Tonight on Mid American gardener are your succulents not looking too great.

Maybe it's your cool new pot, Juniper Fishbone and Jennifer Nelson tackle your garden questions and Id plants that have snuck up in your landscape.

And they'll tell you when to divide, dig up and replant your summer favorites.

That is much more coming up next on min American gardener.

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

I'm your host Tinisha Spain and joining me in the studio today are two of our panelists who have brought in some things to discuss with you as well as answer some of your questions.

We've got the Jennifer's I don't know how else to refer to you.

So if you could introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about where we can find you in the garden.

So Jennifer Fishburne, we'll start with you.

Thank you.

Hi.

I'm Jennifer Fishburne.

I work for the University of Illinois Extension as a Horticulture Educator over in the segment minority and Logan area.

So Senator, the state Springfield Lincoln area, and I can talk about anything but my favorites are vegetables and herbs.

Perfect.

All right, Jennifer, Jennifer Nelson and horticulturalist as well.

You can find me teaching vegetable gardening at University of Illinois, as well as writing my gardening blog grounded and growing at grounded and growing.com.

And you can find me in the garden.

indoors and out.

I love houseplants and I love general horticulture questions and just talking about any kind of plant in general, any kind of plant in general and fighting for your pears.

Sorry, you're fighting the local wildlife.

Yes, current is the current project.

Awesome.

Okay.

So we've got some short until items to get into.

So Jennifer, we'll start with you what we're gonna talk about first, I think we'll talk about this beautiful plant right here.

So this is an iris that I just took out of the garden this morning, and dug it up.

And the reason I did that is is right now is a good time, particularly in central Illinois, if you wanted to divide iris or day lilies, the NP knees now as the Okay, time to do that.

So what I wanted to show here is, if you were to dig this up, this actually looked like this before I brought it in there was this way.

So we can see the rhizome there.

And what I can tell you is this part is not going to make any more plants.

So we're gonna get rid of that.

And then if we wanted to divide it, we're going to take these three pieces right here, and we'll have three new plants.

The best way to do this is probably get a nice sharp, clean, sanitized knife.

But if you're like me, and you just want to do it a little bit different, you know, with what you have, you're just gonna version you're just gonna break it off.

And this piece right here, you won't use anymore.

So the you'll actually have three new plants here.

And you'll just put those in the ground.

When you plant those, you want to leave part of this rhizomes exposed and just stick the roots in there.

And voila, there you go.

One method to do this with the leaves as you can leave the leaves as B but because these are diseased, I'm probably just going to do one of these numbers when I planted.

And there you go.

Now I got three new Irish plants.

Now talk to me a little bit about why the the one that broke off will not okay, so what we have right here is three years of growth.

So each year, it'll grow new rhizome going away from the old one.

So these are old and NACHA.

Okay, no longer needed.

There you go needed.

Okay.

Now, will you cut back some of those roots or well, I'll just plan it just like this.

Just like you see it.

Okay.

And then lastly, what's the window here?

If we're going to divide How am I get it done pretty quickly in the next week or so would be really good.

Ideally, probably late August.

But Iris are tough.

I had iris in a plastic sack for like six months and planning them and they still grew.

So who knows.

But IRAs IRAs are pretty tough, or day lilies are pretty tough.

So but if you're in this area, I would say in the next week or so, a week or so.

Okay, I think you and I end up testing the limits of horticulture.

Let's see, and I've got more Iris.

So you know, if they don't make it, it's okay, but they'll be fine.

Awesome.

Okay.

Thank you, Jen.

Okay, I brought a completely use the show as an excuse to buy a new plant.

So well.

We could put together a clip of every time that you've said that on the show.

So I was actually shopping for something else.

But then this plant caught my eye and It looks really interesting how it's growing on a piece of wood.

And it's actually growing into the wood.

And it's called shingle shingle vine.

refute a Faora.

Hey, I, I don't know how you say the species name, but it is native to the rainforest in Southeast Asia.

And it is actually growing into the woods.

So I imagine that where it's from, this is probably a pretty not a plant, you wouldn't want this growing on your house because it's literally got little tendrils, little rootlets that would that are attaching itself to the support.

And what I was reading about is that they can grow into rock if it's a little bit of a porous surface of rock.

So interesting there, it can get around about 32 feet in the wild, but in the home, it's only going to get to be about five feet.

But even that, I think would be really cool.

Wow.

So folks, probably where the plant is native for like, Oh, you're right, take it as much as you like it.

One drawback is it is toxic, but it's it makes an ark calcium oxalate, which makes it crystal that it gets in like your mouth and irritates it.

So it's not going to kill you.

But it's going to make you really miserable and have an upset stomach.

So pets and kids keep it away.

If you have a cat that likes to nibble on plants probably put this one about a reach, but it's related to.

It's in the same family as Monstera.

And that your rooms so that you can see some similarities and how it grows.

But I'd love how flat you see where the name shingle vine comes from.

And when it attaches to the rock, you said it can like it's growing into into the Yeah, there was a plant that somebody had been messing with in the store and had pulled it away.

And you could see little holes in the wood.

I'm like, Buddha's pretty aggressive, aggressive plant.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to have this on my house.

Yeah, no kidding.

But it is gorgeous, though.

So hopefully, keep them yeah, we'll see.

We'll see how well it grows at my house, the more you can give it a humid and bright, bright indirect light, the more quickly it will grow.

Otherwise, it's a fairly slow grower if it's kind of average humidity in your house.

Not to keep us posted.

All right.

All right, Jennifer, what do you have now?

Well, so my other show until today is this.

The I call this blue mist or false by reds, also called Blue beard is another name for it.

Scientifically, it's caryopteris.

This specific one here only grows to about two to three feet tall and about the same width.

It is zone hardy to zone five, which is where we're at.

But it wouldn't they say that it's the root zone hearty so the plant will die back each year.

But it'll come back just as robust and beautiful.

What I really like about this one is it is a pollinator attractor.

So at this time, maybe you're aware of attracting lots of kinds of different kinds of bees, and some butterflies and loss to it.

It's a fall, early summer, early or excuse me early summer, late summer early fall bloomers, so it's blooming at a time when not a lot of other perennials are blooming.

So that makes it really good for the pollinators.

And you can see the colors quite pretty and will grow in sun to part shade.

Now do you have this in your landscape?

Does this grow wild?

Where you are?

Where's this?

I do?

I do.

So I have it around my deck, which is the front of our house.

Absolutely beautiful.

And I have a I don't know very informal landscape around my house.

So I have three of these and lots of other fun things growing but no, it is not a cookie cutter landscape in front of my view, obviously, the places that we visited when we get there I'm like you know what this makes sense.

Your love of signs and like the scientifically labeling I'm like you know what that is?

So Jen that makes sense.

So I personalities definitely don't say they do they definitely do.

Is there any fragrance to these?

So the flowers are not fragrant but the foliage is it's actually in the same family is meant so it doesn't have that Mitt smell but it says when you brush against it as a very fragrant smell so can you use it for garnish or so now it's not an edible plant.

I do not eat it.

Just wondering.

And then lastly, you may have already said this but how tall does it get?

You get about two feet mine is about two feet tall that I have right now.

And I bet three of them right next to each other and are just a buzzing this morning.

Yeah, very pretty.

Okay.

All right, Jen, you've got another plant that you brought.

I just brought in a succulent that I thought was interesting.

It's called guest area and from gastro meaning stomach.

So the flower is supposed to look like a stomach.

But the common name is Ox Tongue or cow tongue.

Some people call it lawyer's tongue because the leaves kind of look like a tongue.

This one's has some interesting irrigation.

I've got some that have spots, some that are just kind of solid green.

But like any, like any succulent, low water needs, thrive on neglect.

And this one will form little plantlets at the base that you can just break off as they as they form and you can propagate it that way.

But I also wanted to show you how this was a pot that my daughter had to have, and it doesn't have any, this happens a lot, right?

This doesn't have any drainage in it.

And so a common misconception is people are like, oh, I'll just put some gravel for drainage and plant right in it.

And that becomes a problem because you can never water quite right you can have what have it.

It's not draining, it's not that gravels not preventing the water and you can't, you can say you're going to be careful.

But a lot of times you end up over watering or salts buildup because you can never really flush it out.

So what I do with stuff like this is just keep it in the pot, I bought it in and I'll stick it in.

Now, ideally, this should fit a little better.

But for what for what I'm doing right now it's fine.

I may find a better fitting pot and transfer it but go ahead and use those pots as an outer pot over something that's got holes in the bottom.

I have to agree with Margaret.

It's cute.

Kitty.

It's a cute paw.

She's got great day.

She does by the way.

Okay, we've got some questions to answer from some of our viewers.

Let's jump to some of those question number 49.

This is from Cheryl Willis.

She wants to know, Could someone please identify this plant for me?

That was growing under my knockout roses.

So you guys have chatted a little bit about this.

What do you think that?

What do you think is under there?

It's an elm tree.

It's definitely a tree, not a plant.

So tree plant.

Big one.

Interesting.

And with a moister, we just had it a lot of locations right now be a great time to pluck that out of there.

Okay, any special advice on how to because sometimes you think you're just going to go over a new link.

And it's not quite that easy.

Or you think you can go cut it and then the the route is still there.

So how do you guys dig up these little, little tree just depends on what it is I know which ones have the deeper root systems but a spade works really well if you're if you need to get a little bit deeper, and then I've got some that have really, really deep root system.

And we'll wait on those until the fall till they drop their leaves and go out and cut them and then stump paint them with some do the same thing with brush color brush color.

Gotcha.

Okay, anything else to add on that one?

So alright, Mystery solved on that one.

Let's see question 50.

This is from Holly.

Let's see wondering if you can ID this flower.

It seems like a Gladiola.

But the flower stem is so flat.

What do you guys think this is?

I was thinking you were raised the question of BlackBerry Lily.

I think that's possibility.

I'd like to see what it looks like once it flowers.

But then you brought up the possibility of being a gladioli.

Yeah, it could very well be a glad that's just not robust.

So that was actually what the viewer had commented that it could be.

And I think she might be right, because if you look at the picture is right up against the house where it's going to be dry, so it's not getting ample moisture, which would reduce the size of the flower bulb, or the flower that's coming through.

So there's some other similar plants next to it that look like they're planted at a very regular intervals.

So that makes me think somebody planted it at some point on purpose.

And it may have overwintered itself being close enough to the house and it's just kind of struggling.

Yeah.

So low fertility low moisture can cause Gotcha.

Okay.

All right.

Question.

48.

This is from Rita she says, I'm trying to identify this weed.

I first thought it was a wild geranium before the flower had appeared.

But now I'm just curious what this cute flower is.

Love the show too.

Thanks for flying your garden freak flag.

I just slow down and make sure I don't say to that very well.

So what do you guys think this these weeds are?

Well, this one I was like, gosh, I should know this.

This looks so familiar.

And so just going by some of the familiar familiar parts of it, I was able to find it.

It's called Hooked crow crowfoot or hooked Buttercup it's a ranunculus so in the Buttercup genus is also called blister wart.

It's ranunculus for recurve rod us so I think some of the the way some of the petals are curving back.

A lot of herbivores avoid this plant because it's got some toxicity but then I was reading some people have observed like groundhogs just eaten the heck out of them.

So go figure.

But some people have said it's a nice addition to a woodland garden.

It's it is does have some virtue to it.

If you don't want it, it pulls easily.

Okay, anything to add to that?

Nope.

All right.

Let's do an insect ID This is question 51 from Penny.

I found this crawling on my porch.

I tried to look it up and got Sycamore toesIK moth.

I can't figure out if these are good or bad.

So it'll become a moth.

It eats Sycamore leaves.

So if you have a robust sycamore tree, it's probably not going to cause any issues for that particular tree and just leave it be, but I would do to the hairs on it.

I would not bother it.

Okay, yeah, generally those are got some toxic quality too.

Oh, or at least irritant irritant.

Okay, good to know.

Good to know.

Okay.

Question 62.

This is a little bit longer one.

This is from Jim Baker about a little devil tree.

We have a little devil that had a little die back this spring.

And over the summer, especially during the heat and drought.

It's only gotten worse.

It looks like it's been or it has been burned.

It looks like it's been burned to a crisp.

In spite of supplemental watering.

During the dry season, the stems do not look diseased.

Only about a quarter of it looks alive.

All surrounding plants are fine.

The plant is about three years old.

What do I do?

Save it, dig it up, cut it back?

What are your thoughts here on either saving or replacing this tree?

Well, first of all, let's define what it is little little devil.

When I first read it without looking at the pictures.

I'm like, what are we talking about here?

It's actually a cultivar name for ninebark.

So understanding what the plant is, is going to be key first.

It does grow well in full sun or part shade.

It's very tolerant of all kinds of soil conditions, except for probably really wet.

This particular cultivars powdery mildew resistant and it's hardy to zones three through seven.

So it is a very nice plant to include in your landscape.

My first guest was it looks like a drought or moisture issue when you have an entire stem like that was the first gasp but knowing that it's pretty resistant to a lot a lot a tolerant to a lot of different conditions.

Not so sure.

But it still could be the only thing I could find is it does get Fireblight which that this particular photo did not exhibit those types of characteristics.

She can just prune out the dead if she knows for sure that it's dead.

Make sure you're continuing the water even before it gets to be in extreme drought condition.

But just make sure you're on top of that to get it established.

Now this late in the season, can you still play catch up with watering?

A tree like this?

And if so, you know, what do you do?

Is this every day going out and watering?

How do you sort of get this tree back on track?

What would you do?

Like if we're not getting any rain like, like, try to get about a half an inch to an inch on it a week going into when the ground freezes.

And one one watering preferably not, not little light watering so it could you know even though even though sometimes folks folks say that they're watering something, not knowing their watering practices, you know, it could be helping and it might not be helping so it only be watering the top inch.

Yeah.

And you said half half 10 inch to an inch.

Okay.

A good water was like putting a hose on it and just add it as a trickle and leaving it really letting it go.

And what we need to be most concerned about at this time of year is going to be broadleaf and evergreens.

If you are in a dry situation or going through a drought type situation to make sure those stay watered well up until the ground freezes.

Alright, cabbage question.

This is from Rachel, what do you recommend to stop cabbage from being eaten?

That isn't too unhealthy for the plant or for me to eat?

Go for it.

Okay.

BT Bacillus thuringiensis, though, is the go to that we recommend for most brassica cases, just make sure the one you purchase is labeled for for cabbage.

And use it as it says to use it on the label.

You could also do a row cover if he wanted to just not apply anything at all.

And that would you can just buy that it's a real thin spun fabric and you would usually put some sort of support and kind of lay it over and so to physically prevents those butterflies from laying the eggs that turned into the larva that eat all your cabbage.

Now what what exactly is eating the cabbage?

Who can be a type of cabbage, cabbage Well, we're gonna have a Jennifer and you do want to make sure you get that row cover on though before you see the insects because otherwise you'll trap them with food.

Okay, all right ash tree trouble.

This is from Patty Jordan.

Two of our three ash trees are scheduled to be taken down.

Are there any recommended special disposal steps to avoid for infestation in other ash trees.

So, first, if you could Just give a little history for those who may not know why these ash trees are having to be taken down and then we'll get into the the actual question.

So either one of you.

So the emerald ash borer has been an invasive species that that came in through the Great Lakes and shipping crates and is spread to most every state at this point.

I remember when the first ones were found in Illinois, and everyone was sounding the alarm.

But it's pretty well established now.

Yeah, it is established in Illinois to the point that several years ago, they eliminated the quarantine for Illinois as far as moving it out of your area.

So now there, there still is a federal quarantine, which is all the states or counties that are have enrolled have known emerald ash borer, that's still a quarantine.

But I would just recommend, personally just not moving at Long, long distances.

So don't move it out of state be courteous, there's still, you know, and that should be this case for any type of firewood, people shouldn't be moving that long distances, because you never know what could be harboring in there.

But as far as the state quarantine that doesn't exist.

And it's now been found and all that 12 states.

There's at least one county and all the 12 states so unfortunate, but yeah, here we are.

Let's say Marge and Richard want to know if there's any way that you can save your begonia tubers, and then use them next spring.

Is that the thing?

It's possible you would have to start cutting back on the watering and such at this point and try to encourage dormancy some people will pick the flowers off at this point in to try to encourage it to slow down and then you would dig the tubers out and allow them to dry down and store them.

What I was reading was like, lower cooler than your basement.

So 40 to 50 degrees.

Some people store them in the fridge is going to ask if you would put them in the refrigerator, then usually put something around them to keep them a little bit moist.

You don't want them to totally dry out.

While we're talking about that.

Did you have anything you want?

I was gonna say we're assuming that tuberous begonias was talking about if he had if they have betting begonias or angel link begonias, those are not treated the same.

Those are overwintered indoors in a bright light situation.

So you're going to know Yeah, you need to know what kind of of the gonia you actually have which ones you've got to overwinter that I was going to ask when do you dig up, cannas and things like that, that you're going to take in for the winter?

Do you wait until that first frost or do I do too long after that?

Trouble, right, it's just gonna be you get that first frost that kind of turns out everything above ground black, then get in there and trim that off and dig them up and you want them to dry off.

So I don't wash them or anything like that.

I just knock knock the dirt off and I swarm in like a Rubbermaid tote in our crawlspace.

And they don't I have we've drilled some holes in it to allow some air or leave the lid kind of cracked.

Gotcha.

Okay, we've got a couple of minutes left about two or three minutes left.

I think we could do another question but I wanted to chat a little bit about what's going on in your yards and what you're seeing at home.

We'll skip me because you know, weeds.

Weeds in my vegetable garden flowers, banner year but vegetables did not go well for me.

So how are things going for you?

Well, I think I shared last time that we had all of our Asian pears eaten by the deer.

My husband commented like when did you pick those Mike?

I didn't.

You I thought You thought you did.

So my sister recommended something called a blink camera.

It's a security camera that I guess it's marketed to us indoors but we're going to aim it out the window and see if we can get some record of what's our catch the creek watching our yard.

But yeah, I'm really frustrated with wildlife right now.

Same thing.

They've the deer have broken branches on the apple tree to get to them.

So I mean, they're just yeah, they're doing a lot right now.

Right?

What about you what's going on at your place?

So Aaron can bring over his cameras because he has quite the assortment of cameras that he can spy cinema with wildlife survey so what did I do yesterday pull weeds.

What am I doing this evening pulling weeds because the soil is really nice and moist in the weeds are coming out great and I just let a few spots kind of get a little bit too far gone.

We had something like that I'd use luck and cheers to and then it'll be followed by a good layer of mulch to hopefully be there next spring.

So that's and then I'm enjoying my my late summer pollinators right now.

It's really a lot of fun to walk out the door in the morning with my blue mist and my blue salvia and just hear the little oming The humming that's going on so much activity.

The sunflowers are really busy too.

I've got us a few pots by the door, and you can hear the buzz buzz buzz everyday when you come outside a lot of goldfinches and other birds going after mine.

You haven't seen the squirrel, we have a squirrel that actually hangs from the big heads.

I've got some video of that.

It's quite we call them jumpy.

Nice.

Yeah, it's quite entertaining.

Very nice.

As the summer comes to a close, I don't know about you guys, but I always get a little bit sad.

Yeah, it's you know, it's kind of a bummer means fresh produce is you know, yes.

diminishing.

Yeah, and there's nothing like that.

All right.

Go ahead when you say but you can up your squash game like the squash market.

That's true.

That's true.

All right, one more question.

boar in the Rudy back here.

This is from Kathy, the common stock boar killed all of my black eyed Susans will it also kill my Russian stage plants?

One minute.

The information I found says it affects a wide variety of plants.

The main thing for control is to make sure that any of your weeds plant debris is removed in the fall.

That's where the eggs will overwinter.

So get rid of all that stuff and hope for better.

Better luck cross your fingers for next year.

Okay.

All right, ladies.

Well, that is the show.

Thank you guys so much for coming in and sharing your time and talent.

And thank you so much for watching.

I'm your host Tanisha Spain, and we will see you next time.

Goodnight.