Chris Enroth: 00:04

Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris Enroth, Horticulture Educator with University of Illinois Extension, coming at you from Macomb, Illinois. And we have got a great show for you today. We are talking trees, you know, the higher plant forms of of life out there. You know I'm not doing this by myself.

Chris Enroth: 00:23

I am joined by horticulture educator Emily Swihart. Emily, welcome to the show.

Emily Swihart: 00:29

Hi, Chris. Thanks for having me. Yes. I am so excited to be, joining you on this very first episode of the new year. What better way to kick off 2025 than with a little bit of tree talk?

Chris Enroth: 00:40

Yes. Oh, tree talk. I like that. And, we told Ken to take the day off today. So he's he's not gonna be with us.

Emily Swihart: 00:46

extended holiday? Yes.

Chris Enroth: 00:49

Yeah. And and it's trees. He doesn't care. He'd care more about the things that are eating the trees. So yeah.

Emily Swihart: 00:55

He's gonna be mad you said that.

Chris Enroth: 00:59

So, Emily, we have a couple of special guests today that are going to be marketing or promoting a program that we are all participating in, delivering. So I guess we should bring on our special guest for today.

Emily Swihart: 01:14

Yeah. I think we should. So first, let's welcome Sarah Vogel. Sarah, welcome to the show.

Sarah Vogel: 01:20

Hello. Thank you for having me.

Emily Swihart: 01:22

Yeah. Then we have Ryan Pankow. Welcome, Ryan.

Ryan Pankau: 01:26

Yeah. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Always excited to talk trees for sure.

Emily Swihart: 01:31

Yeah. You guys are some of my favorite people because you're tree people. So we have been teaming up. The 4 of us, along with some other colleagues, have, been teaming up to plan another round of the community tree care series. So we want to get some more information from you guys about this, program that's coming up so that if people are interested, which I'm sure they will be, can register and join us.

Emily Swihart: 01:55

So if you don't mind if we go ahead and get started, let's start out with introductions. We want people to know who you are. So, Sarah, why don't you tell us who you are, where you are serving, in terms of the Illinois Extension Service? And then I'm curious what got you into tree work?

Sarah Vogel: 02:12

Oh, okay. Well, I am Sarah Vogel. I'm a horticulture educator. I serve DeWitt, Macon, and Piatt Counties. I am located in Decatur in Macon County.

Sarah Vogel: 02:25

How did I I mean, we went camping a lot as a kid. I've spent just a lot of time outside and those are some of I think some of my favorite memories and memories that I'm still making with my family, you know, as being out outdoors and just really trying to keep a strong connection with nature. And, I have totally found my home in extension where I get to, like, talk about the benefits of that connection with nature and all the beautiful trees with people and making that peep people plant, connection.

Emily Swihart: 02:57

Oh, it's neat. Did you travel far to go camping or did you say local?

Sarah Vogel: 03:01

Both. Yeah. We my family, like, we we would camp here somewhat locally. Like, Lake Shelbyville is somewhat near us. That's a big lake.

Sarah Vogel: 03:10

It's a lot of, really nice natural resource opportunities there. But we've also taken, you know, when I was a kid, we took great big, RV, several week trips across the US. And so I have camped in many many states. And just really, you know, whether it was like our my family's socioeconomic status at the time but we found a lot of free stuff to do. You know what I mean?

Sarah Vogel: 03:37

And being in nature is like one of the cheapest, like, most rewarding things that you can do, for yourself or with kids. So, yeah. We went we went everywhere. We saw it all.

Emily Swihart: 03:49

Oh, that sounds awesome. That's awesome. Ryan, tell us who you are, where you're where you serve, and, what got you into the tree world?

Ryan Pankau: 03:57

Yeah. Sure. Well, I'm I'm really close to Sarah in Central Illinois, so I'm out of the Champaign office. I serve, Champaign, Vermilion, Ford, and Iroquois Counties in Central Illinois. And, gosh, I I probably have a similar story as you, Sarah.

Ryan Pankau: 04:09

Like, we as a kid, we did a lot of camping. We didn't go real far. We did kinda stay around the Midwest. So I think kind of a lot of the exposure to nature as a kid and just being out in it and doing neat things with it. But, as I got to be high school age or maybe even a little bit before, I started to work on the farm.

Ryan Pankau: 04:28

My uncles and my grandpa farmed. And I don't know. I I get I think my first kind of interest in learning more about plants was just weed identification and, like, figuring out, like I mean, I know it's pretty really easy that that's not a soybean or a a corn plant, but but then knowing, like, what that weed was and kind of understanding the difference between plants. So in high school, I worked at the Urbana Park District, and that's when I kind of trees clicked for me. I, all of a sudden, just I wanted to understand what all the different trees there were out there and how to identify them, and that's what kinda set me in the path to going to college and studying forestry and brings me to here.

Ryan Pankau: 05:07

So so tree ID, I guess, is kind of what got me into it.

Emily Swihart: 05:14

That's neat. That's a, I would say, a little unusual, at least from when I've, you know, talked to people. Like, tree ID is challenging. And so, you went right for it and fell in love with it instead of being discouraged. Way to go.

Ryan Pankau: 05:27

Well, I wasn't good at it at the start. I mean, I actually, the first tree I identified was a catalpa by using actually using a book and and looking at pictures and going through it. But I brought that full circle where, like, just this fall, I did a tree ID walk in the same park with that same catalpa on the list of trees we looked at. So that was really neat for me. Like, just that was just a few months ago this fall.

Ryan Pankau: 05:50

So pretty cool.

Sarah Vogel: 05:51

That really came full circle.

Ryan Pankau: 05:53

Yeah. That's cool. Now.

Chris Enroth: 05:56

So good now he can ID trees naked. So yeah.

Emily Swihart: 06:00

There you go.

Chris Enroth: 06:01

How do you read into that?

Sarah Vogel: 06:02

The trees are naked? Or

Chris Enroth: 06:04

wait. I think I might have signed up for the wrong class. You're doing right.

Ryan Pankau: 06:07

So

Chris Enroth: 06:07

okay. Never mind.

Emily Swihart: 06:11

Alright. Follow that up then, Chris, with explaining how you got into trees. That's your your your origin story.

Chris Enroth: 06:18

My tree origin story? Oh, I just that's easy. I grew up in the middle of the forest. Parents had a house in the middle of 20 acres of timber, and we get 2 TV channels, NBC, CBS. ABC was fuzzy.

Chris Enroth: 06:33

And so what do you do? You go out in the woods and you hang out there all day. So, yeah, I I was I was born of the trees. So and then raised by trees. So, I am part of the trees.

Chris Enroth: 06:46

So that that's my my tree origin story. Always always kind of been infatuated with with with the forest.

Emily Swihart: 06:53

Oh, that's wonderful. I, I guess I'll share my real quick. I had, like, very opposite. I grew up in corn country. We had a couple of trees that we I got to, like, literally grow up with.

Emily Swihart: 07:05

They were pretty new to the farm when we we moved there. Now they're huge and majestic. I've I've shared a bit about them on past podcasts, but, there were these 2, swamp white oak trees out in our pasture that were just huge and majestic and, like, gnarly and weathered, and they'd been there for a really long time. And so kind of, like, growing up with my maples, and then being able to climb on and and really love on these oaks kick started me. Then we have this I have a sad story related to trees that really, now I look back and it it really solidified my love of trees, which is that these 2 huge, cottonwood trees were on a neighbor's property, and cottonwood can, you know, be be messy.

Emily Swihart: 07:51

You know, some folks don't really love them. They were hurting nobody. They were just the most amazing trees, and they were cut down for reasons I didn't understand then and I don't understand now, but I remember them coming down and just, like that's my first heartbreak, my real, like, first heartbreak. And, then just over the course of the career, got got the opportunity to, like, really fall in love with trees and the people that get to work with trees and and advocate for trees and in in communities, which I don't live in a community. But, so that's why I'm excited particularly excited to have you guys talking about our initiative, the community tree care series, because so many of the trees that we all fall in love with or the people fall in love with are in our communities, and it is, a different type of environment for trees.

Emily Swihart: 08:38

And so, there's some some education that we would like to offer folks. So thank you for sharing all that personal stuff, but let's talk about the program. Right? That's what people are here for. Okay.

Emily Swihart: 08:48

So Sorry about that. What is the community tree care, like, series? Is there a history to it? Sarah, do you wanna share a bit about how the program got going and then, you know, what it is today?

Sarah Vogel: 09:00

Yeah. Sure. So really, kind of the number of tree related inquiries that I found out come into extension, once I got here. You know, and as soon as somebody finds out that you like trees and know a little bit about them, like they just hit you hard from every which way. So we started, we started realizing there aren't as many downstate opportunities for, ISA certified arborists.

Sarah Vogel: 09:29

So we wanted to kind of fill that need. And then, yeah, if the general public is out there looking for information on these trees, like, clearly there is a need to be met there. So, partnered with the Illinois Arborist Association, and they helped us, distribute a survey and we kind of found out what format people would like. You know in person conference style whatever. And so a webinar series seemed like the most accessible, to start out with for our team too.

Sarah Vogel: 09:57

So we developed some material. You all know, Ryan and Emily, you were on there last year. 2023, we held 3 webinars. And then in early 2024, we held intended to hold 3 in person workshops to kinda solidify that knowledge gained in the webinars. And we've had I think I think we've been really successful in nailing our target audience.

Sarah Vogel: 10:24

So it's not only for those certified arborists, but there are a lot of people out there that are doing the work that arborists do that are not necessarily formally trained. Right? So we have, like, parks maintenance staff and groundskeepers for school districts and county staff and so on that, they aren't necessarily getting this information from anywhere else. So for us to try and, serve our our local need in that way, I think we did a pretty good job of that last last year, and we're improving the format even more this year.

Emily Swihart: 10:53

Yeah. I love how, we are opening it up to people that are not only arborists. Right? There's a lot of people doing tree work, whether it's on private property, or in our communities. There's a lot of folks doing this type of work, and there's a lot of damage that can be done within proper per care.

Emily Swihart: 11:13

Ryan, you wanna kinda talk about how this, like, benefits kind of all of the trees?

Ryan Pankau: 11:19

Well, sure. And I I think some of the reason why folks are so interested in tree care, why they care so much about it, is these are the biggest, most long lived perennials in the landscape. I mean, I usually describe it to folks as your your most valuable plants are your trees, and that's the truth. It sometimes takes a 100 years to get that mature oak tree that you've got in your yard. So, just like you said, Emily, like, all that care and maintenance that we provide these plants, especially when they're younger, can have lasting effects into the future.

Ryan Pankau: 11:48

So learning how to take care of them from planting through maturity is just really important for that future forest, for future generations. I think another thing that's been just really, has struck me as I've started to look at all the issues surrounding trees more closely. I came from commercial tree care, but now I've I I tend to look at it in a large in a larger perspective working at extension. So I look at municipal tree care. I look at, you know, what's happening around the community at as our our series is titled, the community tree care series.

Ryan Pankau: 12:19

And just the, the struggle that a newly planted tree has to reach maturity, there's startling numbers on how many urban trees don't make it to maturity and a low survival rate for of planted trees. I think there's just a really neat really strong need in the community, whether you're just a homeowner or you're an arborist taking care of those, to understand, you know, the all those steps of care and and how we can best set those trees up to become those big mature shade trees that all of us really cherish.

Emily Swihart: 12:49

Yeah. Well and there's more threats to the trees than just, you know, aging out. Like, of course, that is, you know, one of the threats. Like, when we lose trees, they they age out. Right?

Emily Swihart: 12:56

You know? And, hopefully, it's in 100 of years, for some of our species. But our communities experience a variety of adversity or the trees experience a variety of adversity, you know, in, just the planting sites that they're asked to grow in. You know, there's a lot of, heat islands. There's concrete that's restricting root growth.

Emily Swihart: 13:15

There's horrible pruning techniques that are trying to limb them up so high, you know, so we can have clearance for cars. It's necessary, but it does affect tree health. You know? So that's, kinda two sides to the same coin. And then, Chris, I'm remembering a conversation you and I had just last year about a derecho that kinda hit western, Illinois here.

Emily Swihart: 13:36

And, you know, there's tornadoes. There's you know, we may or may not have ice storms here coming up. Like, Chris, do you wanna talk you know, kind of remind us of our conversation we had in terms of, like, what communities do then with the community forest? You know, when when situations like, you know, a a natural disaster or a a much larger significant event. Well, heck, emerald ash borer.

Emily Swihart: 13:56

You know, when we lose a lot of trees and, like, how that affects our communities because it does.

Chris Enroth: 14:01

Yeah. We we face a lot of different natural disasters, whether that disaster is something that is brought on by the environment like a derecho or a tornado, freezing, frozen stuff, ice falling from the sky. But then we also have some of those man made disasters, like when we bring in an invasive species like emerald ash borer. Now a lot of what happened has happened as a resulted of that. I think it is something good if we can find some silver lining somewhere as we have with Emerald Ash Borer, we needed to have tree professionals come in and take care of those ash trees.

Chris Enroth: 14:38

And a lot of our especially where I'm at in the western part of the state of Illinois, there was not as many tree care folks to do that job. That has allowed a lot of these companies that did exist to either to grow or to maybe allow a few companies to start. Now we have gone from having to remove these ash trees to now these companies, they now need additional work to do. They need more things. They need to know more about tree health care assessment.

Chris Enroth: 15:07

And so it has to go beyond just chainsaw, and cutting trees down, which which is one of the most dangerous and hard jobs you can do in the tree care world. So let's yeah. The the what this series helps to address is maybe evaluating some of our trees. So maybe we don't have to cut them all down. Maybe we make a few, a few more cuts to lighten the load on some of our limbs, or or maybe there's a few products we could use to help with our trees, or maybe just general tree culture, helping our trees, watering them during what I think is one of the most profound disasters that at least we've had here in the western part of the state is drought, is very slow disaster that we've been experiencing.

Chris Enroth: 15:52

But we're seeing a lot of our trees, lose significant amount of their canopy because they've lost a lot of their root system. And so, you know, people quick to say, hey. A bug did this. A disease did that. But, actually, our trees have just been encountering a prolonged drought at least in the western part of the state for the better part of 3 years now.

Emily Swihart: 16:12

Yeah. There's it's not all doom and gloom. Right? There's all these threats

Chris Enroth: 16:15

that are I'm I'm very doom and gloomy today. I apologize. I asked

Emily Swihart: 16:19

you to I asked you to talk about it because I so from the tree health standpoint, like, we have all these, you know, challenges that they're they're being asked to to deal with. But then, like, from a people side of it, like, you talk about how chainsaws are, you know, dangerous, and it's some of the most risky work we're doing, yet chainsaws are extremely available. Right? I I know nearly every neighbor has one. My mom has one.

Emily Swihart: 16:45

It's a battery powered one. It's cute and adorable, and it just you know, it goes zing, but it's still a chainsaw, and it requires thought and knowledge of how to use that tool properly, and safely. And so that's part of what we're gonna talk about, in the program. Amongst yeah.

Chris Enroth: 17:03

Oh, the and I I would just just add it that often falls onto, you know, people as as you described, who aren't arborists, but maybe they know how to use a chainsaw, and they say, alright. You know how to use a chainsaw. Go take care of this tree. And that's that's the knowledge they have. They have a small engine repair knowledge.

Chris Enroth: 17:23

They know how to, lubricate a chain, how to maybe sharpen it. But do they know tree health care? So that's kind of where we're hoping this series can come in and help boost, them and make them feel more confident. And if they do have to use a chainsaw, you know, are they are they making proper cuts? Do they need to even be making cuts, or is there something else that maybe they could do, to help the overall health of that tree?

Emily Swihart: 17:49

Yeah. Yep. So the program is for arborists, people that are certified arborists that are professionals in the industry, as well as people who have a passion for trees, who are interested in doing, work on them, but would like to be more informed so that you can make better decisions, for the health of the tree and the health of the humans that are interacting with those trees. So, Sarah, I think everybody listening now is gonna be signing up there. Just they can't wait.

Emily Swihart: 18:15

Can you tell us can you tell us how they can sign up? Like, tell like, where do we go? When do we need to sign up? What's you know, where are their fees associated with it? What does that get us?

Sarah Vogel: 18:26

Yeah. So, like you mentioned, everyone's invited. Anybody who wants to, you know, kind of advance their their tree care knowledge, because it is really important in the community. So our webinar series is gonna start up January 15th. It will be every 2 weeks on Wednesdays from 9 to 10:30 through the end of March.

Sarah Vogel: 18:50

I know you can go to, extension.illinois.edu/plants/communitydashtreedashcaredashseries to get to a registration page, but I'm pretty sure we will have a short link at some point.

Emily Swihart: 19:04

We'll put a link in the show notes.

Sarah Vogel: 19:06

Thank you so much. But, yeah, we'll have 6 winter webinar sessions, like I mentioned, from 9 to 10:30, 2 Wednesdays a month. Each session, we're gonna cover 2 topics. So so we realized last year we had such, varying degrees of knowledge that attended that we wanted to kinda give some more basic knowledge mixed with some more advanced, you know, topics. So we have 2 topics per session.

Sarah Vogel: 19:35

You can pay one fee for access to all 6 sessions. If you are, anybody off the street who is not a certified arborist seeking CEUs, so, $10 for access to all the sessions or if you are a certified arborist who is seeking, continue continuing education units, it's $50 and you with that $50 fee, you can access all 6 sessions as well. We do ask that you, register, and again, you can attend 1 or some or all of those sessions. Oh, in each session, also so we'll have the 2 topics as well as kind of a fun interactive engaging way, to relay knowledge. We will have a bit of a photo submission and discussion session.

Sarah Vogel: 20:25

So when you do register, if you would like to submit photos, to potentially be discussed on one of the webinars, you go in and register, and you can, submit those photos according to the the guidelines there. And that kinda helps everybody with, like, you know, digital diagnosis, skill building, and just discussion overall.

Emily Swihart: 20:49

I am personally excited for that discussion part of it. I think we'll be able to learn a lot from each other and, like, it's a real world, scenario that we'll get to go ahead and walk through along with participants. Like, this is what people see when they're walking in their parks or their backyard or along their streets. Like, there are tree health issues or concerns, and we'll just have a conversation about how we go about, assessing those and then, you know, what resources are available and what we know from experience. Right?

Emily Swihart: 21:18

So I'm excited for that component.

Sarah Vogel: 21:20

I think it'll be really good too. I mean, it it sharpens all of our skills Mhmm. You know, as well as those who are submitting them. And if somebody doesn't get their photo, you know, we don't discuss it online during that webinar, we can still point them in the right direction, toward their local extension office too.

Emily Swihart: 21:39

Ryan, so Sarah mentioned there's 6 sessions. Do you wanna talk a little bit about maybe what'll be covered in you don't have to cover all of them. We can leave some intrigue. But, you know, give us a a sampling of what we might be, discussing.

Ryan Pankau: 21:53

Yeah. Sure. Well, I mean, of course, we're gonna start from, you know, going over everything from how you select the site to how you plant the trees and care for them. But, I think what I like that sprinkled throughout kind of all of our different sessions is a look at some of the things that are stressing trees, like and and some of the solutions to some of those problems. So, you know, we'll cover a lot about, construction damage and environmental stress.

Ryan Pankau: 22:16

That's there's a couple different sessions where we talk about that. But in that same session that we talk about environmental stresses, Chris is gonna talk about biological stresses, all how to diagnose diseases and other things. So, and I and when you couple that then with all the photography we hope to review, you know, at the end of in some of these discussion sessions, I hope that that's gonna help folks have a better vocabulary or better understanding of what are the problems. How can I communicate about these? Because whether you're a commercial arborist or someone that cares for, you know, a municipality's collection of trees, it's it's impactful to be able to communicate about that.

Ryan Pankau: 22:55

It's impactful to know what these issues are and how they affect plants and how you can counteract that. So I think that's the what what I really like about our sessions this year is that we've kind of sprinkled that throughout. Like, you really do get the care side of things, as far as what are the problems, how are we handling those in the field as professionals.

Emily Swihart: 23:14

Sounds good. Chris, do you wanna add any like, you're helping to, you know, teach some of these programs. Like, do you have something you're mostly excited about? I do. I'll share.

Emily Swihart: 23:22

And then I'll Sarah, I will get back to you. I'll I'll ask for what you're most excited about too. We're just going round robin here. So, Chris, what do you have?

Chris Enroth: 23:29

Oh, I I love talking about, the issues with the soil. You know, when we we build something and we just totally obliterate the soil, and then we expect the trees and shrubs and turf and all that stuff to just thrive in that subsoil. So we're gonna talk about that, you know, and some of the issues that come into play when trying to plant that tree into that, as I call them, post construction soils. But, yeah, I'm I'm gonna be doing that, species and site, selection portion, along with the the the biotic stressors of trees.

Emily Swihart: 24:05

We'll also get a biotic. It's just not one of us that's covering it. Right? Alright. Sarah, what are you looking forward to, or what are you, hoping people get excited about?

Sarah Vogel: 24:15

Well, trees. I mean, end game right there. I want everybody to be excited about trees and we all run off into the forest holding hands and singing songs, have a Coca Cola. No product placement. Sorry.

Sarah Vogel: 24:30

But I'm I'm really excited to have a couple new members to the team because fresh perspective is always welcome and we all learn from each other. And I probably the session I am most excited about is one that, that I'll present on improper practices because, as a certified arborist, I will tell you it totally wrecks enjoying trees, because all I see sometimes are like the issues that are there. So I have a lot of photos to share. We I think we all get a lot of those. And it's, it's always fun to like look at well, here's what might not have gone right with this stream.

Sarah Vogel: 25:09

I get excited about that. It's fun to diagnose when we can.

Chris Enroth: 25:12

Like CSI. You know? I don't know why, like, you know, if any TV producers ever want a hit TV show, tree diagnosis, it it's, gonna be just like your most popular TV show ever, CSI related.

Sarah Vogel: 25:28

Tree MD.

Chris Enroth: 25:30

Yeah. Oh, yes.

Emily Swihart: 25:31

Oh, there you see, Sarah? This is your hidden talent that now everyone's gonna know Uh-huh. Main things.

Sarah Vogel: 25:37

Catch me on CBS right after the PBS.

Chris Enroth: 25:40

Sarah has a has a bad leg, walks with a cane, and and is very grumpy the whole time, but can save everything.

Emily Swihart: 25:48

She has a very stern look too that she can pull out right on cue. There you go. Yes. Yeah. Sarah, I do I you you said about, like, it kinda ruins the way you look at trees.

Emily Swihart: 25:59

So, like, that might be a disclaimer that we should put alongside of this is the more you know, the more you you see. Because there's there

Sarah Vogel: 26:06

are a lot of care. Yes.

Emily Swihart: 26:09

Yep. That's the ultimate end goal. Right? Like, we're all learning so that we can do better by the trees in our community. And so I really appreciate, you all helping to put on the program and then everyone who's gonna sign up and engage because that's, that's what we need really in our communities is really healthy, beautiful, majestic, long lived trees that, provide a lot of benefits.

Emily Swihart: 26:31

We'll talk about benefits of trees, throughout the program. What I'm most excited about is the advocacy component. So the last session, we're gonna talk about how you engage with your community trees, as a citizen, and how you can start doing some higher level work beyond, you know, the queen or the trees in our own backyards, and on private lands. Like, you can engage with the, trees and the people that are managing those trees in your community. We'll talk about what what that looks like, what you can do to help support, all of the trees in the urban forest because, like, they make up a whole forest.

Emily Swihart: 27:09

Right? We call it community tree care, because these are community trees. Another more nerdy industry name, right, is the urban forest. And so, I personally really like that because I it is a ecosystem that we're living in, like a forest. You know?

Emily Swihart: 27:25

There's, interactions between all the living creatures and the, and the trees. So anything else? Did we miss anything, related to community tree care? We could talk trees all day. I'm trying not to do that for the 1st podcast of the year, really run over time.

Emily Swihart: 27:44

But did we miss anything?

Ryan Pankau: 27:46

Well, I don't know that we have a lot of details to announce on this, but don't we have an in person portion of this yet to be announced later in the year that we plan to follow-up? So some workshop type sessions that will reinforce these things in the field with real life things. So what what else can we say about that right now?

Sarah Vogel: 28:05

That look for, this summer or the next summer we happen upon, summer 2025, look for promotion about in person workshops, and that will take place in the fall, hopefully around the state so we can try and accommodate those people who don't really have other in person opportunities or workshops like that. So especially those who do take part in this webinar series, you know, with those follow-up emails, we'll most certainly, send you information for those

Emily Swihart: 28:36

workshops. Yes.

Sarah Vogel: 28:37

I'm really excited about that part too, Ryan. I like the in person. I think knowledge is really exchanged, best that way when possible.

Emily Swihart: 28:46

Yeah. It's hard. You know, we're doing a podcast in a, YouTube, and we're hosting these, you know, sessions via webinar. There's nothing like getting face to face with people or face to face with plants, you know, and and seeing these issues up close and and being able to, commit them to memory in that that way. So thank you for the reminder.

Emily Swihart: 29:09

Totally just totally slipped my mind. So I'm really glad that you brought that up. You know?

Chris Enroth: 29:14

I'll probably Alright. Just reemphasize that. So if you're a listener and and maybe this is up your avenue, maybe it's not, You probably know somebody whose job it is to take care of a tree, whether it is on public or private property. Send them a link to this webinar series. So, you know, we're we're trying to to establish a good connection with our community foresters, people out there in the cities, towns, even rural areas who are out there taking care of our trees.

Chris Enroth: 29:46

And, you know, we've I I the other aspect that we see with this is we've lost a lot of knowledge in in our in our forestry, in our urban forestry areas because people have retired. And, you know, within so we need to keep that knowledge going, you know, keep that tree health training up up and at them. So, yeah, we wanna network with those folks that are doing this work, and this is a a great way for Illinois Extension to make sure that our our our our knowledge and that that information is being shared statewide.

Emily Swihart: 30:19

Yeah. And I just thought I'm not sure we mentioned, but they these sessions will be recorded. So people do need to register in advance to get access to, the the live event, but we will record them as well. And so register for the series, and you will have access to all 6 sessions. As a part of that registration, they'll be posted on a, a link that we'll we'll send to registrants.

Emily Swihart: 30:44

They'll be uploaded as soon as they're available, and they will live there until May 1st. And so there's ample time. So if the the day of the week that we chose or the time of the day doesn't work for you to view them, but you still want, to engage, there's gonna be those recordings, which is, I think I I really appreciate that because I know how busy our schedules get and how we miss opportunities sometimes because just of schedule conflicts. And so we wanted to try to make sure that, the recorders were available for folks that wanted, to access this knowledge. So, okay.

Emily Swihart: 31:16

Now anything else? I mean, there's well, we could keep going, I'm sure.

Ryan Pankau: 31:20

We could talk about trees all day. Right? No.

Chris Enroth: 31:21

Yes.

Emily Swihart: 31:22

I know. Well Let's

Sarah Vogel: 31:24

go through them species by species.

Chris Enroth: 31:26

Acer. Let's start

Sarah Vogel: 31:27

with Ailanthus altissima.

Chris Enroth: 31:29

Oh, gosh. Oh, yuck. Why do we have

Emily Swihart: 31:34

to do that, Sarah? Okay. Sorry.

Sarah Vogel: 31:36

Debbie down right at the end.

Emily Swihart: 31:38

No. It's fine. It is fine. So I'm gonna stop us from doing that because that really could, go on for a very long time while I love the idea. Let's just schedule it out.

Chris Enroth: 31:47

Or or we and then then we'll just make a edit, and then we'll just say, and then Zelkova. And, and we'll be

Sarah Vogel: 31:55

like, and

Chris Enroth: 31:56

that's all of them. Yep.

Emily Swihart: 31:58

That's that's the list, Acer Yep. To Zelkova. Okay. We'll keep worksmithing or workshopping that idea. But, I would like to play a little this, we haven't done before on good growing.

Emily Swihart: 32:12

Chris has not been informed of this little exercise, and so he's gonna be as surprised as you guys. But I would like to do just a quick little lightning round, tree related because you're my, you know, tree people. And so I wanna learn a little more about you and take, selfishly take advantage of this opportunity. Cool. Log off if you wanna stop, but don't, please.

Emily Swihart: 32:33

Hey. Bye, guys. No.

Chris Enroth: 32:35

You're locked in the Zoom room. You can't leave.

Emily Swihart: 32:39

Yeah. Okay. So how this works is I'm gonna read you a question, and I do not want you to overthink it. Just say whatever, kind of first comes to your mind. They're tree related, so I'm sure you'll have, an easy answer come up.

Emily Swihart: 32:50

But we'll just And you're gonna help

Sarah Vogel: 32:51

us if we don't know.

Emily Swihart: 32:53

Yeah. No. That these aren't, like, gotcha questions. I hope not. No.

Emily Swihart: 32:58

They're not gotcha questions. They're fun for the beginning of the New Year. So we'll go in this order, so we're not talking over each other. We'll go Ryan, Sarah, Chris. Alright?

Emily Swihart: 33:08

K. First up, what is your favorite tree species and why?

Ryan Pankau: 33:14

Oh gosh. Pick one species.

Emily Swihart: 33:17

Just one.

Ryan Pankau: 33:18

I don't know. I think I think my favorite, I probably would say, is bur oak, and and for a variety of reasons. First off, I've had, like, extreme planting success with bur oak. They're tough. It was something I could always sell to a client.

Ryan Pankau: 33:31

I know that bur oak's gonna live even though you have, what do you call it, Chris, post construction soils? Even though you have the worst post construction soils, this bur oak's gonna hang. Another thing that's, like, heightened my love is just all the stuff that Doug Tallamy has put out about the insect, you know, population that oaks support, like the the hundreds of caterpillars, you know, that that oak species support. So that's part of it. And then the other thing is I love it how it is it has what's called, you know, a bimodal distribution where it grows in swamps, in swampy flooded areas, and it grows in the tops of hills.

Ryan Pankau: 34:06

So for years, I was a forester in Southern Illinois, and where I mostly saw burrokes, we're we're down in the flood plain. Where when I moved to Central Illinois back in 2017, now I'm seeing it on the tops of hills, you know, and drier sites a lot of times and in upland oak stands. So just that's probably my favorite tree if I had to pick 1, but really hard to pick a single one. Gotta say.

Emily Swihart: 34:29

I know. That's why I asked it because it's fun. Sarah, what's your favorite tree species and why?

Sarah Vogel: 34:35

Well, now that I've had just a few seconds to prepare an answer after Ryan got put on the spot, it is really hard to pick a favorite. There's favorites so for so many applications. Right? I really like a bald cypress. I think bald cypress is just a gorgeous tree.

Sarah Vogel: 34:50

It's like prehistoric prehistoric looking, and so just like Ryan said, you can find it in all sorts of though it's kinda known for those swampy areas, with the big cypress knees coming out of the water and so on. It does really well in lots of environments. It's tolerant. It always looks beautiful, I think, in every season, even without leaves, I think it's cool that it's a deciduous conifer. And the, the cone is spherical and kinda has this geometric pattern.

Sarah Vogel: 35:21

So so, yeah. We'll go with bald cypress today. Ask me tomorrow, it might be different.

Ryan Pankau: 35:27

Well well, Sarah, that was number 2 in my mind. It's Yeah. Blue oak or bald cypress. Which one am I gonna pick here?

Emily Swihart: 35:33

Yep. You took my top 2. So, Chris, what do you got?

Chris Enroth: 35:37

Bald cypress was when it was bouncing in my head. So I yeah. You you got it. I Thanksgiving, break. So we were back in our our hometown in Quincy, and, I remember back in 2,006, 2,005, I was just learning about plants.

Chris Enroth: 36:00

And, so our this, my my future wife's uncle was like, you need to put in plant a tree for me plant a tree for me. Like, I'm sure I know everything about plants, you know, as a a 1st year horticulture student. And I I dug a hole, like like, a foot wide, and I squeezed that bald cypress root ball in there. It was right by a pond, and I just and it was clay, nasty, lousy soil. And I'm like, you know, I don't think this tree's gonna survive.

Chris Enroth: 36:34

And, we drove by there 2024, so almost 20 years later, and it is a beautiful, massive, bald cypress. And should've taken a picture, But I'm like, I planted that tree. I think that's, like, the the fun part of trees too. It's like coming back and looking at a tree that you planted. So my favorite tree is a tree that I planted 20 plus years ago.

Chris Enroth: 37:02

Those are my favorite trees because I get to come back and look at them and and and and marvel at how they grew and survived. So yeah.

Emily Swihart: 37:11

K. You didn't exactly answer the question, but I'll allow it to slide.

Chris Enroth: 37:15

Alright. Black gum. That's good. There you go. This is sabbatical.

Chris Enroth: 37:18

There you go. That was fun. I knew you were gonna say that one, so that's why I picked that one. Yep.

Emily Swihart: 37:23

Alright. Well and I'll say tulip tree then. I'll go ahead. So alright. But we're not here for me.

Emily Swihart: 37:29

We're here for you. Next, lightning round. That was not very lightning like, but what is the most interesting tree fact that you know?

Ryan Pankau: 37:37

Oh, so that's back to me. Mhmm. Most interesting tree fact. Gosh. I think well, so I'm gonna stick with the theme of kind of bald Cyprus here.

Ryan Pankau: 37:48

I think one of the most interesting facts, it's maybe a series of facts, is the story of the dawn redwood, a very similar tree to bald cypress. But the fact that we learned about that tree from the fossil record before we realized it was a living tree on the planet, And then just I don't wanna go into it. It's the lightning round. But if you haven't read that story, if you haven't researched this, go check it out. It's a fascinating story of how this tree came into popularity and became, like, a a landscape tree here in the US and around the world.

Ryan Pankau: 38:16

So I think that's fascinating. Trees and history.

Emily Swihart: 38:21

There you go. Good job, Brian. Alright. Sarah, most interesting tree fact.

Sarah Vogel: 38:26

Let's see. I think that just the fact that they are some of the longest living organisms on earth is probably up there for me. Lightning round. Done.

Emily Swihart: 38:35

There you go. Good. Chris, go.

Chris Enroth: 38:39

I think when I learned that the tree roots don't do not extend down to the depths of the earth, that they, in fact, occupy the tops couple inches of soil because they have to breathe, and that's where the oxygen is in the upper layer of soil. So that that's my my tree fact that opened my eyes to the structure of trees.

Emily Swihart: 38:59

That's a good one. Very practical application too. I like it. I will say, what is most interesting to me, tree fact wise, is the existence of Pando, which is, an aspen. It's a singular or singular specimen that has taken over acres.

Emily Swihart: 39:16

It's, the longest lived, living organism. I think it's in, Idaho, and it is on my, must see list. But I have to go in the fall because it's a quaking aspen, so I need to be there when it's turning yellow and just, look it up too, like Ryan said. Like, look up, some of these different things, and you'll, your mind will be opened and, you will be wowed. So alright.

Emily Swihart: 39:39

We're gonna reverse order to give Ryan a break. Sarah, you're gonna be up first. Alright? What tree do you associate, like, with your childhood? Do you have a a and it could be a species or a certain, specimen.

Emily Swihart: 39:51

Is there a tree that you associate with a young Sarah?

Sarah Vogel: 39:56

Gosh. We had a a a sugar maple in our yard that had just perfect climbing limbs, and I spent a majority of some summers reading books on one of the lower limbs. And so right off the top of my head, that would be it. It's a sugar maple. Love it.

Emily Swihart: 40:14

Alright. Ryan?

Ryan Pankau: 40:16

Well, I'm gonna have to pick a maple too and for the same reason, silver maple. And that's because as a kid, that was like the only mature tree in my neighborhood, and I climbed so many of them. I spent, just like you, Sarah, hours up there. I don't even know what I did. I don't think I ever read books, but, but, yeah, silver maple just because I spent a lot of time climbing them and hanging out in them.

Emily Swihart: 40:38

Awesome. Chris?

Chris Enroth: 40:40

Yep. It was a silver maple that I often found myself in as well. But just a little bit beyond that tree, there was an eastern red cedar that I could just climb like a ladder. And it was it was probably 40, 50 foot tall, and I would go up there. No one could see me through the evergreen foliage, and I could hide up there and, just be in my own little world.

Emily Swihart: 41:04

Oh, that's great. I was gonna say a maple, but I'm gonna bring some diversity to this discussion, and I'll change my answer because at my grandparents' place, there's a debate whether this is a tree or not. I'm not here for that debate. I'm gonna call it a tree because in my young mind, it was. We called it the monkey tree.

Emily Swihart: 41:21

And then we would climb in it ahead, like, all these, like, gnarly, limbs that we could grow up on. I later learned it was a sumac. And so we got to, just I grew up, like, that's where we played. We got sent outside, and we just played in what we called the monkey tree because we were, I guess, being monkeys in this tree. So, alright.

Emily Swihart: 41:40

Last question, and I appreciate you guys, hanging in there and doing this. But do you have any tree related New Year's resolutions?

Sarah Vogel: 41:48

Yeah. So we we try to plant, trees or shrubs each year on our property, and we didn't do that great this in 2024. So that is, an intention that we have set for 2025. We have a few species chosen. Don't ask me what they are.

Sarah Vogel: 42:06

That's why I wrote them down. But just getting some more on my own property and some more diversity in our neighborhood. You notice we all said maples there. Guess what's all dying in all of our neighborhoods? So I think that's that's it, tree related intention.

Emily Swihart: 42:24

Great. Ryan?

Ryan Pankau: 42:26

Well, I probably have. I there's a walnut tree that has been a problem for a long time. So I I'm gonna bring a bummer to this discussion. Like, my I don't know this necessarily a formally declared New Year's resolution, but it's gotta come down. So I've got a big walnut that's kind of over a chicken coop and close to our garden and other things that, I think that's my New Year's resolution is to get it down, but that's gonna require some tree climbing and some rigging and some things that I used to do a lot when I was younger, I haven't done a ton of.

Ryan Pankau: 42:58

So in prep for that, I'm starting to get in better shape to try and be ready to do that and a couple other tree work type I have a few other trees I need to climb and print some limbs off of. So I guess for, for me, my resolution is to be able to at least be able to do that physically in the wintertime while while we have our pruning window, and and I can hopefully get this walnut out of out of harm's way. It it actually lost a large limb. It's the main reason why it's just it's in a bad spot. It's gotta go at this point.

Ryan Pankau: 43:27

So

Emily Swihart: 43:28

Well, I'm sorry for your loss, but I'm glad that you're taking the actions to prepare for doing the work. That's as middle aged folks here, you have to do a little more stretching. Right?

Ryan Pankau: 43:40

Yeah. Gotta gotta train for these kind of things where when you were 20, you could just go do it. You know? Yes.

Chris Enroth: 43:45

Gotta get it ready.

Emily Swihart: 43:47

Chris.

Chris Enroth: 43:49

My resolution for trees is to attend the community tree care series, and and, learn as much as I can about trees. And and and so, yeah, I I look forward this is my first time being a part of this team with the with the series, so I I'm looking forward to to being part of, the webinar series and and learning more about it. You know? We we learn every time we teach something, so I'm I'm excited to do this.

Emily Swihart: 44:20

Yeah. Good answer. And and that's true. I learn something from you all every time we talk. I I don't know how you continue to do it, but you just keep sharing all this wonderful knowledge.

Emily Swihart: 44:32

And I I personally am grateful for it and look forward to sharing it with everybody. So my 3 year, resolution, we'll just wrap this up here. But, I'm hoping to take the kids to Washington state to see some, like, really big trees and go out into the, rainforests up in the northwest and do some exploring and hiking. But I I remember seeing the redwoods for the first time and just having a very hard time conceiving that that is something living, that is that large. And so I look forward to seeing, the awe and wonder in their eyes and then fostering it back here because I I will speak for all of us.

Emily Swihart: 45:15

I think we still have that in the trees that we're, you know, planting and watching grow, like, you know, just kind of in our everyday interactions with nature. And so, I think that's where it begins. Like, you you know, as a kid get exposed to it. So, thank you guys for joining and sharing about the Community Tree Care series. I, thank you for designing it, putting it on, and not promoting it.

Emily Swihart: 45:38

And so, again, if anybody wants to participate, register in advance, please. The first session is January 15th. Right, Sarah?

Sarah Vogel: 45:47

Correct.

Emily Swihart: 45:48

Alright. So January 15th. So register in advance. The link is in the show notes. So, Ryan, thanks for joining us.

Ryan Pankau: 45:57

No. Thanks so much. It's a pleasure to be on with you guys. Always love coming to the podcast.

Emily Swihart: 46:03

Love having you. Sarah, thank you for joining us.

Sarah Vogel: 46:06

Yes. Thank you so much for, for interviewing us and putting up with our antics.

Emily Swihart: 46:12

I love it. Happy to have you guys. Chris.

Chris Enroth: 46:17

Yes. Here we are. That's at the end of an episode. Oh, I mean, a lot of great information about trees, and then and then, of course, yes. We'll have, all of the the registration information down below in in the show notes of podcast.

Chris Enroth: 46:34

The the Good Growing Podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited by are you doing this one, Emily? Are you gonna

Emily Swihart: 46:40

I'm gonna do this one.

Chris Enroth: 46:42

Yeah. Oh, people, if you're listening, watching us, that is the longest part of the show is the editing side of things. So it's always great when we, sucker, I mean, teach someone how to do that. So, Emily, thank you for editing the show. Yeah.

Chris Enroth: 46:59

Thank you for organizing this today.

Emily Swihart: 47:01

Oh, it's my pleasure. I really, really love this topic. I I we're all very passionate about trees, and I am excited to expand our community with, the participants of the community tree care series. They're really why we do this work. And so, yeah, thanks for, thanks for joining me, Chris.

Emily Swihart: 47:17

Let's keep doing good growing all throughout 2025. We got our first one checked off the list. And, so I guess we gotta be back next week.

Chris Enroth: 47:26

Oh, we will be back next week. Maybe we'll have Ken come in here too and and and talk about insects again. I don't know. But, he he'll probably want to. But, yes.

Chris Enroth: 47:36

So listeners, hope you have had a a great start to your 2025. That's quite a number. And so, we we do appreciate you hanging out with us in 2024 and now at the start of this new year. So listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening, or if you're watching us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.