Hello, and thanks for joining us for another edition of mid American gardener.

I'm your host, TInisha Spain.

And of course joining me today are two of our panelists.

here to answer your fall questions.

We're talking about closing gardens today.

winterizing our yards and some things we can do to get ready for next year.

So let's have our panelists introduce themselves and tell you a little bit more about their specialty.

Jen, we'll start with you.

I am Jennifer Nelson.

I'm a horticulturalist.

You can find me online at grounded and growing calm, and I like horticulture questions about just about anything, but my favorite things to talk about are vegetable gardens and houseplants.

All right, and Ella.

I'm Ella Maxwell.

I'm a horticulturist and also a Master Gardener in Tazwell County.

So I have a large yard I've been working outside because I'm kind of semi retired and I am really enjoying my garden now that we've had a little bit more rain and fall is coming and I know that putting it to bed is some of the questions that we're going to answer today.

Awesome.

Okay, and speaking of which, Ella, we'll start with you.

You've been outside digging up some things and some bolts and preparation.

So talk to us a little bit about what you brought and tell us a bit about why you dug them up and the process.

Okay, well, as fall comes around we we have I have container bolts as well as bulbs in the ground that are tender both of the container once and the tender ones have to be stored for the winter.

And so usually I wait till the first killing frost to bring some of these in and you need to be watching the weather now because the temperatures are really starting to drop at night and before long, we're going to have some killing frost.

So those houseplants we're going to talk about that a little later bring those in, but the bulbs now that would be like allocations, cold cases cannas, I have some Calladium, Calla Lily, down, yes, all those kinds of things.

So this is the, this shows the growing point for next year.

This is a Cana and there are some beautiful cannas out now, and I really want to save them, but I was planting some things.

And so I took these out a little bit early.

I also have some other little bulbs here that are drying off, this is from a tuber rose.

So glads can be harvested now.

And you're going to remove the top part of the foliage, maybe leave a couple of inches, and then I store them in my basement back room, so they'll be stored in the dark in a cardboard box.

On some newspaper, I shake off any loose dirt, but I really don't hose my bulbs off.

Some people do a really strong cleanup, but I'm also going to be bringing in this week, and cutting back the pots of the allocations.

The palladiums and and some of those fobs.

So that's that's my, my thing, the Dow Yes, I'll be bringing those in as well.

And I actually store those in a paper stack in an upstairs closet.

Because I feel that they do better in a warmer environment than my basement.

My basement back room can get maybe as low as 60.

Where upstairs, it's more comfortable at 70 for the winter.

And whatever it takes to get them through the winter.

Right.

Whatever it takes.

All right, thank you.

And so Jen, we have a question for you.

This is from Mary.

She wants to know if there's any way to overwinter oleander in the Chicago area.

So what are an outside I might add so what are your thoughts there?

It's not going to be something you can overwinter outside in the Chicago area and you couldn't do it here in Central Illinois either.

Or it's just prefers warmer temperature, you might be able to get by with overwintering it in a garage where it doesn't freeze.

But it it would need to be protected from freezing.

All right, it was worth noting on oleander too, it's all that whole plant is poisonous.

So if you were To bring it in the house, if you have pets or kids that like to mess with your plants, you might think about that before you decide to overwinter it indoors.

Good to know, good to know.

Okay.

All right, Ella, we're gonna go back to you.

So we visited you earlier this year and you were making maple syrup.

So I understand you've been back in the kitchen now with some of your harvest.

What have what have you been making?

Oh, okay, yeah, it's this year, I had a really good pear crop.

This one is a little bit harder pear.

This one is moon glow.

And right now outside the yellow jackets, the wasps, they are looking for something sweet, and they are starting to attack the pears, especially any pairs that have dropped to the ground.

Also, I live in an area with raccoons and different things.

I don't know if they're eating them or what, but I've picked a bunch of these pears.

I've washed them and I had a friend who had a cider press.

So I thought I'm going to try making pear cider.

So with that I had to wash the pears.

Sometimes the pears can have like a little Oh, I don't want to call it mold.

I'm not sure exactly what it is.

But I wash that and use the little scrubby brush.

And then we cut them and put them through her.

Her little machine that that chops it up and then we pressed it and I made about three quarters of a gallon of the pear juice.

And I kept it cool.

And it was okay tasting.

But it really tasted good.

About a week and a half later.

Sorry about the phone.

What happens when we work from home right?

This is real life.

dogs barking?

Nobody else around to answer it.

telemarketer.

But anyway, it started to get kind of begin to ferment and it was a little bit fizzy.

And it was it was really good.

I also cook some pears and I had a friend who has this juicer.

And I took that pear cooked juice and found that again, it really wasn't that interesting and flavor.

And I could have added some cinnamon and cardamom and different things.

But what I did do is just like the maple syrup, I took the pear juice, and I reduced it from like 64 ounces down to about 16 and I made a pear syrup.

And I found that that was really concentrated the flavors and was delightful.

And I've been using it in a pair dessert over ice cream.

It's like my new favorite sauce.

So if you've got apples, if you have a lot of pears, there's lots of things that you can do with it.

I mean there's only so many apple crisp or pear crisp we can eat but you can make juice and sauce and cider and syrup and, and all kinds of things.

So I encourage you to Don't waste your garden produce and you can share it with others.

great ideas as always, and I'm sure that was delicious over ice cream.

For sure.

Okay, all right, Jen, we're gonna go back to you.

This one came in from Facebook today we put out a request asking folks that they had any questions about winterizing and you might recognize this name, this one came in.

This is Karen ruckle.

She's a normal panelist on our show.

She has a banana and wants to know if you have any tips.

I've had to overwinter this she said she can't even lift it.

It came in a five inch pot earlier this spring.

So we've got a picture of it and of course it grouped beautifully.

But now she doesn't know what to do with it.

So ladies, how about one of your fellow panelists about what to do with this plant over the winter?

Well, to my to my knowledge, it would be better overwintered in the basement and you end up cutting back that main stem and next year's growth will be a whole new plant coming out from the base.

I have not done it personally but I've know some people that have done it and you might want to invest in a furniture Dolly you can buy them already made like at your big box home improvement store to set that pot on or you might be able to find something labeled as a plant cap.

wheels on it but if depending how big and how heavy this thing has gotten, I would suggest putting some form of wheels something to make it easier to move around and definitely want to bring it inside pause in your garage for a moment or two to make sure you're not bringing anything any unwanted visitors in with you.

Especially in your bigger pots.

I've I haven't had this happen myself, thankfully.

But I've known some people that have brought mice in that way where mice have kind of built set up shop in a large pot with lots of yummy roots and they kind of discover that after they've brought it into their cozy house.

No Okay so I was make sure I'm checking for myself and yeah, I kind of paused to make sure anything reveals itself usually it's more like insects and stuff.

But on occasion I have heard stories.

You know, I have big toads that like to burrow in my pots a lot.

So I could see myself dragging toads in the house and just kind of winter here.

A tree frog once that came in, and I kept it all winter.

Then it it got to go back outside.

Now I'm disappointed Karen didn't ask her buddy here.

What to do with that.

I mean actually we have talked about it, you can cut the foliage and just leave that stock about 10 inches.

And then you could take a very sharp shovel or a for a long knife and you could actually cut around and lift out that huge column and overwinter it again in a cardboard box or paper sack or something where you wouldn't have to move the pot in.

I think that was Karen's biggest concern is that sometimes these plants grow too large.

I know for sure that she gave away one of her house plants that did exceptionally well that she thought I am not going to try to lug this in again.

And she has some beautiful cannas as well that she is going to again overwinter and she does have a really nice basement with her.

The way our house is set up she does have some above ground windows in her basement so she has a pretty good setup for her overwintering her plant materials.

And again that's something that I have to is I have a sunroom that I can put things in.

And I also have in that's in my off my walkout basement.

But the one thing I wanted to share was I have a list that I have up on the frigerator that reminds me to water.

And so actually I went back and last year I brought my plants in on October the 24th.

So I'm pretty much on track to be doing that again last year, we must have had a nice warm fall.

But I mark when I water because sometimes I think I'm going to water every Saturday and it sure doesn't work out that way.

And that sometimes because it's down in my basement, I'm not down there as frequently.

So it helps to remind me to stay on top of these houseplants that I'm trying to overwinter and for sure, check your house plants out it's a good idea maybe to even spray them with like insecticidal soap the week before you plan on bringing them in so yeah or several days before bringing them in to reduce any likelihood of bringing in common things are whitefly, scale.

Maybe fungus, sure fungus gnats oh fungus gnats, how could you forget the fungus gnats and and and different insect pests like that.

And of course I need I usually have, I usually cut back some things but not very severely.

I wait until early in the spring to really cut back the hibiscus really cut back some of the other plants and I have overwintered bananas in pots as a houseplant or as forced dormant like tuber.

So both have been successful.

Like Karen's plant is really so large.

I think she's going to cut it back.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you for answering and thanks for Karen, to Karen for playing along and sending in a question for us.

Okay.

ello we're going to go back to you.

This is going to be kind of a double one.

We've got two questions about hostas.

So first we'll talk about number 88.

This is from Jen Baker and she writes in.

We noticed a couple of weeks ago that our green and white hostas were looking very bedraggled, our other green and blue hostas seem to be fine and they're right next to them also have noticed in some of our neighbors yards that the green and white ones also look bad.

They're not in the sun and get the same amount of water.

Could this be a virus?

Should we ignore it?

Cut them back or dig them out?

So do you want to talk about that one first, or would you like me to read the other one as well?

Read the other one as well.

Okay, so let's go to 93 this is from Nancy Marshall.

She says I have many hosta unfortunately, I have most of them in a sunny area.

Some in the shade they grew like crazy in the spring survive the heat and had few book problems.

But now she says she's seeing posts about a bacteria that seems to be killing hosta and requires total destruction of the plants and it contaminates the soil.

She wants to know if this is happening and Illinois does have some leaf damage but it looks like it could be heat stress or normal damage.

So folks are really just looking for some direction here.

Is there a hosta disease that is that is going through and what do you think these folks are possibly dealing with?

Okay, well for Jen who sent in the pictures, hers, that's heat stress.

And and just the hot, dry conditions that we had for hostas that have white in their foliage when when you have the white area there's no chlorophyll, they aren't manufacturing food.

And that area is most sons sensitive to to excessive sunlight, or, again most sensitive to drought stress.

So many of the houses that I have that have a high white color and they're variegation, they can look poor.

Some of that also has to do with the genetics of the plant itself on whether or not it has a very thick leaf with a thick cuticle that makes it more resistant to slug problems and things.

So for Jen and her hostas I would just cut them back this fall.

I don't think there's any disease or problem there.

Now for Nancy and her hostas there are hostage diseases.

There is a virus that would require you to destroy a plant.

And the symptoms of that can be seen as like a color break.

The leaf no longer looks like the plant you remembered, it might have modeling or blotches or something like that, that is caused by a hostile virus x.

There is a southern blight.

This is a fungus disease, not bacterial, that causes a crown rot.

And then the leaves just pull away easily after they've collapsed.

And that one is difficult to control.

But you can save your hostas, I would say the best thing to do is just Google some information on some of the various disease and there is an insect problem with nematodes, Foley or nematodes.

So she can find out information on the web with company pictures or there's some really good publications out there through extension that you can look up for hosta diseases and such, but I don't think that there's anything new or problematic and probably all of us have, you know have had some problems with one or the other.

The one that you want to avoid is hostile virus x, because it's mostly spread, it would come into the plant maybe from the propagator, and then it can be spread from from your cutting at infected plant material and then without sterilizing your pruners or a knife or whatever, and then spreading it to a healthy plant when you make a cut.

So it's it's spread through the, the plant SAP so to say because it's a small virus particle.

So it's good to look over your plants especially before you go cutting everything down all in one afternoon.

That you're not going to create a problem.

Okay.

Okay, thank you, Ella, always full of great information.

Okay, we're going back to the garden.

This is Madeline Bodane she sent us in on Facebook.

She says I'm a first year elephant ear grower.

They're planted in the ground in a slightly raised bed.

I'm in zone five The question is, can I leave these bulbs in the ground?

And Jen's already shaking her head?

No, those look great.

So good job on your first year.

So you're telling her she needs to go and get those and dig them up?

Yes, these are one of the bulbs like what else has been digging in her yard, they are not hardy over the winter, so you do need to dig them up and at my house, we just kind of dry them off and they stay in a Rubbermaid tote that we've drilled some holes in for ventilation and we put them in our crawlspace we have found that that's a good location to overwinter them and they I don't put anything in with them.

They're just have good air circulation.

And I'll tell you myself, and here's I thought I forgot they were in with the cannas, I should have separated them out in their own bag or something.

And I forgot they're in there and I had planted out what cannas that I wanted to plant this year, and I dumped what was left in the area of our yard where we put extra soil or plant material, the pile as we call it.

And I was like well, maybe the pile have some cameras on it this year.

And then lo and behold, there's some big beautiful elephant ears mixed in with their two so I'm going to make sure I go out and dig them up or perish in the forest.

So they've proven themselves I was gonna say survival of the fittest now you get to come and rejoin everyone else over here, not in the pile.

Okay, all right.

I think this will probably be our last question for both of you actually.

You both mentioned receding your lawns earlier this year or are not too terribly long ago and my rights in receipted some of my backyard and need to know how often I need to water it so both of you please take a couple of minutes and weigh in on this as we kind of go into that that dormant season.

Ella what do you what are your tricks for maintaining and having a fresh looking lawn come spring?

Okay, well I'll just real quickly say that I did some late receding because it was so hot and dry, I didn't want to have to water.

So what you have to do is once the seed has germinated, that's the most important time to keep up the moisture so that it can go in and I don't think that you have to water every day most people's soil can hold moisture for several days.

So I would say that maybe every three days or something check to see but again, if you're using straw over the top, you but you need that good seed to soil contact so that he can utilize the moisture and the nutrients and and really get a hold and Jen talked about or Jen is going to tell us about what she did, which is the best way to do a large area.

Okay, no Friday, I was gonna say something I actually did this, my husband did this and and a lawn service and part of it we had our yard core aerated this fall where they come through with the machine, and it pulls out a little plug of soil with a little bit of grass at the top.

Because we have some very severe compaction in my backyard because of some construction that we completed during the pandemic because why not put an addition on your house in the middle of the world shutting down, but we didn't plan for that.

But anyway, we have a large area that the grass is growing very poorly.

So one of the things to renovate the yard and alleviate compaction is doing this core aeration.

And then my husband rented a slit cedar after that, which is a machine with a hopper that you put grass seed in as these little blades that cut a slice into the ground and deposit the seed so you make sure you have that good soil to seed contact.

Because with grass seed, if it's not contacting soil, it's not going to grow.

So we've found after trying lots of just broadcasting seed and not having any really good result from it, that investing in renting that slit cedar for an hour on a Saturday morning is a great way to actually have some grass to show for your effort and not just a bunch of breastfeed that not doesn't do anything or feeds all the birds in the neighborhood.

So if you can get access to one, whether hiring someone to do it or renting one, we'd rent one at our local hardware store.

It really has saved us a ton of time in the long run because we get good results from it.

Right.

And the other thing to make sure that the viewers understand his grass seed, different species of grassy takes longer to germinate than others.

So it may not be a good idea to try to get blue grass to establish October should have done that back in September because that can take as much as three weeks to really germinate and come up, but a lot of the fescues and the rye grasses will germinate in seven days.

And I found that to be the case in my seeding experience.

So once the grass is up, you need to keep the leaves off of it so it doesn't get smothered as they start falling, but you want to try to mow it as soon as you know, you can.

It's you don't want it to let it get too tall.

And when you mow it, that helps it toughen up and actually begin to spread.

Excellent.

All right, ladies, we ran out of time.

So thank you so much for coming on and talking about fall and what you're doing it seems like we're moving into a different season, we definitely are moving into a different season.

So thank you for coming on, and sharing what you're doing and giving us your tips.

And thank you so much for watching.

And if you've got a question that you'd like to have our panelists answer for you, send us an email to your garden@gmail.com of course you can also look us up on Facebook and leave us a message there.

Thanks so much for watching, and we'll see you next time.

Good night.

Awesome.