Hello, and thanks for joining us for another edition of mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha Spain.

And of course today we're joined by two of our panelists who are going to be answering some of the questions that you've sent in and we're going to have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about where you can find them outside in the garden.

So john, we'll start with you.

Okay, I'm John Bodensteiner center.

I'm a vermillion county master gardener.

I live up by Bismarck, Illinois, just north of Danville.

And I enjoy just about any kind of gardening I've got trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, grasses.

Hundreds of hostas, right, and I have about 320 varieties of hostas, so send our hosta questions to him.

All right, Martie, tell us about you.

Don't forget the Mater's.

I am not a master gardener, but I play one on television.

My name is martie Alagna And I'm retired landscaper mostly worked in just the home setting for people I had some commercial work but mostly it was just helping people appreciate the view out of the window a little better.

So I feel like pretty successful at that.

People still speak to me in the grocery store.

Awesome.

Hey, and also let's talk where it's it's late summer so john, what are some things that you successfully pulled out of the garden so far this summer but one thing I'm going to do is show and tell on and and I just was coming across this and I am so pleased and I love this stuff.

This is salad Burnett.

It's pretty but what is it?

It is a an herb and it has a cucumber taste.

It is a perennial here.

And it's it wonderful in salads.

It's good in compound butters.

You know if you want it to make some butter with you know, a cucumber taste in it.

It's also good in iced teas.

Or those other drinks that have a little bit more potency to them.

Yes, yes.

Mix drink cream cheese.

This is wonderful.

If you are wanting to make like cucumber tasting like if you have like a dip maybe a dip Yeah.

Or or if you're going to pair it with fish or what have you.

But it's it's a it's a nice herb.

And it's it's it's you can cut it up and put it in salad.

And it's a dainty, beautiful, I guess they can use it for garnish as well.

It's really pretty.

You just use the leaves are the stems as well, john, I use the whole thing.

No, if it gets really woody at the end, I'll trim but it's it's very tender.

So it breaks really easy.

And at that I just, if it gets Woody, I'll just take this leaves and strip it down.

So that's one of the things that I've got.

I've got you know, you want me to show some more you want to go to someone.

Something else.

Well, let's go to let's go to Marty Marty before you go to your show and tell what kind of things have you pulled out of your garden this summer so far?

Almost nothing tough here health wise for my husband and I so boy, it's you know, I look out the window here past my screen and I can see things blooming but the oh god the wild morning worry is insane.

It's just clambering over everything.

It tries to kill us on the way in and out the door like oh my god.

I gotta get Yeah, yeah, no, it's so come on.

Well, you're wrong.

I was really hoping it would rain over the wind over the weekend a little bit because I really, I really wanted to make it a little easier to pull those out.

Because as you know, if you leave the route, it just comes back again.

Tell us We were lucky we got we got a little you know, they said scattered showers at week.

Thursday we got a quarter of an inch of rain.

We didn't not wear shoes that fit honest are a hair very localized.

About four miles in this just just your living right john?

All right, Marty.

What what show in town Do you have to show us I have a couple of things that have seated themselves in Okay.

One of them looks a lot like corn, but is in fact milk.

This comes up where you have a bird feeder that you don't mow underneath.

Okay, so it's it's that little, it's that little tan seed that birds see this.

It's so full of.

And the birds do love it.

Oh, yeah.

Very nutrition.

You can Oh, yeah.

So and it is, it's pretty, I'll tell you what the stem is stiffer than every corn plant ever dreamed of being.

So and I actually really think they're armel for fall.

And of course, I had my bird feeders up close to the window, so I can see them.

But that means they're in the ornamental beds.

Not a lot of mo and going on there, in spite of my husband's offer many 1000s of times, because he doesn't like it.

But anyway, Ah, well, millet.

So you can use this some dried arrangements, you can cut the heads off once they're feeling CD, and you can let them dry.

And you can feed the birds with them, you know, you can lay them out and the animals will eat them.

And then, so that was a, I was a volunteer, I have a few dozen of around the property.

And then this, when this first came up, I thought it was some sort of a common flower that had receded itself in a different part of the art is not what happened.

Well, that leaves kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And pretty soon it grew into this.

This is a cup plants.

Okay, this thing is about seven feet tall, in a bed where I really don't want seven foot tall things, but I left it because I thought it was coneflower.

And then when I kept getting bigger, I thought I wonder what that is.

So I'm cup plant gets its name, I hope you can see this.

Because the way the stem grows, with the leaf wrapped completely around it.

And you can look inside there, and water will collect.

This right here is like, Oh, I don't know, half an inch an inch deep.

And the plant is really amazing that way.

Yeah, you can see there's no I hope you can see Anyway, there's no there's no stem for the leaf.

It just forms all the way around them already around the main stem, and then it catches water for the plant to use later, which is pretty clever.

It's a pretty plant.

And it's extremely drought tolerant, as you may expect.

This is the blossom.

I thought what kind of thing is going to grow on this?

Because I had never seen one before.

This little flower right here.

Yeah, but it Okay, there's a giant cluster of them up at the top of seven foot tall plant.

And these are the seed pods.

And if you will, they will be seed pods.

And if you you know if you want some I got about a billion.

But you can even see with a smaller lease.

Ah, sorry.

Oh my gosh, it's a crisis situation.

Hey, there we are.

We're back again.

live and in person.

There's nothing like live television.

Yeah, you can even see on the tiny on the tiny little leaves.

They do the same thing.

They're very small.

But the leaves on this thing, my gosh, the bottom ones will be like as big as hosta.

And I was really I learned a lot about a plant.

I didn't necessarily want the ark.

But it's pretty interesting.

I thought it was cool.

So sticking up out there.

Yeah, yeah.

And it just came up all by its lonesome.

Thank God for wildlife right.

Thank you birds and squirrels for ruining the things I want and planning the things I never do.

Hi, john, we are back to you.

Okay, I've got a plant that I've growing for.

My dad grew up when I was little and we'd go out in the garden of Becca.

This is Aunt Molly's ground cherry.

And you can see all these little pods that are on here.

And the reason it's called brown cherry is that you don't pick them.

You wait until they fall to the ground and then you pick them and you end up with some pods that look like this.

And once then you feel more open and you get a berry that looks like this.

I am bringing these on the show once john and they were so good.

And now you make a sauce out of it.

Mm hmm.

And you can add pepper and then this is good over ice cream.

It's good over cream cheese.

You can make dips, or pancakes waffles.

It's a it's a very sweet It's almost like a tomahto.

A lot of people think it's a tomo Tila but it's not Shout it.

Yeah, there's a new What do they grow on a tree?

Is this a tree or shrub?

Or how do they grow, that's a plant that comes up.

It will reseed itself.

It's an annual, it gets to be only about 18 inches tall, but it will get to be about three feet wide.

And so the berries fall to the ground.

So you've got to kind of look for him.

The only problem I've ever had is ants also like them.

So you have to go out about every should go out every every day.

I know my parents have made us go out every day and pick everything that we could find.

I'm I'm probably doing it every third day, and I may lose one or two.

But so far this year, I've been very lucky.

And they're very easy to grow, they come up that once you have them, they received themselves.

And I had probably 1000 plants this spring.

They're easy.

They're easy.

They could I guess you could say they could almost become invasive, but they're so easy to control.

I mean, you just pull them out.

And they, your I transplant them I give them to people and just warn them that you know, or you just don't let them drop.

You can rake up all these little guys in the fall.

But I leave quite a few because I want to come back.

Okay.

All right, Marty, we're back to you.

Okie dokie.

These are also I was going to point out also that these other plants that I showed you are particularly the cup plant pollinators love them because they're really small, little little flower pollinators typically enjoy small flowers, small clustered flowers.

So here's one that I like.

This is a garden flux.

It's just the probably started out not being lavender.

But most of the hybrids, sorry, will return to this native wild lavender shade.

But it's really pretty.

It smells delicious.

I just oh yeah, they grew.

I remember these from my grandmother's garden and I'm, well I'm old.

So these are fantastic.

You can plant them.

They're dead hardy up here.

You don't have to cover them.

You don't have to even want them.

But they're they're really nice.

They're stiff stem.

They're drought tolerant, they're just lovely.

And these tiny little flowers.

The the pollinators just love them.

They really do like them and there's Jillian's of them.

And then when you have you know, 14 of these, they make a really nice display and they're about three and a half feet tall.

So they're tall enough to make a statement but they're not so big.

Like a cup plant.

You know that they smoke frightened small children.

So this is just dear to my heart.

That's another Yes, this is my pinky Winky.

Hydrangea.

Got the most peculiar name.

But anyway I just love these also.

And these nice little flowers here the ones that everybody notices on the hydrangeas those are sterile these little guys that you don't do anything with.

They're the ones that the pollinators actually enjoy.

Crazy huh?

learn something new every show.

Yeah, like on exactly like poinsettias.

Instead of the brax the wheat the part that we like the most with the red or pink or speckles or peach or whatever it is.

Those are just leaves that turn red in order to attract pollinators to that little yellow floof in the middle.

Those are the flowers.

But that's that's just the plant going.

Hey.

Over here.

All right.

Thank you Mikey.

This one has been in the ground just only a year.

Oh, actually, this just the spring that's covered with blossom.

These will eat about four to six feet tall, maybe a little taller, but they take a while they're nice stiffly stemmed.

They open a creamy, beautiful white, and then they fade most This is a panicle hydrangeas that's shaped like a panicle instead of a round mop.

You know, these, these are great pollinators, the the I don't cut all the stems off I don't deadhead them or anything.

they persist in the winter.

They get kind of a soft tan color.

They do great for dried arrangements and fall or winter.

You can cut the dead ones before they get wet would be a good idea.

Let them dry and you can spray them different colors you can sprinkle them with some gold or silver for for holiday decorations or bronze or something so and then the last one I have here is a this is a limiter a Florida it's a little honeysuckle it's eight to 10 feet tall.

It is not enough Here's my hand.

Here's how big the flower is.

So it's not quite as big as the palm of my hand.

There are deliciously fragrant hummingbirds just adore them.

I can see my kitchen window every day.

I have wonderful knowing.

Yeah, I'm right outside my garage in it every year, I just have to shape it up just a little.

It gets more and more full.

And the hummingbirds they just can't get enough of it.

Yeah, let us around Florida.

This variety is a cultivated variety called gold flame, because it's gold, and then it's got red and a fiery.

These are wonderful for all pollinators.

But how many Brits particularly but yeah, those are wonderful plants in my yard alone.

Awesome.

Thank you, Marty.

Okay, we're gonna go back to john.

Okay.

One thing that was noticing out my yard and I and I've had some calls on the radio show, too.

This is a my maple tree.

And this is called car spot.

And in a lot of people are worried about it, that it's going to kill my tree, it's not going to at this late in the season, you can see it's all over.

And it's not going to harm the tree, it's not going to look pretty, it's kind of in the same.

This is from my peony, and it it gets that black spot on there also.

And it's it's just a fungus that, you know, you can clean them up.

My peonies, actually, this year are better than they have been in many, many years, mainly because it got so dry here lately.

But I took the stems with the flowers all the way to the ground and cut them off.

So I thinned the the shrubs out, which created more air movement, and they dry it off a little bit sooner.

So if you have a tendency to get black spot, or cars car spot, or the black spot on your penis, just throw them out this year, there's not too much you can do.

And but don't worry about it.

It's you know, some people think that you know, Oh, you've got polka dot polka dotted.

It's actually a fungus.

And not too much.

Nothing, really nothing to worry about is that only will it only affect the foliage of this year, it's not something that you would have to battle each year in each year, it only affects the current, depending on the it's an environmental thing.

So once I have it, I'm probably going to have it depending on how severe the weather is.

If it's steamy, like this morning, we had a whole bunch of fog.

So it dry off until probably it still might be moist out there for the first humans.

So then you're going to see more of it.

If it's a dry, then you're not going to see as much but it's very it's in the air.

It's really nothing to be concerned about.

But usually if you had once you have it, and so I think certain types of maples are more prone.

I looked at my silver maple and I didn't see any on that.

These are soft.

Soft maples.

Okay, and they all have it.

Hi, Marty, anything to add there.

I would actually, when you're talking about the peony leaf, john, a lot of people as you know, as we all know, have a lot of problems with powdery mildew on their pennies.

And again, exactly exactly what john said, sent him out.

I usually take my penny, the the seed heads, I take them just down to where they're inside the canopy of the plants.

So that cut stem doesn't show.

But if they're really thick, take that one blooming stem all the way down.

And you'll get more air movement and that is key to every fungal disease ever.

If it's a damp, cool place, fungus will proliferate.

So you want to you want to keep that from happening.

I know some I don't understand some places some people and also if you do have a problem with this, some people have a way worse than others.

But if you do, I would strongly recommend to cut your pennies off in the fall and get rid of the foliage, the stems and everything.

Get it out because that that powdery mildew will overwinter in the ground around it, you know it's a fungus.

And it's really Yeah.

Yep, re mulch on top of them.

So yeah.

All right, great advice from the landscaper in the home gardener.

Wonderful.

All right, we got about seven or so minutes left.

So we're gonna jump into some questions that you've sent in to ask Marty we're going to start with you DJ, let's do question 47.

This is how do you control sucking aphids?

Do you have to treat the life cycle?

Okay?

aphids are really easy to control.

Their soft body they don't have a hard shell on them.

You can control them with almost anything including like insecticidal soap or oil.

Some gardening oil in a in a water mixture.

I would suggest beneficial insects you can treat for any kind of an insect on any kind of a plant with a systemic insecticide.

But especially if it's something you're going to eat.

You probably don't want that in there.

I know I don't.

So if it's or if they're not not hard to control because they're easy to kill.

So I would encourage beneficial insects in your yard and almost every beneficial insect in Illinois, or anywhere else eats aphids.

They love them.

They prey on them, everybody.

So what a good What a good use or a good you know, practical thing here would be to plant like a little pollinator pocket or what do you suggest when you're talking about introducing beneficial insects.

If you have to buy some Ladybug eggs and release them in your garden?

Or or lacewings you won't have to buy.

We'll bug eggs.

They appear naturally.

But any any predator any beneficial insects eats aphids.

You'll see ants a lot of times where you see if it's because the ants like the honeydew when aphids eat something, they excrete honeydew and the ants like it because it's full of sugar.

So they go a lot of times you'll see them both in the same place the answer not the problem.

They're just there for the for the food stamp.

Okay, the aphids, they have a product answer buying it.

But any print any beneficial insect, I mean look at beneficial insects of any kind.

And obviously, ladybugs are a huge one here in Central Illinois.

Encourage them.

Yes, pollinator pockets are a great idea.

Even a few plants will and also diversify your replanting, if you can.

I realized cottage garden isn't everybody's deal, but it is mine.

You know, you get something going all year long.

Something's blooming all year long.

So I mean, you can even Yeah, if you're going to do want to spam use some savers insecticidal soap.

Just mix it with some water and spray it on make sure you get on the underside of the leaves, if it's also cluster on the stems.

Just spray it with that it's they're not hard to kill.

But I would not suggest using a systemic insecticide.

They're just they're not that big of a threat.

You know what I mean?

Alright, we're gonna go to john with number 66.

This is a long one.

So bear with me.

I love the show.

I'm writing because I heard recently on the news that there were some birds who were mysteriously dying.

They recommended removing bird feeders to stop the birds from congregating and spreading whatever illness was killing them.

I live in the western suburbs of Chicago and not sure if that recommendation was for the entire viewing area or not.

Is this something all of us should be doing?

I love my backyard birds and would hate to not have them.

I'm an organic gardener and try to do everything I can for all wildlife.

It brings great joy listening to their song or watching the different types of birds that show up.

And then she lists some of those birds.

So john, what is this era illness that folks are talking about?

And is it a threat to us?

That was a precautionary note that was put out.

They didn't know why at that time the birds were dying.

It ended up not being a disease at all.

It was some bad bird seed that had gotten wet and had a mildew and a fungus growing in it.

And as you probably know, funguses and mildews they're very, very toxic to birds.

And so that's what they attributed to.

If you have some old bird seed that got wet, that has mildew that doesn't, you know smells moldy, I would get rid of it do not feed that to your birds.

The other thing right now one one of our problems is hummingbirds.

If you have a hummingbird feeder out there, change that water every clean your container every three days, colorless, thoroughly clean it because that that sugar water is just you know if anything gets in there, it just loves to grow mildew and mold and and then also alcohol it tends to ferment which is also toxic to your to your hummingbirds.

So every three days especially in this heat and humidity, we want to take care of our birds.

I would say if you have fresh new bird seed, you can put that out without any worry.

I would look at it to see if there's any black spots or you know anything fungal at all that doesn't look normal in your bird seed.

If it does, I would probably not put it out I would get rid of it and buy some new Okay, it was a temporary thing.

Thank goodness that You know, when I saw that I pulled all my bird seed because I didn't know I you know, I thought oh, I sure don't want my birds.

I have 38 different types of, of birds that come to my bird feeders.

You know, I have sewage, I have the jellies, I have liquid, you know, and I pulled everything.

And so I'm you know, are good to hear that it wasn't an illness.

It was not an illness.

It was real.

Thank goodness, you know, we lost a lot of our blue jays and our close to West Nile quite a few years ago there was that that was a disease.

Yeah, but this was not associated with a disease.

Just remember playing your clean your bird feeders, you know, when you put them out in the spring, clean your hummingbird feeders now.

Okay.

Alright guys, thank you so much.

It goes so fast.

We're already out of time.

Thank you so much on as I know where it goes quick.

And thank you for watching and please continue to send us your questions to your garden@gmail.com or you can send to us on Facebook, and we'll see you next time.

Good night.