Lifestyle Gardening 505a

Brad Mills Author

02/09/2018 Added

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Lifestyle Gardening Program 505 reboot

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[00:00:05.267](beeps)
[00:00:15.407](upbeat music)
[00:00:38.790]Hello everyone, and welcome
[00:00:40.160]to another episode of Lifestyle Gardening.
[00:00:42.270]I'm Kim Todd.
[00:00:43.202]On today's program, we're going to be taking a look
[00:00:45.690]at an urban rainwater conservation program,
[00:00:48.092]we're gonna hear about some pumpkin growing tips,
[00:00:51.240]and we'll have some fun identifying caterpillars.
[00:00:54.300]Let's start our show by going out west
[00:00:56.510]to see some fantastic ornamentals.
[00:00:59.100]We're joined by Amy Seiler from the Nebraska Forest Service
[00:01:02.023]as she shows us some beautiful plants that thrive
[00:01:05.020]in the hot, dry weather of western Nebraska.
[00:01:08.541](instrumental country music)
[00:01:14.380]We are out here in beautiful western Nebraska
[00:01:17.580]on a brisk fall day,
[00:01:19.890]enjoying the final colors of the landscape.
[00:01:22.680]We're right at the base
[00:01:23.780]of the Scotts Bluff national monument,
[00:01:25.744]and we are in a great plants demonstration garden.
[00:01:30.700]And what we have here today are just
[00:01:32.697]the beautiful final colors of fall.
[00:01:36.290]Beautiful asters, grasses, and shrubs that give
[00:01:42.480]that exclamation point to the end of the season.
[00:01:45.810]Today we're going to talk about some of the textures
[00:01:49.170]and colors to wrap up the season and take us into fall.
[00:01:52.379]In front of us we have beautiful fall asters.
[00:01:57.300]This variety is October skies.
[00:02:01.070]Great upright form, super color,
[00:02:04.850]has this magnificent structure to it
[00:02:09.000]that really adds to the landscape.
[00:02:12.670]It's been a wonderful pollinator all throughout the fall
[00:02:15.460]for the many painted ladies that have traveled through.
[00:02:20.410]In front of me, we also have
[00:02:23.150]this fascinating textural plant.
[00:02:26.330]This is called wild senna.
[00:02:28.451]And this first blooms this beautiful yellow flower,
[00:02:34.060]late summer, and then puts on this extremely beautiful show
[00:02:38.529]of seed pods all throughout the winter.
[00:02:42.928]I'll tell you, this fall splash is interesting,
[00:02:46.050]but check this plant out in the winter time
[00:02:49.050]with a little bit of frost on these pods,
[00:02:51.680]and it's just something to look at all year long.
[00:02:55.184]In the garden over here, not only do we have
[00:02:58.300]great seed heads but we also have
[00:03:00.477]wonderful silver foliage color coming off
[00:03:04.720]of the Mongolian caragana.
[00:03:06.692]This is such an interesting upright tea shrub.
[00:03:12.410]And it has this great silver foliage that is very exciting
[00:03:17.950]to look at, particularly in the fall with the backdrop
[00:03:21.181]of the grasses and the flowers.
[00:03:26.444]Behind me is another one of these
[00:03:30.210]really interesting upright grasses.
[00:03:33.270]This is north wind switchgrass.
[00:03:36.406]It has a really unique upright form.
[00:03:40.630]It reminds me of soldiers standing at attention.
[00:03:44.210]And this is one of these ornamental grasses,
[00:03:47.310]if you don't have a lot of space in your landscape,
[00:03:50.660]you can utilize this plant and it should do well.
[00:03:54.870]Fall is one of my favorite times of the year,
[00:03:58.090]particularly to do design work in the gardens.
[00:04:01.410]I love all the different textures and colors,
[00:04:04.820]and this garden has plenty of that kind of interest.
[00:04:07.989]Right in front of me, we have this fantastic rabbitbrush.
[00:04:12.469]This plant looks great in the summer,
[00:04:14.750]it's got a beautiful golden yellow flower in late August,
[00:04:18.430]but my favorite attribute of this plant is this wonderful
[00:04:22.340]seed head that it puts on late in the fall.
[00:04:25.300]I love its showiness, but what I particularly love
[00:04:28.498]is what the seed head looks like
[00:04:31.010]when it's back lit by the sunlight.
[00:04:33.480]It's one of my favorite plants in the garden.
[00:04:36.383]Next to me, down here, is this totally different texture
[00:04:41.770]from the rabbitbrush.
[00:04:43.580]This is plains muhly grass,
[00:04:45.890]and I love this soft, fuzzy texture.
[00:04:49.990]I love the yellow colors mixed with the green.
[00:04:53.210]It's just a soft plant, and what I really love,
[00:04:56.910]and you can see it on a day like today,
[00:04:58.730]is how it moves in the wind.
[00:05:01.110]It doesn't move, it dances.
[00:05:03.100]And that's one of my favorite qualities
[00:05:05.050]about this particular plant.
[00:05:07.709]In front of me, we have this great little bluestem.
[00:05:13.540]And I love the texture of the seed head, but what has
[00:05:17.680]that great pizzazz is this great red fall color.
[00:05:22.575]Most of these plants do very well with very minimal water,
[00:05:28.830]and that's what's so beneficial
[00:05:30.380]about this garden demonstration,
[00:05:32.107]is this garden is only watered very periodically
[00:05:35.788]throughout the summer, maybe,
[00:05:38.340]like this summer, it only got watered
[00:05:42.140]probably two or three times during our July month
[00:05:46.800]that did not have a lot of moisture.
[00:05:49.753]These plants perform best with actually
[00:05:53.950]very limited fertilization and very limited water.
[00:05:57.960]If they get too much of either of those,
[00:06:00.260]they will grow too tall and flop,
[00:06:02.610]and we won't have this great form or color
[00:06:05.176]so that we can enjoy it in the fall.
[00:06:10.250]The great thing about those plants is that
[00:06:12.100]they'll put on when they're blooming in the summer,
[00:06:14.450]and as we've just seen,
[00:06:15.650]they have some wonderful qualities during the late fall
[00:06:18.390]and through the winter.
[00:06:19.370]And as Amy said, after they're established,
[00:06:21.770]they'll tolerate droughty conditions.
[00:06:24.690]We've tried to give beginning gardeners some basic ideas
[00:06:27.560]about growing plants the right way
[00:06:29.250]with our Go Gardening features.
[00:06:31.380]This week, we thought we'd try
[00:06:32.610]something fun like growing pumpkins.
[00:06:35.050]They're relatively easy to grow if you follow
[00:06:37.500]a few simple rules.
[00:06:38.845]Let's take a few minutes to hear about what it takes
[00:06:41.400]to have pumpkins ready for Thanksgiving pie or Halloween.
[00:06:47.495](instrumental music)
[00:06:52.690]For this week's Go Gardening series for beginning gardeners,
[00:06:55.420]I thought we'd focus on how to grow pumpkins.
[00:06:57.926]We have a lot of really great commercial pumpkin growers
[00:07:01.390]in the state, this is for you home gardeners
[00:07:03.990]who don't necessarily want two or three or five acres,
[00:07:06.440]you'd just like to plant a hill or two,
[00:07:08.550]or if you really do have some space, maybe a row or two.
[00:07:11.910]Here's the deal about pumpkins.
[00:07:13.417]They absolutely can't stand the cold temperatures,
[00:07:17.160]and that means soil temps.
[00:07:19.021]So ideally you're going to direct seed your pumpkins
[00:07:22.478]when the soil temps are at least 70 degrees and holding,
[00:07:27.104]higher is way better.
[00:07:29.600]They much prefer full sun,
[00:07:31.440]but they will actually tolerate light shade,
[00:07:33.920]and one of the great ways, actually, to grow them
[00:07:36.103]in larger areas is pumpkin vines running along under corn,
[00:07:41.170]if you have sweet corn or field corn.
[00:07:43.414]Direct seeding, as I said, is best,
[00:07:46.220]if you really want to, or you have short season
[00:07:48.480]or a long day length or a long season length pumpkin
[00:07:52.810]that you're trying to grow, you can start them indoors.
[00:07:55.660]You don't want to disturb the roots.
[00:07:58.140]Ideally you will do them in a hill.
[00:08:00.690]The hill does a couple of things.
[00:08:02.300]And that would be, first off,
[00:08:04.410]it gives you good drainage,
[00:08:05.950]the soil will warm up a little bit faster,
[00:08:08.820]allows those vines, or even the bush type,
[00:08:11.200]to kind of have their own space.
[00:08:12.966]You plant three to five seeds in a hill,
[00:08:15.711]once they emerge, you cut off the ones that you don't want,
[00:08:20.620]leaving only about two.
[00:08:22.250]You don't want to dig them up,
[00:08:23.290]because again those roots are shallow,
[00:08:25.030]and they really resent disturbance.
[00:08:27.153]They are heavy feeders.
[00:08:29.140]Ideally you will have amended the soil to begin with.
[00:08:31.780]First off, you know what your soil has in it.
[00:08:34.130]You've done that soil test.
[00:08:35.467]Great amendments include well composted manure
[00:08:38.830]or compost itself.
[00:08:40.419]Just build that into that hill
[00:08:42.360]or into that row to begin with.
[00:08:44.450]Once those pumpkins emerge, you're going to want to
[00:08:47.510]make sure that you apply fertilizer at the right times.
[00:08:50.790]And again, you can side dress with compost or manure.
[00:08:53.920]We want a high N-fertilizer early on.
[00:08:57.291]As they're putting on their foliage,
[00:08:59.349]we want to kick over to a phosphorus,
[00:09:01.580]a higher phosphorus level when they're flowering.
[00:09:04.627]Also, one of the things about growing pumpkins
[00:09:07.585]and actually getting them to fruit is you may want
[00:09:10.890]to consider row covers before they start flowering.
[00:09:13.870]And that will help keep out all of those insects,
[00:09:16.320]or most of those insects, that really can cause problems
[00:09:18.469]with a pumpkin crop, whether it is squash vine borer,
[00:09:22.500]which is a terrible one,
[00:09:23.650]cucumber beetles, those kinds of things.
[00:09:26.010]You want to remove those row covers
[00:09:27.660]so the bees can come in and pollinate.
[00:09:29.612]These are absolutely a bee-pollinated plant.
[00:09:32.617]And one of the things we get questions on, is
[00:09:36.000]my pumpkins flowered, but then the flowers fell off
[00:09:39.050]and I didn't get any pumpkins.
[00:09:40.244]Almost always, early in the flowering season, what you get
[00:09:45.432]is you get almost exclusively male flowers first.
[00:09:49.610]They don't last very long, they fall off.
[00:09:51.709]So, once conditions are right, the females start,
[00:09:54.557]the male flowers are there, the bees are flying,
[00:09:57.012]you get some pumpkins.
[00:09:58.723]Now to keep the vines from spreading all over the place
[00:10:02.220]and then put that energy back into developing the fruit,
[00:10:05.688]pinch off the tip of that vine
[00:10:07.530]once you have enough fruits set on the vine.
[00:10:09.930]And again, then the vines will stop trailing.
[00:10:13.025]You want to make sure that as the season progresses
[00:10:16.090]you really scout for those insects.
[00:10:18.053]Ideally, with the pumpkins, you will turn them
[00:10:21.220]or flip them very, very carefully, don't injure the stem.
[00:10:24.840]Don't injure the vines.
[00:10:26.400]You can slide a piece of plastic or mesh under them
[00:10:29.490]so they don't get dirty.
[00:10:31.460]You let them harden off completely, really,
[00:10:33.820]before you harvest them,
[00:10:36.950]and you take as much stem as possible when you do
[00:10:39.350]because they're going to last longer when you bring them in.
[00:10:42.040]Tons and tons of different varieties of pumpkins.
[00:10:44.248]They will cross-pollinate, so I collect pumpkin seeds,
[00:10:49.188]and I have them labeled for the pumpkin that I smashed
[00:10:52.495]to get them out of, and I have no idea
[00:10:55.045]whether this year when I plant my pumpkins
[00:10:57.530]I'm actually going to get small warty thing,
[00:11:00.294]or I'm going to get something
[00:11:01.930]that looks like an alien beast.
[00:11:07.750]Of course, you don't have to wonder what sort of pumpkin
[00:11:10.170]you're going to get at the end of the season
[00:11:11.870]if you buy those seeds at the garden center,
[00:11:13.884]but collecting seeds, planting them again next season,
[00:11:16.910]is part of the fun of gardening.
[00:11:19.310]You might think in the dead of winter
[00:11:20.790]that your trees really don't require any attention at all.
[00:11:23.868]What went into the fall and winter is probably going
[00:11:26.126]to come right back out in the spring the same, correct?
[00:11:29.345]Well, we know that Nebraska winters can be quite harsh.
[00:11:32.902]Your trees can't go inside to warm up
[00:11:35.440]or keep consistent temperatures.
[00:11:37.407]So for this week's landscape lesson,
[00:11:39.490]we're going to show you what those extreme temperatures
[00:11:42.100]and sunscald can do to your trees.
[00:11:45.882](upbeat instrumental music)
[00:11:51.340]We get an awful lot of questions on Backyard Farmer
[00:11:53.690]about cracks in tree trunks,
[00:11:55.630]so I thought for this week's Landscape Lesson
[00:11:57.620]we'd talk a little bit about how they can form
[00:11:59.735]and what you can do about them.
[00:12:02.000]This is an example of what we see in the landscape,
[00:12:05.125]and we sort of use the words sunscald and frost crack
[00:12:08.970]in the same sentence, in the same tone of voice
[00:12:12.010]for the same trees.
[00:12:13.610]So let's talk about sunscald first.
[00:12:16.200]This is almost always on the south and west
[00:12:18.630]or southwest sides of a thin-barked or a young tree.
[00:12:22.300]What happens is that side of the trunk can warm up
[00:12:26.288]20 degrees even warmer than the north side
[00:12:30.030]in these nice winter days.
[00:12:32.710]Temperatures drop at night, all of the sap, that has risen,
[00:12:37.305]and that bark shrinks back again, and scald occurs.
[00:12:41.790]And there's damage, often, to the cambian layer,
[00:12:45.268]and what happens then is you get this wounding
[00:12:49.010]or this opening up.
[00:12:50.120]Sunscald occurs on specific species,
[00:12:53.120]but as I said, it also can occur on thin bark trees.
[00:12:57.170]Frost crack is essentially the same sort of damage
[00:13:01.130]in a slightly different way.
[00:13:02.788]Typically, on the same side of the tree,
[00:13:04.990]those abrupt temperature drops, but what happens is,
[00:13:08.806]scientists believe that the moisture or the water moves
[00:13:12.120]out of cells and then, because of the pressure between,
[00:13:16.900]or the tension between, the outer bark and the inner bark,
[00:13:20.720]you get this, basically, explosion.
[00:13:23.060]And you can actually hear a frost crack
[00:13:25.360]when it is severe enough.
[00:13:26.960]Now frost cracks can close and reopen, close and reopen,
[00:13:30.994]over time for years and years.
[00:13:33.430]You'll see a frost crack as big as my hand,
[00:13:36.370]and then, jeez, at the end of the summer,
[00:13:39.130]or during the growing season, it has closed back up,
[00:13:41.737]opens back up again.
[00:13:44.060]What you also can see is the formation
[00:13:46.870]of that callus tissue along the edges.
[00:13:49.138]With sunscald you see the same sort of thing happen,
[00:13:52.270]with the callus tissue.
[00:13:53.930]Either of those can be really, really good places
[00:13:57.560]for insects, pests, and diseases to enter.
[00:14:00.308]So, treatment or management, the ideal thing
[00:14:04.020]is to go ahead and wrap those trunks
[00:14:06.036]with a light-reflecting, heat-reflecting material,
[00:14:09.810]something that is light so that
[00:14:11.460]you don't get that abrupt change in temperature.
[00:14:14.270]Take that wrap off so you don't get
[00:14:16.710]pests and diseases underneath it in the spring.
[00:14:20.230]The other thing that some people do,
[00:14:21.740]and this is particularly true in orchards,
[00:14:23.331]is they will take thinned latex-based white paint
[00:14:28.120]and just paint the trunk.
[00:14:29.910]And that does exactly the same thing,
[00:14:31.740]it keeps those temperatures from fluctuating.
[00:14:34.400]So one of the best things you can do
[00:14:36.430]is make sure you know what you're looking at
[00:14:38.618]before you make a decision to do some treatment
[00:14:42.120]that really wouldn't work for either
[00:14:43.800]a frost crack or a sunscald.
[00:14:47.860]It's just as important for you to take care of your trees
[00:14:50.323]going into the winter as it is
[00:14:52.310]when warmer weather comes our way.
[00:14:54.129]If you know what you're looking for
[00:14:55.680]and you do practice some of these tips,
[00:14:57.430]you'll find that your trees will be much more vigorous
[00:14:59.660]and healthy next spring, and they probably won't develop
[00:15:02.104]those sunscalds or those frost cracks.
[00:15:05.880]If it's creepy, crawly, stripey,
[00:15:07.960]fuzzy, or looks like a gummy worm,
[00:15:09.592]you're probably looking at a caterpillar.
[00:15:12.710]Now some of those caterpillars are
[00:15:14.120]really worth keeping around, others
[00:15:16.100]turn into different sorts of creatures.
[00:15:18.510]How do we tell the difference?
[00:15:20.100]For this week's interview, we've asked our bug guy
[00:15:22.330]Jim Kalisch to talk about a few of them,
[00:15:25.100]and to help you know what you're looking at.
[00:15:27.210]Here's Jim to tell us more
[00:15:34.920]I'm really happy to have Jim Kalisch with me today.
[00:15:37.116]We're going to be talking about confusion with caterpillars.
[00:15:40.110]Alright Jim, would you describe the differences
[00:15:42.995]to our audience between monarch caterpillars
[00:15:46.360]and swallowtail caterpillars,
[00:15:48.161]and then of course the adults,
[00:15:49.930]which I think is a little bit easier, but it's
[00:15:51.760]that caterpillar thing that has people all confused.
[00:15:54.890]Yeah, sure I can do that.
[00:15:56.170]It's pretty quick.
[00:15:57.410]You know, one thing that we all have to remember, too,
[00:15:59.100]is host plant, because you're only gonna find
[00:16:02.072]monarch caterpillars on milkweed host plants
[00:16:05.650]and nothing else, exclusively.
[00:16:07.340]So, that caterpillar, of course, is striped,
[00:16:10.770]and black, white, yellowish stripe that go across the body,
[00:16:16.430]and then it has these floppy little tendril things
[00:16:18.960]that stick out toward the front that are black.
[00:16:22.280]And so there's nothing on it otherwise.
[00:16:24.758]Like with the swallowtail caterpillars,
[00:16:28.193]we're gonna find a variation of stripes and spots.
[00:16:32.220]Like the black swallowtail, we have variations of black
[00:16:35.020]and white stripes and yellow spots,
[00:16:36.982]and then there's tiny little tubercles, or projections,
[00:16:39.840]on the top of the body that, if you dare squeeze one of them
[00:16:44.200]it's kind of interesting because this forked, smelly thing
[00:16:47.450]comes out, and it's orange in coloration,
[00:16:50.620]and that's one of the characteristics of that family,
[00:16:53.450]of swallowtails, that's a defense mechanism
[00:16:55.480]because that stuff smells awful.
[00:16:58.500]So, same way with the tiger swallowtail as well.
[00:17:01.370]The tiger swallowtail is really swollen,
[00:17:03.409]greenish, has those eyespots on the front.
[00:17:07.182]But again, when it's disturbed or pressured by the fingers
[00:17:10.910]or whatever, when you pick it up,
[00:17:12.750]out come those osmoteria, which are the name of those
[00:17:15.840]smelly things that come out that are orange.
[00:17:18.570]And then again, with the larvae, or the caterpillars
[00:17:20.910]of the swallowtails, black swallowtails especially,
[00:17:24.250]you're gonna find them all on plants in the carrot family,
[00:17:26.810]so that would mean, like what?
[00:17:28.552]Carrot, dill, anise, cilantro, those kinds of plants.
[00:17:36.900]And so, essentially that's what,
[00:17:40.430]you find them on those plants and they're kind of
[00:17:42.290]a stripe and spotted yellowish attractive caterpillar.
[00:17:45.453]That's what they be, in the swallowtail family,
[00:17:48.470]black swallowtails.
[00:17:49.920]Jim, another one that really has people confused
[00:17:52.250]is the difference between polyphemus, cecropia,
[00:17:55.175]and those darn tomato hornworms.
[00:17:57.600]And that again is both the caterpillars and the adult moths.
[00:18:01.100]So, could you clarify that one for our audiences?
[00:18:03.503]Essentially, now, we start out with the larvae,
[00:18:06.410]or the caterpillars of each, are all going to be green.
[00:18:09.160]You notice that the moths or the adults themselves
[00:18:11.530]are quite different.
[00:18:12.999]So like with cecropia caterpillar, it's large and greenish,
[00:18:17.833]and it has a whole bunch of colorful spiny tubercles
[00:18:21.760]all over its body as protection, so they would be
[00:18:23.862]red, blue, yellow color, in that kind of color.
[00:18:28.910]So, prickly, hard to touch and very large.
[00:18:31.670]And you'd find this on a number of different plants.
[00:18:33.580]We think apple, we think about lilac
[00:18:37.300]and other kinds of related plants.
[00:18:39.850]Alright, where polyphemus, it's a beautiful
[00:18:42.390]iridescent green, and it has just hairs on its body.
[00:18:46.310]It's a little bit more squat in size, not as long
[00:18:49.820]and not as large.
[00:18:51.700]And so we find that on a number of different kinds
[00:18:54.200]of host trees and shrubs.
[00:18:56.220]Maple and oak are some of the favorites,
[00:18:58.670]as well as dogwood.
[00:19:02.581]And then, obviously, trees and shrubs
[00:19:06.230]for those two large moths, but now
[00:19:08.220]we get down into the hornworms.
[00:19:09.850]Now, they're beautiful, and there are some good ones
[00:19:11.750]in the family, but we often think about the
[00:19:14.690]tomato and tobacco hornworms.
[00:19:16.510]And they're large and greenish.
[00:19:17.928]The host plants for the sphinx moths,
[00:19:21.525]or the tomato hornworm and tobacco hornworm, obviously,
[00:19:23.895]tomato, tobacco, pepper plants, and related types
[00:19:29.060]of vegetable garden crops.
[00:19:30.797]And so, they feed on the same thing,
[00:19:32.780]they look about the same, being large and green,
[00:19:36.920]but there's a distinctive tail,
[00:19:38.780]a very sharp, husky tail on the tip of the abdomen
[00:19:43.220]on the end of the body, and so
[00:19:44.910]they're called hornworms, obviously,
[00:19:47.130]because they have that horn as well.
[00:19:49.050]And then they have some stripes on the sides.
[00:19:51.720]The tobacco hornworm has just straight stripes,
[00:19:56.425]and then the tomato hornworm has chevron stripes.
[00:20:01.560]So, both, again, large, but remember
[00:20:03.860]that horn on the tip of the body,
[00:20:05.710]and only in the tomato, the nightshade family,
[00:20:08.129]the crops that are in that family.
[00:20:10.660]Alright, in true entomology fashion,
[00:20:13.620]you have actually discovered a live creature,
[00:20:16.891]that is an insect, not a rodent or anything else,
[00:20:19.898]and you have brought that to us.
[00:20:22.357]Can you tell us what this one turns into,
[00:20:24.800]and what's going to happen because you found it alive?
[00:20:27.671]Interesting, yeah.
[00:20:30.080]Essentially what I did was,
[00:20:31.620]this was on Groundhog's Day,
[00:20:33.400]and in entomology world, what do we have?
[00:20:35.794]Don't have groundhogs, but this comes close.
[00:20:39.000]This is the woolly bear caterpillar,
[00:20:41.120]that everybody thinks, that somehow it tells us
[00:20:43.594]how long our winter's gonna be based on
[00:20:46.170]how long that reddish band is in the body.
[00:20:50.140]And this is all pure poppycock, but, you know,
[00:20:52.550]at one time people really believed it.
[00:20:54.940]But essentially, this was alive on Groundhog's Day,
[00:20:57.830]and so I don't know, it could go either way.
[00:20:59.990]We could have six more weeks of snow and cold weather,
[00:21:03.610]or maybe we'll have an earlier spring, I'm not sure.
[00:21:06.760]But, interesting that it's still alive,
[00:21:08.790]it's not hungry.
[00:21:10.830]It's waiting to go somewhere else and hide again
[00:21:14.040]until winter returns, and then it will eat a little bit more
[00:21:16.624]and develop and turn into one of those beautiful
[00:21:18.695]tiger moths that emerge in early spring.
[00:21:26.436]Jim, thanks for sharing
[00:21:27.730]all that great identification information with us.
[00:21:30.003]We'll look forward to more on Backyard Farmer this spring.
[00:21:33.740]Yeah, it's my pleasure to share all this stuff
[00:21:35.860]in advance of the coming spring and summer,
[00:21:38.152]when all those butterflies and moths are everywhere.
[00:21:44.040]Sometimes the good guys will be eating up plants
[00:21:46.260]in your garden that you really want to keep.
[00:21:48.610]Let them stick around and eat, and hopefully
[00:21:50.790]you'll have enough produce
[00:21:52.020]that it won't bother you that much.
[00:21:53.869]After what you've seen on the segment,
[00:21:55.810]you'll be better equipped to know who's a friend,
[00:21:58.610]what to identify, who is who, who turns into what,
[00:22:01.540]and who needs to go bother somebody else's garden.
[00:22:05.470]Alrighty, let's take a few minutes to answer
[00:22:07.520]your email questions.
[00:22:08.890]You can submit those questions and the jpeg pictures
[00:22:11.361]via email to byf@unl.edu
[00:22:15.970]Our first question comes from a Lincoln viewer.
[00:22:18.300]And we've answered this before,
[00:22:20.330]maybe even this winter on this show,
[00:22:22.230]but it is showing up again.
[00:22:24.090]So, this is a viewer that has all this damage
[00:22:27.720]high in the branches of maples, in this case.
[00:22:30.527]She's wondering what happened, what caused it.
[00:22:33.550]Is it going to cause the branches to die?
[00:22:35.647]How can she avoid this happening in the future?
[00:22:38.242]This would be our beloved squirrels,
[00:22:41.210]or tree rats as some people call them,
[00:22:43.206]that are chewing off all the bark on those maple trees.
[00:22:47.578]And what they're after is a couple of things.
[00:22:50.330]Perhaps it is nutrients under the bark,
[00:22:52.472]perhaps it is sharpening of their incisors
[00:22:55.600]and stripping of the bark.
[00:22:57.351]Unfortunately, every branch that is
[00:23:00.760]completely devoid of bark is now a former branch
[00:23:04.680]from the point of the damage out.
[00:23:06.830]So, you need to get that pruned out
[00:23:09.120]in the spring of the year, early is better than later.
[00:23:12.743]They'll break other buds along those stems
[00:23:15.415]if they're high in the crowns of the trees.
[00:23:17.630]And we've seen this a lot in elm, in maple,
[00:23:21.830]that are maybe ten or 20 inches, even 20 inches in diameter.
[00:23:25.373]Way high in the crown you're going to get
[00:23:27.310]some new tufted growth, potentially.
[00:23:29.531]Knowing, again, that squirrels are creatures of habit.
[00:23:33.250]They may come back and do the same thing over again,
[00:23:35.740]so the damage can really be severe in certain winters,
[00:23:40.020]and this looks like it's one of those winters.
[00:23:43.130]Nebraska's most precious resource is water,
[00:23:45.709]and we've seen what a lack of water can do
[00:23:47.980]in our communities in recent times of drought.
[00:23:50.327]A lot of cities and towns across the state have made
[00:23:53.060]a conscious effort to collect and reuse rainwater
[00:23:55.690]in urban settings.
[00:23:57.280]As we wrap up today's program,
[00:23:58.840]we're going to hear from Amy Seiler again.
[00:24:00.719]She's going to show us what one town in western Nebraska
[00:24:04.110]is doing to conserve and reuse rainwater.
[00:24:07.022](upbeat music)
[00:24:13.210]Urban storm water can be very difficult to control,
[00:24:16.083]but there are a few solutions that are very helpful,
[00:24:19.700]particularly for homeowners and for municipalities.
[00:24:24.084]One solution to capturing some of this rainwater
[00:24:27.710]and filtering out pollutants and particulates
[00:24:29.949]is capturing that water in a rain garden.
[00:24:33.619]I'm down here in downtown Scotts Bluff,
[00:24:36.670]and I am in one of the city of Scotts Bluff's
[00:24:39.180]storm water departments demonstration gardens.
[00:24:41.815]And it is a perfect example of how to
[00:24:45.640]capture storm water off a large parking lot,
[00:24:48.093]pull that water into a landscape bed,
[00:24:51.370]and have the plants be the working infrastructure
[00:24:54.620]that captures that water and filters it
[00:24:58.440]before it goes into our rivers.
[00:25:00.196]Plant selection is very important
[00:25:02.710]in order for your rain garden to be successful.
[00:25:04.929]In the bottom of this rain garden, we have sedges.
[00:25:08.170]This is a plant that's very tolerant
[00:25:10.250]of high moisture conditions, but,
[00:25:12.527]in our hot summer months of July and August
[00:25:15.150]when it's not raining, these plants actually do very well
[00:25:18.610]with limited water as well.
[00:25:20.887]When you're planning your rain garden,
[00:25:24.245]you also want to have plants that are very drought tolerant
[00:25:26.330]to be along the edges.
[00:25:27.854]Behind me, I have catmint and yarrow.
[00:25:32.950]These are two plants that are
[00:25:34.390]very tolerant of dry conditions.
[00:25:36.636]Behind me, I have switchgrass and little bluestem,
[00:25:41.650]and switchgrass will tolerate moisture or limited moisture,
[00:25:48.034]and little bluestem would prefer to be on the edges
[00:25:51.152]where you don't need to think about watering it often.
[00:25:55.800]Another great way to manage urban storm water
[00:25:59.000]is to utilize a bioswale to capture and claim that water.
[00:26:03.407]Behind me is a wonderful functioning bioswale.
[00:26:07.870]We're at the Scotts Bluff public library,
[00:26:09.960]where we have another demonstration garden
[00:26:12.043]showcasing how to capture storm water and clean it
[00:26:16.260]before it goes into the storm drains.
[00:26:18.657]Bioswales are not just specific plants that are beautiful,
[00:26:23.950]but a group of plants working together
[00:26:26.046]to produce a filter for that water.
[00:26:30.710]What we like to use in bioswales
[00:26:33.307]is plants with very deep roots.
[00:26:35.850]And behind me you see lots of native prairie plants.
[00:26:39.090]We utilize these plants because they develop
[00:26:42.060]these intense root systems which open up the soil structure
[00:26:45.347]and help filter that water.
[00:26:47.955]Also, it catches a lot of debris before it goes
[00:26:52.330]into the inlet which is at the base of this bioswale.
[00:26:57.976]There are many beautiful plants that you can incorporate
[00:27:01.170]into these gardens, but be sure that you think about
[00:27:03.945]if the plants want to be sitting in water
[00:27:06.600]or if they want to be a little bit high and dry.
[00:27:09.060]You can use both of these types of plants,
[00:27:11.253]you just want to use them in groups and make sure
[00:27:15.040]that you have a lot of diversity in your garden.
[00:27:19.560]It really isn't that difficult to make a few changes
[00:27:22.140]here and there to use rainwater more efficiently,
[00:27:24.519]either in your community or just in your home landscape.
[00:27:27.912]Rain gardens, bioswales, and drought-resistant native plants
[00:27:31.580]are not only a smart way to conserve water,
[00:27:34.130]they can also be quite beautiful in any setting.
[00:27:37.074]Thank you so much for joining us again
[00:27:39.990]for Lifestyle Gardening.
[00:27:41.560]For our final program of 2018, we're going to be looking at
[00:27:44.840]pruning yews and junipers, controlling squash bug pests,
[00:27:48.455]and we'll interview a landscape design expert.
[00:27:51.365]Don't forget to check us out
[00:27:52.880]on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
[00:27:54.680]Good afternoon, good gardening.
[00:27:57.090]Thanks for watching.
[00:27:58.180]We'll see you all next time on Lifestyle Gardening.
[00:28:01.085](light instrumental music)

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