Spain.

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

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain, and we are out of the studio today doing something a little special.

We're at Allerton park in the mansion recording a show for a live audience.

So just like a normal show, we've got our two panelists here that are going to be taking your questions and showing you some things out of their own yard.

So let's have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about their specialty, and then we will get started.

So we have two Jennifers.

So Jennifer Nelson, we'll start with you.

Hi, I'm Jennifer Nelson.

I wear a couple of different hats.

You can find some of my articles online@groundedandgrowing.com but my main focus these days is, I'm part of the teaching faculty at University of Illinois in the crop sciences department.

I teach vegetable gardening.

Hort 105, wonderful and Jennifer Fishburne, Hi, I'm Jennifer Fishburne.

I work for the University of Illinois Extension.

I'm a Horticulture Educator located in Logan, menard and Sangamon counties.

I teach people about gardening and also oversee our Master Gardener, Master Naturalist volunteer program in our three counties.

And I've been with extension for 27 years now.

Wonderful.

All right, ladies, thank you so much for joining and let's jump into the show so you both, oh, I'm sorry.

Were you gonna say so?

No, okay, you both brought show and tell.

So, Jen, we'll start with you.

Okay, what'd you bring us?

I brought this lovely we've been sitting here enjoying the scent of this lilac from my my front yard.

This is an old reblooming variety.

It's called Josie, J, O, S, E. It's a really old, fairly old variety, if you in the horticultural world, but it blooms like any regular lilac this time of year, and then it'll bloom again in the fall.

It's not as there's way more blooms in the spring, but it's nice.

It's so nice to have something in the fall, because that is kind of like my holy grail of plants, to have something in that tired part of the season where everything's kind of shutting down, to have something fresh and new to look at.

Now, do you have to do anything to this in between the spring blooming and the fall blooming?

Any pruning, any dead heading, any maintenance at all?

If I'm feeling really on top of things, then I might go in and dead head some of the spent blooms, but a lot of times I don't get to it, and it's trying to think how tall it is.

Now it's between five and six feet tall, so I can only get to part of it, because I'm not that tall, and I don't necessarily want to get the ladder out.

But it is held up.

I've pruned it back pretty hard when it got a little too wide, and it's responded with even more blooms.

So and it smells amazing.

It is.

It's, I didn't notice it at first, but it has kind of build, built up.

Oh yes.

Does it need rejuvenation fruiting like the older lilacs, or does it do pretty well?

It's been in the ground nearly 20 years, and I haven't had to do much of a rejuvenation to it.

I've there was one time when it was getting a little too far over the sidewalk, and I cut out some major branches.

But now, what's the difference between, like, shaping it up versus rejuvenation?

Is there a difference?

Yeah, there's definitely.

Like, Rejuvenation.

Rejuvenation would be like, removing some of the thicker, older branches, they tend to get prone to, like, bores.

There's a lilac bore.

This doesn't sucker as much as, like a traditional lilac either.

I have a regular, like, really old variety in the backyard, and it's got a bajillion suckers.

And that's kind of how I got it from a friend, yes, dug up a sucker and brought it to my house when we moved in 20 years ago.

Wonderful.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Miss Fishburne, we are to you.

So mine's not quite as pretty.

So we have here is some oak leaves, and I just pruned these off the tree right before I came today.

And the reason I noticed them is because the rest of the tree is leafing out right now.

And this one, these branches are not which tells me that they have cicada damage.

So last year we had numerous cicadas.

So if you were in an area with a lot of cicadas, you will probably start to see this on your trees.

And don't be alarmed, it just the branch is not going to come back, so they could be pruned off.

But it was from the actual damage when the cicada laid her eggs into the tree bark here, and that caused that to split and on these smaller it's usually on the little, little smaller branches, and it, it won't come back.

So, just, just, so you know, it's, it's not necessarily a normal thing, but it's not something that you go out and fix.

So it's, it's not diseased or anything like that.

So just wanted to point that out to folks, if they're starting to see that and you notice it more on the oak itself, because it retains its leaves through the winter, so there's they're still hanging on.

So that's why you tend to notice.

A little bit more on oaks, and you want to cut that all the way back if you see them, damn.

You can.

If it's this one, I just took it back to the trunk and pruned it right there.

So don't prune it halfway, but take it all the way back to a main stem if you want to.

Yeah.

And if somebody just kind of wanted to be a science nerd about it, tell us a little bit more about some of those telltale features on the branches that will let you know that it's cicada damage.

So if you you're not going to see it from the top of the branch, you're going to see it on the underside.

And on the underside you will see, and I'll show up here for the camera, you'll see slits, little, little like quarter inch slits, all, sometimes all the way up that branch on the bottom side, and they're split open.

Gotcha, that's pretty noticeable.

So the tree's fine.

There's nothing to worry about.

Just remove that and then go back to enjoying the tree.

Yes.

Okay, all right.

Wonderful.

Jennifer.

Back to you, okay.

Back to me.

I brought some Iris from my yard that has some links to Monticello that maybe some folks in the audience have maybe remembered or heard of theirs.

Was an iris breeder in Monticello named Steve Varner, and he released a lot, yeah, he released a lot of different irises, and he had a whole Illini series.

So this is one of his line irises, Illini fountain.

I really like this one because it blooms so incredibly early.

It is technically Iris lactia.

I looked it up the other day.

It's already starting to fade, like some of the I pulled off some faded blossoms.

But I love it because it's really pretty small, nice blue color.

I have an orange and blue garden, so it fits in with the Illini theme perfectly, and I have it right near our spigot so it gets water dripped on it all all season.

And it is a nice big clump.

Now, excellent.

What's its growing behavior?

Is it bushy?

Is it going up?

It's a, I'd say it's on the shorter side, among irises, and it's just kind of a nice clump that behaves itself.

It's not getting like, too crazy, but it's, it's a great member of my garden.

Very nice.

And I like the color scheme that you mentioned for your Illini garden.

Yeah, it's hard to find a true blue in the plant world.

So this is pretty close.

Gotcha, okay, we're gonna talk about hydrangeas.

Would you like to do your show and tell and then we'll tag that on to the question.

I just wanted to point out that right now is a great time to, especially in central Illinois, to go out and be looking at your hydrangeas.

So for example, this one here is a is a hydrangea that I cut this bloom off of, actually, so you can go out at this time and deadhead those this type of hydrangea, which is a smooth hydrangea, they tend to come back very nicely.

They you don't see very much dead in there.

So you can see right here that one looks really pretty healthy.

Then we go over to our big leaf hydrangeas that a lot of people are going now, and they can bloom depending on the type, on old wood, new wood, or old and new wood.

So you think you've got, yeah, you have to know which one you have.

But we can see here.

These are the stems from last season, and what we're seeing at this time is some of them have green growth and some of them don't.

So even though they're Hardy for our area, you can, if you touch some of the buds, or even look at them, you can see where they're green and full and others are smooshed in, those aren't going to come back.

So now is a great time to go out and figure out where you can prune it back to.

So an example of this one here, because I see a lot of dead buds.

If I'm going to prune that, I'm going to prune it back right down to here, and I'm going to prune it just right above where, a little bit above where we have some new leaves coming out, or in some cases, I might just take it all the way back down to the ground and hope for the best as far as blooms go.

But yeah, your big leaves are kind of tricky, but that's where we're gonna see the most dead or green like it's kind of just spotty on the branch itself.

I think of any flower or plant that folks send questions in, this one that everyone wants to know, how do I change the color?

It's not blooming.

It's not performing well.

When do I prune it?

There's a lot of interest in there.

You could do a whole page.

We could a whole series.

Yes, for sure.

And is now the time to shape them up, to prune them, or do you need to wait until after they bloom?

So again, I would just go out and remove what's dead.

I would leave the rest alone.

If you don't know, it's best to just leave it alone.

This one here, though, I can tell where a flower a bud might come from.

So it's okay to go out and cut off your dead flower stems at this time.

On those.

Or you can leave them, they'll eventually kind of fall off.

But now it's fine to do that, but I if it's if it's green, I would leave it alone.

Yes, I don't mind a wonky shape, as long as I know that I can expect.

And then a lot of times what you can do if you're not sure if it's blooming on new or old, is just prune off the flowers right after they flowered, and then you don't have to wonder, it's okay.

Gotcha okay.

And so to go with that, we got a gentleman named Roger dukesman.

He sent a question in on Facebook, and it reads, I have read that hydrangeas like consistent damp soil.

Others say allow the soil to dry out completely before watering again.

How much do they really need?

Is it different for different varieties.

So let's start there.

How much water do they really need, and is it different for different varieties?

I would say most of your shrubs are all about the same.

They're all going to need, especially that first year.

They're going to need that little extra push from you.

So if you newly are planting something this spring, I would be making sure you're either watering it once a week.

Or if you're getting rainfall like we are, you know this this last week or so, you get a fair amount of rain, leave it alone.

But if you're going 710, days without rain, I would want make sure it gets watered.

And depends on the size of the container, too.

If you're planting a one gallon versus a three gallon, one gallon is going to need that extra water more often.

But the main thing is, is when you're watering, watering less often, thoroughly and deep, rather than little sprinklings every day.

And if you're not sure, stick finger in the ground.

If you reach down about two inches and it's dry, water it if it's wet, leave it alone, but mulch can help with that.

So if you're mulching a good two to four inches above your on top of the soil there, keeping that away from the trunk or the bark areas that will also help maintain that soil moisture a little bit better.

But over wet is just as bad as too dry, so gotta find this.

Yeah, anything to add to that?

No, she covered it all okay?

And then the last part of that, he says he bought a one last year and put it in the hard hydrangea, tardiva.

Tardiva That I don't know if I pronounced it.

I always struggle with the scientific names.

He said it struggled last year.

So when you put a new one in, you can't expect a dazzler.

No, that following year, right?

How long does it take for these to kind of get settled?

And I kind of go by the thing about perennials, like, first year it sleeps, the next year it creeps, and the following year it leaps.

So you've really got to let it get adjusted and established well.

And also, like, back to Jennifer's watering comment.

A lot of people, when I talk, when I've talked to them, when they're having trouble with a plant, well, how's the watering been?

Well, I watered it when I planted it and and wait for the next so, yeah.

So just reiterating that watering, consistent watering to get it established and be patient every I was noticing kind of a trend in the questions that everyone is like, come on, chomping at the bit, yeah.

Like, no, it's a plant and you can see this, this one, they're just starting to leaf out, so it may take another week or two before things are fully leafed out.

So just yeah, be patient.

Speaking of which asparagus, which is my unicorn vegetable, but I'm doing good.

The little patch I planted last year.

I've got some little skinny sprigs there, and I just look at them and wish them well and keep on going.

So I'll hopefully be enjoying those soon.

But you've got some, some nice asparagus.

So I just wanted to show this one actually got away from us.

It was hiding from us on a third we have some fruits and also narrow asparagus patch.

But I just wanted to point out there's two different methods of which to harvest your asparagus.

The one that I grew up with was to cut it at the ground level, which then a grower told me not to do that, because you could damage the new stems coming up.

So the way I learned is just when it's sticking up, take it, bend it wherever it snaps, that's Woody, and that's not so if you put that immediately into water and keep it in the refrigerator, in water, change it every couple days, it'll it'll last for quite some time.

It's best fresh, of course.

But put it into water in your refrigerator, and they'll keep for quite a while.

Now, the other in there that would have, naturally, that's just going to stay in the garden, is going to ask, do you remove that, or do you leave that?

Is leaving on the garden?

Gotcha.

Now, I'm just, you know, curious, how long did it take to get there?

Not very long, really, a couple days.

No, no.

I mean, yes, oh, from planting, yes.

Usually it's recommending you wait about three years before you harvest.

I just wanted to see if you started, if you started with crowns.

I did because some people start with seeds, which I can't wrap my mind around.

I started with crowns.

So two more, two more summers, and I will be enjoying asparagus.

And next summer, if you see it, you can go ahead and pick a few of them.

Just don't have a little don't go crazy.

Okay, noted, All right, wonderful.

Let's see.

We have a question.

Let's do your rhubarb, actually, first, while we're talking about edible Okay, so long lines of edible things that people are chomping at the bit to have.

So rhubarb is one of those that people love this time of year.

And then I actually got a text from a friend a few weeks ago.

This is a flower stock for rhubarb.

So it's actually quite tall, but when they start emerging from the rhubarb, they're kind of a gnarly looking ball and almost looks like a brain kind of emerging from your plant.

And my my friend texted me, Jen, what the heck is going on with my rhubarb?

What should I do?

I said it's just the flower.

Snap it off.

You don't want it to produce flowers, because that's taking energy away from producing more of the leaves and the petioles that we want to harvest.

Something else worth mentioning about rhubarb that is kind of a common question this time of year, if, if we were to get some more frosty weather and the leaves are already out, and people will say, Well, can I still harvest my rhubarb?

The leaves have gotten hit by the cold and they're all wilted down, but I can still harvest it, right?

Nope, nope, because the leaves have oxalic acid in them, and that's poisonous, and so it's going to move into the petiole and make that poisonous too.

So you should not eat it after it's been frost damaged.

So if you've got leaves that are frost damage, get those out of there and let it regrow.

Is it a lot of work to maintain a patch of asparagus, or is it one of those set it and forget asparagus?

Or rhubarb?

I'm sorry.

Rhubarb is a set it and forget it.

And this is a this is one of those perennial crops we have, like in my class, the last lecture is perennial crops.

So we cover asparagus, we cover rhubarb.

This is one that, if you're out looking at where houses used to be, you can kind of spot where the garden used to be, because there's still be a rhubarb out there, along with daffodils and maybe some asparagus.

Yes, okay, but neither one of them are hard to establish.

They're both.

They're about the same requirement.

They do like fertile soil, so adding some composted manures every year is a good thing for them, but put them in a spot where you aren't going to be bothered by it.

You're not going to touch it for about 15 years.

Put it on the edge, on an edge, just let it go.

Probably the hardest thing with asparagus is weeds.

It can be tough if too many weeds get involved.

I've seen people really heavily straw their asparagus beds to kind of help with that.

Oh yeah, so wonderful.

Okay, we've got a question.

This is from Marlene Francis, and she wants to know where to get fruit trees that are specifically suited for our area.

So she was talking about going to the big box stores and seeing things that might not necessarily do well in Illinois.

So how do you guys know which ones to pick and where do you go to get locally?

You know, zone six fruit trees.

We were both talking about this before the show, and we both said Stark brothers out of Missouri.

That's really the only place that we, either of us, know of for buying trees grown in the Midwest and quite a good selection, and they're very helpful in terms of figuring out what's good for your area.

Okay, yeah.

Now also on their website, Sark Brothers has a zone finders.

So if you put in your zone, it will find what is Hardy in your zone.

So that way you know you're buying what, what will work here.

And that's not to say that you couldn't look up that list and then purchase locally as well.

That's just I was going to ask, are there ways to find out if what you're finding in these stores?

I mean, you can just probably pull out your phone and just check and make sure that what you're seeing will grow.

Well, here let's see Manuel Amano.

We haven't heard from him in a long time.

He has a question about red buds.

In the last 10 years, he says he's lost five beautiful redbud trees.

He bought five six foot trees from a local nursery.

They grew they were beautiful, and now they're not looking so hot.

He says he thinks that they're dying, and they have some small branches.

So he wants to know some possibilities of what he could be looking at here with his red buds.

And you guys took a look at the photo.

Yeah, we couldn't really tell from the picture very well, but two things I know that can take a red bud out.

There's a canker that is a fungal disease that can usually the tree is older by the time it gets a canker problem.

But there's verticillium, which is another fungal problem that can get in the vasculature of the tree and kill it.

And he says something about a volunteer that I think that's the picture.

Is a volunteer that came up, and he says, it's dying.

And that makes me wonder if verticillium might be the problem, because that would be harbored.

I know you can't plant another Redbud in the same spot where there was one that died from verticillium, but he, if he can, I would.

Consult with the plant clinic on campus and send, either bring a sample to them or send a sample, not totally dead, but in the process of dying, and they can they have the means to culture it and see what exactly is going on with it.

So find your local plant clinic via the U of I on on campus.

Wonderful.

Okay, let's see.

Jim wants to talk about soil amendments.

He said we had our water and sewer lines replaced, and our front yard is now a disaster area.

The trenches dug to make the repairs.

Have two berm a very dense, sticky yellow clay.

I doubt anything will grow there, because it's not feasible to mix yada yada, yada.

So what would you recommend for some amendments here to make this soil a little bit more conducive for planting?

Well, first of all, we'd recommend patience.

Unfortunately, that's we don't have it the theme.

You really need to give it about a year to let that soil settle back down, because most, most of it will.

And then after about a year, you can scrape off the clay and then work an amendment in from there being compost and topsoil.

Is there anything that they can do in the meantime, just to have something pretty to look at in that space, like impatience or No, maybe on top of the spot?

Sorry.

Jim, nothing's gonna grow there just yet.

All right.

One more.

This is from Angela O'Neill.

She says, Hello.

Love the show.

My royal raindrops tree is pretty lanky.

Can you advise me on how to make it look better?

What are your thoughts there?

Now, first of all, I wasn't even familiar with what a royal raindrop tree is.

These are we?

Okay?

So what is it?

It's a type.

It's a variety of crab apple, okay?

And it's a pretty newer variety.

We both looked at the tree and thought it just looks like a newly planted tree to us.

So I don't know.

There's really nothing you could should be pruning at this time of year.

But I don't think it's I think it's another watch and wait.

The only thing we recommended was scrape that bark away the mulch away from the bark.

Yeah, they've got a little bit too much bark mulch piled up, and they have it staked, which is fine when you first plant something, but after about a year, you should remove that stake.

We don't want to see girdling.

Is that right?

Is that what it's called when the when the rope, or whatever you use, kind of digs into the trunk, but what else can you run into if it's staked for too long?

Is that just weak or resistant?

Okay?

Noted, noted.

Well, that is all the questions that we have.

But I wanted to ask you, ladies, I am behind in my planting.

So have you been able to get anything in the ground yet?

Or do have you made any trips to the nurseries to get anything?

I've got some plants lined up outside my house, probably irritating my neighbors in the trays.

I did plant a few things in containers.

I've got a pretty big project lined up to replace our raised beds so the raised beds are unassembled and sitting in my garage.

So, yeah, that sounds about right.

Okay, right.

On schedule.

Jennifer, what about you just waiting for the ground to dry up and then get the garden planted around?

Mother's Day?

Yes.

Now, a lot of people cheated this year.

I know because it got warmer a little earlier, but you're, you're sticking true to the Mother's Day date.

Well, lots of commitments going on, and just haven't gotten to the yeah, really haven't just gotten gotten to it yet.

But yes, my little tomatoes and peppers are about that tall, so they're getting close.

They're getting there.

And I actually those purple tomatoes that you gave me, the one plant that you gave me last year that just produced unbelievable.

I was giving boxes of tomatoes away to people.

It was insane.

So I saved a bunch of those seeds, and I've got a tray of those.

I'm keeping one, I'm keeping one, and I'm gonna give the rest away.

So it's just so exciting to be back in this time of year.

I did the same thing.

I have a flat of them planted.

I'm gonna keep one, just one, and I've been sharing them.

I could not believe well, you saw the pictures I was sending you last year.

I had literal boxes of tomatoes on from this one plant.

So the company's coming out with a new one.

Yeah, I don't know if it's going to still be purple, but I was reading you were I remember you talking about how much your plant produced.

They expect that plant in the ground to get 12 to 15 feet tall, so you're going to have to measure your plant this year.

Okay, it was taller than mine was in a container, and it still yielded quite a bit.

And it got really big, but not that big.

It was so big it fell over, and I was like trying to rig all kinds of bungee cords up to keep it standing upright.

But so exciting.

Well, thank you, ladies, so much for coming and thank you so much for watching.

If you've got any questions for us, you can send them in to yourgarden@gmail.com or look for us on socials.

Just look for Mid American gardener, and you can send your questions there and we will see you next time.

Goodnight.