(00:00:00) Nice to have that snow on the ground, isn't it? Dan (00:00:02) Brown you bet. It is my God. It's just a little bit late. We would have liked it a couple months ago. (00:00:07) Mmm-hmm. That brown is with us today. She is extension horticulturist at the University of Minnesota and we'll be talking about any sorts of questions you have about plants indoor plants mostly house plants, maybe a few outdoor things if there are some concerns you have at this time of the year, but mostly I think we'll talk about the indoor stuff today. But before we get to that I want to ask you to anything start coming out of the ground during that warm weather we (00:00:31) had well I tell you at my house nothing was coming out of the ground, but the buds on the shrubs were really getting big and soft and swollen. I mean they were ready to pop and I suspect those are all going to freeze in they're going to have to be replaced with some new buds. (00:00:46) That's not a big problem for the treason. (00:00:47) It's not a big problem. Usually it certainly doesn't help the many but most trees and shrubs are able to put out more than one set of new leaves at one time. And so I don't I don't think that's anything to worry about. But except that it's one piece of the puzzle. Everything is got sort of a history of environmental stress from the past couple of years and it's just one more insult added to the list. How do you how do you is (00:01:12) you look now toward the spring. How do you think the Lawns are going to be this coming (00:01:16) here? Oh, well, I hate to get out on a limb too far. But I think the Lawns that were in good shape last fall will probably come through pretty well The Lawns that were really moisture stressed that went dormant real early because we didn't have rainfall and people didn't water them way into the Autumn. I think those Lawns are more likely to be damaged. Okay, (00:01:40) as for house plants, how do you keep him alive? (00:01:45) Well, we didn't have any drought indoors and it's you know, it's dry. It's not very humid, but we can we can deal with the indoor conditions for house plants. And I think one of the main things you have to realize is in the winter when the days are short and the plants aren't Getting enough light to carry on an awful lot of photosynthesis and growth that you kind of scale back a little bit what you're doing in terms of watering usually and certainly how much fertilizer you're giving the plants. (00:02:10) Do you usually fertilize plants house plants once a year twice a year (00:02:14) - well you fertilize them when they're growing actively. And so that's that's real variable. If you have plants in a nice sunny south facing bay window. They may be putting on New Growth all year long. And so you would fertilize them often on all year long Some people prefer to fertilize with every watering where they cut down the fertilizer rate. So that's very very mild and every time they water their putting some fertilizer in the plant. That's really only good. If you've got a nice bright location and it needs fertilizer all the time some locations, you might get by with two or three times a year depending on how the plant is growing. (00:02:52) Dan Brown is with us will open the phone lines for your questions for her if you have one about house plants today 2276 thousand is Minneapolis st. Paul 2276 thousand in the Twin Cities outside Minneapolis st. Paul toll-free at 1-800-695-1418 hundred six hundred 529700. And those numbers are good anywhere you can hear us within the state of Minnesota and in the surrounding states as well. Let's see. Are we set with that? First question? Let's go to it. Hi, you're on the air with Dan Brown. (00:03:26) We don't have any houseplants right now and we'd like to get started with them. We're really interested in Easy to care for plants to use while we're finishing our new house in particular. Is there any really good hearty tree type plant we could put in a living room that's got a vaulted ceiling and a western exposure. (00:03:45) Well, if you don't mind picking up leaves on a fairly regular basis, I would suggest that the Ficus benjamina is the plant for you Ficus benjamina does drop leaves the oldest leaves every so often and Usually when you first buy the plant and bring it into your home is showers quite a few leaves down but once it gets stabilized and it gets accustomed to the environment particularly in A nice bright location, and it sounds to me that if you can get it close enough to the window where it really gets some direct sunlight that that might work really well for you and that can be bought as a shrub or as a small tree. And in fact, if you have a lot of light it will continue to grow sometimes to the point where you have to prune them but it gives you a very nice look now if you don't have as much light as I'm thinking you probably do from a West window or if you're really planning to put the plant in quite a few feet from that West window, then the other plant that I would think of is perhaps a kinship Palm that's spelled ke n TI a kinship home is one of the best big kind of architectural palms for relatively low light many of the big problems that we grow indoors need to have tremendous. Levels the kinship will give you nice big leaves are dark green really sort of sculptural. They're very lovely. They're not cheap, but then neither is a large Ficus benjamina and that's it's almost like investing in a piece of furniture, but they're very easy to take care of. So either one of those ought to do for you (00:05:19) if you want to get a smaller one save a little dull does it take forever for him to get big (00:05:23) well with the with a poem they're fairly slow growing. Yes, you're lucky if they put on may be more than one or two Franz a year. So they don't grow very rapidly at these at least this particular poem doesn't grow rapidly The Ficus benjamina if it's getting a lot of sunlight it will grow fairly fairly rapidly. But again when you're talking tree sighs, you're not going to go from a two foot plant to a six foot plant in a year or two. It's going to take (00:05:53) time. Alright our next question for Debbie Brown from you'll go ahead please (00:05:57) hi. I'd like to talk a bit more. The Ficus benjamina that you were just talking sure I have one that I've had for about 15 years. It's the location that it's in now it's been in that location for eight years. I'm used to a few least loss things happening in the fall. But this year the leaf loss has been steady and overwhelming I lose about eight to ten leaves a day any ideas. What could cost us? (00:06:22) Well, have you repotted it recently? No, I haven't if it's if it's really rootbound. If it's been in the same container for a number of years, it may be that it needs to be put into a larger container both to have some new fresh soil added to what's already there and to give the roots more room to expand when the roots aren't able to do their job real. Well, the the tree will more or less prune itself and drop some of the leaves. It's the same as putting a ficus benjamina in low light it will hold onto some leaves but it won't hold onto a nice leafy canopy the way it does in a bright location. The other thing to do is to examine those leaves. Carefully and examine the twigs and the stems and make sure that you don't have any type of an insect infestation. They can get scale insects that you would see some sticky residue on them on the leaves and perhaps on the on the floor beneath it. You can also have some spider mites and other problems and and that could cause them to drop as well. (00:07:21) How do problems like that happened with an indoor plant? Well, (00:07:26) what is it come from? Yeah, every time you bring in a new plant if someone gives you a cutting and a friend or a neighbor or you go to the store and bring one in there's always the potential for some contamination to accidentally carry along probably not insects, but maybe eggs that really aren't very visible. No stories ever going to sell you a plant that they know has any insect problem on it that it's just bad business practice, but the eggs are so small in most cases that they're virtually invisible to the naked eye and They do move from one plant to another that way. The other thing is in December when people bring in Pine boughs or pine trees some of the spruces for Christmas decorations. They might have spider mite eggs on those needles because the same spider mites it infect our plants indoors live outdoors. They don't do any real significant damage to the Pines, but they come in dormant and then in the warmth of your home, they start to hatch out and somehow they migrate to the plants probably people give them a little bit help (00:08:34) unknowingly. Sure. Alright another question here for Deborah Brown. Go ahead, please you're on with (00:08:39) her. Yes. Thank you. I have a lovely south-facing sunspace trainings blooming all winter long that kind of thing. It's just terrific but it does tend to be a little dry. And I you know, I'm keeping plants alive. I'm keeping the growing but I'm having an awful trouble getting rid of (00:08:57) scale. Oh dear. Yeah scale insects are really very tough. And I know that there are insecticides. There's one called orthene that is an ingredient in one of the ortho houseplants praise. That is a systemic insecticide that might give you some help with that people also use some of the insecticidal soap products you can wash the scale off, but unfortunately the scale is the mature insect and the the immature insect the crawler stage. They're so tiny that you really don't see them very often and so you have to attack not just the scale which you can see but but the immature scale as well. I don't really have a good answer for that. I know that when people do use insecticides, they frequently will put a little bit of dishwashing detergent in them to make them slipperier so that they slide under that sort of Wax. She'll that that is in fact, the the protective covering of the scale insect, but that that's a real hard problem. And as you know in a warm dry Place most insects will multiply very rapidly. So I don't have a I don't have a wonderful answer for you other than to keep after it a lot of patience required song. Yeah, sometimes when a plant is badly badly infected with scale the best thing to do is to prune off the worst areas of it just literally cut off branches or maybe even cut the plant down to the ground and let it come up from the roots. That's that's sort of a last-ditch effort. But if it's really bad you're better off getting rid of it and seeing if you get some nice new growth coming up then leaving it around where it can serve as a source of infestation for all your other plants. (00:10:45) Here's our next question for Deb Brown. She's listening for you now, go (00:10:48) ahead. Hi. I have a question about starting seeds indoors and I'm doing my first Trades right now some of the seed packets and I'm starting in patients and geraniums right now say that the seeds prefer a warm climate and I have them in my basement under lights, but I because because it's winter I turn my heat down during the day. So it's like 50 degrees and then when I'm home, it's only up to 65. They recommend maybe putting it on top putting the Flats on top of the refrigerator to keep them warm and at an 80 degree temperature, but usually refrigerator space is don't have light and so I'm wondering which is more important and and might you have some other ideas (00:11:34) about that. Well, I do have another idea. There's no way to say which is more important heat or light both are both are critical when you've got temperatures of 50 to 60 or 65 degrees upstairs chances are it's considerably cooler in the basement, and that's great if you're starting some of the cab. Family plants that like cool temperatures broccoli and cauliflower and things like that are going to come right up in those cool temperatures. But as you notice the the flowers that you're looking for most of them do not want to have that kind of a cool soil to seeds will just sit. Sometimes they rot what you probably ought to be looking at is a some kind of a heating system. You can buy heating cable from maybe some of the larger garden centers certainly some of the seed and plant catalogs where you have an electric cable that you just snake under your flats or beneath the soil or some of them are on sort of like a pad that you set your Flats on to it's almost like using a an electric blanket or a heating pad so that you have some bottom warmth. It's the soil itself. It's not the air that needs to be warm so much at this stage as the soil itself. And so that would be your best bet I think. Then you don't have to change the temperature in the entire (00:12:57) basement a plant heating pad. (00:13:00) Yes only they're called heating cables (00:13:01) heating cables. Okay, right. All right. Well, good luck. And let's move on to your question. Now Debbie Brown is listening. Hi. (00:13:07) Hi. Hi Kath. Hi. I have a question about an outdoor problem. Sure, the young maple tree. I've had it about three years. It has some very low branches which should be trimmed off and I'm wondering when is it an appropriate time to do (00:13:23) that? Well, that's a real good question because winter is a good time for pruning most shade trees. Now. I need to warn you that if you prune the limbs of a maple tree this time of the year, you're going to see a tremendous amount of sap flowing out at those wound sites in Spring. If this is going to bother you you probably should wait until the leaves are full-sized and prune your Maple at that time because once the leaves are fully expanded that pretty much signals the end of the sap flow in a mature tree, we really Don't feel that pruning in the winter is detrimental. That's a flow even though it looks sort of alarming. We don't think it really is going to harm the tree with a very young tree though. I would caution you against doing much pruning at all. Even though you may have some branches that are lower to the ground than what you want. You want to prune those very sparingly maybe take one off this year and take another off next year because those branches will have leaves and the leaves photosynthesize and really are responsible for building up the the stored food reserves. And the energy that goes into routing of that tree. Your most important thing is to get that tree rooted and well established in its location. You can worry about getting some of those branches off as it gets a little bit older so don't don't go out and prune several branches off of a young tree regardless of what the time is wait in and just take a little bit off each year. (00:14:52) And would you define a three year old tree has a young tree (00:14:54) I would So you so yes three years in the landscape is certainly young. (00:14:57) Well, let's stay with a certain amount of logic here which sort of defies my usual predilection and talk about pruning other kinds of trees other outdoor trees about Elms and Oaks and the (00:15:10) whole this is this is an excellent time to prune Elms or Oaks Oaks in particular you need to avoid pruning them in the spring in April May and June because pruning at that time encourages the spread of Oak Wilt disease so pruning them when they're dormant is a very good idea pretty much the same thing is true with Elm trees. We feel that if you prune them during the growing season the smell of that freshly pruned would actually might attract The Beatles that spread the Dutch elm disease. So I would say with most trees. This is a very good time to be pruning with fruit trees. You may want to hold off just a little bit longer. We like to see the fruit trees pruned by early April but late February and March is really the time to prune those the wounds will heal fairly rapidly when they start to grow in the spring. If you prove those too early, then you tend to have died back at your pruning site. You might get by with it now, but I'd hold off a little bit still (00:16:10) University of Minnesota extension Horticulture is Debbie Brown is with us today. 11:30 is the time Debbie Brown is also featured at the dial you Clinic you're one of the people that folks talk to when they call aren't you? (00:16:21) I sure am I talk to people about plant problems and plant choices and not so much about insects. We've got a whole bunch of entomologist and plant pathologist who talked about those subjects. (00:16:31) If you have a question about house plants in particular, that's what we're talking about today and we have a couple of lines open again in the Twin Cities. The number is two two seven six thousand 2276 thousand the toll-free number 1-800-695-1418 Paul anywhere outside the Twin Cities area. All right. Now, it's your turn. What's your question for Deb today? (00:16:54) Yes, I have a Norfolk pine indoor plant, you know and first of all it started to die. So we repotted it into a larger Pot and also with the drain under it, you know and then but it's still dying it just as many if I had the wrong pipe I have it in potting soil. (00:17:16) Well you haven't told me anything. That sounds too bad right now. I will tell you this about Norfolk pine. It's not a good plant for low light needs to have a lot of bright light and it probably will do best if you have it in a relatively cool place under bright light conditions. Keep it fairly moist. Don't let it get bone dry if it's already going bad. If there's some reason that it's dying when you when you repotted it if you looked at the roots and they looked healthy. I don't really know what the problem is. Sometimes they get a root rot or some kind of a problem that you really don't see and there's nothing much. You can do about it. The best way to deal with the Norfolk pine is to try to keep it healthy in the first place and that means get it in that bright sunny window (00:18:03) in response to a question earlier about the Fig Tree dropping its leaves. You said that it probably ought to be repotted if it hasn't been for a long time, right if a tree or if a plant is doing alright, is there any reason to (00:18:16) repot? Yes. Yes Bob there is because you really don't want to wait until you're getting symptoms that the plant is in trouble before you act if you're concerned about a plant whether it needs to be repotted or not. And you feel that it's grown for quite a while. It's put on a lot of growth since the last time you repotted it, you know that as the top part is growing the roots are growing also and so after a year two years whatever you probably are going to need to repot it, but if you don't know for sure you can just tap it out. This is sometimes easier said than done depending on how big that plant is, but give the pot a good whack on the side of a kitchen. There is something and pop the root ball out, you know hold onto the plant. Maybe it's a two-person job get it out and take a look at the root ball. If the plant needs repotting you're going to find a lot of roots twisted around the bottom frequently twist it around the side of the pot. It's really going to look like a pot shaped ball of roots. If you see that then that's a real signal that yes, it needs to go into a pot a size or two larger if you tap it out and you just see Roots here and there you don't see this this gnarled tangle of roots. You can put it back in and no damage has been done. The plants are really pretty tough. It doesn't hurt him to get knocked out of that container and take a look at the roots. (00:19:37) Alright, another question here for Debra. I will go to you. Hello. (00:19:40) Yes. I have two questions. The first is how often does a Christmas cactus has to be watered. And the second is I have some health plans that I'd like to put outdoors in the summer time, but I don't want to bring insects and other problems in with them in the fall. Can be done to prevent that (00:19:56) okay. Let me start with the second question first. I don't know that there's anything that will guarantee you that you're not going to bring insects indoors. We do not recommend spraying plants at the end of the summer and less you see a specific insect problem on them. The insecticides that are labeled 44 plant. Use indoors are such that they don't hang around very long. We don't have any of the the the real long-lasting chemicals at our disposal anymore one by one they've come off the market. What was bad about them was also what was good about them, you know, you could spray and you knew that if anything showed up or hatched out that spray would still be the residue was still be hanging around and we'll still do something nowadays. The pesticides that we have are very short-lived. And so there's absolutely no point in spraying them on the chance that something is going to show up. If you see an insect problem, then you need to deal with it with the appropriate. Remedy whether it's simply washing it with soapy water using an insecticidal spray or using insecticidal soap or alcohol or something like that. Otherwise the best you can do I think is simply to wash the plants make sure that they're clean both the undersides and the tops of the leaves and pay special attention to the places where the leaves join the stems so that you don't have any debris that that you're bringing in that could be harboring eggs and then isolate them don't put them right in with all your other plants. If you have other plants that were indoors keep them in their own space for two or three weeks to see if anything else does hatch out and deal with that before you go and put them in with your other plants. (00:21:40) Now as for how often do you water Christmas cactus (00:21:43) how often you water Christmas cactus depends on what time of the year and what part of the life cycle the cactus is in Christmas cactus are true cacti, but they're not done. Desert cactus there epiphytic Cactus our jungle Cactus. They live supported in the branches of trees in rainforests and very humid, tropical and subtropical jungles and forested areas. And so they like high humidity and they like more moisture than most of the cactus do so at the time that they're making flower buds at the time that they've got flowers open. You would want to be watering them fairly frequently. Just get the let them get a little bit dry between waterings when they're done blooming then you can let them get drier. Let them get drier right up to the point where you're probably putting them outdoors and just water every so often don't let them get bone dry, but you don't keep them moist again until they're setting Buds and ready to bloom a second time. (00:22:43) All right, very good. We'll move on now another listener with the question for Debbie Brown. We're talking about house plants and a little bit about outdoor stuff today too, but you're on the air with your what's your question? (00:22:53) Yes your honor I would like to know how to keep my cat out of the plants. I've (00:22:57) left (00:22:57) in the window, you know, so he can have a little son but then move the plant on another counter and there he is up at the plant and down it goes on the floor. (00:23:06) Well, there are a lot of things that people talk about keeping cats out of plants. One thing is you can make little tin foil balls kind of little scrunched up tinfoil things and put them in the pot itself. And if the if the cat is actually getting his paws in the in the soil or likes to sniff around or nose around or dig in the soil that will probably keep the cat away. If your home most of the day or home often enough that you can squirt the cat with a water pistol every time you see the cat going by the plant. It's not going to hurt the cat but most cats really hate water and you might be able to train the plant the cat to keep away from the plant that way now I have a friend who is a real animal lover. And he grows grass seed in pots. He grows two pots of grass seed because plants really love just plain old green grass and he lets the plant or lets the cat graze on this pot of grass while the other one is sort of in a nice place rejuvenating and he's always changes in back when the cat kind of grazes down the grass then he switches pots and let's that that one grow again and and puts the other one back down for the cat and that way he keeps the cat's away from some of the plants that they would normally be into. I don't know if that's going to work in all cases and you have to be very dedicated. I think to grow grass for your plant for your cats. (00:24:33) Well, you might want to listen to our broadcast next week because dr. Robert Anderson is going to be on he is a pet Behavior expert and if anybody can give you some advice on training your cat he is probably the one to do it. I would think though that those little those little tin foil balls would make great cat (00:24:50) toys. Well I've heard Many people that it works. Yeah, I don't know I think particularly if the cat likes to go to the bathroom in the plant or sort of sit down. I have a I have a cat who killed what's called a cast iron plant and aspidistra. This is a plant that supposedly nothing can kill, you know, you can abuse it you don't have to give it much light you don't have to water it, but you don't have to do anything but my cat Tiger Lily Lil for short hopped into it and just kind of make circles, you know, she turn around turn around like it was a little nest and then she just you know hunker down in the middle of the plant and she killed (00:25:27) it. I didn't realize the plant care expert would pick easy-care plants of course know all this stuff, (00:25:35) but I don't have that much time to play with them (00:25:36) anymore. Let's go back to the phones and more questions. Thanks for waiting around with Deborah know. (00:25:42) Yeah, my name is Elsie. I'm from Fridley. I have a flowering crab that I bought about three years ago. It's now about seven feet high. It had a root ball at the bottom. Two questions, I buried the root ball and I always have these little shoots coming up. I buried it because I thought that has to do with it keeping its hybrid qualities. I got it because it keeps a little tiny red apples all the winter and I like looking at them in the snow and then I want to know about pruning if I want it to bloom out more at the top to get more full. It's a to Fork thing one branch has hardly any leaves and branches on. The other one is quite full and the lower branches are about three feet from the ground. (00:26:27) Well, let me say first of all that you planted it right there. Excuse me. The root ball does have to be planted completely covered in the soil so that when you plant a new tree of any type you're planting it at the same level it was planted in the container or at the nursery. You don't plant it up above the soil level. You don't plant it deep down in the soil. If you're getting little suckers from The Roots. I would just simply cut them off. I And allow them to grow but this is nothing to be overly concerned about as far as pruning is concerned. I'm not exactly positive what's going on if it's forking fairly low to the ground you might because it's still a small tree you might choose to cut off one of those branches if it's making a v say four or five feet from the ground that's not going to give you much of a trunk that V is always going to be four or five feet from the ground and you might very well choose the the better or the more upright portion of that now if they really are coming out at about the same egg angle and you're going to get a very Crooked Tree by removing one of those then that's maybe a different story and you're just going to have to put up with that low crotch, but you would prune a flowering crab crab apple somewhat similarly to a regular Apple in that you want to thin the branches out and allow light to reach through the branches. You don't want to have a whole kind of at. Goal of little twigs and branches any place there. They're going to be Crossing or rubbing against each other. You would take one of them out and you want the branches primarily to be facing outwards. If any of them are angling downwards you would take those out but those are just kind of General pruning guides for a fruit tree. I don't know that there's anything real specific I could tell you I am not quite sure what the problem is. (00:28:20) Okay. Well, we'll move on to another caller here. They're brown is listening for your question now, go ahead, please. (00:28:26) Only problem is he and for Christmas. I was given some narcissus bulbs and they're just beautiful. They've grown up about 18 inches. I planted up and Stones a little Pebbles bull Pebbles. I have two questions. They tend a couple of times they tended to bend they didn't come loose from their Moorings. So the book they were rocking around of the bulbs actually moved but the bent about an inch and a half above the bulb although eventually straight doubt. That's the what about the banding and the other question is when they stopped blooming. What what do you do with the bulbs? (00:29:14) Okay. I suspect what you've got is one of the paper paper white narcissus bulbs are perhaps soleado or which is a golden version of the paper white Narcissus. Their bulbs that that don't need any special cooling treatment. You can plant them in Pebbles people plant them in soil as well and people buy them in the fall and they bloom in the winter. They're very pungent for some people would say fragrant. Some people would say something else about them. They have a very very strong odor and each bulb sends up at least one stem maybe two or three stems that look like a little bouquet of star like flowers They're they're very petite. They're very lovely blossoms. And unfortunately, they're not winter hardy in Minnesota. So there's absolutely no point in trying to save them over. They're not going to overwinter in our Gardens and a bulb that has been forced may not do well Outdoors. It certainly can't be forced again. So I think there's not much hope for that. They do get tall and floppy that that is one of the downfalls of this plant the sunnier the window you can keep them in the these shorter and Stockier they're going to be when I've grown them. I found that I've had to stake them almost invariably are they want to flip over (00:30:34) 15 minutes now before 12 o'clock continuing to talk about houseplant problems with Deb Brown from the dial you clinic at the University of Minnesota your turn to talk to Deb. Hello there. (00:30:44) My name is Teri. We my wife and I have been enjoying growing some Christmas cactus and we even produce some seeds on one of our plants and got them to grow and They seem to do very well except periodically, we have sections of plants that very slowly start to deteriorate. They just get emaciated and you know, it's not like they just drop over and Wilt they just very slowly get thin and the rib stand out and eventually one or two of them. We've actually had to throw out. I don't know if it's some kind of Wilt you have any idea what that (00:31:25) is. Do, you know, I'll have to be honest with you and tell you that I've seen that too and sometimes it's associated with a lot of pink or purple pigment on those segments that they instead of staying green. They turn a little bit purply or pinkish. I don't know what the problem is. I think you need to check and make sure that you don't have any kind of a nutrient deficiency. They do need to be fertilized two or three times over the growing season. Other than that, I don't have a good answer for you when it's just one portion of the plant I would That portion off and I would prove back into healthy tissue. So I wouldn't just remove the thin emaciated part but I would go back further into the plant if possible and take off a nice healthy segment two and see if you could contain it that way. But other than that, I really don't have anything to suggest for you. I have see the problem. I don't know what causes it. (00:32:21) Is there a problem ever with putting too much fertilizer in a (00:32:24) plant. Oh, yes. Yes. In fact there probably is more likelihood of problems that way than the other if you don't have enough fertilizer, you can always add it but when you fertilize too frequently and in fact, if you read the label and just follow the labels on these houseplant fertilizers Faithfully, you probably will be over fertilizing your plant because they rarely tell you that the fertilization has to be kept in tune with when the plant is growing actively when it's just sitting there and not doing much of anything. You don't want to fertilize but you could get sick. To such as brown tips of the plants brown leaf margins eventually the plant will be stunted. It is the new leaves will be smaller and at some point it can actually die. The reason being you get an accumulation of fertilizer salts in the soil and that actually burns the roots and makes it so that even though the soil is moist and even though the soil has got nutrients in it. The roots are no longer functional and they can't draw that moisture in those nutrients up into the plant anymore. And so you see all kinds of damage going on (00:33:31) back to the phones more plant questions for a Deb Brown. Thanks for waiting. What would you like to know today? (00:33:36) Yes Deb. I would like to know which variety of plant is least prone to insects and disease right now. I have Christmas cactus and roll Polla, but I've had to throw out a ficus and all the other plants that I had at that time because I had problem with scale and then one other time I had to throw out some plans because of red spider mites IVs and a chauffeur. And I was just wondering with a palm you were talking about the kinship home or if there's some other variety that I'd like to get into a different type of plant besides a Christmas cactus in the role player, which are the fleshy leaves. Could you suggest anything that wouldn (00:34:13) t well let me say first of all, I don't think it's automatic that you're going to have insect problems with house plants. Sometimes when you don't pick up on it early enough you have an insect problem on one plant and pretty soon it spreads to all the others but it certainly is possible in a home environment to keep the plants pretty well insect free. I've had extremely good luck with with a plant called the dwarf schefflera or Hawaiian schefflera. It's not the one with the big leaves. It has the same pattern of leaves a cluster of little leaves on a stem. But each Leaf is maybe no more than three and a half or four each leaflet is no more than three and a half or four inches long. So I would look for that dwarf schefflera. I've also had good luck with a Early new plant called the china doll. The china doll is a plant that needs to have kind of medium everything medium light medium water the more sunlight and water you give it the bigger it gets and it can grow fairly large but I've never seen any insect problems on that one the cast iron plant that I mentioned earlier that my cat did in his is a nice insect free plant and I think pothos or Hartley philodendron the little Vining plants are also pretty good from a standpoint of being insect free. I dad grape IV and Swedish ivy to that list and and those aren't true IVs either of them, but they are viney plants. I've also had very good luck with the large rubber tree that the plant with the large leaves in terms of not having insect problems with it. Now, you can have watering problems with the rubber tree if you over water it, it'll just lose those leaves. They'll turn yellow and drop from the bottom one at a time till you have a Our stem with a little growth on top, but if you're a careful water then I think that that's a very easy plant to take care of as well. (00:36:06) All right, we'll take your question next. What would you like to know from Deborah on today (00:36:25) fallen over the side of the pot? And I don't know whether it's over water or under. (00:36:31) Oh dear now that's a hard one to say without taking a look at it. Are you allowing the soil to dry quite a bit between (00:36:39) waterings? Pretty much. (00:36:44) Yeah, they don't they need to drain really well and they if you if you ever take that plant apart, you'll find that there are little fleshy almost like tubers underneath the ground and if they stay too wet they certainly can rot. It doesn't sound to me like that's the problem. I guess. The only other thing that I would think of is is have you done some fertilizing or has it been a really long time since you fertilize the (00:37:07) plant? I think it's been probably a while. (00:37:12) Well, if you haven't fertilized in several months, I would I would get a regular house plant fertilizer and mix it half strength to start out and see if that makes a difference. Other than that. I don't know what to suggest because if it's gotten to the point where it's ready to bloom and it looks fine and all of a sudden starts wilting. It sounds like there's a problem with the root system and that would be as you say either over over-watering or under watering. Don't let it get bold dry. Make sure there's some moisture in the soil between waterings, but I would I would try the nutrients as well. (00:37:48) You're on with Deborah know what's your question for her today? (00:37:52) Please I have a date planned a beautiful South window and it's about two and a half feet just gorgeous and I need to move it. It's in the bowl window now and I'm just afraid I'm going to maybe lose it would you move because I don't have another Sunny (00:38:09) Spot. You need to move it where you mean? You just have to move it out of the window to make room for something (00:38:14) else. (00:38:21) Well, I hate to tell you but the jade plant really requires bright light to do well and you can move it into a place where the light is lower. But the fact that it is has probably got very thick stems means that the new growth will not look like the old growth and you're going to end up with a plant that has very thick wonderful sturdy stems and leaves and the newer growth will be thinner and more spindly and it's just not going to be as attractive. The other thing that sometimes happens is you get it into lower light is it becomes top-heavy and they aren't they don't stay as nice and stiff and strong and they start to kind of bend over and look as if it's sort of a weeping form. So I would say there really isn't a good answer that the best answer is to is to keep it in that Sunny location. If you possibly can barring that get the brightest location you can and perhaps try to use some sort of a Light to supplement the actual daylight that the plant gets lighting is a tricky question though in most of the incandescent plant lights. You have to put them quite a distance from the plant so that they don't heat them up too much make sure that the plant is not really warming. Excuse me that the bulb is not warming the plant to the degree that it's going to burn the (00:39:41) leaves. We have some more people waiting, but we'll take a quick second one from you if you like them (00:40:00) and I would say that the thing that holds them back more than anything again is going to be light. If in fact you take the the jade plant out of that very sunny window put the Hoya in there because the Hoya can be in a hanging basket and isn't going to take as much space as a jade plant would They are succulent plants that need to get quite dry between watering but they like lots of light the more light you could get it the better. They're going to bloom once they do start blooming and usually it does take six seven eight years. They are pretty faithful at Blooming once a year forever. (00:40:35) We have about five minutes left here with Debbie Brown and we'll get to as many of you as we have time for and you're next in line. Go (00:40:42) ahead. Thank you. I'm from Egan and I find this program extremely worthwhile. I have two questions. The first one is my philodendron seem to have slits what I call them in them. And what should I do about that? And another one is I have an African Violet that I've had for a long time that obviously needs repotting what care can I do to report that so it will continue to (00:41:06) bloom? Well the African violet is easy because what you could do is you can put it in a larger container and you can put it a little bit deeper in the new container that Is right now and so if you have a bit of a bear stem coming up the center, you can add some fresh soil to the to the bottom of the pot and on top of the soil that you have already so that the that bear Stan will actually route into the new soil. The other thing you could do is you can cut off the bottom of the roots cut off several inches and repot it and again put fresh soil at the bottom of and at the Top If the plant is getting very large, I would recommend that you take a leaf or two off and try to Route them in fresh potting soil or sand or vermiculite they root very easily and you can start some new plants that way rather than just relying on the one plant which will get bigger and it's harder to to keep it looking nice as it gets larger and larger and larger. (00:42:05) What about that philodendron? (00:42:07) Well, I you know, I'm not sure what do you mean by slits still on? Whoops? I think we lost her if she's gone. Yeah, I guess I don't understand when she says her philodendron has slits a lot. The philodendron leaves are lobed, you know so that they do appear to have slits again depending on what she means (00:42:27) by taking your car. And you say to the mechanic it rattles. You don't know what you're talking about. (00:42:33) I'm afraid we let her hang (00:42:34) up. All right, let's take your question. Now Deborah on is listening hi-yah (00:42:38) it back to pruning problems 14 years ago. When we landscape to new house we put in on the east side of the house to cover up the air conditioning unit. What we understood we're going to be dwarfed shrub type Maples that would get four or five feet high. Well, in fact, they've now grown to be 9 to 12 feet high with trunks maybe five six inches in diameter, but only about a foot high or less to when they Branch out to what amounts to have fairly decent sized tree the last two or three years had a problem with dieback of Brandt major branches that are even exposed to good light on the outside. And so if it keeps up, Going to end up either losing 10 or getting to be very sparse and wondered what kind of problem this might be and what solution you could offer. (00:43:27) Oh dear. That's one of those things where you almost have to see what the branch is look like that are dying back. There are some cankers of that the plant can get like any other tree or shrub. They're probably suffering from the the terrible weather conditions. We've had over the past two years. They ought to keep growing as long as you know, as long as you prune out the dead wood. There's every likelihood that they will continue to put out do twigs and new branches. I want to go backwards and tell you two that I know of no Maple that will stay at four or five feet in this climate. There are Japanese maples that are Hardy further south that really do stay quite small, but what you have is probably an Amber Maple or perhaps one of the mountain Maples that does get to be a really a rather lovely plant of Of 10 12, maybe 14 feet you can prune that freely though to shape it and so I would do some pruning. You don't have to let them keep getting taller and taller prune it or call in someone who is experienced at shaping these things and I think they can probably help you with that just be sure that you water those plants over the summer. Don't don't leave it up to Nature because we have not had very good luck. (00:44:42) Well, they're brown the time is gone. Thank you so much. It really does. Thanks a million for coming in (00:44:47) right you bet and I wonder if we could just tell people if they have questions and weren't able to get in today. They can reach us at the dial you office at the University were open weekdays from 9 till two o'clock. There is a 250 charge when you call in, but the number is 197602 hundred. Thanks Deb. (00:45:07) Midday made possible by Ecolab Incorporated and it's Chemlawn subsidiary. This is Bob Potter.