Ep. 179 Plants we wouldn’t plant or would think twice about before planting again| #GoodGrowing

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, vorticulture educator with the University of Illinois Extension coming at you from back home, Illinois. We have got a great show for you today. It is going to be about the duds. The ones that have planted and have failed us.

Hello, Chris. It's good to be back.

Welcome back to Illinois, the the state that will welcome you with open arms every time. So we're happy to have you back. We missed you, Ken.

Thanks. Thanks. It was a good vacation, So saw lots of plants and animals and all kinds of good stuff.

But everyone wants to know how did the garden survive your absence?

Sound like we got some fairly timely rains, and we had somebody watering pots for us. So I don't think we lost anything really. Lots of weeds that is gonna take a week or two to catch up on, but every everything looks looks good.

Excellent. Excellent. And we are also joined by horticulture educator, Emily Zweihardt in the Quad Cities, good old Rock Island County. Emily, welcome to the show.

Hi, guys. Thanks for having me.

We are happy to have you. Are I mean, is there any vacationing happening in your neck of the woods, or you're just hanging out at work?

Well oh, hanging out at work right now, wrapping up baseball season. We cannot leave unless we're going to another baseball field until, you know, now, basically, this weekend. We'll head north here in August. And so that's when we'll, you know, get the garden all prepped and hope for the best.

I have also I have survived and made it through baseball season. I'll say that was the that was a tough one for the garden. Being gone, you gotta go to work and then immediately head out to the ball diamond, and you're there all night. So, yeah, the garden kinda suffered in my area. How how about has your garden survived baseball season?

No. Nope. It hasn't.

That's good. It's not just me.

This year, we had a lot more baseball than we have had in the past. My kids are getting a little older, and so our time commitment was elsewhere. So the garden has certainly suffered. It's okay. I am coming to terms with it.

To be continued about the fall garden. We just gotta get the summer first. So so as listeners, viewers, as you can hear, we put our plants through the paces so, you know, they they either have to tough it out or just get out of the landscape. So, I guess, Ken, what are the what are the rules for today? What what's the, how how are we gonna do this?

Yeah. So I think we've kinda got this broken down to plants. We would never plant again under any circumstance. Maybe not any under. But, yeah, we we just wouldn't plant again.

Yeah. But mostly just complaining about plants. I can do that.

This will be a therapy session for everyone.

There you go. There you go. Well, I I think, you know, because it I have the tattoo on my shoulder that says gardening, no regrets. You know, my list isn't very long. And so I I'm I I I can tag on, I think, to a lot of what other people say.

Okay. In no particular order. So in no particular order. I'm gonna start with early sunflower. So we had this planted.

I I have Heliopsis Helianthodes, and it is the variety scabra and the cultivar bleeding hearts. And I never get to see a flower because the deer nip it off constantly. So that's probably why it's not a problem for me spreading because it never gets the flower in my

garden. Gets the seed. We had a lot it it was beautiful. Yeah. It's beautiful.

So that level of maintenance, probably the the big reason. And and I think when I you know, we go and visit different gardens or we see pictures and we're exposed to a lot of different styles of gardening and landscaping, and maintenance is the major factor I think people need to consider when selecting plants and picking them. Of course, there's also the cultural requirements of sun, water, shade, all that stuff. But how much time and energy do you want to devote to these plants? And, also, what's your style of gardening?

Yeah. I'm glad you said that because it it is really not the plan. So many of the things that I have listed here are me issues, and I have

admit that. It's all about I'm looking at my list and, like, that's all about me.

Okay. Well, let's go. Ken, do you have a never never on your never ever?

Yeah. So talking my wife and I were talking last night, thinking trying to think of plants that we would never plant again. We only came up with one. I'm sure there's others, but we just can't remember. Maybe because they're so terrible, we just blocked them out of our minds.

Yeah. It's beautiful. But there's so many plants that will behave. Like and that's part of the fun of growing, and at least that's why I have adopted the attitude of I'll just try something else because there's so many other good ones that we could give a shot to. Maybe they'll turn out to be never agains, but yeah. Well,

my first never again is based on the fact that I don't like this the way this plant tastes. Pink celery. Now, Ken, you told me. Plant this celery. It's gonna have pink stems.

Yeah. We've grown it for a couple years now. We've always gotten pink. Last year, when we picked it, it was during the drought, and it was it was rather intense. I picked some last week. Picked couple from different plants, and some of them are weren't too bad. And there's others. Yeah. It's really strong celery. Your tongue almost went numb after eating it. So if if you don't like celery, it's probably not one for you.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I grew some green just some green celery last year. And let it grow grow, like, long through the season, like, way, you know, like, way into the fall, and it still had that, like, really strong flavor to the point where we froze it and then use it in soups and whatnot. And I didn't need to grow it this year because you don't you need to you can cut it in half. You don't need as much celery in your chicken noodle soup when you use a homegrown celery.

Yeah. I've kinda gotten that way. Not necessarily never with cauliflower or broccoli. They just they take up a lot of room for not a whole lot of of yield either. So they're they're approaching my think twice on my list.

I was just curious if either of you choose to grow plants because you feel like it might make you better at your job. You know, do you grow cauliflower? Because maybe you've had cauliflower questions coming. Like, well, maybe I can help people more if I've tried growing this. Is that ever a thought with with either of you when you're selecting plants to grow? Like like, I maybe I should try this for work. And then should we be getting stipends for this for our own home gardens?

Well, there's a thought.

There you go.

I do. I I I do consider the job when I'm planting the garden. Yeah. I I I mean, I you guys love what we do too. Like, we're so blessed to have this be our job. Like, I don't think any any of us ever turn it off. And so we're always thinking, like, what could we plant at home? Or, like, what are we learning from colleagues? Or what if you know, going to conferences and, like, oh, that's intriguing. Like yeah.

Mhmm.

I'm I'm not great at it, but I try. That's my goal.

Yeah. There's a lot of stuff that we grow just because I've heard about it through work. So so, yeah, that sounds interesting. We'll try it, and here we are.

Yeah. I I I spend a lot of time growing stuff in my yard for work. So just was a thought I had when I was watering a few weeks ago. Nonstop because it didn't rain. Emily, we have a couple common plants on our our never again list or at least our, the you know, we we don't really like list.

We have too many. Okay. So so yeah. I don't have I mean, maples are are native. They have a lot of, you know, wildlife value.

I can't stand it. Drives me mad. No. I I I think I I hear exactly what you're saying with, especially that that urban, forestry, fabric. In the that same growing environment, I see so many problems with the it's mainly hybrid maples Mhmm.

Yeah. Hopefully. Oh, I was I was gonna say, like, yes, that is definitely a reason to reconsider maples in a landscape too is that they just don't thrive. Like, we put them we force them into a landscape that they're just not going to to live their best life in. And so then you have maintenance issues, and people, you know, call with, you know, tree decline.

Yeah. There there's also a big impact in that rural landscape too, you know, where we're Yeah. Historically an oak hickory prairie savannah. That's at least in our part of the state what what we historically are. Now that doesn't mean that's what the future holds for our natural ecosystems, which is something I'm trying to accept that I don't need to hold on so tightly to historical plant communities.

There.

Yeah. Try something else.

Well, and also talk to your community leaders. Know, I see a lot of maples being planted in the community. If for if, you know, private residents still wanna plant maples, okay. But maybe we can, you know, talk to our, you know, municipal, you know, grounds crews or arborists and, you know, just advocate for more diversity. If you need help with that, you know, Illinois Extension has a lot of good resources, and I think I'll volunteer all three of us to take those calls and talk about what else you could plant because there's a lot of good a lot of good things that you could plant instead of tree or instead of maples.

Yeah. Ken is sitting there and says, don't don't volunteer me.

I know.

It contribute to this maple conversation.

He doesn't want the hate mail.

He's got a maple leaf tattooed on the back of his shoulder. So I didn't know you're Canadian, Ken.

Canadian. Neither did I.

You look it. You look the part.

Yep. Crimson King

Mhmm. Door Street. Norway Maple. Yeah. I just I wrote an article about Norway maples and and why they're awful. And yeah. Yeah. Go read the output. Put a link in that article below. You can read about why I don't like those.

Wait. Nobody from Norway listens to this.

Nothing against Norway maple. Norway. Yeah. Norway maples in Norway, but Illinois, different story.

Maybe they don't like Illinois. Is there an Illinois maple in Norway? We should maybe they don't like it, and that's fine. I No offense.

I only know of the the pecan or or the pecan tree that has Illinois in the scientific name. So Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Keep your carrier, Illinoisansis out of our country, USA.

That took a turn. Ken, bring us back.

We'll keep Are we recording? Alright. I guess there's a few more never plants that we should get through before we start doing our think twice. Commonality, Emily, you and I have are daylilies. Mhmm.

Sure. We'll follow we'll follow maples with my dislike of daylilies. Yeah. So this, I think, stems from okay. I will I will first say the flowers and the variety of of flower colors and and types is stunning, and I can appreciate that.

I was partially raised on bulbs at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and I worked with the horticulturist there who had an extreme dislike for day lilies. He did like to breed day lilies. Like, breeding day lilies, like, that's kind of fun. He enjoyed doing that stuff, but it was namely, he called them ditch lilies, the haemuricalis fulva. It's the orange daylily, that everybody probably from, like, the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties had in their front yard or threw in the ditch in the farm or whatever, and just an extreme dislike for that.

Yeah. Isn't it interesting, though, how, like, different life experiences have shaped, you know, just some of our opinions about different plants? Mhmm. I'm sure that listeners have have a plant that they're just like, yeah. I feel the same way. Like, I was and that's great. Fine. You don't have to plant it. Nobody's gonna make you. No one's gonna make us plant our daylilies.

They make me physically ill just to look at them. No. That's not true. You know what's fun to do with daylily flowers is just to take them and squeeze them. Because then the the the water, the staph that comes out is that color.

I have to try that now.

Yeah. Go home search I don't have any in my landscape, so I need to go find some.

Ken's like, nope. Think I wanna make Chris angry ever. Ken, steer us back. Maybe you want to think twice. We're, like, we're we're really hating on some of these plants hard right now. Maples and daylilies.

I'm gonna leave my email off the contact us part of the the

share notes.

Is that all the Nevers? Or are there

There's some more Nevers.

See, I'm out of Nevers.

You might get some hate mail. You might get some hate mail if we mention this one, though, Emily. Mountain mint?

Probably. Mhmm.

People love mountain mint.

Yes. And so do again, these are meat issues. Alright? So these plants, I struggled to find I mean, there's the invasive species. And if we did if I went down that road, that would be what this is this entire podcast would be about.

Yep. It's sometimes it's hard to split up with a plant like that. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. When it's mutual. Yeah.

Yeah.

It didn't it didn't like where you cited it, and you did not like how it behaved. So it's so long. You know

Yeah.

This other one you have on your list, though, Emily, is one that people like more than mountain mint in some cases. So you might have to go into hiding after this one. I'll let you say it. I'm I'm I'm scared.

You won't even say it.

I'm gonna take a step back from the microphone.

I bet I bet there are some people that will agree with me, which is common milkweed. So I am not opposed to milkweed. I love milkweed. But common milkweed spreads by tubers or, excuse me, rhizomes. And this little characteristic means that it's quite aggressive in a home landscape, and it will pop up in a just anywhere.

Yeah. They frequently discourage people from planting that in their yards unless they can contain it.

Yeah. Well, we we passed the gauntlet of never again plants. Ken, I know this one all too well of the think twice plants. Now I would think would be on your never again list, but you would think twice about this one, the river oats. You you would not burn it down to the ground.

Northern sea oats. I have burned it down well, I wanna burn down to the ground, but it's right next to our garage. And our but this one, yeah, we planted it and did not anticipate how readily and easily it was going to spread. So this is one. Pulled out a big pot bunch of it, but now it's spread all over the place.

Mhmm.

Who wins. But, yeah, that that is when we would definitely think twice, sight it a little better, maybe a little more of a contained area so it doesn't go quite as wild. And I kinda got in the habit of of pulling off the seed heads too just so that helps that much more. Because the birds don't eat all of it, or I don't even know if they ate any of it. There's so much of it they probably did, but he just didn't notice. So so that that made my think twice about that one.

I've got the same situation happening with my River Oaks. It's I actually really like where I have mine. It's kind of it is like a side yard. It gets morning sun, and it seems to be I I wish you good luck with your strategy of planning to get in in a shadier location. Mine's popping up in different places, but I actually am trying to fill in that space.

Bills it in very well.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Alright, Chris. So I admitted that I'm not a fan of common milkweed, but you have one on here that is a beloved shrub.

Yeah. My think twice. Not necessarily means that I would not plant it again, but definitely would think twice is the old arborvitae shrub or arborvitae. However you want to say it, but the deer find it delicious. And it I see arborvitae whether you are in the country or if you are in, like, Downtown Springfield, there are deer damage on these shrubs where they have eaten it up as high as they can go.

put

it in our yard. I I could feel the deer just seeing me put this plant this thing in the yard, and they're like, you know what? Let's give this guy some hope. Let's not touch this thing for a couple months, and they left it alone. And about at the end of the growing season, I finally noticed the top, my arborvitae, after I'd really watered it well, got it established, the top got totally chewed off by the deer.

You don't have any neighbors with apples, do you?

I got a crabapple right next to me covered in apple scat. Oh. It's the neighbors. Like, oh, look at those leaves falling down. Oh, they're covered in apple scab. And now I'm just gonna wait for the

No.

The rust. Cedar rust, yeah, to show up. Mhmm. Which will be great pictures, but great pictures.

I do love on those. I I understand the problem that they are, but I do love the

Mhmm.

The form of that bright orange. So, anyways well, I'll provide I can that's fair. That's fair. I don't wanna admit mine. I'm fussing.

That is okay. Yeah.

I was I was getting to that point earlier this year, but everything got in the ground and hasn't died yet. So setting myself up for failure for next year, but that's okay.

Yep. I might need you guys to send me this podcast, like, as a reminder come, like, December, January, just on repeat. Like, remember, you were reconsidering your life choices. Just wanted to check-in. It's I mean, it's hard.

The the hope is maybe they're not interested now, but my hope is when my kids grow up is that they say, yeah. You know how dad was always working outside in the garden? That was really cool. In reality, they're probably like, man, that was really dumb. He could just gone to the grocery store and bought his food. So I hope they think highly of it when they're older, but it makes them wanna try it out. But

If it gives you any if it gives you any hope My family had a success story that's exactly that. My sister is a phenomenal gardener now, and she hated gardening. And I don't think she would be upset if I I said that. Like, my brother and I garden growing up, we were outdoors in the garden all the time, and she was out there too, but it was begrudgingly. Whereas we were volunteering to be out there, and now she has a beautiful garden.

Mhmm.

For for reasons unknown. It's just a mystery why I keep showing up more. So I think your kids I think you there's there's sound logic. There's sound logic to that. Yeah.

Yeah. So I this is the one I really like, but, again, it's it's tad on the aggressive side. It's passion flower or may pop. So this one we planted fairly close to our property line, and it keeps popping up in our neighbor's yard. And I'm not sure they really appreciate it.

I love carbs. And

I love passion fruit flowers. They're beautiful.

Well, my one of my space reasons also is sweet corn. I just don't have enough room to grow sweet corn. I'd love to. So it's on my think twice list just because I can't grow it, and maybe one day I'll find a spot to grow enough sweet corn. But when I was out doing a little bit of maintenance on some of our roses in our yard, I just was cursing the person who thought roses would be a good landscape plant.

Yeah. That's what that's what we've planted. They stay away from the hybrid Mhmm. Tea rose really don't really smell. But they have they've got some some of them want to be out of some really gnarly thorns or are they actually thorns or what are they actually?

Prickles. They're prickles. Yeah. Weaves. Has a prickle.

One of ones who has nice green, bright red prickles on them, which is kinda pretty until they get older, then they're all the same color. But

Could could be rose rosette disease, though. Or is that just the, you

know, the Just the just the thorns are or prickles are red. Stem's still green. Mhmm. And it's not all compact yet.

Yet. Keep an eye

on it. Maybe you

have an maybe you have

a new cultivar on your head. If it is, I got lots of pictures I can take.

So my I will couple of flowers that I would like to grow. Roses, yes. I mean, they're intoxicating. Those, you know, like the nothing beats heirloom rose. Just but two cut flowers I wanna grow, and I again, I'm not doing them justice, would be stock, which also has the most intoxicating fragrance.

Yeah. The the flowers we grow, we have no intention of ever cutting them because we do not take the time that's required to actually Yeah. Train them and and grow them like you would need to to get them to cut. So we have all our snapdragons here, all the 90 degree angles because they flopped over and Mhmm. Zinnias are, you know, flopping over and all that. So we've given up on all that.

It it's important to know that flower farmers train those. They have, like, netting and stuff that they use to support them and grow them so they get the nice long stems for arrangements. And so you do that in your you you do that plant them in your yard, and and you don't train them or support them, and then the first storm that blows through knocks them over.

Yeah. Yeah. It's labor intensive to get really good long stem flowers for cutting. And so I will support local growers that are doing it and reconsider next year. So but Ken, your one of them listed here is one I just have the most fond memories of like, the tactile nature of them as a kid.

So lamb's ear yeah. So this is actually lamb's ear we got from my grandparents' house and transplanted at ours. But first couple years, it was fine, and then it wasn't because it started spreading everywhere, started flowering. We had stuff popping up everywhere. But it's a cool plant.

Yeah. That's fair.

But you're still gonna, like, teach your kids it's a cool plant. Right?

Like, And it's still good. Every time I walk by, they still

Still touch it. Yeah.

Yep.

It's kind of an obsessive thing now. Yeah.

Yep.

But can you have one more think twice? And I I that's interesting. I didn't even know, you know, it was as common of a plant to grow up here. And you said I thought you you've you've tried it. Peanut. Peanut. What's wrong with the peanuts?

So we grew peanuts for a couple of years. With these, you know, at least for a week, started them indoors and transplanted them. I don't think we've got enough long long enough growing season to direct seed them. They're cool. I mean, they're fun.

It's good to know. Sometimes it's okay to do that, though. Like, just knowing that going in just for the experience of it. But

Yeah. I'd say try growing it once or twice. And if you really like it, keep at it. I mean, I don't don't think you're gonna be filling bags full of peanuts and stuff if you're doing it unless you're dedicating quite a bit of space to growing it.

Good to know. Mhmm. Chris, you have lemon seeds?

Just don't do it. You know? Okay. You're gonna be tempted. You're gonna cut open that lemon. You're gonna see those seeds, and your kids are gonna be like, let's grow a lemon tree. And and just know that after I spent ten years growing a lemon seed, so a lemon tree from seed, at the bequest of my then, like, two year old kid who's now 13, they just don't. So, I mean, do it. Do it. It's fun.

The way you said that, and now it's dead, it's like an exclamation mark.

It's like it's almost like you gave it spider mites on purpose.

Yes. Did I tell the spider mites where to find this lemon tree? Maybe. Did I give them a little extra money to do that? Maybe. Did I did I actually have them go kill the tree? No. I didn't do that part, so I'm blameless in this.

But it's In my experience with with citrus, don't know about your how bad your thorns were, but those thorns, those make roses look gentle and pathetic.

Mhmm. Yeah.

They've got some of those can have some pretty gnarly, very long, very thick thorns on them. Mhmm.

Yeah. They burn almost. It's almost like getting hit hit by a locust thorn. It's like, I I don't know if they have the the chemical on them that makes it burn when it when it gets into your skin, but, boy, don't like

No. Cuddle with the roses after dealing with those.

Yeah. Yeah. Cuddle with the roses. Oh my goodness. Well, Emily, let's round out our think twice plants with this this last one here, and you teased it already.

I did.

What is

Yeah. Old

a sclepus gene that you're against.

Yeah. This is just world milkweed. Again, it's that spreads by rhizome. This one is more, petite in nature, and so I can tolerate it. It is all throughout my landscape right now.

Yeah. No. Anecdotally, yeah, I I feel like I see way more monarch caterpillars on world milkweed, and and all three of us were in the same room. I think there was some research that was cited where it's like, oh, no. That's not the case. It was, you know, a a different milkweed.

I I think it was swamp, wasn't it, that they were?

Swamp. Yeah. And swamp's pretty pretty common find. You can commonly find monarchs on that too, but I was surprised it wasn't world.

Mhmm. Yeah. One year, one of the first years, I think it was year two that I had this, and it was just it had behaved for a few years before it went crazy. It almost, like, decimated my my world milkweed. It looked, like, really terrible.

Well, everyone, we people might be questioning if we are actually horticulture educators because I think this is one of the longest podcasts we've done where we have complained about plants. So let let's end on a bright note. Let's, like, give them, like, a a quick, like, these are great plants. Try these puppies or maybe these are our must plant every year personally for us. Ken, what must you plant every year?

Alright. So I've got three ish here. So sunflowers, we plant sunflowers every year. We've kinda gotten away from the much to my dismay, from the twelve, thirteen, 14 foot single headed, Now they're a foot big flowers to more of the branching types just because you get more bloom longer, and they don't droop nearly as much. So we grow sunflowers every year.

Well, my must must plant is just for the easy win. It's kale. If you need an easy plant to throw out there, you don't have to eat it. The cabbage loopers and imported cabbage worm, they'll eat it for you. But put kale out in the landscape.

I'll give you

Or Emily or me.

Under the can. I

like that answer, Chris. That was a good one. Hard to follow, but I guess I'll try. So I'm willing to try almost anything not previously mentioned. I think we all are, and we've demonstrated that pretty pretty well.

The glads are in bloom right now around my area, and they are gorgeous. Yes. And they make a great cut flower too. You bring them in, throw them in a vase, big old tall thing.

Mhmm. Yeah. Yep. I yeah. People can also a friend of mine turned me on to this. I would because my my family is very thrifty. You can treat them. They're a tender perennial, so you would could dig them up and overwinter them, you know, in a garage or whatnot. And I would do that my entire life. Well, a couple years ago, a friend told me she's like, I treat them like annuals.

Oh, a lot a lot of times people I I planted amaryllis in my yard for the first time this year, and it bloomed. It was beautiful. Yeah. So try these new things. Try new stuff. Yeah. And and maybe it'll work out, but maybe it won't. And then you can complain to all of your other gardening friends about all your duds.

This is this is therapeutic. I hope you guys feel better.

Oh, well, that was a lot of great information about some of our much needed garden therapy. I think that that we had to talk this through, folks. So thank you for being with there with us. Hopefully, you took something away, maybe something to try or if not to try or if you do try it, you know, learn from our mistakes and and and go on and garden and have fun with it. Well, the Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson.

That is not how you normally do it. No. I'm supposed to say something.

I Sam, the improv, it's been we're a little rusty. Yeah. We're a little rusty today.

Stop going off script.

Mhmm. Yes. But but thank you, Emily, for being here today. I do appreciate your in in in information, and I'm glad we could agree on this, especially those maples and those daylilies.

Oh, it's my pleasure to join you guys. And yeah, you know, a lot of a lot of stuff was revealed, I think, about us today. So happy to join you.

Everyone send Ken your peanuts.

Yes. Thank you, Emily. As always, good conversation. Thank Chris. Let's do this again next week.

Oh, we shall do this again next week. Water restrictions. Something that happens very rarely, but on occasion here in Illinois. We're gonna talk about that next week, about water in the landscape and some of those recommended products to maybe save us some water. Are they a good idea or are they not? Check us out next week. So listeners, thank you for doing what you do best and that is listening. Or if you're watching this on YouTube watching, and as always, keep on growing.

Alright. So, Chris.

Is that a fly, Ken?

It keeps landing on my microphone. I hear it.

Yeah.

Sorry. I like, what it's like this buzzing sound that just, like it sounds just like a fly. So.

My ear yeah. Stop recording.

Working on it.

Can't find the button.