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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Today we have lots of   questions and lots of answers   about all sorts of   things, fruit trees,   hydrangeas, peppers and more.

It's the Q and 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.

Today, we're going to spend the whole time showing you the answers to questions we have received over the last few months.

We did not have time to air them, so here they are.

Up first is a question we get a lot about moles and voles.

"How do I stop moles and voles   from destroying my yard?

"They are tunneling through   the lawn and flower beds   "all around the house.

"I probably won't   have any perennials   blooming this   spring and summer."

This is Linda from   Chattanooga, Tennessee.

So Peter, you're   first up on this.

So what do you think about those moles and voles?

- Well, they're different creatures, and there's different ways to get rid of each of them.

So for moles, probably the best thing to do is to put out a trap.

There's several kinds available.

I will say I have never done it.

I haven't had a mole problem.

I know Mr. D swears by the scissor traps.

- Yes, yes.

- But moles have a long transportation tunnel and they have little side tunnels where they go off and get the earthworms, which is what they like to eat.

So you just need to identify the transportation tunnel, set the trap there, you'll probably have a mole.

They do tunnel.

They can tunnel what, 200 feet a night or something like that, so you may think you have lots of moles, and in reality, you catch one, maybe two, and the problem's gone.

Now voles on the other hand, that's a little harder I would say, because they are mice.

They multiply like crazy.

So maybe the best thing to do is to take the mulch away from your perennials there.

They don't like being out in the open, and so maybe that will scare them and they won't go out and eat the base and the roots of your perennials, but maybe not, because they do tunnel a little bit themselves.

Repellents, there are people who sell repellents.

There's not a lot of data on whether or not they work.

At best, you're gonna have to reapply them every time it rains, if they do work.

You can trap them with a regular spring mousetrap, put that by their tunnels, by the tunnel entrances or where you see activity.

You can bait it with peanut butter and oatmeal, kind of mash it together and stick it on there.

They like that.

And it's recommended that you cover the trap with maybe a small cardboard box or something.

Make sure that that wire can swing freely to do its job, and then check it a couple times a day.

One thing I read said check it a few times a day until you don't have any more voles.

[all laughing] They are active during the day and at night, so you could easily catch one overnight, reset the trap, catch one again in the day.

Then the third option is there are baits similar to other rodent bates, rodenticides.

The only problem is that the baits can be eaten by other animals or children or pets, and so you have to be very careful where and how you use it.

Recommendation is to actually sprinkle it directly into the tunnel or create a bait station.

One I saw was to take a soda can, open up the hole so it's about an inch and a half in diameter, dent one side, I'd say the side that has the hole on it, and then put some bait inside of that and put that where you see the vole activity.

So that keeps pets from being able to get into it and also provides that cover that voles really like, so they can go in there and eat and die.

- And die.

- Yeah, but the wetter it is, the less the baits are gonna work.

So if it's really dry, you could probably just sprinkle the bait in their tunnel and it'd be fine.

If it's raining a lot, that's really not gonna work.

The rain's gonna wash the poison off the bait.

Probably the spring traps are the best option.

- If you gotta use those baits, look for zinc phosphide.

That's the active ingredient on the baits, zinc phosphide.

One thing I want to add too, moles, insectivores, voles, herbivores.

Got it?

- Got it.

- Moles are gonna eat your insect pests.

They like earthworms and grubs.

- They'll mess up your yard, but they're not gonna eat your plants.

- Not gonna eat your plants, and voles have expensive tastes.

They like hostas.

[upbeat country music]   "Every year, my apple   trees do the spring thing.

"Then through the summer,   the leaves got spotty,   "turned brown and fall off.

"Now in September, they   think it's spring again.

"I get no fruit or bad fruit.

"Can you tell me   why and what to do?

Thanks," and this is   Jim, Kodak, Tennessee.

All right, Mr. D. So it gets the spots, right?

Then all of sudden it thinks it's spring again.

So what do we think may be the issue?

- I think her apple trees, this is her, isn't it?

- It's Jim.

- Jim, okay.

Jim, yeah.

My apple trees that I don't spray with a regular cover spray do exactly the same thing.

A lot of plants do the same thing.

When I lived down in Mobile, the pecans that went through hurricanes, that were defoliated by hurricane force winds would leaf out after the hurricane, and that's not a good thing because these plants, in the fall of the year, they need to be storing up energy for next year's crop.

And if they are putting their energy into these new leaves, then I guarantee you it's hurting next year's crop and it's stressing the plant.

Simple answer is to follow a regular spray program.

Utilize cover sprays for your apple trees, and that means spraying before bloom.

I just happen to have University of Tennessee's spray schedule here.

That means going with   a delayed dormant spray   of oil emulsion plus copper.

That's when the buds   just begin to swell.

And then at bud break,   Captan, a fungicide,   and that will help control   the disease called scab.

And then just before the   blooms open at first pink,   use Captan plus Malathion.

You can use an   insecticide at that point   because the blooms   haven't opened.

When the blooms   open, streptomycin   if you've had a problem   with fire blight,   and then when   the petals have fallen   or when most of the   petals have fallen,   go with a fungicide   Captan or Immunox   Immunox if you've had a   problem with cedar apple rust,   plus Malathion insecticide,   and then go with that   same cover spray of Captan   or Immunox plus Malathion,   and continue up until   just before you harvest   and look at the product   that you're using to figure out when you need to stop that.

You can use home orchard sprays that are premixed that contain these same ingredients, but I would prefer to mix my own.

Some of the home orchard sprays contain carbaryl, and carbaryl will cause apples to throw their crop.

You don't want to use the carbaryl on apples.

- It also causes the pollinators.

- Well, you don't wanna spray any insecticide while they're in bloom.

You do not put any insecticide out at bloom, but follow a spray schedule.

Not only will it keep your fruit nice and pretty and clean and free of disease, but it will protect your leaves.

Now you harvest out, depending on when you harvest the apples.

After that, you're not spraying afterwards, but that's pretty much toward the end of the year anyway, and it's not gonna be a problem.

They're gonna start submissing and falling off.

- Okay, it's gonna be a lot of work.

Read and follow the label, and we'll have that spray guide of course on our website for you, Mr. Jim.

Anything you want to add to that, Doc?

- Yeah, one thing.

You covered it very thoroughly, but there's one thing, because I had the same thing happen in my pear tree, and one of the more common foliar diseases on apples and things is apple scab,   and it just totally   defoliates the tree.

But one of the things   that I have not done yet   that I am going to do is rake   up all that old dead leaf,   'cause that stuff overwinters   in the old foliage and stuff, so rake all that up, clean up all your leaf litter-- - And burn it.

- And burn it, yeah.

- Don't put it in your compost.

- Right, right.

Just destroy it somehow.

- That's a good point.

- Good point, yeah.

Practice good sanitation.

- Right.

[upbeat country music]   "This tree grows in my yard.

"It started off very small, and   five years later, it is huge.

What kind of tree   is this leaf from?"

Rosalyn from Charleston,   South Carolina.

So, what tree do you   think that's from?

- We look at kind of that uneven top, so that's a clue.

- That's a clue.

- I'm kind of thinking maybe something berry, what are you thinking?

- I think a berry in the Morus species, if you will, mulberry.

- By all means, let's go Latin.

- Yeah, let's do that.

So yeah, mulberry   is what I'm thinking.

Almost a heart-shaped leaf,   serrated leaves of course.

I like mulberry,   they're really nice.

- It's funny that you say that   because I'm familiar   with mulberry trees, but I feel like I probably feed the birds.

- 'Cause they feed the birds.

- More of a wildlife species.

I don't really think I've eaten them very much, but the birds love them.

- I love them because yeah,   the birds of course   love the fruit,   and it grows like   crazy around this area.

It gets about what,   40 feet tall   that I've seen in some   areas, but beautiful leaves.

Gonna have two or three lobes.

- Yeah, there can be   some variation in there   in that leaf shape.

- Love mulberry.

I think it's a nice tree, so I would let it grow, Rosalyn.

Yeah?

- Yeah.

Just be good with it.

- Yeah, feed the birds.

- Feed the birds.

[upbeat country music]   "I have 3 mature 15-year   old Limelight hydrangeas   "that are at least   12 feet tall.

"In June, I started   noticing areas   "on each of the three plants   that were shriveled up and dead   "and it was as if it   happened overnight.

"Later in the year it   seemed to have stopped,   "but started up again   late in the summer.

"There are no signs of   insects or powdery mildew.

"Any idea what's killing   these mature shrubs,   "and might there be something   I could do to save them?

Thanks so much," and this is   Rona in Nashville, Tennessee.

So we have a lot   going on here.

So of course, 12 feet tall, at least 12 feet tall, fifteen years or more, but overnight they started to shrivel up and die.

But there's no signs of insect or powdery mildew.

So she did know to look for those things.

- Right.

- Right, so what are we thinking there?

- That's a conundrum, because if they've been growing in the same place for 15 years, and then all of a sudden they're getting this dieback, twig dieback, I would actually want to ask her a lot of questions.

You know, what's changed?

Has anything changed in the drainage, the way the water's running across your property, or is there other things going on that's kind of changed their environment, that's changed?

And if it has, one obvious thing that it could be, if it's not draining right for some reason, it could be root rot problem, because that's a typical sign of root rot disease, is for a twig to dieback.

And there are some insects, some borers that get in a twig and cause it to die, but she said she didn't see any sign, but see, you're not gonna see them.

You're just gonna see the the sawdust that comes out of their tiny little holes.

So she might have overlooked that, I don't know.

I don't know how observant she is on the insect damage.

- Yes, I'm definitely thinking drainage, Botrytis blight is something that came to mind because we had wet, humid weather, and that can cause some of your blooms to just shrivel up and die.

But again, that goes to drainage and things like that.

- We had kind of a wet year, too.

- We did, we did.

And of course I'd remove those stems that are dead or dying of disease.

- It's always a good idea, especially if she suspects it might be some kind of borer.

Be sure and cut those out and destroy them.

- Anything coming to mind, Mr. D?

- You know, one thing I thought about is maybe herbicide drift, but I think that wouldn't show up as just one limb.

That would show up over the entire plant.

I thought about, you're talking about root damage, root borer, but other kind of root damage.

Did you put any drainage lines in?

Did you do anything, I mean, those roots go out further than the plant is high, and if you've done any dirt work, did you put in a swimming pool?

Did you put up a new fence alongside it where you cut some of the roots and that could have caused corresponding above ground parts of the plant to die?

You know, those are some questions.

- Anything that changes that growing environment, and obviously something has changed, 'cause if they're 12 feet tall and they've been growing 15 years and then now she's just noticing dieback, something's changed, you know.

- All right Rona, we appreciate that.

Yeah, go back and do a little bit more investigating.

Hope this helps you out, okay?

[upbeat country music]   "Should young bell   peppers be pruned?

"If so, where is the best   place to make the cuts?

"I've topped several young   California Wonder peppers   "last spring, and the plants   ended up being fuller   "and stronger than   any I'd grown before.

"They also seem to   be very productive.

Thanks," and this is Brendan,   Wilton, Connecticut.

So the first question,   should they be pruned, and the second question, if so, where?

- I would say that it is an option, but it is not in the scope of our, like traditional this is how you manage peppers.

This is an interesting question for me, because coming from a vegetable background, I literally just watched some videos to see how people were pruning peppers because I've done it a lot in greenhouses, so it is a common practice in hydroponic production, but we do that to manage kind of the scaffold and the main limbs of the plant.

And so really what people are doing when they're pruning is trying to increase the side shoot production and maybe shorten the plant a little bit.

I've seen it done more on some of our hot peppers that tend to be kind of taller and more leggy, and so my first reaction would be maybe the plants are being put in the ground over-mature.

Maybe they're a little bit tall.

Maybe they're a little bit leggy.

I would tend to say put good, young transplants in the ground and kind of let them do their thing.

But the other element about that that I would say is it would be more likely to be effective, and I'm not saying that it won't.

I'm saying it's not really traditional practice.

- It's an option.

- Yeah, it's an option.

It would be more effective if you had a longer growing season, because any time we take the main growing point out of the plant, we're encouraging to produce side shoots, but we're delaying the productivity of that plant.

So I think our question came from Connecticut, and so the more northern that we get and the shorter the growing season, the more I would be concerned that you may not have enough time in that growing season for the plant to produce as much vegetative and flowers and fruit production as it would have if you hadn't taken the top out.

So it's not just straight up productivity, it would also be a timing.

- Be a timing issue.

You don't think about Connecticut.

They don't have the long growing season that we have here.

- But you know, the scientist in me just wants to say, well I just need to do it, I need to try some.

But I have not grown them side by side, so it would be an option, but I wouldn't do it as a reflex, probably.

- So where would you make the cut?

- Most of the time, if you're gonna be taking that primary growing point out of the plant, you would come down a little bit on the stem.

Now make sure that you leave a few leaves, because that's gonna be where your side shoots are gonna be.

So I'd make sure that you have at least two, three, four leaves that are gonna be where those side shoots are gonna be,   and most of the time   we'd make that cut   actually similar really   to any pruning cut.

We're gonna make   it above a bud,   so then that's gonna kind   of become our primary.

- So it'll grow out of there, okay.

Well again, it is an option.

[upbeat country music] "Help!

"I have about given up on vegetable gardening due to all the creatures."

I like this, "Raccoon, deer, bear and turtles."

Yes, bear and turtles.

"Instead, I decided to grow creature-resistant flowers, "but now the flowers are inundated with powdery mildew.

"Echinacea, black-eyed Susans and bee balm "and measles peonies.

"Is there anything   I can do to control   "or eradicate powdery   mildew in my flowers?

"This past fall, I did cut   off and discard the leaves   on the peonies,   hoping to control it."

This is Claire from   Mount Airy, North Carolina.

So Ms. Claire, yeah.

Raccoons, deer, bear, turtles.

So is there anything that she could do to control or eradicate powdery mildew, Ms. Kim?

- Powdery mildew usually sets in when we have these really warm, wet nights, and the best thing to do for that, you can spray, but once it sets in, it's kind of hard.

So you want to control it by spacing your plants so you increase the air flow.

That's probably the best thing.

I've tried spraying like Neem or something to hold that mold spores in, but as soon as you have a rain or those wet, humid nights are what really gets it.

So it's just a problem of gardening, but I would separate the plants a little more so you get spacing and so you get better air flow.

- Okay, so good air flow.

- Spacing, may look at some more resistant varieties of the bee balm.

There's some out there that are newer that are more resistant to powdery mildew.

You might try looking at that.

- Okay, so spacing them out to get air flow, 'cause humidity drives powdery mildew, it drives it.

Now, if you wanted to use chemicals, there are some out there.

I like cultural practices first.

That's first.

Chlorothalonil, read and follow   the label, which is Daconil.

Sulfur you can use.

Read and follow of the label.

You have to be   careful with sulfur.

And then a   copper-based fungicide.

Again, read and   follow the label.

That's if you want   to go that route,   but culturally space them   out, allow for good air flow, resistant varieties, not too much fertilizer.

If you're gonna water, not overhead.

Water right at the root zone of the plants, and Ms. Claire, I think you'll be fine.

I hope that keeps the bear and everything else away.

Hope you'll be fine.

Your plants will be okay.

[upbeat country music] "My lawn is two thirds fescue and one third Bermuda.

"I have worked hard to get my fescue to thrive, "but time and time again, the Bermuda just won't go away.

"So I'm going to change strategies and encourage the Bermuda."

How about that?

"How can I kill fescue in a   Bermuda lawn in the winter?

"I have read that herbicides   will not work under 40 degrees.

Can I use them   during a warm spell?"

Amy in Winston-Salem,   North Carolina, on Facebook.

So how about that?

Change strategies to encourage the Bermuda, but she wants to know how can I kill fescue in a Bermuda lawn in the winter?

So we're gonna start with the lawn guy first here.

- One good thing about fescue and Bermuda grass, those are two different types of grass.

You got a cool-season grass and you got a warm-season grass.

Depending on where the fescue is located, if the fescue is in a lot of sun, it's not gonna do well anyway.

It would do better in a lot of shade in there, and also when the Bermuda grass is growing, when the Bermuda grass is dormant, the fescue should be growing then.

If you want kill it out, then you want to kill that during that time of the year when the Bermuda grass is dormant.

You might want to use some kind of herbicide on that then try to kill it out of there, but you got to make sure, you got to make sure now, the Bermuda grass is completely, completely dormant before you spray anything on there and try to get rid of it.

- So inspect it to make sure.

- To make sure that it's completely dormant.

If it's not, you're gonna kill your Bermuda grass too, and you don't want to kill your Bermuda grass.

You want encourage that to grow.

- Right, 'cause that's what she wants to do.

She wants to encourage the Bermuda.

So Peter, what do you think about that?

- Well, I can tell you that Poa annua, which is a weed here, basically it's the same situation.

You're trying to kill the Poa annua, which is growing out of Bermuda, which is dormant.

And so I actually go out and I spray Roundup on my yard.

But the Bermuda's dormant.

Make sure it's dormant, because as he said, if it's not dormant, it's gonna kill the Bermuda too.

Especially, the other thing is make sure in the spring that your Bermuda is still dormant, because it might look dormant, but if you look down at the base, you might have little leaves starting to come up.

If you spray it then, you're gonna kill it.

- You're gonna kill it.

It do be kind of green down at the root system.

You might open up and look at it, say hmm, it's still got some green in there.

So you don't want to start spraying Roundup on it then.

So be careful down there.

- Definitely want to be careful.

You want to spot spray, read and follow the label on any herbicide that you're gonna use.

- I was gonna say, she asked if you can do it when it's cold.

- Yeah, if you could do it when it's cold.

- You can spray it when it's cold.

I would wait for a warmer day or two that you're gonna have, and the fescue won't look like it was sprayed for perhaps months possibly, but it's dead.

But there hasn't been enough stress on the plant to actually make it look dead.

- Right, exactly right.

So that will be on the label as well, so you definitely want to spray, and you can spray when you have a warm spell, which is probably what I would do under this situation.

So wait 'til you have a couple of days of warm temperature, then go out and spray then, spot spray.

Again, read and follow the label on that and you should be just fine.

[upbeat country music]   "How do you prevent sunscald   on young fruit trees?"

And this is Sola   Straight on YouTube.

Peter?

- I'd say there's a couple things.

So sunscald is thin barked trees,   so a lot of times younger trees   'cause as they get it bigger,   they're gonna develop   that thicker bark.

If it's thin enough, you can go to the store and basically get a pool noodle and kind of just put that around the trunk.

You can also get pipe insulation, same thing.

It's probably easier to get in the winter than pool noodles are.

There's some people who paint the bark.

I think it's quarter strength   white latex paint will do it,   but basically the problem   is that the bark freezes, then the sun hits it, it thaws, and then it freezes again and it freezes and thaws and freezes and thaws, and that kind of creates splits and problems, and then you get what you call sunscald out of that.

So you just have to keep the bark from thawing if it's really cold.

The white paint reflects the sunlight, the pipe insulation keeps the sunlight off it.

You could wrap it   in some fabric.

You want to make sure though   that if you wrap   it in something that it doesn't stay wet all winter long, 'cause that'll hurt the tree long term.

That'll keep the sun off it, keep it from thawing, prevent sunscald.

- Sunscald, high light intensity.

So you're gonna wrap those trees, which I would do.

You would do that fall/winter.

Then summer/spring, make sure you take the wrap off.

So you can definitely do that.

And something else I'd like to add, do not use dark colored material.

Absorbs more heat.

- That's the whole point, keep the heat away.

- Absorbs more heat, so light colored material, not dark colored material.

- It's something that happens too when you have dropping temperatures, sort of changes that might cause it to be that too when it drops all a sudden and you might see that on there, too.

- So the thing here, especially with young fruit trees, thin bark.

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.

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

We will have all these questions listed on the homepage with links to tons more information about each one.

Keep sending in the questions.

We love to help you make this year your best gardening year ever.

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]