Hello.

My name is Tinisha, Spain, host of Mid American gardener.

Thank you so much for joining us for another episode here on friends Plaza.

And speaking of friends, I've got two of my friends here with me today.

They've got lots of stuff that they brought to show you, and we've got questions to tackle.

So introduce yourselves, ladies, and tell us a little bit about you, Karen, we'll start with you.

Hi, I'm Karen ruckle, and I live in the Peoria area, and I'm a horticulturist, and I love annuals and perennials, shrubs and animals, animals.

All right, yeah, all right.

Ella, I'm Ella Maxwell.

I'm a master gardener in Tazewell County, and also a horticulturist, and I have a large yard, and I like all the things.

Karen likes all the trees.

Oh, I ain't trees.

So we've got questions and crafty sort of things to get into today.

Let's take a couple questions before we get into the Crafty items.

Let's see.

As we're winding down, it's time to start talking about bringing things in, digging things up, cleaning up our beds.

So Vic Kraft wants to know, what about Iris?

Is it necessary to cut them back?

How and when do you do that?

So do you clean those up at the end of the season?

Oh, yeah.

Actually, with Iris, don't you think you should have already done it like I haven't.

We love the real world exactly, that's it exactly.

No.

There is problems sometimes with Iris borer on the larger bearded type Iris.

And so cutting back the fans and cleaning up the spent foliage, I think is very helpful to, you know, monitor for insect activity, and usually the foliage will die back anyway.

And so as early as mid August, you can start to clean your iris.

And that would be the time to divide them.

You can do that early as well.

Is it too late to divide?

I don't think Iris are pretty tough, but they are going to be shallow rooted, so you'd want to make sure that you're watering and mulching, I guess, if you're going to die, but clean it up for sure.

All right, Karen, we're going to go to you about a blooming bubble gum.

This is from joy, yes, joy, she writes in my bubble gum Petunia are beautiful and thriving.

I'd like a Petunia with more vivid color, but wondering if it would be as prolific as bubblegum.

Yeah.

Well, I Ella and I both love the bubble gum variety of Petunia, and that bubble gum variety is part of a supertunia Vista selection of petunias.

So really, if you look for that name, the supertunia, supertunia Vista, you should be very happy with the vigor and the amount of flowers you get on that plant.

But really, elle and I were saying, we think that the original bubble gum really did the best for us with the amount of flowers.

And that was something I was going to talk about.

Is my favorite plant from this year, 2024 was a super cow premium Petunia.

And that's a hybrid between petunias and the Calico Cobra.

I always say that always gets stuck in the mouth.

It's a mouthful.

And the picture you could see is just full, and it's a writer called cinnamon, and I was just most pleased with that.

So even some of these newer hybrids that are coming out just just are so wow with the amount of blue bills and that picture is gorgeous.

You always do the best arrangements.

Always do the best arrangements.

Okay?

Thank you very much.

Now we talked about Gladiola, so Margie Brewer wrote in, she's saying, I just dug up my glad bulbs for winter storage.

Can I wrap in paper or a paper bag and put them in the basement, and then what about the little bubbles bulblets that form?

And you two are right, all about the bulbs.

That's right.

All about the bulbs.

We brought plenty of bulbs.

And so the first thing to understand is that's how many of these bulbs divide, especially corums.

And so I have, I have, this is a, what did I say?

It was tutor, Rose Tudor rose.

So this is actually a bulb that was just dug I'm allowing it to dry back in my garage right now, but it does.

You can see these little bulblets, and this would be potentially to grow into another bulb, just the same way that the cannons do.

I mean, the Glads so in where Karen and I live and where we've planted Glads, we don't have them next to a building.

You have to store them inside, or they'll freeze the same way with some of these bulbs.

But we leave the little bulblets on the bulbs until spring, and then what we would do is pick these off and.

Yes, because if you're going to try to store these, they'll dry out.

Okay, and so that's what you want to do.

And I did bring some bulbs.

I brought a this is an elephant ear.

And so this is how I took it out of the ground, and I just cut off the top, and then I I'm going to let the roots dry a little more, but then I'm going to trim them off, and again, I would probably put them in like a paper sack.

I use a lot of cardboard boxes, and then I store them in my basement.

Now, the one bulb that I question Question, yes, is this ready to live on its own.

Would you pop that off, or would you leave it until spring?

Oh, what's the, what's the a good size to know.

Okay, this one can survive on its own, but this one's going to be small.

It's going to be a little offshoot like this, and it's this, probably only had three or four leaves the entire summer.

Gotcha so I would leave it on there a while longer to make a bigger bulb.

But the one bulb that Karen and I have talked about before is this is a Dahlia.

So it has, it will come back from stem shoots right here.

And so these are, if you broke one of these off, you can't grow another Dahlia.

You have to have the stem attached.

But I found that the dahlia store best upstairs in a closet where the temperature is closer to 6865 where my bulbs in the basement, the temperature in my back room is going to be, you know, maybe in the high 50s, possibly or or 60s kind of thing.

But this one prefers a little bit warmer, right, right?

That's what I think.

And then we also talked about digging cannas.

And Karen brought cannas.

She's going to show hers too.

But this is an old fashioned variety, and you can see the size of the tuber that it makes.

This has green leaves and red flowers.

Can get as tall as six, seven feet.

But the new cannas now these Canova cannas, and some are still blooming.

I have not totally harvested it all mine, but this morning, I did dig this up, and we can see the size of the tuber in relation and Karen show them yours, even in a big pot, Karen is the queen of the Canna.

So this is that pot with that Petunia.

That was the cinnamon orangey Petunia.

So this is the that entire clump was in the pot, yeah, gotcha.

It came out all together.

And so when I overwinter mine, if they come out this way, fine.

But usually I'm, you know, chopped them apart trying to get them out.

I let this dry in the garage, least four days or so, to really dry down.

And then I make sure I label them, because I really want to know what color they are to do my combos.

And then I give them a little bit of pet bedding that I have to kind of help.

It kind of does a pull of moisture, pull the moisture from the can and give the moisture back at times, right, right for storage.

And you can see that this Canna isn't really going to dry out.

You can put this in a paper sack, forget about it.

It will be fine.

But these smaller Canova canas, it is important to make sure that they don't excessively dry out.

And that's where her pet bedding, I think is a good way to store.

And I'm going to do that.

I started doing that because, you know, I didn't have cameras until Karen came along, and now I'm obsessed with them.

Well, you had the Canada that never bloomed, that's true, and then you had to get me out of that rut.

Because you were like, No, we were going to get we're going to get past this.

And they do put on such a lovely show.

And I know both of you have a little bit of a different philosophy.

Do you rinse and brush yours off?

Well, I since I do mine in pots, that potting soil just doesn't come off.

And so then I'd have the clump of potting soil.

And then what I feel in spring, and I don't know how your soil doesn't become cement, but then I can't tell what's what to divide them and replant them.

Gotcha.

So I just like to completely clean them off and that way, then in spring, and I usually check them about February to see if there's any rotting going on, because then I would clip the rotting off, let it dry and clean that out so I don't ruin a whole bag.

I was just going to ask that next, when you do the peak in February, just to make sure, do you take, like, a pocket knife.

Or how do you remove those pieces, like, if you see some rotting in there, and just pruners, or nice pruners, yeah, okay, all right.

Anything else to add about bulbs and storage and how you keep them over the winter, Temperature wise, or anything like that?

Do we cover?

No, I think, I think it's important to date them.

And this year.

Everything stayed in the ground a long time.

Yeah, and we still, I still have some things to dig one and like my brother, he's with the philosophy, like with his Candice, he likes him to get a fruit and he'll let him die down before he digs him.

I personally do not like working outside when it's excessively cold and with water.

So, you know, on a nice, sunny day, I'd rather be out there cleaning up and digging right and just cutting them off and letting them dry, but it is important to let them kind of dry in the garage, and you you don't want something moist to pack away because it could mold.

Gotcha.

Okay, all right, let's get to some show and tell us, because I want to make sure we get everything in here, Karen, we'll go back to you with some of the plants that you brought well that we've got such an extended time with getting things.

The Coleus is a great plant that you can keep for next year.

So I've got some in vases, and as they start to root, I will try to get them potted up, and then I propagate off of these and throw away the the plant I started with.

Now last last year, I had a vase.

It was a different variety.

I had a vase filled with cuttings, and it just looked so pretty.

And I never actually potted them up.

I just cut through the winter, cleaning the water, taking the stems out, cutting the stems, trimming the foliage back, and then eventually planted them outside because I was so lazy, so and it works.

Yeah, they survive.

I have evasive begonias in the house.

Similarly, I'll, maybe I'll plant them.

Maybe they'll just stay in the baseball winter.

We'll see.

We'll see.

Sure it is fun to do that.

Yeah, do you want to talk about how to propagate these?

Can you show folks like, what?

Because it's really, really easy.

This is a good one to start with.

They root so easily.

So along the plant, they will send roots just about anywhere on the stem.

So that is nice.

You don't have to have a particular place.

So you can actually do stem cuttings that you would put them in the soil and then give them maybe a little plastic tent to keep humidity up until they form their own roots, or start them here.

And you wouldn't want the roots to get any bigger than this, to pot them up, because then it's just a mess.

And one thing I do actually, I trim the leaves in half, okay, so they have less to support.

So not taking them, not taking it completely off, right?

Not taking it off, just cutting it in half.

Okay, okay.

For the big leaf varieties, for the little leaf varieties, you wouldn't have to do, would have to do that, Okay, gotcha.

And then you'll have those already, and can plop them back outside in the spring.

If I mess up and I don't make it, I can buy new ones, yes, but if I make it through the winter, then I've got this fun already started.

Yes, and it's just one thing to another thing, I guess, to fiddle with in the winter time, checking the roots and, yeah, changing out the water.

Okay.

So I saw these cutest little pumpkins done up as arrangements.

And so you just cut off the pumpkin, scrape it out, and you use oasis.

This is the wet flower foam.

And then you can go out in your yard, or maybe your house plants, and you can make little arrangements.

So tell us some stuff that you stuck in there.

So from your yard, I'm sure.

All from, yeah, all from my yard this morning.

So I started with a little green to create the height and the width.

This is hemlock.

And then I had some beautiful cranberry Bush viburnum berries with some pretty colored leaves.

And I had a little celosia left that was in a pot and some mums.

And so you can just fill the cavity with water, and it can sit on a countertop.

It can be a gift, just really cute.

This one was some wandering, I don't know what they call it.

Dude wandering, wandering, dude, wandering dude, and some Gomphrena and a little Geranium and hypoestes and a little baby caliber COA very and Gomphrena.

Now I will mention that sometimes at Thanksgiving, I'd like to take a gift when I'm going to somebody else's house.

And if you're wanting to take a cute little pumpkin arrangement for for Thanksgiving, get your pumpkins now quick, because trying to find a decent, priced little pumpkin at Thanksgiving week, well, usually they're the pie pumpkins at the grocery store.

They're overpriced for me for doing a table arrangement.

Yes, yes.

Well, this was 50 cents.

Can't be the grocery store, yes, and I wanted to make this mumkin, and so I bought this really good deal, one of these warty pumpkins, and then I found out it had such thick skin, it's really difficult to carve or cut open.

You.

But I was going to cut the top off and make it into a bowl, into a container for a mom.

Yes, that you sent in for inspo.

It it did.

It didn't really come to fruition.

You might have to get out the heavy machinery.

Yeah, I might, yeah.

I might need a Sawzall or something, a pumpkin.

I like that, yeah.

But anyway, yeah, they could.

They make wonderful containers, just so cute.

They've got so many and people are carving the oddest designs.

Yes, I've noticed all all kinds.

They're getting very creative with pumpkin carving.

Yes, and the colors I like to you could find the green ones, the striped ones, the warty ones.

Karen bought some color wish one.

Yeah, I got on my porch.

I've got yellow, kind of pinkish.

Yeah, traditional orange.

Yes, these.

We didn't have all this.

We had orange.

We had orange pumpkins.

And now there's so much to choose from, right?

Let's see peg man, we'll do another question.

She wants to know about what seeds you can plant in the fall.

So what can we be doing to prepare for spring?

I've already put my tulips in.

What about you guys?

Anything?

Do you do you plant anything in the fall?

Are you too busy trying to get everything out and in the house?

Well, we've, we had some.

You know, fall is a good time for discounts, yes, and so if you get discount shrubs, trees or perennials, I mean, certainly you can plant those.

But I really don't plant any seeds in the fall.

I do harvest seeds in the fall, and I brought, yeah, a plastic bag here with some hosta seeds.

And so it's important to learn about the seed and its requirements for the plant that you're trying to save.

And the one thing about the hosta seeds, again, is they make a pod, they flower, and they make a pod, and then the pod dries.

It splits open, and you see these little black seeds in the bottom of my plastic bag.

The interesting thing about hosta seeds is that they are viable immediately, so once the seed pod has dried and opened, these seeds can actually be planted now and under lights, and many people do that, and you can almost have a flowering plant by next year.

The interesting thing about the hosta and its growing conditions.

It can be under 24 hour lights.

It doesn't need a a dark period.

And usually the seeds take anywhere from 10 to 14 days to germinate.

And so, you know, you can never have too many hostas.

That's right.

Now, the one caveat is they do not come true from seed.

So you may get several different colors.

You might get the similar leaf shape, but it probably won't look exactly like the parent.

Some people will collect seeds from perennials that require a cold period.

So things like cone flowers and some of the native plants, wing stem, I think we had talked about them before.

Those could be sown in the fall.

Or I like to do winter sowing, or I will store them in a cool space and then plant them in the spring.

Now, what about zinnias?

I have a huge patch of them.

Will they re seed themselves?

They will probably close to the house, not re seed themselves.

But you can help them, yeah, and you can save the seed heads and and then harvest the seed and replant, just throw it out in the spring, and they will recede that way, but I don't think they'll drop friends of ours that do zinnias.

She doesn't get any reliably to come back on their own, but she does save the seed and sows it in the spring.

And she gets beautiful, beautiful patches.

Yes, I will do that, because they're so they're so great to look at and low maintenance.

Did we get through?

I think you have one more plant down there.

Do we get through all of your show and tells?

I see some my pictures?

Yes.

Oh, your pictures, yes.

Let's talk about your photos.

So I forgot I wanted to mention stuff that drives me nuts.

But a lot of times with plants, the plant you have is not the problem.

It's maybe how you're maintaining it.

And boxwood are a case in point.

The picture is my neighbor's boxwood.

And I stuck the yardstick in the boxwood, and it's well over three foot.

Our boxwood in our front yards are the same age.

The houses were built the same summer.

The landscapes were thrown in kind of.

Stone, blah landscape, and he doesn't trim his consistently, and now he's mad at his boxwood and wants to tear them out because they're too big.

So the other picture is of my boxwood that I consistently prune every year.

And so these are like, 17 year old boxwood, and mine's, what, 16 inches tall, so staying on top of maintaining a plant, you're going to be able to be happier with it long term, and then you're not going to be like my neighbor mad at how you know his is so big, he did prune it back.

Now they look pretty sad because he pruned them back further than where the green is.

So it'll take them years, so he probably will tear them out.

And it's sad, because if you just stay on top of the plant, you know they don't mind being pruned so severely every year.

I was going to say, is that something that you would have to do annually?

Yes, okay, now you can skip a year or so if you don't mind them getting a little bit bigger.

But my boxwood are only in my yard for winter interest, for winter time, you know, when everything else is down with the perennials and the shrubs.

And so then I decorated around my boxwood because I had these witch's legs.

And I've seen all these cute ideas where they have them sticking out of pots, and that didn't look right.

And so I'm like, oh, I'll just have her that she fell underneath the boxwood.

Very nice.

Yeah, very cute.

That is, so I'm looking at it right now.

Very festive.

Now for your neighbor, do you think they'll survive the severe cutback, or do you think he just will not enjoy the look of them?

Yeah, they survived it.

The thing is, I didn't take a picture again, but they're brown on the side in the top, where he took them back too far, gotcha.

And it's always a an unknown whether they'll grow back out from those areas, and it will take years to recover, to look green all the way around.

But it didn't kill them.

They just, you know, not real happy, right?

Okay, okay, well, I don't have any other questions.

Did we get through all of your items?

You got a ladybug on the inside?

I know, I know I see him right there.

And, and this is probably the Asian Ladybug, the one that you don't want in your house, yes.

So the ones that always find their way in, that's right, one way or another, and you squish them and go on home.

Yes, don't do that.

Okay.

So I brought two plants that I'm sure we've talked about quite a number of times, but this is the exotic, invasive honeysuckle.

This is Amer honeysuckle, lenisra amerensis, I think, or something like that.

But you can see the fruit display.

I mean, it is spectacular in a sense, but all of these have potential to sprout, and you see them in The Woodlands.

And what makes this such a bad plant is that it out competes other native plants in the environment, because it leaves out early and it holds its leaves very, very late.

So again, a plant that could feed some birds, but not worth it.

So I am trying to remove it from my garden, but it's very shameless plug.

Real quick.

We talk about this on this year's state of change special, or climate change special, and how much trouble this plan is causing us.

So shameless plug for that, yes.

And then the other one is the burning bush, and everyone loves the red color, but we fail to see the fruit that it has, and again, it's another invasive plant that can spread in a natural environment.

Now, again, at your house, you know you don't have a natural environment, but the seed can be carried, and this is something that they're trying to eradicate in forest preserves and different things.

So just know that not every plant is a good plant.

And again, you need to know if you're going to grow things from seed, what are the conditions that they enjoy?

How can you be successful, and hopefully watching this show makes you successful, and choosing natives when you can, when you can, right?

Well, ladies, thank you so much.

We're out of time.

I appreciate everything you brought in today and your time and talents.

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

If you've got any questions, you can send them in to us at yourgarden@gmail.com, or look for us on socials, just search for Mid American gardener, and we'll see you next time good night.

You.