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 with lots of stuff to talk about are our faves Karen and Ella.

So, introduce yourself a little bit and tell us about your specialty and then we'll jump right in.

I'm Ella Maxwell.

I'm a master gardener in Tazewell County and a horticulturist and I enjoy trees and shrubs and perennials.

And I'm Karen Ruckle.

And I'm a horticulturist and I am from Woodford County area and I enjoy perennials, houseplants, shrubs.

Alright, a generalist.

Okay, ladies, Karen, we'll start with you, you sent us in some pictures, that make me sad, because it's very indicative of fall.

Well, I just wanted to, I see a disturbing practice around in my neighborhood.

And I think it's a lawn service, it's doing it but I love coral bells.

I've got a lot my yard.

And as you can see in the picture that this one person's yard, they've chopped off all the existing foliage except down close to the stems for winter.

And although this practice doesn't seem to harm these coral bells, because I've seen it done from year to year, it makes me sad, because really the coral bells, you can have nice looking foliage into February.

So how cool is that on a crummy kind of winter day that you would still have a clump of foliage.

And there's a close up of of the poor little plant in that guy's yard, which he didn't know the name of them.

But that's beside the point.

But so the thing is, I think the foliage can be very nice through the winter.

And I brought kind of a little display of of the ones from my yard of the various foliages.

And both Ella and I have problems in our yard.

With for me it's especially rabbits.

Did the deer go after yours or just the rabbits?

Just rabbits.

And so Ella has this fantastic practice of using baskets, wire baskets that you're not going to be using during the winter anyway.

Yeah, and putting them over the plant.

And I brought "u" staples and I forgot to bring them in here.

But then you just put them over your Coral Bell and secure him with a couple "u" staples or cut up a coat hanger.

And you can use there's a few of the metal ones, these are the old galvanized, we like the black and the galvanized because it kind of just disappears in the yard, the white shows up a little bit more but anything to protect them because I've found that through the winter, if food gets scarce, or the rabbits will eat the leaves, and then when they get really hungry, they will start consuming the crowns and you'll lose the plant.

So a little bit of extra protection works out fine.

Excellent.

Okay, so leave those coral bells for something to look at.

Yes.

All right, Ella, we're to you.

Well, something that you don't want to leave you can but I choose not to is this is sweet autumn clematis.

And it was a fall bloomer, and it sets up a tremendous amount of seed.

And so these have little kind of like little wings on them, and they can just blow around.

And one reason that I remove and pull the whole thing down is because it kind of recedes all over the place.

And so it's it's just something that I think this plant is very easy to cut back close to the ground.

Usually I leave about two, three foot and then I'll cut it back further in the spring but I just want to remove all the seed heads so that I don't have them blowing around and starting new plants, which they do and I have them for the plant sales but you know, more Cuts down on some of that work.

Yeah, cuts down on some of that work.

So you can choose to do this or you can leave them through the winter.

They're very interesting.

I don't know if birds eat them or anything but kind of just a fun thing and I thought I'd show that Okay, let's do one more because you've got lots of stuff.

Oh, okay.

One more: a native tree that in the fall has fruit, about the size of a grapefruit or can be even bigger is the hedge apple: Maclura pomifera.

It's a native most to Virginia, all the way over to Texas, down towards Alabama, up to us.

And it has these large fruit in the fall.

It's in the mulberry family.

So this is kind of, there's seeds inside here which the squirrels will eat, and they'll kind of chew them apart.

It has kind of a milky sap that some people have kind of a contact dermatitis against and that sap is in the stem the leaves and as well in the fruit.

But there is a lot of unscientific war about these able to repel insects.

So we, we have one on our property down by the creek line and it was used extensively as kind of a living fence.

It is very drought tolerant.

Roots easily can be sheared and it does have a spine on it.

And they do have male and female separate trees.

So it may be catching on in propagation.

There is one called Wichita which is a seedless male clone that is also spurlessor spineless, I guess their spines.

But anyway, in the fall when they fall, that's a thumb size bigger than bigger than a walnut but they're supposed to repel spiders.

So we always had to take one and put them in each corner of my mother in law's basement.

She has one of the older home with kind of a scary basement.

Creepy crawly.

Some people you know put them around their foundation.

I don't know if it's true, but Now, we don't eat these right?

No, no, it's not, it's not an edible fruit for us.

Possibly just squirrels.

But there's very little pests of them.

Maybe a little bit of a leaf spot, durable tree 20 to 40 feet might become more popular as our environment changes and the push for more native trees and shrubs.

Plants are available.

So I did bring it, kind of interesting.

Hedge apples: one to watch.

We are back to you.

And we've got some more pictures.

Is this the one you want to start on?

Yeah, no, not necessarily that one, probably the one with the tomato plants.

Alright, so on my on my back porch.

This year, the tomatoes.

I have to splurge, I don't have to splurge.

But I do splurge with my tomatoes and I get some grafted varieties, because I do have some disease problems within my soil and I can't move my garden anywhere else because I don't want to.

But anyway, one of my tomatoes just went up and over and came onto my deck and I let it and I then I thought it was going to freeze one of the nights when it was getting really cold in October it didn't.

But I went and stripped off all my tomatoes just in case.

And the my outside table there is just covered with my haul of all the tomatoes that were at the end of the season.

Now, then I had a problem because tomatoes ripening in the house, I find the texture not as good, they just to me don't taste as good and that the texture is a little off.

So I'm like, I'm gonna give most of these away well, then my avenue for giving them away kind of ended and all the neighbors are like, Oh, I'll take two.

And I'm like, No, you don't understand you need to take.

Ella took a bunch.

I took a boxfull!

So then I thought okay, I'll I'll dry these.

So then I did look at some different stuff on recipes.

And I did a slow oven drying of most about on 200 on my oven, it took two to three hours.

I just brushed him with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.

And then a lot of Ella talks about that she would store them in olive oil in her frigerator Well, I don't want to take up that space.

So I actually put them in the freezer.

And so they took up a lot less space, they really shrunk down.

So I was really pleased that I think going forward, I'm not going to give away my extra tomatoes now.

That might be your last box.

So that week that I did this, I made pizza three times during the week.

And I think the first pizza I probably had maybe four or five tomatoes worth on the pizza.

Because I you know didn't anticipate how much I dried him down but it was it was really good.

And for me like I said that indoor ripening, I don't like the texture and it worked out worked out.

So now you've got enough tomatoes to get you through the winter hopefully Yeah, so I did that too.

But I also have a dehydrator so these tomatoes will not be like leather, they will still be kind of mushy.

And so that's why Karen froze them, you know individually and then flash froze them.

And then put them together in a bag so that you could take out what you wanted.

So I did that too, because roasting is kind of good, but some of them then I dehydrated in the dehydrator even further for more like a leather and those are the ones that I pack in olive oil and, and can store And they're in the fridge.

Yes.

Right.

In the refrigerator.

Yes, yeah.

Okay, well, keep having pizza Yeah, a margherita pizza.

So fresh mozzarella, you use this instead of the sauce and yes, and of course, you know, there was she had fabulous basil.

She grows the best basil in the whole world.

Yeah.

Keeps me supplied, so.

It works out.

You help each other out.

Okay.

Ella, we're back to you.

What's next?

You're next item?

Back to me.

All right.

Well, it's going to be the holiday seasons coming up.

And in anticipation for that many people now do outdoor decorating with live cut greens to make what they call a porch pot.

And so this would just be one of your containers that you've removed the annuals from, it still has some soil in it.

And then you can just stick in greens to create the Evergreen look, but then you can really decorate it up however you want.

And so, so that's what I came to give you just a few little hints.

So the first hint is, a lot of people now are using birch logs in their arrangements.

Well, to bury a birch log into the pie, you know, you almost have to have a trowel.

So what you can do is you can drill a hole in the bottom, and then you can put it glue it, you'd want to glue it, I'd have glued it, but you can put it on one of these, we caught these at the nursery like this.

And it's so much easier to stick this into the pot.

So you're using a small dowel rod, small dowel rod Exactly.

So I went to the you know, box store, and I bought some different dowel rod sizes.

And it's the same way with some of these beautiful poinsettias, you know, these have lovely, long, nice plastic stems.

But they're more expensive than if you buy this little, you know, bush that you can cut.

And I think a little side cutter works really well.

Well.

The thing is, is that you can use then a dowel rod to extend the the stem length.

And what I have found, just to let you know, is you can buy electrical tape in green.

Now.

I just I just think it's wonderful for a really nice attachment.

Oh, you can create any length you want.

And it's the same way with these berry clusters, you know, you get them and they they have this, this tape wrapped around them in it just kind of masking tape.

Well, I don't know exactly what it is, but it kind of falls apart.

So you can just, you know, create your own berry clusters, you can either take it apart and put it on a new stem or you could reuse this stem.

But again, if you want to make something longer, you know it's it's the same way.

So I just think the black electrical tape works so much better.

And then you have these, you can store them all in a plastic bag at the you know, after Christmas, just pull those out or wait till spring if they they're frozen or put them in the garage and let them kind of do frost.

And then of course, you can add pine cones.

And just to let you know, depending on the pine cone, how you're attaching it.

If you want to put it in against the wreath, maybe you'd put the wire in the middle.

But if you're going to put it on a stem, you wrap it around the bottom and I just make a single twist.

And then again, this can be something that can then just be taped on to a stem here, you know, we're going to kind of wrap it around and then tape it to secure it.

But it just makes it so much easier than to stick it into the into this decorated pot.

Very nice.

Now while we're getting crafty, I have to show this because this is absolutely my favorite thing that you guys brought in today.

So tell us a little bit about this.

Okay, so I saw I think it was on Facebook or something that someone had taken Maple leaves, and I have a whole bunch of Maple leaves.

And so I pressed some of them in anticipation of this craft to do with some preschoolers.

And so these are little wolves.

That's mama Wolf, daddy Wolf, baby Wolf.

And I just use construction paper, they use googly eyes, but I just cut brown for the nose and the ears.

And then black and white and black again to make the little eyes.

And then I let the kids use a marker to make whiskers that turned out in the middle or down below.

We had goatee little foxes.

This is just something that anybody like, this is adorable.

Oh, and, other thing is, is that a gingko leaf...okay, a gingko You have to bring one of those in.

We'll wait for that one.

leaf is fan-shaped.

Yes, well, it's the shape of a butterfly wings.

And they also had a beautiful picture of those being Okay.

All right.

Let me bring out a couple of questions.

Let's hand painted.

And then you take the stem and very carefully split it so that it creates the two antennae.

But whoever posted this, was see, Todd Gleason writes in question 259.

He says, I have an area in my yard where oak will thinned out my trees to the point now that it's quite open.

The soil is poor.

It's not particularly porous, and it's unable to sustain grass because of a lack of sunlight.

Also ferns.

Well, he says ferns can't live there.

Because there's too much sunlight.

Even Hostas don't thrive there.

Do you have any suggestions?

So we've all got that patch in our yard that's just impossible to sustain life?

What do you recommend?

Okay, so Karen and I talked about this and we thought that part of the problem is it's probably a thin soil so he could amend the soil, create a bed where he wants to have flowers and have some success.

And again, we thought mulch, great cover.

But perennials that are drought tolerant, and are no shade tolerant, or are those so Karen's got a list.

My list was one plant.

On evergreen boxwoods have worked really well, for me, they are quite drought tolerant.

And then I also think that EPA mediums that was the plant, and those actually, I was thinking about bringing them today because you were bringing the coral bells.

And there are several different shade loving perennials that have semi evergreen leaves.

And EPA mediums are one of them.

There are some that are deciduous that will fall color, but a lot of them will go green through most of January and into February, and also the hellebore.

That's another one that has done well for me in a rough patch, you know, in in kind of a droughty kind of situation.

And I think he could actually grow some of the small minor spring blooming bulbs.

And just to begin to experiment with maybe, you know, the non traditional plants read up on some of them and, and you see epimedium epimedium fish up calm app.

Okay, I was gonna say is there a I don't know it doesn't have a nickname that you can walk into her to it.

Is this Europe's cat?

Have not heard of that.

It really is.

Yeah.

That's all right.

Dude, we'll find out.

All right, and dabbling and dabbling writes in, I'm looking for advice about planting cover in a backyard area.

This area of my yard does not do well with traditional fescue.

I have supplemented with lime to no avail.

Is Clover easier to grow?

And is it invasive?

So again, we had another rough patch here.

What do you suggest?

Well, we were talking about that that we really don't say adding lime unless you have done a soil test because obviously or maybe not obviously it may not have been the key thing to help that area.

I think a lot of these shady or areas just lack lack good moisture and and fertility sometimes Yeah, so that the overall pH might be fine.

It's just fertility and lack of moisture.

But yes, Clover is very invasive.

So you if you want to try that you better like it because it'll go everywhere.

It will just doesn't really grow that well in shade.

I've found it's more of a sun plant.

Now.

There are some other fests skews that maybe could be more durable, or again, some of the different ground covers pack Cassandra.

And then like that epimedium that we've already talked about has a tendency to kind of spread Vinca vine can kind of spread.

Some of those are ajuga.

So some options out there does fescue.

Does that always mean grass?

Is that always what we're talking about?

No, no actually fescue, there's many, many different species.

So one grass that's really good in full sun.

It's quite durable.

And Karen is now adding it to your yard is the tall fescue.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then there are the chewings and red fescues that are more shade tolerant, gotcha.

Turf quality, and all of these can be turf quality.

And then there are fescues that are like more ornamental grasses.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

So yeah, lots of things.

All right, Karen, tell us about this cactus that you brought in?

Well, Mr. Mr. Cactus here.

He actually has been on the show before the mother of this plant.

Back when we were doing zoom sessions.

This the mother of this little pup was the one that lived in unfortunately, a Styrofoam cup for many, many years.

And I remember that looks at my house.

Yeah.

And so then when I potted it up, oh my gosh, that thing got too big.

And then it had all these little pups.

And I'm like, Okay, you gotta go away.

So I re homed him and kept one of the little babies and put it in the pot.

But what I was struggling with was was some sort of saucer that went you know, sometimes you get these pots and the saucers just, you know, they just don't look right or they're too deep.

And I troll the internet and social media has so much good and so much bad and misinformation but I saw a posting that I really liked.

And right now I see a lot at a state sales because I like going to those and garage sales.

bygone days, they just did so much glassware and I don't know what kind of entertaining they did back in the day.

But dang, they had a lot of glass.

And somebody had talked about using dishes like this as your saucers rather than the plastic.

And I'm like I can do that.

So you know something like this that didn't Oh, it's reutilizing this and I spent $1 on this glass dish which I can tell you the plastic saucer wasn't that cheap.

So reusing.

Honoring the bygone day of of the beautiful glass but you know we're not doing the entertaining that would have had so I've used plates before but I didn't think about using some of these candy dishes or I don't even know what they use this little guy for ticket from a totally you know went from house plant to like a house.

There you go.

I have a large square planter that I cannot find anything to put under and I've been living in okay okay because Ella queen of reusing things especially if you're going check your deli at some of the different grocery stores because some of their containers are square some of the cheese things with the with the plastic domes where you're getting a cheese assortment or something or candy assortment or something.

That's where I got some rather large square wines.

I will try and yeah, and I found about using like a baking sheet.

Sure, why not?

Right now it's just one of those great big circular saucers and it just doesn't look great just doesn't have the right feel like I'm gonna take a page from you.

Let's see.

Let's see if we can get one more question.

Kate wants to overwinter her tall purple salvia and I'm going to paraphrase because this one's long and I want to make sure we get it in.

It's in pots and she loves it because the hummingbirds calm she wants to know if she should you put the pots inside or maybe put the pots in the garage and do you water when you're trying to overwinter something?

Well, she's definitely going to have to overwater if it gets too dry.

It's an annual and so it is susceptible to freezing.

Well, yeah, freezing temperatures, it can take cooler temperatures but not freezing.

So again, you have to know what is the lowest temperature your garage is going to get.

Some people have heated garages or are able to heat their garage so that might be consideration.

But Karen has successfully overwintered many of the blue salvias as cuttings, right, yeah.

Now, the thing I point out about like in my garage, I've got warm areas and kind of colder areas.

So if I'm trying to overwinter and it sounds like she dug up the parent plant, I would put that into the warmest spot if you've got a cold grudge unheated, no no heating in there with a warmer spot mentioned by a window put it over there.

You might need to just water once A month right so check that I would take cuttings off of that, and then have some babies that you would take in the warm part grow on like a house plant in the house.

I have found though that the plants you've taken cuttings from now, you'll want to do cuttings again midwinter and then throw away that plant that you first started with.

There's seems like there's some vigor that lacks for that plant.

And then you're cutting that you did say in February, that would be the plant you would transition and re acclimate to outside.

Okay, yeah.

Excellent.

And then one last thing.

I have on my refrigerator a note on when I start watering my house plants.

Do keep this because I'm always going to do it on Sunday, but sometimes I forget.

So I know when I brought my house plants in how often I watered them and when I took them outside kind of designed to just keep track of and you can then you know, no.

Well, we had an early freeze.

We had a late freeze.

Oh, we had an early spring.

Wrap it up there.

I have a little notebook that I keep too.

So I'm in good company.

All right.

Thank you guys.

It's always a blast when you come in.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you've got questions, send them into us at your garden@gmail.com or just search for us on Facebook and Instagram just search numeron gardener and we will see you next time goodnight