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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Tree borers can wreak   havoc on your landscape.

Today, we're going to learn   all about these insects.

Also, plants are   great and so are pets,   but there are some   plants that are dangerous   for Fido and Fluffy.

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 Frank Hale.

Dr. Frank is a UT Extension entomologist and Joellen Dimond will be joining us later.

Hi Doc.

- How're you doing, Chris?

- How you doing today?

- Well, I'm pretty happy.

I brought all my-- - I see.

- Wood-boring insect display, yeah.

- All right, so let's talk a little bit about those tree borers.

- Yeah.

Why are wood boring insects important?

They can actually cause the decline of a tree or even the death of a tree.

They're tunneling into the wood.

They might be feeding underneath the bark.

And they're actually injuring the tree.

And often, you think of them as nature's way to decompose a tree while it's still standing.

They usually go after weakened trees or declining trees, but there's some pests we have that will go after trees that look apparently pretty healthy.

So, what happens when you see a hole in a branch or in a trunk of the tree?

Can you see these holes here?

This is a camphor shot borer.

It's an ambrosia beetle from Asia.

It came over here.

And when you see holes in the tree, that means that beetle's been in there probably a year.

- Wow.

- Or even longer.

That means those are the exit holes.

So that indicates.

Now, a lot of people get the yellow-bellied sapsucker and other woodpeckers' holes confused, but these are more random   where the yellow-bellied   sapsucker more encircles   the trunk of the tree.

But ambrosia beetles, when they tunnel in, just think of somebody with a drill.

They drill straight into the tree and then make a right or left turn.

So I split these twigs.

And once inside the plant, then they inoculate it with a fungi, and the white ambrosial fungi   is what the larvae feed on.

So, they made their own   little mushroom garden inside your tree, and that can be a big problem.

Often in late winter or early spring, we'll see the granulate ambrosia beetle.

And if you can see here, the beetle will have these little toothpick-like frass tubes.

As they tunnel in, the eject   out the sawdust-like frass,   and you see these little things   maybe an inch long or so.

And if you touch them,   they just disintegrate.

So, to protect against these, you have to put a protective insecticide spray on the bark of the tree.

- Now, when would you do that?

- Well, for ambrosia beetle, like the granulate ambrosia beetle, we'd do that when we get this first seventy degree temperature days in late winter or early spring.

The beetles start flying then, become active.

And we actually put out traps baited with ethyl alcohol.

They go right to it because a stressed tree releases ethyl alcohol, and they'll go to the trap.

And so we usually tell our county agents when the beetles are flying so they can get the word out.

Every year, we also see clearwing borers.

Now this, you can see these   round holes, clearwing borers.

And here is actually the lilac borer.

You can see it, or a banded ash clearwing.

I think it's the lilac borer.

It also attacks ash trees, lilac and ash.

This is a native clearwing borer,   so it's actually a moth.

It flies around during the day.

It's a day-flying moth.

And it'll lay its egg.

Other clearwing borers would be the dogwood borer, the peachtree borer.

Let me show you something.

What these moths actually look like.

- Yeah, those are neat.

- They're called clearwings because they don't have all the wing covered with scale.

And so they mimic bees and wasps and they flit around in the sunshine like you would see a bee.

And so, predators kinda leave them alone.

They're not gonna mess with a bee.

They don't wanna get attacked, so to speak.

Sometimes though, we don't think of, the peachtree borer will attack plants in the genus prunus, which includes cherry laurel or Otto Luyken laurel.

So this is the trunk of one, and you can see that it has totally been, if I turn it around here, here's the actual moth.

Lays its egg on the trunk.

The caterpillar then   feeds underneath the bark and you can see here, all the bark has been, is got off the, is falling off.

So this girdles the plant and kills it.

The water can't go up and down the tree.

So that actually killed the plant.

We have some other beetles that are called, let me move this out of the way.

These are called metallic wood boring beetles and the larvae are called flatheaded borers.

And so the larvae gets underneath the bark again.

As you can see here on this tree trunk, it kinda makes a spiral as it goes and feeds underneath.

Kills that cambial tissue.

So the beetles come out.

They often lay their eggs on the sunny side of the tree, south or southwest side, in the spring, and then the caterpillars are underneath.

And they're gonna be underneath the tree for a year or so.

And then they'll come out the next year usually.

Sometimes, we have a new pest that's called the emerald ash borer.

It's from China, and it got over here in 2010.

We found it in Knoxville area.

And now it's in Middle Tennessee, and it's heading this way.

I don't think it's been found here yet in West Tennessee.

But you can see here, this is the wood of the tree, underneath the bark.

And you see these meandering tunnels.

That's where the flatheaded borer larvae,   it's kinda flattened   and it can live there   and it feeds on   the cambial tissue.

So that's the water   conducting tissue,   the growth ring tissue that   allows the plant to grow.

So this will, within a few   years, kill the tree also.

So we're really gonna lose probably most all of our ash trees, native ash trees, in North America.

This, the little pink shows here where there's a D-shaped exit hole.

I just painted it pink so it would show up better.

It's kinda hard to see on the bark, so we did that to accent it.

But that means that that   beetle had been in there a year   and it emerged in the spring.

So we generally use systemic insecticides.

If there's a tree, like an ash tree, that you wanna preserve in your front yard or in the side yard, a real nice tree, you can   treat it with tree injection   products like Tree-age,   or we can drench   around the roots   with systemic insecticides.

So you can kill-- - Can you use those as a preventative though?

- Well, we don't recommend using insecticides, they're a little expensive, until you actually have these sighted in your county.

Once they're in your county, you can start protecting it.

So I wouldn't do anything right now.

There's no need to.

But if you notice trees in general with wood boring   insects, they're gonna   start to see some branch   die back in the   top of the tree first.

You'll see a thinner   canopy, fewer leaves.

With the emerald ash   borer, you might even see epicormic sprouts that are at the base of the tree.

So it's putting up all these little sprouts 'cause the top of the tree's just starting to die.

So you really wanna treat this, though, early before there's much damage if you wanna preserve the tree.

I just wanted to show you here, we made a nice little display showing the emerald ash borer.

The beetle is right here.

The beetles, they're   not very big at all.

- They're not.

- But they're metallic   green, emerald color.

The larvae are what do most of the damage.

And they're elongated, might be an inch or so long.

Kinda cream colored.

So this is really a ecological disaster.

It's gonna kill most of the   ash trees in North America.

And that, it got over here.

Once it got here, we couldn't do much about it because it already started to spread.

People actually cut down trees, moved firewood.

So that's why it's important not to bring firewood into our state parks from elsewhere.

A pest we don't have in Tennessee and we don't want is the Asian longhorn beetle.

It's one of the roundheaded borers.

This is also, you can see, it has real long antennae.

That's why it's called longhorn beetles.

We have native longhorn beetles, but this one likes to attack maple trees, and buckeye trees, and horse chestnut.

So we have, you know, millions-- - A lot of those.

- Of maple trees.

We don't need a wood boring pest.

The closest infestation's Clermont County, Ohio, east of Cincinnati, Ohio, but north of the Ohio River.

They're trying to eradicate that right now.

Doing a pretty good job.

So whenever this is found, we actually go in and try to eradicate it because it could do a lot of damage.

- Wow, that is some good stuff.

- Yeah, there's just lots.

And we really tell people when it comes to wood boring insects, you have to have some preventative sprays.

When you plant a new tree, and you put it in the ground, you wanna drench it with an insecticide for pests like roundheaded borers, flatheaded borers, those beetle borers.

That will protect them.

Other type borers like clearwing borers, you'll have to put a trunk spray, but we have all that information at UT Extension Publications.

We can check out PB 1589.

It has a lot of information.

- You already know the number.

That's pretty good.

Thank you, Doc, that was good information.

- Thank you, Chris.

- Good stuff, good stuff.

[upbeat country music] Let's get to translocation, since you mentioned that earlier when we were talking about systemic.

- Yeah, that's a good one.

You know, when we think about translocation,   that's just movement   throughout the plant.

That's all that means.

Stuff that's translocated, and usually it's through the vascular system of the plant.

You know, like our arteries and veins, which is, you know we'll throw out a couple more big terms, phloem and xylem.

[chuckles] - (Chris) That's right.

And I always remember   xylem is xy-high.

- Yeah, yeah.

- It takes water up.

- Yeah, it's hard.

Sometimes it's hard to remember which one's which.

I always have to kinda think about it.

One's moving up, and   the other's moving down.

- (Chris)   Yeah, phloem is moving down.

Yeah, I remember   that from classes.

How about that?

[upbeat country music] All right, Joellen.

Plants to avoid around pets, really?

- Yeah, pets, yeah.

I have a couple of pets that actually like to eat some, one of them likes to eat tomatoes, and that's on the list of no, you don't eat tomatoes for dogs.

- So, Chevy eats tomatoes.

- Chevy eats tomatoes.

- And Glory.

- But Glory eats, she will run in the backyard, and she grabs some of my perennials, and she'll chew on it and eat 'em before I say, stop, stop, stop.

But luckily, it's not on this list, so.

- Good, good.

All right, so let's find out what's on the list then.

- Let's find out what's on the list.

We're gonna go through some annuals first.

- Sure.

- Begonias, believe it or not.

Begonias are on the list.

Coleus.

A lot of these   are common plants.

Forget-me-nots, there's   a lot seed to that   that people put out.

Geraniums.

Lantana, and lantana has a   liver toxicity with it for pets   so that's not a good one.

- Wouldn't want that.

Some larkspur, and of course,   the Christmas poinsettia.

Some people will   plant it outside,   and so it'd be a possibility   that pets could get around it.

And if the leaves fall off of it inside, you know, during the Christmas holidays, you don't want your pets to eat those either.

So, be careful with that.

Then there's of course the perennials.

And there are more on a list than this, but we're going with the ones that are most common.

Some of the perennials are Asclepius,   which everybody plants   as the butterfly weed,   for the monarchs.

Well, that's fine, but if your pets get ahold of it, it's not good for them either.

So, keep it away.

Carnations is another   one, dianthus.

Chrysanthemums, of   course, that makes sense   because there's   chemicals to kill insects   made with chrysanthemums, so   you know that wouldn't be good   for Fido or Fluffy.

Then there's dahlias.

Dahlias aren't   good for animals.

Daisies.

- Daisies.

- And foxglove.

Now, foxgloves is probably   you're gonna see it out   and blooming in the   nurseries and stuff, but just remember that that has cardiotoxic chemicals in it, which affects hearts of the pets.

- Cardio, oh.

- Yeah, cardio.

So, they're cardiotoxic.

Don't get those.

Iris is another one.

Lenten rose, one of   my favorites, yeah.

No, and it's evergreen.

It's gonna be around all the time, but don't let your pets chew on it.

Lily of the valley,   and mayapples.

You know, out in the woods.

But don't let Fido or   Fluffy eat on those either.

Peonies that have just   finished blooming.

Those are also on the list.

And yarrow.

- Yarrow, okay.

- And then we're gonna move into herbs, vegetables, and fruits.

- Wow, you've shocked me already with this-- - I know, this is-- - With the perennials.

- Alliums, garlics and onions.

And in ornamental ones, don't   let them chew on those either.

And of course, then there's apples, cherries, plums.

The seeds of all of those have cyanide in them, so that's not good.

And a lot of people will let them fall, no, on the ground, leave them on the ground.

That's when the animals can get ahold of them.

But besides that, even the leaves and the stems are not good because they have chemicals in them that are toxic to animals.

So just think about it if you wanna toss a stick.

Or there's loose sticks in the yard, and the animals go and catch them and try to play.

They tear 'em up.

It's not good because those are not good trees to have around for your pets.

- Oh, man.

- Citrus fruit, too.

Now, citrus fruit, a lotta people have citrus fruits that they bring in and outside around here.

So, those are not good.

The fruit, the actual fruit themselves is okay.

It's the coating, waxy coating around, and even the leaves and the stems, again, is not good for them.

- Like your lemon and lime, oh wow, okay.

- And then, of course, grapes and raisins, also.

In fact, those can cause acute kidney failure in dogs and cats.

- Wow.

- So, be careful with those.

And mint family.

You know, you plant a   mint, it gets really big.

Those are not good   for your pets, either.

Peppers, not good for your pets.

And of course, tomatoes like we talked about before.

- Yeah, tomatoes.

- Aloe vera is not good either.

I mean, it's good for us, but   it's not good for your pets.

And of course, there's a lot of other spices that are not good for your pets.

And just think about it.

When you're cooking, you use these spices, and Fido gets a bite or the cat gets a bite.

Well, if it's got some of the spices that they don't need to have and the herbs, you're not doing your dog a favor by giving him those, so just be careful.

Just be careful.

- 'Cause of course, I'm thinking about catnip, catnip.

- Yeah, but believe it or not, parsley is also one of the things that you cannot give animals.

- Wow.

- It's not good for them.

- Good for caterpillars, but not, all right.

- So, we'll go onto bulbs.

Amaryllis, caladiums.

'Course there's a lot of   problems with caladiums.

Even people have   problems with caladiums.

Crocus, daffodils.

You know, daffodils   are deer-resistant.

Well, your pets shouldn't   be eating daffodils either.

Gladiolas that are   getting ready to bloom   or starting to bloom.

Those are not good   for your pets.

Hyacinths, and a   lot of the lilies.

Not all the lilies, but a   lot of the lilies are bad.

And the tulips, not good.

- And tulips, wow.

- Don't let them eat those either.

Some of the vines that aren't good.

- Vines?

- Clematis,   English and Boston ivy   is not good for pets.

And you could have that   all over your yard.

Morning glory and wisteria.

And you know, you find--   - Wisteria.

- Wisteria in the woods.

And then the seeds and pods and stuff, don't let your dogs and cats play with those.

- Golly, okay.

- Yeah.

Then shrubs.

- Shrubs.

- Shrubs.

Azaleas and rhododendrons.

And in fact, they are one   of the cardiotoxins again.

And just a few azalea leaves   can be toxic to your dog.

Yeah, not good.

Boxwood, burning   bush, the Euonymus.

That's not good.

Gardenia, those are   not good for pets.

Hydrangeas, and hydrangeas   are getting ready to bloom.

They are also cardiotoxic,   so that affects   their heart, too.

As is Japanese pieris.

That is also a cardiotoxic   plant to have around.

And of course, one thing you're gonna encounter just almost everywhere is privet.

Privet is not good for   dogs or cats either.

I don't know how you   can get away with that.

I mean, it's in the   woods, it's everywhere,   but it's not good   for them to eat.

But how many times   have you seen people getting rid of the privet and the sticks are around, and the dogs are running around the neighborhood.

That's not good for your pet.

And then of course, oak trees.

The oak, the acorns are not good for your dogs to ingest.

And I actually caught one of my dogs with, you know.

I was, what're you chewing on?

I opened up their mouth and there's an acorn.

I'm like, stop eating stuff like that.

I don't know why, but they do it.

And that's one of the things to watch out for.

So just watch your pets.

You know?

Be careful and observe them.

Don't just let them out there and, you know, to themselves and don't watch what they're doing.

The best list that there is around of toxic and nontoxic plants is on the ASPCA.org website.

They have long lists of things to look at.

'Cause this is just the most common ones that I've picked out.

- Okay, and we'll have a link to that.

But those are just the most common.

- Those are most common.

- That's a lot of common- - It's a lot of common plants.

- Plants.

- That I have in my yard.

- That a lot of people-- - A lot of people have in their yard.

- Have in their yard.

- That's why I say, well see, you notice, I've caught my dogs when they were doing stuff, so I knew what they were ingesting or trying to ingest.

And I stopped them, so, that's what you've gotta do.

Pay attention to your pets.

- Pay attention.

All right, Joellen, that's good stuff.

So we gotta keep Fido and Fluffy safe, right?

- Keep 'em safe.

- And Glory and Chevy.

- And Chevy, yeah.

- Yeah, gotta keep 'em safe.

Good stuff, all right.

[gentle country music] - In agriculture, we have several different kinds of applicator tips for spray nozzles, and they all have different specific purposes.

But for homeowners, what we're gonna come into contact most often are these adjustable nozzles that are on one-gallon pump-up sprayers and pump-up backpack sprayers.

They have, basically, two different ways that you can spray them.

You've got a steady stream, if you open up your sprayer nozzle all the way and this is what that would look like.

That type of application is gonna be useful when you're trying to do like perimeter applications or if you're trying to reach high up into canopies of trees.

It's important for homeowners to know that a finer spray has finer droplets, and that actually provides better coverage.

So, if you're trying to get inside shrubbery and dense herbaceous plants, that's the type of spray you're gonna wanna use.

And, you can see... how it covers a larger area and it's a finer mist and a finer droplet, and that's what you wanna use for adequate coverage.

[gentle country music] - All right, so here's our Q & A segment.

Y'all ready for these questions?

- We're ready.

- Yes.

- They're really good questions.

All right, here's our first viewer email.

"Please tell me what's eating   my laurel bushes and hostas.

And more importantly,   how to get rid of them."

And this is from Heather   from Newbern, Tennessee.

So, what do we think   that is, Joellen?

- Well, now--   - Let's look at the first one.

Let's look at the laurel first.

- The laurel first.

The laurel--   - And it's not an insect.

- It's not an insect.

Actually, it's a disease   called shot hole disease.

Very common on laurels.

All laurels get that, so yeah.

- So this rainy weather we've had-- - Yes.

- Conducive to that.

Hopefully, when we get dries out a little in the summer, you'll see less of that.

Prune some of that out as you do your routine pruning to shape the thing, so that helps, but it's not gonna kill the plant or anything.

- Good airflow, too.

Especially if it's next to a wall or something like that.

- Right, and a lot of times, people are not pruning and they're just topping.

- Yes.

- And so, maybe when you prune, if you can go down to a shoot and kind of make some air movement for the plant, that would help that too.

- Practice good sanitation as well.

- You could.

- Leaves off the ground.

For sure.

And you could just use a fungicide if you have to for that.

All right, so what about the hostas though?

- It's probably just a slug.

- Just slugs, right?

I have hostas at home.

They have damage that kinda looks like that.

Just slugs.

- Slugs and snails like this kinda of wet, rainy weather.

And we do have baits that you can put out for slugs.

There's one that has metaldehyde in it.

You have to be careful around pets.

So you don't wanna use metaldehyde baits, but there's I think an iron phosphate bait - Yeah, iron phosphate.

- That you can use that's safer.

But in general, drier weather, it gets better too.

- Drier weather helps.

I'm surprised you didn't mention the beer.

- Nah, beer is to be drunk, not put out in little dishes for the slugs.

- Yeah.

- Well now, I like to put just boards.

'Cause they have to put somewhere-- - That makes sense.

- During the day.

You just lay a board down.

You pick up the board up in the morning.

You see all of 'em, you scrape 'em, and you're done with the slugs and put your board back and catch some more.

- That's a good idea.

- That's good.

And it's funny because all these things that we're talking about, product of the environment, wet conditions.

- Yeah.

- How 'bout that?

So there you have it, Heather.

Thank you for the question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"How do you keep ants out   of your compost pile?"

And this is Wade in   Ooltewah, Tennessee.

All right, so,   guess what, Wade?

We have our bug guy here.

So, do we need to keep the ants out of the compost pile?

- I don't really think you do because the whole idea of compost is to break it down.

And so, insects, whether it's termites, ants, they're breaking down wood often, like carpenter ants, so that's part of the process.

So I wouldn't worry about that at all.

Some people use black soldier flies to break down compost.

The larvae will devour vegetable matter, especially if they have a big vegetable garden.

And then the larvae can be used for fish food.

That's pretty cool.

- Wow, that is good.

- Wow.

- How 'bout that?

Ah, okay.

- Yes.

- Good stuff, all right.

And one other thing, you know.

If you turn your compost pile enough.

- Yeah, the ants won't wanna be there.

- Yeah, you gotta turn it to aerate it, so it gets up to proper temperature to kill the microbes.

- Right, right.

And ants won't wanna be there anyway.

- No.

- 'Cause you're disturbing them too much.

- That's right.

- All right, good stuff.

So there you have it, Wade.

Just get in there and disturb those ants.

They're not bad, they're not bad in your compost pile.

All right, so here's our next viewer email.

"I just bought a phal orchid "and need to repot it from the tiny two-inch container "it came in.

"It has two nice healthy silvery-white air roots "about five inches long hanging over the side "and several submerged in the potting media.

"When repotting orchids,   should I put the air roots   in the new potting medium   or keep them in the air?"

And this was from Kate.

So what say you, Ms. Joellen?

- Ah.

- Ha ha.

You know about that, don't you?

- I do know.

Actually I have one that I need to pot up myself, so I have some of the potting medium that you use for orchids.

It's mostly just bark.

It's very airy.

And yes, I would put those roots down in this bark.

'Cause they'll keep growing and sending up more.

And it's probably a Phalaenopsis is what she's probably got that you can buy just about anywhere.

- Yeah, anywhere has that, I assume.

- And they like this kind of medium, and so I just say, you know, enjoy.

But yeah, pot it all up.

- So pot it all up, Ms. Kate.

So, Joellen, Doc, we're out of time.

It was fun.

- It was lots of fun.

- More questions.

- More questions.

[laughing] - All right, thank you.

- Remember, we'd 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.

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[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]