[Narrator] Celebrating 70 years of answering your gardening questions.

Backyard Farmer is a co-production of Nebraska Public Media and Nebraska Extension.

[Man] Tonight on Backyard Farmer, we're coming to you from Northeast Community College in Norfolk, where we'll show you the connection between the college and the farmer's market, and we'll recap a recent arts festival.

That's all coming up next right here on Backyard Farmer.

(upbeat music) (audience applauds) Good evening, and welcome to Northeast Community College in Norfolk for Backyard Farmer.

This is going to be a really great evening for us to enjoy this amazing audience of over 200 people who turned out tonight, and we have some great things planned for you.

This is also history making, this is the first time we have ever had in 70 years -an all-female panel.

(laughs) -(audience applauds) And we also, this is a taped show, so we cannot take your questions, of because we don't have any, but you can send us an email to byf@unl.edu, we'll try to answer those questions for a future show.

We always start with samples, and these beautiful young women are ready with samples.

So Kait, what do we have?

So today I brought with me some Lecanium scale that I found on the burning bush in front of my house.

And I actually didn't realize it had scale problems because the front or the street-facing side of the bush was completely scale free.

And interestingly enough, all of these scales were on the back or the house-facing side, but scales are really important insects.

They are piercing-sucking, so they feed on the plant, and sometimes their numbers can get overwhelming.

But when we think about scales in terms of management, timing for these are, it's really key because they have a really unique lifecycle.

So Lecanium scales, the adult females are wingless, legless, they just hang out on the plant and eat all day.

And then about April and May, this type of scale will lay about 1,000 to 5,000 eggs underneath her body.

And so those eggs are protected from the dead female, the exoskeleton covers it, so insecticides don't work on the eggs.

And really the only susceptible part of the lifecycle is the crawlers.

So as soon as they hatch out, they're going to be mobile, and they're going out from the protection of the mother, and that's when you want to time a treatment.

And usually we recommend horticultural oils because those help preserve pollinators, and sometimes with scales on trees, you might want to consider a systemic as well.

All right, thank you, Kait.

Terri, that is almost as tall as you are, -whatever you've brought.

-(Terri laughs) So I was out working in my yard, and it is time for those wonderful vines that everybody emails about.

And I brought two, so the one here on my right is called field bindweed, and the one on my left is honeyvine milkweed vine.

And so they have kind of similar shaped leaves, the honeyvine is just a little more pointed, a little more heart shaped, and they're going to be both very long, very prolific.

As you can see, I have not been weeding very well in my backyard, but the best way to get rid of these is to continually pull them.

Roch has shown us the "glove of death" also, so if these are intertwined within some landscape beds or something, then you can do the "glove of death" with this with like some glyphosate or something, if you want.

But I have found just going out and continually pulling these is very therapeutic, and they're pretty easy to pull out, they're usually pretty, just kind of a little simple root in there, but that is honeyvine and field bindweed.

Thanks, Terri.

All right, Amy, you think it's beautiful, we don't.

-But what is it?

-(woman laughs) -Not in this case.

-(Kim laughs) So I brought an eggplant for my house.

-Oh!

-And here's a secret.

I haven't planted them in my garden yet, it's been cold and I've been waiting for that last frost, so they're still sitting in my house, but they're showing us some great examples of nutrient deficiencies.

If you take a look at that leaf, you see how green the veins still are, and how yellow the rest of the plant is.

This is nitrogen deficiency.

I haven't been very good about adding that fertilizer to my little transplant here, hoping to get it into the garden soon.

But that's the one big thing with nutrient deficiency, and especially nitrogen, you'll see a dark green along that vein.

We also see it with iron chlorosis where the rest of the leaf turns yellow.

The nice thing I know about this is, once I give it a little bit of fertilizer, hopefully this weekend I can get it in the garden, and there's no more frost coming this way.

It's gonna be able to grow happy, but 60 degree weather, it's not gonna do anything.

So is this gonna stay in the house until it warms up?

Eggplant isn't worth planting anyway.

-Oh!

-(Kim laughs) -How dare you?

-(women laughs) All right, Kelly?

Okay, I could not resist, since we have an all-female cast panel tonight, I brought all-female trees.

And how do I know they're all-female?

Well, this is cottonwood fluff, which is being released now, so that's the fruit, this is an ash with fruit on it.

And this happens to be a ginkgo that I pruned it from a tree that I know has fruit on it, even though it'll come on later.

So there are some trees that are called dioecious trees, and that means they're either male or female, but not both.

And the gender they are depends on the type of flower they have.

So if it's a female tree, it has pistillate flowers, you may remember that from botany class or whatever, but of course, the pistil has the stigma style in ovary.

And male flowers or male trees have staminate flowers, which are the pollen and the anthers.

And so, of course, only the female tree with the ovary, once it's pollinated and fertilized can produce that fruit that carries the seed.

And why might this be important?

Well, sometimes we buy seedless trees, you're basically just buying a male tree, but remember that male tree produces lots of pollen.

So some people don't like seeds, but if you are allergic to a tree pollen, then maybe you don't want a seedless tree because it has a lot of pollen on it.

And it can be important with some plants like persimmon where we grow it for the fruit.

Those you need a male and a female to get your fruit or things like bittersweet, things like holly, we need male and female.

Now not all trees, some trees are monoecious, so they have pistillate and staminate flowers in the same tree, but there are some dioecious ones.

And tonight I brought all the females.

(laughs) It is appropriate that we actually had some cotton -floating across the screen.

-(women laughs) All right, Kait, you get the first picture question.

You have two pictures here.

This is from a McCook viewer, she has found these on her hackberry.

I suspect others have as well.

She wonders what it is?

And is it harmful?

[Kait] So I suspect that these are hackberry petiole galls.

So hackberry petiole galls are caused by an insect called a psyllid, and these ones kind of just look like tiny little cicadas.

And so like a lot of galls that form, it's pretty much the plant overreacting to either something feeding on it, or eggs being laid in this case.

So a psyllid lay the eggs, and then throughout the winter, the psyllids will grow up inside this gall.

And you might notice particularly in the fall on your hackberry because the galls form at the petiole, and while the leaves turn brown, they might not necessarily fall off.

And with a lot of galls, they don't cause huge health problems for trees, so we don't really...

It might not look pretty, but we don't really recommend doing too much.

You can always prune out really heavily infested branches, and you can once again, consider a systemic as well.

All right, and you have two more pictures.

The first one here is something on elm, which is what?

This is a Lincoln viewer.

Yeah, so this is another one of those galls, this is an elm sack gall, and it's not caused by a psyllid, it's caused by one of my favorite groups, aphids.

So it's caused by the elm-grass root aphid.

And once again, they have a weird lifecycle where this time of year the aphids are actually feeding on the roots of grass.

Late summer, they will move to the elm tree, they will lay the eggs in the bark, and then come spring those eggs will hatch.

They'll move to the leaves and then start feeding, and these galls form.

So it's a little late to do anything now.

And once again, it's not gonna like hurt the overall health of the tree.

[Kim] All right, and one more, and this is an Omaha viewer, and he wonder...

This is an ash, he wondered if this is eggs or galls?

-Once again, these are galls.

-(Kim laughs) So galls can take all sorts of forms on either the stems, the leaves.

This one is called ash bullet gall, and once again caused by a different type of insect.

This one's caused by a midge laying eggs in the leaf.

And once again, it doesn't really hurt the overall health of the plant, so you can just leave that.

All right, thanks, Kait.

Terri, you have two pictures for your first one.

I love the subject.

-Is this a carrot Omaha?

-(Terri laughs) And she's wondering whether this is carrots in this garden?

This was a volunteer.

What is this?

[Terri] So it wasn't close enough that I could completely tell, but I'm gonna guess that this is actually hemlock.

Carrots are a biannual, so it would send up the flower the next year.

So if you did leave some in the garden, it could potentially be, but to double-check, the stems are gonna be very smooth, and it's gonna have like these red splotches on it.

If that's what it is, then wear gloves to remove it because you can get some soreness from some of the sap and stuff on that hemlock.

[Kim] And don't eat the root.

-And don't eat the roots.

-Okay.

-(Terri laughs) -All right.

Your next two pictures are also Omaha.

She has this sort of weed thing in her garden, she's tried to get rid of it.

What is this?

[Terri] So this is actually a weed in the nettle family, this is called Pennsylvania Pellitory.

It's kind of a cool little plant, it doesn't really get very big.

It's very easy to pull out kind of a very tiny root that it is holding it in, or if you have like a hula hoe.

This is in rock, so the hula hoe won't work well, but I actually have these in my backyard too, I was working on these this weekend.

Hula hoe works very well.

[Kim] All right, and you have two more pictures.

And this is, again, what is this coming up in the flower garden?

[Terri] This I think is a Jiyum, that's in the rose family.

If you planted it, great, you might wanna just see if you like it.

If not, then I don't know, just dig it out.

-(laughs) All right.

-(women laughs) Amy, you have two pictures for this first one.

This is a Cairo viewer.

What's happening with the oak tree leaves?

It's a northern red oak planted this spring, many of the leaves are doing this as they unfold.

[Amy] So this is really looking like oak tatters.

-Mm-hmm.

-And so oak tatters is when we have injury to that leaf whether from frost or from herbicide damage, and then the wind just blows it apart.

So this is a young tree, it should be healthy, it should put on a second flush of leaves, so I wouldn't be too worried about it.

Typically this isn't something we see every year in Nebraska, but try to maintain the health of that tree and wait for that second flush of leaves.

[Kim] All right, your next one, you have two pictures.

This is an Omaha viewer, has yellowing foliage on his dwarf apple in clusters about six different areas.

What do we have here?

So when we look at these pictures, we're not seeing a lot of spots on there.

It could be multiple things.

With it being yellow, I wanna lean towards cedar-apple rust or apple scab, but I'm not seeing those spots on there.

The other thing I would lean toward is potentially fire blight.

We've had those blossoms and sometimes those leaves will turn yellow.

So this would be one of those, we need to look further down that stem to see if we're seeing any canker that could potentially be fire blight that could be moving in there, or looking at the rest of the tree and see if we're seeing any orange or black spots on there that could be leading to this yellowing and prematurity foliation of the tree.

[Kim] All right.

And you have one picture on this next one.

This is a Bennington viewer, they have apple and pear espalier trees three-years-old, on the anjou pears they have noticed this, looked fine the previous day, the other trees are not showing anything.

-So what do you think?

-This one, I mean, we're not seeing the classic shepherd hook, but I was leaning toward fire blight potentially with how quickly they turn brown.

Fire blight is a bacterial disease.

The sad part about bacterial disease and fire blight is, it's moved by our pollinators.

It's the bees that introduce it into the flower.

And that's the only way it can enter the plant is through that flower.

And we're right after that timing where that could be happening.

If it is fire blight, the only way to treat it is actually pruning out those areas.

And with it being a bacterial disease, we wanna prune anywhere from eight to 12 inches behind where we see those symptoms.

And when you make those cuts, you wanna make sure you then take your clippers, either use like a Clorox wipe or alcohol and wipe down those clippers or loppers before you make another cut.

That way if there is any bacteria that's we don't move it to another part of the tree, but that's where I would be leaning at this point in time on that tree.

All right, thanks, Amy.

And Kelly, your first two pictures follow Amy's disease.

-(Kelly laughs) -One, this is a Kearney viewer who has a flowering crabapple.

It appears to be healthy, but half the tree is yellow.

He did send a little bit more of a picture of the connection of main branch to trunk here.

Okay, yeah, the yellowing, if you zoom in, when I zoomed in on it, it looks somewhat chlorotic, so I think it is a nutritional issue.

But why are the...?

I mean, the rest of the tree is completely green, the grass around it is completely green, so it's not a nutrition issue in the soil.

So I think it's, they have that other picture that he sent.

It's a really weird-looking branch, and it could be a structural issue.

Maybe look in there and see if there's any branches that have been crisscrossing or cutting into there, maybe cutting off the flow of nutrients.

Maybe, maybe not.

I did also notice on the trunk as well as on that odd-look branch, what maybe could've been an old wound, and maybe the tree didn't seal off.

Possibly there's some decay that's gotten in there that could be restricting that flow of nutrients as well, to that portion of the tree.

So really about all you can do, you can prune out that portion of the tree and see if it'll, or just look at it closely before you prune it out, and see if it looks like it's gonna ruin the aesthetics of the tree.

But chances are, it'll probably continue to be yellow or maybe even decline further.

[Kim] All right, Kelly, and you have two pictures on this next one also.

This is a Creighton, Nebraska viewer who planted a single-stem sumac.

She knew it would have runners, but apparently it ran a lot further -and faster than she thought.

-(laughs) She wonders what to do, and also the main part of the original one has not leafed out.

Yeah, it's hard to say, for sure, why it's not leafing out.

I mean, it could be winter injury this year, it could be winter kill.

And when plants are stressed, I mean, sumac will sucker and runner, anyway.

And sometimes it takes it a few years to get established and do that.

But if they're doing it prolifically all of a sudden, again, that's a sign that the plant is stressed, which it obviously is since it's losing a number of branches there.

And so it's either gonna continue to get worse with that suckering, but it sounded like she was okay with that because she liked the plant so well.

You can just leave it and wait and see.

If you could scrape with your thumbnail or what over those dead branches, if they're brittle and brown, then they're dead, and you're gonna wanna remove them.

See if you get any regrowth from the base from this sumac.

All right, thank you, Kelly.

Well, the Farmer's Market in Norfolk is a must visit during the growing season.

It's at Riverpoint Square and it was started by two businesses, it is now a thriving delightful enterprise.

(upbeat music) [Woman] Riverpoint Square is lined with vendors each summer for the Norfolk Farmer's Market.

-Hi!

-(woman laughs) Last radish.

$1.50.

Out of two?

[Woman] There you will find sisters Stacy and Sandy Dieckman who got their start at the market.

Growing up I always wanted to live out in the country.

We did a lot of gardening at my grandfather's house.

(upbeat music) When we graduated from college, we actually bought a house in town together, kind of a fixer-upper, fixed that up and then sold it, and used the down payment money to buy the farm.

The place that we ended up buying had produce grown on it at one time, and so we decided that this was something that we wanted to try.

The Farmer's Market was in the parking lot where I used to work, and so I stopped at the parking lot and talked to the vendors there and just got started.

[Man] You got more of the sourdough left or?

Sourdough, I think we do.

We do, yes.

-I'll take one of those.

-A sourdough?

Okay.

[Woman] North Fork Bread Company, another local favorite also got their start at the Norfolk Farmer's Market.

I started baking bread as a hobby probably about six or seven years ago when I was in grad school actually.

And I would make it just for my, just my friends and my wife.

I had started selling at the Norfolk Farmer's Market four years ago, the summer of 2018.

And that was the original plan at first, it was just to do the Farmer's Market, and just kind of take the winters off, or sell individually here and there.

(upbeat music) I think that the most fun thing to grow is the pumpkins and the gourds because like especially the gourds when you start picking them, you never know what you're gonna find, they always come in the different oddest shapes.

We like to do green beans.

This is nothing better than fresh green beans.

(upbeat music) They are morning buns, they're very popular.

That combination of that croissant dough with the orange peel plus the brown sugar and all that makes for, and cinnamon makes for a really good combination.

[Woman] Caleb, Stacy, and Sandy started selling to just a few customers, but quickly expanded.

The city invited us a year ago to come down here and start selling here at the Riverpoint, and so that's been a really good move for us.

When the Farmer's Market moved downtown, that really exploded our business for us, I wanted to keep that momentum going.

This bakery came up for sale, and I said, well, it's a good opportunity, I feel like it's been presented to me, and so I feel like I need to go ahead and take the plunge and go for it full-time.

[Woman] As these vendors continue to grow, they will always find a sense of home at Riverpoint Square.

The farmer's market was such a great way to just get to know the community.

I mean, it was my first introduction to really connecting with people one-on-one.

We get the same customers come back to you all the time, talk to you, they tell you about their kids, they tell you their stories.

I love being around the people here at market, I enjoy planting things and seeing things grow, and I don't think I would ever quit for a long time.

The best part of Farmer's Market is, you're kinda like a family.

-Perfect.

-Thank you.

Did you say hello?

-Say, thank you.

-(child mumbles) Thank you.

Yeah, good job.

(laughs) (audience applauds) (woman laughs) So check out that Farmer's Market on Saturdays and Tuesday and Thursday evenings during And that's Riverpoint, not two rivers, but if two rivers come together, they make a point.

-So there you go.

-(women laughs) (laughs) All right, you have one picture on this one.

Kait, and this is Hendley, which is in Furnas County, and she found this insect on her milkweed.

She wants to encourage the monarchs, she hopes this insect doesn't discourage the monarchs.

Yeah, so this is a red milkweed beetle, and milkweed is home to a lot of different organisms, not just monarchs.

And as the name suggests, they feed exclusively on milkweed.

So the larvae will feed on the milkweed roots, and the adults, mostly you'll see them kind of prune the tips off of leaves a little bit, but they have bright colors, just like the monarch has because they're eating that toxic sap from the milkweed plant, but they don't do enough damage that's going to threaten the plant itself or any monarch caterpillars.

[Kim] All right, you have one picture on this next one, Kait.

This is a Bellevue viewer.

This is tiny beetles on her shasta daisies, and she thinks they're varied carpet beetles.

She wants to know if they're harmful, are they pollinators?

Should they get rid of it?

Yeah, well, they're absolutely right, these are varied carpet beetles, and they're called carpet beetles because a lot of times people will find them in their house, and the larvae are the ones that can be pests in the house, find it in the carpet, they can eat dried goods.

But the adults feed on pollen, and as they feed on pollen, they're beneficial pollinators, and beetles historically are some of the oldest pollinators we have.

[Kim] All right, one picture on this one too.

And this is a Bellevue viewer who wonders what are on the wild flowers?

And that's a great picture.

That is a great picture.

So these are aphids.

I'm not sure what type of wildflower it is, but we do see like a variety of aphids.

And most of the time aphids aren't going to be a concern.

I feel like I say that a lot "not a concern", but if you see the plants start to yellow or start wilting a little bit, like the aphids are kind of overwhelming it, else you can just take a hose and spray them off.

[Kim] All right, and one picture on this one, and this is an Omaha viewer.

-What is all over her phlox?

-(Kait laughs) So this is a, (laughs) from what I've heard a very pressing issue right now.

So this is phlox plant bug, and you can see in this picture kind of the damage they do, kind of that mottled yellow stippling, and the plants just don't look very healthy.

So if the plants just look beyond gone, too many bugs to control, you can go ahead and cut them down.

But it's really important when you cut them down, even if you wait until the fall, they lay their eggs in the phlox stems, and they'll over winter in the dead stems.

So to prevent this from happening next year, you need to get rid of as many stems and clean up as you can.

Right now, if you think you can manage, you can do like a pyrethroid insecticide or diatomaceous earth before the phlox blooms, and just make sure you get good coverage on the top and bottom of the leaves.

And then after blooming to protect pollinators, we suggest like insecticidal soaps or horticultural oils.

Or bag them, tag them, -and throw them away.

-Yeah.

(women laughs) All right, (laughs) Terri, you have two pictures here.

This is a Gothenburg viewer with a wiry grass in his bluegrass, and he thinks it's spreading, he thought it was nutsedge.

[Terri] This is not nutsedge, this I think is just one of the forage fescues.

Most likely it probably blew in or something over the fall.

Really the best way to get rid of it is just to dig it out and then overseed with your preferred bluegrass.

[Kim] All right.

Then you have two pictures from a Sydney viewer who has a wide-bladed grass growing in the lawn.

What do you think this one is?

[Terri] So I'm going to thank Matt for IDing this last week, and not being able to answer it.

This is Bermuda grass, again, something that you're going to have to basically dig out or use a glyphosate product to get rid of it.

[Kim] And two pictures of this one.

This is an Omaha viewer who sent us pictures of, with a great blue circle around him of this squarely looking grass right in the middle of the blue circle.

So what I think this is was possibly a warm season grass that was there last year that you may not have noticed.

And it just hasn't greened up enough to fill in the hole where it's at.

So what I would do is keep an eye on it, make sure that your turf is doing really well.

You may wanna overseed in the fall, or if you can really baby that one little area, you can put a little grass seed down and make sure you keep it wet there until it kind of takes over the spot.

All right, thanks, Terri.

Amy, you have two pictures to start with.

This is a North Platte viewer with a peony.

This is its fifth year, for three years it's been doing this and getting worse and worse.

They've tried an iron treatment.

It looks like a very unhappy peony, but the how chartreuse those leaves are really wants me to lean toward an iron deficiency or some type of nutrient deficiency.

One of the quick ways to really check to see if it's an iron deficiency is you can actually spray iron as a foliar on the leaves.

And if that actually works, the plant will green up instantly almost but it's very short-lived.

I would potentially look at doing that to really see if it's iron.

I would also pull soil samples, there might be another nutrient deficiency actually going on, and it maybe to the point that you may need to move that peony because it's just not happy there.

There's something in that soil th's not making it happy.

[Kim] All right, thanks, Amy.

Your next one, she has lilies and Vinca, Annual Vinca kind of in the same spot, and they're showing this symptom on the lilies and this on the Vinca.

And then your next picture is actually a Hastings viewer that also has Vinca doing the same thing in a different situation.

Okay, I'll go back to the lily.

I'm really scratching my head on this.

If you look at the top of that lily, it isn't like it turned yellow, it's like bleached out white.

It made me first think that maybe it was like a sun scorch, but it doesn't, it doesn't line up with sun scorch, and it doesn't line up with the root rot.

This one has me puzzled.

A little bit closer image of those top leaves would be more helpful at this point in time to really figure out what's going on.

Now the Vinca, there's multiple things that can happen with Vinca, especially on the annual side, there are several root rots that will seed with Vinca.

With the rains that we have been getting, and especially in a raised bed, it can get wet really fast, especially if it can't drain out properly.

And those Vinca stem and root rots really just melt out that whole plant in a very short amount of time.

So with that one, I would check the moisture levels in those beds, you may have to replant those Vinca.

The other trick is, this is a soil borne pathogen, so that's naturally always in that soil.

And if we can't get that moisture under control, it's gonna continue to infect those annual Vincas.

All right, thanks, Amy.

Kelly, you also have two pictures.

This is a Sydney viewer that has green ash, they are 45 or 50-years-old, lots of signs of decay.

They wonder if just take out the dead or take out the tree?

Okay.

I think they were also wondering about and I will say that emerald ash borer has not been found yet in Sydney.

The furthest west is Kearney, but that doesn't mean it can't be there.

So zooming in, I didn't really see any signs of like woodpecker injury or suckering or things like that, but you can always have somebody from the extension office or the Nebraska Forest Service come and check it, just in case.

But it appeared to me that over 50% of this tree, the branches are dead, and that's kind of our cutoff point.

If more than 50% is gone, there's probably not much hope for that tree.

The other thing is just the fact that it's an ash.

-Hmm.

-And I don't, you might wanna just cut your losses.

I mean, it might be 20, 25 years before you lose that ash, but eventually we are going to lose a majority of our ash in Nebraska.

So you really have to ask yourself, how much money, how much time and effort do I wanna put into this tree at this time?

It might be a wise choice to remove them and replace it with something more diversity, definitely not an ash and something else.

-Right.

-And if there's decay, I dunno if they're talking about decay on the trunk, that could be the cause of the decline.

[Kim] All right, thanks, Kelly.

You have two pictures on this next one.

This is a Littleleaf Linden in Grand Island that has begun failing, nothing in the central leader.

What to do here?

Okay.

Well, probably the key thing here that I can see is that raised bed that's been built up around that tree, and we don't wanna do that with trees.

They don't like it when we put additional soil over their roots.

The other thing is on top of that, maybe soil was put in, but there's also really deep rock in there.

And what that does is that restricts oxygen exchange with the soil.

And we always have to keep in mind that plants need equal amounts of oxygen and water in the soil.

And that's why we always say, over-watering is just as bad as under-watering because they need that oxygen.

So I think the tree, the linden is declining because that planter was built around there.

Again, that 50% rule, about 50% of the tree appears to be dead, so I think it's time to replace it.

[Kim] All right, and two more pictures for one more tree.

This is an oak in Omaha that has a crack from top to bottom.

Okay.

When we have those long longitudinal or vertical cracks, it's usually a frost crack.

And, I mean, sometimes lightning can cause it, but you'd usually see a little bit more damage.

So frost cracks, they occur during the winter, usually on the south or west side of the tree.

Trees are in full sun locations, so the sun beats on it during the winter, it heats up, that bark expands, and then when it cools off at night, it contracts really faster than the inner bark.

Some of it's due to water loss from the cells as well.

Anyway, you get uneven pressure, you get uneven shrinkage, and that can cause that crack.

And I've heard that it can even be a really loud pop, if you happen to be around, but since it's in the winter, and we're not usually out at night in the winter, we don't hear it.

Don't treat it, don't cover it with anything, usually the trees - it'll continue to open and close, but the trees can live for some time with it.

All right, thank you, Kelly.

Well, we have a great event planned this weekend, East Campus Discovery Days.

We want to invite you to join us while you're there.

Come visit us in the Backyard Farmer Garden, have a little bit of celebratory birthday cake.

And here is Terri to tell us more about that garden right now.

(upbeat music) [Terri] This week in the Backyard Farmer Garden, we are celebrating Backyard Farmer's 70th birthday.

In conjunction with East Campus Discovery Days, our gardens are gonna be open to the open house.

So we're really excited to invite you out to East Campus on Saturday, June 11th from 9:00 to 2:00 to be able to walk through our garden, and walk through all of East Campus.

Some great displays are gonna be setup, you're gonna be able to see lots of different things, lots of hands-on activities, so bring all those kiddos with you too, and you're gonna be able to have a fun time here on East Campus.

Walk through the garden, stop and pick up something at the food truck, and learn a little bit about what East Campus does.

So stop by the Backyard Farmer garden and check it out.

(upbeat music) And do remember to come visit us, help us celebrate being 70.

It is time now for us to take a short break.

However, stay with us, we will come back with plant of the week -and more questions.

-(woman laughs) (audience applauds) (upbeat music) [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] rban farm project is something we started about two years ago to have an outdoor lab for our urban agriculture degree.

In the next year, our biggest goals are we wanna get water to the site because right now this has no irrigation in it.

And, of course, water is a primary factor to growing.

Toward the street, we're gonna have a lot of orchard crops, hops, grapes, some of those really visually appealing things.

We're probably going to be having some ground beds as we move back, some raised beds that are ADA accessible.

We'll have an outdoor teaching space, an outdoor classroom, a patio, hopefully a storage building where we can possibly use some weather-related teaching space.

We always wanna invite students and community members to apply, to take our degree, right?

The urban ag degree will really get to use this, but we know that there are a lot of other majors.

This is a really cross-curricular space, so a lot of other majors are gonna get to use it.

And that's the really exciting part of this.

(audience applauds) The future is really bright up here at Northeast Community College because Dr. Trentee Bush and a former student of mine is creating this great creative experience up here for all of those students to enjoy.

On that note, enjoy the plants of the week.

Kelly?

Okay, so this is a beautiful bouquet here.

The white flowered one is Henry's Garnet Sweetspire, and it's all of these are shade plants, just so you know, part shade, even full shade, but this is one that likes moist soil, so it'll do really well in a rain garden, they're a shorter plant, maybe two feet, maybe three feet.

The foliage here, the fuzzy kind of round foliage right here, okay, this is Lady's mantle.

And Lady's mantle, again, they like shade, they like a fairly rich moist soil, they kind of have chartreuse flowers that'll stand up above the leaves and they last for quite awhile.

And then once they turn brown, prune them back, and the foliage just remains ornamental most of the year.

So, and this one was new to me.

This is Aphrodite Allspice.

I notice Carolina allspice, but this is a cultivar that has a very different flower.

And this plant can get quite tall, it can be aromatic.

Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't, but this flower can have a good smell, which is why it's called an allspice plant, but again, all shade plants.

Great, thanks, Kelly.

All right, one picture on this one for you, Kait.

This, the question is, are these spider funnels?

They're not, so these are antlion pits.

So the larvae of antlions are sometimes called doodlebugs.

And what they do is they lie in wait at the bottom of these pits, wait for an ant to fall in, so they can have a nice meal.

So they're definitely -beneficial to have around.

-(woman laughs) [Kim] All right, two pictures on the next one.

This is an Eagle, Nebraska viewer found these dirt mounds and this strange little insect poking its head out of the ground every now and then.

What is that?

And should it be treated?

This is refreshing because we can actually see what's causing -(Kim laughs) -the dirt mounds this time.

So this is actually a type of sweat bee, and bees, as you guys know are beneficial pollinators.

So if you can just leave them be, they're not aggressive, they're not likely to sting you, but if you wanna prevent them from making holes in the ground in the future, really they like kind of the dry, well draining soil, so you can make sure that it's wet or you can try to add more ground cover as well.

[Kim] All right, Kait, you have one on this one.

This is a Wahoo viewer who wants to know why the ants are eating the radishes.

-Because they're tasty.

-(women laughs) So ants live outdoors and unfortunately they can get in our vegetable garden.

If they like radishes in particular, maybe plant something different, but if you really wanna get rid of the ants, they do make ant baits that are for outdoor use, so that avoids spraying something, and they'll just be attracted to the bait instead.

[Kim] All right, and one more, this is an Omaha viewer that found these teeny little holes that go maybe a millimeter deep in the side of his deck wood.

What in the world?

So this one stumped me.

I'm not entirely sure, it may or may not be caused by an insect.

It's interesting to me because we just see them on the corner there, and so it doesn't look like boreholes to me.

But sorry, I can't give a more definite answer, but I don't know if it's an insect or not.

All right, thanks, Kait.

Terri, it's vine world in your next one, your first two pictures are Seward viewer found this in the flower beds, shiny, waxy and dangerous.

What is this?

And how to get rid of it?

Yeah, so this is catbrier or greenbrier.

It will be very thorny.

What I would do is clip the very bottom.

You can follow it down, it's usually kind of just one tendril going up at first.

Clip the bottom and then paint it right away with some glyphosate or some stump killer to get rid of it.

However, some people like it because it will benefit like turkeys or pheasants or something they like to make.

I guess, little houses out of the, -and eat this berries.

-(Kim laughs) [Kim] Make little houses, all right.

(women laughs) -That's just what I read.

-(Kim laughs) [Kim] Your next two pictures are an Atlantic, Iowa viewer.

Wondering is this Boston ivy or poison ivy?

We went back and forth and... [Terri] So we had a two-hour conversation about this in the car -on the way (laughs) up here.

-(Kim laughs) I think it looks like poison ivy because poison ivy can have a little bit different shaped leaves.

Kim thinks it's Boston ivy.

What we would need to do is kind of see some more, better of those connection points.

So if you could send the better picture of it, that would be great.

If you just wanna get rid of it, and I would definitely use gloves to get rid of it, in case it is poison ivy, but do the same thing like the catbrier, follow it back, clip it, and then paint it.

[Kim] All right, and one more.

This is a Papillion viewer who wonders what this is.

Is it a weed?

Should she remove it?

Well, I guess, it's in the eye of the beholder, but this is clematis, it is sweet autumn clematis, which has become quite invasive.

Those are those little fluffy balls that you see in the fall, but it has landed on the Nebraska invasive species list, so I would probably try to get rid of it.

It's little enough, you could dig it and just throw it out.

All right, thanks, Terri.

Amy, two pictures on this first one.

This is a Papillion viewer, it's been in this particular spot for a couple years, several years.

What is this?

[Terri] It's my wonderful friend, powdery mildew.

You can tell by that white powder on it, it's all superficial if you rub your finger on it, it comes right off.

It loves the shade.

High humidity and shade is the big thing.

Typically I don't recommend any fungicide treatment.

If it's a spot that gets a lot of powdery mildew in that turf, luckily Roch isn't on the show tonight, it is a time to replace it with a flower bed with shade loving plants and taking the turf -(Kim laughs) -out of that area.

-That eliminates the problem.

-(laughs) All right.

[Terri] Who says that, "I wouldn't want that turf there"?

You don't like the turf in your yard, so.

-I'm sure I do.

-(Kim laughs) -All yards should have turf.

-(Amy laughs) -All right, Amy.

-It's a good focal point for your landscaping.

[Kim] (laughs) Two more pictures.

This is a St. Edward viewer, it's a buffalo grass lawn.

Amy, greened up nicely, they've mowed it twice, haven't sprayed, no fertilizer.

What are the browning edges?

[Amy] So I actually took a fair amount of time to look at this, I tried to zoom in, there isn't a lot of things that go after buffalo grass.

So we got chinch bugs, but it's a little early for chinch bugs.

I'm actually leaning toward mower blades -not being sharp enough.

-Mm-hmm.

[Amy] If we get those jagged edges, when our mower blades aren't sharp, we'll get that browning, just because it's the injury to that blade.

So sharpen up those blades, and it should go away.

[Terri] Could they have maybe got a little freeze damage?

[Amy] Oh, good call about that one, I forgot about freeze damage.

Thanks, Terri.

[Kim] Okay, two more pictures.

This is West Point, this is rhubarb, this is week number four on what's wrong with my rhubarb.

-Ah!

-(woman laughs) Have you transplanted it recently?

(Kim laughs) You see that yellowing, rhubarb does not like wet feet, that is the biggest problem with rhubarb.

Really get down into that crown, see if it's really wet.

If it is, we need to pull mulch back doing different components like that.

I know we went from being dry to lots of rain, so trying to find that happy balance.

So I would lean toward being a little too wet at this point in time.

Pull back that mulch, don't water it as much, and it should be okay.

All right.

Kelly, you have three pictures for this first one.

-This is eastern white pine.

-Yeah.

Four of them, the one on the end started turning yellow last winter.

What's the deal?

Okay, so the fourth one is very, very yellow, and the other three or four look perfectly fine, they're getting new growth.

So I would say this is probably a root related problem that you have going on here when it's that yellow.

So maybe that when you planted, if it was in a plastic container, maybe you've got a girdling root on there.

I guess you could check that soil around there, sometimes it drains and it's way too wet.

You might get a root rot in there possibly.

Sometimes even just without a lawn irrigation system, it's not very uniform and it could be very wet, but I think there's a root related problem going on here, and I don't have a lot of hope for this tree.

[Kim] All right, and one more.

This is an Elkhorn viewer, Fine Line buckthorn, looks like this is, it going to re-leaf or should this be mowing height three inches?

(laughs) Okay, well, yeah, it probably, there could be some winter injury or winter die-back here.

It's after June 1st, so I don't think you're gonna get regrowth.

There is some growth at the bottom, so you can prune it all the way back towards that growth at the bottom and see if it regenerates.

All right, thanks, Kelly.

Some of our most favorite things are art, music and flowers.

They all came together at the Holy Trinity Arts Festival a couple of weeks ago.

Let us show you some of the incredibly beautiful floral displays that were created.

(upbeat music) [Man] In May, The Holy Trinity Church of Lincoln kicked off its inaugural arts festival, a celebration of art, music, food, and fun.

Everything we could have asked for, a perfect day, a whole bunch of people came and enjoyed this.

We had an unbelievable floral arts presentation, and I think that's what really rocked the boat.

[Man] Inside the church, people were treated to a floral arts display, conceptualized and developed by Conrad Quijas and the florists from the Stem Gallery.

I had a team of four people that came and helped me.

We got everything, I conceptualized and then we created all these little gardens based on gardens around the world.

(upbeat music) So basically what this is, is the day of the dead, and so I created a shrine, and it's for all your loved ones.

It's honoring all the souls of the dead.

In Mexico it has a really big meaning for Mexican culture.

So they're cherry blossom trees, put these up at the back of the church to kind of fill the space up a little bit.

(upbeat music) So this piece was kind of an American garden, and so we kind of go, and everybody who always thinks about America's red roses, it's the freedom rose.

(upbeat music) This space is called the columbarium.

And so since this arrangement is in the columbarium, it is a replica of what would be a funeral arrangement in Japan.

Ikebana is focused mainly on motion, on creating movement and an arrangement.

This is kind of a Asian garden, and there's a lot of movement going through it.

But this is kind of a my twist on a little bit of a Holland garden.

And so what I did was, we got in a lot of different colors of tulips.

(upbeat music) To see the expressions on people's faces when they get flowers, even if it's just one flower, I think it's well worth it.

Oh, it's therapy.

(laughs) You can just put on some beautiful music and work with beautiful flowers and think beautiful thoughts.

I'm blown away, I just...

I belong to this church, and I would say, if you didn't get to see it, you missed something.

To realize that creativity and art are a God thing, so to have this art in the church, just it's joyful to me.

We just love to come to festivals like this.

I think it's really important to support local artisan, craftsmen, artists.

[Man] This celebration of art and all things beautiful successfully brought the community together for what will hopefully be a yearly tradition.

The overwhelming question today has been, so are you doing this next year?

We'll plan on it again.

You know, That was just amazing, and absolutely beautiful to be able to do that.

We're gonna start with announcements sort of out of a sequence tonight.

We have four of them, the first is East Campus Discovery Days, come help us celebrate our birthday.

This Saturday we have the Monroe Garden Walk coming up, we have the Omaha Rose Society open house and garden walk coming up, and we have the Benson Garden Walk coming up.

So June is Garden Walk month.

All right, we have questions, and your next set of questions, if I can find them quickly in everything here.

Kait, one question, this is a one-year-old Flame Thrower redbud, has never seen this creature before.

What is it, and how to treat it?

[Kait] So this is a redbud borer beetle.

And as with many borers, overall you just wanna keep the tree healthy.

This one isn't a huge pest, but if you need to, you can apply the appropriate insecticide up until August 1st.

[Kim] All right, you have one picture on this next one.

This is way cool, this viewer has this bonsai tree and watered it and has this soil, and is sort of curious about why this bee is loving the soil or the water?

[Kait] Yeah, so bees drink water, they need it to keep their hive cool.

And it's possibly like something in the soil or the moss on top has a particular scent that the bee likes.

[Kim] Perfect.

And the last one is, what kind of spider is this?

It was in the garage.

-Yes.

-(Kim laughs) So this is a wolf spider, and the females get quite big, especially this time of season.

And you can be lucky or disappointed that she doesn't have hundreds of babies on her back yet.

(women laughs) -Very lucky.

-(women laughs) All right.

Terri, you have one question here.

This is a Malcolm viewer.

He's been letting this grow for the last three years.

He wonders, is it a weed or is it some sort of thing he should keep?

[Terri] This is not something that you wanna keep, this is burdock, it is biennial.

So it probably was like a rosette last year, and now it's growing.

Dig it out, get rid of it.

[Kim] (laughs) All right.

Your next one is a Henderson viewer, and it's in the front lawn, edge of the sidewalk, by the street, the sidewalk was put in and then he chopped it out, hoped that was okay.

What is this?

So this is broadleaf plantain.

Do you live next door to me?

Because I have these in my yard.

So you are doing the right thing, chop them out to get rid of them, make sure that they don't go to seed because you'll have 100 seeds there.

-At least.

-At least.

All right, thanks.

Amy, you have two pictures for this first one.

-Mm-hmm.

-And then a third picture, which is kind of the same thing.

This is pansies in Lincoln, and they've seen these orange spots, they thought they were eggs.

What are they?

[Amy] You are special and unique because we don't see this very often.

-This is pansy rust.

-Mm-hmm.

So most likely it came in on the plants.

It's one of those, you're gonna pick off those rusts, prevent it from spreading on, but as temperatures warm up, your pansies are gonna start to decline anyway.

So pansy rust very unique, not commonly seen here.

[Kim] All right.

And the pansies are croaking anyways, -so yeah.

-(women laughs) -All right.

-(audience laughs) (laughs) You have one more.

[Woman] I wanna say, I'm Northeast, my pansies are happy yet.

[Kim] (laughs) That's yours are like.

-(woman laughs) -All right, you have one more.

This is an Ogallala viewer who has a Christmas cactus and used Miracle-Gro, etc., and noticed that this yellow stuff on top, it's hard, it's not soft.

They don't know what this is.

And is this damaging?

[Amy] This isn't damaging, it's some type of fungus.

With it being hard, I wanted to go toward a slime mold, but all it's doing is it's eating that organic matter, changing that into nitrogen for your plant to use.

So not gonna hurt anything, you can just leave it right there.

[Kim] All right, excellent.

Kelly, we have two pictures for your next one.

This is an Omaha viewer finding this reddish shrubby plant popping up all over the yard.

They wonder, is it a form of poison ivy?

They did find poison ivy under a spirea, and it has been sneaking under (laughs) -the neighbor's fence.

-(Kelly laughs) They've used something with Triclopyr in it, but is this poison ivy or is this walnut?

[Kelly] This is a walnut, so this is a walnut seedling.

So again, get your soil knife out, and if you don't want it, then dig down to... You'll find that little walnut a squirrel probably planted it, and it should be easy to remove.

So, and the poison ivy, just be persistent, just keep at it, and keep at it, and keep at it.

You wanna get that Triclopyr on the foliage, but keep at it, hmm.

[Kim] Right, and if you want that walnut tree, -(Kelly laughs) -keep it.

[Kelly] Yeah, I feel it's, yeah, keep the walnut tree if you want it, let it...

If it works to grow there, let it grow there, or you could dig it up and replant it.

[Kim] There you go.

All right, you have two pictures for this next one.

This is also a Lincoln viewer.

This plant is about 10 feet tall now, white flowers as shown in, I think our next picture are very, very fragrant.

She thought it was a honeysuckle.

Mm-hmm, it is a honeysuckle, it's bush honeysuckle, and unfortunately that's one of our invasive honeysuckles.

So they just, they take over, they displace our native plants, they kind of play havoc with our ecosystem, so this is one that needs to be removed.

And it is definitely very invasive.

-Yes.

-All right.

So we did a great job on answering all those picture questions.

So great that we have some time to -kill some more questions.

-(women laughs) So we did have a question from our audience that we did not get to earlier, which is when do you transplant roses?

Kelly?

Early spring, most of them unless it's a hybrid tea, that's not very hardy or something, you could plan them and transplant them All right, and don't cut them back.

Yes, don't cut them back.

All right, Kait, let's give you a question, an insect question.

This comes to us from Elm Creek.

Lots of boxelder bugs, most small, most juvenile, they've never had boxelder bugs in the spring after 35 years.

So why are there boxy bugs in the spring?

It could just be the weather, the season, but they do feed on those boxelder trees.

And maybe there's something wrong with the tree that they're starting to leave it as well.

All right, Terri, we have a viewer who wants to know about alternative types of lawn.

-(Terri laughs) -And it's a specific question.

He has fake strawberry in the lawn and wonders if that will make a good ground cover or clover?

And a part of that question is, if he uses either of those as a lawn alternative, what is there in the winter?

So a very good question, there would not be a lot in the winter for you.

Unfortunately, you could go with clover, you're not gonna see a lot of clover either.

So if you have dogs or something, I probably would not go with something that it would be alternative unless you wanted to go with like maybe like some Vinca or something where it's more of a vine, where it's gonna kind of be there, but then you're not really gonna be able to play on the yard.

So if you play soccer or have kids or grandkids or something.

-See, Amy, I do like turf.

-(women laughs) -You proved me wrong tonight.

-There are some places that you can do the alternative turf, and it's gonna be some place where you're not gonna care if there's really nothing there for the winter, and that you're not gonna have a lot of traffic on, so.

All right, thanks, Terri.

Amy, this is a follow-up question -to the root rot in the Vinca.

-Okay.

Which is, people are wondering, if they do have that kind of an issue in container soil or raised bed soil.

Can they put that in their compost pile or spread it in low spots in the yard, and not expect to carry the disease with them?

Okay, that's a great question.

You could use it in your lawn.

I wouldn't... You can put it in your compost.

The trick is, is your compost gonna get hot enough to kill the pathogens that are in there for it to go back in to your raised beds or into your containers.

And so you really have to know, am I getting warm enough or not?

I would prefer seeing it in the lawn, those fungal pathogens in all reality are found in every soil.

We have to get it really hot to get it to die off.

So managing the water is probably the best All right, and if you had it in a bag, you probably brought it in anyway.

Oh, you brought it in with the bag, and trust me, there's all sorts of pathogens in those bags, and I love it.

-(Kelly laughs) -So it keeps me busy.

(laughs) Exactly, and keeps the rest of us on our toes when they send us those pictures, and it's like, what happened to this particular- Yeah.

All right.

And unfortunately that is all the time we have tonight.

We wanna say thanks to Northeast Community College for being the most amazing host we have ever had.

(audience applauds) We wanna also say thanks to our audience, you're just absolutely fabulous, and to Earl May because Earl May provided much of the beauty that you see in front of us.

-(audience applauds) -Next time on Backyard Farmer, we're going to hear Jody talk about those skiers that are biting you and everybody else, and how to get rid of them.

So on that note, good night, good gardening.

We'll see you all next week right here on Backyard Farmer.

(audience applauds) (upbeat music) (upbeat Music) (upbeat music)