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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Flowering bulbs are heralds of spring.

Today we're gonna talk about how to take care of them to maximize the blooms.

Also purple martins can eat a ton of insects.

Today we learn about them, and find out how to attract them to your yard.

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 Dale Skaggs.

Dale is the director of horticulture here at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, and Mary Schmidt will be joining me later.

Dale, always good to be out at your place here at the Dixon.

- Well, welcome to the Dixon.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- How's it been going?

- Good, Good.

Spring has come a little early this year, and we've planted more spring flowering bulbs than ever.

- Okay.

- It's kind of become a tradition here at the Dixon.

I can remember our first year we did bulb plantings.

I think we planted 20,000 spring flowering bulbs.

- Twenty thousand?

- We've done a hundred thousand, and then the number keeps growing, and so we're hooked on bulbs here at the Dixon.

- Yeah, I see.

- But we could do amazing art exhibitions or whatever, but nothing draws people like the spring flowering bulbs.

I think people are, you know, tired of the winter.

- Yes.

- And as you said, they're the harbingers of spring.

- Yes, yes.

- And so everybody's ready to get out, the weather's nice, and we're really packed, and very accessible to all of Memphis and the Mid-South.

- Okay, yeah, so what do we have here in this bed?

What do you wanna start with?

- Well, these are the earliest harbingers of spring, really.

Muscari are grape hyacinth, so they're often called grape hyacinths.

They're not true hyacinths, but they are fragrant.

And, you know, there's white forms, Valerie Finnis is another form, and then there's the dark, dark purple form.

Sometimes we mix these and get all three colors in one display, but this is sort of the first thing that kicks everything off.

- Yeah, looks good.

- And then the next thing that comes on are the true hyacinths.

That was a grape hyacinth, which is not a true hyacinth at all.

These are Hyacintoides, these are true hyacinths.

- Okay.

- Have you ever planted hyacinths?

- I have not.

- Okay.

- I have not.

- Hyacinths, they're very fragrant and a lot of times they're grown in pots and that sort of thing, but they're sort of an early bulb.

Some people are allergic to them.

I know Kim Rucker, our cutting garden manager.

- Okay, okay.

- She can't even handle the bulbs unless she puts rubber gloves on, because she'll break out in hives.

But they're extremely fragrant.

Some people say they're almost too strong - Really?

- In fragrance.

And we've planted off and on a few hyacinths, but this year we planted more because we just acquired a recent painting in the permanent collection of the Dixon.

- Okay.

It's a Demont painting, and it's of a famous nursery, it's a very large piece, and it's a piece that focuses on hyacinths fields outside of Ghent.

- How about that?

- At a very famous nursery.

- So where's Ghent?

- It's a Belgian nursery.

But anyway, it inspired us to plant more this year, and it's the Van Houtte Nursery.

Have you ever heard of Spiraea vanhouttei?

- I have today, how about that?

- It's been around forever.

It's a classic Spiraea that a lot of people grow and anyway, - Yeah, yeah.

- It's from that nursery and they were instrumental in introducing a lot of new plants to Europe.

A lot of people think of Holland as being this epicenter of horticulture, but actually early on, Belgian nurseries led the way.

- How about that?

Learning something new, okay, good deal.

- But this year we're folks focusing a lot more on daffodils.

- Yeah.

- And you know, there's more to daffodils than just yellow.

You know, there's whites, there's pinks, and breeders are trying to get some red cup daffodils and other things.

- Yeah.

- And so this year we decided to have all the divisions of daffodils represented in our cutting gardens.

So we still have tulips elsewhere on the property, but mostly here it's daffodils.

- So is it daffodils, buttercups, jonquils, what is it?

- That's a great question.

And my mom always called 'em buttercups.

So I knew someone who called 'em Easter lilies, which is so far from... - I know, yeah.

- You know, Ranunculus is the genus for true buttercups, but Narcissus is the genus of daffodils.

And so some people say jonquils, you ever heard the term jonquils?

- Uh-huh, I've heard that.

- Well, jonquilla is one of those 13 divisions that I mentioned.

It's one set of it, but they're all Narcissus.

So you can call 'em daffodils, it's probably the correct thing, or narcissus would be the Latin name for 'em.

- Gotcha, gotcha.

- But these are just coming on just like the tulips.

There's earlys, there's mids, and there's late, and that refers to the bloom time.

- Okay.

- We like to layer our bulbs so that one thing takes the stage early, and then next starts to fade, another one comes up, because it gives us a long bloom season, because everybody wants to know when are they gonna be peaking?

- Yes.

- And I never know.

This year they're coming on early, you know, last year they were late, so you never know.

But that hedges our bets because we have a long bloom season.

- Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

- You know?

- Good, good, good.

Here's some white hyacinths here in this bed.

Look here, oh, this is the one we planted.

This is a cultivar called Martha Stewart, and it's just starting to bud up.

So this one will probably be a mid-season.

What you're seeing mostly are the earlys.

- Okay, Martha Stewart, I like that.

- It's a blustery day here at the Dixon.

- Yes.

- The wind is here.

We had some rain move in, and it beat down a lot of the daffodils that were blooming.

But look at this, this is Ceylon.

- Yeah, this is good.

- Ain't this nice?

- This looks good.

- Ceylon is a really nice choice.

It's standing up strong, and what you want in a good show daffodil, is you want it to stand up strong and be facing you, you know, when it's in a vase - Okay.

- On the show bench.

And so this is a real strong grower, and I mean, this is hurricane proof almost.

I mean, we got 50 mile an hour winds and rain last night, and it still looks good.

So this is Ceylon which is a real winner.

You can see the angle of the flower - Yeah.

- Which makes it a really good show flower, and they're coming on.

- So, let's talk about this for a second.

So what if somebody wanted to cut these, and bring them inside and put 'em in a vase?

- That's a really good question.

You know, you don't really cut daffodils.

- Okay.

- You pick daffodils.

- You pick 'em, right.

- Yeah.

And the reason you pick daffodils is because there's a virus that can get in the bulbs.

- Yeah.

- And here in the Mid-South, the tulips don't come back every year very well for us, but the daffodils do.

- Gotcha.

- So if they're in the ground and you want 'em to live a long time, if you had a virus in one bulb and you went through and cut a bunch, you'd be spreading it from one to the next to the next.

- Gotcha.

- So you pick daffodils.

- You pick them.

- Yeah, and so I was with Brent Heath last spring, and he grows a lot that he ships out as cut flowers.

- Okay.

- And so I had the privilege of working one morning with him, getting bundles of daffodils and it was a great morning in Virginia.

So what you do is you reach down in, all the way down to the base, and just give it a snap.

- Ah, okay.

- And then you can go in and cut it afterwards and put it in warm water.

- Warm water.

- Warm water.

Tepid water, not hot water, but warm water.

And then we have a floral cooler and we put 'em in the floral cooler.

And the reason you use the warm water is it opens up all the pores, and allows it to start soaking up the water.

- Gotcha.

- But if you are cutting them and you were gonna ship them like I was doing with Brent, you would want something that's just showing color like that, and you would reach down in and take that one out because that's gonna continue to open in the vase, and it'll give you a long season.

This is gonna start senescing sooner.

- Okay, gotcha.

- But Ceylon, it's a really good one for us and an early one.

- Wow, so Dale, you know, usually people talk about braiding the daffodils, how do you feel about that?

- Well, in terms of daffodil culture, we don't recommend braiding daffodils.

- Okay.

- It actually damages the leaves, but you do have to leave the foliage up after they flower and that's a problem for a lot of people.

- Okay.

- Because the daffodils come up, they're beautiful, and then you're dealing with this foliage sticking up.

- Yeah.

- Until, say, May.

In the Mid-South anyway, in May, the foliage starts to die back, and then they sort of disappear, and then you're reminded next spring.

But they're perennial plants, they come back every year.

Don't braid 'em, just let 'em die down naturally.

- Do animals like daffodil bulbs?

- No, they're actually toxic.

- Okay.

- The daffodils are.

The tulip bulbs, on the other hand, everything loves them, rodents, deer, and like I said, they tend to rot here in the Mid-South, so they're not perennial for us.

So they're kind of one shot wonders, which is a lot of work.

Like I said, this year we planted 350,000 spring flowering bulbs.

- Oh my goodness, yeah.

And unfortunately, because we're gonna be growing other crops in here, we'll have to remove all these bulbs at the end of the season.

Our volunteers love it because they get tons of daffodils, they'll come back for decades.

- Sure, sure.

- In fact, there's a flower farm, it was a flower farm, then a winery out in Cordova, not too far from the Extension Office here.

And every spring, jonquilla daffodils come up that are probably 100 years old, and they still continue to come up and bloom, and they're extremely fragrant.

- Pretty impressive.

We can definitely tell you like daffodils, the tulips, and all that good stuff.

So, thank you Dale, appreciate that.

[upbeat country music] - Most spring flowering bulbs, including daffodils and tulips need a period of chilling.

It's a technical term, it's called vernalization, and it's basically a cooling period of around 40 degrees, and that allows the flower to set inside the bulb for the next year.

We're probably at the edge of where our bulbs need chilling.

If you plant bulbs south of here, especially tulip bulbs, a lot of times you don't get enough chilling.

If you live in the Gulf Coast states or where it's warmer, parts of Texas, they rely on this Division 8 tazetta daffodil.

And the tazettas are kin to the paperwhites that you see in Christmas, they're sort of in that same group.

And so, this is one called Minnow.

And as you can see, there's multiple florets, but they're almost always very fragrant and this is a tazetta type.

So these bulbs don't require that vernalization, so it makes 'em very useful in warmer parts of the country.

[upbeat country music] - Hi Mary, we love to have you on.

- Thanks for having me back.

- As always, all right.

So let's talk about purple martins.

What do we need to know about purple martins?

- Okay, well, first a little bit about the birds.

So, purple martins are native to North America.

They're the largest member of the swallow family.

And what's great about swallows, is they eat a lot of insects.

- Good.

- Purple martins are really unique too because they're colony nesters, so they like to nest together.

You're not gonna get them nesting just a single nest here and there, they like to be in groups of at least six or more.

- Wow, wow.

- And what's really neat is if you can attract purple martins, which we're gonna talk about in just a little bit, they will come back year after year to the same colony.

And they are here usually starting in late February.

- Okay.

- And they're coming to us from Brazil.

So they're here, they have their breeding season here in North America, and then they are spending their winters in Brazil.

- Wow.

- They really rely on people too, because east of the Mississippi, they rely exclusively on man-made structures.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

So a really interesting bird.

A lot of people wanna attract 'em, not only because they eat a lot of insects, but they're really interesting birds to watch.

They're really acrobatic in the air, they make a really kind of sweet sound.

And so it's just a really interesting bird to attract to your area.

- All right, the fact that they're eating insects helps.

- Yes.

- Really does.

- I think that's a big draw - Yes!

- For a lot of people in attracting them.

- That is a huge draw, especially here in the south, right?

- Yes.

- Yes.

- So how do we attract those purple martins to our homes?

- Okay, well, not everybody is going to be able to attract them because you need the right habitat.

And for purple martins, they want somewhat of an open area.

They don't mind being close to houses, but probably at least 30 feet from a house and about 40 to maybe 100 feet from trees.

So give them a little bit of distance and open area because they like to hunt for insects there, but also kind of like an open area to get down into their colony.

So, that's the first thing, is you have to have the right location.

- Okay.

- You also kind of have to make a commitment because these birds are coming back year after year to the same colony, so you have to put in that commitment of maintaining your colony.

- Okay.

- So you have a couple different options on attracting purple martins.

The first thing you want to think about is what type of housing are you going to use?

- Okay.

- So, there's three different types of housing.

The first and the most historic, how the swallows first started coming around people are natural gourds.

So you can hang a bunch of those up, you put a hole in them.

The downfall of the natural gourds now, is that you can't monitor them or clean them out, so you need to replace them year after year.

- The second option, which is my favorite option, are artificial gourds.

And we'll talk a little bit more about some additions to those, and then the last way is the large house-like buildings that have different compartments in them.

So I'm sure a lot of people have seen those before too, yeah.

So there's a few drawbacks to those as well, but they work just as fine and a lot of people use a mix of the house and the gourds.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

So, once you decide what type of housing you want, then you need to get a system.

And so they like to be at least 12 to 18 feet up in the air.

- Okay.

- Now, most of the time it's recommended that you check your gourds.

So you're bringing those gourds down maybe every week to check to see if you have parasites, are your birds building nest or laying eggs yet, and then also do you have unwanted guests in there like starlings and house sparrows.

- Okay, okay.

- So, being able to check them is a really good option too, 'cause then you can identify some of those issues and stop them before they kind of overtake your colony.

- Wow.

- That being said, there's three predators that we wanna worry about in our colony, okay?

- Oh boy, okay.

- So the first one is raccoons.

- Raccoons?

- Yes.

So raccoons are great climbers.

And if you think about a bunch of these gourds filled with little helpless young or eggs, it's pretty attractive to predators as well.

So a simple predator guard on the bottom of your pole system, is gonna work for raccoons and for snakes.

- Yeah.

- The other predators that we have for purple martins are going to be hawks and owls.

And now they've done a lot of work, we've done a lot of research studying all these different colonies across the United States, and they've found some ways to prevent hawks and owls from getting into your gourds.

So, this style, you can attach predator guards.

This is an owl guard, it's going to stop the owls from getting too close to your gourd, and reaching a foot in there.

- Okay.

- And then you can also put a little porch on your gourds and have some predator guards like this attached to your porch.

There's a lot of options besides just the regular, what we call a super gourd, you've got ones that have tunnels and porches.

Those are all kind of newer additions that are coming up, and you can retrofit your old gourds as well.

- Those are some major predators.

That is so interesting.

- Yeah, it's really interesting.

I was telling a story earlier, when I first started at Lichterman Nature Center about five years ago, we had our colony.

So they come back year after year, and we had a hawk and an owl problem at our colony.

So they were taking some of our young.

We attached predator guards and our success rate has gone up like 500%.

- Wow!

- So predator guards are a definite must.

- They work.

- Yes, they absolutely work, and that's a definite must if you're gonna maintain a colony.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- How about that?

Now I see you have the binoculars there, so.

- Of course.

- What's the purpose?

- Yeah, I don't go too far - All right.

- Without having my binoculars nearby.

But this is really neat because you can watch your colony from a distance.

There are ways to tell the males from the females, and first-year birds as well.

So that's a good way to see who's nesting in which gourd.

At Lichterman Nature Center, we label all of our gourds, so we can say, oh, in A, we have a adult male and a sub-adult female, stuff like that.

So we monitor them and check them weekly to see what's going on inside of the gourds right now.

- So I have to ask, so how do you tell the difference between a male and a female?

- Okay, so the males are the ones that most people think about, where they get their name purple martin.

- Okay.

- So they have kind of this iridescent purple, dark blue color, and the females are gonna have that same color on their head, but they're gonna have a lot of white on their chest as well, so.

And then one thing I forgot to mention, is starling resistant entrances.

- Okay.

- We really need that here in the Mid-South because starlings can get into your gourds and they will kill young, and sometimes even injure adults.

So the style that will prevent a starling from getting in is more of a crescent shape.

- So the open round hole starling can get into, so you wanna have something that's going to prevent the starlings from getting in as well.

- And that will do it?

- That will do it, just changing the hole size or the hole shape.

- The hole shape, okay.

- That's a big deal.

- Wow.

If people wanted more information about purple martins, I mean, where do they need to go to get that information?

- Sure, well, they can always visit us at Lichterman Nature Center.

- Okay.

- We have an active colony.

They start arriving in late February, and then they kind of wrap up their breeding season in June and July.

There's also a great organization called the Purple Martin Conservation Association, and they have great scientific research that they're doing, they also have a lot of different options for housing.

So that's a great one-stop for all your purple martin needs.

- Good stuff, Mary.

- Yeah.

- I appreciate that.

It's good to hear about those purple martins.

I see 'em all the time in the air, just divin' and- - Yeah, they're really neat to watch, they're pretty acrobatic, so it's pretty fun to watch them.

- Good stuff.

Well, I hope folks come out and see you, and learn a little bit more about those purple martins.

So, thank you much.

- Thank you.

- All right.

[upbeat country music] - This is a goldenrain tree that we rescued from a nursery two years ago.

It was stuck in a container and all the roots for growing in a circle.

Down here at the bottom, since I did mention the girdling roots, but what I'm more concerned about is all the roots that are growing on the surface that could be exposed to like drying out, or freezing, and desiccating.

So we're gonna apply some more mulch on this later today, but what I wanna do right now is I want to try to loosen up some of the soil with this trowel, and sever some of these roots that are like trying to grow on top of the ground, and try to encourage this tree to produce more roots down lower.

So I wanna take and just very easily slice through the soil vertically away from the tree, and I think what we're gonna do is encourage more feeder root growth further out.

Now we don't want to go this way because it'll be just like transplanting the tree again that's why I went away from the tree like so.

This tree is doing good so far.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Dale, here's our Q&A segment, you ready?

- I'm ready.

- These are great questions, all right.

So here's our first viewer email.

"I moved to Memphis from Louisiana last month, "and brought with me "my great-grandmom's Byzantine gladiolus.

"How will they do here and what can I do to ensure my Byzantine gladiolus survives transplant?"

And this is Jeremy from Memphis, Tennessee.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- So can we help Jeremy out?

Right here in Memphis.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Well, you know, the nice thing is that they come from a corm, which is kinda like a bulb, right?

- All right.

- And so it has a lot of nutrients and energy stored up in there, so they're kind of pre-packaged plants that are easy to shift about.

That's the popularity of flowering bulbs, was because they were pre-packaged plants that could be moved around the globe very easily when they're dormant, so, - Okay.

- He should have no trouble with it.

But the one thing that I will say, which coming from Louisiana, the soils aren't drained very well there either.

But just put it in a raised bed or something because they are prone to rot.

We've had 'em come up for years and what we call the med-beds, which are kind of the world of make believe.

They are a drainage, they have like a French drain under 'em and it's very fast draining soil for Memphis, and they come back every year from that.

So, I would either put it in a container or a raised bed, make sure you've got some good rich garden soil, and he should have no trouble transplanting the Byzantine gladiolus.

They're not the gladiolus they use in the florist industry, it's a smaller flower, pink flower gladiolus.

But they're a pretty cool plant.

- Okay, well drained soils though.

- Well drained soils.

- Okay, make sure your full sun.

- Full sun.

- Full sun, okay.

- It likes to bake in the summer.

It's fine, yeah.

- It's bakes in the summer, Jeremy.

All right, thank you for that question.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"I recently had soil tests done on my flower beds.

"Results indicate high amounts of nitrogen, "phosphorus, and potassium.

"Should I not fertilize this year "or is foliar fertilizer an option?

Thanks," and this is Paul from Oxford, Mississippi.

So what do you think about that?

You know, high nitrogen, we used to don't see that on a soil test.

- Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

- We definitely see, you know, a high phosphorus and potassium numbers, but what do you think about fertilizing?

- I don't know, I'd probably hold off on fertilizing.

I'm not sure, like you said about the nitrogen.

- Yeah.

- I didn't know the soil test, most of the ones that I've seen don't show nitrogen because it's water soluble.

- Right, right.

- But a low dose of liquid fertilizer wouldn't hurt, but I think he's gonna get enough from the soil.

- Yeah.

- If it's reading high numbers on all of it, I would probably just halt and just, you know, apply some mulch and make sure it gets water adequately, and let the plant take up some of those nutrients and then maybe the following year do another soil test, see where you are.

- Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

- 'Cause we don't wanna over fertilize.

There's a lot of consequences for - That's right.

- Polluting streams and stuff with over fertilizing.

So for environmental reasons and for plant health reasons I wouldn't.

If he's got high numbers, I'd just leave it alone.

What do you think?

- Yeah, I'd leave it alone for a year, a couple of seasons, yeah.

- A couple of seasons.

- Yeah, a couple of seasons.

Because yeah, adding too much fertilizer, of course you're gonna tie up those other nutrients in the soil.

So I wouldn't add for, yeah, - Yeah.

- A couple of seasons, you know, just kind of let it be.

- Yeah.

- And just go from there.

Maybe add some, you know, organic matter.

- Yeah, compost is always good 'cause that gives you other things that aren't found in the N, P and K fertilizer.

- That's right, that's right.

So that's what I would do.

- Okay.

- All right, so there you have it, Paul, we thank you for that question.

- Thanks Paul.

- All right.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Besides dividing peonies, how else can you contain the width?"

And this is, Roberta, on Long Island, New York.

- Well, we don't have that problem in Memphis.

We're not trying to control the width, we're trying to keep 'em alive here.

- Sure.

- But I think she can take a spade and divide off part of it if she's trying to keep it, you know, take around the edge and she'll have lots of friends because she'll have a little division to give to her friends.

So yeah, I think dividing is probably the best option for controlling it.

She could take up the whole clump, divide it and put one piece back in.

- Okay.

- And maybe move it further away from what she's trying to avoid it crowding, so.

She could sort of maybe set it back further.

But you can divide peonies, they divide very easily.

- Right, right.

Yeah, peonies, pe-oh-nies, right?

- They're same thing.

- To-may-toes, to-mah-toes.

- Yeah, that's right, that's right.

So thank you for that question, Ms. Roberta, we appreciate that.

Here's our next viewer email, this is interesting.

"I have a Japanese maple that was heavily damaged "by a deer scraping its horns.

"What do I need to do to help it recover?

Fertilize?

Wrap?

Help!"

And this is Barbara from Columbus, Ohio.

So who do you think about that one?

- Well, deer is such a problem in the landscape, you know?

- Oh, they're a problem here for sure.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- In Shelby County there's a lot of, a heavy deer population.

- Right.

- Especially in the suburbs.

So, I know you get lots of calls about, "What do I do?"

- Yeah, we get lots of calls about deer and first off yeah, the deer rubbing, you know, against the Japanese maple probably.

- That's the big buck deers, huh?

- Yeah, marking his territory.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Is pretty much what's happening there.

But I'll say this, Dale, if there's damage to the vascular system of that tree, that's gonna be a major problem.

So if there's any girdling, - If it goes all the way around, - If it goes all the way around- - You might wanna think about getting a new tree.

- A new tree, yeah, it's gonna be a new tree.

But if not, then it's a chance, depending on how healthy that tree is, - Yeah.

- Then it may survive.

But the key thing to me is adding water.

- Yeah.

- You gotta keep the water.

- Making sure it's not stressed.

- That's right.

- Make sure it's not stressed.

Yeah, I think the key would be, is that all the way around the trunk, is it localized, if it's in one area, plants are really adept at sort of compartmentalizing damage and actually growing around it, and trees are really good at that.

- Yeah, it's called wound wood.

- Wound wood, yeah.

- That's what it is.

Wound wood, yeah, yeah.

- Okay.

Yeah, I've seen that happen.

You know, even with a lightning strike or something that peels that bark back and then it heals right back over.

So if it's minimal, yeah, I think it's gonna be okay, but if not, if it's all the way around it.

So the extent of the damage, maybe they should send a photo into the Extension Office.

- Yeah, it'd be good to, you know, to see that picture.

But I definitely wouldn't fertilize.

I would keep the water, I'd just push the water to it, and I wouldn't worry about a wrap either.

- No, no, no, I think that you'll hold in moisture and - That's right.

- Cause more problems than you'll help.

- That's right.

All right, yeah, maybe a tree guard, you know, something like that to kind of keep the deer out.

Just keep the deer out.

- And if you replant a new tree, you definitely wanna put a tree guard there.

- You're definitely gonna have to do that.

So, yeah, Ms. Barbara, I hope that helps you out and good luck on that tree, all right?

Alright Dale, that was fun and thank you.

We appreciate that.

- All right.

- Appreciate that.

- Thank you as always, good to have you at the Dixon.

- All right, good to be here.

Good to be here.

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