Tinisha Spain: Hello and thanks for joining us for another episode of Mid-American gardener.

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain, and if this looks different, we are in a different location this week.

We are at the Plant Sciences Lab in the conservatory on the campus of the University of Illinois.

Did I get it?

Yes, you did.

Okay.

And we are in Jennifer's neck of the woods, actually.

So we'll have both of the Jennifer's here.

We'll have them introduce themselves, and is going to tell you a little bit about the building where she teaches and kind of where we are right now.

So we'll start with you.

Jennifer Fishburn, Unknown: Hi, I'm Jennifer Fishburn, a Horticulture Educator with the University of Illinois extension, and my office is in the Springfield area.

I cover Logan, Menard and Sangamon counties, and I am a graduate of this building, and this facility was fairly new when I was here several years ago, back in the 90s, yeah.

Jennifer Nelson: So this is a wonderful Unknown: facility and a wonderful place for everyone to get to visit.

Tinisha Spain: So this is a welcome home for you wonderful Okay, well, good.

Jennifer, Jennifer Nelson: Hi.

I'm Jennifer Nelson.

I am adjunct faculty in the Department of Crop sciences, and we are in the building where I work a lot of the time where we have our labs for Hort 105 can also find some of my writing online at grounded and growing.com where we're sitting is the Conservatory, and lots of people don't realize that anybody can come in here.

It's really nice when it's really cold out to come here and experience a number of different tropical plants, there's bananas, there's a chocolate plant, there's orchids.

There's also a hallway of plant collections that are kind of grouped by either environment or kind of different themes that people can check out, but lots of people is kind of a hidden gem on campus that I wish more people would come and check out.

Tinisha Spain: And we just learned the visiting hours, the hours that they're open.

It's Monday through Friday, 830 to 430 so if you are interested, this place is absolutely beautiful.

Do you have to make an appointment?

You have to call?

No, Jennifer Nelson: this is open to the public.

Tinisha Spain: And you mentioned some other rooms that are down the hall.

What can we find in there?

Jennifer Nelson: Oh, there's like an orchid room.

There's a room of desert plants.

There's room of economically important plants, rainforest plants, ferns.

Yeah, hi.

So, yeah, you'll Tinisha Spain: have to make a visit down here and check this Unknown: great place to come and visit when it's cool outside, because it's pretty warm in here Tinisha Spain: and tropical in here.

Excellent.

All right, ladies, let's jump in.

We have to get this out of the way, because I can't stop staring at it.

So okay, who did you find?

Jennifer Nelson: I was trimming trees this weekend, and I was trimming our birch tree, and I found not one, but two of these cocoons that were kind of creepy.

They weren't attached.

But yeah, so I wasn't sure what this was.

At first I thought, Is it a nest of some sort?

Is something gonna come jumping out at me?

But both of them have an exit hole, and I'll be honest, I didn't know what it was.

I used Google lens to help me kind of narrow it down, and it looks like it is the cocoon from something called the Polyphemus moth.

And it is a huge moth.

It's six inches across for its wingspan.

Oh my gosh, and it's really common in Illinois.

Is found throughout Illinois and found in wooded areas, and the larva particularly like beach or not beach birch trees, which is what I was trimming.

So it kind of makes sense that I found a couple cocoons in it, depending on the Some sources say that there's one life cycle in a season, but a number of them said there can be two.

There's there's one cocoon that will overwinter, and then another cocoon that will be another generation would be hatched out and complete its life cycle in the summer.

So that might be what we're looking at here.

Tinisha Spain: So if you are out pruning your trees, what do you suggest?

Look for that exit hole?

Jennifer Nelson: Yeah.

I mean, it's an exit hole that's just done.

I mean, that's, that's hatched out, that's, it's just interesting to look at.

My kids are going to take it to school for Yeah, they are.

But if there's no exit hole there is, there is a generation that over winters as a cocoon, just leave it alone.

It tends to be like, either attached to the branches, like how I found it, or in leaf litter.

So just leave it be wherever it's at.

Interesting.

Yeah, it's an interesting, interesting creature to have in your garden, and kind of one of those fun I've only seen one for real, but like, besides this, I've only seen a real living one once, when I was, like, about eight years old, we found I'm gonna have to live the human right after the show, because I'm curious.

Yeah, they're gigantic, and they have big, fake big eye spots on their hind wings.

To try and distract you.

Talking about to try and distract predators.

Tinisha Spain: Very cool, so Well, I hope Show and Tell goes great.

They're going to knock them dead with those you know, hashtag.

My mom's a plant nerd.

Jennifer Nelson: Exactly, exactly right.

So Unknown: I brought in some twigs of a Mulberry, because this is what I could find outside.

Mulberry is a native plant.

It's not a non native but they are undesirable plants in many locations.

So the point of bringing this in is to mention that right now is a great time to remove, be removing those undesirables from our landscape.

They're usually pretty easy to see at this time of year, particularly if you have honeysuckle or which is coming, pops up in a lot of urban landscapes.

Autumn olive, we see that a lot more in the rural areas, and then our Callery pear, we're also seeing that on the fringes of urban areas, but in rural areas as well.

The reason that now is a great time is because the Callery pear, the autumn olive and the honeysuckle will all hold their leaves much later than other plants, so they're still green.

Now they're not turning fall colors.

And except for the Callery pear, is kind of turning a little red, and most places or may have dropped, but that the invasive tends to hold on a little the, excuse me, the one that's invasive tends to pull down a little bit longer, so it's a great time to be looking for those and removing those from our landscape.

Actually did this just this weekend, spent a great deal of time out in our Conservation Reserve plan area removing autumn olive and it is a lot of fun.

But the great way, great thing to do for most folks, particularly with like mulberry or autumn olive, they have pretty deep well, mulberry has a deep root system of the autumn olive just flings into the ground, pretty good.

But is we stump cut or cut ours?

So the stump cut, so leaving up a little bit of us of a stump and then treating that with herbicide when we're done.

Honeysuckle, if you had small ones, maybe a couple feet tall, those are really easy actually to pull out because they have shallow root systems.

But anything bigger, you'd need to cut that, probably with really good ratchet pruners or or even a saw, hand saw, if you know what you're doing, you could use a chainsaw or another types of but I really encourage the pruners if possible, if it's small enough to do that with or a hand saw.

But again, now is a great time to do that, because we can see those easily in the landscape, plus we're kind of done with our gardens.

So what are we going to do now?

Well, and remove those undesirables from our from our landscapes.

I wanted Tinisha Spain: to ask a little bit more about the undesirable, because we, you know, we talk a lot about native and non native, but not all of our natives are desirable, right?

So, and that's okay, it's not a bad word or anything.

So why is this one so Unknown: mulberry in the woods is great, great food source for wildlife, great food source for birds.

But therein lies the problem.

They're a great source, food source for birds.

And birds tend to not stay in one place.

They migrate.

So they drop these just about anywhere, and then they start coming up in our landscape.

So it's not really a tree that most people want to have in their immediate yard, particularly in an urban area, but would be great maybe in a park or in a wood lot or a wooded area.

And like I said, they are native.

What's kind of neat about them most people don't realize is, if you look at the two twigs, they the leaves look different.

We see these are don't have indents in them.

There are scallop but they're a whole leaf where this one, we see a lot of indents in it.

So mulberry does have a couple different types of leaves on the same plant.

So if you're looking at this, you might not think it's this that is really cool.

Jennifer Nelson: Sometimes you can find a branch with the two leaf shapes on this on the Tinisha Spain: same one.

Interesting.

No, that gives me another thing to Google.

After we finish, there you go.

Unknown: So a great plant where it belongs, but just not in in your flower beds or up near your house, because they are extremely deep rooted.

So Tinisha Spain: like hand pulling, this is hand pulling Jennifer Nelson: is impossible.

And the fruits edible, right?

The Unknown: fruit is edible.

The fruits wonderful.

Yeah, a lot of people enjoy eating it.

But again, just probably not right in the middle of your yard, not right in the middle, because they do, you know, tend to stain concrete, your cars, the fruit, if it's when you'll know when the bird droppings come because they're colored very pretty.

So Tinisha Spain: sounds like a lot of work.

Yes, okay, thank you.

All right, we're back to you.

Jen, Jennifer Nelson: okay, so more tree trimming escapades.

So I noticed this was off our birch tree.

I noticed that this has a great example of.

Of the cicada egg laying from earlier this summer, and so I didn't notice much.

A lot of trees end up doing what's called flagging, where, if this egg laying behavior is further out, then the end of the branch dies.

I didn't see much of all those dead leaves.

I don't didn't see much of that on the birch, but these little slits are where the cicadas laid their eggs.

And then see how this is kind of ridged up.

This is the tree is already healing.

So that's like a good, a good thing for people to remember that by next year you're not even going to remember, you're not going to even have any real signs that they were there.

So it's not a bad thing that the cicadas laying the eggs.

But where it becomes a problem is, if you had nothing but a tiny, tiny twig of a tree, that wouldn't be Tinisha Spain: so these are all have opened, and the I don't know, like the Jennifer Nelson: eggs have had, the eggs have hatched, and the larva drop down and burrow into the ground, and the tree is our tree is already healing.

Interesting.

I Tinisha Spain: don't think I've ever seen this.

This, like, the work that they've left behind.

Yeah, no.

I Jennifer Nelson: mean, it was just kind of a random thing, like, it was a pretty high up branch that came down.

I didn't even, I didn't even notice, just kind of, know what your lunch, yeah, I just happened to notice it as I was chopping up what I cut.

So Tinisha Spain: now would that need to be pruned off?

You know, Jennifer Nelson: if you I just pruned it off because it's in my way.

Yes, because, but Tinisha Spain: seeing this is not a sign, no, this is Jennifer Nelson: just, this is just a natural process, and by the next spring, you wouldn't even really notice these at all anymore, because it's almost closed up.

Tinisha Spain: Nature is so fascinating.

Okay, let's answer a few questions.

We've got a question from mo Mia.

This was from Facebook.

They write in they've got perennials and pots that didn't get planted yet, and they want to know the best way to over winter those so we're talking November.

We have been very lucky with temperature.

Are we out of time?

Is it safe to put them in the ground?

What do you guys think?

And I'd love Unknown: to hear from both of you.

I would suggest, if she can put them in the ground, particularly if you're in central Illinois right now, the soil is good, moist, it's still not frozen, of course, great, great to go out and get those right into the ground, because trying to overwinter those in the pots might be a little bit of a challenge.

Yeah.

Jennifer Nelson: I mean, best case scenario, like get them planted, maybe through a little bit of extra mulch on it once we get cold temperatures.

Because the thing is, they may not be rooted in once the cold really comes.

Gotcha, you know, Fast and Furious, if she can't get them planted, put them someplace, like an unheated garage, that's not going to freeze solid, because if those pots freeze solid, then chances are the plants will be toast.

Gotcha, that hasn't happened at our house before.

Stuff in the garage that didn't didn't make it, and you just, my Tinisha Spain: garage is detached, so I always wrestle with that too.

I know a lot of a lot of our panelists can put them up against the wall that, you know, is joined with the house.

I don't have that luxury.

So whatever is in a garage for me is basically just out of the elements.

And sometimes that's just, sometimes, Jennifer Nelson: yeah, depends.

And like, mine is attached, and so I'll, I'll maybe water it once or twice over the over the winter, like I keep mint in a pot, and I keep it in the in the garage over the winter, and it does fine.

I just water it a couple times over the winter so it doesn't totally dry out.

And Tinisha Spain: then Jennifer with, if you put them in the ground now, watering and just making sure that they have a good start.

What do you recommend there?

Unknown: So exactly that right now, the soil is moist, just keeping it good and watered up till the time the ground freezes.

So going out if you don't get any rain, making sure it gets a good soaking each week till that ground freezes, and as Jennifer mentioned, a good three to four inch layer of mulch would be helpful.

Tinisha Spain: Okay, speaking of this is kind of off the topic, but what do you guys do with your leaves?

Do you use your leaves to blanket your beds?

We had another show with Karen and Ella, and they talked about how she says she goes to the neighbor's house and breaks their leaves and brings them to their house so could late leaf cover.

Unknown: So I think it depends on where you're at.

So for me personally, my leaves just blow away because I live in the country, and I do rake them out of beds at some point because they get too tall.

But certainly leaves will be a great source, depending on which type of leave you might want to crush those up a little bit, because some of them will actually work against you.

So some of your maples, if they get too batted, actually, the water flows away from the plan.

So you want those crushed up in that case, Jennifer Nelson: yeah, most of the leaves blow away.

At my house, we have a shredder, so I do from time to time, and I'm actually going to bring it over to a friend's house to help her do her her leaves and yeah, shredding them will help them not mad up like what Jennifer's saying, and they'll break down quicker.

So if you want to put them like on a on a garden bed or whatever, Tinisha Spain: excellent.

All right, let's see.

Pam bertucker writes, When should I prune my fruit trees?

Jennifer Nelson: I would prune them when they're.

Dorman, yeah, Unknown: usually the most folks will do that January, February.

Time Frame is when fruit trees are pruned.

Okay, so you've got some time on that.

I just encourage you.

Got one behind that up and look that up online.

How to properly do that, because there it depends on what type of fruit tree it as to how to how you're going to prune it.

Okay, okay, Tinisha Spain: let's see.

Roberta Henderson, wants to know.

So we talked on our show several times about the beautiful fold out guide that extension provides on tree planting, and what would go well in your landscape?

There's a lady who was saying she went to the website find one.

And so how do you get your hands on one of those planting guides?

So they're all print Unknown: copies, because the way that it's constructed, it's made into a poster.

It's too difficult to just put that up on the internet for people to download, so the best way to do that is reach out to your local extension office and ask them if they have a copy.

If they don't, they can secure a copy pretty quickly, because most of our offices still have those.

But contact your local extension office and ask them how you can stop by their office and pick that up.

Okay, Tinisha Spain: so whatever county you're in, find your local extension office, and is it too late to put trees in the ground?

No, no, Jennifer Nelson: no, we're just like into prime Unknown: Yeah, trees and Tinisha Spain: shrubs interesting, you it just seems it feels counterintuitive because of the weather, but it's a good time.

Jennifer Nelson: It's really good time, because they're going to do a lot of root growth when the ground isn't frozen and they have nothing, no leaves to worry about supporting, so you can really get some good root growth.

Tinisha Spain: Excellent.

Okay, good to know, all right.

Well, we'll come back to you, Jennifer, with this potting plant.

Okay, Unknown: so here we have a thyme plant.

I love them because they smell great.

Thyme isn't or culinary herb that we use in a lot of cooking, especially in some poultry dishes, meat type dishes, works great.

What I just wanted to show here is this one's getting a little bit woody, so next spring, we're going to give this a hard prune.

But what we could do now at this time of year is actually take, if you see a little bit of a wooded, wooded piece is take that and pin that down to the ground, and it may root by next, early next spring.

And then that could actually be a new plant that you have in in the garden.

But this particular one I would give this come spring after the leaves start to come back again, a really hard prune, if not.

You can see it just gets unkept looking.

I guess would be a good way to put it.

It's not putting on a lot of new growth.

So we want to see more growth on it, particularly, we're using that in our kitchens.

Now, can Tinisha Spain: you expand a little bit more on the difference between the woody stems and the green ones?

So for folks who don't understand what that means or why that signaling.

So this Unknown: one here, you can see that it's, you can definitely see it looks like, looks like a twig, so it has that Woody look, whereas your new growth is going to be very pliable, soft, bendable, where this by bended, it's probably going to, that's what we want.

And you you want that for in the springtime right now, you don't want to prune this.

Don't, don't prune your time now, because you don't want it to try to grow again.

But this is what we want to encourage, because that's what we cut off the plant and eat.

We're not to eat this woody part here.

Plus what else will happen is the plant, as it gets more Woody and more Woody, it doesn't tend to grow as well the center, center Tinisha Spain: guys out, yeah, got it.

So it'll just, it'll perform better for you.

Yeah, Unknown: but you could try to pin those down now, like with maybe a paper clip on the ground something, or a little piece of metal, and those down in various spots, and they'll, they'll root next spring for you.

Awesome.

Tinisha Spain: Then you have even more to share.

Excellent.

Okay, so we have a question from peg man about best seeds to plant now to be able to enjoy next year.

So do you have any faves?

Do you have any ideas suggestions for folks who are wanting to get ahead of the game?

So Unknown: probably not any annual plants.

Some of your native perennials actually do need cold cold treatments, so planting them now is desirable because then they can get that cold treatment outside.

So some of your milkweeds would be a good choice for them.

Okay, Jennifer Nelson: we do coneflower and Black Eyed Susans will sometimes pick the seeds and put them kind of where we want them next year, try to spread them around.

Do Tinisha Spain: you have any luck with Zinnias reseeding themselves?

I have a lovely patch, and I just would love for them to do that again next year.

Jennifer Nelson: I've saved I've saved seeds.

They're easy to save seeds, yes, now if you're looking for an annual that will recede, I love four o'clock, and I've got a nice patch of those now, and I save seed from them, but they do a good job of just receding themselves.

And alyssum has done a really nice job of receding itself.

What Unknown: do you have pansies that you planted like this season?

They're still growing.

Leave them alone.

Let them be.

You might be surprised if you might actually if they're mulched well enough and a little bit of a micro climate, they might make it through the winter till next spring.

But I also had for the first.

Time they seeded.

So I got Baby, baby, little pansy plants popped up in my garden.

Wow.

Tinisha Spain: Success, success.

What about Mexican sunflower?

Will those recede?

I've never I'm just trying to gage how much work I've got ahead of me.

I Unknown: would just go out and pop off, throw them in a paper bag and just put them out next spring.

I wouldn't put a lot of effort into it, but keep them when they're dry.

Just throw them in a paper sack.

Tinisha Spain: Any other suggestions for folks who want to maybe get ahead of the game?

Any seeds, any any easy sort of thinking ahead of time that you guys can think of?

Any suggestions, if not no worries.

No worries.

Let's talk a little bit more about this actual, this beautiful conservator.

We've got conservatory.

We've got about five minutes left.

So do you come and actually teach in this space?

Do you come here when you need a moment?

Jennifer Nelson: I don't, I don't teach in this space.

But yeah, when you need a moment, this is a great space to come to.

I will say, as a grad student, I may have spent some time in here just thinking life choices and whatnot, collecting, getting my Zen.

There are classes that use this space for different plant biology.

I think has some courses in here, but it is just kind of a fun space.

And lots of people are intimidated by the building and think they can't come in, but they absolutely can.

We love to have people come check it out.

Do Tinisha Spain: you have any favorites in here?

Unknown: Well, I'll tell you, I can utilize the space.

So I utilize the space to take photos to show folks what plants are going to look like.

I think it's also a great space if you're curious about what does this tiny plant going to become coming into this space and seeing that now, obviously, in your house, these plants aren't going to get near the size that they are in here, but it still gives you a really good idea what they're going to look like, and many of them are in flower right now, so you can even see what the flowers look like and see what the optimal conditions are, because they do have the collections broke out into specific spaces so you can see what those growing conditions might be like in those spaces, might help you select that perfect plant for your house.

Excellent.

Jennifer Nelson: There's as far as favorite plants.

There's a banana tree in here.

My kids always have to come and see like, Are there bananas?

What can we see, and there's a chocolate and there's a chocolate tree, so you can see what, what chocolate looks I Tinisha Spain: saw some pitcher plants back there, and I remember, it's been a while, maybe 10 years or so.

It was a big deal because the corpse flower, right?

I did a live shot, Jennifer Nelson: big so I had, like, a camera on it, 24 hours.

Tinisha Spain: there was a live stream that's so funny, so Yes, funny.

But well, yes, we'll have to go take a tour and see what else is in here when we're finished recording.

But thank you guys.

You're welcome so much for making time to come on the show, and thank you so much for watching.

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

Just search for Mid American gardener.

And now we'll leave you with sights and sounds from the conservatory.

Thanks so much for watching.