Hello, and thanks for joining us for Mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha Spain.

And joining me in the studio today are two of our panelists who are going to be answering your questions and showing some of the stuff that they brought up brought on today.

And it's not a ghost ladies and gentlemen, we've got a blast from the past back in the studio Shane Cultra is with us so reintroduce yourself because it's been a while.

It's been a it's been a long time.

COVID kind of put me into busy season.

Yeah, most people were had a lot more time.

But in our industry, we were quite busy.

So it's great to be back.

I'm going a little bit different role.

Yeah, I'm still the owner of country arbors nursery but I am retired from day to day operations with a smile.

Yeah, I mean, it's, I love the customers, and I love the business.

But after 27 years of working weekends, and you know, you just kind of give your life to the nursery.

So it's time for me to garden at home and time for me to go visit my daughter, that's the first thing I did is I hopped on a plane to go see my daughter at Princeton, I'm so proud of her.

So that was my first retirement gift is to get out and go see her.

So I'm super excited.

I'm young enough that I have this whole new life ahead of me, I still love the nursery, it's still something that's part of my life and who I am.

And I'll be there all the time.

But just day to day is probably a little bit less than, than I'm normally out there.

Now what generation, this generation.

It's my brother.

He's in charge of the nursery now and he's got kids, but they're a little younger.

They're under 10.

So hopefully that generation will come up and work but but there's 40 great people at the nursery, they're all smiling just like I am.

I'm smiling a little bit more just because I have more time.

I don't know if my wife super excited about seeing me every single day, every single moment.

But our yard will get nicer.

I'm actually going to do the dishes.

So it's a great, great new money to list that's just been kind of Yeah, it's been there for almost 30 years.

And now I'm starting to scratch things off.

So it's a super exciting time for me and my family.

Excellent.

Well, welcome back.

Thank you for having me.

All right.

And then I am Jen Nelson.

A horticulturalist.

You'll find me two places online at ground and growing.com.

And also on campus I teach hort 105 Vegetable Gardening to a lovely group of undergrads.

Excellent.

And I've met Well, we haven't met your students.

But we've popped in a time or two on different lessons.

And are you enjoying teaching?

Yeah, I am.

I really enjoyed and our classes almost full for next semester.

So I'll have 150 students next semester with great Wow, excellent.

Okay.

Well, welcome to both of you.

So now in your new life, because we know you're not just doing nothing right.

You got to keep busy.

Where can we find you?

What are you up to?

What is your newest?

Yes, so something that I've always been doing side things I always enjoy technology, but he's addicted to honey, flat out putting honey on every single thing that I do.

So of course, I had to start going directly to the sources and getting my fix through actual beekeepers.

And I met a lot of great beekeepers like Maggie and Rena in the area.

And I started buying honey from them.

And then I realized we should share this the champagne honey is it's so good.

I've tasted honey all around the world.

And honestly some of our wildflower champagne counties as good as I've ever found.

So I started a company called Bee house beehouse.com And I started taking in kind of packaging up the honey from the local champagne honeys and calling it champaign County and selling it online.

But one of the things I was experiment is different flavors.

And I came up with a hot honey because I've had Mike's hot honey and other honeybees and they're good but they're kind of overpowering.

So I tried one that I was trying to get really hot but yet turned sweet.

So I invented I guess you'd say infused this one here and it's called.

I call it Drip's Hot Koda Honey, I had to come up with a brand but it's it's actually Carolina Reaper peppers, which I know sound horrible, but they're infused into the honey.

But anybody who's tasted it has said that it starts out hot and a little scary.

But then finish is super sweet.

So it's perfect for cooking perfect for putting on like nachos or chicken, things like that.

It's a really good flavor.

And I'll leave you a little sample so you can say but it does sound scary, but it sounds it's terrifying.

I will say this do not lick the lid.

The problem is I seal it with a magnetic sealer so it seals a bottle like a medicine bottle but it brings up the heat to the lid.

So if you lick the lid, they call it somebody called it Devil's breath.

You couldn't taste for two days and I've had several people say the same thing.

If they lick the lid.

They couldn't taste for a couple days.

But other than that, I promise you other than that it's actually an incredible honey and so we're Rachel one of my partners in this she did some coffee, honey, that's incredible.

She does small batches I think we're going to do so I just love it's local honey, it's BS it's a great hobby.

It's a great flavor.

There's everything good about honey there's nothing wrong with honey I guess unless you have diabetes and you're eating too much sugar but other than that it's been something I really enjoyed doing I'm going to keep my first hives now that I've retired I can actually have time to keep bees I know it's a lot of work so now I have the time to do that so that's one of my first things is a little honey and the little beekeeping Yeah, that's intimidating.

Like I said, Why don't you say Carolina Reapers and that pretty much people run that point or the derrick loves it or they run away challenge accepted, you know, and I have a couple of bottles that will view will not want to touch but that's not for jet that's not a great honey.

It's just it's too much.

It's just now is this the hottest one exists is the blandest one the blade, still how but it's it's clickable.

It's usable, it's workable, it's something you'll get on a daily basis and people come to nursery.

It's also an art mark.

Art Mart sells a lot of it too.

So I think it's great.

Now this particular one, what do you enjoy it on?

I put it on bagels, because I like a little spicy.

I put it in a little bit of tea to make it a little spicy.

But my favorites on chicken and nachos.

You put a little bit on the chicken on the grill.

It's perfect.

A perfect tea and I'm not a heat guy.

I'm not the guy that wants to wipe his nose all the whole time and you can't taste the food and you're crying and sweating.

Just want a little little Sriracha or little heat or something.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Okay, well, I'm excited.

You get one, sir.

All right.

Thank you, Jen, would you bring us?

What should I start with?

Surprise us.

I bought a teeny tiny terrarium.

This thing is so so tiny.

And it was something I got in Denver when we were visiting this summer.

And I was like, Well, I can I know I can grow cactus from seed.

I've done it before.

Oh, and so I brought this home and we did it as me and the kids did it and it's growing.

It's a little tiny spider cactus.

And it's it's slow to get going.

But it's starting to form some spines.

And if you grew that from seed, wow.

I mean, it's slow.

It'll I got no, I got time.

It's pretty cute.

So when did you when did you start doing to Denver in June so I probably started this late June.

Oh my god.

So it's it's slow, but low.

But it is growing.

I was I thought it was a dud.

Sometimes this stuff is just kind of novelty.

And it was at the science museum.

And I thought you know the show, but you had to try to try.

That is a tiny, tiny little it looks like we've shack or to hold a normal.

Look around for things to hold.

So you can see it to scale, because it's so tiny, I guess my hand.

But how long will it?

I mean, wow, I don't know how long it will last.

I hope it will get big like the picture suggests on the box.

I grew some cactus from seed before.

And they were well over 25 years old when they just kind of went belly up.

And I'm not sure why.

But well Score one for the for the science museum right on this one.

Okay.

So Shane, let's talk about you getting back into your garden at home.

Yeah, so what did you grow this summer that you were not able to do.

So normally, because I'm so busy, I try and bring home five or 10 plants a year and just kind of fill the space.

I've been in the same house for 17 years, almost 18 years.

And when I did it, I did it right the first time I got the anchor trees in, in that in the border trees, I really did a good job with that.

But over the years, you know how perennials time they kind of peter out or they move.

And I haven't really touched any of that lately, so it'll be nice to fill in some all those holes and get the flowers going again.

And I've always had the crews from the nursery come and clean up everything I actually might do that myself this year actually do that I took actually took the pots and put them in the composter for the first time at the end of year, they usually sit out there and we've all had that where we grow a pot or a plant that's not seasonal.

And we just leave it all winter, I actually took it to the compost and dumped it and cleaned out the back patio for the first time in 17 years.

So there's actually a noticeable difference in those kinds of things out there.

And yeah, so spending more time out there in the in the backyard and cleaning the pond, just all those little things that you should be doing that make it a little easier in the spring are a little nicer.

And we just don't make the time I always say there's always time to do everything you want.

You just they're not a priority.

You just don't make the time.

So you know, my wife always said if you wanted to go you would definitely find a way to go.

If your friends asked you to do it, you'd be all over.

But since you don't really want to do it, you can't find the time so now I have the time and I'm gonna I'm gonna definitely plant more perennials.

I love peonies.

I've always wanted to have like 100 peonies and it sounds simple as you want if you want to garden center you could have as many plants as you want, but the cobbler son has no shoes.

Now that hopefully will change their lives.

They will let me steal a couple of plants and bring them out there.

If you're not out there working hard every single day, you feel a little more guilty just coming into taking some plants back.

But I think after 27 years, I can give me a couple of perennials, discounted.

Leaves, I'm sure my brothers remember here as people as we're, you know, kind of watching the garden go to sleep.

What do you tell people?

Or what did you tell people at the nursery?

When you're dreaming about the year ahead?

What can we do now to sort of imagine our, our scene Scaper.

Absolutely.

So preparing the bed for the winter, I always tell people, the winter is your longest season, it's we always want to plant things for spring and get the beautiful flowers and, and that's what people think of, but winter is the longest.

And you want to take advantage of any nice breaks in the weather all the way from October all the way through January.

And there are always some breaks, it always brings us a break.

And so you want to go out there and clean up some of the things that you didn't clean up, maybe shape them a little bit, you're gonna have to look at him for the next three months.

So if you have this thing out, let's say out your kitchen window, you see every day, it's all scraggly, when you find a nice break in there, go ahead and trim it up a little bit, you don't have to take it back hard, but just shape it up a little bit.

So for the next three months, you're looking at something that's a little bit nicer, or maybe clean it up a little bit.

So you can see the birds that like to roost in it and move that you know, get all the things out of the way that are that you haven't gotten to do and just kind of clean the place up a little bit, move those pots that are sitting out in the middle that could possibly break spend the time and clean them out and flip them over so that they don't break don't have to buy another pot.

And just take advantage of these breaks in the weather.

I know the first thing in the nice weather want to do is maybe go take a walk but kind of think about and put a list of things you want to get accomplished on that first nice day.

And we're gonna get a couple here over the next couple last week was brutal.

And we decided we're gonna we're gonna hunker down well don't hunker down quite yet.

get those things done out there.

Even a couple plants.

If you're like me, there's a couple of plants we need to dig up still.

I have a couple plants sitting in pots that I haven't even planted.

That's going to happen this week.

Get them in the ground, it's still not too late for most things to just get them in there and multiman they're definitely better than having him sit along the house.

Sure, sure.

So yeah, this is a this is really your next three weeks have to get your last things done.

And you get another three months of looking at whatever that was, whatever it is.

Yeah.

Okay.

And Jen, this kind of leads into the question I was going to ask for about winter bolts storage.

This is from Maryland and normal Illinois.

When is a good time to?

Well?

If you haven't, let's just start.

Let's start completely over.

If you haven't dug up your bulbs yet.

Can you still do that?

Yeah, so it's a textbook answer versus reality textbook answer is after the first light frost as the foliage gets kind of knocked back time to get out there and dig them up.

If you've ever made the time might be the case at the Nelson household.

dig them up and look.

If they've been frozen solid, they're probably going to be mushy, and possibly Brown.

That's bad when it comes to bulbs.

So you want something that's still firm.

Not that it's frozen.

I mean, these warm bays coming up would be a good chance to look at that.

How we do it, there's lots of different ways to do it.

There's lots of depending how much time you have, we knock the dirt off and put them in a tote in our crawlspace and they do well.

And that's how I've done cannas and Colocasia.

And those types of plants.

Maybe there's a better way to do it.

I think the key is just not to get them to wet so that they rot and not to dry so they dry I don't do I know there's ways to like layer them with Pete are talking Karen and Ella which is hilarious because they're polar opposites.

Karen digs them up, washes them off babies gets the pet bedding and vermiculite and mixes and checks on them midway through winter Ellis like no I dig those babies up.

I toss them in a box and they're in the corner and if they live in by spring, you know they go back in the ground so I you know both both work I guess it depends on the time or the LM method.

Yeah, kind of survival survival that's for sure hope you make it okay.

I actually I have you guys just prompted me I do have a pot that I need to bring in the house.

This week.

As far as beds go Jen.

I would like Are you a tidy close the bed person or do you we had Jim and John Bowden Steiner on and we were talking about insects overwintering.

And Marty another one of our panelists likes the ornamental look of flower standing in the bed.

So where do you fall in?

That's what it is.

Like, of course are ornamental grasses we leave up there some stuff that I was looking thinking this week will be an opportunity to get out there and clean up some annuals that are finally dead.

Some of some things like cosmos just seemed to keep going and going and last week, put an end to that.

So that was it.

Somebody that stuff I'll clear out.

But definitely some of the stuff that gives more structure over the winter, I do want something to look at, I don't want to have a moonscape out my kitchen window.

So I'll kind of pick and choose that way.

Gotcha.

And anything with foliar disease that tends to have problems with the leaves, you want to get the old things out, that's a really important ones because that disease does stay on the leaf.

And then next year, when it rains, it just flashes on the leaves.

And it starts all over what are getting plants.

Like we definitely pulled all of our vegetable plants out, that's a big one that has a lot of diseases that will maples and fruit trees can get fullier disease and that those leaves, you know, people want to use them for bedding.

And that's okay if they compost up hot enough.

But if they're just flat leaves from last year, that's diseases just going to stay on there.

And so you want to get rid of all that stuff.

And that's why you clean up is most of the time you get rid of to get rid of the bugs and the disease to try and get those out of there.

So you don't start the same cycle next year.

Should get that's a good reason to get rid of some of that.

But what a mental I like to leave stuff, like I said, winters a long season.

So I like a good dried flower had to catch some snow, something to look at.

And I'm like give you some ideas to have where you have those holes in your landscape where you do need something to look at and you can't have a bed, that's all perennials that die back to the ground, you probably want some that are gonna have some structure above ground and get some great deal on bulbs.

So you can still break the ground right now.

And if you can find some bulbs that are really good price, it's still a great time to throw in those bulbs for next year.

Because nobody remembers until next year, they'll go around and see all the flowers like oh, I want some of those.

Well, that was last year.

Yes.

This time of year, there's some garden centers that are probably like I forgot to have a sale on bulbs I really do.

So there's probably places out there literally giving them away or at least selling them super cheap.

And you can just put them in and dig a hole.

I'm a I'm not the one by one.

I'm lazy.

I dig a trench and I just dropped them in and cover.

Yeah, and they grow.

So that's that when you were talking?

That's the first thing I thought is I have about 100 bulbs in my car that I want to get planted over the next couple of days.

Yeah, so if the ground is workable, you can plant your bowl, I've done it into does that well into December?

Yeah, it was because somebody had a really great sale, like $1 A bag, and it's no different than what you planted in September.

They're the same bulb sitting in the same ground.

So it's not like those bulbs are growing.

They're literally waiting for next year as well.

So what about dividing?

Can you divide?

I've got some grasses, that I would love to divide into clumps.

Should I do that now when we catch up a break in the weather on I would wait Well, yeah, that way that way you want to you want to divide when things are just starting to get a little energy.

So I always tell when you see a grasses starting to just get a little bit of green, perfect time to divide it up and plant it because it's starting to grow and starting to send roots and starting to get ready.

And you want to catch it right at the beginning of all that doing it now you're really just setting it out there and subjecting it to winter.

So it's gonna get Yeah, so you have these things that are nicely rooted and firm and ready to protect itself for the winter.

And you're actually cutting all that and dividing it and putting it in a weak state.

Okay.

All right.

I'll just say that, you can use that as an excuse.

All right, let's talk about your storage.

So situation.

This is something I picked up a while ago.

And it's actually photo storage.

But I thought this is could be really good for startups will think of anything to do with garden stuff.

And as soon as it's labeled as garden stuff, I seem to notice the price is a little higher.

Oh, this was in like the scrapbook department.

And I figured it's color coded.

You could even put a label on it and organize your stuff.

If it's too cold to get out there and clean stuff up.

You can always reorganize what you have.

I like that I've already started threatening my family to not throw away two things.

Milk jugs for SAP, and then the lunchmeat containers.

And I'll find them in the trash and to like go through when they know the rules.

But I really do like that.

And you could do so much with that, like you said with labeling and seeds and anything to stuff more seeds and who has photos anymore.

Exactly.

I can't I can't tell you this can be a big seller.

Last year like a scrapbook.

Oh, yeah, that's true.

All right, let's go into we've got a couple of questions tree questions.

And this is from Cindy in Urbana.

She says I have two red buds that planted themselves one I subsequently transplanted they have both been in the same spots for five years and barely flower at all.

Do all redbuds flower and if so what can I do to encourage this one too?

So is this something that you would run into often?

Well, younger plants you can't Five years.

Five years is is not really that young in the scope of things but honestly when you buy a tree from a nursery it is probably four or five years old from cutting or fry in So it's about the same age.

The difference is, it's been transplanted and fertilized and trimmed.

Instead of letting it go completely natural, we've forced it along.

So even though it may be the same age, it's really a more mature plant.

And so it's probably a little ahead.

So my guess is in nature, it's sometimes it takes a while for things to bloom.

Wisteria famously takes 10 years to bloom, a red bud, I would think it would sporadically get a couple blooms.

But maybe, maybe it's growing at a spot that's that's a little heavily shaded the location can have a lot to do with it.

Fertilization is overprescribed, everybody use it like a medicine, it's not a medicine.

But there is something to be said about giving a plant some extra food to try and encourage more growth, bloom in growth, and also trimming, you can trim it to make sure it gets more branches.

And with more branches are more likely that you're gonna get blooms to it.

If it's just a single leader, then it's not going to have that many blooms on it as well.

So my guess is it probably needs a little bit more time a little bit more nurturing and not letting it go completely natural, because natural takes a little bit longer.

And nature moves at its own pace that it does anything to add to that, I guess that maybe she's got a little too much shade on it.

That wouldn't be that would be my first guest and also is a little young for from seed like Shane was saying, Yeah, I always tell people a red bud.

And a dog would love this scenario where if you were to take the woods and Carver road out of the middle of it, to have this openness of the road in the sun that's from this cut path, but the protection of the woods, so you have the protection of the woods all around it.

But yet the sunlight of this open space, that's a perfect environment.

That's why you see red buds on the edges of the woods.

And so any other circumstances, it just makes it a little more challenging.

Putting it in a new neighborhood out in the middle of nowhere is not ideal, not a protection, putting it in the woods doesn't grow because it wants the sunlight of being on the outside.

So so that's the that's the environment, your location, location, sunny, but protected.

Okay, one more.

We've got a couple minutes left.

This is about a chestnut tree Rob Robert Olson writes in, I've got a five year old American chestnut, during the last two years it is produced pods, but the nut is diminished, small and somewhat deformed and not edible.

The tree shows no signs of disease.

And then the quote, I like this because he says what do you think add fertilizer?

That's always the most common thing.

Just nuts and nut trees are they take a long time to really get rolling.

They hate to be transplanted.

It's one of the hardest things in the nursery.

People ask us, hey, I want a you know, I want a nut tree of some type or another.

And they just don't transplant even pawpaws those don't transplant very well.

And so my guess is it's a young tree fertilizer again, yes, always helpful.

It does not cure disease, but it makes us stronger.

It's kind of like us taking vitamins, we're not going to get better from taking vitamins, but we will get less it will support our immune system which will help us fight through things.

So that's what the same thing with fertilizer, it helps us helps the plant become stronger to fight off anything that's trying to take from it.

So yeah, I think that's that would be one of it.

One of the first things that I would look at location is well, and then again, general, just general practice of good trimming and mulching it in so it doesn't get stressed out stresses, takes it you can lose years and years of growth through stress and stress is easily solved through fertilization, mulching and you know, just making sure that's good, good soil and light conditions.

Anything to add to that.

No, I'm not all that up on nut trees now.

Okay.

I do want to ask you though, for those of us who have brought all of our plants in and even our house plans who are not looking real great right now like I some of my house plants are not happy and I can't be the only one I don't know if it's the change in light or the shorter days.

How are you helping your plants live the lights I have you have live lots of lights and even with the lights and even with some of my plants, we have a sunroom so get some good south facing sun, you're still gonna have an adjustment period where like Ficus is a good example drops a whole bunch of leaves when you bring it in because it's a change in temperature and change in light and and it's adjusting but it'll be okay.

But if you can, the lights have come down in price for LED grow lights, and so they're so much more affordable than they weren't even well since the pandemic.

I mean when everyone the big boom happened I feel like things got a lot more affordable and sure even before that I remember sitting in a conference seminar and the speaker talking about a pot a 12 inch by 12 inch square grid of grow lights costing $150.

And I remember looking at my friends and then now you can get that same sort of setup for Got $30 Yeah, that's one thing whether you agree or don't agree with cannabis you can thank them for to grow like the industry that's really boomed and so it's made everything more affordable because it's no good.

Interesting does that mean it makes perfect sense yes has led all a lot of things have gotten much cheaper because it's such a big market and people have entered and gotten to scale in production so and they make I mean the the clip lights and the clamps and how everything is just so affordable.

You can get the pots with the lights attached.

I got one on a tripod.

Yeah, we're all there.

Just accept your high viscous is gonna look horrible.

No.

It's just gonna I'm growing peppers.

I have my pepper plant in my window.

And it looks horrible, but it's producing pepper and getting new growth.

It just I just know that.

As long as we keep them alive.

It's hard to get them out there to spring they'll look amazing.

For some of them.

Resist the urge to cut them back like hibiscus.

Even if it looks like it's mange and it's just limping along because then you don't want to prune it and encourage new growth in crappy conditions because it's just going to be just let it limp along.

We're just trying to get through the wind just turning right.

Yeah.

All right, guys.

We're out of time.

It goes so fast.

Thank you so much.

Welcome back.

Thanks.

This is great.

Can't wait to hear more about the honey and more flavors coming down the pike gin.

Always a pleasure.

Thank you for coming.

And thank you for watching.

If you've got any questions, you can send them into us at your garden@gmail.com you can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and we'll see you next time.

Goodnight.