Okay. Well, we'll get to the phone's right away and get to as your questions about the things you need to be doing to get ready for that snow cover riches in Chanhassen. You're on the FM news station. Good morning question relates to wrapping trees. I got some of them trees and you have any suggestions on when to start wrapping number to which kind of trees and what size sure I can talk about wrapping trees when the bark is real thin you still want to wrap them sometimes people plant young Maples and they've been in the ground for for 5 years and they think of themselves, you know, gosh these trees are not brand-new anymore. It shouldn't be necessary to wrap them if the bark still looks very thin a more or less the same as when you bought it and isn't beginning to get a little bit of a Corky look to it. You still should be wrapping those thin bark trees that includes things like Maples honey locust, Basswood or Linden.Certainly, the fruit trees need to be protected not only against sunscald which is what you normally rap for but because if you have browsing animals deer and rabbits and some of the road they liked Italy like to chew for the sugars that are just under the bark. So the size in terms of height or diameter of the trunk is not critical. It's whether the bark looks thin and and sort of vulnerable and you can apply that tree wrap whether it's a the paper type that you kind of wrap on like an Ace bandage or whether it's the plastic type you can put that on a probably the latter part of this month or early November and you want to remember it's very important than to take that off again in spring mid-april or so so that you don't have the tree wrap actually holding a lot of moisture tight to the truck. If you leave the tree wrap on over the summer you're asking for trouble in terms of mold on that trunk to talk about wrapping trees to protect against Sons gold and whiteDo that in the winter. I know it sounds kind of funny but in the winter, we do have some very bright sunny days. And when the Sun beats down directly on those trunks, you know, there's no Leaf canopy to shelter the or to shade the trunk. So when the Sun beats directly on the trunk or when it reflects off of that bright white snow onto the trunk, you can really heat up one side of the tree. It's almost always a South Southwestern side of the tree and if you do have a young tree that's cracked or even an older one that has a major cracked on one side. If you check it out you'll see it's probably the South or Southwest side the trunk heats up the bark heats up and then all of a sudden the Sun goes behind a cloud or the sunset whatever and you have the regular cold air rushing in again and you have a combination of expansion and contraction when that happens repeatedly over the winter. There's a tendency for that bark then to crack their and the real problem is that that's an excellent.Entry point then for disease organisms. There's really nothing you can do to prevent disease. It's not automatic but it's certainly possible. The tree wrap is primarily to insulate and reflect some of that sunlight and I think and I'm not sure I might be goofing this up but I thought Rich wanted to know exactly how you go about wrapping it at you want to have it real tight or loose her? Well, it depends on what kind of wrap you use if you use that sort of craft paper the one that I'm talking about that looks more or less like an Ace bandage you want to start. Let me think now you want to start at the bottom and work your way up so that you're spiraling it and overlapping it slightly. The idea is then that any water that lands on that trunk will be shed down off of the trunk rather than funneled into the trunk if you were to start at the top and it got between the layers of the wrap it would tend to work its way down to the tree at South so you start at the bottom and Spa.I know your way up usually to where you have branching going off. But if you have a very young tree with very low branches, you might want to just to go around, you know, that bypasses branches and continue to spiral up a little bit higher. Okay, let's go back to the phones and to Charles in Bloomington. You're on the FM news station. Good morning wife of plants them in a communal part. That's about 15 in across and there may be as six different geraniums. Are they grow there all summer now, we would like to take and put them into individual 5 in spots in the question is can I break off?Most of the top growth and just transfer the roots and it would have a spout back again. Well, if you're going to divide them it is a good idea to cut back the tops because you're going to do a lot of damage to those routes in separating them. In fact, you may decide to just take a good sharp knife and separate the soil into sort of blocks each of them containing the major stuff and some Roots rather than trying to pull them apart. Then I would cut back the tops. I wouldn't cut them down to the ground but I would cut them back so that they're only 2 or 3 in tall and then allow them to re-sprout by putting them either under fluorescent light where the lights are only a foot or so above the plans or putting them in a bright window for the winter. So they're pretty much on their last leg right now are not truly an annual. The only perform is an annual in our climate because we have this terrible cold weather coming they freeze. They don't have any Frost tolerance, but why?You talkin about is taking them indoors and saving them over the winter. And a lot of people do that. Actually Mark people like to take them out of the soil and put them in grocery bags and or hang them up in the basement and and start them again in the spring. But that used to work better a number of years ago when we had cooler damper basements. Now most people have pretty warm dry basements and the plants may or may not survive if they're not actually growing in pots the safest way to get them through the winter is to keep them growing actively in a pot where you water it regularly, but you do have to find a good light source for it. Okay, you're listening to Saturday midday from the FM news station Mark's it act like you're alone with University of Minnesota extension Horticulture is Deb Brown and I were talking about things you can do with your lawn and garden to get ready for winter to 276 thousand is a number to join the conversation. If you're listening in the Twin Cities outside of the Twin Cities, you can call toll-free with your question and one eight hundred two four.2828 let's go back to the phones. And another question mark is in Minneapolis. Good morning. Good morning. I have a question concerning I guess the length of my lawn for the winter. I'm certainly not trying to get out of my lawn one more time before the snow flies. But my question is should I cut it shorter. Should I keep it normal summer length over the winter or is it better for the lawn to be longer over the winter season? Normally the length of the line that goes into winter should be about the same as in the spring and that maybe two and a half to 2 and 1/2 in 2 and 1/4 inches something on that order. We generally let the lawn grow longest in the summer because by letting it grow longer you protect the roots in the crowns from some of the Heat and it doesn't get it hot and dry but this time of the year you should be mowing on a regular basis as long as the grass is growing. It's also an important fact to get the leaves off the grass when the grass has a lot of leaves matted down on it or when it'sHow to grow too long and the grass is self just packs down flat you are much more likely to run into problems with snow mold the following spring. So do continue to mow it as long as it grows and mouat at 8 not don't scalp it but at the same kind of relatively short height that you would have in the spring or how are you going to know when that last remark? You still want me to free dick don't you never know then back to the phones Betty's in White Bear Lake? Good morning. That's it a Bloomin again, and I wondered how to bring it in without fuchsia is a plant that you can keep from one year to the next. However, you need to find a very cool room for it. At least ideal. You want to keep it in a cool room. If you have a spare bedroom or perhaps it a place in the basement that you can put it where it gets light, but it'sVery cool. They really like those cool temperatures in the winter. If you don't have a cool room, bring it upstairs or put it in one of the best place. You can remember that they need to have a fair amount of Lights. I think of wintering fuchsias as is more or less a holding operation that is don't expect the plan to be beautiful and full of flowers all winter, but if you can keep it alive over the winter, so that it doesn't look too bad. You can cut it back a little bit in the spring and then I'll put it Outdoors, you know towards the middle or latter part of May and it will continue to to grow and to bloom one of the things that is a drawback to overwintering some of these plants geraniums and fuchsias alike is that if they don't get really good growing conditions in your home over the winter. It may take several months during the summer before they pick up enough energy Outdoors to really put on a good show in terms of blooming again. And since we don't have an awfully long Bloom season 2 begin with you have to weigh the advantage.Over the disadvantages of going out and paying the money and starting out with it a fresh plant that looks beautiful from day one. Let's get back to the lawn stuff again. Is it too late to fertilize my lawn aerate and do some of the stuff? It is definitely not too late to fertilize. In fact that if you fertilize once early in the fall, maybe late August early September, you can put down a second and final application of fertilizer anytime now, I wouldn't recommend aerating at this point though because when you are eight you really want to do that at a time when there is Oprah has two or three weeks of good growing conditions to come and despite the fact that I would not predict snow in the next couple of days or anything like that. I'm not sure you can count on 2 or 3 weeks of really good growing conditions on Saturday. Midday. She's as many of you already know and extension horticulturist at the University of Minnesota were talking about fall Lawn and Garden Care. Let's go back to the phones and to Susan in New Brighton. Good morning around.Some news station. I have to peony plants that are planted on the west side of the house. They were there when we moved in there real big and bushy, but they've never bloomed and I'm wondering if it's too late to replant them maybe in a send your spot and then if not too late, how do I do it? Well, I think you're right on the edge of whether you'd want to move. Those are not ideally you would move those in late August or early September. So I'd be tempted to wait actually until spring to move them. Even though fall is normally the recommended time you say it's on the west side of the house of pennies need to go perhaps five or six hours of direct sunlight to bloom well and it may very well be that even on the west side of the house. You have trees that shade them or something like that. Normally the west side of the house would be a fine place for peonies and it may just mean that they need to be lifted and divided and replanted. You want to dig up the entire plant get it up with as much of the roots as possible. Try to get some soil attached to those routes and if they are very large you might want to divide them in quarters. Perhaps just divide each Clump in half and then you would replant them set them into holes at exactly the same level or Shirley. No deeper. In fact, one of the reasons it Penny sometimes fail to bloom is if they're planted too deep in the spring. If you can see exactly where the little shoots are coming out of the root system. If you can knock some of that soil off and figure out where the top growth begins versus The Roots then that portion needs to be no more than an inch and a half maybe 2 in below the soil if it's too deep to plant simply won't stop Bloom. I've seen peonies bloom however in really in not shady or places than what I suspect you have so I think it may be a question of being overgrown and or not cured for that. That is the problem one. Last thing. I should mention is that you should be fertilizing peonies Every Spring work in a little bit of 10-10-10 around each plant lot of calls about to help what's the best way to bring things indoors for winter will talk about planting bulbs and stuff maybe in a few minutes, but are there any plants that you can put in the ground right now and trees and the sort of thing? Will trees certainly can be planted trees in and shrubs as well can be planted at this time. The only thing is that when you plant this late in the fall, you really want to be sure to do some good mulching and with the Woody plants that means putting the end or perhaps 4 in or so of wood chip or shredded bark mulch around the base of these plants with a tree. You never want to go right up to the tree want to leave an inch or so away from the tree trunk. So you don't have the mouse right smack against the tree. But from there on it should be about 4 in deep and spread it out really is as far as you can to cover that root area and that mulch will help keep the soil from freezing is rapidly. It means that the soil will stay even though it's cool. It won't freeze. And as long as the temperature I believe is about 40 degrees or so, you're going to get root growth. And so that allows those plants to begin that establishment process and once this, Oil freezes, of course you're done for the year. So you want to water them in well mulch them and if the soil is still not frozen water every couple of weeks until it does freeze. Okay, let's go back to the phones. And another question. Cal is in Northfield. Good morning around the FM news station you getting impatient and now it has dropped its Lucas dropping its leaves and what are the possibilities on that issue going to ask you a question? You said this lady came down and her name is Marla said she wanted you to ask a question. Where did she come from? She lives in my building? Oh, okay. I was just curious as to where you're calling from his classes at. Well you she may be able to overwinter that if it's losing a lot of leaves I would cut it back fairly severely and get it into a really bright sunny window New Guinea impatiens takes more sunlight than the regular and patience and I don't believe that impatience do terribly well indoors under the best of circumstances. At least I've gotten so many calls from people who've had trouble wintering impatiens indoors that I would kind of not be surprised if it just doesn't make it but put it in a bright sunny window and water after the soil gets fairly dry and see what happens it. It may overwinter. It may not. Okay. Let's go back to the phones. And another question for Deb Brown jewels in Monticello. Hello, that's the question I have is we have some apple trees that suffered some storm damage. It was all in a few cracked branches and should I sell those branches now or let them stay that way to the winter and come off in the spring storm damage is fairly fairly recent. I would go out and take care of those right now. Normally the time to do pruning on apple trees would be late February and March very early in April at the at the very latest, but because there's damage and you've got, you know branches that are partly severed that can very likely get worse and sometimes those branches are going to break during the winter and when they break they don't necessarily break where you want them to they may come in answer to strip the bark down off the trunk as they fall so I would take care of those right now, but I don't want you to misinterpret and feel that this is normally a good time to be pruning fruit trees because all things being equal it would be better. To wait until late winter early spring Oaks and other shade trees virtually anytime Oaks and Elms. We have a kind of a different story on Oak Tree should never be pruned during the months of April May or June. But any other month should be okay Elm trees. We don't like to see them prune during the growing season. If you can possibly avoid it because they're there is some evidence that the freshly cut pruning wounds may be attracting beetles that that carry Dutch elm disease, but generally speaking winter is a good time to be prudent to be putting any of the Deciduous shade trees. So now later it isn't critical that brown has brought along with her this morning a copy of Minnesota gardening 1995 at the University of Minnesota extension service calendar the full of beautiful. Photographs and gardening tips from Deb Brown herself even a photograph. I'm looking at it in December the Deb took and we wanted to get the information out as to how people can go about buying this calendar to make an excellent GIF dead. What do they need to do? Well, first of all, it is called Minnesota gardening 1995 and it's available in a lot of books and book and gift store is across the state. You can also get them from your local County extension office. And if you want you can call up our bulletin room at the University of Minnesota. I can give that number they're not open today, but they're open weekdays business hours. The area code of course is 612-625-8173. And if you can order using a credit card you can order from them and they'll probably get a real good deal on them. It's a beautiful calendar. And in those tips are great. I mean that you each month. There's five or six little suggestions from Deb on the what? When it's a fundraiser for the extension service, correct? You bet you it's nothing we don't make much profit on that but we kind of make enough money to do the next year. It's his is about it. But we have a good time with addenda. We do feel that it's particularly nice for gardeners in this area because most of the gardening calendars, even the ones that say for our region are not really tailored specifically to Minnesota. We have a very harsh winter climate and so we do things a little bit differently than the most of the national calendar suggest will get the phone number out for that calendar again at the end of the program. So stay tuned. If you want to pick up a copy of that will give you the number right before we're finished. It's about 28 minutes past 11, you're listening to mid-day from Ennis, Minnesota Public Radio to FM news station. Let's go back to the phones into an in Mendota Heights. Good morning. I have a question about my cutting Garden which is composed of perennials and annuals and I also have a wood chip mulch on it, which it's been there all summer What would Best way to prepare this for winter. Should I pull the annuals or let him stay until spring cut everything back? I want to make sure I keep the nutrients in the soil. Yes, you do want to remove the annuals as soon as they're not looking good anymore or Frost damage get the annuals out to there's that serves no purpose to keep those in the garden the perennials you want to leave them. They leave the tops on again until there Frost damage many times people want to cut back The Perennial tops early in the fall, you know, there's is idea that you wanted the garden to look neat and tidy and lets you know, if they're through blooming let's take care of it. But in reality the longer those leaves are green and functional the more energy is being stored in the roots for next year's growth. So just take a look anything that's looks yellow or brownish or rough looking kind of shabby or certainly Frost damaged, then you can cut those down and throw them in your compost pile if you have one or If they're badly disease Door full of insects, I would put them in the trash and have them hauled away. Okay, let's go back to the phones and to send the in Anoka good morning. You're on the FM news station with Deb Brown. I have a question regarding a I have a beautiful lavender plant that's in a pot right now, and I'm wondering if I can bring it in for the winter. And also I try to bring in marjoram plants and time and I just haven't had any luck with that. They just have died, you know within a few weeks and bring him in and wondering if I can give me a picture of the pot of lavender you definitely want to bring in because Lavender is not Hardy here. And so if you leave it in the garden it unless we have an extremely mild winter. You're not going to see that next year. So definitely bring it in put it in your sunniest brightest window or alternate Lee put it in a room in the basement where you can hang some fluorescent lights on. Chains or ropes and get the lights down close to the plant the lights only need to be perhaps a foot above the height of the plant and keep those lights on 12 or 14 hours a day and that will probably keep them growing. Well now as far as the other herbs that you brought in if they were in containers, you would treat them exactly the way I've talked about the lavender. If you are just digging them out of the garden soil. That's a tough situation because it's very hard to make that transition if they're already growing in the soil. You're going to lose a lot of the roots and digging them up by putting them into a pot. You want to trim back the top growth and again get it in the brightest place you have when people have been calling and asking about taking plants herbs out of the garden specifically. I've been recommending that they call around to some of the garden centers. There are some herb specialist in the Twin Cities area that that really have a big choices of herbs and instead. Taking your old plants out of the garden start with some young plants in small pots and get them into your windows. They will be not having to go through that big transition and they probably will produce much better for you. You won't have to have his heart a time keeping them alive. I think they have a few months ago on the program. You mentioned some suggestions for harvesting some of the herbs to am not positive that it was you if it's not you we can you can defer we can move on but I know for example of it I had my house is the herbs are there tons of on my parsley and basil and things like this. Can you just clip man hanging upside down and then using that are you sure can you can flip them and hang them upside down and other thing you can do with some of them if you want is freeze them on cookie sheets and once they're frozen put them in plastic baggies and seal them up and put them in the freezer. What you don't want to do is dry them and then crumble them up into little pieces when you cry. Them up a lot of the aromatic oils are released. And then when you go to use them for cooking, they're not going to be terribly flavorful. So get them in big chunks, you know pieces of the stem with lots of leaves attached or if they're large leaves entire leaves and save that crumbling for right before when you use them. You're going to find that you have a lot better flavor that way. Okay. I want to ask you a little bit of planting bulbs as well before the program runs its course and will do that in a few minutes, but let's go back to the phones Dave is listening in Mound good morning around the FM news station. I had trouble getting them started. During the summer, but what's the best to keep him during the winter? Well garlic chives should be fully Hardy outdoor. So I don't know if you're talking about bringing them in it would be really more or less the same as I mentioned for the other herbs. You would need to have them in a pot and get them into a very bright sunny window. These herbs need to be allowed to dry quite a bit between waterings indoors. It's a mistake to keep the soil moist all the time and they need to have a lot of sunlight and of course we have such short days that if you don't have a very bright sunny window, you're probably better off getting them under fluorescent lighting. I would continue to try the garlic chives perhaps in a different part of your yard or garden Outdoors. They should not be hard to grow. They need to have well-drained soil and lots of sunlight. Okay, 25 minutes are coming up on 25 minutes before 12. Noon you listening to Saturday. Midday Deb Brown is here and we're talkin about fall lawn and garden care. If you have a question for Deborah, and you can join our conversation by calling 227-6004 listening in the twin. Anywhere else, you can hear the broadcast. You can call toll-free and talk to Dad Brown the toll free numbers one 800-242-2828. Let's go back to the phones. Dennis's in Maplewood. Good morning. Good morning. I have a perennial and ornamental grass Garden, but my soil is extremely clay soil and prior to planting anything I put in or I dug and peat moss. I'm wondering if there is anything that I should do to get better results than what I do have currently. I should there be fall fertilizer applied. What suggestions do you have? I'll hang up and listen. Well, once you have your perennials in your grass is planted. There is really no way to amend the soil anymore. It might be possible to mulch with some compost that is either partially or fully broken down put it around the plants, but you can't really do a whole lot about that clay soil as far as fertilizing when you're talkin about grasses and perennials ornamental grasses and perennials the best time to do that would be early in the spring rather than fall you could possibly wait until late fall and the fertilized it would just be sort of sitting there and ready for the plants in Spring, but we normally recommend that in the spring so I think by adding the the peep when you did plan you probably did about as much as you're going to be able to do if you had an annual or a vegetable garden weed and where you turn the soil every year you can constantly be working compost peat partly broken down leaves and you can really make a Huge difference in the till for the structure and crumbling this of that soil as the years go by but of course with perennials and with the ornamental grasses once they're planted there in for good and unless you want to go to the trouble at some point of lifting say a section of the garden that is taking out all the perennials in one part of the garden one year and working on that soil and replanting them and maybe doing that as a on a sequential basis over several years, you're never going to be able to really improve that soil very much you talk about certain grass. Is there something like this I've seen these like prairie grasses are 4 ft tall may be in there at some of the some of the grasses that we grow our 8 or 10 ft tall is more popular, but I don't see him around it and it most of the regular lawn and garden stores. At least I haven't where to where people track those don't I don't know maybe you could describe a little better when I'm trying to talk about it. Keeping their mind sort of like pampas grass. We don't have to Pampas grass in Minnesota. But we have a number of grasses that have very beautiful plumes and they they can give you real interest in the winter because they stick up out over the snow. They're beautiful when they're blooming when they put out that little feathery plume and some of them even give us some fall color. So there are a very attractive perennial and that we are seeing more and more of them in the gardens. Now, I've seen them in some of the larger garden centers. There are also against specialty nurseries that sell lots of these grasses. I'll one that comes to mind is called landscape Alternatives in St. Paul. There's a wonderful company called Prairie restoration up in the I believe it's in Princeton Minnesota. There are places. You can check to get these kinds of grasses and I think you could give our our office at the dial you a call if you're looking for ornamental grasses. We could help you out to in terms of locating a place that that might be near where you live or to give you some names of catalogs and places that you could get the mail order and dial Yu is a service you can call and I your charge by the minute for your question are you that is part of the Minnesota extension service and we run out of the Saint Paul campus and the dial you is open weekdays from 9 to 2 answering questions about plants and insects and the insects don't necessarily need to be on Plants. We answer insects and said questions about pets and houses and things like that too. So we're open weekdays from 9 to 2 and it is a 900 number. There's a $2.99 flat fee when you call in. So if you call us your phone bill will reflect that $2.99, but it's not by the minute. That's that's kind of like your psychic friends and where Richard Psychic Friends where your heart accounts are fat and we don't charge you by-the-minute. What's that number to dial? Your number will get it out now and then also repeated the end of the podcast. It's 1 9 8 8 0 5 0 0 okay for people who are unable to get through to Deb today. They can call that Monday between 9 and 2 and we'll give that number out again at the end of the program. Let's go back to the phones and get as many questions as we can Jenna's and Saint Paul. Good morning. I have a hibiscus and it does pretty well outside and it's still blooming like crazy, but I brought it inside and the minute I bring it in the leaves begin to turn yellow last year. I put it in a plastic bag for most of the winter and all that moisture brought the lead us back. But is there any other way short of that? That I can keep it from looking like a ghost in my windowsill because I told somebody you going to be on the midday today and they said I'll ask her about my hibiscus. The leaves are turning yellow. We bought chemicals and sprayed it and that didn't help her know. I hibiscus is getting to be a very popular plant and truthfully you shouldn't have to put them in a plastic bag in the winter and the leaves shouldn't all turn yellow It's Not Unusual to lose some of the leaves because no matter how good your growing conditions are indoors. They're not going to duplicate what you have on a sunny dacor or if you put it out on a patio or you know by your front stairs or something like that. What you need to do is bring it in check a carefully for insects because this is a plant that's very prone to spider mites. Look at the undersides of the leaves. If you see a little bit of webbing or some pinprick discoloration wash the underside of the leaves carefully, you can get one of the insecticidal soaps to spray on it, or you can just simply be Blast it with some spray safe from the sink or your shower or even from your hose Outdoors. If you if you can do that, once you sure that is not full of insects. Bring it indoors put it in your brightest sunniest location. I sound like a broken record, but all these plants at come indoors. They really need to have a bright window because we're going to go down to eight or nine hours of sunlight or daylight versus the 1617 hours. We had, you know at the brightest part of the summer. So you have to pack more light into a shorter. Of time to compensate. So get the plan into a good bright sunny window water it more sparingly know that doesn't mean you don't water thoroughly water. It's early. So the water comes out the drain Hills spill out the extra but then let the soil get fairly dry between waterings and expect to see some of those leaves turn yellow and drop because the plant simply can't maintain as much foliage under those conditions fertilize it very Very sparingly until spring maybe early March and at that point, it should start picking up some new growth and you can put it out again in May. It should not be necessary to do anything special. Other than that. Okay, we move on now to Diana and Minneapolis. Good morning around the FM news station. I just picked up a variety of grapes and I don't Okay, you mean you haven't planted them yet. They've been planted and I've had a full summer and now it's just my first fall winter and I don't know what to do. Okay. Well if they really are good for Zone 3 you shouldn't have to do much of anything. I guess. I would certainly rake leaves around the base. If you want to get straw that's even better than leaves. You can pick up a bale of straw bale of hay at the Garden Center and spread that around but generally speaking if they are the very Hardy grapes, they shouldn't need any particular special winter protection. I think what you need to be looking at is how you train Those Grapes so that they will be pruned back the right way. So is to produce a lot of fruit and that's kind of a little bit complicated again, we could give you some good advice at the dial you and send you out of a good brochure that shows you how to do that. But spend a couple of minutes talking about putting bulbs in last year. I think a lot of people lost Bob's new bulbs that they put down because of Just The Frigid winter we had in the conditions now, I would suppose anyway, I don't know what I'm talking about, but you can set the record straight now would probably be a good time to try that again writer Mark at least you're honest right b a good time to try it again. Actually what we found is that establish bulbs came through last winter in good shape the bulbs that have been in for several years, even a couple of years. It was a brand new bolts that hadn't had a chance to root down. Well that that seem to take it on the chin. This is a good time to be planting tulips and daffodils and some of the minor bulbs the little tiny balls like crocus and Scylla and snowdrops things of that nature and what you want to do. A lot of times people will plant these bulbs right up close to the foundation of their house and the south or west side the problem with that is that the warm weather early in the in the spring or late in the winter hands to melt the snow off of those areas and then they start Come up way before they ought to be out of the ground. So I would suggest don't go right by the foundation where you get that heat build-up, but come out of ways or find a different place, you know for those bulbs and then plant them deeply enough. That's another mistake that people make as they tend not to plant them deeply enough how deep you plant them depend a little bit on the soil type the Sandy or the soil the deeper, they should be planted and finally be sure that you incorporate some fertilizer into the soil lower than where you plant the bulbs so that when that Roots down it'll root down into that fertilize. So I put a little soil on top and then put the bulb you don't want to sit the ball right on where you there's fertilizer. People have called in about planting bulbs what you know, sometimes they're upside down. Sometimes they don't they don't know what they're doing that direction the pointed end or the more tapered and no matter what the bulb is always goes upward. And if you're not sure what is the top and what is the bottom plant the bulb on its side and the stand will go up and The Roots will go down. So once you get those bulbs in water them well and then in a few weeks when the soil gets colder rake some leaves or some straw over it to give it a little bit of additional insulation not from the cold so much but from those fluctuating temperatures that would tend to get them going to soon in the spring when they're still vulnerable to hard Frost without getting into naming companies in this sort of thing any suggestions on how to buy bulbs because certainly in some of these catalogs you can spend three four bucks for one Bob and I would think that there might be ways of getting around some of that actually Mark it's getting late to be ordering. Catalogs I think I owe you know, by the time you send in an order in and they mail it back to you. We could we could possibly have early snow on the ground. I'd be more tempted to go right to a local store or you know Nursery or garden center at this time of the Season rather than rely on mail order. You want to get the biggest bulb for that type of bulb that you can possibly afford because the larger the bulb the larger the flower, sometimes you get more than one stem of flowers and there's more energy in that bulb. It's more likely to come back in good shape. The following year was here on Saturday. Midday and were talking about fall lawn and garden care. We have about 15 minutes left in the program and will try to get through as many calls as we can in that time. Let's go to Linda in St. Paul. Good morning. I was wondering if wondering if you could tell me how to prepare a climbing rose for the winter. Well in our in our climate, the climbing roses have to be laid down you want to take Get down off of its trellis or what. However, it's attached to your home in time when that you know, actually this isn't a bad time before it gets so cold that the wood is going to be very brittle you want to do it when it's still flexible. You want to lay it on the ground and then cover it perhaps with some soil certainly with some straw and some leaves you want to make a good kind of a covering over the entire thing and Mark where the tip of it is so that you'll know in the spring when you start to uncover the rose where to where to begin so that you don't put your shovel or your fork smack into the into the stems of the canes of the Roses. Most of the climbing roses bloom on old wood. That is it's this year's World that will produce the flower buds next year. And so you really can't prune it down heavily. If you have to prune it a little bit fine, but don't prune it back heavily because you'll be sacrificing the flowers next year. Okay, let's move on. Eagan good morning on the FM news station. I think hello. Hey, we have a patch under a tree by the plants and be so kind of going. How to cure everything all existing plants of the place and Landscape the place and continue for next train my question is are we better off cleaning clearing everything now and putting mulch or is it that you're done in Spring? Thank you. Well, it depends a little bit on what's growing under that tree in that weed patch. You might want to wait until spring simply because most of the weeds are done with most of their girls at this point. And so chemically you're not going to get as effective use of the chemicals as the temperature drops. And if you have perennial weeds you really do you can probably need to kill them with a weed killer in order to get down to the roots. Otherwise, if you just take the tops off and leave some of the roots behind there's a good possibility than that they're going to come up next year. So I would wait until next spring to you actually see perhaps 6 in of growth on whatever that stuff is that you don't want under the Then I would get some round up or glyphosate and get the ready to used formulation go along and just spits on to the individual weeds or onto that patch and it will take a week and a half to two weeks for them to turn color and died at that point. You can rake them out hold them out and do some Landscaping I would caution you though. If you're under a tree you want to be careful in terms of not rototilling and damaging the roots of the tree you got anything you do has to be done at a very superficial depth so that you don't disrupt that tree's roots. Are you could actually damage the roots the Roundup on the weeds will not hurt the tree but going in and doing a lot of digging can let's go to Grand Rapids in a question from Marie. Good morning have to question one is we I have a very large flower bed that is away from the house not near the house that has the ball between Hills and panties in the past. We've covered it with straw. Local Josh and in Spring, we had a nice field of green and I was wondering if you can give me an idea of what I could covered with or if I need to cover it at all. And the second thing is if I buy naturalizing bulbs and I have a field at the plain natural Fields, no never killed. Can I put those natural eyes involved in that field and do I have to do anything before I just dig a hole and romance? Thank you. Hang up. And listen sure. Let me start with the bulbs first. The only thing that you have to do is work a little bit of fertilizer into each hole before you plant the bulbs but a field is an ideal place for naturalizing bulbs for anyone who isn't sure what that means. It means that rather than putting them in a garden you place to place them out in the monks grasses and it looks sort of is if they just popped up there. Of course you have to do it artfully. You don't want to put them out in rows or anyting heard me in like that but it can be very lovely and a field is perfect because the trick to having Naturalized bulbs come back year after year is that you don't want to harvest the foliage too soon. In other words you want the leaves to be there in the sunlight all summer long or as long as they grow so that they're going to gather up as much energy for next year as possible. A daffodils are probably the best bald for naturalizing in this area. So I would say just fertilized before you plant and that should work very well as far as replacing your straw of with something else. If you have oak trees oak leaves were quite well as a mulch actually any kind of Aleve can work. Well as mulch it's just that they're a little bit messy. They tend to blow around the yard, but I have used leaves for many years to mulch my perennial gardens and never had any trouble with it. So strong is better in the sense that it gives you a little more insulation. I wouldn't be concerned about using leaves as long as you put it on deeply enough of what two 2 feet. Okay another For Deborah and Debbie in Faribault is on the line. Good morning. This area and I've acquired a lovely raised flower bed. That's perennial. However, it's the the bed is surrounding it a silver maple tree. It goes about eight foot out eight to ten feet out and what my problem is that the soil is so math with roof, you know, I've tried to gently cultivate it real regularly and I've added a heavy layer compost. I'm just wondering if there's anything else I can do. I'm afraid there isn't the the Silver Maple. In fact just about any tree is going to want us and routes into a lovely raised bed where you water and you fertilize I mean, you're making conditions perfect not just for the perennials but also for the tree roots, so I think other than what you're doing there's nothing I can suggest it's kind of a constant battle and you probably aren't doing too much damage by cultivating in and getting rid of a few of those roots, but it is something that is just a fact of life and I think that that's just comes with the territory. There's not much you can do about it. Okay, let's go to another question. Susan is in Minneapolis. Good morning. when she was About herbs before she talked about freezing herbs on the cookie sheets, and I was wondering if those do you have to wash those before you do that? I'm sorry. I really have been kind of going in short and you know, you always wonder how much detail you dare to give out on these answers, but the definitely you want to we want to wash them not necessarily because you're worried about the pasta sides or anything but because they're in the garden and they get Dusty, you know, so you want to wash them and lay them out on a Turkish towel and or some soft paper towels and Pat them dry. You want to be very careful that you don't bruise them and drying them because again when you bruise them you allow some of those nice aromatic oils to it to escape so you want to let them dry and then once they're dry that's when you would put them on the free down the tray and stick them in the freezer and they freeze quite rapidly once they're frozen get them in those bags that you don't know. You don't want to leave them out. There for a day in the freezer just open and exposed to the air but it it's a it's a very simple process and I think you'll like the results. Brown. We hopefully will get you a couple more power of callers before we're done wisely passes long a question though. Is there any classes other classes of people can take during the fall and winter so that they will be Master Gardeners come spring and summer word Master Gardener. We have a program throughout the state called The Master Gardener program and people should contact their local County extension office to check into that in the Twin Cities. We have a big Master Gardener course, it starts in January and if anyone is interested, they would call either Hennepin Ramsey Dakota Carver County, etc, etc. But we also go out into the more rural areas of the state and so people can check no matter where they are. If we don't do it this year. We may be in your area next year. The other thing you might want to do is give us a call at the University. We do have a listing of many. Any courses that are offered some of them through the complete scholar program through night school. So on and so forth. Our number is 624-4242 and just ask about classes. Okay, let's get one last question in from Jessica. Who's listening in Excelsior. Good morning. Then what do I need to do to prepare them? Okay, you can plant them now just be sure that they're mulched Welby and water them in if we get to dry weather for a couple of weeks water them again. That's all you have to do. Okay, I'm done before we leave for a couple of just general tips for people who might want to get there and put their yards to to bed for winter. So to speak. Well, I I think that there isn't a whole lot that we haven't covered to be honest with you Mark. I think that anything you can do in the fall is to the good because you know come spring we're going to be swamped with different chores. So get out there do that final fall fertilization fertilization that's important. You can fertilize trees now if you want to it's just going to be there ready for you in the spring and other than that clean up those Garden so you don't carry over disease or insect pests for next year and they do say I say they I guess you do say that fall is probably one of the best times to fertilize cuz you're not going to have the fertilizer running off your yard. In the lakes and sewer systems in the fertilizer really goes to thickening the roots and making more roots and Runners for the grass. So it will come back in a really thick and green next bring us a disappointing time of year for somebody like yourself. Brown well know because I love to do house plants and indoor gardens II really have a good time with my amaryllis and different bulb. So it's just different. It's not disappointing. Okay. Brown from the University of Minnesota extension service was the guest on that today's midday a familiar voice to men in Minnesota Public Radio listeners Deb. Thanks once again for sharing part of your Saturday with us. We appreciate you're very welcome Deb mentioned the Minnesota gardening 1995 calendar. It's put together by the University of Minnesota extension service, and you can pick that calendar up by calling the University of Minnesota at 612-625-8173 weekdays during business hours to order that it's also in bookstores. Also if you have questions for Deb Brown or other Dial you extension horticulturist. You can call the dial your number at 1 900-988-0502. That's a $3 call for your question. And it's open from 9 to 2 during the week. The technical director. Do I have a near-death? Yeah, it's 0 5 0 0 0 5 0 0 4 value. Okay, technical directors were Jeff Conrad and Clifford Bentley. Thanks to Kitty Isley and Mike McCaul penguin. My day on Saturday is supported by the oriental rug company specializing in the sales and service in handmade oriental rugs and located in Minneapolis at 50th and Bryant Chris Roberts. I owe you 14 seconds. You don't owe me 14 seconds Mark. Don't worry about it. It's a minute before noon and you're listening to the FM news station will update the weather forecast for you in the Twin Cities cloudy and Breezy this afternoon with some light rain or drizzle developing later on highs in the low 60s rain is expected tonight with lows in the lower 50s and rain is again likely tomorrow. Storm and possible off all thunderstorm possible in the Twin Cities tomorrow in a high near 60° the extended outlook for Monday and Tuesday chance of showers and thunderstorms both days Lowe's in the upper 40s to mid-50s and highs both days ranging in the sixties some light rain in Duluth at this hour and 52 degrees cloudy in Rochester and 57 degrees. Are meet the candidates series continues on Mondays. Midday Gary. I can hear it on Monday will have a chance to talk with dfl gubernatorial candidate John Marty a day begins at 11 on the FM news station, W FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities. Cloudy and 58 degrees at the FM news station know FM. 91.1 Minneapolis-Saint Paul. What time is 12 noon?