Unknown: Hey, and thanks for joining us for this week's episode of MidAmerican gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha Spain.

And we've got a great show lined up for you today full of showing tales and demonstrations for you to learn from.

But before we get into that, let's have our panelists introduce themselves and tell you a little bit more about their specialty.

So, the duo will start with you introduce yourselves and tell us what you're into in the garden.

I'm Ella Maxwell.

I'm a castle county master gardener and a horticulturist at a local nursery, and I enjoy perennial plants and trees and shrubs.

Okay, Karen.

I'm Karen Ruckle.

And I'm a gardener in the Woodford County area and I'm an Illinois certified nursery professional not employed currently.

But I enjoy shrubs, perennials, houseplants.

Awesome.

All right, and Dave, tell us a little bit about you.

I am Dave Ploussard.

I am a retired horticulturist in the Peoria metropolitan area, and my specialty is trees and shrubs and I like to garden, both vegetable and flower gardening.

Fantastic.

Alright, so as I said, this game brought a lot of things to show you a lot of things to demonstrate.

So Ella will start with you with your first show and share item.

Okay, I thought this will easily transition in with some of the others.

This is a large branch.

You can see here, this is a hydrangea.

This is the big leaf hydrangea, hydrangea Macrophylla.

And this is the one that people have problems with how to prune it, and exactly what happens and where the flowers come from.

So this one flowers on old wood, so I cut it off near the base.

And you can see that this winter wasn't quite so severe, there are little leaves coming out all the way up and down the stem.

Usually we have a lot of winter die back and it could die down near the ground.

So what we're going to see and it and I'm going to tell you because it's hard to see, but on these upper branches, where these buds are coming from, these are the ones that have the flowers.

This is the old wood.

So if we were to cut this back way down here, we were cut off that first flush of flowers.

This is a reblooming hydrangea, but the first buds will be out in June.

You can see them now in the centers here.

And they are up much higher on the plant.

So this lowest branch here I checked this one right here.

And this is just vegetative growth.

And this is what most people find growing.

And this is why they're disappointed because this will not have any blooms.

If it does have some blooms that will come from side shoots that that develop in September.

So this time of year, it's important to wait until the new growth comes out.

And then you can cut them back.

Now would be the time also to treat them if you want to make them blue or pink with some products that will change the acidity of your soil or whatever.

So that's that's what I'm showing.

So if you lived in an area that experienced some of the frost and the cold temperatures that we've had, is there a chance that folks might have some damage to their foliage or damage to what would have been this year's blooms?

Yes, I believe that that there was now I do know that this particular one came from someone who didn't who didn't cover it, and they seem to have come through okay, but usually, a late freeze can damage the hydrangeas.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Karen.

We're gonna move to you.

Alright, I guess I'll talk about my favorite plant rather than something pruning.

So I have a favorite plant and that's Agha Stan ci and that's Hummingbird mint.

And I love this plant one because of the flowers and the flower colors you can get with it.

And second that it just has a slight minty smell to it.

And so if you brush against it when you're when you're working with it.

I say the hummingbirds love it.

Yeah, they do it.

I'm not too well.

But anyway, this plant I really love but I do not get it to overwinter in my yard from plants that I've put out.

So what I typically will do is I'll put it in containers, at least a 14 inch container and it just does beautifully becomes a huge bush and small, small bush perennial plant.

But it'll do really great.

I have had now a seedling that came up in the yard.

That's overwintered for two years in my garden, it flowers purple.

But for some reason, this plant if I put it in my yard, it'll, it'll die won't make it through the winter.

But I still love them enough that I get them.

And this variety I got in two colors, an orange and a yellow.

And I will just put them in containers, probably one of them in a mix container, another one all by itself.

And then because this spring, we had such lousy weather for so long, I kept going shopping.

I bought another orange one, but it is a different hybrid.

And it the bloom is just a little different color.

So I'll have to find a place to put that one also.

Okay, so two follow up questions.

Number one, how did it become your favorite plant because we all have to know that and to tell us about what it needs light needs and where you like to put it.

It became my favorite plant because of hummingbirds loving it.

And so I like to put a lot of plants I do put feeders out for the hummingbirds.

But I also do like to have a lot of different plants that they like to feed from in the garden because they have temperate times that they forage, they'll come to the feeder at one time.

And then other times of the day, I'll see him foraging through the yard.

And it's really for me, it's a very easy care plants in a container.

Modern water needs, I typically have it in at least six hours of sun.

And it just does really well I've put it in a little bit more shady area, it still seems to be very sturdy, very, very, very strong and its growth as opposed to even the ones you know in full sun were prefers.

Awesome.

Okay, thank you so much.

We can't go wrong with things that invite hummingbirds.

So we'll see he may have inspired someone else.

Okay.

Dave, over to you now.

Right.

I have a couple of sample of plants here.

This is a bridal respiring.

And it is flowering now it's in my area has been flowering about a week, and it's going to be finishing up fairly soon.

And then this is a lilac and as you probably can, maybe can see from the camera that it is finishing up.

It's flowering, it's it's a late blooming French hybrid.

But as a rule, lilacs have finished or are finishing flowering.

So what I wanted to mention, a lot of people are not sure when to prune their flowering plants, and the things that are flowering in the spring now, which typically is things that flower shave from March to the end of May, which would include your your bridal reach by Ria, your lilacs, quince, forsythia, things like that, that that flower.

Now, when they're done, this is the time to prune them back.

That way you're not ruining your floral display.

But if you wait until late in the year to prune them, you will prune off the flowers for next year.

So this is very much but Ella talked about is that that spring flowering plants like the flower on the old wood, which that means that they grow during the summer.

And as they grow in the summer they're producing their flowers.

And then in the following spring or the following year is when they flower.

And if you prune them in the fall, you will prune off the flowers that were produced during the summer.

So as a rule, anything that flowers in the spring, you will prune as soon as it's non flowering, and that way you will not disturb your flowers.

You'll have the year for new growth and new flowers for next year.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Alright, lm are back around to you.

Oh, okay.

Well, sometimes people are are unfamiliar, we have annuals that live for one season they flower and said seed.

And then we have perennials where they flower and the plant lives every season through through our winter.

And then we have things that are biennial.

And last year Karen tried this pink celery and so she gave some to me and I kept it inside through the winter and it's stocks are edible as well as the leaves and It wasn't quite as yummy tasting as commercially grown salary, but it was interesting.

So this spring you can see though that it is a biennial, so it bolted.

And the center stock now has a flower so there'll be no more leaves developing here at the base.

Parsley can do this to parsley as a biennial.

And so if it does winter over, usually early in the spring, it begins to flower.

And you really need to replace it.

So the idea is, is that some plants, biennial plants like foxglove, the first year, they just make the leaves, just like the first year This made the cell remade the leaves.

But then the second year is when they'll bloom.

And so it depends.

Let's see, hollyhocks are the same way there to where they'll bloom in the second season.

So it depends on if you want the leaves.

Or if you want the flowers.

So parsley, we're composting it.

So how was the flavor?

What if you had to describe it compared to commercially prepared?

Is it the same flavor of celery?

Oh, yes, yes, it worked well in like a soup where you could just take it out, but it was more stringy.

Then commercial produce salary.

Gotcha.

Interesting.

Okay.

All right, Karen, we're back around to you.

Well, this spring.

I know.

A lot of yards.

I've seen how well the roses overwintered and my rose bush has done really well and as set lots of bugs on it.

But now I'm already seeing one of our first season problems with roses.

And that's an insect that's feeding on it cause called a rose slug.

And the rose slug.

It's not a slug.

It's actually the larval stage of a saw fly.

And I've got a picture here, their little larvae on the undersides of the leaf.

So they're they're pretty tenacious, where a lot of people say I don't see anything on the plant where you don't because they're all on the undersides of the leaf.

And you'll start to get a windowpane effect because they actually feed on the underside of the leaf and will leave the upper epidermis of the leaf intact.

So it's it's a windowpane.

That poses a couple problems, because trying to control them, if you just take a spray of insecticide that's listed for them and spray it over the top of the plant.

He's feeding or they're feeding on the underside of the leaf.

So that chemical isn't going to impact them because they're, they're not where the chemical is put.

So they are a little bit tough.

I've seen some recommendations to mechanically squish them or remove them, you know, a rosebush.

There's so many little prickers on each individual little leaf that that didn't really that that's not doable.

But I was happy when I was really looking at stuff I I honestly the rose slug always overtakes me, I only have two rose bushes, so it's not a big deal.

But typically, my plants look pretty bad because I don't do anything to control them.

But one of the controls that I actually have because I have problems with bagworms in summer is a product called spinach sad.

And that chemical can be used to spray to help control sawflies so it could be used on the rose bushes.

And like I said the problem is getting on the underside.

So um, I know I got this at a garden center to end of the hose sprayer that you would attach to your garden hose.

And what's great about this brand is it does have an A little attachment.

You take it off and you can get a good 25 foot up into a tree.

You put this little deflector on, and it'll kind of soften the spray.

But the other great thing is it kind of has a spoon shape so I can turn it upside down and spray on the undersides of the plant to try to get the chemical to where the insect is at.

So even if you don't have that particular type of spray bottle, making sure that you get underneath that foliage is the takeaway right?

And you don't you don't try to remove them.

You mentioned that you don't try to go in and pull them off.

I in the past I have tried, but some of my roses are just so prickly.

You can't get down in like this rose with how well it overwintered and how great the growth flushed out trying to get down in amongst these little leaflets.

It's just too thorny.

Yeah.

Is there anything in the way of mulch or Anything else that maybe you could use to protect or slow down now without having to use chemicals?

No, I mean, it does not typically harm the plant.

Now, we always say that if there's other things wrong with a plant, and then you get enough stress from something else, drought, stress, insect damage, disease, you can kill a plant.

But typically a row slug just aesthetically makes the plant look very ragged looking.

It doesn't overall kill or overall harm the plant.

But it can get pretty darn annoying when all of your leaves, you know, look holy, and then start to brown and yeah, gotcha.

Okay, thank you, Karen.

Okay, day four back around to you.

All right.

This is a coleus.

Specifically, this is redhead coleus.

One of my favorite coleus is I like it because it has an intense red color.

And it is partial sun to full sun, I actually grow it in full sun.

And what I want to talk about is, I just bought these and I'm just now getting my Tinder annuals planted because it's been very cold, we've had frost and I don't like to have to go out and cover all my different flower beds.

So I I'm just now getting started planting.

So this is very tall.

I don't know if if you can't quite tell, but it's rather tall.

And if you don't pinch it back, it will grow tall, but not spread out a lot in the garden.

So what I like to do is I like to pinch them back.

So I just took my thumb and my fingernail and I pinched off the top of the foliage coleus.

And now all those little side branches will grow out and it will be a much fuller plant.

So that's what I like to do not everybody feels comfortable doing it, but it does not take them very long to grow.

So I encourage you to do that.

The second thing with coleus is they do flower, and they send out a kind of a long flower.

And I always pinch my flowers off, because it kind of takes away from the growing of the coleus.

And the flowers are not that special, where we grow coleus primarily for the foliage.

So I pinch my flowers off, and then all the energy of the plant goes into more of that nice colorful foliage that we like.

If you were going to tell someone where to pinch theirs off, if they have one that was kind of tall like that, what's just some some great advice to know, you know, if you're eyeballing it, where's it anywhere from halfway to maybe the top quarter of the plant is where I would pinch it.

If it's if it's fairly tall.

If it's a sometimes you buy them, they're fairly small, so I just do the tip.

But if it's fairly tall and long gated, like this one, I did that one, about a third of the top off.

So you don't mean you don't have to be afraid to get in there and take a significant size piece because Not at all.

Not at all.

Okay?

All right.

And the benefit of that it cutting is that it's easy to route in water.

And so I I like to propagate the coleus that way, just to have more.

Good, I do good too.

Okay, with that, we will talk about plant royalties and what you're not supposed to do.

Yeah, that's a whole different show, right.

All right, however, back to you with marking your tomato cages, right, um, I plant quite a number of different tomatoes out either a little cherry tomatoes, some of the heirloom tomatoes, some of the colorful tomatoes, oranges, or stripy or you know, whatever.

And I take venetian blinds, and a little hole punch and a little twist tie.

And so I write the name of my tomato and then attach it up high enough.

This is where my tag is down with the plant.

But this allows me to remind me what variety I have in that cage.

And I can do this with my peppers, or you know, whatever.

But it's I just spend a little time and make up a number of them so they'll be ready to go.

And it's an easy way you can punch the blow tag that comes with it.

But this is just, I think so much easier.

And so when someone you know is over and we're tasting a tomato, I can Just look easily at eye level to say, oh that son sugar, or Cherry Bomb or Mrs. Maxwell.

That's a super good idea and use a high quality permanent marker because I have failed in that regard you ever had.

A lot of times I just use a pencil graphite seems to hold very well on these plastic blinds and it won't degrade under sunlight.

Okay, thank you.

All right, Karen, where do you when in talking about pruning and Dave talked about stuff that's flowering.

And now it's when it's done flowering, it's time to prune?

Well, I want to talk about that now, for me is coming into the time for pruning something like my Japanese maple.

The maples, a lot of people think about winter spring pruning trees or when they're dormant.

But the problem is with maples and thinking about maple sugar maple syrup, and back when you were LSR, doing, you know tapping the maples.

They bleed when they're cut or wounded.

So we have to wait till that periods over.

And then we're safe to prune them.

So it seems kind of odd that we're coming into summer.

And now's the time to prune the maple.

But my maples done too well, but I'm happy about that, because I've had a lot of trees have odd problems, and I've lost them in my yard.

But so now I'm looking at these next couple weeks of how I want to shape that tree, how I want to contain it and start working on kind of fine tuning.

It's its overall look in my yard.

So now that everyone's got their veggies in, it's time to turn your attention back to the trees for just a second.

Leave that leave the garden for just a second to work on the trees and then come back.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Okay, thank you, Karen.

We've got about four minutes left, Dave, and you.

You brought geraniums right, I did.

This is a variegated geranium called Wilhelm Langguth.

And it's my favorite variegated variety, meaning that the foliage is green and white.

And I love to use this and pots because it really provides a nice specimen, the color jumps out, it's not everything is green.

So it's it's really works well both in the garden and in pots for that reason.

But one of the things that I like to do with my geraniums, not just the variegated, but the regular one is when I first plant them, which is this time of the year, I like to disbud them.

And that means that I like to take off the flowers, which in this, this is existing flower.

And if you go in and you look toward the center of the plant, you will find the new flower beds developing and growing.

And I like to take those off when I first plant them.

That will prevent you won't have any flowers for about three weeks.

But the benefit of that is that it allows the plant to bush out, particularly on some of the smaller sizes that you buy.

They're very often not very branched.

So if you disbud them do without flowers for about three weeks, then you all have a bountiful amount of flowers for the rest of the season.

So that's what I like to recommend doing work.

geraniums and that neck can hold true for many of the other annuals.

No, that's that's not a bad idea.

And the payoff sounds great.

You'll have more flowers if you pinch off the first round.

A couple minutes left, Ella before we leave, you had something about fertilizer and I think it's so important as we're planting everything out to talk about that.

So go ahead and share that with us.

Okay, I have taken my houseplants from indoors that I've overwintered, outside to my patio, and now's the time that I'm going to be fertilizing them.

And I'm going to be using a slow release pelletized fertilizer.

I'm going to follow a recommended rate depending on the size of the container, but this should last for most of the season.

I can come back maybe with a soluble liquid, but I find that the slow release fertilizer is so much better.

It's just released.

Each time it's watered and after they've been kind of light starved in the indoors and then now outside with better weather warmer temperatures brighter sunlight.

They can they can use Use that fertilizer to really start to look really pretty, pretty good.

And I think Karen, you use some fertilizers too, don't you and your dad's Yeah.

What if any practices you'd like to share?

Well, and I like to use a slow release fertilizer in all my annual pots and anything in it even like my my favorite plant the egg a stamp sheet.

Because whether like this week where we're getting rain every day, you're not going to be watering.

So if you're trying to push growth or push blooming on plants, you can't use a soluble fertilizer.

So having that slow release, gives you a little bit for that plant available for them.

Awesome, guys, we are out of time.

Thank you so much.

This show was jam packed with great information, and very timely.

So thank you so much for bringing your examples and your knowledge.

Thank you so much for watching.

Send us your questions to your garden@gmail.com you can also find us on Facebook and Instagram.

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We'll see you next time.