Unknown: Hello, and thanks for joining us for another edition of Mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha Spain.

And as you can tell, we're back in the studio with one of our panelists that you know and love John Bodensteiner.

So John, it's been a while, over a year over a year.

So remind our, our viewers a little bit about you where you're from and where we can find you out in the garden.

Okay, I'm a Vermillion County Master Gardener.

I live up by Bismarck Henning, Bismarck off of shake rake.

And I've been a Master Gardener since 1994.

And I've been doing this show since 1994.

So this is about, does that make that 27 years, 26 years, 27 years?

Wow.

So helped a lot of people over that time we've had we've had a lot of a lot of people come through and a lot of calls and good information.

So and now you're active with kids too.

You work in the greenhouse.

I'm a volunteer at schrlarman high school, I teach the greenhouse area and I had my classes at 730 in the morning.

And so I did that this morning early and getting kids ready for finals.

And so brought a few things from there first, from the greenhouse out.

Otherwise, I wouldn't have these right now.

Well, I guess it could have been my house.

But these are from the greenhouse.

And I just want to share some now this is a great plant.

This is a great starter plant.

This is a great plant for established plant people.

Tell us what you brought.

And let's just let's just learn a little bit more about sands of area.

This is this is the variegated sense of area.

And as you can see, it's got the nice yellow striping on it.

And another another name for it is snake plant.

And it's a native of West Africa.

And it's it's a tender perennial.

So you can't let it free.

So that's why I was saying it either have to have it inside during a winter or you have to have a greenhouse.

And it does very, very well in in in our house in our homes.

And that it will do good in low humidity, high humidity.

And it also does well in low lights, which our homes or homes have very for very poor lighting as far as most of our plants, but this one seems to do very good.

This is an average one for medium light.

It's about what would you say that's 24 to 30 inches tall, I would say and have that striping on the outside.

And that's that's that's that's everybody wants that one but no, not everyone gets that.

And a lot of people I'm going to show you how to how to propagate this here in just a few minutes but they will grow faster and taller.

If they get good sun.

Good light.

i They do not like full sun.

If you put them in the sunlight, they will burn.

Okay.

So interesting native to Africa, but they're they're there they like that.

Apparently they're an under growing.

And so but they're in good light, they will get up to five feet tall.

Wow.

So they can get very, very large.

And I've got a couple at the greenhouse that are pushing four feet right now.

Wow.

So I've got good light out there.

And we like it because another another nice thing with this plant is watering.

We were talking about that before we went on the air.

But these these during the summer when it's hot, and if you have it outside in the shade, you probably need to water every two weeks.

Okay?

During the winter.

If you have inside and you have decent humidity in your house, it's every eight weeks.

It's almost a plant you can forget about Yeah, and I have a number of times my wife and I thought I was doing it.

I thought she was doing it when neither one of us were doing it.

And I think we actually went over it.

It still is surviving.

It still looks beautiful.

But interesting.

Guys, are you working on propagating with it with the kids in the greenhouse?

Yes.

I'll show you.

There's a number of ways you can propagate this.

As you can see on this plant right here you can see a baby coming out of that.

That is a rhizome that is coming off of the plant and it's putting up a new chute.

And these plants another nice thing they like to be ripped bound.

We talked about that a lot.

So let's go into that a little bit.

Some plants do not like well we jokingly call them tight shoes.

Yeah, yeah, these like tight shoes like tight shoes.

Again, if you have a good light, a highlight You know, you know, where it's not getting direct sunlight, but it's still very high light in the room.

You can go, you can let it grow two to five years without repotting, okay, if it's in low light, where it's growing much slower, five to 10 years in the same pot in the same pot.

And that's about as low maintenance as you're gonna get water every eight weeks low light, don't have to read pot for five years, or 10 years, up to 10 years depending on the size pot.

And so this is for the for the number of plants you see in here, I probably would not in my home, I probably wouldn't report that for another 345 years, wow, you want it to have a number of shoots and, and like that little shoot there, it's going to put up more shoots like that.

So it is one of those that I really like when you water it you want to water the soil, not the blades, not the blades, because I'm going to show you on this, this plant here you can see that there are cups down here, and when it's up like this water will pull in there.

And they said to be very, very careful about doing that often or to actually getting rid of that, that water out of that pool area.

Because it will make a mushy plant and then eventually rot.

It's one of those that's you know, it likes dry soil, usually one let your your soil dry out completely.

And you can see this one here is putting up a new, a new chute.

This is from the rhizome.

I'm just gonna break it off for the time.

And how would you say that parent parent is probably I would say four years, three to four years, maybe I doubt it's five years because we have good light.

So it's probably three to four years old.

Now this broke off here.

And you can see there's lots of roots on here.

So this is a whole new plant.

As you can see, I talked about it, spreading it and like that, you can see there's a no whole new plant coming right here.

This is going to curl up, curve up and it's going to put up a whole new plant like this.

This is a a extending stem or a rhizome.

Okay, and so it's going to curve curve.

And you can see, I have another one.

Oh yeah, right here.

That's coming.

It's just a little tiny guy.

And it'll it'll it'll grow into another whole new plant also.

Now does that need to stay on the rhizome?

The one that's a little bit larger, could you pop that off and it gets roots, it needs its own needs its own root system.

And there are you know, this is just letting it propagate on its own.

Okay, now there are ways that we can propagate this faster if you need to.

Now how do you choose when you're going to propagate and you're looking at these in the greenhouse?

How do you choose a blade?

Do you go from one that looks maybe a little tired, do you I, you know, I don't want a disease plant, I don't want something that's tired, I want something that's nice and healthy, that's clean.

And this is one that I broke off.

A lot of times, you can see that there's little roots on here, but I could plant this, but I'm not going to this is one of those that I said this is going to be my propagation.

As you can see here, this is one that I already did.

Yeah.

And you can see this is what we cut off, this is the original and this is these are coming off of that and from that, okay, and this is basically another one that I did that I can I you know I cut this off, and you can see this two little babies coming and I want to show the roots on that.

And pretty soon I'll cut this off the mother, the mother leaf that because it's cut off and I don't want that to be on but I'll let it grow a little bit more before I cut that off because it's just nice to once I planted I use this as my as my my hand and I put this in and fill around try not to get any soil down in these and these holes down here these are the little parts with the leaves come out at the pools.

Don't don't fill that with soil and then try not to get too much water in there.

It's easy just to turn the pot onto its side and it'll drain away very quickly.

But this again, this is going to be a double it's beautiful little healthy thing.

I had this in sand and to show that I brought one of them that I had cut earlier.

Now making this Is there any potting mix in here?

Or is this all just pure sand?

Okay, now why do you why do you like so I like sand.

And this is what I did, I took one of these plants, just a nice clean cut.

And this one here, I have no problem knowing which side is the top, because this has got the point.

So what I did was I'll take and I like sand because it's well drained, it'll hold the moisture.

And after looking at their roots, I'm going to have little tiny root hairs.

I see him.

Yeah, sure.

Let's see if we can get a shot of those maybe, perhaps.

But yeah, so you would say this has been in there for about six or eight weeks, six, eight weeks, here we go.

Look at that, you can see the little baby roots coming off of that he sure can.

And then I would just take that and report it into some good well drained potting soil, I want to like a 50% mix of peat moss, sand, and soil.

Okay.

So better drains very well.

And and I want to make sure that that pot has a hole in the bar.

Because again, these are like succulents, they do not like to stand in water.

Now, like I said, this, this plant, this part of the plant that I'm going to put into the sand.

Yes, that's how and that's all I have to do is put it into the sand.

Now, sometimes I have this which is called Reading compound.

And what I'll do is I will take a little bit of the powder, and I will just dust the bottom cut with a little bit of reading cop out.

And that tends to help the roots come a little bit thicker and better more often.

So whether you have that or not, I have we did some tests at laarman.

With with cuttings, we found that we had 100% Whether we did well or not.

So sometimes I feel like you just said it does bring them a little bit quicker.

Yeah.

But as long as you get a you know a good start and keep the soil moist but not wet.

And I like sand.

A little bit of vermiculite sometimes just to make it a little bit looser, but and perlite in the sand, but no no heavy heavy soil.

So because you want that to drain very, very well.

Now, like we said this one here, you can see which is the top once I cut this next cutting off.

Now this is where you have to start paying attention.

This is where right way there is a right way if I looked at this, and it's about the same width as this.

So if I lost my, if I didn't keep track of this, I wouldn't know if this was the top or this was the top, it's very important that you have the top on the top.

If you if I would tip this and put it this way, it's going to just rot it's not going to grow, which is yeah, I find it very, very interesting that is so again, then all you have to do is I put a little bit of rain compound on it, and then press it into the sand.

And while in six to eight weeks I will have a new plant now you are saying that you like this variegated plant this yellow leaf, we have tried and according to any literature, I have found that if you do this cuttings on a variegated plant, you will not get a variegated plant.

That's where you're going to end up with a plant that's like that.

And so when you're propagating, it's really hard or is it impossible impossible can pass I have never, and they they don't know why.

Interesting, but if you want this variegated, you have to be patient and let it produce.

It's the rhizome to come through the ground on its own.

Once that rhizome is come up, it's going to be varigated.

And just like this, this was a, this was a very good This was off of no this one here was was very gated off of the mother plant.

And now I'm going to get this one.

This one here doesn't show the variegation yet, but it will here shortly, but it has to start it has to start on it.

Otherwise you will not you won't get that they won't get that.

Okay, so and again.

I like these.

We talked about we talked about these a lot because they're so easy to care for.

Did you want to talk about the other variation over there?

Yes, I do have another variation.

This is also I like this one.

Since a very this is a round.

It's completely round.

This one I have not been able to propagate the same way I Do you have to wait for those to come off the rhizomes Interesting?

Okay, so this one here, I have not not.

And you can see that it's gonna start off with kind of a flat leaf when it first comes out, you're gonna say, Oh, I got the wrong plant, but be patient.

Again, it'll, it'll eventually put up a round leaf.

And there is another one that's looks like a round leaf that was squashed.

And it's, it's even more rare than this one.

This one here is kind of hard to find.

But if you find it, again, these will live 50 6080 100 years Wow.

Now in your experience with these, the you find that these grow a little slower, these grow much, much, okay, okay, he's grown much and they don't, they're not as prolific as these bars propagation, very slow.

So this one here, they will flower.

Very seldom, you have to have an older plant, I would say at least five to 10 year old plant, and it'll put up a flower stem in the middle, just you'll see this little stick coming up.

And all of a sudden, there'll be little tiny, very insignificant flowers.

You don't grow this for the flowers.

There they last about a week to 10 days and then dry up and then then that's it, then you snip them off and throw them away because there's no seizure anything from it.

But okay, one other thing this plant is wonderful for we have we're putting one in every classroom it's alarming because they do absorb a lot of the carbon dioxide and at night they put out a tremendous amount of oxygen.

There even I've heard from different sources that NASA even is looking at taking these when they there's one of the plants that they are considering taking to Mars when they colonize when they colonize because it would purify the air and would would would put out oxygen now yes it's not one plant is not going to oxygenate a whole room.

But if you've got 1012 Sure in that area area is going to make make a difference and we always want to breathe good air it also takes out toxins like some of the benzenes Tony wins in our new in our new building supplies.

There's you know, especially about new tight home.

Some of those chemicals are are being released into the air.

These will absorb that and then you and put out oxygen for you.

So you can't go wrong with a snake but we love those.

Okay, too.

We've got about 10 minutes left.

So you want to jump into toothache sure or mimosa, you've got all kinds of stuff to take plants.

I think I had showed this earlier but the reason I brought it again, is if you take this flower stick the flower bud and this is a lengthy plant it's our mela Ollie he it's they think it's native to Brazil or India.

They have not really found out for sure.

It they just can't determine word original what word it's native to but it is not native to the United States.

It fragrant.

It's not fragrant.

I always but if you choose to on that, it's going to numb it's got a numbing effect.

And I think it's more of a effervescent, okay effervescent, and it stimulates your taste buds.

And so I was watching a French cooking show, okay.

And they use this as a flavor enhancer.

Oh, so leave are the flower flowers What you choose the flower would grind up and put that into your into your sauce or whatever and knave.

One of my favorite chefs over there his name is Jen and which happens to be my daughter's married name.

He has a very good chef over there and he was talking about how they use this in some of his sauces as far as a flavor enhancer so it's all cooked with this yet.

Yeah, no, I haven't yet.

I'm going to I just got into bloom.

In fact, it's not even I've been waiting for it to bloom I started some new ones.

Once I saw that, and I saw I started to do plants and as soon as it's getting I'm going to put it in and I'm not sure which of the sauces that I make I like I liked making a lot of soup so I'll probably put it in one of my soups to see if you know how much of a flavor enhancer it is.

But if you chew on it, it almost seems like your tongue is bubbling you'd like to what is the peroxide or exactly remember the with the rocks, the pop rock Pop Rocks almost.

It's almost that so but if you I can see where it would be a flavor enhancer because you can feel it on your tongue and anything that would touch your tongue, I'm sure would be enhanced If you say the hydrogen peroxide would be used for mouthwash and things like that would be kind of the same way.

But this is a a, an annual.

They have a couple of varieties I like this all yellow.

They do have one that has brown on the the lower half and then the top half is yellow but this is much much showier it it is a it has medicinal uses and it like an anesthetic like to take plant that's why they call it a to take plant because you have a hole, you can chew out and put that down into that hole and it's going to numb it.

It's also an anti inflammatory.

So I would take it that you would grind it up, put it in a cream and rub it on to where and it's probably going to have that same effect.

Hmm.

Interesting.

Very cool.

Okay, so that that's this is called the toothache plant.

Mimosa.

Oh, it's they also call it call it was bottom, but as bottom.

So I imagine because it's going to give you're out there you go.

You're feeling Yeah, buzzing feeling.

I did bring another little plant.

I want to show this.

This is one of my Christmas cactuses.

I just started.

And I wanted to show it to be in that you can see it's just a very tiny plant.

But look at it, it's got a flower.

And that is stimulated by the number of hours that you see that it sees sunlight.

So and there are three different ones depending on the leaf.

This is a this is what we call the actual Christmas cactus in that it shoots has different shoots on it.

And I will never know the difference between Christmas Thanksgiving and Easter there is no it's all rounded, rounded leaf spikes.

And like that, like a little cat ears that it has these I always call the cat ears because they'll okay like and depending on how significant or pointed the cat ears are, is whether it's a Christmas, Easter or Thanksgiving cactus.

So what are these at the greenhouse you have several I have I have started.

And I was gonna say if anybody has these and you get at home and you find that you've broken off one of these stems Do not fret.

If you break off I know it's always hard choosing this sacrificial leaf.

But like that, say that broke off all you would have don't throw that away.

In fact, you can see it was touching ground here, it's kind of already got little, little roots forming.

So what I would do is just again, make a little hole in the in the soil, stick it in and forget it.

Again, this is one that does not like wet feet and make sure that that has good drainage.

And if you've touched the soil and it feels damp, do not water it, you go down an inch.

And there's if it still feels a little bit moist don't want it.

You go down an inch and it feels completely dry.

And you can pick it up and it feels really like and it's time to water.

And what I would do is a lot of these plants come with the real pretty aluminum Yes, or cellophane wrapping.

Yes, take those off because those are waterproof.

Take the plant over to your sink water, let it sit for half hour and then put that sleeve back on and then take it where you where you normally have it and it'll do so much better.

Okay.

And let's see we've got a couple minutes Mimosa tree to talk about that.

Now is the time if you have certain plants and I've been wanting a mimosa tree so I had a friend that had a beautiful Mimosa tree and it's this in the fall.

Early Fall.

It has these beautiful, frilly pink flowers.

And about now you can go out and find these beans on there.

And this is they've got little seeds in here.

Oh okay.

So now's the time to go out if you had you have a Eastern Redbud there's all kinds of beans on knows if you have a a a locust tree.

Those have beans on those now's the time to collect those if you want to propagate them Yes.

and plant them.

Get them get them up.

Again.

You seed starting soil don't use potting soil or sand use seed starting soil and that's easy you know they comes tells you seed starting soil right right on the pack right on the package and that's what you need to use and follow you know, you know there's there's information on the internet as far as whether you want it some plants, eyes that you said like dandelions.

I know people I know and you're a fan.

I'm a fan.

I've got actually Japanese dandelion that are white flowering and a pink flowering variety.

And those you don't bury at all.

If you bury those, or like milk milkweed Yes, it's sort of scatter, you scatter.

And because they need the sunlight to help germinate, you want them in contact with the soil, but you don't want them covered because they do need the sunlight to for germination.

So again, these are these here, you, you would you would plant in the soil, and a good general rule.

If you don't know how deep the planet, it's two to three times the size of the seed, good rule of thumb.

So it kind of like your your bulbs.

If you haven't got your tulip bulbs, it's still not too if you have tulip bulbs or daffodils ground is not frozen, it's still not too late to go out and plant those.

They they'll do much better if you plant them now.

Then if you keep them in that bag and say I'm going to plant them in spring, by that time, they're going to be dehydrated.

They're not going to be any good.

So all right.

Well, thank you, John.

Always a pleasure hanging out.

I'm so glad you were able to come in and just bring us all over.

We've missed you being in the studio.

We've all missed being in studio.

Thank you so much for watching, and we will see you next time on an American Gartner.

Good night.