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 to talk all things gardening with you are two of our buddies Shane and Martie are here.

So let's have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit more about them.

And then we'll get started.

So Marty, we'll start with you.

We'll start with me.

Hello there in TV land.

This is MartieAlanya tuning in from Urbana.

I brought some show in towns, I usually landscape.

And then I tried to retire from landscaping, and I'm almost out almost got those couple extra clients that just somehow I still keep buying stuff from his company.

So it happens.

All right.

Hi, I'm Shane cultura.

I'm one of the family of owners of country arbors nursery in Urbana, Illinois.

And I've since retired after 28 years of operation.

So now I am a full time gardener.

I'm getting closer to what Marty is doing.

I am trying to relax.

But then I'm getting more in the garden and more than garden and I'm trying to stay out of everybody's way at the nursery just to let them do their thing.

I just love what we do.

I been on the show for I think over 20 years now since 1995.

So I've been answering a lot of questions over the years and I plan on doing more today.

Excellent.

You got to have the best here with us on the show.

So for starters, let's talk about this whether you guys because it is been cold.

I don't know if it's unseasonably cold because I you know, weather is does its own thing.

But you know, for those of us who are gardeners and we have things peeking up above ground, and these really cool overnights, let's talk tips.

So what do you do if you come outside?

And let's say your hosta is covered in ice, do you?

How do you do you need to cut it back?

Let's talk about how to save those plants that get nipped overnight.

Let them let it thaw and see what you get.

They're very hearty.

They're very hearty.

Yeah, just depends on how we get the cold.

So if we were at 80 degrees, and then we move hard back into the freezing area, then you've got to be careful.

We've been pretty we've had a couple warm days, but it's been generally the mornings have been a little cooler.

So it hasn't, they're not really you know, they're not really limp and soft.

They are new growth.

But compared to how it has been in some years where we just get these really warm weeks.

It's really not so bad.

But my biggest thing that I tell people if you're going to cover something if you just want to, because a lot of people going to cover up no matter what I say, cloth, don't put plastic plastic makes it worse.

If you put plastic over anything, it's just gonna make it freeze worse.

Get more like old lettuce.

Definitely use some extra bed blanket or something.

Burlap, yeah, burlap works well, anything big pieces.

It's a natural material.

That's really good.

People do get really excited.

But we don't want to be the person that says don't worry about it, then all of a sudden something goes horrible.

But at the same time people really get upset about and I was told people, you came here asking you about one plant.

Look around the nursery.

1 million plants out here.

So you can tell by the way I'm moving and what I'm covering how bad I think it's going to be.

If you notice I'm standing here talking to you.

You're not really making any moves.

We're probably going to be fine.

Yeah, well, I can nursery Yeah, watch, watch the nursery if you want to know just go to the nursery and see if they've covered things.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Okay.

Yeah.

Like Well, a friend of mine just asked me the other day said I've got lilies coming up the stargazers.

They said I'm thinking about putting a bucket over because it's supposed to freeze.

And I said well does.

Does the part of the lily gross fit easily under a bucket?

Because don't bend them, you know?

Oh, yeah.

He says I'm like, they'll be fine.

I mean, they're a partial shade bed.

They're overhung by big deciduous trees.

The house is right there close and it's not like they're out on the tundra.

But also I said if if you things you're worried about what really works to is cloth, like I suggested sheet.

I would have said burlap but everybody doesn't have that laying around but try to do so.

Just a tomato cage over something.

You know to get get it up off the vegetation that you're trying to save.

And then drape the drape your material over the top of it.

It's because they just need to Yeah, it's also a good reason to mulch early.

So we always recommend mulching early because you can trim up a little bit mulch everything and then the plants come up through.

If you wait then all the plants are up and you have to mulch around it.

So it takes three times as long but also by mulching early.

You have a nice little protection.

So Everything that comes through even if you get nipped back a little bit, you've at least covered that.

And I'll just start over.

Yeah, if it's come through.

So yeah, mulch is a very helpful to get keep that ground.

And then like you said about the protection, if the wind moves a little bit, that's actually better.

So it's when things really freeze when it's stagnant and the cold sets, really.

So if it's going to be a little windy and cold, then you're even better off, you can add a couple degrees if there's wind, okay.

Are there any long term effects of this chilly snap that we're having?

Well, will certain flowers maybe not flower or stay smaller?

Or is there anything that we should be looking for in our yards in that could be pretty damn cold?

Yeah, it has to be the one thing you would watch out if we got a really hard snap or pair, so pairs will get new growth, the leaves will freeze, and then you'll get blight that happens very, very often when we get these 80 degrees, and then we get down to under 30.

And then you get the little soft ends, and then that rots away and then you get blight in the tip.

So but we shouldn't be planting pears anyway.

So that would be the older pears to if we got rid of all the pears, I would have no problem not that I want anybody to lose their beautiful tree.

But you're not the only one that said that I absolutely watching the invasive pears in the neighborhood.

And then I was down in Nashville.

They're everywhere.

It's a huge problem.

So don't plant pears, please.

So how do we get out of that mess?

While we're here visiting that topic?

How do we how do we get out of that, just like with the the Asian carp, you know, we have to just accept that they are going to be absorbed into our environment.

So is that what we're gonna see with the pay, you just have to keep chopping them.

I mean, like in Stone Creek in Urbana, the vacant lots are absolutely covered in pairs, there's 10,000 pairs in the empty lots.

And so they mow them over so they don't go to fruit, about all you can do is just make sure that it doesn't go further.

But in the wild of of Nashville, Tennessee, I don't know what they're gonna do.

It's not.

But all we can do is a panel and as a gardener is, is pick all the other beautiful trees.

There's so many other choices.

I know it's fast, and it's cheap.

But as a garden center, you know, you really want to limit the amount and then get the fruitless if you can, they're never totally leaving this.

Yeah, we all have to do our duty.

Sometimes it's not that, but the freeze will take care of them if they if we get back to where we all started.

Yeah.

What do you tell people when they're asking when they just are dead set on that tree when you were landscaping?

Because I know you've retired now.

But what would you tell people when when I was landscape?

Oh, I would always suggest to dogwood or an emulator for a pair.

But I mean, I've installed my share of them.

But you know, that was a while back when they weren't taking over the world.

Yeah, bad is Japanese.

Yes, true.

There's always a Japanese imported plant by the United States government because they know better than God.

I'm just saying.

So.

Yeah.

So as we're bouncing back from this cold snap and slowly marching towards warmer days, let's talk about hardening off on a house plant.

I've already started bringing them out.

It just depends on what your house is, how hard is it to get it out.

If it's something that you can't lift, and it's a one time thing it's gonna stay out.

I think we wait a little bit longer.

Maybe another amaze a good, it's hard to say it's hard to put it on calendar, but generally May and then an extra blanket.

So we're like right now when we're 3638 40.

On most things were fine.

It's really not, you know, palm tree can take that we've seen them down in Florida.

And that helps them get adjusted to our new weather.

And you can also bring in a blanket, unfortunately, the back of my house has a bat garage, and I can slide it in the garage.

Or if it's on the front porch, and you can put it in the garage.

You know, it's it just depends on where it is or under the overhang.

But we're getting into hardening off periods.

Like we're getting to a point where we can bring some things out.

Like I was looking at the weather this week, we do have some 50s and 30s Pushing it for that.

But next week, we're going to do that come back up.

And then once you start getting into eighth to May, your your couple blankets away from being absolutely covered scientifically.

It's an industry term.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So 5060s is safe.

Yeah.

Nice.

40s are fine.

That's not a problem with any of these plants.

For the most part coleus.

You know, there's a couple of plants that I would say, No petunias and Coleus so it's kind of your Canaries, if your Coleus if it's cold, Your call is is gonna get hit.

It's really a soft, gentle plant.

But other than that, I think you're fine, especially your house plants and your all your different, you know, whatever you're doing on steroids and things like that.

I've got them outside now and I haven't covered them and I'm not going to cover all right, you heard it here first.

The plants that you get from the nursery, are they already hardened off or do they need that period before you put them in the ground or and say no, no, unless their heater went out?

Yeah, no, they're all.

And the other thing is they're in a greenhouse.

And so when it's 80 degrees and sunny, it's 100 degrees, if, and if it's 40 degrees and sunny, it's 80 degrees.

So those greenhouses are always really warm, you have to they're definitely not hardened off, okay?

If anything, you need to bring those out immediately to to adjust them, maybe not direct sun, but out of the greenhouse and into some more because it's used to be an inter optical, that's just what I was gonna say do.

What about the conditions?

I just Well, some, I was just giving my friends some ideas about a yard arrangement there.

And we took a stroll around the other day, and they're gonna put in a couple of dog woods.

And I just ran into them to lunch and they were having lunch in the same place.

So we were talking about this and she said, I'm kind of concerned because the the dogwoods were inside of a greenhouse, where we bought them.

Do we need to kind of harden them off a little and harassment was like I had them outside.

But then I brought them back in was supposed to be cold.

I said, well, the dogwoods.

So, but I didn't anticipate him being in a greenhouse.

Yes.

So.

Yeah, well, you know, they kind of push him so they bloom and attractive and then people Sure, by him, but uh, I said, Yeah, you might, you might want to they're not bald.

Burlap.

They're in a big pot.

I said, so you might want to just leave them out on the front porch, which is mostly shady and they get a little midday sun and then I mean, you don't have to take them in.

But yeah, I kind of would maybe yeah, I didn't.

I didn't think about the the trees being in a in a greenhouse.

So.

Okay.

And I mean, they're not twigs.

They're grown in containers now at huge size.

Yeah.

Okay, so good to know.

We don't want to waste our investment.

That's the one thing you don't want to do is buy your things and then the install not go well, well, and then dogwoods are an understory tree and where they're putting them there overhung by large deciduous trees to the south and a little standard white pines to the north.

So it's a little bit of a slope.

It should be fine.

Now, plenty of retention there.

Okay.

All right.

Let's get into some of the stuff you guys bought.

Do you want to talk about which one choose which one you want to do?

First, we'll talk about either one.

I have potato and onion sets here.

I'll just let's do potato for the reason I brought this.

But I just brought the potatoes because I was going to show you that.

Yeah, these have started to sprout out you see these, these little guys, when potatoes have eyes on them.

The low roots come out.

You know, they start looking fancy.

They get a little starry eyed.

You see what I did there?

You know, like that little pantry.

Let's see, they got that little these are actually seed potatoes.

They are not potatoes that I just grew to eat and left on their own.

So I don't know if we get a close up of this or not.

Somewhere.

I'm not sure.

But yeah, I'm so that I gets a little this gets this little root ring around it and then the potato sprout comes out in the middle.

So these have been sitting on my dining room table in a plastic bag for a week because I bought them and so it started raining.

Again, I cut these, they sometimes design these just to be safe that is you just drop them in the ground.

But you I just made two.

And then if there's more, I could actually make three out of this if I wanted but I don't think I will.

Here's another I back here but it's it's looking recalcitrant, so we're just gonna leave that one go.

But when I cut these, I cut them into more I tried to get the largest wins I can have I can find in the in the seed potato bin, how many eyes Do you want per piece that you're going to play, I'm going to I'm going to have at least one good one and maybe another got two.

So here's one, these are right together and they're here.

Get on camera.

These are two they're sprouting green.

And then there's, there's a third guy here and then there's a fourth guy over here.

So I like to have at least two eyes on each piece.

And and sprout side up or sprout side down.

I will just I will just lay them in the row like that with the cut side down usually but also, I'm doing cuts on these.

And I'm gonna let them sit about 24 They're gonna have to sit about 48 hours.

I don't have time to plan them until like Friday.

So I like to I like to have that cut hard enough.

I just I just do.

That's why my dad did it.

He's an amazing gardener.

He was just remarkable.

We ate potatoes from the garden.

Oh winter.

So he knew how to grow potatoes.

So I just take my cue from him.

But yeah, it's really easy.

You just take your pocket knife.

And this got a ton of them.

This has got a ton and start so if it does, then it's because it's a bigger potato.

So I'm gonna cut this guy in half letting them callus that is you said about 48 hours or 24 I'm gonna do well, I just I simply do not have time to plan a couple days.

But ordinarily, I would let him sit a couple days I want I want that surface to be dry.

And I don't want it to invite any sort of fungal problem or a tract of creature who likes fresh potatoes.

And those can go on the ground now wish you can you can cut them and plant them immediately.

But I don't like to do that.

So date wise like is it potato planting time?

Yes, it is.

We've gotten to that point.

Okay, here in the no central Illinois a lot of people so you get your potatoes planted by March 17.

Something Patrick's Day, I didn't have time to do that.

I was out of town.

So gotcha to bed.

Better late than never Yes, I typically My garden is the lowest spot in my yard.

So it's the wettest spot in my yard, which is great in July, not so much in April.

So especially root crops, you don't want to dig in your garden when it's muddy.

So this big potato, I cut it in half and then I cut this in half again.

And in theory I could cut even this one in half because it's got 12345 Little starts but I probably won't I'll just leave it like that.

I wouldn't cut that I'm so greedy that's all I was thinking about is I would cut that I would totally cut that.

Here's just a list for everyone.

Yes, for Shane.

There's a cut this in half to my father there grows the most excellent potatoes and Potomac.

They are so good.

So fluffy.

Yeah, he does red and yellow.

Yeah, what do you have there, these are red pie X. I prefer red today's we're talking about this before the show.

I just prefer red potatoes, the flavors a little sweeter.

They're not as dry texturally, but I just like them, I think the flavor is better.

So there you go.

So these are going to sit around, I'm going to cut all the rest of them I haven't home to I didn't buy just three.

And then they're just going to sit around like in a pan cut side up.

So they drive for a couple days.

And then I'll plant them.

And when I plant them, I don't do I try to do as little tilling as possible.

And I'll probably just make a shallow row.

And I'll lay these in it.

I'll push I'll lay them down, like we're saying cut side down with the, with the eye pointing up.

And then I'll pull a little dirt around him, but not much.

And then I lay straw when you straw potatoes, my dad used to shake it up all the time, but I'm too lazy to do that.

But he had a better potato crop and so now one after the other.

So when you get a bale of straw, it comes off in little pieces, those are called flakes, you know.

So I take a flake and there and I put a row potatoes there, little bit of soil up around them.

And then I lay the straw flakes like this, I just put them right there, I put a little crease, like a little right over the row of the potatoes.

And incidentally, these need to go farther apart than that.

So, so yeah, just like a little little flake and I put the crease right there, where these little guys are going to come up through.

And that's all the soil I put on him.

They grew up through the straw.

Incidentally, it's not vital to have a big piece of potato on these.

That's plenty big enough, it's not living off the potato.

As soon as you get it in the ground, these little roots are going to start slurping up nutrition from from the earth.

And that is how you plant potatoes.

Yeah.

And it's and I do I'm shallow with the straw of room.

When it's time to harvest.

Sometimes you can just take the neck of that and pull it right up.

We just have to dig them up.

Yeah, I have left off digging potatoes.

I just pull them up and you know, shake the straw.

That's awesome.

Okay, thank you.

All right, what's your brain?

All right.

Well, I brought one of my favorite plants.

It's, you know, when you go to a garden center that people will recommend plants that are usually in their yard because that's what you do you see a plant every day and then when they say what's your favorite plant.

So when we have somebody at the nursery, our best selling plants aren't necessarily the best plants.

It's the plants that people have in their yard.

So that's why you work in a nursery so they give you as many plants as you can because they know if you enjoy it, you're gonna sell a lot more.

But this one is called lilac prairie petite, so very petite.

It is the perfect small lilac.

There's other lilacs out there that are dwarf Korean that are like three are actually five feet or six feet.

We call them three feet.

But they're really five or six foot tall plants.

But that's just too big for a lot of areas.

This one in my yard is 18 years old, and it is three by three.

And it's never been trimmed not one day, and it is absolutely covered in these fragrant full flowers.

So you get all the flowers of the big ones, but you get the short little stature of this plant.

The problem is, and we can we talk we talk a lot of before the show, but you should be we thought it's, it grows really slow.

So garden centers generally don't care to growers, I should say don't grow it because they get a lot more money growing.

I Miss Kim or a dwarf Korean because they get to market much quicker.

And they can sell that and get their money.

This one is takes us five or six years to get to a three gallon size.

And but we did it.

So at the nursery, we've got 200 of them.

It's really our first crop that we've had, we've done it before, but we've all taken them home, so they never made it to the actual market in our house.

So I'm super, super excited.

And you know, in gardening, it's patience.

But as a grower, it really is patients just think that we had to wait six years to get one plant to sell.

And that's why you see things are a little bit more money based on how long it took to get to market.

That's when people say I mean, it's it's demand too, if it's something hot, but in general, if a tree is more expensive, it's surely because it's a slower growing tree.

That's a really good indicator.

Oh, they smell love.

They really do.

Whereas some of the North Koreans they really don't have much smell.

I mean, they're okay.

But it's not like that big.

And the flowers are different too long ago that we we humans planted a lot a lot a lot of lilacs near windows, because we were stinky.

Yeah, I can't remember who said that.

But like, you know, before the days of regular to cover it was to fragrance the home and fragrance the people?

Well, that's why we take funerals and brides holding bouquets.

All of that is our bad.

Hygiene.

You learn something today.

Where would this go in your landscape?

Yeah.

So I was just talking about so for instance, my mom has this that little area between your sidewalk and your front porch.

Everybody plants things that get too big.

Yes.

But it was there were boxwoods there and they're not over.

Yeah, no.

But the other thing is when you plant them for a customer and you plant a plant, it's only this big and the space is larger, and they say, you know I spend a lot of money and I've got three plants that aren't taking up the space.

No, we say it's gonna be perfect.

Yeah, put a pot Yeah, no, put a pot in between do something crazy in the in the middle that you don't notice the tiny nest, but it's perfect for that area mines off the corner of a house, I just didn't have a lot of room.

And so anything that's three by three, so even in mass if you put four of them across a window underneath a window, yep.

Because we always mess up when we plant as far as how big things really get.

Our tags are generally wrong because we don't want to scare you.

Do you see a river Burke is gonna say 35 feet.

That's gonna be 5060.

If I told you it's 5060 feet, you wouldn't never die?

No.

And they say and then the other thing that we always joke about is everybody's like, I'm gonna get it anyway because I'm going to trim it and then we're all like, No, you're not.

Okay.

But this you don't have to this is one that will stay three by three, you don't have to trim it like a lilac.

And since we're talking trimming, the time to trim, if you want to trim a lilac is when the lilac flowers are done.

It's the perfect time.

Once you've gone through the whole cycle, you trim all those flowers off, shape it up a little bit.

And a lot of them will even if they're not supposed to re Bloom will rebloom again, the reblooming Bloomerang varieties definitely will bloom again they do nice.

So that's just if you learn anything from the show, the best time to trim almost any plant is right after it's bloomed.

Notice the spring, shrubs, Mark orange, all of those and lilacs are really shaped by bias when you do it that way.

Yeah.

Okay, can you talk about onions in two minutes?

Yeah.

Hey, I can find out again, you cover those up.

So I bought these, like I said a couple of weeks ago, both of these starts and then it just started raining and it's too muddy to plant particularly root crops.

So I have mudded in tomatoes before but I'm not going to do these.

So these guys are sprouting because they're in my house, but it doesn't matter is make your little, your little ditch, you know, plant them in there.

If you don't mind them being smaller, plant them closer together.

If you want them bigger, plant them farther away.

It takes more garden space.

You can also do this, you can dig you know dig out a little wider spot and you want bigger onions you can put them this far but gently put one here so you can stagger them a little bit and you get a little Little bit more efficient use of your of your garden space if you're growing for for big onions some people are convinced the size matters but not necessarily an onions.

Well we're out of time you guys every time but wait there's more.

There's more.

Thank you so much for coming.

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

Goodnight