Unknown: Hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of mid American gardener.

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain.

And as always Joining me are three of our panelists here to answer your questions, and show you a little bit about what they've got going on in their gardens and their yards at home.

So before we jump into their show and tells, let's have them all introduce themselves and tell you a little bit more about their specialty.

So Karen, and Ella will start with you.

Hi, I'm Karen ruckle.

And I'm a gardener in the Peoria area.

And I wasn't horticulturist I guess I still am.

And I love perennials, houseplants, and just messing around outside.

Good answer.

All right, Ella.

Go ahead.

I'm I'm Ella Maxwell.

I'm a tassel county Master Gardener here.

And I garden in Washington.

And I'm also a horticulturist at a local nursery.

And I like perennials and trees and shrubs.

And I have a large garden and I can show you lots of problems.

Yes, we talked about weeds before Liu, our weed expert on the last show.

So go.

All right, and Doug.

Hello, everybody.

I'm Dr. Doug Williams, a horticulturist and landscape architect by degrees.

I do a number of different things.

terms of the thing questions, you can ask me that I really enjoy the landscape design questions.

Somebody a woody plant material questions.

Other than that, I have a garden and I'll be telling you a little about some of the produce.

And then some things here at the University of Illinois.

Wonderful.

Okay, so as always, we get started with our show and towels.

And that's gonna be a bulk of the show today, because we've got a lot to share.

So Karen, why don't we start with you since you've got the most to share with us today.

All right.

Well, your question to us is always, Hey, what are you doing in your yard?

What's going on right now.

And so in my yard right now, all the coral bells are blooming pretty well.

And this is a variety called Carmel.

And out my yard, it's it's right.

Well, this morning, it was filled with all these blooms on the whole mounded plant.

This variety, I don't like the flowers, I find them kind of Ella thinks is beautiful.

I find them kind of just messy, they're not overly showy to me.

And then they turn brown quickly.

So I always groom cut off all those flowers, I just use little snips and snip down close to the base of the plant and take them out.

And then in the end, I feel I've got a nice clean plant for that.

The thing is, I've told people that I've done this before, and like oh, it takes too much time to clean it up.

I put a stopwatch on myself and four minutes, less than four minutes, I cleaned up the whole plant of all these flower stocks.

And it's a good thing to even the flowers that you like, and you leave.

You're not leaving all those past stems on the plant having a nice looking tidy plant.

So are those fragrant?

I don't think I've ever come across those before.

Is that a fragrant flower?

No, I've not noticed a fragrance on any of the 23 different varieties I have in my yard.

I'm not that she's counting.

Somebody, a friend came over to my house and she's like, Oh, what's this Friday?

What's this Friday, and like I kind of forgot.

So I actually went through my yard and was labeling them.

And then when you sit down in your accounts like oh boy, I've really over done, but some of them do great.

Some of them are huge, like this one.

Other ones are just barely making it.

Awesome.

Thank you very much.

All right, Ella, we'll go ahead and go to you.

Okay, well, I want to talk a little bit about insect damage and whether or not you feel that it's necessary to control it or not.

And so I brought a couple of different things that the first thing would be scouting your yard.

So I hope that even with the high temperatures and humidity you're out looking at your yard.

So there can be a lot of different kinds of damage from rabbits to insects, and different kinds of insects, chewing insects, sucking insects, whatever.

But the most important thing is that you identify what the insect is so that you can make the best decision.

Right now I have a lot of damage.

Nothing's truly significant.

But the you can kind of see the kind of little window feeding from the Japanese beetles.

And so this is a contorted Hazel mud and the other was a Grape leaf and they have some favorites, you might find them on your roses on porcelain, berry vine.

Those are some of the things At first, I thought the Japanese beetles weren't that bad, but they are causing more damage, but it's primarily cosmetic, they haven't been feeding on any of my vegetables.

So I don't feel that I need control.

one avenue of control is hand picking, you can use a cup of soapy water, you know, tap them off right into that or squishing them, you know, that kind of thing.

Where I will be treating is in my vegetable garden, with the caterpillars from the yellow and white little butterflies, that the little cabbage looper worm that feeds on the back sides of the cabbage.

And this is one where you can use maybe a biological control like the BT dust that would only be effective against Caterpillar larvae.

And that way you don't have any other damage to maybe other types of pollinators in the garden.

So there has been some significant damage in my garden.

But this is not from Little caterpillars.

This was from a rabbit that got through the fence.

So again, maybe exclusion is the way to control something.

Another plant that I had, again, whether or not I'm going to treat very much is slug damage on hostas.

And again, they're primarily feeding in the evening and overnight, they come up the little stem of the leaf blade here, and certain varieties are much more susceptible than others.

And so maybe this plant with this much damage would warrant some type of control where a larger, heavier leaf with just a few spots, probably isn't significant.

So the idea is identify the past, decide whether there's a damage threshold, and then what might be the easiest and best way to get control.

Excellent.

I found eggshells work really well with slugs around my hostas because they don't like that scratchy on their underbelly.

Um, but the rabbits we've talked about that before they've destroyed the place.

Anybody else having issues with pests out there of any variety that you are having success with controlling dog or Karen?

No, we're all just losing the battle.

My mom put out some stuff cabbage and some other things.

I guess I was the one who put them out as seedlings, and they look just like those great leaves.

You show Ella?

Yeah.

Oh.

It was an experiment.

But everything else is picking up pretty well.

So we'll see.

They're starting to look a little fuller.

But past I just something.

So I've got rabid fencing around my property here.

And a banner that goes down to the ground least a foot or more around the entire perimeter, but somehow a rabbit always seems to find its way in for a certain time.

Because I think they're small enough at a certain point they slip in there and maybe they decide just to live there.

Absolutely.

Okay.

All right, Doug, we're going to go to you now for your show and tell.

Yeah, well speaking of gardens, I'm not in my garden right now.

But this is a great season and another warm year for like the last three years we've had extreme warm weather, we just had quite a bit of rain.

We've had extremely warm weather, so cucumbers, oh man, these are a smaller variety.

I can't think of which ones they are my mom purchased them as seedlings.

I've grown them in the past two years from see.

And the ones I get from see that were held looms they grew to like if I left them in the garden, they could be up to about two feet in length and have large seats.

But other than that, I don't think this one does have those large seats is break one and a half.

Bob scarfing delicious cucumbers as you see in all those hotels and those cool TV shows where they're putting it in water and give it a little bit of flavor.

You don't want to just taste the maybe you have great water and maybe we'll water depending on where you're from.

But if not kind of added a little flavor to it, add a cucumber slice or two.

But don't let it sit too long.

You know, like overnight overnight, so within two days or something like that it starts to break down in a different form.

But other than that, it's pretty great.

In fact, cucumbers are so nice that for the last couple of years when they start to really produce which they already kicking off this year.

I've taken at least five of them down here about I've been eating one a day.

I'm sure to keep the doctor away but just because they're delicious right?

They're delicious enough Almost cancel out on lettuce, because let us use it, it kind of grows better in the cooler time of the year, the early spring, and then maybe you can sneak in or maybe late fall.

But this almost replaces the lettuce, I just cut this up along with a lot of other vegetables.

And this kind of has the flavoring maybe even better than lettuce itself.

Maybe if you have bad lettuce, or romaine or something has a little more flavor.

But do you?

Do you pick any of your cucumbers?

Well, sodium is the issue.

So I try to avoid that, who want to do that?

I think their daughters are like, Oh, they just, they just want to have learned how to make them possibly because they want to eat them.

That looks like the perfect size for pickling.

That's why I asked it actually is I think these are a smaller variety, I think they get a little bit bigger.

This is probably the they started getting wide and pretty narrow, oh wide and short.

Which is about a third or a fourth of the size of the ones when they get to maturity at over the last two years.

So these are just perfect.

And if you get a small enough, the seats are pretty small in there.

And you don't have to worry about you know, those people don't really want that type of texture, or that fiery content.

And then you can also blend them up and put them into smoothies.

You know, of course add a banana or something else that you might like to kind of give it a little more zip and smoothness to it.

Perfect for summertime.

Tips for growing do you guys do anything special with your cucumbers, you know, I have a little compost pile, I don't do any.

I do pretty much use that compost by next year.

And I integrate that into the soil.

In the early spring.

I covered it with about a layer of you know, maybe three inches or so of the soil that's already existing, because you want to be in contact with the root system.

What I've learned is that I placed them at the corners of the property where it's near a fence.

And then I have this other trellis structure that I've concocted because these things take off.

I mean, they have this tendrils, like growing up, whatever you can actually put them on.

And so I want to do that.

So they grow over the fence the gates of both the back and the front of the property.

So instead of looking at the fence itself, you also send to these vines, and even the the in the alley in Chicago, the neighbors who come through or even the the custodians who have the trash compactors I'd say grab your cucumber and be on your way.

Grab and Go on your way by Right, exactly.

Okay, we're gonna come back to you in just a few minutes.

And you can tell us a little bit more about where you are.

Okay, well, I just wanted to mention one thing about the cucumbers, I have a friend who grows excellent crew cucumbers he uses, he grows the English type that are burpless.

And he does have a trellis for them.

But what he's found as he uses the organic fertilizer, but he takes a aluminum pie pan, and he cuts a hole in the center of it.

And he sets that over his little hill of cucumbers where he's planted maybe two or three seeds.

And then he uses that shallow container that he fills up with his water.

And then he also uses some fertilizer water on occasion.

One it cuts down on the weeds to it reflects back heat for that young plant.

He has fabulous cucumbers, I don't plant cucumbers, because he has, you know, so many cute You only need one person in the neighborhood to grow cucumber.

He also plants that parthenocarpic very specialized cucumber that each flower doesn't have to be pollinated and it can make a fruit so he is harvesting eight or nine cucumbers at once.

It's like a cucumber machine.

And once he gets kind of tired of the plants escaping he he double crops them.

So usually by the end of July, he's finished with the first batch of cucumbers and he starts them and they'll go into September.

Wow.

Now I wrote down burpless.

Can you talk to us a little bit about what that means?

Did you say burpless?

Yeah, that's it.

Some people isn't that right people have some people can't eat cucumbers because of digestive issues.

And so I don't know how they developed burpless.

But that's what they call them.

They're usually a very smooth skin English type cucumber, I believe.

I don't know.

Do you have any other anybody have any other comments?

any insight on burpless?

That's interesting.

I did not know that.

I always want something new on the show.

So I'll have to look that up.

All right.

Thank you for that.

Yeah, definitely.

Okay, Karen, we're back around to you.

Well, I I the last couple years, I've developed another passion where I just love Canas and last year I had seen in public planters these Shorter cannas that were just filled with blooms and my cat is at home are tall and lanky and just had a few bloom stocks on them, even though they were good varieties.

And I'm like Ella, Ella, what is that?

And she said, Well, it's a newer variety called kind of Nova Nova.

I don't know, for some reason I always want to say it wrong.

But this hybrid, it took them about, I think, 15 years to develop.

It's supposed to be for cooler temperatures, cooler summers, but so far what I've seen, they seem to be doing well with the heat and humidity.

So this is a variety called rose.

And I'm happy to say that the plant looks pretty close to the plant tag, which is pretty nice.

But this in my yard, I think there's about seven bloom stocks on the plant.

And it was a section six inch pot that I got as a start the spring.

So talk about vigor and only about three foot tall, not overly huge in my planter.

And I'm just really pleased with the performance and the punch of color and blooming.

So I'm excited to see the backside of of the season, how well those blooms keep coming along, like the Tropicana varieties that I typically have in the yard.

So what he has stunning, stunning cannas.

They are so cool.

She's got a really vivid orange one with dark foliage.

She has the variegated one that has yellow and red flowers and dark and green and, and all different colors in the leaves.

And of course, the Tropicana one they are, I'm so glad she's my friend, and hopefully she shares in note the nice part about it right when you have a friend with great flowers and you just kind of wait your turn.

So as someone who has I have container, I've Canada container, large.

I've had them for three years they have not bloomed once they put on the most beautiful foliage.

I feed them I water them, but they never ever, ever, ever bloom.

What do you think I'm doing wrong?

Well, I think we talked about your cannas last fall, and that if the pot was already filled last season, you need to dig it up.

I did.

I did.

I did that in the fall.

I did divide them and still no blooms this summer.

Oh, I would chuck them and move on.

Oh, now you want that Canova.

It's their spectacular, really i a lot of plants to yours years.

And if you're not doing what they're supposed to do, or it's not fun, you know, there's lots of cool new things to try.

You know, I'm one of those people that just like, come on, buddy.

We're gonna, we're gonna try to get next summer and I'm on the third year with no blooms and I'm getting move them into the landscape.

Okay, I could just save enough to plant one clump for next year into the ground and you still have several months that these candidates could, they must be a very tall variety to finally bloom and I think they probably will, we'll find out from you, you know, on a later show, but I found that for sure.

They usually bloom in the ground when they're unrestricted.

Okay, I will give that a shot.

Ella, did you have anything else you wanted to add on insects?

No, I'm really good there.

I can talk to Karen things.

Okay.

All right, wonderful.

Karen, let's go to another one of yours because you've got some potatoes.

I really want to make sure we get those on.

I am not.

Potatoes to me are a lot of work and not too much fun.

They are fun to grow but I don't have a lot of room in my yard and potatoes tend to straw strong.

So I got it's really hard to show what we miss being in the studio.

I've got one of these grow bags.

And the reason I decided to do this was that I could move the potato where it could sprawl or where there was room and light and so I did a fingerling potato in my grobag and the potato plant was starting to already died down in these grow bags.

So today I dumped out this one and I got about a little over three pounds of these fingerling potatoes from the one grow bag and I still have one more grow bag to see how they did and I I really didn't babysit this too much.

I probably didn't water them as much as what they wanted with how dry and hot we got.

But I did use a good loamy soil for them and I'm marched heavily on top with with that, so.

And the other the other thing I did with potatoes this year was due to space constraints is I made a cage a wire fence cage, and planted my potatoes in that too then rather than have the plants sprawl outward, they're contained in my cage.

And so be interesting to see, I just did the old Friday kennebec it'll be interesting to see what kind of potato size or how much I get out of it.

And how long do those typically keep storage wise for you?

Oh, they won't keep very long, because I'll just scrub them up and use them.

that's by design, right?

You don't want them to last too long.

And in the past, when I've had potatoes, you know, I'm really good at forgetting things.

And so, you know, you stick them in a space that that's, you know, cool and not damp so that they, they they hold well, and I forget about them.

And so you know what, what a waste that was, then they go into compost.

So the I tried to on something like this, use them in the next couple of weeks, just so I remember to use them.

Okay, thank you.

And, and I grow the Yukon Gold.

And I do mine a little bit different in my garden, it kind of slopes a little.

And so on that low side, I laid landscape fabric.

And then instead of using just like Kiran, I'm using a composted soil, maybe more of a bark based soilless mix, and then I plant my cut tubers in that and then to harvest it.

It's just a small patch, not anything bigger than, you know, a kitchen table, you can just take the edges and and pull that soil off and there's all the potatoes and you've harvest them.

So my plants are starting to decline.

So again, we've seen the garlic, I need to get out and get my garlic I need to harvest my potatoes.

Awesome.

See, I learned so much from from what you guys do.

It's like, you just got to, you know, jot that down and apply that in my yard next time.

Do you grow potatoes?

No, but you guys have encouraged me, I'm just looking at oil, just put a little bag in the ground and go.

I mean, you got a lot of pregnant, but I think it's great.

So there they are.

Everything is already in that bag and it sort of protected I guess from ground critters and stuff.

Is that the Yeah, was it the bag was sold?

Yeah, it's just a bag of its own, but I filled it with my own soil.

But yeah, nothing really seemed to bother it.

Nice low maintenance.

Whoa, I must say for people that have a yard or garden where their pets are outside.

Just, you know, the that I think holds down a lot of, well, you've got chipmunks.

I've got chipmunks and the rabbits and the dog and the dog running around through everything chasing the Chipmunks and the rabbit.

Okay, all right.

So Doug, we're gonna go back to you.

And just explain to us a little bit about where you are and what you're up to and the landscape out there.

Yeah, I'm here at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign Urbana side, because I'm on the east side of rite Street.

And I'm at the African American cultural center, which is the Bruce nesby.

Afro American cultural center, just recently finished a couple years ago, by one of our alumni, Dina Griffin, was also on the Obama Presidential Center design team.

And so I'm right here on Nevada Street, here at the University of Illinois.

And so you can see a little bit of some of the landscaping, whereas the outdoor patio space, which is nice for entertaining, barbecuing and picnics, socially distance and safe during COVID times too.

You can see the Asian American cultural house, just one of them behind me.

And they have some wonderful plants here too, although I'm gonna show you some things I like and some things I I don't really care for.

Because Oh, they don't really work that well.

They decide to put in what looks like as a maple tree.

But if you can look at it's very tight habit.

It looks like it's columnar.

Now, that's not a problem if you have several of those right next to each other kind of produce the shape.

And this is the East face of the building.

However, when you have a building that is a very dark and Ebony brick like we have here behind me, that's going to radiate a lot of energy and heat.

And so during the summertime, you probably want to shade that.

So I would I would propose that they add in a few more trees, maybe something a little broader and have some of the branches come across the grill space.

The shading is important.

Yes, thanks.

I'm Hornby let's hear.

It looks like it's being damaged also by Japanese beetle in some areas.

thinks of idea is a very dark color if I'm wrong.

Correct me guys, because I didn't put the landscape in.

But it looks pretty good and handsome.

It kind of matches a little bit of the darkness of the building.

It also got some Eastern Redbud cercis canadensis and this red but the purple most, it's very dark in Burgundy, here's a shade tree that they put in, that's on the street proper.

And that's going to be a much wider maple tree.

And that's going to really shade for that Western sun that hits all of this beautiful glass behind me and the auditorium spaces that have that plans right into the interior landscape.

So these are things that folks could apply at home, if you've got a space like an entertaining space, using trees, to you know, cool that area, also making your home more energy efficient, not having to work as hard using bigger shady or tree.

So this is kind of applicable to not just their campus, but you know, home folks can be taken notes, right, I think this is something we got away from once we got fossil fuel, we thought we could just turn a house or property or our dwellings into any direction.

But if we, you know, use the sun's orientation, we learned right now with the environmental transitions that we're going through that pipe significant.

Well, we are out of time it goes that fast.

So I want to thank the three of you for coming.

Doug, thank you for this lovely hot walking tour that you gave us today.

Appreciate that.

And Karen and oh, always a pleasure to have you and your show and tells.

And thank you so much for watching, and we will see you next time.

Thanks so much for watching.

Good night.