How you can control plant bugs

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Good morning, everybody. Welcome.I'm Ron Wilson, and you are in
the garden here on news Radio six' ten WTVN eight two to one wtv
IN eight hundred and six to tenWTV in broadcasting line today from Dill's Greenhouse.
Where are we always on the firstof June, the first Saturday in
June, we're at Dill's. Andtypically, and last year was an exception,

(00:20):
our first exception of the rule.Typically for the last twenty some years
it has been ninety five degrees andGrant and I lose about twenty five pounds,
which I need to anyway by theend of the show, right,
But the last two years, thatlast year and this year it is beautiful.
It's a sunny day and it iscool. Of course, it's always

(00:40):
cool being at Dil's Greenhouse. Butstop out say hello. We're gonna be
here till noon thirty three in RaggorRoad. Yeah. As usual, Dill's
have lots of things to choose from, lots of annuals. Man, if
you're missing out on annuals, vegetables, still great selection. We're gonna do
the Grant's taste test again today.We're gonna walk in through a few herbs
and let them guess what they areare and how to use them. We've

(01:00):
got some products we're going to talkabout that they've got here. I think
you're interested in. We've got Corey, said Mac, from the Franklin County
soldon Water, is going to joinus in the next hour. We're gonna
talk about rain barrel. Somebody suggested, said, you know you never really
got serious and talk about rain barrels. Well, Corey's gonna come on and
talk with us about rain barrel.She's gonna be here as a matter of
fact, if you want to meetCorey, said Mac. And otherwise Grant

(01:23):
myself and the folks from Dill's allhere. I'm gonna be here till noon
or a little bit after. Somestop out and say hello. Even though
we're at Dills, we still willstart out our show with the buggy Joe
Boggs Report. That would be JoeBoggs, Assistant Professor, Commercial Order Coach
he Ede Good here for the OhioState Universe Extension. I'm not done yet.
O Shu Department of okay O ShootDepartment of Entomology, poster boy for

(01:47):
Osuo Extension. Their website BYG ldot OSU dot edu. Good morning,
Buggy, Joe Buggs, Good morning. I'll tell you I was a little
concerned because, you know, Ifirst got the call your producer, I
was not sure I was going tobe on today. I thought, man,
I got fired. I don't knowwhat happened. Ella just likes to

(02:08):
scare you a little bit, youknow. That's you know, yeah she
does. But I have I havea Yeah, she's good at that.
I have a product here that Ithink that I thought of you right off
the bat. I just bought onefor Ella at home because she likes to

(02:28):
sit on the front porch and theswing, watch the people walk by.
And of course if you got bugsall around you, you have that little
fly schwater in hand, right,Grandma, Grandpa. Well, I have
the newest and the newest edition offlyswaters. It's called Billy Bob's Heavy Duty
fly Swater. This is legit,and I'm going to buy one for you.

(02:50):
Do you want a black one ora green one? Well, black
would probably be sneakier, right itwould probably? Yeah, at night.
Here here's the deal. This thingis heavy duty. Not only does the
the handle on it flex is allright, So you get a good flex
to get that fly or whatever you'regoing after. But so does the top.
But it's heavy duty and it's ait's it's a scoop. So you

(03:15):
smack, you smack this the fly, then you scoop it up. It
falls back into a little compartment andthen you just flip it over your back.
Well, well, you mean youput the whole fly swatter like in
a scabbard over your back. Isthat what I'm hearing? He falls down
in the little thing and then youjust kind of an emotion container over your

(03:37):
back. I was picturing like aninja, you know, like an ninja
fly swatter. You know, well, you know you could you could do
have a you could have a littlegrant and I a little later and we're
gonna thinking we're going to kill someflies and then we'll have a test throwing
them at each other like a lacrosse. Do you know? I still have
a gift that you In fact,I'm looking at it right now. It's

(03:58):
hanging on my wall. An electricfly swatter. It looks like a tennis
racket, but but you put acouple of batteries in it, and there's
some little wires that go across.Are you gonna tell me you didn't?
You never put batteries on it?I did. It sort of works right.
You had to have shocked Julie atleast once with that. No.

(04:19):
I just couldn't keep from handling it. I kept testing it, you know.
Yeah, that's why. No.No, and it just you know,
of course that's you know, that'swhy I you know, I don't
have hair on my head now,just burned it right off. It's pretty
pretty remarkable. Well, I justwant to tell you that I have my
Billy Bob's extra heavy duty fly swaterin hand, and I will get you

(04:43):
the black one and bring that backto you. You're going to just absolutely
love this saying because you can onlyget them here at Dills. Is that
well, and you can buy yourBilly Bob tooth to go with it too,
a demonstration, Is that what I'mhearing? Yeah? Yeah, and
you buy the bully teeth and allthat and it'll be something. Well,
you know, there are different insects, not just flies, but I mean,

(05:05):
you know, like box other bugs. I might take you know,
use it for that. No,it's not the segue. I'm trying to
work out a segue and I justcan't do it. But I got this
email that was that that just tookme back to one of the what I

(05:27):
found to be one of the morefatcinating insects because it was on a plant
that I grew up with. Ithink you grew up with. In old
farmsteads, you know, in WestVirginia or Kentucky, the two most common
plants you would find were what Idon't know, Joel w You know I
actually have had. I've said thatgroups before plants two different types of plants.

(05:54):
Now, of course, roses wereone that you'd often see, but
you know, we didn't have thekind of roses you can buy. The
knockouts and things that really do lasta lot longer. Were Gosa wasn't you
know, wasn't well known at thetime when you and I growing up,
wasn't used a lot. But ifyou if you were driving the back roads

(06:15):
of West Virginia, you would oftensee peonies and you'd often see yuka,
I mean right pineys, I lovethat, that's right well, and yuka
And because it lasted forever, itlasted forever. In fact, flower Oh.

(06:38):
You could go and find old homesteads. There were nothing more than just
foundation stones. You know, they'dbeen abandoned and people had left, and
and yet what remained were pineys andyucca and a lot of times, yeah,
a lot of times they would mark, you know, if there was
a sidewalk or pathway. You know, usually the sidewalks weren't what people are

(06:58):
thinking. Probably, you know,in Columbus and urban areas, there were
just often flagstones, right, justsome stones you walked on, But but
they were often flanked by by peand ees or pineys I like that,
or ghost lilies. Now wait aminute, you're probably Well, there were
two things I learned when I leftWest Virginia. The first being that everyone

(07:24):
didn't share, you know, myyuck affection. You know, everyone didn't
share that they loved you for areason. Well, yeah, I suppose
I'll give them that. But ofcourse that's changing. It's amazing to me.
Yeah, they're they're they're definitely comingback. So so back to the

(07:45):
listeners are at ghost lilies. Well, the other thing I learned was that
common names for plants are commonly regional. In other words, you would just
hear the name, well, pineysas an example, you know, that
was Appalachian right right, And youknow, you'd say that to folks here
in Ohio and it'd be piney,some kind of pine tree or what.

(08:09):
But but the ghost lily thing comesfrom the fact that if you if you
wait till after dark and and you'reaway from you know, urban lights,
and yuccas are in full bloom,which many of them are still in full
bloom right now, and you lookat those flowers, those those intensely white
flowers, well the rest of theplant disappears. Those flowers appear to be

(08:31):
kind of hanging in the air.They almost look like a ghostly apparition.
And so the common name for Yucasas I was growing up were ghost lilies.
And when I when I left mynative estate and I would say,
oh, yeah, that's nice ghostlilies, people would look like, oh
man, you know he's seeing ghosts, you know, which they still do.

(08:52):
But you know, it's it's thatwas another learning curve on my part.
Well, you know what said,interesting, you're talking about the old
homestead, and you're right, weare. The company I worked with bought
a farm many many years ago,and there was it was an old dairy
farm and the house was gone.The framework for the for the dairy barn
was still there, concrete, andit was really wooded, about an acre

(09:15):
or so around the house. Andwe were we went there one morning to
rabbit hunt, and we were goingthrough the wooded area and I could see
this clump of green right in themiddle of this pretty shady with all these
trees had grown up and got upcloser to it, and it was this
huge mass planting of yuccas. Andit was right on the corner of the
sidewalk in the front porch where itdidn't exist anymore, and it was in

(09:39):
the shade, and here the thingwas. And like you said, that
was like the marker where that pathturned and went into the front front walk
still alive today and an house hasbeen there for fifty years. It is
amazing. And when I first startedwith the extension, back when I'd get
calls about, you know, dinosaurs, you know, how would you dissuade
dinosaurs? That one of my morecommon calls, which were just appalling to

(10:05):
me, was how to control yaka, you know, how to get rid
of it? And and yes itcan spread, it can. Yeah.
It took me to get rid ofthe one. The first one we hit
our house, so so they canbe they can be a problem. However,
like I said, it's interesting becauseand in fact, at that time,

(10:28):
well shortly after after the Internet wasinvented, and I just realized that,
you know, when I first startedthere, it was amazing. But
when I know, you just youjust took me off there because you know,
I'm wondering how many people think ofthe Internet as being the inconvenient truth,
right, you know it's like,oh, yeah, well you can

(10:50):
think it, but you can thinkabout it because we need to take a
break, and when we come backbreak here you can, yeah, you
can fill us in. We're broadcastingLife Today from Dyll's Greenhouse thirty three in
Regger Road, going to be heretill noon. Stop out and say hello,
got all the six to ten giveawaysand okay, we always have a
lot of fun. I think theThree Stingers are going to show up.
Corey Siedmac's going to be here aswell from Franklin County Soil of Water.

(11:11):
Stop out saying oh, be heretill noon here on news Radio six to
ten WTVN oh. We're broadcasting LieToday from Dill's Greenhouse thirty three in Reggor
Road. Stop out and say hello, Grant. Our engineer out here is
just running around like a chicken,picking up all kinds of containers and mixed
pots and crotons and all kinds ofstuff. And I don't know what he's

(11:31):
bringing back now. He's collecting upall kinds of goodies. And of course
it's the home of the Billy Bob'sheavy duty flyswater. You got to see
this thing to believe it. Youhit it, then you scoop it up
and then you can throw it overyour head or whatever you want to do.
But Billy Bob's extra heavy duty flyswatters here at Dill's Greenhouse, talking
with the Buggy Joe Bogg speaking offly swatters and yukas and things like that.

(11:56):
You know, the thing of itis, you said something about yuck
are making a comeback. The picturesthat I sent to you were from my
house. Oh really, now Ididn't. That's interesting. So that way
you have it. I have oneat my house again again. The onslaught
that. No it hasn't. Iactually I grubbed it out. Here's the

(12:18):
whole point. I had a hostageera Yuck of many years ago, got
rid of it, didn't want itanymore. Took me five years to get
rid of it. Well, thena couple of years ago they came out
with that one that you're seeing therewith the variegated foliage. Yeah, and
it's absolutely gorgeous. And last fallI knew I was getting what I sent
you pictures of on there. Ididn't do anything about it. They hammered

(12:41):
that thing and it it. Imean, after the winter it looked horrible
and of course as soon as theweather broke they were all over that and
I just grubbed it out. Itis amazing, and that is that's one
way to control them. Yeah,but that's it. Yeah, those are
the types of questions that well,those are the types of questions I'm getting

(13:03):
about about Yuka. There's you know, the plant bugs are sneaky, as
you know. They they're they're veryapparent when you see them. I mean,
they're just they're they have a veryvery intense coloration, uh, you
know, with the adults being youknow, black and kind of an orange

(13:24):
and uh and you know when ifyou're careful, you can see them.
But here's something I've always They haveexcellent eyesight, don't they Yes, they
do. And they wear Adidas.They yes, they do scurry very fast.
They don't fly. I mean,adults do have wings, they could
fly, but the point is theydon't fly to escape you. But what

(13:46):
you would be seeing first, actuallyis that the yuka, the variegated,
for example, is even harder tosee this because you already have you know,
kind of a light coloration on theon the blades, right, So
so the very gated seems it's not. I don't think they're any more susceptible.
I think it's just that, youknow, the bugs can build high

(14:07):
populations faster because the variegation kind ofmasks what the bugs do, and that
is they have sucking mouth parts andthey destroy individual cells. And that's the
way a lot of these plant bugsfeed. They actually inject enzymes into the
plant to dissolve the cells, andthen they they suck up the cell slurry

(14:28):
that's been created. Well, thatleaves behind the little spots and as those
spots get larger, these little yellowspots, so we call stipling. That's
a common term used not just forplant bugs, but listeners may also well
I've heard that with mites, andthat's true. It's just kind of the
same kind of damage, but eventuallythat they use spots coalesce, and so

(14:52):
you see very large areas that areturning yellow and then eventually turns brown.
And if you get enough of thesespeeding you know, they cause enough damage
to the cells to cause plants tocollapse. And where I first saw this
was that what I called it historicplanting. It still is and it's kind

(15:15):
of made a comeback. But there'sa planning of Adam's Needle, one of
the very earliest selections of yucca thatwere planted in the late eighteen hundreds,
and the records are pretty clear atSpring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum, and it
was a favorite plant planting of aperson you and I know very well who's

(15:35):
retired. Tom Smith was senior vicepresident at Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretam and
he long admired the historical significance ofthat planting and until one season, Yeah,
he gave me a call and hesaid, these things are just collapsing.
What's happening? When I visited atfirst, you know, it was

(15:56):
hard to see them because we aswe walk up, these bugs would scurry
off the plants. It's very hardto get pictures. But eventually, eventually
we did, of course see theculprit. Of course the stipling was there.
It was the first time I everactually saw this pest on Yuka.
I didn't see it growing up.But what should we do about it?

(16:18):
Well, if a person is reallyhaving a challenge, you know, insecticidal
soaps. I'm not talking about youknow, do it yourself. I'm saying,
you know, go to a gardencenter and purchase true insecticidal soap,
right, because the do it yourself. You and I have talked about this
before. You mix up concoctions ofsoaps or worse detergents and spray it on

(16:41):
plants. Well, those those concoctionscan actually hurt plants, and you and
I commonly get you know, questions, Well I sprayed for something, and
now the plants look like I,you know, hit them with an herbicide.
Well there's also an herbicide. It'sbased on soap, right, So
yeah, so you know, purchaseand insecticidal soap also materials that have spinosid

(17:07):
in it. That's another you know, very effective because it actually it's we
call it translaminar activity, so itsort of goes into the plant just a
little bit. The other way tomanage them is to use a systemic insecticide.
There are plenty there now, youknow, we have like, for
example, the insecticides that were usedfor m al ash bore, where you

(17:30):
can put around the base of theplant as a soil drench. I would
wait though, until after flowering,for the systemic actually for all of these
I should have said. But youknow, if you're using insecticidal soap or
spinosid, you're targeting the application tothe blades, so you know the flower

(17:52):
spikes won't be affected. Now,you don't find many pollinators, actually,
you don't find any pollinators except forone. And going to yucca, it
has a very specific pollinator called theyucca moth, and one can't exist without
the other. Believe it or not, it's a symbiotic relationship where the moth
actually part of its whole existence isto pollinate yucca and conversely the immature you

(18:22):
know moth. The caterpillars of yukamoth feed on yuka on the flower structures.
You might think, well, that'ssort of counterintuitive. Well, at
the end of the day, themoth pollinating those flowers does produce seed,
so you know, we don't wantto hurt those moths. I mean,
they're specific to yuka. But ifyou wait until after flowering to make this

(18:47):
application of a systemic it is veryeffective on controlling these bugs. And if
you don't do anything about it,just like in my case, they really
can hammer if you get the populationsighing up, which I got some pretty
good shots of them. They werecovered and they were like that in the
fall. I knew it. Ididn't do anything about it and made that
plant just coming out of the winterjust to absolutely just there that was existing.

(19:10):
I love this. Yes, thatwas it. That's what they sound
like when they're collapsing. So it'scoming out, but I'm gonna I'm going
to replace it. So we gotabout a minute ago one minute, and
we'll talk more about this next week, but just go to the Buckeye Yard
and Garden Line b yg L.I've posted this past week about the appearance
of a fall web worm nest.Only found one and the egg hatch of

(19:36):
overwintered bagworms. I don't know ifwe're going to have, you know,
appreciable populations. Knows how he saidthat appreciable, you know, the only
appreciated by us. You know,if we're going to have Yeah, I
don't know if we're going to havehigh populations this season, but just be
looking at your plants for bagworms orthe appearance of these very small silk nests.

(19:57):
And we'll talk more about it nextweek and in the meantime, if
you want to check it out,it's bygl dot OSU dot eedu or on
our special website at Ron Wilson onlinedot com. Buggy Joe Bogs always a
pleasure. Thanks for the info.We'll talk to you next Saturday. You
take care of I have a greatweek, all right now bringing your Bubba
heavy or Billy Bob's heavy duty flyswater. You can't I know you can't wait

(20:18):
to get it all right? Therewe go broadcasting live today from Dyl's Greenhouse
thirty three and Ragga Road Stop outSay hello. Coming up next, we're
going to talk with the Jerry Dialfind out what's going on here with the
Jerry and Colleen and Kelly and thewhole staff here and find out what's happening
there. Coming up at the topof the next hour, Corey Sedback is
going to be with us from FranklinCounty sold and water. We're gonna talk
about rain barrels. Have you everconsidered putting one of those in to help

(20:42):
water your plants and conserve the waterand stop the pollution run off and all
that. Well, Corey's gonna talkto us about that, and we're just
having a lot of fun. Sostop and say hello, and oh yeah,
we have Grant's taste tests coming up. Also where Grant goes through,
we have him to taste different herbs, see if he can tell us what
they are. Jerry Deal coming upnext here in the garden with Ron Wilson.

(21:06):
It's differ it is a life story. Oh, we are at Dill's
Greenhouse, always having fun at Dill'sGreenhouse, thirty three in Raga Road.
Stop out, say hello. Lotsof plants, lots of folks out here.
It's always fun. It's always funhaving people come up and say Hello's
talk about what they're doing. Theycome by, they talk to you and
say hi, it's nice and Iappreciate what you do. Wrong for the

(21:26):
business of us and all the independentgarden centers. I'm just a messenger.
But if we can get people outto the independent garden centers realizing that they
are the press, professionals and whateverybody does, and it's you're the best
of that, and we appreciate it. I think all my other garden center
owners feel the same way about you. Let's say, it's an honor to

(21:47):
be able to do this. AndI was just we're talking during the break
about the vegetable garden. You said, you actually because at this time of
the year, you and I bothstart to scramble with what's left over,
so to speak, to start planningour own gardens. And you said,
you're already good. You've already gotPlanet this. I've never had anything planned
this time of year, but mywife did a lot of it. She

(22:07):
just does flowers. I help alittle bit, but the vestable garden I've
always done and I never was tellingwrong. We have all these busted bags
unfortunately beautiful potty spoils and organic mixes. I have my grandson tomb in the
truck, grab some really big pots, went home, put them in my
vegetable garden, a loaded up soil, and it's Planet is going to do
great. Yeah. And I've alwayssaid container gardening. It affords all of

(22:30):
us the opportunity to do some typeof gardening, whether you're two or ninety
two, and there you go.Jerry, Yeah, not ninety two.
But I'll feel like sometimes at theend of the spring. But it makes
it a lot easier. It does. It was so easy. I don't
know why I didn't do it before. You're a little more specific about what
you want to grow. You gotto, you know, just pick out
those few, the exact ones thatyou want, and then you can stay

(22:51):
right with them, take care ofeach one of them, water them,
and it's a lot easier to pickthem. I got fifteen huge pots with
whatever in it. Yeah, goodwhenever I picked out. Good for you.
Good for you. Talking to withJerry Dill here at Dyl's Greenhouse and
about all the great things that youguys do, and you're right the you
know, getting out the independent gardencenters. I always thought Columbus is a
lot of fun. I always tellit. Remind everybody you know to go

(23:15):
to me. It would be It'sa fun thing to go around over Saturday
and Sunday and make a trip outof it to go to all the independent
garden centers because everybody does something justa little bit different. I've never been
to a garden center. Looks likesomebody else's. Everybody's different. And to
believe me, all the owners arethe ones that Columbus are great people.
They're all my friends. Yep.We all talk with we talked to each

(23:36):
other information. We're competition, butI think we're all the thing we care
about. It's everybody's parking lots ful, right, including mine, including Chris
Baxer. Yep, yep. Butyou know, and it can be a
lot of fun and you come inand that's what I always like with the
remotes in the springtime because everyone wego to has something a little bit different,
something that you guys specialize in,something you've been doing over all the
years. And of course you guys, you're again. You look so good

(24:00):
this time of the year. It'sphenomenal. We found. Yeah, it
just pays off, you know,for us to keep going and not giving
up. It's easy to say,Okay, we're slowing down, let's back
off, but we try out toback off too much. We're working a
little bit less now, you know, and we need that. And I
remember we first started here, youweren't that heavily into trees and shrubs,

(24:23):
even the perennials. That is abig part of our business now. You
know, we started selling roses andzealias and whatever, right, and now
we're a full service garden center.We do not do landscaping. We do
plant the large trees that we have. We'll go out and plant and deliver
those things because people can't take homeand do it theirselves. But we don't
draw plans to do landscaping. Wedid that for a while, but it

(24:45):
just kind of didn't work out forus. You know, you and I
were talking earlier about tropical plants,and as we have sat here over the
last four or five years, I'vewatched this greenhouse behind us, which you
kind of designated for foliage and fortropicals, just get more and more popular
every year, and you think,wait a second, it's just never going
to slow down. And it neverslows. What's the deal with folige plants

(25:08):
and tropical plants. It's it's agood addition to our business. It's a
big part of our business. Actslike, yeah, the folige plants.
We didn't we used to tell people, well, we only do house plants,
we do outdoor stuff, and that'swhat we said. Well that was
a mistake. So now we aredoing the undoring things and the tropical thing
is crazy. Uh, we've probablygot an extra semi load of tropicals in

(25:30):
this year and we're still picked overlike we were last year this talk.
But you know that you look atthe tropicals of diplodinias. The Mandeville is
all of those high biscuits, whichare outstanding. But you look at those
plants. I mean, where'd youbring it from? Florida? Right right?
A lot of them, and whatkind of condition they have? Now
there's sunny, warm, right,all these conditions. So it's a summer

(25:51):
here and they do well there.So guess what's going to do well here?
People are yeah they I think tenyears ago people didn't know about some
of the varieties, right, that'sbeen a new varieties developed in the Dipplodines
and things are nice. But nowthey know, they're excited about them.
And you you know, we puta semi load of those in that house,
and you know, I go ina week later, where did this

(26:11):
stuff go? Yeah? Yeah,it's and rightfully so. And containers and
of course some folks will like tobring those in over the wintertime. I
tell them to just throw them away. It's hard to do. Its tropical
in your house. You can,you can, but you're gonna end up
most of time with something that's notthat nice. All right, we're gonna
take a break. We come back. Corey Siedmac will be with us.

(26:33):
We're going to talk about rain barrels. Have you ever considered putting in a
rain barrel? Well, she's gonnastop out. We're gonna talk about that,
and of course we're gonna be heretil noon. Broadcasting live today from
Dill's Greenhouse thirty three in Rigor Road. Stop out, say hello. After
Corey, we're going to do aGrant's Taste test all here on news radio
six to ten WTVN