(upbeat instrumental music) - Hello, everyone, and thanks so much for joining us for another episode of Mid-American Gardener.

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain.

And as promised, all March, we've been talking about ways to get things ready for the growing season.

It's officially spring, hallelujah, we finally made it through those cold dark winter months.

We sprung forward, we're now in the first day of spring, and so now we're talking some real planting, and what we can be doing outside to get ready.

So before we jump into all that discussion, let's have our panelists introduce themselves and tell you a little bit more about where you can find them out in the garden.

So, okay, one of our longtime panelists, we haven't seen you in a while, welcome back.

Introduce yourself and tell folks where they can find you outside.

- Okay (giggles), my name's Kay Carnes.

I'm a master gardener and member of the association.

You can find me outside, right now you can find me outside raking leaves off of all of my flower beds.

And you usually can find me in my vegetable garden, or my herb, a little like a herb garden is all over and flower gardens.

So it was just anywhere on my two acres (laughs) - Gotcha, and I always remember, you like heirlooms as well.

You're the heirloom.

- I love heirlooms, yes.

- Yeah, okay, thank you Kay, and Jennifer.

- Hi, I'm Jennifer Nelson.

You can find me online at groundedandgrowing.com but you can also find me out in my backyard.

Similar to Kay, I'm clearing off the flower beds, and continuing to reconstruct part of my yard after doing some construction last year, so, nothing quite like pandemic construction, but the rebuilding continues in 2021.

- There you go.

All right, and Kelly.

- Hi, my name is Kelly Allsup and I'm a horticulture educator for extension.

And my specialty within the team, is entomology and integrated pest management.

So you think integrated pest management, I like to kill them, however, I spend the majority of my job promoting insects.

So I love pollinators and beneficial insects.

- Perfect, so this is the perfect show to have you on 'cause we're gonna talk a lot about that, and I know that's one of your passions, so I may or may not have scheduled you on purpose for this show.

- I figured you did.

(laughter) - Okay, (mumbles) is always first.

So, Kay, we'll start back around with you, what did you bring us?

What are you gonna how us and talk about?

- Okay, so behind me is this, this is a pepper plant and it's a little bit unusual.

It's called a Manzano.

Generally, if you talk about the variety that's grown in Peru and Bolivia, there's a similar pepper plant that's a Mexican that's called Rocoto.

And the interesting and an unusual thing about this, is number one, they have fuzzy leaves, unlike, you know, regular sweet pepper that most people grow.

Also, they are very tolerative of cool conditions.

They normally grow on the hillsides of the Peruvian mountains.

So they will take a light frost, but not a hard freeze.

And the peppers themselves are apple shaped and they're hot.

They're very hot, but they're very sweet.

So, it's really a very different pepper.

And I've got two plants that I overwintered in the house this year, because they will live a long time, that's the other thing.

In under growing conditions, they'll live up to 15 years.

So that's a long time for a pepper.

- [Tinisha] So which comes first when you eat them, the hot or the sweet?

- Kind of both at the same time (laughs) - [Tinisha] You can handle a lot of heat, but you have me intrigued when you said they're a little bit of both.

- They're very tasty but they're pretty pretty hot.

- [Tinisha] Now when you cook them, does that make the spice or the the warmth vary at all?

- I've not tried cooking these.

And one of the other unusual things, and I thought I had some with me, oh yeah.

The seed itself it's very different.

I don't know if you can, if I hold this up, if you can see it or not.

- [Tinisha] No.

- There (laughs) - There you go.

- They're black.

The seeds are black and there we go.

- [Tinisha] There we go, okay.

Black and they're kind of crinkled unlike regular peppers that you (mumbles).

So it's just a fun thing to grow.

- Always, all right, Kay, thank you very much.

Jennifer, what did you bring us?

- I brought a mason bee house that I put up at least two years ago, probably longer, wanting to get some different pollinators in our yard.

And for years there was nothing in here, but they're just these cardboard tubes and the female lays its eggs and a little bit of pollen with the egg and then seals it off with mud.

And so if you look close, I was so excited, I went out to look at it this morning and they're filled with mud and they're hatching.

And I thought, oh, wait a minute.

Is this last year's, and maybe we didn't get any?

And I looked it up and it said that once we get a couple of days in the 50s, in the very early spring, that's enough of a trigger to get them to start hatching.

And the males hatch first.

And the males are towards the front of the tubes.

And then, so they'll be hanging out for awhile, and then once the females come out, then they start laying more eggs.

This is a commercial thing.

You can buy refills for the cardboard tubes or you can make your own out of paper.

But it took a while, but I guess if you build it, they will come, eventually.

- I have so many questions.

So did that stay outside all winter outside?

- Yeah.

- I was outside?

Okay, now when you say they're hatching are there still others in there?

- I'm not sure.

So I left this outside until right before we started taping, just in case, because I wasn't really wanting to have them hatch in my house.

Yeah, so I don't.

I don't know if they're all out or not, but I mean they didn't use all the tubes.

I went out to look at it and somebody, probably one of the small people that lives in my house, apparently was messing with it.

It's supposed to have the opening facing south from what I was reading and the opening was facing north.

And I thought, oh, we'll work this, screw the whole thing up But I think nature found a way- - Nature found a way.

- ...quite small fingers that are curious.

- So Kelly, this, I wanted to ask, when they do hatch out of there, are they fully grown and ready to go?

I mean, do they fly out or did they crawl out?

What stage of life are they?

- They're ready to go.

- They're ready to go (breaks off) she still's pollen in there with them.

I'm sorry, I think I froze.

Why does she still's pollen in there?

- Because the larva is going to eat the pollen before it pupates.

So she lays an egg.

She puts it in the pollen so the larva will have something to eat.

And then it pupates.

And then right now it's coming out of its pupal form.

And so this is a really great thing that Jennifer showed us and brought us is because the pollinators, they're coming out now, especially these like bees that overwinter and the piths of stems that overwinter in the ground, these solitary bees, they are looking for nectar sources right now.

How many of you have nectar sources right now?

Not a lot.

So that's why I always say, wait to cut your lawns and wait to cut the dandelions and the violets out.

Wait until you start seeing spring flowering trees because they are looking for nectar sources.

And I think it's really cool, Jennifer.

I think that's an awesome project.

And you know, so once it's used one of the tubes you wanna take that out and replace it.

And you want to put it back out this year because mason bees don't last a long time as adults.

And so they're gonna be looking for that habitat.

- So what I read was they all last about six to eight weeks in this.

So like, if one of these tubes is about six inches long, so how many do you think would fit in here?

I mean, I'm imagining they're probably not, the cells probably aren't that big.

- I'm not for sure on that, I would think a lot.

- Cool, yeah.

But yeah, don't be discouraged if you put it out and you don't get anything the first year.

'Cause like I said, this has been out of my garden at least two years before I actually saw evidence that they found it.

- And I worked with a specialty company before where we were doing all different sizes of the holes and it would attract different types of bees.

So that particular size is probably great for mason bees but if you wanted to mix it up or install another type of habitat, you could do different sizes and attract different native bees.

- Awesome, thank you, Jen and Kelly.

Now, Kelly, I think we're to you now, with what's yours though.

- Yeah, so I'm with Earth Day coming up, one of my campaigns for extension is to give out milkweed seed.

So what happens is when we collect our milkweed seed in the fall, it looks like this, right?

Look at all that it's like a pillow.

And it's attached to all this fluff and it can be very difficult to separate the fluff from the seed, but I found a tip online where you put this in a metal pot and you use a barbecue lighter and you burn all the fluff off and then you're left with these seeds, like this.

And so these seeds actually require stratification.

They must go through cold treatment.

So some gardeners will go ahead and let the seed plant in the fall.

And hopefully they'll get a seedling in the spring.

But what I have done is I've put it in a refrigerator over the winter.

And so now I want to see what my seed germination requirements are.

So I did a seed germination test, where I put 10 seeds in a wet paper towel, and I'm gonna track how long it takes for me to actually get some germinated.

I'm also going to experiment with letting them soak in water for 24 hours before I try to germinate them because I don't wanna send out a bunch of seed on Earth Day and then it not be viable and not work.

So that's what I've been working on lately is to make sure this seed goes out for Earth Day and that it's viable and ready to go.

And a lot of people want milkweed seed because we know milkweed is the larva plant for monarchs.

And they're actually the most preferred milkweed, is swamp milkweed.

And the gardener's favorite milkweed is butterfly weed.

And then the most common milkweed is common milkweed.

So just a really cool way to spread.

I know that Illinois has this big huge initiative wanting a million stems of monarch milkweeds in the state and the more we can plant them in the garden the more we can help.

- Absolutely, I love your, every year you always give techniques to get the floss, is it called floss?

Did I used the right word?

To get the floss off the seeds.

And last year I think we talked about putting peonies in it and shaking it.

I tried that last year.

I might try the fire one.

That one sounds kind of scary to me though.

- That one is easier.

- Is it, really?

Is it just kind of, and it's over?

- Yeah, exactly.

And it doesn't damage the seeds at all?

- Mm-mm.

- Well, I might have to try that.

The peonies, you know, that was fun, but it still made a huge mess.

Of course the kids loved it, but I want to try that.

And milkweed, I liked the three that you mentioned is there any for the home gardener?

Is there anyone that is, I don't wanna say better or worse or that monarchs prefer or, you know, is there anything there within those three varieties?

- Just that swamp milkweed, they tend to prefer a swamp milkweed.

Now, there is another milkweed that a lot of horticulturists have been growing lately and that's the blood flower and we call it annual milkweed.

And I have had great success with growing that one where I'll always have monarchs just dripping off of it.

And there's been some people talking about how, 'cause we know when milkweed kind of fades at the very end of the fall, this one doesn't, it doesn't fade quite as much and it actually keeps flowering.

And so a lot of people are like going back and forth.

Does this mess up monarchs?

And I'm here to tell you it does not.

They know when to go.

It doesn't matter if there's food around.

It actually helps them in the long run because we know that monarchs really struggle with finding food in the fall.

So if you wanna help monarchs, you plant milkweed, but you also plant fall blooming perennials because that's when they need it, 'cause guess what?

They're about ready to travel thousands of miles to Mexico and they need as much help as they can get.

- Okay, so speaking of which, you know, all March we're dedicated to spring and planting and getting ready.

So I'd like to just for this last 10 minutes or so, just open it up to some good discussion for you to help us figure out what to do, what to plant, what things we can do to be friends to our pollinators, to welcome them back.

So Kay, why don't we start with you?

What are some things that you do consciously to be a better partner, to welcome to whatever pollinators at your house or in your gardens?

- Well, I try to have a nice mix of plants that they like.

I am in the process of developing a wild flower garden, prairie plants.

And I'm going to put a little plug in.

Grand Prairie Friends has a plant sale every year and they have a lot of wonderful prairie plants and a lot of ones that pollinators like.

So I add a few every year to that garden.

I've got the kinds of milkweed and rattlesnake master and just all kinds of native prairie plants.

And of course I, you know, we don't use any chemicals on our yard.

So pollinators have lots of dandelions (giggles) and violets to munch off of a bright beginning.

Well, I have beehive and so I'm very conscious of having plants for them as well as other pollinators.

Some of my herbs like borage is a wonderful bee plant.

And I try to have things all season long.

- That's a good point.

Jen, going to you.

It's not just about what you plant in the spring.

This is something that you sort of have to think about throughout the growing season and then even into overwintering, you know, just kind of thinking about being a good neighbor.

So what are some things that you do.

- Along those lines, I mean, just as a gardener, one of my goals has been to have something flowering all season long, that's not necessarily an annual.

So it takes some practice and it takes some time to develop that but to have those early season pollen and nectar sources like Kelly talked about and then to have that extending into the fall.

Yeah, that does take some time to figure out.

And I could say it at my house.

I don't have all natives, but I don't have all cultivated plants either.

I have a mix, and nothing wrong with that, just pick what works in your yard.

And sometimes the prairie plants get a bad rap from people.

They think it looks weedy or whatever, but not necessarily, as long as you put it in the right spot and just work with the plants traits.

In my yard, we have some areas that we just like go wild that we just we don't trim back or anything.

We just let whatever grow grows there.

And we have (breaks off) ...and just let that go.

I'm encouraging people to have some, not everything has to be manicured in your yard.

Just don't be afraid to let some of it go wild.

That's less work, right?

So we all need less work.

- Kelly, can you break down, I wrote down prairie plants 'cause I was gonna ask you guys is that synonymous with native?

What is a prairie plant for those who don't know?

- Prairie plants are Illinois natives.

And they grow in the prairies.

So we know that we have less than .01% of our prairie plants and our native bees and butterflies and flies have adapted to these plants.

So to add them into your landscape like Jennifer said, is awesome.

Sometimes they don't look the way we want them to look but I love the wild look, personally.

And you know, if we don't have the prairie's anymore and we're not planting them in our yards, where are they going to go?

They need to survive.

So those prairie plants are wonderful.

- I met with a lady yesterday who along those lines was saying that when she reintroduced prairie plants and more native plants to her yard, she started noticing a complete shift in the ecosystem.

So then came, the mantises, then came the birds, then came the wildlife, which she wasn't super thrilled about but it was something that she noticed almost immediately when incorporating those things, what those small tweaks did to everything around it.

So is there anything there that we could explore a little bit more and dive into, just about your personal ecosystem at home and what you could do by introducing some more of those?

- I do have a few pollinator garden types of rules that may be contradictory to what we've learned in the past.

The first thing I want you to do is get rid of your landscape invasives.

Like burning bush and privet, and even butterfly bush.

These plants are escaping into our natural forest and they're choking out all of our native plants.

And you may say, well, my burning bush doesn't spread in my yard.

Watch, look around in the native areas, it's there.

We need to get these landscape invasives out if we are going to ever help pollinators.

Another thing is water.

We don't always think about adding water to our garden, but even like a little butterfly puddle, where you could actually have a little bit of standing water with some rocks in it for the bees and the butterflies to actually have fresh water, could really help your butterfly garden in the long run.

Another thing is we clean up sometimes too early, especially if these plants are specific larval sources.

For instance, let me give you an example.

sweetbay magnolia can host some swallowtail caterpillars.

But think about it, we have a tree, underneath the tree we have lawn.

And what do we do with that lawn?

We mow it.

It's an ecological trap for these caterpillars because a lot of them are pupating in our landscape over the winter.

So if you have a tree that you know is a larval source for caterpillars, mulch underneath it, because you don't wanna mow.

Another thing is, even though I'm telling you to mulch, I'm telling you if you want bees, you don't wanna mulch.

So think about this, 70% of native bees overwinter in the ground.

They're are not gonna dig through mulch.

And we have this horrible reliance on, Jennifer and Kay are probably gonna be like, yes, where we see like three plants in this whole like mulch kind of landscape, and you're like, it looks awful.

Well, what's happening is we're preventing these native bees from being able to make their nest in the ground with all this reliance on mulch.

So if you could get away from some of your mulch, I realized mulch has benefits of keeping weeds down and keeping consistent moisture.

But sometimes we need bare ground to better aid some of these pollinators.

And I would be thrilled if I saw bees nesting in the ground.

And then salvia.

You must get salvia.

You must include salvia.

I cannot go up to this plant without seeing hummingbirds, flies, wasp, butterflies, bees.

Another one is chives.

Jennifer, shake your head at me.

- Yes.

- Good or bad, is that negative?

- I love chives.

Regular green flowering chives.

Garlic chives are on my list of plants I wish I'd never would have planted ever in my garden.

- They're really aggressive, Tinisha.

So many gardeners don't like them, but they are awesome.

Like the herbs, you know, Kay, talked about borage herbs really provide a lot for pollinators too.

- And actually I have a garlic chive.

It's mongolian garlic chives.

And they're a little bit different than your regular garlic chives.

And they are not nearly as invasive.

They'll replicate, and the bunch will grow slower.

It'll grow but much slower.

And it's not nearly invasive as- - Jennifer is not convinced.

(laughter) - I sincerely regret.

Like we've been in our house for 16 years.

I've been trying to get rid of this plant for 16 years.

I planted it earlier in life at my parents' house.

I've never had a problem with it.

I think because of where it was located.

And then I thought, oh, we did construction at our house last year and we'd put an addition on and it tore up where the garlic chives were.

And I dug them all.

I dug as many as I could before the construction started and I thought, finally, we're gonna get rid of them.

I'm looking around the garden is, I was cleaning that yesterday, and I'm like, there's garlic chives still.

- They're horrible, the regular ones.

But the mongolian are not at all like the regular garlic chives.

- So if you're gonna do it, do the mongolian.

- Mongolian (giggles) - Purple flowering ones are really nice too, and not as aggressive.

- I liked the garlic ones because they taste like garlic.

And because they flower in the fall.

So I was like, oh, cool.

Something that flowers in the fall that's a good thing.

Except you wanna be prepared (mumbles).

- Be prepared.

Okay, we have about a minute left.

If we could just go around and just shout out some pollinators that you can't live without so that we can go by them.

So Jen, we'll start with you.

- Oh, I like my milkweed, but you don't necessarily need to go buy it.

And Kelly's got all the seeds, right?

(laughter) Definitely all kinds of milkweeds, any kind of milkweed I can get my hands on.

- Okay, Kelly.

- I love growing parsley for black swallowtail caterpillars.

I love those caterpillars, they're so cool.

If you poke them, they'll send out a yellow forked gland that smells bad, and the kids love it.

(upbeat instrumental music) Grow parsley.

- That's it folks, that is the show.

You have your marching orders.

The experts told you what to do.

So get out there and do it.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We will see you next week.

It is spring, people, get out there and do something.

We'll see you next time.

Bye-bye.