Hello and thanks for joining us for another episode of MidAmerican Gardener.

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain, and joining me in the studio today are a few of my friends who are here to talk about all things gardening.

But before we jump in, and as you can see, we've got a lot to talk about, let's have them introduce themselves, and then off we go.

So Shane, we'll start with you.

Hi.

I'm Shane Cultura.

I am a retired but one of the owners of country arbors nursery in Urbana.

And for 30 years, I used to sell and grow plants, and now I do it myself, and I write a little blog to keep me on top of the newest things at botany.com so that's kind of what how I keep refreshed and going through the nursery, and lot of experience doing this, and now I get to do it myself and share some of that as well.

Get to have a little fun.

Yeah, excellent.

All right, Kay.

I'm Kay Carnes.

I'm a Champaign County Master Gardener.

My area is herbs and some flowers.

And I'm a workout at Allerton park a couple of times a month taking care of their garden.

Okay, wonderful.

All right, John.

I'm John Bodensteiner.

I'm a Vermillion County Master Gardener, and I dabble a little bit of this that greenhouse.

A little culinary little I volunteer at slalom in high school and take care of the greenhouse there.

And we saw you featured a couple weeks ago on our public library, and we've had that was a wonderful show.

If you haven't saw it, go on to YouTube.

YouTube, on YouTube find it on YouTube and check it out, or you can find it on our MidAmerican Gardener page.

So okay, let's jump in.

So Shane, we'll go back down to you.

You brought some lovely seasonal Yeah, I'll start with one of the most asked topics, and it is mums.

So you're seeing them everywhere.

If you go to the grocery store, if you go to garden centers, they're all over the place, and what you're seeing generally are garden mums, and they're beautiful, and they can come back.

That's a question people ask.

If you plant them in August, maybe September, you have a good chance of them coming back.

If you can find them in the spring, you have a really good chance, but you never find them in the spring, but some garden centers will sell them, but what you really want is a good old fashioned mum.

And when they changed the name over the years, it started as chrysanthemum, then it went to, oh, I think dendronthemum, and I think that's back to chrysanthemum is the name.

So these varieties are the varieties that were from England in the 1800s it's the original mum that all the new mums were grown off of.

It gets three feet tall and three feet wide, and blooms much later.

Is a lot wispier and a lot taller, as I said, and the flowers are open, they tend to be more pinky color.

This one's called Venus.

It's one of the it's very fragrant.

It's very nice, but it does get a little lanky.

So what we do is, at the Fourth of July is we cut it to the ground, and that keeps it to be a little more full, little more compact, but it'll be your last blooming, Mum.

It'll be the one that survives.

These are really tough to kill, like once you've planted it, it's almost impossible to kill them.

And and again, it's going to be blooming in October, November, December, depending on the weather.

Normally it's November, end of October, when it's in bloom.

And it's one of the things that bees still can find that are in flower.

So it's really good.

And I'll bring real quick.

There's a newer variety that's that's kind of bred off of it, that has quilling.

It's called match sticks.

So you're seeing more of these new ones that are bred.

There's igloo Series or Series, but this was one of the first that was a non just open flower had to quilled.

And these will all turn red here as it cools off.

All the outside will be a beautiful red color.

So this one is a little different, a little bit more fancy, if you will, still gets a little taller, a little lengthier if you don't trim it.

It's not that perfect garden, Mum, you see, but that's still Hardy, very hard.

Yeah, these are really tough to kill.

I don't care if you plant it now, these will come back so and they're hard to find around the nation.

You and I were talking, you just don't see it anymore.

But fortunately, we had Donna at the nursery, my dad's wife, and she loved those old fashioned ones, and so she made sure we kept it in the routine of trimming and cuttings.

Just have to hunt for those.

I love that you get, like, the double show as it ages.

You get the red coming, yeah.

A lot of people don't realize I'm moms, like, some of the whites will turn a pink color or red color with time.

So mums are great, one of our last bastions of color this time of year.

So it's so funny.

I think it was a prairie I can't remember who, what page it was, but one of our local growers saying it was wacky to have the air conditioner on, yeah, and the mums are on the front porch, and like the clashing of the season 90 degrees in the air in shorts.

It's not supposed to be like that around here.

So where would you plant them?

Usually full sun, north, south.

No, I'd say the south or west just they're going to be a full sun plant.

If they don't get a lot of sun, it'll be really lanky and not bloom quite as.

Well, I know if you've ever brought out, you know, you bring a mum home from the nursery and they're tight like this, and you put it in the area that's shadier the backside doesn't even bloom, yeah, and that's shade, does bring out the flower.

So as a mum grower, to get them to bloom sooner, we actually lower the daylight hours, because you want to trick it to thinking it's in the fall.

So if you see mums that are in bloom in August at the garden centers.

It's because they purchased from somebody that tricked it into there.

You can't sell.

If it's not in bloom, it doesn't sell.

Yeah, true.

You trick it into thinking it's fall, which is hard to do this time of year.

And you said, that's a very old this.

The other one is very old.

This is actually a newer variety.

This one's probably 15 or 20 years old, but that one's over 100 year old variety.

It's one of the original moms.

Very nice, very pretty.

Okay, we're going to come back to you in just a bit, because we've got to get into those gigantic flowers that you have there.

Okay, Kay, we're moving to you.

Fall means garlic, garlic, that's right.

And these aren't showing like as flowers, but this is a hard neck garlic.

It's got purple stripes in it, and it's one of my favorite and to plant garlic, you want to get your soil nice and loose and dig a trench about four to six inches deep.

And then when you plant them, you put this bottom part in, that's where the roots are going to come out, and then the stem is going to come out this spiky top.

And is now the time that we want to get these in the group we are getting into the time, generally, October is a good Do you do any type of soil amendments, or do you put any fertilizer in when you plant them?

I have compost, okay?

And I put some of that in and but you just want to make sure that soil is kind of nice and loose.

Make it really loose, okay?

And, of course, this year, I watered it.

Yes, you didn't have a choice this year, right?

We didn't have a choice this year.

So when you plant that, do you have to do anything with it over the winter?

Do you go out and check I usually cover, cover where they're planted with a nice thick layer of straw, okay?

And then they'll come up right through the straw when they're ready, and then, typically, when do you harvest?

I harvested not real long ago, probably in July.

Okay, so it's got a pretty long growing season.

Garlic does do you?

How does the weather affect the flavor, like these hot, dry summers.

Does that change anything in the flavor or not that I've noticed?

It's mostly the variety, I think that.

Yeah, I haven't noticed any changes due to weather.

Gotcha.

Okay.

And then storage.

Is there anything you want to mention about when you pull them up?

Do you have to let them dry or cure?

Yeah, I let them cure for a while, and then you can either split them open and get the clothes, or you can just put them in a bag, in a dry, but not real cold spot.

So put them in a bag, and, you know, your spare room.

Or, gotcha, I wanted to ask you, because last time you were here, we were talking about it was a rough year for tomatoes.

So did your, did your harvest turn around?

Or was it still a rough year?

We got tomatoes, but they rotted really fast, interesting.

And so I, you know, I picked quite a few of them, but just wasn't a good year.

No no, because everyone I talked to said that they were having a horrible tomato year.

Well, I had, you know, I had them plenty of tomatoes, but they just were hot.

They started getting right.

Well, interesting.

What about you guys?

Any tomato cherry tomatoes were great, yeah, the bigger ones, we had a lot of blossom end rot.

Yes, it just impossible to keep them watered enough.

And then when you do water, it's probably like a great big drink.

And or if you water the little cherries, if they're real thin skin.

They pop.

Yeah, I have to keep eating them, right?

It's not quite the same.

Having a burger with 70 different cherries are really high in flavor.

That's the good thing.

My dog, every morning, goes and just sits next to it, waiting, and he could just take them off the vine.

Yeah?

Know, such a polite guy, such a weird thing for a dog to love tomatoes.

When I think of dogs, it's not tomato loves Excellent.

Okay, John, we're going to go to you.

I'm going to talk about the hedge Apple first.

Okay, I brought a couple of hedge apple.

Is these are, oh say, they're off of an osage orange tree.

You kind of have to be careful, because they will ooze a sap that's milky, and if some people are allergic to that, and so be careful about that.

There's an old wives tale.

It's about putting these around your garage doors or around the exterior of your house, for spiders, for mice.

They have done some studies.

They've looked at the trees, and there's all kinds of spiders in the hedge Apple or in the the osage orange trees.

So they did do some research, and they concentrated the chemicals in there, and that was effective in keeping spiders away.

But just setting the fruit around, it's not going to do that.

It has a couple of other needs.

They used to call it Bo tree or bow wood, because the Native Americans used to make the their bows out of the wood.

It's a fence post.

I'm we were talking earlier.

I think some of the fence posts are still, could be 100 years old, and yeah, and it's such a hard wood when you burn it, you have to be little careful.

You can heat your your fireplace up so hot that it's actually dangerous, because it's, it burns amazing.

It's that really hot.

They actually, yeah, they've had some poor metal that actually melted.

Yeah, I had some melted.

My great with, oh no, any animal eat these?

I mean, does are they?

We haven't figured out a use we were talking.

I know can eat them, and other animals, the wildlife, they will, a horse, eat it.

I don't think so.

Where's Marty when you need her?

They're not they're not poisonous to eat, but they will cause you some gastric stomach problems.

A lot of people use them for crafts.

They'll cut them and then dry them.

And, you know, like oranges that, you know, you see the dried fruit.

Sure, when you have that many laying around, people will try and figure out something to do with it.

Something is it fruit?

Really heavy.

I mean, are these just everywhere on the ground?

Oh, yeah, yeah, really, yeah.

I just find that so interesting.

You go out to Allerton, there's the parking lot.

There's a couple sections where it's just everywhere it's dangerous to walk.

You don't want to put your car underneath them, because they'll bust your windshield.

Oh yeah, that's heavy.

That's heavy.

Definitely.

It's just got thorny, thorny branches so but okay, well, if you find one now, you know what they are.

Don't eat it.

Use it for crafting.

And we at the nursery, I think it's still there.

We have a fruitless, yeah, variety.

And the original, there is a male.

You do need a male and a female on these.

So the male, if you have the male, and you don't want the fruit, that's you can and, no, it didn't sell very well.

But there is such thing.

If people wanted to grow the wood, they could grow the wood without having the fruit.

Yeah, there's at our Arboretum, at the nursery, will at Wandel, who was the original Wandel.

He came out with autumn brilliant service Berry.

And a lot of the trees that you see, and know he was the person that propagated them.

And so within that arboretum are plants that nobody really buys anymore, but he was trying them out to see if they would go well.

And nobody really wanted to know sage orange, but it was a thought, maybe 70 years ago, a good thought, awesome.

Okay, Shane, we're back to you with these flowers.

Well, I've been pretty vocal about how bad of a dahlia grower I am, because, you know, I've never really had time or thought about growing DALYs, other than at the nursery.

Nursery growing is easier because you have, you know, big pots of soil, and you've got people to help water on the weekends, and you've got greenhouses.

And at home, I didn't really have any of that.

It was just in the ground.

So I wrote on my blog, and I probably talked about here is I just literally anything you're supposed to do.

I did it the opposite, because I just wasn't thinking, like, keep it really dry after you put the tuber in.

What I do, water it in really, really good.

Let it grow, but then cut it off so it branches out.

I want to see how tall it can get.

So I just did everything wrong, but the weather helped me out.

So they're in full bloom Now, normally I probably wouldn't have gotten very many, and so I've got 30 different varieties, and it's just been the highlight of my day.

I know I'm getting old when the dahlias, literally, I go out there with my coffee and look what, see what's in bloom.

And I've got a lot of different ones.

They weren't and today they were a little on the end of one cycle, but like, there were DALYs, and this looks really worse for wear, but this was about 15 inches across.

And you really can't tell how big till you start putting the other ones.

But they were giant.

When they say dinner plate, they were the size of a dinner plate.

And I was trying to show everybody how big they are, but you couldn't.

So I'm like putting my hand next to it, for scale, for scale, next to it.

But that one's called maki and there's all kinds of different colors.

This red one is called American Beauty.

And.

It's, again, it's just a perfect red color, in my opinion.

And then you've got the orangey color.

And this is Andrew Charles.

It's just, again, you know, colors you just don't see in flowers with that beautiful, buttery yellow.

And this one is actually gets a little pink to it towards the end.

This one's called Helen Richmond, so it's actually normally a little pinky, but it comes across as yellow today.

So with a little bit more cold, it turns colors.

But again, I just, I really love and I realize this is a thing for like, 200 years in England, right?

There's Dahlia societies, and there's Facebook groups with 300,000 people.

I'm that guy.

You're that guy.

Now, I'm addicted to dahlias.

And they cut so well, and they're so pretty.

They are gorgeous on the even my my wife is, again, I've talked about this flowers to her mean nothing, because I'd always bring flowers and, oh, great flowers.

But now she appreciates this.

So my wife that was in her bouquet when we got married, a spider mom.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Those are beautiful.

A big, long one.

And I'm looking at the business model of course, I always look at, how do you make money growing these?

And what I find is they do sell the tubers, but during the you know, they have 50 acres of flowers, so then they use them for weddings the whole time.

So they're growing the roots and they're cutting them, but they're also cutting flowers and selling those.

All that I would love to live next to that place, 50 acres of hundreds of varieties of dahlias.

Stunning.

I used to grow dahlias, and now you're making me at least a couple of them, right?

Will you dig all those?

Yeah, so I'm going to dig them up and store them.

We'll see.

I was pretty good with cannas, but those are generally pretty easy, but I think I can make it work.

I have a room that's kind of perfect for that.

And I'll put them in.

I usually put them in, although you can't find it, but the old boxes for paper, you know, the reams of paper, yes.

And I put a little dry peat moss in there, and I'll throw them in there.

That's why I've stored I do that with my canines too, yeah.

And I labeled them, but I also sketched out a picture of where, because I have 30 different varieties.

So I've learned that I put a label, that label will disappear.

Oh yes.

So now I've hand sketched everything and made a whole map of it, very nice, and I'll add more to it.

So I bought one of every kind, which is, I hated when gardeners would come in and get one.

I'm like, you don't get anything when you just get one.

You need groupings.

And this the one worked pretty well.

Now there's a couple favorites that I'm going to get a lot, or even gift to people, because they're just, they're just so pretty.

And again, I feel weird talking about that, because I'm never that guy, but I really Yeah, like watching the bird.

I'm gonna have an English accent next time.

Now, will you store them in the house?

Yeah, storm in a room, in that in that peat moss, in that little because I don't have very many.

I used to store over 1000 Oh, I'd say almost 5000 Canna in my basement at home, not at the nursery.

Oh, my god, yeah.

So I'm pretty good at storing that kind of stuff, so I think I'll have pretty good luck with it.

And some of these are $30 a piece, wow.

So I'll be curious to see how many if I got multiple, because that's the other thing.

I'd love to have two or three out of it.

But I did not cut them down.

If I had cut them down, I'd have a big, wide grouping, because they would have spread.

But instead, they're six feet tall, seven feet tall, and I wish I had cut them down.

But the other thing is, harvesting makes them grow more flowers, so it's good to keep cutting.

The more you cut, the more flowers you get, which is perfect.

Yeah, dead heading.

But if you cut them right when they're about to open it automatically starts another bloom the next day.

It's right out of the gate.

They are absolutely gorgeous.

We did a show out at delight flower farm where we talked about dahlias, and she was saying that was about time to start digging them up, or at least planning to dig them up soon.

Yeah, you'd need one hard frost.

Like I was just gonna ask if you should wait.

Yeah, once you see the frost, it kind of knocks them back a little bit.

You're you'll be good.

Normally, you're not gonna kill anything till 1312, 11, concerters.

So one hard frost, kick them.

Maybe you'll get she, she got, I think, 678, yes, cuttings.

But she probably knew what she was doing.

Just say you were doing it for science.

I mean, I was just laughing at all the things that kept going wrong.

And of course, I leave it a month at a time, which is a good flower to leave for a month at a time, because they like it on the dry side.

So it works out well for if you're a summer leaver, because they don't bloom during the summer, and you come back and they're ready to go.

Gotcha, okay?

Very nice.

All right, John, we're gonna go.

I've also brought some kefir Pears.

Pears.

Pears are one that people leave on the tree, and they never ripen, and pretty soon they're gonna notice up here by the stem starts to rot, and then it falls off.

Well, then it's too old.

Too old because it's they've waited for it to ripen on the tree.

What you're actually supposed to do is pick them when they're kind of green, about now, and then bring them in.

And if you're in a hurry, you can put them in a brown paper bag, close it up, and the ethylene gas will will make them ripen a little bit.

See, this is one that is a little green.

This one here's got just a little bit this one here is.

Is to the point where I could actually eat this.

You might want to eat that press up here.

And if there's any, give it all, it's right.

And I make pear salsa, and I use a lot of pears in my salsa.

It just sweetens it up a little bit.

Pear buttery?

Is your pear Butter?

Butter?

Good?

You want to keep them, keep them on on the on your countertop, or brown paper bag, if you want to rush them, if they get to this point and you need to slow them down, put them in the refrigerator only after they get to the point where they're ready to use.

Otherwise you're going to and these keep really well they keep, they do.

And if you have a whole bunch and you put them in there, a lot of people will wrap them individually with a newspaper, so that, if you get a bad one, kind of like Cana bulbs, you know, you separate them so they're not touching.

And otherwise they get one to rot, they'll all if you wrap it with gold foil.

Like the places I buy online, you can sell them for like, $20 a piece, always the businessman.

Have you ever seen that?

Yes, it's usually around the holiday.

I should know the company.

I'm sure one of the viewers know, but they'll send you set a box and, like, eight pairs.

But then you eat it.

It's the gold wrapper.

But when you take a gold wrapper off of anything, it's got to be delicious.

We have a suckle pear tree, okay?

And they're a smaller bun.

They're delicious.

Are they really sweet?

Yes, they're very sweet.

And I have one that's an oriental and it's round, yeah, some of those there.

And those are really good.

Those are real good.

Those are the best selling pairs now, too, the round one, round ones.

Yeah, really interesting.

I love how the trends change on things.

Well, since we're kind of talking about weather, let's talk a little bit more about bringing indoor plants.

I'm sorry, yeah, bringing your indoor plants back inside from the porch.

So not necessarily your bulbs and things, but pots that you've got sitting out as we're cooling off.

Any tips and tricks for folks at home to know when it's time to bring those pots in.

It really comes down to knowing your plants and what the coldest temperatures that the weakest plant in there.

So John and I were talking about, I use my I do bring Coleus in because I have mother plants, and it's my canary, because it's the it can take the least drop in temperature.

And I know it's 4038, at most, to know your plans of what that can be, if you want to push it a little longer.

But really, when we start getting into the 40s at night, you need to start thinking about most of your stuff.

Bring them closer to the house, yeah, visually checking, making sure that there's no insects or pests on the plant or in the soil.

Yeah, I do a shower.

I don't know if everybody does.

I literally just throw them in the shower.

If I can do it outside, I'll do it outside.

But if it's a smaller one, it's easier to just turn on some water and Lee, I leech all the everything out of it, bugs fertilizer.

I just let it take a shower drain all the way through.

That's a really good idea.

It's been sitting outside, and it's got all kinds of stuff, but it gets the bugs off too.

You're kind of doing the opposite of what you did in the spring, hardening off now you're softening them up.

Because the light is going to be different, the humidity is going to be different.

Just, yeah, I mean, I'm prepping now.

Where am I going to put all this?

What is the light that I'm going to use?

And we talked about grow lights last year, quite a bit.

Grow lights are so inexpensive, and you can take a plant that you never could have grown before, and for $15 a month, grow 30 plants.

Yeah, I got some of those that row light that you got, I got a couple of those because it's fantastic.

Even if you have a greenhouse, you only have so many South windows, right?

Yeah, it's only so many hours of sunlight.

Some of the plants want, they'll start to stretch in the winter.

Yeah, absolutely.

So planning ahead, what are the steps you're going to take to how to get them there?

Like I have a fruit tree, I just can't carry the pot.

It's seven feet tall.

I literally take it out, put it in a plastic bag, and I have another exact pot downstairs.

I don't have to bring the pot back and forth.

I'm just bringing the plant and sticking it in there, and it's rooted up enough that it's not a mess.

But I got the point where I'm 55 I can't carry a 200 pound pot downstairs anymore.

Yeah, that's taking in the plant.

That's Yep, bring the plants in.

All right.

We've got about two minutes left.

I want to make sure we get to your Buckeyes.

Okay, there was a picture that somebody or questioned on what it was and, or what, what the spiny, little dry things were.

I think they were.

I think she has a horse chestnut.

Yes, horse chestnut.

And because it has a lot hairier, this is, this is a a buckeye.

This is the native buckeye.

I also have a red Buckeye where.

Has even a smoother skin.

And these are the buckeyes you can you know, they all look pretty much the same.

They'll they'll come out of a out of a shell like this.

There may be 123, and depending on the size.

But see, this is from Terry Rutledge.

She says she lives in Illinois, shares a house with her sisters in eastern Ohio, and these droppings that are what she's finding on the ground.

And she just was curious about what they were.

They look to me like chestnut or horse chestnuts that did not get that's a Buckeye there, yeah, the the other one that she she had that is a chestnut, because if you notice the hairs are much, much longer.

It's probably not fertilized or got froze or something, and they're just dropping out of the tree now, or it may just have been aborted with the dry, the dry year that we've had.

I thought for one second when I first thought, I thought it was a dried sweet Gumball, but she would Yeah, yeah.

I thought when I first saw it, I looked at and it's it's not and the flowers will be helpful.

I know we're running up in time here, but the flower colors, yeah, the horse chestnuts have some reds in them a lot of times.

So instead of just, and I've got the red Buckeye, we are out of time that went so fast.

Thank you guys for coming in.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you've got questions, send them in to us at yourgarden@gmail.com, or search for us on socials, just look for MidAmerican gardener And we will see you next time.

Good night.