(upbeat music) - Hello, and thanks so much for joining us for another edition of Mid-American Gardner.

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain.

And thanks for joining us for our at home edition.

We've been going strong all year long with our at home edition.

And hopefully this has benefited you.

We know it's not studio quality but for gardeners to get their fix, we'll take it.

So, joining me today of course are our experts, here to give you all of the information you need for your outdoors.

And so we'll have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about their specialty.

So John, we'll buck tradition instead of doing ladies first, we'll start with you.

- Okay.

I'm John Bodensteiner.

I'm a Vermilion County Master Gardener.

I live up by Bismarck, Illinois, and my specialties I guess are perennials, hostas specifically.

I like trees and shrubs and vegetables.

I'm into a little bit of just about everything.

I've even doing some greenhouse work right now.

Volunteering.

- Wonderful.

Okay, Kelly.

- Hi, my name is Kelly Allsup and I am a Horticulture Educator for University of Illinois Extension.

I am based out of Bloomington.

My expertise within the team is Integrated Pest Management.

I'm super passionate about pollinators and beneficial insects.

However, last year my boss asked me what I wanted to do.

And I said, I would like to save the world.

She said, can you be more specific?

I said, I would like to teach people how to get trees to live longer.

She said that's a great goal.

So, I have been super passionate about urban trees and teaching people about tree care for the last couple of years.

I mean, I've always had that kind of expertise just because I have a degree but, I'm just really passionate about it as of late.

- Awesome.

Hey, we need that.

So thank you.

- Yeah.

Thank you.

- All right.

And last but not least Miss Ella - I'm Ella Maxwell and I'm a Master Gardener as well as a Horticulturist at Hoerr Nursery in Peoria, Illinois.

And I'm, I don't have a real passion.

I like lots of different things.

I'm with John with hostas, but I'm a great home gardener and I have a lot of retail customer experience and I can answer tree and shrub questions.

- Wonderful.

All right.

Nice cross-section of expertise on this show.

Wonderful.

So John, we'll start with you.

You've got a show and tell item, to share with us.

- Yes, this is one of the, you know, we talk about pollinators and the need to have pollinators throughout the year, not just in spring, but in summer.

And then even in fall because we still have some of the insects and things like that, that are needing some pollen and some nectar during the later part of the year.

One of the trees that I have in my yard and that I really like is called seven-son shrub or tree.

And I've got a couple of different trees and one of them, I'm gonna show out first.

This is the flower that you would get about, oh a month ago maybe six weeks ago, you get a, it's very small.

It's not real significant, but it still is.

I still get butterflies, bees and things on these because there's not too much else going on at that time of the year.

Right now, I just went out and took a cutting.

And this is what it looks like right now.

So this is, it's a seven it's called seven-sons.

I call it, I've shaped it, the one that I have, that I've had for 10 years into a tree.

You can also shape them into a shrub.

It's got very nice, large leaves.

These will turn yellow once it gets a little cooler.

The nice thing with this, one of the throughout the winter is the shedding bark.

It's kind of like, my answer to Crepe Myrtle but I can't grow here.

It has multicolored bark, especially at this time of the year.

This hasn't started to shed yet but it's gonna have different colors as far as the bark.

Just one of those that I, it's kind of a unique and I just love this, that it's flowering even still.

- So John is it spelled S U N or S O N when we're looking it up?

- Seven, S E V E N. - And then the last part, son, S O N or S U N?

- S O N. - S O N. Okay.

All right.

Just making sure.

- Like you've got seven kids that are all sons.

- Ooh, that sounds expensive.

I only have two and it's pretty pricey.

- It's a very fragrant, creamy white, like I said, a creamy white flower and it's late summer, which is, it's really neat.

It does produce some purplish red fruits which these are starting to.

And then the part that I like doing even more is the exfoliating bark.

Which 'cause that's what I always thought was so neat about Crepe Myrtle woods.

But unfortunately we're about two zones too far North for that.

- Gotcha.

Now does that one, how does it do the winters here?

Where is that native to?

- That I'm not sure if it's, that I don't know.

- It's from China.

- [Tinisha] Oh.

- [John] It is?

- Yeah.

And Proven Winners has a new one now called Temple of Bloom.

So if you just Google Temple of Bloom, you'll see the seven-sons Heptacodium and also First Editions has a cultivated variety as well.

- See, I told you we had a good group on this call.

Wonderful.

Anything else to add to that, John?

- Nope.

I just enjoy, I just enjoy seeing it.

It's one of those, you know, like Ella says, it's not a native, but I'm not gonna ever have 100% native in my yard.

I don't think so.

There are certain things that are really special and that's one of them.

That being, I can't have a Crepe Myrtle, I'm going to have a seven-son.

- Awesome.

Okay DJ, I see you've got a link ready.

Is that something that we wanna share?

or let's see.

- [DJ] No.

I was just throwing it up there.

Sorry.

- Oh, okay.

Oh, sorry about that.

- [DJ] It's all right.

- All right.

So we'll just cut that part out where I asked.

- [DJ] Yep.

- Okay.

Back to the thing.

So, as we're all moving towards fall, I wanted to talk a little bit about, you guys all know that I raised monarchs this summer and fall with my kids.

And as we're moving into seed saving, Kelly, you talked about that before.

So I raised common milkweed here.

There were a lot of them that were here when we moved.

I got some more seeds from other master gardeners any tips on sort of making sure that that stays established or adding some new plants to the fall for butterflies 'cause I think this is something that we're gonna continue.

- Yeah.

I think it's great to do that.

And one thing, if you are saving the common milkweed that would be something you'd want to sow now, because it does take I believe some cold treatments, vernalization or stratification.

So that's a winter sower project as well.

And I think Kelly, we had talked about earlier, some of the other varieties of milkweed that we thought were really good.

- Okay, sure.

I'm up for any tips.

So, Kelly, what do you got?

- I work with a monarch expert, form the University of Illinois 'cause I am part of the I-Pollinate Team.

And what we do is we track monarchs on milkweed and in our gardens and then report them back to the U of I as a Community Science Program.

And one of the things that he said which was really cool was, common milkweed is the most important milkweed for monarchs.

And the reason it's the most important is because it's the one that's everywhere.

Everybody grows it.

But like Ella and I can attest, we would never be able to sell common milkweed because people consider it a weed in one, and it's not as pretty as some of the other milkweeds.

So what we study in that project is swamp milkweed.

And it is kind of one of the best for the garden.

It is also the most preferred milkweed for monarchs.

So, and it grows, you know, it's much smaller.

It stays more compact.

It has these really beautiful pink flowers on it.

It stays in bloom a really long time.

And it tends to be the one that I would tell people to add to their garden space.

Another one that we grow is butterfly weed which is, even more preferred by gardeners not monarchs, gardeners, because it stays really compact and then it has this vibrant orange flowers that are to die for.

So, and then I grow another one, I grow a tropical milkweed and I do grow the tropical milkweed in containers.

That way I can, you know, grow in containers and have that milkweed source and the monarchs absolutely love it.

There's a lot of controversy over it.

Maybe it's confusing the monarchs.

Let me tell you, monarchs are not confused.

They're going to leave when it gets cold.

They're not gonna stick around just because there's food around, because there's food everywhere.

And so, you know, depending on your space, you have a very large area where common milkweed works perfectly.

I personally do not have that large of an area.

So I have to grow the other ones like the swamp and the butterfly weed and the tropical milkweed in my smaller spaces.

- Okay.

So if we had to rank them, Ella, John, feel free to weigh in here, if we had to rank them of deliciousness to the monarch, how would that fall?

- It would be swamp milkweed.

- Anybody?

- Swamp milkweed, - Swamp first, okay.

- are the most preferred.

- Yeah.

And the only, you know, the nice thing was some of the common milkweed and then the tropical milkweed is a disadvantage is that the tropical is not a perennial and you have to plant it every year where the common, it's a benefit that it is perennial but it also can be invasive.

So it has its pluses and minus.

So, to go with a variety rather than monoculture is always, even just for your yard, it's much better as far as diseases or insects, other insects.

If you, if you can get a diverse culture in your yard, you're much better than having a monoculture of just one type.

- Okay.

And Ella what type do you see that you guys sell the most for people who are trying to attract those monarchs and other pollinators?

- Well, at the nursery, we sell a lot of the butterfly weed the Asclepias tuberosa because of its compact, all the benefits that Kelly mentioned, we also sell a lot of the tropical milkweed because it can be put in a container.

And it can, the thing about the tropical milkweed is I think it's also ahead of the common milkweed in preference for monarch larva feeding on it.

That's what I find that it likes the most in my garden.

And that way it can be up close and personal and you can actually even put a cage around like a little tropical milkweed plant and have the monarchs right there.

Growing on the plant as it's growing in the pot and you know, that's kind of fun.

And, and you can just make that cage with netting and a upside down tomato cage.

And so what that netting does is protects the larva from other insects, as well as birds or other predators.

- Okay.

- Parasitic wasp.

I have a statistic for you Tinisha.

- Okay.

- If you plant a 10 by 10 foot garden of milkweed you will raise 150 monarchs.

- Wow.

- Now only 10% of them are going to make it to butterflyhood because of what Ella said.

There are diseases and parasitic wasps and different insects that eat on them.

You know, even though they're supposed to be poisonous they still have things that will attack them.

So think about that.

That's a lot of milkweed for only 10 monarchs.

- It is.

- Which is why a lot of gardeners bring their monarchs inside - Mh-hmm.

That's what I do.

- Yeah.

- The little monarch houses.

You know, you have a good supply of milkweed.

You get to grow it, you know, raise those monarchs with your kids on your kitchen counter.

And you know that it'll to fruition.

You'll actually see that butterfly - Next year I'm gonna definitely branch out and diversify my portfolio of milkweed.

- I think you should.

And being a Master Gardener, you have a bunch of friends that are willing to share plants with you.

- Hey, that's one of the perks of this job, I must say.

- It is.

- I must say.

- I'm already going send Tinisha swamp milkweed seed.

- Yes.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

We're gonna go, Kelly, we're gonna stay to you.

- Okay.

- 926.

This is large farm over spraying, and this will kind of be a big one.

So, let's see, Dennis writes in, I'm having issues with the large industrial farm that surrounds my four acres.

The last two years, his over spraying has killed my garlic and damaged my fruit trees.

This year, he even planted a row of corn on my side of the property line.

He said, he'd have his insurance contact me about the damage, he lied.

Never heard from him or the insurance.

Anything I can do besides hire a lawyer.

So this one, this sounds pretty intense and I'm sure you've taken these kinds of calls before.

So what advice do you have here?

- I do.

I take these types of calls all the time.

And even as an Extension Educator, I can set, you know, cerebrally in my head think this is the pesticide drift issue.

I am not allowed to diagnose pesticide drift issues.

As you can see why they wouldn't want me to get involved.

You know, pesticide drift is something that usually happens really fast, happens overnight.

You're gonna have large portions of different types of plants that get damaged.

So being that Extension Educators and Master Gardeners are unable to diagnose pesticide issues.

We are directed to tell people to contact the Illinois Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Environmental Programs.

Now we have a little sheet we hand out.

Now these are the people that handle this.

Like they're the ones that are going to do investigations.

They're the ones that are gonna wanna see images.

Now, the fact that, you know, unless you really recorded, what's been done in the past.

You may not have any evidence but you know, okay.

So I can't diagnose pesticide drift but I can give you some suggestions.

One thing that I can suggest is maybe think about a plant screen.

You know, like Arborvitaes or pine trees something that might protect.

Yes.

Are they going to be harmed by the chemical?

Possibly they could definitely be harmed by the chemical.

But that could potentially protect some of those food crops like the garlic.

The other thing is, usually if I detect an over-spray I definitely would not eat the food.

The garlic, I know he said the garlic died but if there were other food crops I wouldn't want to eat the food because you don't know what it is but this Illinois Department of Ag can help you in your issue.

- Okay.

- I hope I answered it.

Does Ella or John have any suggestions that could help him prevent?

- I would say the most important thing is to document.

And most of these chemical drift issues are from air, airplane, you know, when they crop spray.

Sometimes along the edges you can get damage from tractor mounted sprayers but they are trying very hard not to do that.

You can also record the weather conditions on that day because they could be in violation when the wind speeds are higher than recommended, that certainly might be problematic.

So the most important thing is documentation.

The other thing is dialogue.

Having a respectful conversation and just explaining some of the things and, you know, it's easy to point fingers and blame people.

And most of the time, a lot of this is contract work and it's done by other companies, but you won't know and you do need to know what was sprayed.

You can certainly ask and again, document, ask, dialogue.

That would be my recommendation.

And of course, some pictures, whatever.

But I don't think the damage is always that long lasting or that severe.

And if you are trying to grow some vegetable crops you might want to investigate in some type of quonset like greenhouse covered, plastic covered tunnel to grow in rather than having something that could be open.

But I think Kelly's idea of a windbreak certainly is a good idea, too.

- Okay.

All right, Ella, we're gonna stay with you.

We're gonna go to question 988.

This is from Anne.

She says, has anyone ever heard of a root bar?

I'm looking for one, but can't find it anywhere.

I've borrowed one from a friend and that's what he calls it.

Basically, it's a long steel pole with a spike at one end.

I've used it to pound the spike into the ground and break up the rose bush left behind by the former owners.

Now I've got more volunteer weeds that have jumped from my neighbor's yard growing in my backyard that are about six foot tall.

I prefer to dig them out instead of using Roundup.

Any ideas?

So this is a kind of a two-part thing I wanna break down because Kelly talked about chemicals and how they're not always the enemy but we've sort of trained to think that way but, so Ella we'll tackle your question first.

And then if we have time, I do wanna discuss the chemicals again.

So, go.

Take it away.

- Okay.

- What are your thoughts?

- Yes.

I have never heard it referred to as a root bar, but I have heard it referred to as a pry bar or a digging bar, and you can go online, and you can find these they're available at the hardware store.

It's really something to get leverage under, to pop something out, but there are lots and lots of specialty tools as well.

And one that I wanted to show is this is called the root slayer.

And so you can see that it has some significant, you know, little cutting and it's quite narrow.

And then it also has a place for your foot to down and pop out and you can get it in a short handle, or you can get a long handle.

But I found that this is really valuable for what the person was interested in, because this can actually help dig it out.

And then the tip here can also be sharpened.

And it's, I think it's a quality tool, a specialty tool that if you are doing removals, you might want to try.

- I'm looking at a root bar right now online and your tool looks a lot easier with the, I don't know, is that a spade head or what you would call it but the other ones look a little bit more narrow.

So yours looks like the slayer.

Looks like it would do more in the way of getting rid of those things.

- Right.

Right.

But it's kind of like a pry bar and I have one and every once in a while, you know, you might need it again.

Again, you have to leverage against something, but digging things out for control is a really good way to do it.

And it might take more effort but certainly it's chemical free.

- Okay.

And Kelly, we've talked about this just in my time on the show and I'm this way too.

I don't want to use a lot of chemicals if I don't have to, but I always appreciate your education where it's like, we've sort of villainized chemicals.

- We have.

- So can we talk a little bit about that?

- You know, I don't want you as a homeowner spraying glysophate on dandelions.

Okay.

That's little small weeds, you know, I loved Ella's suggestion on that root slayer.

'Cause that thing is a beast in the garden and you'll never use anything else.

But when it comes to, you know, small weeds in the garden, I use a scuffle hoe.

I get them when they're young.

But however, when it comes to invasive species, even for large areas or even, you know, the tree of heaven in my backyard, I have to use a chemical or I'm not going to get control over that invasive species.

And it's very important to get control over invasive species 'cause what they do is they choke out native species.

So I'm perfectly okay with you using a chemical on tree of heaven or a honeysuckle or, you know, autumn olive, but I'm not okay with you, you know, spraying the weeds in the cracks of your sidewalk.

You know that's something, you should just handle that on your own.

And the same with, you know, scouting is your secret to being organic.

Scouting will always be your secret to being organic.

You get weeds that are a little tiny, you get your little scuffle hoe, you don't have to use a chemical.

You get insect infestations that are just started, you can use an insecticidal soap or you can use, you know, or cultural practices and you can handle that pest population.

And like Ella said, you know, these farmers, we want to vilify what they're doing as far as spraying chemicals.

But what they're spraying is far safer than it ever has been in the past.

If we can convince people not to be so dependent on the perfect lawn and putting fertilizers and pesticides in them, that actually would be better in the long run.

We're super dependent on what a lawn is and it's not doing anything for the environment.

So let the weeds grow.

- Let the weeds grow.

We'll end on that note.

Maybe we can dive into that one on another show, but I wanna thank all of you for coming.

Thank you for sharing your time and talent.

We appreciate it.

And thank you so much for sticking with us on the stay at home edition of Mid-American Gardener.

And we'll see you next time.

Thanks.

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