Ep. 244 Spring Garden Problem‑Solving: Weeds, Water, Pests, and Cold Snaps | #GoodGrowing

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've got some, I guess, we'll call them late winter or maybe better yet early spring questions. I don't know. The weather's been a little topsy-turvy lately, so I guess up to your best judgment, listener or viewer.

But you know I can't answer these by myself. I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Hello, Chris. I think today is late winter. I figured this week, I think it's gonna it's gonna be summer. So

We went from summer. So I think last week when we recorded, if you if you're watching us then, it was, like, 80 degrees. Now we are so here in Macomb, at least according to the Google, we hit nine degrees. I think I had eight at home, but I have to go back home and double check that. How about you, Ken?

How cold did you get last night?

When I looked on my phone, think we were, like, 10 or 11. So I'm not sure if we got colder than but, yeah, much much too cold for having 80 degree days Yes. A few days earlier.

And and then by the time people listen to this on Friday, it's gonna be what? We're back towards, at least the seventies, I think, in my neck of the woods, and you guys might be warmer than that.

I'm day by day now. Hour by hour. Let's see here. Yeah. Friday, yeah, low seventies here.

Okay.

So

So I I guess it's not unusual that we go back and forth, hot to cold. I was just doing a little bit of research. I I had an interview earlier this week, and it is unusual though for us to be talking about it now in, like, early March, or I guess mid March now. Usually, we're having these conversations in April. Right?

We're we're talking about the the late spring or the early spring freeze or whatever, and and we're kinda having that conversation then. I I did find out, though, was that a few years ago, we we did experience a similar effect, a cold snap in, like, 2023 or '22. So not altogether uncommon. And after all, we are in the Midwest, which means we experience we're kind of at the whims of whatever air mask moves in. We don't have any oceans or anything to buffer that, temperature extreme.

So, yeah. Yeah. We're fine. We're doing fine here in the center of the country.

Yeah. I think the the eighties to single digits. I can say that's pretty relatively uncommon. But I would say so. Yeah.

Yeah. And as we thaw out because right now, we're still frozen. As we thaw out and and, of course, by the time you all are hearing this, we will be uncovering what made it and and what didn't. Probably mostly just flower wise. I'm sure most of our trees and such, they're gonna be fine.

We just might not have the flower display or potentially the fruit this year, but we'll find out.

Yeah. And if I mean, I know I went out this weekend, and I was looking at stuff. I have some like my spice bush was starting to leaf out, bud out, eastern Wahoo and stuff. Those have been in the ground for a couple of years. I like to think they're relatively healthy.

So if you've got a well established healthy plant, woody stuff, even if you're you lose your leaves, they get frosted off, they should be able to put new ones on and be just fine. May just yeah. Blooming may not be, like you said, may not be all that impressive this year. Or you may have enjoyed it for a few days and then lost it. But

I you're maybe a week or two ahead of us, Ken, and, you had mentioned there's a few magnolia flowers, trees that had begun to flower. Ours, at least that I'd seen, all the scales are off of the flower buds. They were just primed and ready to to open, I think, given them another few days of warm weather. And so I don't think our magnolias are gonna bloom this year. I also am curious about the maples.

Our maples are in full bloom. Is this going to affect the Samara output this year? Because that might not be that bad, at least for

me. Extra silver lining right there.

There you go. No.

No. Samara's clogging up your gutters.

That's exactly what I'm thinking. Yes. Pulling maple trees out of my, gutters at this spring. So I don't know. We'll find out.

That's yeah. We'll tell you more about it next week, I guess.

Wait. Wait and see is where we're at.

That's right. Oh, well, Ken, we have a couple questions that have come in and actually overflow from an event that we did together. So people that attended the event, they were allowed to submit questions. And during our presentation, Ken and I, we were just so verbose. We just talked so much.

We didn't get to this. So we thought what better than to take these questions and talk about them today, answer them today on the podcast. So, yeah, we're at the what event were we at last week or two weeks ago, Ken?

Home lawn garden day in Bloomington. Beautiful Bloomington, Illinois.

Beautiful Bloomington, Illinois. That's right. Yeah. So, we we figured maybe this will be a good opportunity for us to to make up, for us, going over on our time with our presentation. And and and hopefully, if you're in the Bloomington normal area, you hear this and you'll get your questions answered.

I'm sure people are very shocked we went too long. Oh, listen to this.

They're like, how can you talk about plants for so long? Well, we do it. For real? Crocus, that long? Hour and a half?

Not quite. After editing. Oh, well, Ken, would you mind kicking us off on this week's questions, please?

I would love to. So our first one is, what are some nontoxic or environmentally friendly ways to kill or keep weeds under control in garden beds?

I'd say the most environment environmentally friendly way to manage weeds is our levels of acceptance. I mean, who cares if the violets are out in your lawn? Who cares if there's dandelions? So the most environmentally friendly way, that's it. You just don't care.

Oh, no. I'm sure that's not the answer that they were looking for. So if we're looking for nontoxic, environmentally friendly, there's probably a few things we could unpack with that question. But I'll I'll just say kind of, you know, what our response we were kinda geared towards for that day, was, like, smothering weeds using things like, wood mulch, arborist wood chips, and and just, you know, a good layer of mulch and smothering those out. And then potentially maybe some hand tools or a soil knife or something like that to then maybe pop weeds out or cultivate them.

But, yeah, I I would say we were probably gonna focus mostly on on wood chips for that for that question, which we actually have a whole episode about mulch. So we can link below to that in the description or on the screen. So, yeah, Kent, you got any nontoxic or environmentally friendly techniques that you like to use besides mulch?

So, yeah, mulch and elbow grease aren't the biggies. You could grow, like, some sort of ground cover in your beds. So hopefully, may have to do some weeding as you get them established. Hopefully I'll compete those weeds. What could be another option?

So your violets, you can use those as a ground cover or something else. In our shaded areas in our yard, we've been planting the Pennsylvania sedge and the, wild ginger and stuff, letting those kind of spread out. So there's options out there. Yeah. Or embrace it.

Shredded leaves could be another option I wouldn't use. On the I would shred them first if you just have plain unshredded leaves. Those can mat sometimes and they can become problematic if you get them on real thick and they just kind of shed off and everything gets slimy and it doesn't look all that great. So probably shred them first if you're going be using quite a bit of it as mulch.

Yeah. I I I've shredded leaves quite a bit in the past. I found, you know, even when you shred them up, they don't get picked up as easily by the wind, I think, they once they settle. And you can settle them kind of artificially just sort of by, like, laying on them, throwing a board over top, smashing them down or or maybe hitting them with the hose or something. And so, yeah, I I really do like shredded leaves.

I feel like wherever I I utilize those, my soil seems a little bit better that next year, but they don't last that long. So so maybe folks are more interested in wood chips for that matter. So, yeah, elbow grease, wood chips, planting density. That that's the most environmentally friendly ways, I would say.

Yeah. I think planting density is probably one that's overlooked. Mhmm. With maybe a plant a little bit denser, let that canopy flow quicker, more competition for those weeds. It's gonna be more expensive to to increase that planting density.

But if that if that isn't a barrier, plant a little more densely. It could be helpful too.

Yeah. And then you're fighting that traditional aesthetic where we all have these plants sort of on their own little spots, and they don't touch each other, and there's, you know, mulch in between or so so, yeah, just pack them in. The nursery, dealers are loving this. So yeah. Like, sell more plants.

Buy more plants. There you go. Well, our next question is about brassicas. And so, they are wondering about hints of growing brassicas. So these are gonna be cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli, and so forth.

Do we have any hints of growing brassicas in our area? They the comment here is that they would often fade during the heat of summer.

Yeah. So that's one of the issues that I've had with, you know, with our broccoli or cabbage or cauliflower. These are cool season crops. And when we are harvesting them, we're harvesting them kind of in the heat. When it's starting to get warm, they really don't like those conditions.

So you run into issues with bolting and stuff like that. So really, think, and what I've done in my garden is we don't even grow this stuff in the spring. I say I'm not growing in the fall, but the problem is a lot of places don't have transplants, you got to start your own transplants. So usually end up not growing them. But I would say maybe look at planting them in late summer so you're harvesting in fall.

So when they when you are getting ready to harvest them, it's in cooler weather, weather that they're going to like. And everything I've read is that the quality is much better when you're harvesting them in that cooler weather. And and these plants can take some light frost, so you don't have to worry about necessarily frost quite as much. If we get a really hard frost, that's going to affect them. But those frosts can actually kind of improve the flavor of them as well.

Another one would be checking the days to harvest. Look at short, if you're going to plant in the spring, look at varieties that are quicker to develop, so you're harvesting them sooner. They're not, you're not having to stretch as long into that warmer weather than you would have with some of these longer ones. And there are some also some heat tolerant cultivars that are out there. So again, reading those descriptions, looking at those, just some examples that I came across.

So broccoli, some cultivars. I don't know how readily available some of these are. This comes from yeah, this is from Cornell. And they they just had a giant list of different cultivars. So whether or you can find these, I don't know, but some examples side for broccoli, sidekick, happy rich, Monty, Imperial, Sweet Bunch, Melody are some cultivars that are have or listed as having some heat tolerance to them.

Cauliflower, early snow, so I'm assuming that's probably a little bit quicker to harvest than some of the others. Clementine, Paxon, Bishop, Flamestar, Twister, then cabbage, All Seasons, Orient Express, flat early flat Dutch, green sole, Sharona would be some examples. So look read those descriptions, see if they'll mention that being heat tolerant and check those ten days to harvest, I think would be the big ones. If you want to try to grow them in the spring. And I think we're both like this.

We don't really grow these a lot because they take up quite a bit of space. For broccoli, can harvest it and they'll set up smaller side shoots, but really you're getting one big harvest off of them. So for me, I don't grow them because they take up a lot of space and you don't there's not a lot of bang for your buck when you grow them.

Yes. You you got it there, Ken. I I think the other thing is when I grow the stuff in the spring, I'm fighting cabbage worms and loopers and moths all, like, spring and then early summer because they show up. And and so you have to do something, whether you handpick them or you spray with some maybe some type of BT. Or like the weeds, you embrace them and you you eat the leaves with the worms on them because, hey.

We everyone's trying to get extra protein these days. So I am shocked that we're not advocating for just eating worms on our leaves right now because there's protein there. Grips too far for some people. I guess so.

I see. And, yeah, with your your looper stuff, you have row covers, would be an opportunity. That, we don't have to worry about them getting pollinated. We're not producing fruit, you can keep those on until you harvest, keep those clean, potentially.

Yeah. You know, I did seed some kale, and now I'm thinking like, I don't wanna have to deal with cabbage sleepers and stuff this year. Maybe I don't know if I'll wind up planting it. But, you know, I really do like Swiss chard. Swiss chard does seem to do well throughout the summer where I have it planted.

So it's kind of in the the shade. So it it gets all afternoon shade, a little bit of morning sun. Once once the trees leaf out, it's it's basically almost all all shade, just a little bit of that morning sun. And so my Swiss chard does great all season long, but I I don't think I'm gonna plant kale this year. I'll wait until fall.

I have to deal with the worms.

At least with kale. Well, I guess depending on how you harvest it, it's a little easier to get those off than if those worms are up in the broccoli heads, which I've that I've picked. I've washed them and eating them and they're still caterpillars are all in them.

You you find their frass trail within the head of the broccoli. Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, I you know what? I'm okay eating the bug, but something about eating their poop, I don't know. I just don't like it. It turns the stomach.

Redigested for you. Yes. Alright. Moving on before we get ourselves in trouble here. Yeah.

So our next question is drip irrigation is supposed to be better than sprinklers. Can I do it myself? How do I choose and locate the equipment needed?

Yes. Drip irrigation, you can do it yourself. And when it comes to, comparing it to sprinklers, I I would say I I like them better than sprinklers for a few reasons, but sprinklers do have a couple pros as well. So, let's talk about first the benefits of of sprinklers, like overhead irrigation, is you can move those around. You can do a large area one time, and it's just more just it's just easier.

You just get your hose, hook up a a sprinkler to it, and let it go. Some of the things that might be a little bit more difficult with sprinklers, though, is that because it's casting that that pattern of water up through the air and then down to the ground, just by doing that, we lose water to evaporation. And when we are irrigating our plants and it's, like, hot, maybe it's windy, and if the humidity is low, we're losing a lot more water to evaporation. So that's often why we say if you're gonna do overhead irrigation, it's really a good idea to do it in the morning as opposed to maybe in the middle of the day. If we do it in the evening, well, that can be a problem too because then our leaves will stay wet all night long, which then gives just a greater opportunity for disease occurrence to occur.

Yes. Yes. So the nice thing about drip irrigation is that it applies water directly to the soil where the roots are that are going to be absorbing and taking that water up. And you are losing less water to evaporation. I think the statistic is kinda depends on weather and soil type and your drip system, but it's like 30 to 50% water is saved by using drip irrigation.

So, it it can be definitely a a useful tool in more arid parts of the country or during more dry times of the year for us here in Illinois where, you know, we've had some pretty pronounced droughts lately, even with some water restrictions popping up here and there, as some of our, like, rural water and even some of our city water levels get pretty low. So, yes, drip irrigation, I do think it is, from a resource standpoint, it is more useful. You'd maybe one of the cons, though, is you do have to install it. You have to wind those drip tape or the drip line or whatever drip emitter that you use, you have to install that. So it does take more time.

However, once that's installed, all you have to do is really turn on the spigot or turn on a timer and and let that run and until you apply the water that you need. And can you do it yourself? Most definitely. These days, drip irrigation systems are sold very often in, like, these kits. They come with everything you need.

So everything from what you need to hook up to the spigot, which is usually a backflow preventer, some type of a pressure regulator. And because our water pressure that we have usually with, like, 30 psi, that's too much. We have to drop that or else we would blow up our dripping system. And then our filter so our our emitters don't get clogged with the sediment. That is very commonly in our drinking water.

So so those three things usually come in the kit along with all of the tape and tubing that you might need. You can kind of shop and buy based upon the setup of your garden and and purchase a kit like that. And so, Ken, I'll throw it back to you. We went to your place and set up a drip irrigation system. Did you think it was really complicated or did you feel like I could do this when we were done?

Yeah. It's it's pretty easy. It's just basically poke some holes.

Mhmm.

Shove the little nozzles in there, connector drip, and I'll say it's pretty straightforward. They usually they're going to come with instructions too. And one of we did film video for this. One of these days, I'll actually get that video put together.

When when it's put together, we'll look at it. We were so young. Oh, yeah. No. I I call drip irrigation, it's like Legos for grown ups because as Ken mentioned, you just sorta, like, you poke holes in the tubing, you you plug in your your nozzles and your emitters, and you just build it.

And it's kind of fun. I I I enjoy doing that. So, just call me anytime, Ken. I'll come down, put a drip system in anywhere you want.

Alright. And I will say if you're doing drip, make sure you check every once in while, make sure those emitters are actually releasing water. So you don't you're not ending up with a dry spot and dead plants because you think they're getting watered, but they're not.

Yeah. That is a good point. Scouting once a week. You know, you can set a timer to go off at like seven in the morning, whatever it is. Whenever you wake up, you're getting ready for the day, have your coffee or tea, or whatever you drink, Ken, in the morning, like water.

And you just go out and you scout. You just look at your your irrigation system as it's running and just just see if you can identify any leaks, any dry spots, and then just you can repair and adjust accordingly. Alright. Well, Ken, this next question, that's gonna be a tough one. So they wanted to know what tools can you not live without, and are there any ergonomic tools that we could recommend as we age?

Well, Ken, what do you got?

So we'll stick to garden tools here. So for for me, the there's really there's one tool that I mean, anytime I go out to garden, I'm going to have with me. That's my my Hori Hori, my soil knife, which I didn't bring with as a prop. But I got pictures we can put pictures in. So this is, you know, it's more or less a shovel, but it's got a serrated edge and it's pointed on the end and I've drawn blood with it a few times.

It's gotten a little dull over the years, it's not quite as dangerous as it used to be. But I use that for pretty much all my digging, unless it's some digging a big hole, then it's a regular shovel, but use that. I use a collinear hoe or a shuffle syrup hoe, two different things there, but whatever you want to call them for weeding, for most of the weeding that I do. And then some printers, I think, kind of the three, four things I always have with me. Maybe a five gallon bucket if I don't if I'm usually I just throw the weeds out in the yard and then I'll mow over them.

But if they've got seed heads or something on it, then I'll I'll put them in a bucket so I'm not spreading the seeds. But those are those are kind of the biggies for me. And then I mean, like anything else, you can get more and more specialized and you have certain different tools are gonna be better for different jobs, but kind of the day to day, pan shovel, soil knife, pruners, collinear hoe, and or a stirrup hoe is is what I'm going to use more often than not in my yard. As far as ergonomic, I think pretty much any tool out there that you're going to use in the garden, there is some sort of ergonomic option for that, whether that's pruners, hand shovels, you name it, we've seen them out there. We do have a tools video that we put together that I think is available on YouTube that we can link to that that shows some examples of some of these ergonomic tools.

But, yeah, they're kind of shaped so you're not your wrist is is more locked into place. You're not moving your wrist quite as much, make it easier and stuff.

Mhmm.

How about you? Any tools you can't live without?

Well, Ken, you you talked me into that Hori Hori knife. So I got the exact same knife as Ken. And, yeah, I can't I can't leave home without it. So it's that's a really useful one for me. I also do have my shovel, which is a smaller just sort of digging shovel.

Not really digging shovel. It's really it's like it's a small, stout, very heavy, very sharp shovel that I I just use it a lot. As Ken mentioned, a a bucket, some kind of vessel, whether it's a wheelbarrow or a bucket, something to carry stuff in. And then I think for some of, like, our our master gardeners, some of them, they really do like the stirrup hoe or the scuffle hoe. Now I think with, like, the ergonomics or maybe, like, the comfort level of using these, At least what I found and what I've noticed, what they talk to me about is any tool where you don't have to bend over as much or you don't have to stoop.

So any of those long handled tools in the stirrup one, they do still kind of bend down a little bit to to operate that. But that collinear hoe, I mean, you stand up, your back is straight. It's like sweeping. You know, you're really just using your shoulders and maybe your elbows a little bit. So, that that action of cultivating with a culinary hoe, I think, is much much easier on your body.

I do the stirrup hoe is really, like, good at tackling some some larger weeds as they they grow in, like, the garden beds and stuff. But and then they really do like to show off some of their more, mechanical tools. So some of them have, like, a battery assist pruners. Some have even gone a little bit farther and got these small little battery chainsaws. Like like, the bar is, like, four or six inches long.

So there's, like, these little things. So, yeah, I I think, some of these, like, maybe advances in some of the electronics of our of our day and age, can can help with some of those tasks as well.

Yeah. For printers, there's like ratcheting printers. So if you don't have the hand strength, those work Perhaps it cuts stuff that maybe that you wouldn't be able to if you just gotta use pure hand strength to get that.

Mhmm. Yep. I I can't leave Houma either with my without my Felco pruners. So or can I not say the f word on the podcast? I don't know.

Whether my red handled pruners yes.

Say another thing I I I don't always use, but I know there's a file. So if you need to sharpen your shovel or your one of your hose or something, that's good to have too. Well, there's not fine tooth file to do that.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

Alright. Our next question here is, what plants are good for repelling rabbits?

I don't know if any plant can, like, actively repel a rabbit. Just like the rabbit season is like, oh, not that plant. Not today. I mean, have you seen where some rabbits will bed down in, like, thistle and and briar? I mean, I know Peter Rabbit did.

So but, again, I probably not, like, outwardly repelling. I know a lot of people will line their gardens with, like, marigolds, with the idea that maybe the odor is is less appealing to rabbits. And I don't really know if that's an accurate statement or if the rabbit just doesn't wanna go through the hedge of marigolds because it can't see on the other side, and it's like, well, maybe there's a predator in there. And that just makes them nervous to go through that that thick hedge of flowers. So I would say the best repellent for rabbits is going to be a physical barrier.

So some type of fencing that is buried a few inches in the ground even because rabbits, they can burrow. They can dig a little bit. So a basic chicken wire fencing that's, you know, maybe a foot to two foot tall is probably all that you would need to keep rabbits out of a a garden bed. And and and maybe that is still short enough where you, as the gardener, can still step into that garden bed without having to move the fence or take it up at all. So so, yeah, I I would say I know a lot of folks fight the bunnies.

We do as well. And the best the best defense for us is a a physical fence barrier.

There's you can get repellents and stuff and like getting a repellent, you're gonna have to reapply that. They may get used to it and start ignoring it. I don't know of any. There may be some, but I can't think of any that you can actually apply to vegetable crops. So this would be like an ornamentals here.

They're getting into your vegetable crops. Yeah, fence is going to be your best option. We've had a lot much fewer rabbit problems after we cut a dog. I will say that. So that may may or may not be an option for people.

There's a lot more that goes into having a dog than just having one. That's true. And also for rabbits, they are protected as a small game animal in Illinois, so you do have to have a permit in order to trap them. And there's a hunting season for rabbits too. So we'll just leave that there.

Yahoo. Yep.

Make sure you if you are trapping them, make sure you have the permit or whoever's doing it for you has the permit. And if you're shooting them, make sure you're doing it the right time of year and you're not in town.

And and you know what? If folks, I bet you want more information about this. So we can leave a link to a pretty good website. I think it's by Illinois Department of Natural Resources. It's ill or illinoiswildlife.org.

Wildlifeillinois.org.

Gotcha. Hit it backwards. Wildlifeillinois.org. That that's a really good resource, whether you have questions about bunnies to coyotes to reptiles. You know?

They have all kinds of information, plus spots of, like, where maybe you could find some either, like, let's say, they have a list of raptor rehabilitators or nuisance wildlife, people who deal with those or permit holders of that. So we'll leave a link of that down below. It's a great resource. Alright, Ken. Oh, well, this is a a good question here.

How can you prevent Japanese beetles from eating your flowers without using chemicals? How can?

Well, the easiest would be gross stuff they don't like to eat. And believe it or not, there are a few there are some plants out there. There is there is a paper, I think it's relative susceptibility of woody plants, Japanese beetles, or something along those lines that lists a whole bunch of things out there. For woody plants, you know, more of our garden plants, you know, columbine, begonia, dogwood, forsythia, holly, impatiens, lilacs, hosta, violets are some examples of stuff they don't really like or don't really feed on much. If you do have what and I would say most people probably have plants in their landscape that they're going to feed on.

So a couple of different things that you do, you do hand picking. So going out earlier in the morning to hand pick them, you get a bucket of water, put a drop or two of soap in there. You don't need to make it sudsy, that soap is just to break the surface tension of the water so they sink instead of float. And you go and hand pick them. If you do it early in the morning when Japanese beetles are disturbed, when they're it's cooler, they will drop to the ground.

So if you don't want to touch them, you can just tap the branch or whatever they're on and they should drop to the ground into the bucket. Starts to warm up, they will fly away. So mornings is the best time to do this. And if you do it, if you stay on top of them early in the season, the first couple of weeks, you tend to have fewer problems later in the season because as they're coming to plants, they're feeding those plants, release chemicals, the chemicals they release are attractive to those beetles, so it draws in more beetles, you get more damage, they become more attractive and it just kind of snowballs. The unmated females will also release pheromones to attract males.

So again, the more you get on there, the more attractive and it snowballs. So if you keep your plants relatively clean early in the season, you tend to have fewer problems later on because of the beetles are kind of gone where they're going to go and the plants aren't as attractive because they're not as damaged and there's not as many beetles. So keep on top of it for a few weeks. You will usually have fewer problems later down the road. Not going to say always, just to cover myself.

But another option would be to cover high value plants, so that things like roses that they really like, you can cover those again for a couple of weeks when populations are really high, take that off, help reduce some of the damage you get to those. People like to use traps. Don't do that. Those traps typically are going to attract far more beetles than they can, than they can catch. Usually they just have these little plastic receptacle that's not terribly large, and they can quickly fill that.

And as those traps are drawing the beetles in, you know, they're drawing them in from all over the place, they may stop on their way to the trap, stop on a plant and decide I like this plant, I'm just going to stay here. So plants along those flight path may have more damage to them too, cause you're drawing stuff in and they may never make it to that trap. So those are a few things you can do. And I will say, I was kind of surprised that we're doing Master Gardener training, this break going on right now. And I went over to Champaign to teach their entomology class.

Like in my yard and my around me, we have not had a lot of Japanese beetles the last several years. But talking to some people, it sounds like there are still some places that are that are inundated with them. So it sounds like across all that we've got a little more patchy distribution than they're really uniform. They're everywhere. So Correct.

And then I will say, you know, it's using chemicals, but treating your lawn to control Japanese beetles, the adults is not going to do you any good. So they're overwintering in the soil as grubs, they'll feed a little bit and they're emerging from the soil. You can treat your lawn all you want to kill the grubs, but the adults are capable of flying. So almost everybody within a large area around you is going to treat their soil for the grubs. That's not going to do you any good.

So the adults will still fly into your landscape.

Do we know much about some of these like entomopathic nematodes that people have been, I I see it advertised on commercially. I don't know much about any research that's actually been done on, like, nematodes, applying those to your lawn to kill grubs. I know that they're seeing a decrease in the effectiveness of the milky spore disease. Not quite sure why that might be occurring, if it's resistance or we're just not making it as we used to make it. It something has occurred in the recipe.

But do you know anything about the nematodes?

I'm not sure how, you know, how effective they are, but it's going to be similar to milky spore. Like, you need to get those populations built up on the soil. It's not going to be you put them on once and it's going to work. Like if immediately or real quickly, like if that pesticide would, it's a living organism. Those populations have to build up, kind of like with milky spore, usually that first year.

It may get some control, but you're going to get more as time goes on as that population of that bacteria for milky spore, in the case of milky spore builds up in the soil. But I'm not sure how effective they are on Japanese beetles specifically. By doing it, they are sold quite readily.

Yeah.

And then pretty sure there's some research on it. I'm just not sure on the specifics. And like for for turf, you can your turf can handle some feeding damage. You know, if you've got a few Japanese beetles in there, it's your turf's going to be okay. And really, if you're if you're not irrigating your lawn, you're probably not going to have too many Japanese beetle grubs.

Because typically when they're laying their eggs, it's usually during a drier part of the year. So like last year, we didn't get any rain for much of the state and kind of in that and during the summer during egg laying and stuff, they probably weren't laying eggs in a lot of lawns that were going dormant. Now if you're irrigating and keeping that grass green year round or during the summer when it's going dormant, your lawn's gonna be that much more attractive to them for egg laying. Mhmm.

Yeah. I think that's why a lot of golf courses, they always they just knee jerk reaction is treat for grubs every year because they gotta irrigate. They gotta keep that lawn cut low. All of these things are prime egg laying spots for Japanese beetles.

Yeah. And when you have really short turf, your root system isn't as big, so they can't handle the feeding damage like a Mhmm. A fully developed root system would.

Don't give your neighbors a Japanese beetle trap. I I didn't say that.

I was kidding. Encourage them to put it up.

So you got one too. They it's just on the other side of the house. They can't see it.

Alright. Our last alright. Last yeah. Last question here is what supplemental lighting, type of bulb, distance from the plants, and length of time to keep lighting on is best for Phalaenopsis orchids and African violets?

Right. Well, Ken, you know, we could have probably blundered our way through this question, but we got a a new colleague. His name is Jack Schooley. He's up in the Cook County area. And when he introduced himself, he actually said my background is in, like, was it greenhouse production of orchids?

He grew orchids as a hobby quite a bit. A hobby. So

yeah. He's like, well, your experience is already hundredfold times more than me. So so we asked Jack about, you know, this question. So he he wrote us at the back and answered. So I'm just going to read this, what what Jack wrote, because it's it's way better than anything I know that I could provide.

So this is what Jack says. So in terms of the Phalaeopsis orchids, he said, I would recommend a full spectrum LED. So 95 plus CRI. And LED folks, I assume you know what that means. What does that mean, Ken?

I looked that I looked that up for the presentation. Let me look it up again. Alright. That is the color rendering index measures how accurately light sources how accurate measures, how accurately a light source reveals the true colors of an object behind compared to natural sunlight on a scale from zero to 100. So the higher the number, the more accurate vibrant colors.

So I guess maybe closer to sunlight it would be.

Okay. Okay. So 95 plus for our LEDs, as that will be the closest you can get to the spectrum of natural sunlight. Okay. So 95 plus, good number.

The distance from the plant will depend on how strong the lights are, but the light strength at the leaf surface should be around 1,200 foot candles as measured by a light meter. I I I've been in the world of foot candles before, but that's when I was doing, like, pedestrian lighting for landscape design. So this is a bit new to me. But yeah. So I guess I would need to invest in a light meter next, Ken, in addition to, like, a pH meter and all this other stuff.

Or maybe could I use my phone?

I think there are apps on your I don't know if there's any free versions, but I think there are apps you can use your phone for that stuff.

Oh, alright. Cool. Okay. So 1,200 foot candles as measured by a light meter. That's kinda where you want it to be or fall in terms of that distance from the top of your plants.

There are a lot of options for full spectrum LEDs, but just be warned, they should not be placed as close as you would if you're starting seeds with something like that. Phals, which is the abbreviation for phalaeopsis, and African violets are both low light plants. So if this person does not wanna invest in a light meter, the light should be about 12 inches, give or take a few inches above the leaf surface, but I would caution them about the vast differences in lights on the market. Oh, I think Jack's right about that. There seems to be so much variability.

And it seems like the marketing is so confusing of lights.

Yeah. So if if you're really big into it, I would look at more a place that specializes in, like, in this stuff, not necessarily a say Amazon or something like that where you can get the you get the whole gamut of stuff on there. Exactly.

Okay. We're still on the orchids here. So light duration should hover around twelve hours but could vary from eleven to fourteen hours. Ultimately, the plants should receive at least an eight hour dark period per day. That's something a lot of people we always are focused on the light that they get.

But we also need to really consider the the dark period that that the plants go through as well. It's it's a I would say just as important, if not more important, for some triggers of plant processes. So the best lighting would be an east facing window where they receive a few hours of sun at some point during the day, but the specs that Jack listed here should result in decent vegetative growth and support flowering. The American the American Orchid Society has a good page on general light requirements, but it is geared more towards large scale operations, and we can link to that one below. Jack mentioned about African violets.

Again, these are both low level light plants. So he mentioned that the orchids can take a bit more light than the African violets up to around 1,400 foot candles. But ideally, violets should receive around 600 foot candles for about twelve to sixteen hours per day for optimal growth and flowering. And that is backed by a few studies that, he has in his possession. So, yeah, Ken, I think we need to get Jack on the podcast and talk to us about this stuff.

LED lights, maybe especially.

Yes. Lights and orchids.

Mhmm.

I'd I'd put them in the window, whatever happens happens. Yeah. Water them when I remember too. I'm sure I could do much better.

Yep. We our secretary in our office has these African violets, and she grows them. They're beautiful. She actually divides them, almost every year, and and they are all divided right now. They're all we have all these little glasses of water around the office with these baby, African violets, scattered throughout.

So and it's in our main lobby area that has a huge west facing window, but it's their back out of the direct sunlight. So it's just a very bright room all day long, and it's just natural light that they pretty much experience and the ebb and flow of solstice to solstice summer to winter solstice.

See, we killed we killed our last African violet. We didn't give it enough light.

Yeah. You need to find that the brightest room in your house without direct sunlight, which is a tall order for a lot of us, including me. Oh, well, that was a lot of great information about the good questions from the Home Lawn Garden Show in the Bloomington Normal area. So I we wanna thank everyone there for inviting Ken and myself to to speak. We had a really good time.

Met a lot of really fun, nice people. And, yeah, just got to hang out all day, talk about, well, gardening. And so, yeah, I enjoyed it.

Yes. It was a good time. Yeah. Thanks for having us, everybody.

Well, The Good Growing Podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by me, Chris Enroth. Hey, Ken. Thanks for hanging out with me and and kinda hashing out these questions finally for for the people of Bloomington Normal and of of our listeners and viewers. So thanks, Ken.

Yes. Thank you, Chris. Go go and check some flowers, see how they fared over the the cold snap here too, and we can report next week what our landscapes are looking like, how things fared. Speaking of next week, let's do this again next week.

Oh, we shall do this again next week. What are we growing this year? Well, you might have heard about the Grow Along, but of course we're not going to stop there. So we have couple other odd things that we might be putting in the ground or at least new to us, so we will be talking about that next week. Well listeners, thank you for doing what you do best and that is listening or if you watched us on YouTube watching.

And as always, keep on growing.

University of Illinois Extension.