Hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha, Spain.

And joining me in the studio today are two of our panelists who are ready to explain all things gardening and tackle your questions.

But first, let's have them introduce themselves.

Chuck, we'll start with you.

All right.

I am Chuck Voight.

Not so recently retired from the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois, was a horticulturist there.

vegetable crops and herbs were my were my specialties professionally.

But I had the full the full gamut as an undergraduate.

So I'll tell you why we'll try almost anything.

I have heard so much chatter about Chuck's planting schedule.

Apparently, that was a very coveted thing that a lot of your students will have been wanting for, like, decades.

And so we've gotten so much feedback about Chuck's coveted planting schedule, and you're here when it's when it was given.

Yes.

I mean, they couldn't believe you gave it so freely.

So I just want you to know you made a lot of people's planting season this year.

So well.

We'll see that online, so everybody can check it out.

Yes, yes.

All right.

Tell a little bit about you.

Yeah, I'm Shane cultra.

I'm one of the family of owners that country arbors nursery, we've been in the nursery business since 1865.

So I've kind of grown up in this industry my whole life.

I'm now retired.

So but as I told my wife, you can take the man out of the plants, but you can't take the plants out of the man.

So I'm not there every day.

I'm working in my garden actually went to the nursery today to grab a couple things and they go look at the place.

I kind of stay away because it's kind of feast or famine.

You just have to let everybody do their thing.

Yes.

And and it's been wonderful.

Now I get to see what everybody else does on the other side of the Yeah.

And working in your own yard for fun.

I know.

I can't believe it.

I mean, normally when I'm planting, I'm running and I'm digging a hole and throwing it in it and getting back in and now I actually get to look at it.

Yeah, it's gardening is pretty fun.

It is I actually get to do it.

When you're not doing it 5060 hours a week, right?

It's copper.

So no shoes.

Got some shoes.

There you go.

Okay, well, you guys brought a lot of great stuff in so Chuck, we'll start with you.

All right.

Well, we've we've talked about asparagus, and your inability to wait three years to pick it.

And when you were out at the farm with me, we looked at my my new little row.

And I was I was crabbing that I'd never seen anything less impressive than the routes that they sent me.

It was a special deal Thanh, each of two kinds for bargain price.

And, and they were literally the size of nut cup doilies, they were they were just teensy, but I planted them and I got 18 of 20 to grow.

And I've been tending them, keeping them weed free fertilizing them.

And we actually harvested for what was like three weeks but because it got so cold.

And as you can see this, the spirits are still nice and thick.

And we probably could have gone beyond that.

But I want to give it you know, at least one more season to grow up the fern and capture a lot of energy and stored in the roots.

And just for the heck of it, I went back to make sure I could I could say the right varieties, because there is a fairly noticeable difference.

This thicker one is called Millennium hybrid M hybrid and this is one that's been around for a while Jersey Knight.

They're both predominantly male, but they don't say all male anymore, they're there because they're only like 75% and I noticed last year that I did get a few berries on on on some that have to be females.

As Shane pointed out, these are probably a little larger than you would want to harvest them.

But since I quit harvesting, these were the two most compact ones that I could find you can you can tell when the when the tip starts to expand like that they're getting a little past this one was still very tender at the base.

This one maybe not quite as much but if you worry about that you can just snap it off and where it snaps is extended from there on up.

I'm so proud my nephew in Boulder planted some roots this spring and in his garden he's he's really really become quite a gardener.

So the Voight blood has has passed that on to another generation but this is nice, very very nice and and kind of unexpected, given what I saw when I opened the package because I was I was grumbling pretty heavily.

But I think surprise you, I think you should you should make a resolution to take those two years off and then be a little circumspect that third year and then then go crazy and then just because you're relatively young, you know, if if if a guy as old as I am can wait till the third year to harvest I mean it should be a piece of cake.

It's been a running joke every year I just refuse to plan it because I can't I know I won't.

I know I won't be able to wait.

So I'll just I'll just keep eyeballing yours from afar, Chuck will come up and visit it every once in a while and, boy keeping it keeping a weed free is is really the ticket because my old role has been grassed over and and poison ivy tries to get in among it.

And it's kind of shaded.

So given the weather we've had that stayed cool and has only just recently started to grow.

This started in April, early April, because it was on bare soil right in the sunshine.

So location makes a difference Location, location, location.

Okay, we're gonna go to you.

What's your I won't lie if you haven't yet nut, nut cup doily?

I consider myself.

But I'm taking that one home, I have no idea what a nut cup doily is if anybody wants to know.

Yeah, like if you want to send me a nut cup doily, I'd be proud to have that.

get anything out of his show.

That is a beautiful word that you can bring out for your children.

So I brought you know, in the world of shade plants, there's everybody thinks a Hoss, you know, we get kind of bogged down in the same plants over and over.

But one of the great plants is called marinara.

And there's a lot of great varieties of bernera out there.

But what people forget is the straight varigated bernera is one of the most beautiful leaves out there, it grows perfectly in the shade doesn't need a lot of water.

And it grows prolifically, it doesn't really heat in the winter, there's just a lot of great aspects of the original varigated form.

And the price is half of the other forms.

So it's a lot, it's a lot cheaper than the other ones grows just as well and has beautiful color.

And the new ones might have a little bit more silver to them or less green in general and have other bright colors.

To me, this is still one of the best size wise when it's fully mature, what do we get pretty good size, this leaf probably is not indicative of how big it's gonna get, it'll probably get as big as my hand.

And so it'll probably get a foot, foot and a half.

And as wide depending on the situation, you know, they do when you have shade, obviously, they're competing against trees, so you can maybe put a little bit more water to it, it can get a little bigger, and I don't say sitting in water.

But that's the one thing about shade plants is they're in the shade because they're shaded usually by trees.

And trees love to compete against them.

So anytime you have shade plants, and you want them to grow a little faster, keep out the weeds, which is generally not as many weeds because it's in the shade, but the roots of the trees take up and compete for water.

So that's a really good alternative if you're looking for something besides hosta in the shade, and not a coral though.

Very nice and not the flower, the little dainty flower I didn't even mention it looks like a myosotis flower kind of like a little blue flower.

And they're really pretty and they stand out really nicely against the the foliage.

I'm glad you mentioned that because the flowers are really pretty.

And you mentioned that can take a little abuse a little it's pretty hardy.

Yeah, it's not something it does burn.

So it's not going to be in the sun.

If you have something gets afternoon sun, keep it in in the shade.

It's not going to like that at all.

Bright colors come generally from not getting burned.

And I'll put this out there.

hostels are the opposite, they turn more white with more sun.

So it's not the case here.

So I don't want to confuse people.

But hostels you see these really heavily white varieties, those can take more sun and actually get more white with the sun does the opposite this will burn.

Okay, okay, and it's vigorous but not yet not overtaking it's not like snow in the mountain or some of these other plants that are legacy.

Meaning you'll have them forever and your neighbors will to not that you better put a sidewalk around them and that's the only like a copper edge to stop them from going Yeah, maintenance wise do you do we cut them back in the fall so at the end of the year, they will kind of turn what I call the old lettuce so as they get cold and they just kind of scrape that off.

And I cover everything with three inches of mulch, but there won't be really anything over the winter like a coral Ville will have this little nugget and this doesn't have that it dies to the ground.

So there's really, again, not too much maintenance, just mulching it in with a nice warm blanket of mulch.

Very nice.

It's very pretty to Yeah, it's it stands out in the garden.

We've always got dark malt, generally and we have shade in what shines better in shade than a bright, bright leaf.

That is gorgeous.

Okay.

All right, Chuck.

Well, back to you.

Okay, well then At the same time I planted this asparagus, I planted two new kinds of rhubarb.

Got them from the same place, also a special deal.

I was happier with this one, although it was amazing.

One of them, it was like the they had this giant root and they just kind of sliced off a bud and sent it to me.

That's how you divide it, you just literally cut it with a knife and ship it true.

This one was a little more aggressively vaccine, but that's okay, you see those as a route, like it was like a slice of route with with one or two buds on it.

Okay.

So I planted those and and unlike the asparagus, which you plant deep and then gradually fill in so which makes it easier to cultivate for the first several years.

With this, you plant the bud just kind of at ground level, because that's that's where it needs to be.

This I went for red, this is this is Canada red.

Which gets as you can see very nice, large petioles.

I took off the leaf blade, so it didn't wilt.

There's an acid in here this so when you're doing this, you take that off and you clean up the bottom a little bit.

But that was nice read on that and lots of productivity.

This one doesn't seem to get as large petioles.

But they are very red.

And this one is actually internally red.

So when you cook this one, you really get a nice pinky red sauce as opposed to a really green one where it comes out.

I think I've said that before grayish green.

So those are the two commercial ones that I got because they were red.

This one is one that I rescued from at the beginning of a place where it was disappearing at the farm that weeds had taken over weed trees, it was under Courtland apple tree.

And there were clumps with lots of little tiny buds.

And so last year later than I probably should have, I dug up one of those, divided it into 10 little sections and planted that to fill out the the asparagus row where there was where there was room at the end.

And despite heat and drought and, and whatever, I did carry a lot of water to it.

But I got it going.

And by last fall over seven robust plants there.

I lost three this spring at the right time and went in and filled in those three spots.

And they're cute little plants that the others are trying to smother out with their giant leaves.

But anyway, this is a variety that came from my mother's best friend Florence Buckman.

And she had that and her garden moved different places over the years and she always had this variety.

It is really tender.

It's really succulent.

The only thing it's not is super red.

Gotcha.

But I thought it was worth rescuing from the weeds in honor of Florence who, who they are she told me over and over was there as I was born.

She was not a midwife per se but she was my mother's friend who was there.

There were there was in fact a doctor who made house calls back in during the doily days right back into.

Exactly, exactly.

Reference comes back around the theme of the show.

A midwife and yeah, that's over 100 years old.

You say?

Well, it could be Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, mom and Florence would be like 106 or something last year, they were the same age so great.

I love stories like that.

Yeah, yeah.

Heirloom plants are they're amazing.

We've got I moved some of my grandmother's peonies from my mom and dad's now house which was my grandparents house to my house and I just you know the stories that come with it are just really my spider plants.

160 years old.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

My grandma my great grandmother's grandmother.

Wow.

I think my mom is gonna correct me on this but when you get home my sister has the mother plant like they didn't You didn't trust the grocery owner with the original plant that had to give me your phone I'm gonna I've always been an insurance policy.

Funny so both of these things both the asparagus and the rhubarb really like are heavy feeders and and asparagus I'm not so sure of rhubarb.

Well aged manure is is is what it loves.

What's your favorite way to eat it?

You mentioned cooking it is it?

What you because I've, you know, I just want somebody else to eat it.

Oh, you're not rhubarb pie is a waste of strawberries.

I can detect one part per million and and reject the no i I think what happened is I was that Florence's as a matter of fact.

And my good friend who was was kind of a he was a he was a cool kid.

And he was over there pulling pulling a sock of of Florence's rhubarb, which he shouldn't have been it wasn't his.

And so he talked me into doing the same thing.

And he was just chewing on his like it was salary.

I bid into that.

And it cured me forever.

So I used to go over and get stocks out of a neighbor's yard.

That's the well in the pie.

But yeah, that's the only way I I've eaten it.

Sugar is definitely a key ingredient to the rhubarb.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

My friend would if he'd had it would have put salt on it.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I know people that salt watermelon, too.

Oh, yeah, I guess.

There's like a crumb cake that my sister makes it every once in a while.

She She grumbles that I would love it if I tried it.

And well, Donna, you know, I will always try.

And so now maybe next time, maybe next time, maybe next time, okay.

Wonderful.

All right, not Chuck.

Alright, so I brought something in a little different, different form I bought I bought something called Iron Knight.

So one of the things that we have problems with our river birch and our pin oaks, get a lot of chlorosis.

It's really a huge problem when I'm driving through this.

That's a great question.

So it's a the yellowing of the leaves.

And you see all the time and river birch, especially when you're driving through the neighborhood, the leaves are, should be green, and they're just a bright yellow, and they pin oaks.

That's why we don't really grow too many pin oaks anymore is because they get chlorosis.

So quickly, the old running joke when I was a kid is if you plan a pin oak, you drive the truck, you brought the oak in into the hole variant together, because they need so much iron.

So it's an it's been an issue.

So ironite really solves that it's one of the few you know, there's culated iron, and there's other forms of iron, but it just doesn't work quite as fast and as well as iron does.

And what I found with Iron Knight is it doesn't burn.

So you really can't put too much I don't challenge anybody to try.

But in general, you can't mess it up.

And the other thing I found is when I spread it around my trees, my grass was unbuilt almost gray, black green.

So then I thought I should read the label.

Now you see why he didn't get that mother.

Kind of the reverse.

Extension people would recognize exactly.

That's my wife jokes when I get a bicycle.

I don't read it to start putting together and so I just learned over the years.

Ria, this is how you apply it.

It's perfect for grass, you can't really burn your grass.

You know, when we're putting our fertilizer on there.

We're doing a lot more liquid.

But in the old days when you were a kid, your parents would not let you put it on because they know those corners were going to be so slow and it was going to just put lines and burn your entire yard.

This won't do that interest us it will get darker green, but if you spread it evenly across your lawn, your neighbors will think who have you hired What's your secret?

It is the most beautiful dark green you'll ever see.

So that's what I bought this for.

I don't have any Pinocchio reverberates but in my front yard I'm going to put this out and in about 10 days my neighbors gonna ask me my lawn so I was jealous.

Yeah, so jealous.

And it's it's a little harder to find the only two places country arbors does have it but we have trouble getting it sometimes.

And Lowe's seems to be a carrier for it.

So it's a little harder to find digger bags as well but it really is if you have a pin oak or revert you should be applying this if you want to make your yard look amazing.

It's it's a great product.

Now, how do you go about the business of feeding or supplementing trees?

You know, what do you use the jumpers on something like this?

It's it's per square foot.

So you do the circumference of the trees and put so many pounds per per height of the tree.

Sometimes I'll do diameter.

The instructions do a pretty good job and I think they're more square footage on this one.

Gotcha.

Again, the positive is if you overdo it, you're not going to burn it.

You know we don't want to be putting the whole bag but on a giant paddock it would take this whole bag but you do spread it amongst the roots under the drip line and in I've always wondered that you know when people talk about watering especially young trees, do you water at the base?

Do you water a little farther?

Yeah, there's there's a combination of things we'd normally it's a combination of how aggressive the roots are, what kind of tree it is, how tall it is, how long how wide the circumference is, it is really hard to get watering instructions to people because calendar just doesn't work anymore.

The weather is all over the board as far as rain.

Yeah, no, we got tons of inches and like I wanted three times a week I go it just rained three inches.

Don't Don't.

Don't look at the calendar.

Look at the amount and I think we're gonna get technology that will eventually help.

I mean we already have little rain gauges and things of that nature.

Eventually there's going to be something outside that just literally tells you when to water because it's going to capture the rain or it's going to look on the internet and see how much your area got rain.

There's a We're going to be helped.

But right now we're still Yeah, we're still fumbling.

We still have to look out and see how much the weather the little rain gauge said.

Yeah, it's it's, it's a tough but you do have to water that.

And again, I'll say this, this is my watering instructions, watered and deep.

Let it dry out and then watered and deep again.

That's how that happens is a whole nother ballgame.

But that is the essence of watering plants you want him to search for you want the roots to search for water, that's how it develops roots.

If it's always wet, it's not going to grow as hard.

But if the roots are out there and you feed them, there'll be super happy and grow more and then start looking for more.

So that's kind of the process you're kind of teasing.

You're putting a carrot out there with water tree hacks.

Yeah, so this doesn't need to be injected like some of the fertilizer for supply it is a surface applied.

That's a really good point.

It's a surface application though some people really like to get out there with it with it with the with the probe and then you get the little stakes that you drive into the ground it really makes you feel even non arborists drilling a hole in there and pounding it's really qualified to be drilling holes.

I think we're less than we started right here.

See Barbara sent in an email Barbara Baker.

She says My son has a severe problem with thistles in his flower bed and other planting areas around the property, what can be used to get rid of them.

So this is a very common thing, especially in Illinois.

Here's the issue.

If you pull the thistle, it multiplies so you pull it out and down in the roots now it has several new starts.

So it will actually increase in in size and quantity by pulling it by hand.

Roundup does not also work.

If you spray it, it knocks it down and it comes right back.

So it's a temporary so there's a product called stinger and I'd have to look at the trade or that's the trade name I don't know the actual name of the chemical.

I'm not sure if it's over the counter but if you Google Stinger missiles it is specifically made for for thistles and thistles only.

So it really does a great job if you find anybody in the horticultural space that has problems that will be the product it has gone private label now so now you don't have to buy the trade and it's gotten much cheaper but that's what you want to look for out there I don't know Do you know of any non chemical way on vessels like I don't know any home remedies I'm sure people will write in honestly if we found that we would be using if they're in amongst other plants it's really difficult if it were say in a cornfield or something Yeah, you can go in and cut them off multiple times and starve that that the underground root system and gradually decrease them and maybe not eradicate them Yeah.

But it's tough because with the chemical like you say if if the if if the roundup burns them off that's just that's just as bad as pulling it is it just something that gets on it translocates kills the root slowly and then gets the whole thing so that's and if you haven't in a bad you can use the stinger product I do paint brush tight on taped onto a stick I dip it and paint a dip it dip it and put it away I don't spray and get it on everything else because it will burn other plants it's not made to kill them but I'm sure it would not good for him.

So either way you've got your work cut out for you Yeah, this was our if you ask me the worst for nursery men, we'd wise thistles are by far the worst.

There's no she said it's a severe and the candidate thistle is is the main culprit because some of the bull festivals and some of the other things are kind of Biennial.

They can reseed themselves and be proud but they don't have that that perennial.

I was told that it's illegal not to get rid of them.

They've been a noxious weed forever.

Yeah.

And back when farmers were in charge.

It was illegal not to try to control them.

Yeah, now you go out drive down the interstate and they're there.

They're there.

They're everywhere.

And that that seed just gets up on the floats and our farmers always let us know our fields had thistle in it.

They were very good Scouters they didn't want anything near them they go you've got to get that before it gets to see that before it becomes proper.

Yes sir.

We've got about two minutes left and this is just kind of a toss up question.

Pag man wants to know what type of hoses that you guys use that work for you in the garden and don't kink and get on your last nerve.

So we've got one that we love at the nursery I haven't home it's the brand is flexzilla Lex Zillah like Godzilla but flex there are bright yellow color.

There are they're the best hoses as far as cold and winding up and ease of use and light there and they're sturdy.

They're amazing hoses.

The two issues we've had is if you keep them in the sun, they actually will get a little fungus or like green moss inside of it from heating.

It's they must allow some light through Gotcha.

So if you just lay them out in the sun that will be an issue in it when you're not using an end that filters it.

It's not a problem, it'll just come out.

But at the nursery, we would hate it because it would fill up the nozzle.

Sure.

I've talked to him a million times and they say they have improved that.

So maybe in the last couple of years, they've done something that that doesn't happen to not let the light through.

And then the other thing is, they'll get some discoloration on the outside.

I don't know if that's mold or what's going on there.

Kind of unsightly, as far as use and Phil's evolving and lightness there's nothing close to him wax Zilla flexzilla.

They do.

I've talked to the manufacturers, and I thank them.

You have amazing hosts.

I'm gonna give you an eight out of 10 because of the last two.

That's a solid review.

Nice.

Not bad.

Chuck, do you have a fave?

Not really.

I'm with with with the lady that sent the questions in the year in the market as well.

The cheap ones I buy kink and yeah, and leak at the at the hydrogen.

They don't do all that they weigh 1000 pounds.

And the ones that curl up that expand.

see on TV.

Well, I look at that they go through all of that and how wonderful they are.

And then it's like a zillion dollars for 25 feet and it's like, geez, if I want to go 200 feet Exactly.

Out of Time, gentlemen, it goes so fast.

Thank you so much for coming in.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you have any questions for us, you can send them into your garden@gmail.com or search for us on Facebook.

Just look for Mid American gardener.

We'll see you next time.

Good night.