- Hi, welcome to The Family Plot, I'm Chris Cooper.

Hydrangeas are   beautiful flowering shrubs.

We're going to show you   a few common varieties.

Also, spraying tall   plants can be a challenge.

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 Linda Lanier.

Ms. Linda is a Master Gardner right here in Shelby County, and Mr. D. will be joining us later.

Alright, Ms. Linda, we appreciate you inviting us over to your beautiful yard.

- Thanks Chris, thanks for coming.

- No problem, you have beautiful Hydrangeas.

- Well, I have some, that's true.

- You have a lot.

Can we talk about some of your common Hydrangeas though?

- Yes, there are four primary Hydrangeas grown in the Mid-South, and there are 13 species totally, but 4 that are primarily grown here.

And the first one to open in the spring is the Oak Leaf Hydrangea, which is a southern native.

It is easily identifiable because it has a big Oak-leaf shape to the leaf.

- Right, very distinct.

- Yes, and this grows, the blooms grow on old wood, but if you cut anything off anytime after the end of July, you are going to cut off next year's bloom.

These don't even need much pruning, they don't need much water either, you can kill them by over watering them, so they're good in a woodsy area, where there might not be a lot of irrigation since they're a native they grow in the wild, and they never get any irrigation, and they survive.

So they need a little, but they do really well.

And they always have white panicle-shaped blooms that are great to cut and bring indoors.

And you would only want to prune them if they get out of bounds, or they get leggy, and these are drooping a little bit, I'll probably cut these back at the end of July.

- So you would consider that to be leggy?

- Yeah, because, well I do like some of it coming down to the ground, but I like it growing up a little bit more, and I have some back here too in the deeper shade, and this will take deep shade, not a lot of sun.

In our heat the blossoms will tend to get burned.

- Ok, yeah, it's definitely a beautiful plant, but yeah, distinct leaves on that.

- So, let's talk about the next about the next common Hydrangea used in the south, the Hydrangea macrophylla.

These are the most common Hydrangea grown in the Mid-South, especially in the Memphis area.

This is Hydrangea macrophylla.

It's actually also called a mop head, or even a French hydrangea, or hortensia, that's the French way of saying it too.

I think this is 'All-Summer Beauty' which is a great re-blooming variety.

Most of the common Hydrangeas, the blue Hydrangeas that we grow here in the Mid-South, you can see the leaves are kind of rounded-- - Yeah, that's nice.

- You can tell them by some of those.

They're a little bit large and fat, but kind of rounded leaves.

Most bloom on old wood, so you need to be careful not to prune after the end of July, but these will grow actually on new and old wood.

So you can prune them in the spring, but primarily you would not prune these after the end of July because if so you'd be cutting off a lot bloom for next year.

Now I don't do a lot of pruning, you can to make it bushier.

One of the things that's great to do in the summertime is when you cut blooms to take inside, is to trim back to a good healthy node, or you can also take something like this and pinch it at the end and do pinch pruning, and this will increase the, it will grow more stems out from there.

You may want to come back a little bit further, but it will encourage it to grow more stems.

You'll get at least two branches off that, so you'll have more blooms and it will thicken up.

The first couple years that you have a new Hydrangea in the ground, you would not do any pruning at all really.

It's just not healthy until you wait awhile.

But once these get a little bit bigger-- - It's nice.

- and you can fertilize them in the spring with a... a 15-30-15, or a 15-15-15.

- Ok, a complete fertilizer.

- A complete fertilizer, not too much on the nitrogen of course, because you want to get blooms, which is the middle number.

But they do pretty well without it, they just have to have, in the south they have to have enough light to get a good bloom, but they have to have enough shade that they don't burn up in the afternoon.

- I definitely wanted to ask you about the different colored blooms.

How do you get those different colored blooms?

- Well, it depends on the cultivar of the plant.

They are primarily going to be blue in our acid soil.

You can encourage that by using a soil acidifier, but depending on the cultivar depends how intense the color is.

If it's a darker blue, or a medium blue, or a light blue.

So you usually buy it, or look it up, buy it when you can see the bloom or look it up on the internet for a photograph.

- Ok, well, let's go check out what else you have for us.

- So what do we have here.

- This is Hydrangea paniculata.

This is one of the two sun-loving Hydrangeas-- - Sun loving, ok. - that always bloom on new growth.

So their pruning needs are different, and this is actually a later-summer bloomer.

As you can see it's, while the Hydrangea macrophyllas have bloomed, this is actually not going to bloom for another three or four weeks.

It's the latest to bloom in the season, and it will have   only white blooms,   and they will stay white,   although they can   age a little pink.

There are a lot of new cultivar   out that pink up very quickly   with a Hydrangea paniculata.

But it's not, you don't have   trouble with cold weather with these, they love the cold weather, and they have to have enough sun to bloom well-- - So full sun?

- Yes, pretty much full sun.

Now, actually here in the south they need some afternoon protection from shade.

Because if not the blooms will get burned.

But pruning on these, they bloom, a lot of times I don't get mine pruned very well, and they still bloom well.

But you can prune these pretty hard, about a third of the branches, you just need to leave three good nodes on a stem.

- Oh, that is pretty hard.

- And everywhere where you cut it back, I cut it back pretty hard when I do prune, and it causes three stems to come out, so you get many more blooms, and many, you know, a much bushier plant.

- Okay, let's go to the next.

Alright, so what do we have here?

- This is another one of the Hydrangeas that blooms on new wood.

This is Hydrangea arborescens.

And this is probably an 'Annabelle', the most common.

And these are actually fool-proof also.

They bloom all on new growth.

I leave them up all year long, they're just starting to come out, they're a little bit later blooming than the macrophyllas, they look kind of green now,   but they'll have a big,   white head on them.

I have some that are   just huge heads out front.

And they, leave them on   all year, they're fine.

They need sun to bloom, they get a little wilty in the heat when it gets over 90, but they pop right back, and if you water them enough they should be ok.

But the great thing about those is you don't have to touch them the rest of the year.

Leave the blooms on, I love the blooms in the winter, especially if it snows on them.

And around February, late winter, when I go out to prune, I prune them all the way down to the ground, maybe six inches, but you can prune them all the way down to the ground.

Now these are fairly young plants, as they get stronger they do tend to be floppy in the rain.

They're breeding some that have stronger stems, but you can leave kind of a ring of maybe 12 to 18-inch stems around the outside that will help support a little bit.

You can put rings, I think I have rings on some of these, they grow up through the rings, and you wouldn't see those except when you prune them, but I also take bamboo stakes, about five feet-- - I've seen that done, ok. - and poke those around the plant and run a little twine around them, and it keeps them from flopping.

If not you have to come out and shake off the wet flower heads that causes them to droop and then they would hold that shape.

But these are absolutely stunning, they're great to dry, I always have a big basket of them, you can decorate with them in winter, they're just fool-proof.

And sometimes, I haven't gotten around to pruning them up until April, and that's fine, just delays the bloom a little bit, but they're still going to come out and bloom their little hearts out, they're just great bloomers.

- Good deal, good deal.

- So they're really great to work with.

- So what do we have on the bricks here?

- So this is really the, one of the-- - Interesting.

- one of the climbing Hydrangea, this is anomala Hydrangea, this is sub-species petiolaris, and this is probably the most popular, it's really the prettiest.

The only thing about these, is you can see one little bloom.

- I see it, yeah.

- I just put this on this wall last year when the tree it was living on what taken out.

And I did get some blooms this year, but a lot of times it has to grow up pretty tall and have a lateral branch on it, as you can see, those are, some are hugging the wall, some have some lateral branching, that's when it will start blooming.

You can put it on a tall pole, and it will usually start to bloom earlier.

But I like it to climb up something high like a tree.

It grows in sun or shade.

But the blooms only last about two weeks.

That's the biggest drawback.

- Oh wow.

- But they're pretty types of lace-cap blooms.

But you can see the leaves have kind of silvery veins, and they have a really pretty structre, and they turn golden yellow in the fall, they're just stunning, they're very pretty.

But they look really pretty I think all through the year.

And they will grab the brick, you have to be careful planting them on anything that's wooden, or-- - Yeah, that was going to be my next question about the brick, - Yeah, once these got, we helped attach them a little, but they'll just grow right up the brick, and it's like ivy, you don't get them off, so.

- Ok. Now what about pruning?

- I never prune these, you can prune if you want to keep them off, now if they get up to high and start to go a little wild, I have to get on a big ladder and I will prune them some.

There may be a few that are going the wrong way, or over to my window.

And you can prune those off pretty much anytime.

But I've never had to prune one of these, usually they're very slow to get started, so you don't usually prune them very much, but they're gorgeous in the fall, and they have a nice pattern, but that silvery leaf is really pretty all through the year.

- Yeah, that's a beautiful silvery leaf.

Well Ms. Linda, we thank you much for the tour-- - Oh, you're welcome.

- of your garden to see your Hydrangeas, we definitely appreciate that.

- You're welcome, thank you for coming.

[upbeat country music] Loam.

- Yeah, loam.

A loamy soil, yeah.

That's, that describes a type of soil that we really want in our gardens.

[Chris laughs] And it can be, you know, you can tell people.

You'll ask, "What kind of soil I got?

Well, I got loam," you know.

And they're like, you know, "Well, dang.

I got clay."

- Looks like clay to me.

- Yeah, I got clay.

- Looks like gumbo to me.

[laughs] - Yeah, so loam is a type of good friable soil that farmers love.

You know, it's usually found at like bottom land, naturally, you know-- - Memphis silt loam.

- Yeah, yeah.

- One of the best soils around.

- Right, and it can be a combination of silt and humus,   a little bit of   sand, you know.

So it's that nice,   and a little bit of clay.

A little bit.

- (Chris) Little bit of clay.

- Just the right   little amount of clay   to make it have   the right water retention plus good drainage, you know.

So, it's the type of soil that we kinda want.

And it does occur naturally in some places.

- It does.

- And it's high in vegetable matter, you know, decayed vegetable matter.

So, it has a little more organic or humus content too, so.

- Yeah, that's what a lot of people want, loam.

- Yeah, good garden soil is usually called loam.

- That's right.

[upbeat country music] - Alright Mr. D., let's talk about how to spray those taller plants.

How do we go about doing that, and the calculations as well.

- Ok. Well the first thing, you know... you need a sprayer that will get the spray up to the top of the plant that you're spraying.

And I, you need to do it from the ground.

I do not recommend putting a ladder up beside a tree and climbing up there with a backpack sprayer and spraying because that's a recipe for breaking a leg.

But try to, there are sprayers that will spray 30 feet with a little 12-volt pump.

A lot of sprayers that will spray 30 feet in the air.

But the first thing, when you get one like that, when you get a sprayer that will do the job that you need it to do, spray it with just water.

Go around the plant and spray it to the point of run-off, you don't have to drench it, but spray it to the point of run-off, being sure to direct your spray to the underside of the leaves if you can, and also try to get coverage on the outer side, the upper side of the leaves, and figure out how much water it took you to do that.

- Ah.

- And then you know how many gallons per acre that you're putting out.

- Yeah that's smart.

- And then look at the product that you're spraying, the fungicide or the insecticide, and it will tell you how many ounces-per-acre that you need to apply, usually.

And so if you put... you know if you put, if the recommendation is five ounces to the acre, and you're applying ten gallons of water, then you put five ounces in ten gallons of water.

But five ounces to the acre doesn't mean five ounces to that one tree.

- Right, right.

- You'd have to break it down to how many square feet that tree is covering and break it down to that percent of the acre.

If it's one one-thousandths of an acre then you would put one one-thousandths of five ounces on that tree and so you put one one-thousandth of that five ounces, and you're talking about milliliters now, in the amount of water that it took you to cover that tree.

- Gotcha, ok. - If it requires ten gallons for you to do it, then you would put the number of milliliters in ten gallons of water, if I can do it with five gallons of water, I would put that number of milliliters in five gallons of water.

- Ok. - And do it, so you just start with the amount of water that you're putting out, and then you work backwards from that is what you do.

- So the amount of water to start out with is most important.

- It's most important, because, if you change that just a little bit, you need to be really consistent, because if you change that just a little bit, then your application rate is off.

- Ok, wow, how about that.

- Yeah, it's pretty important.

And you can do that same type of calculation with an ATV sprayer, you can do it with a backpack sprayer, you can do it with a pump-up sprayer.

Spray what needs to be sprayed, if you need to spray your yard, and the recommendation is five ounces of this product per thousand square feet, and so you run over your yard first with water, if it's with a four-wheeler, or your hand sprayer, or whatever, figure out how much water you're putting out, and then you put that amount in the spray tank.

- Wow.

I wonder, is there a place that homeowners can actually go to actually figure out calculations?

- You can, I have a fact sheet that I found online-- - It's a good one.

- It is a really good one.

Herbicide Spray Calibration guidelines, that has some really, really good pointers for that, and this is focused on backpack sprayers and I think boomless sprayers.

It's just a 3-page publication.

And it has some really, really good information.

Some conversion factors and things like that which is really good.

But, you know the label is a legal document.

You're bound by law to follow.

And you need to figure out how much you're putting out with your sprayer in order to follow the label.

And it's also, if you don't do that, there are two things that could happen.

- [Chris laughs] - You many not get enough product out there.

- Uh-huh.

That's one.

- And you may not control the problem you're trying to control.

And the other thing that could happen, is you may put way, way too much product out there, and harm the environment.

And it can kill what you're trying to save.

Especially if you're dealing with herbicides.

- Right, and I think a lot of people do the latter.

Put out too much.

- Yeah.

This is not the case where if a little bit does you a little good, a lot does you a lot more good.

It may be a little bit does you a lot of good, and a lot will wipe you out.

- Wipe you out, alright.

So let's go back to the homeowners yard, ok.

So they have a two-gallon sprayer.

So if they're walking their yard out, which way should they go, north-south, east-west?

I mean, how would you do that?

- What I try to do, if I'm applying a product with that kind of sprayer, I try to go both ways.

I try to put out 50% of the   recommended rate going one way   and then perpendicular--   - Right.

Good.

- and then that way I won't   have streaks in the yard,   especially if you're   dealing with herbicides or things like that.

I may have little dots-- [Chris chuckles] - but I won't have a long streak because if I have streaks going both ways, I may have dots, a lot of dots, but... so try to, and I do that with fertilizer, and lime, and anything.

Because if you don't do that, if you try to put out 100% of the product with one pass, you run out after you've covered three-quarters of it, what have you done?

- Yeah.

[chuckles] Right.

- You've over applied.

And you don't have enough to finish the job.

But if you try to put out about 50% going east-west, and then another 50% going north-south, or you know, just perpendicular direction that you went, then you'll, your coverage is a lot more even, and you probably won't run out.

- That's a good rule of thumb, good rule of thumb.

And quickly, before we have to wrap it up, it will tell you on the label what to wear.

- Right.

Follow the label.

- Protective gear.

- Very seldom, I don't think I've ever seen on the label wear flip-flops and shorts are required.

- [Chris laughs] Right.

- Most of the time it's going to tell you to wear rubber boots, and long-sleeved shirt, long pants and long-sleeved shirts, and sometimes it will tell you to wear a face mask, because if you got wind blowing, you don't want to inhale what you're putting out.

And protective glasses, because when you're filling, you know, I've seen it splash up many times and if you get something splashed in your eye, you need to wash it out very quickly with water, with running water.

But if you've got safety glasses on, it feels real good for that splash of water to hit those glasses, and you're thinking, hmm, I'm glad I've got these glasses on.

- Right, that's right.

- But I wear a hat, a brimmed hat to protect me from the sunlight, and then long sleeves, and long pants.

At a minimum.

And rubber boots.

If you're walking through where you're spraying, don't wear leather, because leather can absorb-- - That's a good point.

Right.

- wear rubber, and my rubber boots are real short, they're cool, and like 4-inches tall, and that takes care of it.

- I have the same pair.

Good stuff, Mr. D. Always a good reminder to be safe when you're out there spraying.

- That's right.

- Thank you much.

Good stuff.

[upbeat country music] - What we have here is nutsedge, or nut grass.

It is a very difficult weed to control.

It prefers moist conditions, but also can thrive in extreme drought conditions.

Distinct characteristic of nutsedge,   or of a sedge is it   has a triangular stem.

And it also has   underground, nutlets.

And let me see if I can pull on   of these up and show it to you.

Clean it out.

And it's easy to come out when the ground is moist of course.

Ah, there's one, actually, that I just pulled off.

Don't know if you can see it that well.

But it's full of carbohydrates, and this is how the plant is actually able to grow.

So if you want to control   this in your vegetable garden,   be very careful.

Make sure when you pull it   up you get all of this plant, because if not, and you leave those nutlets in the ground, they will reproduce.

There is a chemical that you can use, the homeowners can purchase it.

It's called Image.

Read the label on that, again,   do be careful because this is   growing in   a vegetable garden.

[upbeat country music] - Alright it's our Q & A session Mr. D., we have some good questions here.

- Yeah.

- Alright, here's our first viewer email.

"What is the best fertlizer   for the blush nandina?

"I use Miracle-Gro with   a little epsom salt.

I noticed I had a lot   of leaves dropping."

And this is from Ms.   Barbara, right here in Memphis.

A little epsom salt with her Miracle-Gro.

- Magnesium Sulfate.

- Magnesium sulfate.

Whoa.

- You need to do that if your soil test asks you to do that.

- IF.

- And the way you answer that question, in my opinion, is it depends on what the soil test said.

- You know that's what I was going to start off with.

- It depends on what the soil test said.

Don't just keep doing the same thing every year.

Because you're going to build up high levels of potassium, not potassium, phosphorus.

- Phosphorus.

Yeah, phosphorus is Miracle-Gro.

- Right, and I don't know what analysis of that Miracle-Gro fertilizer is-- - I don't either.

- but if the middle number is pretty high, and you've done that for a long time, if you build up a very high level of phosphorus, then it will interfere with the uptake of nutrients, and it will make the plant look like it's dying.

And make it look bad.

- And drop leaves.

- Right, and drop leaves, and turn it yellow, and all that.

So I would, the magnesium sulfate, you know, that can, I guess lower the pH, because of the presence of sulfur.

- Oh yeah, yeah.

- That would be lowering the pH, and nandinas... - Acid loving shrubs.

- Are they acid loving?

- They're acid loving shrubs.

- You can get too acid.

Which-- - You can.

- starts to burn the soles off the bottom of your shoes, it's too acid.

- You can.

- You can get too acid.

- Right, 'cause I'm going back to the whole leaf dropping... so yeah.

You can get too much in there.

But yeah, Miracle Gro with a little epsom salt.

Whoa.

I think that might be a little bit too much, because you're right, Miracle Gro for the most part has a high middle number, which is phosphorus, you know for blooms.

But yeah, I think that might be too much.

- Yeah.

I guess, the question I would have, it says "used Miracle Gro with a little epsom salts."

How long have you done that?

Do you do that every year?

How much, do you do it several times a year?

And you may not need any phosphorus for ten years on that spot.

- Right, right.

- If you've done that for a long time.

I would certainly get the soil checked.

- Get the soil test Ms. Barbara, I would definitely go that route as well.

And follow it to a T, you should be just fine, your nandina will be just fine.

- Don't guess, soil test.

- Don't guess, soil test.

We say it often.

Alright, here's our next viewer email.

"What are the best   shade-loving vegetables   and fruits to plant   in Memphis?"

Ok, and this is from   Vernessa right here in Memphis,   via YouTube.

So Mr. D., best shade-loving vegetables and fruits.

- I don't know of a shade-loving vegetable to plant anywhere.

Anything, you know, photosynthesis.

- It's the light, right?

- The sun is the ultimate source of energy.

- Yes it is.

- And you've got to have access to the sun.

And the more you have, the better you will be.

I mean you can go, you can produce fruits and berries, and vegetables with limited, partial sunlight, they won't be as good, and they won't be as plentiful.

- Right, you won't produce as much.

- But you can do that, but as far as shade-loving?

There's some shade-loving perenniels.

- Yeah.

[chuckles] Right.

- Maybe some shade-loving annuals, but I don't know of any vegetables.

- Yeah, 'cause they all want full sun.

I mean, now if you look at some of your leafy vegetables... eh.

They can deal with just a little shade, but they don't produce as much.

- That's right.

That leaf, photosynthesis.

- Leaf.

Photosynthesis.

Right.

Little shade, but they still want full sun.

- Sorry Vernessa.

- Yeah, and of course, you know about your fruits.

I mean your blueberries, raspberries, all those kind of things, full sun.

- And if you plant them in the shade, they're going to try to get to the sun.

They will lean, and they'll do everything to try to get to the sun.

- That's a good point.

Yeah, so Ms. Vernessa, going to be tough, right.

- Yeah.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

- Yeah, full sun is what they need, photosynthesis, right?

So good luck.

Alright Mr. D., we're out of time.

Fun as always.

- Thank you.

- 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 joining us.

Did you know each week we shoot more Family Plot than we have time to air?

You can watch these extra videos at FamilyPlotGarden.com Or you can catch up on any shows you may have missed.

I'm Chris Cooper, be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]