Hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha, Spain.

And joining me in the studio today are two of our longtime friends of the show.

We've got Rusty and Shane in the house.

So we'll have them introduce themselves tell you a little bit about their specialty.

And then we've got a lot of your questions to tackle.

So, Rusty, we'll start with you.

Sure.

My name is Rusty Maulding.

I am the site superintendent at Lake of the Woods.

Been there for a couple of years now.

In my previous life for about 25 years, I worked in the landscape contractor, world, horticulturist, and is sort of jack of all trades when it comes to plants, I guess.

Excellent.

Okay.

Hi, I'm Shane Cultra.

I'm one of the family of owners of Country Arbors Nursery , and I am now retired.

And so my former life was answering questions all day and helping people with plants and growing plants.

And my current life is actually planting them and getting to work in my own yard for the first time in 30 years.

Actually enjoying them.

Now I have some practical experience and a lot of plant--a lot of experience growing.

Excellent.

So we got a lot of combined knowledge up here.

Not saying you're old, gentleman.

Combined knowledge.

My head says, I'm getting there.

But we're definitely getting there.

Yeah.

And as soon as I told everyone it was you two that were coming.

The questions just started flooding in.

Yea h, I saw my name in there.

It said, "Shane said..." oh.

They know your specialties.

You know, like when they know Phil was coming.

It's all insect questions when they know Marty's coming.

It's landscape.

Like everyone knows you guys are forestry and nursery folks.

And so funny how that happens over 20 years.

You've taught you've learned them?

Yeah.

Okay, so Rusty, we're gonna start with you.

You sent in some beautiful pictures that made us all just, huh.

So let's, let's look into those.

Sure.

So, you know, spring early spring is a great time to get out to trails.

And one of the things you're gonna see on a lot of trails, particularly woodland trails, or some spring ephemerals.

And so we've got some really cool shots here of two species in particular, that are going to be and many times sort of an open woodland, or even sort of open maybe Savanna type situation.

Claytonia virginica is most people will know as, as spring beauties, those are one of the first little white flowers that pops up.

Many people have them in their yards, which is fantastic in their in their lawns, as well as into the bed spaces.

This is one of those plants that will absolutely naturalize, but does so in a way that is not invasive or intrudes on other other plantings that you may have.

It only gets to be about six inches tall, maybe nine inches, a little white flower, a couple of strappy green leaves and just goes to town kind of does its own thing and over the course of the next you know six weeks, maybe a month it sort of disappears and fades into the into the earth.

The next one there everyone's going to know what is woodland flocks.

Woodland phlox is one of those also great kind of naturalizing phlox is most people think of summer whenever they you know you have phlox.

This is a very early bloomer and does a great job also of naturalizing but not in an invasive way.

This plant is just a little bit taller, it's gonna get to be probably nine to 12 inches so still pretty short in stature.

Both of these plants are going to do well in part shade, the spring beauty is going to trend a little bit more towards full sun or part shade, whereas the woodland phlox is a bit more part shade to full shade.

Both of them are just I don't know, they're just sort of a harbinger of spring for me.

And just a great thing to kind of watch and mass as they go out and blanket the woodland floor.

So pretty, very pretty.

And you know, I always love we were talking about before the show just those signs that you notice in your yard or in your area where it's like, Alright, we made it over the hump.

Absolutely.

I mean, there might be a few more snow flurries but once you see stuff like this, it's like we did it.

And you know what, this is the perfect time if you're if you're sitting at home and you're looking for something to do on a Saturday or even a weeknight go out and hit a trail someplace because there are no mosquitoes yet poison ivy is still very much you know it's just starting to come out so not really an issue.

Just no insects I mean it's just it's a lovely time to be out and just go for a walk and get the heart moving around a little bit.

And find somewhere morels maybe.

yeah, it's been a great morel season.

That's, I've seen, you know videos TikToks of people finding a lot but it's--I don't know locally--nobody tells you anyway.

I've got one guy I've been working on trying to find his spot for fifteen years.

put a bag over your head and location.

Yeah, that doesn't sound as fun as I thought.

And I was gonna say on the woodland phlox, they've cultivated some new varieties.

So you're getting that hardiness and that natural plant, but getting some new colors on there.

So it's really nice to everybody knows a phlox subulata so you see it hanging over, but the woodland flocks can take that shade and yet There's a lot of choices out there now to add to your garden.

And because we like natural, but we don't want it to take over everything.

And sometimes we'd like to choose colors even.

So to get in kind of a alternative, natural, semi natural is a nice choice out there.

And I know even within our planting or not plantings or naturalized areas, we see definitely different various hues of blue into some white are some pinks and others.

So they're all yeah, my guess is that those are selected varieties.

So that's awesome.

And with cloning, it's cloning is literally just taking one as you know, that has the color they want, and when they're walking around, and they just keep dividing, taking cutting, so yeah, that's what selection is all about.

Absolutely fascinating.

Okay.

All right, Shane, what do you bring?

Well, speaking of selections, you know, when I go out to the nursery, and I have for years, I've always asked the people that grow, or the people that work there, what's their favorite plant?

I used to say it because I needed to know that because if they're selling, they generally sell a lot of those, you know, when you ask somebody their favorite tree, that's the most popular tree at the nursery, it's maybe not the best, but if somebody has one in their yard, then they see it, they love it.

And so somebody asked, that's what comes to mind.

But now I asked him because I haven't been there all year, and I'm curious what's new and what they're enjoying.

And sometimes it's gonna be because what grows the best, but But other times, it's just because it's new and exciting.

And this is Julie Carlson's nursery.

She's our annual grower in our and she's doing perennial growing as well.

And she was really excited about the red delphinium and it's called Red lark and delphiniums, you see all the colors, you see the purples, and you see the pinks, but you don't see red very often.

And this is a newer variety.

And it's at all the popular growers like Walters Gardens to provide this applies to nursery such as ourselves.

But it was really hard to get.

And she gets really excited.

And we all do when we get a plant which not a lot of people have because we know it's gardener.

Absolutely, it's sometimes it's about you coming to my garden and saying I don't have that it doesn't really matter what it is that you don't have.

So we get excited at the nursery the same thing.

So this is red Lark it's about 24 to 30 inches tall, and it is a true perennial.

Now, the delphiniums don't live a long time around here two or three years is what we say.

But if you have in a good location and you keep it a good root stock, you can get it to loss for five years as well.

So it's something that's different.

It's that beautiful flower to beautiful bright red.

And it is a true perennial.

So it's something to look for in it.

It will be a little harder to find this year, but it is out there and in the market.

So okay, and then what conditions does it like?

Yeah, so it's gonna take probably full sun with a little bit of break from the sun all plants like a little break from the Sun that just get blasted.

But yeah, it's going to be more of a sun plant.

And it's going to be just what you think delphiniums.

You know, when you think of Canada like Vancouver in that area, it's they're just stunning.

And Illinois out in the prairie, they get a little tall, you know, so you got to stake them, I stake them if I'm in a newer neighborhood, so they don't blow over just the simple stick.

But when they get going and in full bloom, there's nothing like oh, so if you've got a bed, and you've got your short ones in the front, where would these fall?

Closer to the back?

24-30...probably closer to the back or between two larger shrubs.

But it's not going to be in the front, it's probably gonna be in the middle and I'll use the other shrubs are protected from the wind, as well.

And again, knowing that it's not a super long season of blooming.

I'll mix it in that but that's what perennials are all about right is having things that are longer lasting things that are shorter, just having something in bloom all the time.

But red is a difficult color to get in perennials.

We don't get a lot of true reds, there's red dot there, but there tend to be maroons.

I know a lot of people at the garden center all say red.

I'm a guy, I don't even know what fushia really looks like.

I have an idea--I know it's pinkish.

But I've been told it to solid red.

Awesome.

Okay, well look for that in the nurseries this season.

And we'll check out your other stuff just later.

Okay.

All right.

So we've had a lot of folks write in about the cicadas, people are getting very nervous because we've talked about, you know, there could be damage to their trees.

And so the questions are just rolling in about cicada.

So we've got a couple here.

Dennis wants to know if they're going to if he needs to put netting or anything on his fruit trees to protect them from the cicadas.

So yeah, the cicadas are coming.

The cicadas are being invaded here shortly.

Yeah, Central Illinois may be getting to broods of periodical cicadas.

So that's really what we're talking about here today is the periodical cicada.

Unlike the dog de cicada that comes in more middle of summer.

This one will be emerging sometime in May more than likely, at least in central Illinois.

And this is one I believe there's a 13 year and a is it a 1717 year potentially coming at the same time, which is really really unusual.

But with that kind of emergence you run the risk of having some significant damage.

So they will emerge with larger numbers than the than the regular annual dog named cicada.

And so that then poses a challenge to some trees.

The biggest challenge is, they like to the females like to lay their eggs, they will cut them into the bottom sides of small caliper branches, and we're talking like three eighths of an inch on up to about three quarters to an inch there abouts.

And they will just cut a line right in the bottom and they'll lay their eggs in there, and then that causes a scar along that entire branch tissue.

On mature trees on on larger diameter or caliper trees, they're going to self heal, you know, you're gonna see some some twig loss, you know, you may see next year and over, it will really over the course of the whole next year, branches, twigs of this nature just sort of dropping out of your trees, which is fine, they will recover and be fine.

The real concern is with your small newly planted trees that are not maybe well established or are perhaps just not quite robust enough to recover as well.

And so it's fantastic.

You know, your the viewers all know that this is a deal with what's what's going on, let's find out.

And so really the protection opportunity is either just before they come out or even after just right after they come out.

You can put netting over small trees, something with a with a hole that is a quarter inch and in across or smaller.

So this is fairly fine netting.

I've heard tooling can also be used.

There was another question about somebody about their crab apples wanting to know or no, there was a red maple.

There was a fruit tree question I think about whether it was going to pollinate or not.

Yes, yes, that's true.

Yes.

And I'm sorry, I'm skipping ahead.

By the time you put the netting on the pollination for all of those fruiting trees should be done.

Particularly like your apples, pears and peaches, things like that.

So that is not an issue.

Wait until I would say maybe the second week of May here in central Illinois, it's going to be weather dependent, we were talking the ground has to be at 64 degrees, it's at the magic temperature.

So we're not quite there yet.

We're in a cool stretch right now we're going to warm up at the weekend and then cool back down again.

And I think the first week of May, it looks like we may have some heat coming through.

So it'll be after the first week of May we get plenty of time go out and you can net your trees.

Okay, it's important to close up and cinch the bottom.

So use some loose tape or something along those lines, something that's, that's loose.

So it's like you're literally draping it and closing it at the bottom.

Okay, so don't try to do your big trees.

Just to kind of piggyback on that Susan Jean says she's got a four year old red point maple in her front yard.

The branches are still thin.

She's wondering what she should do about that one.

So would you bag same net that one same thing.

Same thing, same thing?

Yeah, most of your trees that if they're if they were container trees, or even like small balled and burlap trees, like two inch trees and three inch trees, if they're, if you've planted them within the last three, maybe five years, it's probably not a bad idea to go ahead and you're gonna want to get the netting now because everybody's gonna be finding it, especially locally.

And to be clear, this is not going to be a problem in your newer subdivisions.

So they are only going to emerge where mature trees were 1317 years ago.

So if you're in an area has had a lot of disturbance.

1000 feet I think Jim Appleby says yeah, so that's, that's planted 13 years ago, but mature.

We're talking 25 year old trees, roughly.

Yeah, you'll be hearing so Stonecreek we're clear are pretty good.

Okay, awesome.

Get ready.

All right, Shane.

We're back to you with some pretties Yeah, so one of my favorite plants in the world is coleus.

And I love Coleus because it doesn't have flour does officially flour.

I shouldn't say that.

But we're not growing it because of the flowers.

We're growing it because of the foliage.

And there are literally 1000s and 1000s of different colors of foliage.

And this point after my entire life of 30 years of following them, they are starting to look the same in a lot of cases.

So I think it 1500 varieties we haven't gotten too much.

But then new ones have come out that have different shape leaves that are called of the sea that looked like shrimp, and it just again it never ceases to amaze me the new colors.

And when I went in this this time in the nursery, I think we probably have 50 varieties.

These three grabbed me right off the bat I again everybody's different if I were to send rusty and he would probably grab different ones.

But these will grow roughly 18 inches, maybe 24 inches, high and wide.

And if you don't like it, you merely pinch off the top And then you're fine.

And if you wanted to pinch off that top and put it in soil, you could grow it, it will root up within a week.

And you'll have another plant.

So they're easy to propagate, easy to grow, they feel containers with lovely foliage.

So when things aren't in bloom, these always look good.

Back in the 70s, and 80s, they were only a shade plant that they've developed them now to take sun and shade.

So you can grow these really anywhere in the entire property put a pot will the sun change their appearance?

they do not fit, now some of them will get larger, quicker.

So like all plants, they tend to reach size much quicker in the sun.

So if you had a pot with this and it in the shade, and the wind, the sun, this one will probably be twice as big gotcha, the color won't really change, there are some calm series that tend to change leaves a little bit with the sun in the shade.

But in general, most of the Sun varieties are going to be consistent.

And there's also trailing forms, so they have some that are more shade oriented.

But they'll actually trail over a pot just like a wave Petunia, it's now that's what I'm in the market for.

But those you have to remember they like it a little on the dry side, too.

So that's the one thing is we have people that say they're not trailing and the thing small, well, people water these, you really can't hear these, you can water, you can miss a watering and they're fine.

You can overwater them, they're pretty good.

It just it's one of those, it's like the hosta of the annual world.

Anytime like a tip breaks off.

I'm like don't throw that away.

I know at the idea garden...

I've seen people taking cuttings off of it and Master Gardeners will look over and and say, Please don't do that.

And the lady's like, Oh, I got a whole pocket.

Even I when I go on the garden walks or I'll go to ball seed and they'll have all their new ones.

My tendency is like, Oh, I could get a new.

It's called prop-lifting, not shoplifting...propagation, propagation lifting, which I own propagation.com too.

All the words and things that I do.

Now I need prop-lifting.

But ya know, it's absolutely true when you see someone walk in a plastic bag on a garden walk, you're like, "Stay out of my yard."

They call this is the easiest one to do.

And in some cases, you're helping them because when you take it it gets fuller, or branches off really nice.

They trim very well.

You're doing a service by prop-lifting.

ou're helping them walk through.

So yeah, it's a great plant.

Definitely look around for different varieties.

But when my wife and I would go to do annual containers together, we had like his and hers Coleus because they all had quote we both all of our planters had qualities in him.

But yeah, I tended towards the Bigger Bolder leaf like the connoisseurs.

She liked the dainty your one.

So with the trailers, it's so we had to you know, mix them in, everyone's got their Coleus colors.

Some people like these bright outsides of the people like this body.

I liked the chunky ones, too.

Yeah, they're really good.

They're all over.

There's not blues yet, but we don't have blue leaves very well yet.

So the flowers are a purple color.

And they're nice, but I usually take them off because it hinders the growth of the other plant.

Once I go to like all plants a flower takes a lot of energy.

Sure.

So I take the flowers off of it.

But yeah, this is the one that caught my eye.

I don't know why.

But this is the first one I grabbed just this one's actually in my house.

So I promised her I wouldn't take these to my house.

Now you usually bring tools when you come.

So this is a great question for you.

This is from Peter he says what is the best solution to make to clean garden tools and pruners.

So what do you use?

Sure.

Because I know it's by the book.

No, I usually.

So when I when you say this, I'm thinking about like spades and shovels and things of that nature.

And I usually use a spade to clean off everything, because it's kind of has a straight edge and you can usually just get in and whittle it off.

You know if for if you're particularly fastidious, you may want to use like a one inch putty knife or something along those lines, that works really well to get in grooves and get get the soil off.

The biggest thing after we've gone out and you know, as a landscape contractor, you tend to work in conditions that homeowners don't necessarily want to and it's muddy and things of that nature.

So it's really it's about getting that soil off and leaving it on the on the job site and so you're not tracking things around from property to property.

So we try to clean everything before we bring it back to the shop.

But getting all that dirt off and get it dry.

And then just kind of set it set there.

Yeah.

And I I've spray Pam on my shovel when it gets mucky.

I was gonna say you know if it's gonna sit for a long time Yeah, you like oil some sort of the old days.

Everybody used to drop their their digging shells, you know, wounded before we had tree spades, we hand dug all the trees in the field and they took it seriously because they got paid by the piece.

So when they left at the end of the day, they would actually throw their shovels in a bucket of oil so that it never rust up so as always, and they would pound it out so that the the surface of the shovel was exactly it was always sharp.

Their tools were literally how they made a living.

Nowadays, we really don't want oil on our shovels, but to keep it like I will put blaster on mine You know that when you take PV Buster PV last year because it keeps it non rusty keeps it sharp.

I don't want to get it in my soil but I'm not digging up tomatoes or anything like those lines.

But Pam it works really well because we we did a lot of mucky soils and we have a lot of clay in Illinois, but Pam seems it'd be a little bit more natural.

So I sprayed on there and it doesn't stick nearly just think of it just like coating like a like iron paints that have your eggs coming off.

Yes, oil is coming out.

Exactly.

Okay.

And you know, the other thing I guess I would add is a nice sharp tool is always best.

So a nice a nice metal file to sharpen up to speed edge.

Even around point edge.

It goes a long way towards making your your job a little easier when you're you'll never go in the kitchen with a dull knife.

Yeah.

Why would you go into the garden and kill shovel?

Yeah, let's see.

Okay.

Susan Francis writes in I've got I saw a fascinating program that originated from I can't pronounce that cooking off cooking Ankara, in the Netherlands.

They talked about saving tulips by retaining and not cutting the leaves after blooming and lifting the bulbs end of June, early July, cold storing in a fridge and then replanting only the larger ones in November, will this strategy work here in Illinois, the producers do that the opposite.

So the bulbs we buy here in the States, they actually do that they harvest them just like that.

Put them in cold storage, and then the smaller ones go back and we get the they sell the other ones to make money.

So they're always dividing out the bulbs.

And they do want duplications.

But they usually we usually don't get the small ones.

They go and grow those on and get more bulbs.

So leaves and everything.

Oh, yeah.

Because as we talked about this all the time, all your bulbs, they get their energy and put their size on using the foliage up top.

So you'll hear a lot of people braiding them and putting rubber bands.

That's because you want the foliage so that bulb will continue to grow.

And but you don't want that messy top.

You want to forge photosynthesize, so you're creating energy putting it food back into the bulb.

Yeah, so the top is the most important part of and so that's why they say let things die back.

That's what they mean.

Same with peonies, you know, they'll will call us and ask Should I cut my pennies out?

No, you want that top to build those root system.

And bulbs are exactly the same way.

But it's funny because I go into yard and I could tell there's a really good hair braider who gives a perfect ponytails all in the garden, they spent a long time interesting.

I've heard that with garlic, which now makes sense because yeah, get the bowl but so pulling the tulips with the leaves on them, and then storing them the same way and then choosing the, if you're gonna do it for home, you would choose the best ones to replant.

I probably put them all in my own house.

I don't know why I would throw any of them away.

But you know, the park district in Champaign, I don't know if they make this ever public, but they lift their bulbs at the end of the season.

They plant them all they will in the spring.

And then there's just tubs of them.

And they slowly make it around town at various places.

I'm not sure what the rules are where they're supposed to go.

But they do make them around town.

And it is interesting to see that even though you planted this bowl, they do have different sizes and shapes.

And if there if you were to leave them a couple years and you would get bold bets or whatever the official word is of different sizes, but absolutely, yeah, that's a great way to do it.

That's how they do it is a grower.

So whatever growers do you obviously get do in your own yard, I learned something new today, I will say anybody who has a chance to go to Keukenhof in May it is absolutely breathtaking.

Just fields and fields and fields of tulips.

You can just walk the grounds and yeah, I did.

Be careful though the neighbors were not too far away.

I went there as a college student and ended up in somebody's backyard wandered a little paying attention to where I was going.

Maybe people would tell you it's not the first time we've got about two minutes left and I would just like to hear what you guys hope to grow this year at home and your own gardens.

If you even have time because I know like doing it for a living probably makes it hard to do at home but you got some things on the calendar.

You put some things in Alright, well actually I'm moving so I'm not sure exactly where we're moving to yet but we know we're going to relocate and so I this is going to be a pause here for me in the garden.

I'm not I'm not putting into vegetable garden this spring for the first time and it has since been moved to Watseka So yeah, that's I'm kind of looking forward to the next chapter.

See where we go on the opposite i this will be the first year I'm here or not working and I'm actually here so I'm here all the way till August and in my yard my wife told me it's the best my yard has ever looked so excited because that's what I was shooting for is to have nice grass and cut the cord like I've never edged who has time for edging you gotta get to work but yeah, so I've put all the and I do bags.

I really liked it tomato bags because I can move them wherever I want.

And I grew my wife, Dahlia sections I have a whole section.

So when she looks out the window or I look out the window, we walk out the back porch.

There's a big bed of flowers.

So I'm excited this year.

Ya know, I've been have been studying for 30 years to do this.

So it's time to make skills to work and happy wife is a happy life.

That's true.

I look forward to clearing the leaf litter.

I mentioned that I was going to do it early.

And I got into trouble last time on the show.

Don't you dare mess with the leaf litter and you leave it until...Okay, so it's still there.

We have been, we had been leaving ours.

I've switched to that methodology here about a year or two ago.

And it is amazing actually what it does for the insect Population.

Out in the country, your neighbors get your leaf litter.

It gets smaller...composting.

It's blowing Yeah.

You don't have enough mature trees to create enough leaflet.

That's, that's the problem.

...But it's still not enough.

Yeah...in the country, it gets going pretty good.

Yeah.

Well, guys, thank you so much.

We're out of time.

It goes so fast when we're having a good time.

So thanks for joining us.

And thank you so much for watching.

And if you have any questions or you have questions for these guys or any of our other panelists, you can send us an email to yourgarden@gmail.com and we'll get those answered for you.

And you can also search for us on social media.

Just look for Mid-American gardener.

We'll see you next time.

Good night.