Unknown: Well, hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Mid American gardener and don't adjust your channel we are in the studio for the first time in, Gosh, 18 months, almost two years or so two years.

Jen is here with me today we're doing a special in Studio Show.

She's got tons of stuff that we're going to talk about, she's going to report some things, she's going to tell you some things not to do.

And just give us a good start on our houseplants and some how to write and we've also got some questions that you sent in on Facebook.

And we'll be answering those as well.

So Jen, since it's been a while since we've seen you in studio, tell us a little bit about you and where we can find you in the garden.

I'm Jen Nelson, you can find me online at grounded and growing.

I write a blog, and I teach horticulture at the University of Illinois.

So I'm kind of in a lot of places where a lot of different hats and I brought actual stuff from my actual house.

So you can see I don't always do things 100% perfectly and I kill things.

And I just as real of a gardener, as all of you watching, like.

So I want to ask you, how does it feel being back in the classroom?

It feels good.

It's felt a little bit odd at first, but I can tell that the students really enjoy being there.

And you've done some pretty cool things so far.

You mentioned a couple things before the show we're doing I'm teaching vegetable gardening.

And so the second half of the course we've done some things like making pickles and making salsa and we carved pumpkins for Halloween.

So it was fun.

Yeah, yeah.

Come take it is fun.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Okay, so we're going to start off with like I said, Jen brought a lot of stuff for us to experiment with today.

And the very first thing we're going to talk about are pots in soil.

So whichever one you want to start with, we're going to do some repotting.

So let's talk a little bit about soil mix.

We'll start there.

So I've got a couple of different kinds of plants here today.

I've got some that are more succulent, and then ones that are more traditional house plant ish.

And so for the ones that are just a traditional tropical house plant, this is just generic potting mix, the same stuff I used outside for my annuals.

It works just as well inside for houseplants as well.

So it's got a pretty heavy Peet base does have some other ingredients in there for added drainage.

But it's going to hold on to a little more water than what is for succulents.

What's for succulents has some more sand and has a lot better drainage.

So it's going to not hold on to as much water which is important for succulents.

That's like the number one way to kill them.

You kill them with kindness because you think I'm going to keep watering them.

And actually over the winter months, you should barely water them at all.

Okay, good to know.

Now I did want to ask you since we are moving into those winter months, do you use a potting soil with fertilizer in the winter?

Are you supposed to, um, I don't.

Generally speaking, when we bring our houseplants in for the winter, they're slowing down there, a lot of them will stop growing all together and just kind of hang out or grow very slowly.

If you have a situation where you have good lights, good plant lights, where you can keep them growing, they'll slow down some still because even though you have all that it's usually not as good as the summertime and not as warm, you can do some very weak fertilizer, but I would hold off, if at all possible until the late winter until we're getting ready to get everything back outside again.

So maybe as late as like March or April.

Good to know, because we are just trying to get them to survive.

Yeah, this is their prime time No, this is not their prime time at all.

Okay, and we're going to talk about that a little bit later as well because Jen has a list of things she calls to do as I say, and then not the do as I do.

So we're going to get to that also.

The other important thing is choosing pot size and she's got a lot of cuttings and transplants and things that we're going to divide.

And so I struggled with this sometimes you know which plants like really tight shoes, which plants like a little bit more room.

So when you're choosing Is there a good rule of thumb or does it depend on the plant?

How do you choose how I choose?

First I look at what I have already at home.

But generally you don't want to go more than an inch two inches maximum bigger than what you've already got.

You don't want to have something swimming like I I was originally thinking that this little tiny succulent might fit well in this pot.

But this is way too big.

So you think that's even too big that pots too big problem.

No, I would make that mistake.

Yeah.

What's gonna happen when you put that in there is that you're going to have this doesn't have that much of root system.

You're going to put that in a big, big sea of what soil and for a succulent in the winter especially that's kind of invite Some root rot in.

I have another succulent in the same size pot that's been growing there for about a year now.

And it's about the bus the pot open, I meant to grab that one and bring it in.

I forgot, but that one is probably a good size for this pot.

So I will save that and put this one somewhere else.

But just for an example.

Yeah, that just gonna be too small.

But the one that I've got that's really full and busting out of the park would be fine.

So don't go up.

The rule of thumb was an inch or two an inch or two.

Okay, so would you say maybe this guy?

Yeah, that would be that would be that would be appropriate.

Close your eyes.

Okay, awesome.

So let's jump in.

Let's just talk about pots, we talked about our soil.

Let's talk about dividing.

Now this is where you get, oh, my disclaimer Yeah, because this is completely not the right time of year to be doing any of this.

But this all started when I was putting up adjusting my grow lights and I had a grow light go bad and I I don't know enough about LED lights and electrical circuits to attempt to even fix it.

So I was taking the old one out, and I knocked this plant off the shelf.

And I broke its pot into a million pieces.

And so this is not the right time of year to do this because we everything's kind of slowing down.

And you know, when you report things or put things in a bigger pot, it kind of are prompting plants to start growing and giving them space and it's not the right time for them to grow.

But I don't want this this is not going to do very well sitting like this until the spring so we've got to figure out some pot to put it in so I was thinking possibly this pot and it's also got some little babies off the the bass so we may be able to share them with our gardening friends.

But I I held on to the pot that broke because I ended up keeping a pot of these around for covering up the hole in the bottom of the pot.

There's no sense in I, I was brought up that you needed to put like rocks in the bottom of the pile.

I never knew why I did it for drainage drainage.

Okay, but it doesn't do anything to improve the drainage.

It just like shortens the volume of soil in the pot.

You just want to cover that hole so that the soil doesn't wash away.

Oh, I thought it was something way more magical.

I thought so too serious.

Yeah, and I didn't believe it at first my but my mom told me yeah, you always just a handful of like pea gravel or something.

Yeah, yes.

And there is like a zone of saturation in the soil, that the bottom, so many inches of soil is gonna stay a little wetter just because of the physics of water and soil.

And by putting those rocks there, you're just moving that zone higher.

So it doesn't really help anything.

And I love when you turn into a real scientist, sometimes the plant nerd can.

Truly.

Okay, so while you're setting up, because we're going to do some actual reporting here on the show today.

So while you're setting up, we're going to check in with Liz and John.

And they're going to talk about Indivior fundraising, and how you can help out and be a friend of MidAmerican Gardner, guys.

Hey, obviously I am not John, I am stepping in for John Steinbacher.

Tonight, who could not be here.

And as you can see, sometimes with scheduling, it necessitates that we do pre tape our programs here.

And that is the case tonight.

So I am here instead of John, but I'm happy to join the program this evening.

And I'm here with Liz Westfield, who is in our marketing department.

And we are enjoying the show right along with you I am learning quite a bit about different soils and why I've killed plants that I kill kindness, which makes me feel a lot better actually.

Jen was telling us you know killing with kindness too much watering.

Bad for plants.

Yes.

And so I'm going to lean into that kindness but I can't keep a plant alive to save my life.

And I was just over here making notes like oh, that's why I've killed that one.

Oh, that one too.

Mm hmm.

But we're learning so much and we're so excited to be back in the studio which is another part of the scheduling by the way.

This is Erin Lippitz from membership, our major gifts director joined by Erin.

This is Erin pinching or pinch pledging either way.

We really love that we're back in the studio.

We got to take it easy.

It's baby steps and sometimes we have to record but it's a good energy.

It's a good vibe.

It was great to watch Tanisha and Jen doing their thing making a mess in the studio and I love it make it a huge mess and I love that that looks like my kitchen at the end without the dirt but cooking stuff all around so I can really relate to that.

Great to be back here.

Great to have an American gardener back in the studio.

Great to be back here with you in the store.

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Alright, thanks guys.

And we're gonna check back in with you just a little bit later.

Okay, so as promised, we've got the homeless succulent out of its heartless, heartless succulent out of its own temporary home.

Okay, so this guy don't tell us about him.

Ah, is he been he or she they been?

He's been he came to me as he was potted in a pot with no drain hole which is a no no right?

We know this.

And it was something I picked up at the grocery store because it was a cute pot and it had a cute little macaroni hanger and why not?

Of course it's all popular with me.

So took it out of the pot and put it in the back that originally broke.

And it has had some the problem with succulents that grow in this Roset pattern is sometimes if you get a leaf that's discolored or has some dead spots or broken tip, it's kind of obvious.

And that's one thing I don't like about ones that grow this way.

But one thing that I do like is that they tend to produce some babies.

And when I was taking it picked it up, one of them fell off.

And I don't know if the camera can pick this up.

But there's a teeny tiny root star I see that yeah, starting to grow.

So it could theoretically, it should grow pretty readily.

At your house, I would let it kind of dry off a little.

How long about a week do you say or a few days?

wait two or three days, three days?

Well, I can tell you I have some here that I intend to let them dry to three days and it's been like two, three weeks and then fine.

That's kind of where, yes, this is life because we're all juggling a gajillion things right.

But succulents are very forgiving.

So I mean, yeah, we'll take these are these called pups?

I don't, I think you could call them that.

I don't know if that's the technical term.

I usually think of pups more with Oh, like pineapple.

I can't I'm forgetting the word.

Oh, you've got Amelie Bromeliads.

I'm going to probably cut these off.

These have got some sort of it's not going to look great, but it's not going to get any better.

And this is a currently some sort of aloe because you can.

Yeah.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah, I can see it.

There's lots of different aloes, besides the ones that we now are.

Is this medicinal Can you I don't I have no idea.

This was literally like no name succulent from the grocery store.

So and I have not I could go online and try to identify it.

And I have not I'm sure there's viewers out there that are tasking me right now.

He doesn't know anything.

I don't know everything.

But you know what real plant people know that you just walk by it and grab it.

And you don't, you don't need to know.

And you just pretend it's always been there when the husband asks.

So I just, this isn't going to get any better.

And it's going to look like a bad stub.

So I'm cutting that out and aesthetic, honey.

Yeah, but it's not, it's not going to help it's going to look like that eventually, but sooner or later I made.

There's also an option.

If it gets really overgrown, I could just cut it out and route this center.

Like I said, succulents are super forgiving.

And you can see it was really tight in its pot, and I had used a pebble in that old pot to cover the drain hole, and not going to get super carried away, breaking up the roots.

kind of try to loosen a little bit, especially if they're circling if they're circling the pot, because it's gonna just continue to grow in a circle otherwise.

So I've heard a lot of folks and I've actually seen a lot of our panelists talk about teasing the roots out.

Yeah, in this particular instance, you don't think it's necessary.

I I'm doing it a little bit, but I'm not getting carried away.

I don't want to break through all Yeah, root ball.

So I'm gonna put this is that cactus mix we were showing Okay, earlier and I'm just filling up kind of the bottom of the pot.

And the cactus mix again, just has more sand has more and more.

It's lighter and more perlite, it's gonna drain a lot quicker.

And that's a little bit too much.

So I'm just gonna take a little bit out.

And what's a good so when you said that's too much soil?

Where do you what are you shooting I'm shooting for and I have a tendency to plant things too high in the pot.

I've always struggled with that.

I want it to be about a half an inch beneath the rim.

So when I water the water doesn't just roll right out.

Yes, you want it to hold some.

And this is about the size of the pot it fell out of or broke out of so because again, I don't want to really encourage it to grow a ton.

So you can assistants fester?

And in there.

This was just a pot I already had.

So my resource pile came in handy.

The reserves, reserves Coleman Yeah, the garage shelf is looking plentiful right.

Yes, yes.

And the best thing I ever bought was a I bought a it's a chrome kitchen cart.

That is was a wheels Yeah.

And wheels and start to layers and is absolutely from the kitchen section which you can find some great garden alternatives and the kitchen section.

And it's it's in my garage and I can wheel it out and get out what's on there.

But it's a good it's good for me to have like a limited space.

Sure.

Now it is creeping a little bit off the cart.

And I do need to get that under control but at least tell you I am using my son's changing table because it's got the three layers right.

So I've got all of the like glass on the bottom and then like plants Food and tools on the middle and then I do the work on the top.

There works awesome.

I don't have enough room to do the work.

I do the work in my kitchen and my mom would be just dying.

But it's my kitchen.

That's the beauty of it.

Yeah, so guys got to water him in and he'll be happy.

There we go.

There you go.

So now when you pack them in, let's talk a little bit about that.

Do you like them?

Are they supposed to be packed until you want, you don't want any air pockets.

And so this is where watering it in risk comes in really handy.

Because as you water it in, that'll help settle the soil in place.

You don't want to be putting all kinds of elbow grease in packing it in really tight.

But this whole this will do and I'll water it once I get home because I don't want it to dump over in the car.

Gotcha.

Okay.

All right.

So, do you want to stay on succulents or do you want to branch off to Andrews fairy garden and do the fairy garden a few words this guy's coming on challenge.

Should we do that?

I want to be that one might be tricky.

So what's the story behind this guy?

How long?

This guy's been in?

Oh, probably since about probably five or six years in this pot.

How?

Because again, you said succulents are slow growing Yeah, like tight shoe a lot of times they like hate shoes.

This is a a zebra plant a Hayward the one of my favorites.

It's one of those indestructible plants.

But it met its match on my porch this summer with a rabbit.

And that's why it looks like it's mowed down because it was mowed down by rabbits.

Yeah, the Nevels and yeah, this one didn't worry me as much as this other plant that I spent a great deal of time and money on that the rabbit also got and it was actually when I I brought on the show before I'm trying to rebuild it from the cuttings I was able to salvage but yeah, I'm this is one that I'm not sure what we're going to find when we lost it.

It's always fun to see what's going on.

Because then you find out you've got all sorts of little babies in there that oh, yeah, we didn't even know about right and No, no spiders or mice mice?

Yeah, no mice wouldn't be in this little of a pot.

All you got to worry about that in your bigger pots that you're bringing.

So for those of you who look service announcement pay attention.

I've had more than one call over the years from people that have been like, Yeah, I can't figure what this little find like little piles of panels, little, those little little like it's dug out in the pie.

Or they'll find a little political pile of dirt next to or soil next to the pot on the floor.

Or, you know, other signs that you brought in or they start finding some things disturbed wherever they've got that big pot if it's in their basement.

Yeah.

So pay attention to the shadows for sure.

This is kind of a tough one to figure out.

Where do you start?

But we do you have some good, nice little babies.

And maybe you're just going right and you're gonna go right for it.

I may have I brought some pruners and oh boy Lumina truth.

It was kind of a Yay.

So yeah, this was kind of past due for being out.

There's so much so much in there.

Yeah, like you break it apart.

And there's more babies.

And this is kind of like oh, that we're showing with the other one like this is never going to recover, like these, these two tough ends of the rabbit.

So maybe eventually you can plucked you can actually prune out this top part and reroute that and leave the stuff behind like all of this here.

You would you could you could eventually and then just plant this new growth at the top.

You could eventually Yeah, you'd have to, I would let it grow for a while.

And then just cut it off and treat it like a cutting let it callus over for a few days and then reroute it.

This is a pretty tough little plant.

There's hardly anything you can do to really kill it short of over watering it.

But yeah, I would just kind of make reasonable this event this was like probably the original plant this in the center.

Let's see how that what you can lop off and take all these maybe I'll use this as an example to show people see Thank you got your money's worth out of this guy.

Yeah, but that just goes to show how long one plant Yeah.

See, this is what this is what I think was probably original plant and if I remove all these dead leaves off the bottom, there's still a little you know, life to it at the top.

And you can replant that I would try I'm not going to say that I know for sure that it'll work but I'm not so I'm like you said to me earlier you're the one that experiments Some stuff.

Yeah, I do because what do I have to lose?

I could just throw it away or I could see.

That's the beauty of houseplants.

Right.

Try to get it.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure how well this will do because when I cut it, it looks kind of kind of dry and put it a little bit more.

Wow, see?

Give it a shot.

Okay.

So with these, would you prune the roots?

Or would you leave this plant that just how it is and so from that we've already so far got a whole bunch.

So you get this little guy adorable.

He would he would need to be in a little tiny pot for a while and very garden.

Yes, definite fairy garden material.

And yeah, I got one here today.

So maybe, but not the right kind.

It's a it's a succulent.

See, look at Jan, don't mix tropicals and succulents together they will someone will be unhappy.

Don't lose out that is not a match.

Love that.

We can just make a giant mess here.

Tanisha This is great.

Then we can have DJ clean it up on our director.

So these now do these have to be dried out?

No.

Now tell me the difference between having to dry out you know these that you broke off versus separating?

These don't really have roots on them yet.

If there was a real obvious place that wouldn't hurt to leave them around for a day, but there's not really I just kind of, I can't see any real like wet area that I broke it off from if there was something obviously like, oozing I would let that Okay, so that's the rule of thumb.

Yeah, with succulents.

Anything that is like an basically like an open wound almost.

You want to let that dry up before you put it in soil.

But if you just do a clean break where you've got nice roots, yeah, and just I just put it right in good to know.

So yeah, Tanisha this is there's plenty for you to take what you want, and I'm just gonna use the same pot again and put it back up.

Beautiful.

Okay, well, while we're cleaning this mess up, we're going to go back again, and check with Liz and John to tell you about how you can support support men, American Gardner, we'll be right back.

Thank you so much Tinsiha.

And for those of you just tuning in, no, not John, that.

Sorry.

So in as we find our way back into the studio, we've had some pre recorded some scheduling conflicts, John was unable to be with us this evening.

I really appreciate my friend and colleague Erin Lippitz coming in in a pinch here to ask for your support of this great, long standing local gardening show that is entertaining and informative.

It's just the you know bread and butter of what public media truly is and what it can be for you.

And you are an important part of that at will give.org Or to 172449455 as we wrap up this calendar year.

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Our goal for tonight from an American gardener is $1,500 and you can help right now but let's just talk about what Jen and Tinisha were covering so many interesting tidbits in that segment.

There's a lot that they go through and some of it is really surprising to me and we were just talking about that what a cute idea to use her site it was a sun suns changing table as like a potting air cutting station.

Yeah, cute idea like talk about Reduce, reuse and recycle tiling like giving it more of a shelf life giving it more of a space in your home.

And then Jen was talking about that kitchen cart which I'm sure you're very familiar with as a baker and someone who spends a lot of time in the kitchen.

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Thank you.

Alright, thanks, guys.

And so we've got a couple more projects that Jen bought in for us.

So this is Oh which one you want to do first?

Well might as well do continuing with a broken pot.

The theme of hot we're gonna repeat things kind of out of necessity not because it's the right time.

So this is an asparagus Fern that has a lot of sentimental value my son and I when I was very pregnant with my daughter, we did a mommy and me class where we made little fairy gardens.

And this was his fairy garden and I will point out some of the features of his fairy garden was been added to over the years so Margaret's five so it's been in this pot for five years.

Okay, okay.

So yeah, the the original fairy is somehow missing her hand but she's still in here that happens we have a like it's so packed in here.

It's hard to get these things out.

We have a little snail we have a little lightning bug.

Yes, we have in here yeah, these things these are in their fun classes if you've got a very garden class little ladybug check but some of Andrews additions as he's gotten into this.

He found a subway car Okay, so he said it was like the red line going to the Cubs game in Chicago.

So you know you got to make your very garden your own and make it mean something to you that sentimental value airy garden and then a stone Triceratops that we got at the science museum in Denver because because boys and dinosaurs and what who doesn't like the idea of a triceratops next to a subway car and then a piece of the broken pot.

I'm not exactly sure how this ended up on the ground.

My kids were involved in it but so was our new kitten so you'll never know the true story because not me And I don't know do everything at my house.

And I'm sure kitty.

This looks very palatable.

And very Yes.

Looks like it looks like some of the cat toys but yeah, right so so I had gravel on the top of this, we're just going to get this out of the way I have again no idea what we're going to uncover this is this should have been dealt with I can dealt with before it's actually kind of heaving soil up on this side because it is trying to get out.

So this is my favorite I love big rosy looking roots.

I just love taking the pots, and just looking at the root system and see how they Oh, wow, asparagus Fern have really thick, fleshy roots.

So I don't know, we might not be able to get this out with that we might have to come go wet it and come back.

Because if I pull on this, this is in here so tight.

Don't think we're gonna be able to get it.

Yeah, I might need to go with it in the kitchen and come back in.

Okay, well, let's switch then let's, let's work on these two.

So these you've got bagged up and we'll, when we go back to Lisbon, John will magically come back and that will be out of the pot.

Sure, sure.

So let's tell us about these guys.

So I picked up somewhere a an Easter cactus.

We've talked about the Christmas cactus on the air lots of times this time of year.

And there's technically there's a Thanksgiving cactus.

There's a Christmas cactus and there's a Easter cactus that hardly anybody knows about.

So when I saw one, I grabbed it, and it was kind of struggling.

I'm not sure why like the sad I like the sad stuff.

It wasn't struggling when I bought it, but it started struggling afterwards.

And I grabbed what pieces were left that looked like they had life to them.

And I just laid them on top of some potting mix.

And I put it in the handy dandy ziplock bag, which Jen calls personal greenhouse.

Yes, personal greenhouse, in my kitchen.

Your holiday cactuses are a little different than the succulents that we were doing previously.

They actually are native to rainforest areas.

So they can tolerate a little more moisture.

And so that's why sealing them up in the plastic bag was an okay idea.

But I don't know if the camera can get this.

But the the roots on these kind of start where the two leaves come together.

So just by laying that across the top of the soil, they started to root and they started to put out new growth that so if you're doing cuttings, and you want to know if it worked, you can kind of gently tug and if you feel some resistance, but you got to be careful because you can bust the roots.

But if you see new growth, that is a great sign that you're doing something right and it's working.

So originally, how many did you put in here?

Just I don't know.

Looks like at 123?

Probably three.

So this bag says January 3?

Yeah.

So it's been almost a year.

And if you just put maybe two or three pebbles in there, I mean, that's a lot of growth.

And yeah, 1011 months, and well.

And it's one of those things that it's like, oh, it's doing okay, I can wait a little longer, I probably left it in there way longer than I needed to.

But again, we're getting to a point where if I don't do something with this, that we're gonna probably have a have an issue.

Now this one was complete.

This was also done around the same time.

Got some neighbors and yeah, but this is the, the I have my such a poor example of an expert.

Bring this anyway.

So this is the same cactus and some pieces that I did a little later I did these in May.

And so same kind of situation.

There's some new growth.

There's some that I've got great.

It's kind of broken off.

But I was lazy.

And I had started.

Some people that watch the show religiously would remember I brought a variegated kumquat tree on the show before.

And I had some fruits with seeds.

And so of course the kids were like, well, they grow and I said let's try.

Let's find out.

And so I planted a whole bunch of these kumquat seeds in this pot and they sat there for over a month in the little Ziploc greenhouse, and they didn't do anything and I thought oh, dead as a doornail probably nothing and I forgot about it and I was I had these pieces of cactus and I just literally grabbed this pot and I thought better than nothing and Chuck pieces in and then I noticed what is that growing?

That doesn't look like cactus and it's the kumquat trees.

Sure.

So we've got 123 we've got seven kumquat trees that need to be teased out and given their new their new home.

That's some that's some cactus bits that didn't make it so they just kind of dried up and faded away.

But these little trees really like we were talking about the pot sizes.

We don't want to put them in a big huge pot.

I was just going to try to Put them in some of these small pots that I'm reusing from them.

I think these had succulents in them to start with, but kind of see what the root systems look like.

Let them grow and fill these pots before putting them into something this size.

Now your kumquat tree at home.

Do you still have it?

Yeah.

How big is it?

It's about the same size.

I had one branch kind of died off this summer and I don't know why but it's loaded with fruit.

Really?

Yes.

And then how long did it take you to get to where it was bearing fruit?

What did you already buy it established?

I bought it pretty established.

It didn't have any fruit on it, though.

But it had like one fruit on it the first year and like every year is a little bit more kumquats I like because they, they can tolerate the cold.

The temperature in our house, which is not really that cold, but it's cold to citrus tree.

It's not Florida, right?

So kumquats can handle like the humidity and the temperature a little bit better.

And that variegated kumquat is actually technically a hybrid of a kumquat and another citrus, but I ended up actually using some of the fruits in it last winter, you know, all of our pandemic projects.

I used it to flavor kombucha, and it turned out really, really good.

So from from this pot, you know, when we teach these away from here to producing fruit, give me a ballpark year, two years.

Oh, I think even longer than that.

I would think like any kind of fruit bearing tree, I think it would be five years or more.

I mean, it has to get to a good size.

And you'll notice these are not variegated, so that that very variation is not always inheritable.

It's not always what we think it's going to be so interesting.

Okay, still be a good kumquat in the end, it'd be a cool tree.

Cool.

All right.

So when you are taking these out, what is the proper way to pluck them out?

You know, I would dump the whole pot out and just kind of gently just do it.

Yeah, let's do it.

We're taking J We're making more money.

There we go.

Deej just for you.

So I have no idea.

Like I said, what we're gonna really look be seeing here.

And some of these pieces of cactus I can just pop back up there.

You and I are similar in that whenever we're dumping things out any little piece that salvageable we're like, look, move that guy right over there.

Yeah, that's a free plant.

Right.

So yeah, I want to be careful to try to not disturb the roots of the kumquat as much as possible.

They've they've made it through a lot.

I don't want to kill them now.

But you can kind of see on this, how the roots of the cactus are coming off those joints between the leaves.

That's technically a leaf for this plant.

Now the conquest you planted those in May, or even before before 404 I don't I again, bad expert here.

I did not make the proper router real did not make the proper record of what I did.

It was one of those really grow.

Yeah, let's, let's check it out.

You didn't get a lot of Yeah, so.

So Okay, while we're while we're at this stage, let's say I'm dividing plants at home, and I just want to check for health.

So maybe I'm thinking about sharing with a friend.

We've heard a lot about or jumping worms.

We've heard a lot about being creepy crawlies.

So when you're looking at this and you're deciding, okay, is this healthy enough to share?

What do you do?

I'm jumping worms aside, if I'm just looking at the roots, healthy roots are generally white.

In their firm, unhealthy roots tend to be black or brown.

They'll be kind of falling apart.

kind of brittle, brittle, they'll have kind of an outer an outer Pete a bit that will come off like slough off almost like skin.

Yeah, they'll just they might have an odor.

If you've got some root rot you can kind of might be kind of mucky and yuck when you open it up.

But yeah, these when we when we pot them up, you're gonna want to try to have a pot about that about as deep as the roots go.

So some of these little starter posit probably be a good, good size.

And I just washed these out in the sink these pots with that had succulents in them before you could get if you want to go the extra step and do like a 10% bleach water you could depending on how sensitive what you're putting up is you might might want to go that route, okay, but these are going to be potted actually in the same mix that we used for the succulents because it's citrus appreciates a very free draining soil as well.

So this will use that same same potting mix.

Good to know now so what are you going to do with these?

I'm gonna give some to you.

I love that answers.

As much as I love my kumquat tree I don't need seven of them true.

So if you had to, I mean ballpark the one in your house.

How tall would you say it is probably about three feet tall.

Yeah, it's in isn't about a 14 inch pot.

Yeah, it's about about three feet tall.

Nice.

Nice.

I'm excited.

I can't wait to Well, five years from now.

I want to I want to report I think my oldest will be in college.

But no, this that's part of the journey.

Right?

Right kind of letting it happen watching it grow and enjoying the process.

Now for the cactuses.

Let's talk about their roots and how you would start these, would you lay this on its side?

Would you stand it straight out?

What kinda like I would kind of lay this on its side, you see the roots are already there, I would just kind of lay that down in a pot.

And we're going to use for the, for these cactuses.

I would they like a little heavier soil than a true cactus blend.

So I would do like half and half with a regular potting mix, just to add a little bit of okay, of water holding capacity, they still you still don't want them to sit in water that can route them away, just like any other secular sort of likes a little a little bit more.

They're more in reinforced the kind of climate.

Excellent, so yeah, well, we will get these put into the little pots.

And while we are doing that, and cleaning up or to switch out for the What's this one, asparagus Fern asparagus firm.

But before that, we're going to throw it back to Liz and John to talk to you more about how you can support MidAmerican gardener and be a friend of our show.

We'll be right back.

And again, we're back and I am not John.

Once again, my name is Aaron lipids.

I'm the major gifts director at wi ll I'm joined here by Liz Westfield, who is in our marketing department and we are learning quite a bit tonight in this episode of MidAmerican Gardner I learned so much about succulent plants and that there are cactus for every holiday apparently Easter cactus, right getting nose.

I didn't know that either.

I think she's like Christmas cactus.

I don't know.

Yeah.

They're like Memorial Day cactus.

But like, who knew about stuff like this?

I mean, I certainly and they couldn't live together either.

There were there's reference about like, tropical plants and succulent plants like not coexisting very well.

Just again, we're just checking the boxes on all the reasons I have so many plants in my life, but hopefully moving forward, it will have changed and I can make a fairy garden and make a fairy guard that was that was so sweet.

How was it really meant a lot to her to be able to do that for her kids and with her kids.

What a great activity.

Yeah, kids actually, I would love to do that with my daughter and the little train that reminded him of going to the Cubs games.

I'm not a Cubs fan, but bestow my heart I know it was very, very sweet.

All of this that you're getting tonight is made possible.

From permanent donations from viewers like you can go online at will give.org or donate, go to the phones 217-244-9455.

And this show is truly a local show.

We've got local local panelists, local hosts, they are dealing with very local regions or zones of Illinois, telling you the information that you need to make your garden grow and have healthy vegetables and healthy plants all through the year.

And it's our local viewers, our local donors that are essential to this program making it happen every day.

Remember our goal $1,500 By the end of this program tonight, go ahead go to the phones 217-244-9455 or online at willgive.org And it's not lost on us that you can certainly get gardening advice just about anywhere these days.

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All right, thanks, guys.

And as promised, the asparagus Fern has been wrestled out of its pot.

So first of all, tell us a little bit about the process because you had to take this guy into the kitchen.

Yeah, I took this into the kitchen and I thought just putting some water on it would help and it didn't.

And so I found a butter knife and I was able to go around the edge and loosen it up.

But asparagus Fern as I was mentioning earlier tends to have a real fleshy root and so you can see it was it's very much in need of repotting that solid is very solid.

Yeah, that's not gonna be tea.

Now, there's maybe a little, maybe a little bit but this is one of those things.

How do you know when your plant is ready to be repotted?

When it looks like this, when it looks like a pot of spaghetti when you reach out because like look, there's no soil in between these roots, it's just solid, massive roots.

And, and what can happen in this sort of situation is that the stuff in the center starts to die, it doesn't get it doesn't tend to get water doesn't penetrate.

So this, this might be a bigger project to take home and work on trying to tease this apart a little a little bit just to make sure we can just loosen it up just a tad.

But the state of this thing this was the pot that I originally was going to use not going to happen I don't think it's going to happen because if I can fit it in now but if this thing grows another layer of these heavy roots, I'll have to break this pot to get it out and I don't want to break the pot if I don't have to.

Yeah, I've had to do that on occasion with certain plants was telling you about my Monstera I just about had to had to do that to this this last summer.

But I think I'm going to go with maybe something more like this that's got more of an open top that you could get a butter knife around the edge.

So plant pot selection isn't always the cute part is always you do have to think about what you're planting and what it ends up doing.

Those are some big roots.

Yeah, I mean, asparagus Fern roots before Yeah, eating.

They are they're they're very similar to a spider plant if you've repotted a spider plant, so it probably comes from a part of the world that has a dry season.

So you have some store some storage, some water storage, nutrients, storage, anything to do with pruning here I see like a couple of twigs, you know?

Would you would you do any pruning with that?

Or would you just what I do, I would just prune out any dead stuff, which is kind of what you do with asparagus Fern anyway.

And usually when I bring it in for the winter time, there's kind of a die back that happens.

But it really liked my front porch this summer, and it filled out considerably.

I thought this was maybe on its way out.

And I may have been contributing to that by not, not rewriting it as I should have.

But it's actually flowered.

It doesn't have much of a, it's not a showy flower, but it just, it looks kind of the same.

But you see some little tiny flowers on the in among the foliage.

Right now.

The ones when it starts, the, when the fronds start getting yellow, all these little tiny leaves fall off, and it's kind of messy.

Now, if you were to, are you able to get starts off with something like this?

And if you were how do you go about it?

Is this a good listener to share?

Well, you could, this is one where like, there's kind of a natural spot in the middle that if you wanted to, okay, wanted to, but you divide didn't really have to get in there and really tease these roots apart.

And I would try to do the least amount of damage as possible.

It could be possible, but it's healthy, right?

Yeah.

Like it's doing really, really well.

And we'll have to put it back so that the subway train can have a new name.

Yeah, yeah, we might have to it's a slightly bigger pot.

So we're sticking with that inch, two inch bigger.

It's probably a good thing that I had to do it even though it's the wrong time of year, and I'm not sure how much longer this would have.

Yeah, might have broken the pot eventually.

Well, I've got a ZZ plant at home right now that it's literally pressing, you can see the root like pressing on the outside of the pot.

And I don't know if we're gonna make it till spring.

I mean, it's really tight in there.

So I might need to do the same thing.

But I think with that one, I would have to get assault.

I mean, this my ZZ plant is probably about five feet tall.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, I had one that got that big again and couldn't fit in my house anymore.

No.

So before we go, we've got a few minutes left, we've got some questions that folks sent in.

So let's ask this is from Margaret mant.

In Lincoln.

Margaret wants to know, if you're supposed to cut back your knockout roses, I would hold off on that just because we don't know how hard the winter is going to be.

And so with roses, in general, you tend to get some winter dye back where part of the stem dies.

And if you cut it back really far now and we get six inches of die back, that could go clear back into the crown, and it would be dead.

So I would just wait.

Unless it's so big that it's like blocking a sidewalk or something and you need to get around.

Okay, around it.

But if you can wait.

Yeah, waiting is waiting to see some growth this spring.

So you kind of kind of guide you where to cut.

Okay, next question.

We've always talked on the show about not rushing to do yard cleanup, because we want to be good stewards to our pollinators and our overwintering insects.

So Is now a good time, mid to late November, when should we get out there and start picking out?

Well, there are certain things that I would clean up like hostas, and daylilies that just kind of looks messy.

Things that have seed seed heads, or like ornamental grasses, definitely leave them up for something to look at.

You don't want to clear everything out and just have a moonscape out your window.

You need something for the snow to collect on.

But definitely also if there's something that tends to start growing really early in the spring, and it's kind of a pain to get the old out with the new growing up.

You could clean that up now make it easy.

Yeah, make it easier for yourself in the spring.

Okay.

All right.

And then let's see, what do we do now we've, we talked about how this is not the time to do the recording.

But what do you do if you bring your plants in for the summer or the winter?

I'm sorry, and they're just not doing too hot.

They're not they're not surviving?

You don't know if they're gonna make it till spring.

Is there any last ditch you know, effort that you have at home like a plant hospital, I would say if you can get a plant light, a lot of people think they have better light than they actually do.

Plant lights you can get within you know, 25 to $30 you can get something that'll light pretty decent sized area.

Some weak fertilizer, it's not the greatest thing to do.

But if you're really trying to throw the last ditch effort in there, yeah, don't go overboard but just a little bit in the light will make a huge difference and don't overwater.

don't overwater.

That's the big one for the winter months.

Okay, Jen, thank you so much.

We're out of time.

I had so much fun being back in this was the first time in forever.

We made a huge mess.

It was great.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you for watching.

And also thanks to Liz and Erin for coming to talk about fundraising and supporting them at Mid American gardener.

And I hope we get to do more of this soon.

So we'll see you next time.

Good night.