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

I'm Chris Cooper.

There are tons of grass varieties to choose from.

Today we are going to look at a few high performing southern varieties.

Also, shrubs are the anchor for landscape beds, but there are so many kinds to choose from.

Today we're going to learn about Abelia.

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 Mr. Booker T. Leigh.

Booker is a UT Extension Agent right here in Shelby County.

And Joellen Dimond will be joining me later.

Alright, Booker.

We are at the Shelby County Extension Office here at the Agricenter, right?

This is the turf plot.

We want folks to know to check with your local extension office.

They may have a turf plot too for you to come out and see the type of grasses that grow well in their area.

We want to talk about the different lawn options that we have here in the Mid-South.

We have a different zone than everybody else, right?

7b, 8a.

So again, we're gonna talk about the grasses that grow best in our area.

But before we do that, why do we plant certain grasses in our area anyway?

- In 2015, we decided to put in a turf plot.

People got curious about growing grass in their landscape.

Here we've we got three different types of grass.

We've have Bermuda grass, we've got zoysia grass and we also have bluegrass in here.

Now you want to pick a grass based on your house, if you've got a lot of shade or you've got a lot of sun.

Fescue grass will grow in a lot of shade area, and we do have some zoysia grass that'll grow in a little shade, but Bermuda grass needs full sun to grow.

It's not gonna grow under a tree.

If you've got a tree or something like that, it's probably gonna die on you over a period of time.

Before we put any types of grass on here, we had our soil tested.

Most grass out here needs a soil pH between 6.0 and 6.5.

- Always important to get that soil tested so you can get the grasses off to a good start.

- Get the grasses off to a good start.

Make sure they get a good start out there.

You want to do that, 'cause if you start off with it bad, not testing your soil, it might start off for a while, but it's gonna eventually die on you in the end.

We put in 10 varieties out here.

You want to take a look at them?

- Yeah, let's take a look.

- This is Latitude Bermuda grass here now.

It's been here since 2015.

You look at it, it's doing great in here.

You don't see no whole lot of disease in here.

This is one grass that reduces a lot of spring dead spots, but this grass requires good drainage.

It was developed in Oklahoma State.

The color is dark green, almost probably coming out of dormancy first.

The fall color is very good.

Sometimes you can see different types of grass in the fall have a different light brown, dark brown.

This has a really pretty color to it.

The wear resistance is very good in this grass here that you have.

Drought tolerance is very good.

The mowing height is about two to two and a half inches tall.

It's a very good grass.

This one is Tahoma 31, and we just put this one out here in 2019.

It really looks good.

This is the grass if you want grass in your landscape that you want to cut a lot.

This grass grows kind of fast.

You've got very good wear resistance on there, so you want to walk on and play on it and everything, it just kind of bounces back 'cause it grows so fast here.

The color is dark green, but the fall color is very good.

Wear tolerance is very good here.

The shade is fair.

Drought tolerance is very good on the grass here.

The height is between two to two and a half inches tall.

Now during this summer time, when it gets real hot, you might want just raise it just a little high to protect the root system.

It's a good grass.

You gotta go ahead and try and look at it.

- All right Booker, what grass is growing in this plot?

- This is NorthBridge.

This is another fast-growing grass.

It's a very dark green, a little darker than any other grass that we have out there.

Spring green-up, it's been very good on the spring green-up on here.

You need a little fertilizer on this grass here.

Wear tolerance is very good also.

A lot of times you see a lot of people use this when they got a sports field.

It grows well, a lot of disease resistance on this grass here too.

You want to try that.

I know a lot of homeowners look for less disease problems and this is one that you want to try here into your landscape.

- That is pretty thick, too.

- It's real thick.

- All right Booker, what grass do we have here?

- This is bluegrass, HGT, the Healthy Growth Technology.

You'll see it grow really good in fall.

It probably starts in September and starts growing and looking real pretty out here, and normally it'll be the only thing growing.

This is a good grass here.

It grows well in the full sun.

The heat tolerance is very good.

This grass out here in the full sun, it needs a lot of water, but you want to use a lot of water, you want to make sure you have good drainage.

Sometimes you look and you see beetle bugs that might get on this grass here.

- Okay, have good disease resistance and all that kind of good stuff?

- Sometimes you might get a little disease on there, like brown patch.

You might get little on there, but it'll be okay.

You can treat that.

- Okay, all right.

This plot actually has two different types of grasses in here.

- We're trying some different grass, really Celebration Bermuda grass in here.

We're trying to do a special thing on this grass right here.

We're trying to find out, can you get two grasses to grow in one.

We're doing something for the pro football field.

We've got bluegrass mixed in with this here.

We sowed bluegrass in here from probably about three years ago and it's doing real good, and that's why we're doing that, 'cause in the fall of the year you have the bluegrass coming through when the Bermuda grass goes dormant.

So you don't try to overseed with another kind of rye grass or nothing like this here.

You look at the grass, it's got a dark blue color.

We only seeded once with the bluegrass, but it's doing good here now.

- I would mention this again.

This plot, we're always experimenting, right?

That's why we have plots like this.

- It's an experiment now.

You might not want to try it in your landscaping here.

This is an experiment that we're doing here for the professionals.

- Okay, good.

- This is a F1 zoysia grass here, Chris.

This grass is gonna have a light green color to it, not a dark green grass like a lot of grass, but it's a light green grass here.

If you go ahead and feel it, this is a thick grass and very good heat resistance.

- Which we need in this area.

- It's very good on heat and everything.

It goes dormant kind of fast now.

The heat tolerance is very good.

The wear tolerance is very good also.

It needs a little water on there to do well.

- There's usually a lot of questions about fertilizing zoysia grasses.

- One thing about fertilizing zoysia, you don't want to fertilize it too early.

You don't want to fertilize it too early in the year.

You want to start off fertilizing probably like in the first of June, especially the nitrogen fertilizer, and that's all your zoysia grasses.

This F1 zoysia here, this light green color in there, it'll do real good into your landscape.

This a Solo zoysia grass here now.

This is probably grass like you now.

This grass don't grow fast.

If you like mowing your yard probably once a week or every week and a half or so, this is probably what you want into your landscape.

The color is dark green, fall color is very good.

Wear resistance is very good.

Drought tolerance is very good.

The mowing height between two and a half to three inches tall.

Keep it watered when it needs it, it'll do good for you.

It's Solo zoysia grass here.

- It'll grow slow.

- Grow slow.

Solo zoysia grass, but you would like this in your landscape, too.

- I think I can handle that.

All right Booker, so what grass plot is this?

- This is Geo zoysia grass here.

Now this has a very thin blade on there and it's also kind of thick too now.

- Oh, it is thick.

- And this grass here, it's not the best now, but it will do good in just a little shade.

Not a lot of shade, but just a little shade.

The color is dark green.

Wear resistance is very good.

Every now and then you might get a little chinch bugs on there.

Shade tolerance is fair.

Drought tolerance is very good.

One thing about this zoysia grass, it will get a little thatch buildup every now and then.

You might need to aerate it sometimes, every now and then.

- So we have to be concerned about the mowing height?

- Yeah, mowing height, keep it at the right height, two and a half to three inches tall.

- All right.

- This is our Royal zoysia.

You hear a lot of people, they want zoysia grass, but they have trees.

This grass here will do good with probably about four hours of sun.

It'll do good in the shade and everything in there, but you need to make sure you keep water on it, but you want to keep it at least probably about three inches tall if you can and it'll do better to protect the root system also.

The color is dark green.

The mowing height is between two and a half, three inches tall.

Drought tolerance is very good.

The wear resistance is very good on this grass right here.

This is a really good grass in there.

Another thing about this Royal zoysia, you might want to keep using a little more nitrogen fertilizer than a lot of your other grasses that you have, but it will do good for you in there and perform well, but it would do good if you got a tree or something, you got shade, you might want to try this Royal zoysia.

This is our Palisades, and this is a really good grass in there.

If a homeowner want a zoysia grass that's good in shade, at least four hours sun a day, it needs that, and that'd be really good on that.

The color is medium green, mowing height between two and a half to three inches tall.

Cold tolerance is very good.

If I go with a zoysia grass, it'd be one I'd put in my landscape.

- All right, so again, good shade tolerance.

- Good shade tolerance, like the Royal, good shade tolerance.

- Any diseases we need to be worried about?

- I haven't seen any disease on it here now, but it does get some disease, but it's been out here since 2015 and no disease on this here, but it will probably get diseases if you don't take care of it right.

- So we like Palisades, right?

- I like Palisades myself.

- All of this was started by sod.

When is the best time to sod here in the Mid-South?

- You can sod grass any time, as long as the soil is not frozen.

You don't want to do it then, but if you're gonna sod grass, you need to get the site ready to sod.

You maybe want to work it up some and get it ready to lay down sod on there.

But once you sod it, you might want to add a little water to it.

You gotta catch on to that in there.

If you do it in the hot summertime, you might want to water before you lay the sod down so the grass is not too hot on the root system, but you can sod any time of the year you want to do that, as long as the soil's not frozen.

- And we want folks to know that this is actually irrigated.

- This is irrigated here now.

We make sure we get an inch of water a week on here.

You let it soak down real good in there and we get an inch of water a week in there, as long as there's no standing water.

You don't want to see no water standing nowhere, so you want to make sure you got good irrigation.

- All right.

Well thank you again, Mr. Booker.

This all looks good.

We know you love your grasses.

- Thank you too, I appreciate you doing this for us.

Appreciate that.

Let the homeowners know they can come out here and look at it any time they want to.

If they've got a question about it, they can give us a call.

- All right, sounds good.

Thank you much.

- All right.

[upbeat country music] - Now it's summer and you're getting a good chance to taste the tomatoes that you planted this spring.

Whether you planted a hybrid or whether you planted an heirloom, be thinking about if we're gonna do it again next year, and if you want to do it next year and you want to save seeds, now is the time to think about it.

Whether it's an heirloom, your heirlooms will come back true, and your hybrids, you'll get a cross of the parent plants.

If you want to start saving now, you want to bag your blooms to make sure they come back true.

You can use a little cheesecloth bag to keep any other pollinators or pollen from moving from plant to plant to make sure that the seeds that you save are actually going to come back true.

[upbeat country music] - All right Joellen, let's talk a little bit about Abelia.

- Abelia, yes.

You know, it's always been one of my favorite shrubs because it has a bloom time that starts in about June and then goes clear 'til frost.

I've used it, but it's more of like your grandmother's plant, the Abelia grandiflora, grand.

It gets about six feet tall, so that's why it kind of limits the use in the landscape.

But luckily there are new hybrids out there, which is why it is exciting to talk about Abelia.

There is another one that I liked, which I did use in my landscape.

It's called Edward Goucher.

Edward Goucher unfortunately is deciduous, which is the drawback of it, but you get these beautiful lavender pink blooms in the summer, all summer long.

But they're not as prolific as the other grandifloras.

Deciduous, bigger flowers, nicer flowers, smaller plant, it was not a whole lot to choose from.

Now we've got some good stuff.

There have been one called Sherwood.

Sherwood, Sherwoodii, he gets about two and a half to three feet tall and rounded.

They're compact, bloom all summer long and have evergreen foliage.

And from Sherwood came Little Richard, and Little Richard is even more compact than Sherwood, 'cause Sherwood can get taller than the three feet that it's usually labeled as.

John Creech is another one that has come out of the Sherwoods, and he's smaller.

All of these have different kind of winter colors and a little bit of bronzing on some of them.

Of course, then there's one that's come out that is the lowest growing of all, and it's called Prostrata, and it gets one and a half to two feet tall, and there's a lot of people who use that for banks and things like that.

It will do well under a window, in front of somebody's house for the landscaping.

Also blooms all summer long, so what evergreen foliage blooms all summer long?

The problem is our zone that this is in is six to nine.

We're in seven, and a lot of these stay evergreen here.

Further north of six and sometimes in six, if they get a zone five winter, it might kill the foliage back, so it might lose some of its foliage, but it'll come back, so that's really no problem.

The most interesting things that have come out are the colored foliage Abelias.

There's one that's called Golden Glow, which of course sounds golden and yellow color, and yes it is, and it has pink flowers.

Can you imagine pink flowers on gold foliage all summer long?

That sounds really nice.

Confetti is another one.

It's got cream-colored margins on its leaves, and then it blooms, and then in the wintertime, those white creamy margins turn kind of pinkish, so you get a little bit of a leaf change color in that one.

They're about one and a half to two feet tall, so these are all staying small, even the dwarf ones, the colored ones.

Kaleidoscope, now Kaleidoscope's a little bit bigger, but it has multicolored foliage, which is very pretty.

It blooms then from June through frost, so you've got this nice creamy white to pink flowers on top of this variegated foliage.

Very nice, and so a lot of people are talking about it because they're fairly hardy and it looks nice in the landscape.

Where do they like to live?

Where does Abelia like to live?

It likes to live in a well-drained soil.

Now you say well, soils around here are not well drained.

Well, just gotta be careful.

Just try to create a situation.

Don't plant it somewhere that you know the soil's gonna stay wet all the time, because it'll start getting leaf spots and things that it normally would not get because Abelias are usually insect and disease free.

- Oh, that's even better.

- I know.

There's not a whole lot that bothers them.

And of course they can tolerate drought.

In fact, around town, I have actually seen them in islands in the middle of the streets and they're blooming their heads off.

- Right, and we know nobody's taking care of those for the most part.

- No.

It's really a good landscape plant.

Of course the pH, it is adaptable.

It's not real particular, which makes it even a better urban landscape plant, and it likes full sun to part shade.

So now you gotta think about this.

When it's in full sun, it's gonna have shorter internodes between the leaves, so it's gonna be more compact and there's gonna be more blooms, 'cause there's more energy for the blooms.

So the more shade you're gonna give this, the larger the leaves are gonna get, the less blooms it might have, and some people I've known, just because the variegated foliage in some of these, they've put them in a pretty shady situation, but they don't really care because the foliage itself is so pretty that they don't mind having less blooms.

- Okay, makes sense.

- Yeah.

And of course, like I said, some of them are, one's listed, Miss Lemon.

It's a beautiful variation on it, and it has really pretty full flowers on top of it.

In fact, it's known for its flowering, but it's deciduous in this area.

But that's okay.

For the time of year when you're actually gonna be outside a lot in the summer and in the spring, fall and summer, you'll see it with the foliage and blooming.

- Okay.

Now, as far as taking care of them, everybody's gonna ask about pruning.

So old wood, new wood, what does it grow on?

- Well, Abelia grows, it blooms on current season's growth.

It is suggested that you prune it first thing in the spring, real early in the spring, and get it into the shape that you want.

Normally, a lot of these you don't have to, they're naturally growing in a small mounding situation, but if you want to keep it under control and you want it even smaller.

- Which most people will want to do.

- Will want to do.

Just don't shear it.

It is small-leafed and you could do that with it, but it would be better just to kind of selectively prune it down as you need to.

Some of these are multi, the larger Abelia are multi-trunked, multi-stemmed, and what you do is you go in and you take the oldest stems out every few years, and then of course to keep it down as you need to, but three feet is still not terribly bad, four feet, three, four feet, that's not a bad size for a landscape plant.

- Okay, and let me touch on this before you end, because I know Mr. D will appreciate this, deer resistant?

- Yeah, this is deer resistant, and since it blooms all the time, it attracts pollinators like butterflies and bees.

- Another plus.

- Yeah, you've got all of these qualities, and Abelia is just not well used in the landscape, and it should be used more.

- We appreciate that, Joellen.

We need to start using that a little bit more.

I see Mr. D is actually nodding his head in approval.

- Yeah, I've had some experience with the older ones, and the only problem I had with it was it was at my front door and I had to kind of keep it pruned back.

It kept growing out there, but as far as any problem or anything, insect or disease, nothing.

I'm real interested in these, especially the dwarf ones.

- All right.

Well, appreciate that again, Joellen.

Hopefully more people will plant those.

- Hope so.

- All right.

[upbeat country music] - In the Family Plot square foot garden, we're growing some fall Irish potatoes.

I planted them a couple weeks ago.

They've come up and it's now time to hill them.

It's important to hill potatoes, because the tubers will grow inside the hill that you make around the potatoes.

You want to hill them a couple times.

Our potatoes here are probably about four inches tall, so all I'm gonna do is just kind of cover them up.

Push the dirt around them.

There, now the potatoes are hilled.

They're gonna grow back through the dirt I just put on, and in another week or so I'll have to hill them again, but once they're up about 10 inch, 12 inch hill, that's enough and they can just continue to grow at that point.

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

Y'all ready?

- Ready.

- All right, these are some great questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"What's the window for overseeding my lawn, "September to mid-November?

"Does it need to come up before frost?

"How long does it need to be up before the first frost?

Thank you."

This is Terry from Charlotte, Tennessee.

All right, Mr. Leigh.

Here's another question about overseeding, and I guess we're talking about fescue.

- A fescue lawn in September, 'cause that's a fall grass when we go in the fall of the year.

- All right, so what do you think about that?

- I like to start, it depends on where you live, like September the 15th is a good time to start seeding that in there, and I like to try to have it done by at least at the last of October, and that's a good window for seeding a fescue lawn.

I guess he's talking about fescue, 'cause that's a cool season grass in there.

But if you're talking about fescue grass, while we're doing that, I'd be trying to get my soil ready now in there and trying to get it, checking my soil pH and seeing what things I need to add to that and see what I have out there now, if I want to kill what's out there now and a new lawn just overseeding now, but he might still need to come in contact with some good soil when he's doing overseeding.

I try to water that in when I put it down.

September 15th to October, the last of October would be a good time to do that.

- And this is for fescue.

- For a fescue lawn.

- When you overseed like that, you give the grass enough time to develop a root system, let that root system get established, and then too you don't have to worry about crabgrass, 'cause your crabgrass of course would slow down during that time of the year, so there'll be no competition, no weed competition.

- And the soil's still warm enough for the seeds to germinate.

- So yeah, all that helps, so just make sure it gets watered in.

- So that's good.

Good luck on that.

- Does the grass need to come up before the first frost?

Make sure we answer that question for him.

- Yeah, it should be coming up then 'cause it could come out and could knock it back some.

That's why I say to do it September 15th, in there, and then in October, so it should be coming up in there, before the last killing frost.

- Okay, there you have it Terry, from our grass expert right here, Mr. Leigh.

We appreciate that.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"What causes tomatoes to turn black on the bottom?"

This is Sandra from Piedmont, North Carolina.

Sandra, we just happen to have Ms. Alainia here today, who's our tomato expert.

So Alainia, what do you say about that?

- Blossom end rot.

- Blossom end rot.

- They short term it BER.

It is something that all tomato gardeners have dealt with at one time or another.

The good news is they say it does tend to correct itself.

The plants do adapt.

That's the good news, but we want to get all the fruit, not lose a good part of it to the BER.

The textbook answer is it's calcium deficiency.

The calcium is in your soil.

It's the plant's ability to get it out of the soil and into the fruit.

Without enough calcium sometime during the formation of the fruit, it got out of whack, and so then you get this rotted end on the blossom end.

You've got to maintain the water, have consistent watering.

- That's key.

- I mulch to try to tide me over to the next time.

That keeps it more consistent for a longer term.

I water every day.

I know other people, the plants will adapt if you've been watering every maybe twice a week, but that mulch gives you a little bit of a cushion.

But just maintaining moisture will help primarily.

Some people had some good results or some success with side dressing, maybe oyster shells.

I've heard of eggshells.

- Which is calcium.

- Y'all have probably heard some of those too.

- Yeah, I have, I sure have.

Blossom end rot, huh?

BER.

- I wrote that down right here.

- Mulch, mulch is your friend.

- So pretty much just a nutritional disorder is what that is, for the most part.

- I think the plant will adapt, and then we try to water more, but that mulch will give you a good cushion.

It will really help.

- That's good, the mulch and consistent watering.

All right Sandra, there you have it from our tomato expert.

Thank you much.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"Will neem oil hurt the vegetables in my garden?"

This is Elaine from Talala, Oklahoma.

So Alainia, what do you think about that question?

Neem oil, you think it's okay for your vegetables?

- Yes, you can treat them when you got your temperatures below 90.

Otherwise it'll burn them, so early morning, late evening.

- It'll work.

Neem oil has contact activity, short residual, so it will dry.

The pollinators will be just fine.

But yeah, I would definitely read and follow the label and it will tell you on the label not to spray if temperatures are above 90 degrees.

Neem oil is a good product.

- It's great, yeah.

- Insecticidal properties and fungicidal properties as well.

So you have dual action in the garden is the neem oil, which comes from the neem tree, Azadirachta.

So there you have it.

Thank you, Ms. Elaine, appreciate that.

All right, so Booker, Alainia, we are out of time.

It's been fun.

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 need any more information on turf, Abelia or anything else we talked about today, go 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]