Hey, I'm Tinisha Spain, host of Mid American gardener, and as you can see, we're out of the studio once again.

We are at Urbana market at the square, and I'm joined with my pal Martie Alagna Here, one of our panelists.

We've got Ella Maxwell and Doug Williams here as well.

So stay tuned for them.

But first, Martie, introduce yourself and tell the folks a little bit about you.

Hi, I'm Martie Alagna.

I am retiring as landscaper, and I'm passing it on to a family member who is just delightful.

This is so great.

I get to share my knowledge with my granddaughter, whether she wants me to, and then maybe retire.

Maybe I keep trying, I won't have to help her.

But you know, yeah, so, so, yeah.

So perennials, the private yard, yeah, people, small gardens is my specialty.

Nobody's called me to do Windsor Castle yet.

So just keep the phone lines open.

You never know it hurts.

You never know it hurts.

Well, we've got some questions that have come in.

We've got some pictures, we've got a couple of things that we're going to explain and talk about, but first, we've got Pat Alexander, who wrote in and wants to know if it's okay to put tomatoes next to marigolds and marigolds and marigolds next to tomatoes, absolutely they are, and the marigolds will certainly help to repel some pests that you don't want to visit your tomatoes.

I rarely grow annuals unless they're, you know, vegetables, and even then, I do as many perennials as possible.

But I got two little pots, and I put annuals in them, and the rabbits climbed up on my porch, wow, and chewed them down to nothing, just like hurt a lot, yes, and Petunia, and the pots are this tall and they're up on the porch.

Oh, it hurt me.

Very bold in my OMA, Oh, yes.

Like they own the place.

So I went and bought some more, because I'm an idiot.

And I got some marigolds and some Vinca, which rabbits don't like, and I put those in the pot along with the other things.

And so far so good.

So far so good.

I also put some in with my herbs.

I've got a galvanized barrel that I put them in, and they they also chewed the living snot out of those two.

It's not You're welcome.

You know, we were at a garden center, my mom and I just yesterday, and we were talking about rabbits, actually, like a small cluster of people, forms talking about rabbits, yeah?

And this lady said that she uses coffee, not brewed coffee grounds, and just kind of dumps them at the base of the things that she doesn't want the rabbits to bother and they can't stand the smell, yeah.

And I've heard Irish Spring soap, yes?

Is that another one?

Irish Spring is actually good for deer repellent.

People drill a hole in them and hang them on bushes and things that they don't interesting.

Yeah.

And for smaller animals like rabbits or squirrels, you can kind of shave it with a potato peel.

Mm, hmm, get the little peeling little pieces around there.

Or you can put shavings in a bag and hang them here, you know, on something you don't want whatever chewed on.

I want to chew on things, but I don't want to share it with rodents.

I've also heard of people putting plastic forks face up out of a pot, but, yeah, I don't know that's just not esthetically pleasing.

I don't think so.

So also, they don't rabbits.

Also don't like to walk on sweet gumballs.

So you happen to have a neighbor, or you actually own a treasure trove of sweet gumballs yourself, which nobody ever walked, yeah?

Mulch with them.

Okay, yeah, we took the long way around.

But basically, marigolds and tomatoes are absolutely good.

Yes, they are.

Now we've got a plant ID question, and we're gonna put this up on the screen so you guys can see it.

This came in and she says her plant app identifies this as an Aster, but Google says something else.

What do you think it's an Aster?

It's an Aster.

Okay, yes.

And then as far as care goes, the second part of the question is, do you deadhead this or cut it back for more blooms?

Does that?

Is that a true thing to do?

Yeah, people think about asters as a as a fall blooming plant, and they'll start about now, and if they're tall, you can get away with shearing them, and then they'll come back again.

If they're not that tall, I would gather them up and clip the first two or three inches off, just like you do with them.

Chrysanthemums, everybody wants moms in the fall, but you got to plant them in April.

So they always Yeah, and they'll always start to put on buds, and they'll start to bloom in July.

And then you're like, No, no.

Too soon.

Too soon.

So, you know, yeah, just go snip them off.

You'll get when you when you cut that main bud off of a stem, because each stem has a flower at the terminal end, right?

So you'll get more flowers, but smaller.

Yeah, and later, because you really don't want blooming until September.

So you can push them back like that.

You can just annoy them, and they're like, Oh, those bugs, all right, too bad make some more.

I love deadheading because of the surprise that you get a couple of days later when you've got all this.

Go, Yeah, beautiful.

Beautiful blooms.

Yeah, unlike the petunias and things like that, and salvia Yes, and cat mint, yes.

You give them a shearing and they just it's a good reward.

Keep on chicken.

Yeah.

Now you've been out in your yard taking some pictures with blooming in your neck of the woods.

Well, I got a plethora of day lilies.

Day lilies, yep, yep.

Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, no.

Orange, not, not a huge fan of orange, but I have this is a small variety called little gray.

Bet it's a purple.

She's gorgeous.

It's a, it's not even a lavender purple.

It's a, it's a true purple.

It's a smaller flower, maybe three inches across, and it also has a diminutive height.

So it's a daylily that won't romp and stomp and get all its leaves stepped on along the edge of a of a sidewalk or something.

And it's also re blooming.

So once it starts, it just blows, it just goes, Yeah, I've got a couple of really pretty different places around the yard.

They're there, you know, anything?

Oh, they're small.

Well, some things are just too small, but some things are small and really cute.

So these are one of those things that are maintenance wise, small and really, yeah, is it?

Is it tough to take care of?

Say, Lily, no, no.

We love that low maintenance with the roaches and the Japanese you It's fine.

It's fine.

Next up is Big Bird.

It's a, as you might expect, a massive yellow very lately, yeah, it's like, this big across, and it's like, and it's really tall, so you can just kind of see it, you know, just like the character for whom it was named, bright yellow with a little bit of a white stripe.

They're really, really nice.

If I'm not mistaken, they're also a rebloomer.

Once these guys start, most of them kind of keep going for, I don't know, until it gets really hot in August, and then they'll, they'll rebloom.

So this is a favorite, gorgeous.

It's a creamy yellow with a with a purple blotch, and then a pie crust edge.

It's all wavy.

It's very fancy.

And then the edges are also purple.

Little Piketty edge around the purple edges there just gorgeous, very nice.

This is a tall variety.

This next one, Hyperion, it's also yellow, but yellow gives such a little punch of color in the garden.

It's an old classic.

I bet Hyperion is what, 50 years old, at least, oldie, but a goodie.

Oh, yeah.

Very reliable.

I have it at the feet of a jack Manny clematis, and it's all blooming together right now, and it's fabulous.

So this is the best time of year.

Yeah, you know, we could do this all day, Marty, even a blind sow will find an acorn.

So I'm like, that's a good combination there.

This is gentle Shepherd.

Okay, Jones senior is the classic white daylily.

But this one gentle Shepherd and Sunday gloves give it a pretty good run for its money.

They're just really, white, and it's hard to get one that doesn't yellow out.

And the very last one I have is called cranberry Cove.

It's just a medium sized little daylily, but it's pink with a raspberry blotch and a green throat, and it's just it blooms and blooms and it blooms some more.

So it's delightful.

Put it in the front of the day lily bed, or in the front of the garden, it's medium height, maybe two feet.

So you can appreciate it, because it keeps on ticking.

So all right, that's the last one I got here.

Thank you, Miss Marty.

I thank you so much for stopping by our farmers market today.

Are you going to go buy anything and go check it out?

Coffee?

Coffee would be good.

DJ, went got a coffee.

First thing, he dropped bags and beeline for a coffee.

So we'll turn you loose so you go get one.

That's my kind of guy.

All right, we're gonna go catch up with Ella and Doug Marty, thanks so much for coming out.

No problem.

See ya.

Well, look who we found at the market.

Ella Maxwell joins us now with another segment.

So before we get into all the things that you brought, introduce yourself and tell folks a little bit about you.

Hi, I'm Ella Maxwell.

I'm a Tazewell County Master Gardener.

I've worked at a garden center on the horticulturist, and I love perennials, and I brought some things to share today.

Excellent, a show favorite.

We've got a question that kind of goes along with one of the items that she brought.

Sue Ingram writes in, how do I prune my thornless blackberries?

You got lucky today, because Ella has I brought some blackberries, and I do grow.

Thornless Blackberry.

Let me just pull that out.

I brought raspberries too, because the black raspberry is pretty much like the BlackBerry they are fruiting.

Now something can I help you?

We've got, we've got the fruit, and this, of course, is a black raspberry.

But once the blackberries are done fruiting and you've harvested the fruit, which will be in the next month, by the end of July, then those canes need to be cut out, because they're going to die back.

And in the meantime, the new canes, the primal canes for next year's harvest are starting to form, and that's the same way it is with the raspberries.

So what you want to do as far as pruning goes is remove the fruiting cane when you're done harvesting from this year.

And then you want to tip back the new canes so they don't get so long and sprawling.

And that will promote branching.

This one, this fruit here just came off of a side branch.

So you're going to, in the summer, you're going to tip back this new growth.

And so just that much is enough.

Yes, you don't need a pruner.

You just need to stay on top of it, and then this will cause some side branching.

Otherwise, what happens is they all go down in black raspberries to start another plant, which you can do as well.

But the thornless blackberries, of course, are the nicest, because no thorns.

Now, I do have some other berries here that have thorns.

I wanted to ask you briefly on this one, yes, I have these, and they are, I'm just trying to think of just just that tip part is all that you want to take off, you don't want to cut anything, largely back, because they're kind of gangly.

Should I train them on my trellis?

Oh, right, yes.

The easiest way to do that is to just create kind of a square around it with with some like rope or something like that, and then you can just keep them up in that space.

This is a goji berry.

So it's going to make kind of a little pepper, like fruit.

It was a health craze plant.

It needs a support.

It needs some kind of trellis, because it just wants to keep Vining.

It's, I don't really do anything with it.

It's, do you eat the fruits?

Have you?

Have you?

Yeah, I eat the fruits, but I only like them covered in chocolate.

Another one is a gooseberry.

Now this one also has thorns, as does the goji berry, so you need to be careful, careful with their green and then they turn this red, dark purpley color when they're ripe.

So you can make a gooseberry pie.

These are the wild gooseberries with these large thorns.

There are several better varieties with much larger fruit.

One is called pickwell, if you really like but I think all the small fruits are great.

Raspberries, blueberries, a little harder to grow, and of course, you have to protect everything from whatever wants to get them, birds, rabbits, deer and the like.

Yes, everyone, yes.

Everyone's out to get your your berries.

That's it.

That's Oh no, no.

I did bring one other thing.

Okay, I probably bought this at a plant sale and thought that it was the wild strawberry of my youth and scientific name.

It's not a strawberry at all.

It does have a scientific name.

You can look it up.

It's called the mock strawberry, or the Indian strawberry.

It is an exotic invasive weed, and you can see these runners, and you know it's the mock strawberry, because real strawberries have white flowers.

This has a yellow flower.

Real strawberries have fruit that are facing downward, Okay, this one has fruit that is facing upwards.

And the most important thing is this is tasteless.

Just if you see these at a plant sale and they're small, starts anyway to know at that stage there's not there's not, okay, and so people think they have these wild strawberries, and this plant is, is creeping everywhere in my garden, yeah.

So every spring, every summer, every fall, I'm pulling it out.

So this, this.

Have potential to get invasive and kind of get, yeah, everything.

Yes, it can.

Now, it does make a good little ground cover patch, but it can get into your lawn, weeds and such, and because I don't really like to use chemicals, I'm just hand pulling it.

How long has this been a problem in your Is this the first year you've had to pull them?

No, I tried to be on top of it, but it really hasn't worked.

Are there any other weeds in your yard that are that you see every year coming up?

I'm battling thistle this year.

Oh, luckily I do not have battling thistle.

Okay?

Not fun, right?

So when you said hand pulling, right?

I've been doing a lot of that.

I have been pretty vigilant with weeds, but they still get ahead of you.

You can't stop it really makes a difference in your garden.

I think mulching helps.

I try to leave most of my leaves and I plant kind of densely together, but they still sneak in and I'm pulling them out.

And then, usually I compost everything.

The compost usually gets hot enough to kill most of the weed seeds.

And the compost that I use really goes back in my garden that's covered with straw, so I don't have that much of a weed carryover crowd.

Just staying on top of it is the Oh yeah, yeah, a little pulling every day.

Well, if you have a large yard, it's never ending, and true, that's the problem, that I have too big of a yard for as much weeding as I'm willing to do, and my husband's willing to do well.

Ella, thank you so much for stopping by and seeing this at the farmer's market today.

You're going to go do any shopping.

Oh, are you already shot?

And she bought plants.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's right, garden plants.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And now we found our pal, Doug Williams.

It's been a while.

It's blast from the past.

Well, it has been.

It's good to be back now.

For those who have not seen you, because it's been a while since you've been on the show, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you've been doing, but you're always doing so many things, so you're gonna have to give us the short version.

Yeah, I'll do my best.

I'm mostly in Chicago, though often here in Urbana.

I'm Dr Doug Williams horticultin landscape architect, PhD.

I'm more recently a fellow with the landscape architecture Foundation, a part of the seventh cohort.

And my project that I've been working on is called K 12 STEAM education, with the landscape focus of making things happen, hired a young person from Michael B Jordan's production team, who has a production company called Great Fire productions.

And we've done about six productions.

They're called mini docs.

They're about four hours long, called down to about four to seven minutes.

So hopefully, maybe with all 12 being done, we have one full documentary of youth making something happen.

Landscape wise, we've done national parking Day, National honey bee day, nice.

We partnered with close to 50 different organizations.

Christy Weber has made some donations the South Side Community Arts Center, so you are everywhere, in front of the camera, behind the camera, in the garden, just making moves.

Yeah, and I work in film and television too, besides being the longest term here with the Mid American gardener show for about two decades, yes, but popular shows like Empire proven innocent.

We're shooting something with Steph Curry.

We filmed something recently with the Great Forest Whitaker.

Nice.

But I'm also back here in town often for the Ebert Film Festival, which celebrated 25 years this year.

Wonderful.

So landscaping is your specialty, one of them anyway.

And we just popped in on this corner here.

We're at Urbana market at the square, and we just popped in this corner.

And this is Doug's specialty.

So we're going to talk a little bit about how this was set up, what some of the plants are that we have in here, and what goes into setting up a corner like this.

So talk to us a little about the idea here and what we've got.

Well, I didn't design it, but I'm just going to share, yes, I could have, first off, you got a nice corner design.

We're in a parking space off of a major thoroughfare here in Urbana.

We're at this wonderful market so you can see the activity.

So you want visibility, you want eye height, so that pedestrians and auto traffic and other modes of traffic are visibly clear for safety.

We've got, of course, the wonderful perennials that are here for color.

We've got echinacea, or what we know very commonly as Purple coneflower.

Even the seed heads after the petals are gone, are still quite interesting and has a nice interest.

We have behind here, just to give even winter interest, is ataxis, which is u, that's a Y, E, W, it's a smaller hedge.

It can be pruned short.

They have some that are as tall as 20 or 30 feet.

And then behind that, I believe we have amalenka Arborea, which is a service Berry, which has these wonderful berries that you can actually eat.

You.

If you get to them before the birds do.

I want to ask you a question.

We met with rusty molding a couple weeks ago, and he was talking to us about paying attention to what trees are in the landscape for when you're going to plant underneath it.

So was this a good decision here the u the tree and for sunlight needs?

Was this well thought out?

I think so.

I mean, the tree has a nice mature height right now.

It's limbed up and it's pretty tall.

Most of them are usually a little bit shorter.

And so you have enough sunlight and use a pretty tough plants.

They aren't ones that are going to, you know, piddle out.

And so you can probably find another species or another cultivar to bring in.

Maybe got some ornamental grass back there looks like Miscanthus or maiden hair grass.

We have one of my favorites, thread leaf.

Coreopsis has a very fine texture, and the flowers are kind of here and there, like little stars of gold yellow.

And that plays well, because the complementary colors, if you think about you know when you're painting, or even now, as an adult, you have those colors that are opposite on the color wheel, both yellow and purple, much like green and red.

And the other one is, of course, University of Illinois, colors orange and blue right now.

This is a perennial.

Yeah, these are perennials here, so they'll come back.

So that's what's nice about them.

You plant them, they'll begin to spread.

In some cases, if they're in your home garden, you can share them with neighbors, because you need to divide them up.

But for the most part, it helps fill in, keeps out many of the weeds.

I can see that they've had.

I see the spent tulip heads that are sticking out, and so those will come up earlier than this actually leafs out.

And so you have a combination of timing.

And so with that, as the tulips absorb energy with their leaves still remaining, you have the coreopsis come up, and the other perennials that'll play into that.

I also see some lattice in the back with the purple spiked floral expression.

And then we also have, I think, butterfly bush, yes, if we come down here a little bit further, right next to some of our Purple coneflower, which you know about because you can have their teas, look at the head on this one.

Yeah, it's a little unique.

It's unique.

It's a it looks like a number eight, it does.

And so see that every day the beauty of imperfection.

I'm a member of the Ike noble school, the old school of Japanese flowering.

So that would be something I would love to arrange from because it has some unique interest that's really just what's typically found in Echinacea.

And then this is a milkweed, yes, and I wonder if it's that time yet you see any.

And we have, we're looking for the monarch butterflies because it's the one plant that the monarch butterfly will lay its its eggs on, because that's what the larvae will eat from.

And so if you want to attract monarch butterflies and also give them the habitat that they need.

It's really important.

What's your favorite plant when you're working in a landscape or you're putting in someone's yard or just kind of overseeing a project, what's your favorite thing to put in?

Well, perennials are one of my favorites.

I think I like turf and grass.

It has its place.

But perennials, you only have to really cut them, either in the fall, if you so choose, or keep that winter interest and cut them in the spring instead of so you get all these extra hours back.

We love a low maintenance garden, and that's and it's so many, it's hundreds, if not 1000s, of different plants other than the range of turf grasses that you can plant so wonderful.

Well, Doug, thank you so much for stopping by and seeing us at the farmer's market.

We'd love to see you more.

If, next time you get to Champaign Urbana, you have to give us a call and get back on the show, we'll do look forward to seeing you All.

Thank you guys, so much, and thank you.

You and that is the show for this week.

Big thanks to Ella Maxwell, Martie Alanga and Doug Williams for coming out.

And also a big thank you to Urbana market at the square for letting us come and hang out today.

I'm going to go do a little shopping when we finish here, because there are a few things I had my eye on back there.

If you've got questions for our panelists, send them in to yourgarden@gmail.com you can also find us on socials.

Just look for Mid American gardener.

That's it for this week.

We will see you next time.

Good Night Music.