Nugen Law; specializing in estate planning and elder care law, emphasizing independence and quality of life.

Serving Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Florida.

More information at NugenLaw.com.

it's been said that gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes well with trowels rakes and shovels at the ready many of us are getting set to find peace among the flowers and create our own little paradise and from plants to lawns spring is an excellent time to take your garden questions to the plant MEDEK And happily the doctor is in and he is with us for this edition of PrimeTime.

Good evening.

I'm Bazaine so that's a pleasure to welcome back Ricky Cammeray, retired extension educator for horticulture at the L.A. County Extension Service and he's also known as the plant medic in his bi weekly columns with the Journal Gazette and he is here to help answer your gardening questions.

Just call the number on your screen as we widen out and say good evening, Doctor.

>> You know, I've been making millions of dollars writing for the Journal because so it's it's an honor to be here.

>> Well and it's an honor for you to be there as well to folks being habit formed to know where to go for the advice.

>> I'm just teasing.

I work pretty cheap as you do.

You're doing just fine.

Well, in fact there was this discussion about the trout Lily.

>> I think in one recent column you can circle back to that.

>> I'm imagining that one of the lead questions that everyone is wondering is can I plant now?

>> Can I plant now?

Well, can the signal go off so that I'm free to be set loose into my back yard?

>> So I was doing a little research on that because things have changed as far as the hardiness zone that we're in.

Most of northern Indiana is in hardiness zones six now and a little different from what was a year or so ago which means that in theory you can get out a little bit earlier.

There's certain plants that you can use that maybe we're a little iffy before.

But the general theory is is like May 9th that's sort of the cutoff point where after that date the chances of having a severe frost or freeze go way down.

>> So I always tell people how willing are you to gamble?

And I would say can you plant trees and shrubs and most perennials now?

Yes, you should be out there planting those things.

Can you plant cold season vegies like ale or lettuce or spinach?

Yes, Do that because the chances of them getting injured are even less.

Should I plant my tomatoes or my impatience out in the garden or am I tropicals?

I'm at that is more gambling a little bit and honestly there's no real downside to planning a little bit later some people say planet after Mother's Day.

Some people say plant later than that but plants that are planted later in my experience tend to catch up just as fast as ones that were planted earlier because once planted earlier especially this year, they're pretty sluggish.

Our weather has been kind of weird for the latter part of March where it's been cooler and rainy and things are just slow.

You can see that out in the landscape you just see sporadic flowering were certain years.

>> I miss those years when everything would flower almost all at once and you get this riot of color in the landscape.

I haven't seen that for several years now.

Sometimes there is that concern that comes up in conversations in March that gee, it's been abnormally warm and look at the crocuses and they don't stand a chance because you know and with those kinds of memories still relatively fresh I know we have a graphic to show a little bit about how we're celebrating spring but what has this past winter done to impact this spring?

>> It it has definitely been warmer overall and if you want to show the first slide of the weather and here is what's expected when you look at those weather maps from know the Climate Prediction Center, what you see is for the rest of you know, the spring and or summer it's above average temperatures and we're right on the edge of above average moisture.

Well, we've seen that we're five or six inches above precipitation right now and what that means is is I would get a lot of mosquito repellent ready and I would get some fungicides ready because we're going to see both this summer.

It's going to be in my opinion and others a more hot, humid summer which I don't like.

But that's appears to be what we're going to be seeing and some my favorite thing to go through will be longing for the cooler days that we've experienced.

But that's what the predictions say.

Yeah, I'm will be returning to the temperature portion of that comment because there are some suggestions I've seen regarding when you put the tomatoes in and what the recommended temp of the dirt needs to be and so forth.

But here is another coming forward with a question Greg is on line one Greg.

Good evening, sir.

Go ahead with your question for Ricky Cammeray.

>> Very good, sir.

Ricky is giving me a identification and analysis of a Northern Bay as he identified it.

It has been severely trimmed against my judgment I'm asking it is starting a bud now I'm asking how I can bring it back.

>> Well, I'm a little it goes back to common names again when you say a it's not the Erbey.

>> It is a like a Bayberry shrub.

OK, very good.

I got your analysis.

You identify that from the L.A. County Conservatory.

>> Why no anymore right?

No no I what did I say it was a Northern Bay I think it's a shrub so it was pruned and you're not happy about that and you want to have how do you get it to sort of recover from that?

I would I would in this case fertilize a little bit because of all the rain we've had not a lot but just a general all purpose fertilizer scattered in and around the plant preferably before rain.

It's not going to be hard this time of year to plant before rain and just get it actively growing again.

I've actually been out in my garden and I've fertilize some things twice already this to get things moving because things were so slow and I've seen reap the benefits of that and how the plants are growing .

So you want to get it actively growing.

Don't burn it again for a long while.

>> Let it get established again before you worry about that.

Great question is I've seen buds on the remaining limbs huh?

That's good and oh yes indeed it is.

And then it's a very top of these remaining stems is starting to well kind of the leaves are popping out good then and yes.

>> And then the rest of the stem we see buds but they're not fully coming out like can I have them off these you know the tops are they dead or alive I'm sorry the tops dead or alive.

OK, they are alive and you saying oh OK leave down let it be is the Beatles used to say it sounds like you have a good season with that surge.

Thank you very much for your your call.

We and you wonder about that because when you talk about fertilizer I know with lawns we're looking for something with a little more potassium I think and there's compost in the garden.

>> How do you prep the soil to get the kind of return we all wish we had?

Well, with a lawn you can't it's hard to prep the soil because it's already existing.

You can top druss after your core eRate if you haven't done that in quite a while and I would use a good composed Canadians Magnum P.I.

rake it in the holes.

You'll be amazed at the difference and this is the time of the year where you can fertilize.

I always tell people to slow release fertilizers this time of year especially if you're near any kind of water or runoff in the storm drains use a slow release.

It's going to not be affected so much by drenching rain that could wash all of it away.

You want that fertilizer to stick around for the plant to use for a while so it's more sustainable here.

Slow releases in the spring and there's also power in composting to appear.

>> Yes, same difference.

Yeah, you can most people don't coming compost to use but you are we are seeing a trend nationwide where lawn care companies are beginning to transition towards using more compost than the lawn.

>> OK, we encourage you to call in your question or comment to Cammeray is you're planning to see your garden grow before you get that backyard check on the daily basis.

Diane is calling with an offline question.

She says Rikki, I have some giant elephant ears that are being eaten by insects.

What spray should I use to help stop the insects from eating my plant?

>> Well, I mean the insects are kind of slow this year also.

>> So I'm wondering how much damage you really have some people can't stand any damage to a plant and so you have to ask yourself is it there's so much damage that I'm I'm concerned that the plant is going to remain healthy and there's different kinds of insects that can get in there and attack those.

>> I think I would start out with something like an insect sidel sope when I was teaching at NYU we had some issues with a few insects and we used insecticide soap to get things under control and it works pretty effectively as a starter .

I don't think I'd be going to any high powered stuff right off the bat.

It's helpful sometimes to look at the plan at different times of the day, turn the leaves over, see if you can find any actual insects that are on the plant that are eating it is something coming at night like a slug or a snail that is eating it.

That's the hard part is to be able to identify really what's causing the problem.

But I would start with insecticidal soap.

You can use the formulated versions or you can mix about a half a teaspoon of dishwashing soap and water and put it in a spray bottle and spray the plants and you should be fine.

Here you go, Diane, thank you very much for for checking in.

>> We'll look forward to your call coming in next.

You see the number there on the screen.

Let's return to some of the things you brought with us brought with you graphically under the heading of what's hot.

Yeah, first spring.

Let's show side.

>> There we go.

What what is going on in the hole and what's hot are a couple of different things and you'll see the companies that sell plant use these sort of key buzzwords.

>> One is native, one is it's a good pollinator.

Those are two big ones that are used in the final one is how easy is the plant doesn't need Musk with a lot so can I.

>> Yeah, yeah sure.

And so as we move from that activity to the next graphic you have a pause here however and any time there is a graphic that begins with the word however it's tough.

>> Oh hmm.

>> So what I was showing were some native plants like wild bergamot which is Obama's great to use in your garden can mask plant that and then you know, there are some native plants like Combe Flower and things and a lot of that was brought out by Doug Ptolemy from the University of Delaware.

He did some research on native plants and then basically says that, you know, there are certain plants that need certain insects and or organisms in order to survive.

And so we've seen a lot of native species, even birds diminish rapidly because of the loss of native plants in the landscape.

>> So that is a fact.

I'm in favor of planting neighbored native plants but however yeah, in an urban landscape it gets a little tougher because things like poison ivy that's a native plant.

>> I don't know if we really want to be planting that in our landscapes or my famous silver maple which is you know, when we have the durational or most of the trees that were falling over were silver maples or old oaks.

So there are certain native plants that just don't belong in an urban landscape because it's different.

It's not the forest.

It's not anything else.

>> So if you can though plant natives when you can the other part of that is when you look at plants like Flowering Perello, which is all around everywhere, how are we going to deal with that?

>> I mean hope for some sort of introduced insect or disease to kill mall because the way things are going now they are everywhere and it would cost too much to get rid of them.

They're everywhere.

So who's going to pay to have them all removed?

>> I don't think anyone's willing.

Let's put in a good word now for Pollinate.

That's our next image to share and you've got a couple of photos under this category.

>> Yeah, there there's a you know, sort of a movement towards permaculture that came out of a guy named Bill Morrison of Canada in the Pacific Northwest.

But it has to do with what's called Gayus Garden and establishing these areas where you can plant plants that work together to enhance particular growth of and try to create a stable community.

And so, you know, the picture up there shows an apple tree with clover under a clover is an awesome groundcover for fruit trees because it brings in the bees and the pollinators that pollinate the flowers so you get fruit.

It's a pretty good groundcover on its own better than this raw dirt.

And so it's a good idea to try to establish some of these communities.

So any flower that you put in the landscape is good.

But when you look at the one there the orange one that's butterfly milkweed planting that in your landscape not only looks great but it's essential for monarch butterflies and swallowtail.

So all the butterflies so you do two or three things with one plant rather than just have it look pretty.

So I like doing that too.

The other thing that I would tell people is to mass plant don't plant this one butterfly milkweed plant 10 of them in an area that's fairly close together so that it cuts down on the weeds.

>> When you were writing your book about sensible sustainability you were also focusing in on organic and being able to allow nature to help itself if you will.

>> Our next graphic speaks to something under organic and sustainable.

>> Tell us what we're seeing.

Well, if you're going to use a fungicide if your plant gets a disease and I expect to see a lot of that this year with the conditions we're going to have .

So you get, you know, early blight on your tomatoes.

What are you going to use?

You got choices.

I would prefer to use choices that are more organic or environmentally friendly and that product there is the new serenade fungicide.

It's called auto or Monterey Complete Disease Control.

It's out and about you can find it even online.

The wonderful thing about that is that you can spray the plant and eat it the next day.

A lot of other conventional fungicides if you spray on the plant you've got to wait 15 days to eat the plant.

I'm not willing to wait 15 days and I'm a little leery about using something that has that long of a harvest restriction.

So I'm all for using organic products whenever you can dislike insecticidal soap that's an organic product.

Other conventional products I try to steer away from in a lot of different cases and then the other part of that is you know, I'm a big believer in making raised beds for vegetable gardens, even flower gardens actually and I'm really into lilies on the gardening.

We were talking about Chicago style pizza earlier but if you have I think that raised bats need to be at least three feet in height so you can reach things and you can layer materials in that raised beds starting with some newspaper and a little bit of hard work.

>> Hard to keep the critters away but then you can layer materials like straw shredded paper peat moss rottman or find a farmer and ask for all the cow patties in the field and layer those.

And what that does is they all compost over time and you can create some of the best soil ever and if you're really good scrounger it can cost you next to nothing.

It would take at least 30 to 50 bags of soil to fill that bed with soil from a garden center .

>> My friend Wandera just got finished hauling about fifty bags of soil in to create a bed in our landscape and she would tell you that it was not much fun.

So if you can create soil easier and get better soil as an outcome then I would say tritle Zarni gardening you can create landscape beds that way you can as long as got a little bit of time.

>> Yeah and time as you say is an ally even if you miss the early spring planting we are talking about temperatures of sixty sixty five degrees I think in the soil as far as tomatoes go but speak to us about second crops I'm told the seeds that can go in in June and no one feels like they missed anything.

>> Well I was zinnias a lot in I have a few birds that I that are bare and I put the zinnias in they look fabulous but they also help keep weeds out of the bed and you can see those earlier.

You know, pretty soon now it would be fine and they're going to grow for a while and then they sort of fizzle a bit and you can go in and reseed those in the middle of the year a little bit later on and get another crop you can if you're willing to have some time to improve soil you can see buckwheat or annual rye in a garden space allow it to grow reseeded if you need to and then in the end of the year where it freezes out creates this wonderful stubble you can till into the soil and then Richard and see this is another aspect of it that is probably a good note to go out on which is there is not a bad season to think about planning to plant and allow your garden to work for you.

>> Yeah, now's a great time to plant normally it would be a little bit earlier in April but we had cold days in April and so it was a little tougher to get out there but we're coming in to a point where I was listening to a weather person the other day and he was going to go plant.

He said I don't see anything in the long range forecast that suggest we're going to have cold weather.

All I see is pretty warm, humid weather.

I had in the game.

Wow.

So we'll see yeah.

It go one way that way you can follow the advice of the plant medic along is to get connected to your newsletter.

>> Tell us about them.

Well I have been writing a newsletter for even when I was in extensor from decades when I retired from extension everyone kept emailing me asking me Are you still going to do a newsletter?

And so I said Sure, email me your stuff.

And I have about sixteen eighty subscribers it's called Home Horticulture or Garden Tips newsletter and it's on the screen right there which is a great way to stay in touch with with breaking free lunch free of charge you say free it is free it's always been free pretty much I love it as something to again we've mentioned his book and let's share that he's brought in his own personal copy there it is other copies are available where books are sold.

>> You can actually Amazon is a place that sells the most you can find different versions of this different prices.

So that's the best place to go get it.

Sometimes they allow me to have copies to take out and about I'm going to go down to a door and sign books I think and called Sensible Sustainability Kolan a light hearted approach to develop sustainable landscapes and gardens.

>> It's always been my I have kind of a weird sense of humor and so you can see that in the book it also stars my cat haggles with his unique perspective on life and having me as an and and every gardener needs an executive producer which is the pet among us.

>> I'm sure Ricky Cammeray is a retired extension educator for horticulture at the Alan Kelly produced in service he has the world's longest business card and this is the world's shortest program.

>> But thank you so much.

>> Spend five four and thank you for allowing us to be a part of your evening as well for all of us with prime time I'm Bruce Haines.

>> We'll see you next week.

Good night