It’s Tuesday, which means it’s gardening day on The Signal. Today’s guest is horticulturist Meghan McCarthy, whose message on pruning is that the window is closing fast!
Thanks to Linda Caravan, Dave Squires, and Yuvadee Feltham for their fabulous photos!
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] it’s Tuesday May 28th I’m Adam Walsh and this is the signal and it is gardening day folks I don’t want to alarm you but if you’re thinking about pruning that window it’s closing fast so says my guest horticulturist mean McCarthy the lines are open for calls emails texts Let’s Get [Music] Growing it’s like which grow pun will Adam use to start the show this time and why does he only ever use that word as opposed to all of the other puns out there whatever it is I’m on board I like it thank you do what I like and I mean the rest of the province uh whatever because everyone else has been enjoying 20° days in Sun right someone on the show the other week from Happy Valley goosebay was bragging about the great weather well it is 12 degrees right now in St John’s and sunny so I think we did it Summer’s here we’ve made it highest 16 today go to 21 on Thursday so uh meanwhile cornerbrook 17 mix of sun and Cloud uh oh there’s yeah a couple uh 20 tomorrow 20 next week anyways exciting yeah it’s for all of us together folks Newland and Labrador every Community moving into a grow uh season horticulturist Megan McCarthy how you doing anyways oh I’m awesome yeah I’m so excited how’s the uh Botanical Garden when are you opening we’re actually opening tomorrow oh yeah congratulations what a great question Adam um yeah we’ve been having some necessary work done at the Garden as most places um have so yeah we’re really excited to have people back um we we’re open 7 days a week guys of tomorrow um a little bit of fits and starts cuz we still have a little bit more work to do but it is gorgeous down there like go down in the Woodland garden and you won’t regret it there’s flowers everywhere if you’ve been down about the weather and you think nothing’s growing just come on down it’s gorgeous so yeah we got a we got a lot going on we got an art show next week um um starting June 6 we got my printing Workshop this Saturday we got plant LS tour this Saturday at 2:00 um yeah so nerds unite nerds plant nerds unite the call has gone out uh and how’s Todd doing with with the bunny rabbits up there because I know they can be a subject of uh I don’t even talk to him about it on the show anymore CU yes it’s a touchy subject uh they actually run up to us now they don’t feel our um animosity apparently so I I think it’s just uh it’s a hard situation but they I um hate them a lot them cuz they’re so cute yeah but they also treat your hard work like a salad bar yes I had to prune many a thing and shed many a tear this spring because they um yeah but especially on the shrubs it’s hard because it’s you know things that we grow from seed are precious and they don’t eat the precious the not precious things it seems so yeah that’s kind of funny it is oh this is so precious oh God yeah yeah it’ll be like one dogberry that we grew from seed from the Himalayas and then next to it will be a native dogberry and it will eat the one so they have expensive I mean you can taste the mountain freshness right it’s a little little known bunny rabbit fact I mean I prefer the Himalayan too so I don’t know why I’m you know not that I’m eating them but none of the che marks are mine don’t that folks if you want to get in touch with us it is gardening day uh every Tuesday uh during the you know grow season which is and we also do the shoulders right the to get you into the growing frame of mind and uh out of it and into the next one in the fall and this I was just going over this I’m late with the schedule this year so I was going over this get and we’re going to do gardening right up through October again I think the last day of gardening is the last Tuesday uh of October which is just before Halloween but I don’t even want to talk about that yet because it’s so far in the future if you want to join this conversation 709 72271 one1 80056 38255 text us 7 9327 8206 or email us the signal at cbc.ca and as you’re listening if you have any snaps of your Gardens please email them to us uh the signal cbc.ca because we’re going to start like we put each of these shows up on YouTube now awesome and uh so what we’re doing we’re thinking a little value added thing like sometimes if folks want to go back to be like we’re going to talk about pruning in this show uh folks want to go back and say I actually want to kind of watch that again and check it out if you give us your garden pictures John Pike who who does this show on the technical side he’s going to wallpaper all these gardening pictures over the video which is kind of cool I think that’s awesome and I love seeing people like what people are doing out there so helpful and inspiring for me yeah and I I just love the updates like I look at so for the signal every show is a conversation and for the gardening conversation it’s questions and tips that people are looking for but it’s also like celebrating what they’re trying or what they’ve accomplished it’s commiserating oh definitely yeah I love it speaking of that um here’s a very simple question for you uh we bought a lemon thy plant MH and it looks like uh it’s running out of time uh both like you know for the little Ley things and life um do you like could that be an overwatering thing which probably was at one point like how do I get this thing to come back to life so that like they’re still green it’s just it’s becoming sparse and I enjoy lemon time because I use it for when I’m butter basting steak oh uh and and I enjoy that and it’s not looking like I can do a a much more butter-based with it and so it’s inside in a pot right now yeah so I was thinking of maybe but we’re also thinking of maybe moving it outside uh CU that like that’s fine here for growing right yeah there there are definitely like times that are perennial here um sometimes when you if you bought it like in the grocery store or something like it might be a weaker variety um but what I probably do is take it out of the pot and take a look at the roots because Mediterranean plants like that and rosemary and lavender and that sort of thing like they are used to sort of like drier soils that um and like being in the ground and getting lots of sun and that sort of thing so when you’re inside and something might not be getting even if it’s in a full sun window right the window will block some of the on and then a little bit of extra water and um also sometimes dep again depending on where you bought it they can be a little pesty they could have um little friends so yeah I’d probably like Harden it off you know um Take It Outside and bring it back in um a couple times just to get it used to it and take a look at the roots cuz you’ll see like you know they could be rotten or maybe the soil mix isn’t good or maybe it was planted too deep like there’s lots of things that yeah so I’d probably get it out of the pot and get a funny spot if you could even a bigger pot outside like on your deck or something lots of people do that cool and then if you’re not sure and you’re you know um maybe snap a pick and I can tell you if it’s one of the ones that can stay outside for the winter um yeah and then hopefully you’ll get lot lots more leaves that you can eat yeah well hey because that’s what it’s all about right eating the leaves we’re I’ve like each week also we’ve been talking about um my wife’s growing I’ll say we but like the Royal Wei here’re growing Pilla leaves because yeah well no so it’s similar it’s I think the same family so Sim similar to shiso the Japanese leaf uh but and this is used a lot for cream barbecue fun so my wife brought them from seed and now they’re kind of sprouting up on the window sill and yeah and it’s I’m very excited yeah right so this is great that’s awesome I love it and it’s yeah it gives this like sharp taste so like if you’re eating cream barbecue you’ve got your lettuce you put the pill Leaf down and then a little bit of whether it’s your pork belly or also like maybe your marinated uh maybe your beef or something but typically we do a pork belly uh a little bit of go Jang maybe a grilled garlic uh and and also some onion it is fantastic together that sounds awesome I’m so excited for you I love it when people can have yeah again love to hear about people’s experiments that’s great uh we’ve got so the other thing that happens like I always talk about like uh you there’s the text line the email line folks so the signal at cbc.ca texting 709 32782 also sometimes people just uh go and and text my phone as well which is which is perfectly okay folks cuz it’s my work phone so that’s all fine uh got a note from Dave Squire on that and uh so here’s what it says this is celery that we grew from putting the stump of the stock and water and then transferred it to soil what should we do going forward with this uh thanks and a little note a farmer is a person outstanding in the fields I wish there’s more horiculture jokes it doesn’t really open it send the jokes in folks puns and jokes too so describe this picture on the screen that I’m turn it around for yeah so we got beautiful celery lots of leaf um not like a ton lots of little stocks um and and as with doing grocery store experiments as I call them we always just like mitigate our expectations a bit because this is a plant that was grown somewhere else so it wasn’t one that was chosen for our climate but I love stuff like this because it just brings so much joy and if you can eat it like joy and eating like you can’t get much better than that this is now a eating show it’s not growing um yeah so if I were you like you know keeping something that inside it’s not going to get like the the heat in the Sun that um you want to really beef it up so I would probably like after last frost which is June 15th um I probably put it outside with some like nice rich um soil that’s well draining and see if it you can get some beefier stocks and it does need um a long season celery so um yeah I would uh uh yeah try to get it in as much sun as possible but good luck that sounds exciting that’s cool yeah very cool all right we’re going to go to uh we’re going to go to the phone lines and if you would like to join this conversation uh using the telephone 709 722 71111 80056 38255 let’s go to yva who’s on the line from glovertown hi hello beautiful day gorgeous hello uh I have a two question number one is I bought a lot of flower the annual flower they look beautiful and they make the new box for my garden so I just put outside but at night I move put in the greenhouse or in the garage should I put them now because when I look at the Google they said Dr Goo said there should be temperature like far Z to fire is not safe to outside and the second question is I have a lot of strawberry scat everywhere so I duck it out and put in the pot you know L them up and then they can hang down and not touch the ground you know and then another one I bought the from Greenhouse like this strawberry is their boom all the time I’m not sure what name but I bought it I put in a greenhous should I being outside now to put in the pot and Li them now okay two question okay great um so for your annuals um I you’re you’re right where there are different um like degree I guess they’re different zones so that one might say oh this one can take zero and this one can take minus five or whatever but they were they were all grown in a greenhouse so it’s a bit of a shock um for them so just as a rule I don’t planned out my annuals until after June 15th when we get that or like Father’s Day weekend or whatever I when we get the last frost day for multiple reasons but mostly like they’re beautiful and expensive so you know like I know we are excited but I would probably like I think what you’re doing is great where they’re outside in the day and you’re bringing them in at night I know that can kind of be a pain so good for you for doing that you’re awesome um but yeah I would just I would wait to put them in the ground until after June 15th um and for the strawberries um so you’re wanting to put them you have them in your Greenhouse in pots and you’re wondering when you can plant them in the ground is that right yeah the one I bought from the store because that one that what it call they they Brom all the time like in St yeah gotcha yeah so um in general in newand the June bearing ones do a bit better um because the season our season is isn’t the longest um so the ever bearing is fine you’ll just kind of get a smaller C crop through this season um whereas the June bearing um you get them kind of like a big crop all at once in the um early summer um but the as long as they’re if you got like a nice Sunny Spot um and you have like a good amount of leaves I would probably maybe like we had a pretty we had a frost last night so um maybe give it like a week or so um and again if it’s if it’s no you know what I don’t know what that phrase is skin off your back anyway if if you can’t skin off your nose duck something um whatever that phrase is if you can keep it in the greenhouse that’ll kind of bulk them up um and give them a head start and then you know you’re extending your season so actually if you can keep me in there until um like June 15th the same then you’re going to have some happy strawberries um that are kind of had a kickart so again smart idea to having them there giving them a Bo I can’t I I cannot wait I just put in the morning outside but I can it’s so heavy to put it back so I I I put a half like four outside and four I still you know still in the same part so I can move it back I can afford to lost four pants they’re not cheap though well thank you and I have some a few picture I will send later oh I love that yeah and if you if you can’t move things you can always just throw a sheet or a piece of remare or something over it if that’s the issue just like for anybody yeah last night I the experiment put left outside one and I use a bucket cover at night so morning I took it out so I been put Ming back my FL PCH like in and out like S I bought last week okay thank you awesome have a good day bye bye thanks seea so we are uh like I think about 18 days around June before oo the before grow time so everyone listening grow time oh I think there’s some radio Reverb there which is that what I sound like I sound amazing well oh yes sorry that it’s what you sound like all right you’re like no you sound horri no he sound great I was going for you sound great this is the signal it is uh it is grow day uh here on the signal if you want to join the conversation 709 722 7111 80056 38255 text us 709 327 8206 emails including pictures of your grow progress the signal at cbc.ca let’s go to George on the line from Gander how you doing uh doing fine thank you for taking my call Adam thanks for calling uh Megan uh first of all I’m curious if you still manag to uh save your Himalayan poppies and or did you lose them or you still got them I know a few years ago you had some Himalayan poppies out there yes yeah we um we do they actually are starting to get butts on them which is so exciting um so we have we with the our construction we had to sort of um move some of them um but they’re they’re doing okay and we got a bunch more coming from seed so we’re in good shape thank you for asking are they the same ones that you had originally yeah so we actually have um probably at least like five different kinds um so we have some of the like blue ones we have purple ones um we have white ones and we have like what’s called monocarpic ones where they kind of grow and then they only bloom once and then they die um so a smor is Board of himalay puppies you might say um yeah so we but we do definitely have the classic blue ones and they’re they’re doing okay they’ll make it yeah the blue ones are abely out of this world totally I agree um I know there probably a year or two year years ago they opened a new school here and they planted a p of trees and they lost a lot of them I don’t know I think they just pled on if they just didn’t know what they were doing they planted them or they planted them they didn’t take care of them and some of them they wired up and the wire had grown into the trunk you know and uh a lot of them they that they planted are Birch now they look like they might be a river birch is a river birch of reaping Birch so River Birch has a really it’s kind of like a white birch really gnarly cousin it has like a darker um a darker bark and it’s a lot scruffier um and it’s pretty special so I would I’m probably thinking it might be not be that BM but it could be like a European weeping Birch like it’s the one that grows down here all along the um what’s the the water for River with the cracked bark so it could be that yeah yeah because it is a more of a whitish bark I don’t think it’s a dark bark yeah that makes sense but I’ll tell you now my problem is is every time I go by I noticed that a lot of had a lot of dead dead uh stuff on it this year from from the winter I guess a lot of branches and stuff like that it just totally dead and I was wondering that I was thinking that maybe it’s A A Birch that is probably a zone five or six or something like that we’re in Gander we’re Zone 4B and I’m just wondering if the Birch they put there just uh wasn’t for our Zone um so if they brought a bir in I mean there’s there’s so much birchin Central um and there’s not unless you’re getting into some really really fancy ones most most of them do okay here I would say the problem is based on what you were saying um maybe with the way that they were planted so a lot of the time with these like big trees or even just little ones they um in the nursery pot or in the ball and burlap they’re planted too deep and then what happens is people plant them even deeper um I tell people that all the time the root flare should be at the ground level word yeah phrase of the day I love it yeah root flare exactly so I’m kind of curious if something happening down below that’s causing that D back on the back um on the top um so I don’t know George if like what your position with these trees are but like you can prune off dead damaged and disease anytime and that’s not going to be in your pruning budget and that might I don’t have anything to go with school but every time I go by it just I just kind of makes me sad so I I did actually prune a lot of them cut I would lot dead wood on them that I could reach AES yeah that’s that’s great um yeah and I find birches especially if they don’t have a good start in light they really are dramatic about it they really show their they really protest um and also there I I find that when you have like bad ice situation because the the branches are so um so thin they can they can break up quite a bit so it’s possible too that something happened I don’t know what your winter was like but um that something happened over the winter that really caused a lot of damage too and Megan my main question is uh I have some friends that want me to uh I do a lot of I’ve done a lot of pruning a lot of shrubs and trees pruning I love shrubs and trees uh but uh I got some friends that want me to prune some overgrown Roa dendr I’ve have I have a lot of aelas and Ro renr myself but these particular ones are probably 5 feet tall they’re overgrown for the situation they’re in and I I need to cut them back probably a foot or two feet and I know that Rod dendrum are basically one of the few that uh if you do cut them back I think they can get BDS from the main stem but under under the under uh the the where the flowers and the stems are I mean it’s basic it’s it’s beer wood so I’m wondering and I do believe that you cut them would prune them after they finish flowering uh what do you think I think you’re right on yeah you’ve clearly done this before uh know with Ries it is scary because you can’t see the buds they do have dor like what we call dormant buds so when you cut them um so if I were you George I would clear out cu they can also get quite a bit of dead and it’s really hard for you to see what you’re doing and where you’re cunning um so if I were you I would probably clear all the dead out first and then you can actually see what’s alive and what’s dead and what the problem branches are is I find with Ries too sometimes they’ll have like we want to do sort of more thinning Cuts where you might have a branch that is especially tall and you can kind of take it back to like a main stem and you’re not having to have the shrub like break a Bud from cuz they are pretty slow to do that and um yeah sometimes with with mixed results like I’ve definitely done it and they’ve be fine and then other times it’s just the bud doesn’t want to break for whatever reason um so what you said about after flowering is perfect as well they look fairly healthy and that you know don’t look like too much dead stuff on them but I’m just I just wonder if I go wait till after the flower and then cut them back say a foot or two I’m back basically to beer trunk so do you think that that’ll be all right and then I might be able to get some dormant buds that come out so are you taking like when you’re with what you’re with what you are picturing when you’re done will there be any leaves at all not some much on the top no maybe on the side but I mean you know I’m I what I was hoping to do is leave some if there’s any lower ones I’d leave them so I’m going to have some leaves obviously but otherwise I I I hate to to get rid of probably half can I get rid of it cut tops off them basically down to foot or so that I only got I’m getting rid of probably 50% of the actual Leaf material gotcha yeah cuz I was asking because there’s a difference between like when we do what we call like a Rejuvenation prune that’s the one that we do after flowering and we’re typically not going any more than like 25 or 30% if we’re getting into more of that we’re getting more into a renovation prune and that’s when what’s the name of that I was trying to think of a word for that when sometimes they cut fre and they cut them down to probably like two feet and then they Bud from the vet and there’s a name like yeah so that that would be coping um so you do that with like dog like dog woods and Willows and like the I don’t want to do that I don’t no no but but typically if your prining budget is going to be over 30% then you’re getting more into a bigger shock and for for a roie like because they’re kind of slow to react um I would maybe just say Okay this year you’re not going to get any flowers you’re going to do it now cuz this is the time to do the that renovation prune and you’re going to give that plan like the best possible chance of like hardening off that new growth um and really be able to baby it along in the because really by the time it blooms you know you might be mid July um before you know depending on which one it is or maybe later um and then that doesn’t actually I say that I suspect that they’re going to flower probably in about two or three weeks okay gotcha um yeah so if and I wonder if maybe what I should do is just do half it this year and half it next next year you could do that too yeah so if you if you say okay I’m going to make a plan over the next two years to bring this down I’m going to keep in my pruning budget I’m only going to prune about 25% of this plant um this year and then do 25 the other 25% next year then um and just know you know obviously your flowers are going to be affected but I I like that plan George actually I like that better than doing um a renovation prune cuz renovation prune is hard on a plant we use that in Desperate Times yeah yeah yeah yeah so right after to finish flowering be the right time yes exactly yeah and then L the deadhead it’s great two birds one Berry right thank you so very kindly Megan you’re a Gods you too George you’re doing awesome work thank you thanks for the call Happy gardening happy gardening dormant buds they’re not your friends yet but soon they will be yeah exactly you can’t see them no plants are so cool they’re hiding lots of Secrets yeah but a lot most plants don’t have dormant buns um most of the time you can see the node or the bud that you want to cut to I mean you want to cut pretty close to that because otherwise you’re going to leave a nub and that’s how disease and rotten stuff gets in so we like good clean cuts nice clean tools sharp yeah this is the signal it is gardening day I’m Adam Walsh my guest today a horticulturist Megan mcarthy from Memorial University’s Botanical Garden if you want to join the conversation 709 72271 1111 80056 38255 text us 709 327 8206 emails the signal at cbc.ca and uh Linda in Deer Lake just sent check out this picture garlic hold on I don’t know what’s going on in Deer Lake but there’s something in the water and so it’s probably actually the great sunshine and weather because that is well advaned oh I love it you’re going to get looks like you’re going to getcap soon already my goodness jealous so yeah if you want early garlic uh or it’s probably on time in Dear Lake but it’s for St John’s purposes if you want early garlic that’s awesome I love go to deake PL yeah that’s great great job Linda and thanks for the picture and folks if you want to send your gardening updates to us the signal at cbc.ca and when we pop the show up on YouTube each week during gardening season we’ll wpaper some of the picks up there too uh and these are great like I think you know the show is also podcasted right but you can’t see pictures on podcast so it is a great reference uh for any ging questions you have for and each guest uh per per you know per week we’ve got a range of answers and questions and stuff um and you’ve got like we were just talking about pruning there with George from Gander yeah you’re you’re talking more about pruning so yeah I love talking about pruning um I’m doing a workshop this uh Saturday at 1:00 at the Botanical Garden um so if you would like to come you can just register in advance on our website but um it’s one of those things that you read on the internet and then you stand in front of your shrub with your Falco and you’re like oh this is scarier than I thought so we love talking about like the theory but then we go out and say okay well you know what are you having trouble with and sort of um and actually do like a demo and actually get to cut things and um I think that’s really important because it is you know a part of gardening and um you know there’s two spectrums so they’re people that just cut anything any time and um are kind of random about it there are other people that are really afraid to cut and I understand both of those um so the the the why and the how is going to be the big it’s going to be the big themes I guess and when I said at the beginning of the show that the window for pruning is closing what does that mean so I was mostly thinking about that big renovation prune where if you have something and it really like it’s completely out of control and there’s no way that you can you know really save it from itself I guess um like last year we had these um mock orange that were probably like they were like half dead and they were spinley and they just they needed they needed some love so we like cut them to the ground like this time of year and they starting to come back and it’s great so sometimes you just have to do that um and for things like hydrangeas uh like macro hydranges um they things that that um that flower like late in the year that now is the great time to PR those so things like roses as well um like your fruit trees there’s lots of things that if you can get them before Bud Break um then that’s it’s makes your life a lot easier I love hydranga Yeah and uh in another time and place for me uh on the Tokyo side of things back when I used to live there uh hydrangea ushered in summer yeah so late June and or mid to late J and it would be like here we go summer’s coming and it was just always so so nice and here later in the summer yeah cuz you know that’s how things work yeah uh all right I uh so I mean we’re talking a little bit of pruning there um we got some picks coming in folks if you want to join the conversation here today if you got questions you want to update us on your garans 709 722 71111 80056 38255 the text line is open 709 327 8206 emails the signal at cbc.ca Megan McCarthy is with me here for the full show we’re hanging out um goutweed uh and like this is the theme I’m bringing up with with many of the the guests through the summer um I showed you some picks right so a buddy of mine sent me some te some picks of like his backyard uh had a tarp out like a green tarp over like trying to trying to kill out Gat weat what’s the conversation to have around how to like fight that NeverEnding and sometimes depending on who you are uh losing battle totally um and it’s I think it’s all about mitigating expectations or or understanding like you could you can do a lot of things um to try to slow it down but it is work and so for me I’m always like okay well what is my goal here is my goal to have like a perfect garden with no um Gat weed in it like that is probably way less achievable than saying okay I’m going to knock this back as much as I can and I’m going to live with it and I’m going to stay on top of it and it’s just going to be part of my life and maybe I’ll start eating it like Dave good was talking about a couple weeks ago he’s like you know eat your way through it yeah um and you know if you’re if you’re diligent and you can also you might just have you know everyone’s Garden is different too it depends on a lot of different factors um but the the issue I guess with the with the photo you showed me was they were trying to solarize it which is when you put um like a tarper or you know something really heavy over over it trying to choke the life right out of it yeah there’s lots of energy in those leaves um but you really need something dark to get like help get the sun to help you out in that if you’re just using like a light color tarp then you’re smothering it you’re blocking out sunlight but you’re not getting that heat so um there’s lots of places like East cem being one of them where you can buy like almost like Greenhouse floor you know by the roll or whatever we’ve we’ve done that before um and also know you know when you do that it’s not going to be like oh okay great I did that for a year now it’s going to be dead forever um that’s not really but again we’re we’re thinking about that plant has a lot of energy and it has a lot of roots and what can we do to slow it down to make it a bit more manageable and here’s the follow-up question with that too right so this uh the the goutweed in question in this backyard has been covered for 2 years okay uh look uh he’s looking for suggestions on what to plant along with grass seed to help keep the goutweed at Bay so that’s that’s interesting so a lot of the times when people want to manage a section of Gat weed actually turning it into a Lawn isn’t a bad idea because you don’t really have to like you’re picking your B you’re like okay the Gat weed’s over here um I’m just going to seed it and I’m going to actually mow over and that actually like does a good job of controlling it like it keeps it low and you know as you know that I don’t know I don’t really care that much about weeds in a lawn and if you are okay with just having some Gat weed and that you know that’s actually not a bad way to keep it um controlled and then you just have your garden somewhere else and a couple weeks ago what came up was if so let’s say you’ve got something encroaching goutweed right moving in and uh and but you got some things that you’re growing and you you’re like I do not want this to get there the the conversation then was to dig a trench around it because that can also act as a barrier so if you want to protect your um plants from goutweed if you dig if you have a trench line that was one way because sometimes the conversation a couple weeks ago I think it was with Dave Good Year anyways it was just the fact that it may it won’t grow past that trench often times or or it’s it’s way to kind of prevent it I don’t know what you think about that yeah I mean I mean some sort of like edging would definitely help you know but I’ve also seen it grow like in the bumpiest soil you know like the like down one um and up through lots of things so like whatever and also we want to think about practical in our garden like I’m just thinking if I had a trench like would I be falling in that trench all the time if I’m trying to like move with a wheelbarrow um but yeah like it trying out something like that I don’t think it’s it’s a bad thing like it’s going to slow it down it’s not going to stop it um I would probably to like when you’re digging it out be very careful and try to get as much root as it out as you can um like around that trench so that you kind of have two lines of Defense cuz really like the the very carefully digging digging it out is really the thing that’s going to knock it back the most at least I think that was the conversation I may have just been making that but anyways we’ll push through all like there’s trenches all over the place and where did that come from I just have ankle problems I’m like I’m going to fall in that Tren staying on the goutweed uh conversation we got a text came in from Sarah hotter hi uh I’m finally dealing with an area that had been taken over by goutweed I’ve got a pair of tree in the area it’s just starting to flower which is fantastic I’m wondering if it’s too late to transplant it I like to get rid of all the gout weed around the pear trees Roots love the show any advice appreciate it well thanks for the text yeah it’s still early enough to to move something like that and what you could do is when you were moving it really try to like normally we like to keep some root ball but if you wanted to even like wash the roots and make sure there’s no goed like in in that root system so that you know you’re not moving it somewhere else um that yeah that would be that would be okay but I would still then really baby along that tree um if it flowers or tried to tries to flute this year I wouldn’t let it um and you know use some some nice fertilizer that’s going to help the the roots and here’s a pick but yeah so it’s just a little tree so that’s good um it can still be it might it might also need a steak because when you have um when you have a be root tree there’s not a lot holding on um and just make sure you don’t um plant it too deep I should say s Tex said here’s a pick and then said death to goutweed four exclamation points wow yes yeah real Gardener she knows yeah yeah I mean it’s the there’s one exclamation point there’s two there’s three but when you get to the fourth one yeah there’s some passion I mean I I feel the passion for my seat here so that’s awesome good luck with good luck with the par tree and thank you for the text and uh yeah I mean that goes for all of you if you want to text us your pictures questions updates the uh well emails the signal cbc.ca the text line 709 32782 6 the numbers to call 709 722 7111 80056 38255 so what do you get excited I mean like everything but like what like what specifically at this point of spring for like ornamentals or types of things are you getting excited about yeah well I just I just love the bulbs like the bulbs are are boopin and there’s so many bees in the garden it’s amazing um and just everything coming out and that sort of like curiosity and just like being in the garden and and being so happy to be there again um but like it’s so beautiful down there now we got like trout lies and fawn lies happening we got checkered lies um like all the these are all like more bulb type lies um we planted tons of like daffodils and um tul Love and high and all that is going um and it’s so cool because you know they weren’t there we haven’t had anyway we’re planting bulbs in places where bulbs have not traditionally gone cool um so kind of seeing like what made it through and um getting some colors so I know lot like this time of year A lot of people are like oh I want a wildflower like Meadow or whatever um but they have big trees so like now is the time of year when people can have their you know their flowers even if they have a lot of shade in their backyard which makes me very excited for them oh driving around I’m loving all the Daffy Dills everywhere just popping like they look so great yeah they’re so happy it’s a really enjoyable time of year and also like I was running um up Ren’s River Trail the other day and there’s a um so let me see this the what’s the oh God the high it’s the yellow uh blooms early first in Spring the Haan uh oh Foria Foria uh so the Fria is out and then you’ve got a couple of cherry type blossom trees that are out there um and it’s just lovely right only the green is kind of slowly Tak over but yeah it is a really really nice thinking of like we were talking about um herbs earlier right uh for lemon thyme what are like if folks want some like if you’re looking to do like just your own little herb garden start for outdoors type of a thing uh what what would like what would be on your list of what you would want so for me for herbs when I’m getting them like I I want to eat them right like I so I normally go first for The Perennial herbs because they keep coming back their less work and normally they can like you can get a good patch going like so something like chives like they are so happy you can have a huge chive patch you can make vinegar out of the blossoms you can eat them they’re always fresh and they’re there they seeed around so if you want more you know you always have more and you’re not really worried about harvesting cuz sometimes when I get the the ones that are just for one season I’m kind of worried about harvesting them because I’m like I just grew you from seed like you were a baby two minutes ago and now I’m going to eat you now I’m E Yeah so things like like oregano um even I mean I know it’s really tough like the the really tough ones like mint and lemon mom like you can have them you know they might run a little bit so just maybe keep them in a pot or something but things like that I mean you just get such a harvest um and they’re way easier to start with um so that’s yeah normally where I start for sure yeah we’ve got some chives going too along with the pr leaves so we’re I’m I’m excited about the chives awesome here’s a text that just came in uh have a pruning question about apple trees I have six semi- dwarf three-year-old apple trees wondering if they should be pruned at that age yeah so uh uh the apple apple trees should be pruned at every age so what’s cool about having a new Apple Tree is that you can do we talk about pruning and training and people kind of forget about the training side of of the pruning where um with apple trees you want you’re going for a very specific shape you’re going for kind of like a bowl shaped not a lot of Crossing lots of air flow um and when you have a young tree um it’s a great time to to kind of plan your cuts um for that year but also for years to come so that you can start creating the shape that you want and now is a good time like normally I try to do it like while they’re dormant but before bub rake is still fine um so normally I’m cutting like and when you look at an apple tree you can kind of see like the first year growth the second year growth CU there’s a little um like they call Mary stem scar I guess there’s just like a ridge there so if you can see where the first year growth is is or last year’s growth if you cut even within three buds of um like the last year’s previous year’s growth um then what you’re doing is you’re training like the Spurs of that plant to be like dense and more and closer together because what happens is when people don’t um prune their apple trees they’ll have a really long stem and uh the the fruiting Spurs like where the fruit will come out are really spaced out and then you have a big tree that’s kind of floppy um and uh it’s it’s harder to direct it at that point cuz you’re having to cut harder in to retrain it um so what I would do is the American Horticultural Society they have um or the The Royal Horticultural Society they have really great resources in actually how to train young trees um and I would take a look at those because it also depends on I mean I’m sure it’s just a a regular semi dwarf but if you were doing anything fancy like ESP spaling or Cordon or whatever um they would teach you how to um how to do that excellent um yeah but definitely like fruit trees you just got to get in the habit of cutting them um even if it feels like a tiny bit wrong it’s good for them I promise but make sure you have clean tools and that you’re not cutting using like use alcohol in between so that you’re not spreading disease and that sort of thing excellent there you go Ryan uh thanks for the text let’s go to the lines we’ve got Jackie on the line calling from St John’s hi Hi how are you doing Adam good how are you oh good thank you excellent waiting to get out to finish my pruning now okay excellent okay question for Megan and actually before I pose the question I will get hubby who’s a much better for tord than I am to try to get some pictures of my beautiful red and yellow Darwin D tulips oh great yes please love and I really push the dman ones because in my opinion had experience from living in this Garden for last 60 years they are the most reliable the RO or coming back and back and back yeah because that’s a big issue with tulips that sometimes they don’t return there’s still a few out back that the rats didn’t eat the dad planted in like the early 60s oh wow TI but but the Darwin series is the one one that I find as you know the real fancy ones only last two or three years and then they just die off right yeah totally okay question last week I discovered dread at Lily be oh no yes what I idea actually thanks to the nland Gard Facebook group I was alerted to look for I uh like i’ I’ve always I’ve kept an eye on them but I suspect that last year I may have missed them because I lost I would say about half of my true lilies and I was in Ottawa this time last year actually gotta so uh they may but three are I saved about there three came back I had probably had about a dozen what I did is I wasted I don’t say waste I used about a quar of a bottle of olive oil to make sure I really drown the little boogers and I have used the thin fork and knocked them off into the olive oil like in a small glass dish type thing and so they end up in the dish and not on the ground my main concern uh and I did see one egg which also managed to successfully dispose of don’t know I’ve been checked every day since I I think it was two days I noticed the Beetle and I got rid of uh now I don’t know how valid it is but I’ve heard it that coffee grounds help keep um the lar from crawling back in the ground and destroying the bulb so I got lots of them around so I figured wouldn’t hurt anyway how long should I be checking them for either the be o or the lar so we have them at the Garden as well and I’m pretty much constantly checking so I’m always checking for eggs which so a lily big deal if you don’t know they eat lies but they eat other things as well and they’re the brightest red like they’re the color of the CBC logo pretty much actually day it was cold I took the binoculars from the from the kitchen window see you see a little CBC symbol on their back a little known fact yeah exactly did you see the witch on their back yeah I see the CBC symb CC symbol um no no no but yeah so I’m because you may so knowing their life cycle you know you may have gotten the adults but they may have um laid their eggs already and and the eggs are the same color as that bright red color so so in terms of like pests that you’re going to be picking off like they’re they’re an easy easy Target and I think you were right with we’re about like knocking them off the plant because they you know I go to I go to grab them and then they fall and you can’t find them so actually um I did read somewhere that the eggs fall off really easily oh okay yeah because I I’m always worried so I just squish them with my finger when I see them because I’m a monster I also do that um yeah just because I’m I’m not sure and I I don’t really I don’t want to take the risk of them in the soil and being like Oh okay we live love ha too um but if you if you can just do you know even like once a week a check um it’ll it’ll it will pay off in the long run because when people when they do get away you know and they they become a big infestation they’re just really difficult to deal with then um so a little bit of extra time in the beginning to nip in in the butt I think it’ll it’ll be really worth it Jackie well right now Al I only have the three so so it’s not too hard to babysit three lies yes totally and what you’re doing with just like picking them off and you know that’s that’s the way to go in terms of timing so obviously it’s around the end of May that the adults are having a munch on the leave and laying their eggs uh how long do we look for adults there’s EGS there’s yeah so I I find they have multiple life cycles the season so I was afraid you’re going to tell me this yeah so I’m I’m always on the lookout um yeah and and it doesn’t really take long and you’re especially looking underneath the leaf right cuz they do they even though they’re bright they can be um Wy um yeah so it so I’m I’m just always checking every time I walk by I just kind of do well not every time but you know every every few times um yeah cuz they can get into other things like hostas and stuff as well so I didn’t I got a lot of I didn’t realize yeah they can eat other things mostly when and Li theion I don’t have either okay yeah so but I do have a bunch of hostas and some of which I’m rather fond of yes yeah so I would but they tend to eat the the lies first so that’s your ground zero there yeah and then they carry them yes happy pick the buffet pick your favorite food first yeah exactly thank you for that I actually tell I warned my neighbor about it last year she’s not really a gardener but she did have three lies and I told her what to look for and anyway when I saw him on mine I decided she’s gone now I figured I’d take a look at hers and she doesn’t have any this year oh perfect li no Lily so I got a feeling we had them last year know it yeah yeah they’re sneaky cuz I actually I didn’t really know that they were even here until you know maybe 4 years ago so yeah yeah that’s about when I heard of them yeah didn’t they come in on some plant or something from mail order plant or something they typically do yeah that’s how we got VI burum Leaf Beetle as well so yeah unfortunately but because we’re Island there’s lots of things we don’t have so that’s great there are times I’ve been in Ottawa and my mother-in-law had definitely the nicest Garden in her neighborhood and I’ve been so tempted to bring stuff home and then I think no not worth it yeah M like that even before I knew about the Lily Bei but in general terms yeah especially with soil with patot and stuff you yeah you don’t want to be out that exactly anyway thank you very much have a good one bye okay bye yeah and if they they get into your Hostess it’s hostil aista yeah exactly yeah your hosti when Nan says she gets hostis in the spring and uh yeah your hostis would would be go away so there we go we’re winding down here what are you doing this afternoon then you going back to the the garden yeah we’re we’re mulching we got beautiful leaf mold um and we have new rose garden and um a new bed that we put in last year so we’re mulching those um which is just it’s so beautiful and the plants love it and it really like makes things really sharp so um that’s probably what we’re doing we’re planting some peas uh Tod was planting those when I was leaving so maybe we’ll plant some more things um and still a little bit in Spring Cleanup mode because it’s just you know there’s still leaves that are stuck in things and the weeds have kind of like the pop weed and that sort of thing that’s all um really taken off so always something to do we uh just got a note here from Tony Keats I don’t check Twitter all that often anymore but every so often I do and I got a message and it’s a great gardening show here’s some info on our spring kids planting contest that we town of do uh we have every year so folks if you want to know more about that go on to dol’s Facebook page and there’s some lovely pictures of later in the season of planting things so yeah delas and cabbage and yeah all sorts of stuff love it awesome excellent well enjoy your afternoon enjoy the sun uh let me just uh hold on let me hit uh refresh here on my environment Canada it is now we started the show so this is how how hot the show’s been today it is 2° warmer than when we started it is 14° I get yours it is I’m sure we’ll probably see someone running by without a shirt on any minute now because you know once you hit 14° that’s what that means thank you for this I’ll see you later in the groc much yeah have a good one’ll see you have the G everybody all right folks that is uh that’s it if you want to get in touch and if you want to send us your uh grow pictures the signal at cbc.ca or any show uh feedback looking ahead to tomorrow um for tomorrow’s conversation we are talking about travel and living away from home and we’re asking what have you learned from those things what have you learned on your trips to Europe or parts of Asia or wherever or if you’ve lived somewhere else could be out of your home community and other part of the province the country wherever what have you learned about that that’s tomorrow until then thanks for listening [Music] [Music] n