Ep. 206 Answering your spring gardening questions | #GoodGrowing

Chris Enroth: 00:05

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. It is an old fashioned question and answer show. The questions are coming in this spring to our extension offices, and we are going to share what some of those are and what our responses have been. But you know I'm not doing this by myself.

Chris Enroth: 00:28

I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Ken Johnson: 00:35

Hello, Chris. It's a good time to have a q and a, I think. The questions are starting to roll in.

Chris Enroth: 00:41

Yes. You know, you and I, we were we were on campus last week for for a day. I was on there for two days and came back to a plethora of questions. So we we're definitely keeping busy right now this time of year, which is good. This is what we want.

Chris Enroth: 01:01

We enjoy doing these kind of things.

Ken Johnson: 01:05

Yes. As long as they're easy.

Chris Enroth: 01:08

Right. Don't send us hard questions, folks. Only easy questions. Oh, well, since it it is a q and a show, and maybe we have a little bit of extra wiggle room up front here, Ken, how are things going in your garden this year? We were chatting before the show.

Chris Enroth: 01:27

You getting those seeds started?

Ken Johnson: 01:32

For the home garden, yes, those have those have been started for the most part. I got peas and lettuce and carrots in the ground. We haven't had any rain since I put them in the ground, so nothing has come up. We've missed pretty much all the rain that we've had recently. It's all slid east or south of us, so everything's just kinda sitting and and waiting.

Ken Johnson: 01:53

So hopefully well, by the time people listen to this, hopefully, it would have rained, but on Wednesday, we'll see. How about you?

Chris Enroth: 02:04

Nope. I got my cool season things started, and I really should be getting the warm season things like the tomatoes and peppers and and all of that going as well. Have not done that yet, so let's just say I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the perfect time. I'm waiting for our grow along seeds to show up.

Chris Enroth: 02:24

Do we know if we have an ETA on those seeds yet?

Ken Johnson: 02:29

Yes. By the time people are listening to this, they it should be in the mail. I think they're going out today, Tuesday. Don't hold me to that.

Chris Enroth: 02:41

This week. You know?

Ken Johnson: 02:41

They're getting mailed this week.

Chris Enroth: 02:43

Barring any unforeseen circumstances. Everything should be packaged up, ready to go. So if you did sign up for our good grind grow along, start checking that mailbox after you hear this show on the end of the end of this week, Friday. And then it's off the races. Time to get things going because we do have a few of those species that you can start indoors.

Ken Johnson: 03:08

Or probably should in the case of tomatoes.

Chris Enroth: 03:10

Yes. Yeah. Especially, yeah, the black grim tomato that's a lot of people signed up to grow, definitely.

Ken Johnson: 03:17

But we still have still have ample time to get those started. So Mhmm. You're you're not in trouble yet.

Chris Enroth: 03:24

I guess it's just the warm weather that's tricking me a little bit into thinking I'm behind. Let's Yes, sir. Let's say that. I'm waiting for the good growing grow along seeds, and I'm being tricked by our warm daytime temperatures here on April 1. April fool's day of all days.

Ken Johnson: 03:42

So what are we on? Our third or fourth fall spring by now?

Chris Enroth: 03:45

I think so. Yes. That's a tricky one. Hey, Ken. I'm kind of upset that you don't remember, but we have an anniversary this week.

Chris Enroth: 03:58

Do you remember?

Ken Johnson: 04:01

No. It's

Chris Enroth: 04:02

five years we've been doing this podcast.

Ken Johnson: 04:04

Five. Really?

Chris Enroth: 04:05

Five years. Mhmm. Happy anniversary. I looked at anniversary. I looked at the recording folder from 2020.

Chris Enroth: 04:16

Well and then you were helping me out a little bit before this when I tried to get this thing going. So but, yeah, we've we've been doing this for a while. We accidentally hit, like, 200 plus episodes and didn't even realize it, a little while ago. So, yeah, I guess, just a special thanks to all of our listeners, all our viewers on YouTube for hanging out with us for these last few years.

Ken Johnson: 04:43

Yes. Thank you. It's it's nice to know people are listening, and we're not just sending this out into the void, and that's that. Just thank you for listening.

Chris Enroth: 04:54

Thank you. And I love talking to Ken every week, so we'd still be sending this out into the void. But maybe who would put less effort into editing or something? I

Ken Johnson: 05:02

don't know. We can justify doing it.

Chris Enroth: 05:04

We can. So thank you, everybody. Alright. Well, Ken, I guess we do have, several questions, that have come into to your office, to my office. And so I guess we'll go ahead and get started.

Chris Enroth: 05:19

I I will go ahead and kick this one off, since this first one, came into your office. And it is I have a patch of oh, I have a bare patch of ground. When should I plant grass seed?

Ken Johnson: 05:36

So the ideal time is gonna be that mid August to mid September. I doubt people wanna wait that long. So, we can't put grass seed down in the spring. Usually, we're we're kinda getting towards the the tail end of when we'd wanna do that. Typically, late March to mid April, is really a time frame we wanna do that.

Ken Johnson: 05:53

That's gonna get the grass time to establish roots, before it gets hot. Like because we're I don't know what for the most part, in Illinois, we're growing cool season grass. So when it gets hot, they start slowing down, and that's gonna stress them out if they're planted. The longer you wait, the more stressed they're gonna get, and less likely they are to get established, and survive through that summer. So if you can't get it done, here relatively soon, you can do sod.

Ken Johnson: 06:24

Those plants are already growing. You could put that down, I guess, anytime of the year, really, as long as it's warm enough. You have to water it quite a bit, especially as it gets hotter until it can get established. But that would be, I guess, option b. If you can't get the seed down relatively soon, look at sod.

Chris Enroth: 06:43

Mhmm. I often tell folks that spring is for sod, and late summer, early fall is for seed. Just in terms of effectiveness or success rate of establishment. So if you are seeding in the spring, you know, do you there are some species you can look at, like tall fescue or a turf type. Tall fescue is one of those that doesn't have good winter hardiness.

Chris Enroth: 07:06

So when you plant it in the fall, young, grass seedlings from turf type tall fescue, they can't get winter kill. So planting them in the spring, might make it so that they're more established than going into the next winter. But this everything still applies for turf type that Ken mentioned that they still need ample time to get a good root system established for that summer heat. So so that might be an option. If you need a really quick germination, perennial rye grass is one of your quickest germinating long grass seeds.

Chris Enroth: 07:40

Make sure it is perennial rye, not annual rye. You gotta be careful because down south, they will sow annual rye when their warm season grasses go dormant in the winter. And so I have seen annual rye seed creeping up into the northern, parts of The US, in our garden centers recently.

Ken Johnson: 08:01

And I'd say for the most part, people are probably doing, like, Kentucky bluegrass. So if you wanna if you've got other turf, you know, figure out what it is so you don't have these weird patches that are gonna look different. You may wanna try to match the species because the different cool season will look a little bit different from each other. Yes.

Chris Enroth: 08:23

Yes. If that bothers you. Meanwhile, my lawn, I don't even know what's in there.

Ken Johnson: 08:30

That bear patch would be weeds.

Chris Enroth: 08:32

Yes. Yeah. And I'm fine with it. So yes.

Ken Johnson: 08:38

Alright. Next question comes from your neck of the woods. What is this plant? And you have to show the plant because I don't have it.

Chris Enroth: 08:46

Yes. So I I do have the plant, and I'm sure the blur is not helping with this. I can even take a picture and we can insert it here. But what I was given was this plant, the leaves are all rolled up and they simply just wanted to know what it was. It was retaining its leaves in the wintertime.

Chris Enroth: 09:07

New person, new house. What is this plant? And it is a rhododendron, and they'll probably find out more about it this spring once it starts blooming. You know, it was you know, what type of flowers does it have? Very common ones, PJM, rhododendron.

Chris Enroth: 09:22

So we'll see this, what they might what they might get in terms of blooms. But as Ken and I were looking at this before we started, recording, we noticed that the stippling on these leaves look a lot like spider mite damage. Now spider mites, they can be a common pest of rhododendrons. I have I have seen spider mite damage on rhododendron before,

Ken Johnson: 09:45

but

Chris Enroth: 09:47

it's wintertime or there's there's no webbing. There's no evidence or sign of spider mites. But what there is, on the underside, there are these fecal spots. These kind of tarry like substances, they can they rub off the bottom of the leaf, and this looks very similar to rhododendron lace bug. And this is an insect that, you know, true to its name, will attack rhododendron species.

Chris Enroth: 10:16

Most times, you have natural enemies, parasitic wasps, other predators that will help you in controlling this. But I think this also happened once last year where rhododendron lace bug, the leaves came in all stippled looking like this. No sign of spider mites. So we had fecal spots on the the bottom of the leaves. It was rhododendron lace bug.

Chris Enroth: 10:38

And, again, most time natural enemies will take care of it. If they are not doing that, then you can do something like soaps or oil, horticultural sprays. You do have to get good coverage of the plant in order to in order to kill the lace bug, but they are not going to kill the eggs on there. The eggs are usually laid along the bottom mid vein of the leaf, and so sometimes a systemic insecticide can be applied. Like, the active ingredient imidacloprid can be used.

Chris Enroth: 11:13

But but otherwise, yeah, the as far as we know, I mean, this the lace bug damage can be causing these rolled leaves, but I think the leaves are all rolled up because this has been sitting on my desk for, like, five days. They brought it in when I wasn't in the office, and then it was the weekend, and then boom. Here we are. So I think it's just desiccated, but maybe the lacewing bugs played a little bit of a role in the some of the damage on these leaves.

Ken Johnson: 11:40

Yeah. And then we're if you're doing the sprays, usually, those lace bugs are on the underside leaves, which can make getting good coverage and contact with them rather difficult. And I can I get lace bugs on my baptisia every year, so I can pop in a picture here if you're not sure of what lace bugs look like? They're you know, the the wings are you got a lot of veins that look lacy, less the name. They're they're kinda cool looking as long as you don't mind them eating your plants.

Ken Johnson: 12:08

And I think, yeah, in addition to, the tar spots, I think the other and no webbing. Like, you read descriptions about them. The the stippling is bigger than spider mite. But unless you're looking at the two at the same time, I don't know how you tell the difference. I don't that one's probably not terribly helpful unless you really are familiar with what the what those damage what the damage from those two look like.

Ken Johnson: 12:30

So

Chris Enroth: 12:31

Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 12:31

Tar spots is usually a pretty good giveaway.

Chris Enroth: 12:34

Yeah. That that that's I think that's definitely helpful. I also have two spotted spider mites on my angel's trumpet at home. So even though it's two different plants, I'm not really seeing as much stippling because I'm actively trying to control those spider mites. It's it's definitely there's a distinction here.

Chris Enroth: 12:51

And yeah. You I do not see the actual insect itself, but I'm pretty confident in saying this was caused by a rhododendron lace rhododendron lacewing.

Ken Johnson: 13:01

Lacebug.

Chris Enroth: 13:02

Lacebug. Lacebug. Lacewing. We those are good guys. Right?

Chris Enroth: 13:06

We don't wanna do anything with those guys. Lacebug. There we go. Alright. Well, our next question is, from Ken's neck of the woods about African violets.

Chris Enroth: 13:18

Oh, I'm scared of these questions, because people are kind of touchy about their African violet. So this one is my African violet has mealybugs. How do I get rid of them?

Ken Johnson: 13:31

Yes. A little bit of this will depend on on the amount, or how big the infestation is and how important that plant is to you. So if you got a smaller infestation, you take something like a cotton swab, some alcohol, dip it in there, and just wipe them off and do that, you know, several times, keep up with it. And usually, can get rid of the population fairly easily that way. If got a bigger population, can look at insecticides, like horticultural soaps, or something like that, or pyrethrins are gonna be some of your your less toxic type stuff.

Ken Johnson: 14:07

You could do a systemic, like, being like a Myocloprid, take that up to the plant the insects will feed on it. Because mealybugs have this waxy kinda coating on them, which can make, make it difficult to manage them with contact insecticides. So the the systemic could be an option. But if you have a really bad infestation, and there's no sentimental value attached to that plant, a lot of times you're just better off getting rid of it, and starting over. And it could probably be cheaper in the long run, just buy a new plant instead of trying to treat it and all that.

Ken Johnson: 14:41

But if you again, if you've got some kind of sentimental attachment to it, you can try that. Maybe take some cuttings of it, make sure they're clean before you try to root it and propagate that plant. So at least you have that. Maybe not the original plant, but you've got, you know, that that plant still. You

Chris Enroth: 15:01

know, I if I can limp my angel's trumpet because this is the third winter now I've overwintered it. Each time it has spider mites. If I can get it to spring when I can get this thing outside, usually, once it's outside, it's fine. There's probably natural predators that help to keep things under control. Natural rainfall helps wash off some of the spider mites, that that my angel's trumpet has on it.

Chris Enroth: 15:28

So a lot of times, it's just just me trying to limp my infested plants to spring when I can get them back outside. And then they're like, oh, we got it from here.

Ken Johnson: 15:39

And hope it doesn't spread to everything else.

Chris Enroth: 15:41

Eggs. Yes. Yes. In the meantime, all my other vegetable seedlings and starts, all my ginger and stuff that I got down there, oh my gosh. Yes.

Chris Enroth: 15:49

And and those are the things, like, making sure if you're using the systemic on your house plants, we're wanting to avoid using those on our edible food crops. Right? Ken or unless it's labeled for that.

Ken Johnson: 16:02

Yeah. And I'm not I'm not sure how many are actually gonna be labeled for use on food crops. So yeah. Yeah. Read that label as always.

Ken Johnson: 16:10

They'll tell you what to do, how much to put on there, how often to do it. Alright. So next one. Online and in the community, I hear about, the Bradford pear being an invasive species. It looks like it is still sold and not considered a noxious weed in Illinois.

Ken Johnson: 16:28

Is there work you are doing to try to stop it from being sold? Chris Enroth.

Chris Enroth: 16:33

Well, Ken, I I nothing that that me or you can really do to prevent its sale. Though, as Illinois Extension, we are state employees. We are not allowed to lobby or do anything like that to influence policy per se, but we are here to educate and to inform people. So are are we actively doing anything to prevent its sale? No.

Chris Enroth: 16:54

But what we are doing is we are educating people that, indeed, we are seeing the Bradford pear, also known as Callery pear, commonly known also as ornamental pear. This this grouping of ornamental trees that we see outside, that they are escaping cultivation from people's landscapes into natural areas. And so what do we term these? Species of concern.

Ken Johnson: 17:23

Yeah.

Chris Enroth: 17:24

It's not technically a listed invasive species. And once you are a listed invasive species, that then prohibits the sale of that particular plant species in that state. There are other states around Illinois that have already listed Bradford pear as an invasive species. I'm pretty sure Missouri has. They might even have a bounty program.

Chris Enroth: 17:45

I've heard about that in Missouri. If you cut down your Bradford pear that's growing in your yard, bring it into local, I don't know, maybe NRCS soil, water extension. I'm not sure which organization, but if you bring it into that office, they will give you money for cutting down your Bradford pear tree.

Ken Johnson: 18:03

Not happening in Illinois. Yeah.

Chris Enroth: 18:04

Or, yeah, or they'll give you a replacement tree. Yes. That's a very common thing. So, you know, I think this question comes up pretty commonly this time of year because this is when the Bradford pears or Callery pears really stand out in the the natural areas. Very commonly, you'll be driving around, and you see just these white flowering trees, commonly at, like, highway interchanges, in the woods, surrounding subdivisions, around, like, commercial properties too that might have calorie pears planted, around them.

Chris Enroth: 18:39

So they're just standing out right now. And so while they are not listed as invasive species, I mean, we Illinois Extension no longer recommends planting them. We we give away recommendations for people to actively control and manage them in a natural forested area, you know, what chemicals to use, when to cut them, and and, you know, what are the best control methods. And, you know, again, once that particular species once Callery Pear becomes a listed invasive species, it will then kind of just move that that particular tree to a to that list, and we can officially call it an invasive species. The question also mentioned noxious weed.

Chris Enroth: 19:23

So a distinction between noxious weed and invasive species. Noxious weed is a different list. And the way maybe a good way to remember this is that noxious weed list is this is a list of plant species that if they are found on your property, you can be legally obligated to control them or to remove them. This is kind of an older law back when we used to have, weed officers within every county. We don't really have that anymore in Illinois.

Chris Enroth: 19:52

I think it might be one or two counties in Illinois that still has a noxious weed officer, and that's like their it's not even a part time job. It's a one eighth time job. Yeah.

Ken Johnson: 20:01

You're supposed to have one, but that many people do.

Chris Enroth: 20:03

Yes. Yes. But, anyway, the the noxious weed law is enforceable on private property, invasive species. That that particular law is just prohibits a sale. And so you're not allowed to sell it in the state.

Chris Enroth: 20:18

So that that is the biggest distinction between the two. So, yeah, don't plant Bradford pears. Cut down your Bradford pear if it's in your yard. Plant something different, and, maybe go out and, you know, look for those white flowering trees in the woods, and you can flag those for controlling them later. It's also a good idea to identify them because we also have some native white flowering species out there.

Chris Enroth: 20:41

We do have fake and other white flowering woody plants out in the woods. So and we even have our wild apples out there. So get them identified and then cut them down. And we can link below to our calorie pear kind of control guide down below in the show notes.

Ken Johnson: 21:05

Yeah. Calorie pears smell bad. At least I think they do. They do. They do not smell good.

Chris Enroth: 21:10

Yeah. Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 21:12

A lot

Chris Enroth: 21:12

of flies on them too, I noticed. We visited one as we were hiking through the woods, and there was a lot of flies. Hence, the smell.

Ken Johnson: 21:21

Yeah. And, like, with with Bradford pear, when they originally sold, they were sterile. And Bradford you know, so Bradford cannot pollinate Bradford, but the problem is we've come out with new cultivars, Cleveland Cleveland Select, all that, and they can cross pollinate. And that's really when we started seeing that explosion of of callery pear all over the place because now they have fruit, birds will eat them, deposit them. Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 21:44

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Chris Enroth: 21:46

Yep. So it's happened with with burning bush as well, barberry. Now Callery pear. So well, I guess if we wanna stick along the veins of invasive species, Ken, you got a question about managing honeysuckle. Is that a particular woody plant that we can spray now considering it's just starting to leaf out?

Ken Johnson: 22:19

Yeah. So is another one that kinda sticks out, because it will leaf out a lot earlier than than a lot of our native woody species will. So you could this is when you could you could try spraying right now. You're probably not gonna be terribly successful. Really, the ideal time to spray woody plants is gonna be in the fall.

Ken Johnson: 22:40

So when they're sending all that energy from the leaves back down to the roots to store that, makes it much easier to get that herbicide into the plants, freezing the systemic herbicide, and get that down to the roots and kill it. This time of year, everything is moving up, so it makes it more difficult to get, those herbicides in there. So you could, but you're not gonna be nearly as successful as you would in in the fall or or even in the summer. I think and there's a chart that we can link to this. I think it was through I know it was Department of Ag or Natural Resources.

Ken Johnson: 23:16

They've got a calendar on kind of the ideal times, and we're we would wanna wait a little bit for the to have a more ideal time than in the spring. Mhmm. The ideal time is still gonna be in the fall.

Chris Enroth: 23:28

Yeah. Yes. I think we have that I think we have that particular calendar in in our management of invasive species booklet, which we have online. I think it's based on the phenology of these plants. You know?

Chris Enroth: 23:45

There are different, portions where they're at in the life cycle of that and which one is most susceptible to, in this case, with honeysuckle like a chemical control. What I've been doing this time of year is when I see smaller honeysuckle, they're pretty shallow rooted, and so I will just as I'm walking through the woods, I will pull up, and then I just hang them in a nearby shrub or a tree. That way, the roots will dry out, desiccate, the plant will die. But you can't do that for those really big, monsters, the honeysuckle that, the practically tree sized.

Ken Johnson: 24:26

Yeah. So I found that. Yeah. It's a phenology calendar. It doesn't have the spray times in there.

Ken Johnson: 24:35

I'll have to find that link again. I can put that in the show notes. Yeah. That's right. I'm doing that with winter creeper in my backyard now.

Chris Enroth: 24:43

Yes.

Ken Johnson: 24:44

Because it's popping up with a new green. Growth stands out a lot along the green. The grass is a lighter green. It's easy to pull it up. And, yeah, just hang it somewhere.

Ken Johnson: 24:55

It's a warning to the other winter creeper. Don't come here. Don't you do it, winter creeper.

Chris Enroth: 25:00

I I will I will say, Ken, so last week, we talked spring ephemerals. And I was lucky to be able to get to my folks' property this last weekend, and I'm like, I'm gonna go find that Dutchman's Breeches, which I said squirrel corn last week. It's Dutchman's Breeches. To go find the all these Dutchman's Breeches is I mean, it's like a carpet of it. We found it.

Chris Enroth: 25:23

It is not quite flowering yet. Still a little too early. Found lots of other trillium. We found all other kinds of spring ephemerals, but I saw so much winter creeper. It kind of shocked me.

Chris Enroth: 25:37

It scared me a little bit. I mean, the this winter creeper is just intertwining all along the forest floor. And of these relatively open, they do have dense patches of honeysuckle. And then right in the middle of the woods, nowhere else is this to be seen, we had, burning bush, euonymus alatus, a very healthy looking shrub. No other evidence of any other of those around here.

Chris Enroth: 26:03

Some bird must have dropped that particular fruit, deposited that seed right there, because there's no other indication that that's anywhere else in the woods. I mean, I'm just I was shocked at the amount of invasive species, especially winter creeper I saw just last weekend.

Ken Johnson: 26:23

I was king for the day. First thing, no more winter creeper.

Chris Enroth: 26:28

Kill it.

Ken Johnson: 26:32

Alright. So another invasion question here, but of the insect variety. What do we do about our homes being invaded by the multicolored Asian lady beetle, also sometimes called Asian lady beetle, also sometimes called Japanese beetle, not the green kind, the the orange and red kind.

Chris Enroth: 26:52

Yeah. The one bug with many names. I this particular question, a little more detailed, they they really wanted something to spray. Like, what do I spray on these multicolored Asian lady beetles that are all over my windows or climbing on the doors or on the carpet? I sweep in and vacuum them up every day.

Chris Enroth: 27:13

And, really, the recommendation is we do not wanna be spraying them when they're in the house. What's gonna happen is you're gonna kill them, and then you're still gonna have to vacuum them up. You're still gonna have to spray them. They are at this point in their life cycle, they are trying to get out of your house. They do not want to stay inside.

Chris Enroth: 27:34

Them getting in your house was an accident. They found ways into your wall voids, into your attic, your ceiling. They found those ways through cracks and crevices, behind your siding, and they that's how they entered. And then when they they spent the winter there, and then when they wake up in the spring, they're they're attracted to warmth and light. Very often, that warmth is coming from the interior of the home.

Chris Enroth: 28:02

That light's coming from sunny windows, and so they're drawn into the interior of the home. So we don't wanna be spraying them right now. We just vacuum them up, sweep them up, use, an old shop vac or have, like, a special vacuum for them because they do smell pretty bad. And I guess it's up to you. They're they are not a non native species.

Chris Enroth: 28:23

They're not really they're not protected in any way. So you could take that shop vac and keep it sealed up, throw it in the garage, or just take it outside, open it up, let them fly away. They're trying to get outside the house. They're not necessarily breeding or mating right now to lay eggs in your house. You know, your house is not hospitable to them.

Chris Enroth: 28:42

It's too dry. There's nothing to eat, and they're just trying to get out. So probably the best thing is going to be in the fall, usually before they harvest the soybeans, is to seal, and caulk any cracks and crevices. We used to get tons of multicolored Asian lady beetles in our house. We did replace the windows on the front side of the house, and that cut their numbers dramatically.

Chris Enroth: 29:11

So they were just getting in through these old windows that we had, and, you know, some of the other you know, getting behind our vinyl siding, finding little vent openings to to crawl into. So, caulk and seal cracks and crevices in the fall. It's your best bet for preventing them in the spring.

Ken Johnson: 29:32

And don't smush them because they'll stain. Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 29:35

And they bite. They can bite. Yes. I've I've been bitten couple times by them. So and and if you are feel like you're living in a dirty, infested house full of multicolored Asian lady beetles, you are not alone, and this is normal.

Chris Enroth: 29:51

This is natural for these particular insects. You are there's nothing wrong with your house or your or your lifestyle. So, yeah, this this for individuals also worried that people would think that they had a dirty house. No. This is not the case.

Ken Johnson: 30:08

Yep. Just just want somewhere to spend the winter.

Chris Enroth: 30:11

Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 30:11

And you got a nice house.

Chris Enroth: 30:13

It's It's better than a cave. Alright, Ken. Well, this next question is about fruit trees. Let me add. So Ken came to our gardeners day in Macomb, and he talked about fruit tree basics.

Chris Enroth: 30:28

Someone did come up to me later, and they said, I thought I wanted fruit trees, and then I went to Ken's class. I just gotta add that in here today, Ken, which means Ken did a really good job because fruit trees are a lot of work. And and so but, anyway, let's get to this question. But kudos to Ken for teaching people, like, it's not planted and you get perfect apples every year. So, anyway, Ken, your question is, how much fertilizer should I put on my fruit trees?

Ken Johnson: 30:59

So we'll just we'll do this from the, I guess, the backyard perspective here. Let's say in our typical nice black Illinois soil, probably don't need to. We probably have enough nutrients in the soil where that's for the most part, that's probably not something you're going to need to do. Now you you can help determine if you're if you need to add or do some fertilization. You can look at the the average shoot growth or that new growth the tree is putting out every year.

Ken Johnson: 31:30

So for, something like a nonbearing tree, so stuff that's not producing fruits. Apples, we're looking at 10 to 20 inches of new growth a year. Peaches, 10 to 24 inches of growth. Once they start bearing or producing fruit, that growth is gonna slow down because they're gonna start putting some of that energy into fruit and seed production. So for bearing trees, looking at four to eight inches, of new growth.

Ken Johnson: 31:55

For apples, maybe a little bit more, peach to nectarine peach nectarine, apricots, that type of stuff, stone fruits, eight to 15 inches, of growth. So if you're hitting that, that that means just that's showing your you've got plenty of nitrogen stuff in the soil. You don't need to worry about fertilizing. If you're not getting that kind of growth, then you could potentially look at putting some fertilizer down. And and with this, a lot of times, people are just gonna put down a balanced, like, ten ten ten, something like that.

Ken Johnson: 32:27

Ideally, we're doing this in early spring or on bud break. So depending on where you're at in the state, we may be a little past that, but you could still get away with doing it. And we're gonna do a tenth of a pound of actual nitrogen per year of age of plant. So if you've got a four year old plant and you want so you're gonna want four tenths or two fifths of a pound of nitrogen, You're gonna have four pounds of that ten ten ten that you're gonna put down up to a one pound of nitrogen, actual nitrogen. So a 10 year old tree, you would do a one pound of actual.

Ken Johnson: 33:02

So it's there's a little bit of math involved there, but we're not necessarily putting down a a tremendous amount for these. But, again, for the most part, we probably don't need to do that in Illinois.

Chris Enroth: 33:15

If we did, Ken, you've already convinced me I don't wanna do fruit trees based on calculating fertilizer like that. So, yeah, you've already scared me away even though I don't think we yeah. We don't need it for Illinois soils necessarily, but do a soil test or a tissue test.

Ken Johnson: 33:30

Yeah. Do both. Tissue test would be better. Yeah. And and we won't do this in the spring.

Ken Johnson: 33:35

If we do this in the summer or the fall, they could, stimulate new growth on the plant that's not gonna harden off in the winter, and we're gonna get winter kill on there. So this is a a spring. We don't wanna put it on later in the year, because that can cause problems for winter hardiness.

Chris Enroth: 33:52

Right. Well

Ken Johnson: 33:53

So one more. Let me do this one.

Chris Enroth: 33:55

More question. I'll ask you, Ken. This is your this is your question. These are your insects. You've adopted all of them, all the trillions of them around the country.

Chris Enroth: 34:07

So, yeah, if folks are curious, last year, we did tons of shows about cicadas. It was the year of the cicada here in Illinois, but their effects are being felt even beyond 2024. So, Ken, will cicadas affect my trees this year? Is there anything we need to worry about?

Ken Johnson: 34:27

No. We shouldn't have to worry about anything. In last fall or in last summer, people probably had flagging in their trees. So when the scaders are going in laying their eggs or slicing open the the twigs or the branches with their ovipositor, it can cause some damage that may break. So you get all these dead spots, in the trees with those branches or twigs have broken.

Ken Johnson: 34:48

Plants will have recovered. They'll send out new shoots, off of that. You may have stuff. You'll see the scars on those trees or those branches for probably a couple of years until those are fully healed over. But you should if you do have them, you should see some indication that those plants are starting to to heal that, seal that over, and stuff.

Ken Johnson: 35:10

So, you know, as far as that, with all the wind we've had, I would think if any branches are are compromised because of that egg laying, they probably would have broken by now. Just at least here in Jacksonville, it's been ridiculously windy. I think it has been in a lot of the state. Yes. So so as far as egg laying, you know, it it should be done.

Ken Johnson: 35:28

Obviously, if you had a small tree and they laid it in the trunk and that killed the top part, maybe you'll get some growth, from the bottom. But if you don't get anything, the tree's probably dead. As far I know we get a lot of questions about, you know, they lay in their eggs in the trees. They nymphs fall to ground. They start feeding on the roots.

Ken Johnson: 35:46

Is that gonna hurt stuff? Now you remember they're in the ground for thirteen or seventeen years, so they're while they're feeding, they're not necessarily removing a whole lot of nutrients, and we had billions or trillions of them coming out last year, and they were all feeding on on those tree roots and stuff. So those trees survived just fine. They'll survive the feeding this time around too.

Chris Enroth: 36:09

Definitely. Yeah. Oh, missed those cicadas already.

Ken Johnson: 36:14

Oh, more years.

Chris Enroth: 36:16

That's right. Well, I think Western Illinois is supposed to get a brood emergence since my particular part of the county, McDonough County, missed out. We're a little island in in the sea of cicadas.

Ken Johnson: 36:30

Was another bird up there. Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 36:32

Yeah. I forget the bird name, though. But, yeah, 2031 is when Us folks in McDonough County are gonna be seeing periodic periodic cicada merchants.

Ken Johnson: 36:44

And this year is in the East Coast.

Chris Enroth: 36:48

Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 36:48

I know New York New York is supposed to be getting them. And I'll say that goes into the Appalachians too. So there there's still some coming out if you missed them last year. Or if you miss them, you can go find somewhere this year elsewhere.

Chris Enroth: 37:02

Yeah. Or if you need to restock your freezer with more cicadas like Ken, they'll be out somewhere this year in The US.

Ken Johnson: 37:12

Go find them.

Chris Enroth: 37:14

Well, that was a lot of great information about spring gardening conundrums, queries, questions. So I wanna thank everybody for sending those into the extension office, emailing us, hitting us up with those questions. Keep them coming. It's what we're here for. So, yeah, we appreciate it.

Chris Enroth: 37:34

Well, the Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson. Ken, thank you for hanging out with me, sharing some of the questions that you have also been receiving into your office. It's good to know that we're kind of getting similar questions.

Ken Johnson: 37:55

Yes. Yeah. Thank you, and thank you for everybody for a great five years and and for the questions. And it's okay if they're hard too. We'll still answer them.

Chris Enroth: 38:03

We'll try. You might not like the answer.

Ken Johnson: 38:08

And let's do this again next week.

Chris Enroth: 38:11

Oh, we shall do this again next week. We're going to be talking about the impact of honeybees on our native bee population. We're gonna have a special guest, Shirlaksh Shuresh, come by to discuss this particular topic. It's making headlines lately, so should be an interesting conversation. Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening.

Chris Enroth: 38:32

Or if you're watching us on YouTube, watch it. And as always, keep on growing.

Ken Johnson: 38:48

Sound better now? Less echoey? Hopefully. Maybe. Possibly.

Chris Enroth: 38:53

Yes. Yes. Pretty soon, we're just gonna have our mouth up against these things.

Ken Johnson: 39:04

Heating up. Yes.

Chris Enroth: 39:09

Got my got my beard hair caught in my microphone.

Ken Johnson: 39:14

Fate black.