- Hi, thanks for joining us for the Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South, I'm Chris Cooper.

Many annual flowers need   to be started in winter   to perform in summer.

Today, we're going to see   how to start them indoors.

Also, systemics are an option   for insect control   in ornamentals.

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 Kim Rucker.

Ms. Kim is the Greenhouse Manager at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens.

And Mr. D will be joining me later.

Hi, Ms. Kim, always good to see you.

- Thanks for having me.

- Thank you for being here.

We're gonna talk about your favorite subject, Right?

- Yes.

Growing cut flowers.

- Growing cut flowers, from seed.

- From seed.

- All right, so get us started.

- Okay, this time of year is good for planning, all your catalogs are coming in or people are inside and they're thinking of what we're gonna do, they're ready to get out.

So if you decide you want to have a cut flower garden, it's very easy to do, to me anyway.

[Kim laughs] But it's not that much different from growing anything else from seed.

You still need to do your planning and looking at your seed package will give you a lot of information about growing conditions.

If you wanna start them indoors, you usually back up from your frost state and easily it's six to eight weeks.

Some cut flower crops take a long time.

So it's good to get that headstart.

Once you've decided on which flowers you want, you may have a particular color palette that you want.

All pinks, all pinks and purples, and you kind of make your plan.

You order your seed.

When you order your seed, you also need to order some supplies or find them at your nearest box store.

When starting seeds, I think it's a real good idea to use the specialized mixes they have,   they have a germinating   mix, is what it's called.

And it's a much finer texture.

It's easier for the   little roots to get in.

They usually have put an additive in there that's a surfactant.

So it helps absorb the water.

They're always peat-based and they're sterile, which is another good thing.

You're starting with a clean slate.

You don't wanna use garden soil.

I've had some people ask if you can cook the garden soil - To sterilize it.

- To sterilize it, yeah.

- You can, but it smells horrible.

So it's just much easier to go and get your seed mix.

And then what I do, I order, I have two different size trays and that's depending on the size of the seed.

You wanna put small seeds in here and larger seeds in here.

And that would be like a sunflower, a moon vine seed, a zinnia seed, I even start in these.

And then these are for your smaller, tiny seeds.

Some of them are just almost microscopic Lobelia, snapdragon.

So I've got two seed sizes and actually, these come in longer sheets and I just cut them to size.

And I do that ahead of time.

I put my soil in here dry.

I don't wet it before I try to get it in there because that's too difficult to smoosh wet stuff in there.

Another thing that's really good about these and that you need when you're also ordering is some kind of tray.

And a lot of times you can get the trays and the little clear dome that goes on the top that kind of helps as a greenhouse.

You need good light.

That is almost the most important thing other than giving it water and warmth.

- So grow lights?

- Grow lights I would definitely use grow lights.

- So you would, definitely.

- Yeah, and you can get those, they're fairly inexpensive.

The other thing I like to do with these is give them bottom heat.

So I recommend, and they're not that expensive.

And you'll use them year after year are the heating mats.

And I've had people ask if they can use a heating pad like you use, you really can't 'cause you can't control the temperatures on those.

And those also tell you on there, do not leave plugged in and on.

So you don't want to start a fire or whatever.

And a lot of times those get too hot.

So just go ahead, I think you can get them from maybe $50 online and it's a big heating mat and you can lay several trays on it.

- That would be well worth it if you're gonna be doing this.

- Doing this, once you get your seeds in and you get your trays ready, you wanna start seeding.

And what you do is there's a lot of information on your seed pack that tells you when.

So most of these, you kind of back up.

If I start seeding snapdragons now I can expect blooms in about 14 weeks.

And you can do succession planting.

So two weeks later I might plant some more.

So your seeds, when you seed on your germinate, on your pack, a lot of times it'll give you a germination rate.

It'll say 90%, that means if you seed 100 seeds, you'll get 90 of them coming up.

So what I do, if it's lower, usually the lowest you'll ever see is about 80-something.

I'll over-seed in those, but I just put one seed per cell.

So what you do is I've got Snapdragon seeds on here.

- Those are so small.

- And they're tiny, they're like pepper.

And even though they look round, they're not, they're many-sided.

And so they like to do what I call the snapdragon jump.

So when you're trying to get them in there, so I go really low and people know not to bother me when I'm seeding, because it's, if you do, like, I've just got about five seeds here.

So I'll just take them.

That one went in anyway.

So I'll just take it like this and give it a little poke with the pencil.

Well, I'm having trouble seeing 'cause I don't have my glasses on.

So, and then you'll just take these and roll them in and you get a rhythm going.

And what I often do is I'll stick my pencil in where I left off.

But anyway, so some of them, you might want to, the tiny seeds, you don't need to do much covering.

They need to be on the surface.

A lot of your seeds and it'll tell you on the package, whether they want light or dark to germinate.

So you still put them under the grow lights.

- Still.

- Still.

- Because once that seed emerges, it needs good light to grow.

If it's not, it's gonna stretch and be floppy.

Larger seeds, I go into this and this is my fancy tool.

You can use a pencil or the eraser part.

These are moon vine seeds.

- That's a pretty good size.

- And they need special attention.

So what we do is soak these in warm water for about 24 hours.

Prior to doing that, we try to poke a little hole in them using like a jewelry loop or some sandpaper you rub.

And that makes when they're soaking it, it imbibes the water and the seeds will swell up.

As you can tell, the seeds are much larger.

That's because they've got water in them.

So I'll just go through and make little holes.

- So those get planted at a deeper depth?

- They do, usually you're gonna plant your seed- It's kinda like bulb planting, about two times the size of your seed.

If you put it on the surface, these obviously wanna be in the dark when they first start up.

And you wanna keep, so I'll just drop them in like that and just put one on top.

And then what I'll do is go back and just push them back down in there.

And the soil is, that's another reason I don't wet it at this point.

I'll just put them up under there.

You can hold, these since they were soaking, you wanna go ahead and water them from the bottom.

I usually use like a cookie tray.

And then what you wanna do is put it where it gets warmth from the bottom.

If you think about it, if you're gonna plant your seed outside, you wait until the ground warms up.

That warmth and the water just tells the seed to wake up.

- Okay, get up!

- So that's what you're doing.

- Get up, so but it's much easier to water from the bottom.

And if you leave them on those trays, you don't wanna leave them sitting in water, but you can put them back on the tray every time they need water, you water from the bottom.

- Yeah, 'cause I was gonna ask you, how often would you do that, would you water?

- Well, what I do is just watch.

And usually it's two days, depending on how hot it is.

But once I look at it, the soil is a little light colored like this.

So I will put this on the seed tray, leave it.

And then once you start getting them up about this size, I still bottom water.

'Cause if you water from here, it's gonna flop them over.

But you can tell some of these cells are lighter colored.

- I can see.

- So it's a little bit lighter.

So I would put this on a tray.

At this point, I'm also fertilizing.

- Okay, so what do you use?

- I use a soluble fertilizer that you put in water.

It's usually gonna be an all purpose, probably like a 20-10-20 or something, I don't use Osmocote - or anything.

- And how often - would you fertilize it then?

- I fertilize once a week.

- Once a week?

- Once a week.

- The rest of the time they just get watered.

- Gotcha.

- I start fertilizing about the two leaf, true leaf stage.

So they've used up their reserve in the seed.

So at that point I want to start fertilizing, I use half strength.

And then once they fill out the cell, I will bump them up.

And this is what a bumped up-- - That's the bump up.

- That's the bump up.

- And what you do is you will take a tool and get them out of here and transfer them to another plant.

I rarely take a plant from a cell this size and plant it directly outside.

It's still too tender at that point.

So if I'm going to plant this in the garden and I've already pinched it off, what I'll do at this point is move it outside.

Maybe not today, but once the days start warming up a little bit and they can take colder temperatures.

And sometimes you even move them out, move them back in, or cover them with frost cloth.

But you want to harden them off before you stick them in the ground.

- So important.

- So important, and a lot of times this is a plant with more of a taproot.

And so I will plant it at the same level.

Maybe a little bit higher.

If the plant has a crown, like this is a Digitalis, foxglove.

You wanna plant it at the same level.

So these are both pretty much, this is about the stage I like to move them outside and put them in the ground.

- We can tell you really love doing this.

[Kim laughs] We can tell.

- Yes, I do.

- We appreciate it, We appreciate it so much and of course, your demonstration.

So thank you much.

- You are very welcome.

[upbeat country music] - Harden off, we hear that a lot.

But what exactly does it mean?

- In the spring or in the fall, to harden off a plant means to introduce it slowly   to the environmental conditions   that it will be growing in.

For example, people in the spring, they've got their houseplants inside.

And they'll wanna bring them outside.

Oh, they need full sun.

And then they'll just like boil and bake and blister.

And what you're supposed to do is sort of gradually introduce them to those bright sunny conditions from being inside the house.

Same thing with hardening off your vegetable transplants in the spring to put them out, you know, if you grow them in the greenhouse and the conditions were more warm or whatever, if you take them out and put them in where the night temperatures get really chilly and cold.

So you need to, there's a term for that.

It's called acclimating, which means to gradually introduce those conditions so that plant can harden itself off to get accustomed to that.

[upbeat country music] - Alright, Mr. D let's talk about systemic insecticides.

Very popular now these days, a lot of people are using them.

Some folks are not using them.

So let's talk about it.

- You know, they're just, they're another tool.

And in my opinion, they're a very useful tool.

Systemic insecticide are highly soluble in water so that plants can take them up through their vascular tissue.

And it enables you to be able to treat extremely large trees that you can't spray.

It also is very selective about the insects that it kills.

You don't broadcast it out there so it's not killing a lot of different insects and it's killing primarily the insects that suck sap.

- Aphids and scale.

- Scale, right.

- It's really good on those types of insects.

When you're in a situation like that and that's what you need then I don't think you can go wrong by using systemics.

Many of them, will only take, you'll only need one treatment a year to break the life cycle, but they've been around for a long time.

Some of them are, you know, more toxic, have higher mammalian toxicity than others.

And so as with any pesticide, be sure that you follow, read very carefully and follow the label instructions when applying these products.

Some of them, the mammalian toxicity is not any worse than some of the other pesticides, but they are a very, very useful tool.

I believe in using technology and systemic insecticides are a product of research, you know, years and years of research and technology.

And I believe in using it.

And the University of Tennessee also agrees with me as do the other research universities - and institutions.

- Yes, widely recommended.

- Widely recommended.

- Very, very widely recommended.

- Now, what are some of those systemic insecticides?

- Imidacloprid is one.

I've got a list of them here.

Let me make sure-- - And that's probably one that most folks would know.

And Joellen, you're probably familiar with a lot of these as well?

- Some of them, yeah.

- And some of the more common ones   is orthene, Acephate   has systemic activity,   imidacloprid, Merit,   Then Safari are some   of the more common   products that are out there,   insecticides that   are out there.

The active ingredient   in Safari is what   - Dinotefuran.

- You said that real good.

[Chris laughs]   - I'm familiar with it.

- And then imidacloprid, Bayer   Tree & Shrub insect control.

And then the Merit is   also imidacloprid also.

And then, orthene, I still think orthene or Acephate does most of it's killing by it stinks so bad.

- It smells so bad - Yeah, it smells horrible.

- I think they just die.

- It does smell bad.

- It really has a bad smell to it.

- Can we explain again to the homeowners, how do these products work again?

- The way they work is you put them on the ground.

You'll mix them with water according to label directions, spray, or are there any, do you know of any granulars?

- Yeah, there are some.

- There are some granulars.

- So the granular ones you will sprinkle on the ground, according to the label direction under the plant.

When it rains or   when you water it,   they are readily   water-soluble.

So they dissolve in water   and the roots then   take the product up   and it goes through   the vascular system   then it's in the sap,   the insecticide is in   the sap of the plant.

And you know, you're good.

The things you need to be careful about using these under, and again, it's not gonna be on the label, but if you use them on tree fruits and tree nuts that we eat, you wouldn't wanna do that.

There are some products within the commercial pecan industry, systemics that are labeled for use on pecans.

However you won't, they'll tell you not to use that product after April, I mean, August 1st or something like that.

And that way, because of that that product is completely gone by harvest time.

So you've got harvest on those kinda products, but again, be careful if you have fruit trees and fruit plants around where you're putting these products, you need to be very careful with that.

But they work really well.

The plant takes it up.

You need to make sure that if it's raining, if you've got a rain event, or getting plenty of rain, then you don't have to do a lot of water.

But if you put it out there and it's not, you're not getting any rain, then you do need to irrigate.

You need to water them in to make sure.

But the label will tell you that.

- Yeah, the label will tell you that.

- The label will tell you.

- Definitely do that.

And the Bayer product, it comes in a liquid, and granulated form.

- Both ways.

- Both ways.

And I've actually used both.

- Either one works.

- They work.

- And since we're talking about systemics, are there any systemic fungicides that you may know about?

- Some of the newer fungicides have some systemic activity.

And we used to say, you know, always as a young extension agent, we learned that fungicides were preventative in nature, were preventive treatment, - That's right.

- and you had to have it out there.

You know, when the spore landed on the plant, it had to land on some fungicide and die.

And if you didn't have that, it wouldn't work.

But some of the newer fungicides out there do have some kickback activity, some systemic activity, it will mov.

Some of them only move within the leaf.

They won't move within the total plant, but they may move from one part of the leaf to the other, within the leaf surface.

It's not as systemic as insecticides and herbicides, not at that point yet, but there is some kickback activity on some of the newer fungicides.

- Okay, I wonder if any of those available to homeowners?

- They are.

- Yeah, the systemic fungicides.

- I don't know.

- I think some of them.

- I think some of them.

- Some of the, and I'm not gonna mention trade names, it's not fresh on my mind, but I think some of the new ones have a little bit of kickback activity.

If it says it has some kickback activity, that means it's systemic, some systemic activity.

- Okay, and you're familiar with those products too.

I'm sure, aren't you?

- Yeah, but I like him, I have the commercial ones and I used to use that in the flower beds.

And they would, you know, it took just a very little bit, but it made a big difference.

It really did, it did work.

- And I guess to, you know, using the fungicides, I mean, you don't have to worry about beneficials or anything like that, right?

'Cause, it's not gonna - do any harm to them.

- - They don't have any, - No activity on them.

- They are pretty safe.

- You don't have to worry about, killing beneficial insects.

- Right, with the fungicides, okay.

All right, Mr. D, we definitely appreciate that information.

- Okay.

- All right.

[gentle country music] - These are some snapdragons that I am going to move up because they've been in these little seed trays for about eight weeks.

And so what I do is I take a little bamboo, you can use a pencil eraser, anything that will help push that plug up.

And what I do is kind of squeeze the cell a little telling it it's time to come out.

And then I just push there's a hole in the bottom.

So I just push the plug up, squeeze the bottom so he doesn't fall back in there.

And then I pull him out.

And this is what I'm gonna plant.

This is my potting mix.

Fill the pot about halfway.

Then I'm just gonna take this little plug.

And this is a single stem so I can bury it fairly deep.

So I just put him back in there and I backfill.

And I kind of tap it around and that one is ready to go.

We'll water it after.

Always, always water after you up pot.

[gentle country music] - All right, here's our Q&A segment, y'all ready?

- Sure.

- These are great questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"If I plant climbing hydrangea   on top of a retaining wall,   "will it go over and   possibly climb down it?

It's a south-facing retaining   wall with all-day sun."

This is Sinkok on YouTube.

So Lee, what do you   think about that?

Climbing hydrangea, which are beautiful.

So yeah, will it go over and possibly climb down is the question?

- It will go over, but it will not grow down.

[Chris laughs] 'Cause your plants is eutrophic, they going to grow up all the time, that's natural.

- That's natural, yeah, especially in all-day sun, right?

Yeah, so is there any way you could get it to climb down, you think?

Ms. Kim, is it-- - No, the only, well, I was wondering why they didn't put it at the base so it will grow up the wall.

- So yeah, rather you grow up than, yeah, grow down, right, okay.

- It's a climbing hydrangea, not a weeping hydrangea.

- Not a weeping hydrangea, there you go.

[all laugh] So maybe we should grow the weeping hydrangea, right, so it can climb, I like that, okay.

All right, so we hope that answers your question.

Yeah, grow up, okay, not down, not down.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

This is interesting.

"Is it better to purchase roses   "on their own rootstock   or on grafted rootstock?

"If own rootstock, do these   need to also be planted high?

"I would like to know the   varieties that do best   "here in the Mid-South.

"I'm especially interested   in David Austin roses   and Cornish roses."

This is Joe from Olive Branch,   Mississippi on YouTube.

So we start with you Ms. Kim.

So what do you think about that question, right?

Own rootstock or grafted rootstock for your roses?

- Most of what you find out there are grafted and the reason,   and you do need to   have that graft above,   sometimes you'll have   shoots coming out   from the other and you   just prune those off.

Some of the heirlooms   probably that you can find are on their own root stock.

But the grafting, the reason they do that is just because to get it going, it's hardier.

- With the grafts.

- The grafts, yeah.

- They could probably get them on to the market a lot quicker too, right?

- Right, they're easy.

- Yeah, get them to market.

- And then about three years, they get into the market quicker.

And some of the varieties just don't root well themselves.

So they can graft it and get multiple plants, but they would not get well-rooted on their own stem.

- Okay, yeah, so you're on own rootstock I know it takes a lot longer for it to get established, but it does over time become more hardier.

- Yeah.

- It lives longer, for the most part.

And then if it happens to die back, I mean, you get the plant back.

- You get the plant back.

- Right, you get the plant back.

- That's the advantage of growing on their own root - On their own root.

- Systems.

If you had a bad winter and it died out, and it came back from the root, you would still have the same rose that you had before.

- Right, okay, now, and then he, of course, asked about the varieties there in the Mid-South, and he's in Olive Branch, Mississippi.

So what I have to say to that is I have a good friend, works in extension office there in Hernando, Mississippi.

Dr. Joy Anderson.

Yeah, give her a call, contact her.

I'm sure they will have a list of roses for that area.

You know, rose varieties in that area.

And my parents live in Mississippi.

My mom loves roses and I know her hybrid teas are Mr. Lincoln, Veteran's Rose is another one and there's one, Barbara Bush.

So I know that grows in that area for mom.

But yeah, just give Dr. Joy Anderson a call there in Hernando in Mississippi State Extension.

And I'm sure they would have publications on rose varieties.

So thank you for that question, Joe, appreciate that.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Hi, how do I kill English ivy   growing under my   blue spruce tree?"

And this is Carolyn.

So that sounds like a question we probably get every now and then?.

[all laugh] - We get that several times a year in our extension office.

English ivy is really hard to kill.

I would, you know, cut it   back down to the ground   and pull the runners out.

- Yeah, pull those runners.

- Make sure that you   don't leave any runners.

'Cause the English ivy   will root very easily.

And you know, she may try   to just to paint the tips of the ivy with herbicide.

Don't spray, - Don't spray.

- You want to paint the tips.

And remove all the foliage.

- Yeah, we've had some moist days.

Get out there and pull it when the ground is moist.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Right, right.

- And it lives right, yes, underneath the blue spruce.

So yes, spraying, no.

Try to cut it back and then you paint those little - Paint those tips.

- Those tips   with something that   contains glyphosate.

That's one,   triclopyr is another.

Read and follow   the label on that.

And it's gonna be   multiple applications.

- Yeah, oh yeah.

- Because English ivy has a waxy cuticle.

So you're probably gonna have to add some soap.

- So it will stick.

- Yeah, so it will stick, Oh, wow, break the surface tension so it can penetrate.

But yeah, Carolyn, you're gonna have your work cut out for you on that one.

[All laugh] Yeah, that is going to be tough.

So thank you for the question.

All right, Lee, Kim that was fun, thank you much.

- Thank you.

- 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.

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[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]