Hello and thanks for joining us for another episode of Mid-American Gardener.

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain, and joining me in the studio are three of my pals here to talk to you today about all things gardening.

Let's have them quickly introduce themselves and jump in, because we've got a lot to cover today.

So Chuck, we'll start with you.

All right, I am Chuck Voigt, a long time retired now from the University of Illinois.

The Department I started in was horticulture, and then it got moved around as things got consolidated and eventually eliminated.

But vegetable crops and herbs were my specialties, but I have an interest in almost everything else Wonderful.

All right, Shane.

I'm Shane Cultura.

I am also retired.

I've worked at Country Arbors Nursery with my family, The Cultura's for the last 30 years, and now I'm starting a newsletter at botany.com because I used to get to talk to people all day, every day, about plants, and now I just get to come into the studio, and I like to talk a little bit more.

So I'm gonna travel a couple places and see all these things that I didn't get to do before, when I was working and helping everybody else enjoy their plants.

So now I get to see what you guys are seeing the whole time.

Just bring us back pictures from your travels.

Chelsea Garden Show, that's my big thing in May.

I was just booking tickets...the dollar you think is strong as it would be that flights would be cheap, they're not that cheap.

They're not.

Ooh, No, but we're still gonna see some pretty flowers.

Wonderful.

And last but not least... Hello, out there in TV land.

I'm Marty Alanga, and I'm a private landscaper, and I'm trying desperately to actually, completely and utterly retire.

But in spite of that, somehow I keep doing this.

My nails are clean this morning because, you know, it's cold outside, and I actually took a bath so...

Okay, all three of you trying to be retired, and here I am still just working away.

That's because you're a child.

Unbelievable.

All right, let's jump right in.

So Chuck, your planting guide is pretty much it for the Mid American Gardener audience Little did I know, when I put pixels to paper, that... ...would turn into this enigma that it has.

So where are we, you know, mid to late February?

all right, well, the last time I was here, we were starting the things that needed to be an extremely early and that grow extremely slowly.

Now we're going to do some things that that grow faster, but because they can go out in the garden as soon as it gets no reasonably stable.

And we never know here in Mid America if that's going to happen mid to late March or if that's going to happen mid to late April.

So you're always a little behind the eight ball.

But I think as as as you get into March, you can start thinking about the all the cabbage family things that are, by and large, fairly cold hardy.

Cauliflower is probably the least cold hardy of that bunch, also, also the one that benefits the most from not getting stopped along the way.

So if you're buying commercial bedding plants of cauliflower, and sometimes that can be a problem, because the bedding plant growers, depending on how the season is going, might slow things down.

And try to get little compact plants and all those kinds of things where it's really took cauliflower's advantage to just germinate and never look back.

So just be aware of that.

If you're going to start your own and put them under lights and get them going, they do develop pretty fast, so hopefully you won't have to hold them too long if you get them going by mid March, then by about April Fool's Day, you should be About ready to go okay and take them from there.

Now, can they take a little frost?

A little...alittle chill?

Yes, most of them can.

And cauliflower can take some chill, but it's the one that will show frost damage first, as the temperature goes goes down.

So that might be one that you delay just a few days.

Really just kind of hone in on the forecast.

The bad part of that is there's a really, kind of a narrow window to get really good cauliflower and broccoli with the first thing in the spring planning, because depending what the season does, if we get a blast of heat in May.

Yeah, it can kind of throw things off, but...

It's always a crap shoot.

It is.

You have to assume things are gonna work normally and then adapt as necessary.

Okay, all right, when we come back, we're gonna hear some about your book.

You're venturing into the culinary side of things.

Yes, maybe.

All right, Shane, you wanna do Okay, I'll do this one first.

Yeah, this time of year.

We all know that winter seems like it's taking forever, and so I've always, over the years, I've always said that winter is your longest period.

And when you landscape all plants, if you own a nursery, or you shop, you know that 70% of all your purchases are plants that flower and spring.

So everybody wants something that's in color, but really the yard should be landscaped for the winter.

It is the longest season, and one of the best things is crab apples.

And people think of crap.

We'll have customers say, Oh, they're too messy a crabapple, depending on on how sweet it is, the berries actually will last longer if the birds don't like them.

So the tannins are a little bitter for them.

They'll leave them alone.

And so something like this, the Red Jewel This was taken today this morning, is still full of berries, and the birds will leave them alone.

Eventually, they'll age, and the tannins will kind of get a little sweeter as they go, and they'll finally start taking these.

So these are not a mess.

They give you winter, late fall, winter, even spring, berries.

The birds get food, because they're actually still on there, and they'll start eating them.

Yeah, squirrels as well, all the animals when they fall anything.

And so it's really a perfect plant.

They do really well.

They'll take the cold.

They give you four seasons of color and flowers in the spring.

And they're not messy.

The birds will take care of them.

You'll not notice anything at all.

So I really, you know, there's some great crab apples in Illinois.

This one's red jewel, but I wrote down Prairie Fire Sargent sugar time.

There's a lot of them that hold different color berries all through the season.

And so think about that when you're planting, what's going to look good during the winter, what's going to help the wildlife?

And this is a perfect plant, and you haven't lived until you've seen a bunch of drunken cedar wax that are eating them when they've when they've fermented Cardinals staggering around.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, they do?

They get a little boozy.

Oh, do they?

That's funny.

They freeze.

They thought they ferment a little bit like lunch.

Nice.

Yeah, okay, Martie brought a knife.

We're going to take this next section real easy.

I'll just take my cue from what Chuck was talking about when you're setting out plants in the spring, or if you have an unbelievably intense rabbit population, as do I, I usually put a milk jug around almost everything that I plant.

First of all, you can get them out earlier.

I drew on here earlier, which what do we got here?

There you go.

Okay.

You got okay.

I drew on here with a Sharpie.

I don't draw on this.

I just did this for the benefit of our viewers, because I've done this a million times, cut right inside where the curve is okay.

And then when you put this out in the garden, you plant the plant, you put this around it, and then you back fill.

And the soil that you put in there to a depth of an inch or two, when you put your you set your plant in, will keep this from blowing around.

You don't have to stake it.

I know some people are like, well, they blew all over the wall.

You didn't do it right.

And then, gotta watch the show.

So then, yeah.

So then in the top some when it's really cold and you put it out really early, you can leave the lid on and just use that on really hot, sunny days to let some heat out.

But I don't typically set out stuff that early, and when I do, I straw my garden.

So I also cut where this line is.

I take the take the cap out and cut around here.

So when you set this down over a plant, it can peek out.

This is a certain amount of rabbit, squirrel and bird deterrent.

It's a little it's a little mini greenhouse, especially if you put straw around it.

The straw holds the weeds down.

This holds moisture.

You can water right in there, next to the plant and confused with winter sowing?

No, no, no, no.

This is for things that are a lot about that too.

No.

These are for bedding plants that you set out in the garden.

I mean, you can do that with flowers and stuff too, but I don't use for vegetables.

But, yeah, you can set these out and at the end of the season recycle.

Yes, you buy these anyway.

Might as well put them to work.

Why store hot caps?

Yeah, you drink milk, don't you?

Or juice, something!

There's a note on my fridge: Do not throw away any jugs.

No lunch meat containers.

I need all of it.

Everything.

I need all of it...egg cartons.

I hoard everything.

Yes.

Clamshell packs.

Yeah, those are the best ones, yeah.

And I don't even eat eggs, but I, you know, I gotta have those.

So okay, Chuck.

We're back, and they cut really easy.

Also, you just don't be scared.

Don't be scared.

Of course I did so that, yeah, and these cut really easy.

I use a knife, but you can also use scissors, and I just recycle this bit.

You can also, you can also leave a bit here, lift that up, put it back down, for things that you set out really early.

Have to, though.

And also, one more thing, there was one more thing, oh yeah, if you don't drink milk, alcohol comes in plastic.

And water.

All kinds of things.

Get creative with your beverage choices.

Okay, Chuck, we are back to you with culinary creations.

Well it's gourmet gardening.

Gourmet gardening.

So some of the, some of the more esoteric kinds of kinds of vegetables.

I got into this when, when I found myself without a mystery to put myself to sleep with in evenings.

So I drug this out.

I've owned it for quite a while, and what I was hoping to find out was how many things are in here that that are still on my not on my life list of things that I have grown.

My friend Keith tells me that that I need to lighten up.

I'm 75 and maybe you can't grow everything in universe every year.

So I'm looking in here and define anything in there that you're seeing that you've just got to grow tabs.

I'm looking for a tab just half is the whole book, not the one that I that that stood out to me is something called skirt, s, k, i, r, r, e, t, it's in the it's in the carrot family, you know.

So it would get an ambula flowers, if it's probably a biennial with the second year, and it gets like fleshy roots, and that's one that I've never grown.

I've seen it growing.

I saw it at Strawberry bank in in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Do you grow it for the roots?

Yes, okay, okay.

And I don't know, possibly you could eat some greenery too.

I'm not sure Skirret.

Is that how you Skirret?

Skirret.

Okay, well, that's how I pronounce it.

Now, you've got to grow it and bring some in.

Okay.

Now here's the theme.

You know?

It's the drunk people.

Oh, those in your garden, they're just carrots.

You can't say it.

Yeah, it doesn't really look that much like a carrot.

It looks odd and kind of is so is it Ferny foliage too?

Not as Ferny as a carrot that there, there's, there's more substance to the leaves, as I recall, probably maybe more like, like, lovage foliage or something, yeah, or celery, something like that, yeah.

It's already got us talking so.

That.

And the other thing that stood out to me is sea kale, which, C, R, E, M, B, E...crambe maritima, which, yeah, which, again, I've never grown, and I'm not sure why I would need to, but just because, with a lifetime behind me, you're growing other things that I really didn't need to.

So that's the theme.

Is, stay curious, folks, that's right, or curiosity may kill you.

Either one.

How are you in the garden?

How good is it real in the garden?

That's a good place to get.

That's a good place to go.

That's a good place to go.

There are certainly worse places.

So Shane was out with his drone and has some findings for us.

So tell us what you found and what we're seeing.

Yeah.

So we in gardening, in ornamentals, we talk about pears.

Ornamental pears just being a junk tree.

It grows fast.

It does have a pretty smell, not the most nice fragrance to it, but yeah, it's a little fishy smell, cat urine comes to mind.

But they're still very popular in the 90s, and you're seeing the reasoning as to why you should not plant them.

I always sold them because they were easy to grow.

They sold really well.

And as a business person, you really don't look into what the problems are.

I went to a seminar that said it literally is the worst plant when it comes to animals.

It serves zero purpose.

It has no bugs in it.

It doesn't feed anything.

It literally serves no purpose as a tree.

And I was thinking, wow, that doesn't sound very good, as opposed to an English oak, which has like, 200 different bugs.

So people that grow it like, I don't want all that, but for wildlife and for overall, it's really good tree behind me, someone planted one pear 20 years ago.

Behind that is an empty lot, and I've watched over the last 15 years that pear.

Seed an entire five acre field, and it keeps growing.

There is probably not an inch between every pair, impossible to take down they the field behind it, you can see is corn.

So it never really grew in that area, because it's always been tilled up and always been moved but the area behind it has now become entirely ornamental pear.

It's kind of unusual looking and kind of neat looking as a kid like I can see how the little neighborhood kids want to run in it.

But from an invasive standpoint, I have never seen anything take over like that has taken over.

So I highly recommend not planting ornamental pears.

At this point, I have matured and evolved to say this is exactly what it can do, and it's completely invasive.

It's worse than Aspen.

Now, you see them on like the I 74 interchange, not too far where I live.

Yeah, I see them along the roadside.

It's like a solid stand of them.

And sometimes they mow them off.

Yeah, they always mow them off.

And I think this year they might have even tried spraying, but I don't believe that they defend themselves out and do you want that?

Do you want them to cut it off and then spray chemicals right in your neighborhood?

That's not ideal, either, but it is.

It's an amazing plants are amazing.

Like, if you want to see things grow and take over, that is something that's a fixed end of them, like that, you'd be scratched.

Oh, yeah, I don't know that they're technically thorny.

Yeah, they're certainly Thorn.

Ish, there's a little branch.

Even my dog refuses to run perfect, like the way they seated them.

Yeah, no, they've and they've come through and thin them to plant houses, but the people that just bought the house are gonna have some pears, and they're back out here eventually.

But even my dog doesn't run in them like he runs a field over there, because he hunts for golf balls like he loves to hunt.

He will not go into pears.

They're like, too sharp, too much to step on.

Yeah, that's a perfect example of maybe we don't plant any more ornamental pairs.

All right.

We've got incredibly brittle in the landscape as well.

Absolutely a danger if you let them get big.

Okay.

All right, we have a question.

This is from Taylor Plantan, one of our team members here.

She's babysitting a pencil cactus, and it's struggling a little bit, so she wants to ask the experts what she should do with this pencil cactus.

So we've got some pictures of that.

All right, so you guys kind of discussed this a little bit before the show.

Tell us what you're seeing, what you think, and advice for Taylor.

Well, Taylor took some really good photographs, and she she told us about where the location was, and it seemed like a south window, terrific, very nice.

But she saw some tip die back, and she didn't like the way that was going.

And it's just odd.

And then if you look into your upper right hand corner of this photograph, you'll see some little translucent orbs there, right up in the right hand upper corner, on that big stem, those are enemies.

So she's doing everything right?

Yes, yes, there's So yeah, those are mealy bugs.

And when we started looking at the pictures more, you can see that little cottony, webby kind of business that they make.

And it's in other places on the on the plant.

So because we were like, I don't know, it sounds like you're doing just anything you should be doing.

Guys were considering, like, if the window was drafting, then you got a close look.

Yeah.

I said, Can I look at the pictures?

And I'm like, Oh, look at him.

He needs to leave.

What do we do?

What's the Yeah, I mean, it's when I saw the pictures at the nursery.

That's we look at that and we shut her.

Julie Carlson at the nursery, if you had mealy bugs and you brought that plant in, it did not come in.

We pretty much burned them.

It's a very difficult bug to get rid of.

One of the most fortunately, that's a small plant, so we suggested maybe even alcohol swaps and just manually removing all of them if you have a large plant.

I know this sounds horrible, people are gonna tell you to spray it with things, or that this or that is not gonna work.

Long term, mealy bugs are next to impossible to get rid of.

They're just that difficult, and they will invade the rest, especially Fernie things, Boston ferns and those.

And you'll see exactly what they do, right?

They don't really kill it, per se.

They just get tip die back, then it grows back, and then tip die back, and it little branches here and there.

So it's a slow death, if even a death, it doesn't even really die.

Kind of a symbiotic relationship, exactly.

It does.

So to add to that, Chuck, yeah, they also go terrible.

They love coleus.

If you try to overwinter Coleus in a greenhouse, they're like, yeah, they're like a beacon to mealybugs to come suck my juices.

To the point where you will, if you get it in a greenhouse, you will literally take everything out and let the green.

Now stay cold all winter, hoping to freeze them out, but they will hide in the tubes of the of the greenhouse benches, or they'll get in the cracks of the wood.

They are such survivors that even 20 below, they will find spots within a greenhouse to hide so they can get you next year.

So now, if you have like she's plant sitting, so how far away, do your other plants have to be to keep you out of trouble for spreading Bermuda?

Yeah, different part, least another room, another room, yeah, but she can get this because she has a small enough plant that she literally can just spend time.

And we caught it early.

She brought it to diagnose, manually remove them, a little alcohol in there, and just take piece by piece, and she'll actually be fine.

Okay, yeah, do you think the soil mix looks a little heavy for for a succulent?

Well, Taylor was asking.

She said, I know it needs to be repotted.

And I was thinking, but Shane and I, we didn't even see the picture, and we're like, Oh, it doesn't need to be reproduct.

And then we saw the pictures like it's the perfect size for that however, yeah, I saw it look just like potting soil, like it had been kind of damp.

Yeah, she's wearing water, and when it's dry, yeah?

I mean, she's doing all the right things.

But when I looked at the close up pictures, I'm like, rut row look, and those are very poisonous, by the way.

Yeah, that's why she's keeping it, because your pal has a cat, yeah?

If you break that off and the human gets that in your eye, you it's one of the few that you actually can go blind.

Yeah, yeah.

Euphorbia euphoria.

It's Euphorbia.

It literally just like we have it at the nursery, taken to someone to the hospital for getting it in.

It's something it's not gonna if you brush it with your eye, you're not that's not a problem.

But if you break it and get the juice and then rub your eyes, don't do that.

It's be a bigger irritant.

And of course, no, they're not, they're nicer, but they're not as smart.

Question is, this came into our email.

We live on a lake, and the house is set back on a slope.

So you got to picture this, because there's no photo houses set back on a slope.

The wind off of the lake can be very strong.

What are some natural wind break shrubs that we can plant that stay green all year and flower in the summer.

And then they ask, Are we asking too much?

So are they asking too much?

Yes.

Okay, so I guess we'll tackle one thing at a time.

What's a good windbreak for that area that slope off of the water?

What would you guys do it all the time?

So bales Lake is there's a lot of people that have homes in the summer, and feels like and it howls off the off the lake.

Evergreens are out.

Evergreens are going to burn.

So we've tried junipers, every hearty evergreen what works really well, red twig dogwood.

So you get the beautiful red of the winter, and it's actually ornamentally Gorgeous.

Super tough plant.

You can cut it back as hard as you want.

But it also blooms really pretty in the spring, and it's a really nice plant during the year, and it's thick.

So even in the winter, when it's the wind's blowing, it cuts the wind pretty well because it's a very thick plant.

Viburnum is another one.

Viburnum can take more sun than people give it credit for beautiful, fragrant flowers in the spring and summer, good thick structure during the winter, and some viburnums will hold their leaves most of the winter.

So that gives you, it gives you that protection, and that, you know, that spreading of the wind, breaking up of the wind, and still hardy enough to take whatever nature in Illinois can give it.

Okay, any other suggestions?

We've got about three minutes left.

Any other Okay, excellent.

I think that was perfect.

Let's see.

We have another place, actually.

Yeah?

Rhododendron leaps to mind because it's evergreen, and then it flowers in the spring, the wind will desiccate it.

Don't.

So don't sit there thinking one you didn't.

Okay.

Anything that keeps its lead.

The only way to get through that, if you even know fighting Chan is anti desiccant, like a wilt proof, yeah, but that hasn't worked for us.

They've all died.

It's a lot.

That's a question, especially in Illinois, when it warms up and then it dies and warms up and it gets cold, it's yeah, not going to work out.

No.

Okay, so since our growing zone shifted a bit, we went from 5b to six A. I believe this person wants to know, Miss Kenny wants to know if that changes or adjusts our last frost date.

So what are your thoughts on that, just because our growing zone changed, does our frost date change, in theory, as we go through a period of time?

I think the average might creep a little earlier in any given year.

I don't know that you can count on it being, I don't think we even use frost dates as a date anymore.

We use time periods, right?

Like we were looking for, like, remember Mother's Day used to be?

Yes, I've got people planning a month before Mother's Day on some years, depending on how it goes.

So I don't, I don't think we it's, we don't read Richard almanac in the.

Is the and the hardiness zones are based on average winter low temperatures.

Gotcha.

Yeah, not on frost dates, and you know when the seasons change and those kinds of things.

So that's why I say possibly.

As we go forward 1020, years, the average might creep, okay, back.

But for now, for now, I wouldn't if you've been doing something and it's been working, I would stick with it.

If you've been doing something and it's not been working, I would think about changing, yeah, and as a grower, I'll say this, just because our zone change, it does not affect what plants we grow here, because our it's all about the extremes, right?

When you look at a plant, it says it can take this temperature.

Well, yes, our overall average that we talked about has gone up.

Our extremes are still the one that kills it.

It was two this morning, yeah, and we're going to be negative 20.

So just because your zone move does not mean that the extremes, matter of fact, the streams have probably gotten worse.

So it's actually harder to grow plants now since we've gotten warmer overall, but our extremes are even more than they've ever been, so I think it's harder in the winter to grow plants than it has been because of that.

All right, so we got to leave it there.

Thank you so much, guys.

26 minutes go super fast.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you've got questions, you can send them in to us at yourgarden@gmail.com, or you can look us up on socials.

Just search for Mid-American Gardener, and we will see you next time.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.