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

I'm Chris Cooper.

There are several ways to propagate begonias.

Today, we're going to look at some popular ways to do it.

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 Jill Maybry.

Jill is the curator of tropical plants here at the Memphis Botanic Garden.

Thanks for joining us, Jill.

- Thank you for having me.

- This is gone be fun, right?

- That's right.

- So we're talking about propagating plants?

- Yes, oh, we've got a couple different classes to show you.

Yeah, so I love begonias.

There's so many different kinds.

They're tall ones, short ones.

They come in all different varieties, different colors.

I'm fascinated by how many there are, and I love that so many of 'em are so easy to grow, and so easy to propagate.

- I like easy.

- Yes, we all like easy, right?

- I like easy.

- So I wanted to show you a few really easy ways to demonstrate how to propagate some of our favorite begonias here.

And you can do it a couple different ways, and part of that depends on how the begonia grows.

For instance, this is a cane begonia.

This variety is called Down Home, - Down Home, wow.

- But it is one of the varieties that is called a cane begonia, 'cause it grows on these tall stems.

- Got it.

- That look like pieces of bamboo cane.

- They sure do.

- They have these little nodes.

They have little green spots in between, and these tend to grow up and out.

Super easy to propagate.

- Let's see how easy.

- Let's see how easy it is.

[Jill laughs] For instance, and this is a good way to prune your own plant to make it thicker, or to start a new plant, so I can show you both of those.

- Okay, got it.

- For instance, this plant is getting a little tall.

Maybe you don't have a lot of foliage at the base, so you wanna make it a little thicker, so you would just cut off down here, have your trusty pruners, and cutting it off right there.

One option for you, stick it right back in that soil.

- Okay, convenient, okay.

- Very convenient.

You could leave it just like that.

You can also cut it again.

- Wow, you cut it again?

- Yeah, so what you're looking at is these nodes, each of these little bumps-- - I see it.

- On the stem is called a node, and you want a node below the ground.

That's what's gonna form the roots, and a node above the ground is generally what's gonna send up the new leaves, so cut that there.

That's gonna send a new sprout, just like there's a new little sprout coming out here already, so we're gonna have a new sprout there.

And then you could also pop this little guy back in here.

- Just put it in there.

How 'bout that?

- And if the soil's a little dry, like this one is, make a little hole with your finger, or with your pruners, just gently press it in, and that's gonna be ready to sprout and grow, and do that with a couple more of these, and you're gonna have a much more dense, contained plant ready to fluff on back out again.

- Okay, how long would it take before it sprouts though?

- Oh, it's gonna start sprouting within a week or so.

It'll start developing roots.

- That's soon, okay.

- Doesn't take long.

You can also, rather than just putting 'em back in the same soil, this is how you can start a brand new plant for yourself, for a friend, maybe for your Christmas gifts.

Just stick that right in soil, and it's gonna root, and develop.

A lot of plants, you need rooting hormone.

- I was just about to ask you about that.

- Okay, begonias are so easy.

You really don't even have to use the rooting hormone.

This has a little blemish on the leaf.

I'm just gonna cut that off, and then to demonstrate, gonna take off a couple more stems.

Just pull off the old leaves a little bit here, and because these are such long stems, I'm gonna cut this one in two.

- So I just noticed, so you're cutting at an angle, does it, can it be straight across?

- Yeah, a little bit of an angle.

Does it have to be at an angle?

- I'm gonna stick that in.

This one, I'm gonna take off a couple of these leaves, 'cause when you're doing this, you don't have roots yet, and so the plant is gonna be pulling all of its water up through this cut piece, so you don't wanna have too many leaves that it's trying to support, so I'm gonna stick that in.

This was the other one that I cut, so I'm gonna do the same thing to that.

Cut it in half.

Stick that in there.

Take off a couple more leaves.

- Wow, so just that easy, right?

- It's just that easy.

- So let me ask you about watering though.

I mean, you said you mist it.

Are they gonna be watered, or tell me- - So in this case, this was a relatively dry potting soil that I used, so I would go ahead and water this in well until you see water running out the bottom, and then I would just leave it alone.

You can leave it in a window.

If you wanna add a bit of extra humidity, you can take a plastic bag, a clear plastic bag, kind of tent it over it, will hold in the humidity.

But these plants are so easy, you really don't have to do much other than just treat it as your brand new plant, and just water it every week, every couple weeks, and that's gonna be a brand new plant for you.

- Wow, that was easy.

- Isn't that easy?

- You're right.

- So easy.

[laughs] And then if you wanted to kind of finish up this one as well, we left that one a little loppy jawed.

[Chris laughs] So this was what I would do with my plants at home if I were refreshing this.

Take off those pieces, - And just put 'em back in.

- And then just stick 'em back in, and that's gonna make for a much wider plant, 'cause as it grows, these new pieces are gonna grow.

It's also gonna send out new shoots from all of these cut pieces, so you're gonna end up with a much wider, thicker plant.

So you would go ahead and water that one well also.

You've already got the root ball from the existing plant.

- Got it.

- But then all your new plant shoots, so just water that well, and then water it every couple weeks.

It's an ugly leaf.

I wanna take that one off.

I'll take that one off too.

- Gotta make sure it looks good.

- Yeah, yeah, do a little grooming, and now you're left with two.

- Yeah, look at that.

All right, I'm impressed.

That was good.

- Easy?

You said it was easy.

It was easy.

- Easy enough, right?

- I think I can handle that.

- Yes, yes you can.

Yes, you can [laughs].

All right, clean off my trash a little bit here.

Oh, this is also a cane begonia.

This is a different kind.

This is Sophie Cecile.

This one just isn't quite as tall yet, but you would do that the same way.

You would cut it at the cane.

In this case, I would probably pull off-- - That's a lot of leaves on there.

- Some of these little pieces that are coming out.

- It's a beautiful color on the underside of those leaves.

- Isn't that pretty?

- Wow.

- And then this seems painful, but because we don't have roots on this yet, I'm gonna take off some [Chris groans] of these great big leaves as well, and even this great big one again.

Brace yourself.

- What is she gonna do, y'all?

- I'm just gonna cut that in half.

- Somebody at home, just "Ah".

- I know, somebody screamed, I'm sure, but that way you've got a little cutting, and you don't have too much leaf surface that's gonna dry it out.

- Got it.

- So stick it in the soil, and that's gonna be ready to grow, ready to develop roots.

- Wow, so again, no rooting hormone or anything.

- No, these, begonias are so easy that they really, I very rarely use rooting hormone on them.

So then a different type of, so those were both stem cuttings.

from cane-type begonias.

- Got it.

- So another type of begonia is this little eyelash Begonia, And I believe this is a cross between a rex and a rhizomatous begonia.

Those are both pretty similar.

Rex begonias just grow directly from the ground.

Their stems come out straight from the ground without a stem.

Rhizomatous begonias do get a little bit of a rhizome going.

They get a bit of a stem creeping across the ground.

- Got it.

- But you can propagate both of those just from leaf cuttings, and to demonstrate that, a leaf cutting.

- So it's a leaf cutting.

- I'm gonna cut, what's that, about an inch below the leaf?

I'm gonna use this pot is our example again, and you're just gonna push this into the soil to right where that leaf touches the soil, and it's gonna develop roots, and develop a whole new leaf system coming out right there where it's touching the soil.

So if you wanted to make a whole pot of these, I'm just gonna demonstrate in this same pot.

- So it doesn't matter if the leaf touches the soil because you usually say, "Yeah, you don't want the leaves to touch the soil."

- Oh in this case you do want the leaves to touch the soil.

Some people put it in just so that little bit of stem is covered, but I like to push it all the way up until the leaf.

I find a little better success that way.

- Yeah, you got it all the way in.

- And once you get a plant like this growing, they grow a lot.

They grow lots of leaves.

If I don't want to affect the overall look of the parent plant, I might just take off the lower leaves.

You know, plants are gonna shed their lower leaves anyway, so, you know, it's only a matter of time before these are gonna turn brown and come off.

- Wow, how about that.

- And you can use those, cut 'em down each a little bit.

- Wow, okay, and you've done this a couple of times.

- I've done this a few times, yeah.

I sure have [laughs].

- I can tell.

- And it's just as simple as that.

Just stick 'em right into that soil.

You can even kind of layer over the leaves a little bit.

They don't mind.

Even this little baby guy is gonna be okay, so you gonna stick that in, kind of end up with a pretty little layered look there.

Then you're gonna water that in just like any of your other plants, just water it in well until the soil is running out the bottom, and then leave it.

Maybe water it once a week after that.

- That's all, wow.

- This might appreciate more of a humidity dome, - Okay, gotcha.

- rather than just the stem cane cuttings, but they should grow well without, especially this eyelash begonia is so easy to grow.

- So easy to grow she says [laughs].

- This was so easy, so this is how to do it, so this is a before, and like you said, I have done this a few times, so I have results.

These are some that I did that to, - Beautiful.

- that I started about maybe four months ago, so each of these was just a little leaf stuck into this soil, and by now it's a whole new plant, and they're even blooming.

- Yes, beautiful.

- And so these are ready, at this point, to be potted up into a bigger pot, and it'll grow each of these.

The leaves are gonna stay small.

These were grown in little cell packs, so the leaves are gonna stay small, but once I move it up into a bigger pot, the leaves will be ready to get larger, and just fill out and become its own big, beautiful, blooming plant.

- Got it.

That is nice.

- And it really is that easy.

- It's that easy.

- It's that easy.

So this is a beefsteak begonia, a popular one, beautiful red underneath, nice green, shiny green, olive green on top.

[Chris laughs] And this is another super easy one to grow from leaf cuttings, so again, also this does develop a little bit of a rhizome when you can get in into there and see it.

It gets thick.

- Ah, I see it - Thick with rhizomes.

You can get into the rhizome to cut it up, but they are so easy from leaf cuttings.

- Interesting.

- And when I do the leaf cuttings, I do like, you could take any of 'em.

You could take any of the leaves.

I do like to work from the bottom up, 'cause these are the leaves that are naturally just gonna be shed first as they age.

It also leaves you with a still real pretty looking plant, so if you went in here and start whacking away at those, it's just gonna destroy the look of the plant until it grows back.

So with my little pruners, I'm just cutting off some of these lowest leaves.

- Yeah, again, just the underside of these leaves is gorgeous.

- Isn't that beautiful?

The beautiful red.

- It's nice.

- Orangey shades, makes a real nice contrast.

You see these stems are kind of long.

I prefer to just cut 'em down a little bit about that size, and then, you don't have to do this, but I often do, because this is a pretty large leaf, I also will just cut down that leaf - You're cutting the leaf.

- To size, just 'cause that way there isn't so much that this brand, new, little plant has to support, and then you'll stick it into the soil.

I like to press it down until the leaf top is against the soil, and you can break it with your fingers, and cut it with your plant tool.

- Or just tear it.

- Or just tear it.

[Chris laughs] - And then again, just push it down into the soil so that it's in touch with the surface, and you can kind of experiment with this.

Maybe taking off some of these bigger leaves, maybe leaving 'em, seeing how that works for you.

Some people will even plant this on one pot.

and will put slits in these major leaves, and new leaves can develop that way as well.

- How about that, okay.

- I have more success with rooting it from that center petiole, so that's usually what I go with.

- Oh, look at that.

- Yeah, don't be shy.

[Chris laughs] Cut away that extra leaf material.

- You could just pack 'em in there.

- Yeah, overlapping a little bit.

- As long as you get the stem in there in the soil.

- Yeah, as long as the stem is in there, in contact with the soil, in as little as two weeks, you may start seeing new little leaves growing up through the center, and they're so cute when you do.

Little, tiny, bright, green leaflets.

- They're cute, huh?

- They are, of course.

Little baby plants are adorable.

So when you get this home, you're gonna water this well 'til you have water running out the bottom, and then don't water it again for a week.

Maybe water it once a week or so after that.

Within a couple weeks, you'll probably start seeing little plantlets, and then eventually they'll just get bigger and bigger, and before you know it, you'll- - I'll have something like that.

- You'll have a great big beefsteak plant again.

- Oh, that'd be nice, so tell us again about the light conditions.

- Light conditions for this one, they do like bright light, almost full sun.

In the winter, they can take full sun, because the sun is just not as strong in the winter, so this one is actually sitting in full sun in our greenhouse right now.

But here in a couple weeks, as the sun gets a little stronger, I'll move it under a shade cloth so that it doesn't burn.

But these can take a lot of light, and actually have the best color in strong light.

- Yes, beautiful colors.

Jill, that was great.

- Good.

- Thank you for those propagation techniques.

Do you feel like you could propagate a begonia now?

- I feel like I might be able to do that.

- Okay, okay, very good.

- Thank you much.

- You're welcome.

[upbeat country music] - Yes, I was asked to come out and investigate this wound on this tree right here, and we have three magnolias here in a row, and they're all showing the same signs.

It's a lesion that runs up and down the trunk of the tree, and I have a strong background in fungus with trees, and I have to assume that this is a canker disease.

A canker disease affects different trees in different ways, and there's different types of cankers.

This one in particular right here appears to be what I believe to be an Inonotus fungus.

It's a white rot, and the white rot affects the phloem tissue of the tree and then also the cambium, and then it gets real soft on the heartwood of the tree, and that's what's telling me that it's probably an Inonotus-type canker.

The best way to treat this type of canker is to cut it out, and treat your tools with a nine-to-one mixture of bleach, and treat the wound of the tree in hopes of not spreading the disease.

If it is not treated, if it's left alone, it will eventually kill the tree.

Okay, now I wanna take this tree apart.

This appears to be the only section of the tree that is infected, so we're gonna eliminate it, and for safety reasons, I'm gonna prune up above the first wound.

[saw scrapes] No need to sterilize my tools yet, [saw scrapes] 'cause I'm only cutting out infected parts of the tree.

This section right here is dead.

You can see how the canker grew around this collar, and a lot of times that's where the wound sets in.

[saw scrapes] We see the canker on the outside, but how it affects the tree on the inside, the decay continues to move its way into the wood, eating away that phloem tissue, which the phloem tissue is what carries the nutrients from the foliage down, and then eating away at the cambium, which produces the new tissue of the tree.

Now on this final cut, I am going to spray my tools right here because we're getting down to the part of the wood that we're going to leave.

[water sprays] This is a nine-to-one mixture of bleach, and we're gonna cut it off at ground level.

[saw scrapes] Get a nice, clean cut.

[saw scrapes] The phloem tissue and the xylem tissue is still active.

[water sprays] Right now, before the wound starts closing over or compartmentalizing, and treating it with this bleach, we hope to stop the disease from spreading.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Jill, here's our Q & A segment in the glass house, right?

- That's right.

- It's raining outside.

- It is.

- But we're good in here, right?

- Rain is coming down.

- It's coming down pretty good.

Yeah, we can hear it pretty good too as well.

Alright, so here's our first viewer email.

"Why do my beefsteak tomatoes only grow to baseball size?

"Is there something I should do to help them reach their advertised size?"

And this is Willard.

He says "he has never been able to get them any larger in 15 years of growing, and he grows them in above ground boxes and pot."

So, a couple different things there.

What do you think about that?

- Yeah, so a couple thoughts come to mind.

If he's growing them in boxes, how long has that soil been there?

Is there a chance that it's just the same old soil that's been depleted of nutrients?

Maybe refreshing the soil could help.

Also, don't know exactly, we don't know where he is for one thing.

I don't think he included a location.

- He did not, he did not.

- And we don't know which variety it is, 'cause there are varieties of tomatoes that definitely perform better in the North, or the Midwest, or the Deep South.

So it may be, it's a variety that just doesn't like the temperature for where he is.

That's something I would consider.

- Yeah, 'cause it might be genetics, you know, it could be.

Couple things, go ahead.

- It could also be the the heat?

- Yeah, that's what I was about to- - We've had such hot summers, and many tomatoes just don't produce well, or any tomatoes, as far as I know, once it gets above a certain temperature, they stop flowering, they stop producing, so it might be a heat issue.

- Right, so that gets me to my pollination point, right?

So it could be poor pollination, because usually when you have poor pollination, right, you have poor fruit set, so you have fewer tomatoes, but you also have smaller tomatoes, so that could be a case.

And how about overcrowding?

Could be crowded, you know?

Above boxes, ground boxes and pots, it could be too crowded.

- Right, yeah.

If they're close together, they could be competing for water and nutrients, especially in pots kind of concerns me.

If he's trying to grow a huge tomato, depending on the size of the pot, that can be very limiting if the roots are so restrained in a small pot.

- Yeah, and since you brought up pots, I'm thinking about watering.

So if you think about tomatoes, right, the fruit itself, they're about what, 90, 95% water, so.

- Yeah, they need a lot of water.

- They need a lot of water.

- They go through it fast.

- A lot of water, consistent, you know, watering, you know, consistent moisture, all right, so I mean those are the thoughts that come to my mind, you know.

- Maybe if there would be a way to have that planter box open to the ground where the roots could go into the ground as well.

- Yeah, I would agree with that.

- That might good be a chance for the plant to get more water, just a thought.

- Just a thought, so Willard, I would try all of those.

I mean, you've been trying for 15 years, you know, so give some of these a try, and I think that'll help you out.

Well, we appreciate that question.

Alright, here's our next viewer email.

"What is the most effective way "to rotate my crops growing in 3 different 10 x 5 foot raised beds?"

And this is Daniel from Arlington Heights, Illinois.

So let's see if we can help him out.

What do you think about that?

- Best suggestion would be to just start writing down, graphing, mapping out where your crops are, and making sure that you're rotating them.

Don't put the same plants back in that same spot for another three to five years.

Just keep track of it.

Get out some pen and paper, and a little bit of graph paper.

Start planning a little more for season to season.

- Right, 'cause we don't wanna put the same plants in there year after year after year, right, because you don't wanna build up the insect pressure, disease pressure.

- Right, right.

Many of the same vegetables share disease issues, share the same pest issues, so you do get those diseases and pests building up in the soil, so it's best to try to trade those out.

- Yeah, I would agree with that.

"How do you do it if you only have one raised bed?"

he asks.

- Oh, okay.

- Just one raised bed.

What do you think?

- Well consider maybe growing only just a smaller selection of vegetables each year.

One year you grow these three types of vegetables, maybe the next year you switch over to something totally different to allow a chance for the issues in the soil to work themselves out.

- Yep, so crops from the same family one year, crops from a different family the next year, you know, something that I would suggest.

Yeah, so thank you for that question, Dan.

It was a good question.

- Oh, for sure.

- And we are glad that he wants to use his raised beds, you know what I mean?

To grow vegetables, so that's a good thing.

So thank you for that, Daniel.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"Any recommendations for controlling insects eating my midnight marvel hibiscus leaves?"

And this is Dane from Franklin, Tennessee.

He says "he's tried using Neem oil and Sevin, but the pests still leave his leaves lacy," and he also said "it blooms wells".

Good to know it blooms well.

- Well that's good.

That's good to hear.

So we've just got some skeletal leaves, but still nice blooms.

- Still nice blooms, and I'm actually familiar with the culprit here, because I grow hibiscus at home, hibiscus sawfly.

So their larva camouflages very well.

Right, it's almost the same color as the leaves.

- Okay, oh perfect.

- And it actually eats on top of the leaf itself, right in between the veins, right, very difficult to control, so you definitely wanna control it in the larvae stage, right?

So he did use Neem oil.

That is something that you can use.

It'll be multiple applications, but I would like to go with insecticidal soap, so insecticidal soap is good.

Horticultural oil, you know, is good as well, and Spinosad is also good.

Natural soil bacterium, right?

Just read and follow the label on all of those products, and I think that will get it for you.

- Okay, now how about if you wanted to avoid chemicals?

If you went out maybe with a hose, and used a strong spray of water.

- And that's something else you could do - Every day.

- That's something else you could do.

- Or maybe handpicking.

- Or you can pick it off.

- I know it would take- - If it doesn't bother you.

- Yeah, yeah, I personally have some tropical fish.

We have a little fish pond back behind us, and occasionally, when we have caterpillar or sawfly issues in here, I will just pick all that I can, and I feed 'em to the fish.

- How about that?

- And they love 'em.

- There you go, so you can pick 'em off, and feed 'em to the fish.

You can do that as well, but yeah, but again, if you're gonna use those products, read and follow the label.

- Right, absolutely.

- Be careful.

- And if you use the chemicals, don't feed them to the fish.

- Don't feed 'em to the fish.

That's a good point.

Don't feed 'em to the fish, and I think you'll be fine with that, Dane.

So thank you so much for the question.

Jill, we survived the rain.

- We did.

- We did.

It's got a little lighter.

- It's getting a lighter now.

Thank you so much for being here today.

- Thank you.

Thank you for being here with me.

- 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 more information about plant propagation, 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]