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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Daffodils and tulips are early heralds of spring.

Today, we're gonna talk about how to get the most from your spring-blooming bulbs.

Also, summer birds fly south for the winter, but other birds fly in to stay the winter.

We'll talk about how to attract them to your yard.

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 Joellen Dimond.

Joellen is the Director of Landscape at the University of Memphis, and Ms. Debbie Bruce will be joining me later.

All right, Joellen.

We're talking about those spring-blooming plants, right?

- Yes.

- Tulips, right.

So is this the appropriate time to talk about them?

- Yes, it is.

- Okay.

- Tulips happen to be the most popular spring bulb that is out there.

Everybody, when you think of spring, you think of tulips.

And so yes, and think about it.

They are bright and showy and a definite color contrast to what is going on in the winter.

So, it's a good welcoming of spring.

So, let's talk a little bit about them, and it is time to plant them now because of two reasons.

They need cold for a bio-reaction, biochemical reaction inside the bulb that will initiate a flower bloom to come up when the temperature gets warm.

- How 'bout that?

- And the second reason why you need cold temperatures is cold temperatures also initiate root growth of the bulb, then the bulb can start taking up water and nutrients to transform into a plant, and then ultimately the flower that blooms.

So, the cold is needed for those two reasons.

- We need the cold weather, huh?

- Yeah.

- How 'bout that?

- Cold reasons for that.

Now, as much as we love tulips, guess what else loves tulips?

- Probably deer, right?

- Deer and what else?

- And those other rodents that are out there.

- Rodents.

Oh yeah.

You know, it's so that, kinda makes it just this just very exotic, very desirable plant, because everybody likes it, including the animals, and I've heard some people say that the deer will wait just until they start blooming and then eat them like candies.

So, you know, it's a problem, but you can protect them.

Now, my dad made cages like this to bury in the ground and put soil in and plant the tulips in here and then finish wiring it back down, and this kept the rodents from eating them.

Now, it didn't help for deer, but we didn't have a deer problem, but we also had a rodent problem, but if I had a deer problem, you could take like chicken wire and make a dome over them for when they bloom.

So, that could help with both of those.

Or you can plant them like I do in containers near my house, and deer and rodents don't get into the containers.

So, you can try that.

But... - But?

[laughs] - There are other bulbs that you can use.

- So, there are options.

- There are options.

- Other options, okay.

- There's some bulbs that deer do not like, and those are crocus, hyacinths, and muscari.

The deer don't like those, but the rodents can like those also, but some that are both deer- and rodent-resistant are alliums, the onions, of course, you know, they don't want to eat onions.

There's the daffodils, the narcissus, the jonquils, you know, the 13 categories we've talked about before.

- Sure, I remember.

- Scilla, Camassia.

Camassia is actually a native to the Southwest US, and it kind of naturalizes.

- I didn't know that.

Okay.

- It's real pretty when it blooms.

So what do you do?

The whole United States has different zones, and so you've got to check in the zone that you're in and make sure you're buying bulbs that fit that zone.

We're here in Zone Seven.

So, Zones Five through Seven are probably the easiest zones to plant any kind of bulb in.

- Wow, easy?

- Yeah, because we can plant them in the ground in the fall, October to December, and have enough cold to initiate both the bloom and the roots and the plant growth to come up in the spring naturally.

So, we just plant them once.

We don't think about it again, and they come up and bloom in the spring.

So, that's the easiest, well, Zone Four and Zone Three also have bulbs that they can do that with, but there's less to choose from the colder it gets.

So, you've got to watch what zone you're in.

If you're on Three and Four, you got to watch which bulbs you buy.

But you can also put them in the refrigerator and take your bulbs and, get them in October, put them in the refrigerator, then you wait until the spring starts to thaw, and then the ground will still be cold enough that when you plant them in the ground, then they'll naturally come up and bloom.

But when you put them in the refrigerator, you've got to watch for the fruit you have in the refrigerator, especially apples because they give off ethylene.

- Ethylene gas.

- And that will damage the bulbs from both rooting and blooming.

So, you gotta make sure you watch that.

- Wouldn't have thought about that, okay.

- Yeah, so that's Zone Three through Seven.

Now we get into Zone Eight, and Zone Eight, it's an iffy thing.

Tulips, especially, other bulbs, there are bulbs that are zoned that way that they can just plant in the ground directly and they will come up.

But tulips, no, you have to have a cold treatment for tulips.

So, in Zone Eight, you put your tulips in the refrigerator.

Again, start in October, and then they'll have their 12 to 14 weeks of cold to initiate the bloom, but the ground will be cold in January, but most likely will not be frozen in Zone Eight, so they can go ahead and plant them in the ground and that will initiate the roots and then they can grow naturally come up.

Well, now Zones Nine and Ten.

Nine and Ten does not have enough cold temperatures to do either of those things, so basically you need to treat them like annuals and you can buy them, you put them in a pot with some soil, put a plastic bag over them, make sure it's watered, and put them in your refrigerator and then bring them out in the spring if you want to plant them or any time, and then they'll bloom within four to six weeks.

So, they kind of use those as annuals.

That's about the only way Zones 9 and 10, Zones 9 and 10 can grow bulbs is if they put them inside and use them as an annual and have them in containers.

- Wow.

That was pretty good.

Yeah, you ran the gamut on those zones.

I like that.

- There's something to do in each different zone.

Now, it doesn't matter, you can force bulbs anytime of the year you want, especially when they're available in the fall.

And my mother taught me this.

She took a can, just a vegetable can.

She took a plastic bag, a rubber band, a hyacinth bulb, and she would plant it in here.

- So, you don't have to put that much soil in there.

- No, just a little bit of so for the roots, then you get enough soil in here... - So, we cover it up.

- To cover the top.

You leave a little bit of space.

You make sure you water this.

Now it doesn't have any drainage, so just make sure it's watered so it's wet.

Then you put your plastic bag over it, and your rubber band, and you'd have your little greenhouse.

- It's a mini greenhouse.

- Mini greenhouse, and you put this in the refrigerator.

October is a good time to do that, November, you can do this, and then give it 12 to 14 weeks and bring it out, and you can give it as gifts.

She used to you'd do this for Valentine's Day.

So you take it out about four weeks before you want it to bloom and give it to somebody, and there's a gift.

- How about that, Mom?

That's pretty good, pretty good.

Now, I'm gonna ask you this question.

Which way does the bulb go down?

- Oh yeah.

- You usually get that question, right?

- We do get that question a lot.

Here, we'll unfurrow him and look at it.

- Yeah, how do we orientate that bulb there?

- See this back down here?

This is where the roots are down here, and the pointed top is where the stem comes out, So, you're going to plant that down in the container like this, and bury it.

- And bury it.

- Yeah.

- Mini greenhouse.

I like that.

- Mini greenhouse.

- Wow, and that actually does work.

How 'bout that?

- It works really well.

- All right.

Joellen, we appreciate that demonstration.

We appreciate that good information about tulips as well.

Deer'll eat just about anything, huh?

- They do.

- Glad to know there's some bulbs that you can plant that are deer-resistant, so there are some.

- There are quite a few.

- Right, so thank you again.

- You're welcome.

[gentle country music] - We're here with one of the fun elements of our home gardens, which are volunteer plants.

This is a beautiful gourd which actually grew out of the compost pile, I believe.

And so it's gorgeous climbing the fence, but the question that it brings up is what exactly genetics does it have, right?

And so that brings the question of was this grown from a hybrid?

Was it cross-pollinated?

And so there are lots of times, especially with different kinds of vining crops in our garden, when we can actually get cross-pollination.

We could plant a hybrid seed that we know exactly what it is and it will come true that first year, but if we save that seed, if it's cross pollinated with something else, we may end up with something a little bit different the next few years.

So, seed saving can be fun, but we want to be sure that we know what pollinated it and what we're looking for for the second year.

[gentle country music] - All right, Ms. Debbie, let's talk a little bit about the kind of birds that we'll see in the winter.

- Okay.

Well, not only will we see our faithful residents like our cardinals, chickadees, tufted titmice, nuthatch, and on, but some of our winter residents are either on their way back or already here now.

Birds, such as your junco, many of your native sparrows, your sapsucker in the woodpecker family, okay?

And some of our winter warblers will be here, so it's a good time to start developing a refuge for your winter birds in your residence right now.

- Okay, yeah, we want folks to know that all the birds don't just leave.

- That's right.

- I mean, they're still hanging around.

Now, since they'll be hanging around, what do we need to feed them?

- Well, first of all, start out with a clean feeder.

- Okay, that makes sense.

- We like to drink out of clean glasses.

They like to eat out of clean utensils as well.

So, it's a good time before winter really sets in to clean your feeders, clean them with a hot water solution and with some soap, then rinse them with nine parts of water and one part of bleach, and that's going to kill any of the bacteria that's lingering in there.

Make sure your hardware systems are ready to go and your bird houses are cleaned out.

And then it's time to start filling up those feeders.

During the fall, we have a quieter time at the feeders, but when winter sets in, we have a lot of activity.

Birds will form their feeding flocks in numbers.

If one bird finds food, everybody's going to find food.

So, it's safety in numbers and good to have multiple eyes to find them, so you'll have more activity at the feeders.

And you want to feed seed predominantly.

Seed is going to be most of your seed-eating songbirds and birds are quite adept at finding food in nature.

So, before you even start to put your feeders out, when you're planting, think about things that are going to hold on to their fruits and their berries through the wintry months, such as your crab apples and your sumac, dogwoods, junipers, your viburnums, but it doesn't take long for all that to be depleted.

So, you can provide seed in loose seed and feeders such as this cylinder feeder or you can provide it in an open tray which is fun because it doesn't restrict anyone then on the tray.

You can provide seed such as your Nyjer seed mixed with crushed hearts of sunflower for your finches, or you can do compressed seed cylinders like this one here or this little guy over here.

- I think those are so neat.

- Aren't those fun?

And the birds really like 'em, and they're so easy to do, but what's really neat about it is the birds have to work at it, so it keeps your bird there longer so you can enjoy watching 'em.

Another type of food that you can provide for the birds would be suet, and suet is actually rendered fat.

We use beef fat in ours, and we want high calories.

But if you have trouble with squirrels, you want to go with the hot pepper.

- How 'bout that?

- Squirrels don't like it, mammals don't like it, but your birds will love it.

But you know, in nature, suet doesn't grow naturally like seeds do so, so one way to help the birds discover your suet feeder is frost it with peanut butter and put just a few seeds in it, and then they'll identify it as a food source pretty regularly.

- And the hot pepper doesn't bother the bird.

- The birds seem to love it.

Birds seem to love it, but if you are feeding the birds and you don't want to feed the squirrels, either go with the pepper suet, and we also have hot pepper seed cylinders that'll help.

Something else you can feed to the birds would be your mealworms.

Mealworms can be either fed as live or dried and a good place to place these would be in a feeder near your bird bath, because that way the the birds will find them pretty regularly as well.

And you might have a bowl of fruit on your counter at home you don't realize you could share with the birds, and that would be apples.

Cardinals love apples, red-belly woodpeckers, your mockingbirds.

Take an apple and slice it or half it and put it on a feeder and watch what happens there.

- Didn't know that, okay.

- Yeah.

- All right.

So, what about water?

- Water is so important.

You know, when it's 95 degrees out, folks will think, oh, I need to put the water out for the birds, and they tend to forget when it's 25 degrees.

But a clean bird is a warmer bird.

Plus they have to drink just as we do every day.

You can provide water in a dish, but when it's really freezing outside, then put a de-icer in it.

That's an electrical unit that's going to turn on when the water reaches below I think it's like 40 degrees, and it'll keep the water just de-iced.

It's not going to make it a hot tub but it'll keep it thawed out, because when you have frozen water everywhere and thirsty birds, you will not believe the activity you have on a bird bath with a de-icer in it.

- Yeah, I could see them enjoying that.

- They sure would.

- All right, now, while we have a little time left, let's talk about shelter.

- Shelter's important.

Landscape your yard for the birds in mind.

That's the time of year, in the winter, when the leaves are off the trees, so it's easy to be seen by predators.

So, if you don't have a thicket or shrubs or that nearby for the birds to go inside when a predator comes by, whether it be a hawk or maybe a cat, which shouldn't be outside to begin with, then you can make a brush pile.

If you're trimming those branches, or find branches that have fallen on the ground, make a pile of branches.

Or after Christmas, take a piece of rebar, stake it in the ground, and tie your Christmas tree to it after you discard it, and it'll be an area for the birds to get into.

Put it near your feeder.

It's a lot of fun, and you'll be surprised who will use it.

- I think Wes is amazed by that as well.

- It's a good idea.

- I didn't think about that, because everybody pretty much just throws them onto the curb.

- Well, wait till spring to throw it to the curb.

- Right, wait till the spring to do that, okay.

Wow, so again, some of those predators, hawks, and some cats.

Are there any other out there that people need to know about?

- As far as predators, during the day would be predominantly your hawks.

They're going to watch your bird feeder.

If you have a mourning dove sitting on here and a hawk nearby, your hawk will come in and grab the mourning dove.

And if there's somewhere, shelter nearby, where they can get to or where they can sit and wait for their turn at the feeder or the bath, that would help.

- Wow, Ms. Debbie, thank you for the good information.

- You're welcome.

You're welcome.

[upbeat country music] - One of the issues we have with some of the trees that grow together, when the limbs are close together, they have a tendency to rub.

See how the close proximity of these two branches are, or two leaders.

That is what we call included bark, and that's when the tree limbs as they grow they grow closer and closer together and the bark get's included.

It looks like it's grown together, but it really isn't.

And, inside there it will have a tendency to hold water, dirt, carpenter ants and different things like that.

That's what we call a v-crotch.

So, if you look up in the tree you'll see that there's a seam.

The seam goes all the way up to where the branches aren't touching.

That's your included bark.

The dark stain that you see there is where that water or moisture and dirt is starting to ooze out where it's building up at the top.

So, it comes down as that dark, dirty water like that.

If you follow my laser pointer, the green laser pointer, this section right here where you see where that seam is.

The bottom of, almost the bottom of where the included bark is, that is a great entrance hole for carpenter ants and other boring insects.

They make a home right up inside there.

It's perfect for them.

[upbeat country music] - All right, so here's our Q&A segment, you ready?

- I'm ready.

- These are great questions.

- Yes.

- All right, so let's go with the first viewer email.

"Six years ago, we stratified some apricot "and nectarine seeds and planted them.

"They have bloomed nicely the last few years "with beautiful blossoms, "but no signs of fruit yet.

"Will it ever bear fruit?

Thank you."

This is Andrew and Deb in Providence, Rhode Island.

- Wonderful.

- So how about that?

Isn't that cool?

- Yes, it is.

- Providence, Rhode Island.

All right.

So, will they ever bloom, is the question.

- Well, they're blooming, but they will fruit?

- Yeah, will they fruit, right.

- Correct, will they fruit.

You know, they got beautiful blooms on 'em, but I'm wondering if there's a pollination problem.

- Same thing I wondered.

- And I don't know exactly what the pollination problem could be.

Maybe it's this, you know, there's not enough pollinators in the area to naturally pollinate them.

Maybe they can go over and shake the shrub a little bit and see if the pollen can fall around on the others.

I don't know if the weather has caused it, you know, but it seems to be a pollination problem because apricots are self-pollinating, so that's not the problem.

He doesn't need another tree.

- And the same thing with nectarines.

- Right, true.

- They're actually self-pollinated.

- Yes, yes, so, you know, I would suggest in Rhode Island, the University of Rhode Island, I think, has a publication about stone crops and other fruits, which this is a stone crop, that they can reference to see if they've got any ideas and they could also call their local extension agent and see if they can come out and actually look at the trees and see if there's anything else that they can suggest.

- Right, I would agree with that, because again, we're not there, so we don't know the conditions.

- Right.

- Right?

And they can find their publication on familyplotgarden.com.

We'll have it on our website for them to see that.

But again, they just want to know will it ever bear fruit, so I want to make sure I get that clear.

So, yeah.

- Yeah.

It can, but there's something wrong, and so we've got to figure out what that is in more depth.

- Right, right, so we just think it needs to be pollinated.

Get those bees out there.

Please get more bees out there.

- Maybe they can start beekeeping.

- Maybe, get a beehive or something.

- And then they'd have enough pollinators to get fruit.

- Okay.

- All right, but we definitely think it's a pollination problem, Mr. Andrew and Ms. Deb.

So thank you much for that question.

Rhode Island.

Pretty cool.

All right.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Is this a beneficial bug?"

All right.

This is not a beneficial bug.

- Looks real mean, doesn't it?

- It does, it looks menacing.

This is actually a leaf-footed nymph, which will be a leaf footed bug at some point.

All right, and the reason why it's called leaf-footed is because on the back of its legs, it would have an attachment that looks like a leaf, which is why it's called leaf footed bug.

They are plant feeders.

They love fruits, vegetables, nuts, agronomic crops.

They have piercing, sucking mouth parts.

- Yeah, that's why sometimes on tomatoes or even green beans, cucumbers, there's little spots on them.

- Exactly, and same thing with your nuts, like your pecans and things like that.

So, they are a problem, so they are not a beneficial.

And what you would need to do is get rid of those weeds.

Course they like to hide out in the weeds.

Practice good sanitation.

Okay?

Because they're going to try to overwinter in crop debris.

So, leaf-footed nymph is what that is.

It does look menacing, but that was a great picture, I thought.

- It was a good picture.

- All right, so thank you for that question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Is it true that peppers like dry soil?"

And this is Carolyn from Oakland, Tennessee.

Interesting question, though.

Is it true that peppers like dry soil, dry?

- Not necessarily dry.

They like hot weather.

- Hot weather, yeah.

- But not necessarily dry soil.

In fact, dry soil can hinder fruit production.

Really, what you would like is a more even moisture without it being too wet.

Now, peppers do not like to be wet, so that's probably what she's thinking about.

So, maybe, you know, a little bit of drying before you water it again.

Make sure it really needs water, but if you can keep a nice even moisture, it would be the best.

- Yeah, I would agree with that.

Nice uniform watering would be good.

Yeah, you don't want dry soil.

Yeah, poor fruit set that you mentioned and those immature fruits can drop because of dry soil.

So, not dry soil.

Hot weather.

- Hot weather.

- Hot weather, not dry soil, Ms. Carolyn, so thank you for that question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"I found this plant growing in my flower garden.

"It has leaves like a corn stalk.

What is it?"

And this is Phyllis in Louisville, Kentucky.

How 'bout that?

Louisville, Kentucky.

So, nice picture, Ms. Phyllis, so we thank you for that.

So, but what is it?

It's not corn.

What is it?

- It's milo.

- It's milo, grain sorghum.

That is what that is, how 'bout that?

- Yeah, and you know, it could've come from a bird feeder, and I don't know if she feeds birds, so it could have come up from that, or it could have been a bird who ate some bird seed somewhere and then deposited in her yard, so.

- It definitely could be.

- It's probably from bird seed.

- Okay, yeah, the thing about milo is actually it's used to feed livestock.

I learned that from some of the Ag agents.

So, it's used to feed livestock.

It resembles corn.

It has as vegetative growth similar to that of corn, and it actually contains a lot of protein and fat which is why it's used for livestock feed.

- Wow.

- Right.

- Yeah.

- All right, so... - But the distinct top is what gives it away 'cause the seeds mature and that's what's dried and goes into feed.

- Exactly right.

I would keep it.

Would you?

- Yeah, I like it.

- I think it's pretty nice.

- It can dry, it'll get dried and then the birds can eat it.

- That's right, yeah.

So it has a use.

Well, there you go, Ms. Phyllis.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"I have black stripes on my green beans.

"What is this?

And can I still eat them?"

And this is Carrie from Bartlett, Tennessee.

So, what do you think?

- Well, you know, you see that they could see the actual seed inside the beans because there's lumps on them, so I'm wondering if it's the end of the season, you know, a little bit of environmental problems here and there.

And some of them are green, granted, but it might just be, you know, a tired plant, or an end of the season, or wait a little too long to pick or something like that.

Probably when she cooks them, they'll all turn green, but I don't see anything wrong with them.

What it is is like I said, I think it's just a little bit older, a little bit mature, end of the season type of problem, but... - I would still eat 'em.

- I would eat them.

- And I think you and I did talk about this, and you know I tend to think it may be just a marking that's variety-specific.

- It could be.

- There are some varieties that have, 'cause I'm thinking about the rattlesnake, you know, beans that have the little purplish looking markings on the pod.

So, it could be just a you know, marking of that variety.

- Could be.

- Could be.

- And again, when she cooks it, when they're the solid purple ones, when you cook them, they turn green.

So, it's still.

- I would eat 'em.

- I would eat them myself.

- I would eat them, Ms. Carrie, I would do that.

We thank you for the question.

All right, Joellen, that was fun.

- It was.

- Those were good questions.

It was fun, thank you.

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 joining us.

If you want to see how to plant bulbs or learn more about the 13 classes of daffodils, head on over to familyplotgarden.com.

We have videos on both of those plus more videos about attracting birds to your garden.

Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]