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

When you are thinking about putting in or redoing a landscape bed, there are certain things you should consider.

Today we're going to talk about how to plan before you get out the shovel.

Also some popular landscape plants are just a bad choice.

We'll talk about some of them and give some better options.

That's just the 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 is the Director of Landscape at The University of Memphis and Carol Reese will be joining me later.

All right, Joellen, let's talk a little bit about designing a landscape.

- Yeah.

One of the things you have to ask yourself is why do you want to create the landscape in the first place?

Or, do you have something that you don't like and why do you wanna change it?

What is the purpose of you wanting to change the landscape design of whatever it is?

And how is it currently being used?

And then, how do you want it to function with the new design that you're going to do?

So those are the questions you ask first of yourself, and then you proceed to assess the site.

That's gonna be key to being able to get a design done is to assess your site.

You're gonna be looking at how is the area oriented to the sun because you know we're working with living plants and they need sunlight to make chlorophyll to produce their food to live, so they have to have some kind of sun.

So how much sunlight do you have in that particular area?

Are there any existing trees or any, maybe even some structures that it could be a tool shed out in the back, or it could be, you know, your house or a garage?

What kind of structure and what kinda trees are already existing in the house, which again will affect how the sun gets to that area?

Are there any existing walkways or hardscapes, patios or anything else?

What is existing there already?

How is the drainage on the site?

Oh my goodness, and a lot of people wanna re-landscape because they do have drainage problems, but you've got to know where that water is flowing around your property and does it pool up anywhere?

All of that will determine what type of plants you will end up eventually putting there.

Yeah, soils and that's the other part, with the drainage there's the soil.

Now does your soil, mean, we can have a heavy downfall and the water runs through there, maybe it pools up a bit then an hour later it's gone, that would be great.

But if it stays there for several days, there's a problem.

So what kinda soil do you have?

A lot of clay and small silt particles stick together and they are not very porous so they retain water.

Digging down, that's why we did the water test here, we dug the, percolation tests.

We dug a hole and see how, you know, put some water in and see how much it drained and when it didn't drain it all, we knew we had a problem.

So, I mean, you could have the same thing in that area, so you really need to determine the drainage and what type of soils you have, because that's gonna also determine what type of plants you put in, right?

- Yeah, I think drainage is such a big topic today in today's landscapes for sure.

- They really are.

There's just all sorts of plants out there though that you can use in all kinds of situations.

You may not have a large variety when you get to soggy soils and no sun, you know, there's gon' be less and less plants that will live in those conditions, but there are still some plants that will live in those conditions.

And if you do have an area like that, you might decide, "Well, maybe I don't need a plant here at all.

"Maybe I should put in a hardscape of some kind," maybe a stone patio or an area that has just mulch or rocks in it for a seating area, something.

There's all sorts of things you can do but you've got to know what you have to begin with.

And then now, some of the things we use for tools to design with, you know, you're gonna have to have a few things.

You need to have a tape measure of some kind, 'cause you've gotta determine how long the area is, how large it is, and then you have to view the area from where you want to see it from.

I mean, if you're in the house and you're looking outside and you're trying to block a view from across the street or behind your house, you need to view where are you gonna design it from inside your house.

But, if it's you want to do something with the front of your house to have it more appealing, get that first impression, you know, then you would wanna view it from the street.

So you've just gotta figure out where the view is that you're trying to create a different feeling for in the landscape.

And then the other thing, now, this sounds kind of counterintuitive, but you really need to get the utilities sited.

And, you know, you don't have to do that before you do the design but you might end up getting disappointed because you don't know what's underground, you can't see underground, and there may be a huge city drainage ditch coming right through your front yard or your backyard where you want to put something and you can't because the utility easement on either side of those.

And if you're thinking of putting a tree there, especially, I mean, you won't be able to do it.

So having the utilities located and then looking at your plot plan, 'cause a lot of times the plot plan will have like city drainage and things like that and of course it will be easements on your house and if there's any kind of a utilities overhead, then you'll know that there's a certain type of easement for that and you wanna stay away from all of those things before you get started.

- Call before you dig, right?

- Well, and probably what I would do is I would do this once and then get my design done and then, you know, mark, so that the paint won't go away, mark with flags or something or keep the paint going 'til you can get the plants in the ground or call them again, have it done again.

- That's right.

Yeah, that's gonna be very important.

So, let me ask something about the soil, right?

This is a good opportunity too to get your soil tested, right?

- Excellent opportunity to get it soil tested, because you might have a pH that's pretty high.

And then you're gonna have to learn to have put some soil acidifier in it to lower it for the plants in the area, I think a newer construction or if you've just put in a patio or a sidewalk, concretes, lime, that gets pH, you know, up there and you may need to lower it to be able to put in, you know, plants that like a lower pH than 7, 7.2.

- Get your soil tested.

Go by your local extension office to get that done.

There something else too, I like to add.

So what about, you know, we're talking about planning, right?

Annual versus perennials.

So, what role do those plants play in your landscape?

- You know, everything is a perennial except an annual, even trees and shrubs are mostly all perennial because they stay there all year long.

So, yeah, I like to mix everything.

I like perennials, I like herbaceous perennials that come, you know, die, clear down to the ground and come back up, I like woody perennials that stay there and have some structure like shrubs and trees, so, you know, a mixture of everything will give you different textures and colors for you to enjoy all year long.

- This is a fun activity to do, right?

So I would do something like this with the family, kinda get them out and say, okay, what are you interested in?

What would you like to see here?

If you have pets, right, I will consider all of that as well.

I mean, just have a plan of what you wanna do.

- That goes with the function, how does your family want the area to function?

Yeah, you might find out that Rover likes a certain part of the yard, you know, and he likes to dig there or something, if you don't want that digging going on, maybe you wanna put a patio there so he doesn't dig there anymore.

Or, you know, you might find out, well, you know, your child is getting into soccer, so they want an area to play soccer in.

You know, it might be in the front yard, it might be in the backyard, I've seen it both places.

So it just depends on, you know, the slope your land, but you should make room for all of that and get every member of the family involved so that they get part of their say in how the function of the landscape works.

- Like I said, it's gonna be a very fun activity for the family.

Thank you much and next week, we're gonna actually what?

Design a landscape, so we definitely look forward to that.

Thank you much.

[upbeat country music] - So, six week ago we put down the mulch when we planted vegetables to start out mulch experiment for this year.

And, we have a few results.

First of all, it has been incredibly wet.

A couple days after we planted the vegetables up until about now, it has rained every couple days.

So, it's been almost impossible to get into the garden.

Another thing that has happened is our seeds have not come up very well.

Probably because they have rotted in the soil because it has been so wet.

Our transplants have done pretty well, though.

But, let's look at what we have had to do when it comes to time for weeding so far.

All of the mulches have done pretty good, and we've had to spend less than an hour in each of those sections.

But, take a look at the control.

We have had to spend 270 minutes weeding the control group.

That's the group that has no mulch.

That's four and a half hours.

That's a long time for weeding just a nine-by-eight bed.

We're also noticing that underneath the mulch it's staying a lot moister, that's retaining the water.

That's one of the things that mulches a really good at doing.

As we get into the heat of summer, that's probably gonna become more important.

But that's where we stand six weeks into our mulch experiment.

[upbeat country music] - Hi Ms. Carol, plants to avoid and their replacements.

Where do you wanna start with that?

- Gosh, I wanna say, where do you wanna start?

Because as an agent, we get the calls over and over and over about the same plants, don't we?

- Well, let me toss this to you, you know, about the Bradford pears, right?

- Well, how many times do we hear that about Bradfords and how many times have we been talking about replacing it?

But finally, we're getting to the point, I think that we're seeing fewer and fewer as they go out and people are.

- So finally we're getting there, right?

- I think so.

- Good.

- So Bradfords are one, of course we need to talk about replacing not only the fact that they're brittle and break, but that they re-seed like mad and become a real problem in the landscape but, this kind of just lumped that in with some other spring-blooming trees that we continue to see problems with.

I love our native dogwood, but it's really picky and difficult to grow.

I've killed 'em.

- You killed 'em?

- Oh yeah, and every time I asked the audience, "How many of you've killed dogwoods," you know, you'll get a big show and everybody's like, so I'm not telling people, you know, not to try because of course it's such a wonderful tree and one of the Tennessee's best, actually our biggest production tree.

And we'd done a lot of research on that, but, and also I'm gonna throw the ornamental cherries in there because they're spring-blooming trees and we know when we get a call about a cherry.

- We already know what it is.

- And we know it's gonna be canker or borer and that, you know, we're really lucky to get a few years of pleasure out of 'em.

So people want a more durable tree, let's talk about some spring-blooming trees that would be more durable.

Number one, the dogwood hybrids if you really want the look of our native dogwood, they have crossed them with kousa dogwood and kousa is a later-blooming and it's a great dogwood if people wanna grow an easier dogwood, the Cornus kousa will bloom actually about when the oakleaf hydrangeas start to bloom with the leaves fully on it, so it's a different time, but it's a good tree, easier to grow, has edible fruit, but they've hybridized that with our native dogwood to increase some disease resistance.

So you look for the Stellar series and find the ones that have the kousa blood in there and that makes them a little bit easier bet, so that would be one.

Then the other would be fringetrees.

Love the fringetrees.

And we have both our native American fringetrees and it's called Grancy gray beard, or we have the Chinese fringetree and I actually prefer the Chinese, sorry, sorry, but it's a little showier, the flowers a little whiter and brighter, and it stands up above the foliage whereas the native one is a creamy white, and it kinda drips down in this bearded shape and it's a beautiful tree, if you got room, get both.

But if I could only have one I'm going with Chinese because it showy and foliage to me is a little more interesting, we actually collect both at the station.

- Let me ask you about this.

- Yeah.

- Emerald ash borer, is that gonna be a problem?

- I hope not, but you're good to ask that because emerald ash borer is also known to attack fringetrees because they are in the same family, they are in the same family as the ash.

You can protect it if you decide to but we also found that that emerald ash borer prefers larger trunk trees.

So I don't know, maybe it kills all the ash, it may take aim, my big hope it's going to take aim at privet because privet's also in the same family, so we can only hope, again, it likes larger plants, but that may be the end of privet so maybe we can hope for that anyway.

Also some of the Magnolias, the deciduous Magnolias and if you want the white flower, then I would look at Wada's Memory.

Wada's Memory has got a beautiful pear middle shape that would remind you of the Bradford, but it won't break up, it's very durable to grow in almost any situation, it's won all kinds of awards for its durability.

Then let's talk about shrubs.

We would get calls a lot about the Japanese hollies and the boxwood, so those are, you know, you're tight evergreen shrubs that a lot of people like to use for foundation plannings or for formal accents in the garden.

And usually they're gonna suffer from root issues, poorly sited or overwatered where, if there's any kind of drainage issue, then it's gonna succumb and I think the Japanese hollies are even worse than the boxwoods.

- You think so?

- I do.

I wouldn't put a-- Helleri holly looks great in a pot and almost never again.

[Chris laugs] And I just, I don't like, the boxwoods, I think have a certain place so I would, I would probably still use a boxwood if I really sited it properly with perfect drainage.

They like a little bit of protection from the hot sun 'cause they'll burn and bronze up, they like a little bit of protection from the.

- I don't think people realize that though, that they actually need some protection from the hot sun.

- Yeah, they do.

If you're gonna plant a boxwood in the sun then you need to go with Korean box or a Japanese littleleaf box, but the formal English box that a lot of people around here call American box or common box really would like some shade, it would really like some shade and protection from cold winter wind.

But perfect drainage so, now if I want a tight roundy moundy plant, you know where we're going with this, we say, "Why not use the dwarf Yaupon?"

It's a tough little dude, it gives you the same look, it's just so cheerful about performing in a wide range of soils so, that's where I'm going with it.

I'm not saying let's try to save this, just yank that out and come back in with a dwarf Yaupon, and there are more than one cultivar.

There's a Bordeaux and Nana and several different ones that are out there.

- And you know, what else with the boxwood?

The blight, you know, now there's something new coming down the pike, you know.

- We've got new diseases all the time and that would remind us, mix it up is the main issue we should never put all our eggs in one basket, but as we are looking for that.

A lot of times we'll hear my hydrangea didn't bloom, my hydrangea didn't bloom, so the good news is that there are breeding now for these reblooming or remontant types, so I would go with those newer types that will rebloom for you.

Endless Summer was the first to come out but now Mike Derr has used that in his breeding programs, Penny Mac, there's lots of good ones out there that are rebloomers, the one called Dooley found in coach Dooley yard is a very good one, reblooming type as long as they are well sited with good drainage, you should get good performance out of those remontant or reblooming types.

Well, another one that I hate to see is that people love it because of that brilliant deep purple foliage, the purple leaf plum.

- It is a pretty color though.

- It is a pretty one.

- And it stands out.

- It does.

They're plums.

It's gonna get the borer.

The original plant's probably gonna die short order, but don't worry, we've got hundreds of them now because they sucker like mad and come up from the roots, not just in your yard, they can come all the way over from root suckers in your neighbor's yard and I've taken many, many, a picture of little purple plummets coming up through people's turf grass, so suckers like crazy.

If you quit mowing it, it'll become an entire forest of purple leaf plum.

I've been around old homes where you can't see the house for the purple leaf plum thicket.

So I would recommend, instead you go with the burgundy Loropetelum.

- Oh yeah, I like those.

- Yeah, they're really good and some of them get quite large, like the plum would and you could limb it up and turn it into a tree form instead of a large shrub and there are breeding now for ones that stay deep purple throughout the summer months, so that would be a good one.

All right, and of course, Leyland.

So we want people to mix it up and use instead the Green Glant arborvitaes and some junipers because the Leylands are gonna succumb probably to seiridium canker sooner or later.

- Which is a question that we get a lot, so it mix it up a little bit, you'll be fine.

- That's right.

- Thank you for the information, appreciate that.

- Yes sir.

- All right.

[upbeat country music] - So, when you're harvesting seed heads from plants in the carrot family that include dill, coriander, parsley, cilantro, these are some things that we want to think about.

So, we don't wanna harvest the seed heads too early.

This one here you can see how green these seed heads are.

That means they've just begun to develop.

Then, they come into almost a yellow stage where they are really, you can see the seed heads are really starting to develop and fatten up.

And then once they turn this more brown color, and you can actually see some small stripes on those individual seeds.

That is the ideal time for harvest.

So, when we go to harvest these, obviously scissors or a knife, a good sharp knife.

You could bundle these into bundles and hang them to dry.

If you do that indoors, I'd make sure you had a pan or something underneath it to catch these as they begin to dry because they'll release themselves.

I also have some friends who will take little mesh sachets and attach them over the tops of the seed heads while they're still attached to the plant, and let them fully dry while attached to the plant.

And then, at that point, they'll come out and cut them.

And, then you take 'em inside, give 'em a good shake, and your sachet has all the seeds in it.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Joellen, this is a Q and A segment, you ready?

- I'm ready.

- It's a great questions.

All right, let's get to the first one, okay?

"This plant was given to me, I don't know what it is.

How do I care for it?"

This is Angela from Durham, North Carolina.

So, what kinda plant is it?

- Well, it's an Epiphyllum oxypetalum.

It's called the night-blooming cereus.

And there are, if you go look at, there's a way to get it to bloom if you really want to, but it only blooms for one night.

Then in the morning, it gets gone.

It's like our daylilies bloom during the day.

and so from one day, and then with this one blooms for one day at night, one night it blooms.

But anyway, it's called an orchid cactus, definitely real pretty, I had one of those once.

I've looked at the soil in her container, and I would say it likes to be rootbound, but, you know, I don't know how long it's been in that container so, you should, I mean, you don't even have to do much to it, but maybe take it out in the spring after this winter, put it inside, get a bit of bright place to be and I wouldn't water it too often, you know, just keep it a little bit moist.

You don't wanna get it too wet and then in the spring I might wanna repot it.

I wouldn't put it in a bigger pot, I would like to take it out, I would like to take it out and get all the dirt off of it and look at the roots, maybe, you know, if some of the roots are not looking good, cut those roots off and then repot it back in the same pot 'cause it likes to be rootbound.

- Yeah, but there again, I've seen, you know, this, of course many a times, beautiful, beautiful bloom.

- And they're easy to propagate, you can just cut the leaf off and stick it down in some nice moist soil with some rooting powder and then you get a new plant.

- So you do know this plant, don't you?

- I've had it.

- And you've had it, right?

- All right Angela, beautiful plant, Epiphyllum oxypetalum, how about that?

There you go.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"I love growing tomatoes in my backyard during the summer.

"What is the best kind of fertilizer to use on tomatoes and what are the best tomatoes to plant?"

This is Wilton from Harvey, Louisiana.

All right, so the best kind of fertilizer for tomatoes.

- Tomatoes don't care what kind of fertilizer it is.

What kind of fertilizer does he want to use is more, and then again, you're talking about soil test.

Because like my vegetable garden was high in phosphorus, we didn't need it that they said don't put a complete fertilizer down, all you need is nitrogen in your soil, so a soil test told me that, so then I just put nitrogen down and my plants have done much better because the phosphorus was too high.

- Right, so it makes a difference.

I tell folks, get your soil tested because you get those types of readings so you know what to do.

Yeah, tomatoes are not gonna be that particular.

- And they don't care if it's an organic fertilizer or if it's a man-made fertilizer, they just see the elements and they take them up in the root, so it's more of, how do you, what kinda fertilizer you want to use.

- Do you like the commercial?

Or do you want to go to organic route?

'Cause there's options either way, but get your soil tested, you know, to find that out for sure.

And what about the best tomatoes to plant?

- Oh well, you know what?

Every region of the country, there is a list of tomatoes and so they need to contact their local extension office and get their list for his area and I think he'll be happy with them.

- I think you'd be happy, happy.

Yeah, tomatoes, of course, you know, everybody likes to grow tomatoes, I bet you, some of the tomatoes, he can grow are some of the ones we grow here, like the Brandywine, Super Sweet 100, you know, I grow here, you know, for the most part Celebrity, Early Girl, Better Boy.

I bet you some of those is gon' be on the list as well.

But yeah, check with your local extension office, I bet you, they have, you know, a list of tomatoes that you can grow in your area, for sure.

Yeah, and while you're there, get your soil tested, yeah, how about that?

- It all works.

- It all works, right?

All right, so thank you, Wilton, appreciate that.

Here's our next viewer email.

"I live in the city limits and like most, only have room "for raised beds and buckets.

"Do you have a soil recipe for peppers or tomatoes "in a five gallon bucket?

"I've tried commercial potting mixes with no or little success Is there anything else I have to do to be successful?"

This is Ronnie from Memphis, Tennessee.

So Ronnie wants to be successful, right.

So do you know of any soil recipes for?

- There's tons of them out there.

Yeah, there's tons of them out there.

I don't have any fool-proof ones, but one thing I do like to do with containers, especially if I'm putting vegetables in them, I like to use some of the existing soil.

I mean, there's a lot of minerals and micronutrients that are in the soil, plus, it's a heavier mix and, you know, the potting mix that he's using, I'm afraid it's too porous, so that's why the plant's not getting any nutrients because they just, it goes right through the bucket and ends up on the ground and then fertilizes things around it, not necessarily contain in the bucket.

So that's why I would get a heavier mix.

How about just compost from your compost pile?

That would be great.

- That's what I would do, compost, organic soils, a little humus, a little manure.

- She could do, as long as it's aged manure.

- Right, as long as it's aged manure.

I think that's a good soil recipe, especially for peppers and tomatoes, they don't take much, so I think that'd be suitable for them, for sure.

And I think he will be successful doing so, right?

In those five gallon buckets, yeah, make sure you have drainage holes.

Joellen, this was fun.

- Yes, it was.

- Thank you much, thank you much.

Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is questions@familyplotgarden.com 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.

Next week, Joellen is going to show us how to put a flower bed design on paper and how to arrange plants in a pleasing way.

In the meantime, if you want to learn more about landscape design, head on over 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]