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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Azaleas add a great pop of color to the landscape.

Today, we are planting a native azalea.

Also, we will be planting a butterfly garden.

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 Dale Skaggs.

Dale is the Director of Horticulture at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens.

And Joellen Dimond will be joining me later.

Hi Dale.

How's it going today?

- It's going great.

- Good.

So what are we gonna be planting today?

- Well, this is a native azalea, and we're really fond of native azaleas here at the Dixon.

And most people are familiar with the Asian Azaleas, but this is a native one, so we're gonna show you how to plant it.

They're gonna like good drainage, so we're gonna mound it up a little bit.

And also, if you notice in this pot, it's kind of growing crooked in the pot.

- Yeah, I see that.

- So we're gonna straighten that whenever we plant it.

- Okay.

- But I think this is a good spot.

You like the spot?

- I do like the spot.

Good drainage.

- All right.

- Going downhill.

- And this is Kyle McLean.

He's the Manager of Grounds Horticulture here at the Dixon.

So we got an all-star team here ready to plant this native azalea.

- All right, sounds good.

Thanks for being here, Kyle.

- Glad to be here.

- We'll mark the spot right there.

- X marks the spot, huh?

[rake scraping] [shovels chopping] - All right, so how big does the hole need to be?

- You know, we're gonna go at least two times the size of the container wide.

It doesn't have to be really, really deep.

You know, most plant roots go wide.

They don't go as deep as we like to think, so we just give it a good root run.

- Well, since this is a public garden, how do you decide where you're gonna put your plant material?

- You know, you always have to think about design and where you can fit something in.

I like to think about the color.

This is a yellow native azalea blooming in the spring.

So think about the color, think about the height.

Native azaleas grow fairly slowly, but they'll get up to about maybe 10 feet tall.

And so this will punctuate the end, and I'm probably gonna put at its feet some Korean azaleas, which have a soft lavender color at its feet.

All right, so I think that's pretty good.

- Think that's good?

Okay.

- So in this case, I think we're gonna go ahead and work our amendments in first.

I think that's the best way to go.

And we'll use a little red sand.

Put a little red sand in here and make sure it gets in there.

The red sand helps improve drainage, and it sticks around a lot longer than the organic material.

Organic material will break up this heavy clay soil, but eventually, the organic material will break down, and it won't be contributing as much.

So we use red sand at the Dixon.

I've been using it in the Mid-South for my whole life and it just is a great, great amendment for heavy clay soil.

And then this is composted pine bark.

And we like the big, chunky pine bark.

Not the nuggets, but just big, chunky pine bark.

You can use soil conditioner, as well, which is just this product ground up finer, but it adds organic material, helps with the drainage, and break down over time.

Most of the nursery stock that you buy, like this plant is growing in, is a bark-based soil.

So it's already starting with what you have.

And then we're gonna add in a little, this is the real fine stuff.

This is worm castings, and we found a source on this, and we get it in in tractor trailers.

It's kind of a luxury to use here, but you can buy it in bags.

It is expensive at your independent garden centers.

Maybe the box stores will carry it, but worm castings.

It starts out as peat moss, and then worms live in it.

They feed the worms in it, and their excrement goes into the peat moss, and you end up with a great product.

- That's pretty good.

- Grab this.

- Okay.

- I'm gonna grab it.

- All right.

All right - So just add a little composted manure to kind of enrich it a little bit.

And you're also helping feed the microbes and just help build the soil up, putting some organic matter.

- So Dale and Kyle, I noticed we put all of the amendments outside of the site.

- Yeah, we wanna make sure they're amalgamated really good together.

So that's what we're doing.

And then I'm gonna add a little bit of this mycorrhiza.

This is the secret sauce.

This is Kyle's secret sauce here.

He's a big proponent of using mycorrhiza, and we've noticed a marked difference in how well plants get through stress times by using that.

- All right.

- So yeah, we're mixing mixing it all together.

We want it really well amalgamated.

We don't want big pockets of compost.

You definitely don't want it to be in a hole.

This is a sloped site.

You want the water to drain away from it, so you wanna kind of crown it.

- All right, so we don't wanna plant too deep.

- As I mentioned, this one's growing crooked, so we can tilt the root ball and make it straight.

And let's see how developed it is.

That looks like a good side there.

Let you look at it, and I'll turn it.

Does that look like a good side, Chris?

- Oh it does.

It does, perfect.

- All right.

- Get some soil in around it.

- So Dale, we don't need to break that root ball up any?

- Well, I was looking at that.

A lot of times when you buy azaleas at garden centers, they're really, really well root-bound.

This one seems to be, see, it's not as well-developed.

It's not gonna stay in a ball.

The idea is that the roots in the container hit the edge of the container, and they keep running around in circles, and they get kind of root-bound.

And sometimes on regular azaleas, we'll actually take a soil knife to 'em and really break 'em up.

But this plant here, the roots are pretty loose.

- Yeah, looks good.

- This is really, the huge commercial nurseries really don't grow a lot of native azaleas because they're slow, so usually it's more small, independent mom-and-pop kind of operations.

The root system is kind of full and it hadn't been cut back a whole lot.

But this is a great plant.

We love native azaleas here at the Dixon.

- So can you talk a little bit about the air pockets and what you're doing there?

- Yeah.

You don't want air pockets underneath there.

It's more important when you're planting bigger stuff 'cause the water will help settle it in when you give it its first watering, but you don't want any air pockets under there.

That's a no-no.

That's the main consideration when planting something like this, and see, it is mounded up, but that's fine.

That's what we want.

And then if we can grab that rake over there, Kyle, I'll rake this thing out.

[rake scraping] Again, we want it to drain away.

You can see it's higher in the middle.

Everything's draining away.

[rake scraping] And so in terms of air pockets, that first watering is critical to eliminate air pockets and just to get it off on a good start.

So I don't recommend irrigation systems, even though you might have an irrigation system.

It may be easier just to go push a button and turn on the irrigation, but you're not getting the thorough watering that you need to do.

I recommend that you use a water breaker on the end of a hose, or you can stick your finger in there.

Some people do that, right?

But just give it a good soaking, back off for a minute and let it soak in, then give it some more, and when you think you've watered it enough, water it just a little bit more and you're good.

So give it a good, off to a good start.

And then you need to watch it during its first season.

That first summer is the critical point to get it through.

Once it's got its roots in the native soil, you'll be fine.

- Okay, let me ask you about this.

So I'm noticing this is kind of crossing over a little bit.

So do you actually look at it and come back and maybe prune it off?

- Yeah, yeah, I think this branch here, actually.

Let's see if that's green.

It still has life in it.

We're gonna let this thing leaf out the rest of the way and see what happens.

And you should come back, and we can do a segment on pruning azaleas.

- Sounds good.

That sounds good.

So Kyle, Dale, thank you much.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Most people are familiar with azaleas.

They're sort of synonymous with springtime in the Mid-South.

Many folks are not very familiar with our native azaleas or our wild azaleas.

This is Rhododendron canescens.

And yes, I said Rhododendron.

Most people probably don't realize that all azaleas are technically Rhododendrons.

They're a separate group, as botanically, they have pentanthera, which means they have five anthers.

But you don't have to count anthers.

Just know this is a native azalea, and it has these wonderful trusses.

It's a deciduous plant.

The fragrance is amazing.

The buds are pink, and it opens up.

We collect these at the Dixon.

I've had the privilege of going on some collecting trips in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.

There are a lot of selections of these, wild-growing selections.

I think there's about maybe 15 species of native azaleas, but most of them are native to the southeastern United States.

There's one native to the West Coast.

It needs some protection from the hot afternoon sun.

Morning sun is best.

But I think of 'em as where they naturally grow, which is in morning sun only.

But they're really just wonderful plants that are seldom used.

Nursery men don't really grow 'em because they're slow to produce, and they just don't show as well in a container.

We've actually planted one without any blooms on it.

But it's not an instant gratification plant, but it's certainly worth the wait, and really just an amazing native plant.

Everyone's into native plants.

This is just a fabulous thing to grow in your garden.

[upbeat country music] - Hi, Joellen, we got some beautiful plants here.

What are we gonna do?

- We're gonna create a butterfly garden.

- Cool.

- Now, when you do butterfly gardens, you've gotta do a little bit of research.

The majority of butterflies like nectar-producing flowers that usually like full sun.

So you really need a lot of sun for a butterfly garden.

- And I think we have plenty.

- I think we've got full sun here.

Yes, we do.

Also, when you plant a butterfly garden, you gotta think of the whole life cycle of a butterfly because the adults are usually the ones that are gathering the nectar.

And you've gotta build, you know, have some kind of food for the caterpillars.

So we've got a little bit of that here today.

And we'll go over each of the plants that we're gonna be putting in the garden, and we're also gonna create a space for them to get water like they like to do and to be able to stretch out on some rocks to sun themselves.

And of course, WKNO has got plenty of trees that are native around here that fulfills a lot of the rest of the life cycle of the butterflies that we're kind of trying to attract.

So we're gonna get everything in for a complete life cycle of many different butterflies.

So we will get started by, we've kind of, this is very nice soil.

This soil has been amended already.

So we've just tilled it up a little bit with a shovel and loosened it, and now we're ready to plant.

One of the first things we'll plant in here is this red hot poker plant.

It likes lots of sun.

And of course, it's got nice red-orange flowers that butterflies like.

And then we've got another one.

This is a native to the United States.

This is Liatris, and it'll have little lavender spikes out on the top of it that butterflies like real well.

Another perennial that we've got is sedum.

- Sedums.

I know that.

- Now, these will bloom in the fall, so what we're trying to do is get something blooming in this bed all the time so that all the butterflies throughout the season have got nectar to get.

So this will extend our fall blooming.

And we have a couple of those.

- Nice.

So, so far all of these plants are easy to maintain.

- Easy to maintain.

All like to live together.

Have the same kind of requirements.

None of these plants like to be wet, which is good.

So we're kind of going for a moist, but that can dry out bed.

Next, we've got something just for the monarchs.

And this is the Asclepias.

This is the only plant that they need for their entire life cycle.

They like the nectar from this.

The caterpillars eat on this.

And this is the only plant that you need to attract monarchs to your garden.

- The only plant for monarchs?

- The only plant.

Wow, how about that.

Okay.

- And this is the only one they eat.

And since they're very small plants, in fact, they're blooming right now along the roadsides, we'll put three of them together there so we'll have enough for somebody to come and eat and produce their entire life cycle with that.

- How about that.

- Next, we have something that should bloom a lot during the summer.

This is Rudbeckia.

- Yeah, I know that one.

- And this is particularly Rudbeckia hirta, which is more favored by butterflies.

Let's see.

Next we have phlox.

And now some of these perennials don't bloom all summer long, which is why we have a succession of plants and some annuals that we're gonna plant in here.

But we'll put that in here.

Then we'll go to the other side and get the rest of our perennials in.

We have a very small, at this point, Russian sage.

This is also a butterfly favorite.

And then we have another fall-blooming plant.

This is, now it's an aster.

This has got a very long scientific name, but this is the aromatic aster, the one that has the woody leaves that blooms really late in the fall.

So after the Sedum bloom, then this will bloom.

And next we have another perennial called Gaillardia.

And this will bloom all summer long.

We have a couple of those because they're bright, and butterflies like bright colors: the oranges, the reds, the yellows, the hot pinks, and sometimes the purples.

They like purple also.

So along with that, we also have the ever-popular Echinacea.

And since we have a smaller bed, I thought we'd get a smaller variety.

This is called Powwow.

- Powwow.

[chuckles] - Powwow.

And next we'll move on to our annuals because as much as perennials are great for butterflies, we need something that's blooming all the time.

And one thing that can do that is your annuals.

And it's easy to slip them in 'cause see, look, this is our perennials, and you see we have some spots left.

So we're gonna fill those in with some annuals.

The first one that some like the best is Monarda.

And you notice this isn't quite blooming yet, so it's forming blooms.

So we'll have that there.

Next, we have a purple heliotrope.

Now, the reasons why they like this heliotrope, not only is it purple and a good nectar source, but the flowers are kind of flat.

And that's what butterflies tend to like, is flat flowers so they can land easily on them to get the nectar.

So we had the heliotrope, and let's see.

- This is filling in pretty good.

- Yeah.

And then, of course, who doesn't like zinnias?

And they're perfect colors that butterflies love.

- Beautiful colors.

Beautiful.

- Something else that butterflies like a lot is lantana.

- Love lantanas.

- Lantana is gorgeous.

And so this will bloom all the rest of the summer and into the fall.

Another plant we have that butterflies actually like is Portulaca, also known as moss rose.

So we've got a couple of those to put here.

Then, of course, we want something for them to eat and also to get nectar from.

And those are some herbs.

So right here, and you can see that this oregano is blooming.

- That's nice.

- Which is very nice, because the butterflies can kinda take advantage of that.

And we'll plant it here so that it trails over the side.

- Nice, okay.

- And we'll add some more space to the garden.

We need some other things that butterflies' larvae can eat, And that's parsley.

- Parsley.

- Fennel they eat, also, but I've got parsley.

So we're going to move that over just a little bit and put our parsley in here.

And another thing they like is sage.

So we've got one sage to go in the corner, and hopefully these herbs are gonna be at the edge as they can spill over the edge of the bed so they're easier to see.

- You have a real good eye for design, I see, right?

- And another herb that they like is thyme.

And again, this is trailing, so we're gonna put it at the edge so it can trail over the side.

And of course, we have another parsley that we are going to set in here.

And then chives.

Butterflies actually like the blooms of chives.

So we are gonna put some chives in, too.

All right, so we've got them all set out, and now it's time to plant.

But I just wanted to let you know that what I did is after, you know, looking around and finding the right plants, I went ahead and did a plan.

Drew out a chalk on some concrete and laid all the plants out so that, you know, we would know if it fit.

and it does, so now we are ready to plant.

This out.

- Oh yeah.

- The roots aren't too bad.

Just separate them.

Not bad.

- All right, Joellen, what do you think?

- It looks beautiful, but now we've got to mulch.

- Yes.

Got to do that, right?

- The mulch will help hold the moisture in the soil for all these plants.

And we're gonna do that before we plant those itty-bitty tiny vinca in the front.

And a trick that I use when we're trying to go around small plants, you have this big bag of mulch, is you take a container and you fill it with the mulch so that you can easily just set it around the plants.

'Cause we don't want this thick.

We just wanna cover the ground.

- Yeah, I like that trick.

[mulch pouring] So what do you think so far?

- That looks all good.

Nice and mulched.

And now it's time to add the little bit of flowers that we have left that are so small.

And we'll just fill in where we see some blank spaces.

We've got six.

- You've got three.

- There's three of them.

- Three.

- See, there's a hole right there.

- Okay You just sit it there?

- That would be good.

- Okay.

- Looks like we got a hole here.

One here.

And there we go.

Next, we've got to provide some sand and a shallow dish that we can keep wet all the time 'cause they'll be able to land on it.

It'll be solid, but it'll be wet enough that they can get a drink from.

And we're gonna set up our rocks around it so they'll have some place to sunbathe on.

- All right, Joellen, so we got everything our pollinators need, right?

- That's right.

We got flowers.

We've got some feeder plants for some of the caterpillars.

We've got a place for them to get a drink and a place for them to rest and- - Sunbathe.

- Sunbathe their wings.

Yes.

- Looks inviting.

- It does.

I feel like going down there and just sunbathing, right?

- Yes, it's warm enough.

- Well, look, Joellen, we definitely appreciate that.

Can't wait to see what this looks like throughout the growing season.

- I think it's gonna be great.

- I think it's gonna be beautiful.

[upbeat country music] - So we'll just talk about cutting tulips to bring inside.

I would go as far down as you can into the tulip and cut it.

Normally, we'll pull the foliage off because we don't want that to foul the water.

But if you want to, you can pull that off, cut it at an angle so that it'll take up water, and you wanna put it in warm water so that it will take up the water.

And then if you have the ability to put it somewhere where it, like in a refrigerator or in a cooler, that will let it condition overnight, it'll take up water, and it'll last a lot longer.

You can also add a little Sprite, some type of sugary clear to the water to help it to last longer.

Or you could buy the crystals that you mix in the water that'll allow it to last longer.

This one is a little farther along, so I would only expect it to last probably within the week.

But if you cut it when they first start coming out and they haven't totally opened, it'll last longer.

Maybe a couple weeks.

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

Y'all ready?

- I'm ready.

- These are great questions.

All right.

Here's our first viewer email.

"What is a good plant for a front porch pot in shade?"

And this is Dan.

Some information here, Dale.

Three to four hours of indirect sun, and we don't know where he's from.

So you have any recommendations?

- Well, Heucheras are always a good choice.

They're almost evergreen.

They'll give you some nice color for a long time.

A lot longer than flowers, right.

Kind of our go-to for containers around here is the Pieris japonica.

It's also called lily-of-the-valley shrub or Japanese andromeda.

Has those little urn-shaped flowers over the winter.

It's evergreen.

Some of 'em have red new growth.

There's one called Mountain Fire or something like that.

So those are really, really good choices for a shady area and that gets enough sun to grow some other things as well.

I mean, I wouldn't limit yourself to something, you know, that's just deep shade, but you'd have to consider that the container is probably not irrigated, so you don't have to water it too much.

You know, Aspidistra.

If he's in the south, Aspidistra is great.

Cast-iron-plant, bar-room plant.

It's tough as nails and gives you good foliage and works well in a container.

- Anything you can think of, Kyle?

- Aucuba, if you're familiar with that.

It's a nice evergreen.

Hostas with a foliage will also do well in shade and do well in pots.

- Camellias would work well.

You could grow a Camellia there and then later on put it out in your yard.

Give it a season or two.

- How about that.

- You get some nice beautiful flowers and yeah.

- Okay.

Oh, there you have it, Mr. Dan.

We thank you for that question.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"How do I keep deer from damaging my trees?"

And this is Helen.

A deer rubbed off antler velvet and killed two of her Japanese maples.

So Kyle, what do you think about that?

Deer are tough, right?

- That's tough.

Some kind of barrier.

I know people use electric fences to keep 'em back.

You know, they can jump easily over a six-foot fence.

But I would say a barrier is probably gonna be the best way.

- Yeah, I mean, you can actually take, there's a garden I know about in Barretville, and he had to take, like, six-foot sections of fence, but he pulled it out and made little circles around each individual tree until they got big enough to where that wasn't an issue.

But they make all kinds of deer repellents and stuff, but after it rains you gotta reapply it.

And I mean, you know, some of these, they make sprinklers that detect movement, motion detector sprinklers.

- Deterrence.

- And that'll work until they figure it out, you know?

So, I mean, those are just a couple of options that I can think of.

- Now to your point about the barriers.

So yeah, she did put wire cylinders around the trees.

Do you think that'll work?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

I think that'll work.

- Use a T-stake, you know, a T-post and attach it to it.

- Once they get bigger, the deer won't rub 'em.

It's just the saplings that they want, you know.

Sharpening up those antlers.

- Yeah, gotta sharpen them up, right?

- All that.

- Wow.

Okay.

There you have it Ms. Helen.

Got some work to do there, but we do think the wire cylinders will work, though, so we think that will work.

- Yeah, I mean, and deer have become such a problem in urban areas, you know.

They really have been remarkable how they sort of can live, co-exist with us, you know, in some of these urban areas.

It's pretty amazing.

You hear a lot about deer issues.

- They sure are.

- All right, so Dale, Kyle, we're outta time.

Thank you much.

That was fun.

- Oh, great time.

Great time.

- It was fun.

- Thanks.

- All right, thank y'all.

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.

If you want to learn more about anything we talked about today, 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]