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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Azaleas give an impressive spring show of flowers.

Then it's time to prune.

Today, we're going to prune an azalea.

Also, we're talking about tree borers.

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 a horticulturist, and Frank Hale will be joining me later.

Hi there, Joellen.

- Hi.

- How you doing?

- I'm doing fine.

- Good.

So we're at your place looking at your beautiful azalea.

- Yes.

- We're gonna prune it.

- We're gonna prune this one, yeah.

- You ready?

- I'm ready.

- All right.

- This hasn't been pruned for two years.

- Okay.

- And you can see, it's almost as tall as I am.

But this is a George Tabor azalea, which they are large azaleas, but I like to keep it just under or at the fence row.

- You've done a good job.

- 'Cause I like to be able to see over it.

And you see how it's getting thin?

Pruning will help keep it more full.

The first thing I wanna do is take it down.

- Okay.

- And so I'm going to, again, you cut these at points of growth.

And you see this is a fairly new stem here.

And I want to take all of this off because it's gotten too large.

So I'm gonna go down, way down to where there's another stem coming out of it.

So I gotta go down even further to another point of growth.

And it looks like I've actually pruned it here before, so, - Yeah, it looks like it.

- So that's what I'm gonna take out.

All right, now this other one, this is another big one here, so I'm gonna do the same thing with it.

- Alright.

- Going down to another point of growth.

Okay, here's another one.

This is a very long branch, and look at all this extra growth on it.

- Right.

- I wanna take it back, take this back.

Now look, I wanna cut it off here, but there's a lot of other growth here.

I'm not gonna take this one off because it's going that way.

- Right.

- But these three here are smaller and they will, and on this fourth one here, they'll all branch out, and it'll grow if I cut this off.

So I'm gonna take this one.

- So you want to prune it, so it grows to the outside?

- I wanna prune this one because it's coming out too far that way.

- Yeah, okay.

- See now that makes these, - Right.

- Come here and then they'll break, - Gotcha.

- And keep growing.

- Yeah, you opened it up too.

That's pretty good, okay.

- Yeah.

And then this one here, even though it see it goes way out here, - Right.

- I don't wanna take the whole thing off, so I'm only gonna take a part of it off.

- It's almost like it's never been pruned.

- That's the whole idea.

- So as you continue pruning, when is the best time to prune in this area?

- After it finishes blooming.

- Okay.

- You have to let it finish, and you don't wanna wait too long.

June is the latest that I would prune.

May is better.

- Okay.

- But June would be the latest because what happens is the plant initiates its blooms for next year.

And you don't, you wanna cut it before that so it'll initiate blooms for the following year.

- Got it.

- So we'll continue with our tall things here and cutting them back.

- So you just kind of eyeball what you consider to be tall?

- Yeah, what I think is tall.

I think that's all too tall.

- Okay.

- And that looks, let me see, we get, - Yeah.

- The oak tree in here.

- That's interesting, yeah.

- That's good, now, this one here is tall.

And I would tend to take this whole thing back to another branch too, because it's just so large.

- Right.

- And then you kind of let it go and you say, "Hmm."

Yeah, the best thing with pruning is you have to stop and look at what you're doing.

- Right, right.

- And then you reassess what you want to do.

- Okay.

- And I see some, this azalea's gotten really, really long here.

I don't like this one, so I'm gonna take it back to here.

- Okay.

- See if that works.

Looks pretty good.

- It also increases the airflow, right?

- It increases airflow, and one thing with azaleas that we're trying to do is to be, for all the tips to get light, to have blooms on 'em, - Ah, I got you, okay.

- They need to be kind of in a pyramid shape.

- Ah, interesting.

- The bottom should be longer than the top.

So it's gonna be kind of an oval pyramid shape.

- Okay.

- That way all the leaves and the flowers can get light and produce flowers.

- That's good, that's good, okay.

- So this one here, I don't like this one, so we're gonna take-- - You don't like it.

- And there's a lot of stem going there.

- Yeah, there's a lot of stem on that one.

I'm gonna take that one off.

And the same with this one here.

Take that off.

- So can you also talk about the importance of having good pruners, you know?

- Oh.

- Make sure they're sharp.

- And sharp pruners.

Most things, I don't care what kind of pruners you have, but they should be sharp and oiled and take care of them.

So before, after I get done pruning, each time I will try, a day of pruning, I will try to sharpen them a little bit, put a little bit of oil on them, and clean them up, and make sure they're disinfected for the next time I go out to prune.

- 'Cause they're making good cuts.

That's for sure.

- I can really, this is just a little tall here.

I'm just gonna take a little bit off.

- Just a little bit.

Just a little snip.

- A little bit off.

And see that's starting to look nice, now.

I think, I don't like this little thing right here, and I don't like this one right here.

- Is it possible this was, you know, very large to cut too much of it off?

- Yeah, you could, and you just won't get blooms.

- Just won't get blooms, right, okay.

- So this is good.

I like this, I like the height.

- Okay.

- So I like now.

- Now at the fence level.

- About the fence level.

I like to be able to, and I don't mind it being big.

I just want it to have all the levels.

Like there's, this particular branch over here, I know you can't see it, but it's above a lower branch that's in.

So I wanna take it back so that the lower branch gets some light.

- Okay.

- And take it off.

All right, so this poor branch is coming over all of these, under, branches under here, so I want it to get more light.

So I'm gonna take some of this off and what I will do is I'm gonna start here and cut it right here.

And you see these two, these small branches?

- Yeah.

- These will break and they'll fill in this way and this way around where I'm gonna cut this.

And then it'll let more light also to the - Yeah.

- Branches underneath.

- Again, almost like it wasn't pruned.

- Mmm-hmm.

- That's good.

- Yeah.

- So Joellen, this just takes practice, right?

Just a little practice?

- Just practice and stopping and looking.

- Right.

- That's all I do is stop and look.

I do need to get it away from the fence.

- Yeah.

- And again, I'm not taking a whole lot, I just wanna keep it away from the fence.

Taking it back to points of growth.

- Now there's no need to fertilize once you finish pruning, right?

- If you are going to fertilize it, after it's pruned is the best time to fertilize it.

- After, okay.

- Some people do, I don't.

I might actually put some slow-release fertilizer, not, you know, special azalea fertilizer.

I might put some slow-release fertilizer on it this year, because it's been struggling last couple of years because of the freezes.

- Right, gotcha.

- But other than that, I do not fertilize it.

- Right, gotcha.

I think you just about got it.

- Yeah, I don't, like I said, I don't wanna do a whole lot.

And if it's just away from the fence, that's good enough for air movement through there.

- Yeah.

- Now that we've gotten most of the height in some of the areas, we've got this front here - Yeah.

- That is covering some things and I don't mind it covering stuff.

I probably should move those 'cause I really like the azalea, but it is coming over quite far and it's a shady area.

I wanna bring it back, but also I want, don't wanna bring it too far because I need this slope to it, so that all these branches will get light, so that they'll form flowers.

So I'm not gonna take a whole lot of this off.

I may have to take this one.

Take that.

I'm gonna take this one.

Take this back.

- So again, it's just having a good eye, right?

- I don't want to prune it too much, but I do want it come back just a little bit.

- Yeah.

- And by cutting off the things that are in front, the laterals will grow.

Again, trying to get that angle.

- Yeah, I gotcha.

- And I could cut, prune on it some more, but I want blooms, and it's out of the way.

- Yeah.

- It's been pruned back enough that I think the other areas will flush this next year.

And so next year after it finishes blooming, I'll reassess it again, and again try to do this pyramid shape oval, so that all of the flowers can form on all the branches.

- Well Joellen, it looks good.

You're doing a great job.

You can get all the way around this azalea.

So we'll see what it looks like next year?

- Yeah.

- All right, thank you much.

- You're welcome.

[upbeat country music] - Lavender is a great plant, if you have a growing site in your garden that has full sun and excellent drainage conditions in the soil.

This plant is a perennial, so it comes back from year after year in your garden, as long as it's sited well.

And you can see here that this one is in bloom, has beautiful purple blooms, very aromatic.

The foliage is also aromatic, has lots of culinary uses in the home, as well as crafty uses, if you're one that likes to dry flowers and make potpourris and soaps and those types of things.

This lavender is small.

It's been recently planted, but we could expect at maturity for it to get 18 to 24 inches in height.

The same in width.

This plant loves Mediterranean type growing conditions, so it doesn't really favor hot, humid summers, but it does like heat, just doesn't do well with that humidity.

If you do happen to be living in a humid area, Phenomenal is a cultivar that can tolerate some of those humid conditions better.

Another thing that we have to be cautious of growing lavender in our gardens is winter hardiness.

Sometimes in different areas it can suffer a little bit, if we have cooler temperatures and it's not planted in excellently draining soil, you can have some die back throughout that plant canopy.

And so sometimes we'll consider that a short-lived perennial.

This plant doesn't have many pests or diseases, you know, that we need to worry about, but again, proper siting in the garden is what we really need to focus on with this plant.

Making sure that it has full sun and very, very well-draining soil.

[upbeat country music] - Hi doc.

- How are you doing Chris?

- How you doing today?

- Well, I'm pretty happy.

I brought all my, - I see.

- Wood-boring insects to display, yeah.

- So let's talk a little about those tree borers.

- Yeah, why are wood-boring insects important?

They can actually cause the decline of a tree or even the death of a tree.

They're tunneling into the wood.

They might be feeding underneath the bark, and they're actually injuring the tree.

And often you think of 'em as nature's way to decompose a tree while it's still standing.

- Okay.

- They usually go after weakened trees or declining trees.

But there's some pests we have will go after trees that look apparently pretty healthy.

- Okay.

- So what happens when you see a hole in a branch or in a trunk of the tree?

Can you see these holes here?

This is a camphor shot borer.

It's a ambrosia beetle from Asia.

It came over here.

And when you see holes in the tree, that means that beetle's been in there probably a year, - Wow.

- Or even longer.

That means those are the exit holes.

- Okay.

- So that indicates, now a lot of people get Yellow-bellied sapsucker and other woodpeckers' holes confused.

But these are more random, where the yellow-bellied sapsucker more encircles the trunk of the tree.

- Right, okay.

- But ambrosia beetles, when they tunnel in, just think of somebody with a drill.

They drill straight in the tree and then make a right or left turn.

So I split these twigs, and once inside the plant, then they inoculate it with a fungi, and the white ambrosial fungi is what the larvae feed on.

- Okay.

- So they make their own little mushroom garden inside your tree, and that can be a big problem.

Often in late winter, early spring, we'll see the granulate ambrosia beetle.

And as you can see here, the beetle will have these little toothpick like frass tubes.

As they tunnel in, they eject out the sawdust-like frass.

And you'll see these little things, maybe an inch long or so, and if you touch 'em, they just disintegrate.

So to protect against these, you have to put a protective insecticide spray on the bark of the tree.

- Now, when would you do that?

- Well, for ambrosia beetle, like the granulate ambrosia beetle, we do that when we get those first 70 degree temperature days in late winter, early spring, the beetles start flying then, become active.

And we actually put out traps baited with ethyl alcohol.

They go right to it because a stressed tree releases ethyl alcohol, and they'll go to the trap.

And so we usually tell our county agents when the beetles are flying so they can get the word out.

- Okay.

- Every year, we also see clearwing borers.

Now this, you can see these round holes, clearwing borers.

And here is actually the lilac borer.

You can see it or a banded ash clearwing.

I think it's a lilac borer.

It also attacks ash trees, lilac and ash.

This is a native clearwing borer.

So it's actually a moth.

It flies around during the day.

It's a day-flying moth.

And it'll lay its egg.

Other clearwing borers would be the dogwood borer, - Yeah.

- The peachtree borer.

Let me show you some, what these moths actually look like.

- Yeah, that's so neat.

- They're called clearwings because they don't have all the wing covered with scale.

- Okay.

- And so they mimic bees and wasp, and they flit around in the sunshine like you would see a bee.

And so predators kinda leave them alone.

They're not gonna mess with a bee.

They don't want to get attacked, so to speak.

Sometimes we don't think of the peachtree borer will attack plants in the genus Prunus, which includes cherry laurel or Otto Luyken laurel.

So this is the trunk of one and you can see - Wow.

- That it has totally been, if I turn it around here, here's the actual moth, lays its egg on the trunk.

The caterpillar then feeds underneath the bark.

And you can see here all the bark has been, has got off the, you know, fallen off.

So this girdles the plant and kills it.

The water can't go up and down the tree.

So that's, that actually killed the plant.

We have some other beetles.

They're called, let me move this out of the way.

These are called metallic wood-boring beetles, and the larvae are called flathead borers.

And so the larvae gets underneath the bark, again.

And as you can see here on this tree trunk, it kind of makes a spiral as it goes and feeds underneath, kills that cambial tissue.

So the beetles come out, they often lay their eggs on the sunny part of the side of the tree.

south or southwest side, in the spring, and then the caterpillars are underneath, and they're gonna be underneath the tree for a year or so.

And then they'll come out the next year, usually.

Sometimes you'll, we have a new pest, it's called the emerald ash borer.

- Oh boy.

- It's from China.

And it got over here in 2010.

We found it in Knoxville area and now it's in Middle Tennessee.

- Uh-oh.

- And it's heading this way.

I don't know if it's, I don't think it's been found here yet in West Tennessee.

But you can see here, this is the wood of the tree underneath the bark, and you see these meandering tunnels.

That's where the flathead borer larvae, it's kind of flattened and it can live there, and it feeds on the cambial tissue.

So that's the water conducting tissue, the growth ring tissue that allows the plant to grow.

So this will, within a few years, kill the tree also.

- Wow.

- So we're really gonna lose, probably most all of our ash trees, native ash trees in North America.

This, the little pink shows here, where there's a D-shaped exit hole.

I just painted it pink so it would show up better.

It's kind of hard to see on the bark, so we did that to accent it.

But that means that that beetle had been in there a year and it emerged in the spring.

So we generally use systemic insecticides, if there's a tree, like an ash tree that you wanna preserve in your front yard and side yard, a real nice tree, you can treat it with tree injection products like Triage, or we can drench around the roots with systemic insecticides.

So you can kill.

- So can you use those as a preventative though?

- Well, we don't recommend using the insecticides.

They're a little expensive, until you actually have these sited in your county.

- Okay.

- Once they're in your county, you can start protecting it.

- Okay.

- So I wouldn't do anything right now.

There's no need to.

But if you notice, trees in general with wood-boring insects, they're gonna start to see some branch die back in the top of the tree, first.

You'll see a thinner canopy, fewer leaves.

You might, with the emerald ash borer, you might even see epicormic sprouts that are at the base of the tree.

So it's putting up all these little sprouts, 'cause the top of the tree's just starting to die.

So you really want to treat this though early before there's much damage if you wanna preserve the tree.

- Okay, gotcha.

- I just wanted to show you here is, we made a nice little display showing the emerald ash borer.

The beetle is right here, the beetles.

They're not very big at all.

- No they're not.

- But they're metallic green emerald color.

The larvae are what do most of the damage.

And they're elongated, might be an inch or so long, kind of cream colored.

So this is really an ecological disaster.

It's gonna kill most of the ash trees in North America.

And that, it got over here.

Once it got here, we couldn't do much about it because it already started to spread.

People actually cut down trees, moved firewood.

So that's why it's important not to bring firewood into our state parks from elsewhere.

A pest we don't have in Tennessee and we don't want is the Asian longhorned beetle.

It's one of the roundheaded borers.

This is also, you can see it has the real long antennae.

That's why it's called longhorned beetles.

We have native longhorned beetles, but this one likes to attack maple trees and buckeye trees and horse chestnut.

So we have, you know, millions of maple trees.

We don't need a wood-boring pest.

The closest infestation is Clermont County, Ohio, east of Cincinnati, Ohio, but north of the Ohio River.

They're trying to eradicate that right now and doing a pretty good job.

So whenever this is found, we actually go in and try to eradicate it, because it could do a lot of damage.

- Wow, that's some good stuff.

- Yeah, there's just lots, and we really tell people when it comes to wood-boring insects, you have to have some preventative sprays.

When you plant a new tree and you put it in the ground, you want to drench it with an insecticide for pests like roundheaded borers, flatheaded borers, those beetle borers, that will protect them.

Other type borers, like clearwing borers, you'll have to put a trunk spray.

But we have all that information at UT Extension publications.

We can check out PB 1589.

- Okay.

- It has a lot of information.

- Look at this, you already know the number.

That's pretty good.

Thank you, doc, that was good information.

- Thank you Chris.

- Good stuff, good stuff.

[upbeat country music] - The iris have finished blooming and it's time to cut these stems down.

Now, you gotta make sure they're finished blooming and this one is spent.

But look, there's still a bud here, so we don't wanna cut that.

I might take this flower that's next to it off, and then maybe cut off this here, and cut off this here.

Until that finishes blooming, I'll leave that.

And as you can see, this one is already starting to form a seedhead, and we really don't want it to do that 'cause we're not looking for seeds.

We want the energy to go back into the plant for blooms for next year.

So we'll cut this one off.

Cut just above where it sticks into the ground.

And another one.

It does not take very long to do this.

And not only does it look better, but it keeps your iris more healthy.

Well, they're all finished.

And Tennessee has the state flower of the iris, so it grows very well here in these soils that we have here in Tennessee.

These have all bloomed very nicely.

And this is the first year that I have planted them here.

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

You ready?

- I'm ready.

- All right, these are great questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"What is the best weed and feed when you have dogs?

"As you can see, I'm not sure we have grass anymore.

I think it's mostly weeds now."

And this is Paula from La Mirada, California.

- Oh.

- All right, and we appreciate that picture.

But yeah, the best weed and feed when you have dogs.

- Well.

- What do you think?

- I don't hardly ever use weed and feed because the timing of the weeding with the fertilizer doesn't always coincide with the best time to weed it or to feed it.

- Exactly right.

- So I like to use one or the other.

And that's what I would suggest she go with.

And most of the sprays for weeds, as long as it gets on there and dries, after it's dry, it should be okay for dogs to be on it.

- And that information will be on the label.

So I would advise Ms.

Paula to read the label on that.

But yeah, no weed and feed product.

So I would spot spray, and then work on rejuvenating the lawn.

So aeration, resod or reseed, fertilization, irrigation, right?

And that will get your yard to come back.

But as far as the weed and feed goes, no.

- Yeah.

- Not together.

- No, it's the wrong time for those, so.

- All right, so thank you, Ms.

Paula.

Hope that helps you out there.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"Why are my bell peppers only getting as big as walnuts?"

And this is Helen.

She says her neighbors are having the same problems and she wants to know how to get bigger peppers again.

- So she's had 'em before, it sounds like.

- She's had 'em before.

- I wonder, I mean, could it be, because it's the neighbors also, could it be something environmental?

- That's what I'm thinking.

- You know, and maybe it's too hot, or maybe it's a pollination problem.

Maybe there's not enough bees out there pollinating both of the neighborhood, or you know, something's happened that's different.

I don't know.

One of those would be my first thought.

- Yeah, so definitely my first thought, you know, especially since the fruit are trying to develop, right?

So it could be too hot.

Temperature is over 90 degrees, daytime, nighttime, over 70 degrees, it's gonna be a problem for peppers, tomatoes, anything in that family, - Right.

- Right?

Second thing, inconsistent watering, inconsistent moisture, right, could be an issue, you know, as well.

Poor pollination, I can go with, right, because yeah, if it's too hot, it's too humid, you're gonna have poor pollination, - Yeah.

- Right?

So those kind of go hand in hand.

Here's the other one I thought about.

Heavy fruit set.

- True.

- So if you have too many peppers on the plant, you might need to go in there and selectively thin out.

- And that's hard for people to do.

I know it's hard for me to do.

- You thin it out, you know?

That way you can get - One big large.

- one big, large pepper.

- Either tomato or pepper or anything.

- So I think if you do that, Ms.

Helen, I think you'd be just fine, and tell your neighbors to do the same thing.

- That's right.

- I think that'll work.

All right, thank you for that question Ms.

Helen.

We appreciate that.

Joellen.

- Yes.

- Fun as always.

- It is.

- Yeah, don't we learn a lot?

- I learn a whole bunch.

- We do, so thank you so much for being here.

Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is questions@familyplotgarden.com, and the mailing address is Family Plot, 7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova, Tennessee 38016.

Or you can go online to familyplotgarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for watching.

If you want to learn more about pruning shrubs or tree pests, you can visit our website, familyplotgarden.com, or our YouTube channel @FamilyPlotGarden.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]