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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Spring and summer bring a new season for gardens.

It also brings a bunch of gardening problems and questions.

Trees, shrubs, weeds, and fungus.

It's the Q and A show 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.

This week, we're going to spend the whole show answering viewer questions.

Every week we get more questions than we have time to answer on air.

This week we're catching up, showing you some of the questions we did not get to air because of time.

We start with a question about fungus on a large oak tree.

"We have a large, possibly 200-year-old white oak tree on our property."

Isn't that cool?

- That's nice.

- "I just noticed this month what I think is shelf fungus "climbing up the side of the tree.

"I read online that this is fatal for the tree.

"I would be very grateful for your opinion "and any information you have.

"We love the tree and don't want to lose it.

"We have lived together with this tree in our side yard for over 60 years."

- Oh, wow.

- That's impressive.

"Thank you," Cathy from Rochester, New York.

- Oh, wow.

- That is good.

- That is really good.

- I love the detail in this.

That's real good.

Wow, so let's get to the.

- Wonderful.

White oaks are some of the longest lived oak trees around.

So yes, I love that.

- Good for them.

Over 200 years old, maybe.

- That's great.

- But yeah, that's the shelf fungus stuff.

- You know, it's hard to say.

I have this wood decay manual, and I've looked and looked.

Their picture is so far away that I'm not 100% sure which kind of wood decaying fungi it is, but it is some type of wood decaying fungi.

- That we know for sure.

- Yes, that is what we can say for sure, but which kind, we don't know.

They really need a certified arborist to come out because they will be able to identify exactly what the health of that tree is with the fungi on it, and depending on the circumstances all around that tree and how far reaching it is and how much liability or damage there could be if it failed, you need a certified arborist.

- Come and assess the overall health of their tree, because that tree could potentially be a hazard.

- Yes, we don't want it to be a hazard.

- Yeah, we don't want it do that.

At 200 years old, possibly, I mean, my goodness.

- Yeah.

- That's long lived.

- It is.

- But yeah, so a certified arborist, Ms. Cathy.

You can just go to that website.

- The ISA website, and it says find one in your area.

You can find a certified arborist in your area to call.

- You sure can, and I can tell you what it is.

It's www.isa-arbor.com, and then you'll actually put in your physical address, and then it'll just generate a list of certified arborists in your area.

So that's what I would do, Ms. Cathy, Come have them look at that tree for you.

That's impressive.

- It is.

I love that.

- The fact that you all lived together for over 60 years I think is good too, so yeah, we want to get that certified arborist to come out there and take a look at that tree and tell you what's going on.

- That's right.

[upbeat country music] - "I got some pussy willow branches "that unintentionally rooted.

"Will pussy willow perform well here, or should I just throw them away?"

This is Allison from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

So how about that, Baton Rouge, right?

Which is Zone 8b to 9a.

I actually lived there for four years, so I know the zone there.

So can you effectively grow a pussy willow tree?

- Pussy willows really only are for zones four to eight, so she's just barely below where they really do well.

And this is the reason.

It's not that the plant won't grow.

She can plant it and let it grow.

The problem is pussy willows need a cold spell to be able to produce the blooms.

So she might just have a beautiful plant, but she won't get any blooms or any of the fuzzy pussy willows that she desires, is what she's looking for.

But yeah, it's just too warm there.

They need a cooler environment to bloom.

- But we're still telling Allison to give it a shot, right?

- If you've gone ahead and rooted it, let's put it in the ground and see what it does.

- Nice picture, you can see the roots in the little cup.

So I would go ahead and give it a shot, but yeah, just know Zone four to eight, you're 8b to 9a.

But yeah, give it a shot, Allison.

[upbeat country music] "Is there something I can use to prevent "and kill crabgrass in my backyard?

Thank you," and this is Suji.

So you know about that old crabgrass, don't you?

- Yeah.

Sometimes if it weren't for crabgrass, I would have no grass.

- That's what I say.

That's exactly what I say.

- So pre-emergents are real easy.

Even post-emergents.

Doesn't take a lot to kill the crabgrass because it's just so fleshy, kind of a fleshy weed and grass.

- I agree with that.

It is a grassy weed, of course.

If you have thin, bare areas in your lawn, you're gonna have crabgrass.

- Lots of seeds.

- It likes to germinate when you have consecutive soil temperatures of 55 degrees or more.

It'll start to germinate.

- That's why you see it first.

- That's why you see it first, pretty much.

So bare spots in the lawn, or if you mow your grass too closely, you're definitely gonna have crabgrass.

You know me, I like to start with the cultural practices first.

You gotta mow at the right height, fertilize according to your soil test, irrigate at the appropriate time, because you want a dense stand of grass to crowd out the crabgrass.

- Yeah, because if it's covered up and dark, those seeds will not germinate, 'cause I think the crabgrass seeds like light to be able to germinate.

- They need light to be able to germinate.

You were right preventatively.

- Pre-emergents.

- Right, so anything, Dimension is one, dithiopyr is the active ingredient in that, or Pendulum, anything that contains pendimethalin.

Post-emerge, the only one that I know that really works and is real effective, Quinclorac.

Look for Quinclorac, but read and follow the label.

But let's go with the cultural practices first, chemicals last resort.

And that's to get you, Suji, all right?

So yeah, they're looking for space and sunlight, so dense stand of grass.

[upbeat country music] "In my yard, I keep seeing these plants pop up.

"I did not plant them.

"They grow quite large and I'm trying to get rid of them, "but they keep coming back.

"I live in Baltimore, Maryland, "and they seem to survive even this cold winter.

"What is this plant and how do I get rid of it?

Thanks."

So Jill, you've probably seen that plant before.

- Yes, unfortunately I do recognize that plant.

That is an invasive plant.

That is the Italian arum that was grown ornamentally for some time.

It is pretty.

I've had people look at it and go, but I want that in my yard.

And I say no, you probably don't, because it does produce berries, birds eat the berries and they drop them all around the neighborhood and all throughout the woods.

And once those plants get established, they are very difficult to get rid of.

As they grow, the roots get farther and farther down, and so it ends up taking, it is basically a feat of Hercules to have to dig these things up because they get so entrenched into the ground, and unfortunately they do push out some of our native plant life, so it is something to try to get rid of.

In my experience, I've kind of used a two-pronged approach of attempting to dig out what I can, and then when the leaves start to come back, I try to keep up with it with an herbicide and just come back again.

Hope that it'll yellow and go out, and it does tend to go dormant in the summertime.

When I see the leaves coming up again, another attempt to dig them out and then spray whatever I wasn't able to dig out.

- Yeah, yeah.

Using an herbicide helps some.

It's gonna be repeat applications with that herbicide, - Sure is.

- Because this plant, this arum, has tubers, and of course in those tubers are gonna be carbohydrates, which allows this plant to come back time after time after time.

So if you're gonna dig it up, you better get all parts of this plant, including those tubers.

'Cause if not, it will be back.

I see this all the time in parks around the area.

Beautiful, it has seed pods.

- Yes, very decorative.

- Very attractive.

But yeah, this plant is tough.

So try to dig it up as much as you possibly can.

There's been a lot of moisture in this area.

There's a lot of moisture there in Baltimore.

Maybe it's easier to come up, but yeah, please get all plant parts, and then if you have to use the herbicide, please read and follow the label on that, but it's gonna be repeat applications.

[upbeat country music] "Is there some natural remedy like vinegar or peroxide "that would get rid of nostoc in my gravel driveway?

"It will get drier looking in drier weather, "but it never goes away and it can be very slick when you step on it," and this is Cathy from Middle Tennessee.

So Peter, we talked about nostoc before, so what do you think?

Natural remedy?

- Well, I would say the best natural remedy is to get out there with your leaf rake when it's dry and rake it up.

Just collect it all into a bag, throw it away.

I'd say that's the best remedy.

There are commercial moss and algae killers out there.

Several companies sell them.

You can use that, but it seems to me like the easiest thing to do is to just rake it up.

Also look at your driveway.

Are there places where water stands?

You might want to improve drainage.

That sounds funny on something that you're trying to keep hard, but just slope it so that the water runs away and it doesn't stand.

That would probably help as well.

But yeah, I'd say rake it up and throw it away would be best.

- Of course, what you were talking about, those chemical measures, the active ingredients are gonna be potassium salts or fatty acids, so those are actually considered to be safe, but I don't know if I would use those.

- The one year we tried, like Pete says here, to rake it out of there.

A lot of times you see that stuff growing out of standing water and obviously you might have a little more shade in that area.

That pops up under the driveway on the sidewalk, where you may have a little more shade.

You'll see that beginning to grow in there.

I normally see that in the yard.

I never see it on the driveway, but it could be like that, though.

- I'll seen it in the yard setting.

I've seen it in the driveway.

I like nostoc, witch's butter, star jelly.

A couple of names that it goes by.

Of course it gets hydrated anytime there's moisture, but when it's hot, it dries up like a black crust, so I would get a shovel or something and just go ahead and get rid of it or rake it, like Peter mentioned.

And improve the drainage is something you'd have to do.

Don't use too much phosphorous fertilizer, right?

That encourages the growth of nostoc.

And then if you want to, you can add some organic matter, material to the area, and that'll be fine.

[upbeat country music] "When we moved to our home in Memphis, "these banana plants were left, "and that same year they made bananas.

"Five years later they are still there, "but do not produce any bananas.

Why is that?"

And this is Samantha from Memphis, Tennessee.

So yeah, it's been here for five years now.

Didn't produce any bananas.

Why is that?

- Right, well here in Memphis, bananas do love our summers and they're a great foliage plant.

Very structural, they're huge, they're beautiful in the summertime.

But our growing season is generally not long enough for a banana plant to produce fruit.

They usually need about 10 to 15 months of frost-free growth time before they'll develop a flower and then those bananas.

- And to me, that's the key, frost-free.

Right, okay.

- Yes, yes.

I would guess that when they moved into that home that perhaps those bananas had been planted that year, that perhaps they had come from a greenhouse where they were already several months into their growing season when they were planted, or perhaps those previous owners had some kind of system in place for protecting the bananas throughout the winter, either by digging them up and storing them somewhere or by building a cage around the stems to protect them from frost.

That that would be my guess.

- My neighbor grows bananas, and that's what he does.

He digs them up and brings them indoors in his garage.

He gets back out of course in the spring, plants them.

They actually produce bananas.

Sometimes he will cut those stalks down of course, and then he has little pups, and those pups of course will grow.

He will dig them up again in the wintertime, bring them indoors.

It will actually produce flowers, and then hence fruit that he harvests.

- That is neat.

Takes a little work.

- It takes work.

- To do that to protect the plants, but if that's what you're going for is to hopefully get some bananas off of it, it could be worth it.

- Yeah, he loves it.

It's a lot of work though, but it can be done.

[upbeat country music] "We have had problems with our cucumbers the last two years.

"They will bloom like crazy, but never produce cucumbers.

"They are being pollinated, but nothing happens.

"Up until then, we have had no problem growing them.

"Do you have any suggestions "for how to get our cucumbers to set fruit?

"We bought a pH monitor and our pH level is 6.5.

Thank you so much for any ideas," and this is James from Dalton, Georgia.

So Alainia, we'll come to you.

So you have any thoughts?

A lot of cucumbers, what happens to the fruit?

Doesn't set fruit, so what are you thinking?

- Would it be possible, maybe there was too much nitrogen, even if they weren't applying it, perhaps maybe a runoff from yards or even a neighbor's yard where the cucumber plants first put out the male flowers and then a few weeks later they'll start putting out the female flowers.

You'll know the difference.

The male flowers will come in a cluster of two or three and then your female flowers will be on a thicker stem.

It's a very immature fruit, or look like a thick stem, and that's your female flower.

You could pollinate them to make sure, but he says that they are being pollinated, so hopefully they have enough pollinators.

That not being the issue, I was just wondering if maybe there was too much nitrogen and the male flowers are getting too many male flowers and are not getting the female flowers, is my thought.

- I could go with that.

It could be too much nitrogen fertilizer.

You're producing a whole lot of male flowers and not that many female flowers.

I can see that, or I can see poor pollination.

I can see that happening as well.

What do you think, Mr. D?

- pH is good, and I'm thinking about the nitrogen.

It might be a situation if he's using slow-release, a lot of slow-release nitrogen, that it will last throughout the season.

He may be using just simply too much.

Or if he's going with regular light applications of urea ammonium nitrate or something like that, you know, normally if you use a non-slow-release nitrogen after four to six weeks, the levels go down quickly.

It leaches out of the soil.

It's the fertilizer that leaches out faster than any of the primary elements.

But if he's got it next to his lawn and he's got a raised bed or something next to his lawn and he's fertilizing his lawn and some of it's getting thrown over there, I would ask myself, I tend to think that it might be a problem with excess nitrogen, but there again.

- I would also try more than one cultivar.

Maybe grab a couple different seed packets and try a couple different ones.

Then also, when you're growing them yourself, you know the cultivar, you know what you're getting.

If it turns out that one does do better than the other, then the next year you'll know exactly which one to plant and which one to skip.

- For sure.

But if you think about the question again, last two years, so think like a gardener here for a second.

What are you gonna do?

You're gonna push the fertilizer to it.

Something's wrong here.

It's not blooming, it's not producing that fruit, so most people will think let me add more fertilizer.

- I'm an old county agent.

I recommend you get the soil tested.

I appreciate the fact you got your own pH meter and you checked your pH, but get your soil tested and let's find out if you've got, and ask them to check your nitrogen levels, because they don't normally do that.

They do P and K, and the reason they don't is because nitrogen leaches out so fast, whatever it was the day you checked it well, when you get the results back, back in the old days, when you got the results back, it was totally different.

Now you get the results back a lot faster.

They will check for N if you want them to now, and I'd also be interested in knowing what the phosphorus levels are, because if you have exceedingly high level of phosphorus, that can create all kinds of problems.

- Right, 'cause we know phosphorus is important for the development of fruit.

- That's right, but the right amount.

If you've got too much and if you're putting out a complete fertilizer every year, the same amount every year, the phosphorus will build up.

It will build up, and over the years, looking at soil test reports for 32 years, the biggest problem I saw with soil tests in home gardeners in urban areas in Mobile and Memphis, Mobile, Alabama, Memphis, Tennessee, was extremely high levels of phosphorus.

Don't put out the same amount of triple-13 or triple-8 or 6-12-12 that you've been doing every year.

Don't do that.

There'll be years you don't need to put out any.

You may only need to put phosphorous out every three years.

- I can cosign on that for you.

I've seen some recent soil tests.

The phosphorus numbers are always very high.

- Very high.

- Very high.

- And that interferes with the uptake of other nutrients.

I don't know how that affects the male and female blooms.

- It's getting blooms.

- Getting the blooms.

- That's a good sign the plant was happy enough to produce the blooms, so yeah, I guess soil test.

- Just to make sure.

- Do some more investigation there.

[upbeat country music] - "We built a new house on top of a hill, "but weeds grow on the hill in the summer and are ugly.

"We've used weed killers to keep the hill clear.

What can we plant on this hill to help beautify the area?"

This is Shirley in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

- And they got a little deer action on there too.

- I saw the deer in the picture.

- She probably wants to go with some deer-resistant plants.

There are several plants out there.

I can think of some perennials that she can plant.

- And before you think of those perennials, so we're talking about the zone, so the zone for the area is what, 6b?

- 6b.

- Right, so keep that in mind.

- Keep that in mind, because they can grow a perennial that we can't grow here, which is lady's mantle.

It's a fairly large perennial.

That way you won't need so many of them.

You can do an area of those.

- Which would grow well on the hill.

- Yeah, will go around the hill.

Artemisia, maybe even some autumn fern, which would be good.

Allium, the catmint family, which also is spreading.

That would be good.

Yarrows, lavenders.

- Oh, this is a good one.

- Spurge, the spurge family, Euphorbia family of perennials.

Hellebores, the lenten rose.

Then you'd have evergreen leaves there, along with the autumn fern.

Those would be evergreen.

I would look for disease-resistant plants, I mean, deer-resistant plants to plant on there.

There are other shrubs and plants that you can plant, but I'm thinking she wants something low so that they can see over them.

They don't want anything blocking their view, so I was going with something that will hold the soil and be low growing, so that's why I was thinking of perennials that would stay there all the time.

- Those are good.

I like those perennials.

And so we're thinking it's probably sunny.

- I'm hoping so.

- It's probably a sunny location.

- Or partly sunny.

I mean, she's got grass growing.

- It's true, yeah, this is true.

- I mean, you can always put just sod down if you wanted to.

- Yeah, we'll give her some plants, some nice perennial plants.

I think those would be good, and how about this?

Why don't you check with your local extension office?

I'm sure they have a plant list.

- They probably do.

- You know, for their area.

I would check with them and see what they have, and go with some of those plants that you mentioned as well, 'cause I'm sure that's probably on their plant list.

- Probably are.

- So how about that?

[upbeat country music] "What food would you give Phalaenopsis orchid, and how often," and this is Roy on YouTube.

Don't you grow these?

- It's a great question, 'cause they sell a lot of Phalaenopsis all the time in all the stores and stuff, so they're easy to pick up and you get them when they're blooming and you want them to re-bloom again.

And sure, you can use that.

I would use liquid fertilizer on it.

The liquid fertilizer usually is a 10-30-20.

- All right, say it again.

- 10-30-20, with that middle number phosphorus being the highest, 'cause that's gonna help it regenerate your blooms.

I have four of them.

Mine are all in east windows.

They're in the windows that face east.

They only get morning sunlight, and I currently have three of the four blooming, and I've never fertilized mine.

I've never fertilized any of them, and this is my point.

Think about orchids on trees.

They really don't have very much anchoring, so hopefully he's planted it in bark because that's really the best medium for him, is bark.

The rain comes and waters them, but it doesn't sit in water.

So that's what I do with mine.

Every week or every two weeks, depending on the dryness of them, I will take them out of the container and soak them, water them, and then after they've finished draining, put them back in the container, so just kind of mimicking what Mother Nature would do.

It will rot if you let them sit in water, but that's probably the key to the orchids, is to kind of mimic nature and just water them but don't let them sit in water, and have them on bark.

They like to be a little bit root bound, and then they're all blooming again.

- Without fertilizer.

- Without fertilizer, but if you want to use fertilizer, that 10-30-20 liquid fertilizer.

I would water them, but I wouldn't let it sit in water.

I mean, I would water them and then let them drain out, and then only do that once a month during the growing season.

But then in the winter and the fall, I would dilute that fertilizer in half and still, only fertilize them, take them out of the containers or make sure the bark has drains, it all drains out once a month.

- So when you take them out of the containers, you're taking the roots, not the bark.

You're taking just the plant itself.

- Well yeah, but mine, if he's in a clay pot and it has drainage in it and will drain through it, mine are still in the little store containers, and so I take the little plastic liner out that the roots are in and I water, and then I put them back in the container.

But if it was in a clay pot that's made for that, I would still take it to the sink and water it and let it all drain out before I put it back in.

I don't want anything to sit in water.

Rotting is a big issue with any of the orchids.

- Sure, and I think most people do overwater.

All right, okay.

- That's why sometimes they'll say put an ice cube on it.

I don't like to do that because I think that's too cold, but that's why I take it out of the container and go to the trouble to do that, and I've done that and I've got blooms now.

- So it works without the fertilizer.

- Without the fertilizer.

- 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 sending in the questions.

To get more information on any of the questions we answered today, go to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

We have all of them listed on the homepage.

Thanks for watching, and keep sending in the questions.

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]