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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Seeds are expensive.

If you want to avoid buying them next year, save some this year.

Also, daffodils are one of the early heralds of spring.

Today we're going to look at the different varieties.

That's just ahead on The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer) Production funding for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South is provided by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Welcome to The Family Plot.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today is Dr. Lelia Kelly.

Dr. Kelly is a retired horticulture professor, Mississippi, and Joellen Dimond will be joining me later.

Dr. Kelly, it's always good to have you here.

- Oh yeah.

It's always great fun.

- This is definitely fun.

I love being on this show.

We always have such a big time.

- Yes, we do.

We definitely do.

And today we're going to talk about something that a lot of people are interested in.

- Oh, yeah.

- Seed saving.

- Yeah.

So what do we need to start with that?

- Well, this is the time of year you do it, the end of the growing season when plants are getting mature and setting their seeds and things.

First thing you could say, well, why do I want to do this?

- Yeah.

- You know, why do we need to save seeds?

Well, obviously, like you mentioned, save some money.

- Save money.

- You know, because everything now is just so expensive.

And it's really easy to save seeds from our favorite plants.

- Okay.

- And then we can perpetuate our favorite plants, and you can save, like I said, you could save vegetable seed, you can save your annual seed from your flowers, your perennial seed.

Some of them are easier to save than others, and they come back quickly from seed.

Trees, I've germinated trees that are really easy.

You know, like buckeyes are easy to germinate.

You know, and going around in the, see what going around, getting acorns in the fall, if you've got a white oak or a swamp chestnut or a nut or something.

You know, might take awhile, - That's good.

but you know, they're easy to germinate as well.

So how do you collect seed?

- That's the big question.

- When do you do it?

- How and when.

- You know, seeds are come in different structures on a plant.

- Okay.

- And you first need to make sure whatever that structure is, whether it's a capsule, or the fruit, or it's mature.

It needs to be mature.

A lot of seed will dry on the plant.

Obviously, it's in a fleshy fruit, that's not the case.

So the best time to collect most seeds is in a sunny, dry day, when whatever's containing the fruit, I mean the seed, is mature.

- Okay.

- So, you can tell the difference whether it's immature or mature?

- Yeah, you can.

You know, and like I said, make sure, like for example, you want to collect tomato seed.

So make sure your tomato is good and ripe.

You know, it could even be half rotten.

It doesn't matter.

- Okay.

You know, so you know that's for fruit.

It doesn't matter that, it needs to be at the peak of maturity or on the downside.

- Got it, got it.

- You don't want to get it green, 'cause the seeds are not mature in that fruit, and they're not going to germinate.

- Good point.

- Now some of the other, you know, like flower heads of our like zinnias and marigolds and things, you know, you can tell when they're dry and crispy.

Or if they're in a capsule, you know, they can be dry and crispy.

And I've got some examples of things, and I can show you that.

Well, I have Texas star hibiscus, and they come within a capsule.

So see, you would have to break that open, and the seed will just fall out.

See?

- I see it.

How about that?

And then the marigolds, you know, see that's good and dry, so you just pull that apart.

Actually, the seed are these little black things, and you can just go overdo it with these marigolds.

Look here, I got to pile them.

And then I defrosted my deep freeze, Chris, the other day.

I had so much garden produce.

I blew out the top of my deep freeze, so I dug it all out, and I found these strawberry popcorn cobs down in there with the seeds on them, and I'm thinking, you know, I'm going to try to germinate these.

They've been in there probably 20-plus years, in the bottom of a deep freeze.

And I'm thinking, well, hey, I'm going to try it.

What have I got to lose?

And then, like I talked about, the heirloom varieties.

This is a Rockford cantaloupe that belonged to, the seed came from my daughter-in-law's great grandfather.

- Oh, man.

- This is the seed from the fruit, and they've kept it in the family, and this is one of the best tasting cantaloupes I have ever tasted.

- Wow, okay.

And so we do want to keep, you know, perpetuating that, because we just got such good, good flavor.

- Good.

- So anyway, oh, let's see what I've missed.

Okay, you're getting mature seed, like in tomatoes and watermelons and cantaloupes that are fleshy.

You know, you wash the seed and dry it completely.

You got to get it out of the fruit, obviously.

And of course with the cantaloupe, that's fairly easy to do.

You know, you just pull it, scrape it out.

Watermelon seed, but see you need to wash them good, and get any kind of tissue that's still clinging to them as best you can off, and then I spread them usually on a like wax paper, because if you put tomato seeds on a paper towel, you're not going to get them off.

So I use like wax paper or just a plate, you know, like a plastic plate or paper plate or something.

- Smart.

- And then spread them out, and then let them completely dry, and then let them dry some more.

- Okay.

- Because the bane of storing seed is moisture.

You want the moisture to be, you know, pretty much the seed totally dry, because if you dry, I mean if you put them in a moist place, the seed is not going to be viable as long.

And the best place would be in a dry, dark place.

And I like to use glass containers, because I can tighten them down, and they have a structured shape.

I don't really like using the Ziploc bags, because they can break open.

- Oh, okay.

- You know, but can I like to, but I have a lot of seed, I kind of go that way.

- Sure.

But, and I store my seed in the refrigerator or the freezer, or some of it I just keep around the house in a box.

You know, so the long as it's cool, dark, and dry, I think it'll be good.

- I got it.

Cool, dark, and dry.

Got it.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You know, so, but let's say airtight container.

Obviously label.

Label your seed, yep, yep.

You got to put the label on there, 'cause you may think you're going to remember, but I guarantee you, you won't.

And I put the year.

I put the variety, you know, and then I put the year, and I even put the month I think on that one.

Yeah, September.

- September, yeah.

- Yeah, so like again, you can, you can make sure that there's no moisture in there.

And the way that I do it, you know, we get these little silica packets, my little silica packets out here, so I'm going to put them right there, and so we can look at those, but this is, this came in dog food treats, This came in a shoe box, and these came in some of my pills.

- Okay.

- My pill bottles.

- So we have a lot of these, you know, that run through the house, so I save all of those, and then I use them to put in my seed containers, you know, to take the, to absorb the moisture.

And I read you to use something like powdered milk, but that's kind of messy.

- Oh, yeah.

- So I usually just save all of these little dudes, and that helps.

You know, that helps kind of control the moisture.

- Wouldn't have never thought about that.

- Yeah, well, I mean, recycling, think about that.

- Okay.

You know, take care of the climate, recycle, you know.

Throw those in the garbage, you know.

- It makes sense.

- So yeah, and you can just use them for I don't know how long.

You know, but I want to mention, you know, we talk about viability of seed and storage and longevity.

There're lists online that lists like vegetables, like beans and peas and lettuce and radish seed, and then it will tell you under good storage conditions, dry, cool place, how long those seed typically can be viable.

- Okay.

- So that's a good thing to know.

- That's good, yeah.

- You know, I mean, you've got your year on there, and you like five years from now and it's lettuce seed, you're going, "Oh man, that stuff's probably no good," anyway, it's not going to germinate.

You know, so that kind of helps you, gives you like a range.

And I looked up, because I thought, you know, seeds is so interesting.

You know, you hear about people discovering these old seeds and things, and all the glaciers are melting, and we got all these seeds coming up, and you thinking, well, what is the oldest seed that's ever successfully been germinated?

Well, I looked that up, and it was a Judean date palm that was extinct more than 500 years ago, and they found the seed in Herod's palace site on Masada.

- Okay.

- And they took those date palm seeds, and they, in 2005, they successfully germinated that old extinct date palm and brought it back, and it was 2,000, they carbon dated it, it's 2,000 years old.

- That is, isn't that incredible?

- Yeah.

And it was a, it wasn't in a cold place, it was just in a very dry, dark, cool place, you know, whatever, so it was just great.

And then the next one that I read, there's all kind of lists.

- Sure.

You know, but verifiable, the second one was a lotus, a lotus seed that they found in a dry lake bed in China, and it was 1,300 years old.

- Thirteen hundred years old.

That is incredible!

- Yeah, can you imagine?

Dr. Kelly, we got to wrap it up.

- Oh, okay, sorry.

- Seed swap.

Yeah, can you tell us?

- Seed swap.

- Yeah, Yeah.

You know, when you gather your seeds, you know, obviously I got like, what, five million marigold seed here.

So if you think, well I don't, I want to, you know, you were raised to not waste anything, right?

- Right.

- We're in that generation.

You don't waste.

So you might want to just have a sweet, a seed swap with your friends.

You know, just say, hey, I got like five pounds of marigold seed, and they got like 10 pounds of peas.

Okay, let's swap it up.

So that way you're helping each other out, you're perpetuating good things, and you know, you're taking care of carrying on good species, I mean good varieties of things.

So a seed swap would be something to take care of a lot stuff.

- Yeah, Master Gardeners talk about that all the time.

- Oh yeah, that's fun.

- Thank you, Dr. Kelly.

Just good stuff, good stuff.

Thank you much for being here.

- You're welcome.

- All right.

[upbeat country music] - Okay, we're in the butterfly garden, and we're going to harvest the oregano, because it is a wonderful culinary herb that dries really well, holds its flavor real well, and even though it is perennial and it can maybe have some green foliage throughout the winter, right now is the good time to start cutting it and preserving it.

So I'm going to demonstrate how to do that.

Of course, you won't get the seed pod, so you go in here.

Here looks like a good bunch of green foliage.

So you go in here and grab a handful, and just snip it off.

And the way I would do these, since the leaves are kind of tiny, stems are tiny, I find a bunch of newspaper, old newspaper, and I spread it out somewhere in a dark, cool, dry place.

Sometimes that's my dining room, you know, or anywhere you have that's dark and dry, and I just spread it out on the newspaper, and it doesn't take real long for it to get dry, and then you can, you know, get the leaves off the stems, store it in a jar, or store it in one of your little fancy spice jars that maybe be you're recycling.

Label it and you're ready to have spaghetti sauce, and lasagna, and pizza, and all the other wonderful dishes that oregano can be used in.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Joellen, so let's talk about daffodils.

- Yes.

- So we- Daffodils, Narcissus, jonquils, you know, they're all intertwined into the same area, but they, you get your most for your money when you buy a daffodil around here, especially here in the Mid-South, because they do well.

- They do very well.

- And you know, one of the reasons, nothing eats them.

They are poisonous, and that's probably why they come back so reliably, because deer, they're deer resistant, voles don't eat them, so, you know, they're poisonous and nothing eats them.

- That's good.

- So that's probably why they are the most reliable in this area.

Now it's good to plant them this time of year.

The fall is the best time to plant spring-blooming flowers, and daffodils are part of that.

And you're going to say, well, there's all different kinds, and we're going to go over that as briefly as we can.

But the depth of how you plant them.

You got to think the size of the bulbs, and you want to at least plant them twice the depth that the bulb is.

- Twice the depth, okay.

- So if the bulb is three inches tall, you want to plant it six inches deep.

- Gotcha.

- If the bulb is only two inches tall, then you only plant it, can plant it four inches deep.

So, I mean, it just depends on the size of the daffodil bulb that you have.

- Okay, and this is at the bottom of the hole, right?

- Bottom of the hole.

- Gotcha, okay.

- Yeah, and to understand some of these divisions, we're going to go over the parts of the daffodil flower, because the first part you're going to need to know are the petals or the perianth that surround the cup or the corona that's in the middle.

And then on that, there's sometimes there's, they distinguish them by the color of the eyes, or the rim color, or the size of the rim.

So those are the things for identifying a daffodil that we're going to be going over.

There's this, daffodils live all over the country, and England and the United States, all have societies for daffodils.

So you can go to those websites to get more information, but the American Daffodil Society recognizes 13 different divisions of daffodils.

And the more that I have, I love daffodils, so the more that I have known daffodils, the more of each of these divisions that I seem to have in my, at my house, or that I've planted somewhere.

- Thirteen, Mr. D, thirteen divisions.

- That's an unlucky number.

[both laugh] We need to come up with another one.

- Well, there is two major divisions.

There are large ones, and then there's a miniature category, but they all are divided somewhere into these 13 different categories.

So the first division is the one that we all recognize, is that is the trumpet daffodils.

It's going to have one flower per stem, the corona or the cup is going to be as long or longer than the petals or the perianth, or surrounding it.

And good examples of that are the old fashioned King Alfred.

- King Alfred.

- And Mount Hood is another very popular one that most people have.

And Marieke, which is another one that looks a lot like King Alfreds.

In fact it's probably taken over as the major daffodil that is sold.

- Okay.

- Division two, large-cupped daffodil.

So as it says again, one flower per stem, the corona or the cup is more than a third, but less than equal, to the length of the petals.

- Wow.

- So examples of that are Ice Follies, Ferris Wheel, and Chromacolor.

- Wow.

And I have Chromacolor, and that's mine.

I have some Ice Follies.

Then there's a third division are the small-cupped daffodils.

And that, as it says, the cup is smaller.

But there's again, only one flower per stem, and the cup is not more than a third of the length of the petals.

- Wow.

- And examples of that are Barrett Browning, and Dreamlight.

Now division four is the double daffodils, and this is, these, people love these.

They don't typically look like a normal daffodil, because they have one or more flowers per stem, and they have the doubling of the perianth and/or the corona, or both, so it's just a full head of flowers.

And a good example of this is Tahiti and Cheerfulness, and I have some Cheerfulness.

- Cheerfulness.

- Those are great names.

- Yeah, and Cheerfulness is very fragrant, too.

- Oh, okay.

- Division five are the Triandrus daffodils.

Now there are two or more flowers per stem.

The perianth's segments are reflexed, which means they kind of point backwards.

And examples of those are Moonlight Sensation, and Thalia.

Thalia is one of the, it blooms really late, and it's white, and it's beautiful, and it really does extend your daffodil season, so that's a, that's one of the favorite ones of mine.

Division six are the Cyclamineus daffodils.

Again, one flower per stem.

The perianth segments are significantly reflexed.

You know, think of a cyclamen flower.

The petals go way back and this, that's what these are reflective of.

And then the flower kind of at an acute angle to the stem, so they kind of, you know, kind of drop a little bit.

Next are division sevens.

This is the Jonquilla daffodils.

They have one to five flowers per stem, and the corona or the cup is usually wider than long, and they are fragrant.

And examples of these, which I have one of is Pipit, and I really like that one.

And Golden Echo.

Division eight are the Tazetta daffodils.

Now there are 3 to 20 flowers per stem.

- Wow.

- Three to twenty?

- Three to twenty flowers per stem.

They're very small.

But they are very fragrant, and good examples of those are like Minnow and Avalanche.

- Avalanche.

- Yeah, we think of the whole stem full of Avalanche daffodils.

- Minnow, small.

Yes.

- I got it.

Division nine are the Poeticus daffodils.

Their perianth segments are always pure white, so the petals surrounding the the cup are very always pure white.

And the corona's very short, and usually rimmed in some colors.

- Okay.

- Division 10 is the Bulbocodium hybrids.

- Wow.

- That's one flower per stem, but it's got a very dominant corona or cup.

And the little petals around it are very insignificant, so they have this huge cup, and they're very small.

And White Petticoat and Golden Bells are examples of those.

Division 11 is the Split-Cupped daffodils, and of course the split corona is in the single or in many whorls around the petals.

Some examples of those are Drama Queen.

[Chris laughs] - Like that, Mr. D?

- I mean, you know, but they're very frilly looking daffodils.

They don't look like typical daffodils, Division 12 are all the other daffodils.

- Oh my goodness.

- Cultivars that are not, they don't fall in one of the other categories.

And Division 13, the daffodils are listed by botanical name and they're usually species and wild hybrids, so that is all 13 different divisions of daffodils.

And all of them fall in some category of those.

So we have lots of daffodils to choose from, so surely there'll be something for everybody to enjoy.

- Surely.

You have 13 divisions?

- Yes.

- Mr. D, do you like daffodils?

- I like daffodils.

I really do, and I think I'm trying to figure out a way that we could agriculturally use them, if they're resistant to deer and- - Oh, right, and voles.

- Insects and diseases.

I mean, have you ever had a disease on one?

- No.

- That you know of?

Uh-uh.

- And you know, I turkey hunt, and I go out in the woods and they're out there.

You can tell, that is one way to positively identify where a house used to be.

- Ah, yeah.

Because they're still there.

The house can be long gone.

The chimney can be melted down into the ground, but the daffodils still live, and they spread from there.

- Yeah, that's why they do so well here.

It's wonderful.

The daffodils do great here.

- Out in the middle of nowhere.

- Wow.

- Along ditches and stuff, where people used to have plant them, yeah.

Daffodils do very well here.

- Obviously so.

So any fertilizing?

How do we prepare the soil for them?

- Again, the depth that you plant them is probably the most important, and well drained, because as you know, we planted some out here in the beginning when we started the bed out front.

- Right, yeah.

- And they didn't live through the winter, because they rotted in the ground.

- I do remember.

- So there's got to be a well-drained area.

- Got to be well drained.

- That's, they just don't want to rot in the ground.

That's the, that's probably the worst problem with them is getting a well-drained area, so that they don't, you know, rot during the winter.

- Thanks, Joellen, that was good.

We could tell you like daffodils.

- I love daffodils.

- We could tell that.

All right, Mr. D, stay away from that Drama Queen now.

Stay away from that one.

- I will, I will.

I'll try.

- All right, thank you much.

[upbeat country music] - Fall is the time for planting, not necessarily pruning, but there are pruning tasks that you can do in the fall, and one of them would be to get rid of anything that is dead or diseased.

And this canna right here looks, the top leaves are dead on it.

They're not producing anything and they look ugly, so we're going to go down to where we find a nice healthy leaf that is actually producing chlorophyll to feed the root system, and we are going to cut just above it, and eliminate the dead part of this plant.

And we can continue to do that all around this plant.

Getting rid of the parts that are not producing chlorophyll, and doing any good for us for the root system.

[upbeat country music] Now it looks a lot better.

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

Y'all ready?

- Yep.

- Yes.

- All right, these are great questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"How do I prevent bringing pests into my home on the cut flowers from my garden?"

- That's a good one.

- This is Mother Scoria on YouTube, So guess what, Joellen has cut flowers.

- I do.

- And she brings them in all the time.

So what do you say, Joellen?

- What's the trick?

What do you have to do?

- I cut them and I, first I look and see if they were on there, but then like of course I cut them, and then I take them and I take the stem, and I just kind of bump it on my hand, other hand, and sometimes they fall out then.

And so then I get a bunch, and I'm going inside, and if nothing's crawling out of them by then, I, you know, I can't bump it off, but then sometimes I will actually, especially I have problems with peonies, because ants love peonies.

- Yep.

- And so I will put it under water, and they'll come out when I put water on the flowers, and then you kind of shake it off like it was rained on it, and then you put it in the vase, and you're done.

- And you're done.

All right.

- Yeah.

What do you think, doc?

- Yeah.

- I mean I, yeah, I was going to be a little bit more energetic.

Beat them on something.

- Yeah.

[Chris laughs] That would not work, you know, on some of these delicate flowers, but you know, kind of shaking them a little bit, using a soft stream of water outside.

- Outside.

- You know, and then I read on one florist site said that if you just cut them, and then put them in a bucket of water in the shade outside that they will, a lot of them will just leave.

You know, I haven't ever tried that.

I'm always anxious to get them in the house, get them in a vase or whatever you're going to do.

And ants are a problem.

You know, that's usually what sticks on there that you can't get off.

And then they are, you know, if you could submerge them in a little bit of water with some dishwashing detergent, little bit of liquid, - Little bit.

- That that will get them off as well.

But I usually just do the shake and you know.

- The shake.

[Chris laughs] - Yeah, and then wait for them to crawl around on the counter and squish them.

That's what I do with ants.

Always bringing in ants.

- Bringing in the ants.

- Yeah.

All right.

We thank you for that question.

- Good.

- All right, that was good.

That was good.

Here's our next viewer email.

"What in the world is wrong with my grass?

"It is black.

"It looks dead.

"Part of it is green, "but looks like the black is overtaken that side too.

"How do you fix this?

It looks awful."

And this is Mona.

So Dr. Kelly, we'll start with you.

Any idea?

- I'm going to tell you Chris.

- Don't you think that it might be?

- Yeah, you send me this picture by email attachment, and I'm trying to zoom in, and look at this grass, and all I see is just black, and I wanted to see if they were like spores, if it was like a mold, or if it was like smut.

- Yeah, trying to get a close up on it.

- I couldn't get close, but I'm like, you know, it's 90% dead anyway, so, and I feel her pain.

You know, I'm like what in the world's wrong with it?

I love that.

- What in the world?

I'm thinking well, whatever's wrong with it, we just need to get rid of it, and put more grass there.

You know, so I really don't know exactly what is going on, but it's obviously killing it, so let's just start over.

- It's obviously killing it.

I want to know what kind of grass.

- I couldn't tell that either, Chris.

That's a good point.

- It's, oh, okay.

We don't know where she's from.

But I know that black smut - Yeah.

will cause your grass to look black.

- Yeah.

- Like, that is a fungus.

You usually get black smut in the spring when it's cool, and in the fall when it's cool, especially if you over fertilize.

- Ah.

- Right?

Yeah, so I've seen black smut in the Memphis area, you know, over the years when we have, you know, the cool springs and falls, but it's usually- - What grasses?

Is it any kind of grass?

- So this is usually the warm season grasses that I've seen.

Right, so your Bermudas for sure.

- Right.

- But I think that may be black smut, that's what that is.

- Yeah, that's the first thing I thought too.

- So culturally, yeah, soil tests, don't over fertilize, you have to irrigate properly, things like that.

- Good maintenance techniques, yeah, cultural things.

- Good cultural practices.

Anything you want to add to that?

- Yeah, you know, if she wants to redo it, she can, but maybe just change the environment if you can, and try not to do the fertilizing, and it might be able to come back from it, but I don't know.

- Right.

- And it looked like it was totally enclosed with like pavement.

- It did, didn't it?

- Yeah, and I'm thinking, well, maybe she wants to put something else there.

You know, if the grass didn't work or something.

She can put some like groundcover, depending on where it is, you know.

- Right, depending on where it is.

But it will come back, you know, from that, but it just, it does definitely look bad.

- Yeah, it does.

- And there's no fungicide recommendation for that.

- No.

- Right, so it's basically your cultural practices.

- Yeah, right.

- You know what you have to do, and, you know, just be patient.

You know, it's not going to, you know, clear it up overnight, so you just have to be patient.

- Yeah, and it looks bad, I agree with her.

What in the world?

- What in the world is that?

[all laugh] All right Mona, thank you for that question.

Hope that helps you out.

So Dr. Kelly, Joellen, it was fun.

- It was.

- It was fun.

Thank you much.

- Good.

- All right.

- Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is familyplot@wkno.org, and the mailing address is Family Plot, 7151 Cherry Farms Road Cordova, Tennessee 38016.

Or you can go online to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for watching.

If you want to learn more about anything we talked about today, including how to plant daffodils, head on over to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]