Hello and thanks so much for joining us for another episode of Mid American gardener.

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain, and we are in the Conservatory today at the Plant Sciences Lab on the campus of the University of Illinois It is beautiful in here.

It's a plant nerd's dream in here.

So I'm joined with the dream team today, and we've got lots of things to talk about and some questions of yours to answer.

So before we get into that, we'll have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about them, and then off we go.

So Ella, we'll start with you.

I'm Ella Maxwell.

I'm a graduate of the University of Illinois in 1981 and this was not here as I remember it.

So it's wonderful to be here.

And I had a degree in horticulture and enjoy trees and shrubs perennials.

I have a large yard.

I also became a master gardener in Tazewell County, and enjoy gardening with Karen.

Karen, I'm Karen ruckel, and I'm a gardener in the Peoria area.

I am a horticulturist.

I also graduated from the U of I and I enjoy perennials and house plants and excellent gardening with friends, gardening with There we go.

Okay, well, as usual, you guys definitely brought a lot of show and tells.

So Ella, we'll start with you wherever you want to jump in and talk about first Okay, so going to talk about some of the things that I am doing in my yard right now, and that is the problem with the leaves, and we all know now, with the pollinators and with different things about leaving the leaves.

And I do try to leave the leaves on my property.

Sometimes I even harvest the neighbors right there, but they appreciate I have oak and maple and a couple others I don't really, oh, walnut, different things like that.

But in my garden beds, I use leaf mulch.

I just allow the leaves to fall, and that will give some of the overwintering caterpillars and different chrysalises for swallowtails and things.

But on my lawn, I want to mow it.

So I've now set my mower lower, and I have a bagger, and I like to get a combination of chopped grass clippings as well as chopped leaves.

And then these, I'm going to compost nice.

And so by spring, it's surprising, the volume goes down.

And I've got that, you know, all ready to go, but I do have a couple of interesting trees with some with large leaves, and this is actually a gift from Karen.

This is a what they call an umbrella magnolia.

And so this is Magnolia tripetala.

It has a very large, tropical looking leaf, and it has a white, large, seven to 10 inch flower, much like the southern magnolia with the Evergreen leaves.

And this one was just dropping Now, with these rather large leaves, so it's, it's kind of interesting.

But we visited a specialty nursery.

Didn't we care?

Yeah, and I, it was an impulse buy.

I saw the Magnolia.

I'm like, Oh my gosh, I love that.

I want it was a baby one gallon.

And I get home and I'm like, reading the specifics of what this really wants, and I'm like, I can't give it a life that it needs, and so I gave it to you.

Adopted the bay.

Yes, it's a smaller tree.

It's going to top out at maybe 35, 40 feet.

And sometimes it's multi stem, but I've kept it as a single trunk, and it does have very large flowers.

We'll have to get a picture up so folks can see what the tree looks Yeah, sure.

What color does it have?

Any flowers, or any pops of color?

Well, it's a magnolia, so the flowers on this one is white, again, like the southern magnolia with strap like leaves.

It supposedly is not fragrant.

I can't remember.

I thought it was better smelling than they've described.

It Gotcha, okay?

Thank you very much.

All right, Karen, we're going to go to you Well, I wanted to talk about a little bit with, with bringing in the house plants.

And sometimes you have disappointments.

So this is one of my holiday Christmas cactuses.

And I went to bring it inside, and the growth just popped off.

So I was really sad, because this is, this is the one that is the newer orange colored.

So it's really cool, looking nice.

But.

Really sad.

So I need to get busy and all of these things I can still save and help to reroute him and hopefully get the plant back in shape.

Now, the thing is, I'm not happy with this by itself, and if I don't get these cuttings going, he'll be ugly.

So I am going to go ahead and take this out of the pot, trim the roots, re establish him so he looks pretty in a pot, sitting by himself, in case all the other things don't make it.

Now question, when you are going to reroute those talk a little bit about that process.

Will you be pulling those off individually, or are you going to root them all as they are?

I'm going to root them as they are because even though they all popped off, I don't see any rot or any mushiness at the end.

So if there was, you wouldn't want to start with that segment trying to get it to root, because it will fail.

The problem with with succulents like this is you need moisture to root them, and too much moisture your rotten.

So a lot of times, still using your real porous, well drained soil for these.

And I'll put a bag over this and tent it to help keep in some of that moisture for the foliage as it tries to re establish some roots.

Now, that's going to go in soil.

Those are going to go the cutting there the pot.

Yeah, okay, yeah.

No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't try these in water, type, Gotcha, okay?

And tint that for the humidity.

Yes, you have to bring that back later so we can see how the surgery goes right.

And then that's why, you know, normally I would look at this and go, Hey, I'm gonna, if it was an easy to root plant, I would just make some holes, put these in here, and off I'd go.

But since sometimes you can't get these to root too easily, at least in my experience, I'm going to keep them separate and see what I can get to survive before, you know, still having an uneven pot.

Okay, we'll have to give us updates of that guy.

All right, yeah, we're back to you.

Okay.

Well, this is some of the ornamental grass.

This is Miscanthus.

One of the Miscanthus is they can get anywhere from four to six feet tall, and the seed heads will kind of puff out, and people discuss when to cut them back.

And I like to leave some for winter interest, but I have some along my driveway that because I'm going to be clearing snow, I'm going to be backing out, I'm going to cut them back this fall.

And usually what I do is I put some twine around them and tie them up, and then I can use an electric trimmers to just cut them off in a bundle.

And then they can be composted or put into landscape waste bags, or at my house, we do burn them.

Gotcha.

Now question, I have some similar to this, and it looks to me like the center is getting a little scarce, a little bare, little...

Right.

So it's kind of...leaning Sure.

When, When they, when they grow, they, they, it's like normal grass.

What can I do?

They send out these side shoots and and the center begins to die out.

So that's an indication that you'd need to maybe transplanted.

Okay, it's ready to be divided.

Or you, some people have taken like an auger and cleaned that center out and loosened it up and it'll fill back in.

Oh, okay.

We love low maintenance.

But that the thing with the grasses is that you do, they do have a very tough root system, so you'll want a very sharp shovel, or they make some really nice new spades that are serrated, that can cut through some of the tough root systems of the grasses.

I like that it will fill itself in there in the center.

Okay, we have a question for Mary, for both of you.

Mary Godfrey writes she has 310 inch pots with mums, so we're talking seasonal, and she wants to keep them so is it too late to put them in the ground, and they're Hardy?

Is it too late to put them in the ground?

And if it is, what can she do to overwinter these safely her moms?

Well, I would, I would say it's probably a little too late.

We're, yeah, we've really gotten a grace period with extended weather, not having freezes.

But we Ellen, I felt it was just too late.

So at this point it's keeping them.

I would still keep them outside until we have more freezing weather to let them go dormant, but then you're going to want to give them extra protection for the through the winter of the severity.

So put it in the unheated garage or an attached garage in the coldest spot, and Ella and I were talking, maybe water them once a month, if at that, to still keep the roots alive, to then flush it out in the spring.

And I actually have done that.

I've got a mom that was just.

Full this year that I kept from last year, and it lived in my garage.

I trimmed it back, though, because we were talking about this that Ella wouldn't trim it back.

I would trim it back because where I have it, I would hit it every time I'd walk by to get to the car.

So then you'd have little bits gathering all over.

So I would, I would trim it back a bit, at least getting rid of those spent flowers, yeah, just, I think the spent flowers would be enough, okay?

And we talked about, if you're if your garage is really cold, you talked about maybe some supplemental insulation, maybe, right?

Karen, thought maybe bubble wrap.

And I've seen people set pots into a Styrofoam coolers to insulate, right, like that.

Okay, all right, all right, Karen, we're back to you well, as we're coming into, you know, everybody's already, you know, jumped over Thanksgiving, unfortunately, but we still have that, but it already, we're seeing holiday plants in the store.

So I wanted to once again reiterate when, when you're going to look, and if you want to get poinsettias, the true flower is in the middle of the plant.

And so when you're looking at a poinsettia in the store, and these are all black or missing, that flower is already further, or that plant is already further along in its life cycle and its progression.

So when you get one, you want to see these little round nubs with the little yellowness in it.

That's the true flowers.

And then you know that you're the life that you're going to have at home is going to be a little bit longer than getting one that's already weeks old, so to speak.

And it's, it's life cycle.

The other thing is keeping this happy to Christmas, that's a long time from now.

So you might want to think you know that waiting a little bit longer.

And then the other thing is watering.

They don't like extremely cold water on the roots, so room temperature water.

When you water them, if at all possible, take them out of the foil.

Do bottom watering to let it soak up, let it drain because if they stay too wet, they'll die.

Because this, this right now, when you take it out of the pot, has nice, healthy white roots, and when those start to go black or slimy, that's that's when things then go south and things start to fail and look ugly up top.

So when you are at the store or the nursery and you're picking out your poinsettias, what do you look for?

How do you what's the what's the ticket for that one to come home with you?

Do you take it out?

Do you look at the roots?

We want to know what you know.

I don't usually look at the roots just because, you know, you can make a mess, or, you know, if I destroy something, and I'm like, I don't want to buy a destroyed plant, but then I feel guilty.

So anyway, what I look for is a uniformity of the bloom.

So looking at it, how you're going to see it in the house having a nice distribution of those blooms, and that's my main thing.

And of course, Ella and I always like to count, you know, so how many are around there and getting the biggest and fullest for what your money is going to be sure, what your money to buy, anything to add there, about how you shop for yours, or do you fertilize?

Do you feed?

Is there anything other than just keeping them watered?

And I think a poinsettia is a disposable plant.

I think a poinsettia is something that I don't want to spend a lot of money on.

And I think these little poinsettias are so nice because they can be put in a basket in combination with some other things.

Maybe, if you wanted to use it as a housewarming gift and kind of make it look better, you can actually set it in a mixed container with maybe a house plant that you're overwintering or something else, just to give it a little bit more oomph.

And of course, Karen's got a really pretty bow here on this point, set up right off.

Yep, go wrong with that.

That sounds like a project on a future show.

And what I do a lot of times is I take a hole punch and punch little holes in the bottom of the foil, and I'll set it on a saucer, rather than keep it in this because sometimes I've, you know, gone by and watered it and didn't realize it was, yeah, I didn't ever want to trust the foil.

Yeah, there could always be a small hole that we water right, and they could ruin a wood table right?

Gotcha and, and you don't need them in bright light or anything, because, again, they're going to be disposable.

Don't try to keep them over if you want to.

We always have the panelists who come on, usually in January, with the sad looking poinsettia, and they're trying to save it.

And you know, sometimes it's just a fun winter project, sure, just something to look at in that.

All right, so, but I like those tips.

Those are the things that we like to hear from you guys, hole punching so that the water can drain properly, and things that we don't always know about.

So thank you.

Okay, you want to do the lavender?

Or do you?

Would you like to do one of yours?

Oh, okay, well, I just again.

Last time I was here, we talked about the honeysuckle and the fruit.

That it makes.

And I just wanted to bring attention this is the exotic invasive so this is the Ammer honeysuckle, and this is a young plant, and it's one that I just pulled up this morning.

But what I wanted to say is one reason that it's really bad in our native habitats is it holds its leaves extremely late into the winter, and it comes out really early in the spring, so it shades out a lot of our natural vegetation.

And the reason that I brought it is now is the time that as you're driving along the interstate or any country road.

And you look over in a natural area, you see this yellow, just a sea of this yellow green, and that's a plant that has just taken over a native area.

And so I can still pull these out, I can go around.

And usually they're pretty easy.

Well, now that we got some room, finally, yeah, just a little bit right.

And then this one is the native Eastern Wahoo, or our native Euonymus, and it does have a beautiful seed pod.

And the way that you can tell the difference between like a regular burning bush, or some of the spindle trees, is that this one has kind of a rough bottom on its leaf, and it also has a little bit longer petiole.

So this is So is this an invasive?

No, this is a native, native one to have instead.

Very pretty.

I like that one.

Going back to the honeysuckle, I know you do a lot of hand pulling on your property.

When do you recommend folks do that?

Is now a good time, spring, a good time, is it always a good time?

It's a full honey, it's always a good time.

And, you know, it's a it's a lovely two person job, even with a sharp shovel, you know, one to pull and the other to pop, kind of thing.

And, yeah, I'm just trying to get rid of some.

It's a never ending battle.

We did.

I interviewed someone from extension earlier this year, and they were talking about how it can just get so out of control that they have to do these burns.

But if you can hand pull on your property, that helps in your little corner of the world, but Right?

It's, no, yeah, our little corner of the world and and I can't, I have not yet been able to get rid of all of it, but I'm trying rid of a lot.

I have, I have on three acres, you'd be surprised, but it's a lot of work, and you have to be vigilant, because they just keep growing.

They just keep coming right back.

We're just one little berry, and you're back in business, sure.

All right, we are back to Karen.

Well, I just, I just this past winter, for the first time ever, I had my rosemary over winter in my yard, and I was just thrilled, because in the Peoria area, that that's just not something you would normally have over here in Champaign, my sister in law, versus actually made it through the winter, but in Peoria, I'd never gotten it.

So it is a huge plant, and I think I only like used it twice for cooking this summer.

It's so sad.

But it actually could be used in arrangements with your arrangements this fall, or this, this Christmas.

Or if you've got some flowers that somebody gave you that you need a little more green, green, I could go out there and pick some of that and put it in there.

And of course, then I just got a little bit crazy with Bo adding, we're coming into doing your greens and stuff.

This is red twig dogwood, the stems and arrangements.

And then I just, you know, it's mid November, and I still have a few lavender flowers that are out in the yard, and so I picked them just because they were pretty to add.

And that red bow ties all that in beautifully.

I love that.

Do you still have a lot of things in your yard that are still in bloom, you know, just oddly, and it's not like it's real pretty in bloom, but, you know, few blooms here and there of some salvia still blooming, so Petunia is still blooming.

Agastanchi, the hummingbird, meant there's still a few blooms here and there.

Yeah, I've been surprised by how it's hung on.

Just amazing.

Yeah, because we've gotten lucky with this warmer weather, yeah.

Well, the last thing that I brought was for some of the jobs, Fall is a great time to clean up.

And so these are just some of the different perennials in my garden.

I have some coneflower.

This is actually the Canadian goldenrod.

I have some other different kinds of golden rod, some flocks, and then also some different things.

But what they're recommending for some of the native bees is that they will create their nest and.

They're solitary in the pith of the of a stem.

And so there's a lot of different plant material that has a hollow stem or very soft stem that a bee could get into.

And so here's one.

This happens to be elderberry, and it has a very kind of styrofoam I type pit.

And another one is on the brambles the raspberries.

They also have another pit that's pretty, pretty.

Oh, yeah, Styrofoam, I like.

So they say, cut it back to about 18 inches and leave it.

But sometimes there's areas in my garden where, you know, I just don't want to leave it.

And so what they're recommending is you cut a lot of things off, and then you make these bundles, and then you tuck them in different places in your garden where they may be less obtrusive for than these solitary bees to use next year as a nesting place.

And that way, you know, you can kind of check it.

So that's what I'm going to try doing this year.

I have cut some, you know, things back.

But so will you stand them vertically?

Yes, in a bundle.

In a bundle is what I'm going to do.

So again, I'm just going to, you know, strip, make some little bundles of sticks, and then just now, will you just maybe lean them up against the house, or lean them up against the structure.

Well, I was, I was going to just put a rubber band around them, and then I was going, I have a large you that kind of in the back of a perennial area, and just stand them up there.

I don't know it's, it's going to be an experiment, whatever we can do to help.

You know, the explosion of those bee houses that people were buying and putting on their properties, this kind of follows the same principle, right?

But the thing about those bee houses is a lot of times they're just too short and they don't give enough space for the the female solitary bee to make enough individual cells to have a a good the female that her fertilized egg will be laid first, and then the males are laid last, and then their pupation, I believe, is A little shorter, and they're out.

So they need, they need more room.

Yeah, a lot of those commercial ones.

What this practice too, is that you're only using it for one season.

The problem we've seen with those bee houses is that they're saying people are leaving them out year after year, and you get mold and more mildew.

Oh, right, so you're doing a a disposal, yeah, kind of thing that you know, you're not perpetuating that problem for that, right?

But, but this cluster of stems, I have to leave until, until next year, the eggs will be laid, but it takes a full season, so it's, a two year process, gotcha, you know, so next year I'll have some new twig bundles, but those, and again, I can check and see did anything really happen?

I have seen them.

I have seen them in stems.

And again, I also have brown nesting bees, where they make a little, you know, a helicide Bee, or a cellophane bee, or some kind of bee.

I got a bee book, but I have one area in my garden where I do rake off all the leaves early so I have bare ground so that they can emerge, because they're early emergers.

It's all about balance, right?

Really good idea.

It's about learning about their life cycle and what you can do.

And who doesn't have six in their yard that you can put to good use.

That's right before we go.

We've got about three minutes left.

I have to know about this.

Well, I've shown this before.

This is my, one of my favorite plants.

This is a jack and a pulpit, so in the Arum family.

And this is the fertilized head.

And this one happens to be a an oriental species, and it makes these really large leaves.

But you can see that the fertilized berry or fruit is has turned bright red, and so inside of here will be a fleshy coating over several seeds.

So I have two little two little seeds in here.

So I've learned about this plant on how to overwinter them, because they need a chilling period.

So I actually, actually, all I do is put this whole thing and label it and put it in my refrigerator, and then next spring, I'll take it out and I'll seed them so you'll leave it intact, like this, yeah, throughout the winter, yeah, it's no, there's no benefit I don't feel of cleaning the seeds and everything now and then.

I'll do that next spring, and I might even winter so them in, like March or something, but it will grow a small tuber the first year it's only a single leaf, and then as as it ages, it'll get larger and larger, and eventually it will flower.

It has a kind of a huge head and and I just think they're so cool.

Very nice.

So I got a whole bunch of different kinds in my refrigerator.

And I do have two refrigerators, and this year I'm going to try forcing some hyacinth bulbs too.

I thought about bringing those, but we're out of time.

You guys always bring so much stuff and teach us so much.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you've got questions for us, send them in to yourgarden@gmail.com or just look for us on socials.

Look up Mid American gardener, and we will see you next time.

Good night.