April 4, 2025 • 39 mins
Spring has arrived, which means the gardening questions have started coming into Extension offices. Tune in to this week’s Good Growing Podcast as we answer some of the questions that have come into our offices. Learn about planting grass in the spring, managing invasive plants, fertilizing fruit trees, and more!
Watch us on YouTube: https://youtu.be/2_8AUONLR44
Skip to what you want to know:
00:27 – Welcome, Ken. Have we gotten our garden seeds started, a Good Growing Grow Along seed update, and an anniversary.
05:28 - I have a bare patch of ground, when should I plant grass seed?
08:38 – What is this plant?
09:27 – What is causing the stippling on the rhododendron leaves?
13:13 – My African violet has mealy bugs. How do I get rid of them?
16:18 – Bradford pear is becoming invasive but can still be bought. What are you doing to stop it from being sold?
21:57 – Managing honeysuckle, can I spray now?
24:38 - Wintercreeper
26:35 – What do we do about our homes being invaded by the multi-colored Asian lady beetle?
30:18 – How much fertilizer should I put on my fruit trees?
33:59 - Will cicadas affect my trees this year?
37:14 – Wrap-up, thank yous, what’s up next week, and goodbye!
Management of Invasive Plants and Pests of Illinois
Contact us!
Chris Enroth: cenroth@illinois.edu
Ken Johnson: kjohnso@illinois.edu
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Subscribe to the weekly Good Growing email: https://go.illinois.edu/goodgrowingsubscribe
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Enroth (00:05):
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith University of Illinois
Extension coming at you fromMacomb, Illinois, and we have
got a great show for you today.It is an old fashioned question
and answer show. The questionsare coming in this spring to our
extension offices, and we aregoing to share what some of
those are and what our responseshave been. But you know I'm not
(00:27):
doing this by myself.
I am joined as always everysingle week by horticulture
educator Ken Johnson inJacksonville. Hey, Ken.
Ken Johnson (00:35):
Hello, Chris. It's a good time to have a q and a, I
think. The questions arestarting to roll in.
Chris Enroth (00:41):
Yes. You know, you and I, we were we were on campus
last week for for a day. I wason there for two days and came
back to a plethora of questions.So we we're definitely keeping
busy right now this time ofyear, which is good. This is
what we want.
We enjoy doing these kind ofthings.
Ken Johnson (01:05):
Yes. As long as they're easy.
Chris Enroth (01:08):
Right. Don't send us hard questions, folks. Only
easy questions. Oh, well, sinceit it is a q and a show, and
maybe we have a little bit ofextra wiggle room up front here,
Ken, how are things going inyour garden this year? We were
chatting before the show.
You getting those seeds started?
Ken Johnson (01:32):
For the home garden, yes, those have those
have been started for the mostpart. I got peas and lettuce and
carrots in the ground. Wehaven't had any rain since I put
them in the ground, so nothinghas come up. We've missed pretty
much all the rain that we've hadrecently. It's all slid east or
south of us, so everything'sjust kinda sitting and and
(01:52):
waiting.
So hopefully well, by the timepeople listen to this,
hopefully, it would have rained,but on Wednesday, we'll see. How
about you?
Chris Enroth (02:04):
Nope. I got my cool season things started, and
I really should be getting thewarm season things like the
tomatoes and peppers and and allof that going as well. Have not
done that yet, so let's just sayI'm waiting. I'm waiting for the
perfect time. I'm waiting forour grow along seeds to show up.
(02:24):
Do we know if we have an ETA onthose seeds yet?
Ken Johnson (02:29):
Yes. By the time people are listening to this,
they it should be in the mail. Ithink they're going out today,
Tuesday. Don't hold me to that.
Chris Enroth (02:41):
This week. You know?
Ken Johnson (02:41):
They're getting mailed this week.
Chris Enroth (02:43):
Barring any unforeseen circumstances.
Everything should be packagedup, ready to go. So if you did
sign up for our good grind growalong, start checking that
mailbox after you hear this showon the end of the end of this
week, Friday. And then it's offthe races. Time to get things
going because we do have a fewof those species that you can
(03:05):
start indoors.
Ken Johnson (03:08):
Or probably should in the case of tomatoes.
Chris Enroth (03:10):
Yes. Yeah. Especially, yeah, the black grim
tomato that's a lot of peoplesigned up to grow, definitely.
Ken Johnson (03:17):
But we still have still have ample time to get
those started. So Mhmm. You'reyou're not in trouble yet.
Chris Enroth (03:24):
I guess it's just the warm weather that's tricking
me a little bit into thinkingI'm behind. Let's Yes, sir.
Let's say that. I'm waiting forthe good growing grow along
seeds, and I'm being tricked byour warm daytime temperatures
here on April 1. April fool'sday of all days.
Ken Johnson (03:42):
So what are we on? Our third or fourth fall spring
by now?
Chris Enroth (03:45):
I think so. Yes. That's a tricky one. Hey, Ken.
I'm kind of upset that you don'tremember, but we have an
anniversary this week.
Do you remember?
Ken Johnson (04:01):
No. It's
Chris Enroth (04:02):
five years we've been doing this podcast.
Ken Johnson (04:04):
Five. Really?
Chris Enroth (04:05):
Five years. Mhmm. Happy anniversary. I looked at
anniversary. I looked at therecording folder from 2020.
Well and then you were helpingme out a little bit before this
when I tried to get this thinggoing. So but, yeah, we've we've
been doing this for a while. Weaccidentally hit, like, 200 plus
(04:28):
episodes and didn't even realizeit, a little while ago. So,
yeah, I guess, just a specialthanks to all of our listeners,
all our viewers on YouTube forhanging out with us for these
last few years.
Ken Johnson (04:43):
Yes. Thank you. It's it's nice to know people
are listening, and we're notjust sending this out into the
void, and that's that. Justthank you for listening.
Chris Enroth (04:54):
Thank you. And I love talking to Ken every week,
so we'd still be sending thisout into the void. But maybe who
would put less effort intoediting or something? I
Ken Johnson (05:02):
don't know. We can justify doing it.
Chris Enroth (05:04):
We can. So thank you, everybody. Alright. Well,
Ken, I guess we do have, severalquestions, that have come into
to your office, to my office.And so I guess we'll go ahead
and get started.
I I will go ahead and kick thisone off, since this first one,
came into your office. And it isI have a patch of oh, I have a
(05:30):
bare patch of ground. Whenshould I plant grass seed?
Ken Johnson (05:36):
So the ideal time is gonna be that mid August to
mid September. I doubt peoplewanna wait that long. So, we
can't put grass seed down in thespring. Usually, we're we're
kinda getting towards the thetail end of when we'd wanna do
that. Typically, late March tomid April, is really a time
frame we wanna do that.
That's gonna get the grass timeto establish roots, before it
(05:57):
gets hot. Like because we're Idon't know what for the most
part, in Illinois, we're growingcool season grass. So when it
gets hot, they start slowingdown, and that's gonna stress
them out if they're planted. Thelonger you wait, the more
stressed they're gonna get, andless likely they are to get
established, and survive throughthat summer. So if you can't get
(06:21):
it done, here relatively soon,you can do sod.
Those plants are alreadygrowing. You could put that
down, I guess, anytime of theyear, really, as long as it's
warm enough. You have to waterit quite a bit, especially as it
gets hotter until it can getestablished. But that would be,
I guess, option b. If you can'tget the seed down relatively
(06:41):
soon, look at sod.
Chris Enroth (06:43):
Mhmm. I often tell folks that spring is for sod,
and late summer, early fall isfor seed. Just in terms of
effectiveness or success rate ofestablishment. So if you are
seeding in the spring, you know,do you there are some species
you can look at, like tallfescue or a turf type. Tall
(07:04):
fescue is one of those thatdoesn't have good winter
hardiness.
So when you plant it in thefall, young, grass seedlings
from turf type tall fescue, theycan't get winter kill. So
planting them in the spring,might make it so that they're
more established than going intothe next winter. But this
everything still applies forturf type that Ken mentioned
(07:26):
that they still need ample timeto get a good root system
established for that summerheat. So so that might be an
option. If you need a reallyquick germination, perennial rye
grass is one of your quickestgerminating long grass seeds.
Make sure it is perennial rye,not annual rye. You gotta be
careful because down south, theywill sow annual rye when their
(07:50):
warm season grasses go dormantin the winter. And so I have
seen annual rye seed creeping upinto the northern, parts of The
US, in our garden centersrecently.
Ken Johnson (08:01):
And I'd say for the most part, people are probably
doing, like, Kentucky bluegrass.So if you wanna if you've got
other turf, you know, figure outwhat it is so you don't have
these weird patches that aregonna look different. You may
wanna try to match the speciesbecause the different cool
season will look a little bitdifferent from each other. Yes.
Chris Enroth (08:23):
Yes. If that bothers you. Meanwhile, my lawn,
I don't even know what's inthere.
Ken Johnson (08:30):
That bear patch would be weeds.
Chris Enroth (08:32):
Yes. Yeah. And I'm fine with it. So yes.
Ken Johnson (08:38):
Alright. Next question comes from your neck of
the woods. What is this plant?And you have to show the plant
because I don't have it.
Chris Enroth (08:46):
Yes. So I I do have the plant, and I'm sure the
blur is not helping with this. Ican even take a picture and we
can insert it here. But what Iwas given was this plant, the
leaves are all rolled up andthey simply just wanted to know
what it was. It was retainingits leaves in the wintertime.
(09:07):
New person, new house. What isthis plant? And it is a
rhododendron, and they'llprobably find out more about it
this spring once it startsblooming. You know, it was you
know, what type of flowers doesit have? Very common ones, PJM,
rhododendron.
So we'll see this, what theymight what they might get in
terms of blooms. But as Ken andI were looking at this before we
(09:30):
started, recording, we noticedthat the stippling on these
leaves look a lot like spidermite damage. Now spider mites,
they can be a common pest ofrhododendrons. I have I have
seen spider mite damage onrhododendron before,
Ken Johnson (09:45):
but
Chris Enroth (09:47):
it's wintertime or there's there's no webbing.
There's no evidence or sign ofspider mites. But what there is,
on the underside, there arethese fecal spots. These kind of
tarry like substances, they canthey rub off the bottom of the
leaf, and this looks verysimilar to rhododendron lace
(10:07):
bug. And this is an insect that,you know, true to its name, will
attack rhododendron species.
Most times, you have naturalenemies, parasitic wasps, other
predators that will help you incontrolling this. But I think
this also happened once lastyear where rhododendron lace
(10:28):
bug, the leaves came in allstippled looking like this. No
sign of spider mites. So we hadfecal spots on the the bottom of
the leaves. It was rhododendronlace bug.
And, again, most time naturalenemies will take care of it. If
they are not doing that, thenyou can do something like soaps
or oil, horticultural sprays.You do have to get good coverage
(10:51):
of the plant in order to inorder to kill the lace bug, but
they are not going to kill theeggs on there. The eggs are
usually laid along the bottommid vein of the leaf, and so
sometimes a systemic insecticidecan be applied. Like, the active
ingredient imidacloprid can beused.
(11:13):
But but otherwise, yeah, the asfar as we know, I mean, this the
lace bug damage can be causingthese rolled leaves, but I think
the leaves are all rolled upbecause this has been sitting on
my desk for, like, five days.They brought it in when I wasn't
in the office, and then it wasthe weekend, and then boom. Here
we are. So I think it's justdesiccated, but maybe the
(11:34):
lacewing bugs played a littlebit of a role in the some of the
damage on these leaves.
Ken Johnson (11:40):
Yeah. And then we're if you're doing the
sprays, usually, those lace bugsare on the underside leaves,
which can make getting goodcoverage and contact with them
rather difficult. And I can Iget lace bugs on my baptisia
every year, so I can pop in apicture here if you're not sure
of what lace bugs look like?They're you know, the the wings
are you got a lot of veins thatlook lacy, less the name.
(12:02):
They're they're kinda coollooking as long as you don't
mind them eating your plants.
And I think, yeah, in additionto, the tar spots, I think the
other and no webbing. Like, youread descriptions about them.
The the stippling is bigger thanspider mite. But unless you're
looking at the two at the sametime, I don't know how you tell
(12:23):
the difference. I don't thatone's probably not terribly
helpful unless you really arefamiliar with what the what
those damage what the damagefrom those two look like.
So
Chris Enroth (12:31):
Mhmm.
Ken Johnson (12:31):
Tar spots is usually a pretty good giveaway.
Chris Enroth (12:34):
Yeah. That that that's I think that's definitely
helpful. I also have two spottedspider mites on my angel's
trumpet at home. So even thoughit's two different plants, I'm
not really seeing as muchstippling because I'm actively
trying to control those spidermites. It's it's definitely
there's a distinction here.
And yeah. You I do not see theactual insect itself, but I'm
(12:55):
pretty confident in saying thiswas caused by a rhododendron
lace rhododendron lacewing.
Ken Johnson (13:01):
Lacebug.
Chris Enroth (13:02):
Lacebug. Lacebug. Lacewing. We those are good
guys. Right?
We don't wanna do anything withthose guys. Lacebug. There we
go. Alright. Well, our nextquestion is, from Ken's neck of
the woods about African violets.
Oh, I'm scared of thesequestions, because people are
kind of touchy about theirAfrican violet. So this one is
(13:25):
my African violet has mealybugs.How do I get rid of them?
Ken Johnson (13:31):
Yes. A little bit of this will depend on on the
amount, or how big theinfestation is and how important
that plant is to you. So if yougot a smaller infestation, you
take something like a cottonswab, some alcohol, dip it in
there, and just wipe them offand do that, you know, several
times, keep up with it. Andusually, can get rid of the
(13:52):
population fairly easily thatway. If got a bigger population,
can look at insecticides, likehorticultural soaps, or
something like that, orpyrethrins are gonna be some of
your your less toxic type stuff.
You could do a systemic, like,being like a Myocloprid, take
that up to the plant the insectswill feed on it. Because
mealybugs have this waxy kindacoating on them, which can make,
(14:16):
make it difficult to manage themwith contact insecticides. So
the the systemic could be anoption. But if you have a really
bad infestation, and there's nosentimental value attached to
that plant, a lot of timesyou're just better off getting
rid of it, and starting over.And it could probably be cheaper
in the long run, just buy a newplant instead of trying to treat
(14:39):
it and all that.
But if you again, if you've gotsome kind of sentimental
attachment to it, you can trythat. Maybe take some cuttings
of it, make sure they're cleanbefore you try to root it and
propagate that plant. So atleast you have that. Maybe not
the original plant, but you'vegot, you know, that that plant
still. You
Chris Enroth (15:01):
know, I if I can limp my angel's trumpet because
this is the third winter nowI've overwintered it. Each time
it has spider mites. If I canget it to spring when I can get
this thing outside, usually,once it's outside, it's fine.
There's probably naturalpredators that help to keep
things under control. Naturalrainfall helps wash off some of
(15:23):
the spider mites, that that myangel's trumpet has on it.
So a lot of times, it's justjust me trying to limp my
infested plants to spring when Ican get them back outside. And
then they're like, oh, we got itfrom here.
Ken Johnson (15:39):
And hope it doesn't spread to everything else.
Chris Enroth (15:41):
Eggs. Yes. Yes. In the meantime, all my other
vegetable seedlings and starts,all my ginger and stuff that I
got down there, oh my gosh. Yes.
And and those are the things,like, making sure if you're
using the systemic on your houseplants, we're wanting to avoid
using those on our edible foodcrops. Right? Ken or unless it's
labeled for that.
Ken Johnson (16:02):
Yeah. And I'm not I'm not sure how many are
actually gonna be labeled foruse on food crops. So yeah.
Yeah. Read that label as always.
They'll tell you what to do, howmuch to put on there, how often
to do it. Alright. So next one.Online and in the community, I
hear about, the Bradford pearbeing an invasive species. It
(16:24):
looks like it is still sold andnot considered a noxious weed in
Illinois.
Is there work you are doing totry to stop it from being sold?
Chris Enroth.
Chris Enroth (16:33):
Well, Ken, I I nothing that that me or you can
really do to prevent its sale.Though, as Illinois Extension,
we are state employees. We arenot allowed to lobby or do
anything like that to influencepolicy per se, but we are here
to educate and to inform people.So are are we actively doing
anything to prevent its sale?No.
(16:54):
But what we are doing is we areeducating people that, indeed,
we are seeing the Bradford pear,also known as Callery pear,
commonly known also asornamental pear. This this
grouping of ornamental treesthat we see outside, that they
are escaping cultivation frompeople's landscapes into natural
(17:17):
areas. And so what do we termthese? Species of concern.
Ken Johnson (17:23):
Yeah.
Chris Enroth (17:24):
It's not technically a listed invasive
species. And once you are alisted invasive species, that
then prohibits the sale of thatparticular plant species in that
state. There are other statesaround Illinois that have
already listed Bradford pear asan invasive species. I'm pretty
sure Missouri has. They mighteven have a bounty program.
(17:45):
I've heard about that inMissouri. If you cut down your
Bradford pear that's growing inyour yard, bring it into local,
I don't know, maybe NRCS soil,water extension. I'm not sure
which organization, but if youbring it into that office, they
will give you money for cuttingdown your Bradford pear tree.
Ken Johnson (18:03):
Not happening in Illinois. Yeah.
Chris Enroth (18:04):
Or, yeah, or they'll give you a replacement
tree. Yes. That's a very commonthing. So, you know, I think
this question comes up prettycommonly this time of year
because this is when theBradford pears or Callery pears
really stand out in the thenatural areas. Very commonly,
you'll be driving around, andyou see just these white
(18:25):
flowering trees, commonly at,like, highway interchanges, in
the woods, surroundingsubdivisions, around, like,
commercial properties too thatmight have calorie pears
planted, around them.
So they're just standing outright now. And so while they are
not listed as invasive species,I mean, we Illinois Extension no
(18:48):
longer recommends planting them.We we give away recommendations
for people to actively controland manage them in a natural
forested area, you know, whatchemicals to use, when to cut
them, and and, you know, whatare the best control methods.
And, you know, again, once thatparticular species once Callery
(19:09):
Pear becomes a listed invasivespecies, it will then kind of
just move that that particulartree to a to that list, and we
can officially call it aninvasive species. The question
also mentioned noxious weed.
So a distinction between noxiousweed and invasive species.
Noxious weed is a differentlist. And the way maybe a good
(19:31):
way to remember this is thatnoxious weed list is this is a
list of plant species that ifthey are found on your property,
you can be legally obligated tocontrol them or to remove them.
This is kind of an older lawback when we used to have, weed
officers within every county. Wedon't really have that anymore
(19:51):
in Illinois.
I think it might be one or twocounties in Illinois that still
has a noxious weed officer, andthat's like their it's not even
a part time job. It's a oneeighth time job. Yeah.
Ken Johnson (20:01):
You're supposed to have one, but that many people
do.
Chris Enroth (20:03):
Yes. Yes. But, anyway, the the noxious weed law
is enforceable on privateproperty, invasive species. That
that particular law is justprohibits a sale. And so you're
not allowed to sell it in thestate.
So that that is the biggestdistinction between the two. So,
yeah, don't plant Bradfordpears. Cut down your Bradford
pear if it's in your yard. Plantsomething different, and, maybe
(20:29):
go out and, you know, look forthose white flowering trees in
the woods, and you can flagthose for controlling them
later. It's also a good idea toidentify them because we also
have some native white floweringspecies out there.
We do have fake and other whiteflowering woody plants out in
the woods. So and we even haveour wild apples out there. So
(20:51):
get them identified and then cutthem down. And we can link below
to our calorie pear kind ofcontrol guide down below in the
show notes.
Ken Johnson (21:05):
Yeah. Calorie pears smell bad. At least I think they
do. They do. They do not smellgood.
Chris Enroth (21:10):
Yeah. Mhmm.
Ken Johnson (21:12):
A lot
Chris Enroth (21:12):
of flies on them too, I noticed. We visited one
as we were hiking through thewoods, and there was a lot of
flies. Hence, the smell.
Ken Johnson (21:21):
Yeah. And, like, with with Bradford pear, when
they originally sold, they weresterile. And Bradford you know,
so Bradford cannot pollinateBradford, but the problem is
we've come out with newcultivars, Cleveland Cleveland
Select, all that, and they cancross pollinate. And that's
really when we started seeingthat explosion of of callery
pear all over the place becausenow they have fruit, birds will
(21:42):
eat them, deposit them. Mhmm.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Chris Enroth (21:46):
Yep. So it's happened with with burning bush
as well, barberry. Now Callerypear. So well, I guess if we
wanna stick along the veins ofinvasive species, Ken, you got a
(22:06):
question about managinghoneysuckle. Is that a
particular woody plant that wecan spray now considering it's
just starting to leaf out?
Ken Johnson (22:19):
Yeah. So is another one that kinda sticks out,
because it will leaf out a lotearlier than than a lot of our
native woody species will. Soyou could this is when you could
you could try spraying rightnow. You're probably not gonna
be terribly successful. Really,the ideal time to spray woody
plants is gonna be in the fall.
(22:40):
So when they're sending all thatenergy from the leaves back down
to the roots to store that,makes it much easier to get that
herbicide into the plants,freezing the systemic herbicide,
and get that down to the rootsand kill it. This time of year,
everything is moving up, so itmakes it more difficult to get,
those herbicides in there. Soyou could, but you're not gonna
be nearly as successful as youwould in in the fall or or even
(23:04):
in the summer. I think andthere's a chart that we can link
to this. I think it was throughI know it was Department of Ag
or Natural Resources.
They've got a calendar on kindof the ideal times, and we're we
would wanna wait a little bitfor the to have a more ideal
time than in the spring. Mhmm.The ideal time is still gonna be
(23:26):
in the fall.
Chris Enroth (23:28):
Yeah. Yes. I think we have that I think we have
that particular calendar in inour management of invasive
species booklet, which we haveonline. I think it's based on
the phenology of these plants.You know?
There are different, portionswhere they're at in the life
(23:48):
cycle of that and which one ismost susceptible to, in this
case, with honeysuckle like achemical control. What I've been
doing this time of year is whenI see smaller honeysuckle,
they're pretty shallow rooted,and so I will just as I'm
walking through the woods, Iwill pull up, and then I just
hang them in a nearby shrub or atree. That way, the roots will
(24:12):
dry out, desiccate, the plantwill die. But you can't do that
for those really big, monsters,the honeysuckle that, the
practically tree sized.
Ken Johnson (24:26):
Yeah. So I found that. Yeah. It's a phenology
calendar. It doesn't have thespray times in there.
I'll have to find that linkagain. I can put that in the
show notes. Yeah. That's right.I'm doing that with winter
creeper in my backyard now.
Chris Enroth (24:43):
Yes.
Ken Johnson (24:44):
Because it's popping up with a new green.
Growth stands out a lot alongthe green. The grass is a
lighter green. It's easy to pullit up. And, yeah, just hang it
somewhere.
It's a warning to the otherwinter creeper. Don't come here.
Don't you do it, winter creeper.
Chris Enroth (25:00):
I I will I will say, Ken, so last week, we
talked spring ephemerals. And Iwas lucky to be able to get to
my folks' property this lastweekend, and I'm like, I'm gonna
go find that Dutchman'sBreeches, which I said squirrel
corn last week. It's Dutchman'sBreeches. To go find the all
these Dutchman's Breeches is Imean, it's like a carpet of it.
(25:21):
We found it.
It is not quite flowering yet.Still a little too early. Found
lots of other trillium. We foundall other kinds of spring
ephemerals, but I saw so muchwinter creeper. It kind of
shocked me.
It scared me a little bit. Imean, the this winter creeper is
just intertwining all along theforest floor. And of these
(25:45):
relatively open, they do havedense patches of honeysuckle.
And then right in the middle ofthe woods, nowhere else is this
to be seen, we had, burningbush, euonymus alatus, a very
healthy looking shrub. No otherevidence of any other of those
around here.
Some bird must have dropped thatparticular fruit, deposited that
(26:07):
seed right there, becausethere's no other indication that
that's anywhere else in thewoods. I mean, I'm just I was
shocked at the amount ofinvasive species, especially
winter creeper I saw just lastweekend.
Ken Johnson (26:23):
I was king for the day. First thing, no more winter
creeper.
Chris Enroth (26:28):
Kill it.
Ken Johnson (26:32):
Alright. So another invasion question here, but of
the insect variety. What do wedo about our homes being invaded
by the multicolored Asian ladybeetle, also sometimes called
Asian lady beetle, alsosometimes called Japanese
beetle, not the green kind, thethe orange and red kind.
Chris Enroth (26:52):
Yeah. The one bug with many names. I this
particular question, a littlemore detailed, they they really
wanted something to spray. Like,what do I spray on these
multicolored Asian lady beetlesthat are all over my windows or
climbing on the doors or on thecarpet? I sweep in and vacuum
them up every day.
(27:13):
And, really, the recommendationis we do not wanna be spraying
them when they're in the house.What's gonna happen is you're
gonna kill them, and then you'restill gonna have to vacuum them
up. You're still gonna have tospray them. They are at this
point in their life cycle, theyare trying to get out of your
house. They do not want to stayinside.
(27:34):
Them getting in your house wasan accident. They found ways
into your wall voids, into yourattic, your ceiling. They found
those ways through cracks andcrevices, behind your siding,
and they that's how theyentered. And then when they they
spent the winter there, and thenwhen they wake up in the spring,
(27:56):
they're they're attracted towarmth and light. Very often,
that warmth is coming from theinterior of the home.
That light's coming from sunnywindows, and so they're drawn
into the interior of the home.So we don't wanna be spraying
them right now. We just vacuumthem up, sweep them up, use, an
old shop vac or have, like, aspecial vacuum for them because
they do smell pretty bad. And Iguess it's up to you. They're
(28:21):
they are not a non nativespecies.
They're not really they're notprotected in any way. So you
could take that shop vac andkeep it sealed up, throw it in
the garage, or just take itoutside, open it up, let them
fly away. They're trying to getoutside the house. They're not
necessarily breeding or matingright now to lay eggs in your
house. You know, your house isnot hospitable to them.
(28:42):
It's too dry. There's nothing toeat, and they're just trying to
get out. So probably the bestthing is going to be in the
fall, usually before theyharvest the soybeans, is to
seal, and caulk any cracks andcrevices. We used to get tons of
multicolored Asian lady beetlesin our house. We did replace the
(29:06):
windows on the front side of thehouse, and that cut their
numbers dramatically.
So they were just getting inthrough these old windows that
we had, and, you know, some ofthe other you know, getting
behind our vinyl siding, findinglittle vent openings to to crawl
into. So, caulk and seal cracksand crevices in the fall. It's
(29:27):
your best bet for preventingthem in the spring.
Ken Johnson (29:32):
And don't smush them because they'll stain.
Mhmm.
Chris Enroth (29:35):
And they bite. They can bite. Yes. I've I've
been bitten couple times bythem. So and and if you are feel
like you're living in a dirty,infested house full of
multicolored Asian lady beetles,you are not alone, and this is
normal.
This is natural for theseparticular insects. You are
there's nothing wrong with yourhouse or your or your lifestyle.
(29:57):
So, yeah, this this forindividuals also worried that
people would think that they hada dirty house. No. This is not
the case.
Ken Johnson (30:08):
Yep. Just just want somewhere to spend the winter.
Chris Enroth (30:11):
Mhmm.
Ken Johnson (30:11):
And you got a nice house.
Chris Enroth (30:13):
It's It's better than a cave. Alright, Ken. Well,
this next question is aboutfruit trees. Let me add. So Ken
came to our gardeners day inMacomb, and he talked about
fruit tree basics.
Someone did come up to me later,and they said, I thought I
wanted fruit trees, and then Iwent to Ken's class. I just
(30:34):
gotta add that in here today,Ken, which means Ken did a
really good job because fruittrees are a lot of work. And and
so but, anyway, let's get tothis question. But kudos to Ken
for teaching people, like, it'snot planted and you get perfect
apples every year. So, anyway,Ken, your question is, how much
(30:55):
fertilizer should I put on myfruit trees?
Ken Johnson (30:59):
So we'll just we'll do this from the, I guess, the
backyard perspective here. Let'ssay in our typical nice black
Illinois soil, probably don'tneed to. We probably have enough
nutrients in the soil wherethat's for the most part, that's
probably not something you'regoing to need to do. Now you you
(31:20):
can help determine if you're ifyou need to add or do some
fertilization. You can look atthe the average shoot growth or
that new growth the tree isputting out every year.
So for, something like anonbearing tree, so stuff that's
not producing fruits. Apples,we're looking at 10 to 20 inches
of new growth a year. Peaches,10 to 24 inches of growth. Once
(31:42):
they start bearing or producingfruit, that growth is gonna slow
down because they're gonna startputting some of that energy into
fruit and seed production. Sofor bearing trees, looking at
four to eight inches, of newgrowth.
For apples, maybe a little bitmore, peach to nectarine peach
nectarine, apricots, that typeof stuff, stone fruits, eight to
(32:03):
15 inches, of growth. So ifyou're hitting that, that that
means just that's showing youryou've got plenty of nitrogen
stuff in the soil. You don'tneed to worry about fertilizing.
If you're not getting that kindof growth, then you could
potentially look at putting somefertilizer down. And and with
this, a lot of times, people arejust gonna put down a balanced,
(32:23):
like, ten ten ten, somethinglike that.
Ideally, we're doing this inearly spring or on bud break. So
depending on where you're at inthe state, we may be a little
past that, but you could stillget away with doing it. And
we're gonna do a tenth of apound of actual nitrogen per
year of age of plant. So ifyou've got a four year old plant
and you want so you're gonnawant four tenths or two fifths
(32:46):
of a pound of nitrogen, You'regonna have four pounds of that
ten ten ten that you're gonnaput down up to a one pound of
nitrogen, actual nitrogen. So a10 year old tree, you would do a
one pound of actual.
So it's there's a little bit ofmath involved there, but we're
not necessarily putting down a atremendous amount for these.
(33:09):
But, again, for the most part,we probably don't need to do
that in Illinois.
Chris Enroth (33:15):
If we did, Ken, you've already convinced me I
don't wanna do fruit trees basedon calculating fertilizer like
that. So, yeah, you've alreadyscared me away even though I
don't think we yeah. We don'tneed it for Illinois soils
necessarily, but do a soil testor a tissue test.
Ken Johnson (33:30):
Yeah. Do both. Tissue test would be better.
Yeah. And and we won't do thisin the spring.
If we do this in the summer orthe fall, they could, stimulate
new growth on the plant that'snot gonna harden off in the
winter, and we're gonna getwinter kill on there. So this is
a a spring. We don't wanna putit on later in the year, because
that can cause problems forwinter hardiness.
Chris Enroth (33:52):
Right. Well
Ken Johnson (33:53):
So one more. Let me do this one.
Chris Enroth (33:55):
More question. I'll ask you, Ken. This is your
this is your question. These areyour insects. You've adopted all
of them, all the trillions ofthem around the country.
So, yeah, if folks are curious,last year, we did tons of shows
about cicadas. It was the yearof the cicada here in Illinois,
but their effects are being felteven beyond 2024. So, Ken, will
(34:22):
cicadas affect my trees thisyear? Is there anything we need
to worry about?
Ken Johnson (34:27):
No. We shouldn't have to worry about anything. In
last fall or in last summer,people probably had flagging in
their trees. So when the scadersare going in laying their eggs
or slicing open the the twigs orthe branches with their
ovipositor, it can cause somedamage that may break. So you
get all these dead spots, in thetrees with those branches or
twigs have broken.
(34:48):
Plants will have recovered.They'll send out new shoots, off
of that. You may have stuff.You'll see the scars on those
trees or those branches forprobably a couple of years until
those are fully healed over. Butyou should if you do have them,
you should see some indicationthat those plants are starting
to to heal that, seal that over,and stuff.
(35:10):
So, you know, as far as that,with all the wind we've had, I
would think if any branches areare compromised because of that
egg laying, they probably wouldhave broken by now. Just at
least here in Jacksonville, it'sbeen ridiculously windy. I think
it has been in a lot of thestate. Yes. So so as far as egg
laying, you know, it it shouldbe done.
Obviously, if you had a smalltree and they laid it in the
(35:31):
trunk and that killed the toppart, maybe you'll get some
growth, from the bottom. But ifyou don't get anything, the
tree's probably dead. As far Iknow we get a lot of questions
about, you know, they lay intheir eggs in the trees. They
nymphs fall to ground. Theystart feeding on the roots.
Is that gonna hurt stuff? Nowyou remember they're in the
ground for thirteen or seventeenyears, so they're while they're
(35:52):
feeding, they're not necessarilyremoving a whole lot of
nutrients, and we had billionsor trillions of them coming out
last year, and they were allfeeding on on those tree roots
and stuff. So those treessurvived just fine. They'll
survive the feeding this timearound too.
Chris Enroth (36:09):
Definitely. Yeah. Oh, missed those cicadas
already.
Ken Johnson (36:14):
Oh, more years.
Chris Enroth (36:16):
That's right. Well, I think Western Illinois
is supposed to get a broodemergence since my particular
part of the county, McDonoughCounty, missed out. We're a
little island in in the sea ofcicadas.
Ken Johnson (36:30):
Was another bird up there. Mhmm.
Chris Enroth (36:32):
Yeah. I forget the bird name, though. But, yeah,
2031 is when Us folks inMcDonough County are gonna be
seeing periodic periodic cicadamerchants.
Ken Johnson (36:44):
And this year is in the East Coast.
Chris Enroth (36:48):
Mhmm.
Ken Johnson (36:48):
I know New York New York is supposed to be getting
them. And I'll say that goesinto the Appalachians too. So
there there's still some comingout if you missed them last
year. Or if you miss them, youcan go find somewhere this year
elsewhere.
Chris Enroth (37:02):
Yeah. Or if you need to restock your freezer
with more cicadas like Ken,they'll be out somewhere this
year in The US.
Ken Johnson (37:12):
Go find them.
Chris Enroth (37:14):
Well, that was a lot of great information about
spring gardening conundrums,queries, questions. So I wanna
thank everybody for sendingthose into the extension office,
emailing us, hitting us up withthose questions. Keep them
coming. It's what we're herefor. So, yeah, we appreciate it.
Well, the Good Growing podcastis a production of University of
(37:37):
Illinois Extension, edited thisweek by Ken Johnson. Ken, thank
you for hanging out with me,sharing some of the questions
that you have also beenreceiving into your office. It's
good to know that we're kind ofgetting similar questions.
Ken Johnson (37:55):
Yes. Yeah. Thank you, and thank you for everybody
for a great five years and andfor the questions. And it's okay
if they're hard too. We'll stillanswer them.
Chris Enroth (38:03):
We'll try. You might not like the answer.
Ken Johnson (38:08):
And let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth (38:11):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. We're
going to be talking about theimpact of honeybees on our
native bee population. We'regonna have a special guest,
Shirlaksh Shuresh, come by todiscuss this particular topic.
It's making headlines lately, soshould be an interesting
conversation. Well, listeners,thank you for doing what you do
best, and that is listening.
(38:32):
Or if you're watching us onYouTube, watch it. And as
always, keep on growing.
Ken Johnson (38:48):
Sound better now? Less echoey? Hopefully. Maybe.
Possibly.
Chris Enroth (38:53):
Yes. Yes. Pretty soon, we're just gonna have our
mouth up against these things.
Ken Johnson (39:04):
Heating up. Yes.
Chris Enroth (39:09):
Got my got my beard hair caught in my
microphone.
Ken Johnson (39:14):
Fate black.
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith University of Illinois
Extension coming at you fromMacomb, Illinois, and we have
got a great show for you today.It is an old fashioned question
and answer show. The questionsare coming in this spring to our
extension offices, and we aregoing to share what some of
those are and what our responseshave been. But you know I'm not
(00:27):
doing this by myself.
I am joined as always everysingle week by horticulture
educator Ken Johnson inJacksonville. Hey, Ken.
Ken Johnson (00:35):
Hello, Chris. It's a good time to have a q and a, I
think. The questions arestarting to roll in.
Chris Enroth (00:41):
Yes. You know, you and I, we were we were on campus
last week for for a day. I wason there for two days and came
back to a plethora of questions.So we we're definitely keeping
busy right now this time ofyear, which is good. This is
what we want.
We enjoy doing these kind ofthings.
Ken Johnson (01:05):
Yes. As long as they're easy.
Chris Enroth (01:08):
Right. Don't send us hard questions, folks. Only
easy questions. Oh, well, sinceit it is a q and a show, and
maybe we have a little bit ofextra wiggle room up front here,
Ken, how are things going inyour garden this year? We were
chatting before the show.
You getting those seeds started?
Ken Johnson (01:32):
For the home garden, yes, those have those
have been started for the mostpart. I got peas and lettuce and
carrots in the ground. Wehaven't had any rain since I put
them in the ground, so nothinghas come up. We've missed pretty
much all the rain that we've hadrecently. It's all slid east or
south of us, so everything'sjust kinda sitting and and
(01:52):
waiting.
So hopefully well, by the timepeople listen to this,
hopefully, it would have rained,but on Wednesday, we'll see. How
about you?
Chris Enroth (02:04):
Nope. I got my cool season things started, and
I really should be getting thewarm season things like the
tomatoes and peppers and and allof that going as well. Have not
done that yet, so let's just sayI'm waiting. I'm waiting for the
perfect time. I'm waiting forour grow along seeds to show up.
(02:24):
Do we know if we have an ETA onthose seeds yet?
Ken Johnson (02:29):
Yes. By the time people are listening to this,
they it should be in the mail. Ithink they're going out today,
Tuesday. Don't hold me to that.
Chris Enroth (02:41):
This week. You know?
Ken Johnson (02:41):
They're getting mailed this week.
Chris Enroth (02:43):
Barring any unforeseen circumstances.
Everything should be packagedup, ready to go. So if you did
sign up for our good grind growalong, start checking that
mailbox after you hear this showon the end of the end of this
week, Friday. And then it's offthe races. Time to get things
going because we do have a fewof those species that you can
(03:05):
start indoors.
Ken Johnson (03:08):
Or probably should in the case of tomatoes.
Chris Enroth (03:10):
Yes. Yeah. Especially, yeah, the black grim
tomato that's a lot of peoplesigned up to grow, definitely.
Ken Johnson (03:17):
But we still have still have ample time to get
those started. So Mhmm. You'reyou're not in trouble yet.
Chris Enroth (03:24):
I guess it's just the warm weather that's tricking
me a little bit into thinkingI'm behind. Let's Yes, sir.
Let's say that. I'm waiting forthe good growing grow along
seeds, and I'm being tricked byour warm daytime temperatures
here on April 1. April fool'sday of all days.
Ken Johnson (03:42):
So what are we on? Our third or fourth fall spring
by now?
Chris Enroth (03:45):
I think so. Yes. That's a tricky one. Hey, Ken.
I'm kind of upset that you don'tremember, but we have an
anniversary this week.
Do you remember?
Ken Johnson (04:01):
No. It's
Chris Enroth (04:02):
five years we've been doing this podcast.
Ken Johnson (04:04):
Five. Really?
Chris Enroth (04:05):
Five years. Mhmm. Happy anniversary. I looked at
anniversary. I looked at therecording folder from 2020.
Well and then you were helpingme out a little bit before this
when I tried to get this thinggoing. So but, yeah, we've we've
been doing this for a while. Weaccidentally hit, like, 200 plus
(04:28):
episodes and didn't even realizeit, a little while ago. So,
yeah, I guess, just a specialthanks to all of our listeners,
all our viewers on YouTube forhanging out with us for these
last few years.
Ken Johnson (04:43):
Yes. Thank you. It's it's nice to know people
are listening, and we're notjust sending this out into the
void, and that's that. Justthank you for listening.
Chris Enroth (04:54):
Thank you. And I love talking to Ken every week,
so we'd still be sending thisout into the void. But maybe who
would put less effort intoediting or something? I
Ken Johnson (05:02):
don't know. We can justify doing it.
Chris Enroth (05:04):
We can. So thank you, everybody. Alright. Well,
Ken, I guess we do have, severalquestions, that have come into
to your office, to my office.And so I guess we'll go ahead
and get started.
I I will go ahead and kick thisone off, since this first one,
came into your office. And it isI have a patch of oh, I have a
(05:30):
bare patch of ground. Whenshould I plant grass seed?
Ken Johnson (05:36):
So the ideal time is gonna be that mid August to
mid September. I doubt peoplewanna wait that long. So, we
can't put grass seed down in thespring. Usually, we're we're
kinda getting towards the thetail end of when we'd wanna do
that. Typically, late March tomid April, is really a time
frame we wanna do that.
That's gonna get the grass timeto establish roots, before it
(05:57):
gets hot. Like because we're Idon't know what for the most
part, in Illinois, we're growingcool season grass. So when it
gets hot, they start slowingdown, and that's gonna stress
them out if they're planted. Thelonger you wait, the more
stressed they're gonna get, andless likely they are to get
established, and survive throughthat summer. So if you can't get
(06:21):
it done, here relatively soon,you can do sod.
Those plants are alreadygrowing. You could put that
down, I guess, anytime of theyear, really, as long as it's
warm enough. You have to waterit quite a bit, especially as it
gets hotter until it can getestablished. But that would be,
I guess, option b. If you can'tget the seed down relatively
(06:41):
soon, look at sod.
Chris Enroth (06:43):
Mhmm. I often tell folks that spring is for sod,
and late summer, early fall isfor seed. Just in terms of
effectiveness or success rate ofestablishment. So if you are
seeding in the spring, you know,do you there are some species
you can look at, like tallfescue or a turf type. Tall
(07:04):
fescue is one of those thatdoesn't have good winter
hardiness.
So when you plant it in thefall, young, grass seedlings
from turf type tall fescue, theycan't get winter kill. So
planting them in the spring,might make it so that they're
more established than going intothe next winter. But this
everything still applies forturf type that Ken mentioned
(07:26):
that they still need ample timeto get a good root system
established for that summerheat. So so that might be an
option. If you need a reallyquick germination, perennial rye
grass is one of your quickestgerminating long grass seeds.
Make sure it is perennial rye,not annual rye. You gotta be
careful because down south, theywill sow annual rye when their
(07:50):
warm season grasses go dormantin the winter. And so I have
seen annual rye seed creeping upinto the northern, parts of The
US, in our garden centersrecently.
Ken Johnson (08:01):
And I'd say for the most part, people are probably
doing, like, Kentucky bluegrass.So if you wanna if you've got
other turf, you know, figure outwhat it is so you don't have
these weird patches that aregonna look different. You may
wanna try to match the speciesbecause the different cool
season will look a little bitdifferent from each other. Yes.
Chris Enroth (08:23):
Yes. If that bothers you. Meanwhile, my lawn,
I don't even know what's inthere.
Ken Johnson (08:30):
That bear patch would be weeds.
Chris Enroth (08:32):
Yes. Yeah. And I'm fine with it. So yes.
Ken Johnson (08:38):
Alright. Next question comes from your neck of
the woods. What is this plant?And you have to show the plant
because I don't have it.
Chris Enroth (08:46):
Yes. So I I do have the plant, and I'm sure the
blur is not helping with this. Ican even take a picture and we
can insert it here. But what Iwas given was this plant, the
leaves are all rolled up andthey simply just wanted to know
what it was. It was retainingits leaves in the wintertime.
(09:07):
New person, new house. What isthis plant? And it is a
rhododendron, and they'llprobably find out more about it
this spring once it startsblooming. You know, it was you
know, what type of flowers doesit have? Very common ones, PJM,
rhododendron.
So we'll see this, what theymight what they might get in
terms of blooms. But as Ken andI were looking at this before we
(09:30):
started, recording, we noticedthat the stippling on these
leaves look a lot like spidermite damage. Now spider mites,
they can be a common pest ofrhododendrons. I have I have
seen spider mite damage onrhododendron before,
Ken Johnson (09:45):
but
Chris Enroth (09:47):
it's wintertime or there's there's no webbing.
There's no evidence or sign ofspider mites. But what there is,
on the underside, there arethese fecal spots. These kind of
tarry like substances, they canthey rub off the bottom of the
leaf, and this looks verysimilar to rhododendron lace
(10:07):
bug. And this is an insect that,you know, true to its name, will
attack rhododendron species.
Most times, you have naturalenemies, parasitic wasps, other
predators that will help you incontrolling this. But I think
this also happened once lastyear where rhododendron lace
(10:28):
bug, the leaves came in allstippled looking like this. No
sign of spider mites. So we hadfecal spots on the the bottom of
the leaves. It was rhododendronlace bug.
And, again, most time naturalenemies will take care of it. If
they are not doing that, thenyou can do something like soaps
or oil, horticultural sprays.You do have to get good coverage
(10:51):
of the plant in order to inorder to kill the lace bug, but
they are not going to kill theeggs on there. The eggs are
usually laid along the bottommid vein of the leaf, and so
sometimes a systemic insecticidecan be applied. Like, the active
ingredient imidacloprid can beused.
(11:13):
But but otherwise, yeah, the asfar as we know, I mean, this the
lace bug damage can be causingthese rolled leaves, but I think
the leaves are all rolled upbecause this has been sitting on
my desk for, like, five days.They brought it in when I wasn't
in the office, and then it wasthe weekend, and then boom. Here
we are. So I think it's justdesiccated, but maybe the
(11:34):
lacewing bugs played a littlebit of a role in the some of the
damage on these leaves.
Ken Johnson (11:40):
Yeah. And then we're if you're doing the
sprays, usually, those lace bugsare on the underside leaves,
which can make getting goodcoverage and contact with them
rather difficult. And I can Iget lace bugs on my baptisia
every year, so I can pop in apicture here if you're not sure
of what lace bugs look like?They're you know, the the wings
are you got a lot of veins thatlook lacy, less the name.
(12:02):
They're they're kinda coollooking as long as you don't
mind them eating your plants.
And I think, yeah, in additionto, the tar spots, I think the
other and no webbing. Like, youread descriptions about them.
The the stippling is bigger thanspider mite. But unless you're
looking at the two at the sametime, I don't know how you tell
(12:23):
the difference. I don't thatone's probably not terribly
helpful unless you really arefamiliar with what the what
those damage what the damagefrom those two look like.
So
Chris Enroth (12:31):
Mhmm.
Ken Johnson (12:31):
Tar spots is usually a pretty good giveaway.
Chris Enroth (12:34):
Yeah. That that that's I think that's definitely
helpful. I also have two spottedspider mites on my angel's
trumpet at home. So even thoughit's two different plants, I'm
not really seeing as muchstippling because I'm actively
trying to control those spidermites. It's it's definitely
there's a distinction here.
And yeah. You I do not see theactual insect itself, but I'm
(12:55):
pretty confident in saying thiswas caused by a rhododendron
lace rhododendron lacewing.
Ken Johnson (13:01):
Lacebug.
Chris Enroth (13:02):
Lacebug. Lacebug. Lacewing. We those are good
guys. Right?
We don't wanna do anything withthose guys. Lacebug. There we
go. Alright. Well, our nextquestion is, from Ken's neck of
the woods about African violets.
Oh, I'm scared of thesequestions, because people are
kind of touchy about theirAfrican violet. So this one is
(13:25):
my African violet has mealybugs.How do I get rid of them?
Ken Johnson (13:31):
Yes. A little bit of this will depend on on the
amount, or how big theinfestation is and how important
that plant is to you. So if yougot a smaller infestation, you
take something like a cottonswab, some alcohol, dip it in
there, and just wipe them offand do that, you know, several
times, keep up with it. Andusually, can get rid of the
(13:52):
population fairly easily thatway. If got a bigger population,
can look at insecticides, likehorticultural soaps, or
something like that, orpyrethrins are gonna be some of
your your less toxic type stuff.
You could do a systemic, like,being like a Myocloprid, take
that up to the plant the insectswill feed on it. Because
mealybugs have this waxy kindacoating on them, which can make,
(14:16):
make it difficult to manage themwith contact insecticides. So
the the systemic could be anoption. But if you have a really
bad infestation, and there's nosentimental value attached to
that plant, a lot of timesyou're just better off getting
rid of it, and starting over.And it could probably be cheaper
in the long run, just buy a newplant instead of trying to treat
(14:39):
it and all that.
But if you again, if you've gotsome kind of sentimental
attachment to it, you can trythat. Maybe take some cuttings
of it, make sure they're cleanbefore you try to root it and
propagate that plant. So atleast you have that. Maybe not
the original plant, but you'vegot, you know, that that plant
still. You
Chris Enroth (15:01):
know, I if I can limp my angel's trumpet because
this is the third winter nowI've overwintered it. Each time
it has spider mites. If I canget it to spring when I can get
this thing outside, usually,once it's outside, it's fine.
There's probably naturalpredators that help to keep
things under control. Naturalrainfall helps wash off some of
(15:23):
the spider mites, that that myangel's trumpet has on it.
So a lot of times, it's justjust me trying to limp my
infested plants to spring when Ican get them back outside. And
then they're like, oh, we got itfrom here.
Ken Johnson (15:39):
And hope it doesn't spread to everything else.
Chris Enroth (15:41):
Eggs. Yes. Yes. In the meantime, all my other
vegetable seedlings and starts,all my ginger and stuff that I
got down there, oh my gosh. Yes.
And and those are the things,like, making sure if you're
using the systemic on your houseplants, we're wanting to avoid
using those on our edible foodcrops. Right? Ken or unless it's
labeled for that.
Ken Johnson (16:02):
Yeah. And I'm not I'm not sure how many are
actually gonna be labeled foruse on food crops. So yeah.
Yeah. Read that label as always.
They'll tell you what to do, howmuch to put on there, how often
to do it. Alright. So next one.Online and in the community, I
hear about, the Bradford pearbeing an invasive species. It
(16:24):
looks like it is still sold andnot considered a noxious weed in
Illinois.
Is there work you are doing totry to stop it from being sold?
Chris Enroth.
Chris Enroth (16:33):
Well, Ken, I I nothing that that me or you can
really do to prevent its sale.Though, as Illinois Extension,
we are state employees. We arenot allowed to lobby or do
anything like that to influencepolicy per se, but we are here
to educate and to inform people.So are are we actively doing
anything to prevent its sale?No.
(16:54):
But what we are doing is we areeducating people that, indeed,
we are seeing the Bradford pear,also known as Callery pear,
commonly known also asornamental pear. This this
grouping of ornamental treesthat we see outside, that they
are escaping cultivation frompeople's landscapes into natural
(17:17):
areas. And so what do we termthese? Species of concern.
Ken Johnson (17:23):
Yeah.
Chris Enroth (17:24):
It's not technically a listed invasive
species. And once you are alisted invasive species, that
then prohibits the sale of thatparticular plant species in that
state. There are other statesaround Illinois that have
already listed Bradford pear asan invasive species. I'm pretty
sure Missouri has. They mighteven have a bounty program.
(17:45):
I've heard about that inMissouri. If you cut down your
Bradford pear that's growing inyour yard, bring it into local,
I don't know, maybe NRCS soil,water extension. I'm not sure
which organization, but if youbring it into that office, they
will give you money for cuttingdown your Bradford pear tree.
Ken Johnson (18:03):
Not happening in Illinois. Yeah.
Chris Enroth (18:04):
Or, yeah, or they'll give you a replacement
tree. Yes. That's a very commonthing. So, you know, I think
this question comes up prettycommonly this time of year
because this is when theBradford pears or Callery pears
really stand out in the thenatural areas. Very commonly,
you'll be driving around, andyou see just these white
(18:25):
flowering trees, commonly at,like, highway interchanges, in
the woods, surroundingsubdivisions, around, like,
commercial properties too thatmight have calorie pears
planted, around them.
So they're just standing outright now. And so while they are
not listed as invasive species,I mean, we Illinois Extension no
(18:48):
longer recommends planting them.We we give away recommendations
for people to actively controland manage them in a natural
forested area, you know, whatchemicals to use, when to cut
them, and and, you know, whatare the best control methods.
And, you know, again, once thatparticular species once Callery
(19:09):
Pear becomes a listed invasivespecies, it will then kind of
just move that that particulartree to a to that list, and we
can officially call it aninvasive species. The question
also mentioned noxious weed.
So a distinction between noxiousweed and invasive species.
Noxious weed is a differentlist. And the way maybe a good
(19:31):
way to remember this is thatnoxious weed list is this is a
list of plant species that ifthey are found on your property,
you can be legally obligated tocontrol them or to remove them.
This is kind of an older lawback when we used to have, weed
officers within every county. Wedon't really have that anymore
(19:51):
in Illinois.
I think it might be one or twocounties in Illinois that still
has a noxious weed officer, andthat's like their it's not even
a part time job. It's a oneeighth time job. Yeah.
Ken Johnson (20:01):
You're supposed to have one, but that many people
do.
Chris Enroth (20:03):
Yes. Yes. But, anyway, the the noxious weed law
is enforceable on privateproperty, invasive species. That
that particular law is justprohibits a sale. And so you're
not allowed to sell it in thestate.
So that that is the biggestdistinction between the two. So,
yeah, don't plant Bradfordpears. Cut down your Bradford
pear if it's in your yard. Plantsomething different, and, maybe
(20:29):
go out and, you know, look forthose white flowering trees in
the woods, and you can flagthose for controlling them
later. It's also a good idea toidentify them because we also
have some native white floweringspecies out there.
We do have fake and other whiteflowering woody plants out in
the woods. So and we even haveour wild apples out there. So
(20:51):
get them identified and then cutthem down. And we can link below
to our calorie pear kind ofcontrol guide down below in the
show notes.
Ken Johnson (21:05):
Yeah. Calorie pears smell bad. At least I think they
do. They do. They do not smellgood.
Chris Enroth (21:10):
Yeah. Mhmm.
Ken Johnson (21:12):
A lot
Chris Enroth (21:12):
of flies on them too, I noticed. We visited one
as we were hiking through thewoods, and there was a lot of
flies. Hence, the smell.
Ken Johnson (21:21):
Yeah. And, like, with with Bradford pear, when
they originally sold, they weresterile. And Bradford you know,
so Bradford cannot pollinateBradford, but the problem is
we've come out with newcultivars, Cleveland Cleveland
Select, all that, and they cancross pollinate. And that's
really when we started seeingthat explosion of of callery
pear all over the place becausenow they have fruit, birds will
(21:42):
eat them, deposit them. Mhmm.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Chris Enroth (21:46):
Yep. So it's happened with with burning bush
as well, barberry. Now Callerypear. So well, I guess if we
wanna stick along the veins ofinvasive species, Ken, you got a
(22:06):
question about managinghoneysuckle. Is that a
particular woody plant that wecan spray now considering it's
just starting to leaf out?
Ken Johnson (22:19):
Yeah. So is another one that kinda sticks out,
because it will leaf out a lotearlier than than a lot of our
native woody species will. Soyou could this is when you could
you could try spraying rightnow. You're probably not gonna
be terribly successful. Really,the ideal time to spray woody
plants is gonna be in the fall.
(22:40):
So when they're sending all thatenergy from the leaves back down
to the roots to store that,makes it much easier to get that
herbicide into the plants,freezing the systemic herbicide,
and get that down to the rootsand kill it. This time of year,
everything is moving up, so itmakes it more difficult to get,
those herbicides in there. Soyou could, but you're not gonna
be nearly as successful as youwould in in the fall or or even
(23:04):
in the summer. I think andthere's a chart that we can link
to this. I think it was throughI know it was Department of Ag
or Natural Resources.
They've got a calendar on kindof the ideal times, and we're we
would wanna wait a little bitfor the to have a more ideal
time than in the spring. Mhmm.The ideal time is still gonna be
(23:26):
in the fall.
Chris Enroth (23:28):
Yeah. Yes. I think we have that I think we have
that particular calendar in inour management of invasive
species booklet, which we haveonline. I think it's based on
the phenology of these plants.You know?
There are different, portionswhere they're at in the life
(23:48):
cycle of that and which one ismost susceptible to, in this
case, with honeysuckle like achemical control. What I've been
doing this time of year is whenI see smaller honeysuckle,
they're pretty shallow rooted,and so I will just as I'm
walking through the woods, Iwill pull up, and then I just
hang them in a nearby shrub or atree. That way, the roots will
(24:12):
dry out, desiccate, the plantwill die. But you can't do that
for those really big, monsters,the honeysuckle that, the
practically tree sized.
Ken Johnson (24:26):
Yeah. So I found that. Yeah. It's a phenology
calendar. It doesn't have thespray times in there.
I'll have to find that linkagain. I can put that in the
show notes. Yeah. That's right.I'm doing that with winter
creeper in my backyard now.
Chris Enroth (24:43):
Yes.
Ken Johnson (24:44):
Because it's popping up with a new green.
Growth stands out a lot alongthe green. The grass is a
lighter green. It's easy to pullit up. And, yeah, just hang it
somewhere.
It's a warning to the otherwinter creeper. Don't come here.
Don't you do it, winter creeper.
Chris Enroth (25:00):
I I will I will say, Ken, so last week, we
talked spring ephemerals. And Iwas lucky to be able to get to
my folks' property this lastweekend, and I'm like, I'm gonna
go find that Dutchman'sBreeches, which I said squirrel
corn last week. It's Dutchman'sBreeches. To go find the all
these Dutchman's Breeches is Imean, it's like a carpet of it.
(25:21):
We found it.
It is not quite flowering yet.Still a little too early. Found
lots of other trillium. We foundall other kinds of spring
ephemerals, but I saw so muchwinter creeper. It kind of
shocked me.
It scared me a little bit. Imean, the this winter creeper is
just intertwining all along theforest floor. And of these
(25:45):
relatively open, they do havedense patches of honeysuckle.
And then right in the middle ofthe woods, nowhere else is this
to be seen, we had, burningbush, euonymus alatus, a very
healthy looking shrub. No otherevidence of any other of those
around here.
Some bird must have dropped thatparticular fruit, deposited that
(26:07):
seed right there, becausethere's no other indication that
that's anywhere else in thewoods. I mean, I'm just I was
shocked at the amount ofinvasive species, especially
winter creeper I saw just lastweekend.
Ken Johnson (26:23):
I was king for the day. First thing, no more winter
creeper.
Chris Enroth (26:28):
Kill it.
Ken Johnson (26:32):
Alright. So another invasion question here, but of
the insect variety. What do wedo about our homes being invaded
by the multicolored Asian ladybeetle, also sometimes called
Asian lady beetle, alsosometimes called Japanese
beetle, not the green kind, thethe orange and red kind.
Chris Enroth (26:52):
Yeah. The one bug with many names. I this
particular question, a littlemore detailed, they they really
wanted something to spray. Like,what do I spray on these
multicolored Asian lady beetlesthat are all over my windows or
climbing on the doors or on thecarpet? I sweep in and vacuum
them up every day.
(27:13):
And, really, the recommendationis we do not wanna be spraying
them when they're in the house.What's gonna happen is you're
gonna kill them, and then you'restill gonna have to vacuum them
up. You're still gonna have tospray them. They are at this
point in their life cycle, theyare trying to get out of your
house. They do not want to stayinside.
(27:34):
Them getting in your house wasan accident. They found ways
into your wall voids, into yourattic, your ceiling. They found
those ways through cracks andcrevices, behind your siding,
and they that's how theyentered. And then when they they
spent the winter there, and thenwhen they wake up in the spring,
(27:56):
they're they're attracted towarmth and light. Very often,
that warmth is coming from theinterior of the home.
That light's coming from sunnywindows, and so they're drawn
into the interior of the home.So we don't wanna be spraying
them right now. We just vacuumthem up, sweep them up, use, an
old shop vac or have, like, aspecial vacuum for them because
they do smell pretty bad. And Iguess it's up to you. They're
(28:21):
they are not a non nativespecies.
They're not really they're notprotected in any way. So you
could take that shop vac andkeep it sealed up, throw it in
the garage, or just take itoutside, open it up, let them
fly away. They're trying to getoutside the house. They're not
necessarily breeding or matingright now to lay eggs in your
house. You know, your house isnot hospitable to them.
(28:42):
It's too dry. There's nothing toeat, and they're just trying to
get out. So probably the bestthing is going to be in the
fall, usually before theyharvest the soybeans, is to
seal, and caulk any cracks andcrevices. We used to get tons of
multicolored Asian lady beetlesin our house. We did replace the
(29:06):
windows on the front side of thehouse, and that cut their
numbers dramatically.
So they were just getting inthrough these old windows that
we had, and, you know, some ofthe other you know, getting
behind our vinyl siding, findinglittle vent openings to to crawl
into. So, caulk and seal cracksand crevices in the fall. It's
(29:27):
your best bet for preventingthem in the spring.
Ken Johnson (29:32):
And don't smush them because they'll stain.
Mhmm.
Chris Enroth (29:35):
And they bite. They can bite. Yes. I've I've
been bitten couple times bythem. So and and if you are feel
like you're living in a dirty,infested house full of
multicolored Asian lady beetles,you are not alone, and this is
normal.
This is natural for theseparticular insects. You are
there's nothing wrong with yourhouse or your or your lifestyle.
(29:57):
So, yeah, this this forindividuals also worried that
people would think that they hada dirty house. No. This is not
the case.
Ken Johnson (30:08):
Yep. Just just want somewhere to spend the winter.
Chris Enroth (30:11):
Mhmm.
Ken Johnson (30:11):
And you got a nice house.
Chris Enroth (30:13):
It's It's better than a cave. Alright, Ken. Well,
this next question is aboutfruit trees. Let me add. So Ken
came to our gardeners day inMacomb, and he talked about
fruit tree basics.
Someone did come up to me later,and they said, I thought I
wanted fruit trees, and then Iwent to Ken's class. I just
(30:34):
gotta add that in here today,Ken, which means Ken did a
really good job because fruittrees are a lot of work. And and
so but, anyway, let's get tothis question. But kudos to Ken
for teaching people, like, it'snot planted and you get perfect
apples every year. So, anyway,Ken, your question is, how much
(30:55):
fertilizer should I put on myfruit trees?
Ken Johnson (30:59):
So we'll just we'll do this from the, I guess, the
backyard perspective here. Let'ssay in our typical nice black
Illinois soil, probably don'tneed to. We probably have enough
nutrients in the soil wherethat's for the most part, that's
probably not something you'regoing to need to do. Now you you
(31:20):
can help determine if you're ifyou need to add or do some
fertilization. You can look atthe the average shoot growth or
that new growth the tree isputting out every year.
So for, something like anonbearing tree, so stuff that's
not producing fruits. Apples,we're looking at 10 to 20 inches
of new growth a year. Peaches,10 to 24 inches of growth. Once
(31:42):
they start bearing or producingfruit, that growth is gonna slow
down because they're gonna startputting some of that energy into
fruit and seed production. Sofor bearing trees, looking at
four to eight inches, of newgrowth.
For apples, maybe a little bitmore, peach to nectarine peach
nectarine, apricots, that typeof stuff, stone fruits, eight to
(32:03):
15 inches, of growth. So ifyou're hitting that, that that
means just that's showing youryou've got plenty of nitrogen
stuff in the soil. You don'tneed to worry about fertilizing.
If you're not getting that kindof growth, then you could
potentially look at putting somefertilizer down. And and with
this, a lot of times, people arejust gonna put down a balanced,
(32:23):
like, ten ten ten, somethinglike that.
Ideally, we're doing this inearly spring or on bud break. So
depending on where you're at inthe state, we may be a little
past that, but you could stillget away with doing it. And
we're gonna do a tenth of apound of actual nitrogen per
year of age of plant. So ifyou've got a four year old plant
and you want so you're gonnawant four tenths or two fifths
(32:46):
of a pound of nitrogen, You'regonna have four pounds of that
ten ten ten that you're gonnaput down up to a one pound of
nitrogen, actual nitrogen. So a10 year old tree, you would do a
one pound of actual.
So it's there's a little bit ofmath involved there, but we're
not necessarily putting down a atremendous amount for these.
(33:09):
But, again, for the most part,we probably don't need to do
that in Illinois.
Chris Enroth (33:15):
If we did, Ken, you've already convinced me I
don't wanna do fruit trees basedon calculating fertilizer like
that. So, yeah, you've alreadyscared me away even though I
don't think we yeah. We don'tneed it for Illinois soils
necessarily, but do a soil testor a tissue test.
Ken Johnson (33:30):
Yeah. Do both. Tissue test would be better.
Yeah. And and we won't do thisin the spring.
If we do this in the summer orthe fall, they could, stimulate
new growth on the plant that'snot gonna harden off in the
winter, and we're gonna getwinter kill on there. So this is
a a spring. We don't wanna putit on later in the year, because
that can cause problems forwinter hardiness.
Chris Enroth (33:52):
Right. Well
Ken Johnson (33:53):
So one more. Let me do this one.
Chris Enroth (33:55):
More question. I'll ask you, Ken. This is your
this is your question. These areyour insects. You've adopted all
of them, all the trillions ofthem around the country.
So, yeah, if folks are curious,last year, we did tons of shows
about cicadas. It was the yearof the cicada here in Illinois,
but their effects are being felteven beyond 2024. So, Ken, will
(34:22):
cicadas affect my trees thisyear? Is there anything we need
to worry about?
Ken Johnson (34:27):
No. We shouldn't have to worry about anything. In
last fall or in last summer,people probably had flagging in
their trees. So when the scadersare going in laying their eggs
or slicing open the the twigs orthe branches with their
ovipositor, it can cause somedamage that may break. So you
get all these dead spots, in thetrees with those branches or
twigs have broken.
(34:48):
Plants will have recovered.They'll send out new shoots, off
of that. You may have stuff.You'll see the scars on those
trees or those branches forprobably a couple of years until
those are fully healed over. Butyou should if you do have them,
you should see some indicationthat those plants are starting
to to heal that, seal that over,and stuff.
(35:10):
So, you know, as far as that,with all the wind we've had, I
would think if any branches areare compromised because of that
egg laying, they probably wouldhave broken by now. Just at
least here in Jacksonville, it'sbeen ridiculously windy. I think
it has been in a lot of thestate. Yes. So so as far as egg
laying, you know, it it shouldbe done.
Obviously, if you had a smalltree and they laid it in the
(35:31):
trunk and that killed the toppart, maybe you'll get some
growth, from the bottom. But ifyou don't get anything, the
tree's probably dead. As far Iknow we get a lot of questions
about, you know, they lay intheir eggs in the trees. They
nymphs fall to ground. Theystart feeding on the roots.
Is that gonna hurt stuff? Nowyou remember they're in the
ground for thirteen or seventeenyears, so they're while they're
(35:52):
feeding, they're not necessarilyremoving a whole lot of
nutrients, and we had billionsor trillions of them coming out
last year, and they were allfeeding on on those tree roots
and stuff. So those treessurvived just fine. They'll
survive the feeding this timearound too.
Chris Enroth (36:09):
Definitely. Yeah. Oh, missed those cicadas
already.
Ken Johnson (36:14):
Oh, more years.
Chris Enroth (36:16):
That's right. Well, I think Western Illinois
is supposed to get a broodemergence since my particular
part of the county, McDonoughCounty, missed out. We're a
little island in in the sea ofcicadas.
Ken Johnson (36:30):
Was another bird up there. Mhmm.
Chris Enroth (36:32):
Yeah. I forget the bird name, though. But, yeah,
2031 is when Us folks inMcDonough County are gonna be
seeing periodic periodic cicadamerchants.
Ken Johnson (36:44):
And this year is in the East Coast.
Chris Enroth (36:48):
Mhmm.
Ken Johnson (36:48):
I know New York New York is supposed to be getting
them. And I'll say that goesinto the Appalachians too. So
there there's still some comingout if you missed them last
year. Or if you miss them, youcan go find somewhere this year
elsewhere.
Chris Enroth (37:02):
Yeah. Or if you need to restock your freezer
with more cicadas like Ken,they'll be out somewhere this
year in The US.
Ken Johnson (37:12):
Go find them.
Chris Enroth (37:14):
Well, that was a lot of great information about
spring gardening conundrums,queries, questions. So I wanna
thank everybody for sendingthose into the extension office,
emailing us, hitting us up withthose questions. Keep them
coming. It's what we're herefor. So, yeah, we appreciate it.
Well, the Good Growing podcastis a production of University of
(37:37):
Illinois Extension, edited thisweek by Ken Johnson. Ken, thank
you for hanging out with me,sharing some of the questions
that you have also beenreceiving into your office. It's
good to know that we're kind ofgetting similar questions.
Ken Johnson (37:55):
Yes. Yeah. Thank you, and thank you for everybody
for a great five years and andfor the questions. And it's okay
if they're hard too. We'll stillanswer them.
Chris Enroth (38:03):
We'll try. You might not like the answer.
Ken Johnson (38:08):
And let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth (38:11):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. We're
going to be talking about theimpact of honeybees on our
native bee population. We'regonna have a special guest,
Shirlaksh Shuresh, come by todiscuss this particular topic.
It's making headlines lately, soshould be an interesting
conversation. Well, listeners,thank you for doing what you do
best, and that is listening.
(38:32):
Or if you're watching us onYouTube, watch it. And as
always, keep on growing.
Ken Johnson (38:48):
Sound better now? Less echoey? Hopefully. Maybe.
Possibly.
Chris Enroth (38:53):
Yes. Yes. Pretty soon, we're just gonna have our
mouth up against these things.
Ken Johnson (39:04):
Heating up. Yes.
Chris Enroth (39:09):
Got my got my beard hair caught in my
microphone.
Ken Johnson (39:14):
Fate black.
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