(upbeat music) - Hey and thanks for joining us for another episode of "Mid American GARDENER," I'm your host, Tinisha Spain.

And joining me are three of our expert panelists who you have come to know and love.

We've got some veterans on the show today.

They're gonna take your questions and they brought their show and tells to bring.

So, first let's have them introduce themselves and we have a special guest on the show today.

We'll have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about their specialty.

So Karen, we'll start with you.

- Hello, I'm Karen Ruckle, and I'm Illinois certified professional, and I love gardening with perennials, shrubs and houseplants.

- Wonderful, all right.

And Jen and company (chuckles).

- Hi, I'm Jen Nelson, I'm a horticulturalist.

You can find me online at groundedandgrowing.com.

I love all parts of horticulture but my favorite things are vegetable gardening, house plants, and just helping people figure out what's the next right step with their garden.

- Wonderful and who do you have with you today?

- I have my assistant Andrew.

He's brought a show and tell for us today.

So he's very excited to talk about it later.

- Good deal, we got to meet Margaret with her mushrooms and now today we're gonna hang out with Andrew.

So get the whole family involved, maybe the husband next.

Awesome, all right and last but not least Ms. Martie.

- Hello, my name is Martie Alagna.

I'm a retired landscaper.

Got several decades of experience of dirty nails, so I particularly like perennials and ornamental landscape, but I dabble in a lot of stuff, hardscape, vegetables, dying African violets, that kind of thing.

- Gotcha, all right, ladies, so, show and tells always right off the bet.

Karen, let's do your round one and yours kind of is a combo with a question.

So this came in on our Facebook page, this is from Rashmi Kapur.

And so I posted a couple of weeks ago, Karen that you were telling folks, if you've got things in the garage to maybe start paying attention to those as we enter this cold snap.

So she writes in, I had my canna bulbs in the garage.

After watching the show, I brought them inside.

Should I store them in the house or put them in the basement or crawl space?

So what should we do after this cold snap is over, with the things that we've now brought in from the garage or wherever they were?

What are your thoughts?

- Well first off, thank goodness she brought 'em in because with how severe this cold has been and how long, they probably would have frozen.

The thing to think about right now is keeping them, gonna be the coldest.

So wherever that is in your basement, near an exterior door maybe in a closet that stays kind of chilly in your house, until you can move them back where you want to put them.

And that could be back out in the garage.

And that would probably be maybe this weekend or into next week, because our grounds so cold it's going to take awhile.

And that also brings up, this is one of my cannas that I pulled out that I'm storing in my basement.

And the thing is that we're kind of halfway through the season, so it's now, or the winter season.

It's a good time to go check them and make sure that they're not too wet or that you've got them to close down and they're rotting.

So and mine, it's almost a little too dry but the tips aren't rotting, the old stems are not mushy.

And so we're still doing pretty good for storing to get to springtime.

- Question, I have my cannas in plots that I just transport in and out.

Do I need to dig them out of their pots and check them out in the winter?

'Cause I am not doing that.

So is that something you should be doing if they're in a container?

- I wouldn't bother.

But the main thing is you don't wanna keep them wet or water them, because then you would rot them.

And then also keep in mind that if that pot was pretty full the end of last summer, you're gonna wanna divide and dig 'em out and divide them in spring.

Or you're gonna have to water a couple of times a day because it's just gonna be so drooped out.

- Okay, awesome, thank you.

Very good advice.

Okay, we are moving to Jennifer and Andrew now, what do you guys have for us?

- Hey, we wanna show you our project.

- You guys are always doing projects, I love that.

- We're always doing projects.

This is an AeroGarden, and I don't know...

I don't think I've shown this on the show.

It has a light, but it's a little bright for the...

But we planted some of our garden seeds just to see if we could do it.

We've grown tomatoes, and then we're growing lettuce in another one of these.

These are hydroponics.

So in this bottom part is just water and a nutrient solution.

And this is just growing in our kitchen.

But what Andrew wants to show you is what he keeps saying turn it around his plants in the back.

These are some marigolds that we grew last summer.

You wanna tell them about how did you start them, or how did we get them here?

- From last year I saved the seeds from the flowers last year that we cut down.

- Pitter-patter goes, look, all three of us are just sitting here smiling like idiots, 'cause we're like (indistinct).

- The cycle continues.

- Yeah, good job Andrew.

- You go ahead.

- Good job buddy, that's awesome.

So you saved the seeds?

Wow, very cool.

Okay, go ahead Jen, I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt.

- 'Cause as I said, these were really big out in the garden, these were like three feet tall.

So I had my doubts about putting them in here but so far we've been able to keep them trimmed and well I don't think it'll show up on the camera very well but we've got teeny tiny flower buds in the middle here.

So we're hopeful that with fingers crossed, we'll get some blooms.

And in the front here are some miniature zinnias that we planted, that are doing great.

And they grow super fast in here.

And it's just so nice to have something blooming in February, while the snow is flying here outside.

- Yes, that's just what I was gonna say, how nice is it to just be able to have something growing and blooming in the house.

Martie, you looked like you had something to comment.

- Oh, I was just like, the author - Just marveling?

- That's fantastic.

- So I have to ask, how about the mushrooms?

Did you guys eat the mushrooms?

- Yes, we ate the mushrooms.

We made a stir-fry with them.

And I think Andrew you even ate some, didn't you?

- No I didn't.

- You didn't eat them, well Margaret and I enjoyed them.

- I'm with you pal, I'm right there Andrew.

- Right, morels is about the extent I can go, but that's 'cause you can make those taste like chicken nuggets, so, you know.

- Yeah, those oyster mushrooms tasted really meaty when we cooked them up, and we're really happy.

We're trying to get that block to, it's supposed to form a second crop.

Seems to be a little trickier, the second go around but we're gonna try again.

It may be that we had a furnace problem last week and our house got a little chilly.

So I think that might be part of the problem.

- Oh, it might be a setback, at least it's not this week.

So thank you guys.

All right, Martie, we're back around to you, what'd you bring us?

- I sent some pictures to our producer and just gonna bring them up and I'm gonna talk about the garden in winter a little bit.

So I've got some pictures, I went out and took these this morning, okay.

There's a lot of ornamental aspect to the garden.

I wasn't gonna include this chair with snow on it but I just love the way the snow fell on the chair.

And then felt, it's just pretty, I mean it just enhances everything.

It's like icing on the garden cake out there, you know.

This is a cloche that a friend of mine gave to me.

She was moving and couldn't take everything with her and she knew it would be safe with me, and I just love it.

This thing is like, I don't know, it's almost 20 inches tall, it's really big.

And I just love the way it looks.

In winter, there's a lot of ornamental aspect to people saying, oh the garden's all dead.

No, it's not, nah, it's not.

I blew some money on this lion and his mate because I just loved him.

I watched him all summer.

And there were so pretty and it just was too expensive, I was too cheap to get them.

And then at the end of the season, they were marked down a little more, and finally I'm like, okay, get in the truck.

And I just love, I don't know if you can close up on him but I just love the way the snow lays on him.

It's just, it's fantastic, I just love that.

But it doesn't have to, I'm not crazy about statuary really, but there's just winter interest with items, like manmade items that I've just showed you.

And then this is a big old galvanized wash tub.

And again, DJ I don't know if you can zoom in on that?

But as you're looking at it here, the tall dead black branches are salvia.

That's gonna come out in the spring, but I love lavender and I can't grow lavender in the ground in Illinois, it's just too cotton, that can damp.

But in a big old barrel with growing medium in it, yeah, the black sticks, they'll come out.

But the stuff on the left, as you're looking at it that's oregano and it'll come right in the spring.

And then on the right, little gray twigs sticking out of the snow, that's lavender.

And they should do really well in here because the barrel is dry.

And way drier than anything else was gonna do in my yard.

I mean I've tried 'em in gravel, I've tried 'em everywhere I can.

I grow them in the soil here.

But I thought, okay, I'm gonna put 'em up in the air, you know, the roots.

The trick to lavender is to keep its roots dry in the winter, it cannot stand extra moisture.

Even in summer it doesn't like a lot of moisture, but in the winter it's death.

I mean like Karen was saying if you get too much moisture on roots of almost any kind in winter, they'll rot.

Because there's no upper plant growth to do anything with moisture, so it just kills them.

Okay, here's a little bit more statuary.

If you look closely at this bird bath, I have several, it's upside down.

So before it freezes this hard, turn your bird bath upside down.

You don't have to take it in if you don't want to but turn it upside down.

If it's really windy where you live, put a brick on top of it, so that the top doesn't blow off and break.

But ordinarily I mean it's pretty breezy out here on the Prairie where I'm at.

There's just five miles and nothing, North of us, and it is windy.

And my bird baths, I just turn 'em upside down.

And then you know, put down in the middle of the base, and the snow falls on the top.

If you leave 'em up the other way, if they have a rim, a lip of any kind, when it freezes hard, it'll crack, it'll break.

You'll have fun and you'll be mad.

This is a tree wrap here, this is a little dogwood.

And I'm bound and determined to make live.

I planted it and it was doing pretty well.

And I planted some things around it and I was watering more regularly and it sunk in the ground a little bit.

So that was whining.

- So what will the wrap, how will the wrap help over the winter?

Is that something you did specifically for winter?

- Yes, well I do this, I put this wrap on, it's very cheap, it's made of plastic.

If you zoom in on, you can see it's got some holes in it and it doesn't fit tightly.

It comes coiled, so you just kinda spin it on there.

It's soft plastic, but it's got a lot of memory, so it's (mumbles).

And then it keeps rabbits from chewing (mumbles).

Oh man, it's the death squad of rabbits out here where I'm at.

And they will gnaw, they'll girdle the tree and kill it.

They'll kill all kinds of things.

Chewing, they just kill them.

So do that on your new tree and do it until they're like a whole like a two inch caliber anyway, I would say.

They especially like dogwoods and they will harm kill 'em.

These are vegetable crates that I got from a local restaurant.

They were getting rid of them.

They get fresh vegetables in them.

They are open on the top, of course, and I turn them upside down and put them over my hydrangeas and my rose bushes.

This double one is on my rose bush.

Like I said, the rabbits are horrible out here, I mean they're just little mercenaries, they're bound and determined to kill my stuff.

So I have to protect my woody shrubs, otherwise they'll annihilate them.

I ran out of cages, I ran out of vegetable crates, So I left some of them go, wish I hadn't.

So they're gnawed pretty good even now, you know?

I'm gonna to have to buy more roses in the spring probably.

But anyway, - Don't be mad, that's just another excuse to go to the nursery, so, - There you go, see that's how our great minds think alike.

- And I like that.

I've always been a big proponent of just using sort of what's around or what you can get your hands on for practical purposes.

So thank you for those, because sometimes you just don't really think about what you've got laying around that could be useful, so-- - Sure and those are plastic.

So when you (mumbles) them, when they wear out, when the weather cracks 'em, recycle.

- Yes recycle, all right thank you.

All right Karen we're back around to you.

- Yes, well a couple of weeks ago on the show, we were talking about plants that we've kind of ignored for a while.

And I had a cactus of mine in a styrofoam pot, and it's broken and I was having to lay it on its side, and the cactus was probably in this cup for six years.

So I finally repotted it, yeah.

- It was in the styrofoam cup for six years?

- Yeah.

- Wow!

- Got it from my nephew.

It actually spent maybe a month in my car, 'cause I forgot I had it.

- Attagirl oh.

- I thought it was just a cup in the car, but anyway.

I used a cactus soil, I've got a pot that it'll have drainage so that it doesn't stay too wet.

Now he is a little wobbly because he's got six years of regrowing of roots.

And so if you've got a plant like this you could use some popsicle sticks or something to help support.

But I also want to mention, when you're repotting something like this, using something like newspaper, and what you would do is use that newspaper to wrap around the plant so that you're not getting prickled by it, so that you can steady it around.

Also good practice for a plant that's floppy that you're repotting.

- So what I've always wanted to ask, I've seen it in the store before.

Can you guys walk us through, okay, let me preface.

Some things are marketing, some things are actually good stuff.

When they market the different types of soils, what is the difference between cactus soil, I've seen African violet soil?

What are the components here?

Is it moisture retention?

Is it the way that there's nutrition in the medium?

What are these different types of soil?

Anybody feel free?

- They are, I don't know if Karen was gonna go, Yeah, the cactus soil has a lot higher sand content, a lot higher drainage.

Yeah, and you can modify about any kind of potting soil.

Vermiculite holds more moisture than Fluorite does or sand, any kind of sand, but of course sand is better.

But you can make your own different kinds of soil medium just by modifying it with more drainage, less drainage.

- The cactus I'm assuming has more of the sand?

- Sand and perlite.

It's got some potting soil in it too but it's also got a lot of extra drainage aspects which is perlite in sand, so yeah.

- Jen, anybody else have anything to add there on the different types of soils?

- Well I know African violet soil tends to be a little more acidic, and usually it has a little more peat base to it.

So that would be one difference that's off top of my head.

But yeah, Martie you're hitting all the nails on the head right there about character.

- Yeah, and again like Jen said, you can modify any kind of soil, any kind of basic potting soil to suit your need.

You can add more peat or you can add more...

In summer we're planning annual in pots outdoors especially, you get some of the soil moist, the sandy looking stuff that you mix in with your soil and it helps retain moisture, it's just like this (indistinct) put in diapers and when it sand, but when it gets wet swells all up that paralyzing candor, that's what it is.

(laughs) same stuff.

When it says on the package, to put a quarter teaspoon in a six inch pot, they don't mean a half a teaspoon okay, yeah.

Get the soil medium damp, mix that into it, plant your pot, tamp it down well, plant with your plants in it.

But when you water it again, those little granules are gonna swell up and you can blow your plants right out of the pot.

Surprise, not a happy surprise.

Follow the directions on that little package, in this case more is not better.

- Noted.

- No (indistinct), you can't just add more and it's okay.

It's not, it's wrong.

- All right, good advice.

Okay, Jen are we back around to you?

- Yeah, we've got another show and tell again.

I've got my assistant here to hold, we might have to hold it closer to the camera.

This is a terrarium that has got some ferns in it.

Last time I was on the show, I was showing these little tiny baby houseplant stalks that I'd picked up.

Some of them were ferns.

And I don't know about you but it's super dry at my house, so they were just gonna be constantly needing watered.

So this used to have candy in it, this is a hard candy jar.

So you're gonna shop differently if you're into terrariums 'cause you're looking at packaging all the time.

I'm justifying purchases by the-- - True, that is true.

- You can use this after the initial use.

- Right, so what we have is a layer of gravel.

I had some old screening like for windows screens, I traced the jar.

So I have that piece of screen wire to hold the soil above the gravel.

You don't absolutely need it but it looks prettier from the side.

And so this is a closed terrarium, so it's sealed shut.

So I'm gonna just set this on my counter.

I've got some led plant lights and it'll do great.

What you don't wanna do is something like this put it in the window where it's gonna bake in the sun, 'cause it'll be like a hot car in the summer.

And you know, Karen was talking about forgetting a cactus in her car, I forgot a terrarium in my car once, when Jennifer (mumbles) and I were teaching a program.

And I remembered it like a day later.

and it was like 98 degrees in July, and... - Oh 120 and the car right?

- Yeah, and my plants were cooked.

When I opened it up, you could feel heat coming out and it smelled like steamed vegetables, so... - 'Cause it was, it was steamed vegetable.

- You definitely don't wanna put these in direct sunlight.

But they'll do great in an indirect light situation or an led light, something that doesn't throw a lot of heat off.

- Awesome, and when you say they're sealed, when we were in the studio way back when, I remember someone brought in a sealed one, so you will not do any maintenance on that as far as watering or anything, it'll just kind of be its own little ecosystem in there.

- Yeah, and I have a bigger one on my kitchen counter that's a two gallon jar, it's more like a cookie jar size.

And every once in a while, maybe once a year, or every two years I may open it up and do some trimming just to prune the stuff back, 'cause it gets so overgrown.

I just put this one together today, but it'll take a couple of days to regulate and make sure I have enough moisture in there.

And as long as you see a little bit of condensation on the sides, you're probably good.

But yeah, as long as it's sealed up tight yeah, I've had them sit for years at a time without opening.

- You're boring our special guest.

Did you notice that yawn while you were talking?

He's like, I'm over this.

- He's like, mom come on.

- Wrap it up.

Okay, Karen did you have another show and tell?

- Gonna show one of my new friends and I love plant shopping.

And in the winter it's very limited 'cause some of the nurseries around me closed during the winter months, where I'm grocery shopping.

But anyway this is a ZZ palm, and it's a variety called Raven.

And also another name is cardboard palm.

And I just thought it was so attractive with these dark leaves, growth is green.

And so it's almost asparagus green and then it ages quite quickly to the purple color.

I just, you know, who... - I love ZZ plants, but I've never seen one with that color.

- That's neat.

- The thing I love about this show, more excuses to go shopping.

I've never seen it before either.

- We're just a group of enablers.

We just enable each other to keep this up.

- Yep.

- Likewise, and I know ZZ plants you can kind of put them anywhere, so where's that guy gonna go?

- I've actually got him kind of in highlight just because I've got him where, on a plant stand where the cats aren't gonna typically get to him.

It's not the best plant around cats, but as my niece who used to work in that kind of avenue, it won't kill the cat, it could just make 'em throw up.

So it's not a great plant but I don't want (indistinct) on it, so I keep it more out of the way.

- All right, Martie we are to you, and I have a question, unless did you have photos that you wanted to share?

Do you have other photos?

- I do, there's another set of eight that we're gonna do.

I took some pictures of grasses and sedum and catmint and hydrangea.

These are all things a lot of people wanna trim down in the fall, but I leave them up.

Those are great hiding places for beneficials that you're gonna appreciate in your vegetable garden next year.

Things like the native lady bug, help me out here Jen.

- Oh, a praying mantis, I found-- - Yes, praying mantis yeah.

Yeah, there's a lot of insects that hide in old bracken and debris.

I mean there's some nondesirables as well.

It also helps cover the crown and protect the crown of the plant in winter, particularly when we're having a winter like this where it's really, really cold.

Someone sent in a question, did they not, Tinisha?

- They did, it's about frozen mulch and I will get this here.

This is from Carlie Craig and she says, her mulch pile is frozen solid.

And they didn't get the first year butterfly bushes mulch in heavy.

And she says, I don't have any other organic matter to put around them.

We put an upside down tomato cage over them and then wrap with tarps to try and help.

Would you suggest anything else?

So she can't get to the mulch.

Do you think her butterfly bushes protected enough?

- Time will tell.

But if I'm her, I'd go to the garden center and buy a bag of mulch, that's not frozen.

Or you can go to a garden center or wherever you buy a bag of potting soil or some peat or stuff like that.

Lift up your tomato cage or unwrap the tarp or down in the middle, put some evergreen branches around it.

The tarp is a good idea, 'cause you know butterfly, there such delicate blossom.

But they're so worth it.

So with whatever you got laying around anything, you know?

- Just get something on.

- I don't think that would be a bad idea.

Yeah and then inside and I keep the... leave the tomato cage with tarp, that's a good idea.

- Okay, ladies we are out of time.

Thank you so much for everything, show and tells, for answering questions.

Thank you for joining us, and we will see you next on "Mid American GARDENER."

(upbeat music)