(cheerful instrumental music) - Hello, there.

Welcome to "The Garden Spot."

I'm Willie Freeland, the gardene It's cold here.

How is it where you are?

Well, we do have to have some co They say that if we should go for a whole year with the depth of winter, it would set civilization back t and maybe millions of years, because most of the food plants are annuals, that is they come up from seed, they grow, they bloom, they set seed, they die, leaving behind their little seed And a poet has said that, "The seed, the womb of life between two summers," and he said that, "With no summer there would be n Books have been written about se and the latest one is this "Success With Seeds."

And it has a very attractive dus These are all seeds in their natural colors, and it's on a blue background, as you see.

It is written by Ann Reilly, published by Park Seed Company, It's advertised in his new catal And here's the way the plants ar This is the cigar plant.

We're all familiar with it.

It's a little pot plant, but it will also grow in the gar and it comes from Mexico.

And this one is a... Hmm, well, one of the evergreens and these are two kinds of cycla This is a cyclamen in the forest that has to be grown in a greenh These are the cyclamen that grow in a shady spot in the garden.

Each one, it tells you how to sow the seed.

It even has pictures of a little bit of seedlings, so you will know your seedlings from weed seedlings.

And they have degrees of difficulty in growing.

If it's marked easy, that's the one for me, because if it says easy, anybody can grow it.

Now, seeds come in all sizes.

This is the largest one that I k This is a coconut in the husk.

It grows in the tropics, and it grows up, and blooms, and sets seed.

And then either when the fruit i and it drops because of the cold or it's thrown down by hurricane or it's thrown down by...

Even monkeys have been known to and throw them down.

And you better watch out, because if one hits you, it's just like a deadly missile.

Some of them strike water or mud And the next diurnal tide that comes up, high tide, will wash them into the water, and they float to further shores and get stuck in the mud, and they germinate.

And before you know it, they have another palm tree.

Then there are the smallest that I know anything about, and these are petunia seeds.

They are almost too small to discern the separate seed.

It looks like gun powder.

There are different methods of s but we in the South should not rush the season too m because we have such a long growing season.

You know, our growing season lasts until Thanksgiving.

Our first frost comes a week before Thanksgiving in this part of the South.

But you have to judge it according to your locale.

If you should want to rush the s if you should want some plants t in mid-April or late-April, you take a tin can, make holes in it, fill it with good gardening soil Get you some milled sphagnum mos That differs from the common mos in that it has been sterilized and it has been pulverized.

It's very fine.

And you put an inch of that on top of your good garden loam, and you press it down, and you water it thoroughly.

It's better to do that the day before you want to sow your seed And then on the day of the sowing of the seed, if they are small, so small you can't see the individual seed, you just shake them out on top of the moss, like that, and press it down, and take a piece of... A piece of, you take a sandwich bag, and it's made to order for you.

You just slip it over the tin ca and that's it.

You don't have to tie it.

It just sits.

Now, if you have a good many see you might want to try a gallon c and use a food storage bag over Now, everybody knows that bottom will make seeds germinate quicke So you take this container, and you sit it on top of a space where it has a heat pump in it, and the top doesn't get hot.

Or you can even sit it on top of your refrigerator.

It's always warmer right on top.

Or the water heater.

But that's just where you have a few plants.

Now, most people will just sit i on the window sill in full sun.

Of course, you see you have this that shades it and keeps it mois Now, it can be quite chilly on a window sill at night, real If you should sow seed, say, five weeks before you can.. You want to set out the plants, and it's quite chilly, you take a piece of pasteboard, and put it between the cans and the window glass, and take it off in the day, then we put it back.

A little bit of trouble, but what's a little trouble?

All right, you get ready to tran all you have... Well, now, of course, when they first germinate, you can see you can lift it off with all ease.

When you first see the green lit coming through the soil, you take off your plastic.

And when they get about finger l and you must turn that can every day or two.

Turn it a little bit every day, and that will make the plants grow straight up, instead of getting spindly, and all leaning towards the glas Get ready to transplant.

Spread a newspaper, and you take your can, and you rake out the moss, and out will come the little pla The roots are all in that moss.

And you separate them with a toothpick or a pencil.

And you'll find that each little has a little wad of the moss, and roots are coming through.

And that's the time to transplan Now, along in April, you can sow them on site, where you want them to...

Some plants will not transplant.

And always on the package of a s it will tell you that it is non- And that's the ones that you... Like poppies and foxgloves.

Not on foxgloves?

Yeah.

No, not foxgloves.

Larkspur.

Those do not transplant easily.

So they are best sowed... Now, if it should become dry, sometimes our springs can be rea The Yankees have a saying, "April showers bring forth May f Well, sometimes our late spring can be very dry, and if it is, you pulverize your space where you're going to grow annua And you make a little furrow with a pencil, is a good idea.

And then you wet some sphagnum m Now, this doesn't have to be the pulverized, you can just get the common, and wet it, and stick it in that little tren and push it down firmly.

And then you sow your seed on top of that sparingly.

And then if you're wise, you will cover with a sprinkling If you use common garden soil, and it is on the clayey side, it will firm across that no plan could push through, but if you covered it with sand, they come up freely.

Now, a lot of people go to a lot of pains to...

Some people will put crocus sack down over where they have sowed And I did that once, and I left it on too long, and when I pulled the sack off, I pulled all the seedlings out of the ground.

But that moss, in both the container grown seed and in those grown in the ground prohibits that terrible disease called wilt off, where the little plants get up a certain height, then all of a sudden they turn b at the root and fall over.

Well, it doesn't do that if you use the moss.

I find a good idea is to use new over where I have sown.

And you put it down in a little and you put a little fresh dirt on each corner, keep the wind from blowing it aw And you'd go by every day with y when you're watering something e and you keep the newspapers down and that helps bring them up.

But anything has to be removed when the green leaf appears.

There are many annuals, and I think we just mentioned th that are most often seen.

Of course, there's zinnia, in all its forms.

I am not particularly fond of th that's called a dahlia flower, because it gets as big as a dahl and thick, and heavy, and coarse If I wanna grow a big zinnia, I'd get the one that's called California Giant.

It gets as big as a saucer, and almost as flat as a saucer.

Huge blooms and very, very attra And then there is little bits that bloom in zinnias, and it's called Persian Carpet, and it's a grand edging plant, a edge, a flower bed of it.

And every bloom is different, different patterns, different co And then there are the cactus fl And when they bloom, you can't tell it from... Well, it wouldn't... Shall I say a cactus?

Yes, a cactus flower.

That's what they call them.

And they look like the spoon chrysanthemums.

They are very narrow petaled and curled and twisted.

Very nice.

My niece has a garden, and she has a path from the back to the back gate, and all along she has annuals, because, you know, you must not mix annuals with perennials.

You must dig this a place where you're going to grow annuals each year, and fertilize it highly, because they have to do all of their life's work and span in that one season.

Well, she bought some baby's bre Now, that's a perennial.

Well, she set out a whole row of back of where she wanted to grow her zinnias.

All of them died but one, so it left quite a space to be f And the baby's breath didn't loo to start with.

It did become knee high, and had a little white mist over And she went to the store and she got some plant stakes in baby blue, and she staked that plant.

I think she had six or seven spi of baby blue around that white blooming plant.

Well, she didn't know what to do over here, so she decided she would plant some marigolds at the very back, the tall ones, the ones that are called French, I believe.

Anyway, it's the tall growing on Well, its (mumbles) came up.

They're not the easiest seed to get to come up.

And a rabbit or something... What rabbit would eat a marigold But they left one solitary marig And when I went up in August, it had one little bud, and we started watering it and tended to it, and before I left it, it bloomed She said for her birthday, it bloomed for her birthday.

If she hadn't thought to plant a of a mixed package of zinnias, or maybe several packages, all along that path, between the path and the lawn, she wouldn't have had a crop.

Well, she had a marvelous displa all shades, all shapes.

She even had a pure white that was a anemone flower.

It had a cone-shaped center of white petals, and then larger petals around.

I told her, "Be sure and save th She said, "Willie, it's no use, because the bees have been worki and it would not be that again, it would be something else."

But if you're going to use the m which are maybe the second best, easy annual, stick to the lighter shades.

They blend better with whatever is in bloom at the same time.

Of course, now, if you have a lo and you want to accent them, you can put in some, a very few deep orange ones with all those lime and lemon yellows.

Just enough to spike it.

Another easy annual is a portula first cousin to our pusley.

Now, that's the one that you can if you've forgotten to grow plan or if you've forgotten to sow in I don't care when you sow the portulaca seed, they're not coming up till early June anyway.

So it's a thing to plant late while you've lost another crop.

And the newer ones will stay ope They do not close at noon like the old ones.

And the flowers are as large as maybe a little larger, and they're doubles and singles, and they come in many colors, and they're very colorful edging I think those are three of the easiest annuals.

Then there are ones that are a little bit more diffi like the celosias.

They are kind of a pigweed, and they should be as easily gro but they're not quite.

They are the things that are called Cock's comb, if their flowers make a huge comb-like structure, or they're called prince's plume if they look like feathers.

The advantages in that, that if you cut them when they're at their peak and put them in a dry place, in a dark place, they will dry, and you'll have them all watered Other annuals are the cleome, which is a hard... Oh, yes, there are hard annuals that you sow in the ground in Se Elizabeth Lawrence says always sow hard annuals in September, never in October.

And if you have missed in Septem you can sow them in November, because the seed will lie down and come up with the earliest sp And those include the bachelor's the kinds that bloom in Germany, you know, the bright blue... Well, there are pink and differe but the blue ones are the thick And many other things that you c The cleome can be sown in the fa So do get your seed and get... Have 'em ready to sow.

We've been sowing seed ever since Groundhog Day.

Seed of lettuce.

The books all say that lettuce c as soon as the ground can be wor Well, that's Yankee talk.

Our ground can be worked the yea And the seed package that I had said that it would withstand several degrees of frost.

Well, I sowed in a gallon can for an experiment.

I sowed the first seed on Ground and it was a Black Seeded Simpso And that's supposed to be the ea And then again on St. Valentine' I sowed another can.

When the first can went up, oh, they were about a half-inch and they've had two freezes.

They're still out there.

I did this as an experiment.

Now, a little bit later, at the middle of March, I will start to plant these oakleaf lettuces.

Those are the ones that make a l Well, Black Seeded Simpson does There's no use for us in the Sou to try to grow those stuff that they've brainwashed u into thinking is the best lettuc You know, lettuce cannot be froz It cannot be canned.

It must be bought fresh.

And the only lettuce that can be brought from Florida and from California is this white-headed stuff, that has about as much taste as, what shall I say?

Pine bark.

Doesn't taste...

It's crunchy.

I'll have to admit But these leaf lettuces, they're the ones that have the abundance of vitamins.

Here is one that's called Red Sa I think that's the same one they used to call ruby, and it makes a nice colored sala And you know you don't pull up t and use all of 'em in a salad.

You only pick off the lower leav and you leave the top leaves to go on and mature.

And then when it begins to get r say about the middle of April or you plant the cos lettuce or the And it looks more like spinach than any of the others, but it stands the heat better.

Well, then you forget lettuce for the two summer months of July and August, but along in mid-August, you begin to sow again, and then you have lettuce in the You must grow your own if you want the best.

If you settle for the bleached o with no taste and no flavor, well, go ahead and do it.

I have some letters to answer to Our address is "The Garden Spot, Post Office Box 5966, Columbia, South Carolina, 29250.

Oh, I have a nice little questio She's having trouble with her ox We had a problem with it a few programs ago.

But she evidently has gone to a and bought the giant shamrock, which is Oxalis regnellii.

It does have larger blooms than the wild one, and the leaves are larger, and it's a very nice thing.

She says it's beginning...

It's quit blooming, and she's beginning to lose leav Well, she's growing it as a pot and that's its nature to do that It's going dormant.

She hasn't found out, but it's perfectly hardy in the And as she is in Summerville, she could have a whole edging of this white flowered shamrock, and come back year after year.

Some people have moved down into That's a suburb of Columbia here And they came from Wisconsin.

Hello, there.

Do you feel at home today with all this ice and snow?

Well, it won't last long.

It should be gone in a day or two, hopefully, as the non-grammarians say.

They have problems.

They don't know when to prune th Well, the time we start usually, in South Carolina at least, is St. Valentine's Day.

And we take off about a third of last season's g Don't cut your bushes down to 18 No rose is going to take that murderous treatment in this hot climate.

Cut back about a third.

And as soon as it warms up, the new growth will come and will be stronger, and each new growth will bear a huge, lovely rose, according to the kind that you p Now, if you should prune in the middle of the winter, a warm spell would come along, and force out new growth, and that would be kill.

She has some strawberry begonia.

Now, she's growing that in a pot She hasn't got onto the knowhow Strawberry begonia is perfectly It will stand to zero without... And the fact is its leaves are more luxurious and more beautiful in the winter than they are any other time.

And along in mid-spring, tall stems will come up, and there will be little white f that will be two long petals and three little bits of petals, and they look like sea foam on top of a planting.

She's got a...

The north side of her house doesn't get any sun much, so she wants to know what's good Well, any of the aucubas.

A common name for the variegated is Gold Dust plant.

Of course they're all greens, and then the specular ones, and then there's one called New Gold, a Picturata, or Crotonifolia, that are highly variegated.

My experience with those highly variegated ones is they all, when you buy them, and when they grow a year or two they soon lose that variegation, and they go back to very common So you don't have to... Well, if it's going to do it, it's going to do it.

Another question, "Every year our oleanders are cut to the ground by frost.

How can we protect them?"

Well, you know, necessity is the mother of inven But you need a cover for oleande How about picking up three or fo discarded Christmas trees, and putting them around the olea like a tepee, like an Indians tent, and tie them together at the top with a stout wire.

That will bring an oleander thro I don't think it's the cold that so much it is the dry and cold w "How soon can tender annuals be planted indoors and out?"

You can plant them five weeks before you want to set them out, and you can plant out those in A "Can cutting some Japanese maples be rooted?"

There's so many nice color leaved maples and deeply cut, and they are worth propagating.

And if you take them in mid to l cut off six inches, strip the leaves from the bottom put it in sand over good dirt with a plastic on top, and sit it in the shade, some of them will take.

Not all of them, but if you lose some, you haven't lost anything but your elbow grease.

So that's one other thing.

She's wrote, "We have rooted the from a pineapple in water.

How do we plant it in soil?"

Well, it's not how to plant it, it's what kind of soil.

You want a porous soil.

You fill a pot with one handful one handful of garden loam, and one hand of rotted leaves, making a porous (cheerful instrumental music) soil that will hold some water, but not too much.

Auf wiedersehen.

(cheerful instrumental music con