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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Houseplants bring nature inside.

Today, we're talking about some great houseplant options for your home.

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 Jill Maybry.

Jill is the curator of tropical plants here at the Memphis Botanic Garden.

Good to see you, Jill.

- Thanks, Chris.

Good to be here.

Thanks for coming to see me.

- This is a lovely place that you have here.

We have some beautiful plants on the table as well, right?

- Yes, we do- - So let's talk a little bit about houseplants, all right?

- Okay.

- All right.

So how do you wanna start with that?

- So this is a tropical plant house.

But tropical plants make wonderful houseplants because our home is a tropical place.

It stays warm, it doesn't get freezing.

So a lot of the plants that come from tropical areas, and we grow in tropical environments like this make the perfect houseplants.

So I'm happy to talk to you about a few of those.

- I know you are, right?

[both laugh] - This is one that I really like.

This is called Pale Puma.

This is one of our Tradescantia.

Tradescantia is a large family.

Lots of different garden plants and houseplants come from the Tradescantia group.

This is Pale Puma.

It is a hybrid between Purple Heart or Purple Queen.

- Yeah, I'm familiar with that.

- And one that's a more silvery one called the Cobweb Tradescantia.

So this has kind of a combination of both of those.

- It's fuzzy.

It's got some little white-- - Yeah, I'm looking at that.

- Yeah, little white fuzzy leaves, but it also has that deep purple of the purple heart or the Purple Queen.

And it'll change a little bit depending on how much light it's in.

So if you have it in a full light window, full sun where it's getting all west, southern sun, it's gonna get deep purple like this.

You can see underneath the leaves, it's super- - It's beautiful.

- Super purple as well.

- It sure is.

Wow, okay.

- And it's textured.

It's kind of fun if you have kids or grandkids in the house.

Nice to pet as well.

- Nice to pet.

[laughing] - Yeah.

And it will start out as a concise, little plant, and it grows subtly and quickly, eventually it will trail.

So it can trail down out of the side of a container.

And it's pretty forgiving to low light as well.

If it's in low light, it'll just turn into a paler green.

Maybe a little more of a pale lime green.

Little bit more of those white fuzzys exposed.

- But it's very forgiving.

- I like that, forgiving.

- Right.

- So either way it goes, its characteristics depend on the light conditions.

- Yeah, for sure.

And you may see it change.

Over the summer when it's getting more light, you may see it get darker, more purple.

Over the winter inside, it's gonna get a little more pale.

- Okay.

- And that's okay.

- Yeah, that's fine- - It'll change back.

It will trail.

It doesn't need a lot of water.

This is one that likes to... You can kind of guess by how fleshy the stems are that it does like to dry out in between watering.

So water it well, and then wait a week or two, let the top of the soil get a little more dry before you water it again.

It doesn't wanna get water logged.

- Good.

I think a lot of us, you know, when we're watering our houseplants, we tend to care too much for them.

- Yes.

I think that's often an issue with people who struggle with houseplants.

It's just a little too much care, a little too much water.

Especially over the winter.

- Sure, sure.

- So this is another Tradescantia.

- Okay.

- Looks very different.

Looks a lot brighter.

This is called the turtle vine.

And this is the golden turtle vine.

- Golden, okay.

- The turtle vine most of us are familiar with are deep green with also kind of purple backsides.

This one is a special variety that's a bright gold.

And the more shade it's in, the more gold it'll get.

It gets really beautiful in a shady environment.

This will grow very quickly.

You may actually need to up pot it pretty quickly.

Which is a good thing 'cause then you can divide it and share it with friends.

- Okay.

- Give it away as gifts.

- Yeah, it's good.

- And this likes quite a bit of water.

- So it likes water, okay.

- Yeah, it does like water.

It wants to dry out a little bit in between waterings, but it does like a lot.

As in it doesn't wanna sit in water, it can rot if it sits in water.

But regular water is gonna be a good choice.

Good choice for that one.

- Good deal.

- Let's switch over to, this is a Bromeliad.

- Yeah, I like Bromeliads.

- Yes.

They're popular 'cause of how bright they are, how bright and pretty those flowers are.

And you'll see a lot of them here in our tropical plant house.

This one, the red part is actually the bract, and the flowers themselves are the yellow part that come out.

So it's in bloom for a while because you have this red bract for many, many weeks.

And it takes a while as these little yellow pieces start to come out bit by bit, so very-- - And they come outta each one of the bracts?

- Yes, they do.

- Okay.

- So it stays colorful for a real, real long time.

And some people struggle with how to take care of their Bromeliads.

It's really not that hard.

You water them directly into the center pitcher, just kind of like a cup.

Water them into the cup-- - Like this one, okay.

- Of those leaves.

- All right.

- And you don't have to worry so much about if the soil stays wet because that water is gonna trickle down through the leaves and into the soil.

And that's gonna be enough for it.

But pretty much keep water in those cups.

- Okay.

That is pretty cool.

- They are, they are.

It's a neat plant.

- All right.

- So ferns.

- Ah.

- Ferns are also tropical.

Good popular tropical houseplants.

We have a lot of terrestrial ferns as well that need to stay outside.

But our ferns from tropical places do make good houseplants.

Some are a little fussier than others.

[Chris laughs] This is one that I like.

This is a button fern.

And it seems to thrive really well in just regular indoor conditions.

It does like humidity, which I- - So it does, okay.

- I find helps if you keep it close to other houseplants 'cause they're gonna be moist as well, and that just helps them all share the humidity.

- Okay.

All right.

- So we just mentioned ferns needing humidity.

If you definitely don't have much humidity in your house, you need something that prefers a dryer environment, succulents are gonna be for you.

- Okay.

- This is a succulent called a Devil's backbone.

- That's a cool name.

[laughing] - Right?

It's called that because it has crooked stems like you might imagine a crooked devil's backbone.

- Okay.

[laughs] - This is the variegated.

It has variegated white and green leaves.

A little bit of pink to them.

This is a plant you could set outside in the summer, even on a sunny patio.

And it'll do great.

It'll do great.

It might burn a little bit as it adjust to light for the first time, but then it'll grow excellently after that.

I have a number of these that I put outside in the summer.

- So even in our hot summer sun?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Maybe give it a few days to adjust as you move it closer to the full sun.

But then it can sit in full sun in a pot all summer out on your patio.

And these can get fairly large.

They can get two to three feet tall and wide with time.

We've got a couple nice ones here in the glass house and a couple big ones that we put outside in the summer.

Really easy to take cuttings from too.

Easy to propagate plant.

- Wow.

So even in the sun it still maintains the variegated leaves?

- Oh yeah.

And it'll get a little bit more of the pink in that full sun.

- That's good.

Can you get that?

- Yeah.

Since I just mentioned succulents- I like succulents.

There's so many shapes and sizes and colors.

This is an aloe.

This is an aloe hybrid.

This is called the White Fox miniature aloe.

And it has a lot of white, a lot of gray.

It does well in a little pot.

It also spreads quickly, so you can divide it.

Just have more pl ants to share with your friends.

And when you grow it inside, it blooms.

- Nice.

- So outdoors in the summer, you're not gonna see those blooms.

But growing it indoors in about January or February or here in early March, you get to see those gorgeous, just gorgeous blooms.

Very unlike anything else.

Anything else that we grow.

So that's something rewarding to me about growing house plants inside.

Is that over the winter you get to see those awesome, unusual blooms.

- Pretty good.

- So here's another one that is pretty new to me.

Is this something you recognize?

- It is not.

It is not.

- I just discovered this a few months ago.

So this is a Ruellia makoyana.

Common name is Monkey Flower, or spreading monkey plant.

- Really?

- Or trailing velvet vine.

It has a few fun common names.

This is related to our Ruellia, our purple Ruellia- - Yeah, I'm more familiar with that.

- Yeah, the Purple Majesty that gets about three feet tall, blooms purple all summer.

This is a winter bloomer.

And it enjoys inside conditions, can't take a freeze at all.

So if you grow it indoors, it's gonna stay small and it's gonna surprise you with these really nice purple blooms- - Yeah, those are pretty.

- In January, February, early March.

You know, just when you need some flowers in your life when we're inside and you need some pretty flowers.

Like I said, this one is new to me and I'm really enjoying it.

- That's good.

Yeah, you're right about the flowers.

Yeah, it's usually gray, kind of dark in the wintertime- - Right.

And that little pop of purple- And the flowers, the foliage is variegated as well.

Deep green foliage with a little silver line through it.

I've used it already in a couple spots here in the glass house and it's doing really nicely, makes a real pretty ground cover.

- Nice.

- So I'm excited to share that with people who maybe don't know it as a houseplant yet.

All right.

- It's gonna be good.

- Now, begonias.

Do you grow begonias at home?

- I do.

- Okay - I actually do.

- I can't tell you how successful I am, but I do grow them- - All right.

[Jill laughs] - Some of them are a little more difficult than others.

But these are a few that are real easy that I'd like to recommend.

- Okay.

- This is the beef steak begonia.

This is a popular one.

A lot of people know it as grandma's begonia.

They grew up with grandma or great grandma growing it in their home.

It's been around for a long time.

It has these real pretty deep green leaves with a red back to 'em, so that's a nice contrast.

In winter, it sends up these blooms.

- Those are cool.

- You don't think of them having blooms 'cause most of the year it is just that foliage.

But it's beautiful in January, February, it sends up these tall blooms.

Super easy to propagate, either from division or from cuttings or just from the leaves themselves.

- Wow.

- So that's part of why it's been popular for so many years.

People propagate it, hand it down to their kids, their grandkids, their neighbors.

Beef steak begonia.

Bright indirect light.

I wouldn't put it in full sun, that's gonna burn it.

And it would like to dry out a bit in between waterings.

But, pretty, pretty easy.

Old fashioned standby plant.

One that I like a lot.

And it's experiencing a bit of a resurgence in popularity which I think is well deserved.

- Okay.

- Now, this is another begonia.

- I think that's pretty cool.

- Isn't that neat?

So this is one I've come to appreciate lately.

And begonias come in different styles.

They come in cane types, they come in rex begonia types, which are small.

They come in rhizomatous types that develop little rhizomes that creep across the ground.

Like I said, some are a little more difficult than others.

This one has been really easy for me.

This is a rhizomatous type.

And maybe a cross between a rex and a rhizomatous.

It's called an eyelash begonia because it actually has little hairs around the edges that almost look like it's lined with little eyelashes.

- I can see that.

- And this one is so easy to grow from leaf cuttings.

So I have a number of them planted here.

I like to use them in containers.

They should thrive in your home year round.

And they're not too picky about soil or water, as long as you let them dry out a little bit in between.

They don't want wet feet.

- Okay.

- But they do like bright light, bright indirect light.

Full sun is gonna burn them, but a bright indirect east/north-facing window should do well for them.

And as you start to pot them up, they'll get bigger.

The leaves will get bigger, those plants themselves will get bigger.

They form a real nice looking clump over time.

- Those are very attractive leaves.

- Very, very, I love it.

And as it gets darker, that dark green turns almost blue.

- Wow.

- So it's neat to see a big one and see all the different shades that come in it.

Now, for another begonia, this is Sophie Cecile.

And this is one of our cane types of begonias.

So you can see it actually has a cane.

It grows on a cane.

This one is gonna get tall.

The stem almost looks like bamboo.

The way that it's shaped with what has individual nodes.

And some people think it really does look like a bamboo piece.

- I can see that.

- And this plant is gonna end up getting about three to five feet tall and wide.

You can keep it cut back.

Real easy to keep it cut back and then stick the canes back in the pot or into a new pot.

It gets these enormous leaves.

- Yeah, nice.

- Deep green, red undersides, silver markings, just turns into a beautiful show-stopping plant with time.

Again, no full sun.

Full sun is gonna burn the leaves.

- Right.

- But bright indirect light.

Water it well and then let the top of the soil dry out before you water it again.

- Okay.

That is good.

It's very attractive.

- Very pretty, very pretty.

Contrasts nicely.

I love all the different greens houseplants have.

How they contrast against each other.

Couple other plants I wanted to mention that we do grow here that are just excellent houseplants.

Peace lily is a well loved, well enjoyed and deservedly so.

It's just, it's so easy.

It's deep green and it does have pretty white flowers.

That's one that if you just can't help but water your plants every couple days, peace lily is a good choice 'cause peace lily does like a lot of water and it doesn't mind having wet feet, staying moist.

Some people even grow peace lilies in the top of a fishbowl.

So peace lily is a good option if you just can't help but water your plant all the time.

- And you can have those forever.

You know, my mom has a couple and she's had them forever.

- Yeah, yeah.

That makes a good pass along plant too, 'cause they can live a very long time.

- Okay.

- Another great plant for this area is Croton.

- Yeah.

- Crotons have been around a while.

We know them for their super colorful leaves.

And often around here, there are only a couple varieties available that are... Petra is a popular variety.

It's orange and red, a little bit of yellow.

But there are actually over 850 different cultivated, named cultivated varieties of Crotons.

- 850?

- At least.

At least.

They have been selected.

You find more of them in tropical parts of the world like Miami, South Florida.

- Okay.

- We do have a number of them here that you can see, ones I didn't know existed that really vary.

And some are bright yellow, some have more of a pink to them.

It's really neat, the different varieties of Crotons that are available.

- And think about Crotons, I mean you can plant those outdoors, can't you?

- Yeah, you can put them outside in the summer.

It makes a great choice to a container, like a sunny patio container.

You'll often read that Crotons need shade.

They actually love full sun.

If you adjust them to full sun, then some of their best colors will show up in the full sun.

Just be prepared, if you go right from shade to sun they may burn a little bit.

But if you move them gradually into sun, your Crotons can really thrive with that bright sunlight.

- Okay.

- And another, the last houseplant I'd really like to promote is the fiddle leaf fig, which has been so popular lately and deservedly so, 'cause it's a beautiful tall plant.

It has leaves that are really fiddle shapes- - Love the leaves.

- Just neat leaf.

I hear some people struggle with them.

They just don't do well in their homes.

Sometimes that's from moving them around, they don't like to move because they do have great big leaves and they will adjust to wherever they are.

So pick a spot you want it.

It does need some light, but pick a spot where you want it and then just let it sit there and get comfortable.

They can even take full sun.

If you have a full sunny window, and stick a fiddle leaf fig in that window, and it's going to adjust and get enormous leaves.

We have one here that's over 35 years old.

It was somebody's houseplant.

- 35 years old?

- That's right.

They donated it and it has thrived here in its sunny environment.

- So what about watering?

- Oh, watering.

Once a week, water it well.

Let the water drain out the bottom.

I would say don't water it again for another week.

It's one that likes a lot of water, but it doesn't wanna sit in water.

- Okay.

- So water it well, but then let it dry out again before you water it again.

- Okay.

- Jill, that was good.

I can tell you like all of these houseplants you talked about today.

- I do, I love them.

I get excited about them.

And I get excited about sharing them with other people.

I get excited when I find something new and can tell somebody about.

Look at this cool thing I just found, didn't know existed.

- Well, look, we appreciate you sharing this with us- - Of course, happy to- - Thank you so much- - You're welcome.

[gentle country music] It is not uncommon for me to get questions about Bromeliads.

Bromeliads are just a little different as houseplants.

They're popular house plants, they're real pretty, but sometimes they can be a little difficult to take care of.

For instance, a plant that looked like this a few months ago, a few months later might look more like this.

And the question is, what happened?

And what can we do about it?

Don't feel bad, this happens a lot.

This has happened to me.

It's a learning experience.

It's a learning and growing experience.

So what's going on?

Bromeliads, when they're happy tend to grow several pups.

So there are several pieces of them at the same time.

This is the oldest plant.

The oldest mother plant is the one that is flowering.

Now, as it starts to finish flowering, it starts to produce all these little baby plants called pups around it.

So this was our mother plant and these are the baby pups it was producing.

And what's naturally gonna happen is this mother plant is going to slowly die over the course of several months as the pups get bigger.

So what we wanna do as that happens... Oh well, I was gonna demonstrate cutting it out.

But that one, they will naturally just detach at the base.

And you can pull them right out.

You throw that part away, it's not gonna do anything else, it's done for.

Then you've got these three little baby pups that ideally would be growing like this and grow up to replace the mother plant.

This one I believe stayed a little too dry for too long.

So what we're gonna do is water it.

And when you're watering Bromeliads, they want water into the center, they form those little cups.

So you want water to go into the center of the cups, this is how they naturally grow in the wild.

But you do wanna water the soil under them as well, I think that's often where people get a bit confused.

You do need to keep water in the cups at all times.

It's okay to let the soil dry out now and then, but you don't want it to turn into a desert-like environment.

Bromeliads are from the tropical rainforest where they get a lot of water.

I believe this is in.

Yeah, so this is a nursery pot so I'm gonna let it drain out.

This one does not have drainage holes so I'm gonna throw it out.

So when you water it, you would let it drain, and then you'll set it back in this pot.

And I imagine within a few days this is gonna start perking right up and having much greener leaves.

Be ready to just start growing again.

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

You ready?

- I'm ready, let's do it.

- These are some good questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"Why do my carrots form forked fingers?"

- Okay.

- Say that three times, right?

And this is Bob from Bartlett, Tennessee.

So why is that?

- Sure.

Well, carrots like a really loose ground.

So if it's a hard packed ground that you growing carrots, they're trying, and they can't really get their roots down there, and they end up misshaping and having different shapes.

So I would recommend getting in there, maybe working the area over with a pitchfork or maybe working in some more loamy material- - That's a good idea.

- Just to sort of loosen up, soften up that soil.

Carrots really do need a soft soil to dig into.

- I would agree.

So loose, fryable soil, right?

Anything that impedes the root growth is gonna cause a problem.

So that could be heavy soils, it could be heavy clay soils, it could be compacted soils- - Right.

- It can be debris.

And the last one just popped to my head, it could be nematodes.

- Yeah.

- Nematodes can also cause that, you know, those forked fingers.

So there you have it, Mr. Bob.

Loose, fryable soils, right?

Use a pitchfork, we think that'd help you out.

- That's right.

Good exercise too.

- Good exercise, right?

All right.

Thank you much for that question Mr. Bob.

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

"What are some good pollinator plants for the southeast United States?"

And this is Kate from Memphis, Tennessee.

So Ms. Kate, I'm gonna get out of the way, I'm gonna let Jill handle this one, right?

So what do you say Jill?

- Well, pollinator plants have been a favorite subject of mine for a long time.

I love our pollinators, wanna take care of them.

Best is gonna be our native perennial plants.

- Okay.

- They're the ones best adapted to this area and to our pollinators in this area.

- Echinacea is a great choice, coneflowers.

Any kind of Rudbeckia, your black-eyed Susans, your brown-eyed Susans, any of those are gonna be a good choice.

Coreopsis.

Basically anything in that Aster family that looks like a daisy, that's daisy shaped, that has that little center with the separate petals.

Those are all in the same family, Asters that are in that family.

- That's good.

- Anything shaped like that is gonna generally be a good pollinator plant.

Also, verbenas.

Plants that have lots of tiny little flowers clustered together tend to be excellent pollinator plants.

You can think of Queen Anne's lace, you see on the side of the highway.

That actually is introduced from Europe, but we have a lot of similar native plants that are those clusters of little ambles.

Dill and fennel, when you let them go to seed, have those clusters of tiny little yellow flowers.

And you'll see pollinators just all over them.

And all of these plants thrive in our hot Memphis weather, so those are all excellent choices to plant.

To plant for your pollinators- - And so many of those that you mentioned, full sun?

- Full sun.

Yeah, yeah, they are indeed.

A few of those could handle a little more shade.

Echinacea, coneflower, actually does pretty well in part shade.

- That's not always known, but it's a good performer.

- I didn't know that.

- Some of the verbenas do well.

Yeah, there are a number of things, you have to look a little harder for the part shade... Part shade plants, but they're out there.

- All right.

So there you have it, Ms. Kate.

I knew Jill would get it for us.

[Jill laughs] All right, here's our next viewer email.

"Is there any way to stop ginkgos from stinking?"

- Oh boy.

- So is there any way to do that?

- The problem is that ginkgos are either male or female plants.

And that you don't know which one they are until they're what, 8, 10 years old?

- Yeah.

If not older, yeah.

- When you plant a ginkgo, you don't know if it's a male or female.

And it's not until you have a big, beautiful tree that it turns out to be a female and it makes those stinky fruits.

You could cut it down if you just can't live with it.

You could just try to avoid the area for a couple weeks when it's extra stinky.

[Chris laughs] If you can find, I don't know if they even exist, if there are certain specific male clones of ginkgo because I'm not familiar with them.

- But unfortunately that's just the risk you're running with planting a ginkgo.

Is if it's a male or female, the female is gonna have those smelly fruits.

- Yeah, you might just have to let it run its course.

- Yeah.

- You know what I mean?

So the thing about the fruit is it contains butyric acid.

You know, of course that gives it a stinky smell, right?

Especially when it's on the side walk and it's hot outside.

- And it gets crushed.

People walk on it, that releases more of it.

- So it's gonna release more of that pungent smell.

And I'm sitting here thinking about it.

You know what, that could be a survival mechanism, if you think about it, right?

So the wildlife will come and eat that fruit.

Seeds, right?

They're gonna leave the seeds behind.

- Sure.

- Reproduction.

- Yeah.

- So maybe it's the smell that attracts the wildlife to eat it for reproduction or survival.

- Ginkgos are a very old plant.

A very, very old plant.

So it could be that what they eventually... What used to eat them may not even exist anymore.

It could have been an ancient mammal or...

But you're right, that probably had to do with- - Yeah, it could be the case, I just didn't think about it.

It's like, yeah, so it smells so bad, maybe it's a reason why.

- Why would something want to eat it?

Maybe there used to be something that loved that smell.

- Yeah.

Yeah, like I said, they leave it behind and there you go, reproduction.

- Yeah.

- So it could happen.

- Absolutely.

- Deborah, so how about that?

All right.

But yeah, see if you can get a male ginkgo.

All right?

You might have to wait some time for that to happen, but it can happen.

All right.

So Jill, we made it through.

It's raining outside.

- It is raining.

- Little lightning, heard some thunder.

But we're good here in the glass house.

- Yeah.

Fortunately here, got a got a nice glass cover.

Haven't felt a rain drop off in here yet.

- I'm dry.

I'm good.

- Me too.

[laughing] - All right, so thank you, Jill.

Appreciate that.

- You're welcome.

- All right.

Remember we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or a letter.

The email address is questions@familyplotgarden.com and the mailing address is Family Plot, 7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova, Tennessee, 38016.

Or you can go online to familyplotgarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for watching.

If you want more information about the houseplants Jill talked about or want to see how to plot a houseplant, head on over to familyplotgarden.com.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]