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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Hydrangeas are known for being covered with flowers.

Today, we're looking at full-sun paniculata varieties.

Also, if you don't have a lot of space but want a tree, we're going to look at some options for you.

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 Celeste Scott.

Celeste is a horticulture specialist with UT Extension, and Jason Reeves will be joining me later.

Celeste, it's always fun to have you on the show.

- Thank you.

We're so glad that y'all could come out to the gardens and take a look at some of our cool collections that we have.

- All right, well, let's check out our collections of paniculatas here.

- Yes.

- So what are you gonna tell us about?

- Well, paniculata hydrangeas are a favorite of many gardeners because they are sun-loving hydrangeas, okay?

- And this is full sun.

- Right, we're in full sun.

This area is full sun.

The one that we're standing in front of is the old traditional Limelight hydrangea.

So it's kind of the one that started all the fanfare, right?

Around paniculata hydrangeas.

- Oh, okay.

- Before that, people just kind of referred to them as PG hydrangeas.

- Right, I've heard that.

- If you've been around the hydrangea world for a while.

But this is one of the first named cultivars.

You can tell it has a beautiful conical-shaped bloom.

So that's one of the characteristics of the majority of our paniculatas.

They come in shades of, at the peak of their bloom, maybe they're white to cream to chartreuse even.

- Yeah, okay.

- Chartreusey green.

- Okay.

- So we're not gonna get much color development on this type of hydrangea.

So that's gonna be kind of its call to fame.

- Okay.

- Another thing that I love about paniculatas is that they are very disease and insect resistant.

- Oh, that's a plus.

- And the collection that we're gonna look at today have been allowed to grow on their own.

- Yeah.

- So you can tell this is unkempt.

These have not been pruned.

They have not been irrigated.

We are not fertilizing them with any kind of special anything other than what the lawn areas get around it.

And so you can see this would be a Limelight's natural form.

Really large.

- Yeah, this is huge.

- This is at least, at least 12 feet tall.

- Right.

- And I would say left to its own devices, it has more of this chartreusey color to the bloom, that green tone, and as these florets open and the bloom matures, it's gonna turn less chartreuse, more towards white, right?

As the bloom matures.

But definitely, they start out with that bright lime green color, and that's where they get their name: Limelight.

- Limelight.

- So let's go look at another one.

- Okay, let's do it.

- All right, Chris.

- Okay.

- So this is my personal favorite.

- Your favorite?

- Yes, paniculata hydrangea.

- Why is it your favorite?

- Well, it's called Phantom.

- Phantom, I like the name.

- And it is bred to have larger blooms.

Almost mop-head shaped blooms.

And has a little bit of a more compact form than, say, your Limelight hydrangea would.

- Okay.

- But it's still a large statured cultivar.

So I have, in my landscape, the perfect area for a large, full sun-loving hydrangea.

And this fits the bill.

I really love the flower development on it.

It responds well to pruning, which I do.

- Okay.

- You do, okay.

- I do want it to be big, but I prune off about the top third of it every year at about a five-and-a-half-foot height.

And I wanna show you the difference that it makes in bloom.

- All right.

Let's see the difference.

- I brought a bloom with me.

- How about that?

- So this is the size of a flower bloom.

And they can be even bigger than this.

I've had them larger than my head sometimes, which looks kind of funny.

But when we prune, what we end up doing is we have less total blooms overall, but each individual bloom gets much larger.

- I got you.

- And through strategic pruning year after year, you're able to build up the capacity of those limbs that are holding these new blooms so that they don't droop and hang over, right?

- I gotcha, I gotcha.

Makes sense.

- So this one, you know, when it rains, these blooms aren't hanging over and breaking and falling off.

It has a really nice sturdy wood to it.

So Phantom, one of my very most favorite paniculata large-type hydrangeas.

- I can see why that, that is huge.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

A lot of bug activity too as well.

- Oh yeah, so we're actually gonna see more of that here in a minute.

- Good deal.

- Let's move on to another one.

- Let's do it, all right.

- All right, Chris, this paniculata is called Vanilla Strawberry.

You couldn't tell it right now because it looks, it looks pretty creamy white, doesn't it?

- It does.

- But it's marketed so that as this bloom begins to mature, it's marketed as taking on tones of pinks to reds.

- Okay.

- Okay?

But in our climate here in the Southeast, we have high nighttime temperatures.

Lots of times, we don't get that color development that you're gonna see on those tags, right?

So just keep that in mind.

If you're buying a paniculata hydrangea that looks like it has a lot of pink color, you may not actually get that to come through in your home garden in this area.

- So it's temperature dependent.

- Temperature dependent.

I would just say, you know, we've got high humidity.

Yes, they love to be in full sun.

But they really like those differences in daytime and nighttime temperature- - Got it.

- To get the best color development.

- Get the best color.

All right, sounds good.

- Okay.

- Good.

- All right.

Right here, I hope you can tell as we've gone through the planting area, they've been getting progressively smaller, haven't they?

So this cultivar is called Silver Dollar.

- Okay.

- And again, we're maxing out at about five or six feet tall.

So depending on how much space you have in your landscape, this may still be considered large for you.

- Yes, yes.

- Silver Dollar has been on the market for a while, and since then we've had even more progress in breeding and developing more compact cultivars.

So Little Hottie is one.

- I like that name.

- That's brand new.

- It's been around- - Little Hottie.

- Yeah, it's been around a couple years.

It's cute.

I'm talking like two feet, two to three feet in mature height, right?

- Does it produce a lot of blooms?

- It does, yes.

- Okay.

- Super floriferous.

That's our fun flower word for today.

Puffer Fish is another one.

- I like that one.

- It has a really nice compact habit.

The bloom is a little more lacy, a little more frilly.

- Okay frilly.

- Than our Little Hottie is.

But definitely so many options in the world of paniculata for size, flower shape, and just overall structure of the plant.

So lots and lots of options.

I wanna show you one more.

- Let's see one more.

- Okay.

So we're looking at Quick Fire hydrangea.

This is the last one I wanna share today.

You're probably gonna notice that the flower structure is a little different.

- It is.

- And we have some color development on here, right?

So let's talk about that for a minute.

- Okay.

- This is called Quick Fire because it's the earliest paniculata hydrangea to bloom.

- Okay.

- It's about three weeks earlier than all of the rest of these white, creamy, full cone-shaped flowers.

- It's pretty early, three weeks.

- Yes.

So that's where it got its name, Quick Fire.

Also, you're gonna notice that it's kind of see-through, isn't it?

It looks a little more lacy.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- It's not as solid, filled out with those florets as the others are.

- Okay.

- So I'm gonna talk a little bit about why that is.

So can you see these small flowers in the center here?

- Barely, but I do see them.

- These are actually the actual flowers.

This whole area is a bloom structure, right?

But these are the actual fertile flowers.

- Oh, okay.

- So this particular type of bloom structure is more beneficial to insects and pollinators in a landscape.

So that is one of your priorities in your home landscape to provide for wildlife through stewardship actions.

This would be a great addition to add, because we're gonna have a lot of insect activity essentially.

- Which I actually saw here.

- Yes.

- Look at that.

- Definitely, you can see 'em all over those fertile flowers.

Now, do you see any insects on the florets, the showy florets on the outside?

No, we don't.

- Not really, not really.

- Because there's no pollen there.

There's no nectar source.

- Got it.

- So these showier areas are kind of bringing those insects in, right?

- Come in, okay.

- And showing them where to find those fertile flowers in the center.

So lots of fun things going on with this.

Of course, you can see this as another large statured paniculata.

But they have done some breeding on this as well.

So we've got Little Quick Fire.

- Little Quick Fire.

- Quick Fire Fab.

So these are all smaller versions of this same type of paniculata hydrangea.

- All right, so let's just do a quick recap, right, of everything that we learned about paniculatas.

- Okay.

- All right?

- Sun-loving.

- Sun-loving.

- Okay?

- Okay.

- We've got cultivars that will fit in very large spaces.

- Okay.

- Also have many cultivars available for compact growth spaces.

- Got it.

- They bloom in summer.

- All right.

Say it one more time.

- They bloom in summer.

- In summer, got it, okay.

- So after the majority of the rest of the hydrangeas have passed their peak, that's when paniculatas are gonna pick up for their bloom.

- Good.

- They bloom on new wood.

- Yes.

- So we don't have to be as concerned with pruning time of year.

- Okay.

- But best management practices say we need to prune during the dormant season.

So target late winter, very early spring.

- Got it.

- Before new growth begins on that old wood.

Also, I'd say we don't get a lot of fall foliage color through paniculatas as you would with oak-leaf hydrangeas.

But their blooms are really beautiful if we leave them throughout the fall and winter.

They're gonna essentially dry to like a papery kind of texture on the plant, and can lend lots and lots of visual interest to a landscape.

- Ah.

So there's some winter interest there.

- Right, through those months where we don't have a lot else going for us in the landscape.

So leave those blooms on there.

Don't feel like you have to come in and clean things up in the fall.

And make things look prim and proper.

A great plant to add to a full-sun landscape.

- Thank you, Celeste, this was fun.

- It was fun.

- Very educational.

- Thanks for comin'.

- Appreciate that.

Thank you.

[upbeat country music] - We've got a macrophylla hydrangea right here, and you might be wondering what's happening with it.

Why does it have all these dead twigs sticking out above the new growth?

So this is due to a late spring freeze that damaged the buds on our old growth.

But in the meantime, this plant has begun to shoot out new growth from the crown.

So we don't wanna look at this through the season.

That's completely fine.

I want you to know that you can come in with your pruners.

You can cut that down into the canopy.

You can just go beneath the leaf cover, or you can follow that cane all the way back down to the ground 'cause there's no life left in this stem, okay?

So this is never going to bear leaves or flowers again.

And the new growth that's happening right now, this is gonna be your primary source for blooms next spring.

A fun thing about macrophyllas, some of them have the capability to bloom not only on old wood, but new wood as well.

You can see one pink bloom poking out over here on the side.

And next year, assuming that there's no late freeze, this plant's gonna get right back on schedule.

We'll have a big spring bloom, and then a few more late summer blooms filtered in.

[upbeat country music] - Hey, good to be here.

Glad you're on site with us today.

- Oh, it's always good to be here.

- It is.

- Always good to be here, glad you're here as well.

So we're gonna talk about, what, our columnar trees, right?

- That's right.

I am so excited that y'all are here looking at these trees.

I love tall, slender trees and shrubs.

And we're standing in front of our collection here.

We have about 15 tall, slender trees in the collection here.

And this is one of my favorites.

- So you have a favorite?

- I do have a favorite.

- Okay, all right.

- This is an oak tree called Kindred Spirit.

It is a hybrid oak.

And it's just a great plant.

This one is about six years old.

And I love it for its dark green foliage, the kind of silver underside, and it does have an acorn.

But it's really tight growing, as you can see here.

And so, you know, these tall, slender trees have a place in the landscape, not just architecturally, 'cause it's beautiful even when the leaves are off of it.

But also, if you don't have a lot of room in your landscaping, in our homes, our properties are becoming smaller and smaller, and if you don't have room for a full-size tree, many of these trees would work in your property.

So we invite you to come out and look at all of them.

But yeah, Kindred Spirit is one of my favorites.

- All right, is it fast growing?

- It is, it is relatively fast growing.

Again, this is about five years old from a three-foot tall tree.

And so we're looking at probably close to 20 feet now.

- Yeah, I think so.

- Oh, every bit of 20 feet.

So it has grown really well.

And this also is un-irrigated up here.

We plant them.

When we plant them, if we need to water them, we will, when we do plant them in fall or winter or early spring.

But then they're on their own after that.

- On their own, okay.

Any major, you know, pest problems we need to get?

- Occasionally, we get a little Japanese beetle on the hybrid oaks, but nothing that really hurts it, so.

- Okay, all right.

So let's take a look at some of those.

- So yeah, let's go on and see some others.

- Okay.

All right, Jason.

- All right.

So my second favorite tree of the tall, slender trees is a native tree called Slender Silhouette Sweetgum.

And this was found in Middle Tennessee by Don Shadow in the wild.

Don Shadow's a famous nurseryman.

And he propagated it from the wild.

And then these are all grafted, which all these trees we're looking at are grafted.

- Okay.

- And so it grows tall and slender.

You know, being a sweetgum, it does produce balls.

It does not produce them every year.

You can actually see where it actually aborted some earlier this year, which is a good thing.

They've fallen off early.

- It's small.

- But here's one from probably the year before last.

It does not produce the balls every year, but when it does, they tend to be right around.

It's easy to rake up.

- Okay, okay.

- One advantage to being a sweetgum is very drought tolerant, tough, will grow pretty much in any conditions.

- Okay.

- Slender Silhouette is tall and slender, but if you've got it in really good soil or you're irrigating it, it will kind of splay.

It'll have some branches that come off the side.

So you're better growing it in poor, drier soil.

Again, we don't irrigate anything up here.

So this one has stayed really tight.

I do occasionally see these in landscapes where they've got irrigation, and branches will come off the side 'cause they're growing too quickly.

They're too soft.

- Okay, got it.

- It does get some fall color, some years better than others, not as good as maybe just the straight species, but just a really cool plant.

You know, I'm seeing this more and more in landscapes, particularly in parking lots and where you don't have a lot of room.

But just a great tough plant.

So again, that's Slender Silhouette sweetgum.

- Okay, and it is a hot, dry day today, right?

- It is, absolutely.

- How about that?

- And then our next tree down here is another native.

This is our state tree, the tulip poplar.

And this is a cultivar called Arnold.

- Arnold.

- And Arnold, again, grows tall and slender.

It would actually appreciate a little bit of irrigation.

You know, tulip poplars tend to be a little early to drop leaves in summer or late summer.

They'll drop earlier than other trees, particularly in years of drought.

So this would appreciate some water.

Again, we don't water it at all.

Tulip poplars are also sometimes known to get aphids, a full-sized tree, and cause honeydew.

- Okay.

Now, because it's tall and slender, if you do have the honeydew, it's gonna be right there under it.

So it's not gonna be falling on your car.

So you don't have to worry about that.

Again, I see this more and more used in parking lots and areas where you don't have a lot of room.

But I love tulip poplar.

It has a yellowish bloom with an orange center in the spring.

This one does, just like the straight species as well.

And then these beautiful nice green leaves.

Another advantage to tulip poplar is when that leaf falls off and you hit it with a lawnmower, it just disintegrates.

- Oh, nice.

- It doesn't blow around.

It just breaks up really easy, so you really don't have to rake the leaves off the tulip poplar.

So I really like it for that as well.

So again, that's Arnold tulip poplar.

- Arnold, okay.

- And again, the straight species is our state tree of Tennessee.

- That's nice, I like it, all right.

And you say it could deal with maybe poor soil?

- Oh, it can, it can, absolutely.

And it doesn't have to be watered, this one's not, but it will defoliate a little earlier in the season if you're not able to give it some additional water in periods of drought.

- Okay, but that's nothing to be overly concerned about.

- No, it's not gonna hurt the tree.

That's the nature of the tree.

- Okay, good deal.

All right.

- All right.

- All right, Jason, what do we have here?

- So two other trees I wanna highlight are both relatives of each other.

One is a Zelkova we're looking at, and the next one we're gonna look at is an elm.

So they're closely related, and you'll see the resemblance when we look at the other one.

This is a tall, slender Zelkova called- - Musashino.

- Musashino, thank you.

I have trouble saying that sometimes.

I love it.

Plants in the elm family are generally drought tolerant, and these very much are.

Again, we don't water up here.

Nice dark green leaves.

And you can see this is real dense.

- Yeah, it is.

- And a little bit wider at the top.

The branches on it, again, are very tall and slender.

And so even when it's not flower, I'm sorry, in leaf, it's very architectural in the wintertime.

So you've got these upright branches.

And it has beautiful bark that reminds me a little bit of cherry tree bark.

- Nice.

- Very, very attractive in the winter months as well as during the summertime.

So again, Musashino Zelkova.

- Musashino.

- Okay, do we have to worry about leaf drop or anything like that with this one?

- No, that's a tough plant, and it'll hang on till fall.

So not any problem with it.

Not any insects or disease problems.

- Okay.

- And then the next one is the lacebark elm called Everclear.

And this is a Chinese elm.

As it ages, again, attractive in the wintertime, really can't see very well here, but the bark exfoliates and is attractive.

- Nice.

- So you can see that during the winter months.

Smaller leaves than the Zelkova.

Again, a first cousin.

And also, again, disease and insect tolerant and resistant.

So a little bit more open in habit.

You see a little bit more than the Zelkova there.

- Yeah, real nice.

- But still a really nice tree.

You know, so we've been focusing in on these.

I guess I planted my first ones maybe about 10 years ago here at the gardens.

And I've planted them.

They're not all the same age.

Of course, you can come out and look at these.

The gardens here are open daylight to dark year-round.

The section we've looked at today, with the exception of the first one, was planted about 10 years ago, and they're relatively all the same age.

But as I've found them, I've added them to the collection.

And they're not always easy to find.

They're becoming more readily available.

You know, you just wanna check out your local garden center and nursery.

If they don't have it, you could ask them maybe to order it.

- Sure.

- You know, it's always good to start in advance.

Let them know, "I'm gonna be looking for this.

Can you get it when you're placing your order?"

You know, they work on their orders in the fall for the next year.

Also, mail-order sources are a good source for trees, you know, something you'd wanna get shipped during the cooler months.

You wouldn't wanna order one right now and have it shipped.

And then if you happen to be local, the UT Gardens here in Jackson, we have plant sales.

And we have sold pretty much all of these at our plant sales.

And at any given time, we have about five of these that we offer at the sales.

So kind of focusing in on those trees that don't take as much room up in your landscape.

And then if you're here visiting, behind us here on the other side of the driveway is our collection of tall, slender shrubs.

Most of those are conifers.

Most of them are evergreen.

There are a few exceptions in there.

There's a few hollies and a few deciduous plants.

But also just to show people what you can grow if you don't have a lot of room.

You know, if you've got a little narrow space that you need some privacy, these trees and those shrubs could also fill that need in the landscape.

- So they do the job for you.

One last quick question for you.

When is the best time to plant these trees?

- So the best time to plant these trees would either be fall or winter or early, early spring.

And we do a lot of our planting here in November and December.

But January, February, March is good.

Once you get beyond that, you may have to water in periods of drought.

So if you can get it planted in the fall or late or early winter, you're less likely to have to water.

- Less likely to have to water.

Thank you, Jason, we appreciate that so much.

- All right, thank you.

All right, thanks for coming out today.

- Hey, it's good to be here on this hot day, right?

- Yes.

- All right.

[upbeat country music] - I really enjoy having hydrangeas in the house, but eventually they wilt.

Even when they've been in their vase, they will wilt.

But I have good news.

You can revive them.

I'm going to take and make a very sharply angled cut with a sharp knife.

And then I'm gonna turn, and I'm gonna to do a little tiny slice into that stem, just a millimeter or two in.

And then I'm gonna take, in this case, I have a bucket of water.

You could do this in your kitchen sink.

You could do it in a bathtub.

You're just gonna let it kind of go swimming for a little while.

I'm gonna take off some of these wilty leaves, and I'm just gonna set it in my water, and it's gonna swim for a bit, and it's gonna revive all of those blooms on there.

So it's been an hour and a half, and the hydrangeas have been floating in this bucket of water, and they have now perked back up.

And we can go ahead and put it back in our vase.

You can do this process more than once.

I would say at least two to three times.

So even when this bloom, again, loses its structure, you can cut it and re-bathe it in water.

But I will tell you, after a few times, it's not gonna completely revive.

And that's when you know you're kind of done.

But you can use any water bath, an actual bathtub, a bucket, and revive those hydrangeas.

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

You ladies ready?

- I'm ready.

- These are some excellent questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

Interesting.

"I have been fighting chocolate vine for years.

"We tried to pull it up, but it keeps coming back.

What is the best way to get rid of it?"

And this is Rose.

So how do you get rid of chocolate vine?

- Chocolate vine is perennial, and it regenerates from the roots.

So as soon as you pull it, it's just gonna have another opportunity to come back again.

So the best strategy is, number one, be persistent.

Continue to pull and exhaust those root storage resources, right?

We could also use some herbicide products.

And I would suggest that timing is gonna be critical- - Ah, yes.

- For application of this.

So applying that late in the summer as we're moving into the fall- - I agree.

- Is really gonna help carry that systemic product directly down to the roots.

So systemic products, for example, glyphosate would be a good option that's gonna carry that down into the root system.

- I would agree with that.

- And just stay on top of it.

Treating one time is not gonna control it.

You've just got to keep doing it over and over.

So whether it's one or the other, or a combination of pulling and/or mowing and/or herbicide application, I feel like we're gonna have to come at that from a lot of different angles.

And this is another one of those plants that is sold in the horticulture industry.

Like you can go and purchase a chocolate vine, and they can be gorgeous, grown in cultivation on a trellis in a garden area.

But just know that it definitely has the potential to escape and grow aggressively in areas that you don't want it to in your garden.

- I would agree.

Yeah, rhizomes, right?

Root fragments.

Grows like crazy.

- Yeah.

- Anything you wanna add to that, Camille?

- Yeah, if you're gonna dig it, I would wet the soil first, and then start like a foot out from where you see it emerge and try to tease out any bit of that root.

That would be a good method if you were gonna try to dig it out.

But it'll be persistent.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Those Ps again.

Yeah, you gotta be persistent and patient, right?

'Cause it's probably gonna take years.

- Yes.

- Yeah, for that to go away.

So thank you, Rose.

We appreciate that question.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"How do you get rid of whiteflies on grapes?"

And this is Kathleen from Richland, Washington.

Camille, so how does she get rid of those whiteflies?

- So I would start off and say you might not need to.

If it's not going past the threshold of damaging your plant or hurting your harvest, it might not be worth your time to spray for whiteflies.

If you wanted to spray with insecticidal soap or neem oil or another pesticide, you would wanna concentrate on the underside of the leaves.

That's where they breed and live usually.

And you would wanna repeat that as often as the directions say.

But whiteflies will probably target the leaves, and they're very common on there.

And so if they're not hurting your harvest, I wouldn't waste time on a product if you didn't need it.

- Yeah, I agree.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

But there's something that she could use, though?

- Yeah.

- If she wanted to?

- Yeah, yeah, there is.

- Can you talk a little bit about that?

- So if she wanted to use an organic treatment, she could use neem oil.

Make sure that you don't spray when it's hot, like below 85 degrees is usually best.

Insecticidal soap, those you would need to do more often because they're not persistent.

They wash away quickly.

Do you have a suggestion?

- That covers it, yeah.

I think those are good options.

- I think those are good.

Yeah, you can always get out the hose.

- Yeah.

- Jet stream of water to knock them off.

Something else I would say for whiteflies though, because I know they like the overwinter in weeds, control your weeds.

- Mm, yeah.

- Yeah, control your weeds, and don't use a high-nitrogen fertilizer.

- Okay.

- 'Cause they love succulent- - That lush, new growth.

Yeah, that's a good point.

They're gonna kind of oftentimes focus themselves in those new growth tips.

And then also on grapes, there's just so much foliage canopy generally on grapes, especially in home garden plantings where they're not severely pruning them back the same way that we would in a production vineyard.

There's lots and lots of foliage canopy there.

So the amount of feeding that they would be able to do probably wouldn't be damaging to that plant.

- I would agree with that.

Ms.

Kathleen, thank you for that question.

So Celeste, Camille, isn't this fun?

- Yes.

- We learn so much, don't we?

- Yeah, super.

- It was great, thank you.

- No, thank you, thank you.

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