Lifestyle Gardening 506

Brad Mills Author

02/14/2018 Added

17 Plays

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Backyard Farmer Presents: Lifestyle Gardening 506

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[00:00:15.522](light upbeat music)
[00:00:38.322]Hello everyone and welcome to Lifestyle Gardening,
[00:00:41.890]I'm Kim Todd and on today's show,
[00:00:43.031]we'll be showing you how to use tall and skinny plants,
[00:00:46.087]how to grow succulents successfully
[00:00:48.498]and we'll be looking at how to control squash pests.
[00:00:52.080]Let's start our program with some good pruning advice.
[00:00:55.320]Junipers and yews make good landscape plants,
[00:00:57.386]but sometimes they need a little attention
[00:00:59.239]from the pruning shears.
[00:01:01.157]Here's Backyard Farmer panelist, Jeff Culbertson
[00:01:03.820]to help us decide where and when to cut.
[00:01:07.310](light upbeat music)
[00:01:12.176]After we get through the better part of the winter,
[00:01:14.853]one of the things we start looking at
[00:01:16.650]is doing some pruning around our landscape,
[00:01:19.940]there's a couple of things to keep in mind,
[00:01:21.500]when doing pruning,
[00:01:22.890]the first thing is we wanna make sure
[00:01:23.977]that we don't jump the gun on it,
[00:01:26.308]we wanna let the worst part of the winter get through,
[00:01:28.530]before we do much in the way of pruning to our evergreens
[00:01:30.827]or deciduous shrubs and trees.
[00:01:34.920]As you go through, do some pruning on plants,
[00:01:37.380]you create little wounds as you do that work
[00:01:40.640]and that just kind of opens the plant up to desiccation,
[00:01:44.100]drying out because of the lower humidity, the wind,
[00:01:48.056]you know, even in the wintertime, it warms up, cools down,
[00:01:50.930]so that just kind of draws more moisture out of the plant,
[00:01:52.970]so that's one of the things we wanna think about,
[00:01:54.803]that could cause additional damage to the plants.
[00:01:58.246]If you're thinking about doing pruning very early,
[00:02:02.040]you may stimulate growth and that's why you wanna avoid
[00:02:05.115]pruning too early in the fall,
[00:02:06.653]we wanna make sure that we've gotten through that winter
[00:02:09.740]and into the last half of the winter, early part of spring,
[00:02:13.330]so normally when we do substantial pruning to plants,
[00:02:16.359]we're gonna look at doing things into February,
[00:02:20.190]first part of March, into April before we have bud break.
[00:02:25.350]So once we've got to that time of year,
[00:02:27.382]one of the things that we wanna look at,
[00:02:29.010]especially with our evergreens, junipers and yews,
[00:02:31.550]let's take those two and maybe even your boxwood
[00:02:35.940]is making sure that we don't get too ambitious
[00:02:39.003]in our pruning, these plants many times
[00:02:41.344]don't recover very well from heavy pruning,
[00:02:44.200]so if you have a smaller plant,
[00:02:45.656]it's something that you wanna do a little bit
[00:02:47.630]every early spring, late winter
[00:02:50.730]and keep the plant the size you wanna keep it,
[00:02:52.374]you don't wanna allow it to get too large too quickly,
[00:02:55.770]because you'll open up what's kind of called the dead zone
[00:02:58.700]in the middle of the plant
[00:02:59.533]and you don't wanna cut into that,
[00:03:01.038]because you'll expose holes in some areas,
[00:03:05.106]that don't have live needles or leaves in it.
[00:03:08.706]So we're looking at something like this,
[00:03:10.621]we'll come through and we'll prune this back
[00:03:14.250]and I'll try to make my cut, so that I'm hiding those,
[00:03:17.200]so I'm not exposing those cuts
[00:03:18.984]and you won't notice those, as you walk by the plants
[00:03:21.909]and so we'll look at doing that
[00:03:23.490]to kind of get this shaped out a little bit
[00:03:25.699]and keep these plants the size we'd like to keep 'em.
[00:03:29.020]With deciduous shrubs, it's the same idea,
[00:03:31.079]you know, we've talked about before
[00:03:32.850]about caning larger shrubs,
[00:03:34.660]so taking a third of the largest canes out
[00:03:36.990]and again, we're gonna do that before bud break
[00:03:39.611]and it's important that you know when your shrubs flower,
[00:03:42.399]so we wanna avoid pruning
[00:03:45.460]certain shrubs that flower early in the spring,
[00:03:48.920]so those are ones that we may wait
[00:03:50.610]till after flower to do those shrubs,
[00:03:53.330]shrubs that flower later in the summer, those are ones
[00:03:56.038]that we can look at doing a little bit more pruning
[00:03:59.800]in the late winter, early spring.
[00:04:02.870]So as we look around our yard,
[00:04:04.640]we look at some of the plants we have in our yard,
[00:04:06.590]common things like the lilac,
[00:04:08.090]which there are a selection of lilacs out there,
[00:04:11.950]typically those are gonna be
[00:04:13.150]some of our early flowering shrubs,
[00:04:16.260]we generally will recommend that we wait
[00:04:18.480]till after bloom to do some of that work
[00:04:21.700]and so certainly you can wait
[00:04:23.120]till we get into the end of May, early June
[00:04:25.740]to go in and do some of that caning,
[00:04:27.730]if you've noticed a reduction of flowering with lilacs.
[00:04:30.469]If you've already kind of had that issue with the lilacs,
[00:04:33.700]then I would say go in again early before they might bloom
[00:04:37.184]and do some of that work,
[00:04:38.369]sometimes it's easier to work around shrubs,
[00:04:40.128]when they don't have the leaves on,
[00:04:42.046]you kind of see exactly what you have
[00:04:43.671]and kind of get in there and be able to do
[00:04:45.925]some of that work just a little bit more easily.
[00:04:49.049]Laburnums are another one, you know,
[00:04:51.270]with laburnums there are a variety of them
[00:04:54.500]that bloom early in the spring and then later in the summer,
[00:04:56.488]so again, it's knowing which one you have,
[00:04:58.660]remembering when the flowering was,
[00:05:00.370]so you can do some of that work,
[00:05:02.150]but again with some of these bigger shrubs,
[00:05:03.740]sometimes it is easier to get in there with the leaves off
[00:05:06.475]and do some of that work and just better able
[00:05:08.408]to see what you have and get the shape that you want.
[00:05:12.530]You may sacrifice some flowering that first year,
[00:05:15.150]but usually you're rewarded the next year
[00:05:16.475]with a little bit better show from those plants,
[00:05:18.261]because you've taken some of that dead out,
[00:05:20.341]some of that older wood, that isn't blooming
[00:05:23.270]as prolific as newer wood would bloom.
[00:05:25.950]So to kind of bring it all together,
[00:05:27.232]the other things to think about
[00:05:28.344]when we're doing that pruning,
[00:05:30.660]that you could really do any time of the year,
[00:05:32.350]so things we've talked about in the past
[00:05:33.940]and that is if you've got dead branches, broken branches,
[00:05:38.690]you know, particularly on campus,
[00:05:40.411]or if you have a lot of sidewalks around your property,
[00:05:42.901]we're always looking for things
[00:05:44.022]that may be a hazard to pedestrians,
[00:05:46.920]so it's that kind of work that really can be done anytime,
[00:05:49.580]it's not extensive pruning, we're not gonna damage
[00:05:51.924]the plant by doing some of those things,
[00:05:54.150]where some of the things I'm talking about
[00:05:55.676]may be a little bit more comprehensive on the plant
[00:05:58.331]and that's the stuff that we wanna look at doing
[00:06:00.107]at the right time of year.
[00:06:04.080]Timing is always going to be an essential part
[00:06:06.420]of good pruning, just as Jeff said,
[00:06:08.353]but if you see anything broken, rubbing together
[00:06:11.330]or hazards around a sidewalk, it's going to be okay
[00:06:13.938]to take care of those problems any time of the year.
[00:06:18.270]Alright, let's turn our attention
[00:06:19.566]over to growing succulents.
[00:06:21.920]This week our Go Gardening feature
[00:06:23.710]is aimed at beginning gardeners,
[00:06:24.679]who want to take a look at succulent plants,
[00:06:26.902]that can grow in our Nebraska climate.
[00:06:29.700]You may have to stretch your mind a bit
[00:06:31.490]passed thinking about just sedums
[00:06:33.750]to see that there are a myriad of choices,
[00:06:35.378]that will do well here in the state,
[00:06:37.560]especially in containers.
[00:06:39.659](light upbeat music)
[00:06:46.010]For this Go Gardening segment for out beginning gardeners,
[00:06:48.399]we thought we'd talk a little bit about succulents,
[00:06:51.080]either in the garden or in containers,
[00:06:53.320]they are increasing in popularity, certainly not decreasing
[00:06:56.619]and there's some pretty good reasons for that,
[00:06:59.170]they're also not necessarily something
[00:07:01.063]that is gonna be hard to grow,
[00:07:02.950]because they are one of those plants,
[00:07:05.592]that if you set it and you forget it,
[00:07:07.761]you're going to probably have a little bit more success,
[00:07:10.225]than you do if you really baby them to death.
[00:07:13.140]So what we're looking at is a whole bunch
[00:07:16.092]of the different succulents in a very large container
[00:07:19.445]and then some of the little, bitty ones,
[00:07:21.170]that you can actually purchase and use either in containers
[00:07:24.519]or you can set them in the soil
[00:07:26.843]in the garden in the landscape,
[00:07:28.720]if it's hot, if it's dry and more importantly,
[00:07:31.720]if it is really, really well drained.
[00:07:34.440]The ones that are in the big containers
[00:07:36.430]actually started out as these little guys,
[00:07:39.050]five or six or seven or 10 years later,
[00:07:42.080]depending on how fast they grow,
[00:07:44.440]they turn into big, beautiful, wonderful, textural plants,
[00:07:49.140]that add an accent in containers
[00:07:51.210]at the front door, on your patio,
[00:07:54.120]even against a pool or on a table.
[00:07:57.785]One of the things that they do not like
[00:08:00.380]is they do not like shade and in this case,
[00:08:04.490]these live outside all summer long
[00:08:07.220]and what happens with them then is we bring them in,
[00:08:10.331]because we don't wanna throw 'em in the compost pile,
[00:08:13.110]so they start to stretch and they get a little strange
[00:08:15.829]and then we think, okay,
[00:08:17.180]can we make them live through the winter,
[00:08:19.440]we will pinch, we will root some of them
[00:08:21.534]and we will put them back outside, where they belong.
[00:08:24.860]You can almost do this indefinitely
[00:08:26.297]with some of the succulents
[00:08:27.301]and some of them really do get monstrously huge,
[00:08:30.492]people are probably pretty well aware
[00:08:32.920]of jade plant as an example, there's a baby jade
[00:08:35.890]and then of course, there are jade plants,
[00:08:37.624]that are really humongous and just have this great,
[00:08:41.720]craggy, almost a bonsai sort of an appearance.
[00:08:44.940]The little guys, if you'll notice,
[00:08:47.360]they're in these interesting containers,
[00:08:49.700]the container itself of course is not interesting,
[00:08:52.070]but they're in these little bitty containers
[00:08:54.630]and they have this gravel mix,
[00:08:57.150]so there is actually a fertilizer that you can use
[00:09:00.230]to give them some nutrition if necessary,
[00:09:02.910]but it's really that incredibly well-drained situation,
[00:09:06.283]that makes the succulents grow best,
[00:09:08.650]I have a bag of that that you can look at
[00:09:10.830]and again if you look at the differences
[00:09:12.650]in textures and in forms,
[00:09:14.807]some of them are going to bloom beautifully,
[00:09:16.666]you can combine them with cacti,
[00:09:19.840]you can again keep them indefinitely.
[00:09:21.593]We don't have a lot of succulents,
[00:09:23.322]that are the wild and crazy ones,
[00:09:25.960]that will survive outdoors in a garden situation,
[00:09:28.782]they're simply not hardy enough here
[00:09:30.228]and we have too high of humidity
[00:09:32.280]and we have too much moisture oftentimes,
[00:09:34.386]the one that does come to mind of course
[00:09:36.390]is our regular sedums, that are our go to landscape plant
[00:09:40.510]and essentially it's the same sort of thing,
[00:09:42.710]it's the same family, it's the succulent foliage,
[00:09:45.382]that is actually something that does not transpire readily,
[00:09:49.740]holds moisture in almost like the hump on a camel,
[00:09:52.580]only instead this is plant material.
[00:09:55.030]So you have all sorts of options for succulents
[00:09:58.710]in dish gardens, in large containers
[00:10:01.880]mixed in with other annuals or even perennials,
[00:10:04.620]that really have the same sort
[00:10:06.070]of moisture and drainage requirements,
[00:10:08.060]it gives you a beautiful textural landscape in your garden.
[00:10:14.720]As you can see, there are plenty of options
[00:10:16.680]for you to try outside, especially in containers,
[00:10:19.661]check out your local garden center for more ideas
[00:10:22.080]and have some fun with these unusual plants.
[00:10:25.764]For this week's Landscape Lesson,
[00:10:27.136]we're going to show you some innovative ways
[00:10:29.670]to use those tall and skinny plants, grasses come to mind,
[00:10:32.957]but there are other woody options out there,
[00:10:35.264]that will give you the same sort of structure
[00:10:37.590]in the landscape, we'll see a few good ways
[00:10:39.823]to put them to good use around your own home.
[00:10:43.808](light upbeat music)
[00:10:50.543]For this week's Landscape Lesson,
[00:10:51.729]we thought we'd talk about tall or sometimes short,
[00:10:55.400]but most definitely skinny plants,
[00:10:57.485]they definitely have a place in some landscapes,
[00:11:00.200]especially since so many of our smaller properties
[00:11:02.670]now leave us with two feet, three feet,
[00:11:05.370]maybe five feet between one residence and another
[00:11:09.120]or between the property line or against a parking lot,
[00:11:12.430]so you have many, many choices, including overstorey trees,
[00:11:16.790]take for example, prairie sentinel hackberry,
[00:11:19.190]which is about as wide as I am, maybe a little bit wider,
[00:11:22.640]but has a trunk and gets very, very tall,
[00:11:25.028]we have a lot of hybrid oaks,
[00:11:26.562]that have been deliberately selected, bred and then grafted
[00:11:30.820]to be able to have that tall, thin form,
[00:11:33.990]you use them much differently in the landscape,
[00:11:35.620]than you would a big tree
[00:11:36.856]and that would be they are a fence, a living fence,
[00:11:40.431]they are certainly a screen
[00:11:41.637]between your neighbor's prpoerty and yours
[00:11:43.980]or some competing visual use,
[00:11:46.410]they also can definitely be a barrier.
[00:11:48.802]We have a lot of shrubs that are also narrow,
[00:11:51.290]they're a little bit harder to work with sometimes,
[00:11:53.246]because they may not have multiple canes from the base
[00:11:56.415]and that means if you get some damage
[00:11:58.650]or some death in one side,
[00:12:00.294]you're likely to lose the entire shrub,
[00:12:03.990]Hellman's pillar barberry is one
[00:12:05.610]that is very, very narrow and very thorny,
[00:12:08.645]there's one called orange rocket,
[00:12:10.620]which is very narrow, very thorny and very orange
[00:12:14.560]and then we have some upright fernleaf buckthorn,
[00:12:16.759]which we're a little bit cautious about.
[00:12:19.610]We also have a lot of very narrow ornamental grasses
[00:12:23.210]or selections of our natives, those are pretty cool
[00:12:26.750]and they will again go into smaller spaces,
[00:12:28.932]they won't flop open or open up in the snow so much,
[00:12:33.030]standing ovation, a little bluestem
[00:12:34.660]is one of the ones that come to mind.
[00:12:36.780]People love the really narrow evergreens,
[00:12:39.860]we have all sorts of spruce
[00:12:41.818]and some firs that are very, very narrow,
[00:12:44.833]the issue that you have to be aware of with those
[00:12:47.120]is those branches are essentially a cantilever
[00:12:50.430]and a snow load or damage
[00:12:52.590]that causes weight on the ends of those branches
[00:12:55.420]can really cause them to open up,
[00:12:57.630]that's very, very difficult to get them
[00:12:59.276]to either come out of that on their own
[00:13:01.840]or you really don't want your tall, narrow, skinny thing
[00:13:04.920]all twined up with duct tape
[00:13:06.550]to be able to hold it up in the landscape.
[00:13:10.860]If you have those narrow spaces in your own landscape,
[00:13:13.307]you can probably find a really good,
[00:13:15.730]tall and skinny, woody landscape plant,
[00:13:18.310]that will give you that structure, make a nice accent
[00:13:20.897]and actually live in that small environment.
[00:13:24.800]Your home landscape is a reflection
[00:13:26.029]of your own personal likes and dislikes,
[00:13:28.440]it's as much a part of who you are as the interior is.
[00:13:32.200]One Omaha landscape company
[00:13:34.180]takes a really unique approach to design,
[00:13:36.540]implementation and management of home landscapes.
[00:13:40.100]Here to tell us more about that approach
[00:13:42.050]is Bryan Kinghorn of Kinghorn Gardens.
[00:13:45.264](light upbeat music)
[00:13:50.870]I'm really happy to have Bryan Kinghorn with me today
[00:13:53.274]to be able to talk about his approach to landscape.
[00:13:57.910]So Bryan, your company is really unique
[00:14:00.440]and has been unique from the start,
[00:14:02.870]do you wanna describe a little bit
[00:14:04.610]about why you decided to do that and what that approach is?
[00:14:07.959]I think we're strong in regards to sense of place
[00:14:11.060]and the development of that sense of place
[00:14:14.330]to actually mean something and to deliver a quality of life
[00:14:17.500]to the people, our client or project that we interact with
[00:14:20.930]and so when you sort of take it from that perspective
[00:14:24.226]and you draw inspiration from the site
[00:14:27.063]and you start to actually create spaces,
[00:14:28.930]that have meaning and value
[00:14:31.360]to either the project, the place,
[00:14:33.070]or whatever the programming statement might be,
[00:14:36.490]you end up with a result
[00:14:39.722]that is purposeful, it's intentional
[00:14:43.570]and it meets environmental needs,
[00:14:46.250]it meets maintenance capacity,
[00:14:49.180]so there's a lot of added benefits attached
[00:14:51.870]to the approach that we try to take.
[00:14:54.310]So let's talk a little bit then
[00:14:56.920]about perhaps a small, typical residential project
[00:15:01.080]that you have approached differently,
[00:15:02.860]describe that for our audience.
[00:15:04.512]Well, the first thing we're gonna try to do
[00:15:06.420]is make sure that we meet a couple of the human aspects
[00:15:11.210]and all the research and data indicates
[00:15:14.043]that there's two things that keep people from going outside
[00:15:18.615]and those two things generally
[00:15:20.460]relate to it's too hot out there, that's one component
[00:15:23.040]and the other one is it's too windy out there,
[00:15:26.210]so those, if we can,
[00:15:27.532]we're gonna address the environmental concerns first
[00:15:30.870]in regards to the hot component and the wind component
[00:15:34.860]and we're gonna try to create spaces and places
[00:15:37.168]that people wanna actually be in
[00:15:39.970]and maybe extend their interaction with the outdoors,
[00:15:43.130]maybe our goal or objective should be
[00:15:44.439]to try to get 'em outside 10 days earlier in the spring
[00:15:47.420]and 10 to 15 days longer in the fall
[00:15:50.510]and create spaces where their length of time outdoors
[00:15:52.962]can be longer and more enjoyable
[00:15:56.820]and it becomes maybe an extension of their home,
[00:15:59.200]it's not a to do thing,
[00:16:01.060]it's a something to interact with and be part of
[00:16:04.640]and where I think we're naturally inclined, you know,
[00:16:07.548]it's part of one of the great plots in literature,
[00:16:09.820]that it's man versus nature,
[00:16:12.240]try to have a conversation with one of us
[00:16:14.630]about us being part of nature, you know
[00:16:17.320]and that's a different conversation,
[00:16:19.350]because we constantly fight how we can be part of nature,
[00:16:22.328]we're always trying to control it.
[00:16:24.015]How about an example of a project
[00:16:26.120]that is commercial or public
[00:16:27.840]or has really interesting elements of sustainability
[00:16:31.010]or natural or native environments in it?
[00:16:35.186]There's more and more excitement right now
[00:16:37.490]about how you deal with
[00:16:38.522]what we consider to be negative space in the landscape,
[00:16:41.720]so the negative space historically or traditionally
[00:16:44.660]is taken up by an element of turf
[00:16:46.698]and turf performs a great role
[00:16:48.940]in regards to, you know occupying that negative space,
[00:16:52.477]but some people right now are asking for things
[00:16:55.130]that maybe aren't turf related, they could be meadows
[00:16:58.660]or glades or woodlands or prairie,
[00:17:03.140]now these are not exact replications of nature,
[00:17:06.498]these are abstract interpretations of nature,
[00:17:09.750]so that maybe they could end up with a negative space
[00:17:12.270]that directly relates to what they really wanna look at,
[00:17:14.998]you know, because sometimes people are afraid
[00:17:17.460]or fearful of looseness and wildness,
[00:17:20.170]but we can actually take the plant material
[00:17:22.356]and the communities and the people that we have on board
[00:17:25.450]and the site and the desires and the programming statements
[00:17:29.080]and we can create spaces that people truly wanna look at,
[00:17:32.740]that are dual purpose, okay,
[00:17:34.720]so dual purpose meaning it's not just pretty
[00:17:37.082]and it's not just performing a function,
[00:17:39.020]but it also helps with other things
[00:17:40.411]that we need to be aware of now,
[00:17:42.080]our landscapes have to be more than just fashion shows
[00:17:44.950]and so they have to be responsive to habitat,
[00:17:47.073]they have to be responsive to pollinators,
[00:17:49.085]they have to be responsive to your needs
[00:17:51.210]as a family or as a company or as a city,
[00:17:54.249]they have to be water wise,
[00:17:56.338]they have to be sensitive to that,
[00:17:58.640]you have to explain to us
[00:17:59.717]what your true maintenance capacity really is
[00:18:02.120]and that has to coexist with the design program.
[00:18:05.220]So that's how we would approach it
[00:18:07.540]and so that you would end up with spaces again,
[00:18:10.690]that are attractive to look at,
[00:18:14.370]let's say we have a meadow
[00:18:16.050]that you visually find interesting
[00:18:17.731]and it changes every two to three weeks,
[00:18:21.252]it has some patterning to it,
[00:18:23.030]it has some plant communities to it
[00:18:25.020]that relate to one another,
[00:18:26.170]we stretch the ideas, you know.
[00:18:30.810]I think people are more and more trying to figure out
[00:18:32.950]how they can participate and be good stewards
[00:18:36.420]of their own properties, of their own cities
[00:18:38.833]and how we care for our landscapes,
[00:18:40.965]our neighborhoods, our environment.
[00:18:43.867]Bryan, you've added a head of horticulture
[00:18:46.460]to your business, that is also really unique,
[00:18:48.387]do you wanna describe why?
[00:18:51.310]Well, maintenance capacity is critical
[00:18:53.789]and it's one of those things
[00:18:55.180]that isn't all that sexy to talk about, you know,
[00:18:58.079]because who wants to talk about care or maintenance
[00:19:01.520]and in fact, the term maintenance itself
[00:19:03.077]doesn't really excite people too much,
[00:19:05.460]but when we can really drill down
[00:19:07.900]to what a client's true maintenance capacity actually is,
[00:19:12.860]then we can start to design landscapes,
[00:19:15.020]that will be able to meet that,
[00:19:18.300]so it's not one of these patronizing approaches anymore
[00:19:22.480]about, "Oh yeah, yeah, sure, sure, don't worry about it,
[00:19:24.930]"it'll be low maintenance,"
[00:19:26.341](laughs) it's, you know, we're serious
[00:19:27.652]about what this looks like
[00:19:29.660]and how it coexists with the design process,
[00:19:32.683]so we have a head of horticulture now
[00:19:34.700]that that's what they look at and that's what they evaluate
[00:19:36.797]and that's what they consider
[00:19:38.870]and we have landscape architects and designers
[00:19:41.890]that start to really consider, well, what does this mean
[00:19:44.890]in regards to upkeep and care and input
[00:19:49.349]and we can match maintenance capacity with outcome,
[00:19:56.761]we now have an understanding about how to do that
[00:20:00.420]and it's not as complicated as one might think,
[00:20:04.380]the complicated part is for us
[00:20:06.710]to get good, honest information upfront
[00:20:09.540]about what your inputs are actually gonna be
[00:20:14.787]and so we can match those, if we have good dialogue
[00:20:16.919]and information that we can harvest.
[00:20:19.017]Bryan, that's really exciting
[00:20:20.670]to think about into the future,
[00:20:21.595]I wanna thank you an awful lot for coming down today.
[00:20:24.910]Thanks for having me, it's been my pleasure.
[00:20:27.740]Thanks Bryan, we really appreciate the idea
[00:20:29.940]that your outdoor living space
[00:20:31.360]is much more like an actual habitat,
[00:20:33.702]thinking of these principles
[00:20:35.440]can help you make better choices,
[00:20:36.794]they can bring you years of comfort
[00:20:38.608]and beauty around your home.
[00:20:41.660]Alright, let's take a few minutes to answer your emails.
[00:20:44.012]You can submit your questions,
[00:20:45.740]your JPEG pictures as attachments
[00:20:48.360]via email to Byf@unl.edu,
[00:20:52.270]our first question comes from a lakeside viewer,
[00:20:55.644]we're not entirely sure which lake, they do have a cabin.
[00:20:59.790]They sent us a picture from last fall,
[00:21:02.900]so interestingly enough, here it is, February,
[00:21:05.416]they're already thinking ahead
[00:21:06.990]to hoping that this does not happen again.
[00:21:09.718]They had their hostas right against the edge of their deck,
[00:21:12.870]as you can see, eaten off by something.
[00:21:15.990]It's highly unusual for this kind of damage
[00:21:18.470]to be done by anything other than a rabbit,
[00:21:21.830]a wascally wabbit,
[00:21:22.904]now they also have roly polys associated with these hostas,
[00:21:27.230]people do think that roly polys
[00:21:28.930]eat only debris, dead and decaying matter,
[00:21:32.279]we've actually seen them go after
[00:21:34.650]especially the roots of some plants
[00:21:37.360]in our Backyard Farmer landscape and on campus
[00:21:40.190]and it could very well be that they're seeing
[00:21:42.090]some damage down in the crown of the plant,
[00:21:44.670]that is due to the roly polys.
[00:21:46.650]If this is slug damage,
[00:21:48.020]you'd see the classic sort of raggedy holes in the leaves,
[00:21:51.580]you'd also see the slime trails that the slugs leave.
[00:21:55.530]So long story short on this one,
[00:21:57.246]if you don't want the rabbits to get them,
[00:21:59.129]you're going to have to exclude the rabbits
[00:22:01.960]either at the edge of your property
[00:22:03.910]or cage each one of those plants or that entire hosta bed,
[00:22:07.700]if it's roly polys and slugs, you can lay down burlap,
[00:22:10.556]you can collect the slugs in particular
[00:22:13.100]and then drown them, salt them,
[00:22:16.020]again, just make sure you keep that environment
[00:22:18.130]cleaned out for the roly polys.
[00:22:21.760]Our next question comes from Garden Valley, Idaho,
[00:22:26.360]they have evergreens that the green needles
[00:22:29.580]are falling off of, so the first question always is
[00:22:34.720]what is going on in the location, in the environment,
[00:22:38.000]is there something about that location,
[00:22:40.309]that those evergreens do not like?
[00:22:42.780]Oftentimes, what it is is it's a change in drainage,
[00:22:47.120]in particular drowning those trees,
[00:22:49.970]but typically it wouldn't just be
[00:22:51.450]the green needles falling off bright green,
[00:22:53.820]it would be a little bit of yellowing going on as well,
[00:22:56.530]but I do know that we are seeing an awful lot of damage
[00:22:59.630]that is again, squirrel related,
[00:23:01.920]where they are nipping off the entire ends of pines,
[00:23:07.160]sometimes spruce and fir, maybe six to 12 inches long,
[00:23:11.666]they're actually dropping those on the ground
[00:23:13.654]as opposed to taking them
[00:23:16.370]up into the trees for nesting material,
[00:23:18.317]we're seeing a lot of that kind of damage.
[00:23:20.630]So the ideal situation here would be
[00:23:23.280]to take a look and see if you can
[00:23:25.220]see those gnaw marks or those angular cuts,
[00:23:29.150]where the critters have actually taken those branches off,
[00:23:32.830]or whether in fact it is something
[00:23:33.960]a little more unusual than that.
[00:23:35.762]We're going to end our 2018 season of Lifestyle Gardening
[00:23:39.290]with a feature about controlling squash pests.
[00:23:42.270]If you grow zucchini, squash, pumpkins
[00:23:44.222]or any other sort of gourd like plant,
[00:23:46.930]you know you're likely going
[00:23:48.560]to have to fight off these bugs.
[00:23:50.710]Fortunately we have that dynamic duo
[00:23:53.300]of Backyard Farmer panelists, Jonathan Larson and Jody Green
[00:23:57.000]to help us keep those bugs away from our produce.
[00:24:00.577](light upbeat music)
[00:24:05.599]Lots of people are anxious
[00:24:08.100]to get out into the garden right now,
[00:24:09.560]I know it's cold, it's snowy, it's gross outside
[00:24:12.040]and they're thinking about what to buy and what to plant
[00:24:14.400]and people are going out and getting their seeds.
[00:24:16.162]Everybody I've met in Nebraska really likes
[00:24:18.010]the plant vine crops, I've met a lot of people,
[00:24:19.740]who do squash and zucchinis and pumpkins
[00:24:21.658]and when you grow those kinds of plants,
[00:24:23.650]you have to worry about the old squash vine borer,
[00:24:26.800]which is a pretty nasty pest,
[00:24:27.955]what does it look like, Jody?
[00:24:29.550]Well, it's about a half an inch long
[00:24:31.090]and it looks like a wasp, but it's really a day-flying moth,
[00:24:34.730]they are red and silver,
[00:24:36.530]but as larvae, they're little white caterpillars
[00:24:39.508]and that's what does the damage.
[00:24:41.846]Can you explain what the damage looks like?
[00:24:43.807]Well, the caterpillar is the damaging stage
[00:24:45.991]and they hatch out from their egg
[00:24:47.328]and they bore their way into the base of a plant
[00:24:49.614]and they feed inside of the stem,
[00:24:51.510]so you usually can't see them,
[00:24:53.063]but you can see the plant wilting down the vine,
[00:24:56.230]because they're eating the part of the plant
[00:24:57.362]that's transporting water and nutrients,
[00:24:59.218]it kind of wilts and looks really cruddy
[00:25:01.843]and you may also notice a hole in the vine,
[00:25:04.137]where some orange goo is exuding from
[00:25:06.720]and this is the caterpillar's poop or frass,
[00:25:09.225]that's moving out of the plant, they kind of push it out,
[00:25:11.610]they're tidy in that way,
[00:25:12.643]they don't wanna live in their own poo
[00:25:14.890]and you'll see that before you see
[00:25:16.490]a lot of the other kinds of symptoms and once you see that,
[00:25:18.926]you're gonna wanna control them somehow
[00:25:21.204]or you may wanna take some preventative steps,
[00:25:22.888]so what could they do to prevent this damage, Jody?
[00:25:25.627]Well, one of the things you should do first
[00:25:27.720]is probably monitor to see if you have
[00:25:29.830]the squash vine borer in your garden,
[00:25:32.380]so you can put out a yellow bowl,
[00:25:33.500]because they're really attracted to that yellow color,
[00:25:36.460]a bowl with water and soap
[00:25:38.070]and if you can catch two or three moths,
[00:25:40.470]then I would do a treatment,
[00:25:42.706]where you would use aluminum foil and flatten it out
[00:25:47.470]and wrap this, not too tight, but wrap it around the vine,
[00:25:51.800]so that the female moth can't lay the egg,
[00:25:55.360]so that it can't bore into the vine.
[00:25:57.399]Do you wanna tell me
[00:25:58.457]a little bit more about chemical treatments?
[00:26:00.654]There are several products that we could use
[00:26:02.840]to try and prevent the damage from squash vine borer.
[00:26:05.340]If you don't wanna do the foil option,
[00:26:08.020]you could go to the base of your plant
[00:26:09.620]and you could use a liquid application of carbaryl
[00:26:13.240]or bifenthrin sprayed right at that base of the plant,
[00:26:16.190]like one to two inches up and then when the female lands,
[00:26:18.464]she'll get the residue on her and it will kill her
[00:26:20.784]or when the babies hatch out, it'll kill them,
[00:26:22.725]when they try to get into the plant,
[00:26:25.140]but if you don't get that stuff on there preventatively
[00:26:28.224]and you get the caterpillar inside there,
[00:26:30.240]there is one sort of drastic option, that we can do,
[00:26:32.483]you can perform vine surgery, which sounds drastic,
[00:26:35.283]but we're both doctors, so we can pull this off.
[00:26:38.290]You just find the spot where the plant is infested,
[00:26:39.982]where you see the orange goo coming out,
[00:26:42.380]you take a sharp, clean knife
[00:26:43.941]and you make a vertical slit in the vine, pull it open,
[00:26:48.117]Jody's gonna pull out our fake caterpillar here.
[00:26:50.350]Do you let it go or do you destroy it?
[00:26:52.010]No, you destroy it.
[00:26:52.924]Yeah, get your revenge on it, get rid of it
[00:26:55.043]and then you seal that plant back together,
[00:26:57.240]just squish it together
[00:26:58.220]and bury the dirt over the top of that
[00:27:00.065]and you hope that it fuses together, reroots in that spot
[00:27:02.741]and you get squash or pumpkins
[00:27:04.279]or whatever it is that you're growing.
[00:27:05.680]It doesn't always work,
[00:27:06.980]but it's better than not trying anything at all.
[00:27:09.000]You know what else? What else?
[00:27:10.770]Well, because over winter, Yeah.
[00:27:11.901]what are they doing? Sure.
[00:27:13.530]They are underground,
[00:27:16.160]over winter as pupae, Correct.
[00:27:17.690]or a pupa, so you would really want to rotate your crops,
[00:27:21.630]so you don't plant your squash in that same place.
[00:27:24.264]Always a good policy, IPM practices, right?
[00:27:26.800]Yes.
[00:27:27.730]So we hope that helps everybody that wants to grow
[00:27:29.540]some squash, some delicious food this summer
[00:27:31.180]and helps you to keep this pesky pest away.
[00:27:33.870]Yes.
[00:27:35.861]Thanks guys, we look forward
[00:27:37.690]to clean squash and zucchini plants this spring.
[00:27:41.092]Thank you so much for joining us again
[00:27:43.420]for Lifestyle Gardening this year.
[00:27:45.490]Remember if you've missed any of the previous programs,
[00:27:47.940]you can always got to the Backyard Farmer YouTube channel
[00:27:50.640]for this and many other great videos
[00:27:53.300]and be sure to keep in touch with us on our Facebook page.
[00:27:56.342]Don't forget to mark your calendars for April 5th,
[00:27:59.460]when Backyard Farmer returns for its 66th season.
[00:28:03.840]So good afternoon, good gardening,
[00:28:05.781]we'll see you all in a few weeks for Backyard Farmer.
[00:28:10.776](light upbeat music)

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