(upbeat music) - Hi, everybody its Tinisha Spain host of Mid-American Gardener and thanks so much for joining us for another episode.

Today, we've got some great content, great show entails, and of course, some great questions that you sent in.

Before we jump in and get those questions answered, let's have our panelists introduce themselves today and tell you a little bit more about their specialty and what they're into.

So Karen, we're gonna start with you.

- Hi, my name is Karen Ruckle and I'm an Illinois Certified Nursery Professional and I love perennials, houseplants and annuals.

- Wonderful, okay, and Jennifer Fishburn.

- Hi, Jennifer Fishburn.

I'm a Horticulture Educator with the University of Illinois Extension, serving Logan, Menard and Sangamon Counties and my office is in Springfield in the center of the state.

I can talk just about anything, but if I have a choice I like to talk about vegetables, herbs, houseplants at this time of year and native plants.

- Wonderful, and last but not least Jennifer Nelson.

- I am Jennifer Nelson, I'm a Horticulturalist.

You can find me online at groundedandgrowing.com and much like Jennifer, I can talk about lots of different things but my favorite things are vegetables and houseplants, gardening with kids, those types of things.

- All right, and as always, we're gonna start with our show and tell.

So Karen, we'll go with you today, what'd you bring us?

- Well, I'm just gonna talk about through the Winter months my cats love to chew on plants so I usually grow a lot of spider plants because they're safe for them and they love the long leaves, there's one behind me longer.

So through the Winter, I'm propagating them because in the Summer I forget about them.

And what I found is that what I'm doing is I'm taking a saucer that's rigid and I'm filling it with some water and I'm rooting them first before I pot them up.

Typical ways people talk about their spider plants is they just take off the babies and plunk them and soil, but when you've got cats they'll quickly yank them out of the dirt so getting a good start of roots then I pot them up and they're a little bit more secure by the time the cat figures out and tries to pull on it.

- So typically when you, and I see the one that you've got behind you, that's a big one there.

Do you keep these inside?

Do you give them away?

What's your method with your spider plants?

- I keep them inside.

All my house plants go out for the Summer months on a Northern exposure just to get them growing nice and strong.

And then, like I said, in the Winter they're coming inside for the cats.

I keep some of them in a sunny basement location where the cats aren't at and then I have a couple up in the house that they can tear apart.

- Interesting, okay, thank you very much.

All right, we're gonna move to our next show and tell item.

We're going to Jennifer Fishburn, who's got, wow, that's a big snake plant (laughs).

- It's a big snake plant in itty-bitty pot.

One of the great things about snake plants is they will thrive on neglect, they don't have to have a lot of light, they also don't have to have a lot of water and they also don't have to have a lot of care.

But as demonstrated by the root system that we see here this plant is just been in this pot a little bit, well, how about a couple of years too long, to be honest.

And it needs severely to be divided but you can see the plant is still thriving very, very well, but because of the root system it's really diminished the amount of potty mix that's in here.

This is a great time of year to do this particularly because we can't get out in the garden and do the things that we like to do out there, so we wanna get our hands dirty inside.

Great time to divide this plant.

It could either be divided or it could be potted just as it is.

I'll point out, you can see here in the middle, this would be a clear division here with two different plants.

Also, you could use a sharp knife to cut this off, the little bumps you see along here will become roots if you pop that up, so that's a pop.

So you could actually have three separate plants or you can leave it as one.

Normally I would tell folks, pot this up one pot size bigger, although I really don't think that's gonna do a whole lot of good in this case because I'm gonna have to, before I do anything with this, I wanna make sure that this root system is really, really moist so water it the day before.

So I can tease these roots out straight again or cut off some of the larger ones.

So I'm going to go two sizes up and put it in this clay pot, seems a little drastic but it's necessary due to the root system that's here.

So, that's my job.

And we can kind of tell, I can see, but how many do you think you could get out of that one there?

- You can easily get three.

I would probably do three just based on how tangled up all the roots are, and cut that little pop off.

You could actually probably do four, there's actually three separate plants as you see there and this little pop off the side.

- Got you, got you.

- But I'm just gonna probably take this.

I'm just gonna take this off and re-pop the rest of it.

- Gotcha, so that little guy on the side, that new pup there, that's not even in the pot when you put it in there, right, it's completely out doing its own thing.

- Doing its own thing, looking really healthy, it's actually the healthiest part of the plant, it's beautiful, it's happy.

- It is, it is, okay, Karen and you've got a cactus that you brought to show as well, right.

- We're talking about plants that have been kind of not taken care, well, not, not taking care of but that have been a long time waiting to be re-potted.

This poor cactus plant has been in this pot, it is just a styrofoam cup that my nephew potted up over six years ago.

And the pot is so broken that now he's been laying down, so I really need to do this poor plant justice.

- But you know what, like Jennifer said, some of them just kind of thrive on the neglect and just hang in there and keep on growing (laughs).

All right, we're on to Jennifer Nelson.

What show and tell do you?

- I brought a plant that I bought this Summer.

Everyone has seen the whole Monstera craze on Instagram and everywhere else.

And I bought a really small plant.

In normal a lot of these plants are really expensive, I've seen Monsteras sold for over a $100 and their big thing is, oh, they have these holes in the leaves, but then I have this young plant and I paid $12 for this in the Summer there's no holes in the leaves.

And I thought, well, maybe I got kind of a bad deal, but then I was reading that it takes the plant getting to a certain size and a certain age before the holes in the leaves that are, the Swiss cheese look that everyone likes, starts to develop and those are called fenestrations.

And I finally had a leaf that had a hole in it the other day, I spotted it while we were eating dinner and my family thought I was nuts.

I like jumped up from the table to go check it out.

There's a lot of ideas of why these holes in the leaves might develop.

Monstera grows in the rainforest and so it's really competing for sunlight and so one of the thoughts is that these holes in the leaves might allow the leaf to spread out and cover more surface area and also let some light through to the other leaves of the plant.

One of the things I was reading today said that, if you remove some of the smaller leaves at the base of a young Monstera that can encourage the Swiss cheesy leaves to develop.

I don't know if I'll do that right now, but I might try it in the Summer.

- Interesting, I want to ask you a question about that.

I have an established Monstera that's in the window and just recently out of the soil comes a leaf like that and I thought, well, what in the world is that?

Because it didn't have any of the holes in it.

So is that a separate plant?

Can I take that, if I dig that out, 'cause normally they just split from the stocks, you know.

So why would that come up from the soil?

- It's probably just a shoot coming off of the roots and if you wanted to try to dig around and see if there's a logical place to remove it, I would wait a little while, let it get some size to it first.

But I can show you, this is a related plant, they call it mini Monstera, but it's a different genus.

I think I showed this in the Summer when I first got it and it was teeny tiny, but this makes the same sort of Swiss cheese leaves and actually the holes in the leaves.

This looks like it would be really easy to propagate the you can see little roots growing along the stems but I took some stem cuttings and they have taken forever to root..

So it may not be as easy as it looks.

So just, I'm not saying don't try it, but just be prepared it may take awhile.

- Any of you ladies in your experience have you, 'cause and I asked that again, because I talked to a friend who says every time she tried to propagate a Monstera it dies.

So, is this a difficult plant to propagate?

- I have a feeling one from the mini-Monstera, which is, Monstera is not the genus it's referred to fora.

I have a feeling that just based on my experience of how long it took those stem cuttings to root that may be why these are more expensive when you see them for sale.

Especially when you get a larger a specimen, you think of all the time that's involved in rooting it and then growing it to that size, that translates to more cost considered.

- It makes sense, it makes sense.

Okay, we've got some questions that were sent in and we were gonna do this one first but then we got carried away and such as life, so here we go.

Dianne O'Connor writes in, she's got a question.

Karen's gonna answer this for us.

She says, how can I get my amaryllis to bloom this year again?

It has two tall leaves on it, no flower stock, sadly.

This is its second season and I had it outside during Summer and then put it in darkness in the basement for about two months, then brought it out and started watering it.

It is in an East window and gets morning sun, what can I do?

And I'm listening to this one as well because as we all know, I can't get mine to bloom either.

So I'm listening.

Well, for me, amaryllis it's a love, hate relationship.

I love the blooms and boy, I hate the plant.

But I think one of the key things is that the plant has to rebuild during the Summer.

So when we're talking about Winter time, yeah, this is maybe the beginning and we've still gotta go through another year to see if we're successful next year.

But, so in Fall I bring mine in before any frost that's on them, I let them dry.

I typically lay them down so then that way the crown doesn't get a weird curviness of the leaves bending as they're drying down.

So once they've dried down, I just forget about them.

Typically, when I remember them, then I'll go ahead and I'll clean off the, can't tell left and right (chuckles), I'll cut off the leaves and then just let it sit.

The thing is, I think two months is a little short for letting it rest because if you're just doing a couple months and bringing an amaryllis out to get it growing again in the house where we're at a low light level.

So I would wait till later, late Winter maybe more February ish timeframe to bring them out, start watering them.

If they bloom great, if they don't wait till it's safe to put out stuff plants more into May when there's no real cold.

I like to put mine out where they get some sun but not all day sun because they dry out and then I forget about them.

Fertilizing, I think helps mine a lot through the Summer to help try to rebuild that bowl.

I've had some friends that they will dig a hole and sink the plant out in the yard to keep them upright and to help minimize moisture loss through the heat of the Summer.

Then once again, that cycle of before you get a hard frost bringing them in and then going through that resting period and then bringing them back.

Now also, I wanna mention, a lot of times when you get these amaryllis they're kits and I think the soil they have in those kits is pretty lousy, it's just a repeat.

And that soil is really, really dry and repels water when it is really dry or it's soggy wet and then they'll start rotting.

So I would say either not use that soil or after a couple years, make sure you go to a good commercial soil, potty mix to use that and every about three, four years maybe re-pot to refreshen that soil.

- So, question from me, I was unsuccessful when I pulled them out.

I pulled up two bowls.

I was unsuccessful at my November attempt to get them to bloom.

So what is my next chance?

This Summer should I let them rest now and bring them out in the Spring?

- No, you can't try to double dip in a year.

- All right, (laughs) al right, fine.

I thought maybe there was a way to get around nature but it sounds like no.

- I mean, I'm sure there's somebody out there that maybe has gotten theirs to bloom twice a year.

The thing is once you get those leaves you want it to be the happiest it can be.

So in the house the most light you can give it more Southern bright light.

And then in the Summer time slowly transitioning it to a brighter light outside.

- Okay, full sun, just as much light as it can get outside.

- Outside, I put mine in part sun because of the heat and the light it can get at my house stuff either falls over or it gets too dry.

So I do part sun for them.

- Okay, great, thank you very much.

Okay, we've got a question for Jennifer Fishburn now.

This picture will make us all yearn and long for Spring and Summer months but this has happened to a lot of people as well, this is about zucchini.

So didn't get a name on this one, it was an email.

Last year, I put zucchini in a raised bed and as you can see it soon took over.

Where's the best place for zucchini to go?

So I'm assuming that they're saying in a bed, in a raised bed, but maybe let's talk about in general if you wanna give them some advice there.

- Well, I would be super thrilled if this were my zucchini plant, let's be honest.

That is an absolute beautiful plant.

Exactly, if that's in to July or August, mine are usually decimated by squash bugs at that point, so I would be thrilled with this plant.

Yes, it's a little bit big for this space, but what we have to remember about summer squash in general, so I'm gonna generalize with summer squash being zucchini, whether it be green or yellow, crook neck squash, patty pan squash the plants need a space of about three feet wide and they get about three feet tall.

I did a pretty extensive search and I really can't find anything that gets much smaller than that.

I have actually successfully grown zucchini in an earth box and have really good luck with that, if they're wanting to put it in a smaller space area.

A raised bed the problem is that you obviously have a lot of other vegetables planted close together, so it's overtaking quote it's space.

So traditional garden might be the best for that type of a plant, but I'll also mention, in my search which my search was on the internet so you can mail order squash seeds.

You can also purchase them locally at your hardware stores or gardens centers as well.

The big difference being that ordering from a garden seed company you're going to have a much larger selection to choose from.

That being said, I don't wanna panic our vegetable carts out there, but last year something switched, something happened in people and a lot more people started to garden.

And that seems to be carrying over to this year.

When I did my search last night I found out that some companies were already sold out of several different types of squash.

I found that some companies had shut their website down for three or four days because they had too many orders and they needed to process what they had.

And I also found a number of company that was only selling to commercial growers till about mid February and then they would start selling to home gardeners.

So I don't wanna create a vegetable garden panic but I will tell you if you haven't yet thought about selecting your vegetable seeds for the growing season you might want to start doing that now, it looks like there's going to be a little bit of a limited supply.

The other thing I'll mention that is many times in these gardens seed packets, we're gonna find that they're gonna have 20 to 30 seeds.

I don't know about you but I probably only need about 10 of one type of a garden seed, particularly for summer squash.

Now, green beans obviously I need a lot more, but in this case I might not need as many.

So I'm gonna call up my good friend Jennifer Nelson and I'm going to say, hey, what do you wanna plant this summer?

Do you wanna share a package of seeds?

That would be my advice to folks out there is find others who have that common interest, and if you wanna try some different things each purchase a different type and share those seeds.

- That is a really good idea.

And we had a viewer a couple of weeks ago ask everyone what their favorite tomato variety was, and we kinda went through that but not with everyone 'cause we can't get everyone.

But so today Jennifer Fishburn thought it would be a good idea to ask you ladies what your favorite summer squash variety is?

If you have one, if not, no big deal.

So Jennifer Fishburn, we'll start with you since you posed the question.

- Well, I wanted to mention two things there.

Number one, I think my new favorite is Magda.

It's a light green summer squash.

But I will also mention, and not necessarily my favorite, but in the case of being small space I would recommend lemon drop or lemon squash.

It's a very small squash that actually grows in a vine and it controls that.

- Oh, I haven't seen those, I have to write that down.

And you said something else I'm gonna have to look up too and we can come back to that, earth box, so put a pin in that 'cause I wanna learn more.

Jennifer Nelson, what's your favorite summer squash?

- There is one that is an Italian heirloom, and I think the cultivar.

- Green tiger.

- No, I think it's called cocoazelle.

- Oh, okay.

- But it's an heirloom zucchini.

I like that one just 'cause it looks different and it's off the top of my head, I think the variety is called gadzooks.

It has bridges on it so if you slice it, it looks like a star chip.

- It's not something different.

- And you know what, I think I saw that, yes, I saw that somewhere.

Awesome, okay, Karen, what about you?

- I'm not too big into to zucchini.

I like zucchini grilled with herbs on the grill in the Summer and zucchini bread but I typically just am really generic looking for one that more as a bush type growing even though the bushes are large bush, that's really all I look for.

- Well, it's okay.

All right, we've got another question.

I'm gonna ask, this one goes to Jennifer Nelson.

This was someone who sent in a picture of their cactus and didn't get a name on that one, but it's an email.

And the question is I've been given a cactus that is rather tall and spindly.

Is there any help that you can give to help this plant?

I know it was not given enough sun.

Any suggestions this person said that they would appreciate.

So we've got a picture of the cactus and boy it is skinny (laughs) - [Panelist] Yeah, that's a really- - [Tinisha] So, I'm bringing this baby back to life.

- Well, yes, she's right that it probably hasn't had enough sun.

And I'm not exactly sure what type of cactus this is.

I suspect it probably is narrow to begin with but this is pretty extreme.

I would start with putting it in proper sunlight as much sun as you can give it.

And check that pot is really deep, and I was looking at the soil it looks a little dark for a cactus mix, I wonder if it's in the right kind of planting mix.

Cactus mix is usually lighter, usually has some sand in it or something to give it some porosity so it doesn't stay wet for very long.

And if it's in a real heavy soil and it seems to be bogged down you might re-pot it in a more appropriate mix but I would let it grow for a while.

Anything that's distorted because of no light is not going to magically assume the proper proportions, but what she could do is let it grow in appropriate conditions for a while, get some normal growth and then propagate that normal section into a new plant.

I know it's probably not the miracle cure she was hoping for, but she can definitely list some work.

She can definitely salvage it and probably get more than one plant out of it.

- Okay, good advice especially if they're, you know like we talked before about people who have an emotional attachment to a certain plant and not wanting to let it go.

So if that's the case with this one, there's a way to salvage that.

- Definitely, and then most cactus and succulents are real easy to propagate where you would take just a piece of it, let that end dry out or callous over as the term that you hear and then place that into some cactus mix after it's dried out.

You don't wanna do it immediately after cutting because that open area will just start to rot.

- Awesome, awesome, we've got about three minutes left did we get everybody's show and tell us in?

I wanna make sure I didn't miss anything.

Did everybody get those in, okay, awesome.

So before we go, I know everybody's chomping at the bit to start their seeds, in fact, it's so funny, I've got one right here next to me.

So if we could, I just wanna hear from you guys if we've gotten questions multiple times on Facebook and in our email about when to start seeds.

So if you could all just maybe take 30, 45 seconds and just tell us what your process is and maybe when you start.

So, Jennifer Fishburn, we'll start with you.

When do you normally get your trays out and get things going.

- When I remember (laughs) to be very honest.

I would say by March 1st you need to, if you wanna plant start any tomatoes or pepper plants or eggplants, those are typically what most people are going to start indoors for vegetables anyway, I would get those started.

And what is most important, of course, is gonna be a good quality seed, starting mix, also having some lights that you can adjust or be able to move your trays up or down those are gonna be some key things and having good quality seed to start with.

But probably around the 1st of March, maybe mid March.

- Okay, Karen, what about you?

- You know, I don't start too many seeds, but I am this year going to start my own tomato seeds because this is a variety called bodacious.

And last year it was only by chance that I had a plant of that.

There was a rural school that wasn't able to have their plant sale and so there was, on one of those neighborhood apps, I saw an ad for, help us try to sell these plants.

And so I ordered a bunch of plants, they were delivered to my doorstep I didn't have to see anybody.

And I actually the bodacious tomato plant that way last year and I liked it so much that this year I am gonna grow up from seed.

- Awesome, so you're more of a nursery gal, I gather.

- I don't do too many vegetables so a lot of my plants are perennials and annuals and some of the annuals I propagate by cutting through the Winter or yet plants them in the new year.

- Okay, all right, Ms. Nelson, what about you?

- I'm kind of in the Jennifer Fishburn camp of when I remember.

- Whenever (laughs).

- My big hard lessons is just not planting too much.

I have really, you're sitting back in January, February, you're like, oh, I can plant a little of that, I can plant that one too.

And the longer you have these seedlings inside the bigger they're growing, hopefully, and you should be giving them up in pot size if you're gonna start, you wouldn't start a tomato now I would start them in March like Jennifer said.

But I try to look at the minimal amount of time inside 'cause I don't have the space to keep putting things in bigger and bigger pots, but also just being reasonable and trying to, I also moved my seeds starting into the kitchen last year, just 'cause I had put it right under my nose so I didn't forget about them.

- Awesome, al right guys, thank you very much for your time and tells today, I appreciate it.

And thank you so much for watching, and we will see you next time on Mid-American Gardener.

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