Ep. 253 Garden Q&A: Is it Poison Hemlock? Weird Pepper Myths, Bluebird Drama, and more! | #GoodGrowing

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, Orticle Judge Educator with the University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. It is getting into the late spring. We are nosing right into summer, and we it is a question and answer show today, folks. But you know I'm not doing this by myself.

I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educators Ken Johnson in Jacksonville and Emily Swihart in Milan, Illinois. Ken, Emily, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Glad to be here. Chris.

I did it differently this week.

You did.

It threw me off.

Ta da. I know we got a rhythm going here, but, you know, sometimes you gotta gotta do a little jazz here. This is jazz podcasting. Oh, no. We're off the rails.

Jazz hands, Ken. Everyone, jazz hands. And sometimes jazz doesn't work. So Sometimes it

just makes your ears hurt.

Yep. It's like, what is that noise? So we have questions this week. These are questions submitted by real life living people, not computers. But so I I guess I don't know.

Should we get into anything else before we dive into the questions? Because we never we didn't rehearse this. Boy, I'm really bad at jazz. I'm sorry, guys. Jazz podcasting is not my thing.

Well, I'm just curious. You were gonna say get into it, I'm just curious, like, what's going on in your guys', like, landscape right now? Like, have you since we're doing a timely very timely podcast about questions that people are asking us, like, you observed anything unique or interesting in your landscape?

Rain.

Yeah.

Happy plants. I think there has been, at least in my neck of the woods, it seems like there's this been this big bump in plant vitality after several years of kind of lackluster rainfall, low rainfall amounts. Everything seems to be doing pretty well right now. Fingers crossed, knock on wood. Yeah.

Like, do all the good luck stuff, but things seem pretty good. How about in in your neck of the woods, Emily?

Yeah. I'd say so. I just personally feel like I'm just behind, so I'm kind of surprised whenever I see things right now, like, from a schedule standpoint. Our tulip trees are blooming, and I was pleasantly surprised to observe that. I just thought that feels early, but, you know, I think it's just maybe me.

And Ken, I did send you some pictures this weekend. I was excited to see my first monarch of the year, and so that was exciting. And I saw my first lightning bug. It was not, like, flying. It was not his booty wasn't lighting up yet, but it was on a a plant.

And so I was excited that, you know, summer's coming. And so, I was pleased to see those. And, yeah, everything is this rain has been really welcomed.

I'd say some of our butterfly milkweed has got flower buds on it. Wow. Seems early. Catapult is blooming or has been blooming down here. So Okay.

We're we are a little ahead than where we're from where we normally are.

And and it's all all varies depending upon where you're at on the big blue marble here of the planet. But, like, I've been listening to some of the updates out on the East Coast, and they got a cold snap, which just slowed everything down significantly. And while we might have cooled off slightly, I don't think we cooled off to the point that anything slowed down. It just keeps speeding forward like a runaway freight train in my yard. Like, Emily, I hear you with the, boy, I'm behind.

I say that every year. I'm always behind. Yeah.

Well, it was warmer, and I think that that really kick started things. And then it cooled off, and so us humans are, like, putting our jackets back on, you know, and thought, oh, it slows down, but the plants were we're off to the races. So probably ahead a little bit. But I'm not complaining as long as, you know, this weather hopefully, it doesn't dry up. That that'll be challenging.

But

Yeah. Yeah. I keep thinking I'm behind, but, like I haven't gotten tomatoes and stuffed peppers in the ground yet. But in reality, I'm not.

Right.

I'm not that far behind. It just seems like we should be much should be much later in the year than it than it really is.

I also get thrown off Memorial Day. Like, we have a whole week of May after Memorial Day this year, which is I think also kind of throwing me off. It's like a bonus week. So anyways, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Well, this is a question and answer show today. Oh, Emily, do have another one?

I was just gonna say, let's get into these questions because we've got some good ones.

Alright. Well, let's do it. Well, Ken, would you mind kicking us off this week, please?

Alright. So first question is, what is this plant? And we will we'll pop up a picture of not necessarily said plant, but a picture of the plant in question. The PictureThis app says it's poison hemlock.

So I have gotten multiples of these in the last, probably half of like, about five days. And very often, it comes in worded just like that. What is this plant? And usually, it is a pretty decent picture, especially with a smaller statured plant like what could be potentially poison hemlock. And in this case, the the the AI identified it correctly.

And in the multiple other cases that I've had, people have been finding poison hemlock popping up in their not necessarily popping up, I think, in their yards, like, in the front yard or not in the in the garden beds or anything, but it is popping up in some of those side yards, some of those service areas, some those areas where you maybe you're not mowing as often. And so the this is the time of year where we're really seeing a lot of people worried about poison hemlock. So I I guess let's talk about if specifically poison hemlock because there's a lot of look alikes here. So what do you want to look for in terms of identification? Well, first off, poison hemlock, it's a biennial, which means it is on a two year life cycle.

In that first year, it really just hangs out as a sort of low growing basil rosette, ferny looking plant. And and a lot of times, it just goes unnoticed. It's in the second year, after we go through the winter, it goes from its vegetative state into its reproductive state, and it really begins to grow tall, showcases a a pretty spectacular flower stalk. And about this time of year, we're talking about mid May into early June, that we start seeing white, humble shaped flowers begin to develop. Probably the primary thing that I look at when I'm trying to identify poison hemlock are the purple blotches on the stems, which can be more pronounced in that second year.

Might not be able to notice it in the first year. The other one, though and this really helps to distinguish it from Queen Anne's lace, which is a lookalike and also has white flowers at least is what I've been taught, is that Queen Anne has hairy legs, whereas poison hemlock has smooth stems. So when you are looking at these two plants side by side, they look very similar in terms of some of that foliage growth, but Poison Hemlock has smooth hairless stems. Queen Anne's Lace has hairy little hairs on its stem. Queen Anne's Lace also blooms a little bit later in the year and occasionally, not as often though.

Not not I said that wrong. Frequently, but occasionally it doesn't have this. There's a little red flower petal in the middle of Queen Anne's Lace. So if you're just wondering, you know, what's this white flower? Can I pick it?

If you see a tiny little red speck in the middle, that is Queen Anne's Lace.

Well, I was gonna say, this is a problematic plant. Like, I would encourage everyone to either, like, if you're watching, we've got the picture shown. But if you're listening, like, look this up and kinda learn this plant. You talked about those umbel flowers, compound flowers. Like, hundreds of seeds are produced every year.

And so it can spread really quickly and take over a landscape. And it's it's highly toxic to livestock, to people. And so just be aware of it and learn it, identify it in your landscape, and then be careful managing it. But do manage it.

And you mentioned that toxicity to this plant, it is deadly poisonous if you try to So eat don't eat it. For adults, that's usually something that we can easily accomplish. Not all the time, though, for maybe smaller children who just like to put stuff in their mouth, or who maybe have seen grown up eat plants before, and they might assume all plants are safe to eat. So this is one of those. You really do have to teach people what it looks like, what to look out for, don't eat it.

There is a small fraction of people that also can react to the sap on their skin, but the majority of people will react to other related plant species like wild parsnip and things to that sap. Not as many people react to sap on their skin with poison hemlock. But I don't want to say it never happens, it can happen. I think it's been reported as happening. This is one where you could spray potentially an herbicide.

If you can get it that first year when it's just that basil rosette, you're gonna have probably a little bit better success. It's probably gonna be a bit more easier to control as a younger plant. When we get in the second year, I don't know if, Ken or Emily, if you you have experienced this. I have tried spraying the the flowering state when it's in its flowering state with glyphosate, this plant just shrugged it off. It it develops kind of this thicker waxier cuticle, really just sheds off that herbicide.

So while, yes, chemicals are our recommendation, I think you can pretty much spray it with an herbicide, either glyphosate or trichlopyr, like a one to 2% concentration, any time within its life cycle except when it's producing seeds because, well, then it's too late. The what I turn to is a sharp shovel. And I will take that shovel, and I'll actually chop just below the soil surface, sever that plant. And I will take them, and I will pile them up in a pile. And, essentially, what I'm just trying to do is I'm trying to prevent seed production.

I'm trying to break that that cycle of seed production every year. And I've had relatively good success. It's not like I get 100% control that first year. But if you keep up with it for a few years, that's that's the way to do it. And just, again, protect yourself from that sap.

Wash your hands after doing that, or better yet, wear gloves. Wash your gloves.

And your hands. And your hands.

Yeah. You

should really always wash your hands.

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris, I'm glad you brought this to everybody and we're starting the show with it. You had mentioned, wild parsnip. That's another plant in our landscape that I would encourage everyone to know how to identify. It's similar to poison hemlock. I see poison hemlock kind of gaining traction.

Wild parsnip and this is just a cursory observation. But wild parsnip's been in the landscape for quite some time. Wild poison hemlock, I think, is just kind of showing up in different places that it wasn't before. But while parsnip looks very similar to a native plant that we have, and with the uptick in popularity of different native plants and native plant sales and just kind of the bloom time, and I want to just spend a second, because this weekend, I happened to see both of these plants blooming right next to each other. And we'll put a picture in here, and I thought this is a good opportunity just to remind everybody that these are two look alikes as well.

One is very concerning and needs to be handled with care. And the other one is a native, which is beneficial and quite beautiful in the landscape. So Golden Alexander is the native that we would desire in the landscape, in different situations. So they both had yellow, umbral flowers. Once you learn them, you can identify them based on the flowers, I think.

Like, by description, are very similar. But when you start when you when you know what they look like, you can you can pick them out. So Golden Alexander's yellow umbels are more clustered. They're, like, tighter kind of together, and they're more, like, rounded. So it's just more a compact umbel in my kind of like how I would describe it versus the wild parsnip.

Still yellow flowers in an umbel, but it's more spread out. Like, they're just more spaced out. It's more of an airy, open, kind of a flat umbel when you compare the two next to each other, and so that's an identifying characteristic. Also, while parsnip, I think, generally speaking, is larger, partly because it's more spread out. But it's a larger flower head.

The leaves are also different. They're both compound leaves, and so that can be kind of tricky for beginner identifiers. But the golden Alexander has a more rounded serration to the leaves versus wild parsnip. They're a little bit longer. So the golden Alexander is a little bit more compact, a little more rounded, a little more

I don't

know. It's kind of a tighter leaf versus the wild parsnip, which is more elongated. And then the stems of wild parsnip are more ridged. Don't touch them. Please don't touch them.

But by looking at them, they kind of look like they have ridges to them. They're not part of the mint family, but it's kind of what it reminds me of. They're just more coarse and like a rougher texture to the stem versus golden Alexander, which is a smooth stem. So kind of learn both of those plants. We're concerned about wild parsnip because it's phytotoxic.

And so if you get the oils on your skin and you're exposed to sunlight, you can blister pretty severely. And that can be a problem in the short term. And then long term, you can have a prolonged sensitivity to the sun, even many years after exposure. So we want to limit our exposure to wild parsnip. So if you're managing it, similar to what Chris said for poison hemlock, just use protective equipment, wash your hands, avoid contact if you can.

If you do contact come in contact with it, wash with soap and water really quickly and as soon as you can. So just wanna take that little side sidebar. But, like, I've been asked about wild parsnip before.

And we have several, I think, articles and maybe even a web page for each of these plants. We can put links to them below. And if you're weed eating weed eating like a ditch, put your shirt back on just because all the headlines I read about wild parsnip are people, like, weed eating in their swim trunks or their swimsuit. So it looks painful, the blisters that result from that.

I have seen pictures, and I'm allergic to poison ivy. And I I dare say the the from the photos, it looks worse. So if you know poison ivy, you know and love poison ivy. This is worse. So Mhmm.

Okay. Let's move on.

Or or if you know you've got it, be careful weed eating it because you start inhaling that stuff.

Yes.

It's not gonna be good either.

Yep. Yep. Or burning. We don't burn it. Mhmm.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point, Ken. Okay. Ken, let's go to something another question that we've had come in.

So wisteria is a, I dare say, beautiful plant. Can we plant Chinese wisteria in Illinois?

Yes. You can. So there's no regulations against, planting Chinese wisteria or Japanese wisteria in Illinois. But in many places in in The US, they are considered invasive or noxious weeds. So while you can, you may it may not be the best idea to do that because these are they can spread aggressively.

Chinese can get very large. It can strangle trees. You need a very sturdy support to support these plants because they get quite large and stuff. So we do have a native, wisteria, American wisteria. Now that would be a good alternative.

It's not nearly as aggressive. It's also native. So technically can't be invasive. But it's not it's not nearly as aggressive as those. I will say that from what I've read, know, Chinese wisteria, Japanese wisteria, they're much more fragrant, than than the American species, and they are blooming, like, as the leaf buds are starting to open.

So it's basically flowers and and bare stems, whereas the American wisteria, it's still fragrant, but not to the extent the the Chinese and Japanese are. But they're blooming when it has leaves on the plant, so it may not be quite as, I guess, visually appealing, maybe. It doesn't have quite the same effect, as the the introduced species, but so you can. But I I think all of us would encourage people to maybe look at more of the American instead of the these introduced species, which can be rather problematic.

I've I've seen some stunning pictures of Chinese and Japanese wisteria. Not to try to convince people to plant those, but I'm just saying, like,

wow. Yeah. When they get big and and stuff, yeah, it's it's it's impressive.

It is. Well, this next question comes from I I would only expect to be a very ambitious person. They want to know how do you graft fruit trees together. So, Emily, how do you do this thing which people spend years and years learning to do? Can you sum it up in just a couple minutes, please?

Oh, I would love to do that, but

I'm not going to. No.

So this question came in to the office a bit ago, and it was somebody wanting to save a failing, like, heirloom apple tree. Just, you know, kind of a precious tree to them. They wanted to save it, and so they're asking about how to to graft fruit trees. And so first, let's just talk about what grafting is, because I don't want to assume that everybody knows what the practice of grafting is. And it is essentially the joining of two plant parts together, usually from different cultivars that are joining together.

So you have scion and stock. Those are the terms for the two different plant parts that are coming together. And through this practice, if you're successful, they become one plant. So two become one. And we do this because, for different reasons.

Like with the case of, like, apple trees, we graft because the seeds don't come true to form. And so if you plant an apple seed from pick your favorite apple cultivar, you know, you eat it and enjoy the fruit, and then you plant those seeds, who knows what you're getting? You're getting some combination of the parents which are not maybe necessarily, which are not the same cultivar. And so you just get like a mix of genetics. And so what you come out of, one apple is a random mix.

There's other reasons for doing it. Sometimes things are just difficult to propagate through, like, cuttings or, you know, other forms of vegetative propagation, and so a graft is going to be your best option. Sometimes we do it because we want a different version of the fruit. So, again, I'll just keep using apple as an example. So sometimes we want a dwarf size of an apple tree versus something that's really large and kind of cumbersome to harvest or doesn't fit into a space.

And so by grafting it onto different rootstock, you can dwarf an apple. And so oh, I well, I guess, finally, I don't wanna forget too. Like, sometimes it's not necessarily the top of the plant, you know, the cultivar that we're going for. The rootstock sometimes can just be better adapted to grow in a certain condition. So in addition to dwarfing, it can just it can be better adapted to wet conditions, to dry conditions, to different climate conditions, you know, like surviving winter and whatnot.

So different reasons. Folks have different reasons for doing it. When do we do it, though? So the question was, like, how and when? The when is going to be late winter.

So we want to do it right before growth resumes. And so right now is not the time we're going to be doing grafting. Everything's kind of already pushed out their leaves, and their energy has been spent elsewhere. And so a successful graft is going to be more challenging to obtain right now. How do you do it?

There's different forms, different versions. And I am going to just go ahead and invite you two to jump in, because I have book knowledge about this. I haven't done grafting. And so I don't Ken, you're kind of in fruit tree country more than I am. And so maybe you have a little bit more experience of, like, the different types of grafts.

I've done it once. And I'm trying to

think of I

am trying to think of what the search what type I what it's called. The

I think whip and tongue is the most common because that's where you kind of like puzzle, like, lock them together. On the video, I'm doing it with my like, it's

like Yeah. Whip and tongue. Yeah. That's the one. That's the one I've done.

And anyway, what you're is making sure you're lining up that that cambium layer. Because if you get that off, it's not gonna properly. So it I think the ones I did, I think a couple of them took, but you got to put them in a dark area, let them kind of seal up and stuff and I forgot about them. So I wasn't nearly as successful as I probably should have been if I would have paid closer attention because, you know, life got busy and out of sight, out of mind.

Yeah. It happens. But you make a good point. So what you're doing is you're you're taking two pieces. Ideally, they're the same approximately the same size because you're joining them together and you're lining up that cambium layer, which will then fuse together and become one.

And so that's when you can start having the roots feeding the scion if that's a successful graft union. And you have to wrap it, keep it moist. There's different methods that you can use to do that. But it does take practice. It does take patience.

You should do more than you want because you probably will have some some failure even if you're experienced. It just you know, plants are kind of fickle, and this is a really unusual form of propagation. But it can be really fun too.

They'll they'll sell you a special so I did a class, and they sent you a special pocket knife, pruning knife, give you a finger guard so you don't slice your fingers open and stuff. Now, like, professional people, they're just it's impressive. Like, I've seen videos of professionals doing it, like people who do this for a living, it's it's crazy how fast they can go and how effortlessly they do it.

And if you're ever at a grafting workshop, someone always gets cut.

Gotta have Band Aids.

Always bring that first aid kit.

Yeah. Yeah. Will say, I I don't know if I I mentioned it. I I maybe implied it. But when you're choosing your scion and your stock, it needs to be the same genus and species.

You're going get your best results when you have the same genus and species. You can do the same genus, but oftentimes, it's a weaker union and a shorter lived plant. And so I guess I'd want to make sure I if somebody's gonna try this, bring the Band Aids, protect your thumb, and make sure it's the same genus and species. Right. Simple as that.

I think there's like what you mentioned, bud grafting and stuff. Mhmm. I think some of that stuff you can do, like, I think it's usually in the summer. Like, you could do some of that stuff during the growing season, but that's like really hard. 100 level.

Yeah. Three, four hundred level.

Really hard to do.

That sets your next level. Yeah. Get the get the basics ones down first, and then you can try the the more difficult stuff.

Yeah. Bud grafting you would is when would you use to get those, like, multi cultivar Mhmm. Fruit fruit cocktail meals. Yes. Yes.

Mhmm.

I did bud grafting for tropical hibiscus where we did different colors on the hibiscus. And we got some of the buds to take, but they didn't live very long. They they maybe lasted a year, I think. Then they they never came back. So, yeah, short lived.

So our next question, well, somebody actually submitted this. Right?

Mhmm.

To the to the podcast specifically. Yeah. So what is it about jealous bluebirds and my Illini blue truck? They keep attacking it. This is from Rich and Leroy.

Well so Rich, he did actually send me a picture of his truck, and you could see the the not really damage, but definitely a lot of droppings and kind of the scuff marks created from these bluebirds attacking his truck. And he did say it is an Illini blue truck. So insider knowledge here, U of I staff. Illini blue and orange are not maybe what you think they are because I deal with the RGBs and the CMYKs of these. And when you actually do the blues and the orange, the orange looks more red anymore and the blue is super dark.

And when I looked at Rich's truck, the picture, it was a beautiful blue. Like, if you think of a Bluebird, think of that. And I saw the picture of this truck. My next car, I would love for it to be this color. It's a beautiful blue.

If you think of a Bluebird, just picture that color on the truck, and there you go. It's it's gorgeous. And apparently, the bluebirds think so too. So I did not answer this one on my own. I reached out to Doctor.

Travis Wilcoxson. He is with Millikan University here in Illinois. He's an amazing resource. He does bird netting and banding throughout the state all summer long. And if people are interested, we do have an event with him where he'll be doing that.

Reach out to me. So what Travis said is that for the truck, it's basically a hyper stimulating signal, especially during breeding season. So the birds are using the color cue above all others to initiate a response since their territorial intruders are also this color blue just like them. So if this was another bluebird, it would be met with the exact same response as they are responding to this pickup truck. He even goes on to say the same thing happens with several fish species who defend territories.

They will attack inanimate objects that are the color to which they, you know, respond. They know this these particular colors which will always generate this response, and it just so happens that Rich got his truck in the blue color that Bluebirds see as an intruder in their territory. So what does Travis recommend? He says, I would recommend either covering the top of a vie the vehicle, like a tarp or something like that. And maybe this will be some temporary behavior that you can break it just by not allowing them to see the color of the the vehicle, or try a decoy owl either near or better yet, put it on top of the truck.

Just don't forget it's on there when you go to drive away. You can play some kind of motion, create an object nearby, like flagging, anything that might move in the wind. Otherwise, Travis goes on, it will be a long summer because bluebirds have multiple broods, so they probably won't stop. So so there you go, Rich. That is what to do.

I love the color of your truck, though. It is beautiful. And I if if it wasn't getting attacked by bluebirds, I consider my future car to be that color, but maybe not.

Think this is basically a giant bird. Yes. It's like big bird. Godzilla.

Yes. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Look at the Godzilla bluebird coming at my territory. So, you know, good good news.

Let's go with the good news. You have bluebirds. Excellent. And they are they're nesting. They're reproducing.

That's like the ultimate goal, I think. When you're designing your yard or your landscape for wildlife, you you can give them food, you can give them water, you give them shelter. But when they have all their needs met and they decide to reproduce there, you've won. So, Rich, you won. They also like your truck a little too much.

Yeah. Can we also just, like, comment on the audacity of a lot of our birds that will just take on something that is so much bigger in the name of defending their their babies? Like, these are like, you know, like, the mama bear? Maybe it's like, we should reconsider naming it about the American Bluebird or Mhmm. Red winged Blackbird, which is my arch nemesis.

But this does the same thing, so I I really empathize with this. Yep. Blue jays, I think, do it. Cardinals. Cardinals do it.

Yeah. So I like that. I like that gumption that they have even though

It is nice. Yeah.

It's ill placed. So yep. Okay. We had another question come in. We're gonna kinda go back to fruit trees here, and it says, we have a peach tree that looks sick.

Ken, I think you got this question. What what can you tell us about the question and and the answer?

Yes. They said it produced quite a bit of fruit last year. This year, it's got curled, misshapen leaves, but it does have fruit buds. So it looks like it's kind of producing in this year. So, I could pop up a picture of of that I have of this, but this is peach leaf curls, so you get these distortions on the leaves.

It can be kind of a yellowish, reddish, pinkish color on there. It gets kind of leathery, puckered, things like that. And and unfortunately, this time of year, there's nothing you can do about it. That leaf is infected. You can spray every chemical known to man on there.

It's not gonna get rid of it. So with this, depending on how bad it is, the leaves could drop. If it's really extensive, you could defoliate tree. Doesn't usually happen at least, you know, the first year you notice it. But it can, weaken the tree to some extent.

You may get a little bit less yield than you would typically if you had healthy leaves on there because these leaves aren't photosynthesizing as well as they could. You may get some leaf drop as well. Really, the the key for this, is you would spray you spray for this after leaves are dropped or during the dormant season. And that's usually a copper or chlorothalonil dormant spray that you're putting on there. Once those buds start to swell, that's when they get infected.

So timing is important. Once once that pathogen gets in there, there's nothing you can do about it. So fortunately this year, it's just going to be managing that tree. If we do end up in a drought conditions, you know, make sure we're watering it, things like that. It's kind of that supportive care, keeping it as healthy as possible.

And then this fall, late winter, spray that plant, to get rid of that overwintering pathogen, that fungus on that tree, to prevent it infecting the tree next year. But still, as long as it's not too bad, you still still get some peaches, maybe not as good as last year or what you could have, but should still hopefully get some peaches off that that tray.

Well, that's good news because there's nothing better than a a fresh peach right off of a tree. But mark the calendar to manage it. And when we're we're Yep.

Yeah. That's the problem.

About managing our fruit trees.

Yeah. Exactly. You see it. You can't do anything about it. But then by the time fall, late spring rolls around, you've forgotten about it again.

I recommend putting I don't know if you guys use your calendars like this. I've gone to a digital calendar mostly. And when I think of it, I will put something like this on my calendar you know, the future so that it reminds me.

I won't I won't remember.

Maybe if we can get a digital calendar company to sponsor the podcast, we'll talk about it more.

I didn't say which one. That that's

I didn't

either. Whoever the sponsor is. I'm I'm happily in towards.

Yes. This episode brought to you by the future. That's the calendar. That's that way we promote calendars. The future.

Very cool.

Well, Emily, you have the question of the year, I think, for this next one. Yeah. And I I I think this is gonna be a pretty popular one because this is tough. This is a tough one to to figure this one out. How do you find a good contractor?

I mean, for our case, we're looking probably at landscape contractors. So do you got any tips for folks that are wanting to hire someone?

Yeah. I get this question quite a bit, some version of this question quite a bit. It's arborist, it's landscape contractor, it's most recently, it was about installing a rain garden. If anybody had to if I could recommend any contractors or garden designers or builders that have experience in rain gardens. And as extension agents, we don't recommend certain entities.

We don't even have a list of them, so I couldn't if I wanted to. But happy to help people try to advance their search on their own. And so some of the advice that I give when this question comes in is first, ask around. Ask friends. Ask people that you've seen you know, install or do the same landscape activity that you want to do.

So in the case of the rain garden, one of our local cities is putting in rain gardens everywhere. They're doing a lot of work with it, both in, like, along streetscapes and in parks and in, you know, just kind of, like, all the the spaces that they can in the community. And so I suggested reaching out to that entity. You know, reach out to the city and kinda ask around and see, like, if they're doing it themselves, if they're hiring somebody, if they can make any recommendations. If you have friends that are doing it, or if your friends have friends, kind of make it known that you want to do this work and ask for referrals.

You can ask garden centers if they know anybody. Sometimes they do the work themselves, and so that we'll get to that in our next in my next answer. But just ask around. Like, make it known. There's also, like, social media.

I see a lot of posts on social media just asking for referrals. So don't be shy about making your your project known. Use professional organizations. That's another resource that we have available. Sometimes it it may or may not be useful in finding people that can do the work, especially I'm thinking of, like, with arborists.

The ISA has a list of arborists, and I know that not all of them are on there. You you opt into that list. And so that's a good starting place. But so there's, like, the professional landscape designers, American Society of Landscape Architects, Landscape Illinois Professionals Network or Association, the ISA, International Society of Arboriculture. That's easy for you to say.

They have these lists, and so you can kind of go on there and try to find somebody. If you're getting a referral or if you're just finding somebody organically, check and see if they have any credentials with these organizations. This can also be kind of a vetting tool so that you can because a lot of these organizations offer continuing education, if it's a licensing entity, they have a minimum number of continuing education credits or units that they require their professionals to obtain each year. They've often passed an exam of some sort, and so they have demonstrated a minimum knowledge of the profession in order to become licensed. And so kind of a useful tool as well.

Once you find somebody, and once you're starting to consider somebody for hire, have a consultation. Ask them a whole bunch of questions. And you can go online and look for different questions. But this it's really an interview process where you want to get to know kind of what their story is, what their ethics are, what their talents are, how they can meet your needs. You know, come prepared with being able to tell them details about your project as well, kind of what the scope is, what maybe your budget is.

You know, if you you want to get into the the budget talk at that time, even if it's ballpark, I think that's useful, just to know if the conversation should be continued or not. Ask for references. Ask for them to provide prior clients. And then follow-up on those references. Hopefully, would provide you with some, and you can call and ask about their experience using the contractor to get a better idea of whether this person meets your needs and or somebody you want to work with.

So those are kind of my three main tips. Do your homework, especially if you're caring for a mature tree. Have oaks you want to work on or like significant specimen in your landscape, find an arborist that you know and trust and can build a relationship with. That's a project that we'll continue on. If you're doing significant landscaping, is like you want high quality work.

It's likely a big investment. They're gonna be in your backyard or your front know, they're gonna be in and around your home. You want them somebody that you're comfortable with, that you trust, that you can give feedback to, that can can be a partner in the project kind of along the way. So those are kind of my three guides. I don't know.

Ken and Chris, do you have anything to add to that? Like, this is this is a big question.

I'd say, look, yeah, the license, insured, bonded, depending on what you're having done, and get a contract to protect you and them. Yep. So you have everything in writing. That's going to be done.

I I do like your suggestion of asking about budget upfront, like, are costs gonna be? And and maybe if you're in the sales world, it it's different. You don't wanna maybe hit them with the price tag until you got them in the the door. But landscape contractors are so busy and arborists are so busy. You know?

Well, I I hear it so often that people will get the quote or the bid for the job, and they'll say, I can't do that. I was like, well, this person, they they could have moved on to the next job by then. So I think having that conversation upfront is is important. And I also like the idea of references looking at their other work at different levels. You know, they they have projects with different budgets.

Look at their high ends. Look at their, you know, medium, low end. You know, what's bare bones? What's spending a little bit extra cash? So look at the whole spectrum.

And do you think of it, like, as an investment. Right? Like, in landscape does cost. Like, this work does cost. There's expertise.

There's equipment. There's materials. Like so I think, you know, to that point, Chris, like, with the the budget, do be honest with yourself and be honest with the potential contractor knowing that this is an investment in your home. We make investments in our kitchen, renovations, bathroom renovations, whatnot. You know, be ready be ready to be honest about what you want to invest.

And maybe ask for the worst case scenario. Like, if

Oh, that's good.

Like, you know, there's a price if everything goes well. But if, I don't know, something goes wrong. I I can think of things like in a like in a house, you know, like you're redoing your bathroom and you find out you got plaque mold or, you know, all your pipes have to be replaced. How much extra is that gonna cost me compared to just redoing a bathroom? Same thing outside.

Or kind of that worst case scenario of we find x y z problems that we have to fix in order to do the project.

That also makes me think of a question, like, in addition to budgeted timeline. You know, like, make sure you kind of understand the timeline of the project. So if you're trying to hit like a wedding or a graduation party, and the contractor's already scheduled out through the year, if you're willing to wait, you can pursue that. If you're not, you know, if it doesn't work in your timeline, then you that helps make the decision. So

Alright. Our next question here. Why aren't these lindens leafing out? They were planted last year. The buds look alive.

This is a question I haven't answered yet. But I did right before we started to go re recording this. I went out and I visited these trees in question. So, Emily, Ken, you are going to go on this plant CSI with me right now. So I'm gonna share my screen.

We're going to look at photographs of what I found. So let me get that going real quick. Sounds like I'm just kind of pawning this answer off to the other two people on the podcast. Alright. Can you guys see the pictures?

That's right. Teamwork. I like that. And you see what I'm seeing here?

Yes. Yes.

Okay. Bear tree. In

in this situation here, we have some linden trees that were planted last year around this is the local hospital here in Macomb, MDH. And these there's there's three trees kind of in question here. The two on the south kind of southern to southeastern exposure side, they're the ones that are slow to leaf out. They aren't really leafing out very quickly. There's another tree on the north northern side of this building that is leafing out but is also showing similar symptoms of cupping.

So what we have on the screen right now is one of the trees on the South East side of the building. You can see fairly bare still even though everything else sort of around you has has leafed out. Let me go to the next picture. A little bit of a close-up. So here is the actual leaf bud of this linden attempting to leaf out.

We have some, very kind of dwarf miniature looking leaves that are curled, twisting. And if I just kind of keep progressing through the photos here, we definitely see some cupping here on these teeny tiny little leaves. And whenever I see stuff like that, I immediately look down to the ground. And this picture doesn't really do it justice, but there because I think the camera picked up on what green there was in the lawn, but there was also a lot of dead grass that I think is just being obscured by this. So this is maybe picking up on the fact that it didn't rain at all last fall.

You know, it basically we hit August, and it stopped raining until we hit pretty much January in our neck of the woods. So it was very dry, and I think we lost a lot of our turf grass. And there's a lot of seed heads in here, which I'll zoom in on. Those are annual bluegrass seed heads. So that's annual kind of a weed for some people, but you it's bluegrass.

You can mow it. It's fine, at least in my lawn. But let's go back to the trees. Just kind of a little segue there. Maybe it helps inform us, maybe not.

Again, more of these just teeny tiny little buds on there. We can look on here, and we can see I mean, they're green. They're they're growing. Doesn't look dead. But let's look at maybe let's go nearby.

Do we see any patterns on? Oh, there's another one. That's a limb coming off of the main trunk right there. But a nearby serviceberry. You know, I thought, well, let's look at some other plants while we're out here.

Serviceberry looks pretty decent. It's starting to fruit. It'll be right before we know it. You know, they're also known as June berries. June is around the corner.

So I didn't see any kind of herbicide or any issues there and any disease problems with the serviceberry. Looks healthy. So let's go to that one on the north side of the building. Again, this one has leafed out more fully, but we are still seeing a lot of cupping on these leaves. There's the tree itself right there.

Again, much more green than the others before, but still, you know and we even have a pretty significant dead spot kind of up in the upper I think that central leader and on that one side of the tree. So, again, that kind of points me towards maybe this is an issue with drought. If we look closely at those leaves, this cupping action right here, which would indicate possibly herbicide damage, but maybe not. There was a mature established Linden right next to it in the parking lot area, so I walked over and took a look at that. And I don't see any outward cupping it being expressed in these leaves.

There's a lot of epicormic shoots going on here, but maybe that's a different story. A different question for a different time. The the tree appears though to be relatively healthy. I don't see any issues. So I go to the canary in the coal mine here.

There is a redbud nearby. Now redbuds for us are, you know, really good indicators of, you know, a plant growth regulator herbicide or a broadleaf herbicide maybe has been used in that area. They're very sensitive to it. It doesn't kill them. They just do this as I'm showing in the picture here that the leaves kind of they they cup, and they become distorted.

And we've definitely seen that here with this redbud. So the question that was posed to me by the the group that's working on this is, is it from the farm fields two blocks away that are spraying it? And I I wanna say, well, you got pretty immaculate looking lawns. So if there's herbicide, I'm gonna go to the one that's closest to the trees. It's likely gonna be the ones being sprayed around them directly.

The other thing is that lindens are very sensitive to all just like redbuds to plant growth regulators. So that would make sense that maybe they are, you know, also showing that. But I'm also going back to that drought of last year and the fact that these are newly planted trees that maybe they just didn't have the energy to fully leaf out yet. Maybe they're slowly building or trying to leaf out right now because they just didn't have the carbohydrates to push a a flush of leaves out this year. And and this that might be the only energy that they had left after going through a really difficult first year.

So with that, Emily, Ken, you guys got any thoughts?

So with those first pictures, yes, you can get some insect damage, similar to that, some of the, like, set leaf hoppers or thrips or something like that, Especially when you get a little more some of those have a little more distortion, not just the cupping. Kinda goes it can look a little bit similar to that. But with the other ones, yeah, I would say it's especially with that redbud. I would say, yeah, probably more herbicide.

Yeah. I agree with your your assessment. One of the pictures yeah. That makes me sad. One of your pictures, the leaves did look like there was some sclerosis happening as well.

And I I think that your assessment is is well informed. Yeah. In that, also, there's oftentimes multiple factors contributing to the symptoms that we're seeing on trees. And so we want to point the blame at just one. You know, it's it's herbicide, or it's definitely, you know, a pest, or it's definitely drought.

Like, those things we can I think we tend to go to that because it's like, oh, then I know what one answer I need to apply to fix this problem? And this, I think your I think your assessment is accurate where it's compound. Like, there was a it was an awful drought last year. And if these trees were newly planted, their roots weren't fully established, they weren't getting supplemental water. I do like to see a bit of a mulching around the base of those.

So good. That's good on the you said it's a school?

Hospital. Yeah.

Or hospital. Get on the hospital for doing that. Maintain that, please. You know? But it's still I if they're newly planted, they might be a little deep as well.

Just you know, there's a few little persnickety issues, but I think probably there's probably chemical situation happening. Who knows where it's from? The grass does look really lovely and probably is a big exclamation mark on on this assessment. And then the drought, I think, also probably did not do it any favors. So so what do you do to help the tree?

Water it. Care for it really well. Expand that mulch ring around there if you can, if they're willing to do that. Reapply mulch. It looks like it maybe was depleted.

Kinda you know, now it's more just like bare ground or even it looked maybe there was, like, some of the grass that was just killed around the the base of that tree. So apply some mulch, supplemental water if and when things dry out at some point this summer. I think right now you probably had adequate moisture, but monitor for sure. Minimize the use of chemicals on that lawn. Tolerate a few weeds if you can.

So

Very good. Well, thank you guys for answering my question. That's great. You did. That one in the done pile.

Say one or two with the herbicides, you know, if it was from their lawn, like, when were they applying those? Was it when we had some of those warmer days where it would have volatilized much easier compared to last few weeks where it's been cooler?

Yeah.

Yeah. And and for those two that are barely leafing out, I I do think that it this the stunted nature of those leaves has to do with what happened last year, probably. And it just got even worse when it got hit by an herbicide as it was attempting with its last bit of energy to to finish that out. So I think I'll call these folks back. I'll say, you know what?

Monitor those two. I don't know if they're going to survive into the summer. So hope it hasn't been a year yet, maybe. You got that warranty right.

It's two

They new also look like they might have been B and B trees. They're pretty sizable. And so just check. I didn't see any signs of it, but make sure that that root ball, that burlap, and that cage have has been removed Yep. From that root ball.

Well, thanks, guys. Question done. Alright. Our last question of today is a doozy, and it's something I'm seeing everywhere also on social media. I'm like, oh, wow.

I didn't I didn't know this was true. So peppers that have three lobes are males. We're talking about bell peppers. Female peppers have four to five lobes. So, yeah, is this true?

I mean, there you see videos online, people are like, look. This is a male pepper. This is a female pepper.

This is better for that. This tastes better and yeah.

Yes. What what are we talking about here? Wait. I I thought it was flowers that were male female, not the the fruits. What's happening?

What's going on? Yes. Am I do I need to do something to my peppers that I haven't been?

Yeah. So I put this in here. Nobody asked me this. This is not a question anybody asked me to answer, but I just felt compelled to answer it anyways. And it's been on my social media.

I've had questions. My kid had mentioned it, heard it somewhere, and he's very into gardening. He was like, Mom, did you know? And that's when I was like, okay. Like, that's not true, and let's explore why.

So and I do think this has been around for a bit. I I was doing some sleuthing online, and I saw some references to it a a couple of years ago, even. So I'm wondering if this is now just getting into our world. I don't know, and I don't care. Let's just figure out if this is true or not.

Ken, do you want to answer this? This is a fun one. Like, I'll let somebody else. Do you want to explain why this this is not true? This is this is not true.

Peppers don't have genders. That's

Something about sums it up.

I know. Like but why? Like, that that's that's the headline. Tell us more botanically why, Ken.

Well, you've got your flowers. They have both male and female parts. They get fertilized. They produce seeds. Yeah.

Peppers aren't don't have separate male and female plants. So

Yeah. Yeah. They're perfect flowers. Right?

Yeah. So and that I guess the fruit is just I mean, that's the fruit that's containing the seeds, which will then produce the which are the offspring, the seeds. So I guess your fruit is kind of like the womb, more or less, but it's still not a female even though it is kind of like the womb. But yeah. And again, yeah, they don't have separate male female plants, so those seeds are going to turn into peppers that will produce genderless fruit.

Okay. Now, the claim okay. There was two parts to this claim. The gender of the pepper and the sweetness of it. And I've gone to the store and bought peppers, and I've grown peppers, and they do have different numbers of lobes.

Why? Do you guys

want to answer? Me. Is this because of the amount of the pollination and the ovary Okay. Development of with the seeds? Tell me, Emily.

Like, the level well, yeah. Okay. So this is what I what I've I've of came to conclude. So the sweetness has to do with just the cultivar. Right?

Like, the certain kind of pepper that you plant is going to produce a certain level of sweetness. We do selections for that. We do breeding for that. You know, if you plant a hot pepper, it's not going be sweet at all. If you plant a sweet pepper, you're gonna have a level of sweetness.

Growing conditions affect that flavor development, and so that can also affect, like, if this pepper is more sweet than that pepper, even if they're both bell peppers. And so growing variety can affect it. Growing conditions can affect it. And for the lobes, it also has to do with the variety, just a genetic tendency, but also the level of completion of pollination. And so more complete might have more lobes, maybe not.

But less less complete pollination might have like a more deformed fruit or pepper, and so that can kind of affect that. So anyways, it's not gendered. Three lobes is not male. Four to five lobes is not female. Sweetness is not determined by the low the number of lobes on peppers.

And since we're heading into salsa season and fajita season, although it's like every season. I thought we should we should address peppers.

Yes. I can't walk by my pepper plants and be like, hey, ladies. Here we go. Yeah.

I mean, you can, but you might offend them. Like, they're not genuine.

Might. That's true.

Do that. Ladies and gentlemen.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engine, especially to those spicy ones. Yeah.

Well, I think your ripeness would affect sweetness too. Because, like, your red red bell peppers, you can pick those green. They're be

much sweeter when they're fully ripe. Don't waste a good pepper and pick it when it's green. That's an opinion. I'll

do that.

No. That's a good point, Ken. I I missed that one. I think the the level of ripeness affects sweetness. So Mhmm.

Yeah. But that's our list of questions. We had some good ones.

Yeah. It's fun times at the extension office this time of year. Yeah. It's like Christmas. Every day we we show up and we open the old email inbox.

You don't know what you're gonna find.

Or bags

on your desk. Coming. Yes. Mhmm. What can?

So there were bags on your desk of

Oh, yeah. Samples. That you brought in. Plant material.

Oh, I.

Yes. Once had a snake. Not gonna lie.

Yeah. Had a snake. Beheaded snake that had been sitting for a few days. That was not a fun one to open up.

Oh, that's a rough day. I will say, though, like, that's a big part of our job, us and our colleagues. Like, we're here to help answer those questions. And so if anybody does have questions that they are are looking to get answered, please do reach out. We may we may or may not be able to solve it a 100% for you because the environment is a interesting dynamic thing, but we'll we'll certainly try to help.

Yep. I mean, do have the Internet. But I equate the Internet to being like going out to the town square and just yelling out your question and just people start yelling back answers. You know? So

I found the pepper question on the Internet. So

Oh, yeah.

Know about

that. Yeah. And so, you know, extension, we're I guess we're one of those people shouting back at you. But, you know, we we try we are we are, you know, research based. You know, we we try to apply research to the willy nilly environment, you know, that doesn't always do what we want it to do.

So we gotta figure it out. Well, that was a lot of great information, and thank you for your timely questions. Well, the Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by me, Chris Enroth. Emily, thanks so much for hanging out with us today, answering some late spring gardening questions.

Oh, always my pleasure. These are great questions. I appreciate everybody contributing and look forward to our next round of q and a.

Yes. These are always fun to do. So and, Ken, thank you very much. And don't forget, check your peppers.

As soon as I get them in the ground. Yes. Thank you, Emily and Chris, both of you. And let's do this again next week.

Oh, we shall do this again next week. Who are we and how did we get here? Well, we're not gonna be answering necessarily the that question, but we're gonna be giving you our kind of backstories. So who are we? How did we get to become horticulturists?

So if you are maybe thinking about a career in horticulture, do have a career in horticulture and just want to relate, we're going give you our backstory. So that should be a fun one. So we look forward to sharing that part of ourselves with you 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