I like the way they lay them out.

They're not just straight lines anymore.

Blueberries will take about 5 years for a bush to ripen before you can get a a viable fruit crop off of it.

But this is the cone flower and very popular with bees.

This is the weeping large ciduous so it'll turn golden in the fall.

The variety that we have it it's inspiring.

Hello and welcome to the 24th season of Great Gardening here on PBS North.

I'm your host Sharon Young.

Now, snow may still be falling, but it's officially spring and time to start thinking about gardening.

Now, back with us this season, we have our garden expert, horiculturist, and educator Bob Olen.

And next week, garden professional Deb Burns Ericson will also be here to join us.

We miss you, Deb.

Right now, we want to hear from you gardeners out there who have questions for Bob.

We have volunteers on hand to take your calls from the St.

Louis County Master Gardeners.

You can call locally at 218788-2844 or simply email us at askpbsnorth.org.

We're taking questions throughout the show, so call or email us now while we start tonight with a look at the weather in our region.

There we go, Sharon.

There's a spring in northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin for sure.

This is how we roll.

We're still going to work and enjoying, right?

It's it's not at all unusual, of course.

And because we've been we've been dry, it will take precipitation just about any form.

Yes.

And uh you know, we're coming up to the growing season, the planting season.

This actually is pretty nice.

You watch how fast this is going to change.

We're going to change with that moisture from white to green in a very short period of time.

So, there's our kickoff shots for the uh April Great Gardening Series.

Well, I mean, if you subtracted the high winds, it's actually quite beautiful and beautiful outside.

Winter is beautiful.

And some people uh really bemoone the fact that it leaves us a little too early, so they're getting a little bit extra this year.

Sure.

And we'll talk more about the moisture that's coming.

Right.

Absolutely.

So, keep calling in your questions.

And before we get to those questions, we first want to go inside the cover of Northern Gardener magazine, which has quite a history here in Minnesota.

Northern Gardener, we essentially considered it like our educational arm of the Minnesota Horicultural Society.

The society itself has been around for 160 years now in some form.

Um, and then the magazine essentially started as an annual periodical of people kind of reporting on this successes over the past year, different gardeners and farmers.

Um, and then now it's just it's we publish it four times a year seasonally.

Uh, it's a member benefit, so if you're a member, you support our programs, things like that.

You get the magazine.

Otherwise, you can purchase it on newsstands.

Um, it's I've got a our newest copy here.

Um, it's all about biodiversity.

So going back to the winter sewing and planting for natives and pollinators, um we kind of only focus on these cold climates.

So there's a lot of magazines out there that teach you how to grow something in California maybe, but doesn't apply to you in Duth.

So yeah, you want to learn how to grow things in our cold climate, all the unique challenges, especially if you're a new transplant here, if you're a new homeowner.

We kind of are that first uh touch point for people before they start to branch off in their own journeys.

So, like I said, it's backed by the Minnesota Horicultural Society, a longstanding nonprofit.

Um, so our programs are kind of in that same vein.

We're all about educating people.

So, one of the programs is called Garden in a Box, and that is teaching kids um how to garden from a very young age.

We supply them with a kit of soil, compost, vegetables, pair them up with master gardeners in the area, kind of teach them how to uh get that first plant they get very excited about, teach them where food comes from.

Um, and then we also offer those types of programs and that same kit to retirement communities.

So, people moving out of their houses, uh, still getting giving them a chance to garden.

Um, and yeah, like we pair a lot of our educational tools on our website, videos, things like that with those programs so people can kind of sign up for it, apply for it, get the kits, and then they still have ways to learn beyond that.

We absolutely just want to make, you know, gardening accessible to everyone, whole diverse community of people.

Um, you know, when we first started 160 years ago, it was teach gu farmers and people teaching each other how to grow apple trees in Minnesota because that had never been done before.

Um, and then it turned into victory gardens during World War II.

People teaching each other how to grow food close to home.

That was getting too expensive.

We're kind of getting into that period again where, you know, people are going to the grocery store getting sticker shock.

So, uh, we're that first touch point for people um, no matter your background, your skill level.

uh where you live.

We want to teach you how to grow food at home, share it with people and, you know, feel confident about it.

Yeah.

I would just encourage people to, you know, check us out online, northerngardner.org.

We've got a lot of free resources there, but also if you do want to support our mission, membership is a great way to do that or even just donating.

Um, it goes a long way to bringing accessible education to more gardeners.

Now, let's get to some of your questions.

Remember, you can simply call us at 218788-2847.

John from Duth has a 7-year-old Black Hills spruce that turned brown last spring.

And now his Colorado spruce that is the same age as brown before the snow has left.

Is there anything he can do?

You know, it's really interesting.

The u the black el spruce is is a derivative from a native spruce and if he's getting browning in the spring could be winter drying.

It depends on where the needles are.

It's the new growth that we're after.

If it's impacting the new growth, we have a major problem that's occurring there.

The blue spruce, you know, they're not very well adapted here.

They can't take our our winter our summer humidity.

They can take the winter cold.

Uh but it's not brown needles.

It's pinkish needles on the blue spruce that I really get concerned about.

Stay with the black hills, which is a white spruce or a black spruce.

So, black spruce, white spruce or no ray spruce are the three spruce that are more dependable.

I think he's probably getting some browning, winter browning.

As long as the new growth is fine, he's going to be okay.

Okay.

So, he'll have to see how it goes here in the spring.

Okay.

Kent is asking, "Two years ago, my 5-year-old apple tree bore abundant fruit.

Last spring, it budded, bloomed, shed its leaves, and then went dormant."

Oh.

How can I ensure my tree thrives this summer?

Oh, I don't like the fact that during the middle of the growing season, as I understand his question, he dropped all the leaves, dropped the blossoms.

Um, this is a systemic problem mid-season if you drop everything.

And fire blight is the first thing that comes to mind.

I think he just has to let it grow out, but I wouldn't hesitate too long.

If he's not getting good budding and good leaf formation, I'm afraid that that bacteria, which is systemic, runs through the tree itself, uh, has taken that tree and he's going to have to prune at ground level and start again.

Oh my goodness.

Okay, just watch as I always give give him the benefit of the doubt, let him go.

But dropping leaves and blossoms mid-season, not a good sign.

Not a good sign.

I'm sorry to say it.

Eric from Duth has some small pine trees that are about 2 years old and 5t tall with some brown on them.

Is it sunburn or is it something else?

Well, again, it's very similar.

It's winter drying more than anything in the early part and I'm not going to be concerned about that.

We are going to lose some needles, of course.

There's always a certain amount of needle drop.

Uh the winter drying we get through.

Let's take a look at the at the new growth.

Um anytime you can predict from the winter winds, I think that's important wherever you plant these.

Lance from Two Harbors is asking, "Is it okay?

Is it okay right now or is it an okay time to prune my apple tree?"

Oh, good question.

Nothing's broken bud yet.

So, I would do it right now within the next week.

So, we want to prune them when they're dormant and uh this is a perfect time because there's there's going to be a short period of time and then those wounds are going to heal up.

So, prune them up now while they're still dormant dormant until those buds really begin to break.

So, you got a two three weeks here when we can really uh prune them.

Good question.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Paul from Duth has a merry gold in the ground from last year that he believes is a perennial.

He'd like to transplant it to a pot when the snow melts.

Do you have any tips for him to do that?

Well, you know, that'd be a little interesting to see, but I I think the earlier on all this perennial material, the earlier you can get it transplanted just as this the frost is out of the ground.

This is going to be true of all our perennial material.

So, if you're going to move it around the spring, some we move in the fall, but move them early and you're going to have the best success.

Very good.

Last question for now.

Jason from Kok.

What preventative steps can I take to control creeping Charlie?

Oh, there's a good question.

Unfortunately, creeping charlie ground ivy is got this beautiful purple flower that the the pollinating insects really can't take advantage of.

So controlling it uh you know you really almost have to eradicate it if you're going to use any kind of material.

You have to get some specific herbicides that will take out these these uh plants and that application should be done in the fall right around Labor Day and you can be successful but once again uh they prefer and they grow well under uh low light conditions.

So if we can improve the light a little bit, you don't want them just to come back and reestablish, but going ahead digging is almost impossible.

You have to take it out with some kind of material.

Fall of the year would be your best time.

Okay.

Well, prevention he knows now.

So, okay, Bob, now you have a growing outlook for us tonight.

Yeah, let's take a little look.

You know, we've had a lot of fun always with these early projections and uh we always want to take a look when we look at the season ahead.

We want to take a little look at what happened last year.

We had very very average temperatures last year unlike maybe the rest of the country but our average temperature night and day was 40.9 degrees.

It amazes me this has been about the average temperature at our weather station near the duth airport and so we were very average but we had a very warm May with very little frost.

Then remember we had all that smoke in the air that really impacted growth.

25 days of heavy smoke that prevented light penetration 29 days in Hibbing.

Uh so this delayed fruit set and elongated uh uh many of the stems and then in some areas in particular we had an early frost on September 5th.

So all this variability and we came into the winter months and we had this early snowfall which I really celebrated even more than we celebrated tonight.

I celebrate early late I have a little trouble with it but uh early snowfall it protected the ground so it it really we didn't get much frost penetration and then we got very cold temperatures in January.

So what did that winter do?

These were the implications.

It took out hopefully some of the emerald ashbor which takes you know that is in the asht tree just below the bark and it takes 20 degrees below consistently to eliminate that.

So, we had those temperatures this year.

That was a positive aspect of that January uh cold spell.

However, we had all of this snow on the ground.

So, any beetle, insect that over winters down in the soil had all this protection.

They had a real easy winter.

I'm thinking about potato Colorado potato beetles.

We have some Japanese beetles, June bugs or June beetles.

They all had an easy winter.

So, get ready for them.

Here's our Japanese beetle on valiant grape.

We love valiant grapes.

We're beginning to see the Japanese beetle here.

There are some pheromone traps, ways you can control this.

Maybe in another program we can discuss it.

Never was a problem here, but we are beginning to see it in northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin.

And uh this was the big issue last year.

This was a lilock disease.

It's a fungal disease.

It's unique to lilocks.

Uh we saw it for the last three, four, five years now in Minnesota.

We're saying collect those leaves, get them deep in your compost pile or or get rid of them.

But uh we're not recommending any types of control at this time.

We want to watch that on our lilocks this year.

We may have to go to some kind of protectant material.

So what can we expect?

I think you kind of have to expect the unexpected.

We really don't know.

We know we're going to get a good growing season.

It'll probably turn out to be quote unquote average.

We may not.

We may have a frost in May.

We may not have a frost in the fall.

But what I've learned is that you want to take advantage of every part of the growing season.

You want to think a little bit about early spring.

You want to think about midseason.

And you want to think about the end of the year fall.

This is what Noah is predicting for the year.

Now, it's very interesting.

Look at the rest of the contiguous United States.

Very warm and hot.

Look at we're up there where it's going to be just about average.

And when we take a look at the precipitation coming up here, this is what concerns me a little bit.

We might be very dry.

That's why I'm very appreciative and thankful uh for the snow we're getting right now.

uh be prepared to add some moisture.

So take advantage of whatever the season brings.

Diversify your planning, diversify your schedule, spring, summer, and fall.

And first and foremost, enjoy every part of another great growing season.

Thanks, Bob.

It's good to look at the future of summer.

It's exciting.

It is.

And uh we we really don't know, but what we've learned, we're probably going to get extremes.

We're going to get hot.

It's going to get cold.

But there will be a good growing season and you will be successful with your garden crops.

Yeah.

No talk of smoke.

I don't want any more.

Okay.

None of that.

Yes.

So, next we go a little wild.

The nonprofit group Wild Ones is focused on native plants, pollinators, and more.

We recently caught up with the Arrowhead chapter at Duth Hartley Nature Center to find out more about them.

Our mission is to educate and promote about the use of native plants and natural landscaping and then all the good things that go with it and to increase pollinator and wildlife habitat.

And we also talk about rain gardens and pesticides.

I am Kathy Wood, president of the Arrowhead chapter of Wild Ones.

I've lived here now for almost 20 years.

And when when my husband and I moved here from the Milwaukee area, this is a whole another ball game up here as far as planting goes.

And I wanted to start fresh with just natives this time that belong here, that have been here forever and that the um the birds, the the wildlife are accustomed to and rely on.

And so that's that's how I learned native landscaping once I got here to Duth and joined Wild Ones.

Wild Ones is a national nonprofit.

There are chapters all over the country, a lot of them in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

We meet at Hartley Nature Center here.

Uh during the winter, once a month for programs or workshops, and in the summer, we do yard tours and field trips.

And right now, we're here for the winter sewing event.

Anyone can get involved with Wild Ones.

Um you don't have to know everything about gardening.

There are a lot of beginner gardeners.

Um you you come and you maybe come to a couple programs.

You might get interested.

We have a lot of information online through the national website and um they they can all of our programs are free and open to the public so people can just come and get a feel, ask their questions, get some advice.

We even have in June our see me, help me yard tour where someone volunteers, they're brand new maybe to the area or to gardening and they want to start native plant gardenings and our chapter members come and give them all kinds of advice.

We're having a program on what kind of native invasive types of plants you might be interested in to help with those invasives that we want to get rid of.

It'll be the 25th of March.

We do have um some good programs coming up this fall.

We meet here at Hartley the last Wednesday of the month in the evening and we do have a website people can go to to check it out.

By the way, during our September special, we'll take you back to that recent gathering where Amy Johnson, a St.

Louis County Extension Master Gardener, shares her tips on native winter sewing.

Now, here's another recent event.

This one was at the Duluth Depot, the annual St.

Louis County Extension Spring Gardening Extravaganza that drew a big crowd.

This year's theme was the great northern gardener, gardening for the body, mind, and spirit.

And Bob Olan had the audience mesmerized with his tips.

There were several keynote speakers and workshops, and it looked like a lot of fun.

Bob, it was fun.

And gardening is a great big hobby.

We just had a very very full house.

Nice experience.

Followed up with a very nice event on the range as well.

Our master gardeners really contributed so much.

14 workshops, six keynote speakers.

So there were a lot of folks that contributed.

So nice to see everybody.

Uh the gardening group is really a a wonderful uh contributing and very generous part of our society in northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin.

Very nice to see everybody.

Look at that event and all.

Those must have been giveaways or Yeah, we had a lot of that and gave away a compost bin.

We did we did a lot of different things that day.

So, we had a very full day.

It was a lot of fun.

Awesome.

And now Bob, you want to talk about uh protecting deciduous trees?

Yeah, a lot of people are going to be planting very soon.

And you know, gardening, you get a couple ways of looking at things.

We got all of our annuals, so it can be a very short-term thing, but a lot of our perennial material, particularly when we talk about trees, are long-term.

And you want to protect them right away.

I think we're going to look at animals.

So, think about this.

You're going to be buying a new apple tree, think about 50 years in the future because it can certainly do that for you.

Protect from deer fencing around the outside.

And I always got criticized a little bit because I'm always about putting a big fence up there.

And I found my experience that there are deer just about everywhere.

So, we have to think about that early at least.

And then we're going to protect as we uh take a little look at a couple other slides here.

We're going to be protecting from uh rodent damage with collars.

That's very typical or with um we're looking at rodent damage as well as sunscald.

Now, this is a very classic picture.

Someone got the right stuff on there.

They got a plastic collar.

However, they didn't take it off.

Now, that's here.

You can see this.

As soon as that color, and that color does not have to be white.

It could be black.

As long as there's an air space between the plastic and your tree tissue.

As soon as it gets out there, there's that risk of damaging the outside bark, which can be very detrimental to the tree.

So, get them off.

Once you've got a bark, this is an older tree.

It protects from sunscald.

Then, we don't have to be nearly as concerned about this, Karen.

But, we want to think about planting and then protecting.

I had to throw this in because I had a call from an individual.

The sap flowed pretty well on our maples this year.

Very well, as a matter of fact, and he was wondering why he couldn't get any sap out of his maple trees.

went out and take a look and it turns out he was tapping basswood trees.

So we have in northern Minnesota we've got this mixed hardwood forest.

On the left here we've got basswood.

If you want to identify bark maple obviously is a little bit gnarlier but they look very same similar when they're side by side.

But they're very unique trees.

And the the maple here if you can't tell the difference you can see on the left alternate branching.

And you see where the branches come off zigzag.

When we go to the right they're opposite.

There's one opposite the other.

So that's the distinguishing characteristics.

Easy when there are leaves on the tree, difficult when you're tapping.

Now both species, maples and birch have got air pockets in the xylem of the particular tree.

And this is why we can actually pull sap out of those.

When it gets cold at night, it pulls moisture uh sap from the upper portion of the tree, not from the roots.

Common misconception.

Pulls it down into these air pockets.

Then when it gets 45 degrees in the air, it pushes it out into your tap.

So it's really only maple in this area, maple and birch that have um these air pockets, and that's what makes them different than the oaks and the elms and and the other deciduous trees.

But make sure you're not tapping maple or you're not tapping basswood or elm or oak because they in our forest oftentimes they all grow together.

Yeah.

And I did not know birch gives sap.

You can get sap.

It's about an 80 to1 reduction.

There's a little bit of a different flavor.

And the maple is where the the sugar contents a little higher.

It's about a 40 to1 reduction, but we're right in the middle of that.

Uh, and it's been a pretty good sap year as long as you were tapping the maples.

As long as you were tapping the right trees.

Right.

Well, thanks Bob.

Now, let's get to some of your questions.

Joy from the Iron Range uh wants to know the product you use to deal with the creeping Charlie that you mentioned before.

Oh, there are a couple of there are a couple of products and uh you know I might I might defer on that one a little.

I will say this, you can one of the real keys and we found this that a lot of the broadleaf products will be effective if in fact you get there early.

You fertilize early.

This is what we found.

So you got active growth and then get an herbicide on it.

And I'm going to have to defer a little bit that to make sure that we've got still have labels on these products.

Sure.

Okay.

Okay.

Susan from Proctor says the county poisoned her Japanese knotweed last year.

Is there anything she can do with it now?

You mean they tried to eliminate it for and she wants to bring it back?

I'm not sure if it was poison.

Most most people are trying to eliminate Japanese notweed of course which is an invasive and I assume that's why it was uh uh why they tried to eliminate it.

Uh unfortunately it'll come back pretty vigorously on its own.

Uh N in Draper, Wisconsin says last fall she put down cardboard on a patch of grass.

Good.

This spring she will put down four to six inches of compost on that spot.

Can she plant perennials or will only annuals work in that spot?

You know, she's got all of the perennial weeds out is what we're trying to control with the cardboard.

If it went on late in the year and through the winter, it's not going to do too much.

Often times it needs we have to eliminate that for a full growing season.

But um certainly once the perennial weeds, we're thinking of quackrass and other things.

Once we've got those out of there, perennials or annuals, it's your choice, right?

Whatever you choose to pick, whatever you choose.

And but you do want to get the perennial weeds, quackrass in particular out because very difficult to separate a perennial weed from a perennial plant after they're established.

Well, and the weed will take over.

I'm assuming they'll dominate, right?

It'll dominate and it'll it'll always put pressure on that perennial.

So, let's get everything nice and weed-free, particularly perennial weeds, before we plant.

So, then once it's weeded free, she can do whatever she wants with it.

All right.

I'm rooting for N. Yeah, pun intended.

Uh Paul from Elely asks, "How effective is a product called Plant Skid?"

Oh, I know that product a little too well.

Uh it's quite effective.

This is a um uh this is a deer repellent uh that actually comes out of our uh it's animal byproducts.

Awful is what they awful spelled o ff a l I believe but it is awful a a wf u l and my experience if you can tolerate it I've used it and all my volunteers on this project left me and left me alone making that application.

It's pretty smelly stuff.

It is quite effective.

Okay.

But with all of these taste and odor repellents, you want to rotate products.

This one's a little different than some of the protestcent egg products out there.

Rotate them in a nice mix for deer control.

Okay.

Uh Diane from Pike Lake bought potato slips last year.

Are they okay to plant this year?

But potato slips.

Now, we we plant a sweet potato comes from a slip.

Uh she might have the tubers of the seed potatoes, which is the Irish potato.

As long as they're intact and the buds are still viable, I think she's going to be just fine.

It's when they've dried out and you don't have those emerging viable buds.

I always recommend that you start with fresh material in the spring of the year.

Okay, last question.

Maggie from Duth.

Maggie cut her armor maple branches back by four feet.

Can she trim the branches on the tree again this year?

Yeah, emmer maple is really Acro Janella is pretty pretty aggressive.

So, I think she certainly can.

Don't leave any stumps.

Prune back to another stem or prune back to a uh some kind of a bud stem or bud.

And I think it's going to be just fine because it will take pruning pretty heavily.

Okay.

Well, thank you so much for joining us this evening.

And of course, a special thank you to our gardening expert, Bob Olen, for sharing his expertise.

We invite you to join us at 700 p.m.

next Thursday again for more tips and inspiration.

Until then, have a wonderful and safe evening.