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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Boxwood is a common shrub.

Today we're going to prune one.

Also, there are a lot of different ways to water your plants.

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's a horticulturist.

And Jason Reeves will be joining me later.

Joellen.

- Yes.

- Good to have you here.

- Yeah.

- This is your place.

- This is my place.

- Nice.

So we're gonna talk about pruning boxwood.

- We are gonna prune boxwoods.

I have already started and I'm gonna try to get them to look about this size here.

We have already pruned this one, and we're gonna start pruning on this one.

- Okay.

- Yeah, we're gonna reduce the size of this plant, and by doing that I'm gonna take these long stems and I pull them down, and look where I, there's some new growth coming out, and I'll prune it just above that so it reduces the size.

And yet there it looks natural.

- Now will they grow back from that?

- All these others that are on there will come out, and, and pruning, I'm taking away a lot of the apical dominance of it.

But these shrubs naturally grow in a rounded pattern.

So I'm just kind of helping Mother Nature along a little bit.

When you're looking at where to cut, you're looking for where the branch is branching out to other stems.

And so you prune it back to where that point of growth is.

And just above where all of that is branching out.

That way, the other smaller branches will then grow and fill in where the other branch was.

See this branch here, we have several branches coming out from this.

So we'll take the top part off here and hopefully Mr.

Ladybug will get out of our way.

So it reduces the size.

And here's another one.

This one is a little large, so I will probably take it down.

'Cause see, look, there's another branch coming out, so I can take it back to where the other branches are.

And it still reduces the size.

Yeah, basically what you're looking for is the branches that are the tallest, and then you decide how far down to cut them, and you have to go back to a point of growth and you trim it back to that.

And it reduces the size of the whole branch.

Here's another one that's really tall.

I'd like to take him back a little bit further, but you can't see that I've pruned anything.

- Right, it's like you almost hadn't been there.

- Yeah, it's like you haven't been there.

And that's the best sign of pruning.

See this one here is really tall.

So when I look at it, I see where it's attached to the main branch, and I think that all should go.

So I just cut it right there, and it reduces it in size.

But now we've got that down.

Let's go to this side.

- And this looks good, yeah.

- Yeah.

Let's go to this side.

And we see this very large branch here, and I'm gonna just, I wanna take this main one out, that's tall, and see if that reduces it enough.

And if it does, that's fine.

If not, which I don't think it is, I'm gonna go in again and start looking at these other branches and say, "Can I do away with this one?"

Well, yes, I think I can do away with that one.

And is that good enough?

Well it's better.

But I think I can get rid of some of this one also.

There.

Oh, now that looks better.

- Right, right.

- So that's what I just, you have to evaluate each one as you go.

- So how do you decide how much, though, you want to prune out?

- Because I'm trying to match the size of these.

- Okay.

- And this is a much taller and bigger boxwood than this one.

I'm not gonna get it quite the same height, but I can keep it reduced down, so it, these can eventually grow to be about the same size.

- Gotcha.

- I'm just trying to get some uniformity, and I want them to branch out.

- Right.

- Even though they're dwarf, they will go out and they will eventually get big.

- So as you continue to prune though, so let's talk a little bit about this.

Why should we not shear them over the top as we usually see out in some landscapes?

- Well, I mean, it's not really good for the plant.

It puts in a lot, one thing, it's unattractive, 'cause every cut is gonna brown out and close up.

And so it's not gonna be as green and beautiful and lush as these, and a lot of diseases and insects will get into that.

And another reason why you don't shear them is, the other reason why I do this is 'cause I'm going down in, and I am creating air movement in this shrub.

- Right, and that's important.

- And I don't, shearing cuts off the movement of air in a shrub, and you really don't want to do that.

- Right.

So do we have to be concerned about sanitizing our pruners between cuts?

- Well, I have cleaned my pruners before I started this.

And I don't have any diseases with mine, so I'm not gonna worry about it until I get done.

And then I'll clean them when I get through with my pruning.

- Yeah, so the fact that these are not diseased makes it a lot easy to go in and prune.

I got it.

Okay.

- It does.

So like I said, you just look for something large and you say "That's a little large.

"I wanna take that.

"Oh, this is still a little large.

I think I'm gonna take that one."

And it reduces it.

- So when is the proper time of year to prune boxwood?

- Best time of year, you notice that these have got a good flush of color.

About two inches of growth from what they grew out last year.

And usually the best time to prune them is in the spring, middle spring, like around May.

Maybe further north, they wanna wait 'til the end of May or beginning of June, depending on what parts of the country you live in.

Because boxwoods live all over the place, and around here, I like to prune mine in May.

It's really nice, it's beautiful out.

Even though it's gonna get warm today.

It's a beautiful time of year.

We're getting enough rain, so, they will flush out and keep growing.

But this will take the initial large cuts off of them and give them, a pruning invigorates your shrubs.

So you really want to prune 'em to keep 'em healthy.

- Let's talk a little bit about reduction pruning.

Right?

So say this was, you know, five, six, seven feet tall, right?

And we want to get down to about three or four feet.

So how would you do that?

- Well, you can take branches down.

I don't think you can take that much off of it.

'Cause you wanna think about taking only a third each year.

So it might take you several years.

But you can take a third of the branch off.

And what you would do is you would find a branch that you think is wayward, and you would just pull it down and see, and look at down the branch, because of the way I have been pruning it, you see there's a lot of growth coming from underneath.

- Mm-hmm, I can see it.

- Well, I wanna really reduce this.

So I might go in clear back to this part here and cut the whole branch off.

Sorry.

- Yeah.

Can you prune too much, you think?

- Sometimes you kind of go, "Oops, well I shouldn't have taken that one."

But you know what?

Plants are really forgiving, and it will grow back, and you only get good at pruning by practicing pruning, and you're gonna make mistakes.

Pruning happens to be my favorite horticultural activity.

- Really?

- So I love to prune.

And I don't mind, really, you know, getting in there and pruning plants.

Sometimes, yeah, I have taken off too much.

But the plant comes back.

- It's forgiving, right?

- Plants are forgiving.

- Let's get in there and just try it a little bit.

- Just try it, I mean- - Make a few mistakes, you know.

- It's, you know- - But it's practice.

- It's practice, and you will like the results of it when you get done.

To fill this area in, I may head back these little ones here.

So they'll break and fill in this area underneath, in this area right here.

And we're getting very close to being done with this one for now.

I may take some of these new growth and just head it back a little bit just to get it under control.

- You do have a good eye for this, I see.

Right?

So once you get finished, I mean, is it necessary to fertilize, you know, to encourage the new flush of growth?

- I don't ever fertilize them.

After I initially planted them and got them established the first year, I haven't really fertilized it since.

Mostly watering during drought is the best thing.

So this is, I would say this one is basically finished for now, and it's closer to being sized and round.

Next year, I might take him a little bit further down, but it is looking more round than it was.

- Well Joellen, thank you, we appreciate that pruning demonstration.

Right?

- You're welcome.

- I think you know what you're doing.

Thank you much.

[upbeat country music] - This is Spiraea 'Anthony Waterer'.

There's a lot of different Spiraeas out here.

I particularly like this one.

It is very hearty, doesn't have a lot of pests or disease problems.

A lot of people in the United States can use this shrub in their landscape, 'cause it likes zones three through eight.

One thing to note though, it is deciduous, which means it loses its leaves and you'll have all these nice sticks in the winter.

It will get tall, five feet round, but I keep these cut, I cut, in fact, they were all up above this fence this spring and I said, "It's time for you to be cut."

So I cut 'em all before the leaves appeared this spring.

And now look at all the gorgeous blooms on 'em.

They will keep blooms on 'em most of the summer.

When it gets really, really hot, they won't, they'll stop blooming so much.

But then when it gets cooler out the blooms come back again.

They like lots of different conditions.

They like really wet soil, and they can take some drying too.

The Spiraea like sun, they like shade.

They'll bloom better when they have a lot of sun.

And this, even though it's shady now, this gets very hot afternoon sun.

And that's why they're blooming so well.

They're a wonderful plant for the landscape.

[upbeat country music] - Hey Jason, thank you for being here today.

- Yeah.

Good to be here.

- All right.

Yeah.

The UT Gardens here in Jackson.

- That's right.

Thanks for coming out to us today.

This is awesome.

Sometimes I'm in the studio, but it's great being here in site.

- Oh, this is gonna be good.

This is a good hot day today.

And we're gonna talk about watering, right?

- Yeah, yes we are.

It is a hot day.

You can see I'm already drenched, and it's, we're going in a period here of lack of water.

And so we're spending a lot of time watering and so thought it'd be a great time to talk about different methods of watering.

- This is appropriate.

So where do you wanna start?

- All right, we're gonna start out with one of the simplest ways is watering by hand.

And one of the easiest ways to water by hand is to use a watering wand that hooks onto a water hose.

But one of my favorite here is one that's all metal and has a metal head or rose or breaker, they go by all different names.

- Okay.

- And it can be replaced if it does wear out.

Yeah, it just screws on and off.

So I wouldn't buy one that has a permanent head because if you mess it up and the remainder part is okay, you can't use it.

One advantage to that metal head is if you drop it or you're out on concrete or asphalt, it is more durable as opposed to this plastic head that's on the end here.

- Okay.

- We tend to use this in the greenhouse, it's a little bit lighter weight, but outside on the ground, especially on the concrete, we want that metal head.

- Now would you have to clean this out every once in a while?

- Yes, I'm glad you mentioned that.

You can, yes, if you end up with trash in, and your pressure is affected, you can take this off and, you know, we do a air hose or just take the water and run it, and sometimes I have to take my finger in there and get little bits and pieces that are caught.

But that is definitely important.

You do want one with a whole lot of holes, and they go by numbers.

And I can't even tell you what these are.

What I do not like is one that has an adjustable head up here, that has the dials.

So you know there's a fan spray and a cone shape.

And the reason I don't, even if you've got it on the setting with a bunch of holes, it doesn't put out near the volume of water that this does.

This puts out a huge amount of water, gently, and you don't have to stand in one spot as long to water with that.

So keep that in mind.

Forget those adjustable things.

- Okay, forget 'em.

All right.

- Also, the way the water hose, the wand turns on and off, you definitely want some kind of valve on there so you don't have to run back to the water hose, so you're not wasting water also when you're moving from plant to plant or pot to pot.

So this one has a valve that turns on and off with a the lever system.

They're all different quality of these.

You can buy these in plastic, you can buy 'em brass, you can buy 'em in nickel.

- Okay.

- And then this particular one has a built-in system called a one touch.

And I love this, it's thumb operated.

- One touch.

- And so it works really well.

The one, the particular wand, wand, that I don't like is the one that has this trigger here.

And the reason I don't like that, if you're pulling this across the lawn, you're pulling your hose, that trigger can get caught on things, plants, grass or whatever.

Also can break off easy.

So it's better, from my experience, to have something like this, that's so easy to operate.

Or, again, this valve here.

Of course one disadvantage of this, if this were to malfunction, you've got to get rid of the whole device 'cause it's built in, or you can replace these valves on the wand.

But you know, a wand is a great way to water, particularly container plants.

And the long handle makes it a lot easier to reach in there.

Of course, greenhouses and nurseries have been using these for years.

All right, so then we're gonna talk a couple different forms of overhead sprinklers.

And I've got several in front of me here today we're gonna talk about.

The first one here is called an impact sprinkler.

And I'm gonna turn it on in a few minutes.

And they're, I have different versions of this.

I have this all metal one, which is heavy, which I really like.

Because it's heavy, it stays in place.

If you've got good water pressure, as we do here, you cannot use one of these plastic ones.

This will actually flop around, and will fall over.

And you have to actually weight it down, which is a pain.

So when you're buying a sprinkler, look for one that's heavy, that's gonna serve the purpose you're looking for.

So this impact sprinkler also comes on a tripod that you can set in the garden that gets the water higher up.

You know, if you've got lots of tall shrubs or plants, you may need to get the water above them so it's not blocking, the water's not being blocked.

So it can be purchased that way.

You can also buy this where this is actually on a stake that you stick in the ground.

I don't advise that because once you get in the ground, if you can get in the ground, if it's soft enough, once you've watered a little bit, it kind of wallows out the hole, again, if you've got good water pressure, and you actually come outta the ground.

So you really need one with a big base.

And again, metal is better 'cause it's heavy.

- Okay.

That's definitely heavy.

- And then we also have this one that just makes this circle goes around and around and around.

And it's not adjustable, where this impact I'm gonna show you in a few minutes is adjustable.

This just makes the circle, and you cannot adjust the pattern at all on it.

Also, this is floppy.

This one falls over for me when we get too much water pressure.

It's metal, but it's just not big enough.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- And then there's the oscillator sprinkler, which goes back and forth.

And again, we're gonna demonstrate that.

And we use a combination of impact and oscillator here, depending on the area we're watering in, depending on the shape of the bed, depending on the plants in the area, whether, you know, I've gotta go up and over them with the arch out of this or whether it can be lower down on the ground.

So we're gonna walk over here and demonstrate these.

Both of these have, we have taken a valve, like you see on the water wand here, I've taken this valve and I have put one on each of these sprinklers, which is here for a couple advantages.

One, it allows me to control the water pressure so I'm not watering a bigger area than I want.

But also just moving from one location to the other in the garden with the sprinkler, I don't have to go back to the end of the hose and turn off.

You know, a long day here, at the end of the day, I don't wanna walk 100 feet away to the end of the hose, turn it off to move the sprinkler, I can adjust it right here.

So this is really handy.

Again, I've got this valve here and I'm gonna turn it on with this valve.

And again, I can control my pressure.

- Ah, there it goes.

[water spraying] So that's the sound.

- And so by adjusting these little tabs here again, I can adjust how far it's spraying.

So once it hits the stop, it turns and goes back the other direction.

- Okay.

- And you can see where it gets that ch-ch-ch-ch sound.

So again, you can see the spray going out here by adjusting this little tab here.

It keeps it, it brings it closer to you, so it doesn't go as far out.

I'm gonna lift it back up.

And then the screw here also adjusts the way the fan of the spray goes, so you can see... - Oh, that's interesting.

- It fans it out more.

- Got it.

- And so... So an impact will water as small as say a quarter of a circle, or a pie, piece of pie, or a complete circle, depending on how you adjust it.

- Okay.

- If you have really good water pressure, some devices like this particular one, you can actually hook another hose up and have another sprinkler on the other end.

But again, you gotta have good water pressure for that.

So this has got one where you can hook another water hose up to it.

- So is that the one you like to use the most?

- Actually I use the oscillator the most, just because our beds here are really not circles.

- Okay, got it.

- Now if I'm watering a lawn setting, this would definitely be a good way to use, a good one to use.

- Good for the lawn.

All right.

- And then the oscillating sprinkler.

So an oscillating goes back and forth, oscillates back and forth.

And again, I've got the valve on here.

I'm gonna go ahead and turn this one on.

It has tabs that control how far back and forth it goes.

I've already got it set where it won't get me wet.

[water spraying] So it comes out at a fan shape.

Turn the pressure up a little bit more.

And so you can adjust, again, how far out it goes by the amount of pressure, but also how far, you can adjust it by adjusting the tabs back and forth.

So right now I've just got it going one direction.

Better quality sprinklers like this will have tabs that adjust easier than others.

Some of 'em have this dial that's a little bit more difficult.

This one really works well.

Again, I recommend a metal sprinkler.

I've had these in plastic as well.

And they've, again, if you've got good water pressure, they can flop, and cause a problem, with it flopping and not working properly.

This one also has a valve up at the top that can control the pressure as well.

But it doesn't actually turn it all the way off.

So again, I like that valve on the end to adjust it so it's completely turned off.

Another misnomer is, when the sun's out, and water drops hit a plant, it does not burn the leaves.

That is a misnomer.

- I was just about to ask you that.

- Actually an old wives' tale.

So don't worry about that.

- Got it, well Jason, we appreciate that.

It looks like you need to hop in the water.

- All right.

[both laughing] - Thank you much.

[upbeat country music] - Our peonies are finished blooming and now it's time to cut off the seed heads so it can grow for the summer.

This one actually looks like something landed on it and fell, we'll cut it back so it makes it a nice round shrub.

Usually do about two, three sections.

We'll cut this one back.

There's one over here, another one here.

Now that makes it nice and round.

Now this one is still blooming.

I'm not gonna cut it off, but I'll cut off the dead one.

And it's a nice round shrub that you will grow all the rest of the summer and get energy to bloom this next year.

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

- Yes.

- You ready?

- I'm ready.

- These are some good questions.

- They are.

- All right, here's our first viewer email.

"A few years ago, the lowest limbs "of my sweetgum tree broke off, "tearing the bark below them.

"Should I put concrete patches in the areas where the bark was torn away?"

And this is Ed.

He says "Other than that, the tree is healthy."

- Mm-hmm.

- So what do you think?

- Well I don't really, I don't know if I think that the tree is really healthy, because I see power lines in the picture and the healthy part that he's talking about is leaning towards the power lines.

And, I'm thinking that he needs to call a certified arborist to see about probably, most likely taking out the tree because I don't think the base is safe enough to hold that healthy part up, and it's more likely to fall towards those power lines.

So I would get a consultant, a certified arborist first, you know, and see if that's what they think also.

- Okay.

Now his question was about putting in concrete patches.

- No, no, no, no.

There's no point.

- Yeah.

- It's not gonna help heal the tree at all.

- Mm-mm.

Mm-mm.

- No, he needs a certified arborist to come help him decide what to do with his tree.

- I would agree with that.

Concrete patches in a tree?

No, that's just not gonna work.

You know, seals in moisture, right?

Adds more weight to the tree itself.

You gonna have problems with that.

- Yeah.

- Right.

So certified arborist is something I would do, especially, especially now if I saw mushrooms.

'Cause it definitely tells me that the tree, you know, is not as healthy as you think they are.

- Or under the tree, anywhere.

Mushrooms anywhere.

- Yeah, so I would agree with that.

So, there you have it, Mr.

Ed, you might need to consult a certified arborist, all right?

Thank you for that question and the picture.

- And the picture.

Good picture.

- So here's our next viewer email.

"Why is my orange tree not producing any fruit?"

This is Chris.

He says he bought it six years ago.

It's 12 feet tall and it has lots of thorns.

- Mm.

- So I know you and I talked about this a little bit.

So what are you thinking?

- Well, from a Florida, University of Florida publication they have, it should be blooming and producing fruit within three to four years.

And it's six years he's had it.

- Yeah.

- It should be producing fruit by now.

I wonder if it's been cut, is it 12 feet tall, and how wide is it?

I mean, does it look like a tree, or have you, you know, but if all those thorns, I know orange trees have thorns on 'em, but I don't think they have all that many thorns.

Maybe there's something else going on.

- Right.

- And, 'cause you had mentioned something.

- Yeah, 'cause this is what I think, right?

You know, most of your citrus trees are grafted.

Right?

So if something happened to the upper part of the tree, maybe cold damage or something like that, then it's trying to grow from the rootstock, and the rootstock will produce a lot of thorns.

- Lots of thorns.

- Right.

So just look down at the graft union and if it's growing from that, you know, beneath that, you know, graft union, then yeah, it's gonna have a lot of thorns on it.

You know, so that's what I think.

Maybe cold damage, you know, killed the upper canopy of the tree.

Right, and it's trying to grow from the bottom.

If that be the case, I would probably start over.

You know, with a tree that's cold hardy.

- Yeah, and get with your Extension, local Extension.

And they may have suggestions on what type of varieties would be good for growing in your area.

- I would agree with that.

So there you have it, Chris, I hope that helps you out there.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"A hard freeze killed all the leaves on my tree.

"It is leafing back out, but some branches look dead.

How can I tell if those branches are still alive?"

And this is Mike from Mims, Florida.

- Ah.

- That's a good question.

So how can you tell if the branches are still alive?

- He needs to go to one of the woody branches, take his fingernail, and just scrape the bark a little bit.

If it's green underneath, it's alive.

If you keep scraping, and it's no green, and it's, you know, you might try, then I would probably go to a branch and snip the tip of it.

And if it's got some green in it, look for green.

If there's no green, I would just keep cutting it back 'til you see some green.

- So green tissue is gonna be the key.

- Green tissue is gonna be the key that it's still alive.

- Right.

I would also do the bend test.

- Yeah.

- See if it's pliable.

Yeah, give it a little bend there.

- Yeah.

- Might be alive.

But if it pop, probably dead.

- Yeah.

If it's dead it'll probably snap.

- Yeah, probably snap.

And it's something else I would look at as I'm sitting here thinking about it, I would look at the buds.

- True.

- Right?

Yeah.

So you can look at the buds, and you know, if they look like they're healthy, then the tree might be okay.

But if not, they look mushy, brown or dark.

- Yeah.

And you could rub your finger on the bud too.

And just touch it.

And if it comes, falls off, you know it's... - Yeah.

Right, right.

- There's nothing there alive.

- Nothing there alive.

All right.

So we appreciate that question, Mr.

Mike.

Yeah.

So again, the old scratch test and bend test, yeah, rub those buds.

- Yeah.

- We'll see.

It'll tell you everything you need to know.

- It sure will.

- All right.

Thank you Mr.

Mike.

Thank you Joellen.

- Yeah.

- Fun as always.

- It is.

- All right.

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 boxwood or get watering tips, head to our website, FamilyPlotGarden.com.

Or you can visit 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]