or possible solution?"

And this is Laura from Cleveland, Ohio.

So Jessie, what did you think about that one?

It's pretty interesting.

- I would say that Japanese maples need enough light, they need enough water.

I mean, I guess they're kind of the basic things the plant will need and you might wanna add a little fertilizer, but I would cut back the dead sections, see if you can ascertain the problem because something's going on there that I'm not really sure what it is, so you might have some ideas.

- Yeah, it's interesting to pinpoint.

I know Mary and I were just talking about this, so yeah, environmental conditions.

Cleveland, Ohio, was it a rough winter?

- Right.

- Did they have a rough winter?

Something else I like to think about too, was it planted too deep?

'Cause I like to be able to see the root flares, the ground settles over time.

Was it too deep?

How about this one.

How's your drainage?

Because they don't like wet feet.

- Right.

- And of course you have wet feet, you're gonna have have problems up in the canopy of the tree, so those are the things I thought about.

Anything else?

- Yeah, I think too when this Japanese maple needs to take all the dead stuff off.

Do the scratch test and make sure that it's all dead.

- That's good.

- And it seems like a significant portion of it is dead at this point too.

- It seems like a lot of it is.

You start taking out a lot of the dead or dying, it might not be much left.

- Right.

- Which makes me think, could it be a watering issue, drainage issue, you know what I mean?

So that's definitely what I'm thinking.

And then too, the weather.

- Yeah, in Cleveland it can get cold there by the lake.

- Pretty cold there.

All right, so Ms. Laura, you have some homework to do, so get out there and check it out, scratch test, see if you have any green tissue and start pruning away and see what you get.

- Yeah.

[gentle country music] - "Can you provide some care instructions "for growing a cup and saucer magnolia tree in a pot?

I had a problem with leaves yellowing and dying."

And this is Wendy from Dallas, Texas.

- Wow.

- So, wow, Joellen says.

We know you like those magnolia trees, right?

- I do.

- What do you think about that one?

- You can grow anything in a container.

The problem is a tree really likes to be in the ground, and when you take it out of the ground and put it in a container, you're changing its environmental conditions and it's more dependent on you to add moisture.

And my thought was it's getting inconsistent moisture, because of the yellowing of the leaves and dropping off, and then, oh, I remember to water it, I'm home this week, so I'll water it more, and then it grows more, and then you forget or you're gone and it doesn't do well.

It would really do better, and she says she's going to plant in the ground, why don't- - Well, let's go to plant the ground.

She wants to up pot it and eventually it's gonna get in the ground, two-year-old tree.

- I would go ahead and, personally, if you can, I would go ahead and plant in the ground.

You're gonna get a more consistent environment for the root system of that particular tree.

- Okay, 'cause I'm definitely thinking about the watering regime, if you will.

And then we don't know if she's fertilizing or not.

But Wendy, yeah, go ahead and get that in the ground.

- And if you've got, if there's a reason why you want it bigger to protect it from animals or something, or a dog, you know, I would just put a fence around it in the yard and then it'll have its best and better environment for it to grow and the animals won't get to it.

[gentle country music] - "My country home is located on a hillside "with a large wooded area.

"What are some perennials I can plant in a shady area on a hillside that are drought and mole resistant?"

"The tree roots zap up all the rainwater.

Thanks so much."

And this is Linda from Covington, Tennessee.

I think you know a little bit about Covington.

- Oh, I do too.

- So how about that?

So shaded area, hillside.

- Hillside.

- But drought and mole resistant.

- Well, I don't know anything that's, well, the moles really don't eat, unless it's voles.

Voles.

- Yeah, voles.

- Voles will eat.

- They're herbivores, voles are, but not moles.

- But moles are not, the eat- - Like grubs and- - Like grubs and worm and stuff.

- They're insectivores.

- So I wouldn't worry about moles.

They might help you aerate your hardened soil.

- Right, yeah.

- But voles will eat stuff.

There are a few things.

The Lenten roses can take some drought.

Ferns, think about nature.

- Yeah, I thought about ferns.

- Ferns.

Bigroot geranium is good for shady, dry area.

Lugworts.

- Oh, I love that.

- Solomon's seal- - Ah, okay.

- Is also found.

- All right.

- And wild ginger.

- Okay.

- In fact, the wild ginger probably really like the hillside because wild ginger runs, so she could get a nice stand of that.

- Okay.

- And of course the Epimediums.

- Familiar, okay.

- And so all of those will do well so that would give her a nice variety- - That sure would.

- That would bloom, so yeah.

- Sizes, textures.

Okay, yeah, I like those.

How about conditions of the soil though?

Does it matter for a hillside as long as it has good drainage, you think?

- I don't think so because usually a hillside, if it's in a wooded area, it should have some organic matter in it, just based on the fact that it's in Mother Nature and I would tend to leave the leaves and let them decompose on the soil surface.

Now, you might wanna make sure each of one of these perennials is not covered, you know, until it goes dormant, but now the Helleborus are gonna be green all year long.

- Okay.

- Yeah, just watch it.

- So you think those will work under those conditions?

Yeah 'cause she said the tree roots taking up all of the moisture.

- Yeah, well, they probably are.

- Okay.

[gentle country music] "What is this plant?

"I would like to transplant some of them.

"When should I do that?

What type of food do they need?"

And this is Norm from Knoxville, Tennessee.

Walter, do you know what that plant is?

- I believe it's Solomon's seal.

- Solomon's seal, right.

- Yeah.

- It's a beautiful plant.

- It is.

- Yes, and they grow pretty well, at least in my yard, they grow pretty good.

Don't require a lot of attention too much.

- No, no they don't.

- No, not not too much attention and I actually learned this from Joellen, Polygonatum.

You know, that's what that is.

- Scientific name.

- Joellen, you wanna help us out with that?

- Yeah, and in the picture it's blooming.

- Yeah.

Beautiful.

- So that's really nice and then she wants to know when she can divide it.

Well, anytime during the growing season, but I would especially wait 'til after it finishes blooming 'cause you want it- - Good point.

- To finish blooming and then you wanna be able to transplant it somewhere.

- So fertilizing, you know, she asked what type?

- Oh, fertilizer, you know... - Would you have to fertilize 'em?

- Perennials really don't need fertilizer.

I don't ever fertilize my perennials after the first year or so that they're planted.

This, Mother Nature, putting compost down and around 'em with mulch, mulch on top of the ground, it seems to decompose and feed 'em enough that they need, so no, not a whole lot and I just don't fertilize perennials that much and I don't think they need a whole lot.

Maybe just once you transplants it and that's it.

- It should be fine, 'cause in nature, they pretty much like shady conditions, rich soils.

- Or organic soils, yeah.

- All right.

- That's what we always say, plant the plant where it wants to go.

- Where it wants to go.

- If it wants to be in the sun, put it in the sun.

If it wants to be in shade, put it in the shade and those perennials, like you said, they'll take care of themselves.

- They take care of themselves.

[gentle country music] - "Morning glories in my garden have re-seeded "beyond their allotted area.

Is there a way to control and remove them?"

And this is Judy.

So Walter, you know anything about the old morning glory, the bindweed as most people will call it.

- Oh yes, and it can really be a problem.

- Oh, it could be a problem.

- And my only advice to you is you're just going to have to be diligent, try to catch the seedlings and get 'em pulled out where maybe you can do some spot spraying with something that contains glyphosate or something like that.

If you're comfortable doing that, you can treat it that way, but the main thing is you gotta keep it from seeding.

You have to keep it from seeding, and the problem with them seeding is they have a very long dormant time as a seed, I think like 30-something years they can lay dormant.

- It's crazy, yeah.

- So you just got to just keep working and you'll eventually win the battle.

You'll eventually win it, but you just have to stay on it.

- Gotta be diligent.

- Yes.

- Wow, Joellen, anything you wanna add to that?

It's good.

- The reason why the morning glories are such a problem is because they're an invasive weed, and in some states they're banned from being planted because they're so invasive.

- Yes.

- So that's the problem she's having, and when you have an invasive species like that, yes, it's gonna be hard to take care of.

- Gotta be diligent, pull, pull, pull.

- Pull.

- Yeah.

Get as much as the rhizomes as you possibly can- - Yes.

- Because they'll grow back prolifically from that.

Good luck, yes.

That's gonna be tough.

- It's it's gonna take some time.

- It's gonna take some time, but you can get it.

It'll take some time.

[gentle country music] "When is the time to plant Kentucky bluegrass?"

And this is Audria.

So what do you think about that one, Joellen?

- Most bluegrasses like to be germinate in the ground when the soil temperature is 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit, so whenever, it's usually in the spring or fall you get those temperatures and so those are the best times to put down Kentucky bluegrass seed so it will germinate.

If you get higher than that, the seed germination rate will go down considerably.

But 60, 65 degrees is what the seed likes to germinate, so spring and fall is when you find those temperatures to plant seed.

- Okay, would it also apply if you're sodding, Walter, you think?

- I would think the same thing.

I always think of it kind of around, you know, late August, September is when I kind of think about planting it or sodding it, and also in the spring months in our part of the world.

Around I guess March, late March, April kind of time to do it.

- Right, Kentucky bluegrass beautiful grass.

- Oh, yeah.

- High water requirements.

- Yes.

- 'Cause we actually grew some in our turf plot here, Memphis, Tennessee, of course, and yeah, if you wanna put down the seed or sod, you would do that in the fall, or you could do it- - It in the spring again.

- In the spring, yeah, and I think it'll work.

- I will say this, that these fall plantings do a little better, they really do.

- Right, I would agree with that.

- They have a longer time to have a cooler temperatures that they like to grow- - Yeah, definitely in the fall.

- And that's why they do better in the fall.

- Yeah, 'cause the spring you're gonna have a shorter window.

'Cause you're thinking February, March, so you're gonna have a short window before it starts to get hot because it is a cool-season grass.

- So in cool parts of the country, they can probably plant it almost all summer long.

- Probably.

- As long as temperature at night is 60 to 65 degrees.

[gentle country music] - "The nutsedge in my garden keeps getting worse.

How do I get rid of this weed?"

And this is Marge from Ellesmere, Kentucky.

The old nutsedge.

Always a problem, Joseph.

- Oh yeah.

It's a big problem.

I don't know how many times I've gone through flower beds pulling it up.

A week later it comes popping right back up.

- And guess what?

- It's a tough one.

- She's tried pulling it.

She's tried pulling it.

It is growing through the landscape fabric.

- Landscape, your perennials, everything.

So you know, here in this area we have both yellow and purple nutsedge.

The problem with pulling it out is the roots are very long and very weak and at the bottom of it is a little nutlet.

And when you pull those up, the root breaks off and the nutlet stays in and it reproduces with more tubers and rhizomes.

- Oh, you just made 'em mad at that point, right?

- That's right, so it's gonna keep coming up so the best way that I have found that works the best is to get in there and dig 'em and try and get as much of that root, that nutlet out.

Sometimes if the bed has been tilled up good enough, it's moist enough you can kind of get in there and kind of work it out and sometimes you can get it all out, but that's rare.

So the best thing to do, if you can, is to spray it with a product like Sedgehammer.

Ortho Nutsedge, Image.

But of course, you have to be careful 'cause you can't spray 'em on your perennials and annuals, so you gotta watch out for that for sure, but that's a tough one.

You gotta keep on top of 'em.

- Nutsedge is tough.

- It is bad.

- It's a very versatile weed, right?

- It is.

- 'Cause the thing is, of course it likes more moist conditions.

- Moist conditions.

- If you got poor drainage, correct the drainage, but once it becomes established, it's tolerant to drought-like conditions.

- Right.

[gentle country music] - "Why is my Christmas cactus blooming in late spring instead of early winter?"

And this is Doris from right here in Cordova, Tennessee.

So Mary, what do you think about that?

- Well, there are three different plants that are actually referred to as Christmas cacti, so the first thing is figuring out which one you have.

- All right, first thing first, okay.

- So there's a Christmas cacti.

Most of these are handed down from generation to generation.

There's a Thanksgiving cacti, which is what typically if you bought at a store is what you have.

- Got it.

- Can bloom a little bit earlier.

And then there's also an Easter cacti, bloom quite a bit earlier.

- Right, didn't know that.

- So that's one of the biggest things, figure out which one that you have.

And then a Christmas cacti, once it's happy, don't move it.

If it's happy in a window that you have it in, I would leave it be.

- You just leave it.

- What about the watering with that, Jessie, you think?

- Well, personally, my personal experience is they're real picky about overwatering or underwatering so it's good to have them on a schedule.

I mean, they're blooming on a schedule, they like watering on a schedule.

They're a very schedule-oriented plant, so if once a week, what I do is once a week I give it a really good watering and that's it.

I don't let it sit in water.

Maybe let it sit for a few minutes in some water and then I take it out and that's it.

I can't do more than that and I can't miss a week or it gets unhappy.

- Wow.

So she did say the last few years it's been blooming at random times of the year, so I tend to think that has to do, maybe a couple of things here, right?

So there could be a fluctuation in light.

Or it could be a fluctuation in moisture, so it could be too wet or too dry.

And of course when I think about that, I think about the plants get stressed, and once they get stressed it's like, ah, I gotta push out this bloom real quick because something's wrong.

So I tend to think it's either light or the watering.

- Yeah, I think so too, and even though she did say it was blooming at Christmastime, or it used to bloom at Christmastime- - Yeah, late spring instead of early winter.

- Yeah, so sometimes when you buy it in a store, the growers can kind of trick it to bloom a little bit later so that could have been it in the beginning why it was blooming so late, but I think what her issue might be is that she's letting it dry out in between waterings.

- Yeah.

[gentle country music] "How would I treat an apple tree "with yellow spots on the leaves and brown spots on the fruit?"

And this is Carla from Memphis, Tennessee.

So what do you think about that?

- It's definitely a fungus.

Probably apple crab, apple scab, a fungus.

It's common.

And really the only thing you can do is a fungicide.

There is really isn't too much, so you know, a good fruit tree spray.

Most of your garden centers sell those and carry 'em.

- Yeah, apple scab is what I think that is, right, because it attacks both the leaves and the fruit itself, so a couple of things.

Resistant variety is always something that I like to talk about culturally, proper pruning, to allow good airflow to dry off those leaves because the spores, which are spread by wind and rain, those need moisture to start their life cycle.

If you wanna use low-impact means, you can always use a copper-based fungicide for that.

Neem oil is something else that you can use as well.

Read and follow the label on those.

Practice good sanitation.

- Yeah, so- - Practice good sanitation.

- After each cut, you wanna clean your pruners with alcohol before you make that next cut so you're not spreading that fungus.

- That's right, and if there's any leaves on the ground or any fruit- - Pick 'em up.

- Pick 'em up.

- Pick 'em up, discard 'em.

- Get rid of 'em.

As Mr. D would say, double bag and throw 'em away.

- Right.

- Throw it away.

[gentle country music] "What is making the leaves on my magnolia tree turn gray and die?"

And this is Amy.

So what do you think about that one, Jessie?

- Well, it sounds like a fungus.

I usually, now, I work a lot with smaller plants, so I usually use my neem oil mixture for fungus.

But definitely get rid of the infected area and then maybe treat around there and just keep your eyes peeled for anything else that starts to look like that and keep it saturated in some neem oil.

- Yeah.

- Or a neem oil mixture.

That's what I would do.

- I think that'd be good.

Just read and follow the label on that.

Yeah, anytime I see fungal diseases, I think about moisture, so it's just a lot of moisture.

Remove the leaf if you can, pick it up if it falls and hits the ground, practice good sanitation.

- Right.

- That's good.

- So those spores are spreading when they get hit with water, stuff like that, so when you get those infected leaves, I would gather them up in a bag and get them out of there so you're not continuing to spread it and watch your watering.

- Watch your watering, yeah.

Fungal leaf spot is what that is and it kind of grows and grows.

Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

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That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for sending in the questions.

If you want to find research-based answers to your tough garden questions, head on over to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

If you can't find your answer, drop us a line.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Chris Cooper.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]