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

I'm your host Tinisha Spain.

And joining me today are two of our panelists who have some questions of yours that they're going to answer and also show you some of the things that they've been doing in their yard.

So first, we'll have Martie introduce herself and tell you a little bit about where you can find her in the garden.

So Marty, go ahead.

Hi, my name is Martie Alagna.

I am mostly retired landscape, private landscaper for beauty.

I did a lot of work in people's yards at their homes.

So I kind of specialize in a smaller venue, which pretty much everybody's interested in these days.

So questions about perennials and shrubs and tree placement and that kind of thing.

All that good stuff.

The home gardener you are the at home gardeners best friend, right?

That's right.

And now from academia, we have Ken tell us a little bit about you, your specialty and where we can find you in the garden.

He's a nut.

I'm Ken Johnson, a Horticulture Educator with the University of Illinois Extension.

I cover Calhoun, Cass, green, Morgan and Scott counties, based out of Jacksonville, and West Central Illinois.

So I guess my background is, is entomology.

So insects also do a lot with fruit and vegetable crops.

So it's kind of my specialty, if you want to call it that.

So, right.

Okay, cool.

Again, we're gonna just we're gonna start with you.

Um, you've got some Show and Tell items that you brought us.

And one of them actually goes with a question that someone sent in.

So let's pull up number six.

This is from Tiffany Bell, and she wants to know, the best way to store Dahlia tubers in Illinois.

Can you leave them underground with lots of lots of mulch, etc.

And this is a very timely topic, because I don't know about you guys, but I woke up to some dead flowers this morning.

So very timely.

So tell tell us a little bit about you know, answering that question.

And then you've dug up some some dollars dollars of your own.

Yep, so we got all kinds of dead stuff in Jacksonville to lockdown.

So dahlias, they are hardy to zone eight.

So So normally, we want to bring those indoors, even a real thick mulch probably is not going to protect them well enough to make it through the winter.

They're they're just not cold already here.

So typically what you do after you have a killing frost, you're going to dig those from the ground.

So I did that.

Last night's hopefully, a screen where doesn't get in the way.

So you go in and dig up your clumps there.

I did this yesterday.

So I haven't cleaned all the soil off, but you want to clean all that soil off, wash it off, let it dry out for a day or two.

And then you're going to store that in a cooler location, probably 4050 degrees, so basement would be a good spot.

If you've got an insulated garage that's attached to the house that doesn't get below freezing, that would be an option to typically put those upside down in a container cardboard box milk crate, something like that something you can get some airflow in there and cover it with a couple inches of peat moss, vermiculite, something like that.

And then check it occasionally throughout the throughout the winter.

Make sure those those plants those bulbs, not really bulbs, but they're not getting shriveled and stuff and if they are missed them a little bit so they don't dehydrate and then come spring once danger Frost is passing go and put those back up.

So now question those looks pretty established.

If you were to go to the nursery this year and get you know, a flat of dahlias.

Could you dig those up and bring those in?

Do you could say they're there.

You're not going to have these big kind of tubers on there.

They're going to be much smaller probably will anyone's like this.

What I've done in the past is I've grown dahlias and pots.

This year we grew some raised beds, we haven't raised beds, but what I haven't pots, I would just bring the entire pot inside and overwinter in that way.

And I have pretty good success doing that.

So that would be another option too.

If you've gotten pots.

I do and I'm sitting here thinking that's six less pots I have to clean out.

I can just drag them in the garage.

So you just gave me some some great information.

All right, thank you.

Okay, Marty, we're gonna go to you.

This is question 14.

This is from Eva Kingston and she writes in perennial pink, is it Mooli?

Am I pronouncing it right?

I think okay, we're gonna go with it.

Molly grass is Hardy in zone six through 10.

Is there a way Is there a way to make it survive Central Illinois winters outdoors?

If not, is there something similar you could recommend?

I had a client actually introduced me to this particular plant.

So I was very familiar with ornamental grasses, but I never heard of this one.

So she just longed to have some in the garden.

And it it's, it's sat there and did nothing and did nothing.

And I thought, Well, this was a complete wash. And then at the end of the season, at the end of summer, it is boiling dried up, and it put these it does, it's a beautiful plant, it puts these beautiful, fluffy pink seed heads on.

And they're just they're like, they're like this big.

They're, they're big, they're like an era corn large.

But they're really see through, you know, you can see right through them.

But they're such a striking pink that the light catches them.

And you really really notice them.

They're beautiful you can do and mass, she did a few here and there and in a large raised bed on window.

hardiness, it says six, but she had a protected area in her backyard.

And lots of mulch, I would probably recommend just mulching them heavily.

So they do need a little bit of help.

They're not quite as six would have you believe.

I know we're between five and six minutes there, they will overwinter here.

But I would just make sure you have a lot of mulch on them.

You could even do like a rose cone, but I'd maybe punched some holes in it or, or punch a hole in the top so extra heat can get out but it just keeps the cold wind off of that section.

Because you know, they're those cones about the size of a dinner plate, like like that you can't see on my lamp here is just something like that.

Or you could even put a little ring of chicken wire around or some, some leaves on top of it.

Anything that's dry, fluffy.

And we'll keep the wind off of that spot.

When would you cut it back?

Or would you leave it up all winter for the sort of ornamental swing?

And what happened?

I would, I would leave it until I got really cool.

I mean, you might want to it's not the kind of grass that is really that showy in the winter, as I'm thinking about it and answering your question.

Um, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty wimpy, you know, gotcha.

It's not really stiff stems, you can, you know, you probably should cut it back to me, but maybe cut back to like, four inches, a little taller than I would another kind of grass, you know, for even even six, something like that.

So when you cover it, you know where it is when you take the mulch off or when you take the rose corn offering you take the the fence around with the leaves off, you can easily find it because it's warm season grass, so you're gonna died.

It may have but probably it didn't.

So but it's not until like, dough late May.

So don't expect an early performance from this.

So you're thinking, Oh, it died.

I'm gonna have to buy some other ones keep just keep the faith for a little bit longer.

Okay, by the time you give up, it'll go.

I'm here.

Okay.

Thank you, ma'am.

All right, Ken, we're gonna go back to you with another show until item that I'm very interested in learning about.

I give it away.

So go ahead.

Alright, so here.

Let me turn off my screen little quick.

It always wants to move around to the wrong thing.

There we go.

Okay.

So here I've got some rice, but I grew this year in our garden.

So this is a first year trying rice like to try to grow one or two new things every year.

So this year, one of them was rice, so so people typically we think of Rice's and flooded conditions.

Rice does not have to be in flooded conditions to grow.

They do that for weed control, primarily, and there's some species that may prefer that rule more than others, but this particular rice you know, I just grew in my garden.

It's kind of an odd kind of ornament.

We're looking just got some nice nicely as antimony get the seat heads on there.

It was kind of got a nice ornamental look to it.

But then you go in once Oh, those the holes and stuff started drying out you go and harvest that.

And then for for rice, you have to hold them so you have to take off these holes off the individual grains of rice.

The end I'm sorry, the individual grains of rice in a rice you have to take off the whole so it is a very labor intensive process.

If you don't have a machine to do it, like I don't have a machine so each of these you know I've gotten I've tried a like a nut grinder like flour and stuff.

It kind of crushes the right Ice Cream cuts them up.

So I've resorted to using some to buy pieces of two by six wood and just just kind of rise on it and enrolling and crushing it.

And it takes several hours to get to know.

So, this, this right here took me about an hour and a half.

Oh my gosh.

Okay, I was just gonna ask how labor intensive is growing, right?

It's labor intensive if you actually need it.

I was gonna say did you um, you know, you just sit there watching red, green and hell and rice for a couple hours or what do you and then do you have a you have an issue with like birds or squirrels wanting to get it?

Oh, did I have any issues with while this is the first year you grew it?

So at least for this year?

We didn't have any issues with birds or anything else eating it?

Yeah, I don't know anybody else.

Out there, sit there and watch football and I am thoroughly impressed.

I hope your family when you guys sit down to eat that meal really appreciates that rice and black beans to figure man black beans and rice but it may be January before I get it.

It's all ready to go.

Now let me ask you this.

I'm thinking like, for me how it always almost say, is it worth eating it in the hole?

Like is it?

Is it not edible?

In the hole?

I would assume you could it's probably not gonna taste all that great.

It's probably gonna get stuck in your teeth.

Got it?

Okay, but raffia gender for you.

But But you love your Colin.

Right?

Hey, you know, if it's doing double duty, I mean, sometimes you have to take one for the team.

But that's a lot of work for it.

Can you hold that up again?

And that little the bowl that you had there?

Wow.

Wow.

I've got I've got a big old container on this.

I only brought a portion of what I have.

That's really cool.

So is it something that you think you will continue growing?

Probably, it doesn't mean it doesn't take up a lot of room.

I kind of like the look of it.

Whether or not we actually eat it.

Maybe you can have rice for Thanksgiving or Christmas morning or something.

You'll have it you'll have it all harvested ready to go by then or just save it and plant it for next year.

There you go.

There you go.

Okay, how long?

Is this an issue here?

Oh, that's right to plant it.

Do you have to leave the hallway on?

I'm trying to think Yeah, I think when I plan on they'll have the holes.

Oh, there's this magic answer.

There it is.

Holy cow.

I learned something new today.

That's awesome.

I mean, if if you were to grow this you can buy like killing machines.

But those are several $100.

So probably more than if you're just going to for the heck of it more than you want to spend.

Yes, that's like the gardener who buys the insane setup and the 50 cent pack of seeds and it's like, okay.

All right, whatever floats your boat.

Okay, all right, Marty.

This is another weather question.

Number 18 DJ, this is from Margaret bent.

She wants to know if she can cut her knockout roses back now.

Or if you're supposed to wait until spring, she says they're four to five feet tall.

And she's afraid that winter is going to damage them in Lincoln.

So that's still zone five in Lincoln.

Um, so what are your thoughts there?

I don't like to cut roses back in the fall.

In fact, I don't like to cut anything back in the fall, if you can avoid it.

Lots of things have stems that overwinter beneficial insects.

Now, roses are not necessarily one of those.

But it's, it needs that crown cover a little bit.

I mean, the plant needs that help.

If and I can see your point where you think they might be too tall, and they might I'm sorry, that was really coming.

might be too tall, and the winter wind will tear them or something I would I could recommend cutting them back by a half or two thirds, but not way down.

I would cut them probably no more than two thirds.

And then wait until spring.

If the stems die back you can cut them back.

If they're four to five feet tall.

I'm saying your 1/3 size STEM is going to be stalwart enough to survive the winter but I've seen people to just go by you know and okay, they're ready for spring you really do really mitigated their ability to to overweight I don't I don't I hate saying that.

People just Claire was like, well, first of all, well, I was gonna go to you as the insect guy to give us a little bit more information because Marty touched on it, but you know if you could can tell us a little bit more about some of those pollinators and things that that do overwinter say a lot of our pollinators and beneficial insects will overwinter the and leaf debris gnomes.

That's one reason you don't necessarily want to get rid of all the leaves in your landscape, leave some areas undisturbed.

Though in those like stuff like rose bushes that you leave standing, those will kind of collect leaves as they're blowing.

And kind of insulate those plants and insulate any insects and stuff that may be there as well.

On the flip side, though, our pest insects are going to overwinter too.

And if you have diseases, those will overwinter on plant debris.

So it's kind of a balancing act fee of lead disease issues.

That may be a case where you want to do some cleanup, or cut back some stuff if you have some severe disease issues.

And again, that's going to depend on the individual your disease tolerance.

And stuff too.

But for like roses, yeah, typically, I wouldn't recommend cutting back too much because you're more than likely you're still going to get some winter kill.

And if you cut everything back, there's not much there to that the plant can lose them.

Yeah, gotcha.

Okay.

Awesome.

Thank you.

All right, Ken.

I'm gonna go Oh, go ahead, Marty.

And also in the winter in the winter landscape, boil and it was pre drab.

It's, it's gray, and it's brown.

And then it's also gray and, and there's Brown.

If it snows, and we're lucky to have enough.

I like to see snow.

First of all snow cover helps insulate the fence covers the ground a couple inches awesome.

Keeps that cold wind I was talking about on nearly grass.

It keeps that from robbing the the any warmth that the sun leaves on the soil, it it's like a mulch.

No.

But that wind doesn't have any effect if there's a couple of layers, or a couple of inches of snow.

And also things like coneflowers they look cute in the snow.

They're just this happy little head sticking up on him.

And they're just they're cute as they can be.

And I mean, the winner, landscape just looks.

Oh, see them does that too.

Like, stuff like that.

It's just, you know, until I got immersed in this kind of world with all of you I was a big fall cleanup person.

And so everything had to be tidy and neat.

And now that I'm learning, you know, not not only for the insects, but just like you said, our winter landscape just looking out the window, especially during the pandemic, you start to sit, we watch bird feeders and we started doing all these things.

And you're right that coneflowers in the winter with a little snow on them.

I mean, it just adds just a little something to look out as well.

Things with berries.

I mean, the crab tree, obviously you're not going to prune to the ground unless it's dead.

When the crabs are fruited.

And it snows a little early.

So the fruit still on?

Its little crab apple as a little cap on.

It's just it's really really it is it's cute.

I agree with you.

Okay, speaking of mulch, can we're gonna throw this one to you.

Matthew wants to know, he says I use straw.

This is question number three dj, i use straw for mulch in my garden?

Should I get rid of the straw?

Or can I turn it into the soil?

Now?

I'm listening to this question because I did bale gardening this year.

And so I have about 12 of them.

So what do you do with those bales?

Can you just go ahead and you know, tell them in turn it over and spring them, you can do that you can just leave them on on top of the soil use them as a mulch.

That's that's typically what I saw on my vegetable garden.

We've used straw, we use threadedly as some kind of mulch in the vegetable garden.

And I just leave that way in the garden, that's going to act as a moat.

So it's going to help with weed suppression, it's going to help with retain soil moisture, all of that stuff.

So and if you wanted to, you could fill that in, you want to do that a little before you start planting, because when you feel that, that organic matter that mulch material into that soil, it's going to tie up some nitrogen.

So you don't want to do that and then plant into it right away.

We're gonna have to fertilize some more.

So how much time should you leave between you know, your, let's say, your early your broccoli or something?

How early would you till that in before you started putting crops in.

So you could do it now.

Just make sure the soil isn't too wet.

Got it.

To do that you want that to kind of kick up in the spring it, you're probably going to run into issues with the soil being too wet.

More than likely, I would I would just leave personally, I would just leave it and let it decompose on its own and it'll work its way into the soil eventually, but you could turn that in if you don't want to have it sitting on top but I think that the benefits of having that on the soil are going to outweigh any kind of aesthetic drawbacks.

Got it.

Okay.

All right.

Um, I took this picture actually, today in my front yard.

So Marty I wanted to have you on Tell me what to do with this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing.

So I bought it in the spring.

It performed beautifully all summer you can see that leaf there on the left got a little bit bit but it's close to the house so it doesn't get you know, as cold but I know it's time and I'm sad about it.

So tell me what to do to put this guy to bed for the for the for the summer for the winter, for the winter.

Do I have too much?

Yes, yes.

And we do bring it in.

You know, I got burned with fungus gnats last year, and I'm not over yet.

Bringing in and don't overwater.

Now you've just you've opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me.

It's a tropical.

So we only have summer.

Obviously we don't have a lot of native stuff that looks like that Illinois.

It can overwinter or you can leave it out another day.

Have it chilled for the tops come off and store the tubers, much like dahlias.

You could do that.

Yeah, okay.

It's a it's a beauty.

And if you've got a place indoors that you can do I so do it'll be a team lift though, so I'll have to go find my husband.

It's fantastic.

I'm going to man lift for sure.

For sure.

Oh, golly.

Yeah, yeah.

specimen do it.

Bring it in.

You know if it if it wants to peter out indoors.

Then cut it off and store it like a Dahlia.

And then Okay, so we've got options.

Yeah, we got option one and option two.

That Well, yeah, and then repotted in the spring and put it back outside.

Okay.

All right.

I have to go tell my husband that we have a project after the show.

All right, Ken, we're gonna go.

Let's well, we'll throw these out there.

These can just be anybody questions.

We've got about five minutes left.

And overwintering is our theme today.

So I'll just throw this out there.

Linda wants to know if she can overwinter mom's in the garage.

What do you guys think?

You have to if you missed, yeah, you mean like, okay, like if you bought them in the fall, like everybody does, when they buy, they're so pretty, they're fall far, you know, your shutter, bottom and spring and planted and then and then they just be in the ground, and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But that's okay.

So if you have, and you want to overwhelm your friend, they won't make it.

You still have time.

I mean, it's the first week of November.

And it's going to freeze the ground to a depth of a foot for a while.

So if you want to dig them up, or or pull them out of the pots and plant them platinum level with the soil level, you know, with the level in the flowerpot, and make sure you make the hole about twice as wide as the pot you're putting in make the extra effort to make the hole bigger.

The problem is the soil on the root ball doesn't meld with the soil and the ground.

If you leave and go like this, on all that root ball when you pull it out of the pot, because you got to rough that up.

Draw those roots out and then make sure that soil you put back in is mixed well water it really well mulch that out of it.

I mean like four to six inches, okay, do it deep, put it around the crown, because if they're not established, you're gonna have to keep the root ball that you've just planted from shrinking down and drawing away from the soil.

Really even the loose soil and that hole, that's the problem air gets down between them and the roots freeze.

So you got to make sure you melt it as much as you possibly can water it like crazy.

And mulch it.

You know, like I said four to six inches loose mulch.

If you have some straw, take a couple of flakes a straw, you know those sections that come up and don't shake them up.

It was crowded right up around, you know, three or however many you need crowded right up there because they're like three inches thick and they're they're a good match for them.

Okay, thank you, man.

You can you can overwinter in the winter if you want but you can't let them dry out completely.

And it's a big pain in the neck.

Put them in the ground.

Ground to do that.

All right, we've got two minutes left Ken I'm gonna throw this one to you.

This is from Diane Armstrong O'Connor.

She wants to know how to overwinter inside a heated basement.

She's got high viscous anThis and Vinca flowering baskets.

I hope I pronounced those properly.

So some advice for her on how to keep these for the winter.

Everybody wants to keep their baby safe.

So what are we doing here for Diane.

So it's good, they've got to eat a basement because these are like little warmer conditions if you wanted to keep growing and firing, so you're gonna get a lot of light in order to really keep these happy.

So we're not just looking at like a shop light here you're going to need some, some pretty good lighting, multiple lengths of shop lights, LED lights, the metal halide depends on how much money you want to spend on that type of light see here but you're gonna need a good amount of light if you want these to really thrive especially if you have to keep flowering and stuff like that.

You can probably want them through grow yellow and leggy and in kind of sad book and if you don't have enough light, but you may be you can probably keep them alive.

But if you really want to thrive, just get just get to spring just get to spring, I had some geraniums that were limping along like that and I was like just two more weeks and I promise it'll get better.

So if you have a walkout basement, put them in the doorway if it's possible, like a lot of people are walkout basement with a sliding glass door, particularly if it's south facing but even if it's not, you can go and the foot candles from Mr. Sun is way way more than you could ever ever do from Lowe's.

Okay, awesome.

Cool.

Well, guys, we're out of time.

We are out of time it goes so fast.

Thank you so much to both of you for coming and all of your knowledge today.

And thank you so much for watching, and we will see you next time.

If you have a question, please leave it for us.

You can email us at your garden@gmail.com or send us a message on Facebook and we'll see you next time.