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

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

Tonight on "Backyard Farmer," we'll see if you can reuse wastewater in your landscape and help keep rodents out of your house.

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

(soft music) (cheerful instrumental music) Hello, and welcome to "Backyard Farmer."

I'm Kim Todd and we are glad to be back to answer all of your gardening questions.

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So, Dennis.

Yes.

Excellent, we knew that what you were bringing tonight.

Okay, this is a ring-necked snake, this is actually full grown.

They eat nothing but ant eggs, small spiders and very tiny worms.

And they're very common right now after all the rain we got finally, under rocks in the eastern part of the state, but they're as far west as Harlan County.

And one thing about them is that you don't have to worry about them, they probably can't even bite your fingernail and their only defense is that they're going to show the back of their tail 'cause it's very brightly colored.

Let me see if I can get one to show the back of the tail.

And they're common in the fall and spring, matter of fact, my students and I, the last weekend in April, found 200 of 'em, four students in less than two hours.

So where there's a lot of 'em, they're very common.

And again, this is full grown.

And just to show you real quick, this is one that hatched last September, 'cause they all hatch in September.

So you can see a juvenile and an adult.

And so they don't get very big.

As you can see juvenile and adult.

And, they could be dark colored, they could be gray, they could be black, they could be brown, we never go by color when we're talking about snakes.

Color is genetics not species.

[Kim Todd] Except for the ring around the neck, maybe?

The ring around the neck can be yellow, orange or red or cream.

But the base of the tail is always that warning coloration.

Very, very cool.

They're so tiny.

Yeah and they just smell pretty good.

-Yeah.

-They have a musk.

And only you would like snake musk.

(laughing) Oh, brother.

Okay, and I do hope you're not planning on sipping on that, Matt.

No, mine will not crawl away either unless I throw it at you.

So, we don't have to worry about that.

Today I brought in something that's gonna be coming up.

We have crab grass that's already germinating, and the next one on the list that is probably the one that I dislike the most out of any weed, is foxtail.

So foxtail is gonna be germinating usually slightly after crab grass.

And we're at that timeframe where it's about, it's gonna be about this size if you have a bare ground and that's kinda what I have here in this cup that also grows like weeds, got pictures of the kids on there.

(Kim laughs) One thing you wanna do, if you do have yellow foxtail or green foxtail, is come out with a product that can control it.

So, if you do have it up already, and your pre-emergent wasn't down or it didn't work, some of the only ones that are gonna work are Quinclorac, Tenacity also works, early when it's young, and then Pylex is another one that will work on foxtail.

Only when it's young, if it gets big, it's gonna be too late and you're gonna deal with the seed heads the rest of the summer.

In your socks and your dog hair and everything else.

Yes, exactly.

-Alright.

-That's the weed I dislike the most 'cause I can't control it once it gets too big.

Thanks, Matt.

Okay, Kyle, lovely of course.

I've bring the...

It's nothing as fun as snakes or anything like that -but- -Oh I know that's a pretty fun thing.

It's some dead man's fingers, have been some rains recently, and here we have actually the two different stages of the dead man's fingers fungus, xylaria polymorpha, is the scientific name, but when they're immature, they kinda start off kind of white and then kind of with a brownish or a darker base and then they'll be bluntly tapered at the top as all the mushroom books say.

And then as they mature, whoopsie, as they mature, they become a lot harder and we get these kind of blackened, these fingers that will be sticking up.

Very common across really the entire of North America, at least East of the Rocky Mountains.

You tend to see them.

Sometimes they maybe look like they're coming up out of the soil, but they are feeding on some sort of woody material.

And so these were actually pulled off of a pear tree that was cut down about four years ago.

And yeah, just one of the beautiful things that pops up or at least things that I find beautiful.

[Kim Todd] They are very, very interesting.

Yes they are.

And yeah, they get really hard as well and don't eat them.

(Kim laughs) I don't know why you would want to, but don't eat them.

Alright, Kelly, you have a couple beautiful things.

That's right.

I'll argue that mine's the most beautiful but I don't know.

And everybody else might think there's are 'cause it's all in the perspective.

But, I brought, it's the purple one here and that's blue false indigo or baptisia.

It is one of our natives.

And if you want something blooming right in May, this is an awesome plant.

And this is just one of the spikes that's just starting to elongate and stretch but they'll get...

This one is minor, which is supposed to be a dwarf a little bit smaller, but it's still...

When it blooms it's probably two to three feet tall and then it only blooms for about a week, but it's beautiful, it's worth it.

And then after that the foliage is wonderful the whole summer, it makes a wonderful backdrop for other perennials and you don't have to touch it, it looks wonderful for the whole summer.

It's a tough plant.

It tolerates heavy clay soils, drought, rabbit damage.

It tolerates just about everything.

And it's just baptisia, blue false indigo and my greenery is actually variegated Solomon seal.

So that would be a plant for shade, full shade, whereas the baptisia would be a plant for full sun.

Excellent, and we have some pretty baptisia in our Backyard Farmer garden right now.

-That's a start.

-A yellow one.

A yellow one, exactly.

Alright, Dennis, you get the first list of questions tonight.

The first one, oh, imagine this, this is from Omaha.

She wants to know, is this a male or a female ring-necked snake and she found it in the mulch at the base of a buckeye.

Right.

I can't tell by looking at...

There's no, what we call sexual dimorphism in their appearance.

I have to probe 'em to tell the sex.

And so, since I don't have this one, I can't probe it.

So I cannot tell you the gender.

But with snakes you have to probe to get 100% knowing the gender.

[Kim Todd] And it's one or the other and it's a really pretty snake.

Yeah, it's a male or female and it's a full grown.

(all laugh) That's all I can say on that.

Alright, thanks Dennis.

So your next one here is, live in Lincoln and she spotted this near Fairbury.

She was mushroom hunting and thinks it's a great tree frog but wants more from you about what is it?

It is, it's Cope's gray treefrog.

It's not looking for a toadstool.

So she's mushroom hunting.

But this is yeah, Hyla chrysoscelis, which is fairly common in the eastern part of the state and moving its way west.

And they're as far west now as North Platte and they're very common and they're our only true treefrog.

So no real water involved short of the tadpoles?

No, they lay their eggs in temporary waters.

-Yeah.

-Vernal ponds but they can be in wooded areas pretty far from ponds and they move during rainy nights.

Nice, excellent.

Okay, Matt.

You've got a lot of, "What is this, how do I control it?"

Tonight, starting with these first two pictures.

What is this?

Then I think we have another picture of the same beastsy.

A little- -Yeah.

-piece of it.

-Big piece.

-It's grown really fast.

This started probably back in February or March.

Sometimes it starts really early.

It's one of the earliest summer annuals prostrate knotweed.

So once you get to this stage, it's probably getting to the point to where you wanna control it now, or it's gonna be really hard to control if you wait another week or two.

It's gonna really grow fast.

So a lot of the broadleaf herbicides almost any mix, 2,4-D dicamba.

There's other ones that contain sulfentrazone or carfentrazone that will speed it up a little bit and they'll get a little bit better activity on it.

So, I would treat sooner than later.

[Kim Todd] And if they don't wanna treat, can you pre-emerge in the fall or is this one not one that that works for?

You can, but a lot of times where these are found is bare ground.

I don't know, if it's really thin, pre-emergent doesn't always work the best because it's a bigger seed and it sometimes germinates through but it will definitely help reduce the population.

Excellent.

Alright, your next picture, Matt, is a plant that she wants identification on and she thinks it's some sort of parsley family sort of plant.

What is this one?

[Matt] I think this one is a wild mustard and that one is a summer annual as well.

It's pretty common throughout Nebraska.

I see it a lot in the Alfalfa fields now, all those yellow flowers sticking out.

So this one is another one that it's getting to the point to where it's gonna seed out and they produce a ton of seed, so you wanna control it or pull it.

They're pretty simple to pull.

[Kim Todd] Alright, and then you have two pictures for this last one.

What is this one?

Is this a weed or is this a keeper?

So, she's got one showing the buds, and then I think we have one that shows this plant in flower.

So that first one looks like it's almost a dwarf, it's common groundsel, is the one that I am pretty positive that it is.

And this one can produce, I think almost like a million seeds in one season.

So, you wanna make sure you get rid of it as fast as you can.

Also, I think it is poisonous to livestock or humans if eaten, so do not eat it.

It can cause damage to the liver.

So this is one that you wanna get rid of and not keep 'cause it's gonna spread everywhere.

Alright, thank you, Matt.

Okay.

Kyle, your first one is mushrooms.

What are they?

Well, I'm a fun guy so, -(panel laughs) -Yeah.

Yep, and it's that that gets old, doesn't it?

Speaking of old, I think we actually have some old dried up turkey tail mushrooms, trametes versicolor.

This is a scientific name, very common on a lot of our hardwoods.

Occasionally you can find them on conifers as well, but they're typically pretty.

They can be anywhere from a couple inches in diameter to four up to six to eight inches in diameter.

And then they often, at least when they're new, they will have kind of alternating rings that look pretty cool.

And then they're also kind of fuzzy.

And so if you go up, you can kinda pet it as well if you like to pet mushrooms.

[Kim Todd] Okay.

-Nope.

-(Kim laughs) [Kim Todd] Your next one is a viewer who was trying to rejuvenate an old lilac, pruned out the suckers, found this dead three-inch diameter branch took it out, wonders what this smooth, dry moldy growth is and will it spread or is it just doing its job?

Yeah.

Maybe.

Based off of this picture, I'm not really able to have a good idea of what it is.

It could be red rot.

And so red rot is dichotomous.

It's a dichotomous species of mushroom that typically it starts off as a heart rot, and then as the branch dies, you will get kind of this flat whitish to yellowish growth on the underside of the branch.

Could also be one of our polypores.

And so there are some other polypores as well that can grow fairly flat across the branch.

Regardless, it is decomposing the tree whether or not it's decomposing the living tree or not, I would need a closer picture.

Alright, and your final one here, she just found this pretty fungus in a wood pile and she just wants to know what it is.

Yeah, I think that this is a, it is a cortinarius species.

Basically one of the LBMs or little brown mushrooms in order to get a better identification we'd have to get, we'd need a picture of the underside and also kind of the stalk as well.

But I agree, that's a very pretty mushroom.

I like the acronym for it.

(laughs) You know what?

We're not a very- -Creative.

-creative group.

-Thank you.

-(Kim laughs) Alright, Kelly, you have two pictures for this first one.

This is in Blair.

She has a clump birch, they were planted in 2015.

Tops of all three trunks died to about the same point.

She wants to know whether to cut it back to live wood and who knows what happened here.

Right.

There's a number of things that could have caused this.

It can be root related, such as a girdling root, we don't see that very often with white birch.

More often we see there's a bronze birch borer that will get in the trunk, you'll have bumps on the trunk.

There's some rots like armillaria root rot will get those.

But I think what I'll go to, is that almost all of 'em are tied to stress.

And white birch is beautiful, but white birch never has liked our really hot summers or really hot soils.

And so they've always kind of been a little bit stressed and that's why we often see bronze birch borer in them and so on.

And with our temperatures getting even hotter sometimes than the extremes, I think it's gonna be even more stress.

So even though it's a beautiful tree, this might be one in the future that people don't plant or don't plant very much of.

And as far as this tree, you can cut the dead wood out.

It'll probably turn into more of a shrub.

And it may continue to decline anyway.

[Kim Todd] Alright.

Thanks, Kelly.

You have three pictures for this next one.

This came to us from O'Neill and their question is, what kind of tree is slash was it?

Why did the lower branches die?

And then out of the side and out of the bottom, what's happening here?

Okay.

I guess when you zoom in, it kinda looks like a, probably a willow of some sort.

I'm not sure which one.

Why it died back or why it's dying back, I don't know.

I know that it's stress though, that suckering at the bottom could be a sign.

It's just that when trees start to die back or get stressed, they will do water sprouts up in the upper part or they'll do suckers around the bottom just to have some photosynthetic tissue to grow.

There might be some reversion in here if this was a grafted plant, for example, or even with reversions you have a plant where you get a mutation and then people select that.

And then over time it can revert back to the original but it doesn't look very good and it doesn't look very healthy.

Yeah, like out of out, start over.

(laughs) Alright.

Thanks, Kelly.

Well, after a very dry fall and winter, there are still places in our state that are under those drought conditions.

Some questions have come in about the possibility of reusing some of the water that we use in our everyday lives.

Here to tell us more about that, is Extension Associate, Becky Schuerman.

(soft music) Gray water constitutes your water from all of your sinks throughout your home, except for your kitchen, your clothes washer, your showers and your baths.

Technically gray water in Nebraska is considered part of your wastewater.

And with that, in an effort to protect human health and environmental health, we don't want to use gray water.

You have to have a permit, a discharge permit, from the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy.

And it would have to go through some sort of treatment in order to use it.

The reasons why is because gray water often has chemicals, and solids, and other micro organisms that can be detrimental to the health of humans and the environment.

Well the number one thing you wanna do is know the moisture of your soil.

And so, to do that, you can use a screwdriver or a soil moisture probe, and you want to stick it either in your turf, or in your garden dirt, a good 8 to 10 inches and see how easy it is to push that down and pull it out.

The harder it is to push it in and pull it out, means that your soil is dry and it's in need of watering.

So only water when you need to.

When you have an irrigation system for your turf, or sometimes people have them for their gardens, you wanna make sure that it's not on a setting that's going to just automatically run on a schedule.

You wanna put it to manual.

And that way you can test your soil moisture first, and then know if you need to turn it on or not.

Good habit to get into is to have a good two inches of mulch around your trees and your plants and such within your landscape as well as in a vegetable garden.

This really helps retain soil moisture and will help you not have to water near as often.

If you're looking particularly in your landscape for good plants to plant so that you don't have to water as often, you also don't necessarily need to fertilize as often and use pest products as often, are your native plants, the ones that are known to survive in your landscape, they often have deeper roots.

They also help form part of the earth's natural filtration system, they help prevent erosion and you won't normally have to fertilize or use pest control products on those as well.

Other plants that aren't as adapt to our area and to our environment here in Nebraska, tend to use more water and they need more upkeep.

And so that's why we kind of deter from using those especially in drought, years that drought is bound to happen.

So a big part of that solution is, of course, to know what is going on in that landscape, water only when the plants actually need it.

Do try to choose plants that can take a little drier weather and I think we all would like to do more of that.

Alright, Dennis, your next set of pictures, this is a Hildreth, Nebraska viewer.

And she wants to know what is digging holes in the vegetable garden.

This is the only picture she sent.

[Dennis] Yeah.

I see some small holes which look like vole holes, but that big thing looks like it sunk in.

There's no digging, looking.

It's like it sunk down.

But around that sinkhole, it could be voles.

Now voles don't have big cavities, but if a vole bit into an irrigation pipe, just a plastic small one, then it would cause a sinkhole.

So I would look into some other reasons besides the animal or secondary to the animal.

[Kim Todd] Alright, thank you, Dennis.

You have two pictures on this next one.

And this is these dead spots that showed up and doesn't pull up.

This is not the usual place for the female dog, they used to pre-emerge, they do have a mole problem.

It's mostly bluegrass she doesn't water.

Right.

Moles wouldn't do that kind of thing to bluegrass.

And I do see something like a vole trail near there, but the voles would not do that whatsoever.

So I don't know, maybe Matt can come in on that.

One thing I did think about was that if someone tried to control moles or tried to control voles using something like a smoke bomb, that really doesn't work.

I have seen that kill the turf because it burns the roots.

Some of those toxicants can burn the roots.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I don't know what else it'd be.

Besides something buried right under the grass there.

-Yeah.

-Or sprayed roundup or something.

Yeah, it's that one.

Yeah.

Alright.

Matt, you have two pictures for this next question.

And this is bright green grass.

This is in Sutton.

What is this bright green grass that grows way faster than the turf around it and how do you deal with it?

You just let it go.

No, to me, it looks like Kentucky bluegrass.

Like a common blue that was, it's an older type that just grows faster in the spring.

More like a forage type.

And the way these start, even if you plant a new lawn, sometimes you don't get all of them killed off.

So there'd be one plant.

And then every year, year after year, that circle grows bigger and bigger because it's bluegrass and it spreads by rhizomes.

So it all kind of outcompete that tall fescue which looks like is the rest of the lawn.

So, besides spraying that out with Glyphosate, there's really no good way to get rid of it.

But if you mow it off, it's probably gonna disappear and the tall fescue is gonna kinda fill in and it will be less noticeable after this spring when that flush goes it'll kinda be growing the same as the tall fescue.

[Kim Todd] And it's kinda pretty actually.

-Yeah.

-Alright, you have one more picture and this is a question about mow or don't mow in May.

So this is don't mow May this year.

This is an Omaha viewer and wonders what are your thoughts on don't mow May initiative?

Is it hard on bluegrass to let it grow for a month and then mow?

Yeah, it's probably hard on most grasses if you let 'em grow too tall, let's say six, seven inches, and then you cut 'em off.

That's just gonna promote depth of the turf going right into the summer if you don't mow throughout the month of May.

So the best thing you could do would be to probably at least mow it at some point in time to reduce that tall grass from getting too tall.

That's what it comes down to.

If you don't mow it, it's just gonna take off and grow.

And I don't know how you don't mow in the month of May when grass is growing six inches a week in some cases.

I've seen a lot of no mow in Lincoln.

-So,- -A lot of- don't fertilize would be one step, and you won't have to mow as often.

-Okay.

-Especially in May then fertilize in June or July.

Alright.

Okay.

Kyle, this comes to us from the Panhandle and it's a dwarf slowmound mugo pine and a 10-gallon container up against the house, shade south southwest side.

Only some tips are showing this dead needles.

The new growth is okay.

It's in the Wildcat Hills and Gering, no insects.

I know we've had some back and forth on this.

What do you think this is?

Yeah, I might think that this is environmental.

And so a lot of trees have been thirsty.

I did look to see if there was any banding that's typical with dothistroma needle blight, things like that, but really nothing like that was showing up consistently.

And what the conclusion that we kind of came to, again with some multiple back and forths on this was, the heat injury from last year.

And so, when we see stress on trees, often it's not a stress that's occurring right now, it can easily be a stress that occurred last year, two years, even 5 to 10 years ago.

And based off of the needles that were dying and we kind of looked at what the temperatures in the area were when those needles would have been expanding, which would have been kind of the early June period and a lot of temperatures in the upper 90s.

And that's a little bit too warm and so we think it just kinda burned itself.

[Kim Todd] Alright.

And you have two pictures on the next one.

This is an Omaha viewer.

What causes the dead branches on the burning bush?

And it's, again, on one side on this one, I think you have another picture and you can't really see much but you can see some damage maybe.

Yeah.

So they're hard to know, you know.

Could be some cankers.

Anytime we have some woody tissue like that, where there's some damage that's occurring could be a canker maybe, maybe a critter started to chew at it.

But the other thing that we've been seeing a lot of, kinda feel like a broken record at this point, but a lot of plants are thirsty and we had a really dry winter.

And the dry winter plus the drought conditions, not a good combination.

And especially I would be very curious which side of that burning bush is dead as well.

If it is one of the southwest sides, could easily be from where those dry winter winds causing it to dry out and leading to the injury that we have.

Alright.

Thank you, Kyle.

Kelly, this one comes to us from Yuma, Colorado.

[Kelly] Okay.

[Kim Todd] And this is a, it's a perennial garden.

They're caring for it, it's a great family story.

This is bouncing-bet and spreads and spreads and spreads.

And they want to be able to control bet or Betty without killing everything else.

They're considering not watering, but what else are we gonna recommend on this?

[Kelly] What was it growing in?

-Is it like a- -Lots of perennials.

[Kelly] Amongst a bunch of other perennials?

Yeah.

Bouncing-bet is, it's a naturalized wildflower.

It's not a native.

It was brought here and it does spread and that's one of the way it naturalized itself.

Boy, it's gonna be a tough one to control.

I think it's gonna be kinda like field bindweed.

You just gotta stay on top of it.

If you don't wanna use a herbicide such as spot treating, going in there and carefully spot treating with probably Glyphosate or Roundup, Matt, if you have a different suggestion, otherwise you're just gonna have to constantly stay on top of it.

Not let it get any green growth on it, but you're probably gonna have to be deal... You'll be dealing with it- -Forever.

-Forever, yeah.

There, thanks Kim.

[Kim Todd] Alright, you have two more pictures, Kelly for this one.

This is new green growth within other shrubs and it's in a terrace area in Council Bluffs.

What is this?

Okay, well the leaves looks like some type of a honeysuckle.

So if it's just coming up on its own and it wasn't there naturally, some of our honeysuckles are invasive.

They're on our invasive watch list.

If you go to Nebraska Invasive Species and click on plants, you'll see which honeysuckles are considered invasive like Japanese, Tatarian, Amur, I think there's another one in there.

And it's one you wanna get rid of and try to control either by carefully digging it out or again, spot treating carefully with something like Roundup.

Alright.

Thank you, Kelly.

Well, our garden finally got planted last week and we're really excited to see what happens this season.

We also have plenty of containers that got off to a good start last week.

So let's take a minute to hear from Terri James out in the Backyard Farmer garden.

(upbeat music) [Terri James] This week in the Backyard Farmer garden we're babying those plants that we got in the ground last week.

So we're kind of trimming some back, getting them to branch out, making them look a little bit better, getting them mulched.

And we are enjoying those vegetables that have been coming up in the raised beds that we planted earlier in the year.

We have some great radishes that are really tasty and fantastic in our salads, along with that lettuce and some onions that we've been picking out of the raised beds.

So really enjoying those fresh veggies.

When we planted our containers, we made sure that we put that slow release fertilizer in, but we're going to be adding a little bit of fertilizer, liquid fertilizer to make our containers look fantastic.

And we are starting to turn our compost bins, adding a little bit of water if we don't get any rain to make sure that we break down that waste.

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

(upbeat music) It's really amazing to see how far our garden has come in a few years.

So if you're on East Campus, take a few minutes to check us out.

It is also time to take a short break, stay with us as we'll be showing the plants of the week.

And of course we'll have the lightning round.

There's much more to come on "Backyard Farmer," right after these messages.

(soft music) [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] Welcome back to "Backyard Farmer."

Later on in the program, Dennis will give us some great tips for keeping those furry critters you don't want, out of the house.

Once again, this is a taped program, so we can't answer your calls tonight, but it is still time for the lightning round.

Kelly, you are up first.

[Kelly] Okay.

This is a viewer who says their butterfly milkweed is still not up.

Would that be dead or is it just that delayed?

Give it a little bit more time, but mine's up, but give it a little bit more time.

Alright.

We have a Blair viewer who says she has roses that are very, very leafy, but they don't have any buds.

She wants to know how to get it to flower.

I guess it depends on what type of a rose it is.

Stress it, prune it, prune it way back, stress it.

See if that will trigger blooming.

We have an Omaha viewer who planted lead plant in the fall and it's also not up.

Is that a wait and see?

That's another one where mine in my yard is up and growing, but it's a little bit older.

So, wait and see.

Mark the area and wait and see.

This is a Northwest Valley County viewer from Elyria, they wonder, is there a tree suggestion we might have right off the top of our heads.

An oak.

Plant some kind of an oak.

Alright.

Should the dead stems of butterfly bush and hibiscus be cut off now.

Is it okay to do that right now?

Yes.

Cut it back to about 10 inches just in case there's some overwintering pollinators.

-(lightning strikes) -Alright.

Nice job.

Okay, let's see.

Kyle, you are up next.

Alright.

So, are you ready?

Born ready.

Born ready.

(laughs) Okay, this is a Broken Bow viewer, they have 20 old roses.

So rosarians.

They're showing something that looks like a yellowish mosaic that we've talked about.

Is it too early?

And can they treat it?

Depends what it is.

It could be rose mosaic virus.

If that's the case, there's no treatment.

If it's a fungal pathogen that starts off as some yellow chlorotic areas, then you probably could, but I would wait and see.

Alright.

This is a viewer in Eastern Nebraska.

They didn't tell us where that said they had powdery mildew and slime mold in their turf last year.

Should they expect both of those again?

Powdery mildew will come back.

You may not be lucky enough to see slime mold again, though.

(laughs) Alright.

We have a Blair viewer who saved their seed from tomatoes last year and the plants are up.

They're wondering, will they still be virus free?

Since virus is transmitted in tomato seeds.

It depends what virus issues they had.

Alright.

This is a Falls City viewer who said had aster yellows in their cone flowers, will it show up early in the foliage so they can get rid of them?

Typically not.

You primarily see that on the flowers, not a whole lot of symptoms in the foliage.

-(lightning strikes) -Alright, nice job.

Yours are always tough questions -on purpose.

-(Kyle chuckles) (panel chattering) -It's alright.

-Alright.

Alright, Matt, you ready?

Yes.

This is a York viewer who wonders whether it is too late to put down weed and feed for dandelions, violets, and all those other broad leaves.

No, weed and feed is a post app anyway.

Alright.

We have a viewer who has bamboo in a neighbor's yard and the runners are coming under the fence.

How do you kill bamboo?

Which is a grass.

You put up a barrier, so it can't grow under it or through it.

That's the only way.

I don't know how to kill it in grass besides Glyphosate, which might kill the parent.

Alright.

This is a South Sioux City viewer who wonders whether you really do need a spreader sticker if you're gonna use granular herbicides or can you just spread 'em?

If it's a weed and feed, you want it to be wet foliage when you put it down but there's no spreader sticker, you stick with a granular.

Alright.

We have a Doniphan viewer who wants to know when they can overseed their fescue with buffalo grass in the hopes the buffalo will outcompete the fescue.

Now is a perfect time.

[Kim Todd] Alright.

What is the most drought-tolerant -(lightning strikes) -I'd say buffalo would be a really good drought tolerant one but tall fescue also can do pretty well.

-Alright.

-In that scenario.

Excellent, nice job.

Okay, Dennis, ready?

Is the frog's butt watertight?

(Kim laughs) -Certainly.

-Sure.

It actually isn't, it's semipermeable membrane, but.

(laughs) And on that note, okay, this is an Omaha viewer who saw you on the show a couple weeks ago, wants to know where to buy porcupine wire.

On the internet.

Just put in Nixalite and it'll come right up.

Nixalite.

Alright.

This is a viewer who wants to know how to discourage a skunk from living in his culvert.

That's a tough one.

You pretty much have to trap and have it moved or screen off the culvert but you have to make sure the water can go through.

Alright.

We have a viewer who wants to know which predator would leave the fur and the bones of a beast.

A lot of birds of prey will do that 'cause they pick it apart.

Alright.

We have an Omaha viewer who wants to know if they move the animal scat of a predator to a spot near their bird feeders, will that discourage cats?

Probably not.

Unless the cat was chased by that predator on a regular basis, it has to learn.

Okay.

This is a Vancouver, British Columbia viewer who saw your segment on voles and wants to know where to buy the 15 vole trap.

(lightning strikes) Also you can just put Multi-Catch traps and Google it.

Alright, nice job.

Who won?

-I didn't see it.

-It was a big tie.

-Yeah, it's- -Three way tie.

(panel chattering simultaneously) Everyone but Kyle.

Alright.

Kelly, plants of the week.

Oh, plants of the week.

I should know that one.

Okay.

We have here, this is a sedge, the one that looks like a grass, but it's not a grass.

It's a sedge or carex and not quite sure which one it is.

Maybe spring rye, possibly.

And of course carex likes usually...

There's a lot more of 'em coming into the landscapes now, and there's some really pretty ones but usually it will tolerate pretty wet moist soils and full sun usually.

There's some shade ones.

The tree is a pagoda dogwood, and most dogwoods are blooming now with that flat cluster of flower, beautiful roundish leaves, and this one grows better in...

It's a tree and it does grow better in shade or light shade, part shade.

Excellent, so nice greenish combination- -Yep.

-for late May.

[Kelly] Green is a color, as you always say.

Alright.

Thanks, Kelly.

Alright, Dennis, your first two pictures this morning or this afternoon, or this morning is when they came out on this one.

That's why I said that.

They saw this and they wonder, is this fecal matter?

Is this intestine?

What is this?

I think we have two pictures.

[Dennis] Yeah, it looks like it could be fecal matter and that is being squeezed out of something that's being eaten by maybe a bird of prey, something like a small rabbit and it's being picked apart.

And so the fecal material in the big intestines is being squeezed out.

And then that other picture is a smaller intestines.

[Kim Todd] Okay.

TMI.

[Dennis] Well, you wanted information.

I gave you information.

[Kim Todd] Let us go to your next picture.

Which is, what left this scat?

[Dennis] Okay.

This is a skunk, cat, and it could possibly be an opossum.

One of those three.

It's black and it's rope like and small.

[Kim Todd] Alright.

That was Omaha by the way also.

And your next one is also Omaha.

Found four piles of this and he left us a couple pictures, overnight near the foundation.

So they're pretty- [Dennis] Well that one's different in the first...

The first one almost 'cause it's tubular, almost looked kinda goose like but then I saw some hair in it.

[Matt] Looked hairy.

[Dennis] Yeah, kinda and goose aren't hairy.

Usually.

That could be a young raccoon.

[Kim Todd] Yeah.

[Dennis] Or it could be, again, it could be something in the weasel family or an opossum can do something like that as well.

It's black and concentrated.

That is pointing towards opossum.

[Kim Todd] All right, excellent.

So all sorts of creatures leaving gifts.

Yes, I know my scat.

[Kim Todd] (laughing) Okay.

Scat stops here, right?

[Matt] Yeah.

That belongs on your t-shirt.

Alright, Matt, you have two pictures on this first one.

This is an Omaha viewer.

She's lived here eight years and we have a big picture here of them coming down the bank and then we have a close up.

They keep coming down the bank.

They don't wanna use chemicals but they want something else there to hold the hill.

What is this?

And what would be least harmful?

[Matt] Ah yeah.

Common burdock.

And this one will have those buds that stick to you or your pets.

Pretty big pain in the butt.

They are a biennial.

So the first year they probably grow the rosette and then the next year they'll create those sticky burrs.

So they'll just keep spreading and they'll keep growing.

What I would do is if you do try and dig 'em out, they have a deep tap root, so you have to get pretty deep.

And if you don't wanna spray the whole area, you could dig 'em out and even just treat the tap root with Glyphosate.

And that will just get into the tap root and kill the plant.

So you could chop the top off if you don't wanna dig that deep throughout this whole landscape.

And that'd be another way to do it besides 2 4-D application which you probably don't want in that area.

[Kim Todd] Alright.

You have one picture on this next one.

And she's concerned that this is wild parsnip which is toxic and burns the skin.

[Matt] To me it doesn't look like wild parsnip.

Just the way the leaves are.

It almost looks like poison hemlock, that'd be a closer one, but without looking a little closer, if you chopped it at the stem towards the lower base, it should be hollow in the middle.

And that would be poison hemlock.

Otherwise it's some type of parsley or wild parsley.

I really don't know the exact answer without getting the sample.

[Kim Todd] Alright.

And one more picture here.

And this is a Fairbury viewer who wants to know how to control bind weed.

They've been digging it out and it's terrible.

Yeah, bind weed is very difficult to control.

And even when you think you have it controlled, it still comes.

So, quinclorac is one that works very well on it, but it also works very well on a lot of your other plants like tomatoes or anything like that.

It volatizes pretty heavily.

So if there is no other plants that you're worried about killing, that would be one active ingredient that works really well on it.

Otherwise, pulling it out as often as you can, will deplete the root system and thick mulch would probably suffocate a lot of those seeds.

Alright, thanks, Matt.

Okay, your first two pictures, Kyle, are an Elkhorn viewer and this is a buckthorn, one of the many established invasives along the river there.

They're wondering is this rust on this buckthorn and is it the alternate host for a desirable plant?

If you're a farmer, yes.

And this is rust and buckthorn is the alternate host for oat rust also known as oat crown rust is what we see it on oats, can be very damaging on oats, but otherwise, typically not really anything to worry about.

[Kim Todd] Alright.

And your next two pictures, this is in a community garden in Lincoln.

This is chives and they're seedlings from plants last year.

And they're showing this what can be done about it to keep it from spreading.

You have some more rusty pustules that are coming up, and that is some more rust.

And this is actually leek rust.

Leek rust can also be found on chives, garlic, onions as well.

Puccinia porri is the scientific name for it.

Not a whole lot of great chemical control options for it.

And really with most of our rust, once we get to that stage where we're seeing the orange pustules on the leaves, not too much that we can do.

Big thing is going to be to avoid overcrowding.

Other thing is with leek rust, it is favored by nitrogen rich potassium poor soils.

So, if you can get your fertility right, that should be able to correct the problem a little bit.

Excellent.

Thanks, Kyle.

Alright, Kelly, this is an Omaha viewer.

Planted two trees last summer, red bud, and a tulip tree.

So we have a picture of each they budded out, the leaves are doing this.

-What's happened here?

-Okay.

When I zoomed in, it looked like a herbicide injury to me especially on the tulip tree because the petiole was kind of a curly cue, kinda looked like a little pigs tail almost.

And then just the cupping and curling under.

So, a lot of wind this year, a lot of hotter temperatures.

We have to be careful with those herbicides 'cause those are tougher conditions more likely to volatize or just drift.

[Kim Todd] Alright.

And you have two pictures on this next one.

This is a Hastings viewer, several hostas that look poorly curling.

They did have their yard treated a couple weeks ago.

Does it look like drift or is it environmental or both?

I suppose drift is possible but the cold temperature injury will look like this as well.

So I don't know the timing.

We've recently had some, I dunno about recently, but it was warm for a while and then we did have some pretty cold nights.

So cold temperature injury will look like this as well.

Water it if it needs it and it should I think grow out of it.

Alright.

Thanks, Kelly.

Well, it's always a problem when you hear some unwanted critters scurrying around in your home.

You can take those measures once they get in.

Dennis says the best way is to keep them from coming in in the first place.

(upbeat music) Today, we're gonna look at how to stop rodents from getting into your house.

We're gonna go through exclusion methodology for mice, voles, shrews, and even field mice to stop them from getting into your home, causing diseases or causing economic damage.

One of the first things we do when we look on the outside of the house is where we'll start is is there vegetation up near the house such as this?

This vegetation needs to be removed.

You want a two foot space between the foundation and any shrubs, any bushes, any tall grass.

It should be just plain cement or mulch.

Nothing growing up within two foot of the structure.

Anything within two foot of the structure, one, can cause insects to get into the house, but also would be hiding areas for rodents.

Another thing to look at, is windows and large openings.

So you can see this window had been broken.

And what is done is a plastic shield that is caulked, has been put in its place to stop all insects and rodents.

Another large opening can occur where spigots or utilities come out of the house.

See, this has been nicely done with a shield and it's caulked behind there, and it's well sealed.

This way no rodents or even insects can get in the home along the pipe.

Something that's overlooked is cracks in the foundation.

So thoroughly go over the complete foundation looking for any cracks.

Any cracks that occur need to be cemented up, or you could use a cement caulk at the same time.

A cement caulk that is silicone should have metal infused in it, like copper wool or steel wool.

If the crack is just big enough to put your finger in, like this one was, a mouse can get in.

So any cracks bigger than this, need to be sealed up.

If you can get your finger in it, then it can get in.

Another thing to look at as you're going along the foundation is, put your hand here and I can see that's solid and caulked.

However, my hand can go all the way up there.

A mouse can climb up and shimmy in this all the way to your attic and then get into your house.

However, there's a great device that you can buy online that fits underneath here.

You just get it to the right size and it stops the mouse from going up underneath there.

You just apply that in, screw it in and it stops rodents from going up.

You also need to look at the inside of the foundation.

'Cause many cracks in the foundation can be below grade that you can't find outside.

These cracks... Rodents can easily burrow down next to the foundation and come right in the house.

So first stuff it with a steel wool or copper wool and then follow it up with caulk.

Also, if they get into the block, they can climb up and get into the house 'cause there's a gap here.

So you need to put a metal shield on top of the opening holes in the block, up next to the sill.

And so this metal shield that's wedged in there, will stop the rodents from coming out and getting throughout your house.

So by going around the complete outside of the home, and going around the inside perimeter in the lowest level looking for any openings you can get your finger through and securing those, will stop the rodents from getting into your home.

So, when you're out tending that landscape, do remember some of Dennis' tips.

Check around your home for those openings that you may not have known were there.

After the show tonight, you should take a few minutes to check out the "Backyard Farmer" YouTube channel.

There are plenty of great videos on controlling the furry pests, as well as those other pests.

You can also watch pest programs and our special features.

Don't forget to subscribe so you can see all the new material we post on a weekly basis.

Alright, Dennis, this viewer is wondering if there's something wrong with this raccoon.

This is in Ponca Hills area.

Top half of his fur is gone evenly and this is not a photoshopped strange picture.

[Dennis] Yeah.

At first I thought it was a Photoshop or maybe someone caught it and shaved it.

I mean, mange happens but mange is not symmetric like that.

[Kim Todd] Who knows.

[Dennis] So I don't know.

It could have been a pet raccoon that someone shaved for some reason, who knows.

[Kim Todd] Alright.

We have two questions from a Cozad viewer.

They found two of these in the house, one in a trap, one on the bathroom floor.

They wanna know how to get rid of them locate the remainder of the nest.

So this is your friend.

This is a shrew.

This is a short tail shrew, boreolina brovocada.

They eat voles, they eat mice.

And so, it was probably chasing the scent of a mouse or a vole or something like that.

They're pretty far and few between.

So they don't multiply and have a lot of 'em.

I know they're smaller than a vole, but they go right for the neck and they kill at least one vole a night.

The way to get rid of them, is to get rid of the mice.

And the way to get rid of the mice, is to invite the shrews.

[Kim Todd] (laughs) Right.

Tame the shrew.

-Yep.

-Alright.

You have your first one here is actually an interesting one, Matt.

It is, they want to remove the grasses or the grass that has invaded the sedge.

So is there a Grass B Gon that won't kill the sedge?

How do you do that?

He can't really get it pulled.

[Matt] Yeah, Grass B Gon will kill only the grass and not the sedges.

-Okay.

-So that one should take care of the grass problem.

[Kim Todd] Alright.

You have two pictures on this one.

This is also a sedge question but this is yellow nutsedge in the vegetable garden in Columbus, Kelly.

They've had success with Sedge Ender around the yard but how about in the vegetable garden?

I'd have to double check that label and I don't think it would be approved for a garden, but it would definitely take care of it if you can spot treat 'em.

But, another way to do it would maybe be to try and use some sort of impermeable black barrier and then just put the plants in the center hole and you're gonna have to water there and that'll kind of help choke out that yellow nutsedge and prevent it from thriving all summer long.

Alright.

Thank you, Matt.

Alright, Kyle, you have three pictures on this first one.

This is an Elkhorn viewer also.

Jackmanii clematis, yellow leaves on the older growth for the past four years.

He's done all sorts of things that may work.

Daconil, magnesium, neem oil, and this year three plants are showing signs of it.

They bloom beautifully, they're looking weak.

Is this viral?

What do you think?

I actually do think that it's a magnesium deficiency.

Last four years would make sense that I would...

If you've done a soil test, I would be curious what the results from that were and how the magnesium was applied.

We have been seeing some magnesium deficiencies this year especially because of the cooler wet soils that we have and magnesium's not as available.

Does tend to show up on the lower leaves, older growth, but the viruses, those tend to show up more on the newer growth.

And so I don't think that it's a viral issue.

I really think that it's more nutritional.

Alright.

Thank you, Kyle.

Kelly, your first question comes... Oh, one more for Kyle, sorry.

So this particular one is one from Lincoln.

It's a linden with a hole about seven feet above ground, opened this spring, goes down about 18 inches, Kyle, they wanna seal it off but they're also wondering if they can be treated if it has a fungus or bacteria.

Not a whole lot that you can do right now really to treat this.

And personally, I'm not a big fan of sealants either.

What that does is that it ends up sealing in the problem, seals in the moisture.

So really what I would do is I would just watch this tree and start to mentally prepare yourself that maybe there is a new tree that you could plant in the area that would maybe be just as beautiful in a few years.

Alright.

Thank you, Kyle.

Now, Kelly, it's your turn.

-Okay.

-This is an Auburn, Nebraska viewer who has lots of baby peaches set on.

She wants to know when is it best to take off the extra?

[Kelly] Okay, I like to hear that question because a lot of homeowners do not wanna thin and thinning is very important with our fruit crops.

Ideally you wanna do it within usually a month of setting that fruit or when the fruit's a little bit smaller as a general rule.

I know sometimes they'll self prune in June.

So some people like to wait until June but the earlier you can prune them in on peaches, you wanna thin them out to about six to eight inches apart on the branch.

[Kim Todd] Excellent.

Nice to see some peaches setting on.

Alright, Kelly, you have one more picture.

This is an ID question from a Lincoln viewer.

They found this growing in a flower bed.

Should they keep it or kill it?

Okay, it looks like one of the Viburnums and there's that maple leaf, the leaves have lobes.

So it's probably one of our cranberrybush viburnums.

Because the leaves are wider, I'm wondering if it's not European instead of American and European again is one of those plants and in some states anyway, they're starting to consider it invasive possibly.

So, common name is snowball bush but the American cranberrybush is better to plant than the European cranberrybush.

Exactly.

Thanks Kelly.

Well, of course, we have announcements of great things going on in the gardening world for you every single week.

And our first announcement tonight is us.

We are going to be live Tuesday, June 7th, five-ish at Northeast Community College in Norfolk.

So we wanna invite everybody in the whole state to come help us celebrate 70.

Our second one is one that is the Benson Garden Walk.

Saturday, June 11th, 10 to 4 and you actually can register for that online.

And then our third one is also an Omaha one.

This is the Rose Society's Annual Rose Show.

Sunday, June 12th, 11 to 4:30.

And this is at Lauritzen Gardens.

So you can get in, open to the public with admission there.

And Dennis, we have time for one more question in like two seconds.

-Okay.

-That would be, we have a viewer who has a raccoon that is kinda down in one of their window wells.

How do they keep it out of there?

There's screens you can put over that, make sure it's pretty thick and that'll keep 'em out 'cause they don't like digging underground.

Alright, excellent.

And that is going to have to do it tonight for "Backyard Farmer."

We wanna say thanks to our loyal audience for submitting questions for this week.

Thanks to our panel for another great show.

Next time on "Backyard Farmer," we're going to be helping you identify and get rid of aphids.

Kait Chapman will help you understand aphids, the damage they do and how you can get rid of them.

So goodnight, good gardening, we'll see you all next week right here on "Backyard Farmer."

(soft music) ♪