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 that you will definitely recognize they come in a package most times.

It's the Jennifer's, Jennifer Nelson and Jennifer Fishburne.

Before we get into all the great things that they brought.

Let's have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit more about their specialty.

So Jennifer Fishburne, we'll start with you, thank you.

Hi.

I am a Horticulture Educator.

I worked for the University of Illinois Extension, covering Logan, menard and Sangamon.

County.

So in the Springfield Lincoln area.

And I can talk about anything after 25 years with extension.

But my favorite things to talk about are vegetables, herbs, native plants.

Yeah.

Perfect.

And so timely.

Yes, we're right there.

All right, Jennifer.

Hi, I'm Jennifer Nelson, I can be found in many places, you can find me online at grounded and growing.com.

And I'm also an instructor at University of Illinois, and I teach vegetable gardening.

So I do like to talk about vegetables.

But like Jennifer have been around a while.

So I can talk about a little bit about a lot of things.

I love houseplants, vegetables, any sort of plant ID I like to tackle that sometimes we've done a lot of container gardening with the two of you as well.

So that's always good times.

Okay, so you brought some show and tells in some great, some not so great.

But we're gonna get to all those.

So whichever one of you would like to start first with a plant that you brought in, and we'll go from there, I'll start off.

So is planting time.

And today I brought one of the things I'm going to add another one to my garden, and that is swamp or rose milkweed.

This plant is one of the plants that you need to be patient in the spring.

This is one that comes up much later than all the others.

And so a lot of people start to pull weeds and get a little anxious around it.

But you do have to wait.

Some of it's just coming up now in the garden.

So it is a late late comer upper bed.

This is another one that the monarchs will lay their eggs on and the larvae will eat the leaves, which is great.

And it has a really nice flower on it, it gets about anywhere from probably depending on the garden space anywhere from two to three feet tall, depending on how well it's liked.

What I like about this milkweed is it just stays that nice, you know, columnar habit to it, it doesn't doesn't really get crazy and spread all over the place, which I do I do like so I was going to ask you if there are any pros, cons ups downs or the differences between swamp in common if you're looking to add some to your to your yard.

So if I was going to add this to my perennial bed, I would definitely add a swamp milkweed if I was going to just create a space for common milkweed to do its thing I would Yeah, give it all the space that it wants the the Common Milkweed spreads underground through the rhizomes, and it'll just keep popping up everywhere.

So it does become in a sense kind of weedy and in a manicured garden space.

So you do want to give it lots of room and maybe its own little space to grow.

It would be my suggestion for the common.

But there's about six different milkweeds that will grow in Illinois.

Excellent.

We have we have a variety.

I noticed last year, there were two that popped up in my front bed and I thought okay, I'll leave them you know, maybe it'll draw some monarchs a little closer to the door.

And this year, they're like eight.

really easily.

Yeah, that's the thing.

That's the thing.

But I feel like they're going to come back and like it's a thing now there I have them in the front bed, whether I want them or not.

At my house, I have tried to add this to my garden, Jennifer and I have failed miserably is does it need something special was swamp in the name?

I would think maybe it needs a little wetter soil, possibly.

But I've had it grow in many different flower beds.

It's just killed it at least three times.

They say you have to kill it at least three times to give up on it.

So I've only planted it twice.

Maybe go you've got one more go and we know you love going to the nursery.

Yeah, so there you go there this Friday.

My anniversary.

Yeah, and this was one that you may find in nurseries and garden centers.

But also, there may still be a handful of native plant sales across the state of Illinois this Saturday that people might be able to take advantage of.

So in the meantime, since this one comes up a little slower a little later than the other ones.

Is that the bloom time a little later Later summer.

Yeah.

Excellent.

And what colors um, it's a pinkish purple depending on what I think it's pink, but this depends on your eye and what you're seeing, I suppose, but it's true.

That's true color.

Awesome.

Okay, thank you.

All right, we're gonna move to you.

Okay, I'll bring, bring my show until in a fabulous Fiestaware.

To show off my neglected section of yard, you know, not having a whole lot of time with it being kids baseball season and whatnot.

This is bush honeysuckle, which is an invasive plant in all of Illinois.

And this is some stuff that just came up in a corner of our yard.

When we had construction going on, we moved some perennials to an unused corner, and this came up and did not get taken out or moved.

And now it's beautiful and flowering, which we don't want, which this will be on the list of things to you must tackle.

There are three, at least three species, four species of Bush, honeysuckle, and Illinois that are invasive, this one is called morose.

It's got kind of a fuzzy leaf.

And there's only one type of honeysuckle that's native.

And you can tell the invasive ones, all the invasive ones have a hollow stem, I tried to see if we could see it on this one.

But it's not a big enough diameter stem.

But if you get into something that's pretty established, you can see it as a hollow center, then you know, you've got one of the bad ones.

It's terrible.

It's horrible for the native ecosystem.

These are the things that green up the first in the, in the springtime, a county park near me has tried to do some control berms and whatnot, and they just you fight in a losing battle.

And then all of these flowers will turn into a red berry that the birds like to eat and then deposit the seeds in the corner of my yard, for example.

But if you get to know the shape of the leaf, you'll be able to spot seedlings when you're doing yard work.

And best advice, just dig it out.

This would be a good for bigger ones you would maybe cut, cut it off and then paint the stump with a non selective herbicide, but get it out.

Get it out, you know, before working here and getting to know all of you.

I didn't know it was an invasive plant.

And now when I'm driving, it's like it's like once you know you can never not no.

And now that they're all in bloom hair, they're everywhere.

Everywhere.

I mean, full trees, some of them so Yikes.

Absolutely.

Are you gonna have to take the chainsaw?

There's not that shovel I'm gonna need like a big shovel not not a hand shovel, but it's definitely just like all of us.

You know, we just get so many things.

We call it may Simba in my house is kind of like yes is badly.

Yeah, you're just running this time of year.

So they're very, they're shallow rooted roots, that's a surface so they're just a couple of feet tall, they may just pull out pretty easily if not, as she said, as they get bigger, you're gonna need to cut those out and spray them.

But the other the reason you don't want that in particularly in a flower bed is it becomes allopathic which means that the roots permit other things from growing in that soil area.

So you know what, now that you mentioned that we did a story last year with them in an extension specialist and she was talking about that but more about it choking out things in the understory of the forest.

I wonder if that's the same that's part of it, it shades out in the Lila pathI.

And that shades out so bad that you have bare soil in the forest, which is horrible and horrible for erosion.

And I was reading that they were estimating that if the honeysuckle is bad enough in the forest, it can reduce the size and like growth of the trees by 40%.

Wow, just from the competition.

Yeah.

Wow.

So get rid of it.

Do we know how this started?

Did someone birds birds did like what did they bring into your document in my your user?

Yeah, well, it was once believed that it would be a great hedge row.

So that's how I was introduced by a government agency.

Ooh, the government thinks Okay, lots of good intention.

Yeah, and some of our worst problem and now they're everywhere.

Wonderful.

Okay.

All right, Jennifer, we're back to you with Okay, whatever's next this one out of the way.

So in my vase here, I brought an iris.

What I wanted to mention here is I planted this Iris probably about five years ago.

And I've noticed that this year, the blooms are a little bit reduced, so it doesn't have as many.

What that is telling you about this plant is it's time to divide.

So usually every five years or so you need to divide your Bearded Iris or they will eventually just the plants will keep growing but they just won't produce flowers.

So that's just a reminder.

The other thing would be on the iris here is to know that as those flowers die off, sometimes they will form seed heads and if you see the seed heads on your iris, make sure that you pop those off get rid of those because those will pull energy away from the plant.

So you want to you want to take the was off, so they don't do that.

My other plant here, I just wanted to share because I thought it was so pretty this morning, this is a yellow Baptisia really excited about that in my yard.

It's about in flower, probably about two and a half feet tall right now just absolutely gorgeous, makes a really nice background plant that blooms early in the spring.

So if you put it in a perennial garden, I'd put it as a background plant.

So you have the foliage throughout the summer, the which looks really nice.

And then it puts on a really nice seed pod.

But just one of those fun plants that I have, and you know, people will go out there and they'll say, well, that's kind of an expensive plant.

And my answer that is be patient, it will go on sale.

In the end of the season, I got that for half off a day, or you go, that's fine, too.

I bought mine as a smaller one.

And it will take a little time then that's one of the harder ones.

Usually you see it in purple, but the yellows, and there's some crazy villages that are newer, I wanted to ask you with the lilies, you know, some some people put them in sort of a clump or a circle when you are dividing.

Is there a certain section or side that you should pull from do you take from the center?

What is what's the strategy there.

So with an iris the best, the best thing to do, honestly, is to dig up everything that's there.

Oh, because what you want to do is get rid of doing that wrong, all the old rhizomes.

So what you'll see is these segmented rhizomes, which are dead pieces, and you can actually I've gone through some of my more crowded ones and just pop those off and I'm not able to divide right away.

But the best thing to do is divide it all up and pick out the biggest and the best rhizomes to keep and then either share those or do whatever with the rest of them, but keep the best ones and then you put it back in the same spot.

But just Yeah.

Are we beyond dividing at this point?

Or is there still time actually the best time to divide Iris is in August.

But I just don't feel like doing it right.

But when I tell folks is if you've got the time just do it because Iris not gonna know I've had I've had iris in a plastic bag over winter wheelbarrow talked about.

Yeah, they do just fine.

You see him the next spring and it's like, alright, well, you can go back in the ground.

You pass the test, and I had some this year that I they were just discards, and they got dumped in a certain spot and they're just growing like crazy.

So yeah, okay, I didn't know that you were supposed to dig them all up and then to sort of reposition, so you don't have to but that that will do the best for the overall health of that.

No did.

Okay, thank you.

All right, Miss Jennifer, what else do you have brought a tomato seedlings to talk about if folks are the old Midwest classic, yeah.

Get your tomatoes out as go time.

And so if people don't realize that usually we talk a lot about planting things at the same height that they weren't like container but word for tomatoes.

To get a good healthy root system that can survive the heat and sometimes droughty conditions of summer, you would remove some of these bottom leaves, maybe maybe all of these down once you agreed in for Would you go even further I went out there.

But that stem will all produce routes.

And so there's a couple different ways that people will do this.

I had a friend that used to use a posthole digger.

And he would he would dig a deep hole and put it in and that is very get what he was going for.

But you can have too much of a good thing you can dig it too deep.

And you end up with the roots being way too deep in the soil.

And they actually don't have enough oxygen and they suffer that way.

So I wouldn't this would be plenty to just to put it down.

But some people will do more of like like lay it kind of slanted.

And so that the thought is that if you're staying within the first eight inches or six inches of soil, you're getting more of the warm soil which is going to it's going to produce and grow better in that in that area anyway, rather than deeper is not necessarily better, but you do want to set them deeper than what they are in the pot.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

How many varieties are you going this year?

How many did you bring over?

I have about eight that I have.

Okay, I need to put out and so I shared with Jennifer's, because you know these when you buy yourselves they either have nine a 10 Well, I've attempted to only plant three of one three of another but then I never remember what I planted so I do all of it.

So yeah, I gotcha.

I have about 60 tomato plants total our plant 18 And I'll probably plant around 10 So yeah, I haven't.

I'm behind as I kind of shared that my everything's kind of running a few behind.

But yes, tag team up with a friend And I've got a couple others from another friend I always I always grow a couple cherries and then some slicing and yeah, it'll it'll be good and I usually grow bell peppers.

Yes.

Yes Not really hot pepper.

I'm not a hot pepper.

Not a hot pepper family either so your garden is not in yet.

See?

See let's see even the professionals is your garden Have you planted I did do some lettuce and spinach and radishes and onions earlier and those are coming along pretty nice but the rest of the garden we got the steaks and for the tomatoes and the cages are up but then it started to rain on Sunday.

So yes, that did that and but on all honesty for folks for the warm season vegetables like your tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, you know, squash all of that, that most people plant.

Last week was really the first good week to do that.

What I noticed that plant there in particular that tomato plant it doubled in size last week.

Oh yeah.

So that shows me that it's time to plant before that they were just through existing this date, but they weren't happy.

So it is now the time but good.

But before that in April is just way too cold.

They're not going to do well anyway.

And that warm, that little warm week that we had through a lot of people off.

I know some folks who actually put in full gardens that week and due to gone did not work out.

Early plant.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

So Okay.

We've got a couple questions that folks sent in.

Some good ones to talk about.

This is from Judith Kelly.

She has an issue with squirrels eating her tulip bulbs, not just the flowers but digging them and eating the bulb.

So I've left this question on here for a few weeks because I like to get a variety of answers.

We've heard everything from Do you have a gun to just don't grow tulips.

So I'd love to hear your take on how to protect those.

I think my first reaction when when Jennifer and I were reading them together was don't go too low.

You can prevent squirrels from getting in there with using like chicken wire or hardware cloth.

So some sort of metal mesh and you can like if you're gonna plant your bed of tulips and then just kind of lay that over the top before you cover it.

And so if the squirrels are digging down, they hit that and they're like, Oh, I can't get to it.

I have known someone that individually wrapped each bulb in chicken wire and planted it and she had a beautiful bed of tulips and the squirrels left it alone and then the following spring she had everything was set to bloom It was perfect perfection.

And deer came and just ate just the tulips right off the top.

So you might put a lot of effort into keep the squirrels out and then something else comes along, comes along to enjoy daffodils.

Every part of daffodils are poisonous.

So that's why I say plant.

Don't plant to a plant something that they won't, they won't even bother with.

You ever have problems with squirrels and tulips.

I don't plan to live there.

Unless hearty bowl for this part of the world.

So yeah, that's another reason I don't I don't plant them.

Okay, gotcha.

All right, we're gonna go to this next one.

This one is about peppers.

And it's from Karen Benner.

She sent this one in I discovered something on two of my pepper plants that I started from seed.

They're currently under grow lights.

I may have started them too early this year since it looks like they should have been outside by now.

Since they have buds here are the pictures my husband said it looks like a rash.

So you'll be seeing the picture there but what do you ladies think the what do you think this is on the peppers so first of all, congratulations for having really nice peppers minor about this tall and about three months old, it seems like they just don't get going they really need that heat.

So good job on that.

What it likely is is edema which is caused when usually when you're giving it plant too much water it's trying to suck up too much water and then the it causes the cells to burst in the plant can't transpire that out fast enough.

So that may likely be the cause it's just and it'll remain on the leaves.

It's not it's not something you can rub off.

It's not something you can treat.

It's just something you deal with but the plant should grow just fine.

Just watch your watering be very consistent about it.

Let that top little bit dry out before you water again just don't keep them overly wet.

Yeah, those were a good size the leafs were minor very puny, very puny and minor amount I've always had trouble to like they just don't grow me indoors and I just buy my Hey, when you figure out a system that works, you just go with it.

Anything you wanted to add there, Jennifer on the Okay, we'll go back to you.

This one is a bird of paradise plant is not flowering.

That's it?

Yeah, Berta paradise Kathleen.

She says my bird of paradise hasn't flowered in two years.

There are new leaves growing but no flowers.

Does it need fertilizer?

What are your thoughts there?

My thoughts are that Berta paradises is a flowering houseplant that can be really finicky, and it needs lots of light and lots of warmth, which we don't necessarily have in Illinois unless it's high to summer.

So depending on I'm, I'm guessing, by the way, her questions worded that she either has gotten into flower before or she bought it already in flower.

And so I would look at, does it have good light?

Does it have good warmth, it also will tend to flower better if it's a little root bound.

So she's recently repainted it to a bigger pot, that could kind of make it hold off on flowering fertilizer, I'd be really careful to not put too much nitrogen because that's going to want it to grow, it's going to promote more leaf growth versus flower.

So something that would be marketed like a bloom boosting would have more phosphorus in the middle number if you're looking at the numbers on fertilizer.

But those would be the things like it's a tricky one to grow.

Here.

Like you usually see that one.

Like, if you lived in South Florida that was this would be in your yard, or you see it in conservatories around here places that would be really highlight over the winter.

So it just it has a lot of needs.

It does.

It's one of the needier ones, but you know if you can provide the light and stuff you know would probably help.

Maybe you will get it to flower.

Okay, we have one more question that came in actually this morning.

This is from Brian.

He says I have a way that is all from my yard that we killer is not eliminating.

I've used preemergence in many different big box store grass, safe weed control, and nothing is working.

Can you help?

So we'll show you the picture of that.

And what do you ladies think he is battling in his yard?

So I believe it Speedwell and the reason he's not getting that good control is it is a it's a winner's spring weed that we see.

And so once it's up and growing, it's pretty hard to control the best the best course of action and he's got a lot of that in his yard, it probably means that the yard the lawn is thinning.

So the best course of action would be too in the August September timeframe.

rake up those those parts of his yard and recede and get it get it get your turf thicker, more established.

But yeah, we see a lot of spring reads about this time, which is kind of annoying for some folks.

For me, it's like oh, that's that's pretty they're not going to be around very long, then they'll they'll stop flowering and go away.

So but that's, that would be the best the my best recommendation would be to try to receive and you gotta get to one more.

One more season.

Yeah, perhaps one if you're lucky, right.

And then try again.

I wanted to ask for my tulips.

There.

They've done flowering.

But now the foliage is not has not died all the way back.

Do I still have to wait?

Okay, I knew what the answer was.

But I was hoping you to tell me to just and once again what some daffodils a lot of times people kind of if they're in a group lunch those up.

Oh, that's a good idea.

I could put them in a little ponytail.

Yeah, I'm getting ponytail.

But you do need to leave that foliage so that they get energy for next year's blooms.

All right, I knew that was trying to plant something that will as it grows kind of hide it next year I'm gonna have to do that just means you get to find more playing.

It's true.

That's true.

There's a pot that I want to put right there.

But I'm waiting till the end You know, everything is looking gorgeous and manicured.

And then there's these tulips and you know, you know, you know what I'm going through.

So anything else that you guys think would be good tips for folks who are putting in their gardens within the next couple of weeks or so we've got about three minutes left do you guys use soil amendments?

What are some tips to just get things off to a good start?

So one of the things that I did this year and last year was I got I got manure any most of your livestock maneuvers will do just great.

The the manure I got was rabbit manure.

I'm super excited about it.

I know that sounds strange, but yeah, it does wonders for your vegetable garden.

So any kind of manures if you have to have you have to purchase cow manure will be great for your vegetable gardens.

Just give it that little extra push that it's gonna need to get things going and helps with the soil.

Yeah, sure to I have worm worm compost that I'm excited to.

So you have a bin and everything at your house.

Very nice on the garage.

So I have enough that I'll use some in my gardens here some of the friends Wow, did you start that over the winter or edit goes on for years really at this point and I empty it out basically twice a year.

Kind of restart it.

I mean, it never is totally empty.

There's always something in a state of composting.

Always something my number one tip for a vegetable garden ever growing it is or even a new flower bed is mulch mulch.

Yes.

So for vegetable garden, I use straw and I do it immediately after planting so that those pesky needs hopefully don't come up.

This is the first year that I did straw mulch.

Because last year the garden got completely away from me between basketball and soccer and everything and you know, I was out there just literally digging in the weeds to try to find a vegetable.

So I'm hoping that that really helps keeps up keep everything down this year.

Do you do it really thick or do it thicker, but if you don't have a lot, a lot of people put down about six layers of black black and white newspaper.

We've done that and put that down first and put your straw mulch on top of it.

We've done that it works for no till next year.

I'll have to try the newspaper first.

I just went directly with the straw.

But yeah, the weeds that's that's the thing, staying ahead of those guys.

So okay, well, thank you guys so much for coming in.

Really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much for joining us.

If you have any questions for our panelists, please email them to us at your garden@gmail.com or you can search for us on social media.

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Thanks for joining us.

Good night.