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

I'm your host Tinisha, Spain and joining me in house today to talk about all things green and growing are two of our faves.

We've got Phil and John.

We'll have them introduce themselves before we jump right in with today's discussion.

So Phil, we'll start with you here to phase tonight, some of their night over.

Well, I have to say.

You have to be that way.

Exactly.

I'm Phil Nixon.

I'm a retired extension entomologist with University of Illinois Extension.

And so I cover anything to creeps and crawls.

Yep.

Okay, John.

I'm John Bodensteiner, I'm a vermillion County Master Gardener.

And I am kind of a generalist, a generalist.

Yeah.

I like most of all the things.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

So Phil, we're gonna start with you.

Do you want to start with Banzai or the photos that you sent him?

Okay.

One thing that we tend to get into at this time of year is concerns about what do you do with some plants that you want to keep overwinter and so on.

And myself being in the bonsai, that becomes very much a factor, what you have is a situation that trees that would normally be able to survive out in your yard aren't necessarily going to be able to survive in a pot, or a small piece of soil because you end up with a with a soil freezing and thawing through the winter.

And as it freezes and thaws.

The soil changes volume, or, or flexes and breaks roots.

And so if that happens a lot of the time, a lot of times, you end up having having a nice looking tree that leaves out due to the dutiful water of its interest in the stems and so on.

But pretty soon figures out I didn't get new water from roots.

And then about three weeks later, they just all of a sudden wilt and die.

And that's not only just the case, for bonsai, it's for any plant that you're wanting to try to overwinter that whether it's hearty or not.

It's you need to protect the soil, essentially, they've done some work on and some research on, on temperatures.

And they found out that many of the trees, in fact, most of the trees in in, in the Midwest, may be able to the tops may be able to handle 20 below zero 30 below zero, but their root systems many times, it's rare to find one that can handle temperatures below zero, interesting.

Most of them are many times 1520 degrees above zero, and so on.

And in fact, throughout, as you get into the central part of Mid America, you know, essentially from this central Illinois or Indiana is out, much of the soil doesn't even freeze during the wintertime or very just the very top side of the part has money in the roots does not freeze.

And so so these plants are, are much more susceptible to code on a root system.

And you would think so even a pot of bonsai like this, that sitting out and theoretically would stay cold all winter and not freeze and thaw as you get warmer days and colder days would likely die anyway due to the temperature in the soil being exposed exposed to the outside air, getting way below what it would normally get out in nature and or in your yard in your landscape.

And so these plants will die out that way.

I mean, we've probably all seen maybe I'm more sensitive to it and others but you go to a you go to a mall or something.

And they have these trees, small trees planted out in big pots out in front of them door opening.

And they look good all winter.

And they get into into about May or so.

And for some reason, they change what's in the pots.

And if they don't change what's in the pots, you realize that this nice, neat old evergreen Juniper or a screws look great all winter is now just toasty brown because it was sitting there and it got this effect on it.

And so the so what you need to do is protect it.

And there's several ways to do that.

And this can be done for things like geraniums or trying to keep over the winter of lantana is even relatively Hardy compared to many of what we call tender perennials and tender perennials is what we tend to refer to these sorts of plants.

What about bananas?

Would that same advice get a little more tender?

Yes.

Okay, but they do have Hardy four types of varieties of bananas that would probably fall into that category I suppose we can handle like, zone seven or eight or something.

We got just, we got just kicked up to zone 668 or 60.

Yeah, I can't remember which one back up.

Yeah, so we just that that'll change some of the well, so you keep these in I agree with what my wife said.

And that is, they can change it.

But I'm not going to do you bring this inside you store it in the garage, the point is, is that it came out of a cold greenhouse, we have a greenhouse that we allow to drop down as well.

When we have sub zero temperatures outside.

And we have a greenhouse, the glass allows a lot of air in.

And so we will get it in will drop down into the high to mid 20s.

during the wintertime.

buckets of water will freeze on top, but they don't freeze throughout.

So that's, you know, that's kind of the premise of the CRAM and the greenhouse River.

Those are expensive baby babies.

And so, but an alternative is you could sink this pot down to the rim in soil outside, okay, and it would do well.

A garage even though it's not heated, if it's an attached garage, many times you've use a thermometer on cold, cold mornings, as you go out after after a cold night, you'll find those warmer spots in the garage where you might be able to keep these many attached garages parts of a garage at least if the doors kept shut during during most of the day at night, are not going to drop below freezing crawlspaces and houses work well for this too many times.

Once the plant has gone dormant, as you can see this when the flight leaves it does have are pretty well gone the yellow, they are no longer functioning.

I don't know, wherever you're dropped off.

This is a deciduous bonsai it drops its leaves, just like the ones outside and leaf color, you can still see some of it on it.

They do not need light.

So as long as it's in this state before it starts breaking, but in the spring, even though it's dark, it's fine.

And that's a way to cushion your temperature is by by using a cover over it to hold that moisture that temperature in during cold nights.

You can use you can use a cover cloth to help protect that just like you would some tender plants in the spring from it or in a fall.

Keeping with these are all ideas on how you can save some of those tender perennials that you have potted up and, and enjoy him next spring.

Excellent keeping with that weather theme.

John, I'm gonna go to you we had a couple questions come in kind of along that same vein.

I mentioned that I had some tulips that I did not get in the ground.

And Mary Cholesky says yes.

Is it too late to get those in the ground?

I assume yes, if it's frozen, but if it warms up a little bit, will it be okay.

And I saw that it's going to be in the 50s?

Or maybe we're cool catch a couple more warm days, can you go put those tubes, I noticed on the way over here from dead gel primaries, we're still out plowing your fields, so the ground is still workable.

Okay.

So as long as the ground is workable, you could plant them, what I would do is get them in as soon as I could make sure you water them in because we are kind of dry here.

And then heavy mulch over them got it.

And that that should insulate the soil.

And so that it's not like Phil was saying we're not changing the temperature a whole lot where the bulbs will actually not survive if it gets too cold.

And so mulching will help.

The other thing you can do is put them in a pot and force them later on.

And then plant them in the spring.

I would not just leave them in the bag because they're they're probably not going to if you've got them in a bag, they're probably not going to survive.

But if you if you've got a pot, that fairly good sized pot, put them in there and then come issue some time.

A lot of people like to start their bulbs then and have something blooming.

So that'd be the other alternative.

All right.

On the opposite end of that Sue Deatherage writes in Is it too late to dig up my cannas?

I only planted two last spring and the resulting plants were small but pretty.

So is it too late to dig those up?

Okay.

It might be, but I can guarantee you that if you don't take them up.

It's going it's a gamble, right?

But the ground again, deep down is not frozen out there in a pot depending on your last night it got down to 19.

And so it depends on where they're located and the soil temperature.

I would still dig them up and take them in, protect them, get them in some way peat moss or something like that in a cool place.

No light.

And, and hope for the best.

But yeah, those, you're you're you're at at the opposite at both ends of those.

So all right.

Sure, sure, sure.

One thing when I was probably about 12 years old and growing up just south of Springfield, Illinois, the we got some Tulip tree tulip bulbs on sale and it was late December, early January.

I mean it was, you know, what would normally sell for $25 was 25 cents.

Oh, wow, yeah.

And he really tried to get rid of and I went out and I had a flower garden bed in my fire garden.

And I dug into it, the soil was frozen down about three inches.

And I was or two to three inches, I was able to what wasn't, quote unquote frozen crust was such that you really couldn't work for soil.

So I had bulbs that after I got up and planted without even with my best efforts, I can still look down in and see the ball for the cracks.

And it stayed cold for the rest of the of the spring and so on pretty cold that cold winter, that winter.

And I had probably 85% of those survived.

Wow.

And probably half of them flowered topping, it was just, and that bed stayed good for for years and years.

So even for those that have missed the time, rather than leave them on a shelf or throw them into trash, if you've got data might want to spend the energy go out and plan them.

You never know.

I'll give it a shot.

You just you just you just never know.

And so and and putting in terms with with how my wife talked about Well, I'm not going to believe this temperature change sort of thing.

You got 19 degrees last night, where I live, we got 50 Oh, so we happen to live in a little cold spot?

Yeah.

Yeah, you do.

And so things can, things can change that way.

Okay.

All right.

Let's see, John, one more for you.

And you've got some some Shawn tells to go with this one.

Susan wants to know, what are some of your favorite plants?

And which ones do you have the most fun propagating?

And why?

I have so many, you know, depending on depending on I brought some of them, I noticed her question.

And so this is this, this, there's some of them are really easy like this.

This is a spider plant.

And you can see there's a little baby, I took this off of one of my mother plants.

And you can see there's 1234567 plants right here, all I have to do is get the pot ready, cut those off and drop them in.

And I've got a new spider plan.

And very carefree.

One of the other I had brought, Chris, I'm sorry, to Thanksgiving cactus, the last show.

And I had broke off a piece and said I'll take this home and plot it while I did.

And you can see that I have it is growing.

And it has actually a little but it's going to bloom.

Now I probably after the show, I'm going to take that off, take it off because it really when they're this young if you shouldn't allow him to flower because it gives it more energy for the root systems and for the rest of the plant because it expends a lot of energy doing that.

The other ones that I really enjoy and and the kids at school have enjoyed is the sense of area.

snake plant.

And you can see I did cut one of the leaves of my giant ones off and just stuck it into the soil.

And now I have one larger one.

And if you look right in the corner I can start to saw it.

There it is that little birdie in the corner.

Right there hiding just it's starting to come up.

So out of that out of one part of a long leaf.

This this, this has sprouted all this.

Another one is.

And this is so easy.

This is the mother of 1000s mother of billions.

So that one does all the work for you.

All you have to these they've got plantlets on and I'll just pick this one off.

And you can see it's already got the little roots.

And all I have to do is drop it on here.

And I've planted that and it'll it'll grow, grow, grow grow.

One of the other ones that I have, and I'm going to try doing two different types of propagation.

As you can see, this one here has a little chick on it.

This is a Hinden chick.

And this is got a little chick on the side.

But I've already taken off about I'd say a dozen of the little chicks off of this.

And this is this is one of them and I have sold that one is already propagated.

So that one is already easy.

Now if you can see this, it is going to flower I will want it does flower.

And I think it is probably just a few days because this just erupted.

But most of this is Brax.

And it's not really the flower.

So I will have to get in there with a paintbrush and just go from flower to flower guy and see if I can get some seeds.

And I'll try propagating some whether I'm successful or not, it's challenging.

It is this is a very challenging one.

This part here where you just break off, you just break tear this off, it's got a little root, it's already got roots, it's very, this is probably going to die after this.

After this flowers, it's going to spend so much energy this probably is and it's had its babies on the side, it's chicks.

So it's probably just going to wither up and die.

So that's going to go another one.

Soon Are you Yes, I do.

dramatic effect.

This is s avaria.

And you can see I just laid up a leaf on the on the ground here on the soil.

And I've got two little babies coming from that.

And this is one that's really the kids like this, because it is easy.

It's carefree.

And then so that's it that's those are, those are some of my favorites.

Most of those were fairly easy to do.

And the the Thanksgiving cactus, that's that's a cutting from my mom's grandmother's plant.

So it's probably well over 100 Oh my god, 100 years old.

So I had given part of it to my daughter, and she gave me another piece back.

And so then it was blitz part.

That's the plan I bought last show, and I broke a piece off.

So this is I'll be able to share this with somebody I love.

That's the cool part.

That's that's one of the reasons I enjoy doing it because of the of the history and then the smiles that that that you can you can share plans.

That's that's one of the reasons I like doing the propagating is just giving the plants away and letting people enjoy him.

Excellent.

All right, John, thank you.

Okay, Phil.

So we are at that wonderful time of year, again, what we're bringing the forest inside, right.

And sometimes things come with your parts of so give us some tips to not have that happen or what to look for.

Okay, well, one thing I want to mention is that we're talking about cryptically talking about Christmas trees, live Christmas trees.

And it's important to realize that Christmas trees that you go and buy at at the LOD or wherever the case are a form of, of Midwestern agriculture to a great extent, there are a few, probably still some Christmas trees that are caught up in in very far north part of us and in Canada that are veteran naturally grown.

But the bulk of Christmas trees that you were that you're going to run across and and purchase are really just as much a piece of an agricultural commodity as the corn and soybeans are tied by and some people I talk to you said, Well, I never want to use a natural Christmas tree.

Because, you know, it's taking away from nature.

No, you're taking food out of a farmer's mouth.

Okay, you know, that tree is there because it's it's an agricultural commodity, it's grown to be a Christmas tree, it's grown to be grown, it's grown a few years, it's then meant to be cut and sold.

And if people did not buy them, you would not have the trees out there for several years, giving habitat for birds and, and insects and other creatures.

And so a Christmas tree farm is typically not real heavy on the chemical applications.

It's a it's an area where many times lambda would not would be not really grow crops very good, otherwise would have it and so you know, buying one is not it's not hurting nature, it's actually hurting helping farmers.

But there are some things that will come in on your Christmas tree.

And I want to start out by saying that all of these problems that come about is when you really keep a Christmas tree indoors too long.

Because all critters that live on Christmas trees are baked with the idea that they're going to live through the whole winter and, and not come out in the middle of winter and freeze off.

And so only when you have a Christmas tree in for weeks at a time.

Do these things start to pop up and calls that I've gotten.

I've always asked how long did you have the Christmas tree in?

And typically they got the tree the first the first Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving.

And this is a second or third week.

As of January, mid, mid February, a couple of times late March, they still have the darn Christmas tree indoors, which as we all know, is a fire and a house fire waiting to happen.

So they become very big.

Well, one of the more common ones that we will find on Christmas trees is pine needles scale, which looks like white flecks, this is just about this as well as you click Close up at it.

And it really something that's not going to do anything to your tree inside, you may find them, they're not going to drop any SAP, they're not going to do anything for an armored scale.

Even if they become active, they don't do any damage.

What's much more common are going to be are going to be spiders, and you will find spider spider nests.

These will be just Little Big Little Webb areas which was in a previous picture but there for a second but they will hatch out into what we have here.

And that is a bunch of spider lanes that will that will tend to balloon and they'll get in front of the of the air duct and blow this is the Spider Man egg mass.

It just looks like a little piece of silk there.

And but these were not are not going to hatch again until at least a month maybe more like six or eight weeks after you bring this inside because they're not going to get fooled by a warm time.

I've had calls with people that said, it looks like I have angel hair over my entire room.

Because it will just you'll get hundreds of these little spiderlings come out and they all spit out soaks and blow on the silk.

And the final one I really want to talk about are is are some of the aphids and in particularly on white pine, we get white pine aphid other other Christmas tree varieties, particularly pines have pine aphids as well.

The one on white pine will show up as a little black spots you're seeing here on the needles, and those are on the outside of needles.

They're not they're not embedded in but even close up, they don't really look like eggs, but that is in fact what they are.

And they will hatch out into little long legged favorites actually big lonely aphids, some of our largest aphids are in this group.

And they will have quite long legs and stomach upset, but again are not going or will hatch out after save five or six weeks of the tree being inside, long after it's become a fire waiting to happen.

So again, enjoy your Christmas trees.

Don't worry about the past, there are things that will hatch out, but only if you keep that tree inside wait longer than it should be.

I've heard about people getting Mantis sacks.

Occasionally you'll get Mantis eggs.

In fact, I had one year in which we brought body alive Christmas tree to put outside.

And it had a big Mantis case on it.

And as it turned out during the time when we had the tree inside which we can only kept indoors for about two weeks so it wouldn't break dormancy.

Tree back outside during that two weeks.

If this happened to be the Chinese man it's a sack which is kind of like a Styrofoam ping pong ball on your on your understanding.

And we noticed it on there and didn't read a whole lot about it.

During the time it was inside.

We got some 20 and 25 below zero temperatures, which essentially killed all the outdoor eggs.

We moved this one out and planted it and it hatched out.

And we had several others that we knew about in the yard.

And and they didn't hatch because they couldn't handle that guy.

Temperature it's handy to have an entomologist around isn't so so it was a good thing way it's a bad thing.

This is a Chinese man.

It's it's not native to North America.

It's thought to have perhaps, perhaps decimated our native Carolina Mantis that we have and or other native managed species.

On the other hand, because it was indoors, it survived and we had manases and so it's a good thing.

good stead that thing sort of thing.

Awesome.

All right, John, one quick question.

We've got about two minutes left.

Let's see Mary Klasky wants to know, is it okay to trim shrubs and branches throughout the winter in the woods that they that person cares for that she cares for under under almost always?

Yes.

And the bush honeysuckle especially Yes.

Okay, trim that down to the other one.

The other one that I had that I want just to talk about just a second was best fertilizer for rosemary.

And depending on what type it is, it's best not to fertilize at all because Roseberry is a very easy to grow.

If you don't want to use real rich soil because the more rich the soil, the faster it's going to grow, the less Essential Oils you're gonna have in those leaves.

And so composted manure, mushroom compost would be the best as you know, and no 1010 1020 It just don't need that.

Don't need it with that.

Okay, excellent.

We got all of the Facebook questions answered that through all the show and tells we didn't get to the book.

We got about 30 seconds if you want to mention it real quick.

A new book that I've run across is gardening for moms.

There it's comes out of Ohio.

It's fairly TV inexpensive.

It was $25 off of Amazon.

I didn't.

I looked for local bookstores didn't find it.

But it is very, very well illustrated tremendous photographs.

And it will if you're thinking about if you've already done the the flower, the butterfly garden, that sort of thing.

The bird gardening, moth gardening, they do more pollination probably than the butterflies because there's so many more of them.

It's a good option.

Think about it.

It's good prisons gift, we don't think about the malls quite enough.

So all right, gentlemen, thank you so much for coming in.

Appreciate your time and talent.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you've got questions for us and the men to your garden@gmail.com or you can jump on Facebook, look for mid American gardener and send us a message there.

We'll see you next time.

Good night.