Underappreciated Pollinator Plants with Melinda Myers - Garden America Podcast & Radio Show [5.25.24] - Garden America - Gardening Podcast & Talk Radio Show

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello once again, all you gardenlovers out there, are those that follow
us here on Garden America. Happyweekend, Happy Memorial Day weekend. If
you work, maybe you've got athree day weekend coming up. We trust
you had a good week and theweekend's even better to you. First of
all, thank you for joining usmaking a Garden America part of your weekend.
I'm Brian Maine. John Begnasco washere a little confused, but he's

(00:20):
here. Tager Palafox also here,going to keep the ship floating, as
they say. In the meantime,we do have a guest lined up today,
somebody that you're very familiar with,or should be after all these years.
But right now I'm going to talkto John Begnasco because John, I'm
a little concerned about you this morning. Are you okay? Yeah, I'm
fine, Okay. Good Memorial Dayweekend? Yeah? You remember the first

(00:42):
Memorial Day? Right? Do youremember? Why I'm trying I'm trying to
remember. Yeah. Actually that's likeit's like you remember the first Christmas?
Yeah? Right, Well I readabout it. How about that I read
about it? Do you know whyMemorial Day was created? Oh? Boy?
Here we go. I mean,there seems to be the obvious answer,

(01:03):
but I'm going to let you fillus in on some history, just
because you don't want to look foolish, right, Well, that too,
that always plays into it. Imean, I could give you a smart
alec Orka was first started to honorthe Union soldiers that fought during the Civil
War. Oh, the Civil War. Yeah, A lot of times people
think it's either one of the worldwriters, World War One or World War

(01:26):
Two, but it just went onfrom Civil War times. And then I
asked you before the show this morning, it used to be called something else.
My dad would refer to this dayas something else, and I can't
remember. So somebody who's watching onFacebook prior to Memorial Day, what do
they call this this day or thisweekend? Because there's this Veterans Veterans Day,

(01:49):
Flag Day, Flag Day, Soit was something else other than Memorial
Day. I'm thinking it was,but you know, prior to when it
became Memorial Day. So a lotof people tuned in already early in the
show. It's a great weekend,comautiful weather in San Jose. Decoration Day.

(02:10):
Decoration Day, Carla, thank youso much. Oh to get that
off of my mind. Does thatremain with you now? Is this the
day that was the final day foryou to take down your Christmas decorations?
But no, oh no, no, no, that's when they decorated the
grave site. Yeah, Carla,thank you very much so that you would
go out to the cemetery and actuallysays Remembrance Day. Well, you know

(02:36):
what, Dana says, great,great info to you, John on Memorial
Day. But we're not sure John'scorrect or not. It sounded good.
You can look it up. CivilWar Decoration Day? That was it?
Decoration day? What were we talkingabout? Those? It was a big
day in the uh nurseries, independentnurseries back in the Midwest, well back

(02:59):
when the nurse we've declared their independence. No. What they used to do
was they would sell a lot ofitems for you know, and color bowls
all that stuff. Like I rememberthey didn't have color bowls back then.
No, No, okay, reallyyeah, they didn't have like arranged red,
white, and blue. No.And do you know that there were

(03:21):
no color bowls when I first cameto California. Really yeah, so color
bowls are kind of a new thing, huh. I remember I was working
at the store, the nursery landin Escondido, and your dad was around
then, and the first color ballsthat they started were planted and then grown
out. Yeah, yeah, likethey started with little plants. Yeah.

(03:45):
Nowadays they just nowadays they just actuallyjust stuff all the old plants in there.
It's kind of like it's kind oflike a soup in a restaurant where
they just will have like all theleftovers and this is what they make with
it. Those are color bowls today. Okay, is there a name for
that soup where they just kind oftossed everything in soup? Is it soup?

(04:08):
Soup of the day? Exactly,that's what it's called. But apologized
by the way first even mentioning remembrancesteak because that's she's wrong. Apology accepted,
Veronica, But I'm I'm kind ofstill stuck on this whole thing where
I mean a for those of youthat don't know what color bulls are that

(04:30):
are listening to the show right now, you would go into the nursery and
they would have a ten or twelveinch low half bowl, you know that
they would put flowers in and itwould be a theme red white and blue
red, you know, different combinationsof flowers, and you basically were able
to just take those home, putthem on your patio or whatever, and

(04:51):
now you have instant floral arrangement,right. And I mean color bowls used
to be so popular, hanging backasket combinations and carbols not so much anymore,
but for the longest time. Imean, if you didn't have red,
white, and blue color bowls forMemorial Day, Veterans Day, fourth
of July, your nursery, youdid not know what you were doing,

(05:15):
because that was people would walk out. They'd be do you. I mean,
twenty bucks is kind of like theprice that I remember them being for.
And I'm sure there are a lotmore expensive now, but back when
they were first coming out, yeah, ninety nine, then they went up
to twelve ninety nine. Yeah,and there was no there were no plastic.
They were all terra cotta. Yeah. Wow. They were the Mexican

(05:40):
clay. Okay, okay, Quadalajara. Yeah, dang, that's a good
They were pretty heavy. Yeah,they probably broke a ton. Yeah.
The the one of the items wesold a lot of was the paint Telavera
what tell Avera, the painted Mexicanpots. No, no, no,
The ain't that you'd pay the sealer, because otherwise they would just melt.

(06:04):
They just they turned right back intotears because it wasn't fired to clay.
Yeah I think it was sun dried, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, okay,
so yeah, no, these holidayswere big color bold days, hang
basket days because you would you know, put them out in your house in
the front, red, white andblue or whatever. And it makes sense

(06:24):
like the would be a big holidayfor nurseries too, because if they're going
to the you know, cemeteries,why not put some of flower arrangements or
something something, you know that's morethan just a cut flowers. Well,
also back there, let's see Mother'sDay was the biggest week of the year,

(06:45):
and then you're only two weeks laterin Memorial Day. And then the
week after Memorial Day the nurseries stoppedcarrying flowers. It was just seasons over
seasons over yeah, wow, thirteenweeks. They had thirteen weeks do whatever
it is, right then they wouldspend the rest of the year trying not

(07:08):
to lose everything they made in thiswow oh wow. But you know,
it's interesting to kind of see thetrends of things because combination pots were so
popular for so long, and theystill are a little bit. But I
don't see the number as we usedto see them when it comes to hang

(07:29):
backs and color bulls. It's kindof interesting. Maybe people are doing more
themselves then. Yeah. Before it'sfunny that you say people actually planted them
out, grew them out, right, because nowadays, if you want it
ready to go, it's like abouquet of flowers. It just lasts a
little longer. Yeah, and thenyou throw it out. Well. Speaking
of Memorial Day, John's quote ofthe Week, which by the way,

(07:53):
Tiger used to be referred to asthe quote of the day. Yeah,
but now we've stretch it out forthe entire week. Good because they're good
quote and you can go back intothe newsletter and reread it as many times
as you want. Yeah, Ipicked this because of you, but course
you do. You love to pickyour quotes revolving around me, and the
quote is on Memorial Day. Idon't want to only remember the combatants.

(08:16):
There were also those who came outof the trenches as writers and poets who
started preaching peace. Men and womenwho've made this world a kinder place to
live. And that was from EricBurden, Eric Burden of the Animals exactly.
Now, you would never think hewould say something like that. You
know, he was referred to backthen as the little man with a big
voice really because he's like five threefive four. Oh I didn't know that.

(08:39):
Yeah, it's an Animals song,The House of the Rising Sun,
and then don't let me misunderstood.What about San Francisco and San Francisco Knights.
Yeah, that was right in themiddle of the whole British invasion.
Yeah, sixty four, I sayVietnam, right, Like, weren't those
like real big Vietnam songs? Yeah, they became more yeah, more into
the mid sixties, late sixties,Vietnam was kind of getting under way basically

(09:05):
as far as awareness in this country, more mid to late sixties. But
sixty four to sixty five things arestarting to happen, Yeah, definitely.
But yeah, go listen to someAnimals music this weekend. I'm listening to
that book. It's a new book. It's called The Women, and it's
about the women in Vietnam, thenurses and people that you know. It's

(09:28):
kind of it's like a historical fictionkind of a thing. Oh good,
interesting, very interesting. Let's seeJohn Tiger got about a minute before our
first break, so let's tease ourguest. Will not tease her, literally,
yeah, but tease our audience.We're not gonna poke fund at Melindaus.
She's gonna go a friend of ourswho's gonna be on with us today.
We're gonna be talking with Milindam Myers, and we're gonna be talking pollinator

(09:48):
plants. She's got a webinar comingout to discuss more pollinator plants, and
so we're gonna kind of tease ourlisteners with what her webinar will be about.
A lot of teasing going on.Tell you how to sign up for
it? Yes, you have to, that's what webinars are, right,
You got to sign up. Gotto sign up for it. Okay.
So that's going to be happening onthe other side. So with that in

(10:09):
mind, we'll take our break rightnow. For our good friends, we
refer to them as good friends onBIS Talk Radio, thank you for tuning
in this show and every show broughtto us by Fertilan. We thank fert
alone for supporting us, keeping uson the air. We also thank Stephanie
her team at BIS Talk Radio forkeeping us on the air each and every
weekend as well. So with thatin mind, I'm Brian Maine, John
Begnascar Tuger Pellofox. Back after thesemessages. Melinda Myers is next here on

(10:33):
Garden America. Okay, we areback after the break. It is Darden
America of course. Here, I'mBrian Maine, John Begnasco Tiger, Palafox
Tiger. If you're ready to go. We've got Melinda Meyers standing by and
this should be a lot of fun. Ben a while since we've spoken with
her. Yeah, it's been alittle bit since we've spoken with our good
friend Melinda Myers joining us today todiscuss some pollinator plants because she has an

(10:54):
upcoming webinar to discuss more pollinator plants. And for those of you that don't
know what pollinator is, it's basicallywe're making flowers. We're making new plants.
Melinda, good morning, How areyou? Good morning. I'm doing
great. It's always good to chatwith you guys. And one of my
favorite topics as a gardener. Weall know how important pollinators are. You

(11:16):
know, that's what we depend onfor food and fiber, and as gardeners
we get to work amongst all thosewonderful pollinators, and hopefully we can talk
about ways to attract more to thegardens and landscape. And it's pretty interesting
when you really dive deep, becauseyou know, most people think like,
oh, they got flowers. Youknow, bees or butterflies go over there,

(11:37):
they touch them, they go toanother flower and move on. But
there's it's when you really get intoit. There's specific flowers to a specific
creatures. And when I say creatures, because it's not just bees and butterflies
out there. And then not onlythat, the flower design, the flower
color, the fragrance. They eitherseparate themselves from other things or they attract

(12:03):
things. So you know, whenyou're putting together a pollinator you can't just
a pollinator garden. You don't justthink like, oh, these have flowers,
I'll put these in there. Youcan get real specific on what you
want to attract and what you don'twant to attract, right, oh,
exactly. So you know, youbrought up a good point. When we
think of pollinators, we think ofhoney bees and you know, monarchs,

(12:24):
those are I call them the posterchildren of the pollinator world because everybody's concerned
about them and if we take careof the environment for them, we're also
helping others. But things like mothsfeed on most of them feed in the
evening. There are some day feedingmoths. So we want some white,
sweet smelling flowers or pale colored onesthat flower at night, things like four

(12:46):
o'clocks that are late in the evening, things like nicotiana, some of those
type of things. Bees. Youknow, we think of honey bees,
but ninety percent of our bees aresolitary. They long well, they just
have their own nest and they don'tneed to be in a hive like honey
bees or bumble bees that nest underground, and seventy percent of those are underground,

(13:09):
and a lot of them are veryspecific. Like you said, there
is a squash bee that pollinates squashplants, So we want to make sure
that when we're prepping our garden,Like you said, we have a variety
things at bloom early, things atbloom mittle, things that bloom late.
Think colors, and as you mentioned, shape certain shapes. You know,

(13:30):
look at how bumble bees work.They poinate tomatoes. Tomatoes are self pinating.
The wind blows the pollen that bees. Bumble bees help really increase productivity.
And the way the flowers designed andthe way the bumble bees are designed,
they really work well together. Infact, there are some places that
are doing bumblebee hives just like theydo honeybees, moving them from farms to

(13:54):
farms to increased productivity. Then wehave those slow moving beetles. You know,
they're not the best pollinators. Theylike things that are dull, white
or green, and things that smellstrong, like Canadian ginger or magnolia flowers,
but they still as they wander fromone flower to the next, they're
doing their job. Probably the mostannoying one may be the flies, right

(14:20):
they always feel like they're in yourface and not that they're doing anything.
But they're usually in places that aredark and damp, and things like skunk
cabbage and golden rods and bulbs andthings like that. And they're good at
those trap plants, those things thatyou know they have to work to get
in. They work and get inand then they're kind of trapped and to
get out they move around and theytake some pollen with them. So you're

(14:43):
right. Having a diverse group ofcolors and flower forms is a great way
to bring a lot of the differentpollinators to your landscape and your garden.
And I do want to make surethat people understand that, you know,
when you talk about creating a pollinatorgarden, you have to be willing to
accept bugs in your life, right, like, because like that's the thing

(15:05):
we you know, as gardeners,we go through our whole life protecting our
plants from bugs. You know,we don't want these bugs around our garden.
They're going to damage our plants.But when you have a pollinator garden,
you have to accept them. Youhave to accept flies and moths and
worms and beetles into your environment becausethat they're doing their job. That's why

(15:28):
they're there. And and you know, you you know, you want to
be able to kind of almost embracethe idea that you have all these things
fluttering around your garden or crawling aroundyour garden, because you know, that's
kind of the goal if you seta sign of a healthy garden. Yeah,
I was going to say, ifyou see a bunch of bugs in
a garden, it's because they youbrought in all these different aspects, right

(15:50):
Melinda, Oh, exactly. Anda lot of in I find the less
pesticides you use and preferably not,especially if you're trying to bring in in
to pollinate your flowers. The lastthing you want to do is kill the
good guys. But a lot ofthe insects take care of each other.
I have some plants I feed hummingbirds. I have feeders, but I have

(16:11):
lots of plants that the hummingbirds love, my lilac, my white jila,
a lot of different plants. AndI'll watch the hummingbirds munch on the aphids
native honeysuckle vine. So not onlyam I feeding it, enjoying their visits
and they're polling, but they're takingcare of some of the insect problems too.
So the less intervention we do,the better nature can do it managing

(16:34):
the bad guys and keeping the goodguys in our garden. And another thing
is we can get a little messy. And I've always been kind of a
messy gardener, you know. Ilike leaf litter in the ground. It's
the great mulch the presses weeds,conserves moisture, great way to repurpose those
fall leaves, but it creates anice habitat for a lot of our pollinators.

(17:00):
It's a moth called the shivering moththat pollinates fall blooming witch hazel.
It overwinters in the leaf litter,and in the fall, when the witch
hazel's blooming, you think what's outthere to pollinate? It shakes, it
shivers to warm its muscles, it'swing muscles, so it can come up
and pollinate the flowers when it seemslike nobody else is around to do the

(17:21):
job. Great insulation for toads andfrogs that eat some of the bad insects,
including mosquitoes. So if we invitein the good guys, we bring
in some of the good guys thatwill manage the ones that are problems in
our gardens as well. And oneof the researches we've found some of the
research lately has shown that we needto change our garden cleanup. I used

(17:42):
to say, Hey, it's March. I'm in the Midwest, right,
so we get a nice day inMarch, you clean up your garden,
you get ready for spring. Well, guess what, a lot of the
pollinators are still overwintering in that plantdebris. And they found that if we
cut back our stems, wait aslong as possible'll temperatures are in the fifties,
so that varies wherever you live.But if we cut back the stems

(18:04):
only eighteen to twenty four inches andleave most of them, you know,
at least half intact. Those arehomes for summer homes for a lot of
our native bees, and the newgrowth covers it so you won't even notice.
So changing some of those habits aswell as tolerating of insects we're trying
to attract, is great for thepollinators and the health of your garden.

(18:26):
Yeah, And you know it's funnyyou bring up You brought up the poster
child, the monarch butterfly for apollinator, and that's the only the Asclepias,
which is the food source for monarchcaterpillars, is the only plant in
the retail garden center. Well,I will see people picking off caterpillars and

(18:47):
putting it on their plant to thentake home with them, which is fascinating,
fascinating. But you know, Melinda, we got to take a break.
When we get back back from thebreak, let's talk about some specific
plants. But also you brought upthe idea of that leaf. And when
we were in England, we sawareas where people would leave little arrangements of
sticks and things in the garden forthat reason, so we will down branches.

(19:10):
Yeah, they would put down branchesthat kind of a thing. So
when we get back from break,we will continue chatting with Melinda Myers.
Okay, break for BIS Talk Radio. And of course those are watching us
live here on Facebook Live. Anyquestions for Melinda, do post that in
the comments section. We have onefrom Kevin John when we come back,
so go ahead and add that tothe list if you're so inclined with a
question or comment. This is GardenAmerica back after these messages on BIS Talk

(19:33):
Radio. Garden America is back afterthat break a bit longer on bistalk Radio.
Thank you for supporting our sponsors onBIZ talk Radio. Thank you to
Fertilom, our major sponsor here onGarden America. So we are back at
chatting with Melinda Myers. Anything elsewe want to get to before we hit
Kevin's question. Let's go ahead andhave Kevin question. Go ahead, John,
Hey, Melinda, This question isfrom Kevin and Cordelaine, Idaho.

(19:56):
And he says he's wondering what doollinatorwill pollinate his apple in cherry trees as
it's been really cold there and hehasn't seen any bees yet. Oh well,
mason bees are usually the ones thattake care of a lot of our
fruit plants, and we've had sucha strange year all across the country.

(20:18):
I'm based in Wisconsin, and wehad seventy degrees in February followed by thirteen
degrees in the next morning. It'sin the fifties here now, and so
I understand the frustration, and soI think a lot of the crazy fluctuating
temperatures and extremes are having an impacton our pollinators. And unless you're bringing

(20:40):
bees in, it's just waiting forthe weather to warm up for those mason
bees to show up. Typically,those are the native bees that take care
of a lot of the pollination forus. So hopefully they're out and about
and he's just not seeing them becausethey're not going in large masses, but
rather are numbers but very efficient.Yeah. Hey, on one of our

(21:03):
trips to Europe, we had someonewith us who was really interested in creating
homes for pollinators, and I waswondering, I've seen some of those mason
bee homes that you can go aheadand buy, because as you mentioned,
they're solitary bees. Have you hadany experience with using those and do you

(21:27):
think it's worth it? You know, and you can make your own and
one of a couple things, Andon my website we do have a tip
on how to make mason bees onmy web, mason bee homes on our
website, and a couple things thatare really important. We have to be
clean, you know, the thingwe're attracting them, so cleanliness is important,
So changing out the tubes or cleaningout you know, you can drill

(21:49):
holes in a block of wood.You can buy nesting tubes, you can
use straws, you can create yourown. Now, for those of us
in the north, one of thethings we need to do is protect them
over winter because most of the masonbees are cavity nesters, so they're nesting
in trees normally, and so they'vegot that insulation of the big trunk of

(22:11):
the tree and so in a littlenesting box. If you're in the north
and it's cold, you need tomove your nesting box into say an unheated
garage. A lot of people putthem in a five gallon bucket. Cut
a hole so when the temperatures auldwarm up in the spring and they become
active, you can move the wholething out and then put up a fresh,
clean high for them or nest forthem as well. I was at

(22:33):
the Trial Spring Trials one year inCalifornia and one of the growers had a
huge pollinator mason bee box and itwas great to watch. So the female
would come out and she'd get adab of mud and she'd go in and
she'd seal off the cell and thenback in lay an egg and then go
get another dab of mud, andit was very exciting to watch. A

(22:56):
daycare near me set up a masonbee house and had great success showing the
kids how the bees nest and gettingthem more comfortable with the bees and the
environment, because I think there's somuch fear, and I get it if
you're allergic, there's a whole levelof care you need to take around bees.
But I think a lot of there'sa lot of fear, needless fear

(23:18):
around bees and stinging because most ofthem want to leave us alone. They
don't want to even be near us. So if we leave them alone,
you know, most of us asgardeners have probably gardened among the bees and
the bumble bees without any problem aslong as we don't mess with their house.
So yeah, the mason bee housesare good. Just make sure you're
willing to commit otherwise, creating thehabitat and in nature is a great way

(23:41):
to do it. I tried honeybees for a couple of years and decided
it was much more than easier forme to create a habitat gardens and leaving
dead trees. I have a propertywhere I can have dead trees on the
ground and standing trees for the woodpeckersand the leafcutter bees to nest, and
that that was a lot easier thantrying to manage a honey bee high So

(24:04):
that was kind of till how Iam on the lazy side. Maybe I
always thought that the mason bees livedin Masonic temples and they were their little
half right mistakes, you know.You know, it's funny you you mentioned,
you know, kind of the villainizationof bees, right for you know,

(24:25):
I think that when I was growingup, obviously that was the whole
like African bee craze, Like soonall these African bees were just going to
take over the United States and justkill everyone as swarms across the country.
We have to walk around in besuits exactly. You know, that's kind
of like what I grew up in, just fearing bees that they were all
out to get us and I andI do like how that that context is

(24:51):
now you know, obviously not true, and you know, people are more
embracing the idea of living with bees, allowing them to do their thing be
a part of us. You know, when you go into looking for be
removal, the top hit is livebe removal isn't just like killing bee hives,
you know. You know, whenyou remove a bee hive because it's
in an area you don't want it, there's all kinds of people out there

(25:11):
that will come out and actually doa live removal and then transfer that beehive.
You know, if they're just Europeanbees, I work amongst them all
the time. They don't care.They you can, they'll buzz around you,
but they're busy doing their thing andas long as you're just you know,
ignoring them to a degree. Butthat whole Africanized killer bee thing you
remember from from the the eighties,nineties into the early two thousands, they

(25:33):
pretty much have control over that rightnow because they've done some inner breeding and
they're breeding down the aggressiveness of thosebees. They're still out there, but
not as bad as it was.Yeah, definitely, But Melinda, let's
talk a little bit about some ofthe plant choices. You know, you
had mentioned some earlier and having thesediverse groups, and you had said,
you know, just sometimes, youknow, incorporating these into the landscape.

(25:56):
You don't have to have a beehive, you don't have to have these
homes. You can just have alandscape that leans towards that are what are
you what are some tips when itcomes to plant choices and maybe incorporating some
things into the garden. You know, you mentioned milkweed as the host plant
for the monarch caterpillar, but it'salso a great pollinator plant. You will
see hummingbirds, a variety of bees, and butterflies nectaring on the flowers,

(26:19):
so you're helping not only monarchs,but other pollinators as well. I like
to use things like butterfly weed becauseit's less aggressive and great for full sun,
or the swamp milkweed. Go withyour local Desersee Society has great information
on the different milk weeds for differentregions of the country. I'm a huge

(26:40):
fan of Salvia's They are great forhummingbirds and butterflies and bees. Your herbs
are excellent. If you like timeboy, it makes a great ground cover.
It's a great herb. The beeslove the flowers on that as well.
Your parsley's, your dill, thosethings. I'm not known as a
great cook, but I love toinclude those in my garden and my landscape

(27:04):
when I use them for cooking.But I also love to bring in the
swallowtailed caterpillars. That that's a hostplant for those, and the flowers attract
a lot of beneficial insects, someof those parasitic wasp that feed on some
of the problem caterpillars. So you'rebringing in good guys that are not only
pollinating, but helping to manage someof those garden tests as well. I

(27:26):
love There's one of my favorite plantsis Calmenta. It's in the mint family,
but it's not if you get Calmentanepita nepada. That's a subspecies that
boy. We have it at ourState Fair garden. And you walk by
and you hear, just like youwere saying, Brian, they don't care
about us. The bees are justhaving a great time nectaring on the plant.
You can hear that buzzing and it'sgreat to watch that plant is covered

(27:51):
with bees. Native plants are alwaysgood choices as well. Things with tubular
flowers like our native honeysuckle, vineslike fuchsias like four o'clocks hibiscus are great
for bringing in the hummingbirds, andhummingbirds are great pollinators as well. I
was, you know, I'm doingmy talks on underappreciated pollinators, and that

(28:15):
includes things in some parts of thecountry like lizards and mice, and I'm
like, okay, I can embracethe beetles, the mice as long as
they stay in my guards cut.But you know, and bats as well.
They eat mosquitoes, but they pollinatesome of those more exotic fruits.
Exotic from my standpoint as a Northerner, the things that you guys are growing

(28:37):
in your gardens a little more readilythan we can. You know, I'm
sure you guys have some of yourfavorites as well. You know, it's
funny you mentioned bats and when wewere in Costa Rica that was a huge
pollinator. What was one of thebig crops, John, do you remember
that they mentioned? Was it coffeeor something that was a It was a
bat that pollinated it. It's oneof their major production crops. I can't

(29:00):
remember which one it was, butyou know, I was just so for
some reason, I'm thinking chocolate.I think it was chocolate, like and
yeah, maybe it was. Andlike, it's just so interesting because I
would never associate bats with pollinators,especially when it comes to like a production
crop. But like you said,Melinda, there's a lot of plants out

(29:22):
there that you're like, oh wow, how does that get pollinated? It's
got a flower at night, youknow, bat comes around the fragrance,
the direction of the flower and allthat had to do with it. Hey,
Melinda, we are gonna have totake another break right now. When
we get back, you have agreat opportunity for people to learn more about
pollinators coming up. So we'll talkabout your webinar coming up. You bet
your back with the Milinda Myers afterwe take a pause these messages on BIS

(29:45):
Talk Radio. You are tuned intoa Garden America on this Memorial Date weekend.
I'm Brian Maine, John Bag Nascartalking Pella Fox along with Milinda Myers.
Back after these messages on BIZ TalkRadio, we are back. Thank
you for tuning in to Garden America. By the way, those listening right
now on talk radio, this isthe final segment of outur number one top
of the air news coming your way. We come back a six minutes after

(30:06):
as we continue our conversation Tiger withMilinda Myers. Yeah, and Melinda has
a lot of great opportunities to learnmore about gardening on specific topics. If
you go to Melinda meyers website Milindamyersdot com, you can see all the
webinars and classes and events that shegoes to. But you have one specifically

(30:26):
designed for pollinators coming up right,Melinda, you bet On June fifth,
six thirty pm Central Time, I'mgoing to be doing a webinar and underappreciated
Pollinator. So we'll talk more aboutthe plants. We'll talk more about how
to plant, planting and mask makingsure you have something in bloom throughout the
season some of these you know,creating that habitat. And then at the

(30:48):
end of every live webinar, Ianswer questions, but I also record the
webinars lead leave them on my websiteso you can watch for free at your
convenience. Because I have no restricton paper. My handouts tend to be
really long with lots of links toother resources. Right, you know,
two pages just doesn't do it.So I like to give you lots of

(31:11):
resources that I found helpful that Ithink can help you. If you want
to learn more, great, Ifyou don't, you can just pass through
and do the basics on the handout. And so it's just I find it's
great. It's been a wonderful community. You know. I started doing webinars
during COVID because that was the wayI could reach people. And I was
happy to find that gardeners are great. Even though you know we're not sitting

(31:33):
in the same room and a building, there's a sense of community because gardeners
are always good at sharing what theyknow and passing it along to others.
So I love the opportunity to chat. This is a part of our library
program that we've been doing for afew years, sponsored by our energy company,
we Energy, and teamed up withthem Wisconsin and Upper Peninsula Michigan public

(31:55):
libraries to get the word out.But everybody is welcome, and so they
just allow me to reach a lotof gardeners, and we hope a lot
of your listeners can join as well. And you know you mentioned you know
you being in Wisconsin, but youknow, when it comes to you know
number one, your ability, you'rea you know, you have so much
knowledge that you can mostly address anyquestion where they're kind of coming from.

(32:17):
But then you know you mentioned thecommunity online. It also helps because if
somebody is in Kansas or California orFlorida, if you can't answer their question,
maybe specifically to what they're asking,there's a good chance that somebody will
be in the area that could possiblythrow their own two cents in. And
again that community where people can shareinformation and you know their successes their failures.

(32:45):
What a great way to just continuelearning more. How long are you
usually on for one of those webinarsyou So, I try really hard to
keep my portion down to an hourforty five minutes to an hour, and
then I have been and I stayon until all the questions are answered.
So depending on how many questions we'vehad, We've had a few marathons.

(33:07):
And I record the Q and Asession as well, So if you can't
stay with me as long as theQ and A is going, you could
always come back later and fast forwardto the part where you had to sign
off. I also, I haveto be honest. How do we learn.
We learn from each other. Asyou mentioned, Tiger, you know,
I have people from Texas and Californiaand British Columbia and the northeast and

(33:30):
the southeast and all over the country, and even had a few people from
Australia and New Zealand and the UKjoining us. And so obviously these gardeners,
like you said, have a lotof input and so sometimes you know,
somebody will ask and in the chatthey'll talk, oh, I've grown
this one or I've had problems withthis in my area, and so it's

(33:51):
great because we all get to learnsomething from each other. You know.
I have to mention too, Melinda, that I've been guard learning for almost
sixty years now, and I've listenedto you and interacted with you dozens of
times over the last few years.And I don't think I'm exaggerating to say

(34:14):
I have not interacted with you onetime where I didn't learn something new myself,
even with all the experience that Ihave. So our listeners out there
really take advantage of going to Melinda'swebinar and your website. By the way,
is fantastic. There's all kinds ofknowledge there that people have easy access

(34:36):
to if they go to Milindameyers dotcom. Well, thank you you're very
kind. I always learn something everytime I speak. I think that's the
joy of what we get to do, right, hang out with gardeners,
hang out with each other, andlearn something new every time we either go
to the garden or go to alecture. So thank you for those kind
words. It's always a pleasure tochat with you three. We have just

(34:58):
a couple of minutes. Johined youwant to hit that last question from Karla,
and then we'll have to sign off. Okay. Carlo says that she
doesn't like them, but she's fascinatedby yellowjacket wasps. She said they always
seem to just hover over plants andthey don't sin on them, So I

(35:19):
don't know how they are as pollinators. Will you be discussing them on your
webinar? You know, we willtalk. You know, wasp and hornets
are pollinators as well, and Iget it trying to coexist with those.
The German yellow jackets aren't native,so a lot of people have a lot
easier time, you know, Butneither or are honey bees either they're from

(35:42):
Europe, so yes, we'll talkabout kind of ways of living with them,
even ground bees, because one ofthe problems with ground bees is it
always seems like they put their nestright by your door, right nervous.
So making a bare area maybe facingthe southeast, leaving it unmulched, leaving
no plants away from your door wherethey can nest is a great way.

(36:04):
Michigan State University has a great bulletinonline about ground bees and the fact that
it's just a short period that they'rereally nesting, and that we need to
avoid them, and how we canlive with them. So yeah, I
will definitely talk about some of thosehow do we live together and still be
able to be happy them and usas well. So a great question,

(36:28):
and we'll talk a little bit aboutthe yellowjackets as well as some of the
hornets and wasted all right, thankyou very much for joining us this morning.
Melinda, I did post a linkfor people to register, and again
I do want to or let peopleknow that it is a free webinar,
but you have to register for it. I posted the link on our chat
right now to be able to joinMelinda on June sixth, was it June

(36:51):
fifth? June fifth? All right, so thank you very much for joining
us, Melinda, have a greatrest of the weekend, and you take
care. Look forward to seeing youat the webinar. Thank you so much.
Okay, Melenda Myers. John,Yeah, something new all the time
from her. I guess because Ican as she just discusses the topics that
she's hitting on. I see yourbrain moving, I see the eyebrows go

(37:12):
up. And that's usually two indicationsthat John disagrees with what somebody is talking
about, or he has just learnedsomething new, and in this case it
is a good thing. It's somethingnew, right right. I don't think
Melnda's ever giving me anything to disagreewith. Sometimes she surprises me, like
with her Hugel culture. Oh yeah, yeah, talk about habitats in her

(37:35):
yard. Hugo culture. That's agreat way. Do we got we got
a break coming up? We breakfor bistols. Did you see Kevin's question?
I think that's kind of an interestingYeah, avocado exactly because he doesn't
hits a ferte right and he doesn'thave a host to uh well, we'll
talk about the A and B typeavocados. Okay, so back after top

(37:57):
of the hour news here on bizTalk Radio. Do stay with us.
We are back at six minutes afterfor Bistalk Radio. Much quicker on Facebook
Life. Stay with us. Thisis Garden America. Welcome back to Garden
America. If you're just joining uson bis talk Radio, because this is
our number two, we welcome you. By the way, any of the
show you missed, you can goto our YouTube channel that's Garden America Radio
Show. This show will be uploadedlater on this afternoon. You can watch

(38:20):
all the previous shows as well.That's Garden America. That's a Garden America
Radio show on our YouTube channel,and you can watch any show that you
so desire, including this one ifyou did miss the first hour on bistalk
Radio. Now, Kevin had aquestion that we can actually take it a
few different directions, and he hadasked, he's got a fare Tel album,
is there any artificial ways to pollinatean avocado because he's got a fware

(38:45):
take doesn't have a hass yeah,and doesn't have a hoss and you know,
so first off, you know peoplethat don't are not familiar with avocados
is that they are not self fertilevarieties, which means you kind of have
to have two an A and aB tie is how they classify them in
the avocado world to be able topollinate each other, which then lead you

(39:07):
to having actual avocados. And ifyou're in an area that's I would say
more metro where you know, meaningyou have a lot of varieties of plants
in a dense area, there's areally good chance, you know, for
us in southern California, that you'vegot a variety of avocados within a mile
as the bird flies, which iswhat they use for your pollination range,

(39:31):
meaning meaning if you've got this plantwithin a mile of your house as the
bird flies, there's a good chancethat it's going to get pollinated. And
whether they're talking about avocados or fruittrees or citrus or vegetables, that's kind
of like the term that they use. But if you live in a rural
area where maybe your neighbor is amile away, you have to have those

(39:52):
plants close by because they need tobe able to cross pollinate each other.
I don't know of any way toartificially pall and eate something like that,
do you, John, let mesee how to put this? Yeah,
look look at the expression on hisface, because well, yes you can.

(40:12):
If you don't have bees around,there's nothing to stop you from using
your hands. But do you haveto go get a branch from another?
Avocados are self pollinating for the mostpart. Okay, D A and B
that you're describing are is at leastI find it's mostly for commercial production to

(40:32):
increase the amount of maximize the around, but they will produce self alone,
right And and just like with cheremoia, you know those usually need to be
self or hand pollen. How shouldgo about it? Well, just shaking?

(40:52):
Well either that or just get alittle brush and brush, yes,
just go from flower to the other. So so you know, to get
more in into that number one,you have to make sure that the flowers
are open, right because like whenyou when you have an avocado and you

(41:13):
see the they're butted up. Youcan't do it then because the flowers not
open. So there's that time thatthe flowers are open and active and ready
to be pollinated. And then there'sif you wait too long, you miss
the opportunity. If you go tooearly, you you haven't you know,
been able to do it yet,so you are talking about the birds and
we are we are, Brian.It's all about timing, okay. And

(41:37):
you know there's actually like John mentioned, you know, grab a brush.
There's actually a lot of devices outthere. We talked about that for pollinating.
Some people use exactly like truth brush. You know, like there's all
kinds of things. So you know, yes, there are ways and and
so then what you're getting at withthe A and B is more for maximize

(42:00):
production of the actual because having thosetwo you get a better what would that
be, pollenization rate kind of athing. Got it? So there you
go, Kevin, hopefully you cando it yourself. Yeah, Now does
that when anybody stop, you know, does that also come into play for
other fruit trees? Like they'll talkabout like an apple, like you needed

(42:21):
this apple and you need that apple. Where no, no, some some
some varieties of fruit trees have tobe cross pollinated with another variety. So
they have to be you have tohave that right, they're self sterile,
okay, so they won't pollinate themselves. Okay, So so not all but

(42:43):
it's not all variety, like it'snot all apples, but there are certain
varieties of apples that have to beyes. Some some fruit trees like peaches,
apples, negarines, all those areself fertile. Some have to be
crossed with a specific other variety kindof a thing. Yeah, it's usually
not specific. It's usually just anotherokay. But one of the things that

(43:06):
when you're looking at varieties, there'sa lot of variations. And one of
the variations in varieties is when theybloom. So you want definitely, if
you need cross pollination, you wanttoo that are blooming at the same time,
because if you have one that bloomsearly and ones that bloom late,
right, a very low chance thatthey're ever going to cross pollinate. They'll
never meet each other. Yeah,our friend Kevin wants to know what those

(43:29):
yellow flowers are what we're going totalk about. I brought those in.
I did, And you know,I'm fascinated by protea. You know,
proteas are native to South Africa,and are there some native to Australia too?
I think so, I'm trying tothink I didn't for some reason that
just flipped my mind. But anyway, there's proteus last forever and this is

(43:53):
a what is that tiger Lucas spermamI believe so. I haven't looked at
the name. I'm assuming it is. And they come in different colors,
but for some reason, I've alwaysbeen fascinated with the yellow ones. You
know, you see orange a lot, and sometimes you've seen red, but
the yellow to me just really standsout. And John is as much as

(44:15):
we've discussed in the past, leavingthe tags on certain plants so that you
know what it is in case youforget or becomes weather worn, you also
like to adhere to the fact ofleaving the price tag on your pots as
well. You feel that's very importantbecause a year later when he goes to
buy it, he'll know if theprice went up or down. And I
think that's a very good thing thatyou do. That's the mini pearl way

(44:38):
of keeping track of exactly is itmore expensive than it was last year?
Did the price go down? You're'snot going to know what that reference was,
are you? No? Do youknow who? Have you ever heard
of mini pearl? No, you'retalking about a necklace or something. The
grand Ole Opry. I know whatthat is. Okay, Well she was.
She used to be a host alongwith Roy Akoff, ry Akoff.

(44:58):
Oh yeah, and her kind herdeal was a hat straw straw hat and
the price tag was on it.It was always, yeah, that was
just that was just her deal.So that's where. So that's where like
athletes and rappers, you know,where they wear the hats and they have
all the tags, the stick asstill on it. It started with her.
Huh yeah, there you go.You don't want to give it her
credit? Yeah, yeah exactly.And then and make sure the bills flat,

(45:22):
don't you know, up the bills, you know, just as Tiger
didn't know what we were talking about. I just have no idea what you
were just talking. I do underneaththe hats, underneath it sometimes I've never
never heard of that. They justleave it on there, They just leave
it. You're like, you're likea cross between Tiger and I in the
middle between my dad. I wantto keep up on what's going on?

(45:45):
What are you kids up to thesedays? Turn that music down? So
John mentioned the Protea and you knowthis is a Lucas Bernham. Now I
will say Lucas Lucas Burmham's have becomevery popular recently because were actually very difficult
to grow, you know, meaningmeaning like protea plants, like you know,
they had to have the right watering, exposure, drainage, all that,

(46:08):
but the Lucas Berman seemed to bemore versatile. But they still give
you that really neat looking flower.Yeah. And I love the marketing of
this particular one because it's called theForever flower because they will put that flower
into an arrangement and it kind oflasts forever, meaning it just looks that

(46:29):
way forever, like it doesn't likeI mean, if you touch it and
over time and damage it, thelittle you know, stamens and all of
that will fall off. But ifyou see him dried, they look exactly
like how it is on the planet. It looks very alien. I love
the way those things open up likethat. Yeah. They And if you

(46:49):
feel a flower, Brian, itfeels waxy like it could be fake,
not even real, right, yeah, exactly. Carla mentions that she saw
saw that for a good price athome deepot And usually these things are really
expensive, and this one came fromLows and it was I think nineteen ninety
eight or something like that, exactly. See, that's why you leave the
price tag on there, John,But that's a good price for those,

(47:13):
and it usually don't see them inone gallon cans. How big will those
get? Oh? God? Differentvarieties though, there are some low growing,
like sweeping, like horizontal one.Right, I would say like three
to four feet. You can leavethat in the pot for a while.
Couldn't you in that pot for alittle while? When's the time to move
it into a bigger house? Isthis so that we can convince Stana to

(47:36):
let you get Oh no, I'mjust curious because a lot of time it
would do well on you because I'dbe I think it would stay too wet.
It's too even if you didn't waterit. Your patio's so shaded that
I think you you it would juststruggle. Well, I'd put it out
in the sidewalk with the rest ofthem. Uh huh. They get this
time of the year. The sidewalk'sgoing to get a lot of afternoon sun.

(47:57):
But you're right, Yeah, butI think John brings up a point
of keeping in a pot. They'reactually kind of difficult to keep it.
Yeah, you want to better inthe ground. We're going to take a
break. This is this is fascinating, by the way. Speaking of mini
pearl, Rochelle writes, how weakthere you go? That that was kind
of her Moniker there the words rightout of my mouth. I was just

(48:20):
gonna tell you that we think alot of like this is Garden America.
We're taking a break for BIS TalkRadio. Hey, we have return.
Thank you for sticking with us duringthe break. I hope you had a
good break. We did. Welove our breaks BIS Talk Radio, Facebook
Live. A lot of good questionsand a lot of interest struck up here
with the conversation with the plant thatJohn brought in, the proteo. Yeah,
I like the way that our listenershelp each other with the questions too,

(48:43):
because Carlo said, so it's nota protea, and Tanya in San
Jose explained that it's in the proteafamily. It's not the protea genus,
which are sometimes referred to as featherflowers. Is that what they can But
a lot of the would be likethis is a pincushion, I guess second

(49:04):
or third cousin. I mean proteis usually referred to not the genus,
but just the plants in the proteafamily. So there's us, you know,
there's Banksias, uh, Lucas spermam'slucadendrons. Uh, protia, but
is it prot right? That's theright. The overall family Gravillias are in

(49:28):
the family. Yeah, they liveright next door to the prote Ace family,
like the Head family. Yes,and then all you got the gravillia
Lucas Burmham. Yeah, all thosedown there. But you're right, John,
We do appreciate the people on FacebookLive who could talk to each other
and answer certain questions and amongst ourselves. And I'm sure right now John is
reading Kevin's question. Yeah, Kevin'sgot a wonderful surprise growing in his backyard

(49:52):
this year. He's going to besending us a photo of it, and
he trusts that will publish it inthe news line. It's funny in Costa
Rica. I'm sitting next to Kevinon the bus. He goes, hey,
hey, come here second, Ican ask you a question. I
go, yeah, sure, Kevin. So how come John never publishes my
pictures in the newsletter. I've senthim all these pictures and he never puts

(50:14):
them in. So I think that'swhat he's referring. Yeah, he did.
He felt bad, Well, hehurt his feelings. He should feel
bad. If that was true,But I honestly cannot remember Kevin ever sending
me a picture that I did notpost. Okay, Kevin John at Gardinamerica
dot com to get your picture postedin the newsletter. I get them all

(50:34):
the time, okay. So I'mthinking that it's more a reflection on Kevin
not reading our newsletters. Oh alwaysposted one. All right, well,
Kevin, we're looking forward to thisto be published in the newsletter because it
says that you say, it's veryvery special. Yeah. Sometimes you know,

(50:57):
sometimes I have to struggle to getthree pictures. We only post three
a week, yeah, and othertimes too many, Okay, like you
a dozen and I've just got topick three. Do we have any has
anybody sent you any critters or animalsrunning around their backyard or oh my gosh,
So you know Cheryl who came withus to Costa Rica, Cheryl,

(51:20):
uh right, Oh, Chry CherryCherry Sherry our dary a lot. Yeah,
yes, Terry got it. SoI'm a I follow her on Facebook.
She posted a video this week ofher house. She has one of
these of a rabbit and a gophersnake fighting like it was like minute,

(51:46):
yeah, minutes long here is thegopher snake fighting the rabbit in the We
should do that, we should,I shouldn't get the video and do like
a funny voice. Now, Ididn't realize it was a gophers, said,
because I thought it was a rattlesnake. I think she said gophers.
Anyway, who won? You looklike the rabbit. I will tell you,

(52:09):
I've seen videos of rabbits fighting,and they're not to be messed with
when it comes to snakes or predators. They go down with a fight,
they really and they can't read watershipdown. No, oh, it's about
rabbits fighting each other. Watership down, waters down, she said. A

(52:30):
rabbit tormenting a gopher snake. Sothe rabbit's picking the fight. But they'll
do that sometimes to be the aggressorfirst of all, you know, as
to protect themselves and not wait tobe attacked. But yeah, they kick,
they're they're mean. Kevin is beingspecific. Now, all right,
Kevin, I think you're true.That's true. He picked out one picture

(52:54):
that I did not post, andI remember that week because the picture was
a little dark. It was abay plant that he had, like a
bay laurel, yeah, that hehad brought from uh, California, and
that week I had a whole bunchand because the picture quality of that one,

(53:14):
I picked another one. So Iapologize for that. But you know,
Tanya backs me up here, Kevin, and she says she's seen pictures
from you. Hey, guess whoguess who's setting us greetings from Costa Rica?
Drew? What our bus driver?Right? Hey, Drew, thank
you for reaching out. Drew.Hello, Drew. Yeah, how fun

(53:37):
he's got to be. I thinkhe's still on his vacation, right,
wasn't that the last trip? Ithink his time right now, so he's
kind of kicking back still. Youknow something about Drew besides being an excellent
driver, Oh gosh, I meanyou would you would go anywhere with him
and trust him to get you theresafely. But he had a great,
great eyesight. Yeah, he couldsee me picking things out. Yeah,

(53:59):
he's like Georgie Costanza. I cansee that diamond the corner, right,
I don't miss anything. I seethem all. He made our trip so
much more enjoyable. So we're lookingtigers putting together another tour for us.
So while we're in the early stagesof testing the waters to see who would
be interested. Yeah, maybe maybedrool coming driver us on that one.

(54:22):
Yeah. Veranaka mentioned that she readwatershipped down, so she thinks she should
do it, and she says rabbitscan be vicious. You know, they
made a cartoon of the movie andthe the music for the movie was from
Art Garfunkle to picture him being anaggressive singer songwriter to match the aggressive What

(54:45):
was the song and one of ourlisteners will know the song that he's sang,
But it's not an aggressive song.It's a it'll come to me.
I can't think of it right now, but I remember I've liked the book,
so obviously I wanted to see themovie, and I'm thinking, you

(55:05):
know, we take our kids toit, and it's like rabbits fighting and
killing and blood all over. Really, somebody said, you know that really
wasn't a movie for kids. That'skind of like, you know, you
know, it's funny because along thesame lines rabbit movies, there was the
the I mean, they were morelike tales Peter Rabbit, Peter Rabbit up

(55:28):
from Bambie. Well, no,but Peter Rabbit's kind of like you're saying,
like an intense story. Well,when you really know, the real
Peter Rabbit, not like the cartoonDisney version of Peter Rabbit. But when
you read the story and then therewas the the mongoose in this Ricky Yeah,
that was an intense story too.Yeah. Bright Eyes was the name

(55:51):
of the song that bright Yes,I do. Actually, bright Ice was
the name of one of the rabbits. I'm thinking he gets killed. I
don't want to ruin the movie foranyone, but oh he was the It's
called bright Eyes because he had visionsand he could see things. Since see

(56:12):
into the future, rabbit, theycan see into the future. Ah,
rabbits and gardens. Though not good, we have all. Carlo's view of
the movie was I hated that movie. It was dark and depressing. Okay,
we're going to take a break.We have two more segments still to
come on this Memorial Day weekend.If you're listening to us after the fact
that we hope you enjoyed the showanyway, break for our friends on biz

(56:36):
Talk Radio. Brian Main, JohnMagnasco, Taget Pella Fox back after these
messages, two more segments here onGarden America. Garden America back from the
break, as we continue looking atall the Facebook questions and comments, Boy,
we went down a rabbit hole,didn't we? Yes, we did
go down a rabbit hole, anda lot of feedback there, there's a
lot of comments they reproducing like rabbits. So we have a lot ofrabbits in

(57:00):
our area, and you know theythey drop all the time, a little
rabbit pellets as we like to callthem. Been there and our cats love
to stare. Oh boy, they'rejust fascinated by these rabbits. Really.
Yeah, and they're big, healthyrabbits too, Because we have coyotes in
the area, and every now andthen you'll go a month or two like
where'd the rabbits go? I've seentwo coyotes in the past two weeks in

(57:23):
city areas walking down the street.Wow, you know, like I I
will go years without seeing coyote.Well, we trustful, are distrustful?
Did you ever see him look atyou? You know, like they give
you a sideways glass glance and theykind of keep going. It's like that
alley cat that trots down the alley, you know, kind of look over

(57:45):
his shoulder, but keep on goingwith that truck. Well, yeah,
they have good reason not to trustus. Yeah, I was gonna say,
I don't think I trust us either. I was a coyote. I
never saw the Money Python movie.But Mary says that the rabbit in the
cave vicious. I can't remember thatso vicious rabbits? Yeah, now,

(58:05):
was there was a rabbit, AlisonWonderland. Did we touch upon that already?
We did not? But there wasright, it was the white Rabbit
Jefferson Airplane, White Rabbit. Wellthat's what the song is about, is
it. Yeah, if you gochasing rabbits. You never heard that song
Jefferson Airplane. I think you have, and that the whole thing is about,
about the whole psychedelic mushrooms and thatwhole Alison, what song was that

(58:27):
White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. Yeah, that's right. What's her name,
Grace Slick Slick, Gray Slicks.Yeah, I remember the picture of Grace
Slick holding her daughter upside down byher feet. Well that was Michael Jackson,
wasn't it. He did the samething, but he didn't do it
upside down? She was this picturewas yeah, exactly. It was not

(58:50):
going to be a good mother.The album is called Surrealistic Pillow nineteen sixty
seven, Jefferson. I almost saidstarship Jefferson airplane. Right, he became
the star ship in the setting.They weren't any good when they became the
star and a couple of good Theydidn't have a couple of good songs.
Yeah they did. Miracles was agood song. They never got better than
Somebody to Love. Yeah, alwaysinto the music absolutely, Kevin, what

(59:20):
Kevin? We love Kevin? Youknow that we do. And he's he
had his feelings hurt because I didn'tpost that. Take another picture, ye,
take another picture. Can make surethe lighting is good and send it
to me and I'll put it inthe newsletter. There you go. Yes,
yeah, because John is just notcritical of just the plants, he's
also critical of your photography. Right. But it's got to be a good

(59:44):
photo, right to be able topost it, because yeah, John haves
to transfer it, you know,it's got to be to be able to
kind of share it, make surethat people can see whatever it is.
That well. Again, I usuallytry to photoshop them and make them,
you know, yeah a little bitbetter, But I I said that that
particular week, I happened to geta lot of photos so and to be

(01:00:05):
honest, I can't remember exactly becausethat was more than a week. Thousands
of thousands of pictures too. Yeah, yeah, don't don't feel hurt,
Kevin. No, I send Johnwrite photos also, but he never posted
post Bryan. Try to post Brian'sall the time. You do a pretty
good job. Yeah, yeah,I mean I send it to you in
case you're lacking that week. Here, in case you need a picture,

(01:00:27):
here's one. Yeah, you know, I was sending pictures of dinner plates
and cabinets and things that weren't gardeningthe way. So he never never replied.
He never posted it or put itin the newsletter. No. He
sent me a picture a Dane offive weeks in a row, and I
never posted. As much as Ilove Dane, I figured, oh,
you want plants. You want thingsthat are outside that are growing, which
is why I asked about the animals, because sometimes people will send us something

(01:00:50):
of something they caught walking in theirbackyard at night. Tanya loves your music
knowledge. Thank you, ton Ifyou have any questions, let me know
anything. From the nineteen fifty dthrough the late seventies country music too.
Right, well, I get intocountry. I was a country DJ right
during that time, so I kindof lost track a little bit about pop
music. Yeah, questions comments righthere on Facebook. Kevin's gonna get Terry

(01:01:15):
his wife to help him. Yeah, with the good for you, Kevin.
Yeah, and Carla's got a question. Back to plants. I love
how she takes us back in Okay, guys, back to plants. She
says, Mizonal geraniums in pots arenot doing well. They've got brown spots
on the bottom of the leaves.Is it rust? And yellow spots too,

(01:01:36):
They're dropping their leaves. Suggestions.I think overwatering could be. And
the weather's been really cool, sonormally you don't retain the water well,
normally, you know, you don'thave a problem over watering geraniums in the
summer. But she's on the coast, cool weather on top of that,
so you have rust and disease andand it may not be overwatering, but

(01:02:01):
that's a good possibility, and itcould be just the rust causing it.
But there's really nothing you can do. Yeah, I meant that you can
pull off the rusty leaves, oryou can use a funge a side.
Yeah, but you know, fertilizedwill push out new growth and then if
you can cut them back and ifyou manage the watering, then the new

(01:02:23):
growth won't be as affected by it. So you know, that's something that
you could possibly do. We geta lot of heavy marine layer this weekend
too, and a little bit lastweek, and I've noticed that my plants
were not drying out as quickly asthey normally would if it was very hot
and sunny. Right, Yeah,it was like a slight drizzle this morning,
and that's okay. You know what, the less I have to water,

(01:02:44):
the better. Well, And Imean for us living in San Diego,
we know the heat will come.In the dry weather, we'll come.
It's not a matter of if it'sa matter of wind coming. So
we don't have a problem delaying thatas long as possible. You know,
it does push back our season alittle bit, you know, for the
past couple of years we've we've hadthis weird late spring. But it's almost

(01:03:05):
a questionable thing where it's like,do we just go from I don't know,
early spring to summer sometimes where allof a sudden, you wake up
one day and it's hot and dryand it never gets and then it stays
that way until October exactly anyway,John's grinning. I wanted curious why I'm
grinning because heaven right back. No, No, we had this this question
before, and we'll have to rememberin the future that when we bring in

(01:03:30):
a plant to move Brian's fake grassaway, oh, because the people wonder
what the grass is, because millionthe poma wants to know what that grass
is. And it's just plastic.Right, if you were to call that
grass, actually it feels stiff.It's kind of a stiff. I guess
it's plastic, but it I don'tif you were to name that that plastic

(01:03:52):
grass, I think it'd be aCarricks what Karrick's plasticus, Carrick's plastic Karrack's
plasticatis, because it's it's too thickto be a festuca, and you know,
it's not big enough to be likea mullen Jert, a Mulembergia or
panacedum or any of those. SoI think it's a Carricks. We'll say

(01:04:14):
it's a Carricks plastic roonica. That'sright, it's fake. Well, you
know what's funny is a lot oftimes people will think those proteas or that
lucas bm area right, and youwill see those fake in stores, and
it is very difficult to tell whichone is really. Oh, like I
said, even if you feel it, you it feels plastic. Yeah,
there's there's a rose let that waytoo. Well, you know what?

(01:04:38):
Speaking of that, A couple ofweeks ago, we talked about different roses
and I brought up the impost roseand you posted a picture of Carla's imposter
rose in the newsletter. I thinkCarlo sent that picture because of hard to
discuss, shocking about it. Yeah, And I showed that picture to my
wife and I said, we needto get another one of these. Yeah.
It brought back a lot of memories. Yeah, memories. That was

(01:05:00):
just memories you're thinking of, Thanksfor the memories when he would end his
show, thanks the memories. I'mtalking. The other one would be Barbara
Streissan, How does it happen likethat? What going down? Because it's
a flood, It's a flood ofof random consciousness. The musical cats right,

(01:05:21):
right, exactly. But while I'mtalking about four or five years ago,
when the impost rose was a bigtopic on our show, we discussed
it for right, because I wasresponsible for introducing that into the country.
I like John's formal introductions to whathe introduces. He's very formal. Impost
rose. This is Tiger, Tigerthe impost rose, and this is Brian.

(01:05:44):
You're welcome. No, you guyslost me on now, but I
named it in between. I cango the way I named the rose.
We've talked mentioned that story several times. By the way, I uh want
to take a moment to say hito our buddy Hastam from Pakistan, dedicated
viewer and listener. When we weretalking about with Melinda about pollinators, he

(01:06:11):
was mentioning pollinating's going on over there, that it's their summer now, okay,
yeah, well we're getting in yoursummer too. Yeah, it's supposed
to be our summer, but we'restill having cool. Yeah. Well,
like Tiger says, when July hitsand then we'll be complaining about the heat
right after June gloom, it's it'sfull steam ahead. Yeah, full steam

(01:06:32):
ahead. Okay, about thirty secondsto the break and then one more segment
after this. That's all. That'sit, So let's take a break.
Now, let's take a break.One more segment coming up, Plenty of
time for your questions, your comments. Various rabbit holes We've gone down this
morning, having a good time hereon Guard in America. Happy Memorial Date
weekend two. By the way,Tiger Pella Fox, I'm Brian made John

(01:06:53):
Magnasco. We are back after thesemessages on BIS Talk Radio. All right,
we are back. A little politegolf round of applause because we're we
hit the final segment. We're onthe home stretch, the last furlong.
John back to Kevin. By theway, my daughter Gina sent me a

(01:07:13):
picture of bouquet of penies that shepicked from her backyard, and I did
not put it in the newsletter.Oh yeah, she said her feelings were
hurt, right, did she shedswere hurt? They should be Oh,
running out to Kevin that my owndaughter send a photo, send a photo.

(01:07:35):
And it didn't go. So basicallywhat we're saying, it's come down
to this. If John posts yourpicture in the newsletter, it's like winning
the lottery, you know, balloons, confetti. Yeah, you know,
we've been trying to think of waysto make more money for the company.
Yeah, you get to pay toget to pay to put your play.

(01:07:57):
As they used to say, keepthose cards and letters coming. We say,
keep those pures coming. Yeah,it's fun to see. Well,
you know, you know, Iwas just thinking about when we were talking
about all the photos and kind offunny photos that I think gardeners take,
you know, and and we usuallyshare flowers or plants, you know,
that people are proud of. Butthere's also when you're in the garden and

(01:08:20):
you're a gardener, there's also thosekind of interesting photos you take, whether
it's maybe a bug or a critter, or or maybe like a mushroom or
fungus, because you're like, whatis this happening here? I don't know
what's growing? And you know,there's all kind I'm gonna start doing that.
I'm gonna look for weird things andyeah, John strikes his fancy.

(01:08:44):
Yeah there's you know, or evenwhat's what's happening right now in my yard
is all the freezer freezia bulbs arestarting to die off and you know,
you know, die and the seedpods that are left on planeah go dormant.
Yeah they're not really dead, butbut seed pods, you know,

(01:09:06):
on plants sometimes you know, Athey look nothing like the flower, and
b they can make some interesting shapesor structures. You know, I mean,
I'm creating that video right now forthe Esclippias. And we talked about
that. Remember that family jewels asClubby as we saw. Yeah, you
made grab it, Bryan Kim heregrab I want to get a picture.

(01:09:28):
But I mean, you know,there's all kinds of weird seed pods that
happen on plants. That what wasthat? What's the Do you know the
botanical name of the sausage tree?John? You know what I'm talking about?
That that it's a mastic tree Cogiliaafricana. Huh. I wish I
could remember that. Make a beerout of it? In Kenya they do

(01:09:50):
make beer out of that, abeer, A yeah beer, sausage beer,
but it looks like sausages. Meone of those, because I had
two of them when I lived onPe. They're hanging sausages and they both
died. You know, talking aboutpollinators, those are pollinated by baths.
Are they where they had one ofthose? Do you remember that? What's

(01:10:14):
that? Uh? In Fallbrook area? It was the place where we would
go. Uh, proven winners hadit. It's an event center like they
have weddings and things. The GrandTradition, the Grand Tradition, They had
one of those. Yeah, Idon't know why mine died. They both
died. They they both got tobe big trees and they flowered and had

(01:10:34):
sausages. They look like a bunchof salamis. It looks like Allian Deli
where they're just hanging down. Yeah, but I want one, and I
haven't been able to think. We'vetiptoed around this majestically. Yeah, exactly,
it's so so anyways, there's somereally interesting things out there that John

(01:10:58):
years ago too. Was this youor Bruce? We did the macro photos?
Oh yeah, we zoom in andpeople had to guess what it is.
It was called he gave away aprize? Yeah, what's it?
Or something like that. Yeah,you had to guess what the plant was.
I think that's we should do justfor fun. Maybe I'll try to
do it. I can get prettyclose, yea, And you want to

(01:11:20):
do it, that's fine. Doesn'tdo close ups? Well, I've got
a fourteen What is yours? Idon't know. Yeah, and even that's
not the newest one. Yeah.No, you you don't need a close
up. You just need to takeit at high res, right, and
then you photo shop it. Right. But silly. I feel like it
always mine's always go to fuzzy,even if I take it at high resident

(01:11:44):
zoom in. I don't know.I'm probably doing something wrong. Or you
can just work on his John's video. Then yeah, stay in your comforting,
stay in my lane, stay hereexactly. Well you can. It's
easy to do on pick monkey,right. You know what. I don't
have a pick monkey account anymore becauseI I quit subscribing. I just wasn't
using it. But for that firsttwo years when you turn me onto it

(01:12:04):
and I was playing with pictures allthe time. Well, the company has
one, you can. I knowyou have to. You have to.
When we're off the area, Ineed to the password and sign in.
Just give it to a now elselogs on exactly. Look at Kevin.
I love the newsletter. I alwaysread it and look forward to them.
And now he's being nice. Youand Ken have made us this love affair

(01:12:25):
now is blossoming again. Yeah,Kevin's he's so funny. You know a
lot of times our only relationship withlisteners is is through the radio show right
right, Facebook, And it's sonice to get to meet people in person.
Uh, you know, it wasfun traveling with both Kevin and Terry

(01:12:47):
to Costa Rica. But you know, now you have a different appreciation for
someone because you actually know who knowthat right and about them, speak of
them. And he's been that wellever since I've known him from junior high
school. Great guy. I've alwaysloved Kevin. Well. We probably shouldn't
mentioned it on the air unless youwant to, but the story that he
told about your high school streaking,I don't think we would have ever known

(01:13:12):
that because you never told us.We we've got about a minute to goo
here. So basically, we wereseniors in high school. It was the
seventies, and we were talking about, hey, why don't we just take
our gym clothes, we'll strip downnaked, We'll run from the gym to
the football field and then dressed there. We're like, nah, no,
better or not. And the coachescaught wind of it and they said,
why you guys chicken You're gonna chickenout? Well, the coaches, so

(01:13:36):
we we have, you know,we have the get go from the coaches.
So we did and we ran outthere and it was embarrassing for a
couple of guys who fell and hadto get up, and you had a
pro football player do that? Whois that? Didn't you have a one

(01:13:56):
of the guys in your team wasa football player? Right, Well,
there was a lot of guys outthere there anyway anyway, So yes,
ka, we did that. Westreaked and a lot of guys didn't get
dates after that, and that wasthat was the joke. Okay, we're
gonna go. Thank you so muchfor putting up with this this Memorial Day
weekend, letting us go down afew rabbit holes. We we love you
all. Thank you so much.Those on biz Talk Radio, Facebook Live,

(01:14:17):
enjoy the rest of your weekend,and we're gonna reconvene next week,
right, guys, yep, backhere San Diego, California. iHeartMedia and
Entertainment Studios for the entire crew.I'm Brian Maine, John Beg, Nascar,
Tuget, Pella, Fox. Thankyou, enjoy the weekend. We'll
do it again next week here onGuard in America.

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Underappreciated Pollinator Plants with Melinda Myers - Garden America Podcast & Radio Show [5.25.24]

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Underappreciated Pollinator Plants with Melinda Myers - Garden America Podcast & Radio Show [5.25.24]