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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Grass, vegetables, flowers, and trees.

Sounds like gardening, but these are viewer questions we're answering today.

It's the Q&A show, next 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.

Summer is wrapping up.

Hopefully your garden has done well this year.

But, in gardening, there's always questions, and today we're going to answer some of yours.

Let's start with a question about marigolds.

"What will cause the leaves on my marigolds to disintegrate?

"I planted the same marigolds a few feet away.

They're happy."

And this is Mark from Albany, New York.

He says the dead marigolds are planted in a raised bed, Mr.

Jim.

- I think it's slugs.

- I think it's slugs.

- Yeah.

People plant marigolds in vegetable gardens in the hope of repelling insects.

- The hope.

- That's another subject.

But the fact is that they are magnets for slugs and spider mites, and that typically is the issue that we see with them in the garden.

The fact that you have no foliage pretty much tells me it's a slug in there eating it.

- Oh, yeah, definitely.

- Now, your other ones that are unaffected, just give them time.

[Chris chuckles] - It'll happen, right.

- It's gonna happen.

- It's gonna happen.

- It's coming.

- Yeah.

- It's coming, yeah.

Probably have a good environment for them, you know?

- Yeah, and there's some really good slug baits that you can put down to have iron phosphate, very safe, it works as a fertilizer, it's non-toxic to people and kids, so it's wonderful put in there, and it really does an excellent job of killing slugs.

- I will atest to that, I've used that at home as well.

Peter, anything you want to add to that?

- I'd say, yeah, the iron phosphate, that's the way to go.

- Safe.

- You can also get a slug bait that has metaldehyde in it, but that's the one that you need to be really careful about, because that- - Yeah, that one's pretty bad.

- Anything besides a slug eating that is bad news.

So yeah, iron phosphate, much, much better.

- Some people will put a little cup of beer in there.

I cannot think of a nastier thing you'd have to deal with.

You know?

So my option is the iron phosphate.

[chuckles] - Well, who wants to waste the beer?

Yeah, so I would say the iron phosphate, for sure.

If you look at that picture, right, just look at some of the other foliage around the marigolds.

The leaves are chewed on, they're eaten, so yeah.

- Pretty sure that's it.

- Pretty sure that's it.

[gentle country music] "What is happening to my bee balm?

"This is the second year it has looked like this.

Last year I had no blooms," and this is Francis from Arlington, Tennessee.

- All right.

- So what's happening to the bee balm?

[chuckles] - Ms.

Francis, your bee balm, your Monarda has the dreaded powdery mildew.

- Oh man.

- Super common for this genus, right?

All Monarda suffer from susceptibility to powdery mildew.

But the good news is- - Ah, there's good news.

- There's been a lot of breeding in bee balms to breed in resistance to powdery mildew so that we can have foliage that looks attractive longer into the season.

Even still, it's not, you know, a stamp for complete, right, resistance to powdery mildew.

There is still a possibility that even those that show more resistance could still get it towards the end of the season, but it doesn't threaten, like, the general thriftiness of the plant, if that makes sense.

- Okay, I got it, makes sense.

- So, you know, as long as it's well established, it's gonna get powdery mildew, it's gonna look kind of gross by the end of the summer, don't worry about it, don't try to treat it with a fungicide, it's aesthetic only.

And if you don't like the look of it, you can go ahead and cut that back, and know that the roots have gained the nutrients, right, through earlier in the season that it's gonna need to sprout and grow back again the following year.

Now, I don't know what happened with it last year- - Yeah, so I was going to ask you about that.

- When it didn't bloom.

- It didn't have any bloom.

- Maybe it was the first year she planted it, maybe it just hadn't gotten established enough to put on a really good bloom display, possibly.

Also, I've seen bee balms with reduced bloom when they're in too much shade.

They really need full sun.

- So full sun.

- So, consider putting it in a full-sun area where it's gonna have a lot of good air circulation, and those two things together are gonna help cut down a lot on powdery mildew occurrence.

And beyond that, I'd say let's select cultivars that are showing resistance to powdery mildew.

If you want to learn more about that, Mt.

Cuba Center has like a 10-year study on- - Ten-year, okay.

- Yeah, on Monarda resistance to powdery mildew, and rates, I can't remember how many cultivars, but a huge amount of cultivars on their resistance.

And then also just, you know, ask your local nurserymen when you're shopping to buy new plants to put into your garden, make sure that you're buying cultivars that have that resistance.

- I think that's good.

Anything you want to add to that, Camille?

- I just would make sure that it's getting six hours at least of full sun.

Ours will not bloom well unless it gets a lot of sun, and the ones that get all-day sun do the best.

And we cut ours back at least once a year, because all of ours get powdery mildew reliably, and you can just cut them down to the ground and then they'll flesh out with a whole new set of fresh leaves and bloom again.

[gentle country music] - "I have a Globe Blue spruce that is defoliating, "dropping needles on the ground and purple-looking stems.

"It started at the top of the plant.

"Is this a fungus?

How do I treat it?"

And this is Susan from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

She says she has two dwarf green spruces that seem to be affected too.

- Also, okay.

- So, we appreciate the picture, right?

We've had a lot of discussion about this, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah, but starting at the top, it's interesting- - So it sounds like it is indeed a fungal needle blight - Right, right.

- Of some sort.

There are a number of different needle blights that have a... a key plant-pest relationship, right, with spruces.

So, that is not uncommon.

And I would venture to say, you know, through some research that I was doing, the majority of blue spruces, at some point, or spruce in general, are going to suffer from a needle-blight disease, they're just highly susceptible to it.

- Okay, got it.

- So it makes sense that her blue spruce, as well as her other two dwarf green ones, we don't know what cultivar or anything those are, but it makes sense that they're all showing similar signs, and it, you know, is just progressive needle drop, essentially, is gonna be some of your indicating factors for that.

And it can be treated, but it could be difficult, because the treatment is not curative, it's just, right, preventative.

So at this point, the picture that she sent, you know, the sections that don't have needles on them, well, there's no fixing that.

- Right, because I was going to ask you about that, I mean, is there anything you can do about that?

- No.

- Okay.

- Yeah, there's no fixing those bare tips of the needles.

- And you can see clearly.

- That's right.

- Yeah, okay.

- But we could put these protective fungicide sprays on to help slow the progression down, to protect those healthy portions of the plant that haven't yet come in contact with those fungal spores, and kind of put the brakes, you know, on what's happening.

But, depending on how big the trees are, that can be an obstacle for most homeowners, right, to be able to treat a large tree in the landscape effectively with any kind of fungicide or insecticide.

At least in the case of insecticides, we can have some systemic activity and pour it around the base, but we don't have that for fungicides.

So, you know, broad-spectrum fungicides like chlorothalonil-based active ingredients, copper-based products, that would be where we would want to look to help protect those plants.

And definitely, you know, you couldn't just pull those up and put new spruce in, because they're gonna have the same susceptibility in that growing environment.

So, you know, if it's just really giving you heartburn, maybe we just, like, look at a different alternative for an evergreen conifer to put there.

- Got you.

That's good, Celeste.

Yeah, yeah, interesting.

Yeah, we had a great conversation about that earlier.

Yeah, using the fungicides, make sure you read and follow the label on that.

This is Albuquerque, New Mexico, we're gonna have to look at the temperature- - Yes.

- Before you go out and use these products, so do be careful.

[gentle country music] "Can you tell me what this plant is?

I'm hoping it's an oakleaf hydrangea."

This is Don from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

He says he had an oakleaf hydrangea planted there several years ago, but it died.

- Ah.

- How can we help Mr.

Don out with that proper identification?

- Well, we can, but unfortunately- - Uh-oh.

- It is not a hydrangea, it is a sycamore tree.

And so, he's got to decide if he wants a huge tree to live in that spot, or if he needs to move it or get rid of it.

But that is a sycamore tree.

- Yeah, American sycamore.

- Not a hydrangea.

- Seventy-five to about a hundred feet.

- Yeah.

- Oh my gosh.

- I mean, it's gonna get massive trunks on them.

In the Native forest, they used to hollow out on the inside, and when the settlers were going west, they used to camp in the sycamore, hollowed-out trees.

- Really?

- Yes- - I didn't know that.

- And corral their cattle in there at night.

- What?

- Yeah.

But all those old stands of sycamores are gone.

But that's a sycamore tree, I'm afraid.

And it's gonna get big, so that's why he's got to decide if he wants to keep it there or not.

- Wow.

So there you have it, Mr.

Don.

- I'm sorry.

- Yeah, sorry about that, yeah.

Sycamore, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- You might buy you an oakleaf hydrangea maybe and- - Yeah.

Plant another one.

- Yeah, plant another one.

[gentle country music] "What is this plant?

Is this a garden weed or a flower?"

And this is Glender from Olive Branch, Mississippi.

"Is it a weed or a flower," it depends.

Right?

It depends, right?

It's nature's wildflower, how about that?

So it's Eclipta, is what that is, Eclipta, and some people call it the false daisy, right?

So it can grow three to four feet tall, it can either be prostrate or erect.

Loves moist conditions.

So, drainage ditches, streams, disturbed areas that are moist, full sun, loves those conditions.

Has the red, purplish stems.

- Stems, yeah.

- Reproduces by seeds.

One plant can have seventeen thousand seeds.

- Wow.

- Has a taproot system.

So you want to get rid of it?

Make sure you get all of it.

- Yep.

- Make sure you get all of it, pull it up by the taproot, I think you'll be just fine, right?

Eclipta is actually considered one of the world's most dangerous weeds, right, because it's versatile.

I mean, it likes moist conditions, can stand to grow in some dry conditions, right, but it is, again, world's worst weed.

How about that?

- A lot of seeds.

- A lot of seeds, Ms.

Glender, a lot of seeds.

So there you have it, is it weed or is it flower?

Mm.

And it does flower, you know, from spring to fall, right?

And it's going to be growing, of course, from spring to fall, right?

It has a beautiful flower, hence the name false daisy.

Right?

So it's in the daisy family, it has a daisy-looking flower.

So, yeah, be careful with that.

[gentle country music] "Why will my tomatoes not produce tomatoes anymore?"

And this is William from Ohio.

He says he used to have success, but for the last 10 years, the tomatoes will not develop on the vines.

He says all the other vegetables seem to grow just fine.

- Oh, wow.

- Yeah.

So what's wrong with the tomatoes?

- Well, you know, [Chris chuckles] I feel his pain, because I've had problems with tomatoes too in the last few years, and I finally have moved my garden because it got too shady.

- Oh, okay.

- So I've had to move my garden to get more sun because the tomatoes weren't producing tomatoes.

- Okay.

Over 10 years that might happen.

- Over 10 years, it could possibly be too much shade for that particular area.

Is he rotating his crops around in the garden?

- That's what I wondered.

- Get the most sunniest spot.

Then pollination, maybe, it doesn't say, well, he's not getting fruit, but is he getting flowers?

And if he's getting flowers, then I would consider that a pollination issue.

- All right.

So, could be like a pollination, or, guess what?

Could it be too much nitrogen fertilizer?

- Well, that too, yeah, you can fertilize tomatoes and your vegetables too much.

In fact, has he soil tested lately?

You know, 'cause I did a soil test on my garden and found out that it was high in everything but nitrogen, because the only thing I put on it was nitrogen in the spring, and that was it, once.

I didn't top dress it or anything, and had more success.

But yeah, tomatoes, put a lot of high nitrogen on those, you'll get lots of green foliage.

- Oh, beautiful green foliage.

- But you won't get any tomatoes.

- No tomatoes.

So there's a lot of things there.

- Yeah, there's a lot of different- - Right, yeah, so we talked about pollination, rotation, right, because you definitely don't want to grow tomatoes in the same place all the time.

- Yeah.

- Right?

Temperature stresses, you know, it could be.

If it's too hot, then of course the tomato's not going to develop, you know, any fruit, right, 'cause the flower just abort and drop off.

Or if it's too cool, you know, if it's below 55 degrees, the same thing can happen, right?

So yeah, Mr.

William, a lot of things to think about.

Getting your soil tested will help.

- Soil test I think would be a good place to start.

- And just to make sure that he's still got the same amount of sun on the area on his garden like he has always.

- Yeah, because tomatoes would love to have full sun.

- Full sun.

- Yeah, for sure.

All right, Mr.

William, check with your local Extension agent too, he may have, you know, some answers for you as well.

- And some better varieties for him.

- Yeah, and better varieties too.

[gentle country music] "Why are my pepper plants producing only small bell peppers?"

And this is Brian from Ville Platte, Louisiana.

Yeah.

- Well, it's hot.

[Chris chuckles] - It's hot down here.

- You know, when I did grow the bell peppers, my best bell peppers happened when it turned cooler in the fall, just before a frost would show up.

[Chris chuckles] - But heat stress - Heat stress.

- Will do that every single time.

Yeah, I know, I'm sorry.

But that's why, I get my best tomatoes and my peppers were in the fall just before the frost got them.

- Yeah, 'cause it's a little cooler.

- And I would get the best, the weather is a little cooler, and it's gotten all the nutrients from the summer, and you get good fruits.

- Yeah.

So you know my thing, yeah, heat stress, right?

So anytime the temperatures, daytime temperatures are above 90 degrees, the nighttime temperatures above 75 degrees.

- Again.

- You've got a problem.

- That plant is just like, I'm living, I can't do a whole lot.

- It's a problem, right?

So it's gonna be aborting blooms, dropping flowers, you know, left and right.

Something else to mention, poor pollination, right?

- Oh yes, true.

- Hot temperatures, you know, the pollen's less viable.

You know, so that's something, you know, that I think about, inconsistent, you know, watering, you know?

So mulching, you know, is real important.

How about this last one?

Do you have the right variety?

- Well, that's true.

- I mean, 'cause, you know- - They're all different kinds of varieties.

- Yeah, you want- - Small ones, large.

- Bigger bell peppers, there's the Big Bertha, you know?

So just make sure you have, you know, the right variety, and I think all of those will work for you, right?

- I still say wait 'til cooler temperatures and you might get some bigger.

- Yeah, you might.

Right, yeah, because it's definitely been a hot summer everywhere.

- It's hot.

[gentle country music] - "Is there an organic way to control grass in a vegetable garden?," and this is Joseph from Cordova, Tennessee.

He says he grows in a community garden, so he gets a different spot each year.

So Camille, organic way to control grass.

- The best tool would be a shovel.

[Chris and Celeste chuckle] You get a tarp, you dig out every part that has grass, dig it deeper than it is so that you can get every bit of that root, and then you can put the nicely tilled soil back in place and have your vegetable garden.

Yeah, Celeste knows some herbicides there.

- Oh yeah, oh definitely.

So, aside from using those arm muscles, right?

[Camille chuckles] - Yeah, yeah, organic, right?

- There are some organic options as far as herbicide control goes.

A few caveats with that though, they're not as effective on perennial grasses because they are contact burn-down.

So, we've got to get really good coverage when we spray these products on these plants, and know that, say if we're trying to control Bermuda grass for example, we're gonna have to continue to use this over and over.

So acetic acid would be an available option.

I want people to know that that's not the same as using vinegar, you know, in your kitchen.

This is highly concentrated acetic acid, and is just working through contact burn-down, essentially, of that plant.

- What is contact burn down?

- It's when the product doesn't have translocation inside the plant.

So, it's going to attempt to kill the leaf tissue wherever it comes in contact with it.

It's not gonna move throughout that plant down into the root zone.

And this is something you're going to have to stay on top of using again and again throughout the season.

And make sure, I don't want people to think that it's specific to grasses.

It's gonna try to kill anything that it touches, so if you accidentally get some on your vegetables that are in that area, you know, that could have detrimental effects for those as well.

And the same goes for broadleaf weeds.

- Do you think that would change your soil pH, putting... - No, because we're not drenching the soil, so what you're trying to do is apply that to the leaf surface to the point of runoff.

- Okay.

- Right?

- So don't soak your soil?

- No.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- It's gonna be a lot of work, you know, and I would still recommend using cardboard if at all possible.

- Oh definitely.

- Just layer up the cardboard.

- Wet it down.

- Wet it down a little bit, put some mulch on top of it, or some soil, right?

And you know, to me that's an organic method, or organic means to controlling those grasses.

- Put something weighted on top of it to kind of keep it in place.

- I would still consider that.

- Layer the blocks out the sun completely, it's a lot more effective than just using mulch, because the plants like to just come up through mulch, and they'll just say thank you for that extra layer [Chris and Celeste chuckle] to keep me moist.

But yeah, cardboard will help.

[gentle country music] - "When is the best time to put down fescue seed?"

And this is Dennis in Ketchum, Oklahoma.

So Dennis, we just happen to have somebody here who's a little expert turf grass.

Talk to us, Joseph.

- Fall.

- Fall, okay.

- Fall.

Fescue thrives between temperatures of 60 and 70 degrees, so definitely fall.

- Definitely fall's the time to do that.

And why do we need to do that in the fall?

- Coming out of summer, our fescues are typically, you know, beat up, a little rough, brown, some of it has probably died a little bit and slushed off, so you've got some open areas, maybe you got some weeds coming in too.

So in the fall time, we want to do a core aeration, that opens up the canopy, the soil can get compacted, so it relieves compaction, opens the canopy up a little bit, so when you go into seed, it makes good soil contact, the seed does, and it just has a good space for it.

And then, as it starts coming up, those seedlings start coming up, then it fills in those holes where you may have lost some of the fescue because of the heat during the summertime.

[gentle country music] - "We've got 10 crape myrtles that are about 10 years old.

"About five years ago, "they all started getting this moldy-looking stuff.

"What is it?

How do we get rid of it?"

This is John and Judy.

They also want to know if it is hurting their tree.

So, this is a typical question that we get.

So, first question, what is it?

- Well, this is lichen, what we're looking at in this picture.

And fortunately, lichen are not parasitic, so they are not feeding on that plant.

They're opportunistic.

They will grow, they will attach to and start to grow on even structures that aren't even alive, so rocks, fence posts- - [chuckles] Yeah, I've seen it everywhere.

- You know, et cetera, et cetera.

So, conditions that are favorable for lichen to develop are, you know, usually shade conditions, moisture.

So you know, that makes me wonder, are the crape myrtles getting a lot of shade?

Are they maybe getting irrigation from the landscape that's spraying onto the trunks over and over?

I've seen that in a landscape before, where lichen is only growing on the side of this tree where it's receiving routine irrigation.

So, you know, a lot of different things to think about there, but it itself is not harmful to the tree.

It's not feeding on it, it's not stealing nutrients.

At this point, it's not blocking out any kind of photosynthesis, you know, interfering with leaves or anything like that.

So, the general recommendation is just to leave it.

- Just to leave it, okay.

- And sometimes you can actually cause more damage by trying to rake it off, brush it off, rake it off, than you would if you just left it, because then you could disturb that bark area and create open wounds.

- Right, which causes more stress- - Right.

- To the plant itself.

- And then maybe you get an actual pathogen that enters through that, or you know, an actual insect pest, something that could be physically detrimental to the plant.

But the lichen itself isn't hurting anything.

- The lichen isn't hurting it, it's just hanging out in the sun.

It's sunbathing, you know, is pretty much all it's doing.

- Just hanging out.

- Right.

So it could be, to your point of thinning canopy or something like that, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- So if you need to open it up, you might need to do some pruning or whatnot, but it's not harming the tree, it's not the killer.

- I know, but I know that people don't like looking at it oftentimes.

And so it's a tough spot, right?

- It is, it is.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Just one of those oddities of nature, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay.

[gentle country music] "How do you propagate a climbing rose from a cutting?

What time of year would be best?"

And this is Marty from Memphis, Tennessee.

So can we help Marty out, right here in our area?

- Yeah, sure.

You want to cut them, the best time of year to take a cutting is in the fall.

- It's in the fall, okay, got it.

- And you're gonna cut about six, eight inches down, you're gonna cut it at an angle, you're gonna remove the leaves except for the top, you're gonna kind of scrape the bottom part of it.

Sometimes people will just smash it with a hammer, I've seen all sorts of things done.

- I have too.

- And put some rooting powder on it, put it in a nice moist place in a little pot with some moist soil.

And then what I would do is, after I water it, I would put a plastic baggie over it to kind of create a greenhouse effect and keep that real moist soil there.

- I got it, okay.

- And it will take two months for that to root.

- Wow.

- I have a better idea.

- You got a better idea than that?

- A better idea.

- That's a pretty big deal, okay, let's hear your idea.

- During the growing season, just take one of the stems, or two or three of them, let them lay on the ground, kind of scrape around them and put some rooting powder on it, dig a small shallow hole, bury them in it, put a stone or a brick over it, and it will root.

- It will root.

- You got to keep it moist though, but it will root.

- And that's during the growing season?

- During the growing season.

That's what happens naturally anyway.

Sometimes, you know, they'll fall over, and then they'll get leaf matter, and the next thing you know, you've got a rooted rose right there.

- How about that?

So after you laid a brick on it, right, it produces another plant, so you could just cut that off and plant it somewhere else?

- Yeah, and then dig it up and plant it wherever you want it, yes.

- And that will work?

- It works, yeah.

So either of those will work.

- So either those will work.

So let me ask you this, do you have to use the rooting hormone?

- You don't even have to- - Is it necessary?

- But I like to do that to ensure that it has the nutrients and the hormones that it needs to initiate root growth.

- Okay.

- I like it, it's like the insurance of it.

But no, you don't have to.

- You don't have to, okay.

- But you have more success if you do.

- I just wondered, okay.

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, and thanks for the questions.

We love getting them.

To get more information on anything we talked about today, go to our website, familyplotgarden.com, or you can visit our YouTube channel, @FamilyPlotGarden, where we have tons of gardening videos just waiting for you.

Thanks for watching, 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]