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

I'm your host Tinisha Spain.

And j ining me today, as always are t ree of our panelists who are h re to tell you what's going on i their neck of the woods, and a so answer some questions that y u have sent in.

So before we g t started, let's have them i troduce themselves.

Jen, we'll start with you.

Hi, I'm Jen Nelson.

I'm a horticulturalist.

You can find e online at grounded and growi g dot com.

I like all kin s of different horticulture, b t my favorite things to talk bout are vegetables and housep ants very timely.

All right, hank you very much.

And now, M rtie.

Hi.

TV My name is Martie alagna.

I'm retired landscaper and my leas favorite things to talk abou are vegetables and house plants I just don't Yeah, so Alrighty And then john.

He's in th middle.

He's the rose betwee two thorns.

Alright, john i'm john bodensteiner center.

I'm a master gardener from v rmillion County and I live by ismarck, Illinois.

And I like j st about anything that I Okay, perfect.

Okay, so let's jump right in john, you got a show and tell I got you bought whichever one you want to do first.

Okay, I am going to do my annabell hydrangea I picked this just a few just a few minutes ago.

And it's you can see that it's not white anymore like they normally are.

But in this stage, if you pick them now, hang them upside down and let them dry, we'll take the leaves off.

And, you know, just pull them off and let them dry like this.

And pick all of the leaves off so that it doesn't put pressure on and let them dry.

They'll dry green.

And you know if they'll stay like this, if you don't put them in the sunlight.

for up to six months, I've I've made some bouquets and on the table and, and they've stayed very nice.

Now if you don't like the grain, or if you want to have a little bit of change.

Once they're completely dry, you can take like some of the spray paints like and they they've come up with some really nice pastel colors.

And so you don't have to have red red or you can have kind of the Easter pastel colors, the light yellows, pinks, the light blues and and whatever that you would prefer.

But you can keep them them for forever.

JOHN, I was going to ask I think Marty was in the middle of a phone call.

I was gonna ask.

Oh, shoot, I lost my question.

Oh, with all of the rain that we've had without rain lately.

How are your hydrangeas doing your hydrangeas like a lot of rain?

Do they like a dry spell and how are yours doing this year, they are doing very well.

The only problem is when we get a very hard rain, they tend to kind of get it especially the tall ones will lean over kind of like peonies.

And so that can be a problem.

If they're in on the grass too long or wherever there they will cover things up.

If that's a problem, you just need to clip them and hopefully you have enough that are still upright.

One way to kind of keep that from happening is in the spring once they come up is to trim them to almost to the ground and then they'll put up new shoots and they'll be a little bit thicker and thin out anything that is really really thin stem because you know this is pretty big and if you're like this year we've had so much rain that it's like peonies they just awesome.

Thank you are with somebody else did you have anything to add to that guys?

Okay, hello blenders don't they tend to not do quite as badly as the mop.

That's because they have a stiffer stem.

Yep.

But But you know, they're both have their own charm.

So awesome.

Okay, so now I have a photo that I'd like to share today of what's going on in my house.

I started out with a beautiful garden in the spring when we were finally able to plant and then two, not one but two families of rabbits have showed up and they have literally destroyed everything.

We didn't get any green beans.

They snap the tops off of those.

They went to work on my sunflowers.

They ate all the strawberries and so here they are coming up to my patio and eating out my herbs.

I've got cucamelons there on the bottom, but they ate all the garlic they were on the top working on the kameel.

As you can see the basil is pretty sparse.

So As a very concerned viewer, guys, I need to know what to do about these rabbits.

And all of you right now are smiling so big because I feel like this is not going to be a good.

And I can't be the only one that's going through this.

So if you guys could each kind of walk through your rabbit control.

Hopefully it doesn't involve, you know, the thing running you.

So, Marty, go ahead.

Don't have the rabbits at your Yes, children.

I have a dog.

And he likes to hunt rabbits.

And consequently, he's pretty successful at it.

And they don't they don't survive the hunting trip, but that's okay with me because they eat every day.

So anyway, um, yeah, animal if you have a pet that goes outside though, don't really help.

But other than that, the only thing I've ever found really, that helps that really prevents damages.

senses dispenses, um, you can have they have to the wire or whatever, wherever you use has to be small enough that they can get through it.

And be surprised.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, the little ones even so they're just they're remarkably resourceful and it has to be I found if it's not two feet tall or taller, they'll just jump over it.

So you know, you can try to be as decorative as he possibly can.

But uh, gosh, you know, I haven't found anything that propels him well enough to not make sense.

There are lots of repellents out there but most of them we're only going to work for maybe a week maybe two but then they get accustomed to it they're you know, I've we've hung aluminum pipe plates out trying to in a rattle when the wind well that's kept the deer away to a certain degree, but the groundhogs and I've put up some fencing the groundhogs either dig underneath them or or climb over them the raccoons do the same.

It's It's It's Mother Nature against us and this year I you know, my vegetables, I am losing, you know, to Mother Nature.

Same here.

Okay, Jen, what about you?

We are kind of suffering the same situation at our house, we've had some luck with a recurrent called repels all but with all repellents I have found it's much more effective if you get the repellent on before they start eating on it.

Because otherwise, like I tried so many things over the years, I tried hot pepper sprays and it just seemed like they just kept eating it them like they must just like the spice I don't know, but the proposal is kind of like liquid fence but it's got some extra ingredients like future fight and meat.

It's horrendous smelling until it dries.

I've had some luck with that but like Marty said the fence especially around things like green beans.

You can hide even hide a fine wire like a chicken wire fence behind the decorative fence.

There's nothing that says you can't do that and if you bury the bottom few inches there an angle it out there less likely to tunnel under it.

But yeah, it's it's like man versus wild.

It really is.

This is my but cats and dogs.

Yeah, yeah.

Cats and dog can help discourage them.

If you like you have a really big dog, get him out there and maybe leave some of his hair around.

They're both getting old.

You know, we've got a seven year old St. Bernard.

So she's not making tracks quite like she used to and they know it.

So maybe next year, we'll get to enjoy some of those vegetables.

But we've we've lost and I've even I'm doing bale gardening they are up on the bales having the time of their life.

Where Yes, yes, we know I learned just to add something for the winter time may not be the end of it.

We learned when we first moved in I tried to grow blueberries and I couldn't figure in the spring why there was so much damage so far up on the bushes.

And I was like well, deer don't come up in our yard.

Generally this looks like damage.

It's wherever the snow was.

So they've just right on snowdrift and right did their baby step ladder.

It's important to yeah well, I'm I'm not alone.

So that makes me feel better.

I'm in good company because if it's happening to the pros, then I'm not doing too bad.

Okay, john, you've got another black snakes, a rat snakes, they're very useful for rodent control.

And foxes I would encourage as much as you possibly can.

about snakes.

Snakes are words that they eat little stuff all night long.

No, they're certainly welcome here.

So if they would come and help out, more, the merrier just leave my chickens.

That's the only thing so okay, john, you've got something you brought in about something else folks are probably seeing out in their yard.

Here, I have a large Sycamore and the sycamore is at this time of the year 10 do start to defoliate their skin and their bark.

And this is what I'm finding, I'm finding all kinds of this different sizes, different lengths.

And it's just a natural process, nothing to worry about.

And, you know, you could collect them and make little art projects for the kids, you know, they can do different art projects, I've seen all kinds of neat art projects done with them, but it's nothing to worry about.

It's this the natural process of the tree growing.

And it's got to when it stretches it, it defoliate that top, that top layer, or the outer layer of bark, and that's all this is, it's, you know, kind of neat, and you know, except for cleaning it up.

One of those things that, you know, you know, they have the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Sycamore is in the good, the bad, or the bad, and the ugly.

And this is one of the reasons, you know, because it's like a more than it's not.

And then it has all these problems besides not being sick.

Yes, it's got its natural growing habit.

So nothing to worry about.

Just pick, pick them up, and they make good kindling, too.

I was just gonna ask if you could just throw those in the fire pit and use them to search or bonfires to keep on camping or something.

They make wonderful.

kinlin.

Excellent, excellent.

Okay.

Now we're going to jump into some questions already.

We're gonna start with you.

We're going to go to question 35 DJ, this is from Megan.

She writes, I have a peach tree that's about four years old.

This is the first year I'm going to have peaches.

I just noticed today about a dozen of the leaves on the trees have different looking growths.

Not sure what else to call them.

Looks like something attached itself to the leaf.

I'm attaching several pictures to this email, any idea what it could be?

And is there something I can do to get rid of it if it's a bad thing, appreciate any help.

So let's check out her pictures that she sent in and see what you guys think here.

Well, we thought peach leaf curl, and then john found a picture of aphid damage that was almost identical.

I thought without seeing a picture, it might be Gall, which is not typically a big problem.

But I would recommend in this situation that she check for aphids, little green, they're tiny, they're really soft.

Like the head of a pin, maybe they're they're either kind of a leafy green or black.

They can also be kind of a reddish, they're a little bug that that sucks juice out of your leaf.

And then it makes the leaf curl.

So with all the rain we've had, it could be the fungus, peach leaf curl.

So it's been really rainy here in Central Illinois area for about a month now.

So you might want to look for both those things.

If you don't see if you if you see a treat for aphids, aphids are very easy to eradicate.

They're soft body, just spraying them with insecticidal soap solution, we usually just get rid of them.

You can try blowing them off with a sharp stream of water, I mean just water just spray it off like you're watching the fungicide.

For peach leaf curl, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to apply that don't worry I saw the fruit on the tree don't worry about that.

It will bother your fruit at all.

And you can wash it off it's usually like a copper or a sulfur based fungicide.

It's a natural eradicate that's a it's a it's a deterrent for the fungus.

So go to your local garden center tell him you got that.

But look at your tree first and see if you're dealing with an insect or a fungus.

If you see insects then you've got them if you know you know then go with the fungus try to treat as minimally as possible I would try to treat as minimally as possible.

If it's a fence, you may see a sticky substance and if they've been there for a while, you may see a black mold because once that sugar starts you know they the aphids kind of can't digest all of this stuff.

So they exuded and then it turns into what they call a city mold, which is a black mold.

And that will come later.

But that's a sure sign that you have aphids too.

Yeah, forgot about the honeydew Thank you.

All right, we are going to Gen DJ This is question number 42.

This is from Ethan.

He wants to know, if his let me find it here.

There we go.

I wanted to know if my coreopsis will overwinter in pots outside.

Jen, what do you what are your thoughts here?

Um, well, my first thought is it's possible with the right insulation on the pots if he has to leave the parts outside.

If they're big enough, they may overwinter as they are.

But we don't have any good way of predicting with 100% accuracy, what our winter would be like, if he can move them into a garage or a shed are somewhere out of the elements.

I think you'd have a better shot at having them overwinter.

If not, he can try to put some styrofoam pieces or something to insulate that pot, I would be concerned also about what the pot is made out of because that expansion and contraction of the freezing and thawing cycle.

If it's a big fancy ceramic pot, you're probably gonna destroy the pot.

There are some exceptions on the market.

There are some things some out there that are frost resistant.

But that doesn't mean they're frostproof.

Um, so I guess it's kind of like it depends sort of answer.

He's got to really look at what his conditions are like in his yard.

I personally, I would try to move it inside if I could.

I think that's the best thing is to move an inside or heal him into the garden.

You know, you can pick them into the ground.

Yeah.

styrofoam.

What do you mean by using styrofoam just put it around the pot or around the pot because what's going to kill the coreopsis is not the temperature above ground it's it's that freezing and thawing cycle over and over the winter time because it's never going to freeze and just stay cold and that that that temperature flux is what will kill the plant.

Gotcha.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

We're going to john Question number 55 This is from Monte Walker writes in my lilac bush had very few flower stocks the last few spring seasons two to seven seven stocks is all I get?

I've had about 10 years it gets lots of sun in the spring part sun and shade the rest of the growing season.

Do you think it needs food?

no pictures with this one so you know not giving a lot of growth he talked about the light needs What are your thoughts here about why it's not flowering?

I would say you know it you know in the spring which before the leaves start to form on our trees.

Yeah, maybe getting some leaves but the leaves are developed yet.

And later on during the season when it's building up.

Next year's flower buds.

It sounds like it's in in pretty much shade.

So I think that's her biggest problem is that once those that tree goes through its cycle of the old flowers then it starts the new cycle and by that time she's in too much shade and lilacs want full sun they just and as far as fertilizing if it if it if it looks healthy, I don't think I would if it's you know 10 years old she may start to notice some of the older branches the stocks are getting barky you know the you know it looks like actual bark rather than smooth skin.

That's where you can get some lilac boars these are the Japanese silky lilac so I'm not I haven't heard that they get the lilac boars quite as bad as your actual Alex but I'm sure they probably do.

So I would I would trim those out.

Unless she has the less it's the tree if it's the tree then she can obviously do that.

But I think the biggest thing is the sun.

Okay, all right, we'll come back tomorrow at number 38 This is from Terry z.

Right then blueberries won't produce after one really close to it was moved a blue crop that was six feet tall and it's always loaded until I moved the one next to it 10 feet away any help.

So would that affect whether or not the berries produce?

I think it would.

Jan or john if you want to chime in on this but this is my is my take on this.

When you have particular varieties, blueberries first of all blueberries are so haunting, but they'll always do better.

Any self pollinating plant fruit trees or anything does better if there is another plant to cross pollinate.

So there are also recommended varieties for this particular kind of apple or peach Or apricot, or pear or blueberry pollinated with this kind, or this kind, or this kind, but not this or this or this, it's because of the way they bloom.

And if they're blooming at the same time, then they can cross pollinate one another.

And if one's later on ones earlier, they miss each other's bloom to pollinate one another.

Okay, so I think you might want to consider getting another blue crop that's smaller.

Or if you know the variety of the blueberry you have that the producer well, and then you move the blue crop away from it, you know, that one, then look up what's best pollinator for that variety of leader.

The other thing I was gonna considering, too, is that she moved it.

And that, you know, it may take a couple of years for that to recover.

It's just like when we transfer or transplant something, it goes through Trek, kind of like a transplant shock.

And it's gonna take a while, you know, for it to recover.

If she sees flowers on it and lots of flowers, and she still doesn't get blueberries, I would go with what you just said.

But if it doesn't, it's probably just protecting itself until it gets its roots reestablished.

And, and then it should, you know, it could be that it's too far away.

But most the time those pollinators well will transfer but it like you say to its pollinating.

10, did you have something you want to add?

And then along the lines of what john was saying, it sounds like if I'm understanding the question correctly, she just moved that blue crop to be it's still there somewhere.

It's just further away from the original plant.

So like john said, she's she's disturbed that one, the blueberry bush that she moved, but she's also disturbed the roots of the one that remains in place.

And so if this is just the next year, I would give it time, because it's got to read, it's got to replenish that root system and recover from that stress on the roof.

Okay, awesome.

I'd also be interested to know whether or not the blue crop that she moves.

She said it was six feet tall.

I don't know if they moved it or just removed it.

No, I'm not sure.

But if they actually moved it to a different location, I'd be interested to know whether or not it gets any fruit on it.

And I don't know what time of year they moved it.

Maybe they moved it before they even bloomed or something I don't I'm not sure about all that if she was a caller.

But I can't I can't answer these questions.

So anyway, so there's one day, hopefully one day, we'll be able to follow up with Terry and see how this all panned out.

All right.

Number 62.

This will be sort of a group question.

JOHN had this one on his list.

This is from Jan equals in Petersburg, she's got some tomato plants, different varieties.

Two of the plants have what she referred to as purple spots or stuff on the leaves.

Also, one of the plants has yellow leaves on the lower branches.

Can you tell me what the purple stuff is?

And if it's harmful, they all have tomatoes growing on them, and they look good.

I've already picked one of the plants and had it had some splitting on the end.

Is there any way to avoid that?

So two part question, what do you guys think about the foliage, and then the splitting on the end?

So john, we'll have you start.

And then everyone can just sort of jump in on this one.

I think it's totally environmental.

We've had so much rain, and it looks like she's got it mounted there.

So that mound probably got drenched and drenched.

So purple tells me that there could be a phosphorus deficiency, the lower leaves are yellow, that tells me that she's also got a little bit of fungus problem in there.

And that's with all the moisture those those leaves are probably never drying out.

So it's a I think it's environmental.

If she just as patient and removes any of those lower yellow leaves and gets rid of them completely.

I think the plant will come out of it and be fine.

She may want to give it just a little bit of phosphorus, some i a slow release 10 1010 or something like that.

That's going to have more of the phosphorus are 20 2020.

Okay, all right, Jen.

I just wanted to add, I've seen that sort of reddish tone in plants that are flooded before.

It's really common in corn.

If you look at fields that are flooded with ports at a seedling stage, they turn red.

So it is a phosphorus deficiency within the plant, but it's totally related to having too much water around.

Okay, and Marty, can you talk a little bit about the splitting at the bottom?

The splitting?

She said no question that the bottom of the tomatoes are split.

Some of them.

A lot of you she's got blossom end rot and the water issue, I would say you're going to need to add a little bit of calcium and you can avoid the blast.

Demand brought.

And then you can get it as a as an amendment as a garden amendment anywhere any garden center should carry that.

Also, if the fruit is almost ripe, and actually gets a rain, it's going to the plant is going to absorb a whole bunch of moisture, put it into the fruit, and the fruit can't expand fast enough and it's going to pop like a balloon.

So if she can, if she knows she's going to get some rain, if she can go pick the fruit before that, even if it's not completely right, just bring it in and let it ripen on the counter.

I think she'd she'd be happy with that.

Yeah, so what are you doing at your house to combat these mosquitoes?

You know, we're all outside trying to weed and keep things together.

You know, what are you guys doing to not be eaten alive out there?

Well, I have the wristbands.

I've got the the head I've got the spray.

You know, mosquito repellent.

Also, if you're out in the most miserable part of the day, they don't like it as well then either.

You know, but hey, I found dryer sheets in my hat tend to keep things away.

Okay, all right, Jim.

I was gonna say judging by the look through my garden.

I haven't been out there now.

risking your eating alive as you walk out the door.

Alright guys, well, we are out of time.

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