Lifestyle Gardening 401

Brad Mills Author

01/03/2017 Added

194 Plays

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Backyard Farmer Presents, Lifestyle Gardening Program 401

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[00:00:15.363](light ambient music)
[00:00:41.867]Hello, and welcome to Lifestyle Gardening.
[00:00:44.623]I'm Kim Todd, and thanks for joining us
[00:00:46.867]for another season of wintertime gardening.
[00:00:49.447]We know it's cold out there, but we've got
[00:00:51.858]a great program to help you warm up
[00:00:54.713]and get ready for the upcoming growing season.
[00:00:57.275]Today we'll be bringing you ideas for preparing your soil,
[00:01:00.441]we'll take a look at a hearty and beautiful shrub,
[00:01:03.487]we'll hear some great art ideas
[00:01:06.003]from Lincoln artist Margaret Berry,
[00:01:08.184]and we'll help you keep taller plants
[00:01:10.051]from flopping over in the winter months.
[00:01:12.703]To start our program we're gonna focus on a critter
[00:01:15.491]that might look cute, warm and cuddly,
[00:01:17.511]but he or she can do a major amount
[00:01:20.077]of damage right under the snow.
[00:01:22.489]Our wildlife expert Dennis Ferarro
[00:01:24.527]tells us that during the winter those voles
[00:01:26.914]are looking for homes and something to eat and your backyard
[00:01:30.435]shrubs are the perfect place to eat and stay warm.
[00:01:34.157]Here's Dennis to help us save our plants
[00:01:36.745]from these pesky little critters.
[00:01:39.145](light ambient music)
[00:01:45.971]While we're inside, snuggled in with visions
[00:01:48.836]of sugarplums in our head, out in our gardens,
[00:01:51.421]the voles are ravishing, they're there,
[00:01:53.831]and they want to feed on something.
[00:01:56.058]And usually what they go after are tubers
[00:01:58.333]if the ground is not frozen, or any seed material
[00:02:01.607]that may be on the ground in your garden.
[00:02:04.699]They will also go after that nice tender bark
[00:02:07.375]around the trees, and these voles can do
[00:02:10.540]a lot of damage in the winter.
[00:02:12.719]They don't hibernate, so while you're inside
[00:02:15.163]going through your catalogue looking for new plants
[00:02:17.884]for next season, next spring, the voles are out there
[00:02:20.980]eating all the plants that are left
[00:02:23.119]and still alive but dormant in your garden.
[00:02:26.102]They can do a lot of damage, so we need to be cognizant
[00:02:29.594]if they're out there, so on a nice halfway decent day
[00:02:33.187]in the winter, go out in your garden,
[00:02:35.412]look around for the vole runs.
[00:02:37.761]These runs will even be under the snow cover.
[00:02:40.891]look for their holes, they're active
[00:02:43.060]even when it's below zero, but underground,
[00:02:45.800]and they come up in the day when it gets just above zero.
[00:02:49.752]What they'll do is they'll eat any of those tubers,
[00:02:52.773]any of those roots of plants that have starches.
[00:02:56.228]They'll also girdle your fruit trees.
[00:02:58.790]So look around in your fruit trees,
[00:03:00.722]whether they're flowering fruit or whether they're
[00:03:03.100]actual edible fruit trees, they will go after all of 'em.
[00:03:07.065]And the way to get rid of them, whether it's any time
[00:03:09.464]of the year, is to use a multi-catch trrap.
[00:03:12.468]These work in the winter as well as the summer.
[00:03:15.732]You can set these traps along these runs that you find,
[00:03:19.458]preferably on days when it's not below freezing
[00:03:22.213]or not snowing, and just put a little burr seed
[00:03:25.224]or grass seed around the entrance of the multi-trap,
[00:03:29.217]they'll go in there and they'll get trapped.
[00:03:31.324]These traps will hold up to 15 or 20 voles.
[00:03:34.866]They will get in there overnight,
[00:03:37.024]they usually follow each other.
[00:03:38.821]The more you get, the lower the population
[00:03:41.097]will be causing damage.
[00:03:42.902]Now if you catch them several nights in a row
[00:03:45.912]you probably get most of the population
[00:03:48.315]causing damage in your garden.
[00:03:50.686]Now if you feed the birds,
[00:03:52.671]be cognizant where that birdseed goes
[00:03:54.943]if the birds don't feed on above the ground.
[00:03:57.521]If that birdseed is falling, clean up as much as possible.
[00:04:01.219]It'll make it so much easier to catch them in your traps.
[00:04:05.248]What will happen in the traps is that they'll go in there
[00:04:08.825]for a little seed, but if there's seed everywhere,
[00:04:11.292]they're less likely to go in the traps.
[00:04:13.935]You can also use snap traps such as these,
[00:04:16.605]these snap traps with a little molasses,
[00:04:19.298]because it's very cold, remember,
[00:04:21.280]made into balls of seed, can catch them at any time.
[00:04:25.439]Now put those along the runs.
[00:04:28.436]Now once you get 'em trapped, if you leave 'em in the trap
[00:04:31.693]overnight they will die of exposure due to the coldness.
[00:04:35.724]So remember, be humane when you worry about them.
[00:04:38.788]You can translocate them to another location
[00:04:42.077]where they're not gonna cause damage,
[00:04:44.318]but you need to get them within six hours
[00:04:46.370]after you trap them to translocate them.
[00:04:48.534]So remember, if you trap 'em and it's cold out
[00:04:51.672]you need to check those traps very often.
[00:04:54.396](light ambient music) As you just saw,
[00:04:56.757]those voles can really tear up an ornamental bed
[00:04:59.484]by tunneling under the snow,
[00:05:01.075]chewing up the roots of your plants.
[00:05:03.674]As their food supply is scarce during the colder months,
[00:05:06.721]setting your traps with a little grain will help you
[00:05:09.187]keep them out of your overwintering plant beds.
[00:05:12.629]We're proud to offer something new this year
[00:05:15.156]in a feature we're calling Go Gardening.
[00:05:17.549]We want to help beginning gardeners find their way around
[00:05:20.252]in how to get started, and as all good gardeners know,
[00:05:23.946]good soil make all the difference in the world.
[00:05:26.957]So let's take a few minutes to talk about
[00:05:29.150]soil preparations over the winter, and let's go gardening.
[00:05:33.228](light ambient music)
[00:05:40.869]People ask us all the time about how
[00:05:42.943]to get started in the gardening world,
[00:05:45.755]and we're going to tell you, just go garden.
[00:05:48.357]Of course it's a little bit more complicated than that
[00:05:50.893]and so we're going to do a series on Go Garden
[00:05:53.685]starting with what or master gardeners
[00:05:56.034]have done to improve the soil.
[00:05:57.937]If you don't have good soil you're not going to have
[00:06:00.234]good landscape plants, whether they're annual,
[00:06:02.383]perennial, or trees, it's really simple actually
[00:06:06.261]to use a cover crop or a green manure crop
[00:06:09.636]if you are vegetable gardening or flower gardening.
[00:06:13.025]What our master gardeners have done is chosen a cover crop
[00:06:15.807]that they seeded this fall, this is actually
[00:06:18.558]a fall green manure crop, and it's platned by seed
[00:06:21.711]about four to six weeks before the first killing frost.
[00:06:25.758]It includes a number of different plants
[00:06:28.995]that are in it for different purposes of course.
[00:06:31.969]We have spring peas, we have some rye,
[00:06:34.362]we have a vetch, and the idea behind this
[00:06:37.833]is that we seed it in the fall, the things that are
[00:06:41.514]going to actually be killed with the frost
[00:06:44.144]will be killed it if ever frosts or freezes,
[00:06:47.069]and a couple of them, one of the ryes,
[00:06:49.269]the winter rye, and the vetch,
[00:06:51.539]will return next spring.
[00:06:53.739]What we will then do is the master gardeners
[00:06:56.533]will turn this under, they'll wait two to three weeks
[00:06:59.956]to plant, and the idea behind using a fall green manure crop
[00:07:03.971]is this is cool season, so everything will be out of the way
[00:07:07.185]when they want to plant their
[00:07:09.074]cool season vegetables in the spring.
[00:07:11.068]You can also use warm season green manures like buckwheat
[00:07:14.344]that go four to six weeks, start to finish,
[00:07:17.230]the idea behind those is of course they will also
[00:07:19.820]attract beneficial insects, all of them improve soil health.
[00:07:23.959]So what will happen in this particular instance
[00:07:27.008]is this green manure that you see will hold the soil
[00:07:30.333]over the winter months, it will get tilled in,
[00:07:32.937]and then we will plant in the spring.
[00:07:36.044]In contrast to the area that our master gardeners
[00:07:39.232]have planted to a fall cover crop,
[00:07:41.863]this is a space that they actually have turned over.
[00:07:45.083]This had our warm season crops in it,
[00:07:47.450]the tomatoes, the malabar spinach and some of the peppers.
[00:07:50.573]The first thing they did of course is wait
[00:07:52.625]until a killing frost or a freeze
[00:07:54.792]and all that stuff died, then they removed the debris.
[00:07:58.136]That's really important if you start to go garden
[00:08:01.299]and you forget about the fact that a lot of our pathogens
[00:08:04.579]and some of our insect pests can overwinter in that debris.
[00:08:08.122]So they cleaned that off first,
[00:08:10.339]if it was not diseased, they put that in the compost pile.
[00:08:13.523]But most importantly what they have done
[00:08:16.037]is they have turned the soil by hand
[00:08:19.111]in big chunks, they will then stay off that soil
[00:08:22.900]over the winter months and what will happen
[00:08:25.805]is the freeze/thaw action will break that soil down,
[00:08:29.134]they will go ahead and come back in and top dress
[00:08:31.618]with ground up leaves and perhaps some compost.
[00:08:35.051]That will work its way down into those cracks and crevices,
[00:08:38.761]and then in the spring they will either turn again
[00:08:41.809]or they will lightly till.
[00:08:43.817]The reason that we don't till in the fall
[00:08:46.451]is if we have an open winter and you have
[00:08:48.546]a very fine texture to the soil,
[00:08:50.850]you may in fact do more harm than good.
[00:08:53.428]So again, to be able to prepare the soil
[00:08:56.063]in the fall for your garden is really an excellent idea.
[00:09:00.389](light ambient music)
[00:09:01.980]If you do almost everything right when you start
[00:09:04.027]your garden but you still have poor soil
[00:09:06.657]you're going to have very little success.
[00:09:09.128]Good soil contains lots of organic matter
[00:09:11.888]and it's loose enough to help those
[00:09:13.641]roots grow deep and strong.
[00:09:15.798]If you're new to gardening and you want the best chance
[00:09:18.009]at beautiful ornamentals and a bumper harvest,
[00:09:21.162]start by getting that soil prepared
[00:09:23.419]and keep at it every growing season.
[00:09:26.462]For our landscape lesson this week we're going to take
[00:09:29.650]some time to focus on one of our natives shrubs
[00:09:32.469]that would be a wonderful addition to a home landscape.
[00:09:35.806]Our native buckbrush is a great choice
[00:09:37.574]for partially shaded areas, it can grow just about anywhere
[00:09:41.513]including in poor soil conditions.
[00:09:44.249]It's great for pollinators and attracting wildlife as well,
[00:09:47.954]and in the fall it really comes
[00:09:50.518]into its own with those wonderful fruits.
[00:09:53.382](light ambient music)
[00:10:01.569]You've got to love a plant that has multiple uses
[00:10:03.872]in the landscape and is also a workhorse.
[00:10:06.725]This is our native buckbrush,
[00:10:08.790]or coralberry, or Indian current.
[00:10:11.182]Latin name is Symphoricarpos orbiculatus,
[00:10:14.710]which is kind of a mouthful, but look at what
[00:10:17.366]this plant does in the winter landscape.
[00:10:19.855]It survives all sorts of conditions, it is native,
[00:10:23.469]and it is one of those go-to plants for a lot
[00:10:26.144]of our native bees and pollinators.
[00:10:28.682]It forms a colony slowly by suckering and by rooting
[00:10:32.595]where those tips touch the ground,
[00:10:35.268]it survives in woodlands, part-shade, full shade,
[00:10:38.844]gets a little thinner in full shade,
[00:10:41.322]but it also tolerates dry conditions,
[00:10:43.817]crummy old construction soil which is pretty unusual,
[00:10:47.374]and it looks like this in the fall and the winter months.
[00:10:50.730]It's in the honeysuckle family.
[00:10:52.907]The flowers are small in the spring, not very showy,
[00:10:56.224]so again, it's not one of those plants you plant
[00:10:58.839]for spring interest or great big in-your-face summer bloom,
[00:11:02.838]but if you're a pollinating insect,
[00:11:05.017]you're gonna love that nectar, and for human beings,
[00:11:08.569]you have to love the beautiful appearance
[00:11:10.819]of the corralberries, which is of course
[00:11:13.152]where it gets one of its most common names,
[00:11:15.590]and the fact that these can not only persist
[00:11:18.230]throughout the winter months but also be a great
[00:11:21.383]floral decoration if you want to cut them
[00:11:23.875]and take them in for the winter.
[00:11:25.963]They are great bird food, also some small critters
[00:11:29.202]and creatures will eat them, but for the most part
[00:11:32.063]they're gonna remain on the plant
[00:11:34.681]well into the spring of the season.
[00:11:37.137]This is an easy shrub to manage.
[00:11:39.596]One thing you don't want to do is cut it
[00:11:41.783]all the way back to the ground every single season
[00:11:44.455]because it is in fact a shrub, a woody shrub,
[00:11:47.457]not one of those suffrutescent things, not a perennial.
[00:11:51.031]So you want to make sure that you allow it
[00:11:53.312]to become a thicket, that might make it a bit difficult
[00:11:56.728]and tangled to clean out and get rid of all the leaves
[00:11:59.904]and those sorts of things, but in an environment
[00:12:02.632]where the plant itself can cover up the undergrowth,
[00:12:06.218]it looks pretty darn good during the winter months.
[00:12:09.337]The coralberries also have been hybridized
[00:12:12.742]with other coralberries, with snowberries,
[00:12:16.052]but in my book this is the absolute best of the best.
[00:12:20.588]There is one called Hancock that is a ground cover form,
[00:12:23.926]doesn't fruit, doesn't seem to like the best conditions
[00:12:27.750]or the conditions that this one does.
[00:12:30.317]So go out and hunt for our native coralberry,
[00:12:33.286]put it in your landscape, enjoy it outside, enjoy it inside.
[00:12:38.237](light ambient music)
[00:12:41.287]You can hardly go wrong with a shrub that is beloved
[00:12:44.019]by pollinators, that feeds and shelters wildlife
[00:12:46.977]and can grow just about anyplace.
[00:12:49.518]It'll put on a show in both the spring
[00:12:51.739]with its teensy flowers and in the fall
[00:12:53.957]with that burst of color from all the berries,
[00:12:56.151]which actually last through the winter months.
[00:12:58.649]In past seasons of Lifestyle Gardening we've looked
[00:13:01.657]at both art in the garden, and the garden as art.
[00:13:05.112]For our very first interview this year
[00:13:07.348]we're going to be talking to Lincoln artist Margaret Berry
[00:13:10.387]and hear about how her garden inspires her artwork
[00:13:13.480]and how she incorporates her plant
[00:13:15.546]material into her paintings.
[00:13:17.804](light guitar music)
[00:13:24.615]You might recall that on Backyard Farmer last season
[00:13:27.319]we had a great segment with Margaret Berry
[00:13:29.520]in her own backyard because she uses those materials
[00:13:32.812]as artist in residence for the Lincoln Marriott
[00:13:36.508]Cornhusker Hotel, and she is pretty much one of a kind.
[00:13:40.310]So we are really fortunate to be able to have her
[00:13:42.764]in the studio today and we are going to be talking to her
[00:13:46.057]about exactly how this process works.
[00:13:49.042]So Margaret, describe this whole thing to us.
[00:13:52.542]Well, this process is called encaustic
[00:13:55.506]and it's the use of heated beeswax to create art.
[00:13:59.389]We actually temper the beeswax with tree sap
[00:14:02.101]and add pigment to it to make a paint,
[00:14:05.093]but that's basically what it is, it's hot wax painting.
[00:14:08.640]Okay, you probably have a favorite material
[00:14:11.548]out in the landscape, and we're not talking
[00:14:14.050]about agronomic, what would be that favorite material
[00:14:16.968]and where do you find that one?
[00:14:19.184]I actually do, I find myself
[00:14:21.134]using over and over again,
[00:14:23.119]first of all they have to be dried materials,
[00:14:25.426]so as to actually attach to the wax,
[00:14:28.508]but they would be ginkgo leaves, bittersweet,
[00:14:32.141]hollyhock leaves that have been laced by bugs
[00:14:35.785]is one of my favorite things, and then just all kinds
[00:14:39.082]of found materials that I'll see and just collect,
[00:14:41.840]and that's what makes it fun, it's like a lifelong
[00:14:45.582]adventure to find new materials in the landscape.
[00:14:49.455]You use an awful lot of corn in your work,
[00:14:52.554]and in fact your email has something to do with
[00:14:54.732]that great Nebraska crop, white corn.
[00:14:56.909]What got you started with corn?
[00:14:59.111]Well, I am corn fed,
[00:15:01.001]and having grown up on a corn farm
[00:15:03.991]it was a part of our lives,
[00:15:07.907]and it just seems natural in Nebraska too to focus on corn.
[00:15:11.985]It's such a great icon for our state.
[00:15:14.922]And it's for all kinds of cultures, not just Nebraska,
[00:15:17.981]so I like that ancient connection to a crop like corn,
[00:15:22.009]it's just so rich in symbolism, and the shape,
[00:15:25.738]for an artist, shape, line, texture,
[00:15:28.467]all those things make me enjoy corn as a subject of my art.
[00:15:33.701]Margaret, everything you do is great
[00:15:36.734]with this outdoor stuff and this encaustic method,
[00:15:39.747]but it hangs on walls inside.
[00:15:42.175]Is it possible for any of these pieces to be art
[00:15:45.023]in the garden outdoors, and if so, for how long,
[00:15:47.873]and how would it be protected?
[00:15:50.100]Yes, actually I do hang my own work outside in the summer
[00:15:53.528]partly 'cause I run out of room and so it's very
[00:15:55.788]handy to hang things under the eaves.
[00:15:58.050]The only thing you can't do is hang in direct sun
[00:16:01.088]or they'll droop, (laughs)
[00:16:03.905]not necessarily melt into a puddle at the bottom
[00:16:06.448]of the painting, but they will droop.
[00:16:09.493]So that's the only thing you can't do,
[00:16:11.946]because as you know, beeswax is nature's best,
[00:16:14.546]one of its best preservatives, so it's moisture-proof,
[00:16:18.073]insect proof, in general a great material to have outside
[00:16:23.390]as long as it's protected from the hot sun.
[00:16:26.673]Margaret, we want to thank you so much,
[00:16:28.662]first off, for sharing your garden this summer,
[00:16:30.997]and certainly for sharing your expertise
[00:16:33.045]and your studio this afternoon.
[00:16:35.255](light ambient music) Lots of people love
[00:16:37.743]growing things to eat out of their own backyard,
[00:16:40.203]and who doesn't love spring flowers popping
[00:16:42.858]out of the ground after a long winter?
[00:16:45.329]But your landscape and garden can also inspire you
[00:16:47.692]and they can be a place of refuge from the rat race.
[00:16:51.224]All righty, let's take a few minutes
[00:16:53.423]now to answer our viewer email.
[00:16:55.568]We'd love to hear from you, perhaps you could share
[00:16:58.086]a picture or two with us as well.
[00:17:00.440]Just send us an email to byf@unl.edu.
[00:17:05.060]Our first question comes from a viewer
[00:17:07.719]who sent this in in late October
[00:17:09.977]and it's about collard greens.
[00:17:11.884]We're seeing more of these show up in stores
[00:17:14.188]and certainly at farmer's markets even though a lot of us
[00:17:17.230]consider this sort of a southern dish.
[00:17:20.052]Her question is, what is this white powdery
[00:17:22.991]sort of stuff on the upper surfaces of the leaves.
[00:17:27.015]She said this was a volunteer plant that came up
[00:17:29.816]from a previous collard planting,
[00:17:32.315]and she's seeing this return in her garden.
[00:17:35.165]Powdery mildew is totally different than downy mildew
[00:17:38.658]in terms of both the control and the damage
[00:17:41.902]that it actually does and the conditions that it needs.
[00:17:45.649]And powdery mildew really is going to show up
[00:17:48.718]with cool nights, a little drier air.
[00:17:51.904]Doesn't like to be overhead watered, particularly,
[00:17:56.541]and it is one of those things as well
[00:17:58.811]that you can control if you use a sulfur spray.
[00:18:01.988]You're gonna go ahead and wash that off before you eat them.
[00:18:05.968]You can also do a preventative if absolutely necessary,
[00:18:09.842]but the ideal preventative is to do good sanitation.
[00:18:14.052]The spores of the mildews are going to overwinter,
[00:18:17.354]the powdery mildew in particular in this case
[00:18:19.719]since that is what she has, so what you want
[00:18:22.523]to make sure you do is get rid of all the upper surface,
[00:18:25.515]make sure that your seeds are clean.
[00:18:28.349]If you're gonna till those collards in and under,
[00:18:31.080]all the debris should also be cleaned up around it.
[00:18:34.066]Ideally she would also rotate her crop.
[00:18:37.081]If she has downy mildew we're talking
[00:18:39.570]about a completely different kind of situation
[00:18:42.106]that can actually kill the plants,
[00:18:44.660]so again, sanitation is really one of the best things
[00:18:47.705]you can do, cleanliness, and make sure that you know
[00:18:50.691]which mildew you have to deal with.
[00:18:53.514]Our second question comes from Kearney.
[00:18:56.403]This is a viewer who has a red maple.
[00:18:59.009]The pictures came in late fall,
[00:19:01.481]and there is bark splitting all the way up the trunk,
[00:19:05.008]he first saw this last year, went up into the branches,
[00:19:08.672]and then of course had a thinner
[00:19:10.543]canopy in that tree as well.
[00:19:12.615]We had a lot of questions last year about thin bark trees,
[00:19:15.875]maples and pears in particular
[00:19:17.956]that were blasting their bark.
[00:19:19.943]In this particular instance his question is,
[00:19:22.726]is this tree a goner, should he go ahead
[00:19:25.632]and start over, what can he do about it?
[00:19:28.090]Unfortunately if you look at the damage on this tree
[00:19:31.145]and you also look at the planting conditions
[00:19:33.859]which appear to be a ring of stones and then some soil
[00:19:37.308]that has been added at the base of that tree,
[00:19:40.833]the trunk has been buried, so south southwest facing,
[00:19:44.675]thin bark tree, red maple in Kearney,
[00:19:47.868]probably not the best situation for that to begin with.
[00:19:51.800]I know people like the red fall color on the maples.
[00:19:55.112]Maple are a maple-linden maple-birch plant community.
[00:19:58.934]They like things that are a little bit colder,
[00:20:02.526]they like east and north facing, they don't like
[00:20:04.961]that wind and that winter desiccation.
[00:20:07.425]So our suggestion would really be let's go ahead and take
[00:20:10.403]that tree out rather than trying to give it
[00:20:12.640]a little bit of emergency care
[00:20:14.767]and start over with something that would be
[00:20:16.838]a little bit more appropriate for the conditions.
[00:20:20.961]Our third question is fun, we don't know where
[00:20:24.285]this viewer sent this picture from,
[00:20:26.625]but we did have a couple of these late season last year,
[00:20:29.593]and this one again came in late fall.
[00:20:32.437]His question is what in the world is this insect?
[00:20:36.019]It's very large, I think we had a couple
[00:20:38.663]of pictures of this again last season late,
[00:20:41.820]and what this guy is is a wheel bug,
[00:20:44.528]so named for that wheel-like appendage on its back,
[00:20:48.820]if bugs have backs, and it's actually one
[00:20:52.916]of the assassin bugs, monstrous big,
[00:20:55.740]and it gets its name assassin bugs
[00:20:58.314]because that's actually what it does.
[00:21:00.725]It's a beneficial insect, so what it does is it goes after
[00:21:04.729]and it pierces the bodies of pretty much
[00:21:07.320]soft-bodied insects, caterpillars,
[00:21:09.964]aphids, those kinds of things, paralyzes them,
[00:21:13.899]and then within 30 seconds has sort of consumed all
[00:21:17.415]of the good parts out of that poor soft creature.
[00:21:22.730]Now here's the deal, they're beneficial,
[00:21:25.249]they only have one generation during the season,
[00:21:27.784]and they look pretty much the same when they're little.
[00:21:30.314]So they don't go through some sort of a strange
[00:21:33.385]metamorphosis where they're something different.
[00:21:35.795]So little guys get bigger and bigger and bigger
[00:21:38.096]and bigger, they are beneficial as I said,
[00:21:41.293]but their bite is dreadful, if you can call it a bite,
[00:21:44.198]it's actually a pierce, and it is,
[00:21:46.922]according to the people who have been bitten
[00:21:49.471]by an assassin bug, way worse than a wasp sting
[00:21:53.054]and it can last weeks to heal.
[00:21:56.229]So look at a distance, they're solitary and they're shy,
[00:22:00.774]but don't make it mad or it's going to attempt
[00:22:04.275]to assassinate your finger or something like that.
[00:22:08.292]All right, our fourth question has to do with turf,
[00:22:11.840]and dry winter conditions and dry cold
[00:22:15.755]winter conditions in particular.
[00:22:18.300]The question really is, there is a lot of foot traffic
[00:22:22.549]and some tire traffic, whether it is supposed to be
[00:22:26.545]that way or not through the turf, on the frozen turf.
[00:22:30.574]Is this going to be damaging and what can be done about it?
[00:22:34.373]Our recommendation is stay off that turf
[00:22:37.303]if at all possible, we know that's not realistic
[00:22:40.526]in situations where you're out in the yard
[00:22:42.752]or it's a path from one point to another
[00:22:45.231]or it's school grounds or a park,
[00:22:47.786]but ideally at least don't walk in the same path
[00:22:50.966]or drive in the same path when that turf is frozen
[00:22:54.023]and when it does not have a cover of snow
[00:22:56.682]to help insulate the crowns.
[00:22:58.583]The issue with that, with stepping on it
[00:23:00.814]in frozen conditions, or driving on it,
[00:23:03.367]is those crowns can be pretty significantly damaged
[00:23:06.884]and then the recovery in the spring may take
[00:23:09.639]a lot longer, if it recovers at all.
[00:23:12.387]So again, cautionary note is stay on the paths
[00:23:15.239]that hopefully have been plowed
[00:23:17.194]as opposed to walking on that turf that has been frozen.
[00:23:21.316]For our final feature today we're going to help you
[00:23:24.499]with a common problem, tall ornamental grasses,
[00:23:27.808]asters and sedums can put on quite a show in the late fall,
[00:23:31.646]but they can also be susceptible to flopping.
[00:23:35.339]There are a few reasons for this issue
[00:23:37.339]and most of them are preventable.
[00:23:39.620](upbeat music)
[00:23:47.091]You know, we choose and place plants
[00:23:48.899]in our landscapes for their aesthetic qualities
[00:23:51.139]and we want them to behave certain ways.
[00:23:53.682]Sometimes a lot of fuzz and a lot of flop
[00:23:56.071]is really appropriate, in other situations
[00:23:58.705]we want them to be a little bit better managed.
[00:24:01.531]We're gonna talk a little bit today about how
[00:24:03.928]to manage those plants that flop and discuss
[00:24:06.714]which ones tend to flop the most.
[00:24:09.311]I want to start with grasses, whether they are ornamental
[00:24:12.383]grasses or many of our natives, such as the little bluestem.
[00:24:16.140]This is a perfect example of one of the grasses
[00:24:19.127]that flops if a couple of different conditions exist.
[00:24:22.807]First off, knowing that this plant likes sun
[00:24:25.967]and likes it dry would suggest that its growth habit
[00:24:29.078]is going to be different if you put it in a situation
[00:24:32.230]where it gets a little bit too much shade
[00:24:35.120]and a little bit or a lot too much water.
[00:24:37.658]That causes the top growth to be heavy,
[00:24:40.158]the plant falls over, we no longer have it contributing
[00:24:43.175]to the landscape in the ways in which we wanted it.
[00:24:46.294]Same thing will happen with our switch grasses,
[00:24:48.746]our native lovegrass, and even to a lesser extent
[00:24:52.776]some of our other ornamental grasses.
[00:24:55.787]We don't typically expect balloon flowers
[00:24:58.389]to be one of those plants that flops,
[00:25:00.934]but again, given conditions that might include
[00:25:03.368]too much water during a certain season and damage
[00:25:06.986]to the crowns, in this case probably vole damage,
[00:25:10.303]what happens is the base of that plant becomes weakened,
[00:25:13.828]the top is really really heavy,
[00:25:16.136]and the plant begins to fall over.
[00:25:18.294]Asters and sneezeweed or Helen's Flower
[00:25:20.882]are other examples of plants that may have
[00:25:23.718]such topheavy growth when they're in flower,
[00:25:26.654]especially if they have an unbranched stem,
[00:25:29.230]that unless you manage them properly,
[00:25:31.811]they may flop during the season
[00:25:33.655]and open up in the center as well.
[00:25:36.062]Plants that have been in place too long
[00:25:38.427]may actually exhaust their environment
[00:25:40.635]and they flop along the edges
[00:25:43.134]because the center is completely died out.
[00:25:45.655]Siberian iris is one example, sedums will do the same thing.
[00:25:49.894]So what exactly do we do about these plants
[00:25:52.356]that want to flop or lodge, whether
[00:25:54.337]it is genetics, environmental, or age?
[00:25:57.352]We have some options available to us,
[00:25:59.836]the first of those is to look at the environment
[00:26:02.464]and make sure that you have selected
[00:26:04.496]a plant for its growing conditions,
[00:26:06.576]or modify those conditions.
[00:26:08.668]Stop watering if it's a plant
[00:26:10.569]that really doesn't want water.
[00:26:12.410]If the landscape has changed over time and you have
[00:26:14.781]too much shade for plants that are going to flop in shade,
[00:26:18.107]move the plants, prune the tree if you need to do that.
[00:26:22.150]If the plant is old, go ahead and divide,
[00:26:25.178]dig and divide at the proper time, making sure
[00:26:28.302]that you take good pieces of the old plant,
[00:26:30.803]again, put those into the right environment.
[00:26:33.557]You can also pinch or cut back
[00:26:35.725]by a third for certain plants.
[00:26:38.017]Sedum is one of those that if you cut it back
[00:26:40.441]by about a third during the early part of the summer,
[00:26:44.518]it will actually stay shorter,
[00:26:46.922]bloom a little bit closer down into the crown
[00:26:49.689]of the plant and won't get those topheavy floppy stems.
[00:26:53.068]One of the main things to understand however
[00:26:55.559]is there are certain perennials that if you do cut them
[00:26:57.706]back like that they're not going to branch and bloom.
[00:27:00.646]And of course the other option is to go ahead and cage.
[00:27:04.064]And the beauty of caging, if you do it early
[00:27:06.630]in the season, and again, if those environmental
[00:27:08.917]conditions are correct, is that the cage sits,
[00:27:11.951]the plant grows through it, everything really looks
[00:27:14.717]the way you want it to look, and you haven't had
[00:27:17.189]to deal with cutting or moving those plants.
[00:27:20.768](upbeat music)
[00:27:23.977]Garden chores like this might not be a whole lot of fun
[00:27:27.540]but they really can mean the difference between
[00:27:29.938]healthier vibrant plants during the growing season
[00:27:32.179]or plants that die out altogether.
[00:27:34.759]Try to understand what those plants need,
[00:27:37.354]where they're growing, and whether they're going to need
[00:27:39.500]help standing tall in the cold.
[00:27:41.925]Thank you so much for joining us
[00:27:44.417]again for Lifestyle Gardening.
[00:27:46.643]Next time we'll be taking a look at growing hops
[00:27:49.303]in Nebraska, and we'll interview a local brewer.
[00:27:52.540]Don't forget to check us out on Facebook,
[00:27:55.251]YouTube and Twitter.
[00:27:56.686]So good afternoon, good gardening,
[00:27:58.862]thanks for watching, we'll see you all
[00:28:00.769]next time on Lifestyle Gardening.
[00:28:03.367](light ambient music)

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