Meet the Beneficial Bugs in your Backyard

Coming to you from Studio A here at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. It's
time for the Gardening Simplified Show with Stacy Hervella, me Rick weisst and our
engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. All Right, today we're going to talk beneficial
insects Stacey. And it's you know, one thing to use them in a
greenhouse setting, and many do. It's a controlled environment and you've got controlled
temperature. But it's another to count on beneficial insects in your yard. Not
a bad idea to try it, but I think causes confusion from people.
Well it does because I think, especially as people have gotten more and more
aware of the plight of honey bees and native bees, you know, just
like we were talking about with Mike Connor last week, they think, okay,
well, bees are beneficial because they pollinate, and so people tend to
think of beneficial insects as pollinating insects, and yes, that is a benefit.
But when we talk about beneficial insects in this contexts what we usually mean
is that they're benefiting you and that they are carnivores who are eating other insects,
or they are invertebrates who are eating other insects, or are eating insects
in your garden like spiders. So the benefit to you from these beneficial insects
is they're doing your past control for you. You've got it a form of
IPM, well, said Stacy, And so let's talk about it and some
of those beneficial insects that maybe you can spot and learn more about in your
landscape. Everybody wants to do something and possibly do something that's beneficial to nature.
You know, it's no different than the guy who walked out out of
his house with a frog on top of his head and his neighbors laughing at
him that he's got a frog on his head, and he says, you
can laugh, but I haven't been bit by a mosquito in years. I
wouldn't suggest that technique. But to be successful in your landscape, you need
diversity. You need some native plants. I think you need some herbs,
because herbs are aromatic. The many are perennial or regano or thyme or lemon
balm, and especially when they bolt, they make a great situation for beneficial
insects. And those insects love flowers of cilantro or lemon balm. Or dill
is a big one. Native plants of course, stacey asters, jobpi weed,
ironweed, b balm, milk weed, a lot of different types of
plants that can draw beneficial insects to our landscape. Well, you know,
there's a common thread through a lot of the plants that you just name that
people might not be aware of, and that is that they pretty much all
have very small flowers. At least the little fluorax make up a larger inflorescence.
So if you think of something like a dill flower or a cilantro flower
or regano or something like that, all of these plants they have flowers,
small flowers in clusters. And when we're talking about beneficial insects are for the
most part talking about some pretty tiny little guys. Yes we are, and
they can't, you know, get into a big flower and get the nectar.
They'll drown. They'll fall right in and drown in a nectar pool,
and that's no good. So all of these plants with small flowers, and
you talked about bbalm, he talks about ironweed and all of these other things,
same exact thing. All of those plants are in the astor family.
Astor acy and they're flowers even though we look at them and think, oh,
it's one flower. If you think about a daisy that you think it's
a daisy flower, it's actually a whole bunch of little, tiny florets arranged
in that influorescence. So from an insect point of view, that's not one
flower. That's like, you know, five hundred flowers, and that's you
know, a bonanza. You know, that's well said and a great point.
So if you're looking to attract beneficial insects to your landscape, look for
those types of flowers, which are kind of complicated flowers because many numerous florets.
As you said, Stacy, I wanted to ask you how you feel
about bug food. Of course, you can go online and you can buy
beneficial insects, and then some of these sites will recommend that you use bug
food. Essentially, you take sticks in your garden and you paste this bug
food, which is some of them call it waste paste in other words,
whey and yeast and sugar and brushing them on these sticks. There's recipes out
there. How do you feel about that? I mean, how I feel
about it is that flowers are more fun. Yes, so you would really
only need to do that if you didn't have flowers, and a lot of
times, especially like in a greenhouse situation, if you are releasing beneficial insects
to help prey on aphids or spider mites or whatever, then you might need
that because you might not have anything in flour to feed the adults. And
that's the key. When we talk about beneficial insects, what we're mostly talking
about are insects that from their larval stage or their baby stage. Those that
stage preys on insects or spider mites, and the adults want them to stick
around and have their babies in your garden, and they eat flowers. So
that's a big difference. So you need to have that food source for the
adults in order for them to be like, hey, it's cool here,
I can set all there's food there, shelter, you know, I like
it here. If you don't have that, if you don't have flowers,
which can happen in a greenhouse or depending on your garden, you know,
you get them in in spring and you don't have a lot of stuff blooming
or stuff not suitable to these tiny little guys, then yeah, you might
need to provide some supplemental food like that. So let me segue off what
you just spoke about. Ladybugs. Yeah, ladybugs dealing with aphids, and
of course you have the Asian lady bugs, and then you have the native
lady bugs, which generally hang out in leaf litter. The Asian ladybugs tend
to hang out in your house over winter. Oh yeah, and they operate
in clusters. But the point is is the larva almost looks like tiny little
alligators and that's where they do their damage. Yeah, and you know,
so many people will see a ladybug larva for the first time, I'm and
freak out, what is this in my garden? Is it bad? So
we'll put a picture, of course, on the YouTube version of the show
if you're able to see it, or of course you can just search for
it. But yeah, I've heard alligator, I've heard dragon. People use
all sorts of creative names. So basically, you know, I remember being
a little kid and having some sort of little insect land on me and be
like, mom, it's a baby ladybug. Well, no, it's not
a baby ladybug, because a baby ladybug does not look like an adult ladybug.
It's a kind of wormy alligator looking thing. It is orange and black.
It's kind of spiky. I imagine people are getting some wild imagination.
You know, it's movie. Yeah, it does. It kind of looks
like being alien or something creepy like that. But they have a voracious appetite
for aphids especially. I mean the adults will eat some, but those adult
ladybugs again, they're going for the nectar. It's those those larvae that you
really need to feed. That's what's what's doing your pest control for you.
And we should dive in deep in regards to this subject. I know,
Stacey, you know a lot about insects and love insects, and I don't
blame you. I do too. You know, if we go down the
list, there's beneficial nematodes where we're generally dealing with insects in the soil.
Yea larva, you have lace wings. Parasitic wasps. I always in summertime
love to watch the work of parasitic wasps when they lay their eggs on tomato
hornworms. Oh yeah see, I have not seen that yet. I've seen
pictures of it. But you know, people think wasps, whoa, whoa
whoa wasps could never be beneficial, and wasps can be a predator of desirable
insect larva as well. So it is important to know that some of these
insects that are considered beneficial insects are really kind of non discriminate when it comes
to eating, so they can eat some beneficials. But you know you're talking
about a wasp that if you have a tomato hornworm, which you know,
I'll just come right out and say it's tomato horn rooms are the only insect
that truly freaks me out. They really do. They're so big, they've
eaten so much of your tomato. I do not like them. I can't
bring myself to squish them. If I find one, I fling it into
my driveway and let the birds get it. But yeah, sometimes if you
get lucky, you will find one that's all covered in white eggs. And
basically what that is is the larva or the eggs of parasitic wasps. And
when those eggs hatch, those larva are going to go into the insect body
devour it. Got it help burst open as adult wasps to repeat the cycle.
I've posted pictures in social media and people freak out. Yeah, so
it's crazy you have the tacanid fly. I love the scientific name for that
thing, bombie Leopsis abrupt something like that. We'll post it or maybe Adrian
will put it on the YouTube video. Hover flies and I struggle with that
word, Stacy. I never know if it's hover or hover or hover or
hoover. So I always thought it was hover, you know, because they're
hovering. I'm gonna take your words. So surfed flies. I usually say
surfed flies anyway because it's more fun to say. And I don't know,
I just I always say surfing flies. But so another way that people can
think about these is their bee flies, because they do use a bee mimicry,
so they look like bees, but they are flies. And you can
tell the difference because the surfed fly has two wings, so flies have two
wings. Bees have four wings. So if you're able to observe it and
you only see the two wings, that is a surfed fly. It's beneficial.
Again, going back to that larval stage loves to eat all sorts of
nasty stuff and does a great job. And I find the adults really quite
delightful and I love seeing them. I grow a lot of fennel ornamental fenel,
and they love those flowers. Yeah, eats lots of nasty stuff.
That's like some teenagers I know who can still do that at their age.
Praying mantis, rove beetle are fascinating, learn more about them. There's so
many that we could talk about. And I love the leafhopper. Assassin bugs,
Oh my word, are they very cool. Also, so with a
name like assassin bug, it's got to be cool. Well. And part
of the reason they call them assassin bug is because they're predatory in all stages.
And that's the interesting thing. As you mentioned the lady bugs just in
the larva stage, but with assassin bugs they named them appropriately. Well,
we'll see how Stacey ties this all in in Plants on Trial coming up in
our next segment Here on the Gardening Simplified Show, Proven Winners Colored Choice Shrubs
cares about your success in the garden. That's why we trial and test all
of our shrubs for eight to ten years, making sure they outperform everything else
on the market. Look for them in the distinctive white container at your local
garden center. Greetings, gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified
show where we are talking about one of my all time favorite subjects, insects.
I love them, I love cnom, I love talking about them,
I love learning about them, and I love sharing the few things that I
do know about them, because, just like plants, learning about insects is
open to a whole new world that you couldn't even begin to master. Now,
we didn't mention in the first episode, in the first segment when we
were talking about beneficials, you didn't mention one of my absolute favorite beneficials.
What one would that? Lace wings? Oh, lace swings, You're right,
yes, So I love lace wings. They are beautifully elegant as an
adult, So they have this sort of gorgeous, glowing lime green color and
they're one of the larger, I would say, of the of the beneficial
insects. And their wings really are very lacy and light and see through and
delicate, so beautiful adult. But what I really love about them is the
eggs. And once you know what a lace egg looks like, you do
start to find them everywhere, and they're typically on the underside of the leaves,
and they are they're just this fine, sort of little hair like structure
with this elegant little egg at the end. So they lay their eggs on
these stalks, and they are typically in groups of like maybe five to ten
or something like that. Now, again, this is another case where those
larva are doing much more benefit to you in terms of eating aphids and all
these other you know, negative insects in your garden. But whether you have
the eggs or the adults, I think they are just so lovely. And
I do want to say, don't get lace wing confused with lace bug,
because lace bug is a bad insect for your garden. Some plants are much
more susceptible to it than others. Of course, the azalea lace bug is
a notorious one. Sycamore and London plane also get a lace bug. And
lace bugs are not beneficial. They actually suck plant juices and can cause some
ugly you know coloration on your plant leaves. But lace wings totally good.
Welcome in, roll out the welcome mat for the lace wings in your guards.
So, in bug talk, the lesser of two weavils, Yeah,
I guess. So, I guess you could say that although they are not
in the weavil, weavels are type of beetle. Sorry, I'm gonna get
a little pedanzic when it comes to bugs. I'm very passionate about that.
Well, let's have it so as we're saying whatever, you know, beneficial
insect that you are trying to encourage in your garden, and I do want
to say this, we should mention this. You can buy beneficial insects.
Those are very often sold for use in a greenhouse or something like that.
But typically for most of us as gardeners, we don't need to buy them.
All we really need to do is make our gardens more hospitable for them
to take up residents and they'll find it on them. These are native for
the most part, insects that just they're just around the environment. Yeah,
and would you agree with me, Stacy, that dyl is a good choice,
still is a great choice. Okay. The only problem with dill is
that it blooms for a relatively short time. I mean, I love dill
flowers. I love dill, But dill is a plant. You know,
again, we've talked a bit about cilantro on. I know we're in plants
on trial and I'm about to go off on some major tangent here, but
you know, people think because of how they buy dill in the grocery store
that it's going to grow one way and it doesn't grow the way. It's
the same with cilantro. So in the garden, dill is very lush and
leafy early in the season, and then as summer comes on and it gets
ready to flower, those leaves kind of peter out and you just get that
long flowering stamp. Great for pickles, perfect timing for when the cucumbers really
start to come in the garden. But really to have a steady supply of
dill, you need to keep sowing. The sea continues sewing so that it's
always coming up because it just naturally has that short life cycle. But talking
about dill and having that relatively short flowering time is the perfect segue into today's
plant on trial, which is low and behold blue chip junior butterfly bush.
I love that plant. Yeah, I love it too. And you know,
of course, butterfly bushes budleia get all the attention for attracting butterflies.
I mean, it's right there in the name, so kind of clear why
that would happen. And yes, they do attract butterflies, but the same
reason that butterflies are attracted to them. Are the same reasons that beneficial insects
would be attracted to these plants. They have numerous small flowers, a very
high pollen and nectar count. And the great thing about adding, now this
is true of any butterfly bush, but I'm focusing specifically on loan Behold blue
chip junior today, and I'll give you some reasons why in a moment.
But the great thing about having a butterfly bush as part of this approach to
encouraging beneficial insects is that they flower four months. You know, typically for
us here in Michigan, butterfly bushes are in flour pretty much from like mid
June all the way up through mid September, even late September, depending on
how the weather goes. Compare that with dill, where you're going to have
maybe you know, two weeks rich nectar flowers. Compare that even to something
like you were talking about milkweed. We talked about bee bomb, fantastic flowers,
but again usually only around for two or three weeks in the summer.
So I think it brings up the point diversity is important, so you can
plant the herbs and that sort of thing. But your point is with butterfly
bush that all those tiny little flowers, the insects love them, and it's
it does the heavy work, the heavy lifting, because it's blooming for such
a long period of time, right, So it's kind of like having this
all you can eat buffet all summer long, open twenty four to seven,
twenty four to seven. And then you know, if they're like, hey,
you know, I'm getting a little tired of having buddleia for dinner every
day. Oh but look, hey the bee bomb went and bloom, so
I'm gonna go switch it up. So again, it's so important. And
this is the great thing about this is it's just as beneficial for you from
an esthetic standpoint as it is for the insects to have this broad diversity of
flower colors for times, different nectar contents, different pollen contents, and so
butterfly bush are just part of that equation. Preach it. You're on a
roll. So we have a bunch of butterfly bush in the proven Winner's color
choice lines. So of course choosing just one to cover today is always difficult.
But I wanted to choose low and Behold blue Chip Junior, So Low
and behold. Butterfly bushes came out about maybe fifteen ish years ago, and
they were the first non invasive seedless butterfly bushes on the market. And not
only were they seedlessen non invasive and we probably have listeners right now going wait,
what butterfly bush is invasive? And it's not typically an issue here in
Michigan, but especially in milder climates because butterfly bush had become so popular and
older varieties are very seedy put out a lot of seed. Like if you
go out west to Oregon or Washington, you are going to see butterfly bush
growing in the ditches like we have purple LuSE strife. It's kind of a
wild thing to see if you're not used to that, and especially if you
gardening clay soil and are thinking, sesh, I can't even get a butterfly
bush to live in my yard, much less imagine it being invasive. So
for a lot of gardeners, having this seedless quality is really important and has
made butterfly bush an opportunity again in areas where it was banned because these particular
varieties don't set seed, but that doesn't mean that they don't have nectar that
they don't have pollen, they still have all of that capability of sustaining not
just butterflies, but other beneficial insects as well. So the original butterfly lo
and Behold blue Chip was kind of a larger plant. The colors were kind
of the flower color was more of like a dusty kind of blue. So
the same breeder, doctor Dennis Warner out of North Carolina State University. He's
retired now, but he devoted his career to developing sterile, non invasive butterfly
bushes. He selected this one later because it has a much richer blue color.
And what I really like about this particular variety is the foliage is kind
of silvery. Of the other ones have a dark green leaf, which is
still fine, but I think this one just has that like I love that
Mediterranean kind of drought tolerant look good description, Yeah, exactly, So I
love that color in there. So I really like the contrast between the flowers
and foliage of Low and Behold blue Chip junior butterfly bush. It's also a
little bit smaller than the original blue chip, so it reaches just one and
a half to two and a half feet tall and wide, and that's pretty
revolutionary for a butterfly bush because older varieties are like what eight feet tall and
you know, five five feet wide, so they would get really really large.
And so doctor Warner's breeding with a Low and Behold series really kind of
helped people reimagine butterfly bush and how it could be used in the garden.
And I think this is such a great example of it. Another thing about
this one is it is less brittle than other butterfly bush and butterfly bush.
You know, most plants have some liability somewhere in there. You might not
discover it depending on how you're using it. But butterfly bush the wood is
just naturally brittle, and so you know, very often if you've ever purchased
one and you're bringing it home from the garden center, you know it's like
breaking off. You think, oh geez, I just ruined it. Well,
it's just something that happens with these particular plants. So a lot of
improvements over it. But I did say I want to talk about some of
the tips about butterfly bush since it is spring and a lot of people are
probably wondering what they do, and pruning, of course is always a huge,
huge issue. So yes, you can prune your butterfly bush, and
in fact, you should prune your butterfly bush because if you don't, you
will end up with a second story plant that flowers only at the tippy top
where you can't even really see it. Still find for butterflies and beneficial insects,
but not so great for you. And it doesn't really look that great
either. But the time to prune your butterfly bush is when you see the
new growth emerging on the stems. So whenever that happens, that's your signal
to prune. Butterfly bush are one of those plants where it's not super clear
where you should be pruning. It doesn't have really obvious bud points like some
other plants like hydraengos or roses do, So if you wait until that new
growth is actually emerging on the stem, it's telling you, hey, you
can prune me here. I'm alive. Below this, we're good to go.
And what you want to do is prune just above where a large bud
is emerging. The bigger the bud, the more vigorous the growth that comes
from it is, and you want to try to cut them pretty low.
About as low to the ground as you can and still just above a bud,
because this is going to give you that nice, compact, dense habit
like you see in the pictures on our tags. That's how we take care
of all of our butterfly bushes here at the nursery, and that will also
help you get good flower coverage all over the plant. Now, if you
don't see new growth emerging on your butterfly bush, even if everything else in
your yard is emerging, don't panic. They can be very very late to
emerge in spring. They can actually take all the way until mid June,
especially if you live in a colder climate. You know, I have so
much more to say about this, you know, bugs butterfly bush. I'm
dying over here. So I'm going to put the rest of this in the
show notes because we have to take a little bit of break. So visit
Gardening Simplified on air dot com for all the information you need. When we
come back, we're opening up the garden mail bags, so please stay tuned.
At proven winner's color choice, We've got a shrub for every taste and
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local garden center. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified
Show, where it's the time to answer your garden questions. If you've got
a garden question, you can reach us at Gardening Simplified on air dot com.
It's so easy. You just click the contact tab and send us your
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say I couldn'tach my photot and we'll give you further instructions from there. But
I know it's a busy time of year. We got a lot of questions
in the inbox. So what do we got on tap this week? Well,
along the lines of questions, Stacy, I just wanted to mention to
your comments about pruning bud Leo were very, very good And I did live
radio for years and that was one of the number one questions I'd get pruning
bud leo right, because they look kind of crummy in spring. Right now,
I can't possibly be meant to look at this for the next couple of
weeks, and we want to get started, all right, Angie writes to
us. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed my indoor Meyer lemon tree
had spider mite's surprise. And this is the first time I've ever grown a
mayor lemon tree, first time I've ever experienced a pest. And I fear
I noticed too late to save it. So Angie applied some safers and all
the leaves have fallen off. Now there's just branches. Any chance of survival
or is it set for the compost Pilon Stacy. Anytime that I hear the
word mites, I think dry air, dry air. And if we bring
a lemon tree inside the house and the heat is running and I'm not sure
where Angie lives, but it could be air conditioning too, dry air,
you're gonna have mite problems. Yeah, And I think that you know what
can happen, especially at this time in the year. The plant has been
indoors for what you know, six months now five months. That's a long
time, and that's really going to start adding up and causing the plant a
lot of stress. Stressure, and when a plant is under stress, pest
problems really explode. They can be managed just fine all season long, but
then if you get some kind of major stress boom, it just kind of
explodes with them. So I think that's what happened, Angie, that your
plant just kind of is like, I can't take it anymore. I'm giving
up the spider MIT's one. But that doesn't mean your plant is dead.
When a plant is very stress, it's not at all uncommon for it to
just be like, Nope, these leaves aren't doing any good. They're way
too bitten up by spider mites. I'm just going to like row a whole
new set. I'm gonna go mope for a while. I'm gonna mope.
I'm going to regroup my energy, and I'm going to hopefully be able to
get new foliage out when conditions improve. So the great news, Angie is
I do think it's likely to be okay. I think that just the fact
that the leaves were all dropped doesn't mean that it's suffering. It just means
that it's stressed and kind of conserving its resources, and you know, probably
has some sense based on the increasing light that better days are ahead. My
recommendation for you would be to put it outdoors as soon as you reasonably can
without risking, you know, its health to any cold. This plant is
going to be so so much happier outside than inside. And I think that
you know, as you water it and make it happy again, it will
leaf out. I have certainly had citrus plants that I've attempted to grow indoors.
I've never had bright enough light to really do it well, that have
defoliated like that and taken a little break and then with water and you know,
longer days and all of that come back without a problem. So do
you not give up on it? And then maybe next year, you know,
maybe some missing maybe a preemptive application of this safe spray that you put
on to try to control any mites that might be coming in on the plants
when you bring it in in winter, move away from any registers when it's
indoors. But two words sunshine and humidity. But what do I know.
I'm only humid. I love humid weather, so do lemon trees. Cheryl
has a question. I purchased rooted plants of asparagus Jersey Giant and asparagus Mary
Washington. My question where should I plant them? The package says to plant
in full sun to create a mound in the trench and spreading the roots over
the ridge. The only thing I do understand is that do not harvest the
spears the first year. And you know, this is a great question because
asparagus is a perennial vegetable, just like horseradish or rhubarb. The plants can
last for years, and yes, when we see the spears in spring and
ensuing years once that's done, to let that fern like foliage grow, Stacey,
I let all the plant, yeah, to photosynthesize the plant. The
foliage is so beautiful. So yeah, that's why the typical recommendation is to
not harvest the first year because the spears that you eat in asparagus are actually
the shoots for the foliage. So if you take those off, the plant
doesn't have an opportunity to grow foliage, to photosynthesize and increase the size of
that crown. So I'm not exactly sure where your confusion is, Cheryl,
unless it's about the trench because this is kind of standard recommendation for asparagus.
And if you've ever seen an asparagus root crown, it's kind of like a
octopus or something like a very tangled ball of yarn octopus with a crown,
that's what it is. And so that trench recommendation is really so that you
can kind of position the crown and try to spread those roots out the best
that you can. Now, this isn't like the kind of thing that you
got to fuss over and work really are at, but the typical way that
it should be planted is to dig a wider hole and then as you place
those crowns into the trench, take the time to kind of spread out the
roots and that will really help it to establish better. And I'll tell you
it's worth whatever you put into establishing and asparagus planting, because yeah, they'll
last thirty years or longer. They're very, very long lived. And more
important than the trench, in my opinion, is well drained soil. So
they need moisture, some organic material. We can work in some manure organic
material, but you need well drained soil with asparagus. The soil pH is
important. Also, they don't like really acidic soils, so maybe get a
pH test. You don't have to, but they do like that six point
five range and then side dressing the rose with some twelve twelve twelve works great,
but that drainage part is important. And sun, so you definitely want
you know, your direction said six hours of sun. That doesn't have to
be all at once necessarily like in one block. It can be throughout the
day, but you definitely want six hours in Cheryl. If you happen to
be here in West Michigan along with us, you've got great conditions for asparagus
as the many many asparagus farms in our area can attest. Yeah. Absolutely.
Now we got a question from another Shaw says, I have an oak
leaf Hydrangea that is about three has been in my garden for three years,
never bloomed. I bought this variety because I was told it would do well
in a shady area. Can you advise one of my favorite plants? Oak
leaf hydrange me too, Such a great plant, and I do generally consider
oak leaf hydrangeas the most shade tolerant of hydrangeas. But there are a couple
of reasons your plant might not be blooming. Now number one. I don't
know what size you started with. So if you started with a really small,
like one court plant that you would buy by mail order, it certainly
just needs more time, you know, to mature and be able to grow.
If you have deer. Very often deer don't cause a lot of problems
a lot of damage to the plant, but they love to just nip out
that flower bud, especially like in winter or spring. So if you have
deer, you might not be noticing a lot of damage, but they could
have eaten it. Squirrels will do it too. Oh they will, Yeah,
they will. Oh, I didn't know them. They're so cute,
but they can be they can be very destructive. Sorry, that's okay.
I do. I have a very soft spot in my heart for squirrels,
or of course if you're pruning it. So they're so cute, they are.
I stand by my point that if squirrels were not so ubiquitous, people
would be lining up to go to zoos that had squirrels, Like, they're
so cute and so fun to watch acrobatic. Yeah, they're great to watch.
People would they would be like a meme, you know, people would
love them so much and and say all these great things about them, but
they're ubiquitous, and so people ignore them. But we're coming off a mast
year, so we've got them everywhere. They're having a grand old time in
my art. Uh So, anyway, if you're pruning oak, leafier and
just do bloom on old wood, so that means that you should not prune
them, or else would be cutting off the flower buds. So I hope
one of those makes sense you, Cheryl. Of course, we'll put this
all in the show notes at Gardening Simplified on air dot Com. All right,
great, Marie, wondering my iris leaves get brown streaks in them?
What is wrong with them? Is there a way to prevent this from happening?
A classic question? A classic question. Now, there are some fungal
diseases that irises can get, and I will put some links in the show
notes for those two. But almost certainly, in my experience, the number
one reason that your iris is going to have streaky foliage is the dreaded iris
bore bingal. Yep, horrible little thing. I mean, I love bugs,
you know I've already been through that. This is a moth and it's
larva in this case, very not beneficial larva, it lays its eggs.
The moth lays its eggs sort of at the base of the iris, and
they hatch out and then the caterpillars go into the iris foliage, which is
what causes those streaks, and then when they're about ready to pupate, they
go down in to the rhizome. They make a sticky, slimy, horrible
mess of your iris rhizomes. So I'd say this is most likely what This
is the best time to scout for iris boor is in July, so you
want to get out there and look around. They even recommend if you do
have iris bor that you dig up your clump look through all of the rhizomes.
You will very clearly see if you have iris borer, because again,
they just make it into this disgusting, slimy mess. Take out any that
have it, of course, to crush any of those caterpillars that you see
in your rhizomes, and then replant your rhizomes. The iris will be none
the worse for it. And then, of course when fall comes and you've
had your frost, at that point you want to make sure you remove and
discard all of your irish foliage. Because that will really help to control any
pests or any you know, eggs that are in the actual foliage or on
the foliage itself. Right, absolutely, you have anything to add it.
We have lots of information about this to help you diagnose them, understand what
to do, and recognize them. For Marie or anyone else who is struggling
with iris or they are very very common, very widespread. I barely have
any irises in my yard and I've had them most every year, so I
know the feeling. So anyway, thank you all so much for your questions.
If you have a question, you can always reach us at Gardening Simplified
on air dot com. We're going to take a break. When we come
back, we've got branching news, so stay tuned. The Gardening Simplified Show
is brought to you by proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering
shrubs and evergreens have been trialed and tested for your success so you enjoy more
beauty and less work. Look for proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs and the distinctive
white container at your local garden center. Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show.
It's time for branching news. And right off the top. Just want
to introduce folks who are not aware of the plant to a plan that's been
around for a long time. Stacy's going to help me with a botanical name.
I'm going to take a shot at it. See Anothus americanus. Yeah,
Snothos close enough, okay good? Also known as New Jersey tea.
Now. I love this native plant because it was used as a black tea
substitute during the Revolutionary War when they had that little party there in Boston,
that Boston Tea Party, and pitched it all over the side and they're like,
wow, well, now what do we do? And that's when they
use the leaves of New Jersey tea plant And it kept the colonist grumpy because
Stacy, there is not caffeine in those leaves, but they used it as
a substitute. Well back in Revolutionary War times, they were pretty much desperate
for anything remotely palatable that they could in jest. So I have not tried
it myself, but it is a beautiful native plant. I have tried to
grow it, and I found out that my art is a little bit too
dry for it. But I do love it. It has white flowers that
attract a ton of pollinators, an interesting texture on the foliage and if you're
sitting there going hmm, so you know this that sounds familiar. We have
a number of other natives, so you know this in North America, but
most of them are native to California. Not remotely hardy, but super popular
landscape plants out in California gorgeous. Sometimes are even called California lilac because they're
just covered in these like hazy, billowy masses of purple flowers so pretty.
We can't grow those here in the Midwest, but we can grow New Jersey
tea, and it's still a very cool plant with a very cool story.
There you go, So put it on your radar. Another thing to put
on your radar. Invaders from the underground are coming this summer in Cicada Geddon.
Yeah, it's the biggest bug emergence in centuries this spring and unusual.
Cicada double dose is about to invade a couple parts of the United States in
what they're calling Cicada Geddon. And the last time these two broods came out
together eighteen oh three, Thomas Jefferson wrote about them. He referred to them
as locusts. But there's some pretty big broods coming out, as I've seen
at Stacy, Georgia and Illinois being the epicenter as I understand, Yeah,
we're not predicted to get much here in Michigan. So hopefully peaceful summer nights
ahead for us, but not so much for our neighbors. You know,
it's quite a topic for people to talk about, and this week, as
opposed to a limb of rick, I got these two limericks from the Washington
Post who invited people to write about cicadas. There was one Cicada's a hard
word to rhyme. It's not one you hear all the time, but try
rhyming echoskeleton only a clever felakin. So glad to be on the last line.
Great sense of humor there, great job another one. Life is short,
no time to waste sleep for years, then date in haste, flex
those muscles, shed that jacket, find a mate cause a racket. Oh
yeah, i'd said, is a cicala Cicada's m O right there. I
like it. This next story stick around. This is gonna be good.
So for those of you who are on Instagram, I suggest you look up
official stick reviews. I follow that account. It has forty five point nine
thousand followers, started about a year ago, and I love the names of
the gentleman who started the account. One his name is boon Hog and the
other is Logan Juggler. And they all just kind of as a joke.
They loved collecting sticks when they go hiking and they're thinking, Wow, this
is a really cool stick, or this is a cool quality stick. This
one feels really good in my hand. And they started posting these and they
found that there were a bunch of other people like me who love collecting sticks
for whatever crazy reason. And then we rate sticks on their quality. Now,
I brought along a couple of sticks here. Oh, I wonder,
what do you have a rating for the Oh, well, these aren't rated.
These are walking sticks. So this is a driftwood out of Lake Michigan.
Oh is a stick exactly. And I even taped them for you,
you know, safety first, So one for Adriana and one for you.
A walking stick. These guys on a hike in moab, Utah. They
filmed their first stick review and posted it online. And I was thinking we
as gardeners would appreciate and love sticks too, and this thing has gotten out
of control. They now have the McMurray bend test, they have the Tennyson
curve scale, the Williams Whacker meter, all of these different variations to hast
the sticks. They have Stick of the Month, a tournament at the start
of each month, and people post these sticks. Great webs great site to
visit on Instagram and follow. Yeah, I'm definitely going to add it to
my list. I was just trying to look for it. I didn't find
it, so I'm gonna have to do a little more digging. But I
am excited to follow the official stick reviews because who doesn't like a good stick?
Yeah, so Adriana have some fun walking out there with your stick too.
What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back a stick? What
do you call a magic one that doesn't do magic? A stick? Right?
So? Anyhow do you know the stick on the Ground song? No?
Oh, Adriana is a big fan, so I will not do a
rendition, but we will share the link for the stick on the Ground song
in the show notes. I love it. Where there's a willow, there's
a way right there, you go. I'm gonna stick with my dad jokes.
That's what I'm gonna do, all right. Rats are a nice thing
to have in your house. In Boston, rat traps are getting a new
look thanks to some local artists. An art festival in Boston is looking to
bring some beauty to the neighborhood's rat problem. They're paying artists one hundred dollars
to decorate rat traps that will be placed in the area, and the event
is aptly named the Rat City Art Festival. So if you're looking for something
that's well kind of ratical, I'm sorry I had to do that this summer.
Boston's the place, the Rat City Art Festival. Well. Having lived
in New York City and been a horticulturist in New York City, I have
had more than my share of run ins with rats, so I doubt you're
going to go I mean, I'm okay with them. I mean, the
feeling of a rat running over your shoe is not one that you forget.
But yeah, I have many rat memories. All right. Now, let's
move from rats to run in my house. Gally never had them indoors that
funny outcards Punk Satani, Phil, You know, we always talk about punk
Satani in early February, whether or not Punk Satany sees its shadow while Phil
and Phyllis have had babies. I'm just announcing that. Oh that's wonderful.
Yeah, so Phil junior, a couple of Phil juniors, I guess,
and I don't know if someday they'll inherit the mantle and be able to predict
whether or not spring has arrived. But they had, they had babies,
so pretty cool. Yeah, cute little groundhog babies only have to work one
day a week, three hundred and sixty four days. It's kind of a
great gig. Nice work if you can get it, nice work if you
can get it all right, you know. It makes me makes me think
of a polar bear who walks into a bar and he says to the bartender,
I'll have a rum and a coke. And the bartender says, why
the big pause, and the polar bear says, well, I was born
with those. Sorry. See I earned the right to do bad dad jokes.
Okay, I'm old enough to do them. Have you ever heard of
jacket potatoes? Oh? Yes, they have in the United Kingdom. Really,
oh in the United Kingdom, well, jacket they call it like baked
potato right like it's got the skin on, yeah, exactly. In the
United Kingdom England they love their baked potatoes and a lot of people feel that
they do it best. So as opposed to taking a potato that you're going
to bake and poking holes in it so it doesn't explode and then probably what
four hundred degrees for an hour or something like that. To bake the potatoes
in England, what they do is they slice the potato they almost make a
cross in the center, and then they bake them for much longer, maybe
two hours at four hundred degrees. The whole concept, the whole idea is
to have them crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. And as
I understand it and England, these jacket potatoes are the best baked potato you
can have. Oh now, see, my father in law is a devoute
of the long cooked potato school. Oh yes, he has a special clay
pot where he makes them and cooks them for yeah, at least two hours.
He loves that like super fluffy inside. Now usually he burns the outside
so it's not really edible. It's like coal. But you know, you
sometimes when he does them, on the grill. You really only get like
one little scoop out of the potato. The rest is all incinerated. That
is his favorite way to eat them. So I have had this type of
potato many many times myself outstanding. I love that. So I'm gonna try
this jacket potatoes. I'm just being a commentator here to close out our show.
It's been fun, Stacy. Yeah, wait, I have a question
on a potato things. Yeah. So I usually microwave them because I don't
like to waste that much energy, you know, to just like baked to
potatoes, So usually microwave. I'm to get a head start. Do you
think that's permitted in the jacket potato? You know, I would say no.
Okay, I would say no. We're going for that crispy outside.
No hacks in the jacket potato world. Okay, I got you. Hey
Stacey, it's been a kick in the plants. Thank you Adrianna, and
thank you Stacy. Most of all, thanks to you for watching us on
YouTube, listening to us on radio, and enjoying our podcast. Have a
great week.