[THEME MUSIC] 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 my pals here to talk about all things green and growing.

We've got lots of show and tells lots of things to cover, so let's have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about them before we get started.

So John, we'll start with you.

I am John Bodensteiner.

I'm a Vermilion County Master Gardener.

I've been doing this for a while.

I'm one of the older, I think, participants in the show and- Seasoned.

Seasoned.

There you go.

And I like, I say, I like pretty much everything.

I've tried some new things.

You'll find out today, trying some new things, and go from there.

That's the beauty of gardening.

There's always something new to get into.

All right, Jim.

I'm Jim Appleby, a retired entomologist for the Illinois Natural History Survey here on the campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign Urbana.

So I deal with the insects and mites attacking trees, shrubs and flowers.

Wonderful.

Okay, so let's jump in and get started.

John, I don't know which one you want to talk I'm going to do the real quick one, Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

Some people have have asked about these, so I thought I'd bring got two different colors here.

I actually have three.

But these are perennial hibiscus, and they are showstoppers.

These are, well, I say dinner, dinner plate size, and the coloring on them is, is fantastic.

The other one I have is more like this.

It's got a it's kind of a combination of the two, and got a little bit more red in it than the pink, and a little bit longer veins.

But they are just, to me, just showstoppers.

They bloom and you can see them from a long ways, especially the lighter ones that the real red ones sometimes will fade into because it's a darker leafed you can find different colored leaves on them.

And the one thing that people ask me most about is my hibiscus didn't come up this spring.

Well, they're asking me in April and May?

Well, yeah, mine don't come up until first part of June, and so you've got to be patient.

I know that's one of our things, to be patient as gardeners.

And it's, it's one of those that it, it and I've had the bees and the butterflies like this, like the little flower.

Once you plant that, how long does it take for them to get established and do as well as yours are?

Are you going to be waiting?

I bought established roots, and they bloomed the first year, really, okay?

They've gotten bigger and spread out a little bit.

They stooled out.

And so now the trees are, I'd say, four to five feet high and four to five feet wide.

And so they're disease resistant, deer resistant.

I've never had deer eat them, and they've eaten everything else in my hair, just about maintenance wise, do you have to do a lot of pruning or dead heading or shaping?

I leave them go during the winter.

I don't trim them back at all because they have kind of a spongy inside of the stem.

And I figure if I leave them, there might be an insect that burrows in there and over winters, especially if it's beneficial.

So I wait till spring, I trim them back to the ground.

I take my my loppers, and trim them to the ground and and then just wait and I mulch them good.

And they're just, there's really no maintenance to them at all.

We love that.

And they're so, I mean, they don't even look real.

They're absolutely gorgeous.

But these, I just thought I'd bring, yes, I was surprised that, you know, and you can take these in and put them in a low saucer in the middle of the plate, in the middle of the table, and just enjoy them.

Just enjoy one flower will make a bouquet.

Yes?

Honestly, yeah, those are gorgeous.

Yeah, Jim, you were smitten by those when, when you walked in, well, I was in there deer resistant.

I mean, yeah, I've never, had, never had them eat the leaves or the flowers or that's a big plus.

We were just talking before the show that both of their yards have been rated by local wildlife, so that might be something that you want to look into.

Okay, groundhogs didn't bother them either.

So I haven't had nothing bother them.

Hey, Wow, sounds like something you might want to invest in.

Yes, all right, so now we're going to talk damage.

Jim, right.

Yes.

Okay, so what?

What specimen Do you have?

Have here we have here is privet, and this was the compliments of my good neighbor who has privet.

I don't have any privet, but there's one insect in here in the Midwest that gets on privet the overwinter in the egg stage under a leaf, a little leaf bud, and then when these eggs hatch, and they hatch, just as the new growth starts on privet, and then the nymphs, the immature, will feed inside the leaf with a leaflet, and will cause this, this kind of injury that you have here is this curling of the leaves.

Now, do you need to control it?

Well, I don't, not sure it's sort of esthetic.

Do you really want see that injury or not?

Sometimes I've seen some plants that were badly injured by it, curled leaves.

They don't, you know, they stay green.

So it's not, so it's not a big deal if you don't do anything.

But it's a it's very common on American privet here in the in the Midwest, okay, so if we go to the slides, I'd like to show you some slides, sure.

So here we see some leaf damage by the the boxwood psyllid.

And if we go to the next one, here's the in the wintertime, they overwinter under the bud scale.

So in the wintertime, if you pull back that brown area, you'd find a little orange egg in that.

And that's how they overwinter.

And so as soon as the new growth starts in the spring, the nymphs hatch, and then they will crawl into the bud.

And here we see the the close up of the nymphs itself and the leaflet.

And so that's what causes the curling.

The feeding of the nymph will cause the leaf leaflet to curl.

And then they in that state for about three weeks, and then they emerge as an adult.

The adult is sort of a greenish insects, only about 1/8 of an inch in length, and they don't cause any injury.

It's the nymphs.

But these will generally emerge as an adult towards the latter part of April, and then they may deposit their egg, and there's only one generation a year.

So if we look at the control for the control, you want to shear off new spring growth, certainly by mid April, because by then the nymphs are in the buds.

The earlier, the better.

If you can do it as soon as you're seeing some new growth, that's when you want to shear it.

So that will remove a lot of the nymphs.

You won't get complete control, but it will get a good many of them.

And then if you want to go with control, I would suggest spraying with horticultural oil spray.

Be sure it's a horticultural oil spray and you want to do that again, just as you see new growth starting on that so then there won't be any injury at all.

Now, two questions, when you say new growth, are we talking about as we're shaping up our boxwood?

Is that what you're talking about, giving it that uniform look, that kind of, you know, shearing it on the top, or what is the that new growth that we're looking for?

Well, new growth on the spring will sprout out.

And so you can do both this top as well as the sides, and you won't eliminate completely, but it will plant, will produce new growth which will not be injured, gotcha.

And then my second question was, do we need to do anything special with the trimmings and the parts that we cut off if there's an infection or infestation, No.

Nymphs can't fly.

Okay, all right, wonderful.

Thank you very much.

We're going to come back to you because you brought some other things in, John, we are back to you with your new hobby.

Yeah, well, Phil Nixon kind of got me into this bonsai.

I've been dabbling in it for a couple years, and I had a evergreen that I had worked on, and was beautiful.

I lost it.

Unfortunately, it didn't get watered for a while, and so that's one thing.

Bonsais do take some dedication and some constant care.

I saw somebody at the Champaign garden walk.

There was a one of the vendors, there had some elephant bush.

This is an elephant bush.

This is what I've been just playing with here recently, and it seems to work pretty, pretty nicely.

It.

I've had some success with it so, but I just thought I'd bring it.

I did a few things like this little tea cup.

It's a little oriental tea cup.

It's got some scenes on it.

And what I did is, drainage is, is, is very important.

I went to the habitat and bought some of these things that really aren't bonsai containers, but they reminded me of.

Bonsai containers.

But the one thing is they don't have any drainage holes.

So I did go on the internet, and I did find these ceramic drill bits.

And depending on the size, I think I've got anywhere I've got a couple smaller than this, and this is the biggest one.

But on a regular drill, you just go down there and you take your time, put a little pressure, and they will slowly put a hole, drill a hole into the into the glass or the this type of of ceramic container, so you can use just lining.

And I thought I saw that, and I said, I think I'd like to make a try to make a bonsai.

So what I did, I put three holes in that one, I've got the wire that is looped underneath, and it comes up, and then I've, I've wired the branch, and that's another thing that you'll need, is some wiring if you're going to get into it.

And it comes in varying colors.

This is a copper, there's a green, there's black, and it's, it's, it's special bonsai wire, and it's very easy to bend.

It's very flexible.

And so, you know, you can go around these branches, and then it still has to be somewhat sturdy in that it has to hold, hold the shape of the that you want to shape it into.

So how plant is this not right here?

How long?

How old is this right here?

This one?

Yeah, well, I cut it off of here, and so I've only had that in for about, I'd say maybe 50 days, 60 days.

Yeah, that looks good.

Let's talk about your planting medium.

If someone saw this and was interested, you want a lot of grit or sand in it, and you don't want to have real rich soil.

I've got a little bit of peat moss in it, a little bit of topsoil and but mostly grit sand.

And then I've topped it with with oak shavings.

My neighbor does some woodworking, so you can put pea gravel on them too, so that they kind of finish it off.

But I like the looks of the and and it's really easy.

You buy these are pretty available at any of your stores, and all you have to do is just take one of these branches and I'll just take I'll take this one here.

It's kind of and you cut it off.

Now I'll let this, what they call callus off for a couple days, and then I'll after, after calluses off, I'll get some rooting cop out and stick it into some soil and let it get started.

If I want to get it started in here, I'll wire it right away and and then I'll just start with my wire and just start going around.

And that's just to provide the stability and keep it growing in the direction that you want it to.

And that's all it does.

Is that you're, you're gonna, it's, it's to shape the thing.

So now, if I wanted to take this and bend it a little bit more, and it's gonna hold it there.

Jim, I think we just found our winter hobby.

That's another thing, even winter or right now, when it's too hot to be outside, you can bring this in and sit around, because they do take some maintenance.

And you know, they're so expensive when you try to buy something, oh yes, they are.

Even the tiny ones are very expensive.

Yeah, you got these little tools, these little snippers, that you could go in and snip the leaves in.

This seems so fun.

And just a nice, you know, easy going project to be able to do, yeah, you want to make sure that, you know, and then you have to have some good lighting you want.

I have these out underneath my porch, outside so that they're getting good air, good, good quality.

And then I water them, probably, depending on the soil, and I'll test it and just feel it.

And I love that you were just able to go out and just thrift some really cool pieces and pots and, you know things.

I got 10 of these for $10 so, heck, yes.

So 10, 10, 10 pots for $10 and I drilled my own holes.

Yes, not true, but, you know, they were very nice.

And the wire, the wire is very so depending on down here, I'm going to use a heavier gauge.

Up here, I used a lighter gauge, which is, you know, the green or the, you know, you know, you get a you can order a kit, and it comes with everything you need, all the different sizes of wire.

And it also had the little snips in there.

And so you get a very nice, not that, to get Phil on the line and do just like a bonsai episode, there is a local bonsai group that Phil belongs to.

I think it's Champaign County or Maine Central Illinois, the bonsai society.

You can find them on the Internet or talk to Phil next time.

Yes, but he got me interested in it.

So I thought, anybody can, you know, I have nothing invested in this other than maybe, maybe $2 if I don't like what, you could sell it.

Yeah, if I, if I, if I fail, I can start over.

You're going to be rolling in money.

[laughter] All right, let's do a couple of questions.

John, you had your eye on a couple.

Let's talk about the peaches.

One.

This is Leland Warzala writes, When I pick peaches off of my two trees, 90% of them have a single pinhead size hole.

I haven't noticed any grubs or insects.

I have sprayed them with insecticidal soap with no success.

Maybe what was in there already emerged and has left wonder if it could be hummingbirds or other birds getting some of the pulp or juice.

Any thoughts, I don't think it's a hummingbird.

That's it's probably it could be one of two things.

It could be a brown marmalade stink bug.

They like soft fruits and and then, but it could have been something that was in inside.

It may have been there all the time and worked its way out.

And, okay, you know, it's interesting that make a slice of where that hole is and to see if something actually, really went right.

But there are bags, you know, i and i forgot to bring one, but there's these little zip type bags that you can for fruits, that you can put around your fruits early, early spring, so that it'll protect the fruit.

And I've done it, and they have different colored ones, or some that are opaque.

I like the ones that have a little mesh, tiny mesh, because the sunlight still gets in there.

Yes, and then you don't end up with bleached fruit or so.

Okay, all right, Jim, you brought in another specimen for us, one of your faves.

This is one of my favorite bushes.

This is button bush.

It's native to the Midwest, and it starts blooming here in the central Illinois in about the first of July, and it's got these beautiful blooms.

And the nice thing about button Bush, the leaves are resistant to Japanese beetle, which is a real plus.

And that's, you know, the leaves are nice and dark green, glossy, and it's got these beautiful blooms, and the butterflies just absolutely love these blooms.

So it's really nice bush, and it's now available commercially.

So you can purchase these commercially.

I would encourage everyone to now, they do require a little bit moisture.

They do well in native areas along the edges of ponds.

Okay, I have two bushes, and I generally, when I'm outside and I near a spigot, I throw some water underneath the plants.

Tell us about the growing behavior.

What size is it?

Well, they can actually grow up to about 10, 12, feet, but they take pruning very easily.

So you can prune them, or however, how you want them, but they're really a nice plant that is pretty, and that would be a nice pop of like, just the visual, you know, in the landscape is pretty, it's just absolutely gorgeous.

That's just a whole different flower than you would expect, right?

Do they come in any other colors or just white?

I don't know about that.

I think that's the only but anything that's a native that attracts butterflies, and I'm sold, yep, very pretty.

Yeah, we've got some down at the library at Danville, some of our native, all our native flowers that we've planted.

The Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists have planted three or 400 native plants around the library.

And if you go down into Danville, downtown Danville, to the library, you'll see, and it's the third year.

So it takes about three years, four years, for natives to get established.

But once they get there like that, probably you have no diseases.

No, I don't know of anything.

Yeah, it's very low maintenance.

It likes our weather.

And so the diseases are, if there is a disease, it copes with it.

So that's, that's what's really nice with natives.

Great plant.

Very nice.

Okay, thank you.

Let's see.

We've got one more question.

This one is about a sapling.

It's kind of long, so I'll paraphrase.

I have a pink lady apple sapling that I started from a sprouted seed as an experiment.

I've got it outside and notice that the leaves keep turning brown and crispy.

At first, I thought it was just the wind, but now I'm not sure if it's a fungus or what.

I have a general fungicide spray, but it has not helped at all.

Any advice on what could be wrong here.

So we pulled up the picture and.

Yeah, and you had some concerns right away about just trying to grow this in general.

Yeah, she said as a pink lady, and she got it a seed.

A pink lady is a hybrid type Apple, so I doubt that the seed is going to be the same fruit that she is wanting.

It's probably going to revert back to one of the original mother or father plants.

And so being that in a pot that size with our weather, and I see a little it's on the edges, so that would tell me that it was got too dry at one time.

Okay, God, maybe she may have had it inside and brought it out, so it may have got a little sun, sun burnt, if she didn't harden it off.

And the other thing is, if it reverts back to and apples are terrible for this.

She was talking about a fungus, Cedar apple rust is just if there's a cedar tree, a red cedar native tree in the area.

It's going to probably get it, because, again, I don't know what kind of an apple this is, for sure, and she will, it may be.

It may end up, you know, she has that, that AABB type crossing where it may it may just be a pink lady, but unlikely.

And now, at what point would you take this out of the pot and put it in the ground?

Or is it too late for that this year, I would wait till this fall.

Wait till the fall.

You know, once our you know, I wouldn't do it today or tomorrow with 100 and whatever we're going to have heat index and but I would wait till this fall, when, that's when you actually are best to plant your trees.

I would make sure that, you know, she clears a spot at least three foot around with no grass, because grass is aleopathic.

It'll slow that.

I think a U of I was actually the one that did some studies.

They had, like, 100 trees, and they varied the width of the the clean area where they didn't they mulched and they pulled the grass back and they showed pictures.

It was unbelievable, from the zero where they just planted in ground and let the grass grow right up, those were probably two or three feet tall compared to the ones that had a three or four foot circle with no grass, they were four or five times the size, because just the allopathic nature of grass will prohibit the growth or inhibit the won't prohibit it'll slow the growth down, kind of like black walnuts do the jugalone in those there, they have An allopathic which means they compete.

They they don't want the the other, they want to be the main character, like tomatoes and black black walnuts.

Yes, you may have some.

Have the tomatoes may be okay, the plants, but the fruit, they probably will not fruit.

Gotcha.

So it's that allopathic chemical, and so that's one thing I would make sure, and that she waters it in.

Well, make sure she waters it until the ground freezes, rabbits or things like that.

She may want to strip the lower leaves off and wrap it so that the rodent gives a little bit more protection, because that's going to be very vulnerable to that.

Gotcha, okay, all right, Jim, you've got one more specimen.

I don't want to skip over.

We've got about three minutes.

Well, I was on the program here a couple weeks ago, and I showed injury here by herbicide.

Now, I didn't use any herbicide at all on my property, but look what it's done to my bread.

But so this probably is 2, 4-D or dicamba, both chemical herbicides are very volatile.

So what you see here is when the red bud early in the spring produced big leaves, new leaves, then these were not well, they're affected a little bit, but two.

But then, as a plant grows, leaf grows out, the branch grows out, then you get these available.

And so the most ones that are really susceptible to injury are the newly formed leaves.

So here you see how distorted they are, and they're really leather like now just paint a picture of how far away this tree is from where the field is, I think probably about a mile.

Yeah, it can be really some distance with the winds we've had this year and the heat and like that leaf, probably that first leaf was probably already formed by before they sprayed.

And then red buds and grape vines leaves are the two.

If you want to know if you've had some herbicide drift, look at your red butts or your grape and you'll know whether you've had tomatoes and tomatoes too.

That's tough because there's not a whole lot you can do about it if you're surrounded by an agricultural, you know, in an agricultural area, but it's good to know, yeah, and to know that it can drift that far is.

It can drift a long distance.

Yeah, okay, it's gotten, you know, with the weather conditions and the sprays have gotten to be so potent, and, yeah, and some plants are just so susceptible, like the red buds and- boxwood is also another plant.

Oh, is it?

Oh?

Boxwood is very shows it immediately.

Yeah, it's a nasty tree.

Boxwood, but, yeah, but it is very susceptible to herbicide.

Before we go, we've got about a minute left.

A few years ago, it's probably been five or six years, I think maybe you brought ground cherries on the show, and I took a couple ground cherries home, and then from there, I've grown my own now.

So we, I had them established at the place we lived at before, and then we moved.

And this is the second year that they've come up.

But just goes to show you, know, when you share things with your friends, they just keep on growing.

ground.

That's why they're called ground cherries, and you pick up cherries, and you pick them, and then you take the husk off, and then I make a simple syrup.

Yes, I've had it, throw them in there and...

Very good.

Well, guys, thank you so much for coming.

We got a lot accomplished.

We talked about a lot today.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you for watching.

If you've got questions, send them in to yourgarden@gmail.com And we will see you next time.

Good night.

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