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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Raised beds are a great way to garden, and you can make them out of many different materials.

Today, we're going to look at some of the most popular.

Also, we're gonna talk about the best trees for fall color.

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 Jim Crowder.

Jim is our local horticulturist, and Joellen Dimond will be joining me later.

Always good to have you, Mr.

Jim.

- Always glad to be here, thank you, Chris.

- Raised beds are popular.

- Yes.

- Right?

What are some popular materials to construct raised beds?

- Okay.

Well, let's start with one of the cheapest is just landscape timbers or wood.

You know, they're treated, and you don't have to worry about the treatment.

Everything in there now is not gonna be dangerous.

You used to have the arsenic issue, that's gone.

So the treated is good.

It helps control your soil temperature better than most materials, because as that wood heats up, it doesn't transfer as much heat into the soil.

So around the edges, particularly in weather like we've had here this summer, that can be a good thing.

The downside is they're difficult to move if you need one.

You got to disassemble it, you know, and you're having to drive stakes probably through the timbers.

So they're difficult to build, and they're heavy if you have to move them intact.

But they're gonna give you many, many years.

Now, eventually, they will even begin to rot out.

- Sure.

So how many years would you say with treated wood?

- I think easily, you can get 10 to 12.

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah.

And probably more, you know?

So it's an inexpensive way to build a bed.

- Okay.

- And you can build it, cut them to build them to the size that you need, narrow so that you can reach it from each side.

- Sure.

- And use as many of them as you need to.

- What's a good size, you think?

- Well, I like a 4-by-8 or 4-by-16.

That, to me, is a good size.

You know, we often see people overplant them, but you know, to me, that's a good size for being able to reach on each side of them to get them.

So wood is a good product.

That's inexpensive.

There are a number of metal options out there.

These are the silver ones that look like, let's start with that one, that looks like a horse trough.

- Yes.

- You know?

That you can fill up with soil.

The downside of those, I think, mostly is the heat because they get quite hot.

And I usually recommend, when we're having temperatures 90 plus, to wrap the outside of it with something white.

- Really?

- Yes.

Use white plastic.

- Never heard that.

- Use frost cloth, an old shower curtain, whatever you got that will reflect heat off of that and help control that soil temperature right next to it, because the roots of your plants seek that outside, because initially, it's warmer.

The roots grow out there, then grow down.

And so they're all right along that metal, and you can get some serious root damage there in temperatures like we're having now where the heat index is like 115 or so.

So, you know, I try to limit that.

Now, there's some decorative metals that you can use that are really pretty.

They look nice in the bed.

The watering trough, to me, doesn't look the best in a home garden environment, you know?

If you've got a farm, I think it's great.

- Yeah, yeah.

[laughs] - I like something a little more decorative.

- Okay.

- So there are some beautiful metal ones that are painted light color that will give you many years.

And they're lightweight, should you have to move it, remove the dirt.

So I think they're a real good option.

They're pricey, okay?

So, you know, if you're figuring your costs on your tomatoes, it's not gonna get down for a couple years.

- Right, right, right.

- But they are very attractive in the garden, okay?

So, you know, I like those that are painted in a lighter color so we reflect that heat.

- That's something I don't think most people realize.

- Most people don't think about that.

- I didn't think about that.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- You know, roots grow to the outside of a pot because it's warmer there.

That's why we have black nursery pots.

- Right.

- So it absorbs heat during the spring.

- Wow, that is good.

- And then, of course, you got concrete.

Concrete blocks, which are very inexpensive, easy to move, you know, you've got to put some support in them if you're going very high 'cause your soil's gonna get heavy.

It's gonna wanna push them out.

So what I usually do is I get these little two-foot pieces of rebar.

And about every third brick, I'll just drive some down in there.

And it gets down to the soil about that, but it keeps the pressure from really wet soil from pushing against those concrete blocks.

- Okay.

- And they're very inexpensive.

So, you know, they're $1.50 a piece or something like that.

So it makes a good bed.

And like I say, you can change the shape of it if you're not happy with it.

You can move it around and take it apart.

So concrete, I think, is real good.

And I like the fact that it's a light color.

And there are lightweight concrete blocks.

You can get some that I can't pick up, but a lot of these now, you know, are very lightweight, so it's easy to use.

- Right.

- And then also, I like the decorative, you know?

If you're doing a vegetable bed, typically you want the sides to be universal all the way around it.

But when I'm building a, and in fact, I include some pictures here.

- Yeah.

- When I build a bed for flowers, I like it tiered so that it's lower in the front and higher in the back.

And there's a couple of reasons for that.

One, it displays well.

But also, I can plant in the back things that have deeper root systems, you know?

And in my particular bed, I have a lot of native azaleas planted around the back of it 'cause they need 18, 24 inches of soil.

Up in the front, I got a lot of sedums and plants that don't need that deep of root system.

- Okay.

- So, you know, you can tier that and make a really good-looking bed.

And of course, I'm one of those people that plants anything where there's a hole.

So there's some height everywhere, but it makes for a nice-looking display, I think.

- Right.

- And these blocks are, you know, they're under two bucks a piece too.

You know?

- Okay.

Inexpensive, okay.

- Yeah.

But it makes a really good bed, okay.

For a long period of time.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

Let's talk about some others, right, that I've seen in the landscape.

I've seen tires, wheelbarrows and things like that.

Are there some others out there that you've noticed that people are using as raised?

- There are a lot of people that have used tires and some of the unusual things like that.

It's a personal preference, you know?

- Yeah.

- Old tires in my yard are probably not something that I really wanna look at, you know?

But you can make a nice little bed by stacking three or four tires and filling it full of soil and grow a tomato plant in it.

- Yeah.

- You know, it's inexpensive, and find the tires usually alongside the road.

- Yeah, yeah.

Right, right, right.

And like I said, I've seen wheelbarrow.

I've seen somebody use a wheelbarrow, but- - Yeah, one of the things is the amount of soil mass that you've got.

You've got to be careful there because I see people plant, you know, they'll get the 10-gallon pot and they'll put a tomato plant in it.

Well, it's fine when it's, you know, under two feet tall.

But once it gets to six feet, it's as filled that root ball.

And it's so thick that when you water it, water's gonna run around the outside.

- Right, okay.

- So you've gotta put some holes in there.

And if you're gonna do that, you'll drive a stake or a long screwdriver down there and open up some holes so that you make sure water's flowing into that.

But really, it really needed to be in a 15 or 20-gallon-size pot.

- Okay, I gotcha.

- So to get the most root mass, soil mass for the plant is really important.

You know, otherwise, you're gonna have an underperforming plant.

- Right, which goes to this point, right?

We're talking about raised beds, of course, right?

But what are we putting in the raised bed?

We're talking about the soil.

So the soil is important, right?

- The soil is important.

- Right.

- If you're growing vegetables- - Okay.

- There are some places around town that will blend the soil to your recommendations.

- Okay.

- And so I like to use those, and I've used them many, many times and had them blend it to what I was growing.

- Okay, okay, that's good.

- If you're using vegetables, I'd want to use screened soil, somewhere around 40 to 50% clay.

And then incorporate pine fines.

- Okay.

- Cotton burr compost, manure, you know?

Any sort of organic matter in that.

If you don't have the clay, you don't have much for nutrients to hang onto.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So when you water, most everything goes right at the bottom.

So the more clay you use, the better off you're gonna be.

- Right.

- You know, if you can stand looking at it, go 70% clay.

And incorporate that.

- Okay.

- And just leaf mold.

Anything that you can put in there to help loosen it, 'cause what you're doing, you're making spaces, one, for your microbes to have some organic matter to feed on.

But you've also broken up that soil, and that gives pathways for those very tiny roots that you can't hardly see.

They're going through there around every little tiny piece of soil.

So the loose soil, the clay is really good for water retention, for nutrient retention.

You know, farmers been using it for years quite successfully.

- Yeah.

- You know?

So to me, clay is the most important thing.

Now, when you're growing flowers- - Okay.

- It's a little different.

- I do a soil blend that had about 25% clay.

I used about 50% bark fines and then leaf mold, okay?

And it makes a good thing for annuals, perennials, like that, 'cause as it breaks down, the particles get smaller and it actually improves the texture of the soil.

Your soil gets better, you know?

And that's not something that you really want for vegetables because the smaller those particle sizes get, the harder it is for those roots to develop.

So it's kind of a different thing.

And you know, the looser the soil, the deeper the roots are gonna go.

You know, here in our clay soil, you've seen these big trees fall over.

They take about this much soil with them, you know?

Roots just don't go deep in our clay soil.

So, you know, and if you're growing something that's not native to this area, like many of the deciduous azaleas that need a deeper root system, then I like the looser soil with some clay to hang onto nutrients.

But it needs to be a little bit looser than what we traditionally grow vegetables in.

Yeah.

- Oh, Mr.

Jim, that's a good lesson.

The soil is important.

- Absolutely.

- Don't curse the clay.

We actually need it.

Thank you, Mr.

Jim, that was good.

- Glad to do it.

- Appreciate that.

[upbeat country music] - We're looking at a planting of Peachie's Pick Stokes' aster.

This is a beautiful sun-loving perennial that is native for us here in Tennessee.

It loves dry conditions.

Once established in a home garden is going to be drought resistant.

And you can see here it's just thriving in this full sun, direct heat positioning in the garden.

This is a perennial, so you can rely on it to come back year after year.

It does have a pretty compact clumping growth habit.

I love the structure of its bloom.

It's just really unique.

And even this color is pretty unique.

This kind of lavender light blue color.

It doesn't have any particular special care requirements as far as nutrients.

It does fairly well in average to moderate soil conditions.

And it doesn't have any severe insects or diseases to be concerned with.

I don't know if you can see, but there are small, beneficial pollinators all over this planting.

They're feeding right there at the center of these pompoms where all those nectar and pollen sources are.

So definitely a great supporter for pollinators in a home garden.

[upbeat country music] - Fall is near, believe it or not.

- Yes.

- How about that?

So let's talk about trees and fall foliage.

- Right, yeah, and you know what?

Late fall and winter is the best time to plant a tree when it's dormant.

- Okay.

- So this is timely.

So you can think about you want a good fall foliage tree in your yard.

You can plan now and pick some that are gonna be nice and pretty in the fall.

- Okay.

- Now, the first thing that I think of when you think of fall foliage here in the Mid-South- - Let me see.

- Ginkgo trees.

- Ginkgoes, there you go.

- Bright, brilliant yellow.

Just shine in the landscape.

- Right.

- So that's an excellent city tree to pick.

It will get big, but it withstands city pollution of the city and it's slow growing, so it will last a long time.

- Okay, you just have to know which one to get, right?

- Yes, now you do need to make sure you're getting a male.

- Yeah, get a male.

Right?

[laughs] - Yes.

A male clone of that.

And you'll be just fine.

Usually don't sale anything but male clones now, so that usually isn't too much of a problem.

Some native trees, dogwood.

Cornus florida.

They have beautiful red foliage in the fall.

- Okay.

- And then, of course, the maples.

I mean, any kind of maple you can think of is gonna have good fall color.

I know one that everybody really likes is the red maple.

Gorgeous.

Some of the new varieties like Autumn Blaze and Autumn Glory and it's all beautiful.

But, caution with red maples.

This ambrosia beetle seems to like to attack them.

So if you really want a nice red maple, you might wanna consider putting some insecticide regularly throughout the summer season on the trunk to try to keep the ambrosia beetles from getting them.

- Okay.

- And just keep it really healthy.

The healthier you keep it, the more the trunk is gonna not allow an insect to invade it, so- - Okay, that's a good point.

- That's a good one.

And I know they all like sun, but maples in this area are kind of understory.

So if you can get some shade sometime in the afternoon, that would be good from other places, from another tree.

It would like some shade.

- Okay.

- So that will help that.

- All right.

- Other native trees?

Sweet gum.

- Sweet gum.

I love 'em.

- Gorgeous.

You can have purple, red, and yellow all on the same tree.

It's gorgeous.

- I love it.

- Now, there are some varieties that don't have the little gumballs on them, but, you know, that capsule is the way it reproduces.

And you can make decorations out of them if you want to.

[Chris laughs] Or put the tree in an area that you don't mind all of the balls on the ground.

- Right, they could be a hazard.

Yeah, I can remember as a kid, you know, my dad had a bunch in his backyard.

We used to throw them at each other.

[laughs] I remember that.

- I remember making decorations out of them.

- Yeah, like sweet gum though.

I love the fall colors, I sure do.

- And it's a very hardy tree around here.

It doesn't get a whole lot of problems with pests or diseases, so it's a great tree for us.

Nyssa sylvatica, the black gums, or black tupelo, whichever common name you would like to call it.

Beautiful, and there's some really neat varieties of that out now that are really, really brilliant.

And, of course, that is another, like the ginkgo, a very slow-growing tree.

- Okay.

- So, yeah, that's a good choice for the homeowner.

- Okay.

- Oxydendrum arboreum, the sourwood tree, that's a short tree.

And a lot of people make hedges out of that one 'cause it's so small.

But it needs sun.

- Okay.

- And it blooms in the spring.

So it's got great fall color and it blooms in the spring.

So that's a good one.

Then there's the oak trees.

Now, some oak trees are better than others.

Scarlet oak is good.

And the northern red oak is good.

But the northern red oak does like, just like the maples, likes to have some- - Oh, shade.

- Some shade in the afternoon.

So it's not completely in sun all day long.

It will do a lot better that way.

And give you some nice, brilliant red fall foliage color.

- Okay.

- Very nice.

Sassafras.

That's one that we have around here.

And it turns a beautiful, sometimes it's yellow, sometimes it's red, gorgeous, gorgeous orange, you know, all kinds of colors with the Sassafras.

And it's a smaller tree.

Well, it can get big, but that would be a good one to have.

- You make tea out of it, too.

- You can make tea out of it- - There you go.

- There you go, see?

- There you go.

- And of course, kids love the different shapes.

- Yeah, the leaves.

I like that too.

- Little mitten-shaped.

- Yeah.

- Mitten-shaped leaves, yeah.

Those are nice.

And one thing that people don't think about is bald cypress.

Bald cypress makes a very nice fall foliage, very russet, think of all those feathery foliage turning completely russet before it falls on the ground and beautiful tree.

- That's a good one.

- Good, good tree for the city.

And some things that are less thought about.

- Okay.

- The katsura tree.

Japanese katsura tree.

We're about the southern range of it, but it has beautiful fall color.

Yellows and reds and oranges.

Really pretty.

Another one that would be good for homeowners is the Hamamelis, or the witch hazel trees.

- Okay.

- And Chinese especially, 'cause that's a smaller tree.

And it is a small tree, but it has gorgeous yellow fall foliage colors.

So that would be a good one.

And it would fit into almost any yard somewhere.

But it is a small tree.

One that a lot of people don't think about is the Persian ironwood.

And you probably have never even heard of the Persian ironwood.

It is a very hardy tree and has great yellow fall foliage color.

It withstands a lot of drought, and it has blooms in the spring.

And so a lot of people, that is a highly recommended one that nobody seems to know about.

- For this area?

- For this area.

Yeah, it does very well.

- I'm not familiar with that.

- Never heard of it.

- Yeah, very nice.

And then another one that a lot of people haven't heard about is the Chinese pistache tree.

- That I have.

- Okay.

- It gets fairly large, so you're gonna have to give it some area.

It's got beautiful red, orange foliage color in the fall.

So those are some of my favorite ones and some of them that are very popular and easy, easy to find around here.

- Oh, easy to find, okay.

And you said this would be the right time of year to get them in the ground.

- Yes.

It's the right year to think about it.

And then this fall, you know, when the leaves start dropping off the trees, go to your local nursery and see if you can find one of these to plant in your yard.

So you'll have good fall foliage this next year.

- Thanks, Ms.

Joellen, that was good stuff.

Again, your favorite trees for fall foliage.

- My favorite trees.

- How about that?

Good stuff, thank you.

[upbeat country music] - It's important that when you're growing cucumbers, you pick them at the right time.

So I have a cucumber right here, which is obviously too small to pick.

There's another cucumber right here, I'm gonna pick, which is, we've let it go too long.

So this cucumber is probably going to be bitter.

It's probably gonna have big seeds, and it's not gonna be very good to eat.

Now, you wanna scout every day or two on your plants to make sure that you pick the cucumbers at about the right size.

So here I have one that is just about the right size for this variety.

And this will make a very good cucumber to eat or put on your salad or even to pickle.

Different cucumber varieties have different lengths that you wanna pick them at.

So these tend to be skinny.

The ones over on this side tend to be a lot fatter when they're ready and shorter.

So just kind of early on in the spring, a little trial and error, see when the best time is to pick the cucumber to eat it.

But for cucumbers, bigger is not always better.

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

Y'all ready?

- Ready, sir.

- All right, these are some excellent questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"What chewed the root on my new peach tree?

It fell over."

And this is Elizabeth from Haynes, Arkansas.

She says the roots were chewed to a nub, Peter, to a nub.

Do we know what did that?

- Yes, yes, we do.

- I think we do.

- And I'll tell you, it was delicious.

[all laughing] At least that's what the voles thought.

- Yeah, yeah, right, yeah.

- So that's voles.

They came in.

- Yeah.

- It might've been over the winter, probably was.

They just, they went in and they ate the roots.

- Yeah.

- 'Cause they like that.

- To a nub.

- Yeah.

And they eat it up, and the next time, you know, once they've eaten all those roots out, the next time you get a little bit of wind, pfft.

There goes your tree- - Timber.

- Yeah, and so they're hard.

- Yeah.

- They're hard to get rid of.

They're, you know, essentially small-tailed or very small-tailed mice.

- Yeah.

- And they like to hide.

And so if you have a lot of mulch around the tree, that's a perfect place for them to live and hide while they're eating the roots of your tree.

- Yeah.

- So one of the big pieces of advice is, you know, if you mulch around your tree, which is a good thing to do, we want you to mulch around your tree because that keeps your lawnmowers away, keeps a little bit moister there during the summer, a little cooler.

Make sure that you pull the mulch away from the trunk a little bit so that the voles would have to go out in the open to get to where they wanna eat.

That will help discourage them a little bit.

You can do traps, baits.

- Yeah.

- You know.

[laughs] - Voles are tough.

- They're hard.

Dogs, snakes.

- Yeah.

Voles are tough.

- Owls, anything like that.

But yes, they are tough.

They're very hard to take care of, but you know, denying them a place to hide will make them shy away from that area.

- I've had good success with the repellents that contain castor bean oil, okay?

They do a fairly good job.

Now, you wanna spray on that tree an eight-foot circle all the way around it.

So when they come into that, they smell it.

And it's a pretty good product for repelling moles and voles and skunks and anything that digs.

It irritates their nose.

And unless you get a real gully washer, it'll last 30 days or so.

- Really?

- And it's inexpensive.

For 20 bucks or so, you can do a quarter acre, you know?

It's pretty inexpensive.

But I've had real good success, particularly in my raised beds, with spraying it with the castor bean oil.

- Wow.

Yeah, voles, field mice.

Probably pine voles.

- Yes.

- You know what those are.

I will say this.

Henry Jones, Jones Orchard, will tell you that voles, huge orchard pests.

Number one pests he has problems with, voles, especially fruit trees.

Yeah.

So we like the fruit.

They like the roots.

- Yeah.

- How about that?

Thank you for that question, Elizabeth.

We appreciate that.

Here's our next viewer email.

"What is this vine I recently noticed growing in my muscadine in a nearby shrub?"

And this is Jesse from Lakeland, Tennessee.

Thank you for the picture, too.

So Jesse, so what do you think that is?

- It is Carolina moonseed.

- Moonseed.

- Yeah.

Sometimes called Carolina snail vine.

- Yeah, I've heard about that.

- It's a native vine.

Typically, in home gardens, we see it get ten, twelve, fifteen feet tall.

It can get twice that in the wild.

We see it rolling up into trees.

- Yeah.

- It produces a cluster of beautiful red berries in the fall, which cardinals are particularly fond of.

But they are toxic to humans, so don't eat them.

- Yeah.

- Don't eat them.

- Keep them away from pets and children and things like that.

But it is a native vine, and you can watch it grow.

[laughs] It really is very aggressive.

- Man, it's very aggressive, yeah.

It has to, yeah, almost triangular-shaped leaves.

- Right.

- Yeah, with the alternate leaf arrangement.

What if you need to get rid of it, Peter?

I mean, could you help Jesse out with that if you wanna get rid of it?

- Yeah, so it's in and through your plant.

So you can't spray anything on it 'cause you don't wanna affect your muscadines.

So probably, what I would do is I'd go back in, if you can get to the base of it, and figure out where it's going into the ground, cut it off at the base and just paint some herbicide, glyphosate or triclopyr, on the cut area.

And that should go down into the roots and kill it.

Probably if you do it in the fall, you'd have the best luck with that 'cause the plant is naturally pulling stuff down.

If you can't get to the base, then I would wipe a concentrated herbicide on the leaves.

You know, wear a rubber glove, do a little piece of sponge or paintbrush, just dip it in the concentrated herbicide, glyphosate or triclopyr, and just paint it on the leaf.

And just same thing in the fall, you'll be more successful.

It'll pull it down.

I don't know how, if you paint it on as a possibility, you may need to do that several times to actually kill it out but, you know, if you can get down to the base and cut it and paint it, you're probably gonna get it in one go.

- That's what it is, it is aggressive.

- It is.

- It is aggressive.

And so, Jesse, so be careful.

All right, thank you for the question.

And again, for the pictures.

Nice picture, appreciate that.

All right, Mr.

Jim.

Peter, fun as always.

- Always.

- Thank you so much.

- Really enjoyed it.

- Fun always.

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.

We are always talking about Extension of the show.

That's because every county in the country has local Extension agents who are there to answer your questions and give gardening advice for your area.

I'm one for Shelby County, Tennessee.

The best part about Extension?

This service is free.

Look them up online and give them a call.

They'll love to hear from you and answer your questions.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]