(00:00:01) Well, it may very well be the first day of the 1992 fishing season, but we are going to talk today about gardening and Lawns Deb Brown extension horticulturist at the University of Minnesota has come in. How are you doing (00:00:14) Deb? Well, now that I made it I'm fine. I made a mistake on the freeway and got stuck in the construction and I didn't think I was going to get here on time. So it's by the skin of my (00:00:23) teeth. Well if you had a challenging time getting into st. Paul just wait till you try to get out. It's all I can say there are Roots out but they're not real obvious. Good luck, right, you might enjoy the rest of the afternoon St.Paul here. I don't know if any I don't know if anybody is going to be listening or calling to they probably just listening but will they be (00:00:43) calling I am ready to guarantee people will call because people are so concerned with their lawns and they're so concerned with their trees and shrubs that have had some winter damage and of course, we've all got cabin fever and we all want to get out and make those yards look gorgeous and Everyone is a Fisher (00:01:01) I think everybody is fishing. No, no, no will find out a little bit will open the phone lines. (00:01:06) You were to look at the Garden Centers. You would see there plenty of people (00:01:09) it really you bet ya I got to ask you about damage to Lawns and such we had that that positively well. I don't know I was going to say a dreadful but it really wasn't Dreadful. It was made it was magnificent that that snowstorm on Halloween too bad. It came on Halloween because it was kind of bad for the little kids but it was a marvelous snowstorm is (00:01:28) snowstorm school. Well, it's real pretty but you know, it it caught people unprepared in many ways. There were a lot of people who hadn't rake the lawn yet grass was still long. So it flopped over a lot of trees and plants hadn't really hardened off that is they hadn't gone through that gradual decline in temperatures that really prepared them for the toughest weather of winter, and I don't know if you remember but we had that snow on the ground for a few weeks and it melted off then it got cold in the snow it again and it really left the law. And many of the plants fairly vulnerable. I know I lost some some perennials that I felt were very Hardy and they just didn't come up this year. And of course there was a tremendous amount of just physical injury to to Shrubbery and to the lower boughs of evergreen trees where they got caught in that that massive snow and then broke as the snow turned to First slash and then ice and and started to contract and and pack down just snap those Twigs right off. So really we're seeing a lot of people who would love to save plants. But in fact when they're they're badly deformed the answer is to replace and this is this is just the perfect time for planting young trees and shrubs and I guess the the added benefit is right. Now, there are so many things starting to bloom you can go to a garden center or you can take a ride out to the Arboretum and you can see what these plans look like in sort of in their full Glory. You can really pick if you're looking for Three crab apple you can compare what one looks like versus another or the same thing with with many of the flowering shrubs. We're just starting to see the the Azalea's come into bloom. Pjm. Rhododendrons are beautiful now, so I'm excited about planting Bob (00:03:17) Debbie Brown is with us. And if you have a question about planting or about gardening or about vegetable growing or whatever, you can give us a call in the Twin Cities area 2276 thousand is the number two two seven six thousand toll-free. You can call us anywhere 802 for 22828 802 for to 2828. That number is good in the surrounding states as well as in Minnesota, and maybe we'll even get a call Deb from somebody on a boat somewhere from their cellular phone if they're fishing you'll see I doubt it. I kind of doubt that too. But you know, you're right you're right people are calling. They definitely are calling their definitely interested in lawns and Gardens today. No question. In about it, not everybody is out on the lake fishing. All right, how about The Lawns as I look around the Twin Cities area. Casually I don't see a great deal of lawn (00:04:08) damage. Well, there doesn't appear to be a tremendous amount of damage. What we're seeing again is physical injury where where plows have scraped up sod and turf on the edges of driveways or sidewalks. We're seeing some salt damage because people used a lot of ice biting types of products and that tends to wash over into the grass and and turn it round and dead. We also have gotten some calls at the dial you on sod that had patches of dead areas that we really we really don't have a good handle on now. We know we saw snow mold this year snow mold is a disease that comes about when you have a lot of leaves a lot of long grass pack down or a heavy snow pack that lasts long into, you know, well into the season all of which we had this year and so many people As the snow melted found these big matted sort of Webby looking patches in the lon. And the only thing you can do from a practical standpoint is sort of rake those up and get some air to them. If they're not real bad. A lot of times the grass comes back just fine or it may be a little sparse. All you need to do is fertilized and water maybe a little over seeding, but some of those patches actually died out because the snow was there for such a long period of time so we are seeing some damage but I think your assessment is right. It's not one of the worst years certainly and I think a lot of that goes back to the fact that we had such good rainfall last year plants went into winter without being moisture stressed and that that makes a huge difference when we have a very dry summer or dry fall and people don't do enough supplementary watering. Sometimes we just can't then the plants go into winter under stressful conditions, and they're far less likely to come through the winter in real good shape. (00:06:00) We have a number of folks on the line with questions lawn and garden questions today for Deborah Brown extension horticulturist at the University. And your first go ahead (00:06:09) please hi. Well, this is one minnesotans not out on the Lakes today. I'm in a ghost town here. My question about the lawn is I have some damage in a neighbor told me they thought it was (00:06:21) truth. Oh, yes. I didn't mention the shrews. Actually probably what you had is voles, V as in Victor Vol es. Another name for voles is Meadow mice and typically Meadow mice are voles are not a big problem in the city, but they tend to be more of a problem out in really the outlying Suburban areas or areas that back onto a park or a nature preserve or someplace where there's less manicured grass. They tend to live in in areas of tall grasses and and sort of wild vegetation and they Were able to survive under that snow and just Borough along under the snow and what you see are these Trails through the lawn where they actually chewed through the grass itself. Now normally those Trails will fill in on their own once the grass starts to grow in to thicken up. If you see any spots that are bigger maybe than the size of a man's fist. You probably ought to be doing a little bit of seating in those areas and and maybe work a little bit of Peter topsoil in as well. But the thin trails that just Meander through the lon those ought to take care of themselves over the summer. (00:07:36) I had never heard of a thing called a (00:07:38) vole vole or a metal Mouse (00:07:41) and how does that differ from a (00:07:43) mole? Well vote they're completely different vowels and malls it only sounded like they don't look alike voles are voles with a VR much smaller moles are larger moles it with an M are virtually blind. They just kind of snuffle around under the ground. Whereas these voles are really walking on top of the ground and chewing their way through that nice green vegetation. You see it stayed so green and healthy and Lush because that snow came down before it was really winter dormant for winter. And so they just kind of had a field day. (00:08:21) Pardon sort of a smorgasbord for yes you bet on to your question now, thanks for waiting. Go (00:08:26) ahead. Yes. I'm calling from shore of you. I'm sure you've been asked this question many times, but would you talk about how to deal with them two lines in the lon? (00:08:34) Sure. I can talk about dandelions. Actually the very best time to take care of dandelions or any perennial weed is in the early fall and that is if you're going to use an herbicide fall is the very best time to do it because their perennial weeds and in the fall, the plants are storing nutrients in their roots to get them through the winter there everything about the plant is Moving down into the root moving these carbohydrates into the root system. So when you spray with a broad leaf weed killer in the fall, you are going to have a lot better chance of killing those weeds than if you spray in the springtime, however, dandelions happen to be very sensitive to the weed killer 24 D and you probably will have fairly decent luck spraying in the spring as well. Now if you don't have a whole lot of dandelions or if you have an aversion to using pesticides, you can always get an old-fashioned and align Digger and go out after a good soaking rain or you can just leave the sprinklers on in one part of the lawn for several hours and go out when the soil is moist. You can pop those out with too much do with you know, without too much difficulty. It's a lot of work, but it can be done. (00:09:50) Excuse me. Is it true that if you leave any portion of the route the dandelion will simply go back in (00:09:57) time. Well, I've heard that a lot Bob. I really think if and I don't know how to answer you exactly in terms of how much of the route can still be left. I think if you get the Lion's Share of the root out, it's probably going to take you know going to be gone. Even if you leave a little bit of root in there and it sprouts you're going to have a very small dandelion coming back and it's going to be easier to get rid of it. If it does come back and if you're conscientious, I think regardless of what method you use you have to go back and and kind of keep after it for a while and the other thing that I want to try to remember to mention when people talk about weed control is attacking weeds is only one side of the story getting the grass to grow thick and vigorously or have a nice Lush Lawn we tend to dismiss it say well, I don't need to have a lawn like a golf course or like a beautiful Park, but by keeping your grass growing thicker, there is less room for weed seeds to sprout so instead of just Concentrating on getting rid of weeds. You also want to concentrate on growing a healthy lawn. Now for many people that doesn't mean a weed-free lawn, but it means a lawn that is not thin where you don't see little patches of brown soil sticking through here and there because for sure those are where the weeds are going to pop up (00:11:18) one other dandelion follow up and then we'll move on to the next question. I've also heard that if you for example spray for dandelions and you leave the flower, you don't pluck the the yellow flower that all you're going to do is set the stage for lots more plants later on because that flower is going to go to see it. (00:11:35) Anyway. Yeah, there's the flower does not seem to be particularly sensitive to herbicide. You're right. Ideally you would do your spraying before you get many flowers developing but once they flower that that seed head continues to mature and the seeds will pop out of course most neighborhoods. There are a lot of dandelion seeds blowing around anyway, so again, you want to be looking at Key Your lawn is thick as possible because if that seed doesn't land on a kind of a thin area where it can wear can germinate you're not going to have any trouble (00:12:08) back to the phones more questions Deb Brown extension horticulturist at the University of Minnesota's with us on Minnesota Public Radio. And it's your turn. Hello. (00:12:16) Hello. I'm calling from Wilmer. I have grass in my crabgrass in my PO knees and I'd like to know how to get that out. And I'd also like to have her say something about tent caterpillars in threes. How bad will that be this year? I'll hang up and listen. Thank you. (00:12:32) Okay, let me just miss the tent caterpillars entry question because I'm not an insect specialist and I really am not able to give you any prediction on that. You would have to speak to an entomologist about that. If you are interested in calling up the dial you Clinic we do have insect specialist there and we're open on from 925 weekdays at the University. You can call from any place in the state. There's a 299 flat fee. In other words a three dollar flat fee when you call in and our number is one 909 880500. It's a long number. Maybe I should repeat it one 909 8805000 and there is a 299 fee that's going to be automatically billed to the van you callin from we have insect specialist as well as plant disease specialists along with all the Horticulture people at the dial you clinic so it's so do give us a call if you need information on tent caterpillars or other insect problems. I can't personally answer very many of those questions as for the grass and the peonies my guess. Is that what you got is quack grass rather than crabgrass crabgrass is an annual and it sprouts around Memorial Day in the Twin Cities area Wilmer. I would guess would be just about the same as the Twin Cities because basically it's due West Here the crab grass starts is a very tiny little plant in early spring, but it doesn't become real big and obvious until later in the summer. When you see patches of it in the lawn and crabgrass is easy to get rid of by using what's called a pre-emergent herbicide that something that you put down in the spring right now and it prevents the seeds from sprouting. You don't attack the grass once it's up, but you prevent those seeds from sprouting and there are products that can be used both in lawns and in gardens and this is a good time to be putting those down in watering them in my guess. However, is that what you've got is a perennial grass like quackgrass because those tend to get into perennial flowers, they get into strawberries and raspberries and they're very hard to deal with one thing that you can use in peony in a peony bed is a product called brush be gone from Ortho. The reason I mention that is that I know that that has Excuse me. Let whoa. Let me back up on that mistake called grass be gone. Well, they've got all these be gonz, you know this be gone and that be gone not brush begotten. That'll kill your peony. Please don't use brush be God. It's grass be gone that you have to use and the grass be gone has a chemical called fusillade in it. Now up until fairly recently fusillade has been only available as a farm chemical fusillade has the distinction of being able to kill grassy plants without damaging the broadleaf plants. So if you use the grass be gone on the peony bed, it will kill those grasses without killing the peonies now, there may be other brand names as well. I don't you know, I mean to be implying that this is the best or the only one but it's one that I've heard of recently that that does a good job on these grasses and perennials again, it's grasp be (00:15:58) gone. Be careful walking across the lawn not to spill any on the on the (00:16:02) grass. You bet (00:16:04) pretty unhappy. They're all right on to our next questioner. Debbie Brown is listening for you. (00:16:09) Hello. Hello. I have a small about a quarter of an acre plot of woodsy land which has been disturbed by construction and such and I'm trying to re-establish native plants and it could you recommend a book on the culture of wildflowers. (00:16:31) Well, there are a couple of them. Most of them don't deal with the culture so much is the identification and sort of where they grow there is a book. Oh, there's there's there's one by a man named art. His last name is Art AR T. And he has done a whole series on wildflowers for various parts of the country and there I believe it's called wild flowers for the Upper Midwest or something like that or native plants for the Upper Midwest if you remember the last name art AR T. It's a Garden Way book and it was published just about a year or so ago and that does contain plant specifically for this part of the country. I've seen it in the bookstores and that does have cultural information now, they're not all woodland plants many of them are more the of the Prairie and metal plants, but I think that that would be a good one from the standpoint of culture. There's another book called wildflowers and how to grow them by a man named Edwin. Stevic Ste. F f EK I believe is the way he spells his name the wild wild flowers and To grow them and either of those books would give you good information. I'm sorry. I can't be more specific on that first title. (00:17:55) Okay, we'll move on to our next questioner. Deborah on is listening and you're on with her. Hello. Where you calling from? (00:18:01) I'm calling from Duluth Minnesota. Sure my question to this point. You've been dealing mostly with traditional Lawns and with the spread of the Suburbans in the Twin City area. I'm wondering about types of plants that could be used to help recreate habitats that have been destroyed to help rebuild communities. And I know one of the problems have been with the songbirds that decrease in population songbirds in the (00:18:31) area. Well there certainly are plants that you can use that will attract both songbirds and and other types of Wild Wild Life the the book that I know of that probably does the best job of that is put out by the DNR it's by a man named Carol Henderson, and I think it's called landscaping for wildlife and you can buy that at the Minnesota Science Museum or or probably any number of different places. He lays out garden plans and suggestions for not only flowering annuals and perennials, but for trees and shrubs that will be beneficial to Wildlife. I think that before you decide to change all of your lawn into wildlife habitat though, you better check with your local community regulations your local government because the there have been some problems. I know when some people have have forsaken Lawns and tried to turn the entire yard or large portions of the yard into what might be called a more natural habitat. So do check that out before going ahead too far. (00:19:44) Let's talk about vegetables just for a second as a Time. Plant tomatoes (00:19:48) yet. Well, I think it's early to plant tomatoes. But you know, this is one of these things that everyone is just chomping at the bit who's going to have the first tomato on when is my first tomato going to be ripe and of course when you go to the Garden Center you're even going to see great huge pots with big tomato plants, you know that they've been nurturing and greenhouses for months and those work that's that's great. If you got a patio where you can put out a big pot of potted tomato and you have the ability to bring it back in if it gets cold again. I mean this this is still Minnesota folks, you know, (00:20:24) we could still get snow. Let's be (00:20:25) perfectly fine. I don't know if we're likely to get snow but we can certainly get Frost. I mean we've had some lovely warm weather the last couple of days but we've had some nasty cool weather to and I don't think we've got any guarantee that that's over traditionally we say to wait with tomatoes and their relatives in other words the peppers the egg. Lance until late in the month of May unless you have real good capability of covering them. It's not just a question of frost when the soil is still cool. And when the air temperatures are quite cool in the daytime or or at night the plant becomes hardened off I use the word hardening earlier with regard to plants getting prepared for winter hardening off is a process, whereby all the metabolic processes of the plants start to slow down essentially and that can happen to to warm season crops like tomatoes and peppers the plant slow down and it actually sets them back. You're not even though you may feel good having it out in the garden. You're not necessarily getting a big jump on the season because when you put out a plant later and it's warm out and the soil is warm. It's going to take off. It's not going to go through this slow lag period and some Studies have shown that those smaller plants that Put out later actually are more productive. If you look at the overall productivity over the Long Haul of the Season then the plants that you put out earlier now if you're willing to put a cloche or a plastic cover or or a wall of water, which is kind of a big like a sounds a wall a plastic wall that you put water in to protect the plant or do something, you know extraordinary to keep these plants warm when the weather turns cool if the weather turns cool then by all means put them out, but I guess I'm fairly conservative and I think on the whole we should be waiting with those warm season plants the cool crops the onions the Cabbage family plants lettuce peas. Those all should go in. (00:22:33) What's your secret to growing good tomatoes? (00:22:38) Oh you're oh this is going to be embarrassing. I plant them. I plant them at my parents (00:22:43) house. (00:22:47) They they have a home in Golden Valley where there's a south facing wall by the garage and the side of their house and it's painted white and the Sun beats down on that location and it's nice sandy soil and boy they're able to grow beautiful tomatoes. So I just don't even bother with him. I grow mostly flowers Bob (00:23:12) 29 minutes past eleven o'clock that brown is with us from the dial you clinic at the University of Minnesota. You're tuned to Minnesota Public Radio and your next hi. What's your question today? (00:23:22) Hi. Um, I enjoy your show. I am calling from st. Paul and I'd like to know what would be a suitable kind of container plant that you could grow on and like a balcony that you wouldn't have to bring in in the winter. (00:23:34) Well, to be honest with you there. There's nothing that's a Surefire plant for staying outdoors in the winter. People have tried there are there are in fact a couple of rooftop gardens in downtown st. Paul and downtown, Minneapolis. But they benefit from some heat that comes up from the garage or the building underneath them. They also are very very large containers and their well insulated with several inches of Styrofoam along the inside of the walls of the containers. The problem is with the container is that as it gets cold Outdoors the soil of the contents of the container tends to reach Ambient Air Temperature, which maybe 25 or 30 degrees below zero when you have a plant that's growing in the earth in the soil. You have snow over that it kind of caps. The temperature caps the warmth of the soil. It doesn't said soil isn't really very warm but compared to air temperature. It's quite warm and it traps that warmth so that it doesn't radiate out into the air and so it's very very difficult to grow things successfully by leaving them out in a container over the winter. You might try some of the smaller. Green's but to be honest with you, I think you'd be much better off looking at that container as a place to put colorful annuals or or perhaps some some nice productive vegetables. There are lots of choices now in patio not only Tomatoes but squash and pumpkins and melons you can get all sorts of things that would be suitable for a container. It doesn't give you much to look at in the winter. But the reality is that most things die in the winter (00:25:19) moving on to some more folks with questions for Deborah an extension horticulturist at the University. Go ahead, please thanks for waiting. (00:25:26) Yes. I enjoy your show very much. We're having some problems with azaleas and rhododendrons only the pjm seems to thrive everything else seems to shrivel. We've taken some concern about acidifying the soil, but somebody has recommended to us putting in a raised bed. I wonder if you could speak about tips first. That's what azaleas and (00:25:48) rhododendrons certainly the the most important tip for Success outside of the fact that you must acidify. The soil is to choose azaleas and rhododendrons that are Hardy for the Twin Cities area. If you're calling from the Twin Cities, if you're calling from a whole lot further north of here, then then you're in worse trouble yet, but truly the only Rhododendron that I'm aware of that is fully Hardy without any kind of help from anyone is the pjm Rhododendron and that's the one you said. You've had good luck with as far as Azalea's the University of Minnesota has developed a whole series of Azalea's called the lights series. There are pink lights Rosie lights Northern Lights white lights orchid lights, you get the idea. Those are all Hardy here and many of them. The flower buds are Hardy to 45 degrees below as at least as tested in the laboratory so that they really Bloom beautifully from year to year in most locations. Now, we used to think that these Azalea's needed Go in quite a shady place. What we're finding is they actually perform better when they get sun for a good part of the day. The other crucial thing. Is that the soil must drain wow, and whoever told you to build a raised bed may have been working on the premise that you had a heavy clay soil with poor drainage rhododendrons and azaleas do not do well when their roots are in wet soggy soil and of course, we had a very wet year last year. And so if that's the case, then I would definitely build a raised bed, but build it with your soil and adding Pete to it rototill a lot of Pete into it that helps to acidify the soil and by raising the bed you improve you improve the drainage but really you should be able to grow at least the pjm and certainly many different lights Azalea's with good success in the Twin Cities area. (00:27:41) I think you answered my follow-up question, which is how do you acidify soil the answers put in Pete other thing? (00:27:46) Well, there are Other things Bob for one thing when you fertilize you probably want to use an acid forming fertilizer there many different good brands in the in the garden center. If you have a heavy clay soil and it actually is a rather alkaline soil. It's hard to get a good low PH Azalea's if I'm not mistaken not really like a pH of somewhere in the order of 42225, which is very very acid. Most of our soils are not that acidic in this part of the country. They tend to be slightly alkaline. In fact, the lighter and Sandy are your soil the easier it is to lower the ph or make it more acidic. So if you if you do have a heavy soil you you would work Pete into it. The other thing that you can do is work some Elemental sulfur into it sulfur is slow-acting. It may take a year or more to really start to change the pH but Elemental sulfur again. I'm a garden center will help to eventually to pull that PH down a bit (00:28:52) 25 minutes before twelve o'clock you listening to midday on Minnesota Public Radio Debbie Brown extension horticulturist from the University of Minnesota's here as we talk about lawns Gardens vegetables growing flowers all of it today. I'll mention the phone number again in the Twin Cities 2276 thousand is the number to call if you have a question to to 76 thousand outside Minneapolis st. Paul toll-free 1-800 to for to to 8288 hundred two, four two two eight and that number is good beyond the borders of Minnesota as well. The lines are pretty busy. I give you those phone numbers just as kind of information wait a couple three minutes. Maybe we'll get through. Okay. Thank you for waiting. You're on the air now with their brownhill. (00:29:35) Hello calling from Fridley last fall and probably during the winter had extensive damage in my lawn from moles what our suggestions for mole removal or Improving the situation I'll hang up. (00:29:49) Well moles are very difficult to deal with and I guess I don't really have any any wonderful magic Solutions. I know that our Wildlife specialist suggest that you trap them out and that is a process. That means you have to figure out which are their active runs. Sometimes they have tunnels that they only use once or twice some tunnels they use frequently and you have to figure out which has that, you know, a primary tunnel. You can do that by going and stamping down all the tunnels in the evening and see which pops up in the morning and do that for several days. And then you put your traps in that main tunnel that keeps popping up again. There is no nice easy solution to the to the mole question. We do have a wildlife person on our staff at the dial you currently he's in late in the afternoon about 2:30. Three. So if anyone has a has a pressing Wildlife question, they might give us a call on that as well. (00:30:53) All right, we'll give out that phone number again near the end of the broadcast to for those of you who may have missed it on to your question next. Hello. Debra is (00:30:59) listening. Yes. I have a question about trees. I have several eastern white pines and they seem to be afflicted with needle test or at least that's what I can best. Determine It Is by going to my local nursery and looking at the ortho Nursery book there and my question is will they survive? Is there anything I can do to help them survive once they've been Afflicted with this several of them are only marginally affected but one of them looks very bad very scorched. (00:31:36) Okay. Well, it's early to see what the new growth is going to be like on the Pines the the new growth is not expanding yet, but you're going to have a better idea when you see if you Good needle growth on this year's candles. You know how well those trees are going to be I would suggest and again, it sounds like I'm just plugging the dial you but I would suggest that you give us a call and send Ian is sample so that we can really take a look at those needles. We have plant Pathologists. We who can look at those under a scope and can culture those if necessary to find out exactly what's wrong and if then a fungicide spray is indicated will be able to tell you if you if you'd like to give us a call. I think that would be the best way or if you want to contact your local County extension office. There might be someone there who can take a look at that as well. (00:32:34) Next question comes from you. Go ahead Deb round is listening and you're on the air with her. (00:32:38) Hi. Yes. Good morning. I would like to know if there's anything can be done with hybrid tea roses that have shoots or Sprouts coming below the (00:32:46) graft. If you're only shoots are sprouts are coming below the graph. There's nothing you can do because that's that's rootstock. If you have shoots both above and below the graft then what you need to do is simply cut off anything that's below the graph. This is a fairly common problem when we have a bad winter or people somehow don't have the Roses protected adequately and of course a lot of people's roses weren't covered at all when we got that storm last Halloween everything above the graft may very well freeze off and it's the material above the graph that is actually the rows that you planted if you planted a mr. Lincoln It's All Above The graft if you planted a piece Rose It's All Above The graft what's below? The graft is just a real tough Hardy vigorous rootstock and that can send out shoots and it's just not going to amount to a hill of beans the shoots will get big and tall, but they're not Going to bloom the first year and if somehow you're able to save them to and the next year, you'll be very disappointed because they'll have little small not particularly distinguished looking flowers. So really if it's below the graft forget it. (00:34:01) Okay, we'll take another listener. Lots of folks with questions here for Debbie Brown as we talked about lawns Gardens flowers vegetables today on Minnesota Public Radio your turn next to low. Good morning. Where are you calling from? (00:34:12) I'm calling from st. Cloud. All right, and I'm an apartment dweller and I have a third floor apartment with a south-facing deck and I don't have a lawn but I would sure love to have some flowers and I want to do you have any suggestions on what kinds of flowering plants or non-flowering plants that I could put on my deck that will survive the hot afternoon (00:34:37) sun? Yes, I think geraniums ought to survive that hot afternoon sun. I think marigolds will survive. I think zinnias will Five, I think one of the keys to survival is using big containers. Don't get some little tiny pot or you know, sometimes you see these sort of trough like Affairs that you can plant in there's nothing wrong with them if you want to water all the time, but get a big deep container or I've seen self-watering containers that you can put on a deck or patio self-watering simply meaning that it holds a reservoir of water so that you don't have to be watering morning noon and night to take care of it the larger the volume of soil the more moisture, it'll hold and the better your chances are on a hot sunny south facing deck of having good success with whatever flowers you choose actually any of the sun loving annuals petunias ought to do well there to just just avoid the things that are meant for shade and anything that looks terribly terribly delicate with thin little leaves you don't Use I'm thinking Moss roses would be another nice choice for if you want something that isn't real tall, but I think you have just a world of choices on a south-facing deck just plant them in a nice big deep container and that'll take care of it for (00:36:02) you. All right. Well, let's let's reverse it and say that somebody lives in an apartment on a North facing side or something. That doesn't get as much sun then what do you (00:36:10) suggest? Well then then I still like the big containers Bob because they make life easier. I learned the hard way when I moved to a town house and put a lot of plants out in containers and my God, it was like being a Dairy Farmer. I had to be there to milk my cows all the time. I couldn't I couldn't leave because I've always, you know, if you left for five hours, everything was wilting. So I was I was running a home. And first thing I do before I took my work clothes off would be to run around in water all my little pots of flowers. I don't do that anymore. You were a slave. I was a slave to my plants but (00:36:46) could be that good. Start of a new movement a new self-help movement. (00:36:50) You got it. Right right here anyway on a North side or an east side. I think that you want to be planting things like impatience begonias coleus. The tiny little french marigolds will work dwarf red. Salvia emulous or monkey flower bro Walia there lots of choices look for the things that say shade-tolerant the ones that say sun to partial shade. Those are a little questionable go for the real shade-tolerant things tuberous begonias do nicely sometimes house plants like wandering. Jew you can hang out and they're going to look beautiful. In fact, if you have a north-facing balcony, you could put all of your house plans outdoors and they probably will grow like crazy because they're going to get more light out there than they do in the house. You really have a lot of choices and of course without that hot beating Sun you don't have to worry quite as much about Watering it can still be a problem because the wind is going to get to those containers and if their clay if their poorest Terracotta clay containers, you know, you're going to lose a lot of moisture through the walls of the container if you use a glazed container or a plastic container that traps the moisture better (00:38:06) back to the phones and more questions for Debbie Brown your turn next and you're calling from where (00:38:11) I'm calling from (00:38:12) Fargo from Fargo. Yes, ma'am. (00:38:13) I had a long at full of night crawlers and very rough and bumpy. Is there anything I can do to deal with this (00:38:19) whole that's that's a very difficult question. Excuse me. One of the things you can do is sort of physically try to work on that bumpiness by using a power rake to kind of bite through those little heels and try to even out the the terrain you're not going to get it over night. You may have to do it on several different occasions, but you can use a power rake the best time. To do that would actually be early in Autumn when you power rake now, you're more likely to get some weeds coming up in those slices, but you can power rake you can are eight aerating taste little chunks of soil out and you just leave them fall on the ground that that all helps to to even it out if you have access to good topsoil particularly topsoil that is like what's in your lawn are ready. For instance. If you have a garden where you can take some soil out of the garden or if you're in a newer area and and there's some place that you can still get soil like what your house is grow is is on what your grass is growing on you can top dress by spreading a very light layer of soil and then raking it in that tends to fill in the depressions a little bit bumpy lawn is real difficult. It's hard to walk on it can be a safety hazard and it's hard to mow but Really? There isn't a real good way to deal with it. You don't want to kill off the nightcrawlers at least not in any large proportion because night crawlers are actually beneficial for the soil and they actually help the grasses. Well, if you think that you have just a huge huge population population of night crawlers, you might look into doing something chemically to at least reduce that population but we really don't like to see people killing nightcrawlers any more than necessary (00:40:15) want to ask you about grass clippings. It used to be that you'd you'd cut the grass. You didn't feel like you'd really done a good job until you'd either bag them or rake them up. But now of course you can't deposit those in the landfills anymore. So what do you do about grass clippings? (00:40:28) Well, the reality is that the best thing you can do with them as let them just drop right back to the to the soil and we've actually been telling people that for a number of years even prior to these sort of problems with with the waste stream and keeping yard waste out. The our landfills the grass clippings themselves will break down very rapidly. I think people have the idea that grass clippings makes thatch. Yeah, and you don't want a thatch buildup in your lawn. The reality is thatches not from the blades of grass. It's not from that flat part that you would cut off if you're mowing your lawn fairly frequently. Thatch is made up of these the wiry stems lower down and the roots of grass plants the way a grass plant where I could go on for an hour about this Bob. So shut me off if I'm doing too much but the way a grass plant grows is you have one plant. It sends out these sort of Runners and each individual plant then makes a whole bunch of other plants and then each of those makes more and the grass sort of grows upward occur in Italy, you know older plants die and newer plants are coming around it and the whole thing tends to grow up and you leave this deposit this sort of wiry. Posit behind that is the thatch and it's that thatch layer if it gets more than a half an inch or so that tends to make your lawn vulnerable to a lot of different patch diseases. And so whereas a little bit of thatch is good. It cushions the cushions the roots and the cushions the grass from people walking on it a lot of thatch leaves your lawn very vulnerable. And so we say try to keep that thatch layer at about a half an inch or less. How do you control that? Well with a with the power rake power raking and with aerating again in early fall not all types of graphs build up thatch has rapidly the less vigorously growing grasses don't tend to make thatches fast that's generally isn't as much of a problem on sandy soil as it is on a heavy clay soil. It's a complicated thing, but the idea of clippings falling back onto the grass making that is really erroneous the clippings break down very rapidly. Because they're just thin tissue. That's not that wiry tissue. Now. If you let your grass grow to five six inches, so you're on vacation. Nobody takes care of the lawn and then you let that fall back down into the grass. You're probably taking off some of that wiry part as well. It's been allowed to grow Too Tall. That's not a real good idea. I would rake that up and put it in a compost pile. But if you're able to cut your grass so that you're not taking off more than about an inch at a time. And the the rule of thumb is every time you cut your grass. You should take off no more than a third of the length of the grass plant. So if you like to keep your grass at 2 inches, you will when it gets to three inches and in the spring when the grass is growing fast, you might have to mow twice a week other times of the year. It's much less than that. If you Mo often enough, you don't have to worry about those clippings just let them fall and they actually break down and add nitrogen or recycle nitrogen back into the soil. A lot of people are buying mulching mower zdechlik. Recycling mowers which chip those those grass blades up into smaller pieces, and that's that's fine. But if you cut often enough, it really isn't absolutely necessary to do that. You just want to avoid laying the grass down in big thick rows. Then you need to get out with a rake and kind of spread it around (00:44:05) you're going to have to shut me up on this too because I like to talk about this topic one final question and then we'll get some more listener calls. You mentioned the height of the grass 2 inches. Is there an ideal (00:44:15) height? Well, there is no one ideal height but there are different heights depending on what type of lawn you have and depending on the season. Actually I think two inches is a little bit short for most people and I highly maintained Lon two inches might be okay, but most people I would say you want to shoot for about two and a half inches, which means you mow it when it gets to about three and a half inches or so in the summer. You want to let the grass grow a little bit longer because that longer grass allows the crown or Stay cooler. Also what the research has shown is that the longer the grass is within reason the deeper the root system. So if you're always shaving the grass off at an inch or an inch and a half and some people do this, you are also getting a shorter route. And again that leaves the grass much more vulnerable not only to too much heat from sunlight and hot temperatures and drying out but the fact that the roots don't go very far down into the ground means that they're not able to seek out moisture very (00:45:16) well extension horticulturist Debbie Brown from the University of Minnesota's with us here on Minnesota Public Radio. It's about 10 minutes before twelve o'clock. We've got time for one or maybe two more questions and your next. Hello. (00:45:27) I have a question about I think maybe I've missed this already. Is it too late to put the pre-emergence grass clippings grass treatment on for Crabgrass? And is it too late to add finely chopped leaves to garden beds? (00:45:42) I would say no for sure on the Crabgrass Preventer. There's no reason at all that you can't be putting that down right now. I would say be sure to water it in to begin to activate that chemical in the soil until it's watered into the ground. It is not beginning to become active in the Twin Cities area. We generally have crabgrass starting to emerge right around Memorial Day and we want to get that crab grass Preventer on a little bit before that maybe a week or two ahead of that. So this is just fine. However, crab grass does not all pop up on Memorial Day. It doesn't all come up the same time it comes up over time. And so even if for some reason a person is late, they may not get as good control, but they would still get some control putting crab grass preventer down later in May. It's not a black or white all-or-nothing situation right now. I think you should have good control if you put it down in water it in as far as the the chipped up leaves. I think that if these leaves are not decomposed you can certainly ask Them to the garden soil but you want to add a little bit of extra fertilizer than to compensate for the fact that they will use nitrogen in the decomposition process. It's better if possible to turn those leaves into the soil in the fall. They're going to be more broken down then by Spring (00:47:03) before we run out of time here Deb. I do want you to mention that dial you Clinic number again, because we've got a whole bunch of people on the line. They're not obviously not all going to get on come Monday morning. What should they do? (00:47:15) Okay. Well come Monday morning. I hope they don't all call because we're swamped Monday mornings, but actually they're certainly welcome to call in any time during the week. We're open. We're located on the st. Paul campus. We're open from 9:00 to 5:00 on weekdays and they need to call one 909 880500 and they can call anywhere from Minnesota and actually a little bit over the borders as well. There is a 299 flat. Phoebe it's not one of these charges that accrues by the minute. It's a flat fee of $2.99 and it is billed directly or automatically to the phone they call in from we'd be glad to talk to them about plants insects plant diseases (00:48:01) great. We have time for one more question and we'll take it from you. You're on with Debbie Brown. Go ahead, (00:48:06) please I have two questions one is my root crops in my garden don't seem to develop the way they should and I want to know how to build up the soil. My other question is does the University charge for soil (00:48:21) testing? Yeah. The answer is yes, and I was going to suggest that you have a soil test because it may be that your soil is deficient in in potassium potassium is the major nutrient. Anyway, that that seems to be very necessary to get good root development. Also if your plants are not in enough sunlight you tend not to get good development on root crops and if the soil is very heavy And Clay like you also may have trouble with root crops. So I would add organic matter to the soil Pete. Well composted manure something like that compost to loosen that soil if it's a heavy soil. I would certainly fertilized with a balanced garden fertilizer like a 10 10 10, perhaps a 5 10 10 if you're putting in manure as well and if possible get your soil tested at the University, there's a seven dollar charge and you can get that soil test by calling the soil Department or your County extension (00:49:19) office. Then we run out of time as usual. It's been great. Thanks so much for coming in my pleasure. And we'll see you again later in the summer. You bet Dad Brown extension horticulturist at the University of Minnesota. This is midday on Minnesota Public Radio. It's 5 minutes before noon.