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

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain, and today we are at Japan house in Urbana, and now I'm joined with Diana Liao here at Japan house, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do here.

Yeah.

So Hi everyone.

My name is Diana Liao.

I'm the Education and Engagement Specialist here at Japan house.

I help fulfill academic programming, but also run public community events as well, through both inside the building and outside in our wonderful gardens.

So if someone is not familiar with Japan house, this is the first time they've heard of it, because we've been here several times with the cherry trees.

How would you explain it to them?

What is Japan house?

Yeah.

So we're a very unique teaching facility, one of a kind in the United States.

And we're part of the University of Illinois, within the College of Fine and Applied Arts.

Primarily, we use our space, both inside and outside as a classroom for teaching traditional Japanese arts and culture.

Excellent.

And so I know that you guys do tea ceremonies.

What other kind of things can folks learn here?

Yeah, folks can also come here to learn about flower arranging, about Japanese gardening.

And so we're very much into nature, as you can see on every week, twice a week.

We do have gardening opportunities in the morning.

So for anyone who's curious, they can send us an email at your handhouse@illinois.edu and we can send them more information.

We also have visiting artists who come, and we'll do more intensive workshops, or more intensive like gardening workshops for professional development.

So that's another way to get involved, especially if so many people enjoy walking the gardens.

And you know, it takes a very special touch to be able to maintain them.

So Phil Nixon is one of our panelists on the show, and he comes to the annual bonsai I don't know if it's a festival or whatever, but he makes it a point every year to be here for that.

So how do folks learn about what upcoming events are.

How do you get engaged and get plugged into things here at the Japan house?

Yeah.

Well, if you want to learn about us, our history is all listed on our website@japanhouse.illinois.edu but all of our public events will always be listed on Eventbrite.

And so follow us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, our email newsletter, and anytime we have fun news or upcoming, exciting events, we always try to share that as a way for people to be immersed in Japanese arts and culture in central Illinois.

Now, personal question, yes, what's your favorite tree or plant here at the gardens?

That's a hard I know I always hit people with this, okay, yeah, okay.

I think if I had a favorite tree or plant, I would have to say, in our dry rock garden, there has been the small bush that Mr. James buyer planted originally when the garden started, and it's been growing strong, and he's always maintained it.

It's always been pruned.

But to me, it's kind of like a slightly larger bonsai tree, and I just love the shape of it.

Whenever I see old photos of it, you can definitely see how it's grown compared to today.

And I just feel like it's kind of like a wise old tree now, even though it's maybe like 25 ish years old.

And I think that's my favorite tree.

Every day I look at it through the windows and I'm like, awesome.

And you're gonna have people now coming out looking for, looking for that one specific tree.

Diana, thank you so talking to us.

Really appreciate it, and we hope people come out here and get more involved.

Yes, attend some of the events here.

Yeah, thank you.

You.

We've got lots to cover, so we're going to jump in with intros and get started.

So John way down at the end, we'll start with you.

I am John BODENSTEINER.

I'm a Verma County Master Gardener, and I've brought some interesting plants today that we'll talk about here in a few minutes.

Excellent, Marty.

Hello.

I'm Martie Alanga, semi retired landscape gardener, specializing in the home garden, smaller stuff, trees and shrubs, trees and shrubs and perennials.

Yes, no tomatoes.

You got to talk to this guy for tomatoes.

All right.

Miss Kay, hi.

I'm Kay Carnes.

I'm a Champaign County Master Gardener and a lover of herbs and vegetables and all sorts of things.

Kay is our resident herb lady, the first woman who taught me Don't store your herbs above the oven.

Okay, so, John, you brought the whole greenhouse.

I brought a few things.

Is this?

They were all just, well, my, my these, this is called starfish cactus.

It's a waitiva foliage cactus, and they, and you can see why they call it the starfish.

You know.

So if you open this up, it's just looks like a starfish.

Now we have to talk about the bugs, because they're loving it.

The flies are just it's doing its job, though, right?

But this one here, I went up and I smelled it, and I don't smell very much on that.

This one, however, I went up to put my nose up to it, and it is not pleasant, so it wants to attract those flies.

Yes, that is how that these are probably dead meat type attracting.

You know that they look for that said, kind of like, which leads right into my Paw Paws, which is also a fly pollinated plant.

And right now is Paw Paws are starting to fall, and now is the time to pick them.

Don't you know, you have to kind of watch.

I let them drop, usually, unless they are looking like this.

Then I pick them, because the environments are going to look for it, and they are going to get them before you do.

I bring them in a little bit green like this, and let them sit on the counter, and then so they'll ripen up, process on the counter.

Excellent.

What are some things that you do with Paw Paws?

I know we've talked about them before.

I like to see them just like that.

Or make, instead of banana, I use paw paw make banana or pop, pop red.

Oh.

Pop, pop, pudding.

Paw Paw pudding.

We'll have to get Taylor on that native paw pudding.

Yes, it is the largest Native in the United States, the largest Native fruit in North America.

Very cool, very cool.

Okay, these smell so bad that the flies don't even care about the Paw Paws.

No, they don't even want it all right, Marty, question for you.

This is about peonies.

This is from Sue dethere.

She says, I've got a question about peonies.

I've always cut the foliage back around October each year.

However, the mature peonies at my home have developed a white powdery coating so bad it looks like they were spray painted.

She said she cut them back in August for fear that it would spread down to the unaffected ones.

So she kind of wants to know, does she expect this next year?

Does she need to rip them out?

Can you treat it?

And what is it?

Okay, it's powdery mildew.

That's the white stuff.

It's a fungus, and it's occurs when it's warm and damp outside, and if it ain't been warm and check and check, I don't know.

Gosh, yeah, very short.

It also forms on a lot of other plants, not just peonies.

You can either spray them for fungus, for powdery mildew, or a lot of people just mow them off.

I don't do that.

I happen to have mine in just the right spot where they don't seem to get mildew or anything else on them.

I I just put them there because that's some good air circulation.

It is there.

It's a little bit of a slope, and it's very sunny all day.

So, so if you get that one season, can you expect it to be battling it each summer?

Um, if you see it showing up the next season, I would treat it early, and it'll start it'll start small.

It'll start like little, little spots on the leaves, but eventually the spots all fill in.

And so when you when you first see it, apply a fungicide, and I mean even milk in water, like one part milk to six or seven parts water will do, because the calcium raises the pH, and the fungus doesn't like it, so it dies.

But if it rains, you have to apply it again.

So that's a spray.

It's, yeah, this little squirt bottle you buy, you know, like a quart.

So not the end of the world.

No, no.

Got something to deal with.

And that was the time, if you, if you've got peonies, if you're not happy where they are, now is the time to move them?

Yeah, you can follow the instructions.

You know, don't, don't plant them too deep, yeah, yeah, they can.

They can barely.

I mean, like, if this were a peony, corm, you put it here, much like an iris, and you put it like, like an inch below, maybe two, no more, and irises go even more shallow.

Also with the peonies, when you cut them down, make sure you remove every possible leaf you can.

Don't leave any on the ground, because the mildew will overwinter.

Then you can, you'll, you'll help it survive in that spot.

Okay, so treat it or relocate it, yeah, but it's not.

It's not.

I mean, even if it kills the tops on the peonies, welcome back this later, the season is not gonna affect.

Yeah, okay, all right, okay, to you, I have some Mexican things here.

These are tomatillos, and you can see they're green.

They're nightshade, but they're not related to tomatoes.

They're really excellent for salsa, but most people will cook them a little bit and then I grind them up in like a food processor, not real fine, but it's just really small.

On.

How would you describe the flavor?

They're kind of lemony, a little they're have their own unique flavor, okay, which is how, of course, you would take this husk off, and they look like a little Mater, don't they?

They do look like tomatoes.

Little tomato, yeah, and John, I can't help but notice the similarity between those and the way ground cherries look.

They are.

The other is called a husk tomato, the ground cherries.

Yeah, this is basically a ground cherry.

Okay, did this plant do really well this year?

Yes, they do.

I've got two.

They're actually they were both volunteers.

Oh, and they're huge, but the the fruit isn't as big as it normally.

We had fruit that was this big this year.

They were it's you, yeah, ours, ours were in the canton weeds and the strongest sperm, you know, that's the winner.

It's kind of a different taste, but you they, they make, they grind them up and put things like garlic and or onion or something like that in.

And you can also put, I brought this.

This is Mexican oregano.

It's not an, actually, a member of the oregano family, so I'm not sure where it got its name, and it's, it's kind of got an unusual flavor to it.

It's also a little lip citrusy, okay, but they use that in, like, soups, or I got a stardom, and it was about this big, and I've got this huge plant, it's really grown huge.

And you just, I just cut the leaves off and dry them.

They dry really well.

And it's kind of, I won't say an acquired taste, but it's a different what dishes do you use with the same cooking, you know, with vegetables or something like that?

So these would be what you'd use in salsa verde.

You can, yeah, yeah.

He knows it has a little bit of heat too.

Oh, okay, not really.

It's a tender perennial, so you either have to harvest the whole thing or bring it in.

Gotcha.

Okay, awesome.

Thank you.

Kay, all right, John, we are back to you.

Okay, we kind of showed this, but now it's a tie another plant that is time to move, if you haven't done it in five or six years.

Now is the time to move your irises, whether this is a smaller Iris, but your beaded Iris, your all your irises, and they should be moved or checked every five to seven years right now, I just dug these up, and as you can see on these two you can see all the little pinholes.

Those are Iris bores.

They will eventually destroy the you know that they won't flower as well.

And so what I do is I usually cut it off, or if I'm out there in the garden, and I'll usually move the bed, because once there's boards in the ground, you should move it if you find them, but you can just cut it off.

And I would get a clean knife in between each cut, and then just break it off, discard this, just throw it away.

And this, I know there's no holes in it, so it should be okay.

And I would usually let this dry for about a day, just like this, so it callouses off, and then I've got little handles here.

I usually cut them like little so I know where they're at, built in.

And you don't want to, like Kay was saying, that's like peonies.

You don't plant them too deep.

You want almost a third of this showing, or even up to a half, and leave the roots on.

They'll, they're, they'll do fine.

And water them in.

And then you'll have beautiful irises in the next year.

I have a spot in my yard where those are really growing strong, but the center is looking barren and exposed.

So does that mean I need to thin them, move them, I would, I would double check.

You might have some Iris.

There may have been some wars in there that were really bad.

I would go outside that ring where you have nothing and check the underneath.

They'll always be on the underside.

You can't just look at them in the ground, okay?

And because I looked at all these and I said, Oh, I don't have any then I dug up and they all rise, yeah.

So, but, yeah, now's the time to move your irises, if you want to.

Now's the time to move your peonies.

Now's the time to divide your hostas.

Now's a good time to do you have any perennials?

Now is a good time to do it.

We've still got enough fall left where the.

Ground won't free so the roots can get situated.

And the one thing like, right now, it's terribly dry, so you need, once you move them, make sure you keep them watered in well, mulch.

Mulch them.

Yeah, that would be a good thing.

I want to, I go back to my star.

Star fit.

I didn't know I forgot to actually show this one.

This one here isn't opened yet.

But this is the stinky it was closed tight.

It was close, already starting to show.

I had this at schlarman and the kids were, you know, we're wondering when was it going to open?

I said, Well, maybe by the time I get back, it'll be partially open.

That one opened up last night after I brought it in, so they got to see that one.

Very cool.

I bet that is cool for the students to see.

Yeah, Marty, question for you, and this is just off the cuff, because we were talking about hosta, I wanting to thin some out.

Were right by my front porch, because they're just all over the sidewalk, so chop it down first before I the hosta, yes.

What would you do if you were going to thin it out, if it's a, really, if it's a large leaf, okay, then I would probably cut it back to, I don't know, 345, inches to the top.

Just so when the top sticks out, you tell where it was, so you don't plant something else.

Gotcha there.

And then a sharp spade.

Just, I mean, if you have a nice, sharp spade and a small one, especially like a perennial dividing.

There's a little bit smaller go down where you'll, you know, through the crown, and just get the piece out that you want.

Put it back in.

Also, I was gonna say about the iris.

If you have some iris and you forgot what color they are, okay in the spring, when they bloom, you can take a sharpie and write on the leaf.

What a great there.

It will stay.

It's weatherproof.

And then you're like, Oh yeah, those are the yellow and white.

So help No, I stole it.

I wanted to ask you, you love tomatoes.

We had someone write in and ask about blossom end rot.

Have you ever had to deal with that?

And if you did, how did you get rid of it?

Or how did you beat it?

Or are you just that lucky that you've never had to fight it?

I guess I'm either lucky, or else they die.

It's been a while since I don't heard we were talking about so many things, so I just didn't know if, in your experience growing tomatoes, that I think anybody that grows a number of tomatoes is going to have that that's just normal.

Yeah, and it's nothing to do with the calcium.

It's a lack of calcium in the fruit, it has nothing to do with the calcium that's in the soil.

Has to do with the water to able to absorb that calcium, and the plant to absorb that calcium, gotcha.

And so watering is the main thing, and water every even 24 hours where it can't absorb calcium, you have a chance of getting blossom end rot.

So I like to what I like to do is take a gallon jug and poke a tiny little hole in it, fill it with water.

And depending on how big it is, you want one drop, you know, put the lid on it.

It'll slow the drops and just let it water that plant for 24 hours at least.

Yeah, and that's the best way to keep a constant and that's low maintenance too.

We are all about low maintenance garden.

Yes, that's awesome.

You've got some cool snake plants.

Yes, I, you know, I brought this snake plant before, and a friend of mine, who has since passed away, asked me to come over before he did, and he gave me these two different and I've got about 10 of these now I've propagated, and it's a blonde.

I'm not sure that these are going to be quite as hardy.

One reason there's not as much chlorophyll in this.

And this one here has a little bit more chlorophyll in it, because it still has the green stripes.

There's so many ones here.

Has no chlorophyll, Oh, wow.

Or very little just down at the base, yeah.

So as Where do you keep that?

Can that be in the sun?

I keep it's in the greenhouse.

I keep in the sun, and it doesn't, it doesn't burn, but I keep it well watered.

That's the thing, with sense of area that this is in the sense of area, and this is the one they're looking at taking to Mars, because they are very low maintenance.

They you only have to water them every four weeks, and they absorb toxins like benzene, toluene, all the bad toxins that are in the air and absorb carbon dioxide, and then at night, put put off oxygen.

Sure, it's one of those things that they're looking at when they when they we finally get to Mars, they're looking at some plants, because we're going to be airtight there so and you know that there's.

Always in the in the plastics and the type of structures we have, there's always some kind of a gas being out, and these will absorb that.

Very cool.

We want a little science.

Today I saw, I saw Total Recall.

All right, last question, and this one's going to Marty, okay, we've got Kathy Barrett wants to know how to overwinter her strawberries that are in pots.

Yeah, to elaborate a little bit.

So she says, Can strawberries?

Yes.

Can they survive in plastic hanging baskets in the winter in zone five?

But now we're six A if I put the pot on the ground with Southern Exposure, or should I put them in the garage.

They need to be in the garage.

In the garage, absolutely do, yeah, and even on a on us, on a wall in the ground, like a south wall in the garage, because strawberries are hardy in the ground, but you not in five you can't get them to to overwinter very well.

You'll be disappointed.

So and don't water them.

Just bring them in, let them dry down, okay, you know, put them on a shelf somewhere, forget it, and then water them in the spring, yeah.

Okay, so, all right, we've got about two minutes left, John, can we talk about that ginger?

Because I didn't know that it's ginger.

This is a different form of a ginger, and it's beautiful and and it just started to bloom on me.

So the kids were looking at it, and they said, where are those buds?

And then the next day it was, it was blooming.

It's got a nice red stripe, really pretty.

It is a beautiful even when it isn't flowering, it's a nice it is, and it has the little roots down below to the I was just gonna ask that once it gets a little bit bigger, I will venture in and just see but it's just beautiful.

It looks tropical.

You know, that's a very pretty plant.

The gnats and other insects and flies are loving, Oh, that scarfish.

I you know, good luck getting that home.

It's going to go in the back of the truck, All right, guys, thank you so much for coming.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you've got questions for our panelists, you can send them in to us at yourgarden@gmail.com, And we will see you next time.

Good night.

You