Hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha, Spain.

And joining me in the studio today are two of our panelists who have brought in a lot of great stuff to talk about and to show you today.

But before we get into that, let's have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit more about where you can find them in the garden.

So Phil, we'll start with you.

I am a retired extension entomologist with the University of Illinois.

And so I do both things.

And I'm also bonsai hobbyists.

So we're going to talk a little bit about trees and pots today.

Excellent.

Okay, John.

And I'm John Bodensteiner.

I'm a vermillion County Master Gardener.

I dabble in a little bit of this a little bit of that.

I work at a volunteer to greenhouse so I also have access to that.

So a little bit of everything, Master gardening and all kinds of stuff.

Okay.

So let's jump in.

You guys brought lots of great stuff to talk about.

John, why don't we start with you with one of your?

Okay, well, let me talk about we had a question on prickly pear.

I'm sorry, on the perennial geraniums, yes, on how to prune those or when is the best time to prune those when is the best time I think to transplant march from Taylor Ville writes, When is the best time to divide and replant my perennial geraniums they're taking over the flower bed, and what is the best way to divide them, okay.

And fall or spring is a good time.

I like to do mine in the spring.

And, and like she says they can take over a certain area.

So it is recommended that you divide them every five years.

And another name for them is Cranesbill.

The reason for that I bought a couple of seed and this is why they are called Cranesbill.

Because as you can see, they're there they have a long narrow seat.

And then they have a little tip at the end that kind of looks like a mouth almost.

And this is the it's pretty of Geranium or Cranesbill.

If you can find it either way, if you're Googling it or something like that.

This is the flower.

And there are there are different colors of flowers.

This is the one that I have blooming.

Right now, that's a pretty like azalea and it just gets covered with them.

And, and then it's got the real kind of divided leaves.

And so it's a very nice plant.

I got this from a neighbor 40 years ago.

And I've got them all over the yard.

And they say that you should divide them about every five years.

Or to control them, you can dig up on the edge I read they are a nice plant, if you've got a hillside that is washing because the roots go everywhere and they're entangled.

And they really hold the soil.

And so there's a number of ways to divide, you could dig up the whole plant, if you're doing it every five years.

If she's got a bed that's all over, she can just dig a hole and pop the plant out.

And then depending on if she wants to transplant it, put it wherever she's going to kind of divide it, you know, so that they're manageable to the size she wants, or she can put them up and give them to friends or neighbors and do that would you transplant a big root ball or would you dig out plants and tease them out individually depends on what I'm going to where I'm going to put them if I'm going to put them in a in a new bed where I want to make a statement I would put the whole plant in there.

If I'm putting it in amongst things and they they stay nice and I'd say eight to 10 inches tall, which is a nice front and so you can once you dig them up you can cut them with a good knife or some people just go right down the middle and make a shovel and pop that out and put that in so there I just like them they're there they're good.

They're Hardy Hardy Hardy I like I said I've had mine for over 40 years now and neighbor gave them to me and we've given them to diapers I've I've painted quite a few up.

And so just a nice plant to have so and so I saw the lady that asked the question I said well I've got to show this and but very nice.

Now you know how to divide those so that in the fall you'll I like doing mine in the spring but you can do it in the fall.

One thing you want to do before you dig these up is water it the day before water that area that you're going to dig up so that and you're going to notice these things They're kind of well going to wilt a little bit for a day, but they're going to come back there.

Don't worry if they wilt a little bit, but do water him the day before, especially like Phil and I were talking, we've got bricks right now in our yard, trying to get the shovel in.

So if you want him good the day before, that loosens that soil up and doesn't harm the roots as much.

Okay, great.

Thank you, John.

Okay, we're going to fill bugs in bonsai, bonsai BMB, you need a shirt bed and breakfast.

No, I won't go to be this alright.

Or say the other part.

As Bob Euchre, who used to be the announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers said, this one's a tad overgrown.

He always said, you know, these are not bad seats, and they were out in the middle of nowhere.

So, but at any rate, this is the time of year if you have tropical plants, whether they're bonsai or not, is a good time to, to prune them to report them, etcetera.

Essentially, tropical plants do best when the nighttime temperatures are 70 degrees or above.

And so that's generally the latter half of June through July, and through most of August and so and you want a spirit of four or more weeks for the plant to regrow, whether you report to plant or prune the plant.

So, you know, July is the time to work on your topicals and they do better if they do it that way.

And so once in a while you'll get you'll get along stem coming out and and sometimes these will come from the come from the trunk.

This happens to be a ficus Burt David ei de VI, that's Ficus fic U S means a fig of which are something like veteran 50 species Birkby, EUR, T, Devi, i da v y. I also see it as David I, and David I, and B, er T and all sorts of things that I think the right one is what I just said, No, so toe to toe to cut things back, you always want to go back to where you have something to take off and grow from there.

And this is a nice one here.

And I really don't need anything that huge.

So these are my bones, high pruners, and it doesn't hurt your feelings a little bit to get that guy off.

Just let let them let the plant take all the feelings, which are starting to feel like plants have feelings.

So being a studio you can just and smaller or smaller Yeah.

And you kind of print some things back and head them back so that they will so that they will will tend to be a little more bushier and so on.

And so you know you have a you have a fruit plants, which will then you'll get some more growing out in this area.

And I kind of like this coming off to the side.

So that's kind of a way you can prune a tuna bone side.

It's a little over potted but it has a big root system so we're kinda working it down to where it's less of a pot, right?

This doesn't even look real it's so pretty.

Yeah, it's It's alive.

It's actually a Chinese plant called Chinese sweet plum Saju Risha seasons, sh E R, T iy, ey sh e AR, dia thiese ns, th, e ZANS Th e z ans and it's a it's another tropical and so you don't have to have just figs or, or different Baki or something of that nature.

Schaeffler has to have a tropical plant.

And the interesting thing about this I've already just pruned it back it had some other growth on it.

And you can see the new growth coming out which will kind of take over the spot and interesting feature about this this from this side it looks like it's a and this is part of a fooling that we do a bonsai sometimes this looks like a fairly nice plant and and welfare foliated but if you turn it around, you will discover that it's all the foliage is coming off of two branches or three branches.

And essentially the center of a plant is dead.

But leaving that part on makes it look like it's old because old plants tend to have some dead stuff on him.

Some people aren't the audio is good so well that's part of what we really like to have on a bone side and give it give an appearance of age over something which is which is not that old and Um, you know, I don't know how old is play it is.

I we always try to make things look old.

We don't we don't always it doesn't make any of us how old yes, we're doing pretty good but that's, that's right.

John and I are in her mid 20s And we don't we only look so it's very nice.

So this is a time of year which you can you can report you can prune your tropical plants if you want to have them back real hard, many times almost to the base leave a couple of leaves to keep a plant alive.

They'll come out and and if you've got these trees or plants that have come you come trees and you think what can I do you know it's a house plant.

Now you know it's they appreciate being outside in the shade little bit during the summer and and you can hack them back and this time of year, they will surprise you with what they will put up with.

I have a question on this plot.

You can cut off quite a hunk and it's a fig tree.

Have you ever tried propagating the cuttings I was already eyeballing we do.

We do propagate them most commonly on big things we will do air layering which in which you essentially cut to cut the bark off for an inch or so and scrape it down.

Scrape the wood down to where it's where it's white, you want to get all the green part which is going to be xylem and phloem off of that and that does then you end up getting roots at the top part of it.

And so and so I threw that too far away the but you can put you can do that and then you put put peat moss up around it you put rooting hormone at the base of the Topcon peat moss around it and then well we like to use take an old small pot, cut it open cut it out and put it up around the peat moss or stick the peat moss into it and then put a plastic bag around it to keep it keep it moist and have a such as you can open a topic which was die to water as it needs and typically with a ficus in a spanner or a fig probably about this time of year and we've just done a couple of big my wife just did a couple of big ones that are bonsai group in our in our bonsai collection probably four to six weeks that will be routed so probably before we have to move them in for the fall.

We'll be able to push them off and report them and other trees and shrubs do it that way.

Maples will route in three to four weeks they are very good at making I'm trying one on a Japanese lilac right now I've got a little I've got I've ordered some little plastic round balls that you can I think those on before I bought some of those too and no light gets in there and I usually still wrap them in plastic is to make sure the moisture the stag monsters monster bring them in next time.

Check the progress.

Okay, John, we're back to you.

Okay.

The other thing I brought today was I'm gonna put my gloves on because I'm going to I already got stung this morning early.

I brought in a prickly pear cactus.

This almost looks like could be Mickey.

Mickey, this is a a cactus that is Hardy in our zone.

I have an outside and I've had these for many, many years.

I got my sister one of my sisters lives in Oklahoma and she gave me a couple of them and I've had them for many many years and they're really easy to grow.

They have a beautiful yellow flower.

This is this is in the cactus the cacti.

Casey Family.

It's up up poop Tae opuntia approved Chia teamwear and this is called BAC E. These are these are called paddles.

They are edible.

And this one here is one that I'll show.

These are the fruits of the flowers and you can make jam out of those.

And you can see this one, I just stuck one of these paddles in ground and you can see the you know, within a couple of weeks, maybe six weeks, I had real nice roots.

Now the one thing that you want to do is and I'll show this on this one is once you break this off.

Now I'm going to plant this right at this level.

You want to leave this callus off for about three days.

Let it dry, don't put it and then you're going to put it in some sand or very good soil A very well drained soil.

And you don't water it for about two weeks.

Once you put it, the soils should be a little bit moist but not soggy or wet.

And it's going to form its own roots.

And then you can transplant that to wherever they do well outside.

I have had them in pot survive.

They say that if you put them in pots, especially if we have a really cold cold winter, that you should bring them in.

But I have never I've never in my No, I have never had one that has died because of of the watery or because of the the cold temperature all the way back.

No, no, it does not usually it's going to shrivel, it's going to look like it's and it may turn a little purplish, it's going to get wrinkled.

But as soon as spring comes, it's going to the chlorophyll is going to come.

And I think what happens is the external chlorophyll kind of dies, that green kind of dies back and there must be some red and yellow chlorophyll in there that kind of shows through.

And so what you want to wear leather gloves or, or something, because these little barbs have hooks on them.

And once they get in, I mean you just can't go in there and pick them off.

They're there they you have to really pull on them and work them free.

The best.

The best way to do it.

If you get those in your skin has duct tape loaded.

And so another use for duct tape.

Is this a full sun?

Just going over my notes here to make sure I don't forget anything.

The main thing that is to let them callus off, they can live 2030 years, wow, I've had mine probably over 30 years now, you know and and the the original leaves are probably gone many times.

But you know, a lot of times, they'll get to that big and they'll just lay down and pretty soon.

That's rooted and and then you can snip them off and move them.

So sometimes during the winter, the pads will collapse against the ground.

Yep.

Don't worry about it.

They'll come back up in the spring.

Wow.

Interesting.

I think if you go to the southwest, you go to the restaurants and they're there.

You can find them to eat all over.

Do you eat them?

I have not yet?

Not yet.

But we all know that you're gonna get a good shot.

It could be on the grill here.

Oh, okay.

We'll look for an update from that.

Let's see, Kathy Johnson wrote it on Facebook.

She says now that I've been squirrels and rabbits from our raised beds, what is eating the marigolds.

I don't know how she's banned squirrels and rabbits, I would love probably fencing, I would guess.

And, and you can do that with a typically what you will use is, is 36 inch i for for rabbits typically 36 inch eye, poultry netting chicken wire, and you bend the bottom six inches out at a right angle to the outside.

And you bury that little with an inch or so soil.

And that keeps the rabbits from tunneling underneath a fence because we're going to be outside if they're trying to tunnel when they're standing and what they're trying to tunnel through under.

So that doesn't work.

And a rabbit can jump two feet but not two and a half feet.

And so the when you have 36 inch high mesh, you bottom tend to bend to six inches out, you have 30 inches left, which is higher than a Cottontail can jump.

We're not talking about jackrabbits.

And so that'll work.

If you are going to keep the keeper raccoons out.

If you don't support the top eight inches to a foot as raccoon tries to climb it or a squirrel it will tend to flock back over and duck back on the ground.

You may have to go all the way across the top for for records.

But to get back to the right question here.

And that is that people have this idea that that things don't like marigolds, and it's really not right.

Somehow along the line.

There's been some research done which has shown that certain varieties of of marigolds are going to keep away certain types of nematodes, particularly plant parasitic nematodes that are common in California.

And, you know, if it's written in California, it's got to be right.

Right.

And that is part is right.

That somehow along the line, people that wrote organic gardening things and things that weren't over gardening books, somehow it got into the, into the idea, urban legends sort of thing, that that marigolds repelled insects, and there isn't anything farther from the truth.

I mean, they are they are they will attract aphids and huge numbers, particularly very yellow and orange flowers.

We actually use those that same color as entomologists in what we call Water Pan traps, in which we put out a pan of water, that color.

And we are able to sample all the aphids in an area just by putting that up on us on a post.

That color is enough to bring the ages of you don't need anything else.

And so when when when marigolds are blooming, they're bringing in those, they're bringing in leaf hoppers, they're bringing in a lot of other plants, there are cut worms that will eat climb and the Black Cutworm that will cut off your tomato plant will climb up on a marigold and eat the tops off at night.

Grasshoppers will eat the tops off a miracle, it's pretty much everything, lots of things will feed on marigolds, and they are kind of a vein with, with people that have have public gardens you'll go and you'll see the miracles beautiful anytime of the summer, when in fact those miracles have been replaced once or twice during the summer.

Because miracles are very attracted to leaf hoppers, which tramps many of which carry a phytoplasma disease called Aster yellows, which will kill the marigolds off, typically in early to mid summer.

And anybody that has a public garden has more to plant back out there.

And more to plant back out there in the fall.

Because there's really not any cure for it.

You just replace the plants.

And people don't realize anything else has happened.

So it's, you know, the idea that marigolds are something that will keep the pests out of your garden.

And actually, entomologists who are doing research on insects will plant miracles around the edge of the garden to attract women so they have plenty of insects to study.

Interesting.

I've heard that I've heard that they repel insects, but now you heard it here first.

Okay, we got about five minutes left.

John, you've got one more I just I have I just brought in I want to show my, this is what my tree Lily is.

This is one of I hit the white one also.

And these are called Trillo lists.

Because this one here right now is about eight foot tall.

Wow.

And it's the nice thing with these is I find I have rabbits also and deer that like to eat my lilies.

That's the one they're usually very pest free as far as and they're they're very hardy.

And these eight foot I haven't had like Phil says I haven't had the jack rabbit or anything jumped that high to eat the flower but off yet you're doing on a trellis do they need support?

Standing freestanding, the stem is very, very, very heavy.

And I've never had one blown over yet.

Nice.

They're not too far from the house.

So they it does get protected on the south side.

So it gets some nice filtered sun.

And and they are very fragrant and and Phil was saying that these are more fragrant in this morning.

So that probably mean for the morning.

So that their their their moth during the night.

That's when they're pollinated by the MAS then so nice.

And the smell is really really it's I said earlier, it smells like vacation.

If I put this in our kitchen.

Just a couple of these.

You can smell it throughout.

It's almost too strong sometimes.

Excellent.

Okay, thank you fell.

We've got two minutes left, we got one, one item left, we got a lot of storms through Midwest recently, and a lot of tree branches have come down.

And what happens many times people get tree branches down they started wondering, well, why was that tree branch dead.

And there's a lot of reasons but what they will do is they will look at him and they'll see holes in the bark, little round holes or little flattish holes.

Or if a barks off like here you can see that there's some tunneling and boring that's occurred associated with this couple of different types of bores.

So they actually have an ant nest in here when I pulled it out this morning.

And, and so but these are secondary bores, they branch die due to being over shaded by the by the tree branches up above.

Or maybe it it just if they get too many branches, they'll just pinch it off after trunk for tree will itself and kill the branch because it doesn't need it anymore.

And then you'll get secondary bores that will come in and they'll make all kinds of holes and tunneling and so on.

Don't get upset about this stuff.

This is nature of part of nature.

The bores that attack these dead branches are going to attack your healthy tree for the most part, and there's no reason to get upset about them.

I noticed I noticed there's a few lichens on there, which means that you've got good healthy air around your house, but Elfi air and also some horticulturist would say the tree is a grind real fast because the like is that time to grow on it before the bark sloughs off.

So the insects know that this is a weekend or dying kind of thing.

Yeah, tap and check and see if that's the best one to dispersion was on the dead and dying.

Or you know, it's so fascinating.

my seven year old would just see a rifle.

But you're seeing like, insect lives and habits and ants and who lives where and what the disease of this tree was.

It's just fascinating to see, you know how each person interpreted to hold their tree then you'd be looking at sources of places for woodpeckers to live squirrels to Den up all this sort of stuff and and, and my house raccoons to live inside of the dead the trunk so so yeah, I a tree with dies, is is not a waste.

It is another habitat.

You had a story to tell as well.

All right, gentlemen, we are out of time.

Thank you so much for coming in.

And thank you so much for watching.

If you've got any questions for the experts, you can send them in to us at your garden@gmail.com or search for us on socials.

Just look forward Mid American gardener and we will see you next time.

Good night.