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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Tropical plants love the heat and are colorful all summer long.

Today, we're going to look at a few options.

Also, pH is one of the most important things in a garden.

Get it wrong and your garden won't grow so well.

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 Joellen Dimond.

Joellen's the Director of Landscape at the University of Memphis.

And Celeste Scott will be joining me later.

Alright, Joellen, I know you like tropical plants don't you?

- Yes, tropical plants.

- So let's talk a little bit about those tropical plants.

- Yeah, now Chris, most tropical plants, all of them bloom and set fruit.

- Okay.

- But there's a lot of them that are just grown for their foliage.

And we're gonna go over some of those first.

First one are the elephant ears or the Alocasias or the Colocasia.

This is the Colocasia here.

And Xanthosomas, they are anywhere from two feet to six feet tall.

The leaves just get larger as they plant gets bigger, like the elephant ears.

They like full sun to shade, anything in between, moist, well-drained soil.

But one thing you gotta remember, if you've got kids and plants, you gotta remember these are toxic to humans and to pets.

So, you gotta be careful where you plant them if you have kids and pets.

- Glad you mentioned that.

- So and then there are gingers.

And this one here is a ginger.

This is the variegated shell ginger.

This is the Alpinia variegated shell ginger.

There is also a tri-color ginger.

It's a different variety.

They are about two to three feet tall in height.

Of course the variegated leaves means that it can take a little more sun than some of the others.

But all of them like moist, well-drained soil.

- It's a pattern here, right?

- You're gonna hear this a lot.

Moist, well-drained soil.

Next are the palm trees.

Palm trees range from 2 feet to 10 feet plus.

So any size of palm tree.

Their fronds are beautiful, give a different look to the landscape.

They like sun to partly sunny, and some will even take more shade than a lot of the other tropicals.

- Can we actually grow palm trees here in our Zone 7b?

- Actually there are a few that will live through the winter here.

- Okay.

- Sometimes when we get to Zone 6 winter, it will kill them to the ground, and sometimes they come up and sometimes they don't.

But there are a few that we can keep here.

Next Hawaiian ti plant, the Cordylines.

Bright pink.

A plant that can actually take the shade and be colorful in the shade.

In fact the more sun it gets, it'll turn more green.

And if it's in too deep of shade, it will turn green.

- How about that?

- There's a happy medium in between that it likes.

And it's bright pink and burgundy, and it's just gorgeous.

- That's interesting though.

In the sun it's green.

- Yeah, sometimes, well like this one here.

You see the leaves are burned probably because it got too wet in the winter.

This is caused by too wet.

That's mostly the first sign of too wet is the leaves will start turning these weird colors.

So, just watch out for that.

And next, bananas.

There are all kinds of new banana varieties out there.

They don't produce bananas necessarily.

They're grown for ornamentals.

And they're about two to three feet tall.

And in mass and in a bed they look really nice.

By themselves they look nice.

And then of course you can get other banana varieties that are even taller.

So, up to 10 or more feet.

Around here I've seen people that had them and they'll cut 'em back and they come back.

Some of them are perennials and some of them are annual.

But they're all Musa species and they have very large leaves.

It's kind of adds a nice dramatic addition to your landscape.

Moist, well-drained soil, sun to part sun.

They're a good addition.

And then you've got Dracaenas.

- Oh yeah, I do like those.

- Now that's gonna be a very popular, but mostly what I see for the outdoors are the marginata types, the very spiky, thin-leaved ones.

And they're usually variegated or green, or usually a dark red color.

- I've seen the dark red color.

- And they put them in containers with other plants.

And that's usually how those are used.

They get about two feet tall.

Again, sun to partly sunny areas, and the more color it has, the more sun it can take.

- Okay.

- So, yeah.

It also is toxic to humans and to pets.

Then we've got crotons.

Everybody knows crotons.

They are one of the sunniest, most bright, it makes you smile when you seem them because they're so, so colorful and cheerful looking.

They like sun to partly sunny areas.

They're one to three feet tall.

They mix well with others.

And I say well-drained soil.

And you kind of put an underline and it's highlighted for this one because the number one cause of it failing for anybody is because it gets too wet.

- Too wet, okay.

- Yeah, people like it too much and they water it and they think it needs water.

Well, not necessarily.

It likes to be kinda dry side.

- Yeah, I like them.

- But also to know about them is, of all of the plants they are probably the most toxic of all of the tropical plants.

- That I didn't know, okay.

- Yeah, they have a milky kind of sap in them that's very toxic to people and to pets.

- Oh, wow, okay.

- So, you got a place to put 'em out of the way where nobody's gonna get to them, then I think they're wonderful.

Next is copper plant and I have one of these here.

I love this.

This is so pretty.

Burgundy, it's got bright pink flames on it and they can have yellow on 'em and white, and they are just very variegated, but they do very well.

And of course that is a Acalypha species.

It's part of the Acalypha family.

See the blooms on it that kinda remind you of the Acalypha.

So they are very brilliant and bright in the landscape.

And do well in the ground or in containers, wherever you want to put them.

And again, well-drained soil.

Don't overwater 'em.

Don't over water 'em.

That's most of the tropicals that are, you know, just go for foliage.

And now let's talk about some that bloom too that we really like the blooms on it.

And that's gonna be Hibiscus.

This one down here, a nice pink.

They come in all colors, reds, whites, yellows, oranges, doubles, singles, you name it.

Beautiful.

Two to four feet tall.

Again, well-drained soil.

And all of the ones that bloom could benefit from some supplemental fertilizer throughout the growing season, maybe once a month put some fertilizer on it.

Next is Mandevilla.

Mandevillas can either be a vine or a bush.

It comes in whites, reds, and pinks.

- I usually see 'em out by mailboxes.

My neighbor has one out by her mailbox.

- That's why they do well because how often do you water around your mailbox?

A lot of these plants do well with being a little dry in between their waterings.

Shrimp Plant.

There's yellows, and kind of a pale red color.

And so they do well also well-drained soil, sun to partly sunny areas does good.

And then of course one that we, Bougainvillea, we can't not talk about Bougainvillea because the blooms on it are vibrant and gorgeous.

They only thing I can say beware of is it has thorns.

It has thorns.

So beware of that and just put it in an area where you don't brush up against it all the time because you might get stuck by one of its thorns.

- It is a beautiful plant.

- It's beautiful.

And then of course the last one that you can see a lot of around here is bird of paradise.

Even when they don't bloom, I think the foliage is beautiful in containers.

And again, bigger leaves can give a different texture.

They grow more upright whereas the Colacasias you can see kind of weep down with their leaves.

So you get all these different textures and colors to really, really add a tropical feel to your garden.

- All right, Joellen, that was good.

We can tell you like tropical plants.

- I love tropical plants.

- Thank you much.

[upbeat country music] It looks like Japanese beetles are back.

How can I tell?

Look at the skeletonized leaves.

Japanese beetles attack over 300 species of plants.

They have chewing mouthparts.

They like to chew or eat the plant tissue right in between the veins, hence the skeletonized leaves.

So, how do you control Japanese beetles?

There's a couple of ways to do that.

One is to just get a bowl of warm soapy water and just knock them in.

That'll get 'em.

Especially if you do that in the morning time or late in the evening because they've eaten so much at that point in time they're real sluggish and they're easy just to knock in.

Or if you wanted to use a low-impact pesticide, I recommend using neem oil.

Yes, neem oil.

It is an oil from the Azadirachta tree and it should help reduce the number of Japanese beetles that you will have on your plant material.

[upbeat country music] All right, Celeste.

- Hi.

- Let's talk a little bit about pH because pH is so important and you're gonna tell us why it's so important, right?

- It is so important.

And folks just don't realize how important it is.

So, I know that we preach with Extension and many other professions, preach the importance of soil sampling before you begin any kind of gardening endeavor.

Whether that's, you know, vegetable gardening, or landscaping, or what have you, but it truly is super important.

If nothing else to be able to determine what your pH is.

Or the level of acidity in your soil.

What pH stands for, it's a little "p" and a big "H", - And a big "H", right.

- So that stands for potential hydrogen.

Hydrogen is acidic.

And so that's just measuring the level of how much potential hydrogen is in your soil.

And telling you whether it's acidic or basic.

pH runs on a scale of 0 to 14 and it's exponential.

So, for example, seven is right in the middle, so that's what we're gonna call neutral.

Anything below seven would be considered acidic, or some old-timers say it's sour.

- Yes, sour.

- So, sour or acidic.

Anything above is basic, alkaline, or again sweet.

You may refer to it as sweet vs. sour.

So that's kind of how it goes.

Now, if we're looking at a pH, we've tested our soil and it came back a pH of five and we were gonna compare that to another area that came back with a pH of six, it doesn't appear to be that much difference 'cause you're thinking well it's just one number different.

But like I said it's on an exponential scale.

So a pH of 5 is really 10 times more acidic than a pH of six.

Likewise, if you move up to a seven, a 5 would be 100 times more acidic.

So every full single number that you move up, you're moving exponentially.

So, it really does make a big difference.

- All right, good stuff.

So, what causes an acidic soil, though?

- Well, there's lots of different situations.

- Okay.

- So, in West Tennessee a lot of soils are naturally acidic.

And that is just determined by the parent material that your soil is made out of.

So, like the bedrock that was degraded and now has become your top soil.

A lot of it is dependent upon that.

There are also some practices that humans do that could create acidic soils.

So, let's think about there's lots of development going on and so any time top soil is removed, you're removing some of the natural amendments of the soil and you could end up with a more acidic soil.

New homes, lots of times they remove that top soil and they're backfilled with what they think might be top soil, but it isn't really.

- Not exactly.

- Right, they can end up with acidic soils that way.

Also, just continued use of land.

Plants are taking soluble nutrients out of the soil.

So, things like potassium, magnesium, calcium, and when those are removed from the soil solution or even removed from water, if you're having lots of rain or something like that, those can be replaced with those hydrogen ions which increases the acidity of your soil.

So, any kind of land that's in continuous use might have the potential to have a low pH or have a more acidic soil.

- Okay, so what are the benefits of sampling in the fall?

Because you can sample anytime, correct?

- Yeah, yeah.

- But the fall just tends to be a little better you think?

- Yeah, I think.

You can sample any time of the year and you can amend any time of the year, but for me most of the time, especially if we're talking about vegetable gardening, we've gotta have some forethought with this.

You wanna start a new site in the spring or you had problems in your garden site this past year and you wanna try to get ahead of the game.

Sample in the fall.

The lab is usually slower.

- It is, it is in the fall.

- Because in the spring is when people are getting geared up usually and sending in lots of samples.

So, the lab is generally a little slower.

You can get your results a little faster.

Our soils tend to be drier in the fall.

And when you send in a soil sample, it really needs to be dry.

If it's not dry when it gets to the lab, then they have to let it dry, so that can add a few days on to your sampling time.

And then of course if you live in West Tennessee like we do or in the Mid-South in general, I guess I should say, your soils are going to naturally be on the more acidic side.

So we're looking at probably around 6 to 6.5, it could even be lower, just depending upon where you are.

So, if we need to amend that pH and raise it, we're going to do that by adding lime, and lime takes time to change the chemistry of the soil.

It's not something that's gonna happen immediately.

So that's why I like to test in the fall so you can go ahead and get that lime on the ground now and by the time spring comes around you've already started that process of changing the chemical makeup-- - So it'll be ready to go for the most part because it gets weathered in and broken down.

- Right, yes yes.

So that's why I prefer fall.

- Okay, while we have a little time left, suggested pH for plantings though.

- Yes.

- What are some of those?

- Okay, so for something like lawns, I would say most turf grasses 6 to 6.8, you could go a little lower, don't want to go too much higher.

They tend to kind of prefer some of that acidic soils.

Areas that are naturally like wooded, if you have a wooded lot around your home, those soils are gonna be naturally more acidic because you're having a lot of leaves and things falling and decomposing, so that would be common for that type of area.

Gardens, vegetable gardens in general, again we're looking at probably 6.0 to 6.8 somewhere around that area.

Where you wanna really make sure you have more extremely acidic soils would be for crops like blueberries.

- Yes, yes.

- So there you'd be looking like 4.8 to 5.2.

- Yes, low.

- So, if you test an area and you're not sure what you wanna do with that piece of your property, and it comes back low in that range, maybe you would want to plant blueberries there because then you don't have to fight with amending that pH because pH doesn't stay changed you know, you have to stay on top of it and continue to amend it if you want to move the natural level of that pH of that soil.

- Okay, so since you're there, let's quickly talk about how do you adjust the soil pH then?

- Oh, okay definitely.

So, we can only know amounts if we get our soil sample, like how much we need to add.

So that's another reason it's so important.

If we want to raise pH near to seven, you've got an acidic soil and you need to raise it near to seven, you're going to add lime.

For homeowners, pelleted lime is going to be the product of choice.

It's easy to apply, but then again it takes time to do its thing.

I would not put more than 50 pounds per 1,000 square feet out at a time because there again you may be getting a lot of waste if you over-apply.

If you put 200 pounds out, it's not all going to be able to do its thing.

So, sometimes if we have a drastic adjustment, you may have to split up that application into two or three applications throughout the year.

So, apply the first one now, wait two or three months, apply it again, wait two or three months, apply it again and then retest to see where you've gotten yourself to and how much more you need to go from there.

If you're trying to go the opposite way and lower your pH, say that you have a spot that test like 6.8 but really want to grow blueberries there or you really want to grow some acidic shrubbery there, plants that prefer acid soils like Azaleas, Rhododendrons, hollies, things like that, adding sulfur can get you down to that lower pH level where you want to be.

- And that's that elemental sulfur?

- Elemental sulfur can do the job.

I probably wouldn't want to use that every single time.

Aluminum sulfate will do it as well.

So, either product.

It just depends there, again, you need to have results from your soil sample to know how much you need to move, but as a rule of thumb I think it's like .2 pounds per 100 square feet to move it 1/10 of a pH point.

So, it's gonna take some calculations and some time that we need to know what we're starting with before we start adding.

- Garden math.

- I know, garden math.

- How about that.

- I'm always bringing math to the scene.

- You're always bringing math.

- The garden mathematician.

- All right, Celeste, we appreciate it, that was good information.

So thank you much.

- Thanks, thanks for having me.

[gentle country music] - All right, we're out in The Family Plot garden.

This is our tomato plant.

This is always a good practice to mulch your tomato plants.

And before we put down the mulch, I wanna remove some of the nutsedge that we have around our tomato plant here.

Now that the nutsedge has been taken up, we got all of it up from around the tomato plants, it is now time for our mulch.

Now, you can use any type of organic mulch.

So, again, you need no more than two inches.

It helps to conserve soil moisture.

It actually helps to regulate soil temperature, and of course it will help to suppress weeds.

And when you put your mulch down, make sure you pull it back from the stem of the tomato plant.

It doesn't need to touch the stem.

And of course by conserving soil moisture and soil temperature, it helps with the tomatoes, right, because those tomatoes will not crack because again this mulch is helping it to conserve the moisture that is in the soil.

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

You ready?

- I'm ready.

- These are great questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"I've had a good number of white pine trees "that I've planted and they all have the same problem.

"An otherwise sturdy tree seems to die out "at six to eight inches from the top.

"Why are the tips of my white pines dying?

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated, thanks."

And this is Art.

The white pine trees.

- Yep.

- The tips are dying.

- The tips are dying.

- We had a discussion about this.

- Yes, we did.

- What do you think about that?

- White pine weevils.

- It's the weevil, how about that.

- They attack just the tips of the pine trees.

And he should be able to see them at some point.

But you're supposed to cut out, spray insecticide, but you can actually cut out the section that they are in.

Now, with apical dominance, that's gonna take out that main leader but that doesn't mean that the rest of the plant will die, it will just send more shoots more evenly out and it just won't be a tall single trunk.

But yeah, that's a major problem.

- Major problem.

Major insect pests of the white pine.

- In the United States.

- And the thing about it if you have tall white pine trees, you're gonna have to figure something else out.

So, I would call a certified arborist, have them to come out, assess the damage for you, and they could possibly treat this issue for you.

So, the insecticide will probably be a soil systemic drench is what I'm guessing.

- Would most likely be that since they're eating on the bark and in the cambium layer, which is what kills the top of the tree.

And then they lay eggs and so the cycle continues.

- Right, yeah, if you have shorter trees, I would just prune it out.

But if you have taller trees then it's probably gonna be a soil systemic drench.

But contact that certified arborist.

- Make sure that's what it is.

- Yeah, make sure that's what it is.

- Because they have bucket trucks and things they can get up in the tree and assess it better than you can from the ground.

- And that way they can just prune it out instead of having to use an insecticide, if you don't want to use that.

- Right.

- Right, okay.

But those weevils are a problem.

- Major pests.

- How about that.

All right, Art, hope that answers your question.

Yeah, contact a certified arborist and let them come out there and assess that damage for you.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"I have a Yucca plant that has got "a white colored fungus on the leaves.

"It seems to be originating from the base of the leaves.

"What do I need to do to get rid of this?

"Also, can the fungus transfer to other plants?

"Do I need to isolate the plant away from my others?

Please help, thank you."

And this is Shirley.

So, can we help Ms. Shirley out?

- We can help Shirley.

- Let's help her out.

- Mealybugs, those are mealybugs.

Yeah, and it might be because it's too wet or it's too shady.

- There's some kind of stress going on.

- Some kind of stress going on 'cause Yuccas like it hot and dry.

But she can control.

For one thing I would put it in more sun in a well-drained area, that's the first thing I would do to try to naturally control the mealybug, but then you can put neem oils and insecticidal soaps, and she can even wipe it off with alcohol if she really wants to.

It will go from plant to plant, if that plant's stressed and can take, so... - It definitely can do that - It can go from-- - And from the picture, it is in a pot.

So it should be fairly easy to control.

Again, the low impact pesticides like you mentioned.

I would use the neem oil, horticultural oil, insecticidal soap.

Know the life cycle, how to get 'em when they're young when they're in the larva stage.

They're easier to control during that stage.

You've probably seen some sooty mold because they have piercing sucking mouthparts.

They feed on plant sap, they're going to produce honeydew.

So, you gotta get them under control.

- Yuccas have good sap for that.

- Gotta get them under control and I think you'll be fine.

So, low impact pesticides, Ms. Shirley, that will do it for you.

- Yeah, and get it some more sun.

- And give it some more sun.

- And don't overwater it too much.

- Right, not too much water.

Because we definitely don't wanna stress it out.

All right, Joellen, fun as always.

Thank you so much.

Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

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

Or you can go online to familyplotgarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for watching.

If you want more information on tropical plants or soil pH, including how to do a soil test, 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]