This bee bomb is literally crawling with bees.

Wow.

I just thought a pink onion, why not try it?

Our hostas do well in Minnesota.

They like our temperatures.

We have things blooming from early spring to late fall.

It's fun to imagine what this place will be like in a few years.

We've just gotten started.

Hello and welcome to Great Gardening.

I'm your host, Sharon Young, and thank you for joining us for our second summer special.

Tonight, we have another hour-long episode just for you.

We're in the final stages of gardening in the season, and we've got a lot to cover.

So, as usual, we have our garden experts here with us, and they are horiculturist and educator Bob Olen and garden professional Deb Burns Ericson.

We want to hear from our gardeners across our region who have questions for our experts.

We have phone volunteers from the Duth Garden Flower Society standing by.

So call locally at 218788-2844 or simply email us at askpbsnorth.org.

We're taking questions throughout the show.

So call or email us now while we begin tonight's show with a look at the weather in our region.

Hartley Trail.

Nice.

Lots of lush green vegetative growth just about everywhere.

Just a wonderful, in many, many cases a wonderful growing season.

They love it.

We've had most cases like this, adequate rainfall.

It's very interesting where they're trying to establish natives and that's a mat for weed control to give them a chance to get a start.

Beautiful weather.

It's been hot, humid, and hazy.

Yeah, that smoke was the uh the little detriment to the growing season, but maybe it was beneficial in some ways.

We can talk about that.

It does long term, won't we?

It'll be interesting to know.

More pollinators.

Pollinators, natives.

Yes.

Which we used to call weeds, now we just call them, right?

Right.

Pollinator friendly native plants.

It's been nice to see the butterflies out again.

Yes.

Lush green lawns, lush.

It all depends.

We'll talk a little bit about the difference in moisture and so forth, but many cases very, very lush landscapes.

So, keep calling in your questions.

And before we get to those, Bob, you wanted to talk about temperatures and rainfall, right?

Yeah.

We have some loyal viewers and of course, we were following Noah's that I got many friends that work for the weather service and I value their contribution, but Noah climate prediction very difficult longer term predicting hot, dry, hot, dry, hot, dry.

In some cases, it was hot, right?

But we had smoke in the air.

We didn't get the hot temperatures.

We had moderating temperatures.

That was actually valuable.

But um we got moisture that we did not expect in June and July.

July should be our driest month when the fruits are beginning to set as in this case.

But if we take a look at some of the statistics, it's highly variable in the area.

These are some deluth statistics.

We're been drier than normal.

And we'll give you just a recap.

I know that's a little difficult to read, but we just have to get outside and away from Duth.

And you can see where we had excessive moisture.

I used Hibbing as an example here where they've had uh more moisture than average in many cases a little more than what we really needed.

But kind of a quick little recap of what we experienced, we'll show you this on the next slide where in Duth we've been down 2.73 inches of rainfall uh since June and down 1.23 two three inches already in August and Hibbing up 2.68 inches of rainfall for the year and up nearly an inch in August.

So the remarkable thing was highly variable which resulted in variable different types of growing results.

This was just one nice precipitation where we had variability all over the place from virtually no precipitation to an inch or two or three inches.

And uh this was common of of so many of the storms that came through in the month of July and July is critical.

It's when we're really setting a lot of the fruit on a lot of our vegetable plants.

So um weather affects things so much and in the case of excessive moisture in June July in many locations this was beneficial.

It encouraged the ve vegetative growth on what we call heavy feeders.

Now, heavy feeder is a plant that leads needs lots of nitrogen, lots of moisture, and you're going to result in heavy yields because of that.

But we've also delayed the flowering and fruit set on what we call medium or light feeders.

So, it all depends on where you were at.

Heavy feeders, sweet corn, the obvious one, needs nitrogen, needs moisture.

Rain makes grain.

And that crop, if you had the moisture, looks really good this year.

We've already got some that's coming in.

the crucifer the family um the cabbage family that we grow so well in this area they love the moisture and you'll get a large plant.

Uh don't worry if your cauliflower hasn't set that nice flower head yet.

It's got a big plant.

It's going to give you a bigger head later.

And then the vine crops there.

Cucumbers uh a plenty for most folks.

Our melons uh certainly zucchini and now winter squash are setting up beautifully.

And of course our leafy greens, uh, lettuce obviously, but Swiss chard beets, they they've been just marvelous because of all the moisture we've had.

Sweet corn as an example here coming along nicely.

Cabbage family, cabbage setting, great big heads.

Uh, cauliflower, this is an interesting variety called cheddar, which if we had a little more time, that was a mutation that has now been developed.

And the broccoli crops been tremendous as well.

Uh, zucchini a plenty.

And surprise, we have we have fun with that one.

But there's nothing like zucchini bread and cake in my opinion.

And of course, switch charted all the men in many many colors.

But the downside, the light feeders that had too much rain, even if you didn't use any fertility tomatoes for those of you, if you're in duth and they're dry, you got a tremendous tomato crop.

If you had ideal growing conditions, water and fertility, it delayed the fruit set.

In many cases, we're going to have we're going to struggle with that particular crop.

We'll show you some examples here.

This, I'm afraid to say, is my tomato crop at one location.

I do plant it several, but uh all of this, there's no fertility here.

We just had rain when I should have been setting up fruit.

So many people experienced that where there was a lot of rainfall.

Onions didn't bulb as they should have.

Again, uh they're light feeders, no extra fertility.

But I will show you this.

Here's an example.

And we know that one right there where we've got if I'd look at the plant I'd say man is that chlorotic it's nitrogen deficient but that plant was stressed so it set fruit.

So with tomatoes we want to we want to stress them a little bit so we get into the reproductive phase and that's weather dependent.

Some people are going to be very happy with that crop.

Some people are going to be very disappointed depending on what your precipitation was in July.

Yeah.

Thank you so much Bob.

So now let's get to some of your questions.

Leo from Cook wants to know how often to water a newly planted veggie garden.

Just what we talked about there.

Exactly.

Right.

Newly plant.

I mean, you always want to get you always want to get if you got transplants in, you got to water every two, three days to get those roots that they come out of a maybe a greenhouse in most cases.

So, it's going to take two or three days.

And then it depends on the amount of natural moisture that you have.

Generally, once the roots are down there, an inch to an inch and a half, inch and a half on sands, an inch on heavier soils, once a week.

And instead of spritzing, let's let's drive those roots down so they don't come to the surface.

One application of an inch to an inch and a half per week after they're established, every day or every couple days when you're establishing it.

And water the transplants really, really well before you put them in.

That's a great idea to do that.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

It sucks every bit of moisture out of the soil.

Sure.

Good tip.

So Gail from Woodland has a raised garden bed that's 8 by8, has zucchinis and cucumbers.

They have powdery mildew.

Uh the beans are doing fine, but she's wondering is is the powdery mildew.

Is there anything to prep for next year?

She's cut off the bottom leaves.

Speaking of water and humidity, well location.

Yeah, powdery mildew.

It's a relatively benign fun.

It's not going to kill the plant.

It's ugly.

Uh there's always already been some good productivity.

The spores are everywhere.

the ubiquitous.

There are some powdery mildew resistant varieties you could look for, but by and large we don't worry too much about that.

Vine crops later in the year, you can look for powdery mildew resistant varieties.

Different than downy milild having downey mildew.

downy mildo it the leaf will flip and then the mildew spores come up from underneath the leaf and that will just defoliate and kill within days and everything goes down then and so it'd be much better to have powdery mild do downy milk so be thankful thankful and and maybe she wants to think about how densely she planted them give them a little bit more space to air out a little bit plant too close and I will share this with you I thought this was a little nuts but I saw someone that actually had set a fan out dry that tissue down.

Ran a big extension cord.

And I chuckled initially until I saw the fact that there was no disease on those plants.

So fungal disease takes 24 hours for that spore to actually germinate.

If you can dry that tissue down within that period, you're not going to have a problem.

So maybe that's not so crazy.

Yeah.

Setting the conditions.

Carolyn Washburn wants to know if it's too early to cut um cut pianies down.

They have mold mildew already.

M did corre get it?

It's not going to really hurt it if you did it.

Um they are setting up their rootstock.

Um and then maybe I would guess they don't have a whole lot of folure weight to them right now that they need to support.

If there is still a lot of folure weight, they are generating good roots.

Um but if it's not and they're damaged and they're diseased, then you could probably at least get selective and clean it up so it doesn't look quite so bad.

I I like to leave anything that's green there because that's what's producing sugars for the roots to get through the winter.

So, actually next year's productivity and bloom is being set this year depending on the growing conditions we're having.

Sure.

Uh Kathy from Carlton has lilac bushes that are not blooming and they didn't bloom last year either.

Do you have any suggestions?

So, they didn't bloom last year.

We'd like to know how old they are.

Right.

Right.

I'm going to say if it's an old hedge, it's old wood.

And believe it or not, it's that young wood.

This is why we recommended right after the bloom that you continually prune because it generates new growth.

And new growth, believe it or not, is much more productive than old growth.

So what is considered age?

What's old though for you know, and hardwood, so they're really hard and you want it a little bit soft, a little bit pliable, and so that it can set the buds on that soft wood tissue.

Okay?

And those buds are setting right now.

So if we have if we have a dry fall and it's very dry in Duth, let's get some water to the lilac.

You have to because then that could be a part of a problem too because um it was really dry last year and people had a real problem in their gardens this spring because of last fall.

So elderberry, can you prune it and how far down?

Milan and Woodland would like to know.

Yeah, elderberries.

Has it fruited?

I mean has I would guess it's flowered and fruited.

Then you can cut it.

You can cut it in half safely.

Absolutely.

and you'll get a nice thick flush for next year.

Yeah, it's a minor crop that's kind of overlooked and should not be perhaps.

Lastly, Ron and Elely wants to prune oak trees to Is this okay to avoid disease or damage?

Oh, you don't want to touch your oaks right now.

Okay.

Uh oak wilt is it will take down a an oak tree just like that.

The whole tree it gets systemic.

You never prune oaks unless you have storm damage.

And I will show you it up.

Right.

Right?

If you if you have damage and broken limbs on an oak, you're going to make a nice sharp cut.

You're going to get a can an aerosol can of shellac and you're going to shellac.

That's the only time I really recommend you'll get a nice barrier to prevent uh the fungi that causes oak wilt from getting into the tissue.

Other than that, we always stay away from oaks during the growing season.

That's a winter pruning project.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Deb.

You got a demonstration you'd like to share and you have fall in mind, right?

Right.

I do.

I do.

Okay.

So, the the mums are about to come in and people are going to see mums everywhere pretty quick.

Right now, there's nothing in any of the stores and so um what we when you're picking a mum, there are a few things to consider.

If they're there in the store and they look good, get them right away.

uh because they come in from a greenhouse, they're grown pretty warm elsewhere and um they're going to start they should be setting buds.

Now, we at at my greenhouse, we grow a really early spring or early fall bloomer because early fall is between September 9th and 15th and they will start about 30% of their bloom.

Um, some of the other places grow them under cloth and they kind of force them into bloom and they can be a little bit harder to manage, but um, one thing to do is look for good fresh young um, a few bud sets, not a whole lot um, when they first come in because they will definitely um, give you a full show.

Another thing to consider when you plant them, if you're going to leave them in the pot, um they will require a lot more water in the pot.

Um if you put it in a bigger pot, we're going to demonstrate later how to put in a porch pot, then they're easier to take care of or some people like to put them in the ground, especially if there is a Minnesota mum, and Minnesota mums get huge and they they'd be blooming by now anyway, and they get really big, but they require being in the ground and they are hearty.

So um so and they also mums love full sun and um and full sun in a container sucks a lot of water especially if a b if a mum is full of flour you better be watering because you know a fresh cut flower how much it sucks out of a even a vase a plant will suck out much much more.

So you'll be watering it quite a bit.

Um, check if you have it in a container that it doesn't get um that there's there's space between it and the edge because the water will run through and you're going to think that you watered it well, but the water just ran right through it because it needs to either um put a fresh layer of soil on top to catch the water or just make sure you water it lightly three or four times.

Can you bottom water it, you know?

Oh, you could.

Absolutely you could.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

um if you have those kind of containers the where you have it set up and um and so and they come in multitudes of colors.

Um we also like um they'll come in mixed container or mixed little bowls.

Um then you got to watch it a little bit more on how you water.

Um but full sun a good amount of water and um like you can set them.

It's kind of, you know, people like to decorate with them, but I would decorate where they're kind of grouped together so you can hit them easier and so that you can really water them thoroughly because some days in the in the fall and September when they're fully starting to bloom, they really are going to suck water almost every day like um any other plant would for you.

So, um just be on the lookout for some really fresh ones when they come in.

then grab them and look for ones that might not have a heavy bloom on them but a good heavy bud.

Uh these ones we've been growing all spring or all actually we did rooted cutings on these back in March like March 1st and so we've cut them back and when they start to bloom we would cut them back.

So you can manage your own at home too and um they'll show up with a really bright um feature and it just it refreshes your porch and it just makes everything look fresh and fall.

That color spectacular summer winter hearty that was one of the Yep.

the Minnesota mammoth mums.

Yes, they're wonderful.

And they start to bloom in almost June and July.

And if you're on it deadheading and making it so they don't set any seeds or they're attempting to set seed, then they will bloom all the way through September.

Beautiful.

Exciting for fall.

Thanks, Deb.

So, now we're going to take you to Hibbing to check out former master gardener Judith Johnson's beautiful garden with a focus on native plants.

Let's take a look.

I live over on the west side of Hibbing and I found my inspiration probably from my mother liked to garden.

This is actually the property I grew up on.

So I've always been interested in in plants and flowers.

And truthfully and honestly, I love bugs.

I love snakes.

I grew up keeping garder snakes in my dresser drawers.

I used to collect a lot of bugs until my mother told me how important they were to pollinating and I should let them go.

So I I never kept them again.

She was a science major.

So she knew a lot about bugs.

So I like bugs and bugs and flowers kind of go together.

You know, I just love everything about it.

I love spending time outside.

I love weeding.

You know, you can just go someplace in your mind when you're weeding.

I love watching my plants grow.

They become your babies.

So, I get so excited when I see one come back and then I get sad.

I lost last winter for some reason lost all my culver's root.

So, and I really love that plant.

It did not come up this year and who knows why.

That's the other part about it.

It's like and then I've I've done this letting things go to seed more which I never used to do.

So I have coline coming up everywhere and uh giant uh blue anis high sap coming up everywhere and I just enjoy that too.

So it's it's just like a thrill every time you go into the garden because I'm strange like that.

Um, I think where I planted the birch tree and the pine tree and and I've really mo I would say 90% of the plants in there are native plants and I just think it's beautiful.

I love when plants bloom, but I love the textural aspect of plants.

It doesn't always have to have flowers.

If you look out there, all the different textures, the colors of green, the uh the design is I think is just beautiful.

And throw a log in there.

I left a stump back there.

Um, so adding that little bit of nature and there again I have a little wood pile back there where I put all the sticks that fall around the yard and and I did see a wonderful big fat toad.

Scared me half to death the other day yesterday.

But you know that's why you do it because you're seeing that type of thing.

Thanks for tuning in to our great gardening special.

I'm Tara Bilman, annual giving manager here at PBS North, and I'm joined by Natalie Hust, our director of development.

It's great to be here.

Can you believe it's already mid August?

We've got that blend of late summer sun and harvest time bounty.

And everywhere you look, gardens across the Northland are showing off in the best way right now.

They really are.

The flowers are blooming, the veggies are coming in, everything's at that perfect sweet spot.

I've really been outside every chance I get soaking it all in.

And we know many of you are doing the same.

And we love seeing your photos and hearing how Great Gardening has helped you learn how to grow.

And this show is a community effort and it's here because of you.

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Now, back to more great gardening.

Now, Bob, you've got a demo you'd like to share.

Yeah, I wanted to we had questions about um these yellow flowers on our roadsides.

So, I started to pay a little bit of attention to that.

Maybe we've got a slide or two here.

They're everywhere.

And this is uh what I've called roadside wonders because right now this yellow colors out there everywhere.

But the low uh flowering plants that are on the roadsides everywhere.

This is bird's foot tree foil.

And you can just take a little look as you're driving.

And this is the flower of that particular plant.

And we'll show you what the leaves look like.

There's a leaf.

It looks like a bird's foot.

So that's where the name comes from.

It is a legume, meaning it fixes its own nitrogen.

So it will grow in low fertility soils.

But why just why is this proliferated?

We took a little closer look.

It's a legume, so it'll grow where there isn't a lot of fertility.

Uh so it does grow where there isn't any nitrogen, which is typical roadsides.

And then it's salt tolerant which is really interesting.

So typically you might see other legumes like clover but clover is not nearly as salt tolerant.

So that's why we're seeing so much of that.

But we've got this be these beautiful yellow flowering uh native plants that are in the area including and we'll show you some tanzy.

Now, people kind of chuckle about Tanzy, but quite honestly, uh, we were harvesting.

We had some people entrepreneurial in northern Minnesota that were clipping this at that perfect stage.

They were selling at the wholesaler.

And I saw at the auctions in the Netherlands.

I saw a buyer from our major supplier down in the Twin Cities that was buying at auction the tanzy that we clipped in northern Minnesota.

So, you know, it all depends.

it, but it is a nice pollinator and it's in our roadsides everywhere.

We've got a couple of others that you'll see everywhere.

Of course, a Rebecca, Blackeyed Susan, they're out there.

Take a look at the lakewalk up there near Brighton Beach.

There's uh Rebecca or Blackeyed Susan running everywhere up there.

So, they're beautiful.

And of course, Golden Rod and uh you can see the pollinators right here.

These are all good pollinator plants.

Actually, the uh birds tree foil is a real nice pollinator, too.

So, you'll see a lot of our native bee populations that are really thriving on that.

So, it has a place even though some of these plants are getting a little bit invasive because they have some kind of a competitive advantage that gives them just a little leg up over some of the other materials out there.

Thank you so much, Bob.

Now, let's get to some more of your questions.

Um Kevin in Coke wants really big onions.

What are the tricks to grow big onions?

Okay.

I've grown a lot of onions and mine aren't that big this year.

So, depends on the location.

Uh you really want to start with long day onions.

Number one.

You have to have something that's going to bulb up when you get 12 to 14 hours of sunlight.

So, you have to be very selective about your varieties.

If he wants really large onions, unlike some other crops, the heavy feeders, you do not want to apply a lot of nitrogen, you want it have a good fertility in the soil.

They're shallow rooted.

You want plenty of moisture.

I think some of the largest bulbing onions are probably our walawala, which is in Washington.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The the name in the variety comes from Washington.

Uh it it's um a real nice sweet onion.

We've got two categories.

The hotter it is, the sweeter it is.

Right.

Right.

And the early season onions, they got lower sulfur contents.

They're great on they're very mild, but they don't keep very well.

So you you want to make your selection based on what its intended purpose is.

But I would say u getting in very early those transplants starting from transplants seed if you can locate them.

Put the transplants in uh the third week in April or the fourth week in April.

And then um water if it's real dry.

They are a green plant.

But be careful, not too much nitrogen, not too much uh additional moisture, and they should bulb up real nicely for you.

You want that bulbing process to start right as those days are getting real long coming into June.

Sure.

So, we have a viewer that wants to know what's wrong with their aelia.

They're mature aelas that bloomed beautifully, but now the leaves had modded brown spots and they're slightly curled.

And the aelia gets full sun.

This may be the second year this has happened.

Well, I you know, my go-to always is pH on those things that are a little bit more temperamental and you have to be careful of, but it could be a it could be a hundred different things.

That's the problem.

And this one actually, if I can share this, came from one of our volunteers.

So, I went and talked with them.

You investigated, Bob.

I investigated because that isn't really quite enough information.

Um this was an Aelia that u is in full sun which you know they'll do okay in full sun uh but been around for a long time so it's woody uh they're seeing a decline in it.

This is fungal disease that they've got there.

It's not insect but only when you uh search a little bit deeper and dig for that.

Also the pH has gradually risen a little bit.

So, the solution there is going to really be to try to uh drop that pH a little bit and get some fertility early because they've lost some of next year's flowering bud because the leaves are are curled up here.

So, we're going to get some ammonium sulfate is what you want to use to acidify and to supply the nitrogen just as the buds are breaking and you don't want repeated fungal disease.

That can be very damaging.

One year isn't so bad, but two, three years in a row that can be difficult.

And uh so we want to do a little bit with a a general purpose fungicide just to protect that.

And they have to be careful though not to prune it now because if there are any buds that are going to be set, they're going to be set now.

Do it right after you want to clean it up.

But you're right.

It may take a year off because the tissue has been damaged by the disease this year.

Sure.

Robin in Superior has a vine that is growing up the trees.

It's growing all over the plants.

It's quite invasive.

They keep pulling it up and it takes over the garden.

They pull it up again.

It's on the north side of the house.

Are they doing more damage by pulling it up?

I want to know if it's cucumber vine, wild cucumber, and I hate it.

We have it.

It's all around our fencing, and this is the time of year that it really takes off.

And so I we still pull it.

We pull it as much as we can, but pull it as soon as you see it because then it might not have the seeds.

The seeds are getting there right now.

And but you've got to try to get rid of it as quickly as you can without dropping as much seed as you can possibly prevent.

And that's you know, one thing we talk about the growing season.

If you had moisture, the weeds took off like crazy and you can get a seed bankank there year after year.

So, you want to get them pulled before you before you have the pressure from the seeds.

Sure.

Thank you.

All right, let's get back to Hibbing to see more of Judith Johnson's beautiful garden.

So, it is in a runus is the name for it.

And I'm not sure what family it's in.

Some people actually call it a falsus stillby.

I believe too, but I don't think it's in the A stillby family.

I'm not sure.

But yeah, it always puts on a great show.

It's just about spent.

This does not move around, but it gets uh quite large.

That's a little devil nine bark, which is a miniature.

It never gets any bigger than that.

Usually puts on a nice show of flowers.

This is White David tall garden flock.

This is Rebecca and it will poke out of here.

And this is White David also.

So when this blooms I've got that red and white, even though it's not a native, the uh clear wing, I never can say that word.

Sphinx moths or hummingbird moths.

Oh, hummingbird moths.

Yeah.

Love that white David.

They And they come just that dark and they just will cover it.

There's been 15 or 20 of them on there.

And then the bright orange of the Rebecca.

You got to have a little artsy stuff once in a while.

I don't like too much, but I like a little bit.

Now, where did you find the ladder?

Oh my god, it was in my basement.

It's probably 60 years old.

And and I know some of that's the paint from the kitchen.

And in the hummingbirds sometimes, like the patunias, I do have a few hummingbirds that come in.

They like to come when I'm watering.

They will actually even fly in the water.

They're so cute.

It's my pretty little oak tree that's so important to our pollinators.

I think a mature oak tree hosts like over a hundred pollinators.

Everything from certain bugs to moths to Yeah.

Just a really important keystone plant to have in your yard.

I don't think you should ever be afraid about moving a plant that it doesn't work in a certain area.

Sometimes plants move themselves.

Oh, look.

Weeds.

You mentioned a little bit ago that you love weeding.

I do.

What do you love about weeding?

I think it's mindless.

So, you can just go someplace in your mind.

I find it really relaxing and soothing and you have no problems, no worries, no job, no nothing.

You're just down there.

And there's something about having your hands in the dirt.

We hope you're enjoying this episode of Great Gardening and maybe even picking up a few fresh ideas to try in your own backyard.

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Thank you.

Again, what a great collection of thank you gifts for your support.

Now, Deb, you've got another demonstration for us using porch pots, right?

So, um I just wanted to demonstrate um some refresh.

So, people might have porch pots that look very, very sad.

Uh this is a aaranthram and it looks sad.

But if we clip this w back, take off all the old seeds, old flowers, and just um clean it up, then we will get a flush of flowers.

And then it'll give you that mum look um without having to rip it apart and do another mum um in its place and it'll just refresh and it won't take long to recover.

And you can see it's already budding up um down low.

So just clean it up.

Get do the best job you can.

get all those old seed heads out of there and then it'll um start to bud.

And then if you have a spider plant like this one has a spider plant and sometimes spider plants can take over mixed containers.

All you got to do is cut that spider plant back way back and it'll slow it way down and it won't take over.

So that's an easy fix for anybody that's struggling with um a spider taking over.

And then also in this pot is a deranium that just needs a really good cleanup.

But you will be amazed at how this will flush and how much better it will be.

And then we like to use like a timereleased osmmaote type um fertilizer to give it a boost.

So that's an easy fix for a porch pot.

Another easy kind of cheat is this.

And you can't really see too well, but this is a um a gold arborite.

It's a small one.

You can grow it in a pot.

Um and it's fantastic.

But to do a little update for the fall, you could take just a mum, get one of your mums, not that expensive, um, and and just starting to bud.

You could pot that into this pot.

And then you could also find either like the rub grass like this to add to it or um more of the cab or the flowering kale to add.

And then that gives you a nice fall plot pot.

Plus, it will be good when everything dies back.

Then you can decorate this for the winter and you could keep it like this.

Just keep it well watered and not too much direct sun.

So that would be an easy um porch pot to make.

Also, you can take like you can get um little mixed bowls and it's super easy to take a bowl.

Um this one has everything already in it.

And then you could just take it and put it right into another container and um just flip it right in.

And then this would be easy to take care of, easier to water.

The bigger the container, the easier it is to take care of.

And then it'll do really well um up until almost November 1.

So if you got some really sad porch pots, just pull out the old material, put in some mums, put in some kale, and put in some grass, and they're done.

And super simple to fix.

Great.

Maybe you should caution people a little bit that anything you want to bring through the winter, we really got to get those pots down in the ground or protected or in a porch that's got a little heat because they will not make it through.

Right.

And most of these are all just annual mums.

These guys are the garden mums.

Super floriferous um and not real real hearty.

Thank you so much, Deb.

Now we have time for one last round of viewer questions.

Paul, who's by heart, is wondering why his basswood is dropping so much like pods, seeds, and pollen this year.

It doesn't happen every year.

I'm sure glad that our volunteers, we want to thank the folks that are are taking the phones and the questions because we know it it's hardly which is Theuth of course and we can almost say for certain been very dry started last fall.

There wasn't a lot of snowfall at all.

Uh that's just a survival mechanism.

This plant tree senses the fact that it it's very dry.

So it sets all of this seed.

We've seen die.

It's feeling like it's going to die, right?

So it moves to the reproductive phase.

We've seen that on the the um Samaras on maples, the helicopters that are are jumping around, they set very early in Duth, not over the hill, not where they've had all the rest of the rain, but not them where we're really not where you are.

No, but we are seeing this on any number of of of trees.

They are setting seed early because of the dry conditions and it'll be okay for next year.

Should be.

Yeah, they got a good ritz.

Can you see that?

Maybe you should give it a water.

You could see it doing that, but water thoroughly.

They got a large large tree.

Yeah, you're not going to be able to do that with a little spritz.

Great.

Uh Candace has a beautiful healthy limelight hydrangeia sent in a beautiful flower that was bought this spring.

Um she put it in a pot because the area she intended to plant it in was not ready.

Now, she doesn't know if it's going to be ready this year.

Can she leave it in the pot over the winter or does she need to get it in the ground?

She needs to do both.

She can do both.

She can leave it in that pot and then she can put that pot into the ground.

So, dig a hole that's big enough because then it's easy to move.

That's if the area is not ready and the closer it is to the house, the more protected it is, the u more steady the temperature will be.

Um, and then it'll make it really easy to pull out and to repot because if she puts it in now, it might start to grow in and they might cause some stress.

Nice.

Good solution.

Uh, Fred and two Harpers wants to know what honey berry varieties do well in his area and what spacing do they need?

Oh, good.

Isn't it the pollinators?

I mean, the crosspollinating and picking the right get a couple varieties.

There's Aurora.

Aurora is one that a lot of people grow.

Um I don't think varieties are as critical really is is getting them spaced properly and protecting from the birds when that fruit sets.

So poly netting I I think is going to be the key there to get the you know quarter inch poly netting so that you get a crop from them eventually.

Uh they're not pH sensitive so that's great.

You don't have to worry about that.

They they are really a good crop but so good so good the birds want them before you can get them.

They're delicious.

Yep.

Jim in Brookton has apple tree leaves that are turning yellow and red already.

Does this seem a little early?

He's in Brookton.

Is it dry over there, Bob?

I don't know.

We've seen again, we've seen this variability.

That certainly could be a factor.

We'd like to know how old that tree is and if this is something unique.

Uh the one thing we're always concerned about is is fire.

But it is early to answer his question really because we're just beginning to set set fruit up on them right now.

So, it's a little early that plant's under stress for one reason or another.

if he's seeing any darkened areas, any shepherd cooks, that's potentially fire blight, which always concerns us with apples.

So, he's going to watch that a little bit, but uh that tree is stressed for whatever reason.

If we had a chance to follow up, maybe we could figure that up.

Sounds good.

Ron in Pike Lake and Mary and Duth have questions about getting rid of fly maggots.

Uh Mary has raspberries and in mid July there was a fly and then tiny maggots and the berries.

Is there anything that can treat the raspberries and still be edible?

Process the fruit, right?

Yeah.

This is the challenge.

There are any number of things that could take down.

This is a spotted winged drosophila.

It's a small fruit fly.

The problem is it lays its eggs in a very very ripe fruit.

And anything you might want to apply has a waiting period.

By that time, the fruit is already overdone.

So go ahead.

What you going to do is harvest?

You're either going to Yeah.

you're going to process it, but I like to freeze everything.

I want to freeze it, then I can process it.

I can make jelly out of it.

I can um you know, do any a multitude of things with my um with my raspberries, but I just want to freeze them because the cold temperature or the hot temperature is going to do the same thing and just kill those bugs.

Yep.

Well, you've got you've got the larvae in there.

You're not going to worry about that.

Or the eggs in there.

And you're going to harvest every day or every other day.

You're not going to let them go.

And you're not going to let any fruit hit the ground because that that cycle continues.

So just consume, freeze, process daily as if you don't have anything else to do.

So easy on a raspberry too, right?

Shirley in Moringa, Wisconsin in northern Wisconsin has some shrubs and rodendrums.

Most of the leaves are brown and curled from the harsh winter.

Uh should you cut them back or leave them?

The plants are about 25 years old.

Mhm.

If it's green, we leave everything that's green because they're already under stress.

And if it continues to be dry where they are located, don't hesitate to get some water on there.

And then I probably wouldn't be cutting it back.

It if they're all Yeah, let's let's wait.

We want to do that right after the bloom.

Okay.

Well, thank you so much for joining us this evening for our second summer special of Great Gardening.

We hope today's episode has inspired you to get out and enjoy your garden, big or small.

Until next time, we encourage you to stay connected.

Visit pbsnorth.org, follow us on social media, and continue to send in your questions and photos.

Remember, Great Gardening is a show made for you and by you with support from viewers just like you.

It's your generosity that keeps local programming thriving, and we are so grateful for your continued involvement.

And of course, a special thank you to our gardening experts, Bob Olen and Deb Burns Ericson, for sharing their time and expertise.

We'll see you in September with even more tips to help you grow your garden and to see what you've grown this season.

From all of us here at Great Gardening and PBS North, thank you for watching.

Have a wonderful evening.

Good night.