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

I'm your host Tinisha, Spain.

And as you can see, we are out of the studio today and at Illinois willows visiting one of our friends from the show, you might recognize him, but it's been a while since you've seen him.

So Kent, welcome, welcome.

Welcome back.

Thank you.

Thank you for having us at the farm.

For those who haven't seen you for a while, because I haven't seen you for a while.

Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about you and illegals?

Yes.

So my name's Kent miles, owner, operator, seed sower delivery.

We serve research marketing mower.

I'm all Illinois willows.

And we've been out here since the winter of 99.

This property was normally before that a cornfield.

So what we laid out was decided where the rows are going to go and what type of plant material we're going to grow.

And it's you came here with the intention of growing?

Yes.

Okay, an actual working farm.

I came from a floral design background.

And when I lived in town, I wanted to grow flowers that I would want to design with.

That's how it first started.

So tell me, what are your because we see you, you might recognize Kent, actually, from the farmers market, you're always at the farmers market in Urbana.

What are some things that you grow here?

So we grow, it's ever changing?

Remember the first two or three years in planting, laying out the flower beds.

And going to a farm tour of another farm in the Midwest?

Oh, this is exciting.

And then you get to see catalogs in the wintertime.

It's like, oh, this is cool.

I want to grow that that.

So that list, the first couple of years was probably over 70 types of cut flowers, and then got into branches.

So we have product year round.

And probably the last five years from that 70 plus list of flowers.

We're down to probably in 20 to 30 range.

Sure.

So you got it in the sweet spot.

Sweet Spot, but we're of those that work.

The sum at the beginning didn't work for here.

We just do larger volume.

So instead of 100 plants, we'll do 1000 plants of this type.

Gotcha.

Okay, so for today's purposes, is the holiday season.

We are here to learn how to make wreaths Yes.

And just kind of see what goes into it some of the inner workings and if we decided we really cool.

So you've got a lot of you know, when we see a wreath we just kind of marvel at it to beauty.

But I would have never known what this was, I noticed that Eucalyptus.

So tell us a little bit about some of the things that go into making a re so I've been making wreaths since about the second year I was here decided that.

Well, there's an indoor market participate in that what I'm about to sell besides just branches, bundles of curly willow or dogwood.

And it's like Reese, because people can use them for their outdoor decorating winter, they can use them for indoor.

A Wreath doesn't necessarily have to go on a wall, you can play on a table and put candles in the middle.

So you have a centerpiece, you could add some ornaments to it, you can add some ribbon to it.

So you can decorate a wreath in lots of different ways.

We, when we make them, we sell them just plain, just the foliage and the branches, any type of ornament or decoration.

We just let the consumer add what they want.

Because I've put a red bow, someone I want to wipe.

It's hard to please everybody inevitably Yeah.

So when we first started making reads, This is what we used.

This is a clamp ring, it's called.

And what I would do is gather my materials.

And I'll just kind of grab a little bit of this in that right now just to show.

So you have a handful of material and then you would put that in between the two prongs.

And then what I would do would take a pair of pliers and pull them and then I would hammer out to close it.

That's how I started.

And I did that for probably about four or five years and a couple smashed fingers.

But that's why that's the only way I knew how to do it.

Uh huh.

And then I found out about the wonderful A Wreath machine wreath machine.

And so what a wreath machine does is you would put the ring and it's operated by your foot and you put your materials in, and then you would just now that is the definition of old clothes smarter, not harder.

Yes.

And so the old way with a hammer and pliers would take me half hour or longer.

And if I have all my materials cut, I can do a wreath similar to this in 1520 minutes.

So it saves time labor.

And I did guys I asked if you could get your hands on these the Crafty bunch.

And these are pretty much just for commercial universal, you'd have to contact a metal company.

We get ours from a company in Wisconsin, but you're not going to walk in and just find these look like Hobby Lobby, no nursery garden center.

We have a couple you know, Urbana Champaign area.

Bloomington has several larger garden centers, they would probably carry something like this this time of year.

Okay, so what type of foliage makes a good wreath makes a pretty wreath makes a visually interesting reef okay.

So what I'm working on right now is already gorgeous.

I just have a few more segments to put in here.

And this one we're calling Winter Wonderland this year.

It has a variety of branches, the curly willow, the unanimous that has a little red seed capsules on it right now this time of year.

We've got white pine our provide us some eucalyptus for fragrance.

This bluish green that we have here is Carolina Sapphire.

It's in the Cedar family.

We have some really nice dark green boxwood.

So those are primarily the ingredients for this type of you were saying earlier how not everything is grown in Illinois, you've got relationships with other growers in different parts of the country, or even other countries that you trade things with.

So show us one that's not in Illinois native or something that you did not have in Illinois.

Okay.

So I've been doing business with a grower out in California.

And this particular material here I have in my hand is called grevillea resilia And it's in the Protea family Leucadendron family, which is somewhat tropical.

More native to South Africa.

Oh, okay, where most of the protein is originally from.

So it has a dark green top and a silver white underside.

We'll make just solid reads with this for the market.

This would be strictly a more of an indoor item you have what it dries wonderful, it turns more of a charcoal color with a like a little white with ash on a charcoal.

And as you can see, it's pretty flat.

And when it dries, the leaves all curl so it gets real dimensional.

Now what do you trade because you mentioned it's kind of like barter, so so we grow or he grows this.

And I also get the blood sugar pine cones from him.

And he's in the California Central California area.

And then we grow here.

In September we harvest the one of our viburnum varieties.

It's the blueberry.

It's the Chicago luster is the variety of blueberry viburnum.

And as the dark navy blue kind of line I blue color berries clusters at the top of the stand.

So he sends me this in November, I send him the viburnum in September.

And we've been doing that for about eight to 10 years now.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

Well, let's have you finished this one and just kind of talk us through if I wanted to, if I'm feeling festive, and I wanted to make a wreath at home, you know lengthwise, how do you know what goes where and just Okay, so I've done so many that I will cut my material as an example.

The Eucalyptus is this tall, and we won't use that because that will, you know, we don't want it's too tall for the size of our normal door reads are around 24 inches.

Okay.

So what we'll do is we'll cut this and by cutting all this, ah, we've got three units set up the one large one, and then we would put it here and here's my 24 inch mark.

Got it.

So it's all falls in, it's not gonna be, like longer.

So I can just cut whatever type of whether it's here the boxwood, that's what are the grevillea.

Or here, this one, we're using some red curly willow.

I can just pre cut all of it, and then I can just fill in.

And I won't have to recut.

Gotcha.

So that saves time, if you have the initial time of cutting all your material, but then you're just putting it together.

When you're doing like, re clinic.

What What advice do you give people who, you know, like you said, you've made a lot of these?

Yeah.

What advice do you give folks who are making maybe their first one and it maybe doesn't look like you're?

Well, if you want to hand me the straw wreath there, yeah, sure.

The other way of making it which the homeowner can do, you can get these online at a craft store, you can get the wire, this is called paddle wire, like a 22 gauge wire.

So you can source these all local, through merchants.

And what I'm doing is just tying it on.

And then what you would do it would be to just go out to your yard and see what you have in your yard.

With regards to evergreens, a type of greenery or branches, you know, a lot of people have boxwood in their yard, they might have a white pine tree are providers, there's a lot of stuff you have in your yard.

This here is a burning bush gets the bright red foliage in the fall, then, this time of year, it has the red little seed capsules.

So you can take your materials and then just hold them in.

I'm right handed.

So I'm gonna hold it my left.

I'm just gonna take a cluster I feel like you have to have an eye though.

I think so i think so you have to reason here, but they can envision what you want to look like.

And then you do your best to achieve it.

So this would be like a cluster, okay.

And you are going to lay this on top of your wire with thee.

Okay, got it.

So I'm right handed.

And then I'm just gonna wrap it up, wrap it in surely want to go around two or three times just to make sure it doesn't slide and get loose.

Very nice.

So I was gonna do a little bit so festive and their, their, their natural looking to I like how when you were talking about the way you sell them, kind of like a blank canvas for someone or it can be completely done.

I mean, it looks fantastic just the way it is.

But we know this is a hand tied, which homeowner can do that, you know, consumer can just go out and gather your materials you can also gather bunches of evergreens at there's a lot of retailers that sell, you know, garden centers generally will sell different types of evergreens that they may, you know, bring in from different parts of the country, but start just taking a walk in your back yard, take a walk and see what you've got.

Have all the materials.

And you don't even know what yeah.

Okay, so we've got some examples of some of the different reasons over here.

Yeah, let's check those out.

So this is your basic 24 inch wreath.

You can kind of, you know, can go on a wall.

You could put it on a table and put a nice pillar candle with a glass chimney.

You could add some berries, artificial berries, you could add some ornaments and use it as a table centerpiece for the holidays.

That's pretty.

This particular one, my favorite is a unanimous and has some of the little red sea capsules we left some of the foliage on.

So this is your traditional burning bush.

That one's really pretty.

And we also did it on the clamp.

And this will stay it's starting to dry now it's about a couple weeks old.

After about two years, this call order will be all different.

It'll be a straw color.

So as it dries, it'll evolve to a straw color.

It's a very textural branch material inside or outside.

Very pretty.

Like I said, this is an earlier one that we did about a month ago for one of our promos for one of our workshops.

So it's a hand tied, you can see how the Greens just held in with the wire.

And once these are up, is there, what's the maintenance for the owner outside you would just want to they last longer between the storm door and probably where most people but because the because the glass, depending on if it's facing south or west, that glass you think well it's, you know, 20 degrees out or 30 degrees out or warmer.

And in between, it's gonna be a lot warmer, it's gonna be like a greenhouse and you can actually sunburn or burn your foliage.

Christmas foliage is when it's behind the glass.

So maybe on magnifies Yeah, near the doorway, either side of the door.

You have to spray them miss them do anything as far as moisture, not really, if it's going to be outside.

Okay.

You can if it's not going to get direct rain or snow on it.

Yeah, you've got to mist it once a while every couple of days or once a week would be fine.

This particular wreath here we did on the clamp machine.

And it has the eucalyptus with a groovy Ilya gorgeous this is has been really popular at the market.

It's kind of odd, because I only brought one one week.

First customer bought it.

And then sold it last week I brought three.

First three customers all bought one Oh, wow.

Before all the others.

Now how long does eucalyptus keep?

So eucalyptus will last several years really well actually dry?

The grevillea will dry also.

So this would be Oh, two to four years.

Okay, and then you get tired of it or it gets too dusty.

And then you go to the next photo to then come back and get a new one.

Right.

Yeah.

So and it'll keep the fragrance once it's dry.

Not quite as much as is fresh.

But the fragrance on the eucalyptus will last a couple years.

Very nice.

Yeah.

Nice.

It's got that nice blue color, green color.

And then you've got contrast with this the underside of the grevillea and then the light green on top.

So it will grow.

Fantastic on paneling, wood paneling.

It'd be great on a white just a white wall.

What other festive holiday decor ideas.

Can we talk about?

Well, this year, last couple of years we've been doing porch pots.

Oh, we did one on the show.

Yeah, so we've been doing those for last several years.

But our basic porch pot will have three birch poles.

We'll do four or five different types of evergreens.

We'll do some Winterberry.

Which the Ilex is your that's definitely faster.

Yeah, so this is Ilex Hilux is native.

Or do you get this from here, do you so we grow this, you grow it, there is some native varieties that will have the red berries, but they'll be much different.

They're not going to be as tight on the stove like this is.

So we've been growing the islets now for national put that in the first in 20 2001 2002.

We put a row in so we've got three 300 foot rows of it.

So this winter berry needs a male female Gotcha.

We grow two varieties of the female in two varieties of the male.

And then this April, we're gonna be growing the planting the orange, the gold and the yellow Winterberry.

And those will color up generally about the end of August 1 part of September just so so for autumn.

Yeah, there'll be an autumn branch.

You can plant so when we got these original plantings, they were like, Oh 1218 inch bear route.

And it's like three to five years before you get our kibble stems to cut.

And so it's kind of a long term.

Sure.

And they are a long that's why grow asparagus Yes, yeah, because I can't get over the fact that I have to wait.

Yeah, it's a waiting game.

A lot of things.

Yeah, so So we'll do like going back to the porch pots, we'll do a couple steps to the Winterberry.

And then we'll do this large sugar pine cones, we'll do a cluster of those.

And porch pots will last nicely, you know, until it starts getting warm, and of March 1 of April depend on how the seasons going.

And then we also must have been pre COVID.

In 19.

We started offering porch pot kits.

Oh, so the homeowner can do their own.

So you get your birch and well, we don't know that.

Okay, elaborate, because it kind of depends on we offer it on the website, like a small and a large cats, and it depends on the size of your pots.

Because they really vary.

Some people only have like a 10 inch diameter, maybe this high?

Well, that would go to a small pot, where when what we do instead of the birch, we offer your choice of curly willow, or dogwood.

Okay.

And that would be given your height, and then you get your evergreens.

And we have a video on how to make them on our website.

So you can if you're not sure, just watch the video.

And when you're you so you got how tos.

Yeah, okay, yeah, we have how tos on how to do porch pots.

And then if someone has a larger pot, we offer a larger, which is more branches, more greenery to fill?

Well, that's pretty neat.

You know, it kind of takes the guesswork out of it.

Would you say that?

Either decorating, making the wreaths or making the portraits?

Is it hard to do?

Can anybody make it, anybody can do it, it's the first time it's gonna be the hard time.

Because if you've never done anything like that, you know, you have to you have to envision what you want it to look like.

And the first time you're going to be really unsure.

And it's going to take you forever.

Yes.

Probably fumble a bit over this day.

Because I was when I was watching you tie those.

I thought okay, well, there's the next set.

Now do the stems face that are the next group would go right right on top.

So you are going to like shingling got it, it was go all the way around.

Then we get to the last one.

You're going to kind of pull that up and then tuck your last group underneath, and then tie it.

So then it's all going to flow in one direction.

I think I could make a reef one day.

Yeah.

And the porch POTS is fairly easy.

You want to just recut the branches.

Make sure your pots cleaned out of all your geraniums and petunias from the summer.

Just go ahead and cert your branches in the top and you can use other branches.

You know, if you've got the anonymous in your yard, go ahead and cut some holes, big branches and use that for your height.

And then the evergreens just want to Reese cut them, put sink them in the soil, two to four inches deep as you can go with it.

And you're going to kind of put your branches in first.

So this would be facing you.

And then you've got your branches in the back half of the container.

And then you're going to put everything forward.

You're not going to put this in the front and then you're going to have branches Yeah, you're gonna cover up so you're taller material is gonna go in the back and just gonna stick kind of stair step it down.

Okay.

But we'll we'll have like have the white pine box wood or provide a some cedars in those poor spot kits.

Now if folks are officially interested, tell us a little bit about where we can find you.

Okay, and Illinois.

Well, as you mentioned the website where if if people are interested in finding your products, when they do ask so they'll they will is.com is the website.

On Saturdays.

We're inside Lincoln Square.

At the land connections farmers market.

It's a CU farmers market.

On the like Facebook.

Okay, you don't find us there.

We're in the north south corridor.

We are back in Urbana.

Yeah, at the mall.

Okay.

And we're there from eight to 12.

All right.

And all year round.

What you're doing you do cut flowers in the other month.

Yeah.

So the indoor market runs from the first of November.

It goes through the end of April.

It's 812.

And at that time A year when we come back we'll have like pissy willows, we'll have our spring reads.

We'll start our tulips.

Lilies already.

We've got some a lot of other things like we hit we, we grow lavender, so we do the lavender sachets.

Just a lot of little things isn't really popular too.

So that goes to the end of April.

And then we're back outside at Lincoln Square.

Gotcha.

Okay, parking lot.

Well, we're out of time.

Thank you so much for letting us come out and teaching us how to make wreaths.

And before I go, I'm gonna have to buy a bundle this Eucalyptus to take home with me.

So, again, can't thank you so much for letting us come out.

And thank you so much for watching.

If you've got any questions, you can visit us online.

Just search for Mid American gardener on any of your socials.

And if you've got an email question, you can send that to us at your garden@gmail.com Thanks so much for watching, and we'll see you next time.

Good night.