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

I'm Chris Cooper.

It's cooling off and it's time to pull out the summer annuals and plant for fall and winter.

Today, we're planting snapdragons, Dianthus, and pansies.

Also, we're going to learn about opossums and how to discourage them from 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 a horticulturist, and Mary Schmidt will be joining me later.

Joellen.

- Hi.

- Look where we are.

- Yes, I know.

- So it's that time again?

- It's that time of year.

And you know, we don't have too much to dig up - - Not much.

- Because the deer absolutely loved the Portulaca.

- Oh, okay.

- So there's none because they ate it all.

- Okay.

- So I guess we won't be planting that here anymore because of the deer.

- No, okay.

- So we're gonna go ahead and dig up these marigolds and the Mandevilla and we're going to save the Mandevilla to see if we can keep it for next year.

Well, we've gotten all of the flowers out.

Now, we'll rake back the mulch that's here so we can continue with planting the fall colors.

- All right, Joellen, that good?

- Okay, that looks good.

- Okay.

- And now, we will put in a little bit of slow-release fertilizer to feed the pansies, snapdragons and Dianthus for a little bit this fall, get them established.

- Okay.

- Yeah, you don't want too much.

You just want enough to give it some nutrients where we're planting.

- Okay.

- We've got these beautiful snapdragons that we will start with first.

- Nice.

- The snapdragons actually are cool-season plant and they will do fairly well.

In the coldest part of the winter, they probably will not be blooming - - Okay.

- But then when it gets a little bit warmer and the sun's on it here in the South, they'll start blooming again.

- Okay, so they'll just take off.

- If we have a really, really severe winter, we'll see whether they survive or not.

- Okay.

- But I used to have these outside my bedroom window in Illinois, so I know they'll live.

- You know they'll live.

So how are you setting these out, Joellen?

You looking for a set pattern or something?

- I'm just gonna set them in the back as a backdrop to the pansies and the Dianthus.

That looks good enough.

- Looks good.

- We'll plant these.

So odd number, right?

You always talk about the odd numbers?

- Yes, fives, sevens, nines, eleven, three something an odd number.

I don't know.

- Is there something about it?

- Your mind likes it better than even numbers.

- Right.

So how are we gonna dig the hole for these plants?

- Well, we've got to make it at least as big as this container.

We have got a fairly well amended soil, so I'm not too worried about getting wider than deeper just because we have already amended the soil.

- Right.

- So we'll just try to get it to... I would leave a little bit.

I like to put the top of the plant just a little bit above the existing level because I have a feeling the majority of these roots are at the bottom of the containers.

Oh, worms.

I thought that was something else.

- It's a good thing, right?

- Yeah, that's why this has gotten to be good soil.

We've got a lot of worms in it.

Well, we've got a large root system here and it is a little bit root bound at the base.

So I'm gonna just pull the roots from that circling around the pot, so they'll start growing away from the plant and we'll put it in the hole.

Now when you're back filling something like this, you take your loose soil and you put it at the base of it first and you go all the way around the container and the root ball in the hole, the loose soil, and you just keep going around and around and around and around and around and around 'til you get the soil that was in the hole back around the plant, but not over the top of the soil.

Okay, there we go.

Snapdragons are planted.

- Joellen, I noticed that you planted high.

So why did you do that?

- Well, the soils around here are really wet in the wintertime.

It's our rainy time and I don't want to bury the crowns of all these plants.

And plus we're going to put mulch back over it so you'll never see where the edge of that soil is.

- Got it.

- Well, now that we've got the large snapdragons in the ground, we're gonna put the mulch over before we put anything else down.

- Joellen, why do we need to do this?

- Well, the pansies are a little bit smaller and can you imagine trying to get mulch around all the little flowers and it'll hurt them and we don't want to hurt them.

So it's just easier to pull back a little bit of mulch and plant the pansies than to try to put the mulch on last.

- Yeah, and I've done that and it's tough to do.

- This mulch on the ground is especially important in the winter.

Gives a nice blanket on the ground to shield the plants from the heat and cold of the winter and it helps retain the moisture in case we have a drought.

Now we'll set our pansies down.

We have four different colors of pansies, so we'll put them down in a pattern.

One thing that's interesting about this one, these have two plants per container, so we've got to give them a little bit of room so they'll grow.

We've got a nice dark purple.

We've got an orange here, which is pretty.

We've got a light blue and we've got a burgundy that kind of matches the snapdragon.

We do have an odd number of them because you know I like odd numbers.

- I do.

I know you like that.

So why are you laying these out first, Joellen?

- For the spacing, because see, we've ended up with two extra.

So I'm gonna put them a little closer together so we can fit those last two in.

And there we are.

- So are we ready?

- We are ready to plant.

- Let's go.

- And, you know, the root balls of these are really nice.

We really don't have to do anything but plant them.

- Okay.

- So this has been laid out.

So what I'm gonna do first is move the mulch out of the way.

I'm gonna dig my hole.

Nice moist soil here.

It's always nice to have the soil about the same moisture as the root ball of the plant you're planting because then the roots won't get dried out by trying to pull moisture from a dry soil.

You carefully put the dirt back around it not to cover up the top and then you put mulch over the top of that back from where you scraped it away and you're done.

- Voilà.

- All right.

We've got the pansies in, snapdragons and the pansies.

They all look good.

- They look good.

- But we're gonna add something different.

- We're going to add something different?

- Yes.

- Let's do it.

- We're gonna add a salmon Dianthus.

It'll bring about that orange of the orange we've got going on this year.

- Okay.

All right.

What is the growth habit?

- The Dianthus will stay small.

They're kind of trailing if they do live.

And even though these are considered annual Dianthus, around here in the Mid-South, sometimes they are perennial.

- Oh, okay.

- But you just never know.

- Oh, you just don't know.

Okay.

So does that depend on the winter?

- A lot of it depends on the winter, yes.

And of course, the moisture level.

I have some in a container and I've had them in there for years.

- Okay.

- And now we'll plant the Dianthus.

- All right.

- They aren't too root bound either, but again, we're going to plant them and not bury the crown.

Move back your mulch, dig your hole, put the dirt back on around them.

Don't cover the top.

Move the mulch back around.

Don't cover the top of the plant.

- Oh, there it goes.

- And there we are.

- There we are.

- Snapdragons, pansies, and Dianthus.

- Dianthus.

- All different colors, kind of on an orangy salmon, reddish with the blue accents.

- I like it.

I like it.

So we'll get this watered, right?

- We'll get this watered- - All right.

- Watered in.

- Yeah.

And we'll just observe and admire how beautiful they are.

- It will be ready for when the cold weather comes, will have enough chance to get established and look nice through the fall and winter.

- I can't wait.

All right.

Thank you so much, Joellen.

We appreciate that.

- You're welcome.

My pleasure.

[upbeat country music] This is Sedum 'Autumn Fire' They love the sun.

They can take some partly shady areas.

Pollinators love them.

They bloom in the fall.

They get about two feet tall.

They are not particular about the soil, but they do like well-drained soil.

And you see this is in a raised bed, so the soil in here is very well-drained.

It will grow in Zones three through nine, which is a large range of the United States.

We will leave these and the pollinators can finish getting all the flower nectar out of them that they can.

We'll let this go ahead and die with the winter.

We'll leave the stems through the winter and makes a nice winter interest.

And then in the spring, we'll cut them all down, but make sure you cut them and don't pull them off.

They may look dry, but if you pull them, you may end up pulling up the plant.

So cut them very close to the soil level.

So this is Sedum 'Autumn Fire'.

There is also Sedum 'Autumn Joy'.

They both look a lot alike and they both do well in the same conditions.

[upbeat country music] - That's a possum on the table.

Is it possum or opossum on the table?

- That's a great question.

This is a Virginia opossum.

- Opossum.

- In North America, we just have opossums.

- Opossums.

- Possums is another animal that's found in a different part of the world.

- How about that?

- But here it's acceptable to call them possums, but they technically are opossums.

- Opossum, got that folks?

Opossum.

How about that?

- And I brought a really special possum for you to meet today.

This is one of our education animals at the Nature Center.

This is not an animal that makes a good pet, and most places it's against the law to keep them as pets.

- Okay, that's good to know.

- But unfortunately for this one, she was hit by a car when she was young and had a skull fracture.

She also got imprinted to people when she was in her rehab stage.

And so that means she thinks that she's a funny looking person or we're funny looking possums.

- Okay.

Wow.

- So that's why she's in captivity, but most possums, best place for them is in the wild.

- In the wild.

- Yes.

But possums are so unique in North America.

They are our only marsupial, which is a pouched animal.

- Okay.

- And so they're more closely related to kangaroos and koalas than anything else in North America.

- Interesting.

- So she does have a pouch, and so the females have a pouch.

And after just about 12 days of gestation, so from when mom and dad get together until when the young are born, for possums, it's only about 12 days.

- How about that?

Wow.

- Yeah.

They're about the size of your pinky nail and they're gonna crawl after they're born.

They crawl up into her pouch and they're gonna live there for about another month and a half.

And then after that, and she can have up to 13 in her pouch.

- Wow.

- After that, they're gonna hang out on her back for about another month.

She's gonna take them around to some good feeding spots, which can be around human houses, trash cans.

We just generate a lot of waste and they just see that as a food resource.

- Got it.

- So really unique in North America.

Something else really cool about them, if you see their skull, they have more teeth than any other land mammal in North America.

They have 50 teeth, so that's quite a bit.

- Fifty teeth, that's quite a bite.

- Yes.

- Fifty teeth.

Okay.

And they'll use those teeth.

Some of the things that possums are kind of known for and maybe misunderstood about is their defense mechanisms.

So one of the things they're gonna do if they get scared is they're gonna show all their 50 teeth.

They might hiss or growl or even foam at the mouth.

- Oh gosh.

- And so that is just some of their defense mechanisms.

The incidence of rabies in possums is very, very low.

- Okay.

- The other thing they do, a lot of people have heard of playing possum.

So that's what possums do when they get really, really frightened.

They will actually faint and a lot of times release a foul smelling odor because most things don't want to eat something that's dead and really smelly.

That kind of catatonic state can last up to like six hours.

So that's kind of a unique thing for them.

But unfortunately, it doesn't work on one of kind of the most dangerous things for them, which is cars.

So stopping and growling at a car doesn't really stop it, right?

- Yeah!

- And plus roadsides, one of the reasons we see them on roadsides is because they are scavengers, so they're gonna be eating things off the side of the road and they're opportunist as well.

So that's some of the reasons we see them on the sides of roads.

- Sure.

That makes sense.

- Yeah.

- Thanks for explaining that.

What is their survival rate out in the wild?

- Yeah.

So unfortunately they're pretty short-lived animals.

So in the wild, maybe one to two years in the wild.

In captivity, sometimes a little bit older, maybe four or five, but because they reproduce so quickly, that can lead to some health issues as they start to get over a year or two.

- Okay.

Wow.

So how long will you all keep Sugar?

- So she will be with us actually for the rest of her life.

So when she was hit by a car, she has a skull fracture, and so her sense of smell is not very good, which is really important for them in the wild to help find their food.

And she's also imprinted, so we'll keep her at the Nature Center for the rest of her life.

- The rest of her life.

How about that?

- Yeah.

- All right, so if we find a possum in our garden, in our yards, what should we do?

- Okay.

So I get this question a lot.

- I'm sure.

- And a lot of times the first thing I ask them is, "Are you feeding a cat or a dog outside?"

Because possums don't know the difference between cat food and possum food.

So they're, you know, mostly active at nighttime, so they're going to be eating cat food or dog food if it's left outside.

But, you know, what I like to say is you can let them be.

They're not gonna be causing too many issues.

Here we go.

They're not gonna be causing too many issues in your yard, but one of the ways to discourage them is to get rid of the food source that they're coming for.

- Okay.

Got it.

- But, you know, they're part of our urban landscape.

They're great cleaner uppers, so a lot of that waste that, you know, we're throwing away.

And they're also eating a lot of insects, fruits and berries, stuff like that.

- Okay, now somebody's probably thinking, "Yeah, but I don't want them in my yard, so how can I..." - Yeah.

So then, you know, exclusion, right?

So finding out how they're getting in and what they're attracted to and taking those access points as well as the food sources away is what's gonna keep the possums away.

- Keep them away.

- You can also try - How about that?

- You can also try some deterrence things like motion-activated light or something like that, that when they come into the yard, it'll scare them right away and they'll tend to take off.

They're not nearly as... as intelligent as raccoons, so they have a fairly small brain.

So things like bright lights, loud sounds will scare them off of an area.

- Okay.

And you mentioned, so they're active at night?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- They can be opportunists.

They can be more like what we call crepuscular, so active like at dawn and dusk.

But as we were talking earlier, they sleep a lot.

She spends most of her day sleeping and just a few hours foraging during the day.

- How about that, and how long do they sleep?

- They can sleep, I think, about 18 hours a day.

- Yeah, 18 hours a day.

How about that?

- Yeah.

- That sounds good and relaxing sometimes, right?

- Yeah!

- How about that?

- But she's kind of, you know, she's curious right now.

She's kind of trying to figure out where things are.

But one of the things you can see on her right now is her tail.

- Okay.

- And her tail, she can't hang by her tail.

Sometimes you'll see that in videos or in books.

They can't hang by their tails.

Maybe when they're really young, they can.

But what she uses that for is to carry leaves up into her cavity that she sleeps in overnight.

The other thing about her tail that's kind of neat is possums build up fat in unique places.

One of them is the base of their tail.

The other one are the sides of their eyes.

So if you see a possum with big bulging eyes, it just means that they're a little overweight.

At the Nature Center, they're on a diet to prevent obesity, things like that.

But sometimes you'll see ones with big bulging eyes and it's just that they're a little overweight.

- It's in the eyes.

How about that?

Yeah.

So how big do they get?

- Well, it can kind of vary.

She is an adult at this point.

She's a little bit of a smaller adult, but they can get up to maybe five or six pounds, the males can.

- That is so interesting to me.

- Yeah, and you can see now unfortunately for her because of her injury, she's not great at smelling, but this is what you would see them doing out in the wild is just using their senses to find their food.

- Okay.

And before we wrap it up, what about this?

- Yeah.

So this is just a representation of their pelt.

And these hairs on the top are called guide hairs, and that's actually what the young ones are holding onto when she's carrying them around.

- Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you, Mary.

This has been pretty cool.

- Yeah, thank you for having us.

- Pretty cool to have a possum, opossum on the Family Plot table.

- Yeah.

- Like that.

How about that?

You're doing good, baby.

You're doing good.

Thank you so much, all right?

We appreciate you being here today.

[upbeat country music] - I like fall in the garden, and one of the reasons is sweet potatoes.

You don't see what's underground, but when it gets to be fall, it's time to harvest.

So that's what we're gonna do today.

So we planted a couple sweet potatoes here, and I can tell that one of them is right here because there is a mound.

So I'm gonna go ahead and cut away some of the foliage here so that I can actually get to it.

And we have mulch this year, so I'm gonna have to lift that up as well.

And wow, we've got sweet potatoes here.

There are two implements that people use to dig up sweet potatoes.

So you can use a spade or you can use a digging fork.

Now a spade, you're more likely to hit the potato.

And so I would recommend a digging fork if you have one.

If you don't, a spade will work okay.

So what you wanna do is you don't want to dig the potatoes from above.

You wanna actually go in underneath them and lift them up.

There we go.

If we want to take these inside and eat them right now, we can, but if we want to store them for eating later in the winter, we should lay them out for a couple weeks in a cool, dry place where they can dry out.

Don't wash them, just let the dirt sit on them, but that will help the skins get thicker and make them more storable so that you can enjoy them all the way through the winter.

And if you want to, you could even store a couple of them, let them sprout in the spring and replant them.

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

You ready?

- I'm ready.

- These are some great questions.

- Yes, they are.

- Here's our first viewer email.

"How do I know when to start growing fall vegetables?"

It's Marguerite from Capitol Heights, Maryland.

She says she wants to grow collards and turnip greens.

Mmmm!

Sounds good to me.

All right.

So what do you think about that?

- Well, she's got to, no matter where you are, you've got to determine where the first frost date is in your area.

Then you look on your seed packets and say how many days to maturity, and then you got to calculate that backwards.

- Got to go back.

Right.

- And then it also, everybody recommends maybe at least two weeks more for the weather because you might have cooler conditions where they don't grow as much.

So you want to be able to get them to... So I would do the frost date, what the seed packet says, and then add a couple of weeks to that.

- Right.

I would agree with you on that.

So I did a little homework on that one because I wanted to know the average first frost day for Capitol Heights, Maryland.

- Good.

- It's November the 2nd.

- Okay.

- November the 2nd.

So if you know anything about, let's talk about the collards first.

It takes those at least 60 to 80 days to maturity.

- Oh wow.

- So back it up.

So you're probably looking at the end of July or 1st of August, right, while it's still warm, so you're gonna have to water to get those roots established.

- Yeah.

- And then from there, should be fine.

- Yeah.

- Yep.

Because these are cool-season crops.

They like to grow when it's cooler, right?

So I like that, Marguerite.

- But you don't want to have them killed in the frost.

- Right, right.

And the thing about frost, I'm glad you mentioned that.

So the frost is actually good for some of your collards and turnip greens because it adds a little bit more sugar, you know, to the taste.

- But, you know, she wants to, there are frost protections depending on... She might be able to extend it a few weeks past the first frost date, especially if they don't get cold weather.

- Yeah, that's good.

That's right.

- The frost blankets will help extend that.

- That's a good point.

Right.

So yeah, read your seed packets.

November the 2nd, go backwards.

Go backwards.

All right?

Thank you, Ms.

Marguerite.

We appreciate that.

I hope those collards and turnips taste good.

Sounds good.

Here's our next viewer email.

"What is this weed in my front lawn?

"I have tried to get rid of it, but it always returns."

And this is Katherine from Spokane, Washington.

So what did you think that was?

- Well, it's a perennial broadleaf weed, and usually that's mostly what I need to know to be able to get rid of it.

And it has a taproot, so you're gonna have to, if you're gonna pull it up, if it's just that one plant, you really need to dig down and get all of the root, and then you will get rid of it, especially if you don't let it go to seed or anything.

- Right.

I would agree with that.

All right, so it looked to me to be a plant in the mustard family.

So I think it was horseradish.

That's what I thought that was.

Just looking at the leaves.

- Yeah.

- Okay?

Deep taproot system, rhizomes like you mentioned, 'cause they grow 'em for the roots, come to think of it, right?

- Yeah.

That's true.

- So it's a broadleaf plant, so a broadleaf.

- And it's a perennial.

- And it's a perennial, right.

So yeah, read and follow the label on that.

- Yeah.

- Yep.

You can spot spray it.

But yeah, I would try to dig it first.

- If it's just one, I would dig it up first.

- I would dig it first.

- Because if it's got a taproot, it reminds me of dandelions.

You know, dandelions also have a big, huge taproot.

And I used to dig up dandelions in the yard all the time.

And that's how I... We didn't have weed control.

We just had me digging up dandelions.

But I mean, that's what I would do, because it seems like a nice grass, and then it's just the one plant, and I would dig it up and get the root.

- And it was a pretty good size too.

- Yeah.

Dig the root.

- So you should be able to, you know, dig that up.

If you need to, I would kind of water in that area.

- Yes, I definitely would.

- Come out a little easier, because you don't want to break the - - No.

- You know that root?

- If you break it up - - Leave it in the ground.

- It's gonna come back.

- So yeah, dig it out.

And another option could be using a broadleaf herbicide.

- Correct.

- Read and follow the label on that, Ms.

Katherine.

Thank you for the picture though.

- Yeah, nice picture.

- We appreciate that.

- All right, Joellen, fun as always.

- Yes, it is.

- Fun as always.

Thank you much for being here.

Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is [email protected].

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 the time we have for today.

Thanks for watching.

If you want to learn more about the flowers Joellen planted, head on over to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

Also, if you want to watch any of the past segments, check us out on our YouTube page.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]