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

I'm your host Tinisha, Spain and joining me in the studio today are two of our panelists who you obviously know and love.

We've got Karen, and Ella here in the studio.

So we'll have you guys introduce yourselves.

And tell us a little bit about your specialty.

And Karen, we'll start with you.

Hi, I'm Karen Ruckle.

And I'm an ornamental horticulturist that I garden in the Peoria area.

I've been gardening, probably close to 50 years.

I first started out with miracles.

So I've progressed since then.

And I love perennials house plants, shrubs.

Alright.

a generalist, right?

Yeah, yes.

All right.

I'm Ella Maxwell.

And I'm also in the Peoria area and a horticulturist and I have a large yard.

So I enjoy pretty much a little bit of everything.

So trees and shrubs and perennials.

Okay, alright, we're gonna jump right in.

Because as you can see, we've got a lot of ground to cover.

We've got some questions that kind of go along with some of the stuff the ladies have brought in.

So Ella, we'll start with you.

This is question number 71.

This is an email question that came in.

Mike says I thought I'd share the results of a big garden experiment this year that worked great short version is I had a neighbor gather up all the leaves and bring them to me instead of sending them to the dump.

Then I corralled them all mulch them down, and scrape back those leaves to plant some garlic in the fall.

Plant some onions in the spring, but for everything else, I drilled through the mold with an electric drill auger and fill with good and garden soil and generous slow release fertilizer to 55 gallon rain barrels and soaker hoses provided supplemental water, along with some Rudra rudimentary grey water from five gallon buckets had zero blossom in Rotten Tomatoes, and no noticeable blight on the tomato vines.

So who needs to burn leaves was the final question there.

So you are fake into mulching leaves as well.

Right.

And that's something that I just wanted to bring to the attention of our of our viewers the benefits of the organic manner that comes from leaves that can be incorporated back into your lawn if they're mowed and, you know, mulch mode, which I'd recommend for the entire growing season.

But again, if you have some areas with an organic mulch, or leaf litter, where you can just add more chopping it up, really breaks it down a lot quicker.

And so that's what I have here.

And we found out that there's a little green stinkbug in here.

So this was showing some larger leaves here and then just some chopped leaves that I went and grabbed this morning from my compost pile.

And I think we do have a picture of my compost pile at home.

It's actually three different bins.

And it's all made with reclaimed lumber and some tea posts.

And it's like Tinker Toys, so you can take it apart.

And I do what's called Cold composting where it just sits there until it really decays on its own.

It takes about a full year.

And then I can utilize that mulch, but I also use the grass clipping leaf matter from my mower when it's really heavy.

And I put that directly in my garden and in my other garden as well.

I have just some round circles of wire, and I use those to just fill up with the leaf matter.

So if you can keep your leaves I would certainly recommend it.

It's a free source of just high quality organic manner, but make sure that they are not whole right.

Is that what you're saying?

Make sure that they're kind of you know, chopped up just makes them break down quicker over the winter season.

Gotcha.

But it's not bad to leave them big.

It's just okay.

They can be on in the timber of course they're not chopped up but on your lawn, they'd have to be chopped up.

Gotcha.

Okay, great advice.

Okay, Karen, we're gonna go to you.

This is question 72.

This is from Susan in Aurora.

And we all know that Karen is the Canna queen, right?

Hi, everybody love your show.

I have two beautiful steel flowers and Canna lilies and an umbrella plant that were in my pond as potted marginals.

Now with the temperature drop, I pulled them out and put them on my heated back porch.

What is the best way to overwinter?

Should I keep them in a tub in shallow water or cut them back?

So what are your What's your suggestion?

Well, my suggestion is those are two plants that are very vigorous, very vigorous in the pot and I don't see them being happy next year being together, still in that pot of the same size.

So I would recommend going ahead and pulling out the kana and cleaning that up and storing it separately let it go dormant chopping it back, put it forcing it into dormancy because you've had it inside, it's still growing, you can still just force it into dormancy.

I like to store mine in Ella and I are like the baggy Queens today.

I like to store mine and just pet bedding.

It's cheap, it's readily available and it seems to not have as much rot.

When I've used something like peat moss, sometimes once it gets wet, it stays too wet.

But so I would go ahead and separate those two plants.

The umbrella plant is also a very vigorous grower.

You could divide it or depending on how how the size is just leave it in that pot by itself.

Yes, maybe a shallow dish of water.

Watch out your umbrella palm in the winter, they always seem to get spider mites so easily.

So even though they seem like they're moist all the time, it seems like they are just so quick to get spider mites.

So always be checking your foliage if you see a little light spider webbing, or like some dust or sand autumn you'll want to spray with like an insecticidal soap.

But I would I would suggest separating them because they both just been in you know this from going cannas they just form so much root mass and same for that umbrella plant, you'd be better off than to start fresh, smaller plants that in spring, I literally and just for one growing season, the one that you the ones that you gave me, I had them in a pot, some of them just to kind of add a little depth.

And I literally had to wrestle them out of the pot a few weeks ago.

I mean, just from one season, they were in there tight.

So I can imagine that then when we think about how much maths is there, they wouldn't be happy the next year with that soil mass to proportion with what plants there.

Yes.

Now I want to I love going to Ella to talk about Canada's after Karen because Karen is always so careful.

And she washes them and she checks them throughout the winter.

Ella tell us about your well.

Alright, really, there are two different types of cameras that I have had experience with.

And the one is the the taller green leaf with the red flower, the typical one, that one makes tubers that are the size of sausages.

And then there's these new hybrid, canas the canola type canvas and they're much more petite, but beautiful foliage and flower colors.

And they're really wonderful in containers.

But you can see that the, the tubers or rhizomes are so much smaller.

So the big ones, some of those I don't even harvest because you know, they make so many.

And I do hose them off.

I let them dry in my garage, and I throw them in a paper box.

And I do have a basement, back room that's, you know, close the door.

It's dark, and I store them there.

But I don't do that with the candidates that Karen broad, I do a little bit more.

And I store them actually a little warmer.

I do cut them back just like that.

I do wash them off and everything.

And it was the same way.

I think we had a question about palladiums.

And that's something where I like to store those again, warmer like dahlias.

And so the pet bedding I hadn't thought of that.

That's a great idea.

I didn't know you did.

Even the experts are learning things.

Yeah, show.

Okay, Karen are Ella we're back to you.

We're going to talk Paw Paws.

This is from Yolanda she wrote in, I just saw the program and your Master Gardener John spoke about the paw paw fruit.

Do you know where I can purchase a paw paw tree?

I haven't had much luck with online vendors.

But I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction.

So what advice do you have for her?

Okay, so years ago, I did mail order for three grafted varieties of pop up because cross pollination is important for good fruit set.

And then I just got one of the native ones and the native one.

You can see some fruit that's formed this year that I actually ate and harvested.

And I I have a large growth now because they do sucker.

But what happens is they send up these routing little trees again, but they're they're what's termed monoclonal so they they're the same as the parents so they can't cross pollinate each other.

And that's where seed comes in because the seed has been pollinated usually by flies because the flowers are kind of dark and feathered.

And so I have see here that I harvested and paw paw seed is very much I'll take a few out very much like Other nuts and things from other tree fruits and, and things where they need a cold period.

So here's some seeds, you can see that they're moist.

I'm keeping them in the refrigerator until probably about February.

And then I'm going to do some of that winter sowing that we talked about before that, where can you find Paw Paws?

Well, there's a lot of native plant societies that are growing them from seed, you can also get a start off of, you know, these root root rooting little shoots and such.

And I do think that a lot of the nurseries now are very in tune to the native plant movement.

And they are offering them so if you know would you advise someone to start with a, a tree or or by seed?

What would your advice be for someone who is wanting to grow them at home?

Well, I think the best thing to do is start with a plant.

It's the easiest thing to do.

But also begin to find out from people where there might be Paw Paws growing in, in a natural space that maybe you could harvest some seeds from or just just email me call our sugar.

Oh, good.

I've got some Popeyes.

She's Pol Pot dealer.

All right, going back to Karen.

Question.

75.

This is the dreaded fungus gnats.

All right, here we go.

Elaine writes earlier this year, you address the problem of small flying insects that originated from the soil of houseplants.

There was a product mention and even shown that looked like a sticky strip that could be tucked into the soil.

Tell me more.

Yeah, like you said dreaded fungus gnats, they just seem to be so difficult.

And it's great time to be talking about fungus gnats, because this is the start of the problem is when we brought in plants from outside, you're not quite used to watering them in the house we go we're starting to have the heat on the dry air in the house.

So your house plants the watering schedule is a little little iffy.

Now is the time to be making sure you're keeping your house plants a little more on the dry side.

fungus gnats love a moist topsoil, the first couple inches for laying their eggs and their larvae.

So the drier you keep your house plants, hopefully that that keeps those populations down.

I couldn't find the program to find out what was talked about with what chemical.

But there are a couple different chemicals.

The problem with the chemicals, a lot of them are trenches, I've not seen the best success with a lot of them.

And then somebody like like Ella and I with cats, we tend to not use any type of chemical that we would put in the soil or anything that would be systemic in the plant.

Because of that, that backlash of just in case the cat eats it.

We tend to stay away from that.

So I look at other other methods that don't involve the chemicals and that is one trying to keep the soil drier.

And then also the sticky traps.

You go through your house like oh my gosh, why do I have all these different types of sticky traps and you know, but they're varying degree of effectiveness.

I like these that I got this last Christmas as a gift with great gift is these are in the shape of of different figures.

So it's a a product that then you peel off and it has a sticky part.

You stick it in the pot.

These though you just have the you just hope the fungus gnats runs into them.

The old ones were yellow and they felt that they attracted them.

I think white flies are more attracted to yellow.

I don't know that fungus net, I think they're just falling into them.

I've been liking a new product, it's expensive.

So I think maybe you could come up with something homemade but this one product.

I'm not even sure how you pronounce it but Xevo for fine insect it you plug in.

So it's a plug in type light that has a little blue LED light so it doesn't generate heat but it has the light and then on the backside is this replaceable sticky trap.

So it's really a mine you can see I've got I've got even a lacewing that I caught in my house and how lacewing was in the house, but there's lots of little fungus gnats in here.

The one thing I will say about this, it's it's a lot of light pollution because it really generates a bright blue glow in the house.

But I think that's helping to attract them to this rather than a happen chance run into the sticky trap.

So I think you could make something homemade with a nightlight or a little light that you could have and then some of your sticky traps nearby to get the same effect rather than Because this this is expensive and then the refills are a little bit expensive, I've got the one it's called kitschy, I believe it's a circular one same principle.

And I always said it next to the bananas.

Because you know, we were dealing with the fruit flies earlier but I and I liked the sticky traps as well I use those but the problem is once they touch anything, you soil or anything you've got to you know, that can get kind of not pricey, but when you do have to change them often well and when you do have a cat that that is curious and get stuck to one of these it becomes a quite a trail of destruction to the house because they just freak out.

They're running all over and they've got it stuck to them and then they have the goo on the fur and Yeah, well you know, one thing that I have tried is that you know, before you peel and stick them, you can cut them like in half or quarters, you can take a little hole punch and then you put a little twist tie on and then you can put them you know hang up into the plant itself on some of the old styles had a little little mounting thing that you could put them get one of those in my pack don't go on it.

Well, this was this was it doesn't have a date on it, but this might be a bit older model.

We probably had them for with your stuff.

Okay, and you guys still have tons of stuff to show.

Well, you finished talking about the fungus gnats.

I didn't want to cut you off for the first part.

Yes.

Okay, Ella, we're gonna go back to you for choose whatever show.

Okay, well, I brought in a witch hazel.

This is the common witch hazel.

This is hammer Millis for Ginny aina.

It's a American Native.

And it blooms in November.

And a lot of times it blooms when the flower and the foliage are on together.

And it has a yellow fall color.

It's supposed to be fragrant, but mine haven't been particularly fragrant.

But it's a very interesting plant.

And we have a picture of it.

And this is actually a Karen's childhood, childhood home, she planted it.

And these are small ornamental large shrubs or small trees depending on how you prune them.

But what's really neat with these, and I'm hoping that they can go through some cold temperatures, but they'll kind of curl in and then they'll be able to open up again, as the weather warms.

So they really have about a three, three to four weeks of flowering time.

And it's just something different.

Now, all the other varieties of witchhazel are are blooming after January.

So some can bloom as early as the end of January but most of them into March and those are going to be some of the Chinese and Japanese or some of the hybrids.

And then there is also another native Vernal witchhazel with the spring equinox blooming.

But these were actually one I planted and they do have some with red flower forms.

I bet that's pretty too so there's there are some cultivated varieties and of course witchhazel it's the the little stems and the leaves that have the astringent I was just gonna ask about that we can use as a you know, kind of lunch I use it on my Fe so Could you could you make your dentistry I did go ahead and check that out on the web and they have two different recipes one is with high proof you know alcohol or ice clear Yeah.

Or isopropyl alcohol diluted with water or you can actually make a tea because they say that it does have some medicinal qualities you're not to ingest large amounts of it but you can take it for a sore throat I did not know that.

Wow, I'd never seen one in person just the bottle that I store.

Well.

Yeah, she check it out.

i Yeah, I'm interested now especially in the other varieties to the different colors and that could be really pretty in an arrangement or something well that my witchhazel this fall had outstanding yellow, clear yellow foul color.

Well, the current one I have the the one I left behind, but as you can see the flowering of that one was really good.

Beautiful.

Okay, Karen, we're back to you.

We've got about six minutes left.

Well, when we were talking about fungus gnats, I wanted to bring up the biggest culprit I think at this time of the year when we're getting into the holiday seasons is the poinsettia plants.

I know the growers don't mean to set us up with fungus gnats, but it seems like poinsettias always bring in fungus snaps into the house.

So once again, I just thought, well, let's let's talk about poinsettias and if you're going to buy one, what to look for how to get it home.

So in the poinsettias, we're looking at what's really the most attractive thing or colored Brax.

And then the actual blooms are in the center of the plant.

And so when I'm choosing to plant, I want to see these little nubby blooms coming in the middle.

Because that's a fresher flower, fresher flowering plant.

A lot of times you'll see them being sold, and all of these are missing, or they're brown in the middle.

That either means the plant is very old.

And so it's been around for a while, or it's been dried out.

And though it's already sacrificed its flower buds because it dried out.

So looking for a plant.

Also, if it's been dried out, look at the base of it.

And if there's a whole bunch of dead leaves at the base, that's another sign that unfortunately, who you're buying it for, and it can happen to a nursery can happen to a big box store, that it just didn't get proper watering.

So watch for that because you don't want to buy a stressed out plant because then you're going to struggle with it, your your Brax will fade and it just doesn't last as long.

Also, now we're cold, we're going cold, it's gonna get colder, so when you get it at the store, I would suggest if it doesn't have a sleeve around it using the plastic bag at the store, just to snug up the foliage so it doesn't get broken.

I kind of dropped it coming in here today.

So you get little white, it has a white milky sap.

And yeah, I learned the name and then you have one of your reusable shopping bags because this then pop your little point set or your big point, set it in or put it over the top to give another layer of protection from going from the store 20 degrees is is pretty injurious to this plant 4035 You get below that you're gonna have some damage if you're if you're slowly walking through the parking lot to your car.

So giving a little protection for going home.

Then you're set up for better, better success.

And then once again, because of those fungus gnats when you get it home.

Keep it a little bit more on the dry side.

Don't keep it overly wet or definitely water sitting below there because then you're going to rot the roots on the poinsettia and then you're just going to have more of a fungus net profit.

Is that in foil, yes, you've talked about your hole punching a hole but at least have an always have another saucer under it because you can't you can't you know somebody like Ella came before you sliced a hole in the bottom.

You're gonna need a saucer underneath it to protect your table.

These two I'll tell you oh, well she's got another one that she needs to Yes, I wanted to make sure we got because we've got about three minutes.

Okay, so some of you watchers through when we were doing from home the different shows this I brought of a cactus of mine that my nephew gave me sat for at least five years in a Styrofoam cup and I finally planted it up during the pandemic.

And it is grown astoundingly and then has formed all these little baby Ciana I should have brought tweezers I you know I really hate cactus.

She says not as she does and fold a piece of paper.

Yeah, so I just wanted to bring him of how how happy and I thought it was uh huh.

Okay, we'll call it a day.

It's doing really well.

Now in a pot.

Unfortunately, he has gotten a little bit wobbly, so I did have to put a stake in there.

But the amount of little side pups he's formed, he's grown at least a couple inches since I took them out of the styrofoam cup and took the time to put them in soil.

Okay, all right.

I think we can get in another show and tell if you've got Okay, the last thing is, this is my little hanging little router here that I have hanging in my kitchen with Trey to scan chia.

And these were just cuttings off of a plant that I had outside and you can see that just in less than two weeks.

I've already gotten some roots.

And so as this develops and grows, I can report it give it some love.

Or I can just you know make some new cuttings as it expands.

And I'm just gonna keep it till spring and then maybe put it back in a mix pot.

I love that.

Did you make that?

I know my friend brought it from there Florida vacation.

Very nice.

So very cool.

Just a cute little hanging jar which you could probably make with some yogurt.

That's my job.

I think he bought it at one of those, you know little farmers markets while they were down in Florida a number of years ago.

So I've used it for a couple of years and it's just kind of fun to have hanging in the kitchen.

We've got about 90 seconds is there anything that we didn't get to you got a bag do we get to every oh you bro this was we can get the palladium and I learned now that pet bedding might be the way to store these and actually I do not wash my my bulbs off i and this is one that you want to harvest it as soon as the foliage goes down if you leave it in the ground too long they begin to rot no which I found out the hard way.

We covered so much ground.

Thank you so much for coming.

I really appreciate it always a fun time when we've got these two ladies in the building.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you have any questions for the gardener panelists, you can send an email to your garden@gmail.com or you can find us on Facebook, Instagram for Twitter, and we will see you next time.

Good night.