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

I'm your host Tinisha, Spain.

And joining me in studio today is Ella Maxwell.

And she's got lots and lots of stuff to talk about.

And this is going to be kind of what you're doing now.

Right?

This is what you're working on garden in your garden now.

So for those who may not know you, tell us a little bit about Ella Maxwell.

Well, I am a horticulturist.

I graduated here from the University of Illinois many years ago.

And I've worked at a nursery, several nurseries over my career, but I'm kind of semi retired now.

And I took the Master Gardener class, and I belong to some plant societies and I love talking about plants and growing plants and the whole deal about that.

So perennials, trees, shrubs, some with vegetables, so I can answer a lot of different questions.

I was one of my go to people that I text when things are going wrong in my yard.

What was that?

I texted you just a few days ago?

I can't Oh, it was one of the plants that was just splayed open.

Yeah.

And I need to cut them back sooner which we'll get those in on another.

Yeah, too.

But Ella, she's got it.

She's got answers for everything.

So where do you want to start you brought in long Well, I did.

So the first thing right now is I I want to be a tidy gardener.

It just doesn't always work.

But there are some plants where it's very important to be a tidy gardener and one of those is peonies.

And so this is some foliage on my peonies that I am now cutting back because this is the time to transplant them if they're in too much shade and haven't been flowering and this is also the time to cut them back because we can look and see that some of the foliage has really become unattractive and some people call this piney measles.

It's actually a leaf spot fungal disease, but it can be transplant or it can be it can infect if the foliage just falls and dies around the base of the plant.

As the new plant emerges in the spring it can easily become reinfected and it can stay dormant in the soil throughout the winter, right, it can live on this, this plant material and that's why it's important to with tomatoes if you've had some problems with early or late blight is to clean the cages as well as removing all of the foliage and stuff.

So I've just cut my peonies down probably to within four inches of the ground.

And once the foliage starts to look bad like this and maybe you have powdery mildew or something else.

Now is the time to dispose of this either in your landscape waste if you have pickup or if you have you can you can burn it.

I suppose that if you have a really good compost hot compost system, you could compost it as well just chop it up.

But you're you take those back now How far did you say?

Well, here's here was the plant and so I'm just going to leave a couple of inches.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Yeah, but I think you know, this is something that I can do now I've got about 10 Different peonies and it was just you know, 15 minutes worth of work and you know, I can check that off.

Check that off though.

I love that check that because some things are starting to look a little tired.

Oh, with this weather that is so true.

These flowers have have kind of they've had their work cut out for him this summer well and flowers, some of the flowers are have actually fully formed and are starting to set seed and if you'd like to collect seed, that is something that I'm doing now is collecting different kinds of seed here.

So these are just some ideas for you on what you might want to do.

Some of the hostas have certainly gone to seed and you can grow some really interesting plants now.

The hosta seed has a lot of genetic variability.

So inside here will be lots of little black, small black winged seeds.

And they will probably not look like the parent if especially if the parent is variegated, but you can get a lot of interesting color.

You know, you can get mostly green but some blue or yellow.

If it's a large plant, it probably has the genetics to make another large plant out Mmm.

But it's really fun to kind of collect hosta seeds.

And I cut them like this and then just put them down in a paper bag so that when the seed pod actually opens, the seeds will drop into the bottom of the bag.

You're talking about that?

I don't mean to interrupt, but I just had a thought, do you have to let plants with POD seed pods like that dry out on the plant?

Or can you snip them, and then put them away and open that later I'm thinking of poppies, if they're fully formed, you want to snip them now.

And for example, with coneflowers, you know, now's the time to just snip them.

And again, just put them upside down in a paper sack in your garage someplace where it's you know, dry and you get air circulation.

Because poppies for example, the top opens up and then you lose them.

Right.

And so once I mean you can check and see how the, the seeds have formed.

And so now's the time to start thinking about collecting seed.

And once it is dry, you want to make sure that you label it.

Oh, we went to the to the H Mart.

Now you gotta tell us what.

It's a Korean grocery store.

It's it's across the country, the closest one is in the Chicagoland area, but I bought the special Korean peppers.

And so we're saving some pepper seeds.

There you go.

And, of course, right now, the Zinnias are starting to finish up and so I'm saving some xenia seeds.

And of course, there's all kinds of native pollinator plants.

This one is called Wingfoot.

It's a little yellow tall, about five, six foot, but it's very attractive for pollinator habitat.

And it's in the sunflower family or asked her family and you can save the seeds from that.

Here's Joe Pye weed going to seed and I also cut some of this stuff back because it just comes up everywhere.

And of course, black eyed Susans, you can start saving some of that seed.

And then again, more annuals.

This one's clear to me.

And these little seed pods are so fun because they just dry and pop right open.

But you know milkweed I've seen a lot Oh, sure.

Sure.

Milkweed pods, all kinds of things.

So label and date your seats, so you know how old it is.

And be sure to thoroughly dry it.

And then should we see our surprise seat?

Let's do Oh, yes, we were just talking about this.

Okay, she says you're never gonna guess what this is.

And obviously I have it.

I did make a good guess.

I guess truffle, but I was wrong.

So I asked if you can eat it.

I can't remember some of the other questions I asked.

Right.

Sure.

Right.

So but this is actually a seed pod.

And this is a very specialized kind of seed pod or plant and, and I have never harvested it before, but I've been reading about it.

And then this is the seed inside.

Just one, just one.

This is a whole group of seeds.

And this is from skunk cabbage.

And this is a special plant that grows in a bog situation in and there are some seeps along the Illinois River Valley, near Peoria where I live and I have been watching the skunk cabbage they come up very early in the spring they have this spayed X, and they're they're pollinated by flies and beetles because the reason it's called skunk cabbage is it has a feted odor and I haven't been able to transplant one when you turn off of 116 on to 24 you can get off the side of the road and right there you can see them so I wrote on my calendar at the end of August as to not forget force go skunk cabbage seeds because I've been reading about it.

So these seeds are are very special in that they have a double dormancy.

And so you do need to read about your seeds from your plants to find out how can I best germinate them.

And so these plants need about 60 to 90 days of warm temperatures.

And then they're going to require an equal amount of chilling temperatures.

Okay, so I I'm gonna try winter sowing these.

And they're also not supposed to dry out.

So you don't you want to store this seed in, like moist sand or moist peat moss or something.

And that's why it's in this ziplock bag.

So if you open that larger Oh, yeah, that well, we can Oh, okay, we're gonna say that you have to, but just that one seed is what would be in there?

Yeah, it's going to Well, no, there's a whole bunch of seeds.

Is there a smell?

Actually, it's kind of poopy smell.

Now, about that.

There you go.

There are leaves left.

And this is right down at the soil line, because that's where the insects pollinated it.

And it developed.

So I'm going to try winter sewing because this is a very, you know, I don't know if I don't think it's endangered, but it's something that you just can't buy or find.

And so that when you get it to grow, it's Yeah.

It's like accomplished.

Now, it's exact.

You said it's kind of like a baggy plan.

So at home, how are you going to create this ditch environment?

Well, I have a ditch environment.

That's why I've been looking for skunk cabbages for you know, quite some time.

And so I live along a creek line.

And so as you the rise as you come up towards where my home is built, along the creek line, there's kind of a swale, and that can have water in it during periods of heavy rainfall as it moves off the property before it goes into the creek.

And then I have been very successful with Marsh marigolds.

So I have a lot of marsh marigolds, I planted some water type, Iris, native irises, and some different native plants.

But I wanted to add skunk cabbage.

So you've already got the environment that you know will probably be suitable, right, just getting it right now I'm going to try to get it but I am going to plant some of the seeds in the ground and see if nature can't do it.

And then I'm gonna plant some of the seeds later, say in February in milk jugs for winter sowing and then just set them outside and let them get that that chilling requirement.

And we'll find out next year you'll have an update good or good or bad.

But yeah, it was interesting.

Real quick.

Let's take this question here.

This is from Linda from Bloomington, she sent an email in about grass blends.

So I'll read this.

This is question 52 years ago, the panel talked about the perfect grass seed mix.

I think there were three grasses included.

Can you tell me what those are?

And if there is any updated information on the perfect grass seed for our area?

And you've got some answers?

Well, I hope to give you some answers.

grass seed.

First off, I'm not a grass person, if it's green, and I can mow it.

I'm happy.

I don't do a lot of fertilization.

I don't do a lot of weed control.

But I do understand grasses and how to grow them.

And what you want to find out is most people in central Illinois in full sun areas grow Blue Grass, Kentucky Bluegrass, it's a fine textured, beautiful grass, but it takes a lot of inputs.

fertilizers, like at least, you know a pound of fertilizer or more per year to keep it looking good.

It can go dormant in the summer if you don't have irrigation.

And that's okay if your grass does go dormant because usually when the fall rains come back, it greens back up again.

Then there's also grasses that tolerate more shade and those are going to be the fescues some of the red fescues chewing fescues and those kinds of things.

So first you have to identify your environment is it Sun is it shade, and then there are some tall fescues and rye grasses that are maybe a little coarser, but they can take traffic for like playgrounds or soccer fields or you know different things like that.

So there's no one best grass seed specifically you have to know your environment and then you have to be able to read the seed label.

Okay, so the first thing is if you have sunny, the seed will say for sunny areas.

If you have shade Just like this one was shady superfine.

So most of the times they sell what they call mixes of several different species of grasses.

Or you can buy a blend, and that's different cultivated varieties of the same seed like I work at hair nursery, and we sell 100% bluegrass sod, which is a blend of different bluegrass varieties.

So here we see that this has some rye grass, fescue, hard fescue, creeping red fescue, and some Kentucky bluegrass.

It also gives a date and you can see when this was tested, so this is an old bag, you would not want to pay full price, and this should not be on a shelf.

The other cool thing is it'll tell you how much weed seed other crop seed might be in it, where it's grown.

You can see it's coming from Washington and Oregon.

And then also the germination percentages that you get.

So September is the best month for Fall seeding.

So it's a good question to ask.

And the most important thing is to fill miliar eyes yourself with your situation, whether you're going to be putting down all new seed or overseeding, you can use different rates.

And then also look at the seed package and make sure you're getting the best seed for the money for your area and outcome.

Now what if you've got a yard that's got a little bit of everything?

Do you just buy certain mixes and certain types for if I've got a great big tree in the front, I'm gonna buy this mix for this area.

You know what if your yard has a lot of different sun?

Well, usually you buy grass seed starting in one pound bag.

And so if you have that shaded area under a tree, maybe you buy a shady seed.

But if you want to go for generic, I think a lot of people are using the mixes that contain the Blue Grass, the a little bit of fescue, and some of the fine quality rye grasses.

And we call that our emerald mix, which is just generic.

So that'll catch everything.

Yeah, pretty much so because, again, you can have disease problems that might just hit blue grasses or, or, you know, I was listening to a woman tell me about armyworms as a problem.

And so she has switched to a there is another kind of grass that's gaining popularity.

It's a type of tall fescue called RISE Artemus tall fescue or RTF.

And so it's very durable, very drought tolerant, very disease resistant.

And in the past Blue Grass and these other grasses tiller, they send up the side shoots, but fescue, this tall fescue just makes a clump.

And so if the seed doesn't get evenly distributed, you've got, you know, like someone with no hair or loose hair.

So they now bred into it, where it can be rhizotomy as it can send up those tillers that can begin to fill in.

So there's all kinds of great things coming down the pipeline with grass eat.

Excellent.

Okay, and one question.

You mentioned the year of the See, pay attention to that.

Right, let's go back to our seed saving at home.

How long can we see keep our Zinnia seeds?

How long?

Can we keep our blackout, Susan?

Oh, good.

That's an excellent question.

There are some tables that you can follow.

Some of the things that don't last at all are onions, anything in the onion family.

So if you were trying to save seed from like millennium, Allium, those kinds of things that will only last maybe a single year, parsley only really lasts for a single year, but xenios and things maybe three, four years.

So that's okay.

peppers, tomatoes, again, maybe up to five years.

And then of course, you know, after a while, you just need to, to composted.

I've had some seed that had been sitting around for like seven years and it's like, you don't want to spend all that energy on seed if you're not going to get a good return.

Yeah, and or a good outcome.

So got it okay when you were so After talking about that, I thought I wonder about our flower seeds and how long we can keep those.

Yeah, I think some of them for quite some time, at least more than a season or two.

Okay, let's do one more question and then we're gonna go to the big unveiling.

Okay.

All right, number 61.

This is from Lucy.

This was an email question.

She says, I'm a big fan of Mid American gardener and the previous show Illinois gardener.

I wonder if you can identify the plant in the two attached pictures, which has enthusiastically volunteered in one of my perennial beds.

It started out last year looking like a low growing root of vecchia and did not flower.

Now look at it.

Is this a native plant?

And should I keep it for pollinators?

So this is question 61.

So you, you know what this is you've battled it.

What are your thoughts?

Oh, right, right.

So when I was looking through the pictures, and it was like, oh, that's achy, we, because that's what we call it in my family.

It is actually Virginia stick weeds.

So it is a native, and it may have some pollinator value.

But it when it makes inset seed, they become little, like little beggar ticks.

And so they their seed is distributed on animal fur, or on your gloves, or on your shorts, or on your sleeves.

I ruined some good clothing until I realized that.

If I take care of icky weed when it's small, if I can recognize it, this Virginia stick weed and just pull it out or don't allow it to flower.

And then I don't have so much troubles but if you have a whole bunch of it, and you're going to try to clean it up or clear it out.

I wear a nylon jacket and you know, kind of like slick nylon.

You know, what do they call it workout?

You know, like basketball?

Yeah, like a windbreaker.

windbreaks kind of thing.

Yeah.

But this, this weed, sometimes I find it and I pick it out.

And it's branched.

And it has all of these and I just generally take it over to the burn pile.

So it doesn't get me.

But there are wonderful, lots of wonderful native plants and this one might have a niche that I don't know about so you can write in and educate us.

But this Virginia stick weed but you're not a fan is is my achy lead my nemesis.

All right.

All right.

Okay, so we've got about four minutes left.

Oh, okay, what is our so what else have I been doing?

Well, I made what's called the hypertufa trough.

And this is cast combination of Portland cement.

Peat, stagnant peat moss and perlite.

And what you're replicating is, is a carved stone, and you can cast them in all different kinds of containers.

But this one right here that I did bring, I just used a container here, this is just you know, from takeout.

And I cast it upside down on a board.

And so it you let it sit for three days.

And you can do this inside of like at the tub of, of a dishwasher tub, you know, but this is kind of freeform.

And so you can see that I do have some drainage holes in here.

And I actually covered the the container with plastic and then I mounded up the this concrete mix around it and I let it sit for about three days.

And then you can texturize it with a wire brush.

And you can see that it has a very small soil volume.

And so this is going to work for like succulents.

And the reason that you see this really large rim here that I made when I cast it upside down is that a lot of succulents kind of grow over the edges.

And this is going to help support them and display them better.

And so this is actually once it weathers it takes I'm going to leave it in this plastic bag for about a week or two yet and it can be quite Alkalyn but once it's ready to go, it can go through, you know it can go through outdoor temps, winter outdoor temperatures.

And I just usually move them up next to the house with that little bit of radiant.

Yes, right and under a little bit more protection and such, but I have cast all kinds of different containers, big ones, small ones, but what do you think you're gonna like this one?

Is this going to go on the porch or in you know, you know, I think it's gonna go out on the patio with a with a nice display of succulents next year, because they're easy to propagate, and easy to share.

Plant swap coming up.

Yes, you know, maybe you can get some good, different succulents.

And you could take this inside if you have tropical succulents, but you know, I don't need anything else to have to come back inside.

Very nice.

You're the busiest semi retired lady I've ever seen.

I think that too when I think how did I ever work?

No going back now.

That's right.

Any hobby?

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for coming in.

Thank you for bringing all of your seeds and flowers and expertise with you.

Thank you.

And if you've got questions for us, please send them in to your garden@gmail.com.

You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter we all over the place Ella mentioned the plant swap coming up in September.

We're going to give you more information about that it's September 24.

But we plan to be there as well.

So lots of things coming up.

Lots of things going on.

Thank you so much for watching, and we will see you next time.

Goodnight.