Unknown: Well, hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha Spain.

And no, you're not imagining things, Phil is back in the studio after a long, long break, thanks to the pandemic, so fill it reintroduce yourself to folks and tell us where you've been the last two years.

I'm Phil Nixon, I've been spend my whole career as a Extension Entomologist of the University of Illinois, and retired in 2017.

After 37 years, with with the extension, and my, my requirements were to were for the last 30 years or so were associated primarily with a pesticide applicator training program.

So I went around the state and talked to told Pete talked to people about how to do a good job controlling pest with with pesticides, because they have to be licensed in order to do that.

Also, at the same time, I did a lot of work with homeowners and commercial people associated with with insects, integrated pest management.

And, and that was an including doing a lot of Master Gardener training, Master Naturalist training, talking to groups of professional landscapers, tree workers, these sorts of people primarily through my career, so So yeah, I've I've done bugs for a long, long time.

We call Phil the Bug Guy.

Okay, well, we've missed you.

The past couple of I missed you, too.

Have you been keeping busy in the garden?

Oh, yes, I live.

We live in a rural area associated with three and a half acres.

And so there's plenty of things to do there.

But being retired, it's nice to have be able to just take an afternoon nap if you want to man without closing the office door and do what I want to do.

And that's that's really great.

You know, it's Yeah, I think that's really nice.

Awesome.

Alarm Clock, right?

Oh, yes.

I haven't seen the alarm clock for a long time.

Ah, what a great feeling.

Okay, so you brought in some things for us to talk about.

And these are from your personal collection.

So tell us a little bit about your your bonsai.

Okay, well, I'm into my wife and I are both into growing bonsai and have been for as long as we've been adults, essentially.

We got to figure it out the other day, and each of us had been doing bonsai for probably about 50 years.

And so, so it's a it's we've all got into it in college, and shortly after college.

And so the thing that bonsai is the is a growing of trees and pots.

And essentially, what you're trying to do is make a small tree look big.

Sounds simple.

And so in other words, what you do is you keep the tree small, how do you keep the tree small?

Well, it's kept small primarily by restricting its root system in the park, and go hiking in the mountains and things of this nature, you could find what we call natural bonsai.

And that's a situation in which you've got a, a tree growing in a crevice and a rock or something like is, has this little few cups of soil to grow in.

And as a result of not having many, any much area to grow roots into.

It's short on the top as well.

It may have a thick trunk, but it does all the other things that a tree would do.

That might be 5060 feet tall, but it's only a foot tall or two feet tall or something of this nature.

And there is no size requirement for bonsai.

One, one requirement that I've seen has been, it shouldn't be any bigger than than free people can carry Oh or not.

I've also seen six people to carry and so on.

And so really there are bones I that are several feet tall, and why Batarian apart and under maintain that way.

And and what we want to talk about today is is that we're hearing in the late winter, and in the Midwest.

I talked to people and tell them that that many bonsai our outdoor trees, that they need to have the outdoor experience and environment and they kind of look at you and blink their eyes, you know that backing behind, they're just not really believing, you know, it's in a pot.

So I was on my coffee table in the house make sense?

And and they'll buy junipers or other types of trees that you might find in big box stores or in garden centers or whatever And it's in a pot it goes in the house.

No, not if it's a bonsai and it's an outdoor tree.

And, and separately, a juniper that's bought and put on inside the house will gradually decline.

And if you're a real good clansmen it may take you it may take three or four months to die, it may take six months to die, but it will die.

It has to have a cold period.

Oh, okay, if it's a temperate plant, something that's normally found that you would plant outside and the ones that are commonly sold in, in box stores and so on, are going to be junipers primarily Juniperus progam is Nina the Japanese garden juniper and, and you can grow that out in your yard and all this sort of stuff, it does well out there.

But when you put it any throw it in a pot and it does very well there, it's a very easy plant to grow.

As long as you give it its outdoor condition I did not know that a typical outdoor bonsai but that owned by a master in bones, I would probably spend no more than three or four days a year, a year inside, inside a building, and that's probably gonna show it will be outside back out 365 days a year.

Okay.

And this is to illustrate what we've got.

This is a Japanese maple, which is, which is Hardy and particularly the southern half of the of MidAmerican.

Essentially from about Springfield, or Champaign in and and Columbus, Ohio, in cities, where it's where you get a little bit of warm for fact, I live 15 miles south of Champaign, I cannot keep one alive for anything in the world.

They die after about two years outside to get huge cankers up and down to stand black areas, the stems die off, and it just proceeds back until it's dead.

And so this one has been kept in a cold, cold area cold greenhouse for the winter.

And you can see that it is totally dormant, it has dropped its leaves, which is what, which is what a temperate or cold adapted tree will do.

Growing any yard, it has to do the same thing when it's in a pot.

It does not do that if you keep it in inside or keep it warm.

It will it will deteriorate and die.

It needs a cold spell a dormant spell in order to to rejuvenate timewise eight weeks, 12 weeks, what are we talking probably you can get away with eight to 12 weeks as well.

Okay.

But if you want to do it smart, you give it the same wintertime as the ones outside so really trying to create just you're trying to duplicate exactly what they would be outdoors.

And if it's if it's an area that's that's a little bit a tree such as this one which would normally have be dormant from probably all sentimental October to maybe the middle of April.

That's what we give this okay.

And, and really we don't leave over bonsai outside to where until it's it until it stays.

These happen to be in a in a cold greenhouse in which we don't let the temperature get below about 20 or 25 degrees Fahrenheit it fatal freeze.

But it's not enough to freeze the pot that says what will kill a bonsai more than anything else is freezing and fine of the root system.

Because anytime that happens, roots break.

And if it does this repeatedly through the previous season, then you end up with lots of dead roots, which means you have a tree that comes out in the spring.

It flushes nice Grove, you think boy, that's nice in about four weeks ago, because it doesn't have anything to support those leaves.

Gotcha.

Okay, guys over overwintering energy that put out those leaves, but doesn't have any way to keep it going.

And so and so this is a this is a case where we have those, we have ones that are enterprice, that that are more cold, cold hardy things such as hornbeams, and elms, and things of this nature.

And we actually have those in a part of our house on the east side where it doesn't get much sun and it's where they're buried in in in leaf mulch to the top spots, and then over the top of the upper part is going to be a straw.

And as the spring comes on, we will gradually remove that straw.

And when the nighters are reliably staying above freezing, we'll move them out on the benches and yard nets will stay until the fall when they move back in probably sometime in October.

Okay, so, so the idea that a lot of people look at you go, that tree can't possibly be alive that's going to drop its leaves and it's in a pot.

It can if it's not inside, got it.

Got it.

And another type of One time we have our bowls that are that are cold hearty, but not as cold hardy.

Okay, okay.

This is this happens to be a Chinese sweet plum.

It's centuries of seasons.

It's actually not.

It's not a true plum, but ask if it if it bear fruit, it does bear fruit, which is why it's called a plum.

And apparently they're sweet.

I've never had any on on one.

But, but this is this is a tree which is found found, you know, essentially in in central China realized of course you're on the flip side of the world there.

Yes.

So the farther south you go, the colder it gets.

Just the opposite of what we think.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so this one's more from northern China, which means it's warmer time that the so it needs it helps to have a cool temperature, this is one that would survive, not having a cold temperature, but it does better under cold temperature.

We haven't the same greenhouse with this other one.

But it's hard to only to about zone seven, okay.

And that means that temperatures to get much below say probably about zero or five above is about as far as as far as it'll handle.

And so, in essence, many times what's referred to as semi deciduous deciduous means that drops this leaves, which is the case with the with the Japanese maple.

But this one will keep its leaves on during the wintertime until it gets towards the latter part of winter.

And then the leaves will start to CNS, they'll start to die back.

And you can see on this one that we're getting a lot of brown areas on those leaves.

And you can look at that and you go man that's got a disease, it's got to have a problem with spray with a fungicide.

No, it's going through its natural process, it will drop these leaves just before it puts new ones on, which is so cool, because that's the opposite of what we think.

Yeah, you know, absolutely, they drop them in the fall.

Yeah, but this one actually hangs onto them.

Another a common plant that you may be more familiar with is pomegranate will do the same thing interesting, they will hang its leaves on most of time if it gets a cold shot.

And this is the same way if it gets a little bit colder, it'll drop its leaves just like a deciduous tree, and then sit there and wait until the spring to put it on.

But if it's under warmer conditions, but still cold enough for it to get its nice rest a little bit, these leads will kind of sunesson and and these will all drop off in the span.

Oh, by the time you get into the latter part of march on pretty much all will be dropped off.

Some of these younger leaves that are newer, newer ones on the ends may stay on because they're younger.

But but that's a second type of bonsai we have Okay, the third part are truly tropical.

And, and this is actually a birthday vi fig.

It's a you have figs that are that are that are going to be associated with weeping fig and so on.

And so those are the trees you normally see in in shopping malls and things of this nature.

You have relatively large leaves, this is a small leaf one, there are approximately 300 species of figs so we don't all look alike.

And and this is when it's totally tropical.

And it's been it's been in a in a in a greenhouse in which we keep the temperature How old is this?

This one?

I don't know.

We bought it.

We bought it about five years ago.

And it was almost a size then really so it's a it all depends because be in a tropical plant.

Very likely this one was grown in Florida originally or some other tropical area of the country and and it may have only been only taken a couple years in tropical areas to get this big.

It this thick of a stir of a trunk.

But when we get into temperate areas such as the Midwest, and isn't is only able to grow when it's it does best tropicals do best when a temperature stay reliably above 70 degrees at night.

Okay, for those of you who do not have air conditioning, or those of you that remember back when you did not have air conditioning, those are the nights when it's so hot and muggy that you can't sleep.

Okay, I grew up that way.

Essentially July and August was that way that section I grew up without air conditioning.

And you essentially just kind of toss and turn all night and in the morning you get up because you still didn't sleep well, because it's so darn hot and humid.

But that's what they do best in and so they're going to grow best during the second half of June through July in August.

So it's a two and a half months to grow really to really grow and and and do what it goes haha this is what I love.

All right, gotcha.

But in Florida, it was probably 10 months a year at least Yeah.

So so it will grow much faster because he's getting like three or four years in each one versus while he gets up here.

I'm gonna take a tick Quick break, we're gonna throw it over to Liz and John, they're going to tell you how you can support the program.

But when we come back, I have some questions about these bonsai.

So we'll be right back.

Well, thank you Tinisha My name is John Steinbacher.

I'm joined by Liz Westfield.

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And we'll check back in with you in just a bit but back to the bones I so this one the maple you said it's starting to to bud to swell Are we starting to see signs of spring?

Yes, we are.

And and you can see that that on the ends of here on the ends of our branches, the the buds are starting to swell a little bit and show up particularly on the newer growth but for all over the planet you can see see this sort of thing and different varieties will come out at different times.

We have other Japanese maples that are in our cold greenhouse that have are starting to show much more swelling in the buds I wondered when showed that it was more dormant but just one is starting to show some early signs and so we start thinking about well what can you if you're in the bone side or you want to get into bone side?

What are you doing the wintertime?

Well for the most part, you just kind of cool your heels you're kind of like a corn and soybean farmer he used to check joke about I grew up in that situation did some work on the fields and they would make the comment that all is gone and soybean farmer does during the wintertime his fingers taxes so which is kind of that and the putter around planning with making sure that everything's oiled, everything's painted and everything's redone but and and so and so a lot of times you don't do a whole lot but as you get into the latter part you can start to see the bud start to swell that is a good time in which you can start pruning your deciduous or cold hardy bones I know most of them most of what we have right now or like I said outside and pot would be frozen to the ground and you really don't want to jerk on it you could break the pot theoretically or something of this nature we overwinter Minda bots and and on tripods are a finer clay and fired high at a higher temperature.

So he did not break as easily as regular terracotta Yes, not only is the shape different than being low and wide, but they are also made of a very fine clay which is which has a high firing temperature which makes them less likely to break.

And then there are ones that are made out of plastic which you can't break it off.

Now if someone's watching this and they think oh this is it, this is my new thing.

What is a good starter bonsai tree for folks.

Well, starter is one that I mentioned in a previous segment and that is the Juniperus procumbens Nayna commonly called Japanese garden Juniper, but you will find them in in pretty much any garden center you want to go to and there'll be called Garden junipers or procumbens junipers many times and are going to be oh Lo growing toward of ground cover type evergreen shrub that that you can use.

That's a that's an that's a great one to get started on.

What is it about bonsai films or Maples work pretty well to I'm sorry what is it about bonsai for you?

What How did you get into these How did this become your hobby?

What is it about them it's kind of a strange situation because when I was when I was an undergraduate and getting into being going to graduate school in toward entomology degrees the I really got into keeping plants I like to have green plants in my dorm room and later when I was living in a house and I got into these these big plants that that tend to get into the weeping figs as I mentioned earlier that are your mall mall trees and, and bird of paradise plant and some things got pretty good sized.

I had Norfolk Island pine it was fairly large.

And pretty soon I had you know I kind of felt like when I went into my bedroom, I needed a machete to find my way to the bed, you know, it was, things were just kind of growing up and, and, and overwhelming things.

And at the same time, my master's degree I was working on insects associated with trees, so I really got a real interest in trees.

And, and ended up becoming a, my area of expertise are insects that feed on trees and shrubs, primarily, although I have other things that I that I've developed expertise in.

But that's, that's, that's the bottom line sort of thing.

That's where my theses were associated with my degrees.

And so, so I thought, well, you know, if you grow, you can have more plants, if they're small things, and you can have trees that are small, best of all possible worlds and already know what the bugs are to get on the tree.

So hey, you know, I'm halfway there.

So so that's kind of how I got into it, I actually got into it because I wanted something where I could have a number of plants and that I could that I could enjoy on the porch or wherever even if they had to be outside you know, our benches in the yard or whatever the case may be without without having them just grow forever.

And one little one little quote that I like to say when I give a talk on bonsai is that isn't of growing plants is no longer a challenge try bonsai you will never be out of challenges oh I like that because some people call it growing bonsai as growing a tree on the edge of death.

Because you are you are you are you are constructing this root system Yes.

To where it ends up being dwarfed as a result.

Yeah, you know a little bit farther and you have a dead tree.

Okay, severely dwarf means dead you know when it when it when it can no longer has enough root system to support the top row if you have a dead plants are dead.

And so and so it is challenging thing.

Anytime you talk to anybody, it's been in bonsai for very long at all.

And you ever want to get you know, get a couple favorite beverages sitting around somewhere and you start talking about trees that you used to have that you died.

And the typical bonsai person has many more dead tree stories and they have lived that's the tear and there's a there's there's a drawback because until you learn how to do it, you tend to lose a lot of them.

Wow, I would love to see this guy when it's all leafed out and and full.

Later on the spring or summer whenever that happens.

Yeah, so Okay, so I told folks that you were coming today, and I said, if you've got pest problems, send us a photo.

And we'll get it to the experts.

So we have a couple of things that come in, explain to folks what they're seeing.

And this is actually sent in from John bone Steiner, who is another one of our panelists here.

So kind of just diagnose what we're seeing here for folks who may not know well what we have is obviously a tropical plant.

I don't know which one it is, but you can you can look fairly closely on and you can see that it's got a lot of a lot of hairs on them and many of these would be glands associated with the with the with a plant which would produce some sort of SAP associated with that.

Various plants will will have sappy leaves and so on or glands on the leaves to to maybe attract ants many times in the tropical areas they will have these.

If you have ants on on you and you're a plant, you have a pest control army.

Okay, so if you if you can attract them due to due to nectar, extra floral nectaries we call them that means areas that produce nectar that is not inside a flower extra floral.

Most of your figs have extra for neck leaves nectaries normally down to base a leaf, this one has tends to have them all over.

And so that's what what they will have here.

And what you have here is an infestation of aphids.

And in the upper left corner of it you can actually see a winged aphids sitting on the plant upside down and a couple of other that look kind of brownish on the leaves only about three or four.

And then you have these white things.

These white things are actually the cast skins of the aphids.

As an aphid grows up typically an insect as it grows up.

We'll vote four or five times three to five times most commonly five times.

And f is typically one world five times, shedding their outside covering this the skeleton of an insect is on the outside of a body.

The muscles attached to the inside of the skeleton.

Are muscles attached to the outside of the skeleton.

We have an endoskeleton Yes, they have an exoskeleton, their muscles attached to the inside of a skeleton.

It's a different way of thinking.

And, but in order to get larger when we get larger, we have a At the ends of our bones that expand and the bone grows longer, and our flesh take keeps up with it.

With an insect in order to get bigger, it has to shed that exoskeleton.

And it recycles as much as you can eat, digested from the inside out and recycles as many of those nutrients as possible.

But it still left with a little thin area on the outside that it has to shed in order to get bigger.

And that's what we're seeing on the inside of the insect for new insect it comes out from a molding, that skeleton is still soft and an end inhales air and sometimes water drinks water to make itself as big as possible.

While that's tans are dries or hardens, and then it takes a while before it grows up into it where it's too large.

Again, it's kind of like you know, your old place go go go with your kids you go and and what are you doing when you buy jeans or shoes, you buy him a little bit big.

So the grow into aluminum.

That's the whole idea here, you make it big, so you grow into it.

And so once you have a CAT scans, and realize important that the cat skins are dead, they're not living parts.

That was funny.

You said people report that they can't get rid of these.

Yes, I've had numerous calls or or comments over him over my career of people that say, Well, I've got effects on my plant and you could control aphids on your plant.

Typically a best way to pay for a homeowner is to use what's called an insecticidal soap, okay, it will be sold in the garden center.

As insecticidal soap, you can use a laundry, a dishwashing detergent, but many dishwashing detergents are going to not only be good at killing bugs, but also killing plants.

They will they will dissolve the waxy coverings on leaves.

And this will and this will cause the cause the plant tissue to dry out and you have dead leaves and enough dead leaves the dead plant so so we have we recommend against that.

You go on the internet, you can find all kinds of, of recipes.

And people somehow love to control bugs with what they can find on your kitchen counter chest or, or in your or in your bathroom closet or whatever the case may be.

But in reality, what you want to do is use something that's sold for that.

And what's the difference?

They're both soaps that insecticidal soap has been selected to kill bugs and not plants.

You know what I'm guilty of the old one drop of dish soap in with the neem oil, shake, shake, shake.

But now I I'm not going to do that anymore.

And I've used that myself I've Well, it's usually a teaspoon of dishwashing detergent to a gallon of water.

But after 30 minutes, I wash it off because I don't want to have dead plants.

But, but a better way to do it is to use insecticidal soap, you leave it on it, it's not going to harm the plant, you can even get to get into the soil and you get regular dishwashing detergent in the soil.

You almost certainly got a dead plant because those roots can handle that.

soaps will, will tend to tend to suck moisture out of things and you suck moisture out of your roots, you got a dead plant.

That's just all there is to it.

You know, and and so and so in this case, what you've got is another advantage of insecticidal so are these cat skins are hanging on to this plant.

Due to honey do that the aphids produce sucking insects will produce a concentrated form of sap that they are a part of the SAP but they will and they will excrete and this will dry down into a stickies sugary material.

I like syrup.

And, and this will hang these, these cat skins or exuviae we call them to be technical, as well as the glands around the plant.

And we use an insecticidal soap.

Guess what that does?

It says dissolve that honeydew Oh, and those in that same episode associated with those glands and helps get the dead shells off the plant too.

So but yeah, I've had many people say, you know, I can kill the green ones I can kill the, in this case, the reddish aphids, he's would be green PJ fits in all likelihood account a good form of good way of field characteristic of knowing Green Peach, aphids is normally reddish.

Okay, figure that one out green peach aphid is ready.

There's always But at any rate.

The point is, is that that gets rid of the of the white ones two, or you know, you just look at and you go, Hey, I know you guys are dead.

I don't need to worry about you and just kind of let it go.

Okay, insecticidal soap will take care of the aphids and so on and plan otherwise.

Okay, we're gonna go back to John and Liz real quick.

And then when we come back, we've got more Facebook questions.

Thanks so much TInisha.

I love seeing you and Phil answering those local questions.

This is a local gardening program which means you have a chance to get your questions answered on the air submit them on Facebook or via the Mid American gardener email address.

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Yes.

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Thanks so much.

Thanks, guys.

All right, and we're back with Phil.

Now.

Now this is a question from Facebook.

This is from Terry Houston writes in, I believe these are squash bugs.

And when you see the picture, it's going to give you the the willies because it did me They destroyed every variety of squash in my garden and my cantaloupe and cause damage to other things like tomatoes and peppers.

Any advice for this year before emergence and after would be much appreciated.

And the picture here was the very first ever and only spaghetti squash that they were able to grow.

And it did not make it.

So what would you what would you suggest here for a preemergence treatment to avoid this?

Well, you know, you see a nasty looking idea.

But I do see I look at that.

And I go man, that's a neat looking shot of squash bugs.

And you have various nymphal stages you have second, third, fourth, fifth instar nymphs showing various stages of development of this insect.

And even Oh no, no right side towards about a third of about halfway down the squat.

There's actually an adult.

So you've got the six stages.

Yeah, that one right there.

And so you got four of the six stages of stinked of squash bug here, which are related to stinkbugs.

And so I look at that, and I go, man, that would be that's the kind of thing I like to use in teaching because you can show all these different stages and otters.

And what they actually do.

And what you do is they suck outs, juices, and even it didn't many times there's enough of them, they'll shovel squash.

And there's not enough to sweat trove of squash, say that three or four times.

Dribble the squash, you have they will actually cause the squash to have an off flavor and sometimes pretty nasty off like oh God.

So because they inject chemicals from their bodies in the process of feed on the squash.

But what these will do is like many of the true bugs, which is what this is called stink bugs, squash bugs.

They will many of the larger ones like this usually overwinter as adults, and where the overwinter are going to be protected areas, they're going to be in areas associated with debris that might be along a fence row, or underneath a bunch of shrubs or, or in your garden.

And this may be one this is one of the main reasons why it's a good thing to remove the debris from a garden in the fall and rake it up and compost it.

Or if you're in a country like me, you can burn it.

Anything you want to do to do to get rid of that eliminates the protective areas for the squash bugs and some other past overwinter.

Now the other side of his coin is you have some good bugs that overwinter this way.

And things such as lady beetles, ladybugs, they do the same way in overwintering and so when you do this, guess what you reduce your number of ladybugs at overwinter.

So as in many things in gardening, whatever you do has a plus side and a minus side in it.

And so obviously what you would do here is you might not remove all the debris in the garden.

But if you debris move or debris debris associated with your squash area, okay, you are getting hopefully more squash bugs eliminated than you are ladybugs and other things that you want to have.

And and just just just you can compost it you can do whatever that that compost pile will heat up enough to kill the bugs, they typically get up to 140 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit 120 to 130 kills pretty much any insect so you know as it would us is this where every year rotating where your crops are comes into play makes a big difference.

In fact when I grow squash sometimes what I like to do is do a not only rotate by area but rotate through time.

In other words, if I have more than one garden plot, I will plant squash in one plot one year and another year of it maybe across the whole yard away the next year or or if only I've always had my own garden boss now typically are close together and so what I do is sometimes I will grow squash one year, wait a year and grow squash Next year, okay, because you can just go squash produce well, you can find those easily a garden markets.

So farmer market so so it's a so that's, that's something where you really mess up the squash bugs, when you don't have the crop that they need the next year, they're going to have to fly to find something more ever gonna start to definitely be one of the two planets.

Yeah, and so that's that's a good way but but even this time of year, as we're heading towards spring, late winter, we can getting rid of that debris associated with that squash bed area will help reduce the number of overwintering bugs are going to be able to survive that okay.

And of course, the best time to do it would be on kind of a colder day, temperatures below 40 degrees.

Because most insects are only able to be in cold blooded, they can only move and run away when it's over.

It's about 45.

Okay, so if you do it when it's colder, then the then you then are not walking away from your house.

Gotcha.

Okay.

And as far as treatment goes, would you would you put anything as far as chemical or something into the ground or into the garden area to treat this now you wouldn't necessarily do any sort of a pretreatment, these insects tend to lay their eggs on the underside of a leaf towards the base, and they grow lay their eggs in groups.

And there'll be there'll be reddish brown in color.

And they'll try to be the shape group.

Because as the veins coming together on a leaf on the underside, it forms a V. So the theory you got to make a V, and there'll be somewhere around 15 or 20 eggs at a time, probably 16 to 20 or 20 or 414, or 21, I should say, tend to lay their eggs in groups of seven for some reason, interesting.

But at any rate, the you can rub those out, you can clip off that leaf and distros of it.

This will help reduce it.

When they're on squashed like this.

You can kill them with insecticidal soap on contact.

There are by reef droid insecticides that are going to be effective against them as well.

But you need to rotate or try to find ones that work well and not necessarily use the same one.

They become resistant to some insecticides.

And they're kind of hard shelled, which makes them kind of resistant to start with.

And they don't chew the leaves.

They just suck the juices out.

Which means that they don't take in a lot of insecticide in the process.

Gotcha.

kind of tricky.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's why we hire entomologist.

So they know something about the bug.

It kind of helps out.

There you go.

There you go.

Okay.

flying blind.

You speaking of overwintering insects, you brought a friend?

Yes.

A is a crab favorite.

Everybody loves the woolly bear.

And you'll find these during in throughout the winter.

And I've had people call me up before and they want to know, well, what do I do with this thing?

You can see it's alive.

It's moving.

And, and you know, do I put it in a terrarium or something?

Do I keep it warm?

What do I feed it?

And, you know, it's it's kind of like that same story of when you find what looks to be an orphan, mammal or bird out there.

you're best off leaving alone because mom's probably somewhere around.

Well, mom isn't here.

She's she's dead long ago.

But but but the important thing associated with this is this insect is one of several caterpillars.

That overwinters as a larva, boy, he's doing real, very being photogenic is saying about him.

Yeah.

And so the best thing you can do is kind of leaving where he is.

And what he'll do is he'll come out on a warm day and crawl around a little bit.

And then on a cold, I guess, as it gets cold, you'll find a place that's protected, hopefully, where a mouse won't find him and eating and, and they will and he'll and he'll be dormant, he won't be able to move till you put him in your hand he warms up a little bit and he'll start moving around.

These really do not go through any hibernation.

They just they just when it when it gets too cold for and move around.

They stop moving, they just stop and they can handle colder temperatures, they'll move around in temperatures, Anywhere.

Anytime it's above freezing, you'll commonly see them moving around, so they can handle colder temperatures to move around in and stay active.

And in the late winter, they will pupate kind of the same thing as we think of as the cocoon stage.

A cocoon is a pupil with silk around spin around it by the larva of a caterpillar.

And but but most most, most insects don't have a cocoon.

It's just what we call a naked pupa.

It's kind of a reddish brown to a dark brown to blackish type of thing.

And from there, we'll come out come off in this case, usually in the very early days of spring.

And this is an insect that likes to eat violence as well as some other things.

So When I'm looking for caterpillars have banded Lily bears, I tend to look at violence going in my yard that other people call weeds and I call flowers.

Excellent.

Well, those I'm telling you, we find those My kids love to play with them.

We've got a couple there overwintering in the basement right now I just leave them when I go down the laundry, I just kind of, you know, just leave them.

And maybe it will take them outside and spring, the yellow woolly bear also overwinters as a larva.

These are the ones that you find on on lamb's quarter, and some other plants that there'll be anywhere from a yellow color to a reddish color, which is probably the center of this.

Summer only almost blackish, I have to ask, and they're all the same species.

And they do the same thing.

They overwinter as larvae.

pupate late in the season, and they'll come out as a white moth.

I have to ask, do they predict the weather?

No.

Okay.

Just had to get that out there because a lot of people think so.

And it's kind of a fun co sort of thing.

This is a good example right here.

This is a head end.

Notice how wide the black area is?

how wide the brown or or rust and how short it is, by the way, would be predicting it would say but we would have an early very cold long winter.

That accurate, did we?

I mean, it's been long, only about two weeks or so three weeks?

Oh, I think so much.

Remember, November, December, and most of January was warm.

How many of times it was in the 50s or 40s?

All right.

All right, we didn't have any really severe, terrible cold temperature till we got towards the end of December.

That's true, or the end of into January into February.

And so actually, this should have been a very small black area.

Gotcha.

That was that was a bad prediction.

That's not a good predictor.

And in reality, what happens is that is it when these insects hatch, and they will have very little black on the on the head or have the tail end.

And a big ready Cherie in the center.

And as they get older, the black area increases.

Regardless of a winner, oh, he's not going to drop off that we're going to lose him.

This is this is above and if you fall off your plant, you starve to death.

So he's not going to drop.

He's not going to go he's not going.

Okay, we're gonna check in with John Lewis.

And we'll be right back.

And thank you so much.

Tinisha.

Liz and I are here once again to ask for your support of MidAmerican Garner tonight on this very special extended edition of mid american gardener and the stars are out.

How about that?

Well, we were if that doesn't convince you to support this show, I don't know what will that cute little Wolley worm was like, This is my time time, my 15 minutes of fame.

It was just adorable.

And we love those hands on demonstrations.

And really they're the best here in the studio.

And the show pivoted throughout the pandemic brought you great gardening advice via zoom from a safe distance.

They kept the show going they kept meeting you where you were but now that we can be back in the studio, we could meet Little Willie warm stars.

That's right.

I do love when the when the Bug Guy comes those kinds of things.

And you know, gardening is not just about the plants.

It's about of course, making sure that you have well, the right kind of bugs, and how to handle the wrong kind of bugs in the right way.

We learned a lot from Phil on that too.

And I loved to see Phil nerd out about this photo that kind of made, you know Tinisha a little squirmy.

But he thought it was a great educational piece about those squash bugs.

So we really love to see that they're bonding back in the studio and that you get to connect with them in this way.

If you continue to love MidAmerican Garner and you've never given I hope that Willie worm will push you over the edge to 217-244-9455 or online at will give.org Because not only is it a great time for an American gardener, it's a great time for Illinois public media.

That's right, we are celebrating our 100th anniversary this year.

In fact, just a little bit over a month on April 6 will be the official day that we turned 100 And of course we've been celebrating all year with lots of great events and thank you gifts and right now we have this very cool will 100 mug that we're offering exclusively during our 100th anniversary which you can get for a gift of $7 per month.

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That's right.

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Gartner for almost 30 years is also impressive.

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And I believe we've got just one more little segment here with Tinisha.

And Phil.

I don't know if they've got any other creatures.

I hope so beat the woolly worm, but good luck to you who is ever next to 217-244-9455 times.

Thanks, guys.

All right.

So we're almost out of time.

But you wanted to talk a little bit more about some overwintering insects.

Yeah, some insects will overwinter as adults.

And we have a couple notable butterflies that actually overwinter in the Midwest.

One is the morning clock, which tends to have blackish wings that have a golden margin on the wings.

And another one is the red Admiral, which is which is black with with reddish orange streaks alone I orange right.

Now are those some of the first two that will start to see in the spring?

Yes.

And you even get a warm winter day, you're likely to see those out because they will they photo wings up together and slide sideways up underneath loose bark and stay that way for the winter.

And it gets to be a warm day gets up in save a high 50s low 60s.

They'll be out flying around and people will see those go.

Wow, where did they come from?

Yeah, well, maybe the next one two weeks later, but it was underneath will bark in the inner in cold weather until it stays warm.

Well, you know what, that's going to be something that's gonna I'm going to hold on to that as the sign of spring.

Thank you so much.

It's been a blast that went really fast.

Thank you so much for watching, and we will see you next time.

Good night.