Hello, and welcome to Mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha Spain and we've got a lot to cover today we're going to go visit our old friend Mathis Helmick at Plant Mode in Champaign.

He's going to show us all around his new store.

But first joining me in the studio to talk about foraging and plant shopping.

And just a lot of stuff is our our pal, Ella Maxwell here.

So Introduce yourself before we get started and tell everyone a little bit about you.

I'm Ella Maxwell.

I'm a master gardener and a horticulturist.

And I enjoy large yard and gardening mostly with perennials and trees and shrubs.

All right, sounds good.

So you brought some things in today, you've been getting into foraging?

Yes, that's right.

There is a fortune group in central Illinois that that has monthly meetings, I haven't really been able to make that many of them.

But the whole idea is, is that there is so much out in our landscape and in our yard, that we can take advantage of and I'm always up for trying something new.

Now, does that always have to be food?

Or are we talking medicines?

Are we talking?

What exactly is foraging?

Are you looking for things to eat?

Well, I guess it depends on on really, what what you want these plants to benefit you how so there are people that certainly forage for like ginseng, and you know, different medicinal type plants.

But I was more of the food aspect of it all trying a few different things.

And, and I have and and it's it's interesting, I read about something in a book and then I want to go find it or try it or or whatever.

So what's this one?

Well, this one right here, I brought in the berries from a an amalancare That's its botanical name, but it's commonly known as a service Berry.

And it is a native Illinois or a native North American tree.

And there are several different species but it has a beautiful white flower.

And it's really mostly grown for its ornamental characteristics.

Good fall color.

So well behaved small, many times multi-stemmed tree, and again, the white flowers but they make an edible fruit.

So it is people describe it as blueberry as texture and flavor, texture and flavor.

And so when these are ripe, you can collect them.

And my friend Karen and I did.

And we had a recipe to make service berry jam, and here it is bright.

And so it took sugar, a little lemon juice at the washed berries.

And you're going to then process this and then you can depending on how much you make, you can then put it through a hot water bath for about 10 minutes in the jars and they'll seal and you can keep it now.

She made it with the full Berry, which is somewhat seedy I've grown and you can see the seeds, but she likes the texture of the fruit.

I put it through a through a strainer and just made more of a jelly than then a jam.

But it's delicious.

It is good.

I've had some and definitely something that you can put on toast.

You know it can be roll a nice hot roll.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Even you know, peanut butter and jelly.

There we go kind of thing.

But there are so many other trees out there that have edible fruit that we don't think about.

Of course, this year I did harvest sour cherries, those are now ripe and I've done those but another one that I brought in that I wanted to share for foraging is this is a dogwood.

This is the fruit of cornice moss or Carnelian cherry dogwood, and these fruits will ripen towards the beginning of August.

So they'll at least double in size.

They turn just a beautiful scarlet red going to ask and they do have a rather large pit.

But it is again something that's attractive to the birds, the serviceberry were attractive to birds.

They're attractive to us.

So The way that I harvest these is a little bit different.

You know, they're ripe when they drop off, okay?

And there's so many of them, you know, the birds can't eat them all.

I lay out a, like an old sheet under the tree, and then I might shake the tree.

But really let it drop.

I let them just drop on to the, onto the sheet and then I'll I'll harvest them that way.

And again, I will cook them up with sugar.

And then again, because they're difficult to pick, I'll put them through a strainer just to get the pulp and the good flavor.

And I've made jam with crab apples.

I tried making something with black walnuts.

Oh, they have a very strong taste you can make you can pickle.

The immature nuts.

Really?

Yes.

It's a British delicacy.

Yes, but you want to use English walnuts, which are a little different than our American black walnut.

It didn't work out.

I also the Italians make a walnut Liqueuer.

And so I try.

I tried that as well.

Well, you know, you've come to my house for I have or maple syrup.

Yeah, if it's food related, I'm gonna give it a shot.

Yeah.

Awesome.

So that's some of the foraging ideas.

Enjoy.

Excellent.

Thank you so much for bringing these in and give these a shot out in your yard if you've got some of these things.

Now, do you?

What do you use to forge?

Is there a handbook?

Or you know, what do you what's your guide?

Oh, there are several different ones.

And I I'm sorry, I should have brought one with me this today.

But you can just go to the library or you can go online and just put in foraging books.

I'm sure you'll find all kinds of things, but there's some for different areas of the country.

There's different ones specific to like mushrooms.

You can get really specific on what your Oh, sure.

Yes, yeah.

Awesome.

Thank you, Ella.

Well, thank you.

All right, and now we're going to as promised, we're gonna go visit our friend Mathis Helma, get plant mode in Champaign, and take a tour of his new shop.

Well, hey there plant people summer is in full swing.

And that means most of us are probably paying more attention to our outdoor plants.

But you can't forget about those indoor house plants.

And for that, we're going to pay a visit to our old friend Mathis Helmick at plant mode, he's got a new shop, everything is beautiful inside and he agreed to give us a tour.

So let's go in and take a look.

Alright, we've made our way inside to Plant Mode, the new plant mode.

First of all, thanks so much for having us.

Mathis Helmick, the owner of plant mode in Champaign, and this is a new spot it is I moved over here in February and I love it lots of room, I was gonna say this is a lot bigger space than you have before.

It's got to be about three times as large, two bathrooms a backroom, I don't even know what to do.

Oh, wow.

So much space, you don't know what to do with it.

Just fill it with plants.

There you go.

So tell us a little bit about your space, show us around what's different about where you are.

Now, what's different other than space, it's kind of got the same to me the same kind of funky raw feels the other building kind of an unfinished vibe.

Because I moved in so fast like the floors are a little weird.

The walls not finished on that side.

The H Vax a little strange, but we're just going to make it work and I just hodgepodge and piece things together to try to put a little bit of my flavor in here with plants, obviously.

So tell us a little bit about the variety that you've got right now.

Do you have a different sort of stock in the depending on the season?

Not really no other than there being a small amount of herbs in the back that I usually drag outside every day because I'm like it's spring and summer.

Here's basil and I always overbuy and it's always kind of still around in July.

Other than that it's tropical plants.

That's sort of my focus.

There's always going to be a small amount of succulents and a couple of big cacti.

Planters aren't really my thing.

But I have some planters kind of goes with the gig.

Yeah, I'm just I just want to concentrate on getting people plants and just having plants are people still riding the plant wave.

They are there's been definitely a little bit of a dip.

I'm experiencing my first summer of the typical Champaign Urbana UI, you see it's summertime slowdown.

And that's fine, but we didn't have that over the last three summers.

So that feels a little different.

But I know people are definitely still coming in.

And everything's going pretty good so far.

Awesome.

All right.

Well show us around.

Show us some of the some of the faves in Sure.

Sure.

Sure.

Well, one of my favorites is this big old Norfolk Island pine.

This was actually donated to me from some good clients that were moving away and they were like, you can keep it in the store.

It can be your feature plant.

You can also sell it we don't care.

So I got rent to pay.

It's for sale.

This is one of my favorite plants too.

Yeah.

I like them.

really tiny and I like them really large and sometimes that medium size can be a little sloppy Well, lanky and Yeah, agreed but there's really just a bunch of the same old awesome plants.

A couple big old fiddles are always here.

You're gonna laugh at me I can't pronounce this.

Alright, give it a shot right?

No, not even gonna try to try for the children.

A Paul bolus acumen to sama well get one of the panelists on it.

Yeah.

Little backroom editing or whatever.

But um, this is my my kind of at the moment only sunny spot so in the morning until about 1030 or so it's pretty sunny.

Once I sign a lease, which will happen next month, the awning will come down so they'll be a little more light in here.

But I love the front and I love putting the window together looks really pretty at night and a lot of people messaged me about that or when they come in on the weekend after maybe they had dinner, you know, Seven Saints or something on us on a Wednesday night.

There's a bunch of face prints and handprints in the windows.

And people go on.

I'm coming back for that.

Yeah.

My logo projects because of the light onto the sidewalk so people send me pictures of that.

So it's almost like this is my just welcome to plant mode, fishbowl visual, kind of just the front of the shop.

This is really neat, too.

I was admiring this one when we came in.

Yeah, crow Panthis.

And what's funny is they have all these cute little nicknames like this is a lane.

This is zero.

This green one here is Daddy Betty.

These are related to pineapples.

got kind of a little serrated, sharp edge it won't cut you or anything but it's not that friendly.

It's pretty cheap, pretty fun stuff.

Oh yeah, check the leaves on this.

Ficus Audrey.

It's basically like a non smooth rubber tree in a sense a lot tougher than you know, autism is our focus all too small, but I really love that plant.

That is gorgeous.

Little middle table here, hanging stuff.

Obviously, when I worked at Sprout home, we used to hang things from any little thing we could so that I think when this was baccara they used to have some fabric here that looped across these and it would sort of absorb sound.

And I'm like ooh, place to hang plants.

I remember last time we chatted you said folks were coming in with some rare plants they were hoping you could get your hands on Yeah, is that still happening still a thing the appetite is still there.

Oh thing tie constellations and the album on stairs.

I'm still like not sourcing those because I'm just like it's right around the corner from them being in a big box store.

I can get them from places they just cost so much that just just sort of not interested.

Yeah, you know, understand people can get that stuff.

This is my little planter section.

These are locally made right over near Eisner Park by my friend Alan strong Jr.

This company strong Haven design so we sell out of these about every two weeks.

He just brings me 20 at a time.

They're made from concrete and recycled plastic pellets so they have a lightness to them.

I wasn't expecting it to be that light when I picked it up.

It looks like it's very often see people be like it's lighter.

You love always gonna love the wrap of Fedora Tetris firmas Ray climbers, that's one of the reasons I leaned him against the wall to sort of show people like you're gonna want a moss pole or something.

What are these guys?

This is an air plant.

Yeah, that's a zero grafica Yeah, zero grafica fest sticky lotta xerographic because usually come out and curve under very tightly.

This, this variety stays a little more wide.

And you just missed you soak it in, you submerge it and soak it in water about every five days, especially if it's like air conditioning, or in the fall and winter.

When the heat's on, you got to submerge it for at least 30 minutes.

Then you grab it by the section, you're holding it by which I call this little but turn it upside down you give it some shakes to get excess water out of all these little crevices, because if we just pulled it you might if I hold that, if we just pulled it out of the water dripping and just displayed it that excess water falls into those little cups.

And if it sits there for like a couple days, you gotta pick it up and it falls apart because it kind of rotted Gotcha.

So we just give it a shake it out.

Some people even set them upside down for like 1020 minutes, and then back on the shelf or wherever they were you like pretty fun.

This is a big old table made by my friend Jim, who goes by the lumbering behemoth.

So he makes these rad plant stands.

This is black walnut and I just use it for display but it's for sale.

And that's just something we worked at.

So I have in the works.

He's going to make a little mobile, free standing on casters, vinyl holder, and I want to do two versions like an inexpensive one and a really nice like black walnut for those fancy people that need that stuff.

Because I'm gonna start selling used vinyl here too.

Oh, nice.

Yep, yep, yep.

So this place is gonna just be a real chill vibe.

Flats, music, T shirts, random stuff, I'll probably incorporate some thrift items because I've worked in thrift stores before.

And I've worked in record stores and that's what I like.

So instead of like getting like, super nice hand pruners, and you know, watering cans and all that, you know, I'm a plant star, I gotta get all the little tchotchkes like, Yeah, from get your plants and can everything you know and love and putting it under one roof.

Absolutely.

Like it got the turntables here like Yeah, yeah, I feel like things are happening.

We're trying to Alright, so this section back here, though, is like the beginning of my low light, medium light, kind of tough plant section.

A lot of this stuff doesn't require a lot of super strong sun.

These like it a little brighter, but this place I rotate things around.

But when folks walk in and they're just like, I got no light.

I can't have any plants.

I'm like, you can have what you can.

Yeah, that's pretty.

You again picked up the only rough looking.

I mean, did you plan that out?

Do it every time.

Just kidding.

These are called atheists and they're they're pretty finicky.

Not super easy.

They want water that has no chlorine in them.

Oh, yeah.

So when I do talk about the tough, awesome section, I do say with the exception of blue three, police news, Khalif us.

But yeah, like a bamboo palm doesn't want any sun on it.

parlour palms.

This is an aglio NEMA, which is called commonly called the Chinese evergreen and so are these.

They just don't like cold drafts.

But they can be way back here.

The windows like way over there.

This little bit of indirect bright light from the bulbs is definitely helpful, but they're fine back here.

Micro ZZ plants.

A couple juiciness.

And of course, stands of areas which are all over the shop.

Yes.

And you've got some more wall space.

Absolutely.

You had the other place.

Absolutely.

I work with a small business called systems systems.

My friend Derek, he's an old roommate of mine.

And he makes frames and collects posters and kind of flips them online is sort of a side job.

And he saw all this wall space and was like, Can I bring down some art and we sell it and you get a cut?

So that's been working out?

We've sold three pieces so far.

Yeah, it's it's just for me wanting to have a lot of extra just different stuff in here.

And I have the wall space like why not?

Yeah, serves as decor and income.

Of course, you can't go wrong with that this room is still being worked on.

But at about 433 45 ish, depending on the time of year sun just starts flooding back here, which is why I put that blue in that it's called Cedar white cedar.

So right now it's just sort of back stock like these herbs would usually be out front on the sidewalk.

This looks very classroom me lab stuff.

Yeah, you could do some teaching and demos.

I'm thinking about having a lumbering behemoth make me one nice table that just sits in the middle that has things on it all the time, except for when there's a class back here, because I do want to get into that.

Very cool so last time we chatted, we discussed a very cool planting technique.

Yeah.

Cool.

kokedama koke, coca dama kokedama, I've been very intrigued by this.

So explain it for explain what it is.

We're gonna take a plant who hears this plant, we're going to pull it out of its pot, we're going to loosen up all the soil to where there's just some roots dangling down.

Over here, I'm going to have a little like mud pie factory.

Nice soil that it's going to have certain things in it to where when we add water, we're going to make these little mud balls.

You should be able to set them boil down and tap it and it stays together.

That's a good one.

And then over here, we're gonna have some preserved moss.

So are you gonna show us Yeah, today, we're gonna make a kokedama for sure.

Excellent.

Okay, let's do it.

Alright, so we have some soil mix.

We have a little bit of clay powder, which is going to act to help bind things a little bit of horticultural charcoal, which will keep the soil nice and clean.

And then this is a preserved moss product and this is dry.

And before you use it, get a little tub of water and you let it soak Okay, to where it becomes very pliable and It rehydrates and becomes all fluffy and amazing again, so I was trying to get some of this ready, feel like that's going to be about the size.

Gonna make a little mud pile, so we're gonna get a little soil.

We're gonna add a little bit of Hort, charcoal, a little bit of clay powder.

We'll go ahead and use kind of a lot.

Why not?

You can use a kitty litter also.

Don't buy the fancy stuff, get the old school clay kitty litter Did you already pre moisten everything, there was a little piece of wet, wet, a little pile of wet mud, so to speak that was started, but it wasn't big enough for this particular plant we're going to do.

So imagine that this is dry, and we're just going how much?

How soaked?

Do you want to get?

Are we talking mud pie start pretty soaked, because what we're going to do is squeeze it to where water's coming out.

Right there.

And I usually don't know until I give it a few little turns, whether that's good or nice.

We're about there.

How did you get into this originally working at Sprout home, we made them from time to time.

And again, we didn't make them all the time, we'd make like 15 or 20 have them around, they'd sell out, people would really like them.

And it was just like, we're super busy.

Sorry, we don't have time, mud ball, you know, I have a six year old at home that you could totally hire start a little production with this specific job I hate would be great.

So ideally, you're gonna set that down.

And if you give it some taps, and it stays intact, it's usually good to go.

All right.

So I'm gonna have already grabbed this chef Alera, our book Cola, I believe that's how we say it, I just call a little chef, you're going to remove a lot of the some people will have a little bucket of water and they'll dip this and get all this oil out.

We're good.

And if there were tons of routes, and you didn't want to mess around, like if you're like, I feel like this is too big, you can always trim routes, that's also a good time to look for any damaged routes to trim out.

This is gonna be fine.

All right, we're gonna crack this open.

Doesn't have to be perfect in half kind of odd.

Some people will make little.

Like if you have more clay, you can, you know, really make this like kind of a kind of, I don't know the percentages, but it will act more like clay.

I don't really like to do that.

So I'm making one little divot.

Just kind of squeeze that little buddy right up in there, like so.

This part is a little tricky, because it definitely doesn't want to necessarily bond right together.

So you sometimes got to play with it for a little bit.

It's looking cool already.

Now when you water?

Do you dunk it?

Do you I missed it, I don't dunk, there's people depending on the type of plant and how often you feel like it's gonna need water.

And you'll be able to tell by just lifting it up and be like, Oh, it's super bone dry.

Let me just set this in a little bowl of water for 20 minutes.

Try to get everything hydrated again, and then back up it goes.

Nice.

Alright, so we're gonna kind of just work with this.

I could set this down and give it the old tap, but you know it has more, it's more likely to kind of fall apart on me.

So I'm just going to gently do this.

And then check this move out a little bucket of water to kind of clean hands a little.

Oops.

All right, we're gonna grab a nice big piece of moss, I usually like to kind of put it around the bottom.

And you're just trying to encase it.

And it's not perfect.

And this part is a little tricky.

If you're like, Oh, that's not going to cover that you've got another little piece around.

Just sort of patch it in there right in there.

All right, so this doesn't look like a ball yet.

And I said that was tricky, but here comes the actual tricky part.

Okay, so I always have a few little pre cut long links of twine.

twine, like a natural jute can fall apart, you know if it's in bright bright sunlight, and getting dunked in water a lot.

So sometimes you have to refresh it.

With a little bit of extra twine.

You can also use fishing lures, or a fishing line.

Pardon me fishing line.

Okay, yeah, like I've got some stuff my plants are hanging on is 25 pound test, which is more than what you need here.

So I just go kind of around.

So what's the lifespan of one of these?

Oh, people still send me pictures of ones that they had when I was making these when I was located in furniture Lounge, which is like 2013 2014 Really?

Yeah, cuz you can start putting a little bit of plant food in the water when you So Ken was gonna ask about that too.

Yeah, so I'm just kind of trying to go around.

You want to go up near the the base of things.

herbs like so that is so cool.

This could be a little longer.

So this one since the string is not long.

I'm not going to make it a hanging one.

And I'll show you what I mean by that in just a sec.

So that we could do this could use another probably foot of twine to really go around a little bit more.

But for all purposes, or I didn't say that right?

But this is what we're gonna rock Right now, and that can literally be just sat on a shelf, you can get a cute little dish or bowl.

I love that.

How cool is that?

Amen.

I'm going to show you my, would you like to see some finished ones?

Yes.

Yes.

I just want to see how heavy it is feel free.

And that's cool.

And you said you don't have to necessarily buy this, you can go out and harvest.

Yeah, got it grows in urban environments pretty well usually walk around.

This is a parlor poem or in the neantha bella palm.

So that's a low light plant doesn't need to be near the windows.

These like add a little variety, a couple shuffle areas, that's just sort of a little display idea.

Very nice.

And then I did a corkscrew this morning.

So you can definitely plan out your twine to where you leave some.

So after you tie your little knot, make a little loop on top of that into a hanging then it's just hanging and you can hang it off of a wall like it will just kind of nest against the wall or float in the air, whatever you like.

Wow, very cool that is kokedama at plant mode.

It's always a pleasure to hang out with Mathis at plant mode.

And thank you so much for watching.

We're out of time.

If you've got questions for our panelists, send them in to yourgarden@gmail.com or you can look us up on Facebook and we'll try to get those questions answered for you.

Thanks so much for watching, and we'll see you next time.

Good night.