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

I'm Chris Cooper.

It's hard to give houseplants the right amount of water.

Today we're looking at building a self-watering pot.

Also, garden chemicals have a label for a reason.

Today we're gonna show you how to read it.

That's just ahead on the Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer) Production funding for 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 Tonya Ashworth.

Tonya is the garden educator at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis, Tennessee.

And Mr. D. will be joining me later.

Alright Tonya, we get so many questions at the Extension Office about watering houseplants.

How much?

- Yes.

- Right.

- Well, it depends a lot-- - Yes.

- On the type of plant that you're talking about.

But I'm gonna teach you a little trick of the trade today.

- Yes, teach us a trick, we need that for sure.

- Yes.

So, my very first job out of college-- - Okay.

- Moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and I was an interior plant technician, which meant I walked around the city with a watering can.

- Uh-huh.

- And took care of plants in office buildings, the US Mint, really cool places all over the city.

And so, I'm gonna show you the self-watering container system that we used there.

And keep in mind though that not every single houseplant is gonna be well suited for this system.

Most are, but there are some plants that like to go really dry.

Like, used to be called Sanseveria , but now they've changed the name to Dracaena , but mother-in-law's tongue-- - Mother-in-law's tongue.

- is one.

Cactus, maybe not so much.

- Right.

- Ponytail palms, - Mm-hmm.

- Because they have that base that they hold water.

But for most of your tropical plants, a self-watering system is a great way to go, because it takes the guesswork out and keeps the plants evenly moist.

- Good.

- It's also really good if you just forget to water.

Maybe you only wanna water once every other week, which is why we use the system.

- Okay.

- We could put our plants on a two-week rotation.

And so, yeah, it's a great method to use.

- Yes, please teach us that method, for sure.

- Okay.

- All right.

- So you can buy self-watering containers at the store.

But we made our own there.

- Oh, okay.

- And this is how we did it.

You start with a decorative pot, no holes in the bottom.

- No holes.

- No holes.

- All right.

- And then that's the first component of your self-watering system.

Then you need a riser.

Your riser can be...

This is just a saucer from a clay pot.

It can be a piece of a brick, it can be... We used heavy duty styrofoam.

Whatever can be submerged constantly is okay to put in the bottom-- - Okay.

- Of your container as your riser.

Okay.

And then, the third component is you need to get yourself some capillary mat fabric.

This is a whole lot like felt.

- Okay.

- This is used in the nursery industry.

They place these capillary mat fabrics underneath seedling trays and you can water directly on this fabric and it soaks it in from the bottom.

But we are gonna cut ours into strips.

This is readily available online.

You can just, you know, search in your search engine for capillary mat fabric.

And then if you'll hand me that plant over there.

- Okay, sure.

And what kind of plant is it?

- This is a Monstera.

- Okay.

- Which is very hot right now.

But, this is a Monstera and we are going to put our capillary mat strips into the drainage holes of the nursery container.

Now a lot of people, when they buy an interior plant, the first thing they wanna do when they get home is take it out of this grow pot and pot it in something else.

- Okay.

- That's really not necessary.

The only reason that'd be necessary is if there's way too many, if it's roots everywhere and girdled.

So.

I'm sorry, let me just move this over.

So, if there's roots going everywhere and it seems pot-bound, yeah.

But most of the time you don't have to do that for two, three years sometimes, they are fine in these pots.

So I take my capillary strip and I'm using a long screwdriver.

And you're just gonna shove it into the drainage hole here.

- How about that?

- You know, make sure you get it in there pretty good.

- Okay.

- And you leave some to dangle so that it will reach to the bottom of your deco pot after this is on the riser.

- Okay.

- You wanna do at least two strips, one on each side.

- And get it in far enough.

- Yes.

- How about that?

- Now it's able to soak up from the bottom of your container.

- Wow, okay.

- That's the basics of a self-watering system.

And then you just put this down in here and you water right straight into this space and you can fill up the entire water reservoir.

Maybe it's two or three inches tall that riser and you won't have to worry about it until that reservoir is empty.

- Wow.

- Now let's say you've got a ginormous pot and you're not gonna be able to see in the bottom, to see if there's any water in that reservoir.

What do you do?

Well, you need a few more things to go in your pot at that point.

So this is just clear plastic tubing which I bought on the internet.

It's used for like, shipping and things like that.

You cut it to size.

So, the height of your container, you want to cut little notches in the bottom to allow the water to go in.

- Right.

- They come in different lengths, but usually you'll have to buy your tubing and then cut it to size, which is what I did with that one.

- Okay, and I see it's easy to cut.

- Yes, just scissors.

- That shouldn't be a problem.

- Okay, since I already know this one's the right length I'm just gonna pop that right down in there.

Right there.

- Okay.

- Then you're gonna make a bobber.

- Bobber.

- Now, this is 3/16 of an inch plastic tubing.

You get this from aquarium supply stores or pet supply on the internet.

- Okay.

- We use all sorts of things in gardening, don't we?

- I see [laughs loudly].

Make use of everything.

- Yes.

And then you're gonna cut it to size.

You're gonna want to cut it off to where it will even with the top of that tube, very simple to cut.

But I'm gonna leave a little bit more because we're gonna put a bobber on it.

Okay, this is...

I know most of you have this at home.

It's just a-- - I think we know that is.

- A cork.

So I took, if you can find them, these are, you know, dangerous now, but ice pick, make your little hole there, with your ice pick, and then you can use some hot glue too if you need to make it where it won't come out.

But you're gonna put this little piece of clear plastic tubing into your cork like that.

Okay, so mine didn't go in that far.

So now I'm gonna cut the top like this.

- Got you.

- All right.

Then to make it look pretty, cause this doesn't look attractive.

This is foam from an upholstery store.

Like if you were going to reupholster a chair or something.

- Okay.

- This is the most expensive component of all of this, by the way, you would not believe how expensive foam is.

But anyway, I've already measured this and you just cut it with regular scissors or serrated knife actually works the best.

And you make yourself a little collar and we're gonna hide all of this.

- Look at that.

How about that?

- We're gonna hide it all with just inexpensive Spanish moss.

You can use pebbles, you can use any kind of moss that you'd like to use.

- I love gardeners.

- Make everything look so pretty, right?

- Resourceful.

Right?

- Oh, God, resourceful, makes it look beautiful.

- And then maybe if we have a little more, I might put a little more and hide the foam real well.

But, in the end... you're not gonna see all of that.

- You're not gonna see it, right.

That's funny.

- You'll cover up the foam.

And this is clear.

- Okay.

- And now let me show you the right way to water.

Now the first, this is a brand new system.

So the very first time you water it, you're gonna water from the top to saturate.

Make sure you get the soil saturated and you're gonna fill up that reservoir.

- Okay.

[water sloshing] - I think watering is the number one question you get about house plants these days.

- Yes.

- Don't you think?

- Water.

How much do you water?

- Yeah, how much do you water?

And then probably insect problems-- - Yes.

- Are number two.

- Look, that bobber is already starting the float.

- Sure is, how about that?

- So another thing you can do, if this is a really big container, you could measure how tall your riser is.

Let's say my riser is two inches tall.

- Okay.

- Then you get a Sharpie, measure two inches, make a mark.

- Okay.

- And when the bobber is up where that mark is, you know your reservoir is full.

And so now to check your plant, you do this.

If it floats, you're done.

And that's pretty much all there is to it.

A little DIY for you.

- I like that.

That's pretty neat.

- Good, yeah.

- We need to get more people to do this.

That way you won't have the question about the watering, right?

- Right.

You know.

If you tell us what kind of plants you've got, we can tell you this is great for Aglaonemas and pothos, Philodendron and all of your tropical plants that like to stay evenly moist.

- Okay, for the most part, like you said, it's pretty inexpensive-- - Yeah.

- Other than the foam.

- Yes, the only problem is you may have to buy this in a multi-pack.

It's hard to find just one of these.

- Okay.

- And the foam.

But after you have all of your components, then you can make a bunch.

So.

- Tonya, thank you much.

- You're so welcome.

- That is pretty neat.

Pretty neat.

Gotta get one of these at home y'all.

Thank you, Tonya.

- Mh-hmm.

[gentle country music] - Let's get to translocation since you mentioned that earlier when we were talking about systemic.

- Yeah, that's a good one, you know.

And when we think about translocation, that's just movement throughout the plant.

That's all that means.

Stuff that's translocated.

And usually it's through the vascular system of the plant, like our arteries and veins, which is, you know, we'll throw out a couple more big terms, phloem and xylem.

- Xylem, you right.

[Lelia chuckles] That's right.

And I always remember xylem is xy-high.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Takes water up.

- Yep.

Sometimes it's hard to remember which one's which.

I always have to kind of think about it.

One's moving up, and the other's moving down.

- Yeah, phloem is moving down.

I remember that from classes.

How about that.

- Yep.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Mr. D. We always tell folks to read the label.

- We always tell folks to read the label.

If we don't, we've made a mistake.

- That's right.

- And forgot to.

Because anytime you use a pesticide, it's extremely important to read and heed-- - That's right.

- The label.

- Heed.

Read and heed.

- And, there's probably a lot more money went into developing the label on these products than went into the active product that's in the bottle.

- Right.

- Because it takes years for a product to be labeled.

It's tested in the field, it's looked at for several years, and then it's tweaked.

The rates are tweaked by a biologist and researchers.

And when the label is finally approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, then you're good to go.

And because of that you and I can make no recommendation-- - That's right.

- That's off-label.

We can't make any recommendation that's inconsistent with what's on this label.

Now, all labels, there are things that are required by federal law to be on every pesticide label.

And I've got a few examples here and I'm gonna go through.

- Okay, let's do that.

- Some of those things, not all of them, it's pretty easy to go to the law and find out exactly what has to be on every pesticide label.

But the first thing that I look for on a pesticide is the active ingredient.

- First thing I look for.

That's right.

- And this is an example, the trade name is Sevin.

The active ingredient is down here on the bottom in real small print, kind of like on some of the food items that we look at.

And this is carbaryl, 22.5% carbaryl.

So I know that's the active ingredient and that's the only pesticide that's in here.

It's 77.5% other ingredients.

Now, so I see that, so every pesticide label is gonna have the trade name, it's gonna have the active ingredient and the percent active ingredient.

- Okay.

- That's not all the label.

If you notice, this is not just one-page label.

This has the insects that it will kill.

If it's a herbicide, it'll have the weeds that it'll kill.

If it's a fungicide, it'll have the diseases that it's designed to control.

And when you open it to page one.

Yeah, it's a book.

[all laugh] It's a book attached to this container.

This tells you, FIRST AID, every pesticide label has instructions on first aid.

There is a note to the physician.

If someone is poisoned or accidentally ingests one of these products, it's very important that you take the label with you.

Take the product with you to the doctor because here, the note to the physician tells the doctor what the antidote is "Atropine is antidotal."

It's got a telephone number for medical emergencies, twenty-four hour a day telephone number that you can call.

Talks about precautions regarding pets, animals and children.

You know, environmental hazards.

You know, you do not want to spray it very close to my fish pond.

This will tell you when you look at the environmental hazards.

Every label, somewhere on that label has this statement right here and this is the only thing that I'm gonna read word for word.

- (Chris) All right.

Let's go for it.

- Under directions for use, it says, "It is a violation of federal law to use this product "in a manner inconsistent with its labeling.

Read the entire label before using this product."

They're really very interesting.

It's interesting reading, especially, well if you're in our line of work.

- Yeah, yeah.

We do it, all the time.

- But you learn a lot and it's so important because trade names change-- - Change.

- Active ingredients change.

- Yes.

Yes.

- That's true.

- And there are restrictions, a list of do nots.

That you go through.

And then as you get further over in here, storage and disposal.

How to dispose of the co ntainer when you get finished and how to store it, and you know, very, very important information to know.

Most pesticide containers, you can triple rinse them.

You know, once you finish triple rinse them.

Put the product back in your sprayer.

You know, as you're finishing up, and then you can throw the container in the garbage most of the time.

But you need to read the section on storage and disposal to make sure.

There'll be specific in structions on different crops.

This is blackberries, blueberries, ornamental trees, shrubs and flowers.

You know, everything that you can use it on.

If it's not on here, I can't recommend that you use it.

If you accidentally spray it on your broccoli plant and broccoli is not on here, I cannot suggest that you eat that broccoli.

I mean, you can't make any recommendation that's inconsistent with the labeling.

One other thing that all labels have is a signal word.

It's a very simple signal word, the CAUTION, WARNING and DANGER.

- Yes.

- Most of the products that we see at you know, lawn and garden centers, most of them have CAUTION on them.

Let me show you, I'm gonna show you on all of these products where that word is.

It's all caps, all capital letters here.

CAUTION.

Let me grab this one over here.

This is horticultural oil.

- Mm-hmm.

- All-Seasoned Horticultural and Dormant Spray Oil.

Look.

CAUTION.

- There it goes.

- The CAUTION is low toxicity.

That means it's low toxicity, low mammalian toxicity.

So it's not that toxic to humans or mammals.

Roundup herbicide.

Look here, CAUTION, all caps.

I've got an example of an agricultural pesticide label that I took off of a two and a half gallon jug right here.

I didn't want to bring the jug in, but it's Lorsban-4E.

Look, WARNING.

- WARNING.

- So WARNING indicates that the product is moderately toxic.

This one happens to be also a restricted-use pesticide.

So a homeowner can't buy Lorsban.

But again, WARNING is moderately toxic.

Most restricted-use pesticides carry the signal word DANGER.

- Okay.

And if they carry the signal word DANGER, and the word poison is also on there and you'll see a little diagram of a skull and crossbones.

- Skull and crossbones.

That's right.

- So that should tell you if it's DANGER, that means that it is highly toxic by at least one route of exposure.

- Okay.

- Which could, and there are several routes of exposures, and it's on the label, will tell you which route to look for.

It could be inhalation, to breathe it in.

It could be could be ingestion or through your skin.

- Okay.

- Read the label, read and heed the label.

Very, very important.

- One last question for you though.

- Okay.

- We have a label.

We can't just deface the label, can we?

- You've got to follow the label and you've got to use the product in the container according to the label instructions.

You can't take the product out of this container, put it in another container that's not labeled because you need to have the label with the product all the time.

But this is a legal document that, you know, we're bound by law to follow.

- And the label is the law.

- The label is the law.

That's right.

- Mr. D. good stuff.

- There's a difference between law and policy.

This is not a policy that we generally follow from time to time, like I used to do in my work before I retired.

This is the law, and you've got to follow the law.

- Got to follow it.

You got to follow the law.

Thank you, Mr. D. We appreciate that.

It's good stuff.

[gentle country music] - Milkweed is a very important plant to have in your garden because it's the host plant for the monarch butterfly's caterpillars.

This is the only thing that they will eat.

So it's very important that we grow it.

Now, unfortunately, it's also a favorite plant for these little bright yellow aphids and they are completely covering these things up.

So the thing is, we wanna protect our monarch caterpillars.

We don't want to hurt them with an insecticide.

So what we can do is just hose it off with water to try to get as many of the aphids off that we can.

Or we can just simply wait for the ladybugs to show up, because pretty soon we'll have our beneficial insects arriving in our garden in the form of ladybug larvae.

Make sure you know what they look like so you don't kill them.

And adult ladybugs and they'll help take care of the problem too.

But for now, since we don't see any ladybugs, I'm just gonna hose 'em down.

[water spraying] Now, we're not gonna get every single aphid this way and you may have to do this every day for a while because they will come back quickly.

[gentle country music] All right, that took care of most of our aphids.

[gentle country music] - All right, Tonya, here's our Q and A segment, you ready?

- Yes.

- Great questions here.

All right, here's our first viewer email.

"I recently decided "to add some color to my apartment patio "with bleeding-hearts and a peony.

"They have done absolutely wonderful "and I'm looking to expand.

"The problem is that I'm a first-time grower, "my balcony isn't the largest "and it gets mostly shade, "and three to four hours of afternoon sun.

"Are there any specific flowers or vegetables that I can successfully grow on my balcony?"

This is Jordan from Memphis, Tennessee.

I like that.

First-time grower-- - Yes.

- You know, she wants to get involved.

I think that's really good, wants to add some color to her balcony.

So can we help?

- Yes, absolutely.

I just love it when somebody takes up gardening as a hobby.

- Yes, yes, yes.

- Now unfortunately you've got too much shade to grow any vegetables.

And really herbs are gonna be tricky.

- Okay, okay.

- In three, four hours of sun.

They really like six, like your vegetables do, although you probably can get away with trying some rosemary in pots.

- Okay.

- But you're gonna be growing things in containers obviously.

And there are a wide range of things that you can grow.

As far as annuals, you can do coleus.

Coleus can take some shade.

Impatiens and Begonias and there's just a multitude of different kinds of Begonias that you can grow.

- Okay.

- Your standard Begonias , angel wing begonias.

You can have lots of fun with Begonias .

And then as far as perennials, things that you can plant and will come back every year, Hostas, and since you're a new gardener, don't panic when they die all the way to the ground.

- That's right.

Don't panic.

- They're gonna come back the next year.

- Heucheras, a common name is coral bells.

Creeping Jenny for nice little spiller there on the edge of the containers.

and you can also try a lot of different cool ferns.

So lots of things you can play with.

- Lots of thing is to play with.

- Mm-hmm.

- That's pretty cool.

Now I will add this.

If you got four and a half hours or five hours of sunlight, there are some vegetables you could try and that would be your leafy vegetables.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, your lettuce, you know your kale, cauliflower, broccoli.

If you had just a little bit more sunlight, you can get away with those.

- Yeah.

Again, your leafy vegetables - And those are cool seasons.

- In a cool season.

- And you want to plant those around Valentine's day.

- That's right, that's right.

I'm glad you pointed it out.

So, there you have it, Jordan.

Good luck and congratulations on being a first-time gardener, right?

- Yeah, it's exciting for us.

- That's pretty neat.

Pretty neat.

Thank you much.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"There are several yellowing and sp otted leafs on my Gardenia "and I cannot pinpoint the cause.

"I tried to research this online but still am not sure what the problem is."

And this is Amy from Memphis, Tennessee.

So what do we think the problem is with the Gardenia?

Cause there's definitely a lot of spots on those leaves.

- Yes, I was looking at the spots you could see that they were kind of brown and bullseye kind of pattern almost.

You can see rings.

- The concentric rings.

- Concentric rings.

which makes me think maybe that's Rhizoctonia .

And usually caused by too much moisture.

Also, I've got a Gardenia in backyard here in Memphis and they're kind of marginal in Memphis anyway, but it's on the south side of the house.

Anyway, too much moisture.

So, mine get yellow leaves too because my dogs like to dig underneath them and then the rain just sits there.

And so I understand.

I have also yellowing leaves and too much moisture is probably why.

- I think it's too much moisture.

But what can she do about that though?

You know, at this point.

- Yeah.

Not a lot.

- It's gonna be tough.

- We just had a really wet spring.

- Yes we did.

- Yes.

- There's no doubt about that.

And too, if you noticed the picture of the plant, it's pretty close to the house.

- Mm-hmm.

- So maybe it's not getting that air circulation, it needs to dry those leaves off, so.

That would be concern, you know, to me as well.

- Yeah, yeah, if you could move it, maybe it would help.

- Right, yeah if you could move it, of course, make sure it's in a well drained area, right?

Kind of plant it up a little bit to get the water off its feet.

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay, off it's roots, so to speak.

Alright, Ms. Amy, I hope that helps you out.

Here's our next viewer email.

"I have many Japanese maples and in the spring "whole branches or sections of the trees don't leaf out.

"These branches die and I have to remove them.

"My reading has said this might be a borer, "but I see no real evidence of this.

"I know my pH is very high.

"Could this be a cause?

"I put elemental sulfur down around some of my evergreens, "which helps.

How do I keep the limbs of my Japanese maples from dying?"

This is Corey on Facebook.

Good question, it's the one that we get quite often.

So what are you thinking?

- I'm thinking environmental conditions.

It could be too much sun.

Some Japanese maples like to be planted more in shade.

It just depends on the variety.

So if you're trying to grow one that likes shade in too much sun, it could be not getting enough water in the summer.

It could be drought issues.

If you have heavy wind, when the buds start to break it drys the buds out.

- Yeah.

- There are different reasons why that might be happening.

- There's just so many different causes.

It could be too much mulch.

It could be planted too deep.

But what I'm thinking is let's go back to our weather pattern.

You know, especially last year to this year, sunscald might be an issue.

And if sunscald was an issue, then of course it's gonna cause cracks in the trunk.

Those cracks over time they're gonna get what?

Start getting bigger and once it gets bigger it compromises the uptake of water and nutrients to the upper part, or the upper canopy, of that tree, which causes limbs to die.

- Right.

- 'Cause they're not getting water and the nutrients they need.

- Mm-hmm.

- So that may be an issue as well.

But at the end of the day, how about just pruning out those dead limbs?

- Yeah.

- We just start with that and they kind of see what happens, you think.

- Mm-hmm.

- Alright.

- Yeah.

- So Corey, we hope that helps you out.

So good luck with your Japanese maple.

- Mm-hmm.

- Tonya, it's been fun as always.

Thank you much.

- Yes, thank you for having me.

- Thank you.

Remember we love to hear from you.

Send us a email or letter.

The email address is familyplot@wkno.org, and the mailing address is Family Plot, 7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova, Tennessee 38016, or you can go online to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for joining us.

We ran through how to build the pots pretty quick.

If you want to go back and watch it again, head on over to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

We also have lots of other good videos there.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]