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 that you will definitely recognize we've got Ella and Kay in the house with us today.

So let's have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit more about their specialties and what they'd like to do outside the yard.

So Kay, we'll start with you.

Okay.

I'm a Champaign County Master Gardener.

I garden.

Lot of herbs and flowers and vegetable garden.

So you name you name it tomatoes or Yeah, one of your favorites.

And I volunteer out at Allerton Park.

We have an herb garden out there that I kind of oversees.

Excellent, excellent.

All right.

Hello.

I'm Ella Maxwell.

I'm a Tazwell County Master Gardener and a horticulturist and I'm just working part time at a nursery now local nursery hairs where I've been for a long time.

And I have a large yard and enjoy gardening and brought some peonies and I know Allerton has beautiful.

Yes.

And they're in full bloom or Yeah, so we can talk about those today.

Excellent.

Excellent.

And you know, if you've if you've watched the show before, you know about once a year, I lose my voice.

And so here we are, so bear with me.

We're gonna get through this as best we can.

So you ladies got lots of cool stuff to talk about.

We'll start with you.

What's your what's your first show until well, I've been the last show for three or so years I've been working on a prairie plant garden, okay.

And I get my plants from Grand Prairie Friends, they have a Grand Prairie friends, okay, it's a group in in Urbana, But they restore prairie areas and try to save them and they have a plant sale every year of of prairie plants.

And so that's where most of mine have come from.

And this is a cardinal flower, cardinal flower.

cardinal flower is a perennial.

It likes kind of moist areas.

So I'm going to be doing a lot of water.

Once I get this in.

And it it gets about three feet tall or some or more and it has a bright red flower on it that hummingbirds like and bees like so this was the name right gardener flower.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That it is a hardy perennial, and I'm kind of excited.

Awesome.

This is in addition to my prairie garden.

I love that everyone is starting to move into that native prairie pollinator space is is is native and Prairie.

Are they kind of synonymous?

Yes, yes.

Yeah, they are.

prairie plants are usually needed.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Okay.

I have to look that one up, because I don't think I've seen it before.

But if it draws hummingbirds, I'm sold.

I saw my first one on Sunday.

You know, we had one show up.

Oh, about six or eight weeks ago.

Oh, early birds, literally and we never saw it again.

And I have a hummingbird feeder out.

And a few days ago, one stopped for a while and I haven't seen it since that was first.

Excellent.

Okay, thank you so much.

All right.

Yeah, we're gonna go to you.

Well, I just wanted to comment on case look, it's Lobelia and there are several different species and I have the blue one.

And I think the hummingbirds like that one well, too, I don't get a lot of hummingbirds because I have more shade trees and things.

And and I'm not putting out a feeder and that really, I think the feeder is the best way to get them.

So what I brought today, were some peonies here lovely.

blooming like crazy they are and they're so lovely.

And there's a couple of different kinds of peonies.

Most of the peonies that I grow and that you find in the in the trade are her herbaceous peonies, so that means that the the whole foliage and everything dies back and so in the fall, you'll cut back the foliage, especially if it starts to get kind of ugly looking.

And you can see already I'm getting some spots on this.

I think that's just from a fungus.

Not really anything significant, but this is a really nice one called coral charm, and it has a real stiffs and it has kind of a single flower.

It hasn't really totally opened But you can see that it's going to, you know, be it be a little bit different because you can see that the pile and the stamens were this one right here.

This one is more like an old fashioned peony.

They call it a bomb.

So it's big.

And this is the one that fills up with water and then goes over.

So a couple of ways to really keep your peonies upright and looking good.

The first thing is that you can see right here I have some panty support.

Now they only work if they're not still hanging in your garage.

I had to go out and tie up my peonies with twine, because I didn't get the supports on I just escaped me.

And once they're so big, it's very difficult to try to get them on there, but they have the big circles.

And then they have the ones with the cross bars and I kind of like those.

And then you know, you can move them up with the plant.

Something like this really doesn't flap over, but when it gets real big, you know, they can kind of lean.

But another thing that you can do is you can take out all the other little side blooms just to keep this the best, biggest bloom.

So I guess I should have had a prune or to do this.

And you would have done it when it was smaller, but they will kind of re bloom.

But this is really the quintessential beautiful one.

So there are tree peonies, and then there are these herbaceous peonies and oodles and oodles of peonies.

And back in 1948.

There was a Japanese doctor who was interested in peonies and doing these interspecific crosses where you would take two different species and you would cross them and his last name was Ito.

And now there is a peony.

Unfortunately, he never got to see any of his hybrid peonies bloom.

But now there are all these different itoh peonies out that are intersectional.

So that means there between two different kinds of peonies, you can see the foliage is much more cut there.

They've got really strong stems.

There's a yellow one, so you can get yellow in the series.

That's called Bart satellites.

Very popular one that's, that's being sold.

So I do have a couple of these and and find them doing doing well.

And again, this would be one where maybe I would want to just deadhead this out so that I get a you know, a really nice bloom.

And as long as it's staying upright, and right now doesn't look like rain in the forecast.

It's always sad when the peonies are fully open, and then we get this huge rainstorm and it matters.

Yes.

So use the cages for the staking.

You can desk buds, some of them and try growing some of the other species to get just some beautiful love would you ever.

I mean, obviously you brought them in and a vase, but do you make a lot of cut arrangements with your pants?

Or do you just enjoy them outside?

I pretty much enjoy them outside.

But you know, I'm gonna start cutting them more.

Oh, I bring them in.

And they're so thick this year?

Yes.

I mean, my Peonies are just solid blossoms.

And and so you want to you don't want to remove the foliage until it's starting to look really ratty or later to fall and you don't want to transplant peonies until later in August September.

So yeah, I kind of have a sent a nice little sent to them.

Yeah, absolutely beautiful.

And then, you know, there's the relationship with the peonies in the ants.

Oh, yeah.

Do you dip yours?

How did you shake just give them a good shake?

Yeah, that's what I do too.

Okay, the answer there because the peony bud has some resins on it.

And sweet doesn't yes, they're attracted to that.

But you don't have to have peonies.

I ant.

For the peonies to open they can open without the ants.

Just sometimes they're there.

That's a myth right that they won't open but they are helpful, right?

They do help?

Sure.

I think I read and I don't know if it's true or not, but they help other pests.

They keep other pet So way from the peonies, I'm not sure about that.

So time to be sued actually, sometimes ants defend aphids on plants so that they can harvest their honey do I've read that before so well, we're still in the air about that.

Yes, they're there, but just give him a good shake, and maybe he won't take them all in the house.

Okay, okay, what else do you have?

Well, I have it up here, a dahlia tubers.

Oh, and I wanted to talk a little bit about planting dahlias.

This actually is a big, they call them dinner plate dahlias.

Yes.

And it'll get about four feet tall and and flower, there'll be six to eight inches in diameter.

I love dahlias, I've grown them for years.

And to plant them, you want to dig a hole out at foot deep.

And then you put the tuba in, there's kind of you can see where the old stock was.

So you want that up.

And then you cover this with about two, several, so that it's there's three or four inches of dirt on top, okay, and water it good.

And then as soon as the sprout comes up, you keep adding dirt back to the hole, you leave that hole open.

And as it grows, you know, you keep adding the dirt until it's even.

And the reason for that is so stems are so large, that they need that extra support.

And even with that, sometimes I'll use a steak, really, I mean, this thing is gonna get big.

They did.

Yes, huge.

Yeah.

Now, you wouldn't want to break this up.

Now if it gets, because I know sometimes we do that with other ones, but not with darling now.

And they can actually see on this one, it's starting to sprout.

So I haven't gotten it in because it really needs warm soil.

And we haven't had warm soil recently.

So now when I think I'm comfortable enough.

So no matter how large that piece gets, you never want to break a piece off with what it is, is that these are these are tubers.

Yeah.

And so if I might just say, this is just storage.

And so there is nothing there, there's no bud, it's all has to be attached to the stem.

So it's right here at this vase.

So these are very difficult to kind of divide.

And so that's why you still keep these and I do have a suggestion for you on how I start my dahlias because I have quite a few.

So I take a mesh, a tray that I got from the nursery, it's has sides up about six inches.

And and it's just like a big box, you could use a cardboard box and line it with extra newspaper, but I put soil on the bottom potting soil, and then I set all my tubers in one big tray and then I put potting soil on top.

And I just have it up on the south side of my house up by my spigot and I water it and I wait for these to germinate and grow.

And then once they're all growing, because when they get in the garden, I forget to go back and care for them as much.

So I pre sprout them.

And then I go back, but I've never planted them as deep as you recommend.

I'm going to do that.

So at the manufacturer though Yeah, yeah, I can see how that would be helpful because sometimes I've had stems break off.

So what a good idea.

Experts are always right.

So so again, pre pre starting them for me works out really good because I know they're gonna go you know, and, and I've got them separated.

They're, they're, well, they're kind of marked, but it doesn't really matter.

I don't it's I'm happy to get what I did.

But I've got those started now and my little Dahlia shoots are probably up about this far.

So about the first of June is when I set them into their place in the garden.

Excellent.

So okay, you've got some ideas there on how to plant those.

And I tried your because Karen pre sprouts, cannas.

Yeah, and I did that this year and it worked perfect.

I put them in a in a like a bin.

Then layer potting soil on the bottom and so boom, they were just ready to go out last weekend and they already had nice leaves coming up and everything so that was a really great idea.

I Yeah, because that way You've got the the the the dahlias started or the Canna started in that warm potting soil while you're waiting for your soils to warm up.

But then once you go right in, they're already ahead of the game and you know where they are, you can see that something happens right there.

So Exactly.

Excellent.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Alright, so we're back to you.

Okay.

Well, to finish up, I brought a couple of different things from the allium family.

Of course, right now, we have chives.

And there's all kinds of new chives and ornamental alliums out there that you can plant in the flower garden.

But the ones that I am bringing today actually come from bulbs.

So I have this was not the best one.

But this is a very beautiful one.

It's not really that open yet.

But you can see all the flowers that are going to come inside, and it's just going to make this large, round umbel of star shaped purple flowers.

This is Allium Christopher I looks like a firework.

Yes, there's a couple There's another one called Schubert TI or something that actually does dry like large fireworks.

And so this one can recede and does receipt in my garden.

And the reason I liked this one is it doesn't have a real wide foliage and so it can tuck in with other plants.

And then this one, you can see has already kind of finished up it was purple.

But now it's starting to set it seed here.

And this one is called Purple sensation.

And again, I kind of let it recede.

I was just going to ask if you could save the seeds and yes, yes.

And we're going to talk about that after I show this other one a minute.

That looks a lot like Mongolian garlic chives.

Yes, I think they might, they might call that that.

Now this one.

This one is from the Mediterranean, and it used to be in the allium family.

And it was Allium Bulgaria come.

So maybe from Bulgaria or somewhere I don't know.

But anyway, this one is called.

We said honey garlic to seal you Sicilian garlic.

But anyway, now it's a subspecies of the allium family again, just a spring blooming bulb that you can mail order for or sometimes you can find it in packages in in the marketplace, but it is now in a different subspecies.

It's called nectar Score.

Score dumb store.

I don't know they don't do us any favors.

No Qt for for the garden.

So these seeds, that one thing about Allium and chive seeds is that their viability only lasts about one season, okay, so you don't want to buy old packages of chives at a discount because they you have very poor germination.

But now is the time to start saving seeds.

And I save all the envelopes from the junk mail.

Well not junk mail, it's just that I'm not always donating.

But I use these to save seed.

And so I can just mark it but as soon as these start to dry, and before they open, I can just pick off you know some of these seeds, put it in my envelope and label it and keep it and then if I want to put these I'll actually just wait for them to dry and you can winter sew them or you can see you can throw them out now and they may or may not come up.

But I have had several friends that actually spray paint these After they dry you know you can spray them like orange or yellow or red or purple and people will come up and go what is that plant in your garden?

And it's like it's it's fake.

It's you know your photos piece of of newspaper and cardboard behind it spray painted quick.

I mean they stay up in the garden for months.

It's kind of fun.

Yeah.

And and of course there you same flower arranging that way, but leaving them in the garden creates a kind of a unique perspective.

I agree.

I agree.

I might have to try that.

I wanted to ask you.

So, for the spring flowers that have already bloomed?

Is it okay to cut foliage back like tulips for example?

The foliage is starting to look a little rough, but it's still a little green.

So when do we take those down?

Because I know that there's a very important process after they bloom of storing information, storing information, storing energy for next season.

So when is it okay to remove those?

It neither one of you feel free to I don't really remember.

You.

Okay, no, I just okay, you just let it sort of happen.

Yeah.

And then if it completely dries, then you can kind of pull it off.

But yeah, I wait, I wait as long as possible.

One thing that I have done, some people believe in it, some people don't is sometimes I take rubber bands and take all the Daffodil foliage and kind of wind it up and, and rubber banded together.

So it's not just draw.

That's where I'm at.

Right.

Now, the thing about the daffodils that's interesting is the bulb can get larger and larger every year.

But on tulips, they only have they have to replace the bulb the same way with like Glads you know, the plant that bulb glad it has to make a whole nother bone.

And it's the same way with the tulip.

So you tulips, it's very important to try to leave that green as long as possible, so that you can make the replacement flower bulb as big as possible.

Gotcha.

Okay.

All right, we've got about five minutes left.

And we've got a couple of questions that you all sent in.

So Susan Pettit sent us an email.

And she wants to know what to do about deer eating her roses.

And so I would love to hear the perspectives here.

What you guys think of getting around that.

So my, my suggestion isn't acceptable for a lot of people.

Wonderful.

I don't know if you can put paying something to, you know, flutters around that might, you know, like a, like scare them away pinwheel type thing or something that would scare him away.

Yeah, there there are the impact sprinklers that are motion sensitive where that can come on.

Or there are some new technologies where there's motion sensors for like, sound for like, attached to like a radio or something where the sound would then scare them away.

And of course, they're sent deterrence there's the liquid fence products that are a combination of of different ingredients that are repulsive to the deer.

There's animal urines that are used sometimes for deer repellent.

And then of course some people believe in the the soap, you know, you can it's Irish Spring Yeah.

I'm not sure.

But sometimes the easiest thing to do is to put up a physical barrier.

definitely beneficial for like fruit trees or something where they can't get close to it.

So maybe putting a large tomato cage over it for for a while till maybe the deer move somewhere else.

Or sometimes you really have to decide.

Maybe this isn't the best plant if the deer is always going to be in this location.

They're a problem that's the price you pay of grabbing too sometimes if you've got a fence you can tie like white rooted winds that blow around I think that that scares so scared away head to the other night just walking right on the edge of our property.

They just didn't care.

No.

Do you ladies we got about a minute left.

Do you ladies have your gardens in her or what are you going to be working on?

I guess watering water I am spending so much time watering that vegetable garden.

I bet it's so I need to get so my soaker hoses out because that's yes out the only personally I'm trying to stay ahead of the weeds.

I did a lot of straw mulching because we're just so busy in the summer and last year it got away from me so weeds are my my big chore.

What about you?

It's weeds to that is May in June.

It's plant water we plant water kind of thing but really right now I'm trying to edit some of the weedy flowers in my garden that have kind of taken over I've got celadon Poppy, that's starting to seed now, I also weed whack in some of my native areas and try to knock down some of the different weeds so that they, they don't go to seed.

And that's the name of the game getting them before they go to sleep.

And I'm, I'm got about 30 seconds.

I'm not against herbicides, but I'm really trying to cut back on chemicals in my garden.

If that means more hand weeding?

Well, you know, so be it.

It's good exercise to add dirt under the name.

We all got our hands under the table.

Alright ladies, we have to leave it there.

Thank you so much for coming in.

And thank you so much for watching me appreciate it.

If you've got questions, send them into yourgarden@gmail.com or you could find us on Facebook, just search Mid American gardener.

We'll see you next time.

Good night.