
Winter Edible Crops & Winter Garden Prep
Season 17 Episode 31 | 27m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Carol Reese talks about edible winter crops, and Rudy Pacumbaba discusses winter garden prep.
This week on The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South, retired UT Extension Horticulture Specialist Carol Reese talks about different edible crops that can grow through a Mid-South winter. Also, Alabama A&M Extension Specialist Rudy Pacumbaba discusses things you can be doing now to prep for winter.
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Winter Edible Crops & Winter Garden Prep
Season 17 Episode 31 | 27m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
This week on The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South, retired UT Extension Horticulture Specialist Carol Reese talks about different edible crops that can grow through a Mid-South winter. Also, Alabama A&M Extension Specialist Rudy Pacumbaba discusses things you can be doing now to prep for winter.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.
I'm Chris Cooper.
It may be winter, but that does not mean you can't eat from your garden.
Today, we're talking about winter edibles.
Also, it may be winter soon, but there are still things to do in the garden.
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.
[cheerful country music] - Welcome to The Family Plot.
I'm Chris Cooper.
Joining me today is Carol Reese.
Ms.
Carol is the Ornamental Horticultural Specialist [laughing] for University of Tennessee Extension.
And, Rudy Pacumbaba is here.
Dr.
Rudy is the Extension Specialist for Alabama A & M University or Alabama Cooperative Extension.
Thank you for joining us.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
- All right, Ms.
Carol, it's always good to have you here.
- Always fun to be here.
- Always good to have you.
Now, let's talk about cool season edibles.
So, there are cool season edibles?
- In fact, I prefer cool season edibles.
[Chris laughing] I mean, [laughs] who likes gardening out in the heat and the sweat and the bugs?
- I'm with you.
- I know a lot of people do.
Some people love the heat.
- Yeah, right.
- But, I'm not, I'm a wimp.
[Chris laughing] I often tell people that once it gets to be high summer, I wanna go in the house and lie down and wait for October.
[laughing] - Oh, man.
- But, I think it's easier to garden in the fall and spring and some of these things we're gonna talk about today will actually overwinter pretty well and I'm all about pretty as well.
As a human, I like to eat, but I also enjoy beauty.
So, what we're gonna talk about today is not only edible, but it'll be pretty in your landscape or in your winter containers and a lot of people do like to do the winter containers.
I personally like to have something right there on the deck I can snag and grab and put in the kitchen without having to run out into the garden in the rain or the cold.
- Okay, makes sense to me.
Alright, so which vegetables would you like to start with then?
- I guess if you made me pick just one.
- Just one.
Come on, Ms.
Carol.
- I may have to go with the chards.
- Okay.
You like chard, alright.
- I like chard.
Honestly, I don't eat it as much as I like to look at it.
[chuckling] But I can eat it and I do like any kind of green, actually, chopped up.
I always said if you put enough garlic and bacon, anything is gonna taste good.
[laughing] - All right, bacon.
- And good for you.
[laughs] - Uh huh, I can get with that.
[laughs] - But chard is so easily grown and they have so many colors.
The last few years, it's gotten easy to find some of the rainbow chards even at the vegetable sections at most any garden center and they're very tough.
They hold up well through freezes and that's the thing.
Some of these things we plant as cool season, the yield, I wanna kinda wanna diss what people call flowering cabbage or flowering kale.
- Yes.
- But it's like big, beautiful, purple, or white, or pink roses 'cause they melt.
[laughing] Once we have a good hard freeze, they're [blows out air], they're mush.
- They go down, yes.
- They do.
So, that's one reason the chards, and I've had chard overwinter well, look good through spring, even not bolt in the heat of summer, and bolting, of course, is flowering and going to seed, which is usually the death of a biennial type plant like that or a winter annual.
And, it will come back not, as soon as we start to get some cool weather, it starts to flourish again.
So, I really have had them almost act like short lived perennials.
- Okay, okay.
- Two or three years sometimes, I have one in my garden.
- That's a long time, yeah, two, three years.
- The bad thing is in the summer, of course, the insects do like to eat it.
And you do have to worry about the same kinds of insects that would eat your cabbage.
So, you have to watch 'em for that and monitor for pest issues.
- Okay, so pretty much the same pests as well, okay.
- The colors, though, are what are so amazing.
Mostly, its stem color, but a lot of them will have deeply colored leaves, as well, but the colors can be red, orange, hot pink, white.
They're just incredible and they're a plant that I like to say plays with light.
I've been developing a program called Light and Shadow in the Garden.
- Okay.
- And, you know enough about me that you know I designed my house so that the deck is backlit from my kitchen sink-- - Right.
- As the sun is setting and it makes everything kinda glow.
I call it the magic hour.
It gilds and it makes translucent leaves glow like stained glass and the chards are like that.
They really do beautiful things with light.
- Okay.
So, you do like chard, don't ya?
- I do like chard.
- Can't you tell that she like chard a little bit?
- I could go on.
And I said rainbow, but there's neon lights, bright lights.
You can, they're a range of colors, but you can also order solid colors if you want all red or UT orange.
- Yeah, I've had the Bright Light, yeah.
I like the Bright Light.
That's for sure.
- Yeah.
- All right, now what about kale?
- Well, I like to eat kale.
[laughing] Again, yeah, the way you cook it is all about that.
And I like young kale in salads.
That's yummy.
Chop it up fine and put a lot of good stuff in there.
But, the kale that I love and I was so impressed with, I fell in love with up north.
They were using it in Chicago Botanic Garden and Minnesota in downtown plantings with a little bit of a heater on and it would hold up through the winter months and I was like, gosh, that's incredible.
The Redbor is a deep rich purple.
I mean, the ruffles are insane.
The texture on that thing and it grows like a little tree.
So, if you're doing a container combination, you know the old recipe thriller, fillers, spiller.
- Yeah, spiller, right, yeah.
- It does a great job as that thriller.
There is a green one, too, Winterbor, that's beautiful.
I mean, it's a light green.
In case you need some green, right?
- Right, yeah, okay.
- It's a color too.
- It's a color too.
[laughs] - It's a color too.
- Alright.
- So, they're not always available locally.
Although, some of our local growers have started supplying it because there is good demand for it.
- That's good.
- I know some of the people up at Reelfoot, at the resort area there, the butterfly gardens have been carrying that now.
So, growers are, you have to find it.
You can find it from them, maybe let them know that you want it.
You can actually buy it in gallon pots or in six packs, usually.
- Okay, six packs.
All right, so let's run through some of these quickly, all right?
Purple mustard.
- Oh, easy, easy.
- Oh, she says.
- It's so easy.
Now, it will get bitten a little bit in a real had freeze, but it's one of those if you get the giant red mustard, that's such a beauty.
- It is.
- And it's got this fabulous crumpled, puckered texture to the leaf and if it does get knocked back a little bit in the winter, a couple of warm weeks, it comes right back out.
So, yeah, that's a really good one.
Easy, you can just kinda throw the seed around.
I used to go out and sprinkle it in some of my gardens and pots as summer wanes right about Labor Day and some of it just comes up as the other things are dying down.
- Hm, yeah, okay.
What abut some of the Asian vegetables?
- Asian, I kind of, I always liked Asian vegetables anyway.
Napa cabbage and such.
But, I fished an Asian vegetable catalog out of the garbage one day at work somebody had thrown out.
[laughing] - Oh, my Gosh.
[laughs] - Oh, man.
- And I went crazy.
The tatsois.
- Oh, my gosh.
- Oh, they're so beautiful.
The glossy foliage and they're like little flattened roses and they come in greens and purples.
Oh, they're just gorgeous things, and there's lots of other, lots of daikon, lots of radishes, lots of hybrid greens.
You could go nuts and I, you know, you can get online and find a lot of these as well.
- Sure.
[laughing] - Now, we're talking about the dinosaur kale before we get away from kale.
- All right, let's do that, let's do that.
- Because it is one of your very, very toughest.
It's a blue, blue, blue green.
And, again, that gorgeous puckered texture and it's a very arching plant that kinda gives a little umbrella effect over everything.
And I always have to tell this story about Felder Rushing.
- Oh, yeah.
- You know, he's got his truck garden.
- Mhm mhm.
- He likes to put the vegetable garden in the back of his truck 'cause he says that's his argument against people who say I don't have time to garden.
- Ohh.
- And it goes with him everywhere.
- Yeah, I've seen his-- - And he says, the dinosaur kale holds up to, you know, cold 70 miles an hour winds with absolutely no damage, so that's pretty good testament.
- It is.
- It's also free insect control.
- Oh, good.
- Ah, didn't know that.
- You're blowing the bugs off.
- Ah, okay, ah, makes sense.
[laughing] Alright, I got it.
- There we go.
- I got it.
So, let's hit the evergreen herbs.
Can we do that?
- Oh, I do.
Parsley number one 'cause parsley is gonna stay green through most of our winter, unless we have a really severe cold snap.
Cilantro, not quite so much.
And, a lot of people wanna plant that in the spring and it's gonna quickly bolt.
- Yeah, lot of people of that.
- It actually does better as a fall crop.
- Hm, didn't know that.
- And then, it'll make it through a milder winter fine with no dinging and then all through spring as well.
So, you get several months of parsley and, often, cilantro, if we don't have a really cold winter.
And, the green is just fabulous, especially on the parsley.
The flat leaf parsley is the most desired culinary-wise, but the little crinkly, fine-textured one, the fern leaf, the crispa, has got the gorgeous, most gorgeous color to it.
So, do those.
Also, oregano is gonna be one of your evergreen perennial herbs.
Thyme will also work and rosemary, though, borderline sensitive to cold.
So, I usually use rosemary in a pot, but I can easily pull back onto the porch or into the garage if we have a really cold snap.
- Okay.
- But add those to your winter containers, a few pots of pansies, which are edible, too.
- Yes, yeah, yeah.
- For the bright color and you got edible and beauty.
- Edible and beauty.
[soft country music] Thank you, Ms.
Carol.
This is good stuff.
Edible and beauty.
- I like that.
- I like that.
Thank you much.
[upbeat country music] Let's talk a little bit about this summer annual grass weed.
This is goosegrass.
Goosegrass is related to crabgrass.
It loves compact soils, and also loves soils that are poorly drained.
You definitely want to remove this weed before it actually starts to go to seed.
And as you can see now, it is starting to go to seed because it is an annual grass weed.
So here's a couple of things that you could do.
One, use a pre-emerge.
Dimension will be a good pre-emerge to control goosegrass, and you want to put that down, of course, in the spring, then again in the summer.
And since this weed is already here, how about a post-emergent herbicide?
You can use something like quinclorac.
That's the active ingredient.
So again, goosegrass.
Make sure you get it up because if you don't, and you wait too late, it will go to seed.
And guess what?
It'll be back next year.
[upbeat country music] All right, Rudy, let's talk about landscape winter management.
What do we need to be doing as winter approaches?
- Well, as winter approaches, I think what most folks tend to forget is that this is the perfect time to try and get back out in the yard.
During the summer time, as Carol was saying, you know, you wanna get inside.
You don't wanna be outside.
I'm the kind of person that doesn't wanna work outside as well when it's really hot.
- Right.
- But, you tend to forget that, you know, during the winter time, there, that's the time where you can actually start to prepare for your spring.
So, getting your lawn ready for the winter time.
You can actually do your final cuts for your cool season grass.
You can do your final cuts and make sure that you keep them at least two inches in depth minimum for your cool season.
Your warm season, you might wanna cut them down a little bit shorter if you want.
They'll start to turn brown as well, such as your Bermudas and so forth.
When they start to go dormant, there isn't really a reason for you to go ahead and try and fertilize.
I think that's kind of a wasted effort because nothing is gonna be happening during the winter time for dormant lawns.
But, you can do some type of fortification for some of your cool season grasses.
Then, also, your irrigation system, if you have an irrigation system in your lawn area, you can also get those prepared, make sure you blow out and drain those lines, so they don't bust during the winter time.
And, also, getting your shrubs ready and your beds ready.
Shrubs, you can go ahead after your last frost, go ahead and start pruning and getting those cut back.
Any of your ornamental grasses, you can go ahead and let those grow.
I would not prune those back until the spring time because what your end up happening with your ornamental grasses, I'm a real big fan of ornamental grasses because it adds that texture and color and also sound during the winter time, which is just wonderful because during the winter time, usually it's pretty drab, you don't have much color, but you can still add texture.
And then, so during the actual spring, early spring, you would cut those back to about 12 inches to six inches depending upon the type of ornamental grasses.
- By the way, a friend gave me a tip on that, too.
He puts a bungee cord in before he cuts.
- Yes!
- And cut it.
- Yes.
I think when I first started out doing that in landscapes, the biggest thing was, you know, what are you gonna use?
Are you gonna use a weed eater?
Do you use sheers?
But, it's just a matter of trying to control all that huge bunch and I'm glad you mentioned that.
Tying it up first is the best way to do it and then cutting through it, so you don't have to drag all this mess out everywhere, so.
- Right, that pretty good.
And you actually did mention something out here Ms.
Carol mentions all the time.
- Yeah.
- Sound in the garden.
Did you hear him mention that?
- Yes, I do, I love.
- 'Cause you say that all the time.
- I love things that move.
- The sound in the garden, I think that's one thing that people tend to forget is they'll think about color and they think about texture, but the sound is something that most people don't, are not really familiar with or don't really think about.
- Right.
- And it provides some shelter.
I often see birds going into those big grass clumps.
- Yes, yes, that true.
And then also, some rodents as well, but you know.
[laughing] We're trying to steer away from those.
But also, you can also take your leaves.
Any of those cuttings, you can then recycle and put that into your compost pile.
Again, if they are diseased, make sure those particular items, you don't put in your compost 'cause you don't want to continue the cycle for disease because they can overwinter in your compost.
So, anything that is actually diseased or has kind of have pest on them, you will destroy those or put them in the trash, but anything that is of good, sound nature, you can put into your compost pile.
And then, also don't forget about your, not your rodents, but your birds, wildlife as well to, if you do have a bird bath, to try and drain that out or if you are going to provide some kind of liquid or water for them, in the winter months, try and maybe have a heater.
Then, also, some good sources of seed or food during the winter time, as well.
- Rudy, I wanna mention, too, that the shrubs is, remember, those people might forget that the spring flower shrubs.
- Yes.
- Need to be left alone.
- Yeah.
You have to make sure that once they flower, that's the best time to actually then prune.
So, make sure you wait 'til they actually flower, then actually do the pruning.
So, a lot of times, we tell folks to make sure that after they flower, and then once the leaves come down, especially for the deciduous, like your crape myrtles and so forth, you can do your pruning then.
- Right, okay.
Now, what about, so, your insect pests?
What about applying oils?
- Yes.
- How do you feel about that?
- I'm glad you mentioned that.
Yeah, this is the best time as well.
During the dormant period, this is the best time to do any of your dormant oils to address any kind of scale or thrips or so forth.
And so, this is the best time to do that.
Make sure, depending upon what type of dormant oil you're gonna utilizing to look at the instructions because there are some requirements as to the actual temperature requirements 'cause if it gets too cold to actually apply your dormant oil, you know, it may not be just as effective.
So, that's one thing you have to take into account.
- Yup.
- Okay.
Now, let's go back to the cool season grasses for a second, our fescues.
- Yes, mhm.
- What do we need to fertilize the fescue with?
- Well, nitrogen, again, is not something that you're gonna be utilizing during the dormant periods, but your actual phosphorous and maybe your potassium as well.
And, some of those fertilizers that are a little bit stronger in those particular aspects and higher concentration, less in the nitrogen, is something that you're gonna be utilizing during the cool season months.
- Okay.
And here, we always talk about the soil test.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- You know, is this a good time to do that?
Would you agree with that?
- Yes, that's the best time because during the course of, let's say, two or three years, doing your actual cycle of your lawn, things can change.
And so, it's best to monitor that.
And, if you haven't done a soil test, make sure you get one before you do any application of fertilizers to make sure you're doing the right thing and there it's gonna be effective, yeah.
- Yeah, I think it's be very effective.
Go ahead.
- And can we mention, like, a little bit about, I hate to see any shrubs shorn no matter what time of the year.
I'm a big fan of cutting back at the joint, even to reduce the size if it's gotten too big, even it's a great big old forsythia, you can follow those bigger limbs way back into the shrub and nip 'em off, so that you don't see where you had the cut.
- Right.
I think one thing, I think the easiest way for most folks is that they'll just go around and shear things.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- And-- - That's your meatball that you always talk about.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, the meatballs, the cans or the rectangles.
- Rectangles.
- And that's, yeah.
I'm not a big fan of those.
[laughing] I think one of the biggest things that you have when you're doing your pruning, to take the time and effort to really think out the process.
And so, a lot of times, when you're doing your pruning, either there's gonna be some topping or some tips or actually thinning out from the middle and that really what the kind of pruning that you should be working with, not something that's going to just wipe things off and then shape things because that's gonna actually help, not help the plant and destroy the actual features of the plant.
- Sure.
- It's art and science, you know.
I always tell people, step back and study, you know, and if it's things like, say, Japanese Maples touching the house or over the sidewalk, if you'll reduce those, take those limbs off that are the offensive limbs that are touching the house or over the sidewalk, back where they came from the trunk or from the larger limb, you retain the grace and, eventually, you get it up and over instead of if you whack it off, you'll get that little witch's broom of regrowth that's ugly.
- And that's typical what you see with a lot of crape murder.
- Yes, the murder.
- Right, crape murder, where they'll just cut it off at to a stump or to a main limb and then you end up with this ball of like a witch's broom.
And so, that really destroys the whole structure of the plant.
- Just looks so bad.
Jason always says stop the chop.
- Stop the chop.
- Stop the chop.
- Stop the chop.
- Now, I had purchased some that had crape myrtle bark scale and I just decided to start them over.
- Okay.
- Wow.
- I cut them off and retrained to five-to-seven stems as we were taught in school, you know, for if you want a multi-stem crape myrtle.
And so, I just went ahead and began them over to get, made it easier to get rid of the problem.
And maybe out where I am, I won't have to treat them.
- You are, yeah, okay, okay.
One last thing I would like to cover, though.
Going back to the leaves, can we get folks to stop bagging the leaves up and leaving them on the curb?
- Yeah.
- Oh, yeah.
Definitely so.
- In a plastic bag.
- I mean, this is the best time, also, you can use your lawn mower and then just go ahead and chop everything up and then reincorporate it into the actual soil.
- Right.
- Same thing for not bagging your actual lawnmower.
When you're doing the grass cuttings, don't bag, just go ahead and mulch.
- Or pile it up somewhere.
I love how, I keep talking about Felder today, [laughing] but how some people make composting very difficult and they have all these rules and proportions.
- Exactly.
- And Felder says it's real simple.
Don't throw it away, pile it up somewhere.
- Yeah, that's true.
It's a very simple concept.
I think, you know, you don't really need those containers.
You don't need all these different ratios.
Just allow it to just decompose and then you're good.
- All right, great discussion.
That's good stuff.
Thank you much, Rudy.
Appreciate that.
- Thanks.
[upbeat country music] - While inspecting the blackberries one last time, I found something that kinda caught me a little by surprise, but it shouldn't have.
A very opportunistic pest, a bagworm.
This is how bagworms overwinter.
The female will attach this bag to, normally it's a branch of a tree that they're gonna feed on.
But, if you happen to run across a bagworm like this, especially if it's on a plant that you've had problems with bagworms before, remove it.
Take it off.
Because that female has filled this bag with eggs.
That is how they overwinter.
They overwinter as eggs in a bag.
So, this needs to be destroyed.
I don't mean, you don't need to throw it down because it can overwinter.
This is a very tough cocoon, and it can overwinter on the ground.
You need to burn it, or you need to put it in a grocery bag, a Walmart bag, triple tie it, put it in the garbage and get rid of it.
[upbeat country music] - Alright, so here's our Q & A segment.
Y'all ready?
- We're ready.
- These are good questions.
Maybe?
[laughs] - Maybe.
- Maybe.
- We'll see.
- Depends on the question, right?
- Yeah.
[laughing] - Alright, so here's our first viewer email with a picture.
"I have a plum tree that bears fruit and it's in full sun.
"This past Saturday, October 19th, "I noticed it was blossoming.
"Why is it doing that this fall?
"Will this impact its fruit production in the spring?
Should I trim it?"
Right, this is Ian in Memphis.
So, we have a couple of things going on here, right?
It's blooming now.
- We're all fruit people here, so we're all dying like, I got this one.
- So, it's blooming right now.
"Will it impact fruit production in the spring and should I trim it?"
You first up.
[laughs] - I'd say that it already thought it had gone dormant.
You know, we had such a hot, stressful, and a lot of plants went ahead and went into early dormancy just to avoid the horrible, horrible heat and drought we had.
And then, as soon as we got some rain and cool, it was like ahh.
- Boom.
Starts to come back out.
[laughing] - Will it affect production?
A little bit.
- Yeah, that's what I thought.
Maybe a little.
- Yeah.
Not that much.
I mean, it's still gonna set some flower buds for this year, but yeah, I wouldn't prune it back.
- (Carol) No.
- Because then you're gonna ruin your next year's crop.
But, yeah, it's nothing that you need to worry about because, again, it goes through that cycle, goes through a stress cycle.
It was stressed out and then it came out to better conditions and then it decided to come back out again, so.
- And a reduction in number of fruit often means larger fruit, too.
- That's true.
- I have a hard time making myself thin.
- That's true.
- So it's sort of a natural thinning.
- So you might get, yeah, you might get larger fruit because it'll be thinned out slightly.
- So, there you have it, Ian.
We appreciate that question.
And should I trim it now?
Ehh, don't do that.
- No.
- Not right now, okay?
Just hold off on that.
Alright, here's our next viewer email.
I've heard this question a lot.
"I have a large mass of ivy that is climbing my tree.
How can I get rid of it without killing the tree?"
And this is Sue in Collierville.
So, Ms.
Carol, how can you get rid of this large mass of ivy without killing the tree?
But, it's climbing the tree, though.
- Well, you gotta cut it at the base.
You just gotta sever all those vines and it's gonna take a long time for all those vines to drop out of that tree.
Unless you can hire a great big truck with a cherry picker to pull it all out for you, it's just gonna be matter of waiting it out.
And then, any new growth that shows up, I always say cut it down as close as you can to the ground and any new growth, that's gonna be a little bit more soft and succulent and would take up an herbicide better as far as killing the roots.
People who don't wanna use herbicide, you gotta dig and dig and dig.
- About to say, yeah, we have those who don't wanna use herbicide.
- That's true.
- And dig and dig.
- Have to dig.
- Every time you see it, dig.
- It's a deep-- - It's a long process.
Ivy's really resilient, so that's the biggest problem.
And, the root system is gonna stay there for quite some time.
- It's massive, extensive.
- It is, it is.
- Right.
But, again, what if somebody wanted to use the herbicide, though?
Do you have one that you would recommend, if I'm asking?
- Oh, well I-- - Yeah, if somebody wanted to use the herbicide.
- Glyphosate, I still believe in glyphosate.
You know, the evidence shows that it breaks down very quickly once we get into soil.
- Okay, okay, okay.
- Mhm.
- So, that is one of the keys, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Alright.
- Yeah, just in case somebody wants to use that.
- Yes, and I'd warn them against using one of those very potent brush killers because that's gonna actually hurt the tree.
- Yeah, it's gonna hurt the tree because they have other chemicals besides glyphosate in it.
- Right, right.
- So, it's gonna-- - I think triclopyr.
- Triclopyr, yup.
- Yes.
- It'll take care of everything.
[laughs] - Sure will, yes.
You have to be careful with that.
- Oh, and even that RoundUp 365, be careful.
- See, I'm glad you mentioned that, that's right.
- Yes, right.
- The different formulations.
- 'Cause it has other, yeah.
- That's right, that's right.
- So, don't do it.
- If you just do the standard glyphosate and standard RoundUp, then you're okay.
But, yeah, as Carol was saying-- - Yeah, yeah, see I'm getting into that.
- The different formulations are tricky-- - They are tricky.
- Because it's all just under RoundUp and people just pull things off the shelf.
- And don't read the label.
[laughing] Read the label.
- Read the label.
Read the label, Ms.
Sue, all right?
So, thank you for that question.
Here's our next viewer email.
"When should I cut back my pampas grass?"
Ms.
Carol, what do you think about that?
- Well, we did our-- - We talked a little bit about that.
- Yes.
I like the sound, the movement.
- Right, exactly.
- And pampas grass is one of the very ones that I often see birds take cover in as protection.
- 'Cause they're so large.
- Yeah.
The cold winter winds, it's good insulation and protection.
Other critters, yes, can be in there as well.
I don't cut anything down like that until late winter as you said because I wanna enjoy it.
Who wants to look at shorn things all winter long?
- Right, right.
- And I do the same thing to my shrubs, I'm gonna wait 'til later in the winter to prune because I feel like just providing some protection and perhaps the remnants of, I call the ghost of summer past, even the old faded blooms.
- Exactly.
- A hydrangea, for example.
- Sure, exactly.
- You know, there's some beautiful things in winter if you look for 'em.
Not as colorful, but the shapes and the textures and so, I would not cut it down until February, maybe in Memphis.
- Yeah.
Maybe in Memphis, yeah.
- Oh, wow, okay, February.
Okay.
- About February.
- 'Cause it'll start putting up new growth pretty early in the side where it's protection and I waited too late sometimes to cut grasses back.
I cut off those graceful little tips.
So, often March, at least by March.
I'd say February would be great.
- Yeah, the later you wait, the reduced amount of time you have with that stark cut back appearance.
And you'll have some new growth coming up.
- Okay.
- Yup.
- And, again, you tie it up, right?
- Tie it up, yeah.
- Cut it out like that, okay.
All right, so Ms.
Carol, Dr.
Rudy, it's been fun.
It's been fun.
- Always.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
- All right.
Remember, we love to hear from you.
Send us a email or letter.
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That's all we have time for today.
Thanks for joining us.
Fall is in the air.
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